“What the deuce is the meaning of it?” exclaimed Trelawney.
Colonel Savage smiled grimly and suggested, “Perhaps he wants to give the impostor an innings.”
“Dr Escott, I think, can tell you,” replied the baronet.
“Gentlemen,” said the doctor, “the man whom you have met as the Baron von Blitzenberg is none other than a most cunning and determined lunatic. He escaped from the asylum where I am at present assistant doctor, after all but murdering me; he has been seen in London since, but how he came to impersonate the unfortunate gentleman whom you locked up this afternoon I cannot say.”
Before they broke up for the night the genuine Baron, released from confinement and soothed by the humblest apologies and a heavy supper, recounted the main events in Mr Beveridge alias Bunker’s brief career in town. On his exploits in St Egbert’s he felt some delicacy in touching, but at the end of what was after all only a [pg 169] fragmentary and one-sided narrative, even the defrauded Trelawney could not but admit that, whatever the departed gentleman’s failings, his talents at least were worthy of a better cause.
CHAPTER VII.
The party at Brierley Park had gone at last to bed. The Baron was installed in his late usurper’s room, and from the clock-tower the hour of three had just been tolled. Sympathy and Sir Richard’s cellar had greatly mollified the Baron’s wrath; he had almost begun to see the humorous side of his late experience; as a rival Mr Bunker was extinct, and with an easy mind and a placid smile he had fallen asleep some two hours past.
The fire burned low, and for long nothing but the occasional sigh of the wind in the trees disturbed the silence. At length, had the Baron been awake, he might have heard the stealthiest of footsteps in the corridor outside. Then they stopped; his door was gently opened, and first a head and then a whole man slipped in.
Still the Baron slept, dreaming peacefully of his late companion. They were driving somewhere in a hansom, Mr Bunker was telling one of his most amusing stories, when there came a shock, the hansom seemed to turn a somersault, and the Baron awoke. At first he thought he must be dreaming still; the electric light had been turned on and the room was bright as day, but, more bewildering yet, Mr Bunker was seated on his bed, gazing at him with an expression of thoughtful amusement.