Free Striding Folly by Dorothy L. Sayers Page B

run away with you over naked females and such?” That was a nice thing to say. I said. “No, I wasn’t. There’s been some monkey business going on in this street and I’m going to get to the bottom of it, if we has to comb-out London for that chap in the muffler.” “Yes,” says Withers, nasty-like, “it’s a pity he cleared off so sudden.” “Well,” I says, “you can’t say I imagined him , anyhow, because that there girl saw him, and a mercy she did,” I said, “or you’d be saying next I ought to be in Colney Hatch.” “Well,” he says, “I dunno what you think you’re going to do about it. You better ring up the station and ask for instructions.”
        ‘Which I did. And Sergeant Jones, he come down himself, and he listens attentive-like to what we both has to say. And then he walks along the street, slowlike, from end to end. And then he comes back and says to me, “Now, Burt,” he says, “just you describe that hall to me again, careful.” Which I does, same as I described it to your, sir. And he says, “You’re sure there was the room on the left of the stairs with the glass and silver on the table; and the room on the right with the pictures in it?” And I says, “Yes, Sergeant, I’m quite sure of that.” And Withers says, “Ah!” in a kind of got-you-now voice, if you take my meaning. And the sergeant says, “Now, Burt,” he says, “pull yourself together and take a look at these here houses. Don’t you see they’re all single-fronted? There ain’t one on ’em has rooms both sides o’ the front hall. Look at the windows, you fool,” he says.’
        Lord Peter poured out the last of the champagne.
        ‘I don’t mind telling you, sir’ (went on the policeman) ‘that I was fair knocked silly to think of me never noticing that! Withers had noticed it all right, and that’s what made him think I was drunk or barmy. But I stuck to what I’d seen. I said, there must be two of them houses knocked into one, somewhere, but that didn’t work, because we’d been into all of them, and there wasn’t no such thing – not without there was one o’ them concealed doors like you read about in crook stories. “Well, anyhow,” I says to the sergeant, “the yells was real all right, because other people heard ’em. Just you ask, and they’ll tell you.” So the sergeant says, “Well, Burt, I’ll give you every chance.” So he knocks up Number 12 again – not wishing to annoy Number 14 any more than he was already – and this time the son comes down. An agreeable gentleman he was, too; not a bit put out. He says, Oh, yes, he’d heard the yells and his father’d heard them too. “Number 14,” he says, “that’s where the trouble is. A very odd bloke, is Number 14, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he beats that unfortunate servant of his. The Englishman abroad, you know! The outposts of Empire and all that kind of thing. They’re rough and ready – and then the curry in them parts is bad for the liver.” So I was for inquiring at Number 14 again; but the sergeant, he loses patience, and says, “You know quite well,” he says, “it ain’t Number 14, and in my opinion, Burt, you’re either dotty or drunk. You best go home straight away,” he says, “and sober up, and I’ll see you again when you can give a better account of yourself.” So I argues a bit, but it ain’t no use, and away he goes, and Withers goes back to his beat. And I walks up and down a bit till Jessop comes to take over, and then I comes away, and that’s when I sees you, sir.
        ‘But I ain’t drunk, sir – at least, I wasn’t then, though there do seem to be a kind of a swimming in me head at this moment. Maybe that stuff’s stronger than it tastes. But I wasn’t drunk then, and I’m pretty sure I’m not dotty. I’m haunted, sir, that’s what it is – haunted. It might be there was someone killed in one of them houses many years ago, and that’s what I see