“I don’t know,” answered Shield curtly. “It was very old—perhaps priceless.”
“Such a rash creature, poor Ludovic!” sighed the Beau. “I believe there was no stopping him—was there, Tristram?”
“No.”
Eustacie turned towards Shield. “But were you there, then?”
“Yes, I was there.”
“But no one, not even Tristram, could manage Ludovic in his wilder moods,” explained the Beau. “He pledged the ring, and continued to lose. Sir Matthew, with what one cannot but feel to have been a lamentable want of taste, left the Cocoa-Tree with the ring upon his finger. To redeem it Ludovic was forced to go to the Jews—ah, that means moneylenders, my dear!”
“There was nothing new in that,” said Shield. “Ludovic had been in the Jews’ hands since he came down from Oxford—and before.”
“Like so many of us,” murmured the Beau.
“And did he get the money from the Jews?” asked Eustacie.
“Oh yes,” replied the Beau, “but the matter was not so easily settled. When Ludovic called upon Plunkett to redeem the ring our ingenious friend pretended that the bargain had been quite misunderstood, that he had in fact staked his guineas against the ring, and won it outright. He would not give it up, nor could anyone but Tristram be found who had been sober enough to vouch for the truth of Ludovic’s version of the affair.”
Eustacie’s eyes flashed. “I am not at all surprised that Ludovic killed this canaille! He was without honour!”
The Beau played with his quizzing-glass. “People who collect objects of rarity, my dear Eustacie, will often, so I believe, go to quite unheard-of lengths to acquire the prize they covet.”
“But you!” said Eustacie, looking fiercely at Sir Tristram. “You knew the truth!”
“Unfortunately,” replied Sir Tristram, “Plunkett did not wait for my ruling. He retired into the country—to Furze House, in fact—and somewhat unwisely refused to see Ludovic.”
“Did Grandpère know of this?” Eustacie asked.
“Dear me, no!” said the Beau. “Sylvester and Ludovic were so rarely on amicable terms. And then there was that little matter of Ludovic’s indebtedness to the Jews. One can hardly blame Ludovic for not taking Sylvester into his confidence. However, Ludovic came home to this house, bringing Tristram, with the intention of confronting Plunkett with the one—er—reliable witness to the affair. But Plunkett was singularly elusive—not unnaturally, of course. When Ludovic called at Furze House he was never at home. One must admit that Ludovic was not precisely the man to accept such treatment patiently. And he was drinking rather heavily at that time, too. Discovering that Plunkett was to dine at a house in Slaugham upon the very day that he had been refused admittance to Furze House for the third time, he conceived the plan of waylaying him upon his return home, and forcing him to accept bills in exchange for the ring. Only Tristram, finding him gone from here, guessed what he would be at, and followed him.”
“The boy was three parts drunk!” said Sir Tristram over his shoulder.
“I have no doubt he was in a very dangerous humour,” agreed the Beau. “It has always been a source of wonderment to me how you persuaded him to relinquish his purpose and return home.”
“I promised to see Plunkett in his stead,” replied Shield. “Like a fool I let him take the path through the spinney.”
“My dear fellow, no one could have expected you to have foreseen that Plunkett would return by that path,” said the Beau gently.
“On the contrary, if he came from Slaugham it was the most natural way for him to take,” retorted Shield. :’And we knew he was riding, not driving.”
“So what happened?” breathed Eustacie.
It was Shield who answered her. “Ludovic rode back through the Longshaw Spinney, while I went on towards Furze House. Not ten minutes after we had parted I heard a shot fired in the distance. At the time I made nothing of it: it might have been a poacher. Next morning Plunkett’s body was discovered in the spinney with a shot through the heart, and a crumpled handkerchief of Ludovic’s lying beside it.”
“And the ring?” Eustacie said quickly.
“The ring was gone,” said Shield. “There was money in Plunkett’s pockets, and a diamond pin in his cravat, but of the talisman ring no sign.”
“And it has never been seen since,” added the Beau.
“By us, no!” said Sir Tristram.
“Yes, yes, I know that you think Ludovic has it,” said the Beau, “but Ludovic swore he did not meet Plunkett that night, and I for one do not think that Ludovic was a liar. He admitted freely that he carried a pistol in his pocket, he even admitted that he had fired it—at an owl.”
“Why should he not shoot this Plunkett?” demanded Eustacie. “He deserved to be shot! I am very glad that he was shot!”
“Possibly,” said Sir Tristram in his driest tone, “but in England, whatever it may be in France, murder is a capital offence.”
“But they did not hang him just for killing such a one as this Plunkett?” said Eustacie, shocked.
“No, because we got him out of the country before he could be arrested,” Shield answered.
The Beau lifted his hand. “Sylvester and you got him out of the country,” he corrected. “I had no hand in that, if you please.”
“Had he stayed to face a trial nothing could have saved his neck.”
“There I beg to differ from you, my dear Tristram,” said the Beau calmly. “Had he been permitted to face his trial the truth might have been found out. When you—and Sylvester, of course—smuggled him out of the country you made him appear a murderer confessed.”
Sir Tristram was spared the necessity of answering by the entrance of Sylvester’s valet, who came to summon him to his great-uncle’s presence again. He went at once, a circumstance which provoked the Beau to murmur as the door closed behind him: “It is really most gratifying to see Tristram so complaisant.”
Eustacie paid no heed to this, but said: “Where is my cousin Ludovic now?”
“No one knows, my dear. He has vanished.”
“And you do not do anything to help him, any of you!” she said indignantly.
“Well, dear cousin, it is a little difficult, is it not?” replied the Beau. “After that well-meaning but fatal piece of meddling, what could one do?”
“I think,” said Eustacie with a darkling brow, “that Tristram did not like my cousin Ludovic.”
The Beau laughed. “How clever of you, my dear!”
She looked at him. “What did you mean when you said he must show me his collection?” she asked directly.
He raised his brows in exaggerated surprise. “Why, what should I mean? Merely that he has quite a notable collection. I am not a judge, but I have sometimes felt that I should like to see that collection myself.”
“Will he not let you, then?”
“Oh, but with the greatest goodwill in the world!” said the Beau, smiling. “But one has to remember that collectors do not always show one quite all their treasures, you know!”
Chapter Two
Sir Tristram, standing once more beside Sylvester’s bed, was a little shocked to perceive already a change in him. Sylvester was still propped up by a number of pillows, and he still wore his wig, but he seemed suddenly to have grown frailer and more withdrawn. Only his eyes were very much alive, startlingly dark in his waxen face.
Sir Tristram said in his deep voice: “I’m sorry, sir: I believe my visit has too much exhausted you.”
“Thank you, I am the best judge of what exhausts me,” replied Sylvester. “I shan’t last much longer, I admit, but by God, I’ll last long enough to settle my affairs! Are you going to marry that chit?”