This roused a storm among the men: there were cries of “Narker”! “Put it on him, George!” “I set he was a spy, py Gott!” “Hay que matarle!” etc.
“What business was it of yours, to warn the police?” the officer said.
“One would do as much as that for one’s countryman, I hope.”
“What did the police undertake to do?”
“I do not know.”
“Give me the god-dam truth now. Whom did you see at the police?”
“No one. I sent word there.”
“By whom?”
“Find out.”
At this point, which might have been troublous but for intervention, the Scandinavian interfered. He was a sinister-looking man with a swollen lower lip which drooped. This gave him permanently the look of a gargoyle. He looked, on the whole, like a young devil just after his first night in hell, a little bloated and battered, but thrilled by the way Beelzebub wore his bowler. He came forward towards the officer.