“Your nephew!” Mr. Pouncet stood dismayed. “The young man’s name was certainly Scarsdale,” he said, after a little puzzled pause.
“Then I have no doubt that accounts for the failure of the investigation,” said the Colonel, who had been bending his deaf ear to the wily attorney with an earnest attention, strangely out of keeping with the insincere and untrustworthy voice to which he listened. “Much grief as it gives me to say so, Armitage, I am afraid Horace would hinder rather than help. I don’t know how he has mixed himself up with such an affair,” said Uncle Edward, musing; “but he certainly has to do with it somehow. He’s—alas! very clever, this nephew of mine; unhappily brought up, poor fellow! fond of intrigue, I fear, one kind or another. Mr. Pouncet, I’d recommend you to employ another man.”
“With the greatest of pleasure,” said Mr. Pouncet, chuckling to himself; “of course, I yield any little knowledge I may have of young Scarsdale to the superior information of a relative—ha, ha! Your candid judgment does you credit, I am sure, Colonel. Mr. Scarsdale is not here to-day, I am sorry to say; very unsettled lately he has appeared to me. Ah, come in, Edwards! I’ve some instructions to give you before these gentlemen. We will lose no time, Sir John, and you shall hear my directions with your own ears.”
“That’ll do, Pouncet” said Sir John, with a slight air of disgust. “My own opinion is, you’re a deal too easy in your talk to mean anything. Hope you don’t know any more about it than you choose to tell us, which appears to me, begging your pardon, a long way more likely than not; for who’s to cheat a man if it isn’t his own attorney? Send your clerk if you like, I’ll have nothing to do with it. If one wants a thing well done, one must do it oneself. Come along, Sutherland; no, I’m not satisfied, and I don’t pretend to be.”
Saying which, in spite of Mr. Pouncet’s strenuous endeavours to explain, and to set himself right with his wealthy client, Sir John fought his way out, dragging along with him his young and his old friend. The Colonel looked very grave and rather sad, wondering what “motive” Horace could have for helping to injure Roger. Meanwhile, that young hero himself took, it is to be confessed, more amusement than anything else from the entire matter. His hopes were so slight that they did not at all excite him, whereas he could not but perceive that Sir John’s little burst of ill-humour, and Mr. Pouncet’s discomfiture thereat, was tolerably good fun. They went to the inn to have lunch, all three displaying their various humours—of which Sir John’s was the most demonstrative and plain-spoken.
“I’ll tell you what,” said the baronet; “Pouncet’s a deal too well up in his defence. I never like a man who knows just exactly what to say for himself when he’s accused of a sudden—ten chances to one, look you, Roger, that he’s guilty; for if he’s guilty, of course he knew every word you were going to say—whereas if he’s innocent, he’s taken by surprise and shows it. That’s my opinion; and, by Jove, if the rascal took in Musgrave, I’ll bet you something he’s taken in me as well. But you may rely upon it I’ll have the whole affair looked into now.”
“Eh?” said Colonel Sutherland, stooping over the chair into which Sir John had thrown himself, with his hand curved over his ear; “have the whole affair looked into now? Well, Armitage, if I have less concern in it one way than you, I have more another. There’s still a week before my Ned comes home, I’ll see what I can do with my own eyes and spectacles. I’m an old campaigner: twenty miles a day over a pleasant country is no extraordinary work for an old soldier like me.”
“And I, Colonel—what am I to say to you for such painstaking kindness?” said Roger, forgetting his amusement in hearty gratitude and admiration.
“My dear boy, it’s a great deal for your sake, but something for the sake of my sister’s son,” said the Colonel, with a smile and a sigh—“and only till my boy’s holidays begin; but as for you, go on to whatever is the name of the place and see your mother, and the pretty sisters and the little boy, and if there’s anything to be heard of Horace there, send me word; and don’t forget if you do meet with him that he is, in spite of everything—”
“Susan’s brother!—there is not a chance that I shall forget,” said Roger, brightly.