I suppose I ought to arrest you." And with these words he laid on the table before Syme an exact facsimile of the blue card which Syme had in his own waistcoat pocket, the symbol of his power from the police.
Syme had for a flash the sensation that the cosmos had turned exactly upside down, that all trees were growing downwards and that all stars were under his feet.

Then came slowly the opposite conviction.

For the last twenty-four hours the cosmos had really been upside down, but now the capsized universe had come right side up again.

This devil from whom he had been fleeing all day was only an elder brother of his own house, who on the other side of the table lay back and laughed at him.

He did not for the moment ask any questions of detail; he only knew the happy and silly fact that this shadow, which had pursued him with an intolerable oppression of peril, was only the shadow of a friend trying to catch him up.