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. 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.