Then, as Rufus Lang could not think of a suitable reply, the Earl said,
“I think, Lang, that the sooner you leave here the better. And let me make it perfectly clear that, if you come here again or touch anything that is the property of the present Earl of Langwood, I will take you to the Courts.”
Rufus Lang was defeated and he knew it.
With a quick change of mood he said,
“All right, I made a mistake and I admit it. But I am desperately in need of cash and was thinking of the family name rather than of the needs of a small boy of six.”
The Earl did not reply and after a somewhat uncomfortable silence, Rufus Lang went on,
“I shall leave tomorrow morning, as soon as it is possible, but I don’t particularly want to drive back to London tonight. The train, if there is one, will not get in until very late.”
He paused, looked at the Earl, and then at Lupita.
“After all, I am your cousin,” he said, “and if you are throwing me to the dogs, or rather to the duns, you might at least allow me to have a good dinner. It may be the last I shall enjoy for a very long time.”
Lupita did not know what to reply, but the Earl said,
“Very well. You can stay the night here on condition that you leave immediately after breakfast. If you do that, I will give you enough money to get to London and at least afford a decent lodging if you don’t have one at the moment.”
“I am grateful, deeply grateful,” Rufus Lang said. “I suppose we all make mistakes in our lives and I admit I have made a number of very bad ones in mine.”
He sounded so contrite that Lupita thought that it would be impossible for them to do anything but agree to what he asked.
She thought that it was indeed very generous of the Earl to offer him financial help and she was quite certain that it would be enough to keep him for a week or two at any rate.
Because she felt it was embarrassing to stay any longer, she walked towards the door.
Rufus Lang opened it for her saying as he did so in a low voice,
“Forgive me, Lupita. I know that I have made a considerable fool of myself, but I was desperate, absolutely desperate!”
“I am sorry,” Lupita said.
She did not want to say anything more to him and so she went upstairs.
She thought as she did so that if Rufus was staying for dinner it would spoil the evening.
At the same time she did not see how they could do anything but accept him.
The Earl was thinking the same thing.
As a matter of fact he could not help feeling sorry for the young man, who had foolishly thrown away his money in gambling.
He decided that he would give him a few hundred pounds, which he hoped would keep him away from Wood Hall and Lupita.
Contrary to what Lupita had feared, dinner turned out to be quite an enjoyable meal.
The Dowager Countess, who did not know how badly Rufus had behaved, was charming to him.
He paid her compliments and put himself out to be agreeable in every possible way.
Even the Earl had to admit that he put on a very good show.
He told stories that made them laugh and he talked to the Earl about his racehorses, a subject in which he was obviously well-informed and he treated Jerry as if he was a grown-up.
Because dinner was early, Jerry had been allowed, as a special treat, to stay up and dine with them.
When dinner was over, while the two gentlemen were left to their port, Lupita took Jerry upstairs to his room.
Bracken was already there, waiting for him and wagging his tail.
“Tomorrow,” she informed him, “we are going riding and the Earl will be able to see you on Morning Star.
“I know,” Jerry said, “and he told me before dinner that he was a very fine horse. I said I would race him on one of Papa’s horses.”
“I am afraid that the Earl will win,” Lupita warned him with a smile.
“Not if he gives me a very big start,” Jerry answered.
“I am sure that is what he will do,” Lupita replied.
“It’s fun being home,” he said as he climbed into bed, “and I hope the Earl will stay a long time. He knows lots and lots about horses.”
“Yes, he certainly does,” Lupita answered.
She kissed her brother goodnight and then went downstairs again.
By this time both the Earl and Rufus Lang were in the drawing room with the Dowager Countess.
“Is your brother pleased to be home?” the Earl asked Lupita as she joined them.
“He is determined to race you tomorrow on Morning Star,” Lupita replied, “but he says that you will have to give him a very big start!”
The Earl laughed.
“Of course I will do that, but it seems to be rather a large horse for such a small boy.”
“That is what I said,” Lupita agreed, “but Morning Star is such a well-trained horse that I am sure that Jerry will come to no harm on him.”
“If he is becoming as good a rider as his father,” the Earl answered, “I don’t think that you need worry.”
Lupita smiled at him.
She thought as she did so that even to look at the Earl made a thrill run through her body.
‘He must never – never know that I love him,’ she told herself.
The Earl next suggested that his grandmother should have an early night.
He took her upstairs at half-past-ten and Lupita went with them.
She had no wish to be left alone with Cousin Rufus.
As she followed the Earl and the Dowager Countess, she said,
“I am going to bed too, so goodnight, Cousin Rufus.”
“Goodnight, Lupita,” he said, “and goodbye.”
She did not answer.
She was now feeling a little guilty for being so glad that he was going and she hoped that she would never see him again.
Once her cousin had left Wood Hall, she thought, he would be too frightened of the Earl ever to come back.
‘We are safe! We are safe,’ she told herself as she got into her bed. ‘And it is all thanks to the Earl.’
She felt a sharp tremor of fear that, when the Earl went back to London, he would show no further interest in them.
Then she was sure that, if anything untoward did happen in the future, she would always be able to call on him.
‘I shall – want to do – that,’ she added. ‘I love him! I love him! It will be – hard to go on without seeing him and without – hearing his voice.’
*
The Earl talked to Rufus Lang for a while mostly about horses and then he too said that he was going to bed.
“I have had a number of late nights this week,” the Earl explained, “and I shall be glad to catch up with some sleep.”
He thought as he spoke that he was being somewhat pointedly unkind.
It was quite obvious that Rufus Lang would stay awake all night worrying over his debts.
‘He has to learn to stand on his own feet,’ the Earl thought to himself when he reached his own bedroom, ‘but I will give him a certain amount of help for the children’s sake.’
Dawkins was waiting for him and the Earl said,
“I have a letter to write to my Solicitors, so don’t wait up. I will put myself to bed.”
“Your Lordship’s sure you can do that?” Dawkins asked him.
The Earl knew that Dawkins was only being facetious and he merely replied,
“Call me at eight o’clock please.”
The Earl sat down at a desk that was in a corner of the bedroom and wrote a letter to his Solicitors.
He told them that he was prepared to give Rufus Lang a monthly allowance.
This was on condition that he kept away from Wood Hall and he was not to interfere in the lives of his cousins Lady Lupita Lang and her young brother, the Earl of Langwood.
If he did so, the allowance was to cease immediately.
He also told them to enquire in
to Mr. Lang’s debts and, if he was in any danger of being taken before the Magistrates that would incur unwelcome publicity, he was to be informed at once.
It took him some time to compose the letter.
He debated with himself after it was finished whether he would show it to Rufus Lang tonight or wait until the morning.
Then he told himself that he would do so tonight.
If Rufus Lang had any questions to ask, he could answer them then.
He opened his bedroom door to find that the corridor was in darkness and the only light came from the hall.
It was easy, however, to see his way to Rufus Lang’s bedroom on the other side of the corridor.
The Earl walked towards it and knocked gently on the door, but there was no reply.
He turned the handle and then looked carefully inside.
Rufus Lang was not there. He had not undressed, neither had the bed been slept in.
The Earl thought that this was all rather strange.
Rufus Lang had come upstairs at the same time as he had.
He thought that then he might have gone back to the drawing room, although it seemed somewhat unlikely.
Because he was curious, the Earl went down the stairs.
As he reached the hall, he noticed that the front door was unbolted and he knew that the door had been bolted when he had walked upstairs to bed.
Rufus Lang had clearly gone out and it seemed an odd thing to do, especially as he had claimed that he was tired.
The Earl could not believe that he had gone down to look at the boat which Lupita told him he had deliberately damaged.
But the Earl could think of no other explanation.
Why should Lang want to go into the garden at this time of the night?
Could he, after all he had said, really be planning a murder?
On an impulse the Earl walked out through the front door and down the steps.
The stars were fully out and the moon climbing up the sky made it easy for him to see where he was going.
There were many shadows, but it did not seem as if there were any human beings about.
The Earl then had a sudden feeling, which he found difficult to explain to himself, that he should go to the stables.
He walked round the house and through the archway.
He saw a light in the first stable where there were eight horses.
The Earl then stopped and took off his evening shoes.
Walking silently in his stockinged feet and, holding on to his shoes, he went towards the stables.
The door was open and he slipped through it.
As he did so, he was aware that the light he had seen shining through the window came from a lantern hanging in the passage.
Beside it was a man with his back to him.
The Earl knew at once that it was Rufus Lang.
He was doing something outside the stall where Morning Star was stabled.
Silently the Earl moved into a corner of the stable where there was a high stack of straw.
Still without making any sound, he hid himself behind it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Earl waited for five minutes until Rufus Lang had finished whatever he was doing.
Picking up the lantern he walked down the passage.
Peeping at him through the straw the Earl saw him put back the lantern exactly where it belonged above the entrance.
He then went out into the yard.
The Earl saw him pass by the windows before there was silence.
The Earl was sensible enough not to move for quite some time.
Then he came carefully from his hiding place and taking down the lantern he walked to Morning Star’s stall.
He looked round, trying to imagine what Rufus Lang had been doing there so intently.
He took Morning Star’s saddle down from the bar on which it hung and examined it.
He did not know what he was looking for and he just felt that it was the only thing which could have occupied Rufus Lang for so long.
Then on the underside of the saddle in the centre towards the back of it he saw a small slit.
At first he just stared at it, then he suddenly guessed what Rufus Lang had been doing.
When he had been on his travels in America, the Earl had been shown by the cowboys what they sometimes did to a horse that had no spirit in him.
It was cruel admittedly, but they had caught some insect rather like a wasp and inserted it into the saddle.
When the horse was ridden, after a short time the insect would manage to get out of the hole and sting the horse’s back.
In most cases the horse would buck and rear and behave in a wild manner because of the pain and the cowboys thought it very amusing to compete in trying to remain in the saddle in almost impossible circumstances.
The Earl’s lips tightened with fury.
He realised that this was yet another way by which Rufus Lang hoped to kill Jerry.
His first impulse was to pull what he supposed was a wasp out of the saddle and stamp on it.
Then he had another idea.
Carrying Morning Star’s saddle, he took it to where one belonging to a younger rather high-spirited horse was hanging.
He made a note of the name on the stall, which was ‘Knight Star’.
He made a slit in this horse’s saddle and prised out the wasp from Morning Star’s saddle without killing it and then inserted it into Knight Star’s saddle.
He then returned both saddles to their correct places and replaced the lantern.
As he made his way back to the house, he guessed that Rufus Lang would enter through the front door and bolt it again.
He therefore went to a side door, which was not far from the pantry and knocked.
When he had knocked twice, the door was then opened by a sleepy footman who had been given orders by Briggs to guard the safe.
As the Earl walked inside, he said,
“I went for a walk and forgot that the front door would be locked by now. I am sorry if I woke you up.”
“That’s all right, my Lord,” the footman answered.
The Earl gave him a guinea and he gasped with delight.
“As I don’t want her Ladyship to be upset by learning I was locked out,” he said, “keep what has happened to yourself.”
“I’ll do that, my Lord,” the footman grinned.
The Earl went up a side staircase.
As he expected, everything in the house was very quiet.
And no one saw him as he moved silently back into his bedroom.
*
The next morning Jerry was up before anybody else, talking excitedly about his ride on Morning Star.
“Did you tell the Earl I want to race him?” he asked Lupita four or five times.
“I did,” she answered, “but you will have to be very clever or very lucky to beat him.”
“I will whisper in Morning Star’s ear that it is very important that he does,” Jerry said.
He ran down into the breakfast room before anyone else.
When Lupita came down to the breakfast room, she found that not only the Earl but also Cousin Rufus were present.
She looked at him in surprise, thinking that he should have left the house by now.
The Earl explained,
“I am told that the best train to London does not go until midday, so I thought it only fair to ask your cousin to join our ride this morning.”
Lupita thought that this was the last thing she wanted.
But she could only say that she hoped he would enjoy it.
“As it will be the last memory I will have of Wood Hall, it is one I shall always cherish,” Rufus Lang replied.
She thought that he was being somewhat melodramatic and so concentrated on choosing what she would eat.
When breakfast was over, they all four went outside to where the horses were waiting for them.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the Earl said to Lupita, “but I sent a message by
my valet this morning to say that I would like to ride the handsome stallion, which I am told your father bought eighteen months ago at Tattersalls.”
He smiled at her before he went on,
“I think his name is ‘Mercury’. I have also suggested Knight Star for your cousin. Jerry, of course, will ride Morning Star and you told me that you always ride Minerva.
“Certainly Mercury and Knight Star are two of our finest horses,” Lupita smiled.
“That is what I thought myself,” the Earl replied.
He looked at Morning Star as he did so and Jerry piped up,
“I have told Morning Star we have to beat you!”
“I only hope he obeys you,” Lupita laughed, “but it is more important for the Earl to see how well you can ride.”
Jerry bent forward to pat Morning Star’s neck.
The Earl then helped Lupita into Minerva’s saddle.
As he walked towards Mercury, he realised that Knight Star was moving about restlessly.
Quite suddenly the horse reared, then bucked and Rufus Lang had the greatest difficulty in staying in the saddle.
As the others watched, Knight Star started off forward only to rear again and buck even more violently.
“What is wrong with Knight Star?” Jerry asked. “Why is he behaving like that?”
There was no chance for the Earl to reply to him.
Knight Star was bucking in such a manner that not even the most experienced horseman would have been able to keep him under any control.
He galloped off to the edge of the courtyard where there were flagstones.
He reared up again and violently flung off his rider.
As Rufus Lang fell to the ground, Knight Star slipped and fell heavily on top of him.
Then he rolled over and over backwards and forwards, crushing the man beneath him.
Watching, the Earl made no effort or attempt to move to stop the horse.
Then suddenly there was a scream from behind him and he turned round.
To his horror he realised that Minerva was behaving in the same way as Knight Star.
She too was rearing and bucking wildly.
The Earl instantly realised what was wrong.
It had never occurred to him for a single moment that Rufus Lang would try to kill not only Jerry but his sister as well by the same method.
With the swiftness of an athlete, he dashed forward just as Minerva bucked and reared up again.
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