The cry, hardly more than a croak, strangled at birth, was surprised out of himself, however, for, just as his sensitive fingers felt the object for which they were seeking, two iron hands seized him by the throat, and choked him.
He tore quite unavailingly at the hold, realizing through the drumming in his ears, the bursting of his veins, and the pain in his temples, that he had made a mistake, that the hands crushing the breath out of him certainly did not belong to any stripling.
Just as he seemed to himself to be losing possession of his senses, the grip slackened, and a voice he was learning to hate, said softly: “Your error, Mr Yarde!”
He felt himself shaken and suddenly released, and, being quite powerless to help himself, fell to the floor and stayed there, making odd crowing noises as he got his wind back. By the time he had recovered sufficiently to struggle on to one elbow, Sir Richard had cast off the coverlet, and sprung out of bed. He was dressed in his shirt and breeches, as Mr Yarde’s suffused eyes saw, as soon as Sir Richard had relit the candle by his bed.
Sir Richard laid aside the tinder-box, and glanced down at Mr Yarde. Jimmy’s vision was clearing; he was able to see that Sir Richard’s lips had curled into a somewhat contemptuous smile. He began gingerly to massage his throat, which felt badly bruised, and waited for Sir Richard to speak.
“I warned you that I was a shockingly light sleeper,” Sir Richard said.
Jimmy cast him a malevolent look, but made no answer.
“Get up!” Sir Richard said. “You may sit on that chair, Mr Yarde, for we are going to enjoy a heart-to-heart talk.”
Jimmy picked himself up. A glance in the direction of the window was enough to convince him that he would be intercepted before he could reach it. He sat down and drew the back of his hand across his brow.
“Don’t let us misunderstand one another!” Sir Richard said. “You came to find a certain diamond necklace, which you hid in my nephew’s coat this morning. There are just three things I can do with you. I can deliver you up to the Law.”
“You can’t prove I come to fork the necklace, guv’nor,” Jimmy muttered.
“You think not? We may yet see. Failing the Bow Street Runner—but I feel he would be happy to take you into custody—I fancy a gentleman of the name of Trimble—ah, Horace Trimble, if my memory serves!—would be even happier to relieve me of you.”
The mention of this name brought an expression of great uneasiness into Jimmy’s sharp countenance. “I don’t know him! Never heard of any such cove!”
“Oh yes, I think you have!” said Sir Richard.
“I ain’t done you any harm, guv’nor, nor intended any! I’ll cap downright—”
“You needn’t: I believe you.”
Jimmy’s spirits began to lift. “Dang me if I didn’t say you was a leery cove! You wouldn’t be hard on a cull!”
“That depends on the—er—cull. Which brings me, Mr Yarde, to the third course I might—I say, might, Mr Yarde—pursue. I can let you go.”
Jimmy gasped, swallowed, and muttered hoarsely: “Spoke like the gentry-cove you are, guv’nor!”
“Tell me what I want to know, and I will let you go,” said Sir Richard.
A wary look came into Jimmy’s eyes. “Spilt, eh? Lord bless you, there ain’t anything to tell you!”
“It will perhaps make it easier for you if I inform you that I am already aware that you have been working in—somewhat uneasy partnership—with Mr Horace Trimble.”
“Cap’n Trimble,” corrected Jimmy.
“I should doubt it. He, I take it, is the—er—flash cull—whom you referred to last night.”
“I don’t deny it.”
“Furthermore,” said Sir Richard, “the pair of you were working for a young gentleman with a pronounced stammer. Ah, for a Mr Brandon, to be precise.”
Jimmy had changed colour. “Stow your whids and plant ’em!” he growled. “You’re too leery for me, see? Damme if I know what your lay is!”
“That need not concern you. Think it over, Mr Yarde! Will you be handed over to Captain Trimble, or do you choose to go as you came, through that window?”
Jimmy sat for a moment, still gently rubbing his throat, and looking sideways at Sir Richard. “Damn all flash culls!” he said at last. “I’ll whiddle the whole scrap. I ain’t a bridle-cull, see? What you calls the High Toby. That ain’t my lay: I’m a rum diver. Maybe I’ve touched the rattler now and then, but I never went on the bridle-lay, not till a certain gentry-cove, which we knows of, tempted me. And I wish I hadn’t, see? Five hundred Yellow Boys I was promised, but not a grig will I get! He’s a rare gager, that gentry-cove! Dang me if I ever works with such again! He’s a bad “un, guv’nor, you can lay your last megg on that!”
“I am aware. Go on!”
“There’s an old gentry-mort going to Bath, see? Lord love you, she was his own mother! Now, that’s what I don’t hold with, but it ain’t none of my business. Me and Cap’n Trimble holds up the chaise by Calne, or thereabouts. The necklace is in a hiding-place behind one of the squabs—ah, and rum squabs they was, all made out of red silk!”
“Mr Brandon knew of this hiding-place, and told you?”
“Lord love you, he made naught of that, guv’nor! We was to snaffle the necklace, and pike on the bean, see?”
“Not entirely.”
“Lope off as fast we could. Now, I don’t hold with violence, any gait, nor that stammering young chub neither. But Cap’n Trimble looses off his pops, and one of the outriders gets it in the wing. While the Cap’n’s a-covering the coves with his pops, I dubs the jigger—opens the door—and finds a couple of gentry-morts, hollering fit to rouse the countryside. I don’t take nothing but the necklace, see? I’m a peevy cove, and this ain’t my lay. I don’t like it. We pikes, and Cap’n Trimble he pushes his pop into my belly, and says to hand over the necklace. Well, I does so. I’m a peevy cove. I don’t hold with violence. Now, the lay is that we take them sparklers to that flash young boman prig, which is taking cover down here, with a regular green ’un, which he gets to know at Oxford. All’s Bob, then! But I’m leery, see? Seems to me I’m working with a flash file, and if he makes off with the sparklers, which I suspicion he will, my young chub don’t tip me my earnest. I forks the cove. Bristol’s the place for me, I thinks, and I gets on to the werry same rattler which you and your nevvy’s a-riding in. When that harman from Bow Street comes along, I thinks there’s a fastner out for me, and I tips the cole to Adam Tiler, as you might say.”
“You placed the necklace in my nephew’s pocket?”
“That’s it, guv’nor. No harman won’t suspicion a young shaver like him, I thinks. But you and he lopes off unbeknownst, and I comes to this place. Oh, I knew you was a peevy cull! So I touts the case, see?”
“No.”
“Runs my winkers over the house,” said Jimmy impatiently. “I see your young shaver at this werry window—I should have remembered that you was a peevy cove, guv’nor.”
“You should indeed. However, you have told me what I wish to know, and you are now at liberty to—er—pike on the bean.”
“Spoke like the gentry-cove you are!” said Jimmy hoarsely. “I’m off! And no hard feelings!”
It did not take him long to climb out of the window. He waved his hand with cheerful impudence, and disappeared from Sir Richard’s sight.
Sir Richard undressed, and went to bed. The boots, who brought up his blue coat in the morning, and his top-boots, was a little surprised to find that he had exchanged bedchambers with his supposed nephew, but accepted his explanation that he disliked his original apartment with only an inward shrug. The Quality, he knew, were full of whims and oddities.
Sir Richard looked through his glass at his coat, which he had sent downstairs to be pressed, and said he felt sure the unknown presser had done his best. He next levelled the eyeglass at his top-boots, and sighed. But when he was asked if there were anything amiss, he said No, nothing: it was good for a man to be remo
ved occasionally from civilisation.
The top-boots stood side by side, glossily black and without a speck upon them of dust, or mud. Sir Richard shook his head sadly, and sighed again. He was missing his man, Biddle, in whose ingenious brain lay the secret of polishing boots so that you could see your face reflected in them.
But to anyone unacquainted with the art of Biddle Sir Richard’s appearance, when he presently descended the stairs, left little to be desired. There were no creases in the blue coat, his cravat would have drawn approval from Mr Brummell himself, and his hair was brushed into that state of cunning disorder known as the Windswept Style.
As he rounded the bend in the stair-case, he heard Miss Creed exchanging friendly salutations with a stranger. The stranger’s voice betrayed his identity to Sir Richard, whose eyes managed, for all their sleepiness, to take very good stock of Captain Trimble.
Sir-Richard came down the last flight in a leisurely fashion, and interrupted Miss Creed’s harmless remarks, by saying in his most languid tone: “My good boy, I wish you will not converse with strangers. It is a most lamentable habit. Rid yourself of it, I beg!”
Pen looked round in surprise. It occurred to her that she had not known that her protector could sound so haughty, or look so—yes, so insufferably proud!
Captain Trimble turned too. He was a fleshy man, with a coarse, florid sort of good-looks, and a rather loud taste in dress. He said jovially: “Oh, I don’t mind the lad’s talking to me!”
Sir Richard’s hand sought his quizzing-glass, and raised it. It was said in haut-ton circles that the two deadliest weapons against all forms of pretension were Mr Brummell’s lifted eyebrow, and Sir Richard Wyndham’s quizzing-glass. Captain Trimble, though thick-skinned, was left in no doubt of its blighting message. His cheeks grew dark, and his jaw began to jut belligerently.
“And who might you be, my fine buck?” he demanded.
“I might be a number of different persons,” drawled Sir Richard.
Pen’s eyes were getting rounder and rounder, for it appeared to her that this new and haughty Sir Richard was deliberately trying to provoke Captain Trimble into quarrelling with him.
For a moment it seemed as though he would succeed. Captain Trimble started forward, with his fists clenched, and an ugly look on his face. But just as he was about to speak, his expression changed, and he stopped in his tracks, and ejaculated: “You’re Beau Wyndham! Well, I’ll be damned!”
“The prospect,” said Sir Richard, bored, “leaves me unmoved.”
With the discovery of Sir Richard’s identity, the desire to come to blows with him seemed to have deserted the Captain, He gave a somewhat unconvincing laugh, and said that there was no offence.
The quizzing-glass focused upon his waistcoat. A shudder visibly shook Sir Richard. “You mistake—believe me, you mistake, sir. That waistcoat is an offence in itself.”
“Oh, I know you dandies!” said the Captain waggishly. “You’re full of quips. But we shan’t quarrel over a little thing like that. Oh, no!”
The quizzing-glass fell. “I am haunted by waistcoats,” Sir Richard complained. “There was something with tobine stripes at Reading, horrible to any person of taste. There was a mustard-coloured nightmare at—Wroxham was it? No. I fancy, if memory serves me, Wroxham was rendered hideous by a catskin disaster with pewter buttons. The mustard-coloured nightmare came later. And now, to crown all—”
“Catskin?” interrupted Captain Trimble, his eyes fixed intently upon that disdainful countenance. “Catskin, did you say?”
“Pray do not keep on repeating it!” said Sir Richard. “The very thought of it—”
“Look’ee, sir, I’m by way of being interested in a catskin waistcoat myself! Are you sure it was at Wroxham you saw it?”
“A catskin waistcoat on its way to Bristol,” said Sir Richard dreamily.
“Bristol! Damme, I never thought—I thank you, Sir Richard! I thank you very much indeed!” said Captain Trimble, and plunged down the passage leading to the stable-yard at the back of the inn.
Sir Richard watched him go, a faint, sweet smile on his lips. “There, now!” he murmured. “An impetuous gentleman, I fear. Let it be a lesson to you, brat, not to confide too much in strangers.”
“I didn’t!” said Pen. “I merely—”
“But he did,” Sir Richard said. “A few chance words let fall from my tongue, and our trusting acquaintance is already calling for his horse. I want my breakfast.”
“But why have you sent him to Bristol?” Pen demanded.
“Well, I wanted to get rid of him,” he replied, strolling into the parlour.
“I thought you were trying to pick a quarrel with him.”
“I was, but he unfortunately recognized me. A pity. It would have given me a good deal of pleasure to have put him to sleep. However, I dare say it has all turned out for the best. I should have been obliged to have tied him up somewhere, which would have been a nuisance, and might have led to future complications. I shall be obliged to leave you for a short space this morning, by the way.”
“Do, please, sir, stop being provoking!” begged Pen. “Did you see Jimmy Yarde last night, and what happened?”
“Oh yes, I saw him! Really, I don’t think anything of particular moment happened.”
“He didn’t try to murder you?”
“Nothing so exciting. He tried merely to recover the diamonds. When he—er—failed to do so, we enjoyed a short conversation, after which he left the inn, as unobtrusively as he had entered it.”
“Through the window, you mean. Well, I am glad you let him go, for I could not help liking him. But what are we going to do now, if you please?”
“We are now going to eliminate Beverley,” replied Sir Richard, carving the ham.
“Oh, the stammering-man! How shall we do that? He sounded very disagreeable, but I don’t think we should eliminate him in a rough way, do you?”
“By no means. Leave the matter in my hands, and I will engage for it that he will be eliminated without the least pain or inconvenience to anyone.”
“Yes, but then there is the necklace,” Pen pointed out. “I feel that before we attend to anything else we ought to get rid of it. Only fancy if you were to be found with it in your pocket!”
“Very true. But I have arranged for that. The necklace belongs to Beverley’s mother, and he shall restore it to her.”
Pen laid down her knife and fork. “Then that explains it all! I thought that stammering-man had more to do with it than you would tell me. I suppose he hired Jimmy Yarde, and that other person, to steal the necklace?” She wrinkled her brow. “I don’t wish to say rude things about your friends, Richard, but it seems to me very wrong of him—most improper!”
“Most,” he agreed.
“Even dastardly!”
“I think we might call it dastardly.”
“Well, that is what it seems to me. I see now that there is a great deal in what Aunt Almeria says. She considers that there are terrible pitfalls in Society.”
Sir Richard shook his head sadly. “Alas, too true!”
“And vice,” said Pen awfully. “Profligacy, and extravagance, you know.”
“I know.”
She picked up her knife and fork again. “It must be very exciting,” she said enviously.
“Far be it from me to destroy your illusions, but I feel I should inform you that stealing one’s mother’s diamonds is not the invariable practice of members of the haut ton.”
“Of course not. I know that!” said Pen with dignity. She added in persuasive tones: “Shall I come with you when you go to meet the stammering-man?”
“No,” answered Sir Richard, not mincing matters.
“I thought you would say that. I wish I were really a man.”
“I still should not take you with me.”
“Then you would be very selfish, and disagreeable, and altogether abominable!” declared Pen roundly.
“I think I am,” reflecte
d Sir Richard, recalling his sister’s homily.
The large eyes softened instantly, and as they scanned Sir Richard’s face a slight flush mounted to Pen’s cheeks. She bent over her plate again, saying in a gruff little voice: “No, you are not. You are very kind, and obliging, and I am sorry I teased you.”
Sir Richard looked at her. He seemed to be about to speak, but she forestalled him, adding buoyantly: “And when I tell Piers how well you have looked after me, he will be most grateful to you, I assure you.”
“Will he?” said Sir Richard, at his dryest. “I am afraid I was forgetting Piers.”
Chapter 7
The spinney down the road, referred to by Beverley in his assignation with Captain Trimble, was not hard to locate. A careless question put to one of the ostlers elicited the information that it formed part of the grounds of Crome Hall. Leaving Pen to keep a sharp look-out for signs of an invasion by her relatives, Sir Richard set out shortly before eleven o’clock, to keep Captain Trimble’s appointment. The impetuous Captain had indeed called for his horse, and had set off in the direction of Bristol, with his cloak-bag strapped on to the saddle. He had paid his shot, so it did not seem as though he contemplated returning to Queen Charlton.
At the end of a ten-minute walk, Sir Richard reached the outskirts of the spinney. A gap in the hedge showed him a trodden path through the wood, and he followed this, glad to be out of the strong sunlight. The path led to a small clearing, where a tiny stream ran between clumps of rose-bay willow herb in full flower. Here a slightly built young gentleman, dressed in the extreme of fashion, was switching pettishly with his cane at the purple heads of the willow-herb. The points of his collar were so monstrous as to make it almost impossible for him to turn his head, and his coat fitted him so tightly that it seemed probable that it must have needed the combined efforts of three strong men to force him into it. Very tight pantaloons of a delicate biscuit-hue encased his rather spindly legs, and a pair of tasselled Hessians sneered at their sylvan surroundings.
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