The Lunatic at Large

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

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"Yah--zat is, yes."

Mr Bunker smiled.

"Then I must entertain myself."

As they drove down he was in his wittiest humour, and the Baron, in spite
of his desire for instruction, was more charmed with his friend than ever.

"Vat fonny zing vill you do next, eh?" he asked, as they walked arm-in-arm
into the station.

"I am no more the humourist, my dear Baron,--I shall endeavour to edify
you."

They had arrived at a busy hour, when the platforms were crowded with
passengers and luggage. A train had just come in, and around it the bustle
was at its height, and the confusion most bewildering.

"Wait for me here," said Mr Bunker; "I shall be back in a minute."

He started in the direction of the cloak-room, and then, doubling back
through the crowd, walked down the platform and stopped opposite a
luggage-van. An old gentleman, beside himself with irritation, was
struggling with the aid of a porter to collect his luggage, and presently
he left the pile he had got together and made a rush in the direction of a
large portmanteau that was just being tumbled out. Instantly Mr Bunker
picked up a handbag from the heap and walked quickly off with it.

"Here you are, Baron," he said, as he came up to his friend. "I find there
is something else I must do, so do you mind holding this bag for a few
minutes? If you will walk up and down in front of the refreshment-rooms
here, I'll find you more easily. Is it troubling you too much?"

"Not vun bit, Bonker. I am in your sairvice."

He put the bag into the Baron's hand with his pleasantest smile, and
turned away. Rounding a corner, he came cautiously back again through the
crowd and stepped up to a policeman.

"Keep your eye on that man, officer," he said, in a low confidential
voice, and an air of quiet authority, "and put your plain clothes' men on
his track. I know him for one of the most dangerous anarchists."

The man started and stared hard at the Baron, and presently that
unconscious nobleman, pacing the platform in growing wonder at Mr Bunker's
lengthy absence, and looking anxiously round him on all sides, noticed
with surprise that a number of quietly dressed men, with no apparent
business in the station, were eyeing him with, it seemed to him, an
interest that approached suspicion. In time he grew annoyed, he returned
their glances with his haughtiest and most indignant look, and finally,
stepping up to one of them, asked in no friendly voice, "Vat for do you
vatch me?"

The man returned an evasive answer, and passing one of his
fellow-officers, whispered, "Foreign; I was sure of it."

At last the Baron could stand it no longer, and laying the bag down by the
door of the refreshment-room, turned hastily away. On the instant Mr
Bunker, who had watched these proceedings from a safe distance, cried in a
loud and agonised voice, "Down with your men, sergeant! Down, lie down! It
will explode in twenty seconds!"

And as he spoke he threw himself flat on his face. So infectious were his
commanding voice and his note of alarm that one after another, detectives,
passengers, and porters, cast themselves at full length on the platform.
The Baron, filled with terror of anarchist plots, was one of the first to
prostrate himself, and at that there could be no further doubt of the
imminence of the peril.

The cabs rattled and voices sounded from outside; an engine whistled and
shunted at a far platform, but never before at that hour of the day had
Liverpool Street Station been so silent. All held their breath and heard
their hearts thump as they gazed in horrible fascination at that fatal
bag, or with closed eyes stumbled through a hasty prayer. Fully a minute
passed, and the suspense was growing intolerable, when with a loud oath an
old gentleman rose to his feet and walked briskly up to the bag.

"Have a care, sir! For Heaven's sake have a care!" cried Mr Bunker; but
the old gentleman merely bent over the terrible object, and, picking it
up, exclaimed in bewildered wrath, "It's my bag! Who the devil brought it
here, and what's the meaning of this d--d nonsense?"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr Bunker; while like sheepish mushrooms the
people sprang up on all sides.

"My dear sir," said Mr Bunker, coming up to the old gentleman, and raising
his hat with his most affable air, "permit me to congratulate you on
recovering your lost property, and allow me further to introduce my friend
the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg."

"Baron von damned-humbug!" cried the old gentleman. "Did you take my bag,
sir? and if so, are you a thief or a lunatic?"

For an instant even Mr Bunker himself seemed a trifle taken aback; then he
replied politely, "I am not a thief, sir."

"Then what _'ave_ you been doing?" demanded the sergeant.

"Merely demonstrating to my friend the Baron the extraordinary vigilance
of the English police."

For a time neither the old gentleman nor the sergeant seemed quite capable
of taking the same view of the episode as Mr Bunker, and, curiously
enough, the Baron seemed not disinclined to let his friend extricate
himself as best he could. No one, however, could resist Mr Bunker, and
before very long he and the Baron were driving up Bishopsgate Street
together, with the old gentleman's four-wheeler lumbering in front of
them.

"Well, Baron, are you satisfied with your morning's instruction?" asked
his friend.

"A German nobleman is not used to be in soch a position," replied the
Baron, stiffly.

"You must admit, however, that the object-lesson in the detection of
anarchy was neatly presented."

"I admit nozing of ze kind," said the Baron, stolidly.

For the rest of the drive he sat obdurately silent. He went to his room
with the mien of an offended man. During lunch he only opened his lips to
eat.

On his side Mr Bunker maintained a cheerful composure, and seemed not a
whit put about by his friend's lack of appreciation.

"Anozzer bottle of claret," said the Baron, gruffly, to a waiter.

Mr Bunker let him consume it entirely by himself, awaiting the results
with patience. Gradually his face relaxed a little, until all at once,
when the bump in the bottom of the bottle was beginning to appear above
the wine, the whole room was startled by a stentorian, "Ha, ha, ha!"

"My dear Bonker!" cried the Baron, when he had finished laughing, "forgif
me! I begin for to see ze moral, ha, ha, ha!"

CHAPTER VI.

The Baron expressed no further wish for instruction, but, instead, he
began to show a desire for society.

"Doesn't one fool suffice?" his friend asked.

"Ach, yes, my vise fool; ha, ha, ha! Bot sometimes I haf ze craving for
peoples, museec, dancing--in vun vord, society, Bonker!"

"But this is not the season, Baron. You wouldn't mix with any but the best
society, would you?"

"Zere are some nobles in town. In my paper I see Lord zis, Duke of zat, in
London. Pairhaps my introdogtions might be here now."

This suggestion seemed to strike Mr Bunker unfavourably.

"My company is beginning to pall, is it, Baron?"

"Ach, no, dear Bonker! I vould merely go out jost vunce or tvice. Haf you
no friends now in town?"

An idea seemed to seize Mr Bunker.

"Let me see the paper," he said.

After perusing it carefully for a little, he at last exclaimed in a tone
of pleased discovery, "Hullo! I see that Lady Tulliwuddle is giving a
reception and dance to-night. Most of the smart people in town just now
are sure to be there. Would you care to go, Baron?"

"Ach, surely," said the Baron, eagerly. "Bot haf you been invited,
Bonker?"

"Oh, I used to have a standing invitation to Lady Tulliwuddle's dances,
and I'm certain she would be glad to see me again."

"Can you take me?"

"Of course, my dear Baron, she will be honoured."

"Goot!" cried the Baron. "Ve shall go."

Mr Bunker explained that it was the proper thing to arrive very late, and
so it was not until after twelve o'clock that they left the Hotel
Mayonaise for the regions of Belgravia. The Baron, primed with a bottle of
champagne, and arrayed in a costume which Mr Bunker had assured him was
the very latest extreme of fashion, and which included a scarlet watered
silk waistcoat, a pair of white silk socks, and a lavender tie, was in a
condition of cheerfulness verging closely on hilarity. Mr Bunker, that, as
he said, he might better serve as a foil to his friend's splendour, went
more inconspicuously dressed, but was likewise well charged with
champagne. He too was in his happiest vein, and the vision of the Baron's
finery appeared to afford him peculiar gratification.

Their hansom stopped in front of a large and gaily lit-up mansion, with an
awning leading to the door, and a cluster of carriages and footmen by the
kerbstone. They entered, and having divested themselves of their coats, Mr
Bunker proposed that they should immediately seek the supper-room.

"Bot should I not be first introduced to mine hostess?" asked the Baron.

"My dear Baron! a formal reception of the guests is entirely foreign to
English etiquette."

"Zo? I did not know zat."

The supper-room was crowded, and having secured a table with some
difficulty, Mr Bunker entered immediately into conversation with a
solitary young gentleman who was consuming a plate of oysters. Before they
had exchanged six sentences the young man had entirely succumbed to Mr
Bunker's address, aided possibly by the young man's supper.

"Permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, a
nobleman strange as yet to England, but renowned throughout his native
land alike for his talents and his lofty position," said Mr Bunker.

"Ach, my good friend," exclaimed the Baron, grasping the young man's hand,
"das ist Bonker's vat you call nonsense; bot I am delighted, zehr
delighted, to meet you, and if you gom to Bavaria you most shoot vid me!
Bravo! Ha!"

From which it may be gathered that the Baron was in a genial humour.

"Who is that girl?" asked Mr Bunker, pointing to an extremely pretty
damsel just leaving the room.

"Oh, that's my cousin, Lady Muriel Hilton. She's thought rather pretty, I
believe," answered the young man.

"Do you mind introducing me?"

"Certainly," said their new friend. "Come along."

As they were passing through the room a little incident occurred that, if
the Baron's perceptions had been keener, might have given him cause for
some speculation. Two men standing by the door looked hard at Mr Bunker,
and then at each other, and as the Baron passed them he heard one say, "It
looks devilish like him."

"He has shaved, then," said the other.

"Evidently," replied the first speaker; "but I thought he was unlikely to
appear in any society for some time."

They both laughed, and the Baron heard no more.

When they reached the ballroom the band was striking up a polka, and
presently Mr Bunker, with his accustomed grace, was tearing round the room
with Lady Muriel, while the Baron--the delight of all eyes in his red
waistcoat--led out her sister. In a very short time the other dancers found
the Baron and his friend's onslaught so vigorous that prudence compelled
them to take shelter along the wall, and from a safe distance admire the
evolutions of these two mysterious guests.

Mr Bunker was enlivening the monotony of the polka by the judicious
introduction of hornpipe steps, while the Baron, his coat-tails high above
his head, shouted and stamped in his wild career.

"Do stop for a minute, Baron," gasped his fair partner.

"Himmel, nein!" roared the Baron. "I haf gom here for to dance! Ha,
Bonker, ha!"

At last Lady Muriel had to stop through sheer exhaustion, but Mr Bunker,
merely letting her go, pursued his solitary way, double-shuffling and
kicking unimpeded.

The Baron stopped, breathless, to admire him. Round and round he went, the
only figure in the middle of the room, his arms akimbo, his feet
rat-tatting and kicking to the music, while high above the band resounded
his friend's shouts of "Bravo, Bonker! Wunderschoen! Gott in himmel,
higher, higher!" till at length, missing the wall in an attempt to find
support, the Baron dropped with a thud into a sitting posture and
continued his demonstrations from the floor.

Meanwhile their alarmed hostess was holding a hasty consultation with her
husband, and when the music at last stopped and Mr Bunker was advancing
with his most courteous air towards his late partner, Lord Tulliwuddle
stepped up to him and touched his arm.

"May I speak to you, sir?" he said.

"Certainly," replied Mr Bunker. "I shall be honoured. Excuse me for one
moment, Lady Muriel."

"At whose invitation have you come here to-night?" demanded his host,
sternly.

"I have the pleasure of addressing Lord Tulliwuddle, have I not?"

"You have, sir."

Mr Bunker bent towards him and whispered something in his ear.

"From Scotland Yard?" exclaimed his lordship.

"Hush!" said Mr Bunker, glancing cautiously round the room, and then he
added, with an air of impressive gravity, "You have a bathroom on the
third floor, I believe?"

"I have," replied his host in great surprise.

"Has it a bell?"

"No, I believe not."

"Ah, I thought so. If you will favour me by coming up-stairs for a minute,
my Lord, you will avoid a serious private scandal. Say nothing about it at
present to any one."

In blank astonishment and some alarm Lord Tulliwuddle went up with him to
the third floor, where the house was still and the sounds of revelry
reached faintly.

"What does this mean, sir?" he asked.

"If I am right in my conjectures you will need no explanation from me, my
Lord."

His lordship opened a door, and turning on an electric light, revealed a
small and ordinary-looking bathroom.

"Ha, no bell--excellent!" said Mr Bunker.

"What are you doing with the key?" exclaimed his host.

"Good night, my Lord. I shall tell them to send up breakfast at nine,"
said Mr Bunker, and stepping quickly out, he shut and locked the door.

A minute later he was back in the ballroom looking anxiously for the
Baron, but that nobleman was nowhere to be seen.

"The devil!" he said to himself. "Can they have tackled him too?"

But as he ran downstairs a gust of cheerful laughter set his mind at ease.

"Ha, ha, ha! Vere is old Bonker? He also vill shoot vid me!"

"Here I am, my dear Baron," he exclaimed gaily, as he tracked the voice
into the supper-room.

"Ach, mine dear Bonker!" cried the Baron, folding him in his muscular
embrace, "I haf here met friends, ve are merry! Ve drink to Bavaria, to
England, to everyzing!"

The "friends" consisted of two highly amused young men and two
half-scandalised, half-hysterical ladies, into the midst of whose
supper-table the Baron had projected himself with infectious hilarity.
They all looked up with great curiosity at Mr Bunker, but that gentleman
was not in the least put about. He bowed politely to the table generally,
and took his friend by the arm.

"It is time we were going, Baron, I'm afraid," he said.

"Vat for? Ah, not yet, Bonker, not yet. I am enjoying myself down to ze
floor. I most dance again, Bonker, jost vunce more," pleaded the Baron.

"My dear Baron, the noblemen of highest rank must always leave first, and
people are talking of going now. Come along, old man."

"Ha, is zat so?" said the Baron. "Zen vill I go. Good night!" he cried,
waving his hand to the room generally. "Ven you gom to Bavaria you most
all shoot vid me. Bravo, my goot Bonker! Ha! ha!"

As they turned away from the table, one of the young men, who had been
looking very hard at Mr Bunker, rose and touched his sleeve.

"I say, aren't you----?" he began.

"Possibly I am," interrupted Mr Bunker, "only I haven't the slightest
recollection of the fact."

An astonished lady was indicated by Mr Bunker as the hostess, and to her
the Baron bade an affectionate adieu. He handed a sovereign to the
footman, embraced the butler, and as they sped eastwards in their hansom,
a rousing chorus from the two friends awoke the echoes of Piccadilly.

"Bravo, Bonker! Himmel, I haf enjoyed myself!" sighed the exhausted Baron.

CHAPTER VII.

The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed a twelve o'clock breakfast with the
relish of men who had done a good night's work. The Baron was full of his
exploits. "Ze lofly Lady Hilton" and his new "friends" seemed to have made
a vivid impression.

"Zey vill be in ze Park to-day, of course?" he suggested.

"Possibly," replied Mr Bunker, without any great enthusiasm.

"But surely."

"After a dance it is rather unlikely."

"Ze Lady Hilton did say she vent to ze Park."

"To-day, Baron?"

"I do not remember to-day. I did dance so hard I was not perhaps distinct.
But I shall go and see."

As Mr Bunker's attempts to throw cold water on this scheme proved quite
futile, he made a graceful virtue of necessity, dressed himself with care,
and set out in the afternoon for the Park. They had only walked as far as
Piccadilly Circus when in the crowd at the corner his eye fell upon a
familiar figure. It was the burly, red-faced man.

"The devil! Moggridge again!" he muttered.

For a moment he thought they were going to pass unobserved: then the man
turned his head their way, and Mr Bunker saw him start. He never looked
over his shoulder, but after walking a little farther he called the
Baron's attention to a shop window, and they stopped to look at it. Out of
the corner of his eye he saw Moggridge about twenty yards behind them
stopping too. He was glancing towards them very doubtfully. Evidently his
mind was not yet made up, and at once Mr Bunker's fertile brain began to
revolve plans.

A little farther on they paused before another window, and exactly the
same thing happened. Then Mr Bunker made up his mind. He looked carefully
at the cabs, and at last observed a smart-looking young man driving a
fresh likely horse at a walking pace beside the pavement.

He caught the driver's eye and raised his stick, and turning suddenly to
the Baron with a gesture of annoyance, exclaimed, "Forgive my rudeness,
Baron, I'm afraid I must leave you. I had clean forgotten an important
engagement in the city for this afternoon."

"Appointment in ze city?" said the Baron in considerable surprise. "I did
not know you had friends in ze city."

"I have just heard from my father's man of business, and I'm afraid it
would be impolitic not to see him. Do you mind if I leave you here?"

"Surely, my dear fellow, I vould not stop you. Already I feel at home by
myself."

"Then we shall meet at the hotel before dinner. Good luck with the ladies,
Baron."

Mr Bunker jumped into the cab, saying only to the driver, "To the city, as
quick as you can."

"What part, sir?"

"Oh, say the Bank. Hurry up!"

Then as the man whipped up, Mr Bunker had a glimpse of Moggridge hailing
another cab, and peeping cautiously through the little window at the back
he saw him starting in hot pursuit. He took five shillings out of his
pocket and opened the trap-door in the roof.

"Do you see that other cab chasing us, with a red-faced man inside?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr Bunker handed his driver the money.

"Get rid of him, then. Take me anywhere through the city you like, and
when he's off the scent let me know."

"Very good, sir," replied the driver, cracking his whip till his steed
began to move past the buses and the other cabs like a train.

On they flew, clatter and jingle, twisting like a snipe through the
traffic. Mr Bunker perceived that he had a good horse and a good driver,
and he smiled in pleasant excitement. He lit a cigar, leaned his arms on
the doors, and settled himself to enjoy the race.

The black lions of Trafalgar Square flew by, then the colossal hotels of
Northumberland Avenue and the railway bridge at Charing Cross, and they
were going at a gallop along the Embankment. He got swift glimpses of
other cabs and foot-passengers, the trees seemed to flit past like
telegraph-posts on a railway, the barges and lighters on the river dropped
one by one behind them: it was a fair course for a race, with never a
check before Blackfriar's Bridge.

As they turned into Queen Victoria Street he opened the lid and asked,
"Are they still in sight?"

"Yes, sir; I'm afraid we ain't gaining much yet. But I'll do it, sir, no
fears."

Mr Bunker lay back and laughed.

"This is better than the Park," he said to himself.

They had a fine drive up Queen Victoria Street before they plunged into
the whirlpool of traffic at the Bank. They were slowly making their way
across when the driver, spying an opening in another stream, abruptly
wheeled round for Cornhill, and presently they were off again at top
speed.

"Thrown them off?" asked Mr Bunker.

"Tried to, sir, but they were too sharp and got clear away too."

Mr Bunker saw that it was going to be a stern chase, and laughed again. In
order that he might not show ostensibly that he was running away, he
resisted the temptation of having another peep through the back, and
resigned himself to the chances of the chase.

Through and through the lanes and byways of the city they drove, and after
each double the answer from the box was always the same. The cab behind
could not be shaken off.

"Work your way round to Holborn and try a run west," Mr Bunker suggested.

So after a little they struck Newgate Street, and presently their steed
stretched himself again in Holborn Viaduct.

"Gaining now, cabby?"

"A little, sir, I think."

Mr Bunker sat placidly till they were well along Holborn before he
inquired again.

"Can't get rid of 'im no 'ow. Afride it ain't much good, sir."

Mr Bunker passed up five shillings more.

"Keep your tail up. You'll do it yet," he exhorted. "Try a turn north; you
may bother him among the squares."

So they doubled north, and as the evening closed in their wearied horse
was lashed through a maze of monotonous streets and tarnished Bloomsbury
Squares. And still the other cab stuck to their trail. But when they
emerged on the Euston Road, Mr Bunker was as cheerful as ever.

"They can't last much longer," he said to his driver. "Turn up Regent's
Park way."

A little later he put the usual question and got the same unvarying
answer.

The horse was evidently beginning to fail, and he saw that this
chariot-race must soon come to an end. The street-lamps and the shop
windows were all lit up by this time, and the dusk was pretty thick. It
seemed to him that he might venture to try his luck on foot, and he began
to look out for an opening where a cab could not follow.

They were flogging along a noisy stone-paved road where there was little
other traffic; on one side stood an unbroken row of houses, and on the
other were small semi-detached villas with little strips of garden about
them. All at once he saw a doctor's red lamp over the door of one of these
half villas, and an inspiration came upon him.

"One can always visit a doctor," he said to himself, and smiled in great
amusement at something in the reflection.

He stopped the cab, handed the man half a sovereign, and saying only,
"Drive away again, quickly," jumped out, glanced at the name on the plate,
and pulled the bell. As he waited on the step he saw the other cab stop a
little way back, and his pursuer emerge.

A frowsy little servant opened the door.

"Is Dr Twiddel at home?" he asked.

"Dr Twiddel's abroad, sir," said the maid.

"No one in at all, then?"

"Dr Billson sees 'is patients, sir--w'en there _his_ any."

"When do you expect Dr Billson?"

"In about an hour, sir, 'e usually comes hin."

"Excellent!" thought Mr Bunker. Aloud he said, "Well, I'm a patient. I'll
come in and wait."

He stepped in, and the door banged behind him.

CHAPTER VIII.

"This w'y, sir," said the maid, and Mr Bunker found himself in the little
room where this story opened.

The moment he was alone he went to the window and peeped cautiously
between the slats of the venetian blind.

The street was quiet, both cabs had disappeared, and for a minute or two
he could see nothing even of Moggridge. Then a figure moved carefully from
the shelter of a bush a little way down the railings, and, after a quick
look at the house, stepped back again.

"He means to play the waiting game," said Mr Bunker to himself. "Long may
you wait, my wary Moggridge!"

He took a rapid survey of the room. He saw the medical library, the rented
furniture, and the unlit gas-stove; and at last his eye fell upon a box of
cigarettes. To one of these he helped himself and leaned his back against
the mantelpiece.

"There must be at least one room at the back," he reflected; "that room
must have a window, and beyond that window there is all London to turn to.
Friend Moggridge, I trust you are prepared to spend the evening behind
your bush."

He had another look through the blind and shook his head.

"A little too light yet,--I'd better wait for a quarter of an hour or so."

To while away the time he proceeded to make a tour of the room, for, as he
said to himself, when in an unknown country any information may possibly
come in useful. There was nothing whatever from which he could draw even
the most superficial deduction till he came to the writing-desk. Here a
heap of bills were transfixed by a long skewer, and at his first glance at
the uppermost his face assumed an expression of almost ludicrous
bewilderment. He actually rubbed his eyes before he looked a second time.

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