"Henry Brownell," he chanted, "I arrest you in the name of the
commonwealth of Massachusetts for the robbery, on October the eleventh,
nineteen hundred and nine, of the Waltham Title and Trust Company. I
understand," he added, "you waive extradition and return with me of
your own free will?"
With his face still in his hands, Hemingway murmured assent. The
detective stepped briskly and uninvited to the table and seated
himself. He was beaming with triumph, with pleasurable excitement.
"I want to send a message home, Mr. Consul," he said. "May I use your
cable blanks?"
Harris was still standing in the centre of the room looking down upon
the bowed head and shoulders of Hemingway. Since, in amazement, he had
sprung toward him, he had not spoken. And he was still silent.
Inside the skull of Wilbur Harris, of Iowa, U. S. A., American consul
to Zanzibar, East Africa, there was going forward a mighty struggle
that was not fit to put into words. For Harris and his conscience had
met and were at odds. One way or the other the fight must be settled
at once, and whatever he decided must be for all time. This he
understood, and as his sympathies and conscience struggled for the
mastery the pen of the detective, scratching at racing speed across the
paper, warned him that only a few seconds were left him in which to
protest or else to forever after hold his peace.
So realistic had been the acting of Hemingway that for an instant
Harris himself had been deceived. But only for an instant. With his
knowledge of the circumstances he saw that Hemingway was not confessing
to a crime of his own, but drawing across the trail of the real
criminal the convenient and useful red herring. He knew that already
Hemingway had determined to sail the next morning. In leaving Zanzibar
he was making no sacrifice. He merely was carrying out his original
plan, and by taking away with him the detective was giving Brownell and
his wife at least a month in which to again lose themselves.
What was his own duty he could not determine. That of Hemingway he
knew nothing, he could truthfully testify. And if now Hemingway
claimed to be Henry Brownell, he had no certain knowledge to the
contrary. That through his adventure Hemingway would come to harm did
not greatly disturb him. He foresaw that his friend need only send a
wireless from Nantucket and at the wharf witnesses would swarm to
establish his identity and make it evident the detective had blundered.
And in the meanwhile Brownell and his wife, in some settlement still
further removed from observation, would for the second time have
fortified themselves against pursuit and capture. He saw the eyes of
Hemingway fixed upon him in appeal and warning.
The brisk voice of the detective broke the silence.
"You will testify, if need be, Mr. Consul," he said, "that you heard
the prisoner admit he was Henry Brownell and that he surrendered
himself of his own free will?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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