"Are you quite ready to go?"
"Quite, sir."
"Mount then."
The servant did as he was bid, and Mr. Chandos continued, putting the note he had written into his hands.
"Go straight to Warsall, to the police-station, and deliver this. Do not loiter."
James touched his hat, then his horse, and cantered off.
Ever since I had seen the police at Mr. Edwin Barley's, at the time of the death of Philip King, I had felt an invincible dread of them; they were always associated in my mind with darkness and terror. The gendarmes in France had not tended to reassure me; with their flashing uniform, their cocked hats, their conspicuous swords, and their fiery horses; but the police there were quite another sort of people, far more harmless than ours. The worst I saw of them was the never-ending warfare they kept up with the servant-maids for being late in washing before the doors in a morning. The cook at Miss Barlieu's, Marie, called them old women, setting them at defiance always: but one day they cited her before the tribunal, and she had to pay a fine of five francs.
The police arrived in the afternoon; two, in plain clothes; and Mr. Chandos was closeted with them alone. Then we heard—at least, I did—that the servants' pockets were to be examined, and their boxes searched. I was standing in the hall, looking wistful enough, no doubt, when Mr. Chandos and his two visitors came forth from the drawing-room.
"You appear scared," he stayed to say, smiling in my face. "Have no fear."
They were disappearing down the passage that led to the kitchens and thence to the servants' rooms above, when Mrs. Penn came in with her bonnet on. She gazed after the strangers.