“I—I say, my good fellow! Bring me some hot water!” he began while settling down in his room, and fastidiously sniffing the air; “Some hot water, please, I say, young man!”
Before beginning work he washed, dressed, and arranged his hair for a long time; he even brushed his teeth with some sort of red powder, and occupied about three minutes in trimming his sharp, pink nails.
“Well, sir,” he said at last, settling down to work, and turning over the leaves of our report. “What's it all about?”
I told him what was the matter not leaving out a single detail.…
“Have you been to the scene of the crime?”
“No, I have not been there yet.”
The Assistant Public Prosecutor frowned, passed his white womanish hand over his freshly washed brow, and began walking about the room.
“I can't understand your reason for not having been there,” he mumbled. “I should suppose that was the first thing that ought to have been done. Did you forget or thought it unnecessary?”
“Neither the one nor the other: yesterday I waited for the police, and intend to go to-day.”
“Now nothing remains there: it has rained all these days, and you have given the criminal time to obliterate his traces. Of course you placed a guard at the spot? No? I don't understand!”