3. Lord Shortlands to be O. C. Robbs.
His task was to smuggle Augustus Robb into his bedroom and there ply him with drink until in his, Augustus's, opinion his nerve was back in the midseason form of the old days. He would then conduct him to the study, reporting there at one-fifteen. This would allow five minutes for a pep talk from the general in charge of operations, eight minutes for the breaking of the window and the chisel marks and two for getting upstairs. A margin would also be left for kicking Augustus Robb, should he render this necessary by ringing in that conscience of his again.
4. Stanwood was to go to bed.
And darned well stay there. Because, though it was impossible to say offhand just how, if permitted to be present, he would gum the game, that he would somehow find a way of doing so was certain.
5. Terry was to go to bed, too.
Because in moments of excitement she had the extraordinary habit of squeaking like a basketful of puppies, and in any case in an enterprise of this kind girls were in the way. (Seconded by Lord Shortlands, who said that in the mystery thriller which Desborough Topping had given him for his birthday the detective had been seriously hampered in his activities by the adhesiveness of a girl named Mabel, who had hair the color of ripe wheat.)
6. Terry was to stop arguing and do as she was told.
Discussion on this point threatened for a time to become acrimonious, but on Mike challenging her to deny that her hair was the color of ripe wheat she had been obliged to yield.
Nevertheless, as the clock over the stable struck the hour of one, Terry was lying on the sofa in the study, reading the second of the three volumes of a novel entitled Percy's Promise, by Marcia Huddlestone (Popgood and Grooly, 1869). She had found it lying on the table and had picked it up for want of anything better. She was looking charming in pajamas, a kimono and mules.
At three minutes past the hour Lord Shortlands entered, looking charming in pajamas, a dressing gown and slippers. His eyes, as always in times of emotion, were protruding, and at the sight of his daughter they protruded still further.
"Good Lord, Terry! What are you doing here?"
"Just reading, darling, to while away the time."
"But Cardinal said you were to go to bed."
"So he did, didn't he? Bless my soul, what a nerve that young man has, to be sure. Bed, indeed! Well, you certainly have got a frightful collection of books, Shorty. There wasn't anything in your shelves published later than 1870."
"Eh? Oh, those aren't mine," said Lord Shortlands. He spoke absently. While he deplored his child's presence, it had just occurred to him what an admirable opportunity this was for speaking that word in season. "My old uncle's."
"Did he like Victorian novels?"
"I suppose so."
"I believe you do, too. This one was lying on the table, obviously recently perused."
"Young Cardinal borrowed it, and returned it this afternoon. He said it had given him food for thought. I don't know what he meant. Terry," said Lord Shortlands, welcoming the cue, "I've been thinking about young Cardinal."
"Have you, angel? He rather thrusts himself on the attention, doesn't he?"
"He's a smart chap."
"Yes. I suppose he would admit that himself."
"Look at the way he baffled Spink."
"Very adroit."
"Brave as a lion, too. Faces Adela without a tremor."
"What's all this leading up to, darling?"
"Well, I was—er—wondering if by any chance you might be beginning to change your mind about him."
"Oh, I see."
"Are you?"
"No."
"Ho," said Lord Shortlands, damped.
There was a pause. The thing was not going quite so well as the fifth earl had hoped.
"Why not?"
"There's a reason."
"I'm dashed it I can see what it is. I should have thought he would have been just the chap for you. Rich. Good-looking. Amusing. And loves you like the dickens. You can tell that by the way he looks at you. Its's a sort of—how shall I describe it?"
"A sort of melting look?"
"That's right. You've got it first shot. A sort of melting look."
"And your complaint is that it doesn't melt me?"
"Exactly."
"Well, I'll tell you something, Shorty. I am by no means insensible, as the heroine of Percy's Promise would say, to this look you mention. It may interest you to know that it goes through me like a burning dart."
"It does?" cried Lord Shortlands, greatly encouraged. This was more the sort of stuff he wanted to hear.
"It seems to pump me full of vitamines. It makes me feel as if the sun was shining and my hat was right and my shoes right and my frock was right and my stockings were right and somebody had just left me ten thousand a year."
"Well, then."
"Not so fast, my pet. Wait for the epilog. But all the same I'm not going to let myself fall in love with him. I don't feel that I have exclusive rights in that look of his."
"I don't follow you."
"I fancy I have to share it with a good many other girls."
"You mean you think he's one of these—er—flippertygibbets?"
"Yes, if a flippertygibbet is a man who can't help making love to every girl he meets who's reasonably pretty."
"But he says he's loved you since you were fifteen or whatever it was."
"He has to say something, to keep the conversation going."
"But what makes you feel like that about him?"
"Instinct. I think young Mike Cardinal is a butterfly, Shorty; the kind that flits from flower to flower and sips. I strongly suspect him of having been flitting and sipping this afternoon. Did you see him when he came back from the great city?"
"No. I was giving Whiskers his run."
"Well, I did. We had quite a chat. And the air for yards about him was heavy with some strange, exotic scent, as if he had been having his coat sleeve pawed at for hours by some mysterious, exotic female. I'm not blaming him, mind you. It's not his fault that he looks like a Greek god. And if women chuck themselves at his feet, it's only natural that he should pick them up. Still, you can understand my being a little wary. He thrills me, Shorty, but all the time there's a prudent side of me, a sort of Terry Cobbold in spectacles and mittens, that whispers that no good ever comes of getting entangled with Greek gods. I mistrust men who are too good-looking. In short, my heart inclines to Mike Cardinal, but my head restrains me. I suppose I feel about him pretty much as Mrs. Punter feels about Spink."
Lord Shortlands puffed unhappily.
"Well, I think you're making a great mistake."
"So do I—sometimes."
"About that scent. He probably rubbed up against some woman."
"That is what I fear."
"You ought to marry him."
"Why do you want me to so much?"
"Well, dash it, I like the chap."
"So do I."
"And have you considered what's going to happen after this fellow Robb has got that stamp? I get married and go off and leave you here alone with Adela—if, as you say, and I think you're right, Clare's going to collar Blair. You'll hate it. You'll be miserable, old girl. Why don't you marry the chap?"
The picture he had drawn of a Shorty-less Beevor Castle had not failed to make its impression on Terry. It was something she had not thought of. She was considering it with a frown, when the door opened and Mike came in.
Mike was looking tense and solemn. He was a young man abundantly equipped with what he called sang-froid and people who did not like him usually alluded to as gall, but tonight's operations were making him feel like a nervous impresario just before an opening. In another quarter of an hour the curtain would be going up, and the sense of his responsibility for the success of the venture weighed upon him. At the sight of Terry and of a Lord Shortlands unaccompanied by Augustus Robb he started visibly.