Ludovic glanced at it casually, but picked up the dagger. “Oh, is it? No, I can’t say I recognize it, but I dare say you’re right. To think of the Beau daring to come and tackle me with nothing better than this medieval weapon! It’s a damned impertinence, upon my soul it is!”
“Depend upon it, he hoped to murder you while you slept, and so make no noise about it,” said Miss Thane. “And, do you know, for all I jested with Sir Tristram over it, I never really thought that he would come!”
Sir Hugh looked at Ludovic and said: “I wish you would be serious. Do you tell me it was really your cousin here tonight?”
“Oh, devil a doubt!” answered Ludovic, testing the dagger’s sharpness with one slender forefinger.
“A cousin of yours masquerading about in a loo-mask?”
“Was he?” said Ludovic, interested. “Lord yes, that’s Basil all over! He’d run no risk of being recognized.”
“And you think he came here to murder you in your bed?” demanded Sir Hugh.
For answer, Ludovic held up the dagger.
Sir Hugh looked at it in profound silence, and then said weightily, “I’ll tell you what it is, Lavenham, he’s a demmed scoundrel. I never heard of such a thing!”
Eustacie, who had sunk into a chair, raised a very white face from her hands, and said in a low, fierce voice: “Yes, and if he does not go to the scaffold I myself will kill him! I will make a sacred vow to kill him!”