"Mr. Gregory, the insurance—" began Anderson Crow, but he was cut short.
"Mr. Crow deserves great credit for this piece of detective work. His mere presence is a guaranty of safety to those of you who are not thieves. You all have your hands up? Thanks. Mr. Crow, please keep those actors quiet. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is not always an easy matter to distinguish thieves from honest men. I will first give the desperadoes a chance to surrender peaceably. No one steps forward? Very well. Keep your hands up, all of you. The man who lowers his hands will be instantly regarded as a desperado and may get a bullet in his body for his folly. The innocent must suffer with the guilty. Mr. Crow, shall we proceed with the search?"
"Yes, sir; go right ahead, and be quick," replied Anderson Crow.
"Very well, then, in the name of the law, my men will begin the search. They will pass among you, ladies and gentlemen, and any effort to retard their progress will be met with instant—well, you know."
Before the petrified audience could fully realise what was taking place, three of the detectives were swiftly passing from person to person, stripping the women of their jewels, the men of their money and their watches. A half-hearted protest went up to Anderson Crow, but it was checked summarily by the "searching party." It was well for the poor marshal that he never knew what the audience thought of him at that ghastly moment.
It was all over in five minutes. The detectives had searched every prosperous-looking person in the audience, under the very nose and guns of Marshal Crow, and they were sardonically bidding the assemblage a fond good-bye from the flapping doorway in the side wall. Andrew Gregory addressed the crowd, smiling broadly.
"We found a good many more robbers in the crowd than we could conveniently handle, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, I never came across such a rare collection of hold-up men outside of Wall Street. The only perfectly honest man in Tinkletown to-night is Anderson Crow, your esteemed marshal. Believe me, he is ridiculously honest. He may be a damn fool, but he is honest. Don't blame him. Thanking you, one and all, for your generous help in our search for the train robbers, we bid you an affectionate farewell. We may meet again if you travel extensively on express trains. Good-night!"
With a taunting laugh, Andrew Gregory dropped the flap and leaped after his companions. Bracken's chauffeur lay senseless by the roadside, and one of the "detectives" sat in his seat. Even as the audience opened its collective mouth to shout its wrath and surprise, the big touring car, with six armed men aboard, leaped away with a rush. Down the dark road it flew like an express train, its own noise drowning the shouts of the multitude, far behind.
Bonner, recovering from his stupefaction and rage, led the pursuit, first commanding Rosalie to hurry home with the women and lock herself safely indoors.
Anderson Crow, realising what a dupe he had been in the hands of the clever scoundrels, was covered with fear and shame. The outraged crowd might have killed him had not his escape been made under cover of darkness. Shivering and moaning in abject misery, the pride of Tinkletown fled unseeing, unthinking into the forest along the river. He was not to know until afterward that his "detectives" had stripped the rich sojourners of at least ten thousand dollars in money and jewels. It is not necessary to say that the performance of "As You Like It" came to an abrupt end, because it was not as they liked it. Everybody knew by this time that they had seen the celebrated "train robbers."