"Somehow or another I hauled Farrell up and on to the flat roof. 'Now,' said I, after prospecting a bit in a hurry, 'the great point is to keep cool. You follow me over this parapet, lower yourself, and drop on to the next roof. It's a matter of sixteen feet at most, and then we'll find a water-pipe.'
"But he wouldn't. He said that he suffered from giddiness on a height and had done so from the age of sixteen, but that he was game for any number of policemen. He'd seen too many policemen, and wanted to reduce the number. I left him clawing at a chimney-pot, and—well, I told you the stucco was brittle, and you saw the state of his clothes. I think he must have got out a brick or two and put up a fight.
"For my part, I slid three-quarters of the way down a pipe, lost my grip somehow and tumbled sock upon the serried ranks of a brutal and licentious constabulary. They broke my fall, and afterwards I did my best. But, as Farrell had justly complained, there were too many of them. So now you know," Jimmy wound up with a yawn.
"What about the Lady Petunia?" I asked.
"Oh!" He woke up with a start and laughed: "I forgot—and it's the cream, too.… The police who grabbed me had been hastily summoned by whistle. They rushed me up two side streets and towards a convenient taxi. It was convenient: it was stationary.… It was my own, own taxi, still sitting. One constable shouted for its driver; another had almost pushed me in when he started to apologise to somebody inside. It was Petunia, wrapped in slumber. She must have slipped out by the Emergency Exit and taken action with great presence of mind. I don't know if they managed to wake her up, or what happened to her." Jimmy yawned again. "What's the time, Otty? It must be any hour of the morning.… I don't know. She forgot to return my watch."
NIGHT THE SEVENTH.
THE OUTRAGE.
Jephson awoke me at 7.30 as usual. But I dozed for another half an hour and should have dropped asleep again had it not been that some little thing—I could not put a name to the worry—kept teasing my brain; some piece of grit in the machine. An engagement forgotten? an engagement to be kept?—Nothing very important.…
Then I remembered, jumped out of bed, and knocked in at Jimmy's room. I expected to find him stretched in heavy slumber. But no: he stood before his dressing-table, tubbed, shaven, half-clothed, and looking as fresh as paint.