The Beau tossed back the ruffles from his hand, and dipped his finger and thumb in his snuffbox. “Well, Tristram,” he said with his glinting smile. “You know more about it than I do. Are you going to tell her?”
“It is not an edifying story,” Shield said. “Why do you want to hear it?”
“Because I think perhaps my cousin Ludovic is of this family the most romantic person!” replied Eustacie.
“Oh, romantic!” said Sir Tristram, turning away with a shrug of the shoulder.
The Beau fobbed his snuffbox. “Romantic?” he said meditatively. “No, I do not think Ludovic was romantic. A little rash, perhaps. He was a gamester—whence the disasters which befell him. He lost a very large sum of money one night at the Cocoa-Tree to a man who lived at Furze House, not two miles from here.”
“No one lives at Furze House,” interrupted Eustacie.
“Not now,” agreed the Beau. “Three years ago Sir Matthew Plunkett lived there. But Sir Matthew—three years ago—was shot in the Longshaw Spinney, and his widow removed from the neighbourhood.”
“Did my cousin Ludovic shoot him?”
“That, my dear Eustacie, is a matter of opinion. You will get one answer from Tristram, and another from me.”
“But why?” she demanded. “Not just because he had lost money to him! That, after all, is not such a great matter—unless perhaps he was quite ruined?”