“Please, sir, it’s too late,” the girl answered, in a frightened tone. “It’s got away, whatever it is.”
I dropped the towel with which I had been rubbing myself and hurried on my clothes. In a few minutes I was down in the yard, where several men were standing together talking. John left them at once and came to me.
“Why did you want to go to the coach-house so early?” I exclaimed, glancing at the wide-open door and empty interior. “I had an awful job to get that man in there last night, and now you’ve let him go.”
“Well, sir, it was a fearful row he was a-making,” explained John. “Soon as I came this morning, about five o’clock, I was passing through the stack-yard when I heard an awful thumping at the coach-house door from the inside. Of course, I knew nowt about there being anyone theer, so I just goes straight up and opens the door, to see what was the matter, like, and, lor, I did ’ave a skeer, and no mistake! It wur quite dark, and I could see nowt but a pair o’ heyes a-glaring at me as savage as a wild animal’s. ‘Coom out o’ this ’ere and let’s ha’ a look at yer,’ I says, for, d’ye see, I thought as it wur someone who had crept in unbeknown in the daytime and got locked in by mistake. There warn’t no answer, and I wur just about to strike a match and ’ave a look at ’im, when he springs at me like a wild cat. I tried to hold him and I’m darned if he didn’t nearly make his teeth meet through my hand.”
He touched his right hand lightly, and I noticed for the first time that it was bandaged up.
“He got away from you, then?” I remarked.
“Got away from me?” John repeated, in a tone of utter disgust. “He warn’t such a sweet-looking object, or sweet-tempered ’un either, that I wur over-anxious for the pleasure of his company, he warn’t! I just got my hand out of his jaws and let him go as fast as he liked, with a jolly good kick behind to help him on, too. You see, sir, I didn’t know as you’d anything to do with putting him in there,” the man added apologetically. “I thought he’d got in quite promiscuous-like.”
To tell the truth, although I had been alarmed at first, I did not particularly regret what had happened. At any rate, it saved me the bother of going over to the police-station at Mellborough. Still, the thought that he might even now be lurking about in the vicinity, with plenty of opportunities to provide a weapon for himself, was not altogether a pleasant one.
“Who might he have been, sir?” John inquired curiously.
“Just what I should like to know,” I answered. “He’s a lunatic and a dangerous one, that’s certain—escaped from some asylum, I should think.” And I told him of my adventure on the previous night, to which the whole group listened open-mouthed.