Gave your name for surety." The constable announced this in a firm ba.s.s 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 a.s.sault--even aggeravated. But the Inspector took the report . . . and the Inspector, if I may say so, knows a gentleman when he sees one."

"Was he--" I began, and corrected myself. "Was Mr. Collingwood drunk?--strictly between ourselves, as you put it."

"No, sir." The honest man gave his verdict slowly. "I shan't be called for evidence: but I seen him and talked with him. Sober and bright, sir; and, when I left, in the best of sperrits. But I wouldn't say as how he hadn't been more than happy earlier in the evening."

"Thank you, Constable," said I. "You'll find a decanter, a syphon, and a gla.s.s set out for the prodigal's return, all on the table in the next room. Possibly you'll discover what to do with them while I dress. Smithers, turn on the light out there, and get me a taxi if you can. For I suppose," said I to the constable, "this means that I've to turn out and go with you?"

"I am afraid so, sir, and thanking you kindly. But as for the taxi, I came in one and took the liberty to keep it waiting--at this hour."

"Very thoughtful of you," said I, with a look at my watch. The time was 12.50.

"Not at all, sir. Mr. Collingwood turned out the loose change in his pocket and told me not to spare expense. Here it is, sir--one pound, seventeen--and I'd be glad if you took it and paid the whole fare at the end of the run."

"Good," said I, amused. "Jimmy is obviously sober. I never knew him drunk--really drunk--for that matter." I had my legs out of bed by this time, and the constable was bashfully withdrawing, Smithers having turned on the lights in the outer room. "Stop a moment," I commanded. "You may not believe it, but I'm a child at this game.

How much money shall I have to take? . . . I don't know that I have more than a tenner loose about me--unless I can raise something off Smithers."

The constable relaxed his face into a smile, or something approaching one. "There is no money needed--not at this hour of the night.

Your recognisances, Sir Roderick--for a fiver or so, if you ask me.

But--" and here he hesitated.

"Well?"

"There's the other gentleman, sir. Mr. Collingwood _did_ mention--"

"Oh, did he?" I cut in. "It was silly, maybe, to have forgotten him all this time--I'm a sound sleeper; and even when awake my mind moves slowly. But who the Hades is this other gentleman?"

"When arrested, sir, he gave his name as Martin Frobisher," said the constable with just a tremor of the eyelids, "and his address as North-West Pa.s.sage; he wouldn't say more definitely. At the station he asked leave to correct this, and said that his real name was Martin Luther, a foreigner, but naturalised for years, and we should find his papers at the Reform Club, S.W."

"I don't seem to have met either of these Martins--or not in life,"

I said thoughtfully.

"Well, sir, if you ask _me_," he agreed, "I should be surprised if you had; for between ourselves, as it were, I don't believe he's either of his alleged Martins. And the Station don't think much of his names and addresses."

"Does _he_ want to be bailed out, too?" I asked.

"He didn't ask it. He weren't in no condition, sir--as you might put it--when I left. But Mr. Collingwood, he says to me (I took a note, sir, of the very words he used)"--the man pulled out a note-book from his breast-pocket, and held it forward under the light--"'You go to Sir Roderick,' he says, 'and tell him from me that the prodigal is returned bearing his calf with him.'" The constable read it out carefully, word by word. "I don't know what it means, sir; but that was his message, and he said it twice over."

"There seems to be more in this than meets the eye," said I, pondering the riddle.

"You wouldn't say so, sir, if you'd seen Hagan's," said he, retiring with the last word and, on top of it, a genially open grin.

I was dressed in ten minutes or so, and we sped to Ensor Street.

There I found my young reprobate sober and cheerful and unabashed.

"Sorry to give you this trouble, old man," was his greeting.

"Sort of thing that happens when a fellow gets mixed up in politics."

"You shall tell me all about it," said I, "when we've gone through the little formalities of release. . . . What have I to sign?"

I asked the sergeant who played escort.

"Oh, but wait a moment," put in Jimmy. "There's another bird. The animals came in two by two--eh, Sergeant Noah? I say, Otty, you'll be in a fearful way when you see him. But I couldn't help it--upon my soul I couldn't: and you'll have to be kind to him."

"Who is it?" I demanded.

"It's--Well, he gave the name of Martin Luther. But you judge for yourself. Sergeant Bostock--or are you Wombwell?--take Sir Haroun Alraschid to the next cage and show him the Great Reformer."

To the next cell I was led in a state of expectancy that indeed justified his allusion to the _Arabian Nights_. And the door opened and the light shone--upon Mr. Peter Farrell!

It was a swollen eye that Mr. Farrell upturned to us from his low bed, and a swollen and bloodied lip that babbled contrition along with appeals to be "got out of this" and lamentations for the day he was born; and as on that day so on this a mother had found it hard to recognise him. He wore a goodly but disorganised raiment; a fur-lined great-coat, evening dress beneath it; but the tie was missing, the shirt-collar had burst from its stud, the shirt-front showed blood-stains, dirty finger-marks, smears of mud. Mud caked his coat, its fur: apparently he had been rolling in mud. But the worst was that he wept.

He wept copiously. Was it the late Mr. Gladstone who invented the phrase "Reformation in a Flood"? Anyhow, it kept crossing and re-crossing my mind absurdly as I surveyed this wreck that had called itself Martin Luther. All the wine in him had turned to tears of repentance, and he was pretty nauseous. I told him to stand up.

"This--er--gentleman," said I to the police-sergeant, "is called Farrell--Mr. Peter Farrell. He lives," I said, as the address at the foot of the _Times_ letter came to my memory, "at The Acacias, Wimbledon."

The sergeant nodded slowly. "That's right, sir. I knew him well enough. Attended a meeting of his only last Sat.u.r.day--on duty, that's to say."

We smiled. "He's not precisely a friend of mine," said I. "But we have met in public life, and I'll be answerable for him. We must get him out of this."

"There's no difficulty, sir, since we have the address. There was no card or letter in his pocket, and he said he came from Wittenberg through the Gates of h.e.l.l. I looked him up in the Directory and the address is as you state. . . . But to tell you the truth, sir, I didn't ring up his telephone number, thinking as a nap might bring him round a bit. . . . We keep a taxi or two on call for these little jobs, and I'll get a driver that can be trusted. I'll call up Sam Hicks. There was a latch-key in the gentleman's pocket, and Sam Hicks is capable of steering a case like this to bed and leaving the summons pinned on his dressing-gown for a reminder. . . . But perhaps you'll call around for him to-morrow morning, sir, and bring him?"

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do," said I. "He must take his risks and I'll risk the bail. . . . Look here!"--I took Mr. Farrell by the collar and my fingers touched mud. "Pah!" said I. "Can't we clean him up a bit before consigning him? . . . Look here, Farrell! I'm sending you home. Do you understand? And you're to return here on peril of your life at ten o'clock. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Sir Roderick," sobbed Farrell. "Angels must have sent you, Sir Roderick. . . . I have unfortunately mislaid my gla.s.ses and something seems to be obscuring the sight of my left eye. But I recognised your kindly voice, Sir Roderick. The events of the past few hours are something of a blank to me at present: but may I take the liberty of wringing my deliverer by the hand?"

"Certainly not," said I. "Sit up and attend. Have you a wife?

Sit up, I say. Will Mrs. Farrell by any chance be sitting up?"

"I thank G.o.d," answered Mr. Farrell fervently, "I am a widower.

It is the one bright spot. Could my poor Maria look down from where she is, and see me at this moment--"

"It _is_ a slice of luck," I agreed. "Well, you're in the devil of a mess, and you've goosed yourself besides losing a promising seat for the party. What on earth--but we'll talk of that to-morrow.

You must turn up, please, and see it out. I don't know what defence, if any, you can put up: but by to-morrow you'll have a d.a.m.natory eye that will spoil the most ingenious. My advice is, don't make any.

Cut losses, and face the music. This is a queer country; but the Press, which has been ragging you for weeks, will deal tenderly with you as a drunk and incapable."