besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, “Who is that? What are you doing there?”
“I ask your pardon, sir. It’s George. The sergeant.”
“And couldn’t George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?”
“Why, no, sir, I couldn’t. At any rate, I didn’t,” says the trooper, rather nettled.
“Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?” Mr. Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.
“In the same mind, sir.”
“I thought so. That’s sufficient. You can go. So you are the man,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, “in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?”
“Yes, I am the man,” says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down. “What then, sir?”
“What then? I don’t like your associates. You should not have seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.”
With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering noise.
Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and evidently applies them to him. “A pretty character to bear,” the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. “A threatening, murderous,