Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/264

252 know their man; how that he was a fellow of infinite jest. For when they talked of locking him up, he locked them up instead; marched straight out, turned the key in the lock, with them on the other side of the door—coroner and jury, counsel and witnesses, audience and policeman—the whole noble, gallant company. And so he left them, sitting on my corpse."

As might have been expected, the rabble, which still hung round us like a fringe, hearing what he said, caught something of his meaning. They bandied it from mouth to mouth.

"That's Ferguson, that there tall bloke. He's the cove as locked the coroner up this afternoon. Imperial Mansions murder case. Didn't you hear the other bloke a-saying so? No lies! I tell you it is!" While the gutter-snipes wrangled, playing fast and loose with my name—with my reputation, too—the lady whispered in my ear. Despite the noise they made I heard her plain.

"So that's why you came to fetch me? Now I understand; the secret's out. It's another service you have done me! Aren't you afraid that the weight of obligation will be more than I can carry? Yet you needn't fear! They're the kind of debts I don't at all mind owing—you, since one day I hope to pay them every one."

"You exaggerate. And Lawrence is a fool."