His jaw was much swollen and two front teeth were broken. Sir Tristram put his grazed right hand into his pocket. It was evident that although his head might be swimming, the valet still had some of his wits about him, for no sooner did his bleared gaze fall upon Shield than he turned an even more sickly colour, and catching at a chair-back to steady himself, said in a thick voice: ‘It’s like that, is it? But I’ll watch. I have the keys of the doors. If he’s there still he won’t get away!’
The groom came into the room and said in his serious young voice: ‘I’d get him a drop of brandy if I were you, Mr Jenkyns. Regular shook to pieces he is. Now, don’t you fret, Mr Gregg! No one can’t get out while you’ve got them keys.’
The butler, who thought that a drop of brandy would do him good also, said graciously that he believed the lad was right, and went away to fetch the decanter. The groom, coming up behind the valet, said solicitously: ‘You shouldn’t ought to have come down, Mr Gregg,’ and knocked him out with one nicely-delivered blow under the ear. The unfortunate valet collapsed on to the floor, and the groom looking down at him with a smouldering expression of wrath in his pleasant grey eyes, said grimly: ‘Maybe that’ll be a lesson to you, you cribbage-faced tooth-drawer, you!’
Before Sir Tristram, considerably astonished by this unexpected turn events had taken, had time to speak, the butler, hearing the sound of Gregg’s fall, came hurrying back into the room. The groom at once turned to meet him, saying: ‘Blessed if he ain’t swooned off again, Mr Jenkyns! Done to a cow’s thumb, he is!’
‘Carry the poor fellow up to his room again, and this time keep him there!’ commanded Sir Tristram, recovering from his surprise.
‘Just what I was a-going to do, sir,’ said the groom. ‘Now, Mr Jenkyns, if you’ll take his legs we’ll soon have him in his bed!’
‘Ah, I warned him not to get up!’ said the butler, shaking his head.
The groom thrust a hand into Gregg’s pocket and extracted the keys from it. ‘I’m thinking your Honour had best keep these,’ he said, and held them out to Sir Tristram.
The butler, puffing as he bent to raise Gregg, agreed that Sir Tristram was certainly the man to take charge of the keys. For a second time the valet was borne off upstairs. Mr Bundy, reappearing at the window, like a jack-in-the-box, remarked phlegmatically: ‘It looks to me like young master’s met a friend. Who’s that young cove?’
‘I fancy he must be Jim Kettering’s boy,’ replied Sir Tristram.
‘Well, he’s caused us a peck of trouble this night,’ said Bundy, ‘but I’m bound to say he seems an accountable nice lad! Handy with his fives he is.’
At this moment Ludovic strolled into the room. ‘Well, of all the shambles!’ he remarked, glancing around. ‘I’d give a monkey to see the Beau’s face when he comes home! What brought you here, Tristram?’
‘Clem fetched me,’ replied Shield. ‘How did you get out of the priest’s hole, and what the devil have you been doing all this while?’
‘There’s another way out of the hole,’ explained Ludovic. ‘I thought there might be. It leads up to Basil’s bedchamber. It seemed to me I might as well hunt for the ring since you had the affair so well in hand down here. Then I heard Bob Kettering’s voice, and gave him a whistle –’
‘Gave him a whistle?’ echoed Sir Tristram. ‘With the whole household looking for you, you whistled ?’
‘Yes, why not? I knew he’d recognize it. It’s a signal we used when we were boys. Bob hadn’t a notion he’d been set on to hunt for me. Lord, we used to go bird’s-nesting together!’
‘I thought you’d met a friend,’ nodded Bundy. ‘Did you happen to find that ring o’ yourn?’
Ludovic’s face clouded over. ‘No. Bob helped me to ransack Basil’s room, but it’s not there, and it wasn’t in the priest’s hole.’
‘Did young Kettering chance to remember that he is in Basil’s service?’ inquired Sir Tristram.
Ludovic looked at him. ‘Yes, but this was for me, my dear fellow!’
Sir Tristram smiled faintly. ‘I suppose he is as shameless as you are. Do you feel that you have done enough damage for one night, or is there anything else you’d care to set your hand to before you go?’
‘Damage!’ said Ludovic. ‘If that don’t beat everything! Who smashed all this furniture, I should like to know? I didn’t!’
The groom came back into the library as he spoke, and said urgently: ‘Mr Ludo, you’d best go while you may. We’ll have Jenkyns down again afore we know where we are!’
‘Have you ever thought to go into the prize-ring, young fellow?’ interrupted Bundy, who was leaning in at the window with his arms folded on the sill, after the fashion of one who was prepared to remain there indefinitely. ‘You’ve a sizeable bunch of fives, and you display none so bad.’
Kettering grinned rather deprecatingly, and said in an apologetic tone to Sir Tristram: ‘I didn’t know it was Mr Ludo, sir. Nor I didn’t know it was you neither. I’m proud, surelye, to have had a turn-up with you, even if it were in the dark.’
‘Well, it’s more than I’d care to do,’ remarked Ludovic. ‘To hell with you, Bob! Don’t keep on pushing me to the window! I’ll go all in good time, but I’ve mislaid that damn lantern.’
Sir Tristram grasped him by his sound shoulder, and propelled him to the window. ‘Take him away, Bundy. Kettering can find the lantern when you’ve gone. If you don’t go you’ll find yourself in difficulties again, and I warn you I won’t get you out of any more tight corners.’
Ludovic, astride the window-sill, said: ‘You don’t call this a tight corner, do you? I was safe as be damned!’
‘Just about, you were,’ growled Bundy, trying to haul him through the window, ‘playing your silly rat-in-the-wall tricks, with a whole pack of gurt fools fighting who was to find you first! And you saying you wasn’t going to take no risks! Now, come out of it, master!’
‘I can’t help it if you disobey my orders!’ said Ludovic indignantly. ‘Didn’t I tell you to save yourself ? Instead of doing anything of the kind you blazed off your pistol (and a damned bad shot it must have been) and started a mill, so that my cousin had to make a wreck of the place to bring you off ! What’s more, that’s not the sort of thing he likes. He’s a cautious man – aren’t you, Tristram?’
‘I am,’ replied Sir Tristram, thrusting him through the window into Bundy’s arms, ‘but my love of caution isn’t going to stop me knocking you on the head and carrying you away if you don’t go immediately. Wait for me by your horses. I shan’t be many moments.’
He saw Ludovic go off under Bundy’s escort, and turned back to Kettering. His level gaze seemed to measure the younger man. He said: ‘I take it you can keep your mouth shut?’
The groom nodded. ‘Ay, sir, I can that. Me to help trap Mr Ludo! Begging your pardon, sir, but it do fair rile me to think of it!’
‘Well, if you get turned off for this night’s work come to me,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Now where’s that butler?’ He went out into the hall, and called to Jenkyns, who presently came hurrying down the stairs. ‘Here are your keys,’ said Sir Tristram, holding them out to him. ‘Now let me out!’
The butler took the keys, but said in a blank voice: ‘Are – are you going now, sir?’
‘Certainly, I am going,’ replied Shield, with one of his coldest glances. ‘Do you imagine that I propose to remain here all night to keep watch for a house-breaker who, if he ever entered the priest’s hole (which I take leave to doubt), must have escaped half an hour ago?’
‘No, sir. Oh no, sir!’ said the butler very chap-fallen.
‘You are, for once, quite right,’ said Shield.
Five minutes later he joined Ludovic in the park and dismounted from Clem’s horse. Clem had by this time reached the scene of activity, having walked from the Court, and Ludovic was alread
y in the saddle, looking rather haggard and spent. Sir Tristram gave his bridle into Clem’s hand, and looked shrewdly up at his young cousin. ‘Yes, you are feeling your wound a trifle,’ he remarked. ‘I am not in the least surprised, and not particularly sorry. If you had your deserts for this night’s folly you would be in gaol.’
‘Oh, my wound’s well enough!’ replied Ludovic. ‘Do you want me to say that you were in the right, and there was a trap? Well, then, you were damnably right, even to saying that I’d not find my ring. I haven’t found it. What else?’
‘Nothing else. Go back to Hand Cross, and for God’s sake stay there!’
Ludovic let the reins go, and stretched down his hand. ‘Oh curse you, Tristram, I am sorry, and you’re a devilish good fellow to embroil yourself in my crazy affairs! Thank you for coming to-night!’
Shield gripped his hand for a moment, and said in a softer voice: ‘Don’t be a fool! We will find your ring, Ludovic. I’ll see you to-morrow.’
‘I’ll try and keep out of trouble till then,’ promised Ludovic. He gathered the reins up again, and the irrepressible twinkle crept back into his eyes. ‘By the way, my compliments: a nice shot!’
Shield laughed at that. ‘Was it not? Gregg thought you must have fired it.’
‘Extravagant praise, Tristram: you shouldn’t listen to flattery,’ retorted Ludovic, grinning.
When the adventurers got back to the Red Lion they found both Nye and Miss Thane awaiting them by the coffee-room fire. Relief at seeing Ludovic safe and sound had its natural effect on Nye, and instead of greeting his graceless charge with solicitude he rated him with such severity that Bundy was moved to expostulate. ‘Adone-do, Joe!’ he said. ‘There’s no harm done, and we’ve had a nice little mill. Just you take a look at my eye.’
‘I am looking at it,’ replied Nye. ‘If I ever meet the man as gave it you I’ll shake him by the hand! I wish he’d blacked t’other as well.’
‘You’d have kissed him if he had,’ remarked Ludovic. ‘It was Bob Kettering.’
‘Bob Kettering!’ ejaculated the landlord. ‘Now, what have you been about, sir? If I ever met such a plaguey – where’s Sir Tristram?’
‘Gone home to bed,’ yawned Ludovic. ‘I dare say he’ll be glad to get there; he’s had a full evening, thanks to you, Sally.’
Mr Bundy nodded slowly at Nye. ‘It would do your heart good to see that cove in a turn-up, Joe. Displays to remarkable advantage, he does. Up to all the tricks.’
‘Many’s the time I’ve sparred with Sir Tristram,’ replied Nye crushingly. ‘I don’t doubt he’d be a match for the lot of you, but what I do say, and hold to, is that he hit the wrong man.’
‘I don’t know when I’ve took such a fancy to a cove,’ said Bundy, disregarding this significant remark. ‘He gave the valet one in the bone-box, and a tedious wisty castor to the jaw. What he done to young Kettering I don’t know, but from the sounds of it he threw him a rare cross-buttock.’
At this point Miss Thane interrupted him, demanding to be told the full story of the night’s adventure. It seemed to amuse her, and when Sir Tristram arrived at the Red Lion midway through the following morning, she met him with a pronounced twinkle in her eyes.
He saw it, and a rueful smile stole into his own eyes. He took the hand she held out to him, saying: ‘How do you do? This should be a day of triumph for you.’
She put up her brows. ‘I believe you are quizzing me. Why should it be a day of triumph for me?’
‘My dear ma’am, did you not guess that at last you have succeeded in making me feel grateful towards you?’
‘Odious creature!’ said Miss Thane, without heat. ‘I had a mind to go myself to rescue Ludovic.’
‘You would have been very much in the way, I assure you. How is the boy this morning?’
‘I fancy he has taken no harm. He is a little in the dumps. Tell me, have you any real hope of finding his ring?’
‘I have every hope of clearing his name,’ he replied. ‘His adventure last night will at least serve to convince the Beau that we mean to bring him to book. While no danger threatened, Basil was easily able to behave with calmness and good sense, but I do not think he is of the stuff to remain cool in the face of a very pressing danger.’
‘You think he may betray himself. But one must not forget that last night’s affair must surely have betrayed you.’
‘All the better,’ said Shield. ‘The Beau is a little afraid of me.’
‘I imagine he might well be. But he cannot be so stupid that he will not realize what your true purpose in his house must have been.’
‘Certainly,’ he agreed, ‘but his situation is awkward. He will hardly admit to having laid a trap for the man whose heir he is. He will be obliged to pretend to accept my story. Where is Ludovic, by the way?’
‘Eustacie has persuaded him to stay in bed this morning. Five miles to the Dower House, and five miles back again, with an adventure between, was a trifle too much for one little better than an invalid. Do you care to go up? You will find Hugh with him, I think.’
He nodded, and waited for her by the door, and when she seemed not to be coming, said: ‘You do not mean to secede from our councils, I hope?’
She smiled. ‘You are not used to be so civil. Fighting must have a mellowing effect upon you, I think.’
‘Have I been uncivil?’ he asked, looking at her with disconcerting seriousness.
‘Well, perhaps not uncivil,’ she conceded. ‘Just disapproving.’
He followed her out of the room, and as they mounted the stairs, said: ‘I wish you will rid yourself of this nonsensical notion that I disapprove of you.’
‘But do you not?’ inquired Miss Thane, turning her head.
He stopped two stairs below her, and stood looking up at her, something not quite a smile at the back of his eyes. ‘Sometimes,’ he said.
They found Ludovic drinking Constantia wine, and arguing with Sir Hugh about the propriety of breaking into other people’s houses to recover one’s own property. Eustacie, seated by the window, upheld the justice of his views, but strongly condemned the insensibility of persons who allowed others to sleep while such adventures were in train. She was rash enough to appeal to her cousin Tristram for support, but as he only replied that he had not till now thought that he had anything to be thankful for with regard to last night’s affair, he joined Miss Thane in her ill-graces.
Ludovic’s immediate desire was to learn from his cousin by what means he now proposed to find the talisman ring, but they had not been discussing the matter for more than five minutes when a chaise was heard approaching at a smart pace down the road. It drew up outside the inn, and Eustacie peeping over the blind, announced in a shocked voice that its occupant was none other than Beau Lavenham.
‘What audacity!’ exclaimed Miss Thane.
‘Yes, and he is wearing a waistcoat with coquelicot stripes,’ said Eustacie.
‘What!’ ejaculated Ludovic. ‘Here, where’s my dressing-gown? I must take a look at him!’
‘Oh no, you must not!’ said Sir Tristram, preventing his attempt to leap out of bed.
‘It is too late: he has entered the house. What can he want?’
‘Probably to convince us that he was really in London last night,’ said Shield. ‘We’ll go down to him, Eustacie.’
‘Je le veux bien! What shall I say to him?’
‘Whatever you please, as long as it does not concern Ludovic.’ He looked across the room at Miss Thane. ‘Do you think you can contrive to be as stupid and talkative as you were when he last saw you?’
‘Oh, am I to be allowed to take part?’ asked Miss Thane. ‘Certainly I can be as stupid. To what purpose?’
‘Well, I think it is time we frightened Basil a little,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Since he must now be very sure th
at Ludovic is in Sussex, we will further inform him that we suspect him of being Plunkett’s real murderer.’
‘That’s all very well,’ objected Ludovic, ‘but what do you expect him to do?’
‘I haven’t a notion,’ said Shield calmly, ‘but I am reasonably certain that he will do something.’
‘Tell me what you wish me to say!’ begged Miss Thane.
Beau Lavenham was not kept waiting long in the parlour. In a very few minutes his cousins joined him there. He shot a quick, searching look at them under his lashes, and advanced, all smiles and civility. ‘My dear Eustacie – Tristram, too! You behold me on my way home from a most tedious, disagreeable sojourn in town. I could not resist the opportunity of paying a morning call upon you. I trust I do not come at an awkward time?’
‘But no!’ said Eustacie, opening her eyes at him. ‘Why should it be?’
Sir Tristram came over to the fire in a leisurely fashion, and stirred it with his foot. ‘Oh, so you’ve not yet been home, Basil?’ he inquired.
‘No, not yet,’ replied the Beau. He put up his ornate quizzing-glass, and through it looked at Shield. ‘Why do you ask me so oddly, my dear fellow? Is anything amiss at the Dower House?’
‘Something very much amiss, I am afraid,’ said Shield. He waited for a moment, saw the flash of eagerness in the Beau’s eyes, and added: ‘One of your Jacobean chairs has been broken.’
There was a moment’s silence. The Beau let his glass fall, and replied in rather a mechanical voice: ‘A chair broken? Why, how is that?’
The door opened to admit Miss Thane. Until she had exclaimed at finding the Beau present, greeted him, inquired after his health, the condition of the roads, and the state of the weather in London, there was no opportunity of reverting to the original subject of conversation. But as soon as she paused for breath the Beau turned back to Shield, and said: ‘You were telling me something about one of my chairs being broken. I fear I don’t –’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Miss Thane, ‘have you not heard, then? Has Sir Tristram not told you of the shocking attempt to rob you last night? I declare I shall not know how to go to bed this evening!’