"I am the poor gentleman's great friend," he said. "You must let me see him."
The landlord held up his fat hands with a large gesticulation of refusal.
"I cannot, sir. To-morrow they remove him. They sit on the poor gentleman—"
"I know,—the inquest. All this is very hard upon you, an honest man trying to make an honest living."
Julian put some money into one of the agitated hands.
"My friend and I only wish to see him for a moment."
"Monsieur, I cannot. I—"
Julian insinuated another sovereign into his protesting fingers. They took it as an anemone takes a shrimp, and made a gesture of abdication.
"Well, if Monsieur is the friend of the poor gentleman, I have not the heart, I am tender-hearted, I am foolish—"
He disappeared muttering from the window, and in a moment appeared at a door on the left, disclosing himself now fully as a degraded, flaccid-looking, frouzy ruffian of a very low type, flashily dressed, and of a most unamiable expression. Taking a candlestick from a dirty marble-topped slab that projected from the passage-wall, he struck a match, lit the candle, and preceded them up the narrow flight of stairs, his boots creaking loudly at every step. On the landing at the top a smart maid-servant with a very pale face reconnoitered the party for a moment with furtive curiosity, then flitted away in the darkness to the upper regions of the house.