’Well, Sir, in goes Mr. Beauclerc, staggering—his
room was the Flower de luce—and down he
throws himself, clothes an’ all, on his bed;
and then my lord turned on Mr. Edwards, I’m
sure that was his name, and persuades him to play
at piquet; and to it they went.
’As I was coming in with more wine, I meets
Mr. Archer coming out, “Give them their wine,”
says he, in a whisper, “and follow me.”
An’ so I did. “You know something
of Glascock, and have a fast hold of him,” says
he, “and tell him quietly to bring up Mr. Beauclerc’s
boots, and come back along with him; and bring me
a small glass of rum.” And back he goes
into the room where the two were stuck in their cards,
and talking and thinking of nothing else.’
IN WHICH MR. IRONS’S NARRATIVE REACHES MERTON
MOOR.
’Well, I did as he bid me, and set the glass
of rum before him, and in place of drinking it, he
follows me out. “I told you,” says
he, “I’d find a way, and I’m going
to give you fifty guineas apiece. Stand you at
the stair-head,” says he to Glascock, “and
listen; and if you hear anyone coming, step into Mr.
Beauclerc’s room with his boots, do you see,
for I’m going to rob him.” I thought
I’d a fainted, and Glascock, that was a tougher
lad than me, was staggered; but Mr. Archer had a way
of taking you by surprise, and getting you into a business
before you knew where you were going. “I
see, Sir,” says Glascock. “And come
you in, and I’ll do it,” says Mr. Archer,
and in we went, and Mr. Beauclerc was fast asleep.
‘I don’t like talking about it,’
said Irons, suddenly and savagely, and he got up and
walked, with a sort of a shrug of the shoulders, to
and fro half-a-dozen times, like a man who has a chill,
and tries to make his blood circulate.
Mervyn commanded himself, for he knew the man would
return to his tale, and probably all the sooner for
being left to work off his transient horror how he
might.
’Well, he did rob him, and I often thought how
cunningly, for he took no more than about half his
gold, well knowing, I’m now sure, neither he
nor my lord, your father, kept any count; and there
was a bundle of notes in his pocket-book, which Mr.
Archer was thinning swiftly, when all of a sudden,
like a ghost rising, up sits Mr. Beauclerc, an unlucky
rising it was for him, and taking him by the collar—he
was a powerful strong man—“You’ve
robbed me, Archer,” says he. I was behind
Mr. Archer, and I could not see what happened, but
Mr. Beauclerc made a sort of a start and a kick out
with his foot, and seemed taken with a tremble all
over, for while you count three, and he fell back in
the bed with his eyes open, and Mr. Archer drew a
thin long dagger out of the dead man’s breast,
for dead he was.
