The Quiet Gentleman

"Only one thing! Do not alarm the Servants' Hall with this story!"

"Your lordship need feel no apprehension. I should think it most improper to impart my reflections to any but your lordship," responded Turvey, with hauteur. "It would be idle to deny, however, that a good deal of comment has been provoked amongst the staff, no one being able to understand what should have prevailed upon Mr. Martin to have hired this Leek. I need scarcely say that I have discouraged all attempts to discover what may be my opinion. I shall continue to do so. Good-night, my lord!"

He then withdrew to the adjoining room, leaving the Earl to digest his sinister tidings.

Upon the following morning, Theo took his leave of his cousin, saying, with his slight smile: "You are so well-guarded I may abandon you with a quiet mind! Don't overtax your strength! Ulverston, I rely upon you to remember you are under oath to send me word if—if Gervase should suffer a relapse!"

"Ay, you may depend upon me!" the Viscount said. "As for relapses—pooh! If you had ever campaigned with Ger, you would know he has a stronger constitution than any of us!"

He repeated this observation when, later in the day, Miss Morville tried to dissuade her patient from emerging from the seclusion of his own bedchamber. Her efforts were quite unsuccessful, and the Viscount told her privately that she was wasting her time. "All you'll get is a soft answer, ma'am. Never knew such an obstinate fellow as Ger! He don't look it, and the lord knows he don't sound it, but don't you let him humbug you! Besides, it won't hurt him, y'know. Wouldn't think it to look at him, but the time he got that nasty slash on his arm he had it stitched up, and never told a man-jack of us how bad it was."

"I was not thinking so much of that," confessed Miss Morville. "It may be foolish of me, but while he is confined to his room it must surely be impossible for anyone to hurt him!"

"He ain't going to be hurt," said the Viscount confidently. "Best thing now would be for an attempt to be made on him. Can't leave the thing as it is, y'know! Got to catch our fine gentleman red-handed, ma'am. Now, you ain't the blabbing sort, so I'll tell you this: young Martin can't stir an inch without having Chard on his heels! Good man, Chard!"

"Good God! Is he spying on Martin? Does Martin know it?"

"Lord, no! No one knows it but Chard and me!" said the Viscount. "Except you, of course. The thing is, I can't watch Martin, and it must be plain to everyone but dear old Ger that someone ought to. So I set Chard on to it. Good notion, don't you think?"

"Excellent!" said Miss Morville, in rather a hollow voice.

"You see," explained his lordship kindly, it won't do to let the thing alone. Only let Martin try to do Ger a mischief now, and we can spike his guns, ma'am!"

"Yes, but—" She stopped, and closed her lips firmly on some unexpressed thought.

The Viscount, tolerant of feminine weakness, advised her to put it out of her mind. Miss Morville, after a short struggle with herself, again refrained from speech.

The Earl left his room some time after noon. His toilet had occupied him for longer than was usual, since he was obliged to move his left arm with caution, and refused to abate one jot of his meticulous neatness. He bore with patience such suggestions from Turvey as that he should make his appearance in his dressing-gown; but when the valet went so far as to beg him to leave the arrangement of his cravat in his hands, patience failed, and he spoke softly but so very much to the point that it needed only a look from him, some minutes later, to dissuade Turvey from offering to escort him to whichever of the saloons he chose to sit in.

Leaving his henchman the personification of cold disapproval, he strolled down the gallery in the direction of the Grand Stairway. As he approached the door which led to the stair up which Martin had told him he had come, on the night of the storm, it opened, and a portly man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of black clothes, peeped into the gallery. When he saw the Earl, he gave a start, and seemed to be in two minds whether to advance or to withdraw. The Earl, pausing, raised his quizzing-glass to his eye, and surveyed him with interest.

The dress, if not the bearing, of the stranger proclaimed his avocation, but it scarcely needed this to inform the Earl that he was confronting his brother's new valet. Ulverston's description rose forcibly to his mind. Mr. Leek's homely features were certainly unprepossessing, for besides being muffin-faced, he had small, quick-glancing eyes, and a nose which, having at some time in its owner's career been broken, was now far from straight. Close-cropped, grizzled hair, and a gap in his upper jaw occasioned by the loss of two teeth added little to his charm, and his smile, which, while it stretched his mouth left his eyes mirthless, did nothing to improve his countenance.

"Ah!" said the Earl. "You, I fancy, must be Mr. Martin's new man!"