The Corinthian (6 page)

'Sir Richard, my lady, is not at home,' said the butler, in a voice pregnant with mystery.

Louisa, who had extracted from her lord a description of Sir Richard's proceedings at Almack's on the preceding night, snorted. 'You will tell him that his sister desires to see him,' she said.

'Sir Richard, my lady, is not upon the premises,' said the butler, working up to his climax.

'Sir Richard has trained you well,' said Louisa dryly. 'But I am not to be put off so! Go and tell him that I wish to see him!'

'Sir Richard, my lady, did not sleep in his bed last night!' announced the butler.

George was surprised into indiscreet comment. 'What's that? Nonsense! He wasn't as foxed as that when
I
saw him!'

'As to that, my lord,' said the butler, with dignity, 'I have no information. In a word, my lord, Sir Richard has vanished.'

'Good Gad!' ejaculated George.

'Fiddle-de-dee!' said Louisa tartly. 'Sir Richard, as I suppose, is in his bed!'

'No, my lady. As I informed your ladyship, Sir Richard's bed has not been slept in.' He paused, but Louisa only stared at him. Satisfied with the impression he had made, he continued: 'The evening attire which Sir Richard was wearing yesterday was found by his man, Biddle, upon the floor of his bedroom. Sir Richard's second-best top-boots, a pair of buckskins, a blue riding-coat, his drab overcoat, and a fawn coloured beaver, have all disappeared. One is forced to the conclusion, my lady, that Sir Richard was called away unexpectedly.'

'Gone off without his valet?' George demanded in a stupefied tone.

The butler bowed. 'Precisely so, my lord.'

'Impossible!' George said, from the heart.

Louisa, who had been frowning over these tidings, said in a brisk voice: 'It is certainly very odd, but there is no doubt some perfectly reasonable explanation. Pray, are you certain that my brother left no word with
any
member of his household?'

'None whatsoever, my lady.'

George heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head. 'I warned you, Louisa! I
said
you were driving him too hard!'

'You said nothing of the sort!' snapped Louisa, annoyed with him for talking so indiscreetly before a palpably interested servant. 'To be sure, he may well have mentioned to us that he was going out of town, and we have forgotten the circumstance.'

'How can you say so?' asked George, honestly puzzled. 'Why, didn't you have it from Melissa Brandon herself that he was to call—'

'That will do, George!' said Louisa, quelling him with a look so terrible that he quailed under it. 'Tell me, Porson,' she resumed, turning again to the butler, 'has my brother gone in his post-chaise, or is he driving himself?'

'None of Sir Richard's vehicles, my lady, sporting or otherwise, is missing from the stables,' said Porson, relishing the cumulative effect of his disclosures.

'He is riding, then!'

'I have ascertained from the head groom, my lady, that none of Sir Richard's horses has been abstracted. The head groom has not seen Sir Richard since yesterday morning.'

'Good Gad!' muttered George, his eyes starting with dismay at the hideous thought which presented itself to him. 'No, no, he would not do that!'

'Be quiet, George! For heaven's sake, be quiet!' Louisa cried sharply. 'Why, what nonsensical notion have you taken into your head? I am sure it is most provoking of Richard to slip off like this, but as for—I won't have you say such things! Ten to one, he has gone off to watch some odious sporting event: prize-fighting, I dare say! He will be home presently.'

'But he didn't sleep at home!' George reminded her. 'And I'm bound to say he wasn't cold stone sober when he left Almack's last night. I don't mean he was badly foxed, but you know what he's like when he's—'

'I am thankful to say that I know nothing of the kind!' retorted Louisa. 'If he was not sober, it would account for his erratic behaviour.'

'Erratic behaviour! I must say, Louisa, that is a fine way to talk when poor Ricky may be at the bottom of the river,' exclaimed George, roused to noble courage.

She changed colour, but said faintly: 'How can you be so absurd? Don't say such things, I beg of you!'

The butler coughed. 'I beg your lordship's pardon, but if I might say so, Sir Richard would hardly change his raiment for the execution of—of what I apprehend your lordship means.'

'No. No, very true! He would not, of course!' agreed George, relieved.

'Moreover, my lord, Biddle reports that Sir Richard's drawers and wardrobe have been ransacked, and various articles of clothing abstracted. Upon going to rouse Sir Richard this morning, Biddle found his room in the greatest disorder, as though Sir Richard had made his preparations for a journey in haste. Furthermore, my lord, Biddle informed me that a portmanteau and a small cloak-bag are missing from the cupboard in which they are customarily kept.'

George gave a sudden croak of laughter. 'Bolted, by Gad! Yoicks! gone awa-ayl'

'George!'

'I don't care!' said George defiantly. 'I'm devilish glad he has bolted!'

'But there was no need!' Louisa said, forgetting that Porson was in the room. 'No one was constraining him to marry—' she caught Porson's eye, and stopped short.

'I should inform your ladyship,' said Porson, apparently deaf to her indiscreet utterance, 'that there were several other Peculiar Circumstances attached to Sir Richard's disappearance.'

'Good heavens, you talk as though he has been spirited away by magic!' said Louisa impatiently. 'What circumstances, my good man?'

'If your ladyship will excuse me, I will fetch them for your inspection,' said Porson, and bowed himself out.

Husband and wife were left to stare at one another in perplexity.

'Well!' said George, not without satisfaction, 'you see now what comes of plaguing a man out of his mind!'

'I didn't! George, it is unjust of you to say so! Pray, how could
I
force him to offer for Melissa if he did not wish to? I am persuaded his flight has nothing whatever to do with that affair.'

'No man will bear being teased to do something he don't want to do,' said George.

'Then all I have to say is that Richard is a bigger coward than I would have believed possible! I am sure, if only he had told me frankly that he did not wish to marry Melissa I should not have said another word about it.'

'Ha!' ejaculated George, achieving a sardonic laugh.

He escaped reproof by Porson's coming back into the room, bearing certain articles which he laid carefully upon the table. In great astonishment, Lord and Lady Trevor gazed at a Paisley shawl, a crumpled cravat, and some short strands of guinea-gold hair, curling appropriately enough into a shape resembling a question-mark.

'What in the world—?' exclaimed Louisa.

'These articles, my lady, were discovered by the under-footman upon his entering the library this morning,' said Porson. 'The shawl, which neither Biddle nor myself can remember to have seen before, was lying on the floor; the cravat had been thrown into the grate; and the—er—lock of hair—was found under the shawl.'

'Well, upon my word!' said George, putting up his glass the better to inspect the articles. He pointed his glass at the cravat. 'That tells its own tale! Poor Ricky must have come in last night in a bad state. I dare say his head was aching: mine would have been, if I had drunk half the brandy he tossed off yesterday. I see it all. There he was, pledged to call on Saar this morning—no way out of it—head on fire! He tugged at his cravat, felt as though he must choke, and ruined the thing—and no matter how far gone he was, Ricky would never wear a crumpled necktie! There he was, sitting in a chair, very likely, and running his hands through his hair, in the way a man does—'

'Richard never yet disarranged his hair, and no matter how drunk he may have been, he did not pull a curl of
that
colour out of his own head!' interrupted Louisa. 'Moreover, it has been cut off. Anyone can see that!'

George levelled his glass at the gleaming curl. A number of emotions flitted across his rather stolid countenance. He drew a breath. 'You're quite right, Louisa,' he said. 'Well, I never would have believed it! The sly dog!'

'You need not wait, Porson!' Louisa said sharply.

'Very good, my lady. But I should perhaps inform your ladyship that the under-footman found the candles burning in the library when he entered it this morning.'

'I cannot see that it signifies in the least,' replied Louisa, waving him aside.

He withdrew. George, who was holding the curl in the palm of his hand, said: 'Well,
I
can't call anyone to mind with hair of this colour. To be sure, there were one or two opera-dancers, but Ricky's not at all the sort of man to want 'em to cut off their hair for him. But there's no doubt about one thing, Louisa: this curl was a keepsake.'

'Thank you, George, I had already realized that. Yet I thought I knew all the respectable women of Richard's acquaintance! One would say that kind of keepsake must have belonged to his salad days. I am sure he is much too unromantic now to cherish a lock of hair!'

'And he threw it away,' George said, shaking his head. 'You know, it's devilish sad, Louisa, upon my word it is! Threw it away, because he was on the eve of offering for that Brandon-iceberg!'

'Very affecting! And having thrown it away, he then ran away himself—not, you will admit, making any offer at all! And where did the shawl come from?' She picked it up as she spoke, and shook it out. 'Extremely creased! Now why?'

'Another keepsake,' George said. 'Crushed it in his hands, poor old Ricky—couldn't bear the recollections it conjured up—flung it away!'

'Oh, fiddle!' said Louisa, exasperated. 'Well, Porson, what is it now?'

The butler, who had come back into the room, said primly: 'The Honourable Cedric Brandon, my lady, to see Sir Richard. I thought perhaps your ladyship would wish to receive him.'

'I don't suppose he can throw the least light on this mystery, but you may as well show him in,' said Louisa. 'Depend upon it,' she added to her husband, when Porson had withdrawn himself again, 'he will have come to learn why Richard did not keep his engagement with Saar this morning. I am sure I do not know what I am to say to him!'

'If you ask me, Cedric won't blame Richard,' said George. 'They tell me he was talking pretty freely at White's yesterday. Foxed, of course. How you and your mother can want Ricky to marry into that family is what beats me!'

'We have known the Brandons all our lives,' Louisa said

defensively. 'I don't pretend that—' She broke off, as the Honourable Cedric walked into the room, and stepped forward, with her hand held out. 'How do you do, Cedric? I am afraid Richard is not at home. We—think he must have been called away suddenly on urgent affairs.'

'Taken my advice, has he?' said Cedric, saluting her hand with careless grace. ' "You run, Ricky! Don't do it!" that's what I told him. Told him I'd sponge on him for the rest of his days, if he was fool enough to let himself be caught.'

'I wonder that you should talk in that vulgar way!' said Louisa. 'Of course he has not
run!
I dare say he will be back any moment now. It was excessively remiss of him not to have sent a note round to inform Lord Saar that he could not wait on him this morning, as he had engaged himself to do, but—'

'You've got that wrong,' interrupted Cedric. 'No engagement at all. Melissa told him to call on m'father; he didn't say he would. Wormed it out of Melissa myself an hour ago. Lord, you never saw anyone in such a rage! What's all this?' His roving eye had alighted on the relics laid out upon the table. 'A lock of hair, by Jove! Devilish pretty hair too!'

'Found in the library this morning,' said George portentously, ignoring his wife's warning frown.

'Here? Ricky?' demanded Cedric. 'You're bamming me!'

'No, it is perfectly true. We cannot understand it.'

Cedric's eyes danced. 'By all that's famous! Who'd have thought it, though? Well, that settles our affairs! Devilish inconvenient, but damme, I'm glad he's bolted! Always liked Ricky—never wanted to see him bound for perdition with the rest of us! But we're done-up now, and no mistake! The diamonds have gone.'

'What?' Louisa cried. 'Cedric, not the Brandon necklace?'

'That's it. Last sheet-anchor thrown out to the windward—gone like that!' He snapped his fingers in the air, and laughed. 'I came to tell Ricky I'd accept his offer to buy me a pair of colours, and be off to the Wars.'

'But how? Where?' gasped Louisa.

'Stolen. My mother took it to Bath with her. Never would stir without the thing, more's the pity!
I
wonder m'father didn't sell it years ago. Only thing he didn't sell, except Saar Court, and that'll have to go next. My mother wouldn't hear of parting with the diamonds.'

'But Cedric, how stolen? Who took it?'

'Highwaymen. My mother sent off a courier post-haste to m'father. Chaise stopped somewhere near Bath—two fellows with masks and horse-pistols—Sophia screeching like a hen—my mother swooning—outriders taken by surprise—one of 'em winged. And off went the necklace. Which is what I can't for the life of me understand.'