Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/268

256 Look here, Symonds, there's been a mystification—a hideous blunder."

"I don't want to have anything to say to you. You open that door!"

His hands returned to his lips. Again I had to pin him against the wall; this time I wrenched the whistle from between his fingers.

"If you give any sort of signal, you'll be sorry." "You've broken my wrist!"

"I haven't; but I will if you don't look out. I tell you, man, that we've been on the wrong scent; you and I, and all of us. It isn't Edwin Lawrence who's been murdered; he isn't even dead."

"Don't tell your tales to me."

"Tales! I tell you tales! Here's Mr. Edwin Lawrence to tell his own."

Lawrence was standing a few steps farther down the passage, an apparently interested spectator of what had been taking place. Symonds turned to him.

"This man? Who is this man?"

Lawrence thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat armholes.

"I'm the corpse on whom the coroner's been sitting." "Don't play your mountebank tricks with me, sir."