The Corinthian Page 10

  ‘I have ingenuity too,’ said Miss Creed, affronted.

  ‘Not a scrap,’ responded Sir Richard calmly.

  She swallowed this, saying in a small voice: ‘Very well, if I haven’t, I haven’t, but I wish you will explain.’

  ‘I feel sure you do,’ said Sir Richard. ‘But the truth is that I cannot. Not only does it appear to me to be a matter of uncommon delicacy, but it is also for the moment – a little obscure.’

  She sighed. ‘It does not seem fair, because it was I who found the necklace, after all! Who is the stammering-man? You may just as well tell me that, because Piers will, you know.’

  ‘Certainly. The stammering-man is the Honourable Beverley Brandon.’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know him,’ said Pen, rather disappointed.

  ‘You are to be congratulated.’

  ‘Is he an enemy of yours?’

  ‘An enemy! No!’

  ‘Well, you seem to dislike him very cordially.’

  ‘That does not make him my enemy. To be exact, he is the younger brother of the lady to whom I was to have been betrothed.’

  Pen looked aghast. ‘Good God, sir, can he have come in search of you?’

  ‘No, nothing of that kind. Indeed, Pen, I can’t tell you more, for the rest is conjecture.’ He met her disappointed look, and smiled down at her, gently pinching her chin. ‘Poor Pen! Forgive me!’

  A little colour stole up to the roots of her hair. ‘I do not mean to tease you. I expect you will tell me all about it when – when it isn’t conjecture.’

  ‘I expect I shall,’ he agreed. ‘But that will not be tonight, so be off with you to bed, child!’

  She went, but was back again a few minutes later, round-eyed and breathless. ‘Richard! He has found us! I have seen him! I am certain it was he!’

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Jimmy Yarde, of course! It was so hot in my room that I drew back the curtains to open the window, and the moon was so bright that I stood looking out for a minute. And there he was, directly below me! I could not mistake. And the worst is that I fear he saw me, for he drew back at once into the shadow of the house!’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ There was a gleam in Sir Richard’s eye. ‘Well, he is here sooner than I expected. A resourceful gentleman, Mr Jimmy Yarde!’

  ‘But what are we going to do? I am not in the least, afraid, but I should like to be told what you wish me to do!’

  ‘That is very easily done. I wish you to exchange bed-chambers with me. Show yourself again at the window of your own room, if you like, but on no account pull back the blinds in mine. I have a very earnest desire to meet Mr Jimmy Yarde.’

  Her dimples peeped. ‘I see! like the fairy-story! “Oh, Grandma, what big teeth you have!” What an adventure we are having! But you will take care, won’t you, sir?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And you will tell me all about it afterwards?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘If you don’t,’ said Pen, with deep feeling, ‘it will be the most unjust thing imaginable!’

  He laughed, and, seeing that there was no more to be got out of him, she went away again.

  An hour later, the candlelight vanished from the upper room with the open casements and the undrawn blinds, but it was two hours before Mr Yarde’s head appeared above the window-sill, and not a light shone in the village.

  The moon, sailing across a sky of deepest sapphire, cast a bar of silver across the floor of the chamber, but left the four-poster bed in shadow. The ascent, by way of the porch-roof, a stout drain-pipe, and a gnarled branch of wistaria, had been easy, but Mr Yarde paused before swinging a leg over the sill. His eye, trying to penetrate the darkness, encountered a drab driving-coat, hanging over the back of a chair placed full in the shaft of moonlight. He knew that coat, and a tiny sigh escaped him. He hoisted himself up, and noiselessly slid into the room. He had left his shoes below, and his stockinged-feet made no sound on the floor, as he crept across it.

  But there was no heavy leather sack-purse in the pocket of the driving-coat.

  He was disappointed, but he had been prepared for disappointment. He stole out of the moonlight to the bedside, listening to the sound of quiet breathing. No tremor disturbed its regularity, and after listening to it for a few minutes, he bent, and began cautiously to slide his hand under the dimly-seen pillow. The other, his right, grasped a muffler, which could be readily clapped over a mouth opened to utter a startled cry.

  The cry, hardly more than a croak, strangled at birth, was surprised out of himself, however, for, just as his sensitive fingers felt the object for which they were seeking, two iron hands seized him by the throat, and choked him.

  He tore quite unavailingly at the hold, realizing through the drumming in his ears, the bursting of his veins, and the pain in his temples, that he had made a mistake, that the hands crushing the breath out of him certainly did not belong to any stripling.

  Just as he seemed to himself to be losing possession of his senses, the grip slackened, and a voice he was learning to hate, said softly: ‘Your error, Mr Yarde!’

  He felt himself shaken and suddenly released, and, being quite powerless to help himself, fell to the floor and stayed there, making odd crowing noises as he got his wind back. By the time he had recovered sufficiently to struggle on to one elbow, Sir Richard had cast off the coverlet, and sprung out of bed. He was dressed in his shirt and breeches, as Mr Yarde’s suffused eyes saw, as soon as Sir Richard had relit the candle by his bed.

  Sir Richard laid aside the tinder-box, and glanced down at Mr Yarde. Jimmy’s vision was clearing; he was able to see that Sir Richard’s lips had curled into a somewhat contemptuous smile. He began gingerly to massage his throat, which felt badly bruised, and waited for Sir Richard to speak.

  ‘I warned you that I was a shockingly light sleeper,’ Sir Richard said.

  Jimmy cast him a malevolent look, but made no answer.

  ‘Get up!’ Sir Richard said. ‘You may sit on that chair, Mr Yarde, for we are going to enjoy a heart-to-heart talk.’

  Jimmy picked himself up. A glance in the direction of the window was enough to convince him that he would be intercepted before he could reach it. He sat down and drew the back of his hand across his brow.

  ‘Don’t let us misunderstand one another!’ Sir Richard said. ‘You came to find a certain diamond necklace, which you hid in my nephew’s coat this morning. There are just three things I can do with you. I can deliver you up to the Law.’

  ‘You can’t prove I come to fork the necklace, guv’nor,’ Jimmy muttered.

  ‘You think not? We may yet see. Failing the Bow Street Runner – but I feel he would be happy to take you into custody – I fancy a gentleman of the name of Trimble – ah, Horace Trimble, if my memory serves! – would be even happier to relieve me of you.’

  The mention of this name brought an expression of great uneasiness into Jimmy’s sharp countenance. ‘I don’t know him! Never heard of any such cove!’

  ‘Oh yes, I think you have!’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘I ain’t done you any harm, guv’nor, nor intended any! I’ll cap downright –’

  ‘You needn’t: I believe you.’

  Jimmy’s spirits began to lift. ‘Dang me if I didn’t say you was a leery cove! You wouldn’t be hard on a cull!’

  ‘That depends on the – er – cull. Which brings me, Mr Yarde, to the third course I might – I say, might, Mr Yarde – pursue. I can let you go.’

  Jimmy gasped, swallowed, and muttered hoarsely: ‘Spoke like the gentry-cove you are, guv’nor!’

  ‘Tell me what I want to know, and I will let you go,’ said Sir Richard.

  A wary look came into Jimmy’s eyes. ‘Split, eh? Lord bless you, there ain’t anything to tell you!’

  ‘It wi
ll perhaps make it easier for you if I inform you that I am already aware that you have been working in – somewhat uneasy partnership – with Mr Horace Trimble.’

  ‘Cap’n Trimble,’ corrected Jimmy.

  ‘I should doubt it. He, I take it, is the – er – flash cull – whom you referred to last night.’

  ‘I don’t deny it.’

  ‘Furthermore,’ said Sir Richard, ‘the pair of you were working for a young gentleman with a pronounced stammer. Ah, for a Mr Brandon, to be precise.’

  Jimmy had changed colour. ‘Stow your whids and plant ’em!’ he growled. ‘You’re too leery for me, see? Damme if I know what your lay is!’

  ‘That need not concern you. Think it over, Mr Yarde! Will you be handed over to Captain Trimble, or do you choose to go as you came, through that window?’

  Jimmy sat for a moment, still gently rubbing his throat, and looking sideways at Sir Richard. ‘Damn all flash culls!’ he said at last. ‘I’ll whiddle the whole scrap. I ain’t a bridle-cull, see? What you calls the High Toby. That ain’t my lay: I’m a rum diver. Maybe I’ve touched the rattler now and then, but I never went on the bridle-lay, not till a certain gentry-cove, which we knows of, tempted me. And I wish I hadn’t, see? Five hundred Yellow Boys I was promised, but not a grig will I get! He’s a rare gager, that gentry-cove! Dang me if I ever works with such again! He’s a bad ’un, guv’nor, you can lay your last megg on that!’

  ‘I am aware. Go on!’

  ‘There’s an old gentry-mort going to Bath, see? Lord love you, she was his own mother! Now, that’s what I don’t hold with, but it ain’t none of my business. Me and Cap’n Trimble holds up the chaise by Calne, or thereabouts. The necklace is in a hiding-place behind one of the squabs – ah, and rum squabs they was, all made out of red silk!’

  ‘Mr Brandon knew of this hiding-place, and told you?’

  ‘Lord love you, he made naught of that, guv’nor! We was to snaffle the necklace, and pike on the bean, see?’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  ‘Lope off as fast we could. Now, I don’t hold with violence, any gait, nor that stammering young chub neither. But Cap’n Trimble looses off his pops, and one of the outriders gets it in the wing. While the Cap’n’s a-covering the coves with his pops, I dubs the jigger – opens the door – and finds a couple of gentry-morts, hollering fit to rouse the countryside. I don’t take nothing but the necklace, see? I’m a peevy cove, and this ain’t my lay. I don’t like it. We pikes, and Cap’n Trimble he pushes his pop into my belly, and says to hand over the necklace. Well, I does so. I’m a peevy cove. I don’t hold with violence. Now, the lay is that we take them sparklers to that flash young boman prig, which is taking cover down here, with a regular green ’un, which he gets to know at Oxford. All’s Bob, then! But I’m leery, see? Seems to me I’m working with a flash file, and if he makes off with the sparklers, which I suspicion he will, my young chub don’t tip me my earnest. I forks the cove. Bristol’s the place for me, I thinks, and I gets on to the werry same rattler which you and your nevvy’s a-riding in. When that harman from Bow Street comes along, I thinks there’s a fastner out for me, and I tips the cole to Adam Tiler, as you might say.’

  ‘You placed the necklace in my nephew’s pocket?’

  ‘That’s it, guv’nor. No harman won’t suspicion a young shaver like him, I thinks. But you and he lopes off unbeknownst, and I comes to this place. Oh, I knew you was a peevy cull! So I touts the case, see?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Runs my winkers over the house,’ said Jimmy impatiently. ‘I see your young shaver at this werry window – I should have remembered that you was a peevy cove, guv’nor.’

  ‘You should indeed. However, you have told me what I wish to know, and you are now at liberty to – er – pike on the bean.’

  ‘Spoke like the gentry-cove you are!’ said Jimmy hoarsely. ‘I’m off ! And no hard feelings!’

  It did not take him long to climb out of the window. He waved his hand with cheerful impudence, and disappeared from Sir Richard’s sight.

  Sir Richard undressed, and went to bed.

  The boots, who brought up his blue coat in the morning, and his top-boots, was a little surprised to find that he had exchanged bedchambers with his supposed nephew, but accepted his explanation that he disliked his original apartment with only an inward shrug. The Quality, he knew, were full of whims and oddities.

  Sir Richard looked through his glass at his coat, which he had sent downstairs to be pressed, and said he felt sure the unknown presser had done his best. He next levelled the eyeglass at his top-boots, and sighed. But when he was asked if there were anything amiss, he said No, nothing: it was good for a man to be removed occasionally from civilization.

  The top-boots stood side by side, glossily black and without a speck upon them of dust, or mud. Sir Richard shook his head sadly, and sighed again. He was missing his man, Biddle, in whose ingenious brain lay the secret of polishing boots so that you could see your face reflected in them.

  But to anyone unacquainted with the art of Biddle Sir Richard’s appearance, when he presently descended the stairs, left little to be desired. There were no creases in the blue coat, his cravat would have drawn approval from Mr Brummell himself, and his hair was brushed into that state of cunning disorder known as the Wind-swept Style.

  As he rounded the bend in the stair-case, he heard Miss Creed exchanging friendly salutations with a stranger. The stranger’s voice betrayed his identity to Sir Richard, whose eyes managed, for all their sleepiness, to take very good stock of Captain Trimble.

  Sir Richard came down the last flight in a leisurely fashion, and interrupted Miss Creed’s harmless remarks, by saying in his most languid tone: ‘My good boy, I wish you will not converse with strangers. It is a most lamentable habit. Rid yourself of it, I beg!’

  Pen looked round in surprise. It occurred to her that she had not known that her protector could sound so haughty, or look so – yes, so insufferably proud!

  Captain Trimble turned too. He was a fleshy man, with a coarse, florid sort of good-looks, and a rather loud taste in dress. He said jovially: ‘Oh, I don’t mind the lad’s talking to me!’

  Sir Richard’s hand sought his quizzing-glass, and raised it. It was said in haut-ton circles that the two deadliest weapons against all forms of pretension were Mr Brummell’s lifted eyebrow, and Sir Richard Wyndham’s quizzing-glass. Captain Trimble, though thick-skinned, was left in no doubt of its blighting message. His cheeks grew dark, and his jaw began to jut belligerently.

  ‘And who might you be, my fine buck?’ he demanded.

  ‘I might be a number of different persons,’ drawled Sir Richard.

  Pen’s eyes were getting rounder and rounder, for it appeared to her that this new and haughty Sir Richard was deliberately trying to provoke Captain Trimble into quarrelling with him.

  For a moment it seemed as though he would succeed. Captain Trimble started forward, with his fists clenched, and an ugly look on his face. But just as he was about to speak, his expression changed, and he stopped in his tracks, and ejaculated: ‘You’re Beau Wyndham! Well, I’ll be damned!’

  ‘The prospect,’ said Sir Richard, bored, ‘leaves me unmoved.’

  With the discovery of Sir Richard’s identity, the desire to come to blows with him seemed to have deserted the Captain. He gave a somewhat unconvincing laugh, and said that there was no offence.

  The quizzing-glass focused upon his waistcoat. A shudder visibly shook Sir Richard. ‘You mistake – believe me, you mistake, sir. That waistcoat is an offence in itself.’

  ‘Oh, I know you dandies!’ said the Captain waggishly. ‘You’re full of quips. But we shan’t quarrel over a little thing like that. Oh, no!’

  The quizzing-glass fell. ‘I am haunted by waistcoats,’ Sir Richard complained. ‘There was something w
ith tobine stripes at Reading, horrible to any person of taste. There was a mustard-coloured nightmare at – Wroxham was it? No. I fancy, if memory serves me, Wroxham was rendered hideous by a catskin disaster with pewter buttons. The mustard-coloured nightmare came later. And now, to crown all –’

  ‘Catskin?’ interrupted Captain Trimble, his eyes fixed intently upon that disdainful countenance. ‘Catskin, did you say?’

  ‘Pray do not keep on repeating it!’ said Sir Richard. ‘The very thought of it –’

  ‘Look’ee, sir, I’m by way of being interested in a catskinwaistcoat myself ! Are you sure it was at Wroxham you sawit?’

  ‘A catskin waistcoat on its way to Bristol,’ said Sir Richard dreamily.

  ‘Bristol! Damme, I never thought – I thank you, Sir Richard! I thank you very much indeed!’ said Captain Trimble, and plunged down the passage leading to the stable-yard at the back of the inn.

  Sir Richard watched him go, a faint, sweet smile on his lips. ‘There, now!’ he murmured. ‘An impetuous gentleman, I fear. Let it be a lesson to you, brat, not to confide too much in strangers.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ said Pen. ‘I merely –’

  ‘But he did,’ Sir Richard said. ‘A few chance words let fall from my tongue, and our trusting acquaintance is already calling for his horse. I want my breakfast.’

  ‘But why have you sent him to Bristol?’ Pen demanded.

  ‘Well, I wanted to get rid of him,’ he replied, strolling into the parlour.

  ‘I thought you were trying to pick a quarrel with him.’

  ‘I was, but he unfortunately recognized me. A pity. It would have given me a good deal of pleasure to have put him to sleep. However, I dare say it has all turned out for the best. I should have been obliged to have tied him up somewhere, which would have been a nuisance, and might have led to future complications. I shall be obliged to leave you for a short space this morning, by the way.’

  ‘Do, please, sir, stop being provoking!’ begged Pen. ‘Did you see Jimmy Yarde last night, and what happened?’

  ‘Oh yes, I saw him! Really, I don’t think anything of particular moment happened.’