Petrie, stationed at the door, spent most of his time waving a white-gloved hand, and shaking his head until he felt that it would shortly tumble off his neck and roll away upon the pavement.  Mr. Narkom had given him instructions that if any one of “any importance in the affair in question” should turn up, he was to admit him, but to be adamant in every other case.  And so the queue of morbid-minded women and idle men grew long and longer, and the clamour louder and louder, until the tempers of the police on guard grew very short, and the crowd was handled more and more firmly.

The effect of this began to tell.  Slowly it thinned out and the people turned once more into the Strand, sauntering along with their heads half the time over their shoulders, while Petrie stood and mopped his face and wondered what had become of Mr. Cleek, or if he had turned up in one of his many aliases, and he hadn’t recognized him.

“Like as not that’s what’s happened,” he told himself, stuffing his thumbs into his policeman’s belt and setting his feet apart.  “But what gets over me is, not a sight ’ave I seen of young Dollops.  And where Mr. Cleek is....  Well, that there young feller is bound to be, too.  Case is drawin’ to a close, I reckon, by this time.  I wouldn’t be in that young lord’s shoes!”

He shook his head at the thought, and fell to considering the matter and in a most sympathetic frame of mind if the truth be told.

Half-an-hour passed, another sped by.  The crowd now worried him very little, and judging from one or two folk that drifted out of the court room, with rather pale faces and set mouths, as though they had heard something that sickened them, and were going to be out of it before the end came, Petrie began to think that that end was approaching very near.

And he hadn’t seen Mr. Cleek go into the place, or Dollops either!  Funny thing that.  In his phone message that morning, Mr. Cleek had said he would be at the court sharp at one, and it was half-past two now.  Well, he was sorry the guv’nor hadn’t turned up in time.  He’d be disappointed, no doubt, and after all the telephoning and hunting up of directories that he himself had done personally that very morning, Mr. Cleek would be feeling rather “off it” if he turned up too late.

Petrie took a few steps up and down, and his eyes roamed the Strand leisurely.  He came to a sudden halt, as a red limousine—­the red limousine he knew so well—­whirled up to the pavement’s edge, stopped in front of him with a grinding of brakes, a door flashed open, and he heard the sound of a sharp order given in that one unmistakable voice.  Mr. Cleek was there, followed by Dollops, close at his heels, and looking as though they had torn through hell itself to get there in time.

Petrie took a hurried step forward and swung back the big iron gate still farther.

“In time, Petrie?” Cleek asked breathlessly.