The Unknown Ajax

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “I am coming!” said his lordship gratingly, and, with a repelling gesture, stalked towards the door.

  “Yes, and so am I!” declared Mrs. Darracott.

  “One moment, Elvira!” interposed Lady Aurelia, firmly grasping her wrist.

  “Phew!” breathed Hugo, as he left the drawing-room in the wake of the Sergeant, and closed the door behind him. “It’s to be hoped your mother will be able to hold her, Vincent!”

  “My mother is no stupider than the rest of us, I assure you. Is he badly castaway?”

  “Well, he was in fairly prime and plummy order when I came away,” confessed Hugo. “I wish you will make a push to head his lordship off! I’d as lief not get the boy into trouble.”

  “I’ll try, but it’s unlikely I shall succeed,” Vincent replied.

  As he ran lightly downstairs, after his grandfather, Hugo laid a restraining hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder, saying “Wait! Give him a chance to divert the old gentleman! It’ll be the better for you if you do, I can tell you. Eh, lad, I can’t but laugh about it, but this is a bad business!”

  The Sergeant silently agreed with him. It had seemed at one moment as though Lieutenant Ottershaw’s conviction was about to be proved, but the Major’s laughter had killed that hope stone-dead. No man, in Sergeant Hoole’s opinion, who stood on the brink of exposure as an aider and abettor of criminals could go off into a fit of laughter like that: it stood to reason he couldn’t, any more than he could talk to his cousin, like he’d just done, as though it didn’t matter a rush who might be listening. Which was a sure sign it didn’t, thought the Sergeant, hoping that this jingle-brained Riding-officer he’d been sent to assist wasn’t going to make bad worse, and that the haughty young gentleman would succeed in keeping his lordship away.

  Lieutenant Ottershaw had not so entirely abandoned hope as the Sergeant, but his state was the more to be pitied, since he did not know what to think, and much less what to do. Until the arrival of Major Darracott upon the scene, everything had gone according to his expectation, with Richmond’s family on the defensive: incredulous, belligerent, trying to overawe him, but powerless to divert him from his stern purpose. He had known himself to be master of that situation, for although it might be difficult to handle, it was perfectly straightforward. But within a very few minutes of the Major’s entrance it had undergone a bewildering change, always eluding his grasp. He had an uneasy feeling that he had been lured away from the road into a maze, yet he could not, trying to think it over, see at what point he had lost his way, or reasonably blame the Major for that loss. The Major had certainly attempted by every means he could think of to evade the necessity of producing Richmond, but his efforts had been extremely clumsy, causing him to flounder from one position to another, and finally to capitulate. Or so it had seemed, until the moment of his discomfiture, when, instead of being dejected, he had burst into a roar of laughter. Ottershaw, already puzzled by the contradictory nature of his antics, had suffered a shock from which he had not yet recovered. He needed time in which to regain his balance, and to think the whole episode over coolly and carefully; and he felt that he was being rushed. But again it was impossible to blame the Major. Not that leisurely giant but himself had been the one to insist that he should instantly be taken to Richmond. His brain was in a turmoil, with a nagging, unwelcome thought constantly recurring: if Richmond really was drunk, and not wounded, there was nothing in the least contradictory in the Major’s behaviour. He had all the time been trying to shield Richmond from his mother and his grandfather, not from theavenging hand of the law. This explanation of conduct which had seemed extraordinary was so simple, and so instantly unravelled every knot in the tangled skein, that the Lieutenant was obliged to cling doggedly to the only certainty remaining: Richmond had been wounded, and no matter what the Major did he could not conceal the damning evidence against him.

  The Lieutenant said abruptly, as he began to descend the stairs beside Major Darracott: “It will perhaps save time, sir, if I inform you that I have seen with my own eyes the blood on the steps leading to one of the side-doors into this house.”

  His eyes were fixed on the Major’s profile, on the watch for the tiniest sign of dismay. The Major grinned. “I don’t know about the steps, but you ought to see the pantry!” he replied. The grin faded, and he shook his head. “Nay, it’s all very well, but you’ve made a rare mess of it, lad! The Lord only knows what the afterclap may be now, for there’s more to it than you’ve any idea of—or I either, think on, at the start of it. I tried my best to tip you the wink, but not a bit of heed would you pay to me!” He turned his head to look down at the Lieutenant, saying, with a quizzical smile: “You know, lad, I’d have something to say to any subaltern of mine who charged tail over top into a quagmire the way you do! Happen we might have hushed it up, between the pair of us, if I could have brought you to your bearing. Eh, I don’t know, though, for it’s a reet scaddle, and how to button it up is beyond me!” He sighed ruefully. “I could have kept his lordship from finding our Richmond as drunk as a drum, at any hand, if you hadn’t insisted on seeing him, you dafthead! You may say it’s my blame for letting him get shot in the neck, but the fact is I was dipping rather deep myself. Well, I daresay you know how it is, when you’re playing cards! you don’t pay any heed to aught else. It’s my belief it was as much excitement as brandy that made him top-heavy, too,” he added reflectively, “but it’s likely to be the devil of a task to persuade his lordship to believe that. And that’s what worries me most, because it’s taken the lad the Lord knows how long to coax my grandfather to let him have his way, and join the army, and if he flies into one of his passions there’s no saying that he won’t take back his consent, for it went clean against the pluck with him to give it.”

  “Going into the army!” exclaimed the Lieutenant, thunder-struck.

  “Seventh Hussars,” said Hugo. “He’s been mad after a cavalry regiment pretty well since he was breeched, seemingly. Well, that’s no concern of yours, of course—except that if he gets a nay-say from his lordship now he’ll be so crazy with disappointment that happen he really will take to smuggling!”

  As far as the Sergeant was concerned, that settled it. Descending the stairs behind his superiors, he had absorbed the Major’s ruminations with a steadily growing conviction that Mr. Ottershaw had allowed himself to be properly slumguzzled—which, now he came to think of it, was what he’d thought in the first place, because whoever heard of a high-up young gentleman leading a gang of smugglers? There was no sense to it; but these Riding-officers got so that they took to thinking anyone might be a smuggler. The Sergeant wondered uneasily what dire consequences would befall him, if the terrible old lord came the ugly. It wasn’t his blame that they’d been hunting an elephant in the moon; on the other hand, no one was going to blame Mr. Ottershaw for what was done by a bottleheaded, addlebrained recruit too raw to be trusted with a pop-gun, let alone a carbine. As far as Sergeant Hoole could see, the only hope of bringing themselves home lay in this lumping great Major, who was the only one of these Darracotts who seemed to be kindly disposed. And ten to one, thought the Sergeant bitterly, Mr. Ottershaw would set up his back next.

  Reaching the foot of the stairs, after setting a leisurely pace that gave Vincent time to put his grandfather in possession of enough of the truth to prevent his bringing all to ruin by some unwitting blunder, Hugo led the way across the great hall to the corridor that gave access to the morning-room, and to the servants’ quarters beyond it Here Vincent had overtaken his lordship, and rapidly explained the situation to him. As soon as the rest of the party appeared, he said: “Very well, sir: as you wish!” and, turning, grimaced, for the benefit of Lieutenant Ottershaw, and slightly shrugged his shoulders.

  Hugo would have much preferred to be rid of Lord Darracott, but since his lordship was obviously determined to take part in the approaching scene he could only make the best of it, and hope Ottershaw was too slightly acquainted with him to th
ink his silence remarkable, or to recognize the stricken look behind the fierceness in his eyes. He said cheerfully, his own eyes twinkling: “We’ve got him in here, this smuggler of yours. It’s a fortunate thing he’s too weak from loss of blood to be dangerous, for it would take a battalion to hold him othergates! He’s a terrible ruffian!”

  With these encouraging words, he walked into the room, and held the door wide for his companions. Over his shoulder, he said, with his deep chuckle: “Pluck up, lad! It was all a mistake, and not Ned Ackleton who shot you. It was Excisemen—and here they are!”

  Chapter 20

  The scene which met the Lieutenant’s suspicious but startled gaze was lurid enough to astonish even Hugo, who had had no time to do more than sketch for his, players the nature of the rôles allotted to them, before he was obliged to leave them. The stage had then been by no means set; but one swift glance round the room now was enough to satisfy him that his subordinates had more than obeyed his rapid instructions: they had surpassed themselves.

  Not the most uninformed of observers could have failed to realize that something must have happened to interrupt two persons in the middle of a game of cards, even if the obvious cause of the interruption had been hidden from sight. Richmond was seated at the table in the middle of the room, with his cards stacked and laid face downwards before him; but opposite him a hand had been flung down in such careless haste that two of the cards which composed it had fallen on to the floor. A silver tray, with the stopper of the decanter lying in it, had been placed on the table; and beside Richmond a litter of bank-notes and scraps of paper bore eloquent testimony to the run of luck he must have been enjoying. The candles in the wall-sconces behind him had been lit, but since the branched candelabra, which must presumably have stood on the table, had been seized, and set down on a chair by the sofa, to provide Anthea and Polyphant with more light for their activities, no direct light fell upon his face. Nearly all the available light was, in fact, concentrated round the sofa, on which, supported by Polyphant, standing behind him, reclined Claud, the focal point of the scene.

  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 dishcloth 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 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 baconbrained 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 overzealous 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!”