The constables prick up their ears.
“The organ-grinder!” exclaims Holmes, with more excitement than I had thought him capable of.
“The man as made the butler drunk and gagged the cook!” cries Lecoq.
Here is a fine situation for a political fugitive! I am indignant. I am pathetic. 'No use. I explain frankly that I came to see Mr. Hankey. That only deepens suspicion, for it seems that the excellent Hankey inhabited Mount Olympus House next door for only three weeks, and departed a month ago without either paying his rent or explaining the odor of dead bodies proceeding from his cellars. Doubtless my French friends had acted for the best in sending me to him, but would that he had taken the trouble to inform them of his change of address! And then, why had I ever thought of being an Italian? It appeared now that a gentleman of that nationality, having won the confidence of the Thompson children and the Thompson servants by his skill upon the hand-organ, had basely misused it in the fashion indicated by Lecoq. Certainly it was hard to see why such a skilled artist should have returned the very next night to a house three doors away, and then bungled his business so shamefully; but that argument is beyond the imagination of my bobbies. In fact, they seem only too pleased to find a thief so ready to meet them half-way.
“Thank you, sir,” says Holmes, at the conclusion of the painful scene. “We shouldn't mind a drop.”
This means that they are about to be rewarded for their share in the capture by a glass of Fisher's ale. And I? Well, I am not to have any ale, but I am to accompany them to the cells, and next morning make my appearance before the magistrate on one charge of burglary and another of attempted burglary.
I cannot resist one parting shot at my late host.
“Yes, Fisher,” I remark, critically, showing no hurry to leave the room, “I like that portrait of you. It has all your plain, well-fed, plum-pudding appearance, without your unpleasant manner of breathing and your ridiculous conversation—and it is not married to Mrs. Fisher.”
To this there is no reply. Indeed, I do not think they recovered their senses for at least ten minutes after I left the room.