Over and above this military official, the only other person
present was a police official, a certain Doctor Prince, originally a
police surgeon and now a distinguished detective, sent to be a
bodyguard to the group. He was a square-faced man with big
spectacles and a grimace that expressed the intention of keeping his
mouth shut. Nobody else shared their captivity except the hotel
proprietor, a crusty Kentish man with a crab-apple face, one or two
of his servants, and another servant privately attached to Lord
James Herries. He was a young Scotchman named Campbell, who looked
much more distinguished than his bilious-looking master, having
chestnut hair and a long saturnine face with large but fine
features. He was probably the one really efficient person in the
house.
After about four days of the informal council, March had come to
feel a sort of grotesque sublimity about these dubious figures,
defiant in the twilight of danger, as if they were hunchbacks and
cripples left alone to defend a town. All were working hard; and he
himself looked up from writing a page of memoranda in a private room
to see Horne Fisher standing in the doorway, accoutered as if for
travel. He fancied that Fisher looked a little pale; and after a
moment that gentleman shut the door behind him and said, quietly:
"Well, the worst has happened.
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