The Stratagem and Other Stories

“ ‘Yes,’ said Dodu” (continued the narrator), “ ‘I have a better plan. I have a stratagem. I will tell it you tomorrow.’ The train which was to carry the narrator and his hearer to Mudchester came round the corner. “That morrow,” glowered Duguesclin, “that morrow never came. The same sun that slew the spy broke the great brain of Dodu; that very afternoon, a gibbering maniac, they thrust him in the padded room, never again to emerge.” The train drew up at the platform of the little junc- tion. He almost hissed in Bevan’s face. “It was not Dodu at all,” he screamed, “it was a common criminal, an epileptic; he should never have been sent to Devil’s Island at all. He had been mad for months. His messages had no sense at all; it was a cruel practical joke!” “But how,” said Bevan getting into his carriage and looking back, “how did you escape in the end?” “By a stratagem,” replied the Irishman, and jumped into another compartment.