Dickie went up to Bob. “I’d like to give you another,” he said in his nastiest accents.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” It was the voice of the man at the desk. Authority now spoke. Up to now, amazement had held authority tongue-tied. “The prisoner came quietly, Mr. Moriarity?” Authority knew, then, the monocle-man. Evidently the two had a secret understanding. “Has he confessed?” “Not as yet,” said the monocle-man significantly.
“And I’m not going to,” spoke up Bob succinctly to the magistrate. “I’m not guilty.”
“Then who is?” asked the monocle-man.
“You’ve got your hand on his arm,” said Bob in that same forcible manner. The time had come for him to assert himself, however ridiculous his affirmation might sound. Authority should have the truth. Bob blurted it out fearlessly, holding his head well up as he spoke. “You’ve got your hand on his arm,” he repeated.
Mr. Moriarity’s reply quite took their breath away, especially Bob’s. “Guess you’re right,” he said promptly, and something bright gleamed in his hand. “Don’t move,” he said to the hammer-thrower.
“But aren’t you going to lock him up at all?” asked the commodore in disappointed tones, indicating Bob, after the monocle-man had shown the hammer-thrower a warrant for his (the hammer-thrower’s) arrest, and had, at the conclusion of certain formalities, caused that dazed and angry individual to be led away.
“I am certainly not going to lock Mr. Bennett up,” laughed the monocle-man who was in the best of humors.
The coup seemed to him a lovely one. For months he had been on the trail of the hammer-thrower. He told Bob—as dazed and bewildered as the hammer-thrower by the unexpected turn of events—all about it later. He had certainly taken an artistic way to complete the affair. And later, not that night, Bob learned, too, that it was Miss Gerald herself who had suggested the way, she having inherited some of the managerial genius of her father. Maybe, she was not averse to Bob’s suffering a little after the wholly-intolerable way he had comported himself toward her and others of her aunt’s guests. Maybe cruelty had mingled somewhat with retaliation. Proud, regal young womanhood sometimes can be cruel. But Bob probably deserved all those twinges and pangs and mournful emotions she had caused him. No one certainly had ever talked to her as he had done.
“May I sit down?” said Bob at length to the magistrate. He felt rather tired.