an' mek the front room bed. The gent hev gorn, an' th' room mus' be streight in a jiffy."
There was an inaudible reply, as Elspeth's light feet tripped past the noisy landlady. Shortly Herries heard her speak, for his bedroom door was still ajar, and the worthy couple were discussing his strange cry, angrily.
"The door is locked," said Elspeth.
"Nonsense," cried Mrs. Narby, going to the girl. "Wot shud he lock it fur, I'd like to knaow, an' 'im gittin' orf th' fust thing in th' mornin'? Ho," Herries heard her shake the door violently, "locked it is. Blimme, if he ain't gorn with th' key, 'aving locked the bloomin' door. I'll have th' lawr of him. Elspeth, git outside, an' up t' th' front winder. Them trellises mek quite a ledder."
"I'll do it," said Narby, quickly.
"You're too 'eavy. Ony a light shrimp like Elspeth cud git h'up. I don' want my trellises mussed up. Elspeth!"
"I'm afraid." Herries heard the girl say timidly.
"Y' ain't! Wot cause 'ave y' t' be afraid, y' mealy-mouthed, little, silly slut. Up y' go, or----" evidently a fist was raised at this point.
"She shan't," growled Narby, who seemed to have more decent feeling than his wife. "Here, stand aside!"
"If y' break th' door, it means poun's an' poun's," screamed the virago. The listening man heard a crash, and an angry ejaculation from Mrs. Narby at the destruction of her property. Then came a wild cry from Elspeth, an oath from the landlord, and finally a panic-stricken silence. With his fears again knocking at his heart, Herries jumped up, and hurriedly slipped into his trousers. Scarcely were they on, before Narby burst into the room, white-faced and savage. Behind, came his wife, bellowing like a fury of the Revolution. Elspeth in the meanwhile had fainted in the passage.
"You killed him!" shouted Narby fiercely, running towards Herries, and flung him like a feather on the bed.
"Killed--killed--whom?" gasped the young man, bursting into a cold perspiration.
"The gent as came last night. He's lying next door with his throat slit, you murdering devil!"
"Oh!" shivered Herries, "the razor."
"Your razor!"
"It's not mine. Let me up," and he struggled to rise.
"No. You stop here, until I send for the police. 'Liza!--ah would you?"
Herries, realizing his dreadful position, had begun to resist violently, and Narby held him down with brawny hands. As the two swung in close grips on the bed, there was a tinkling sound, and a shout from Mrs. Narby, who was red-faced and furious.
"Th' key,--th' blessed key," she screeched, picking it up from the floor, whence it had fallen off the bed. "Oh, the bloomin' Jack th' Ripper cove. He's ruined th' cussed 'ouse."
"It's a lie--a lie," breathed Herries, weakly.
Narby, with his knee on the other's chest, laughed grimly. "You'll have to prove that to a jury, my lad. The razor,--the key of the next room,--the--the--why here," he broke off to snatch at the stained shirt-sleeve, "more blood, you reptile," and he shook the young man with unrestrained anger.
"'Ow! 'Ow! 'Ow!" Mrs. Narby began to exhibit symptoms of hysteria, "he killed the pore gent. Pope,--Pope,--me darlin' boy. 'Elp! 'Elp."
"Let me up," gasped Herries, "you're stifling me."
"I'll leave the hangman to do that, sonny."
"I--I--won't--try to--to--escape."
"You bet you won't," said Narby, in quite an American way, and seeing that there was really a chance of the young man becoming insensible under over-rough handling, he released his hold. "Dress yourself," he said sternly, "but out of this room you don't go, till the police come. 'Liza!--I say, 'Liza?"
There was no reply. Mrs. Narby had hurled herself down the stairs and they could hear her harsh voice clamouring for her son, and for drink to revive her. Shortly the murmur of many voices swelled out. Evidently the woman had summoned the neighbours, and Herries shivered at the snarl of an enraged mob.
"I never killed the man," he wailed, utterly broken up. "I know nothing about him,--I never saw him,--I didn't,----"
"Shut up," snapped Narby roughly, and pushed him back again on to the disordered bed. "I've known a man lynched, down 'Frisco way, for less than this. I reckon you'll dance at the end of a rope, before the month's out. See here," he went to the window, glanced out and returned to shake a large and menacing finger, more American in speech than ever. "You try an' light out that way, sonny, an' I shoot you straight. I keep my Derringer for use, not for show. D'ye see; you stop here."
"I am perfectly willing," retorted Herries, now beginning to recover his courage, since the worst of the shock was over. "I can easily clear my character."
Narby smiled grimly, and shook his head.
"Better say no more," he advised, "what you say, will tell against you."
"Surely you don't believe me guilty?"
"You make me tired," said Narby sharply, "you are in the next room to a murdered man, you show me a blood-stained razor, and you have blood on your shirt, and the key of the next room. Believe you guilty! Well, I guess I do. Say your prayers, sonny, for you'll hang as sure as you're a living man, which you won't be long," and without another word, the burly landlord left the room, locking the door after him.
With an eminently human impulse to seek immediate safety, the prisoner ran to the window. But there was no escape that way. He could easily drop into the garden, climb over the low fence and fly across the marshes, hidden by the kindly mists. But the palings which parted the garden from the village street were now lined with curious and horrified spectators. Men and women and children stared insistently at the mean house, with that fascination begotten of a morbid love of crime. No such exciting event had happened in the dull little Essex village for many a year,--if indeed ever before; and the whole population was agog with excitement. Mrs. Narby was haranguing her neighbours, and fiercely pointing at intervals towards the house, crying wildly that the inn was ruined. Catching sight of Herries at the window, she shook a large fist, and a sea of faces looked upward. Then came a howl of execration. From that terrible sound Herries, though courageous enough, shrank back, and closed the window in a panic. Then he staggered to the bed and lying down tried to reason calmly.
The stranger in the next room, whosoever he was, had been murdered. The key of that room had been found in this one; also, on the bed-quilt had lain the weapon with which, presumably, the dead man's throat had been cut. Then there was the damning evidence of the bloody sleeve. Herries examined this, and found that the stains streaked downward from the elbow, as though someone with reddened fingers had drawn them down the woollen fabric. On making this discovery the unhappy man regained his feet, scenting a conspiracy. "Some enemy has done this," he argued, trying to keep himself cool and composed. "I have fallen into a trap. The assassin, after committing the crime, must have come deliberately into my room, in order to implicate me in the matter. I was sound asleep, so he could easily have smeared my sleeve and left the razor and key. But who could have done it, and why was it done? I know no one in these parts,--I arrived here alone and unknown, and----"
He stopped as a sudden thought flashed through his brain. Michael Gowrie knew his name, and Gowrie had come to this very
