‘How large a wager?’ asked Gideon.
Mr Liversedge waved one hand in an airy gesture. ‘Oh, against such odds, sir, I daresay you would venture as much as fifty thousand pounds!’
Gideon shook his head. ‘I never bet so far above my fortune, Mr Liversedge. Now, had you offered me a wager that I should not be Duke of Sale within the month – !’
Mr Liversedge considered his resources rapidly. ‘Well, I daresay it could be contrived,’ he said dubiously.
Gideon very nearly laughed in his face. He overcame the impulse, and said: ‘You know, I am not such a gamester as you believe, sir. Such wild bets hold little attraction for me. You will own that you would find it hard to raise such a sum, as you would be obliged to do if his Grace should not depart this life within the month.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr Liversedge earnestly, ‘if I entered upon a bet of that magnitude it would only be in the certainty that his Grace would depart this life within the month!’
‘How could you have that certainty?’ smiled Gideon.
Mr Liversedge drew a breath. ‘Captain Ware,’ he said, ‘I am not an unreasonable man. I do not waste your time with frivolous suggestions. More, sir! I do not ignore the peculiar delicacy of your position. Indeed, being myself a man of great sensibility, I have given much thought to your position. Naturally you could not contemplate, in any little arrangement between us, the smallest suggestion of – er –’
‘Blood-money,’ supplied Gideon.
Mr Liversedge looked pained. ‘That, sir, is an ugly phrase, and one which is as repugnant to me as it must be to you. All I offer you, is a handsome wager. I am sure there are many seemingly more improbable bets entered in the book at White’s. Not, of course, that this one would be entered there. A simple exchange of notes between us, sir, is all that would be necessary. And here let me assure you that I regard that as a mere formality, customary in affairs of such a nature. My faith in you as a man of honour, Captain Ware, makes it impossible for me to contemplate the necessity of producing your note at some future date.’
‘I’m obliged to you,’ said Gideon. ‘But I find my faith in you less securely rooted, Mr Liversedge. I don’t believe, for instance, that you have it in your power to make me lose such a bet.’
Mr Liversedge looked reproachful. ‘It pains me, sir, to encounter mistrust in one with whom I have been so frank. I might add, in one whom I am anxious to benefit. Or should I have told you at the outset that his Grace is at the moment sojourning at a little place quite in the heart of our delightful countryside? When I had the honour of seeing him last, he was wearing an olive riding-coat of excellent tailoring, and a drab Benjamin over it, with four capes. He had a handsome timepiece in his pocket, too, with his crest engraved upon the back, and his initials upon the front.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps I should have brought it to you, sir, but anything savouring of common thievery is distasteful to me. However, I daresay you may recognise this exquisitely embroidered handkerchief.’ He dived a hand into his pocket as he spoke, and produced Gilly’s bloodstained handkerchief.
Gideon took it from him, and for a moment stood staring down at it, his face very pale, and the lines about his mouth and jaw suddenly accentuated. The stains had grown brown, but Gideon knew bloodstains when he saw them, and his gorge rose. He laid the handkerchief down, his long fingers quivering, and raised his head, and looked at Mr Liversedge.
Mr Liversedge had known from the moment that he had mentioned the olive coat that he had struck home. He had not failed to remark that betraying quiver of the fingers. He smiled indulgently; he would have been excited himself, he reflected, if he realised all at once, as Captain Ware had, how close he stood to a Dukedom. Then he met the Captain’s eyes, and in the very short space of time granted him for rumination he thought that they blazed with the strangest light he had ever seen in a fellow-creature’s eyes. He had even a sensation of being scorched, which was perhaps not surprising, since Gideon was seeing him through a hot, red mist.
The next instant, Mr Liversedge, no puny figure, had been plucked from his seat, and two iron hands were throttling him remorselessly, shaking him savagely as they did so. While he tore desperately at them, his starting eyes stared up in filming horror into a face dark with rage, with lips curling back from close-shut teeth, and nostrils terrifyingly distended. Before his vision failed, Mr Liversedge read murder in this face, and knew that for once in his life his judgment had been at fault. Then, as his eyes threatened to burst from their sockets, and his tongue was forced out between his lips, he saw and knew nothing more. As he lost consciousness Gideon cast him from him, and he fell in an inert heap on to the floor.
Sixteen
The noise of Mr Liversedge’s fall brought Wragby swiftly upon the scene. He found his master brushing his hands together, as though to rid them of some lingering dirt, and his master’s guest lying on the floor. He betrayed no particular surprise at this unusual scene, but casting an experienced eye over Mr Liversedge remarked: ‘Well, it looks like you dished him up, sir. It’s bellows to mend with him sure enough. But what I ask you, sir, is, how am I to get rid of him, if you’ve killed him? Too hasty, that’s what you are!’
‘I haven’t,’ Gideon said shortly. ‘At least – Here, get some water, and throw it over him! I don’t want him dead!’
‘Pity you didn’t think of that afore, sir,’ said Wragby severely. ‘Nice sort of bobbery to be going on in a gentleman’s chambers!’
He left the room, returning in a minute or two with a jug of water, which he emptied generously over Mr Liversedge’s countenance. ‘It seems a waste,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know but what we hadn’t better put a ball-of-fire down his gullet.’
Gideon strode over to the sideboard, and poured out some brandy. ‘Not dead, is he?’
‘No, sir,’ replied Wragby, who had been feeling for Mr Liversedge’s heart. ‘He’s alive, but pretty well burnt to the socket.’ He considered Mr Liversedge’s mangled cravat, and shook his head. ‘Well, I thought you’d given him a leveller, sir, but I see as how you’ve been a-strangling of him.’ He loosened the cravat, straightened the sufferer’s limbs, and raised his head. Gideon dropped on his knee, and put the glass he held to Mr Liversedge’s slack mouth. ‘Easy, now, easy, sir!’ Wragby warned him. ‘You don’t want to choke him again, and nor you don’t want that good ball-of-fire to be running down his shirt! Better let me give it to him. I’ll have him round in a brace of snaps.’
Gideon relinquished the glass, and rose. ‘Wragby, his Grace is in trouble!’
Wragby paused in his ministrations to look up. ‘What, not on account of this fat flawn, sir? What’s happened to his Grace?’
‘I don’t know. I think that fellow has him imprisoned somewhere. I ought to have discovered more before I choked him, but – Here, give him some more brandy!’
‘You leave him be, sir: he’s coming to himself nice and gentle. He never come here to tell you a thing like that!’
‘Oh, yes, he did! He came to sell him to me! For the trifling sum of fifty thousand pounds, he’ll engage for it that his Grace is never seen again. He might even contrive to murder my father too. Obliging, isn’t he? He brought me that to look at!’
Wragby stared at the Duke’s handkerchief. ‘My God, sir, what has he done to his Grace? That’s blood, or I never saw blood!’
‘I tell you I don’t know. Trust me, I shall know soon enough! He can’t be dead. No, he can’t be dead!’
‘Lor’ no, sir, of course he ain’t dead!’ Wragby made haste to say. ‘Likely there was a bit of a mill, and his Grace had his cork drawn. Now, don’t you go fuming and fretting before there’s any need, sir! Not but what we might have known something like this would happen, if his Grace loped off the way he did!’
‘God damn you, do you think I would have let him go if I’d thought he’d run into danger?’ Gideon shot at him fier
cely.
‘O’ course you wouldn’t, sir! If you was to give me a hand, we could lay this hang-gallows moulder on the sofy. We don’t want to cosset him, but on the other hand he’s more apt to talk if we make him a bit comfortable. And talk he’s got to! If he don’t see reason, he’ll have to be made more uncomfortable than what he is now, but he don’t look to me like one as is hard at hand, and the less breeze we raise the better, sir.’
Gideon nodded, and bent to take Mr Liversedge’s legs. This unfortunate gentleman was heaved on to the sofa, and groaned faintly. ‘Leave him to me!’ Gideon said curtly. ‘I’ll call you if I should need you.’
Wragby looked at him doubtfully. ‘Yes, sir, but the way you’ve been handling him, and the black temper you’re in, begging your pardon, it’s more likely him as’ll need me than you!’
‘Don’t be a fool! I shan’t touch him. He thinks the cards are in his hands, but I am not quite at non plus! No, Mr Liversedge! not quite!’
Mr Liversedge opened his eyes, and lifted a feeble hand to his bruised throat. He groaned again, and Gideon poured out some more brandy, and took it to him. Wragby, in open disapproval, watched him raise Mr Liversedge, and put the glass to his lips again. He seemed satisfied, however, that his master had no immediate intention of resorting to any more physical violence, and after remarking that there was no sense in making the fellow jug-bitten, withdrew to stand guard outside the door.
Mr Liversedge found it rather painful to swallow, but he disposed of the brandy, and was even able to struggle into a sitting posture. He tenderly felt his throat, uttered one or two more groans, and brought his bloodshot gaze to bear upon his host. ‘Very unhandsome!’ he croaked. ‘Too hasty, sir! No need for any heat! Had but to say the word, and the matter could have been arranged to your taste. For a small sum – quite trifling sum, say thirty thousand, or even twenty-five – willing to restore his Grace safe and sound!’ He tried to clear his throat, and winced. ‘Happy to do so!’ he said. ‘Not a man of violence – taken quite a fancy to his Grace – no wish to harm him!’
Relief at learning that Gilly was not dead did much to abate Gideon’s wrath. He gave Mr Liversedge some more brandy. Mr Liversedge took the glass, and lowered his feet to the floor. ‘Much better as it is,’ he said, his volatile spirits already beginning to turn events to good account. ‘I may say, Captain Ware, it is gratifying to discover very proper sentiment in you. No need to have been rough, though! In fact, foolish! Must bear in mind that without my goodwill impossible to find his Grace! A very good cognac, sir!’
‘Make the most of it!’ Gideon advised him. ‘You’ll get none in Newgate.’
Mr Liversedge sipped the brandy delicately. He was beginning to feel very much better, as a gentle glow spread through him. ‘That, sir, is an ungentlemanly observation,’ he said. ‘Moreover, you would gain nothing if you acted hastily, you know. Let bygones be bygones, Captain Ware! Nothing will afford me more pleasure than to restore his Grace to his family.’
‘You canting humbug, you are trying to hold his Grace to ransom!’ Gideon said.
‘Well,’ said Mr Liversedge reasonably, ‘one must live, sir, after all!’
‘Be sure you have not long to do so!’
‘I see what it is!’ said Mr Liversedge. ‘But you mistake, sir! I don’t ask ransom of you! It will be nothing to his Grace: I daresay he will be very glad to pay it, for, you know, he might expect his price to be higher.’
‘Let me tell you this!’ said Gideon. ‘His Grace is not going to be bled for as much as a farthing by any such fellow as you! Instead, Mr Liversedge, you are going to go with me to where his Grace is! If I find him safe and unhurt, you may escape your deserts – though I don’t vouch for it!’
Mr Liversedge leaned back, and crossed one leg over the other. ‘Now, indeed, Captain Ware, it is of no use to fly into your high ropes!’ he said. ‘Do but consider for a moment! I daresay you would like to have me clapped up in Newgate, but if you were so unwise as to call in the Law, his Grace would perish. I will be open with you. If I were not to return – and that speedily – to the unworthy habitation which now shelters his Grace, I very much fear that there are those, less mild in nature than myself, who would put a period to his existence. And that, you know, would be very shocking! Yet how could you prevent it? You might indeed clap me into some disagreeable gaol, but you cannot force me to divulge his Grace’s whereabouts. One dislikes to be obliged to use vulgar expressions, but I must permit myself to say that you are at a stand, sir!’
‘Down to every move on the board, are you not?’ said Gideon, smiling unpleasantly.
‘Sir,’ said Mr Liversedge impressively, ‘if a man would succeed in carrying out large enterprises, he must be so! I have heard it related that the Duke – I refer, Captain Ware, to his Grace of Wellington, not his Grace of Sale – once said that he made his campaigns with ropes. If anything went amiss, he said, he tied a knot, and went on. A valuable maxim, sir, and one on which I have striven to mould my own campaigns. I tie a knot, and go on!’
‘Very well, if the knot holds,’ replied Gideon. ‘This one won’t! If I had to search the whole of England for my cousin, I own I might find myself obliged to come to terms with you. But I have not, Mr Liversedge. There is a card in my hand I fancy you had not thought I possessed. I received a letter from my cousin to-day. He wrote to me from the White Horse at Baldock. You and I, my engaging rascal, are going to Baldock to-morrow.’ He observed, with satisfaction, his guest’s suddenly stricken countenance. ‘And when we reach Baldock, either you are going to conduct me to my cousin’s prison, or I am going to conduct you to the nearest magistrate. And let me further inform you, sir, that if it took every Runner at Bow Street, and every constable in Hertfordshire, and the militia beside to do it, I would see to it that not a house nor a barn was left unsearched within twenty miles of Baldock!’
Mr Liversedge, gazing in chagrin at his host’s purposeful face, found no difficulty in believing him. Captain Ware appeared to him to be one who would not have the slightest hesitation in employing measures as extreme as they were disagreeable. He would probably, reflected Mr Liversedge bitterly, enjoy setting Hertfordshire by the ears. And he would do it, too, for no magistrate, or constable, or Colonel of Militia would refuse to search with the utmost stringency for so important a personage as the Duke of Sale. Mr Liversedge thought of Mr Mimms’s feelings, if a search-party were to descend upon the Bird in Hand, as it unquestionably would. Mr Mimms’s protests, when the lifeless body of the Duke had been placed in one of his cellars, had been as pungent as they were unavailing. He was not a man who courted notoriety, but he had not quite escaped the notice of Hertfordshire authorities, and there was little doubt that his hostelry would be one of the first houses to be visited. Nor could Mr Liversedge place the smallest reliance on the faulty memories of Post Office officials. Ten to one, some busybody of a clerk would recall that he had handled letters addressed to a Mr Liversedge. One thing would lead to another, and several things, once added together, might even lead to Bath, where there were incensed persons only too anxious to lay their hands upon Mr Liversedge. He was not a man much given to self blame, but he was inclined to own, at this moment, that he had made several mistakes. It was not, of course, his fault that Captain Ware should have proved to be blind to his best interests, but it might have been wiser to have abandoned his Grand Stratagem in favour of the simpler one of extracting ransom from the Duke himself. It was a painful reflection that had he done this he might even now bear in his pocket the Duke’s draft for a handsome sum. He looked at the Captain with dislike, and could not imagine what could have induced the Duke to confide his secrets to such a repellent person. It seemed unlikely that Captain Ware had any proper feelings at all, so that it was in a voice lacking in conviction that he said at last: ‘I am persuaded you would not create such an ungenteel stir!’
Captain Ware laughed. It was not
an infectious laugh, and it drew no answering gleam from Mr Liversedge. It even grated upon his ear unpleasantly.
‘I think you will lead me to my cousin,’ said Captain Ware, walking over to the door. He opened it, and found that Wragby was standing in the hall. He grinned at him. ‘Come here, Wragby!’ he said. ‘We are going to take a little journey to-morrow into Hertfordshire, and we are going to take this person with us.’
‘You would be wiser to let me go immediately!’ interpolated Mr Liversedge desperately. ‘I dare not answer for the conse- quences to his Grace if I am any longer absent! He may be dead by the time you reach him, sir!’
‘Now, what must I do to teach you that I am not such a gudgeon as you supposed?’ wondered the Captain. ‘Those who are his gaolers will most certainly keep him alive until they know how you have fared with me. Wragby, I want this fellow kept under guard! That should not trouble you, I fancy!’
The ex-sergeant smiled indulgently. ‘Lor’ no, sir! We’ll rack up for the night, all right and tight together. And what may we be going to do in Hertfordshire, if I may make so bold as to ask?’
‘We are going to extricate his Grace from a scrape,’ replied Gideon, his eyes alight. ‘I’ll take the curricle and my bays. Tell Sturry to see to it! We shall set out at the earliest possible moment.’
‘What, are we going to take this rasher-of-wind along with us, sir?’ demanded Wragby disapprovingly.
‘Sir,’ said Mr Liversedge, ‘I would not have believed that any man of honour and breeding could have served another such a backhanded turn!’
‘Now, don’t you waste your breath talking slum!’ recommended Wragby kindly. ‘A regular out-and-outer is the Captain, and so you’ll find afore you’re much older! You come along of me! Asking your pardon, sir, if you mean to go off, you’d best see the Colonel first.’
‘I am going to find him now,’ said Gideon. ‘Don’t let this fellow slip through your fingers!’