“You know me, then?” he muttered, hoarsely.
“Of course,” Ruff answered. “It is my profession to know everybody. Go and sit down upon that easy-chair, and drink the brandy and soda which Miss Brown is about to mix for you. That’s right.”
Merries staggered across the room and half fell into an easy-chair. He leaned over the side with his face buried in his hands, unable still to face the horror which lay upon the floor. A few seconds later, the tumbler of brandy and soda was in his hands. He drank it like a man who drains fresh life into his veins.
“Perhaps now,” Peter Ruff suggested, pointing to the motionless figure, “you can give me some explanation as to this!”
Merries looked away from him all the time he was speaking. His voice was thick and nervous.
“There were three of us lunching together,” he began—“four in all. There was a dispute, and this man threatened us. Afterwards there was a fight. It fell to my lot to take him away, and I can’t get rid of him! I can’t get rid of him!” he repeated, with something that sounded like a sob.
“I still do not see,” Peter Ruff argued, “why you should have brought him here and deposited him upon my perfectly new carpet.”
“You are Peter Ruff,” Merries declared. “‘Crime Investigator and Private Detective,’ you call yourself. You are used to this sort of thing. You will know what to do with it. It is part of your business.”
“I can assure you,” Peter Ruff answered, “that you are under a delusion as to the details of my profession. I am Peter Ruff,” he admitted, “and I call myself a crime investigator—in fact, I am the only one worth speaking of in the world. But I certainly deny that I am used to having dead bodies deposited upon my carpet, and that I make a habit of disposing of them—especially gratis.”
Merries tore open his coat.