General Sadgrove relaxed his grip on Azimoolah's lean neck, not as a
consequence of Alec Forsyth's exclamation, but because he and his
captive had crossed the threshold of the French window--gone "off," in
fact, from the stage on which he had been playing a little comedy for
the benefit of an invisible audience. Forsyth guessed at once that the
pulley-hauley business on the terrace had only been a sham, from the
half-playful push with which his uncle released the now passive Indian,
and also from the more than half-contemptuous glance flung at himself.
The next moment the other party to the tussle on the terrace elucidated
the matter by walking up to the window instead of running away. It was
the Duke himself, outwardly calm, but somewhat disheveled by the fray,
and looking very sleepy. Entering the room he gave Forsyth's hand an
affectionate squeeze, and turned to secure the window.
"It's all right," he said, in the listless tone that he always used
nowadays. "When the train got stuck up I smelt rats, and cleared out
from the locality--thought it better to cut across country on foot than
to stay about a spot where I was probably being looked for. But this
beggar," pointing to Azimoolah, standing at "attention," proudly erect,
"must have shadowed me, and caught me up just as I was coming to tap at
the window. You will confer a great favor on me by letting him go."
This dogged determination to take no prisoners strengthened the
General's suspicions of his host, and there was a harsh ring in the
laugh with which he explained that Azimoolah was his own emissary, who,
on returning from the scene of the accident, had mistaken the Duke for
one of their unknown adversaries. He did not mention that there were two
genuine prowlers outside who, but for Azimoolah's intervention, would
have fallen on their prey, and who were probably intensely puzzled by
finding someone else playing the same game as themselves.
"And now, if your Grace will go to bed, I will guarantee you a good
night's rest," added the General. "You must not forget that you will
have ladies to entertain to-morrow."
Beaumanoir gave a tired shrug.
"Even without that inducement I'd take your prescription, General," he
replied. "This hide-and-seek is rather wearing; but if you two good
fellows can keep me in the land of the living for the next few days, I
shan't worry you further."
He left the room, dragging his lame foot painfully, and the General,
stricken with a sudden sympathy, whispered Forsyth to accompany him.
"The poor beggar is troubled," he said. "Sleep on the sofa in his room,
and don't be afraid to close your eyes--as soon as _he_ is asleep.
Azimoolah and I will see there's no bother. But your friend mustn't be
left alone. Danger from his own pistol--see?"
Forsyth nodded with grieved comprehension, and followed the Duke. On his
departure the General turned to Azimoolah, who had stood like a statue
since his release, and the twain exchanged a twinkle of mutual
congratulation.
"We managed that quite in the old style, O taker of many thieves," said
the General in Hindustani. "'Twas well that you heard and quickly obeyed
my whisper to offer resistance, for so we have deceived the malefactors
who beheld us into the belief that you also are an enemy of the house."
"The sahib's praise is sweet as the honey of Kashmir," responded
Azimoolah, gravely. "Is it the Heaven-born's will that I should go out
and slay these dealers in iniquity?"
The commission entrusted to him, however, held promise of no such
luxury. On the contrary, Azimoolah received strict injunction to avoid
violence except in the last extremity--in self-defence or to prevent
entry into the house. The duty laid down for him was to patrol the
grounds, and instantly apprise the General of any action on the part of
the two trespassers that pointed to a renewal of aggressiveness that
night.
"I shall remain in this room till daybreak; if anything occurs, make the
signal outside," were the General's final instructions as he loosed his
human watch-dog on to the terrace, after putting out the lights to
conceal the opening of the window. Then, having carefully closed it, he
sat himself down in the dark, and presently slumbered, secure in the
knowledge that none could approach the mansion while Azimoolah was on
guard. Also, he was pretty sure that the siege would not be raised till
the two prowlers should have reported to their superiors the doings and,
as they would believe, the capture of the strange rival who had
forestalled them.
The General's confidence was justified, for the night passed without
further alarms, and the three gentlemen met at the breakfast-table under
ordinary country-house conditions. The servants being in the room, no
reference was made to the abnormal circumstances that had brought them
together, though Beaumanoir, in the course of reading letters that had
come by post, held up a gorgeously monogrammed note, and remarked that
Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had accepted his invitation and would be with them
on the morrow.
"She writes rather flippantly for a stranger," he added, eyeing the
scented missive doubtfully, but not offering to show it. "I hope it's
all right for her to meet my cousin Sybil, and--er--the other ladies.
She's coming on your recommendation, you know, General, so you must
vouch for her good behavior."
Sadgrove growled unintelligibly, and was at pains to conceal a sudden
upheaval of his facial muscles. For the Duke's reference to Mrs. Talmage
Eglinton in her relations to the other guests had all at once opened up
to his mind a contingency which he had overlooked--a terrible
contingency, which demanded instant consideration before the American
widow was admitted to the house. He made an early excuse for quitting
the table, and, exacting a promise that Beaumanoir and Forsyth would for
the present remain indoors, he went out into the park to face the
position alone, and thresh it out to a conclusion.
Walking under the trees in the historic elm avenue, it was not till he
had smoked a whole cigar and lit another that he was able to approach
the problem with anything like calmness. For he was suffering from the
humiliation of having to admit that he had committed the grievous error
of imperiling the life of a woman--one, too, whom he held in
affectionate regard only second to his wife. If his suspicion of Mrs.
Talmage Eglinton was as well founded as instinct told him, she ought
never to have been asked to stay under the same roof as Sybil Hanbury,
her victorious rival in the affections of a man who had repulsed her
advances by stolidly ignoring them.
"Gad! but I'd cut my hand off rather than harm should come to that girl,
let alone never being able to look Alec in the face again," he muttered,
as he gnawed his white mustache in perplexity.
The situation was indeed serious from the point of view that Mrs.
Talmage Eglinton was head of a gang of international criminals, and that
she was, moreover, as he put it in his simple soldier phrase, "sweet
upon" his nephew Alec. If, for her as yet unexplained ends, she would
not stick at assassinating the Duke of Beaumanoir, she would be capable
of wreaking a deadly vengeance on the girl who had won the heart she
hungered for. Once installed as a guest in the mansion, she would have
plenty of facilities of which she might make venomous use. The General
had engineered her invitation with the laudable purpose of keeping her
under constant observation and of making communication with her
confederates difficult; but in his zeal for check-mating her predatory
designs he had forgotten her amatory ones.
It was true that Sybil's engagement had not yet been published to the
world, but the Shermans, who were also to be the Duke's guests, knew of
it, and to enter into explanations with Mrs. Sherman, the voluble and
unsophisticated, would be going far towards defeating his cherished hope
of protecting that lady's husband from the gang without implicating the
Duke. As it was, the invitation of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, of which he
was suspected of being the cause, had excited more than curiosity among
his American visitors, who had nearly upset his arrangements by
canceling their own visit on learning that their mysterious fellow
countrywoman was to be of the party. One crumb of comfort he derived
from the fact that in all things he could rely on his wife's discretion.
Though they had exchanged no word on the subject, he knew that, without
penetrating or wishing to penetrate his motive in trafficking with Mrs.
Talmage Eglinton, his wife guessed that he had one; he knew that he
could depend upon her unquestioning aid if he asked for it.
"I guess I've bitten off more than I can chew, as Sherman himself would
put it," he mused, with a sigh for the old days of jingling
bridle-chains and night rides, when he had merrily run down his Thugs
and Dacoits without female influence upsetting his calculations. The
female influence had been there, doubtless, with all its jealousies and
consequent treacheries; but all that had been Azimoolah's department. It
had fallen to the silent-footed, black-bearded Pathan to explore the
under-currents of social life in the native villages, and he had not
worried his chief with details till the patient sapping of traitorous
brains was done, and all that remained was to sally forth and hunt the
faithless lover or erring husband who was also a breaker of laws.
Azimoolah's knowledge in India of the eternal feminine had been
extensive and peculiar; but the General felt that he could not with
propriety set him poking into love affairs which included Sybil Hanbury
in its scope.
Another point which harassed the General's soul was the new light shed
on the Duke's attitude towards Mrs. Talmage Eglinton by his mild
displeasure at the style of her note. The General was assured that the
remark at the breakfast-table had been the genuine expression of an
honest doubt as to the fitness of the sparkling widow to mix with
gentle-women; whereas the Duke could have had no doubt whatever if he
had had relations with the gang of whom he, the General, believed this
woman to be the moving spirit. It certainly seemed that the Duke was
ignorant that she was a dangerous adventuress, for, though he might have
suspected her of designs against himself and yet have consented to her
presence at Prior's Tarrant, he would never have subjected Sybil to the
peril of daily intercourse with a potential murderess. All along
Beaumanoir had shown a chivalrous disposition to protect his cousin from
even minor annoyances.
"Perhaps there are two distinct crowds after Sherman's gold bonds, and
Beaumanoir is in with the Ziegler lot, and Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is
playing against them," the General mused as he turned his steps back to
the house. "To think that the fellow holds the key of it all, and won't
speak, is what riles me."
The immediate dilemma confronted him whether or no to impart to his
nephew the cause for alarm that had arisen about Sybil. He had been
surprised at first that a man of Alec Forsyth's shrewdness had not seen
for himself a danger threatening the girl he loved; but closer
examination disclosed a reason. Forsyth was too modest, too little of a
coxcomb, for it to occur to him that violence could result from a
misplaced passion for himself. On the whole, the General decided that,
as Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was not due till the next day, he would say
nothing to Alec at present.
"If I can make Beaumanoir disgorge his secret, the trouble may not
arise," he comforted himself. Though the veteran's faith in himself was
shaken, and he wished he had resisted the temptation to meddle with
crime outside his old Eastern sphere, he was not the man to take his
hand from the plough. He would devote all his diplomacy to penetrating
the cause of the Duke's obstinate silence.
As he had anticipated, there was a lull that day in the activity of the
enemy--at any rate of overt attempts. No communication reached him from
Azimoolah, who would certainly have been heard from if suspicious
characters had been on the move in the neighborhood of the mansion; for,
though unseen, that tireless tracker might be trusted to be at his post,
which was anywhere and everywhere within the radius of a mile. The
denser thickets of the park possibly concealed him, or it might be that
he hovered in the nearer precincts of the gardens, unseen but ready. His
presence relieved the General from disturbing the routine of the
household by special instructions to the servants, who were still
fluttered by the lassooing of the lame gardener on the previous Sunday.
So far, all the precaution that the General had delegated to others than
himself and Forsyth was to give the bailiff a quiet hint, as a message
from the Duke, not to admit the "artists" to the park, should they
present themselves again. But up to the hour of luncheon the painters of
"deer like unto swine" had not renewed their application or put in an
appearance.
In the afternoon Beaumanoir, shaking off some of his weary apathy, went
down to the portico with his male guests to receive the four ladies, who
arrived in time for tea, which, with the General's acquiescence, was to
be taken on the terrace. No sooner were the first greetings over than
Mrs. Sadgrove caught her husband's eye and telegraphed the information
that she had something for his private ear at the earliest opportunity.
He therefore contrived to lag behind with her while Beaumanoir did the
honors to Leonie and her mother, and Forsyth paired off with Sybil, as
the party mounted the marble steps to the terrace.
"Jem," said Mrs. Sadgrove, scanning the rugged face of her spouse with a
sidelong scrutiny, "I received an anonymous letter this morning. Let
them get ahead a bit, and I'll show it to you."
The screed which she put into his hand contained but five words:
"_There is danger from Ziegler._"
General Sadgrove's Eastern experiences had not educated him into an
expert in calligraphy, but it needed no particular insight to perceive
that this was a lady's handwriting, clumsily disguised. He transferred
his attention to the paper, half a sheet of "note"; and here he was
rewarded with a startling discovery. He had noticed that the letter of
acceptance from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, which the Duke had received at
breakfast, had been heavily charged with a peculiar perfume, and this
unsigned missive was simply reeking of the same pungent fragrance. He
had sat next the Duke, and knew that there was no mistake.
"You have no idea who sent this?" he asked.
"I seem to recognize the scent as having come to me before in
notes--proper, signed notes," Mrs. Sadgrove replied, evasively. And then
she added, with gentle significance, not from curiosity, but from a
desire to help him in case he did not know: "I heard the name of Ziegler
when we were calling at the Cecil yesterday. It was mentioned, I think,
by one of the attendants as that of the gentleman occupying the rooms
where the disturbance was."
The General looked hard at her, and saw that his little drama had not
deceived the companion of his Indian days.
"Yes," he said, shortly. "Do not trouble about this, Madge. It's all in
the day's work."
But he himself was greatly troubled, inasmuch as if that anonymous
warning came from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton all his "case" was demolished,
and a perfect maze of new problems was presented. A warning from her
would be presumptive evidence that she was an ally, and--sad blow to his
_amour propre_--would stultify all the theories he had based on what he
had fondly hoped was an unerring intuition. He would have to begin all
over again, solacing himself--and it was no small solace--with the
reflection that he had raised an unnecessary bogey in anticipating
danger to Sybil Hanbury from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's visit.
Yet by the time he reached the top of the terrace steps reaction had set
in, and he began to think that his brain could not have lost all its
cunning. For, unless in the very improbable event of Mrs. Talmage
Eglinton having found out something about the mysterious Ziegler through
occupying the next suite to him since yesterday, she must still be the
heart and core of the evil influence he had to combat. Without knowledge
she would not have been in a position to warn; and, like the Duke, how
could she have obtained knowledge without complicity? Why, too, should
she also be unwilling to use her knowledge openly? No, he came back to
the opinion that there must originally have been one gigantic plot
against Senator Sherman's precious charge, and that there must have been
a split in the camp; but from which section, or whether by both
sections, the Duke was threatened was an irritating conundrum. Anyhow,
Sybil Hanbury's peril assumed ugly shape again in the General's mind.
"The woman must have sent it to mislead--to throw dust in my eyes," he
murmured, not knowing that he spoke aloud. And following up that train
of reasoning he found it grow into conviction. The letter was not really
anonymous. That is to say, the writer had been at particular pains to
disclose her identity by means of the scent if General Sadgrove deemed
the communication sent to his wife of sufficient importance to
investigate. The letter had been despatched, he now felt assured, with
the express purpose of whitewashing the sender in the event of any
further "accident" happening to the Duke. In short, he was of opinion
that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had suspected his manoeuvre at the hotel, and
had devised this method of hoodwinking him, and of diverting his
vigilance from herself during her forthcoming visit if her suspicions
were correct. The craftiness of the idea was obvious, and the General
was beginning to be delighted with his perspicacity when, lo and behold,
the whole fabric crumbled again, from a flaw at the very base of the
structure. It was inconceivable that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, if she was
guilty of criminal intent, should have directed his thoughts to Ziegler,
who, if not a confederate, was certainly part and parcel of the mystery.
"Too many women in it," he growled, testily, unaware, in the brown study
into which he had fallen, that he had seated himself in one of the cane
chairs round about the tea-table at which Sybil Hanbury was already
presiding. He was also unconscious that he had expressed himself
audibly--at least, so far as concerned Sybil, who at that moment
happened to be handing him his cup. Indeed, he repeated the phrase, the
sentiment of it growing in vigor from the sight of Leonie Sherman
listening to Beaumanoir's description of his ancestral home, and of Mrs.
Sherman and Mrs. Sadgrove talking to Alec Forsyth.
Sybil gave the old man a queer look, more affectionate than reproachful;
and when she had finished pouring out tea came and took a vacant seat
beside him. For a while she drank her tea in silence, stealing a
half-amused glance now and then at the puckered face of the checked
hunter of men. The General was gazing moodily across the green expanse
of park, wishing with all his heart that Azimoolah, on guard out there
in the leafy solitudes, was a fitting oracle to consult in a matter
touching the private feelings of _memsahibs_.
"No," he growled regretfully, and again aloud; "this must be a white
man's war."
Sybil leaned over and tapped his knee with her gold tea-spoon. The
General started, smiled fatuously at the celebrated Beaumanoir heirloom,
as though he were expected to admire it, and then suddenly came down
from the clouds, realizing that the young woman with the bright eyes
searching his face was something more than a source of anxiety to him.
She was a factor to be reckoned with, and if he was a judge of the human
countenance she was about to enforce that view.
"A white man's war with too many women in it, General?" she asked,
archly. "Isn't that rather an anomaly?"
"It's gospel truth," the General replied, with sturdy insistence. "Sign
of senile decay, though, thinking aloud."
"_You_ are not decayed. You might as well accuse _me_ of being in my
first childhood, and I have really passed that," Sybil smiled back at
him. "But," she added, "I am childish enough to be a little hurt that
you don't appear to think so."
"My dear girl, what have I done? 'Pon honor, I don't know that I have
done anything," the General protested piteously.
"That's just it. It's because you have done nothing, or next to nothing,
that your contemptuous reference to 'too many women' seems to me a
trifle unkind," replied Sybil, pretending to misunderstand him. "What
would have happened to my cousin, when the panel was cut the other night
at Beaumanoir House, if it hadn't been for a woman?"
The General accepted the reproof in thoughtful silence, forced to admit
to himself that it was not uncalled for. If it had not been for Sybil
Hanbury's nerve and courage on the occasion when the bogus detective
officer had secreted himself in the Duke's town house, the answer to her
question might have had to be written in blood. Her quick apprehension
of subtle danger, her determination to sit up and watch, and her cool
presence of mind in face of the emergency when it arose, had saved the
situation and stamped her as of sterling metal.
"I apologize," he jerked out presently. "I still think there are too
many women in the business, but you ain't one of 'em."
"Thank you," Sybil returned, drily. "And, that being so, wouldn't it be
a good plan to ask a woman to help you, on the principle of setting a
thief to catch a thief, you know?"
The General shot a rather shamefaced glance at the firm mouth and
steadfast eyes of this plucky young enthusiast, and thereupon he decided
to enlist her as an adviser in the more intricate questions that vexed
him. There was the chance that woman's wit would fathom woman's guile,
and tell him why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton should want to point the index of
suspicion at Ziegler, who was probably her _confrere_ in crime. Woman's
wit might even tell him why his Grace the Duke of Beaumanoir, engaged in
such a simple ducal pastime as making sheep's-eyes at a pretty American
girl, should yet recoil abashed whenever Leonie turned her frankly
responsive but puzzled gaze on him. Above all, the course proposed would
enable this brave English girl to do what he was beginning to fear he
could not do for her--to take care of herself.
"Yes," he said, putting down his cup with a grim smile, "I'll take you
on, soon as you've finished your tea. And," he added, fumbling for his
cigar-case, "I'll try and not frighten you."
Sybil rose at once, and together they strolled along the terrace to a
distance from the chatter round the tea-table, which had drowned their
incipient confidences. When they were quite out of earshot Sybil turned
and confronted the General, and the lighter tone with which she had
"played" him was lacking now.
"Tell me," she said gravely, "why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is so anxious to
kill my poor cousin and spoil that charming idyll."
"Mrs. Talmage Eglinton!" stammered the General. "How on earth did you
know that?"
"How did I know!" his new coadjutor repeated with scorn. "In the same
way that she must know herself that _you_ know, you dear silly old man.
Because of the absolutely absurd invitation to her to come and stay here
at Prior's Tarrant without rhyme or reason."
And then, when General Sadgrove had recovered from the shock of finding
that he was not quite inscrutable, they talked, very seriously, for
upwards of half an hour.