“You have no right——”
“Oh, yes, I have, my dear. The law gives me a right to go anywhere I believe a crime is being committed.”
“Will the law heal your head if you get it hurt?” asked the wife, anxiously.
“I’ll look out for that, too.”
The head of the house got his wife’s clothesline down, and raised the window opening the airshaft.
The flat straight across was unoccupied, and the heavy curtains which had revealed so much still hung across the windows in the flat below, so there was no danger of making a scene.
The man swung himself down, and landed on the heavy ground glass at the bottom of the shaft.
The window was fastened and heavy curtains had been drawn across the panes, but the investigator, by the exertion of all his strength, forced the sash up, and looked inside the room.
The man he saw lying there on the carpet was bound, and gagged, and bloody, but he was not dead.
“Help me out of this,” his eyes said, as plainly as words could have done.