The Abbey bells were ringing for afternoon service, and there were many people about, churchgoers and holiday makers in their Sunday clothes. The contrast between the sunny streets, with their cheerful crowds, and the silent sinister tragedy of the scene I had just left struck me forcibly.
If I had sent Jenkins on the errand, I guess he would have created quite a sensation. That is why I went myself; and I doubt if any one saw anything unusual about me, as I threaded my way quietly through the throng at Whitehall corner, where the ’buses stop to take up passengers.
A minute or two later I was in an inspector’s room at “the Yard,” giving my information to a little man who heard me out almost in silence, watching me keenly the while.
I imagine that I appeared quite calm. I could hear my own voice stating the bald facts succinctly, but, to my ears, it sounded like the voice of some one else, for it was with a great effort that I retained my composure. I knew that this strange and terrible event which I had been the one to discover was only another link in the chain of circumstances, which, so far as my knowledge went, began less than twenty-four hours ago; a chain that threatened to fetter me, or the girl I loved. For my own safety I cared nothing. My one thought was to protect Anne, who must be, either fortuitously, or of her own will, involved in this tangled web of intrigue.
I should, of course, be subjected to cross-examination, and, on my way to Scotland Yard, I had decided just what I meant to reveal. I would have to relate how I encountered the old Russian, when he mistook my flat for Cassavetti’s; but of the portrait in his possession, of our subsequent interview, and of the incident of the river steps, I would say nothing.
For the present I merely stated how Jenkins and I had discovered the fact that a murder had been committed.
“I dined in company with Mr. Cassavetti last night,” I continued. “But before that—”
I was going to mention the mysterious Russian; but my auditor checked me.