As Furneaux and Osborne were being driven rapidly to Poland Street, bent on the speedy release of Rosalind, Inspector Winter, for his part, was seeking for Furneaux in a fury of haste, eager to arrest his colleague before the latter could arrest Osborne. At the same time Clarke, determined to bring matters to a climax by arresting Janoc, was lurking about a corner of Old Compton Street, every moment expecting the passing of his quarry. Each man was acting without a warrant. The police are empowered to arrest "on suspicion," and each of the three could produce proof in plenty to convict his man.
As for Winter, he knew that where Osborne was Furneaux would not be far that day. Hence, when in the forenoon he received notice from one of his watchers that Furneaux had that morning deliberately fled from observation, he bade his man watch Osborne's steps with one eye, while the other searched the offing for the shadow of Furneaux, on the sound principle that "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together."
Thus Osborne's ride to Holland Park to see Hylda Prout had been followed; and, two hours afterwards, while he was still waiting for Hylda's arrival, Winter's spy from behind the frosted glass of a public-house bar had watched Furneaux's arrival and long wait on the pavement. He promptly telephoned the fact to Winter, and Winter was about to set out westward from Scotland Yard when the detective telephoned afresh to say that Mr. Osborne had appeared out of the house, and had been accosted by Furneaux. The watcher, quite a smart youngster from a suburban station, hastened from his hiding-place. Evidently, Furneaux was careless of espionage at that moment. He hailed a cab without so much as a glance at the man passing close to Osborne and himself on the pavement, and it was easy to overhear the address given to the driver—a house in Poland Street.
Why to Poland Street Winter could not conceive. At all events, the fact that the drive was not to a police-station inspired him with the hope that Osborne's arrest was for some reason not yet an accomplished fact, and he, too, set off for Poland Street, which happily lay much nearer Scotland Yard than Holland Park.
Meantime, Osborne and Furneaux were hastening eastward in silence, Osborne with his head bent between his clenched hands, and an expression of face as wrenched with pain as that of a man racked with neuralgia. It was now that he began to feel in reality the tremendousness of the vow he had just made to marry Hylda Prout, in order to set Rosalind free. Compared to that his impending arrest was too little a thing for him to care about. But as they were spinning along by Kensington Gardens, a twinge of curiosity prompted him to ask why he was to be arrested now, after being assured repeatedly that the police would not formulate any charge against him.
Furneaux looked straight in front of him, and when he answered, his voice was metallic.
"There was no escaping it, Mr. Osborne," he said. "But be thankful for small mercies. I was waiting there in the street for you, intending to pounce on you at once, but when I knew that you had sacrificed yourself for Miss Marsh, I thought, 'He deserves to be permitted to release her': for, to promise to marry Miss Prout——"
"What are you saying? How could you possibly know that I promised to marry Miss Prout?"
Osborne's brain was still seething, but some glimmer of his wonted clear judgment warned him of the exceeding oddity of the detective's remark.
"Well, you told me that you had 'bought' the knowledge of her whereabouts with 'your youth and your life'—so I assumed that there could be no other explanation."