‘What’s that?’
The youngster put up his arm, and ducked his head, instinctively, as if to ward off a blow.
‘Leave me alone! I don’t want none of your ’andling!—I ain’t done nuffink to you! I tell you ’e ’as!’
The Inspector spoke through the pigeon-hole.
‘He has what, my lad? What do you say has happened?’
‘There’s been murder done—it’s right enough!—there ’as!—up at Mrs ’Enderson’s, in Paradise Place,—a Harab’s been and killed a bloke!’
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE MAN WHO WAS MURDERED
The Inspector spoke to me.
‘If what the boy says is correct it sounds as if the person whom you are seeking may have had a finger in the pie.’
I was of the same opinion, as, apparently, were Lessingham and Sydney. Atherton collared the youth by the shoulder which Mr Pleesman had left disengaged.