"It _is_ your only chance," she said quietly, "but it may be a better one than you imagine."

And with this encouraging if somewhat obscure remark she went out and left me to my thoughts.

McMurtrie came up about an hour later. Suave and courteous as ever, he knocked at my door before entering the room, and wished me good morning in the friendliest of fashions.

"I have brought you another _Daily Mail_--yesterday's," he said, throwing the paper down on the bed. "It contains the second instalment of your adventures." Then he paused and looked at me with that curious smile that seemed to begin and end with his lips. "Well," he added, "and how are the stiffness and the sore throat this morning?"

"Gone," I said, "both of them. I have no excuse for stopping in bed except lack of clothes."

He nodded and sat down on the window-sill. "I daresay we can find a way out of that difficulty. My friend Savaroff would, I am sure, be delighted to lend you some garments to go on with. You seem to be much of a size."

"Well, I should be delighted to accept them," I said. "Even the joy of being in a real bed again begins to wear off after two days."

"I am afraid you can't expect very much liberty while you are our guest," he said, leaning back against the window. "It would be too dangerous for you to go outside the house, even at night time. I expect Sonia told you about our visitor yesterday."

"Yes," I said; "I should like to have heard the interview."

"It was quite interesting. From what he told me I should say that few prisoners have been more missed than you are. It appears that there are over seventy warders hunting about the neighbourhood, to say nothing of volunteers."

"I seem to be giving a lot of trouble," I said sadly.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Not to us. I am only sorry that we can't offer you a more entertaining visit." He opened his case and helped himself to a cigarette. "On the whole, however, I daresay you won't find the time drag so very much. There will be the business of altering your appearance--I hope to start on that the day after tomorrow--and then I want you to make me out a full list of everything you will need in connection with your experiments. It would be best perhaps to have a drawing of the actual shed--just as you would like it fitted up. You might start on this right away."

"Certainly," I said. "I shall be glad to have something to do."

"And I don't suppose you will mind much if we can't arrange anything very luxurious for you in the way of living accommodation. We shall have to choose as lonely a place as possible, and it will probably involve your feeding chiefly on tinned food, and roughing it a bit generally. It won't be for very long."

"I shan't mind in the least," I said. "Anything will be comfortable after Princetown. As long as you can fix me up with what I want for my work I shan't grumble about the rest."

He nodded again in a satisfied manner. "By the way," he said, "I suppose you never wore a beard or a moustache before you went to prison?"

"Only once in some amateur theatricals," I answered "and then the moustache came off."

"They will make a great difference in your appearance by themselves,"

he went on, looking at me critically. "I wonder how long they will take to grow."

I pa.s.sed my hand up my face, which was already covered with a thick stubble about half an inch in length. "At the present rate of progress," I said, "I should think about a week."

McMurtrie smiled. "Another fortnight on top of that will be nearer the mark, I expect," he said, getting up from the bed. "That will just fit in with our arrangements. In three weeks we ought to be able to fix you up with what you want, and by that time there won't be quite so much excitement about your escape. The _Daily Mail_ will have become tired of you, even if the police haven't." He stopped to flick the ash off his cigarette. "Of course you will have to be extremely careful when you are in London. I shall change your appearance so that it will be quite impossible for any one to recognize you, but there will always be the danger of somebody remembering your voice."

"I can disguise that to a certain extent," I said. "Besides, it's not likely that I shall run across any one I know well. I only want to amuse myself for two or three evenings, and the West End's a large place as far as amus.e.m.e.nt goes." Then I paused. "If you really thought it was too risky," I added carelessly, "I would give up the idea."

It was a bold stroke--but it met with the success that it deserved.

Any lingering doubts McMurtrie may have had about my intentions were apparently dispersed.

"I think you will work all the better for a short holiday," he said; "and I am sure you are sensible enough to keep out of any trouble."

He walked to the door, and stood for a moment with his hand on the k.n.o.b. "I will send you up the clothes and some paper and ink," he added. "Then you can get up or write in bed--just as you like."

After three years of granite quarrying--broken only by a short spell of sewing mailsacks--the thought of getting back to a more congenial form of work was a decidedly pleasant one. During the half-hour that elapsed before Sonia came up with my things, I lay in bed, busily pondering over various points in connection with my approaching task.

I had often done the same in the long solitary hours in my cell, and worked out innumerable figures and details in connection with it on my prison slate. Most of them, however, I had only retained vaguely in my head, for it is one of the intelligent rules of our cheerful convict system to allow no prisoner to make permanent notes of anything that might be of possible service to him after his release.

There seemed, therefore, every prospect that I should be fully occupied for some time to come. Indeed, it was not until I had dressed myself in Savaroff's clothes (they fitted me excellently) and sat down at the table with a pen and a pile of foolscap in front of me, that I realized what a lengthy task I had taken on.

All my rough notes--those invaluable notes and calculations that I had spent eighteen months over--were packed away in my safe at the Victoria Street office. I had not bothered about them at the time, for when you are being tried for your life other matters are apt to a.s.sume a certain degree of unimportance. Besides, although I had told George of their existence, I knew very well that, being jotted down in a private cypher, no one except myself would be able to make head or tail of what they were about.

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 n.o.body. 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 a.s.sistant-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 circ.u.mstances."

From that point it seemed that all traces of me had ceased. Both I and the bicycle had vanished into s.p.a.ce 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."

It was "possible," certainly, but as a guess at the truth that was about all that could be said for it.

The thing that pleased me most in the whole paper, however, was the interview with George in the third column. It was quite short--only a six-line paragraph headed "Mr. Marwood and the Escape," but brief as it was, it filled me with a rich delight.

"Interviewed by our Special Correspondent at his residence on the Chelsea Embankment, Mr. George Marwood was reluctant to express any opinion on the escape. 'The whole thing,' he said, 'is naturally extremely distasteful to me. I can only hope that the unhappy man may be recaptured before he succ.u.mbs to exposure, and before he has the chance to commit any further acts of robbery and violence.'"

In regard to the last sentiment I had not the faintest doubt that George was speaking the truth from the bottom of his heart. As long as I was at liberty his days and nights would be consumed by an acute and painful anxiety. He was no doubt haunted by the idea that I had broken prison largely for the purpose of renewing our old acquaintance, and the thought that I might possibly succeed in my object must have been an extremely uncomfortable one. I laughed softly to myself as I sat and pictured his misgivings. It cheered me to think that whatever happened later he would be left in this gnawing suspense for at least another three weeks. After that I might perhaps see my way to relieve it.

There were other people, I reflected, who must have read the _Mail_ with an equally deep if rather different interest. I tried to fancy how the news of my escape had affected Joyce. For all my cynical outburst in the morning, I knew well that no truer or more honest little heart ever beat in a girl's breast, and that the uncertainty about my fate must even now be causing her the utmost distress.

Then there was Tommy Morrison. Somehow or other I didn't think Tommy would be quite as anxious as Joyce. I could almost see him slapping his leg and laughing that great laugh of his, as he read about my theft of the bicycle and my wild dash down the hill past the warder.

He was a great believer in me, was Tommy--and I felt sure that nothing but the news of my recapture would shake his faith in my ability to survive.

It was good to know that, whatever the rest of the world might be thinking, these two at least would be following my escape with a pa.s.sionate hope that I should pull through.

Just about six o'clock in the evening of the next day Savaroff returned. I heard the car drive up to the house, and then came the sound of voices and footsteps, followed by the banging of a door.

After that there was silence for perhaps twenty minutes while my two hosts were presumably talking together in one of the rooms below.

Whether Sonia was with them or not I could not tell.

At last I heard some one mounting the stairs, and a moment later McMurtrie's figure framed itself in the doorway.