Honor slowly drew towards the table; she looked round. Mrs. Veale was not there; before Taverner stood the steaming bowl of soup.
Langford murmured grace, then said, ’Fall to. Oliver Luxmore, you do the honours. I can’t eat, I’m forced to take slops. But I’m better, only I must be careful.’ He put his spoon into the basin, and would have helped himself, had not Honor snatched the bowl away and removed it to the mantelshelf.
’You must not touch it,’ she said. ’I am not sure—I am afraid—I would not accuse wrongfully—it is poisoned.’
The words were hardly out of Honor’s mouth before the party were surprised by a noise of voices and feet in the kitchen, and a cry as of dismay or fear. A moment after the tramp was in the passage the parlour door was flung open, and Sam Voaden, Hillary Nanspian and his father, Piper, Charles Luxmore, and Mrs. Veale came in, the latter gripped firmly by Piper and Charles.
’Here I am,’ said young Luxmore, with his usual swagger, and with some elation in his tone, ’here I am, come to know what the deuce you mean, Mr. Langford, charging me—a gentleman—not to the face but behind the back, with stealing your money? Look here, Sam, produce the box. There is your cash—whether right or not I cannot say. I have taken none of it. I did not remove the case. Tell ’em where you found it, Sam.’
’I found it in Wellon’s Mound,’ said the young man appealed to. ’I’ve been to Plymouth after Charles. I didn’t believe he was a thief, but I’d hard matter to find him. Howsomedever, I did in the end, and here he be. He came along ready enough. He was out of money—wanted to go to America, but had not the means of paying his passage, and not inclined to work it.’
’I’ve lost a finger,’ exclaimed Charles. ’How could I work, maimed as I am?—a wounded soldier without a pension! That is shameful of an ungrateful country.’
’He took on badly,’ continued Sam, ’when I told him that Mr. Langford said he had stolen his cashbox with a thousand pounds.’
’I’m a Luxmore of Coombe Park,’ said Charles, drawing himself up. ’I’m not one of your vulgar thieves, not I. Mrs. Veale did her best to tempt me to take it, but I resisted it manfully. At last I ran away, afraid lest she should over-persuade me and get me into trouble, when I saw she had actually got the box. I ran away from Mrs. Veale, and because ninepence a day wasn’t sufficient to detain me. I wasn’t over-sure neither that I hadn’t, against my intention, broke the neck of Larry Nanspian. Now you know my reasons, and they’re good in their way. Mrs. Veale, there, is a reg’lar bad un.’