"Oh, I am not speaking as a politician," the chief constable returned with a smile. "I have the order of my city to look after. That's all I am thinking about. If you weren't by any chance to get in, I am afraid there would be trouble to-night in Ludsey. And I want you if you are returned to get back to your hotel at once. It's important from my point of view that you should show up on your balcony as soon as possible after the result is declared."
"I see," said Rames.
"I will take you out the back way through the police station," the chief constable continued, "and there's a lane opposite which will lead you straight to your back door. You had better run, I think. For your own friends would tear you to pieces to-night without noticing they were doing you any harm."
The chief constable suddenly changed his tone. One of the scrutineers on the side of Rames's opponent had drawn close to them. The chief constable had no intention to allow a suspicion that he favored one side more than the other. He raised his voice.
"You have noticed our tapestry, perhaps. It is quite invaluable, I believe. We lent it two years ago to the South Kensington Museum. There was an American millionaire here the other day who wished to buy it."
Raines looked across the room.
"Isn't there some portion of it missing?" he asked.
"Yes. That disappeared in the Commonwealth times. Let us go and look at it."
Rames walked at the chief constable's side up the floor of the room toward the dais where Mr. Redling the Mayor, with his chain of office about his shoulders, sat in his big chair in the centre of the long council table. His mace lay upon the table in front of him, and he surveyed the busy scene over which he presided with an imperturbable gravity. But Mr. Redling was a genial soul with a twinkling eye and a red, round face like a crumpled cherub's; and as Harry Rames advanced toward the dais, Mr. Redling beckoned to him with a discreet twist of the finger of a hand lying idle upon the table.
Harry Rames took a seat beside the Mayor at the long table and again words of comfort were poured into his ears in a gentle undertone.