The Talisman Ring (26 page)

Sir Tristram drew a deep breath, and desired Miss Thane to give him a plain account of the affair.

She did so, he listened in silence, and at the end observed that he had hardly expected so prompt or so desperate a response to his veiled challenge. ‘I am afraid you have had an alarming night of it,’ he said, ‘but I must confess I am delighted to hear that we succeeded so well in frightening the Beau. He must feel his position to be more dangerous than we suspect.’

‘It seems to me that it is Ludovic who is in a dangerous position,’ Eustacie pointed out.

‘Not if you have had the sense to hide him in the cellar,’ replied Sir Tristram.

‘We have done so, but he went under protest, and I think won’t remain there long,’ said Miss Thane.

‘He can take his choice of remaining there or being shipped out of the country,’ said Sir Tristram briefly. ‘That Basil went actually to the length of attempting to kill Ludovic with his own hand convinces me that that one-time butler of his knows something.’

‘You have not found him yet?’

‘No. He seems quite to have disappeared. If Basil knows his whereabouts and seeks him out I shall hear of it, however. I have been at pains to see young Kettering and have instructed him to keep me posted in the Beau’s movements. Depend upon it, if Basil sees that butler, so shall I.’

They walked on up the lane, quickening their steps as the sky became once more overcast, with a threat of rain to come. Sir Hugh discovered that they had been out more than an hour, promised Shield a glass of very tolerable Madeira at the Red Lion, and, with another appraising look over the hunter’s points, inquired whether he had any notion of selling the horse.

‘None,’ replied Shield. ‘It is not in my power.’

‘How is that?’ demanded Sir Hugh.

‘He is not mine,’ said Shield. ‘He belonged to my great-uncle, and – provided we can reinstate the boy – is now Ludovic’s property.’

‘Well, I’ve taken a strong liking to him,’ said Sir Hugh. ‘He looks to be well up to my weight. It seems to me that the sooner young Lavenham takes possession of his inheritance the better. I’ll speak to him about it as soon as I get back to the inn.’

Upon arrival at the Red Lion, however, Sir Hugh’s first thought was to call to Nye to bring up a bottle of Madeira. Receiving no response he walked into the tap-room to look for him. There was no sign either of Clem or Nye, and a gentleman in a moleskin waistcoat, who was waiting patiently by the bar, volunteered the information that he himself had been hollering for the landlord till he was fair parched. He added that if the Red Lion wanted no customers there were other inns which did, and upon this bitter remark, stumped out to go in search of one.

Sir Hugh went back to the coffee-room, and had just begun to say that Nye seemed to have gone out when a cry from above made him break off and look inquiringly towards the staircase. Miss Thane, who had gone up to take off her hat and coat, came quickly down, looking perturbed and startled. ‘Sir Tristram, something has happened while we have been out! Someone has been here: my room has been ransacked, all our rooms! Where is Nye?’

‘That,’ said Sir Tristram grimly, ‘is what we shall have to find out. A more pressing question is, where is Ludovic?’

Ludovic was found to be sleeping peacefully in his underground retreat. He had heard nothing, and when he learned that every room in the house had been turned upside down by unknown hands, he showed a marked inclination to laugh, and said that he supposed Basil had been searching for him again.

‘Well, if he expected to find you amongst my clothing I can only say that he must have a very indelicate idea of me,’ said Miss Thane. ‘Sir Tristram, do you suppose him to have kidnapped Nye and Clem?’

‘Hardly,’ Shield answered, shutting the cellar door upon Ludovic, and replacing the chest that stood upon the trap. He walked across the passage to the tap-room, noticed that the trap leading down to the main cellar was shut, and pulled it up, calling: ‘Nye! Are you there, man?’

No one answered him; Sir Hugh strolled in to report that he had found no trace of Nye, and observing that Shield had opened the trap-door said that the particular Madeira he had in mind was not in that cellar.

Shield had found a taper by this time, and kindled it at the fire. ‘What I want to find is Nye, not Madeira!’ he said, and went down the stairs into the gloom of the cellar. A moment later his voice sounded, summoning Sir Hugh to his assistance. ‘Thane! Bring a lamp down here, I’ve found them!’

Sir Hugh selected a lamp from several standing on a shelf, and lit it in a leisurely fashion. Armed with this he descended into the cellar, where he found Shield calmly waiting for him, with the taper in his hand, and at his feet two neatly-trussed, gagged men. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Sir Hugh, blinking. ‘First it’s one thing and then it’s another! This is the queerest inn I’ve ever stayed at in my life.’

Shield blew out his taper, directed Sir Hugh to put the lamp down and ungag Clem, and set to work to free the landlord. This was very soon done, and no sooner was Nye able to speak than he said: ‘Is Mr Ludovic safe still?’

‘He’s safe enough,’ replied Shield. ‘What the devil happened? Who set upon you?’

‘I never seen them before to my knowledge,’ Nye said, rubbing his cramped limbs. ‘Lord, to think of them taking me unawares!
Me!
They come in, as I thought, off the Brighton stage. There was no one in the tap-room but myself at the time, and I hadn’t no more than turned my back to get a couple of mugs down from the shelf when something hit me on the head, and when I woke up, here I was like you saw with Clem beside me! I’ve got a lump on the back of my head like a hen’s egg.’

‘Good God, Nye, the oldest trick in the world, and you must needs fall a victim to it!’ said Sir Tristram scornfully.

‘I know it, sir: there ain’t no call for you to tell me. Fair bamboozled I was.’

‘This sort of thing,’ said Sir Hugh, cutting the cord that bound Clem’s arms, ‘is past a jest! Were you knocked on the head too?’

Clem, however, had escaped this particular violence. He was a good deal shaken and bruised, but his assailants had overpowered him without being obliged to stun him. He recounted that he had heard someone calling for the drawer, and had gone at once to the tap-room. He had seen only one man, standing in quite an innocent-seeming fashion by the bar, but no sooner had he entered the room than a heavy coat had been thrown over his head by someone hidden behind the door, and before he could disentangle himself from its folds both men were upon him and he was speedily gagged and trussed up like the landlord.

Having released the captives Sir Tristram’s next concern was to discover what the intruders had done in the inn. This was soon seen. They had visited every bedchamber, wrenched drawers out of the chests, and turned their contents on to the floor, ripped the clothes out of the wardrobes, burst open the locks of Sir Hugh’s cloak-bags, and tossed out their contents higgledy-piggledy.

Sir Hugh, when he beheld the havoc amongst his possessions, was rendered quite speechless. His sister, staring about her said: ‘But it is mad! This can have been no search for Ludovic! One would imagine they must have been common house-breakers, but there is my trinket-box broken open and my trinkets in a heap on my dressing-table. Have you lost anything, Hugh? I think I have not.’

‘Have I –’ Sir Hugh choked. ‘How the devil can I know whether I’ve lost anything in this confusion?’

Shield was looking frowningly round the disordered room. ‘No, they were not searching for Ludovic,’ he said. ‘But what were they searching for? What can you have that the Beau wants so desperately?’

Sir Hugh caught the name and said: ‘Do you mean to tell that this outrage was committed by this cousin of Lavenham’s who broke in last night?’

‘I am afraid so,’ replied Shield, smiling a little at Sir Hugh’s face of Jovean wrath.

‘Then understand this, Sally!’ said Sir Hugh. ‘Not a yard from this place do I stir until I have that fellow laid by the heels! It’s bad enough when he comes creeping into the house to try to stick a knife into young Lavenham, but when he has the infernal impudence to turn my room into a pigsty, then I say he’s gone a step too far!’

‘The knife!’ exclaimed Eustacie. ‘He came for the knife, of course! Sir Hugh seized it last night, Tristram!’

‘Where was it put?’ asked Shield. ‘Has it been taken?’

Nye said: ‘We’ll soon see that, sir. Sir Hugh left it on the coffee-room table, and thinking we might need to produce it as evidence I put it away this morning in my china-cupboard – the same them Runners blew the lock out of, sir.’

‘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.’