"Frobisher-Pym! By Jove! how decent of you to come over! We've got some old friends of yours here. Oh!" (in a slightly altered tone) "Burdock! Well, well——"
"Damn you!" said Haviland Burdock, thrusting furiously past the magistrate, who was trying to hold him back. "Damn you, you swine! Chuck this bloody farce. What have you done with the body?"
"The body, eh?" said Mr. Mortimer, retreating in some confusion.
"Yes, curse you! Your friend Hubbard's split. It's no good denying it. What the devil do you mean by it? You've got the body here somewhere. Where is it? Hand it over!"
He strode threateningly round the screen into the lamplight. A tall, thin man rose up unexpectedly from the depths of an arm-chair and confronted him.
"Hold hard, old man!"
"Good God!" said Haviland, stepping heavily back on Wimsey's toes. "Martin!"
"Sure," said the other. "Here I am. Come back like a bad half-penny. How are you?"
"So you're at the bottom of this!" stormed Haviland. "I might have known it. You damned, dirty hound! I suppose you think it's decent to drag your father out of his coffin and tote him about the country like a circus. It's degrading. It's disgusting. It's abominable. You must be perfectly dead to all decent feeling. You don't deny it, I suppose?"
"I say, Burdock!" expostulated Mortimer.