I had just disposed of a man who, after explaining that he had lost a purse something like twelve months ago, had a.s.sured the crowd, from the top of the stairs, that I was a colourable imitation of a thief, because I had declined to show him the one which I had found a couple of days before. He had been followed by an acidulated-looking female, who, I felt certain, was a tough morsel, and who was eyeing me, as Saunders spoke, as if I had been a convict at the least.

"Why? Are the people misbehaving?"

Saunders's face was more eloquent than his words.

"I don't believe there'll be much furniture left in the drawing-room if something isn't done. Cook's locked herself in the kitchen, and some of the people have gone downstairs--a pretty sort they are! If they aren't in the plate cupboard, they're in the pantry."

This was pleasant hearing. Before I could speak the acidulated lady--proving that my diagnosis of her character had not been unfounded--answered for me.

"And serve you quite right too! I believe that the whole affair's a swindle. You ought to be made to suffer. I don't believe you've found a purse at all."

"My dear madam, I a.s.sure you that I have!"

"Then why don't you let any of the poor creatures who have lost their purses have so much as a sight of it? If you have found a purse, why don't you show it to them like an honest man?" I sighed--the logic of people who had lost their purses was wonderful. "As for me, I'm not going through the farce of describing the purse I lost, because I know very well you haven't got it; but I'll tell you this--I've come all the way from Hackney, and I've wasted a day, and I don't mean to leave this house till you've paid me my expenses. I'll teach you to play tricks with innocent people! And"--she suddenly raised her voice--"if other people take my advice they will insist upon having their expenses paid them too!"

Before Saunders or I could interpose she had thrown the door wide open, and was addressing her, by now, excited audience, as if to the manner born.

"My good people, I am Sarah Eliza Warren, of Greenbush Villa, Hackney, and, like yourselves, I have been brought to this house by what seems to me to amount to false pretences. I don't believe that a purse has been found at all. If you take my advice you will do as I am doing--you will insist on being compensated for your loss of time, and for your out-of-pocket expenditure!"

I plainly perceived that further argument was useless. The idea of compensating that motley gathering for effecting a burglarious entry on to my premises was one which was too terrible to contemplate.

I threw up the window.

"Police! police!" I shouted.

A solitary policeman was in sight. Considering that the street in front of my house was rendered practically impa.s.sable by the concourse of people and of vehicles, the wonder was that the whole force had not been on the spot an hour ago. His attention had been attracted by the crowd; he was hastening towards it. Some fifty to sixty persons endeavoured to explain the situation as he advanced. He waved them majestically from him as only a policeman can. As he came near the house I shouted to him:

"I'm the owner of this house! I require your a.s.sistance, constable! I want you to turn these people out!"

The effect of my words was spoilt by the opening of the drawing-room window, which was immediately under the one at which I was. Half a dozen men and women thrust their heads out. They simultaneously addressed the constable. Under the circ.u.mstances he did the best thing he could have done--he blew his whistle.

V.

There ensued a scene of considerable excitement. Never tell me again that policemen do not come when they are wanted. As soon as that whistle was blown blue-coated officials began to appear in all directions. A policeman running is a sight to be seen--so the general public with leisure on its hands seemed to think, because each came attended by a tail of stragglers. What the neighbours thought of the proceedings Heaven only knows. People stood on the doorsteps, heads were thrust out of every window. Bangley Gardens had never before experienced such an occasion in the whole course of its history.

The behaviour of the persons who had lost their purses--or wished me to believe that they had--was disgraceful. Judging from the sounds they were wandering over the house wherever their fancy led them. A scuffle seemed to be taking place on the stairs, another in the hall, and there was plainly contention in the drawing-room. Mysterious noises in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Eight or nine excitable people had forced their way into my room, and, headed by "Sarah Eliza Warren," were addressing me in a fashion which, to say the least of it, was lacking in decorum. Meantime the original policeman was standing with his hands in his belt, waiting for the support of his colleagues before taking any steps whatever to save my property from being looted.

"Constable!" I screamed, "I am the owner of this house, and I shall hold you responsible for any damage that is done to my property. Come inside, I tell you, and turn these people out."

He apparently paid no heed to me whatever; I was not the only one who was screaming; The people at the drawing-room window were behaving as if they had just broken loose from Bedlam. From what I afterwards ascertained it seems as if some of them imagined that they were in for a colourable imitation of the original affair of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Suddenly I became conscious that the proceedings in my immediate neighbourhood had positively increased in liveliness. Turning, I perceived that Saunders was engaged in what looked very like a bout of fisticuffs with still another member of the unemployed; he had detected him in the act of pocketing a silver statuette. Regardless of who was standing in the way I rushed to his a.s.sistance. I struck out at somebody--somebody struck out at me. What immediately followed must have borne a strong family resemblance to the "divarsion" which marked the occasion of that immortal "Irish christenin'."

"What's the meaning of all this? Who's the owner of this house?"

Never was anything more welcome than the sight of the stalwart, blue-coated figure of the representative of law and order standing in the doorway. I tremble to think of what would have happened if his arrival had been delayed much longer.

"I am--what's left of him."

"Then, if you're the owner of the house, what are all these people doing in it?"

"Perhaps you will be so good as to ask them; they have certainly not been invited by me."

A voice was raised in explanation--the voice of "Sarah Eliza Warren."

"We 've been made the victims of a scandalous hoax, policeman, and if there's a law in the land this person ought to be made to suffer. He's lured people by false pretences from all parts of the country, and I, for one, don't mean to leave this house till he has compensated me for the loss and suffering he has caused me."

"More don't I," chimed in, of all persons, that felonious member of the unemployed.

"Officer, I give that man in charge for theft; my man has just caught him in the act of appropriating my property."

The man began to bl.u.s.ter.

"What are you talking about? Who do you think you are? You rob a poor bloke like me of a whole day's work, and then won't give me so much as a ha'penny piece to make up for it! A nice sort you are to talk of robbery!"

The constable raised his hand in the orthodox official manner, which is intended to soothe.

"Now, then! now, then!" He addressed me. "Is what these persons say true--have you been hoaxing them?"

"Most distinctly not; as, if you will be so good as to rid my house of their presence, I shall have much pleasure in promptly proving to you."

The sergeant--he was a sergeant--made short work of the clearance, even managing, by dint of an a.s.surance that he would listen to all she had to say afterwards, to dislodge "Sarah Eliza Warren." Then he turned to me.

"Now, perhaps, you will tell me what this means. If you're the householder, as you say, you yourself ought to turn anyone out of your own house you want to turn out, as a policeman has no right to come into a private house unless an actual charge is to be preferred. I don't know what you've been doing, but you seem to be responsible for something very like a riot."

I felt that it was hard, after what I had undergone, to be addressed in such a strain by a man in his position.

"When you have heard the explanation which I am about to give you, you will yourself perceive how far you are justified in adopting towards me such a tone." I paused. I seated myself--the support of a chair having become an absolute necessity. "The day before yesterday, as I was turning from Knightsbridge into Sloane Street, I saw a purse lying on the pavement. I picked it up. I inquired of several people standing about, or who were pa.s.sing by, if they had dropped it. No one had. I brought it home, and yesterday I sent an advertis.e.m.e.nt to the papers.

Here it is, in one of them."

I pointed it out to him in a newspaper of the day.

"Found, A Purse.--Owner may have it by giving description and paying the cost of this advertis.e.m.e.nt.--Apply to 25, Bangley Gardens, S.W."

"It's too vague," objected the constable.

"I purposely made it as vague as I could, thinking that if I left all the details to be filled in I should render it certain that it could only be claimed by the actual owner, and, to make sure it should be claimed by him, I had it inserted in all the morning papers."

The constable smiled the smile of superiority.

"If you had let me know what you had done I'd have sent my men down in time to protect you. A vague advertis.e.m.e.nt like that appearing in all the papers is bound to attract the attention of half the riffraff of London, who are always ready for a little game of trying it on, not to speak of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are losing their purses every day."

"I have discovered that fact--a day after the affair."

"You ought to have taken it at once to a police-station. Everyone ought to take the things they find. It would save them a lot of bother."