“Let go, by God, let go, or I’ll kill you.”
But Tom Bob only smiled: “Kill me, eh?” he laughed, “what with? with your revolver; just feel in your pocket with your free hand, my fine little man, you’ll find your gun’s not there any more.”
The startled thief gave a choking cry of terror; mechanically he did as he was bid and searched his pocket. The detective was right, his revolver had vanished.
“It was I confiscated it, my lad,” the detective informed him, “you are too young to use such weapons handily; a student, the deuce!... a student like you can’t expect to have the dexterity of a master like me; besides, we have this little difference between us, I’m on the job for honest reasons, while you ...”
The arrested fugitive threw himself on the ground, hoping in this way to slip out of the detective’s grasp. The latter went on calmly twisting the fellow’s arm, who swore savagely, glaring like a trapped wild beast at his captor.
Attracted by the noise of the struggle a number of people had run to the spot; amongst the first to arrive were Van Buren and Ascott. In a moment they had realized what had occurred, and with a mighty cheer acknowledged the wonderful perspicacity of their compatriot, who had marked down among the throng of passengers the individual who was undoubtedly the culprit and had arrested him so cleverly. All recognized the man, it was the young Frenchman, the same who had given himself out as a medical student.
Mrs. Bigelow had come to take a peep at Tom Bob’s prisoner, and now rejoined Sonia Danidoff: “It is quite true, my dear,” she confided to the princess, “Mr. Bob was quite right, one must beware of people who are ill shod; that man wore horrid bad boots.” The princess was very pale and still quite unstrung: “It’s frightful, these things, appalling; it has made me quite ill!”
Meantime the compartment into which, finding it by chance unoccupied, the American detective had unceremoniously pushed his prisoner, resounded with a chorus of indignant outcries against the pseudo-student. As quick as lightning the police-officer had secured the fellow’s wrists with a miniature pair of handcuffs, so small as to be hardly visible, but strong enough to bear any strain.
The Superintendent now appeared on the scene much harassed by all these varied incidents, on which he would have to make a circumstantial report, a task made the more difficult by the fact that the worthy official, having no actual knowledge of the details, was asking himself which of the two parties was actually in the right and which in the wrong, these foreign fashionables travelling without tickets or the young Parisian whom an American police-officer had taken upon himself to handcuff.
“I don’t wish to hear a word,” declared the Superintendent, “I’m not going to decide between you, you will make your explanations to the Special Constabulary at the terminus.”