by Headon Hill
CHAPTER XVII--_Where is the Duke?_
The next day was that set for the arrival of Senator Sherman, though itwould be quite late in the afternoon before he could reach Prior'sTarrant from Liverpool. Mrs. Sherman had addressed a letter to him onboard the _Campania_, explaining matters and passing on a cordialinvitation from Beaumanoir that he would join the party on landing.
Latterly there had been an entire absence of the excursions and alarumswhich had marked the earlier days of the house-party. General Sadgroveand Alec Forsyth had relaxed none of their vigilance, and Azimoolahstill ranged the glades of the park, but no more unauthorized artistshad put in an appearance, nor had any member of the party suffered fromheadache, entailing the strange cure of a midnight journey.
On this eventful morning it so happened that the ladies were allassembled in the breakfast-room before any of the gentlemen were down.Sybil, presiding at the tea and coffee equipage, was evincing deepinterest in Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's narrative of her purchases in Londonthe day before; Mrs. Sherman was wondering to Mrs. Sadgrove whether"Leonidas" would come straight to Prior's Tarrant, or insist ondepositing the bonds in the Bank of England first; and Leonie waslooking dreamily through the open windows across the park--she was oftendreaming nowadays; so was the Duke.
Presently General Sadgrove strode in and took his seat, making noapology, because breakfast was a come-as-you-please meal, and no one wasexpected to be punctual. But when he had said good-morning all round heglanced uneasily at the vacant places of Beaumanoir and Forsyth. The twoyoung men were usually up and about before anyone.
Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had broken off in the middle of describing a newand ravishing hat to Sybil in order to smile a welcome to the grim oldwarrior. She was now following the direction of his glance, andcommented on it in sprightly fashion.
"The naughty Duke and the naughty Mr. Forsyth!" she purred. "I believeyou men keep most frightfully late hours in this house, General. What isit that you do--play cards or gamble with dominoes?"
"No, it's chess," jerked out the General, regarding her impassively."Mate to the King and the Black Queen to move. All that sort of thing,don't you know."
The American widow trilled out a silvery laugh, and the veteran attackedhis breakfast. But, looking singularly old this morning, he seemed tohave but little appetite, and ate slowly, frowning at the two emptyplaces; and when Alec Forsyth came in alone, and white as a sheet, hewas on his legs in a moment.
"Where is the Duke?" the General flung at his nephew.
"I don't know; he's not in his room, and I can't find him anywhere inthe nearer gardens," was the reply. "I should like to speak to you for amoment," Forsyth added, with a significant glance at the ladies, who hadso far failed to grasp that there was anything serious in a Duke beinglate for breakfast in his own house.
It needed no second request to bring the General out into the hall. "Nowtell me shortly," said the old man as soon as they were alone together.
What Forsyth had to tell did not amount to much. As was his custom, hehad gone to Beaumanoir's room as soon as he was dressed, and had foundit vacant. As, however, the bed had been slept in, he apprehendednothing wrong, thinking merely that the Duke was smoking an earlycigarette on the terrace. Seeing no sign of him there, he extended hissearch in the grounds, but again with no result. The next step was toquestion the servants, none of whom had seen their master since theprevious day.
The General stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I don't believe that womanknows anything," he said at length. "I was watching her when you camein. She seemed to be surprised, and even disconcerted, by your news."
"Perhaps one of her colleagues has acted independently, or there may bedivided counsels in the camp," Forsyth suggested. "In that case----"
"In _any_ case, what we have to do is to find Beaumanoir, dead oralive," the General interrupted. "See here, Alec, you must get a grip onyourself and go in and eat your breakfast calmly--just to prevent apremature panic among the women. I'll go and hunt up Azimoolah. If therehas been any stir during the night he is sure to know of it."
But as the General descended the terrace steps he was smitten withinward misgivings on that point. Had his faithful henchman detectedanything unusual during the hours of darkness he would, long ere this,have been up to the house to report; besides which, if he had comeacross any lurking miscreants he would have seen to it that no harmbefell the Duke. And here was the Duke missing. The hypothesis was thatAzimoolah had either been eluded or had himself fallen a victim to foulplay.
Influenced by this fear, the General quickened his pace, and as soon ashe reached the wooded portion of the park uttered at frequent intervalshis signal for the Pathan to appear. But glade after glade he traversed,scaring the rabbits with his cobra-like hiss, yet the lithe form ofAzimoolah nowhere broke through the bushes. The General did not desisttill he had thoroughly drawn the coverts, abandoning after a while hisstrange noises for a systematic scrutiny of the ground. He knew that hadAzimoolah been in the park as a live man he would have answered thewell-known call by now; whereas if he was lying cold and stark somewherein the thicket, by patient search alone could he be found.
At the end of a fruitless hour the General went back to the house,realizing that not only the Duke, but the Duke's most capable protector,was missing. The blow was a severe one, for, apart from the ominousmystery of this dual disappearance, a certain scheme that had come tovery near maturity was rendered null and void--a scheme that beforeanother day dawned was to have cut the claws of Ziegler and Co. forever.
There was the bare chance that Beaumanoir might have turned up duringhis absence, and General Sadgrove covered the ground at his best pace;but he was destined to find no such pleasant surprise in store for him.Forsyth met him, as he mounted the terrace steps, with the significantinquiry whether he had discovered anything.
"Nothing, and Azimoolah has gone too," was the reply. "Where are thewomen?"
"In the morning-room; they are not alarmed as yet, only a littleuneasy--especially Leonie."
"She would be, but we needn't mind her," the General rejoined,brusquely. "What do you make of Ziegler's understudy?"
"I cannot make much of her," replied Forsyth. "I am inclined to agreewith you that she is as much in a fog as the rest of us."
The General grunted, and proposed that they should at once go up andrummage Beaumanoir's room for clues, a course which they instantlyadopted. Since the charcoal episode their host had resolutely refused tooccupy "the Duke's room," preferring to that grim state apartment asmaller chamber in the corridor where most of the guests wereaccommodated. Access was gained to it by two different doors, oneleading to it through a dressing-room, the other directly opening intoit. They chose the latter as being the nearest, and as they entereddistinctly heard the swish of a silk skirt in the dressing-room,followed by the soft closing of the dressing-room door.
Alert and bristling like an angry terrier, the General stepped quicklyback into the corridor--just in time to see another door gently shut alittle farther on.
"You were right, laddie," he said, rejoining Forsyth. "She has been herebefore us on the same errand. Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is as muchbewildered as we are by the turn of events, and she has been trying toarrive at conclusions from an inspection of the Duke's room."
They began their "rummage," which was made easier for them by the factthat the housemaids had not yet paid their morning visit to the room.The bed had certainly been slept in, and there were also indicationsthat the occupant had made a perfunctory sort of toilet afterwards.There was fresh lather on a shaving-paper, and soapy water in thewash-basin, to show that Beaumanoir had been able to attend to hisperson.
"Whatever has happened to him didn't happen here," said the General withdecision. "He left this room a free agent, at all events. The questionthen arises, When and why did he leave it, and has he left the confinesof the park?"
"He must have made a cold toilet," said Forsyth. "See, here is the hotwater which was brought up for hi
m at eight o'clock this morning, andalso the water for his tub."
He stepped outside into the corridor and pointed to a small and a largecan that had been placed close outside the door of the dressing-room. Bythe General's advice the Duke had been in the habit of keeping bothdoors locked at night, and the cans were never brought in by the servantwho called him. A valet had not yet been engaged.
"And there by the wash-stand is the empty can he used overnight," saidthe General. "Yes, there is the dirty water, in which he washed hishands before going to bed, in the waste-pail. We fix him, then, tohaving slept for some hours, and to having got up early and left thehouse in the small hours before anyone was about."
"It looks as if he were playing a lone hand at some game of his own,"said Forsyth, doubtfully.
But the General would have no vague conjectures. Having settled withinapproximate limits the time when Beaumanoir quitted his room, he desiredto learn how he had left the house. He himself had been sitting up fromtwo, at which hour he relieved Forsyth, till five o'clock, and he wouldstake his reputation that no one had been moving during the period ofhis vigilance. The Duke must have left the house between five and six,at which latter hour the servants began to be moving.
This view was strengthened by inquiry from the butler, who reported thaton going his rounds to open up the house he had discovered one of thewindows of the smoking-room unbolted, though he had himself seen to thefastenings the night before. He had not thought anything of it,supposing that one of the gentlemen had gone out for an early stroll.
The General led Forsyth aside. "Whatever has happened to Beaumanoir, hehas courted his own fate by going outside unattended," he said. "Italmost looks as if he had been lured out by some trick of his enemies,in which case Azimoolah has probably been done to death whileendeavoring to protect him. Come and help me search the park once more,and then if we find nothing we must call in the police."
Making a detour by the stable-yard, so as to avoid meeting and beingquestioned by the ladies, they struck out for the leafy recesses of thebroad belt of woodland that fringed the park. Allotting one section toForsyth and taking the other himself, the General repeated the processof the morning, peering into the bushes, turning over heaps of leavesand probing the bracken with his stick, but all to no purpose. Nogruesome corpse, either of English nobleman or of dark-skinned Asiatic,met their straining eyes.
"We must give it up," said the General at last. "Now that we are downhere we had better go out through the wicket-gate into the village andtell the constable to send for his superiors. We have reached the limit,and poor Beaumanoir's secrets can belong to him no longer, I fear."
Forsyth assented that it would be no longer advisable, even if it werepossible, to keep the Duke's affairs out of the hands of the police, andthe two made their way toward the private gate in the park wall throughwhich Beaumanoir had gone to church on his first memorable Sunday atPrior's Tarrant. They were approaching the gate, not by the path, butskirting the wall through the undergrowth, when a lissome body appearedsuddenly at the top of the wall, poised there for a moment, and thendropped almost at their feet. It was Azimoolah Khan, dusty and out ofbreath, but very far from being a dead man.
"How is this, thou son of Sheitan?" exclaimed the General, affectingsternness to hide his pleasure. "It was not your wont in the jungle daysto desert your post in times of danger. In your absence some evil thinghas befallen him whom we are pledged to guard."
"Nay, Sahib, but hear me. It is not thy servant who has deserted hispost, but his post which has deserted him," protested the Pathan, withdignified reproof. "The great Lord Duke ran away--oh so far and sofast--and thy servant ran after in his tracks to see that no harm befellhim."
"Well, where is the Duke now, man?" the General blurted out in greatexcitement. "Surely you haven't come back to tell me that you have losthim?"
"The Duke is in the fire-carriage, Sahib; and thy servant having nosufficient money or orders from the Sahib, was not able to followfurther than the station," Azimoolah replied.
Pressed to be more explicit, this was the story he had to impart. He hadbeen patrolling the park, ever with a watchful eye for the house, whenbetween five and six he had seen the Duke come from one of theground-floor windows and make at great speed for the coppices. Keepinghimself concealed, Azimoolah had quickly perceived that it was theDuke's intention to leave the park by the wicket gate, and, consideringit his duty not to lose sight of him, he had climbed the wall andfollowed. Avoiding the village street, Beaumanoir had struck into aseries of lanes which presently brought him back into the main roadbeyond the farthest habitation. Thenceforward, with Azimoolah shadowinghim, he had commenced a tramp which lasted between two and three hours,and finally ended at a railway station in a fair-sized country town.
"You ascertained the name of the town?" asked the General.
Yes, after the train had steamed away Azimoolah had not omitted toinquire the name of the town. It was Tring. He had also inquired at thebooking-office where the Duke had taken a ticket for, but the clerk hadrefused the information with a rude remark about the color of hisskin--a remark which, east of Suez, might have brought him a taste ofcold steel.
"And then, Sahib," concluded the narrator, "without bite or sup Istarted to run back again, being sore afraid lest thy heart should betroubled by these things."
The General patted his orderly's lean shoulder. "You have done right,old sheep-dog," he said. "And as the lamb has broken loose from the foldyou can go and get food and take a few hours' rest. Come, Alec! Let usget back and see what Bradshaw has to tell us."
Azimoolah having vanished over the boundary wall for his lodging in thevillage, they returned to the house and repaired to the library. Forsythfound a Northwestern time-table and turned up Tring.
"Beaumanoir must have caught the 7.30 down," he said, running his fingerdown the page. "It's a slow train, stopping at every station, anddoesn't go beyond Bletchley."
The General was growing querulous. "Bletchley!" he snorted. "What thedeuce does he want at Bletchley? It's a little one-horse town in NorthBucks, isn't it?"
"Hold on, it's more than that," said Forsyth, still with his finger onthe column. "It's a junction where fast trains stop, and--yes!--he couldchange there into the North of England express, which calls there at8.10."
The two men looked at each other in silence and with something ofconsternation.
"Liverpool is in the north of England," said the General after a pause,"and Sherman is due to arrive there to-day."
"I cannot and will not believe that Beaumanoir has gone wrong afterall," Forsyth angrily replied to his uncle's significant remark. Hespoke with such heat that neither of them noticed that the library doorhad been opened and that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton stood there, smiling atthem.
"Who has gone wrong?" she purred sweetly. "For goodness' sake, don'ttell me that the Duke has run away with a housemaid!"
She was looking at Forsyth with eyes that bored like gimlets, and hethought of the letter from Ziegler, addressed to the Duke, entrusted tohim the day before. Was it something in that letter that made her stareso steadfastly and yet with something of mockery in her gaze? Havinggood reason to be aware of the contents of that letter, he thought itlikely. Only in that case calculations had been all at sea, andBeaumanoir--alas, poor Beaumanoir!
It was the General who answered the lady's banter, and that without anyvisible discomfiture. "No, it isn't the Duke who has gone wrong," hesaid calmly. "We were talking of someone not nearly so exalted. Our hostis all right--gone away for a few hours by an early train on business.We have found out all about his movements, and I shall be obliged, Mrs.Talmage Eglinton, if you will kindly reassure the other ladies thatBeaumanoir's absence is satisfactorily accounted for."
"How delighted Miss Sherman will be. I will go and tell them all, atonce," cried the American gaily. And she swept out of the room with anexuberant triumph not lost on those who remained behind.
"Wherever the Duke has gone, and with
whatever motive, Mrs. TalmageEglinton is pleased," the General mused aloud.
"She will find herself mistaken if she thinks he has gone to play hergame," said Alec Forsyth, staunch as ever to his friend.
