“I am extremely glad to see you. Did you come post?”

“No, I drove myself, and damned cold it was! How has all gone since I saw you? Where is Nicky?”

“Nicky is at Highnoons with a hole in his shoulder,” replied Carlyon, going over to a table on which the butler had set out a decanter and some glasses. “Sherry, John?”

“Nicky is what?”demanded John, straightening himself with a jerk.

“It’s not serious,” Carlyon said, pouring sherry into two of the glasses.

“Good God, Ned, cannot Nicky keep out of trouble for as much as two days?”

“Apparently not, but he cannot be blamed for this adventure. Sit down, and I’ll tell you the whole. I fancy it should interest you.”

John cast himself into a deep chair by the fire, saying caustically, “You need not tell me you do not blame him! Well, what mischief is he in now?”

But when he had heard Carlyon’s matter-of-fact account of the happenings at Highnoons he abandoned his skeptical attitude and stared at his brother with his brows knit. “Good God!’’ he said slowly. “But—” He stopped and appeared to sink into deep abstraction. “Good God!” he said again, and rose and went to pour himself out another glass of sherry. He stood holding this in his hand for a minute or two before returning to his chair by the fire. “Eustace Cheviot?” he said, on a note of incredulity. “Who would be fool enough to employ a drunken sot on such work? I cannot credit it!”

“No, it does seem unlikely,” Carlyon agreed, polishing his quizzing glass and holding it up to observe the result. “But I must admit that he had always a marked propensity for intrigue. However, I dare say this suspicion had not crossed my mind but for what you were saying to me the other night about leakages of information. I shall be happy to learn that my reflections upon this subject are farfetched and nonsensical.” He looked inquiringly at John as he spoke, but found him still heavily frowning. “What, if anything, do you know of Louis de Castres?”

“Nothing. He is not suspected, to the best of my knowledge. But it would be useless to deny that there have been instances where men as well-born as he—It must be investigated, Ned!”

Carlyon nodded. John began to poke the fire rather vindictively. “The devil! I wish—But that’s nothing to the purpose, of course! If there should be any truth in this, Ned, it will raise the deuce of a scandal. I own I wish we were well out of it. You found nothing amongst Eustace’s papers?”

“No, nothing.”

“Nicky did not know who it was who fired at him?”

“No. But the very fact of his entering the house by the secret stair would seem to preclude his having been any common thief. Moreover, the bookroom would scarcely have attracted a common thief, and one must assume that the house was well known to the man. He appears to have had no hesitation upon entering it, but made his way straight to the bookroom.”

John grunted and went on jabbing at the log in the hearth. “What do you mean to do?”

“Wait upon events.”

John glanced up at him under his brows. “You are thinking it may be that memorandum I spoke of, are you not?” he asked bluntly. “If it were so indeed, it must be found!”

“Certainly, but I think it quite as important to discover the man who sold it to De Castres.”

“By God, yes! But, Ned, I cannot quite agree with you in this! Boney’s people would give much to have a copy of it, but to steal the thing itself advertises to us that Wellington’s plans are known!”

“The season is already some way advanced. Would it be possible, in your judgment, for Wellington to alter his plans?”

John stared at him. “How can I say? No, I must suppose. The transports—” He broke off, recollecting himself. “Hang it, Ned, I will not believe it can be so! Even if it is now too late to alter whatever dispositions his lordship has made, to inform him that these are known must be the work of an idiot! Boney’s agents know their work a little too well for that!”

“So I should imagine, and have already told myself. Yet I fancy there might be several answers to that argument. If any suspicion of Eustace’s intentions existed in the mind of De Castres, he might have demanded to see the memorandum itself. Consider for a moment what must be the disastrous result to the French if Eustace had given deliberately false information! To concentrate. troops without incontrovertible proof that it is precisely in that direction a powerful enemy will strike would be to take a risk I cannot think any general would hazard.”

“You would think so indeed. You think De Castres had bargained for a sight of the memorandum, either to carry it off with him, or to make his own copy of it?”

“Something of that kind, perhaps. You yourself said it would very likely be discovered in a wrong file. It may have been intended to have restored it in just such a way.”

“I spoke in jest! It can never have been in a file, of course. I tell you the thing is most secret!”

“There might still be ways of restoring it.”

“Yes, I suppose there might—but not ways known to Eustace Cheviot, Ned! Now for heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, do but consider! You knew Eustace as well as anyone! This will not do!”

Carlyon got up to replenish his own glass. “Very true, but I never imagined Eustace could be more than a go-between. If all these suspicions are correct, someone of far more importance than Eustace must stand behind him. Someone who is afraid to appear in the matter himself and so employs a tool.”

“I will not allow it to be possible!” John said explosively. “I never knew such a fellow as you are, Ned, for doing or saying the most outrageous things and then making them seem the merest commonplace! It is a great deal too bad of you, and I know you rather too well to be drawn in!”

“Now, what have I ever done or said to deserve this from you?” asked Carlyon mildly.

“I could recite to you a score of things!” John retorted. “But one will suffice! If it was not the most outrageous thing imaginable to force that unfortunate young female into marriage with Eustace, then I know nothing of the matter! And do not explain to me how it comes to be the most reasonable and ordinary thing to have done, because I shall end by believing you, and I know very well it was no such thing!”

Carlyon laughed. “Very well, I will not, but I cannot believe your judgment to be so easily overpowered.”

“If Eustace was indeed selling information to the French,” said John, “then I must set it all at Bedlington’s door! I dare say Eustace has very often visited him at the Horse Guards, and I will take my oath he would know how to make the most of his opportunities! He was never a fool. Indeed, he had the sort of cunning there is no keeping pace with. You should know that! I should not be at all surprised if Bedlington had dropped some hint, without in the least meaning to, but enough for Eustace! We cannot tell how it may have been, but to be trying to implicate someone of real consequence—Bathurst, no doubt!—is the outside of enough!”

“No, I was not thinking of Bathurst,” said Carlyon calmly.

“This is something indeed!” said John, with awful irony. “Depend upon it, Ned, this is all a figment of the imagination, and whatever it was that De Castres wanted will be found to have nothing whatsoever to do with any state affair!”

“I hope you may be right. I am really not anxious to plunge the whole family into such a scandal as you have already foreseen.”

The butler came into the room, and bowed. “I beg your lordship’s pardon, but my Lord Bedlington has called and would wish to have speech with your lordship immediately. I have ushered his lordship into the Crimson Saloon.”

John choked over his sherry and was taken with a fit of coughing. After an infinitesimal pause, Carlyon said, “Inform his lordship that I shall be with him directly, and carry sherry and madeira into the Crimson Saloon. You had better instruct Mrs. Rugby to prepare the Blue Suite, since no doubt his lordship will be spending the night here.”

The butler bowed again, and withdrew. Carlyon glanced down at his brother. “Now what have you to say?” he inquired.

“Damme, Ned!” said John, still coughing. “It was only his being announced so pat! You must have expected him to come here!”

“I did,” replied Carlyon. “But not before he had received my letter notifying him of Eustace’s death.”

“What?” John exclaimed. “You inserted a notice in the Gazette, of course! He has seen that!”

“He can hardly have done so, since it does not appear until tomorrow,” Carlyon retorted.

John heaved himself up out of his chair, staring. “Ned! You mean you believe Bedlington—You think that De Castres told Bedlington—It’s not possible!”

“No, that was not what was in my mind,” Carlyon replied. “I was thinking of one whom I know to be a close friend of De Castres.”

“Francis Cheviot! That frippery dandy!”

“Well, the thought cannot but occur to one,” Carlyon said. “He is Bedlington’s son—and here we have Bedlington, twenty-four hours before he should be in Sussex.”

“Yes, I know, but—a fellow who cares for nothing but the set of his cravat and the blend of his snuff!”

“Ah!” said Carlyon pensively. “But I recall that upon at least three occasions in the past I have found Francis Cheviot by no means lacking in intelligence. In fact, my dear John, I would never underrate him as an opponent. I have known him to be—quite amazingly ruthless when he has set out to attain his own ends.”

“I would not have credited it! Of course, you have been better acquainted with him than I ever was. I cannot stand the fellow!”