In Darkest Bloomsbury
There have been several recent incidents in which malefactors have been assisted by the apathy, indifference or cowardice of members of the public who, though present at the scene of their crimes, did not intervene. Last night, mainly through absence of mind, I found when I stopped working, that every- one else had gone home and that I was a prisoner in the Gower Street offices of this periodical. After a match-light reconnais- cence of the ground floor I found that it was just possible for a slightly built hack to squeeze through the sort of box-office guichet behind which the telephone operator sits and then through another small aperture into a room fronting on the street. Having undone the butterfly screws which fastened the sashes together, I threw up the window and climbed out on to the sill. Below me was a twenty foot drop into the basement area but it was, by a moderately easy feat of acrobatics, possible to reach out with one foot and one arm to the high, spiked iron railings enclosing the area and transfer myself from the window- sill to an insecure perch on top of them. Having closed the window behind me, I did this and then jumped down into the street. I cannot pretend that these manoeuvres were carried out with the speed and grace which used to distinguish Count Dracula's descent of his castle walls in Carpathia, and before they were over a number.. of .citizens, passing by on the pave- ment a few feet below me, had witnessed an exit which many of them 'must surely have supposed burglarious. None of them took the slightest interest. It may be that I have about me an innate nobility which allays suspicion; I fear it is more likely that they thought I had about me an enormous cosh.
Previous page
