The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

“Why, to the Order in Mexico, of course,” replied the Spaniard. “Now you are warned, be ready, and keep close to me.” And he turned a smiling face to the crowd who had drawn back from us in respectful sympathy, thinking, doubtless, that we wished to condole with each other on the unfortunate state of our companions. In an instant, too, he seized on this last pretext and acted on it. “Will some of you gentlemen,” he cried in those clear, ringing tones of his, “carry our three senseless friends here to some place where they can be left in perfect safety and quietness? We have come on this flying machine trip from the floral fête at Shrewsbury, but, unfortunately, our leader got burned to death, and we have all had a terrible shock.”

“Poor things! Poor things!” murmured some of the bystanders nearest to us, and instantly the demeanour of the crowd changed, for they realised something of the horror of poor Captain Sparhawk’s end.

In silence an avenue was opened out for us, a waggonette with a pair of horses was driven up to the side of the fallen machine, and, tenderly and carefully, Doris, the hunchback, and the professor were lifted on to the sides and borne to a farm outbuilding about two hundred yards distant. Here the five of us were left alone, whilst the two or three strangers who had constituted themselves our chief helpers closed the place upon us as they sallied forth to find us doctors and some suitable refreshments.

“Now,” cried Casteno to me immediately I had seen that Doris was safe and was comfortably placed on a great heap of hay, “understand, we have not a moment to lose. Any second they may return, or some daring and inquisitive journalist may force his way in to interview us or to describe our battered condition. You pretend to be holding your flask to my father’s lips, whilst I search his clothes. Then if one of them comes to their senses or one of our newly-made friends return it won’t look at all suspicious.” And, as half mechanically I did as he had directed, he flung himself on his knees beside the prostrate hunchback and passed his hands rapidly over his clothes.

Evidently he knew a good deal of Peter Zouche’s methods, for I don’t think his search lasted ten seconds. All at once his fingers closed over a tiny bag, something like a Catholic scapular, that had been slung around the hunchback’s neck. With trembling fingers he tore this open, and disclosed to view the three precious manuscripts, which he instantly seized and packed away in his pocket.

Then he made the bag look as natural as he could, and restored it to its position under the old man’s singlet. As he rose to his feet again I saw that his face was ghastly white, and his teeth chattered like a man stricken with ague.

“My God,” he muttered, wiping the great beads of perspiration that had gathered about his temples, “isn’t this chase stern—awful? I doubt if even I should have dared to have tried a terrible move like this had I not known that there, at St. Bruno’s at Hampstead, was the key to these documents awaiting me. But I felt I could not falter now when Camille Velasquon had braved so much in bringing it from Mexico to London for me. But, bah! what cowards we are all of us sometimes.” And he reeled, and I am sure he would have fainted had I not instantly caught him myself and pressed the flask to his lips.

“Now to be off—to be off,” he said wildly a moment later, pushing me aside and staggering towards the exit from the tent. “I feel I can’t breathe here now that I have got these documents. Every nerve I have seems standing on end urging me to be off.”

I turned to look at Doris lying so peacefully in that corner, and then, half distracted, turned to follow him, but as I did so somebody started up and confronted us. It was the Professor Stephen Leopardi! His aspect now was wild and threatening, but we thought merely that the terrible experiences he had been through above the clouds had temporarily disturbed the balance of his senses and that we could soothe him like a child.

“You must not go,” he panted, his eyes rolling and his fingers clawing the empty air. “You must stay with me, I want you. I have seen you. There is much to explain.”