The Search Party/Chapter 24

T was three o'clock in the afternoon of the day which followed their capture, and the two Members of Parliament showed no signs of becoming reconciled to their situation. Mr. Sanders grumbled and occasionally swore. Mr. Dick passed from bursts of violent rage to fits of lamentation over the desolate condition of Mrs. Dick. Dr. O'Grady and Patsy Devlin bore with them patiently for a long time. But there are limits to human endurance. After a consultation with Patsy, the doctor undertook to speak seriously to the unreasonably afflicted men. The bearded anarchist who usually attended to the wants of the prisoners, carried off the dinner things. Dr. O'Grady pulled Mr. Dick's bed out to the middle of the floor.

"Now," he said, "sit down on that, the two of you in a row, till I try if I can't talk sense into you."

"Why," said Mr. Sanders sulkily, "why should we sit there and be talked to by you?"

"There are two reasons why you should," said Dr. O'Grady. "The first is because I want to talk to you, and I can do that much more conveniently if you're seated in a row in front of me than if you're scattered about all over the room. Does that satisfy you, or must I give you the second reason?"

"I won't be talked to by you," said Mr. Dick. "You're in league with the infernal scoundrels who have locked us up here."

"My good man" said Mr. Sanders.

This pacific form of address produced no more effect on Dr. O'Grady than Mr. Dick's blunt denunciation did. Mr. Sanders was given no time to finish his remark.

"The second reason why you should is because it will be the worse for you if you don't."

"Do you mean to threaten us with violence?" said Mr. Dick. "Patsy," said Dr. O'Grady, "take off your coat, roll up your sleeve and show your arm. I may mention, gentlemen, that Patsy Devlin was a blacksmith by trade before he took to being a captive. He's used to hammering."

Mr. Dick and Mr. Sanders watched Patsy Devlin bare his arm, but they made no move towards the bed.

"Patsy," said Dr. O'Grady, "roll up your other sleeve. If you want to fight, gentlemen, I'd recommend you to take off your coats."

"I can't fight," said Mr. Sanders, "on account of my heart. It's weak, and the doctor expressly forbade any form of excitement or violent exercise. If it wasn't for that"

He sat down on a corner of the bed.

"I haven't fought for years," said Mr. Dick with spirit; "but I'm not going, to be bullied by a damned Irish doctor. Come on."

The speech was worthy of a man who had once at least felt the blood of the ancient Bersekers coursing through his veins. It was followed by prompt action. He took off his coat. Patsy Devlin spat on his hands and then rubbed them together.

"Mr. Dick," said Dr. O'Grady, "I don't want to have you smashed up, partly because from what you've told us about your wife I expect she'd be sorry, and partly because it'd be a nuisance to me to have to fit you together again. If you don't sit down on that bed, I'll ring the bell for the Emperor and get him to take away your clothes. You didn't like going about in nothing but your shirt yesterday evening. Just recollect that, and be careful."

Mr. Dick thought better of his resolution. It may have been the business-like way in which Patsy spat on his hands which daunted him, or it may have been Dr. O'Grady's second and very horrible threat. He sat down sulkily beside Mr. Sanders.

"Now," said Dr. O'Grady, "I'm going to speak plainly to you for your own good. You've behaved uncommonly badly since you came here. You've sulked and you've whimpered, and you've raved in such a way as to make Patsy Devlin and me quite uncomfortable. We made every excuse for you yesterday afternoon. We recognized that Mr. Dick couldn't be expected to be cheerful when he hadn't got any trousers. We knew that what had happened would upset Mr. Sanders' heart and bring on palpitations. We did our best to make things easy for you. When the assistant anarchists brought up your beds, we made them for you, and allowed you to get into them, although it was barely five o'clock, and the habit of going to bed at that hour is most unsociable. Patsy brought your tea over to you later on before he drank a drop himself, to save you the trouble of getting out of bed. That was pure kindness of heart on Patsy's part, and you didn't so much as say 'thank you.'"

"They did not," said Patsy, who stood behind the bed with sleeves still rolled up; "and it will be long enough before I do the like again."

"After tea," said Dr. O'Grady, "I sent for the Emperor and persuaded him to let Mr. Dick have his clothes back. I needn't have done that. It didn't matter to me if he had to go about stark naked for the rest of his natural life. Did you show any gratitude this morning? Not a bit. You sulked and whimpered again in the most unbearable manner. We put up with it. We tried to cheer you. There was an egg short at breakfast. Who did without? Patsy again; although he deserved an egg a great deal more than either of you. When breakfast was over, I suggested that we should all join in the game of flipping pennies across the table. I didn't do that because I wanted to play. As a matter of fact, I don't usually play in the morning; I read. Patsy will bear me out in that. I was prepared to sacrifice my own time and inclination to amuse you. How did you receive the proposal? You sulked again."

"I was brought up strictly," said Mr. Sanders; "I belong to the Free Kirk, and my conscience will not allow me to gamble."

"That," said Dr. O'Grady, "is a paltry excuse, which you ought to be ashamed to make. No man could be brought up to think it wrong to flip pennies. Besides, what is it that's wrong about gambling? It's the excitement created by the element of risk associated with all gambling. Now, in this case, as you know perfectly well, there would have been no excitement, because there was no element of risk. The thing was a dead certainty. Patsy would have given you ten points in every game and beaten the head off you. If you had to make an excuse, why didn't you trot out your weak heart again? That would have been more reasonable. When you wouldn't play that, I proposed another game, called Moggy, at which you wouldn't have had a chance of winning either. You refused it too. Then I said that if you liked we'd have a debate on Home Rule or Tariff Reform. I said that you two could choose your own side and that Patsy and I would take the other, whatever it was. I thought that would interest you. It would have bored both Patsy and me frightfully; but we were prepared to put up with that for your sakes."

"How could you expect us to take an interest in Tariff Reform," said Mr. Dick, "when our minds were full of"

"Patsy," said Dr. O'Grady, "if that man mentions his wife again, hit him with the flat of your hand on the side of the head. Now go on, Mr. Dick."

"When—when we were imprisoned," said Mr. Dick.

"That ought not to have stopped you," said Dr. O'Grady. "The great problems of your country's welfare ought to come before considerations of your personal convenience. Think of the ancient Romans. Remember Horatius, and Coriolanus, and the fellow that jumped into the hole in the Forum. That's the way you ought to be behaving instead of grumbling and growling. Now I'm going to give you another chance. If you choose to behave like reasonable human beings, well and good. Patsy and I will do everything in our power to make your stay here pleasant for you. If you won't, you shan't have a bite or sup until you do. I'll give you three minutes by my watch to make up your minds. Will you or will you not be sociable and pleasant? Will you join us in a game of Hunt the Slipper? Come over to the window, Patsy, and leave them to make up their minds together."

Patsy and Dr. O'Grady stood looking out at the yard; the doctor held his watch in his hand; there was dead silence in the room.

"One minute gone," said Dr. O'Grady.

There was a sound of whispering which ceased abruptly.

"Two minutes gone."

There was more whispering. Then Mr. Sanders spoke.

"Don't choose such a silly game," he said. "We can't play Hunt the Slipper. We really can't. Dick says he'd rather starve."

"I'm not particular about what game you choose," said Dr. O'Grady, "so long as it's a possible game. There's 10 use your saying golf or cricket or lawn tennis, because re've no way of playing them here. You can have Drop le Handkerchief, if you like, or Oranges and Lemons."

This time there was a good deal of whispering, a kind of debate conducted with great earnestness.

"I'll play Hop Scotch, if you like," said Mr. Sanders; "but Dick won't."

"Never mind about Mr. Dick," said the doctor. "He'll join in when he sees how pleasant it is. You can play Hop Scotch, I suppose, Patsy?"

"I cannot," said Patsy. "I never heard tell of it."

"I can't either," said the doctor. "But it'll be all right: Mr. Sanders will teach us."

"I shall want a piece of chalk," said Mr. Sanders.

"There's no chalk here," said Dr. O'Grady. "Will nothing else do you? What's the chalk for?"

"I have to mark out a figure on the boards," said Mr. Sanders.

"I've a small bottle of Condy's Fluid in my bag," said the doctor, "that I carry about with me for disinfecting my hands. You could manage with it, I dare say."

"You can stain the floor with Condy's Fluid," said Mr. Dick, who was really a sociable man, and was beginning to be interested in the proceedings. "When we were first married and went into our new house, my wife"

"Now, don't start talking about your wife," said Dr. O'Grady, "just as you're beginning to cheer up. You'll upset yourself again."

Mr. Sanders went down on his hands and knees. He made a little pool of Condy's Fluid on the floor and drew lines from it with his forefinger. The rest of the party watched with great interest. Suddenly he stopped and knelt bolt upright.

"What's that noise?" he said.

"I didn't hear any noise," said Dr. O'Grady. "There wasn't any noise. Go on Hop Scotching."

"There was a noise. I heard it. A noise like a fall. I have very sharp hearing."

"That always goes with a weak heart," said Dr. O'Grady. "But"

He stopped abruptly. This time there was an unmistakable noise, a shout uttered somewhere in the lower part of the house, which reached even the remote room where the captives were. They drew together and waited, breathless. Mr. Sanders grew very white.

"They're fighting downstairs," he said.

"Perhaps the police have come," said Mr. Dick. "Perhaps we shall be rescued. I knew that my wife would do everything to find me. I knew she would find me."

"You didn't seem to think so yesterday," said Dr. O'Grady. "And I wouldn't make too sure now, if I were you. If they are fighting downstairs, and I can't hear plainly enough to be certain"

"I can," said Mr. Sanders.

"I expect," said Dr. O'Grady, "that the Emperor will get the best of it. He'll probably be in on us here in a minute or two as proud as Punch at having bagged another chance traveller. If the Emperor has a fault at all, it's his extraordinary fondness for kidnapping people. I can't think why he does it."

"They're coming upstairs," said Mr. Sanders. "I hear them distinctly."

"They are," said Dr. O'Grady; "a whole lot of people. I wonder who he has got this time."

The door of the room was unlocked. There was a short scuffle outside, and then Sergeant Farrelly and Constable Cole were thrust in. They both looked as if they had been roughly handled. The sergeant's tunic was torn, his right eye was beginning to swell, and there was blood on his lower lip. Mr. Red, looking very grim and determined, stalked into the room behind them.

"Emperor," said Dr. O'Grady, "this is too much. I complained to you yesterday about the habit you have got into of thrusting strange people in on top of me and Patsy. I put up with the last two, but this is more than I am going to stand."

"They remain here," said Mr. Red, "as captives."

"Not at all," said Dr. O'Grady. "Think it over, Emperor, and you'll come to see that you can't possibly leave them here. You are an anarchist, an anti-military anarchist. You've often told me so yourself. Now, an anarchist, as I understand his position, is absolutely pledged to every kind of social reform. Whatever anybody else may do, an anarchist can't consistently go in for the over-crowding of tenement houses, or tolerate insanitary prisons. You see that, don't you? If ever it got out that you'd shut up six men in one room and kept them there, your reputation would be gone. There wouldn't be a decent anarchist anywhere in the world who'd recognize you as belonging to his party or so much as speak to you. You'd be a sort of Suraja Dowlah with a horrible Black Hole of Calcutta story cropping up against you at every turn. You simply must give these two men Oh, you're going, are you? Very well. But think over what I've said. You'll realize that I'm right."

Mr. Red shut the door and locked it. Sergeant Farrelly turned fiercely on Constable Cole.

"You born fool," he said, "why didn't you strike him when I had him down?"

"I'd have"

"I suppose it was planning a stratagem you were," said the sergeant, "instead of striking when you got the chance." "I'd have broke his head," said Constable Cole, "if so be I'd struck him and me in the rage I was in at the time. How would I know but that it might be murder?"

"Serve you right if he broke yours," said the sergeant.

"Come now," said Dr. O'Grady, "there's no use making a fuss. You put up a middling good fight to judge by the look of you, and you ought to be content. None of the rest of us did as much."

"Is that yourself, doctor?" said the sergeant.

"It is."

"And, by the holy," said Constable Cole, "he has Patsy Devlin along with him!"

"And us thinking that the two of yez was off to America," said the sergeant.

"I heard that you thought I'd gone," said Dr. O'Grady; "but what made you suspect poor Patsy?"

"Hadn't he the funds collected for the sports?" said the sergeant.

"Be damn!" said Patsy, "but that wasn't the cause of my going off, and well you know it, sergeant. It's little call you have to be saying that about me, and you out after me at the time for the murder of the doctor. Wasn't that enough for you to be saying, without the other?"

"My wife?" said Mr. Dick. "Did you see her? Was she well?"

"She's distressed," said the sergeant. "The whole of them's distressed, and small blame to them. I couldn't rightly tell this minute which of the ladies was your wife; but they were all round at the barrack this morning, and it would have gone to your heart to see the way they were."

"As we're on the subject of ladies," said Dr. O'Grady, "I suppose Miss Blow is out after me. I heard from Patsy that she'd arrived in Clonmore."

"You may say she is," said the sergeant. "She has the officer's heart fair broke, pursuing him here and there, and not letting him rest in his bed at night the way he'd have us all scouring the country for your dead body."

"And was it looking for me that brought you here, sergeant?" said Dr. O'Grady.

"It was after they left the barrack," said the sergeant, "that the ladies went up to the Castle—Jimmy O'Loughlin's boy showing them the way thinking that maybe, being a magistrate, Lord Manton would help them to find yez. What happened there I couldn't say; but it wasn't long after us eating our dinner when the officer came down and Lord Manton along with him and Miss Blow and the other ladies. Such language you never heard. There was one lady, tall she was, and dark, with a kind of a grey dress on her, and a big umbrella under her arm with a stone knob on the end of the handle of it"

"My aunt, I think," said Mr. Sanders.

"She might be. Anyway, barring the doctor's young lady, she was the worst of them for wanting to have Mr. Red hanged for murdering the lot of yez."

"I wouldn't wonder if he was hanged," said Constable Cole, "the way he's conducting himself. It's scandalous."

"The orders I got," went on Sergeant Farrelly, "was to proceed to Rosivera, and ask Mr. Red whether he'd noticed two Members of Parliament going by his gate on bicycles the day before."

"And not to be in too great a hurry over the job," said Constable Cole, "because you was only doing it to satisfy the ladies."

"Whisht!" said the sergeant; "what call have you to be repeating confidential orders? So we came along"

"Wait a minute," said Dr. O'Grady. "How did you get off without taking Miss Blow with you? I'd have expected her to insist on going too."

"She did," said the sergeant; "and it was only by means of a stratagem we got clear of her. It was Constable Cole invented the stratagem. He's great at that."

"How did he manage?"

"Never mind about the stratagem," said Mr. Sanders; "go on with your narrative."

"I'll tell you about it after," said the sergeant to Dr. O'Grady in a whisper. Then he went on delivering himself of his tale very much as if he were giving evidence in a court of law.

"We reached Rosivera at half-past three We then knocked at the door and asked for Mr. Red. We stepped into the hall of the house, Constable Cole being about two paces behind me. A tall man with a black beard, whom I can identify and swear to if necessary, came out of a door on the left, and without warning struck at my head with a stick. I aimed a blow at him with my fist, not having time to draw my baton, and knocked him down. I was then engaged by two other men. One of them was Mr. Red, to whom I am prepared to swear. I shouted to Constable Cole to strike the man on the ground with his baton, in order to keep him quiet. Constable Cole did not obey my order."

"I did not," said Constable Cole; "sure I might have killed him."

"We were then overpowered," said the sergeant, "the man whom I knocked down coming to the assistance of his comrades. That's all, gentlemen."

"I suppose," said Mr. Dick, "that your officer will immediately telegraph for the military?"

"He might," said the sergeant; "but he won't do it sooner than to-morrow, anyway. He won't be expecting us home till late to-night."

"I must warn the Emperor," said Dr. O'Grady. "He had better clear out at once. I shouldn't like any harm to happen to the Emperor, and I know he hates soldiers. His whole life is given up to the destruction of standing armies. He'd break his heart if the military captured him in the end."

"Do you mean to say that you intend" said Mr. Sanders.

"Of course I do," said Dr. O'Grady. "The Emperor is a thoroughly decent sort, and has always treated me well. I'm not going to allow him to be bullied simply to gratify your passion for revenge. You pretend you think it wrong to gamble, but you're not above entertaining a spite against the poor Emperor and wanting to stick a knife into him. I can tell you, Mr. Sanders, that sort of spirit is a jolly sight more unchristian than losing a few pence to Patsy Devlin over an innocent game."

"The police," said Mr. Sanders, confidently, "will see that you do not assist this criminal to escape from justice."

He looked at Sergeant Farrelly as he spoke. The sergeant scratched his head.

"Tell me this now," he said to Dr. O'Grady; "is this any kind of League work?"

"It is not," said the doctor. "I don't suppose the Emperor ever heard of the League till I mentioned to him the other day that Patsy was a member of it."

"If it's not the League," said the sergeant, "and if the doctor will answer for it that the man's a respectable man"

"He is," said the doctor. "Why, my goodness, sergeant, he owns a motor-car. You've seen it yourself, a remarkably fine motor-car; one that couldn't have cost less than eight hundred pounds."

"I don't know," said the sergeant, "that there's any call for me to interfere with the doctor in the matter. It would be a queer thing now, and a thing that wouldn't suit me at all, if I was to be preventing the doctor from speaking to a friend of his anyway that pleases him."

"He attacked you," said Mr. Sanders; "he knocked you down. He has imprisoned you, and yet you say"

"If he's brought up before the Petty Sessions," said the sergeant, "I'll tell what he's done; but till he is I don't see what right I have to put the handcuffs on the doctor on account of what might be no more than some kind of a joke that's passing between him and another gentleman...."