Most Secret by John Dickson Carr Page A

war.”

V
    “M ISTRUST ME NOT,” PURSUED Bygones, who had grown more cheerful. “I’ll not say there’s no glory, though it’s small part o’ that a foot soldier ever sees. ‘Close ranks! Stand fast! Here they come!’ Yet ’twould gladden my heart to remember a little, or as other than a clout across the noddle inside a smithy. Besides, ayagh!” And he snorted. “Where are all the airy cannon balls a-bouncing harmless, the cupids and gods and goddesses and suchlike, in the heroic pictures? Figgeray voo and je muh demand! What’s the answer?”
    “Why, as to that,” replied Kinsmere. “A man of shrewdness would suspect your cupids and gods and goddesses are to be found only in portraits, like the uncommon kind of horse that can stand on its hind legs long enough to be painted so. Or maybe,” says he, “it’s only the generals can see ’em. Let us drink the sack you have so generously poured, and reflect on this matter in all its aspects.”
    But Bygones had turned adamant
    “We’ll quaff a bumper, and more than one, when it’s meet and fitting we should do so. It is not meet and fitting so soon. The time passes; the clock presses; eel fo proceed to business.”
    “Business?”
    “Ay, to be sure! There are mighty strange circumstances here, now I think on ’em.”
    “As—what circumstances?”
    “You are Buck Kinsmere’s son? Well! If you’re Buck Kinsmere’s son, you should have lands. You should have estates. You should have coin and cuffs at the least of it. Yet there’s no air o’ grandeur about you, and small air o’ prosperity either. How came you into this trade for your living?”
    “What trade?”
    “Oh, body o’ Pilate,” roared Bygones. “But where’s the use of this pretence with me? Look at this; look well!”
    Fumbling inside waistcoat and shirt, he produced a little leather pouch suspended round his neck on a leather thong. From this he took out a gold ring with a blue stone. My grandfather, sitting forward for a closer look, saw that it seemed identical with his own sapphire ring. Then Bygones snatched back the bauble and replaced it inside his shirt.
    “You observe, young man? You mark it? ’Tis my ring, the second ring, the other ring. Accredited sign of a King’s Messenger, one of the only two messengers employed by old Rowl—employed by His Majesty’s self for devious work beyond the Channel in France. Why, then what o’ your ring?”
    “Now, burn my body and soul, but this is confusion worse confounded.”
    “Is it so? What o’ your ring, I say?” Whereupon Kinsmere told him. He told the truth. But, as he spoke, his companion’s expression changed still more. Bygones stood there with shoulders humped, head forward, an ugly look in his eyes and his hands hanging hooked at his sides.
    The bad moment grew worse. My grandfather had just concluded, “It has no meaning, believe me; or, at all events—” when suddenly Bygones was across the table, as quick as a snap of your fingers, and had a dagger at his throat.
    “Did I betray myself, rogue? Or did you? Are you in truth Buck Kinsmere’s son? Or are you an impudent, lying coxcomb, come foully to set traps for a true man? God strike me dead!”
    “Sir,” said Kinsmere, “it is a most grievous thing to find you behaving in this fashion, since you are a hospitable gentleman to whose company I have taken a fancy—”
    “Filch secrets from a King’s Messenger, ecod? It was a jape, a piece of stage-acting, that pretended broil between you and Pem Harker? Strike me dead,” snarled Bygones, almost choking, “but you’ll regret this, rogue, and so will the villain who set you on me. Who was it, knave? What high courtier employed you?”
    “… None the less,” Kinsmere continued, “I am not enamoured of having a knife point against my Great Vein. And if you are not short to remove it, when again I shall ask you civilly—”
    He brought up his left arm as the other man lunged across the table; he caught