"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 bluster.
"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 assurance 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 passing by, if they had dropped it. No one had. I
brought it home, and yesterday I sent an advertisement to the papers.
Here it is, in one of them."