"I'm the murdered man."
"Indeed? And pray what may be your name?"
"Edwin Lawrence—at your service, entirely to command. Though I may mention that that's only a form of words; since, at present, I'm really, and actually, in the service of another—a lady. Bound to her hand and foot by a tie there's no dissolving."
Symonds perceived that in his manner, to say the least, there was something curious. As he looked at me I endeavoured to give him the assurance which I saw that he required.
"It is Mr. Edwin Lawrence, you may safely take my word for it. The lady can confirm what I say."
Which the lady did upon the instant. The inspector was still, plainly, in a state of uncertainty; which, under the circumstances, was scarcely strange.
"I don't know if this is a trick which you have got up between you, and which you think you can play off on me; but, anyhow, who do you say the dead man is?"
Lawrence chose to take the question as addressed to him. He chuckled; there was something in the chuckle which suggested the maniac more vividly than anything which had gone before.
