I was in a fever to get out of that place. My momentary lust of battle had gone, and every stone of that building seemed to me a threat. Chapman would have liked to spend a happy hour rummaging through the house, but the gravity of my face persuaded him. The truth is I was bewildered. I could not understand the reason of this sudden attack. Lumley's spies must long ago have told him enough to connect me with the Bokhara business. My visits to the Embassy alone were sufficient proof. But now he must have found out something new, something which startled him, or else there had been wild doings in Turkestan.
I won't forget that walk home in a hurry. It was a fine July twilight. The streets were full of the usual crowd, shop-girls in thin frocks, promenading clerks, and all the flotsam of a London summer. You would have said it was the safest place on earth. But I was glad we had the policeman with us, who at the end of one beat passed us on to his colleague, and I was glad of Chapman. For I am morally certain I would never have got home alone.
The queer thing is that there was no sign of trouble till we got into Oxford Street. Then I became aware that there were people on those pavements who knew all about me. I first observed it at the mouth of one of those little dark side-alleys which run up into mews and small dingy courts. I found myself being skilfully edged away from Chapman into the shadow, but I noticed it in time and butted my way back to the pavement. I couldn't make out who the people were who hustled me. They seemed nondescripts of all sorts, but I fancied there were women among them.
This happened twice, and I got wary, but I was nearly caught before we reached Oxford Circus. There was a front of a big shop rebuilding, and the usual wooden barricade with a gate. Just as we passed it there was a special throng on the pavement and I, being next the wall, got pushed against the gate. Suddenly it gave and I was pressed inward. I was right inside before I realised my danger, and the gate was closing. There must have been people there, but I could see nothing in the gloom.
It was no time for false pride. I yelled to Chapman and the next second his burly shoulder was in the gap. The hustlers vanished and I seemed to hear a polite voice begging my pardon.
After that Chapman and I linked arms and struck across Mayfair. But I did not feel safe till I was in the flat with the door bolted.
We had a long drink and I stretched myself in an armchair, for I was as tired as if I had come out of a big game of Rugby football.
"I owe you a good deal, old man," I said. "I think I'll join the Labour Party. You can tell your fellows to send me their whips. What possessed you to come to look for me?"
The explanation was simple. I had mentioned the restaurant in my telephone message, and the name had awakened a recollection in Chapman's mind. He could not fix it at first, but by and by he remembered that the place had cropped up in the Routh case. Routh's London headquarters had been at the restaurant in Antioch Street. As soon as he remembered this he got into a taxi and descended at the corner of the street, where by sheer luck he fell in with his Wensleydale friends.
He said he had marched into the restaurant and found it empty, but for an ill-favoured manager, who denied all knowledge of me. Then fortunately he chose to make certain by shouting my name, and heard my answer. After that he knocked the manager down, and was presently assaulted by several men whom he described as "furrin' muck." They had knives, of which he made very little, for he seems to have swung a table as a battering ram and left sore limbs behind him.