Sir Tristram wheeled about, and went quickly back to the coffee-room, and stretching up his arm ran his hand along the high mantelpiece. The quizzing-glass was just where Sir Hugh had left it. Shield held it in his hand, looking at it so oddly that Nye, who was standing beside him, ventured to ask if anything were amiss.
Sir Tristram shook his head, and carried the prize back into the parlour.
‘You have found it!’ exclaimed Eustacie. ‘But why is it important?’
He put her aside, and sitting down at the table, subjected the quizzing-glass to a minute inspection. The others gathered round him, even Sir Hugh betraying a mild interest.
‘Myself I like ’em made slimmer,’ remarked Ludovic. ‘The shaft’s too thick. Clumsy.’
Sir Tristram said dryly: ‘I think there is a reason.’ He had picked up Sir Hugh’s eyeglass, and through its magnifying lens was looking at the heavily-encrusted circlet at the end of the shaft, through which a ribbon was meant to pass. He put Sir Hugh’s glass down and inserted his thumb-nail into a groove on the circlet.
There was a tiny click; the circle parted, and something fell out of it on to the table, rolled a little way, and lay still.
‘The talisman ring!’ said Sir Tristram.
Fourteen
A sound almost like a sob broke from Ludovic. His hand shot out across the table and snatched up the ring. ‘My ring!’ he whispered. ‘My ring!’
‘Well, upon my soul, that’s a devilish cunning device!’ said Sir Hugh, taking the quizzing-glass out of Shield’s hand. ‘You see, Sally? The ring fitted into the circlet at the end of the shaft.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Miss Thane. ‘I see it did. When I think how it has been lying where anyone might have found it I feel quite faint with horror.’
Eustacie was looking critically at it. ‘Is that a talisman ring?’ she inquired. ‘I thought it would be quite different! It is nothing but a gold ring with some figures on it!’
‘Careful, Eustacie!’ said Sir Tristram, with a slight smile. ‘You will find that Ludovic regards it as sacrosanct.’
Ludovic raised his eyes from adoration of the ring. ‘By God, I do! There is nothing I can say to you, Tristram, except that I could kiss your feet for what you have done for me!’
‘I beg you won’t, however. I have done very little.’
Miss Thane said: ‘It has been under our very noses. The audacity of it! How could he dare?’
‘Why not?’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Would any of us have suspected it had it not been lost, and then searched for in such a desperate fashion?’
An idea occurred to Miss Thane. She turned her eyes towards her brother, and said in moved tones: ‘So we owe it all to Hugh! My dear, this becomes too much for me. I shall not easily recover from the shock.’
‘And everything – but everything! – we did was quite useless!’ said Eustacie, quite disgusted.
‘I know,’ said Miss Thane, sadly shaking her head. ‘It does not bear thinking of.’
‘I do not know why you should complain,’ remarked Sir Tristram. ‘You have had a great deal of adventure, which is what I understood you both to want.’
‘Yes, that is true,’ acknowledged Eustacie, ‘but some of it was not very comfortable. And I must say that I am not at all pleased that it is you who have found the ring, because you did not want to have an adventure, or to do anything romantic. It seems to me very unfair.’
‘So it is!’ said Miss Thane, much struck by this point of view. ‘It is quite odious, my love, for who could have been more disagreeable, or more discouraging? Really, it would have been better in some ways had we insisted upon his remaining the villain.’
Sir Tristram smiled a little at this, but in rather an abstracted way, and said: ‘It’s very well, but we are not yet out of our difficulties. Let me have the ring, Ludovic. It is true that we have found it, but we did not find it in the Beau’s possession. Oh, don’t look so dubious, my dear boy! I shan’t lose it.’
‘Ah!’ said Miss Thane, nodding wisely. ‘One has to remember, after all, that you are a collector of such things. I don’t blame him, I dare say it is all a Plot.’
‘Sarah, you’re outrageous!’ said Ludovic, handing the ring across the table to his cousin. ‘For God’s sake be careful with it, won’t you, Tristram? What do you mean to do?’
Sir Tristram fitting the ring back into its hiding-place, and closed the circlet with a snap. ‘For the present I’ll keep this. I think our best course –’ He stopped, frowning.
They waited in anxious silence for him to continue, but before he spoke again Nye caught the sound of a coach pulling up in the yard and said apologetically: ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I’ll have to go. That’ll be the night-mail.’
Sir Tristram’s voice arrested as he reached the door. ‘Do you mean it’s the London mail, Joe?’