Explore "The Footsteps at the Lock" by Ronald A. Knox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Nigel's trouble proved to be something more serious than a common fainting-fit. It was a heart attack, which demanded a visit from the doctor, and its inevitable sequel -- the prescription of "a few days in bed. " Leyland was delighted at this turn of affairs. He had an intense horror of making unnecessary arrests, of putting suspects in prison and letting them out again with apologies. Nothing was so repellent to his professional pride. Yet it would have been difficult to avoid taking out a warrant against Nigel, so clever had been his manoeuvres, so widely had his description been circulated. In bed, and with his clothes removed under some hospital pretext, Nigel was as good as arrested; the invalid is, for all practical purposes, a jailbird. It was not, however, till the morning after his seizure that he was allowed to give any account of himself.
"I think I ought to warn you, Mr. Burtell," Leyland began, "that, though no arrest has been made, I mean to make notes of your story, and shall be prepared to produce them in case of emergency."