“What in the devil’s the matter?” he growled.  Grodman was not an early bird, now that he had no worms to catch.  He could afford to despise proverbs now, for the house in which he lived was his, and he lived in it because several other houses in the street were also his, and it is well for the landlord to be about his own estate in Bow, where poachers often shoot the moon.  Perhaps the desire to enjoy his greatness among his early cronies counted for something, too, for he had been born and bred at Bow, receiving when a youth his first engagement from the local police quarters, whence he had drawn a few shillings a week as an amateur detective in his leisure hours.

Grodman was still a bachelor.  In the celestial matrimonial bureau a partner might have been selected for him, but he had never been able to discover her.  It was his one failure as a detective.  He was a self-sufficing person, who preferred a gas stove to a domestic; but in deference to Glover Street opinion he admitted a female factotum between ten A.M. and ten P.M., and, equally in deference to Glover Street opinion, excluded her between ten P.M. and ten A.M.

“I want you to come across at once,” Mrs. Drabdump gasped.  “Something has happened to Mr. Constant.”

“What!  Not bludgeoned by the police at the meeting this morning, I hope?”

“No, no!  He didn’t go.  He is dead.”

“Dead?” Grodman’s face grew very serious now.

“Yes.  Murdered!”

“What?” almost shouted the ex-detective.  “How?  When?  Where?  Who?”

“I don’t know.  I can’t get to him.  I have beaten at his door.  He does not answer.”

Grodman’s face lit up with relief.

“You silly woman!  Is that all?  I shall have a cold in my head.  Bitter weather.  He’s dog-tired after yesterday—­processions, three speeches, kindergarten, lecture on ‘the moon,’ article on cooperation.  That’s his style.”  It was also Grodman’s style.  He never wasted words.

“No,” Mrs. Drabdump breathed up at him solemnly, “he’s dead.”

“All right; go back.  Don’t alarm the neighbourhood unnecessarily.  Wait for me.  Down in five minutes.”  Grodman did not take this Cassandra of the kitchen too seriously.  Probably he knew his woman.  His small, bead-like eyes glittered with an almost amused smile as he withdrew them from Mrs. Drabdump’s ken, and shut down the sash with a bang.  The poor woman ran back across the road and through her door, which she would not close behind her.  It seemed to shut her in with the dead.  She waited in the passage.  After an age—­seven minutes by any honest clock—­Grodman made his appearance, looking as dressed as usual, but with unkempt hair and with disconsolate side-whisker.  He was not quite used to that side-whisker yet, for it had only recently come within the margin of cultivation.  In active service Grodman had been clean-shaven, like all members of the profession—­for surely your