Faro's Daughter Read online

  CHAPTER 11

  Mr Ravenscar came to the rendezvous in the Park alone, and on foot, as Kennet had hoped he would, when he appointed a meeting-place at no great distance from his house, and in one of the walks a little way away from the carriage-road. He knew that unless he drove himself Ravenscar either walked, or took a hackney, and it was not likely that he would have his curricle out so late in the day. He had himself hired a closed vehicle whose owner, a villainous-looking individual with a cauliflower ear, was vouched for by Silas. For five guineas, he was ready, he said jovially, to assist in a murder, and if it were a mere matter of abduction he counted it a very slight piece of work, and was happy to be of service. He bit the gold pieces that were given him, and said that he liked to have to do with honest culls. He engaged to hold his carriage in readiness in the Park, and to be deaf and blind to his employers' activities.

  Mr Ravenscar saw the carriage as he crossed the road towards the path where he expected to meet Miss Grantham, and he supposed it to be hers. It was already dusk, and the Park was almost deserted. What reason Deborah could have for appointing a meeting-place in such secrecy, and at such an hour, he could not imagine. He would not have been surprised to find that there was some trick brewing, and was prepared to encounter all the feminine weapons of tears, cajolery, pleadings and vapours. That she hoped to induce him to relent he was sure; he suspected, with a cynical twist to his mouth, that she was regretting her rejection of his fantastic offer of twenty thousand pounds, and determined that no arts of hers should prevail upon him to repeat the offer, or even the half of it. She might think herself fortunate to get the mortgage and the bill into her hands.

  The path down which he was wending his way lay between beds of autumn flowers and was screened from the road by a belt of trees, which made it so dark, in the failing light, that he could not see many yards ahead. A rustic seat, where Miss Grantham should have met him, loomed vaguely ahead, beside a clump of flowering shrubs. No one was in sight. Ravenscar paused, frowning, and suddenly suspicious. It was no longer fashionable to wear a sword, and he carried nothing but his walking-cane in his hand. Some instinct of danger made him tighten his grip on this, but before he had well grasped that Miss Grantham had not kept her appointment with him, Silas Wantage had sprung out from behind the bush with a club it his hand, and came at him in a rush.

  Ravenscar escaped the blow aimed at his head only by the swiftness with which he ducked. The blow missed him, and he sprang back, holding his cane like a rapier. It was too late to enable him to recognize Wantage; his first thought was that he had been set upon by a footpad. When Wantage came or again, the cane caught him so shrewdly across the elbow-join that his club-hand dropped and he let out a grunt of pain. In that moment Ravenscar saw his chance, dropped his cane, and went in with a left and a right to the jaw. Silas's head went back but he had not spent ten years in the Ring for nothing, and he recovered quickly, abandoning his club, and covering up in this manner of an experienced bruiser. `Come on, then!' hi growled, pleased that it should have come to a turn-up after all.

  Mr. Ravenscar did come on, but Lucius Kennet, anxious to finish the business, and fearing that they might at any moment be surprised by a Park keeper, or some late wayfarer, ran out from his hiding-place behind Ravenscar and clubbed him be fore he realized that he had two opponents instead of only one.

  Mr Ravenscar dropped where he stood. Silas Wantage said angrily: `You hadn't ought to have done that! Hitting of him from behind, and spoiling the prettiest set-to I've had in years! That was a foul blow, Mr Kennet, sir, and I don't hold with such P

  `Don't stand there chattering, you fool!' said Kennet, kneeling down beside Ravenscar's inert body. `He'll come to himself in a minute! Help me to tie him up!’

  Silas somewhat sulkily produced two lengths of whipcord, and began to bind one about Ravenscar's ankles, while Kennet lashed his wrists behind his back, and gagged him with a handkerchief, and a scarf.

  `I said he'd peel to advantage, and so he would,' said Silas. `Did you see the right he landed to my jaw? Ah, he knows his way about, he does! Fair rattled my bone-box, I can tell you. And then you goes and lays him out before I've had time to do so much as draw his cork!’

  'I'm thinking it was your own cork would have been drawn,' retorted Kennet, making his knots fast. `Take you his legs, man, and I'll take his head. We'll have him safe hidden in the carriage before he comes round.'

  `I don't deny he's fast,' admitted Silas, helping to raise Mr Ravenscar from the ground. `But it goes against the grain with me to see as likely a bruiser knocked out by a foul, Mr Kennet, and that's the truth!'

  By the time they had borne Mr Ravenscar's body to the waiting carriage, both men were somewhat out of breath, and extremely glad to be able to dump their burden on the back seat. Mr Ravenscar was no lightweight.

  The carriage had left the Park, and was rumbling over the cobbled streets when Ravenscar stirred, and opened his eyes. He was conscious first of a swimming head that ached and throbbed, and next of his bonds. He made one convulsive attempt to free his hands.

  `Ah, now, be easy!' said Kennet in his ear. `There's no harm will come to you at all if you're sensible, Mr Ravenscar.'

  Mr Ravenscar was dizzy, and bewildered, but he knew that voice. He became still, rigid with anger: anger at Miss Grantham's perfidy, anger at his own folly in allowing himself to be led into such a trap.

  Another and deeper voice spoke in the darkness of the carriage. `You went down to a foul,' it said apologetically. `That weren't none of my doing, for milling a cove down from behind is what I don't hold with, and never did, 'specially a cove as stands up as well as you do, sir, and shows such a handy bunch of fives. But you hadn't ought to have gone a-persecuting of Miss Deb, when all's said.'

  Mr Ravenscar did not recognize this voice, but the language informed him that he was in the company of a bruiser. Hi closed his eyes, trying to overcome his dizziness, and to collect his wits.

  By the time the carriage drew up outside Lady Bellingham's house, it was dark enough to enable the conspirators to smuggle their prisoner down the area steps without being ob served either by a man who was walking away in the direction of Pall Mall, or by two chairmen waiting outside a house farther down the square.

  The basement of Lady Bellingham's house was very large very ill-lit, and rambling enough to resemble a labyrinth more nearly than the kitchen-quarters of a well-appointed mansion The cellar destined for Mr Ravenscar's temporary occupation was reached at the end of a stone-paved corridor, and contained, besides a quantity of store-cupboards, most of Lady Bellingham's trunks and cloak-bags; a collection of empty band-boxes, stacked up against one wall; and a Windsor chair thoughtfully placed there by Miss Grantham.

  Mr Ravenscar was set down on the chair by his panting bearers. Silas Wantage, who had provided himself with the lantern that stood on a table just inside the area-door, critically surveyed him, and gave it as his opinion that he would do. Mr Kennet shook out his ruffles, and smiled upon the victim in a way that made Mr Ravenscar long to have his hands free for only two minutes.

  `I'm thinking the second round goes to Deb, Mr Ravenscar. Don't you be worrying your head, however, for it's not for long she means to keep you here! We'll be leaving you now for a while. You will be wanting to think over your situation, I dare swear.'

  `Ay, we'd best tell Miss Deb we have him safe,' agreed Silas

  Both men then left the cellar, taking the lantern with them and locking the heavy door behind them. Mr Ravenscar was left to darkness and reflection.

  Abovestairs, dinner was over, but none of the expectant visitors to the saloons had yet arrived. Mr Kennet strolled into the little back-parlour on the half-landing, where the three ladies were sitting with Kit Grantham, and directed the ghost of a wink at Deborah before going up to shake hands with her brother. It was a little while before any opportunity for exchanging a private word with him occurred, but when he had greeted Kit, and each had asked the other a number