The Lunatic at Large | Page 5

story, Escott, but quite intelligible. There seem to be the best reasons for answering no questions about him; you understand?"
"Certainly, sir," said the two assistants, with the more assurance as they had no information to give.
"I am perfectly satisfied, mind you--perfectly satisfied," added their chief.
"By the way, sir," Sherlaw ventured to remark, "hadn't they given him something in the way of a sleeping-draught?"
"Eh? Indeed? I hardly think so, Sherlaw, I hardly think so. Case of reaction entirely. Good morning."
"Congleton seems satisfied," remarked Escott.
"I'll tell you what," said the junior, profoundly. "Old Congers is a very good chap, and all that, but he's not what I should call extra sharp. I should feel uncommon suspicious."
"H'm," replied Escott. "As you say, our worthy chief is not extra sharp. But that's not our business, after all."
CHAPTER II.
"By the way," said Escott, a couple of days later, "how is your mysterious man getting on? I haven't seen him myself yet."
Sherlaw laughed.
"He's turning out a regular sportsman, by George! For the first day he was more or less in the same state in which he arrived. Then he began to wake up and ask questions. 'What the devil is this place?' he said to me in the evening. It may sound profane, but he was very polite, I assure you. I told him, and he sort of raised his eyebrows, smiled, and thanked me like a Prime Minister acknowledging an obligation. Since then he has steadily developed sporting, not to say frisky, tastes. He went out this morning, and in five minutes had his arm round one of the prettiest nurses' waist. And she didn't seem to mind much either, by George!"
"He'll want a bit of looking after, I take it."
"Seems to me he is uncommonly capable of taking care of himself. The rest of the establishment will want looking after, though."
From this time forth the mysterious gentleman began to regularly take the air and to be remarked, and having once remarked him, people looked again.
Mr Francis Beveridge, for such it appeared was his name, was distinguished even for Clankwood. Though his antecedents were involved in mystery, so much confidence was placed in Dr Congleton's discrimination that the unknown stranger was at once received on the most friendly terms by every one; and, to tell the truth, it would have been hard to repulse him for long. His manner was perfect, his conversation witty to the extremest verge of propriety, and his clothes, fashionable in cut and of unquestionable fit, bore on such of the buttons as were made of metal the hall mark of a leading London firm. He wore the longest and most silky moustaches ever seen, and beneath them a short well-tended beard completed his resemblance--so the ladies declared--to King Charles of unhappy memory. The melancholic Mr Jones (quondam author of 'Sunflowers--A Lyrical Medley') declared, indeed, that for Mr Beveridge shaving was prohibited, and darkly whispered "suicidal," but his opinion was held of little account.
It was upon a morning about a week after his arrival that Dr Escott, alone in the billiard-room, saw him enter. Escott had by this time made his acquaintance, and, like almost everybody else, had already succumbed to the fascination of his address.
"Good morning, doctor," he said; "I wish you to do me a trifling favour, a mere bending of your eyes."
Escott laughed.
"I shall be delighted. What is it?"
Mr Beveridge unbuttoned his waistcoat and displayed his shirt-front.
"I only want you to be good enough to read the inscription written here."
The doctor bent down.
" 'Francis Beveridge,' " he said. "That's all I see."
"And that's all I see," said Mr Beveridge. "Now what can you read here? I am not troubling you?"
He held out his handkerchief as he spoke.
"Not a bit," laughed the doctor, "but I only see 'Francis Beveridge' here too, I'm afraid."
"Everything has got it," said Mr Beveridge, shaking his head, it would be hard to say whether humorously or sadly. " 'Francis Beveridge' on everything. It follows, I suppose, that I am Francis Beveridge?"
"What else?" asked Escott, who was much amused.
"That's just it. What else?" said the other. He smiled a peculiarly charming smile, thanked the doctor with exaggerated gratitude, and strolled out again.
"He is a rum chap," reflected Escott.
And indeed in the outside world he might safely have been termed rather rum, but here in this backwater, so full of the oddest flotsam, his waywardness was rather less than the average. He had, for instance, a diverting habit of modifying the time, and even the tune, of the hymns on Sunday, and he confessed to having kissed all the nurses and housemaids except three. But both Escott and Sherlaw declared they had never met a more congenial spirit. Mr Beveridge's game of billiards was quite remarkable even for Clankwood, where the enforced leisure of many of