"This is all foolishness, you know," Henry said, but his voice was spiritless and unconvincing, and Dr. Underwood groaned involuntarily.
"I haven't anything to do with that. All I have to do is to carry out orders. And I'll have to ask you to change your shoes. No, you don't!" He sprang forward and caught Henry roughly as the latter, at the word, rubbed his muddy shoe upon the rug on which he was standing. "We want your shoes, fresh mud and all. Just take them off, will you?"
"Take them off yourself," growled Henry, with a black look.
Higgins whistled and the two other men answered, one by melodramatically dropping in through the open window, and the other by appearing at the door. "Take off his shoes,--carefully, mind you. We want that mud on them. And get another pair for him, if you can find them."
He motioned Henry to sit down, but instead of dropping obligingly into the nearest chair, Henry stalked indignantly across the room and threw himself down on an upholstered lounge. Then he thrust out both feet before him with an arrogant air, and the two policemen, who had followed him closely, dropped on their knees and unfastened and removed his shoes. Higgins, who was proud of himself for thinking of a detail which might prove important, watched the process so closely that he paid no attention to anything else. Underwood, who leaned heavily against the door-casing, watched his son's face with a look that was something like despair. But Burton, who stood silently at one side, watched Henry, and so saw an apparently casual motion that took his right hand from the vicinity of his breast pocket to the inner edge of the upholstered seat of the lounge.
"Well, what next?" Henry asked brusquely, when the men had shod him.
"You will come with us," said Higgins.
He rose without a word, and reached for his hat and coat.
"Henry!" The word broke from Dr. Underwood like a cry. "Have you anything to say to me?"
Henry gave him one look, and then dropped his eyelids.