“Thief!” he shouted, making the quiet square ring and ring again with the echo of that word.
His hand was upon Durfy’s collar, so fiercely that nothing but a hand-to-hand struggle could release its grip; unless—
Durfy’s hand dropped to his pocket. There was a flash and a scream, and next moment Blandford was clinging, groaning, to the railings of the square, while Durfy’s footsteps died away in the gloomy mazes of a network of back streets.
When Pillans got home to his lodgings that night he found his comrade in bed with a severe wound in the shoulder, unable to give any account of himself but that he had been first garotted, then robbed, and finally stabbed, on his way home from the Shades.
Mr Durfy did not present himself at Mr Medlock’s hotel at the appointed hour next morning.
Nor, although it was a fine calm day, and their luggage was all packed up and labelled, did Mr Medlock and his friend Mr Shanklin succeed in making their promised trip across the Channel. A deputation of police awaited them on the Victoria platform, and completely disconcerted their arrangements by taking them in a cab to the nearest police-station on a charge of fraud and conspiracy.