Archie started violently. The bleak directness of the speech roused him with a jerk from the dream-like state into which he had fallen. He had not anticipated this. He had assumed that there would be a period of tedious explanations to be gone through before he was at liberty to depart to the cosy little lunch for which his interior had been sighing wistfully this long time past; but that he should be arrested had been outside his calculations. Of course, he could put everything right eventually; he could call witnesses to his character and the purity of his intentions; but in the meantime the whole dashed business would be in all the papers, embellished with all those unpleasant flippancies to which your newspaper reporter is so prone to stoop when he sees half a chance. He would feel a frightful chump. Chappies would rot him about it to the most fearful extent. Old Brewster's name would come into it, and he could not disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who liked his name in the papers as little as possible, would be sorer than a sunburned neck.
"No, I say, you know! I mean, I mean to say!"
"Pinched!" repeated the rather larger policeman.
"And annything ye say," added his slightly smaller colleague, "will be used agenst ya 't the trial."
"And if ya try t'escape," said the first speaker, twiddling his club, "ya'll getja block knocked off."
And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed scenario, the two relapsed into silence. Officer Cassidy restored his gum to circulation. Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his boots.
"But, I say," said Archie, "it's all a mistake, you know. Absolutely a frightful error, my dear old constables. I'm not the lad you're after at all. The chappie you want is a different sort of fellow altogether. Another blighter entirely."
New York policemen never laugh when on duty. There is probably something in the regulations against it. But Officer Donahue permitted the left corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary muscular spasm disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy's granite features, as a passing breeze ruffles the surface of some bottomless lake.
"That's what they all say!" observed Officer Donahue.
"It's no use tryin' that line of talk," said Officer Cassidy. "Babcock's squealed."
"Sure. Squealed 's morning," said Officer Donahue.
Archie's memory stirred vaguely.
"Babcock?" he said. "Do you know, that name seems familiar to me, somehow. I'm almost sure I've read it in the paper or something."
"Ah, cut it out!" said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly. The two constables exchanged a glance of austere disapproval. This hypocrisy pained them. "Read it in th' paper or something!"
"By Jove! I remember now. He's the chappie who was arrested in that bond business. For goodness' sake, my dear, merry old constables," said Archie, astounded, "you surely aren't labouring under the impression that I'm the Master-Mind they were talking about in the paper? Why, what an absolutely priceless notion! I mean to say, I ask you, what! Frankly, laddies, do I look like a Master-Mind?"
Officer Cassidy heaved a deep sigh, which rumbled up from his interior like the first muttering of a cyclone.
"If I'd known," he said, regretfully, "that this guy was going to turn out a ruddy Englishman, I'd have taken a slap at him with m' stick and chanced it!"
Officer Donahue considered the point well taken.
"Ah!" he said, understandingly. He regarded Archie with an unfriendly eye. "I know th' sort well! Trampling on th' face av th' poor!"
"Ya c'n trample on the poor man's face," said Officer Cassidy, severely; "but don't be surprised if one day he bites you in the leg!"
"But, my dear old sir," protested Archie, "I've never trampled--"
"One of these days," said Officer Donahue, moodily, "the Shannon will flow in blood to the sea!"
"Absolutely! But--"
Officer Cassidy uttered a glad cry.
"Why couldn't we hit him a lick," he suggested, brightly, "an' tell th' Cap. he resisted us in th' exercise of our jooty?"
An instant gleam of approval and enthusiasm came into Officer Donahue's eyes. Officer Donahue was not a man who got these luminous inspirations himself, but that did not prevent him appreciating them in others and bestowing commendation in the right quarter. There was nothing petty or grudging about Officer Donahue.
"Ye're the lad with the head, Tim!" he exclaimed admiringly.
"It just sorta came to me," said Mr. Cassidy, modestly.
"It's a great idea, Timmy!"
"Just happened to think of it," said Mr. Cassidy, with a coy gesture of self-effacement.
Archie had listened to the dialogue with growing uneasiness. Not for the first time since he had made their acquaintance, he became vividly aware of the exceptional physical gifts of these two men. The New York police force demands from those who would join its ranks an extremely high standard of stature and sinew, but it was obvious that jolly old Donahue and Cassidy must have passed in first shot without any difficulty whatever.
"I say, you know," he observed, apprehensively.
And then a sharp and commanding voice spoke from the outer room.
"Donahue! Cassidy! What the devil does this mean?"
Archie had a momentary impression that an angel had fluttered down to his rescue. If this was the case, the angel had assumed an effective disguise--that of a police captain. The new arrival was a far smaller man than his subordinates--so much smaller that it did Archie good to look at him. For a long time he had been wishing that it were possible to rest his eyes with the spectacle of something of a slightly less out-size nature than his two companions.
"Why have you left your posts?"
The effect of the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue was pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal proportions, and their manner took on an attractive deference.
Officer Donahue saluted.
"If ye plaze, sorr--"
Officer Cassidy also saluted, simultaneously.
"'Twas like this, sorr--"
The captain froze Officer Cassidy with a glance and, leaving him congealed, turned to Officer Donahue.
"Oi wuz standing on th' fire-escape, sorr," said Officer Donahue, in a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded Archie, who hadn't known he could talk like that, "accordin' to instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and found this duck--found the accused, sorr--in front of the mirror, examinin' himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy for assistance. We pinched--arrested um, sorr."
The captain looked at Archie. It seemed to Archie that he looked at him coldly and with contempt.
"Who is he?"
"The Master-Mind, sorr."
"The what?"
"The accused, sorr. The man that's wanted."
"You may want him. I don't," said the captain. Archie, though relieved, thought he might have put it more nicely. "This isn't Moon. It's not a bit like him."
"Absolutely not!" agreed Archie, cordially. "It's all a mistake, old companion, as I was trying to--"
"Cut it out!"
"Ob, right-o!"
"You've seen the photographs at the station. Do you mean to tell me you see any resemblance?"
"If ye plaze, sorr," said Officer Cassidy, coming to life.
"Well?"
"We thought he'd bin disguising himself, the way he wouldn't be recognised."
"You're a fool!" said the captain.
"Yes, sorr," said Officer Cassidy, meekly.
"So are you, Donahue."
"Yes, sorr."
Archie's respect for this chappie was going up all the time. He seemed to be able to take years off the lives of these massive blighters with a word. It was like the stories you read about lion- tamers. Archie did not despair of seeing Officer Donahue and his old college chum Cassidy eventually jumping through hoops.
"Who are you?" demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
"Well, my name is--"
"What are you doing here?"
"Well, it's rather a longish story, you know. Don't want to bore you, and all that."