“Your friend, there? So he did—but he gave it over.”
“I’ll give it over. I don’t want to keep it, man. There was an address on it—there must have been, I swear; and if you don’t let me know it, there’ll be murder—do you understand?—murder!”
No doubt he did understand. In such matters a policeman’s mind is intuitive.
“Come along, then,” he said; “I’ll see what can be done,” and, holding me along the elbow in the professional manner, he led me through the building to a sort of outhouse that stood in a gloomy yard to the rear.
Pushing open a door, he bid me enter and wait while he went and communicated with the inspector.
The room I found myself in was like nothing so much as a ghastly species of scullery; built with a formal view to cleanliness and ventilation. All down its middle ran a long zinc-covered table, troughed slightly at the side and sloping gently like a fishmonger’s slab. Its purpose was evident in the drenched form that lay on it covered with a cloth.
And to this sordid pass had come she, the loving and playful, with whom I had wandered a few short weeks ago among the green glades of the old forest. Now more than the solemnity of death pronounced us apart.
I shivered and drew back, and then was aware of a man washing his hands at a sink that stood to one end of the room.
He turned his head as he washed and looked at me.
“Now, my man, what is it?” he said.