Джорджетт Хейер - The Quiet Gentleman

“Were they my interests, Theo, or did you see them as your own?”

Martin, who had coloured vividly at his cousin’s words, interrupted, stammering a little. “Yes, I did resent his existence! I d-daresay I may have said I wished he had been killed! I don’t know! it’s very possible! But I never meant — I would never, even then ,when I scarcely knew him, have tried to murder him!”

“Indeed?” Theo said swiftly. “Have you, as well as Gervase, forgotten what I saw when the button was lost from your foil? Were you not trying to murder him then?”

“No, no! I lost my temper — I did try for one moment —

But I wouldn’t have — Gervase, you made me go on fighting! I had recollected myself long before you disarmed me! I wasn’t trying to kill you!”

“My dear Martin, I know very well you would have dropped your point at a word from me. It was mistaken of me not to have spoken that word. But I did not then guess that I was helping you to build up evidence against yourself.” He smiled faintly. “You scarcely needed help, did you? If you had had to stand your trial for murder, I wonder if the jury would have reflected that your open hostility to me made it very unlikely that you could ever have had the least intention of killing me?”

“No!” Martin muttered. “ You suspected me!”

“Yes, after the first attempt, I did suspect you, for that would have seemed to have been an accident, I thought.”

“First attempt?” Martin exclaimed. “Was there more than one, then?”

“Yes, there was more than one!” Theo struck in. “There was a broken bridge, Martin, which you knew of, and never mentioned to Gervase, though you knew he would ride over it! It was I who saved him that time! I think you have forgotten that, St. Erth!”

“Nonsense, Theo! Even had you thought I should be drowned, I am sure you would have called me back. Martin could have been accused of nothing worse than carelessness. He neither broke the bridge, nor sent me to ride over it.”

“Did I also stretch a cord across your path? If there were any truth in your suspicions, that incident alone must prove my innocence! You yourself have said that it would have seemed an accident! How might that have served my ends?”

“I said that so I thought at the time,” replied the Earl gently. “But if chance had not intervened, in the person of Miss Morville, not only should I have been despatched, but I think you would have contrived to supply evidence against Martin. Did you not do so once before?”

“When?” demanded Martin sharply.

Theo uttered a bark of laughter. “You may well ask!”

“On the night of the storm,” said Gervase, “when I am very sure that you entered my room by way of the secret stair, and dropped one of Martin’s handkerchiefs beside my bed.”

“Why — why — that night?” Martin exclaimed. “The night I went to Cheringham? I remember that you gave me back a handkerchief! You said I had dropped it. I thought you meant I had done so on the gallery!”

The Earl shook his head. “I found it in my room. I think you meant only to leave it if you succeeded in accomplishing your purpose, Theo. Perhaps you were startled by the slamming of the door which must have roused me. Was that it? Or was it my awakening that alarmed you?”

“Really, Gervase, this goes beyond the line of what is amusing! What possible grounds can you have for assuming that because you fancied you heard someone in your room, and later found a handkerchief of Martin’s by your bed, it must have been I who had been there? It is nothing but a wild story imagined by you to lend colour to the rest of your absurd suspicions!”

“Not quite,” answered Gervase. “I have an excellent memory, Theo. I recall very vividly what passed between us on the following day. How was it that, although you had warned me to beware of Martin, you did not, when I told you that I believed him to have been in my room that night, warn me that there was a way into the room of which I knew nothing?”

There was a moment’s silence before Theo retorted: “Good God, how should I have guessed that you were ignorant of it? That old stair! I never even thought of it!”

“That won’t fadge!” Martin interrupted. “If Gervase told you someone had entered his room, you must have thought of it!”

“Perhaps I set as little store then by Gervase’s imaginings as I do now,” Theo said, with a contemptuous smile.

“Yet it was you who set my imagination to work,” said Gervase. He moved slowly back to the chair he had vacated, and sat down, as though he were very tired. “This is all so useless, Theo! Let us make an end! I know that you have three times tried to dispose both of me and of my heir. My death can benefit no one but Martin; if he was not guilty of the attempts on my life, who but you could have been?”

“Yes!” Martin said impetuously. “ I knew that, but you did not! That night I did come to your room by way of the secret stair — you didn’t believe what I told you! You would not allow me to come near you again! How could you think I would skulk in some bush to shoot you unawares? I didn’t behave well towards you — I said things I ought not to have said! — but, my God, if I meant to kill my greatest enemy it would be in fair fight!”

“Yes, Martin, I know. I did believe what you told me, but I found it impossible to believe that the one person at Stanyon whom I had thought to be my friend could have all the time been plotting my death.” He paused, and for an instant he looked at his cousin, standing rigid and silent on the other side of the table. Then he added, with a slight smile: “Even when I was in no case to think at all, it did occur to me that had it been you who shot me you would not have missed your mark! For the rest, nothing was certain, nothing proved. When I refused to permit you to come near me, I was acting only on a suspicion I would, God knows! have been glad to have seen refuted! But if it was true, both your safety and mine, while I was so helpless, lay in letting it be known that you had never, for one instant, had access to my room. I suppose I had then no doubt of the truth. I hardly know. I would have given so much to have had my suspicions refuted! No, I don’t mean that I would have preferred to have known that you were my would-be assassin! Not that! Nothing, in fact, that was possible, or that I could explain to you. I told myself I must wait for some proof that you had told me the truth — something more sure than what Theo had called my imaginings. When I knew beyond doubting that it was not you who had tried to kill me, then I waited until I had decided what was best to be done, and until I should be well enough to settle the affair alone.”

“May I know when it was that you knew — beyond doubting — that it was not Martin who tried to kill you?” enquired Theo sardonically.

“When I realized that he had introduced a Bow Street Runner into my household,” replied the Earl, with a gleam of amusement. “With instructions to dog my every step!”

“You guessed it!” Martin ejaculated. “How? What made you think it?”

“My dear boy! It was patent! I am aware that poor Lucy darkly suspects of him being a hired assassin, but I could conceive of nothing more unlikely! I am afraid you will have to forgive me: I served him a very scurvy trick today! But if I had not obliged him to accompany me, I am very sure he would have followed me on horseback, and the last thing I desire is to have an officer of the law meddling in this business. I conclude that by some means unknown to me he contrived to reach Stanyon far sooner than I had supposed he could, or you would not have galloped that bay of yours into a lather in your gallant but misguided attempt to preserve me from an untimely end!”