The sergeant, who had been regularly taken aback, recovered himself at this.
“Come, sir,” he cried; “I like that. You come to us and say your friend’s missing, and you think that he is lying dead in his chambers. ‘All right,’ we say—”
“Wrong,” cried Guest with a laugh, which sounded strange and forced.
“So it is, sir—wrong,” said the sergeant. “We come and do our duty, and I follow up the scent as clear as clear, right up to this spot; and I put it to you gents, as gentlemen, oughtn’t your friend to have been murdered and a-lying there?”
“Well,” said Guest, with another forced laugh, as he glanced uneasily at Stratton; “it did look suspicious, and you worked it all up so theatrically that I was a little impressed.”
“Theatrical! Impressed, sir! Why, it was all as real to me; and I say again your friend ought to be lying there. What do you say, Jem?”
“Cert’nly.”
“But he is not,” said Guest sharply; “and it has all been a false alarm, you see, and I’m very, very glad.”
“Course you are, sir, and so are we,” said Jem huskily. “Don’t ’pologise. Don’t make a bit o’ diffrens to us. We’re paid all the same.”
“Of course,” cried Guest, keeping up the position of leader, for Stratton stood gazing down into the bath like one in a dream. “There, sergeant, we are very much obliged, and it’s all right; so your man had better screw down the bath lid again.”