The Lunatic at Large

J >> J. Storer Clouston >> The Lunatic at Large

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The Baron, half awake and wholly astonished, was unable to collect his
ideas in time to make any reply.

"But remember," continued Mr Bunker, "you have a reputation to live up to.
I have set the standard high for Bavarian barons."

The indignant Baron at last recovered his wits.

"If you do not go away _at vonce_," he said, raising himself on his
elbows, "I shall raise ze house upon you!"

"Have you forgotten that you are talking to a dangerous lunatic, who
probably never stirs without his razor?"

The Baron looked at him and turned a little pale. He made no further
movement, but answered stoutly enough, "Vat do you vant?"

"In the first place, I want my brush and comb, a few clothes, and my
hand-bag. Events happened rather more quickly this evening than I had
anticipated."

"Take zem."

"I should also like," continued Mr Bunker, unmoved, "to have a little talk
with you. I think I owe you some explanation--perhaps an apology or two--and
I'm afraid it's my last chance."

"Zay it zen."

"Of course I understand that you make no hostile demonstration till I am
finished? A hunted man must take precautions, you know."

"I vill let you go."

"Thanks, Baron."

Mr Bunker folded his arms, leaned his back against the foot of the bed,
and began in his half-bantering way, "I have amused you, Baron, now and
then, you must admit?"

The Baron made no reply.

"That I place to my credit, and I think few debts are better worth
repaying. On the other hand, I confess I have subsisted for some time
entirely on your kindness. I'm afraid that alone counterbalances the debt,
and when it comes to my being the means of your taking a bath in mixed
company and spending an evening in a locked room, there's no doubt the
balance is greatly on your side."

"I zink so," observed the Baron.

"So I'll tell you a true story, a favour with which I haven't indulged any
one for some considerable time."

The Baron coughed, but said nothing.

"My biography for all practical purposes," Mr Bunker continued, "begins in
that sequestered retreat, Clankwood Asylum. How and with whom I came there
I haven't the very faintest recollection. I simply woke up from an
extraordinary drowsiness to find myself recovering from a sharp attack of
what I may most euphoniously call mental excitement. The original cause of
it is very dim in my mind, and has, so far as I remember, nothing to do
with the rest of the story. The attack was very short, I believe. I soon
came to something more or less like myself; only, Baron, the singular
thing is, that it was to all intents and purposes a new self--whether
better or worse, my faulty memory does not permit me to say. I'd clean
forgotten who I was and all about me. I found myself called Francis
Beveridge, but that wasn't my old name, I know."

"Ha!" exclaimed the Baron, growing interested despite himself.

"And the most remarkable thing of all is that up till this day I haven't
the very vaguest notion what my real name is."

"Zo?" said the Baron. "Bot vy should they change it?"

"There you've laid your finger on the mystery, Baron. Why? Heaven knows: I
wish I did!"

The Baron looked at him with undisguised interest.

"Strange!" he said, thoughtfully.

"Damnably strange. I found myself compelled to live in an asylum and
answer to a new name, and really, don't you know, under the circumstances
I could give no very valid reason for getting out. I seemed to have
blossomed there like one of the asylum plants. I couldn't possibly have
been more identified with the place. Besides, I'm free to confess that for
some time my reason, taking it all in all, wasn't particularly valid on
any point. By George, I had a funny time! Ha, ha, ha!"

His mirth was so infectious that the Baron raised his voice in a hearty
"Ha, ha!" and then stopped abruptly, and said cautiously, "Haf a care,
Bonker, zey may hear!"

"However, Baron," Mr Bunker continued, "out I was determined to get, and
out I came in the manner of which perhaps my friend Escott has already
informed you."

The Baron grinned and nodded.

"I came up to town, and on my very first evening I had the good fortune to
meet the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg--as perhaps you may remember. In my
own defence, Baron, I may fairly plead that since I could remember nothing
about my past career, I was entitled to supply the details from my
imagination. After all, I have no proof that some of my stories may not
have been correct. I used this privilege freely in Clankwood, and, in a
word, since I couldn't tell the truth if I wanted to, I quenched the
desire."

"You hombog!" said the Baron, not without a note of admiration.

"I was, and I gloried in it. Baron, if you ever want to know how ample a
thing life can be, become a certified lunatic! You are quite irresponsible
for your debts, your crimes, and, not least, your words. It certainly
enlarges one's horizon. All this time, I may say, I was racking my
brains--which, by the way, have been steadily growing saner in other
matters--for some recollections of my previous whereabouts, my career, if I
had any, and, above all, of my name."

"Can you remember nozing?"

"I can remember a large country house which I think belonged to me, but in
what part of the country it stands I haven't the slightest recollection. I
can't remember any family, and as no one has inquired for me, I don't
suppose I had any. Many incidents--sporting, festive, amusing, and
discreditable--I remember distinctly, and many faces, but there's nothing
to piece them together with. Can you recall one or two incidents in town,
when people spoke to me or bowed to me?"

"Yes, vell; I vondered zen."

"I suppose they knew me. In a general sort of way I knew them. But when a
man doesn't know his own name, and will probably be replaced in an asylum
if he's identified, there isn't much encouragement for greeting old
friends. And do you remember my search for a name in the hotel at St
Egbert's?"

"Yah--zat is, yes."

"It was for my own I was looking."

"You found it not?"

"No. The worst of it is, I can't even remember what letter it began with.
Sometimes I think it was M, or perhaps N, and sometimes I'm almost sure it
was E. It will come to me some day, no doubt, Baron, but till it does I
shall have to wander about a nameless man, looking for it. And after all,
I am not without the consolations of a certain useful, workaday kind of
philosophy."

He rose from the bed and smiled humorously at his friend.

"And now, Baron," he said, "it only remains to offer you such thanks and
apologies as a lunatic may, and then clear out before the cock crows.
These are my brushes, I think."

There was still something on the Baron's mind: he lay for a moment
watching Mr Bunker collect a few odds and ends and put them rapidly into a
small bag, and then blurted out suddenly, "Ze Lady Alicia--do you loff
her?"

"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr Bunker, "I'd forgotten all about her. I ought to
have told you that I once met her before, when she showed
sympathy--practical sympathy, I may add--for an unfortunate gentleman in
Clankwood. That's all."

"You do not loff her?" persisted the Baron.

"I, my dear chap? No. You are most welcome to her--_and_ the countess."

"Does she not loff you?"

"On my honour, no. I told her a few early reminiscences; she happened to
discover they were not what is generally known as true, and took so absurd
a view of the case that I doubt whether she would speak to me again if she
met me. In fact, Baron, if I read the omens aright--and I've had some
experience--you only need courage and a voice."

The bed creaked, there was a volcanic upheaval of the clothes as the Baron
sprang out on to the floor, and the next instant Mr Bunker was clasped in
his embrace.

"Ach, my own Bonker, forgif me! I haf suspected, I haf not been ze true
friend; you have sairved me right to gom here as ze Baron. I vas too bad a
Baron to gom! You have amused me, you have instrogted, you have varmed my
heart. My dear frient!"

To tell the truth, Mr Bunker looked, for the first time in their
acquaintance, a little ill at ease. He laughed, but it sounded affected.

"My dear fellow--hang it! You'd make me out a martyr. As a matter of fact,
I've been such a thorn as very few people would stand in their flesh.
There's nothing to forgive, my dear Baron, and a lot to thank you for."

"I haf been rude, Bonker; I haf insulted you! You forgif me?"

"With all my heart, if you think it's needed, but----"

"And you vill not go now? You vill stay here?"

"What, two Barons at once? My dear chap, we'd merely confuse the butler."

"Ach, you vill joke, you hombog! But you most stay!"

"And what about my friend, Dr Escott? No, Baron, it would only mean
breakfast and the next train to Clankwood."

"Zey vill not take you ven you tell zem! I shall insist viz Sir Richard!"

"The law is the law, Baron, and I'm a certified lunatic. Here we must part
till the weather clears; and mind, you mustn't say a word about my coming
to see you."

The Baron looked at him disconsolately.

"You most really go, Bonker?"

"Really, Baron."

"And vere to?"

"To London town again by the milk train."

"And vat vill you do zere?"

"Look for my name."

"Bot how?"

Mr Bunker hesitated.

"I have a little clue," he said at last, "only a thread, but I'll try it
for what it's worth."

"Haf you money enoff?"

"Thanks to your generosity and my skill at billiards, yes, which reminds
me that I must return poor Trelawney's ten pounds some day. At present, I
can't afford to be scrupulous. So, you see, I'm provided for."

"Cigars at least, Bonker! You most smoke, my frient vizout a name!"

The Baron, night-shirted and barefooted as he was, dived into his
portmanteau and produced a large box of cigars.

"You like zese, Bonker. Zey are your own choice. Smoke zem and zink of
me!"

"A few, Baron, would be a pleasant reminiscence," said his friend, with a
smile, "if you really insist."

"All, Bonker,--I vill not keep vun! I can get more. No, you most take zem
all!"

Mr Bunker opened his bag and put in the box without a word.

"You most write," said the Baron, "tell me vere you are. I shall not tell
any soul, bot ven I can, I shall gom up, and ve shall sup togezzer vunce
more. Pairhaps ve may haf anozzer adventure, ha, ha!"

The Baron's laugh was almost too hearty to be true.

"I shall let you know, as soon as I find a room. It won't be in the
Mayonaise this time! Good-bye: good sport and luck in love!"

"Good-bye, my frient, good-bye," said the Baron, squeezing his hand.

His friend was half out of the door when he turned, and said with an
intonation quite foreign either to Beveridge or Bunker, and yet which came
very pleasantly, "I forgot to warn you of one thing when I advised you to
try the _role_ of certified lunatic--you are not likely to make so good a
friend as I have."

He shut the door noiselessly and was gone.

The Baron stood in the middle of the floor for fully five minutes, looking
blankly at the closed door; then with a sigh he turned out the light and
tumbled into bed again.

PART IV.

CHAPTER I.

The Dover express was nearing town: evening had begun to draw in, and from
the wayside houses people saw the train roar by like a huge glowworm; but
they could hardly guess that it was hurrying two real actors to the climax
of a real comedy.

From the opposite sides of a first-class carriage these two looked
cheerfully at one another. The Channel was safely behind them, London was
close ahead, and the piston of the engine seemed to thump a triumphal air.

"We've done it, Twiddel, my boy!" said the one.

"Thank Heaven!" replied the other.

"_And_ myself," added his friend.

"Yes," said Twiddel; "you played your part uncommonly well, Welsh."

"It was the deuce of a fine spree!" sighed Welsh.

"The deuce," assented Twiddel.

"I'm only sorry it's all over," Welsh went on, gazing regretfully up at
the lamp of the carriage. "I'd give the remains of my character and my
chance of a public funeral to be starting again from Paris by the morning
train!"

Twiddel laughed.

"With the same head you had that morning?"

"Yes, by George! Even with the same mile of dusty gullet!"

"It's all over now," said Twiddel, philosophically, and yet rather
nervously--"at least the amusing part of it."

"All the fun, my boy, all the fun. All the dinners and the drinks, and the
touching of hats to the aristocratic travellers, and the girls that
sighed, and the bowing and scraping. Do you remember the sporting baronet
who knew my uncle? Now, I'm plain Robert Welsh, whose uncles, as far as I
am aware, don't know a baronet among 'em."

He smiled a little sardonically.

"And the baron at Fogelschloss," said Twiddel.

"Who insisted on learning my pedigree back to Alfred the Great! Gad, I
gave it him, though, and I doubt whether the real Essington could have
done as much. I'd rather surprise some of these noblemen if I turned up
again in my true character!"

"Thank the Lord, we're not likely to meet them again!" exclaimed the
doctor, devoutly.

"No," said Welsh; "here endeth the second lesson."

His friend, who had been well brought up, looked a trifle uncomfortable at
this quotation.

"I say," he remarked a few minutes later, "we haven't finished yet. We've
got to get the man out again, and hand him back to his friends."

"Cured," said Welsh, with a laugh.

"I wonder how he is?"

"We'll soon see."

They fell silent again, while the train hurried nearer and nearer London
town. Welsh seemed to be musing on some nice point, it might be of
conscience, it might also conceivably be of a more practical texture. At
last he said, "There's just one thing, old man. What about the fee?"

"I'll get a cheque for it, I suppose," his friend replied, with an almost
excessive air of mastery over the problem.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Welsh; "you know what I mean. It's a delicate question
and all that, but, hang it, it's got to be answered."

"What has?"

"The division of the spoil."

Twiddel looked dignified.

"I'll see you get your share, old man," he answered, easily.

"But what share?"

"You suggested L100, I think."

"Out of L500--when I've done all the deceiving and told all the lies! Come,
old man!"

"Well, what do you want?"

"Do you remember a certain crisis when we'd made a slip----"

"You'd made a slip!"

"_We_ had made a slip, and you wanted to chuck the game and bolt? Do you
remember also the terms I proposed when I offered to beard the local god
almighty in his lair and explain it all away, and how he became our bosom
pal and we were saved?"

"Well?"

"L300 to me, L200 to you," said Welsh, decisively.

"Rot, old man. I'll share fairly, if you insist. L250 apiece, will that
do?"

Welsh said nothing, but his face was no longer the countenance of the
jovial adventurer.

"It will have to, I suppose," he replied, at length.

It was with this little cloud on the horizon that they saw the lights of
London twinkle through the windows, and were carried into the clamour of
the platforms.

They both drove first to Twiddel's rooms; and as they looked out once more
on the life and lights and traffic of the streets, their faces cleared
again.

"We'll have a merry evening!" cried Welsh.

"A little supper," suggested Twiddel; "a music-hall----"

"Et cetera," added Welsh, with a laugh.

The doctor had written of their coming, and they found a fire in the back
room, and the table laid.

"Ah," cried Welsh, "this looks devilish comfortable."

"A letter for me," said Twiddel; "from Billson, I think."

He read it and threw it to his friend, remarking, "I call this rather cool
of him."

Welsh read--

"DEAR GEORGE,--I am just off for three weeks' holiday. Sorry for leaving
your practice, but I think it can look after itself till you return.

"You have only had two patients, and one fee between them. The second man
vanished mysteriously. I shall tell you about it when I come back. He
boned a bill, too, I fancy, but the story will keep.

"I am looking forward to hearing the true tale of your adventures. Good
luck to you.--Yours ever,

THOMAS BILLSON."

"Boned a bill?" exclaimed Welsh. "What bill, I wonder?"

"Something that came when I was away, I suppose. Hang it, I think Billson
might have looked after things better!"

"It sounds queer," said Welsh, reflectively; "I wonder what it was?"

"Confound Billson, he might have told me," observed the doctor. "But, I
say, you know we have something more practical to see to."

"Getting the man out again?"

"Yes."

"Well, let's have a little grub first."

Twiddel rang the bell, and the frowsy little maid entered, carrying a
letter on a tray.

"Dinner," said he.

"Please, sir," began the maid, holding out the tray, "this come for you
near a month agow, but Missis she bin and forgot to send it hafter you."

"Confound her!" said Twiddel, taking the letter.

He looked at the envelope, and remarked with a little start of nervous
excitement, "From Dr Congleton."

"News of Mr Beveridge," laughed Welsh.

The doctor read the first few lines, and then, as if he had got an
electric shock, the letter fell from his hand, and an expression of the
most utter and lively consternation came over his face.

"Heavens!" he ejaculated, "it's all up."

"What's up?" cried Welsh, snatching at the letter.

"He's run away!"

Welsh looked at him for a moment in some astonishment, and then burst out
laughing.

"What a joke!" he cried; "I don't see anything to make a fuss about. We're
jolly well rid of him."

"The fee! I won't get a penny till I bring him back. And the whole thing
will be found out!"

As the full meaning of this predicament burst upon Welsh, his face
underwent a change by no means pleasant to watch. For a full minute he
swore, and then an ominous silence fell upon the room.

Twiddel was the first to recover himself.

"Let me see the letter," he said; "I haven't finished it."

Welsh read it aloud--

"DEAR TWIDDEL,--I regret to inform you that the patient, Francis Beveridge,
whom you placed under my care, has escaped from Clankwood. We have made
every inquiry consistent with strict privacy, but unfortunately have not
yet been able to lay our hands upon him. We only know that he left
Ashditch Junction in the London express, and was seen walking out of St
Euston's Cross. How he has been able to maintain himself in concealment
without money or clothes, I am unable to imagine.

"As no inquiries have been made for him by his cousin Mr Welsh, or any
other of his friends or relatives, I am writing to you that you may inform
them, and I hope that this letter may follow you abroad without delay. I
may add that the circumstances of his escape showed most unusual cunning,
and could not possibly have been guarded against.

"Trusting that you are having a pleasant holiday, I am, yours very truly,

ADOLPHUS S. CONGLETON."

The two looked at one another in silence for a minute, and then Welsh
said, fiercely, "You must catch him again, Twiddel. Do you think I am
going to have all my risk and trouble for nothing?"

"_I_ must catch him! Do you suppose _I_ let him loose?"

"You must catch him, all the same."

"I shan't bother my head about him," answered Twiddel, with the
recklessness of despair.

"You won't? You want to have the story known, I suppose?"

"I don't care if it is."

Welsh looked at him for a minute: then he jumped up and exclaimed, "You
need a drink, old man. Let's hurry up that slavey."

With the first course their countenances cleared a little, with the second
they were almost composed, by the end of dinner they had started
plot-hatching hopefully again.

"It's any odds on the man's still being in town," said Welsh. "He had no
money or clothes, and evidently he hasn't gone to any of his friends, or
the whole story would have been out. Now, there is nowhere where a man can
lie low so well, especially if he is hard up, as London. I can answer from
experience. He is hardly likely to be in the West End, or the best class
of suburbs, so we've something to go upon at once. We must go to a private
inquiry office and put men on his track, and then we must take the town in
beats ourselves. So much is clear; do you see?"

"And hadn't we better find out whether anything more is known at
Clankwood?" suggested Twiddel. "Dr Congleton wrote a month ago; perhaps
they have caught him by this time."

"Hardly likely, I'm afraid; he'd have written to you if they had. Still,
we can but ask."

"But, I say!" the doctor suddenly exclaimed, "people may find out that I'm
back without him."

Welsh was equal to the emergency.

"You must leave again at once," he said decisively, rising from the table;
"and there's no good wasting time, either."

"What do you mean?" asked the bewildered doctor, who had not yet
assimilated the criminal point of view.

"We'll put our luggage straight on to a cab, drive off to other rooms--I
know a cheap place that will do--and if by any chance inquiries are made,
people must be told that you are still abroad. Nobody must hear of your
coming home to-night."

"Is it----" began Twiddel, dubiously.

"Is it what?" snapped his friend.

"Is it worth it?"

"Is L500, not to speak of two reputations, worth it! Come on!"

The unfortunate doctor sighed, and rose too. He was beginning to think
that the nefarious acquisition of fees might have drawbacks after all.

CHAPTER II.

The chronicle must now go back a few days and follow another up-express.

"I must either be a clergyman or a policeman," Mr Bunker reflected, in the
corner of his carriage; "they seem to me to be on the whole the two least
molested professions. Each certainly has a livery which, if its occupier
is ordinarily judicious, ought to serve as a certificate of sanity. To me
all policemen are precisely alike, but I daresay they know them apart in
the force, and as all the beats and crossings are presumably taken
already, I might excite suspicion by my mere superfluity. Besides, a
theatrical costumier's uniform would possibly lack some ridiculous but
essential detail."

He lit another cigar and looked humorously out of the window.

"I shall take orders. An amateur theatrical clergyman's costume will be
more comfortable, and probably less erroneous. They allow them some
latitude, I believe; and I don't suppose there are any visible ordination
scars whose absence would give me away. I shall certainly study the first
reverend brother I meet to see."

Thus wisely ruminating, he arrived in London at a very early hour on a
chilly morning, and drove straight to a small hotel near King's Cross,
where the landlord was much gratified at receiving so respectable a guest
as the Rev. Alexander Butler. ("I must begin with a B." said Mr Bunker to
himself; "I think it's lucky.")

It is true the reverend gentleman was in evening clothes, while his hat
and coat had a singularly secular, not to say fashionable, appearance;
but, as he mentioned casually in the course of some extremely affable
remarks, he had been dining in a country house, and had not thought it
worth while changing before he left. After breakfasting he dressed himself
in an equally secular suit of tweeds and went out, he mentioned
incidentally, to call at his tailor's for his professional habit, which he
seemed surprised to learn had not yet been forwarded to the hotel.

A visit to a certain well-known firm of theatrical costumiers was followed
by his reappearance in a cab accompanied by a bulky brown paper parcel;
and presently he emerged from his room attired more consistently with his
office, much to his own satisfaction, for, as he observed, "I cannot say I
approve of clergymen masquerading as laymen."

His opinion on the converse circumstance was not expressed.

Much to his landlord's disappointment, he informed him that he should
probably leave again that afternoon, and then he went out for a walk.

About half an hour later he was once more in the street where, not so very
long ago, a very exciting cab-race had finished. He strolled slowly past
Dr Twiddel's house. The blinds of the front room were down; at that hour
there was no sign of life about it, and he saw nothing at all to arrest
his attention. Then he looked down the other side of the street, and to
his great satisfaction spied a card, with the legend "Apartments to let,"
in one of the first-floor windows of a house immediately opposite.

He rang the bell, and in a moment a rotund and loquacious landlady
appeared. Yes, the drawing-room was to let; would the reverend gentleman
come up and see it? Mr Bunker went up, and approved. They readily agreed
upon terms, and the landlady, charmed with her new lodger's appearance and
manners, no less than with the respectability of his profession, proceeded
to descant at some length on the quiet, comfort, and numerous other
advantages of the apartments.

"Just the very plice you wants, sir. We 'ave 'ad clerical gentlemen 'ere
before, sir; in fact, there's one a-staying 'ere now, second floor,--you
may know of 'im, sir,--the Reverend Mr John Duggs; a very pleasant
gentleman you'll find him, sir. I'll tell 'im you're 'ere, sir; 'e'd be
sure to like to meet another gentleman of the syme cloth, has they say."

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