"Will you promise me to remain here, Mr. Anstruther," he asked, "while I go and telephone the police?"
"Of course," I answered; "what should I want to run away for?"
"Very well, then," he said with a nod and a smile. "I will take it that you won"t. I will be back inside a quarter of an hour."
We lit more of the candles on the walls, and then I took the candle lamp to light him upstairs to the front door.
I was standing there watching him going up Monmouth Street towards his house, when a sudden resolve took possession of me concerning the two packets I had in my trousers pockets! I did not know what turn affairs were going to take, and I thought I should like to put those two little parcels in a place of safety.
I had noticed a small dismal post office at the end of the street not fifty yards off. I would go and post them, registered to my lawyers, in whom I had the greatest confidence.
To the taking of this resolve and the carrying of it out, instead of returning to the downstairs room, I always attribute, in the light of subsequent events, the saving of my life. I left the door "on the jar"
and ran quickly to the post office. There I demanded their largest sized registered envelope, and they fortunately had a big one.
Into this I crammed the two packets--which I noticed were both directed to me in a very neat lady"s hand--and then, as an afterthought, the handkerchief which I had found in the bed. Finally I put the key of the safe in too. With my back to the ever curious clerk, I directed it to myself--
c/o Messrs. BLACKETT & SNOWDON, Solicitors, Lincoln"s Inn, London.
Then, slapping it down before the astonished official, I demanded a receipt for it.
This obtained, I hastened back to 190; the door was still as I had left it, but in a few moments the doctor returned, and at his heels a policeman.
"The inspector will be here directly," announced Dr. Redfern. "We had better wait outside until he arrives."
We walked up and down for nearly a quarter of an hour while the doctor smoked a cigarette, and meanwhile the policeman, a person of gigantic stature and a bucolic expression of countenance, eyed me suspiciously.
Presently the inspector arrived, and the doctor and I returned with him to the sitting-room downstairs. There the police official insisted upon my giving a full account of the whole matter, while he stood critically by with a notebook in his hand. I told him the whole truth from the time of my seeing the old lady at the door, to the time of my calling in the doctor, but I suppressed all mention of the two packets and the secret safe. These being confidential matters between me and the old lady, I did not feel at liberty to disclose them.
I saw very plainly from the looks the inspector gave me that he did not believe me; he even had doubts, it was very evident, whether I was staying at the Hotel Magnifique at all, as I had informed him at the commencement of my statement.
Having entered all the notes to his satisfaction, he thoroughly inspected both rooms and made more notes. Then he went outside and bawled up the stairs--
"Wilkins!"
"Sir," came the answer from the bucolic constable on duty above.
"Just step round to the "Compa.s.ses,"" instructed his superior from the foot of the stairs, "and tell my brother I should be glad if he"d come round here for a few minutes. We"ve got a rather curious case."
"Very good, sir," came the reply, followed by the heavy tread of the man"s boots as he went to carry out the orders.
"My brother"s down "ere on a bit of a "oliday, sir," explained the inspector to the doctor, entirely ignoring me, "and being one of the tip-top detectives up in London, I thought we"d take the benefit of his opinion."
The "Compa.s.ses," as it turned out, being only a couple of streets off, we had not long to wait for the coming of the detective luminary from London. His heavy footsteps were soon heard on the stairs; preceded by the constable, he descended the flight with evident forethought and consideration. Emerging from the darkness into the light of the wax candles, he presented the appearance of a prosperous butcher, tall, broad-shouldered, red-necked, and with moustache and whiskers of a sandy hue. His face was very red, and the skin shining as if distended with good living.
"This is my brother, Inspector Bull of the Z Metropolitan Division,"
explained our inspector to the doctor, once more ignoring me, "down "ere on a little "oliday."
As I learned afterwards, this gentleman was one of the Guardian Angels who watched over the safety of the inhabitants of the Mile End Road.
The doctor having shaken hands with him, his brother put another question to him.
""Ow"s Alf?" he inquired.
The newcomer gently soothed the back of his red neck with a hand like a small leg of mutton, and displayed a set of ma.s.sive front teeth in a gratified smile.
""E"s all right," he answered, "we wos having fifty up when you sent for me."
"You see," explained our inspector, "my brother"s got so many friends in the licensed victuallers" line down here, through being a Mason, that it takes him "arf his "oliday to go round and see "em all."
The doctor smiled indulgently but made no answer; then our inspector briefly informed his brother of the state of the case before him, stating the facts as I related them, in such a different light, and with so many evident aspersions on my veracity, that I hardly knew them again.
The two brothers made a further close inspection of the rooms, and then held a consultation on the hearthrug in whispers.
Though the words were unintelligible, the fact that the officer of the Z Division had been partaking liberally of whisky soon became apparent from the all-pervading odour of that stimulant diffused throughout the apartment.
They finished at last, and I heard the London man"s final word of advice--
"I should put me "and on "im at any rate."
CHAPTER IV
I AM DETAINED
I was the ""im" referred to evidently.
Our inspector b.u.t.toned up his blue overcoat.
"Perhaps you"ll be kind enough to walk down with us to the station, Mr.
. . . er--Anstruther," he said; "we can have a little talk down there and straighten things out a bit."
His subterfuge did not in the least deceive me.
"Do I understand," I asked, "that you propose to detain me?"
The inspector raised his shoulders perplexedly, and his brother smiled a fat smile over his shoulder.
"That"ll depend how you explain matters to our chief," he said deprecatingly; "at any rate we"d better get along."
This was a hint I could not disregard. He led the way up the staircase, and his stout brother, through force of habit, closed in behind, far too close to be pleasant, owing to the diffused aroma of a mixture of various brands of inferior whisky, arising from his hard breathing as he ascended the stairs. We walked two and two down Monmouth Street, I with the inspector, the doctor and the London detective improving their acquaintance in the rear.
Two streets off we dropped the officer of the Z Division, who betook himself once more to the "Compa.s.ses" to continue his "fifty up" with his friend the landlord, and the doctor joined us. I had the pleasure of listening to his conversation with the inspector, conducted across me, without having the pleasure of being included in it.
We walked all three down into the town, and then straight into the Police Station, only a few doors off my hotel.
The inspector and the doctor went into a private room to confer with some superior official while I was left to sit by the fire in the outer office.