Charles Rex Part 35

"Because--_que voulez-vous_?--he would want me neither dead nor alive,"

she made reckless answer.

"A good thing too!" declared Bunny stoutly.

The echoes of Toby's laughter as she went down the chill, dark stairway had an eerie quality that sent an odd shiver through his heart. Somehow it made him think of the unquiet spirit that was said to haunt the place--a spirit that wandered alone--always alone--in the utter desolation.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE VIRTUOUS HERO

"How long is this absurd farce to go on?" said Larpent.

"Aren't you enjoying yourself?" grinned Saltash.

Larpent looked sardonic.

Saltash took up the whisky decanter. "My worthy buccaneer, you don't know when you're lucky. If I had a reputation like yours--" He broke off, still grinning. "Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk, is it? Let's spill some whisky instead! Say when!"

Larpent watched him, frowning. "Thanks! That's enough. I should like an answer to my question if you've no objection. How long is this practical joke going to last?"

Saltash turned and looked upon him with a calculating eye. "I really don't know what's troubling you," he remarked. "You've got everything in your favour. I'd change places with you with all the pleasure in the world if circ.u.mstances permitted."

"That isn't the point, is it?" said Larpent.

"No? What is the point?" Saltash turned again to the whisky decanter.

"Well, you've got me into a d.a.m.n' hole, and I want to know how you're going to get me out again." Larpent's voice was gruff and surly; he stared into his tumbler without drinking.

Saltash chuckled to himself with mischievous amus.e.m.e.nt. "My dear chap, I can't get you out. That's just it. I want you to stay there."

Larpent muttered deeply and inarticulately, and began to drink.

Saltash turned round, gla.s.s in hand, and sat down on the edge of the high, cushioned fender. "I really don't think you are greatly to be pitied," he remarked lightly. "The child will soon be married and off your hands."

"Oh, that's the idea, is it?" said Larpent. "Who's going to marry her?

Young Brian?"

"Don't you approve?" said Saltash.

"I don't think it'll come off," said Larpent with decision.

"Why not?" An odd light flickered in the younger man's eyes for an instant. "Are you going to refuse your consent?"

"I?" Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Are you going to give yours?"

Saltash made an elaborate gesture. "I shall bestow my blessing with both hands."

Larpent looked at him fixedly for a few seconds. "You're a very wonderful man, my lord," he remarked drily at length.

Saltash laughed. "Have you only just discovered that?"

Larpent drained his tumbler gravely and put it down. "All the same, I don't believe it will come off," he said.

Saltash moved impatiently. "You always were an unbeliever. But anyone can see they were made for each other. Of course it will come off."

"You want it to come off?" asked Larpent.

"It is my intention that it shall," said Saltash royally.

"You're playing providence in the girl's interest. Is that it?" Again Larpent's eyes, shrewd and far-seeing, were fixed upon him. They held a glint of humour. "It's a tricky job, my lord. You'll wish you hadn't before you've done."

"Think so?" said Saltash.

"If you haven't begun to already," said Larpent.

Saltash looked down at him with a comical twist of the eyebrows. "You're very a.n.a.lytical to-night. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Larpent bluntly. "Except that you're making a mistake."

"Indeed?" For a moment Saltash's look was haughty; then he began to smile again. "I see you're burning to give your advice," he said tolerantly.

"Fire away, if it does you any good!"

Larpent's eyes, very steady under their fair, bushy brows, were still unwaveringly upon him. "No, I don't presume to give you advice," he said.

"But I'll tell you something which you may or may not know. That young woman you have so kindly bestowed upon me as a daughter worships the ground you tread on, and--that being the case--she isn't very likely to make a dazzling success of it if she marries young Bernard Brian."

He ceased to speak, and simultaneously Saltash jerked himself to his feet with a short French oath that sounded like the snarl of an angry animal.

He went across to the windows that were thrown wide to the summer night and stood before one of them with his head flung back in the att.i.tude of one who challenges the universe.

Larpent lay back in his chair with the air of a man who has said his say.

He did not even glance towards his companion, and there followed a considerable pause before either of them spoke again.

Abruptly at length Saltash wheeled.

"Larpent!" There was something of a whip-lash quality about his voice; it seemed to cut the silence. "Why the devil do you tell me this? Can't you see that it's the very thing I'm guarding against? Young Bunny is the best remedy she could take for a disease of that kind. And after all,--she's only a child."

"Do you say that for your own benefit or for mine?" said Larpent, without turning his head.

"What do you mean?" Savagely Saltash flung the question, but the man in the chair remained unmoved.