Part 15 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIV-_Too Many Women_
General Sadgrove relaxed his grip on Azimoolah's lean neck, not as a consequence of Alec Forsyth's exclamation, but because he and his captive had crossed the threshold of the French window-gone ”off,” in fact, from the stage on which he had been playing a little comedy for the benefit of an invisible audience. Forsyth guessed at once that the pulley-hauley business on the terrace had only been a sham, from the half-playful push with which his uncle released the now pa.s.sive Indian, and also from the more than half-contemptuous glance flung at himself.
The next moment the other party to the tussle on the terrace elucidated the matter by walking up to the window instead of running away. It was the Duke himself, outwardly calm, but somewhat disheveled by the fray, and looking very sleepy. Entering the room he gave Forsyth's hand an affectionate squeeze, and turned to secure the window.
”It's all right,” he said, in the listless tone that he always used nowadays. ”When the train got stuck up I smelt rats, and cleared out from the locality-thought it better to cut across country on foot than to stay about a spot where I was probably being looked for. But this beggar,” pointing to Azimoolah, standing at ”attention,” proudly erect, ”must have shadowed me, and caught me up just as I was coming to tap at the window. You will confer a great favor on me by letting him go.”
This dogged determination to take no prisoners strengthened the General's suspicions of his host, and there was a harsh ring in the laugh with which he explained that Azimoolah was his own emissary, who, on returning from the scene of the accident, had mistaken the Duke for one of their unknown adversaries. He did not mention that there were two genuine prowlers outside who, but for Azimoolah's intervention, would have fallen on their prey, and who were probably intensely puzzled by finding someone else playing the same game as themselves.
”And now, if your Grace will go to bed, I will guarantee you a good night's rest,” added the General. ”You must not forget that you will have ladies to entertain to-morrow.”
Beaumanoir gave a tired shrug.
”Even without that inducement I'd take your prescription, General,” he replied. ”This hide-and-seek is rather wearing; but if you two good fellows can keep me in the land of the living for the next few days, I shan't worry you further.”
He left the room, dragging his lame foot painfully, and the General, stricken with a sudden sympathy, whispered Forsyth to accompany him.
”The poor beggar is troubled,” he said. ”Sleep on the sofa in his room, and don't be afraid to close your eyes-as soon as _he_ is asleep.
Azimoolah and I will see there's no bother. But your friend mustn't be left alone. Danger from his own pistol-see?”
Forsyth nodded with grieved comprehension, and followed the Duke. On his departure the General turned to Azimoolah, who had stood like a statue since his release, and the twain exchanged a twinkle of mutual congratulation.
”We managed that quite in the old style, O taker of many thieves,” said the General in Hindustani. ”'Twas well that you heard and quickly obeyed my whisper to offer resistance, for so we have deceived the malefactors who beheld us into the belief that you also are an enemy of the house.”
”The sahib's praise is sweet as the honey of Kashmir,” responded Azimoolah, gravely. ”Is it the Heaven-born's will that I should go out and slay these dealers in iniquity?”
The commission entrusted to him, however, held promise of no such luxury. On the contrary, Azimoolah received strict injunction to avoid violence except in the last extremity-in self-defence or to prevent entry into the house. The duty laid down for him was to patrol the grounds, and instantly apprise the General of any action on the part of the two trespa.s.sers that pointed to a renewal of aggressiveness that night.
”I shall remain in this room till daybreak; if anything occurs, make the signal outside,” were the General's final instructions as he loosed his human watch-dog on to the terrace, after putting out the lights to conceal the opening of the window. Then, having carefully closed it, he sat himself down in the dark, and presently slumbered, secure in the knowledge that none could approach the mansion while Azimoolah was on guard. Also, he was pretty sure that the siege would not be raised till the two prowlers should have reported to their superiors the doings and, as they would believe, the capture of the strange rival who had forestalled them.
The General's confidence was justified, for the night pa.s.sed without further alarms, and the three gentlemen met at the breakfast-table under ordinary country-house conditions. The servants being in the room, no reference was made to the abnormal circ.u.mstances that had brought them together, though Beaumanoir, in the course of reading letters that had come by post, held up a gorgeously monogrammed note, and remarked that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had accepted his invitation and would be with them on the morrow.
”She writes rather flippantly for a stranger,” he added, eyeing the scented missive doubtfully, but not offering to show it. ”I hope it's all right for her to meet my cousin Sybil, and-er-the other ladies.
She's coming on your recommendation, you know, General, so you must vouch for her good behavior.”
Sadgrove growled unintelligibly, and was at pains to conceal a sudden upheaval of his facial muscles. For the Duke's reference to Mrs. Talmage Eglinton in her relations to the other guests had all at once opened up to his mind a contingency which he had overlooked-a terrible contingency, which demanded instant consideration before the American widow was admitted to the house. He made an early excuse for quitting the table, and, exacting a promise that Beaumanoir and Forsyth would for the present remain indoors, he went out into the park to face the position alone, and thresh it out to a conclusion.
Walking under the trees in the historic elm avenue, it was not till he had smoked a whole cigar and lit another that he was able to approach the problem with anything like calmness. For he was suffering from the humiliation of having to admit that he had committed the grievous error of imperiling the life of a woman-one, too, whom he held in affectionate regard only second to his wife. If his suspicion of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was as well founded as instinct told him, she ought never to have been asked to stay under the same roof as Sybil Hanbury, her victorious rival in the affections of a man who had repulsed her advances by stolidly ignoring them.
”Gad! but I'd cut my hand off rather than harm should come to that girl, let alone never being able to look Alec in the face again,” he muttered, as he gnawed his white mustache in perplexity.
The situation was indeed serious from the point of view that Mrs.
Talmage Eglinton was head of a gang of international criminals, and that she was, moreover, as he put it in his simple soldier phrase, ”sweet upon” his nephew Alec. If, for her as yet unexplained ends, she would not stick at a.s.sa.s.sinating the Duke of Beaumanoir, she would be capable of wreaking a deadly vengeance on the girl who had won the heart she hungered for. Once installed as a guest in the mansion, she would have plenty of facilities of which she might make venomous use. The General had engineered her invitation with the laudable purpose of keeping her under constant observation and of making communication with her confederates difficult; but in his zeal for check-mating her predatory designs he had forgotten her amatory ones.
It was true that Sybil's engagement had not yet been published to the world, but the Shermans, who were also to be the Duke's guests, knew of it, and to enter into explanations with Mrs. Sherman, the voluble and unsophisticated, would be going far towards defeating his cherished hope of protecting that lady's husband from the gang without implicating the Duke. As it was, the invitation of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, of which he was suspected of being the cause, had excited more than curiosity among his American visitors, who had nearly upset his arrangements by canceling their own visit on learning that their mysterious fellow countrywoman was to be of the party. One crumb of comfort he derived from the fact that in all things he could rely on his wife's discretion.
Though they had exchanged no word on the subject, he knew that, without penetrating or wis.h.i.+ng to penetrate his motive in trafficking with Mrs.
Talmage Eglinton, his wife guessed that he had one; he knew that he could depend upon her unquestioning aid if he asked for it.
”I guess I've bitten off more than I can chew, as Sherman himself would put it,” he mused, with a sigh for the old days of jingling bridle-chains and night rides, when he had merrily run down his Thugs and Dacoits without female influence upsetting his calculations. The female influence had been there, doubtless, with all its jealousies and consequent treacheries; but all that had been Azimoolah's department. It had fallen to the silent-footed, black-bearded Pathan to explore the under-currents of social life in the native villages, and he had not worried his chief with details till the patient sapping of traitorous brains was done, and all that remained was to sally forth and hunt the faithless lover or erring husband who was also a breaker of laws.