‘Go and see if it’s there,’ commanded Sir Tristram. ‘It may have been that – I suppose it must have been that, yet somehow –’ He broke off, obviously puzzled.
‘But yes, Tristram, he does not wish to be known to have come here last night, naturellement, therefore he must recover his dagger for fear we might recognize it!’
‘It seems to me a most unnecessary risk to run,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘As matters now stand we cannot bring him to book for breaking in here any more than he can bring us to book for breaking into the Dower House. He must know that! He’s not a fool.’
‘I believe him to be too much alarmed to think calmly,’ said Miss Thane.
Nye came back into the room. ‘Well, they didn’t think to look in the back premises, your Honour, that’s certain. Here’s the dagger.’
Sir Tristram took it in his hand and looked at it, more puzzled than ever. ‘I dare say it is his,’ he said, ‘but I for one could not swear to it. It is in no way remarkable.’
Miss Thane said suddenly: ‘Oh, how stupid of us! Of course he did not come to look for that! He came for his quizzing-glass. There could be no mistaking that ! It is quite an unusual one: I knew it immediately for his and so did Nye. Now what became of it? Hugh, you had it! Where did you put it?’
‘Put what?’ said Sir Hugh, who was wandering about the room, attempting in a singularly helpless fashion to restore order.
‘The Beau’s quizzing-glass, my dear. I am sure you had it in your hand when Eustacie and I went up to bed last night.’
‘I don’t know where I put it,’ said Sir Hugh, stooping to pick up a crumpled cravat. ‘I laid it down somewhere.’
‘Where?’ insisted Miss Thane.
‘I forget. Sally, this is my new riding-coat, I’ll have you know! Just look at it! It’s ruined!’
‘No, dear, Clem will iron out the creases for you. You must know where you put that quizzing-glass. Do think!’
‘I’ve something more important to think about than a quizzing-glass that don’t belong to me, and which I don’t like. Ugly, cumbersome thing it was. I dare say I left it on the table in the coffee-room.’
Nye shook his head. ‘It wasn’t there this morning, sir.’
‘Well, I may have brought it upstairs. I tell you I don’t know, and I don’t care.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t signify,’ said Miss Thane reflectively. ‘Depend upon it, that was what the Beau wanted. I must say, I hope he found it, for the prospect of any more ransacking I find quite appalling.’
Eustacie, helping Sir Hugh to smooth and fold several crumpled neckclothes, said carefully: ‘This is a very good adventure, and of course I am enjoying it – cela va sans dire! – but – but do you think that Basil will again try to come and kill Ludovic?’
‘I should think it unlikely,’ answered Shield, ‘but I am going to ride back to the Court for my night-gear, and spend the night in Ludovic’s room.’
‘Famous!’ said Miss Thane. ‘I declare I never dreamed of such a romantic adventure as this turns out to be. In a little while we shall be barricading ourselves into the inn in a state of siege. Nothing would be more delightful!’
‘I’ve no objection to Shield’s putting up here, if he wants to,’ stated Sir Hugh, ‘but if I am to be roused out of my bed by fellows in loo-masks I won’t be answerable for the consequences!’
Miss Thane, perceiving that his placidity was seriously impaired, set herself to coax him back into good humour. Nye promised to send Clem up immediately to put away all the scattered belongings, and he presently allowed himself to be escorted down to the parlour and installed in an easy chair by the fire, with a bottle of Madeira at his elbow. All he asked, he said, was a little peace and quiet, so his sister tactfully withdrew, leaving him to the mellowing influence of his wine.
Sir Tristram did not remain long at the Red Lion, but soon called for his horse, promising to return in time for dinner. No more startling events occurred during the course of the afternoon, and no suspicious strangers entered the tap-room. Sir Tristram came back shortly after six o’clock, and Nye, bolting the door into the coffee-room, released Ludovic, who had reached the point of announcing with considerable acrimony that if coming into possession of his inheritance entailed many more days spent underground, he would prefer to return to his free-trading.
After dinner Miss Thane had the tact to suggest that they should sit down to a game of loo, and in this way the evening passed swiftly, Ludovic’s problem being for the time forgotten, and the game proving so engrossing that it was not until after eleven o’clock that Miss Thane thought to look at the timepiece on the mantelshelf. The party then broke up, and the ladies had just picked up their candles when Nye’s voice was suddenly heard somewhere above-stairs, raised in ferocious surprise.
Sir Tristram, signing to the others to remain where they were, went quickly out into the coffee-room, just as Nye came down the stairs, dragging by the collar a scared-looking stable-boy. When he saw Shield he said: ‘I’ve just found this young varmint in Sir Hugh’s bedchamber, your Honour. Down you come, you! Now then, what were you doing up there?’
The stable-boy whimpered that he meant no harm, and tried to squirm out of the landlord’s hold. Nye shook him, almost lifting him from the ground, and Sir Tristram said: ‘Is he one of your lads, Nye?’
‘Ay, sir, he’s one of my lads right enough, but he’ll belong to the Parish Constable in the morning,’ said Nye with awful meaning. ‘A thief, that’s what he is, and will likely be transported. That or hanged.’
‘I ain’t a thief ! I never meant no harm, Mr Nye, I swear I didn’t! I ain’t took a thing that belongs to the big gentleman, nor wouldn’t!’
‘What were you doing in his bedchamber?’ demanded Nye. ‘You’ve no business inside the house, and well you know it! Came creeping in through a window, that’s what you did, and don’t you dare to deny it! There’s the ladder you used for anyone to see. Feeling in the pockets of Sir Hugh’s coats he was, sir, the young vagabond! What’s that you’ve got in your hand? Give it up this instant!’
The boy made a futile attempt to break away, but Nye seized his right arm and gave it a twist that made him cry out and relinquish the object he had been trying to conceal. It was a quizzing-glass belonging to Sir Hugh Thane.
Nye stared at it for a moment, his countenance slowly reddening with wrath. His grip tightened on the stable-boy’s collar. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said. ‘You’ll be sorry for this, Sam Barker!’
Sir Tristram, taking the glass from him, interposed in his quiet way: ‘Let him go, Nye. Now, my lad, if you speak the truth no harm shall come to you. Who told you to steal this?’
The boy cowered as far from Nye as he was able, and said: ‘It were Mr Lavenham’s gentleman, your Honour, and ’deed I didn’t know there was any harm! He come asking me if I’d like to earn twenty guineas for myself, all for finding an eyeglass Mr Lavenham mislaid here. It was the big gentleman as had got it, he said, and if I found it, and no one the wiser, there’d be twenty golden guineas for me. It weren’t like stealing, sir! I ain’t a thief !’
‘Oh, you ain’t, eh?’ said Nye. ‘And if Mr Lavenham mislaid his glass what should stop him coming to ask for it open? Don’t tell me you didn’t think there was any harm in it!’
‘It was Mr Lavenham’s eyeglass. Mr Gregg said if I didn’t ask no questions there’d be no trouble for anyone.’
‘There will be a great deal of trouble for you at least if you do not do precisely what I tell you now,’ said Sir Tristram sternly. ‘If you had your deserts you would be handed over to the Constable. But if you keep your mouth shut I will engage for it that Nye will overlook this fault. Understand me, I want no word of what has occurred to-night to come to Gregg’s ears, or to Mr Lavenham’s. If you are questioned you will tell them that you have had no opportunity to search Sir
Hugh’s room. Is that clear?’
The stable-boy, thankful to have escaped the retribution he had thought inevitable, assured him that it was quite clear. He stammered out his gratitude, promised eternal good behaviour, and fled.
Nye drew a long breath. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I’d a deal rather be rid of the young good-for-nothing. My own lads bribed! What next will we have, I’d like to know?’
Sir Tristram was looking at the quizzing-glass in his hand. He said slowly: ‘So they didn’t find it! I wonder…’ He broke off, and strode suddenly towards the parlour. He was met by demands to know what had happened, and replied briefly: ‘One of Nye’s stable-hands had been bribed to find the Beau’s quizzing-glass. He found this instead.’
‘But that’s mine!’ said Sir Hugh, regarding it fixedly.
‘I know it.’
‘Do you mean to tell me I’ve had my room ransacked again?’ demanded Sir Hugh.
‘No, I think you’ve merely had your pockets turned out. That’s not important.’
‘Not important!’ ejaculated Sir Hugh, considerably incensed. ‘And what if I’ve been robbed? I suppose that’s not important either! Burn it, I never was in such a house in my life! It’s for ever full of a set of rascals broken out of Newgate, and what with masked assassins, and Bow Street Runners, and young Lavenham here taking it into his head to live in the cellar, I don’t know where I am from one minute to the next. What’s more, you’re as bad as the rest of them, Sally!’
‘You haven’t been robbed,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘What I want to discover is why it is so vital to Basil to regain possession of that glass. Thane, where did you put it? For God’s sake try to remember! I suspect it may be of the utmost importance!’
‘It is still in the inn, then!’ Miss Thane said. ‘Hugh, think, I implore you!’
‘Are you talking about the quizzing-glass you all said was Basil’s?’ inquired Ludovic.
Shield turned. ‘What do you mean, Ludovic? Did you not recognize it?’
‘No, I can’t say that I did,’ answered Ludovic. ‘Not that I’m disputing that it’s his, mind you. I dare say he bought it since my time.’
‘That,’ said Sir Tristram, ‘is precisely what I think he did do. It must be found if we have to turn this whole place upside down to do it!’
‘You needn’t do that,’ said Ludovic calmly. ‘Thane put it on the mantelshelf in the coffee-room. I saw him do it.’
Sir Tristram wheeled about, and went quickly back to the coffee-room, and stretching up his arm ran his hand along the high mantelpiece. The quizzing-glass was just where Sir Hugh had left it. Shield held it in his hand, looking at it so oddly that Nye, who was standing beside him, ventured to ask if anything were amiss.
Sir Tristram shook his head, and carried the prize back into the parlour.
‘You have found it!’ exclaimed Eustacie. ‘But why is it important?’
He put her aside, and sitting down at the table, subjected the quizzing-glass to a minute inspection. The others gathered round him, even Sir Hugh betraying a mild interest.
‘Myself I like ’em made slimmer,’ remarked Ludovic. ‘The shaft’s too thick. Clumsy.’
Sir Tristram said dryly: ‘I think there is a reason.’ He had picked up Sir Hugh’s eyeglass, and through its magnifying lens was looking at the heavily-encrusted circlet at the end of the shaft, through which a ribbon was meant to pass. He put Sir Hugh’s glass down and inserted his thumb-nail into a groove on the circlet.
There was a tiny click; the circle parted, and something fell out of it on to the table, rolled a little way, and lay still.
‘The talisman ring!’ said Sir Tristram.
Fourteen
A sound almost like a sob broke from Ludovic. His hand shot out across the table and snatched up the ring. ‘My ring!’ he whispered. ‘My ring!’
‘Well, upon my soul, that’s a devilish cunning device!’ said Sir Hugh, taking the quizzing-glass out of Shield’s hand. ‘You see, Sally? The ring fitted into the circlet at the end of the shaft.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Miss Thane. ‘I see it did. When I think how it has been lying where anyone might have found it I feel quite faint with horror.’
Eustacie was looking critically at it. ‘Is that a talisman ring?’ she inquired. ‘I thought it would be quite different! It is nothing but a gold ring with some figures on it!’
‘Careful, Eustacie!’ said Sir Tristram, with a slight smile. ‘You will find that Ludovic regards it as sacrosanct.’
Ludovic raised his eyes from adoration of the ring. ‘By God, I do! There is nothing I can say to you, Tristram, except that I could kiss your feet for what you have done for me!’
‘I beg you won’t, however. I have done very little.’
Miss Thane said: ‘It has been under our very noses. The audacity of it! How could he dare?’
‘Why not?’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Would any of us have suspected it had it not been lost, and then searched for in such a desperate fashion?’
An idea occurred to Miss Thane. She turned her eyes towards her brother, and said in moved tones: ‘So we owe it all to Hugh! My dear, this becomes too much for me. I shall not easily recover from the shock.’
‘And everything – but everything! – we did was quite useless!’ said Eustacie, quite disgusted.
‘I know,’ said Miss Thane, sadly shaking her head. ‘It does not bear thinking of.’
‘I do not know why you should complain,’ remarked Sir Tristram. ‘You have had a great deal of adventure, which is what I understood you both to want.’
‘Yes, that is true,’ acknowledged Eustacie, ‘but some of it was not very comfortable. And I must say that I am not at all pleased that it is you who have found the ring, because you did not want to have an adventure, or to do anything romantic. It seems to me very unfair.’
‘So it is!’ said Miss Thane, much struck by this point of view. ‘It is quite odious, my love, for who could have been more disagreeable, or more discouraging? Really, it would have been better in some ways had we insisted upon his remaining the villain.’
Sir Tristram smiled a little at this, but in rather an abstracted way, and said: ‘It’s very well, but we are not yet out of our difficulties. Let me have the ring, Ludovic. It is true that we have found it, but we did not find it in the Beau’s possession. Oh, don’t look so dubious, my dear boy! I shan’t lose it.’
‘Ah!’ said Miss Thane, nodding wisely. ‘One has to remember, after all, that you are a collector of such things. I don’t blame him, I dare say it is all a Plot.’
‘Sarah, you’re outrageous!’ said Ludovic, handing the ring across the table to his cousin. ‘For God’s sake be careful with it, won’t you, Tristram? What do you mean to do?’
Sir Tristram fitting the ring back into its hiding-place, and closed the circlet with a snap. ‘For the present I’ll keep this. I think our best course –’ He stopped, frowning.
They waited in anxious silence for him to continue, but before he spoke again Nye caught the sound of a coach pulling up in the yard and said apologetically: ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I’ll have to go. That’ll be the night-mail.’
Sir Tristram’s voice arrested as he reached the door. ‘Do you mean it’s the London mail, Joe?’
‘Ay, that’s the one, sir. I want a word with the guard, if you’ll excuse me.’
Sir Tristram’s chair rasped on the oaken floor as he sprang up. ‘Then that’s my best course!’ he said. ‘I’ll board it!’
Nye stared at him. ‘If that’s what you mean to do, you’d best make haste, sir. It don’t take them more than two minutes to change the horses, and they’ll be off the moment that’s done.’
‘Go and tell them to wait!’ ordered Sir Tristram. ‘I have but to get my hat and coat.’
??
?They won’t wait, sir!’ expostulated Nye. ‘They’ve got their time to keep, and you’ve no ticket!’
‘Never mind that! Hurry, man!’ said Sir Tristram, thrusting him before him out of the room.
‘But what are you going to do?’ cried Eustacie, running after them.
‘I’ve no time to waste in explaining that now!’ replied Sir Tristram, already half-way up the stairs.
Miss Thane, following in a more leisurely fashion with Ludovic, said darkly: ‘I said it was a Plot. It’s my belief he is absconding.’ She discovered that her butt was already out of hearing, and added: ‘There! How provoking! That remark was quite wasted. Who would have supposed that the wretched creature would be taken with such a frenzy?’
Sir Tristram reappeared again at this moment, his coat over his arm, his hat in his hand. As he ran down the stairs, he said: ‘I hope to return to-morrow if all goes well. For God’s sake take care of yourself, Ludovic!’
He was across the coffee-room and out of the door almost before they could fetch their breath. Miss Thane, blinking, said: ‘If only we had a horse ready saddled!’
‘Why? Isn’t the mail enough for him?’ inquired Ludovic.
‘If there had been a horse, I am persuaded we should have seen him ride off ventre à terre !’ mourned Miss Thane.
‘But where is he going?’ stammered Eustacie. ‘He seems to me suddenly to have become entirely mad!’
‘He’s going to London,’ replied Ludovic. ‘Don’t ask me why, for I haven’t a notion!’
‘Well!’ Eustacie turned quite pink with indignation. ‘It is too bad! This is our adventure, and he has left us without a word, and, in fact, is trying to take it away from us!’
‘Men!’ said Miss Thane, with a strong shudder.
Sir Hugh came wandering into the coffee-room at this moment, and asked what had become of Shield. When he heard that he had departed suddenly for London, he looked vaguely surprised, and complained that he seemed to be another of these people who spent their time popping in and out of the inn like jack-in-the-boxes. ‘It’s very unrestful,’ he said severely. ‘No sooner do we get comfortably settled than either someone breaks into the house or one of you flies off to Lord knows where! There’s no peace at all. I shall go to bed.’