His Lordship's Leopard Part 29

"Oh, no, he isn't. He actually believes it!" cried Violet between her paroxysms of merriment. But her companion would not be convinced.

"My dear man," he said blandly, "you must be suffering under some grievous delusion. I am, as you should know, having been my guest, the Bishop of Blanford, and it is quite impossible that either I or this lady should have any connection with a political crime. I must insist that you release us at once, and go away quietly, or I shall be forced to use harsher measures."

"You do it very well, very well indeed," commented the journalist. "But you can't fool me, and so you'd better give up trying."

"I say," remarked Miss Arminster to Marchmont, "you're making an awful fool of yourself."

The representative of the _Daily Leader_ shrugged his shoulders.

"Won't you consent to let us go, without threshing the whole thing out?"

she asked.

"What do you take me for?"

"Well, as you please," she said resignedly. "Put your questions; we'll answer them."

"Is it best to humour him?" enquired his Lordship in a low voice.

"It's the only way," she replied. "Give him string enough, and see the cat's-cradle he'll weave out of it."

"Now," said the journalist cheerfully to the Bishop, "perhaps you'll deny that you spent a month or six weeks in the United States this spring?"

"A month," acquiesced his Lordship.

"Just so. And during that time you were supposed to be in Scotland taking a rest-cure?"

"I admit that such is the case. But how you obtained your information--"

"I got it from your sister--about the rest-cure, I mean."

"Did you tell her--er--that I was--er--in the United States?"

"Yes," replied the journalist.

His Lordship heaved a deep sigh. The future, he thought, held worse things for him than arrest and deportation.

"How did you know that I was in the United States and Canada?" he demanded.

"I saw you."

"Where?"

"At a little station on the borders of the two countries. You spent the night wrapped up in a blanket, and slept under the bar."

"You never--!" broke in Miss Arminster.

The Bishop nodded mournfully. So far the facts were against him, and his interlocutor's face shone with a gleam of triumph.

"But in that case--" exclaimed Violet.

"Excuse me, I'll tell the story," said Marchmont, and continued the narration.

"You were roused about five in the morning by a man breaking into the room."

"So I was," admitted the Bishop. "How did you know?"

"I was asleep in the room overhead, and gave the alarm."

"That's perfectly correct," acquiesced his Lordship. "I remember the tones of your voice. It's most astounding."

"And the man who broke into the bar," continued Violet, "was your son."

It was now Marchmont's turn to be astonished.

"What!" he cried, while the Bishop e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:

"Impossible!"

"But it was," she insisted. "He went to get the coffee for me."

"Were you in the station, too?" demanded his Lordship.

"No, I was out in a potato-patch."

"You a member of that party of political criminals who jumped off the train!" cried the Bishop. "I heard all about it the next morning, but I can't believe--"

"It's quite true," she a.s.sured him.

"But it's too remarkable," he went on. "I'd gone to America on purpose to find my son, of whom I'd heard nothing for a year. And you say he was there, and--er--touched me?"

"Why, didn't you see him in Montreal?" asked Marchmont.

"I sailed next day for England. I was on my way to the steamer when the accident occurred which detained me overnight."

"Why then did you conceal the purpose of your trip?" demanded his tormentor.

"My sister was much opposed to my seeking my son," said his Lordship, colouring furiously. "And--I--in short, I had reasons."

The journalist laughed.

"The story's clever," he said. "But I can tell a more interesting tale."

And he proceeded to relate the adventures of Cecil in the person of "the Bishop," to which his Lordship listened with open-mouthed astonishment.

"There!" concluded his captor triumphantly. "Have you anything to say to that?"

"I have," chimed in Miss Arminster, and she gave the true version of the affair from the time Banborough had first engaged them at the Grand Central Station.

"It's a very plausible story," said Marchmont, when she had finished, "and does credit to your invention. But fortunately I'm in a condition to completely disprove it."