The Talisman Ring (28 page)

She looked him over dispassionately. ‘Yes? I do not know why I must be warned, but if you wish to warn me, I am perfectly agreeable.’

‘Let us say,’ amended the Beau, ‘that I desire you to convey a warning to the person most nearly concerned. You must know that I am aware – have been aware from the outset – that you are concealing – a certain person in this house. I do not need to mention names, I am sure. Now, I wish this person no harm; in the past I think I may say that I have been very much his friend, but it will not be in my power to assist him if once his presence in this inn becomes known. And I fear – I very much fear – that it is known. You have already been a trifle discommoded, I collect, by two Runners from Bow Street. They seem, by all accounts, to have been a singularly stupid couple. But you must remember that all the Runners are not so easily – shall we say, duped?’ He paused, but Eustacie, contenting herself with gazing at him blankly, said nothing. He smiled slightly, and continued: ‘You should consider, dear cousin, what would happen if someone who knows this person well were to go to Bow Street and say: “I have proof that this man is even now lying in a hidden cellar at the Red Lion at Hand Cross.”’

‘You recount to me a history of the most entertaining,’ said Eustacie, with painstakingly civility. ‘I expect you would be very glad to know that Ludovic – I name names, me – had gone abroad.’

‘Very glad,’ replied the Beau sweetly. ‘I should be much distressed if he brought any more disgrace on the family by ending his career on the scaffold. And that, my dear Eustacie, is what he will do if ever he falls into the hands of the Law.’

‘But I find you inexplicable!’ said Eustacie. ‘I thought you at least believed him to be innocent.’

He shrugged. ‘Certainly, but his unfortunate flight, coupled with the disappearance of the talisman ring which was at the root of all the trouble, will always make it impossible for him to prove his innocence.’ He put the tips of his fingers together, and over them surveyed Eustacie. ‘It is very disagreeable to be a hunted man, you know. It would be much better to have it given out that one had died – abroad. I am anxious to be of what assistance I can. If I had proof that my cousin Ludovic was no more, I would gladly engage to provide – well, let us say a man who looked like my cousin Ludovic but bore another name – to provide this man, then, with an allowance I believe he would not consider ungenerous.’ He stopped and took a pinch of snuff.

‘I ask myself,’ said Eustacie meditatively, ‘why you should wish to overwhelm Ludovic with your generosity. It is to me not at all easy to understand.’

‘Ah, that is not clever of you, dear cousin,’ he replied. ‘Surely you must perceive the disadvantages of my situation?’

‘But yes, very clearly,’ said Eustacie, with disconcerting alacrity.

‘Precisely,’ smiled the Beau. ‘Of course, were there but the slimmest chance of Ludovic’s being able to prove his innocence, it would be another matter. But there is no such chance, Eustacie, and I should be a very odd sort of a creature if I did not look forward with misgiving to an indefinite number of years spent in waiting beside a vacant throne.’

‘A vacant throne?’ suddenly said Miss Thane, raising her head from the book she had taken up. ‘Oh, are you speaking of the murder of the French King? I was never more shocked in my life than when I heard the news of it!’

The Beau paid no heed to her. His eyes still rested on Eustacie; he said pensively: ‘One may live very comfortably on the Continent, I believe.
You
, for instance, would like it excessively, I dare say.’

‘I? But we do not speak of me!’

‘Do we not? Well, I shall not pretend that I am not glad to hear you say so,’ he answered. He got up from his chair. ‘You will think over what I have said, will you not? You might even tell Ludovic.’

Eustacie assumed an expression of doubt. ‘Yes, but perhaps if he did what you suggest you would not give him any money after all,’ she said.

‘In that case,’ replied the Beau calmly, ‘he would only have to come to life again to deprive me of title, land, and wealth. One might almost say that he would hold me quite in his power.’

‘True, yes, that is very true,’ nodded Eustacie. ‘But I do not know – it is not possible for me to say –’

‘My dear cousin, I do not wish you to say anything. No doubt you will discuss the matter with Ludovic and inform me later of your decision. I will take my leave of you now.’ He turned and bowed to Miss Thane. ‘Your servant, ma’am. Do not trouble to accompany me to the door, my dear cousin; I know my way. I have been here before, you know.’ He broke off and said: ‘Ah, that reminds me! I believe that upon the occasion of my last visit I lost my quizzing-glass here. I wonder if it has been found?’

‘Your quizzing-glass?’ repeated Eustacie. ‘How came you to lose that, pray?’

‘The ribbon was a trifle worn,’ he explained. ‘The glass is of sentimental value to me. May I have it, if you please?’

She shook her head. ‘You are mistaken. It is certainly not here.’

He sighed. ‘No? Tax your memory again, cousin. It would be wiser to remember, I think.’

‘It is impossible. I do not know where your glass may be,’ said Eustacie, with perfect truth.

Miss Thane, quite unable to resist the temptation of taking part in this scene, said: ‘A quizzing-glass? Oh yes, I know!’

‘Indeed, ma’am?’ The Beau turned rather quickly. ‘Enlighten me, I beg of you!’

Miss Thane nodded at Eustacie. ‘Do you not remember, my love, how Nye found one half hidden beneath a chair only yesterday? Oh no, I believe you were not by at the time! He laid it on the mantelshelf in the coffee-room. I will fetch it for you directly.’

‘Do not put yourself to the trouble, ma’am,’ said the Beau, breathing a little faster. ‘I am quite in your debt, and will recover the glass upon my way out.’

‘Oh, but it is not the least trouble in the world!’ declared Miss Thane, rising, and going to the door. ‘I can place my hand upon it in a trice!’

‘You are too good.’ He bowed, and followed her to the coffee-room.

She checked for an instant on the threshold, for the room was not, as she had expected to find it, empty. A powerful-looking man in a blue coat and buckskins was seated on the settle beside the fire, warming his feet and refreshing himself from a mug of ale. He turned his head as Miss Thane came in, and although he did not look at her for more than a couple of seconds, she had an uncomfortable feeling that the look was not quite as casual as it seemed to be. She caught Eustacie’s eye, and found it brimful of warning. Comforting herself with the reflection that even if the stranger were in Beau Lavenham’s pay, there was no fear of either of them finding the quizzing-glass, she tripped forward to the fireplace. ‘I know just where he put it,’ she informed the Beau over her shoulder. ‘This end it was – no! Well, that is the oddest thing! I could have sworn – Do you reach up your arm, Mr Lavenham: you are taller than I am.’

The Beau, who did not need this encouragement, ran his hand the length of the mantelpiece. ‘You are mistaken, ma’am,’ he said, his voice suddenly harsh. ‘It is not here!’

‘But it must be!’ she said. ‘I am positive it was put there. Someone must have moved it!’ An idea seemed to strike her. She said: ‘I wonder, did your valet take it? He was here this morning, you know, and stayed for quite some time. I could not imagine what he was about! Depend upon it, he must have discovered it, and you will find it awaiting you at the Dower House.’

He turned pale, and said with his eyes fixed on her face: ‘My valet? You say my valet was in this room to-day?’

‘Yes, indeed he was,’ averred Miss Thane unblushingly. ‘Of course, I never dreamed the glass was what he was looking for, or I would have shown him at once where it was. All’s well that ends well, however. You may be sure he has it safe.’

Eustacie, lost in admiration of Miss Thane’s tactics, watched the smile vanish completely from the Beau’s face. An expression half of doubt, half of dismay took its place; it was plain that while he suspected Miss Thane of prevaricating, he was unable to banish from his mind as impossible the thought that his valet, guessing that the quizzing-glass held a vital secret, might have come to search for it on his own account. She saw his hand open and close, and his lips straighten to a thin, ugly line, and was observing these signs of mental perturbation with critical interest when she became aware of being addressed by the stranger on the settle.

‘Very cold day, ma’am,’ he remarked, with the unmistakable air of one whose habit it was to enter into chat with anybody who crossed his path.

Eustacie glanced at him with a certain amount of misgiving. She supposed that the landlord of an inn could hardly refuse to allow a customer to drink his ale in the coffee-room if he wished to, but she could not help feeling that Nye might have contrived on this occasion at least to have lured him into the tap-room and to have kept him there under his own eye. On the other hand, it was, of course, possible that the man was known to Nye. She replied civilly: ‘Yes, very cold.’

‘Bitter wind blowing outside,’ pursued the stranger. ‘Ah well, it’s seasonable, ain’t it, ma’am? We hadn’t ought to complain. Begging your pardon, sir, if I might put another log of wood on the fire – Thank you, sir!’

The Beau, who was standing by the basket containing wood, moved to allow the stranger to approach it.

‘That’s the worst of a wood fire,’ said the stranger, selecting a suitable log. ‘They fall away to nothing in less than no time, don’t they, sir? But we’ll have a nice blaze in a minute you’ll see.’ He bent to pick up another log, and said in a surprised tone: ‘Well! And what might this be, all amongst the wood?’ He straightened himself as he spoke, and Miss Thane saw that he was holding the Beau’s quizzing-glass in his hand.

For a moment it seemed to her that she could neither speak nor think. While her eyes remained riveted to the glass her brain whirled. Had not Sir Tristram taken charge of the glass? Could he have been guilty of the unpardonable carelessness of mislaying it? How did it come to be in the wood-basket? And what in heaven’s name was one to do?

She pulled herself together, met Eustacie’s eyes across the room, and saw them as startled as she felt sure her own must be. She became aware of the stranger’s voice, marvelling with amiable fatuity at the queer places thing would get to, to be sure, and suddenly realized why Nye had left a stranger alone in the coffee-room, and what his purpose must be. She shot a warning frown at Eustacie, still standing at the foot of the stairs, and said: ‘Why, there it is! Well, of all the fortunate happenings!’

The Beau held out his hand. It was shaking a little. He said: ‘Thank you. That is mine.’

The stranger looked rather doubtfully at him. ‘Yours, is it, sir? Well, if you say so, I’m sure it is so, but maybe I’d best give it to the landlord – not meaning any offence, your Honour, but seeing as it’s a valuable kind of a trinket, and me having found it.’

A fixed smile was on the Beau’s lips. He said: ‘Quite unnecessary, I assure you. You will perceive that it is of unusual design. I could not mistake it.’

The stranger turned it over in his hand. ‘Well, of course, sir, if you say so –’ he began undecidedly.

‘My good fellow,’ interrupted the Beau. ‘You must have seen me look for something upon the mantelshelf a minute ago. Your scruples are quite absurd, believe me. Anyone will tell you that that glass belongs to me. Be good enough to give it to me, if you please.’

‘Oh yes, certainly that is Mr Lavenham’s quizzing-glass!’ said Miss Thane. ‘There can be no doubt!’

The stranger advanced, holding the glass out to the Beau. He grasped it, and in that instant a suspicion of the trap into which he had walked seemed to flash into his brain, and he sprang back, glaring at the man before him.

‘Then, in the name of the Law I arrest you, Basil Lavenham, for the wilful murder of Matthew John Plunkett!’ said the stranger.

Before he had finished speaking the Beau had whipped a pistol from his pocket and levelled it. The smile on his lips had become a ghastly grimace, but it still lingered. He said, quick and low: ‘Stand where you are! If you move you are a dead man!’ and began to back towards the door.

The Bow Street Runner stood still perforce. Miss Thane, standing a little behind the Beau, perceived that the moment for a display of heroism had arrived, and in one swift movement got between the Beau and the door. In the same instant Eustacie shrieked: ‘Nye!
A moi!
’

The Beau, keeping his would-be captor covered, reached the door, and Miss Thane, behind him, caught his arm and bore it downwards with all her strength. He was taken unawares, gave a snarl of fury, and wrenching free from her clutch struck at her with his clenched fist. The blow landed on her temple, and Miss Thane subsided in an inanimate heap on the floor.

She became aware of a throbbing pain in her head, of the smell of Hungary Water, and of the feel of a wet cloth across her brow. ‘Oh dear!’ she said faintly. ‘The quizzing-glass! Did he get away?’

‘By no means,’ replied a calm voice. ‘There is nothing to worry you: we have him safely held.’

Miss Thane ventured to open her eyes. Sir Tristram was sitting on the edge of the couch in the parlour on which she had been laid, bathing her forehead. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ said Miss Thane.

‘Yes,’ said Sir Tristram.

‘I knew you must have returned,’ murmured Miss Thane.

He replied in his cool way: ‘If you knew that, what in the world possessed you to try and stop the Beau? He had no hope of escaping. I was outside with a Runner to take him if he broke from Townsend.’

‘Well, pray how was I to know that?’ demanded Miss Thane.

‘I imagine you might have guessed it.’

She closed her eyes again, saying with dignity: ‘I have the headache.’

He sounded amused. ‘That is not very surprising, since you were hit on the head.’

A rustle of skirts heralded Eustacie’s approach. Miss Thane opened her eyes again and smiled. ‘Oh, you are better!’ said Eustacie. ‘
Ma pauvre
, I thought he had killed you! And I must tell you that he wrenched open the door and stepped backwards right into Tristram’s arms! It was of all things the most exciting! And, do you know, he tried to throw the quizzing-glass into the fire, which was entirely stupid, because that made it quite certain that he knew where the ring was hid. I do think that this has been the most delightful adventure!’