standing at the corner, his stolid face
illumined by a lamp; capable and watchful--an excellent officer, no
doubt; but, turning his head away, Keith passed him without a word.
Strange to feel that cold, uneasy feeling in presence of the law! A grim
little driving home of what it all meant! Then, suddenly, he saw that
the turning to his left was Borrow Street itself. He walked up one side,
crossed over, and returned. He passed Number Forty-two, a small house
with business names printed on the lifeless windows of the first and
second floors; with dark curtained windows on the ground floor, or was
there just a slink of light in one corner? Which way had Larry turned?
Which way under that grisly burden? Fifty paces of this squalid
street-narrow, and dark, and empty, thank heaven! Glove Lane! Here it
was! A tiny runlet of a street. And here--! He had run right on to the
arch, a brick bridge connecting two portions of a warehouse, and dark
indeed.

"That's right, gov'nor! That's the place!" He needed all his
self-control to turn leisurely to the speaker. "'Ere's where they found
the body--very spot leanin' up 'ere. They ain't got 'im yet. Lytest--me
lord!"

It was a ragged boy holding out a tattered yellowish journal. His lynx
eyes peered up from under lanky wisps of hair, and his voice had the
proprietary note of one making "a corner" in his news. Keith took the
paper and gave him twopence. He even found a sort of comfort in the
young ghoul's hanging about there; it meant that others besides himself
had come morbidly to look. By the dim lamplight he read: "Glove Lane
garrotting mystery. Nothing has yet been discovered of the murdered
man's identity; from the cut of his clothes he is supposed to be a
foreigner." The boy had vanished, and Keith saw the figure of a
policeman coming slowly down this gutter of a street. A second's
hesitation, and he stood firm. Nothing obviously could have brought him
here save this "mystery," and he stayed quietly staring at the arch. The
policeman moved up abreast. Keith saw that he was the one whom he had
passed just now. He noted the cold offensive question die out of the
man's eyes when they caught the gleam of white shirt-front under the
opened fur collar. And holding up the paper, he said:

"Is this where the man was found?"

"Yes, sir."

"Still a mystery, I see?"

"Well, we can't always go by the papers. But I don't fancy they do know
much about it, yet.