Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
General
Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
The reply given to the invitation was the reply which the writer, or any
of the readers of this article, would have given on the impulse of the
moment. It is to be borne in mind that the policeman was in private
clothes, and might, as far as appearances went, himself have been a
murderer in the eyes of another man dressed in private clothes, who, in
his turn (for what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander) might
himself have been a policeman.
"Come with me!" exclaimed Policeman X.
Antony Cowlrick--if that is his proper name, which we doubt--had as much
reason to suspect Policeman X as Policeman X had to suspect Antony
Cowlrick. Not only did he decline the invitation in words decidedly
rude (really, Mr. Cowlrick, you should have been more courteous to this
policeman in private clothes!), but he had the temerity to fling not
only Policeman X's hand from his shoulder, but the policeman's entire
body from his person. Not long did Policeman X lie upon the ground--for
just time enough to come to the conclusion that such resistance on the
part of a poor man, raggedly dressed, was strong evidence of guilt. For,
if not guilty of the murder, why should the man resist? Picking himself
up briskly, Policeman X sprang his rattle.
The precise effect produced upon the mind of Antony Cowlrick by the
sound of this rattle must be mere matter of conjecture, and we will
leave its consideration to a future article; its outward and visible
effect was the taking to his heels by Antony Cowlrick.
The mental condition of Antony Cowlrick at this exact moment presents an
interesting study. Its variety, its colour, its turmoil of possibilities
and consequences, its sequence of private and personal circumstance, are
almost sufficiently tempting to induce us instantly to wander into a
psychological treatise utterly unfit for the columns of our little
newspaper, and conducive, therefore, to its immediate decline in
popularity. We resist the temptation. We adhere to our programme; stern
Reality--pictures of life as they naturally present themselves in all
their beauty or deformity; the truth, THE TRUTH, in its naked sweetness
or hideousness! The highest efforts of imagination cannot equal the
pictures which are for ever being painted upon the canvas of Reality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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