Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/271

 nearly two o'clock, and the case was to commence at half-past.

"Is everything prepared?" I asked Walworth, for about the hundredth time, as we adjourned to the sitting-room.

"Everything," he answered, with the same patient equanimity. "Come into the yard and see them harness the horses."

I followed him out into the back regions, where we found two stalwart policemen busily occupied attaching a couple of horses to an enormous Black Maria. They touched their hats to me with as little concern as if the business they were engaged to carry out was one of the very smallest importance. Somehow their stolidity did not seem reassuring to me, and I accordingly called Walworth on one side.

"Are you perfectly sure you can trust these men?" I asked anxiously.

"Absolutely," he answered. "I know them of old, and I can tell you we are extremely lucky to get them. Besides, they know that if they get the prisoner safely away they will each receive a thousand pounds. If they don't they get nothing. Don't be afraid. You may depend implicitly on them. Now come inside. I have had the telephone put in the house on purpose for this moment, and we must watch it."

We returned to the sitting-room and waited. The minutes seemed long as hours, and so horrible was the suspense that I began to conjure up all sorts of calamities. Perhaps I may be laughed at for owning myself such a coward, but let the pluckiest man living try the ordeal I was then passing through, and see if he would