The Talisman Ring

‘Well, that’s easy enough,’ said Bundy. ‘There’s only one thing as puts me into a bit of a quirk, and that’s how to keep Joe from suspicioning what we’m going to do. Joe’s not one of them as has more hair than wit: there’s a deal of sense in his cockloft.’

‘He must not know you’ve been here to-day,’ said Ludovic. ‘You can get away without him seeing you if I make sure all’s clear.’

‘Oh ay, I can do that,’ agreed Bundy, ‘but it’s odds they’ll tell him in the stables I’ve been around. I’ve left my nag there.’

‘The devil you have! Well, you’d best see Joe if that’s so, but take care you don’t let him guess you’ve had speech with me. You might ask for me. He won’t let you see me, and it’ll look well.’

In accordance with this plan, Bundy, having been smuggled out of the inn by the back way, ten minutes later entered through the front door a second time. He found Clem in the tap-room, and Clem no sooner laid eyes on him than he said that upon no account must Mr Ludovic know of his presence. He thrust him into Nye’s stuffy little private room and went off to summon the landlord. Mr Bundy sat down by the table and chewed a straw.

His interview with Nye did not take long, nor, since both men were taciturn by nature, was there much conversation. ‘Where’s young master?’ inquired Bundy over his tankard.

Nye jerked a thumb upward. ‘Safe enough.’

‘I reckoned you’d hide him up,’ nodded Bundy, dismissing the subject.

‘Ay.’ The landlord regarded him thoughtfully. ‘He’s ripe for mischief, I can tell you. Maybe you’d best keep out of his way. You’re as bad as Clem for letting him twist you round his finger.’

‘Happen you’m right,’ conceded Bundy, retiring into his tankard.

Sir Tristram did not wait for Ludovic to reappear, and for obvious reasons Nye did not tell him of Bundy’s presence in the inn. He had a great value for Sir Tristram, but he preferred to keep his dealings with free-traders as secret as possible. So Sir Tristram, having extracted a promise from Clem not to assist Ludovic to leave the inn that night, departed secure in the conviction that without support his reckless young cousin could achieve nothing in the way of house-breaking.

‘I am afraid we shall have Ludovic like a bear with a sore head,’ prophesied Miss Thane pessimistically.

But when Ludovic came downstairs to the parlour again, he seemed to be in unimpaired spirits, a circumstance which at first relieved Miss Thane’s mind, and presently filled it with misgiving. She fancied that the sparkle in Ludovic’s angelic blue eyes was more pronounced than usual, and after enduring it for some little while, was impelled to comment upon it, though in an indirect fashion. She said that she feared that Sir Tristram’s decision must be unwelcome to him. She was embroidering a length of silk at the time, but as she spoke she raised her eyes from her task and looked steadily at him.

‘Oh well!’ said Ludovic. ‘I’ve been thinking it over, and I dare say he may be in the right of it.’

Voice and countenance were both quite grave, but Miss Thane was unable to rid herself of the suspicion that he was secretly amused. He met her searching look with the utmost limpidity, and after a moment smiled, and reminded her that it was uncivil to stare.

She was quite unable to resist his smile, which was indeed a very charming one, but she said in a serious tone: ‘It would be useless if you were to make the attempt alone, you know. You would not do anything foolish, would you?’

‘Oh, I’m not as mad as that!’ he assured her.

She lowered her embroidery. ‘And you would not – no, of course you would not! – take Eustacie upon such a venture?’

‘Good God, no! I’ll swear it, if you wish.’

She resumed her stitchery, and as her brother came into the room at that moment said no more. When, later, Ludovic discussed exhaustively the various means by which the Beau’s valet might be induced to disclose what he knew, she concluded that her suspicions had been unfounded; and when, midway through the evening, he sat down to play piquet with Sir Hugh she felt herself able to retire to bed with a quiet mind. She had seen him play piquet before, and she knew that once a green baize cloth was before him, and a pack of cards in his hand, all other considerations were likely to be forgotten. Neither he nor Sir Hugh, she judged, would seek their beds until the small hours, by which time he would be too sleepy, and not sufficiently clear-headed (for it was safe to assume that a good deal of wine would flow during the course of the play) to attempt anything in the way of a solitary adventure. He bade her a preoccupied good night, and she went away without the least misgiving. She was not, however, privileged to see the swift, sidelong look he shot at her as she went through the doorway.

That was at half-past nine. At ten o’clock Ludovic undertook to mix a bowl of rum punch for Sir Hugh’s delectation. He promised him something quite above the ordinary, and Sir Hugh, after one sip of the hot, potent brew, admitted that it certainly was above the ordinary. Ludovic drank one glass, and thereafter sat in admiration of Sir Hugh’s capacity. When Sir Hugh commented upon his abstinence, he said frankly that a very little of the mixture would suffice to put him under the table. Sir Hugh, rather pleased, said that he fancied he had a harder head than most men. During the next half-hour he proceeded to demonstrate the justice of this claim. The only effect Ludovic’s punch had upon him was to make him unusually sleepy, and when Ludovic, as the clock struck eleven, yawned, and said that he was for bed, he was able to rise from the table with scarcely a stagger, and to pick up his candle without spilling any more wax on to the floor than was perfectly seemly. Ludovic, relieved to discover that at least the brew had made him feel ready for bed at an u

naccustomed hour, conducted him upstairs to his room and saw him safely into it before tiptoeing along the corridor to his own apartment.

Nye had locked up the inn and gone to bed some time before. Ludovic stirred the logs in his fireplace to a blaze, and sat down to while away half an hour.

His preparation for the venture took him some time, since his left arm was still almost useless, but he contrived, though painfully, to pull on a pair of top-boots, and to struggle into his great-coat. Having assured himself that his pistols were properly primed, he stowed one into the top of his right boot, and the other into the right-hand pocket of his coat, and putting on a tricorne of the fashion of three years before, stole softly out on to the corridor, candle in hand.

The stairs creaked under his feet as he crept down them, but it was not this noise which awoke Miss Thane. She was aroused, ironically enough, by the rhythmic and resonant snores proceeding from her brother’s room across the passage. She lay for a few minutes between waking and sleeping, listening to these repulsive sounds, and wondering whether it would be worth while to get up and rouse Sir Hugh, or whether the snoring would recommence the instant he fell asleep again. Just as she had decided that the best thing to do was to draw the bedclothes over her ears, and try to ignore the snoring, a faint sound, as of a bolt being drawn downstairs, jerked her fully awake. She sat up in bed, thought that she could hear the click of a latch, and the next instant was standing on the floor, groping for her dressing-gown.

An oil lamp burned low on the table by the bed. She turned up the wick, and picking up the lamp, went softly out on to the passage.

The house was in pitch darkness, and only Sir Hugh’s snores broke the silence, but Miss Thane was convinced that there had been other and very stealthy sounds. Her first thought was that someone had entered the house, presumably in search of Ludovic, and she was about to steal along the passage to rouse Nye, when another explanation of the faint sounds occurred to her. She went quickly to Ludovic’s room and scratched on the door-panel. There was no answer, and without the slightest hesitation she turned the handle and looked in.

One glance at the unruffled bed was enough to send her flying along the passage to wake Nye. This was easily done, and within two minutes of an urgent, low-voiced call to him through the keyhole, he was beside her on the passage, with a pair of breeches dragged on over his night-shirt, and his night-cap still on his head. When he heard that Ludovic was not in his room he stared at Miss Thane with a pucker between his brows, and said slowly: ‘He wouldn’t do it – not alone!’

‘Where’s Clem?’ demanded Miss Thane under her breath.

He shook his head. ‘No, no, Clem was of my own mind over this. You must have been mistook, ma’am. He wouldn’t set out to walk that distance, and he can’t saddle a horse with his arm in a sling.’ He broke off suddenly, and his eyes narrowed. ‘By God, you’re right, ma’am!’ he said. ‘He must have seen Abel! That accounts for him being so uncommon cheerful, drat the boy! Get you back to your room if you please, ma’am. I’ll have Clem saddle me a horse while I get some clothes on, and be off after them.’