The climax came at a party arranged for after the show in Sophie's Mayfair apartment. Rodrigo had recruited Bill Terhune, Bond and three or four other Oxford friends for the fun. They had accumulated Sophie, Adele and a quartet of their sister coryphees at the theatre after the evening performance and whirled them through the London streets in a fleet of taxicabs. At two o'clock in the morning the party was in full swing. The tinpanny piano crashed out American jazz under the nimble fingers of Sophie. Leslie Bond numbered drumming among his numerous avocations and had brought along the clamorous tools of his hobby. His hysterical efforts on drums, cymbals and cowbells augmented the din and broke both drums.
The revelers sang, danced, drank and made love. Bill Terhune, under the impetus of spirits, was especially boisterous.
There was a sharp knocking upon the door. A corpulent, red-faced Englishman in a frayed and gaudy bathrobe announced that he occupied the apartment below, had been awakened by plaster falling upon his bed and his person, and that "this Donnybrook Fair must cease at once." He was set upon joyously by three burly Oxonians and good-naturedly propelled down the stairs.
Sophie, from the piano, however, did not share their enthusiasm. "It may interest you impetuous lads to know that our killjoy friend is a magistrate and will probably have a couple of bobbies here in five minutes," she warned them. They laughed at her and the party went on.
In twenty minutes there was another knock. Two bobbies, each built like Dempsey, confronted Rodrigo when he opened the door. The policemen entered with that soft, authoritative tread that London police have. One of them laid hands upon Bill Terhune. Bill, former intercollegiate boxing champion, was in a flushed and pugnacious mood. He promptly struck the officer in the face and sent him reeling to the floor.
Immediately the party grew serious. Englishmen respect the police. An American may attack a Broadway policeman, but hitting a London bobby is something else again. The other bobby swung into action with his club. There was a concerted rush for the door. Rodrigo could have easily escaped. But he chose instead to stand by Sophie, who, he knew, was due for trouble as the tenant of the apartment. When the tumult and the shouting died, the room contained Sophie, Rodrigo, one angry bobby with pencil raised over his book, and one still bobby recumbent upon the floor.
"The names now—the right ones," commanded the erect bobby.
"First, don't you think we'd better revive your friend on the floor?" Rodrigo suggested.
When they had brought the fallen one back to life, Rodrigo soothingly and skillfully persuaded the officers to let Sophie alone, to allow him to assume sole responsibility for the trouble. He asked only permission to telephone his uncle, Sir William Newbold. The bobbies generously consented to take him, without Sophie, to jail for the rest of the night, but they declined to allow him the use of the telephone.
The jail cell was cold, cramped and dirty. Rodrigo's cellmate was a hairy navvy recovering from a debauch. Rodrigo had to listen to the fellow's alternate snoring and maudlin murmurings until dawn. When, around ten o'clock in the morning, he did succeed in getting in touch with his uncle, the latter's influence was sufficient to secure his release.