Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/129

Rh He looked up at the other occupant of the room.

"Well, Parson, you are helping Mr. Beale, I understand?"

"Yes," said the other easily.

"Returning to your old profession, I see," said McNorton.

Parson Homo drew himself up a little stiffly.

"If you have anything against me you can pull me for it," he said insolently: "that's your business. As to the profession I followed before I started on that career of crime which brought me into contact with the crude representatives of what is amusingly called 'the law,' is entirely my affair."

"Don't get your wool off, Parson," said the other good-humouredly. "You have lost your sense of humour."

"That's where you are wrong," said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my sense of decency."

McNorton turned to the other.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"'I am imprisoned at Deans,'" repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in this country?"

"There are a dozen of them," replied the police chief: "there's Deansgate in Manchester, Deanston in Perth, Deansboro', Deans Abbey—I've been looking them up, there is a whole crowd of them."

"Are there any 'Deans' near Kingston?"

"None," replied the other.

"Then it is obviously the name of a house," said Beale. "I have noticed that in England you are in the habit of naming rather than numbering your houses, especially in the suburbs." He looked across to Parson Homo, "Can you help?"

The man shook his head.

"If I were a vulgar burglar I might assist you," he said, "but my branch of the profession does not take me to the suburbs."

"We will get a Kingston Directory and go through it," said McNorton; "we have one on the file at Scotland Yard. If"

Beale suddenly raised his hand to enjoin silence: he had heard a familiar step in the corridor outside.