The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

bit of it," returned I, with more truth than the boy possiblycould have expected.

  "Then I'm sorry for you," observed the lad slowly, "for it was the mostlovely thing I ever saw in my life. Four men and one girl were dashedto pieces, and they've had to stop the race meeting--for this isWorcester Races on the Pitchcroft--whilst they look for the remains ofthe poor victims who are supposed to have come all the way from theCrystal Palace with Mr Santos-Dumont, who, luckily, made his escape inthe parachute before the thing fell."

  Neither Casteno nor I, however, troubled to enlighten the lad as to thetrue facts. For one thing, it amused us slightly to discover forourselves how strangely the news of our arrival had travelled, and inwhat a small degree the good citizens of Worcester were wont to mix thenaked truth with their carefully-compounded stories of breathlessadventure. For another, we were desperately anxious to get away fromthe neighbourhood of that racecourse. Any second the hue-and-cry mightspread to the point at which we were. Indeed, it seemed little short ofmadness to loiter, and we sprang into the punt immediately we could getthe lad to cast her off, and almost before he quite understood howquickly we had acted we had got ourselves concealed and the boy hard atwork punting us down the stream.

  Happily, the Severn covers but a few hundred yards in its passage fromthe racecourse to the city of Worcester itself, and so excited were thecrowd over the fall and appearance of our air-ship that we contrived toslip away quite unobserved, to glide under the bridge that cut offWorcester from its suburbs, and to float past the cathedral, close towhich stand the grey, old monastic ruins. Here we insisted ondisembarking, because we found these remains were walled in and reallyfurnished an ideal place of concealment, but we did not dismiss ourguide.

  "Go, sonny, and buy us two suits of rough blue serge," I said, handingthe lad four glittering sovereigns. "If they ask you any inconvenientquestions say they are for your father, who is employed on a coal barge,and has had his duds stolen, a thing that often happens, I'm told. Ifthere is any change remaining over, keep it, but whatever you do,hurry--hurry like mad."

  The boy, who had now quite entered into the humour of the adventure, andthought what a fine thing it was to be outwitting the police under theirvery noses as it were, tore off, leaving us in charge of the punt. Andsuch good use did he make of his time, his opportunities, and theshopping facilities of the immediate district that, in less thanhalf-an-hour, he returned with the things we had ordered. Very soon webade him good-bye and gave him half-a-sovereign for his trouble; and,waiting until he had disappeared round a bend of the river, we scaledthe wall that shut off the cathedral school ground from the ruins, andthen plunged into an ancient recess in the wall where, in the halfdarkness, we threw off our uniforms and put on our serge suits.

  Nobody who has not stood in some deadly peril of this sort can guess therelief we felt as we got back once again into fairly decent clothes,that did not make us appear much different to what we really were, andgave us the advantage of our own speech and looks. One takes up adisguise glibly enough, even if at first it presents an arduous strainto the nerves; but after a time the thing becomes a veritableFrankenstein to one, and seems to absorb every ounce of one's brain andstrength. Casteno literally danced with joy as he flung his uniforminto a corner as far as he could.

  "Thank goodness, now we can walk and talk like other folk," he cried."For my own part, I don't care who we meet or what is said to us. Ifeel powerful enough to deny anything."

  "But surely," I gasped, "you don't mean to show yourself in public untilnight is fallen? Think--think of the risks!"

  "I have, and I mean to take them. Nobody in Worcester can identify usnow with the two soldiers who took passages in the air-ship atShrewsbury. Remember, even if Colonel Napier could be quite sure it wasus who had played him such a scurvy trick, he dare not say so. In thefirst place, people will think the fall and the shock have given himsoftening of the brain if we stick up to him and deny him with all thelung violence we are capable of. Secondly, you forget he is ProfessorStephen Leopardi, the expert of the Meteorological Office, to the worldjust at present. He is the fraud, not us, and we have only got tounmask him to the hunchback, or to get inquiries made about him inLondon, where the police want him for his mysterious disappearance fromWhitehall Court, and where the Meteorological people would have himinstantly arrested for his impersonation, to put him utterly toconfusion. Hence we have no cause to fear him or anyone here. We arefree--free as air." And again he capered about the ruins, overcome withglee.

  "Then you mean actually to walk off to the railway station with all theWorcester police on the alert and to take the next express up to town?"I questioned. "You think we shall escape without any trouble!"

  "Of course I do. Is it not race time, and is not the city full ofstrangers? Besides, you seem to have forgotten the most important thingof all. I have these manuscripts in my possession, and CamilleVelasquon has brought the key to them all the way from Mexico. Now allwe have got to do is to compare the two--and then?"

  He stopped and looked straight at me, as we stood with the ruinssilhouetted against the old cathedral chapter-house. My gaze met his.

  "And then?" I repeated; and I stopped, and instinctively my handsclenched.

  "I will do what is right to England, Glynn," he cried in tones ofintense emotion, stretching out his hands to me. "Good heavens, man!don't stare at me like that! I'm a creature of flesh and blood likeyourself. I have feelings and a sense of honour just as you have. Ihave not gone into this business simply to feather my own nest. I havenot fought my father--Fotheringay--Cuthbertson--I have not besoughtpowerful assistance, such as Cooper-Nassington's, to sell this countryto some Continental enemies--no."

  "I take your word--I believe you have not," I replied slowly. "Thepoint is whether the Order of St Bruno has, for it seems to me thatthey are the principals in this treasure hunt and not yourself."

  "Well, come with me and see," replied Casteno, averting his eyes. "Ihave pledged myself, but you will not take my word. You doubt--youhint--you mistrust me."

  "I do," I gasped. "I can't help it."

  "Then, come." And without another word he turned away, and, seizing theivy that grew in rich profusion on both sides of the wall, he climbed upby this support, closely followed by myself. The drop on the far sidewas only a matter of some ten feet, and, aided by similar branches, wepassed into the playground again, and soon found ourselves heading forthe chief station in Worcester--Shrub Hill.

  As Casteno, however, had predicted, we found the streets thronged withall manner of queer characters hastening to or from the races, and wemanaged to secure places in a "race special," which was timed to run toPaddington with only four stops on the road. There were, we saw forourselves, plenty of detectives in the station, and they had evidentlygot wind of us and our flight, for every wretched soldier who swaggeredinto the building was stopped and cross-examined, and we actually sawtwo poor privates in the engineer uniform, who had had a little beer,and were inclined to be cheeky and not to answer questions, bundled intoa cab and driven off to the city police station.

  Punctually, however, at the time appointed the train left with us. Asit happened, by judicious tips we secured not only a first-classcarriage to ourselves but copies of the London papers, which we hadfailed to get in Shrewsbury before we had to hurry off to the fete tolook after our seats in the air-ship.

  Jose, plainly, was fagged out, and no sooner did the train move off thanhe stretched himself across the seat and composed himself for a nap. I,however, was strung up to the highest pitch of excitement, not by theperils we had just passed through, but by the prospect of getting to theheart of the mysteries of that most mysterious Order of St Bruno, whichhad all the ways and uniforms of regular monks without their recognisedsymbolism. Indeed, I had not forgotten what my guide said when I hadwalked across the courtyard of their house at Chantry Road,Hampstead--"We are neither Roman Catholics nor Anglicans"--and yet ifthey did not belong to one or
other of these two persuasions to whichsect did they belong, and what was the object of their banding together,with houses in Delhi, Sydney, London, and Mexico? And why, as Josepretended, should they have any patriotic notions for England inpreference to Spain--or France, or Russia, or Mexico for that matter?If the manuscripts really belonged to them, as the Spaniard declared,why didn't they desire to get them, to keep them, and to recover theLake of Sacred Treasure for themselves?

  Try as I would, I could not, as the train rattled through the fragrantorchards and hopfields of Worcestershire, bring myself to believe thatmy companion had told me the whole of the truth about this mysteriousOrder and the part it played in the life of our times. Like mostprivate investigators I had grown to realise that