Then they walked very slowly away towards the steps at the Duke of York's column.Wharton regaining his strength as he went, but still able to progress by leisurely.Lopez had not found his hat, and, being covered with blood, was, as far as appearances went, in a worse plight than the other.At the foot of the steps they met a policeman, to whom they told their story, and who, as a matter of course, was filled with an immediate desire to arrest them both.To the policeman's mind it was most distressing that a bloody faced man without a hat, with a companion almost too weak to walk, should not be conveyed to a police-station.But after ten minutes' parley, during which Wharton sat on the bottom step and Lopez explained all the circumstances, he consented to get them a cab to take their address, and then to go alone to the station and make his report.That the thieves had got off with their plunder was only too manifest.Lopez took the injured man home to the house in Manchester Square, and then returned in the same cab, hatless, to his own lodgings.
As he returned he applied his mind to think how he could turn the events of the evening to his own use.He did not believe that Everett Wharton was severely hurt.Indeed there might be a question whether in the morning his own injury would not be the most severe.But the immediate effect on the flustered and despoiled unfortunate one had been great enough to justify Lopez in taking strong steps if strong steps could in any way benefit himself.Would it be best to publish this affair on the house-tops, or to bury it in the shade, as nearly as it might be buried? He had determined in his own mind that his friend had been tipsy.In no other way could his conduct be understood.
And a row with a tipsy man at midnight in the park is not, at first sight, creditable.But it could be made to have a better appearance if told by himself, than if published from other quarters.The old housekeeper at Manchester Square must know something about it, and would, of course, tell what she knew, and the loss of money and the watch must in all probability be made known.Before he had reached his own door had had quite made up his mind that he himself would tell the story after his own fashion.
And he told it, before he went to bed that night.He washed the blood from his face and head, and cut away a part of the clotted hair, and then wrote a letter to old Mr Wharton at Wharton Hall.
And between three and four o'clock in the morning he went out and posted his letter in the nearest pillar, so that it might go down by the day mail and certainly preceded by other written doings.
The letter which he sent was as follows:
DEAR MR WHARTON
I regret to have to send to you an account of a rather serious accident which has happened to Everett.I am now writing at 3 am, having just taken him home, and it occurred about midnight.You may be quite sure that there is no danger, or I should have advertised you by telegram.