"Shot through the Head—"
In the short little thoroughfare called Derby Street, which runs off Whitehall to Scotland Yard, Mr. Hugh An swell Donovan sat in the front seat of the car and surreptitiously swallowed another aspirin. The absence of water made him gag, and taste the full vileness of the pill before he could get it down. He pushed his hat over his eyes, shuddered, and stared gloomily at the wind screen.
His dreary outlook was not merely physical; though that was bad enough. His farewell party in New York had become a long, curving bender which did not cease until they put him in the brig when the Aquatic was two days out of Southampton. He was a little better now. Food did not turn green before his eyes, and his stomach had ceased to come together like a collapsing telescope at the sight of it. His hand had begun to regain its steadiness, nor was his conscience crawling through him with such cold feet as before. But there was a worse thing to destroy the pleasure he would have felt at seeing London after a year's absence.
All he had left, he reflected, was his sense of humor, and he had better use it.
Donovan, an amiable and easy-going young man with a dark face, and one of the neatest middleweight battlers who ever came out of Dublin University, tried to say, "Ha ha" to the dashboard. He only gurgled, for he was thinking of his first meeting with his father.
In some ways, of course, the old man was a stout fellow, even if he did happen to be a bishop. He was old-fashioned, which meant that within reasonable limits he believed in a young man sowing an oat or two by the way. But the old man's hobby had been betrayed, and his son shivered to think of the result.
A year's leave had been granted him on the only condition it would ever have been allowed: to study criminology. At the time he had considered it an inspiration. "Dad," he said, straightforwardly and frankly, "Dad, I want to be a detective." And the formidable old boy had beamed. Moodily his son recalled this now. Several times during his stay in America, he had seen photographs in which he had been struck by the really remarkable resemblance of his father to the late William Jennings Bryan. People who had known both of them personally said that the likeness was even more striking than the photographs indicated. There was the same square massive face and broad mouth; the same heavy brow, the long hair curling down behind; the curved nose, fluffy eyebrows, and sharp dark eyes; the same shoulders and decisive stride. Then there was the voice. That the Bishop of Mappleham had the finest voice in the Church of England was never doubted; it was resonant, Bryanesque, and effective as a pipe organ. Altogether, a commanding figure.
His son swallowed another aspirin, automatically.
If the bishop had a weakness, it was his hobby. A great criminologist had been lost to the world when Hugh Donovan, Sr., took up holy orders. His information was enormous; he could recite you the details of every atrocity in the last hundred years; he knew all the latest scientific devices for both the advancement and prevention of crime; he had investigated the police departments of Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Brussels, Vienna, and Leningrad, driving the officials thereof to the verge of insanity; and, finally, he had lectured all about it in the United States. It was possibly his warm reception in America which had induced him to grant his son permission to study criminology at Columbia University…
"Gaa," muttered Hugh Junior, and goggled at the dashboard. He had registered there in a burst of ambition, and bought a variety of indigestible books with German tides. Afterwards he had gone no nearer West 116th Street than the apartment of a little blonde who lived uptown on the Drive.