“Very well then,” said Demaine, “you’ve got to do two things. You’ve got to cleanse me and to clothe me and to hide me during the next few hours if the necessity arises.”
“I don’t know why you shouldn’t cleanse yourself,” said William Bailey thoughtfully. “You’ve never learned a trade, Dimmy, and you were never handy or quick at things, but you’re a grown man, and there’s lots of hot water and soap and stuff in the bathroom; there was a beastly thing called a loofah that Merry had left there, but I’ve burned it.”
“Don’t be a fool, Bill!” pleaded Demaine, “there isn’t time, really there isn’t. Then tell me, what clothes have you?”
“Mine are too narrow in the shoulders for you,” said William Bailey, thinking, “Zachary is altogether too thin. You’re big, Dimmy, not to say fat. The trousers wouldn’t meet and the coat wouldn’t go on. But I can put you to bed and send for clothes. What d’you mean about hiding? I can see you have some reasons for privacy; in fact if you hadn’t, getting up that chimney would be a schoolboy sort of thing to do at your age. Have you been bathing without a licence, and some one stolen your clothes? Or have they been having a jolly rag at the Buteleys’? They’re close by.”
“I’ll tell you when I’ve washed,” said Demaine wearily, “only now do let me slip up to the bathroom like a good fellow. Good God, I’m tired!”
William Bailey opened the door and peered cautiously into the corridor, listened for footsteps and heard none, and then, after locking the door of the study behind him, as was his ridiculous habit, he popped up a narrow pair of stairs, with Dimmy, whose old nature had sufficiently returned to cause him to stumble, following at his heels.
They were not quite out of the range of the front door when there came a violent pull at the bell, and Elise went forward to open it.
William Bailey pushed his guest and cousin into the bathroom and went down to meet two policemen who stood with awful solemnity, clothed in suspicion and in power, at his threshold. From the depths of his sanctuary and through the crack of the half-open window, Demaine heard a conversation that did not please him.
“Very sorry to have to ask you sir,” a deep bass was saying, “we’re bound to do it.”
“We’re bound to do it,” echoed a tenor.