A Poached Peerage Part 8

Lord Quorn shook his head sleepily, as being in complete, if drowsy, accord with the estimate.

"That figure," Peckover declared impressively, "was my blessed screw at--well, at an eminent firm of auctioneers. Things were looking a bit bluish, a writ or two out against me, my tailor showed me no mercy, but his patience got shorter even than his thirteen bob trousers, in which, though too tight, as usual, I was ready to skip, when Jimmy Cutbush, a friend of mine in the racing world, put me on to a good thing which came off. Jimmy drew my winnings and paid them over to me, promising plenty more tips of the same sort, till I began to understand how Rothschild feels; but, what do you think?"

Lord Quorn was obviously not thinking anything worth mentioning just then, but, roused by the intensity with which the question was put, he rattled his ideas together and replied, "Ah, what?"

"Cutbush drew good money," said Peckover, knitting his brows, and throwing into the statement all the impressiveness which a five-and-thirty shilling clerk and voluptuary has at command, "and paid me in bad; and there was I, swaggering about and paying my way, with a lot of wrong 'uns in my pocket. That was pretty steep, eh?"

Words failed Lord Quorn, in his present condition, adequately to characterize the situation; he contented himself by receiving it with an absurd grimace which was intended as an effective subst.i.tute for verbal comment.

"Well," pursued his companion, accepting the distortion of feature in the spirit in which it was produced, "day before yesterday I drove down to Kempton to round proper on my pal, having likewise backed c.o.c.kalorum for the Great Comet Stakes."

"Did that come off?" Quorn inquired with an effort.

"No, but his jockey did, and landed me in a nice hole. Then when I tackled Cutbush, all he had to say was to call me a Juggins, and ask me what I took him for. 'Well,' I says naturally, 'I've won this oof, and can't spend it'; 'well,' he says,'buy a moneybox and save it.' Then, as if that wasn't enough, as I was driving home, rather down in my luck, I had the misfortune to run over a n.o.ble duke in Piccadilly. His Grace was in the middle of the road, looking for his balance, but of course the police took his side--a duke is never drunk, only deaf.

Having left them my name and address, as well as my blessing, I drove on, when suddenly my beast of a horse took it into his head to say his prayers; result, both knees damaged. When I left the stables, after a little friction with the proprietor, my landlady meets me and says I had better not go home, as the police have been waiting for me all day.

Now you know why I am here."

Inspirited by realizing that his companion's personal narrative had come to an end, Lord Quorn was able to rouse himself. "Hanged if you aren't worse off than I am," he declared with a yawn. "Don't think I'd change place with you. Rather run the risk of being chawed up by that bush-devil. Well, what are you going to do?" he asked, with lethargic sympathy. "Slip across the water?"

For a moment Peckover debated with himself whether he should declare his expedient. To conclude that it would serve no practical end. "Oh, I've got a proper way out of my troubles," he answered enigmatically.

"Glad to hear it," Quorn replied indifferently. "They are rather unkind to people who enter into compet.i.tion with the Mint, aren't they?

Well," he concluded, taken with a fresh access of yawning, "I hope you'll give 'em the slip. Wish I could help you, but," he added waggishly, as giving a cheerful wind-up to the somewhat depressing mutual confidences; "you see it is more than I can do at present to help myself."

To drive home his double meaning he reversed the empty bottle, and then began sleepily to fill his pipe, humming a comic song the while.

"He's cut out for a lord," was Peckover's mental comment as he sat watching his companion with some contempt. He was perhaps a little disgusted and disappointed that the story of his chapter of ill-luck and present critical position should have had no deeper or more lasting effect upon the man who had been so glad of his hospitality. Peer or no peer, he might know better than to sing "Peculiar Julia" by way of dirge for one whose minutes of life, or at any rate, liberty, was numbered. So he sat in disgust, watching the drowsy n.o.bleman strike a match, and being too sleepy to apply it to his pipe, hold it, nodding, till the flame touched his fingers and brought him to with a start and a smothered word of objurgation. "A pretty addition to the peerage,"

he muttered with a sneer. "Lord Quorn, indeed! A fellow who hadn't the sense to keep awake when he had a lighted match in his hand. And here was Percy Peckover--" Suddenly a circ.u.mstance which the companionship had driven out of his mind recurred to him. Both the landlord and his daughter had called him my lord. It had seemed a feeble provincial joke, but it was now in a flash made intelligible.

"Of course," he exclaimed under his breath as he started up at the thought, "I understand now. They have been taking me for him. That's what they meant by their silly my-lording. And if that's the case, why shouldn't they go on taking him for me! If they only would till I can get clear out of this, I might give that precious detective the slip and get clean away."

With eyes full of the hopeful project he stood looking at the n.o.ble slumberer, then suddenly turned and tip-toed to the door.

Quiet as it was, the movement half roused Quorn. "Jul-i-ah, Jul-i-ah!

Why are you so very pecu-li-ah?" he sang sleepily.

Peckover stopped and looked back. "I'll try it," he muttered. "It's a bold stroke, but--where's that mug of a landlord?" He opened the door softly, and stole out.

A sudden gust caught the window, and the rattle woke Quorn with a start. He sat up, staring round stupidly, and found himself alone and thirsty with a full gla.s.s of champagne on the table before him. He stared at it, then round the room again.

"Gone?" he exclaimed. "Flash little coiner chap gone? Sin to waste good liquor." With the word he took up the wine and tossed it off; then set down the gla.s.s with a wry face. "Queer brand!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Faugh! Filthy stuff--or else----" He got up with a shiver of disgust, and faced the doorway just in time to see his late companion peep in. "I say, Mr. Ooff-merchant!" he called out, pointing to the empty gla.s.s, "What's the matter with this stuff?"

Occupied with the strange chance of escape, Peckover had for the moment forgotten all about his drugged wine. As his eye followed Quorn's unsteady finger, he went cold, and his knees knocked together. In a flash he saw his effective way of escape cut off and--what was worse--his own predicament intensified a thousand-fold. "You've never drunk that?" he gasped, when his dry tongue could articulate.

"I have though," Quorn replied, regarding him with fearful suspicion.

Peckover clasped his head and staggered forward. "You're a dead man,"

he exclaimed hoa.r.s.ely.

"Scott! What do you mean?" cried Quorn, going pale.

"It was--doctored," stammered the other, hardly knowing what he said.

"Poison?" demanded Quorn in a horrified tone, clutching fiercely at Peckover who dodged, as frightened as he.

Then he gave a laugh of desperation. "Well, yes, if you like to call it so. It's as good as murder," he a.s.sured himself in a woeful whisper. "What am I to do?" He ran to the window, but was arrested by a cry from his companion, and turned to see him collapse in a chair.

"Here, wake up! Stand up! You'll be all right," he cried, desperately shaking him.

"Oh, I do feel queer," muttered Quorn. The irises of his eyes seemed to turn up into his head, and he fell forward on the table insensible, with his too liberal entertainer standing over him aghast.

What was he to do? If he called for help, everything would come out, and he would be taken red-handed.

"He's done for, poor fellow," he told himself in a terrified whisper, trembling in every joint. "He's a dead man. I'd better follow him."

He caught up the fatal gla.s.s, but it was empty. "Not a drop left. Ah, there will be another sort of drop for me," he whispered through his chattering teeth. "What shall I do?" Then his face sensibly brightened as the idea of his desperate expedient, which had been frightened away, came back to him. "Ah, that's it!" he muttered.

"That's my only chance. They think I'm Lord Quorn. Now is my real tip to be Lord Quorn. No one here knows him, and he's not so very unlike Percy Peckover. Quick!" He ran to the window and pulled the curtains across; then hurried back and began feverishly searching the lifeless man's pockets.

"Any papers to identify him? Ah!" He pulled out a packet of letters, and transferred them to his own pocket, replacing them by some bills and a writ.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He pulled out a packet of letters, and transferred them to his own pocket."]

"That's it," he muttered. "They're of no use to him now, and may save an innocent man from the gallows." He set the empty phial into Quorn's limp hand. "There!" he exclaimed, as with a long drawn sigh of desperate relief he surveyed the position. "Percy Peckover is dead.

Long live Lord Quorn! It's a fair desperate shift; but I can't be worse off than I was, and I may be better."

CHAPTER IX

The shuffling of feet sounded outside the door, and Peckover had just time to throw himself into a chair at some distance from Lord Quorn and s.n.a.t.c.h up a newspaper when the landlord came in accompanied by Mr.

Doutfire.

With a well simulated yawn, Peckover threw down the paper wearily and nodded at Popkiss. "Any one from the Towers yet, landlord?" he asked in his best off-hand style.

"Not yet, my lord," the host answered, ceremoniously important, to impress Mr. Doutfire and to show that official that he was not the only eminent personage of his acquaintance.

Peckover yawned again, and affected to consult his Waterbury with as much flourish as was consistent with the necessity for concealing the fact that it was not a hundred guinea repeater.

"Beg pardon, my lord," observed Popkiss, indicating the renowned representative of the law who already had a severe and suspicious eye upon the collapsed form at the farther end of the room; "this is the gentleman I spoke to you about."

"Oh, ah, good evening," Peckover said, acknowledging the interesting introduction as airily as the critical nature of the situation permitted.

Having dealt with the social side of the detective's presence, Mr.

Popkiss' fat face became stern as he proceeded to justify it from a business point of view.

"Is that your man?" he observed, somewhat superfluously, indicating Quorn.

The alert Doutfire already within pouncing distance of his quarry was unfolding the telegram. "Five foot seven." Quorn's doubled-up att.i.tude made an accurate estimate of his inches somewhat difficult and untrustworthy. Mr. Doutfire, glanced under the table, taking in his legs, allowed for turnings and swiftly added the measurement to the body and head, mentally straightened out for the purpose. The total was evidently not inconsistent with the official dimension, since he pa.s.sed on. "Dark hair," he nodded, availing himself of a certain lat.i.tude which the somewhat vague adjective allowed. "Slight moustache," Quorn's was clipped like to a toothbrush, and the description held. "Flash dress." For a moment Mr. Doutfire looked doubtful. With all a true police official's desire to make description tally, it was plain that a very considerable point would have to be stretched before that Colonial get-up could be cla.s.sed as flashy. In search of some hidden evidence of the toff in apparel, Mr. Doutfire drew aside the lappel of Quorn's coat. Some papers sticking half-way out of the breast pocket were thus disclosed. Deftly Mr. Doutfire whipped them out, glanced at them, and a gleam of satisfaction shot across his face. "My man," he announced, with a touch of pardonable triumph which thrillingly communicated itself to Peckover, whose princ.i.p.al employment during the process of identification had been to keep his teeth from chattering. "Here! Wake up, my man!" the detective cried, roughly shaking the irresponsive form. "Wake up, Peckover, you're wanted." Then suddenly as he turned the limp body over, his face fell from complacency to blank disappointment. "Why, burn me, Popkiss," he exclaimed savagely, "if I don't think he has given me the slip."