Читать книгу Upsidonia - Archibald Marshall - Страница 4

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By and by we came to a tramway terminus, where an electric car was standing. The policeman, who had been walking by the side of the carriage, the ragged man, and many of our other followers, jumped on to it. The fat rascal in whose carriage I was seated ordered the coachman to drive on faster, and I was not sorry to be relieved of most of our escort. But the other carriages, of which there were perhaps half a dozen, and some of them very splendid equipages indeed, continued with us, and my appearance was still rather more public than I could have wished.

We presently passed into a busy street of shops. I could not for the life of me imagine what town it was that I had come to. It was evidently a place of considerable importance and a large population, which crowded the streets, and frequently jeered at our little procession.

Everything around me seemed usual. The shops and buildings were like those of any other large town, and the people much the same—a mixture of old and young, rich and poor.

But there was just one thing that struck me as a little strange. The poor people—even the very poorest, like the man at whose hands I had been so remarkably arrested—walked amongst the rest with an air far more assured than was customary; and the well-dressed people seemed to have rather a hang-dog sort of look. I might not have noticed this but for the predicament in which I found myself; but my attention being fixed upon the point it was impossible to ignore it.

We drew up at the door of a police station, and I was taken inside, where I lost no time in making a somewhat violent protest to the sergeant in charge, and again invited him to take the preposterous Mr. Perry into custody.

As before, not the smallest notice was taken of my indignant speech. I was told sharply to hold my tongue, and the charge against me was repeated in the same ridiculous form in which it had first been made, and entered in the sergeant's ledger. The ragged man appeared before the formalities were concluded, and, to my now painful bewilderment, was treated with marked respect by the police, whom he addressed with calm authority. His name was entered as my accuser, and, upon the charge being read over to me, I discovered him to be "Lord Potter."

Well, if he was really a nobleman in disguise, that perhaps accounted for the absurd subserviency with which he was treated. But the disguise was so complete that my indignation was redoubled, and I made one more very strong protest before I was led away.

"What place is this?" I asked, when I saw that no more notice was going to be taken of my protest than before.

Lord Potter stared at me with high disdain on his dirty face, and Mr. Perry with a most irritating air of grieved sympathy.

"Perhaps," I said, "I can find someone I know, who will come to my assistance. I don't know in the least what town I am in."

"Come along," said the constable who had arrested me. "You'll only make it worse by being impudent. You know well enough what place you're in. Now are you coming quietly, or shall I have to take you?"

I thought it best to go quietly. I was taken through a door opposite to the one by which we had entered, and rather to my surprise found myself in a carpeted passage. We passed several other doors on either side, until we came to one which the policeman unlocked.

"By the look of your clothes," he said, as he fumbled with the key, "you ought to be better treated; but we're pretty full up, and you'll only be here till to-morrow morning. You must make the best of it. Here, take this."

He pushed half a crown into my hand, and me through the door, which he immediately shut and locked after me, leaving me for the first time in my life in a prison cell.

My surprise, at the extraordinary action of a policeman in pressing a tip upon a prisoner, was overcome by the fierce anger I felt at being locked up in a pitch dark cell, which could not have been more than five or six feet square; for as I put out my hands I found I could touch the walls on all sides. What mad piece of inhumanity was this, to add to the burlesque charge on which I was to be tried! There was not even a stool to sit down on. Was I really to be confined in this dark hole until I could be taken before a magistrate on the following morning? I turned, and banged and kicked on the door in uncontrollable rage, and shouted at the top of my voice.

But there was no answer, and presently I desisted, determined to make the best of my situation.

I began to feel round the walls, and immediately came to a little obstacle, which with an immense lift of relief I recognized as an electric switch. I turned it, and the place was flooded with light. Then I discovered that I was not in a cell at all, but in a little lobby, in all four walls of which were doors.

I opened one, and found a deep cupboard, with hooks in it, but nothing else. I shut it and opened the next, and found myself on the threshold of a small but comfortably furnished parlour.

Opposite to the door was a window looking on to a strip of garden gay with flowers; but the window, which was of ordinary size, was guarded by thick iron bars. It was this fact that brought it home to me that, incredible as it might appear, this room, with a comfortable armchair by the window, with books on a shelf, and pictures on the prettily papered walls, was my prison cell, and not the narrow lobby into which I had first come.

The third door in the lobby led into a well-appointed bathroom, and leading out of the parlour was a little bedroom, with the sheets turned down on the bed, and a suit of pink pyjamas laid out all ready for its occupant.

It may be imagined that all this, following on what had already happened, puzzled me not a little; but since this convenient little self-contained flat was mine to make myself at home in until the following morning, I could, at any rate, take advantage of its amenities.

I was dusty and footsore, and very glad of a hot bath. As I lay steaming in it, I recalled the words of the policeman, before he had pressed the half-crown into my hand and shut me into the lobby: "By the look of your clothes you ought to be better treated."

Well, as for my clothes, they had certainly been made by a good tailor, but they were of well-nigh immemorial age, and were covered with dust and travel-stains. I wore also an aged green hat of soft felt, and a flannel shirt with a low collar and a whisp of an old tie; and my boots, white with dust, were an easy but unlovely pair that I kept for these expeditions. No, my clothes could not possibly have indicated any exalted station in life, nor even the moderate degree of gentility that was mine by birth and education. The man must have been sneering at me.

But then, what could he have meant by referring to better treatment? I was lodged like a coronation guest. Was it the habit of the authorities of this extraordinary town, whose identity puzzled me more and more, to house their prisoners like potentates, since my quarters were considered only fit to be apologized for? I could only give up the problem, and wait for what should happen next.

When I had had my bath, brushed the dust off my clothes, and put on a clean shirt and clean socks out of my pack, I began to feel hungry; and such was the effect upon me of my surroundings that I looked around me, almost without intention, for a bell. There was one by the mantelpiece, which I rang, and then waited with some curiosity for what should happen.

Within a very short time I heard the outer door being opened, and there came into the room a waiter with a napkin over his shoulder. Except that his clothes were seedy, and his shirt-front rather crumpled, he had the appearance of a servant at a would-be smart restaurant, ready to do what was wanted of him, but having no very high opinion of the person from whom he received his orders. However, he seemed to have anticipated my wants, for without a word he held out to me a bill of fare, and I accepted it with equal unconcern and looked over it.

It was of a fairly elaborate description, and as a precautionary measure, before making any selection, I said: "I suppose I don't have to pay for any of this?"

His lip curled as he replied: "Of course not. Choose whatever you like and put a tick against it."

Thus encouraged, I ordered a nice little dinner of clear soup, truite-au-bleu, lamb cutlets with new potatoes, a slice of ham with madeira sauce and spinach, a péche Melba, angels on horseback, and some strawberries to finish up with. He took the order without flinching, and asked: "Do you want any wine?"

"Well, yes," I said, "if there's nothing to pay for it."

He flushed angrily. "I don't want any of your impudence," he said. "You will pay nothing at all for anything you have as long as you are here, and if you are not very careful you will be here a good deal longer than you bargain for."

"I don't know that I should altogether object to that," I said, and took the wine list from him.

It was an excellent list, and under the circumstances I made excellent use of it. I allowed myself a glass of white Tokay, and another of Chateau d'Yquem, a pint of Pommery, 1900, and a bottle of '68 port to sit with later on. He looked more contemptuous than ever as he took the order, and asked disdainfully: "Don't you want a liqueur with your coffee?"

"I had forgotten that for the moment," I said. "Have you any very old brandy?"

"We have some eighteen-fifteen," he said; "but I need scarcely say we are very seldom asked for it."

"Well, on the terms that you have indicated, you are asked for it now," I said. "And I should like one or two really good cigars, fairly strong—something like the one that Mr. Perry was smoking this afternoon, if you can get them."

He went out of the room without a word, and carefully locked the outer door behind him. However inexplicable my treatment, I was not, at any rate, to forget that I was a prisoner.

Tired with my long walk, and the somewhat disturbing experiences I had been through, I fell fast asleep in the easy chair by the open window, through which came sweet wafts from a patch of night-scented stock in the garden outside.

I only awoke when the waiter brought in the first course of my dinner. He had laid the table without disturbing me, and had put a vase of roses in the middle and four tall candles at the corners, with rose-coloured shades.

"I'm sorry I haven't brought my evening clothes," I said, as I took my seat.

He made no reply to this pleasantry, and his air of high superiority began to annoy me.

"Do you generally wait upon prisoners in this way?" I asked him, when he brought in the fish.

"We do in the case of prisoners who look like gentlemen and behave like pigs," was his surprising reply, which I turned over in my mind before I said: "This seems a topsy-turvy place altogether, but I should really like to know how I have behaved like a pig."

"You can wallow in your hoggishness as much as you like," he said acidly, "but if you have the impudence to address any more remarks to me, I'll punch your head for you."

I looked round at him, standing attentively behind my chair. He was a frail man, and looked hungry.

"You might find that two could play at that game," I said, with my eye on him; and he flushed, but did not flinch.

"Is that a threat?" he asked. "Because if it is——;" and he turned as if to leave the room.

As I didn't know what, in the general reversal of things, might be the punishment here for threatening to retaliate on a waiter who proposed to punch one's head, and I wanted to finish my dinner, I said: "If you're disinclined for conversation you can have your own way."

We went through the rest of the ménu in silence, I enjoying the good things provided for me, and he serving me with the readiest attention to the matter in hand. We did not address another word to each other until he had carefully poured out from its basket-cradle a glass of the wonderful port.

I sipped it, and thought it just in the very least touched, and told him so. He took the glass, sniffed at the wine, and tasted it. "It's absolutely right," he said, "but of course you can have another bottle if you like."

"Thank you," I said, and began to wonder, rather uneasily, as he was away fetching it, if in some way I was not to pay pretty dearly for the remarkable treatment I was undergoing.

The second bottle of port was beyond criticism. When I had expressed my approval, the waiter put it on a little table by the side of the extremely easy chair, and indicated, but without saying so, that he wished to clear away. This he did, in complete silence; but before he finally left the room came over to where I was standing, and, holding out half a sovereign, said, still with the same inflection of contempt: "That's for yourself."

I took the coin in my hand, and said, somewhat after the manner of a cabman who has been offered twopence for a pour boire: "What do you call this?"

He flushed again, took it back, gave me half a crown instead, and then left the room.

My evening in prison had so far brought me a dinner such as I seldom enjoyed, and five shillings in money. Why, but for my last question, it would have brought me seven and sixpence more, I was quite unable to imagine.