The Search Party/Chapter 26

EAR me!" said Lord Manton; "all our lost sheep found again. One, two, three, four, five, six, Yes, the whole six of you."

"You're not dead," said Miss Blow, clutching at Dr. O'Grady's arm; "you're not dead then, after all."

"My wife," said Mr. Dick, "my poor wife. Can any of you tell me"

"Sergeant Farrelly," said Mr. Goddard. "Will you kindly explain how it is that I find you here playing leapfrog with"

"I thought it was a hurdle race," said Lord Manton. "It sounded exactly like a hurdle race."

Sergeant Farrelly drew himself up to attention.

"In obedience to your orders, sir," he said, "Constable Cole and I proceeded to Rosivera on our bicycles, leaving Clonmore at a few minutes after twelve o'clock. Acting on instructions received, we rode as slowly as possible"

"You can leave out that part," said Mr. Goddard, with a glance at Miss Blow, "and go on."

"We have been kidnapped and imprisoned here," said Mr. Sanders; "and I demand that the police shall instantly pursue"

"Lucius," said Miss Blow, "have you been imprisoned?"

"Certainly not," said Dr. O'Grady; "we've been the guests of Mr. Red; haven't we, Patsy?"

"We have, be damn!" said Patsy Devlin. "What was there to hinder us going off any time we wanted?"

"I don't understand," said Miss Blow.

"I demand" said Mr. Sanders again.

"We were prisoners," said Mr. Dick; "and I join with my friend Sanders in insisting that the men who captured us shall be brought to justice. I insist upon it for the sake of my poor wife"

"You shut up," said Dr. O'Grady. "If either you or that ass Sanders says another word, I'll tell how you came to be here."

"I demand" said Mr. Sanders.

"Very well," said Dr. O'Grady. "Excuse me, Adeline Maud, but would you mind leaving the room for a moment? The story I have to tell is not exactly one for a lady to listen to."

"If it's very improper," said Lord Manton, "perhaps I'd better go too. I was very carefully brought up when I was young."

"It's simply this," said Dr. O'Grady, "that Mr. Dick was found by the Emperor bathing on the shore in company with"

"I wasn't," said Mr. Dick.

"You may try to wriggle out of it now," said Dr. O'Grady; "but you told me at the time that you were, and the other fellow, who says he's a Member of Parliament, but looks like a commercial traveller, was mending a bicycle for a lady, who"

"If these stories," said Lord Manton, "are the sort which are likely to break up the happiness of two homes, I hope you won't tell them. Mrs. Dick and Mrs. Sanders are outside, as well as Miss Farquharson, who is an aunt."

"I don't want to tell them," said Dr. O'Grady. "I'd much rather keep them to myself. But I won't have the Emperor pursued."

"Sergeant," said Mr. Goddard, "proceed with your evidence, leaving out all the part about my orders."

"Why?" said Miss Blow. "Are you ashamed of your orders? What were they?"

"If you've anything to be ashamed of in the orders you gave, Goddard," said Dr. O'Grady, "you'd better not have that story told either. I warn you fairly that if any attempt is made to molest the Emperor, I shall have those orders of yours, whatever they are, produced in court."

"We might get on a little," said Lord Manton, "if some one would tell us who the Emperor is."

"He's an anarchist," said Mr. Sanders.

"An anti-military anarchist, a most dangerous man," added Mr. Dick.

"I've warned you once already," said Dr. O'Grady, "what will happen if you persist in talking that way. Even supposing the poor old Emperor is all you say, isn't it a great deal better to blow up a few armies, than to go about the country deceiving innocent women when each of you has a wife at home? Patsy Devlin will bear me out in saying that the Emperor is a most respectable man, large-hearted, generous to a fault; a little eccentric, perhaps, but a thoroughly good sort."

"Do explain," said Lord Manton, "who the Emperor is, and how you and Patsy Devlin and the Members of Parliament and the police all come to be here, playing leapfrog in an attic."

"The Emperor," said Dr. O'Grady, "is Mr. Red. He sent for me to attend a servant of his who had unfortunately scorched the back of his legs while assisting in some scientific experiments in the Chamber of Research."

"The drawing-room?" asked Lord Manton.

"The room that used to be the drawing-room," said Dr. O'Grady. "I have been in attendance on the man ever since, earning a fee of five pounds a day. That doesn't look as if I was badly treated, does it; or as if I was kept here against my will? There's no other reason, so far, why the poor Emperor should be ruthlessly pursued, as these gentlemen suggest."

"No," said Lord Manton. "So far his record is clear. Go on."

"Patsy Devlin," said Dr. O'Grady, "came here to take refuge from the police. He hadn't done anything particularly wrong, nothing worse than usual; but some one had put out the absurd story that he had murdered me, and advised him to fly to America."

"I'm afraid I was responsible for that," said Lord Manton. "I wanted"

"Very well," said Dr. O'Grady. "If the Emperor is pursued and caught, that story will come out too. You will have to explain in open court why you treated Patsy Devlin in such a way."

"And why you treated me as you did," said Miss Blow.

"And why you treated Adeline Maud as you did," said Dr. O'Grady. "I don't exactly know how you did treat her, but if you pursue the Emperor I'll insist on finding out."

"I won't pursue him," said Lord Manton. "I promise not to. As a matter of fact, I don't want to pursue him in the least. He paid his rent in advance."

"Patsy Devlin," said Dr. O'Grady, "was sheltered, lodged, and fed by the Emperor, and has no complaint whatever to make. Have you, Patsy?"

"I have not. Only for him, they'd have had me hanged for murdering you, doctor; which is what I wouldn't do, and never thought of."

"And you don't want to have the Emperor pursued?"

"I do not," said Patsy.

"We pass on," said Dr. O'Grady, "to the case of the two Members of Parliament—if they are Members of Parliament. I don't want to make myself unnecessarily unpleasant, especially as I understand that their wives, their real wives, are waiting for them"

"I protest" said Mr. Dick.

"I always told you, Goddard," said Lord Manton, "that there was something of this sort, something uncommonly fishy behind the disappearance of these two gentlemen. You'll recollect that. But I must say I didn't expect it to be as bad as this."

"I protest" said Mr. Dick and Mr. Sanders together.

"I need say no more about them," said Dr. O'Grady. "The Emperor, out of sheer kindness of heart, saved them from what might have been a very ugly scandal. I don't want to drag the whole thing into the light of day; but if they insist upon the pursuit of the Emperor, I shall tell the truth so far as I know it, and the Emperor, when you catch him, will fill in the details."

"There's nothing," said Mr. Dick, "absolutely nothing"

"There may be nothing," said Lord Manton; "but from the little I've heard I should say that Mrs. Dick will have a distinct grievance; and as for your aunt, Mr. Sanders—you know her better than I do, of course, but she doesn't strike me as the kind of lady who will treat the doctor's story as a mere trifle."

"As to the police," said Dr. O'Grady, "I don't profess to explain exactly how they came here. Goddard seems to have given them some very peculiar orders, orders that won't bear repeating. I don't want to probe into the secrets of the force. I have a respect for Sergeant Farrelly; I used to have a respect for Goddard"

"You won't have any respect for him when you hear how he has treated me," said Miss Blow.

"You hear that, Goddard?" said Dr. O'Grady. "Adeline Maud says you've been ill-treating her. That's a thing I can't and won't stand from any man living, and if you make the smallest attempt to annoy the Emperor in any way, I'll publish her story in the newspapers, and what's more, I'll hire the best barrister in Dublin to cross-examine you about the orders you gave to Sergeant Farrelly and Constable Cole."

"What you suggest, then," said Lord Manton, "is to leave the whole matter wrapped in a decent obscurity—to let the dead past bury its dead. I quite agree. None of us want our share in the proceedings of the last few days made public. But will Miss Blow consent to allow the man Red—it's her phrase, doctor, not mine; so don't be angry with it—to allow the man Red to escape scot free? After all, it was she who urged us on to have him hanged."

"Adeline Maud," said Dr. O'Grady, "has more sense than to quarrel with a man who has been paying me five pounds a day. He suggested four pounds at first; but he sprang it to a fiver the moment I made the suggestion."

"Of course, if Miss Blow is satisfied" said Lord Manton.

"She is," said Dr. O'Grady. "Aren't you, Adeline Maud?"

"Now that I know you're safe" said Miss Blow.

"In any case," said Dr. O'Grady, "your pursuit would be quite useless. The Emperor started at ten o'clock last night in his motor-car. It must be after twelve now, so he has fourteen hours' start of you. By the time you get back to Clonmore and send off telegrams"

"I shall insist," said Mr. Dick; "I shall never consent"

"You go out at once to your wife," said Dr. O'Grady. "Didn't you hear Lord Manton say that she is outside waiting for you? You've been swaggering about the way you loved her ever since I first met you walking about with nothing on you but your shirt. I don't believe you care a pin about her. If you did, you'd be with her now, relieving her anxiety, instead of standing about here talking like a born fool. As I was saying, Goddard, by the time you've sent off telegrams"

"I don't want to send off any more telegrams," said Mr. Goddard; "I had enough of that yesterday."

"In any case," said Dr. O'Grady, "I don't think you'd catch him, when he'd have fifteen or sixteen hours' start of your telegrams. It was a good car, and I don't believe you so much as know the number of it."

"The only thing that troubles me," said Mr. Goddard, "is the Inspector-General. He'll be in Clonmore by this time." "Is he mixed up in it?

"Yes," said Lord Manton. "He and the Lord Lieutenant, and the Chief Secretary, and the Prime Minister; though I'm not quite sure about the Prime Minister. It's a State affair. The whole Empire is on the tip-toe of excited expectation to find out what has happened."

"All you can do," said Dr. O'Grady, "is to tell them the truth."

"The truth?" said Lord Manton.

"Yes; the simple truth, just as I've told it to you; doing your best, of course, to spare Mr. Sanders and Mr. Dick, especially Mr. Dick, on account of his poor wife."

"I'm not sure," said Mr. Goddard, "that they'd believe—I mean to say, I'm not sure that I could venture to tell them the truth—that exact kind of truth, I mean."

"If you don't care to tell it yourself," said Dr. O'Grady, "get Jimmy O'Loughlin to tell it for you. He'd do it; wouldn't he, Patsy?"

"Be damn, but he would," said Patsy Devlin. "He'd tell it without as much as turning a hair, so soon as ever he knew what it was you wanted him to tell."