The Talisman Ring

“He can’t stay,” Shield said. “It was madness to come at all.”

Ludovic lifted his head, and regarded Sylvester’s ring through half-closed eyes. “I shall stay,” he said nonchalantly, “and I shall find out who holds the talisman ring.”

“Ludovic, you may trust me to do all I can to discover it, but you must not be found here!”

“I’m not going to be found here,” replied Ludovic. “You don’t know Joe’s cellars. I do.”

“Go over to Holland, and wait there,” Shield said. “You can do no good here.”

“Oh yes, I can!” said Ludovic, turning his hand so that the jewel caught the light. “Moreover, I’ll be damned if I’ll be elbowed out of my own business!”

“What can you hope to do in hiding that I cannot do openly?” asked Shield. “Why add to your folly by running the risk of being arrested?”

“Because,” said Ludovic, at last raising his eyes from the ruby, “if the Beau has the ring I know where to look for it.”

Chapter Six

This announcement produced all the effect upon the ladies which Ludovic could have desired. They gazed at him in surprise and admiration, breathlessly waiting for him to tell them more. Shield, not so easily impressed, said: “If you really know where to look for it you had better tell me, and I’ll do it for you.”

“That’s just the trouble,” replied Ludovic shamelessly. “I’m not at all sure of the place.” He saw Eustacie’s face fall, and added: “Oh, I should know it again if I saw it! The thing is that I’d be mighty hard put to it to direct anyone how to find it. I shall have to go myself.”

“Go where?” demanded Sir Tristram.

“Oh, to the Dower House!” replied Ludovic airily. “There’s a secret panel. You wouldn’t know it.”

“A secret panel?” repeated Miss Thane in an awed voice. “You mean actually a secret panel?”

Ludovic regarded her in some slight concern. “Yes, why not?”

“I thought it too good to be true,” said Miss Thane. “If there is one thing above all others I have wanted all my life to do it is to search for a secret panel! I suppose,” she added hopefully, “it would be too much to expect to find an underground passage leading from the secret panel?”

Eustacie clasped her hands ecstatically. “But yes, of course! An underground passage—”

“With bats and dead men’s bones,” shuddered Miss Thane.

French common sense asserted itself. Eustacie frowned. “Not bats, no. That is not reasonable. But certainly some bones, chained to the wall.”

“And damp—it must be damp!”

“Not damp; cobwebs,” put in Ludovic. “Huge ones, which cling to you like—”

“Ghostly fingers!” supplied Miss Thane.

“Oh, Ludovic, there is a passage?” breathed Eustacie.

He laughed. “Lord, no! It’s just a priest’s hole, that’s all.”

“How wretched!” said Miss Thane, quite disgusted. “It makes me lose all heart.”

“If there is not a passage we must do without one,” decreed Eustacie stoutly. “One must be practical. Tout mкme

, it is a pity there is not a passage. I thought it would lead from the Court to the Dower House. It would have been magnifique! We might have found treasure!”

“That is precisely what I was thinking,” agreed Miss Thane. “An old iron chest, full of jewels.”

Sir Tristram broke in on these fancies with a somewhat withering comment. “Since we are not searching for treasure, and no passage exists save in your imaginations, this discussion is singularly unprofitable,” he said. “Where is the panel, Ludovic?”

“There you have the matter in a nutshell,” confessed Ludovic. “I know my uncle used to use it as a strong-room, and I remember Sylvester showing it to me when I was a lad, but what I can’t for the life of me recall is which room it’s in.”

“That,” said Sir Tristram, “is, to say the least of it, unfortunate, since the Dower House is panelled almost throughout.”

“I think it’s either in the library or the dining-room,” said Ludovic. “There are two tiers of pillars with a lot of fluted pilasters and carvings. I dare say I shall recognize it when I see it. You twist one of the bosses on the frieze between the tiers, and one of the square panels below slides back.”

“How do you propose to see it?” asked Shield. “The Beau is at the Dower House now, and means to stay there.”

“Well, I shall have to break in at night,” replied Ludovic.

“A very proper resolve,” approved Miss Thane, before Sir Tristram could condemn it. “But something a trifle disturbing has occurred to me: are you sure that your cousin would have kept the ring?”

“Yes, for he would not dare to sell it,” replied Ludovic at once.

“He would not perhaps have thrown it away?”

Ludovic shook his head. “Not he. He knows its worth,” he answered simply.

“Oh well, in that case, all we have to do is to find the panel!” said Miss Thane.

Sir Tristram looked at her across Ludovic’s bed. “We?” he said.

“Certainly,” replied Sarah. “Eustacie told me I might share the adventure.”

“You are surely not proposing to remain here!”

“Sir,” said Miss Thane. “I shall remain here until we have cleared Ludovic’s fair name.”

“But, of course!” said Eustacie, opening her eyes very wide. “What else?”