The Black Moth Read online

  ‘To my cost!’ was the laughing rejoinder, and Fortescue rubbed his sword arm as if in memory of some hurt. ‘You pinked me finely, Tracy!’

  ‘Clumsily, Frank, clumsily. It might have been quicker done.’

  The Viscount, who had been a second at the meeting, tittered amiably.

  ‘Neatetht thing I ever thaw, ’pon my honour. All over in leth than a minute, Avon! Give you my word!’

  ‘Never mind, you had fought Devil, Frank? What possessed you?’

  ‘I was more mad than usual, I suppose,’ replied Fortescue in his low, rather dreamy voice, ‘and I interfered between Tracy and his French singer. He objected most politely, and we fought it out in Hyde Park.’

  ‘Gad, yes!’ exclaimed his partner, Lord Falmouth. ‘Why, I was Devil’s second! But it was ages ago!’

  ‘Two years,’ nodded Fortescue, ‘but I have not forgotten, you see!’

  ‘Lord, I had! And ’twas the funniest fight I ever saw, with you as furious as could be and Devil cool as a cucumber. You were never much of a swordsman, Frank, but that morning you thrust so wildly that stap me if I didn’t think Devil would run you through. ’Stead of that he pinks you neatly through the sword-arm, and damme if you didn’t burst out laughing fit to split! And we all walked off to breakfast with you, Frank, as jolly as sandboys. Heavens, yes! That was a fight!’

  ‘It was amusing,’ admitted Tracy at Fortescue’s elbow. ‘Don’t play, Frank.’

  Fortescue flung his cards face downwards on the table. ‘Curse you, Tracy, you’ve brought bad luck!’ he said entirely without rancour. ‘I had quite tolerable hands before you came.’

  ‘Belmanoir, I will thtake my chestnut mare ’gaintht your new grey,’ lisped the Viscount, coming up to the table, dice-box in hand.

  ‘Stap me, but that is too bad!’ cried Wilding. ‘Don’t take him, Devil! Have you see the brute?’

  The four players had finished their card-playing and were quite ready for the dice.

  ‘Trust in your luck, Belmanoir, and take him!’ advised Pritchard, who loved hazarding other men’s possessions, but kept a tight hold on his own.

  ‘Ay, take him!’ echoed Falmouth.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Fortescue.

  ‘Of course I shall take him,’ answered his Grace tranquilly. ‘My grey against your chestnut and the best of three. Will you throw?’

  The Viscount rattled his box with a flourish. Two threes and a one turned up.

  With a hand on Fortescue’s shoulder, and one foot on the rung of his chair, Tracy leaned forward and cast his own dice on to the table. He had beaten the Viscount’s throw by five. The next toss Fotheringham won, but the last fell to his Grace.

  ‘Damnathion!’ said the Viscount cheerfully. ‘Will you thtake your grey againtht my Terror?’

  ‘Thunder and turf, Fotheringham! You’ll lose him!’ cried Nettlefold warningly. ‘Don’t stake the Terror!’

  ‘Nonthenth! Do you take me, Belmanoir?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the Duke, and threw.

  ‘Oh, an you are in a gaming mood, I will play you for the right to try my hand with the dark beauty!’ called Markham across the room.

  ‘Against what?’ asked Fortescue.

  ‘Oh, what he wills!’

  The Viscount had cast and lost, and his Grace won the second throw.

  ‘It appears my luck is in,’ he remarked. ‘I will stake my beauty against your estates, Markham.’

  Sir Gregory shook his head, laughing.

  ‘No, no! Keep the lady!’

  ‘I intend to, my dear fellow. She is not your style. I begin to wonder whether she altogether suits my palate.’ He drew out his snuff-box and offered it to his host, and the other men finding that he was proof against their railing, allowed the subject to drop.

  In the course of the evening his Grace won three thousand guineas – two at ombre and one at dice – lost his coveted grey hunter and won him back again from Wilding, to whom he had fallen. He came away at three o’clock in company with Fortescue, both perfectly cool-headed, although his Grace, for his part, had imbibed a considerable quantity of burgundy, and more punch than any ordinary man could take without afterwards feeling very much the worse for wear.

  As my Lord Avon’s door closed behind them, Tracy turned to his friend:

  ‘Shall we walk, Frank?’

  ‘Since our ways lie together, yes,’ replied Fortescue, linking his arm in the Duke’s. ‘Down Brock Street and across the Circus is our quickest way.’

  They strolled down the road for a few moments in silence, passing a linkman on the way. Fortescue bade him a cheery good-night, which was answered in a very beery voice, but the Duke said nothing. Frank looked into his dark-browed face thoughtfully.

  ‘You’ve had the luck, to-night, Tracy.’

  ‘Moderately. I hoped entirely to repair last week’s losses.’

  ‘You are in debt, I suppose?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘To what extent, Tracy?’

  ‘My dear fellow, I neither have, nor wish to have, the vaguest notion. Pray do not treat me to a sermon!’

  ‘I shall not. I’ve said all I have to say on the subject.’

  ‘Many times.’

  ‘Yes – many times. And it has had no more effect upon you than if I had not spoken.’

  ‘Less.’

  ‘I daresay, I wish it were not so, for there’s good in you somewhere, Tracy.’

  ‘By what strange process of reasoning do you arrive at that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Fortescue laughing, ‘there’s nearly always some good in the very worst of men. I count on that – and your kindness to me.’

  ‘I should be interested to know when I have been kind to you – beyond the time when I was compelled to teach you to leave me and my affairs alone.’

  ‘I was not referring to that occasion,’ was the dry answer. ‘I had not seen your act in that light. I meant well over the episode.’

  ‘You could not damn yourself more effectually than by saying that,’ said his Grace calmly. ‘But we wander from the point. When have I done you an act of kindness?’

  ‘You know very well. When you extricated me from that cursed sponging-house.’

  ‘I remember now. Yes, that was good of me. I wonder why I did it?’

  ‘’Tis what I want to know.’

  ‘I suppose I must have had some sort of an affection for you. I would certainly never have done such a thing for anyone else.’

  ‘Not even for your own brother!’ said Frank sharply.

  They had crossed the Circus and were walking down Gay Street now.

  ‘Least of all for them,’ came the placid response. ‘You are thinking of Andrew’s tragic act? Most entertaining, was it not?’

  ‘You evidently found it so.’

  ‘I did. I wanted to prolong the sensation, but my esteemed brother-in-law came to the young fool’s rescue.’

  ‘Would you have assisted him?’

  ‘In the end I fear I should have had to.’

  ‘I believe there must be a kink in your brain!’ cried Fortescue. ‘I cannot else account for your extraordinary conduct!’

  ‘We Belmanoirs are all half-mad,’ replied Tracy sweetly, ‘but I think that in my case it is merely concentrated evil.’

  ‘I will not believe it! You have shown that you can behave differently! You do not try to strip me of all I possess – why all those unfortunate youths you play with?’

  ‘You see, you possess so little,’ the Duke excused himself.

  ‘Neither do you sneer at me in your loathsome fashion. Why?’

  ‘Because I have hardly ever any desire to. I like you.’

  ‘Tare an’ ouns! you must like someone else in the world besides me?’

  ‘I can think of no one. And I