A Rogue by Compulsion by Victor Bridges (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📖

venomous when I jumped up—the revolver was really an unnecessary precaution. Directly I was on my feet I went as giddy as a kite, and it was only by clutching the chair that I saved myself from toppling over. I was evidently in a worse way than I imagined.

Lowering his weapon the doctor repeated his order.

"Sit down, man, sit down. No one means you any harm here."

"Who is it in the car?" I demanded, fighting hard against the accursed feeling of faintness that was again stealing through me.

"They are friends of mine. They have nothing to do with the police.
You will see in a minute."

I sat down, more from necessity than by choice, and as I did so I heard the car draw up outside the back door.

Crossing to the window the doctor threw up the sash.

"Savaroff!" he called out.

There came an answer in a man's voice which I was unable to catch.

"Come in here," went on McMurtrie. "Don't bother about the car." He turned back to me. "Drink this," he added, pouring out some more brandy into the wine-glass. I gulped it down and lay back again in my chair, tingling all through.

He took my wrist and felt my pulse for a moment. "I know you are feeling bad," he said, "but we'll get your wet clothes off and put you to bed in a minute. You will be a different man in the morning."

"That will be very convenient," I observed faintly.

There was a noise of footsteps outside, the handle of the door turned, and a man—a huge bear of a man in a long Astrachan coat—strode heavily into the room. He was followed by a girl whose face was almost hidden behind a partly-turned-back motor veil. When they caught sight of me they both stopped abruptly.

"Who's this?" demanded the man.

Dr. McMurtrie made a graceful gesture towards me with his hand.
"Allow me," he said, "to introduce you. Monsieur and Mademoiselle
Savaroff—our distinguished and much-sought-after friend Mr. Neil
Lyndon."

The big man gave a violent start, and with a little exclamation the girl stepped forward, turning back her veil. I saw then that she was remarkably handsome, in a dark, rather sullen-looking sort of way.

"You will excuse my getting up," I said weakly. "It doesn't seem to agree with me."

"Mr. Lyndon," explained the doctor, "is fatigued. I was just proposing that he should go to bed when I heard the car."

"How in the name of Satan did he get here?" demanded the other man, still staring at me in obvious amazement.

"He came in through the window with the intention of borrowing a little food. I had happened to see him in the garden, and being under the natural impression that he was—er—well, another friend of ours, I ventured to detain him."

Savaroff gave a short laugh. "But it's incredible," he muttered.

The girl was watching me curiously. "Poor man," she exclaimed, "he must be starving!"

"My dear Sonia," said McMurtrie, "you reflect upon my hospitality. Mr.
Lyndon has been faring sumptuously on bread and milk."

"But he looks so wet and ill."

"He is wet and ill," rejoined the doctor agreeably. "That is just the reason why I am going to ask you to heat some water and light a fire in the spare bedroom. We don't want to disturb Mrs. Weston at this time of night. I suppose the bed is made up?"

Sonia nodded. "I think so. I'll go up and see anyhow."

With a last glance at me she left the room, and Savaroff, taking off his coat, threw it across the back of a chair. Then he came up to where I was sitting.

"You don't look much like your pictures, my friend," he said, unwinding the scarf that he was wearing round his neck.

"Under the circumstances," I replied, "that's just as well."

He laughed again, showing a set of strong white teeth. "Yes, yes. But the clothes and the short hair—eh? They would take a lot of explaining away. It was fortunate for you you chose this house—very fortunate. You find yourself amongst friends here."

I nodded.

I didn't like the man—there was too great a suggestion of the bully about him, but for all that I preferred him to McMurtrie.

It was the latter who interrupted. "Come, Savaroff, you take Mr. Lyndon's other arm and we'll help him upstairs. It is quite time he got out of those wet things."

With their joint assistance I hoisted myself out of the chair and, leaning heavily on the pair of them, hobbled across to the door. Every step I took sent a thrill of pain through me, for I was as stiff and sore as though I had been beaten all over with a walking-stick. The stairs were a bit of a job too, but they managed to get me up somehow or other, and I found myself in a large sparsely furnished hall lit by one ill-burning gas jet. There was a door half open on the left, and through the vacant space I could see the flicker of a freshly lighted fire.

They helped me inside, where we found the girl Sonia standing beside a long yellow bath-tub which she had set out on a blanket.

"I thought Mr. Lyndon might like a hot bath," she said. "It won't take very long to warm up the water."

"Like it!" I echoed gratefully; and then, finding no other words to express my emotions, I sank down in an easy chair which had been pushed in front of the fire.

I think the brandy that McMurtrie had given me must have gone to my head, or perhaps it was merely the sudden sense of warmth and comfort coming on top of my utter fatigue. Anyhow I know I fell gradually into a sort of blissful trance, in which things happened to me very much as they do in a dream.

I have a dim recollection of being helped to pull off my soaked and filthy clothes, and later on of lying back with indescribable felicity in a heavenly tub of hot water.

Then I was in bed and somebody was rubbing me, rubbing me all over with some warm pungent stuff that seemed to take away the pain in my limbs and leave me just a tingling mass of drowsy contentment.

After that—well, after that I suppose I fell asleep.

* * * * *

I base this last idea upon the fact that the next thing I remember is hearing some one say in a rather subdued voice: "Don't wake him up. Let him sleep as long as he likes—it's the best thing for him."

Whereupon, as was only natural, I promptly opened my eyes.

Dr. McMurtrie and the dark girl were standing by my bedside, looking down at me.

I blinked at them for a moment, wondering in my half-awake state where the devil I had got to. Then suddenly it all came back to me.

"Well," said the doctor smoothly, "and how is the patient today?"

I stretched myself with some care. I was still pretty stiff, and my throat felt as if some one had been scraping it with sand-paper, but all the same I knew that I was better—much better.

"I don't think there's any serious damage," I said hoarsely. "How long have I been asleep?"

He looked at his watch. "As far as I remember, you went to sleep in your bath soon after midnight. It's now four o'clock in the afternoon."

I started up in bed. "Four o'clock!" I exclaimed. "Good Lord! I must get up—I—"

He laid his hand on my shoulder. "Don't be foolish, my friend," he said. "You will get up when you are fit to get up. At the present moment you are going to have something to eat." He turned to the girl. "What are you thinking of giving him?" he asked.

"There are plenty of eggs," she said, "and there's some of that fish we had for breakfast." She answered curtly, almost rudely, looking at me while she spoke. Her manner gave me the impression that for some reason or other she and McMurtrie were not exactly on the best of terms.

If that was so, he himself betrayed no sign of it. "Either will do excellently," he said in his usual suave way, "or perhaps our young friend could manage both. I believe the Dartmoor air is most stimulating."

"I shall be vastly grateful for anything," I said, addressing the girl. "Whatever is the least trouble to cook."

She nodded and left the room without further remark—McMurtrie looking after her with what seemed like a faint gleam of malicious amusement.

"I have brought you yesterday's Daily Mail," he said; "I thought it would amuse you to read the description of your escape. It is quite entertaining; and besides that there is a masterly little summary of your distinguished career prior to its unfortunate interruption." He laid the paper on the bed. "First of all, though," he added, "I will just look you over. I couldn't find much the matter with you last night, but we may as well make certain."

He made a short examination of my throat, and then, after feeling my pulse, tapped me vigorously all over the chest.

"Well," he said finally, "you have been through enough to kill two ordinary men, but except for giving you a slight cold in the head it seems to have done you good."

I sat up in bed. "Dr. McMurtrie," I said bluntly, "what does all this mean? Who are you, and why are you hiding me from the police?"

He looked down on me, with that curious baffling smile of his. "A natural and healthy curiosity, Mr. Lyndon," he said drily. "I hope to satisfy it after you have had something to eat. Till then—" he shrugged his shoulders—"well, I think you will find the Daily Mail excellent company."

He left the room, closing the door behind him, and for a moment I lay there with an uncomfortable sense of being tangled up in some exceedingly mysterious adventure. Even such unusual people as Dr. McMurtrie and his friends do not as a rule take in and shelter escaped convicts purely out of kindness of heart. There must be a strong motive for them to run such a risk in my case, but what that motive could possibly be was a matter which left me utterly puzzled. So far as I could remember I had never seen any of the three before in my life.

I glanced round the room. It was a big airy apartment, with ugly old-fashioned furniture, and two windows, both of which looked out in the same direction. The pictures on the wall included an oleograph portrait of the late King Edward in the costume of an Admiral, a large engraving of Mr. Landseer's inevitable stag, and several coloured and illuminated texts. One of the latter struck me as being topical if a little inaccurate. It ran as follows:

THE WICKED FLEE WHEN NO MAN PURSUETH

Over the mantelpiece was a mirror in a mahogany frame. I gazed at it idly for a second, and then a sudden impulse seized me to get up and see what I looked like. I turned back the clothes and crawled out of bed. I felt shaky when I stood up, but my legs seemed to bear me all right, and very carefully I made my way across to the fireplace.

The first glance I took in the mirror gave me a shock that nearly knocked me over. A cropped head and three days' growth of beard will make an extraordinary difference in any one, but I would never have believed they could have transformed me into quite such an unholy-looking ruffian as the one I saw staring back at me out of the glass. If I had ever been conceited about my personal appearance, that moment would have cured me for good.

Satisfied with a fairly brief inspection I returned to the bed, and arranging the pillow so as to fit the small of my back, picked up the Daily Mail. I happened to open it at the centre page, and the big heavily leaded headlines caught my eyes straight away.

ESCAPE OF NEIL LYNDON FAMOUS PRISONER BREAKS OUT OF DARTMOOR SENSATIONAL CASE RECALLED

With a pleasant feeling of anticipation I settled down to read.

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