icle set
me hoping that Travers was a strong man and would use the law of
libel: it deserved the horsewhip. It left a taste in the mouth that
required a second whisky-and-apollinaris before I sought my bed,
sleepily promising myself that I would call on Farrell in the
morning, however inconvenient it might be, and help to put an end to
this nonsense. . . . I would, if the worst came to the worst, even
drag the fool to Jack's laboratory and convince him of his folly.

And this promise, as will be seen, I carried out to the very last
letter.

A rapping on my bedroom door fetched me out of my beauty sleep.
I started up in bed and switched on the electric light.

"That you, Jimmy?" I called. "Come in, you ass, and say what you
want. If it's the corkscrew--"

"If you please, Sir Roderick--sorry to disturb you--" said a voice
outside which I recognised as the night-porter's.

"Smithers?" I called. "What's wrong? . . . Open the door, man. . . .
Is the place on fire?"

The door opened and showed me Smithers with a tall policeman looming
behind him.

"Hallo!" said I, sitting up straighter and rubbing my eyes.

"Constable, sir," explained Smithers, "with a message for you.
Says he must see you personally."

The constable spoke while I stared at him, my eyes blinking under the
bed-light. "It's a dream," I was telling myself. "Silly kind of
dream--"

"Gentleman in the Ensor Street Police Court, sir. Requires bail
till to-morrow--till ten-thirty this morning, I should have said.
Gave your name for surety." The constable announced this in a firm
bass voice, respectful but business-like. "Said he was a friend of
yours."

"What's his name?" I demanded.

"Gave the name of James Collingwood, sir--and this same address."

I gasped. "Jimmy?--Oh, I beg your pardon, Constable!--What has Mr.
Collingwood been doing?"

"He's _charged_, sir," the constable answered carefully, "with
resisting the police in the execution of their duty."

"What duty?"

"There was another gent took up, sir: and I may say, between
ourselves, as your friend, sir, put up a bit of a fight for him.
Very nimble with his fists he was, sir, or so I heard it mentioned.
I wasn't myself mixed up in the affair. But from the faces on them
as brought him in I should say, strikly between ourselves, he's lucky
the word isn't assault--even aggeravated. But the Inspector took the
report . . . and the Inspector, if I may say so, knows a gentleman