"What—what's the matter?" I asked hoarsely.
He grinned at me; his voice when he spoke was the mere thread of a whisper. "Nothing—nothing at all," he said. "How's our friend?" He jerked his head towards the closed door as he spoke.
"He—he's all right," I faltered, stooping to fumble with the lock for a moment, the better to hide my face. "Tired—gone to sleep."
Jervis Fanshawe moved away from me to the head of the stairs; peered over there down into the darkness below for a moment or two in silence. Then he turned swiftly, and laid his hand on my arm, and without looking at me began to pull me towards the stairs. "Come away," he whispered—"come away!"
I was halfway down the stairs before I realized what he meant, or what he thought. And then in a moment it flashed upon me that he knew in his own mind that Murray Olivant was dead, and believed that I had killed him. I had seen that thought growing in his mind when he had spoken to me about what my feelings must have been when I had killed Gavin Hockley; I knew now that the man was absolutely certain as to what had happened, and that he had fastened the crime upon me. For a moment I stopped on the stairs, and looked at him with a momentary feeling of dismay in my heart—momentary only, because the next instant I realized that this was, after all, the best thing that could happen. He might say or do anything, so far as I was concerned; it would be like flogging a dead man; my only dread had been that he might fasten the crime upon the right pair of shoulders.
"Why do you stare at me like that?" I asked.
"Was I staring?" he asked, with that grin again stealing over his features. "I was only thinking," he added; and then, dropping his voice to a whisper, he asked, as he glanced up the stairs towards the door we had left: "Tell me—does he sleep soundly?"
"I suppose so," I said hoarsely; and turned and went down the stairs, with Fanshawe following. He spoke no further words; as I strode on through the streets he came after me at a sort of trot—ever keeping a little behind me and at my elbow.
Knowing what I knew, and guessing that he had put that fearful interpretation upon my words, I found him presently to be a very ghost of a man, coming along always with that soft footfall just behind me. Once or twice I stopped on some pretext; but he always stopped too, and would not be shaken off. And so at last we came to that lodging down by the river, and were admitted by the girl Moggs. While we stood for a moment in the little dingy passage of the house, the girl jerked her head towards the stairs, and said, without looking at us—
"'E's up there."