The Duke Decides Part 14

"Yes, I am the Duke, Mayne, and a very unfortunate one," Beaumanoir laughed. "There has been a mild sort of smash-up on the railway yonder, and I started to walk to Prior's Tarrant rather than hang about for a relief train. I was a bit hazy about my direction, so I thought I'd inquire, and at the same time rea.s.sure you that it wasn't a poacher who was abroad in the woods. May I come in while you give me my bearings?"

"Come in, your Grace, and welcome; but it isn't in my house that I shall direct you. It's not likely that I'm going to let you wander about my woods on a dark night when I can guide you out of them myself and think it an honor," was the keeper's cordially respectful reply.

Beaumanoir was conscious that standing in a lighted doorway was hardly the place for him just then, and he followed into a roomy kitchen, professionally eloquent with its array of guns and sporting prints.

Mayne explained that his wife had just gone up to bed, and that all the youngsters, whom perhaps it might please his Grace to remember, were out in the world.

Beaumanoir dropped into a chair, and to gratify his kindly host accepted a horn tankard of home-brewed ale, which he sipped while he satisfied Mayne's curiosity about the "accident." He would have given much to take the keeper into his confidence about the personal element in the outrage, but that luxury could not be indulged in without impossible disclosures. Considering that he had eliminated the most pertinent part of his narrative, he was unable to account for the growing gravity with which it was received till Mayne disburdened himself.

"I wonder your Grace can take your narrow escape so lightly," said the keeper. "Providence must have been in two minds about you to-night."

"How so?" asked the Duke, starting. Surely General Sadgrove had not been spreading indiscreet reports in the county already. There had not been time.

"It isn't a fortnight since his Grace your uncle and your cousin were killed on the railway," replied the keeper.

The coincidence had not occurred to Beaumanoir, nor if it had would it have troubled him; but he was relieved to find that Mayne's solemnity was due to the traditional superst.i.tion of a gamekeeper. To have his terrible secret, or so much as a hint of it, suspected by this cheery old a.s.sociate of the happiest day of his boyhood would have been a blow indeed.

"Yes," he admitted, though in a different sense; "I have certainly had a narrow escape, and it has shaken me a little, Mayne. On second thoughts, if you would let me lie down for a few hours on that very comfortable settle, I would defer my departure for Prior's Tarrant till the morning.

I really don't feel quite equal to trudging so far to-night."

This was true enough, for though he was physically fit he dreaded leaving this haven of rest and apparent security for the darkling wood, in which his remorseless foes were probably searching for him. The promised escort of the unsuspecting keeper would be of little value, for, unwarned of any peril, the man would be simply an enc.u.mbrance, equally liable with himself to swift death at any moment at the hands of the enormous odds against them. Apart from other considerations, he could not subject the good fellow to such a risk, though he would have preferred, had it been possible to proceed alone, to have got to Prior's Tarrant that night and so have ended the suspense under which Forsyth and the General must be laboring.

Of course the proposal was hailed with delight, Mayne only insisting that he should wake his wife and get her to prepare the spare bedroom.

Of this, however, Beaumanoir would not hear, and he was trying to persuade his host to retire for the night when a dog barked furiously at the back of the house.

"That's old Tear'em; there'll be someone moving," said Mayne, going out into the pa.s.sage and listening intently.

Beaumanoir remained in the kitchen, but for all that it was he, with his highly strung nerves, who was the first to catch the sound of a footstep without-a stealthy footstep, not approaching the cottage door boldly, but creeping close to the window. The next instant, however, before he could communicate with Mayne, another and a brisker step, without any attempt at secrecy, crunched on the pebble path, and there came a tap at the cottage door. Mayne immediately opened it.

"Sorry to disturb you, but there has been a railway accident," a man said in tones that struck Beaumanoir as vaguely familiar. "I'm tired of waiting about at the side of the line. Can you give me shelter for the night?"

"If you'll please to walk in, sir, I'll see what can be done," came the reply of the hospitable keeper. "I've got one of the pa.s.sengers in here already."

The next moment there appeared in the doorway of the kitchen the tall man who had hectored the guard at Elstree station and who had afterwards been joined by the spy, Marker, at Radlett. Whatever his purpose, he was plainly not disposed to lay aside his air of self-importance as yet. He glanced superciliously at Beaumanoir, and promptly appropriated the chair which the latter had risen from at the first alarm. Loyal to his own county, this was more than Mayne could stand; he hastened to effect a one-sided introduction.

"Beg pardon, sir, but you've taken the Duke's chair," he said. "This gentleman is his Grace the Duke of Beaumanoir."

The newcomer rose with alacrity. "Sorry, I'm sure," he said, taking another seat. "We are companions in misfortune, Duke, if, as I understand, you were traveling in that wretched 8.45 from St. Pancras."

Beaumanoir's sense of humor, ever present, but of late repressed by stress of circ.u.mstances, broke out at the efforts of this man, who spoke with a p.r.o.nounced American accent, and who, he was persuaded, was there with murderous intent, to sustain the _role_ of an English gentleman. He had not forgotten that other and more furtive footstep under the window, but he could not resist the sport of leading this rascal on. The mood had seized him to avoid being killed if he could; but, if that were not possible, to extract all available fun out of the process. And it might serve either of these contingencies to lead his adversary into the belief that he was not being imposed on by all this specious posing.

"Yes, I was in the 8.45," he replied, looking the other squarely in the face. "You joined it at Elstree, I think. I noticed you because a man who was found under the seat of my compartment got into yours at Radlett, and I saw you leaving the train with him after the accident."

For the fraction of a second the man failed to control the answering defiance of his eyes, but he got a grip of himself soon enough to prevent a premature explosion. "Really?" he said, with affected carelessness. "He was under the seat, eh? Funny sort of person to be traveling first-cla.s.s; but, of course, you will understand that I am not acquainted with him."

Beaumanoir made no comment. He had got what he wanted. That sudden tell-tale gleam of menace had discounted the subsequent disclaimer, and he knew that this man had been no chance fellow-pa.s.senger with Marker, the spy. What was more, the man knew that he knew it, and Beaumanoir shrewdly guessed that the effort of control was intended to deceive not him but the keeper. The rascal was biding his time till he had learned what dispositions were to be made for the night, when doubtless he would shape his actions accordingly; and, in the meanwhile, it was necessary to his purpose that Sir Claude Asprey's honest old retainer should regard him as an innocent guest.

Again that persistent reliance on the Duke's impotence to speak up and boldly claim protection. All through the hot pursuit that leaguered him so closely this was the bitterest drop in Beaumanoir's cup, for it was he himself who had placed the gag in his own mouth, he himself who had forged the fetters that kept him from running to Scotland Yard with an exposure of the whole conspiracy. And it is galling to be hampered by a past lapse from virtue when you have abandoned evil courses and are like to lose your life for doing so.

"Now that this gentleman has come in your Grace will _have_ to have the spare bedroom," said Mayne triumphantly, moving towards the door. "The wife will have it ready for you in a brace of shakes."

Beaumanoir detained him with a hasty gesture. "One minute," he said, "I'm not at all sure that I care about having the bedroom. I had arranged to sleep downstairs on the settle, you know. Why shouldn't we adhere to that plan, and let this gentleman have the room?"

He was moved to discover which of the two sleeping-places his enemies would prefer him to occupy, and also by the imperative need of gaining time to gauge the altered circ.u.mstances. Moreover, if Mayne went upstairs to consult his wife he would be left alone with this great strapping potential a.s.sa.s.sin, who as like as not would promptly admit half a dozen other a.s.sa.s.sins from outside. Strangely enough, it was the potential a.s.sa.s.sin himself who solved his dilemma-by tossing a visiting-card on to the table.

"I shouldn't dream of sleeping in the bedroom while you are roughing it down here, your Grace," he said. "I shall certainly insist on occupying the settle."

Beaumanoir picked up the card and read:

Colonel Anstruther Walcot, 14th Dragoon Guards.

The sight of that card, for all his imminent danger, cheered him, as showing that his opponents were not infallible. Not only had they made the initial blunder of furnis.h.i.+ng this obvious Yankee with the outward semblance and name of an English officer commanding a distinguished regiment, relying on the fact that the real owner of the name was in India, but they had chanced to select the name of the colonel of Beaumanoir's old regiment.

The impostor's card inspired him with an idea. He would accept him at his own valuation.

"Very well," he said, rising from his chair. "As I am the first comer, perhaps it is right that I should be first served. I'll take the bedroom, Mayne; but there's no need to disturb your wife. If you'll show me up we'll soon put the room to rights. Good-night, sir, and thank you for your courtesy."

With which he signed to the keeper to lead the way and followed him out, casting a glance at the American to see how he took the arrangement.

Diagnosis of the man's face was, however, impossible, for he had already turned to the window and was drawing aside the curtain-to signal to his fellows, Beaumanoir had no doubt.

Mayne mounted the steep cottage staircase, Beaumanoir limping awkwardly in his wake into one of two rooms on the tiny landing. The moment they had crossed the threshold he perceived that the chamber was little better than a trap. The man downstairs would simply have him at his mercy, after admitting his companions and probably s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the door of the keeper's sleeping apartment. Locks and bolts to the primitive doors there were none. He recognized all too late that it would have been better to have insisted on the Yankee occupying this room and on remaining downstairs himself, when he would at least have formed a wedge between the traitor in the camp and his colleagues outside.

To stay the night in the room was out of the question, and he determined to put in practice the inspiration derived from "Colonel Walcot's" card.

"Mayne," he said, laying his hand on the astonished keeper's shoulder, "I must get out of this at once, without the gentleman below being aware of it, and you must help me."

"But, your Grace--" began Mayne.

"Don't withstand me," Beaumanoir cut short the protest. "I cannot go into a long explanation, but it's like this. That man is the colonel of my former regiment-an old brother officer, you understand. My name was Hanbury then, and he either does not, or pretends not to, recognize me.

It is not a nice thing to have to confess, but I borrowed money in those days from Colonel Walcot, which never till now have I had it in my power to repay. It would distress me greatly to have that money mentioned before I have repaid it, as I shall do to-morrow, so if you can contrive to let me out without his knowledge I'll make for Prior's Tarrant and never forget your a.s.sistance."

Mayne scratched his grizzled head in pained perplexity. To his slow brain the incident of a wealthy n.o.bleman fleeing in the dead of night from a creditor presented a startling incongruity, but gradually it recurred to him that he had heard that the new Duke had been "a bit wild" when in the army; and, after all, his reluctance to be recognized by the Colonel till he had had time to liquidate the debt seemed but natural.

"Yes, it can be done, your Grace," replied the keeper, softly opening the lattice cas.e.m.e.nt. "The lean-to roof of the woodshed reaches right up here, and there's a pile of f.a.ggots against the shed. You can get down easy enough, and as it's the back of the house, if you are careful, he won't know anything about it. But I'll come, too, and show your Grace the way out of the wood."

"On no account, Mayne," said Beaumanoir quickly. "You'll be much more useful here. I'll find my way out of the wood all right, but you must go back to the kitchen and tell Colonel Walcot that I am going to bed. It's only a white lie, and here's a five-pound note on account of it. Stay with him as long as you can-half an hour at least-and then go to bed yourself."

"Very well, your Grace; I don't like it, but I'll do it."

"And see here, Mayne: there's one thing more. In the morning, or whenever Colonel Walcot discovers that I have gone away, tell him from me why I went, and that I intend to repay him all I owe him. _All I owe him_, don't forget that."

Directly he was alone Beaumanoir left himself no time for weighing the chances, but took the risk. Squeezing through the window, he climbed down the sloping roof of the woodshed and thence by way of the f.a.ggot-pile to the ground. He was well aware that every step, as he groped his way across the clearing into the thicket, might be his last, for doubtless he had been traced to the cottage and the whole pack were somewhere about. His only hope lay in the probability that they were in front of the house, where they could hold themselves ready to obey signals from the kitchen window or a summons from the door.

It might have been that this was the case, for Beaumanoir reached the trees without interference, and at once shaped a course for the edge of the wood. His progress was difficult by reason of the darkness and the density of the undergrowth, but fortune favored him in so far that he presently hit upon a public foot-path, and so came eventually to a stile giving on a high road. At the next cross-ways was a sign-post, which he read by the light of a wax match, and thence onward limped steadily forward for Prior's Tarrant, with growing confidence that he had eluded pursuit.

Great, then, was his dismay when, on turning into his own park, he became conscious that he was being shadowed by someone whose stealthy pid-pad sounded resolutely behind him. As he mounted the terrace steps it grew louder; the man who was following him was close behind and gaining quickly. Something in the Duke's tired brain seemed to snap, and with just a glance at the lighted window of the dining-room where General Sadgrove was in the act of drawing up the blind, he turned at the top of the steps and flung himself, half mad with rage and terror, on the faithful Azimoolah, who had picked him up near the sign-post and shepherded him safely for the rest of the journey.