The Talisman Ring

Chapter Thirteen

Sir Hugh swore, and got up. The noise of his fall seemed to have penetrated to the rooms above, for a door was opened, footsteps were heard flying along the passage towards his bedchamber, and Eustacie’s voice sounded, begging the landlord to wake up and come at once.

“It’s only I!” called Sir Hugh, tenderly massaging his grazed shinbone. “Don’t start screeching, for the lord’s sake! Bring me a light.”

Another door opened; Miss Thane’s voice said: “What was that? I thought I heard a crash!”

“I dare say you did,” returned her brother. “I fell over a demmed stool. Send that scoundrel Nye down here. I’ve a bone to pick with him.”

“Good gracious, Hugh!” exclaimed Miss Thane venturing halfway down the stairs, and holding up a candle. “What in the world are you doing there? You do not know what a fright you put me into!”

“Never mind that,” said Sir Hugh testily. “What I want is a light.”

“My dear, you sound very cross,” said Miss Thane, coming down the remainder of the stairs, and setting her candlestick on the table. “Why are you here?” She caught sight of the curtain half drawn back from the windows, and the casement swinging wide, and said quickly: “Who opened that window?”

“Just what I want to ask Nye,” replied Sir Hugh. “The moon woke me, and I chanced to look out of my own window and saw this one open. I came down, and I’d no sooner got to the bottom of the stairs than a demmed fellow in a loo-mask knocked the candle out of my hand and tried to hit me on the head. No, it’s no use looking round for him: he’s gone, thanks to Nye leaving stools strewn about all over the floor.”

Eustacie, who had come downstairs with Nye, gave a sob of fright, and stared at Miss Thane. “He did come!” she said. “Ludovic! “ She turned on the word, and fled upstairs, calling: “Ludovic, Ludovic, are you safe?”

Sir Hugh looked after her in somewhat irritated surprise. “French! “ he said. “All alike! What the devil does she want to fly into a pucker for?”

Nye had gone over to the window and was leaning out. He turned and said: “The shutter’s been wrenched off its hinge, and a pane of glass cut out clean as a whistle. That’s where he must have put his hand in to open the window. You didn’t get a sight of his face, sir?”

“No, I didn’t,” replied Sir Hugh, stooping to pick up the dagger at his feet. “I keep telling you he wore a mask. A loo-mask! If there’s one thing above others that I hate it’s a lot of demmed theatrical nonsense! What was the fellow playing at? Highwaymen?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Miss Thane tactfully, “he did not wish to run the risk of being recognized.”

“I dare say he didn’t, and it’s my belief,” said Sir Hugh, bending a severe frown upon her, “that you know who he was, Sally. It has seemed to me all along that there’s a deal going on here which is devilish unusual.”

“Yes, dear,” said Miss Thane, with becoming meekness. “I think your masked man was Ludovic’s wicked cousin come to murder him with that horrid-looking knife you have in your hand.”

“There ain’t a doubt of it!” growled Nye. “Look what’s here, ma’am!” He went down on his knees as he spoke and picked from under the table a scrap of lace, such as might have been ripped from a cravat, and an ornate gold quizzing-glass on a length of torn ribbon. “Have you ever seen that before?”

Sir Hugh took the glass from him, and inspected it disparagingly. “No, I haven’t,” he said, “and what’s more, I don’t like it. It’s too heavily chased.”

Miss Thane nodded. “Of course I’ve seen it. But I was sure without that evidence. He must be feeling desperate indeed to have taken this risk!”

At this moment Eustacie came downstairs again, with Ludovic behind her. Ludovic, in a dressing-gown as exotic as Thane’s, looked amused, and rather sleepy, and dangled a pistol in his right hand. His eyes alighted first on the dagger, which Thane had laid down on the table, and he put up his brows with a rueful expression of incredulity, and said: “What, was that pretty thing meant to be plunged into my, heart? Well, well! What have you got there, Thane?”

“Do you recognize it?” said Miss Thane. “It is your cousin’s quizzing-glass.”

Ludovic glanced at it casually, but picked up the dagger. “Oh, is it? No, I can’t say I recognize it, but I dare say you’re right. To think of the Beau daring to come and tackle me with nothing better than this medieval weapon! It’s a damned impertinence, upon my soul it is!”

“Depend upon it, he hoped to murder you while you slept, and so make no noise about it,” said Miss Thane. “And, do you know, for all I jested with Sir Tristram over it, I never really thought that he would come!”

Sir Hugh looked at Ludovic and said: “I wish you would be serious. Do you tell me it was really your cousin here tonight?”

“Oh, devil a doubt!” answered Ludovic, testing the dagger’s sharpness with one slender forefinger.

“A cousin of yours masquerading about in a loo-mask?”

“Was he?” said Ludovic, interested. “Lord yes, that’s Basil all over! He’d run no risk of being recognized.”

“And you think he came here to murder you in your bed?” demanded Sir Hugh.

For answer, Ludovic held up the dagger.

Sir Hugh looked at it in profound silence, and then said weightily, “I’ll tell you what it is, Lavenham, he’s a demmed scoundrel. I never heard of such a thing!”

Eustacie, who had sunk into a chair, raised a very white face from her hands, and said in a low, fierce voice: “Yes, and if he does not go to the scaffold I myself will kill him! I will make a sacred vow to kill him!”

“No, don’t do that!” said Sir Hugh, regarding her with misgiving. “You can’t go about England killing people, whatever you may do in your own country.”

“Yes, I can, and I will,” retorted Eustacie. “To fight a duel, that is one thing! Even to try to take what belongs to Ludovic I can pardon! But to try to stab Ludovic in the dark, while he sleeps, voyons, that is an infamy of the most vile!”

“There’s a great deal in what you say,” acknowledged Sir Hugh, “but to my mind what you need is a sip of brandy. You’ll feel the better for it.”

“I do not need a sip of brandy!” snapped Eustacie.

“Well, if you don’t, I do,” said Sir Hugh frankly. “I’ve been getting steadily colder ever since I came down to this demmed draughty coffee-room.”

Miss Thane, taking Eustacie’s hand, patted it reassuringly, and suggested that they should go back to bed. Eustacie, who felt that at any moment the Beau might return to make a second attempt, at first refused to listen to such a notion, but upon Nye’s saying grimly that she need have no fears for Ludovic’s safety, since he proposed to spend the rest of the night in the coffee-room, she consented to go upstairs with Miss Thane, having first adjured Nye and Sir Hugh on no account to let Ludovic out of their sight until they saw him securely bolted into his bedchamber.

Sir Hugh was quite ready to promise anything, but his rational mind had little expectation of further adventures that night, and as soon as the two women had disappeared round the bend in the staircase, he reached up a long arm, and placing the Beau’s quizzing-glass on the mantelshelf above his head, said: “Well, now that they’ve gone, we can make ourselves comfortable. Go and get the brandy, Nye, and bring a glass for yourself.”

There were no more alarms during the rest of the night, but next morning Nye, and Miss Thane, and Eustacie met in consultation, and agreed that, however distasteful to him it might be, Ludovic must at least during the day be confined to the cellar. Nye, uncomfortably aware that there were no less than three doors into the Red Lion which must of necessity be kept unlocked and any number of windows through which a man might enter unobserved, flatly refused the responsibility of housing Ludovic if he persisted in roaming at large about the inn. The boldness of the attempt made in the night convinced him that the Beau would not easily relinquish his purpose of disposing of Ludovic, and he could not but realize that for such a purpose no place could be more convenient than a public inn. The month being February, there were very few private chaises on the Brighton road, but from time to time one would pass, and very likely pull up at the Red Lion for its occupants to refresh themselves in the coffee-room. In addition to this genteel custom there was a fairly constant, if thin, flow of country people drifting in and out of the taproom, so that it would be quite an easy matter for a stranger to step into the inn while the landlord and Clem were busy with their customers.

As might have been expected, Ludovic, when this decision was made known to him, objected with the utmost violence to his proposed incarceration. Not all Nye’s promises of every arrangement for his comfort being made could reconcile him to the scheme. Comfort, he said roundly, could not exist in a dark cellar smelling of every kind of liquor and crowded with pipes, barrels, spiders, and very likely rats.

Sir Hugh, wandering into the parlour in the middle of this speech, and imperfectly understanding its significance, said that, for his part, he had no objection to the smell of good liquor; in fact, quite liked it, a remark which made Ludovic retort: “You may like the smell of liquor, but how would you like to be shut up in a wine-cellar the whole day long?”

“It depends on the wine,” said Sir Hugh, after giving this question due consideration.

In the end the combined arguments and entreaties of the two ladies prevailed with Ludovic, and he consented to repair to his underground retreat, Eustacie offering to share his imprisonment, and Sir Hugh, appealed to by his sister, promising to visit him for a game of piquet during the afternoon. “Though why you should want to go and sit in the cellar if you don’t like the smell of liquor I can’t make out,” he said.

This unfortunate remark, pounced on immediately by Ludovic to support his own view of the matter, called forth a severe rebuke from Miss Thane. She tried to explain the exigencies of Ludovic’s situation to Sir Hugh, but after listening incredulously to her for a few minutes, he said with a resigned shake of his head that it all sounded like a lot of nonsense to him, and that if any more people came poking and prying into the inn they would have him to deal with.

“Very likely,” said Miss Thane, displaying admirable patience, “but if you did not happen to see Beau Lavenham enter the house he might well kill Ludovic before you knew anything about it.”

“If that fellow calls here today I want a word with him,” said Sir Hugh, his brow darkening. “I’ve a strong notion I’ve caught another demmed cold, thanks to him getting me up out of my bed in the small hours.”

“I may have only one sound arm,” interrupted Ludovic, “but if you think I can’t defend myself, you much mistake the matter, Sally.”

“I am quite sure you can defend yourself, my dear boy, but I want your cousin’s corpse on my hands as little as I want yours.”

Sir Hugh was never at his best in the early morning, nor did a disturbed night, crowned by liberal potations, help to dispel a certain sleepy vagueness that clung to him, but these significant words roused him sufficiently to make him say with decision that he had borne with a great deal of irregularity at the Red Lion, what with Bow Street Runners bobbing in and out the house, people living in cellars, and scoundrels breaking in through the windows, but that his tolerance would on no account extend to corpses littering the premises.

“Mind, Sally!” he said. “The first corpse I find means that we go back to London, wine or no wine!”

“In that case,” said Miss Thane, “Ludovic must certainly go down to the cellar. The man we want now, of course, is Sir Tristram. I wonder if he means to visit us today, or whether we should send for him?”

“Send for him?” repeated Sir Hugh. “Why, he practically lives here!”

Ludovic, descending into the cellar, announced that he proposed to spend the morning making up his loss of sleep, and taking Miss Thane aside, told her to take Eustacie upstairs, and, if possible, for a walk. “It’s not fit for her down here,” he said. “Don’t let her worry about me! She’s a trifle done up by all this romance.”

She laughed, promised to do what she could to keep Eustacie from fretting, and departed to suggest to her that they should presently go for a walk in the direction of Warninglid, in the hopes of encountering Sir Tristram.

At about eleven o’clock the weather, which had been inclement, began to improve, and by midday a hint of sunshine behind the clouds tempted Eustacie to put on her hat and cloak and go with Sir Hugh and his sister upon their usual constitutional. While Ludovic was in the cellar she could feel her mind at rest, and since he would not permit her to join him there, even a staid walk down the lane was preferable to sitting in the inn parlour with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

The sun came through the clouds in good earnest shortly after they left the Red Lion and made walking pleasant. They stepped out briskly, the two ladies discussing the night’s adventure and trying to decide what were best to be done next, and Sir Hugh interpolating remarks which were occasionally apt and were more often inappropriate. Halfway to Warninglid they were compelled to abandon their scheme of meeting Sir Tristram and to turn back to retrace their footsteps, but they had not gone very far when he overtook them, hacking a fine bay hunter which instantly attracted and held Sir Hugh’s attention.

He dismounted as soon as he drew abreast of the walking party, and looked pleased at the encounter. Eustacie, barely allowing him to exchange greetings with the Thanes, poured into his ears the full history of the night’s adventure, while Sir Hugh commented upon the hunter’s points. The account of masked men, daggers, and broken shutters was punctuated by such irrelevant phrases as a sweetgoer, a beautiful stepper, and Sir Tristram had to exert all his powers of concentration to prevent himself from becoming hopelessly confused. Miss Thane took no part in the recital, but derived considerable amusement from watching Shield’s face while he tried to resolve two conversations into their component parts.

“—like his knee-action—came to murder Ludovic—had a thoroughbred hack like him once—he had a dagger—kept on throwing out a splint—tried to stun Sir Hugh—took his fences as well standing as flying—wore a mask—had a slight curve in his crest!” announced Eustacie and Thane in chorus.

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 taproom 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 taproom, 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 trapdoor 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 taproom. 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 cloakbags, 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 housebreakers, 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 me 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 neckcloths, 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 taproom. 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 stableboy 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 stableboy’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 tonight 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 stableboy, 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 has happened, and replied briefly: “One of Nye’s stablehands 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.