The Talisman Ring Read online

  Summoning up a smile, and a look of inquiry, Eustacie said, as though startled: ‘Oh! Why, who are you?’

  The Bow Street officer looked up, and finding that he was being addressed by a young and enchantingly pretty female, laid the journal down upon the table and rose to his feet. He touched his hat, and said that he was wishful to see the landlord.

  ‘But yes, of course!’ said Eustacie. ‘You have come on the mail-coach, sans doute, and you want a drink! I understand!’

  By this time the Runner had assimilated the fact that she was not English. He did not care for foreigners, but her instant grasp of his most pressing need inclined him to regard her with less disapproval than he might otherwise have done. He did not precisely admit that he wanted a drink, but he said that it was a very cold, raw day to be sure, and waited hopefully to see what she would do about it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and it is, moreover, very draughty in a coach. I think you ought to have some cognac.’

  The Runner thought so too. He had not wanted to come down to Sussex on what would probably turn out to be a wild-goose chase. He felt gloomily that he would not have been chosen for the task if the authorities over him had set much store by the information lodged with them, for he was not at the moment in very good odour at Bow Street. Such epithets as Blockhead and Blunderer had been used in connection with his last case, since when he had not been employed upon any very important business. In his more optimistic moments he dreamed rosily of the glory attaching to the capture of so desperate a character as Ludovic Lavenham, but when his throat was dry and his fingers chilled he did not feel optimistic.

  ‘When Nye comes he must at once give you some cognac,’ announced Eustacie. ‘But I do not understand what you are doing here and you have not told me who you are.’

  The Runner was not much acquainted with the Quality, but it did occur to him that it was a little unusual for young ladies to address strange men in public coffee-rooms. He bent a penetrating and severe eye upon her, and replied, awe-inspiringly, that he was an Officer of the Law.

  Eustacie at once clasped her hands together, and cried: ‘I thought you were! Are you perhaps a Bow Street Runner?’

  The Runner was accustomed to having his identity discovered with fear, or even loathing, but he had not till now encountered anyone who became ecstatic upon learning his dread profession. He admitted that he was a Runner, but looked so suspiciously at Eustacie that she made haste to explain that in France they had no such people, which was the reason why she was so particularly anxious to meet one.

  When she mentioned France the Runner’s brow cleared. The French, what with their guillotines and one thing and another, were the worst kind of foreigners, and it was no use being surprised at them behaving queerly. They were born that way; there wasn’t any sense in them; and the silly habit they had of holding that everyone was equal accounted for this young lady speaking so friendly to a mere Bow Street Runner.

  ‘You are one of the famous Runners!’ said Eustacie, regarding him with rapt admiration. ‘You must be very brave and clever!’

  The Runner coughed rather self-consciously, and murmured something inarticulate. He had not previously given the matter much thought, but now the lady came to mention it he realized that he was rather a brave man.

  ‘What is your name?’ inquired Eustacie. ‘And why have you come here?’

  ‘Jeremiah Stubbs, miss,’ said the Runner. ‘I am here in the execution of my dooty.’

  Eustacie opened her eyes to their widest extent, and asked breathlessly whether he had come to make an arrest. ‘How I should like to see you make an arrest!’ she said.

  Mr Stubbs was not impervious to flattery. He threw out his chest a little, and replied with an indulgent smile that he couldn’t say for certain whether he was going to make an arrest or not.

  ‘But who?’ demanded Eustacie. ‘Not someone in this inn?’

  ‘A desprit criminal, missy, that’s the cove I’m after,’ said Mr Stubbs.

  Eustacie’s straining ears caught the sound of an opening door upstairs and a light footfall. She said as loudly as she dared: ‘I suppose you, who are a Bow Street Runner, have to capture a great many criminals?’ As she spoke she moved towards the fire, so that to address her Mr Stubbs had to turn slightly, presenting his profile, and no longer his full face to the staircase.

  ‘Oh well, miss,’ he said carelessly, ‘we don’t take much account of that!’

  Eustacie caught a glimpse of Ludovic at the top of the stairs, and said quickly: ‘Bow Street Runners! It must be very exciting to be a Bow Street Runner, I think!’ She glanced up as she spoke, and saw that Ludovic had vanished. Feeling almost sick with relief, she pressed her handkerchief to her lips, and said mechanically: ‘Who is this criminal, I wonder? A thief, perhaps?’

  ‘Not a thief, miss,’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘A murderer!’

  The effect of this announcement was all he had hoped for. Eustacie gave a shriek and faltered: ‘Here? A m-murderer? Arrest him at once, if you please! But at once!’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr Stubbs, ‘if I could do that everything would be easy, wouldn’t it? But this here murdering cove has been evading of the law for two years and more.’

  ‘But how could he evade you, who must, I know, be a clever man, for two years?’

  Mr Stubbs began to think rather well of Eustacie, French though she might be. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You’ve put your finger on it, missy, as the saying is. If they’d had me on to him at the start p’raps he wouldn’t have done no evading.’

  ‘No, I think not, indeed. You look very cold, which is not at all a thing to wonder at when one considers that there is a great courant d’air here. I will take you into the parlour, where it is altogether cosy, and procure for you a glass of cognac.’

  Mr Stubbs’s eye glistened a little, but he shook his head. ‘It’s very kind of you, miss, but I’ve a fancy to stay right where I am, d’ye see? You don’t happen to be staying in this here inn, do you?’

  ‘But certainly I am staying here!’ responded Eustacie. ‘I am staying with Sir Hugh Thane, who is a Justice of the Peace, and with Miss Thane.’

  ‘You are?’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘Well now, that’s a very fortunate circumstance, that is. You don’t happen to have seen anything of a young cove – a mighty flash young cove – Lurking?’

  Eustacie looked rather bewildered, and said: ‘Plaît-il? Lurking?’

  ‘Or sulking?’ suggested Mr Stubbs. He drew forth from his pocket a well-worn notebook, and, licking his thumb, began to turn over its pages.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Eustacie, eyeing the book with misgiving.

  ‘This is my Occurrence Book, missy. There are plenty of coves would like to get their dabblers on it, I can tell you. There’s things in this book as’ll send a good few to the Nubbing Cheat one day,’ said Mr Stubbs darkly.

  ‘Oh,’ said Eustacie, wishing that Nye would come, and wondering how to lure Mr Stubbs away from the stairs. If only Ludovic had not injured his shoulder he might have climbed out of a window, she thought, but with one arm in a sling that was out of the question.

  Mr Stubbs, finding his place in his Occurrence Book, said: ‘Here we are, now. Has there been a young cove here, missy, with blue eyes, light hair, features aquiline, height about five feet ten inches –’

  Eustacie interrupted this recital. ‘But yes, you describe to me Sir Hugh Thane, only he is taller, I think, and me, I should say that he has grey eyes.’

  ‘The cove this here description fits is a cove by the name of Loodervic Lavenham,’ said Mr Stubbs.

  Eustacie at once executed a start. ‘But you are mad? Ludovic Lavenham is my cousin, enfin !’

  Mr Stubbs stared at her fixedly. ‘You say this Loodervic Lavenham’s your cousin, miss?’ he said, his voice pregnant with suspicion.

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