“I thought so. You’ll come with me to the station, my man,” said Superintendent Bell, with admirable calm.
“What is it?” the man cried. His accent was slightly foreign. “What station? What do you mean?”
“You know all right,” said the Superintendent. “I am Superintendent Bell of Scotland Yard.”
“I do not know at all,” the man protested. “What do you want with me?”
The woman saw Reggie. She hissed something to the man in a foreign argot, and turned to run. The Superintendent laid hold of her. Inspector Mordan closed with the man. The Inspector was large and brawny, but at the end of a moment he was on his back and the man making off. Reggie dived for his legs in the manner of Rugby football, and they went down together.
The railway police came on the scene. The man was handcuffed, and he and the woman and the two detectives packed into a cab. Reggie and Gordon followed in another to the police station in Old Jewry.
When they arrived, the two prisoners were already in the charge-room and the woman was protesting vehemently, to the great edification of the uniformed inspector at the desk and a plain-clothes friend of his, and the embarrassment of Superintendent Bell and Inspector Mordan. It was an outrage. Why did they assault her and her husband? Why? They were respectable people. She would not endure it.
“Oh, Flora, Flora!” Reggie shook his head at her.
The woman whirled round on him. “You! Ah, it is you, then, the doctor. You are a traitor. You are a wicked villain. I spit upon you.” And she did. The man said something to her in the strange foreign argot they seemed to use between themselves, and she was silent.
The plain-clothes man came forward grinning. “Why, Bunco! It is my dear old pal, Bunco! What have they got you for now, old thing?” The man scowled. Dusty and bruised from the scuffle and in the ignominy of handcuffs, he had still a certain arrogant dignity. He was well made for all his slightness, and the strength which had upset Mordan showed in his poise. It was a dark, aquiline face with a good brow, but passionate and cruel.