THE SEARCH PARTY

BY

G. A. BIRMINGHAM

AUTHOR OF “SPANISH GOLD,” “LALAGE’S LOVERS,”

“THE SIMPKINS PLOT,” ETC.

HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

THE SEARCH PARTY

CHAPTER I

Dr. O’Grady, Dr. Lucius O’Grady, was the medical officer of the Poor Law Union of Clonmore, which is in Western Connacht. The office is not like that of resident magistrate or bank manager. It does not necessarily confer on its holder the right of entry to the highest society. Therefore, Dr. O’Grady was not invited to dinner, luncheon, or even afternoon tea by Lord Manton at that season of the year when Clonmore Castle was full of visitors. Lady Flavia Canning, Lord Manton’s daughter, who was married to a London barrister of some distinction, and moved in smart society, did not appreciate Dr. O’Grady. Nor did those nephews and nieces of the deceased Lady Manton who found it convenient to spend a part of each summer at Clonmore Castle. They were not the sort of people who would associate with a dispensary doctor, unless, indeed, he had possessed a motor car. And Dr. O’Grady, for reasons which became obvious later on, did not keep a motor car.

On the other hand, he was a frequent guest at the Castle during those early summer months when Lord Manton was alone. In April and May, for instance, and in June, Dr. O’Grady dined once, twice, or even three times a week at Clonmore Castle. The old earl liked him because he found him amusing; and Dr. O’Grady had a feeling for his host as nearly approaching respect as it was in his nature to entertain for any man. This respect was not of the kind which every elderly earl would have appreciated. The doctor was constitutionally incapable of understanding the innate majesty of a peerage, and had not the smallest veneration for grey hairs in man or woman. Nor was he inclined to bow before any moral superiority in Lord Manton. In fact, Lord Manton, though grown too old for the lavish wildness of his earlier years, made no pretence at morality or dignity of any kind. What Dr. O’Grady respected and liked in him was a certain cynical frankness, a hinted contempt for all ordinary standards of respectability. This suited well enough the doctor’s own volatile indifference to anything which threatened to bore him.

When Lord Manton returned to Clonmore in May, 1905, after his usual visit to his daughter in Grosvenor Street, he at once asked Dr. O’Grady to dinner. There was on this occasion a special reason for the invitation, though doubtless it would have been given and accepted without any reason. Lord Manton wanted to know all that could be known about a new tenant who had taken Rosivera for six months. Rosivera, long used as a dower house by Lord Manton’s ancestors, was not an easy place to let. It stood eight miles from the village of Clonmore, on the shore of a small land-locked bay. It was a singularly unattractive building, rectangular, grey, four storeys high, and lit by small ineffective windows. There was no shooting connected with it nor any fishing of the kind appreciated by a sportsman. There were, it was believed, small flat fish to be caught in the bay, but no one thought it worth while to pursue these creatures earnestly. Occasionally an adventurous Englishman, cherishing some romantic idea of the west of Ireland, rented the house for August and September. Occasionally a wealthy Dublin doctor brought his family there for six weeks. None of these tenants ever came a second time. The place was too solitary for the social, too ugly for the amateurs of the picturesque, utterly dull for the sportsman, and had not even the saving grace of an appeal to the romantic. The mother and grandmother of Lord Manton had died there, but in the odour of moderate sanctity. Their ghosts wandered down no corridors. Indeed, no ghosts could have haunted, no tradition attached itself to a house with the shape and appearance of Rosivera.

There was, therefore, something interesting and curious in the fact that a tenant had taken the place for six months and had settled down there early in March, a time of year at which even a hermit, vowed to a life entirely devoid of incident, might have hesitated to fix his cell at Rosivera.

“The first thing that struck me as queer about the man,” said Lord Manton, after dinner, “was his name. Did you ever hear of anybody called Red? Scarlett, of course, is comparatively common.”

“So is Black,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and Brown, and Grey, and White. I’ve heard of Pink, and I once met a man called Blue, but he spelt it ‘ew.’”

“Guy Theodore Red is this man’s name. Guy and Theodore are all right, of course, but Red——!”

“Is he safe for the rent, do you think?”

“He has paid the whole six months in advance,” said Lord Manton, “and he never asked a question about the drains. He’s the only tenant I ever heard of who didn’t make himself ridiculous about drains.”

“He hasn’t got typhoid yet,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If he’s the kind of man who pays six months’ rent in advance and asks no questions, I hope he soon will.”

“Unfortunately for you he seems to have neither wife nor children.”

“No, nor as much as a maid-servant,” said Dr. O’Grady. “And from the look of him, I’d say he was a tough old cock himself, the sort of man a microbe would hesitate about attacking.”

“You’ve seen him, then?”

“I happened to be standing at Jimmy O’Loughlin’s door the day he drove through in his motor car.”

“You would be, of course.”

“But I’ve never seen him since. Nobody has. He has a servant, an Englishman, I’m told, who comes into the village every second day in the motor, and buys what’s wanted for the house at Jimmy O’Loughlin’s.”

“Jimmy makes a good thing out of that, I expect,” said Lord Manton.

“Believe you me, he does. Jimmy’s the boy who knows how to charge, and these people don’t seem to care what they pay.”

“I hear he has two friends with him.”

“He has, foreigners, both of them. Jimmy O’Loughlin says they can’t either of them speak English. It was Jimmy who carted their things down to Rosivera from the station, so of course he’d know.”

“Byrne told me that,” said Lord Manton, chuckling as he spoke. “There seems to have been some queer things to be carted.”

The conversation turned on Mr. Red’s belongings, the personal luggage which the English servant had brought in the train, the packing-cases which had followed the next day and on many subsequent days. Byrne, it appeared, had also met Mr. Red and his party on their arrival; but, then, Byrne had a legitimate excuse wherewith to cover his curiosity. He was Lord Manton’s steward, and it was his business to put the new tenant in possession of Rosivera. He had given a full report of Mr. Red, the foreign friends and the English servant, to Lord Manton. He had described the packing-cases which, day after day, were carted from the railway station by Jimmy O’Loughlin. They were, according to Byrne, of unusual size and great weight. There were altogether twenty-five of them. It was Byrne’s opinion that they contained pianos. The station-master, who had to drag them out of the train, agreed with him. Jimmy O’Loughlin and his man, who had ample opportunities of examining them on the way to Rosivera, thought they were full of machinery, possibly steam engines, or as they expressed it, “the makings of some of them motor cars.”

“No man,” said Lord Manton, commenting on this information, “even if his name happens to be Red, can possibly want twenty-five grand pianos in Rosivera.”

“Unless he came down here with the intention of composing an opera,” said Dr. O’Grady.

“Even then—three, four, anything up to six I could understand, but twenty-five! No opera could require that. As for those cases containing steam engines or bits of motor cars, what on earth could a manufacturer of such things be doing at Rosivera?”

“My own belief,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is that the man is an artist—a sculptor, engaged in the production of a statue of unusual size.”

“With blocks of marble in the packing-cases?”

“Yes, and the two foreigners for models. They look like models. One of them had a long black beard, and the other was a big man, well over six foot, blond, seemed to be a Norwegian; not that I ever saw a Norwegian to my knowledge, but this fellow looked like the kind of man a Norwegian ought to be.”

“It will be a pretty big statue,” said Lord Manton, “if it absorbs twenty-five blocks of marble, each the size of a grand piano.”

“He looked like an artist,” said Dr. O’Grady; “he had a pointed beard, and a wild expression in his eye.”

“A genius escaped from somewhere, perhaps.”

“He very well might be. Indeed, I’d say from the glimpse I had of him that he’s worse than a genius. He had the eye of a mad gander. But, of course, I only saw him the once, sitting in his motor, the day he arrived. He hasn’t stirred out of Rosivera since, and, as I said before, I haven’t been sent for to attend him for anything.”

“The queerest thing about him was the message he sent me,” said Lord Manton. “By way of doing the civil thing, I told Byrne to say that I should make a point of calling on him as soon as I got home.”

“And he sent you word that he’d be thankful if you’d stay away and not bother him. I heard all about that. Byrne was furious. That is just one of the things which makes me feel sure he’s a genius. Nobody except a genius or a socialist would have sent a message of that kind to you; and he clearly isn’t a socialist. If he was, he couldn’t afford to pay six months’ rent in advance for Rosivera.”

Dr. O’Grady spoke confidently. He was not personally acquainted with any of the numerous men of genius in Ireland, but he had read about them in newspapers and was aware that they differed in many respects from other men. No ordinary man, that is to say, no one who is perfectly sane, would refuse to receive a visit from an earl. Mr. Red had refused, and so, since he was not a socialist, he must be a genius. The reasoning was perfectly convincing.

“I expect,” said Lord Manton, “that his statue, in spite of its immense size, will be a melancholy object to look at. Rosivera is the most depressing place I know. It was built to serve as a dower house by my grandfather, and he evidently chose the site and the style of architecture with a view to making his widow feel really sorry he was dead. If I had a wife whom I disliked intensely I should try to die at once so that she should have as long a time as possible to live at Rosivera.”

“I wouldn’t care to spend a winter alone there,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and I’m a man of fairly cheerful disposition.”

“I suppose there’s a lot of talk about Red in the village?”

“There was at first; but the people are getting a bit sick of him now. It’s a long time since he’s done anything the least exciting. About a fortnight after he came he sent a telegram which had the whole place fizzing for awhile.”

Telegrams in the west of Ireland, are, of course, public property. So are postcards and the contents of the parcels carried by his Majesty’s mails. Lord Manton, whose taste for the details of local gossip was strongly developed, asked what Mr. Red’s telegram was about.

“That’s what nobody could tell,” said Dr. O’Grady. “It began with four letters, A.M.B.A., and then came a lot of figures. Father Moroney worked at it for the best part of two hours, with the help of a Latin dictionary, but he could make no more out of it than I could myself.”

“Cipher,” said Lord Manton; “probably quite a simple cipher if you’d known how to go about reading it.”

“At the end of the week, another packing-case arrived, carriage paid from London. It was as big as any of the first lot. Byrne and I went up to the station to see it before Jimmy O’Loughlin carted it down to Rosivera. He seemed to think that it was another piano. Since then nothing of any sort has happened, and the people have pretty well given over talking about the man.”

Lord Manton yawned. Like the other inhabitants of Clonmore he was beginning to get tired of Mr. Red and his affairs. A stranger is only interesting when there are things about him which can be found out. If his affairs are public property he becomes commonplace and dull. If, on the other hand, it is manifestly impossible to discover anything about him, if he sends his telegrams in cipher, employs a remarkably taciturn servant to do his marketing, and never appears in public himself, he becomes in time quite as tiresome as the man who has no secrets at all.

“Any other news about the place?” asked Lord Manton. “You needn’t mention Jimmy O’Loughlin’s wife’s baby. Byrne told me about it.”

“It’s the tenth,” said Dr. O’Grady, “the tenth boy.”

“So I believe.”

“Well, there’s nothing else, except the election of the inspector of sheep dipping. I needn’t tell you that there’s been plenty of talk about that.”

“So I gathered,” said Lord Manton, “from the number of candidates for the post who wrote to me asking me to back them up. I think there were eleven of them.”

“I hear that you supported Patsy Devlin, the smith. He’s a drunken blackguard.”

“That’s why I wrote him the letter of recommendation. There’s a lot of stupid talk nowadays about the landlords having lost all their power in the country. It’s not a bit true. They have plenty of power, more than they ever had, if they only knew how to use it. All I have to do if I want a particular man not to be appointed to anything is to write a strong letter in his favour to the Board of Guardians or the County Council, or whatever body is doing the particular job that happens to be on hand at the time. The League comes down on my man at once and he hasn’t the ghost of a chance. That’s the beauty of being thoroughly unpopular. Three years ago you were made dispensary doctor here chiefly because I used all my influence on behalf of the other two candidates. They were both men with bad records. It was just the same in this sheep-dipping business. I didn’t care who was appointed so long as it wasn’t Patsy Devlin. I managed the labourers’ cottages on the same principle. There were two different pieces of land where I particularly objected to their building cottages. I offered them those two without waiting to be asked. Of course, they wouldn’t have them, insisted in fact on getting another bit of land altogether, thinking they were annoying me. I was delighted. That’s the way to manage things nowadays.”

“Do you suppose,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that if I wrote to Mr. Red saying I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t get typhoid for a fortnight, because I wanted to go away for a holiday—do you suppose he’d get it to spite me?”

“That’s the worst of men in your profession. You’re always wanting everybody to be ill. It’s most unchristian.”

“I want Red to get typhoid,” said Dr. O’Grady, “because he’s the only man in the neighbourhood except yourself who would pay me for curing him.”

CHAPTER II

Dr. O’Grady spoke the simple truth when he said that the people of Clonmore had ceased to take any interest in Mr. Red and his household. The election of an inspector of sheep dipping, a man from their own midst to a post with a salary attached to it, was a far more exciting thing than the eccentricity of a chance stranger. When the election was over a new and more thrilling matter engaged their attention. Mr. Red was entirely forgotten. The monotonous regularity of the visits of the silent English servant to Jimmy O’Loughlin’s shop no longer attracted attention. The equally monotonous regularity of his cash payments for the goods he took away with him was extremely satisfactory to Jimmy O’Loughlin, but gave absolutely no occasion for gossip. The man who makes debts and does not pay them is vastly more interesting to his neighbours than the morbidly honest individual who will not owe a penny.

Dr. O’Grady owed a good deal, and just at the time of Lord Manton’s return to Clonmore, his money difficulties reached the point at which they began to attract public attention. Like most good-humoured and easy-going men, Dr. O’Grady lived beyond his income. There was a good deal of excuse for him. He enjoyed, as dispensary doctor, a salary of £120 a year. He received from Lord Manton an additional £30 for looking after the health of the gardeners, grooms, indoor servants and others employed about Clonmore Castle. He would have been paid extra guineas for attending Lord Manton himself if the old gentleman had ever been ill. He could count with tolerable certainty on two pounds a year for ushering into the world young O’Loughlins. Nobody else in his district ever paid him anything.

It is unquestionably possible to live on £152 a year. Many men, curates for instance, live on less; face the world in tolerably clean collars and succeed in looking as if they generally had enough to eat. But Dr. O’Grady was not the kind of man who enjoys small economies, and he had certain expensive tastes. He liked to have a good horse between the shafts of a smart trap when he went his rounds. He liked to see the animal’s coat glossy and the harness shining. He preferred good whisky to bad, and smoked tobacco at 10s. 6d. a pound. He was particular about the cut of his clothes and had a fine taste in striped and spotted waistcoats. He also—quite privately, for in the west of Ireland no one would admit that he threw away his money wantonly—bought a few books every year. The consequence was inevitable. Dr. O’Grady got into debt. At first, indeed for more than two years, his debts, though they increased rapidly, did not cause any uneasiness to his creditors. Then a suspicious tailor began to press rudely for the payment of a long account. Other tradesmen, all of them strangers who did not know Dr. O’Grady personally, followed the tailor’s example. A Dublin gentleman of large fortune and philanthropic tastes, a Mr. Lorraine Vavasour, having somehow heard of these embarrassments, offered to lend Dr. O’Grady any sum from £10 to £1000 privately, without security, and on the understanding that repayment should be made quite at the borrower’s convenience.

There was an agreeable settlement with the tailor who lost Dr. O’Grady’s custom for ever, and with several others. Life for a time was pleasant and untroubled. Then Mr. Lorraine Vavasour began to act unreasonably. His ideas of the payment of instalments turned out to be anything but suitable to Dr. O’Grady’s convenience. The good horse was sold at a loss. The competent groom was replaced for an inferior and cheaper man. Mr. Lorraine Vavasour showed no signs of being propitiated by these sacrifices. He continued to harass his victim with a persistency which would have made most men miserable and driven some men to excessive drinking. Dr. O’Grady remained perfectly cheerful. He had the temperament of an unconquerable optimist. He used even to show Mr. Vavasour’s worst letters to Jimmy O’Loughlin, and make jokes about them. This, as it turned out afterwards, was an unwise thing to do. Jimmy himself had a long account against the doctor standing in his books.

After awhile the miserable screw which succeeded the good horse in Dr. O’Grady’s stable was sold. The smart trap and harness were sold. The incompetent substitute for the groom was dismissed. Dr. O’Grady endeavoured to do his work with no better means of getting about than a dilapidated bicycle. It was generally known that his affairs had reached a crisis. His housekeeper left him and engaged a solicitor to write letters in the hope of obtaining the wages due to her. It seemed very unlikely that she would get them. Mr. Lorraine Vavasour was before her with a claim which the furniture of Dr. O’Grady’s house would certainly not satisfy. Jimmy O’Loughlin was before her too. He would have been willing enough to wait for years, and if left to himself would not have driven a friend to extremities for the sake of a few pounds. But when he saw that Mr. Vavasour meant to use all the resources of the law against Dr. O’Grady he thought it a pity to let a complete stranger get the little there was to get. He apologized to Dr. O’Grady and summoned him before the County Court judge. The usual things happened. The end appeared to be at hand, and the Board of Guardians began to discuss the appointment of a new dispensary doctor.

It is very much to the credit of Dr. O’Grady that, under these circumstances, he slept soundly at night in his solitary house; rose cheerful in the morning and met his fellow-men with a smile on his face. He continued to dine frequently at Clonmore Castle, and Lord Manton noticed that his appetite improved instead of failing as his troubles increased. In fact, Dr. O’Grady frequently went hungry at this time, and Lord Manton’s dinners were almost the only solid meals he got. Then, just before the bailiffs took possession of his house a curious way of escape opened. It was at the beginning of August. Dr. O’Grady spent the evening reading a new book about germ plasm, pan-genesis, determinates, and other interesting things connected with the study of heredity. He was obliged to go to bed early because his lamp went out at ten o’clock and he had no oil with which to refill it. Once in bed he went comfortably to sleep. At two o’clock in the morning he was roused by a ponderous, measured knocking at his door. He used the sort of language commonly employed by doctors who are roused at unseemly hours. The knocking continued, a series of heavy detached blows, struck slowly at regular intervals. Dr. O’Grady got up, put his head out of the window, and made the usual inquiry—

“Who the devil’s that? And what do you want?”

“It is I. Guy Theodore Red.”

Even then, freshly roused from sleep, Dr. O’Grady was struck by the answer he received. Very few men, in search of a doctor at two o’clock in the morning, are so particular about grammar as to say, “It is I!” And the words were spoken in a solemn tone which seemed quite congruous with the measured and stately manner in which the door had been hammered. Dr. O’Grady put on a pair of trousers and a shirt, ran downstairs and opened the door. Mr. Red stood rigid like a soldier at attention on the doorstep. In the middle of the road was the motor car in which the English servant used to drive into Clonmore to do his marketing.

“Is it typhoid?” said Dr. O’Grady; “for if it is I ought to have been sent for sooner.”

“No.”

“It can’t be a midwifery case in your house?”

“No.”

“You’re very uncommunicative,” said Dr. O’Grady. “What is it?”

“A gun accident.”

“Very well. Why couldn’t you have said so before? Wait a minute.”

Dr. O’Grady hurried into his surgery, collected a few instruments likely to be useful, some lint, iodoform, and other things. He stuffed these into a bag, slipped on a few more clothes and an overcoat. Then he left the house. He found Mr. Red sitting bolt upright in the motor car with his hands on the steering wheel. Dr. O’Grady got in beside him. During the drive Mr. Red did not speak a single word. He did not even answer questions. Dr. O’Grady was left entirely to his own thoughts. The fresh air had thoroughly awakened him, and, being naturally a man of active mind, he thought a good deal. It occurred to him at once that though gun accidents are common enough in the daytime they very rarely occur in the middle of the night. Good men go to bed before twelve o’clock, and no men, either good or bad, habitually clean guns or go out shooting between midnight and two A.M. Dr. O’Grady began to wonder how the accident had happened. It also struck him that Mr. Red’s manners were peculiar. The man showed no sign of excitement. He was not exactly rude. He was not, so far as Dr. O’Grady could judge, in a bad temper. He was simply pompous, more pompous than any one whom Dr. O’Grady had ever met before. He seemed to be obsessed with an idea of his own enormous importance.

The impression was not removed when the car drew up at Rosivera. Mr. Red blew three slow blasts on the horn, stepped out of the car, stalked up to the door, and then stood, as he had stood in front of Dr. O’Grady’s house, upright, rigid, his arms stretched stiffly along his sides. The door was opened by the foreigner with the long black beard. No word was spoken. Mr. Red raised his left hand and made some passes in the air. His bearded friend raised his left hand and imitated the passes with perfect solemnity. Mr. Red crossed the threshold, turned, and solemnly beckoned to Dr. O’Grady to follow him.

“I see,” said the doctor, in a cheerful, conversational tone, “that you are all Freemasons here. It’s an interesting profession. Or should I call it a religion? I’m not one myself. I always heard it involved a man in a lot of subscriptions to charities.”

Mr. Red made no reply. He crossed the hall, flung open a door with a magnificent gesture, and motioned Dr. O’Grady to enter the dining-room. The doctor hesitated for a moment. He was not a nervous man, but he was startled by what he saw. The room was brightly lit with four large lamps. The walls were hung with crimson cloth on which were embroidered curious beasts, something like crocodiles, but with much longer legs than crocodiles have, and with forked tongues. They were all bright yellow, and stood out vividly from their crimson background.

“Enter,” said Mr. Red.

Dr. O’Grady faced the crocodiles. In the course of his medical experience he had often met men who had seen such beasts in unlikely places and been haunted by them unpleasantly; but his own conscience was clear. He was strictly temperate, and he knew that the pictures on the walls in front of him could not be a symptom of delirium. Mr. Red followed him into the room and shut the door. It was painted crimson on the inside, and a large yellow crocodile crawled across it.

“I suppose,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that you got leave from Lord Manton to paper and paint the house. I dare say this sort of thing”—he waved his hand towards the crocodile on the door, which was surrounded with a litter of repulsive young ones—“is the latest thing in art; but you’ll excuse my saying that it’s not precisely comfortable or soothing. I hope you don’t intend to include one of those beasts in your new statue.”

Mr. Red made no reply. He crossed the room, opened a cupboard, and took out of it a bottle and some glasses. He set them on the table and poured out some wine. Dr. O’Grady, watching his movements, was inclined to revise the opinion that he had formed during the drive. Mr. Red was not merely pompous. He was majestic.

“Drink,” said Mr. Red.

Dr. O’Grady looked at the wine dubiously. It was bright green. He was accustomed to purple, yellow, and even white beverages. He did not like the look of the stuff in the glass in front of him.

“If,” he said, “that is the liqueur which the French drink, absinthe, or whatever they call it, I think I won’t venture on a whole claret glass of it. I’m a temperate man, and I must keep my hand steady if I’m to spend the rest of the night picking grains of shot out of your friend.”

“Drink,” said Mr. Red again.

Dr. O’Grady felt that it was time to assert himself. He was a friendly and good-tempered man, but he did not like being ordered about in monosyllables.

“Look here,” he said, “I’m not a Freemason, or a Rosicrucian, or an Esoteric Buddhist, or the Grand Llama of Thibet, or anything of that kind. I don’t deny that your manner may be all right with other sculptors, or with those who are initiated into your secrets, and I dare say you have to live up to this thing in order to produce really first-rate statues. But I’m only an ordinary doctor and I’m not accustomed to it. If you have whisky or any other civilized drink, I don’t mind taking a drop before I see the patient; but I’m not going to run the risk of intoxicating myself with some strange spirit. And what’s more, I’m not going to be talked to as if you were a newly invented kind of automatic machine that can only utter one word at a time and won’t say that unless a penny has been dropped into the slot.”

“Your fee,” said Mr. Red, laying an envelope on the table.

Dr. O’Grady took it up and opened it. It contained a ten pound Bank of England note. His slight irritation passed away at once. Never before in the course of his career as a doctor had he received so large a fee. Then a sharp suspicion crossed his mind. A fee of such extravagant amount must be meant to purchase something else besides his medical skill. Men, even if they are as rich as Mr. Red appeared to be, even if they have the eyes of a mad gander and an eccentric taste in house decoration, do not pay ten pounds to a country doctor for dressing a wound. Dr. O’Grady began to wonder whether he might not be called upon to deal with the victim of some kind of foul play, whether he were being paid to keep his mouth shut.

“Follow me,” said Mr. Red.

Dr. O’Grady followed him out of the dining-room and up two flights of stairs. He made up his mind that his silence, supposing silence to be possible, was worth more than ten pounds. He determined to keep Mr. Red’s secret if it did not turn out to be a very gruesome one, but to make Mr. Red pay handsomely. One hundred pounds was the amount he fixed on. That sum, divided between Mr. Lorraine Vavasour and Jimmy O’Loughlin, would pacify them both for a time.

Mr. Red stopped outside a bedroom door, and Dr. O’Grady saw on it four large white letters, A.M.B.A. Mr. Red opened the door. On a bed at the far end of the room lay the servant who used to drive into Clonmore and buy things at Jimmy O’Loughlin’s shop. He was lying face downwards and groaning.

“Exert your skill as a physician,” said Mr. Red, waving his hand in the direction of the bed.

“Don’t you be a damneder ass than you can help,” said Dr. O’Grady cheerfully.

He crossed the room and examined the man on the bed.

“Look here,” he said, turning to Mr. Red, “you told me that this man was suffering from the result of an accident he had had with a gun. Well, he isn’t. I defy any man to scorch the skin off the backs of both his own legs with a gun. The thing simply couldn’t be done.”

“Exert your skill as a physician, and be silent,” said Mr. Red.

“You may fancy yourself to be the Cham of Tartary,” said Dr. O’Grady, “or Augustus Cæsar, or Napoleon Bonaparte, or a Field Marshal in the army of the Emperor of Abyssinia, but you’ve got to give some account of how that man flayed the backs of his legs or else I’ll have the police in here to-morrow.”

Mr. Red smiled, waved his hand loftily, and left the room.

Dr. O’Grady, his professional instinct aroused, proceeded to dress the man’s wounds. They were not dangerous, but they were extremely painful, and at first the doctor asked no questions. At length his curiosity became too strong for him.

“How did you get yourself into such a devil of a state?” he asked.

The man groaned.

“It looks to me,” said Dr. O’Grady, “as if you’d sat down in a bath of paraffin oil and then struck a match on the seat of your breeches. Was that how it happened?”

The man groaned again.

“If it wasn’t that,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you must have tied a string round your ankles, stuffed the legs of your trousers with boxes of matches, and then rubbed yourself against something until they went off. I can’t imagine anything else that could have got you into the state that you’re in.”

“I was smoking,” said the man at last, “in the Chamber of Research.”

“In the what?”

“It’s what ’e calls it,” said the man. “I don’t know no other name for it.”

“Perhaps the floor of the Chamber of Research was covered with gunpowder behind where you were standing, and you dropped a lighted match into it.”

“’Ow was I to know the stuff would go off?”

“If you knew it was gunpowder,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you might have guessed it would go off if you dropped a match into it.”

“It weren’t gunpowder, not likely. It were some bloomin’ stuff ’e made. ’E’s always messing about making stuff, and none of it ever went off before.”

“If you mean Mr. Red,” said Dr. O’Grady, “I can quite imagine that the stuff he made wouldn’t go off. Unless, of course, it was intended not to. From what I’ve seen of him so far, I should say that his notion of manufacturing dynamite would be to take a hundredweight or so of toothpowder, and say to it, ‘Powder, explode.’ Still, you ought to have been more careful.”

“’E’s a damned ass,” said the man.

“He is,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Still, even an ass, if he goes on experimenting for four months in a chamber specially set apart for research, is sure to hit upon something that will explode by the end of the time. By the way, do you happen to know where he got that dining-room wall-paper with the crocodiles on it?”

The door opened and Mr. Red stalked into the room.

“Follow me,” he said to Dr. O’Grady.

“All right. I’ve finished with this fellow’s legs for the present. I’ll call again to-morrow afternoon, or rather, this afternoon. He’ll get along all right. There’s nothing to be frightened about. You may give him a little beef-tea and—— Damn it all! Augustus Cæsar has gone! Good-bye, my man. I’ll see you again soon. I must hurry off now. It won’t do to keep the Field Marshal waiting. The crocodiles might get on his nerves if he was left too long in the room alone with them.”

CHAPTER III

Dr. O’Grady left the room and closed the door behind him. His spirits, owing to the ten-pound note which lay in his breast pocket, were cheerful. He whistled “The Minstrel Boy” as he walked along the passage. Just as he reached that part of the tune which goes with the discovery of the boy in the ranks of death he stopped abruptly and swore. He was seized from behind by two men, flung to the ground with some violence, and held there flat on his back. A few useless struggles convinced him that he could not make good his escape. He lay still and looked at his captors. The foreign gentleman with the long black beard was one of them. The other was the man whom Dr. O’Grady had declared to be a Norwegian. He was a powerful man, adorned with a mass of fair hair which fell down over his forehead and gave him a look of unkempt ferocity. Behind these two who knelt beside and on Dr. O’Grady stood Mr. Red.

“Hullo, Emperor!” said the Doctor, “what’s the game now? If you want a gladiatorial show, with me and these two swashbucklers as chief performers, you ought to have given me fair notice. You can’t expect a man to put up much of a fight when he’s caught from behind just as he’s in the middle of whistling a tune.”

“You have learned too much,” said Mr. Red, with fierce intensity. “It is necessary in the interests of the Brotherhood to secure your silence.”

“Right,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You shall secure it. One hundred and fifty pounds down and the secrets of the Brotherhood are safe. Or if prompt cash inconveniences you in any way, I’ll be quite content with your name on the back of a bill. Jimmy O’Loughlin would cash it.”

“I have passed judgment on you,” said Mr. Red, “and the scales are depressed on the side of mercy. Your life is spared. You remain a captive until the plans of the Brotherhood are matured and discovery can be set at defiance. Then you will be released.”

“If that’s all,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you needn’t have knocked me down and set these two brigands to kneel on my chest and legs. I haven’t the slightest objection to remaining a captive. I shall enjoy it. Of course, I shall expect to be paid a reasonable fee for my time. I’m a professional man.”

“Number 2 and Number 3,” said Mr. Red, “will bind you and convey you to the place of confinement.”

He spoke a few words to his assistants in a language which Dr. O’Grady did not understand. Two ropes were produced.

“If you choose to tie me up,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you can do it of course. But you’ll simply be wasting time and energy. I’ve told you already that I don’t in the least mind being a captive. Just you tell me the place you want me to go to, and if it isn’t an insanitary, underground dungeon, I shall step into it with the greatest pleasure, and stay there without making the least attempt at escape as long as you choose to go on paying me my fees.”

“Give your parole,” said Mr. Red.

“Parole? Oh, yes, of course; I know the thing you mean now. I’ll give it, certainly—swear it if you like. And now, like a good man, tell your fair-haired pirate to get off my legs. He’s hurting my left ankle abominably.”

Mr. Red gave an order, and Dr. O’Grady was allowed to stand up.

“Now for the cell,” he said. “I know this house pretty well, and I should suggest that you give me the two rooms on the top floor which open into each other. And look here, Emperor, I’m a first-class political prisoner, of course. I’m not going to do any hard labour, or get out of bed before I want to in the morning. I must be decently fed, and supplied with tobacco. You agree to all that I suppose?”

“Lead the prisoner upstairs,” said Mr. Red.

“One minute,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We haven’t settled yet about my fee. Let me see, what would you say—my time is valuable, you know. I have a very extensive practice, including the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood; Lord Manton, for instance, and Jimmy O’Loughlin’s wife. What would you say to——? Good Lord! Emperor, put that thing down, it might go off!”

Mr. Red had taken a revolver from his pocket, and pointed it at Dr. O’Grady’s head.

“Lead the prisoner upstairs,” he said.

“I’m going all right,” said Dr. O’Grady. “But, like a good man, put down that pistol. I dare say it’s not loaded, and I’m sure you don’t mean to pull the trigger; but it makes me feel nervous. If you injure me you will be in a frightful fix. There isn’t another doctor nearer than Ballymoy, and he’s no good of a surgeon. Do be careful.”

Mr. Red took no notice of this remonstrance. He held the revolver at arm’s length, pointed straight at Dr. O’Grady’s head. The doctor turned quickly and walked upstairs. He was ushered into a large empty room, and bidden to stand in a corner of it. Still covered by the threatening revolver he watched various preparations made, first for his security, then for his comfort. There were two windows in the room. The black-bearded foreigner nailed barbed wire across them in such a way as to make an entanglement through which it was impossible to thrust even a hand.

“That’s quite unnecessary,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I’m familiar with this house, have been over it half a dozen times with Lord Manton, and I know that there’s a sheer drop of thirty feet out of those windows on to the paved yard at the back of the house. I shouldn’t dream of trying to jump out.”

Mr. Red stood with the revolver in his hand glaring at Dr. O’Grady. His two assistants left the room.

“I do wish,” said the doctor plaintively, “that you’d put that gun down.”

By way of reply, Mr. Red settled himself in an heroic attitude, something like that usually adopted by the hero on the cover of a sixpenny novel when he is defending his lady from desperate villains. He kept the revolver levelled at Dr. O’Grady’s head. The bearded man, Number 2, returned, dragging a small iron bedstead after him. Number 3 followed him with a mattress, pillows, and some blankets.

“For me?” said Dr. O’Grady. “Thanks. Now fetch a washhand-stand, a jug and basin, a table, a couple of chairs, some food, tobacco, and a few books. Then I’ll be able to manage along all right.”

One thing after another was added to the furniture of the room until it began to look fairly comfortable. Dr. O’Grady observed with satisfaction that a substantial meal was spread on the table, and a box of cigars laid on the washhand-stand.

“Would it be any harm my asking,” he said, “how long you intend to keep me here? I have some rather pressing engagements just at present, and I should like to have an idea when I’ll get home. Of course, I don’t press the question if it inconveniences the Brotherhood to answer it before the plans are matured.”

“You shall be paid at the rate of £4 a day during the time that you are detained,” said Mr. Red.

“Make it £5,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and I’ll stay a year with you and settle my own washing bills.”

“In four weeks,” said Mr. Red, “the plans of the Brotherhood will be matured, and you can be released.”

“I’m sorry it’s no longer,” said Dr. O’Grady. “The arrangement is perfectly satisfactory to me. But look here, Emperor, have you taken into consideration that I shall be missed? Before four weeks are out they’ll be certain to start out looking for me. Search parties will go out with lanterns and bloodhounds. You know the kind of thing I mean. They won’t come straight here, of course; nobody has any reason to suppose that I’m in this house; but sooner or later they certainly will come. I don’t mind telling you that there are a couple of men—Jimmy O’Loughlin for one, and Lorraine Vavasour for another—who will be particularly keen on finding me. What will you do when they turn up?”

“The waters of the bay are deep,” said Mr. Red grimly. “Your body will not be found.”

“I catch your meaning all right,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but I think you’ll make a mistake if you push things to extremes in that way. You’ve got the usual idea into your head that Ireland is a country in which every one kills any one they don’t like, and no questions are ever asked. I don’t in the least blame you for thinking so. Any intelligent man, reading the newspapers, would be forced to that conclusion; but, as a matter of fact, Ireland isn’t that sort of country at all. We have our little differences with each other, of course; all high-spirited people quarrel now and then, but we really hardly ever drown anybody. We don’t want to; but even if we were ever so keen we couldn’t without great risk. The country is overrun with police, and—— I beg your pardon, did you speak?”

Mr. Red had not actually spoken. He had snarled in a curious and vicious way.

“The police——” said Dr. O’Grady.

Mr. Red snarled again.

“If you object to my mentioning them by name,” said Dr. O’Grady, “I won’t do it. All I wanted to say was that in Ireland they live extremely dull lives, and any little excitement—a cattle drive, or an escaped lunatic—is a positive godsend to them. A murder—perhaps I ought to say an informal execution, such as you contemplate—would bring them down to this neighbourhood in thousands. There’d be so many of them that they simply wouldn’t be able to help tripping over my body wherever you hid it. Don’t imagine that I’m saying all this with a view to preventing your cutting my throat. What I’m really thinking about, what you ought to be thinking about, is the Brotherhood. How will its plans ever be matured if you get yourself hanged? And they will hang you, you know.”

“I am prepared to die,” said Mr. Red majestically, “in the cause of the Anti-Militarist Brotherhood of Anarchists.”

“Of course you are. Anybody who knows anything about military anarchists knows that. My point is that your life is too valuable to be thrown away. How would poor Long Beard get on? And the other fair-haired highwayman? Neither of them knows a word of English.”

“If the accursed minions of an effete tyranny seize me——!”

“Quite so. I see your point. Death before dishonour, and all that kind of thing. But why let it come to that? I am perfectly willing to stay here as long as you like at the liberal salary you offer, cash down every evening. I’m quite as anxious as you are to keep the accursed minions of the what-do-you-call-it away from Rosivera. I don’t mind telling you in confidence that I have reasons of my own for avoiding any contact with the law at present. In my particular case it isn’t nearly so effete as you appear to think it ought to be. But I needn’t go into all that. It wouldn’t interest you, and it’s no pleasure to me to talk about that beast Lorraine Vavasour. What I want to suggest is a simple and practicable way of avoiding all fuss, and keeping the accursed minions quiet in their barracks.”

“Speak,” said Mr. Red.

“I am speaking. For a man who hasn’t had any breakfast this morning, I flatter myself I’m speaking pretty fluently. Don’t be captious, Field Marshal. I don’t mind your manner a bit, now that I’m getting used to it. I know that it’s quite the right kind of manner for a military anarchist, but there’s no use over-doing it.”

“Your plan?” said Mr. Red, fingering the revolver.

“I wish you’d lay that weapon down, Emperor. I’ve told you half a dozen times that I haven’t the least intention of trying to escape, and it will be a horrid nuisance if the thing goes off and injures me. My suggestion is simply this. I’ll write a letter blotted all over with tears, saying that driven to desperation by Lorraine Vavasour and Jimmy O’Loughlin I’ve committed suicide, and that all search for my body will be vain. Owing to circumstances which I need not explain, circumstances not unconnected with Lorraine Vavasour, the story will be believed in Clonmore and no further steps will be taken in the matter. All you will have to do is to drop the letter into the pillar-box which is only half a mile from your gate. I happen to know that that box is cleared at eight P.M., so any time to-day will do. I’ll address it to the police sergeant.”

Mr. Red gave an order to one of the two foreigners. The man left the room and returned in a few minutes with a supply of note-paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink. He laid them beside the food on the table in the middle of the room.

“Write,” said Mr. Red.

“I forgot to mention,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that I’m engaged to be married to a young lady in Leeds. Miss Blow is her name—Adeline Maud Blow. I dare say you’ve heard of her father in connection with cigars. He’s a tobacconist and advertises a good deal. ‘Blow’s beauties, twopence each.’ You must have heard of them. They’re beastly things as a matter of fact, and I don’t recommend them to friends, but they’re amazingly popular.”

“Write,” said Mr. Red.

“I am going to write. Don’t hustle me, like a good man. What I want to say to you is this, that I must send a line to Adeline Maud as well as to the police sergeant. I want to tell her that I’m not really dead, only bluffing.”

“That,” said Mr. Red, “is impossible.”

“Nonsense. There’s nothing impossible about it. It’s just as easy to write two letters as one. I shan’t mention the Brotherhood to her, and if I did she would have more sense than to talk about it. If you don’t believe me you can read the letter yourself.”

“I trust no woman.”

“That,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is a most illiberal sentiment, and I’m surprised to hear you utter it. If you’d been an old-fashioned Tory now, or an Irish landlord, or a Liberal Cabinet Minister, I could have understood your position; but in a military——”

“Anti-militarist,” said Mr. Red.

“That’s what I meant. In an anti-militarist, that sort of prejudice against women is most inconsistent. Who was it that hammered a nail into Sisera’s head? A woman, and an anti-military woman. Who was it that stuck a knife into that horrid beast Marat, when he was sitting in his bath? A woman again. Who was it that shot that Russian governor the other day? I’ve forgotten her name for the minute, but you know who I mean. It was a woman. She did for him on a railway platform. And yet you stand up there calling yourself an advanced kind of anarchist, and say that you can’t trust a woman. Emperor, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Just think the matter out and you’ll see that when it comes to thorough-going, out-and-out revolutions women are quite the most trustworthy kind of people there are.”

Mr. Red gave another brief order in his foreign language. The fair-haired anarchist stepped forward and took away the note-paper, pen and ink.

“What are you at now?” said Dr. O’Grady. “Surely to goodness you’re not going back on the suicide plan? Oh, very well. I can’t help it. But you’ll be sorry afterwards when the police come here looking for me.”

“I have spoken,” said Mr. Red.

“You have not. You’ve growled occasionally, but nobody could call your remarks speaking.”

“I leave you,” said Mr. Red. “Remember.”

“Remember what? Oh, you’re going, are you? Just wait one instant. You refuse to let me write to Adeline Maud. Very well. You don’t know Adeline Maud, but I do. Even supposing the police can’t find me, or my body after you’ve cut my throat, and supposing that Jimmy O’Loughlin and Lorraine Vavasour give up the pursuit—from what I know of Lorraine I think it most unlikely that he will—you’ll still have to reckon with Adeline Maud. She’s a most determined young woman. All the perseverance which has gone to making ‘Blow’s beauties’ the popular smokes they are at twopence each has descended from her father to her. When she finds out that I’ve disappeared she’ll go on searching till she finds me. The ordinary sleuth-hound is absolutely nothing to her for persistence in the chase. It will be far wiser for you—in the interests of the Brotherhood I mean—to let me head her off, by telling her that I’ll turn up again all right.”

“Farewell,” said Mr. Red.

“I ought to mention before you go,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that Adeline Maud may be in Clonmore to-morrow. I’m expecting a visit—— Damn it! The fool is gone and shut the door behind him.”

Mr. Red had, in fact, entirely ignored the announcement of Miss Blow’s impending arrival. He and his two friends left the room, and, distrustful of the parole which had been given, locked the door behind them. Dr. O’Grady turned to the breakfast provided for him with an excellent appetite.

“Silly old ass that Emperor is,” he murmured. “I suppose now he’ll go and sit down beside his yellow crocodiles in the dining-room and try to invent some new kind of dynamite. He ought, as a matter of fact, to be in an asylum. Some day he will be if he doesn’t blow himself up first. Anyhow this is a jolly good business for me. If he chooses to pay me four pounds a day for sitting here twiddling my thumbs, I’m quite content. I only hope it will be some time before they think of looking for me at Rosivera. I must try and hit on a plan for putting the police off the scent. I wonder how long it will last. The Field Marshal suggested four weeks. Seven times four—even putting it as low as four pounds a day—and I’ll try to screw him up a bit—seven times four are twenty-eight. And four times twenty-eight is a hundred and twelve. That with the tenner I’ve got will make £122. I’ll make a clear £100 out of it anyway, and they won’t have time to elect another dispensary doctor before I get out.”

CHAPTER IV

Patsy Devlin strolled into the Imperial Hotel at noon. He found Jimmy O’Loughlin, the proprietor, behind the bar, and was served at once with a pint of porter.

“It’s fine weather for the hay, thanks be to God,” he observed.

In Connacht the hay harvest is gathered during the month of August, and Patsy’s comment on the weather was seasonable.

“I’ve seen worse,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin. “But what’s on you at all, Patsy, that you haven’t been next or nigh the place this two months or more?”

“Be damn! but after the way you behaved over the election of the inspector of sheep dipping, the wonder is that I’d ever enter your door again. What would hinder you giving me the job as soon as another?”

Jimmy O’Loughlin did not wish to discuss the subject. He was, as a trader ought to be, a peaceful individual, anxious to live on good terms with all possible customers. He realized that the election was a subject on which Patsy was likely to feel bitterly. He filled another glass with porter from the tap and handed it silently across the counter. Patsy tendered a coin in payment.

“I’ll not take it from you,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin heartily. “It would be a queer thing if I wouldn’t give you a sup at my own expense now that you are here after all this length of time. How’s herself?”

Patsy Devlin took a pull at the second pint of porter.

“She’s only middling. She was complaining these two days of an impression on the chest, and a sort of rumbling within in herself that wouldn’t let her rest easy in her bed.”

“Do you tell me that? And did you fetch the doctor to her?”

“I did not then.”

“And why not?”

Patsy Devlin finished the porter and winked across the bar at Jimmy O’Loughlin. Jimmy failed to catch the meaning of the wink.

“If it was a red ticket you wanted,” he said, “you know very well that you’ve nothing to do but ask me for it. But Dr. O’Grady, the poor man, would go to you without that.”

“If I did be wanting a red ticket,” said Patsy, “it wouldn’t be you I’d ask for it. There’s them would give it to me and maybe something along with it, and what’s more, did give it to me no later than this morning.”

“Well,” said Jimmy, who guessed at the identity of the unnamed benefactor, “and if so be that his lordship is after giving you the ticket, why didn’t you go and fetch the doctor to herself?”

“I went for him right enough.”

“And do you mean to tell me that he refused to attend the call and you with the red ticket in your hand? For if he did——”

“He wasn’t within when I went for him.”

The explanation was perfectly simple and natural; but Jimmy O’Loughlin, noting the manner in which it was given, realized there was something behind it.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Patsy Devlin winked again. Jimmy, vaguely anxious, but not knowing what to fear, handed his visitor a third pint of porter.

“I’m thinking,” said Patsy, “that it’s about time for us to be making a move in the matter of collecting funds for the horse races and athletic sports. The season’s going on and if we don’t have them before the end of the month the days will be getting short on us. I suppose now I may put you down for a pound the same as last year?”

“You may,” said Jimmy. “But what was it you were after telling me about Dr. O’Grady?”

“Does he owe you any money?”

“He does, a power.”

“Then you’ll not see it. Devil the penny of it ever you’ll handle, no matter how you try.”

Patsy chuckled. He had nourished a grudge against Jimmy O’Loughlin ever since the election of the inspector of sheep dipping.

“And why will I not?”

“Because the doctor’s gone, that’s why. He’s off to America, and every stick of furniture he owns is gone along with him.”

“He is not,” said Jimmy. “He couldn’t. It was only last night he passed this door, looking the same as usual. I was speaking to him myself, and him on his way home after being out beyond in the bog.”

“It was last night he went.”

“He couldn’t. Sure you know as well as I do there’s no train.”

“There’s the goods that passes at one o’clock. What would hinder him getting into one of them cattle trucks? Who’d see him? Anyway, whether it was that way he went or another, he’s gone. And you may be looking for your money from New York. Be damn! but I’d take half a crown for all of it you’ll ever get.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Jimmy; but it was evident that he was fighting desperately against conviction.

“Go round to the house then yourself and you’ll see. He’s not in it, and what’s more he didn’t leave it this morning, for old Biddy Halloran was watching out for him along the road the way he’d renew the bottle he gave her for the rheumatism, and if he’d gone out she’d have seen him.”

“It might be,” said Jimmy, “that he was called out in the night and didn’t get back yet.”

“It might; but it wasn’t. I’m after spending the morning since ten o’clock making inquiries here and there, and devil the one there is in the parish sick enough to be fetching the doctor out in the middle of the night. If there was I’d have heard of it. And Father Moroney would have heard of it, but he didn’t, for I asked him this minute.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said very much what I’m saying myself, that the doctor’s gone. ‘And small blame to him,’ says Father Moroney, ‘with the way that old reprobate of a Jimmy O’Loughlin, who’s no better than a gombeen man, has him persecuted for the trifle of money he owes.’ It’s the truth I’m telling you.”

It was not the truth, but it could scarcely be called a lie, for the essence of a lie is the desire to deceive, and Patsy Devlin invented the speech he put into the priest’s mouth without the least hope of its being believed. The best he expected was to exasperate Jimmy O’Loughlin. Even in this he failed.

“If so be he’s gone,” said Jimmy, “and I wouldn’t say but he might, I’d as soon he got clear off out of this as not. I’ll lose upwards of thirty pounds by him, but I’d sooner lose it than see the doctor tormented by that bloodsucker of a fellow from Dublin that has a bill of his. I’ve a great liking for the doctor, and always had. He was an innocent poor man that wouldn’t harm a child, besides being pleasant and agreeable as e’er a one you’d meet.”

Patsy Devlin felt aggrieved. He had sprung his mine on Jimmy O’Loughlin, and the wretched thing had somehow failed to explode. He had looked forward to enjoying a torrent of oaths and bitter speeches directed against the absconding debtor. He had hoped to see Jimmy writhe in impotent rage at the loss of his money.

“Be damn!” he said helplessly.

“And anyway,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin, “there’s the furniture of the house left, and it’ll be a queer thing if I don’t get a hold of the best of it before ever the Dublin man—Vavasour or some such they call him—hears that the doctor’s gone.”

There was no more spirit left in Patsy Devlin. He did not even repeat the obviously incredible statement that the doctor had secretly carried his furniture away with him in the middle of the night.

“The train’s in,” he said, changing the subject abruptly, “for I hear the cars coming down from the station. If so be now that there should be a traveller in belonging to one of them drapery firms, or Campbell’s traveller with the flour, you might give me the word so as I can get a subscription out of him for the sports. The most use those fellows are is to subscribe to one thing or another where subscriptions is needed.”

Jimmy O’Loughlin nodded. He realized the importance of the commercial traveller as a contributor to local funds of every kind. He left the door and reached the bar of the hotel just as his bus, a ramshackle, dilapidated vehicle drawn by a sickly horse, drew up. It contained a lady. Jimmy O’Loughlin appraised her at a glance as she stepped out of the bus. She was dressed in a grey tweed coat and skirt of good cut and expensive appearance. She wore gloves which looked almost new, and she had an umbrella with a silver handle. She was tall and carried herself with the air of one who was accustomed to command service from those around her. Her way of walking reminded Jimmy O’Loughlin of Lady Flavia Canning, Lord Manton’s daughter; but this lady was a great deal younger and better looking than Lady Flavia. Jimmy O’Loughlin allowed his eyes to leave her for an instant and seek the roof of the bus. On it was a large travelling trunk, a handsome bag, and a bundle of rugs and golf clubs. Jimmy’s decision was made in an instant. He addressed his guest as “my lady.”

She made no protest against the title.

“Can I get a room in this hotel?” she asked.

“Certainly, my lady. Why not? Thomas, will you bring the lady’s luggage in at once and take it up to number two, that’s the front room on the first floor. Your ladyship will be wanting a private sitting-room?”

“If I do,” she said, “I shall ask for it.”

Jimmy O’Loughlin was snubbed, but he bore no malice. A lady of title has a right to snub hotel-keepers. He stole a glance at the label on her luggage as Thomas, the driver of the bus, passed him with the trunk on his shoulders. He discovered that she was not a lady of title. “Miss A. M. Blow,” he read. “Passenger to Clonmore.” The name struck him as being familiar, but for a moment he could not recollect where he had heard it. Then he remembered. Miss Blow passed upstairs guided by Bridgy, the maid. Patsy Devlin emerged from the bar.

“It’s the doctor’s young lady,” whispered Jimmy O’Loughlin.

“Is it, be damn? How do you know that?”

“Didn’t he often tell me,” said Jimmy, “that he was to be married to a young lady out of Leeds or one of them towns beyond in England, and that her name was Miss Blow? And didn’t I see it on her trunk, ‘Miss A. M. Blow’? Would there be two in the world of the name?”

“And what would bring her down to Clonmore?”

“How would I know? Unless maybe she’s heard of the misfortunes that has the doctor pretty near bet. She might have seen his name in the paper when the judgment was gave against him.”

“She might; but if she did wouldn’t she keep away from him as far as ever she could?”

“She would not,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin. “That’s not the sort she is. I seen her and you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Well, and if you did you might have known that she’d be the sort that would come down after him the minute she got word of the trouble that was on him. Believe you me, Patsy Devlin, that’s a fine girl.”

“She’s a good-looking one anyway,” said Patsy, “but mighty proud, I’d say.”

“You may say that. I’d sooner she married the doctor than me, and that’s the truth.”

“What’ll she do now,” said Patsy, “when she finds that the doctor’s gone and left her?”

“It’ll be best,” said Jimmy, “if we keep it from her.”

“How can you keep it from her when the man’s gone? Won’t she be asking to see him?”

“There’s ways of doing things. What would you say now if I was to tell her that the doctor had gone off on a holiday for six weeks with the permission of the Board of Guardians and that there’d have to be a substitute appointed in his place? Would she be contented with that, do you think?”

“She might,” said Patsy, “but she might not. She’d be wanting his address anyway.”

“If she wanted it, it would be mighty hard to keep it from the like of that one.”

“You haven’t got it to give, and so you can’t give it,” said Patsy.

Miss Blow came downstairs as he spoke and walked up to Jimmy O’Loughlin.

“Will you kindly have some luncheon ready for me,” she said, “at two o’clock?”

“Certainly, miss, why not? Is there any particular thing that your ladyship would fancy, such as a chop or the like?”

He reverted to the “ladyship” again, although he knew her name and degree. The girl’s manner seemed to force him to. She deserved something better than a mere “miss.”

“In the meanwhile will you be so good as to tell me where Dr. O’Grady lives?”

“Is it Dr. O’Grady? Well, now, never a nicer gentleman there is about the place, nor one that’s more thought of, or better liked than Dr. O’Grady. It’s him that does be taking his dinner up at the Castle with the old lord and attending to his duties to the poor the same as if he was one of themselves. Many’s the time I’ve said to him: ‘Dr O’Grady,’ says I, ‘if anything was to take you away out of Clonmore, and I don’t deny but what you ought to be in a less backward place, but if ever—— ’”

“Will you be so good as to tell me where he lives?” said Miss Blow.

Patsy Devlin interposed at this point of the conversation with an air of contempt for Jimmy O’Loughlin.

“Can’t you stop your talking,” he said, “and tell the lady where the doctor lives?”

Jimmy cast a venomous glance at him.

“I will tell your ladyship to be sure. Why not? But it will be of no use for you to go to call on him to-day. Patsy Devlin here is after telling me this minute that he’s not at home.”

Miss Blow turned to Patsy.

“Do you know,” she asked, “when he’s likely to be back?”

“I do not, my lady. But I’d say it wouldn’t be for a couple of days anyway.”

“A couple of days! Where has he gone to?”