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45 - Beetle by Richard Marsh · Beetle

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  Speaker 1: The Beadle by Richard Marsh chapter forty five. All that
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  Speaker 1: Missus Enderson knew. Missus Henderson put her hands upon her
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  Speaker 1: apron and smirked, well, mister Phillips, it do sound strange
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  Speaker 1: to ear you talkin to me like that. Anybody'd think
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  Speaker 1: I'd done something, as I didn't ought to do a
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  Speaker 1: done to ear you goin on. As for what's happened,
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell you all I know the greatest willingness on earth.
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  Speaker 1: And as for being careful, there ain't no call for
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  Speaker 1: you to tell me to be that. For that I
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  Speaker 1: always am. As by now you ought to know, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I do know. Is that all you have to say, really,
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  Speaker 1: mister phillis what a man you are for catching people up?
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  Speaker 1: You really are. Of course, that ain't all I got
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  Speaker 1: to say. Ain't I just a comin to it? Then come,
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  Speaker 1: if you presses me so, you'll muddle me up. And
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  Speaker 1: then if I do happen to make a herror, you'll
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  Speaker 1: say I'm a liar. When goodness knows, there ain't no
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  Speaker 1: more truthful woman not in Limehouse. Words plainly trembled on
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  Speaker 1: the inspector's lips, which he refrained from uttering. Missus Henderson
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  Speaker 1: cast her eyes upwards, as if she sought for inspiration
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  Speaker 1: from the filthy ceiling. So far as I can swear,
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  Speaker 1: it might have been an hour ago, or it might
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  Speaker 1: have been an hour and a quarter, or it might
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  Speaker 1: have been an hour and twenty minutes. We're not particular
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  Speaker 1: as to the seconds. When I ears the knocking at
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  Speaker 1: my front door, and when I comes to open it,
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  Speaker 1: there was a harrb party with a great bundle on
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  Speaker 1: his head, bigger nor his self, and two other parties
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  Speaker 1: along with him. This Harrab party says, and that queer
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  Speaker 1: farn weighed them horror parties as a talkin' A room
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  Speaker 1: for the night a room. Now, I don't much care
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  Speaker 1: for foreigners, and never did, especially them Harabs with their
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  Speaker 1: abbots ain't my own, so I as much as in's
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  Speaker 1: the same. But this year a Harab party, he didn't
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  Speaker 1: seem to quite foller of my meaning. For all he'd
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  Speaker 1: done was to say, as he said, afore, a room
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  Speaker 1: for the night a room, and he shoves a couple
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  Speaker 1: of crowns in my hand. Now, it's always been a
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  Speaker 1: matter of mine that money is money, and one man's
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  Speaker 1: money is as good as another man's so not wishing
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  Speaker 1: to be disagreeable, which other people would have taken him
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  Speaker 1: if I hadn't, I shows him up here. I'd been downstairs.
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  Speaker 1: It might have been our for hour when I ears
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  Speaker 1: a shindy a coming from this room? What sort of
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  Speaker 1: shindy yelling and shrieking? Oh my gracious, it was enough
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  Speaker 1: to set your blood all curdled for ear piercing this.
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  Speaker 1: I never did ear nothing like it. We do have
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  Speaker 1: troublesome parties in Ere, like they do elsewhere, but I
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  Speaker 1: never did hear nothing like that before. I stood it
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  Speaker 1: for about a minute. But it kept on and kept
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  Speaker 1: on at every moment I expected as the other parties,
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  Speaker 1: as was in the ouse, would be complainin. So up
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  Speaker 1: I comes and thumps at the door, and it seemed
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  Speaker 1: that thump I might for all the notice that was
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  Speaker 1: took of me. Did the noise keep on keep on?
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  Speaker 1: I should think it did? Keep on? Laurd love you
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  Speaker 1: shriek after shriek I expected to see the roof took off.
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  Speaker 1: Were there any noises, for instance, were there any sounds
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  Speaker 1: of struggling or of blows? There weren't no sounds except
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  Speaker 1: of the party hollering. One party only one party. Only,
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  Speaker 1: as I says, afore shriek, after shriek, when you put
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  Speaker 1: your ear to the panel, there was a noise like
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  Speaker 1: some other party blubbering. But that weren't nothing. As for
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  Speaker 1: the hollering, you wouldn't have thought that nothing what you
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  Speaker 1: might call human, could have kept up such a screeching.
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  Speaker 1: I thumbs and thumbs. And at last, when I did
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  Speaker 1: think that I should have had to have the door
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  Speaker 1: broke down, the Arab says to me from inside, go away,
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  Speaker 1: I pay you for the room. Go away. I did
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  Speaker 1: think that pretty good. I tell you that. So, I says,
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  Speaker 1: pay for the room, or not pay for the room?
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  Speaker 1: You didn't pay to make that shindy. And what's more,
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  Speaker 1: says if I ear it again, I says, out you goes,
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  Speaker 1: And if you don't go quiet, I'll have somebody in
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  Speaker 1: as will pretty quickly make you. Then was there silence,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak? There was only there was a sound
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  Speaker 1: as if some party would blubburn, and another sound, as
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  Speaker 1: if a party was a panting for his breath. Then
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  Speaker 1: what happened, Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet?
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  Speaker 1: Down I went, and in another quarter of an hour,
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  Speaker 1: or might have been twenty minutes. I went to the
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  Speaker 1: front door to get a mouthful of hair, and Missus Barker,
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  Speaker 1: who lives over the road at number twenty four, she
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  Speaker 1: comes to me and says that their ar party of
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  Speaker 1: yours didn't stop long. I looks at her. I don't
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  Speaker 1: quite follow you, I says, which I didn't. I saw
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  Speaker 1: him come in, she says, And then a few minutes back,
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  Speaker 1: I see him going again, with a great bundle on
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  Speaker 1: his head. He couldn't hardly stagger under. Oh, I says,
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  Speaker 1: that's news to me. I didn't know he'd gone or
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  Speaker 1: see him neither, which I didn't. So up, I comes again,
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  Speaker 1: and sure enough the door was open, and it seems
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  Speaker 1: to me that the room was empty till I come
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  Speaker 1: upon this poor young man. What was lying behind the bed?
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  Speaker 1: There was a growl from the doctor. If if you'd
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  Speaker 1: had any sense and sent for me at once, he
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  Speaker 1: might have been alive at this moment. How was I
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  Speaker 1: to know that, doctor Glossop, I couldn't tell my finding
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  Speaker 1: him there? Murder was quite enough for me. So I
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  Speaker 1: runs downstairs and I nips old of Gustus Barley what
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  Speaker 1: was leaning against the wall, And I says to him
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  Speaker 1: Gustus Barley runs to the station as fast as you
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  Speaker 1: can and tell him that a man's been murdered, that
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  Speaker 1: Harold's been and killed a bloke. And that's all I
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  Speaker 1: know about it. And I couldn't tell you no more,
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  Speaker 1: mister Phillips, not if you was to keep on asking
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  Speaker 1: me questions, not for hours and hours. Then you think
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  Speaker 1: it was this man with a motion towards the bed,
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  Speaker 1: who was shrieking to tell you the truth, mister Phillips,
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  Speaker 1: about that, I don't hardly know what to think. If
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  Speaker 1: you'd had asked me, I should have said it was
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  Speaker 1: a woman. I ought to know a woman's holler when
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  Speaker 1: I hear it, if anyone does, I've heard enough of
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  Speaker 1: them in my time. Goodness knows. And I should have
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  Speaker 1: said that only a woman could have honored like that,
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  Speaker 1: and only error when she was raving. But there weren't
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  Speaker 1: no woman with him. There was only this man what's murdered,
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  Speaker 1: and the other man. And as for the other man,
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  Speaker 1: I will say this that he hadn't got two pennies
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  Speaker 1: worth of clothes to cover him. But mister Phillips, howsomever
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  Speaker 1: that may be, that's the last haraballab under my roof,
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  Speaker 1: no matter what they pays, and you mark my words,
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  Speaker 1: I'll have no more. Missus Henderson, once more, glancing upward
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  Speaker 1: as if she imagined herself to have made some declaration
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  Speaker 1: of a religious nature, shook her head with much solemnity.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter forty five