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.