“Certainly not!” said the thin man. “Dear me, no! One only felt that Ware’s reserve was a trifle marked.”
“Fustian!” said Gaywood angrily. “Ten to one, Sale told him the whole, and pledged him to secrecy!”
“Which,” said Cliveden dryly, “brings us back to the riddle of what is the whole? You will own, Gaywood, that for a man of Sale’s position—indeed, for any man!—suddenly to disappear, leaving behind him no message, and no clue to his whereabouts, is something a little out of the ordinary. If rumour is to be believed, he has gone without his valet, or his baggage, or any of his horses. That may do very well for some nameless vagrant, but will hardly do for Sale! No! I must continue to hold by the opinion that there is something excessively smokey about the whole affair. And without wishing to say one word to Ware’s detriment, I feel that considering the peculiar position in which he stands he would do well to be frank.” He spread out his hands, and smiled deprecatingly at Lord Gaywood. “One cannot but feel it to be a singular circumstance that Aveley here should have met Sale actually on his way to dine with his cousin, do not you agree?”
“No, I do not!” snapped Lord Gaywood, and flung out of the room.
He did not find Captain Ware in the club, and learned upon enquiry that he had strolled across the street to the Guard’s Club not ten minutes earlier. Lord Gaywood followed him there, and sent up his name. In due course, Gideon came downstairs. Some imp of malice was grinning in his eyes, and it struck Lord Gaywood, watching him descend the staircase, that he looked rather saturnine. But he was so dark that it was, after all, easy for him to look saturnine. A smile flickered on his mouth; he said in innocent surprise: “Now what, Charlie?”
Lord Gaywood had come in search of him in the spirit of impetuosity which had more than once precipitated him into awkward situations, and he suddenly found it hard to say what was in his mind. However, it was clearly impossible to withdraw leaving it unsaid, so he drew a breath, and said abruptly: “I want a word with you, Gideon!”
Captain Ware looked more than ever amused. “By all means!” he said, and led the way to a small room, which at this hour of the day was deserted. As he closed the door, he said gently: “I murdered him, you know, and buried his body under the fifth stair.”
Lord Gaywood jumped, and coloured hotly. “Damn you, Gideon, I never had such a thought in my head! Stop bamboozling! But where is Gilly?”
“I have not the most distant guess,” replied Gideon.
“Well, if you say so, of course I believe you! But the thing is people have begun to talk, and it ain’t pleasant! I thought I would warn you. Cliveden’s been saying that you’re mighty cool over the business, and there’s no denying that it’s queer, whichever way one looks at it! Naturally, if Gilly took you into his confidence there’s no reason why you should be worrying. But if he did not—” He paused, but Gideon only shook his head. “Well, if he did not, don’t you think he may have met with foul play?”
“No. I have a better opinion of Gilly’s ability to take care of himself.”
“But, Gideon, what should take him to go off like that?” objected Gaywood.
“Perhaps he found life a dead bore,” suggested Gideon.
“That’s a loud one!” remarked Gaywood scornfully. “Why the devil should a man with Sale’s fortune find life, a dead bore?”
“I think it conceivable that he might.”
“I know there never was such a fellow for being hipped,” agreed Gaywood, “but, dash it all, he is but this instant become engaged to my sister, and if you mean to tell me that that has cast him into despondency—”
“Oh, take a damper, Charlie!” recommended Gideon. “Gilly was never a gabster, and no doubt but that he has some very good reason for leaving town which he has not seen fit to divulge to any of us. For anything I know, he has gone to Bath, in a spirit of knight-errantry!”
“Well, I shall soon discover that,” said Gaywood. “I’m going there myself.” He hesitated, casting Gideon a sidelong look.
“Let me know the worst!” said Gideon.
His lordship took the plunge. “Gideon, Aveley is saying that he met Gilly last night, on his way to dine with you!”
“Is he, indeed?” said Gideon.
“It seemed to me that I could do no less than tell you of it,” explained Gaywood, defensively.
“I thank you, Charlie. But I have nothing to add, you know.”
“Oh, very well!” said Gaywood. “But I’ll tell you this! The town will be in an uproar soon!”
Gideon laughed, and his lordship, nettled, picked up his hat, and took his leave of him. Gideon went on laughing.
By nightfall, Lord Lionel had reached London, and was at Sale House, demanding an explanation of Mr. Scriven’s letter to him, which he had no hesitation in calling a nonsensical piece of balderdash. “Where,” barked his lordship, “is his Grace?”
Captain Belper, who, in expectation of Lord Lionel’s arrival, had presented himself at Sale House some time earlier, replied earnestly: “My lord, would to God I knew!”
Lord Lionel had as little liking for the dramatic as Mr. Scriven, and he snorted. “No need to be acting any Cheltenham tragedies, sir!” he said dampingly. “I make no doubt this is a piece of work about nothing! In fact, I was of two minds whether I should come to town, for I depended upon your having comfortable tidings by this time, and to be running about the country after my nephew is the outside of enough!”
Everyone wilted a little at this testy speech. It was left to Mr. Scriven to say: “Only we have no comfortable tidings, my lord.”
“Well, well!” said his lordship, in a tone of displeasure, “I don’t know why you should find it so wonderful that a young man should choose to go off on some business of his own without admitting all of you into his confidence! It vexes me that he should not have taken Nettlebed, for he should not be travelling about without his valet, and so I shall tell him. But there is nothing in that to put you all in a fidget!”
“I think your lordship does not perfectly understand,” replied Scriven. “His Grace cannot have meditated a journey, forhe took no baggage with him, not so much as a valise! And Nettlebed will inform you that his Grace’s brushes, combs—every article appertaining to his toilet, in fact!—are still in his bedchamber here.”
His lordship appeared to be quite thunderstruck by this disclosure, but as soon as he had recovered the use of his tongue, he wheeled about to direct an accusing glare at Nettlebed, and to demand what the devil he meant by it. Nettlebed could only shake his head wretchedly. “Upon my word!” said Lord Lionel terribly. “This is a pretty piece of work! A very ill-managed business I must deem it when with I know not how many of you to care for my nephew he can disappear, and not one of you able to tell me where be is gone!”
At this point it seemed good to Captain Belper to divulge his fear that the Duke had been engaged to fight a duel. Lord Lionel lost no time in demolishing this theory. There was never, he said, anyone less quarrelsome than the Duke; and how, he would thank the Captain to tell him, had he found the time to be picking a quarrel since he came to London? He brushed aside the question of the pistols: if the Duke had a hobby, it was for shooting, and if he might not purchase a pair of pistols without being suspected of having become embroiled in an affair of honour things had come to a pretty pass.
Chigwell ventured to say:—“Yes, my lord, but—but his Grace took the pistols with him. The porter handed the package to him just before he left the house, and he took it into the library, and unwrapped it, for the wrappings were found upon the floor there. But not—not the pistols, my lord!”
“My dread is that my Lord Duke has had the misfortune to wound his adversary fatally,” said Captain Belper, “and has perhaps fled to France to escape the dreadful consequences.”
Lord Lionel seemed to have difficulty in controlling himself. An alarmingly high colour rose to his face, and after champing his jaws for a moment or two, he uttered in outraged accents: “This is beyond everything!”