There was not a second to spare. Casteno shot at me a look of mingled
entreaty and command to leave the frenzied professor to do his worst.
The persons we had to fear were not, he motioned, in that tent at all
but outside, scouring the grounds for medical assistance, and spreading
everywhere news of our wonderful appearance out of the rain-clouds.
Only let them hear this maniac's wild cries for assistance and they
would hasten back to us, and then all hope, all chance of escape, for
either of us would be cut off.
Nevertheless, I thought of Doris lying there so weak, helpless, and
friendless; and I hesitated. I felt I had already stifled Love so often
for Duty that I could repress it no longer. Indeed, I took a step in
her direction to make myself known to her, but, misconceiving my object,
thinking I had no idea but one--to flee--Leopardi seized me in a grip of
iron. "You shall not go," he panted--"never! You are a thief, and you
shall pay for your crime."
His touch, however, was quite enough. What Casteno had failed to
accomplish it brought about in a flash. All the hot, strenuous
instincts of my manhood rose in rebellion at this degradation.
"You are mad," I hissed, and with one huge effort I sprang on the
scientist and, catching him by the middle, whirled him over my head and
sent him crashing a moment later on to some grain bags that stood piled
up in a corner.
As I did so his wig fell off and with it his beard, and I staggered
backward in amazement. The so-called expert from the Meteorological
Office was, as the Spaniard had contended, a spy--perhaps sent by the
Foreign Office, for it was a man we instantly recognised--no other than
Colonel Napier himself.
Personally, I would have stood my ground then and defied him; but
Casteno was too quick for me. As I reeled back breathless from the
impact he caught me by the shoulder and with a quick turn twisted me
through the narrow door of the barn.
"This is no time for heroics, Glynn," he whispered. "We have won. Now
let us be off." And he doubled behind some other buildings and then
dived headlong into a clump of bushes, through which he wriggled his way
on hands and knees like a snake.
Almost instinctively I followed him, for on the still summer breeze I
could hear Colonel Napier's voice raised in angry shouts, the thunder of
hurrying feet, and all the mysterious sounds and movements which
betokened that at last the crowd had taken alarm, and that an organised
pursuit of us could, at the most now, be only a matter of a few seconds.
The branches tore our clothes and made sad havoc of our disguises, but
this last accident proved a blessing in disguise, for it made us stop at
a pond and restore to our faces their natural resemblance.
"But we must not be caught," I returned, deftly rolling up the wigs and
secreting them in the branch of a tree, where they looked like a new
kind of bird's nest. "Look through that opening there between those
willows. Don't you see the molten gleam of water under the summer sun?"
"Yes," replied Casteno joyously, rising on his knees and stretching his
neck. "It's a stream sure enough--perhaps a river--with plenty of water
space, for I am sure I distinguish a current in it running steady and
strong."
"Now let us make for that, then," I urged, "and hail the first boat that
passes. Let us pretend we are soldiers, and have overstayed our leave,
and that we shall get fined if we don't hasten pell-mell back to the
town."
"What town?" queried Casteno ruefully; whereat we both laughed. It
certainly did seem preposterous for us not to know the name of the
country we were in. Yet, truthfully enough, we didn't--we hadn't the
ghost of an idea.
As luck would have it, however, we found several boats moored close to
the trees by the side of the water, and in charge of them was a
sharp-looking lad about fourteen years of age.
"Got any tubs for hire, sonny," said Casteno cheerfully, walking up to
the youngster and tapping him familiarly on the shoulder.
"What does your mother want to wash?" promptly returned the lad, and in
a moment the three of us were on the best of terms.
Acting on an impulse of my own I took charge of the conversation, and
pretended that we were soldiers who had got sick of barrack life, and
had deserted from some important depot, and were anxious to get into
hiding in the nearest town. Now in most lads there exists a very
genuine sympathy with the hunted of all descriptions, and a loyalty,
too, which no ordinary bribe or threat would cause them to break. As a
consequence, he promised to take us off in one of the boats and to hide
us under some cushions and sail sheets as he punted us down stream to "a
capital nest I know," he explained, "behind the kilns of the porcelain
works."
"But the town--what is its name?" I queried, with a grimace.
"Why, Worcester, of course," the lad replied. "Didn't you see it on the
milestones?"
"We were in too great a hurry to look," chimed in the Spaniard at once.
"Why, we don't even know what all those thousands of people are doing
here in these grounds. We have simply bolted as hard as we could
through the streets."
"Then you didn't even see the flying machine fall?" cried the lad, his
eyes wide with excitement.
"Not a bit of it," returned I, with more truth than the boy possibly
could have expected.
"Then I'm sorry for you," observed the lad slowly, "for it was the most
lovely thing I ever saw in my life. Four men and one girl were dashed
to pieces, and they've had to stop the race meeting--for this is
Worcester Races on the Pitchcroft--whilst they look for the remains of
the poor victims who are supposed to have come all the way from the
Crystal Palace with Mr Santos-Dumont, who, luckily, made his escape in
the parachute before the thing fell."
Neither Casteno nor I, however, troubled to enlighten the lad as to the
true facts. For one thing, it amused us slightly to discover for
ourselves how strangely the news of our arrival had travelled, and in
what a small degree the good citizens of Worcester were wont to mix the
naked truth with their carefully-compounded stories of breathless
adventure. For another, we were desperately anxious to get away from
the neighbourhood of that racecourse. Any second the hue-and-cry might
spread to the point at which we were. Indeed, it seemed little short of
madness to loiter, and we sprang into the punt immediately we could get
the lad to cast her off, and almost before he quite understood how
quickly we had acted we had got ourselves concealed and the boy hard at
work punting us down the stream.
Happily, the Severn covers but a few hundred yards in its passage from
the racecourse to the city of Worcester itself, and so excited were the
crowd over the fall and appearance of our air-ship that we contrived to
slip away quite unobserved, to glide under the bridge that cut off
Worcester from its suburbs, and to float past the cathedral, close to
which stand the grey, old monastic ruins. Here we insisted on
disembarking, because we found these remains were walled in and really
furnished an ideal place of concealment, but we did not dismiss our
guide.
"Go, sonny, and buy us two suits of rough blue serge," I said, handing
the lad four glittering sovereigns. "If they ask you any inconvenient
questions say they are for your father, who is employed on a coal barge,
and has had his duds stolen, a thing that often happens, I'm told. If
there is any change remaining over, keep it, but whatever you do,
hurry--hurry like mad."
The boy, who had now quite entered into the humour of the adventure, and
thought what a fine thing it was to be outwitting the police under their
very noses as it were, tore off, leaving us in charge of the punt. And
such good use did he make of his time, his opportunities, and the
shopping facilities of the immediate district that, in less than
half-an-hour, he returned with the things we had ordered. Very soon we
bade him good-bye and gave him half-a-sovereign for his trouble; and,
waiting until he had disappeared round a bend of the river, we scaled
the wall that shut off the cathedral school ground from the ruins, and
then plunged into an ancient recess in the wall where, in the half
darkness, we threw off our uniforms and put on our serge suits.
Nobody who has not stood in some deadly peril of this sort can guess the
relief we felt as we got back once again into fairly decent clothes,
that did not make us appear much different to what we really were, and
gave us the advantage of our own speech and looks. One takes up a
disguise glibly enough, even if at first it presents an arduous strain
to the nerves; but after a time the thing becomes a veritable
Frankenstein to one, and seems to absorb every ounce of one's brain and
strength. Casteno literally danced with joy as he flung his uniform
into a corner as far as he could.
"Thank goodness, now we can walk and talk like other folk," he cried.
"For my own part, I don't care who we meet or what is said to us. I
feel powerful enough to deny anything."
"But surely," I gasped, "you don't mean to show yourself in public until
night is fallen? Think--think of the risks!"
"I have, and I mean to take them. Nobody in Worcester can identify us
now with the two soldiers who took passages in the air-ship at
Shrewsbury. Remember, even if Colonel Napier could be quite sure it was
us who had played him such a scurvy trick, he dare not say so. In the
first place, people will think the fall and the shock have given him
softening of the brain if we stick up to him and deny him with all the
lung violence we are capable of. Secondly, you forget he is Professor
Stephen Leopardi, the expert of the Meteorological Office, to the world
just at present. He is the fraud, not us, and we have only got to
unmask him to the hunchback, or to get inquiries made about him in
London, where the police want him for his mysterious disappearance from
Whitehall Court, and where the Meteorological people would have him
instantly arrested for his impersonation, to put him utterly to
confusion. Hence we have no cause to fear him or anyone here. We are
free--free as air." And again he capered about the ruins, overcome with
glee.
"Then you mean actually to walk off to the railway station with all the
Worcester police on the alert and to take the next express up to town?"
I questioned. "You think we shall escape without any trouble!"
"Of course I do. Is it not race time, and is not the city full of
strangers? Besides, you seem to have forgotten the most important thing
of all. I have these manuscripts in my possession, and Camille
Velasquon has brought the key to them all the way from Mexico. Now all
we have got to do is to compare the two--and then?"
He stopped and looked straight at me, as we stood with the ruins
silhouetted against the old cathedral chapter-house. My gaze met his.
"And then?" I repeated; and I stopped, and instinctively my hands
clenched.
"I will do what is right to England, Glynn," he cried in tones of
intense emotion, stretching out his hands to me. "Good heavens, man!
don't stare at me like that! I'm a creature of flesh and blood like
yourself. I have feelings and a sense of honour just as you have. I
have not gone into this business simply to feather my own nest. I have
not fought my father--Fotheringay--Cuthbertson--I have not besought
powerful assistance, such as Cooper-Nassington's, to sell this country
to some Continental enemies--no."
"I take your word--I believe you have not," I replied slowly. "The
point is whether the Order of St Bruno has, for it seems to me that
they are the principals in this treasure hunt and not yourself."
"Well, come with me and see," replied Casteno, averting his eyes. "I
have pledged myself, but you will not take my word. You doubt--you
hint--you mistrust me."
"I do," I gasped. "I can't help it."
"Then, come." And without another word he turned away, and, seizing the
ivy that grew in rich profusion on both sides of the wall, he climbed up
by this support, closely followed by myself. The drop on the far side
was only a matter of some ten feet, and, aided by similar branches, we
passed into the playground again, and soon found ourselves heading for
the chief station in Worcester--Shrub Hill.
As Casteno, however, had predicted, we found the streets thronged with
all manner of queer characters hastening to or from the races, and we
managed to secure places in a "race special," which was timed to run to
Paddington with only four stops on the road. There were, we saw for
ourselves, plenty of detectives in the station, and they had evidently
got wind of us and our flight, for every wretched soldier who swaggered
into the building was stopped and cross-examined, and we actually saw
two poor privates in the engineer uniform, who had had a little beer,
and were inclined to be cheeky and not to answer questions, bundled into
a cab and driven off to the city police station.
Punctually, however, at the time appointed the train left with us. As
it happened, by judicious tips we secured not only a first-class
carriage to ourselves but copies of the London papers, which we had
failed to get in Shrewsbury before we had to hurry off to the fete to
look after our seats in the air-ship.
Jose, plainly, was fagged out, and no sooner did the train move off than
he stretched himself across the seat and composed himself for a nap. I,
however, was strung up to the highest pitch of excitement, not by the
perils we had just passed through, but by the prospect of getting to the
heart of the mysteries of that most mysterious Order of St Bruno, which
had all the ways and uniforms of regular monks without their recognised
symbolism. Indeed, I had not forgotten what my guide said when I had
walked across the courtyard of their house at Chantry Road,
Hampstead--"We are neither Roman Catholics nor Anglicans"--and yet if
they did not belong to one or other of these two persuasions to which
sect did they belong, and what was the object of their banding together,
with houses in Delhi, Sydney, London, and Mexico? And why, as Jose
pretended, should they have any patriotic notions for England in
preference to Spain--or France, or Russia, or Mexico for that matter?
If the manuscripts really belonged to them, as the Spaniard declared,
why didn't they desire to get them, to keep them, and to recover the
Lake of Sacred Treasure for themselves?
Try as I would, I could not, as the train rattled through the fragrant
orchards and hopfields of Worcestershire, bring myself to believe that
my companion had told me the whole of the truth about this mysterious
Order and the part it played in the life of our times. Like most
private investigators I had grown to realise that "'tis not the habit
that bespeaks the monk," and that often under the most simple and
impressive guises there lurked secret forces that meant treachery and
villainy of the worst description.
"One thing I do promise myself," I thought to myself rather firmly, "I
will not rest whilst I am at St Bruno's until I have got to know all
about these mysterious people--_all_. Senor Casteno may try as he will
to put me off with explanations that only leave things more difficult
and puzzling and hard to understand, but this time I will stand my
ground. I will be the spy on this occasion, and if I find the Spaniard
or his friends in the Order up to any mischief I will not hesitate a
second--I will strike for England, cost what it will."
Sinking back, I took up one of the papers I had purchased, and began to
glance carelessly down its columns. I had not forgotten that these news
sheets might contain some further news about that discovery of a
murdered man in the Napiers' flat, but seeing that I had had a Sunday
special edition of a London paper I was not expecting to learn anything
really new just then about the tragedy that had stricken the West End
with a sense of painful impotence and danger; I felt the police and the
press had not had sufficient time.
Nevertheless, something fresh had been discovered by one of the most
enterprising of the younger papers--the _Daily Graphic_--which, unlike
its contemporaries, did not reprint the old story about a man unknown
being found stabbed to the heart in the colonel's bed, but boldly
ventured forth into big type with this extraordinary statement: