The Lunatic at Large Part 37

Much to his landlord's disappointment, he informed him that he should probably leave again that afternoon, and then he went out for a walk.

About half an hour later he was once more in the street where, not so very long ago, a very exciting cab-race had finished. He strolled slowly past Dr Twiddel's house. The blinds of the front room were down; at that hour there was no sign of life about it, and he saw nothing at all to arrest his attention. Then he looked down the other side of the street, and to his great satisfaction spied a card, with the legend "Apartments to let,"

in one of the first-floor windows of a house immediately opposite.

He rang the bell, and in a moment a rotund and loquacious landlady appeared. Yes, the drawing-room was to let; would the reverend gentleman come up and see it? Mr Bunker went up, and approved. They readily agreed upon terms, and the landlady, charmed with her new lodger's appearance and manners, no less than with the respectability of his profession, proceeded to descant at some length on the quiet, comfort, and numerous other advantages of the apartments.

"Just the very plice you wants, sir. We 'ave 'ad clerical gentlemen 'ere before, sir; in fact, there's one a-staying 'ere now, second floor,-you may know of 'im, sir,-the Reverend Mr John Duggs; a very pleasant gentleman you'll find him, sir. I'll tell 'im you're 'ere, sir; 'e'd be sure to like to meet another gentleman of the syme cloth, has they say."

Somehow or other the Rev. Mr Butler failed to display the hearty pleasure at this announcement that the worthy Mrs Gabbon had naturally expected.

Aloud he merely said, "Indeed," politely, but with no unusual interest.

Within himself he reflected, "The deuce take Mr John Duggs! However, I want the rooms, and a man must risk something."

As a precautionary measure he visited a second-hand bookseller on his way back, and purchased a small a.s.sortment of the severest-looking works on theology they kept in stock; and these, with his slender luggage, he brought round to Mrs Gabbon's in the course of the afternoon.

He looked carefully out of his sitting-room window, but the doctor's blinds were still down, and he saw no one coming or going about the house; so he began his inquiries by calling up his landlady.

"I have been troubled with lumbago, Mrs Gabbon," he began.

"Dearie me, sir," said Mrs Gabbon, "I'm sorry to 'ear that; you that looks so 'ealthy too! Well, one never knows what's be'ind a 'appy hexterior, does one, sir?"

"No, Mrs Gabbon," replied Mr Bunker, solemnly; "one never knows what even a clergyman's coat conceals."

"That's very true, sir. In the midst of life we are in--"

"Lumbago," interposed Mr Bunker.

Mrs Gabbon looked a trifle startled.

"Well," he continued with the same gravity, "I may unfortunately have occasion to consult a doctor--"

"There's Dr Smith," interrupted Mrs Gabbon, her equanimity quite restored by his ecclesiastical tone and the mention of ailments; "'e attended my poor dear 'usband hall through his last illness; an huncommon clever doctor, sir, as I ought to know, sir, bein'--"

"No doubt an excellent man, Mrs Gabbon; but I should like to know of one as near at hand as possible. Now I see the name of a Dr Twiddel--"

"I wouldn't recommend 'im, sir," said Mrs Gabbon, pursing her mouth.

"Indeed? Why not?"

"'E attended Mrs Brown's servant-girl, sir,-she bein' the lady as has the 'ouse next door,-and what he give _'er_ didn't do no good. Mrs Brown tell me 'erself."

"Still, in an emergency--"

"Besides which, he ain't at 'ome, sir."

"Where has he gone?"

"Abroad, they do say, sir; though I don't rightly know much about 'im."

"Has he been away long?"

Mrs Gabbon considered.

"It must 'ave bin before the middle of November he went, sir."

"Ha!" exclaimed Mr Bunker, keenly, though apparently more to himself than his landlady.

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"The middle of November, you say? That's a long holiday for a doctor to take."

"'E 'avn't no practice to speak of,-not as I knows of, leastways."

"What sort of a man is he-young or old?"

"By my opinion, sir, 'e's too young. I don't 'old by them young doctors.

Now Dr Smith, sir--"

"Dr Twiddel is quite a young man, then?"

"What I'd call little better than a boy, sir. They tell me they lets 'em loose very young nowadays."

"About twenty-five, say?"

"'E might be that, sir; but I don't know much about 'im, sir. Now Dr Smith, sir, 'e's different."

In fact at this point Mrs Gabbon showed such a tendency to turn the conversation back to the merits of Dr Smith and the precise nature of Mr Bunker's ailment, that her lodger, in despair, requested her to bring up a cup of tea as speedily as possible.

"Before the middle of November," he said to himself. "It is certainly a curious coincidence."

To a gentleman of Mr Bunker's sociable habits and active mind, the prospect of sitting day by day in the company of his theological treatises and talkative landlady, and watching an apparently uninhabited house, seemed at first sight even less entertaining than a return to Clankwood.

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 unb.u.t.toned than the strictest propriety might approve, and a stiff gla.s.s of whisky-and-water at his elbow, when there came a rap at his door.

In response to his "Come in," a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in clerical attire, entered. He had a broad, bearded face, a dull eye, and an indescribably average aspect.

"The devil! Mr John Duggs himself," thought Mr Bunker, hastily adopting a more conventional att.i.tude and feeling for his b.u.t.ton-holes.

"Ah-er-Mr Butler, I believe?" said the stranger, with an apologetic air.

"The same," replied Mr Bunker, smiling affably.

"I," continued his visitor, advancing with more confidence, "am Mr Duggs.

I am dwelling at present in the apartment immediately above you, and hearing of the arrival of a fellow-clergyman, through my worthy friend Mrs Gabbon, I have taken the liberty of calling. She gave me to understand that you were not undesirous of making my acquaintance, Mr Butler."

"The deuce, she did!" thought Mr Butler. Aloud he answered most politely, "I am honoured, Mr Duggs. Won't you sit down?"