A Poached Peerage Part 53

The hour of 10.30 next morning saw the depository of the Salolja traditions, a defiant and fretful Castilian porcupine with quills erect, standing in the dock of an occasional court, composed of one alderman of Great Bunbury (incidentally a family grocer), one public-spirited local doctor, and a couple of fussy half-pay colonels, to answer the serious charges of threatening to murder divers of His Majesty's subjects, and also with feloniously stabbing and wounding another, to wit, one Carnaby Leo, described somewhat vaguely as of Australia.

Mr. Doutfire here saw an opportunity for more than regaining some loss of prestige which he had lately incurred, of course through no fault of his, but of a cheese-paring Treasury; and moreover for handing his name down with undying fame in the criminal annals of Great Bunbury.

The Duke of Salolja insisted upon regarding the whole business as beneath his serious notice. His line of defence was to maintain a haughty and contemptuous silence, at the same time to shrivel up his very common-place judges by focussing upon them in turn his most ferociously fascinating glare. Alas! He misjudged the stuff of which British parochial authority is composed. Even if he had succeeded in terrifying the retired colonels, there was still the florid general pract.i.tioner to reduce to a quite improbable state of collapse, and it is well known that a family grocer fears nothing in this world--except another family grocer.

Evidence sufficient to justify a remand was taken, and the prisoner, who seemed to emit sparks of indignation was told that he would eventually be sent to Quarter Sessions. Then in pursuance of a plan which Peckover had concocted overnight, Gage and Lord Quorn offered themselves as bail for the duke. This was, after some demur and difference of opinion, accepted, the two colonels being dead against allowing a foreigner of homicidal tendencies to be at large, while the doctor and the grocer took a higher position and declared themselves in favour of doing no act that should endanger the _entente cordiale_ between Great Britain and Spain. So finally, bail was accepted for the duke's appearance on the following Sat.u.r.day.

Upon his release from durance his sureties and Peckover sought an interview with the irate n.o.bleman, and, ignoring certain dark and direful threats, gently but convincingly hinted to him that the only way to avoid a considerable term of imprisonment with its incidental tarnish on the scutcheon of the Saloljas was to lose no time in putting the English Channel and the republic of France, to say nothing of the Pyrenees, between himself and the Great Bunbury Bench. At first the duke, pulsating with a sense of injury, declared that sooner than run away from a handful of English shopkeepers, he would put the whole of the inhabitants of Great Bunbury, as given in the last census return, to the edge of the sword. On its being pointed out to him, however, that his plan, attractive in itself, was deficient in certain elements of feasibility, he consented to meet the objection by reducing the number of his intended victims, and intimated that his thirst for blood might be satisfied by the immolation of the mayor and corporation, the heads of the fire brigade and the police force, the town clerk, town crier, the station master and a picked half-dozen of the princ.i.p.al tradesmen on the altar of his vengeance.

When he was made aware of certain practical objections which stood in the way of the town of Great Bunbury falling in with this modified suggestion, the n.o.ble Castilian proposed as a last alternative that he should meet a selected dozen men of the towns.h.i.+p's best blood in a suitable arena, and should engage these representatives one after the other in a duel _a outrance_. On this proposal being ruled out of order owing to the deplorably faulty state of the English law, the duke, glaring and bristling with suppressed vindictiveness, declared that he must do something to remove the stain that had been cast upon him and his house; whereupon Peckover suggested that the best thing he could do to prevent the said stain from spreading would be to disguise himself as the representative of a firm of Spanish claret merchants, and take the 1.15 train on the way to Dover.

This plan did not, however, commend itself to the representative of a Spanish house, whose trade appeared to be, not the bottling, but the spilling, of claret of a very different type. "It is very amusing, very clever of you, gentlemen," he objected in withering scorn. "You wish to get me out of the way that you may pay court to Miss Buffkin.

I am not an idiot."

"You'll be a convict this day fortnight if you don't clear out,"

remarked Peckover. "Great Bunbury is not to be trifled with."

The duke laughed discordantly. "Great Bunbury! It makes me laugh."

"You'll have plenty of time for laughing," observed Peckover, "in jail.

You can do a lot of smiling in twelve calendar months if you stick to it."

The duke snapped his fingers, but he looked uneasy, and the snap wanted tone. Perhaps the fingers were clammy. "I shall not go," he maintained, "till I have killed some one in Great Bunbury."

"Not good enough," argued Peckover. "If you kill anybody here you'll be hanged. And you couldn't kill anybody worth a duke's being hanged for. Why, the best man you could select for the purpose in the town wouldn't rise above an auctioneer or a brewer. It wouldn't be a fair deal."

Still the duke was obstinate. "I marry the adorable Buffkin," he declared, "in spite of Great Bunbury."

"All right. Here she is," said Gage, pointing to an open carriage which was approaching.

A portmanteau shared the box with the driver. Inside were three people, Lady Ormstork, Miss Buffkin and a middle-aged man with greyish-red hair and a face which partook curiously of the characteristics of the fox and the sheep. He was a common-looking person, and, as such, had the air of being out of place in that company.

Lady Ormstork stopped the carriage and hailed the group on the pavement. "My dear Lord Quorn, this is fortunate," she exclaimed, addressing her remark to the three possible holders of that t.i.tle, with a leaning towards Gage. "What absurd goings on at Staplewick! How d'you do, duke? I always said your wilful ignorance of our English ideas would land you in trouble. Well, and how has the ridiculous business at the Court House gone off? Laughed out of court, I presume."

As the duke seemed inclined to impart no more precise information than could be gathered from a bow and a scowl, Peckover answered the question. "Remanded on bail."

Lady Ormstork threw up her hands in amused horror. "A Salolja, a Grandee of Spain, remanded on bail by a bench of provincial cheese-mongers!" she cried. "Really, it is the very acme of the ridiculous. It is only fit for a burlesque. My dearest Ulrica, do think of it! Oh, dear me, it is too absurd for comment." And she went off in a fit of rather stagey laughter.

"It is no laughing matter--for somebody," hissed the duke darkly.

Lady Ormstork's burst ended with an abruptness which suggested a doubt as to its genuineness. "It is really so diverting," she said, "that I am forgetting to introduce Mr. Buffkin, dear Ulrica's father, to Lord Quorn."

The inference to be drawn from Mr. Buffkin's demeanour was that he was not in the habit of being suddenly presented to peers of the realm.

Lord Quorn, however, relieved his embarra.s.sment by seizing his hand with a cordial grip. "Glad you've come down," he remarked, with his eyes on Mr. Buffkin's daughter.

"Pleased to meet your lords.h.i.+p," responded Mr. Buffkin.

Lady Ormstork raised her eye-gla.s.ses in diplomatic caution. "You don't mean to say you are Lord Quorn, after all?" she asked with a hedging smile.

"I'm n.o.body else," was the confident reply.

"He's Lord Quorn right enough," corroborated Peckover, with a chastened confession of a truth which could no longer be kept in the well.

"How singular," murmured Lady Ormstork, only half convinced and wondering how, if it turned out to be true, she would stand.

A professional-looking elderly man with a brief bag in his hand who had been regarding the group with some attention now came forward.

"Lord Quorn?" he said, addressing the peer.

Quorn jumped round. "What, Powler!" he cried. "Just the man, in the nick of time. Here, you can tell this lady whether I'm Lord Quorn or not. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mr. Powler, my lawyer, of the firm of Powler, Gaze and Powler, Lincoln's Inn. Come down to see me, eh?"

"Getting no reply to our letters since your lords.h.i.+p left town, I thought I would just run down to Staplewick and see how things were getting on," Mr. Powler explained. "Yes," he continued, "I am quite prepared to vouch for the ident.i.ty of this gentleman as Lord Quorn."

"There!" cried Lady Ormstork, "I always said so. What a splendid practical joke, though, to try to take us all in. How well you played the part," she said guilefully to Gage. "Dear Lord Quorn," she continued gus.h.i.+ngly, "this is all most interesting. May we come up this afternoon us usual? Mr. Buffkin is so anxious to see beautiful Staplewick."

"Come as soon as you like," said Quorn promptly.

"How sweet of you," murmured Lady Ormstork. "Dear Ulrica would be sorry to miss her daily ramble in the lovely park. Wouldn't you, dear?"

"I dare say I should," responded Miss Buffkin indifferently, with a half grimace at Peckover.

"I have," the duke suddenly burst out, "a word to say to Miss Ulrica.

I do myself the honour of following your distinguished carriage to The Cracknels."

"Please don't," both ladies protested. "I fear," the elder continued.

"I cannot, after this _esclandre_, undertake to receive you."

The duke gave a mingled shrug, scowl and bow. "It plunges me into despair," he said, with just a suspicion of sarcasm, "to be deprived of the supreme happiness of milady Ormstork's coveted society. Perhaps, though, I may be humbly permitted an interview with the distinguished Mr. Buffkin?"

Mr. Buffkin, whose distinction required the penetrating eye of the Spaniard to notice it, and whose conversational powers did not seem to be of a high order, looked aggressively uncomfortable. "Is this," he inquired bluntly, "the Spanish gentleman who has been pestering Barbara--I mean Ulrica--with his attentions?"

The duke made a prancing step on the pavement. "Pestering?" he repeated hoa.r.s.ely, pulling his moustache with nervous fury.

"That," replied Lady Ormstork uncompromisingly, "is the person; the Duke of Salolja."

"I have," said the duke, with a flourish, "the honour to desire a matrimonial alliance with your gracious and adorable daughter."

"No, thank you." Mr. Buffkin's voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky, and quite common. "We don't desire any foreign alliance."

"As d.u.c.h.esse de Salolja"--began the duke.

"No good," interrupted Mr. Buffkin, with a decisive shake of his very commercial-looking head. "Spanish t.i.tles are not a line I care to handle. I've told Bar--Ulrica she can marry whom she likes, but if it's a foreigner, duke or fiddler, she'll have to do it on three hundred a year."

The Salolja lip curled. "His excellency jests. The renowned millionaire Buffkin allows his daughter, the d.u.c.h.esse de Salolja, three hundred pounds a year! It is rich!"

Mr. Buffkin looked particularly irresponsive. "Who says I am a millionaire?" he demanded shrilly. The duke bowed and indicated Lady Ormstork. "A _facon de parler_," that lady explained. "Anyhow, a very rich man."

"Divide it by ten," said Mr. Buffkin with a twinkle.