The Bittermeads Mystery Part 23

"What?"

"Never shave."

"Why not?"

"Because that thick growth of hair hiding your face gives you an air of mystery and romance no woman could possibly resist. You're a perpetual puzzle, and to pique a woman's curiosity is the surest way to interest her. Why, there are plenty of women who would marry you simply to find out what is under all that hair. So never you shave."

"I don't mean to."

"Unless, of course, you have to--for purposes of disguise, for example."

"I thought you were hinting that the beard itself was a disguise,"

retorted Dunn.

"Removing it might become a better one," answered Deede Dawson. "You told me once you knew this part fairly well. Do you know Wreste Abbey?"

Dunn gave his questioner a scowling look that seemed full of anger and suspicion.

"What about it if I do?" he asked.

"I am asking if you do know it," said Deede Dawson.

"Yes, I do. Well?"

"It belongs to Lord Chobham, doesn't it?"

Dunn nodded.

"Old man, isn't he?"

"I'm not a book of reference about Lord Chobham," answered Dunn. "If you want to know his age, you can easily find out, I suppose. What's the sense of asking me a lot of questions like that?"

"He has no family, and his heir is his younger brother, General Dunsmore, who has one son, Rupert, I believe. Do you know if that's so?"

"Look here," said Dunn, speaking with a great appearance of anger.

"Don't you go too far, or maybe something you won't like will happen. If you've anything to say, say it straight out. Or there'll be trouble."

Deede Dawson seemed a little surprised at the vehemence of the other's tone.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Don't you like the family, or what's upsetting you?"

Dunn seemed almost choking with fury. He half-lifted one hand and let it fall again.

"If ever I get hold of that young Rupert Dunsmore," he said with a little gasp for breath. "If ever I come face to face with him--man to man--"

"Dear me!" smiled Deede Dawson, lifting his eyebrows. "I'm treading on sore toes, it seems. What's the trouble between you?"

"Never you mind," replied Dunn roughly. "That's my business. But no man ever had a worse enemy than he's been to me."

"Has he, though?" said Deede Dawson, who seemed very interested and even a little excited. "What did he do?"

"Never you mind," Dunn repeated. "That's my affair, but I swore I'd get even with him some day and I will, too."

"Suppose," said Deede Dawson. "Suppose I showed you a way?"

Dunn did not answer at first, and for some moments the two men stood watching each other and staring into each other's eyes as though each was trying to read the depths of the other's soul.

"Suppose," said Deede Dawson very softly. "Suppose you were to meet Rupert Dunsmore--alone--quite alone?"

Still Dunn did not answer, but somehow it appeared that his silence was full of a very deadly significance.

"Suppose you did--what would you do?" murmured Deede Dawson again, and his voice sank lower with each word he uttered till the last was a scarce-audible whisper.

Dunn stopped and picked up a hoe that was lying near by. He placed the tough ash handle across his knee, and with a movement of his powerful hands, he broke the hoe across.

The two smashed pieces he dropped on the ground, and looking at Deede Dawson, he said:

"Like that--if ever Rupert Dunsmore and I meet alone, only one of us will go away alive." And he confirmed it with an oath.

Deede Dawson clapped him on the shoulder, and laughed.

"Good!" he cried. "Why, you're the man I've been looking for for a long time. The fact is, Rupert Dunsmore played me a nasty trick once, and I want to clear accounts with him. Now, suppose I show him to you--?"

"You do that," said Dunn, and he repeated the oath he had sworn before.

"You show him to me, and I'll take care he never troubles any one again."

"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," cried Deede Dawson.

"Dunsmore has been away for a time on business I can make a guess at, but he is coming back soon. Should you know him if you saw him?"

"Should I know him?" repeated Dunn contemptuously. "Should I know myself?"

"That's good," said Deede Dawson again. "By the way, perhaps you can tell me, hasn't Lord Chobham a rather distant cousin, Walter Dunsmore, living with him as secretary or something of the sort--quite a distant relative, I believe, though in the direct line of succession?"

"Very likely," said Dunn indifferently. "I think so, but I don't care anything about the rest of them. It's only Rupert Dunsmore I have anything against."

CHAPTER XIX. THE VISIT TO WRESTE ABBEY

It was a little later when Deede Dawson returned to the subject of Wreste Abbey.

"Lord Chobham has a very valuable collection of plate and jewellery and so on, hasn't he?" he asked.

"Oh, there's plenty of the stuff there," Dunn answered. "Why?"

"Oh, I was thinking a visit might be made fairly profitable," Deede Dawson said carelessly, for the first time definitely throwing off his mask of law-abiding citizen under which he lived at Bittermeads.

"It would be a risky job," answered Dunn, showing no surprise at the suggestion. "The stuff's well guarded, and then, that's not what I'm thinking about--it's meeting Rupert Dunsmore, man to man, and no one to come between us. If that ever happens--"