Джорджетт Хейер - The Foundling

The Captain’s drawl became even more marked. “That, Mr. Liversedge, is a reflection that is bound to intrude upon the mind of a man of ordinary common-sense. Life is, after all, uncertain.”

Mr. Liversedge perceived that his visions were about to be fulfilled. It was pleasant to find that his reading of human character had not been at fault. But he had not seriously supposed that it could be. He smiled approvingly at Gideon, and said: “Yet when one considers that his Grace is a young man, and in the possession of his health and faculties, I daresay anyone would be willing to hazard a large wager against the chances of your becoming second in the line of the succession within—shall we say?—the month!”

“How large a wager?” asked Gideon.

Mr. Liversedge waved one hand in an airy gesture. “Oh, against such odds, sir, I daresay you would venture as much as fifty thousand pounds!”

Gideon shook his head. “I never bet so far above my fortune, Mr. Liversedge. Now, had you offered me a wager that I should not be Duke of Sale within a month—!”

Mr. Liversedge considered his resources rapidly. “Well, I daresay it could be contrived,” he said dubiously.

Gideon very nearly laughed in his face. He overcame the impulse, and said: “You know, I am not such a gamester as you believe, sir. Such wild bets hold little attraction for me. You will own that you would find it hard to raise such a sum, as you would be obliged to do if his Grace should not depart this life within the month.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Liversedge earnestly, “if I entered upon a bet of that magnitude it would only be in the certainty that his Grace would depart this life within the month!”

“How could you have that certainty?” smiled Gideon.

Mr. Liversedge drew a breath. “Captain Ware,” he said. “I am not an unreasonable man. I do not waste your time with frivolous suggestions. More, sir! I do not ignore the peculiar delicacy of your position. Indeed, being myself a man of great sensibility, I have given much thought to your position. Naturally you could not contemplate, in any little arrangement between us, the smallest suggestion of—er—”

“Blood-money,” supplied Gideon.

Mr. Liversedge looked pained. “That, sir, is an ugly phrase, and one which is as repugnant to me as it must be to you. All I offer you is a handsome wager. I am sure there are many seemingly more improbable betsentered in the book at White’s. Not, of course, that this one would be entered there. A simple exchange of notes between us, sir, is all that would be necessary. And here let me assure you that I regard that as a mere formality, customary in affairs of such a nature. My faith in you as a man of honour, Captain Ware, makes it impossible for me to contemplate the necessity of producing your note at some future date.”

“I’m obliged to you,” said Gideon. “But I find my faith in you less securely rooted, Mr. Liversedge. I don’t believe, for instance, that you have it in your power to make me lose such a bet.”

Mr. Liversedge looked reproachful. “It pains me, sir, to encounter mistrust in one with whom I have been so frank. I might add, in one whom I am anxious to benefit. Or should I have told you at the outset that his Grace is at the moment sojourning at a little place quite in the heart of our delightful countryside? When I had the honour of seeing him last, he was wearing an olive riding-coat of excellent tailoring, and a drab Benjamin over it, with four capes. He had a handsome timepiece in his pocket, too; with his crest engraved upon the back, and his initials upon the front. He sighed. “Perhaps I should have brought it to you, sir, but anything savouring of common thievery is very distasteful to me. However, I daresay you may recognize this exquisitely embroidered handkerchief.” He dived a hand into his pocket as he spoke, and produced Gilly’s bloodstained handkerchief.

Gideon took it from him, and for a moment stood staring down at it, his face very pale, and the lines about his mouth and jaw suddenly accentuated. The stains had grown brown, but Gideon knew bloodstains when he saw them, and his gorge rose. He laid the handkerchief down, his long fingers quivering, and raised his head, and looked at Mr. Liversedge. Mr. Liversedge had known from the moment that he had mentioned the olive coat that he had struck home. He had not failed to remark that betraying quiver of the fingers. He smiled indulgently; he would have been excited himself, he reflected, if he realized all at once, as Captain Ware had, how close he stood to a Dukedom. Then he met the Captain’s eyes, and in the very short space of time granted him for rumination he thought that they blazed with the strangest light he had ever seen in a fellow-creature’s eyes. He had even a sensation of being scorched, which was perhaps not surprising, since Gideon was seeing him through a hot, red mist.

The next instant, Mr. Liversedge, no puny figure, had been plucked from his seat, and two iron hands were throttling him remorselessly, shaking him savagely as they did so. While he tore desperately at them, his starting eyes stared up in filming horror into a face dark with rage, with lips curling back from close-shut teeth, and nostrils terrifyingly distended. Before his vision failed, Mr. Liversedge read murder in this face, and knew that for once in his life his judgment had been at fault. Then, as his eyes threatened to burst from their sockets, and his tongue was forced out between his lips, he saw and knew nothing more. As he lost consciousness Gideon cast him from him, and he fell in an inert heap on to the floor.

The noise of Mr. Liversedge’s fall brought Wragby swiftly upon the scene. He found his master brushing his hands together, as though to rid them of some lingering dirt and his master’s guest lying on the floor. He betrayed no particular surprise at this unusual scene, but casting an experienced eye over Mr. Liversedge remarked: “Well, it looks like you dished him up, sir. It’s bellows to mend with him sure enough. But what I ask you, sir, is, how am I to get rid of him, if you’ve killed him? Too hasty, that’s what you are!”

“I haven’t,” Gideon said shortly. “At least—Here, get some water, and throw it over him! I don’t want him dead!”

“Pity you didn’t think of that afore, sir,” said Wragby severely. “Nice sort of bobbery to be going on in a gentleman’s chambers!”

He left the room, returning in a minute or two with a jug of water, which he emptied generously over Mr. Liversedge’s countenance. “It seems a waste,” he said, “but I don’t know but what we hadn’t better put a ball-of-fire down his gullet.”

Gideon strode over to the sideboard, and poured out some brandy. “Not dead, is he?”

“No, sir,” replied Wragby, who had been feeling for Mr. Liversedge’s heart. “He’s alive, but pretty well burnt to the socket.” He considered Mr. Liversedge’s mangled cravat, and shook his head. “Well, I thought you’d given him a leveller, sir, but I see as how you’ve been a-strangling of him.” He loosened the cravat, straightened the sufferer’s limbs, and raised his head. Gideon dropped on his knee, and put the glass he held to Mr. Liversedge’s slack mouth. “Easy, now, easy, sir!” Wragby warned him. “You don’t want to choke him again, and nor you don’t want that good ball-of-fire to be running down his shirt! Better let me give it to him. I’ll have him round in a brace of snaps.”

Gideon relinquished the glass, and rose. “Wragby, his Grace is in trouble!”

Wragby paused in his ministrations to look up. “What, not on account of this fat flawn, sir? What’s happened to his Grace?”

“I don’t know. I think that fellow has him imprisoned somewhere. I ought to have discovered more before I choked him, but—Here, give him some more brandy!”

“You leave him be, sir; he’s coming to himself nice and gentle. He never come here to tell you a thing like that!”

“Oh, yes, he did! He came to sell him to me! For the trifling sum of fifty thousand pounds, he’ll engage for it that his Grace is never seen again. He might even contrive to murder my father too. Obliging, isn’t he? He brought me that to look at!”

Wragby stared at the Duke’s handkerchief. “My God, sir, what has he done to his Grace? That’s blood, or I never saw  blood!”

“I tell you I don’t know. Trust me, I shall know soon enough! He can’t be dead. No, he can’t be dead!”

“Lor’ no, sir, of course he ain’t dead!” Wragby made haste to say. “Likely there was a bit of a mill, and his Grace had his cork drawn. Now, don’t you go fuming and fretting before there’s any need, sir! Not but what we might have known something like this would happen, if his Grace loped, off the way he did!”

“God damn you, do you think I would have let him go if I’d thought he’d run into danger?” Gideon shot at him fiercely.

“Of course you wouldn’t, sir! If you was to give me a hand, we could lay this hang-gallows moulder on the sofy. We don’t want to cosset him, but on the other hand he’s more apt to talk if we make him a bit comfortable. And talk he’s got to! If he don’t see reason, he’ll have to be made more uncomfortable than what he is now, but he don’t look to me like one as is hard at hand, and the less breeze we raise the better, sir.”

Gideon nodded, and bent to take Mr. Liversedge’s legs. This unfortunate gentleman was heaved on to the sofa, and groaned faintly. “Leave him to me!” Gideon said curtly. “I’ll call you if I should need you.”

Wragby looked at him doubtfully. “Yes, sir, but the way you’ve been handling him, and the black temper you’re in, begging your pardon, it’s more likely him as’ll need me than you!”