by Headon Hill
CHAPTER V--_Ziegler Begins to Move_
On the following Sunday morning the Duke of Beaumanoir stood at one ofthe windows of the long library at Prior's Tarrant, idly beating atattoo on the glass. The June sunshine flooded the bosky leafage of theglorious expanse of park, and nearer still the parterres of the oldDutch garden were gay with summer bloom; but the beauties of thelandscape were lost upon the watcher at the window.
Nearly four and twenty hours had elapsed since he had failed to keep hisappointment with Mr. Ziegler, and he was wondering how and when thatautocrat of high-grade crime would signalize his displeasure at themutiny. That sooner or later an edict would issue against him from theinvalid chair in the first-floor suite he had not the slightest doubt.He knew that he had to deal with men playing a great game for a greatstake in deadly earnest.
The Dukes of Beaumanoir had never been famous for their virtues, anymore than they had been cowards, and it was rather a dawning sense ofresponsibility than fear, either for his reputation or his person, thatfilled him with apprehension. If "anything happened" to him, such a lotwould happen to so many other people. For instance, it had only occurredto him since he came down to the country that if Ziegler killed him hisdeath would mean ruin to Alec Forsyth, who had thrown up a sure positionto serve him. The next heir was an elderly cousin with a large family toprovide for, and he would certainly not retain Forsyth in hisemployment.
Then, again, Beaumanoir reflected with a sigh, his new and sweetfriendship with Leonie Sherman--a friendship to which no blot on hisescutcheon need now put limits--would be rudely snapped. The King ofTerrors would take away what his saved honor had restored, and perhapsit was the bitterest drop in his cup to feel that he might be giving hislife to lose what in another sense he would have given his life to win.To ask Leonie to link her fate to his, with that dark shadow hangingover him, was out of the question.
Once he had taken up his pen to denounce Ziegler to the policeauthorities anonymously, but he had despondingly laid it down again.That crafty practitioner had doubtless safeguarded himself against suchan obvious course by being prepared with an unimpeachable record whichit would be impossible to shake unless he came forward and avowedcomplicity. There, again, dishonor waited for him, and he had alreadymade his choice that a short shrift was preferable to that.
The gloom of his mood was enhanced by his intense loneliness in the hugefeudal monastery that now called him master, for Forsyth had been unableto join him, owing to difficulties in obtaining release from his presentduties.
Beaumanoir took out and read for the fifth time a letter which hadarrived that morning from his friend and secretary:
"My dear Duke (I mustn't use the irreverent 'Charley' any more),--I am still having trouble with the F.O. people about my departure, but I think I may safely promise to get away to you on Tuesday. In fact, I shall make a point of doing so, even if I have to leave the public service in disgrace, for you must forgive my saying that I am rather uneasy about you. The other day you seemed like a man with a millstone round his neck, and I take it that one of the duties of a private secretary is to remove millstones from the person of his employer. I only wish you would confide fully in me, and command me in any way--but that is, of course, your affair.
"I dined with my uncle, General Sadgrove, last night, and had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. and Miss Sherman there. The latter is indeed a charming girl. She was rather shy in talking about you, having heard from my uncle that the Mr. Hanbury she met on shipboard was probably the Duke of Beaumanoir on his way to enter into his kingdom. Mrs. Sherman waxed enthusiastic on your 'old-world courtesy' and the General, who chaffs the old lady, remarked that she had been equally laudatory before she discovered your rank.
"They were all very kind and congratulatory on my announcing my engagement to Sybil, which, as I wrote you yesterday, was ratified within ten minutes of your leaving me at the door of Beaumanoir House.
"You may be interested to hear that I did _not_ go to tea with Mrs. Talmage Eglinton to-day.--Yours,
"_Alec Forsyth_."
The Duke crushed the letter back into his pocket, and came to aresolution.
"I'll run up to town to-morrow and call on the Shermans," he said tohimself. "And now I'll do the proper thing, and go to church. I'm notgoing to crouch in corners because of that patriarchal old fiend at theCecil."
The church at which generations of Hanburys had worshiped was in thecenter of Tarrant village, a mile from the lodge gates, but there was ashort cut to it across the park. This was the route taken by the Duke,who first crossed the greensward and then passed out by a private wicketinto the road after traversing the belt of copse that fringed thedemesne. The villagers, who had waited for his coming, standingbare-headed in the churchyard, were a little disappointed that he hadnot driven up in full state. But the solitary gentleman limping up thepath atoned for the lack of ceremony and won their hearts by hisfriendly smile; and a handshake to one or two of the older inhabitants,whom he remembered as a boy, clinched the matter. The verdict went roundthat the new Duke would "do."
The service that morning was, it is to be feared, more ducal thandevotional. From the white-robed choir, ranged among the tombs ofdead-and-gone Hanburys in the chancel, to the hard-breathing rustics onthe back benches every eye was turned and steadily kept on the lonelyfigure in the family pew. While grateful for the homage paid him, theDuke was not sorry when the ordeal was over and he was free to make hisway homeward.
But he was not to get off so easily. As he was about to let himselfthrough the private gate into the park, intending to go back, as he hadcome, through the copse, footsteps sounded behind him, and Mr. Bristow,the vicar, overtook him. They had already met on the previous day.
"Your Grace is alone still?" panted the clergyman. "Ah, I thought yoursecretary wouldn't find it so easy to cast his shackles. I amcommissioned by Mrs. Bristow to say--I hope you won't think uspresuming--that we shall be delighted if you will give us your companyat our homely lunch."
A sudden impulse prompted Beaumanoir to accept the invitation. He hadtaken a liking for the hale, vigorous old vicar, who had the archives ofhis family by rote, and an hour or two in his society would take him outof himself. So he turned back and accompanied his host to the vicarage,where he made a good impression on Mrs. Bristow by his cordial praise ofher training of the choir and by appreciation of her strawberries andcream.
It was past four when he returned to Prior's Tarrant, to be met in theentrance-hall by the butler with a face eloquent of "something wrong."
"What is it, Manson?" he asked. "Mr. Bristow sent a boy, did he not, tosay that I was lunching at the vicarage?"
"Yes, your Grace. It isn't that," was the agitated reply. "I have toreport an outrage that's been committed on one of the under-servants.Jennings, the third gardener, was coming back from church through thecopse in the park, when he was lassoed, your Grace, same as they dobuffalo, I've been told, in foreign parts. A rope shot out of the bushesover his shoulders, and then a man ran up as he was struggling on theground; but let him go, saying it was a joke. Jennings hasn't got anyenemies that he knows of, and it was a wicked thing to do, because he'sa bit of a cripple and walks lame. It's shook him a good deal."
"I am not surprised at that," said the Duke. "Possibly it was onlyintended as a practical joke, but you had better inform the constable inthe village, and instruct him to inquire into the matter."
The butler retired, and the Duke smiled grimly.
"Ziegler has begun to put in some of his fine work," he muttered. "Theinitial blunder of his agents in mistaking a servant's limp for minewon't stop him long. I shall begin to like the excitement soon, Iexpect."
But as the day wore to evening, and the evening to night, the sensationof being _hunted_ vexed his nerves. He found himself prolonging hissolitary dinner for the sake of the company of the butler and footmanwho waited upon him, and afterwards he abstained
from the moonlit strollon the terrace to which he felt tempted. It was not till the mansion hadbeen barred and bolted for the night that he ceased to fumble frequentlyfor the revolver which he had carried all day.
Before retiring he inquired of Manson if the constable had traced themaltreaters of Jennings, and he was not surprised to learn that therehad been no discoveries. Mr. Clinton Ziegler was not the man to employagents incapable of baffling a village policeman.
The room which Beaumanoir occupied was the great state bed-chamber thathad been used by his predecessors from time immemorial--a gauntapartment with a cavernous fireplace and heavily curtained mullionedwindows. He did not like the room, but had consented to sleep there onseeing that the old retainers would be scandalized by his sleepinganywhere but in the "Duke's Room."
After locking the door and seeing to the window fastenings, he took theadditional precaution of examining the chimney. Bending his head clearof the massive mantelpiece, he looked up and saw that at the end of thebroad shaft quite a large circle of star-lit sky was visible, while acold blast struck downwards of sufficient volume to purify the air ofthe room.
He lay awake for some time, but he must have been slumbering fitfullyfor over an hour when he felt himself gradually awakening--not from anysudden start, but from a growing sense of strange oppression in hislungs. As his senses returned the choking sensation increased, andfinally he lay wide awake, wondering what was the matter. Every minuteit became harder to breathe the stifling air, and at last he flung thebedclothes off in the hope of relief, and in doing so saw something sounaccountable that his reeling senses were stricken with amazementrather than fear.
There was a fire in the grate. Glowing steadily in the recess of theancient fireplace a great red ball burned, without flicker and withoutflame, but lurid with the unwavering light that comes from fuel fused tointense heat.
Even without the terrible oppression at his chest there would have beena weird horror in this mysterious fire introduced into his room at deadof night--into a room with locked door and fastened windows. But whatdid this ghastly struggle for breath portend?
"Charcoal! Ziegler!" were the two words that buzzed in response throughhis fast-clouding brain.
