As I crossed Westminster Bridge on my way home the night express to the Continent rumbled over the river. I wondered if Lumley was on board or if he had taken one of the other ways of which he had spoken. CHAPTER IX RETURN OF THE WILD GEESE I do not think I was surprised at the news I read in _The Times_ next morning. Mr. Andrew Lumley had died suddenly in the night of heart failure, and the newspapers woke up to the fact that we had been entertaining a great man unawares. There was an obituary in "leader" type of nearly two columns. He had been older than I thought--close on seventy--and _The Times_ spoke of him as a man who might have done anything he pleased in public life, but had chosen to give to a small coterie of friends what was due to the country. I read of his wit and learning, his amazing connoisseurship, his social gifts, his personal charm. According to the writer, he was the finest type of cultivated amateur, a Beckford with more than a Beckford's wealth and none of his folly. Large private charities were hinted at, and a hope was expressed that some part at least of his collections might come to the nation. The halfpenny papers said the same thing in their own way. One declared he reminded it of Atticus, another of Maecenas, another of Lord Houghton. There must have been a great run on biographical dictionaries in the various offices. Chapman's own particular rag said that, although this kind of philanthropist was a dilettante and a back-number, yet Mr. Lumley was a good specimen of the class and had been a true friend to the poor. I thought Chapman would have a fit when he read this. After that he took in the _Morning Post_. It was no business of mine to explode the myth. Indeed I couldn't even if I had wanted to, for no one would have believed me unless I produced proofs, and these proofs were not to be made public. Besides I had an honest compunction. He had had, as he expressed it, a good run for his money, and I wanted the run to be properly rounded off. Three days later I went to the funeral. It was a wonderful occasion. Two eminent statesmen were among the pallbearers, Royalty was represented, and there were wreaths from learned societies and scores of notable people. It was a queer business to listen to that stately service which was never read over stranger dust. I was thinking all the time of the vast subterranean machine which he had controlled, and which now was so much old iron. I could dimly imagine what his death meant to the hosts who had worked blindly at his direction. He was a Napoleon who left no Marshals behind him. From the Power-House came no wreaths or newspaper tributes, but I knew that it had lost its power.... _De mortuis_, etc. My task was done, and it only remained to get Pitt-Heron home.