"I'm sure he's in a trance," he insisted quietly, "look how firm and healthy the flesh looks. If he were really dead he would not look like this after three weeks."
Here Dentham returned with the wine and Teddy made the girl take a good glass of it.
"Dentham," he said, when Olive grew more composed, "go down to the police station and send the police here. Then come back with a doctor as hard as you can."
Dentham took the money Teddy held out towards him, and, putting on his hat, left the house chuckling quietly to himself.
"Yes, I'll get the police and the doctor," he muttered, as he walked rapidly down the road, "and I'll telegraph to the old cove at Marlow. It's just as I thought. He's killed Mr. Lancaster, so as soon as he knows the body is found, I'll be able to fix him up, and I won't let him off unless he pays me jolly well."
[Chapter XIV.]
Dentham Makes Terms
Jintle's Hotel was situated in that very unfashionable neighbourhood, The Seven Dials, and Mr. Jintle, the proprietor thereof, was a friend of Dentham's. On the evening of the day upon which the strange discovery had been made at Hampstead, Dentham was seated in a small, stuffy back room of the hotel, talking eagerly to no less a personage than his master, Dr. Michael Roversmire, who had come up from Marlow to Jintle's by the four-o'clock train in answer to a telegram sent by Dentham.
Adrian was in a terrible dilemma, as he did not know which way to turn. The telegram which warned him not to go back to Hampstead or he would be arrested, had fallen upon him like a thunderbolt, and he had come up to town at once to see Dentham. That gentleman had gained his reward from Olive Maunders, and was now the happy possessor of one hundred and twenty-five pounds, but not satisfied with even such a sum, which represented wealth to him, he was now trying to make terms with his master. All his cringing manners had disappeared, and he sat opposite to Adrian with his elbows resting on the table and a look of coarse triumph irradiating his mean-looking face.
"I knew how it would be," he was saying in a sneering tone. "If you'd only trusted me about the young man I could have helped you, but now it's too late—unless you make it worth my while."