"Confound her!" said Twiddel, taking the letter.

He looked at the envelope, and remarked with a little start of nervous excitement, "From Dr Congleton."

"News of Mr Beveridge," laughed Welsh.

The doctor read the first few lines, and then, as if he had got an electric shock, the letter fell from his hand, and an expression of the most utter and lively consternation came over his face.

"Heavens!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "it's all up."

"What's up?" cried Welsh, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the letter.

"He's run away!"

Welsh looked at him for a moment in some astonishment, and then burst out laughing.

"What a joke!" he cried; "I don't see anything to make a fuss about. We're jolly well rid of him."

"The fee! I won't get a penny till I bring him back. And the whole thing will be found out!"

As the full meaning of this predicament burst upon Welsh, his face underwent a change by no means pleasant to watch. For a full minute he swore, and then an ominous silence fell upon the room.

Twiddel was the first to recover himself.

"Let me see the letter," he said; "I haven't finished it."

Welsh read it aloud-

"DEAR TWIDDEL,-I regret to inform you that the patient, Francis Beveridge, whom you placed under my care, has escaped from Clankwood. We have made every inquiry consistent with strict privacy, but unfortunately have not yet been able to lay our hands upon him. We only know that he left Ashditch Junction in the London express, and was seen walking out of St Euston's Cross. How he has been able to maintain himself in concealment without money or clothes, I am unable to imagine.

"As no inquiries have been made for him by his cousin Mr Welsh, or any other of his friends or relatives, I am writing to you that you may inform them, and I hope that this letter may follow you abroad without delay. I may add that the circ.u.mstances of his escape showed most unusual cunning, and could not possibly have been guarded against.

"Trusting that you are having a pleasant holiday, I am, yours very truly,

ADOLPHUS S. CONGLETON."

The two looked at one another in silence for a minute, and then Welsh said, fiercely, "You must catch him again, Twiddel. Do you think I am going to have all my risk and trouble for nothing?"

"_I_ must catch him! Do you suppose _I_ let him loose?"

"You must catch him, all the same."

"I shan't bother my head about him," answered Twiddel, with the recklessness of despair.

"You won't? You want to have the story known, I suppose?"

"I don't care if it is."

Welsh looked at him for a minute: then he jumped up and exclaimed, "You need a drink, old man. Let's hurry up that slavey."

With the first course their countenances cleared a little, with the second they were almost composed, by the end of dinner they had started plot-hatching hopefully again.

"It's any odds on the man's still being in town," said Welsh. "He had no money or clothes, and evidently he hasn't gone to any of his friends, or the whole story would have been out. Now, there is nowhere where a man can lie low so well, especially if he is hard up, as London. I can answer from experience. He is hardly likely to be in the West End, or the best cla.s.s of suburbs, so we've something to go upon at once. We must go to a private inquiry office and put men on his track, and then we must take the town in beats ourselves. So much is clear; do you see?"

"And hadn't we better find out whether anything more is known at Clankwood?" suggested Twiddel. "Dr Congleton wrote a month ago; perhaps they have caught him by this time."

"Hardly likely, I'm afraid; he'd have written to you if they had. Still, we can but ask."

"But, I say!" the doctor suddenly exclaimed, "people may find out that I'm back without him."

Welsh was equal to the emergency.

"You must leave again at once," he said decisively, rising from the table; "and there's no good wasting time, either."

"What do you mean?" asked the bewildered doctor, who had not yet a.s.similated the criminal point of view.

"We'll put our luggage straight on to a cab, drive off to other rooms-I know a cheap place that will do-and if by any chance inquiries are made, people must be told that you are still abroad. n.o.body must hear of your coming home to-night."

"Is it--" began Twiddel, dubiously.

"Is it what?" snapped his friend.

"Is it worth it?"

"Is 500, not to speak of two reputations, worth it! Come on!"

The unfortunate doctor sighed, and rose too. He was beginning to think that the nefarious acquisition of fees might have drawbacks after all.

CHAPTER II.

The chronicle must now go back a few days and follow another up-express.

"I must either be a clergyman or a policeman," Mr Bunker reflected, in the corner of his carriage; "they seem to me to be on the whole the two least molested professions. Each certainly has a livery which, if its occupier is ordinarily judicious, ought to serve as a certificate of sanity. To me all policemen are precisely alike, but I daresay they know them apart in the force, and as all the beats and crossings are presumably taken already, I might excite suspicion by my mere superfluity. Besides, a theatrical costumier's uniform would possibly lack some ridiculous but essential detail."

He lit another cigar and looked humorously out of the window.

"I shall take orders. An amateur theatrical clergyman's costume will be more comfortable, and probably less erroneous. They allow them some lat.i.tude, I believe; and I don't suppose there are any visible ordination scars whose absence would give me away. I shall certainly study the first reverend brother I meet to see."

Thus wisely ruminating, he arrived in London at a very early hour on a chilly morning, and drove straight to a small hotel near King's Cross, where the landlord was much gratified at receiving so respectable a guest as the Rev. Alexander Butler. ("I must begin with a B." said Mr Bunker to himself; "I think it's lucky.")

It is true the reverend gentleman was in evening clothes, while his hat and coat had a singularly secular, not to say fashionable, appearance; but, as he mentioned casually in the course of some extremely affable remarks, he had been dining in a country house, and had not thought it worth while changing before he left. After breakfasting he dressed himself in an equally secular suit of tweeds and went out, he mentioned incidentally, to call at his tailor's for his professional habit, which he seemed surprised to learn had not yet been forwarded to the hotel.

A visit to a certain well-known firm of theatrical costumiers was followed by his reappearance in a cab accompanied by a bulky brown paper parcel; and presently he emerged from his room attired more consistently with his office, much to his own satisfaction, for, as he observed, "I cannot say I approve of clergymen masquerading as laymen."

His opinion on the converse circ.u.mstance was not expressed.