The Bet

“Now, about that letter, care to show me what you received?”

Myles dug deep into his pocket to retrieve the missive he had shoved in there before he had left London. He handed it to his sire, and watched Barnabas read it.

“This is a reasonable parody of Gerald’s hand, I’ll grant you. But it isn’t his,” Barnabas murmured as he squinted at the paper. “I can see how you were fooled.”

“I don’t understand why anybody would want to send it,” Myles replied with a sigh. He knew from the pensive look on his father’s face that he was thinking carefully about something that was deeply troubling.

“I do,” Barnabas muttered.

Before he could say anything else the study door opened.

Myles stood and turned to look at the new arrival.

“Good God, it’s you,” he murmured, and sat back down again with a heavy thump.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Evening.”

“I thought you were in Scotland,” Myles said with a frown.

He watched Gerald and Barnabas trade a look before Gerald closed the door and came to join them.

“I was about to leave,” Gerald replied.

Myles waited for his uncle to explain further but Barnabas spoke instead.

“Come and sit down, Gerald, and look at this. I take it that you didn’t send it?”

Barnabas handed the letter to his brother and watched a look of complete astonishment sweep over Gerald’s face that was so instinctive Barnabas knew immediately that his brother knew nothing about it.

“I don’t know who sent this but it certainly isn’t me,” Gerald announced flatly as he slapped it down onto the small table beside Barnabas and went to pour himself a large brandy. “I should like to know who has sent that in my name, though. I shall have the cretins in front of a magistrate, I don’t mind telling you.”

“I hope you don’t mind my being a trifle rude, uncle, but what brings you here? I thought you were off to Scotland to the hunting lodge,” Myles asked once Gerald had taken a seat on the chaise between him and his father.

“I was, but then I received this.” Gerald dug around in the pocket of his waistcoat and handed a folded sheet of parchment to Myles.

Myles felt a familiar sinking sensation when he read Gerald’s name written in the same scrawling script as his own note. Curious, and growing increasingly worried by the second, he read it fully.

Dear Uncle,

Father has taken poorly. It is serious, I am afraid. Please hurry to the hall, he is asking for you. I fe

ar the worst will be upon us soon.

Yours,

Myles.

“Good Lord,” Myles muttered. He read the missive one more time before he picked up the letter he had received and placed both pieces of parchment side by side on a table between them so they could all look at them. “They have definitely been written by the same hand, and it isn’t my handwriting either.”

“Why would anybody do this?” Barnabas asked looking every inch as concerned as Myles felt.

“Well, they wanted us here, in this house, didn’t they?” Gerald snorted. “And they got us here too. I mean, what better way could they use to get us both to rush over here like fools? I don’t know about you but I dropped everything, and I was just about to leave for my hunting break as well.”

“While I am deeply touched that you would both be so determined to see me in my final hours, I am strangely disconcerted that someone is putting about news of my imminent demise,” Barnabas grumbled.

“Why would someone want us to come here? I was only here three days ago. It seems foolhardy to wait until I reached London, and then go to the time and trouble of sending a note all that way to call me back here, just as some kind of game.”