"Well, by all that's good," he cried."This is a sign from heaven.""It's certainly very extraordinary," said Basil quietly, with knitted brows."It's odd the fellow should have given a false address, considering he was perfectly innocent in the--""Oh, you jolly old early Christian duffer," cried Rupert, in a sort of rapture, "I don't wonder you couldn't be a judge.You think every one as good as yourself.Isn't the thing plain enough now? A doubtful acquaintance; rowdy stories, a most suspicious conversation, mean streets, a concealed knife, a man nearly killed, and, finally, a false address.That's what we call glaring goodness.""It's certainly very extraordinary," repeated Basil.And he strolled moodily about the room.Then he said: "You are quite sure, constable, that there's no mistake? You got the address right, and the police have really gone to it and found it was a fraud?""It was very simple, sir," said the policeman, chuckling."The place he named was a well-known common quite near London, and our people were down there this morning before any of you were awake.
And there's no such house.In fact, there are hardly any houses at all.Though it is so near London, it's a blank moor with hardly five trees on it, to say nothing of Christians.Oh, no, sir, the address was a fraud right enough.He was a clever rascal, and chose one of those scraps of lost England that people know nothing about.Nobody could say off-hand that there was not a particular house dropped somewhere about the heath.But as a fact, there isn't."Basil's face during this sensible speech had been growing darker and darker with a sort of desperate sagacity.He was cornered almost for the first time since I had known him; and to tell the truth I rather wondered at the almost childish obstinacy which kept him so close to his original prejudice in favour of the wildly questionable lieutenant.At length he said:
"You really searched the common? And the address was really not known in the district--by the way, what was the address?"The constable selected one of his slips of paper and consulted it, but before he could speak Rupert Grant, who was leaning in the window in a perfect posture of the quiet and triumphant detective, struck in with the sharp and suave voice he loved so much to use.
"Why, I can tell you that, Basil," he said graciously as he idly plucked leaves from a plant in the window."I took the precaution to get this man's address from the constable last night.""And what was it?" asked his brother gruffly.
"The constable will correct me if I am wrong," said Rupert, looking sweetly at the ceiling."It was: The Elms, Buxton Common, near Purley, Surrey.""Right, sir," said the policeman, laughing and folding up his papers.
There was a silence, and the blue eyes of Basil looked blindly for a few seconds into the void.Then his head fell back in his chair so suddenly that I started up, thinking him ill.But before I could move further his lips had flown apart (I can use no other phrase)and a peal of gigantic laughter struck and shook the ceiling--laughter that shook the laughter, laughter redoubled, laughter incurable, laughter that could not stop.
Two whole minutes afterwards it was still unended; Basil was ill with laughter; but still he laughed.The rest of us were by this time ill almost with terror.
"Excuse me," said the insane creature, getting at last to his feet.
"I am awfully sorry.It is horribly rude.And stupid, too.And also unpractical, because we have not much time to lose if we're to get down to that place.The train service is confoundedly bad, as Ihappen to know.It's quite out of proportion to the comparatively small distance.""Get down to that place?" I repeated blankly."Get down to what place?""I have forgotten its name," said Basil vaguely, putting his hands in his pockets as he rose."Something Common near Purley.Has any one got a timetable?""You don't seriously mean," cried Rupert, who had been staring in a sort of confusion of emotions."You don't mean that you want to go to Buxton Common, do you? You can't mean that!""Why shouldn't I go to Buxton Common?" asked Basil, smiling.
"Why should you?" said his brother, catching hold again restlessly of the plant in the window and staring at the speaker.
"To find our friend, the lieutenant, of course," said Basil Grant.
"I thought you wanted to find him?"
Rupert broke a branch brutally from the plant and flung it impatiently on the floor."And in order to find him," he said, "you suggest the admirable expedient of going to the only place on the habitable earth where we know he can't be."The constable and I could not avoid breaking into a kind of assenting laugh, and Rupert, who had family eloquence, was encouraged to go on with a reiterated gesture:
"He may be in Buckingham Palace; he may be sitting astride the cross of St Paul's; he may be in jail (which I think most likely);he may be in the Great Wheel; he may be in my pantry; he may be in your store cupboard; but out of all the innumerable points of space, there is only one where he has just been systematically looked for and where we know that he is not to be found--and that, if I understand you rightly, is where you want us to go.""Exactly," said Basil calmly, getting into his great-coat; "Ithought you might care to accompany me.If not, of course, make yourselves jolly here till I come back."It is our nature always to follow vanishing things and value them if they really show a resolution to depart.We all followed Basil, and I cannot say why, except that he was a vanishing thing, that he vanished decisively with his great-coat and his stick.Rupert ran after him with a considerable flurry of rationality.
