entioned caused him offence. "I know I did! So I got up to look
around. Then--well, I saw that!"

He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his
outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man's foot, booted,
grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.

"Sticking out there, just as you see it now," said the porter. "I ain't
touched it. And so--"

He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant
thing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.

"And so you went along and looked?" he suggested. "Just so--just to see
who it belonged to, as it might be."

"Just to see--what there was to see," agreed the porter. "Then I saw
there was blood. And then--well, I made up the lane to tell one of you
chaps."

"Best thing you could have done," said Driscoll. "Well, now then--"

The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold
and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having
glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring;
something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to
Spargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projected
over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose
certified to it.

For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen
unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with
their fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully--Spargo
remembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put
his hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys.
Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human
wreckage which lay before him.

"You'll notice," suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushed
voice, "You'll notice that he's lying there in a queer way--same as
if--as if he'd been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, at
first, and had slid down, like."

Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at
his feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him,
crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be
elderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a
good, well-made suit of grey check cloth--tweed--and the boots were
good: so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that
hung so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other was
stretched straight out across th