CHAPTER XX
Staplewick Towers. That was the name of the place, his own, that he had been on his way to see. He would soon get the answer to the riddle. As to his having been nearly drowned, it could not have been he. The last thing he remembered was drinking the drugged wine at the Quorn Arms. Surely he had not gone through an active existence between that and his waking up in the doctor's surgery. He argued the probabilities with himself as he hastened eagerly towards the Towers which loomed grey and real enough before him. Confident now of his position he walked through the lodge gates with an air of ownership, and made his way up the drive until he saw a little way in front of him several people. The sight checked his hurry. It suddenly occurred to him that it would be a good plan and amusing to lie low and just see what was really going on before declaring himself. One thing was certain. He was not the Lord Quorn who had been rewarded with a fortune for pretending to have saved a millionaire's life. That was too good to be true; he only wished it were. Then who was the other Lord Quorn, and what devil's game could they be playing?
So he turned off the drive and slunk along behind the shrubs which fringed it, lurking in the bushes until he could see his way clear to get up to the house. He was seen, as has been shown, but the observers were too intent on their own ends to take more than casual notice of him.
Presently, however, he got his chance, and was able to make his way unseen to the library windows. He peeped through, and the first person his eyes lighted on was Percy Peckover.
In an instant some idea of the real state of affairs flashed upon him; and his hazy guess was not far from being correct. Fired with indignation and a furious desire to put an instant stop to the nefarious game that was being played, he put forth his hand to open the window. Before he could do so a figure advanced from a side of the room which was hidden from him, and with a sickening shock he recognized his former flame, Miss Lalage Leo. Behind her loomed now the unmistakable form of the great bully whom he had never actually met, but had learned to regard with the enhanced terror which the unknown inspires, and from which the present glimpse detracted nothing. Happily the frightened face was not noticed by any of the party who were setting their faces resolutely towards the dining-room. So Quorn, as he recovered from the shock of the forgotten terror, was able to move back unobserved and slip away to a quiet spot where he could review his deplorable situation.
After luncheon and Peckover's interview with Gage, he and Sharnbrook had a somewhat uncomfortable half-hour together over a cigar. Lady Agatha had proved herself equal to what had seemed the impossible task of bundling the Leos out of the house. But then Carnaby was in a state of comparative helplessness, and Lalage, although she would have liked to stay and, perhaps, smoke a cigar with the object of her matrimonial intentions, was disarmed by the superior style and the strength of Lady Agatha's grand manner. It was something quite outside her experience, and, for the time at any rate, it paralysed any tendency to opposition and insistence on her part. So she went off with her clumsy, staggering brother, and with a promise, unacceptable, but not to be ignored, to return very soon and keep a business eye upon Lord Quorn and Mr. Gage.
"Whew! That's a good riddance," Peckover exclaimed, with a great puff of relief as he lighted a big cigar and dropped into an easy chair. "I've had some uncomfortable meals in my time, but that bangs the lot."
"Nice let-in for me," said Sharnbrook ruefully. "I'm back in their clutches again, just when I was congratulating myself you had got me out."
"Well, I couldn't foresee this volcanic eruption," replied Peckover apologetically.
"No," Sharnbrook admitted. "You did your best to draw them off. They are nailers, and their staying power is wonderful. But, I say, you are never going to marry that——?" He jerked his head backwards in the direction Miss Leo was last seen taking.
"Not if I know it," Peckover answered feelingly. "I'm going to compromise——"
"What?"
"I mean compromise any claim she may have on me; pay her off."
"I see. But how on earth did you ever get nuts on her?" Sharnbrook inquired wonderingly.
"How, indeed?" thought Peckover. "Well, you see," he answered, "out there the girls aren't enough to go round. You're lucky if you see one in a month, and somehow, when you do see her you don't care to lose sight of her. Where there's only one, that one's the best. Over here Lalage suffers by comparison."
"You bet she does," assented Sharnbrook with more warmth than gallantry.
"Out there," Peckover declared, "she was unique."
"So she is here," said Sharnbrook with conviction. "Well, if you are going to square matters with her otherwise than on a matrimonial basis, you might call the fisher-girls off me again before I'm quite landed."
"All right," assented Peckover who had now quite recovered his spirits. "I'll do anything to oblige, especially when there's a little fun attached to the job."
At that moment Miss Ethel's voice was heard singing in the corridor leading to the picture gallery.
"She's coming after me," Sharnbrook exclaimed in an agitated whisper.
"Slip out," said Peckover, "and leave me to do my best for you."
Sharnbrook gave him a nod of gratitude and ran off by the opposite door, just as Miss Ethel, keen on the scent, looked in.
"Do come in, Miss Ethel," Peckover besought her, with an earnestness not to be ignored.
"I was looking for Mr. Sharnbrook," she replied coldly.
"He has just gone out that way," said Peckover indicating the other door.
"Did he see Dagmar?" Miss Ethel inquired jealously, crossing the room with determined steps.
Peckover sprang to intercept her. "Don't run away from me, Miss Ethel. I know you must be annoyed by those vulgar people who intruded here just now——"
"I should think so," said Ethel haughtily, trying to pass.
"But," urged Peckover, "you won't be troubled by them again. I'm paying their fares back to Australia; so that will settle them—out there."
Ethel suddenly appeared to be somewhat less desirous of reaching the door. "Oh?" she said slowly. "And are you going with them?"
"Not if I know it. Old England's the place for my money."
"Not going to marry the—the lady?" she asked breathlessly.
"Do I look like it?" he replied insinuatingly. "Now, don't trouble about them, or about that silly old Sharnbrook, who prefers to go off and buy his fifty-ninth fox-terrier to waiting for you. Let's sit down and have a nice cosy chat."
The invitation was, under the circumstances, hardly to be resisted, whatever short work the young lady might, under others, have made of it. As they took their seats side by side, Peckover stretched out his arm behind the lady to arrange a cushion for her—and let it stay there.
For as many seconds as probability allowed Ethel affected to be unaware of the caressing attitude. Then suddenly she seemed to wake up to the fact that her companion's arm was round her shoulders, upon which she leant forward to allow him to withdraw it.
But Peckover was not keen on taking hints when they ran counter to his amusements. "Isn't it comfortable?" he asked.
"Your arm."
"My arm's all right," he assured her cheerfully. "Do lean back. Hope I'm not in the way. Of course if you'd rather I went and sat at the other end of the gallery I'll do so. Only it will be a bit slow."
"Mr. Gage, how absurd you are."
"Yes," he agreed, "the suggestion is rather far-fetched. We may as well keep within kissing distance, mayn't we?"
"Oh, but it is not proper," Ethel protested.
"Kissing?" he asked in surprise, "I think it is proper; if you are going in for a proper time. Why not?"
"It is," she answered demurely, "between some people."
"People who know how to make the time pass?" he suggested.
"People who are—engaged," she said, with as much indifference to the immediate and personal application as she could assume.
"Well," he rejoined flippantly, "you are engaged, and I may be."
"Mr. Gage!" She turned on him indignantly. "I am not engaged."
"Not to Sharnbrook?"
"Mr. Gage, how absurd you are."
"I hope so. Are you engaged?" he asked significantly.
"Whether I am engaged or free," she answered, "it is all the same to you."
"No," he returned, "if you were a little more free it would be quite different."
"Would it?" she asked, with a provocative glance at his face.
"Wouldn't it? Like this." He closed his arm round her and tried to draw her to him.
"Oh, Mr. Gage, you don't mean it," she protested, holding back.
"Come!" he said. "One kiss."
"Oh, no. It wouldn't be right," she still objected. Then she sighed. "Poor Jack!"
"Ah, poor fellow," Peckover said, with a hardly suppressed grin. "Poor old Sharnbrook."
"He is very fond of me," she said, regretfully. "But of course if I can't care for him as much as I ought to—I don't know what the poor fellow will do."
"Give me something handsome, I hope," was Peckover's thought. "Ethel," he whispered, and this time did get something like a kiss.
"Percy, it is wrong of you," she murmured.
"I know it is," he admitted, drawing in a breath as of pain. "Poor old Sharnbrook; and he thinks I'm his friend. He'll never give you up," he added with conviction.
For an instant Miss Ethel's look suggested that that matter might be safely left in her hands to bring to a satisfactory conclusion. But it swiftly passed away, and she said, "Jack Sharnbrook is a good fellow. He will not stand in the way of my happiness."
"That he won't, I'll go bail," said Peckover to himself. "Ethel!" he murmured caressingly.
"Oh, Mr. Gage," she returned, in half-yielding protest. "Percy, darling," he suggested, drawing her to him for another kiss.
"You must wait," she objected, "till we are engaged."
"We Gages never wait," he assured her softly. "It's a tradition in the family. No. We don't hang about for the mistletoe to grow."
Nevertheless the present representative of that impatient race had to postpone his endearments, for the door opened softly and Miss Dagmar's scandalized voice cried, "Oh, Ethel!" making the fond pair start aside with electric unanimity.
"Bother it," Peckover muttered, putting on the air of self-conscious indifference usual in such contretemps.
"All right, Miss Dagmar," said Ethel through her teeth.
"Hope we haven't disturbed you," exclaimed Sharnbrook who had followed Dagmar into the room.
Peckover jumped up and went to him. "Got a cigarette?" he asked in a loud voice, adding in a whisper, "Don't look so pleased, old man; or you'll spoil everything."
Sharnbrook took the hint at once. "Don't speak to me, Mr. Gage," he cried resentfully.
"You've not lost any time," Dagmar sarcastically remarked to her sister.
"No, dear," Ethel replied with feline sweetness.
"He belongs to that appalling woman from Australia," said Dagmar confidently. "She'll hold him. Don't you wish you may get him."
"I've got him," Ethel declared.
"She's ready to break it off," whispered Peckover to Sharnbrook. "Don't be too eager. Pretend to be broken-hearted."
The other nodded. "Mr. Gage," he said, with a fine show of dignified feeling, "I find I am mistaken in you."
"That you are," Peckover muttered aside through the corner of his mouth.
"How do you do the broken-hearted?" Sharnbrook enquired in a whisper, seeing the ladies were occupied in reciprocating sarcasms.
"Don't make too much noise," Peckover instructed him, in the same tone. "Think you are feeling sick; that it's your wedding-day with Ethel. Fancy you've missed a pheasant and shot your best dog."
"But I should make a noise," the pupil objected.
"Well, mug a bit," said Peckover, with a model grimace suggestive of the wrong horse winning.
"Oh, don't speak to me!" Sharnbrook shouted, as the ladies seemed to tire of their mutual repartees.
"That's it," murmured Peckover. "Don't let her go too easily."
"I—I have something to say to you, Ethel," Sharnbrook declared with a sob in his voice.
"Oh, Jack," she exclaimed, with a pretty imitation of remorseful distress.
"Come round the garden with me, if it be for the last time," said Sharnbrook, his tones quivering with emotion.
"Too loud," whispered Peckover critically as the jilted swain passed him.
"Oh, Jack," cried Ethel, the distress in her voice counterbalanced by the look of triumph she threw at her sister, "don't look so miserable. I couldn't help it."
Sharnbrook gave vent to an explosive, window-rattling sigh as, with a wicked half-grin at his deliverer, he held open the door. The fickle Ethel, as she prepared to pass out, put her shapely hand to her treacherous lips and contrived to waft a kiss to her latest lover. And she did this without detracting in any appreciable degree from the contrite expression with which she successfully veiled her sense of triumph. Which shewed that, up to a point, she was a clever girl, or at least a credit to her maternal up-bringing.