Farnaby’s hands clenched; he leaned forward. “Damn you, shut your mouth!” he whispered. “You daren’t say I was hired!”
Worth raised his brows. “What makes you think that?” he inquired.
“You can’t say it!”
“On the contrary, I can say it with the greatest ease, my good Farnaby, and if you give me any trouble I shall say it. And, my credit being good with the world, as I have already pointed out to you, I think my word will be believed before yours. We will put it to the test, if you like.”
Farnaby was rather white; he looked at the Earl with a good deal of fear in his eyes, and said breathlessly: “Everyone knows what happened! Taverner’s cock was squeezed, and I said so, and I’ll have you know, my lord, there are dozens who will bear me out that it was so! Taverner struck me, I sent him a cartel, and that is the whole story!”
“Not quite the whole story,” said Worth. “You forgot to add that through your bungling folly the duel was stopped.”
“If we were informed against that was not my fault,” said Farnaby sulkily.
“There I take leave to differ from you,” said Worth coolly. “To force a duel on Sir Peregrine Taverner was one thing, but to do it in such a public spot as the Cock-Pit Royal was quite another. Those were not your instructions, I think. I find it hard to believe that even you could do such a stupid thing, Farnaby. Did it not occur to you that at the Cock-Pit there must be any number of persons who might consider it their duty to carry the tidings to the proper quarter? Yet that is precisely what happened. You have blundered, Farnaby, and that ends your part in the affair.”
Farnaby was staring at the Earl as though fascinated. “You’re a devil!” he said chokingly. “You can’t say I was hired! I’ve not touched a penny for it!”
“Not only have you not touched a penny of it, but you are not going to touch a penny,” said Worth, taking another pinch of snuff, and dusting his fingers with a fine handkerchief. “You were not hired to put Sir Peregrine on his guard. Had you succeeded—but you did not succeed, Farnaby, so why should we waste time in idle conjecture? What I am endeavouring to point out to you is that though the reward has still to be earned, you are not the man to earn it.”
Farnaby swallowed something in his throat. “What do you mean?” he asked weakly.
“I mean, Farnaby, that the task of disposing of Sir Peregrine must be left to some less clumsy hireling,” said the Earl pleasantly. “I am persuaded you will perceive that any further attempt made by you on his life would bear an extremely suspicious appearance.”
“Do you suggest—do you dare to suggest that I would—I’m not a common cut-throat, my lord!”
“You will have to forgive me for misjudging you,” said Worth scathingly. “The scruples of persons of your kidney are, alas, hidden from me. Do not touch my snuff-box, if you please, or I shall be obliged to throw the rest of its contents into the fire!”
Farnaby, who had stretched his hand out absently towards the box, drew back with a start and flushed to the roots of his hair at the note of cold contempt in the Earl’s voice. “You are insulting, my lord! You come here to threaten me, but you won’t put this on me, let me tell you!”
“No?” said the Earl, raising his eyes. “No?”
Farnaby tried to give back that long, cool look, but his own eyes shifted under the Earl’s and fell. “No,” he said uncertainly. “No, by God, you won’t! If you dare to accuse me—if you try to put it on me, do you think I shall have nothing to say? I shan’t suffer alone, I—” He broke off and moistened his lips.
Worth was sitting very still in his chair; his glance never wavered from Farnaby’s face. “Go on, Mr. Farnaby,” he said. “I am waiting to hear what it is you will say.”
“Nothing!” Farnaby said quickly.
“Not even the name of the man who hired you?” said the Earl softly.
“Nothing, I tell you! No one hired me!”
The Earl shut his snuff-box. “No doubt you are wise,” he said. “He might—who knows?—take steps to put you out of the way, might he not? And I am afraid that even if you had the courage to divulge his name it would not be of very much use. It would be your word against his, Farnaby, and to be honest with you I hardly think yours would be heeded. You see, I have considered all that.”
“No need!” Farnaby said, glaring at him. “I’ve told you I shall divulge nothing!”
“I am glad to find that you have such a wholesome regard for your skin,” murmured Worth. “I hope that it may prompt you to keep away from Sir Peregrine in the future. I should go into the country for a while, if I were you. I have an odd notion that if anything were to happen to him while you were in town you might suffer for it.”
Farnaby forced out a laugh. “Very interesting, my lord, but I’m no believer in premonitions!”
“Ah!” said the Earl. “But that was more in the nature of a promise, Farnaby. One blunder may be forgiven; a second would prove fatal.” He rose and picked up his gloves and cane. “That is all I wanted to say to you.”
Farnaby jumped up. “Wait, my lord!” he said, gripping the edge of the table and seeming to search for words.
“Well?” said the Earl.
Farnaby licked his lips. “I could be of use to you!” he said desperately.
“You are mistaken,” said the Earl in a tone that struck a chill into Farnaby’s veins. “No man who has bungled once is of the least use to me.”
Farnaby sank down into his chair again, looking after the Earl’s tall figure with an expression of mingled venom and despair in his eyes. Worth strolled away towards the parlour door.
He had not reached it when his gaze alighted on the figure of a gentleman who had entered the tavern a few minutes earlier, and was standing at the other end of the tap-room, fixedly regarding him.
The Earl checked, gently put aside a slightly inebriated sailor who was in his way, and walked across the room to the newcomer. “Your servant, Mr. Taverner,” he said.
Mr. Taverner bowed formally. “Good evening, Lord Worth.”
The fingers of the Earl’s right hand began to play with the riband of his quizzing-glass. “Well, Mr. Taverner, what is it?” he asked.
Bernard Taverner raised his brows. “What is it?” he repeated. “What is what, my lord?”
“You seemed to me to be much interested in my movements,” said Worth. “Or am I at fault?”
“Interested ...” said Mr. Taverner. “I was not so much interested, sir, as surprised, since you ask me.”
“To find me here? I am often to be seen in Cribb’s Parlour,” replied the Earl.
“I am aware of it. What I was not aware of, and which, I must confess, occasioned some surprise in me, was that you are also to be seen in such company as Farnaby’s.”
This was said plainly enough, and with a straight look that met Worth’s cynical gaze squarely. It did not, however, appear to embarrass the Earl. “Ah, but I frequently find myself in strange company at Cribb’s, Mr. Taverner,” he said.
Taverner’s lips tightened. After a moment’s silence he said in a measured way: “You will admit, Lord Worth, that to see you in conversation with a person who only this morning set out to fight a duel with your ward must present a very odd appearance. Or are you perhaps in ignorance of to-day’s releager?”
The Earl’s fingers slid down the riband to the shaft of his quizzing-glass. He raised it. “No, Mr. Taverner, I was not in ignorance of it.”
There was another silence, during which Bernard Taverner seemed to be trying to read what thoughts might lie behind the Earl’s suave manner. “You were not in ignorance, and yet—”
“Curiously enough,” said Worth, “it was on that very subject that I have been talking to Mr. Farnaby.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes,” said the Earl. “But why should we fence, Mr. Taverner? You suspect me, I think, of taking a large interest in the affaire Farnaby, and you are quite right. I have informed him—and I believe he understood me tolerably well—that his part is played. So you must not worry about him, my dear sir.”