He stared at his glass in a kind of bemused horror, and in that instant Worth was on his feet, and in one swift movement had got behind him, and seized him, gripping the boy’s right hand from over his shoulder in a cruel hold that clenched Peregrine’s fingers tightly round the wine-glass. His left arm was round Peregrine, forcing the boy back against his shoulder.

Peregrine struggled like a madman, but. the dreadful lassitude was stealing over him. He panted: “No, no, I won’t! I won’t! You devil, let me go! What have you done to me? What—” His own hand, with that other grasping it, tilted the rest of the wine down his throat. He seemed to have no power to resist; he choked, spluttered, and saw the room begin to spin round like a kaleidoscope. “The wine!” he said thickly. “The wine!”

He heard Worth’s voice say as from a long way off: “I am sorry, Peregrine, but there was no alternative. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

He tried to speak, but could not; he was dimly aware of being lifted bodily from the ground; he saw Worth’s face above him, and then he slid into unconsciousness.

The Earl laid him down on the couch against one wall and loosened the folds of his cravat. He stood frowning down at him for a minute, his fingers lightly clasping one slack wrist, his eyes watchfully intent on Peregrine’s face. Then he moved away to where the empty wine-glass lay on the carpet, picked it up, and put it on the table, and went out of the room, locking the door behind him.

There was no one in the hall. The Earl let himself out through the back door on to the iron steps, and went down them into the yard. The tiger met him, and grinned impishly. The Earl looked him over. “Well, Henry?”

“Shapleys’s not back yet from wherever it was you sent him off to, guv’nor, and you know werry well you let the under-groom go off for the day.”

“I had not forgotten it. Did you do what I told you?”

“O’ course I did what you told me!” answered Henry, aggrieved. “Don’t I always? I knew he wouldn’t say no to anything out of a bottle. ‘Flesh-and-blood this is,’ I says to him, but Lord love yer, guv’nor, he wouldn’t have known different if I’d said it was daffy! He tosses it off, and smacks his lips, and I’m blessed if he didn’t sit down right there under my werry nose, and drop off to sleep! I never seen anything like it in all my puff!”

“The sooner you forget that you saw it at all, the better,” commented the Earl. “Where is Hinkson?”

“Oh, him!” Henry sniffed disparagingly and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Putting the horses to, he is, which is about all he’s good for, and not so werry good at that either, if you was to ask me.”

“Don’t be jealous, Henry. You have done your part very well, but you cannot do everything,” said the Earl, and walked across the yard to the stables just as Hinkson led out Peregrine’s two horses. “Get those horses put to, Ned. Any trouble?”

“No, my lord, not at my end of the business—not yet, that is. But Tyler’s been getting smoky about me. I gammoned him I was boozy, and he thought he’d left me safe under the table. But I’m scared of this, my lord; properly scared I am. Broad daylight!”

“There you are, what did I tell you, guv’nor?” demanded Henry scornfully. “Him a prize-fighter! You’d have done better to let me handle the whole job. You’ll have that chicken-hearted shifter handing Jem Tyler over to a beak if you ain’t careful.”

Hinkson turned on him wrathfully, but upon the tiger saying at once: “Yes, you pop in a hit at me, and see what you get from my guv’nor!” a slow grin spread over his unprepossessing countenance, and with an apologetic look at the Earl he went on harnessing the horses to the tilbury. Henry cast a professional eye over the buckles, and watched with considerable interest his master and Hinkson hoist the inanimate form of Jem Tyler into the tilbury, and cover it with a rug.

Hinkson gathered up the reins and said gruffly: “I won’t fail you, my lord.”

“No, because if you did you’d lose a fatter purse than you’ve ever fought for, or ever will!” retorted Henry.

“And when all’s clear,” said Hinkson, settling himself on the box-seat, and addressing the tiger, “I shall come back into this yard and wring your skinny neck, my lad!” With which he jerked the reins, and drove out of the yard into the alley.

The Earl watched him go, and turned to look down at his tiger. “You know me, don’t you, Henry? One word of this on your tongue and it is I who will wring your neck, long before Hinkson has the chance of doing it. OS with you now!”

“And I’d let you, guv’nor, which is more than what I would that lump o’ lard!” replied Henry, unabashed.

An hour later Captain Audley went softly into the book-room and shut the door behind him. The Earl was writing at his desk, but he looked up and smiled faintly. Captain Audley glanced across at Peregrine’s still form. “Julian, are you quite sure—?”

“Perfectly.”

Captain Audley walked to the couch and bent over it. “It seems a damned shame,” he said, and straightened himself. “What have you done with the groom?”

“The groom,” said Worth, picking up a wafer and sealing his letter, “has been taken to a spot somewhere near Lancing, and shipped aboard a certain highly suspicious vessel bound for the West Indies. Whether he ever reaches his destination is extremely problematical, I imagine.”

“Good God, Worth, you can’t do that!”

“I have done it—or, rather, Hinkson has done it for me,” replied the Earl calmly.

“But Julian, the risk! What if Hinkson turns on you?”

“He won’t.”

“You’re mad!” Captain Audley exclaimed. “What should stop him?”

“You must think I choose my tools badly,” commented the Earl.

The Captain glanced towards Peregrine again. “I think you’re a damned cold-blooded devil,” he said.

“Possibly,” said Worth. “Nevertheless, I am sorry for the boy. But the date of his marriage being fixed was his death-warrant. He must be put out of the way, and really I think I have chosen quite as land a way of doing it as I could.”

“Yes, I know, and I see it had to be, but—well, I don’t like it, Julian, and there you have it! How I’m to face Judith Taverner with this on my conscience—”

“You can comfort yourself with the reflection that it is not on your conscience at all, but on mine,” interrupted the Earl.

“She is going to the Pavilion to-night,” said Captain Audley inconsequently.

“Yes, and so am I,” replied the Earl. “Do you go too, or do you propose to sit and mourn over Peregrine’s plight?”

“Oh, be quiet, Julian! I suppose I must go, but I tell you frankly I feel little better than a murderer!”

“In that case you would be wise to order dinner to be put forward,” recommended the Earl. “You will feel better when you have eaten and drunk.”

“How are you going to get him out of the house?” asked the Captain, looking towards the couch again.

“Very simply. Evans will come in by the back way and I shall give the boy over to him. He will do the rest.”

“Well, I hope to God it does not all fail!” said Captain Audley devoutly.

But no hitch occurred in the Earl’s plans. At eleven o’clock a plain coach drove unobtrusively into the alley, and a couple of sturdy-looking men got out, and softly entered the yard through the unlocked gate. No one was stirring above the stables, and the men made no sound as they went up the iron steps to the back door. It was opened to them by the Earl, who had changed his cloth coat and pale yellow pantaloons for knee-breeches, and a satin coat. He pointed silently to the book-room. Five minutes later he had seen Peregrine’s limp body, wrapped round in a frieze cloak, put into the coach, and had returned to the house, and locked the back door. Then he examined the set of his cravat in the mirror that hung in the hall, picked up his hat and gloves and walked out of the house, across the Steyne to the Pavilion.

Chapter XX

Miss Taverner’s first visit to the Pavilion had soon been followed by others, for the Regent, while at Brighton, liked to hold informal parties in his summer-palace, and was always very easy of access, and affable to the humblest of his guests. It was not to be supposed that he should feel as much interest in Peregrine as in his sister, but even Peregrine had been invited to dine at the Pavilion once, and had gone there in a state of considerable awe, and returned home dazzled by the magnificence of the state apartments, and slightly fuddled by the Regent’s famous Diabolino brandy. He had tried to describe the Banqueting-room to his sister, but he had retained so confused an impression of it that he could only say that he had sat at an immensely long table, under a thirty-foot lustre, all glass pearls, and rubies, and tassels of brilliants, which hung from a dome painted like an eastern sky, with the foliage of a giant plantain tree spreading over it. He had thought no chains had been strong enough to hold such a lustre; he had not been able to take his eyes from it. For the rest he dimly remembered golden pillars, and silver chequer-work, huge Chinese paintings on a groundwork of inlaid pearl, mirrors flashing back the lights of the lustres, crimson draperies and chairs, and piers between the windows covered with fluted silks of pale blue. He had counted five rosewood sideboards, and four doors of rich japan-work. He had never been in such a room in his life. As for the entertainment he had had, nothing was ever like it! Such a very handsome dinner, with he dared not say how many wines to drink, and no less than a dozen sorts of snuff placed on the table as soon as the covers were removed!