The Lunatic at Large Part 31

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"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 n.o.bleman 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 fas.h.i.+on known as the frog's march to a room in a remote wing, there to pa.s.s 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.