As no argument produced the least effect on Sir Richard’s suddenly reckless mood, Miss Creed abandoned her conscientious attempt to dissuade him from accompanying her on her journey, and owned that his protection would be welcome. “It is not that I am afraid to go by myself,” she explained, “but, to tell you the truth, I am not quite used to do things all alone.”
“I should hope,” said Sir Richard, “that you are not quite used to travelling in the common stage either.”
“No, of course I am not. It will be quite an adventure! Have you ever travelled by stage-coach?”
“Never. We shall travel post”
“Travel post? You must be mad!” exclaimed Miss Creed. “I dare say you are known at every posting-inn on the Bath road. We should be discovered in a trice. Why, I had thought of all that even before you made up your mind to join me! My cousin Frederick is too stupid to think of anything, but my Aunt Almeria is not, and I make no doubt she will guess that I have run away to my own home, and follow me. This is one of the reasons why I made up my mind to journey in the stage. She will enquire for me at the posting-houses, and no one will be able to give her the least news of me. And just think what a bustle there would be if it were discovered that we had been travelling about the country together in a post-chaise!”
“Does it seem to you that there would be less impropriety in our travelling in the stage?” enquired Sir Richard.
“Yes, much less. In fact, I do not see that it is improper at all, for how can I prevent your booking a seat in a public vehicle, if you wish to do so? Besides, I have not enough money to hire a post-chaise.”
“I thought you said you were cursed with a large fortune?”
“Yes, but they won’t let me have anything but the most paltry allowance until I come of age, and I’ve spent most of this month’s pin-money.”
“I will be your banker,” said Sir Richard.
Miss Creed shook her head vigorously. “No, indeed you will not! One should never be beholden to strangers. I shall pay everything for myself. Of course, if you are set against travelling by the stage, I do not see what is to be done. Unless—” she broke off as an idea occurred to her, and said, with sparkling eyes: “I have a famous notion! You are a notable whip, are you not?”
“I believe I am accounted so,” replied Sir Richard.
“Well, supposing you were to drive in your own curricle? Then I could get up behind, and pretend to be your Tiger, and hold the yard of tin, and blow up for the change and—”
“No!” said Sir Richard.
She looked disappointed. “I thought it would be exciting. However, I dare say you are right.”
“I am right,” said Sir Richard. “The more I think of it, the more I see that there is much to be said for the stagecoach. At what hour did you say that it leaves town?”
“At nine o’clock, from the White Horse Inn, in Fetter Lane. Only we must go there long before that, on account of your servants. What is the time now?”
Sir Richard consulted his watch. “Close on five,” he replied.
“Then we have not a moment to lose,” said Miss Creed. “Your servants will be stirring in another hour. But you can’t travel in those clothes, can you?”
“No,” he said, “and I can’t travel with that cravat of yours either, or that abominable bundle. And, now I come to look at you more particularly, I never saw hair worse cut.”
“You mean the back, I expect,” said Miss Creed, unresentful of these strictures. “Luckily, it has always been short in front. I had to chop the back bits off myself, and I could not well see what I was about.”
“Wait here!” commanded Sir Richard, and left the room.
When he returned it was more than half an hour later, and he had shed his evening-dress for buckskin breeches, and top-boots, and a coat of blue superfine cloth. Miss Creed greeted him with considerable relief. “I began to fear you had forgotten me, or fallen asleep!” she told him.
“Nothing of the sort!” said Sir Richard, setting a small cloak-bag and a large portmanteau down on the floor. “Drunk or sober, I never forget my obligations. Stand up, and I will see what I can do towards making you look more presentable.”
He had a snowy white cravat over one arm, and a pair of scissors in his hand. A few judicious snips greatly improved the appearance of Miss Creed’s head, and by the time a comb had been ruthlessly dragged through her curls, forcing rather than coaxing them into a more manly style, she began to look quite neat, though rather watery-eyed. Her crumpled cravat was next cast aside, and one of Sir Richard’s own put round her neck. She was so anxious to see how he was arranging it that she stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging above the mantelpiece, and got her ears boxed.
“Will you stand still?” said Sir Richard.
Miss Creed sniffed, and subsided into dark mutterings. However, when he released her, and she was able to see the result of his handiwork, she was so pleased that she forgot her injuries, and exclaimed: “Oh, how nice I look! Is it a Wyndham Fall?”
“Certainly not!” Sir Richard replied. The Wyndham Fall is not for scrubby schoolboys, let me tell you.”
“I am not a scrubby schoolboy!”
“You look like one. Now put what you have in that bundle into the cloak-bag, and we’ll be off.”
“I have a very good mind not to go with you,” said Miss Creed, glowering.
“No, you haven’t. You are now my young cousin, and we are wholly committed to a life of adventure. What did you say your name was?”
“Penelope Creed. Most people call me Pen, but I ought to have a man’s name now.”
“Pen will do very well. If it occasions the least comment, you will say that it is spelt with two N’s. You were named after that Quaker fellow.”
“Oh, that is a very good idea! What shall I call you?”
“Richard.”
“Richard who?”
“Smith—Jones—Brown.”
She was engaged in transferring her belongings from the Paisley shawl to the cloak-bag. “You don’t look like any of those. What shall I do with this shawl?”
“Leave it,” replied Sir Richard, gathering up some gleaming scraps of guinea-gold hair from the carpet, and casting them to the back of the fireplace. “Do you know, Pen Creed, I fancy you have come into my life in the guise of Providence?”
She looked up enquiringly. “Have I?” she said doubtfully.
“That or Disaster,” said Sir Richard. “I shall know which when I am sober. But, to tell you the truth, I don’t care a jot! En avant, mon cousin!”
It was past midday when Lady Trevor, accompanied by her reluctant husband, called at her brother’s house in St James’s Square. She was admitted by the porter, obviously big with news, and handed on by him to the butler. “Tell Sir Richard that I am here,” she commanded, stepping into the Yellow Saloon.
“Sir Richard, my lady, is not at home,” said the butler, in a voice pregnant with mystery.
Louisa, who had extracted from her lord a description of Sir Richard’s proceedings at Almack’s on the preceding night, snorted. “You will tell him that his sister desires to see him,” she said.
“Sir Richard, my lady, is not upon the premises,” said the butler, working up to his climax.
“Sir Richard has trained you well,” said Louisa dryly. “But I am not to be put off so! Go and tell him that I wish to see him!”
“Sir Richard, my lady, did not sleep in his bed last night!” announced the butler.
George was surprised into indiscreet comment. “What’s that? Nonsense! He wasn’t as foxed as that when I saw him!”
“As to that, my lord,” said the butler, with dignity, “I have no information. In a word, my lord, Sir Richard has vanished.”
“Good Gad!” ejaculated George.
“Fiddle-de-dee!” said Louisa tartly. “Sir Richard, as I suppose, is in his bed!”
“No, my lady. As I informed your ladyship, Sir Richard’s bed has not been slept in.” He paused, but Louisa only stared at him. Satisfied with the impression he had made, he continued: “The evening attire which Sir Richard was wearing yesterday was found by his man, Biddle, upon the floor of his bedroom. Sir Richard’s second-best top-boots, a pair of buckskins, a blue riding-coat, his drab overcoat, and a fawn coloured beaver, have all disappeared. One is forced to the conclusion, my lady, that Sir Richard was called away unexpectedly.”
“Gone off without his valet?” George demanded in a stupefied tone.
The butler bowed. “Precisely so, my lord.”
“Impossible!” George said, from the heart.
Louisa, who had been frowning over these tidings, said in a brisk voice: “It is certainly very odd, but there is no doubt some perfectly reasonable explanation. Pray, are you certain that my brother left no word with any member of his household?”
“None whatsoever, my lady.”
George heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head. “I warned you, Louisa! I said you were driving him too hard!”
“You said nothing of the sort!” snapped Louisa, annoyed with him for talking so indiscreetly before a palpably interested servant. “To be sure, he may well have mentioned to us that he was going out of town, and we have forgotten the circumstance.”
“How can you say so?” asked George, honestly puzzled. “Why, didn’t you have it from Melissa Brandon herself that he was to call—”
“That will do, George!” said Louisa, quelling him with a look so terrible that he quailed under it. “Tell me, Porson,” she resumed, turning again to the butler, “has my brother gone in his post-chaise, or is he driving himself?”
“None of Sir Richard’s vehicles, my lady, sporting or otherwise, is missing from the stables,” said Porson, relishing the cumulative effect of his disclosures.
“He is riding, then!”
“I have ascertained from the head groom, my lady, that none of Sir Richard’s horses has been abstracted. The head groom has not seen Sir Richard since yesterday morning.”
“Good Gad!” muttered George, his eyes starting with dismay at the hideous thought which presented itself to him. “No, no, he would not do that!”
“Be quiet, George! For heaven’s sake, be quiet!” Louisa cried sharply. “Why, what nonsensical notion have you taken into your head? I am sure it is most provoking of Richard to slip off like this, but as for—I won’t have you say such things! Ten to one, he has gone off to watch some odious sporting event: prize-fighting, I dare say! He will be home presently.”
“But he didn’t sleep at home!” George reminded her. “And I’m bound to say he wasn’t cold stone sober when he left Almack’s last night. I don’t mean he was badly foxed, but you know what he’s like when he’s—”
“I am thankful to say that I know nothing of the kind!” retorted Louisa. “If he was not sober, it would account for his erratic behaviour.”
“Erratic behaviour! I must say, Louisa, that is a fine way to talk when poor Ricky may be at the bottom of the river,” exclaimed George, roused to noble courage.
She changed colour, but said faintly: “How can you be so absurd? Don’t say such things, I beg of you!”
The butler coughed. “I beg your lordship’s pardon, but if I might say so, Sir Richard would hardly change his raiment for the execution of—of what I apprehend your lordship means.”
“No. No, very true! He would not, of course!” agreed George, relieved.
“Moreover, my lord, Biddle reports that Sir Richard’s drawers and wardrobe have been ransacked, and various articles of clothing abstracted. Upon going to rouse Sir Richard this morning, Biddle found his room in the greatest disorder, as though Sir Richard had made his preparations for a journey in haste. Furthermore, my lord, Biddle informed me that a portmanteau and a small cloak-bag are missing from the cupboard in which they are customarily kept.”
George gave a sudden croak of laughter. “Bolted, by Gad! Yoicks! gone awa-ayl”
“George!”
“I don’t care!” said George defiantly. “I’m devilish glad he has bolted!”
“But there was no need!” Louisa said, forgetting that Porson was in the room. “No one was constraining him to marry—” she caught Porson’s eye, and stopped short.
“I should inform your ladyship,” said Porson, apparently deaf to her indiscreet utterance, “that there were several other Peculiar Circumstances attached to Sir Richard’s disappearance.”
“Good heavens, you talk as though he has been spirited away by magic!” said Louisa impatiently. “What circumstances, my good man?”
“If your ladyship will excuse me, I will fetch them for your inspection,” said Porson, and bowed himself out.
Husband and wife were left to stare at one another in perplexity.
“Well!” said George, not without satisfaction, “you see now what comes of plaguing a man out of his mind!”
“I didn’t! George, it is unjust of you to say so! Pray, how could I force him to offer for Melissa if he did not wish to? I am persuaded his flight has nothing whatever to do with that affair.”
“No man will bear being teased to do something he don’t want to do,” said George.
“Then all I have to say is that Richard is a bigger coward than I would have believed possible! I am sure, if only he had told me frankly that he did not wish to marry Melissa I should not have said another word about it.”
“Ha!” ejaculated George, achieving a sardonic laugh.
He escaped reproof by Porson’s coming back into the room, bearing certain articles which he laid carefully upon the table. In great astonishment, Lord and Lady Trevor gazed at a Paisley shawl, a crumpled cravat, and some short strands of guinea-gold hair, curling appropriately enough into a shape resembling a question-mark.
“What in the world—?” exclaimed Louisa.
“These articles, my lady, were discovered by the under-footman upon his entering the library this morning,” said Porson. “The shawl, which neither Biddle nor myself can remember to have seen before, was lying on the floor; the cravat had been thrown into the grate; and the—er—lock of hair—was found under the shawl.”
“Well, upon my word!” said George, putting up his glass the better to inspect the articles. He pointed his glass at the cravat. “That tells its own tale! Poor Ricky must have come in last night in a bad state. I dare say his head was aching: mine would have been, if I had drunk half the brandy he tossed off yesterday. I see it all. There he was, pledged to call on Saar this morning—no way out of it—head on fire! He tugged at his cravat, felt as though he must choke, and ruined the thing—and no matter how far gone he was, Ricky would never wear a crumpled necktie! There he was, sitting in a chair, very likely, and running his hands through his hair, in the way a man does—”
“Richard never yet disarranged his hair, and no matter how drunk he may have been, he did not pull a curl of that colour out of his own head!” interrupted Louisa. “Moreover, it has been cut off. Anyone can see that!”
George levelled his glass at the gleaming curl. A number of emotions flitted across his rather stolid countenance. He drew a breath. “You’re quite right, Louisa,” he said. “Well, I never would have believed it! The sly dog!”
“You need not wait, Porson!” Louisa said sharply.
“Very good, my lady. But I should perhaps inform your ladyship that the under-footman found the candles burning in the library when he entered it this morning.”
“I cannot see that it signifies in the least,” replied Louisa, waving him aside.
He withdrew. George, who was holding the curl in the palm of his hand, said: “Well, I can’t call anyone to mind with hair of this colour. To be sure, there were one or two opera-dancers, but Ricky’s not at all the sort of man to want ’em to cut off their hair for him. But there’s no doubt about one thing, Louisa: this curl was a keepsake.”
“Thank you, George, I had already realized that. Yet I thought I knew all the respectable women of Richard’s acquaintance! One would say that kind of keepsake must have belonged to his salad days. I am sure he is much too unromantic now to cherish a lock of hair!”
“And he threw it away,” George said, shaking his head. “You know, it’s devilish sad, Louisa, upon my word it is! Threw it away, because he was on the eve of offering for that Brandon-iceberg!”
“Very affecting! And having thrown it away, he then ran away himself—not, you will admit, making any offer at all! And where did the shawl come from?” She picked it up as she spoke, and shook it out. “Extremely creased! Now why?”
“Another keepsake,” George said. “Crushed it in his hands, poor old Ricky—couldn’t bear the recollections it conjured up—flung it away!”
“Oh, fiddle!” said Louisa, exasperated. “Well, Porson, what is it now?”
The butler, who had come back into the room, said primly: “The Honourable Cedric Brandon, my lady, to see Sir Richard. I thought perhaps your ladyship would wish to receive him.”
“I don’t suppose he can throw the least light on this mystery, but you may as well show him in,” said Louisa. “Depend upon it,” she added to her husband, when Porson had withdrawn himself again, “he will have come to learn why Richard did not keep his engagement with Saar this morning. I am sure I do not know what I am to say to him!”
“If you ask me, Cedric won’t blame Richard,” said George. “They tell me he was talking pretty freely at White’s yesterday. Foxed, of course. How you and your mother can want Ricky to marry into that family is what beats me!”
“We have known the Brandons all our lives,” Louisa said
defensively. “I don’t pretend that—” She broke off, as the Honourable Cedric walked into the room, and stepped forward, with her hand held out. “How do you do, Cedric? I am afraid Richard is not at home. We—think he must have been called away suddenly on urgent affairs.”
“Taken my advice, has he?” said Cedric, saluting her hand with careless grace. “ “You run, Ricky! Don’t do it!” that’s what I told him. Told him I’d sponge on him for the rest of his days, if he was fool enough to let himself be caught.”
“I wonder that you should talk in that vulgar way!” said Louisa. “Of course he has not run! I dare say he will be back any moment now. It was excessively remiss of him not to have sent a note round to inform Lord Saar that he could not wait on him this morning, as he had engaged himself to do, but—”
“You’ve got that wrong,” interrupted Cedric. “No engagement at all. Melissa told him to call on m’father; he didn’t say he would. Wormed it out of Melissa myself an hour ago. Lord, you never saw anyone in such a rage! What’s all this?” His roving eye had alighted on the relics laid out upon the table. “A lock of hair, by Jove! Devilish pretty hair too!”
“Found in the library this morning,” said George portentously, ignoring his wife’s warning frown.
“Here? Ricky?” demanded Cedric. “You’re bamming me!”
“No, it is perfectly true. We cannot understand it.”
Cedric’s eyes danced. “By all that’s famous! Who’d have thought it, though? Well, that settles our affairs! Devilish inconvenient, but damme, I’m glad he’s bolted! Always liked Ricky—never wanted to see him bound for perdition with the rest of us! But we’re done-up now, and no mistake! The diamonds have gone.”
“What?” Louisa cried. “Cedric, not the Brandon necklace?”
“That’s it. Last sheet-anchor thrown out to the windward—gone like that!” He snapped his fingers in the air, and laughed. “I came to tell Ricky I’d accept his offer to buy me a pair of colours, and be off to the Wars.”
“But how? Where?” gasped Louisa.
“Stolen. My mother took it to Bath with her. Never would stir without the thing, more’s the pity! I wonder m’father didn’t sell it years ago. Only thing he didn’t sell, except Saar Court, and that’ll have to go next. My mother wouldn’t hear of parting with the diamonds.”
“But Cedric, how stolen? Who took it?”
“Highwaymen. My mother sent off a courier post-haste to m’father. Chaise stopped somewhere near Bath—two fellows with masks and horse-pistols—Sophia screeching like a hen—my mother swooning—outriders taken by surprise—one of ’em winged. And off went the necklace. Which is what I can’t for the life of me understand.”
“How terrible! Your poor Mama! I am so sorry! It is an appalling loss!”
“Yes, but how the devil did they find the thing?” said Cedric. “That’s what I want to know.”
“But surely if they took Lady Saar’s jewel-case—”
“The necklace wasn’t in it. I’ll lay my last shilling on that. My mother had a hiding-place for it—devilish cunning notion—always put it there when she travelled. Secret pocket behind one of the squabs.”
“Good Gad, do you mean to say someone divulged the hiding-place to the rascals?” said George.
“Looks mighty like it, don’t it?”
“Who knew of it? If you can discover the traitor, you may yet get the necklace back. Are you sure of all your servants?”
“I’m sure none of them—Lord, I don’t know!” Cedric said, rather hastily. “My mother wants the Bow Street Runners set on to it, but m’father don’t think it’s the least use. And now here’s Ricky bolted, on top of everything! The old man will go off in an apoplexy!”
“Really, Cedric, you must not talk so of your Papa!” Louisa expostulated. “And we don’t know that Richard has—has bolted! Indeed, I am sure it’s no such thing!”
“He’ll be a fool if he hasn’t,” said Cedric. “What do you think, George?”
“I don’t know,” George answered. “It is very perplexing. I own, when I first heard of his disappearance—for you must know that he did not sleep in his bed last night, and when I saw him he was foxed—I felt the gravest alarm. But—”
“Suicide, by God!” Cedric gave a shout of laughter. “I must tell Melissa that! Driven to death! Ricky! Oh, by all that’s famous!”
“Cedric, you are quite abominable!” said Louisa roundly. “Of course Richard has not committed suicide! He has merely gone away. I’m sure I don’t know where, and if you say anything of the sort to Melissa I shall never forgive you! In fact, I beg you will tell Melissa nothing more than that Richard has been called away on an urgent matter of business.”
“What, can’t I tell her about the lock of yaller hair? Now, don’t be a spoil-sport, Louisa!”
“Odious creature!”
“We believe the lock of hair to be a relic of some long-forgotten affair,” said George. “Possibly a boy-and-girl attachment. It would be gross impropriety to mention it beyond these walls.”
“If it comes to that, old fellow, what about the gross impropriety of poking and prying into Ricky’s drawers?” asked Cedric cheerfully.
“We did no such thing!” Louisa cried. “It was found upon the floor in the library!”
“Dropped? Discarded? Seems to me Ricky’s been leading a double life. I’d have said myself he never troubled much about females. Won’t I roast him when I see him!”
“You will do nothing of the sort. Oh dear, I wish to heaven I knew where he has gone, and what it all means!”
“I’ll tell you where he’s gone!” offered Cedric. “He’s gone to find the yaller-haired charmer of his youth. Not a doubt of it! Lord, I’d give a monkey to see him, though. Ricky on a romantic adventure!”
“Now you are being absurd!” said Louisa. “If one thing is certain, it is that Richard has not one grain of romance in his disposition, while as for adventure—! I dare say he would shudder at the mere thought of it. Richard, my dear Cedric, is first, last, and always a man of fashion, and he will never do anything unbefitting a Corinthian. You may take my word for that!”