A Rogue by Compulsion Part 5

I didn't like the man--there was too great a suggestion of the bully about him, but for all that I preferred him to McMurtrie.

It was the latter who interrupted. "Come, Savaroff, you take Mr.

Lyndon's other arm and we'll help him upstairs. It is quite time he got out of those wet things."

With their joint a.s.sistance I hoisted myself out of the chair and, leaning heavily on the pair of them, hobbled across to the door. Every step I took sent a thrill of pain through me, for I was as stiff and sore as though I had been beaten all over with a walking-stick. The stairs were a bit of a job too, but they managed to get me up somehow or other, and I found myself in a large spa.r.s.ely furnished hall lit by one ill-burning gas jet. There was a door half open on the left, and through the vacant s.p.a.ce I could see the flicker of a freshly lighted fire.

They helped me inside, where we found the girl Sonia standing beside a long yellow bath-tub which she had set out on a blanket.

"I thought Mr. Lyndon might like a hot bath," she said. "It won't take very long to warm up the water."

"Like it!" I echoed gratefully; and then, finding no other words to express my emotions, I sank down in an easy chair which had been pushed in front of the fire.

I think the brandy that McMurtrie had given me must have gone to my head, or perhaps it was merely the sudden sense of warmth and comfort coming on top of my utter fatigue. Anyhow I know I fell gradually into a sort of blissful trance, in which things happened to me very much as they do in a dream.

I have a dim recollection of being helped to pull off my soaked and filthy clothes, and later on of lying back with indescribable felicity in a heavenly tub of hot water.

Then I was in bed and somebody was rubbing me, rubbing me all over with some warm pungent stuff that seemed to take away the pain in my limbs and leave me just a tingling ma.s.s of drowsy contentment.

After that--well, after that I suppose I fell asleep.

I base this last idea upon the fact that the next thing I remember is hearing some one say in a rather subdued voice: "Don't wake him up.

Let him sleep as long as he likes--it's the best thing for him."

Whereupon, as was only natural, I promptly opened my eyes.

Dr. McMurtrie and the dark girl were standing by my bedside, looking down at me.

I blinked at them for a moment, wondering in my half-awake state where the devil I had got to. Then suddenly it all came back to me.

"Well," said the doctor smoothly, "and how is the patient today?"

I stretched myself with some care. I was still pretty stiff, and my throat felt as if some one had been sc.r.a.ping it with sand-paper, but all the same I knew that I was better--much better.

"I don't think there's any serious damage," I said hoa.r.s.ely. "How long have I been asleep?"

He looked at his watch. "As far as I remember, you went to sleep in your bath soon after midnight. It's now four o'clock in the afternoon."

I started up in bed. "Four o'clock!" I exclaimed. "Good Lord! I must get up--I--"

He laid his hand on my shoulder. "Don't be foolish, my friend," he said. "You will get up when you are fit to get up. At the present moment you are going to have something to eat." He turned to the girl.

"What are you thinking of giving him?" he asked.

"There are plenty of eggs," she said, "and there's some of that fish we had for breakfast." She answered curtly, almost rudely, looking at me while she spoke. Her manner gave me the impression that for some reason or other she and McMurtrie were not exactly on the best of terms.

If that was so, he himself betrayed no sign of it. "Either will do excellently," he said in his usual suave way, "or perhaps our young friend could manage both. I believe the Dartmoor air is most stimulating."

"I shall be vastly grateful for anything," I said, addressing the girl. "Whatever is the least trouble to cook."

She nodded and left the room without further remark--McMurtrie looking after her with what seemed like a faint gleam of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I have brought you yesterday's _Daily Mail_," he said; "I thought it would amuse you to read the description of your escape. It is quite entertaining; and besides that there is a masterly little summary of your distinguished career prior to its unfortunate interruption." He laid the paper on the bed. "First of all, though," he added, "I will just look you over. I couldn't find much the matter with you last night, but we may as well make certain."

He made a short examination of my throat, and then, after feeling my pulse, tapped me vigorously all over the chest.

"Well," he said finally, "you have been through enough to kill two ordinary men, but except for giving you a slight cold in the head it seems to have done you good."

I sat up in bed. "Dr. McMurtrie," I said bluntly, "what does all this mean? Who are you, and why are you hiding me from the police?"

He looked down on me, with that curious baffling smile of his. "A natural and healthy curiosity, Mr. Lyndon," he said drily. "I hope to satisfy it after you have had something to eat. Till then--" he shrugged his shoulders--"well, I think you will find the _Daily Mail_ excellent company."

He left the room, closing the door behind him, and for a moment I lay there with an uncomfortable sense of being tangled up in some exceedingly mysterious adventure. Even such unusual people as Dr.

McMurtrie and his friends do not as a rule take in and shelter escaped convicts purely out of kindness of heart. There must be a strong motive for them to run such a risk in my case, but what that motive could possibly be was a matter which left me utterly puzzled. So far as I could remember I had never seen any of the three before in my life.

I glanced round the room. It was a big airy apartment, with ugly old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture, and two windows, both of which looked out in the same direction. The pictures on the wall included an oleograph portrait of the late King Edward in the costume of an Admiral, a large engraving of Mr. Landseer's inevitable stag, and several coloured and illuminated texts. One of the latter struck me as being topical if a little inaccurate. It ran as follows:

THE WICKED FLEE WHEN NO MAN PURSUETH

Over the mantelpiece was a mirror in a mahogany frame. I gazed at it idly for a second, and then a sudden impulse seized me to get up and see what I looked like. I turned back the clothes and crawled out of bed. I felt shaky when I stood up, but my legs seemed to bear me all right, and very carefully I made my way across to the fireplace.

The first glance I took in the mirror gave me a shock that nearly knocked me over. A cropped head and three days' growth of beard will make an extraordinary difference in any one, but I would never have believed they could have transformed me into quite such an unholy-looking ruffian as the one I saw staring back at me out of the gla.s.s. If I had ever been conceited about my personal appearance, that moment would have cured me for good.

Satisfied with a fairly brief inspection I returned to the bed, and arranging the pillow so as to fit the small of my back, picked up the _Daily Mail_. I happened to open it at the centre page, and the big heavily leaded headlines caught my eyes straight away.

ESCAPE OF NEIL LYNDON FAMOUS PRISONER BREAKS OUT OF DARTMOOR SENSATIONAL CASE RECALLED

With a pleasant feeling of antic.i.p.ation I settled down to read.

_From our own Correspondent.

Princetown_.

Neil Lyndon, perhaps the most famous convict at present serving his sentence, succeeded yesterday in escaping from Princetown. At the moment of writing he is still at large.

He formed one of a band of prisoners who were returning from the quarries late in the afternoon. As the men reached the road which leads through the plantation to the main gate of the prison, one of the warders in charge was overcome by an attack of faintness. In the ensuing confusion, a convict of the name of Cairns, who was walking at the head of the gang, made a sudden bolt for freedom. He was immediately challenged and fired at by the Civil Guard.

The shot took partial effect, but failed for the moment to stop the runaway, who succeeded in scrambling off into the wood. He was pursued by the Civil Guard, and it was at that moment that Lyndon, who was in the rear of the gang, also made a dash for liberty.

He seems to have jumped the low wall which bounds the plantation, and although fired at in turn by another of the warders, apparently escaped injury.

Running up the hill through the trees, he reached the open slope of moor on the farther side which divides the plantation from the main wood. While he was crossing this he was seen from the roadway by that well-known horse-dealer and pigeon-shot, Mr. Alfred Smith of Shepherd's Bush, who happened to be on a walking tour in the district.

Mr. Smith, with characteristic sportsmans.h.i.+p, made a plucky attempt to stop him; but Lyndon, who had picked up a heavy stick in the plantation, dealt him a terrific blow on the head that temporarily stunned him. He then jumped the railings and took refuge in the wood.

The pursuing warders came up a few minutes later, but by this time a heavy mist was beginning to settle down over the moor, rendering the prospect of a successful search more than doubtful. The warders therefore surrounded the wood with the idea of preventing Lyndon's escape.

Taking advantage of the fog, however, the latter succeeded in slipping out on the opposite side. He was heard climbing the railings by a.s.sistant-warder Conway, who immediately gave the alarm and closed with the fugitive. The other warders came running up, but just before they could reach the scene of the struggle Lyndon managed to free himself by means of a brutal kick, and darting into the fog disappeared from sight.