“Act for you?” exploded the Captain. “I’ll have nothing to do with the business. My lord, you’re in no fit case to fight, and I recommend you to go home and let your seconds arrange the matter more seemly,”
Vidal laughed. “Not fit? By God, that’s rich, Wraxall. You don’t know me very well, do you?”
“I am happy to say I do not, sir!” said the Captain stiffly.
“Watch then!” My lord drew a small gold-mounted pistol from his pocket. He levelled it, still lounging in his chair, and fired before any could stop him. There was a loud report, and the smash of glass as the bullet shattered the big mirror at the end of the room.
“What in hell’s name — ?” began Wraxall furiously, and broke off, staring inthe direction of my lord’s pointing finger. One of a cluster of three candles was no longer burning. The voice of Mr. Comyn said calmly: “Quite remarkable shooting — under the circumstances.”
Lord Rupert, forgetting larger issues, called out: “Outed it, begad, and not touched the wax! Good lad!”
The explosion brought those still remaining in the other rooms hurrying to the scene. Vidal paid no heed. “Don’t know me very well, do you?” he repeated, and laughed again.
Cholmondley, casting a glance of rebuke at Rupert, admonished Mr. Quarles once more. “Go home and sleep on it, Quarles. If you want to fight, fight sober. You’re no match for Vidal else.”
A stout individual dressed in discreet black pushed his way through the knot of men in the doorway. “What’s this, gentlemen?” he said. “Who fired that shot?”
Vidal raised his brows. “You interrupt, Timothy. I fired that shot.”
The stout man looked aghast. “My lord, my lord, what wild work is this? You’ll ruin me, my lord!” He saw the case containing the pistols and made a pounce for them. My lord’s hand shot out and grasped his wrist. Timothy met his eyes for a moment, and said distressfully: “My lord, I beg of you — my lord, don’t do it here!”
He was thrust back. “Damn you, stop whining!” Vidal sprang up, overturning his chair. “Am I to sit here till noon while Mr. Quarles makes up his mind? Name your friends!”
Quarles rolled a hot eye round the circle. No one came forward. “I’ll act for myself since you’re all so shy,” he sneered.
Mr. Comyn, his sedateness quite unimpaired, rose from his seat. “Since it’s my Lord Vidal’s honour that is inquestion it will be wise to have a gentleman to act for you, sir,” he said.
“To hell with the lot of you!” swore Quarles. “I’ll act for myself.”
“Your pardon, sir,” returned Mr. Comyn smoothly, “but I think you must see that if you doubt his lordship’s good faith, your seconds should carefully examine these pistols, which I apprehend are his lordship’s own. In short, I offer myself at your disposal.”
“Obliged to you,” growled Quarles.
Vidal was leaning on a chair back. “That’s a mighty long speech,” he remarked, with just that faint suggestion of slurring his words together. “Is it to insult me, or not?”
“Such, my lord, is not at the moment my intention,” replied Mr. Comyn.
The Marquis laughed. “Didn’t know you had it in you. You’re devilish correct, ain’t you?”
“I trust I am conversant with the rules governing such affairs as these, my lord. Will you name your friends?”
The Marquis was still looking at him with an amused and not unkindly eye. “Charles, you might act for me,” he said, without turning his head.
Mr. Fox arose, sighing. “Oh, very well, Dominic, if you mustbehave sodamned irregularly.” He went apart with Mr. Comyn, and they inspected the weapons with due solemnity, and pronounced them identical.
Lord Rupert pushed his way unceremoniously to his nephew’s side. “Go put your head in a bucket of water, Vidal!” he said. “Stap me if I ever heard the like of you to-night! Mind you, I don’t say the fellow don’t deserve to have a hole in him, but do the thing decently, my boy, that’s all I ask!” He broke off to hurl somewhat conflicting advice to Captain Wraxall. “Move those candles a shade to the left, Wraxall. Must have the light fair to both.”
The table was pushed back. Mr. Fox and Mr. Comyn were measuring the paces.
The pistols were presented. My lord took his in what looked to be an alarmingly slack hold. Apparently his uncle did not think so, for he said urgently: “Don’t kill him, Dominic!”
The seconds stepped back, the word was given. My lord’s pistol hand jerked up swiftly; there was a flash and a report, followed almost instantly by an answering shot. Mr. Quarles’s bullet buried itself in the wall beyond my lord, and Mr. Quarles pitched forward on to his face.
The Marquis tossed his pistol to Mr. Fox. “Give ’em to my man, Charles,” he said, and turned away to pick up his snuff-box, and handkerchief.
“Damn you, Vidal, I believe you have killed him!” Rupert said angrily.
“I’m very nearly sure of it, dear uncle,” said the Marquis.
Mr. Comyn, on his knees beside the fallen man, looked up. “A surgeon should be fetched,” he said. “I do not think that life is extinct.”
“I must be more drunk than I knew, then,” remarked his lordship. “I’m sorry, Charles; I meant to make the place habitable for you.”
Lord Cholmondley started towards him. “Devil take you, Vidal, you’d best be gone. You’ve done enough for one night.”
“I thought so, certainly,” said the Marquis. “Mr. Comyn apparently disagrees.” He glanced at the clock. “Hell and damnation, it’s past five already!”
“You’re surely not driving to Newmarket now?” cried Captain Wraxall, appalled by his callousness.
“Why not?” said Vidal coolly.
Captain Wraxall sought for words, and found none. The Marquis turned on his heel and went out.
Chapter V
It was only a little past noon on the following day when her Grace of Avon, accompanied most unwillingly by Lord Rupert, first called at Vidal’s home. The Marquis’s major-domo responded to his lordship’s anxious look with the smallest of bows. Lord Rupert heaved a sigh of relief. One never knew what might be found in Vidal’s apartments.
“I want my son,” her grace stated flatly.
But it appeared that the Marquis had not returned from Newmarket.
“There, what did I tell you?” said Rupert. “Leave a note for him, my dear. The devil alone knows when he’ll be back, eh, Fletcher?”
“I have no precise knowledge myself, my lord.”
“I shall come back again later,” announced her grace.
“But, Léonie — ”
“And again, and again, and again until he has returned,” said her grace obstinately.
She kept her word, but on her last visit, in full ball dress at seven in the evening, she declared that she would enter the house and await her son there.
Lord Rupert followed her weakly into the hall. “Ay, but I’m on my way to Devereaux’s card party,” he expostulated. “I can’t stay here all night!”
The Duchess flung out exasperated hands. “Well, go then!” she said. “I find you
“You always were an ungrateful chit,” complained his lordship. “Here am I dancing attendance on you the whole day, and all you can say is that you don’t need me.”
Léonie’s irrepressible dimple peeped out. “But it is quite true, Rupert; I do not need you. When I have seen Dominique I shall take a chair to my party. It is very simple.”
“No, you won’t,” said Rupert. “Not with those diamonds on you.” He followed her into the library, where a small fire burned, and struggled out of his greatcoat. “Where’s that fellow gone off to? Fletcher! What’s his lordship in the cellar that her grace would like?”
The suave Fletcher showed some small signs of perplexity at that. “I will endeavour, my lord ...”
The Duchess had cast off her cloak, and seated herself by the fire. “Ah, bah, I do not want your ratafia, me. I
