Shield laughed at that. “Was it not? Gregg thought you must have fired it.”

“Extravagant praise, Tristram: you shouldn’t listen to flattery,” retorted Ludovic, grinning.

When the adventurers got back to the Red Lion they found both Nye and Miss Thane awaiting them by the coffee-room fire. Relief at seeing Ludovic safe and sound had its natural effect on Nye, and instead of greeting his graceless charge with solicitude he rated him with such severity that Bundy was moved to expostulate. “Adone-do, Joe!” he said. “There’s no harm done, and we’ve had a nice little mill. Just you take a look at my eye.”

“I am looking at it,” replied Nye. “If I ever meet the man as gave it you I’ll shake him by the hand! I wish he’d blacked ’t’other as well.”

“You’d have kissed him if he had,” remarked Ludovic. “It was Bob Kettering.”

“Bob Kettering!” ejaculated the landlord. “Now, what have you been about, sir? If I ever met such a plaguey—where’s Sir Tristram?”

“Gone home to bed,” yawned Ludovic. “I dare say he’ll be glad to get there; he’s had a full evening, thanks to you, Sally.”

Mr Bundy nodded slowly at Nye. “It would do your heart good to see that cove in a turn-up, Joe. Displays to remarkable advantage, he does. Up to all the tricks.”

“Many’s the time I’ve sparred with Sir Tristram,” replied Nye crushingly. “I don’t doubt he’d be a match for the lot of you, but what I do say, and hold to, is that he hit the wrong man.”

“I don’t know when I’ve took such a fancy to a cove,” said Bundy, disregarding this significant remark. “He gave the valet one in the bone-box, and a tedious wisty castor to the jaw. What he done to young Kettering I don’t know, but from the sounds of it he threw him a rare cross-buttock.”

At this point Miss Thane interrupted him, demanding to be told the full story of the night’s adventure. It seemed to amuse her, and when Sir Tristram arrived at the Red Lion midway through the following morning, she met him with a pronounced twinkle in her eyes.

He saw it, and a rueful smile stole into his own eyes. He took the hand she held out to him, saying: “How do you do? This should be a day of triumph for you.”

She put up her brows. “I believe you are quizzing me. Why should it be a day of triumph for me?”

“My dear ma’am, did you not guess that at last you have succeeded in making me feel grateful towards you?”

“Odious creature!” said Miss Thane, without heat. “I had a mind to go myself to rescue Ludovic.”

“You would have been very much in the way, I assure you. How is the boy this morning?”

“I fancy he has taken no harm. He is a little in the dumps. Tell me, have you any real hope of finding his ring?”

“I have every hope of clearing his name,” he replied. “His adventure last night will at least serve to convince the Beau that we mean to bring him to book. While no danger threatened, Basil was easily able to behave with calmness and good sense, but I do not think he is of the stuff to remain cool in the face of a very pressing danger.”

“You think he may betray himself. But one must not forget that last night’s affair must surely have betrayed you.”

“All the better,” said Shield. “The Beau is a little afraid of me.”

“I imagine he might well be. But he cannot be so stupid that he will not realize what your true purpose in his house must have been.”

“Certainly,” he agreed, “but his situation is awkward. He will hardly admit to having laid a trap for the man whose heir he is. He will be obliged to pretend to accept my story. Where is Ludovic, by the way?”

“Eustacie has persuaded him to stay in bed this morning. Five miles to the Dower House, and five miles back again, with an adventure between, was a trifle too much for one little better than an invalid. Do you care to go up? You will find Hugh with him, I think.”

He nodded, and waited for her by the door, and when she seemed not to be coming, said: “You do not mean to secede from our councils, I hope?”

She smiled. “You are not used to be so civil. Fighting must have a mellowing effect upon you, I think.”

“Have I been uncivil?” he asked, looking at her with disconcerting seriousness.

“Well, perhaps not uncivil,” she conceded. “Just disapproving.”

He followed her out of the room, and as they mounted the stairs, said: “I wish you will rid yourself of this nonsensical notion that I disapprove of you.”

“But do you not?” inquired Miss Thane, turning her head.

He stopped two stairs below her, and stood looking up at her, something not quite a smile at the back of his eyes. “Sometimes,” he said.

They found Ludovic drinking Constantia wine, and arguing with Sir Hugh about the propriety of breaking into other people’s houses to recover one’s own property. Eustacie, seated by the window, upheld the justice of his views, but strongly condemned the insensibility of persons who allowed others to sleep while such adventures were in train. She was rash enough to appeal to her cousin Tristram for support, but as he only replied that he had not till now thought that he had anything to be thankful for with regard to last night’s affair, he joined Miss Thane in her ill-graces.

Ludovic’s immediate desire was to learn from his cousin by what means he now proposed to find the talisman ring, but they had not been discussing the matter for more than five minutes when a chaise was heard approaching at a smart pace down the road. It drew up outside the inn, and Eustacie, peeping over the blind, announced in a shocked voice that its occupant was none other than Beau Lavenham.

“What audacity!” exclaimed Miss Thane.

“Yes, and he is wearing a waistcoat with coquelicot stripes,” said Eustacie.

“What!” ejaculated Ludovic. “Here, where’s my dressing-gown? I must take a look at him!”

“Oh no, you must not!” said Sir Tristram, preventing his attempt to leap out of bed.

“It is too late: he has entered the house. What can he want?”

“Probably to convince us that he was really in London last night,” said Shield. “We’ll go down to him, Eustacie.”

“Je le veux bien! What shall I say to him?”

“Whatever you please, as long as it does not concern Ludovic.” He looked across the room at Miss Thane. “Do you think you can contrive to be as stupid and talkative as you were when he last saw you?”

“Oh, am I allowed to take part?” asked Miss Thane. “Certainly I can be as stupid. To what purpose?”

“Well, I think it is time we frightened Basil a little,” said Sir Tristram. “Since he must now be very sure that Ludovic is in Sussex, we will further inform him that we suspect him of being Plunkett’s real murderer.”

“That’s all very well,” objected Ludovic, “but what do you expect him to do?”

“I haven’t a notion,” said Shield calmly, “but I am reasonably certain that he will do something.”

“Tell me what you wish me to say!” begged Miss Thane.

Beau Lavenham was not kept waiting long in the parlour. In a very few minutes his cousins joined him there. He shot a quick, searching look at them under his lashes, and advanced, all smiles and civility. “My dear Eustacie—Tristram, too! You behold me on my way home from a most tedious, disagreeable sojourn in town. I could not resist the opportunity of paying a morning call upon you. I trust I do not come at an awkward time?”

“But no!” said Eustacie, opening her eyes at him. ‘Why should it be?”

Sir Tristram came over to the fire in a leisurely fashion, and stirred it with his foot. “Oh, so you’ve not yet been home, Basil?” he inquired.

“No, not yet,” replied the Beau. He put up his ornate quizzing-glass, and through it looked at Shield. “Why do you ask me so oddly, my dear fellow? Is anything amiss at the Dower House?”

“Something very much amiss, I am afraid,” said Shield. He waited for a moment, saw the flash of eagerness in the Beau’s eyes, and added: “One of your Jacobean chairs has been broken.”

There was a moment’s silence. The Beau let his glass fall, and replied in rather a mechanical voice: “A chair broken? Why, how is that?”

The door opened to admit Miss Thane. Until she had exclaimed at finding the Beau present, greeted him, inquired after his health, the condition of the roads, and the state of the weather in London, there was no opportunity of reverting to the original subject of conversation. But as soon as she paused for breath the Beau turned back to Shield, and said: “You were telling me something about one of my chairs being broken. I fear I don’t—”

“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Thane, “have you not heard, then? Has Sir Tristram not told you of the shocking attempt to rob you last night? I declare I shall not know how to go to bed this evening!”

“No,” said the Beau slowly. “No. He has not told me. Is it possible that my house was broken into?”

“Exactly,” nodded Sir Tristram. “If your servants are to be believed a band of desperate ruffians entered through the library window.”

“Yes,” chimed in Miss Thane, “and only fancy, Mr Lavenham! Sir Tristram had been dining with us here, and was riding back to the Court when he heard shots coming from the Dower House. You may imagine his amazement! I am sure you should be grateful to him, for he instantly rode up to the house. You may depend upon it, it was the noise of his arrival which frightened the wretches into running away.”

The glance the Beau cast at his cousin was scarcely one of gratitude. He had turned rather pale, but he said in quite level tones: “I am indeed grateful. What a fortunate chance that you should have been passing the house just at that moment, Tristram! I suppose none of these rogues was apprehended?”

“I fear not,” replied Shield. “By the time I entered the house there was no sign of them. There had been (as you will see for yourself presently) a prodigious struggle in the library—quite a mill, I understand. I am afraid your fellows were much knocked about. In fact, your butler,” he pursued, stooping to put another log on the fire, “welcomed my advent with profound relief.”

“No doubt!” said the Beau, breathing rather quickly. “I do not doubt it!”

“The poor butler!” said Miss Thane, with a tinkling laugh. “I am sure I do not wonder he should be alarmed! He must feel you to be his preserver, Sir Tristram. He will be doubly glad to exchange his masters!”

The Beau looked at her. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

Miss Thane said: “I only meant, since he was about to enter Sir Tristram’s service—”

“You are mistaken, Miss Thane,” Sir Tristram interrupted, frowning at her. “There is no question of my cousin’s butler leaving his service that I know of.”

“Oh, how stupid of me! Only you was saying to Eustacie that you had found Mr Lavenham’s butler, and she asked, do you not remember, whether his memory—”

Eustacie said in a hurry: “I hope so much that nothing has been stolen from your house, Basil. To have—”

“So do I hope it, my dear cousin. But pray let Miss Thane continue!”

Miss Thane, encountering a frown from Eustacie, stammered: “Oh, indeed it was nothing! I would not for the world—I mean, I was mistaken! I confused one thing with another. My brother tells me I am a sad shatterbrain.”

Sir Tristram intervened, saying in his cool way: “I am making no attempt to steal your butler from you, I assure you, Basil.”

“Of course not! The stupidest mistake!” said Miss Thane, all eagerness to atone. “It is not your present butler, Mr Lavenham, but one you was used to employ. I remember perfectly now!” She looked from Sir Tristram to Eustacie and faltered: “Have I said something I ought not? But you did tell Eustacie.”

The Beau was gripping his snuffbox tightly. “Yes? A butler I once employed? Are you thinking of taking him into your service, Tristram?”

“Why, yes, I confess I had some such notion,” admitted Shield. “You have no objection, I trust?”

“Why should I?” said the Beau, with a singularly mirthless smile. “I doubt, though, whether you will find him so useful as you expect.”

“Oh, I dare say I shall not engage him after all,” replied Shield, and made haste to change the subject.

The Beau did not linger. Excusing himself on the score of being obliged to go home to ascertain what losses, if any, he had sustained, he very soon took his leave of the party, and drove away in the direction of Warninglid.

No sooner had he left the inn than Eustacie cast herself upon Miss Thane’s bosom, announcing that she forgave her for her unfeeling conduct of the night before. “You did it so very well, Sarah! He was bouleversé, and I think frightened.”