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THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN


BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE LUNATIC
AT LARGE
The Original Adventures of Mr. Francis
Mandell-Essington.
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY


THE LUNATIC AT
LARGE AGAIN
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF
MR. FRANCIS MANDELL-ESSINGTON
BY
J. STORER CLOUSTON
2
AUTHOR of “THE LUNA fic AT LARGE,” Etc.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH Avenue


Copyright, 1923
By E. P. Dutton & Company
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED
StATES OF AMERICA


CHAPTER
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
CONTENTS
PART I
INTRODUCTORY
MR. PERRY's CLIENT
THE ONE GOOD CARD .
UNDER RESTRAINT .
THE OTHER GUARDIAN .
. A FALSE SCENT .
THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR .
THE DIRECTOR
MR. MASON .
PART II
. THE REv. CRISPIN
EscAPE
THE NEw CURATE .
IDA
THE MAN IN THE BowleR HAT .
A NEAR THING .
ExIT CRISPIN
PAGE
ix
16
22
30
41
49
67
75
93
102
111
118
124


AUTHOR'S NOTE
CoNSIDERATION for the feelings of certain of the
people concerned has hitherto prevented the publica-
tion of this narrative. The proceedings of Mr.
Francis Mandell-Essington on a previous and some-
what similar occasion were confided to the public a
number of years ago in the form of a chronicle
(sometimes mistaken for a work of fiction, so curious
were some of the incidents) which went under the
title of “The Lunatic at Large.” Having carefully
investigated these fresh facts, and at last received
permission to make them public, the same annalist
will now endeavour to set them down as concisely
and intelligibly as possible.





INTRODUCTORY
MR. MITHS (at his special request his real name has
been slightly, but it is hoped, sufficiently, altered)
happens to be an old acquaintance of the present
chronicler, and a gentleman of a singularly tenacious
and accurate memory. His recollections of a con-
versation overheard in the Regent's Club in Pall Mall
one September evening in the year 1896 are of such
importance in elucidating the strange series of events
which followed, that this narrative had better begin
with that curious episode.
The roadway of Pall Mall was up, the leaves in
the park were beginning to show a tinge of russet,
and all good clubmen were still out of town. Mr.
Miths was merely passing through on his way from
a friend's place in Sussex to another in Norfolk, and
as he had been tramping the turnips all day under a
warm sun and finished up with an excellent dinner
at the club and a pint of champagne, he was not at
all sorry to find hardly a fellow-member in the house
to disturb his after-dinner nap. To make doubly
sure he sought out the small smoking-room on the
ix


X INTRODUCTORY
second floor, whither few people at any time pene-
trated. He found the room in darkness and switched
on the light nearest the door, but the farther end,
where a wide and comfortable sofa faced the fire-
place, he left in slumber-inviting obscurity. And
then he threw himself down on the sofa and in three
minutes fell fast asleep.
He considers that it must have been about half an
hour afterwards when a pleasant dream of part-
ridges, pork pie and bottled beer was sharply inter-
rupted. Some one at the other end of the room
seemed to have uttered an exclamation, but nobody
was speaking when he first opened his eyes. Then
in an instant he heard a voice say:
“I am aware it is most awkward, Harry, but what
can one do?”
The voice was familiar, yet he could not fit it with
a name. Certainly it was not a young man's voice.
“Awkward!” said the other voice sardonically.
“Do you realise what it means for us?”
This voice he did not recognise. He had never
heard it in the club, and he deduced a stranger; also,
from the tones, a younger man.
“And whose fault is that?” asked the first voice.
Mr. Miths was startled by the tone. Something
very serious must have happened to agitate the
speaker. The conversation was evidently going to
be embarrassing, and for a moment he was on the


INTRODUCTORY xi
point of jumping up and revealing himself. But
before he could move, the other man spoke again.
“We needn't go into that again,” he said. “I ad-
mit I was rash, but at the same time I was cursed
unlucky. The point is now that she is our only
chance. I tell you again, this affair must be stopped !
You can stop it perfectly easily.”
Uncomfortable though he felt, the listener on the
sofa decided that the position would only be the
more embarrassing if he revealed himself now. If
they discovered him, he could easily pretend to be
still fast asleep, and if not, he could trust his own
discretion not to repeat what he had overheard.
“But, Harry, you keep forgetting Francis—”
The other interrupted impatiently.
“It’s you who keep forgetting that he is safely
out of our road. That's our one piece of luck.”
“But I hear he is getting better,” said the other
man; curiously enough not in a tone that seemed to
suggest any pleasure in the news.
The man called Harry answered in a lowered
voice, so that only some words were audible from the
sofa.
“I’ll see to it . . . won't get out . . . affair
settled first . . . only you with any say in the
matter . . . just give me my chance . . . you
be firm, that's your part.”
The listener caught these words, and then for a


xii INTRODUCTORY
few moments heard nothing more. Yet the same
speaker must have been saying something, for sud-
denly the other man exclaimed:
“A maid?”
“Don’t shout,” said the other, and then answered
in a low voice, “A reliable maid will be worth any
money. I can arrange . . .”
Again his voice sank, but he seemed to go on
talking quickly and yet thoughtfully, like a man who
planned as he spoke. When he ceased, the other an-
swered nothing for a moment, and then spoke low
and guardedly
“Are you sure it is quite necessary?”
“Can you suggest an alternative?”
“Are there no other developments in the City?”
“All bad,” said the younger man briefly. “We’ve
got to bring this thing off. Well, that was all you
had to tell me?”
“Yes, Harry. I'm sorry it was bad news.”
“It will have to be altered l’” said the man called
Harry.
They were moving towards the door now, and
just as they were passing out, the listener on the sofa
ventured to raise his head and take a swift peep at
them. The elder man had already gone out and the
other was in the doorway. He was tall, dressed
rather resplendently for the occasion, in full evening
clothes and white waistcoat, and his hair was black


INTRODUCTORY xiii
and wavy—almost curly in fact. Of his face the
watcher on the sofa could only see enough to judge
that he was a handsome man probably in the middle
thirties. And then the door closed behind them and
he was left to keep his secret; which he has faithfully
done down to the date of the publication of this
narrative.





PART I





THE LUNATIC AT LARGE
AGAIN
CHAPTER I
MR. PERRY's CLIENT
M*. PERRY, of Bannerman, Perry & Haines,
gazed for a moment at the visiting card which
the clerk had just handed in. He was an elderly
young man, very grave and solemn for his six and
thirty years, thin-faced and carefully dressed; an
ideal-looking adviser in a delicate matter. The card
was his brother’s “introducing my friend Mr. Rid-
ley,” and to Mr. Perry it appeared to be a dubious
introduction. His brother was a spirited young
gentleman who frequented the more western regions
of London, and seemed unlikely to send his friends to
the family office unless they had got into a very
serious scrape indeed.
“Show him in,” said Mr. Perry briefly, and com-
posed his face into an expression of even greater
austerity than usual.
The door opened, and there entered not one, but
two young gentlemen. The first was a little above
medium height, slim but very well set up, immacu-
3


4 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
lately dressed, and even to Mr. Perry's critical eye
decidedly pleasing to look upon. His features were
good, his mouth firm and businesslike, and his eyes
quiet, clear and steady.
“I am Ridley,” said he, “and this is my friend,
Mr. Toothill.”
The second young man smiled affably and re-
marked that it was a “devilish warm day.” He was
probably of nearly the same height as Ridley, but
so broad that he looked decidedly shorter. His face
was ingenuous and good-humoured, pug-nosed,
genial, obstinate, but not at all intellectual; whilst his
attire reached the very limit of the very latest fashion.
“Sit down,” said Mr. Perry, and then after one
quick shrewd glance at both his visitors, decided it
would save valuable time to come straight to the
point.
“Got into a scrape?” he inquired with his nearest
approach to a genial manner.
“No,” said Ridley, “not in the least.”
Mr. Perry glanced again at each of them in turn
and raised his brows a trifle.
“I may remind you that I am a criminal solicitor,”
said he.
“I know you are,” said Ridley. “That's why we
have come to you. We want your advice.”
For a single instant there showed through the
young man's restrained well-bred voice a hint of


6 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
Ridley simply, “and I fell in love with her.” He sud-
denly smiled for an instant and added: “Personally
I don't see how anyone could help it.”
“No more do I,” said Toothill with a sigh, and
then seeing the lawyer's eye turn in his direction, he
explained with engaging candour, “I fell in love with
her too, but Philip was the lucky bird. But that
accounts for my bein’ here with him, as you'll hear
in a minute.”
“Unfortunately she was very rich,” Ridley went
On.
“Unfortunately?” repeated the lawyer sharply.
“Well, I mean that she is very much richer than I
am or ever will be, and one loathes the idea of for-
tune hunting. Besides, I am not sure that it may not
account for what has happened since. She was an
orphan, I should say, with no near relations, and
two guardians. Beyond an allowance stipulated in
her father's will, they have absolute control of her
money till she is twenty-five. In fact if she marries
before then without their consent she loses all.”
“Do you know what her fortune amounts to?”
“Madame D'Albert spoke of £20,000 a year, but
very likely she exaggerated.”
The lawyer nodded.
“Very possibly. Still, it is clear that she is ex-
tremely wealthy. And what is the attitude of her
guardians towards her engagement?”


MR. PERRY'S CLIENT 7
“You can judge of the attitude of one of them
from what I am going to tell you,” said Ridley with
some significance. “By the time we were actually
engaged, well, it was only three weeks ago; and she
was coming home to England so soon that we first
decided to wait till she arrived in London and see the
guardians then. A little later, however, she told me
in a letter that she had written after all to break the
news, but that was just before she started and there
has been no time for me to hear the answer—that's
to say, to hear it from Beatrix. I came home ahead
of her, went down to the country to see my people
for a day or two, and then came back to town and
waited for her. Of course we were corresponding
regularly, and it was all arranged that she was to
arrive at Charing Cross three days ago by the Conti-
nental train getting in at 9.0 p.m.” At this point
Ridley paused and looked at the lawyer very straight
and frankly, while the lines of his mouth set firmer
than ever. “This is where the strange part of the
story begins,” said he, “and if you think anything
wants clearing up, you can ask me as I go along.”
“In that case,” replied Mr. Perry, “I should just
like to ask you whether Miss Staynes was travelling
to England by herself or with friends.”
“She was going to travel with a friend, another
girl from Madame D'Albert's, and then she wrote
and told me that she had changed her plans. She


8 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
was getting a maid, she said, and was travelling home
with her. First of all I thought of going over to
escort her—I wish to Heaven I had l—but we were
both of us particularly anxious not to do anything
her guardians might disapprove of, and as they had
made this arrangement about getting her a maid and
altering her plans, I decided not to go over but
simply to meet her at Charing Cross.
“I got to the station pretty early, and in a few
minutes, much to my surprise, Mr. Toothill turned
up.”
Mr. Toothill, finding himself thus the centre of
interest for the moment, looked exceedingly serious,
and in a voice which he apparently desired to be
melancholy, confessed:
“I honestly couldn't help it, Mr. Perry, I know it
sounds like pushin' my nose in where it wasn't sort
of expected. In fact, it was pushin' my nose in;
but the truth is I wrote to her asking if there was
any chance of my seein’ her again — perfectly
platonically, of course, perfectly platonically. She
wrote such a kind note back—damned kind. And so
I came down to meet her. Rotten thing to do, I
know quite well; still, just as well I came, as things
turned out.”
The ghost of a smile flickered for an instant over
Mr. Perry's grave face.
“I quite understand,” he said, “well, what hap-
pened next?”


MR. PERRY'S CLIENT 9
“We paced the platform together,” Ridley con-
tinued, “till close on the time when the train was
due. By then, of course, a lot of other people had
collected, and so we never noticed where the man
appeared from or whether he had been hanging
about for long: in fact, the first thing we knew was
hearing a voice at our back saying:
“‘Beg pardon, sir.’
“We turned round and saw a small weaselly-
looking fellow in a bowler hat that looked a little too
big for him, with a narrow face and uncommon
sharp eyes set rather close together. His voice was
hoarse and a little hushed and confidential, and his
manner most respectful.
“‘Is one of you gentlemen Mr. Ridley?' he asked.
“I said I was, and he handed me a folded slip of
paper.
“‘This note's for you, sir,’ said he.
“Outside was simply written, “For Philip.’ In-
side was this message—
“Arriving Victoria 9.15 instead of Charing Cross.
Meet me there. Beatrix.’
“The first thing I did was to look at my watch. It
was nearly 9.0 o'clock. Then I handed the note to
Toothill, and asked the man:
“‘How did you get this?’


10 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“‘Came in a letter to Miss Scott,” said he.
“‘Who is she?' I asked.
“‘Friend of Miss Staynes, sir. Miss Staynes
asked her to 'ave it sent on to you.’
“‘But why didn't I get it sooner?' I asked him.
“‘Can't say, sir,’ said he, perfectly glibly and
naturally. ‘I made all the 'aste I could.”
“At that moment Charles—that's to say, Toothill
—reminded me that we had no time to lose if we
meant to get to Victoria at 9.15. And on top of that
the man, in a very brisk, obliging way, asked:
“‘Get you a cab, sir?”
“I am telling all these details, Mr. Perry, to show
how artfully the thing was done and how I was
rushed into a decision with no time to think it over.
I was vaguely suspicious from the very start, and I
could have kicked myself afterwards for falling into
the trap, but there was that note, and I remembered
that there was, or had been, a Miss Scott, a friend of
Beatrix's at Madame D'Albert's; what could I do?”
Mr. Perry was listening very intently now. He
merely nodded and asked:
“So you got into the cab P”
“We did, and drove at full speed to Victoria.”
“Very natural. And then what happened?”
“The moment we stopped, I leapt out and asked
the first porter which was the platform for the Conti-
nental train.
*


MR. PERRY'S CLIENT 11
“‘There's no Continental trains at Victoria to-
night,” said he.”
Mr. Perry sat up sharply.
“What!” he exclaimed, and then gave a little
whistle. “Well,” he added, falling back into his dry,
watchful manner, “what did you do then?”
“We came back to Charing Cross at a gallop—
and got there just too late. Miss Staynes had ar-
rived; we found the porter who had put her boxes
on to a cab. They were in charge of a maid, and the
porter swore that a small man in a bowler hat had
helped him to pile them on the cab, and then jumped
in beside the maid. They seemed in a great hurry,
he said. A girl answering to the description of Miss
Staynes had spoken to the maid for a moment and
then driven away in a hansom. She was met by a
tall man in a fur coat, and he went with her. We
saw them leaving as we arrived at the station.”
“You actually saw them?”
“We couldn't be sure at the moment. It was quite
dark and we only caught a glimpse as they passed
under a lamp. I couldn't believe it was really
Beatrix' But it must have been.”
“Did you recognize the man she was with?”
Ridley shook his head.
“We scarcely saw his face. I couldn't even swear
to him if I met him again.”
“Did you expect her to be met by anyone else but
yourself?” asked Mr. Perry.


12 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“She told me in the last letter I got from her that
she had informed her guardian when she would
arrive, but added that I was to meet her and take her
to an hotel or wherever else he suggested. But I had
no time to hear what he said in answer to that.”
“Who is this guardian?”
“As I told you, there are really two, but the only
one that counts and who corresponds with her and
looks after her affairs and so on, is Sir Joshua
Horsham, a big financial magnate, I believe.”
“Of Horsham and Stukley?” Mr. Perry seemed
interested and impressed. “I know the firm, and Sir
Joshua too, very well by repute—exceedingly well.
In fact, Horsham and Stukley is one of the best-
known firms in the City.”
“So I understand,” said Ridley, “and the very
first thing I thought of was to go and see him
immediately.”
“You couldn't have done better,” said Mr. Perry.
“I knew from Beatrix that Sir Joshua is a
widower and lives nowadays at his place in Berkshire
most of the time. When he is in town he stays at
the Regent's Club in Pall Mall, so we went straight
to his club from the station, on the chance of finding
him. The porter first told me confidently he was in
the club, and went to look for him. Then he came
back and said he had been mistaken.”


MR. PERRY'S CLIENT 18
“Deuced fishy, I call it!” observed Mr. Toothill.
“What was your next step?” asked the lawyer.
“I went down next day to Sir Joshua's place,”
said Ridley, “but found it closed, and the house-
keeper in charge either couldn't or wouldn't tell me
anything. I noticed however that she showed no
surprise at seeing me. Then I wrote to Sir Joshua
and told him exactly what had happened.”
“Have you got his answer?”
“It came this morning. He refuses his consent to
my marriage with Beatrix and forbids any corre-
spondence with her. I had written to her at the same
time, and as I knew no other address, I had to ad-
dress my letter care of Sir Joshua. He returned it,
unopened, in his own.”
“And not a word about what has become of
Beatrix!” exclaimed Toothill indignantly.
Ridley merely confirmed this by a quiet nod and
a tightening of his lips.
“But surely, Mr. Ridley,” answered the lawyer,
“you can set your mind at rest on one point. You
told Sir Joshua of Miss Staynes' disappearance, and
he made no comment. That implies she is safely in
her guardian's charge.”
“Is she?” said Ridley, and his voice, though quiet
and controlled, was tense with anxiety. “That man
who met her was not Sir Joshua!”
“You are certain?”


14 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Perfectly. Both from our glimpse of him and
the guard's description, he was too tall and too young.
In fact, it certainly was not Sir Joshua Horsham.”
The lawyer was silent for a moment, and then he
said:
“One must face every fact, Mr. Ridley, and one
fact—unpleasant though it must be to you—is that
she herself wrote the note which sent you to the
wrong station.”
“It was a forgery! I am sure of that now,” ex-
claimed Ridley. “The writing deceived me at the
time, but I have studied it carefully since, and I am
quite certain Beatrix never wrote it herself.”
Mr. Perry opened his eyes.
“But that would imply a very discreditable plot
indeed, a plot with a certain criminal element.” f
“It does; and that is why I feel so anxious.”
Again Mr. Perry thought for a moment.
“I don't know whether it is possible to obtain an
accurate estimate of a young lady's character from
her fiancé, but it would be of considerable assistance
if it were possible.”
“I can assure you of one thing,” said Ridley em-
phatically. “Beatrix may have her faults—I sup-
pose she has, though I haven't learned them yet—
but deceit is the very last thing she is capable of. In
fact, she is almost too simple and honest and con-
fiding. She believes people too easily, and is far too


MR. PERRY'S CLIENT I5
slow to suspect them of bad motives—or even of
ordinary selfish, worldly motives. Madame D'Al-
bert impressed that on me. “Never deceive Beatrix,’
she said, ‘for she will find it very difficult even to
understand why you did it.’”
“She is like an angel!” said Charles Toothill ear-
nestly. “I mean, so far as being capable of being
stuffed up by any damned yarn goes, and never even
pulling your leg herself—or, anyhow, only pulling it
gently.”
“I am afraid I can only take your word as to the
nature of angels,” said the lawyer, “but Madame
D'Albert's evidence—though only hearsay—is un-
doubtedly important. In fact, it seems to me toler-
ably convincing.”
“And perhaps you can imagine how I feel with
such a confiding girl in the hands of the people who
forged that letter,” said Ridley.
“I do realise; yes,” said Mr. Perry. “But at the
same time she has made no complaint, and she is in
the hands of her own legal guardians. . . .” He
broke off and asked suddenly, “But what about the
other guardian?”
“Ah!” said Ridley. “That was the idea I had in
my mind; to go and see him about it.”
“Who is he?” asked the lawyer.
“A Mr. Francis Mandell-Essington.”


CHAPTER II
THE ONE GOOD CARD
&g R. MANDELL-ESSINGTON?” repeated
the lawyer. “That name seems familiar.
Who is this gentleman?”
“I believe he is a man of means,” said Ridley,
“with a place somewhere in the country; but the fact
is, Beatrix has never seen him or had any corre-
spondence with him, so that he was a mere name to
her. Sir Joshua was the guardian she always spoke
of to me; but Essington seems to be our one good
card now, so we must try to play him—if it is
possible.”
Something in his voice, as he said the last words,
seemed to catch Mr. Perry's attention.
“If it is possible? Have you any reason to think
he also is concerned in this—shall we say kidnapping,
exploit?” -
“At first,” said Ridley, “I wondered if the man in
the fur coat could be Essington, but if Sir Joshua
is to be believed, that at least can't be the case. In
my letter to him I dropped a hint—quite politely—
that I thought of referring to Mr. Mandell-Essington
16


THE ONE GOOD CARD 17
also. Here are the words Sir Joshua used in his
answer.” He took the letter from his pocket, and
read aloud, “‘With reference to your suggestion of
consulting Mr. Mandell-Essington, I regret to say
that Mr. Essington has had a very severe nervous
breakdown, and will not be in a condition to deal
with any matters of business for some considerable
time to come. As he is living under medical care, it
will be useless for you to attempt to enter into any
correspondence with him, and, of course, quite im-
possible to see him. In consequence, I am Miss
Staynes' only acting guardian; though I may add that
if Mr. Essington were in his usual mental health, I
am quite certain his views would be mine.’”
“That is awkward,” commented Mr. Perry.
“If it is true,” said Ridley. “But I don't believe
a single word Sir Joshua tells me until I have dis-
covered for myself whether he is telling the truth or
not.”
Mr. Perry shook his head.
“It would be a very dangerous statement to make
about a man—to say he was suffering from mental
trouble and under medical restraint, unless it were
true. It would amount to a serious libel.”
“Oh, I don't say that it isn't probably partially
true. But what I won't believe unless I can prove it,
is that Essington is so bad that he can't help me, any-
how, to find Beatrix.”


18 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Well,” admitted the lawyer, “it is certainly
worth while making inquiries. Do you know where
Mr. Essington is living, or being kept, at present?”
“I don't,” said Ridley, “and that is one matter in
which I hoped you might help me. How can one
find out?”
Mr. Perry looked thoughtful for a moment.
Then he said:
“While we have been talking it has come back to
me where I heard of Mr. Mandell-Essington before.
A relative of his is a client of ours, and I make no
doubt I could discover his address in that way if I
felt justified in asking it as a favour.”
“Please do!” exclaimed the two young men
simultaneously.
“What steps do you mean to take if I get you this
information?” asked the lawyer cautiously.
“I mean to go down and see Mr. Essington, if I
can possibly get at him,” said Ridley.
“And you'll take me with you this time?” cried
Toothill. “My dear old fellow, I'm simply burstin'
to do something!” He turned to Mr. Perry and
explained ingenuously, “I’m no great shakes at
thinkin’ and plannin', etcetera, etcetera; but I am
really quite useful at doin' things. That's my lay,
the active line. And if it comes to breakin' into this
place where Essington is being kept, and fetching


THE ONE GOOD CARD 19
the fellow out, well, two will manage the job better
than one.”
“My dear sir!” exclaimed the lawyer. “The place
is quite likely a private asylum of some kind, and I
certainly shall do nothing to assist you in any such
performance. You would render yourselves liable to
very heavy penalties indeed, and so should I, if I
gave you any countenance in the matter.”
Philip Ridley smiled, and his face became very
engaging when a smile lit it.
“I shall only take you, Charles,” he said, “if you
guarantee to do exactly what you are told.”
“I shall, I promise you!” said Charles, “I swear
to do exactly what I'm told!”
Ridley turned to Mr. Perry.
“I can guarantee, Mr. Perry, that we shan't break
in anywhere. I shall try to get in, of course; but
that is different. And if Mr. Essington is really
under restraint, I promise you we shall make no at-
tempt to get him out of it.”
For a few moments the lawyer considered the
Imatter.
“Before I do anything at all, Mr. Ridley,” he said
at length, “I must see that you clearly understand
and realise the whole situation, as far as it is known
at present. In the first place, Miss Staynes is a ward
under age, in her guardian's charge—at least, that
must be the assumption on the facts so far as we


20 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
have them. You have no legal right to interfere
with any arrangements he may have made, even
though you consider yourself badly treated.”
“Surely I can try to see her?”
“You can try, by lawful means, of course. But
so long as she remains silent and makes no com:
plaint, your position is unfortunately weak.”
“Weak!” exclaimed Charles. “What, after that
little blighter in the bowler sent us to the wrong
station—deliberately?”
“I am telling you your position in the eye of the
law. Of course, if any constraint were being put
upon Miss Staynes, or any advantage was being
taken of her in any way, the question becomes en-
tirely different. But I can hardly imagine Sir Joshua
Horsham doing anything of that kind. What motive
could he possibly have? He can't want to secure
her money for his own ends. He is an extremely
wealthy man.”
“I am wondering all the time,” said Ridley, in a
low voice.
“But there is another aspect of the matter that
must be remembered,” continued Mr. Perry. “If
you were to find her and run away with her without
her guardian's consent, you would be robbing her
of her money yourself.”
“I know. I’ve thought of that. I don't want all
that money; but to rob her . . . .”


THE ONE GOOD CARD 21
“Precisely. You must not do that. In short, you
must either wait till she is twenty-five—”
“Seven years!” cried Ridley. “Oh, we simply
can’t ſ”
“Or else you must get her guardians on your side.
And if you are really judicious and careful, there
can be no harm in trying to see Mr. Mandell-Essing-
ton; or at all events, in discovering whether Sir
Joshua's statement is literally accurate, or whether
he may not be capable, either now or very shortly,
of taking some step to clear this business up.”
“You agree, then, that he is our best card?”
“Your only card in the meantime; if, as you say,
it is possible to play him.”
“We'll have a rare good try!” said Ridley. “And
you will get me his address, Mr. Perry?”
“Yes, I think I can guarantee to let you have it
to-night.”
“Then to-morrow,” exclaimed Charles, “we maſº
actually be doin' something!”
“Do it very carefully,” advised the lawyer.


CHAPTER III
TJNDER RESTRAINT
ON a fine September afternoon Dr. Jenkinson
opened the door in the wall at the foot of his
private garden and passed through into the grounds
of that select mental sanatorium known as The Re-
treat. Twenty-four ladies and gentlemen (the num-
ber was never exceeded), each with their private
attendant, and all suffering from the pace at which
we lived at the end of the nineteenth century, and
more especially from the pace at which their own
particular lives had been whirling, sought, and found,
repose in The Retreat, and paid Dr. Jenkinson a very
handsome return for the privilege. Or perhaps it
would be more generally accurate to say that their
relatives sought repose by placing the twenty-four
in seclusion, and frequently even paid themselves to
secure this respite.
“It will be a very happy home for him (or her),
I understand,” the relatives were in the habit of
saying.
“As happy as I can make it,” said Dr. Jenkinson,
who was a cautious man.
22


UNDER RESTRAINT 23
On this particular afternoon, hardly had he re-
placed the patent key in his pocket and set off down
the path that led from his private demesne, when
he became aware of two gentlemen approaching him,
with a third figure some thirty paces behind. One
of these gentlemen was youthful, clean, and pleasant-
looking, and with a certain professional briskness in
his manner. The experienced in such matters could
have guessed at once that he was Dr. Jenkinson's
assistant. The figure behind also clearly belonged to
the staff of the establishment, though on a lower
plane than the young doctor. His upright figure,
broad shoulders, and quietly watchful air marked
him at a glance as one of the twenty-four's private
attendants.
The gentleman who walked beside the assistant
was, however, of quite a different appearance.
He was in the young thirties, tall and fair, and with
an indefinable air of distinction stamped both upon
his agreeable features and his graceful figure. He
wore a long, very fashionably-cut overcoat, of a yel-
low hue with a velvet collar to match, and on his
head, rather to one side of it, a slouch felt hat, which
he raised very politely as they met the doctor.
“Doctor,” he said, “we have come to greet you
with a very gratifying bit of news. Thanks to your
truly marvellous treatment, I am practically cured!”
High though the compliment was, and gracefully


24 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
as it was paid, Dr. Jenkinson eyed, with what seemed
a somewhat dubious expression, both the upraised
hat and the sweeping bow that accompanied it.
“I am very glad to hear it, Mr. Essington,” said
he, “and very soon, I hope, you will be leaving The
Retreat.”
“I should prefer,” said Mr. Essington, “to think
that you regretted that impending calamity. I shall
miss you all, doctor, extremely; especially the fellow
who thinks he's the equator, and tries to encircle all
the ladies. In fact, I am taking that tip away with
me. However, in the meantime, I have only ar-
ranged a little trip up to town for the day with our
friend Walters, just to get my sane legs and buy a
button-hole or so. I shall be back at night, I assure
you; probably with half a dozen new stories.”
He turned to the young doctor and said in the
most engaging and persuasive way:
“Tell the doctor our programme, Walters. Ex-
plain that we shall toss whether I shall look after
you, or you after me, and that in either case the
looking will be damned well done.”
Dr. Walters laughed, and said:
“The fact is, sir, when I went into my room just
now I found Mr. Essington waiting for me, and
nothing would satisfy him but coming to see you and
ask whether he could run up to town with me to-
morrow. I mentioned to him that I was going up


UNDER RESTRAINT 25
for the day, and he seems extraordinarily set upon
it.”
“Extraordinarily?” exclaimed Mr. Essington.
“My dear fellow, you have never been deprived of
your liberty for ten years—”
“Ten years?” interrupted Dr. Jenkinson. “Oh,
come—”
“It seems like ten years to me,” said Mr. Essing-
ton with a sigh, “and probably seems more to my
tradesmen and best girls. The really extraordinary
thing would be to find a fellow in this Retreat who
doesn't long for a day's liberty.” -
Dr. Jenkinson began to shake his head, kindly
but firmly.
“Not quite yet, Mr. Essington,” he began.
“One moment!” interrupted that gentleman hur-
riedly. “Don’t commit yourself to any statement you
would be sorry for afterwards. I should be really
infernally grieved to think of your doing that, doc-
tor. If you let me out with Walters to-morrow, I
give you the solemnest guarantee ever given to a
medical man that I shall only consume one bottle,
speak for one minute to one pretty girl—Walters
watching me with his watch in his hand—and order
One pair of trousers from one tailor—I can even
make it one trouser if you insist. And I guarantee
to come back at night. Whereas, supposing that by
some unlucky chance Jakes there” (he indicated the


26 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
attendant in the background) “were to give me a
leg up over the wall, and I happened to fall safely
on the other side, I'd be gone without any guarantees
whatever. A dozen bottles, a dozen girls—my dear
sir, there's no knowing what excesses you might not
find yourself responsible for 1 Come now, doctor,
be a sportsmanſ’
No one but a hardened specialist could have re-
sisted this eloquent appeal, and the amiable and plead-
ing manner in which it was delivered. But Dr.
Jenkinson merely shook his head once more.
“Not quite yet, Mr. Essington,” he repeated
quietly, but with an air of finality that caused the
disappointed gentleman to heave his shoulders in a
dramatic sigh.
“I should have thought,” he said, “that one good
turn deserved another. I have been supplying you
with a twenty-fourth part of your income for several
months, and yet you refuse me a single day at my
own expense! I fear that a modern Dante would
depict you in a very uncomfortable position. How-
ever, I bow to your decision.”
And suiting his action to his words, he bowed again
profoundly, and started back alone the way he had
come. When he had gone a short distance, Jakes
turned after him, and the procession of two presently
disappeared among the trees of the park.
“It is too soon to run any risks with Essington,”


|UNDER RESTRAINT 27
said Dr. Jenkinson; “I couldn't possibly let him go
up to town with you to-morrow.”
“I didn't seriously think of it myself, sir,” Dr.
Walters hastened to explain, “but he really wouldn't
leave me alone until I had asked you. The poor
chap is simply pining for a change of air, and he
seems so much better that I thought there was no
harm in letting him put the question.”
“All the same, I don't think it is wise to give him
any encouragement at all at present,” said Dr. Jenkin-
son, as they walked on together through the grounds.
“This is one of those very difficult cases where a
man is just in the borderland between the normal
and the abnormal. In one sense he has all his wits
about him.”
“Very much so!” agreed Walters. “If one met
him anywhere else one would put him down as an
exceptionally alert gentleman.”
“Especially,” added his chief with a dry smile,
“after he had persuaded you to cash a worthless
cheque for him, or you discovered that he had run
away with your daughter. He is so entirely irre-
sponsible! That's why I shouldn't trust him five
yards outside these walls. After all, Walters, a sense
of responsibility is the true test, and, judged by it,
Mr. Essington must remain here till he has re-
covered that sense.”
“Well, sir,” said Walters, “I can't help feeling


28 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
sorry for him, knowing how I should pine for a
day in the open if I were in his shoes; but I quite
realise that it can't be allowed.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes, and
then Dr. Jenkinson said:
“You know that he once had a short attack of this
kind before, and ran away then. I hope he isn't
thinking of it now. He seemed to hint that some-
thing of that sort might be in his mind.”
“Oh, I hardly think so, sir. He is as frank as
anything with me; in fact, he can't help being frank
at present, and if he had anything of that sort in his
head he'd have been certain to let it out.”
“It is very difficult to say exactly what is in Mr.
Mandell-Essington's head,” said Dr. Jenkinson, “and
as to whether he is quite as transparently frank as
you think—H'm!”
A little later Dr. Walters was back in his room,
and with the anticipation of the morrow in London
in his mind, he turned to his time-table to look up the
trains. It usually stood among a small row of ref-
erence books on his desk, but it certainly was not
there now. He hunted through the papers on the
table, in the bookcase, everywhere; but there was
not a sign of the time-table.
“Who can possibly have taken it?” he said to him-
self; “nobody has any business to have been in this
room.” And then he suddenly remembered that one


UNDER RESTRAINT 29
person had been there. Mr. Essington, in fact, had
been waiting for him before they set out to see Dr.
Jenkinson. His chief's last words returned sharply
to his mind.
“Can the man actually have any idea of that
kind?” he asked himself. “We must keep our
weather eye open, anyhow.”


CHAPTER IV
THE OTHER GUARDIAN
& ADBURY and Bridminton seem to be the
only two possible stations,” said Mr. Es-
sington to himself.
He folded up the map and replaced the time-table
in his pocket, first throwing a wary glance at a figure
pacing the turf about a hundred yards away.
“Trains are all very well,” the soliloquy concluded,
“but that's a particularly damned-looking kind of
wall, and I believe Jakes is quite a bit of a sprinter.”
He was sitting on a rustic bench in a corner of the
park; a grove of high trees all about him; glimpses
of his perambulating guardian on the one side, and
of a nine-foot brick wall on the other. The after-
noon was warm and fine, and he had just folded his
arms and closed his eyes with an air of indolent
resignation, when he was roused by the sharp sound
of a footfall on crackling twigs. Turning on his
seat, he beheld an entire stranger dodging, it ap-
peared, somewhat cautiously through the trees. Mr.
Essington studied him with close attention and per-
ceived him to be a decidedly young gentleman and of
a very agreeable appearance.
- 30


THE OTHER GUARDIAN 31
“Mr. Mandell-Essington, I believe?” said the
young man.
He spoke very politely, but his courtesy was quite
outdone by the gentleman on the bench, who rose,
lifted his hat, bowed gracefully, and said:
“The same, sir. And, believe me, I am charmed
to see you. When I know you better I propose to
ask you for an introduction to your tailor, and I
assure you I could pay no man a higher compliment.”
With these words he sat down, folded his arms
again, and smiled at the stranger in the friendliest
fashion. In spite, however, of this cordial welcome,
the young man seemed a trifle embarrassed by his
reception.
“My name is Ridley,” he began.
“An excellent name,” said the gentleman on the
bench in an encouraging voice. “If I were a girl
I should as soon become Mrs. Ridley as almost any-
thing.”
Even this did not seem to set Mr. Ridley entirely
at his ease. He hesitated for a moment and then
resumed:
“You are one of Miss Beatrix Staynes' guardians,
I believe?” *
“Miss Beatrix Staynes?” replied the gentleman
on the bench. “Ah, yes! I believe her late father
did indeed pay that very remarkable compliment to
the solidity of my character and austerity of my


32 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
morals. I have never before been entrusted with
what I believe they term ‘a bit of fluff,” but I look
forward greatly to chaperoning Miss Beatrix.
Pretty girl, I hope?”
“Extremely,” said the young man, still looking a
trifle embarrassed, “but what I have really come to
see you about, Mr. Essington, is her disappearance.”
“Disappearance?” said Mr. Essington, raising his
brows. “Begun already, has she? Ah, well, she
will turn up again—and probably at the most awk-
ward moment possible. At least, my own happy rem-
iniscences have generally shown a damnable tendency
to boomerang just when one hoped they had for-
gotten.”
“I am afraid I haven't made myself perfectly
clear,” said Philip. “The facts are I met Miss
Staynes in Switzerland, and—well, we became en-
gaged.”
“I congratulate you!” smiled Mr. Essington.
“Pardon the interruption, but I believe it is quite
the correct thing to say. And thereupon she disap-
peared? Do you attribute it to sheer carelessness,
or a tendency to betrothal bigamy?”
“Oh, but she didn't disappear immediately!” cried
the young man (who seemed a little doubtful in what
spirit he should treat these comments), and there-
upon he narrated his adventures of the past few days,
in a brief, straightforward fashion, yet with sufficient


THE OTHER GUARDIAN 33
particularity to place Miss Staynes' guardian in pos-
session of the essential facts.
Mr. Essington listened with great attention and
appeared to be vastly interested, yet his first com-
ment struck Philip as missing the seriousness of the
situation.
“It reminds me,” said he, “of a curious adventure
of an old friend of my own. A charming girl ab-
solutely vanished, taking his dress boots and his best
set of shirt studs—”
“Pardon me, Mr. Essington,” the young lover
interrupted, politely yet firmly, “but time is rather
pressing and I want your assistance, if—if you can
give me any.”
“My dear fellow, you shall certainly have it,” said
Mr. Essington cordially. “The first thing for us to
do is to get on the track of my old friend Horsham—
he's not the same old friend who lost the dress boots,
by the way. Old Horsham has no doubt married the
girl already. Still, if we can recover the lady and
square the registrar—”
Again the unfortunate lover began to exhibit symp-
toms of some impatience.
“You agree with me then, that Sir Joshua is at
the bottom of it?” said he.
“It is only a theory,” said Mr. Essington easily.
“But we clearly must chase somebody and old Hor-
sham can't run very fast at his age, so we are more


34 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
likely to catch him than anybody else. If he has the
girl, well, we've got her too. If he hasn't, it can't
be helped.”
This suggestion did not seem to rouse any great
enthusiasm. Philip, in fact, looked for an instant
somewhat critically at the lady's guardian and then
frowned into space. In a moment he asked:
“Have you any idea who the man in the fur coat
can be?”
“His name,” said Mr. Essington, “is Legion. The
number of fellows with fur coats nowadays is quite
extraordinary.”
At this juncture, his visitor's perplexity, nay in-
deed his distress, evidently arrested his attention.
With a very charming and kindly smile he addressed
him in a slightly more serious vein.
“My dear Ridley, I am really devilish sorry I
can't tell you more precisely under which thimble
the pea has strayed. And when I talked of joining
in the pursuit of the amorous Joshua, I spoke, I'm
afraid, a little metaphorically. As Dr. Jenkinson
has no doubt informed you, I am at present so
superior to my fellows both mentally and morally
that they have secluded me in this Eden until I be-
come more commonplace again. If you can persuade
the good doctor to let me accompany you into the
forbidden outer world” (here Mr. Essington sighed
in a decidedly moving manner) “we’d have a devil


THE OTHER GUARDIAN 35
of a time together! I mean of course after we had
caught the lady,” he added (for he seemed to have
become aware that the excellent impression produced
by the first part of this speech was a little marred by
its conclusion). “In fact, when I mentioned a devil
of a time I was thinking of the wedding, Do you
care to discuss the matter with Jenkinson?”
“Unfortunately,” confessed Philip, “I don't know
him. The fact is I came down here with a friend, and
we decided we would make surer of seeing you if we
managed it without consulting Dr. Jenkinson.”
Mr. Essington's eyes had a sudden gleam in them
and he sat up sharply on his bench.
“This is much more promising !” he exclaimed.
“I must apologise for assuming you to be as orthodox
as you look. How did you manage to get in P’’
“I simply told them at the lodge I wanted to see
the doctor, and then when I got inside I chose a
likely looking fellow and asked where you were.”
“So easy to get in,” sighed Mr. Essington, “but
so dashed difficult to get out! However,” he re-
sumed in a more cheerful tone, and with a flattering
suggestion of confidence in his new friend's abilities,
“you have no doubt thought of some sound but simple
method; something on the lines of your own excel-
lent little bit of bluff, for instance?”
Philip opened his steady grey eyes very wide for


36 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
an instant, and then with an expression at once
apologetic and firm, he said:
“I am very sorry, Mr. Essington, that I can't
possibly do—er—that. In fact, I was only given
your address on the understanding that I should do
nothing—er—”
He hesitated, seeking for the tactful word, and
Mr. Essington, who had been studying him with
a connoisseur's eye, finished his sentence for him.
“I know !” said he with virtuous emphasis.
“Nothing wrong. My dear fellow, I am really in-
finitely relieved to know that taking me away with
you was not part of your programme. I have al-
ready consulted Dr. Jenkinson on the subject, and
he has quite convinced me that I am better—and
happier—where I am. Please dismiss the idea en-
tirely from your mind, Ridley !”
“Oh, but it really wasn't in it,” Ridley assured
him with much sincerity.
“I am glad of that! And now let us consider the
best alternative—”
“Alternative to what?” inquired Philip.
“I meant to say the best means of recovering my
dear ward.” Mr. Essington gazed thoughtfully into
space and there could be no doubt he was giving
this subject very earnest attention. “You say you
brought a friend with you,” he resumed in a mo-
ment. “Did you leave him at the lodge?”


THE OTHER GUARDIAN 37
“No,” said Philip, “as a matter of fact we came
from the station by a lane just over that wall, and
I left him to wait for me there—I ought perhaps
to explain,” he added with a smile, “that he, too,
is a friend of Beatrix, and so keen to do something
to help that I couldn't very well refuse to let him
come down here with me. But I assure you he is
absolutely trustworthy and discreet—that's to say he
is certainly trustworthy and I shall see that he isn't
indiscreet.”
During this explanation a gleam once more lit Mr.
Essington's eye for the fraction of a second and
then was gone, leaving behind an impression of
even greater sympathy and attention than before.
“A fellow that can be trusted to obey instructions
implicitly?” said he.
“Oh, yes, I assure you.”
“Excellent!” said Mr. Essington, and he seemed
to say it with great sincerity too. “I can assure you,
my dear Ridley, that I thoroughly approve of your
conduct of this affair. And I should like to add that
as Beatrix's guardian, I also thoroughly approve of
her choice. This time I congratulate her!”
And he held out his hand, which the young man
took with a flush of pleasure.
“I’m awfully glad you are on our side, Mr. Es-
sington!” he said gratefully.
“Entirely on your side!” Mr. Essington assured


38 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
him. “I am only sorry I can do so little at the
moment. By Jove, though, I know what I can do!
I can get you some very useful addresses, if you
don't mind waiting here for a few minutes while I
go up to the house for my pocket book. I ask you
to wait here,” he explained with a confidential smile,
“because you see you came in without Jenkinson's
knowledge. I’m not blaming you, my dear fellow,
not a bit! Only it is just as well you should keep
out of the way. You quite understand?”
“Perfectly,” said Philip warmly. “It is extreme-
ly kind of you to help me.”
By this time his fiancée's guardian had exhibited
such a sensible, kind, and even flattering interest that
his confidence in Mr. Essington was entirely restored,
and even that gentleman's next request served rather
to awake compassion than disquiet.
“There is just one trifling favour I am afraid I
must ask of you,” continued the benevolent guardian.
“You see that fellow pacing backwards and for-
wards over there and occasionally looking at us as
though he were wondering who the devil you were?
That's a tiresome lunatic who has got a most extra-
ordinary delusion about my overcoat. If I pass
him wearing this yellow coat there will certainly be
a disagreeable scene. Do you mind changing over-
coats while I am away?”
Not having previously visited such an institution,


THE OTHER GUARDIAN 39
Philip, though a trifle surprised at the lack of super-
vision implied by this incident, felt that he could
hardly refuse Beatrix's guardian this small favour.
Mr. Essington, now arrayed in a dark blue Melton
coat, added one last injunction.
“Remain sitting on this bench with your back
turned towards the man. He won't come near you
so long as you sit quite still. And in any case he
isn't in the least dangerous. Have no fear of that!
He's only one of those noisy rude kind of fellows.
Au revoir l I won’t be five minutes.”
The duplicate Mr. Essington had been sitting
patiently in the long yellow coat for what seemed
very much more like ten than five minutes, meditating
on the difference between the life of these institutions
in fiction and actual fact, and glancing occasionally
over his shoulder at the perambulating lunatic with
the overcoat delusion, when he was a little perturbed
to see this individual stop short suddenly and stare
very hard in his direction. A moment later the man
was approaching him with ever quickening stride,
and the nearer he approached the more sincerely did
Philip hope that his friend's description of him as
non-dangerous was correct, for he was a strapping
customer. And then in a voice that suggested no
unreasonable prejudice against yellow overcoats, but
certainly indicated considerable concern, the man in-
quired:


40 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Where is Mr. Essington, sir?”
“Mr. Essington?” replied Philip stoutly. “Why
do you want to know?”
“I am his attendant,” said the man.
For a moment Philip stared at the man in silence,
and then uttered one word, but uttered that very
sincerely:
“Damn !”
“Where is he?” the man repeated.
“Come on!” said Philip, “I don't know where
the devil he is, but we’ve got to catch him!”


CHAPTER V
A FALSE SCENT
N a shady lane bounded by the brick wall, Mr.
Charles Toothill had paced backwards and for-
wards for well-nigh an hour; calmly at first, but
with ever increasing impatience as the time went by.
“Dash it!” he said to himself, “Philip is doin'
something. Oh, the devil! If I could only get some-
thing to do!” And then with as much sentiment as
his countenance could achieve, he murmured, “For
her sake!”
As his impatience waxed, his stride had quickened,
but all at once it ceased as he pulled himself up
sharply and listened. A curious sound suggestive
both of scraping and struggling was coming from
the other side of the wall, and the practical eye of
the man of action noted that at the point where it
came from, a considerable growth of ivy appeared
above the top. The next moment, a couple of hands,
a head, and then a whole gentleman rose above the
ivy, and for an instant the gentleman's eyes seemed
to be searching the lane, and then to fall upon Mr.
Toothill. And thereupon, without a second’s fur-
41


42 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
ther delay, the gentleman let himself down till only
his hands gripped the coping stone, and dropped
into the lane.
For one bewildered moment, Charles wondered
what strange metamorphosis had overtaken his
friend, for the blue overcoat was surely Philip's.
Then he perceived that the coat must merely be a
singular coincidence, and that the gentleman him-
self was a stranger, tall, and of a distinguished ap-
pearance. This stranger strode quickly towards him,
beginning to smile in a very charming manner as he
approached; and when he spoke, his greeting was
courtesy itself.
“Mr. Ridley's friend, I presume?” said he. “For
the moment your name, sir, escapes me. . . .”
“Toothill,” said Charles in his most agreeable
voice.
“Ah, of course, Toothill! A man I ought never
to have forgotten I My own is Essington.”
“Oh, by Jove, really!” exclaimed Charles. “Then
you’ve got out—er—I mean come out after all?
Just what I advised ! But I thought Philip was dead
set against it.”
“A little at first,” Mr. Essington admitted, “but on
talking it over he very soon came to see the matter
as you had advised.”
“And where is Philip himself?” asked Charles
anxiously.


A FALSE SCENT 43
“Covering my tracks like the good fellow he is,”
said Mr. Essington, in a tone of such warm appre-
ciation that Charles was more charmed with him
than ever. “In the meantime he has told me I could
place myself safely in your hands, Toothill.”
“My dear old bird,” cried the gratified Toothill,
“I say, I beg your pardon; afraid my keenness rather
carried me away. My dear Mr. Essington, I mean,
I assure you I've simply been longin' to lend a hand 1
I am—er—a friend of hers, you know.”
The ardent voice in which he made this confes-
sion seemed to please the lady's guardian exceed-
ingly.
“Then I know we can count on you,” said he, “and
the first thing is to get a little further away from
that wall. This way, I think.”
They plunged into the wood that bordered the
other side of the lane, and it was apparent that Mr.
Essington had been studying his map attentively,
for he led the way at top speed, and without hesita-
tion, till in a few minutes they caught a glimpse of a
broad highway beyond the trees.
“The road from Wadbury to Bridminton!” said
he, and paused at last.
“What are you goin’ to do?” asked Charles.
His distinguished-looking friend took him by the
arm in a very flattering and friendly way, and his
manner became more affectionately kind than ever.


44 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“In the first place, Toothill—and for her sake en-
tirely, old chap!—Ridley wished me to ask you for
a trifling favour.”
“Rather! What is it?” said Charles stoutly.
“You know I promised to do anything he wanted
me to do.”
“Splendid fellow!” exclaimed Mr. Essington in
a voice that seemed to indicate great pleasure in this
discovery. “That makes a somewhat delicate favour
infinitely easier to ask. He wishes you, Toothill, to
lend me a five pound note . . . or two!” he added
hastily as he saw Charles's eye actually brighten.
“Or even three if you can spare them. In fact as
much as you can conveniently let me have. I stupidly
forgot to cash a cheque before I left.”
“I’ll lend you everything I’ve got,” said Charles,
“only too delighted, in fact, to have the chance.”
The celerity with which Mr. Essington, once he
had got to business, transferred the contents of Mr.
Toothill's purse into his own pocket, impressed
Charles very favourably. A man of action as well
as of breeding, he evidently was.
Having pocketed two five pound notes, four sov-
ereigns, and some mixed change, Miss Staynes'
guardian positively insisted on his new friend keep-
ing the rest.
“We counted on your doing another small favour,”


A FALSE SCENT 45
he explained, “and you may need a little ready
money.”
“I’m on for anything,” said Charles warmly,
“keen as mustard! What's the job?”
“Ridley wishes you,” said Mr. Essington, im-
pressively, “to lay a false scent!”
“A false scent?” said Charles a little vaguely. “If
you tell me how to lay it, rather! But what do you
mean by a false scent?”
“The idea,” replied Mr. Essington still more im-
pressively, “is this. In the first place we change
overcoats, Ridley and I did it before,” he added in
an encouraging voice as he observed the look of af-
fectionate regret which Mr. Toothill involuntarily
cast down at his own fashionably cut article, of a
pale, pea-green colour with a loose back. “And, of
course, we shall return yours to you the very moment
we meet again.”
“That will be very soon, I s'pose,” said Charles
with creditable optimism.
“Practically at once.”
“You and Philip are sticking together, of course?”
“Like an envelope and its stamp.”
“Right you are ſ” said Charles bravely, and in a
moment he was in the blue coat, and the guardian in
the pea-green.
“Now,” said Mr. Essington, “all you've got to do,
my dear Toothill—and it's really very simple indeed


46 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
—is to get on to that road, turn to your right, and
make for Bridminton as fast as you can trot. You'll
have to run most of the way, I'm afraid, to catch the
5.52 train at Bridminton station, but you look in
splendid condition. You can do it quite easily—for
her sake.”
“How far is it?” inquired Charles.
“Only about five miles.”
“That's a deuce of a run,” said Charles, doubt-
fully. “However! And where do I take the train
to?”
“Anywhere you like; Ridley leaves it to your dis-
cretion, only he advises it to be as far away as pos-
sible. The great thing is to keep running and not to
speak to a soul. If anybody tries to speak to you, or
stop you, growl out something they can't understand,
and frighten them away. Knock 'em down, if
necessary.”
“But—but—I don't quite see . . .” began
Charles, and then he opened his eyes very wide in-
deed. “Oh, that's what you call a false scent! Then
people will think . . .” he paused with his mouth
also open.
“You don't mind, do you? My dear fellow, if
you have any objections, Ridley and I are the last
people to press a nervous—or I should rather say, a
sensitive man.”
“Oh, I promised to do whatever Philip wanted,


A FALSE SCENT 47
and I’ll do it!” said Charles bravely. “Only—er—
supposing by any chance I'm caught, will they take
me to the-er 32 -
“If they do, there are some devilish pretty nurses,”
said Mr. Essington in his most encouraging manner,
“you'll have the time of your life! I wouldn't have
dreamt of leaving the place if I hadn't had to look
for that ward of mine; and, by Jove, we must begin
looking at once! Good-bye, Toothill! Ever so many
thanks.”
“One moment!” cried Charles. “Supposing I
don’t get caught—and, by Jingo, I'll see that they
don't catch me easily l—well, in that case, Philip may
want to write to me. . . .”
“I’ll tell him. You'll get a letter very possibly to-
morrow—anyhow in a day or two. Off you get
now!”
“Yes, but where’s he to write? Where am I
to go?”
“Say Liverpool—somewhere in the docks,” sug-
gested Mr. Essington.
“Oh, dash it, I didn't mean to go as far as that!”
protested Charles. “Look here, tell him I’m going
to lie low with my aunt, Lady Beaton. He knows
her address.”
“Right oh, I'll tell him! But my dear fellow,
you've five miles to run. . . .”
“Good-bye!” cried Charles, over his shoulder as


48 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
-
he made for the road. “And when you do find
her. . . .”
“I know—your love!”
The distinguished looking gentleman waved a
kindly farewell and then took out his watch and his
time-table. A few minutes later he was hastening in
the opposite direction.


CHAPTER VI
THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR
PON this same afternoon, very shortly after
Ridley had passed through the gates of Dr.
Jenkinson's grounds, another gentleman appeared at
the Lodge and also made inquiry for the doctor.
This second gentleman, however, actually proceeded
up to the house, and paid a genuine call. The doctor
had not previously made his acquaintance, nor did
the name of “Mr. Mason,” when it was sent in to
him, suggest any association of ideas; but the mo-
ment the visitor entered his room, Mr. Mason was
at some pains to make it quite clear that he was a
person of fashion and position in life.
“I believe,” said he, “that you are acquainted with
my uncle, Sir Joshua Horsham?”
“Oh, yes, certainly,” said the doctor affably. “I
have the pleasure of Sir Joshua's acquaintance, and
the name of Horsham and Stukley is, of course, very
well known.”
“I also am a partner in that firm,” Mr. Mason
mentioned in an incidental sort of way, and Dr.
Jenkinson looked with increased respect at his caller.
49


50 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
He was a man, he judged, about five and thirty, tall,
clean-shaved, with pronounced but well-cut and hand-
some features. His jet black hair was distinctly
wavy, but barbered to a miracle of glossiness, and his
manner was an impressive blend of confidence in
himself, and condescension towards others less fa-
vourably situated in society. The doctor felt that his
distinguished looking visitor had placed him imme-
diately in this last category, but being a modest and
unassuming little man, he accepted the classification
as quite natural and very proper.
“I have called upon you,” the visitor proceeded,
“with reference to my old friend, Mr. Mandell-
Essington.”
“Ah, quite so!” said the doctor. “I was of course
aware that Sir Joshua was much interested in Mr.
Mandell-Essington. They are relations, in fact, are
they not?”
“Connections. Francis and I are very old friends
indeed. We were both at school and at the 'Varsity
together, and as I happen to be a year or two older,
he always regarded me as a kind of elder brother.
Since then we have shot together, hunted together,
and so on; in short, we have kept up our intimacy
down to this day, and I think Francis would prob-
ably tell you that I am his oldest friend.”
“Indeed?” said the doctor with interest. “Well,
Mr. Mason, in that case you will be glad to hear that


THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR 51
Mr. Essington is making a satisfactory recovery
from this unfortunate but luckily very brief attack.
He is quite on the mend now, I assure you.”
“I am very glad indeed to hear it,” said Mr.
Mason, yet with a note of gravity that a little sur-
prised the doctor.
“Oh, but I assure you I am not at all exaggerating
his progress.”
Still Mr. Mason failed to show those signs of
pleasure which Dr. Jenkinson expected.
“I hope you are right, doctor, I hope so, indeed,”
said he, still in the same grave tone. “Naturally no
one can be more delighted than myself to think of
poor Francis being himself again. At the same time
I know his constitution and temperament, and so on,
probably better than anyone else, and I feel perfectly
certain—absolutely assured—Dr. Jenkinson” (here
his voice became very serious and impressive indeed)
“that it would be the gravest mistake to let him leave
your charge for some time to come. I want to im-
press that on you very strongly, Dr. Jenkinson.”
“I have only to-day put my foot down on a sug-
gestion that he should be allowed a day in London
on probation,” said the doctor.
Mr. Mason seemed curiously disturbed by this
news.
“At whose instigation was this suggestion made?”
he demanded.


52 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Oh, it was entirely his own idea.”
Mr. Mason threw him a curious look.
“I wonder!” said he, and then added emphatically,
“He must not be allowed anywhere!”
“I shall use my judgment, of course,” said the
doctor mildly.
“I am adding the advantage of mine also,” an-
swered his visitor in a tone that made it difficult to
find a reply.
Mr. Mason gave the doctor a moment to let this
sink in, and then resumed, speaking now in an even
graver voice:
“It has come to my knowledge, Dr. Jenkinson,
that certain unscrupulous persons may very prob-
ably attempt to get at Francis and trouble him on a
matter of family business, and I need hardly point
out how that would retard his recovery. This must
be prevented at all costs.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Mason,” said the doctor,
“that I certainly should not allow anything of that
sort if I could help it, and now that I am warned, I
certainly shall prevent it. At the same time,” he
added, with a smile, “Mr. Mandell-Essington is
scarcely likely to be much affected even if he were
approached on business matters. I imagine that he
has at no time taken life with what I may perhaps be
allowed to call undue seriousness, and at present his
buoyancy is even more marked than usual.”


THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR 53
Mr. Mason shook his head.
“It mustn't be risked, doctor! And besides, I fear
there may even be the danger of an attempt to get
him out. I have no specific information, but I want
to guard against everything—even against off
chances.” He seemed to see in the doctor's eye an
indication of some surprise at this extreme solicitude,
for he added with emphasis: “I speak as his oldest
friend, remember, a friend who above all others is
attached to poor Francis and concerned for his
welfare.” -
“I shall take every precaution,” replied Dr. Jenk-
inson. “You can rest assured 32
But the assurance got no further, for at that mo-
ment the door was flung hurriedly open, and Dr.
Walters entered. His usually brisk and cheerful
manner was notably altered.
“Mandell-Essington has escaped l’’ he cried.
“What!” thundered the visitor, and then with a
darkened face and a manner that had lost all its
suavity and condescension, he cried. “This is a put
up job! Who let him out?”
Dr. Jenkinson drew himself up, and his manner
also changed.
“This is my assistant, Dr. Walters,” he said stiffly.
“He will tell you what there is to be known. I my-
self am as ignorant of the facts as you are. How
did it happen, Walters?”


54 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“We don't exactly know yet. The only person
who actually saw him start is a fellow who appears
to have got into the grounds somehow or other, and
to have been talking to him.”
“Do you mean he helped him to escape?” cried
Mr. Mason.
“I hardly think so, because it was he who came
and reported the escape. I really don't know what
to make of the business.”
“Where is this fellow?” demanded Dr. Jenkinson.
“Out in the hall, sir.”
“Let us see him at once!” said Mr. Mason.
In the hall they found a gentlemanly and good-
looking young man, with a light yellow overcoat
carried across his arm.
“Are you the gentleman who saw Mr. Essington
escape?” asked the doctor.
“I was with him just before he went away,” said
the young man. “By the way, here is his overcoat.
I may mention that he has escaped in mine, and if you
recover it I should be very glad to have it back
again.”
His coolness seemed to disconcert both Mr. Es-
sington's custodian and his friend.
“Do you mean—er—that you—” began the
doctor.
“You lent him your coat to escape in?” interrupted
Mr. Mason.


THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR 55
“Are you Dr. Jenkinson?” inquired the young
111a11.
“I am not ” began Mr. Mason warmly.
The young man had already turned his shoulder
to him. -
“You will please see about returning my coat,” he
said to the doctor.
“May I ask your name?” inquired the doctor.
“Ridley,” said the young man.
“Oh,” said the doctor, eyeing him dubiously, and
a moment later he turned to Mr. Mason, but in the
course of that moment his first visitor had turned
away abruptly, and was already on his way back to
the doctor's room.
After his first look of surprise, Dr. Jenkinson
seemed not displeased to be quit of his peremptory
visitor. He put several questions to Ridley, and ex-
tracted a brief account of Mr. Essington's method of
departure. As to the precise reason why Mr. Ridley
should have entered the grounds and interviewed Mr.
Essington without permission, the young man as-
sured him that it was merely a matter of private
business, that he had consulted a lawyer before
taking the step, and that so far from abetting the
fugitive in his escape, nothing more disastrously in-
convenient to himself could possibly have happened.
Indeed, Ridley was evidently so sincerely troubled
by Mr. Essington's flight, and so anxious to assist


56 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
in his recapture that the doctor contented himself
with looking exceedingly grave, taking down his ad-
dress, and finally letting him go with a warning
against entering such institutions again, and accept-
ing the statements of their inhabitants.
“If I didn't happen to know so much about Mr.
Essington,” said he, “I should feel some not un-
natural suspicion of your story, Mr. Ridley, but I
already suspected him of wanting to escape, and the
manner in which he deceived you, is-well, in fact
it is too thoroughly characteristic of the gentleman
to be invented by anybody else.”
“You will surely recapture him very soon, won't
you?” said Philip, as they parted.
“Oh, that is probably merely a matter of hours,”
replied the doctor confidently. “There are only two
stations in this whole neighbourhood, and no trains
from either of them that he could possibly catch be-
fore evening. By that time I shall have men watch-
ing them both, and he will be nailed for a certainty
if he tries to get away by train. If he simply wan-
ders through the country, well, we shall get him in
the course of to-morrow at latest. It is not as though
we were near a big town. He cannot possibly re-
main at large for more than a very short time.”
Dr. Jenkinson had already turned back towards
his room when a very important question occurred
to him.


THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR b%
“Oh, by the way,” said he, “what was the colour
and description of your coat that Essington is now
wearing?”
“Blue Melton with a velvet collar.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the doctor. “Lucky I remem-
bered to ask you that! We now know how he is
dressed, Walters.”
The young doctor led Ridley to the front door.
He threw it open and they perceived a cab waiting
outside. Philip paused on the threshold. He seemed
to be struck by something in the hall.
“Do you happen to know who that was with Dr.
Jenkinson?” he asked.
Walters shrugged his shoulders. “Some one who
has apparently just bought the whole place,” he re-
plied ironically.
“I suppose he came in that cab P”
“Presumably.”
“Is this his coat?”
Walters glanced at the handsome fur coat lying
across a chair, and answered in the same vein.
“Must be. It's too magnificent for any of us or-
dinary people.”
“Could you possibly find out his name?” asked
Philip.
“I happened to hear it was Mason. Know any-
thing about him?”
“I am not quite sure,” said Philip. “It's such a


58 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
beastly common name—not very easy to trace, I'm
afraid.”
As he walked down the drive, his thoughts took
another turn.
“Poor old Charles must be getting a bit impa-
tient!” he said to himself. “I wonder how he is
putting in the time?”
× × × :: ::
Towards eight o'clock in the evening Dr. Walters
came in hurriedly to see his chief with a piece of very
startling news.
“The beggar has actually got away by train, sir!”
he announced. “I’ve just heard that a man in a blue
Melton coat was seen at various places on the road
running like a stag towards Bridminton. He dashed
into the station just as the 5.52 train was moving out,
knocked down a porter who tried to stop him, and
leapt into the end carriage without a ticket! And
where he has got to by now, the Lord only knows!”
Dr. Jenkinson was usually a gentleman of precise
and restrained language, but this news cut through
the crust.
“This is absolutely damnable!” he exclaimed.
The two doctors looked at one another in silence
for a few moments, and then Walters ventured to
remark,


THE DOCTOR'S VISITOR 59
“I had no idea Essington was fond enough of
exercise for such a performance!”
“No more had I" agreed his chief. “He is really
a very unusual case.”


CHAPTER VII
THE DIRECTOR
Fox some time before the down express was due,
a couple of stalwart figures had been sitting, the
one in the waiting-room and the other in the ticket
office of Wadbury station. As neither of them made
any great Secret of his business there, and as, in fact,
the man in the ticket office had to explain his errand
to the station-master in order to obtain admission,
their purpose very soon became known to the whole
staff, and a pleasing thrill of excitement began to
pervade the station. One or two passengers who
arrived early heard the news from the porters and
passed it on to later arrivals, so that as the time drew
near for the signals to fall, the whole platform had
been worked up to a state of the highest expectation.
“One of Dr. Jenkinson's lunatics run away!” ran
the rumor. “He’s expected to try and escape by this
train, but them two big fellows are going to catch
him! No fears of his getting away from them "
Dusk had begun to draw in soon after the big fel-
lows’ arrival, and by the time the express was sig-
nalled it had grown quite dark. This circumstance
added considerably to the excitement, for, in the
shadows, who among one's fellow passengers might
60


THE DIRECTOR 61
not be the dangerous runaway? And even the lamps
gave little enough illumination to reassure the
nervous. On the other hand, a tale, very exciting in
itself but disappointing so far as Wadbury's par-
ticular sensation was concerned, had been brought to
the station by a late arrival. It was said that the
lunatic had actually been seen escaping in quite the
opposite direction. Indeed, it was even said that so
far from endeavoring to evade observation, he had
careered down the high road towards Bridminton,
and if this were really true, he clearly could not have
fled towards Wadbury also.
The station master brought this story at once to
the two stalwart figures, and the three could be seen
standing together discussing its probability. One or
two of the more inquisitive bystanders drew near the
group and reported that, on the whole, the chances
of a dramatic scene at Wadbury were considered to
have diminished greatly. Still, the big fellows were
going to wait till the train had come and gone, so that
even yet there were some hopes of a stirring struggle.
And then came a faint, steadily swelling rumble
through the night, and a bell clanged in the station.
“Here she comes!” said the passengers and looked
at each strange figure anxiously. At least a dozen
people whispered, “I’m certain that man wasn't here
two minutes ago!” And at least half a dozen sep-
arate individuals were thus stealthily pointed out.


62 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
That night there happened to be more passengers
than usual at Wadbury station, and for two or three
minutes after the express rolled in, Dr. Jenkinson's
two big men were kept busy. The departing pas-
sengers watched them over their shoulders as they
climbed in, and then pushed their heads out through
the windows and watched them still. Up and down
the train they roved, peering here and there, but there
was never a cry or a scuffle or a chase. And then
the doors began to close and the platform beside the
carriages to clear of people, and it became evident
that unless the runaway meant to make a rush for the
train at the last moment, there would be no exciting
drama after all.
The guard was ready with his flag and lantern,
most of the heads had been withdrawn again, and
the two big men were standing with the station-
master near the front of the train looking down its
length on the off chance of a last moment attempt,
but evidently resigned to a blank evening.
“It’ll have been him making for Bridminton, right
enough,” said one of the pair.
“No doubt of that,” agreed the station-master.
At that moment a tall gentleman stepped very
quietly out of the gloom at the deserted end of the
platform and walked up to the engine driver. The
three watchers stood a few paces off with their backs
to him and hardly a head was now to be seen looking


THE DIRECTOR 63
out of the windows. This gentleman was dressed in
a pea-green overcoat, carried himself with a very
confident and distinguished air, and blew the smoke
of a cigar lightly from his lips as he opened the
conversation.
“Driver,” he inquired in a voice that made the
driver instinctively inclined to touch his hat, “have
none of the other directors turned up?”
“No, sir,” said the engine driver, looking a little
surprised.
“What; no sign of the Duke?”
“No, sir,” replied the driver, his tone becoming
distinctly deferential.
“Ah, well,” said the distinguished looking gentle-
man, “in that case I must start without them.”
And with that he stepped on board the engine and
commanded:
“You can start the train now, driver.”
At that moment the guard waved his lantern, and
to the engine driver it seemed obvious, he afterwards
declared, that the train must merely have been wait-
ing for this aristocratic looking director to get on
board. As they moved off, the distinguished gentle-
man remarked in an approving tone:
“Very smart indeed, driver. I never like to be
kept waiting,” and he added, “You probably didn't
hear that the Board of Directors were making a
round of inspection, did you?”


64 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
The engine driver confessed his ignorance; where-
upon the director expressed his satisfaction that the
visit had been so successfully kept a secret.
“We meant it to be in the nature of a surprise,”
said he, “the idea being to see how the system was
working when it didn't know it was being watched.
We are doing it devilish thoroughly, I can assure
you.”
It struck the engine driver that the Board seemed
to be working on somewhat original lines, but at the
moment he was too busy engine driving to make any
adequate comment.
A few minutes later the director asked suddenly:
“What are those lights?”
The driver stared for a moment or two.
“That ought to be a place they call ‘The Retreat.’”
“What, my friend Dr. Jenkinson's place?” ex-
claimed the director.
“Must be,” said the driver.
“How pleasant it is to see them from here!” ob-
served the director.
He seemed very thoughtful for some little time
after this, and then he inquired:
“What is the next stop, driver?”
“Yeddlesby, sir.”
“How soon do we get there?”
“Twenty-six minutes run from Wadbury, sir.”
“So soon as that?” murmured the director.


THE DIRECTOR 65
“Damn it!” And then he asked: “How long is the
next run?”
“Hour and ten minutes, sir.”
“Ah!” said the director, and he seemed more sat-
isfied with this intelligence.
On the whole the engine driver considered that
he was coming safely and possibly even creditably
through the ordeal of the director's inspection.
When he did condescend to address him, that mag-
nate was as affable and polite as any gentleman he
had ever met, and as for a critical inspection either
of the engine or anything else, only one single symp-
tom of an inspecting spirit did the director display
during the whole course of his ride. This was at
Yeddlesby Junction, where he announced his inten-
tion of examining the wheels, and leapt down on to
the line the instant they had pulled up in the station.
On this occasion his inspection was evidently as
thorough as he could make it in the time, for it was
only at the very last moment that he climbed back.
And further evidence of his thoroughness, when he
did exert himself, was to be seen in the particular
injunction he laid upon the driver and fireman not
to report his presence to anyone while they were in
the station.
“We wish our visit of inspection to be a complete
surprise!” he repeated, very gravely and emphatically
indeed.


66 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
After that came a long, unbroken run through
a dim, rolling country of few lights, save when they
roared through some wayside station or little sleepy
town, and of many black patches of woodland. They
had been going thus for over half an hour when the
brakes suddenly jarred and their speed dropped
swiftly second by second.
“Hullo, what's up?” inquired the director.
“Signal's against us,” said the driver briefly.
“Something on the line, I suppose.”
A minute or two more and the express was at a
dead stop, the engine panting gently, the red light
showing ahead, and all round them a dark wilderness,
apparently of sparsely wooded, open heath. The
director glanced out into the night, and then ad-
dressd the driver courteously.
“Good night, driver,” said he. “I get off here. I
am having the next train stopped to pick me up.
Many thanks for the ride. You have come through
your inspection very satisfactorily, I may say.”
And with that he stepped off the engine as calmly,
the driver subsequently testified, as if he were walk-
ing out of a shop.
In the radiance of the engine lights, they saw him
for a moment beside the line strolling with an easy
and unconcerned air towards the rear of the train,
and then the night engulfed him.
“Well, I'm blowed!” said the engine driver.


68 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
tion yard. He hastened towards the door into the
booking office, and met there, face to face, a gentle-
man coming through on to the platform. But it was
not Charles; it was a tall man in a fur coat.
That the gentleman in the fur coat recognised Rid-
ley was evident, and that he had no desire to resume
their acquaintance was equally clear. Mr. Mason
turned his shoulder, brushed past, and strode down
the platform; and for a minute Philip watched him
and hesitated.
Bridminton was a junction, and in a bay another
train had been standing for some time, the engine
attached and the carriages lit up. Mr. Mason ap-
proached the guard of this train, spoke to him for a
moment, and then looked back over his shoulder and
also seemed to hesitate. And then Philip made up
his mind and boldly walked up to him.
“Mr. Mason, I believe?” said he.
The tall man seemed to give the slightest possible
start; as though (Philip thought) the discovery that
his name was known took him for an instant a little
aback. Then he said frigidly.
“I am.”
Under ordinary circumstances, Philip would have
been the very last person to accost a stranger con-
siderably older than himself and force his company
upon him, but he was a resolute young man, and
despite the other's aloofness, stood to his guns.


MR. MASON 69
“We met at Dr. Jenkinson's, I think,” he went on.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Mason stonily.
“You are a friend of Mr. Essington's, I presume?”
To this, Mr. Mason made no answer whatever,
and Philip continued with commendable politeness.
“I am sorry I had inadvertently any part in his
escape.”
“So am I,” replied Mr. Mason, in a manner that
seemed intended to convey the impression he was ad-
dressing an erring servant.
Determined to extract every iota of information
extractable, Philip kept his temper, and inquired:
“Had you intended to see Mr. Essington
yourself?”
Mr. Mason looked at him in silence for a moment,
and when he spoke, his tone seemed, if possible, even
more deliberately intended to end the conversation.
“Is that any business of yours?” he asked.
Philip decided to risk a desperate shot.
“I asked,” he said, “because I believe I saw you
lately with Mr. Essington's ward.”
There was no doubt that Mr. Mason was startled
this time, though whether it was because the shot
went home, or was simply the start of puzzled and
bewildered innocence, Philip wished devoutly he
could feel certain.
“Really ſ” said Mr. Mason.


70 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“I mean Miss Beatrix Staynes,” added Philip, his
eyes looking straight into the other's.
Mr. Mason's did not blink or waver in their stare.
“Who is she?” he inquired.
“I have told you—Mr. Essington's ward. As a
friend of his you must have been aware of that.”
“I am not acquainted with all Mr. Essington's
responsibilities; nor,” he added, “do I see why I
should discuss Mr. Essington's affairs with you.”
So far, Philip was fain to admit he had got re-
markably little change out of Mr. Mason; and then
a sudden thought leapt into his mind.
“You have nothing to say to me then?”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Mason distantly.
“Nothing to ask me?”
“Nothing whatever,” said Mr. Mason with a touch
of irony.
“Not even why I made my way into “The Retreat'
to interview your friend, Mr. Essington?”
There was no doubt the shot went home. Mr.
Mason was manifestly nonplussed, and for a moment
said nothing.
“You had probably guessed already?” suggested
Philip.
“I am not interested in the matter,” replied Mr.
Mason, and very deliberately turned his back.
At that moment the porter's bell clanged, and the
roar of the in-coming train rose through the night.


MR. MASON 71
“I shall follow Mr. Mason!” said Philip to him-
self. “He did know why I came down, and
therefore . . . "
The fur-coated gentleman walked a little distance
from him and then stopped and again looked back at
im. The train came in and Philip waited till he saw
Mr. Mason safely into a carriage near the engine,
and then he got into one further down the train. A
minute or two passed, and they were off. Glancing
out of the window, Philip saw the station lamps and
buildings and one or two figures glide by—and, last
of all, Mr. Mason.
He leapt to his feet and his hand was on the handle,
but they were past the platform by this time and
moving fast. He fell back into the seat and cursed
his own unwariness. There returned to his memory
now the vision of Mr. Mason speaking to the guard
of the other train, and then glancing over his shoulder
and hesitating.
“He meant to go by that train all the time!” he
thought. “But that at least shows he was afraid I
would follow him. He must have been the man in
the cab–I'm certain of it now!”





PART II





CHAPTER I
THE REV. CRISPIN
HE Rev. Crispin Pytcher (spelt with a y, a very
old variety of the name) had been exceedingly
carefully brought up. His only surviving parent
was a lady of the most exemplary conduct and the
most solicitous temperament. Crispin's boyhood was
largely spent in goloshes, and he was only allowed
to eat one kind of chocolate cream; though since Mrs.
Pytcher's heart was as tender as it was anxious, she
was easily persuaded to let him consume his specialty
by the boxful. His companions were carefully
chosen from the quietest girls of their acquaintance,
instruction was supplied by the mildest tutor procur-
able, and until he had turned eighteen and was con-
sidered strong enough to handle a tennis racquet, his
principal amusement was musical chairs.
Thereafter for three placid years he was one of
the five undergraduates who enjoyed the collegiate
life of St. Anselm's Hall, Oxon, and he finally left
the University as unsmirched as when he entered, a
perfect example of what a mother can accomplish
when undisturbed by coarser counsellors.
To see her boy a bishop had long been Mrs.
Pytcher's ultimate ambition, but, of course, she
75


76 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
realised that he must pass through a chrysalis stage
first, so she had him ordained, bought him the neces-
sary outfit, and arranged for his installation in a
genteel curacy in the neighbourhood of Kensington
High Street. There, for two happy years, the Rev.
Crispin intoned such portions of the service as were
allotted to him in the most dulcet fashion imaginable,
paid a large number of afternoon calls, and took a
prominent part in the meetings of a local musical as-
sociation. Such a strenuous life, however, was
bound to tell upon his constitution, and a nasty,
feverish cough, lasting for nearly a week, during
which his temperature almost touched 100° Fahren-
heit, convinced his mother that her boy must seek a
change of air without delay.
The Rev. Crispin was already an enthusiastic and
skilful ritualist, so that the number of situations in
which he could be both happy and useful was limited;
but after considerable correspondence with various
rectors and vicars in rural situations, it was finally
arranged that he should fill a vacant curacy under the
Rev. Boniface Shuttleton-Bowles, rector of the
Parish of Gorington, in a certain western county, a
thoroughly expert person in this branch of divinity.
Mrs. Pytcher herself interviewed Mr. Shuttleton-
Bowles, and her accounts of her son were so satis-
factory that though that gentleman had no acquain-
tance with the Rev. Crispin, he readily agreed to
ºr "


78 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
deed the carriage grows more stuffy, I might open
the window into the corridor! That surely would be
safah!”
As Mrs. Pytcher was by this time several yards
away, and as the distance had considerably increased
by the end of her reply, he was unable to hear it dis-
tinctly. Being a very conscientious young man, he
remained for the next twenty minutes in a condition
of some disquietude, wondering what it was lawful
for him to do. At last he decided to wait till the
carriage actually became more stuffy and decide
then; whereupon he opened an illustrated magazine.
It was pretty dark by then, but the carriage was well
lighted and he passed the following hour or so very
placidly.
At Yeddlesby Junction he was able to let down
the window for fully five minutes and air the com-
partment without risk. He even ventured to put his
head out and enjoy a glimpse of the gleaming rails
and the deserted platform beyond (for this window
was on the off side of the train). He had only
meant to keep it out for one single instant, but of a
sudden his eye was arrested by a circumstance that
struck him as somewhat unusual. Some way up the
train, close to the engine in fact, a man was standing
on the line in a careless attitude, smoking a cigar.
Though Crispin was unable to see him very dis-
tinctly, he seemed to be a gentleman, and he certainly


THE REV. CRISPIN 79
was engaged on no visible job. And then the whistle
blew and the gentleman promptly climbed up, either
into a carriage, or—it almost seemed—on to the
engine itself. As he climbed, a gleam of light fell
upon him and showed a fashionably cut green over-
coat; or at least it looked like that so far as the young
curate could see.
“What a curious occurrence!” he said to himself.
“And how very dangerous! Supposing another
train had come suddenly along and run over that
man!”
This reflection started a train of thought very
painful and disagreeable for one of the curate's
sensitive nature. Such dreadful things had happened
to so many people in trains—accidents, robberies,
and even worse, that Crispin always felt a little
nervous when he started on a railway journey, and,
once embarked, endeavored to keep his mind at rest
by looking at pictures or at the scenery. He made
this endeavour now and had gradually acquired a
calm mood once more when he was startled into a
state of the most acute apprehension. The brakes
had suddenly been put on and the train was jolting
rapidly and uncomfortably to a stop.
“An accident!” he cried to himself, and he spent
several very miserable moments waiting for it to
begin.
Nothing happened, however, save that the train


THE REV. CRISPIN 81
For an instant Crispin was conscious of a dis-
agreeable shock of surprise. His nerves had hardly
recovered from the effects of the sudden stoppage
and the apprehensions it created, and besides, the
gentleman who entered was wearing a fashionably
cut pea-green overcoat, and this struck him as being
somehow or other in the nature of an unpleasant
coincidence. And finally, the stranger was smoking
a cigar, and Crispin had particularly selected this
as being a non-smoking compartment. But his dis-
quiet was very speedily set at rest. Seating himself
opposite, the stranger glanced for an instant rather
intently at the neatly inscribed suit case overhead,
and then smiled on its owner in a very friendly and
engaging way.
“I trust you are having a pleasant journey, sir,”
he remarked.
Though this was scarcely the usual conversational
opening of an entire stranger, so far as Crispin's
experience went, yet he was aware how limited that
experience was, and the observation itself was so
charmingly made that he smiled back gently and
murmured:
“Oh, very, thank you; yes, very pleasant in-
deed.”
“An experienced traveller?” inquired the stranger.
“Oh, no, not very; in fact, not at all—ah—widely
experienced.”


82 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Ah!” said the stranger, still more pleasantly.
“A liver of the idyllic life, I presume?”
“As—ah—idyllic as-ah—possible,” sighed the
curate, and gave an involuntary sniff. The odour
of the stranger's cigar was somewhat overpowering,
he found.
That courteous gentleman instantly perceived the
sniff and inquired with much solicitude:
“Have I taken too great a liberty in bringing in
my cigar? I have not hitherto been sitting in a
smoking compartment and I imagined I had come
into a carriage where it was permitted.” He glanced
at the windows and exclaimed, “Dear me, it isn't a
smoker after all! How very careless of me!”
The curate was divided between his distaste for
tobacco and his desire to be polite.
“I do not—ah—smoke myself,” he said in a gentle
voice.
“Your health?” inquired the stranger.
“Ah—not exactly. The fact is I have promised
my mothah not to smoke.”
For an instant the stranger seemed to be studying
him with increased attention, and also apparently
with marked satisfaction.
“Shall I open the window?” he suggested.
“That is unfortunately an alternative which—ah—
my mothah is—ah—also averse from,” intoned the
Curate.


THE REW. CRISPIN 83
This time the good-looking stranger gazed at him
very thoughtfully indeed, and then a light, as of
sudden inspiration, flashed and was obscured. He
had one more careful look at the pale, mild face of
the curate, and another at certain embellishments of
his watch-chain usually associated with the higher
sub-divisions of Anglicanism; and finally shot a third
at the black-lettered suit case overhead. And then he
bent forward and his air grew suddenly grave.
“Mr. Crispin Pytcher!” he pronounced in a low,
impressive tone.
The young man positively jumped. This stranger
knew his name ! For the moment the disclosure
almost stunned him. As for making any adequate
answer, it was quite out of his power. Raising one
finger ominously, the stranger spoke again.
“I am afraid I must have a few minutes' conver-
sation with you on a very private and serious mat-
ter,” said he.


CHAPTER II
ESCAPE
46 ITH — with me?” stammered the Rev.
Crispin.
“In your own interests, Mr. Pytcher. You are
not a member of the Anti-Ritual League, I pre-
sume?”
“The Anti-ritual?” gasped the curate. “Certainly
not—oh, most certainly not! Quite the contrary, I
assure you!”
“I thought as much!” said the stranger. “And in
that case I am relieved to find that you cannot be
another of their agents in disguise.”
“Their agents—in disguise!” exclaimed the horri-
fied young man.
“There are seven of them in this train! Each
is armed with the usual implements—stiletto and
spade.”
“Stiletto and spade!” cried Crispin. “What—
what are they for?”
“The stiletto to do the job, the spade to conceal
the traces,” said the stranger, his voice dropping
almost to a whisper.
Crispin was aware that the practices of his own
84


ESCAPE 85
particular ecclesiastical circle were regarded by
certain misguided persons with extreme and even
violent disfavour. He had read, in fact, of a horrid
scene—in a church, too, not very long before, but
that these persons had actually formed themselves
into a criminal association with murderous designs,
this indeed was news. It was news so dreadful and
so staggering that at first he could scarcely believe it.
“Are—are you quite sure?” he asked, but his
quavering voice showed that he had really little hope
the stranger might be in error.
“Only too sure, Mr. Pytcher. In fact, I may tell
you that I myself am at present employed by the
Convocation in circumventing—at the risk of my life
—the machinations of these miscreants!”
“You are employed yourself?” repeated the curate,
opening his mild eyes very wide indeed. “By—ah—
did you say the Convocation?”
“After consultation of course with the Arch-
bishops and Scotland Yard. You are in grave peril,
Mr. Pytcher!”
At this intimation the young curate ceased to
wonder how such a curious combination should have
been employing the gentleman. His face turned
even paler than before as he gasped:
“Me? But—ah—I am only a humble—ah—
follower of the movement. Oh, surely—surel 99
The stranger cut him short, peremptorily, yet not


88 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
braces until the black trousers covered most of his
ankle, surveyed himself quickly yet critically in the
mirror over the seat, and assumed again his most
urgent and unnerving manner.
“Now, Mr. Pytcher, you must leave this train
without an instant's delay!” he said, and promptly
pulled the communication cord.
“Leave the train!” cried Crispin. “But—ah—
really !"
“For your mother's sake!”
“But—ah—why for the sake of my mothah?”
repeated the curate blankly.
“Because she would sooner see you alive than
dead! Now, the instant the train stops, out you hop
and go hell for leather away from the line! I'll
settle the business with the guard.”
Already the train was rapidly slowing down. The
Rev. Crispin gazed at his rescuer with a vacant and
horrified face.
“But—ah—it is quite dark! Where shall I go?
Oh, what am I to do when I hop into the dark?”
The stranger again held up one finger and gal-
vanised the unfortunate young man into attention.
“These are your directions; remember them care-
fully! Run like sin for an hour and a half. Lie low
for twenty-four hours. Then go to the nearest
magistrate; tell him that your name is Essington—”
“Essington?” said the curate.


ESCAPE 89
“Essington,” the stranger repeated impressively.
“And say that you want to get back to Dr. Jenkinson
at a place called “The Retreat.” The magistrate will
take steps to convey you there, and at last you will be
safe! Now give me a fiver, and then be ready to
jump out.”
“A—a—why should I give you a-’’ stammered
Crispin.
The stranger pointed to the warning printed beside
the communication cord.
“That's the fine for pulling it,” he said. “Quick,
we have almost stopped ſ”
He pocketed five sovereigns and opened the car-
riage door.
“Oh, I hope I shall remember what to do!” cried
the Rev. Crispin.
“Run like hell—lie low—go to magistrate!” his
rescuer repeated. “Now, off with you!”
The Rev. Crispin Pytcher vanished into the night
as the director had done not long before, while his
understudy pulled up the window, settled himself in
his seat, and assumed an expression as like that of
the departed curate as he could achieve.
A few minutes later an extremely serious-looking
guard came along the corridor and opened the com-
partment door.
“Did you pull the communication cord, sir?” he
demanded.


90 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
The young clergyman in the corner seat gazed at
him with a startled yet mildly innocent expression,
rather like a frightened rabbit, the guard thought to
himself.
“Was that the little chain I took hold of acci-
dentally?” he exclaimed. “Oh, dear me, what a very
unfortunate thing to do! The fact is, guard, I was
trying to reach up to the rack, and suddenly the train
began to shake, and I put out my hand and must have
touched the cord. I only touched it very gently,
guard! It must have been very sensitive to have
gone and stopped the train just because it was
touched Do all cords go off as easily?”
“They don't go off unless you pulls 'em,” said the
guard severely.
“Then you think I must have pulled it? Oh, what
a nuisance! But you can start the train again now,
guard. It's all right. I don't really want it stopped.
Thank you so much for letting me know how it hap-
pened. I shall never touch a cord of any kind
again!”
The guard still covered him with a reproving eye.
“I must ask you for your name, sir,” said he.
“Pytcher is my name, guard,” the young clergy-
man assured him, with an eager air of wishing to
supply all the information within his power. “It is
spelt with a Y. Please be sure to spell it like that.


ESCAPE 91
And Crispin is my Christian name. Please put ‘The
Reverend’ before it.”
The guard conscientiously wrote down these facts.
When he looked up from his notebook he was sur-
prised to see rather a different expression on Mr.
Pytcher's innocent face. A peculiarly ingratiating
smile now illumined it, and his eye was persuasion
itself.
“I have just been noticing a very dreadful thing,
guard,” said he in a voice which exactly matched the
smile. “There seems to be a fine of £5 for pulling
that little cord, even by accident. A fiver! I really
cannot afford all that, guard; but here's a quid to
yourself. Take it, like a dear good fellow !”
The guard protested; the guard looked cautiously
over his shoulder and saw nobody in the corridor,
and finally the guard succumbed.
“Made four quid over that transaction l’” said the
Rev. Crispin to himself. “At this rate I am rapidly
becoming what my young friend would call richah
and richah.”
The train was now once more in swift motion; its
roar rose continuous and exhilarating, and when he
put his face to the window he could see dim shapes
flying by and vanishing in a constant stream.
“I ought to be pretty safe for the present,” he
thought. “With any luck this costume should give
me twenty-four hours' start. But after that?” He


92 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
gazed down at his sedate attire and shook his head.
“These duds will be a mere trap once Crispin spreads
the alarm,” he reflected. “I must change 'em with-
out any unnecessary delay. How can I raise a
change? And what's my programme in the mean-
time? Can a curate do anything amusing? I never
happened to see one doing it, but it ought to be pos-
sible.”
For some minutes he gazed thoughtfully up at
the brown suit case on the rack, with the neat black
lettering, and then of a sudden the light of inspira-
tion flashed in his eye.
“By Gad, I'll risk it!” he murmured.


CHAPTER III
THE NEW CURATE
HE Rev. Boniface Shuttleton-Bowles rose from
the breakfast table and moved towards the door
with the dignity inseparable from him. He was a
fine figure of a man, just turned sixty, with a large
smooth countenance, pleasantly florid and generally
adorned by a beneficent and amiable expression, and
with a peculiarly rich voice. His record was no less
satisfactory than his appearance. He had rowed in
the Oxford boat in his day, ridden to hounds while
his weight permitted, and was still in request when
his neighbours shot their coverts. Alike in the pulpit
and at the lectern the rich quality of his voice and the
excellence of his elocution gave pleasure to his con-
gregation; while his sermons would not have dis-
turbed a child of ten.
“When are you going down to the village, father?”
asked his daughter.
“Oh, in about half an hour or so,” said Mr. Bowles
easily. “There is no hurry. He will probably be
unpacking.”
“I do hope he has come, Boniface!” said his wife.
“Oh, surely, my dear! His mother was most
93


94 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
explicit in her letter. He was to arrive at 11.20 last
night.”
“I’ll walk down to the village with you,” said Miss
Bowles.
“Capital l’” said the Rev. Boniface genially, for he
was one of those rare and fortunate men who are
genial quite early in the day.
He went into his study, lit his after-breakfast pipe,
and had just settled himself comfortably in his easy
chair, when he was somewhat startled to see the door
open and hear the maid announce,
“Mr. Crispin Pytcher to see you, sir.”
“This is unconscionably early" exclaimed the
rector, but by the time the new curate had entered
the study, he had, outwardly at least, quite recovered
his geniality.
“Ah, Mr. Pytcher,” said he. “You are an early
bir 33
He stopped in some surprise. The gentleman who
entered had begun to bow as soon as he was within
the door, and he was bowing still. In fact, the rector
could already see right down his collar. Then grad-
ually the new curate returned to the perpendicular,
and finally revealed an agreeable, but extremely seri-
ous countenance. The eyes struck the Rev. Boniface
as quite lively during the instant he could see them,
but the next moment they were rolling back almost
into his head.


THE NEW CURATE 95
“My new rectah!” exclaimed Mr. Pytcher, en-
thusiastically. “Ah, how pleasant it is to meet one
of whom I have heard so much! I do assure you,
my dear sir, my mothah could not say enough in
your favour!”
A study of certain correspondence found in the
brown suit-case had put the reverend gentleman in
possession of what he considered sufficient facts for
the occasion, and he also felt entirely satisfied with
his own ecclesiastical manner as he intoned these
well-chosen sentences. It was, therefore, a little dis-
appointing to observe his new rector's eyes open
slightly wider than usual, without any ameliorating
graciousness of expression.
“Really?” said the Rev. Boniface dryly. “I am
—ah—relieved that you have heard of me favour-
ably.”
“Oh, mothah was profoundly impressed,” beamed
Mr. Pytcher, “and so was my dear sistah!”
This was a shot at a venture, and it evidently
missed. The rector opened his eyes still wider.
“I was not aware you had a sister, Mr. Pytcher,”
said he.
“Confound Crispin' I could have sworn he was
brought up among a dozen sisters,” said Mr. Pytcher
to himself. Aloud, however, he replied readily, “All
the ladies are my sistahs. That is the beauty of our
vocation, is it not, dear rectah?”


98 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“My daughter—Mr. Pytcher,” the rector intro-
duced.
Again Mr. Pytcher bowed, but in a distinctly more
graceful and orthodox fashion, Mr. Bowles noticed.
(As a matter of fact, Mr. Pytcher himself had been
fully under the impression that his first obeisance
touched the high water-mark of ecclesiastical ortho-
doxy, and would have repeated it now, had he re-
membered to.)
“Ah, my dear young lady!” said he in dulcet tones.
“I have just been enjoying such a pleasant conver-
sation with your good father. We shall get on like
anything, I am sure! And you and I, also, my
dear young lady, I trust will be great friends!”
“If that's not the stuff to give 'em, I'm dashed ”
he added to himself with excusable complacency.
Ida Shuttleton-Bowles looked at him for a single
swift, searching instant before she answered, and
during that intense, momentary scrutiny, there sud-
denly crossed his mind a little doubt whether he had
given this dear young lady quite the right stuff after
all. Then she spoke, and he observed with a con-
noisseur's interest a subtle, soft vibration in her
voice reminiscent of entirely unecclesiastical experi-
ences.
“We are having tennis this afternoon, Mr. Pyt-
cher,” she said. “I hope you will come. You do
play, of course?”


THE NEW CURATE 99
Mr. Pytcher shot one glance at her and another
at the rector, and decided to adapt his manner, as
far as possible, to both.
“I play several games,” he replied gently, but with
an eloquent eye, and then added for the rector's
benefit, “lawful exercise is not forbidden, I believe,
dear rectah?”
Mr. Bowles's reply was directed at his daughter.
“We shall expect, then, to see Mr. Pytcher this
afternoon. Meanwhile, my dear, we are having a
little business conversation.”
The young lady took the hint, and the gallant
curate hastened to hold the door open for her. As
she passed she seemed to throw him the faintest
possible smile.
“Quite promising!” he said to himself, and then
became exceedingly grave. The rector's eye was
fixed very hard upon him, and its expression struck
him as unsympathetic.
“We had now better have a little conversation
about your duties,” said the Rev. Boniface dryly,
and with unmistakable emphasis on the last word.
“Time for me to move!” thought the new curate,
but it was with every appearance of extreme enthusi-
asm that he replied:
“My duties? Oh, rather, I am frightfully keen on
them! Mothers' meetings, baptisms—you'd like me
to take them, of course? However, we can arrange


100 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
all that later. I won't disturb you any longer now,
rectah. But just before I go, there is one little favour
I should like to ask. You don't mind, my dear
rectah?”
The disarming smile seemed to arrest what was
going to be a somewhat inclement answer.
“Well?” said the rector.
“Did my mother tell you I was an enthusiastic
gardener? What! She never mentioned it? Dear
me, how curious! I simply love working in my
little garden, but I have no suitable attire. Can you
lend me an old grey flannel suit? Or tweeds? I do
not think it quite nice to work in my clerical gar-
ments. Do you?”
“I regret, Mr. Pytcher, that I cannot oblige you,”
replied the rector, somewhat coldly. “And I may
add that your duties will not leave you much time
for working in anybody's garden. I may also re-
mind you that at present you have none of your
own.”
“It would be a great favour,” pleaded Mr. Pytcher.
“I am going to take a little house and garden im-
mediately. . . .”
“I regret my inability to oblige you,” repeated Mr.
Bowles with considerable emphasis.
Considering that this request was Mr. Pytcher's
chief object in taking up his present duties, the


CHAPTER IV
IDA
“(TOOD gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Shuttleton-
Bowles. “Is that another pane smashed?”
“We shall have very little of our conservatory left,
if Pytcher plays tennis here often,” replied the rector.
“Mind your head, my dear!”
Mrs. Bowles ducked just in time, and a tennis ball
whizzed its way into the shrubberies.
“One should never have dreamt that such a mild-
looking young man would play such a dashing game
of tennis,” said the lady. “He seems quite good,
but so dreadfully reckless!”
“It appears to me,” observed her husband, “that
He is deliberately aiming his smashes at young Bash-
ford's head. There, he's got him this time! Luck-
ily it's only on the arm.”
The new curate (looking very presentable in a
pair of white flannel trousers that covered his
ankles) had indeed been exhibiting the most aston-
ishing activity and dash. In partnership with a shy
young lady in pale pink, he was opposing Ida Shut-
tleton-Bowles and a very confident-looking and
beautifully be-flannelled young man, who at that
102


IDA 103
moment was rubbing his arm with an air of less
complacency than usual.
“That will teach him to look like a ready-made-
tailor's dummy and make love to my best girl!” said
Mr. Pytcher to himself.
From this it may be judged that his first passages
with Miss Ida had promised favourably; and that
Mr. Bashford also appeared to appreciate that young
lady.
“Almost got him again!” said Crispin to himself,
as a terrific smash whizzed within an inch of his
rival's ear, and a distant crash announced the col-
lapse of another pane in the conservatory.
And all the while Ida watched him furtively, and
at rare intervals shot him a smile, the import of
which left him a trifle puzzled, but more desirous
than ever of a quiet half-hour in a shady corner.
At the end of the set he was a little surprised to
see Mr. Bashford stroll towards him with an ex-
pression not at all hostile, but on the contrary rather
suggestive of overtures. Friendly though Mr.
Pytcher habitually felt towards his fellow-mortals,
this young man displeased him, and he was at no
trouble to assume an accommodating manner.
“I say,” began Bashford, “isn't your name Crispin
Pytcher?”
“I believe they baptised me something like that,”
replied Mr. Pytcher distantly.


104 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“And weren't you up at Anselm's Hall?”
Mr. Pytcher pricked up his ears and suddenly be-
came more wary.
“I was,” said he.
“Then you must remember me—“Binks’ Bashford,
of B.N.C. P.”
“Oh, by Gad, Binks, of course! You looked very
familiar, but I couldn't place you at first.”
Mr. Binks Bashford looked him up and down
curiously.
“You’ve changed in the most extraordinary way,”
he observed. “I wouldn't have recognised you.”
“I had a very severe illness,” explained Mr.
Pytcher. “All my friends remark on the singular
difference it has made.”
“You seem a lot older,” added Mr. Bashford, who
was a young man devoid of diffidence, and also-it
seemed to Mr. Pytcher—of tact.
“The flight of time is said to have that effect,” said
Mr. Pytcher with delicate irony.
His tone seemed to surprise Mr. Bashford as
much as his appearance.
“Your manner has quite changed, too,” he re-
marked.
“While your manners seem incapable of much de-
velopment,” replied Mr. Pytcher, and with a polite
smile he turned away, and sought the society of
Miss Bowles.


IDA I05
For some time, however, he was unsuccessful.
Even his audacity and enterprise failed to separate
Miss Bowles from her guests, and he even had the
displeasing experience of sitting on a grassy bank
with the silent lady in pink, watching Binks and Ida
once more play in partnership, without the satisfac-
tion of being able to aim a single smash in Mr. Bash-
ford's direction. He was further a little discon-
certed to observe a short, confidential talk between
them at the end of the set, and unquestionably Binks
Bashford was glancing more than once in his direc-
tion.
“I must get hold of her and put things right!” he
said to himself; and thereupon he rose, and with a
happy mixture of gallantry and effrontery swept Miss
Ida out of the crowd and down a shady path to a
solitary seat.
“This is much pleasanter!” said he, as he seated
himself by her side and threw her his most agreeable
and confidential smile.
She smiled back, and again he was struck by some-
thing unfathomable in her eye, and the curious sug-
gestion of possibilities in her smile.
“I have just realised,” she said, “that we have
several friends in common, Mr. Pytcher.”
Mr. Pytcher's intellect instantly became at its most
acute.


IDA 107
for a moment said nothing. Then in a low voice
she asked:
“Why are you masquerading as Crispin Pytcher?”
Mr. Essington had enjoyed, among other experi-
ences, a number of surprises in his life, but none
more startling than this. Yet his outward com-
posure was unruffled.
“I beg your pardon?” he inquired with an air of
innocent surprise.
“There are no such people as the Hardymans and
the Beetletons,” she replied quite quietly; “or any-
how I don't know any.”
Mr. Essington looked straight into her eyes, and
then he smiled his most audacious and candid smile.
“How much start will you give me?” he inquired.
“Will you sit here till I'm safely over that garden
wall? That will give me a sporting chance, and then
you can blow your whistle and let them after me.”
Ida merely laughed.
“I won't promise you anything till you tell me
who you are and why you are doing this.”
He looked at her curiously.
“I believe you are going to turn out even nicer
than I thought,” said he. “First of all, tell me how
much you know.”
“I only know that you aren't Crispin Pytcher.
I had a suspicion the very moment I saw you, and
when Mr. Bashford told me he was up at Oxford


108 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
with you and that you had changed utterly and
didn't seem to recognise him, I felt certain. Who
are you really?”
Though Mr. Essington hesitated, one would never
have guessed it. “I want to know a little more about
this ambiguous lady first!” he said to himself; but
with hardly a pause he answered with a question.
“Don’t you want to know what has become of the
genuine Crispin?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I don't much care what becomes of curates!”
she answered scornfully.
“A parson's daughter!” he exclaimed.
In the same tone she answered again:
“That is probably why. I have seen too much of
parsons! I don't include father,” she added, “but
curates—I am absolutely sick of them!”
“So you are rather relieved to find I am not one?”
“Who are you and why did you come here?” she
asked again.
“Partly for air and partly for exercise.”
Her eyes contracted.
“You must tell me more than that,” she said.
In his present spirited condition, Mr. Essington
would have vastly preferred to keep the conversa-
tion going on cheerful, affectionate, or romantic lines.
He would willingly, indeed, have offered the lady
her choice of these, but even the most buoyant could


IDA 109
scarcely fail to perceive that Miss Ida Shuttleton-
Bowles demanded a serious answer, and meant to
get it; also that she did not seem an easy lady to
deceive.
“I am endeavouring,” he confessed, “to escape
from a conspiracy against my liberty!”
She looked at him intently for a moment, and then
asked quietly:
“Are you really guilty?”
“Guilty!” he exclaimed with a slight start, and
then perceiving that this unfathomable young lady
showed no sign of horror at the possibility, he in-
stantly went on, “What if I am? Would you be
willing to shield the unfortunate if they chanced to
be guilty?”
“I don't know,” she answered thoughtfully.
Mr. Essington decided that it was scarcely safe
to chance it.
“Of course I am really innocent!” he declared
with a manly air.
Again she looked at him intently.
“I wonder if you are!” she murmured.
“Confound her l’” said he to himself, “I’m hanged
if I know which she would prefer!” But before the
adaptable gentleman could decide as to his own
guilt, the portly form of the rector loomed up in the
shady path, an elderly lady by his side.


IIO THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Ah, Ida, here you are ſ” said he. “Here is your
Aunt Mary looking for you.”
The girl sprang up and the curate had just time
to whisper:
“Give me a chance!”
Her eyes rested on him for the fraction of a
second, but what they betokened baffled him quite.
The next minute she was greeting the elderly lady,
and for the remainder of the afternoon Mr. Crispin
Pytcher had to content himself with one single ex-
change of silent glances.
“What will she do?” he asked himself as he walked
back to his lodgings in the village. “I never met a
woman who beat me more completely! In any case
I had meant to clear out by to-morrow afternoon.
It had better be first thing after breakfast now.”
}


CHAPTER V
THE MAN IN THE BOWLER HAT
A". quarter to seven next morning a small man
in a bowler hat alighted from a dog cart in the
road before the rectory gates. The horse between
the shafts looked as though it had come fast and
far, and the man on the driver's seat was a stranger
to the village.
“Just wait for me 'ere,” said the man in the bowler,
and walked briskly up the gravel drive.
He pulled the rectory bell once and waited, and
then he pulled it again.
“Seem to be all abed still !” he said to himself and
stepped back to survey the windows. All the blinds
at that side of the house were still down, but as he
stood there gazing up, one blind was cautiously pulled
a little to the side, and for a moment he caught a
glimpse of a pair of bright eyes looking down at
him. They seemed to be a lady's eyes, he thought.
They vanished the next moment, and the man re-
turned to the bell. This time a maid appeared.
“Rev. Shuttleton-Bowles in?” inquired the man.
“In bed, is he? Well, tell him I wants to see 'im
most particular and immediate, and that it's some-
111


112 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
thing to do with 'is curate. No name, just you give
'im that message, underlinin’ the words ‘immediate’
and ‘curate.’”
As he passed through the hall towards the rector's
study, the man looked quickly upward. It seemed
to him he heard a door being closed on the floor
above, but nobody came downstairs.
In a quarter of an hour or so the rector appeared,
unshaved, but clothed and as dignified as ever. He
saw, standing on the rug before the unlit fire, a
small individual whom at the first glance he put down
as insignificant; but at the second, he was struck by
the alertness of his beady little eyes, and the keen,
ferrety cut of the whole face.
“Rev. Shuttleton-Bowles, sir, I presume?” said the
man. “You’ll excuse an early call, sir, I 'ope, when
I tells you I've brought news of your curate.”
The rector stared very hard.
“Do you mean Mr. Pytcher?” he demanded.
The man nodded.
“That's 'im, sir. 'E's turned up at Dr. Jenkin-
son's asylum, givin' hisself out to be Mr.—” the
man checked himself and then went on rather quick-
ly, “describin’ hisself, in fact, as another genelman
what had run away. He was wearin’ that same
genelman's clothes and was sent by a magistrate in
charge of a policeman.”


THE MAN IN THE BOWLER HAT 113
Mr. Shuttleton-Bowles passed his hand across his
brow like a man dumbfounded.
“Mr. Pytcher—in another gentleman's clothes—
in an asylum !” he repeated.
“We thought you'd be wonderin’ what 'ad become
of him, so I come straight by train to Minton-Pars-
ley and 'ired a trap. Only way I could get to you
before noon, sir.”
“I—ah—am much obliged, I am sure,” said the
rector. “It was very good of you, but—ah—I am
afraid I don't quite follow you. How did you say
this happened?”
“We don't quite know 'ow, sir, Mr. Pytcher's
statements soundin’ unreliable. 'E says he met this
said genelman in a train and was told some cock-and-
bull story about murderers bein’ after 'im, and so
they changed clothes so as 'e could escape, but we
thought as perhaps, sir, you could throw some light
on it.”
The rector shook his head, staring the while blank-
ly at his visitor.
“It is totally incomprehensible to me! I thought
Mr. Pytcher seemed somewhat eccentric when he
called upon me yesterday morning, but 29
The little man's voice rose nearly to a shout as he
interrupted.
“Mr. Pytcher called upon you yesterday mornin'!”
“Certainly.”


114 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
The little man's voice sank now almost to a
whisper.
“Mr. Pytcher was in the 'ands of the magistrate
yesterday mornin'. 'E arrived at Dr. Jenkinson's in
the afternoon"
“Good heavens !” boomed the rector. “Then who
was the person who called upon me?”
The little man's gimlet eyes fairly danced with
glee.
“The man I'm after! The man what run away
from Dr. Jenkinson's and changed clothes with this
'ere Pytcher! Do you mean to say he'd the im–
pudence to come down 'ere as Pytcher? What a bit
o' luck! We've got 'im fair and square! Where is
he, sir?”
“Lodging in the village, I believe. In fact, I know
for certain he is there. I happened to hear reports
of his conduct last night which disquieted me greatly.
He was—ah—giving something in the nature of a
musical entertainment.”
The little man slapped his leg.
“We'll entertain' 'im right enough, sir! It'll be
the early bird that catches the worm this time, and
no mistake ſ”
“What is this gentleman's real name?” inquired
the rector.
The man looked at him curiously and for an in-
stant seemed to hesitate. Then he answered glibly:


THE MAN IN THE BOWLER HAT 115
“Mr. Smith, sir.”
Mr. Shuttleton-Bowles was a man with some ex-
perience of the world. He looked at his visitor very
hard.
“Is that his real name?” he demanded.
“Well, sir, possibly it ain't quite all of it. Fact
is, sir, 'is friends is particularly anxious not to 'ave
his behaviour talked about, as it were. Well-con-
nected genelman 'e is, sir, and his relations is nat-
urally sensitive.”
“Ah!” said the rector. “Yes, I can understand
that. And you, I presume, are one of Dr. Jenkin-
Son's staff P”
It was a peculiarity of the small man that when-
ever he made what appeared to be his most candid
statements, he prefaced them with a very odd, cau-
tious glance. He shot this glance now at the rector
and then answered apparently in the most straight-
forward manner:
“Not exactly, sir. This genelman's friends and
relations is also 'unting very particular anxiously
for him, and I’m bein’ employed by them. But I
works so to speak and in 'and with Jenkinson's lot,
and I’ll see him safe back there right enough. No
fears of that, sir!”
“I see,” said the rector thoughtfully. “Well, that
being so, what steps do you mean to take? I should
not desire—ah—a scandal in the village.”


116 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Oh, if I gets enough men together, sir, we'll lift
him that quiet nobody will notice nothing. There's
me, and there's the man what drove me over, and
if you could let us 'ave two more, sir, there won't
be no danger of a fuss with him.”
“I can manage that for you,” said the rector. “In
fact, I might even lend a hand myself! That sort
of thing was—ah—quite in my line once upon a
time. If you just wait till I have shaved, I'll come
with you.”
“No time like the present, sir, for catchin’ the
early worm,” his visitor suggested. “The sooner we
gets at 'im, the surer we are of nabbin' 'im.”
If there was one thing the Rev. Boniface disliked
more than another, it was the modern craze for
hurry.
“Time enough when I have shaved and you have
had a cup of tea,” he said easily. “Come along, I’ll
tell them to give you the tea. We'll lose no time
once we set off.”
As he went upstairs again it occurred to him that
instead of alarming his wife he would just speak a
quiet word to Ida and tell her to break the news
after he was safely gone. He knocked at his
daughter’s door and then knocked again. And then
at last he pushed it open and peeped in. The blinds
were up and the room was empty.
“Bless me!” he said to himself. “Ida is up very


THE MAN IN THE BOWLER HAT 117
early this morning! I didn't hear her about the
house either. Can she have gone out already?”
However, he was not a man to worry about trifles,
and a few minutes later he was shaving himself very
complacently.
“The episode has its awkward side,” he reflected,
“but after all I am relieved to think that the in-
dividual who abstracted two handfuls of my best
cigars is not really my curate.”


CHAPTER VI
A NEAR THING
INCE this narrative can make small claim to
merit apart from its undeviating accuracy, it
must be admitted frankly that Mr. Shuttleton-Bowles
had been correctly informed concerning his curate's
conduct on the previous evening. The Rev. Crispin
had, in fact, strolled into the Blue Boar after dinner,
made the acquaintance of several local gentlemen oc-
cupied with tankards, placed them entirely at their
ease within five minutes, converted the gathering into
an impromptu concert of the most spirited nature,
assisted the other gentlemen to carry one of their
number home to his family, and finally retired to
rest, sober yet evidently with a premonition that a
morning in bed would be beneficial, for instructions
were subsequently discovered on his sitting-room
table directing his landlady to “Call me not earlier
than ten o'clock, serious news from my mother neces-
sitates repose. C.P.”
It was therefore with considerable trepidation that
Mrs. Higgins ventured to tap upon his door at 7.15
to inform him that Miss Shuttleton-Bowles had come
with a message from the rectory. She was, however,
relieved to hear, instead of rebuke or expostulation,
118


A NEAR THING 119
an instantaneous creaking of the bed; and within an
incredibly short space of time Mr. Pytcher was
closeted with Miss Bowles in his sitting-room, and
to all appearances clad.
“Some one has come for you!” she said the mo-
ment he had closed the door behind him.
Her voice was quick and eager and her eyes were
very bright. Mr. Pytcher, on his part, wasted no.
more time than she did.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“A small man with a large bowler hat and ferrety
eyes rather close together. He looks like a detect-
ive!”
“Small—large bowler—eyes close together,” he
repeated thoughtfully. “Don’t know him. Probably
he is a detective. How did he come?”
“In a dog-cart.”
“And what did he say?”
“I only overheard him asking for father and send-
ing a message to say it was about his curate. Then I
dressed as quick as I could and came to warn you.”
He looked at her for a moment with an odd smile.
“So that's the sort you are! What a brick! You
ran the risk of my being guilty?”
“I’m a sinner myself—at heart anyhow,” she con-
fessed. “I’m choked with my life here. Anyone
who has committed a crime—Oh, it's better than be-
ing respectable and smug, and—and a curatel”


"I20 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Unfortunately I haven't committed a crime—
yet,” he confessed. “But, by Jingo, I shall to re-
ward you!”
“But then why is that man after you? What have
you really done? Who. . .”
She stopped abruptly and listened; and in a mo-
ment they were both at the window for one instant,
and the next drawing cautiously back. A four-
wheeled dog-cart was driving up the village street,
the rector and a strange driver in front, the rector's
gardener and a fourth person behind. The fourth
person was looking over his shoulder to speak to the
rector, and they could both see his face.
“That's the man!” said Ida.
“Don’t know him,” said Mr. Pytcher, and then
he exclaimed suddenly, “By Gad!”
“What is it?” she whispered. Her hand was on
his arm and he could feel it tremble.
He said nothing for a minute, but watched the
performance in the road. The dog-cart had stopped
on the other side of the way, and the rector was
speaking to a boy on the pavement. He was the only
other person to be seen in the village at that early
hour, and evidently Mr. Bowles was directing him
to stand by the horse, for he moved to its head, while
the four all got out of the trap. And then Mr.
Pytcher turned to his friend:
“Run downstairs,” he directed, “take Mrs. Hig-


A NEAR THING 121
gins into the front parlour, and close the door! Ask
her to let you lie low in her back premises till your
father has gone, but keep her talking for a minute
or two, even though they knock at the door. Then
go off and lie low; but be sure you keep her talking
the whole of two minutes—with the door closed l’’
For a moment she looked at him, puzzled and al-
most distrustful. Then she saw him slip off his
shoes and her face lit up with a quick smile.
“Dearest girl!” he exclaimed, and for an instant
dropped his shoes and enfolded Ida Shuttleton-
Bowles in his arms. Then she started.
Three minutes later she opened the door of the
front parlour and slipped out into the passage.
“Just give me time to get out of sight!” she whis-
pered to Mrs. Higgins.
Knocks were already rattling on the front door
and Mrs. Higgins had grown too flustered to answer.
Ida fled from her on tiptoe and closed the kitchen
door behind her. From the kitchen a back door
opened into a strip of garden and she saw that this
door was ajar.
“Ah!” she murmured, and opening it further,
peeped out. But there was no one visible at the
back of the house. She put her head further out,
and then she noticed that a path ran from the back
door around the house to the front.
Meanwhile Mrs. Higgins had opened the front


122 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
door, and her feelings on perceiving there not only
the rector but his three companions became so acute
that she could barely stammer out her answer.
“My. Pytcher is at home, I presume?” said the
Rev. Boniface.
“Ye—es, sir—” said she.
“Still in bed, I suppose?”
“N—no sir. He's in his sitting-room.”
She noticed the rector exchanging glances with a
small man at his shoulder.
“Goin' to bolt,” said the small man in a hoarse
whisper. “We’re only just in time!”
“Follow me!” commanded the rector, and in single
file the four creaked upstairs.
“Don’t knock!” whispered the small man as the
rector paused before the sitting-room door. “Just
walk right in l’”
The Rev. Boniface turned the handle and walked
right in. And then he stopped abruptly.
“He’s not here!” he boomed.
The other three likewise looked blankly round the
room, and then, still in his hoarse whisper, the small
man turned to the driver and commanded:
“Stand by the door, Jim, and don't let 'im rush
you. He must be be’ind them window curtains. It's
the only place!”
The other three advanced towards the window
and then simultaneously stopped.


A NEAR THING I23
“Blarst 'im!” roared the small man, not in a
whisper now.
Through the window they commanded an excel-
lent view of their dog-cart. It was no longer sta-
tionary, but in the act of turning round; while the
boy who had been standing by the horse's head was
now stepping aside and at the same time respectfully
touching his cap. His salute was being courteously
returned by the driver, a gentleman attired in black
with a wideawake felt hat which somewhat obscured
his features.
“That's Pytcher himself!” boomed the rector.
The small man leapt to the window and rattled on
the panes.
“Stop 'im, you young owl!” he shouted. “Get
'old of that 'orse's 'ead again, will you!”
Even had the youth been able to comprehend the
import of this demonstration, it was now too late to
catch the horse's head, or any other part of him.
The dog-cart was moving down the road at a fast
trot, and over his shoulder its new driver raised his
whip in parting salutation to the faces at the window.
“And he didn't see me!” sighed a girl who was
peeping cautiously round the corner of Mrs. Hig-
gins' house.


EXIT CRISPIN 125
till I get rid of Crispin Pytcher! It would be known
all over the country in no time that I’d walked in in
clerical duds, and exactly what I had purchased in-
stead. There must be some better way than that if
one could only think of it!”
At the edge of the wood he jumped out, led the
horse and trap through a gate and up a track till it
was well out of view from the high road, and then
tied his steed to a tree and walked on through the
wood alone.
“If one could only find a headless corpse of about
my own figure, and change clothes with it, how con-
venient it would be!” he thought. “Unfortunately
one never seems to find exactly the article one wants.
If I did discover a corpse, it would probably be five
feet high and decked with a full beard.”
He was aroused from these reflections by the
sound of voices ahead. Their shrillness and the way
in which they suddenly rose and fell suggested for
a moment a tragedy in the wood, but as he advanced
quickly in that direction it became clear that they
were cries merely of pleasure. A minute or two
later he was looking through the last fringe of trees
out on to a very animated scene.
A sluggish river, rather wide just at that point,
bounded the wood, and in this pool a party of school-
boys were bathing. Though the month was Sep-
tember, the day was very warm and bright, and


I26 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
after his recent exertions, the adventurer looked at
them a little enviously. And then, as his eye began
to take in the whole scene, it suddenly brightened.
“Just an off chance!” he said to himself.
There were about a dozen boys altogether and
they seemed to have ridden over from some school
in the neighbourhood, for their bicycles were lean-
ing against the trees, while a stoutish, hearty-looking
gentleman of about forty, evidently their master,
stood on the bank and now and then shouted out in-
structions to some beginner.
“Now then, Bailey minor, keep up your chin!
You've come here to swim in the river, not drink it
up! Jones! You're getting puffed! Come back
into shallow water and have a rest! Good day, sir.
Yes, it is very warm.”
These last remarks were addressed to an exceed-
ingly amiable looking clergyman who had just wan-
dered out of the wood and addressed the master with
much courtesy. The affable tone of that gentle-
man's reply evidently encouraged the stranger to
further advances.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said with a
singularly winning air, “My name is Pytcher, and
I am the new curate at Gorington. Possibly you
nay already be acquainted with my rector, Mr.
Shuttleton-Bowles.”
“I know him slightly,” said the schoolmaster


EXIT CRISPIN 127
genially. “My own name is Davidson and you can
guess my profession!”
He pointed to the boys with a laugh, and Mr.
Pytcher laughed very pleasantly too. At the same
time his eye was stealthily and swiftly running up
and down Mr. Davidson's figure.
“They'll be a bit loose in the girth for me, and
they're damned unfashionable,” he said to himself.
“But they'll have to do.”
After a few minutes' friendly conversation, Mr.
Pytcher said with an irresistibly persuasive note in
his voice:
“Are you a swimmer yourself, Mr. Davidson?
If you felt inclined, I should feel dreadfully tempted
to challenge you to a little race across the river! It
is so very warm, and I love swimming!”
He had chosen a moment when one or two of the
boys had come close inshore, and he now turned
to them and asked:
“Would you like, my dear boys, to see a little
race between Mr. Davidson and me, across the
river?”
The suggestion was taken up with vast enthusiasm.
“Oh, yes, sir! Do come in, sir! We'll all back
you, Mr. Davidson!”
There was no resisting the challenge and the ap-
plause it produced. Mr. Davidson laughed and pro-
ceeded promptly to unbutton his coat.


128 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“I’ve had a bit of a cold and I didn't mean to go
in to-day,” said he, “but if you put me on my mettle
I suppose I must!”
The curate was no less prompt with his prepara-
tions, and in a few minutes two simultaneous splashes
and the loud cheers of the spectators showed that the
race had begun. The course agreed on was across
the river and back again, and from the first it was
pretty clear that the race was a good thing for the
church, for the curate swam in the most powerful
style and steadily forged ahead. Encouraged by the
shouts of his pupils, the schoolmaster chased him
gamely, but he was beaten at last by several yards.
“Now, my dear boys,” cried the winner, “I shall
give you a chance of revenge! We shall have a
handicap. I shall start scratch and race you all!”
This challenge was accepted with equal alacrity.
As Mr. Pytcher had to dive in last, it was left to
him to start the race. At the word “One!” the boy
with the longest start dived in, and so on they went
one after another till he had counted up to forty,
when he himself dived in last of all. At the word
“thirty!” Mr. Davidson started off, and as he struck
out he could hear the remaining ten being counted
out, and then a splash behind him.
“I’m keeping well ahead of the fellow this time!”
he said to himself as he approached the other bank
and there was no sign of the curate drawing along-


EXIT CRISPIN 129
side. At this point the course was so crowded with
splashing small boys, some on their outward and
some on their return journey, that it became a little
difficult to see exactly what was happening. By the
time they got back again, however, affairs had
cleared up somewhat. The curate was certainly
beaten this time; a promising young swimmer had
come in first, Mr. Davidson was second, and as one
after another the other competitors reached the bank,
it became manifest that the whole school had beaten
Mr. Pytcher.
“Hurrah!” cried a chorus of shrill voices. “Well
done! Hurrah!”
And then, all at once, silence fell upon them. A
dreadful thought had suddenly assailed them.
“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Davidson, staring
back at the river. “What has become of the curate?”
With startled faces and increasing agitation the
twelve boys gazed at each ripple, looking for some
sign of the vanished Pytcher; but never a sign was
there to be seen.
“Who saw him last?” cried the master, but for
some moments nobody answered. Then one squeaky
voice said:
“I didn’t see him at all, sir!”
“Nor I, nor I,” chimed in the others.
“I’m sure I heard him dive in behind me!” said


130 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
Mr. Davidson. “Can he have knocked his head
against the bottom?”
“Is that him, sir?” cried a very small boy, point-
ing to a large dark object slowly drifting with the
Current.
“That's only a log,” said Mr. Davidson, and then
he paused and stared at it. “It wasn't here before.
Who threw it in P”
Nobody answered for a moment and then an in-
telligent lad suggested:
“That might have been the splash you heard, sir.”
Suddenly at the top of his small voice Bailey minor
shouted out:
“Look, sir! There's a naked man riding away on
a bicycle!”
The master looked and, sure enough, there was a
tall, pink figure, clad only in a cap and a pair of
boots, pedalling for dear life away from the river,
and holding the while under one arm a large bundle
of clothes.
“My God, it's the curate!” cried Mr. Davidson.
“What the " but at that point he remembered the
example he ought to set, and finished his sentence
aside. At the same time he leapt up on the bank and
hurried to the spot where he and Mr. Pytcher had
left their clothes.
“He has left his clothes behind him!” was his first


RXIT CRISPIN 131
exclamation; his second was, “The scoundrel has
taken mine!”
“I wonder whose bike he has got, sir,” said a
small voice behind him.
Thirteen naked figures made a simultaneous rush
for the bicycles, and counted precisely twelve.
“Mine’s here, sir!” “And mine!” – “And
mine!” cried a chorus of voices.
“He has taken my bicycle, too!. By Heavens,
when I catch him!” shouted their master, no longer
the genial gentleman of ten minutes ago; and then
with a very grim look he turned to his biggest boy.
“Lend me your bicycle, Hayward!”
“Please, sir,” stammered Hayward, “the-the back
tyre is quite flat, some one has taken out the valve.”
“Yours, Wilson l’” thundered Mr. Davidson.
“Please, sir, I'm—I'm afraid my valve is taken
out too!”
Unfortunately there was no doubt about it.
Twelve deflated bicycles bore eloquent testimony to
the vanished curate's thoroughness and resource.
And meanwhile that ex-ornament to the church was
saying to himself complacently:
“Exit Crispin Pytcher at last!”


CHAPTER VIII
ANNETTE
Willº Mr. Essington was speeding through
the night in the down express, his old and
attached friend, Mr. Mason, was standing before his
library fire with the dust of travel still upon his boots,
and his eyes restlessly on the door. It was the large,
well-lined library of a country house. From the map
on the wall one could judge that it stood in a county
many miles removed from London, and from the
utter silence that prevailed, one might further guess
that it was situate in a quiet and remote part of that
county.
On a small table near the fire were a siphon and a
decanter. The tumbler was in Mr. Mason’s hand,
and as he waited he finished it at a gulp, like a man
who needed a little stimulant. But all the while his
eyes were on the door.
In a minute or two it opened exceedingly quietly,
and there entered a trim little woman in black. For
an instant she stood with her fingers on the handle,
and then still more quietly she opened it again and
glanced out. After this precaution she advanced
demurely into the room.
132


ANNETTE I83
“Do you suspect anybody?” Mr. Mason asked
sharply, yet in a voice instinctively a little hushed.
“Everybody!” smiled the little woman. “I sus-
pect on princeeple. One learns to be wise.”
Her eyes were very black and very bright, her face
was small and not so many years ago had evidently
been pretty above the average, her manner was
propriety itself, and her English was almost perfect,
with merely a piquant little trace of accent.
“Anything happened?” he inquired.
“Only that you have been away too long,” she
answered.
“I couldn't help that; something devilish awkward
has happened.”
A trace of apprehension appeared in the black
eyes.
“Awkward?” she repeated. “What is it? Re-
member, I am not going to run any more risks than
I can help! You told me there was no danger. . .”
“There isn't,” he interrupted. “I assure you,
Annette, that it is merely something that will be
put right to-morrow. I am taking steps. There's
nothing to worry about.”
“Yet you do look worried,” she persisted.
He gave a very creditably hearty laugh.
“I’m sick of travelling by slow trains, and a bit
cross,” he said. “That’s all. But what do you mean
by saying I was away too long?”


ANNETTE 185
more she is told a telegram has come to say the
sister remains unwell; and still she suspects nothing!
I did not believe at first it would be possible to de-
ceive her so. But she might be a nun out of a
convent. The only trouble is—” she paused and
her voice became very impressive, “that sweet inno-
cence would get a dreadful shock if she found out—
too soon!”
Mr. Mason had looked a trifle uncomfortable
during this speech, but its last words made him
glance at the speaker quickly and curiously.
“Too soon—what do you mean?”
“I mean before Mr. Mason has taken the place
of Mr. Reedley in her heart!”
“She knows that creature Ridley is out of the
question—that her guardians won't hear of it;
doesn’t she?”
“Oh, yes! And I have told her such bad tales of
Mr. Reedley! Oh, with a young girl like that and a
gentleman like you, you will conquer if you take care.
But you must walk very careful!”
“Now we are back to the old difficulty,” said he,
“how to change this ‘Cousin Harry' business, and—
and her idea of my being so much older—not that
I’m in the least bit too old for her 32
“Oh, no!” said Annette tactfully.
“But still, if she looks upon me in that light, well,
it's devilish difficult to alter our footing without


136 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
frightening her. As you say, I mustn't do it too
soon. But when is too soon? How can I tell?”
She smiled knowingly.
“Oh, I can help you there! Move, but do not go
too fast, and wait till I say it is safe. I talk much
with her; we are good friends!”
For a moment Harry Mason looked at her as
though something in this slim, quick-witted, demure,
little woman displeased him. And then he seemed
to shake the feeling off him, and his face hardened
again.
“Has she gone to bed yet?” he asked.
“No, she is still in the drawing-room—waiting to
see Cousin Harry when he comes home! You had
better go to her now, sir.”
He moved a pace forward from the fireplace and
then stopped and frowned thoughtfully at the carpet.
“Look here, Annette,” said he, “nothing has hap-
pened that one need worry about; not yet, anyhow.
Still, somebody is at large who ought—well, who
ought not to be. And somebody else tried to follow
me when I was on my way home.”
“To follow you!” she exclaimed apprehensively.
“Oh, that was miles away, when I was coming
home by train; and, in any case, I got rid of him
effectually.”
“And the other who is at large; it is her guardian,
Mr. Ess—what is his name?”


ANNETTE 137
“What the devil do you know about it?” he
exclaimed.
“I make a point to find out everything,” she said
simply, and then looked at him intently, doubt again
in her eye. “You told me everything was quite safe
—nothing illegal—only a leetle strategem. But this
man—I see you are afraid what he might do?”
“He can only be troublesome so long as he is at
liberty,” he said emphatically, “and even then it is
simply because one never knows what he may take it
into his head to do next. But he can’t remain at
liberty; it's impossible; steps have been taken, and
to-morrow morning I expect a wire to say they have
got him again.”
“And then it will be all right?”
“Absolutely all right. Still, one must take more
care than ever that no letters of any sort get to her
until you are perfectly certain that they are not from
that creature Ridley—or from anyone else he may
be in league with.”
“You can trust me for that!” she said confidently.
“She shall get no letter that she should not get.”
“Very well,” said he, “I trust you implicitly. And
now I suppose I had better go along and see her.”
“Ah, but you must be more eager than that!” she
cried. “You must be all on fire—though, oh, so con-
trolled and careful! Remember, you will have to
make love very ardently when it does begin. When


123 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
she is sweeped clean right off her feet with your
passion, then she will forgive everything you have
done! But she will not forgive till she is sweeped
away.”
“You can trust me to do my best. I'm playing for
high enough stakes, Heaven knows!”
She looked at him curiously.
“I am wondering much just exactly what are the
stakes,” she said with an audacious little smile.
He looked at her hard and suddenly, and she
shrank back in affected alarm.
“Oh, now I have put my feet in it!” she cried, but
there was no sign of dismay in her shrewd, black
eyes.
“That's my business,” he said shortly, and then
added as he strode towards the door, “Well, I’m
going to see her—and do my damndest!”
“How Briteesh!” she murmured, looking after
him with an expression that might have meant almost
anything.


CHAPTER Ix
COUSIN HARRY
A* Mr. Mason entered his drawing-room, a young
girl sprang up with an exclamation of pleasure.
She was of middle height, slender and dainty. Her
light brown hair was simply done, her charming little
face was lit with a smile of singular simplicity and
candour, and her blue eyes were large and tender,
and innocence itself.
“Oh, I am so glad you are back at last, Cousin
Harry!” she exclaimed with a little sigh of relief.
“Been feeling lonely, Beatrix?” he asked with a
smile such as neither Dr. Jenkinson nor Annette had
seen on his face that day.
He came up to her and took her hands. She let
hers lie there as if he had been a brother.
“A little,” she confessed, and then asked, “How
did you find your sister? I do hope she is better,
and coming here soon!”
“My sister?” he said a little awkwardly. “Er—
wh 93.
“Oh, I thought you had gone to see Mrs. Quintard!
Annette told me you had.”
“Why the devil couldn't she have warned me she
139


140 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
had said so?” said Mr. Mason's eye; but the next
moment Mr. Mason's voice answered readily. “Yes,
I did go down to see my sister, only, well, I didn't
tell you I was going, because—er—I was afraid you
might be disappointed if I didn't find her well enough
to come back with me.”
“And isn't she?”
“Not yet, I am sorry to say.”
She tried to withdraw her hands and sit down.
His own increased their pressure. She looked up at
him in sudden surprise; whereupon he let go and
turned away. Again his eye spoke for him.
“How the deuce can one get on at this rate!” it
said.
“I am very sorry, too,” said Beatrix.
“Yes; I am afraid I am dull company for you.”
“Oh, no, I don't mean that, Cousin Harry!” she
assured him. “You have been very kind. But it
must be rather a bother for you, having a girl thrown
on your hands like this, and I hope Mrs. Quintard
will come soon—for your sake!”
A very gallant answer might well have rewarded
this speech, but its perfect honesty warned him.
“Oh, I enjoy entertaining you immensely,” he
said.
“You are very polite, Cousin Harry!” she laughed.
For a moment he looked at her and hesitated.
Then he looked affectionately down on her.


COUSIN HARRY 141
“I say, Beatrix, don't you think ‘Cousin Harry'
is a little formal between you and me by this time?”
“Oh, I know, of course, I am not really your
cousin. But you asked me to call you Cousin
Harry.”
“Oh, yes, of course! But what I mean is—well,
‘Harry’ is shorter and simpler, and—ha, ha!— not
exactly sweeter, but I’d sooner you called me simply
Harry.” -
From the deep easy chair where she was sitting,
she looked up at him shyly and doubtfully.
“I really ” she hesitated, “well, you are so
much older, I feel it would be a little forward of
me!”
Once more his eye delivered a pregnant exclama-
tion for him; and once more his voice answered quite
differently.
“Oh, but if I don't mind . . .” he began.
“I’d sooner keep to Cousin Harry.”
“Very well, then. And shall I call you Cousin
Beatrix P”
“Oh, but I am quite a kid!” she laughed.
“Damn!” said the eye.
For a minute or two there was silence, while he
stood with his back to the fire, glancing sometimes
down at her fresh, inviting face, and then moodily
across the room. And gradually he became conscious
that there was something weighing on her mind, too.


142 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
He studied her attentively, and then broke into
an encouraging laugh.
“A penny for your thoughts, Beatrix”
She looked up with a slight start, and for a moment
seemed confused. Then she asked:
“Have you heard anything more from Sir
Joshua? When is he coming down to see me?”
“He is very busy in the City at present, I'm afraid;
but of course he will come as soon as he possibly
can. Were you pining for the society of the eminent
Sir Joshua”
“I should like to see him very much indeed,” she
answered in a low voice.
“About anything in particular?”
She hesitated, and then suddenly looked up into his
face, her candid eyes sorrowful and anxious.
“I am wondering all the time what has become of
Philip.”
Mr. Mason had to turn his back and poke up the
fire, lest his eye should proclaim his feelings too
patently.
“I shouldn't bother about him if I were you,” he
said shortly.
“Why not?” she asked, and there was a note in
her voice that brought Annette's warning sharply to
his mind, “You must walk very careful!”
He turned round again and faced her with a calm,
considerate air.


COUSIN HARRY 143
“I only mean that a man who doesn't appreciate
you sufficiently, Beatrix, to meet you at the station
when he promised to, and who makes no effort to
find you or correspond with you—well, as I say, I
wouldn't worry about him if I were a girl with any
spirit.”
“But I am sure there must have been some mis-
take!” she cried.
“What mistake is possible?”
“He might have met with some accident.”
He shook his head sceptically.
“You’d have heard of it before now.”
She was thoughtful for a moment.
“Yes,” she admitted, “surely Charles Toothill
would have told me something, even if Philip him-
self couldn’t write.”
“Of course, naturally!”
“And yet . . .”
He waited for her to finish, but she added nothing
more, and then at last he ventured to say:
“I am trying to-well, to be as good a friend as
I can, instead, Beatrix.”
She rewarded him with a quick smile, and his eye
made a much more satisfied comment this time. And
then suddenly she said:
“I wish, Cousin Harry, you would do something
for me!”


144 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Anything you like, my dear little Beatrix,” he
said with affectionate gallantry.
“Will you really? Then find out what has become
of Philip! Go and see him and tell him—tell him I
want to know what has happened, why he didn't
meet me, why he hasn't written—I want to know
everything, even the worst! Will you?”
“D—n the fire!” muttered Mr. Mason. He had
turned his back in the middle of this speech, and was
stabbing viciously with the poker. One might have
thought some hated enemy were among the coals.
“It doesn't seem to draw to-night!”
He turned again at last and met her eyes, and his
own tried to look sympathetic.
“Er—you want me to try and find out something,
do you?”
“Do you object very much?” she asked.
“Why do you think I should?”
“From your manner. You aren't prejudiced
against Philip, are you?”
“Prejudiced?” He forced a laugh, “Well, to
tell you the truth, considering how he has treated
you, I can hardly be expected to feel very affection-
ate. You are worth the very best man that ever
lived, Beatrix!”
He had thrown more warmth into his voice than
he had ventured to use yet, and he saw her give a


COUSIN HARRY 145
slight start and look at him for a moment doubtfully.
He faced her and risked still more.
“I mean it!” he said urgently.
“I only want Philip,” she said simply.
“You deserve a better man than that!” said he.
The next instant she was on her feet.
“I won’t hear you say such things! You are
prejudiced, Cousin Harry. I am going to bed now.
Good night.”
“Beatrix!” he exclaimed, and tried to stop her;
but she shook his hand off her shoulder.
“I’m sorry I offended you,” he said. “I didn't
mean to. If I can find out anything about this
fellow . . . .”
“He isn't a fellow!” she cried, and was gone from
the room.
Mr. Mason was then able to relieve his feelings.
>k × >k >k >k >|<
He was in his library next morning when Annette
came in, a telegram in her hand.
“For you, sir,” she said.
“Why are you bringing it?” he demanded. “How
did you get hold of it?”
Suspicion was in his eye, but she merely smiled.
“I was waiting for it to come, and so I ran out to
meet the boy,” said she. “This is the telegram you
expected; yes? What does it say? Is all safe
again?”


146 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
He read the slip of paper with an expressionless
face, and then crumpled it up in his hand.
“All right; quite safe again,” he answered. “But
don't you go intercepting any more of my wires,
Annette!”
“Oh, it will not be necessary again!” she smiled.
“But it was better I should this time. Now I am
relieved.”
She went out, and for a minute he watched the
door intently, as if suspecting it might open suddenly
again. Then he smoothed out the telegram and re-
read it carefully.
“Regret to say Essington still at large. No in-
formation at all yet.—JENKINSoN.”
“This is the very devil!” he muttered.





CHAPTER I
AT THE RED LION
UST about the very time when Mr. Davidson,
disguised in an ill-fitting clerical habit and se-
creted from observation within a covered wain, had
reached his school and begun to compose a telegram
to the nearest police office, his own clothes had
arrived at the outskirts of a certain market town,
and the gentleman inside them was studying a sign-
post with considerable concern.
“I’m dashed if it isn't Kenton!” he said to himself.
“The very place I tried to turn them off tol How
extraordinarily careless of me.”
He now began to regret the acuteness which had
prompted him to fling his bicycle over a hedge half
a mile back, on the theory that all law-abiding in-
habitants of the district would shortly be warned
(if, indeed, they had not been already) to look out
for and arrest an individual riding such a machine.
For a moment he was even tempted to walk back and
recover it. But after debating the question for a few
seconds in his rapid way, hunger and the spirit of
revolt prevailed.
149


150 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“I must have some lunch,” he said to himself.
“And besides, this is essentially a pleasure trip and
I hate bicycling.”
Being a confirmed optimist, it also struck him as
improbable that his pursuers would have stopped at
the wayside shop and picked up the Kenton clue.
And in any case he declined to believe that they could
have arrived here already; so, dismissing worry from
his mind, he continued his walk into the town.
In a few minutes he was passing between rows of
neat little villas with rose bushes and pet trees
grouped about them, and then came the usual wide,
somnolent street of a typical country town, with a
few ancient houses and a few new, and the rest of
a ripe, elderly middle age. There were not many
people about, and none of them suggested romance,
and Mr. Essington was about to apply his mind to
the serious business of luncheon when he spied on
the opposite pavement a small man, who caught his
attention owing to the mere fact that he was doing
nothing at all. With his hands in his pockets and a
somewhat abstracted air, this individual stood by the
kerb, sometimes staring across the street from under
the brim of a large bowler hat, and sometimes
looking over his shoulder at people who passed on his
own side.
“The very same man!” he said to himself. “Then
he has got here already, after all! Well, there's


AT THE RED LION 151
nothing for it now but trusting to luck. If he got a
good look at me out of that window, I’m done.
Otherwise, he’ll be.”
The man's eyes rested for a moment on the
leisurely looking individual in ill-fitting clothes
strolling along the opposite pavement and then passed
on to some one else, without a flicker of recognition,
or even of curiosity.
“He doesn’t know me!” thought the leisurely in-
dividual, “and he doesn't know yet I’ve changed my
clothes! Under those circumstances, the soundest
thing to do is obviously to keep on his track, see
where he goes, and then go in the opposite direction.”
His walk fell to a saunter, and then he paused
opposite a tobacconist's window, but as luck would
have it, he had not to pause for long. In a minute
or two the man took his hands out of his pockets
and set off at an easy walk down the street, while
Mr. Essington strolled nonchalantly on the other
side. When he had reached a large signboard with
the picture of an ambiguous looking quadruped, and
the legend “Ye Red Lion,” the man stopped, looked
up at the signboard, and in at the door beneath it,
and then entered this hostelry.
Mr. Essington glanced down at Mr. Davidson's
commodious waistcoat and the bags in the knees of
his scholastic trousers, and came to the correct con-
clusion that they had so completely effaced all traces


I52 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
of the man of fashion as to justify him in attempting
to pass himself off as a mere member of the general
public. Accordingly he crossed the street, entered
the Red Lion likewise, and discovered the bar with no
difficulty. There stood the small man munching a
biscuit, with his tankard already half empty.
Mr. Essington took up his position at a little
distance from the bar, caught the eye of a prosperous
looking person behind it, and in a voice and manner
nicely calculated to match his unfashionable attire,
gave his order.
“Pint o’ beer, if you please, and one dozen ham
sandwiches. If cut already, bring 'em all together.
If not, I'll eat 'em as you cut 'em, and if you're a
betting man, I'll lay you a tanner I'll eat faster than
you cut.”
The publican evidently recognised a kindred spirit
in this offer, and shedding his guest a genial smile,
went off for the sandwiches, while Mr. Essington
leaned gracefully on one elbow with his back to the
man in the bowler, and listened to the conversation
behind him.
The small man had fallen into talk with a couple
of local patrons of the Red Lion, and in a moment
Mr. Essington caught the words, spoken in a guarded
tone:
“A clergyman; at least dressed like a clergyman
any’ow.”


AT THE RED LION 153
“Clergyman l’’ repeated one of the others. “Young
man or old?”
“Youngish man; tallish figure; fair-'aired; clean-
shaved . . .”
At this point the first sandwich arrived and Mr.
Essington lost the rest of the sentence, but he had
heard enough to make him wonder very seriously
whether the other eleven were quite worth waiting
for. The first, however, was so excellent, with just
exactly the amount of mustard he liked that he de-
cided to regard the situation as optimistically as
possible, and eat the others too. At the same time,
as he consumed them one by one, hearing further
snatches of personal description and directions to
report any such person immediately to the speaker if
possible, or, if not, to the police, he began to devote
his mind rather urgently to the question of where to
turn next. Nothing very definite had suggested
itself (unless one were to count a fleeting thought of
engaging a room at the Red Lion under the name of
Sarasate and going to bed for a week to rest his
elbow, which he dismissed instantly as being no doubt
quite feasible but too dull), when the prosperous
person appeared with the last three sandwiches and
genially claimed his tanner.
Mr. Essington's friendly nature was never averse
from conversation with anyone, and as his host had
evidently taken a fancy to him at first sight, they


154. THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
were very soon on excellent terms. Yet even in the
midst of their jocularities, the late Mr. Pytcher could
not help feeling a trace of disquietude now and then.
The other eyed him at moments with a glance that
seemed to him to suggest either a suspicion of his
clerical past or some thought he was quite unable to
fathom, and when a gentleman is standing in pur-
loined clothes within a few feet of an agent specially
detailed for his arrest, he is apt to become sensitive
in the matter of unfathomable glances. The one
satisfactory feature was that his host took no notice
at all of the man in the bowler. *
“I don't believe they are working together, any-
how,” the adventurer said to himself, “but I wish I
knew what my new friend found so interesting in
my appearance.”
All at once his host leant over the counter and
lowered his voice confidentially.
“I think I can 'ardly make a mistake,” he said.
“You’ve bin in the same profession as I was, eh?”
“Meaning the public line?” inquired Mr. Essing-
ton, tactfully adopting the same confidential air.
The landlord shook his head, and still more
confidentially announced:
“I was a butler.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Essington. “By Jingo, were
you? And so you've spotted me as—er—”


ZAT THE RED LION 155
“Genelman's servant, 'all-marked all over you. I
knew you was something classy from the start.”
“Now, how the deuce could you guess that?”
exclaimed his guest with every appearance of ad-
miring surprise.
“Those clothes wasn't cut just exactly special to
your order, if you'll pardon my saying so,” smiled
the landlord. “‘Cast-offs!' I says to myself as soon
as ever I saw ‘em. And then 'earing your refined
manner of speaking — ‘What the deuce!’ and all
that—I didn't need any more tips to tell what you
was.”
“I wish I could see through people as quick as
that!” sighed Mr. Essington.
These frank tributes to his acumen were evidently
raising his guest higher every moment in the land-
lord's estimation. At this point he felt, in fact,
impelled to reveal his own appreciation of the
amiable gentleman in cast-offs.
“If you will allow me to say so,” said he, “I took
a fancy to you from my first squint at you in the
paddock, in a manner of speaking; and seeing your
form on the course, so to speak, I'd double the odds!
That's why I'm going to put a delicate question, as
I wouldn't put to a genelman I 'adn't took such a
fancy to.” He leant still further forward and
breathed huskily, “Out of a job?”
“Right again, by Jingo!” said his guest.


156 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“I thought so!” said the landlord knowingly.
“And wanting another, eh?”
“Devilish badly.”
The landlord beamed on him beneficently.
“May I inquire your name?” he asked.
“Parker,” said his guest without a trace of hesi-
tation, adding to himself, “I’ll keep to the P's this
time.”
“Glad to know you, Mr. Parker,” said the landlord
cordially. “My name's Rumbury.”
“Glad to know you, Mr. Rumbury,” replied Mr.
Parker.
Mr. Rumbury raised the flap in the counter.
“Step inside, Mr. Parker,” said he. “A little
conversation might be rather pleasant for us both—
and we won't 'ave it dry neither!”
As Mr. Parker stepped inside he threw one swift
glance over his shoulder. The man in the bowler
was very deep in converse with a small group of
fellow guests.
“You can't miss the man if you sees 'im,” he was
saying, “clergyman's clothes, fair-'aired . . .”
But at this point Mr. Parker passed out of
hearing.


CHAPTER II
MR. RUMBURY's PROPOSAL
M*. PARKER found himself seated in a very
snug little bar-parlour, with a very cheerful
fire, a very stiff glass of grog at his elbow, and a very
long cigar in his mouth. There could be no doubt
about it that Mr. Rumbury was an ideal host. He
seemed, indeed, ready to provide absolutely anything
his new friend expressed a taste for.
“This is leading towards something,” said Mr.
Parker shrewdly to himself.
“Now then that we're sitting 'ere snug and com-
fortable, pleasure 'aving come first, so far as I’m able
to provide it, Mr. Parker—”
“Deuced pleasant too!” said Mr. Parker with
genuine enthusiasm, resolving at the same time to
reward his host by a selection of the phrases that
seemed to impress him most favourably. “Quite
deuced, I assure you!”
“Very glad and proud as 'ow you're 'appy, Mr.
Parker. And now we comes to business. You've
probably 'eard of Lord Poppleham?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Parker, “I believe he belongs
to . . .” he was going to say “my club,” but re-
157


158. THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
membered his servile position just in time and altered
it into “to the circles I’ve been in the habit of moving
in, Mr. Rumbury; in a manner of speaking, you
understand.”
“I understands perfectly, Mr. Parker, and very
classily put too. I could see you'd moved among the
aristocracy. Ever come across 'is lordship
personally?”
“No,” said Mr. Parker truthfully, “we haven't
met.”
“Their place is just ten miles out from 'ere,”
continued Mr. Rumbury, “and, as a matter of fact,
I was butler to 'is father, the late Lord Poppleham.
I've kep' up my connection with the fam’ly very
intimate ever since I left 'em. Very great friends
indeed we are, I may venture to say.”
“I can well believe it, Mr. Rumbury.”
Mr. Rumbury smiled modestly at the compliment
and then fell grave again. Indeed, it was becoming
apparent that some matter of considerable importance
weighed upon his mind.
“They turns to me in all manner o' things. It
would quite surprise you what I’m trusted with by
the fam’ly sometimes. Chiefly it's getting 'em
servants. They knows I'm a good judge o' character
and 'as a wide connection in that sort of way, and so
they trusts me, Mr. Parker.”
“Deuced sensible of 'em!” said Mr. Parker.


MR, RUMBURY'S PROPOSAL 159
“And now,” continued Mr. Rumbury with in-
creasing solemnity, “now 'is lordship says I’ve let 'im
down!”
“Oh, dash it!” cried his guest. “That's really
devilish uncivil of him.”
Mr. Rumbury shook his head gravely.
“There's something in it, 'owever, I'm afraid. In
fact, there's no doubt I did promise 'is lordship to
find 'im a valet, but what with business being rather
active lately, and one thing and another, it clean
slipped out of my 'ead. And 'ere's 'is lordship just
come down yesterday and sends word to know
where's the man I promised to get ’im!” Mr. Rum-
bury looked fixedly at his guest and in very impres-
sive accents concluded, “And 'ere you walks into my
bar, the very picture of the valet 'e wants!”
Mr. Parker returned his gaze.
“What's his age?” he asked.
“Young genelman — or I should say, young
nobleman—of, let me see, twenty-eight.”
“I like 'em young,” murmured Mr. Parker, and
from a certain reminiscent look in his eye it seemed
possible that he was thinking of the Rev. Crispin
Pytcher. “Wise or foolish?”
“Wise or foolish?” repeated Mr. Rumbury, open-
ing his eyes, as though he had never before heard
such curious expressions applied to a nobleman.
“Well, between ourselves, he ain't per'aps what one


160 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
calls extra sharp; not like 'is late father by no means!
'Is late lordship—this is strictly between ourselves,
Mr. Parker—used to call 'im the damnedest fool 'e'd
ever met. But of course he's now a nobleman
'imself, and it don't do to be too critical.”
. “No,” agreed Mr. Parker, “it don't.” And in
fact he himself seemed to be entirely satisfied with
his host's description of the present Lord Poppleham.
“Everything sounds very nice so far,” he went on
with the same thoughtful smile. “There's only one
point more. Would his clothes fit me?”
The ex-butler looked him up and down.
“As cast-offs goes, I may venture to say they'd
quite become you.”
Mr. Parker sprang up with an animated air.
“Lead me to it!” said he. -
Mr. Rumbury seemed almost more startled than
pleased.
“You mean you accepts the job—right off—no
more inquiries?”
“None,” said Mr. Parker firmly. “It’s exactly the
job I've been looking for.”
“I think it's only right to tell you, Mr. Parker,
that 'is lordship don't give exactly fancy wages—”
“Oh, I’ll get my money's worth out of him. No
fear of that,” said Mr. Parker easily. “Let’s have
another drink on the strength of it, Mr. Rumbury!”
Mr. Rumbury refilled their glasses with a some-


MR. RUMBURY'S PROPOSAL 161
what thoughtful air. Then he planted his rotund
figure before the fire, and after a preliminary cough
to indicate that he was now going to tread on delicate
ground, began:
“I needn't tell you 'ow pleased I am, Mr. Parker,
to find you so agreeable to take the situation, nor 'ow
relieved, in a manner of speaking, not to 'ave let 'is
lordship down. At the same time—well—ahem!—
I'd 'ave to feel that there was something in the nature
of references.”
“Certainly,” agreed Mr. Parker, “what would you
like? A wire to the Archbishop with a prepaid reply
would settle the business in a moment. Only—deuce
take it! his lordship probably hasn't much use for
archbishops. Or if you like to drop a line to his
Royal Highness—but no, he's still at Homburg!
Or—er—well, the fact is really, Mr. Rumbury, it's
so devilish difficult to pick and choose!”
Mr. Rumbury endeavoured to maintain a business-
like manner, but it was quite manifest that these
glimpses of Mr. Parker's past situations and Mr.
Parker's dashing air as he rattled them off, had
entirely dazzled the worthy landlord.
“I ought to 'ave something on paper—” he
began.
Mr. Parker clapped him jovially on the back.
“Paper be damned” said he. “Cannot one gentle-
man trust another gentleman? Leave me to settle the
-:


162 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
references with his lordship. Another drink, Rum-
bury, to show we're all sportsmen! Deuce take it!
Dash it, old fellow! By the way, when does
Poppleham want me?”
“Soon as possible. 'E's starting off to pay visits
immediately.”
“Finish your drink and get me a cab!” commanded
Mr. Parker. Mr. Rumbury felt that if his lordship
were not grateful to him for securing this treasure,
then human nature must be black indeed.


CHAPTER III
LoRD PopplEHAM's VALET
IN the course of the afternoon Lord Poppleham
was informed that the valet engaged for his
lordship by Mr. Rumbury of the Red Lion had now
arrived and awaited his lordship's pleasure.
“Show the fellow in here,” commanded his
lordship.
Having recently suffered severely at the hands of
a fellow nobleman who specialised in snooker pool, it
had occurred to his lordship that before resuming his
round of visits it might be profitable to spend some
of his leisure time in quietly potting the red. He
had already spent most of the morning in the seclusion
of his billiard-room, and having pulled himself to-
gether by a bottle of champagne at luncheon and a
nap in his easy chair afterwards, he was now prac-
tising conscientiously once more. As he bent over
his cue he heard the door open behind him.
“Don’t move till I’ve played my shot!” he com-
manded, and then after a few seconds strained
silence the red missed the pocket by two inches.
“Tut, tut, my lord!” said a cultivated voice behind
him.

163


164 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
His lordship turned with a start and perceived a
tall, agreeable-looking person, dressed in a remark-
ably ill-fitting suit. On his side, this person saw a
weedy-looking young man with a scrap of carefully
tended mustache, a chin that seemed to be seeking
refuge behind his collar, and an eyeglass which its
owner had a little difficulty in adjusting securely in
his eye. When he had achieved this, he stared
through it at his new valet very hard indeed.
“Hi! Er—what are you doing?” he demanded.
The new valet was already taking down a cue
from the rack, and now with a very pleasant smile
he inquired:
“Would your lordship prefer a few lessons or a
game of 100 up? Personally, I should recommend
the lessons.” And with that he placed the red and
white balls in position and added, “Now, my lord, let
me see you try to sink the red pill.”
My lord continued to stare.
“Er—what's your name?” he demanded.
“Parker, my lord; spelt with a P.”
“Oh!” said his lordship. “That's—er—the usual
way to spell it, isn't it?”
“Right, my lord, quite right!” said Mr. Parker
with an air of cordial approval. “And I may add
that if on any other occasion your lordship should
ever happen to be correct, I shall have no hesitation
in telling you so.”


LORD POPPLEHAM’S WALET I65
Still his lordship stared.
“Look here,” he said with some severity, “I don't
know what you're driving at.”
“You will learn, my lord,” said Mr. Parker in-
dulgently, “when we have got to know one another
a little better. In the meantime, if you will allow me,
I shall show you how that red ball ought to be put
down.” -
And thereupon he stepped up to the table, bent
over it for a moment, and the red disappeared.
“Now,” he continued, “we shall try a slightly more
difficult angle,” and down went the red again.
There could be no doubt that though his emotions
still seemed mixed, Lord Poppleham was beginning
to be impressed.
“I say,” he was condescending enough to remark,
“you seem to be rather useful at this game.”
“Well,” suggested Mr. Parker, “suppose you take
50 in a 100 and I’ll give you a few tips as we go
along?”
“I—er—don't usually play billiards with my
valet,” his lordship explained with dignity.
“It will make it all the pleasanter, my lord, when
you do get the chance. I’ll take spot and start with
a miss in balk. Now, my lord, see if you can bring
off a cannon. Try it like this,” and with the point
of his cue Mr. Parker indicated the cushions to be
used.


LORD POPPLEHAM’S WALET 169
about setting out on a visit of inspection, and he felt
considerably gratified by Mr. Parker's outspoken
approval of what he saw.
“You can leave me, now, my lord,” he said, “I
feel sure I can make myself perfectly at home.”
Lord Poppleham's next attempt to have an inter-
view with his valet was a failure. He rang for him
when he went up to dress for dinner, but was
informed that Mr. Parker had gone out, and hap-
pening at that moment to glance out of his window
he caught a glimpse of two people wandering into
the shrubberies in the gathering dusk. One of these
he recognised as quite his prettiest housemaid; the
other struck him as looking extremely like his new
valet, only very markedly better dressed.
“I say, 'pon my word! I'm dashed!” muttered
his lordship.
Dinner, however, cheered him up considerably,
for having inherited an excellent cellar, he would
have considered himself ungrateful to his ancestors
had he not taken advantage of it. But after a cigar
and an effort to emulate Mr. Parker's skill on the
billiard table, he began to feel a little bored. An
unfortunate oversight in making his autumn arrange-
ments had left this gap of forty-eight hours between
visits, and his lordship had scarcely ever been left
alone before in his life. He decided to summon his
valet and impart a few instructions.


170 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“And I really must tell the fellow to remember his
position and all that sort of thing a little better,” he
said to himself.
This time he was relieved to find that Mr. Parker
was at liberty to attend, but when Mr. Parker
entered the billiard-room, his appearance was so
surprising that his master had some difficulty in
recovering his eye-glass. Instead of the pleasant-
looking, but ill-clad person of the afternoon, he
beheld an extremely fashionable gentleman. And to
add to his lordship's bewilderment, his well-cut suit
was an exact replica of his own latest creation.
“I say!” he exclaimed, “Er—where did you get
that suit o' clothes?”
“Anything the matter with it, my lord?” asked Mr.
Parker amiably.
“It's exactly like my own!”
“As a matter of fact, it was your own, my lord.”
This time Lord Poppleham groped for his eye-
glass in vain.
“D'you mean to say you've gone and helped
yourself to my best suit!”
Mr. Parker shook his head at him with some
severity.
“My lord, my lord! Really this spirit is unworthy
of your lordship. If I am to pay you the same little
attentions I paid his Grace, you must cultivate a trifle
more of the aristocratic spirit that distinguished the


LORD POPPLEHAMPS VALET 171
duke. I assure you I shall only select articles from
your lordship's wardrobe with the greatest dis-
crimination. I rejected fully two-thirds of your ties,
and your boots unfortunately don't fit.”
His lordship was visibly moved by this rebuke and
the firm yet kindly tone in which it was administered.
He made one more protest, but it was only
half-hearted.
“I don't want to be stingy, of course; but, dash it,
Parker, I’ve hardly worn that suit!”
“So I surmised,” replied Mr. Parker in a tone that
precluded any further argument on the point. “By
the way, any other matters to discuss, my lord? I
don't want to hurry your lordship, but I happen to
have a lady waiting for me.”
“Yes,” said his lordship, “I wanted to tell you I'm
going to pay a visit to-morrow and taking you with
me of course.”
“A visit?” repeated Mr. Parker thoughtfully.
“May I ask the name of the people we stay with?”
“Jones.”
“Jones? Well, I believe there are a few quite
respectable families of that name; but not many, I
should imagine, in our circle, my lord. Which
Jones's?”
By this time his lordship had evidently become a
little nervous lest this paragon should form an un-


172 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
favourable opinion of his position in the world of
fashion.
“Oh, only some beastly thing in the City,” he
explained apologetically. “Dashed if I remember
how I got to know 'em. But they've got a deuced
nice place though; Hiddlecombe Hall it's called—
used to be Lord Darminter's place.”
“Don’t know them,” said Mr. Parker to himself.
“It'll be quite safe to go.”
Aloud he replied with an obliging though some-
what condescending air.
“I shall be charmed to accompany you, my lord.
Of course, as a rule I shouldn't encourage your
lordship to patronise the nouveaua riches, but the
girls are often quite pretty, the port is generally
sound, and one needn't know them in town. Any-
how we'll make the best of it. When do we start?”
“Time to get there for dinner. There's a train
about six o'clock that ought to do. Oh, by the way,
I’m taking another gentleman down with me, Lord
Clarence Tuttebury.”
Mr. Parker seemed to prick up his ears.
“Known to his friends as “Curly,’ my lord?”
“That's the fellow,” said his lordship, who by this
time was condescending to treat the accomplished
and fashionable Mr. Parker with considerable fa-
miliarity. “Have you ever come across him—er—I
mean ever seen him?”


LORD POPPLEHAMPS VALET 173
“Now, have I?” said Mr. Parker to himself. “I’m
hanged if I’m quite sure. It's a trifle risky.”
Aloud he replied in his easiest manner:
“I have always moved in extremely exclusive
circles, my lord, but if he goes about much we have
probably stayed in the same houses occasionally. I
presume his lordship's visits are not confined to
persons of the name of Jones?”
It was apparent that Mr. Parker had very swiftly
divined exactly how to handle his noble employer.
His air of kindly, patronising insolence was having
the happiest results. By this time Lord Poppleham
seemed incapable of resenting anything.
“Oh, but Lord Clarence doesn't even know these
people,” he hastened to explain. “Never met one of
the whole dashed crowd beforeſ I’m simply taking
him down with me, so as-er—well, to make sure
that there's one other gentleman in the place. We
neither of us go to such places as a rule!”
Mr. Parker received this apology with a con-
descending smile.
“I am relieved to hear it, my lord,” said he.
“Under these circumstances your combined lordships
will make a very harmless ornament. In fact, I have
really no further objections to the visit. Good night,
my lord.” t
Mr. Parker's back view, presented to his lordship


174 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
as he strolled to the door, was graceful negligence
itself, but his face was thoughtful.
“Do I know Curly?” he said to himself, “I’m
dashed if I can remember! There are awkward
possibilities in the situation!”


CHAPTER IV
A COUNTRY HOUSE VISIT
Nº. morning immediately after breakfast Mr.
Parker presented himself before his lordship,
made a brief but courteous apology for the slight
indisposition which had kept him in bed till nine
o'clock and prevented his supervising Lord Popple-
ham's toilet, and then proceeded to outline his plans
for the day.
“It has occurred to me, my lord,” said he, “that
you would probably be very pleased to follow the
procedure adopted by his Grace and myself when we
paid our country house visits. His Grace used in-
variably to dispatch me by a train ahead of him, so
that I could prepare his apartments, create the
necessary ducal atmosphere in the house, and sub-
sequently meet him at the station and give him, as it
were, a sensation of increased dignity by being thus
received by his own retainer on his arrival.”
“Oh—er—well—” began Lord Poppleham, who
took in new ideas somewhat gradually.
“I thought you would approve,” said Mr. Parker
promptly, “and I assure you that the more experience
175


A COUNTRY HOUSE VISIT 177
was really an extraordinarily capable fellow. He
was a little surprised to learn after the paragon's
departure that as a matter of fact Mr. Parker had
employed his lordship's footman to do the packing
while he himself was apparently engaged in bidding
farewell to the lady of his fancy; and this even sug-
gested the curious reflection that the new valet had
so far not done a single hand's turn of valeting since
he had entered the house. Lord Poppleham decided
that, invaluable though Parker was clearly going to
prove, he really must have a serious word with the
fellow one day very soon.
In the course of the afternoon Lord Clarence
Tuttebury, a short, cheerful, and boyish young man,
with neatly-curled fair hair, attended by a discreet-
looking gentleman in side whiskers, arrived at Lord
Poppleham's seat, and the two young noblemen gave
one another an affectionate greeting.
“Hullo, Pop!” cried Lord Clarence. “Lookin' as
usual as though you'd just been backin' the wrong
horse! How are you?”
“Hullo, yourself, Curly!” said Lord Poppleham.
“Matter of fact, I actually have been this time. How
are you?”
“So full of beans, they're positively droppin'
out !” *
“Brave fellow ! What about a drink?”
After several whiskies and sodas and a couple of


178 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
games of billiards, the two friends set out for the
station.
“Notice any improvement in my billiards?” in-
quired Lord Poppleham.
“Not much,” said Lord Clarence candidly.
“Why?”
“I had a lesson yesterday, Curly.”
“Well, you certainly didn't cut the cloth,” ad-
mitted Curly. “Who’s been teachin' you?”
“I’ve got the most wonderful new valet, Curly—
positively the most extraordinary fellow you ever
saw He's as good as a pro. at billiards; in fact, first
class at everything!”
“At what other things?” asked his friend.
“Oh—er—at all sorts of things. Just you wait
till you see the fellow!”
His lordship felt a little annoyed at the difficulty
of thinking of the specific feats in which Mr. Parker
excelled. There could be no doubt that the fellow
really was most extraordinary, and for a considerable
portion of their journey he expatiated on his merits.
In fact, he was still enlarging on the subject when the
train arrived at their destination.
“Ah, here we are; and now you'll see him waiting
for us on the platform,” said he. “Have a damned
good look at the fellow, Curly.”
Curly descended after him and looked up and
down the platform.


A COUNTRY HOUSE VISIT 179
“Where is he, Pop?” he inquired.
Lord Poppleham had screwed his eyeglass into his
eye and was looking very hard in all directions.
“Devilish funny thing,” he observed. “He doesn't
seem to be here yet!”
“Nobody else to meet us?”
“Don’t seem to be, anyway. They must still be on
the road.”
“Devilish slack of 'em,” remarked Lord Clarence.
“Devilish,” agreed Lord Poppleham. “However,
they are sure to be here in a minute.”
The train moved off again, the other passengers
left the station, and still the noble pair were left
standing beside Lord Clarence's luggage on the
deserted platform. His own man had been to the en-
trance once or twice to make inquiries, but there was
no sign at all of any conveyance from Hiddlecombe
Hall; and now he seemed to be trying to extract
information from a porter.
“Deuced careless of Jones,” said Lord Poppleham.
“I’m dashed if I don't feel inclined never to come and
stop with the fellow again!”
At that moment Lord Clarence's valet left the
porter and approached the distinguished couple with
an odd expression on his discreet countenance. In
his hand he was holding a slip of paper.
“Any sign of anyone, Dobson?” asked his master.
“No, my lord,” said Dobson, “and I’m very much


180 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
afraid there isn't likely to be either, They've just
been telling me that Lord Clarence Tuttebury arrived
this morning.”
“Me?” cried Curly.
“Someone who said he was you, my lord.” He
held out the slip of paper, and added, “He gave this
telegram to the porter to send off for him. The
porter says he didn't send it because he felt suspicious
of something, but I expect he simply forgot to.
Anyhow, it luckily wasn't sent.”
The two friends studied the telegraph form with
horrified attention. On it was this message ad-
dressed to Lord Poppleham:
“Infectious illness in house. Regret must postpone
3your visit to us. Jon Es.”
“Then—er—d'ye mean to say that Mr. Jones
. . .” began Lord Poppleham.
But his friend had begun to grasp the situation.
“What was the fellow like who wrote this wire?”
he demanded.
“The porter says he was a tall, fair gentleman, my
lord, wearing a light brown suit and accompanied by
three articles of luggage; new leather portmanteau,
new leather suit case . . .”
“My God!” cried the unfortunate peer, “that's my
luggage! It—it must have been Parker!”
“And—and he had the impudence to describe


182 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“That's it!” exclaimed their lordships. “The very
thing!”
“And then, my lord, seeing as how this Parker is
probably counting on his wire being sent off and
won't be expecting to be disturbed, we'll probably
nail him in Mr. Jones's house. He won't likely
venture to make off with the plate, not till after the
family is in bed.”
Their lordships' spirits began to rise.
“Run him to earth and dig him out, Pop; what?”
cried Curly. “I say, that's an idea!”
“First class" cried Pop. “I say, Dobson, where
can we find a bobby in this place?”
The intelligent Dobson sped to the station master's
office and in a moment that official had come to assist
their councils. It seemed that the nearest town
boasting of a police office was three miles from the
station and there were no conveyances available. So
the luggage was left in charge of the station master
and the three set forth in the gathering dusk to walk
to the town and prepare the net for Mr. Parker.


CHAPTER V
AT NIGHT
IT was approaching midnight when a wagonette
containing the Sergeant of police and a large and
muscular constable, stopped at the Royal Hotel to
pick up their lordships and Mr. Dobson. When they
reached the town, the two friends had found the
police force absent on another job, and at first the
delay had chafed their ardent spirits sorely; then,
however, a little dinner at the Royal Hotel had been
suggested by Mr. Dobson, and a very tolerable
Burgundy and excellent sloe gin had brought con-
solation. In fact, the wagonette had to wait till
midnight had come and gone before their lordships
emerged, cheered and even inclined to be musical.
“Cheer-oh, bobby!” cried the genial Curly as he
seated himself somewhat suddenly and heavily beside
the sergeant. “‘For you're a jolly good fellow !
which nobody can . . .” Where the devil's Pop?
Oh, there you are, you old blighter. Thought you
were another of these dashed bobbies. Damned good
fellows all the same! “Which nobody can deny!' I
say, my cigar's gone out. Who's got a match?”
The task of relighting his cigar occupied Lord
Clarence for the first two miles. He warbled snatches
183


184 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
of several ditties during pauses in the operation, and
then, by the time it was successfully accomplished,
dropped off somewhat suddenly to sleep. His friend
for a space was equally musical, but continued wake-
ful. In fact, as mile followed mile, the chill of the
night air and the monotonous progress between dark
hedgerows under a dim, lightly-clouded sickle of
moon, merely converted him from a condition of
wakeful cheeriness to wakeful irritation. At ever-
diminishing intervals he remarked to the sergeant:
“This is a damned long drive, constable!”
“Getting shorter all the time, my lord,” said the
sergeant on every occasion.
“I call it damned long,” replied his lordship with
equal regularity, and then he would invariably add,
“Wait till I get hold of that fellow Parker!”
They had been going for well over an hour, and it
was now after half-past one, when they passed
through the lodge gates of Hiddlecombe Hall, and
plunged into the profound darkness of a winding
avenue over-arched by monumental elms. Then at
last came a wide gravel sweep and the long, unlighted
front of a country house.
“Now, my lords,” said the sergeant, “the less noise
we makes the better. We don't want to give no
alarm to the fellow.”
He had rung the bell, and the five were all waiting
on the door-step. Lord Poppleham, though a trifle


AT NIGHT 185
cheered by his arrival, was already beginning to be
carried away again by righteous indignation.
“Alarm be damned We've got to get inside this
dashed house and wring the fellow's neck!” said he.
“Pull that bell again, bobby!”
At the third peal, the front door at last opened and
revealed a touzle-haired young man with his trousers
hurriedly pulled over his night-shirt. Behind him a
single electric light had been switched on, and they
could see a large, shadowy hall, with wide staircase
ascending into darkness on the further side, and two
gigantic mail-clad figures in the foreground ap-
parently guarding the portals. Into this half-lit
cavern Lord Poppleham instantly plunged, elbowing
aside the sergeant, and announcing with truculent
emphasis:
“I’m Lord Poppleham, and I’ve come after that
scoundrel Parker!”
“Hush, my lordſ” implored the sergeant.
“Hush be—” began his lordship, when he was
interrupted by a startled cry from his noble friend.
“My God! I've got the jim-jams!”
Turning round they beheld Lord Clarence backing
away from the armoured figure on the left, till with
a resounding crash he bumped into the sentinel on the
right. Fortunately, however, before he had time to
make any further comment, Mr. Dobson, resourceful
and discreet as ever, proffered his arm, and merely


186 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
saying, “This way, my lord!” led him back to the
wagonette, where within two minutes he was com-
fortably asleep again.
Meanwhile the startled footman had grasped the
import of their visit and was speeding for the butler.
“Confound this delay! The man will be off, and
I want to wring his neck!” fumed Lord Poppleham.
“Hush, my lord! Hush, for the love of 'Eaven!”
implored the sergeant. “He won't be off unless you
wakes him up!”
A stout, efficient-looking butler appeared with
remarkable celerity, followed by a second footman,
and listened to the visitors' story with vast interest.
“I’ad my suspicions of that Lord Clarence!” said
he. “Very pleasant he's made himself, and no end
they've thought of him; but I knows the real aris-
tocracy, and I 'ad my suspicions!”
He turned to the sergeant and suggested a plan of
campaign.
“We had better guard the front door, just in case
he makes a rush for it,” said he. “If you leaves your
constable here, I’ll leave one of the footmen. 'Ere,
George, you and the policeman stand by the front
door and don't let no one get past you. Now, my
lord, we'll go and rouse Mr. Jones and tell him what's
'appened.” - -
“Mr. Jones be—” his lordship began in-
dignantly.


AT NIGHT 187
“Hush, my lord ſ” prayed the sergeant.
“I’ve come to wring that fellow Parker's neck!
Take me to his bedroom | I don't want to see old
Jones!”
But the butler was firm.
“Mr. Jones has got to be informed first, my lord,”
said he, and as the sergeant backed him up, the whole
party, consisting now of Lord Poppleham, the butler,
the sergeant, Mr. Dobson, and the second footman,
tiptoed warily up stairs and down a passage to Mr.
Jones's apartment. A minute's discreet knocking
resulted in the faint creaking of a bed from within
and the opening of the door a few inches.
“Who’s that?” demanded a voice.
Up to this point Lord Poppleham had curbed his
indignation with commendable self-restraint, but the
prospect of waiting for further explanations while
Mr. Parker's neck still remained unwrung, was too
much for him.
“I’m Lord Poppleham!” he cried. “And I’ve
come to arrest my valet!”
“Your who?” exclaimed the voice.
“Quietly, my lordſ” implored the sergeant.
“The fellow who came here and called himself
Lord Clarence Tuttebury! He's a scoundrel named
Parker, and I’m going to wring his—”
“There he goes!” yelled the footman. “Come on!”
A figure attired in blue and white striped pyjamas


AT NIGHT 189
butler from the bottom of the heap. “Run, 'Enery,
and turn 'em on again!”
“I can't get up!” groaned the footman. “Some-
think's that 'eavy on my chest!”
“I 'ear 'im comin’ downstairs!” roared a voice
from the hall. “Turn on them lights again, quick as
you can!”
“There's a switch beside the front door!” bawled
the butler. “Turn it on yourself!”
“Can't find it!” yelled the voice from the hall. “It
must 'ave gone and bin moved !”
“Moved be damned !” shouted the butler. “Look
for it, can't you! 'Ere, who's that sitting on my
legs? Get up, will you!”
“I’ve bitten my tongue. I can't get up yet!”
groaned his lordship.
The footman was the first to extricate himself, and
the lights went up again at last. From the top of the
stairs the pursuing five gazed down into the hall;
from the front door the guardian pair gazed up; and,
motionless on their pedestals, the mail-clad sentinels
gazed at one another, but there was no sign or vestige
of the figure in blue and white pyjamas.
“Where the devil has he gone?” demanded Lord
Poppleham.
“I’m sure I 'eard him runnin’ downstairs, sir!”
said the footman below.
“So did I, my lord,” added the policeman. “And


190 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
he can't have got out o' the front door, because we've
bin standin' in front of it—that's sure and certain l’”
“Then he's gone through one of the other doors in
the hall, you silly ass!” cried his lordship, whose
feelings by this time were long past all restraint.
“Excuse me, my lord, but every one of them doors
was shut when we went upstairs,” said the butler.
“Did either of you two hear the sound of a door
being opened and shut again?”
With great vehemence both constable and footman
declared that they had heard no sound of a door
either opening or shutting. The sergeant eyed them
doubtfully.
“You were standing too far away from the front
door,” said he. “I do believe the man slipped between
you and got out!”
“Stupid pair of idiots!” cried his lordship
wrathfully.
“I’ll swear on my dying oath he didn't!” declared
the constable. “It would be clean impossible!”
“Then,” said the butler with an air of gloomy
resignation, “he must have gone into the morning-
room or the library, and by this time he'll have got
out through a window and be far enough away!”
“What's that?” exclaimed several voices simul-
taneously.
A sound as of some one beating on wood was
coming from somewhere.


AT NIGHT 191
“Some one at the front door!” cried the constable.
“By Jove! If he's come back, I'll wring the
fellow's . . .” began his lordship, but at this point
the constable had the door open, and revealed Lord
Clarence Tuttebury.
“Hullo, you blighters! What's up?” he demanded
cheerfully.
With that, the excitement of the chase was re-
newed. Lord Clarence stoutly declared that he had
awakened from his nap some short time ago, and had
heard various sounds coming from the house, but
that he was quite positive nobody had left, either by
door or window.
“Then he is still in the house!” said the sergeant.
“We'll see he doesn't give us the slip again, either ſ”
The appearance of Mr. Jones and two of the
guests, attired in dressing-gowns, brought the num-
ber of Mr. Parker's pursuers up to eleven, and they
were promptly distributed on the best strategic
principles. Sentinels were placed at various points
outside the house, while the rest of the party searched
each room in turn thoroughly and systematically.
And yet, at the end of a strenuous hour, there was
not a sign of the erring Parker, nor a single clue to
suggest what had become of him.
“Well, I'm blowed ſ” said the sergeant. “The man
seems to have been and gone and vanished utterly ſ”
There seemed, indeed, to be nothing for it but to


192 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
accept this unsatisfactory conclusion. It is true that
there was, at least, the consolation of knowing that
none of Mr. Jones's plate had vanished along with his
late guest; and Lord Poppleham was able to lay down
one very sound rule to guide him for the remainder
of his natural life: “I’ll take dashed good care I
never again send on my luggage and my valet ahead
of me!” said he. But vengeance, unfortunately, had
to be foregone.
“The most mysterious thing that ever happened?”
declared Mr. Jones, as he parted with the baffled
police.
Yet had he been in the silent and deserted hall half
an hour later, he would have beheld a phenomenon
infinitely more mysterious than the mere disappear-
ance of a latter-day adventurer. The moonbeams
glimmering through the leaded panes revealed (had
there been any to see the portent) a mediaeval knight
in the act of cautiously moving, foot by foot, towards
the front door. His mail-clad hands fingered the bolts
and locks gingerly, yet deftly; the door swung
quietly open; and only one armoured sentinel was left
to guard the house of Jones. The other was
clanking briskly down the avenue.


CHAPTER VI
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
66A* a summer suiting, plate armour strikes me
as somewhat heavy,” said Mr. Essington to
himself, as he stalked warily past the silent lodge and
found himself in the dim high road. “On the other
hand, it is better than an early death from con-
sumption, which would be my probable fate if I
continued my adventures in pyjamas.”
Into the breast pocket of the pyjama coat he had
hurriedly thrust his purse and cigar case, a match
box, and a pocket handkerchief; his feet he had clad
in a pair of Lord Poppleham's choicest silk socks and
shiniest pumps; but apart from these accessories,
there had been no time to remove anything except the
blue and white striped pyjamas he was sleeping in,
and the suit of armour in which he had taken
temporary refuge.
“That is the worst of getting up in a hurry—
though, after all, there is many a poor fellow with
neither silk socks nor a suit of armour,” he reflected
philosophically. “One might be much worse off.”
After several attempts, he managed to raise the
vizor of his helmet, insert a cigar into his mouth, and
light it. And then at an easy saunter he strolled
193


194 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
down the road and reviewed the possibilities of his
new situation.
“It is less luxurious than valet to Lord Popple-
ham,” he soliloquised, “but distinctly more romantic,
The great difficulty is, how can one transport three
tons of sheet platinum (which the thing is apparently
made of) outside Mr. Jones's radius by the time he
wakes up in the morning and discovers that one of
his suits of armour has gone? It is obviously
hopeless to look for anyone willing to exchange an
outfit of clothes for a coat of mail at three o'clock in
the morning. I am probably the only lunatic in the
neighbourhood.”
At this point in his meditations he came upon a
signpost by the roadside, and stopped to examine it.
Two arrows pointed in opposite directions, with the
legends “Nutley, 5 miles,” “Salchester, 18 miles,”
and these directions seemed to give Mr. Essington
food for fresh and livelier thought.
“The finger of fate!” he said to himself. “My
course is perfectly obvious. I must make Mr. Jones
look in one direction, and find something to convey
me in the other. And as Jones will clearly be readier
to believe I have gone a short distance in this dashed
armour, while the longest trip is safest for me, I must
obviously send him to Nutley, and look out for some-
thing to carry me to Salchester.”
Mr. Essington was not one of those people who


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 197
escorted by a rapidly increasing crowd, who took
advantage of the fact that it seemed improbable he
could run very fast, to pass a number of pointed
comments on his appearance. The vizor of his
helmet being closed, they could catch no glimpse of
his face, but they were very interested to observe
that wherever a gap in his panoply permitted his
under garments to be seen, these appeared to be of
blue and white striped flannel. The opinion was
therefore widely and loudly expressed that he was
going to play in a football match, and had attired
himself in armour to keep out the rain.
Meanwhile, within his defences of steel, the
stranger was debating his future programme with
rather less than his usual optimism.
“I am obviously doing it for a bet,” he said to
himself, “and I can always walk into the best hotel
in the place, say I’ve won, and ask for the loan of a
suit of clothes on the strength of my victory. Then,
by Gad, I might give a little dinner to celebrate my
exploit, tell them to put it down in the bill, and bolt
in the middle of the night! On the other hand,
bolting two nights running will be a trifle monoto-
nous, and one must never forget that this is a pleasure
trip.” He scowled round on the thickening mob of
small boys, and added with quite unusual ferocity
for so good-humoured an adventurer: “Damn the
little brutes! If I try to kick them I shall probably


198 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
overbalance myself, but if I do nothing the street
will soon be blocked.”
The more he reflected on the situation, the less
promising did the bet, dinner, and bolt solution
appear.
“The police will come to clear the street, the local
papers will send reporters to interview me, and be-
tween them somebody will probably spot me. This
corner is really beginning to look rather tight.”
Fortune, however, undoubtedly favours the enter-
prising; or it may simply be that the enterprising
know how to take advantage of the off chances which
fortune casts at random among the crowd. In any
case, just as he had decided that the corner was
getting a little too tight, Mr. Essington's alert eye
perceived an off chance. He had arrived at a turning
where his quiet street fell into a busier and brightly-
lighted thoroughfare, and at the very moment when
he reached it, a cab drove past. It seemed to be full
of people, and he caught a fleeting glimpse of a tinsel
crown, a ruff and spangles.
“A fancy dress ball!” he said to himself exultantly.
“Saved, by Jingo!”
Five minutes later he had arrived at a brilliantly
illuminated mansion, with a stream of red carpet
flowing, as it were, from its open door, and an
enthusiastic crowd of spectators already gathered in
the street. When Mr. Essington's own private crowd


THE RIVAL LADIES 205
for a moment, and then murmured quietly but
emphatically:
“Dash it!”
“What is the matter, Basil?” she asked
apprehensively.
“I am in a dilemma, darling,” replied the Knight.
And, in fact, he was, for it had just occurred to
him forcibly that unless he raised his vizor, supper
was impossible; while if he did raise it, the promising
adventure was at an end.
“Basill” she said. “Tell me . . .”
She stopped abruptly, for at that moment another
lady entered the room, and without a trace of hesi-
tation came straight to their table. The approving
eye of Sir Galahad noted that she was tall, fair, and
handsome; but it noted also that she was evidently in
a state of strong emotion.
“George!” she said in a musical but very de-
termined voice. “Come home at once!”
“May I ask why?” inquired the Knight mildly.
“You know perfectly well!” said she. “And I
should hardly imagine you wish me to tell you in
presence of . . .” she paused for an instant, and
surveyed the masked friend of Basil with a swift,
searching glance; and then finished in a tone that
might have implied many things—“of this lady.”
The dark lady rose on the instant, and confronted
her with flaming eyes.


THE RIVAL LADIES 207
have a little supper together, and then toss which of
you is to bear me away?”
But with a smothered shriek the dark lady had
already resigned her claims, and was hastening for
the door. The fair lady only paused long enough to
make one brief comment.
“A ‘gentleman'ſ” said she, and followed her late
rival.
“If I hadn't been so devilish hungry,” reflected the
Knight, “what an amusing evening I might have
spent!”
A refreshing draught of champagne had been
followed by a delicious mouthful of turkey, and the
two ladies were already becoming a pleasant rem-
iniscence, when he was a little disturbed to notice the
solitary Pirate rise from his corner table, and march
towards him.
“Is this one of the husbands, or Basil himself?”
he wondered.
The Pirate continued his advance till nothing but
the small table separated them. Leaning over it, he
looked very hard at the Knight.
“Mr. Essington!” said he.


CHAPTER VIII
IN THE STREET
M*. ESSINGTON remained to all appearances
perfectly at ease; but his gauntleted fist
closed and his first swift thoughts ran—“Can I
knock him down, and bolt in this kit before the
alarm is raised?”
“I am afraid you have the advantage of me, sir,”
he replied with distant politeness.
For answer the stranger snatched the piratical
moustache off his face and inquired:
“Do you know me now?”
“By Jove, it's Tooting!” cried the Knight, adding
with every appearance of enthusiasm, “The very
fellow I wanted to meet!”
“My name is Toothill,” said the ex-pirate stiffly.
“All the better,” smiled the Knight. “It makes
me want to meet you even more.”
Mr. Toothill continued to gaze at him very hard,
and without any answering smile.
“Have you found her?” he demanded.
“Found her?” repeated Mr. Essington, running
hurriedly in his mind over all the ladies he had met
208


210 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
haven't seen him, and I never got a letter from
him.”
“How very extraordinary” exclaimed Mr. Es-
sington. “I really cannot understand this at all.”
“Did you give him my address?”
“I made him take it down in his pocketbook.”
Even this convincing piece of testimony failed to
restore confidence to Mr. Toothill's face.
“Why should he take it down?” he demanded
“He knows my aunt's address perfectly well.”
“Of course! I was thinking of another fellow
who took an address down. You went to visit your
aunt; yes, yes, I remember. Staying with her still?”
“Naturally. I arranged with you to go there and
stay till I heard from Ridley. Besides, after what
you got me to do, I thought it safer to lie low.”
“Now what the devil did I get him to do?” said
Mr. Essington to himself, and then a further recol-
lection returned to him. “You lent me a fiver, didn’t
you?” said he. “It was really very good of you,
Toothill.” -
“A fiver!” exclaimed Charles indignantly. “I lent
you nearly everything in my purse, and then ran five
whole dashed miles, and knocked down a policeman
and two porters to help you to get away! And ever
since then I’ve been in a blue funk of being arrested
for abettin' your escape, and wonderin’ why I never
heard from Philip Ridley, and hopin' you had dis-


IN THE STREET 211
covered Beatrix—and now, here you turn up in
fancy dress with a couple of women nearly fightin'
over you, and you seem to have forgotten every
dashed thing I did Did you by any chance forget
to give Philip my address?”
“My dear Toothill,” replied Mr. Essington in his
most soothing tones, “this suspicion is really un-
worthy of you! Tut, tut! For shame, my good
fellow ! By the way, you will excuse me going on
with my supper, won't you?”
For a few minutes he attacked the turkey and ham
with the ardour of one who has fasted long, while
Mr. Toothill continued to stare at him with suspicion
written on every lineament of his honest face. Then
at last Charles spoke:
“I’ll very soon find out the truth,” said he.
“What truth?” smiled Mr. Essington, refilling his
glass.
“Whether you really gave Philip my address, and
what you've been doin', and why you don't seem to
know anything at all about Beatrix. I wrote to
Philip yesterday and I got a wire this afternoon say-
ing he was comin’ down here this evening.”
Mr. Essington looked at him quickly.
“You don't mean to say my friend Ridley is to be
in Salchester to-night? I should like to meet him
again.”
“You’ve got to,” said Charles truculently.


IN THE STREET 213
an active, businesslike air, yet with a flattering note
of deference for Mr. Toothill's abilities, he sug-
gested:
“What about making a start now? If you fetch
your overcoat, I'll be getting my bag, and we'll meet
at the top of the back stairs.”
Charles looked at him doubtfully.
“Where is your bag?” he inquired.
“In the bedroom where I changed.”
“What! You changed in this house?”
“Certainly.”
“I shall come with you.”
Mr. Essington promptly sat down again.
“My dear Toothill, we must trust each other a
little better than this,” said he. “I trust you to go
and fetch your coat. You must trust me to go and
fetch my bag.”
Charles continued to stare at him, veiled suspicion
in his eye.
“Why meet at the top of the back stairs?” he
asked.
“Because I don't propose to go out by the front
door. I noticed a gentleman waiting outside whom
I am not particularly anxious to meet.”
“Who was he?”
“I only wish I knew. He was a small individual
in a bowler hat.”
Suddenly Charles exhibited lively excitement.


214 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Was the bowler too big for him?” he cried.
“And had he sort of ferrety lookin' eyes?”
“By Jove, the very man!” exclaimed Essington.
“What do you know about him?”
“He’s the blighter who gave us the note at the
station!”
“This is very extraordinary!” murmured Essing-
ton. “What the deuce can be the connection
between . . .” He broke off, and for a moment
sat silent. Then he sprang up again. “Well,” said he,
“there is no use wondering. The point is to give him
the slip. You agree to the back stairs now?”
“Rather!” said Charles.
A few minutes later a cloaked figure was waiting
in the obscurity of a dimly lit passage, far removed
from the other revellers. The strains of a waltz and
the murmur of voices rose from below, but up there
everything was utterly quiet. The minutes passed
more slowly than Charles had ever known them pass
before, and then to his vast relief he heard the faint
clank of mail.
“Follow me!” whispered the Knight, “and don't
make a sound you can help! ”
Inexplicable though it may appear to those who
have followed his movements during the evening, he
actually was carrying a large leather kit bag, and
apparently had come from the bedroom regions.
“Through here!” he whispered, peeping into a


IN THE STREET 215
dark room, as soon as they reached the ground floor.
Stealthily he closed the door behind them and groped
his way to the window.
“But I say!” protested Charles, “do you mean we
are goin’ to get out by a window?”
“Hush!” replied the Knight, gently raising the
sash.
“But if we are caught? It looks so dashed like
burglars!”
The only answer was a nerve-shaking clatter of
steel as Sir Galahad dropped on to a garden path.
In frenzied haste the cloaked pirate dropped out after
him and hastened in his wake down a path between
shrubbery. Over his shoulder Mr. Essington whis-
pered gleefully:
“A summer-house! Luck is with us!”
Once inside the Summer-house he wasted no time.
Off went the panoply of mail and the blue-and-white
pyjamas, and inside of ten minutes he was dressed
in a suit of grey tweeds, a pair of brown boots, and
a cloth cap.
“Thank the Lord, they fit!” he said to himself
devoutly.
From a window of the house a ray of light pene-
trated through the half-open door, and presently as
Mr. Essington moved the empty kit bag aside, the
ray fell upon it.


216 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Hullo!” exclaimed Charles, pointing to the bag,
“J. W. D.—whose initials are those?”
“My old uncle's—John Wilson Dawkins,” Mr.
Essington explained. “I heired the bag from him.”
“They are the same as our host's initials—J. W.
Dewhurst; what a dashed rum coincidence!”
“Dashed rum,” Mr. Essington agreed, lacing up
the brown boots. His next performance also struck
Mr. Toothill as distinctly rum. In the roof of the
summer-house was a trap-door opening into a small
loft, and through this aperture Mr. Essington pro-
ceeded to push first his pyjamas, then his armour, and
finally his uncle's kit bag.
“Now,” said he, “if you wait here by the door
keeping an eye on the house to see that nobody comes
out, I'll go and look for the garden gate. When I
find it I’ll give you a whistle.”
He opened the door as he spoke and in another
instant would have been gone, when, with a sudden
bound, Charles had him by the arm.
“No, you don't!” said he. “You’re not goin' to
take advantage of any innocent confidence this time!”
Mr. Essington felt the iron grip and glanced down
at the burly form of Mr. Toothill, and submitted to
the inevitable as gracefully as ever.
“What a suspicious fellow it is!” he laughed, and
with affectionate humour drew the muscular arm still
further through his own.


IN THE STREET 217
Charles felt a pang of generous contrition.
“Sorry, old bird,” said he, “but I can't afford to
run any risks this time. It's all for her sake, you
know.” -
“I know, I know!” said her guardian. “I assure
you I would do exactly the same in your place,
Toothill.”
A gate at the foot of the garden led into a lane,
and this again into a side street. There was not a
soul in sight as they paced arm in arm along the silent
pavement.
“It’s not much more than ten minutes' walk to the
County Hotel, from the corner,” observed Charles,
as they reached the junction of a wider thoroughfare,
where even at that hour a certain amount of traffic
was moving. “Once we get there, I’ll leave Philip
to settle things with you. My job will be finished
when I hand you safely over to him.”
“Ten minutes' walk!” exclaimed Mr. Essington,
stopping short as he spoke. “And that spy hanging
about! My dear Toothill, this isn't safe!”
A shade of apprehension clouded Mr. Toothill's
face likewise.
“By Jove, I'd forgotten about him,” said he.
“But—dash it!—there's nothing for it but risking it
now.”
“I am in your hands . . .” Mr. Essington be-


218 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
gan, and then exclaimed, “There comes a cab! Let's
take that.”
The cab had been approaching them at a walk ever
since they reached the corner, but the usually re-
sourceful gentleman had apparently not noticed it
before.
“Good egg!” said Charles. “Hi, cabby!”
As the cab drew up beside them, Mr. Essington—
his arm still firmly held—stepped up to the driver and
said in an urgent voice:
“We want to go to the County Hotel, cabman,
and we don't want anyone to follow us. I shall
make the fare ten shillings if you follow these in-
structions. Whip up your horse and go off at a
gallop the very instant you hear me say ‘Drive like
the devil!’ You quite understand?”
“I understands, sir,” said the cabman, tightening
the reins and raising his whip ready for the spurt.
Charles looked a little dubious.
“I say,” he whispered, “won't that make him
think . . .”
“Cabbies never think. Will you get in first?”
“No,” said Charles emphatically. “I’ll see you in
first.”
Mr. Essington opened the door and for an instant
Charles had to let go his arm. His captive put one
foot on the step and then suddenly kicked out with
the other leg. The flat of his foot caught Charles


220 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“there is a telegram waiting for Mr. Ridley, so he is
sure to be coming.”
“A telegram!” said Charles to himself with a
flicker of cheerfulness. “That sounds more
hopeful!”





224 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“That's as may be,” said Mr. Cheal, walking off.
And then suddenly he turned and said: “Oh, by the
way, don't you say nothing to Miss Staynes about
anyone having called.”
“Then Mr. Meestery does not wish her in-
formed?”
“You may take it that's how the land lies,” he
conceded.
“Oh, but I can take a hint!” she smiled, and then
as she went upstairs she shrugged her shoulders and
murmured, “I wonder who !”
Within the library Mr. Mason received his visitor
apparently with more surprise than pleasure.
“Well, Uncle Joshua, what's brought you?” he
asked. “You haven't come to see Beatrix, I hope.”
“Not necessarily,” said Sir Joshua, “unless . . .”
“Under no circumstances!” said Mr. Mason
emphatically. -
Though they stood in the relation of uncle and
nephew by blood, and senior and junior partner in
the firm of Horsham and Stukley by business
arrangement, there was no doubt who was actually
the dominating personality. Mr. Mason, indeed,
spoke to his uncle this afternoon almost as he might
to a clerk.
“Well,” said Sir Joshua, “as a matter of fact I
didn't want her even to know I was here, unless there
were any necessity.”


SIR JOSHUA 225
“There is none,” Mr. Mason assured him. “It
might spoil everything. You remember that I was
to have a free hand?”
“I am not disputing it, Harry. . . .
“All right. Then what brought you down?”
“Have you heard anything of Francis?”
“Not yet. Have you?”
Mr. Mason's manner was brief, and, one would
say, unconcerned. Sir Joshua glanced at him
sharply.
“Don’t you realise the danger?” he asked.
Mr. Mason merely shrugged his shoulders, but a
twitch of his brows and a glint in his eye betrayed
him.
“Pooh! There is none. What can a wandering
lunatic do?”
“Francis is capable of any—er—eccentricity.”
“Eccentricity' Exactly. And that's all he is
capable of.” He paused for a moment and then
repeated in a manner somewhat at variance with his
last words, “I asked you if you had heard nothing
about him yourself. Have you?”
“Absolutely nothing at all.”
Mr. Mason paced to the window and back again.
“Where the deuce can the man have got to !” he
exclaimed. “I’ve put Piggot on his track, and the
little devil doesn't often lose the scent. Can Francis
have committed suicide?”
22


SIR JOSHUA 227
fectly well you can’t. You are responsible—but, as
I say, you have done nothing illegal, and you can
snap your fingers at Perry and Ridley and Co.1”
“But if anything came out, it—er—it wouldn't
look well, Harry.”
“Look!” exclaimed Mr. Mason contemptuously.
“What do looks matter at present? Do you or don’t
you want to see yourself in the dock? That's the
whole point.”
Sir Joshua winced.
“The speculation was yours,” he protested. “And
taking the trust money to make good your
losses . . .”
“My losses! They were the firm’s. You are
responsible. You know you are. You knew every-
thing that was going on—or ought to have known.”
“Ought !” groaned Sir Joshua. “That's different.”
“Is it? If I stand in the dock, so will you—and
you know it.”
The unfortunate senior partner passed his hand-
kerchief over his brow. His eyes shifted constantly,
and it almost seemed as if the bags beneath them had
got deeper since he came.
“If only your sister were here, Harry!” he began,
in a moment. “I have duties towards Beatrix, after
all—and leaving her alone with you—can't you get
Elizabeth to come? Or some other woman?”
“And spoil the whole game? We are playing for


CHAPTER II
ANNETTE's ADVICE
Aº. ticked on the dining-room mantelpiece,
but that was the only sound in the room. Mr.
Mason sipped his port in silence, and the fair young
girl opposite kept her eyes fixed on her plate. They
might have been sitting for a picture of mariage de
CO%.7/€710%Ce.
At last he spoke.
“You are desperately quiet to-night, Beatrix!”
Those who knew Harry Mason well would have
perceived the effort it cost him to speak lightly and
throw in his half-laugh, but the girl simply took his
words for what they seemed to be.
“I am very sorry, Cousin Harry,” she said, with
a little smile that died away as suddenly as it came.
“My thoughts were wandering; I—I am not very
happy.”
“What’s the matter?” -
She answered nothing for a minute, and then her
words came with a rush. 4.
“I am unhappy about Philip ! I must find out
what has happened. I really must, Cousin Harry!
You have been very kind to me, and I know Sir
230


ANNETTE'S ADVICE 281
Joshua wants me to stay here till his house is ready
for me, and I don't want to do anything to displease
him, but I can't wait here in suspense any longer!
I’m going to try and find out about Philip for
myself!”
He controlled a start, but his stare sent her eyes
down again.
“You mean you want to go yourself and—and
make inquiries?”
She looked up again and met his gaze firmly.
“Yes,” she said.
“You won't trust my word?”
“But you have been able to find out practically
nothing!”
He finished his glass of port, and seemed to come
to a sudden resolution.
“Beatrix,” he said, in quite a different voice.
“There are other men in the world who care for you,
besides this fellow Ridley—men who do appreciate
you, who wouldn't desert you even for a single
moment, who know what you are worth. . . .”
He had been speaking very earnestly so far, and
with a ring of suppressed emotion that pleased his
own critical sense, but at these last words she chanced
to look up from her plate for an instant, and he read
a thought in her eyes that never could have sprung
from Beatrix's simple heart.
“I mean what your heart and—er—beauty are


232 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
worth,” he explained hastily, but his critical sense
missed the ring of genuine feeling this time. He
tried to make up for it by still more fervour of ex-
pression. “You are the most charming girl I have
ever seen, Beatrix! You are like a ray of . . .”
(his critical sense rejected “sunshine” hurriedly, and
he decided to hasten on to another simile). “You
are like a jewell You are like. . .”
This time he was interrupted by the girl herself.
She rose from the table, her eyes still downcast, and
her colour high.
“You shouldn't say these things, Cousin Harry!”
she said hurriedly. “I–I can't stay here any longer
if you do!”
He had the self-restraint and tact to hurry to the
door and hold it open, merely murmuring as she
passed out, “I am sorry, Beatrix, dear. I won't
offend again!”
It was five minutes or so later, and Mr. Mason had
already finished another glass of port, and poured
himself out yet a third, when the door opened as
noiselessly as if a ghost were entering.
“Pardon my disturbing you, sir,” said a voice at
his back.
Mr. Mason turned with a start, a scowl still set on
his brow. -
“What the devil . . . " Oh, it's you, Annette.,
Well?”


234 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
really did not! Never, never say the word ‘love' to
a woman—even in joke, even as part of a sermon—
unless you wish her to think she has been given
another heart to play with ! Bah! I am a woman—I
know them.”
“As a matter of fact, I didn't actually use the
word ‘love.’ ”
“Oh, but you need not say any more than ‘like' to
most women. Such fools they are—as foolish as
men' So then she got offended, did she?”
“More or less.”
“‘More or less'—what a Breetish expression! It
would tell me nothing if I had not seen her after-
wards for myself.”
“Look here, Annette,” said he, “it would be much
more to the point if you would tell me what I ought
to do, and not what I ought not to have done. Can
one afford to do nothing and simply keep on waiting
after what she said to me?”
“No,” she said slowly. “No, something should
be done.” She came close up to his chair and low-
ered her voice. “She is in your house—unprotected
What do you lack? Courage?”
He turned in his chair with a start.
“Hang it, Annette, there are limits!”
“On the other hand—there is failure!”
He hesitated for a moment.


238 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
swimmin' party what was bathing in a river—a
schoolmaster and a lot of boys, they was. He
challenges 'em all to a swimmin' race and then when
they was all splashin' away in the river, he nips off
with the master's bicycle and clothes, and that was
the very last any 'uman eye has seen him!”
“You mean to tell me you never got on to his track
again?”
Mr. Piggot shook his head mournfully.
“I went to Kenton, followin' the false clue—for
one 'ad to try it, sir, even though I did 'ave my sus-
picions. But of course there was no Mr. Essington
there. Then as soon as I heard of the swimmin'
performance, I started lookin' in that direction, but
naturally he was far enough away by that time. So
then I says to myself, ‘Better 'ave a squint at that
there Ridley genelman, seein’ there's nothing doing
'ere!’ Accordingly and without wastin' time I skips
up to London and lies low outside o’ Mr. Ridley's
chambers. He was in 'em right enough, and by
waitin' a bit I tracks him along to Bannerman, Perry
and Haines, and then I writes you, sir, to that effect.”
Mr. Mason nodded.
“I know. I got your letter. Any later news?”
“Yes, sir; though it has 'ad a kind of
unsatisfactory endin', too. In fact, I never did run
against such a crowd of mysteries and vanishing


THE OLD FRIENDS 249
As he turned his back again the mask slipped off
once more. “Thank the Lord!” manifestly sum-
marised Mr. Mason's first sensations, and as evidently
his next thought was, “Has he told me the truth?”
But when Essington returned to his chair, a cigar in
his mouth, he saw the same genial old friend standing
before the fire.
“A queer story!” the old friend observed. “And
that's the whole of it, is it?”
“All but a few details, most of which I have for-
gotten. Oh, by the way, though, there was one
rather rum little circumstance. There has been a
fellow on my track who isn't one of Jenkinson's
people at all—a rat-faced little chap, in a bowler hat
like a sitz-bath. This very self-same fellow, it seems,
was mixed up in the abduction of Miss Beatrix!”
Mr. Mason's eyes were very wary now.
“That—er—seems a very curious coincidence,”
he remarked.
“It isn't a coincidence,” said Mr. Essington calmly.
Mr. Mason started.
“What d'ye mean?”
“I mean that if I weren't on a pure pleasure trip
and not worrying about trifles at present, I should
say that there's some devilish queer game afoot, in
which—the Lord knows how—I’m mixed up. How-
ever, I’ve come here for a quiet night, the loan of a


250 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
razor, and your company, Harry, and be hanged to
the beggar in the bowler!”
Mr. Mason laughed very confidently indeed, almost
as if he were relieved.
“Finish your drink and have another, Francis I”
said he, and taking his guest's glass he refilled it and
handed it back. This time it was Mr. Essington who
watched his host, though in a very friendly and even
sympathetic spirit it would seem, to judge from his
eyes and the wrinkles round them.
“Harry,” he said suddenly, “you are damnably
worried about something to-night.”
Harry Mason looked at him quickly.
“What makes you think so?”
“I don’t think so: I know it. What's the trouble?
Remember, I'm your oldest companion in crime; you
couldn't shock me if you tried.”
Mr. Mason did not meet his eye.
“It's only a little business worry,” he said briefly.
“Nothing to bother about.”
“Well, old chap, if it's a lady, I'd woo her for you
if you'd introduce me; if it's money I’d write you a
cheque if anybody would cash it; and if it's an enemy
I'd knock him down if I were big enough. You see
I know the whole duty of a friend, and you can think
the offer over. And now, I’ve been living the
strenuous life lately—what about bed?”
There was no doubt that Harry Mason looked


THE OLD FRIENDS 251
worried. For a moment he seemed too confused to
speak. Then he recovered his laugh, though it was
one of his poorest efforts yet.
“Finish that drink and have another before you
go!” he cried. “Come on—I insist!”
“One of the reasons why I knew you were upset
was the way you mixed my drink,” smiled Essington.
“This is nearly half whisky. No more, thank you!”
“Just a small one!”
“Do you want to make me drunk?”
“No, no, no, my dear fellow !” Mr. Mason assured
him somewhat hurriedly and with great emphasis.
“Why the deuce should I want to make you drunk,
Francis?”
“I was wondering,” said Francis.
His old friend laughed noisily at the bare idea as
he led him from the room.
Mr. Essington shot him a curious glance but made
no comment at all this time.


CHAPTER V
LOCKED IN
“ALL I need for the night,” said Mr. Essington
as he went upstairs with his old friend, “is a
suit of pyjamas, a pair of slippers, and a clean
handkerchief; especially the handkerchief. I’ve
blown my nose on one hard-worked wipe for three
consecutive days.”
“I have told Cheal to get your room ready,” said
his host, “and you'll no doubt find everything except
the handkerchief. I’ll get you one of mine.”
A fire was burning in the bedroom, a soft-shaded
electric lamp lit it pleasantly, the pyjamas lay across
the bed, the slippers lay beside it, the clean handker-
chief was now in his pocket, and when Mr. Essington
had said good night to his old friend and dropped
into a basket-chair before the hearth, he congratulated
himself very heartily on his judicious choice of a
lodging for the night.
“I suppose old Harry is what the strictly virtuous
would call a pretty bad egg, and there's no doubt at
all that at this moment he has got some peculiarly
heinous crime on the place where his conscience
252


LOCKED IN 258
ought to be,” he said to himself, “but he's a first class
pal for a fellow sinner in a tight place, and, by Gad,
he does know how to make one comfortable!”
For a few minutes he indulged in these grateful
reflections, and then, still sitting over the fire, he
proceeded to take off his boots.
“I’d better put 'em outside the door,” he thought,
and carried them across the room. He laid his hand
on the knob, turned it once, and turned it again.
“Locked in 1” he murmured.
It was a very alert and wakeful Francis Essington
who stood with his boots in his hand gazing at that
locked door.
“By Heaven, I know now what was worrying
Harry!” he thought, and it was as well his old friend
was not there to see the expression that was on his
face in that moment of realisation.
For a brief space he still stood there, thinking
intently. Then his eye lit up, and prompt as ever he
instantly pulled on his boots, rang the bell, and then
sank into the basket-chair in the attitude of a man
half asleep.
“He is turning the key as well as the handle!” he
said to himself a minute or two later, but when the
door opened and Mr. Mason himself entered, he
found his guest apparently quite asleep. For a
moment Mr. Mason studied him very attentively, and
then he asked:


254 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“Did you ring, Francis?”
“Hullo! my dear chap!” exclaimed Mr. Essington,
starting out of his slumber. “I’m frightfully sorry
for bringing you up like this, but the fact is I feel
more fagged out than I realised. Do you mind
asking them not to call me in the morning, but just
let me sleep on till I wake myself?”
Mr. Mason was exceedingly pleasant and agreed
at once. “I hope you’ll have a good night's rest,”
said he.
This time his guest followed him to the door.
“Harry,” said he, “you deserve the compliment
I have paid you!”
“And what is that?”
“The compliment of breaking into your house,
throwing myself on your hospitality, and trusting
you to behave as an old pal and a good sportsman.
I'd trust devilish few fellows to do exactly the right
thing under the circumstances, but I knew I could
trust you.”
In the course of this flattering speech, Mr. Mason
edged out of the room, and his guest took up his po-
sition in the open door.
“Not at all, not at all,” said Mr. Mason somewhat
hurriedly. “Well, good night; you had better be
getting off to bed, hadn't you?”
“I really can’t thank you enough, Harry. It's the
thorough way you do things that takes my fancy.”


LOCKED IN 257
“Oh! . . .” she began.
“Hush!” whispered the adventurer urgently. “A
thousand pardons! I've made a shocking mistake,
but just give me five minutes' sanctuary, like a dear,
good girl!”
“Who-who are you?” she asked, her voice in-
stinctively almost as hushed as his.
To himself he said, “And who the deuce are you?”
Aloud, or rather in a guarded whisper, he inquired,
“Have you ever heard of Harry Mason's old friend,
Francis Essington?”
What the resourceful gentleman proposed to do
was to declare himself either to be the said Essington,
or Mr. Essington's doctor, come in search of him,
according to the manner in which the name was re-
ceived. Its actual reception, however, proved to be
astonishingly outside his calculations.
“Mr. Francis Essington!” she exclaimed. “Why,
of course—he is my guardian!”
“Your . . . .” Mr. Essington paused and gazed
at her very hard indeed. “May I ask who you are?”
“Beatrix Staynes,” said she.
“Beatrix Staynes!” he gasped.
“Are you Mr. Essington?” she asked.
“I am,” said he, “and so . . .” He was about
to say “and so Harry Mason is your fellow sinner!”
But there was something so innocent, pure, and con-
fiding in her face that his tongue was stayed. Even


258 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
in that instant an inkling of the real truth flashed
across his mind.
“My dear girl,” he demanded, “how do you come
to be here?”
“I am staying with Mr. Mason,” she said simply.
“My other guardian—Sir Joshua–wanted me to.”
“The deuce he did ſ”
She sat up in bed and looked at him with sudden
apprehension.
“Why—is—is anything the matter?”
“Merely that you are in the hands of a very
thorough pair of scoundrels.”
Her startled eyes opened wide.
“Scoundrels—Sir Joshua and Cousin Harry?”
“Cousin Blackguard l’” said he.
Rat-tat came a gentle knock upon the door.
“My maid!” she whispered.
“Don’t give me away!” he whispered back, and
the next instant was flattened behind a hanging
dressing-gown.
“Come in l’” said Beatrix, a quaver in her voice.
Through a peep-hole in the lace of the gown, Mr.
Essington watched the slip of a maid glide in—like
some evil, bright-eyed little snake, he thought; and
it seemed to him that in all his adventures he had
scarcely been in quite so tight a corner.
“Pardon me, miss,” said she, “but I thought I
heard voices in your room. Could it possibly be?”


260 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
“This was lent me by Harry Mason,” said he.
“His name is on it.”
“But—did she actually think . . .”
She stopped abruptly, her face flushing scarlet.
“My dear girl,” said he, with a gentleness that
would have vastly surprised most of Francis Essing-
ton's acquaintances, “don’t worry—there's no need
now; and don't think about it—I’ll do that for you.
Just give me the answers to one or two questions.
When did you get that maid?”
“Just before I left Switzerland.”
“And who engaged her for you?”
“My guardian—Sir Joshua.”
“Mason's uncle! The man who sent you to this
house! Do you begin to see?”
“You mean—she isn't to be trusted?”
“Not even as far as you can see her l’”
“And—and Mr. Mason ?”
“You can guess the kind of scoundrel he is from
this little incident. But you are quite safe now !
Don't think any more about it. Tell me this, Beatrix.
Did you write a note to Ridley, telling him to meet
you at Victoria, instead of Charing Cross?”
“Never!” she cried. “Do you mean to say he got
such a note?”
He nodded.
“Forged by your precious maid, no doubt—who is
in Cousin Harry Mason's pay.”


CHAPTER VI
IN THE GARDEN
“H OUSE-BREAKING is not very difficult—
especially breaking out,” said Mr. Essington,
as he caught his descending ward in his arms under
the gun-room window.
The sickle moon was two nights broader than it
had been when he last left his host's mansion thus
informally, and the still garden was barred alternately
by brilliant moonlit patches and the inky shades of
box and yew.
“Keep in the shadow as much as you can!” he
counselled, as they stole down a long gravelled path.
They had left the silent house some thirty yards
behind, and the hurrying girl, clinging to her
guardian's arm, was beginning to breathe freely at
last, when, of a sudden, the shadow of a yew just
ahead was doubled by something that started from
behind it. A broad figure barred their way, and the
next instand a voice rang out:
“Beatrix l’’
“Charles Toothill!” she gasped.
But already the aspect of Charles had changed
from welcoming to formidable.
262


IN THE GARDEN 263
“Who is that with you?” he demanded. “Essing-
ton, by Heaven! Unhand that lady, sir! Unhand
her instantly, or I knock you down!”
“Charles has evidently learned that by heart,”
observed Mr. Essington.
“Let go of that lady . . .” thundered Mr.
Toothill.
The lady interrupted him urgently.
“Where is Philip?” she cried. “Is he with you?”
“He is watching the front of the house. But this
man, Beatrix. . . .”
“Go and tell Philip I am here!”
Mr. Toothill's voice lost a little of its truculence.
“I—I can’t leave you with 33
“Go and bring Philip!” she commanded, her blue
eyes not at all gentle now.
“All right,” said Charles submissively. “But 39
“GO p.
And Charles went.
“Our friend Toothill would probably make an
excellent job of digging a drain, or pushing a
mowing machine,” observed Mr. Essington, who
seemed to have entirely recovered from his brief spell
of serious-mindedness, and was already lighting one
of his inevitable cigars. “I can also imagine him
driving a hearse very creditably if the traffic were
light, or even carrying luggage into a quiet tem-
perance hotel. Another suitable vocation would be


264 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
assistant to a three-card expert—the fellow who sits
with his mouth open, planking down the firm's half-
sovereigns pour encourager les autres. Or something
in the smock frock and rattle line. . . .”
“Oh, I do hope he'll hurry!” sighed the slender
figure by his side.
“By Jove, I beg your pardon!” said the guardian
courteously. “I had begun to forget I was merely
gooseberry in a young romance. Ah, here comes the
lucky fellow ! I would it were I, my dear girl, who
is going to be kissing you within the next ten
seconds!” And as she suddenly left his side and
hurried down the path, he added with an air of great
sincerity, “I would do it devilish thoroughly; she's a
most uncommon pretty girl!”
Across the moonlit lawn, two black shadows
rushed together, and then became but one.
“Lucky, lucky devil!” sighed Mr. Essington, and
turning his back, strolled down the path with an
unusually sentimental air.
A heavy footstep crunched on the gravel behind
him, and a voice, less truculent than before, but very
stern and solemn, said:
“I wish to speak to you, Mr. Essington.”
For a moment Mr. Essington surveyed his late
victim in cool, embarrassing silence. Then with
perfect, but very distant courtesy, he replied:
“I shall be very happy to hear anything you have


IN THE GARDEN 265
§§
º:
to say for yourself, Mr. Tooting, and perhaps it
would save time if it were to take the form of an-
swering one or two questions in which I am
interested. How do you and your friend happen to
be here to-night?”
Nothing had been further from the mind of Mr.
Toothill than to submit quietly to an examination
himself, but the ascendancy established by Mr.
Essington's dominating air and cool politeness was
remarkable. For a moment he stared very hard and
seemed to hesitate. Then he answered:
“Well, if you want to know, Ridley got a wire
last night, telling him this man Mason's address, and
sayin’ he had a girl staying with him.”
“I did want to know,” said Mr. Essington, if
possible still more courteously than before, “that, in
fact, was why I asked. I am much obliged to you
for the information. By whom was this wire sent?”
“Our lawyer, Mr. Perry. He has been making
inquiries for us.”
“So you have been accompanying Mr. Ridley in
his quest?”
“Well,” admitted Charles, “I suppose I ought to
have said he was making inquiries for Philip.”
“So I suspected. And what put Mr. Perry on to
Mason’s track?”
“Oh, we had our suspicions of him. Or rather,”
Charles corrected himself candidly, “it was Philip


IN THE GARDEN 267
low, and two hearts seemed to grow more full of
happiness with every moment snatched from the
uncertain venture ahead.
“Where shall we go, Philip? What are we going
to do now?” she asked at last.
“I haven't thought beyond this moment!” he con-
fessed. “But Essington must be warned, and we
must go somewhere for the night. I don't want to
move. . . . .”
“But we must, Philip!” she sighed; and after
deciding to move for several minutes longer, they
moved at last.
“My dear fellow,” said Mr. Essington, as he
grasped the grateful lover's hand, “it is I who am
under a very deep obligation to you. But for you, I
might never have made the acquaintance of one of
the most charming girls it has ever been my luck to
meet. Why nobody should have told before how
pretty she was, I can't imagine! Did they actually
suppose a guardian was going to interest himself in
a ward who might have been forty round the waist
for all he knew? Was it seriously imagined that he
would take a plain child to the Zoological Gardens,
or chaperon an ugly débutante?”
Philip listened to these speculations of his fiancée's
guardian with the respect to which they were entitled,
and then he said:
“Pardon my interrupting you, Mr. Essington, but


|\
A PRINCELY ACT 271
guardian. “If Sir Joshua doesn't feel himself to be
the most fortunate fellow either in or out of the City,
I'll disown him! Aren't we a pair of lucky dogs,
Horsham, to have such a ward? And here's the
detested but enviable Ridley, who's going to take her
away from us!”
Sir Joshua had begun to recover his wits by this
time.
“I had hardly expected to see Mr. Ridley . . .”
he began stiffly.
Mr. Essington interrupted him with gay
good-humour.
“Now, now, Horsham!” said he. “We all know
your savage bark, and the dear, good heart that
wouldn't let you bite a butterfly if you tried 1 Philip
Ridley is a very old friend of mine, one of the best
fellows breathing, and literally made for Beatrix I
I’ve brought them to get your blessing. I have given
them mine. . . .”
“Yours!” snapped Sir Joshua. “At present you
are incapable of any voice in the matter! I warn
you . . .”
He was arrested by the look on Mr. Essington's
face.
“What!” cried that gentleman, without a blush.
“Haven't you heard that I have got my discharge?
My dear fellow, I apologise for giving you such a
shock. Yes, I'm now a sane, responsible guardian;


272 THE LUNATIC AT LARGE AGAIN
awaiting,” he added with a smile, “your con-
gratulations.”
Sir Joshua was staring at him very hard.
“You mean to tell me—seriously . . .”
Mr. Essington interrupted him, and there could be
no doubt his feelings were injured by the suggestion
of scepticism, though his air of forbearance was
truly admirable under the trying circumstances.
“Do you actually imagine that I would venture
into your house otherwise, and that these two hon-
ourable young people would come to bear me witness,
if the fact were not as I have just explicitly stated?”
For a moment the two honourable young people
began to look decidedly uncomfortable. They were
relieved, however, to find that Sir Joshua seemed to
take their evidence for granted. His momentary
doubt was evidently, in fact, entirely satisfied.
“I—er—I am sure I am very pleased to hear it,
Francis,” said he, speaking slowly, and with an eye
that revealed his perplexity at this development.
“But of course the consent of both guardians is
necessary, and I–well, my views, I am afraid, are
somewhat different from yours.”
Mr. Essington laughed genially.
“They were, Horsham, I know. But, my dear old
friend, we must face facts. If you searched all
England you couldn't find a more suitable husband
for our dear ward than Philip Ridley—a member of


A PRINCELY ACT 277
he counselled urgently, “and get married in the first
registrar's office you come to 1 Good-bye, and bless
you both ! No, don't wait to say thanks—off with
you as quick as you can l’’
“But why aren't you coming with us, Cousin
Francis?” asked Beatrix, with a note of disap-
pointment that flattered her susceptible guardian
exceedingly.
“My dear girl,” said he, “it is probably a mere
matter of hours before Mason turns up, and that
permission will be cancelled five minutes later—
probably by wire! I propose, if possible, to extend
your time limit.”
“But after what you've done, we can't let you be
caught !” said Philip warmly.
“Neither can I,” smiled Mr. Essington. “Good-
bye, and good luck!”
In the sensational crash of the firm of Horsham
& Stukley, which so startled the business world very
soon afterwards, the curious episode of Sir Joshua's
imprisonment in the tool shed was quickly forgotten,
but at the moment it mystified his staff exceedingly.
According to the best available accounts, their master
went out for a stroll in the park with Mr. Mandell-
Essington before luncheon; Mr. Essington shortly
afterwards returned to say that Sir Joshua had
suddenly discovered some reason (what it was, Mr.








------•••••••••••••■==№taeraeae,