Chapter 19: An Interlude

With sensations which she would not have found it easy to describe, Miss Frances Vernon felt a great hand grip her by the shoulder with a degree of roughness to which she was unaccustomed, and heard a coarse voice exclaim:

“I arrest you! You’re my prisoner?” The speaker seemed to be a little short of breath; she realised that he had been running towards her across the lawn; but shortness of breath did not prevent his tightening his grip upon her shoulder until it was all she could do to keep herself from crying out with pain. But she managed to keep still. It dawned on her that she had been mistaken for Dorothy; and that the longer the mistake continued the better start the girl would have. Her captor was joined by someone else--evidently his superior officer. “I’ve got her, sir--here she is.”

The new-comer seemed also to be having some trouble with his breathing apparatus; words came from him in gasps.

“What’s--your name--young woman?”

Frances hesitated; then, turning, as far as her captor would permit her to do, she looked at as much of her questioner’s face as she could see in the darkness.

“What business is it of yours what my name is? How dare you ask me such a question?”

But the officer was not to be put off like that.

“It’s no use your trying that tone with me. I’ve a right to ask you that question, and I do ask it. Are you Dorothy Gilbert? If you decline to answer I shall conclude that you are, and you’re a prisoner.”

“You may conclude what you like. While this coward keeps on hurting me, as he is doing now, I’ll answer no questions; if he removes his hand from my shoulder I may, but while he continues torturing me I certainly won’t.”

“Are you hurting her, Jenkins?”

“No, sir; I’ve just got hold of her tight enough to keep her from getting away.”

“Let go of her shoulder! Take her by the arm. Now, young woman, no nonsense. Are you Dorothy Gilbert?”

A voice came from the bank below them; the agitated West had suddenly woke to some consciousness of what was going on behind her.

“Dorothy Gilbert! Who’s Dorothy Gilbert? That’s not her!’ You great stupids, that’s not her! That’s not her!”

West appeared at the top of the steps--if anything, more agitated than ever.

“Who are you?” asked the officer.

“Is that you, Sergeant Batters? Mr Batters, you know very well who I am--I’m Eliza West, that’s who I am. It was me who came to the station and told you where Dorothy Gilbert was, and that hundred pounds reward is mine. I’ve fairly earned it, I have; I call everyone to witness! If you chaps hadn’t been such slowcoaches you’d have her safe enough: it’s hardly a minute since she went off with another chap. My ‘Gustus--his name’s Carter, and his number 294--he took her prisoner, she’s his lawful prisoner, that’s what she is; only the chap she’s gone off with he chucked my ‘Gustus into the river, and there he is at this moment, drowned for all I know.”

West’s strident voice rose almost to a wail; but no sooner had she ceased than another voice was heard, coming again from the bank below them.

“Easy, Eliza, easy!--it’s not so bad as that! I’ve got as much water inside me as I care to swallow, and my uniform’s about done for; but that’s about the worst. Let alone that I can swim, he didn’t throw me in so deep; if it hadn’t been for the weeds I’d have been ashore before this, only I couldn’t speak a word because of the water that had got in my throat.” A hatless figure came up the bank, whose owner seemed conscious that, in his then condition, in that light, he might be unrecognisable. “It’s me, sergeant--Carter, two, nine, four. I have to report that I arrested the girl, Dorothy Gilbert----”