The Duke Decides

by Headon Hill

"Poor old Beau! He's played up as well as if we had told him all about our plan," Forsyth muttered as he replaced the letter and took another look at himself in the glass. "I trust they won't call me 'your Grace,' and make me laugh."

But it was in no laughing mood that he switched off the electric light, listened at the door for fully a minute, and then softly opened it. His room, as it had been in the London house, was next to that of the Duke, and, satisfied that there was no one in the corridor, he slid out softly and shut the door behind him. A few natural steps having brought him opposite the Duke's room, he fell at once into Beaumanoir's limp, and so continued his way to the head of a secondary staircase that led down to the service rooms on the ground floor.

At the foot of the stairs, never forgetting his limp, he traversed several passages in which at long intervals only had a light been left burning, and at length he came to a massive oak door. Opening this, he found himself at the top of a flight of straight stone steps, running down into the blackness of the great subterranean chamber, which had been used as a crypt in the old monastic days. The shutting of the door cut off the last ray of light, and there being no rails to the steps he struck a wax match in order to make the descent in safety. But the feeble flame had hardly flickered out when it was rendered useless by a dazzling beam of white effulgence that suddenly sprang into being and shone upon him from below.

"Hang it all, I didn't allow for this!" he thought uneasily. "They have brought one of those wretched portable electric lamps, and I doubt if the disguise will stand. However, here goes."

Nerving himself for the ordeal, he went slowly down the steps, and so limped across the stone floor towards a spot in the very center of the crypt where five figures were grouped under the groined roof. He had only time to observe that one figure—that of an old man with snow-white beard and puffed, purple cheeks—stood slightly in advance of the rest, when on his near approach an order was given in a queer, parrot-like squeak to switch out the lamp. The crypt was windowless, but it was conceivable that a light in the interior might be seen from outside under the door leading into the gardens. Hence, doubtless, the precaution.

"You have made all preparations above, Duke?" was queried in the same piping voice.

"The bonds are in my own safe, and I obtained the key of the Senator's despatch-box by a trick—picked his pocket, in fact—after dinner," Forsyth replied, in a perfect imitation of Beaumanoir's tone. He was beginning to feel more confident in being able to sustain his part; he would not, he thought, have lived to reach this parley if his disguise had been penetrated.

"Then," the unseen spokesman proceeded, "all you have to do is to take this bundle of papers and place them in the box, extracting the originals, and returning here at once with them. It will then give me pleasure to absolve you from further service."

Forsyth felt a large packet pressed into his grasp, and he instantly turned with it to go towards the steps, expecting that the lamp would be switched on to guide him. This proved to be the case, and he was glad that those five scoundrels only had a back view of him as he limped across the floor and laboriously climbed the steps. Nor when he had passed through the door out of their sight was there any quickening of his halting gait to show that he was exulting in that he had so far successfully risked his life for his friend. And it was well that he kept up his part, for as he crossed under the well of the staircase to the servants' bedrooms he caught a glimpse of Rosa, Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's French maid, watching him over the banisters.

Mounting to his own room he locked the bundle of papers he had received away in one of his trunks, from which he first took a packet of similar dimensions, formidably sealed. Without wasting a moment he placed this packet under his arm, and, falling once more into Beaumanoir's limp, retraced his steps to the crypt, where, as soon as he had passed through the door, a beam from the portable lamp shed a glare on his descent to the level of the floor. The five figures, with the white-bearded old man in advance, awaited him as before.