“What’s the matter here?” he cried sharply. “To your posts, men, quickly. Well, Gypo? What’s troubling you now?”
Gypo clicked his heels with a loud noise and saluted. He staggered slightly as he saluted. His face, wild with drunkenness, moved spasmodically, but he remained silent. He had not put on his muffler on leaving the brothel. His brown neck was bare, the muscles standing out like ridges on a mountainside. Then he jerked his hat back into its correct position and shuffled his feet. He broke into a low, thick laugh. He spoke.
“You an’ me, Commandant,” he said with a foolish grin. “What ho! We’ll put ’em all on the run. What d’ye say?”
Gallagher had been looking steadily at Gypo all the time without a single movement in his face. He turned away in silence and addressed Mulholland.
“What’s the matter with your eye, Bartly?” he said.
“Oh! he just came in me way,” interrupted Gypo taking a pace forward and patting Gallagher familiarly on the shoulder. “He came in me way—uh—an’ I hit him with the back o’ me hand. That’s all, upon me soul. He’ll be all right again with a bit o’ beefsteak. Don’t worry yersel’ about him, Commandant.”
Gallagher drew away with an irritated gesture and walked back to the inquiry room. Mulholland looked at Gypo with savage hatred in his eyes. Gypo looked around him arrogantly with his chest swelled out.
“Nolan,” called out Gallagher from the doorway of the inquiry room, “get into that room there across the passage. Third on your right. That’s it. Wait there until you are wanted. See?”
“All right, Commandant. I see it I—uh—damn that wall. Stand outa me way, will ye?”
Gypo stalked down the passage, slightly unsteady on his feet and breathing heavily. He brought up suddenly against the wall again and laughed in his throat with his mouth shut. Then he headed straight for the room where the Rat Mulligan was sitting with his guard. When he had entered that room Gallagher beckoned to Mulholland. Mulholland came up. They both disappeared into the inquiry room. The sentries came to the doorway. They stood at ease across the doorway, facing the passage, with their drawn revolvers in their hands. “The preliminary investigation” had begun.
Gypo subsided on to a chair beside the Rat Mulligan. He sat for several moments with a hand on each knee, staring intently at the ground in front of him, breathing through his nose and twitching his eyebrows that were like snouts. Then he raised his head and looked about him. He examined each of the armed men and nodded to each as he recognized him. They all nodded in return, but in a sour manner. Then he looked towards the huddled form of the Rat Mulligan and he screwed up his face in perplexity. He scratched his skull. He took off his hat and beat it, in a confused way, against his trousers leg, as if he were dusting it. Then he put it on his head again. He reached out his right hand as if to touch Mulligan’s shoulder, but when the hand was within an inch of Mulligan’s shoulder, he jerked it back suddenly. Then he jumped to his feet with an oath and stood facing Mulligan with his chest heaving.
“Mulligan,” he whispered thickly, but with great force. “Hey, Rat! What ye doin’ here? Hey, Mulligan!”
Mulligan never moved for two seconds. He sat on his chair, with his flat feet wide apart and his knees together, with his upturned palms resting on his knees and his head resting on his palms. His little emaciated body was covered with a heavy black overcoat, that hung about him unbuttoned, with its ends trailing on the floor. His hat lay on the ground beside him where it had fallen unheeded from his skull. His shaggy black hair was tousled and damp. Then he slowly raised his head to look at Gypo. His face was yellow and hollow cheeked, with great sorrowful dark eyes and a large mouth filled with two perfect rows of yellow teeth. His mouth was wide open. His eyes were staring and bloodshot. His whole body, ravaged by consumption, was terrible to behold. Gypo gasped, looking at it. A look of terror came into his little eyes.
“Rat,” he whispered, “what brings ye here? Man alive, why aren’t ye in yer bed? This is no hour for a sick man to be out.”
The Rat stared at Gypo aimlessly as if he had not heard him and could not see him. Then, slowly, his head subsided once more on to his palms. He shivered and sat still.
Gypo came up to him softly. He stooped down and touched him on the shoulder, as if to console him or to sympathize with him. But as soon as his hand touched Mulligan he drew back with an oath. Through his drunken brain the whole memory of the evening’s proceedings rushed back under the influence of that touch. He remembered distinctly himself in the public-house, denouncing the Rat Mulligan to Gallagher, as the man who had informed against McPhillip.
He looked about him suspiciously at the armed men. Their eyes were cast about the room indiscriminately, with the habitual bored look of men under discipline. They were taking absolutely no interest in Gypo or in the Rat Mulligan. Gypo sat down again. He took his head between his hands. He crushed his skull with all his might in a great effort to regain control of his faculties.
For three minutes he sat that way, with all his strength concentrated in the effort to conquer
