Another long pause ensued, while there seemed to be explanations: and then gradually the sergeant's tone changed, into a roaring chuckle.'
"No!" he said. "No? You don't say! Well, well, well!" (By this time my curiosity and wrath had reached almost a point of mania.) "Is that so? And he probably thought he was doing well, I suppose, the poor fool. Ha ha ha." He grew serious. "Yes, but if neither of the gentlemen will charge him, what are we going to do with him? What did they say? Ah! Yes, that's the best thing. I'll tell you what: we'll put him down in the cells for to-night. Then we'll bring him to Torquay to-morrow morning, and they can talk to him. About eleven o'clock, say? Right. How are the wife and kids?"
And at eleven-thirty to-morrow morning I was due for a very different sort of appointment.
I scrambled up off the floor, at that state where fury becomes, coolness and clear sight, to make an inspection of the room. It was a bare enough place. A green-shaded lamp hung from the ceiling, over a deal table with a well-thumbed detective-story magazine on top of it, and a couple of kitchen chairs around. There was a sink and water-tap, with a dissipated-looking roller towel hung up beside it. But my eye was drawn to the three wooden lockers built against the wall. Inside the first locker I found what I had hoped to find: a uniform-tunic neatly arranged on a hanger. There was a helmet on the shelf above, a belt coiled beside it, and a bull's eye lantern. As H.M. had noticed, I was wearing a dark blue suit, and my own trousers would suffice. It took just ten seconds to put on the tunic and helmet, buckle the belt round my waist, and hang the lantern from it, in order to become the Compleat Policeman. It wasn't a bad fit. From the outer room I could hear the sergeant still droning at the telephone; and, through the open window to the rear yard, somebody was commenting on the lascivious habits of carburetors. The back way was the only way out. And I admit that I was feeling queasy in the stomach when I approached it.
I backed out of the place, as though I were turning round to close the door behind. Six steps led down into the yard. If the men in the yard glanced up, as they naturally would, they would see a familiar back and helmet. The great dangerpoint was that arc-lamp over the door. My legs felt light, and the queasy feeling had increased, when I carefully closed the door. Then I turned round full under the arc. At the same time I casually switched on the lantern, and swung the brilliant beam straight in their faces. They were all bending over the engine of the Austin, so that it caught them flat.
"Gaa!" roared one, and jumped. "Take that blasted thing What's the game, Pierce?"
They had all looked away. I came down the steps, not too quickly. The light bad to be moved, but I could count on about a second's blindness after it. At the rear of the yard was a tolerably high wall, with double gates giving on an alley. I heard my own footsteps ringing on the pavement of that yard, with an almost goose-step regularity in my effort to keep them slow. I didn't dare look round now, for I had a feeling that eyes were on me.
A voice said, "That's not Pierce," — and I cut loose for it.
The rear gates were only two feet ahead now, and there was a padlock and chain hanging loose from them. Those gates were spiked at the top, so that it would want careful climbing to get over them. I jumped through, slammed the gates with a crash like a falling lift, closed the padlock, and pitched away the key. For the first time I glanced behind. There were no shouts from that yard: no shouts, and no fuss. They were coming for me as quietly as a cage of animals, black against the light, and one arm came through like a paw as the gates crashed. The rear door of the station was open now, and a voice was calling with deadly efficiency:
"Thompson, over the wall. Dennis, through the sidegate next door and up the alley. Stevens, up the street as far as you like and get him from the front. Pierce-"