The Unknown Ajax Read online

  The Major, a phlegmatic man, was the first to recover from the shattering effect of this encounter with a mere female, and he acted with great promptitude and good sense, saying meekly: ‘Yes, ma’am! I will do so immediately’, and thrusting the Lieutenant out of the room. Sergeant Hoole, holding the door for them, needed no urging to follow, the manner of his exit suggesting that only a rigid adherence to discipline restrained him from preceding his superiors.

  No one moved or spoke for several moments, the actors in the conspiracy remaining as though frozen, nearly all of them looking towards the door, intently listening. Then Lord Darracott sank into a chair beside the fire, and with shaking hands grasped its arms, his countenance gray, and his eyes staring straight before him, fixed and sightless. Lady Aurelia glanced at him, and then away from him, as though averting her gaze from some indecent spectacle. As Claud sat up, saying: ‘Well, thank the lord that’s over!’ she lifted a warning finger, and said: ‘Do not abandon your position until we are assured that those men have departed! Since you have all of you chosen to pursue a line of conduct as criminal as it is grossly improper, I must beg you to maintain the imposture!’

  Claud sank back obediently, but said: ‘Dash it, Mama, if you think we chose– Besides, I should like to know what you were doing! Well, what I mean is –’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean, Claud. Pray do not imagine that my participation in this disgraceful affair in any way alters my sentiments!’ said her ladyship severely.

  ‘You are quite superb, Mama,’ said Vincent. ‘May I make you my heartfelt compliments on a performance that will ever command my admiration? Your entrance I can only describe as a clincher.’

  ‘I have the greatest objection to cant terms,’ responded her ladyship. ‘I trust I may have expedited the departure of the Preventive officer, but I must suppose, from what I have seen of your powers of what I can only call deception, that you would have done very well without my intervention.’

  ‘Hugo did it,’ Anthea said, with a wavering smile. ‘It was all Hugo. We didn’t know what to do. Even Vincent didn’t. We just – did what Hugo told us.’ She dashed a hand across her eyes, adding: ‘It was the pageant of Ajax! Not that I mean the others weren’t wonderful too, particularly Claud! Claud, that shriek you gave almost persuaded me to believe you had suffered a spasm of anguish!’

  ‘Oh, it did, did it?’ said Claud bitterly. ‘I should rather think it might! Hugo jabbed a pin into me!’ He eyed his relatives with disfavour. ‘Yes, I daresay you think it’s devilish funny, but when I see Hugo next– Well, dash it, I knew what he wanted me to do, because he told me, when he pretended to be arranging this damned sling, and there was no need to stick pins into me! When I think of the things I’ve had to do this night, let alone being smeared all over with young Richmond’s blood– Yes, and how much longer have I got to lie here, swaddled up in bandages which are dashed uncomfortable, besides –’

  ‘You have my sympathy, brother, but Mama is, as usual, right. It will not do for any of us to be caught off our guard. I have no real apprehension – the hideous experiences of the past hour have taught me that our cousin’s bovine countenance is, to say the least of it, misleading – but we will take no eleventh-hour risks. I wonder what glib lies he is telling that unfortunate Exciseman now?’

  ‘It is a very distressing reflection that any gentleman of birth – and particularly one whose military rank is distinguished – should have been obliged to lend himself to so disreputable a business,’ pronounced her ladyship, with undiminished severity. ‘It is, however, to his credit that he appears at least to know what is his duty to his Family, and although I am far from approving of his conduct I cannot deny that I regard his arrival at Darracott Place as the greatest piece of good fortune that has befallen the Family for very many years. As to whether the Family is deserving of its good fortune – that is a subject upon which I prefer to remain silent!’

  This measured speech not unnaturally reduced its auditors to speechless discomfort; and when Hugo presently came back into the room, he found his actors so apparently petrified into the positions in which he had left them that he grinned, and said: ‘Eh, you look just like a set of waxworks!’

  ‘Not waxworks, coz: puppets!’ retorted Vincent. ‘What unnatural antics must we next perform?’

  ‘Hugo, have they gone?’ Anthea asked anxiously.

  ‘Oh, yes, they’ve gone, lass!’ He smiled cordially upon Lady Aurelia. ‘Thanks to you, ma’am! I’m reet grateful to you. Nay, till you came in there was no deciding which was the best actor amongst the lot of you! Myself, I couldn’t make up my mind between Claud and Richmond, but, eh, when you took command, there was –’

  ‘Yes, dear cousin,’ interrupted Anthea firmly, ‘we are well aware that everyone, except you, acted to admiration, but what we are desirous of knowing is how you contrived to rid us of Ottershaw.’

  ‘Oh, there was no difficulty about that, lass, once her ladyship’s guns had broken the square!’ he assured her. ‘You might say that I’d nothing to do but to harass the retreat.’

  ‘I might, but it is very unlikely that I shall,’ she retorted. ‘Hugo, are we safe?’

  ‘Nay, love, don’t look so fetched! We shall be safe enough, once we’ve tied up a few knots, which we’ll do easily, never fear!’ he assured her.

  ‘Did you succeed in convincing that damned, obstinate tidewatcher?’ demanded Vincent.

  ‘Nay, I’m not one to level at the moon. Happen he’ll suspect to the end of his days that he was made a May-game of, poor lad! But what with her ladyship setting him in a quake, and me telling him that you’d so much influence, ma’am, that if he’d caught our Richmond redhanded you’d have seen to it the whole business was hushed-up, he didn’t know which way to turn. He’s no turn-tail, but he knew well he’d exceeded his commission, and when he saw I knew it too, there was naught he could do but retire – the position being untenable, as you might say! I don’t know much about Preventive work, but I do know that unless they find a smuggler in actual possession of run goods the Preventives are pretty well hamstrung – even when they’ve been nose-led after a decoy-train of rascals rigged out in smocks to deceive them, and leading a string of ponies carrying nothing more than loads of faggots. They know full well they’ve been bamboozled, but it’s no crime to carry faggots across the country in the middle of the night, so the poor devils have naught to do but own themselves gapped. Well, it was plain enough that, whatever Ottershaw had seen, he hadn’t seen our Richmond in possession of anything other than a load of devilry. All he was doing tonight was trying to catch the lad, or at any road to discover how he was contriving to flit in and out of the Dower House, no matter how strong a guard was set on it. He’d no more intention of executing that warrant than he had of getting the lad shot. Once that had happened, he may have felt there was naught to do but go through stitch with the business, or he may have gambled on the chance that if he found the lad here, wounded, he could scare him into making a confession. If he couldn’t do that, he knew he’d be taken at fault, so you can’t but allow he’s got plenty of courage. I must say, it went to my heart to cheat him, poor lad! However, a back-cast won’t harm him, for he didn’t handle the business well, and happen he’ll do better in future.’ His rueful grin dawned. ‘It was a reet shame,’ he confessed. ‘I gave him a dressing, just as I would any skelterbrained subaltern that had plunged the sticklebutt into trouble all because he was too pot-sure, and that took the last bit of fight out of him. So I told him when he was fairly down that I knew it was our Richmond’s mischief that had led him into the hobble, and I’d do my best to bring him safely home, and no one the wiser as long as he kept his tongue between his teeth. So we’ll hope that’s buttoned the thing up, which there’s no reason to think it won’t – once he knows that young scamp’s not here any longer to plague the life out of him.’

  There was a tiny pause, several pairs of eyes