"I beg your pardon? . . . Ah, to be sure!" I had forgotten my false nose.
"How did Herbert pick up with you?" she asked musingly. "His friends are not usually so--so--"
"Respectable?" I suggested.
"I think I meant to say "presentable." They are never respectable by any chance."
"Then, happily, it still remains to be proved that I am one of them."
"He seems, at any rate, to reckon you high amongst them, since he gave your name."
"Gave my name? To whom?"
"Oh, I don"t know--to the magistrate--or the policeman--or whoever it is.
I have never been in a police-cell myself," she added, with a small smile.
"Is Herbert, then, in a police-cell?"
She nodded. "At Vine Street. He wants to be bailed out."
"What amount?"
"Himself in ten pounds and a friend in another ten. He gave your name; and the policeman is waiting for the answer."
"I see," said I; "but excuse me if I fail to see why, being apparently so impatient to bail him out, you have waited for me. To be sure (for reasons which are dark to me) he appears to have given my name to the police; but we will put that riddle aside for the moment. Any respectable citizen would have served, with the money to back him. Why not have sent Horrex, for example?"
"But I thought the--the--"
"Surety?" I suggested. "I thought he must be a householder. No," she cried, as I turned away with a slight shrug of the shoulder, "that was not the real reason! Herbert is--oh, why will you force me to say it?"
"I beg your pardon," said I. "He is at certain times not too tractable; Horrex, in particular, cannot be trusted to manage him; and--and in short you wish him released as soon as possible, but not brought home to this house until your guests have taken leave?"
She nodded at me with swimming eyes. She was pa.s.sing beautiful, more beautiful than I had thought.
"Yes, yes; you understand! And I thought that--as his friend--and with your influence over him--"
I pulled out my watch. "Has Horrex a hansom in waiting?"
"A four-wheeler," she corrected me. Our eyes met, and with a great pity I read in hers that she knew only too well the kind of cab suitable.
"Then let us have in the policeman. A four-wheeler will be better, as you suggest, since with your leave I am going to take Horrex with me.
The fact is, I am a little in doubt as to my influence: for to tell you the plain truth, I have never to my knowledge set eyes on your husband."
"My husband?" She paused with her hand on the bell-pull, and gazed at me blankly. "My husband?" She began to laugh softly, uncannily, in a way that tore my heart. "Herbert is my brother."
"Oh!" said I, feeling pretty much of a fool.
"But what gave you--what do you mean--"
"Lord knows," I interrupted her; "but if you will tell Horrex to get himself and the policeman into the cab, I will run upstairs, dress, and join them in five minutes."
IV.
In five minutes I had donned my ordinary clothes again and, descending through the pack of guests to the front door, found a four-wheeler waiting, with Horrex inside and a policeman whom, as I guessed, he had been drugging with strong waters for an hour past in some secluded chamber of the house. The fellow was somnolent, and in sepulchral silence we journeyed to Vine Street. There I chose to be conducted to the cell alone, and Mr. Horrex, hearing my decision, said fervently, "May you be rewarded for your goodness to me and mine!"
I discovered afterwards that he had a growing family of six dependent on him, and think this must explain a gratefulness which puzzled me at the time.
"He"s quieter this last half-hour," said the police sergeant, unlocking the cell and opening the door with extreme caution.
The light fell and my eyes rested on a sandy-haired youth with a receding chin, a black eye, a crumpled shirt-front smeared with blood, and a dress-suit split and soiled with much rolling in the dust.
"Friend of yours, sir, to bail you out," announced the sergeant.
"I have no friends," answered the prisoner in hollow tones. "Who"s this Johnny?"
"My name is Richardson," I began.
"From the Grampian Hills? Al" ri", old man; what can I do for you?"
"Well, if you"ve no objection, I"ve come to bail you out."
"Norra a bit of it. Go "way: I want t"other Richardson, good old larks-in-aspic! Sergeant--"
"Yessir."
"I protest--you hear?--protest in sacred name of law; case of mish--case of mistaken "dent.i.ty. Not this Richardson--take him away! Don"t blame you: common name. Richardson _I_ want has whiskers down to here, tiddy-fol-ol; calls "em "Piccadilly weepers." Can"t mistake him.
If at first you don"t succeed, try, try again."
"Look here," said I, "just you listen to this; I"m Richardson, and I"m here to bail you out."
"Can"t do it, old man; mean well, no doubt, but can"t do it. One man lead a horse to the water--twenty can"t bail him out. Go "way and don"t fuss."
I glanced at the sergeant. "You"ll let me deal with him as I like?" I asked.
He grinned. "Bless you, sir, we"re used to it. _I_ ain"t listening."
"Thank you." I turned to the prisoner. "Now, then, you drunken little hog, stand up and walk," said I, taking him by the ear and keeping my left ready.
I suppose that the drink suddenly left him weak, for he stood up at once.
"There"s some ho--horrible mistake," he began to whimper. "But if the worst comes to the worst, you"ll _adopt_ me, won"t you?"
Still holding him by the ear, I led him forth and flung him into the cab, in a corner of which the trembling Horrex had already huddled himself.
He fell, indeed, across Horrex"s knees, and at once screamed aloud.
"Softly, softly, Master "Erbert," whispered the poor man soothingly.