The Lunatic at Large

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

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"I haf not dared."

"Well, my dear Baron, whose fault is that?"

The Baron was silent.

"Ask her to-morrow."

"No, Bonker," said the Baron, sadly; "she treats me not like a lover. She
talks of friendship. I do not vish a frient!"

Mr Bunker looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "You don't think you have
touched her heart?" he asked at length.

"I fear not."

"You must try an infallible recipe for winning a woman's heart. You must
be in trouble."

"In trouble!"

"I have tried it once myself, with great success."

"Bot how?"

"You must fall ill."

"Bot I cannot; I am too healthful, alas!"

Mr Bunker smiled artfully. "They come to tea in our rooms to-morrow, you
know. By then, Baron, you must be laid up, ill or not, just as you please.
A grain of Lady Alicia's sympathy is worth more than a ton of even your
wit."

The standard chosen for the measurement of his wit escaped the Baron, the
scheme delighted him.

"Ha, Bonker! schoen! I tvig! Goot!" he cried. "How shall ve do?"

"Leave it to me."

The Baron reflected, and his smile died away.

"Sopposing," he said, slowly, "zey find out? Is it vise? Is it straight?"

"They can't find out. They go the next morning, and what's to prevent your
making a quick recovery and pluckily going down to Brierley Park as the
interesting convalescent? She will know that you've made a dangerous
journey on her account."

The Baron's face cleared again.

"Let us try!" he said; "anyzing is better zan my present state. Bot, be
careful, Bonker!"

"I shall take the most minute precautions," replied Mr Bunker.

CHAPTER V.

The next morning the two conspirators breakfasted early. The Baron seemed
a little nervous now that it came so near the venture, but his friend was
as cheerful as a schoolboy, and his confident air soon put fresh courage
into Rudolph.

Mr Bunker's bedroom opened out of their common sitting-room, and so he
declared that in the afternoon the Baron must be laid up there.

"Keep your room all morning," he said, "and look as pale as you can. I
shall make my room ready for you."

When the Baron had retired, he threw himself into a chair and gazed for a
few minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servant
to make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping.
On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baron
was indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he should
have the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning he
spent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ladies' way.

When, after a substantial lunch which he insisted upon getting up to eat,
the Baron was allowed to enter the sick-room, he uttered an exclamation of
astonishment,--and indeed his surprise was natural. The room was as full of
flowers as a conservatory; chairs, wardrobe, and fireplace were most
artistically draped with art hangings; a plate filled with grapes, a large
bottle labelled "Two table-spoonfuls every half hour," and a
medicine-glass were placed conspicuously on a small table; and, most
remarkable feature of all, Mr Bunker's bath filled with water and alive
with goldfish stood by the side of the bed. A couple of canaries sang in a
cage by the window, the half-drawn curtains only permitted the most
delicate light to steal into the room, and in short the whole arrangement
reflected the utmost credit on his ingenious friend.

The Baron was delighted, but a little puzzled.

"Vat for are zese fishes and ze canaries?" he asked.

"To show your love of nature."

"Vy so?"

"There is nothing that pleases a woman more."

"My friend, you zink of everyzing!" exclaimed the Baron, admiringly.

When four o'clock approached he drew a night-shirt over his other garments
and got into bed. Mr Bunker at first was in favour of a complete change of
attire, but on his friend's expostulating against such a thorough
precaution, he admitted that it would be perhaps rather like the historic
blacking of Othello.

"Leave it all to me, my dear Baron," he said, reassuringly, as he tucked
him in; and with that he went into the other room and awaited the arrival
of their guests.

They came punctually. The Countess was full of concern for the "dear
Baron," while Lady Alicia, he could not help thinking, appeared unusually
reserved. In fact, his quick eye soon divined that something was the
matter.

"She has either been getting a lecture from the dowager or has found
something out," he said to himself.

However, it seemed that if she had found anything out it could have
nothing to do with the Baron's indisposition, for she displayed the most
ingenuous sympathy, and, he thought, she even appeared to aim it pointedly
at himself.

"So sudden!" exclaimed the Countess.

"It is rather sudden, but we'll hope it may pass as quickly as it came,"
said Mr Bunker, conveying a skilful impression of deep concern veiled by a
cheerful manner.

"Tell me honestly, Mr Bunker, is it dangerous?" demanded the countess.

Mr Bunker hesitated, gave a half-hearted laugh, and replied, "Oh, dear,
no! that is--at present, Lady Grillyer, we have really no reason to be
alarmed."

"I am _so_ sorry," murmured Lady Alicia.

Her mother looked at her approvingly.

"Poor Baron!" she said, in a tone of the greatest commiseration.

"So far from home!" sighed Mr Bunker. "And yet so cheerful through it
all," he added.

"What did you say was the matter?" asked the Countess.

Mr Bunker had thought it both wiser and more effective to maintain a
little mystery round his friend's malady.

"The doctor hasn't yet given a decided opinion," he replied.

"Can't we do anything?" said Lady Alicia, softly.

Mr Bunker thought the guests were nearly worked up to the proper pitch of
sympathy.

"Poor Rudolph!" he exclaimed. "It would cheer him immensely, I know, and
ease my own anxiety as well, if you would venture in to see him for a few
minutes. In such a case there is no sympathy so welcome as a woman's."

The Countess glanced at her daughter, and wavered for an instant between
those proprieties for which she was a famous stickler and this admirable
chance of completing the Baron's conquest.

"His relations are far away," said Mr Bunker, looking pensively out of the
window.

"We might come in for a few minutes, Alicia?" suggested Lady Grillyer.

"Yes, mamma," replied Lady Alicia, with an alacrity that rather surprised
their host.

With a pleasantly dejected air he ushered the ladies into the darkened
sick-room. The Baron, striving to conceal his exultation under a rueful
semblance, greeted them with a languid yet happy smile.

"Ah, Lady Grillyer, zis is kind indeed! And you, Lady Alicia, how can I
zank you?"

"My daughter and I are much distressed, Baron, to find our host _hors de
combat_," said the Countess, graciously.

"Just when you wanted to go away too!" added Lady Alicia, sympathetically.

The Baron emitted a happy blend of sigh and groan.

"Alas!" he replied, "it is hard indeed."

"You must hurry up and get better," said the Countess, in her most
cheering sick-room manner. "It won't do to disappoint the Brierleys, you
know."

"You must come down for _part_ of the time," smiled her daughter.

These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed his
hand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At the
same time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into a
chair, and, laying his elbow on the back, hid his own face in his hand.

Their guests jumped to the most alarming conclusions, and looked from one
to the other with great concern.

"Dear me!" said the Countess, "surely it isn't so very serious, Mr Bunker;
it isn't _infectious_, is it?"

The unlucky Baron here made his first mistake: without waiting for his
more diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily, "Ach, no, it is bot
a cold."

Lady Grillyer's expression changed.

"A cold!" she said. "Dear me, that can't be so very serious, Baron."

"It is a bad cold," said the Baron.

By this time the ladies' eyes were growing more used to the dim light, and
Mr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.

"This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture," said the Countess, examining the
bottle.

The Baron incautiously admitted it was.

"Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!" she exclaimed; "why, I never heard
of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn't seem
so very bad, Baron."

"Ze doctor told me to take it so," replied the Baron.

The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion
in her voice, "I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion."

The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.

"In the Baron's desire to spare your feelings," replied Mr Bunker,
gravely, "he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an
ordinary cough-mixture."

"Oh," said the Countess.

Lady Alicia's attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and
suddenly she exclaimed, "Why, there are goldfish in it!"

The Baron's nerve was fast deserting him.

"Ze doctor ordered zem," he began--"I mean, I am fond of fishes."

The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned
severely to his friend.

"_What_ is the matter with the Baron?" she demanded.

Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.

"The dog was destroyed at once," he replied, with intense gravity. "It is
therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter."

"_The dog!_" cried the two ladies together.

"By this evening," he continued, "we shall know the worst--or the best."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the
bed.

"I mean," replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration, "that this bath is
a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to
look----"

But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the
Baron's face had passed through a series of the most extraordinary
expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.

"It's beginning already!" she shrieked. "Alicia, my love, come quickly.
How dare you expose us, sir?"

"Calm yourselves. I assure you----" pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after
them, but they were at the door before him.

The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying, "No, no, it is false!"
he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his
night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great
splash among the startled goldfish.

The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror
that rapidly passed into intense indignation.

"I am not ill!" he cried. "It vos zat rascal Bonker's plot. He made me! I
haf not hydrophobia!"

Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles.
For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then
only remarking, "I have never been so insulted before," she went out, and
her daughter followed her.

As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after roar of laughter,
but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to
his injured friend.

"You rascal! you villain!" he shouted, "zis is ze end of our friendship,
Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!"

"My dear Baron," gasped Mr Bunker, "I could not put such an inartistic end
to so fine a joke for the world."

"You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad
enoff for you!"

With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling:
"After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the
sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you."

"False friend!" thundered the Baron.

"My dear Baron!" said Mr Bunker, mildly, "whose fault was it that the plot
miscarried? If you'd only left it all to me----"

"Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to
vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!" And with that the
infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.

As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker,
still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air;
but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia
lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.

She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of
anger running beneath it.

"I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day through the
dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave."

"I am not surprised," he replied.

"Then it was false?"

"As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn't happen to be
mine."

"Were you _ever_ in the Church?"

"Not to my personal knowledge."

"Yet you said you were?"

"I was in an asylum."

She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with
great amusement.

"You have deceived _me_," she said, "and you have treated your other
friend--who is far too good for you--disgracefully. Have you anything to say
for yourself?"

"Not a word," he replied, cheerfully.

"You must _never_ treat me again as--as I let you."

As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly, "I
don't _suppose_ I shall ever see you again. In future we are not _likely_
to meet."

"The lady and the lunatic?" said he. "Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and
better luck."

"Good-bye," she answered coldly, and added as they parted, "my mother, of
course, is extremely angry with you."

"There," he said with a smile, "you see I still come in useful."

She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the
hotel.

"It seems to me," he reflected, "that I shall have to set out on my
adventures again alone."

CHAPTER VI.

The Baron's natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all
night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The
Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word,
and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied
curtly, as he went to the door, "Ze 5.30."

"And where do you go now?"

"Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone."

"Good-bye, then, Baron," said Mr Bunker. "I think I shall go up to town."

"Go, zen," replied the Baron, opening the door; "I haf no furzer vish to
see a treacherous _sponge_ zat vill neizer be true nor fight, bot jost
takes money."

He slammed the door and went out. If he had waited for a moment, he would
have seen a look in Mr Bunker's face that he had never seen before. He
half started from his chair to follow, and then sat down again and thought
with his lips very tight set.

All at once they broke into a smile that was grimmer than anything the
Baron had known.

"I accept your challenge, Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg," he said to
himself; "but the weapons I shall choose myself."

He took a telegraph form, wrote and despatched a wire, and then with
considerable haste proceeded to pack. Within an hour he had left the
hotel.

* * * * *

When a servant, later in the day, was performing, under the Baron's
directions, the same office for him, a series of discoveries that still
further disturbed his peace of mind were jointly made. Not only the more
sporting portions of his wardrobe but his gun and cartridges as well, had
vanished, and, search and storm as he liked, there was not a trace of them
to be found.

"Ze rascal!" he muttered; "I did not zink he was zief as well."

It is hardly wonderful that he arrived at Brierley station in anything but
an amiable frame of mind. There, to his great annoyance and surprise, he
found no signs of Sir Richard's carriage; there were no stables near, and,
after fuming for some time on the platform, he was forced to leave his
luggage with the station-master and proceed on foot to Brierley Park.

He arrived shortly before seven o'clock, after a dark and muddy tramp,
and, still swearing under his breath, pulled the bell with indignant
energy.

"I am ze Baron von Blitzenberg, bot zere vas no carriage at ze station,"
he informed the butler in his haughtiest tones.

The man looked at him suspiciously.

"The Baron arrived this morning," he said.

"Ze Baron? Vat Baron? I am ze Baron!"

"I shall fetch Sir Richard," said the butler, turning away.

Presently a stout florid gentleman, accompanied by three friends, all
evidently very curious and amused about something, came to the door, and,
to the poor Baron's amazement and horror, he recognised in one of these
none other than Mr Bunker, arrayed with much splendour in his own ornate
shooting suit.

"What do you want?" asked the florid gentleman, sternly.

"Have I ze pleasure of addressing Sir Richard Brierley?" inquired the
Baron, raising his hat and bowing profoundly.

"You have."

"Zen I must tell you zat I am ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg."

"Gom, gom, my man!" interposed Mr Bunker. "I know you. Zis man, Sir
Richard, has before annoyed me. He is vat you call impostor, cracked; he
has vollowed me from Germany. Go avay, man!"

"You are impostor! You scoundrel, Bonker!" shouted the wrathful Baron. "He
is no Baron, Sir Richard! Ha! Vould you again deceive me, Bonker?"

"You must lock him up, I fear," said Mr Bunker. "To-morrow, my man, you
vill see ze police."

So completely did the Baron lose his head that he became almost
inarticulate with rage: his protestations, however, were not of the
slightest avail. That morning Sir Richard had received a wire informing
him that the Baron was coming by an earlier train than he had originally
intended, and, since his arrival, the spurious nobleman had so ingratiated
himself with his host that Sir Richard was filled with nothing but
sympathy for him in his persecution. After a desperate struggle the
unfortunate Rudolph was overpowered and conveyed in the undignified
fashion known as the frog's march to a room in a remote wing, there to
pass the night under lock and key.

"The scoundrelly German impostor!" exclaimed a young man, a fellow visitor
of the Baron Bunker's, to a tall, military-looking gentleman.

Colonel Savage seemed lost in thought.

"It is a curious thing, Trelawney," he replied, at length, "that the
footman who attends the Baron should have told my man--who, of course, told
me--that a number of his things are marked 'Francis Beveridge.' It is also
rather strange that this impostor should have known so little of the
Baron's movements as to arrive several hours after him, assuming he had
hatched a plot to impersonate him."

"But the man's obviously mad."

"Must be," said the colonel.

The house party were assembled in the drawing-room waiting for dinner to
be announced. The bogus Baron was engaged in an animated discussion with
Colonel Savage on the subject of Bavarian shootings, and the colonel
having omitted to inform him that he had some personal experience of
these, Mr Bunker was serving up such of his friend's anecdotes as he could
remember with sauce more peculiarly his own.

"Five hondred vild boars," he was saying, "eight hondred brace of
partridges, many bears, and rabbits so moch zat it took five veeks to bury
zem. All zese ve did shoot before breakfast, colonel. Aftair breakfast
again ve did go out----"

But at that moment his attention was sharply arrested by a question of
Lady Brierley's.

"Has Dr Escott arrived?" she asked.

The Baron Bunker paused, and in spite of his habitual coolness, the
observant colonel noticed that he started ever so slightly.

"He came half an hour ago," replied Sir Richard. "Ah, here he is."

As he spoke, a well-remembered figure came into the room, and after a
welcome from his hostess, the dinner procession started.

"Whoever is that tall fair man in front?" Dr Escott asked his partner as
they crossed the hall.

"Oh, that's the Baron von Blitzenberg: such an amusing man! We are all in
love with him already."

All through dinner the spurious Baron saw that Dr Escott's eyes turned
continually and curiously on him; yet never for an instant did his spirits
droop or his conversation flag. Witty and charming as ever, he discoursed
in his comical foreign accent to the amusement of all within hearing, and
by the time the gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room, he had
established the reputation of being the most delightful German ever seen.
Yet Dr Escott grew more suspicious and bewildered, and Mr Bunker felt that
he was being narrowly watched. The skill at billiards of a certain Francis
Beveridge used to be the object of the doctor's unbounded admiration, and
it was with the liveliest interest that he watched a game between Colonel
Savage and the Baron.

That nobleman knew well the danger of displaying his old dexterity, and to
the onlookers it soon became apparent that this branch of his education
had been neglected. He not only missed the simplest shots, but seemed very
ignorant of the rules of the English game, and in consequence he came in
for a little good-natured chaff from Sir Richard and Trelawney. When the
colonel's score stood at 90 and the Baron had scarcely reached 25
Trelawney cried, "I'll bet you ten to one you don't win, Baron!"

"What in?" asked the Baron, and the colonel noticed that for the first
time be pronounced a _w_ correctly.

"Sovereigns," said Trelawney, gaily.

The temptation was irresistible.

"Done!" said the Baron. With a professional disregard for conventions he
bolted the white into the middle pocket, leaving his own ball nicely
beside the red. Down in its turn went the red, and Mr Bunker was on the
spot. Three followed three in monotonous succession, Trelawney's face
growing longer and Dr Escott getting more and more excited, till with a
smile Mr Bunker laid down his cue, a sensational winner.

His victory was received in silence: Trelawney handed over two five-pound
notes without a word, and the colonel returned to his whisky-and-soda. Dr
Escott could contain himself no longer, and whispering something to Sir
Richard, the two left the room.

Imperturbable as ever, Mr Bunker talked gaily for a few minutes to an
unresponsive audience, and then, remarking that he would join the ladies,
left the room.

A minute or two later Sir Richard, with an anxious face, returned with Dr
Escott.

"Where is the Baron?" he asked.

"Gone to join the ladies," replied Trelawney, adding under his breath,
"d---- n him!"

But the Baron was not with the ladies, nor, search the house as they
might, was there a trace to be seen of that accomplished nobleman.

"He has gone!" said Sir Richard.

"What the deuce is the meaning of it?" exclaimed Trelawney.

Colonel Savage smiled grimly and suggested, "Perhaps he wants to give the
impostor an innings."

"Dr Escott, I think, can tell you," replied the baronet.

"Gentlemen," said the doctor, "the man whom you have met as the Baron von
Blitzenberg is none other than a most cunning and determined lunatic. He
escaped from the asylum where I am at present assistant doctor, after all
but murdering me; he has been seen in London since, but how he came to
impersonate the unfortunate gentleman whom you locked up this afternoon I
cannot say."

Before they broke up for the night the genuine Baron, released from
confinement and soothed by the humblest apologies and a heavy supper,
recounted the main events in Mr Beveridge _alias_ Bunker's brief career in
town. On his exploits in St Egbert's he felt some delicacy in touching,
but at the end of what was after all only a fragmentary and one-sided
narrative, even the defrauded Trelawney could not but admit that, whatever
the departed gentleman's failings, his talents at least were worthy of a
better cause.

CHAPTER VII.

The party at Brierley Park had gone at last to bed. The Baron was
installed in his late usurper's room, and from the clock-tower the hour of
three had just been tolled. Sympathy and Sir Richard's cellar had greatly
mollified the Baron's wrath; he had almost begun to see the humorous side
of his late experience; as a rival Mr Bunker was extinct, and with an easy
mind and a placid smile he had fallen asleep some two hours past.

The fire burned low, and for long nothing but the occasional sigh of the
wind in the trees disturbed the silence. At length, had the Baron been
awake, he might have heard the stealthiest of footsteps in the corridor
outside. Then they stopped; his door was gently opened, and first a head
and then a whole man slipped in.

Still the Baron slept, dreaming peacefully of his late companion. They
were driving somewhere in a hansom, Mr Bunker was telling one of his most
amusing stories, when there came a shock, the hansom seemed to turn a
somersault, and the Baron awoke. At first he thought he must be dreaming
still; the electric light had been turned on and the room was bright as
day, but, more bewildering yet, Mr Bunker was seated on his bed, gazing at
him with an expression of thoughtful amusement.

"Well, Baron," he said, "I trust you are comfortable in these excellent
quarters."

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