"But I AM his twin brother," Cyril said, half struggling still to
release himself. "You can't take me up on that warrant, I tell you.
It's not my name. I'm not the man you've orders to look for."
"Oh, that's all right," the constable answered as before, with an
incredulous smile. "Don't you go trying to obstruct the police in
the exercise of their duty. If I can't take you up on the warrant
as it stands, well, anyhow, I can arrest you on suspicion all the
same, for looking so precious like the photograph of the man as is
wanted. Twin brothers ain't got any call, don't you know, to sit,
turn about, for one another's photographs. It hinders the administration
of justice; that's where it is. And remember, whatever you choose
to say may be used as evidence at the trial against you."
Thus adjured, Cyril yielded at last to force majeure and walked arm
in arm between the two policemen, followed by a large and admiring
crowd, to the nearest station.
But the matter was far less easily arranged than at first imagined.
An innocent man who knows his own innocence, taken up in mistake
for a brother whom he believes to be equally incapable of the crime
with which he is charged, naturally expects to find no difficulty
at all in proving his identity and escaping from custody on a false
charge of murder. But the result of a hasty examination at the station
soon effectually removed this little delusion. His own admission
that the photograph was a portrait of Guy, and his resemblance
to it in every leading particular, made the authorities decide on
the first blush of the thing this was really the man Scotland Yard
was in search of. He was trying to escape them on the ridiculous
pretext that he was in point of fact his own twin brother. The
inspector declined to let him go for the night. He wasn't going to
repeat the mistake that was made in the Lefroy case, he said very
decidedly. He would send the suspected person under escort to
Tavistock.
So to Tavistock Cyril went, uncertain as yet what all this could
mean, and ignorant of the crime with which he was charged, if indeed
any crime had been really committed. All the way down, an endless
string of questions suggested themselves one by one to his excited
mind. Was Nevitt really dead? And if so, who had killed him? Was
it suicide to escape from the monetary embarrassments brought about
by the failure of the Rio Negro Diamond Mines, or was it accident
or mischance? Or was it in fact a murder? And in any case--strangest
of all--where was Guy? Why didn't Guy come forward and court inquiry?
For as yet, of course, Cyril hadn't received his brother's letter,
with the incriminating pocket-book and the three thousand pounds;
nor indeed, for several days after, as things turned out, was there
even a possibility of his ever receiving it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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