Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE CELLS "l 1C THAT did you bring him here for?" V V asked the inspector on duty surlily, as soon as I was introduced to him. " You know as well as I do that he belongs to Grays Inn Road. Don't you think that I've got enough to do without shoving other people's work on to me?" The detective sergeant deprecatingly maintained that he had brought me to the right shop, and leaned over the inspector's desk to give his reasons for thinking so. As we three were the only persons in the charge-room and the door ,was wide open, there was a splendid opening for me to make a bolt for liberty if I had been desirous of taking advantage of it, and I speculated, while they were arguing, as to the odds against their losing a resourceful professional criminal under such circumstances. " Get in there," snapped the inspector, motioning me to a little iron-railed enclosure. When I had taken up position there, he read the warrant to me, took a list of the contents of my pockets, with the exception of a sixpenny novel which he allowed me to keep, and made them up into a parcel. Then he entered in a book minute particulars of my age, personal appearance, and clothing. Having done this, he rang a bell and the gaoler entered. The inspector jerked his thumb in my direction, and the gaoler looked at me and jerked his thumb in the direction of the door leading to the cells. Not a word was spoken. The detective- sergeant was looking straight through me, as if he had never seen me before, and was not at all ' interested in the sight of me now. I went through the door with the gaoler close on my heels, and presently found myself in a long passage with cells all along one side of it, the other side being the wall that looked on to the yard. The gaoler unlocked one of these cells...