The Foundling (27 page)

Instinctively he looked round. A neat man in a sober riding-dress, who had something of the look of a head-groom, touched his hat to him, and said: "I ask your Grace's pardon for intruding, but I have a message for your Grace."

Without giving himself time to consider that his cousin could not possibly have received the letter he had posted to him in Baldock that morning, the Duke leaped to the conclusion that the neat man must have come to him from Gideon. There was nothing at all alarming in Mr. Shifnal's appearance: indeed, he ascribed much of his success to his respectable air. The depth of his bow was exactly as it should have been; his manner was a nice mixture of deference and the assurance of a trusted personal servant. He glanced deprecatingly at the persons within easy earshot, and moved suggestively in the direction of one of the tents that were dotted about the edge of the field. The Duke followed him. "Well?" he said. "What do you want with me?"

"I beg your Grace's pardon," Mr. Shifnal said again, "but I was told—by your Grace perhaps knows who—to deliver my message into your Grace's private ear."

The Duke was a little amused, but still unsuspicious. Gideon must be hard-pressed, he thought, to have sent to him. Possibly Lord Lionel had arrived in London, and was threatening to cut his son off with a shilling unless he divulged his cousin's whereabouts. Mr. Shifnal was standing in the deep shadow cast by the now deserted tent; the first of the rockets went up in a glorious burst of stars; the Duke came up to Mr. Shifnal, and repeated: "Well, what do you want?"

He did not feel the blow that struck him down, for Mr. Liversedge, sliding out of the murk behind him, was leaving nothing to chance. The Duke dropped where he stood; and Mr. Liversedge, thrusting his cudgel out of sight under the tent-wall, instantly bent over him in an attitude of tender solicitude. A man, who had been staring up at the bursting rocket, glanced over his shoulder, and Mr. Liversedge at once called peremptorily to Mr. Shifnal: "You, sir! Would you have the goodness to assist me to carry my nephew to my carriage? He has fainted from this excessive heat and these crowds! My sister's son: a very delicate young man! I told him how it would be, but these young sparks! They will never listen to older and wiser heads!"

The stranger watching the fireworks at once drew near, offering his aid. Mr. Liversedge thanked him profusely, and agreed that the poor young man did indeed look pale. "Sickly from birth!" he confided. "I have known him to swoon for as much as an hour on end! But I beg you will not put yourself to the trouble of coming with me! This gentleman will perhaps help me to my carriage: ah, I thank you, sir!"

Mr. Shifnal, who had picked up the Duke's hat and malacca cane, here joined his confederate, and offered to take the poor gentleman's legs. One or two people began to be interested in what was going on, but Mr. Liversedge was spared the trouble of repeating his story by the first gentleman, who very kindly retailed it for him. While he was doing this, Mr. Liversedge and Mr. Shifnal made haste to remove the Duke to where they had left Mr. Mimms's cart, outside the field. A particularly fine display of pyrotechnics diverted the attention of those who had shown faint interest in the Duke's swoon, and as he and his bearers had disappeared from view when they again had leisure to look round they troubled themselves no further in the matter.

The Duke's inanimate body was soon hoisted into the back of the cart, and laid upon the boards. Mr. Liversedge scrambled in beside him, adjuring Mr. Shifnal to make haste and drive off before any meddling busybody could come poking and prying. He slid his hand under the Duke's coat, feeling for his heart, and was relieved to feel it beating. He was not, as he had told his friend, a man of violence, and he had suffered quite a horrid revulsion of feeling when the Duke had gone down under the blow of his cudgel. He decided, privately, that if it should become necessary to dispose of the Duke someone other than himself would have to undertake that task: probably Nat, who had little sensibility, and none of the gentlemanly qualms that troubled his friend.

Chapter 14

Upon the morning of the Duke's departure from London, Captain Ware was awakened by the sound of altercation outside his door. Ex-Sergeant Wragby's voice was raised in indignant refusal to allow anyone to enter his master's room; and he was freely accusing the unknown intruder of being as drunk as an artillery-man. Captain Ware then heard Nettlebed's voice, sharpened by fright, and he grinned. He had enjoined Wragby, who had been his trusted servant for several years, not to mention the Duke's presence in Albany the previous evening to anyone, and as his batman had not been on duty he had no fear of the information's leaking out. He linked his hands behind his head, and awaited events.

"You looby, if you don't stand out of my way you'll get one in the bread-basket as'll send you to grass!" said Nettlebed fiercely.

"Ho!" retorted Wragby. "Ho, I will, will I? If it's a bit of home-brewed you're wanting, you herring-gutted, blubber-headed chinch, put up your mawleys!"

Captain Ware thought it time to intervene, and called: "Wragby! What the devil's all this kick-up?"

His door burst open unceremoniously, and Wragby and Nettlebed entered locked in one another's arms.

"See the Captain I must and will!" panted Nettlebed.

"Sir! here's his Grace's man, as drunk as a brewer's horse, and not nine o'clock in the morning!" said Wragby, in virtuous wrath.

"How monstrous!" said Gideon. "Nettlebed, how dare you?"

Nettlebed succeeded in wrenching himself free from Wragby's grip. "You know well I don't touch liquor. Master Gideon!" he said angrily. "Nor this isn't the time for any of your tricks! Sir, his Grace never came home last night!"

Gideon yawned. "Turning Methodist, Nettlebed?"

Wragby gave a snigger. This exasperated Nettlebed into saying hotly: "Think shame to yourself, Master Gideon, a-casting such aspersions upon his Grace! Don't you go saying as he takes up with bits of muslin, for he don't and never has! His Grace left his house yesterday morning, and he hasn't been seen since!"

"Ah, slipped his leash, has he?" said Gideon.

Nettlebed stared at him. "Slipped his leash? I don't know what you mean, sir!"

"Bring my shaving-water, Wragby, will you?" said Gideon. "I mean, Nettlebed, that I'm surprised he hasn't done it before. And why you should come to me—"

"Master Gideon, the only hope I had was that his Grace maybe spent the night here!"

"Well, he didn't. Nor do I know where he is. I daresay he will return in his own good time."

"Sir," said Nettlebed, staring at him in horror, "never did I think to hear you, as was always the first to have a care to his Grace, speak in such a way!"

"You fool, how should I speak? His Grace is not a child, for all you and that precious crew he has about him treat him as though he were! I hope it may be a lesson to you, for how he has borne it all these years I know not!"

"Master Gideon, have you thought that his Grace may have been murdered?" Nettlebed demanded.

"I have not. His Grace is very well able to take care of himself."

Nettlebed wrung his hands. "Never in all the years I've served him has he done such a thing! Oh, Master Gideon, I blame myself, I do indeed! I should never have allowed myself to take offence at what—But how could I tell—And he went out, not telling Borrowdale when he meant to come back, and we waited, and waited, and never a sign of him! Borrowdale, and Chigwell, and Turvey, and me, we were sitting up all night, not knowing what to think, nor what to do! Then I thought as how he might have been with you, and I came round on the instant! Master Gideon, what am I to do?"

"You will go back to Sale House, and you will wait until his Grace returns, as he no doubt will do," replied Gideon. "And when he does return, Nettlebed, see to it that you do not drive him into flight again! You, and Borrowdale, and Chigwell, and Turvey and a dozen others! My cousin is a man, not a schoolboy, and you have so bullied him between you—"

"Bullied him!" exclaimed Nettlebed, his voice breaking. "Master Gideon, I would lay down my life for his Grace!"

"Very likely, and much good would that do him!" said Gideon. He sat up. "Now you may listen to me!" he said sternly, and read his cousin's stricken henchman a short, telling lecture.

If Nettlebed attended to it, he gave no sign of having done so. He said distractedly: "If only he has not been set upon by footpads! I should go round to Bow Street, perhaps, only that I do not like—"

"If you do that," said Gideon strongly, "neither his Grace nor my father would ever forgive you! For God's sake, man, stop flying into a pucker for nothing!"

"It is not nothing to me, sir," Nettlebed said. "I am sure I ask your pardon for having disturbed you, but it did seem to me that his Grace would have told you—or come to you—but if he did not, then I am wasting my time, and I will go. Captain Ware, sir!"

"Good!" said Gideon heartlessly. "And strive to bear in mind that his Grace is more than twenty-four years old!"

Nettlebed cast him a look of reproach, and left him. Wragby, returning with a jug of hot water, said: "He'll set 'em all by the ears, he will, sir, you mark my words! If he don't have the Runners called out it'll be a wonder!"

"He won't do that."

Wragby shook his head. "Fair set-about he is! I couldn't help compassionating him."

"He wants a lesson," replied Gideon. "This should do them all good!"

Nettlebed, speeding back to Sale House, found that Mr. Scriven had arrived there, and, upon learning that nothing had been heard of the Duke since the previous morning, looked very grave, and said that Lord Lionel should instantly be informed. Chigwell then had the happy notion of running round to White's, to enquire of the porter if his Grace had been seen in the club. The porter said that he had not set eyes on the Duke since he had dined at the club with Lord Gaywood, and, perceiving Chigwell seemed strangely chagrined, asked what had happened to put him so much out of countenance. At any ordinary time, Chigwell would have treated this curiosity in a dignified and quelling way, but his anxiety, coupled with a sleepless night, had robbed him of his poise. He told the porter that he feared his Grace had met with an accident, or fallen a victim to footpads. The porter was suitably shocked and sympathetic, and was soon in possession of all the facts of the story. Chigwell, recollecting himself, said that he was so much worried he hardly knew what he was about, but felt sure that he could trust the porter not to mention the matter. The porter assured him that he was not one to blab; and upon Chigwell's departure, told one of the waiters that it looked like the young Duke of Sale had been murdered. He then asked every member who entered the club if he had heard the news of his Grace of Sale's disappearance, so that in a remarkably short space of time a formidable number of persons were discussing the strange story, some taking the view that there was nothing in it, some postulating theories to account for the Duke's disappearance, and others offering odds on the nature of his fate.

Chigwell, returning to Sale House, found that Captain Belper had called there in the hope of finding the Duke at home, and had of course been regaled by the porter with the story of his strange disappearance. He listened to it, at first with incredulity, and then with a look of dismay. In an agitated voice, he requested the agent-in-chief's presence. When Scriven joined him in one of the smaller saloons on the ground floor of the mansion, he found him pacing the floor in great perturbation of spirit. Upon the agent's entrance, he wheeled about, and said without preamble: "Scriven, this news has disturbed me prodigiously! I believe I may hold the answer to the enigma!"

"Then I beg, sir," said the agent calmly, "that you will tell me what it may be, for I must consider myself to be in some measure responsible for his Grace's well-being, and—I must add—safety."

"Scriven," said Captain Belper impressively, "I was with the Duke when he purchased, at Manton's, a pair of duelling pistols!"

They stared at one another, incredulity in Scriven's face, a certain dramatic satisfaction in the Captain's.

"I cannot believe that his Grace had become embroiled in any quarrel," at last pronounced Scriven, "Much less in a quarrel of such a nature as you suggest, sir."

"Were those pistols delivered at this house?" demanded the Captain. "And if they were so delivered,
where are they
, Scriven?"