The Unknown Ajax

Chapter 19

It was not quite fifteen minutes later that the Major entered the drawing-room; and he knew before he opened the door that the task of prolonging the interview between his grandfather and Lieutenant Ottershaw had imposed no very severe strain upon Vincent’s ingenuity. It even seemed improbable that he had found it necessary to take any steps at all to achieve his aim, for his lordship had plainly taken instant umbrage when informed that the Lieutenant had come armed with a warrant, and was in fine fighting fettle.

The scene was not quite what the Major had hoped it might be. It included two persons with whom he could well have dispensed: Lady Aurelia was still seated at the card-table; and Mrs. Darracott, attired in a dressing-gown, was standing beside her chair, her pretty countenance flushed, and her expression one of strong indignation. Lord Darracott was also seated at the card-table, his chair pushed back a little from it, and one leg crossed over the other. Before him, very stiff, stood the Lieutenant; standing in front of the fireplace was Vincent; and a stalwart Sergeant of dragoons had taken up a discreet position in the background. His mien was one of stern stolidity, but although his appearance was formidable to the uninitiated the Major was not uninitiated, and one glance was enough to inform him that Sergeant Hoole, while doggedly determined to do his duty, was very far from sharing the Lieutenant’s conviction that he had as good a right to force his way into a nobleman’s house as into a common person’s humbler dwelling.

The Sergeant was indeed wishing himself otherwhere. At no time (as the Major well knew) did he relish being placed at the orders of the Board of Customs; and when it came to being obliged to accompany a mere Riding-officer into the presence of a fierce old gentleman who reminded him forcibly of his own Colonel, he disliked it very much indeed, for it was quite evident to him, if not to Lieutenant Ottershaw (who was not by any means his notion of an officer), that the old lord was not one with whom it was at all safe to take what he felt increasingly sure was a gross liberty.

The Lieutenant was not entirely at his ease either, but he was upheld by a Calvinistic sense of duty, and he was not so much awed by Lord Darracott’s manner as resentful of it. He had convinced his superiors that an application for the warrant he had exhibited to his lordship was fully justified, but the attitude of the Board had been cautious and reluctant, and he knew that a mistake on his part would lead to consequences disastrous to his career. He was determined to execute the warrant, but how to do it, if Lord Darracott remained obstinate in opposing him, was unexpectedly difficult to decide. Nor had he been prepared for the presence of two ladies, one of whom was a Roman-nosed dowager of quelling aspect, and the other his quarry’s mother.

Mrs. Darracott’s entrance had followed hard upon his own, and was due, not to any apprehension that her son might stand in need of her protection, but to her conviction that the arrival of visitors at so late an hour could only mean that Matthew Darracott had returned to his ancestral home; and since this would entail such domestic duties as the making up of his bed, and the provision of a suitable supper, she very naturally wished to assure herself, before setting all these matters in train, that it was indeed he who had arrived. When she had entered the drawing-room to find her father-in-law berating a complete stranger, she would have retreated in haste, had his lordship not caught sight of her, and commanded her to come in, and listen to what the stranger (whom he described as an insolent whipstraw) was having the infernal impudence to say about her son. She seemed at first to be quite bewildered by the charge laid at Richmond’s door, but by the time Hugo came into the room she had passed from bewilderment to sparkling indignation.

Hugo’s entrance was a masterpiece of clumsy stealth. He opened the door cautiously, and having first looked round the edge of it, ventured to advance a few steps into the room, fixedly regarding his cousin Vincent. It was apparent to those who had observed his entrance that he wished to attract Vincent’s attention, and also that he was in a condition generally described as a little bit on the go. His appearance was not quite as neat as it might have been, and a singularly foolish smile dwelled on his lips. The Sergeant surveyed him dispassionately; his aunts, both of whom were facing towards the door, in considerable surprise; and Vincent, putting up his quizzing-glass, with languid contempt. This had the effect of making his lordship and Lieutenant Ottershaw look round, at which moment the Major sought, by dint of a wink, and a tiny jerk of his head towards the door, to convey to his cousin the information that he desired private speech with him.

Ottershaw, instantly on the alert, watched him suspiciously; my lord, irritated by his peculiar behaviour, said impatiently: “Oh, it’s you, is it? Don’t stand there like a moonling! What do you want?”

“Nay, I didn’t know you’d company!” said the Major sheepishly.

“I have not what you choose to call company! What the devil’s the matter with you, sir?”

“Oh, there’s naught the matter!”Hugo hastened to assure him. “I just wondered whether my cousin was here!”

“And now that you know that I am here, in what way can I serve you?” said Vincent, with smooth mockery.

“Oh, it’s nothing of importance!” replied Hugo unconvincingly. He then became aware of Lieutenant Ottershaw, and exclaimed: “Ee, lad, I didn’t see it was you! What brings you here this late?”

“Unlike you, sir, I am here on a matter of considerable importance!” replied Ottershaw curtly. “Perhaps you can—”

“Eh, I’m sorry!” Hugo said, conscience-stricken. “I shouldn’t have come cluntering in on you!” Addressing himself to his grandfather, he added, apologetically: “I didn’t know there was anyone with you, sir! I’ll take myself off! Vincent lad, if you’re not throng, I’d be glad if you’d spare me a minute: got something to tell you! It’s just a private matter—nothing of consequence!”

Vincent regarded him with a faint, supercilious smile. “A trifle castaway, coz? I should be interested to know what you can possibly have to say to me of a private nature, but it happens that I am, as you put it, extremely throng. Oh, don’t look so discouraged! I’ll join you presently—if I must!”

“Nay, it won’t do presently: it’s what you might call urgent!” said the Major desperately.

“Oh, for God’s sake—!” exploded Lord Darracott. “You’re disguised, sir! You can take yourself off—and if you’ll take this fellow whom you’re so devilish pleased to see with you I shall be obliged to you! And as for you, sir,” he said, rounding on Ottershaw, “I’ll see you damned before I’ll let you search my house!”

“Search the house?” repeated the Major, his eyes round with astonishment. “Whatever do you want to do that for, lad?”

“I have no wish to search the house!” said Ottershaw. “As I have already informed Lord Darracott, I am here to see Mr. Richmond Darracott, and that, sir, I am going to do! If his lordship doesn’t want his house to be searched, perhaps you can convince him that his only course is to produce Mr. Richmond! He seems strangely reluctant so to do, and I warn you—”

“You impertinent jack-at-warts, how dare you—”

“Nay, don’t start fratching!” begged the Major. He looked at Ottershaw, and shook his head. “You know, lad, you should know better than to come up here at this time of night! It’s no way to go about things. What’s more, you’ve no need to be in a pelter because our Richmond’s been playing tricks on you: I gave him a rare dressing, the night you and I watched him capering about in a sheet, and got the whole of it out of him, the young rascal! There’ll be no more of it: take my word for it! Eh, but you shouldn’t let yourself be hoaxed so easily, lad!”

The Lieutenant, stiff as a ramrod, held out his warrant. “Perhaps, sir, you would like to read this! I am not here to enquire into any hoax!”

Hugo chuckled, but took the warrant, and perused it, apparently deriving considerable enjoyment from it. But he shook his head again, as he handed it back to Ottershaw, and said: “You’ve made a bad mistake, lad, but if you’re set on making a reet cod’s head of yourself there’s nowt I can do to stop you!”

During this exchange, Lord Darracott, glancing at Vincent, had encountered from Vincent’s hard eyes a steady look. It held his own suddenly arrested gaze perhaps for five seconds, and then dropped. Vincent drew out his snuffbox, tapped the lid and opened it, and delicately helped himself to a pinch, raising it to one sharp-cut nostril. As he inhaled, his eyes lifted again to his grandfather’s face, fleetingly this time, but still holding that curiously enigmatic expression. It was on the tip of Lord Darracott’s tongue to demand what the devil he meant by staring at him, but he refrained. It was unfamiliar, that hard stare, and it disturbed him; it was almost insolent, but Vincent was never insolent to him. His lordship, grasping that Vincent must be trying to convey a warning to him, but having as yet no clue to what it could be, curbed his tongue, and turned his angry gaze upon his heir.

The Major, as everyone could see, was looking harassed, and rubbing his nose. He cast an eloquent glance at Vincent, who promptly responded to it, saying in a resigned tone: “Well, what is it, cousin? Don’t keep me in suspense any longer, I beg of you! It is quite obvious that you have something of great moment to disclose, but why yon are making such a mystery of it—dear me, how stupid of me! You appear to be so well-acquainted with Lieutenant—er—Ottershaw, is it not?—that it had not occurred to me that—”

“Nay, I don’t mind him!”interrupted the Major ingenuously. “The thing is—” He gave a foolish laugh, and again rubbed his nose. “Eh, I’ve made a reet jumblement of it!” He turned once more to the Lieutenant, who was by this time almost quivering with rampant suspicion, and said confidentially: “Sithee, lad, the fact is, it’ll be a deal better if you shab off now, and come back tomorrow!”

“For you, sir, no doubt! But I have no inten—”

“It’ll be better for you too, think on!” remarked the Major, with a reflective grin. “You’ll get precious little sense out of our Richmond tonight, lad!” He added hastily, and with a wary glance at Mrs. Darracott: “At this hour of the night, I mean! Now, I’m not saying you can’t see him, because if you’ve a warrant to do it—”

“Hugo!” uttered Mrs. Darracott, unable to contain herself another instant. “This—this person is accusing my son of being a—a common smuggler!”

His grin broadened. “I’d give a plum to see him at it!” he said. “Nay, then, ma’am, don’t be nattered! The Lieutenant’s got a bee in his head, but I’m bound to say it was Richmond who put it there, so it’s not the Lieutenant you should be giving a scold to, but Richmond, the hey-go-mad young scamp that he is! If ever I met such a whisky-frisky, caper-witted lad! Anything for a bit of fun and gig! that’s his motto! You can’t but laugh at him, but one of these days he’ll find himself in the suds, and all for the sake of some silly hoax! Happen it wouldn’t do him any harm if he did get a bit of a fright, but we don’t want any more upsets—”

“How dare you say Richmond is a scamp?” broke in Mrs. Darracott, bristling. “He is nothing of the sort! He has never given me a moment’s anxiety, and as for his being what you call a caper-witted, I have not the least guess what can have put such a notion into your head!”

“No, dear aunt, of course you haven’t!” said Vincent. He sighed wearily. “I wondered if that was it. You have all my sympathy, Lieutenant—even though I must own I am devoutly thankful that you, and not I, have been his latest victim.”

“Vincent!” she cried indignantly. “Of all the ill-natured, false things to say! You know very well—”

“Be quiet!” interrupted his lordship harshly. “I will not endure any more of this nonsense! The boy doesn’t tell you what pranks he gets up to, ma’am, or me either! I’ve no doubt he plays all manner of tricks—all boys do so!—but let no one dare to tell me he has ever gone one inch beyond the line!” He glared at Ottershaw as he spoke, his breathing a little quickened, his face very grim.

“Eh, I know that, sir!” Hugo assured him, apparently taking this to himself. “Now, there’s no need for anyone to go giddy over the lad! And no need for you to think our Richmond’s being hidden from you, Ottershaw, just because his lordship don’t like getting visits at midnight from Riding-officers, and being told he’s to produce his grandson slap! Nor because I told you you’d do better to go away—which doesn’t mean that the lad’s not here! He’s here reet enough, but there are reasons why you’ve not just nicked the nick in choosing your time! The fact is there’s been a bit of an upset—”

“Why the devil couldn’t you have said so before?” demanded Vincent. “What sort of an upset?”

“Nay, I can’t explain it now! All I want—”

“Major Darracott!” suddenly interrupted the Lieutenant, “you are perhaps not aware that your cuff-band is bloodstained!”

The Major looked quickly at his wrist and then directed a quelling glance at Ottershaw. “Ay, well—never mind that! It’s of no consequence!”

“I must ask you to tell me, sir, how you come to have blood on your cuff, when you appear to have sustained no injury!”

He was somewhat taken aback by the Major’s response. Looking at him with a fulminating eye, the Major said, under his breath: “Sneck up, will you, dafthead?”

“Hugo, no!”Mrs. Darracott cried involuntarily, starting forward. “Richmond—? Not Richmond, Hugo, not Richmond! It isn’t true—it couldn’t be true!”

“No, no, it’s got nothing to do with Richmond!” said Hugo, in exasperated accents, adding bitterly to the Lieutenant: “Now see what you’ve done!”

“Whom has it to do with?” demanded Vincent. “Come, out with it!”

“If you must have it, our Claud’s met with an accident!” said Hugo, in a goaded voice. He looked at Lady Aurelia, and said apologetically: “I didn’t mean to say it in front of you, ma’am, and, what’s more, Claud’ll be reet angry with me for doing it! There’s no cause for alarm, mind, but happen if you’d go down to the morning-room, Vincent—”

“I will certainly go down. What happened? Did he cut himself?”

“Nay, it’s not exactly a cut,”replied the Major-evasively.

Lady Aurelia rose. She had scarcely taken her eyes from the Major from the moment that he entered the room, as he was perfectly well aware, but it was impossible to interpret that steady gaze. She said, with her accustomed calm: “I will accompany you, Vincent.”

“Well, I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” said Hugo. “He’d as lief you didn’t: he doesn’t want a fuss made, you see!”

“You would do better to remain where you are, Aurelia!” said his lordship, his voice a little strained. “Depend upon it, he’s done something foolish, which he doesn’t wish us to know! Elvira, I wish you will go back to bed, instead of standing there like a stock!”

“I will not go to bed!” declared Mrs. Darracott, with startling resolution. “If this insulting young man is determined to see my son, he shall see him! I will take you to him myself, sir, and when you have seen that he is precisely where I told you he was—in bed and asleep!—I shall expect an apology from you! An abject apology! Come with me, if you please!”

“Nay, ma’am, I’ll take him!” offered Hugo hastily.

“Thank you, I prefer to take him myself!” she said.

Ottershaw, glancing uncertainly from one face to the other, encountered yet another of the Major’s fulminating looks. This time it was accompanied by an unmistakeable sign to him not to go with Mrs. Darracott. He began to feel baffled. He had not expected to find that Major Darracott was in any way entangled in Richmond’s crimes, but he had very soon realized his mistake. He was a good deal shocked, even sorry, for it was abundantly plain that the Major was desperately trying to fob him off. Then, just as he had decided that the Major was recklessly aiding Richmond to escape from his clutch, it seemed as if it was not from him that this large and somewhat clumsy intriguer was trying to conceal something, but from Lady Aurelia, and Mrs. Darracott. That had puzzled Ottershaw; the signal that had just been made he found quite incomprehensible, for it almost seemed as if what the Major was trying to conceal could scarcely have anything to do with Richmond. Frowning, he stood listening to the Major’s efforts to get rid of Mrs. Darracott. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he was only anxious to spare her the shock of witnessing her son’s inevitable exposure. If that were so, Ottershaw was very willing to further the scheme. He said: “If you will take me to Mr. Darracott’s room, sir, there is no need for Mrs. Darracott to come with us.”

“That is for me to decide!” said Mrs. Darracott, flushed and very bright-eyed. “I, and no one else, will take you, sir!”

The Major gave it up. “Nay, he’s not in his room!” he disclosed. “He’s downstairs.” Looking extremely guilty, he said: “Seemingly, my grandfather ordered him off to bed, but—well, he came downstairs instead! We’ve been playing piquet.”

“Major Darracott, do you tell me that he has been with you all the evening?” demanded Ottershaw. “Take care how you answer me, sir! I have very good reason to suppose that Mr. Richmond Darracott, until less than an hour ago, was not in the house at all!”

“Nay, you can’t have,” replied the Major. “He’s been with me ever since he was sent off to bed—and, what’s more, he’d no thought of leaving the house, for he’s having such a run of luck as I never saw! Pretty well ruined me, the young devil!”

“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Darracott. “I must say, Hugo, I think it was very wrong of you to encourage Richmond to sit up late when you know how bad it is for him! And as for gambling with him—Well, I shall say nothing now, except that I didn’t think it of you!” Her voice broke, and tears started to her eyes as she directed a look of wounded reproach at Hugo. He hung his head, looking very like an overgrown schoolboy detected in crime. Mrs. Darracott, the top of whose head perhaps reached the middle of his chest, said with cold severity: “You will now oblige me by going downstairs again, and desiring Richmond to come to me here immediately!”

The expression of dismay on Hugo’s face lured Lieutenant Ottershaw into banishing doubt. Certainly betrayed him into abandoning the dogged deliberation which made him formidable; the light of triumph was in his eye as he said, on a challenging note: “Well, sir?”

“Nay, I can’t do that! I mean—I don’t think—” Hugo stammered, looking wildly round for succour. “Well,—well, for one thing—happen he won’t care to leave our Claud!” His guileless blue eyes, meeting Ottershaw’s in seeming horror, took due note of the fact that that dangerously level-headed young man had at last allowed himself to be coaxed into an unaccustomed state of cocksure excitement. He said, as one driven from his last defensive position: “The fact is—he’s just a bit on the go!”

“Do you mean that Richmond is drunk?”cried Mrs. Darracott. “Oh, how could you? I thought you were so kind, and good, and trustworthy!”

“In that case, Major Darracott, I will go to him!”said Ottershaw. “You are sure, no doubt, that Mr. Richmond Darracott is drunk, and not wounded?”

“No, no, he’s not—” Hugo checked himself suddenly, an arrested look on his face. “Now, wait a minute!” he said. “Wounded, did you say?”

“The Lieutenant, coz,” interposed Vincent, “was good enough to inform us, before you came upstairs, that Richmond had been shot by one of the men under his command, not an hour since. He appears—perhaps fortunately!—to have been misinformed, but I am strongly of the opinion that an enquiry into the incident is called for.”

The Sergeant stared woodenly before him. “Upon being commanded to halt, in the name of the King, the pris—gentle—the individual in question, instead of obeying—”

“Shot?”interrupted Hugo. He turned his eyes towards Ottershaw. “In the wood, up yonder was it?”

“Yes, sir, in the wood, up yonder! He was challenged—”

“Were there—two men posted in the wood?” asked Hugo, in a very odd voice.

The Lieutenant stared at him, suspicious and puzzled. “Yes, sir, two dragoons! They—”

“And was—Mr. Richmond Darracott—wearing a mask, by any chance?” enquired Hugo, a look of unholy awe in his eyes.

“His face was blackened, sir!”

“Well, happen it may have looked like that,” said Hugo, very unsteadily, “but it was only—a sock, with a c-couple of holes c-cut in it!”

At this point his command over himself deserted him, and, to the utter bewilderment both of Ottershaw and of Sergeant Hoole, he went off into a roar of laughter. Feeling much the same sensations as a man might have felt who, believing the ice to be solid, suddenly found it crackling all round his feet, Ottershaw saw the Major helpless in the grip of his mirth: slapping his thigh; trying to speak, and failing to utter more than two unintelligible words before becoming overpowered again; mopping his eyes; and finally collapsing into a large armchair, as though too weak with laughter to remain on his feet.

Watching this masterly performance with every sign of hauteur, Vincent said, as soon as his cousin’s paroxysms began to abate: “I think, my dear Mama, that, if Richmond’s condition in any way approaches Hugo’s, you would perhaps be well advised—and my aunt too!—not to come down to the morning-room.”

She replied at once: “You need be under no apprehension: I have the greatest dislike of inebriety! Unless you should find your brother in a worse case than I consider probable, I have no intention of coming—or, if I can prevail upon her to listen to me, of allowing your aunt to do so either!”

“Your good sense, Mama, is always to be relied upon!” he said, with his glinting smile, and graceful bow. His glance flickered to his grandfather’s face, set like a mask, its harsh lines deeply graven, the fierce eyes fixed in a rather dreadful stare on Hugo. Vincent could only hope that the silence which had fallen upon him would not strike the Lieutenant as strangely unlike him.

The Lieutenant’s attention was concentrated on Hugo, who managed to utter, in choked but remorseful accents: “Ee, I’m sorry! Nay, it’s no laughing matter, but—oh, Lord, it’s better nor like! far, far better nor like!” He gave a final wipe to eyes that so much rubbing had artistically reddened, and looked at Ottershaw. He gave a gasp, and said imploringly: “Don’t look at me like that, lad, or you’ll start me off again! You come with me, and I’ll sh-show you—what you’ve done!” He got up, now grinning broadly. “Happen you’d better come too, Vincent, but there’s no need for anyone else!” He saw Lord Darracott rise stiffly to his feet, and said: “Nay, stay where you are, sir! Richmond will be fit to murder me if he knows I let it out to you that he’s had a cup too much!”

“I am coming!” said his lordship gratingly, and, with a repelling gesture, stalked towards the door.

“Yes, and so am I!” declared Mrs. Darracott.

“One moment, Elvira!” interposed Lady Aurelia, firmly grasping her wrist.

“Phew!” breathed Hugo, as he left the drawing-room in the wake of the Sergeant, and closed the door behind him. “It’s to be hoped your mother will be able to hold her, Vincent!”

“My mother is no stupider than the rest of us, I assure you. Is he badly castaway?”

“Well, he was in fairly prime and plummy order when I came away,” confessed Hugo. “I wish you will make a push to head his lordship off! I’d as lief not get the boy into trouble.”

“I’ll try, but it’s unlikely I shall succeed,” Vincent replied.

As he ran lightly downstairs, after his grandfather, Hugo laid a restraining hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder, saying “Wait! Give him a chance to divert the old gentleman! It’ll be the better for you if you do, I can tell you. Eh, lad, I can’t but laugh about it, but this is a bad business!”

The Sergeant silently agreed with him. It had seemed at one moment as though Lieutenant Ottershaw’s conviction was about to be proved, but the Major’s laughter had killed that hope stone-dead. No man, in Sergeant Hoole’s opinion, who stood on the brink of exposure as an aider and abettor of criminals could go off into a fit of laughter like that: it stood to reason he couldn’t, any more than he could talk to his cousin, like he’d just done, as though it didn’t matter a rush who might be listening. Which was a sure sign it didn’t, thought the Sergeant, hoping that this jingle-brained Riding-officer he’d been sent to assist wasn’t going to make bad worse, and that the haughty young gentleman would succeed in keeping his lordship away.

Lieutenant Ottershaw had not so entirely abandoned hope as the Sergeant, but his state was the more to be pitied, since he did not know what to think, and much less what to do. Until the arrival of Major Darracott upon the scene, everything had gone according to his expectation, with Richmond’s family on the defensive: incredulous, belligerent, trying to overawe him, but powerless to divert him from his stern purpose. He had known himself to be master of that situation, for although it might be difficult to handle, it was perfectly straightforward. But within a very few minutes of the Major’s entrance it had undergone a bewildering change, always eluding his grasp. He had an uneasy feeling that he had been lured away from the road into a maze, yet he could not, trying to think it over, see at what point he had lost his way, or reasonably blame the Major for that loss. The Major had certainly attempted by every means he could think of to evade the necessity of producing Richmond, but his efforts had been extremely clumsy, causing him to flounder from one position to another, and finally to capitulate. Or so it had seemed, until the moment of his discomfiture, when, instead of being dejected, he had burst into a roar of laughter. Ottershaw, already puzzled by the contradictory nature of his antics, had suffered a shock from which he had not yet recovered. He needed time in which to regain his balance, and to think the whole episode over coolly and carefully; and he felt that he was being rushed. But again it was impossible to blame the Major. Not that leisurely giant but himself had been the one to insist that he should instantly be taken to Richmond. His brain was in a turmoil, with a nagging, unwelcome thought constantly recurring: if Richmond really was drunk, and not wounded, there was nothing in the least contradictory in the Major’s behaviour. He had all the time been trying to shield Richmond from his mother and his grandfather, not from theavenging hand of the law. This explanation of conduct which had seemed extraordinary was so simple, and so instantly unravelled every knot in the tangled skein, that the Lieutenant was obliged to cling doggedly to the only certainty remaining: Richmond had been wounded, and no matter what the Major did he could not conceal the damning evidence against him.

The Lieutenant said abruptly, as he began to descend the stairs beside Major Darracott: “It will perhaps save time, sir, if I inform you that I have seen with my own eyes the blood on the steps leading to one of the side-doors into this house.”

His eyes were fixed on the Major’s profile, on the watch for the tiniest sign of dismay. The Major grinned. “I don’t know about the steps, but you ought to see the pantry!” he replied. The grin faded, and he shook his head. “Nay, it’s all very well, but you’ve made a rare mess of it, lad! The Lord only knows what the afterclap may be now, for there’s more to it than you’ve any idea of—or I either, think on, at the start of it. I tried my best to tip you the wink, but not a bit of heed would you pay to me!” He turned his head to look down at the Lieutenant, saying, with a quizzical smile: “You know, lad, I’d have something to say to any subaltern of mine who charged tail over top into a quagmire the way you do! Happen we might have hushed it up, between the pair of us, if I could have brought you to your bearing. Eh, I don’t know, though, for it’s a reet scaddle, and how to button it up is beyond me!” He sighed ruefully. “I could have kept his lordship from finding our Richmond as drunk as a drum, at any hand, if you hadn’t insisted on seeing him, you dafthead! You may say it’s my blame for letting him get shot in the neck, but the fact is I was dipping rather deep myself. Well, I daresay you know how it is, when you’re playing cards! you don’t pay any heed to aught else. It’s my belief it was as much excitement as brandy that made him top-heavy, too,” he added reflectively, “but it’s likely to be the devil of a task to persuade his lordship to believe that. And that’s what worries me most, because it’s taken the lad the Lord knows how long to coax my grandfather to let him have his way, and join the army, and if he flies into one of his passions there’s no saying that he won’t take back his consent, for it went clean against the pluck with him to give it.”

“Going into the army!” exclaimed the Lieutenant, thunder-struck.

“Seventh Hussars,” said Hugo. “He’s been mad after a cavalry regiment pretty well since he was breeched, seemingly. Well, that’s no concern of yours, of course—except that if he gets a nay-say from his lordship now he’ll be so crazy with disappointment that happen he really will take to smuggling!”

As far as the Sergeant was concerned, that settled it. Descending the stairs behind his superiors, he had absorbed the Major’s ruminations with a steadily growing conviction that Mr. Ottershaw had allowed himself to be properly slumguzzled—which, now he came to think of it, was what he’d thought in the first place, because whoever heard of a high-up young gentleman leading a gang of smugglers? There was no sense to it; but these Riding-officers got so that they took to thinking anyone might be a smuggler. The Sergeant wondered uneasily what dire consequences would befall him, if the terrible old lord came the ugly. It wasn’t his blame that they’d been hunting an elephant in the moon; on the other hand, no one was going to blame Mr. Ottershaw for what was done by a bottleheaded, addlebrained recruit too raw to be trusted with a pop-gun, let alone a carbine. As far as Sergeant Hoole could see, the only hope of bringing themselves home lay in this lumping great Major, who was the only one of these Darracotts who seemed to be kindly disposed. And ten to one, thought the Sergeant bitterly, Mr. Ottershaw would set up his back next.

Reaching the foot of the stairs, after setting a leisurely pace that gave Vincent time to put his grandfather in possession of enough of the truth to prevent his bringing all to ruin by some unwitting blunder, Hugo led the way across the great hall to the corridor that gave access to the morning-room, and to the servants’ quarters beyond it Here Vincent had overtaken his lordship, and rapidly explained the situation to him. As soon as the rest of the party appeared, he said: “Very well, sir: as you wish!” and, turning, grimaced, for the benefit of Lieutenant Ottershaw, and slightly shrugged his shoulders.

Hugo would have much preferred to be rid of Lord Darracott, but since his lordship was obviously determined to take part in the approaching scene he could only make the best of it, and hope Ottershaw was too slightly acquainted with him to think his silence remarkable, or to recognize the stricken look behind the fierceness in his eyes. He said cheerfully, his own eyes twinkling: “We’ve got him in here, this smuggler of yours. It’s a fortunate thing he’s too weak from loss of blood to be dangerous, for it would take a battalion to hold him othergates! He’s a terrible ruffian!”

With these encouraging words, he walked into the room, and held the door wide for his companions. Over his shoulder, he said, with his deep chuckle: “Pluck up, lad! It was all a mistake, and not Ned Ackleton who shot you. It was Excisemen—and here they are!”