“you had better go home quietly, sir.”
And he bundled me into a cab, and took my name and address, and the next moment I was bowling along on my road to St. John’s Wood.
It was nearly six in the morning when I arrived, and, fortunately, no one heard me when I let myself in with my latch-key.
My wife thought I had only been sitting up extra late at my work, and I told her nothing of my night’s adventure. But I summoned two able-bodied detectives to my aid, and they agreed to await with me the lunatic’s second visit. My family supposed that the detectives had come to assist me in getting up a tale of crime, and I did not undeceive them. So I despatched them to bed at an earlier hour than usual, on the plea that I did not wish to be disturbed, and sat with my companions in the study watching for the madman.
Precisely at ten o’clock there was heard a heavy footstep on the gravel path without, and once more a knock—a single knock.
“He has come,” we whispered.
We had duly arranged our “plan of campaign,” and now proceeded to carry it out. The most stalwart of the detectives was to open the front door, and the other to hide behind it. My post was on the threshold of my study, where I was to stand as a “reserve.”
The men were wonderfully prompt in executing their operations. The street door had hardly been opened when there was a scuffle and a heavy fall, accompanied by much growling and cursing, and then the unmistakable sound of the snapping of a pair of handcuffs.
“It’s all right,” said the detective who had been behind the door, “we have got him and his six-shooter too.”