By this time I had (somewhat) got my wits about me.
"I have. A very strong objection. Don't talk rot. In the first place, you've got your formula all wrong. Before you put a man under arrest, especially somebody who's innocent, you're supposed to tell him what he's charged with."
"I don't mind," answered the Law grimly. "For a starter, with the theft of a motor-car. And then we'll go on to grand larceny. Since you know so ruddy much about legal forms, you'll know that the maximum sentence for grand larceny is fourteen years."
"Who charges me with all this?"
The sergeant permitted himself a grunt approaching a laugh. "A gentleman named Sir Henry Merrivale and Colonel Charters, who happens to be Chief Constable of thissur county. Eh, Stevens?"
For a second or two I tried to convince myself that this was not a bad dream. With that peculiar cussedness and cross-purpose which always dogs my adventures under H.M.'s direction, it was plain that some mistake had been made; but, in the devil's name, what mistake? This was obviously H.M.'s Lanchester. I knew it as well as I knew my own car at home. Yes, but suppose H.M. and Charters hadn't sent out any such charge at all? Suppose this was a first attempt of the cloudy Enemy? There came into my mind Charters's mention of his secretary, named Serpos, and Charters's comment: "An expert mimic when you get him started." Whereupon I fixed the sergeant with a hypnotic eye.
"Look here," I said. "You're making a mistake. There's no use arguing with you: all I want to do is prove you're making a mistake. I'm on a very serious mission for the Chief Constable. Let's go along to the police station, by all means; you give me two minutes at a telephone, and I'll prove it. Isn't that fair enough? Neither Sir Henry Merrivale nor Colonel Charters ever sent any such message as that."
The sergeant looked at me curiously. It is never wise to say too much. Then he climbed into the back of the car, keeping his hand on my shoulder.
"Hang on to the running-board, Stevens," he ordered. "You drive straight on. Yes, it's fair enough: if you can prove it." He chuckled. "Bluff don't go down with me, my bucko. General alarm was sent out twenty minutes ago from Torquay police station. And the two gentlemen you spoke of came in person to turn in the alarm. In person, my bucko. So they didn't send it out, didn't they? They turned in them charges against you. They also said to keep an eye out for a black bag you would be carrying."
"Sergeant, everybody can't be crazy. Who am I supposed to be?"
"I dunno, answered my captor, with broad indifference. "You've probably got plenty of names. They said one of the aliases you might use might be Kenwood Blake."
I took a deep breath and a firmer grip of the steeringwheel, but the car almost stalled as we set off. If this was for some reason a genuine trick played by the mysterious-moving two who had sent me on this expedition, all I could say was that it was a damned dirty, low-down trick. But I couldn't credit that. I also played with the idea that these might be bogus policemen, though that melodramatic notion was soon dispelled.
The police station was in Liberia Avenue, where it curved to the left only a hundred yards or so from the main road. It was a low-built converted house, set back from the street in a paved yard, with an arc-light burning over the door. My captors took me out of the car and marched me with stately triumph into the charge-room. Behind the desk a fat sandy-haired sergeant, with the collar of his tunic unfastened, sat writing in a book. A clock on the wall over his head said ten minutes to ten. I saw, with unholy relief, a telephone on the desk.
"Got him the minute we stepped out of the station," said my sergeant, and his colleague at the desk whistled. "All in order. Here's the black bag. He wants to phone Colonel Charters. Yes: we'll ring up Torquay and make the report. Stevens — put him in there." He nodded toward a door at the back of the room. "Now, now, this part of it's private, my bucko! You'll get your chance to speak."
I had no choice. The careful Stevens opened the door into a little low room with a back door and a back window, after which he poked his head out of the window. Despite the dusk figures and faces were still distinct, and there was a bright arc-lamp in the rear yard. Two policemen were tinkering with the motor of an Austin police-car, while a motorcycle man looked on: there was no possibility of a jail-break. Then Stevens hurried into the outer room, shutting the door, to listen to what promised to be a highly interesting conversation by telephone. It was. I was down on the floor, in a highly curious posture, with my ear to the crack under the door, and probably as boiling mad as anybody in the British Isles.
After getting through to Torquay, the sergeant exchanged some amenities in a leisurely fashion. "Ha ha," he said. "Yes, we've got him safe enough. Smart work, eh? Do you think I could speak to Colonel Charters? No, not the superintendent! Yes, Colonel Charters! He personally instructed me," declared my beauty of a sergeant, with pompous intonation, "to — well, try his private wire, then. He's probably at home." There was a long pause. "Not in? Well, is there a gentleman there named Merrivale? No? Any message? This fellow tried a great bluff that he wanted to talk to him. Is there any, message?" Then the sergeant appeared struck dumb with surprise. "Not to charge him? What do you mean, we're not to charge him? He's accused of-"
Another long pause ensued, while there seemed to be explanations: and then gradually the sergeant's tone changed, into a roaring chuckle.'
"No!" he said. "No? You don't say! Well, well, well!" (By this time my curiosity and wrath had reached almost a point of mania.) "Is that so? And he probably thought he was doing well, I suppose, the poor fool. Ha ha ha." He grew serious. "Yes, but if neither of the gentlemen will charge him, what are we going to do with him? What did they say? Ah! Yes, that's the best thing. I'll tell you what: we'll put him down in the cells for to-night. Then we'll bring him to Torquay to-morrow morning, and they can talk to him. About eleven o'clock, say? Right. How are the wife and kids?"
And at eleven-thirty to-morrow morning I was due for a very different sort of appointment.
I scrambled up off the floor, at that state where fury becomes, coolness and clear sight, to make an inspection of the room. It was a bare enough place. A green-shaded lamp hung from the ceiling, over a deal table with a well-thumbed detective-story magazine on top of it, and a couple of kitchen chairs around. There was a sink and water-tap, with a dissipated-looking roller towel hung up beside it. But my eye was drawn to the three wooden lockers built against the wall. Inside the first locker I found what I had hoped to find: a uniform-tunic neatly arranged on a hanger. There was a helmet on the shelf above, a belt coiled beside it, and a bull's eye lantern. As H.M. had noticed, I was wearing a dark blue suit, and my own trousers would suffice. It took just ten seconds to put on the tunic and helmet, buckle the belt round my waist, and hang the lantern from it, in order to become the Compleat Policeman. It wasn't a bad fit. From the outer room I could hear the sergeant still droning at the telephone; and, through the open window to the rear yard, somebody was commenting on the lascivious habits of carburetors. The back way was the only way out. And I admit that I was feeling queasy in the stomach when I approached it.
I backed out of the place, as though I were turning round to close the door behind. Six steps led down into the yard. If the men in the yard glanced up, as they naturally would, they would see a familiar back and helmet. The great dangerpoint was that arc-lamp over the door. My legs felt light, and the queasy feeling had increased, when I carefully closed the door. Then I turned round full under the arc. At the same time I casually switched on the lantern, and swung the brilliant beam straight in their faces. They were all bending over the engine of the Austin, so that it caught them flat.