Occasionally Sergeant Colgan spoke a word of kindly advice to anyone who looked as if he had drunk more than two bottles of porter.
“It would be as well for you, Patsy,” he would say, “to be getting along home.”
Or, “I’m thinking, Timothy John, that you’d be better this minute if you were at home.”
There are no stronger believers in the value of the domestic hearth than the police. They always want everyone to go home.
No one, least of all the individuals who received the advice personally, was inclined to leave the square. The meeting might be over, but there was still hope that young Kerrigan would muster the town band again and play “The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” once or twice more. He did not do so, but the waiting people were rewarded for their patience by two events of some interest. Mr. Gregg came out of the barrack and crossed the square rapidly. He caught Dr. O’Grady and Major Kent just as they were turning to follow Mr. Billing into the hotel. Mr. Gregg was in uniform, and the determined way in which he took Dr. O’Grady by the arm would have made most people uncomfortable. It is not pleasant, even if your conscience is quite clear, to be grabbed suddenly by a police officer in the middle of the street. But Dr. O’Grady did not seem to mind. He went, though not very willingly, with Mr. Gregg into the police barrack. Major Kent followed them. Several men, perhaps a dozen, drifted across the square towards the barrack door. They had some hope of finding out what Mr. Gregg wanted with the doctor. They were not, however, given the opportunity of peering through the barrack windows. Sergeant Colgan saw them in good time and dispersed them at once.
“Get along home now out of that,” he said, “every one of yez.”
Then another event of great interest occurred. Mr. Billing backed his large motor-car along the lane which led from Doyle’s back yard, and emerged into the square. There the car growled angrily while he shifted the levers and twisted the steering wheel. The people scattered this way and that while the machine, darting backwards and forwards, was gradually turned round. A splendid burst of cheering pursued him when he finally sped down the street and disappeared. It was understood by those who heard his speech that he had gone off at more than twenty miles an hour to ransack the great European libraries for information about General John Regan. Everyone felt that the splendid eagerness of his departure reflected a glory on Ballymoy.
Mr. Gregg led Dr. O’Grady and Major Kent into his office. He shut the door, offered his two guests chairs, and then lit a cigarette.
“It’s rather an awkward business,” he said, “and perhaps I oughtn’t to say anything about it.”
“If it hasn’t anything to do with me personally,” said the Major, “I think I’ll leave you and the doctor to settle it together. I want to get home as soon as I can.”