“Bow Street Police Station.
“Dear Lord Cyril,—The matter is too serious for me to stand on any ceremony with you, and, therefore, I write quite straightforwardly to you, to report what you will doubtless hear in the course of your official duties—that Mr Hugh Glynn, the Secret Investigator, and myself have been arrested, and are now detained at the above address on some trumped-up charge of stealing certain manuscripts from my father on Worcester Racecourse.
“This action of the authorities, of course, quite precludes all chance of our meeting you and Colonel and Miss Napier and Lord Fotheringay at Stanton Street to-night. I put it to you now quite pointedly whether it is to the welfare of England that this interview should not take place?
“I suggest that you see the Home Secretary and get this action quashed. Otherwise, please regard our offer to treat with you as withdrawn, and, if necessary, we shall appeal to His Majesty the King himself, to see that there is no party jugglery with so vital a national issue as this recovery of the sacred lake of Tangikano. As to the charge of theft and assault, that, of course, is absurd, and must fail.
“Yours obediently, José Zouche Casteno.”
This note was read very carefully by the officers in charge of the station. But they had evidently received some secret instructions about us, for they pretended to treat it quite as an ordinary and commonplace communication, and permitted Casteno himself to enclose it in an envelope and hand it to a constable to carry to the Foreign Office.
Then we were conducted to a cell and left to our own devices, and for a time we kept ourselves lively enough, speculating on what would be the issue of the strong commanding line we had taken.
But as hour after hour slipped by and we received no sign from the outer world our hearts began to sink within us. Maybe, too, the atmosphere of that small, tightly-barred cell, with its narrow walls and depressing suggestions, had its baneful effect upon us. At all events, a sensation of fear seemed to seize us. We felt caged—bound—removed from the live, throbbing world of action to which we had grown so accustomed, and then, thus deprived of movement, we insensibly began to languish. All at once we realised what freedom really means—that it yields of itself a thousand pleasures, as a fish is surrounded by the unconscious sustenances of the sea.
Finally, as the night began to close in, a heavy step was heard in the whitewashed passage outside, and the wicket door was thrust open.
“Here is tea for two,” cried a gruff voice, “also a letter for José Casteno.” And I hastened to the entrance and received a tray on which stood two coarse mugs of tea and three or four huge slabs of real police-station bread and butter.