The Quiet Gentleman

another accident on your way here? Good God, you must know the risks you run!'

'I am not afraid of being ambushed today,' replied the Earl. 'Martin went to Grantham, and Chard with him. Even if he has by now returned to Stanyon, Chard is still watching him. He won't let him out of his sight until he sees me safe home again.' He paused, and for a moment or two there was silence, broken only by the sound of a horse's hooves somewhere in the distance, and the measured ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. 'So, you see, Theo, I had nothing to fear in driving over to see you.'

The sound of hooves was growing momently more distinct; the Earl slightly turned his head, listening.

'Well! I am glad to know you took that precaution at least!' said Theo. 'But who is watching Hickling? Did you think of that?'

'Why, no!' replied Gervase. 'Hickling is certainly devoted to Martin, but I hardly think he would commit murder to oblige him!'

He rose from his chair as he spoke, and walked to the window. The hooves were pounding up the carriage- sweep. 'What is it?' Theo asked. 'Has Chard come to look for you?'

The Earl's right hand had been hidden in the pocket of his driving-coat. He withdrew it, and his cousin saw that it held a silver-mounted pistol. 'No,' he said, in an odd voice, 'but I seem to have been out in my reckoning! I am no longer safe from the strange accidents that befall me.'

'Good God, Gervase, what do you mean? Who is it?' exclaimed Theo, starting up.

'It is Martin,' said the Earl, turning, so that he faced the room, his back against the wall.

'Martin! But, my dear Gervase, he would never—'

Theo broke off, silenced by a lifted finger. Martin's voice could be heard in the hall, fiercely interrogating Allenby.

'How rash! how witless of him!' sighed the Earl.

Hasty footsteps were crossing the hall; the door burst open, and Martin came impetuously into the room, and slammed the door shut again with one careless, backward thrust of his hand.

'Don't move, Martin!' said the Earl warningly.

'St. Erth! Don't you see?—don't you understand?' Martin cried. 'It's not me you need beware of!'

'Yes, I do understand,' Gervase said. 'Better than you, it seems! You young fool, what if a shot were to be fired in this room, and Allenby ran in to find me dead, and you struggling with Theo? Do you think anyone would believe that it was Theo and not you who had shot me?'

'Are you mad?' Theo demanded harshly.

'No, I am neither mad nor fevered. See if he carries a pistol, Martin, if you please!'

'By all means! You will find that I am quite unarmed!'

Martin moved away from the door, and went behind him, feeling his pockets. He shook his head. 'No: nothing.'

The Earl lowered his own pistol. 'Then, between us, we will settle this affair,' he said.

'Are you, in all seriousness, accusing me—me!—of having tried to murder you?' Theo said. 'It is preposterous! a sick man's fantasy!'

'I had rather have called it a nightmare, Theo.'

'What, in God's name, have I to gain by your death?'

'Nothing, if Martin were not implicated in it. If it could be made to appear that he had murdered me, everything you most care for!'

'If this is not madness, it must be fever! Was it I who resented your existence? Was it I who openly wished you had been killed in Spain? Or was it I who took care of your interests, and warned you, when you first came home to Stanyon, to be on your guard?'

'Were they my interests, Theo, or did you see them as your own?'

Martin, who had coloured vividly at his cousin's words, interrupted, stammering a little. 'Yes, I did resent his existence! I d-daresay I may have said I wished he had been killed! I don't know! it's very possible! But I never meant—I would never, even then, when I scarcely knew him, have tried to murder him!'

'Indeed?' Theo said swiftly. 'Have you, as well as Gervase, forgotten what I saw when the button was lost from your foil? Were you not trying to murder him then?'

'No, no! I lost my temper—I did try for one moment—

But I wouldn't have—Gervase, you made me go on fighting! I had recollected myself long before you disarmed me! I wasn't trying to kill you!'

'My dear Martin, I know very well you would have dropped your point at a word from me. It was mistaken of me not to have spoken that word. But I did not then guess that I was helping you to build up evidence against yourself.' He smiled faintly. 'You scarcely needed help, did you? If you had had to stand your trial for murder, I wonder if the jury would have reflected that your open hostility to me made it very unlikely that you could ever have had the least intention of killing me?'

'No!' Martin muttered. 'You suspected me!'

'Yes, after the first attempt, I did suspect you, for that would have seemed to have been an accident, I thought.'

'First attempt?' Martin exclaimed. 'Was there more than one, then?'

'Yes, there was more than one!' Theo struck in. 'There was a broken bridge, Martin, which you knew of, and never mentioned to Gervase, though you knew he would ride over it! It was I who saved him that time! I think you have forgotten that, St. Erth!'

'Nonsense, Theo! Even had you thought I should be drowned, I am sure you would have called me back. Martin could have been accused of nothing worse than carelessness. He neither broke the bridge, nor sent me to ride over it.'

'Did I also stretch a cord across your path? If there were any truth in your suspicions, that incident alone must prove my innocence! You yourself have said that it would have seemed an accident! How might that have served my ends?'

'I said that so I thought at the time,' replied the Earl gently. 'But if chance had not intervened, in the person of Miss Morville, not only should I have been despatched, but I think you would have contrived to supply evidence against Martin. Did you not do so once before?'

'When?' demanded Martin sharply.

Theo uttered a bark of laughter. 'You may well ask!'

'On the night of the storm,' said Gervase, 'when I am very sure that you entered my room by way of the secret stair, and dropped one of Martin's handkerchiefs beside my bed.'

'Why—why—that night?' Martin exclaimed. 'The night I went to Cheringham? I remember that you gave me back a handkerchief! You said I had dropped it. I thought you meant I had done so on the gallery!'

The Earl shook his head. 'I found it in my room. I think you meant only to leave it if you succeeded in accomplishing your purpose, Theo. Perhaps you were startled by the slamming of the door which must have roused me. Was that it? Or was it my awakening that alarmed you?'

'Really, Gervase, this goes beyond the line of what is amusing! What possible grounds can you have for assuming that because you fancied you heard someone in your room, and later found a handkerchief of Martin's by your bed, it must have been I who had been there? It is nothing but a wild story imagined by you to lend colour to the rest of your absurd suspicions!'

'Not quite,' answered Gervase. 'I have an excellent memory, Theo. I recall very vividly what passed between us on the following day. How was it that, although you had warned me to beware of Martin, you did not, when I told you that I believed him to have been in my room that night, warn me that there was a way into the room of which I knew nothing?'

There was a moment's silence before Theo retorted: 'Good God, how should I have guessed that you were ignorant of it? That old stair! I never even thought of it!'

'That won't fadge!' Martin interrupted. 'If Gervase told you someone had entered his room, you must have thought of it!'

'Perhaps I set as little store then by Gervase's imaginings as I do now,' Theo said, with a contemptuous smile.

'Yet it was you who set my imagination to work,' said Gervase. He moved slowly back to the chair he had