His aspect was ghastly. From the waist upward he was naked, except for the bandages which Anthea, kneeling beside him, had apparently just finished winding round him; as much of his chest as could be seen was smeared with blood; his left arm, which dangled uselessly, its limply crooked fingers brushing the carpet, was horribly covered with bloodstains; his head lolled on his right shoulder; his countenance, thanks to the thoughtfulness of his valet, who had brandished before his eyes the gruesome dishclout which had been used by John Joseph to stanch the flow of blood from Richmond’s wound, was of a sickly hue; and his breathing was accompanied by a series of faint but alarming moans. The chair which had been dragged up to serve as a stand for the candelabra also accommodated an empty glass, a bottle of smelling-salts, and a bowl containing a revolting collection of used swabs. A larger bowl, half-full of reddened water, and the almost empty brandy-decanter stood on the floor within Anthea’s reach, together with a heap of lint and torn-up linen; and the final macabre touch was provided by the rent and blood-boltered garments which no one had apparently found time even to bundle out of sight.
Hugo, realizing that his accomplices, not content with such meagre tokens of bloodshed as his neat work on Richmond’s wound had afforded them, must have collected from the pantry every cloth and rag which had been used there, surveyed the scene with deep appreciation; but the Lieutenant, brought up short on the threshold by the sight of so unexpected a shambles, was badly jolted; and the Sergeant, craning his neck to look over his shoulder, was perfectly appalled.
As soon as Hugo opened the door, Anthea exclaimed, without looking round, or pausing in her task of bandaging the sufferer: ‘At last! What on earth can have kept you so long?’ but at his frivolously worded announcement, she cast an exasperated glance at him over her shoulder, saying in the voice of one perilously near the limit of her endurance: ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t start cutting idiotic jokes! I’ve had enough to bear from Richmond already! There’s nothing funny about what’s happened, and as for all your fine talk about it’s not being serious, either you know nothing whatsoever about it, or you’re as odiously drunk as Richmond – which wouldn’t surprise me in the least! – Do you think that’s tight enough, Polyphant?’
‘Nay, I wasn’t joking you! Our Claud was shot by a dragoon, lass!’
‘To be sure!’ she snapped, inserting a pin carefully into the end of her bandage. ‘Nothing could be more likely! Don’t put yourself to the trouble of explaining what a dragoon was doing in our wood, for I’ve something better to do than to listen to quite unamusing, ill-timed nonsense!’ She brought the point of her pin through several thicknesses of the bandage, and said: ‘I think that should hold it firmly, Polyphant. You can lay him down now. Oh, dear, how dreadfully white he is! Perhaps my aunt ought to be sent for – Hugo, did you find Vincent? is he com –’ She broke off abruptly, for she had turned to ask this question, and now perceived Lieutenant Ottershaw. She stared at him, looked towards Hugo, looked again at the Lieutenant. ‘But– Good God, what in heaven’s name – ? Hugo, if this is your doing –’
‘Now, how could it be my doing?’ he expostulated, helping her to rise to her feet.
She pressed a hand to her temple. ‘Oh, I don’t know, but– No, I suppose it couldn’t be! But after that Banbury story about dragoons in the Home Wood – I beg your pardon, Mr Ottershaw, but I am so much distracted– Oh, Vincent, thank God you’ve come!’
Vincent, firmly putting the Lieutenant out of the way, had managed to enter the room. ‘Now, what is all this about Claud having met with an accident?’ he began, breaking off abruptly, however, as he allowed his eyes to travel past Anthea to the sofa. ‘Good God!’ he ejaculated. ‘Claud – !’
Polyphant, zealously waving the vinaigrette under his master’s nose, said: ‘He will be better directly, sir, I promise you. He keeps swooning off, but if only we can keep him still and quiet– It’s the loss of blood, sir: I thought we should never be able to– That’s better, sir!– He’s coming round, Mr Vincent! If someone would pour out a little brandy – just a drop or two! – and we could manage to make him swallow it –’
‘Ay, that’ll pull him together!’ agreed Hugo. ‘Eh, he does look poorly! Where’s the brandy?’
For the next few minutes, no one paid the smallest heed either to Ottershaw, or to the Sergeant, except Lord Darracott, who frustrated the Sergeant’s instinctive attempt to retreat from this shocking scene, by thrusting him violently into the room, saying as he did so: ‘Will you make way for your betters, oaf?’ which terrified him into edging his way along the wall to the corner of the room into which Ottershaw had already been manoeuvred. No one had asked the Lieutenant to move as far from the centre of the room as he could, but Claud’s revival spurred his anxious relatives into so much activity that he was obliged to retire into the corner to get out of the way. For all the notice that was bestowed upon him, while the rival merits of brandy and hartshorn were hotly argued, a sling was made to hold up Claud’s left arm, his temples were dabbed with lavender-water, his right hand chafed, his brow fanned, and brandy held to his unwilling lips, he might as well have been invisible; and if he had not been a very dogged young man he would have yielded to the Sergeant’s whispered suggestion that they should both of them slip away quiet-like, without any loss of time.
To the surprise and the relief of his fellow-conspirators, who had feared he might prove the weak link in their chain, Claud, perhaps because he found himself for the first time in his life the star round which the other members of the family revolved, came artistically to his senses, and, seizing the cue afforded by Lord Darracott’s demanding to be told how the devil he had come to be shot, at once took command of the scene, in a manner that won even his brother’s admiration. Punctuating his utterances with winces, stifled groans, and dramatic pauses during which he stiffened into rigidity, with his eyes closed, and his lower lip clenched between his teeth, he disclosed that he had been set upon by two Bedlamites, both of whom had jumped out from behind a bush, roaring at him like a couple of ferocious wild beasts, and one of whom had fired at him. ‘Knew at once!’ he said, shuddering at the memory. ‘Ackletons!’
The Sergeant cast a doubtful glance at Lieutenant Ottershaw, for, in his opinion, this had a false ring. His men, as he frequently informed them, put him forcibly in mind of many things, ranging from gapeseeds, hedge-birds, slush-buckets, and sheep-biters, to beetles, tailless dogs, and dead herrings, but none of them, least of all the two raw dragoons in question, had ever reminded him of a ferocious wild beast. Field-mice, yes, he thought, remembering the sad loss of steel in those posted to watch the Dower House; but if the young gentleman had detected any resemblance to ferocious wild beasts in his assailants, the Sergeant was prepared to take his Bible oath they had not been the bacon-brained knock-in-the-cradles he had posted (much against his will) within the grounds of Darracott Place.
But Sergeant Hoole had never, until this disastrous evening, set eyes on Mr Claud Darracott. Lieutenant Ottershaw had beheld that Pink of the Ton picking his delicate way across the cobbles in Rye, clad in astonishing but unquestionably modish raiment, and holding a quizzing-glass up to his eye with one fragile white hand, and it did not strike him as remarkable that this Bartholomew baby should liken two over-zealous dragoons to wild beasts.
‘Did you recognize them, Claud?’ Vincent asked.
Claud feebly shook his head, as it rested on one of the sofa-cushions, and instantly contracted his features in an expression of acute anguish, drawing a hissing breath, and ejaculating: ‘O God! – No, how could I? Too dark to recognize anyone at that distance. Besides, – only saw them for a minute. Dash it! – you don’t suppose I stopped to ask ’em for their visiting-cards, do you? Knew it was the Ackletons. Couldn’t have been anyone else!’
‘As I apprehend the matter, it might well have been somebody else,’ said Vincent.
Claud opened his eyes, and regarded him with d
isfavour. ‘Well, it mightn’t!’ he said. ‘I daresay half the county may want to murder you, but –’ He broke off, recalling his injury, and groped with his right hand. ‘Vinaigrette!’ he uttered, in failing accents. ‘Polyphant!’
‘Don’t agitate him, Vincent!’ begged Anthea, as Polyphant hastened to his master’s side. ‘It must have been a terrible experience for him, poor Claud! And how he contrived to escape from those murderous bullies, and to struggle to the house, bleeding as dreadfully as he must have been, I can’t imagine! I think it shows the greatest determination!’
‘Yes, indeed, cousin: most creditable! But I think you have not exactly understood how the case stands. We have every reason to suppose that Claud was not attacked by the Ackletons, but by a couple of dragoons, precisely as Hugo told you.’
‘But that’s nonsensical!’ she exclaimed.
Lord Darracott, who, after one glance at Richmond, had stalked over to the fireplace behind him, and taken up a position there, with his hands gripped behind his back, said in a voice of suppressed passion: ‘Is that what you call it, girl? Preventives posted in my grounds without my knowledge or consent, one of my grandsons accused of being a common felon, another fired upon – fired upon! – because he don’t choose to account for himself to a couple of loutish dragoons –’
‘What?’ interrupted Claud, once more opening his eyes. ‘Dragoons? Dragoons?’
His lordship swept on remorselessly. ‘My house broken into at midnight, warrants thrust at me by a damned jack-at-warts with no more conduct than wit –’
‘What’s a common felon?’ suddenly demanded Richmond. He had been lounging in his chair, with his left arm on the table, an empty glass loosely held in his hand, his right hand dug into his pocket, and his gaze fixed on nothing in particular, but he now judged it to be time to demonstrate to Lieutenant Ottershaw that he was in no way incapacitated. His left arm was not entirely powerless: if the elbow was supported, he could make slight movements with his forearm, and he knew that he still had the use of that hand. He was in considerable discomfort, any strain on his hurt shoulder was exquisitely painful, and he had lost enough blood to weaken him to the point of hovering on the brink of collapse; but none of these ills had the power to daunt him, or to subdue the fearless spirit that responded with alacrity to the spur of danger, and found a strange enjoyment in flirting with disaster. It had flickered and sunk for an instant when a single, fleeting glance at his grandfather’s face had brought home to him the enormity of what he had done, but only for an instant. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, lurked shame, repentance, grief for an old man’s agony, but there would be time enough later to think of such things: no time now, when disaster, so often defeated, was grinning at him in triumph. Richmond Darracott, pluck to the backbone, grinned back at disaster, gaily accepting a grim challenge.
He sat up. ‘Nother thing!’ he pronounced, staring frowningly at the Lieutenant. ‘That’s Ottershaw! What’s he doing here?’
The Lieutenant, watching him with narrowed eyes, took a few steps into the room, and replied: ‘I am here to see you, sir!’
‘See me,’ repeated Richmond, slurring his sibilants. His gaze remained fixed on the Lieutenant’s face, frowning in an effort of concentration. Suddenly, to that serious-minded officer’s discomfited surprise, his eyes began to dance, and a mischievous smile curled his lips. He giggled.
‘Be silent, Richmond!’ commanded Lord Darracott. ‘You’re drunk!’
‘But I don’t understand!’ complained Anthea, looking helplessly round. ‘Why should you want to see my brother, sir? At this hour, too? Why did dragoons shoot Claud? Why– Oh, for goodness’ sake, tell me, somebody, before I go into strong hysterics, which, I warn you, I shall, at any moment.’
‘Nay, lass, it’s naught but a storm in a teacup!’ said Hugo soothingly. ‘There’s no need to be in a worry!’
She rounded on him. ‘No need to be in a worry, when I find Richmond in this odious condition, and Claud bleeding to death?’
‘None regrets the accident to Mr Claud Darracott more than I, ma’am,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘It is a mistake which –’
‘It is a mistake which is going to cost you dear!’ interrupted Lord Darracott.
As Richmond Darracott responded to the challenge of danger, so did Lieutenant Ottershaw to that of threats. Where the injury to Claud was concerned (if such an injury existed), he knew himself to be standing on thin ice, but he answered at once: ‘I would remind you, my lord, that it is the absolute duty of any person, when commanded to halt in the King’s name –’
‘Help me up!’ commanded Claud, making ineffectual efforts to heave himself on to his sound elbow.
‘Take care!’ cried Anthea, hurrying back to the sofa. ‘No, no, Claud, pray be still! Vincent – Polyphant!’
‘Help me up!’ repeated Claud. ‘Dash it – can’t – talk to that fellow – like this! Going to sit up! Going to – sit up – if it kills me!’
‘Keep still, brother!’ Vincent said, pressing him down again. ‘I will talk to the fellow – have no fear of that!’
‘There are some questions I wish to put to Mr Claud Darracott,’ said Ottershaw, ‘but – if he has sustained serious injury, I will refrain until his condition is less precarious. Perhaps Mr Richmond Darracott will be so good as to answer a question I wish to put to him?’
‘If I’ve sustained– If?’ gasped Claud. ‘Let me up, Vincent! By God, if you don’t –’
‘Gently, lad! You shall sit up!’ intervened Hugo. ‘Better let him have his way!’ he added, to Vincent. ‘And as for you, Ottershaw, just keep quiet for a few moments, will you?’
‘Hugo, if that bandage were to slip – !’ Anthea said, in an urgent undervoice.
Sergeant Hoole, surreptitiously wiping the sweat from his brow, tried in vain to catch the Lieutenant’s eye. Dicked in the nob, that’s what he was! As though anyone couldn’t see that the young chap wasn’t bandaged, let alone he was as drunk as an artillery-man, sitting there, giggling to himself. As for the other young gentleman, a nice set-out it would be if he was to start bleeding again, all through Mr Ottershaw not believing his own eyes! Why, there was blood all over everywhere! The gentleman was as green as a leek too: if they didn’t take care he’d go off again.
‘Quick, Polyphant! Brandy!’ said Vincent, as Claud, tenderly raised against a bank of cushions, allowed his head to loll on to his shoulder again.
Richmond, when he saw both Ottershaw’s and the Sergeant’s eyes fixed on the fainting Claud, got both his elbows on the table, and, lifting his left hand with his right, dropped his chin on both. In this position, and keeping his weight on his right elbow, he watched Ottershaw, mockery in his eyes, an impish grin on his lips; and when the Lieutenant, as though feeling himself to be under scrutiny, turned his head to look at him, he said: ‘I know why you shot Claud!’
‘Oh, I wish you’d go to bed, Richmond!’ exclaimed his sister exasperatedly. ‘Things are bad enough without you to make them worse! Mr Ottershaw did not shoot Claud!’
‘Yes, he did,’ insisted Richmond. ‘You think I’m castaway, but I’m not. I can carry my wine! All the Darracotts can carry their wine. He shot Claud because Hugo wouldn’t let him shoot me!’ He chuckled. ‘Silly clunch!’
‘The Darracotts do not appear to be able to carry their brandy with any very notable success,’ remarked Vincent dryly.
‘Tell me, sir!’ said Ottershaw, looking at Richmond very hard. ‘Why should I have wanted to shoot you?’
If he thought to disconcert Richmond by his searching stare, he was disappointed: those dark, gleaming eyes were brimful of wicked laughter. ‘Because I made the dragoons run away!’ Richmond let his clasped hands drop to the table, and bowed his head over them, idiotically giggling.
Vincent regarded him with raised brows, and then said to Hugo: ‘I wonder what gave rise to that – admittedly enchant
ing! – delusion? I fear we shall never know.’
‘Nay, it’s simple enough! The dragoons were set to keep watch on the Dower House, and they weren’t very well suited with that duty – eh, Sergeant?’
‘Well, sir…’
Hugo’s eyes twinkled. ‘Eh, Sergeant, you know, and I know –the things we both know!’
The Sergeant smiled gratefully at him. ‘Yes, sir!’ he said, feeling that all might not be lost if this Major would take command. He’d thought him a queer sort of a gentleman at first, but he was what the Sergeant called a right officer: any soldier could tell that, he thought.
Richmond lifted his head. ‘Ran all the way to the Blue Lion!’ he disclosed. ‘Only me! Not a ghost.’ He stopped giggling, and frowned. ‘Not a silly clunch. Forgetting!’ He looked vaguely round, his eyes coming finally to rest on the Lieutenant. He smiled, in a friendly way. ‘You weren’t frightened. My cousin said you weren’t. Mustn’t hoax you any more. Might get shot, like Claud. That’s what Hugo says. I dunno!’
Vincent cast up his eyes. ‘So far as I understand these cryptic utterances, I collect that my extremely tiresome young cousin has been playing at being a hobgoblin – with, apparently, disintegrating results. Very improper! But it in no way explains why my brother became a target, Mr Ottershaw. Perhaps you would care to enlighten me?’
The Unknown Ajax Page 34
