The hour of 10.30 next morning saw the depository of the Salolja
traditions, a defiant and fretful Castilian porcupine with quills
erect, standing in the dock of an occasional court, composed of one
alderman of Great Bunbury (incidentally a family grocer), one
public-spirited local doctor, and a couple of fussy half-pay colonels,
to answer the serious charges of threatening to murder divers of His
Majesty's subjects, and also with feloniously stabbing and wounding
another, to wit, one Carnaby Leo, described somewhat vaguely as of
Australia.
Mr. Doutfire here saw an opportunity for more than regaining some loss
of prestige which he had lately incurred, of course through no fault of
his, but of a cheese-paring Treasury; and moreover for handing his name
down with undying fame in the criminal annals of Great Bunbury.
The Duke of Salolja insisted upon regarding the whole business as
beneath his serious notice. His line of defence was to maintain a
haughty and contemptuous silence, at the same time to shrivel up his
very common-place judges by focussing upon them in turn his most
ferociously fascinating glare. Alas! He misjudged the stuff of which
British parochial authority is composed. Even if he had succeeded in
terrifying the retired colonels, there was still the florid general
practitioner to reduce to a quite improbable state of collapse, and it
is well known that a family grocer fears nothing in this world--except
another family grocer.
Evidence sufficient to justify a remand was taken, and the prisoner,
who seemed to emit sparks of indignation was told that he would
eventually be sent to Quarter Sessions. Then in pursuance of a plan
which Peckover had concocted overnight, Gage and Lord Quorn offered
themselves as bail for the duke. This was, after some demur and
difference of opinion, accepted, the two colonels being dead against
allowing a foreigner of homicidal tendencies to be at large, while the
doctor and the grocer took a higher position and declared themselves in
favour of doing no act that should endanger the _entente cordiale_
between Great Britain and Spain. So finally, bail was accepted for the
duke's appearance on the following Saturday.
Upon his release from durance his sureties and Peckover sought an
interview with the irate nobleman, and, ignoring certain dark and
direful threats, gently but convincingly hinted to him that the only
way to avoid a considerable term of imprisonment with its incidental
tarnish on the scutcheon of the Saloljas was to lose no time in putting
the English Channel and the republic of France, to say nothing of the
Pyrenees, between himself and the Great Bunbury Bench. At first the
duke, pulsating with a sense of injury, declared that sooner than run
away from a handful of English shopkeepers, he would put the whole of
the inhabitants of Great Bunbury, as given in the last census return,
to the edge of the sword. On its being pointed out to him, however,
that his plan, attractive in itself, was deficient in certain elements
of feasibility, he consented to meet the objection by reducing the
number of his intended victims, and intimated that his thirst for blood
might be satisfied by the immolation of the mayor and corporation, the
heads of the fire brigade and the police force, the town clerk, town
crier, the station master and a picked half-dozen of the principal
tradesmen on the altar of his vengeance.
When he was made aware of certain practical objections which stood in
the way of the town of Great Bunbury falling in with this modified
suggestion, the noble Castilian proposed as a last alternative that he
should meet a selected dozen men of the township's best blood in a
suitable arena, and should engage these representatives one after the
other in a duel _a outrance_. On this proposal being ruled out of
order owing to the deplorably faulty state of the English law, the
duke, glaring and bristling with suppressed vindictiveness, declared
that he must do something to remove the stain that had been cast upon
him and his house; whereupon Peckover suggested that the best thing he
could do to prevent the said stain from spreading would be to disguise
himself as the representative of a firm of Spanish claret merchants,
and take the 1.15 train on the way to Dover.
This plan did not, however, commend itself to the representative of a
Spanish house, whose trade appeared to be, not the bottling, but the
spilling, of claret of a very different type. "It is very amusing,
very clever of you, gentlemen," he objected in withering scorn. "You
wish to get me out of the way that you may pay court to Miss Buffkin.
I am not an idiot."
"You'll be a convict this day fortnight if you don't clear out,"
remarked Peckover. "Great Bunbury is not to be trifled with."
The duke laughed discordantly. "Great Bunbury! It makes me laugh."
"You'll have plenty of time for laughing," observed Peckover, "in jail.
You can do a lot of smiling in twelve calendar months if you stick to
it."
The duke snapped his fingers, but he looked uneasy, and the snap wanted
tone. Perhaps the fingers were clammy. "I shall not go," he
maintained, "till I have killed some one in Great Bunbury."
"Not good enough," argued Peckover. "If you kill anybody here you'll
be hanged. And you couldn't kill anybody worth a duke's being hanged
for. Why, the best man you could select for the purpose in the town
wouldn't rise above an auctioneer or a brewer. It wouldn't be a fair
deal."
Still the duke was obstinate. "I marry the adorable Buffkin," he
declared, "in spite of Great Bunbury."
"All right. Here she is," said Gage, pointing to an open carriage
which was approaching.
A portmanteau shared the box with the driver. Inside were three
people, Lady Ormstork, Miss Buffkin and a middle-aged man with
greyish-red hair and a face which partook curiously of the
characteristics of the fox and the sheep. He was a common-looking
person, and, as such, had the air of being out of place in that company.
Lady Ormstork stopped the carriage and hailed the group on the
pavement. "My dear Lord Quorn, this is fortunate," she exclaimed,
addressing her remark to the three possible holders of that title, with
a leaning towards Gage. "What absurd goings on at Staplewick! How
d'you do, duke? I always said your wilful ignorance of our English
ideas would land you in trouble. Well, and how has the ridiculous
business at the Court House gone off? Laughed out of court, I presume."
As the duke seemed inclined to impart no more precise information than
could be gathered from a bow and a scowl, Peckover answered the
question. "Remanded on bail."
Lady Ormstork threw up her hands in amused horror. "A Salolja, a
Grandee of Spain, remanded on bail by a bench of provincial
cheese-mongers!" she cried. "Really, it is the very acme of the
ridiculous. It is only fit for a burlesque. My dearest Ulrica, do
think of it! Oh, dear me, it is too absurd for comment." And she went
off in a fit of rather stagey laughter.
"It is no laughing matter--for somebody," hissed the duke darkly.
Lady Ormstork's burst ended with an abruptness which suggested a doubt
as to its genuineness. "It is really so diverting," she said, "that I
am forgetting to introduce Mr. Buffkin, dear Ulrica's father, to Lord
Quorn."
The inference to be drawn from Mr. Buffkin's demeanour was that he was
not in the habit of being suddenly presented to peers of the realm.
Lord Quorn, however, relieved his embarrassment by seizing his hand
with a cordial grip. "Glad you've come down," he remarked, with his
eyes on Mr. Buffkin's daughter.
"Pleased to meet your lordship," responded Mr. Buffkin.
Lady Ormstork raised her eye-glasses in diplomatic caution. "You don't
mean to say you are Lord Quorn, after all?" she asked with a hedging
smile.
"I'm nobody else," was the confident reply.
"He's Lord Quorn right enough," corroborated Peckover, with a chastened
confession of a truth which could no longer be kept in the well.
"How singular," murmured Lady Ormstork, only half convinced and
wondering how, if it turned out to be true, she would stand.
A professional-looking elderly man with a brief bag in his hand who had
been regarding the group with some attention now came forward.
"Lord Quorn?" he said, addressing the peer.
Quorn jumped round. "What, Powler!" he cried. "Just the man, in the
nick of time. Here, you can tell this lady whether I'm Lord Quorn or
not. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mr. Powler, my lawyer, of the firm
of Powler, Gaze and Powler, Lincoln's Inn. Come down to see me, eh?"
"Getting no reply to our letters since your lordship left town, I
thought I would just run down to Staplewick and see how things were
getting on," Mr. Powler explained. "Yes," he continued, "I am quite
prepared to vouch for the identity of this gentleman as Lord Quorn."
"There!" cried Lady Ormstork, "I always said so. What a splendid
practical joke, though, to try to take us all in. How well you played
the part," she said guilefully to Gage. "Dear Lord Quorn," she
continued gushingly, "this is all most interesting. May we come up
this afternoon us usual? Mr. Buffkin is so anxious to see beautiful
Staplewick."
"Come as soon as you like," said Quorn promptly.
"How sweet of you," murmured Lady Ormstork. "Dear Ulrica would be
sorry to miss her daily ramble in the lovely park. Wouldn't you, dear?"
"I dare say I should," responded Miss Buffkin indifferently, with a
half grimace at Peckover.
"I have," the duke suddenly burst out, "a word to say to Miss Ulrica.
I do myself the honour of following your distinguished carriage to The
Cracknels."
"Please don't," both ladies protested. "I fear," the elder continued.
"I cannot, after this _esclandre_, undertake to receive you."
The duke gave a mingled shrug, scowl and bow. "It plunges me into
despair," he said, with just a suspicion of sarcasm, "to be deprived of
the supreme happiness of milady Ormstork's coveted society. Perhaps,
though, I may be humbly permitted an interview with the distinguished
Mr. Buffkin?"
Mr. Buffkin, whose distinction required the penetrating eye of the
Spaniard to notice it, and whose conversational powers did not seem to
be of a high order, looked aggressively uncomfortable. "Is this," he
inquired bluntly, "the Spanish gentleman who has been pestering
Barbara--I mean Ulrica--with his attentions?"
The duke made a prancing step on the pavement. "Pestering?" he
repeated hoarsely, pulling his moustache with nervous fury.
"That," replied Lady Ormstork uncompromisingly, "is the person; the
Duke of Salolja."
"I have," said the duke, with a flourish, "the honour to desire a
matrimonial alliance with your gracious and adorable daughter."
"No, thank you." Mr. Buffkin's voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky,
and quite common. "We don't desire any foreign alliance."
"As Duchesse de Salolja"--began the duke.
"No good," interrupted Mr. Buffkin, with a decisive shake of his very
commercial-looking head. "Spanish titles are not a line I care to
handle. I've told Bar--Ulrica she can marry whom she likes, but if
it's a foreigner, duke or fiddler, she'll have to do it on three
hundred a year."
The Salolja lip curled. "His excellency jests. The renowned
millionaire Buffkin allows his daughter, the Duchesse de Salolja, three
hundred pounds a year! It is rich!"
Mr. Buffkin looked particularly irresponsive. "Who says I am a
millionaire?" he demanded shrilly. The duke bowed and indicated Lady
Ormstork. "A _facon de parler_," that lady explained. "Anyhow, a very
rich man."
"Divide it by ten," said Mr. Buffkin with a twinkle.
The duke looked suddenly chastened, not to say depressed. "The
glorious Miss Ulrica," he said with an obvious effort, "would be an
inestimable prize without a penny of dowry."
"That's about what she'll have if she marries you," returned Mr.
Buffkin, whose eloquence, if not exactly copious, was considerably to
the point.
"Shall we drive on?" suggested Lady Ormstork. "_Au revoir_, Lord
Quorn," she gushed. "Till this afternoon, then. _Au revoir_, Mr.
Gage." Not knowing Peckover's name, since the reshuffle, she
discreetly left him out.
But Ulrica's parting nod was for him alone.
As the carriage rolled away up the High Street the duke was the first
to speak.
"What time does that infernal train leave your unsavoury town of Great
Bunbury?" he inquired.