The Lunatic at Large
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J. Storer Clouston >> The Lunatic at Large
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The Cafe Maccarroni in Holborn is nominally of foreign
extraction,--certainly the waiters and the stout proprietor come from
sunnier lands,--and many of the diners you can hear talking in strange
tongues, with quick gesticulations. But for the most part they are
respectable citizens of London, who drink Chianti because it stimulates
cheaply and not unpleasantly. The white-painted room is bright and clean
and seldom very crowded, the British palate can be tickled with tolerable
joints and cutlets, and the foreign with gravy-covered odds and ends.
Altogether, it may be recommended to such as desire to dine comfortably
and not too conspicuously.
The hour at which the two friends entered was later than most of the
_habitues_ dine, and they had the room almost to themselves. They faced
each other across a small table beside the wall, and very soon the
discomforts of their researches began to seem more tolerable.
"We'll catch him soon, old man," said Welsh, smiling more affably than he
had smiled since they came back. "A day or two more of this kind of work
and even London won't be able to conceal him any longer."
"Dash it, we must," replied Twiddel, bravely. "We'll show old Congleton
how to look for a lunatic."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Welsh, "I think he'll be rather relieved himself.
Waiter! another bottle of the same."
The bottle arrived, and the waiter was just filling their glasses when a
young clergyman entered the room and walked quietly towards the farther
end. Welsh raised his glass and exclaimed, "Here's luck to ourselves,
Twiddel, old man!"
At that moment the clergyman was passing their table, and at the mention
of this toast he started almost imperceptibly, and then, throwing a quick
glance at the two, stopped and took a seat at the next table, with his
back turned towards them. Welsh, who was at the farther side, looked at
him with some annoyance, and made a sign to Twiddel to talk a little more
quietly.
To the waiter, who came with the _menu_, the clergyman explained in a
quiet voice that he was waiting for a friend, and asked for an evening
paper instead, in which he soon appeared to be deeply engrossed.
At first the conversation went on in a lower tone, but in a few minutes
they insensibly forgot their neighbour, and the voices rose again by
starts.
"My dear fellow," Welsh was saying, "we can discuss that afterwards; we
haven't caught him yet."
"I want to settle it now."
"But I thought it was settled."
"No, it wasn't," said Twiddel, with a foreign and vinous doggedness.
"What do you suggest then?"
"Divide it equally--L250 each."
"You think you can claim half the credit for the idea and half the
trouble?"
"I can claim _all_ the risk--practically."
"Pooh!" said Welsh. "You think I risked nothing? Come, come, let's talk of
something else."
"Oh, rot!" interrupted Twiddel, who by this time was decidedly flushed.
"You needn't ride the high horse like that, you are not Mr
Mandell-Essington any longer."
With a violent start, the clergyman brought his fist crash on the table,
and exclaimed aloud, "By Heaven, that's it!"
CHAPTER V.
As one may suppose, everybody in the room started in great astonishment at
this extraordinary outburst. With a sharp "Hollo!" Twiddel turned in his
seat, to see the clergyman standing over him with a look of the keenest
inquiry in his well-favoured face.
"May I ask, Dr Twiddel, what you know of the gentleman you just named?" he
said, with perfect politeness.
The conscience-smitten doctor gazed at him blankly, and the colour
suddenly left his face. But Welsh's nerves were stronger; and, as he
looked hard at the stranger, a jubilant light leaped to his eyes.
"It's our man!" he cried, before his friend could gather his wits. "It's
Beveridge, or Bunker, or whatever he calls himself! Waiter!"
Instantly three waiters, all agog, hurried at his summons.
Mr Bunker regarded him with considerable surprise. He had quite expected
that the pair would be thrown into confusion, but not that it would take
this form.
"Excuse me, sir," he began, but Welsh interrupted him by crying to the
leading waiter--
"Fetch a four-wheeled cab and a policeman, quick!" As the man hesitated,
he added, "This man here is an escaped lunatic."
The waiter was starting for the door, when Mr Bunker stepped out quickly
and interrupted him.
"Stop one minute, waiter," he said, with a quiet, unruffled air that went
far to establish his sanity. "Do I look like a lunatic? Kindly call the
proprietor first."
The stout proprietor was already on his way to their table, and the one or
two other diners were beginning to gather round. Mr Bunker's manner had
impressed even Welsh, and after his nature he took refuge in bluster.
"I say, my man," he cried, "this won't pass. Somebody fetch a cab."
"Vat is dees about?" asked the proprietor, coming up.
"Your wine, I'm afraid, has been rather too powerful for this gentleman,"
Mr Bunker explained, with a smile.
"Look here," blustered Welsh, "do you know you've got a lunatic in the
room?"
"You can perhaps guess it," smiled Mr Bunker, indicating Welsh with his
eyes.
The waiters began to twitter, and Welsh, with an effort, pulled himself
together.
"My friend here," he said, "is Dr Twiddel, a well-known practitioner in
London. He can tell you that he certified this man as a lunatic, and that
he afterwards escaped from his asylum. That is so, Twiddel?"
"Yes," assented Twiddel, whose colour was beginning to come back a little.
"Who are you, sare?" asked the proprietor.
"Show him your card, Twiddel," said Welsh, producing his own and handing
it over.
The proprietor looked at both cards, and then turned to Mr Bunker.
"And who are you, sare?"
"My name is Mandell-Essington."
"His name----" began Welsh.
"Have you a card?" interposed the proprietor.
"I am sorry I have not," replied Mr Bunker (to still call him by the name
of his choice).
"His name is Francis Beveridge," said Welsh.
"I beg your pardon; it is Mandell-Essington."
"Any other description?" Welsh asked, with a sneer.
"A gentleman, I believe."
"No other occupation?"
"Not unless you can call a justice of the peace such," replied Mr Bunker,
with a smile.
"And yet he disguises himself as a clergyman!" exclaimed Welsh,
triumphantly, turning to the proprietor.
Mr Bunker saw that he was caught, but he merely laughed, and observed, "My
friend here disguises himself in liquor, a much less respectable cloak."
Unfortunately the humour of this remark was somewhat thrown away on his
present audience; indeed, coming from a professed clergyman, it produced
an unfavourable impression.
"You are not a clergyman?" said the proprietor, suspiciously.
"I am glad to say I am not," replied Mr Bunker, frankly.
"Den vat do you do in dis dress?"
"I put it on as a compliment to the cloth; I retain it at present for
decency," said Mr Bunker, whose tongue had now got a fair start of him.
"Mad," remarked Welsh, confidentially, shrugging his shoulders with really
excellent dramatic effect.
By this time the audience were disposed to agree with him.
"You can give no better account of yourself dan dis?" asked the
proprietor.
"I am anxious to," replied Mr Bunker, "but a public restaurant is not the
place in which I choose to give it."
"Fetch the cab and the policeman," said Welsh to a waiter.
At this moment another gentleman entered the room, and at the sight of him
Mr Bunker's face brightened, and he stopped the waiter by a cry of, "Wait
one moment; here comes a gentleman who knows me."
Everybody turned, and beheld a burly, very fashionably dressed young man,
with a fair moustache and a cheerful countenance.
"Ach, Bonker!" he cried.
This confirmation of Mr Bunker's _aliases_ ought, one would expect, to
have delighted the two conspirators, but, instead, it produced the most
remarkable effect. Twiddel utterly collapsed, while even Welsh's impudence
at last deserted him. Neither said a word as the Baron von Blitzenberg
greeted his friend with affectionate heartiness.
"My friend, zis is good for ze heart! Bot, how? vat makes it here?"
"My dear Baron, the most unfortunate mistake has occurred. Two men here----"
But at this moment he stopped in great surprise, for the Baron was staring
hard first at Welsh and then at Twiddel.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "Mr Mandell-Essington, I zink?"
Welsh hesitated for an instant, and his hesitation was evident to all.
Then he replied, "No, you are mistaken."
"Surely I cannot be; you did stay in Fogelschloss?" said the Baron. "Is
not zis Dr Twiddel?"
"No--er--ah--yes," stammered Twiddel, looking feebly at Welsh.
The Baron looked from the one to the other in great perplexity, when Mr
Bunker, who had been much puzzled by this conversation, broke in, "Did you
call that person Mandell-Essington?"
"I cairtainly zought it vas."
"Where did you meet him?"
"In Bavaria, at my own castle."
"You are mistaken, sir," said Welsh.
"One moment, Mr Welsh," said Mr Bunker. "How long ago was this, Baron?"
"Jost before I gom to London. He travelled viz zis ozzer gentleman, Dr
Twiddel."
"You are wrong, sir," persisted Welsh.
"For his health," added the Baron.
A light began to dawn on Mr Bunker.
"His health?" he cried, and then smiled politely at Welsh.
"We will talk this over, Mr Welsh."
"I am sorry I happen to be going," said Welsh, taking his hat and coat.
"What, without your lunatic?" asked Mr Bunker.
"That is Dr Twiddel's affair, not mine. Kindly let me pass, sir."
"No, Mr Welsh; if you go now, it will be in the company of that policeman
you were so anxious to send for." There was such an unmistakable threat in
Mr Bunker's voice and eye that Welsh hesitated. "We will talk it over, Mr
Welsh," Mr Bunker repeated distinctly. "Kindly sit down. I have several
things to ask you and your friend Dr Twiddel."
Muttering something under his breath, Welsh hung up his coat and hat, sat
down, and then assuming an air of great impudence, remarked, "Fire away,
Mr Mandell-Essington--Beveridge--Bunker, or whatever you call yourself."
Without paying the slightest attention to this piece of humour, Mr Bunker
turned to the bewildered proprietor, and, to the intense disappointment of
the audience, said, "You can leave us now, thank you; our talk is likely
to be of a somewhat private nature." As their gallery withdrew, he drew up
a chair for the Baron, and all four sat round the small table.
"Now," said Mr Bunker to Welsh, "you will perhaps be kind enough to give
me a precise account of your doings since the middle of November."
"I'm d----d if I do," replied Welsh.
"Sare," interposed the Baron in his stateliest manner, "I know not now who
you may be, but I see you are no gentleman. Ven you are viz gentlemen--and
noblemen--you vill please to speak respectfully."
The stare that Welsh attempted in reply was somewhat ineffective.
"Perhaps, Dr Twiddel, you can give the account I want?" said Mr Bunker.
The poor doctor looked at his friend, hesitated, and finally stammered
out, "I--I don't see why."
Mr Bunker pulled a paper out of his pocket and showed it to him.
"Perhaps this may suggest a why."
When the doctor saw the bill for Mr Beveridge's linen, the last of his
courage ebbed away. He glanced helplessly at Welsh, but his ally was now
leaning back in his chair with such an irritating assumption of
indifference, and the prospective fee had so obviously vanished, that he
was suddenly seized with the most virtuous resolutions.
"What do you want to know, sir?" he asked.
"In the first place, how did you come to have anything to do with me?"
Welsh, whose sharp wits instantly divined the weak point in the attack,
cut in quickly, "Don't tell him if he doesn't know already!"
But Twiddel's relapse to virtue was complete. "I was asked to take charge
of you while----" He hesitated.
"While I was unwell," smiled Mr Bunker. "Yes?"
"I was to travel with you."
"Ah!"
"But I--I didn't like the idea, you see; and so--in fact--Welsh suggested
that I should take him instead."
"While you locked me up in Clankwood?"
"Yes."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr Bunker, "I must say it was a devilish humorous
idea."
At this Twiddel began to take heart again.
"I am very sorry, sir, for----" he began, when the Baron interrupted
excitedly.
"Zen vat is your name, Bonker?"
"_I_ am Mr Mandell-Essington, Baron."
The Baron looked at the other two in turn with wide-open eyes.
Then he turned indignantly upon Welsh.
"You were impostor zen, sare? You gom to my house and call yourself a
gentleman, and impose upon me, and tell of your family and your estates.
You, a low--er--er--vat you say?--a low _cad!_ Bonker, I cannot sit at ze same
table viz zese persons!"
He rose as he spoke.
"One moment, Baron! Before we send these gentlemen back to their really
promising career of fraud, I want to ask one or two more questions." He
turned to Twiddel. "What were you to be paid for this?"
"L500."
Mr Bunker opened his eyes. "That's the way my money goes? From your
anxiety to recapture me, I presume you have not yet been paid?"
"No, I assure you, Mr Essington," said Twiddel, eagerly; "I give you my
word."
"I shall judge by the circumstances rather than your word, sir. It is
perhaps unnecessary to inform you that you have had your trouble for
nothing." He looked at them both as though they were curious animals, and
then continued: "You, Mr Welsh, are a really wonderfully typical rascal. I
am glad to have met you. You can now put on your coat and go." As Welsh
still sat defiantly, he added, "_At once_, sir! or you may possibly find
policemen and four-wheeled cabs outside. I have something else to say to
Dr Twiddel."
With the best air he could muster, Welsh silently cocked his hat on the
side of his head, threw his coat over his arm, and was walking out, when a
watchful waiter intercepted him.
"Your bill, sare."
"My friend is paying."
"No, Mr Welsh," cried the real Essington; "I think you had better pay for
this dinner yourself."
Welsh saw the vigilant proprietor already coming towards him, and with a
look that augured ill for Twiddel when they were alone, he put his hand in
his pocket.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Essington, "the inevitable bill!"
"And now," he continued, turning to Twiddel, "you, doctor, seem to me a
most unfortunately constructed biped; your nose is just long enough to
enable you to be led into a singularly original adventure, and your brains
just too few to carry it through creditably. Hang me if I wouldn't have
made a better job of the business! But before you disappear from the
company of gentlemen I must ask you to do one favour for me. First thing
to-morrow morning you will go down to Clankwood, tell what lie you please,
and obtain my legal discharge, or whatever it's called. After that you may
go to the devil--or, what comes much to the same thing, to Mr Welsh--for all
I care. You will do this without fail?"
"Ye--es," stammered Twiddel, "certainly, sir."
"You may now retire--and the faster the better."
As the crestfallen doctor followed his ally out of the restaurant, the
Baron exclaimed in disgust, "Ze cads! You are too merciful. You should
punish."
"My dear Baron, after all I am obliged to these rascals for the most
amusing time I have ever had in my life, and one of the best friends I've
ever made."
"Ach, Bonker! Bot vat do I say? You are not Bonker no more, and yet may I
call you so, jost for ze sake of pleasant times? It vill be too hard to
change."
"I'd rather you would, Baron. It will be a perpetual in memoriam record of
my departed virtues."
"Departed, Bonker?"
"Departed, Baron," his friend repeated with a sigh; "for how can I ever
hope to have so spacious a field for them again? Believe me, they will
wither in an atmosphere of orthodoxy. And now let us order dinner."
"But first," said the Baron, blushing, "I haf a piece of news."
"Baron, I guess it!"
"Ze Lady Alicia is now mine! Congratulate!"
"With all my heart, Baron! What could be a fitter finish than the
detection of villainy, the marriage of all the sane people, and the
apotheosis of the lunatic?"
THE END.
ERRATA.
PART I.
CHAPTER IV.
Changed: he whistled, *The* sounds outside
To: he whistled, *the* sounds outside
PART I.
CHAPTER VI.
Changed: Ye*-*es.
To: Ye*--*es.
PART I.
CHAPTER VII.
Changed: which that *disapponted* official only
To: which that *disappointed* official only
PART III.
CHAPTER V.
Changed: something out*.*" he said
To: something out*,*" he said
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
Changed: to me, *$*200 to you
To: to me, *L*200 to you
PART IV.
CHAPTER I.
Changed: _I_ let him loose?*'*
To: _I_ let him loose?*"*
PART IV.
CHAPTER II.
Changed: * *Indeed? Why not?"
To: *"*Indeed? Why not?"
PART IV.
CHAPTER III.
Changed: on his *wideawake* hat and
To: on his *wide-awake* hat and
PART IV.
CHAPTER III.
Changed: "What *nime*, sir?"
To: "What *name*, sir?"
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