The Talisman Ring (17 page)

The Runner coughed rather self-consciously, and murmured something inarticulate. He had not previously given the matter much thought, but now the lady came to mention it he realized that he was rather a brave man.

‘What is your name?’ inquired Eustacie. ‘And why have you come here?’

‘Jeremiah Stubbs, miss,’ said the Runner. ‘I am here in the execution of my dooty.’

Eustacie opened her eyes to their widest extent, and asked breathlessly whether he had come to make an arrest. ‘
How
I should like to see you make an arrest!’ she said.

Mr Stubbs was not impervious to flattery. He threw out his chest a little, and replied with an indulgent smile that he couldn’t say for certain whether he was going to make an arrest or not.

‘But who?’ demanded Eustacie. ‘Not someone in this inn?’

‘A desprit criminal, missy, that’s the cove I’m after,’ said Mr Stubbs.

Eustacie’s straining ears caught the sound of an opening door upstairs and a light footfall. She said as loudly as she dared: ‘I suppose you, who are a
Bow Street Runner
, have to capture a great many criminals?’ As she spoke she moved towards the fire, so that to address her Mr Stubbs had to turn slightly, presenting his profile, and no longer his full face to the staircase.

‘Oh well, miss,’ he said carelessly, ‘we don’t take much account of that!’

Eustacie caught a glimpse of Ludovic at the top of the stairs, and said quickly: ‘Bow Street Runners! It must be very exciting to be a Bow Street Runner, I think!’ She glanced up as she spoke, and saw that Ludovic had vanished. Feeling almost sick with relief, she pressed her handkerchief to her lips, and said mechanically: ‘Who is this criminal, I wonder? A thief, perhaps?’

‘Not a thief, miss,’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘A murderer!’

The effect of this announcement was all he had hoped for. Eustacie gave a shriek and faltered: ‘Here? A m-murderer? Arrest him at once, if you please! But at once!’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Stubbs, ‘if I could do that everything would be easy, wouldn’t it? But this here murdering cove has been evading of the law for two years and more.’

‘But how could he evade you, who must, I know, be a clever man, for two years?’

Mr Stubbs began to think rather well of Eustacie, French though she might be. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You’ve put your finger on it, missy, as the saying is. If they’d had me on to him at the start p’raps he wouldn’t have done no evading.’

‘No, I think not, indeed. You look very cold, which is not at all a thing to wonder at when one considers that there is a great
courant d’air
here. I will take you into the parlour, where it is altogether cosy, and procure for you a glass of cognac.’

Mr Stubbs’s eye glistened a little, but he shook his head. ‘It’s very kind of you, miss, but I’ve a fancy to stay right where I am, d’ye see? You don’t happen to be staying in this here inn, do you?’

‘But certainly I am staying here!’ responded Eustacie. ‘I am staying with Sir Hugh Thane, who is a Justice of the Peace, and with Miss Thane.’

‘You are?’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘Well now, that’s a very fortunate circumstance, that is. You don’t happen to have seen anything of a young cove – a mighty flash young cove – Lurking?’

Eustacie looked rather bewildered, and said: ‘
Plaît-il?
Lurking?’

‘Or sulking?’ suggested Mr Stubbs. He drew forth from his pocket a well-worn notebook, and, licking his thumb, began to turn over its pages.

‘What is that?’ asked Eustacie, eyeing the book with misgiving.

‘This is my Occurrence Book, missy. There are plenty of coves would like to get their dabblers on it, I can tell you. There’s things in this book as’ll send a good few to the Nubbing Cheat one day,’ said Mr Stubbs darkly.

‘Oh,’ said Eustacie, wishing that Nye would come, and wondering how to lure Mr Stubbs away from the stairs. If only Ludovic had not injured his shoulder he might have climbed out of a window, she thought, but with one arm in a sling that was out of the question.

Mr Stubbs, finding his place in his Occurrence Book, said: ‘Here we are, now. Has there been a young cove here, missy, with blue eyes, light hair, features aquiline, height about five feet ten inches –’

Eustacie interrupted this recital. ‘But yes, you describe to me Sir Hugh Thane, only he is taller, I think, and me, I should say that he has grey eyes.’

‘The cove this here description fits is a cove by the name of Loodervic Lavenham,’ said Mr Stubbs.

Eustacie at once executed a start. ‘But you are mad? Ludovic Lavenham is my cousin,
enfin
!’

Mr Stubbs stared at her fixedly. ‘You say this Loodervic Lavenham’s your cousin, miss?’ he said, his voice pregnant with suspicion.

‘Of course he is!’ replied Eustacie. ‘He is a very wicked creature who has brought disgrace to us, and we do not speak of him even. Why have you come to look for him? He went away from England two years ago!’

Mr Stubbs caressed his chin, still keeping his eyes on Eustacie’s face. ‘Oh!’ he said slowly. ‘He wouldn’t happen to be staying in this inn right now, I suppose?’

‘Staying here?’ gasped Eustacie. ‘In the same place with
me
? No! I tell you, he is in disgrace – quite cast-off!’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Stubbs. ‘What would you say if I was to tell you that this very Loodervic Lavenham is lurking somewhere in these parts?’

‘I do not think so,’ said Eustacie, with a shake of her head. ‘And I hope very much that it is not true, because there has been enough disgrace for us, and we do not desire that there should be any more.’ An idea occurred to her. She added, ‘I see now that you are a
very
brave man, and I will tell you that if my cousin is truly in Sussex you must be excessively careful.’

Mr Stubbs looked at her rather more fixedly than before. ‘Oh, I must, must I?’ he said.

‘You have not been warned then?’ cried Eustacie, shocked.

‘No,’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘I ain’t been warned particular.’

‘But it is infamous that they have not told you!’ declared Eustacie. ‘
Je n’en reviendrai jamais
!’

‘If it’s all the same to you, miss, I’d just as soon you’d talk in a Christian language,’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘What was it they had ought to have warned me about?’

Eustacie spread out her hands. ‘His pistols!’ she said dramatically. ‘Do you not know that my cousin is the man who put out sixteen candles by shooting them, and did not miss one?’

Mr Stubbs cast an involuntary glance behind him. ‘He put out sixteen candles?’ he demanded.

‘But yes, have I not said so?’

‘And he didn’t miss one of them?’

‘He never misses,’ said Eustacie.

Mr Stubbs drew in his breath. ‘They
had
ought to have warned me!’ he said feelingly.

‘Certainly they –’ Eustacie broke off, startled by a crash in the room above their heads, and the muffled sound of a shriek. Who could possibly be upstairs save Ludovic, she could not imagine, but Ludovic would hardly shriek, even if he had knocked something over in one of the bedchambers.

Then, to her amazement, she heard a door open, and hurrying footsteps approach the head of the stairs. A high-pitched voice wailed: ‘Oh, oh, what shall I do? Oh, Mr Nye, look what I’ve done!’ And down the stairs came a gawky female in a large mob-cap and a stuff gown which Eustacie, transfixed by astonishment, instantly recognized as Miss Thane’s. A shawl enveloped the apparition’s shoulders, and she held one corner of it up to her eyes with her left hand. In her right she carried the fragments of a flagon that had once contained Miss Thane’s French perfume. ‘Oh, Mr Nye!’ she whimpered. ‘Mistress will kill me if she finds out –
oh
!’ The last word took the form of a scream as the new-comer caught sight of Eustacie. ‘Oh, miss, I beg pardon!’ she gasped. ‘I thought you was gone out! I’ve – I’ve had an accident, miss! Oh, I’m that sorry, miss, I’m sure.’

Eustacie made a strangled sound in her throat, and rose nobly to the occasion. Running forward, she seized the gawky female’s right wrist, and cried in a quivering voice: ‘Wretched, wicked creature! You have broken my scent bottle! Ah, it is too much,
enfin
!’

The jagged fragments of glass were relinquished into her keeping, and with them, slid into the palm of her hand, a great ruby ring.

A torrent of impassioned French smote the Runner’s bemused ears. He stared, quite aghast, at Eustacie, who had changed in a flash from a pleasant-spoken young female into a raging virago. She snatched the jagged fragments of glass from the abigail’s hand, broke into English for one moment to implore Mr Stubbs to look at what the wicked, clumsy creature had done, threw the fragments into the grate, shook the abigail, and in French said rapidly: ‘He means to search the house. Have you taken your clothes out of your room? Answer yes, or no!’

‘Oh yes, miss, indeed I took them to Sir Hugh’s room, like you told me!’

Mr Stubbs began to feel sorry for the hapless abigail, whose sobs grew more and more shattering. This suddenly terrible little Frenchwoman seemed to have what he would call a real spiteful temper. Nothing appeased her; he was not at all surprised to see the abigail so frightened; he wouldn’t put it beyond the young lady to box the poor girl’s ears at any moment.

In the middle of this spirited scene Nye came into the coffee-room with Clem at his heels, and stopped upon the threshold, transfixed by astonishment. For a moment he did not connect Ludovic with the great gawky girl, noisily weeping into her shawl, but before he had time to speak, Eustacie whirled round to face him, and poured forth a string of complaints about her supposed abigail. She desired him to tell her whether she had not sufficient cause to hand the girl over to the Law, and indicated with a sweep of her hand the presence of a Bow Street Runner.

Nye, who had caught the glint of pale-gold hair peeping from under the gawky female’s mob-cap, now observed that her left arm seemed in some odd fashion to be wound up in her voluminous shawl. The puzzled look vanished from his face; he came farther into the room, and joined with Eustacie in reproaching ‘Lucy’ for her carelessness. Mr Stubbs, quite overwhelmed by so much loud and confused talk, withdrew to the other end of the room, and mopped his brow. He gazed at Eustacie in growing consternation, and took a hasty step backward when she suddenly rounded on him and demanded why he stood there doing nothing, instead of instantly arrest ‘Lucy.’

‘Oh come, miss! Come, now!’ said Nye soothingly. ‘It’s not as bad as that! The wench meant no harm. I’ll have Clem take up a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, or we’ll have the whole house reeking of scent.’

‘And in my room!’ exclaimed Eustacie. ‘It is an outrage! It must be at once scrubbed, and I will tell you that it is Lucy herself who shall scrub it, for it is not at all Clem’s fault. Up, you!’

The Runner, seeing ‘Lucy’ driven towards the staircase, heaved a sigh of relief. Mistress and maid vanished from sight; Clem, at a nod from Nye, went away to draw a pail of water; and Nye turned to his unwelcome visitor, and said with a wry smile, and a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder: ‘Them Frenchies!’

‘Unchristian, that’s what I call ’em,’ responded Mr Stubbs severely. ‘I fair compassionate that wench.’

‘She’ll be turned off,’ said Nye with a resigned shrug. ‘That will make the third in as many weeks. Miss has the temper of the fiend, as
I
know. What can I do for you?’

Above, in Miss Thane’s bedchamber, Eustacie, from whom stifled giggles had escaped all the way up the stairs, sank down upon the bed, and with her handkerchief pressed to her mouth, gave way to inextinguishable laughter. Ludovic, twisting the shawl more securely round his arm, said: ‘Of all the spitfires! I wouldn’t be a maid of yours for any money. Now what’s the matter?’

‘You l-look so rid-ridiculous!’ gasped Eustacie, rocking herself to and fro.

Ludovic looked critically at his reflection in the mirror. ‘A fine, strapping girl,’ he said. ‘But what beats me is how you females ever contrive to dress at all.
I
couldn’t do up the plaguey hooks and eyes on this gown. That’s why I took the shawl. I don’t care for Sarah’s scent much, do you?’

Indeed, the room reeked of heavy scent. Eustacie raised her head to say unsteadily: ‘But of course not, a whole bottle of it. It is
affreux
! Open the window! Those Runners have come for you, Ludovic. What are we to do?’

He had thrust open one of the casements, and was leaning out to breathe the unscented air, but he turned his head at that. ‘How many of them are there?’

‘Two. There is one on guard over the backstairs. I think it is Basil who must have told them to look for you here.’

‘I saw the one on the backstairs. If there are no more than two, and Nye can’t fob them off, we’d better lock them up in the cellar, I think. Just until I’ve found my ring,’ he added reassuringly, seeing Eustacie’s face of disapproval.

‘But no, for if we lock them up we shall be put in prison for it!’

‘There is that, of course,’ agreed Ludovic. ‘Still, if only I should clear myself of this murder charge I shouldn’t mind taking the risk. Ten to one we’d get off with a fine.’

They were still arguing the point when Clem appeared with a pail and a scrubbing-brush. They pounced upon him for news, and he was able to tell them that Nye had the situation well in hand, and had already gone far towards convincing the Runners that they had been sent to look for a mare’s nest. At the moment he was regaling them with brandy, after which he had promised to conduct them personally all over the inn. Hearing this, Eustacie was at once struck by the notion of spreading a few pieces of female apparel about Ludovic’s room. She went off to do this, leaving Ludovic with instructions to start scrubbing the floor the instant he heard the Runners ascending the stairs.

By the time Mr Stubbs, fortified by brandy, did come up, Eustacie had returned to Miss Thane’s room, and no sooner did Nye tap on the door, asking whether the officer might come in, than she broke forth again into indignant repinings. Both the Runner and Nye were adjured to come in and judge for themselves whether the smell of the perfume would ever be got rid of. When Nye asked permission for the Runner to search the room, she first stared at him with an expression of outrage on her face, and then flung open the door of the cupboard and said tragically that it needed only this, that a great rough man should pry into her wardrobe. She begged Mr Stubbs not to consider her feelings in the least degree, but to pull all her dresses out, and throw them on the floor if he pleased. Mr Stubbs, acutely uncomfortable, assured her that he had no desire to do anything of the kind. She said that she wished she were back in France, where ladies were treated with civility, and, covering her face with her handkerchief, burst into tears. Ludovic, inexpertly scrubbing the damp patch on the floor, sniffed dolefully over the pail of water, and the Runner, casting a perfunctory glance into the wardrobe and another under the bed, beat a somewhat hasty retreat.

It was not long before Nye returned, this time alone. He found Eustacie peeping out of the window at the receding forms of the two officers, and Ludovic, the mob-cap and shawl already discarded, trying to extricate himself from Miss Thane’s gown. Characteristically, the first words he addressed to Ludovic were of decided reproof. ‘And who might those clothes belong to, my lord, if I may make so bold as to ask?’

‘To Miss Thane, of course. Help me to come out of this curst dress!’

‘And that’s a nice thing!’ said Nye. ‘Couldn’t you find nothing else to break but a flask of scent that don’t belong to you? For shame, Mr Ludovic!’

Eustacie came away from the window. ‘
Enfin
, they are gone. Do they believe that my cousin is not here, Nye?’

‘That’s more than I can tell you, miss,’ replied Nye, picking up Miss Thane’s dress from the floor. ‘Nor I don’t think they’ve gone far. They would have put up here for the night if I hadn’t shown them that I haven’t a bed to spare. It’s my belief they’re off no farther than to the ale-house down the road.’

‘Do you mean to tell me those fellows are going to hang around this place?’ said Ludovic, himself again in shirt and breeches. ‘Who set them on?’

Nye shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t say. The fat one don’t seem to me to set much store by the information. But for all that, I’ll have the cellar made ready for you, sir.’

‘Make it ready for the Runners,’ said Ludovic briskly. ‘We’ll have to kidnap them.’

‘There’ll be no such foolishness in this house, Mr Ludovic, and so I’ll have you know!’

Some twenty minutes later Miss Thane, accompanied by her brother, came back to the Red Lion, and was at once met by Eustacie, who drew her upstairs to her room, her story tripping off her tongue.

‘Runners in the house, and I not here to see them?’ exclaimed Miss Thane, suitably impressed. ‘I declare I am the most ill-used creature alive! How I should have liked to have helped to hoodwink them!’

‘Yes, it was very sad for you to be out, but you did help us, Sarah, because Ludovic put on one of your dresses, and pretended to be my maid.’

They had by this time reached Miss Thane’s bedchamber. Eustacie opened the door and Miss Thane took one step into the room and recoiled.

‘It’s only the scent,’ said Eustacie kindly. ‘And indeed it is already much fainter that it was. Ludovic thought that it would be a good thing to break the bottle, pretending that it was mine. In that way, you understand, he was able to hide his face, because he made believe to cry, and to be frightened. And I scolded him – oh,
à
faire croire
!’

‘I’m glad,’ said Miss Thane. ‘I suppose it had to be my French perfume?’

Ludovic, hearing their voices, strolled across the passage from his own room, and said with a grin: ‘Sarah, are you savage with me for having spilled your scent? I will buy you some more one day.’

‘Thank you, Ludovic!’ said Miss Thane with feeling. ‘And this is the gown you chose to wear, is it? Yes, I see. After all, I never cared for it above the ordinary.’

‘It got split a trifle across the shoulders,’ explained Ludovic.

‘Yes, I noticed that,’ agreed Miss Thane. ‘But what is a mere gown compared with a man’s life?’

Eustacie greeted this sentiment with great approval, and said that she knew Sarah would feel like that.

‘Of course,’ said Miss Thane. ‘And I have been thinking, moreover, that we do not consider Ludovic enough. Look at this large, airy apartment of mine, for instance, and only consider the stuffy little back chamber he is obliged to sleep in! I will change with you, my dear Ludovic.’

Ludovic declined this handsome offer without the least hesitation. ‘I don’t like the smell of the scent,’ he said frankly.

Miss Thane, overcome by her emotions, tottered to a chair and covered her eyes with her hand. In a voice of considerable feeling she gave Ludovic to understand that since he had saturated the carpet in her room with scent, he and not she should sleep in that exotic atmosphere.

The rest of the day was enlivened by alarms and discussions. The Runners had, as Nye suspected, withdrawn merely to the ale-house a mile down the road, and both of them revisited the Red Lion at separate times, entering it in the most unobtrusive, not to say stealthy, manner possible, and explaining their presence in unexpected corners of the house by saying that they were looking for the landlord. The excuses they put forward for these visits, though not convincing, were accepted by Nye with obliging complaisance. Secure in the knowledge that Ludovic was hidden in his secret cellar, he gave the Runners all the facilities they could desire to prowl unaccompanied about the house. The only person to be dissatisfied with this arrangement was the quarry himself who, in spite of the amenities afforded by a brazier and a couple of candles, complained that the cellar was cold, dark, and devilish uncomfortable. His plan of remaining above-stairs in readiness to retreat to the cellar upon the arrival of a Runner was frustrated by the tiresome conduct of these gentlemen, who seemed to spend the entire afternoon prowling around the house. Twice Eustacie was startled by an inquiring face at the parlour-window, and three times did Clem report that one of the officers was round the back of the house by the stables, hobnobbing with the ostler and the post-boys. Even Sir Hugh became aware of an alien presence in the inn, and complained when he came down to dinner that a strange fellow had poked his head into his bedchamber while he was pulling off his boots.

‘A demmed, rascally-looking fellow with a red nose,’ he said. ‘Nye ought to be more careful whom he lets into the place. Came creeping up the passage and peered into my room without so much as a “by your leave.”’

‘Did he say anything to you?’ asked Miss Thane anxiously.

‘No,’ replied Sir Hugh. He added fair-mindedly: ‘I don’t say he wouldn’t have, but I threw a boot at him.’

‘Threw a boot at him?’ cried Eustacie, her eyes sparkling.

‘Yes, why not? I don’t like people prowling about, and I won’t have them poking their red noses into my room,’ said Sir Hugh.

‘Hugh, you will have to know, so that you may be on your guard,’ said Miss Thane. ‘That was a Bow Street Runner.’

‘Well, he’s got no right to come prying into my room,’ replied Sir Hugh, helping himself from a dish of beans. ‘Where’s young Lavenham?’

‘In the cellar. He –’

Sir Hugh laid down his knife and fork. ‘What’s he found there? Is he bringing it up?’

‘No. He is in the cellar because the Runners are looking for him.’

Sir Hugh frowned. ‘It seems to me,’ he remarked somewhat austerely, ‘that there’s something queer going on in this place. I won’t have anything to do with it.’

‘Very proper, my dear,’ approved his sister. ‘But do contrive to remember that you know nothing of Ludovic Lavenham! I fear that these Runners may try to get information from you.’

‘Oh, they may, may they?’ said Sir Hugh, his eye kindling a little. ‘Well, if that red-nosed fellow is a Runner, which I doubt, I’ll have some information to give him on the extent of his duty. They’re getting mighty out of hand, those Runners. I shall speak to old Sampson Wright about ’em.’

‘Certainly, Hugh; I hope you will, but do, pray, promise me that you won’t divulge Ludovic’s presence here to them!’

‘I’m a Justice of the Peace,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘and I won’t have any hand in cheating the Law. If they were to ask me I should tell them the truth.’