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to the former condition, and Mr. Polly went to his room in search of
garments more suited to the brightening dawn. He returned immediately
with a request that Mr. Blake and Mr. Warspite would "just come and
look." They found the apartment in a state of extraordinary confusion,
the bedclothes in a ball in the corner, the drawers all open and
ransacked, the chair broken, the lock of the door forced and broken,
one door panel slightly scorched and perforated by shot, and the
window wide open. None of Mr. Polly's clothes were to be seen, but
some garments which had apparently once formed part of a stoker's
workaday outfit, two brownish yellow halves of a shirt, and an unsound
pair of boots were scattered on the floor. A faint smell of gunpowder
still hung in the air, and two or three books Mr. Polly had recently
acquired had been shied with some violence under the bed. Mr. Warspite
looked at Mr. Blake, and then both men looked at Mr. Polly. "That's
his boots," said Mr. Polly.
Blake turned his eye to the window. "Some of these tiles 'ave just
got broken," he observed.
"I got out of the window and slid down the scullery tiles," Mr. Polly
answered, omitting much, they both felt, from his explanation....
"
Well, we better find 'im and 'ave a word with 'im," said Blake.
That's about my business now."
"
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