The Christmas Card Crime and Other

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Introduction and notes © Martin Edwards 2018
‘The Christmas Card Crime’ reproduced by permission of Cosmos
Literary Agency on behalf of the Estate of Gerald Verner.
‘The Motive’ reproduced by permission of United Agents LLP on
behalf of the Estate of Ronald Knox.
‘Blind Man’s Hood’ reproduced by permission of David Higham
Associates on behalf of the Estate of John Dickson Carr.
‘Paul Temple’s White Christmas’ reproduced with permission of Curtis
Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Beneficiaries of the Estate
of Francis Durbridge. Copyright © Francis Durbridge, 1946.
‘Sister Bessie’ reproduced by permission of the Estate of Cyril Hare.
‘A Bit of Wire-Pulling’ reproduced by permission of the Estate of E. C.
R. Lorac.
‘Crime at Lark Cottage’ reproduced by permission of Peters Fraser &
Dunlop Ltd on behalf of the Estate of John Bingham.
‘Pattern of Revenge’ reproduced by permission of the Estate of John
Bude.
‘’Twixt the Cup and the Lip’ reproduced with permission of Curtis
Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Beneficiaries of the Estate
of Julian Symons. Copyright © Julian Symons, 1963.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain
their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher
apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be pleased to be
notified of any corrections to be incorporated in reprints or future
editions.
Cover and internal design © 2019 by Sourcebooks
Cover illustration © Mary Evans Picture Library
Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered
trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, in
association with the British Library
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the
publisher.
 Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

A Christmas Tragedy

By the Sword

The Christmas Card Crime

The Motive

Blind Man’s Hood

Paul Temple’s White Christmas

Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech

A Bit of Wire-Pulling

Pattern of Revenge

Crime at Lark Cottage

’Twixt the Cup and the Lip

Back Cover
 Introduction

Welcome to the third anthology of winter mysteries to be published

in the British Library’s series of Crime Classics. This collection brings
together eleven stories written over the span of more than half a
century, and features a mix of leading exponents of detective fiction
and some less renowned names. The stories, some of which have
never been republished subsequent to their original appearance in
print, are equally diverse.
The publication of this book brings up to a round dozen the
number of short story collections that have appeared in the Crime
Classics series. Sales have far exceeded the levels traditionally
associated with anthologies, whether in the crime genre or
otherwise, and this is surely a cause for delight. It has long been the
received wisdom within the publishing industry that “short stories
don’t sell,” but this has always struck me as a self-fulfilling prophecy
that deserves to be challenged.
It’s thought-provoking to reflect that as long ago as 1956, the
introduction to the very first anthology of short fiction published
under the aegis of the Crime Writers’ Association pronounced, with
regret, that the outlook for the short story was “bleak.” Forty years
after that, I took over as editor of the CWA anthology, and I’m
pleased to report that it’s still going strong. So the doom-mongers
should, surely, think again.
 I’m one of many readers (and writers) who love short stories, and
in an era of allegedly brief attention spans, it seems extraordinary
that the vast commercial potential of short fiction has yet to be fully
realized. I hope that other publishers will follow the British Library’s
admirable lead in the field of publishing (and marketing
enthusiastically) anthologies of crime fiction, just as they have
proved keen to supply the ever-growing demand for vintage
detective story reprints sparked by the worldwide success of so
many titles in the Crime Classics series.
The difference between a short story and a novel is not merely a
question of length. The two forms are different in kind; you might
compare it to the difference between having the whole Sistine
Chapel to paint and a commission to produce a small miniature.
From a writer’s perspective, there simply isn’t the time or space to
indulge in leisurely description or painstaking elaboration of
character and motive. With a novel, if a few words are wasted, no
one is likely to worry. With a short story, or at least with the better
short stories, every word must be made to earn its keep.
Writers often say that writing a short story is harder work than
writing a novel. If it’s an exaggeration, it nevertheless has a kernel
of truth. And there are plenty of financial reasons to prefer writing
novels to short stories. Indeed, these considerations led the late
H.R.F. Keating, a distinguished and prolific author of both novels and
short stories, to say in his book on Writing Crime Fiction, that the
advice he was tempted to give when asked about writing short
stories was—“don’t.” But he readily acknowledged that short stories
have a special appeal, and they offer a good many benefits to
writers. For instance, one can experiment with a style, setting, or set
of characters that might not suit a novel, or justify the investment of
time that it takes to write a full-length book. Moreover, writing short
stories can help to refine one’s literary craft.
The crime genre seems to me to be particularly well suited to the
short form. Indeed, detective fiction as we understand it really
began with short stories, written by the American master Edgar Allan
Poe. And although Wilkie Collins wrote outstanding novels, it’s fair to
say that until the First World War, the dominant form of detective
fiction was the short story. Later, things changed, but crime writers
continued to enjoy trying their hand at short stories.
Some wrote a great many—among the contributors to this volume,
examples include Baroness Orczy, John Dickson Carr, Cyril Hare, and
Julian Symons. In contrast, the short stories of E.C.R. Lorac, John
Bude, and John Bingham were few and far between. And whilst
connoisseurs of the genre may have come across some of the
contributions previously, I suspect that few will have encountered
those by Bude or Bingham, let alone the title story, “The Christmas
Card Crime,” by a writer who faded from view many years ago; his
work strikes me as enjoyable and undeserving of such neglect.
This collection, therefore, amounts to a seasonal assortment box
offering a great deal to whet the appetite during the cold winter
months. In researching the ingredients, I have been assisted by
fellow enthusiasts John Cooper, Jamie Sturgeon, Nigel Moss, as well
as Gerald Verner’s son Chris and his agent Philip Harbottle. I’d like to
thank them, and Rob Davies and his diligent team in the publications
department at the British Library, for their support. Books about
John Dickson Carr, and Francis Durbridge, by Douglas G. Greene and
Melvyn Barnes have also provided me with valuable background
information. I’ve much enjoyed compiling this particular assortment
box, and hope that readers will derive equal pleasure from devouring
its contents, whether at Christmas or any other time of the year.
 —Martin Edwards
martinedwardsbooks.com
 A Christmas Tragedy
Baroness Orczy
Today, Baroness Orczy (1865–1947) is remembered, if at all, as the
creator of Sir Percy Blakeney, alias “the Scarlet Pimpernel,” dashing
hero of a long series of wildly popular historical romances set at the
time of the French Revolution. Ultimately, she became so successful
that she was able to move to live in luxury in Monte Carlo. But she
first achieved distinction as an author of short crime stories in the
early years of the twentieth century, having arrived in Britain from
her native Hungary in 1880. Her reputation reached such heights
that she was invited to become a founder member of the prestigious
Detection Club, formed in 1930. Although by that time her day as a
detective writer was past, and she made an annual pilgrimage from
her home by the Mediterranean to dine with fellow Club members,
the likes of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, and
John Dickson Carr.
Orczy created a number of detectives. The Old Man in the Corner
is the most renowned; in all, he appeared in three collections of
stories. The exploits of Patrick Mulligan, an Irish lawyer, were
ultimately collected in a book with the improbable title Skin o’ My
Tooth. Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (1910) recorded the eponymous
heroine’s battle to achieve justice for her disgraced husband. Her
rapid rise to the top of the Metropolitan Police at a time when true
gender equality was scarcely imaginable represents one of the most
remarkable career ascents in the whole crime genre. This story first
appeared in Cassell’s Magazine in December 1909.

I
It was a fairly merry Christmas party, although the surliness of our
host somewhat marred the festivities. But imagine two such
beautiful young women as my own dear lady and Margaret Ceely,
and a Christmas Eve Cinderella in the beautiful ball-room at Clevere
Hall, and you will understand that even Major Ceely’s well-known
cantankerous temper could not altogether spoil the merriment of a
good, old-fashioned festive gathering.
It is a far cry from a Christmas Eve party to a series of cattle-
maiming outrages, yet I am forced to mention these now, for
although they were ultimately proved to have no connection with the
murder of the unfortunate Major, yet they were undoubtedly the
means whereby the miscreant was enabled to accomplish the
horrible deed with surety, swiftness, and—as it turned out afterwards
—a very grave chance of immunity.
Everyone in the neighbourhood had been taking the keenest
possible interest in those dastardly outrages against innocent
animals. They were either the work of desperate ruffians who stick
at nothing in order to obtain a few shillings, or else of madmen with
weird propensities for purposeless crimes.
Once or twice suspicious characters had been seen lurking about in
the fields, and on more than one occasion a cart was heard in the
middle of the night driving away at furious speed. Whenever this
occurred the discovery of a fresh outrage was sure to follow, but, so
far, the miscreants had succeeded in baffling not only the police, but
also the many farm hands who had formed themselves into a band
of volunteer watchmen, determined to bring the cattle maimers to
justice.
 We had all been talking about these mysterious events during the
dinner which preceded the dance at Clevere Hall; but later on, when
the young people had assembled, and when the first strains of “The
Merry Widow” waltz had set us aglow with prospective enjoyment,
the unpleasant topic was wholly forgotten.
The guests went away early, Major Ceely, as usual, doing nothing
to detain them; and by midnight all of us who were staying in the
house had gone up to bed.
My dear lady and I shared a bedroom and dressing-room together,
our windows giving on the front. Clevere Hall is, as you know, not
very far from York, on the other side of Bishopthorpe, and is one of
the finest old mansions in the neighbourhood, its only disadvantage
being that, in spite of the gardens being very extensive in the rear,
the front of the house lies very near the road.
It was about two hours after I had switched off the electric light
and called out “Good-night” to my dear lady, that something roused
me out of my first sleep. Suddenly I felt very wide-awake, and sat up
in bed. Most unmistakably—though still from some considerable
distance along the road—came the sound of a cart being driven at
unusual speed.
Evidently my dear lady was also awake. She jumped out of bed
and, drawing aside the curtains, looked out of the window. The
same idea had, of course, flashed upon us both at the very moment
of waking: all the conversation anent the cattle-maimers and their
cart, which we had heard since our arrival at Clevere, recurring to
our minds simultaneously.
I had joined Lady Molly beside the window, and I don’t know how
many minutes we remained there in observation, not more than two
probably, for anon the sound of the cart died away in the distance
along a side road. Suddenly we were startled with a terrible cry of
“Murder! Help! Help!” issuing from the other side of the house,
followed by an awful, deadly silence. I stood there near the window
shivering with terror, while my dear lady, having already turned on
the light, was hastily slipping into some clothes.
The cry had, of course, aroused the entire household, but my dear
lady was even then the first to get downstairs, and to reach the
garden door at the back of the house, whence the weird and
despairing cry had undoubtedly proceeded.
That door was wide open. Two steps lead from it to the terraced
walk which borders the house on that side, and along these steps
Major Ceely was lying, face downwards, with arms outstretched, and
a terrible wound between his shoulder-blades.
A gun was lying close by—his own. It was easy to conjecture that
he, too, hearing the rumble of the wheels, had run out, gun in hand,
meaning, no doubt, to effect, or at least to help, in the capture of
the escaping criminals. Someone had been lying in wait for him; that
was obvious—someone who had perhaps waited and watched for
this special opportunity for days, or even weeks, in order to catch
the unfortunate man unawares.
Well, it were useless to recapitulate all the various little incidents
which occurred from the moment when Lady Molly and the butler
first lifted the Major’s lifeless body from the terrace steps until that
instant when Miss Ceely, with remarkable coolness and presence of
mind, gave what details she could of the terrible event to the local
police inspector and to the doctor, both hastily summoned.
These little incidents, with but slight variations, occur in every
instance when a crime has been committed. The broad facts alone
are of weird and paramount interest.
Major Ceely was dead. He had been stabbed with amazing
sureness and terrible violence in the back. The weapon used must
have been some sort of heavy clasp knife. The murdered man was
now lying in his own bedroom upstairs, even as the Christmas bells
on that cold, crisp morning sent cheering echoes through the
stillness of the air.
We had, of course, left the house, as had all the other guests.
Everyone felt the deepest possible sympathy for the beautiful young
girl who had been so full of the joy of living but a few hours ago,
and was now the pivot round which revolved the weird shadow of
tragedy, of curious suspicions and of an ever-growing mystery. But
at such times all strangers, acquaintances, and even friends in a
house, are only an additional burden to an already overwhelming
load of sorrow and of trouble.
We took up our quarters at the Black Swan in York. The local
superintendent, hearing that Lady Molly had been actually a guest at
Clevere on the night of the murder, had asked her to remain in the
neighbourhood.
There was no doubt that she could easily obtain the chief’s consent
to assist the local police in the elucidation of this extraordinary
crime. At this time both her reputation and her remarkable powers
were at their zenith, and there was not a single member of the
entire police force in the kingdom who would not have availed
himself gladly of her help when confronted with a seemingly
impenetrable mystery.
That the murder of Major Ceely threatened to become such no one
could deny. In cases of this sort, when no robbery of any kind has
accompanied the graver crime, it is the duty of the police and also of
the coroner to try to find out, first and foremost, what possible
motive there could be behind so cowardly an assault; and among
motives, of course, deadly hatred, revenge, and animosity stand
paramount.
 But here the police were at once confronted with the terrible
difficulty, not of discovering whether Major Ceely had an enemy at
all, but rather which, of all those people who owed him a grudge,
hated him sufficiently to risk hanging for the sake of getting him out
of the way.
As a matter of fact, the unfortunate Major was one of those
miserable people who seem to live in a state of perpetual enmity
with everything and everybody. Morning, noon, and night he
grumbled, and when he did not grumble he quarrelled either with his
own daughter or with the people of his household, or with his
neighbours.
I had often heard about him and his eccentric, disagreeable ways
from Lady Molly, who had known him for many years. She—like
everybody in the county who otherwise would have shunned the old
man—kept up a semblance of friendship with him for the sake of the
daughter.
Margaret Ceely was a singularly beautiful girl, and as the Major
was reputed to be very wealthy, these two facts perhaps combined
to prevent the irascible gentleman from living in quite so complete
an isolation as he would have wished.
Mammas of marriageable young men vied with one another in
their welcome to Miss Ceely at garden parties, dances, and bazaars.
Indeed, Margaret had been surrounded with admirers ever since she
had come out of the schoolroom. Needless to say, the cantankerous
Major received these pretenders to his daughter’s hand not only with
insolent disdain, but at times even with violent opposition.
In spite of this the moths fluttered round the candle, and amongst
this venturesome tribe none stood out more prominently than Mr
Laurence Smethick, son of the M.P. for the Pakethorpe division.
Some folk there were who vowed that the young people were
secretly engaged, in spite of the fact that Margaret was an
outrageous flirt and openly encouraged more than one of her crowd
of adorers.
Be that as it may, one thing was very certain—namely, that Major
Ceely did not approve of Mr Smethick any more than he did of the
others, and there had been more than one quarrel between the
young man and his prospective father-in-law.
On that memorable Christmas Eve at Clevere none of us could fail
to notice his absence; whilst Margaret, on the other hand, had
shown marked predilection for the society of Captain Glynne, who,
since the sudden death of his cousin, Viscount Heslington, Lord
Ullesthorpe’s only son (who was killed in the hunting field last
October, if you remember), had become heir to the earldom and its
£40,000 a year.
Personally, I strongly disapproved of Margaret’s behaviour the night
of the dance; her attitude with regard to Mr Smethick—whose
constant attendance on her had justified the rumour that they were
engaged—being more than callous.
On that morning of December 24th—Christmas Eve, in fact—the
young man had called at Clevere. I remember seeing him just as he
was being shown into the boudoir downstairs. A few moments later
the sound of angry voices rose with appalling distinctness from that
room. We all tried not to listen, yet could not fail to hear Major
Ceely’s overbearing words of rudeness to the visitor, who, it seems,
had merely asked to see Miss Ceely, and had been most
unexpectedly confronted by the irascible and extremely disagreeable
Major. Of course, the young man speedily lost his temper, too, and
the whole incident ended with a very unpleasant quarrel between
the two men in the hall, and with the Major peremptorily forbidding
Mr Smethick ever to darken his doors again.
 On that night Major Ceely was murdered.

II
Of course, at first, no one attached any importance to this weird
coincidence. The very thought of connecting the idea of murder with
that of the personality of a bright, good-looking young Yorkshireman
like Mr Smethick seemed, indeed, preposterous, and with one accord
all of us who were practically witnesses to the quarrel between the
two men, tacitly agreed to say nothing at all about it at the inquest,
unless we were absolutely obliged to do so on oath.
In view of the Major’s terrible temper, this quarrel, mind you, had
not the importance which it otherwise would have had; and we all
flattered ourselves that we had well succeeded in parrying the
coroner’s questions.
The verdict at the inquest was against some person or persons
unknown; and I, for one, was very glad that young Smethick’s name
had not been mentioned in connection with this terrible crime.
Two days later the superintendent at Bishopthorpe sent an urgent
telephone message to Lady Molly, begging her to come to the police-
station immediately. We had the use of a motor all the while that we
stayed at the “Black Swan,” and in less than ten minutes we were
bowling along at express speed towards Bishopthorpe.
On arrival we were immediately shown into Superintendent Etty’s
private room behind the office. He was there talking with Danvers—
who had recently come down from London. In a corner of the room,
sitting very straight on a high-backed chair, was a youngish woman
of the servant class, who, as we entered, cast a quick, and I thought
suspicious, glance at us both.
She was dressed in a coat and skirt of shabby-looking black, and
although her face might have been called good-looking—for she had
fine, dark eyes—her entire appearance was distinctly repellent. It
suggested slatternliness in an unusual degree: there were holes in
her shoes and in her stockings, the sleeve of her coat was half
unsewn, and the braid on her skirt hung in loops all round the
bottom. She had very red and very coarse-looking hands, and
undoubtedly there was a furtive expression in her eyes, which, when
she began speaking, changed to one of defiance.
Etty came forward with great alacrity when my dear lady entered.
He looked perturbed, and seemed greatly relieved at sight of her.
“She is the wife of one of the outdoor men at Clevere,” he
explained rapidly to Lady Molly, nodding in the direction of the young
woman, “and she has come here with such a queer tale that I
thought you would like to hear it.”
“She knows something about the murder?” asked Lady Molly.
“Noa! I didn’t say that!” here interposed the woman roughly,
“doan’t you go and tell no lies, Master Inspector. I thought as how
you might wish to know what my husband saw on the night when
the Major was murdered, that’s all; and I’ve come to tell you.”
“Why didn’t your husband come himself?” asked Lady Molly.
“Oh, Haggett ain’t well enough—he—” she began explaining with a
careless shrug of her shoulders, “so to speak—”
“The fact of the matter is, my lady,” interposed Etty, “this woman’s
husband is half-witted. I believe he is only kept on in the garden
because he is very strong and can help with the digging. It is
because his testimony is so little to be relied on that I wished to
consult you as to how we should act in the matter.
“Tell this lady what you have just told us, Mrs Haggett, will you?”
said Etty curtly.
Again that quick, suspicious glance shot into the woman’s eyes.
Lady Molly took the chair which Danvers had brought forward for
her, and sat down opposite Mrs Haggett, fixing her earnest, calm
gaze upon her.
“There’s not much to tell,” said the woman sullenly. “Haggett is
certainly queer in his head sometimes, and when he is queer he
goes wandering about the place of nights.”
“Yes?” said my lady, for Mrs Haggett had paused awhile and now
seemed unwilling to proceed.
“Well!” she resumed with sudden determination, “he had got one
of his queer fits on on Christmas Eve, and didn’t come in till long
after midnight. He told me as how he’d seen a young gentleman
prowling about the garden on the terrace side. He heard the cry of
‘Murder!’ and ‘Help!’ soon after that, and ran in home because he
was frightened.”
“Home?” asked Lady Molly, quietly, “where is home?”
“The cottage where we live. Just back of the kitchen garden.”
“Why didn’t you tell all this to the superintendent before?”
“Because Haggett only told me last night, when he seemed less
queer-like. He is mighty silent when the fits are on him.”
“Did he know who the gentleman was whom he saw?”
“No, ma’am—I don’t suppose he did—leastways, he wouldn’t say—
but—”
“Yes? But?”
“He found this in the garden yesterday,” said the woman, holding
out a screw of paper which apparently she had held tightly clutched
up to now, “and maybe that’s what brought Christmas Eve and the
murder back to his mind.”
Lady Molly took the thing from her and undid the soiled bit of
paper with her dainty fingers. The next moment she held up for
Etty’s inspection a beautiful ring composed of an exquisitely carved
moonstone surrounded with diamonds of unusual brilliance.
 At the moment the setting and the stones themselves were marred
by scraps of sticky mud which clung to them, the ring obviously
having lain on the ground and perhaps been trampled on for some
days, and then been only very partially washed.
“At any rate, you can find out the ownership of the ring,”
commented my dear lady after awhile, in answer to Etty’s silent
attitude of expectancy. “There would be no harm in that.”
Then she turned once more to the woman.
“I’ll walk with you to your cottage, if I may,” she said decisively,
“and have a chat with your husband. Is he at home?”
I thought Mrs Haggett took this suggestion with marked
reluctance. I could well imagine, from her own personal appearance,
that her home was most unlikely to be in a fit state for a lady’s visit.
However, she could, of course, do nothing but obey, and, after a few
muttered words of grudging acquiescence, she rose from her chair
and stalked towards the door, leaving my lady to follow as she
chose.
Before going, however, she turned and shot an angry glance at
Etty.
“You’ll give me back the ring, Master Inspector,” she said with her
usual tone of sullen defiance. “‘Findings is keepings,’ you know.”
“I am afraid not,” replied Etty curtly; “but there’s always the reward
offered by Miss Ceely for information which would lead to the
apprehension of her father’s murderer. You may get that, you know.
It is a hundred pounds.”
“Yes! I know that,” she remarked dryly, as, without further
comment, she finally went out of the room.

III
My dear lady came back very disappointed from her interview with
Haggett.
 It seems that he was indeed half-witted—almost an imbecile, in
fact, with but a few lucid intervals, of which this present day was
one. But, of course, his testimony was practically valueless.
He reiterated the story already told by his wife, adding no details.
He had seen a young gentleman roaming on the terraced walk on
the night of the murder. He did not know who the young gentleman
was. He was going homeward when he heard the cry of “Murder!”
and ran to his cottage because he was frightened. He picked up the
ring yesterday in the perennial border below the terrace and gave it
to his wife.
Two of these brief statements made by the imbecile were easily
proved to be true, and my dear lady had ascertained this before she
returned to me. One of the Clevere under-gardeners said he had
seen Haggett running home in the small hours of that fateful
Christmas morning. He himself had been on the watch for the cattle-
maimers that night, and remembered the little circumstance quite
plainly. He added that Haggett certainly looked to be in a panic.
Then Newby, another outdoor man at the Hall, saw Haggett pick
up the ring in the perennial border, and advised him to take it to the
police.
Somehow, all of us who were so interested in that terrible
Christmas tragedy felt strangely perturbed at all this. No names had
been mentioned as yet, but whenever my dear lady and I looked at
one another, or whenever we talked to Etty or Danvers, we all felt
that a certain name, one particular personality, was lurking at the
back of all our minds.
The two men, of course, had no sentimental scruples to worry
them. Taking the Haggett story merely as a clue, they worked
diligently on that, with the result that twenty-four hours later Etty
appeared in our private room at the “Black Swan” and calmly
informed us that he had just got a warrant out against Mr Laurence
Smethick on a charge of murder, and was on his way even now to
effect the arrest.
“Mr Smethick did not murder Major Ceely,” was Lady Molly’s firm
and only comment when she heard the news.
“Well, my lady, that’s as it may be!” rejoined Etty, speaking with
that deference with which the entire force invariably addressed my
dear lady; “but we have collected a sufficiency of evidence, at any
rate, to justify the arrest, and, in my opinion, enough of it to hang
any man. Mr Smethick purchased the moonstone and diamond ring
at Nicholson’s in Coney Street about a week ago. He was seen
abroad on Christmas Eve by several persons, loitering round the
gates at Clevere Hall, somewhere about the time when the guests
were leaving after the dance, and again some few moments after
the first cry of ‘Murder!’ had been heard. His own valet admits that
his master did not get home that night until long after two a.m.,
whilst even Miss Granard here won’t deny that there was a terrible
quarrel between Mr Smethick and Major Ceely less than twenty-four
hours before the latter was murdered.”
Lady Molly offered no remark to this array of facts which Etty thus
pitilessly marshalled before us, but I could not refrain from
exclaiming:
“Mr Smethick is innocent, I am sure.”
“I hope, for his sake, he may be,” retorted Etty gravely, “but
somehow ’tis a pity that he don’t seem able to give a good account
of himself between midnight and two o’clock that Christmas
morning.”
“Oh!” I ejaculated, “what does he say about that?”
“Nothing,” replied the man dryly; “that’s just the trouble.”
 Well, of course, as you who read the papers will doubtless
remember, Mr Laurence Smethick, son of Colonel Smethick, M.P., of
Pakethorpe Hall, Yorks, was arrested on the charge of having
murdered Major Ceely on the night of December 24–25, and, after
the usual magisterial inquiry, was duly committed to stand his trial at
the next York assizes.
I remember well that throughout his preliminary ordeal young
Smethick bore himself like one who had given up all hope of refuting
the terrible charges brought against him, and, I must say, the
formidable number of witnesses which the police brought up against
him more than explained that attitude.
Of course, Haggett was not called, but, as it happened, there were
plenty of people to swear that Mr Laurence Smethick was seen
loitering round the gates of Clevere Hall after the guests had
departed on Christmas Eve. The head gardener, who lives at the
lodge, actually spoke to him, and Captain Glynne, leaning out of his
brougham window, was heard to exclaim:
“Hallo, Smethick, what are you doing here at this time of night?”
And there were others, too.
To Captain Glynne’s credit, be it here recorded, he tried his best to
deny having recognized his unfortunate friend in the dark. Pressed
by the magistrate, he said obstinately:
“I thought at the time that it was Mr Smethick standing by the
lodge gates, but on thinking the matter over I feel sure that I was
mistaken.”
On the other hand, what stood dead against young Smethick was,
firstly, the question of the ring, and then the fact that he was seen in
the immediate neighbourhood of Clevere, both at midnight and
again at about two, when some men who had been on the watch for
cattle-maimers saw him walking away rapidly in the direction of
Pakethorpe.
What was, of course, unexplainable and very terrible to witness
was Mr Smethick’s obstinate silence with regard to his own
movements during those fatal hours on that night. He did not
contradict those who said that they had seen him at about midnight
near the gates of Clevere, nor his own valet’s statements as to the
hour when he returned home. All he said was that he could not
account for what he did between the time when the guests left the
Hall and he himself went back to Pakethorpe. He realized the danger
in which he stood, and what caused him to be silent about a matter
which might mean life or death to him could not easily be
conjectured.
The ownership of the ring he could not and did not dispute. He
had lost it in the grounds of Clevere, he said. But the jeweller in
Coney Street swore that he had sold the ring to Mr Smethick on
December 18, whilst it was a well-known and an admitted fact that
the young man had not openly been inside the gates of Clevere for
over a fortnight before that.
On this evidence Laurence Smethick was committed for trial.
Though the actual weapon with which the unfortunate Major had
been stabbed had not been found nor its ownership traced, there
was such a vast array of circumstantial evidence against the young
man that bail was refused.
He had, on the advice of his solicitor, Mr Grayson—one of the
ablest lawyers in York—reserved his defence, and on that miserable
afternoon at the close of the year we all filed out of the crowded
court, feeling terribly depressed and anxious.

IV
My dear lady and I walked back to our hotel in silence. Our hearts
seemed to weigh heavily within us. We felt mortally sorry for that
good-looking young Yorkshireman, who, we were convinced, was
innocent, yet at the same time seemed involved in a tangled web of
deadly circumstances from which he seemed quite unable to
extricate himself.
We did not feel like discussing the matter in the open streets,
neither did we make any comment when presently, in a block in the
traffic in Coney Street, we saw Margaret Ceely driving her smart
dog-cart; whilst sitting beside her, and talking with great earnestness
close to her ear, sat Captain Glynne.
She was in deep mourning, and had obviously been doing some
shopping, for she was surrounded with parcels; so perhaps it was
hypercritical to blame her. Yet somehow it struck me that just at the
moment when there hung in the balance the life and honour of a
man with whose name her own had oft been linked by popular
rumour, it showed more than callous contempt for his welfare to be
seen driving about with another man who, since his sudden access
to fortune, had undoubtedly become a rival in her favours.
When we arrived at the “Black Swan” we were surprised to hear
that Mr Grayson had called to see my dear lady, and was upstairs
waiting.
Lady Molly ran up to our sitting-room and greeted him with marked
cordiality. Mr Grayson is an elderly, dry-looking man, but he looked
visibly affected, and it was some time before he seemed able to
plunge into the subject which had brought him hither. He fidgeted in
his chair, and started talking about the weather.
“I am not here in a strictly professional capacity, you know,” said
Lady Molly presently, with a kindly smile and with a view to helping
him out of his embarrassment. “Our police, I fear me, have an
exaggerated view of my capabilities, and the men here asked me
unofficially to remain in the neighbourhood and to give them my
advice if they should require it. Our chief is very lenient to me and
has allowed me to stay. Therefore if there is anything I can do—”
“Indeed, indeed there is!” ejaculated Mr Grayson with sudden
energy. “From all I hear, there is not another soul in the kingdom but
you who can save this innocent man from the gallows.”
My dear lady heaved a little sigh of satisfaction. She had all along
wanted to have a more important finger in that Yorkshire pie.
“Mr Smethick?” she said.
“Yes; my unfortunate young client,” replied the lawyer. “I may as
well tell you,” he resumed after a slight pause, during which he
seemed to pull himself together, “as briefly as possible what
occurred on December 24 last and on the following Christmas
morning. You will then understand the terrible plight in which my
client finds himself, and how impossible it is for him to explain his
actions on that eventful night. You will understand, also, why I have
come to ask your help and your advice. Mr Smethick considered
himself engaged to Miss Ceely. The engagement had not been made
public because of Major Ceely’s anticipated opposition, but the
young people had been very intimate, and many letters had passed
between them. On the morning of the 24th Mr Smethick called at
the Hall, his intention then being merely to present his fiancée with
the ring you know of. You remember the unfortunate contretemps
that occurred—I mean the unprovoked quarrel sought by Major
Ceely with my poor client, ending with the irascible old man
forbidding Mr Smethick the house.
“My client walked out of Clevere feeling, as you may well imagine,
very wrathful; on the doorstep, just as he was leaving, he met Miss
Margaret, and told her very briefly what had occurred. She took the
matter very lightly at first, but finally became more serious, and
ended the brief interview with the request that, since he could not
come to the dance after what had occurred, he should come and see
her afterwards, meeting her in the gardens soon after midnight. She
would not take the ring from him then, but talked a good deal of
sentiment about Christmas morning, asking him to bring the ring to
her at night, and also the letters which she had written to him. Well
—you can guess the rest.”
Lady Molly nodded thoughtfully.
“Miss Ceely was playing a double game,” continued Mr Grayson,
earnestly. “She was determined to break off all relationship with Mr
Smethick, for she had transferred her volatile affections to Captain
Glynne, who had lately become heir to an earldom and £40,000 a
year. Under the guise of sentimental twaddle she got my unfortunate
client to meet her at night in the grounds of Clevere and to give up
to her the letters which might have compromised her in the eyes of
her new lover. At two o’clock a.m. Major Ceely was murdered by one
of his numerous enemies; as to which I do not know, nor does Mr
Smethick. He had just parted from Miss Ceely at the very moment
when the first cry of ‘Murder!’ roused Clevere from its slumbers. This
she could confirm if she only would, for the two were still in sight of
each other, she inside the gates, he just a little way down the road.
Mr Smethick saw Margaret Ceely run rapidly back towards the
house. He waited about a little while, half hesitating what to do;
then he reflected that his presence might be embarrassing, or even
compromising to her whom, in spite of all, he still loved dearly; and
knowing that there were plenty of men in and about the house to
render what assistance was necessary, he finally turned his steps
and went home a broken-hearted man, since she had given him the
go-by, taken her letters away, and flung contemptuously into the
mud the ring he had bought for her.”
The lawyer paused, mopping his forehead and gazing with whole-
souled earnestness at my lady’s beautiful, thoughtful face.
“Has Mr Smethick spoken to Miss Ceely since?” asked Lady Molly,
after awhile.
“No, but I did,” replied the lawyer.
“What was her attitude?”
“One of bitter and callous contempt. She denies my unfortunate
client’s story from beginning to end—declares that she never saw
him after she bade him ‘good-morning’ on the doorstep of Clevere
Hall when she heard of his unfortunate quarrel with her father. Nay,
more, she scornfully calls the whole tale a cowardly attempt to shield
a dastardly crime behind a still more dastardly libel on a defenceless
girl.”
We were all silent now, buried in thought which none of us would
have cared to translate into words. That the impasse seemed indeed
hopeless no one could deny.
The tower of damning evidence against the unfortunate young
man had indeed been built by remorseless circumstances with no
faltering hand.
Margaret Ceely alone could have saved him, but with brutal
indifference she preferred the sacrifice of an innocent man’s life and
honour to that of her own chances of a brilliant marriage. There are
such women in the world; thank God I have never met any but that
one!
Yet am I wrong when I say that she alone could save the
unfortunate young man, who throughout was behaving with such
consummate gallantry, refusing to give his own explanation of the
events that occurred on that Christmas morning unless she chooses
first to tell the tale. There was one present now in the dingy little
room at the “Black Swan” who could disentangle that weird skein of
coincidences, if any human being not gifted with miraculous powers
could indeed do it at this eleventh hour.
She now said gently:
“What would you like me to do in this matter, Mr Grayson? And
why have you come to me rather than to the police?”
“How can I go with this tale to the police?” he ejaculated in
obvious despair. “Would they not also look upon it as a dastardly
libel on a woman’s reputation? We have no proofs, remember, and
Miss Ceely denies the whole story from first to last. No, no!” he
exclaimed with wonderful fervour. “I came to you because I have
heard of your marvellous gifts, your extraordinary intuition. Someone
murdered Major Ceely! It was not my old friend Colonel Smethick’s
son. Find out who it was, then! I beg of you, find out who it was!”
He fell back in his chair, broken down with grief. With inexpressible
gentleness Lady Molly went up to him and placed her beautiful white
hands on his shoulder.
“I will do my best, Mr Grayson.”

V
We remained alone and singularly quiet the whole of that evening.
That my dear lady’s active brain was hard at work I could guess by
the brilliance of her eyes, and that sort of absolute stillness in her
person through which one could almost feel the delicate nerves
vibrating.
The story told her by the lawyer had moved her singularly. Mind
you, she had always been morally convinced of young Smethick’s
innocence, but in her the professional woman always fought hard
battles against the sentimentalist, and in this instance the
overwhelming circumstantial evidence and the conviction of her
superiors had forced her to accept the young man’s guilt as
something out of her ken.
By his silence, too, the young man had tacitly confessed; and if a
man is perceived on the very scene of a crime, both before it has
been committed and directly afterwards; if something admittedly
belonging to him is found within three yards of where the murderer
must have stood; if, added to this, he has had a bitter quarrel with
the victim, and can give no account of his actions or whereabouts
during the fatal time, it were vain to cling to optimistic beliefs in that
same man’s innocence.
But now matters had assumed an altogether different aspect. The
story told by Mr Smethick’s lawyer had all the appearance of truth.
Margaret Ceely’s character, her callousness on the very day when
her late fiancé stood in the dock, her quick transference of her
affections to the richer man, all made the account of the events on
Christmas night as told by Mr Grayson extremely plausible.
No wonder my dear lady was buried in thought.
“I shall have to take the threads up from the beginning, Mary,” she
said to me the following morning, when after breakfast she
appeared in her neat coat and skirt, with hat and gloves, ready to go
out, “so on the whole I think I will begin with a visit to the
Haggetts.”
“I may come with you, I suppose?” I suggested meekly.
“Oh, yes!” she rejoined carelessly.
Somehow I had an inkling that the carelessness of her mood was
only on the surface. It was not likely that she—my sweet, womanly,
ultra-feminine, beautiful lady—should feel callous on this absorbing
subject.
We motored down to Bishopthorpe. It was bitterly cold, raw, damp,
and foggy. The chauffeur had some difficulty in finding the cottage,
the “home” of the imbecile gardener and his wife.
There was certainly not much look of home about the place. When,
after much knocking at the door, Mrs Haggett finally opened it, we
saw before us one of the most miserable, slatternly places I think I
ever saw.
In reply to Lady Molly’s somewhat curt inquiry, the woman said
that Haggett was in bed, suffering from one of his “fits.”
“That is a great pity,” said my dear lady, rather unsympathetically, I
thought, “for I must speak with him at once.”
“What is it about?” asked the woman, sullenly. “I can take a
message.”
“I am afraid not,” rejoined my lady. “I was asked to see Haggett
personally.”
“By whom, I’d like to know,” she retorted, now almost insolently.
“I dare say you would. But you are wasting precious time. Hadn’t
you better help your husband on with his clothes? This lady and I
will wait in the parlour.”
After some hesitation the woman finally complied, looking very
sulky the while.
We went into the miserable little room wherein not only grinding
poverty but also untidiness and dirt were visible all round. We sat
down on two of the cleanest-looking chairs, and waited whilst a
colloquy in subdued voices went on in the room over our heads.
The colloquy, I may say, seemed to consist of agitated whispers on
one part and wailing complaints on the other; this was followed
presently by some thuds and much shuffling, and presently Haggett,
looking uncared-for, dirty, and unkempt, entered the parlour,
followed by his wife.
He came forward, dragging his ill-shod feet and pulling nervously
at his forelock.
 “Ah!” said my lady kindly, “I’m glad to see you down, Haggett,
though I am afraid I haven’t very good news for you.”
“Yes, miss!” murmured the man, obviously not quite
comprehending what was said to him.
“I represent the workhouse authorities,” continued Lady Molly,
“and I thought we could arrange for you and your wife to come into
the Union tonight, perhaps.”
“The Union?” here interposed the woman, roughly. “What do you
mean? We ain’t going to the Union?”
“Well! but since you are not staying here,” rejoined my lady,
blandly, “you will find it impossible to get another situation for your
husband in his present mental condition.”
“Miss Ceely won’t give us the go-by,” she retorted defiantly.
“She might wish to carry out her late father’s intentions,” said Lady
Molly with seeming carelessness.
“The Major was a cruel, cantankerous brute,” shouted the woman
with unpremeditated violence. “Haggett had served him faithfully for
twelve years, and—”
She checked herself abruptly, and cast one of her quick, furtive
glances at Lady Molly.
Her silence now had become as significant as her outburst of rage,
and it was Lady Molly who concluded the phrase for her.
“And yet he dismissed him without warning,” she said calmly.
“Who told you that?” retorted the woman.
“The same people, no doubt, who declare that you and Haggett
had a grudge against the Major for this dismissal.”
“That’s a lie,” asserted Mrs Haggett doggedly; “we gave
information about Mr Smethick having killed the Major because—”
“Ah,” interrupted Lady Molly, quickly, “but then Mr Smethick did not
murder Major Ceely, and your information therefore was useless!”
 “Then who killed the Major, I should like to know?”
Her manner was arrogant, coarse, and extremely unpleasant. I
marvelled why my dear lady put up with it, and what was going on
in that busy brain of hers. She looked quite urbane and smiling,
whilst I wondered what in the world she meant by this story of the
workhouse and the dismissal of Haggett.
“Ah, that’s what none of us know!” she now said lightly; “some
folks say it was your husband.”
“They lie!” she retorted quickly. The imbecile, evidently not
understanding the drift of the conversation, was mechanically
stroking his red mop and looking helplessly all round him.
“He was home before the cries of ‘Murder!’ were heard in the
house,” continued Mrs Haggett.
“How do you know?” asked Lady Molly quickly.
“How do I know?”
“Yes; you couldn’t have heard the cries all the way to this cottage
—why, it’s over half a mile from the Hall!”
“He was home, I say,” she repeated with dogged obstinacy.
“You sent him?”
“He didn’t do it—”
“No one will believe you, especially when the knife is found.”
“What knife?”
“His clasp-knife, with which he killed Major Ceely,” said Lady Molly,
quietly; “he has it in his hand now.”
And with a sudden, wholly unexpected gesture she pointed to the
imbecile, who in an aimless way had prowled round the room whilst
this rapid colloquy was going on.
The purport of it all must in some sort of way have found an echo
in his enfeebled brain. He wandered up to the dresser whereon lay
the remnants of that morning’s breakfast, together with some
crockery and utensils.
In that same half-witted and irresponsible way he had picked up
one of the knives and now was holding it out towards his wife, whilst
a look of fear spread over his countenance.
“I can’t do it, Annie, I can’t—you’d better do it,” he said.
There was dead silence in the little room. The woman Haggett
stood as if turned to stone. Ignorant and superstitious as she was, I
suppose that the situation had laid hold of her nerves, and that she
felt that the finger of a relentless Fate was even now being pointed
at her.
The imbecile was shuffling forward, closer and closer to his wife,
still holding out the knife towards her and murmuring brokenly:
“I can’t do it. You’d better, Annie—you’d better—”
He was close to her now, and all at once her rigidity and nerve-
strain gave way; she gave a hoarse cry, and, snatching the knife
from the poor wretch, she rushed at him ready to strike.
Lady Molly and I were both young, active, and strong, and there
was nothing of the squeamish grande dame about my dear lady
when quick action was needed. But even then we had some
difficulty in dragging Annie Haggett away from her miserable
husband. Blinded with fury, she was ready to kill the man who had
betrayed her. Finally we succeeded in wresting the knife from her.
You may be sure that it required some pluck after that to sit down
again quietly and to remain in the same room with this woman, who
already had one crime upon her conscience, and with this weird,
half-witted creature who kept on murmuring pitiably:
“You’d better do it, Annie—”
Well, you’ve read the account of the case, so you know what
followed. Lady Molly did not move from that room until she had
obtained the woman’s full confession. All she did for her own
protection was to order me to open the window and to blow the
police whistle which she handed me. The police-station fortunately
was not very far, and sound carried in the frosty air.
She admitted to me afterwards that it had been foolish perhaps
not to have brought Etty or Danvers with her, but she was supremely
anxious not to put the woman on the alert from the very start,
hence her circumlocutory speeches anent the workhouse and
Haggett’s probable dismissal.
That the woman had had some connection with the crime Lady
Molly, with her keen intuition, had always felt; but as there was no
witness to the murder itself, and all circumstantial evidence was
dead against young Smethick, there was only one chance of
successful discovery, and that was the murderer’s own confession.
If you think over the interview between my dear lady and the
Haggetts on that memorable morning, you will realize how admirably
Lady Molly had led up to the weird finish. She would not speak to
the woman unless Haggett was present, and she felt sure that as
soon as the subject of the murder cropped up the imbecile would
either do or say something that would reveal the truth.
Mechanically, when Major Ceely’s name was mentioned, he had
taken up the knife. The whole scene recurred to his tottering mind.
That the Major had summarily dismissed him recently was one of
those bold guesses which Lady Molly was wont to make.
That Haggett had been merely egged on by his wife, and had been
too terrified at the last to do the deed himself, was no surprise to
her, and hardly one to me, whilst the fact that the woman ultimately
wreaked her own passionate revenge upon the unfortunate Major
was hardly to be wondered at, in the face of her own coarse and
elemental personality.
 Cowed by the quickness of events and by the appearance of
Danvers and Etty on the scene, she finally made full confession.
She was maddened by the Major’s brutality, when with rough, cruel
words he suddenly turned her husband adrift, refusing to give him
further employment. She herself had great ascendancy over the
imbecile, and had drilled him into a part of hate and of revenge At
first he had seemed ready and willing to obey. It was arranged that
he was to watch on the terrace every night until such time as an
alarm of the recurrence of the cattle-maiming outrages should lure
the Major out alone.
This effectually occurred on Christmas morning, but not before
Haggett, frightened and pusillanimous, was ready to flee rather than
to accomplish the villainous deed. But Annie Haggett, guessing
perhaps that he would shrink from the crime at the last, had also
kept watch every night. Picture the prospective murderer watching
and being watched!
When Haggett came across his wife he deputed her to do the deed
herself.
I suppose that either terror of discovery or merely desire for the
promised reward had caused the woman to fasten the crime on
another.
The finding of the ring by Haggett was the beginning of that cruel
thought which, but for my dear lady’s marvellous powers, would
indeed have sent a brave young man to the gallows.
Ah, you wish to know if Margaret Ceely is married? No! Captain
Glynne cried off. What suspicions crossed his mind I cannot say; but
he never proposed to Margaret, and now she is in Australia—staying
with an aunt, I think—and she has sold Clevere Hall.
 By the Sword
Selwyn Jepson
Selwyn Jepson (1899–1989) was a member of a distinguished
literary family. His father, Edgar, was a popular novelist who
occasionally wrote crime fiction, and who became a founder member
of the Detection Club, while his niece is Fay Weldon. Selwyn was
educated at St Paul’s School and the Sorbonne, and after serving in
the First World War, he too became a novelist, producing books such
as The Red-Haired Girl and The Death Gong during the Twenties. As
a screenwriter in the Thirties, his credits included The Riverside
Murder, loosely based on Six Dead Men, an excellent novel by the
Belgian author S.A. Steeman, and The Scarab Murder Case, a 1936
film based on a Philo Vance mystery written by the American S.S.
Van Dine.
During the Second World War, he worked for the Special
Operations Executive, and for dangerous missions he often recruited
women, in the face of fierce opposition, because he reckoned that
they had “a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than
men”. This belief may have led him to create Eve Gill, his most
successful series character. Eve’s most memorable adventure was
recorded in Man Running, a 1948 thriller which Hitchcock adapted a
couple of years later as Stage Fright, with a cast including Jane
Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, and Richard Todd. Jepson was a talented,
unpretentious storyteller, as ‘By the Sword’, one of his early stories,
demonstrates; it appeared in Cassell’s Magazine in December 1930.
Alfred Caithness stayed on for Christmas for two reasons, quite apart
from the cold weather, which he found easier to support at Dingle
House than alone in his Baker Street flat. Snow had fallen heavily in
the middle of the month and again on Christmas Day. It lay thickly
now, with the thermometer showing four degrees of frost, and it hid
the lawns of the Dingle gardens and coated the roofs and gables of
the old house like icing sugar on a cake.
Although he told himself that the reasons he had stayed were
because an old-fashioned Christmas appealed to him and also
because his cousin Herbert would undoubtedly lend him two
thousand pounds if he handled him right, there was another thing
which kept him here.
This, however, he had not yet fully admitted to himself. He only
knew that he was in no great hurry to talk to Herbert about the
money.
Life was very pleasant at Dingle House, he reflected. Why go out
of the way to speed one’s own departure?
This morning he sat by the blazing logs in the great stone fireplace
of the library and watched Barbara, who was his cousin’s wife,
sewing at some pink thing which lay like a pool of silken foam in her
lap.
The boy, young Robert, who was five and a bit, was marching a
regiment of tin soldiers up and down the low, broad window-sill
behind her. Every now and then she would turn her head to smile at
him and admire some new arrangement of their ranks. Lifeguards on
horseback they were, with red coats and silver breast-plates, a gay
and gallant company.
“You couldn’t have given him anything he would have liked better,
Alfred,” she said. “It’s the Caithness in him.”
 He nodded, but was more attentive to the graceful poise of her
head on the white column of her neck.
“He’ll be a soldier like the rest of them,” she added, and sighed.
Her husband was not one, but only because his left leg was two
inches shorter than his right, a childhood accident. Alfred, too, was
an exception to the family tradition.
“I never cottoned to the idea,” he remarked, following her thought,
“but not because the old story frightened me.”
“You mean that a Caithness always dies by the sword?”
She had been thinking of it a moment before, when she had seen
Robert grown to a man and pursuing the career which his ancestors
had fulfilled so gloriously.
“It’s very queer, though,” Alfred said, “how many of them have
been killed that way.”
He glanced at the crest carved in the limestone of the mantelpiece,
a short sword gripped in a mailed hand.
“But in these days soldiering isn’t so fashionable,” he added.
“Perhaps your boy will be a legal luminary like his famous father.”
His eyes went back to her, to the helmet of sleek, fair hair and the
cream of her temples.
Heaven! How sorry he was for her! Married to Herbert, who was
twenty-eight years her senior. A lame, dry-voiced man, consciously
enigmatical, proud of his keen logical brain, his freedom from
sentiment and the cloying dangers of emotionalism. In other words,
the Honourable Mr Justice Caithness, whose judgments in the
criminal court were renowned for the clarity of their law and the
severity of their consequences.
Small wonder his life was so often threatened! To hear the smug
self-righteousness of the man’s voice as he condemned some poor
devil to penal servitude was enough to arouse any vengeance. If he
had had one threatening letter since the last sessions, he must have
had a dozen.
Alfred shifted restlessly in his armchair and banged the dottle out
of his pipe against the hearth.
What joy could Barbara get out of a husband like that? Precious
little. Where was he now, for that matter? Shut away in his study at
the other end of the house with his dictionaries, encyclopædias, and
books of reference, striving to solve Torquemada’s crossword puzzle
by Wednesday night! That was his weekly excitement, his one
relaxation from the administration of justice and the text-book,
Anomalies in Criminal Law, which he was preparing with young
Donaldson’s help. (At the thought of Jim Donaldson, Alfred frowned.)
“Left—right—left—right—left!” sang Robert at the window.
“Barbara!” said Alfred, and stopped abruptly.
She looked up and then dropped her eyes quickly. He bit on the
empty pipe.
“They are horsemen, dear,” she explained, turning to the boy.
“Only foot-soldiers march in step.”
“These are diff’rent.”
Alfred knew suddenly why he had stayed at Dingle House for
Christmas. He went over to Robert and asked him to run along. The
boy did not want to. A little disgruntled, he obeyed.
“I’ll find the book of engines for Uncle Jim. An’ I’ll come back
presently,” he said at the door.
Alfred closed it on him and crossed to the chair in which the golden
head was bent over the silk. She had not commented on his sending
the child away and he took heart. Surely she guessed what was
coming?
“I’ve been here ten days now,” he said, searching for words, “and
I’ve seen how things are—with you and Herbert.”
 “Alfred, please—”
But he hurried on. He knew what he wanted to say.
“You can’t go on with it! You can’t! You’re sacrificing your life to an
existence in which there is nothing but the dry dust of—of senility to
warm your heart. He married you when you were too young to know
anything about life. I saw it—I knew you in those days, remember.
Your self-seeking, ambitious mother pushed you into his arms when
you were little more than a child, because he was a rich and eminent
man. Barbara, you are miserably unhappy, tortured, tied to a
complacent fossil of a human being who has no more idea of love
than—than that piece of wood!”
She had risen and was facing him with harassed eyes. He strode
round the chair and tried to take her hands, but she snatched them
behind her.
“Look at it honestly, Barbara! You know I’m stating no more than
the truth of the thing. I’ve got eyes in my head. I’ve seen you
looking at him, heard your silence when he says something
particularly inane. You’re rushing into disaster. Presently you’ll begin
to look for an escape and, because the desire is so urgent, your
judgment will be faulty. You’ll make a ghastly mistake. Some casual
man will take advantage of your misery—”
“Alfred, stop!”
“I won’t stop. You’ve got to listen to me. I’ve loved you from the
moment I first saw you, in that church at Herbert’s side. Loved you,
Barbara, d’you hear? I have the right to talk to you like this. I have
the right to look after you—to take you away.”
She stared at him with her hands to her cheeks, as though she
could not believe what she heard. Dared not, Alfred thought with a
throb of triumph. The words came easily now.
 “You must come away with me—you and the boy. You won’t have
to give him up. I wouldn’t ask that. I can’t take you to a luxurious
home but I can give you the warmer things of life, of the heart.
Listen, Barbara. You know how I have felt about you for a long time.
Last summer when I was here, do you remember the harvesting,
when we rode home in the dusk on the top of that great mound of
hay? You guessed then, didn’t you, my darling? I held back because
I wasn’t sure of you, because I hadn’t realized quite how terribly
unhappy you were. You put up a fine show and it deceived me. But
this last week has been different. You haven’t succeeded for a
second in making me think you care at all for Herbert. How could
you pretend? He—”
She shivered and broke into the spate of his sentences with low,
broken phrases.
“Even if I don’t care for him—even if I don’t—does that give you
the right to…? Alfred, he’s my husband—and your cousin. I—I am
loyal to him and you must be.”
“Heaven!” he cried. “What does he matter beside you? It’s your life
—all the years of life and adventure and being—in front of you that
count! Barbara!”
He moved closer to her, with his arms open to take her.
“You don’t understand—”
Then the door-handle creaked and he stopped, drew away. Jim
Donaldson came in, his broad figure filling the doorway and his
wide-set blue eyes cheerfully alert.
“Oh, hullo,” he said, and strolled into the room. If he saw Alfred’s
scowl he ignored it. If he noticed the white, strained face of Barbara
Caithness, he showed no sign.
“Cigarettes about?” he asked and stretched his shoulders, for he
had been writing solidly since ten. Alfred disliked him cordially. The
crispness of his speech, the health and honesty of his eyes, were
irritating. This was the sort of man he saw as a danger to Barbara,
living under the same roof with her when she was in this state of
mind.
He saw the effort with which she picked up her sewing and made
pretence of an easy mind. It was the gallant spirit he so admired in
her, that, and all the perfection of form and feature which was hers.
A woman in a million…his woman. Thank heaven he had had the
courage to tell her so. It had startled her a bit but in a little she
would see the thing more clearly. Damn this fellow Donaldson.
Couldn’t the oaf see they were wanting to talk to one another? He
watched him take possession of an armchair and thrust his feet
toward the fire.
“No sign of the thermometer letting up. But it’s going to stay
bright, thank goodness.”
But he wasn’t as dull as he seemed. Alfred saw his quick glance at
the girl. She wasn’t giving anything away, though.
Just as well, although the world would soon know about it. Herbert
last of all—and not before they had gone. It would be a blow to the
man’s pride, but undoubtedly good for him to discover a flaw in his
omnipotence.
Donaldson, who could not be told to “run along,” looked as though
he proposed to sit there until lunch-time. Alfred searched for some
excuse to get rid of him or a cue that would enable Barbara to come
outside, but unsuccessfully.
The boy returned at this point, burdened with a picture book and
determined to engage Uncle Jim’s attention. The library seemed
crowded and Alfred left it in ill-humour. He wanted to think. The
situation had developed almost by itself. He did not find himself
surprised now that it had come at last and he had put words to it,
but he was aware of a kind of breathlessness. Emotion, of course,
and largely a physical one. He was quite experienced enough to
realize that.
He went through the lounge toward the wide stairs.
As his footsteps died away, Donaldson sat up straightly in his chair,
all his carelessness gone. In its place was anxiety and concern.
“It has come, has it?”
“I’m frightened of him, Jim. I tried to stop him—”
“—but he ranted on. I know. Oh, damn. Why didn’t I arrive a bit
earlier? Had it been going on long?”
Her distress cut his heart.
“No. But he said dreadful things about—Herbert. He blamed him
and—”
“He would. He’s jealous, you see, of all that Herbert has which he
hasn’t. Money—success—fame. That’s why he wants you. To have
you, to steal you—make you follow him—would convince him of his
own power. Power he knows in his heart of hearts, he can never
achieve. But you needn’t worry. You mustn’t! Just yell for me if he
starts again.”
“It’s difficult, Jim. You see, he knows. I don’t mean about you and
me, but about my not being happy.”
He went to her and touched her hand, while Robert, realizing with
the infallible instinct of his age that his elders were more interested
in themselves than in him, went back to his Lifeguards on the
window-sill.
Donaldson spoke softly, with gentleness.
“Was it only yesterday we discovered one another? I’m still a little
dazed but I’m beginning to think straight. My dear, I shall have to
tell Herbert, and go. It’s the only thing to do. I’ll tell him soon. To-
morrow. I shan’t involve you. He’ll be fair. You know, sometimes I
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“It is an heirloom of my house,” said I. “It was given by my father to
my mother when he came to woo her.”
The Englishman raised his eyebrows with an aspect of grave
interest.
“Was that so, my young companion? Given by your father to your
mother—was that really the case? And set with agates, unless my
eyes deceive me.”
“Yes, they are agates.”
“The sight of agates puts me in mind of a ring I had of my old friend,
the Sophy. I used always to affect it on the middle finger of the right
hand, just as you affect your own, my son, until it was coveted by my
sainted mother upon a wet Ash Wednesday.”
Still exhibiting the tokens of a lively regard, the Englishman began to
fondle the ring as it lay on my finger.
“An honest band of gold, of a very chaste device. It looks
uncommonly choice on the hand of a gentleman. Does it not fit
somewhat loosely, my young companion?”
Speaking thus, and before I could suspect his intention, Sir Richard
Pendragon drew the ring off my finger. He held it up to the light, and
proceeded to examine it with the nicest particularity.
“I observe it was made in Milan,” said he. “It must have lain for years
in a nobleman’s family. My own was fashioned in Baghdat, but I
would say this is almost as choice as the gift of the Sophy. And as I
say, my son, it certainly makes an uncommonly fine appearance on
the hand of a gentleman.”
Thereupon Sir Richard Pendragon pressed the slender band of
metal upon the large fat middle finger of his right hand.
“It comes on by no means so easy as the Sophy’s gift,” said he; “but
then, to be sure, my old gossip had a true circumference taken by
the court jeweller. I often think of that court jeweller, such an odd,
brisk little fellow as ’a was. ’A had a cast in the right eye, and I
remember that when he walked one leg went shorter than its
neighbour. But for all that ’a knew what an agate was, and his face
was as open as a fine evening in June.”
With an air of pleasantry that was impossible to resist, Sir Richard
passed his cup and exhorted me to drain it. I drank a little of the
wine, yet with some uneasiness, for it was sore to me that my
father’s talisman was upon the hand of a stranger.
“I shall thank you, sir, to restore the ring to my care.”
“With all the pleasure in life, my son.” The Englishman took hold of
his finger and gave it a mighty pull, but the ring did not yield.
He shook his head and began to whistle dolefully.
“Why, as I am a good Christian man this plaguy ring sticks to my
hand like a sick kitten to a warm hearthstone. Try it, my son, I pray
you.”
I also took a pull at the ring, which was wedged so firmly upon his
hand, but it would not budge.
“This is indeed a terrible matter,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “What
is to be done, young Spaniard?”
He called the innkeeper and bade him bring a bowl of cold water.
Into this he dipped his finger; and although he held it in the water for
quite a long time, the ring and his right hand could not be induced to
part company.
“What is the price you set upon this ring, my young companion?”
“The ring is beyond price—it was my mother’s—and has ever been
in the keeping of an ancient house.”
“If it is beyond price there is an end to the question. I was about to
offer you money, but I see you have one of those lofty spirits that can
brook no vulgar dross. Well, well, pride of birth is a good thing, and
money is but little. Yet one who has grown old in the love of virtue
would like to requite you in some way. Had we not better throw a
main with the dice? If I win I wear the ring for my lawful use; and if I
lose you shall have the good tuck that was given to me by the King
of Bavaria for helping him against the Dutch.”
I did not accept this suggestion, as you may believe. Yet it gave me
sore concern to see my father’s heirloom upon the hand of this
foreigner. In what fashion it was to be lured from his finger I was at a
loss to know; and in my inexperience of the world I did not know
what course to embrace.
 CHAPTER V
I HEAR OF THE PRINCESS

Upon his own part Sir Richard Pendragon showed a wonderful

calmness. He wore the ring upon his finger with so great an air, and
withal was so polite that the forcing of a quarrel was put out of the
question. None the less it was clear that if ever I was to recover my
father’s gift it must be at the point of the sword.
It is always claimed, however, by the natives of my province, which
in the things of the mind is allowed to be the first in all Spain, that a
cool judgment must ride before violence. Therefore I was in no haste
to push the matter to an extremity. My mind was set that I could only
regain possession of the trinket by an appeal to the sword; that soon
or late we must submit ourselves to that arbitrament, but as the night
was yet in its youth, I felt there was no need to force the brawl before
its season. Thus, nursing my injury in secret I marked the man
narrowly as he sat his stool, with his hungry eyes forever trained
upon me sideways, and forever glancing down with furtive laughter,
while his great lean limbs in their patched, parti-coloured hose, in
which the weather had wrought various hues, were sprawled out
towards the warmth of the chimney.
As thus he lay it was hard to decide whether he was indeed a king’s
son or no more than a fluent-spoken adventurer. And in spite of the
flattering opinions he put forward of his own character, I was fain to
come to it that the latter conclusion was at least very near to the
truth. For one thing, the lack of seriousness in his demeanour did not
consort very well with the descendant of princes, whom all the world
knows to be grave men. He never so much as looked towards me
without a secret light of mirth in his eye; and this I was unable to
account for, as for myself I had never felt so grave.
“Sir Richard Pendragon, knight,” said he, for no particular reason,
unless it were the love of hearing his own discourse; “of all names I
believe that to be the most delectable; for it is the name of a true
man, of one addicted to contemplation, and of one who has grown
old in the love of virtue. Sir Richard Pendragon, knight—a name is a
small thing, but it has its natural music; Sir Richard Pendragon,
knight—yes, it runs off the tongue to a tune. I think, my young
companion, you have already admired it?”
“Indeed, sir, I have,” said I, with a certain measure of mockery, of
which, upon occasion, those of my province are said to be adept in
the use. “I conceive it to be a most wonderful name. Have you not
said so yourself?”
“If I have, I have,” said he, patting my shoulder with a familiarity for
which I did not thank him. “After all, the murder was obliged to come
out. Is it the part of valour to shun the truth? My young companion, I
feel sure you are one of those who respect that pious opinion that is
shared by P. Ovidius Naso and other learned commentators upon
the subject. Indeed, it is very well that a name which stands so high
in middle Europe is come into this outer part. Quite recently I feared
it to be otherwise. I met an itinerant priest, not a month ago, bald,
obese, and biblical, who said that to his mind my name was
deficient. ‘Fair sir, for what is it celebrated?’ was his question. ‘For
what is it celebrated, reverend one?’ was my rejoinder. ‘Why, where
can you have lived these virtuous years of yours? It is the name of a
notorious pea-nut and straw-sucker.’ ‘That is verily a singular
accomplishment,’ said the reverend father in God. ‘Yes, your
reverence,’ I answered, ‘this old honest fellow can draw a nut
through a straw with the same complacency as a good churchman
can draw sack through the neck of a bottle.’ ‘That is indeed
remarkable,’ said the reverend father, and proceeded to demonstrate
that as pea-nuts were wide and straws were narrow, it was no light
matter. ‘Yes, my father,’ said I, ‘that is a very just observation. But I
am sure you would be the last to believe that one who has a king’s
blood flowing under his doublet would bring his mind to anything
trivial.’ ‘Doubtless your view is the correct one,’ said the reverend
sceptic, ‘but all the same, I fail to see how a king’s blood would be
able to compass a feat of that nature.’ ‘There is none shall say what
a king’s blood will compass,’ was my final rejoinder, ‘for there is a
particular genius in it.’ Yet, my young son of the Spains, I have little
doubt that the worthy Dominican is still breaking his mind upon this
problem behind the walls of Mother Church; and such is the subtlety
of these scholars with their thumb rules and their logicality, that
presently you shall find that this innocent pleasantry has unhinged
the brains of half the clerks in Salamanca.”
“You have indeed a ready wit and a subtle contrivance, sir,” said I at
the conclusion of this ridiculous tale, for it was plain that he looked
for some such comment upon it.
“You must blame my nation for that. Every Englishman is witty when
he has taken wine; he is an especially bright dog in everything after
the drinking of beer. You dull rogues of the continent can form no
conception of an Englishman’s humour.”
“How comes it, sir, that you find yourself an exile from this land
which, by your account of it, is fair unspeakably?”
“It is a matter of fortune,” he made answer.
“Is that to say you are on a quest of fortune?” said I, breathing high
at this magic word.
“You have come to the truth,” said he with a sigh and a smile and a
sidelong look at the sword that hung by his leg.
“Why then, sir,” I cried with an eagerness I could not restrain, “we are
as brothers in this matter. I also am on a quest of fortune.”
My words seemed to jump with the humour of Sir Richard
Pendragon. He looked at me long and curiously, with that side
glance which I did not find altogether agreeable, stroked his beard as
if sunk in deep thought, and said with the gravest air I had heard him
use,
“Oh, indeed, my son, is that the case! So you are on a quest of
fortune, are you, my son? Well, she is a nice, a proper, and a valiant
word.”
“My father was ever the first to allow it,” said I. “She used him ill; his
right hand was struck off in a battle at a tender age, but I never
heard him complain about her.”
“She hath ever been haughty and distant with old English Dick,” said
my companion, sighing heavily; “but you will never hear that true
mettle abuse the proud jade. Fortune,” he repeated and I saw his
great hungry eyes begin to kindle until they shone like rubies—“oh,
what a name is that! She is sweeter in the ears of us of England than
is the nightingale. What have we not adventured in thy name, thou
perfect one! Here is this Dick, this old red bully, with his dry throat
and his sharp ears and his readily watering eye, what hath he not
dared for thee, thou dear ungracious one! He has borne his point in
every land, from the wall of China to the high Caucasian mountains;
from the blessed isles of Britain to farthest Arabia. Who was it drove
the Turk out of Vienna with a six-foot pole? Who was it beat the
Preux Chevalier off his ground with a short sword? Who was it slew
the sultan of the Moriscoes with his own incomparable hand? Who
was it, and wherefore was it, my son?”
In this exaltation of his temper he peered at me with his side glance,
as though he would seek an answer to a question to which no
answer was necessary.
“Why do I handle,” he proceeded, “the sword, the broadsword, the
short sword, the sword and buckler, and above all that exquisite
invention of God, the nimble rapier of Ferrara steel, with the nice
mastery of an old honest blade, but in thy service, thou sweet
baggage with thy moist lip and thy enkindling eye?”
“Ah! Sir Englishman,” cried I, feeling, in spite of his rough brogue, the
music of his nature, “I love to hear you speak thus.”
“Thirty years have I been at the trade, good Spaniard, and sooner
than change it I would die. One hundred towns have I sacked; ten
fortunes have I plundered. But by sack they came, and by sack they
did depart. It is wonderful how a great nature has a love of sack. Yet
I have but my nose to show for my passion. Do you observe its
prominent hue, which by night is so luminous that it flames like a
beacon to forewarn the honest mariner? Yet to Fortune will we wet
our beards, good Spaniard, for we of England court her like a
maiden with a dimple in her cheek.”
Having concluded this declamation, Sir Richard Pendragon called
the landlord in a tone like thunder, bade him bring a cup of sherry for
my use, and fill up his own, which was passing empty.
“I will bear the charges, lousy one,” said Sir Richard with great
magnificence.
“Oh yes, your worship”—the poor innkeeper was as pale as a corpse
—“but there is already such a score against your worship—”
“Score, you knave!” Sir Richard rolled his eyes horribly. “Why, if I
were not so gentle as a woman I would cut your throat. Score, you
dog! Then have you no true sense of delicacy? Now I would ask you,
you undershot ruffian with your bleared eyes and your soft chaps,
are gentlemen when they sit honouring their mistresses in their own
private tavern, are they to be crossed in their sentiments by the
lowest order of man? Produce me two pots of sack this minute, or by
this hand I will cut a gash in your neck.”
The unlucky wight had fled ere his guest had got half through this
speech, which even in my ears was frightful, with such roars of fury
was it given. When he returned with two more cups filled with wine,
Sir Richard looked towards me and laid his finger to the side of his
nose, as though to suggest that he yielded to no man in the handling
of an innkeeper.
By the time he had drunk this excellent liquor there came a sensible
change in the Englishman’s mien. The poetry of his mood, which had
led him to speak of Fortune in terms to kindle the soul, yielded to one
more fit for common affairs.
“Having lain in my castle,” said he, “and being well nourished with
sack, to-morrow I start on my travels again. Upon pressure I would
not mind taking a young squire.”
He favoured me with a look of a very searching character.
“I say,” he repeated solemnly, stretching out his enormous legs, “I am
minded to take a young squire.”
“In what, sir, would his duties consist?”
“They would be mild, good Don. Assuming that this young squire—if
he were a man of birth so much the better—paid me a hundred
crowns a year, cleaned my horse of a morning and conversed with
me pleasantly in the afternoon, I would undertake to teach him the
world.”
“Why, sir,” said I, “surely it would be more fitting if your squire
received one hundred crowns from you annually, which might stand
as his emolument.”
“Emolument!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard. “One hundred
crowns! These be very quaint ideas.”
“Why, sir,” said I, with something of that perspicacity for which our
province is famous, “would not your squire have duties to perform,
and would they not be worthy of remuneration?”
“Duties!—remuneration!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard
furiously. “Why, can you not know, good Don, I am in the habit of
receiving a thousand guilders per annum for teaching the world to
sons of the nobility?”
“Indeed, sir! can a knowledge of the world be of so much worth?”
The Englishman roared at that which he took for my simplicity.
“By my soul!” he exclaimed, “a knowledge of the world is a most
desperate science. I have met many learned men in my travels, but
that science always beat them. Cæsar was a learned man, but he
would have had fewer holes in his doublet had he gone to school
earlier. It is a deep science, my son; it is the deepest science of all.
What do you know of deceit, my son, you who have never left your
native mountains before this morning? You, with the dust of your
rustic province upon your boots, what do you know of those who
hold you in fair speaking that they may know the better where to put
the knife?”
“I confess, sir, I have thought but little of these things,” I said humbly,
for my misadventure with the beggar woman was still in my mind,
and my mother’s ring was no longer in the keeping of her only son.
“Then you will do well to think upon it, my young companion,” said
the Englishman, regarding me with his great red eyes. “You talk of
fortune, Spaniard, you who have yet to move ten leagues into the
world! Why, this is harebrained madness. You who have not even
heard of the famous city of London and the great English nation,
might easily fall in with a robber, or be most damnably cheated in a
civil affair. Why, you who say ‘if you please’ to an innkeeper might
easily lose your purse.”
“I may be ill found in knowledge, sir, but I hope my sword is worthy,”
said I, determined that none should contemn my valour, even if my
poor mind was to be sneered at.
“Oh, so you hope your sword is worthy, do you now?” The
Englishman chuckled furiously as if moved by a conceit. “Well,
Master No-Beard, that is a good accomplishment to carry, and I
suspect that you may find it so one of these nights when there is no
moon.”
All the same Sir Richard Pendragon continued to laugh in his dry
manner, and fell again to looking at me sideways. For my life I could
not see where was the occasion for so much levity.
“My father has taught me the use of the sword,” said I.
“Oh, so your father has taught you the use of the sword! Well, to
judge by the length of your beard, good Don, I am inclined to suspect
that your father had a worthy pupil.”
“I hope I may say so.”
“Oh, so you hope you may say so, my son! Well, now, I think you
may take it, good Don, from one who has grown old in the love of
virtue, that your father would know as much of the sword as a
burgomaster knows of phlebotomy. You see, having had his right
hand struck off in battle at a tender age, unless he happened to be a
most infernally dexterous fellow he forfeited his only means of
becoming a learned practitioner.”
The Englishman laughed in his belly.
“My father had excellent precept,” said I, “although, as you say, the
Hand of God curtailed his practice.”
“Well now, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, assuming a grave
air, which yet did not appear a very sincere one, “he who speaks you
is one whose practice the Hand of God has not curtailed. He was
proficient with sword and basket in his tenderest infancy. He has
played with all the first masters in Europe; he has made it a life
study. With all the true principles of this inimitable art he is familiar.
He has been complimented upon his talent and genius, natural and
acquired, by those whom modesty forbids him to name. And all these
stores, my worthy Don, of experience, ensample, and good wit are at
your command for the ridiculous sum of an hundred crowns.”
“I have not an hundred crowns in the world, sir,” I confessed with
reluctancy, for his arguments were masterful.
“By cock!” he snarled, “that is just as I suspected.”
There could be no mistaking the change in his demeanour when I
made this unhappy confession. It caused him to resolve his gross
and rough features into some form of contemplation. At last he said,
with an eye that was like a weasel’s,—
“What is the sum in your poke, good Spaniard?”
“I have but eight crowns.”
“Eight crowns! Why, to hear your conversation one would think you
owned a province.”
“A good sword, a devout heart, and the precepts of my noble father
must serve, sir, as my kingdom,” said I, hurt not a little at the
remarkable change that had come over him.
“I myself,” said he, “have always been governor and viceregent of
that kingdom, and had it not been for a love of canaries in my youth,
which in my middle years has yielded to a love of sherris, I must
have administered it well. But there is also this essential divergence
in our conditions, my son. I am one of bone and sinew, an
Englishman, therefore one of Nature’s first works; whereas you,
good Don, saving your worshipful presence, are but a mincing and
turgid fellow, as thick in the brains as a heifer, and as yellow in the
complexion as a toad under his belly. Your mind has been so
depressed by provincial ideas, and your stature so wizened by the
sun, that to a liberal purview they seem nowise superior to a maggot
in a fig, or a blue-bottle fly in the window of a village alehouse.”
“Sir Englishman,” said I haughtily, for since I had told him I had but
eight crowns in the world his manner of speaking had grown
intolerable, “I do not doubt that among your own nation you are a
person of merit, but it would not come amiss if you understood that
you pay your addresses to a hidalgo of Spain. And I must crave
leave to assure you that in his eyes one of your nation is but little
superior to a heathen Arab who is as black as a coal. At least, I have
always understood my father, God keep him! to say this.”
“By my faith, then,” said the Englishman, “even for a Spaniard your
father must have been very ill informed.”
“Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I sternly, “I would have you be wary of
the manner in which you mention my father.”
“I pray you, brother, do not make me laugh.” He trained his sidelong
look upon me. “I have such an immoderately nimble humour—it has
ever been the curse of my family from mother to daughter, from
father to son—as doth cause the blood to commit all manner of
outrages upon mine old head veins. All my ancestors died of a
fluxion that did not die of steel. But I tell you, Spaniard, it is as plain
as my hand that your father must have been a half-witted fellow to
beget such a poor son.”
“Sir Richard Pendragon,” I cried, incensed beyond endurance, “if you
abuse my father I will run you through the heart!”
“Well,” said he, “this is good speaking on eight crowns, a provincial
accent, and a piece of rusty iron which is fitter to toast half a saddle
of mutton than to enhance the scabbard of a gentleman. And if you
make this speaking good, why, it will be still better. For this is a very
high standard, brother, you are setting up, and I doubt me grievously
whether even the Preux Chevalier would be able to maintain it.”
He concluded with such an insolent and unexpected roar of laughter
as made me grow furious.
“I would have you beware, sir!” I cried. “Were you twice as gross in
your stature and three times as rude, I run you through the heart if
again you contemn the unsullied name of my noble father.”
“Your father was one-handed,” said this gigantical ruffian, looking at
me steadily. “He was as stupid in his wits as a Spanish mule, and I
spit in the face of the unbearded child that bears his name.”
 CHAPTER VI
OF A PRIVATE BRAWL. I TAKE PROFIT AT THE
COST OF REPUTATION

Before I could draw my sword my challenger was on his feet, had

kicked away the stool on which he had sat, and had bared his own
weapon. I was so overcome with fury that I could not stay to mark his
enormous stature, yet his head seemed to live among the hams in
the roof.
This was the first occasion I had drawn my sword in a quarrel, but I
needed to ask no better. The pure reputation of this noble heart I
was defending nerved my right arm with unimaginable strength.
Besides, I was twenty-one years old, well grown and nourished for
one of my nation. My blade was of an ancient pattern, but a true
Toledo of the first quality, and many high deeds of the field had been
wrought thereby. The Englishman towered above me in the extremity
of his stature, but had he been of twice that assemblance, in my
present mood I would not have feared him. For, as I was fain to
believe, some of the hardiest fighting blood of our northern provinces
was in my veins. This was my first duello; but you must not forget,
reader, that my father had instructed me how to bear my point, how
to thrust, how to receive, and, above all, how to conduct the wrist as
laid down by the foremost practice.
We spent little time in courtesies, for my anger would not permit
them. At once I ran in upon my adversary, thrusting straight at his
heart. Yet he received my sword on his own with a skill that was truly
wonderful, and turned it aside with ease. All the power I possessed
was behind it, yet he cast it off almost as complacently as if he had
been brushing away a mosquito. The sting of this failure and his air
of disdain caused me to spring at him like a cat, yet, I grieve to say,
without its wariness, for, do what I would, I was unable to come near
him. He saved every stroke with a most marvellous blade, not once
moving his wrist or changing his posture. After this action had
proceeded for some minutes I was compelled to draw off to fetch my
breath; whereon said my adversary with a snarl of contempt that hurt
me more than my impotence:—
“I wish, my son, you would help me to pass the time of the day.”
My instant response was a most furious slash at his head, although it
is proper to mention that this method was not recommended in the
rules of the art as expounded by the illustrious Don Ygnacio. But I
grieve to confess that rage had overmastered me. Yet Sir Richard
Pendragon evaded this blow as dexterously as he had evaded the
others.
“Come, brother,” he said; “even for a Spaniard this is futility. This is
no more than knife work. I am persuaded your father was a butcher,
and owed his entire practice to the loins of the Galician hog.”
Such derision galled me worse than a thrust from his sword. Casting
away all discretion I ran in upon him blindly, for at that moment I was
minded to make an end one way or another.
“Worse and worse,” said he. “You bear your blade like a clergyman’s
daughter. Still, do not despair, my young companion; perhaps you
will make better practice for my left hand.”
As he spoke, to my dismay he changed his weapon from his right
hand to his left, and parried me with the same contemptuous
dexterity. Suddenly he made a strong parade, and in the next instant
I felt the point of his sword at my breast.
“Your father must have been a strangely ignorant man, even for a
Spaniard,” he said. “I do not wonder that he lost his right hand at an
early age. You have as little defence as a notorious cutpurse on his
trial. Any time these five minutes you must have been slain.”
Then it was I closed my eyes in the extremity of shame and never
expected to open them again. But to my astonishment the forces of
nature continued to operate, and soon, in a vertigo of fear and anger,
I was fain to look for the cause. It seemed that my enemy had
lowered his point and drawn off. Plainly he intended to use me as a
cat uses a mouse, for his private pleasure. For that reason I fell the
harder upon him, since I knew my life to be forfeit, and I had an
instinct that the more furiously it was yielded the less should I know
of a horrid end.
“I will now slit your doublet, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon.
“Have you a favourite rib you would care to select? What of the
fifth?”
Without more ado he began cutting my doublet with a dexterity that
was amazing. His point flashed here and there across my breast and
seemed to touch it in a thousand places; yet, although the old leather
was pierced continually, no hap was suffered by my skin.
“If only I had my lighter and more fanciful blade of Ferrara here,” he
said in the midst of a thousand fanfaronades and brandishments, “I
would flick every button off your doublet so nicely as a tailor.”
“Kill me!” I cried, flinging myself upon his blade.
I made such a terrific sweep with my sword that it whistled through
the air, and was like to cut off his head. Instead, however, of allowing
it to do so, he met it with a curious turn of the wrist, and the weapon
was hurled from my grasp.
As I stood before him panting and dishevelled, and young in the
veins and full in them too, I seemed to care no more than a flake of
snow for what was about to occur. I could but feel that I had traduced
my father’s reputation, and had cast a grievous slur upon his
precept. The blood was darkening my eyes and singing in my ears,
but quite strangely I was not minding the blade of my enemy. That
which was uppermost in my mind was the landlord’s opinion that he
was the Devil in Person.
Upon striking my sword to the ground he bade me remark his
method of disarmament.
“It approaches perfection so nearly,” said he, “as aught can that is
the offspring of the imperfection of man. It is the fruit of a virtuous
maturity; it is the crown of artifice; consider all the rest as nought. For
I do tell thee, Spaniard, this piece of espièglerie, as they say at
Paris, divides one of God’s own good swordsmen from the vulgar
herd of tuck-pushers or the commonalty. And, mark you, it was all
done with the left hand.”
While awaiting with as much composure as I could summon that
stroke which was to put me out of life, there happened a strange
thing. There had come into the room, unobserved by us both, the
tap-wench to the inn. And in a moment, seeing what was toward, this
brave little creature, not much bigger than a stool, and as handsome
and flashing a quean as ever I saw, ran between me and the sword
of my adversary.
“Hold, you bloody foreign man!” she cried imperiously.
“Nay, hold yourself, you neat imp,” said the Englishman, catching her
round the middle by his right arm, and lightly hoisting her a dozen
paces as though she had been a sack of feathers. Yet he had made
but a poor reckoning if he thought he could thus dispose of this
fearless thing. For his wine cup, half full of sherry, which had been
set in the chimney-place out of the way of hap, was to her hand. She
picked it up, and hurled the pot and its contents full in the face of the
giant.
“Take it, you wicked piece of villainy!” she cried.
Now, by a singular mischance the edge of the cup struck Sir Richard
Pendragon on the forehead. It caused a wound so deep that his
blood was mingled with the excellent wine. Together they flowed into
his eyes and down his cheeks, and so profusely that they stained his
doublet and dripped upon the floor. And the courageous girl, seeing
my enemy’s discomfiture, for what with the liquor and what with his
gore he was almost blind for the nonce, she darted across the room
and picked up my sword. With a most valiant eagerness she pressed
it into my hand.
“Now, young señor gentleman, quick, quick!” she cried. “Have at him
and make an end of him!”
“Alack, you good soul,” said I, “this cannot be. I am the lawful prize of
my adversary. God go with you, you kind thing.”
I cast the sword to the ground.
“Then oh, young master, you are a very fool.” Tears sprang to the
eyes of the honest girl and quenched her fiery glances.
However, so dauntless was the creature in my cause that she picked
up my sword again, and crying, “I myself will do it, señor,” actually
had at the English barbarian with the greatest imaginable valiancy.
In the meantime the giant had been roaring at his own predicament
in the most immoderate fashion. For, on feeling his head, and
discovering that the stream that trickled into his eyes was a
compound of elements so delectable, he cast forth his tongue at it in
a highly whimsical manner, and drew as much into his mouth as he
could obtain.
“I have my errors,” he cried, rocking with mirth; “but if a wanton
disregard of God’s honest sherris be there among, when he dies
may this ruby-coloured one be called to the land of the eternal
drought. Jesu! what a body this Pendragon azure gives it. ’Tis
choicer than Tokay out of the skull of a Mohammedan. When the
hour comes to invest me in my shell, I will get me a tun of sherris
and sever a main artery, and I will perish by mine own suction.”
He had scarcely concluded these comments when the brave little
maid had at him with my sword. Expecting no such demonstration on
the part of one not much taller than his leg, it needed all his
adroitness of foot, which for one of his stature was indeed surprising,
to save the steel from his ribs. And so set was the creature on
making an end of him that the force with which she dashed at his
huge form, and yet missed it, carried her completely beyond her
balance. With another of his mighty roars, the English giant seized
her by the nape with his right hand, and held her up in the air by the
scruff, so curiously as if she had been a fierce little cat that had flown
at him.
“Why, thou small spitfire,” he said, “thou art even too slight to be
cracked under mine heel. Thou pretty devil, I will buss thee.”
“I will bite off the end of your nose, you bloody-minded villain,” cried
the little wench, struggling frantically in his gripe.
“Nay, why this enmity, pretty titmouse,” said the giant, “seeing that I
have a mind to fondle thee for thy valour?”
“You would slay the young gentleman señor, you wicked cut-throat
villain, you!”
“Nay, by my hand I will not, if you will give me twenty honest busses,
you neat imp, to heal my contusion.”
“You swear, Englishman, upon your wicked beard, the young señor
gentleman shall come to no hurt if I kiss you?”
“I will swear, thou nice hussy, by the bones of all my ancestors in
their Cornish cemetery, that young Don Cock-a-hoop shall go
uncorrected for all his sauciness and pretension. With eight crowns
in his wallet and a most unfathomable ignorance he drew his tuck on
a right Pendragon. But so much effrontery shall go unvisited, mark
you, at the price of twenty honest busses from those perfect lips of
thine. If thou art not the most perfect thing in Spain, I am little better
than a swaggerer.”
“Put me down then, Englishman,” said the little wench as boldly as
an ambassador; “and do you give the young gentleman señor his
sword.”
“So I will; but I would have you remark it, pretty titmouse, that I will
be embraced with all the valiancy of thy nature. Ten on each side of
my royal chaps, and one for good kindness right i’ th’ middle.”
“Give the young gentleman señor his sword, then, you English
villain.”
So had this matter accosted the humour of Sir Richard Pendragon
that he obeyed her.
“Take it, young Spaniard,” said he with a magnificent air; “and do you
consider it as your first lesson in the affairs of the world. I do
perceive two precepts to whose attention your noble father does not
appear to have directed you. The first is, never draw upon the
premier swordsman of his age, so long as life hath any savour in it;
and for the other, never lack the favour of a farthingale. Do I speak
sooth, good girl?”
“Yes, you do, you large villain,” said the little creature, with her two
fierce eyes as black as sloes. “And now I will kiss you quickly, so that
I may have done. I shall scarcely be able to chew so much as a
piece of soft cheese for a month after it.”
The Englishman seated himself upon his stool, and set her upon his
knees.
“Begin upon the right, my pretty she, slowly, purposefully, and with
valiancy. I would as lief have your lips as a bombard of sherris. If it
were not for one Betty Tucker, a dainty piece at the ‘Knight in
Armour’ public-house hard by to the town of Barnet, in the kingdom
of Great Britain, I would bear you at my saddle-bow all the way back
to our little England, and marry you at the church of Saint Clement
the Dane, which is in London city. For next to sack I love valour, and
next to valour I love my soul. Now then, thou nice miniard, I must
taste thy lips softly, courteously, but yet with valiancy as becomes thy
disposition.”
It was never my fortune to behold a sight more whimsical than that of
this monstrous fellow seated with the blood still trickling down to his
chin, while this little black-eyed wench, not much bigger than his fist,
with her skin the colour of a walnut, her hair hanging loose, and her
rough clothes stained and in tatters, dealt out her kisses first to one
side of his ugly mouth and then to the other, yet making as she did
so lively gestures of disgust.
“Courteously, courteously!” cried the giant. “Let us have no
unmannerly haste in this operation, or I will have them all over
again.”
“Nay, you shall not; I will take heed of that. That is fifteen. Another
ten, you foreign villain, would give me a canker in my front teeth.”
“Nay, that is but fourteen, my pretty mouse. Here we have the
fifteenth. Courteously, courteously, do I not tell thee. See to it that it
is so long drawn out that I may count nine.”
“There’s twenty, you large villain!” cried the little creature in huge
disgust, and slipping off his knee as quickly as a lizard.