"I am not going to ask questions," he said almost plaintively, without mentioning that there were some he had no need to ask and others which he fully intended to answer himself. "I am here to give advice, and it is to get out of London into the open, so that your friends can look after you. Professors of crime find their art more difficult in the country, where every gossiping woman in the village street is a possible witness. I want your Grace to go down to Prior's Tarrant, and allow me the honor of accompanying you as a guest."
The suggestion was met by a blank negative, and caused the Duke to rise and pace the room in more agitation than he had yet shown.
"Why, the very place is hateful to me since last Sunday night," he exclaimed. "You would realize that yourself, General, if you had been introduced to those silent fumes stealing down the chimney. I was thinking of going to some hotel by the sea when Forsyth and Sibyl induced me to remain here for the night, with such lively consequences. Come with me as my guest anywhere else, but not to Prior's Tarrant."
"Nevertheless, I should feel surer of your safety there than anywhere, and I do not speak without reason," replied the General, with a metallic snap in his voice. "I should wish at least to be accorded the privilege of finishing my proposition."
Beaumanoir promptly apologized very gracefully for his discourteous interruption, excusing it on the score of the strain on his nerves. He would be delighted to listen to any proposals, but nothing would shake his determination not to go back to Prior's Tarrant.
"My dear sir, the tangled woodland of the park there is the ideal spot for a lurking assassin. Mediæval architecture provided the house with nooks and corners which it would tax even your foresight to patrol," he insisted.
"But," said the General, "there is safety in numbers; and I was going to propose—rather coolly, perhaps—that you should have a house-party there. If I might bring Mrs. Sadgrove, and Alec and Sybil Hanbury would also give us their company, it would lend color to my own presence. The last two-named, as you have occasion to know, form a valuable body-guard."
The Duke stared at his visitor with something like horrified amazement.
"You forget, General, in your kind eagerness to serve me, that you have guests staying in your own house whom you cannot desert," he said, wondering how even an old man with his years behind him could suffer such lapse of memory when Leonie Sherman was one of the guests. He was almost angry that his visitor, being thus reminded, did not instantly abase himself.
But instead of shame General Sadgrove had only justification to offer—not profuse, because that was not his way—but complete.