Sadgrove growled unintelligibly, and was at pains to conceal a sudden upheaval of his facial muscles. For the Duke's reference to Mrs. Talmage Eglinton in her relations to the other guests had all at once opened up to his mind a contingency which he had overlooked—a terrible contingency, which demanded instant consideration before the American widow was admitted to the house. He made an early excuse for quitting the table, and, exacting a promise that Beaumanoir and Forsyth would for the present remain indoors, he went out into the park to face the position alone, and thresh it out to a conclusion.
Walking under the trees in the historic elm avenue, it was not till he had smoked a whole cigar and lit another that he was able to approach the problem with anything like calmness. For he was suffering from the humiliation of having to admit that he had committed the grievous error of imperiling the life of a woman—one, too, whom he held in affectionate regard only second to his wife. If his suspicion of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was as well founded as instinct told him, she ought never to have been asked to stay under the same roof as Sybil Hanbury, her victorious rival in the affections of a man who had repulsed her advances by stolidly ignoring them.
"Gad! but I'd cut my hand off rather than harm should come to that girl, let alone never being able to look Alec in the face again," he muttered, as he gnawed his white mustache in perplexity.
The situation was indeed serious from the point of view that Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was head of a gang of international criminals, and that she was, moreover, as he put it in his simple soldier phrase, "sweet upon" his nephew Alec. If, for her as yet unexplained ends, she would not stick at assassinating the Duke of Beaumanoir, she would be capable of wreaking a deadly vengeance on the girl who had won the heart she hungered for. Once installed as a guest in the mansion, she would have plenty of facilities of which she might make venomous use. The General had engineered her invitation with the laudable purpose of keeping her under constant observation and of making communication with her confederates difficult; but in his zeal for check-mating her predatory designs he had forgotten her amatory ones.
It was true that Sybil's engagement had not yet been published to the world, but the Shermans, who were also to be the Duke's guests, knew of it, and to enter into explanations with Mrs. Sherman, the voluble and unsophisticated, would be going far towards defeating his cherished hope of protecting that lady's husband from the gang without implicating the Duke. As it was, the invitation of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, of which he was suspected of being the cause, had excited more than curiosity among his American visitors, who had nearly upset his arrangements by canceling their own visit on learning that their mysterious fellow countrywoman was to be of the party. One crumb of comfort he derived from the fact that in all things he could rely on his wife's discretion. Though they had exchanged no word on the subject, he knew that, without penetrating or wishing to penetrate his motive in trafficking with Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, his wife guessed that he had one; he knew that he could depend upon her unquestioning aid if he asked for it.
"I guess I've bitten off more than I can chew, as Sherman himself would put it," he mused, with a sigh for the old days of jingling bridle-chains and night rides, when he had merrily run down his Thugs and Dacoits without female influence upsetting his calculations. The female influence had been there, doubtless, with all its jealousies and consequent treacheries; but all that had been Azimoolah's department. It had fallen to the silent-footed, black-bearded Pathan to explore the under-currents of social life in the native villages, and he had not worried his chief with details till the patient sapping of traitorous brains was done, and all that remained was to sally forth and hunt the faithless lover or erring husband who was also a breaker of laws. Azimoolah's knowledge in India of the eternal feminine had been extensive and peculiar; but the General felt that he could not with propriety set him poking into love affairs which included Sybil Hanbury in its scope.
Another point which harassed the General's soul was the new light shed on the Duke's attitude towards Mrs. Talmage Eglinton by his mild displeasure at the style of her note. The General was assured that the remark at the breakfast-table had been the genuine expression of an honest doubt as to the fitness of the sparkling widow to mix with gentle-women; whereas the Duke could have had no doubt whatever if he had had relations with the gang of whom he, the General, believed this woman to be the moving spirit. It certainly seemed that the Duke was ignorant that she was a dangerous adventuress, for, though he might have suspected her of designs against himself and yet have consented to her presence at Prior's Tarrant, he would never have subjected Sybil to the peril of daily intercourse with a potential murderess. All along Beaumanoir had shown a chivalrous disposition to protect his cousin from even minor annoyances.
"Perhaps there are two distinct crowds after Sherman's gold bonds, and Beaumanoir is in with the Ziegler lot, and Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is playing against them," the General mused as he turned his steps back to the house. "To think that the fellow holds the key of it all, and won't speak, is what riles me."
The immediate dilemma confronted him whether or no to impart to his nephew the cause for alarm that had arisen about Sybil. He had been surprised at first that a man of Alec Forsyth's shrewdness had not seen for himself a danger threatening the girl he loved; but closer examination disclosed a reason. Forsyth was too modest, too little of a coxcomb, for it to occur to him that violence could result from a misplaced passion for himself. On the whole, the General decided that, as Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was not due till the next day, he would say nothing to Alec at present.
"If I can make Beaumanoir disgorge his secret, the trouble may not arise," he comforted himself. Though the veteran's faith in himself was shaken, and he wished he had resisted the temptation to meddle with crime outside his old Eastern sphere, he was not the man to take his hand from the plough. He would devote all his diplomacy to penetrating the cause of the Duke's obstinate silence.