The Duke Decides Part 7

She had risen with the intention of retiring to her own room, when the butler entered hurriedly, and with traces of well-disciplined agitation on his episcopal countenance. Mr. Prince had grown gray in the ducal service; but, beyond a slight fatherliness of manner, he did not presume on the fact towards the orphan scion of the great house.

"I really don't know, Miss, if I ought to disturb you so late on such a matter," he said. "Two men have called to see his Grace, and, failing him, insisted on my ascertaining if you would receive them."

"I know nothing of the Duke's affairs, and I am just going up to bed,"

Sybil replied, wondering at the usually correct retainer's excitement.

"Besides, Prince, 'insist' is rather a curious word to use here," she added with a trace of asperity.

"I should not have ventured to repeat such an objectionable phrase, Miss, if it had not been used with a sort of authority," the butler hastened to put himself right. "I ought to have mentioned that they are Scotland Yard detectives, which accounts for my being a bit flurried."

Sybil promptly sat down again and bade Prince show the visitors in. She had no desire to pry into her cousin's business, nor did her reception of the police-officers imply any such intention. But at that moment her preconceived notion that the Duke was the center of a mystery took definite shape, and she was above all things loyal to the house. She decided that in her cousin's interest it would be wiser to see these men, and, if possible, fore-arm herself with a knowledge of their designs.

But when Prince returned it was to usher in not two men, but only one-a cadaverous, middle-aged person in the garb of a clergyman, who waited obsequiously near the door while his card was presented by the butler.

"I found when I got back into the hall that he'd sent the other man away, Miss-said there was no need for two of them to intrude upon you,"

explained Prince in an undertone.

Sybil nodded, but the furtive glances of the clerically dressed visitor caused her to call Prince back as he was retiring.

"I trust you didn't leave them alone in the hall?" she whispered.

"Oh, dear, no, Miss; William, the second footman, was on duty in the hall while I came to you," was the reply, uttered in a slightly injured tone.

Prince having taken a dignified departure, Sybil beckoned forward the individual whom his card proclaimed to be "Inspector Chantrey, Criminal Investigation Department." He advanced with a shambling walk and with deprecating gestures in keeping with his disguise; but Sybil formed the opinion that all his nervousness was not simulated. It struck her that he was listening intently as he threaded his way through the priceless Louis Seize garniture of the white drawing-room.

He stood before her at last, for all the world like a half-famished wolf in the presence of a very wide-awake and dainty lamb that had not the least intention of being devoured. He spoke hurriedly-almost perfunctorily, as though he set no great store by his questions or the answers to them; and all the time that listening att.i.tude was noticeable.

"I called in the hope of finding his Grace at home," he began, with a half-note of interrogation.

"Well, the butler will have told you that he is not at home," said Sybil sharply.

"True; but servants are not always reliable, and I thought I had better see one of the family. Might I ask if the Duke is expected here to-night?"

"No, he isn't. What do you want him for?" snapped Sybil.

The _aplomb_ of the question seemed to take the inquisitor back. He glanced curiously at the girl in the high-backed arm-chair, first scanning her tenacious little face, but quickly dropping his s.h.i.+fty eyes to the carelessly crossed shoes.

He began to "hem" and "ha."

"The fact of the matter is, we have had a communication from the county police at Prior's Tarrant, in respect of an a.s.sault on one of the servants in the park yesterday. The local people think the attack may have been intended for the Duke, and they have wired us to make inquiries."

The reason alleged for his visit sounded plausible, and in some degree might account for the hunted look she had surprised in the Duke's eyes.

Yet she was not altogether satisfied. It was conceivable that the police should want to question the Duke, but the excuse for intruding on her at such an hour hardly seemed adequate.

"I am still at a loss to see how I can be of service to you in a matter of which I know nothing," she said, not attempting to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

"I only desired to make sure, madam, that the Duke was not at home.

Having obtained that a.s.surance from the fountain-head, pray permit me to withdraw," was the nervously spoken reply, punctuated by an awkward bow and the commencement of a hurried retreat. But the visitor had only taken three steps down the long vista of the room when the door was flung open, and Prince announced, with the air of one who springs a surprise:

"His Grace the Duke!"

Beaumanoir was very pale, but he advanced without hesitation, meeting Sibyl's interrogator half-way up the room. Startled as she was by her cousin's unexpected appearance, the girl intuitively rose and went forward, vaguely conscious of a desire to hear if the man repeated the same tale.

"Well, sir?" said the Duke, curtly.

Sybil hardly knew whether or no she was relieved when, word for word, the man repeated the reason he had just given her for his call. Watching her cousin's face, she saw the pallor yield to a flush of evident annoyance.

"Oh, yes; something of the kind occurred in the park at Prior's Tarrant," he angrily replied. "But all this about the man being mistaken for me is officious nonsense-too trivial to warrant your pus.h.i.+ng your way into this young lady's presence at eleven o'clock at night. I shall complain to your superiors of this most impertinent intrusion."

"What could it mean?" Sybil asked herself. The man's nervous air-his att.i.tude of listening-had disappeared. His sly face grew sleekly impudent under Beaumanoir's rebuke and it was quite jauntily that he answered:

"Then I'll bid your Grace good-night. Very possibly you'll reconsider the advisability of raising the question at Scotland Yard."

The clerical coat-tails went flapping down the room, the Duke following them to the door, where he handed their owner over to Prince, who was hovering in the hall. Having given a sharp order to "show the gentleman out," Beaumanoir returned to Sybil, humbly apologetic, but with signs of haste in his manner.

"My dear cousin, I am more than annoyed at Prince's laxity in admitting that fellow," he said, taking her hand. "It is fortunate that I chanced to look in in the hope of finding you up, and so was able to rid you of him. I came to leave a message for Alec in case he calls presently."

"But Alec is the pink of propriety," exclaimed Sibyl, laughing in spite of herself. "He doesn't call on an unprotected damsel, even if he is engaged to her, at eleven o'clock at night."

"Nevertheless, I believe that he will call here very shortly; and I should like him to be told that I am all right, and, in fact, that I am going out of town for a few days to the sea-side. I will communicate with him when I want him to enter on his secretarial duties. That is all, I think. I must really be off now."

But Sybil would not at once take his proffered hand. She remembered that he had mentioned that he was to spend the night at Alec's chambers, and this sudden derangement of plans, coupled with the lurking suggestion in his message, was, to say the least of it, mysterious. Looking into the tired eyes, she found again that expression of sleepless worry that had puzzled her. Why should it be necessary for this young man, newly come to great wealth and station, to notify his friend so feverishly that he was "all right," and in the same breath announce his retreat from London to some vague destination-not to his own country-seat?

"As you expect Alec here, wouldn't it be better to wait for him?" she urged; adding navely, "I could even offer you a bed, if you would condescend to make yourself at home in your own house."

But Beaumanoir was in no mood to perceive the humor of the situation. He was clearly fidgeting to be gone, and Sybil could only conclude that he wanted to be gone before Alec arrived. With a girl's faith in her lover's power to surmount most difficulties, she decided to try and detain her cousin as long as possible; but her diplomacy was not called into play. Prince, now wearing an air of mild protest at all these excursions and alarums, appeared in the doorway to announce:

"Mr. Forsyth."

Beaumanoir was evidently disconcerted at not having made his exit in time; and Sybil, recognizing that there was something between the two men not for her ears, tactfully withdrew to the other end of the room, after smiling a greeting to her lover. She thought none the worse of him because he was too preoccupied to return it. She was beginning to discern an undercurrent of serious import beneath the happenings of the past half-hour.

"What made you break cover, old chap? You've given me a pretty scare,"

said Forsyth to the Duke. "When I found you'd gone, I came on here on the off-chance."

"I didn't think it fair to subject you to the sort of night you might have had with me as an inmate, so I cleared out," Beaumanoir replied, wearily. "I guessed you'd inquire here, so I called in to leave word that I was all right-up to date."

"You were not molested before quitting my chambers?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Because the place has been visited; it must have been after you left,"

said Forsyth, gravely. And he went on to relate how he had found the door broken open, and how he had met two suspicious-looking men on the stairs, one dressed as a clergyman and the other in shabby tweeds.

"Dressed as a clergyman?" cried Beaumanoir, startled into forgetfulness of Sybil's presence in the room. "Then, Alec, I have stood face to face with death in this house not ten minutes ago. I found your sham parson here, professing to be an official detective; but I doubted him from the first."

His raised tones reached Sybil, who realized that the house of Beaumanoir was confronted by no ordinary emergency. What the peril could be that threatened her n.o.ble relative she had no means of knowing, or any wish to know; but the Duke's description of himself as standing "face to face with death" amid the seeming security of his own white drawing-room touched her with the icy hand of unknown dread, and, moreever, filled her with a sense of responsibility. The man who was not safe under the dazzling lights of that splendid apartment, with a host of servants within call, was going forth into all the insecurity of the London streets at midnight because, her instinct told her, he would not expose her to the same danger.

Her cousin's chivalry appealed not only to her loyalty to the house, but to that protective impulse which springs readily in every woman's heart.

"I couldn't help overhearing you," she said, coming forward. "I, too, doubted that man-very strongly. I am sure he meant no good. But what I want to say, Cousin Charles, is that you must remain here to-night. If you go out of the house, I shall go also."