CHAPTER XIV-_Too Many Women_

General Sadgrove relaxed his grip on Azimoolah's lean neck, not as a consequence of Alec Forsyth's exclamation, but because he and his captive had crossed the threshold of the French window-gone "off," in fact, from the stage on which he had been playing a little comedy for the benefit of an invisible audience. Forsyth guessed at once that the pulley-hauley business on the terrace had only been a sham, from the half-playful push with which his uncle released the now pa.s.sive Indian, and also from the more than half-contemptuous glance flung at himself.

The next moment the other party to the tussle on the terrace elucidated the matter by walking up to the window instead of running away. It was the Duke himself, outwardly calm, but somewhat disheveled by the fray, and looking very sleepy. Entering the room he gave Forsyth's hand an affectionate squeeze, and turned to secure the window.

"It's all right," he said, in the listless tone that he always used nowadays. "When the train got stuck up I smelt rats, and cleared out from the locality-thought it better to cut across country on foot than to stay about a spot where I was probably being looked for. But this beggar," pointing to Azimoolah, standing at "attention," proudly erect, "must have shadowed me, and caught me up just as I was coming to tap at the window. You will confer a great favor on me by letting him go."

This dogged determination to take no prisoners strengthened the General's suspicions of his host, and there was a harsh ring in the laugh with which he explained that Azimoolah was his own emissary, who, on returning from the scene of the accident, had mistaken the Duke for one of their unknown adversaries. He did not mention that there were two genuine prowlers outside who, but for Azimoolah's intervention, would have fallen on their prey, and who were probably intensely puzzled by finding someone else playing the same game as themselves.

"And now, if your Grace will go to bed, I will guarantee you a good night's rest," added the General. "You must not forget that you will have ladies to entertain to-morrow."

Beaumanoir gave a tired shrug.

"Even without that inducement I'd take your prescription, General," he replied. "This hide-and-seek is rather wearing; but if you two good fellows can keep me in the land of the living for the next few days, I shan't worry you further."

He left the room, dragging his lame foot painfully, and the General, stricken with a sudden sympathy, whispered Forsyth to accompany him.

"The poor beggar is troubled," he said. "Sleep on the sofa in his room, and don't be afraid to close your eyes-as soon as _he_ is asleep.

Azimoolah and I will see there's no bother. But your friend mustn't be left alone. Danger from his own pistol-see?"

Forsyth nodded with grieved comprehension, and followed the Duke. On his departure the General turned to Azimoolah, who had stood like a statue since his release, and the twain exchanged a twinkle of mutual congratulation.

"We managed that quite in the old style, O taker of many thieves," said the General in Hindustani. "'Twas well that you heard and quickly obeyed my whisper to offer resistance, for so we have deceived the malefactors who beheld us into the belief that you also are an enemy of the house."

"The sahib's praise is sweet as the honey of Kashmir," responded Azimoolah, gravely. "Is it the Heaven-born's will that I should go out and slay these dealers in iniquity?"

The commission entrusted to him, however, held promise of no such luxury. On the contrary, Azimoolah received strict injunction to avoid violence except in the last extremity-in self-defence or to prevent entry into the house. The duty laid down for him was to patrol the grounds, and instantly apprise the General of any action on the part of the two trespa.s.sers that pointed to a renewal of aggressiveness that night.

"I shall remain in this room till daybreak; if anything occurs, make the signal outside," were the General's final instructions as he loosed his human watch-dog on to the terrace, after putting out the lights to conceal the opening of the window. Then, having carefully closed it, he sat himself down in the dark, and presently slumbered, secure in the knowledge that none could approach the mansion while Azimoolah was on guard. Also, he was pretty sure that the siege would not be raised till the two prowlers should have reported to their superiors the doings and, as they would believe, the capture of the strange rival who had forestalled them.

The General's confidence was justified, for the night pa.s.sed without further alarms, and the three gentlemen met at the breakfast-table under ordinary country-house conditions. The servants being in the room, no reference was made to the abnormal circ.u.mstances that had brought them together, though Beaumanoir, in the course of reading letters that had come by post, held up a gorgeously monogrammed note, and remarked that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had accepted his invitation and would be with them on the morrow.

"She writes rather flippantly for a stranger," he added, eyeing the scented missive doubtfully, but not offering to show it. "I hope it's all right for her to meet my cousin Sybil, and-er-the other ladies.

She's coming on your recommendation, you know, General, so you must vouch for her good behavior."

Sadgrove growled unintelligibly, and was at pains to conceal a sudden upheaval of his facial muscles. For the Duke's reference to Mrs. Talmage Eglinton in her relations to the other guests had all at once opened up to his mind a contingency which he had overlooked-a terrible contingency, which demanded instant consideration before the American widow was admitted to the house. He made an early excuse for quitting the table, and, exacting a promise that Beaumanoir and Forsyth would for the present remain indoors, he went out into the park to face the position alone, and thresh it out to a conclusion.

Walking under the trees in the historic elm avenue, it was not till he had smoked a whole cigar and lit another that he was able to approach the problem with anything like calmness. For he was suffering from the humiliation of having to admit that he had committed the grievous error of imperiling the life of a woman-one, too, whom he held in affectionate regard only second to his wife. If his suspicion of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was as well founded as instinct told him, she ought never to have been asked to stay under the same roof as Sybil Hanbury, her victorious rival in the affections of a man who had repulsed her advances by stolidly ignoring them.

"Gad! but I'd cut my hand off rather than harm should come to that girl, let alone never being able to look Alec in the face again," he muttered, as he gnawed his white mustache in perplexity.

The situation was indeed serious from the point of view that Mrs.

Talmage Eglinton was head of a gang of international criminals, and that she was, moreover, as he put it in his simple soldier phrase, "sweet upon" his nephew Alec. If, for her as yet unexplained ends, she would not stick at a.s.sa.s.sinating the Duke of Beaumanoir, she would be capable of wreaking a deadly vengeance on the girl who had won the heart she hungered for. Once installed as a guest in the mansion, she would have plenty of facilities of which she might make venomous use. The General had engineered her invitation with the laudable purpose of keeping her under constant observation and of making communication with her confederates difficult; but in his zeal for check-mating her predatory designs he had forgotten her amatory ones.

It was true that Sybil's engagement had not yet been published to the world, but the Shermans, who were also to be the Duke's guests, knew of it, and to enter into explanations with Mrs. Sherman, the voluble and unsophisticated, would be going far towards defeating his cherished hope of protecting that lady's husband from the gang without implicating the Duke. As it was, the invitation of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, of which he was suspected of being the cause, had excited more than curiosity among his American visitors, who had nearly upset his arrangements by canceling their own visit on learning that their mysterious fellow countrywoman was to be of the party. One crumb of comfort he derived from the fact that in all things he could rely on his wife's discretion.

Though they had exchanged no word on the subject, he knew that, without penetrating or wishing to penetrate his motive in trafficking with Mrs.

Talmage Eglinton, his wife guessed that he had one; he knew that he could depend upon her unquestioning aid if he asked for it.

"I guess I've bitten off more than I can chew, as Sherman himself would put it," he mused, with a sigh for the old days of jingling bridle-chains and night rides, when he had merrily run down his Thugs and Dacoits without female influence upsetting his calculations. The female influence had been there, doubtless, with all its jealousies and consequent treacheries; but all that had been Azimoolah's department. It had fallen to the silent-footed, black-bearded Pathan to explore the under-currents of social life in the native villages, and he had not worried his chief with details till the patient sapping of traitorous brains was done, and all that remained was to sally forth and hunt the faithless lover or erring husband who was also a breaker of laws.

Azimoolah's knowledge in India of the eternal feminine had been extensive and peculiar; but the General felt that he could not with propriety set him poking into love affairs which included Sybil Hanbury in its scope.

Another point which hara.s.sed the General's soul was the new light shed on the Duke's att.i.tude towards Mrs. Talmage Eglinton by his mild displeasure at the style of her note. The General was a.s.sured that the remark at the breakfast-table had been the genuine expression of an honest doubt as to the fitness of the sparkling widow to mix with gentle-women; whereas the Duke could have had no doubt whatever if he had had relations with the gang of whom he, the General, believed this woman to be the moving spirit. It certainly seemed that the Duke was ignorant that she was a dangerous adventuress, for, though he might have suspected her of designs against himself and yet have consented to her presence at Prior's Tarrant, he would never have subjected Sybil to the peril of daily intercourse with a potential murderess. All along Beaumanoir had shown a chivalrous disposition to protect his cousin from even minor annoyances.

"Perhaps there are two distinct crowds after Sherman's gold bonds, and Beaumanoir is in with the Ziegler lot, and Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is playing against them," the General mused as he turned his steps back to the house. "To think that the fellow holds the key of it all, and won't speak, is what riles me."

The immediate dilemma confronted him whether or no to impart to his nephew the cause for alarm that had arisen about Sybil. He had been surprised at first that a man of Alec Forsyth's shrewdness had not seen for himself a danger threatening the girl he loved; but closer examination disclosed a reason. Forsyth was too modest, too little of a c.o.xcomb, for it to occur to him that violence could result from a misplaced pa.s.sion for himself. On the whole, the General decided that, as Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was not due till the next day, he would say nothing to Alec at present.

"If I can make Beaumanoir disgorge his secret, the trouble may not arise," he comforted himself. Though the veteran's faith in himself was shaken, and he wished he had resisted the temptation to meddle with crime outside his old Eastern sphere, he was not the man to take his hand from the plough. He would devote all his diplomacy to penetrating the cause of the Duke's obstinate silence.

As he had antic.i.p.ated, there was a lull that day in the activity of the enemy-at any rate of overt attempts. No communication reached him from Azimoolah, who would certainly have been heard from if suspicious characters had been on the move in the neighborhood of the mansion; for, though unseen, that tireless tracker might be trusted to be at his post, which was anywhere and everywhere within the radius of a mile. The denser thickets of the park possibly concealed him, or it might be that he hovered in the nearer precincts of the gardens, unseen but ready. His presence relieved the General from disturbing the routine of the household by special instructions to the servants, who were still fluttered by the la.s.sooing of the lame gardener on the previous Sunday.

So far, all the precaution that the General had delegated to others than himself and Forsyth was to give the bailiff a quiet hint, as a message from the Duke, not to admit the "artists" to the park, should they present themselves again. But up to the hour of luncheon the painters of "deer like unto swine" had not renewed their application or put in an appearance.

In the afternoon Beaumanoir, shaking off some of his weary apathy, went down to the portico with his male guests to receive the four ladies, who arrived in time for tea, which, with the General's acquiescence, was to be taken on the terrace. No sooner were the first greetings over than Mrs. Sadgrove caught her husband's eye and telegraphed the information that she had something for his private ear at the earliest opportunity.

He therefore contrived to lag behind with her while Beaumanoir did the honors to Leonie and her mother, and Forsyth paired off with Sybil, as the party mounted the marble steps to the terrace.

"Jem," said Mrs. Sadgrove, scanning the rugged face of her spouse with a sidelong scrutiny, "I received an anonymous letter this morning. Let them get ahead a bit, and I'll show it to you."

The screed which she put into his hand contained but five words:

"_There is danger from Ziegler._"

General Sadgrove's Eastern experiences had not educated him into an expert in calligraphy, but it needed no particular insight to perceive that this was a lady's handwriting, clumsily disguised. He transferred his attention to the paper, half a sheet of "note"; and here he was rewarded with a startling discovery. He had noticed that the letter of acceptance from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, which the Duke had received at breakfast, had been heavily charged with a peculiar perfume, and this unsigned missive was simply reeking of the same pungent fragrance. He had sat next the Duke, and knew that there was no mistake.

"You have no idea who sent this?" he asked.

"I seem to recognize the scent as having come to me before in notes-proper, signed notes," Mrs. Sadgrove replied, evasively. And then she added, with gentle significance, not from curiosity, but from a desire to help him in case he did not know: "I heard the name of Ziegler when we were calling at the Cecil yesterday. It was mentioned, I think, by one of the attendants as that of the gentleman occupying the rooms where the disturbance was."

The General looked hard at her, and saw that his little drama had not deceived the companion of his Indian days.

"Yes," he said, shortly. "Do not trouble about this, Madge. It's all in the day's work."

But he himself was greatly troubled, inasmuch as if that anonymous warning came from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton all his "case" was demolished, and a perfect maze of new problems was presented. A warning from her would be presumptive evidence that she was an ally, and-sad blow to his _amour propre_-would stultify all the theories he had based on what he had fondly hoped was an unerring intuition. He would have to begin all over again, solacing himself-and it was no small solace-with the reflection that he had raised an unnecessary bogey in antic.i.p.ating danger to Sybil Hanbury from Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's visit.

Yet by the time he reached the top of the terrace steps reaction had set in, and he began to think that his brain could not have lost all its cunning. For, unless in the very improbable event of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton having found out something about the mysterious Ziegler through occupying the next suite to him since yesterday, she must still be the heart and core of the evil influence he had to combat. Without knowledge she would not have been in a position to warn; and, like the Duke, how could she have obtained knowledge without complicity? Why, too, should she also be unwilling to use her knowledge openly? No, he came back to the opinion that there must originally have been one gigantic plot against Senator Sherman's precious charge, and that there must have been a split in the camp; but from which section, or whether by both sections, the Duke was threatened was an irritating conundrum. Anyhow, Sybil Hanbury's peril a.s.sumed ugly shape again in the General's mind.

"The woman must have sent it to mislead-to throw dust in my eyes," he murmured, not knowing that he spoke aloud. And following up that train of reasoning he found it grow into conviction. The letter was not really anonymous. That is to say, the writer had been at particular pains to disclose her ident.i.ty by means of the scent if General Sadgrove deemed the communication sent to his wife of sufficient importance to investigate. The letter had been despatched, he now felt a.s.sured, with the express purpose of whitewashing the sender in the event of any further "accident" happening to the Duke. In short, he was of opinion that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton had suspected his manoeuvre at the hotel, and had devised this method of hoodwinking him, and of diverting his vigilance from herself during her forthcoming visit if her suspicions were correct. The craftiness of the idea was obvious, and the General was beginning to be delighted with his perspicacity when, lo and behold, the whole fabric crumbled again, from a flaw at the very base of the structure. It was inconceivable that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, if she was guilty of criminal intent, should have directed his thoughts to Ziegler, who, if not a confederate, was certainly part and parcel of the mystery.

"Too many women in it," he growled, testily, unaware, in the brown study into which he had fallen, that he had seated himself in one of the cane chairs round about the tea-table at which Sybil Hanbury was already presiding. He was also unconscious that he had expressed himself audibly-at least, so far as concerned Sybil, who at that moment happened to be handing him his cup. Indeed, he repeated the phrase, the sentiment of it growing in vigor from the sight of Leonie Sherman listening to Beaumanoir's description of his ancestral home, and of Mrs. Sherman and Mrs. Sadgrove talking to Alec Forsyth.

Sybil gave the old man a queer look, more affectionate than reproachful; and when she had finished pouring out tea came and took a vacant seat beside him. For a while she drank her tea in silence, stealing a half-amused glance now and then at the puckered face of the checked hunter of men. The General was gazing moodily across the green expanse of park, wishing with all his heart that Azimoolah, on guard out there in the leafy solitudes, was a fitting oracle to consult in a matter touching the private feelings of _memsahibs_.

"No," he growled regretfully, and again aloud; "this must be a white man's war."

Sybil leaned over and tapped his knee with her gold tea-spoon. The General started, smiled fatuously at the celebrated Beaumanoir heirloom, as though he were expected to admire it, and then suddenly came down from the clouds, realizing that the young woman with the bright eyes searching his face was something more than a source of anxiety to him.

She was a factor to be reckoned with, and if he was a judge of the human countenance she was about to enforce that view.

"A white man's war with too many women in it, General?" she asked, archly. "Isn't that rather an anomaly?"