There was little delay after that. Within sixty seconds the door was
open; within three minutes the wires were humming with the astounding
news.
Tom Sheard, his work completed, was about to leave the _Gleaner_ office,
when--
"Sheard!" shouted the news editor from an upper landing. "Amazing
business at Rohscheimer's in Park Lane! Robbery! Brigands! Terrific! Off
you go! Taxi!"
And off went Sheard without delay.
He entered Park Lane, to find that part of the thoroughfare adjacent to
the financier's house packed with vehicles of all sorts and sizes. Women
in full dress, pressmen, policemen, loafers, were pouring out and
rushing in to Mr. Rohscheimer's residence! Never before was such a scene
witnessed at that hour of the night in Park Lane.
As he passed under the awning, pressing his way towards the steps, he
encountered an excited young gentleman who wore a closed opera hat, but
was evidently ignorant of his interesting appearance. This young
gentleman he chanced to know, and having rectified the irregularity in
his toilet, from him he secured some splendid copy.
"You see, I just dropped in to take a look round, and as I strolled up a
mob of jokers jumped out of a cab just in front of me, and we all
crawled in together, sort of thing. I happened to notice a footman going
upstairs and two of the jokers I spoke about behind him. They were
laughing, and so forth, and he was just on the first landing, when they
nabbed him from behind--positive fact!--and threw the chap down on his
face! I'm thinking it's a poor kind of joke when the other two fellows
jolly well nobble _me_! Before I know what's up, I'm pushed into an
anteroom or somewhere, and I hear these chaps banging the front door and
running upstairs! I should have sung out like steam, only they'd
handcuffed me wrong way round and tied a beastly cork arrangement in my
mouth!
"Just before I burst a blood-vessel it occurred to me that I might as
well keep quiet; so I sat on the floor listening; but I didn't hear
anything for what seemed like an hour! Then there was a mob of fellows
came downstairs--and the door opened. They seemed to slip out in twos
and threes from what I could gather, and by the time they'd nearly all
gone a perfect pandemonium broke out, upstairs and down!
"The servants--who'd all been locked in the cellar--got out first. Then
Haredale came bounding downstairs, and, luckily for me, heard me kicking
at the door. Then everybody was rushing about! Rohscheimer was bawling
in the telephone! Some other chap was rushing for a doctor--for Adeler,
who got knocked on the head in the library. Now here's the wretched
police arresting everybody who looks as though he'd been in the Army!
That's all the beastly description anyone can give! They suspected Dick
Langley the minute they saw him, because he's got a military appearance!
And I shouldn't be surprised to hear that they'd arrested every fellow
in the Guards' Club!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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