The Talisman Ring

‘It’s only I!’ called Sir Hugh, tenderly massaging his grazed shin-bone. ‘Don’t start screeching, for the lord’s sake! Bring me a light!’

Another door opened; Miss Thane’s voice said: ‘What was that? I thought I heard a crash!’

‘I dare say you did,’ returned her brother. ‘I fell over a demmed stool. Send that scoundrel Nye down here. I’ve a bone to pick with him.’

‘Good gracious, Hugh!’ exclaimed Miss Thane venturing half-way down the stairs, and holding up a candle. ‘What in the world are you doing there? You do not know what a fright you put me into!’

‘Never mind that,’ said Sir Hugh testily. ‘What I want is a light.’

‘My dear, you sound very cross,’ said Miss Thane, coming down the remainder of the stairs, and setting her candlestick on the table. ‘Why are you here?’ She caught sight of the curtain half-drawn back from the windows, and the casement swinging wide, and said quickly: ‘Who opened that window?’

‘Just what I want to ask Nye,’ replied Sir Hugh. ‘The moon awoke me, and I chanced to look out of my own window and saw this one open. I came down, and I’d no sooner got to the bottom of the stairs than a demmed fellow in a loo-mask knocked the candle out of my hand and tried to hit me on the head. No, it’s no use looking round for him: he’s gone, thanks to Nye leaving stools strewn about all over the floor.’

Eustacie, who had come downstairs with Nye, gave a sob of fright, and stared at Miss Thane. ‘He did come!’ she said. ‘Ludovic!’ She turned on the word, and fled upstairs, calling: ‘Ludovic, Ludovic, are you safe?’

Sir Hugh looked after her in somewhat irritated surprise. ‘French!’ he said. ‘All alike! What the devil does she want to fly into a pucker for?’

Nye had gone over to the window and was leaning out. He turned and said: ‘The shutter’s been wrenched off its hinge, and a pane of glass cut out clean as a whistle. That’s where he must have put his hand in to open the window. You didn’t get a sight of his face, sir?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ replied Sir Hugh, stooping to pick up the dagger at his feet. ‘I keep telling you he wore a mask. A loo-mask! If there’s one thing above others that I hate it’s a lot of demmed theatrical nonsense! What was the fellow playing at? Highwaymen?’

‘Perhaps,’ suggested Miss Thane tactfully, ‘he did not wish to run the risk of being recognized.’

‘I dare say he didn’t, and it’s my belief,’ said Sir Hugh, bending a severe frown upon her, ‘that you know who he was, Sally. It has seemed to me all along that there’s a deal going on here which is devilish unusual.’

‘Yes, dear,’ said Miss Thane, with becoming meekness. ‘I think your masked man was Ludovic’s wicked cousin come to murder him with that horrid-looking knife you have in your hand.’

‘There ain’t a doubt of it!’ growled Nye. ‘Look what’s here, ma’am!’ He went down on his knees as he spoke and picked fro

m under the table a scrap of lace, such as might have been ripped from a cravat, and an ornate gold quizzing-glass on a length of torn ribbon. ‘Have you ever seen that before?’

Sir Hugh took the glass from him, and inspected it disparagingly. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he said, ‘and what’s more, I don’t like it. It’s too heavily chased.’

Miss Thane nodded. ‘Of course I’ve seen it. But I was sure without that evidence. He must be feeling desperate indeed to have taken this risk!’

At this moment Eustacie came downstairs again, with Ludovic behind her. Ludovic, in a dressing-gown as exotic as Thane’s, looked amused, and rather sleepy, and dangled a pistol in his right hand. His eyes alighted first on the dagger, which Thane had laid on the table, and he put up his brows with a rueful expression of incredulity, and said: ‘What, was that pretty thing meant to be plunged into my heart? Well, well! What have you got there, Thane?’

‘Do you recognize it?’ said Miss Thane. ‘It is your cousin’s quizzing-glass.’

Ludovic glanced at it casually, but picked up the dagger. ‘Oh, is it? No, I can’t say I recognize it, but I dare say you’re right. To think of the Beau daring to come and tackle me with nothing better than this mediaeval weapon! It’s a damned impertinence, upon my soul it is!’

‘Depend upon it, he hoped to murder you while you slept, and so make no noise about it,’ said Miss Thane. ‘And do you know, for all I jested with Sir Tristram over it, I never really thought that he would come!’

Sir Hugh looked at Ludovic and said: ‘I wish you would be serious. Do you tell me it was really your cousin here to-night?’

‘Oh, devil a doubt!’ answered Ludovic, testing the dagger’s sharpness with one slender forefinger.

‘A cousin of yours masquerading about in a loo-mask?’

‘Was he?’ said Ludovic, interested. ‘Lord yes, that’s Basil all over! He’d run no risk of being recognized.’

‘And you think he came here to murder you in your bed?’ demanded Sir Hugh.

For answer, Ludovic held up the dagger.

Sir Hugh looked at it in profound silence, and then said weightily, ‘I’ll tell you what it is, Lavenham, he’s a demmed scoundrel. I never heard of such a thing!’

Eustacie, who had sunk into a chair, raised a very white face from her hands, and said in a low, fierce voice: ‘Yes, and if he does not go to the scaffold I myself will kill him! I will make a sacred vow to kill him!’