His rent was paid regularly, but his
behavior had produced complaints from other tenants. He got uproariously
drunk, and screamed and howled in unknown tongues. He fell asleep on the
staircase, and ladies were afraid to pass. He bawled rough chaff down the
stairs and along the corridors at butcher-boys and messengers, and played
on errand-boys brutal practical jokes that ended in police-court
summonses. He once had a way of sliding down the balusters, shouting: "Ho!
ho! ho! yah!" as he went, but as he was a big, heavy man, and the
balusters had been built for different treatment, he had very soon and
very firmly been requested to stop it. He had plenty of money, and spent
it freely; but it was generally felt that there was too much of the
light-hearted savage about him to fit him to live among quiet people.
How much longer the landlord would have stood this sort of thing, Hewitt's
informant said, was a matter of conjecture, for on the Saturday afternoon
in question the tenancy had come to a startling full-stop. Rameau had been
murdered in his room, and the body had, in the most unaccountable fashion,
been secretly removed from the premises.
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