“As I apprehend the matter, it might well have been somebody else,” said Vincent.
Claud opened his eyes, and regarded him with disfavour. “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 has 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, 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 enchanting!—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?”
“If your brother was shot, sir, the reason was that he was mistaken for Mr. Richmond Darracott!”
Claud, listening to this with dropped jaw, said, in a dazed voice: “I was shot, because I was—Dash it, I don’t look like Richmond!”
“You are of much the same height and build, sir, and I had good reason to believe that he was abroad tonight.”
“But you can’t shoot at everyone who’s the same height and build as my cousin! Besides, what’s it got to do with you if he was abroad? Never heard anything to equal it in my life! You must be mad!” said Claud, stunned.
“He’s got it firmly fixed in his head that our Richmond is mixed up with the free-traders,” explained Hugo.
“Well, that proves he’s mad. If my head weren’t swimming so—What I mean is—nothing to do with me, if he was mixed up with them! Silly notion, anyway. And when I think—” He put up a hand to his shoulder, cautiously feeling it, and wincing. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me,” he said fretfully, to his valet “It’s too tight. Devilish uncomfortable!”
“Pray do not touch it, sir! I implore you, sir, do not try to shift those bandages!”
“Something sticking into me,” muttered Claud, closing his eyes again.
“Yes, sir, but it was necessary to bind a thick pad over the wound,” said Polyphant soothingly. “We fear that the bullet may be deeply lodged, so you must not—”
“What!” Claud’s eyes flew open. “You mean to tell me I’ve got a bullet in me?”
“It’ll be dug out, never fear!” Hugo consoled him.
“Oh, no!”moaned Claud.
“Mr. Darracott, I have two questions which I shall be obliged if you will answer! That will not, I trust, exhaust you! Why were you wearing a mask, and why did you run away when commanded to halt in the King’s name?”
“Take this fellow away!” begged Claud feebly. “A bullet lodged in me! It may befatal! And all the fellow can do is to stand there, asking me questions! How was I to know what they were shouting? Next you’ll say I should have begged pardon and asked them to speak more clear—Polyphant, where is the bullet lodged? I am feeling very low.”
“And the mask, sir?” demanded Ottershaw inexorably.
“Very low indeed! Shouldn’t wonder if I fainted away again. Dashed if I’ll answer you! No concern of yours!”
“Were you wearing a mask, Claud?” said Vincent, looking amused. “Now, I wonder if I could hazard a guess? Rather a late hour for a ramble in the wood, was it not? Unless you wished for some reason to go by the shortest way to the village—or to meet someone, not far from—perhaps—the smithy?”
“You go to the devil!” said Claud sulkily. “And you can take that nosy tidewatcher with you!”
“I wonder if any of my cattle want shoeing? I feel sure they do. I have a positively burning curiosity to see that game-pullet of yours, Claud. But I shan’t wear a mask, however savage her brother may be. What Hugo can do, I can!”
“Leave the poor lad alone!” said Hugo reprovingly, but with a grin. He laid his fingers on Claud’s limp wrist for a minute. “Yes, I think the sooner we get him to bed the better it will be.”
“If I may say so, I am entirely of your mind, sir!” said Polyphant. “Knowing Mr. Claud’s constitution as I do, I shall make bold to say that he will be in a high fever if we do not procure for him a little quiet!”
Hugo nodded, and looked at Ottershaw. “Well, lad, you’ve had your wish, and kicked up a rare scrow-row into the bargain, but happen it’s time you took your leave now,” he said, not unkindly, but with a certain authority in his deep voice.
The Lieutenant stared up into his face, his eyes hard and searching, his lips tightly compressed. For several moments he did not speak: to the Darracotts the moments seemed hours. The Sergeant cleared his throat, and moved towards the door, but Ottershaw paid no heed. He could read nothing in Hugo’s calm face but slight amusement, nor did those very blue eyes waver. Could any man appear so totally unconcerned unless he was as innocent as the Major looked? Some, perhaps, but this enormous, simple creature—? Nothing could have been clumsier than his efforts to keep Richmond’s mother and grandfather in ignorance of his condition; his naive attempts at deception had been the big, good-natured, stupid man he appeared to be. But was he? There was no subtlety in his face, as there was in Vincent Darracott’s; his eyes were sometimes grave, and sometimes twinkling, but they were the eyes of a child: they gazed innocently upon the world, there was no thought behind them.
The Lieutenant glanced at Richmond. It struck him that Richmond was too pale; paler, surely, then he had been a few minutes earlier? His eyes narrowed, intently watching the boy. It was useless to question him: if he was drunk his answers would be valueless; if he was pretending to be drunk he could make them so. He was leaning forward, both his arms on the table, foolishly trying to stand the stopper of the decanter on end, using both hands impartially. It was incredible that he could sit like that, vacantly smiling, if he had a bullet lodged in him; it was incredible that he should be sitting in that chair at all under such circumstances: surely he must have swooned from sheer weakness? But he was certainly growing paler.
“Vincent!”
The Major’s voice was lowered. Ottershaw’s suspicious eyes went instantly to his face, but Hugo was no longer looking at him, he was looking at Richmond, a rather rueful smile on his lips. He glanced towards Vincent, and significantly directed his attention to Richmond, saying, in an under-voice: “From the looks of it, he’ll be casting up his accounts before he’s much older. Better get him to bed.”
“Damn the brat!” said Vincent. “Inevitable, of course! He will in all probability cast ’em up as soon as he gets to his feet. What a singularly disagreeable evening this has been, to be sure!”
He went up to the table as he spoke, and grasped Richmond’s left arm, just above the elbow, as though to pull him to his feet. “Come along, bantam!” he said. “Bedtime!”
Richmond hiccupped. “I don’t want to go to bed.”
“One moment!” Ottershaw said suddenly, obedient to an insistent, inner prompting. “Before you retire, Mr. Richmond, oblige me, please, by removing your coat!”
Chapter 21
“Well, upon my word!” cried Anthea, as though she could no longer restrain herself. “Mr. Ottershaw, are you indeed mad, or merely determined to insult us! I never heard of anything so outrageous in my life! Who are you to throw orders about in this house? Pray how many people have been fired on tonight?”
Uncertainty, chagrin, the intangible feeling that he was being fooled to the top of his bent, were making the Lieute
nant lose his temper. He snapped back accusingly: “Only one, Miss Darracott!”
She stared at him, her eyes blazing. “Only—Why, you—you impertinent idiot! Do you know what you are saying? Do you seriously imagine that I—my grandfather—my cousins—all of us, in fact: every member of the household!—are engaged in the smuggling trade?”
“No! But that you are engaged in protecting Mr. Richmond Darracott, yes!”he said recklessly.
“Don’t be so daft, Ottershaw!” said Hugo quietly.
Anthea paid no heed, but gave a scornful, angry laugh, and said: “Well, I hope you know how my brother has contrived to become a smuggler without anyone’s being the wiser, for I can assure you I don’t! When I think of the way every single soul at Darracott Place fusses and cossets him—Oh, what is the use of talking to you? You are out of your senses!” She swung round towards Lord Darracott, demanding impetuously: “Grandpapa, how much more of this do you mean to endure?”
“Let him go his length, my girl!” he replied. “The farther the better! Do you think I mean to stop him tieing the noose round his own neck? I don’t, pea-goose!”
Sergeant Hoole stepped forward, laying a hand on the Lieutenant’s arm. “Sir!” he uttered imploringly. “Begging your pardon, but—”
Ottershaw shook him off. He had gone too far to draw back, and the voice within his brain that urged him not to let these Darracotts outjockey him was growing every second more insistent. Rather pale, but with his jaw out-thrust, he said: “If Mr. Richmond Darracott is unhurt, why should he hesitate to remove his coat, so that I may be convinced by the evidence of my own eyes that it is so?”
Hugo, who had bent over Claud, adjusting the sling that supported his left arm, straightened himself, saying: “Oh, for God’s sake, take your coat off, Richmond, and your waistcoat too! Let’s be done with this business!”
Richmond might be pale, but his eyes, tremendously alive, gave the lie to the drawn look on his face, not a trace of fear in them. He gave a gleeful chuckle, and pointed a derisive finger at the Major. “Who said I couldn’t bamboozle the Exciseman? Who said he was too fly to the time of day to be hoaxed by a silly schoolboy? I’ve done it! Vincent, do you know what Hugo—”
The Unknown Ajax Page 34
