“Ah, I warned him not to get up!” said the butler, shaking his head.
The groom thrust a hand into Gregg’s pocket and extracted the keys from it, “I’m thinking your Honour had best keep these,” he said, and held them out to Sir Tristram.
The butler, puffing as he bent to raise Gregg, agreed that Sir Tristram was certainly the man to take charge of the keys. For a second time the valet was borne off upstairs. Mr Bundy, reappearing at the window, like a jack-in-the-box, remarked phlegmatically: “It looks to me like young master’s met a friend. Who’s that young cove?”
“I fancy he must be Jim Kettering’s boy,” replied Tristram.
“Well, he’s caused us a peck of trouble this night,” said Bundy, “but I’m bound to say he seems an unaccountable nice lad! Handy with his fives he is.”
At this moment Ludovic strolled into the room. “Well, of all the shambles!” he remarked, glancing around. “I’d give a monkey to see the Beau’s face when he comes home! What brought you here, Tristram?”
“Clem fetched me,” replied Shield. “How did you get out of the priest’s hole, and what the devil have you been doing all this while?”
“There’s another way out of the hole,” explained Ludovic. “I thought there might be. It leads up to Basil’s bedchamber. It seemed to me I might as well hunt for the ring since you had the affair so well in hand down here. Then I heard Bob Kettering’s voice, and gave him a whistle—”
“Gave him a whistle?” echoed Sir Tristram. “With the whole household looking for you, you whistled! ”
“Yes, why not? I knew he’d recognize it. It’s a signal we used when we were boys. Bob hadn’t a notion he’d been set on to hunt for me. Lord, we used to go bird’s nesting together!”