"Just tell me--How did it come about, this--affair?"

That question linked the dark, gruesome, fantastic nightmare on to
actuality.

"When did it happen?"

"Last night."

In Larry's face there was--there had always been--something childishly
truthful. He would never stand a chance in court! And Keith said:

"How? Where? You'd better tell me quietly from the beginning. Drink
this coffee; it'll clear your head."

Laurence took the little blue cup and drained it.

"Yes," he said. "It's like this, Keith. There's a girl I've known for
some months now--"

Women! And Keith said between his teeth: "Well?"

"Her father was a Pole who died over here when she was sixteen, and left
her all alone. A man called Walenn, a mongrel American, living in the
same house, married her, or pretended to--she's very pretty, Keith--he
left her with a baby six months old, and another coming. That one died,
and she did nearly. Then she starved till another fellow took her on.
She lived with him two years; then Walenn turned up again, and made her
go back to him. The brute used to beat her black and blue, all for
nothing. Then he left her again. When I met her she'd lost her elder
child, too, and was taking anybody who came along."

He suddenly looked up into Keith's face.

"But I've never met a sweeter woman, nor a truer, that I swear. Woman!
She's only twenty now! When I went to her last night, that brute--that
Walenn--had found her out again; and when he came for me, swaggering and
bullying--Look!"--he touched a dark mark on his forehead--"I took his
throat in my hands, and when I let go--"

"Yes?"

"Dead. I never knew till afterwards that she was hanging on to him
behind."

Again he made that gesture-wringing his hands.

In a hard voice Keith said:

"What did you do then?"

"We sat by it a long time. Then I carried it on my back down the street,
round a corner to an archway."

"How far?"

"About fifty yards."

"Was anyone--did anyone see?"

"No."

"What time?"

"Three."

"And then?"

"Went back to her."

"Why--in Heaven's name?"

"She was lonely and afraid; so was I, Keith."

"Where is this place?"

"Forty-two, Borrow Street, Soho."

"And the archway?"

"Corner of Glove Lane."

"Good God! Why--I saw it in the paper!"

And seizing the journal that lay on his bureau, Keith read again that
paragraph: "The body of a man was found this morning under an archway in
Glove Lane, Soho. Fro