A Poached Peerage Part 50

For reasons best known to himself the distinguished gentleman seemed inclined to let the question of his ident.i.ty remain in suspense rather than hold further communication with the questioner. Apparently he was too deeply engrossed in lighting one of his raided cigars to notice the query.

But here the ever-alert Peckover saw and seized his opportunity. With a pantomime of mystery he called the duke aside.

"That's him; Lord Quorn. The real man and no mistake," he said rapidly under his breath, "Calls himself Leo, for private reasons, you understand. Threatens to kill us if we give him away."

"Oho! So?" The duke turned an ominously interested eye on the latest idea of the interloping n.o.bleman, his mind, meanwhile, rapidly running over the probabilities of the case. Mr. Leo, having recovered from his late upset by the aid of a b.u.mper of old port wine, was now lounging against the mantel-piece with that easy air of proprietorship which stature and muscle coupled with low brain power are apt to give. He might, indeed, have fitted in very well just then with a foreigner's idea of a bucolic English milord, and as such his appearance commended him to the ferocious Spaniard's purpose. The Duke glanced searchingly at his informant, however, as though determined to make certain before turning his polite attentions to the new candidate for a thrill.

"Why did your excellencies one after another call yourselves milord Quorn?" he demanded pertinently.

"We had to. He made us," was the ready answer. "Says he'll twist the neck of any man who calls him Lord Quorn."

The duke received the information with a grim elevation of his thick eyebrows. "So? We shall see. But Miss Buffkin?" he asked sharply.

"There is nothing between them?"

Peckover made a grimace which might be understood to signify amus.e.m.e.nt at the suggestion. "Isn't there?" he replied, "when she is brought up here every day to see him. That's why he's keeping himself dark," he added slyly. "There's another lady in the question; see? And he's all for Buffkin."

A roar came from the fireplace. "What are you mumping about there, you little rats? Speak up, and let's hear all about it before I shake it out of you. I've got my say to finish when you've done croaking."

The muttered conference therefore ceased. Peckover resumed his seat, and the duke turned and regarded Carnaby with an attention which was doubtless somewhat irritating to that sensitive gentleman.

"What are you staring at, smallbones?" he demanded fiercely as though lashing himself into a fury to counteract the effect of the Salolja eye. "When fools stare at me I scoop their eyes out to teach 'em better manners."

The duke accepted the interesting statement with a bow. "Yes?" he responded appreciatively.

"Yes, I do," maintained Mr. Leo savagely. "I'm a man, as I've been telling these scallywags, who stands no nonsense."

Again the duke bowed. "I applaud your grace," he said.

A horrible suspicion that he was being laughed at seemed to take hold of the doughty Mr. Leo. "You applaud my grace, do you?" he cried, forcing his voice into a sneering squeak. "Who asked for your halfpenny opinion? You keep your sauce to stew that over-grown nose in when I've pulled it off."

For an instant, at the dire insult, there was a flash of murder in the duke's eyes. Then, with an air of storing up what he had received for c.u.mulative repayment he inquired softly, with his eternal bow, "I have the distinguished honour of addressing milord Quorn?"

"You're an undersized liar," was the somewhat pointed reply.

"I think not," rejoined the duke confidently, "although it will be my duty to remember that your grace has called me one. Lord Quorn----"

"My name's Leo!" came with a roar.

"I believe not," insisted the duke.

"Lord Quorn! I'd like to catch him!" cried Carnaby.

The duke smiled indulgently, yet with a homicidal preoccupation. "I believe," he said coolly, "I have had the good fortune to catch him."

"Where is the skunk?" demanded Mr. Leo, with a noticeable falling off in the volume of his tone. It was clear that his opponent's steadfastness was beginning to tell.

"May I ask," observed the duke, "as a favour, that your grace will not make so much noise, but will accord your most humble servant the supreme privilege of saying a few words to you?" His voice had begun to come out in bursts, in the fashion which had created such a disagreeable effect on Gage and Peckover at the first interview.

Mr. Leo, inclined to wilt, made yet a gallant effort to pull himself together. "If you want to jaw," he replied with scarcely equal courtesy, "go into the next room and jaw your jaw off. You won't spoil your beauty, for plain reasons. I'm getting sick of you. You spoil the flavour of this cigar."

"I intend to," was the hardly expected retort. "Although it is a pity, as it is possibly the last your grace will ever smoke."

The dark eyes were now fixed on his grace with all their scorching ferocity. Mr. Leo looked as though the cigar or something else had indeed disagreed with him. The three spectators of the duel wanted only the sense of complete personal immunity to enjoy it hugely.

"I have not the honour of knowing," proceeded the little Spaniard, holding the big bully in his best rattlesnake fashion, "whether your grace is aware that I am the Duke of Salolja, and a Grandee of Spain, the present and, alas, unworthy representative of the n.o.ble house of Salolja, a family which has preserved its traditions and its honour intact from time immemorial."

The effect of the announcement on Mr. Carnaby Leo was not quite apparent, except that he seemed in two minds whether to crunch up his diminutive opponent or to give way to abject terror. "What's all that to me?" he returned, in a voice that seemed to be getting rather out of control.

The duke shrugged. "It is customary," he explained, "in my country, that in affairs of honour strict punctilio should be maintained.

Further, I wish to do myself the honour of informing your grace that my family, the Saloljas, have never permitted an injury or an insult to pa.s.s unavenged."

"Same with me," responded Mr. Leo, addressing himself, however, possibly for convenience' sake, to the men at the table.

"It is," pursued the duke, intensifying his steady glare, "a matter of felicitation that our sentiments agree upon the point. But enough. I come, as you British say, to business. I have the honour to be the aggrieved party. Your grace is probably aware that I purpose to ally myself matrimonially with Miss Ulrica Buffkin?"

The apparent irrelevance of the observation prompted Mr. Leo to pluck up a little courage. "No," he answered with a touch of his old manner, "I don't know, and I don't care."

"So?" The little man steadied his rage by tugging at his portentous moustache. "Your grace refuses then to recognize my pretensions?" he demanded menacingly.

Mr. Leo gave a stupid laugh. "You don't," he retorted with clumsy humour, "expect me to take off my hat to them, do you?"

The duke accepted the defiance with a bow. "Perhaps not," he returned viciously. "So we will leave that affair for the present. It may be we shall never arrive so far together. There are, happily, other matters which have the precedence."

"What are you mumbling about?" Mr. Leo inquired with characteristic politeness.

"As I entered the room," continued the duke, ignoring the interruption, "I was struck on the--breast by a pine-apple thrown by your grace. Is it not so?"

Mr. Leo forced a laugh. "Didn't see you coming," he explained weakly.

The duke drew back a pace with every indication of astonishment. "Is it possible then," he demanded severely, "that your grace asks me to believe that you scatter fruit about your room for amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"Sometimes," Carnaby replied uncomfortably.

His tormentor waved aside the answer as frivolous.

"Subsequently to that blow which only blood can efface," he resumed impressively, laying his hand on the spot where the shot took effect, "your grace was pleased to distinguish my poor self by certain opprobrious remarks and designations, in the hearing of these honourable gentlemen. Your grace permitted yourself to allude disrespectfully to my stature. Your grace will understand that the character and deeds of the Saloljas are not measured by inches," he added proudly.

"Glad to hear it," Mr. Leo growled rashly.

"Your grace was further led," proceeded the duke, raising his voice ominously, "to speak in unbecoming terms of my opinion and of my nose.

It is a matter of regret that my judgment and my features do not meet with your grace's approval, but it is the judgment and it is the nose with which Heaven has been pleased to endow my poor self, and up to the present the n.o.ble house of Salolja has had no serious cause of complaint against Heaven in respect to its gifts."

Mr. Leo tried to give sign of amus.e.m.e.nt, but the laugh stuck somewhere, and did not reach the surface.

"Your grace," the little demon went on, "also took upon yourself to cast an aspersion on my veracity. A Salolja," he continued with pompous dignity, "does not lie. No Salolja has cause to lie. Pride is truth. Lying is for slaves and shopkeepers. Now when a man insults me it is something to pay for, when in my person he insults the most n.o.ble family of Salolja it is everything. He shall pay with the last drop of his blood."

The somewhat one-sided conversation was evidently making for a climax.

The interest of the three men had become breathless. Mr. Leo, literally and metaphorically with his back to the wall, realized that his reputation was about to be put to the touch; also that he was, all things considered, in a somewhat parlous situation. His dull brain became obsessed by a lively regret that he had addressed his diminutive adversary in terms which were conspicuous by their disregard for the n.o.ble duke's personal dignity. Still something had now to be done. He must a.s.sert himself and at once. The instinct of the coward and the bully wrestled sharply within him. But the promptings of fear were not to be followed, since retreat dignified or otherwise, was out of the question The tricks of his old trade were the only resource left him, and so he was forced blindly to fall back on them.