that he’d cleared himself, and must be grovelled to in consequence, and you’ll understand (if you know me at all) that I would not have missed the chance to sink the swine, not for my soul’s salvation.
For it was in my hands, no error. His coup de trois excuse had put the whole affair on a knife-edge. If it were shrewdly urged, the three wise men, and the witnesses, might be disposed, for the sake of avoiding a horrid scandal, to swallow it. Well, by the time I’d done with it, they’d spew it all over the floor.
So I consented to act as his go-between, and left him grinding his teeth at the prospect of accusers confounded and honour restored. No time, we agreed, must be lost, so I made for the Prince’s apartments, and whom should I meet on the way but the three leading witnesses, plainly just come from a royal audience: Master Wilson bright with excitement, Lycett Green tight-lipped, and young Levett plainly wishing himself in the Outer Hebrides. No change on that front, thinks I, and the air of gloom in H.R.H.’s sitting-room, most of it cigar smoke, confirmed my conclusion.
'That fellow is impossible!' Bertie was croaking, and I gathered he meant Lycett Green. 'Not a shadow of doubt, according to him. Oh, it’s intolerable! What can we do but believe them?'
'As your highness says.' Coventry sounded like a vicar at the graveside. 'That being so, we are bound to take …' he frowned as he dredged his vocabulary '… ah, measures … in regard to Sir William.'
'Lycett Green won’t keep quiet if we don’t,' says Williams.
'Self-righteous ass!' snaps Bertie. 'No, that’s not fair … he’s a decent man, no doubt—I only wish he weren’t so infernally adamant.' He scowled at me. 'Well?' I said I’d seen Gordon-Cumming.
'And much good that will have done! I’ve seen him myself—and it was heart-breaking! I tell you, the man almost had tears in his eyes! One of my closest friends, I’d ha' trusted him with my life—but how can I credit his denial in the face of … of …' He flourished a paw in the direction of the door. 'They’re so sure! Even Levett, poor devil—heavens, we could hardly drag it out of him!' He sat down, groaning, drew on his cigar as though it were poisoned, and regarded me dyspeptically. 'What did Cumming have to say to you?'
'Denied it, absolutely. I suppose he gave your highness his explanation?'
That brought him bolt upright. 'What explanation?'
I hesitated, with an artistic frown, and shook my head. 'I don’t know quite what to make of it myself … I confess that I …' At that I stopped, waiting for him to demand what the devil I was talking about, which he did, with considerable vigour.
'Well, sir… .' I began, half-apologetic, and then I gave him the coup de trois story, plain and matter-of-fact, but with dark doubt hovering over every word, and was gratified to see Coventry’s face growing long as a coffin, Williams frowning in disbelief, and the light of hope fading from Bertie’s bloodshot ogles.
'D’you believe it?' cries he, and I maintained the manly silence that damned Gordon-Cumming as no words could. 'But is it possible?' he insisted.
'Possible, sir?' I made a lip and shrugged. 'Aye, I dare say it’s … possible …'
'But even if it were true,' broke in Williams, 'and you plainly don’t think it is, it still does not explain all the … the irregularities. The pencil, that sort of thing.' He met Bertie’s despairing eye. 'I regret to say it, sir, but it sounds to me like the feeble excuse of a desperate man. And I’m sure,' he added, 'that that is how Green and the others will regard it.'
Coventry heaved a draughty sigh. 'Indeed, it only confirms my belief that Sir William … ah, that the witnesses … the charges …'
'That he’s a cheat and a liar!' cries Bertie. He growled down his temper, gnashed on his cigar, and faced us. 'Very well, then. God knows we’ve done our best to sift the thing—and that’s our conclusion. He’s played foul and been caught out. Now,' says he, and for the first time that night he sounded royal, 'how is it to be hushed up?'
They stood mum, so I put in my oar again. '’Fraid it can’t be, sir … unless you and Williams are prepared to risk a court martial.'
If I’d said 'are prepared to steal the Crown Jewels and make a run for Paraguay' I couldn’t have provoked a finer display of consternation, but before Bertie could explode, I explained.
'You and he both hold the Queen’s commission, sir. I’m retired, of course. But as serving officers, aware of dishonourable conduct by a brother officer, you’re obliged to bring it to the attention of your superiors. Since your highness is a field marshal, I’m not sure who your superiors are, exactly … Her Majesty, of course. Or I dare say the colonel of Cumming’s regiment would do …'
I was drowned out by a prolonged fit of princely coughing, the result of outraged smoke going down the wrong way, which gave him time to digest my warning, and emerge mopping and wheezing to announce hoarsely that he didn’t give a tinker’s dam for courts martial, or words to that effect, and not a whisper was to be breathed to military superiors or anyone else, was that clear?
'It must not come out!' he croaks. 'At all costs it must be confined to … to ourselves. The scandal …' He couldn’t bring himself even to contemplate it. 'A way must be found!' He sat down again, thumping his knees. 'It must!'
Which left us back at the starting-gate, three of us racking our brains and Flashy looking perplexed but inwardly serene, for all I was waiting for was a lead. At last Coventry gave it.
'If some accommodation could be found,' says he, 'which would signify … ah, disapprobation of Sir William’s conduct, while satisfying the … ah, resentment of his accusers, and of course ensuring that no word of this deplorable affair ever—'
'Oh, talk sense, Coventry!' barks Bertie. 'They want his head on a charger! Green made that plain enough— and how you’re to contrive that in secrecy I cannot imagine!'
'How d’you punish him without exposing him?' wonders Williams, and I saw it was time for the Flashman Compromise which had been taking shape in my mind over the past minute or two. I made a judicial noise to attract their attention.
'I wonder if Lord Coventry hasn’t pointed the way, sir,' says I. 'Suppose … yes, how would it do? … if Cumming were to sign a paper … you know, an undertaking sort of thing … pledging himself never to touch a card again. Eh?' They stood mute as ducks in thunder. 'Stiff penalty for a man in his position, what? I’d be surprised if that didn’t satisfy Green and his pals. And in return,' I tapped the table impressively, 'they would pledge themselves to silence—as would we, absolutely. That would settle things—without a breath of scandal.'
There was a hole in it a mile wide, but I knew Bertie wouldn’t spot it: my last five words were all that mattered to him. He was pointing like a setter, Coventry was in his customary fog, but Williams burst out:
'Cumming would never do such a thing! Why, it would be tantamount to a confession of guilt.'
'Not a bit of it, Owen!' says I. 'He ain’t admitting a thing—and if he were, ’twould only be to us, and his accusers, who think he’s guilty anyway. No one else would ever know.' I turned to Bertie, his cigar now in tatters. 'I’m sure he’ll agree, sir—what other choice has he? Public disgrace … and worse than that,' I went on, fixing Coventry and Williams with my sternest look, 'would be the shameful burden of knowing that greater names than his had been tarnished by the publication of his dishonour.'
That did the trick: Bertie started as though I’d put a bayonet into his leg, and from Williams' expression I knew that if I’d said: `Tell Cumming that if he don’t do as he’s told, and preserve our precious Prince from scandal, God help him,' I could not have been plainer. Coventry, naturally, was appalled.
'But … such a document, supposing Sir William should consent to sign it, in return for a pledge of silence … would it not bear a … an odour of … of conspiracy?'
'Certainly not,' says I. 'It would be a simple promise never to play cards again, signed by him, duly witnessed by His Royal Highness—and by the accusers. Nothing smoky about it. They would give their word of honour to His Highness never to speak or write of the matter hereafter. And that would be that, tight as a drum.'
Bertie hadn’t said a word for several minutes, and when he did it was clear what was preoccupying him. 'Could we be sure those people would keep silence?'
'Once they’d given their word to the Prince of Wales?' says I, and that seemed to satisfy him, for he sat in silence a moment, and then asked the other two what they thought of the scheme. They puffed doubtfully, of course, Williams because he feared that Cumming would refuse to sign, and Coventry out of general anxiety. Would Lycett Green and Co agree, he wondered, and Bertie let out a muffled snarl.
'They’ll agree!' says he grimly, which settled that, and they passed on to the wording of the document, which was simple enough, and then to considering how it might best be put to the guilty party. Bertie wondered if I
