To Cyril Waring himself, the arrest at Dover came as an immense surprise; rather a surprise, indeed, than a shock just at first, for he could only treat it as a mistaken identity. The man the police wanted was Guy, not himself; and that Guy should have done it was clearly incredible.
As he landed from the Ostend packet, recalled to England unexpectedly by the announcement that the Rio Negro Diamond Mines had gone with a crash—and no doubt involved Guy in the common ruin—Cyril was astonished to find himself greeted on the Admiralty Pier by a policeman, who tapped him on the shoulder with the casual remark, “I think your name’s Waring.”
Cyril answered at once, “Yes, my name’s Waring.”
It didn’t occur to him at the moment that the man meant to arrest him.
“Then you’re wanted,” the minion of authority answered, seizing his arm rather gruffly. “We’ve got a warrant out to-day against you, my friend. You’d better come along with me quietly to the station.”
“A warrant!” Cyril repeated, amazed, shaking off the man’s hand. “There must be some mistake somewhere.”
The policeman smiled. “Oh yes,” he answered briskly, with some humour in his tone. “There’s always a mistake, of course, in all these arrests. You never get a hold of the right man just at first. It’s sure to be a case of his twin brother. But there ain’t no mistake this time, don’t you fear. I knowed you at once, when I see you, by your photograph. Though we were looking out for you, to be sure, going the other way. But it’s you all right. There ain’t a doubt about that. Warrant in the name of Guy Waring, gentleman; wanted for the wilful murder of a man unknown, said to be one McGregor, alias Montague Nevitt, on the 27th instant, at Mambury, in Devonshire.”
Cyril gave a sudden start at the conjunction of names, which naturally increased his captor’s suspicions. “But there IS a mistake, though,” he said angrily, “even on your own showing. You’ve got the wrong man. It’s not I that am wanted. My name’s Cyril Waring, and Guy is my brother’s. Though Guy can’t have murdered Mr. Nevitt, either, if it comes to that; they were most intimate friends. However, that’s neither here nor there. I’m Cyril, not Guy; I’m not your prisoner.”
“Oh yes, you are, though,” the officer answered, holding his arm very tight, and calling mutely for assistance by a glance at the other policemen. “I’ve got your photograph in my pocket right enough. Here’s the man we’ve orders to arrest at once. I suppose you won’t deny, now, that’s your living image.”
Cyril glanced at the photograph with another start of surprise. Sure enough, it WAS Guy; his last new cabinet portrait. The police must be acting under some gross misapprehension.
“That man’s my brother,” he said confidently, brushing the photograph aside. “I can’t understand it at all. This is extremely odd. It’s impossible my brother can even be suspected of committing murder.”
The policeman smiled cynically. “Well, it ain’t impossible your brother’s brother can be suspected, anyhow,” he said, with a quiet air of superior knowledge. “The good old double trick’s been tried on once too often. If I was you, I wouldn’t say too much. Whatever you say may be used as evidence at the trial against you. You just come along quietly to the station with me—take his other arm, Jim, that’s right: no violence please, prisoner—and we’ll pretty soon find out whether you’re the man we’ve got orders to arrest, or his twin brother.” And he winked at his ally. He was proud of having effected the catch of the season.
“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—strang............