Then suddenly, as if the noise of the shot, which now must have been fired for at least thirty-five or forty seconds, had awakened a sleeping population, a murmur arose like the murmur of a hive of bees suddenly disturbed.
It arose, grew louder and louder, resolved itself into tumultuous and divided voices, and then, from every doorway, the foul, mocking, and unclean denizens of the worst slum in London came pouring, trotting, and slouching out of their lairs.
The air was immediately filled with a horrid clamor, and to the keen, attentive ears of, at any rate, the Duke and the policeman, there seemed something ungenuine in the sound—that is to say, it was not the instinctive product of real surprise, but as though the people who had suddenly appeared out of what had seemed silence and desolation were well aware that this was going to happen.
Of this Joseph and Sir Thomas Ducaine, who were lifting the portly body of the great financier, saw and understood nothing at all.
Just as Joseph and Sir Thomas, assisted by the others, were supporting the limp figure in their arms, the remaining inspector lifted his whistle to his lips and blew a loud and piercing call.
At the sound, the horrid crowd which surrounded the little group of death suddenly grew silent. They knew that ominous summons very well; it was in their blood to know it, for to many of them it had been a note of doom.
The silence continued for a very short time, and was only broken in one significant and instinctive way.
A tall, thin man, with a face which was a sheer wedge of sin and bestial impulse, suddenly pressed to the front of the crowd, where his eyes fell upon Joseph.
The inspector heard him say, in a quick, vibrating voice to some one at his side whom the inspector could not see—
"The wrong bloke!"