"It's gospel truth," the General replied, with st.u.r.dy insistence. "Sign of senile decay, though, thinking aloud."

"_You_ are not decayed. You might as well accuse _me_ of being in my first childhood, and I have really pa.s.sed that," Sybil smiled back at him. "But," she added, "I am childish enough to be a little hurt that you don't appear to think so."

"My dear girl, what have I done? 'Pon honor, I don't know that I have done anything," the General protested piteously.

"That's just it. It's because you have done nothing, or next to nothing, that your contemptuous reference to 'too many women' seems to me a trifle unkind," replied Sybil, pretending to misunderstand him. "What would have happened to my cousin, when the panel was cut the other night at Beaumanoir House, if it hadn't been for a woman?"

The General accepted the reproof in thoughtful silence, forced to admit to himself that it was not uncalled for. If it had not been for Sybil Hanbury's nerve and courage on the occasion when the bogus detective officer had secreted himself in the Duke's town house, the answer to her question might have had to be written in blood. Her quick apprehension of subtle danger, her determination to sit up and watch, and her cool presence of mind in face of the emergency when it arose, had saved the situation and stamped her as of sterling metal.

"I apologize," he jerked out presently. "I still think there are too many women in the business, but you ain't one of 'em."

"Thank you," Sybil returned, drily. "And, that being so, wouldn't it be a good plan to ask a woman to help you, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, you know?"

The General shot a rather shamefaced glance at the firm mouth and steadfast eyes of this plucky young enthusiast, and thereupon he decided to enlist her as an adviser in the more intricate questions that vexed him. There was the chance that woman's wit would fathom woman's guile, and tell him why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton should want to point the index of suspicion at Ziegler, who was probably her _confrere_ in crime. Woman's wit might even tell him why his Grace the Duke of Beaumanoir, engaged in such a simple ducal pastime as making sheep's-eyes at a pretty American girl, should yet recoil abashed whenever Leonie turned her frankly responsive but puzzled gaze on him. Above all, the course proposed would enable this brave English girl to do what he was beginning to fear he could not do for her-to take care of herself.

"Yes," he said, putting down his cup with a grim smile, "I'll take you on, soon as you've finished your tea. And," he added, fumbling for his cigar-case, "I'll try and not frighten you."

Sybil rose at once, and together they strolled along the terrace to a distance from the chatter round the tea-table, which had drowned their incipient confidences. When they were quite out of earshot Sybil turned and confronted the General, and the lighter tone with which she had "played" him was lacking now.

"Tell me," she said gravely, "why Mrs. Talmage Eglinton is so anxious to kill my poor cousin and spoil that charming idyll."

"Mrs. Talmage Eglinton!" stammered the General. "How on earth did you know that?"

"How did I know!" his new coadjutor repeated with scorn. "In the same way that she must know herself that _you_ know, you dear silly old man.

Because of the absolutely absurd invitation to her to come and stay here at Prior's Tarrant without rhyme or reason."

And then, when General Sadgrove had recovered from the shock of finding that he was not quite inscrutable, they talked, very seriously, for upwards of half an hour.

CHAPTER XV-_A New Cure for Headache_

"I wonder if General Sadgrove and Mr. Forsyth are lunatics?" Sybil Hanbury purred softly, after joining in the chorus of thanks which greeted a superb rendering of Strelezki's "Arlequin" on the long disused grand piano in the tapestry-room. This apartment was more cozy and homelike than the vast white drawing-room at Beaumanoir House, but it was quite large enough for isolated conversations.

The uncomplimentary confidence was made into the sh.e.l.l-like ear of Mrs.

Talmage Eglinton, who, faultlessly gowned by Worth, was sitting apart with her nominal hostess in the embrasure of an oriel window. The Duke was hovering near the piano, and Forsyth was talking to Mrs. Sadgrove and Mrs. Sherman. The General was not present, having excused himself from coming straight from the dining-room on the plea of having a letter to write.

Sybil's disjointed remark-for it followed a discussion on French cookery-caused a sudden twist of the ivory shoulders towards her, the swift eagerness of the movement being discounted by the languorous stare of slowly interested surprise. There was a hint of resentment, perhaps also a trace of alarm, in the wheeling of the decolletee shoulders; in the stare these emotions were corrected into a mild desire to hear more of such a sweeping surmise.

"Lunatics-those two!" Mrs. Talmage Eglinton exclaimed, in well-modulated astonishment. "That's what you English call rather a large order, isn't it? What makes you say so?"

"Hush! My cousin is trying to persuade Miss Sherman to sing," replied Sybil. "Wait till she has begun, and I'll tell you. It's too funny to keep to one's self."

For two days now the house-party at Prior's Tarrant had been increased by the elegant addition of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, and on the surface matters were pursuing their normal course. The Duke had received his latest guest with a democratic courtesy none the less cordial because of her floridly expressed note, which in the stress of other preoccupations he had forgotten altogether. He had a vague idea that the General had wished the vivacious American to be included because she was a fellow countrywoman of the Shermans, and that was quite enough to ensure his good-will towards her.

This view was so far from being the right one that Mrs. Sherman and Leonie had only succeeded in being coldly polite to the latest arrival.

Mrs. Sadgrove, with an inkling that the beautifully dressed but too effusive American was an important factor in her husband's schemes, was more outwardly complacent, but it was reserved for Sybil to shower upon Mrs. Talmage Eglinton special civilities which had ended, after two days only, in their becoming constant companions, if not bosom friends. If the handsome visitor wanted to walk in the park or to be shown some object of interest in the gardens, Sybil was always at hand to accompany her; and if it rained, as it had done all this day, she spent hours in entertaining her in her own rooms.

As for Forsyth, Sybil deserted him entirely; and as the other ladies abstained from discussing personal topics before the unpopular guest, there had been no making known beyond the small circle who knew it already of the new secretary's engagement to his employer's cousin.

Singularly enough, this was one of the very few subjects which the girl did not touch upon in her confidences to her new friend.

Presently the importunities of the Duke, backed by a general murmur of request, prevailed, and Leonie began a quaint old melody in a clear contralto that at any other time would have held Sybil an enthralled listener. As it was, she took instant advantage of the rippling flood of sound that filled the room to resume her talk, though for the moment the continuity was not apparent.

"Beaumanoir House was burgled the other night, and we caught a man trying to get into my cousin's bedroom," she whispered.

"No. Really? I-I saw nothing in the papers," replied Mrs. Talmage Eglinton in even tones, but with another turn of the white shoulders and a sudden shading of her eyes the better to watch the fair narrator's face.

"That was because the Duke let the man go-didn't want any fuss just after coming into the t.i.tle; and quite reasonable, I call it," Sybil proceeded. "And that's where the fun comes in. Mr. Forsyth insists that my cousin is the proposed victim of some diabolical plot, anarchist or otherwise, and he took General Sadgrove into his confidence. The old gentleman, as you may not be aware, was a sort of policeman in India, and is cracked on finding out things. Naturally, to one of that temperament, the mystery Mr. Forsyth chose to make out of a vulgar attempt at robbery was like a spark on tinder, and the General caught on at once. They're both fairly on the job-as amateur detectives, you know-and they think they've got a clue."

"How truly interesting! And the clue?"

"Of the most remote kind-not even arrived at, _a la_ Sherlock Holmes, by inspecting cigarette ashes. It seems that Mr. Forsyth-who, by the way, had been to leave a card on you-met the Duke at the Cecil, coming away from the suite of a Mr. Ziegler. He chose to think that my cousin was looking agitated, whereas he was only tired after his voyage. Mr.

Ziegler, therefore, if you please, has fallen under the ban of suspicion from these wiseacres, and is supposed to be murderously inclined towards the poor Duke. Even the mischief of some wretched boy in playing tricks with the train he traveled by the other night is attributed to this probably harmless Mr. Ziegler."

"And his Grace-does he also attribute these things to the same quarter?"

asked Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, scarcely with the breathless interest due to such tremendous doings. She had a way of opening her eyes wide when putting a question-a mannerism which had the effect of creating doubt whether she was intensely eager or only bored.

"He thinks it all nonsense-same as I do," Sybil made answer. "He has told these over-clever gentlemen to leave the thing alone, and I expect if he finds out what the General is up to that he'll turn them both out of the house and give Mr. Forsyth his dismissal. Of course, you won't say anything-will you?-because I'm only a poor relation, and I can't afford to offend people."

"I am discretion itself. What is General Sadgrove up to, dear?" was the reply.

Sybil's pretty mouth bent close to confide the startling fact that the General was going to London in the morning with the intention of bearding Mr. Ziegler in his den-otherwise, in his rooms at the Cecil. If he should be refused permission to see Ziegler, or, seeing him, should be unable to satisfy himself of his respectability, he was going straight on to Scotland Yard to impart his suspicions to the authorities. Sybil sketched the carrying out of this amazing programme and its probable consequences with much animation and ridicule, but her hearer's interest tailed off into undisguised indifference, ending in a deliberate yawn.

"What a very stupid affair!" Mrs. Talmage Eglinton murmured. "Do you know, it has made me quite sleepy, and-and I think I'll go to bed. I have started a real, clawing, hammering headache. Shouldn't wonder if I am not laid up to-morrow."

Nodding a good-night to the others, she rose and swept from the room, followed by Sybil, who, profusely sympathetic, insisted on accompanying her to her own apartments. At the door of the latter a dark-eyed, slender woman, in a black dress with broad white collar and cuffs, was standing. This was Rosa, the French maid, on whose services Mrs. Talmage Eglinton professed herself entirely dependent.

"One of my headaches, Rosa. The pink draught-quickly!" cried the incipient invalid, and pausing on the threshold she bade an affectionate good-night to her girlish admirer. "I am not really ill-only a little run down," she a.s.sured her. "I do _hope_ I shan't have to keep my room to-morrow."

The brilliant vision of Parisian elegance having vanished into the room, Sybil made her way downstairs, and in the hall encountered General Sadgrove, who wore a light overcoat over his evening things and a gray felt hat. He was engaged in wiping the wet from his patent-leather shoes with his handkerchief, but looked up on Sybil's approach, and, removing his hat, went on with his occupation.

"Still raining?" said Sybil, carelessly.

"Like the very-I mean, like it used to in the monsoon," the General checked himself.

No more pa.s.sed, except a slight raising of the old soldier's eyebrows and a corresponding droop of one of the lady's eyelids. The General having restored the gloss to his footgear and doffed his overcoat, they went on with linked arms to the tapestry-room, where, however, the party shortly broke up, the ladies to retire for the night, and the men to go to the smoking-room. The Duke remained but a short time, leaving the General and Forsyth with the playful remark that he was growing quite bold after two days' immunity, and hoped they would not sit up all night-which was exactly what one or other of them had been doing ever since they came to Prior's Tarrant, and, moreover, what they intended to do for the present.

"Sybil has done her part," said the General, as soon as he was alone with his nephew. "And I have prepared Azimoolah to be on the lookout for results. He tells me that the men in the dog-cart were outside the park wall again last night, and that there was the same exhibition of a red lamp in that infernal French maid's window."

"An abortive attempt at communication?" asked Forsyth.

"That or something worse," replied the General. "It may only be that the woman inside wants to confer with her confederates without; or it may be that the red lamp is a signal to them not to approach any nearer or try to get into the house. I incline to the latter being the explanation, as on each occasion the men in the cart have driven off immediately on seeing the red lamp, and there has been no attempt at short or long flashes, or any sort of code talk, Azimoolah tells me. In either case, it points to those beauties upstairs being aware that you and I are on guard, and that any attempt on their part to give admission to outsiders would be frustrated."

"But if she knows that a watch is being kept, surely madam will not dare to leave the house?" suggested Forsyth, in the tentative tone that was necessary to preserve his uncle's good humor.

"If she does, it will show that she's cornered, and that Sybil's guess has. .h.i.t the bull's eye," said the General, adding, with a significant grimace, "a preparatory headache has been started already. You had better go to bed and leave me to see to the commencement of the cure."