The secret of the duel was soon out. Peregrine arrived in Brook Street shortly after eleven o’clock to find his valet, who had given him up for lost an hour before, standing over Miss Taverner while she read her brother’s farewell letter.
“O God!” burst from Miss Taverner’s lips just as Peregrine walked into the room. The sheets of the letter fluttered to the ground. Miss Taverner sprang up crying: “I must go at once! What have they done to him? Where is Fitzjohn?” Then she caught sight of Peregrine in the doorway, and the next instant was in his arms. “Perry! Oh, Perry, my darling, you are safe!”
“Yes, yes, of course I am safe,” said Peregrine, clumsily patting her shoulder. “What the devil do you mean by making all this stir, John? You fool, did I not charge you to wait until you heard from Mr. Fitzjohn?”
His sister grasped the lapels of his coat. “Tell me at once, Peregrine, what has happened?”
“Nothing has happened. I can tell you, I am in a pretty rage, Ju! A rare fool I am made to look! We were informed against, and I have a strong notion who laid the information!”
“Whoever he is he has earned my undying gratitude!” declared Judith, still shaken from the fright she had had. “How could you go out to fight without a word to me? Oh, how I hate the practice of duelling! How I despise all you men for thinking it a way to settle a quarrel!”
“Stuff!” said Peregrine, disengaging himself from her clasp. “As for you, John, be off to your work! You’ve meddled enough for one day! If I had dreamed the fellow was not to be trusted—but I might have known! I had no business to be taken in by him. My father warned us against him, and you may depend upon it the son is no better.”
“Do you speak of my cousin? Is it possible that it was he who saved you from this terrible affair?”
“Lord, Ju, don’t talk in that silly way! You don’t understand these things. Ay, it was our cousin; I am persuaded it was he. I am off to settle with him on the instant.”
She detained him. “You need not; I expect him here at any minute. He is to take Mrs. Scattergood and me to Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition. Indeed, I do not know what should be keeping him, for he said he would be here quite by eleven, and you see it is past eleven now.”
“That’s cool, upon my word!” exclaimed Peregrine. “He has the impudence to get me had up before a beak, and takes my sister out on the top of it! A very pretty fellow is this Bernard Taverner!”
“Do I hear my name?” The voice, a quiet one, came from the doorway behind Peregrine. “Ah, Peregrine! Thank God!”
Peregrine swung round to confront his cousin. “Ay, you are surprised to see me, are you not?”
“I am glad,” Mr. Taverner replied steadily. “You imposed silence upon me; it has been hard for me to stand by. But I guessed I must hear certain tidings of you by this time. You have taken no hurt?”
“Silence!” ejaculated Peregrine. “Will you tell me you have kept silence over this?”
His cousin looked at him intently, and from him to Judith. She had sunk down on the sofa, and could only smile at him rather tremulously. “Will you tell me what you mean me to understand by that?” he asked in an even tone.
“Who was the man who laid the information against us, and had us arrested on the ground?” Peregrine flung at him.
Mr. Taverner continued to look at him, his brows a little knit. Peregrine said angrily: “Who was the man who induced the surgeon to disclose the place of rendezvous? Who else knew of the meeting but you?”
“I cannot answer that question. Perry. I have no means of telling who else knew of it,” responded Mr. Taverner.
“Give me a plain yes or no!” snapped Peregrine. “Did you lay that information?”
Mr. Taverner said slowly: “I can understand and pardon your indignation, but consider a moment, if you please! You engaged my silence: do you accuse me of breaking faith with you?”
The niceties of the male code of honour being beyond Miss Taverner’s sympathy she cried impatiently: “What could that signify in face of such danger to Perry? What other course could be opened to any friend of his than at all costs to stop the meeting?”
Mr. Taverner smiled, but shook his head. Peregrine, a little confounded, stammered: “I don’t wish to be doing you an injustice, but you do not answer me! Only one other person knew of the meeting—my valet, and he does not fit the description Dr. Lane gave.”
“And what, may I ask, was that description?”
“It was of a tall, gentleman-like man, and with an air of fashion!”
Mr. Taverner looked rather amused. “My dear Perry, am I the only man in town answering to that description? Is that all that you base your suspicions on? Have you not considered that your opponent may very likely have spoken of the meeting as well as you?”
“Farnaby?” Peregrine was disconcerted. “No. it had not occurred—that is to say, I do not think it probable—”
“Why, what is this? Is it more probable, then, that I laid the information?”
“Of course if you assure me you did not I am bound to accept your word,” said Peregrine stiffly.
“I am glad of that,” said his cousin. “I will confess, at the risk of offending you afresh, that however little I may have had to do with it I am more than pleased to find that information was laid.”
“You are very good,” said Peregrine, eyeing him a trifle askance.
Mr. Taverner laughed. “Well, were you so anxious to be shot at? Come, you are not to be picking a quarrel with me, you know! Judith, do you go to the Exhibition? Is Mrs. Scattergood ready?”
Judith got up. “She went into the breakfast-parlour to write a note before you came. Shall we fetch her?”
“By all means. We are behind time, I believe. I was detained, and should beg pardon.” He nodded pleasantly to Peregrine and held open the door for Judith to pass out.
In the hall she waited for him to close the door, and then said in a low voice: “You did not deny it.”
He raised his brows, looking down at her quizzically. “Are you also to pick a quarrel with me, Judith?”
“No, indeed,” she said earnestly. “Perry is only a boy; he has these nonsensical notions. You are wiser. Oh, do not tell me! Indeed, you need not! You saved him, and I am—you do not know how grateful!”
He took her hand in both of his. “To earn your good opinion there is nothing I would not do!” he said.
Her eyes fell before the look in his. “You have earned it. From the bottom of my heart I thank you.”
“I want more than gratitude,” he said, holding her fast. “Tell me, may I hope? I dare not press you; you have seemed to show me that you do not wish me to speak, and yet I must! Only assure me that I may hope—I ask no more!”
She was most strangely moved, and knew not how to answer him. Her hand trembled; he bent and kissed it. She murmured: “I do not know. I—I have not thought of marriage. I wish you would not ask me yet. What can I answer?”
“At least tell me that there is no one else?”
“There is no one, cousin,” she said.
He continued to hold her hand a minute, and when she made a movement to disengage herself pressed it slightly, and released it. “I am content. We will go and look for Mrs. Scattergood.”
In another part of the town Mr. Farnaby was still talking the affair over with his second, who was by this time heartily sick of the subject. His principal seemed to him so much put out over it that he presently said: “What’s your game, Ned? There’s more to it than you’ve told me, eh? Who wants that young sprig put away? You’re being paid, and paid handsomely for the task, ain’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Farnaby. “Taverner hit me in the face.”
“I can see he did,” said his friend, interestedly surveying the contusion that marred Mr. Farnaby’s countenance.
Farnaby flushed. “You should know I am not the man to stomach an insult!” he declared.
“Not unless you were paid to,” agreed Captain Crake.
Mr. Farnaby said with dignity that the Captain forgot himself.
“I don’t forget myself, but it seems to me that you have,” said the Captain frankly. “If there was money in this, where was my share? Tell me that!”
“There is no money,” said Mr. Farnaby, and closed the interview.
He spent the rest of the day in a mood of bitter discontent, and betook himself in the evening to the King’s Arms, at the corner of Duke Street and King Street, to solace himself with gin and the company of such of his cronies as he might find there.
The King’s Arms was owned by Thomas Cribb, champion heavyweight of England. All sorts of conditions of men, from titled gentlemen to coal-heavers, frequented it, but it was not every visitor’s fortune to be admitted into the famous parlour. Mr. Farnaby for one did not rank amongst the privileged. Since gin and not boxing-talk was what he came for, this did not trouble him, and he was quite content to ensconce himself in a cosy corner of the tap-room and watch the prize-fighters and the Corinthians drift past him to the inner sanctum. The tavern was always crowded; every young buck came to it, every prize-fighter of note, and it was not unusual for some ambitious person to walk in and pick a quarrel with the genial host for the privilege of being able to boast afterwards that he had exchanged blows with the Champion. This practice had of late become less popular, as Cribb had formed a disappointing habit of hailing his would-be assailants straight before a magistrate, on the score that if he obliged every man who wanted to be knocked down by him he would have no peace at all.
Mr. Farnaby found a nook in the tap-room on this particular evening, and settled down to his glass of daffy, keeping a lookout for any acquaintance who might come in.
Plenty of people did come in, but although he might nod to some of them, or exchange a brief greeting, his particular friends were not amongst them. Tom Belcher, the great Jem’s brother, strolled in arm in arm with old Bill Gibbons; Warr stood chatting awhile with Cribb before he went through into the parlour; Gentleman Jackson arrived with a party of Corinthians whom he was amusing with one of his stories. Mr. Farnaby watched them all without envy, and called for another glass of daffy.
The tap-room was full almost to overflowing when the door was pushed open and the Earl of Worth walked in. He stood on the threshold for a moment, looking round through the smoke of a score of pipes, and Tom Cribb, who had just come out of the parlour, saw him, and crossed the room to his side. “Good evening, my lord,” he said. “Glad to see your lordship. You’ll find a snug little gathering in the parlour to-night. Lord Yarmouth’s there, Colonel Aston, Sir Henry Smyth, Mr. Jackson, and I don’t know who besides. Will you go through, my lord?”
“Presently,” said the Earl. “I see someone here I want a word with first.”
“Here, my lord?” said Cribb, looking round at the company with a wrinkled brow.
“Yes, here,” said the Earl, and went past him with a swing of his caped driving-coat straight up to the table at which Mr. Farnaby was sitting.
Mr. Farnaby, who was idly watching a couple of men throwing dice at a neighbouring table, did not see the Earl until he stood right over him. He looked up then, and came to his feet in a hurry.
“Good evening,” said the Earl politely.
Farnaby made him a bow. “Good evening, sir,” he returned, looking sideways at the Earl.
Worth laid his cane on the table and began to draw off his gloves. “You were expecting me, no doubt,” he said.
“Oh no, hardly!” replied Farnaby, with a sneer. “I know your lordship is in the habit of frequenting Cribb’s Parlour, but I had no expectation of being recognized by you.”
The Earl drew out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sat down. From under the shade of his curly-brimmed hat, which he wore tilted rather over his face, his eyes mocked unpleasantly. “You think I might be chary of being seen in your company? Very true, but I believe my credit with the world to be fairly good. My reputation may yet survive. You may sit down.”
“I have every intention of so doing,” retorted Farnaby, suiting the action to the word and tossing off what remained of his second glass of daffy. “I am sure I am highly honoured to have your lordship’s company!”
“Make the most of it then,” advised the Earl, “for it is not an honour that is likely to befall you again.”
Farnaby’s hand fidgeted with his empty glass; he was watching the Earl covertly. “Indeed! And what may your lordship mean?”
“Merely that I shall have no further need of your company after to-night, Farnaby. Circumstance has caused our paths to cross, but they diverge again now, quite widely, I assure you.”
“If I had the pleasure of understanding your lordship—!”
“I should not have thought that you would derive much pleasure from that,” said the Earl. “But if you do, enjoy it to the full, for I think you understand me tolerably well.”
“I assure you I do not, sir. I am at a loss to discover why you should take this tone with me, and I may add, my lord, that I resent it!”
The Earl took out his snuff-box and opened it. He inhaled a pinch with deliberation. “You are not in a position to resent any tone I may choose to take, Farnaby,” he said. He laid his box down open on the table and leaned back in his chair, his driving coat falling open to show a glimpse of a light waistcoat and a blue coat, and the irreproachable folds of his cravat, “Let us be frank,” he said. “You have made a stupid bungle of a very simple affair, Farnaby.”
Farnaby shot a quick look round. “Sir!”
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Worth. “No one is listening. You were hired to put Sir Peregrine Taverner out of the way, and you have failed to earn your hire.”
Farnaby’s hands clenched; he leaned forward. “Damn you, shut your mouth!” he whispered. “You daren’t say I was hired!”
Worth raised his brows. “What makes you think that?” he inquired.
“You can’t say it!”
“On the contrary, I can say it with the greatest ease, my good Farnaby, and if you give me any trouble I shall say it. And, my credit being good with the world, as I have already pointed out to you, I think my word will be believed before yours. We will put it to the test, if you like.”
Farnaby was rather white; he looked at the Earl with a good deal of fear in his eyes, and said breathlessly: “Everyone knows what happened! Taverner’s cock was squeezed, and I said so, and I’ll have you know, my lord, there are dozens who will bear me out that it was so! Taverner struck me, I sent him a cartel, and that is the whole story!”
“Not quite the whole story,” said Worth. “You forgot to add that through your bungling folly the duel was stopped.”
“If we were informed against that was not my fault,” said Farnaby sulkily.
“There I take leave to differ from you,” said Worth coolly. “To force a duel on Sir Peregrine Taverner was one thing, but to do it in such a public spot as the Cock-Pit Royal was quite another. Those were not your instructions, I think. I find it hard to believe that even you could do such a stupid thing, Farnaby. Did it not occur to you that at the Cock-Pit there must be any number of persons who might consider it their duty to carry the tidings to the proper quarter? Yet that is precisely what happened. You have blundered, Farnaby, and that ends your part in the affair.”
Farnaby was staring at the Earl as though fascinated. “You’re a devil!” he said chokingly. “You can’t say I was hired! I’ve not touched a penny for it!”
“Not only have you not touched a penny of it, but you are not going to touch a penny,” said Worth, taking another pinch of snuff, and dusting his fingers with a fine handkerchief. “You were not hired to put Sir Peregrine on his guard. Had you succeeded—but you did not succeed, Farnaby, so why should we waste time in idle conjecture? What I am endeavouring to point out to you is that though the reward has still to be earned, you are not the man to earn it.”
Farnaby swallowed something in his throat. “What do you mean?” he asked weakly.
“I mean, Farnaby, that the task of disposing of Sir Peregrine must be left to some less clumsy hireling,” said the Earl pleasantly. “I am persuaded you will perceive that any further attempt made by you on his life would bear an extremely suspicious appearance.”
“Do you suggest—do you dare to suggest that I would—I’m not a common cut-throat, my lord!”
“You will have to forgive me for misjudging you,” said Worth scathingly. “The scruples of persons of your kidney are, alas, hidden from me. Do not touch my snuff-box, if you please, or I shall be obliged to throw the rest of its contents into the fire!”
Farnaby, who had stretched his hand out absently towards the box, drew back with a start and flushed to the roots of his hair at the note of cold contempt in the Earl’s voice. “You are insulting, my lord! You come here to threaten me, but you won’t put this on me, let me tell you!”
“No?” said the Earl, raising his eyes. “No?”
Farnaby tried to give back that long, cool look, but his own eyes shifted under the Earl’s and fell. “No,” he said uncertainly. “No, by God, you won’t! If you dare to accuse me—if you try to put it on me, do you think I shall have nothing to say? I shan’t suffer alone, I—” He broke off and moistened his lips.
Worth was sitting very still in his chair; his glance never wavered from Farnaby’s face. “Go on, Mr. Farnaby,” he said. “I am waiting to hear what it is you will say.”
“Nothing!” Farnaby said quickly.
“Not even the name of the man who hired you?” said the Earl softly.
“Nothing, I tell you! No one hired me!”
The Earl shut his snuff-box. “No doubt you are wise,” he said. “He might—who knows?—take steps to put you out of the way, might he not? And I am afraid that even if you had the courage to divulge his name it would not be of very much use. It would be your word against his, Farnaby, and to be honest with you I hardly think yours would be heeded. You see, I have considered all that.”
“No need!” Farnaby said, glaring at him. “I’ve told you I shall divulge nothing!”
“I am glad to find that you have such a wholesome regard for your skin,” murmured Worth. “I hope that it may prompt you to keep away from Sir Peregrine in the future. I should go into the country for a while, if I were you. I have an odd notion that if anything were to happen to him while you were in town you might suffer for it.”
Farnaby forced out a laugh. “Very interesting, my lord, but I’m no believer in premonitions!”
“Ah!” said the Earl. “But that was more in the nature of a promise, Farnaby. One blunder may be forgiven; a second would prove fatal.” He rose and picked up his gloves and cane. “That is all I wanted to say to you.”
Farnaby jumped up. “Wait, my lord!” he said, gripping the edge of the table and seeming to search for words.
“Well?” said the Earl.
Farnaby licked his lips. “I could be of use to you!” he said desperately.
“You are mistaken,” said the Earl in a tone that struck a chill into Farnaby’s veins. “No man who has bungled once is of the least use to me.”
Farnaby sank down into his chair again, looking after the Earl’s tall figure with an expression of mingled venom and despair in his eyes. Worth strolled away towards the parlour door.
He had not reached it when his gaze alighted on the figure of a gentleman who had entered the tavern a few minutes earlier, and was standing at the other end of the tap-room, fixedly regarding him.
The Earl checked, gently put aside a slightly inebriated sailor who was in his way, and walked across the room to the newcomer. “Your servant, Mr. Taverner,” he said.
Mr. Taverner bowed formally. “Good evening, Lord Worth.”
The fingers of the Earl’s right hand began to play with the riband of his quizzing-glass. “Well, Mr. Taverner, what is it?” he asked.
Bernard Taverner raised his brows. “What is it?” he repeated. “What is what, my lord?”
“You seemed to me to be much interested in my movements,” said Worth. “Or am I at fault?”
“Interested ...” said Mr. Taverner. “I was not so much interested, sir, as surprised, since you ask me.”
“To find me here? I am often to be seen in Cribb’s Parlour,” replied the Earl.
“I am aware of it. What I was not aware of, and which, I must confess, occasioned some surprise in me, was that you are also to be seen in such company as Farnaby’s.”
This was said plainly enough, and with a straight look that met Worth’s cynical gaze squarely. It did not, however, appear to embarrass the Earl. “Ah, but I frequently find myself in strange company at Cribb’s, Mr. Taverner,” he said.
Taverner’s lips tightened. After a moment’s silence he said in a measured way: “You will admit, Lord Worth, that to see you in conversation with a person who only this morning set out to fight a duel with your ward must present a very odd appearance. Or are you perhaps in ignorance of to-day’s releager?”
The Earl’s fingers slid down the riband to the shaft of his quizzing-glass. He raised it. “No, Mr. Taverner, I was not in ignorance of it.”
There was another silence, during which Bernard Taverner seemed to be trying to read what thoughts might lie behind the Earl’s suave manner. “You were not in ignorance, and yet—”
“Curiously enough,” said Worth, “it was on that very subject that I have been talking to Mr. Farnaby.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes,” said the Earl. “But why should we fence, Mr. Taverner? You suspect me, I think, of taking a large interest in the affaire Farnaby, and you are quite right. I have informed him—and I believe he understood me tolerably well—that his part is played. So you must not worry about him, my dear sir.”
Taverner frowned. “I don’t entirely understand you, sir. I did not come here to insult you with accusations which must be absurd, but I think it will not be inopportune to assure you that I have the interests of my cousins very much at heart, and should not hesitate to serve either of them to the utmost of my power.”
“I am profoundly moved by your assurance, Mr. Taverner,” said the Earl, with an unpleasant smile, “but I cannot help feeling that you would be wiser to refrain from meddling in your cousins’ affairs.”
Taverner stiffened. “If I read you correctly, my lord, you mean rather that I should be wiser to refrain from meddling in your affairs.”
“Well, that is to put the matter very crudely,” said the Earl, still smiling. “Nevertheless, you do read me quite correctly. Those who meddle in my affairs do not prosper.”
“Please do not address threats to me, Lord Worth!” said Taverner quietly. “I am not to be frightened out of a proper regard for my cousins’ well-being.”
The Earl spoke so softly that no one but Taverner could catch his words. “Let me remind you, Mr. Taverner, that the well-being of your cousins does not lie in your hands, but in mine. You have been very assiduous in your attentions, but if you are cherishing dreams of a bridal, banish them. You will never marry Judith Taverner.”
Mr. Taverner’s hands clenched involuntarily. “I am grateful to you for showing me your hand so plainly, sir,” he said. “In my turn I would remind you that your jurisdiction over Miss Taverner expires within the year. It did not need this conversation to convince me that you are nursing designs which are as unscrupulous as they are shameless. Understand, if you please, that I am not to be cowed into standing out of your way.”
“As to that, Mr. Taverner, you will do as seems best to you,” said the Earl. “But you will bear in mind, I trust, that when I find an obstacle in my way I am apt to remove it.” This was said without heat, even blandly, and the Earl, not waiting to see how it was received, bowed slightly and walked away towards the parlour door.