The quizzing-glass was levelled at him. Sir Richard’s pained eye ran over his person. “Putting the countryside to scorn, Beverley? Strange that you who care so much about your appearance should achieve such lamentable results! Now, Cedric cares nothing for his, but—er—always looks the gentleman.”
“You have a d-damned unpleasant tongue, Richard, b-but you needn’t think I’ll put up with it j-just because you’ve known me for y-years!”
“And how,” enquired Sir Richard, faintly interested, “do you propose to put a curb on my tongue?”
Beverley glared at him. He knew quite as well as Captain Trimble that Sir Richard’s exquisite tailoring and languid bearing were deceptive; that he sparred regularly with Gentleman Jackson, and was accounted one of the best amateur heavyweights in England. “W-what are you d-doing here?” he reiterated weakly.
“I came to keep your friend Trimble’s appointment with you,” said Sir Richard, removing a caterpillar from his sleeve. Ignoring a startled oath from Mr Brandon, he added: “Captain Trimble—by the way, you must tell me sometime where he acquired that unlikely title—found himself obliged to depart for Bristol this morning. Rather a hasty person, one is led to infer.”
“D-damn you, Richard, you mean you sent him off! W-what do you know about Trimble, and why did—”
“Yes, I fear that some chance words of mine may perhaps have influenced him. There was a man in a catskin waistcoat—dear me, there seems to be a fatal spell attached to that waistcoat! You look quite pale, Beverley.”
Mr Brandon had indeed changed colour. He shouted: “S-stop it! So Yarde split, d-did he? Well, w-what the d-devil has it to do with you, hey?”
“Altruism, Beverley, sheer altruism. You see, your friend Yarde—you know, I cannot congratulate you on your choice of tools—saw fit to hand the Brandon diamonds into “my keeping.”
Mr Brandon looked quite stupefied. “Handed them to you? Yarde d-did that? B-but how d-did you know he had them? How c-could you have known?”