“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 nobleman had so ingratiated himself with his host that Sir [pg 165] 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 fashion known as the frog’s march to a room in a remote wing, there to pass 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.
Colonel Savage seemed lost in thought.
“It is a curious thing, Trelawney,” he replied, at length, “that the footman who attends the Baron should have told my man—who, of course, told me—that a number of his things are marked ‘Francis Beveridge.’ It is also rather strange that this impostor should have known so little of the Baron’s movements as to arrive several hours after him, assuming he had hatched a plot to impersonate him.”
“But the man’s obviously mad.”
“Must be,” said the colonel.
The house party were assembled in the drawing-room waiting for dinner to be announced. The bogus Baron was engaged in an animated discussion with Colonel Savage on the subject of Bavarian shootings, and the colonel having omitted to inform him that he had some personal experience of these, Mr Bunker was serving up such of his friend’s anecdotes as he could remember with sauce more peculiarly his own.
“Five hondred vild boars,” he was saying, “eight hondred brace of partridges, many bears, and rabbits so [pg 166] moch zat it took five veeks to bury zem. All zese ve did shoot before breakfast, colonel. Aftair breakfast again ve did go out——”