Forsyth shot a grateful look at her.

"The best possible plan," he said, quickly. "Now, don't be obstinate, Duke. The man has left the premises, I presume? Good! That being so, we shall be a poor lot if we can't prevent his getting in again, which he is hardly likely to attempt. There is nothing to hinder you from spending a quiet night here, without the slightest risk of unpleasantness either to Sybil or to yourself, and in the morning you and I can talk over your future movements at leisure."

"And I quite meant what I said," Sybil added, firmly. "If you won't stay here, you will put me to the inconvenience of turning out and going to an hotel at twelve o'clock at night. I have no intention of being forced into the horrid feeling that I am keeping you from the shelter of your own roof."

Under the pleading of the two pairs of kindly eyes turned on him Beaumanoir wavered. The chance of sleep and rest was tempting. He stepped to the door, and found Prince in the great entrance-hall.

"That man who called himself a detective has gone?" he inquired. "You are sure there is no mistake about it? You showed him to the door yourself, and saw him out?"

"And secured the door immediately afterwards, your Grace. Mr. Forsyth will bear me out in that; I had to withdraw the bolts to admit him."

Beaumanoir returned to the drawing-room.

"You are both very good, and I will stay for to-night only," he a.s.sented. "I wish I could make the explanation I owe you, but-well, I am the victim of circ.u.mstances."

"The explanation will keep," said Forsyth, bluntly. "May I stay too?"

The permission was, of course, accorded, and Sybil bade them good-night and retired to her room, giving orders on the way for two adjoining bedrooms to be prepared for them. The two men went into the smoking-room for a whisky and cigarette while the rooms were being got ready; but each with tacit consent avoided the topic of the moment. The one idea in Alec's mind was to let Beaumanoir have a good sleep, and persuade him into a serious discussion in the morning.

They parted at the door of their bedrooms on the first floor, where the late Duke's valet, who was still in the house, had done everything possible to cope with the sudden emergency. Pajamas had been routed out, and toilet requisites provided. The windows of both rooms looked out over the ceaseless traffic of Piccadilly, so that no danger could be apprehended from that quarter; yet Forsyth sat for a long time before turning in to bed. In his ignorance of what was the source of the Duke's danger, he had been loath to excite remark among the servants by fussing about the proper locking up of the mansion; but the stately tread of Prince going his rounds rea.s.sured him on that point, and eventually he slept.

In the meanwhile, Sybil, in her room at the other end of the same corridor, was finding a still greater difficulty in composing herself to rest. The events of the evening, in such startling contrast with the normal calm of the dignified establishment that had been her home, had unsettled-not to say alarmed-her, and she felt no inclination to the lace-edged pillow that usually wooed her to willing slumbers. She was a sound, healthy girl, untroubled by nerves; but she felt a singular need for alertness, unreasonable perhaps, but imperative.

The Duke's anxiety to make sure that the clerically dressed individual had really left the house had impressed her; and now, too late for inquiry, she remembered that she had omitted to mention that _two_ men had called, one of them not having been shown into her presence. The latter, Prince had said, had been dismissed by his colleague; but his departure had only been witnessed by William, the second footman-a dreamy servant at the best of times, and unreliable by reason of a hopeless attachment to the senior housemaid. The thought thrilled Sybil that the other man, having hoodwinked the footman, might still be in the house, concealed in one of the many unused rooms.

The idea of a lurking prowler, biding his time in the stillness of the sleeping household, kept her wakeful. Once or twice she looked out into the corridor; but the flicker of her candle only showed two rows of closed doors, without a sign of life, and each time she went back and tried to fix her attention on a book. So the night dragged into the small hours; and about three o'clock, after a longer interval than before, she determined to take one more peep and then get into bed.

She had already grasped the door-handle, when she withdrew her hand as though it had been stung by an adder. A faint scrooping sound told her that someone was doing something in the corridor, and half a minute's strained listening told her that, whatever that something was, it was persistent and continuous. It went on and on, like the drone of a bee in a bottle.

Silently crossing the room, she turned down her gas to a pin-point and blew out the candle with which she had intended to investigate. Then she returned to the door, and, opening it noiselessly, tiptoed into the outer darkness. Here the sound, though still faint, was more distinctly audible, and she was able to locate it at the door of the room occupied by the Duke. The discovery left her no time for fear, or even for conjecture. There was only one thing to be done-to rouse Alec and the Duke, but without, till that supreme moment, alarming the unseen manipulator at her cousin's door. Thus would she narrow the time at the disposal of that mysterious person for revising his plans and effecting his escape.

The thick pile carpet made for silence, and she stole quietly along the broad pa.s.sage, touching and counting the doors till she reached that of Forsyth's room-only a few feet from the gentle buz-buz that had attracted her attention, and only a few feet from someone stealthily at work in the dark. A steady snore from the interior of the Duke's chamber explained his complacence under that uncanny tampering with his approaches.

Again giving herself no time for fear, Sybil beat a rat-tat on Forsyth's door, calling him by name. The sound at the next door immediately ceased, an instant of intense silence following, and then almost simultaneously two things happened. An iron grip settled on the girl's wrist, just as Forsyth flung open the door of his room, in which he had wisely turned the gas full on as he leaped out of bed. The light streamed into the corridor and shone upon a man in shabby tweeds and bowler hat, who was holding Sybil, but not so hampered that he was prevented from drawing a revolver and aiming straight at Forsyth's head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"The procession of three led by the stranger."_]

Whether he intended to fire or offer an ultimatum was not demonstrated, for before he could do either he was taken in the rear and found himself a target. There stood the Duke in his pajamas, with a handy little Smith and Wesson not a foot from the intruder's temples, and with his left hand significantly extended.

"Give me that pistol," he said, sternly.

Beaumanoir was dealing with a tangible foe at last, and with a thrill of racial pride Sybil noted the light of battle in her relative's eye. It was, therefore, more than a shock to her when the Duke, having relieved the tweed-coated lurker of his weapon, calmly added:

"Now, sir, if you will be good enough to march in front of me down to the front door, I will let you out. You two," he continued, addressing Sybil and Forsyth in the same quiet tones, "will greatly oblige me by not raising any alarm or disturbing the servants while I am gone."

"I am coming downstairs with you," said Forsyth, drily.

When the procession of three, led by the stranger with a brace of pistols at his head, had filed off to the grand staircase, Sybil ran back to her room and fetched her candle. An inspection of the Duke's door showed that a panel had been partially cut out with a watch-spring saw, which was still sticking in the almost invisible fissure.

CHAPTER IX-_The Strategy of the General_

Some five hours later General Sadgrove, at his house in Grosvenor Gardens, was taking his morning tub, when a servant tapped at the door of the bathroom and informed him that Mr. Alec Forsyth wanted to see him very urgently. The General as speedily as possible donned his dressing-gown and descended to his sanctum. His keen eyes just glanced at the troubled face of the young man standing on the hearth-rug; then, in his laconic way, he asked:

"What's wrong, laddie? Your chum Beaumanoir been in the wars?"

Forsyth favored him with a startled stare, and then broke into an uneasy laugh.

"You seem to have been exercising your faculty of second-sight already, Uncle Jem," he said.

"The man was being _stalked_," said the General. "Has anyone caught him?"

"Very nearly," replied Forsyth; and he proceeded to narrate the events of the night, and also what Beaumanoir had told him of the previous attempts on his life. At mention of the Duke's absolute refusal to disclose the cause of the vendetta and to invoke the protection of the police, General Sadgrove drew a long breath. On hearing that he had in the small hours of that morning, thanks to the vigilance of Sybil Hanbury, held one of his would-be a.s.sa.s.sins at his mercy, but had quietly escorted him to the door and let him go, the whilom hunter of Dacoits uttered inarticulate grunts.

"And now, Uncle Jem, I have come to you for help," Forsyth proceeded earnestly. "I have persuaded the Duke to permit me to tell you in strictest confidence as much as he has told me, and I think if you can make any suggestions for baffling these unknown malefactors that he will adopt them-always provided your advice does not entail going to the police. He has given me his word of honor to remain at Beaumanoir House until I return; but the odds are they'll have another shy at him directly he pokes his nose outside."

The General had been absently toying with a tray of Indian curios, but he now looked sharply up at his nephew.

"You are not exactly blind, Alec, and can read between the lines," he said. "Reluctance on the part of a man threatened with murder to communicate with the authorities must mean that he has got an ugly sort of secret himself."

"You know his record, sir. Charles Hanbury was never anyone's enemy but his own, and I expect the Duke of Beaumanoir is much the same," replied Forsyth with a warmth which left the General quite unmoved. The old warrior reverted to his curios and spent a couple of minutes in balancing an Afghan dagger on his finger, till, apparently inspired by the performance, he laid the venomous blade aside.

"I agree with you in one aspect of the case," he said. "An insurance company, knowing what we know, would be ill-advised to take a risk on his Grace's life. The chances are in favor of his being a dead man within twenty-four hours of his quitting his present shelter. I presume that precautions have been taken against any more bogus detectives, or bogus anything else, gaining access to him during your absence?"

Forsyth replied that the Duke had promised to remain in his own room till he returned, and that the butler had been instructed to admit no one into the house on any pretence whatever. Moreover, he added, with a proud note in his voice, Sybil was co-operating, and was thoroughly alive to the emergency.

"Then," said the General, briskly, "I will finish dressing, and when we have had a mouthful of breakfast I will go back with you to Beaumanoir House. We must get your Duke into the interior of a safer zariba than a Piccadilly mansion before we can open parallel trenches against such a persistent enemy."

General Sadgrove and Alec breakfasted alone together, the former, indeed, hurrying the meal purposely so as to get away before the ladies appeared. He had seen enough the previous day, when the Duke was calling on the Shermans, to make him shy of explaining to his guests that he was bound for Beaumanoir House at nine o'clock in the morning, both Mrs.

Sherman and Leonie being aware that his acquaintance with the Duke only dated from yesterday. He shrewdly suspected that the young people who had been fellow-pa.s.sengers on the _St. Paul_ took more than a platonic interest in each other, and he did not want to stimulate that interest into anxiety until he was better informed.

He pursued the subject apologetically as soon as he was in the cab with his nephew.

"Sorry I made you bolt your food," he said. "I hate lying to women if it can be avoided. The Shermans, who are staying with me, know Beaumanoir-traveled in the same ship with him. It would have excited remark to mention our destination."

Forsyth, who had experience of his uncle's methods, perceived that he was being pumped, and he had no objection. Having summoned this wily man-hunter to his a.s.sistance, he was not foolish enough to expect results without full disclosure.

"I understand your reluctance to disturb the Shermans," he replied.

"Beaumanoir has spoken several times about them-in fact, he seemed rather unduly excited when he first heard from me that they were at your house. I have thought that he might be _epris_ of Leonie, though, as I have not seen them together, I can form no opinion whether the attraction is mutual."

The General, having acquired his information, relapsed into silence, which was only broken by Forsyth as the cab turned into Piccadilly. The short drive was nearly over, but before the cab stopped he contrived to describe briefly his chance meeting with the Duke, on the day of the latter's arrival in England, at the Hotel Cecil, and with an effort of memory he recalled the name of the man-Clinton Ziegler-whom the Duke had been to see.

"I dare say it's not important, but it just occurred to me that I had better mention it while there was an opportunity," he concluded, stealing a sidelong glance at his uncle's face, which, as usual, was illegible. But a movement of the General's well-gloved right hand in the direction of his left shirt-cuff, coupled with the gleam of a gold pencil-case, suggested that the name of Mr. Clinton Ziegler had been deemed worthy of record.

They were admitted to the ducal residence by Prince, whose dignity barely enabled him to stifle the inward curiosity with which he was devoured. In common with the other servants, he had not been told of the midnight alarm, and his orders to put the house practically into a state of siege had naturally mystified him. The damage to the bedroom door was not visible except under close examination, and Sybil having swept up the sawdust, none of the household had yet discovered it.