"You bet."

"Dry?"

"Always."

"Have a gla.s.s of fizz?" In Peckover's situation even that unusual hospitality was a matter of indifference.

"Thanks," answered the man, smothering a third yawn in recognition of his fellow-guest's civility. "You are a brick. Got more than you care to drink there?" he added to qualify his somewhat grabbing acceptance of the offer.

"Yes," answered Peckover with grim significance. Then checking himself as he was about to offer the drugged gla.s.s to the stranger, he exclaimed hastily, "Oh, that won't do."

"Short of gla.s.ses?" said the other accommodatingly. "I don't mind a tumbler to save time." He spun one across to Peckover who emptied the remains of the bottle into it. The stranger poured the wine down his throat without the action of swallowing. "Ah, that's better!" he declared with a great sigh of enjoyment.

"Walked too far?" Peckover suggested listlessly. "Not used to it, p'raps?"

"Got out of the way of it," the man explained. "Three months aboard ship."

"Australia?" Peckover suggested.

The stranger nodded. "That's it. Come from London this morning. Got out at Faxfleet to walk over here. Lost my way in the woods."

"Didn't come straight, then?" Peckover had an indistinct recollection of having seen this fellow at the station, but had been too much flurried to take more than pa.s.sing notice of him. Were they companions in bad luck, he wondered. "Have a gla.s.s of port," he said, warming towards his fellow-guest.

"Your wine? Thanks. Good chap. Crime to refuse old crusted, eh?" He emptied the gla.s.s which Peckover promptly refilled. Then put on a mysteriously significant look. "No, I didn't come straight here, and for a good reason." He sank his voice. "Fact is, I'm dodging a bush-ranger."

"What?" exclaimed Peckover, disinclined to take the statement seriously.

The stranger pulled his chair close up to his companion, and tapped him with his forefinger on the knee. "Look here," he said confidently.

"You don't belong to these parts? Nothing of the chawbacon about you.

Town man?"

"Slightly," answered Peckover, with a chastened pride in the undisputable claim.

The other grasped his hand. "I can trust you?" Peckover, recovering from the cold thrill which the somewhat demonstrative clasp occasioned, nodded impressively. "You are a smart Londoner," the stranger continued, "I'll tell you my situation, and get your advice. Mind, though, it's a dead secret."

"It soon will be with me," thought Peckover miserably, as he a.s.sured his companion on the point.

Host Popkiss, glancing in at the door, saw the two in close confidence, and with the c.o.c.ksureness usual with men of limited sagacity concluded that the "party" wanted by Mr. Doutfire had arrived and was trying the confidence trick on the new-fledged member of the peerage. And having so settled it, he strolled out to keep a watchful eye for the detective.

"It's downright romantic," the thirsty stranger was saying with an apologetic smile. "Now, you wouldn't think it to look at me, but I'm a peer of the realm."

"Jehoshaphat!" commented Peckover, more frank than polite.

"Just the remark I made when I heard I was Lord Quorn," said the other pleasantly. "Been sheep-farming in New South Wales for the last twelve years. Not much luck of any sort, though, till the other day. Got a letter to say distant cousin dead, and I had succeeded to the t.i.tle.

Not much tr.i.m.m.i.n.g with it, they tell me. Bit of tumble-down family property near here, Staplewick Towers, let to some grand lady." He pulled out a letter and looked at the signature. "Lady Agatha Hemyock, that's it," he said, exhibiting the letter as doc.u.mentary evidence of his veracity. "So I have just trotted down to take stock."

"And where does the bush-ranger come in?" was Peckover's not unnatural inquiry.

Lord Quorn wagged his head knowingly, and drank off another gla.s.s of port-wine without apology, as though the privilege of being made the recipient of a peer's confidences was in itself ample payment for the refreshment in question. "Out there," the vague wave of his hand was understood to be towards New South Wales, "I used up my spare time flirting with a fine woman who had a figure and a will of her own. She would not have me, though; refused me more than once: but hearing one fine day that she had said no to a real live lord she felt pretty sick.

However, I wasn't going to give her another chance; not likely, seeing that, besides being somewhat off her, I knew I could have my pick over here. Thereupon she accuses me of playing the giddy deceiver, and threatens to bring me to book for breach of promise. Well, I smiled at that, but it rather sent me up a tree when she trotted out her brother, the bush-ranger."

"My eye!" observed Peckover, interested in spite of himself. "Fighting man, eh?"

Lord Quorn nodded seriously. "I saw him for the first time over here with her last night. A desperate chap, I tell you," he went on anxiously, "who will stick at nothing--except your favourite vital part with a bowie knife."

His auditor made a wry face to evince his sympathetic attention.

"He keeps on show," Quorn continued, growing more and more dismally in earnest, "fire-irons he has snapped, gun-barrels he has tied in knots, crown pieces he has bitten through, eyes he has gouged out, preserved in spirits of wine, and pickled ears he has wrung off just for fun.

I'm not exactly a coward, but what can you do against a man whose favourite pastime is twisting bullocks' heads off, and squeezing cannonb.a.l.l.s out of shape."

Peckover drew down the corners of his mouth and shook his head, finding himself fully in accord with the other's policy of non-resistance.

"Awkward customer to tackle," was all the encouragement he could suggest.

"Awkward!" repeated Lord Quorn in impatient contempt for the inadequate adjective, "You'd be the one to feel awkward with your nose divided in two, and your left ear in a piccalilli bottle on an amateur bush-ranger's mantelpiece. Oh, I know," he continued in an exasperated tone, antic.i.p.ating a trite and obvious piece of advice, "I could have the law of him, but there is precious small satisfaction in seeing a man go to prison out of your one remaining eye, and to know that when he comes out it will come out too. Got any more liquor?"

His apprehensive indignation left no room for the common courtesies of even coffee-room life, he was seething with the angry sense of impotence before this critical and grievous position.

Peckover emptied the bottle into his gla.s.s. "The last," he said, in a tone of sympathetic gloom; "and you're quite welcome."

"Good Samaritan!" was Lord Quorn's casual acknowledgment as he tossed it off. "Fact is," he proceeded to explain by way of tardy apology, "though I'm a swell and all that I am cleared out just now. Drew a tidy sum for my travelling exes, but spent a few days in London, and a few pounds--you know what that means?"

Peckover nodded a rakish appreciation.

"Well," Quorn resumed darkly, "who should I clap eyes on last night at the play but my Australian girl and her infernal brother. Followed me over, and on my track like an insurance agent. Luckily she didn't see me, and he doesn't know me by sight. Thinks I, best thing to do is to make a bolt down here and lie low till that bush-whacking nuisance eats his head off in London and has to go back to his happy hunting grounds.

So, first thing to-day, sent a wire to Lady What's-her-name, and then found only just enough cash left in my pocket for third cla.s.s to Faxfleet. So I've tramped over. That's the chronicle."

"You've given your friends the slip?" Peckover suggested encouragingly.

"Hope so," replied Quorn, doubtfully. "But they'll track me like kangaroo hunters. A woman has a fine scent for a t.i.tle; a coronet is like a red herring. But I say," he broke off, as though a trifle ashamed of having monopolized the interest of the colloquy; "what does a smart chap like you want in this dead-alive hole? You are not in a mess?"

Peckover's expression swiftly changed from altruistic interest to lugubrious self-pity. "I am, though," he replied. "Got Scotland Yard after me. Don't be afraid," he protested hastily, as Lord Quorn's eyes opened wide with suspicion and he gave himself a slight, but significant, set-back in his chair; "I'm only half a criminal: the victim of circ.u.mstances. Look here, confidence for confidence. I'll tell you all about it."

CHAPTER VIII

"You may rely on my keeping my mouth shut," said Lord Quorn, giving a tremendous yawn which for the moment seemed to cast a doubt upon his ability in that direction.

"It doesn't much matter," Peckover responded mournfully. "Well," he proceeded, with a touch of chastened self-glorification, "you must know I've been flinging myself about in London."

"Painting the town red, eh?"

"Painting myself black, more like it," he retorted. "Very pleasant, though, while it lasted. You see," he explained conceitedly, "I always had ideas above my position, and some time back I thought I'd emerge from the grub state and do a bit of b.u.t.terflying."

Quorn nodded; so far in sympathy.

"But," continued Peckover, "to be a b.u.t.terfly in town you want a lot of dust on your wings; and when it comes to dressing a bit toffish, treating your friends, especially the ladies--and they've been my ruin"--he interjected with complacent self-reproach--"doing the Halls regular, and tooling your best girl out to Richmond or the Welsh Harp of a Sunday, why, five-and-thirty bob a week don't go far."