“Ah, I warned him not to get up!” said the butler, shaking his head.
The groom thrust a hand into Gregg’s pocket and extracted the keys from it, “I’m thinking your Honour had best keep these,” he said, and held them out to Sir Tristram.
The butler, puffing as he bent to raise Gregg, agreed that Sir Tristram was certainly the man to take charge of the keys. For a second time the valet was borne off upstairs. Mr Bundy, reappearing at the window, like a jack- in-the-box, remarked phlegmatically: “It looks to me like young master’s met a friend. Who’s that young cove?”
“I fancy he must be Jim Kettering’s boy,” replied Tristram.
“Well, he’s caused us a peck of trouble this night,” said Bundy, “but I’m bound to say he seems an unaccountable nice lad! Handy with his fives he is.”
At this moment Ludovic strolled into the room. “Well, of all the shambles!” he remarked, glancing around. “I’d give a monkey to see the Beau’s face when he comes home! What brought you here, Tristram?”
“Clem fetched me,” replied Shield. “How did you get out of the priest’s hole, and what the devil have you been doing all this while?”
“There’s another way out of the hole,” explained Ludovic. “I thought there might be. It leads up to Basil’s bedchamber. It seemed to me I might as well hunt for the ring since you had the affair so well in hand down here. Then I heard Bob Kettering’s voice, and gave him a whistle—”
“Gave him a whistle?” echoed Sir Tristram. “With the whole household looking for you, you
“Yes, why not? I knew he’d recognize it. It’s a signal we used when we were boys. Bob hadn’t a notion he’d been set on to hunt for me. Lord, we used to go bird’s nesting together!”
“I thought you’d met a friend,” nodded Bundy. “Did you happen to find that ring o’ yourn?”
Ludovic’s face clouded over. “No. Bob helped me to ransack Basil’s room, but it’s not there, and it wasn’t in the priest’s hole.”
“Did young Kettering chance to remember that he is in Basil’s service?” inquired Sir Tristram.
Ludovic looked at him. “Yes, but this was for
Sir Tristram smiled faintly. “I suppose he is as shameless as you are. Do you feel that you have done enough damage for one night, or is there anything else you’d care to set your hand to before you go?”
“Damage!” said Ludovic. “If that don’t beat everything! Who smashed all this furniture, I should like to know?
The groom came back into the library as he spoke, and said urgently: “Mr Ludo, you’d best go while you may. We’ll have Jenkyns down again afore we know where we are!”
“Have you ever thought to go into the prize-ring, young fellow,” interrupted Bundy, who was leaning in at the window with his arms folded on the sill, after the fashion of one who was prepared to remain there indefinitely. “You’ve a sizeable bunch of fives, and you display none so bad.”
Kettering grinned rather deprecatingly, and said in an apologetic tone to Sir Tristram: “I didn’t know it was Mr Ludo, sir. Nor I didn’t know it was you neither. I’m proud, surely, to have had a turn-up with you, even if it were in the dark.”
“Well, it’s more than I’d care to do,” remarked Ludovic. “To hell with you, Bob! Don’t keep on pushing me to the window! I’ll go all in good time, but I’ve mislaid that damn lantern.”
Sir Tristram grasped him by his sound shoulder, and propelled him to the window. “Take him away, Bundy. Kettering can find the lantern when you’ve gone. If you don’t go you’ll find yourself in difficulties again, and I warn you I won’t get you out of any more tight corners.”
Ludovic, astride the windowsill, said: “You don’t call this a tight corner, do you? I was as safe as be damned!”
“Just about, you were,” growled Bundy, trying to haul him through the window, “playing your silly rat-in-the- wall tricks, with a whole pack of gurt fools fighting who was to find you first! And you saying you wasn’t going to take no risks! Now, come out of it, master!”
“I can’t help it if you disobey my orders!” said Ludovic indignantly. “Didn’t I tell you to save yourself? Instead of doing anything of the kind you blazed off your pistol (and a damned bad shot it must have been) and started a mill, so that my cousin had to make a wreck of the place to bring you off! What’s more, that’s not the sort of thing he likes. He’s a cautious man—aren’t you, Tristram?”
“I am,” replied Sir Tristram, thrusting him through the window into Bundy’s arms, “but my love of caution isn’t going to stop me knocking you on the head and carrying you away if you don’t go immediately. Wait for me by your horses. I shan’t be many moments.”
He saw Ludovic go off under Bundy’s escort, and turned back to Kettering. His level gaze seemed to measure the younger man. He said: “I take it you can keep your mouth shut?”
The groom nodded. “Ay, sir, I can that. Me to help trap Mr Ludo! Begging your pardon, sir, but it do fair rile me to think of it!”
“Well, if you get turned off for this night’s work come to me,” said Sir Tristram. “Now where’s that butler?” He went out into the hall, and called to Jenkyns, who presently came hurrying down the stairs. “Here are your keys,” said Sir Tristram, holding them out to him. “Now let me out!”
The butler took the keys, but said in a blank voice: “Are—are you going now, sir?”
“Certainly, I am going,” replied Shield, with one of his coldest glances. “Do you imagine that I propose to remain here all night to keep watch for a housebreaker who, if he ever entered the priest’s hole (which I take leave to doubt), must have escaped half an hour ago?”
“No, sir. Oh no, sir!” said the butler very chapfallen.
“You are, for once, quite right,” said Shield.
Five minutes’ later he joined Ludovic in the park and dismounted from Clem’s horse. Clem had by this time reached the scene of activity, having walked from the Court, and Ludovic was already in the saddle, looking rather haggard and spent. Sir Tristram gave his bridle into Clem’s hand, and looked shrewdly up at his young cousin. “Yes, you are feeling your wound a trifle,” he remarked. “I am not in the least surprised, and not particularly sorry. If you had your deserts for this night’s folly you would be in gaol.”
“Oh, my wound’s well enough!” replied Ludovic. “Do you want me to say that you were in the right, and there was a trap? Well, then, you were damnably right, even to saying that I’d not find my ring. I haven’t found it. What else?”
“Nothing else. Go back to Hand Cross, and for God’s sake stay there!”
Ludovic let the reins go, and stretched down his hand. “Oh curse you, Tristram, I am sorry, and you’re a devilish good fellow to embroil yourself in my crazy affairs! Thank you for coming tonight!”
Shield gripped his hand for a moment, and said in a softer voice: “Don’t be a fool! We will find your ring, Ludovic. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll try and keep out of trouble till then,” promised Ludovic. He gathered the reins up again, and the irrepressible twinkle crept back into his eyes. “By the way, my compliments: a nice shot!”
Shield laughed at that. “Was it not? Gregg thought you must have fired it.”
“Extravagant praise, Tristram: you shouldn’t listen to flattery,” retorted Ludovic, grinning.
When the adventurers got back to the Red Lion they found both Nye and Miss Thane awaiting them by the coffee-room fire. Relief at seeing Ludovic safe and sound had its natural effect on Nye, and instead of greeting his graceless charge with solicitude he rated him with such severity that Bundy was moved to expostulate. “Adone-do, Joe!” he said. “There’s no harm done, and we’ve had a nice little mill. Just you take a look at my eye.”
“I am looking at it,” replied Nye. “If I ever meet the man as gave it you I’ll shake him by the hand! I wish he’d blacked ’t’other as well.”
“You’d have kissed him if he had,” remarked Ludovic. “It was Bob Kettering.”
“Bob Kettering!” ejaculated the landlord. “Now, what have you been about, sir? If I ever met such a plaguey—where’s Sir Tristram?”
“Gone home to bed,” yawned Ludovic. “I dare say he’ll be glad to get there; he’s had a full evening, thanks to you, Sally.”
Mr Bundy nodded slowly at Nye. “It would do your heart good to see that cove in a turn-up, Joe. Displays to remarkable advantage, he does. Up to all the tricks.”
“Many’s the time I’ve sparred with Sir Tristram,” replied Nye crushingly. “I don’t doubt he’d be a match for
