It was a frightful situation, such as I had never conceived even in my wildest dreams, but what was I to do? In silence I attired myself for this terrible expedition. My companion made me precede him to the street door, opened it himself, and closed it quietly behind us.
Side by side in silence we walked, the maniac keeping half a step in my rear, and I knew all the while that he had his right hand in his side pocket. Now and then he indicated the way we should go, and then he led me across the Regent’s Park, and so through street after street till we reached Hyde Park Corner. We passed several policemen by the way, but, unfortunately, none of them suspected or even particularly noticed us. I dared not give an alarm or attract attention, for did I not know that that dreadful hand was still in that dreadful side pocket?
Presently my companion paused, and said, as though speaking to himself:
“A member of the Royal Family would be best.”
I was rather glad to hear this, because if he intended that an illustrious personage should be his victim he was likely to be disappointed. Royal Highnesses are not usually found walking about in the neighbourhood of their palaces at two o’clock in the morning.
Thus we rambled to and fro near Buckingham and St. James’s Palaces and Marlborough House, need I say with no result? Not a single Prince was to be seen anywhere, and my companion seemed slightly disgusted.
“Hum!” he muttered. “They are hiding. Let us go now to Downing Street.”
He evidently thought that, failing Royalty, his next best course would be to slay a Cabinet Minister. But neither the Premier nor any of the Secretaries of State happened to be abroad at that hour.
Our walk down Whitehall proving uneventful, the madman next suggested that we should “try the Houses of Parliament.” Here the position seemed more dangerous. The House of Commons could not have long adjourned—it was in the days of late sittings—and it was quite possible that some belated M.P. might be on his way home.
Presently, indeed, my companion made a remark that filled me with horror.