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.

Satisfied with a fairly brief inspection I returned to the bed, and
arranging the pillow so as to fit the small of my back, picked up the
_Daily Mail_. I happened to open it at the centre page, and the big
heavily leaded headlines caught my eyes straight away.

ESCAPE OF NEIL LYNDON
FAMOUS PRISONER BREAKS OUT OF DARTMOOR
SENSATIONAL CASE RECALLED

With a pleasant feeling of anticipation I settled down to read.

_From our own Correspondent.
Princetown_.

Neil Lyndon, perhaps the most famous convict at present serving his
sentence, succeeded yesterday in escaping from Princetown. At the
moment of writing he is still at large.

He formed one of a band of prisoners who were returning fr