"Quite right, sir. The same thought was in me own 'ead. If Mrs. Prouty and 'Awkins—the butler, sir—and the others in the Servants' 'All could 'ave seen me last night, they would 'ave been startled, sir. I do assure you they would. There was that Russian young lady, now. I give you my word, sir, she cursed like a maniac, and 'er brother was no better when 'e came from 'is faint. A fair rowdy lot of people we 'ad on our 'ands—including the young person in whom Mister Nikka happears to be interested, as the saying goes, sir."
"You said 'last night,' I believe," I interrupted.
"Yes, sir. It's close to noon, Mister Jack. But Lord bless you, sir, there's been no rest. We 'ad a largish hundertaker's job, let alone tidying up and minding the prisoners."
"What have we done with the bodies?"
"In the garden, sir. The prisoners did the work—except the Russian persons, sir. 'E couldn't, account of 'is leg, and she, being a lady, so to speak, was hexcused."
"Well, I'm going to get up," I announced. "My shoulder feels better."
"If you wish, sir. Miss Betty thought you would be fit after a nap. She and Mister Nikka's uncle, the tall old gentleman who looks like Pantaloon in the Drury Lane pantos, they looked you over. They said your shoulder bone was bruised and the muscle torn, sir; but they've wrapped you up to the king's taste. My instructions were to get you anything you required, but with submission, sir, might I suggest you sleep a little longer? There's nothing—oh, 'ere's Mister Nikka."
Nikka strolled in from the courtyard—I was lying in the apse at the end of the large chamber on the ground floor of the House of the Married—with Kara trailing him.
"Hullo, Jack!" he greeted me. "Tough luck you had to stop a bullet. We're all more or less cut up, but you had the worst of it, although my uncle, who is a practical surgeon in a crude way, claims the bullet missed the bone."
"So Watkins told me. Any news? The police—"