But murmurs of discontent broke out; why must the “Beadle” give himself these airs? all he’d got to do was to state his case like the rest; else he’d get nothing at all!
“Well,” he let out reluctantly, “it was me did the trick about the Princess Sonia’s jewels ...”
But “Bull’s-eye” broke in furiously.
“And what about me, ‘Beadle’?” he growled, “didn’t I see you at work—with your hands in your pockets? I was in that business, too!”
Imperturbably Juve noted down on his slip three significant memoranda: “Jewels, the ‘Beadle,’ ‘Bull’s-eye.’”
“Next,” he called—and two women, “Big Ernestine” and another virago known as the “Panther,” insisted on the master’s hearing them.
“It was us,” they clamoured, “flooded the lake with petroleum, so as you could light up the blaze.”
Juve, however, had a question to put. Would he get an answer? he hardly dared expect it. Still he ventured to ask:
“And the big things, eh? the Minister of Justice, who killed the Minister of Justice?”
But at this everyone burst out laughing.