I was watching them, naturally a little interested. Mr. Parable, in helping the lady to adjust her cloak, drew her—it may have been by accident—towards him; and then it was that a florid gentleman with a short pipe in his mouth stepped forward and addressed the lady. He raised his hat and, remarking "Good evening," added that he hoped she was "having a pleasant time." His tone, I should explain, was sarcastic.
The young woman, whatever else may be said of her, struck me as behaving quite correctly. Replying to his salutation with a cold and distant bow, she rose, and, turning to Mr. Parable, observed that she thought it was perhaps time for them to be going.
The gentleman, who had taken his pipe from his mouth, said—again in a sarcastic tone—that he thought so too, and offered the lady his arm.
"I don't think we need trouble you," said Mr. Parable, and stepped between them.
To describe what followed I, being a lady, am hampered for words. I remember seeing Mr. Parable's hat go up into the air, and then the next moment the florid gentleman's head was lying on my counter smothered in cigarettes. I naturally screamed for the police, but the crowd was dead against me; and it was only after what I believe in technical language would be termed "the fourth round" that they appeared upon the scene.
The last I saw of Mr. Parable he was shaking a young constable who had lost his helmet, while three other policemen had hold of him from behind. The florid gentleman's hat I found on the floor of my kiosk and returned to him; but after a useless attempt to get it on his head, he disappeared with it in his hand. The lady was nowhere to be seen.
Miss Jenks thinks she would know her again. She was wearing a hat trimmed with black chiffon and a spray of poppies, and was slightly freckled.
Superintendent S. Wade, in answer to questions put to him by our representative, vouchsafed the following replies:
Yes. I was in charge at the Vine Street Police Station on the night of Thursday, the twenty-seventh.