CHAPTER 37There was an eventual departure of the police, with the exception of Constable Wilkins, who remained behind to clutter Eliza’s kitchen until such time as the family repaired to their rooms for the night, when he had instructions to be on duty on the bedroom landing and on no account to allow himself to be overtaken by sleep. Everyone was only too anxious for the day to be over. Violent events have much the same effect upon the day in which they fall as a bomb has upon the surrounding country. The bomb itself may provide a brief excitement, but it reduces all about it to a condition of arid dullness. As the dust settles, everything within its reach is blighted.
Eliza served a cold supper out of a tin—one of the more depressing so-called lunch loaves, with a marmoreal cornflour sh
