They took in the uniformed torso of a State policeman then, as his glance wavered round, another policeman standing a little further off against a background of whitewashed wall with notice-boards on it. That, and the memory of his recent crash, told him that he was in a police station. Behind him another man was doing something to his left arm, and he realised it must be a doctor patching him up. Considering the speed at which the Mercedes had hit the lamp standard, he had come off very lightly. The muscles of his left arm had been strained, his ribs were badly bruised where the steering wheel of the car had caught them, and he had knocked himself out on the windscreen. When the doctor had bandaged his head and strapped up his arm they helped him to sit up and a police sergeant said: ‘Altesse, it is my duty to charge you with driving dangerously and with ignoring the signals of a police officer to halt.’ For a moment, still being half dazed, Gregory was foxed at being addressed as ‘Highness’; then it clicked home that the police must have the wallet and identity card he had been carrying, so took him for Prince Hugo von Wittelsbach zu Amberg-Sulzheim.
