Читать книгу A Queen's Error - Henry Curties - Страница 11

I was the "'im" referred to evidently.

Our inspector buttoned 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 "Compasses" 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.

Presently the inspector came out.

"We've decided to detain you, Mr. Anstruther," he said, "until we can find out a little more about this affair. Just come over here."

"Look here, Mr. Inspector," I said, "if you intend to detain me without sufficient reason, you'll find it an awkward matter." The inspector looked a trifle uncomfortable.

"We shall have to take our chance of that," he said, rather sullenly, "we've only got our duty to do, Mr. Anstruther. You can have bail, I should think."

"Bail!" I repeated, "how am I to get bail? I don't know a soul in the town."

The inspector shrugged his shoulders and motioned me into a railed space in the centre of the office.

There was no help for it, so I went and placed myself as he desired in the little dock, and a constable standing there obligingly clamped down a rail behind me to keep me there. Then the doctor, who, it turned out, was some official in the town, gave a garbled version of the whole affair, which I found it useless to try and contradict, as I was told to hold my tongue. The inspector's version of the affair was even more insulting than the doctor's. He did not hesitate to express his opinion that I was a very suspicious person, probably a lunatic at large. When asked if I had anything to say, my remark summed up the situation, tersely, in a few words.

"This is a parcel of d—d rot!" I said.

Then they searched me.

The inspector simply gloated over Saumarez' revolver when I turned it out of my pocket, and this feeling rose to an absolute thrill of triumph when he discovered that one of the chambers had been discharged.

In my heart, I was thankful that I had sent those two packets and the key to my lawyers.

While the inspector was hanging fondly over Saumarez' glass eye, which one energetic young constable had furraged out of the corner of my waistcoat pocket, an idea struck me which ought to have occurred to me before.

I had come to Bath with a letter of introduction to a certain doctor, a

Dr. Mainwaring; I would send for him.

"Look here, Mr. Inspector," I said, "when you've quite finished rattling me about, I have two suggestions to make. One is to send some of your men to try if they can find the old lady whose throat has been cut, and the other is to send for Dr. Mainwaring, who knows me. I warn you that if you lock me up you will get into trouble."

At the mention of Dr. Mainwaring, Dr. Redfern, who was still there, pricked up his ears.

"Dr. Mainwaring!" he repeated. "Do you know him?"

"I came here about ten days ago," I answered, "with a letter of introduction to him from Sir Belgrave Walpole. I've no doubt that he will be able to tell you something about me."

He turned to the inspector.

"Don't you think you had better send a man up to Royal Crescent," he said, "to ask Dr. Mainwaring? There may be a mistake, you know. It would be safer."

I could see that the inspector was very unwilling to admit the possibility of a mistake; he was, however, overruled by the man who was writing in the book, and who appeared to be a person in authority.

"Shapland," he said to a waiting constable, "go up to Dr. Mainwaring's and ask if he knows a person of the name of Anstruther."

"You'd better take one of my cards there with you," I suggested, "then he'll know who you mean."

The inspector gave me a scathing look, but gave the man one of the cards out of my case.

I think they were undecided then as to whether they would lock me up or not, but eventually made up their minds on the side of prudence.

I was allowed to sit by the fire.

Within half an hour a motor came puffing up to the police station, and

Dr. Mainwaring entered.

"My dear Mr. Anstruther," he inquired breathlessly, "whatever is the matter?"

In a few brief sentences I unloaded the burden of my wrongs.

"Why, there must be some mistake!" cried Mainwaring. "I'll just go off and see the chief constable, he's a particular friend of mine."

When he had gone, the faces of my guardians grew visibly longer; one of them fetched me an armchair out of the office.

The chief constable soon put matters right.

"This gentleman is staying at the Magnifique," he announced, "he is well known to Dr. Mainwaring, and, in fact, the doctor will answer for his appearance; what more do you want, Mr. Inspector?"

The inspector wanted nothing more.

Within five minutes I was sitting by a glorious fire in a private room at the Magnifique, discussing the whole matter with the chief constable and Dr. Mainwaring.

But before I left the station, I put a query to Inspector Bull, junior.

"What have you done about the old lady?" I asked.

The officer assumed some shreds of dignity, even in his discomfiture.

"You may have thought us a bit forgetful, sir," he observed, "but I assure you, both the railway stations have been under careful observation from the time of my being able to touch a telephone."

"Thank you," I said; but it appeared to me that under the circumstances they might just as profitably have watched the Pump Room or the Baths.