"Murder? What murder?
"The Three Bridges tragedy; isn't it a dreadful thing?"
At the mere mention of the subject a shiver went all over me. I tried to make him see that it was a topic for which I had no relish. I might as well have tried to put two heads upon his shoulders.
"I have heard scarcely anything about it. I've been ill--very ill."
"I heard that you'd been seedy. Got a bit fluffy on Monday, eh?"
It is true that Mrs. Tennant was not in the room at the moment, but she might have been just outside the door; and, in any case, the insinuation was of an unwarrantable kind.
"Got chucked from the Empire, eh? Went home Hackney way, without a hat. I know. Shouldn't be surprised if you have been a little queerish; you look puffy even now. I tell you what, Tennant, you ought to go in for training. I could get a couple of stone off you, and you'd be all the better for it. But about this murder. I'm not a bloodthirsty creature, as a rule, but I should like to have the fellow who did it all alone to myself for about five-and-twenty minutes."
Keeley is one of the large army of muscular maniacs. He stands six feet three in his socks. He spends most of his spare time in a gymnasium, and the rest in what he calls "keeping himself fit." He could kill me with a single blow of his fist. Just then Lucy came in.
"Sorry to hear that Tom's been seedy, Mrs. Tennant."
"He's been in bed."