"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Glass, I'll shut myself on the other side of it," said the butler. "This - this is a very upsetting sight, and I don't mind telling you it turns my stomach."
"You'll stay till I've asked you a few questions, as is my duty," replied Glass.
"But I can't tell you anything! I didn't have anything to do with it!"
Glass paid no heed, for he was connected at that moment with the police station. Simmons gulped, and went to shut the door, remaining beside it, so that only Ernest Fletcher's shoulders were visible to him.
PC Glass, having announced his name and whereabouts, was telling the Sergeant that he had a murder to report.
Policemen! thought Simmons, resentful of Glass's calm. You'd think corpses with their heads bashed in were as common as daisies. He wasn't human, Glass; he was downright callous, standing there so close to the body he could have touched it just by stretching out his hand, talking into the telephone as though he was saying his piece in the witness-box, and all the time staring at the dead man without a bit of feeling in his face, when anyone else would have turned sick at the sight.
Glass laid down the receiver, and restored his handkerchief to his pocket. "Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength, but trusted in his riches," he said.
The sombre pronouncement recalled Simmons's thoughts. He gave a sympathetic groan. "That's true, Mr. Glass. Woe to the crown of pride! But how did it happen? How do you come to be here? Oh dear, oh dear, I never thought to be mixed up with a thing like this!"
"I came up that path," said Glass, nodding towards the French windows. He drew a notebook from his pocket, and the stub of a pencil, and bent an official stare upon the butler. "Now, Mr. Simmons, if you please!"
"It's no use asking me: I don't know anything about it, I tell you!"