“Certainly. What is it?”
“Well, Lanky’s dead.”
“Dead?” cried Ambler. “Impossible. I was waiting for him.”
“I know. This morning in the Borough Market he told me to come ’ere and find you, because he wasn’t able to come. ’E had a previous engagement. Lanky’s engagements were always interestin’,” he added, with a grim smile.
“Well, go on,” said Ambler, eagerly. “What followed?”
“’E told me to go down to Tait Street and see ’im at eight o’clock, as ’e had a message for you. I went, and when I got there I found ’im lying on the floor of his room stone dead.”
“You went to the police, of course?”
“No, I didn’t; I came here to see you instead. I believe the poor bloke’s been murdered. ’E was a good un, too—poor Lanky Lane!”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Is that man Lane dead?”
“It seems so,” Jevons responded. “If he is, then there we have further mystery.”