“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”

 

Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though determined

not to omit anything in his narrative.

 

“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at night to

six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the ‘White Hart’; but bar

that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I

met Harry Murcher—him who has the Holland Grove beat—and we stood together at

the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’.

 

Presently—maybe about two or a little after—I thought I would take a look round

and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and

lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past

me. I was a strollin’ down, thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four

of gin hot would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the

window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens

was empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seen to,

though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I

was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light in the window, and I

suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door——”

 

“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion

interrupted. “What did you do that for?”