“There is to be no shooting,” Gabriel said. “There are to be no deaths. No violence except what I plan to mete out with my fists—and what he may choose to return with his.”
“That is the ideal,” Riverdale said. “Sometimes, however, reality is different. Shall we agree that there will be no unprovoked shooting?”
“I suppose that is the best we can aim for,” Gabriel said. He knew it was essentially a weak plan. So much could go wrong. But something must be done. Of that he was determined.
There was a brief silence, during which no one came up with any more brilliant ideas.
“Write the note,” Netherby said, getting up from his chair behind the desk. “I shall give myself the pleasure of delivering it in person.”
“Heaven help the man,” Boris Wayne said, laughing.
“Where shall I suggest we meet?” Gabriel asked as he walked behind the desk. “Hyde Park is rather large.”
“There is a handy clearing among the trees on the eastern side of the park,” Riverdale said. “Netherby fought a duel there some years ago. That did not involve pistols either. Or swords. Only Netherby’s lethal feet. Bare feet, I might add.”
“Mine, alas,” Gabriel said, “are capable only of conveying me from place to place. I believe my fists are handy enough, however. Give me specific directions. Manley Rochford will be as unfamiliar with the park as I am.”
“Will he come?” Adrian Sawyer asked.
“Of course he will,” Lord Molenor said. “Netherby will be delivering the note, will he not?”
And so it was that a few hours after leaving his hotel, Gabriel was standing in a largish clearing of level grass in an area otherwise of rather dense trees on the eastern side of Hyde Park, awaiting the arrival of Manley Rochford. Bertie was with him, as was Riverdale. Most of the other men who had gathered in Netherby’s study had been persuaded to stay away, though it had gone much against the grain with all of them. Dorchester, his son, Dirkson, and Netherby were somewhere out of sight. Well out of sight. Gabriel had not caught a glimpse of any one of them.
“Will he come?” Bertie asked when it was five minutes past the appointed time.
“It will be a bit of an anticlimax if he does not,” Gabriel said, strolling away from his two companions to the other side of the clearing. “But if he does not come to me, then I will go to him.” He peered through the trees to see if anyone was approaching from that direction.
And it was just at that moment that a shot rang out from somewhere behind him, quickly succeeded by another.
Twenty-two
Down, Lyndale. Down, Vickers!” the Earl of Riverdale yelled. “Devil take it!”
It was advice he did not immediately apply to himself. He came hurtling across the distance between himself and Gabriel and brought him down with a flying leap.
If he had been shot, Gabriel thought, both the warning and the tackle would have come too late. But he did not believe he was dead. Pain registered all over his body, and for a few moments, while the breath was still knocked out of him and most of the sense out of his head, he tested the pain to discover if any of it was attributable to a bullet wound. And, if so, if it was fatal. He did not believe he was at death’s door. But he was bound to be in shock, and shock, he had heard, could delay one’s reactions for a considerable time. His ears were certainly ringing. He could hear voices even so—neither Riverdale’s nor Bertie’s. Nor his own, though he did consider the possibility that one of the voices at least was his.
Someone was wailing in a demented sort of way. Not him.
Someone else was warning that although he was down, he ought to be careful. Neither he was identified.
A third voice was saying with perfect clarity, “You do not have to hold me. I have no intention of running away.”
And then, unmistakably Netherby’s voice—not his usual bored voice, but one of far greater authority. “He is dead.”
The wailing voice acquired words. “You killed him. You murdered him. Papaaaa!”
Riverdale eased off Gabriel and cautiously raised his head. Gabriel pushed himself to his feet and absently brushed himself down. One detached part of his mind observed that his right boot had suffered what might be irreparable damage in the form of long scuff marks. Horbath would not be pleased.
“Who is dead?” Bertie was demanding of Netherby, who