The inspector put his foot between the door and the post.
“Stand aside, my man!” he commanded sternly. “I hold a warrant to search this house.”
“Wot?” The door opened with such suddenness that the inspector almost fell inside. “Wot are you a goin' to search for? We are all honest folk here. Anyway, if you was King George 'imself you will have to give my missis and the kids time to get their duds on, for decency's sake.”
This eloquent appeal apparently produced no effect upon the inspector. He stepped inside with a slight motion of his hand to the men behind. Four of them followed with Steadman, the others stood by the door in the cul-de-sac. The man who had opened the door backed against the wall, and stood gazing at them in open-mouthed astonishment.
Meanwhile the inspector was looking about him with sharp observant eyes. He threw back the doors one on each side of the passage. The first opened into a small room with a round table in the middle, a few books that looked like school prizes ranged at regular intervals round a vase of wax flowers in the middle, and an aspidistra on a small table in front of the window, from which light and air were rigorously excluded by the heavy shutters.
With a hasty glance round the inspector and his satellites went on, speaking not at all, but with eyes that missed no smallest detail. Not that there was any detail to be observed, as far as Steadman could see. This commonplace little house was absolutely unlike that other which had been but the threshold of the headquarters of the Yellow Gang—as unlike as its stupid-looking tenant was to the silky-voiced, slippery-handed members of the Yellow Gang. The passage into which that first door of mystery had opened had been much longer than this, which was just a counterpart of thousands of houses of its type.
The passage, instead of lengthening out as that one of Steadman's recollection had done, ended with the flight of narrow stairs that led to the upper regions and over the balustrade of which sundry undressed and grimy children's heads were peering. The barrister began to tell himself that in spite of the certainty the inspector had displayed they must have made a mistake. Doubtless in this unsavoury part of the metropolis there must be many culs-de-sac the counterpart of the one in which was the entrance to the home of the Yellow Gang. The master of the house began to rouse himself from his stupor of astonishment.
“This 'ere's an outrage, that's wot it is,” he growled. “Might as well live in Russia, we might. No! You don't go upstairs, not if you was King George and the Pope of Rome rolled into one.”
This to the inspector who was crawling up the staircase as well as his stiffened limbs would allow. He looked over the side now.
“Don't trouble yourself, my man. I have no particular interest in the upper part of your house at present.”