Still they would naturally have been of immense help to me now if I could have got hold of them. Clear as the main details were in my mind, I saw I should have to go over a good bit of old ground before I could make out the exact list of my requirements which McMurtrie needed.
All that afternoon and the whole of the following day I stuck steadily to my task. I had little to interrupt me, for with the exception of Sonia who brought me up my meals, and the old deaf-and-dumb housekeeper who came to do my room about midday, I saw or heard nobody. McMurtrie did not appear again, and Savaroff, as I knew, was away in London.
I took an hour off in the evening for the purpose of studying the Daily Mail, which proved to be quite as entertaining as the previous issue. There were two and a half columns about me altogether, the first consisting of a powerful if slightly inaccurate description of how I had stolen the bicycle, and the remainder dealing with various features of my crime and my escape. It was headed:
STILL AT LARGE NEIL LYNDON'S FIGHT FOR LIBERTY
and I settled myself down to read with a feeling of enjoyment that would doubtless have gratified Lord Northcliffe had he been fortunate enough to know about it.
"Neil Lyndon," it began, "whose daring escape from Princetown was fully described in yesterday's Daily Mail, has so far successfully baffled his pursuers. Not only is he still at liberty, but having possessed himself of a bicycle and a change of clothes by means of an amazingly audacious burglary, it is quite possible that he has managed to get clear away from the immediate neighbourhood."
This opening paragraph was followed by a full and vivid description of my raid on the bicycle house. It appeared that the machine which I had borrowed was the property of a certain Major Hammond, who, when interviewed by the representative of the Mail, expressed himself of the opinion that I was a dangerous character and that I ought to be recaptured without delay.
The narrative then shifted to my dramatic appearance on the bicycle, as witnessed by the surprised eyes of Assistant-warder Marshfield. According to that gentleman I had flashed past him at a terrific speed, hurling a handful of gravel in his face, which had temporarily blinded him. With amazing pluck and presence of mind he had recovered himself in time to puncture my back wheel, a feat of marksmanship which, as the Daily Mail observed, was "highly creditable under the circumstances."
From that point it seemed that all traces of me had ceased. Both I and the bicycle had vanished into space as completely as Elijah and his fiery chariot, and not all the united brains of Carmelite House appeared able to suggest a wholly satisfactory solution.
"Lyndon," said the Mail, "may have succeeded in reaching Plymouth on the stolen machine, and there obtained the food and shelter of which by that time he must have been sorely in need. On the other hand it is possible that, starved, frozen, and most likely wounded, he is crouching in some remote coppice, grimly determined to perish rather than to surrender himself to the warders."