‘I feel I am bound to apologise, sir, for letting you in for so much unpleasantness. I blame myself; I was over-confident, and have got a well-deserved slap to my professional pride as the result.’
‘How so?’ I asked him.
‘Why, I delayed too long before opening those double doors in my eagerness to secure all the evidence I could—a mistake which might be excusable in a youngster, but not in one of my standing. The very secret of our business is to know the moment for action to a tick. I let them both get too worked up. And, worked up as they were, he being Italian, I ought to have foreseen the likelihood of that knife. No, sir, look at it what way I will, I am bound to blame myself. It is a discredit, in my opinion, and a grave one, for a man in my position to have a murder—and in broad daylight too—committed within three yards of his nose. The less said the better, I’m afraid, for some time to come, sir, about Lavender’s luck.’
I consoled the mortified and over-conscientious hunter of criminals and crime to the best of my ability; and then, thankfully bidding farewell to that blood-stained and tragic little house, pushed my way, with Lavender’s help, through the gaping and curious crowd in the street, and, bestowing myself in the coach one of his men had called for me, rumbled and jolted back to Grosvenor Square through the hot, thundery dusk.
(To be continued.)
WAR AND DIPLOMACY IN SHAKESPEARE.
An address given to the Ancoats Brotherhood, April 2, 1916.
BY SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART.
Being bidden to set down a subject for your entertainment, advised that it should have some relation to Shakespeare, and unable to distract my thoughts from war and the state of Europe for long together, I combined war, diplomacy, and Shakespeare at a venture; I had never considered Shakespeare’s work, as bearing on either of those topics, with any particular attention, and had no settled expectation of what might be the outcome.