’Were there any other noises?  For instance, were there any sounds of struggling, or of blows?’

‘There weren’t no sounds except of the party hollering.’

‘One party only?’

’One party only.  As I says afore, shriek after shriek,—­when you put your ear to the panel there was a noise like some other party blubbering, but that weren’t nothing, as for the hollering you wouldn’t have thought that nothing what you might call ’umin could ‘ave kep’ up such a screechin’.  I thumps and thumps and at last when I did think that I should ’ave to ’ave the door broke down, the Harab says to me from inside, “Go away!  I pay for the room! go away!” I did think that pretty good, I tell you that.  So I says, “Pay for the room or not pay for the room, you didn’t pay to make that shindy!” And what’s more I says, “If I ’ear it again,” I says, “out you goes!  And if you don’t go quiet I’ll ’ave somebody in as’ll pretty quickly make you!"’

‘Then was there silence?’

’So to speak there was,—­only there was this sound as if some party was a-blubbering, and another sound as if a party was a-panting for his breath.’

‘Then what happened?’

’Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet, down I went again.  And in another quarter of a hour, or it might ’ave been twenty minutes, I went to the front door to get a mouthful of hair.  And Mrs Barker, what lives over the road, at No. 24, she comes to me and says, “That there Arab party of yours didn’t stop long.”  I looks at ’er, “I don’t quite foller you,” I says,—­which I didn’t.  “I saw him come in,” she says, “and then, a few minutes back, I see ’im go again, with a great bundle on ’is ’ead he couldn’t ’ardly stagger under!” “Oh,” I says, “that’s news to me, I didn’t know ’e’d gone, nor see him neither—–­” which I didn’t.  So, up I comes again, and, sure enough, the door was open, and it seems to me that the room was empty, till I come upon this pore young man what was lying be’ind the bed,’

There was a growl from the doctor.

’If you’d had any sense, and sent for me at once, he might have been alive at this moment.’

’’Ow was I to know that, Dr Glossop?  I couldn’t tell.  My finding ’im there murdered was quite enough for me.  So I runs downstairs, and I nips ’old of ’Gustus Barley, what was leaning against the wall, and I says to him, “’Gustus Barley, run to the station as fast as you can and tell ’em that a man’s been murdered,—­that Harab’s been and killed a bloke.”  And that’s all I know about it, and I couldn’t tell you no more, Mr Phillips, not if you was to keep on asking me questions not for hours and hours’

’Then you think it was this man’—­with a motion towards the bed—­ ‘who was shrieking?’