repaying. On the other hand, I confess I have subsisted for some time
entirely on your kindness. I’m afraid that alone counterbalances the debt,
and when it comes to my being the means of your taking a bath in mixed
company and spending an evening in a locked room, there’s no doubt the
balance is greatly on your side.”
“I zink so,” observed the Baron.
“So I’ll tell you a true story, a favour with which I haven’t indulged any
one for some considerable time.”
The Baron coughed, but said nothing.
“My biography for all practical purposes,” Mr Bunker continued, “begins in
that sequestered retreat, Clankwood Asylum. How and with whom I came there
I haven’t the very faintest recollection. I simply woke up from an
extraordinary drowsiness to find myself recovering from a sharp attack of
what I may most euphoniously call mental excitement. The original cause of
it is very dim in my mind, and has, so far as I remember, nothing to do
with the rest of the story. The attack was very short, I believe. I soon
came to something more or less like myself; only, Baron, the singular
thing is, that it was to all intents and purposes a new self—whether
better or worse, my faulty memory does not permit me to say. I’d clean
forgotten who I was and all about me. I found myself called Francis
Beveridge, but that wasn’t my old name, I know.”
“Ha!” exclaimed the Baron, growing interested despite himself.
“And the most remarkable thing of all is that up till this day I haven’t
the very vaguest notion what my real name is.”
“Zo?” said the Baron. “Bot vy should they change it?”
“There you’ve laid your finger on the mystery, Baron. Why? Heaven knows: I
wish I did!”
The Baron looked at him with undisguised interest.
“Strange!” he said, thoughtfully.
“Damnably strange. I found myself compelled to live in an asylum and
answer to a new name, and really, don’t you know, under the circumstances
I could give no very valid reason for getting out. I seemed to have
blossomed there like one of the asylum plants. I couldn’t possibly have
been more identified with the place. Besides, I’m free to confess that for
some time my reason, taking it all in all, wasn’t particularly valid on
any point. By George, I had a funny time! Ha, ha, ha!”
His mirth was so infectious that the Baron raised his voice in a hearty
“Ha, ha!” and then stopped abruptly, and said cautiously, “Haf a care,
Bonker, zey may hear!”
“However, Baron,” Mr Bunker continued, “out I was determined to get, and
out I came in the manner of which perhaps my friend Escott has already
informed you.”
The Baron grinned and nodded.
“I came up to town, and on my very first evening I had the good fortune to
meet the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg—as perhaps you may remember. In my
own defence, Baron, I may fairly plead that since I could remember nothing
about my past career, I was entitled to supply the details from my
imagination. After all, I have no proof that some of my stories may not
have been correct. I used this privilege freely in Clankwood, and, in a
word, since I couldn’t tell the truth if I wanted to, I quenched the
desire.”
“You hombog!” said the Baron, not without a note of admiration.
“I was, and I gloried in it. Baron, if you ever want to know how ample a
thing life can be, become a certified lunatic! You are quite irresponsible
for your debts, your crimes, and, not least, your words. It certainly
enlarges one’s horizon. All this time, I may say, I was racking my
brains—which, by the way, have been steadily growing saner in other
matters—for some recollections of my previous whereabouts, my career, if I
had any, and, above all, of my name.”
“Can you remember nozing?”
“I can remember a large country house which I think belonged to me, but in
what part of the country it stands I haven’t the slightest recollection. I
can’t remember any family, and as no one has inquired for me, I don’t
suppose I had any. Many incidents—sporting, festive, amusing, and
discreditable—I remember distinctly, and many faces, but there’s nothing
to piece them together with. Can you recall one or two incidents in town,
when people spoke to me or bowed to me?”
“Yes, vell; I vondered zen.”
“I suppose they knew me. In a general sort of way I knew them. But when a
man doesn’t know his own name, and will probably be replaced in an asylum
if he’s identified, there isn’t much encouragement for greeting old
friends. And do you remember my search for a name in the hotel at St
Egbert’s?”
“Yah—zat is, yes.”
“It was for my own I was looking.”
“You found it not?”
“No. The worst of it is, I can’t even remember what letter it began with.
Sometimes I think it was M, or perhaps N, and sometimes I’m almost sure it
was E. It will come to me some day, no doubt, Baron, but till it does I
shall have to wander about a nameless man, looking for it. And after all,
I am not without the consolations of a certain useful, workaday kind of
philosophy.”
He rose from the bed and smiled humorously at his friend.
“And now, Baron,” he said, “it only remains to offer you such thanks and
apologies as a lunatic may, and then clear out before the cock crows.
These are my brushes, I think.”
There was still something on the Baron’s mind: he lay for a moment
watching Mr Bunker collect a few odds and ends and put them rapidly into a
small bag, and then blurted out suddenly, “Ze Lady Alicia—do you loff
her?”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Mr Bunker, “I’d forgotten all about her. I ought to
have told you that I once met her before, when she showed
sympathy—practical sympathy, I may add—for an unfortunate gentleman in
Clankwood. That’s all.”
“You do not loff her?” persisted the Baron.
“I, my dear chap? No. You are most welcome to her—_and_ the countess.”
“Does she not loff you?”
“On my honour, no. I told her a few early reminiscences; she happened to
discover they were not what is generally known as true, and took so absurd
a view of the case that I doubt whether she would speak to me again if she
met me. In fact, Baron, if I read the omens aright—and I’ve had some
experience—you only need courage and a voice.”
The bed creaked, there was a volcanic upheaval of the clothes as the Baron
sprang out on to the floor, and the next instant Mr Bunker was clasped in
his embrace.
“Ach, my own Bonker, forgif me! I haf suspected, I haf not been ze true
friend; you have sairved me right to gom here as ze Baron. I vas too bad a
Baron to gom! You have amused me, you have instrogted, you have varmed my
heart. My dear frient!”
To tell the truth, Mr Bunker looked, for the first time in their
acquaintance, a little ill at ease. He laughed, but it sounded affected.
“My dear fellow—hang it! You’d make me out a martyr. As a matter of fact,
I’ve been such a thorn as very few people would stand in their flesh.
There’s nothing to forgive, my dear Baron, and a lot to thank you for.”
“I haf been rude, Bonker; I haf insulted you! You forgif me?”
“With all my heart, if you think it’s needed, but——”
“And you vill not go now? You vill stay here?”
“What, two Barons at once? My dear chap, we’d merely confuse the butler.”
“Ach, you vill joke, you hombog! But you most stay!”
“And what about my friend, Dr Escott? No, Baron, it would only mean
breakfast and the next train to Clankwood.”
“Zey vill not take you ven you tell zem! I shall insist viz Sir Richard!”
“The law is the law, Baron, and I’m a certified lunatic. Here we must part
till the weather clears; and mind, you mustn’t say a word about my coming
to see you.”
The Baron looked at him disconsolately.
“You most really go, Bonker?”
“Really, Baron.”
“And vere to?”
“To London town again by the milk train.”
“And vat vill you do zere?”
“Look for my name.”
“Bot how?”
Mr Bunker hesitated.
“I have a little clue,” he said at last, “only a thread, but I’ll try it
for what it’s worth.”
“Haf you money enoff?”
“Thanks to your generosity and my skill at billiards, yes, which reminds
me that I must return poor Trelawney’s ten pounds some day. At present, I
can’t afford to be scrupulous. So, you see, I’m provided for.”
“Cigars at least, Bonker! You most smoke, my frient vizout a name!”
The Baron, night-shirted and barefooted as he was, dived into his
portmanteau and produced a large box of cigars.
“You like zese, Bonker. Zey are your own choice. Smoke zem and zink of
me!”
“A few, Baron, would be a pleasant reminiscence,” said his friend, with a
smile, “if you really insist.”
“All, Bonker,—I vill not keep vun! I can get more. No, you most take zem
all!”
Mr Bunker opened his bag and put in the box without a word.
“You most write,” said the Baron, “tell me vere you are. I shall not tell
any soul, bot ven I can, I shall gom up, and ve shall sup togezzer vunce
more. Pairhaps ve may haf anozzer adventure, ha, ha!”
The Baron’s laugh was almost too hearty to be true.
“I shall let you know, as soon as I find a room. It won’t be in the
Mayonaise this time! Good-bye: good sport and luck in love!”
“Good-bye, my frient, good-bye,” said the Baron, squeezing his hand.
His friend was half out of the door when he turned, and said with an
intonation quite foreign either to Beveridge or Bunker, and yet which came
very pleasantly, “I forgot to warn you of one thing when I advised you to
try the _rôle_ of certified lunatic—you are not likely to make so good a
friend as I have.”
He shut the door noiselessly and was gone.
The Baron stood in the middle of the floor for fully five minutes, looking
blankly at the closed door; then with a sigh he turned out the light and
tumbled into bed again.
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
The Dover express was nearing town: evening had begun to draw in, and from
the wayside houses people saw the train roar by like a huge glowworm; but
they could hardly guess that it was hurrying two real actors to the climax
of a real comedy.
From the opposite sides of a first-class carriage these two looked
cheerfully at one another. The Channel was safely behind them, London was
close ahead, and the piston of the engine seemed to thump a triumphal air.
“We’ve done it, Twiddel, my boy!” said the one.
“Thank Heaven!” replied the other.
“_And_ myself,” added his friend.
“Yes,” said Twiddel; “you played your part uncommonly well, Welsh.”
“It was the deuce of a fine spree!” sighed Welsh.
“The deuce,” assented Twiddel.
“I’m only sorry it’s all over,” Welsh went on, gazing regretfully up at
the lamp of the carriage. “I’d give the remains of my character and my
chance of a public funeral to be starting again from Paris by the morning
train!”
Twiddel laughed.
“With the same head you had that morning?”
“Yes, by George! Even with the same mile of dusty gullet!”
“It’s all over now,” said Twiddel, philosophically, and yet rather
nervously—“at least the amusing part of it.”
“All the fun, my boy, all the fun. All the dinners and the drinks, and the
touching of hats to the aristocratic travellers, and the girls that
sighed, and the bowing and scraping. Do you remember the sporting baronet
who knew my uncle? Now, I’m plain Robert Welsh, whose uncles, as far as I
am aware, don’t know a baronet among ’em.”
He smiled a little sardonically.
“And the baron at Fogelschloss,” said Twiddel.
“Who insisted on learning my pedigree back to Alfred the Great! Gad, I
gave it him, though, and I doubt whether the real Essington could have
done as much. I’d rather surprise some of these noblemen if I turned up
again in my true character!”
“Thank the Lord, we’re not likely to meet them again!” exclaimed the
doctor, devoutly.
“No,” said Welsh; “here endeth the second lesson.”
His friend, who had been well brought up, looked a trifle uncomfortable at
this quotation.
“I say,” he remarked a few minutes later, “we haven’t finished yet. We’ve
got to get the man out again, and hand him back to his friends.”
“Cured,” said Welsh, with a laugh.
“I wonder how he is?”
“We’ll soon see.”
They fell silent again, while the train hurried nearer and nearer London
town. Welsh seemed to be musing on some nice point, it might be of
conscience, it might also conceivably be of a more practical texture. At
last he said, “There’s just one thing, old man. What about the fee?”
“I’ll get a cheque for it, I suppose,” his friend replied, with an almost
excessive air of mastery over the problem.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Welsh; “you know what I mean. It’s a delicate question
and all that, but, hang it, it’s got to be answered.”
“What has?”
“The division of the spoil.”
Twiddel looked dignified.
“I’ll see you get your share, old man,” he answered, easily.
“But what share?”
“You suggested £100, I think.”
“Out of £500—when I’ve done all the deceiving and told all the lies! Come,
old man!”
“Well, what do you want?”
“Do you remember a certain crisis when we’d made a slip——”
“You’d made a slip!”
“_We_ had made a slip, and you wanted to chuck the game and bolt? Do you
remember also the terms I proposed when I offered to beard the local god
almighty in his lair and explain it all away, and how he became our bosom
pal and we were saved?”
“Well?”
“£300 to me, £200 to you,” said Welsh, decisively.
“Rot, old man. I’ll share fairly, if you insist. £250 apiece, will that
do?”
Welsh said nothing, but his face was no longer the countenance of the
jovial adventurer.
“It will have to, I suppose,” he replied, at length.
It was with this little cloud on the horizon that they saw the lights of
London twinkle through the windows, and were carried into the clamour of
the platforms.
They both drove first to Twiddel’s rooms; and as they looked out once more
on the life and lights and traffic of the streets, their faces cleared
again.
“We’ll have a merry evening!” cried Welsh.
“A little supper,” suggested Twiddel; “a music-hall——”
“Et cetera,” added Welsh, with a laugh.
The doctor had written of their coming, and they found a fire in the back
room, and the table laid.
“Ah,” cried Welsh, “this looks devilish comfortable.”
“A letter for me,” said Twiddel; “from Billson, I think.”
He read it and threw it to his friend, remarking, “I call this rather cool
of him.”
Welsh read—
“DEAR GEORGE,—I am just off for three weeks’ holiday. Sorry for leaving
your practice, but I think it can look after itself till you return.
“You have only had two patients, and one fee between them. The second man
vanished mysteriously. I shall tell you about it when I come back. He
boned a bill, too, I fancy, but the story will keep.
“I am looking forward to hearing the true tale of your adventures. Good
luck to you.—Yours ever,
THOMAS BILLSON.”
“Boned a bill?” exclaimed Welsh. “What bill, I wonder?”
“Something that came when I was away, I suppose. Hang it, I think Billson
might have looked after things better!”
“It sounds queer,” said Welsh, reflectively; “I wonder what it was?”
“Confound Billson, he might have told me,” observed the doctor. “But, I
say, you know we have something more practical to see to.”
“Getting the man out again?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s have a little grub first.”
Twiddel rang the bell, and the frowsy little maid entered, carrying a
letter on a tray.
“Dinner,” said he.
“Please, sir,” began the maid, holding out the tray, “this come for you
near a month agow, but Missis she bin and forgot to send it hafter you.”
“Confound her!” said Twiddel, taking the letter.
He looked at the envelope, and remarked with a little start of nervous
excitement, “From Dr Congleton.”
“News of Mr Beveridge,” laughed Welsh.
The doctor read the first few lines, and then, as if he had got an
electric shock, the letter fell from his hand, and an expression of the
most utter and lively consternation came over his face.
“Heavens!” he ejaculated, “it’s all up.”
“What’s up?” cried Welsh, snatching at the letter.
“He’s run away!”
Welsh looked at him for a moment in some astonishment, and then burst out
laughing.
“What a joke!” he cried; “I don’t see anything to make a fuss about. We’re
jolly well rid of him.”
“The fee! I won’t get a penny till I bring him back. And the whole thing
will be found out!”
As the full meaning of this predicament burst upon Welsh, his face
underwent a change by no means pleasant to watch. For a full minute he
swore, and then an ominous silence fell upon the room.
Twiddel was the first to recover himself.
“Let me see the letter,” he said; “I haven’t finished it.”
Welsh read it aloud—
“DEAR TWIDDEL,—I regret to inform you that the patient, Francis Beveridge,
whom you placed under my care, has escaped from Clankwood. We have made
every inquiry consistent with strict privacy, but unfortunately have not
yet been able to lay our hands upon him. We only know that he left
Ashditch Junction in the London express, and was seen walking out of St
Euston’s Cross. How he has been able to maintain himself in concealment
without money or clothes, I am unable to imagine.
“As no inquiries have been made for him by his cousin Mr Welsh, or any
other of his friends or relatives, I am writing to you that you may inform
them, and I hope that this letter may follow you abroad without delay. I
may add that the circumstances of his escape showed most unusual cunning,
and could not possibly have been guarded against.
“Trusting that you are having a pleasant holiday, I am, yours very truly,
ADOLPHUS S. CONGLETON.”
The two looked at one another in silence for a minute, and then Welsh
said, fiercely, “You must catch him again, Twiddel. Do you think I am
going to have all my risk and trouble for nothing?”
“_I_ must catch him! Do you suppose _I_ let him loose?”
“You must catch him, all the same.”
“I shan’t bother my head about him,” answered Twiddel, with the
recklessness of despair.
“You won’t? You want to have the story known, I suppose?”
“I don’t care if it is.”
Welsh looked at him for a minute: then he jumped up and exclaimed, “You
need a drink, old man. Let’s hurry up that slavey.”
With the first course their countenances cleared a little, with the second
they were almost composed, by the end of dinner they had started
plot-hatching hopefully again.
“It’s any odds on the man’s still being in town,” said Welsh. “He had no
money or clothes, and evidently he hasn’t gone to any of his friends, or
the whole story would have been out. Now, there is nowhere where a man can
lie low so well, especially if he is hard up, as London. I can answer from
experience. He is hardly likely to be in the West End, or the best class
of suburbs, so we’ve something to go upon at once. We must go to a private
inquiry office and put men on his track, and then we must take the town in
beats ourselves. So much is clear; do you see?”
“And hadn’t we better find out whether anything more is known at
Clankwood?” suggested Twiddel. “Dr Congleton wrote a month ago; perhaps
they have caught him by this time.”
“Hardly likely, I’m afraid; he’d have written to you if they had. Still,
we can but ask.”
“But, I say!” the doctor suddenly exclaimed, “people may find out that I’m
back without him.”
Welsh was equal to the emergency.
“You must leave again at once,” he said decisively, rising from the table;
“and there’s no good wasting time, either.”
“What do you mean?” asked the bewildered doctor, who had not yet
assimilated the criminal point of view.
“We’ll put our luggage straight on to a cab, drive off to other rooms—I
know a cheap place that will do—and if by any chance inquiries are made,
people must be told that you are still abroad. Nobody must hear of your
coming home to-night.”
“Is it——” began Twiddel, dubiously.
“Is it what?” snapped his friend.
“Is it worth it?”
“Is £500, not to speak of two reputations, worth it! Come on!”
The unfortunate doctor sighed, and rose too. He was beginning to think
that the nefarious acquisition of fees might have drawbacks after all.
CHAPTER II.
The chronicle must now go back a few days and follow another up-express.
“I must either be a clergyman or a policeman,” Mr Bunker reflected, in the
corner of his carriage; “they seem to me to be on the whole the two least
molested professions. Each certainly has a livery which, if its occupier
is ordinarily judicious, ought to serve as a certificate of sanity. To me
all policemen are precisely alike, but I daresay they know them apart in
the force, and as all the beats and crossings are presumably taken
already, I might excite suspicion by my mere superfluity. Besides, a
theatrical costumier’s uniform would possibly lack some ridiculous but
essential detail.”
He lit another cigar and looked humorously out of the window.
“I shall take orders. An amateur theatrical clergyman’s costume will be
more comfortable, and probably less erroneous. They allow them some
latitude, I believe; and I don’t suppose there are any visible ordination
scars whose absence would give me away. I shall certainly study the first
reverend brother I meet to see.”
Thus wisely ruminating, he arrived in London at a very early hour on a
chilly morning, and drove straight to a small hotel near King’s Cross,
where the landlord was much gratified at receiving so respectable a guest
as the Rev. Alexander Butler. (“I must begin with a B.” said Mr Bunker to
himself; “I think it’s lucky.”)
It is true the reverend gentleman was in evening clothes, while his hat
and coat had a singularly secular, not to say fashionable, appearance;
but, as he mentioned casually in the course of some extremely affable
remarks, he had been dining in a country house, and had not thought it
worth while changing before he left. After breakfasting he dressed himself
in an equally secular suit of tweeds and went out, he mentioned
incidentally, to call at his tailor’s for his professional habit, which he
seemed surprised to learn had not yet been forwarded to the hotel.
A visit to a certain well-known firm of theatrical costumiers was followed
by his reappearance in a cab accompanied by a bulky brown paper parcel;
and presently he emerged from his room attired more consistently with his
office, much to his own satisfaction, for, as he observed, “I cannot say I
approve of clergymen masquerading as laymen.”
His opinion on the converse circumstance was not expressed.
Much to his landlord’s disappointment, he informed him that he should
probably leave again that afternoon, and then he went out for a walk.
About half an hour later he was once more in the street where, not so very
long ago, a very exciting cab-race had finished. He strolled slowly past
Dr Twiddel’s house. The blinds of the front room were down; at that hour
there was no sign of life about it, and he saw nothing at all to arrest
his attention. Then he looked down the other side of the street, and to
his great satisfaction spied a card, with the legend “Apartments to let,”
in one of the first-floor windows of a house immediately opposite.
He rang the bell, and in a moment a rotund and loquacious landlady
appeared. Yes, the drawing-room was to let; would the reverend gentleman
come up and see it? Mr Bunker went up, and approved. They readily agreed
upon terms, and the landlady, charmed with her new lodger’s appearance and
manners, no less than with the respectability of his profession, proceeded
to descant at some length on the quiet, comfort, and numerous other
advantages of the apartments.
“Just the very plice you wants, sir. We ’ave ’ad clerical gentlemen ’ere
before, sir; in fact, there’s one a-staying ’ere now, second floor,—you
may know of ’im, sir,—the Reverend Mr John Duggs; a very pleasant
gentleman you’ll find him, sir. I’ll tell ’im you’re ’ere, sir; ’e’d be
sure to like to meet another gentleman of the syme cloth, has they say.”
Somehow or other the Rev. Mr Butler failed to display the hearty pleasure
at this announcement that the worthy Mrs Gabbon had naturally expected.
Aloud he merely said, “Indeed,” politely, but with no unusual interest.
Within himself he reflected, “The deuce take Mr John Duggs! However, I
want the rooms, and a man must risk something.”
As a precautionary measure he visited a second-hand bookseller on his way
back, and purchased a small assortment of the severest-looking works on
theology they kept in stock; and these, with his slender luggage, he
brought round to Mrs Gabbon’s in the course of the afternoon.
He looked carefully out of his sitting-room window, but the doctor’s
blinds were still down, and he saw no one coming or going about the house;
so he began his inquiries by calling up his landlady.
“I have been troubled with lumbago, Mrs Gabbon,” he began.
“Dearie me, sir,” said Mrs Gabbon, “I’m sorry to ’ear that; you that looks
so ’ealthy too! Well, one never knows what’s be’ind a ’appy hexterior,
does one, sir?”
“No, Mrs Gabbon,” replied Mr Bunker, solemnly; “one never knows what even
a clergyman’s coat conceals.”
“That’s very true, sir. In the midst of life we are in——”
“Lumbago,” interposed Mr Bunker.
Mrs Gabbon looked a trifle startled.
“Well,” he continued with the same gravity, “I may unfortunately have
occasion to consult a doctor——”
“There’s Dr Smith,” interrupted Mrs Gabbon, her equanimity quite restored
by his ecclesiastical tone and the mention of ailments; “’e attended my
poor dear ’usband hall through his last illness; an huncommon clever
doctor, sir, as I ought to know, sir, bein’——”
“No doubt an excellent man, Mrs Gabbon; but I should like to know of one
as near at hand as possible. Now I see the name of a Dr Twiddel——”
“I wouldn’t recommend ’im, sir,” said Mrs Gabbon, pursing her mouth.
“Indeed? Why not?”
“’E attended Mrs Brown’s servant-girl, sir,—she bein’ the lady as has the
’ouse next door,—and what he give _’er_ didn’t do no good. Mrs Brown tell
me ’erself.”
“Still, in an emergency——”
“Besides which, he ain’t at ’ome, sir.”
“Where has he gone?”
“Abroad, they do say, sir; though I don’t rightly know much about ’im.”
“Has he been away long?”
Mrs Gabbon considered.
“It must ’ave bin before the middle of November he went, sir.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Mr Bunker, keenly, though apparently more to himself than
his landlady.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“The middle of November, you say? That’s a long holiday for a doctor to
take.”
“’E ’avn’t no practice to speak of,—not as I knows of, leastways.”
“What sort of a man is he—young or old?”
“By my opinion, sir, ’e’s too young. I don’t ’old by them young doctors.
Now Dr Smith, sir——”
“Dr Twiddel is quite a young man, then?”
“What I’d call little better than a boy, sir. They tell me they lets ’em
loose very young nowadays.”
“About twenty-five, say?”
“’E might be that, sir; but I don’t know much about ’im, sir. Now Dr
Smith, sir, ’e’s different.”
In fact at this point Mrs Gabbon showed such a tendency to turn the
conversation back to the merits of Dr Smith and the precise nature of Mr
Bunker’s ailment, that her lodger, in despair, requested her to bring up a
cup of tea as speedily as possible.
“Before the middle of November,” he said to himself. “It is certainly a
curious coincidence.”
To a gentleman of Mr Bunker’s sociable habits and active mind, the
prospect of sitting day by day in the company of his theological treatises
and talkative landlady, and watching an apparently uninhabited house,
seemed at first sight even less entertaining than a return to Clankwood.
But, as he said of himself, he possessed a kind of easy workaday
philosophy, and, besides that, an apparently irresistible attraction for
the incidents of life.
He had barely finished his cup of tea, and was sitting over the fire
smoking one of the Baron’s cigars and looking through one of the few books
he had brought that bore no relation to divinity, his feet high upon the
side of the mantelpiece, his ready-made costume perhaps a little more
unbuttoned than the strictest propriety might approve, and a stiff glass
of whisky-and-water at his elbow, when there came a rap at his door.
In response to his “Come in,” a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in clerical
attire, entered. He had a broad, bearded face, a dull eye, and an
indescribably average aspect.
“The devil! Mr John Duggs himself,” thought Mr Bunker, hastily adopting a
more conventional attitude and feeling for his button-holes.
“Ah—er—Mr Butler, I believe?” said the stranger, with an apologetic air.
“The same,” replied Mr Bunker, smiling affably.
“I,” continued his visitor, advancing with more confidence, “am Mr Duggs.
I am dwelling at present in the apartment immediately above you, and
hearing of the arrival of a fellow-clergyman, through my worthy friend Mrs
Gabbon, I have taken the liberty of calling. She gave me to understand
that you were not undesirous of making my acquaintance, Mr Butler.”
“The deuce, she did!” thought Mr Butler. Aloud he answered most politely,
“I am honoured, Mr Duggs. Won’t you sit down?”
First casting a wary eye upon a chair, Mr Duggs seated himself carefully
on the edge of it.
“It is quite evident,” thought Mr Bunker, “that he has spotted something
wrong. I believe a bobby would have been safer after all.”
He assumed the longest face he could draw, and remarked sententiously,
“The weather has been unpleasantly cold of late, Mr Duggs.”
He flattered himself that his guest seemed instantly more at his ease.
Certainly he replied with as much cordiality as a man with such a dull eye
could be supposed to display.
“It has, Mr Butler; in fact I have suffered from a chill for some weeks.
Ahem!”
“Have something to drink,” suggested Mr Bunker, sympathetically. “I’m
trying a little whisky myself, as a cure for cold.”
“I—ah—I am sorry. I do not touch spirits.”
“I, on the contrary, am glad to hear it. Too few of our clergymen nowadays
support the cause of temperance by example.”
Mr Bunker felt a little natural pride in this happily expressed sentiment,
but his visitor merely turned his cold eye on the whisky bottle, and
breathed heavily.
“Confound him!” he thought; “I’ll give him something to snort at if he is
going to conduct himself like this.”
“Have a cigar?” he asked aloud.
Mr Duggs seemed to regard the cigar-box a little less unkindly than the
whisky bottle; but after a careful look at it he replied, “I am afraid
they seem a little too strong for me. I am a light smoker, Mr Butler.”
“Really,” smiled Mr Bunker; “so many virtues in one room reminds me of the
virgins of Gomorrah.”
“I beg your pardon? The what?” asked Mr Duggs, with a startled stare.
Mr Bunker suspected that he had made a slip in his biblical reminiscences,
but he continued to smile imperturbably, and inquired with a perfect air
of surprise, “Haven’t you read the novel I referred to?”
Mr Duggs appeared a little relieved, but he answered blankly enough,
“I—ah—have not. What is the book you refer to?”
“Oh, don’t you know? To tell the truth, I forget the title. It’s by a
somewhat well-known lady writer of religious fiction. A Miss—her name
escapes me at this moment.”
In fact, as Mr Bunker had no idea how long his friend might be dwelling in
the apartment immediately above him, he thought it more prudent to make no
statement that could possibly be checked.
“I am no great admirer of religious fiction of any kind,” replied Mr
Duggs, “particularly that written by emotional females.”
“No,” said Mr Bunker, pleasantly; “I should imagine your own doctrines
were not apt to err on the sentimental side.”
“I am not aware that I have said anything to you about my—doctrines, as
you call them, Mr Butler.”
“Still, don’t you think one can generally tell a man’s creed from his
coat, and his sympathies from the way he cocks his hat?”
“I think,” replied Mr Duggs, “that our ideas of our vocation are somewhat
different.”
“Mine is, I admit,” said Mr Bunker, who had come to the conclusion that
the strain of playing his part was really too great, and was now being
happily carried along by his tongue.
Mr Duggs for a moment was evidently disposed to give battle, but thinking
better of it, he contented himself with frowning at his younger opponent,
and abruptly changed the subject.
“May I ask what position you hold in the church, Mr Butler?”
“Why,” began Mr Bunker, lightly: it was on the tip of his tongue to say “a
clergyman, of course,” when he suddenly recollected that he might be
anything from the rank of curate up to the people who wear gaiters (and
who these were precisely he didn’t know). An ingenious solution suggested
itself. He replied with a preliminary inquiry, “Have you ever been in the
East, Mr Duggs?”
“I regret to say I have not hitherto had the opportunity.”
“Thank the Lord for that,” thought Mr Bunker. “I have been a missionary,”
he said quietly, and looked dreamily into the fire.
It was a happy move. Mr Duggs was visibly impressed.
“Ah?” he said. “Indeed? I am much interested to learn this, Mr Butler.
It—ah—gives me perhaps a somewhat different view of your—ah—opinions.
Where did your work lie?”
“China,” replied Mr Bunker, thinking it best to keep as far abroad as
possible.
“Ha!” exclaimed Mr Duggs. “This is really extremely fortunate. I am at
present, Mr Butler, studying the religions and customs of China at the
British Museum, with a view to going out there myself very shortly. I
already feel I know almost as much about that most interesting country as
if I had lived there. I should like to talk with you at some length on the
subject.”
Mr Bunker saw that it was time to put an end to this conversation, at
whatever minor risk of perturbing his visitor. He had been a little
alarmed, too, by noticing that Mr Duggs’ dull eye had wandered frequently
to his theological library, which with his usual foresight he had strewn
conspicuously on the table, and that any expression it had was rather of
suspicious curiosity than gratification.
“I should like to hear some of your experiences,” Mr Duggs continued. “In
what province did you work?”
“In Hung Hang Ho,” replied Mr Bunker. His visitor looked puzzled, but he
continued boldly, “My experiences were somewhat unpleasant. I became
engaged to a mandarin’s daughter—a charming girl. I was suspected,
however, of abetting an illicit traffic in Chinese lanterns. My companions
were manicured alive, and I only made my escape in a pagoda, or a junk—I
was in too much of a hurry to notice which—at the imminent peril of my
life. Don’t go to China, Mr Duggs.”
Mr Duggs rose.
“Young man,” he said, sternly, “put away that fatal bottle. I can only
suppose that it is under the influence of drink that you have ventured to
tell me such an irreverent and impossible story.”
“Sir,” began Mr Bunker, warmly,—for he thought that an outburst of
indignation would probably be the safest way of concluding the
interview,—when he stopped abruptly and listened. All the time his ears
had been alive to anything going on outside, and now he heard a cab rattle
up and stop close by. It might be at Dr Twiddel’s, he thought, and,
turning from his visitor, he sprang to the window.
Remarking distantly, “I hear a cab; it is possibly a friend I am
expecting,” Mr Duggs stepped to the other window.
It was only, however, a hansom at the door of the next house, out of which
a very golden-haired young lady was stepping. “Aha,” said Mr Bunker, quite
forgetting the indignant _rôle_ he had begun to play; “rather nice! Is
this your friend, Mr Duggs?”
Mr Duggs gave him one look of his dull eyes, and walked straight for the
door. As he went out he merely remarked, “Our acquaintance has been brief,
Mr Butler, but it has been quite sufficient.”
“Quite,” thought Mr Bunker.
CHAPTER III.
That was Mr Bunker’s first and last meeting with the Rev. John Duggs, and
he took no small credit to himself for having so effectually incensed his
neighbour, without, at the same time, bringing suspicion on anything more
pertinent than his sobriety.
And yet sometimes in the course of the next three days he would have been
thankful to see him again, if only to have another passage-of-arms. The
time passed most wearily; the consulting-room blinds were never raised; no
cabs stopped before the doctor’s door; nobody except the little servant
ever moved about the house.
He could think of no plan better than waiting; and so he waited, showing
himself seldom in the streets, and even sitting behind the curtain while
he watched at the window. After writing at some length to the Baron he had
no further correspondence that he could distract himself with; he was even
forced once or twice to dip into the theological works. Mrs Gabbon had
evidently “’eard sommat” from Mr Duggs, and treated him to little of her
society. The boredom became so excessive that he decided he must make a
move soon, however rash it was.
The only active step he took, and indeed the only step he saw his way to
take, was a call on Dr Twiddel’s _locum_. But luck seemed to run dead
against him. Dr Billson had departed “on his holiday,” he was informed,
and would not return for three weeks. So Mr Bunker was driven back to his
window and the Baron’s cigars.
It was the evening of his fourth day in Mrs Gabbon’s rooms. He had
finished a modest dinner and was dealing himself hands at piquet with an
old pack of cards, when he heard the rattle of a cab coming up the street.
The usual faint flicker of hope rose: the cab stopped below him, the
flicker burned brighter, and in an instant he was at the window. He opened
the slats of the blind, and the flicker was aflame. Before the doctor’s
house a four-wheeled cab was standing laden with luggage, and two men were
going up the steps. He watched the luggage being taken in and the cab
drive away, and then he turned radiantly back to the fire.
“The curtain is up,” he said to himself. “What’s the first act to be?”
Presently he put on his wide-awake hat and went out for a stroll. He
walked slowly past the doctor’s house, but there was nothing to be seen or
heard. Remembering the room at the back, he was not surprised to find no
chink of light about the front windows, and thinking it better not to run
the risk of being seen lingering there, he walked on. He was in such good
spirits, and had been cooped up so continually for the last few days, that
he went on and on, and it was not till about a couple of hours had passed
that he approached his rooms again. As he came down the street he was
surprised to see by the light of a lamp that another four-wheeler was
standing before the doctor’s house, also laden with luggage.
Two men jumped in, one after another, and when he had come at his fastest
walk within twenty yards or so, the cabman whipped up and drove rapidly
away, luggage and men and all.
He looked up and down for a hansom, but there were none to be seen. For a
few yards he set off at a run in pursuit, and then, finding that the horse
was being driven at a great rate, and remembering the paucity of stray
cabs in the quiet streets and roads round about, he stopped and considered
the question.
“After all,” he reflected, “it may not have been Dr Twiddel who drove
away; in fact, if it was he who arrived in the first cab, it’s any odds
against it. Pooh! It can’t be. Still, it’s a curious thing if two cabs
loaded with luggage came to the house in the same evening, and one drove
away without unlading.”
With his spirits a little damped in spite of his philosophy, he went back
to his rooms.
In the morning the consulting-room blinds were still down, and the house
looked as deserted as ever.
He waited till lunch, and then he went out boldly and pulled the doctor’s
bell. The same little maid appeared, but she evidently did not recognise
the fashionable patient who disappeared so mysteriously in the
demure-looking clergyman at the door.
“Is Dr Twiddel at home?”
“No, sir, he ain’t back yet.”
“He hasn’t been back?”
“No, sir.”
Mr Bunker looked at her keenly, and then said to himself, “She is lying.”
He thought he would try a chance shot.
“But he was expected home last night, I believe.”
The maid looked a little staggered.
“He ain’t been,” she replied.
“I happen to have heard that he called here,” he hazarded again.
This time she was evidently put about.
“He ain’t been here—as I knows of.”
He slipped half-a-crown into her hand.
“Think again,” he said, in his most winning accents.
The poor little maid was obviously in a dilemma.
“Do you want him particular, sir?”
“Particularly.”
She fidgeted a little.
“He told me,” he pursued, “that he might look in at his rooms last night.
He left no message for me?”
“What name, sir?”
“Mr Butler.”
“No, sir.”
“Then, my dear,” said Mr Bunker, with his most insinuating smile, “he was
here for a little, you can’t deny?”
At the maid’s embarrassed glance down his long coat, he suddenly realised
that there was perhaps a distinction between lay and clerical smiles.
“He might have just looked in, sir,” she admitted.
“But he didn’t want it known?”
“No, sir.”
“Quite right, I advised him not to, and you did very well not to tell me
at first.”
He smiled approvingly and made a pretence of turning away.
“Oh, by the way,” he added, stopping as if struck by an after-thought, “Is
he still in town? He promised to leave word for me, but he has evidently
forgotten.”
“I don’t know, sir; ’e didn’t say.”
“What? He left _no_ word at all?”
“No, sir.”
Mr Bunker held out another half-crown.
“It’s truth, sir,” said the maid, drawing back; “we don’t know where ’e
is.”
“Take it, all the same; you have been very discreet. You have no idea?”
The maid hesitated.
“I _did_ ’ear Mr Welsh say something about lookin’ for rooms,” she
allowed.
“In London?”
“I expect so, sir; but ’e didn’t say no more.”
“Mr Welsh is the friend who came with him, of course?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks,” said Mr Bunker. “By the way, Dr Twiddel might not like your
telling this even to a friend, so you needn’t say I called, I’ll tell him
myself when I see him, and I won’t give you away.”
He smiled benignly, and the little maid thanked him quite gratefully.
“Evidently,” he thought as he went away, “I was meant for something in the
detective line.”
He returned to his rooms to meditate, and the longer he thought the more
puzzled he became, and yet the more convinced that he had taken up a
thread that must lead him somewhere.
“As for my plan of action,” he considered, “I see nothing better for it
than staying where I am—and watching. This mysterious doctor must surely
steal back some night. Now and then I might go round the town and try a
cast in the likeliest bars—oh, hang me, though! I forgot I was a
clergyman.”
That night he had a welcome distraction in the shape of a letter from the
Baron. It was written from Brierley Park, in the Baron’s best pointed
German hand, and it ran thus—
“MY DEAR BUNKER,—I was greatly more delighted than I am able to express to
you from the amusing correspondence you addressed me. How glad I am, I can
assure you, that you are still in safety and comfort. Remember, my dear
friend, to call for me when need arises, although I do think you can guard
yourself as well as most alone.
“This leaves me happy and healthful, and in utmost prosperity with the
kind Sir Richard and his charming Lady. You English certainly know well
how to cause time to pass with mirth. About instruction I say less!
“They have talked of you here. I laugh and keep my tongue when they wonder
who he is and whither gone away. Now that anger is passed and they see I
myself enjoy the joke, they say, and especially do the ladies, (You
humbug, Bunker!) ‘How charming was the imitation, Baron!’ You can indeed
win the hearts, if wishful so. The Lady Grillyer and her unexpressable
daughter I have often seen. To-day they come here for two nights. I did
suggest it to Lady Brierley, and I fear she did suspect the condition of
my heart; but she charmingly smiled, she asked them, and they come!
“The Countess, I fear, does not now love you much, my friend; but then she
knows not the truth. The Lady Alicia is strangely silent on the matter of
Mr Bunker, but in time she also doubtless will forgive. (At this Mr Bunker
smiled in some amusement.)
“When they leave Brierley I also shall take my departure on the following
day, that is in three days. Therefore write hastily, Bunker, and name the
place and hour where we shall meet again and dine festively. I expect a
most reverent clergyman and much instructive discourse. Ah, humbug!—Thine
always,
RUDOLPH VON BLITZENBERG.”
“_P.S._—She is sometimes more kind and sometimes so distant. Ah, I know
not what to surmise! But to-morrow or the next my fate will be decided.
Give me of your prayers, my reverent friend!
R. VON B.”
“Dear old Baron!” said Mr Bunker. “Well, I’ve at least a dinner to look
forward to.”
CHAPTER IV.
Dr Twiddel, meanwhile, was no less anxious to make the Rev. Alexander
Butler’s acquaintance than the Rev. Alexander Butler was to make his. Not
that he was aware of that gentleman’s recent change of identity and
occupation; but most industrious endeavors to find a certain Mr Beveridge
were made in the course of the next few days. He and Welsh were living
modestly and obscurely in the neighbourhood of the Pentonville Road,
scouring the town by day, studying a map and laying the most ingenious
plans at night. Welsh’s first effort, as soon as they were established in
their new quarters, was to induce his friend to go down to Clankwood and
make further inquiries, but this Twiddel absolutely declined to do.
“My dear chap,” he answered, “supposing anything were found out, or even
suspected, what am I to say? Old Congleton knows me well, and for his own
sake doesn’t want to make a fuss; but if he really spots that something is
wrong, he will be so afraid of his reputation that he’d give me away like
a shot.”
“How are you going to give things away by going down and seeing him?”
“_If_ they have guessed anything, I’ll give it away. I haven’t your cheek,
you know, and tact, and that sort of thing; you’d much better go
yourself.”
“_I?_ It isn’t my business.”
“You seem to be making it yours. Besides, Dr Congleton thinks it is. You
passed yourself off as the chap’s cousin, and it is quite natural for you
to go and inquire.”
Welsh pondered the point. “Hang it,” he said at last, “it would do just as
well to write. Perhaps it’s safer after all.”
“Well, you write.”
“Why should I, rather than you?”
“Because you’re his cousin.”
Welsh considered again. “Well, I don’t suppose it matters much. I’ll
write, if you’re afraid.”
It was these amiable little touches in his friend’s conversation that
helped to make Twiddel’s lot at this time so pleasant. In fact, the doctor
was learning a good deal about human nature in cloudy weather.
With great care Welsh composed a polite note of anxious inquiry, and by
return of post received the following reply:—
“MY DEAR SIR,—I regret to inform you that we have not so far recovered
your cousin Mr Beveridge. In all probability, however, this cannot be long
delayed now, as he was seen within the last week at a country house in
Dampshire, and is known to have fled to London immediately on his
recognition, but before he could be secured. He was then clean shaved, and
had been passing under the name of Francis Bunker. We are making strict
inquiries for him in London.
“Nobody can regret the unfortunate circumstance of his escape more than I,
and, in justice to myself and my institution, I can assure you that it was
only through the most unforeseen and remarkable ingenuity on your cousin’s
part that it occurred.
“Trusting that I may soon be able to inform you of his recovery, I am,
yours very truly,
“ADOLPHUS S. CONGLETON.
Their ardour was, if possible, increased by Dr Congleton’s letter. Mr
Beveridge was almost certainly in London, and they knew now that they must
look for a clean-shaved man. Two private inquiry detectives were at work;
and on their own account they had mapped the likeliest parts of London
into beats, visiting every bar and restaurant in turn, and occasionally
hanging about stations and the stopping-places for ’buses.
It was dreadfully hard work, and after four days of it, even Welsh began
to get a little sickened.
“Hang it,” he said in the evening, “I haven’t had a decent dinner since we
came back. Mr Bunker can go to the devil for to-night, I’m going to dine
decently. I’m sick of going round pubs, and not even stopping to have a
drink.”
“So am I,” replied Twiddel, cordially; “where shall we go?”
“The Café Maccarroni,” suggested Welsh; “we can’t afford a West-end place,
and they give one a very decent dinner there.”
The Café Maccarroni in Holborn is nominally of foreign
extraction,—certainly the waiters and the stout proprietor come from
sunnier lands,—and many of the diners you can hear talking in strange
tongues, with quick gesticulations. But for the most part they are
respectable citizens of London, who drink Chianti because it stimulates
cheaply and not unpleasantly. The white-painted room is bright and clean
and seldom very crowded, the British palate can be tickled with tolerable
joints and cutlets, and the foreign with gravy-covered odds and ends.
Altogether, it may be recommended to such as desire to dine comfortably
and not too conspicuously.
The hour at which the two friends entered was later than most of the
_habitués_ dine, and they had the room almost to themselves. They faced
each other across a small table beside the wall, and very soon the
discomforts of their researches began to seem more tolerable.
“We’ll catch him soon, old man,” said Welsh, smiling more affably than he
had smiled since they came back. “A day or two more of this kind of work
and even London won’t be able to conceal him any longer.”
“Dash it, we must,” replied Twiddel, bravely. “We’ll show old Congleton
how to look for a lunatic.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Welsh, “I think he’ll be rather relieved himself.
Waiter! another bottle of the same.”
The bottle arrived, and the waiter was just filling their glasses when a
young clergyman entered the room and walked quietly towards the farther
end. Welsh raised his glass and exclaimed, “Here’s luck to ourselves,
Twiddel, old man!”
At that moment the clergyman was passing their table, and at the mention
of this toast he started almost imperceptibly, and then, throwing a quick
glance at the two, stopped and took a seat at the next table, with his
back turned towards them. Welsh, who was at the farther side, looked at
him with some annoyance, and made a sign to Twiddel to talk a little more
quietly.
To the waiter, who came with the _menu_, the clergyman explained in a
quiet voice that he was waiting for a friend, and asked for an evening
paper instead, in which he soon appeared to be deeply engrossed.
At first the conversation went on in a lower tone, but in a few minutes
they insensibly forgot their neighbour, and the voices rose again by
starts.
“My dear fellow,” Welsh was saying, “we can discuss that afterwards; we
haven’t caught him yet.”
“I want to settle it now.”
“But I thought it was settled.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Twiddel, with a foreign and vinous doggedness.
“What do you suggest then?”
“Divide it equally—£250 each.”
“You think you can claim half the credit for the idea and half the
trouble?”
“I can claim _all_ the risk—practically.”
“Pooh!” said Welsh. “You think I risked nothing? Come, come, let’s talk of
something else.”
“Oh, rot!” interrupted Twiddel, who by this time was decidedly flushed.
“You needn’t ride the high horse like that, you are not Mr
Mandell-Essington any longer.”
With a violent start, the clergyman brought his fist crash on the table,
and exclaimed aloud, “By Heaven, that’s it!”
CHAPTER V.
As one may suppose, everybody in the room started in great astonishment at
this extraordinary outburst. With a sharp “Hollo!” Twiddel turned in his
seat, to see the clergyman standing over him with a look of the keenest
inquiry in his well-favoured face.
“May I ask, Dr Twiddel, what you know of the gentleman you just named?” he
said, with perfect politeness.
The conscience-smitten doctor gazed at him blankly, and the colour
suddenly left his face. But Welsh’s nerves were stronger; and, as he
looked hard at the stranger, a jubilant light leaped to his eyes.
“It’s our man!” he cried, before his friend could gather his wits. “It’s
Beveridge, or Bunker, or whatever he calls himself! Waiter!”
Instantly three waiters, all agog, hurried at his summons.
Mr Bunker regarded him with considerable surprise. He had quite expected
that the pair would be thrown into confusion, but not that it would take
this form.
“Excuse me, sir,” he began, but Welsh interrupted him by crying to the
leading waiter—
“Fetch a four-wheeled cab and a policeman, quick!” As the man hesitated,
he added, “This man here is an escaped lunatic.”
The waiter was starting for the door, when Mr Bunker stepped out quickly
and interrupted him.
“Stop one minute, waiter,” he said, with a quiet, unruffled air that went
far to establish his sanity. “Do I look like a lunatic? Kindly call the
proprietor first.”
The stout proprietor was already on his way to their table, and the one or
two other diners were beginning to gather round. Mr Bunker’s manner had
impressed even Welsh, and after his nature he took refuge in bluster.
“I say, my man,” he cried, “this won’t pass. Somebody fetch a cab.”
“Vat is dees about?” asked the proprietor, coming up.
“Your wine, I’m afraid, has been rather too powerful for this gentleman,”
Mr Bunker explained, with a smile.
“Look here,” blustered Welsh, “do you know you’ve got a lunatic in the
room?”
“You can perhaps guess it,” smiled Mr Bunker, indicating Welsh with his
eyes.
The waiters began to twitter, and Welsh, with an effort, pulled himself
together.
“My friend here,” he said, “is Dr Twiddel, a well-known practitioner in
London. He can tell you that he certified this man as a lunatic, and that
he afterwards escaped from his asylum. That is so, Twiddel?”
“Yes,” assented Twiddel, whose colour was beginning to come back a little.
“Who are you, sare?” asked the proprietor.
“Show him your card, Twiddel,” said Welsh, producing his own and handing
it over.
The proprietor looked at both cards, and then turned to Mr Bunker.
“And who are you, sare?”
“My name is Mandell-Essington.”
“His name——” began Welsh.
“Have you a card?” interposed the proprietor.
“I am sorry I have not,” replied Mr Bunker (to still call him by the name
of his choice).
“His name is Francis Beveridge,” said Welsh.
“I beg your pardon; it is Mandell-Essington.”
“Any other description?” Welsh asked, with a sneer.
“A gentleman, I believe.”
“No other occupation?”
“Not unless you can call a justice of the peace such,” replied Mr Bunker,
with a smile.
“And yet he disguises himself as a clergyman!” exclaimed Welsh,
triumphantly, turning to the proprietor.
Mr Bunker saw that he was caught, but he merely laughed, and observed, “My
friend here disguises himself in liquor, a much less respectable cloak.”
Unfortunately the humour of this remark was somewhat thrown away on his
present audience; indeed, coming from a professed clergyman, it produced
an unfavourable impression.
“You are not a clergyman?” said the proprietor, suspiciously.
“I am glad to say I am not,” replied Mr Bunker, frankly.
“Den vat do you do in dis dress?”
“I put it on as a compliment to the cloth; I retain it at present for
decency,” said Mr Bunker, whose tongue had now got a fair start of him.
“Mad,” remarked Welsh, confidentially, shrugging his shoulders with really
excellent dramatic effect.
By this time the audience were disposed to agree with him.
“You can give no better account of yourself dan dis?” asked the
proprietor.
“I am anxious to,” replied Mr Bunker, “but a public restaurant is not the
place in which I choose to give it.”
“Fetch the cab and the policeman,” said Welsh to a waiter.
At this moment another gentleman entered the room, and at the sight of him
Mr Bunker’s face brightened, and he stopped the waiter by a cry of, “Wait
one moment; here comes a gentleman who knows me.”
Everybody turned, and beheld a burly, very fashionably dressed young man,
with a fair moustache and a cheerful countenance.
“Ach, Bonker!” he cried.
This confirmation of Mr Bunker’s _aliases_ ought, one would expect, to
have delighted the two conspirators, but, instead, it produced the most
remarkable effect. Twiddel utterly collapsed, while even Welsh’s impudence
at last deserted him. Neither said a word as the Baron von Blitzenberg
greeted his friend with affectionate heartiness.
“My friend, zis is good for ze heart! Bot, how? vat makes it here?”
“My dear Baron, the most unfortunate mistake has occurred. Two men here——”
But at this moment he stopped in great surprise, for the Baron was staring
hard first at Welsh and then at Twiddel.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “Mr Mandell-Essington, I zink?”
Welsh hesitated for an instant, and his hesitation was evident to all.
Then he replied, “No, you are mistaken.”
“Surely I cannot be; you did stay in Fogelschloss?” said the Baron. “Is
not zis Dr Twiddel?”
“No—er—ah—yes,” stammered Twiddel, looking feebly at Welsh.
The Baron looked from the one to the other in great perplexity, when Mr
Bunker, who had been much puzzled by this conversation, broke in, “Did you
call that person Mandell-Essington?”
“I cairtainly zought it vas.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“In Bavaria, at my own castle.”
“You are mistaken, sir,” said Welsh.
“One moment, Mr Welsh,” said Mr Bunker. “How long ago was this, Baron?”
“Jost before I gom to London. He travelled viz zis ozzer gentleman, Dr
Twiddel.”
“You are wrong, sir,” persisted Welsh.
“For his health,” added the Baron.
A light began to dawn on Mr Bunker.
“His health?” he cried, and then smiled politely at Welsh.
“We will talk this over, Mr Welsh.”
“I am sorry I happen to be going,” said Welsh, taking his hat and coat.
“What, without your lunatic?” asked Mr Bunker.
“That is Dr Twiddel’s affair, not mine. Kindly let me pass, sir.”
“No, Mr Welsh; if you go now, it will be in the company of that policeman
you were so anxious to send for.” There was such an unmistakable threat in
Mr Bunker’s voice and eye that Welsh hesitated. “We will talk it over, Mr
Welsh,” Mr Bunker repeated distinctly. “Kindly sit down. I have several
things to ask you and your friend Dr Twiddel.”
Muttering something under his breath, Welsh hung up his coat and hat, sat
down, and then assuming an air of great impudence, remarked, “Fire away,
Mr Mandell-Essington—Beveridge—Bunker, or whatever you call yourself.”
Without paying the slightest attention to this piece of humour, Mr Bunker
turned to the bewildered proprietor, and, to the intense disappointment of
the audience, said, “You can leave us now, thank you; our talk is likely
to be of a somewhat private nature.” As their gallery withdrew, he drew up
a chair for the Baron, and all four sat round the small table.
“Now,” said Mr Bunker to Welsh, “you will perhaps be kind enough to give
me a precise account of your doings since the middle of November.”
“I’m d——d if I do,” replied Welsh.
“Sare,” interposed the Baron in his stateliest manner, “I know not now who
you may be, but I see you are no gentleman. Ven you are viz gentlemen—and
noblemen—you vill please to speak respectfully.”
The stare that Welsh attempted in reply was somewhat ineffective.
“Perhaps, Dr Twiddel, you can give the account I want?” said Mr Bunker.
The poor doctor looked at his friend, hesitated, and finally stammered
out, “I—I don’t see why.”
Mr Bunker pulled a paper out of his pocket and showed it to him.
“Perhaps this may suggest a why.”
When the doctor saw the bill for Mr Beveridge’s linen, the last of his
courage ebbed away. He glanced helplessly at Welsh, but his ally was now
leaning back in his chair with such an irritating assumption of
indifference, and the prospective fee had so obviously vanished, that he
was suddenly seized with the most virtuous resolutions.
“What do you want to know, sir?” he asked.
“In the first place, how did you come to have anything to do with me?”
Welsh, whose sharp wits instantly divined the weak point in the attack,
cut in quickly, “Don’t tell him if he doesn’t know already!”
But Twiddel’s relapse to virtue was complete. “I was asked to take charge
of you while——” He hesitated.
“While I was unwell,” smiled Mr Bunker. “Yes?”
“I was to travel with you.”
“Ah!”
“But I—I didn’t like the idea, you see; and so—in fact—Welsh suggested
that I should take him instead.”
“While you locked me up in Clankwood?”
“Yes.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Mr Bunker, “I must say it was a devilish humorous
idea.”
At this Twiddel began to take heart again.
“I am very sorry, sir, for——” he began, when the Baron interrupted
excitedly.
“Zen vat is your name, Bonker?”
“_I_ am Mr Mandell-Essington, Baron.”
The Baron looked at the other two in turn with wide-open eyes.
Then he turned indignantly upon Welsh.
“You were impostor zen, sare? You gom to my house and call yourself a
gentleman, and impose upon me, and tell of your family and your estates.
You, a low—er—er—vat you say?—a low _cad!_ Bonker, I cannot sit at ze same
table viz zese persons!”
He rose as he spoke.
“One moment, Baron! Before we send these gentlemen back to their really
promising career of fraud, I want to ask one or two more questions.” He
turned to Twiddel. “What were you to be paid for this?”
“£500.”
Mr Bunker opened his eyes. “That’s the way my money goes? From your
anxiety to recapture me, I presume you have not yet been paid?”
“No, I assure you, Mr Essington,” said Twiddel, eagerly; “I give you my
word.”
“I shall judge by the circumstances rather than your word, sir. It is
perhaps unnecessary to inform you that you have had your trouble for
nothing.” He looked at them both as though they were curious animals, and
then continued: “You, Mr Welsh, are a really wonderfully typical rascal. I
am glad to have met you. You can now put on your coat and go.” As Welsh
still sat defiantly, he added, “_At once_, sir! or you may possibly find
policemen and four-wheeled cabs outside. I have something else to say to
Dr Twiddel.”
With the best air he could muster, Welsh silently cocked his hat on the
side of his head, threw his coat over his arm, and was walking out, when a
watchful waiter intercepted him.
“Your bill, sare.”
“My friend is paying.”
“No, Mr Welsh,” cried the real Essington; “I think you had better pay for
this dinner yourself.”
Welsh saw the vigilant proprietor already coming towards him, and with a
look that augured ill for Twiddel when they were alone, he put his hand in
his pocket.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Essington, “the inevitable bill!”
“And now,” he continued, turning to Twiddel, “you, doctor, seem to me a
most unfortunately constructed biped; your nose is just long enough to
enable you to be led into a singularly original adventure, and your brains
just too few to carry it through creditably. Hang me if I wouldn’t have
made a better job of the business! But before you disappear from the
company of gentlemen I must ask you to do one favour for me. First thing
to-morrow morning you will go down to Clankwood, tell what lie you please,
and obtain my legal discharge, or whatever it’s called. After that you may
go to the devil—or, what comes much to the same thing, to Mr Welsh—for all
I care. You will do this without fail?”
“Ye—es,” stammered Twiddel, “certainly, sir.”
“You may now retire—and the faster the better.”
As the crestfallen doctor followed his ally out of the restaurant, the
Baron exclaimed in disgust, “Ze cads! You are too merciful. You should
punish.”
“My dear Baron, after all I am obliged to these rascals for the most
amusing time I have ever had in my life, and one of the best friends I’ve
ever made.”
“Ach, Bonker! Bot vat do I say? You are not Bonker no more, and yet may I
call you so, jost for ze sake of pleasant times? It vill be too hard to
change.”
“I’d rather you would, Baron. It will be a perpetual in memoriam record of
my departed virtues.”
“Departed, Bonker?”
“Departed, Baron,” his friend repeated with a sigh; “for how can I ever
hope to have so spacious a field for them again? Believe me, they will
wither in an atmosphere of orthodoxy. And now let us order dinner.”
“But first,” said the Baron, blushing, “I haf a piece of news.”
“Baron, I guess it!”
“Ze Lady Alicia is now mine! Congratulate!”
“With all my heart, Baron! What could be a fitter finish than the
detection of villainy, the marriage of all the sane people, and the
apotheosis of the lunatic?”
THE END.
ERRATA.
PART I.
CHAPTER IV.
Changed: he whistled, *The* sounds outside
To: he whistled, *the* sounds outside
PART I.
CHAPTER VI.
Changed: Ye*-*es.
To: Ye*—*es.
PART I.
CHAPTER VII.
Changed: which that *disapponted* official only
To: which that *disappointed* official only
PART III.
CHAPTER V.
Changed: something out*.*” he said
To: something out*,*” he said
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
Changed: to me, *$*200 to you
To: to me, *£*200 to you
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
Changed: _I_ let him loose?*’*
To: _I_ let him loose?*”*
PART IV.
CHAPTER II.
Changed: * *Indeed? Why not?”
To: *“*Indeed? Why not?”
PART IV.
CHAPTER III.
Changed: on his *wideawake* hat and
To: on his *wide-awake* hat and
PART IV.
CHAPTER III.
Changed: “What *nime*, sir?”
To: “What *name*, sir?”