WHILE all the household radiated about Dwala’s sick-bed, and there was no attention for any other thing, the Biologist ran swiftly up the stairs, guided by a superhuman instinct of despair, straight to the American’s room. He was going to seize the ‘Memoirs’ and burn them. Dwala was dying; no new authentic copy could be produced again. In the doorway he saw that his instincts had guided him aright. American things greeted his eyes—an American hat on the chest of drawers, American corn-cob pipes on the mantelpiece. But what was this? Something alive in the room! A man crouching behind the table with a bundle of papers. It was Prosser ‘doing something big’ at last. Too much astonished to move for a moment, Sir Peter stood staring stupidly at the frightened, cowering figure behind the table.
‘Hello: what are you doin’ here?’ said a voice in the doorway. Then the American espied the broken desk, and a moment later the Biologist found himself clutched by the collar, trying helplessly to protect his head from a flailing fist, while Prosser’s shadow shot low and horizontal through the doorway.
‘The Memoirs! the Memoirs!’ yelled the Biologist. ‘The d——d thief’s stolen the Memoirs! Let me go! Let me go! It’s Prosser, not me! Oh, for God’s sake, don’t hit me again!’
At the mention of Prosser the American stayed his hand, fumbled Sir Peter’s pockets, then snatched him by the collar, and ran down the stairs, dragging him after him like a live thing in a sack. But they were too slow for Prosser. As they came out into Park Lane shouting ‘Stop thief! stop thief!’ there was the fat policeman saluting and grinning delightedly.
‘He’s got clean away this time, sir.’
‘Heavens alive! Why didn’t you stop him?’
‘I knows my place, sir’—with a wink. ‘It’s only Mr. Prosser.’
‘Blow your whistle, man! Blow your whistle! He’s stolen State Papers.’
The policeman walked very slowly forward to the edge of the pavement and looked up and down the road, then turned about, smiling rather nervously.
‘Do you reely mean it, sir?’
‘Good Lord!’ said the American, and started off running madly without another word into Oxford Street; while the Biologist careered, wild and hatless, up Grosvenor Street, yelling desperately ‘Prosser, dear Prosser!’ to the scandal of Mayfair.