do nothing? No, damme, I won’t!”
“Devilish hard on you, Pel,” agreed Sir Roland sympathetically. “But it won’t do, you know. Called Drelincourt out. Deal of talk over that. Call Lethbridge out—fatal!”
The Viscount smote the table with his fist. “Hang you, Pom, do you realize what the fellow did?” he cried.
“Very painful affair,” said Sir Roland. “Bad
The Viscount seemed to be bereft of words.
“Hush it up now,” said Sir Roland. “Talk dies down—say three months. Pick a quarrel with him then.”
The Viscount brightened. “Ay, so I could. That solves it.”
“S-solves it? It doesn’t!” declared Horatia. “I m-must get my brooch back. If Rule m-misses it, it will all come out.”
“Nonsense!” said her brother. “Say you dropped it in the street.”
“It’s no good saying that! I tell you Lethbridge means m-mischief. He may wear it, just to m-make Rule suspicious.”
Sir Roland was shocked. “Bad blood!” he said. “Never did like the fellow.”
“What sort of brooch is it?” asked the Viscount. “Would Rule be likely to recognize it?”
“Yes, of c-course he would! It’s part of a set, and it’s very old—fifteenth century, I think.”
“In that case,” decided his lordship, “we’ve got to get it back. I’d best go and see Lethbridge at once—though how I’ll keep my hands off him I don’t know. Burn it, a pretty fool I look, calling on him last night!”
Sir Roland was once more plunged in thought. “Won’t do,” he said at last. “If you go asking for a brooch, Lethbridge is bound to guess it’s my lady’s. I’ll go.”
Horatia looked at him with admiration. “Yes, that would be m-much better,” she said. “You are very helpful, I think.”
Sir Roland blushed, and prepared to set forth on his mission. “Beg you won’t give it a thought, ma’am. Affair of delicacy—tact required—a mere nothing!”
“Tact!” said the Viscount. “Tact for a hound like Lethbridge! My God, it makes me sick, so it does! You’d better take the phaeton; I’ll wait for you here.”
Sir Rolaind once more bowed over Horatia’s hand. “Shall hope to put the brooch in your hands within half an hour, ma’am,” he said, and departed.
Left alone with his sister, the Viscount began to pace about the room, growling something under his breath whenever he happened to think of Lethbridge’s iniquity. Presently he stopped short. “Horry, you’ll have to tell Rule. Damme, he’s a right to know!”
“I c-can’t tell him!” Horatia answered with suppressed passion. “Not again!”
“Again?” said his lordship. “What do you mean?”
Horatia hung her head, and recounted haltingly the story of the ridotto at Ranelagh. The Viscount was delighted with at least one part of the story, and slapped his leg with glee.
“Yes, b-but I didn’t know it was Rule, and so I had to confess it all to him the next d-day and I won’t—I won’t make another c-confession! I said I w-wouldn’t see anything of Lethbridge while he was away and I can’t, I c-can’t tell him about this!”
“I don’t see it,” said the Viscount. “Plenty to bear you out. Coachman—what happened to him, by the way?”
“D-drugged,” she replied.
“All the better,” said his lordship. “If the coach came back to the stables without him, obviously you’re telling the truth.”
“But it d-didn’t! He was too clever,” said Horatia bitterly.
“I had the c-coachman in this morning. He thinks it was the b-bad beer, and the coach was taken back to the tavern. So I said I had been forced to get a link-boy to summon me a hackney. And I d-didn’t think it was quite fair to send him off when I knew he and the footman had been d-drugged, so I said this time I wouldn’t tell Rule.”
“That’s bad,” said the Viscount, frowning. “Still, Pom and I know you hit Lethbridge on the head, and got away.”
“It’s no good,” she said mournfully. “Of c-course you would be bound to stand by me, and that’s what Rule would think.”
“But hang it, Horry, why should he?”
“Well, I—well, I w-wasn’t very nice to him b-before he went away, and he wanted me to g-go with him and I wouldn’t, and d-don’t you see, P-Pel, it looks as if I p-planned it all, and hadn’t really given up Lethbridge at all? And I l-left that horrid b-ball early, to make it worse!”
“It don’t look well, certainly,” admitted the Viscount. “Have you quarrelled with Rule?”
“No. N-not quarrelled. Only—No.”
“You’d best tell me, and be done with it,” said his lordship severely. “I suppose you’ve been up to your tricks again. I warned you he wouldn’t stand for ’em.”
“It isn’t that at all!” flamed Horatia. “Only I f-found out that he had planned the R-Ranelagh affair with that odious Lady M-Massey.”
The Viscount stared at her. “You’re raving!” he said calmly.
“I’m not. She was there, and she knew!”
“Who told you he planned it with her?”
“W-well, no one precisely, but Lethbridge thought so, and of course I realized—”
“Lethbridge!” interrupted the Viscount with scorn. “Upon my word, you’re a damned little fool, Horry! Lord, don’t be so simple! A man don’t plot with his mistress against his wife. Never heard such a pack of nonsense!”
Horatia sat up. “P-Pel, do you really think so?” she asked wistfully. “B-But I can’t help remembering that he said
The Viscount regarded her with frank contempt. “Well if he said that it proves she wasn’t in it—if it needs proof, which it don’t. Lord, Horry, I put it to you, would he be likely to say that if she’d had a finger in the pie? What’s more, it explains why the Massey’s gone off to Bath so suddenly, Depepend on it, if she found out it was he in the scarlet domino they had some sort of a scene, and Rule’s not the man to stand that. Wondered what happened to make her go off in such a devil of a hurry. Here, what the deuce—?” For Horatia, with a squeak of joy, had flung herself into his arms.
“Don’t do that,” said the Viscount testily, disengaging himself.
“Oh, P-Pel, I never thought of that!” sighed Horatia.
“You’re a little fool,” said the Viscount.
“Yes, I see I am,” she confessed. “B-but if he has b-broken with that woman, it makes me more than ever decided not to tell him aboutl-last night.”
The Viscount thought this over. “I must say it’s a devilish queer story,” he said. “Daresay you’re right. If we can get that brooch back you’re safe enough. If Pom don’t succeed—” His lip tightened, and he nodded darkly.
Sir Roland, meanwhile, had arrived in Half-Moon Street, and was fortunate enough to find Lord Lethbridge at home.
Lethbridge received him in a gorgeous flowered dressing-gown. He did not look to be much the worse for the blow he had received, and he greeted Sir Roland with suave amiability. “Pray sit down, Pommeroy,” he said. “To what do I owe this somewhat unexpected honour?”
Sir Roland accepted the chair, and proceeded to display his tact. “Most unfortunate thing,” he said. “Last night—not quite myself, you know—lost a brooch. Must have dropped out of my cravat.”
“Oh?” said Lethbridge, looking at him rather hard. “A pin, in fact?”
“Not a pin, no. A brooch. Family jewels—sometimes wear it—don’t care to lose it. So I came round to see if I dropped it here.”
“I see. And what is it like, this brooch?”
“Ring brooch; inner circle pearls and openwork bosses, outer row pearls and diamonds,” said Sir Roland glibly.
“Indeed? A lady’s ornament, one would almost infer.”
“Belonged to my great-aunt,” said Sir Roland, extricating himself from that predicament with masterly skill.
