The Talisman Ring Read online

  It was, however, just as Nye had described. Lord Lavenham and Sir Hugh Thane, both attired in dressing-gowns, were seated on opposite sides of a small table drawn close to the fire in Sir Hugh’s bed-chamber playing piquet. A glass of wine was at each gentleman’s elbow, and so absorbed were they in the game that neither paid the least heed to the opening of the door, or, in fact, became aware of Miss Thane’s presence until she stepped right up to the table. Sir Hugh glanced up then, and said in an abstracted voice: ‘Oh, there you are, Sally!’ and turned his attention to the cards again.

  Miss Thane laid her hand on Ludovic’s shoulder to prevent his rising, but remarked significantly: ‘What if I had been the Beau, or an Exciseman?’

  ‘Oh, I’m well prepared!’ Ludovic assured her, and in the twinkling of an eye had whisked a small, silver-mounted pistol from his pocket.

  ‘Good God, I hope you don’t mean to fire on sight!’ said Miss Thane.

  Sir Hugh put up his glass to look at the pistol. ‘That’s a nice little gun,’ he observed.

  Ludovic handed it to him. ‘Yes, it’s one of Manton’s. I’ve a pair of his duelling-pistols, too – beautiful pieces of work!’

  Sir Hugh subjected the pistol to a careful inspection. ‘Myself I don’t care for silver sights. Apt to dazzle the eye.’ He sighted along the pistol. ‘Nice balance, but too short in the barrel. No accuracy over twelve yards.’

  Ludovic’s eye gleamed. ‘Do you think so? I’ll engage to culp a wafer at twenty!’

  ‘With this gun?’ said Sir Hugh incredulously.

  ‘With that gun.’

  ‘I’ll lay you a pony you don’t.’

  ‘Done!’ said Ludovic promptly.

  ‘And where,’ inquired Miss Thane, ‘do you propose to hold this contest?’

  ‘Oh, in the yard!’ said Ludovic, receiving the pistol back from Sir Hugh.

  ‘That, of course, will be very nice,’ said Miss Thane politely. ‘The ostlers will thus be able to see you. I forbid you to encourage him, Hugh. Let us admit that he is a crack shot, and be done with it.’

  ‘Well, I am a crack shot,’ said Ludovic, smiling most disarmingly up at her.

  ‘Talking of crack shots,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘what was the name of the fellow who put out all the candles in the big chandelier at Mrs Archer’s once? There were fifteen of them, and he never missed one!’

  ‘Fifteen?’ said Ludovic. ‘Sixteen!’

  ‘Fifteen was what I was told. He did it for a wager.’

  ‘That’s true enough, but I tell you there were sixteen candles!’

  Sir Hugh shook his head. ‘You’ve got that wrong. Fifteen.’

  ‘Damn it, I ought to know!’ said Ludovic. ‘I did it!’

  ‘You did it?’ Sir Hugh regarded him with renewed interest. ‘You mean to tell me you are the man who shot the wicks off fifteen candles at Mrs Archer’s?’

  ‘I shot the wicks off sixteen candles!’ said Ludovic.

  ‘Well, all I can say is that it was devilish fine shooting,’ said Sir Hugh. ‘But are you sure you have the figure right? I rather fancy fifteen was the number.’

  ‘Where’s Tristram?’ demanded Ludovic of Miss Thane. ‘He was there! Sixteen candles I shot. I used my Mantons, and Jerry Matthews loaded for me.’

  ‘I don’t know him,’ remarked Sir Hugh. ‘Would he be a son of old Frederick Matthews?’

  Miss Thane at this point withdrew to summon Sir Tristram. When she returned with him she found that the question of Mr Jerry Matthew’s parentage had led inexplicably to an argument on the precise nature of a certain bet entered in the book at White’s three years before. The argument was broken off as soon as Sir Tristram entered the room, for Ludovic at once commanded him to say whether he had put out fifteen or sixteen candles at Mrs Archer’s house.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ replied Sir Tristram. ‘All I remember is that you shattered a big mirror to smithereens and brought the Watch in on us.’

  Sir Hugh, who was looking fixedly at Sir Tristram, said suddenly, and with a pleased air: ‘Shield! That’s who you are! Recognized you at once. What’s more, I know where I saw you last.’

  Sir Tristram shook hands with him. ‘At Mendoza’s fight with Warr last year,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘I recall that you were on the roof of the coach next to my curricle.’

  ‘That’s it!’ said Thane. ‘A grand turn-up! Did you see Dan’s last fight with Humphries? A couple of years ago that would be, or maybe three.’

  ‘I saw him beat Humphries twice, and I was at the Fitzgerald turn-up in ’91.’

  ‘You were? Then tell me this – Was Fitzgerald shy, or was he not?’

  ‘Not shy, no. Rather glaringly abroad once or twice, I thought.’

  ‘He was, was he? I’m glad to know that, because –’

  ‘If you are going to talk about prize-fights, I’ll leave you,’ interposed Miss Thane.

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ said Ludovic. ‘I’m not interested in prize-fights. By-the-by, did you find that panel?’

  This casual reference to her morning’s labour made Miss Thane reply tartly: ‘No, Ludovic, we did not find that panel.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would,’ he said.

  Miss Thane appeared to struggle with emotions. Her brother, showing a faint interest in what he had caught of the conversation, said sympathetically: ‘Lost something?’

  ‘No, dear,’ replied Sarah, with awful calm. ‘It is Lord Lavenham who has lost a talisman ring. I told you all about it three days ago. He lost it at play one night at the Cocoa-Tree.’

  ‘I do remember you telling me some rigmarole or another,’ admitted Thane. ‘If you want my advice, Lavenham, you won’t play at the Cocoa-Tree. I met a Captain Sharp there myself once. Hazard it was, and the dice kept running devilish high. I’d my suspicions of them from the start, and sure enough they were up-hills.’

  ‘Oh, the play was fair enough,’ said Ludovic indifferently.

  ‘What I’m telling you is that it wasn’t,’ said Sir Hugh, patient but obstinate. ‘I split the dice myself, and found ’em loaded.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about that. My game was piquet. Never played hazard at the Cocoa-Tree in my life. I used to play at Almack’s, and Brooks’s, of course.’

  ‘Very high-going at Brooks’s,’ said Thane, with a reflective shake of the head.

  Sarah, seeing that a discussion of the play at the various gaming clubs in London was in a fair way to being begun, intervened before Ludovic could say anything more. She reminded him severely that they had more important things to discuss than gaming, and added with a good deal of feeling that her efforts on his behalf had not only been fruitless, but quite possibly disastrous as well. ‘Your cousin,’ she said, ‘has heard about Eustacie’s groom, and there is no doubt that he feels suspicious. Luckily, Sir Tristram had the presence of mind to tell him that the groom was – whom did you say he was, Sir Tristram?’

  ‘Jem Sunning,’ replied Shield. ‘You remember him, Ludovic?’

  ‘Yes, but I thought he went to America.’

  ‘He did,’ said Shield. ‘That was why I chose him. But I’m not sure that the Beau believed me. It is more imperative than ever that you should get to some place of safety. If you won’t go to Holland –’

  ‘Well, I won’t,’ said Ludovic flatly.

  Sir Hugh came unexpectedly to his support. ‘Holland?’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t go to Holland if I were you. I didn’t like it at all. Rome, now! That’s the place – though they have a demmed sight too many pictures there, too,’ he added gloomily.

  ‘I am going to stay here,’ said Ludovic. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, there’s always the cellar.’

  ‘Just what I was thinking myself !’ said Thane approvingly. ‘I’ve a strong notion there’s more in that cellar