"There is trouble," he said quickly to Marion, holding out his hands as though he wished to protect her, and touching her gently. "Please go away. Leave me here."
"Trouble?" She was not inclined to yield.
"Yes. It must be he—if you have to see him, this is not the place."
"But—"
With his hands, very tenderly, he pushed her toward the door at the other end of the room, the same through which John Darche had once escaped. She resisted for a moment—then without a word she obeyed his word and touch and went out, covering her eyes with her hand.
"Now then, what is it?" asked Brett, turning sharply around as he closed the door.
"I could not help it, sir!" Stubbs repeated. "There is a man in the hall as says he is Mr. John—leastwise he says his name is John Darche, though he has got a beard, sir, which Mr. John never had, as you may remember, sir, and there is a lot of policemen in plain clothes and otherwise, and Mr. Brown says they are pressmen, and the driver of the cab, and Michael Curly, and the expressman—"
"What do all these people want?" inquired Brett, sternly. "Turn them out."
"It is a fact, sir, just as I tell you—and so help me the powers, sir, here they are coming in and I cannot keep them out—I cannot, not if I was a dozen Stubbses!"
Before he had finished speaking, a number of men had pushed past him into the room, led by Mr. Brown, very much out of breath and trying his best to control the storm he had raised.