J. Storer Clouston

“ At that moment he heard the sharp crack of a branch behind him, and turning instantly he spied the uncompromising countenance of Moggridge peering round a tree about twenty paces distant. Lack of presence of mind and quick decision were not amongst Mr Beveridge’s failings. He struck a theatrical attitude at once, and began in a loud voice, gazing up at the tops of the trees, “He comes! A stranger comes! Yes, my fair friend, we may meet again. Au revoir, but only for a while! Ah, that a breaking heart should be lit for a moment and then the lamp be put out!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then he came up to Escott, who by this time was the only other soul on the ice.
“About time we were going in,” said Escott.
“Give me half-an-hour more. I’ll show you how to do that vine you admired.”
“All right,” assented the doctor.
A minute or two later Mr Beveridge, as if struck by a sudden reflection, exclaimed, “By Jove, there’s that poor devil Moggridge freezing to death on shore. Can’t you manage to look after so dangerous a lunatic yourself? It is his tea-time, too.”
“Hallo, so he is,” replied Escott; “I’ll send him up.” ”

“ Mr Beveridge, in fact, the mark of all eyes, was dancing in a set of lancers. The couple opposite to him consisted of a stout elderly gentleman who, doubtless for the best reasons, styled himself the Emperor of the two Americas, and a charming little pink and flaxen partner—the Lady Alicia à Fyre, as everybody who was anybody could have told you. The handsome stranger moved, as might be expected, with his accustomed grace and air of distinction, and, probably to convince his admirers that there was nothing meretricious in his performance, he carried his hands in his pockets the whole time. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Poor Lady Alicia felt like a man at a telephone who has been connected with the wrong person. Again she made a desperate shift to fall back on a becoming pride.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“If I mean anything at all, which is always rather doubtful,” he replied, candidly, “I mean that Beveridge and his humbug were creatures of an occasion, just as Bunker and his are of another. The one occasion is passed, and with it the first entertaining gentleman has vanished into space. The second gentleman will doubtless follow when his time is up. ”

“ The Countess was far too experienced and determined a general to leave it at all doubtful who should walk by whose side, and who should have the opportunity of appreciating whose merits, but Lady Alicia was quite resolved that the Baron’s blandishments should fall on stony ground.
But a soft heart and an undecided mouth are treacherous companions. The Baron was so amiable and so gallant, that at the end of half an hour she was obliged to abate the strictness of her resolution. She should treat him with the friendliness of a brother. ”

“ He lost his way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen; and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a soft place—none the worse but quite bewildered—he struggled back to his hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and at last dressed with extra deliberation.
About eight o’clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a face the Baron had ever seen before. ”

“ The light of a lamp fell on his shining face: it was Moggridge!
A stout heart might be forgiven for sinking at the sight, but Mr Beveridge merely turned to his now firm friends and said with his easiest air, “On the opposite platform I perceive one of my runaway lunatics. Bring a couple of stout porters as quickly as you can, for he is a person of much strength and address. My name,” he drew a card-case from the pocket of his fur coat, “is, as you see, Dr Escott of Clankwood.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ But, as he said of himself, he possessed a kind of easy workaday philosophy, and, besides that, an apparently irresistible attraction for the incidents of life.
He had barely finished his cup of tea, and was sitting over the fire smoking one of the Baron’s cigars and looking through one of the few books he had brought that bore no relation to divinity, his feet high upon the side of the mantelpiece, his ready-made costume perhaps a little more unbuttoned than the strictest propriety might approve, and a stiff glass of whisky-and-water at his elbow, when there came a rap at his door. ”

“ Education there is so severe that young Englishmen are beginning to know less than they ever did, and in most cases that isn’t saying much. Compare the Baron with the young men you meet here!”
She looked at her daughter triumphantly, and Alicia could only reply, “Yes, mamma?”
“Compare them and see the difference. Look at the Baron’s friend, Mr Bunker, who is a very agreeable and amusing man, I admit, but look at the difference!”
“What is it?” Alicia could not help asking.
“What is it, Alicia! It is—ah—it’s—er—it is, in short, the effect of a carefully cultivated mind and good blood.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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?”
“£500.”
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.” ”

“ The Baron went nearly double as he bowed, and the flourish of his hat stirred the dust on the esplanade. Mr Bunker’s salutation was less profound, but his face expressed [pg 139] an almost equal degree of interested respect. Her mother thought that when one of the gentlemen was a nobleman with an indefinite number of thousands a-year and the other a person of so much discrimination, Lady Alicia’s own bow might have been a trifle less reserved. But then even the most astute mother cannot know the reasons for everything. ”

“ 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 [pg 167] admiration, and it was with the liveliest interest that he watched a game between Colonel Savage and the Baron. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That’s to say, my family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you it isn’t my ancestors’ fault.”
The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.
“Two hondred generations?” he asked, courteously. “Zat is a vary old family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?”
“All,” replied Mr Bunker, gravely. ”

“ The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply, “All right, sir,” came back through the hole in the roof.
“I seem to know that man’s voice,” the lady said. “He must have driven me before.”
“To me all ze English speak ze same,” replied the Baron. “All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”
Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Zat will do! Teufel! I most examine my heart strictly. And yet, Bonker, I zink my loff is anozzer kind—ze real!”
“They are all that, Baron; but have it your own way. Anything I can do to make you worse shall be done.”
“Zanks, my best of friends,” said the Baron, warmly, seizing his hand; “I knew you would stand by me!”
Mr Bunker gave a little laugh, and returning the pressure, replied, “My dear fellow, I’d do anything to oblige a friend in such an interesting condition.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ I laugh and keep my tongue when they wonder who he is and whither gone away. Now that anger is passed and they see I myself enjoy the joke, they say, and especially do the ladies, (You humbug, Bunker!) ‘How charming was the imitation, Baron!’ You can indeed win the hearts, if wishful so. The Lady Grillyer and her unexpressable daughter I have often seen. ”