The following morning, the Duke thought it wisest to visit Tom before that young gentleman had emerged from his room, to warn him that he had acquired a sister overnight. Tom was inclined to take this in bad part, giving it as his opinion that girls spoiled everything. When he learned that Belinda’s presence had made it necessary for the Duke to change his plans, his face fell perceptibly, and it was only an assurance that he should eventually be taken to London that enabled him to meet his new sister without overt hostility. He evinced little curiosity, which was a relief to the Duke, and, not having reached an impressionable stage in his career, was quite unmoved by the loveliness that presently burst upon him. He ate his breakfast in unusual silence, occasionally shooting a darkling look at Belinda, and lost no time in effacing himself when he had finished. The Duke sent him off to discover where he could hire a post-chaise-and-pair to carry the whole party to Hitchin that morning, for not only was he extremely anxious to hand Belinda over to her friend as soon as possible, but Belinda herself was troubled by fears that Mr. Liversedge might pursue and recapture her. It was in vain that the Duke explained to her that since Mr. Liversedge was neither her uncle nor her guardian he had no hold over her, and would scarcely dare to coerce her: she appeared to listen to his words, but it was apparent that they conveyed little to her intelligence.
“Tell me,” he said, “when you were in Oxford with Mrs.—Mrs.—I don’t recall the name, but the lady who was thought to be your aunt—”
“Oh, she was not my aunt!” Belinda said. “I did not like having to live with her at all, for she was so bothersome, and very often cross with me.”
“But who was she?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Mr. Liversedge was very friendly with her, and he said I should stay with her and do just what she told me.”
He could not help smiling. “And was that to make my—to make Mr. Ware fall in love with you?”
“Yes,” she replied innocently. “I did not mind that, for we went pleasuring together, you know, and he was excessively kind to me, and he said he would marry me, too, and then I should have been a grand lady, and had my carriage, and silk dress besides.”
“Did you wish very much to marry him?”
“Oh, no!” Belinda replied placidly. “I didn’t care, if only I might have all the things Uncle Swithin said I should. He said it would be more comfortable for me if Mr. Ware gave me a great deal of money, and I think it would have been, because he was so jealous, you know, that there was no bearing it. Why, when I only went out to get a pound of black pudding from the pork-butcher, and a gentleman carried the basket for me, there was such an uproar! And he read poetry to me, too.”
“That was certainly very bad!” the Duke said gravely. “But tell me what happened after Mr. Ware—when you were no longer expecting to marry him! Did you run away from that lady?”
“Oh, no, she would not keep me any longer, because she quarreled dreadfully with Uncle Swithin, and she said he was a Jeremy Diddler.”
“What in the world is that?” he enquired, amused.
“I don’t know, but I think Uncle Swithin wouldn’t pay her any money, and she said he had promised it to her for taking care of me. She was as cross as a cat! And Uncle Swithin told her how we should all of us have money from Mr. Ware, but there was an execution in the house, you know, and she would not stay there any more. It is very fidgeting to have an execution in your house, for they take away the furniture, and there is no knowing how to go on. So Uncle Swithin fetched me away in an old tub of a carriage, which was so horrid! I was stuffed to death! And we had to go in the middle of the night, and that was uncomfortable too.”
“He took you to that inn? Is it possible that he meant to keep you there?”
“Well, he could not help doing so,” explained Belinda. “Poor Uncle Swithin! he has so very little money left, and Mr. Mimms is his brother, so you see he does not have to pay him to stay there. And of course we was expecting Mr. Ware to send us a great sum of money, and then we might have been comfortable again. But Uncle Swithin says all is ruined, and it was my fault for not calling to Mr. Mimms to stop you when you went away. But he never told me I should do so!”
“Don’t you think,” he suggested gently, “that you will like just as well to go to your friend as to have a great sum of money?”
Belinda reflected, and shook her head. “No, for if I had the money I could also go to visit Maggie Street,” she said simply.
This was so unanswerable that the Duke abandoned the subject, together with a half-formed resolve to point out to Belinda the reprehensible nature of Mr. Liversedge’s attempts to extort money from undergraduates. Something told him that Belinda’s intelligence was not of the order that readily appreciated ethical considerations.
In a short time, Tom returned to the inn, his mission accomplished. If Mr. Rufford would step down to the George, he said, to confirm the arrangement he had made on his behalf, a chaise could be hired, and would be sent round to the White Horse as soon as it was needed.
The Duke was not very anxious to visit the George, where he had several times stopped on his way to his estates in Yorkshire, to change his horses, but he did not think that he had ever alighted there, and could only hope that he would not be recognized. He desired his protégés to pack their few belongings, and sallied forth, requesting Mrs. Appleby, whom he met at the foot of the stairs, to prepare his reckoning. Mrs. Appleby allowed him to see by her manner that he had sadly disappointed her; and the waiter, hovering in the background, plainly regarded him in the light of a hardened libertine.
In the event, no one whom he interviewed at the George showed the smallest sign of recognizing him. He thought the luck was miraculously with him, until it occurred to him, on his way back to the White Horse, that, had he wished to do it, he might have found it difficult to convince the landlord and the servants at the George that an unattended gentleman, staying at the White Horse and in need of a hired chaise, could possibly be his Grace the Duke of Sale. He reflected then that it was to be hoped he would have no occasion to prove his identity, since he had taken care to leave his visiting cards at Sale House, and had handed over to Gideon his seal ring.
When he reached the White Horse again, he found that although Belinda had packed her bandboxes, Tom was by no means ready to depart, having, in fact, made no attempt to stow away the articles of apparel procured for him into the carpet-bag which was all the Duke had been able to find in Baldock for the carriage of his effects. Tom had expended some part of the guinea the Duke had given him on the acquisition of a fascinating new toy, called, not without reason, Diabolo. He had already succeeded in breaking a water-bottle, and a cherished vase of unsurpassed hideousness which Mrs. Appleby stated had belonged to her husband’s grandfather and was quite irreplaceable. The Duke was greeted on his arrival with a strongly worded complaint from Mrs. Appleby, and a simple request from Belinda to buy her a Diabolo too. However, Tom, who found that he did not excel in manipulating the toy, said loftily that it was a stupid thing, and very handsomely made Belinda a present of it. But the Duke was obliged to do his packing for him, and by the time he had left Tom to strap up the carpet-bag, and had dealt with his own effects, and settled his reckoning with Mrs. Appleby, the hired chaise was at the door. He saw his charges into it, directed the post-boy to take them to the Sun Inn at Hitchin, and turned to take his leave of Mrs. Appleby.
“Mark my words, Mr. Rufford, sir,” she said bodingly, “you will live to regret it, for if ever I saw a light-skirt, which I never thought to soil my lips with such a word, I see one this day!”
“Nonsense!” said Gilly, and sprang up into the chaise.
“This,” declared Belinda buoyantly, “is beyond anything great, sir! To be jauntering about in a private chaise like a real lady, as fine as a star! If Mrs. Pilling were to see me now she would not credit her eyes, I daresay! Oh, if only Mr. Liversedge does not find me, and take me back again!”
“Mr. Liversedge,” said Gilly, “has a great deal of effrontery, but hardly enough, I dare swear, for that! Let us put him out of our minds!” He saw that she was still looking vaguely scared, and smiled. “There is nothing more he can do, Belinda, after all! Ten to one, he is by this time turning his mind into other channels.”
But little though he knew it he had wronged Mr. Liversedge. That gentleman had found himself so very far from well on the previous evening that he had been quite unable to bend his powerful mind to any more difficult problem than how he could most expeditiously cure the shocking headache that nearly blinded him. He bad gone to lie down upon his bed, and had responded to a suggestion that he would be better for a bite of supper only by a hollow groan. Mr. Minims, regarding him with a scornful eye, offered him consolation in the form of a reminder that he had warned him that no good could come of flying at game too high for him.
“You leave them swell bleaters be, Sam!” he adjured the prostrate sufferer. “Then maybe you won’t have no broken head another time!”
Mr. Liversedge opened a bloodshot eye. “Swithin!” he found strength to utter.
“Sam you was christened, and much good it done you to go a-giving yourself a silly flash name like Swithin!” said Mr. Mimms severely. “Well, if you don’t want no peck and booze there’ll be more for them as does, that’s one thing!”
On this cheering thought, he departed, leaving his afflicted brother to spread a cold compress over his head and to take another pull at the brandy bottle.
It was some hours later before Mr. Liversedge felt able to rise from his couch, and to totter downstairs to the kitchen. He still wore the Duke’s handkerchief knotted round his head, and he had by no means recovered his complexion, but the pangs of hunger had begun to attack him. He pushed open the kitchen door, and found that his brother was entertaining a guest, a thin, wiry gentleman, who wore a riding-suit of sober-coloured cloth, and a pair of well-fitting boots that seemed to have seen much service. He had a pair of bright grey eyes, which lifted quickly and warily as the door opened. He was in the act of consuming a prodigious portion of cold beef, but he held his knife suspended for an instant, until he saw who it was that had entered, when he relaxed, and waved the laden knife at Mr. Liversedge, saying cheerfully: “Hallo, Sam, old gager!”
Mr. Mimms, who was seated on the opposite side of the table, engaged in inspecting a collection of watches, purses, fobs, and rings, cast an appraising look at Mr. Liversedge, and said: “That flash mort of yours has loped off.”
Mr. Liversedge drew up a spare chair, and lowered himself into it, “Where to?” he demanded.
“I dunno, nor I don’t care. How you ever come to think there was any good to be got out of such a bird-witted wench downright queers me! Good riddance to her, that’s what I say!”
“Bird-witted she may be,” replied Mr. Liversedge fair-mindedly, “but where, I ask you to tell me, Joe, could you find a more lovely piece?”
The gentleman in riding-dress paused between mouthfuls to heave a deep sigh. “Ah, if ever I see such a rare bleached mort!” he said, shaking his head. “What a highflyer, Sam! But no sense in her cockloft, which makes her dangerous ware for a man like me. Else I would have—”
“You would have done no such thing, Nat Shifnal, as I have erstwhile made plain to you!” said Mr. Liversedge. “Nothing could be more fatal for a man in my position than to be bringing damaged goods to market!” He stretched out a hand for the dish on which a somewhat mutilated sirloin of beef reposed, and drew it towards him. “I will trouble you for the carving-knife, Joe,” he said, with dignity.
His brother pushed it across the table. “She’s loped off in pudding-time, that’s what I say and will hold to!” he announced. “If you had of gone on the dub-lay, Sam, it’s low, but not a word would you have heard out of me! Nor I wouldn’t have blamed you for turning bridle-cull, like Nat here. But you took and tried to be a petticoat-pensioner, and that’s what I don’t hold with, and nothing will make me say different!”
Mr. Liversedge replied in a lofty tone that he would thank his brother not to use such vulgar terms to him. “There is, I will grant, a certain distinction attached to those who embrace the High Toby as their profession. But the dub-lay—or, as I prefer to call it, the very ignoble calling of a common pickpocket—is something I thank God I have never yet been obliged even to contemplate!”
“No, because every time as you’re nippered it’s me as stands huff!” retorted Mr. Minims.
“Easy, now, easy!” begged Mr. Shifnal placably. “I don’t say as Sam done right this time, but there’s no denying, Joe, he’s got gifts. For one thing, he talks as nice as a nun’s hen; and for another, there ain’t anyone to touch him for drinking a young ’un into a fit state for plucking.”
“Then let him stick to it!” retorted Mr. Mimms. “I got nothing against that lay, but petticoat-pensioners I can’t stomach!”
Mr. Shifnal regarded Mr. Liversedge curiously. “How did you come to be diddled by a greenhorn, Sam? It ain’t like you, I’ll cap downright! By what Joe tells me, you shouldn’t have had trouble in plucking that pigeon.”
Mr. Liversedge described an airy gesture with one white hand. “The greatest amongst us must sometimes err. I own that I erred. Talking pays no toll, or I might be tempted to say much in extenuation of what I admit to have been a misjudgment.”
“It wouldn’t be no use talking them breakteeth words to Nat,” said Mr. Mimms caustically. “He ain’t had your advantages, Sam, for all he’s able to pay his shot, and don’t have to come down on me for the very bread he puts in his mummer.”
Mr. Liversedge’s bosom swelled perceptibly, but after looking hard at his brother for a moment he apparently decided to ignore his lapse from good taste. He said: “What I ask myself is, Who was he?”
“If you was to be asking yourself how you was to set about making a living, there’d be some sense in it,” commented the aggressive Mr. Mimms. “It don’t matter to none of us who that downy young ’un was. I’ll allow he looked like a flat, but he knocked you into horse-nails, which I hope and pray as it will be a lesson to you not to meddle with swells again!” He perceived that he was not being attended to, Mr. Liversedge having fallen into a brown study, and added bitterly: “There you go! A-thinking up some more of your cork-brained lays! You won’t be happy till you’ve got yourself into the Whit, and me along with you!”
“Be silent, Joseph!” commanded Mr. Liversedge. “I must and shall make a recover!” He passed a hand across his brow as he spoke, and rather impatiently tore off the Duke’s handkerchief. “That young addle-plot was very perfectly acquainted with all the circumstances of this affair,” he said. “In a word, he was deep in Ware’s confidence. I hold to my original conviction that his purpose in coming here was to treat with me. Had I not, for a fatal instant, lowered my guard, I fancy I should now be in possession of a substantial sum of money—of which you, Joe, would have had your earnest, I assure you.”
“That’s handsomely said, Sam,” approved Mr. Shifnal. “What’s more, Joe don’t doubt you’d have paid him his earnest, nor no one that knows you.”
“No, I don’t,” said Mr. Mimms. “Because I’d ha’ seen to ityou did. But not one meg have I had out of you, Sam, and all I got is you borrowing from me to take and hire a shay to fetch that silly wench here, which I never wanted, nor don’t hold with!”
Mr. Liversedge disregarded him. “He was well-breeched,” he said slowly. “I perceived it at the outset. That olive coat—I caught but a glimpse of it beneath his Benjamin, but I flatter myself I am not easily deceived in such matters—was only made by a tailor patronized by members of the haut ton. Not a dandy, no! But there was an air of elegance—how shall I put it? A—”
“He was a flash-cull,” suggested Mr. Shifnal helpfully.
Mr. Liversedge frowned. “He was not a flash-cull!” he said with some asperity. “He was a gentleman of high breeding. His hat bore the name of Lock upon the band: I observed it when he laid it brim upwards on the table. That may mean little to you: it conveys to me the information that he is one who frequents the haunts of high fashion. During that period in my life when I acted as a gentleman’s gentleman, I became acquainted, with the nicest particularity, with every detail of an out-and-out swell’s attire. I recognized at a glance in this greenhorn a member of the Upper Ten Thousand.”
Mr. Shifnal being plainly out of his depth, Mr. Mimms kindly translated this speech for him. “He was as spruce as an onion,” he said.
“If you choose so to put it,” agreed Mr. Liversedge graciously. “Take only this handkerchief! Of the finest quality, you observe, and the monogram—” Suddenly he stopped short, as an idea occurred to him, and subjected the handkerchief to a closer scrutiny. It had been hemmed for the Duke by the loving hands of his nurse, who was a notable needle-woman. In one corner she had embroidered a large S, and had had the pretty notion of enclosing the single letter in a circle of strawberry leaves. “No,” said Mr. Liversedge, staring at it. “Not a monogram. A single letter. In fact, the letter S.” He looked up, and across the table at his brother. “Joseph,” he said, in an odd voice, “what does that single letter S suggest to you?”
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Mimms tersely.
“Samuel,” suggested Mr. Shifnal, after profound mental research. He saw an impatient frown on Mr. Liversedge’s brow, and corrected himself. “Swithin, I should say!”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed Mr. Liversedge testily. “Where are your wits gone begging? Joseph, what, I ask you, are these leaves?”
Mr. Mimms peered at the embroidery. “Leaves,” he said.
“Leaves! Yes, but what leaves?”
“Sam,” said Mr. Mimms severely, “it’s mops and brooms with you, that’s what it is! And if it was you as prigged a bottle of good brandy from the tap-room, and me blaming it on to Walter—”
“Joseph, cease trifling! These are strawberry leaves!”
“Very likely they may be, but what you’ve got to get into a passion for because the swell has strawberry—”
“Ignorant wretch!” said Mr. Liversedge, quite agitated. “Who but a Duke—stay, does not a Marquis also—? But we are not concerned with Marquises, and we need not waste time on that!”
“You’re right, Joe,” said Mr. Shifnal. “He is lushy! Now, don’t you go a-working of yourself into a miff, Sam! No one won’t waste any time on Markisses!”
“You are a fool!” said Mr. Liversedge. “These leaves stand in allusion to the rank of that greenhorn, and this letter S stands for Sale! That greenhorn was none other than his Grace the Duke of Sale—whom Joseph, by his folly in leaving this hovel to feed a herd of grunting swine, has let slip through his bungling fingers!”
Mr. Mimms and Mr. Shifnal sat staring at him in blank amazement. Mr. Mimms found his tongue first. “If you ain’t lushy, Sam, you’re dicked in the nob!” he said.
Mr. Liversedge paid no attention to him. A frown wrinkled his brow. “Wait!” he said. “Let us not leap too hurriedly to conclusions! Let me consider! Let me ponder this!”
Mr. Mimms showed no desire to leap to any other conclusion than that his relative had taken leave of his senses, and said so. He filled up his glass, and recommended Mr. Shifnal to do the same. For once, Mr. Shifnal did not respond to this invitation. He was watching Mr. Liversedge, quick speculation in his sharp face. When Mr. Mimms would have broken in rudely upon his brother’s meditations, he hushed him, requesting him briefly to dub his mummer. “You let Sam be!” he said. “Up to every rig and row intown, he is!”
“To whom,” demanded Mr. Liversedge, suddenly, “would young Ware turn in his dilemma? To his father? No! To his cousin, Joseph! To his noble and affluent cousin, the Duke of Sale! You saw him; you even conversed with him: was not his amiability writ large on his countenance? Would he spurn an indigent relative in his distress? He would not!”
“I don’t know what he done to no relative,” responded Mr. Mimms, “but I know what he done to you, Sam!”
Mr. Liversedge brushed this aside. “You are a sapskull,” he said. “What he did to me was done for his cousin’s sake. I bear him no ill-will: not the smallest ill-will! I am not a man of violence, but in his shoes I might have been tempted to do as he did. But we run on too fast! This is not proved. And yet—Joseph, it comes into my mind that he told me he was putting up at the White Horse, and this gives me to doubt. Would he do so if he were indeed the man I believe him to be? One would say no. Again we go too fast! He did not wish to be known: a very understandable desire! For what must have been the outcome had he come to me in his proper person? What, Joseph, if a chaise with a ducal crest upon the panel had driven up to this door? What if a card had been handed to you bearing upon it the name and style of the Duke of Sale? What then?”
“I’d have gone and put my head under the pump, same as you ought to this very minute!” replied Mr. Mimms, without hesitation.
“Possibly! possibly! But I, Joseph, being a man of larger vision, would have raised my price! Very likely I would have demanded not five but ten thousand pounds from him. And so he knew!”
“Are you telling us, Sam, as that young greenhorn was a Dook?” asked Mr. Shifnal incredulously.
“Look at the handkerchief! And if Joseph had but stayed within the house—”
“If I’d have known he was a Dook, which sounds to me like a bag of moonshine anyways, I’d have had more sense than to meddle with him!” declared Mr. Mimms. “That would be the way to get dished-up, that would! Why, if I’d have bored in on him we’d have very likely gone to Rumbo, the pair of us! I dunno but what it wouldn’t mean the Nubbing Cheat.”
Mr. Liversedge sat staring before him, his ingenious mind at work. “I may be wrong. All men are fallible. It may be that I am right, however, and am I the man to let opportunity slide? That shall never be said of Swithin Liversedge! This matter must be sifted! But he may already have departed from this neighbourhood. He had recovered the fatal letters: what should keep him longer at such a hostelry as the White Horse?”
Mr. Shifnal shook his head. “Nothing wouldn’t keep him any longer, Sam,” he said.
Mr. Liversedge brought his gaze to bear on his friend’s face. “Nothing,” he said, in a damped tone. “I am bound to confess—No!” He sat up with a jerk. “Belinda!” he ejaculated. “Where else did she go but to the man whom she allowed—for aught I know encouraged!—to fly from this place, leaving her protector for dead upon the floor?”
“She’d lope off with anyone, she would,” commented Mr. Mimms dispassionately. “You had only to get talking to her when you see her at Bath, and she up and loped off with you. An unaccountable game-pullet, she is!”
“It is my belief,” said Mr. Liversedge, “that she has cast herself upon his generosity! She has appealed to his chivalry! Will he thrust her away? will he refuse to aid her? He will not!”
“Not unless he’s a bigger noddy than any I ever heard on,” said Mr. Shifnal. “No one wouldn’t thrust a wench like that away!”
“That,” said Mr. Liversedge, “I knew the moment I clapped eyes on her! Nat, it may well be that he tarries at the inn, dallying with Belinda! For he will not, I fancy, take her to London. He is hedged about by those who would wrest her from him. Who should know if I do not how close a guard they keep about that young man? There is no coming near him, never was! I must go to Baldock in the morning!”
Mr. Mimms stared at him. “It won’t fadge if you do,” he said. “I’ll allow I didn’t take much account of him, for a proper greenhorn he looked to me, but he couldn’t be such a goosecap as not to burn them letters he took off of you, Sam! You ain’t got nothing left to do but to bite on the bridle.”
Mr. Liversedge cast him a look of ineffable contempt. “If you, Joseph, had ever had one tenth of my vision you would not today be keeping a low thieves’ ken!” he declared.
“That’s the dandy!” retorted Mr. Mimms bitterly. “Go on! Insult poor Nat as never did you a mite of harm!”
Mr. Liversedge waved his hand. “I intend nothing personal,” he said. “But the fact remains that you are a hick, Joseph! Those letters no longer interest me. If all is as I think it may be, there is a fortune in it! Let me but once ascertain that that young man was indeed the Duke of Sale; let Providence ordain that he has not yet driven away to the Metropolis; let me but hit upon some stratagem to get him into my hands, and we shall not regard the five thousand pounds I was once hopeful of acquiring as more than a flea-bite!”
Mr. Mimms could only look at him with dropping jaw, but Mr. Shifnal’s sharp face grew sharper still. He watched Mr. Liversedge intently, and nodded, as though he understood. “Go on, Sam!” he encouraged him.
“I must have time to consider the matter,” said Mr. Liversedge largely. “Several schemes are revolving in my head, but I would do nothing without due consideration. The first step must be to ascertain whether the young man is still to be found in Baldock. Joseph, I shall be requiring the cart tomorrow!”
“Sam,” said Mr. Mimms, in a tone of great uneasiness, “if so be as he is a Dook, you don’t mean to go a-meddling with him?”
“Have no fear!” said Mr. Liversedge. “You, my dear brother, shall not be forgotten.”
“I wish myself backt if I have anything to do with it!” declared Mr. Mimms violently. “I’ve kept this boozing-ken, and my father before me, and never any more trouble than would trouble a hen, but mix myself up with Dooks I won’t! I’m an honest fence, I am, and I make a decent living, as you have cause to be thankful for; and Nat here will tell you I give him a fair price for any gewgaws he may happen to bring me, like this little lot—”
“Well—” temporized Mr. Shifnal. “I don’t know as how I’d say—”
“As fair a price as any fence this side of London,” said Mr. Mimms firmly. “And I don’t have no barmen poking and prying round this ken, so that them as earns a living at the rattling-lay, or the lift, or the High Toby, can lay up here, and not fear no one! But meddle with no Dooks I will not, for, mark my words, if we was to lay so much as a finger on such as him, we should have them Bow Street Runners here before the cat can lick her ear!”
Mr. Shifnal was still thoughtfully watching Mr. Liversedge. “It’s a good fish if it were but caught,” he said slowly. “He’s a well-blunted young cove, I daresay?”
“Able to buy an abbey!” Mr. Liversedge assured him.
“Well,” said Mr. Shifnal, “I was meaning to lope off again, but what Joe says is the truth: a cull can lay up here, and no one the wiser. Maybe I’ll lay up till I see which way the wind will blow. You get off to Baldock in the morning, Sam!”
This, in spite of his brother’s protests, was what Mr. Liversedge did; but owing to the late hour to which he and Mr. Shifnal sat up, and the quantity of brandy they consumed, he did not make an early enough start to reach Baldock before the Duke and his small party had left it. After carefully reconnoitering the White Horse, and ascertaining that the Duke was not within sight, Mr. Liversedge walked boldly up to that hostelry, and entered the taproom. Here he encountered the tapster, who was engaged in wiping down the bar; and after passing the time of day with him, and consuming a glass of porter, he ventured to make some guarded enquiries. The tapster said: “If it’s the gentleman in No. 1 you’re meaning, he ain’t here, nor that doxy what came a-looking for him neither. Gone off in a chaise to Hitchin not half an hour past. Rufford, his name was.”
Mr. Liversedge did not wait for more. Draining his glass, and throwing down upon the table a coin wrested from his unwilling relative, he left the inn, and made haste back to Mr. Mimms’s cart. His brain seethed with conjecture all the way back to the Bird in Hand, and when he reached that hostelry, he left Walter to stable the horse, and himself hurried up to his parlour. Mr. Shifnal and Mr. Mimms, who had been on the look-out for him, lost no time in following him. They found him pawing over the leaves of a well-thumbed volume. This work, published by Thomas Goddard of No. 1 Pall Mall, was entitled A Biographical Index to the Present House of Lords, and it constituted Mr. Liversedge’s Bible. His hands almost trembled as he sought for Sale amongst the various entries. He found it at last, ran his eye down the opening paragraph, and uttered an exclamation of triumph. “I knew it!”
Mr. Shifnal peered over his shoulder, but not being a lettered man found the spelling out of the printed words a slow business. “What is it, Sam?” he asked.
“ Sale, Duke of, ” read out Mr. Liversedge in a voice of suppressed excitement. “ Names, Titles and Creations: The Most Noble Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware, Duke of Sale and Marquis of Ormesby (March 12th, 1692); Earl of Sale (August 9th, 1547); Baron Ware of Thane (May 2nd, 1538); Baron Ware of Stoven and Baron Ware of Rufford (June 14th, 1675)— Baron Ware of Rufford, mark you! I thought my memory had not erred! And our young greenhorn, my masters, has been putting up at the White Horse under the name of Mr. Rufford! I can want no further proof!”
Even Mr. Mimms was impressed by this, but he reiterated his desire to have nothing to do with Dukes. His brother paid no heed to him, but fixed Mr. Shifnal with an unwinking stare, and demanded, in a rhetorical spirit, to be told why the Duke had gone to Hitchin. Neither of his hearers was able to enlighten him, nor, after profound thought, could he discover for himself any very plausible explanation. But since Hitchin, as he unanswerably declared, could not be said to lie on the road to London, he soon decided not to allow this trifling enigma to worry him. The Duke had directed the post-boy to drive to the Sun Inn, where it would seem reasonable to suppose that he meant to spend at least one night. His taking Belinda with him precluded the possibility, Mr. Liversedge thought, of his having gone to visit friends in the neighbourhood.
Mr. Mimms, whose uneasiness was rapidly increasing, brought his fist down with a crash on the table, and demanded to be told what his brother had in mind. Mr. Liversedge glanced at him indifferently. “If Nat is willing to lend me his assistance,” he replied, “I consider that it would be flying in the face of Providence not to make a push to capture this prize.”
Mr. Shifnal nodded, but said: “How much money is there in it, by your reckoning?”
Mr. Liversedge shrugged. “How can I say? Thirty thousand—fifty thousand—almost any sum, I daresay!”
Mr. Shifnal’s eyes glistened. “Will the cove bleed as free as that?” he asked, awed.
“He is one of the richest men in the land,” responded Mr. Liversedge. “I have devoted much study to his affairs, for it has always seemed to me that for a young and inexperienced man to be the possessor of so large a fortune was a circumstance not to be overlooked or hastily set aside. But even so brilliant an exponent of the art of plucking pigeons as Fred Gunnerside—a genius in his way, I assure you, and one of whom I am not to proud to learn—has never to my knowledge succeeded in coming within hailing distance of him. In fact, poor Fred was sadly out of pocket on his account, for he expended quite a large sum of money in following him on the Continent. All to no purpose! He was closely attended, not only by his servants, but by a military gentleman to whom Fred took a strong dislike. I myself had abandoned any thought of approaching him, until my late little disagreement with the magistrates at Bath forced me to sharpen my wits. I again turned my mind towards Sale. I flatter myself that my research into his family history, and every circumstance of his own life, was at once thorough and profitable. To have laid a snare for his cousin was a subtle stroke, and one that must have succeeded but for a slight error which I freely admit to have made.”
Unable to contain himself Mr. Mimms growled: “That after-clap won’t be nothing compared with what will happen if you meddle any more with a Dook! I tell you, Sam, the glue won’t hold!”
“It might,” Mr. Shifnal said. “It might, Joe. By God, if there’s thirty thousand pounds in the game, it’s worth a push! Is it ransom you have in your mind, Sam?”
It was evident from the visionary look in his eye that large ideas were fast gaining possession over Mr. Liversedge’s brain. He replied grandly: “I might consider the question of ransom. And yet who shall say that there may not be a still more profitable way of turning this Duke to good account? Had either of you ever looked beyond the narrow confines of the bare existence which you eke out in ways which I, frankly, consider contemptible, you would know that this Duke is an orphan, and one, moreover, who has neither brother nor sister to bear him company. His guardian, and, indeed, his present heir, is his uncle.” He paused. “I have considered the question of approaching Lord Lionel Ware, and it may be that this is the course I shall decide to pursue. One cannot, however one might wish to, doubt that Lord Lionel—a very worthy gentleman, I daresay—is too stiff-necked, or possibly too bacon-brained to perceive where his best interests lie. He might, one would have supposed, have found the means in all these years to have disposed of his nephew, had he had the least common-sense. I am forced, therefore, to assume that for the particular purpose I have in mind, his lordship would be of little or no assistance to me. But his lordship has a son.” He paused impressively. “A son, gentlemen, who stands next to him in the succession to a title and to vast wealth. I am not myself acquainted with this young man: it did not appear to me that there could be much profit in seeking him out. But the horizon has broadened suddenly. Immense possibilities present themselves to me. This Captain Ware is in the Lifeguards: I daresay an expensive young man: all guard-officers are so! What, I put it to you, might he be willing to pay to a man who would ensure his succession to wealth and honours which it would be idle to suppose he does not covet? Consider his position!—In fact, the more I consider it myself the more convinced do I become that in seeking merely a ransom I should be acting foolishly. He exists upon a paltry pittance; the future can hold little for him beyond an arduous military career; for he cannot doubt that his cousin will shortly marry, and beget heirs of his own body. He must think his chances of succeeding to the Dukedom so slim as not to be worth a farthing. Picture to yourselves what must be his sensations when suddenly a way is shown to him whereby he can be rid of his cousin, without the least suspicion falling upon himself! Really, I do not know why I permitted myself to waste as much as a moment on such a paltry notion as a mere ransom!”
Mr. Shifnal, who had followed this speech with some difficulty, interrupted at this point. “Sam, are you saying as you mean to put that young cove away?” he demanded.
“That,” said Mr. Liversedge, “must rest with Captain Ware.”
“I won’t have nothing to do with it!” said Mr. Mimms forcibly. “I got nothing to say against putting away coves as won’t be missed, but putting away a Dook is coming it too strong, and that’s my last word! Mark my words, Sam, you’ll catch cold at this !”
Mr. Shifnal stroked his chin. “I’m bound to say it seems like a havey-cavey business to me,” he admitted. “But there’s no denying Sam’s got big notions in his head, and it don’t do to let a fortune go a-begging. I’ll allow this Dook is a regular honey-fall, and if you don’t want your earnest out of fifty thousand pounds, and very likely more, if Sam works the trick proper, as I don’t doubt he will, it’ll be the first time I ever knew you to hang back, Joe Mimms! But though I sees as the game’s in view, it don’t do to act hasty. This Dook of yours, Sam, by what you tells us, has a sight of servants and suchlike hanging about him, and it ain’t to be looked for that they don’t know he’s in Baldock. If we goes a-putting on him away quiet, what’s to say we won’t have the whole pack of them—ah, and the Runners as well!—nosing around these parts a-looking for him? Joe wouldn’t want for them to come poking into his ken—”
Mr. Mimms, who had been containing himself by a strong effort, here interposed to corroborate this reading of his state of mind with all the eloquence at his command. Mr. Liversedge waited patiently until he paused for breath, and then said: “Very true, Nat, very true! I had myself given some thought to this matter. It is my belief that the Duke has escaped from his household, and that no one knows where he is to be found. You ask me why? For several reasons! If he had divulged his purpose in coming here, there must have been many persons who would have thought it their duty to prevent him. If he had not left town secretly, depend upon it he could never have shaken off those of his servants who invariably accompany him on any journey that he undertakes. I well remember poor Fred Gunnerside’s very moving words on this very point. The young man is surrounded by a set of elderly men who seem all of them to be devoted to his interests to a degree which one must consider to be excessive. No, I am strongly of the opinion that the Duke has taken this journey unbeknownst to anyone. Very likely he looks upon it as an adventure: young men are apt to take such fancies into their heads.”
Mr. Shifnal, with the vision of untold wealth dazzling him, was not hard to convince; Mr. Mimms continued however to be inimical to the project, and it was long before he could be brought to view the matter in a reasonable light. His companions wrought with him for quite an hour before he could even be induced to lend his cart for the journey to Hitchin: indeed, only the reflection that if he refused to enter into the plot he would forfeit all right to a share of the reward caused him grudgingly to pledge a measure of support. The other two then laid their heads together, reaching certain decisions, prominent amongst them being one that Mr. Liversedge should remain as much as possible in the background, leaving Mr. Shifnal, who was unknown to the Duke, to undertake the preliminary encounter.