He went into the small hall.

“All right!” he called.

They had got Oleron into his clothes.  He still used his hands as blinkers, and his brain was very confused.  A number of things were happening that he couldn’t understand.  He couldn’t understand the extraordinary mess of dead flowers there seemed to be everywhere; he couldn’t understand why there should be police officers in his room; he couldn’t understand why one of these should be sent for a four-wheeler and a stretcher; and he couldn’t understand what heavy article they seemed to be moving about in the kitchen—­his kitchen....

“What’s the matter?” he muttered sleepily....

Then he heard a murmur in the square, and the stopping of a four-wheeler outside.  A police officer was at his elbow again, and Oleron wondered why, when he whispered something to him, he should run off a string of words—­something about “used in evidence against you.”  They had lifted him to his feet, and were assisting him towards the door....

No, Oleron couldn’t understand it at all.

They got him down the stairs and along the alley.  Oleron was aware of confused angry shoutings; he gathered that a number of people wanted to lynch somebody or other.  Then his attention became fixed on a little fat frightened-eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that an officer was taking down in a notebook.

“I’d seen her with him ... they was often together ... she came into my shop and said it was for him ...  I thought it was all right ... 111333 the number was,” the man was saying.

The people seemed to be very angry; many police were keeping them back; but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oleron thought quite kind and friendly.  He was telling somebody to get somebody else into the cab before something or other was brought out; and Oleron noticed that a four-wheeler was drawn up at the gate.  It appeared that it was himself who was to be put into it; and as they lifted him up he saw that the inspector tried to stand between him and something that stood behind the cab, but was not quick enough to prevent Oleron seeing that this something was a hooded stretcher.  The angry voices sounded like a sea; something hard, like a stone, hit the back of the cab; and the inspector followed Oleron in and stood with his back to the window nearer the side where the people were.  The door they had put Oleron in at remained open, apparently till the other inspector should come; and through the opening Oleron had a glimpse of the hatchet-like “To Let” boards among the privet-trees.  One of them said that the key was at Number Six....

Suddenly the raging of voices was hushed.  Along the entrance-alley shuffling steps were heard, and the other inspector appeared at the cab door.

“Right away,” he said to the driver.

He entered, fastened the door after him, and blocked up the second window with his back.  Between the two inspectors Oleron slept peacefully.  The cab moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill.  The mortuary lay that way.