11. Explanation of paragraph 11

 

Paragraph\(11\) begins with the arrival of the police. The narrator observes, rather humorously, that they arrived in "a commendably short time". As seen in one of the previous paragraphs, the narrator wasn't keen on seeing the police. Hence, since their presence wasn't welcome, he must have felt that they arrived too quickly.

 

The narrator then proceeds to describe their arrival in detail. He states that they came in \(4\) different vehicles: a Ford sedan, two motorcycles, and a patrol wagon. The narrator is almost specific with the number of police officers who arrived that night- two policemen rode on two different bikes, and the wagon contained about eight patrolmen and a few reporters. However, he doesn't specify how many were there in the Ford, though he claims the sedan was full. Nevertheless, since a sedan is a four-seater, one could assume that there were about four police officers in the car.

 

  

 

One could see where the narrator's concern lies. It wasn't merely that the police came too soon; there were also too many of them.
 
As they arrived, they started pounding on the narrator's front door. Flashlights cast gleaming streaks over the walls, across the yard, and down the path between their house and Bodwell's. One of the police officers called out hoarsely, asking them to open up the front door. The policeman also stated that they were men from Headquarters.
 
Despite the narrator's concern, he still had wanted to go down and open the door to let them in. One could see that the narrator was a man of manners. However, his mother was worried that he would catch a cold as he wasn't appropriately dressed. 'You don't have a stitch on, and you'd catch your death,’ she observed. The word "stitch" refers to any form of cloth here. The mother was trying to emphasise the point that he was almost naked. As a result, he wrapped the towel over himself once again.
 
Since the narrator nor his family couldn't open the front door, the police decided to break in. They pushed against the large, heavy front door with thick bevelled glass and broke it open. The narrator could hear a rending of wood and a splatter of glass on the hall floor. The movement of the police is observed through the flashlights that streaked around the house. He says, "their lights played all over the livingroom and crisscrossed nervously in the dining-room, stabbed into hallways, shot up the front stairs and finally up the back." So, they moved from the living room to the dining room, from there to the hallways, and then up the stairs.
 
At the top, they caught the narrator standing with a towel wrapped around him. A large police officer dashed up the stairwell. Being an officer, he asked the narrator who he was in an authoritative voice. The narrator answered that he lived there, implying that he was a part of the family and was no intruder.

  

  

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