The Duke in the Suburbs - Edgar Wallace 2 стр.

"Ah," murmured the Duke with sympathetic resentment of the world's censure, "what of it?"

"There was a lady in Montana," said Hank courteously, "a charming lady she was too, who smoked morning, noon and night, and nobody thought any worse of her."

The lady basked in the approval. Of course, she only smoked very occasionally, a teeny weeny cigarette.

"That woman," said Hank solemnly, "was never without a pipe or a see-gar. Smoked Old Union plug do you remember her, Duke?"

"Let me see," pondered the Duke, "the lady with the one eye or "

"Oh, no," corrected Hank, "she died in delirium tremens no, don't you remember the woman that ran away with Bill Suggley to Denver, she got tried for poisonin' him in '99."

"Oh, yes!" The Duke's face lit up, but Mrs. C. coughed dubiously.

Mr. Roderick Nape called. He was mysterious and shot quick glances round the room and permitted himself to smile quietly.

They had the conventional opening. The Duke was very glad to see him, and he was delighted to make the acquaintance of the Duke. What extraordinary weather they had been having!

Indeed, agreed the Duke, it was extraordinary.

"You've been to America," said Mr. Roderick Nape suddenly and abruptly.

The Duke looked surprised.

"Yes," he admitted.

"West, of course," said the young Mr. Nape carelessly.

"However did you know?" said the astonished nobleman.

Young Mr. Nape shrugged his shoulders.

"One has the gift of observation and deduction born with it," he said disparagingly. He indicated with a wave of his hand two Mexican saddles that hung on the wall.

"Where did they come from?" he asked, with an indulgent smile.

"I bought 'em at a curiosity shop in Bond Street," said the Duke innocently, "but you're right, we have lived in America."

"I thought so," said the young Mr. Nape, and pushed back his long black hair.

"Of course," he went on, "one models one's system on certain lines, I have already had two or three little cases not without interest. There was the Episode of the Housemaid's brooch, and the Adventure of the Black Dog "

"What was that?" asked the Duke eagerly.

"A mere trifle," said the amateur detective with an airy wave of his hand. "I'd noticed the dog hanging about our kitchen; as we have no dogs I knew it was a stranger, as it stuck to the kitchen, knew it must be hungry. Looked on its collar, discovered it belonged to a Colonel B , took it back and restored it to its owner, and told him within a day or so, how long it was, since he had lost it."

Hank shook his head in speechless admiration.

"Any time you happen to be passing," said young Mr. Nape rising to go, "call in and see my little laboratory; I've fixed it up in the greenhouse; if you ever want a blood stain analysed I shall be there."

"Sitting in your dressing gown, I suppose," said the Duke with awe, "playing your violin and smoking shag?"

Young Mr. Nape frowned.

"Somebody has been talking about me," he said severely.

"63 has to call, 51 is out of town, and 35 has measles in the house," reported the Duke one morning at breakfast.

Hank helped himself to a fried egg with the flat of his knife.

"What about next door!" he asked.

"Next door won't call," said the Duke sadly. "Next door used to live in Portland Place, where dukes are so thick that you have to fix wire netting to prevent them coming in at the window no, mark off 66 as a non-starter."

Hank ate his egg in silence.

"She's very pretty," he said at length.

"66?"

Hank nodded.

"I saw her yesterday, straight and slim, with a complexion like snow "

"Cut it out!" said the Duke brutally.

"And eyes as blue as a winter sky in Texas."

"Haw!" murmured his disgusted grace.

"And a walk " apostrophized the other dreamily.

The Duke raised his hands.

"I surrender, colonel," he pleaded; "you've been patronizing the free library. I recognize the bit about the sky over little old Texas."

"What happened ?" Hank jerked his head in the direction of No. 66.

The Duke was serious when he replied.

"Africans, Siberians, Old Nevada Silver and all the rotten stock that a decent, easy-going white man could be lured into buying," he said quietly; "that was the father. When the smash came he obligingly died."

Hank pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"It's fairly tragic," he said, "poor girl."

The Duke was deep in thought again.

"I must meet her," he said briskly.

Hank looked at the ceiling.

"In a way," he said slowly, "fate has brought you together, and before the day is over, I've no doubt you will have much to discuss in common."

The Duke looked at him with suspicion.

"Have you been taking a few private lessons from young Sherlock Nape?" he asked.

Hank shook his head.

"There was a certain tabby cat that patronized our back garden," he said mysteriously.

"True, O seer!"

"She ate our flowers."

"She did," said the Duke complacently. "I caught her at it this very morning."

"And plugged her with an air-gun?"

"Your air-gun," expostulated the Duke hastily.

"Your plug," said Hank calmly, "well, that cat "

"Don't tell me," said the Duke, rising in his agitation "don't tell me that this poor unoffending feline, which your gun "

"Your shot," murmured Hank.

"Which your wretched air-gun so ruthlessly destroyed," continued the Duke sternly, "don't tell me it is the faithful dumb friend of 66?"

"It was," corrected Hank.

"The devil it was!" said his grace, subsiding into gloom.

The situation was a tragic one. Alicia Terrill trembling with indignation, a faint flush on her pretty face, and her forehead wrinkled in an angry frown, kept her voice steady with an effort, and looked down from the step ladder on which she stood, at the urbane young man on the other side of the wall.

He stood with his hands respectfully clasped behind his back, balancing himself on the edge of his tiny lawn, and regarded her without emotion. The grim evidence of the tragedy was hidden from his view, but he accepted her estimate of his action with disconcerting calmness.

Hank, discreetly hidden in the conservatory, was an interested eavesdropper.

The girl had time to notice that the Duke had a pleasant face, burnt and tanned by sun and wind, that he was clean-shaven, with a square, determined jaw and clear grey eyes that were steadfastly fixed on hers. In a way he was good looking, though she was too angry to observe the fact, and the loose flannel suit he wore did not hide the athletic construction of the man beneath.

"It is monstrous of you!" she said hotly, "you, a stranger here "

"I know your cat," he said calmly.

"And very likely it wasn't poor Tibs at all that ate your wretched flowers."

"Then poor Tibs isn't hurt," said the Duke with a sigh of relief, "for the cat I shot at was making a hearty meal of my young chrysanthemums and "

"How dare you say that!" she demanded wrathfully, "when the poor thing is flying round the house with a with a wounded tail?"

The young man grinned.

"If I've only shot a bit off her tail," he said cheerfully, "I am relieved. I thought she was down and out."

She was too indignant to make any reply.

"After all," mused the Duke with admirable philosophy, "a tail isn't one thing or another with a cat now a horse or a cow needs a tail to keep the flies away, a dog needs a tail to wag when he's happy, but a cat's tail "

She stopped him with a majestic gesture. She was still atop of the ladder, and was too pretty to be ridiculous.

She stopped him with a majestic gesture. She was still atop of the ladder, and was too pretty to be ridiculous.

"It is useless arguing with you," she said coldly; "my mother will take steps to secure us freedom from a repetition of this annoyance."

"Send me a lawyer's letter," he suggested, "that is the thing one does in the suburbs, isn't it?"

He did not see her when she answered, for she had made a dignified descent from her shaky perch.

"Our acquaintance with suburban etiquette," said her voice coldly, "is probably more limited than your own."

"Indeed?" with polite incredulity.

"Even in Brockley," said the angry voice, "one expects to meet people "

She broke off abruptly.

"Yes," he suggested with an air of interest. "People ?"

He waited a little for her reply. He heard a smothered exclamation of annoyance and beckoned Hank. That splendid lieutenant produce a step ladder and steadied it as the Duke made a rapid ascent.

"You were saying?" he said politely.

She was holding the hem of her dress and examining ruefully the havoc wrought on a flounce by a projecting nail.

"You were about to say ?"

She looked up at him with an angry frown.

"Even in Brockley it is considered an outrageous piece of bad manners to thrust oneself upon people who do not wish to know one!"

"Keep to the subject, please," he said severely; "we were discussing the cat."

She favoured him with the faintest shrug.

"I'm afraid I cannot discuss any matter with you," she said coldly, "you have taken a most unwarrantable liberty." She turned to walk into the house.

"You forget," he said gently, "I am a duke. I have certain feudal privileges, conferred by a grateful dynasty, one of which, I believe, is to shoot cats."

"I can only regret," she fired back at him, from the door of the little conservatory that led into the house, "that I cannot accept your generous estimate of yourself. The ridiculous court that is being paid to you by the wretched people in this road must have turned your head. I should prefer the evidence of De Gotha before I even accepted your miserable title."

Slam!

She had banged the door behind her.

"Here I say!" called the alarmed Duke, "please come back! Aren't I in De Gotha?"

He looked down on Hank.

"Hank," he said soberly, "did you hear that tremendous charge? She don't believe there is no Mrs. Harris!"

Two days later he ascended the step ladder again.

With leather gloves, a gardening apron, and with the aid of a stick she was coaxing some drooping Chinese daisies into the upright life.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly, "what extraordinary weather we are having."

She made the most distant acknowledgment and continued in her attentions to the flowers.

"And how is the cat?" he asked with all the bland benevolence of an Episcopalian bench. She made no reply.

"Poor Tibby," he said with gentle melancholy

The girl made no response.

"On the subject of De Gotha," he went on with an apologetic hesitation, "I "

The girl straightened her back and turned a flushed face towards him. A strand of hair had loosened and hung limply over her forehead, and this she brushed back quickly.

"As you insist upon humiliating me," she said, "let me add to my self abasement by apologizing for the injustice I did you. My copy of the Almanac De Gotha is an old one and the page on which your name occurs has been torn out evidently by one of my maids "

"For curling paper, I'll be bound," he wagged his head wisely.

As he improvised she turned impatiently to the flower bed.

"Miss Terrill!" he called, and when she looked up with a resigned air, he said

"Cannot we be friends?"

Her glance was withering.

"Don't sniff," he entreated earnestly, "don't despise me because I'm a duke. Whatever I am, I am a gentleman."

"You're a most pertinacious and impertinent person," said the exasperated girl.

"Alliteration's artful aid," quoth the Duke admiringly. "Listen "

He was standing on the top step of the ladder balancing himself rather cleverly, for Hank was away shopping.

"Miss Terrill," he began. There was no mistaking the earnestness of his voice, and the girl listened in spite of herself.

"Miss Terrill, will you marry me?"

The shock of the proposal took away her breath.

"I am young and of good family; fairly good looking and sound in limb. I have a steady income of £1,200 a year and a silver property in Nevada that may very easily bring in ten thousand a year more. Also," he added, "I love you."

No woman can receive a proposal of marriage, even from an eccentric young man perched on the top of a step ladder, without the tremor of agitation peculiar to the occasion.

Alicia Terrill went hot and cold, flushed and paled with the intensity of her various emotions, but made no reply.

"Very well then!" said the triumphant Duke, "we will take it as settled. I will call "

"Stop!" She had found her voice. Sifting her emotions indignation had bulked overwhelmingly and she faced him with flaming cheek and the lightning of scorn in her eyes.

"Did you dare think that your impudent proposal had met with any other success than the success it deserved?" she blazed. "Did you imagine because you are so lost to decency, and persecute a girl into listening to your odious offer, that you could bully her into acceptance?"

"Yes," he confessed without shame.

"If you were the last man in the world," she stormed, "I would not accept you. If you were a prince of the blood royal instead of being a wretched little continental duke with a purchased title" she permitted herself the inaccuracy "if you were a millionaire twenty times over, I would not marry you!"

"Thank you," said the Duke politely.

"You come here with your egotism and your braggadocio to play triton to our minnows, but I for one do not intend to be bullied into grovelling to your dukeship."

"Thank you," said the Duke again.

"But for the fact that I think you have been led away by your conceit into making this proposal, and that you did not intend it to be the insult that it is, I would make you pay dearly for your impertinence."

The Duke straightened himself.

"Do I understand that you will not marry me?" he demanded.

"You may most emphatically understand that," she almost snapped.

"Then," said the Duke bitterly, "perhaps if you cannot love me you can be neighbourly enough to recommend me a good laundry."

This was too much for the girl. She collapsed on to the lawn, and, sitting with her face in her hands, she rocked in a paroxysm of uncontrollable laughter.

The Duke, after a glance at her, descended the steps in his stateliest manner.

It was the desire of the Tanneur house, that "Hydeholm" should keep alive the traditions of its Georgian squiredom. Sir Harry Tanneur spoke vaguely of "feudal customs" and was wont to stand dejectedly before a suit of fifteen century armour that stood in the great hall, shaking his head with some despondence at a pernicious modernity which allowed no scope for steel-clad robbery with violence. The quarterings that glowed in the great windows of the hall were eloquent of departed glories. There was a charge, on a field vert, goutte de sang, parted per fusil, with I know not what lions rampant and lions sejant, boars heads, cinquefoils and water budgets, all of which, as Sir Harry would tell you, formed a blazing memento of the deeds of Sir Folk de Tanneur (1142-1197). Putting aside the family portraits, the historical documents, and other misleading data, I speak the truth when I say that the founder of the Tanneur family was Isaac Tanner, a Canterbury curer of hides, who acquired a great fortune at the time of the Crimean war, and having purchased a beautiful estate in Kent, christened the historic mansion where he had taken up his residence "Hyde House," at once a challenge to the fastidious county, and an honest tribute to the source of his wealth. It is a fact that no Tanner or Tanneur as they style the name has reached nearer the patents of nobility than Sir Harry himself acquired, when he was knighted in 1897 in connexion with the erection of the Jubilee Alms-Houses.