“The place has been smashed about, sir. Them hunger-marchers . . .”
“Any one hurt?”
“None of your people, sir; but we had to take our truncheons to the others. If you’ll see the inspector, sir . . .”
O’Rane bent his head and passed through the doorway, dragging me behind him by the wrist. Our path lay through an overgrown clump of evergreens; and, when we came into the open, on a strip of blighted lawn, it was my turn to catch O’Rane’s wrist while I surveyed the damage. So far as I could see in the uncertain light, there was not one whole pane of glass in the place; a door, torn from its hinges, lay athwart one of the trampled flower-beds; and under the boarding of the penthouse that did duty for a waiting-room there trickled a thin stream of black water. The lawn was carpeted with files and ledgers; the doorways were blocked with broken chairs; and the air was heavy with the smell of wet ashes.
“The place is wrecked?,” O’Rane broke in on my description. “That’s enough for the present. Find me the man in charge.”
In a corner of the main office we came upon a group of three constables, one inspector and two unexplained men in plain-clothes. They were talking in undertones round a table on which O’Rane’s secretary lay in a dead faint. Another clerk, white-faced and tremulous, sat in another corner with a telephone; a third wandered distractedly about the room, tidying books into place and sobbing gently to herself.
“This is Mr. O’Rane,” I told the inspector. “We understand no one’s been killed. That’s all we know.”
“It’s not the fault of those others that some one wasn’t killed. Excuse me, sir, she’s coming to,” he added in an undertone. “Don’t hurry her! Stand back there and give her room.”
3
Five minutes later we began to build up a composite explanation from the inspector’s report and the evidence of the three eye-witnesses. Shortly after one o’clock a man had called to see Mr. O’Rane; he gave no name, but said that he had been sent to the office from Westminster. On hearing that Mr. O’Rane was not yet arrived, he explained that he was spokesman of a deputation and would like to wait for an interview. The one clerk who was on duty during the luncheon-hour then tried to make an appointment for the next morning on the ground that Mr. O’Rane had said he would not be at the office until late, if indeed he came at all that day. The spokesman of the deputation replied that he had heard that story before and enquired sarcastically if he should lead his men back to Westminster.