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I wasn't in a position to see what happened to Gumshoe after that. I was too busy trying to avoid leaving hard-to-explain marks in the snow. Much later, he would tell me about what happened, at some considerable length - and volume, too. Gumshoe had been around in the law enforcement world for a long time. True, us private investigators - even those who were once police officers - are regarded as the lowest of the low, residing somewhere below the bottom rung on the scale. But PIs are still recognised as one of the White Hats, one of the Good Guys. And there's a certain shared camaraderie in the trade: the way coppers talk, the jargon and slang they all use, the shared acquaintances and similar experiences, all make it very quickly clear who is, and who is not, one of the brotherhood. So Gumshoe quite reasonably expected to be recognised for what he was: an experienced agent of the law. Once his formal credentials had been rapidly established - he had all kinds of documents, certificates and licences in his wallet - he expected he could spend some time shooting the breeze with the boys and, from snippets of gossip here and casual chit-chat there, glean some idea of what was really going on. The reality was nothing like that. Even though Gumshoe approached quite openly and calmly in the glare of the headlights, he was immediately the focus of undivided attention of several dozen armed policemen, not to mention the business end of their firearms. A voice rang out: "Stop right there!" Gumshoe complied. Sensible people tend to do this when a small arsenal of weapons are being aimed in their direction. "Lay down on the ground. Now!" He lowered himself slowly to the ground and spread out, face down right in the middle of the icy tarmac. A couple of burly uniformed types rushed up; he couldn't make out any details from his prone position, especially with the lights in his eyes. He was professionally cuffed and patted down, and his automatic was taken from him. As he put it later, it was an especially fine weapon, although not particularly new, and it was one that he would resent not being returned to him. With his hands handcuffed behind his back, Gumshoe was bundled into the back of an unmarked car and whisked away. His attempts to ask questions like: "what's going on?" and "why are you arresting me?" were met with polite but icy silence, and he soon took the hint and shut up. Whatever was going on would take time to make itself clear. It wasn't a legal arrest, he noted, with no declaration of his rights or any of the usual form of words. Whoever was directing this operation had no interest in complying with the law of the land in any detail. But they seemed to be convinced that Gumshoe was the one they were looking for, although for what crime they wouldn't say, and his Private Investigator instincts gave no clue. The thing that most struck Gumshoe, as he looked around at the assorted representatives of law and order; to a man, they were tight-lipped and wide-eyed, almost as if they were terrified. Everyone watched him warily all the time, as if they expected he would suddenly sprout wings and fly away, or metamorphose into some ghastly monster and bite their faces off.
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Part 21