By means of a series of brisk commands, punctuated by prods of the revolver, the constable manœuvred his captives into line facing the door. They jumped nimbly to execute his pleasure. Then their wrists adjacent to one another were gripped, there was a sharp click, and the sound ensued as of a heavy body stepping back with satisfaction.
“Now you can take ’em down,” observed the constable almost benevolently, regarding his handiwork with modest pride. “And stand still while I make out me report, if you please. An’ don’t you try any more monkey-tricks with me.” He drew out a stub of pencil from his pocket, seated himself at the desk, laid the revolver in front of him and contemplated the two with a truculent eye.
They returned his gaze gloomily, even Mr. Priestley. Mr. Priestley had never before been tethered by the wrist to that of a particularly charming young woman, and he might have been pardoned for feeling a little exhilaration in the idea; yet his countenance was completely lacking in exhilaration. A large number of emotions, it is true, were represented there, but exhilaration was not among them. Nor did the young woman evince any greater delight in being tethered to Mr. Priestley. Handcuffs evidently brought her soul no joy. By her expression, anybody less addicted to the use of handcuffs would have been hard to find. She now wore the air of one who has stepped gaily into a train labelled Birmingham, and finds herself in Crewe; a blend of dismay, annoyance, bewilderment as to the precise whereabouts, and anxiety regarding the return to the starting-point. The corpse was now prudently keeping its eyes tightly closed.
And then events happened with a rapidity that would have done credit to an American Cinema producer. With one dive Mr. Priestley was at the desk, and the revolver in his hand. With another he was at the nearest door, and lo! it was open. The young woman, having no option, followed his movements about the room with the jerky leaps of a fish manœuvring in mid-air, at the end of a line; this was not the moment to consider feminine deportment, and Mr. Priestley quite rightly did not stop to do so.
The door he had flung open was not that by which they had entered the room; it gave access to a shallow cupboard, having shelves across its upper half and tolerably empty below. Mr. Priestley viewed it for one-fifth of a second with exultation, then he turned back to the thoroughly bewildered constable. Rural constables get very little time for attending the cinema.
“Get in there,” said Mr. Priestley very grimly to the constable, “as you value your life.” And he in turn pointed his words by a recourse to the argumentum ad hominem.
The constable did value his life. He did not know very much of what was happening, but he did know that. He got in.
Mr. Priestley closed the door on him and turned the key. Then he bent down, jerked the young woman’s right wrist somewhere into the neighbourhood of the small of her back, and curved his free arm round her knees. The next moment she was swung off her feet and hoisted up in the air, while this new cave-man edition of Mr. Priestley trotted with hasty, if slightly wobbly steps out into the night. Thus did the knight not only rescue his lady, but even carried her off with him in the orthodox way.
The corpse was so far galvanised as to sit up and stare after their swaying figures. Then he, too, rose and fled into the night, uttering strange noises.