‘Then was there silence?’
‘So to speak there was,—only there was this sound as if some party was a-blubbering, and another sound as if a party was a-panting for his breath.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet, down I went again. And in another quarter of a hour, or it might ’ave been twenty minutes, I went to the front door to get a mouthful of hair. And Mrs Barker, what lives over the road, at No. 24, she comes to me and says, “That there Arab party of yours didn’t stop long.” I looks at ’er, “I don’t quite foller you,” I says,—which I didn’t. “I saw him come in,” she says, “and then, a few minutes back, I see ’im go again, with a great bundle on ’is ’ead he couldn’t ’ardly stagger under!” “Oh,” I says, “that’s news to me, I didn’t know ’e’d gone, nor see him neither—” which I didn’t. So, up I comes again, and, sure enough, the door was open, and it seems to me that the room was empty, till I come upon this poor young man what was lying be’ind the bed.’
There was a growl from the doctor.
‘If you’d had any sense, and sent for me at once, he might have been alive at this moment.’
‘’Ow was I to know that, Dr Glossop? I couldn’t tell. My finding ’im there murdered was quite enough for me. So I runs downstairs, and I nips ’old of ’Gustus Barley, what was leaning against the wall, and I says to him, “’Gustus Barley, run to the station as fast as you can and tell ’em that a man’s been murdered,—that Harab’s been and killed a bloke.” And that’s all I know about it, and I couldn’t tell you no more, Mr Phillips, not if you was to keep on asking me questions not for hours and hours.’
‘Then you think it was this man’—with a motion towards the bed—‘who was shrieking?’
‘To tell you the truth, Mr Phillips, about that I don’t ’ardly know what to think. If you ’ad asked me I should ’ave said it was a woman. I ought to know a woman’s holler when I ’ear it, if any one does, I’ve ’eard enough of ’em in my time, goodness knows. And I should ’ave said that only a woman could ’ave hollered like that and only ’er when she was raving mad. But there weren’t no woman with him. There was only this man what’s murdered, and the other man,—and as for the other man I will say this, that ’e ’adn’t got twopennyworth of clothes to cover ’im. But, Mr Phillips, howsomever that may be, that’s the last Harab I’ll ’ave under my roof, no matter what they pays, and you may mark my words I’ll ’ave no more.’
Mrs Henderson, once more glancing upward, as if she imagined herself to have made some declaration of a religious nature, shook her head with much solemnity.