The Talisman Ring

Nye had gone over to the window and was leaning out. He turned and said: “The shutter’s been wrenched off its hinge, and a pane of glass cut out clean as a whistle. That’s where he must have put his hand in to open the window. You didn’t get a sight of his face, sir?”

“No, I didn’t,” replied Sir Hugh, stooping to pick up the dagger at his feet. “I keep telling you he wore a mask. A loo-mask! If there’s one thing above others that I hate it’s a lot of demmed theatrical nonsense! What was the fellow playing at? Highwaymen?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Miss Thane tactfully, “he did not wish to run the risk of being recognized.”

“I dare say he didn’t, and it’s my belief,” said Sir Hugh, bending a severe frown upon her, “that you know who he was, Sally. It has seemed to me all along that there’s a deal going on here which is devilish unusual.”

“Yes, dear,” said Miss Thane, with becoming meekness. “I think your masked man was Ludovic’s wicked cousin come to murder him with that horrid-looking knife you have in your hand.”

“There ain’t a doubt of it!” growled Nye. “Look what’s here, ma’am!” He went down on his knees as he spoke and picked from under the table a scrap of lace, such as might have been ripped from a cravat, and an ornate gold quizzing-glass on a length of torn ribbon. “Have you ever seen that before?”

Sir Hugh took the glass from him, and inspected it disparagingly. “No, I haven’t,” he said, “and what’s more, I don’t like it. It’s too heavily chased.”

Miss Thane nodded. “Of course I’ve seen it. But I was sure without that evidence. He must be feeling desperate indeed to have taken this risk!”

At this moment Eustacie came downstairs again, with Ludovic behind her. Ludovic, in a dressing-gown as exotic as Thane’s, looked amused, and rather sleepy, and dangled a pistol in his right hand. His eyes alighted first on the dagger, which Thane had laid down on the table, and he put up his brows with a rueful expression of incredulity, and said: “What, was that pretty thing meant to be plunged into my, heart? Well, well! What have you got there, Thane?”

“Do you recognize it?” said Miss Thane. “It is your cousin’s quizzing-glass.”

Ludovic glanced at it casually, but picked up the dagger. “Oh, is it? No, I can’t say I recognize it, but I dare say you’re right. To think of the Beau daring to come and tackle me with nothing better than this medieval weapon! It’s a damned impertinence, upon my soul it is!”

“Depend upon it, he hoped to murder you while you slept, and so make no noise about it,” said Miss Thane. “And, do you know, for all I jested with Sir Tristram over it, I never really thought that he would come!”

Sir Hugh looked at Ludovic and said: “I wish you would be serious. Do you tell me it was really your cousin here tonight?”

“Oh, devil a doubt!” answered Ludovic, testing the dagger’s sharpness with one slender forefinger.

“A cousin of yours masquerading about in a loo-mask?”

“Was he?” said Ludovic, interested. “Lord yes, that’s Basil all over! He’d run no risk of being recognized.”

“And you think he came here to murder you in your bed?” demanded Sir Hugh.

For answer, Ludovic held up the dagger.

Sir Hugh looked at it in profound silence, and then said weightily, “I’ll tell you what it is, Lavenham, he’s a demmed scoundrel. I never heard of such a thing!”

Eustacie, who had sunk into a chair, raised a very white face from her hands, and said in a low, fierce voice: “Yes, and if he does not go to the scaffold I myself will kill him! I will make a sacred vow to kill him!”

“No, don’t do that!” said Sir Hugh, regarding her with misgiving. “You can’t go about England killing people, whatever you may do in your own country.”

“Yes, I can, and I will,” retorted Eustacie. “To fight a duel, that is one thing! Even to try to take what belongs to Ludovic I can pardon! But to try to stab Ludovic in the dark, while he sleeps, voyons, that is an infamy of the most vile!”

“There’s a great deal in what you say,” acknowledged Sir Hugh, “but to my mind what you need is a sip of brandy. You’ll feel the better for it.”

“I do not need a sip of brandy!” snapped Eustacie.

“Well, if you don’t, I do,” said Sir Hugh frankly. “I’ve been getting steadily colder ever since I came down to this demmed draughty coffee-room.”

Miss Thane, taking Eustacie’s hand, patted it reassuringly, and suggested that they should go back to bed. Eustacie, who felt that at any moment the Beau might return to make a second attempt, at first refused to listen to such a notion, but upon Nye’s saying grimly that she need have no fears for Ludovic’s safety, since he proposed to spend the rest of the night in the coffee-room, she consented to go upstairs with Miss Thane, having first adjured Nye and Sir Hugh on no account to let Ludovic out of their sight until they saw him securely bolted into his bedchamber.