"None of that, young woman," he said, sternly. "You'll just come along with me! 'Ouse-breaking it is; I watched you in and I watched you hout."
He took me by the arm, and I went along. There was nothing else to do. I tried to drop my hand bag as we went, but he heard it and picked it up. I was rather dazed. The only thing I could think of was that for the sake of the Cause and Poppy I must not tell who I was. But I begged him to send an officer to Poppy's house, because there was a burglar in it, probably after the idea of Vivian's new novel.
At the police station they telephoned Poppy, and here she made her terrible mistake. She said afterwards that if Daphne had only explained she'd have known. But she thought it was all a part of the plot, and she went back to her studio and said she'd lost the money out of a table drawer. She told how it was, in notes and gold, and, of course, they found the exact amount in my bag. She says that when they told her they had it and a young woman too, she almost swooned. She tried to find Basil, but he was not in his rooms and Daphne had been arrested at Edgware Road and was incommunicado!
Poppy's position was pitiable. She didn't know what to do. If she declared the plot and freed me, all London would laugh, and the Cause would suffer. If she did not declare the plot, I would get a prison sentence. I have drawn a poor picture of Poppy if you think I stood a chance against The Cause.
That is how things stood the next morning; Daphne, Vivian and I in jail, and Poppy in hysterics. Then a curious thing happened. The evening papers announced that Vivian had paid the tax for Poppy and was free. Viv repudiated the payment—said he had not done it, and refused his liberty.
"Mr. Harcourt," said one paper, "is quite thin and shows the strain of his confinement. He is apparently cheerful, but very feeble, supporting himself by the back of a chair while he stood. His eyes flashed, however, as he stated that the Income Tax office could not legally accept the payment, as it was not his money. If any of his supporters had, in mistaken zeal, taken a collection for this purpose, he could only regret their action and refuse to profit by it."
At this time I had refused to talk and Poppy was in bed.
But on the next day the Times published a letter, signed "Only a Man" which stirred the whole thing up again. The writer declared that the tax had been paid with Vivian's own money, that the writer himself had stolen it out of a desk in Mr. Harcourt's house, that it had been sent by messenger to the proper authorities, and a receipt issued, which was appended. And that, in other words, while Mr. Harcourt was to be lauded for his principles, his refusal to accept his liberty was now absurd. Also, the writer was under the impression that an innocent person was being held for his crime.
This story being investigated by the authorities and Poppy's recovering enough to come down and identify me, furiously indignant at my detention and outraged that I had not told my name and how I came to be leaving her house at that hour, which she said was because we had had a long talk about the next campaign, I was freed at last. It leaked out like this:
(a) Viv was free with no loss of principle.