“I’ve got to get hold of that woman, and that’s all about it!”

The Countess at this period was busying herself with the policemen of the Five Towns.  In her exhaustless passion for philanthropy, bazaars, and platforms, she had already dealt with orphans, the aged, the blind, potter’s asthma, creches, churches, chapels, schools, economic cookery, the smoke-nuisance, country holidays, Christmas puddings and blankets, healthy musical entertainments, and barmaids.  The excellent and beautiful creature was suffering from a dearth of subjects when the policemen occurred to her.  She made the benevolent discovery that policemen were over-worked, underpaid, courteous and trustworthy public servants, and that our lives depended on them.  And from this discovery it naturally followed that policemen deserved her energetic assistance.  Which assistance resulted in the erection of a Policemen’s Institute at Hanbridge, the chief of the Five Towns.  At the Institute policemen would be able to play at draughts, read the papers, and drink everything non-alcoholic at prices that defied competition.  And the Institute also conferred other benefits on those whom all the five Mayors of the Five Towns fell into the way of describing as “the stalwart guardians of the law.”  The Institute, having been built, had to be opened with due splendour and ceremony.  And naturally the Countess of Chell was the person to open it, since without her it would never have existed.

The solemn day was a day in March, and the hour was fixed for three o’clock, and the place was the large hall of the Institute itself, behind Crown Square, which is the Trafalgar Square of Hanbridge.  The Countess was to drive over from Sneyd.  Had the epoch been ten years later she would have motored over.  But probably that would not have made any difference to what happened.

In relating what did happen, I confine myself to facts, eschewing imputations.  It is a truism that life is full of coincidences, but whether these events comprised a coincidence, or not, each reader must decide for himself, according to his cynicism or his faith in human nature.

The facts are:  First, that Denry called one day at the house of Mrs Kemp a little lower down Brougham Street, Mrs Kemp being friendly with Mrs Machin, and the mother of Jock, the Countess’s carriage-footman, whom Denry had known from boyhood.  Second, that a few days later, when Jock came over to see his mother, Denry was present, and that subsequently Denry and Jock went for a stroll together in the cemetery, the principal resort of strollers in Bursley.  Third, that on the afternoon of the opening ceremony the Countess’s carriage broke down in Sneyd Vale, two miles from Sneyd and three miles from Hanbridge.  Fourth, that five minutes later Denry, all in his best clothes, drove up behind his mule.  Fifth, that Denry drove right past the breakdown, apparently not noticing it.  Sixth, that Jock, touching his hat to Denry as if to a stranger (for, of course, while on duty a footman must be dead to all humanities), said: