He was the only person present in a condition to leave the house and before any one could question his right to leave it he was gone.
They waited outside that awful chamber for a quarter of an hour, but no policeman came, nor did Jack Chicot return.
‘I begin to think he has made a bolt of it,’ said Desrolles. ‘That looks rather bad.’
‘Didn’t I tell you he’d done it?’ screamed the landlady. ‘I know he’d got to hate her. I’ve seen it in his looks—and she has told me as much, and cried over it, poor thing, when she’d taken a glass or two more than was good for her. And you let him go, like a coward as you was.’
‘My good Mrs. Evitt, you are getting abusive. I was not sent into the world to arrest possible criminals. I am not a detective.’
‘But I’m a ruined woman!’ cried the outraged householder. ‘Who’s to occupy my lodgings in future, I should like to know? The house’ll get the name of being haunted. Here’s Mrs. Rawber even, that has been with me close upon five year, will be wanting to go.’
‘I’ve had a turn,’ assented the tragic lady, ‘and I don’t feel that I can lie down in my bed again downstairs. I’m afraid I may have to look for other apartments.’
‘There,’ whimpered Mrs. Evitt, ‘didn’t I tell you I was a ruined woman?’
Desrolles had gone into the front room, and was standing at an open window watching for a policeman.
One of those guardians of the public peace came strolling along the pavement presently, with as placid an air as if he had been an inhabitant of Arcadia, to whom Desrolles shouted, ‘Come up here, there’s been murder.’