Mr Bunker pulled a paper out of his pocket and showed it to him.
"Perhaps this may suggest a why."
When the doctor saw the bill for Mr Beveridge"s linen, the last of his courage ebbed away. He glanced helplessly at Welsh, but his ally was now leaning back in his chair with such an irritating a.s.sumption of indifference, and the prospective fee had so obviously vanished, that he was suddenly seized with the most virtuous resolutions.
"What do you want to know, sir?" he asked.
"In the first place, how did you come to have anything to do with me?"
Welsh, whose sharp wits instantly divined the weak point in the attack, cut in quickly, "Don"t tell him if he doesn"t know already!"
But Twiddel"s relapse to virtue was complete. "I was asked to take charge of you while--" He hesitated.
"While I was unwell," smiled Mr Bunker. "Yes?"
"I was to travel with you."
"Ah!"
"But I-I didn"t like the idea, you see; and so-in fact-Welsh suggested that I should take him instead."
"While you locked me up in Clankwood?"
"Yes."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr Bunker, "I must say it was a devilish humorous idea."
At this Twiddel began to take heart again.
"I am very sorry, sir, for--" he began, when the Baron interrupted excitedly.
"Zen vat is your name, Bonker?"
"_I_ am Mr Mandell-Essington, Baron."
The Baron looked at the other two in turn with wide-open eyes.
Then he turned indignantly upon Welsh.
"You were impostor zen, sare? You gom to my house and call yourself a gentleman, and impose upon me, and tell of your family and your estates.
You, a low-er-er-vat you say?-a low _cad!_ Bonker, I cannot sit at ze same table viz zese persons!"
He rose as he spoke.
"One moment, Baron! Before we send these gentlemen back to their really promising career of fraud, I want to ask one or two more questions." He turned to Twiddel. "What were you to be paid for this?"
"500."
Mr Bunker opened his eyes. "That"s the way my money goes? From your anxiety to recapture me, I presume you have not yet been paid?"
"No, I a.s.sure you, Mr Essington," said Twiddel, eagerly; "I give you my word."
"I shall judge by the circ.u.mstances rather than your word, sir. It is perhaps unnecessary to inform you that you have had your trouble for nothing." He looked at them both as though they were curious animals, and then continued: "You, Mr Welsh, are a really wonderfully typical rascal. I am glad to have met you. You can now put on your coat and go." As Welsh still sat defiantly, he added, "_At once_, sir! or you may possibly find policemen and four-wheeled cabs outside. I have something else to say to Dr Twiddel."
With the best air he could muster, Welsh silently c.o.c.ked his hat on the side of his head, threw his coat over his arm, and was walking out, when a watchful waiter intercepted him.
"Your bill, sare."
"My friend is paying."
"No, Mr Welsh," cried the real Essington; "I think you had better pay for this dinner yourself."
Welsh saw the vigilant proprietor already coming towards him, and with a look that augured ill for Twiddel when they were alone, he put his hand in his pocket.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Essington, "the inevitable bill!"
"And now," he continued, turning to Twiddel, "you, doctor, seem to me a most unfortunately constructed biped; your nose is just long enough to enable you to be led into a singularly original adventure, and your brains just too few to carry it through creditably. Hang me if I wouldn"t have made a better job of the business! But before you disappear from the company of gentlemen I must ask you to do one favour for me. First thing to-morrow morning you will go down to Clankwood, tell what lie you please, and obtain my legal discharge, or whatever it"s called. After that you may go to the devil-or, what comes much to the same thing, to Mr Welsh-for all I care. You will do this without fail?"
"Ye-es," stammered Twiddel, "certainly, sir."
"You may now retire-and the faster the better."
As the crestfallen doctor followed his ally out of the restaurant, the Baron exclaimed in disgust, "Ze cads! You are too merciful. You should punish."
"My dear Baron, after all I am obliged to these rascals for the most amusing time I have ever had in my life, and one of the best friends I"ve ever made."
"Ach, Bonker! Bot vat do I say? You are not Bonker no more, and yet may I call you so, jost for ze sake of pleasant times? It vill be too hard to change."
"I"d rather you would, Baron. It will be a perpetual in memoriam record of my departed virtues."
"Departed, Bonker?"
"Departed, Baron," his friend repeated with a sigh; "for how can I ever hope to have so s.p.a.cious a field for them again? Believe me, they will wither in an atmosphere of orthodoxy. And now let us order dinner."
"But first," said the Baron, blushing, "I haf a piece of news."
"Baron, I guess it!"
"Ze Lady Alicia is now mine! Congratulate!"
"With all my heart, Baron! What could be a fitter finish than the detection of villainy, the marriage of all the sane people, and the apotheosis of the lunatic?"
THE END.