“Rot!  The twenty-fourth edition was all owing to the murder.  Did you do that?”

“You take one up so sharply, Mr. Grodman,” said Denzil, changing his tone.

“No—­I’ve retired,” laughed Grodman.

Denzil did not reprove the ex-detective’s flippancy.  He even laughed a little.

“Well, give me another fiver, and I’ll cry ‘quits.’  I’m in debt.”

“Not a penny.  Why haven’t you been to see me since the murder?  I had to write that letter to the Pell Mell Press myself.  You might have earned a crown.”

“I’ve had writer’s cramp, and couldn’t do your last job.  I was coming to tell you so on the morning of the—­”

“Murder.  So you said at the inquest.”

“It’s true.”

“Of course.  Weren’t you on your oath?  It was very zealous of you to get up so early to tell me.  In which hand did you have this cramp?”

“Why, in the right of course.”

“And you couldn’t write with your left?”

“I don’t think I could even hold a pen.”

“Or any other instrument, mayhap.  What had you been doing to bring it on?”

“Writing too much.  That is the only possible cause.”

“Oh!  I didn’t know.  Writing what?”

Denzil hesitated.  “An epic poem.”

“No wonder you’re in debt.  Will a sovereign get you out of it?”

“No; it wouldn’t be the least use to me.”

“Here it is, then.”

Denzil took the coin and his hat.

“Aren’t you going to earn it, you beggar?  Sit down and write something for me.”

Denzil got pen and paper, and took his place.

“What do you want me to write?”

“Your Epic Poem.”

Denzil started and flushed.  But he set to work.  Grodman leaned back in his arm-chair and laughed, studying the poet’s grave face.

Denzil wrote three lines and paused.

“Can’t remember any more?  Well, read me the start.”

Denzil read:—­

  “Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit
   Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
   Brought death into the world—­”

“Hold on!” cried Grodman.  “What morbid subjects you choose, to be sure!”

“Morbid!  Why, Milton chose the same subject!”

“Blow Milton.  Take yourself off—­you and your Epics.”

Denzil went.  The pock-marked person opened the street door for him.

“When am I to have that new dress, dear?” she whispered coquettishly.

“I have no money, Jane,” he said shortly.

“You have a sovereign.”

Denzil gave her the sovereign, and slammed the door viciously.  Grodman overheard their whispers, and laughed silently.  His hearing was acute.  Jane had first introduced Denzil to his acquaintance about two years ago, when he spoke of getting an amanuensis, and the poet had been doing odd jobs for him ever since.  Grodman argued that Jane had her reasons.  Without knowing them, he got a hold over both.  There was no one, he felt, he could not get a hold over.  All men—­and women—­have something to conceal, and you have only to pretend to know what it is.  Thus Grodman, who was nothing if not scientific.