Gerard turned to the other man.
“Are you a policeman, too?” he asked.
The man answered in a voice which made Audrey look round. It was not that, she thought, in which she had previously heard him speak.
“I’m a detective, sir,” he said.
“And was it necessary, do you think, to threaten a woman—a lady—with using force, when all she wanted was to write a letter to her solicitor?”
The man with the policeman’s boots would have answered, but Gerard put up his hand, refusing to take his answer except from the person he had addressed. Again his calmness, and the impression his behaviour made on the policemen, surprised Audrey and excited her admiration.
“Well, sir, what we meant by force was not exactly that,” said the man in a voice that was hardly audible.
Gerard looked at him intently.
“Well,” he said, “it would have been better not to use the word at all, don’t you think so?”
“Perhaps, sir, we did exceed our duty a little,” said the detective hurriedly. “I’m sorry.”