Part 3 (2/2)
”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.”
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