Flashman And The Tiger

The Subtleties Of Baccarat

(1890 and 1891)

"See here, Flashman," says the Prince of Wales, looking hunted and chewing his cigar as though it were plug tobacco, "you must get me out o' this. God knows what Mother would say ! "

I couldn’t think there was much she hadn’t said already. When you’re a queen of unblemished virtue, devoted to Duty and the high moral tone, and your son and Heir to the Throne is a notorious wastrel who counts all time lost when he ain’t stuffing, swilling, sponging off rich toad-eaters, and rogering everything in skirts, you’re apt to be censorious—why, she’d once told Elspeth that she was determined to outlive the brute ’cos he wasn’t fit to be king, so there. But in the present instance, so far as I’d gathered from his incoherent growls, I was shot if I could see what he was in a stew about; for once he appeared to be blameless. Yet here he was mangling his weed and twitching like a frightened Falstaff.

We were alone, and he was too fretful to be on his dignity, so I guided him to a chair, soothed him with a stiff b. and s., lit him a fresh smoke, waited courtier-like while he coughed his innards out, and invited him to restate his troubles, as calmly as might be, to sympathetic old Flashy.

"I’ve just told you!" snaps he, wheezing and wiping his piggy eyes. "It is the most shocking business. They say Bill Cumming has cheated at baccarat!"

That’s what I’d thought he said the first time, and wondered if I’d misheard. But he seemed sober and rational, if agitated. "You mean last night, sir—in the billiard-room?"

"Yes, confound it—and the night before! You were there, hang it all!"

Well, I had been, as an occasional spectator looking in from time to time to make sure my feather-brained wife wasn’t slapping down her jewellery and crying "Banco!", but I wasn’t having this. I should explain that baccarat is the most imbecile of card games (Elspeth plays it, after all) in which half-wits sit round a large table and the banker deals two cards to the crowd on his right, two to those on his left, and two to himself, the object being to get as near a total of nine with your two cards as may be; if your side gets two deuces, you’ll ask for a third card, won’t you, hoping for a four or a five, and the banker has the same privilege. If he gets closer to nine, he wins; if he doesn’t, you win. Endless fun, my dear, assuming you can count up to nine, and if it don’t rival chess, exactly, at least its simplicity leaves little room for sharp practice. Which was why I couldn’t credit what his fat highness was telling me.

"Cheated—at baccarat? No, sir, it can’t be done," I told him. "Well, not unless you’re the banker, and even then, with a four-pack deck, more than two hundred cards, why, you’d have to be the very devil of a mechanic." I considered. "Can’t think I’ve ever seen it tried … no, not out West, even. Mind you, they don’t go in for baccarat, much … vingt-et-un, mostly, and poker—"

"Damn poker!" croaks he. "He cheated, I tell you—and I was the blasted banker!"

Come to think of it, so he had been, on both nights, and for a happy moment I wondered if he’d been slipping ’em off the bottom himself, and was trying to shift the blame, in true royal style—but that wouldn’t do; he hadn’t the spunk for it.

"Let me get this right, sir … you tell me Gordon-Cumming cheated? For God’s sake, who says so?"

"Coventry and Owen Williams. There can be no doubt about it—I saw nothing wrong, but they are quite positive."

Since one of them was a deaf peer, and t’other a Welsh major-general, I didn’t put much stock in this. "They say they saw him sharping?"

"No, no, not they—these dreadful Wilson people, the young ones—our host’s children, dammit, four or five of them, young Wilson and that impossible fellow Green—and two of the ladies, even … they all saw him cheat, I tell you!" He thumped his knee, almost eating his cigar. "Why did I ever allow myself to be prevailed upon to come to this infernal house? It will be a lesson to me, Flashman, I don’t mind telling you—did you ever hear anything so monstrous?"

"If it’s true, sir … How do they say he cheated?"

"Why, by adding to his stake—putting on counters after the coups were declared in his side’s favour—and taking ’em off when he’d lost. They saw him do it time and again, apparently, on both nights, when I," groans he, "was holding the bank!"

The more I heard, the dafter it became. I’m no gambling man myself, much, and have never had the skill or nerve for sharping anyway, but in my time I’ve seen ’em all: stud games in Abilene livery stables with guns and gold-pokes down on the blanket, nap schools from Ballarat to the Bay, penny-ante blackjack in political country houses (with D’Israeli dealing and that oily little worm Bryant planting aces in my unsuspecting pockets, damn him), and watched the sharks at work with cold decks, shaved edges, marked backs, and everything up their sleeves bar a trained midget—and you may take my word for it, the last place on God’s earth you’d want to sit on the Queen of Spades or try to juggle the stakes is Grandmama’s drawing-room after dinner; you won’t last five minutes. As Gordon-Cumming, I was asked to believe, had discovered.

"And no one said anything at the time?"

"Why … why, no." He blinked in bearded bewilderment. "No, they did not … the ladies, I suppose … the ghastly scene that must have followed …" He made vague gestures with his cigar. "But they felt they could not keep silent altogether, and told Williams and Coventry—and they," he fairly snarled, "have told me! Before dinner tonight. Why they felt obliged to drag me into the wretched business I cannot think. It’s too bad!"

Sheer vapouring, of course. As Prince of Wales, first gentleman of Europe (God help us), he was the bright particular star and pack leader of the genteel rabble assembled at Tranby Croft, Yorks, for the Doncaster races, and knew perfectly well that any serious breach of polite behaviour by a fellow guest, such as card-sharping, was bound to land on his mat. I reminded him of this tactfully, and added that I didn’t believe it for a minute. Some foolish mistake or misunderstanding, I said, depend upon it.

"No such thing!" He heaved his guts out of the chair and began to pace about. "The young Wilsons and Green—aye, and that chap what’s-his-name—Levett—who is in Cumming’s own regiment, for heaven’s sake—all avow it. They saw him cheat! Coventry and Williams are in no doubt whatsoever. It’s too frightful for words!" He gloomed at me, all hang-dog German jowls. "Can you imagine the scandal if it should come out—if it were to reach the Queen’s ears that such a thing had happened in … in my presence?" He took a step towards me. "My dear Harry—you know about these things—what is to be done?"

One thing was plain—it wasn’t Cumming’s supposed sleight of hand (which I still couldn’t credit) that was putting him in a ferment, but that it had happened in a game presided over by His Royal Grossness, and whatever would Mama say when she heard that he’d been spreading the boards like Faro Jack. Tame stuff, from where I stood, compared to his whoremongering and general depravity, but if it had shaken him to the point where I was his dear Harry, he must be desperate. I’d steered him out of more than one scrape in the past, and here he was again, looking at me like an owl in labour. So, first things first.

"What does Gordon-Cumming say?"

"He denies it outright, of course—Williams and Coventry saw him before dinner, and—"

"You haven’t spoken to him yourself, then?"

He shuddered. "No—and I dread it! You think I should not? Oh, if I could avoid it … how am I to face him—an old friend, an intimate of years, a fellow officer—a baronet, dammit, a … a man of honour …"

Aye, that’s a word we’ll hear more of before this is done, thinks I. "Tell me, sir—these eagle-eyed youngsters … how much do they claim Cumming bilked ’em of?"

He goggled at me. "What on earth has that to do with it? If a fellow cheats, what does the amount matter?"

"Something, I’d say. Now, I didn’t play either night, but my Elspeth said something about five and ten bob stakes, so it can’t have been much of a high game?"

"Heavens, no! A friendly game, to amuse the ladies—why, I set the bank limit at a hundred pounds, both nights—"

"So Cumming can’t have won more than a hundred or two, can he? Well, I don’t know what he’s worth—some say eighty thou' p.a.—but he has a place in Scotland, house in Town, half-colonelcy in the Guards, moves in the top flight, and I’ve never heard he was short o' the ready, have you?" He shook his head, glowering. "Well, sir—would he risk his good name, his commission, his place in Society—good Lord, everything he counts worth while!—for a few wretched quid that wouldn’t keep him in cheroots for a year? Why, sir, it don’t bear looking at, even!"

And it didn’t. I’m ready to believe evil of anyone, usually with good cause, and especially of Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Bart, whose reputation I’d have been happy to blacken any day (I’ll tell you why presently), but this accusation made no sense at all. Quite apart from the mechanical difficulties of the thing, the paltry sums involved, and the ghastly risk he’d have been running, all of which I’d pointed out, there was my knowledge of the man’s character, which was that of a top-lofty prig with immense notions of his own dignity, who’d have regarded cheating as shocking bad form, and never mind dishonesty. No, it wouldn’t do.

But there was no persuading Bertie the Bounder of that. He was in such a funk about the possible scandal that sweet reason was lost on him, and those two duffers Coventry and Williams had convinced him that the evidence was overwhelming. How, they demanded, when I’d prevailed on the Prince to have ’em in so that I might hear their tale first-hand, could five intelligent young people be mistaken, not on one occasion only, but on several.

"Hold hard a moment," says I. "Let’s take it in order. Two nights ago, Monday, you played baccarat in the smoking-room after dinner. I was only in and out while you played, but as I recall you had three card tables pushed together with a cloth over them, to play at. Your highness had the bank—"

"Williams was croupier!" cries Bertie, eager to share the guilt.

"Only on the second night, sir!" says Williams. "There was no croupier on the Monday." Bertie scowled, but couldn’t deny it.

"At all events, there were two tableaux of players, one to your right, sir, and one to your left? Where was Gordon-Cumming sitting?"

They consulted about this, and decided he’d been in the left-hand group, or tableaux. Mrs Arthur Wilson, our host’s wife, had been first to the Prince’s left, then an empty chair (though they couldn’t swear it had never been occupied), then Berkeley Levett, then round the corner young Jack Wilson, the son of the house, and Gordon-Cumming next to him, with one of the Somersets beyond. Each staked individually, and took turns at handling the cards dealt to their side.

"How did they place their stakes, precisely?" I asked.

"With counters supplied by his highness," says Coventry, looking at him as though he were an opium runner. "I think I see the case yonder."

Sure enough, there was a polished wooden box on the table, and Bertie opened it reluctantly to display the leather counters, all stamped with his feathers crest—brown £10 chips, bright red fivers, blue oncers, and so on. Tools of the devil, I could hear the Queen calling them; they travelled with him everywhere.

"I take it everyone staked before his highness dealt?" says I. "Pushing their counter—or counters—forward on the table? Then the cards would be dealt, your highness would declare the bank’s score, and then you’d pay out or rake in accordingly—is that so, sir?" Bertie gave a furtive grunt; he was hating this as much as I was enjoying it, I dare say. "Well, then what happened?" They all stood mum, waiting on each other. "Come along, gentlemen," says I, getting brisk. "Who saw whom cheating, and when, and how?"

It was like pulling teeth; they hemmed and hawed, or at least Coventry did, while Williams contradicted him and Bertie ground his teeth and flung his cigar in the fire. At last they got it straight, more or less. On the very first deal, young Jack Wilson had seen Cumming stake £5, and then, looking again when their side won and the Prince was preparing to pay out, had seen to his astonishment that Cumming’s stake had magically increased from one red counter to three—£15 where there had been only £5 before. He couldn’t be mistaken, because Cumming placed his stake on a piece of white paper which he used for making notes of the play. Young Wilson had thought it damned odd, and later, on the fifth or sixth deal (he couldn’t swear which), when their side had won again, he’d seen Cumming drop three red chips, furtive-like, on to the paper where there had originally been only one. He’d collected £20, cool as dammit, and young Wilson had whispered to Levett, seated beside him, the good news that his colonel was working a flanker. Levett had sworn Wilson must be wrong, but had watched himself, and blowed if he hadn’t seen Cumming do the same thing again, twice. Once he’d added two £5 chips, and the second time he’d added one, on both occasions after his tableau had been declared the winner.

Described like that, in detail, it sounded impressive, I had to admit, and the Prince regarded me with piggy triumph. "There, you see, Flashman—two men, one in his own regiment, too! And both sure of what they saw!"

"You saw nothing out o' the way yourself, sir?"

"Certainly not. I was occupied with the cards and the bank." True enough, he would be—but there was something damned strange which they’d evidently overlooked.

"If Cumming was cheating," I asked them, "why on earth did he use the brightest chips—the red fivers?" I indicated the open box. "Look at ’em, they stand out a mile! And to make ’em even more conspicuous, he laid them on a white paper! Hang it all, sir, if he’d wanted to be caught he couldn’t have been more obvious!"

They couldn’t explain it, and Bertie said testily that what I’d said might very well be true, but it didn’t alter the fact that he’d been seen padding his stakes, whatever blasted colour they were, and what was to be done, eh?

I said I’d heard the stories of young Wilson and Levett, but what about the other three? Williams said that after the first night’s play young Wilson had told his mother what he and Levett had seen; Wilson’s sister and her husband, a chap called Lycett Green, had also been informed, and they’d resolved to keep an eye on Cumming the next night, Tuesday. Young Wilson had arranged for a long table to be set up in the billiard room, covered with baize and with a chalk line round the margin beyond which the stakes would be placed—that way, they thought, Cumming wouldn’t be able to cheat. I couldn’t believe my ears.

"Were they mad?" says I. "They were sure the man was a swindler, yet they were prepared to play with him again—and spy on him? And they never thought to tell old Wilson, the father of the family, or anyone senior?"

Coventry looked stuffed at this, and Bertie muttered about the shocking state of Society nowadays, ignorant upstarts who knew no better, and he was a fool to have come within a hundred miles of the confounded place, etc., etc. Williams said that Mrs Wilson had wanted at all costs to avoid a scandal, and if they hadn’t played it would have looked odd, and people might have talked … and so on, and so forth.

"Very well, what happened on the Tuesday night?" I asked. "Was he seen juggling his chips again?"

"Twice, at least," says Williams. "He was seen to push a £10 counter over the line after his highness had declared baccarat to the bank." Meaning the bank had lost. "On another occasion he used his pencil to flick a £5 counter, increasing his £2 stake to £7, which," he added gloomily, "was what I, as croupier, paid him."

"But you saw nothing irregular yourself?"

"No … tho' I recall that at one hand—I can’t tell which—Cumming called out to his highness, `There is another tenner due here, sir,' and from what I have learned this evening I believe it may have been on an occasion when he … when he played … ah, wrongly." He was one of your decent asses, Williams, and didn’t like to say it plain.

"I remember distinctly telling him to put his stakes where I could see ’ern," says Bertie. "But I suspected nothing." "Who was sitting by him—the second night?"

Coventry gave a start. "Why, my wife—Lady Coventry. But I believe she gave her place up to Lady Flashman for one or two coups, did she not, Williams?"

"Why, so she did," says Williams, turning to me. "I remember now—Cumming was advising your wife about her stakes, Flash-man." He gave a ruptured grin. "They were being rather jolly about it, you know; she was … well, I gathered she did not know much about the game, and he was helping her."

"I don’t suppose she saw anything fishy," says Bertie bitterly. I knew what he meant: if Cumming had worn a black mask and made ’em turn out their pockets at pistol-point, she’d have thought it was all in the game.

"Well, there you are, Flashman," says Bertie. He flung down in a chair, a picture of disgruntled anxiety. "You know as much as we do. It’s past belief. That Gordon-Cumming, of all men …" He gave a despairing shrug. "But there can be no doubt of it … can there?" He was positively yearning at Coventry and Williams. "They are certain of what they saw?"

Sure as a gun, they told him, so I intruded the kind of question that occurs only to minds like mine.

"And you’re satisfied they ain’t lying?" says I, and was met by exclamations of dismay, paws in the air, whatever next?

"Of course they’re not!" barks Bertie. "Heavens above, man, would they invent such a dreadful thing?"

"It’s about as likely as Bill Cumming cheating for a few sovs," I reminded him. "But there it is, one or t’other—unless Levett and young Wilson were drunk and seeing double."

"Really, Flashman!" cries Williams. "And the other witnesses, on the second night? You’ll hardly suggest that Mrs Wilson or Mrs Lycett Green were—"

"No, general—but I will suggest that people often see what they expect to see. And I’m dam' sure both those ladies and Lycett Green sat down last night convinced, from what they’d been told, that Cumming was a wrong ’un. Very well," I went on, as they whinnied their protests and Bertie told me I was talking bosh, "have it as you please, I still say Cumming hasn’t been nailed to the wall hard enough to satisfy me … but he’s got a heap of explaining to do, I grant you." I set my sights on Bertie. "And since your highness has done me the honour to ask my advice, I respectfully suggest that you examine these five all-seeing accusers yourself—and Gordon-Cumming—before things go any further."

Since this was plain common sense, it earned me a couple of bovine looks and a royal glare and growl, so I begged leave to withdraw and loafed off, leaving the three wise men to blink at each other and resume their chorus of "What is to be done?"—five words which are as sound a motto for disaster as I know. I’ve heard ’em at Kabul before the Retreat, at Cawnpore, on the heights above the North Valley at Balaclava, and I won’t swear someone wasn’t croaking them as we laboured up the Greasy Grass slope . behind G. A. Custer, God rest his fat-headed soul. No one ever knows the answer, you see, so everyone looks blank until the man in command (in this case Good Prince Edward) makes up his mind in panic, and invariably does the wrong thing.

I took a turn in the empty billiard room, imbibing a meditative brandy and tickling the pills while I considered this unexpected but most welcome bit of mischief, which promised to enliven what had been a damned dull visit so far. I’ve never been any hand, as you know, at dancing attendance on royalty—unless it’s young and female, but especially not Beastly Bert—nor do I enjoy the unsought hospitality of Society parvenus in the wilds of Yorkshire (a sort of English Texas peopled by coarse braggarts and one or two decentish slow bowlers) with nothing to do but watch horses run in the pouring rain. Racing’s well enough when you’re young and riding yourself, but now that I was in my seventieth year and disinclined to back anything more mettlesome than an armchair,[a docile horse] I found it quite as interesting as a sermon in Gaelic.

So this baccarat nonsense, with its splendid possibilities of scan-dal, disgrace, and general devilment, looked made to order for diversion, provided it was properly mismanaged—which, with Bertie in a fine funk, Coventry and Williams advising, and myself ready to butter the stairs as chance offered, it probably would be. You may think this a tame enough occupation for one who has assisted at as many major catastrophes as I have, and a poor setting after the camps and courts of the mighty, but I was getting on, you know, and as the Good Book says, there’s a time for racketing about crying Ha-ha! among the trumpets, and a time for sitting back with your feet dipped in butter watching others fall in the mire.

And I may tell you, not all adventures are to be found ’midst shot and shell, thank God. What happened at Tranby Croft that September week of ’90 was as desperate a drama, in its quiet way, as any I’ve struck, and a mystery which has baffled the wise for twenty years . but will no longer, for I was in the thick of it, and can tell you precisely what happened and why, and since I’ll be snug in my long home ere this account meets the public eye (supposing it ever does) you may rely on its truth, incredible as it may appear.

In the first place, I’d never have gone near Tranby Croft but for Elspeth. She was a bosom chum of young Daisy Brooke, who was half her age and one of the leading Society fillies of the day, but cast in the same eccentric mould—well, you know what Elspeth' s like, and Daisy, who was known as Babbling Brooke, was a sort of mad socialist—even today, when she’s Countess of Warwick, no less, she still raves in a ladylike way about the workers, enough said. At the time of Tranby she was a stunning looker, rich as Croesus, randy as a rabbit, and Prince Bertie’s mount of the moment—indeed, I ain’t sure she wasn’t the love of his life, for he’d thrown over Lily Langtry in her favour and remained uncommon faithful to her until Keppel started wobbling her rump at him. I’ll say this for him, he had fine taste in bareback riders, as I should know; I’d shared Langtry with him, behind his back, and done my duty by pretty Daisy—as who hadn’t? Not La Keppel, though; she was after my time, worse luck, not heaving in view until I’d reached what Macaulay calls the years of chicken broth and flannel, when you realise how dam' ridiculous you’d look chasing dollymops young enough to be your daughter, and seek solace in booze, baccy, and books. Regrettable, of course, but less tiring and expensive.

Anyway, young Daisy Brooke had been first of the invited guests to Tranby, and had persuaded Bertie that the party would be incomplete without her pal Elspeth, Lady Flashman. I had my own jaundiced view of that, born of fifty years' marriage to my dear one who, I had reason to believe, had not been averse to male attentions in those years when I’d been abroad funking the Queen’s enemies. Not that I could be certain, mind you, never have been, and she may have been as chaste as St Cecilia, but I strongly suspected that the little trollop had been galloped by half the Army List—including H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and William Gordon-Cumming, Bart. True, ’twas only gossip that she and Bertie had been at grips in a potting-shed at Windsor in ’59, when I was off in Maryland helping to start the Yankees' civil war, but I’d seen him ogling her on and off ever since.

As to the louse Cumming, he was too tall and fair and Greek god-like by half, and had made a dead run at Elspeth back in the sixties—and him twenty years her junior, the lecherous young rip.

No doubt he’d been successful, but I’d no proof; she’d basked in his admiration, right enough, but since she did that with every man she met it meant neither nowt nor somewhat. The thing that set Cumming apart from her other flirtations (?) was that after twenty years' acquaintance she had suddenly dropped him like a hot rivet, even cut him dead in the Row. I never knew why, and didn’t inquire; the less I knew of her transgressions (and she of mine) the better—I reckon that’s why we’ve always been such a loving couple. I’d run across Cumming professionally in Zululand, where he was staff-walloping Chelmsford while I was fleeing headlong from Isan’lwana, and we’d met here and there at home, and been half-civil—as I always am to suspected old flames of Elspeth. Wouldn’t have anyone to talk to otherwise, and you can’t have ’em thinking you’re a jealous husband.

By the time of Tranby, to be sure, Elspeth was of an age where it should have been unlikely that either Bertie or Cumming would try to drag her behind the sofa, but I still didn’t care to think of her within the fat-fingered reach of one or the trim moustache of t’other. She’d worn uncommon well; middle sixties and still shaped like a Turkish belly-dancer, with the same guileless idiot smile and wondrous blue eyes that had set me slavering when she was sixteen—she’d performed like a demented houri then, and who was to say she’d lost the taste in half a century? Why, I remember reading of some French king’s mistress, Pompadour or some such, who was still grinding away when she was eighty. Well, there you are.

So I wasn’t best pleased when the Tranby invitation arrived; however, I figured that with Daisy on hand to keep Bertie busy, and Cumming reportedly pushing about some American female, I could stop at home with an easy mind. Then at the last minute, blessed if one of Daisy’s aged relatives didn’t croak, and since it would not have done for dear Lady Flashman to attend their foul house-party unaccompanied, I was dragooned cursing into service. I doubt if our Prince gave three cheers, either; for all the good toadying turns I’d done him, he was still leery of me, and didn’t care to look me in the eye. Guilty conscience, no doubt. Until now, that is, when he found himself taken unawares by the makings of a prime scandal, and the prospect of being ritually disembowelled by our gracious sovereign when she heard of it, and serve the fat blighter right.

I reflected on these matters as I shoved the ivories round the cushions, and reviewed events since we’d assembled at Tranby two days earlier, which was Monday. It was your middling country house, owned by a shipping moneybags named Wilson—not Society as you’d notice, but his place was convenient to Doncaster, where they were running the Leger on the Wednesday, and if his family and friends were second-run as these things are judged in the impolite world, well, Prince Bertie was a fellow vulgarian, and right at home, There were enough of his regular crawlers, Cumming and the Somersets, to keep him happy, the Wilson gang toadied him to admiration, and as in most bourgeois establishments the rations, liquor, and appointments were first-rate; none of your freezing baronial banquet halls where the soup arrives stone cold after being toted half a mile by gouty servitors and the bed-springs haven’t been seen to since Richard the Third’s day. It was cosy and quite jolly, the young folk were lively without being a nuisance, Bertie was at ease and affable, and if it was all a dead bore it was comfortable at least.

Elspeth was in her element, flaunting her mature charms on the first evening in a Paris rig-out which drew glittering smiles of envy from the female brigade and an approving grunt and leer from Bertie. She’d had the deuce of a struggle getting into the thing, with me heaving at her stays, but once all was fast and sheeted home she looked nothing like the grandmother she was, with her hair artfully tinted and that milky complexion carefully enhanced, but above all with that happy, complacent radiance which she hasn’t lost yet—and she’s close on ninety now. Aye, she’s always had the priceless gift of pleasing, has Elspeth, and making people laugh—for she’s a damned funny woman when she wants to be, a top-hole mimic, and all the more engaging because she plainly hasn’t got two brains to rub together. "Never see her but it sets me in humour," Palmerston used to say. That was her talent, to make folk happy.

She charmed Bertie, seated by her at dinner, won admiring glances from the other men with her artless prattle, and to my astonishment even exchanged pleasant banter with Gordon-

Cumming. Hollo, thinks I, has the old fire rekindled? Watching her at work, I rather liked the look of her myself, and that night, waking in the small hours to find that plump excellence cuddled up against me, I was amazed to find myself inspired to climb aboard, puffing and creaking, while she giggled drowsily, saying I was a disgrace and would do myself a mischief.

"At our age!" she murmured afterwards. "Whatever would the children say? Oh, Harry lad, d’you mind the Madagascar forest … Harry? Harry? My dear, are you all right? Shall I fetch you a glass of water … a little brandy, perhaps?" I was thinking, glory, glory, what a hell of a way to die, being in no condition to move, let alone answer, but I remember noting that she hadn’t minded a bit, and saying to myself, aye, you’ll still bear watching.

Ah, but fond recollection has carried me ahead of events. It was on that night, after dinner, that the Prince had proposed baccarat, and Cumming had supposedly cheated for the first time. I’d no inkling of this, of course, nor yet on the Tuesday evening, when he’d been seen doctoring his stakes yet again, the bounder—they said. Now, on the Wednesday night, the murder was out (among a few people, anyway), and I was in the pool room trying to fathom it—and, I confess, wondering what I might do to jolly the mischief along. Well, you know my style, and between ourselves … wouldn’t you?

First, though, to the fathoming. So far as I could judge, there was a choice of three explanations—each one so far-fetched as to be nigh impossible.

Odds on with the punters in the know was that Cumming had cheated. It didn’t wash with me, much though I’d have liked to believe it. He was a prime tick and arrant snob, a very model of military and social excellence, cool, handsome, lordly, rich, and moustached, wore his handkerchief in his sleeve, looked down his nose at the world, probably was too fastidious to shave in his bath, might well be a former paramour of my beloved, and on all these counts was ripe for any dirty turn I could serve him. But that wasn’t the point; however detestable I might think him, the plain fact was that swindling simply wasn’t his style. I told myself that even the unlikeliest folk do the damnedest things … was it possible that Cumming was the kind of reckless ass who’d play foul in a trifling game, not for gain, but for the sheer mad fun of the thing, to see if he could get away with it? There are such fellows; I’ve seen ’em. Rudi Starnberg, for one—ah, but he was a villain, in love with knavery. Cumming wasn’t, and for all the bone-headed bravery he’d supposedly shown at Ulundi and in the Sudan, I couldn’t see him bucking this tiger. He had too much to lose … and while I hate to say it, he was a gentleman.

Then the witnesses were either mistaken or lying. But error must be discounted: two or even three people might improbably be mistaken—but five? On two different nights? So all that remained was a conspiracy to disgrace Gordon-Cumming, by five assorted perjurers. Ridiculous, you say … well, I don’t. I’ve sworn truth out of England myself all too often, and seen the saintliest specimens lie themselves black and blue for the unlikeliest reasons. I’ve also known from the age of three that "honour" and "solemn oath" and "word of a gentleman" are mere piss in the wind of greed, ambition, and fear.

Still, you had only to look at the five witnesses to see that conspiracy was too far-fetched altogether. None of ’em even knew Cumming all that well, or had reason to dislike him, let alone plot his ruin. And one of them could be ruled out, flat. Here they are:

Arthur Stanley ("Jack") Wilson, son of the house, a bright young spark who lived off Papa and hoped to be taken for a man-about-town; fairly brainless and possibly capable of being wild, I’d have thought, but hardly vicious;

His sister, Mrs Lycett Green, middling pretty, inoffensive, ordinary enough and decidedly not Lucrezia Borgia in the making;

Her husband, Lycett Green, a stiffish, old young man, well pleased with himself and his position as master of foxhounds in some northern swamp. In my experience there are dolts, pompous dolts, and M.F.H.s, but they ain’t the plotting kind;

Berkeley Levett, a sound muttonhead in Cumming’s regiment, and presumably as well disposed to his chief as subalterns ever are, given that Guards officers are usually incapable of any feeling outside their bellies and loins.

Four unlikely conspirators, you’ll allow—unless you conceived it possible that Cumming, a noted rake, had ravished Mrs Lycett Green before tea on the Monday and provoked the other three into concocting a diabolic plot to avenge her honour—but the fifth witness killed the plot notion stone dead. She was Mrs Arthur Wilson, our host’s wife, as respectable a matron as ever rebuked a cook, nervously gratified beyond measure at the honour of having royalty to stay, and the last person, as Bertie himself had remarked, to wish to have scandal breaking over her roof. If she said she’d seen Cumming jockeying his chips, she meant it.

So there was no explanation, and if I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery—which I confess was beginning to intrigue me for its own sake—I needed more eye-witness information. It would also be as well to discover if the scandal had leaked at all. On both counts my best source would be the wife of my bosom, who may be tripe-brained but has the eyes, ears and instincts of an Afridi scout, especially for things that don’t concern her.

I made a leisurely patrol, quartering ground and sniffing the wind: the Lycett Greens were nowhere to be seen, but Mrs Wilson was fretting at her fan and listening absent-minded to Lady Coventry in the drawing-room, and when I looked in at the smoke hole young Wilson and Levett were in deep confabulation, instantly dropped when I appeared, but not before I heard Levett exclaim: "I can’t touch it, Jack, I tell you! He’s my chief, dash it!" Signs and portents, thinks I, and passed on to the music-room, where one of the females was butchering Yum-Yum to the feigned admiration of the company, and my quarry was ensconced in a corner, fleecing some unfortunate foreigner at backgammon, shaking the dice and her upper works, the abandoned old tart, in a way which plainly put him off his game altogether.

"Another double six, count!" trills she, all rosy triumph. "I declare I never threw so many! Oh, and now a double four! What luck! Why, I am off entirely—oh, dear, and you have a man on the bar still! Oh, what a shame! Harry, come and see—I have a backgammon! Aren’t I lucky? No, no, count, I won’t have it—put your purse in your pocket! We play for love, not money," says she, looking roguish. "No, no, I shan’t take it, really, I assure you! Will you not play another game?"

"After two gammons and a backgammon in five games?" cries the ancient squarehead. "Ah, dear Lady Flashman, against chance and skill I can struggle, but when they are allied with beauty and charm I am overpowered altogether. Am I not right, Sir Harry? But I insist on paying my just debts," says he, planting his sovs in her palm, which gave the old goat the chance to kiss her hand and take a last fond leer at her top hamper, while she purred and protested.

"Och, isn’t he the wee duck?" sighs she, jingling her loot as he hobbled away. "Aye, weel, mony a mickle mak’s a muckle, as Papa used to say." She slipped it into her bag and broke into civilised speech. "But, you know, Harry, it was quite embarrassing, for I threw six and one, and double one, and double six ever so often! I’m sure he believes I use loaded dice!" Loaded tits, more like. "I was so glad to see you, for he breathes ever so hard, I can’t think why, and I could see he hated losing, and it was such a bore." She lowered her voice as she took my arm. "Indeed, it’s all rather a bore, don’t you think? Will we be able to go home tomorrow? Would the Prince be offended? I feel I have had as much of Tranby company as I can bear—and I’m sure it can be no fun for you, dearest." The piano gang had begun to perform the last rites on "Three Little Maids", with immense jollity, and as we went out she pulled a face and whispered: "I mean, the Wilsons do their best and are ever so kind and … and eager to please—but they are not really quite the thing, are they?"

She’s God’s own original snob, my little Paisley princess—as though her mill-owning father had been a whit better than the Wilsons. But the little skinflint had collared a peerage in his declining years, you see, and she seemed to think that his coronet and cash, with my V.C. and military rank, to say nothing of her own occasional intimacy with the Queen, raised us above the common herd. Which I guess they did, in an odd way—or if not above, apart at least. We ain’t top-drawer, but there’s no denying we’re different.

I told her if she’d had enough of it we could be away on the morning train. "Now that the Leger’s run, I doubt if H.R.H. will linger. But I thought you’d been enjoying yourself, old girl, what with cheering on the winners, and sporting your glad rags—and most becoming you look, I may tell you—and being the life and soul, and charming Dirty Bertie …"

Mention of her appearance had inevitably brought her to a halt at a mirror in the corridor, and now she gave me a reproachful blue eye in the reflection.

"I trust I know what is due to royal rank," says she primly. "And I may tell you that mere polite affability is not charming in the odious way you mean it." She patted her gilded tresses complacently and touched a gloved finger to her plump pink cheek, sighing. "Anyway, I doubt my charming days are gone lang syne—"

"You don’t think anything of the sort … and neither does Billy Cumming, by all accounts. Oh, I’ve heard all about that—flirting over the baccarat cards, the two of you!"

Now was there, or was there not, an instant flicker in those glorious eyes before she widened them at me in mock indignation?

"Flirrr-ting! I? Upon my word!" She tossed her head. "The very idea—at my time of life! Flirting, quo' he! Goodness me—"

"I had a touch of your time of life t’other night—remember?" We were alone in the corridor, and I stepped close behind her and gave ’em a loving squeeze. She exclaimed "Oh!" and hit me with her fan.

"That was not flirting," says she. "I was a helpless victim—a poor defenceless old buddy, and you should think shame of your-self." She gave her hair a last touch, and turned to peck me on the cheek. "And who says I tried to fetch Billy Cumming, I should like to know? No—stop it, you bad old man, and tell me!"

"Owen Williams—an officer an' a gent, so there! Very jolly over the cards together you were, he tells me."

"He’s an auld haver," says she elegantly. "Just because a gentle-man helps a lady to make her bets—well, you know I cannae count—"

"Except at backgammon, apparently."

"Backgammon or no, I’m a duffer at cards, as well you know, and I dare say I said something exceptionally foolish, and made him laugh. As for flirting, Harry Flashman, who are you to talk? Do I not remember Mrs Leo Lade—and Kitty Stevens?" Names from fifty years ago, God help me, still green in her eccentric memory—and I didn’t even know who Kitty Stevens was! "Uhhuh, that’s your eye on a plate, my lad," says she, slipping her arm through mine as we passed on. "What else did that blether Williams tell you?"

Now that was odd; lightly asked—too lightly. "Oh, just that," says I. "I guess he was trying to take a rise out of me, knowing I can’t stand Cumming—but not knowing that you can’t stand him either." I gave her hand a squeeze, reassuring like. "Why, you crossed him off our list years ago."

"Did I? I don’t recollect." And that was odder still, for if there’s an elephantine memory in London W.I. it resides in the otherwise wayward mind of Elspeth, Lady Flashman (as she had just proved by reference to Mrs Leo Lade and that other bint, whoever she may have been). Suddenly, I knew that something was up. For all her banter, she’d been on the q.v. from the moment Cumming’s name was mentioned: the quick wary glint in the mirror, her artless inquiry about what Williams had said, and the indifferent "Did I? I don’t recollect" told me she was keeping something from me. Was it possible that Cumming had been trying his lecherous hand again? At her age? Damned unlikely … yet then again, Queen Ranavalona had been a grandmother, and that hadn’t stopped me. By God, if he had, I’d see to it that he came out of his present pickle with his name and fame in the gutter. But that could wait; I’d another fish to fry at the moment, and as we neared the drawing-room door I paused, assuming a frown.

"Hold on, though—yes, Williams did say another thing … Yes … At baccarat, last night, did you notice anything … well, out o' the way about Cumming’s play?"

She looked bewildered—but then, on any subject that hasn’t to do with money or erotic activity, she usually is.

"Why, Harry, whatever do you mean?"

"Was there anything remarkable about … his placing of the stakes?"

"My stakes, d’you mean? I told you he was helping me—"

"No, his stakes! How did he put ’em on the table?"

She looked at me as though I were simple-minded. "Why, with his hand, of course. He just put them … down …"

"Yes, dearest," says I, keeping a firm grip on myself, "but that’s not quite what I mean—"

"—those wee coloured counters with the feathers on them, he just put them in front of him—and mine too, because, you see, he was advising me how to bet, since I did not understand the rules, or how much it would be safe to wager. And I must say," says she, opening the floodgates, "it is quite the silliest game, for there’s no cleverness in it, and indeed I told him so. `For how can we tell what to wager,' I said, `when we have no notion of what the Prince’s cards may amount to? Why, he may have a count of nine, and then where shall we be?' He laughed and said we must take the risk, for it was a gamble. `I know that,' I said, `but it would be more fun if we knew one of the Prince’s cards, and he knew one of ours, for then we could judge how much to put on.' He said we must be like Montrose, and repeated that verse we used to recite at school, you know the one, about fearing our fate too much who will not put it to the touch to win or lose it all, and I said `That is all very well, Sir William, but remember what happened to him,' and he laughed more than ever …"

I love her dearly, far beyond any creature I’ve ever known, and I can prove it, for never once in almost seventy years of married life have I taken her by the throat. Mind you, it’s been a near thing, once or twice.

"—and the court cards, would you believe it, count for nothing! `Why, then,' I asked him, `do they have them in the pack at all?' and he said he supposed it was to make weight, whatever that may mean, and I said it was a great annoyance to have to pay out to the bank when we had been dealt two kings, and got another when we asked for a third card, and the Prince’s cards were the sorriest rags, but they made eight, and that was the better hand, but it seems hard that three kings should be worth nothing at all …"

I took her gently by the arm and steered her away from the drawing-room door to an alcove at the end of the corridor, for I could see there was only one way, and that was to come out with the thing plump and plain. "Did you see Cumming at any time add counters to his stake after the Prince had declared the result of the hand?"

She took her lower lip gently in her teeth—a tiny gesture of puzzlement which has been turning my heart over since 1839. "You mean after the Prince had said who had won?"

"Precisely."

She frowned. "But, then … it would be too late to add w his stake, surely?"

"That’s the whole point. Did he, at any time, after the result had been called, place any counters beyond the line?"

"Which line?"

"The line," I replied through gritted teeth, "round the edge of the cloth on the table." It was like talking to a backward Bushman. "The line beyond which the stakes are placed."

"Oh, is that what the line was for? I thought it was just for the look of the thing." She reflected for a moment, and shook her head. "No … I cannot think that I saw him putting out more counters, after …" As realisation dawned, the forget-me-not eyes opened wide, and her lips parted. "Why, Harry, that would have been cheating!"

"Begad, you’re right! So it would … but you never saw him do any such thing—with his hands, or a pencil—"

"Gracious, no! Why, I should have checked him at once, and told him it would not do—that he had made a mistake, and must …" And at that she stopped short, staring at me, and slowly her alarm changed into the oddest old-fashioned look, and then she smiled—that old teasing cherry-lipped Elspeth pout that used to have me thrusting the door to and wrenching at my breeches. To my astonishment I saw that her eyes were suddenly moist as she shook her head and came close to me, putting a gloved hand up to my whiskers.

"Oh, Harry, my jo, ye sweet old thing!" murmurs she. "Is that why you’re tasking me with all these daft questions—because that clavering auld clype Owen Williams has told you that Billy Cumming put his hand on mine once or twice at the baccarat?" She laughed softly, loving-sad, and stroked my withered cheek. "To be sure he did—but only to guide me in placing my wagers, silly! And you’re still jealous for your old wife, wild lad that you are—well, I’m glad, so there! Come here!" And she kissed me in a way which any decent matron should have forgotten long ago. "As though I’ve ever wanted to fetch any man but you," says she fondly, straightening my collar. "Supposing I still could. Now, if you’ll give me your arm to the drawing-room, I dare say Mrs Wilson will be serving tea."

The deuce of it is, when Elspeth turns a conversation topsy-turvy, all wide-eyed innocence, you can never be sure whether it’s witlessness or guile. She’s always been ivory from her delightful neck upwards, but that don’t mean she can’t wheedle a duck from a pond when so minded. Knowing her vanity ("Supposing I still could", my eye!) I didn’t doubt that she believed my inquiries had been prompted by pure jealousy, to her immense gratification, lovingly expressed … still, there was something to do with Cumming that she wasn’t telling. Well, perhaps it was something I’d be better for not knowing; one thing seemed clear, for what it was worth: whoever had seen him cheating, she had not.

I left her prattling over the cups to Lady Coventry and on the spur of the moment decided not to visit the Prince to see how his fine frenzy was coming along, but to call on the principal in the case, as promising more information—and entertainment. Faced with ruin and dishonour, Cumming should be an interesting spectacle by now, and a little manly condolence from old comrade Flashy might well lead him to do something amusing. The more mischief the better sport, as the great man said.

He was taking it well, I’ll say that, standing before his mantel, every inch the Guardee, rock steady and looking down his aristocratic nose. I guessed he was a volcano ready to erupt, though, and when he’d dismissed his valet I took him flat aback by holding out my hand, avoiding his grip—and seeking his pulse. I do love to startle ’em.

"What the deuce?" cries he, pulling free.

"A touch fast, not much. You’ll do." In fact, I hadn’t found his pulse. "Seen the Prince, have you?"

"So you’ve heard! Yes, I have seen his highness." He eyed me with profound dislike. "I suppose you too believe this filthy slander?"

"Why should you think that?" says I, taking a chair.

"Those other idiots do—Williams and Coventry! And the Prince! And when did you ever believe good of anyone?"

"Not often, perhaps. But then, they don’t often deserve it. In your case, as it happens, I’m probably the only man in this house who is not convinced that you played foul."

His sneer vanished in astonishment, and he took a pace forward, only to stop in sudden doubt. "You’re not? Why?" Leery of me, you see; many people are.

"Because it makes no sense." I told him my reasons, which you know, and with every word his expression lightened until he was looking almost hopeful, in a frantic way.

"Have you said this to the Prince? What did he say, in heaven’s name?"

I shook my head. "Didn’t persuade him—or Coventry and Williams. Can’t blame ’em altogether, you know; the evidence is pretty strong, on the face of it. Five witnesses—"

"Witnesses?" cries he. "Damned imbeciles! Two idiot women, a parcel of boys who know nothing—what’s their word worth?" Almost in an instant the cool Guardee was gone, and he was standing before me, fists clenched and eyes wild, voice shaking with fury. Strange how a man can show a calm front and a stiff lip when all the world’s agin him, but drop a sympathetic word and all the rage and indignation will come bubbling out, because he thinks he’s found a friend to confide in.

"How can they believe it?" he stormed. "My God, Flashman, how can they? Men who’ve known me twenty years and more—trusted friends! As though I would … stoop to this … this damned infamy! And for what?" There were tears in his eyes, and if he’d stamped and torn his hair I’d not have been surprised. "For a few paltry pounds? By heaven, I’ll throw it back in their faces—"

"Not if you’ve any sense, you won’t," says I, and he stared. "Might be taken for an admission of guilt. You won it fair and square, did you? Then you keep it." Sound advice, by the way.

"That’s the whole point, though," I added, sitting forward and giving him my eye. "Now, Cumming, don’t start tearing the curtains, but tell me, straight out … did you cheat?"

He was breathing hard, but at that he stiffened, and answered straight. "I did not! On my word of honour."

He was telling the truth, no question. Not because he said so, but because of what I’d seen and heard from the moment I’d entered the room. I don’t claim to be an infallible judge of my fellow man (and woman); I can be deceived, and put no faith in oaths and promises, however solemn. But I’ve been about, and if I knew anything at all, Gordon-Cumming’s demeanour, in and out of anger, rang true.

"Very good. Now, these witnesses—are they lying?"

That set him away again. "How the blazes should I know? The whole thing is abominable! What’s it to me whether they’re lying or not? Pack of idiots and prying women! Who cares what they say! Let me tell you, Flashman, their foul charges don’t matter a straw to me—they’re worthless! But that men like Williams and … and the Prince, whom I counted a friend—that they should turn against me … that they can bring themselves to believe this vile thing—my God, and that you, of all people, should be alone in having … having faith in me …"

I dare say he didn’t mean it to sound like an insult, but it did, and I found myself liking him even less than usual. He had gulped himself silent with outrage, so I resumed.

"You haven’t answered. Are they lying?"

"I neither know nor care!" He paced about and stopped, glaring at the wall. "Oh, I suppose not! The damned fools must think they saw something wrong, but who knows with ignorant young asses like those? What do they know of card play, even, or how such games are conducted? Tyros and schoolboys—that dummy Levett! That he should think for a moment—"

"Stop vapouring, and keep your head," I told him. "Dammit, man, I’m trying to help you!" I wasn’t, but there. "If you want to come out of this, you’d best stop ranting, and think. Now, then—they weren’t lying, you believe. So they were mistaken. How? That’s the thing—what was there in your play—the way you staked—that made ’em think you were diddling them?" I offered him a cheroot, and struck a match. "Now, settle down, and think that over."

He puffed at the weed in silence, made to speak, thought better of it, and then shrugged helplessly.

"How can I tell what they think they saw? Minds like theirs … stupid women and scatterbrains like young Wilson—"

"That won’t answer. See here—from what I’ve learned, they claim that on two or three occasions you had a £5 stake in front of you, and then hey, presto ! it was £15—after the hand had been declared. Now, how could that be? Think, man—unless they were seeing things, you must have added another two red chips to the one already there. Did you? Could you? No, don’t start bellowing—think! If you weren’t cheating—how came those extra chips to be there?"

He stood nursing his brow, and turned to me a face that was haggard with frustration. "I don’t know, Flashman. It can’t have been so … I swear I never added to my stake after the …" And suddenly he stopped, and his eyes and mouth opened wide, and he gave a choking gasp. "Oh, my God! Of course! The coup de trois! That’s it, Flashman! The coup de trois!" And he let out a great wailing noise which I took to be relief. "The coup de trois!"

"What the hell’s the coup de trois?"

"My system!" His eyes were blazing. "Why didn’t I think of it at once! I was tripling up—don’t you see? Look here!" He lugged a handful of coins from his pocket, spilling ’em all over the shop, and planked one on the table. "There—that’s my £5 stake. I win—and am paid a fiver from the bank …" He clapped down a second coin. "I let ’em lie, and add another fiver …" Down went a third coin "… and that’s my stake for the next hand—£15! It’s how I always play! Stake a fiver, win another, add a third! The coup de trois!" He was laughing in sheer triumph. "Why, it’s as old as the hills! Every punter knows it—but not those green monkeys, Wilson and Levett! They see a fiver staked, look away, look back again after the coup’s been declared and the bank has paid out—and see three fivers—my original stake, my winning, and the third which I’ve added for the next coup, perfectly properly!" He let out a huge gasp of relief and subsided into a chair. "And because they’re ignorant novices, brought up on old maid and halma, they think it’s foul play!"

"The only thing is," says I, "that they’re sure you added the extra chips after the coup was declared, but before the bank paid out—and that you accepted payment of £15."

"Then they’re wrong, that’s all! It’s a question of … of timing, can’t you see?"—

"They say that on one coup you jockeyed your stake and demanded an extra tenner from the bank-"

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"—and that once you flicked a chip over the line with a pencil—"

"That is a lie!" He was on his feet again, white with anger. "Dammit, man, can’t you see sense? Don’t you see what has happened? Some young fool sees my coup de trois, thinks it’s a fraud, tells the other young fools, and because they’re as dense as he is—aye, and as eager to believe the worst—they see all manner of things that ain’t there! Flicking chips with pencils—bah!" In his excitement he took me by the arm. "Don’t you see, Flashman?"

In fact, I did, and was feeling much let down. For what he said made some sort of sense … perhaps. Half-baked lads like Levett and Wilson, knowing nothing of such systems as the coup de trois employed by seasoned gamesters like Cumming, might well misinterpret his actions. It was, as he said, a question of timing, and in an ill-regulated drawing-room game, with no croupier on the first night, and the bank paying out any old how, it was possible that they might have thought Cumming was still to be paid when in fact he’d already got his winnings and was letting ’em lie, with an additional fiver, for the next coup. Now, if the thing were explained to them, they’d surely be bound to give him the benefit of the doubt—for Bertie would leap at the explanation as a lifeline, and for decency’s sake they’d have to admit that they might have been mistaken.

If there had been a cat handy I’d have kicked it. What had promised to be a splendid scandal looked like fizzling out like the dampest of squibs, and this damned baronet would walk away without a blot on his escutcheon … or so it seemed to me just then. From the first, you see, I’d feared that there might be a simple explanation, and here was a plausible one, rot it. It was all most damnably deflating—and worse because I’d guided him to his bloody loophole of escape.

"Don’t you see?" cries he again, impatiently. "Heavens, it’s as plain as daylight now! You must see that! It’s obvious to anyone above a half-wit—even a muttonhead like Williams can’t fail to see it! Am I right?"

I put on my judicial face and said that he probably was. "Well, thank God for that!" cries he sarcastically, and if anything had been needed to convince me he was telling the truth, it was his sneering tone. Not a hint of doubt that his explanation mightn’t wash, no palpitating hope of its acceptance—only cold fury that he, the soul of honour, had been disgracefully traduced, and that his peers had believed it. Two minutes since he’d been in an agony of despair, but now Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Bart, was back in the saddle, bursting with injured self-righteousness and the arrogant certainty of his kind. And, you’ll note, not a whisper of gratitude to your correspondent.

"The Prince must be told at once! He’s a man of sense—unlike those clowns Coventry and Williams. I don’t doubt they persuaded him against his will, but when I put it to him he’ll see the right of it." He was at his dressing-table, flourishing his silver-backed brushes, improving his parting, with a dab or two at the ends of his pathetic Guardee moustache, and shooting his cuffs, while I marvelled at the human capacity for self-delusion. He was full of exultant confidence now, and it never crossed his shallow mind that others might be less ready to take his view of the matter. I’ve said his explanation was plausible, but it wasn’t near as cast-iron as he thought. Much would depend on how it was presented … and how ready they were to believe it.

"It may be a lesson to them against jumping to conclusions! And on such flimsy evidence—the babbling of those whippersnappers! And my character, my good name, my record of honourable service, were to count for nothing against their damned gossip, the confounded little spies!" He was striding for the door, in full raging fettle, when he suddenly wheeled about. "No, by heavens, I’ll not do it!" He snapped his fingers, pointing at me. "Why should I?"

"Why shouldn’t you do what?" was all I could say, for his anger had dropped from him like a shed cloak, and he was smiling grimly as he came slowly back to me.

"Why should I humble myself with explanations? I’m the injured party, am I not? I’m the one who has suffered this … this intolerable affront! I have been insulted in the grossest fashion on the word of a pack of mannerless brats, and two elderly fools who, I have no doubt, persuaded His Royal Highness against his better judgment and honourable instincts." Drunk with vindictive justification he might be, he wasn’t ass enough to impugn Saintly Bertie. He gave a barking laugh. "Lord, Flashman, in our fathers' day I’d have been justified in blowing their imbecile heads off on Calais sands! Am I to crawl to them and say `Please, sir, I can prove your informants—ha, informers, I should say!—have been utterly in the wrong, and will you kindly tell ’em so, and condescend to forgive me for having conducted myself like a man of honour?' Is that what I’m supposed to do?"

Talk about women scorned; their fury ain’t in it with a Scotch baronet’s wounded self-esteem. Had I ever, I wondered, encountered such an immortally conceited ass with a truer touch for self-destruction? George Custer came to mind. Aye, put him and Gordon-Cumming on the edge of a precipice and I’d not care to bet which would tumble first into the void, bellowing his grievance.

"What," says I, keeping my countenance with proper gravity, "do you propose to do?"

"Not a damned thing! You—" stabbing me on the chest "—since you’ve thrust your spoon into the dixie, can do it for me! You can be my messenger, Flashman, and have the satisfaction of showing them what asses they’ve made of themselves! You’ve got the gift o' the gab, don’t we know it?" says he, with a curl of his voice if not of his lip. "You can explain about the coup de trois and the rest of it—because I’m damned if I will! It’s not for me to make a plea to them—let ’em come to me! I’ll accept their apology—Coventry and Williams, I mean, and those three guttersnipes! Not the ladies, of course—and certainly not His Royal Highness, who has been most disgracefully imposed on, I’m sure of that. Yes," says he, head up and shoulders square, with exultation in his eye, "that’s the way to do it! So off you go, old fellow, and don’t spare ’em!" Seeing me stand thoughtful, he frowned impatiently. "Well—will you?"

Would I not? I’ve told you my score against Gordon-Cumming—a natural detestation of his supercilious vanity, his unconcealed dislike of me, above all the suspicion that he’d ploughed with my heifer, and now, if you please, the arrogant bastard was appointing me his message-boy. Throw into the scale his overweening certainty that he’d cleared himself, and must be grovelled to in consequence, and you’ll understand (if you know me at all) that I would not have missed the chance to sink the swine, not for my soul’s salvation.

For it was in my hands, no error. His coup de trois excuse had put the whole affair on a knife-edge. If it were shrewdly urged, the three wise men, and the witnesses, might be disposed, for the sake of avoiding a horrid scandal, to swallow it. Well, by the time I’d done with it, they’d spew it all over the floor.

So I consented to act as his go-between, and left him grinding his teeth at the prospect of accusers confounded and honour restored. No time, we agreed, must be lost, so I made for the Prince’s apartments, and whom should I meet on the way but the three leading witnesses, plainly just come from a royal audience: Master Wilson bright with excitement, Lycett Green tight-lipped, and young Levett plainly wishing himself in the Outer Hebrides. No change on that front, thinks I, and the air of gloom in H.R.H.’s sitting-room, most of it cigar smoke, confirmed my conclusion.

"That fellow is impossible!" Bertie was croaking, and I gathered he meant Lycett Green. "Not a shadow of doubt, according to him. Oh, it’s intolerable! What can we do but believe them?"

"As your highness says." Coventry sounded like a vicar at the graveside. "That being so, we are bound to take …" he frowned as he dredged his vocabulary "… ah, measures … in regard to Sir William."

"Lycett Green won’t keep quiet if we don’t," says Williams.

"Self-righteous ass!" snaps Bertie. "No, that’s not fair … he’s a decent man, no doubt—I only wish he weren’t so infernally adamant." He scowled at me. "Well?" I said I’d seen Gordon-Cumming.

"And much good that will have done! I’ve seen him myself—and it was heart-breaking! I tell you, the man almost had tears in his eyes! One of my closest friends, I’d ha' trusted him with my life—but how can I credit his denial in the face of … of …" He flourished a paw in the direction of the door. "They’re so sure! Even Levett, poor devil—heavens, we could hardly drag it out of him!" He sat down, groaning, drew on his cigar as though it were poisoned, and regarded me dyspeptically. "What did Cumming have to say to you?"

"Denied it, absolutely. I suppose he gave your highness his explanation?"

That brought him bolt upright. "What explanation?"

I hesitated, with an artistic frown, and shook my head. "I don’t know quite what to make of it myself … I confess that I …" At that I stopped, waiting for him to demand what the devil I was talking about, which he did, with considerable vigour.

"Well, sir… ." I began, half-apologetic, and then I gave him the coup de trois story, plain and matter-of-fact, but with dark doubt hovering over every word, and was gratified to see Coventry’s face growing long as a coffin, Williams frowning in disbelief, and the light of hope fading from Bertie’s bloodshot ogles.

"D’you believe it?" cries he, and I maintained the manly silence that damned Gordon-Cumming as no words could. "But is it possible?" he insisted.

"Possible, sir?" I made a lip and shrugged. "Aye, I dare say it’s … possible …"

"But even if it were true," broke in Williams, "and you plainly don’t think it is, it still does not explain all the … the irregularities. The pencil, that sort of thing." He met Bertie’s despairing eye. "I regret to say it, sir, but it sounds to me like the feeble excuse of a desperate man. And I’m sure," he added, "that that is how Green and the others will regard it."

Coventry heaved a draughty sigh. "Indeed, it only confirms my belief that Sir William … ah, that the witnesses … the charges …"

"That he’s a cheat and a liar!" cries Bertie. He growled down his temper, gnashed on his cigar, and faced us. "Very well, then. God knows we’ve done our best to sift the thing—and that’s our conclusion. He’s played foul and been caught out. Now," says he, and for the first time that night he sounded royal, "how is it to be hushed up?"

They stood mum, so I put in my oar again. "’Fraid it can’t be, sir … unless you and Williams are prepared to risk a court martial."

If I’d said "are prepared to steal the Crown Jewels and make a run for Paraguay" I couldn’t have provoked a finer display of consternation, but before Bertie could explode, I explained.

"You and he both hold the Queen’s commission, sir. I’m retired, of course. But as serving officers, aware of dishonourable conduct by a brother officer, you’re obliged to bring it to the attention of your superiors. Since your highness is a field marshal, I’m not sure who your superiors are, exactly … Her Majesty, of course. Or I dare say the colonel of Cumming’s regiment would do …"

I was drowned out by a prolonged fit of princely coughing, the result of outraged smoke going down the wrong way, which gave him time to digest my warning, and emerge mopping and wheezing to announce hoarsely that he didn’t give a tinker’s dam for courts martial, or words to that effect, and not a whisper was to be breathed to military superiors or anyone else, was that clear?

"It must not come out!" he croaks. "At all costs it must be confined to … to ourselves. The scandal …" He couldn’t bring himself even to contemplate it. "A way must be found!" He sat down again, thumping his knees. "It must!"

Which left us back at the starting-gate, three of us racking our brains and Flashy looking perplexed but inwardly serene, for all I was waiting for was a lead. At last Coventry gave it.

"If some accommodation could be found," says he, "which would signify … ah, disapprobation of Sir William’s conduct, while satisfying the … ah, resentment of his accusers, and of course ensuring that no word of this deplorable affair ever—"

"Oh, talk sense, Coventry!" barks Bertie. "They want his head on a charger! Green made that plain enough—and how you’re to contrive that in secrecy I cannot imagine!"

"How d’you punish him without exposing him?" wonders Williams, and I saw it was time for the Flashman Compromise which had been taking shape in my mind over the past minute or two. I made a judicial noise to attract their attention.

"I wonder if Lord Coventry hasn’t pointed the way, sir," says I. "Suppose … yes, how would it do? … if Cumming were to sign a paper … you know, an undertaking sort of thing … pledging himself never to touch a card again. Eh?" They stood mute as ducks in thunder. "Stiff penalty for a man in his position, what? I’d be surprised if that didn’t satisfy Green and his pals. And in return," I tapped the table impressively, "they would pledge themselves to silence—as would we, absolutely. That would settle things—without a breath of scandal."

There was a hole in it a mile wide, but I knew Bertie wouldn’t spot it: my last five words were all that mattered to him. He was pointing like a setter, Coventry was in his customary fog, but Williams burst out:

"Cumming would never do such a thing! Why, it would be tantamount to a confession of guilt."

"Not a bit of it, Owen!" says I. "He ain’t admitting a thing—and if he were, ’twould only be to us, and his accusers, who think he’s guilty anyway. No one else would ever know." I turned to Bertie, his cigar now in tatters. "I’m sure he’ll agree, sir—what other choice has he? Public disgrace … and worse than that," I went on, fixing Coventry and Williams with my sternest look, "would be the shameful burden of knowing that greater names than his had been tarnished by the publication of his dishonour."

That did the trick: Bertie started as though I’d put a bayonet into his leg, and from Williams' expression I knew that if I’d said: `Tell Cumming that if he don’t do as he’s told, and preserve our precious Prince from scandal, God help him,' I could not have been plainer. Coventry, naturally, was appalled.

"But … such a document, supposing Sir William should consent to sign it, in return for a pledge of silence … would it not bear a … an odour of … of conspiracy?"

"Certainly not," says I. "It would be a simple promise never to play cards again, signed by him, duly witnessed by His Royal Highness—and by the accusers. Nothing smoky about it. They would give their word of honour to His Highness never to speak or write of the matter hereafter. And that would be that, tight as a drum."

Bertie hadn’t said a word for several minutes, and when he did it was clear what was preoccupying him. "Could we be sure those people would keep silence?"

"Once they’d given their word to the Prince of Wales?" says I, and that seemed to satisfy him, for he sat in silence a moment, and then asked the other two what they thought of the scheme. They puffed doubtfully, of course, Williams because he feared that Cumming would refuse to sign, and Coventry out of general anxiety. Would Lycett Green and Co agree, he wondered, and Bertie let out a muffled snarl.

"They’ll agree!" says he grimly, which settled that, and they passed on to the wording of the document, which was simple enough, and then to considering how it might best be put to the guilty party. Bertie wondered if I should take part with Coventry and Williams, but modesty forbade.

"I’m no diplomat, sir," says I. "Too blunt by half. His lordship and Owen will do it ten times better without me. Besides," I added, blunt honest old Flashy, "the fact is he don’t like me. Dunno why, but there it is. No point in putting his back up, so the less I’m mentioned, the better."

D’you know, Williams absolutely shook his head in sympathy, and Bertie went so far as to give my arm a clap before I withdrew. He was even more demonstrative an hour later, when I was summoned to his presence just as I was on the point of turning in, and found him sitting on the edge of his bed in his dressing-gown, glass in hand, cigar at the high port, plainly dog-weary but content at having laboured well in the vineyard.

"Well, he’s signed!" cries he jovially. He picked up a paper and held it out: just a few lines, with a forest of names at the foot, led by "W. Gordon-Cumming" and the Prince’s scrawl. "Not without the deuce of a struggle, Owen Williams tells me. Swore it was tantamount to a confession, but gave in when they told him it was that or ruin. Help yourself, Flashman," indicating decanter and humidor, "and sit ye down. Gad, I don’t care if I never have such an evening again—after dinner, too, shan’t sleep a wink." He swigged comfortably. "D’you know, I did not half believe he’d put his signature to it—but you knew, downy old bird that you are!" He was positively twinkling.

"Well, sir, he really didn’t have much choice, did he? All things considered, he’s come off dam' lightly."

"That’s what Lycett Green thinks, tho' he’d the grace not to say so. Oh, aye, they’ve all put their names to it, as you see. He peered at the paper, shaking his head. "I must say, it’s a damning thing for an innocent man to sign … and yet …" He screwed up his little eyes at me. "D’you think there’s the least possibility he’s telling the truth?"

"Look at it this way, sir—would you have signed it, knowing yourself innocent? Or would you have damned ’em for liars and offered to put ’em through every court in the land? Or taken a horsewhip to ’em?"

And think what Mama would have made of that, I might have added. He looked solemn, wagging his head, and then demanded, almost peevishly:

"What the devil possessed him to do it—to cheat, I mean? Was he off his head; d’you think? You know, temporarily deranged? One hears of such things."

"Dunno, sir. And I doubt if he does, either."

He shook his head and rumbled a few philosophies while we sipped and smoked. He was enjoying his relief, and when we parted he was at his most affable, pumping my fin and calling me Harry again, "I’m obliged to you … not for the first time. This—" he tapped Cumming’s paper "—was a brainwave, and the sooner it’s safely bestowed, the better. Not the sort of item we’d care to see in the morning press, what? Well, good-night to you, old fellow, thank’ee again … aye, and thank the Lord we’ll hear no more of it!"

And if you believe that, sweet prince, you will indeed believe anything, thinks I. For if there was one stone cold certainty, it was that we would hear more, abundantly more and running over, of the Great Baccarat Scandal of Tranby Croft. Bertie, blind to everything but the need to keep it from the Queen’s ears, and asses like Coventry and Williams, might suppose that the vows of silence sworn by all and sundry would prove binding—honour and all that, you know. I knew better. At least a dozen folk, two of ’em women, were in the secret, and the notion that they’d all hold their tongues was plain foolish. It was bound to get out—as I’d deter-mined it should from the moment I’d stood in Gordon-Cumming’s presence, weighed him up, and realised what a prime subject he was for shoving down the drain. All it needed after that, as you know, was an inspiration, and careful management; now, nature could take its course.

Which it did, and if it took longer to leak out than I’d expected, the resultant row was worth the delay. It’s still not established who blew the gaff, but my firm belief is that it was Bertie himself, unlikely as that may seem. But the fact is that the Yankee papers named as their source none other than Elspeth’s chum, Daisy Brooke aforementioned (it was they who christened her Babbling Brooke), and since she was warming the princely mattress in those days, it’s odds on that he whispered the scandal to her, more fool he. Daisy swore ’twasn’t so, and threatened to sue, but never did.

Whoever blabbed, it was all over the clubs and messes before Christmas that Cumming had cheated, chaps were cutting him dead, and he was demanding retractions and apologies and not getting them. So there he was, reputation blasted, and nothing for it, you’d have thought, but to order a pint of port and a pistol for breakfast or join the Foreign Legion.

He did neither. To the shocked murmurs and secret glee of Society, the delight of the public, and I’ve no doubt the tenor of the Prince of Wales, he brought an action for slander against his five accusers from Tranby.

The trial came off in June of ’91, and it’s one of the regrets of my life that I was not present, if only to see stout Bertie in the witness-box, squirming under the inquisition of saucy jurors who didn’t know their place, unlike the judge and counsel who grovelled to him something servile, and did everything but tote him in and out of court in a palankeen. The proceedings lasted a week, and by all accounts it was one of the finest legal circuses ever seen, with the judge as ringmaster and nothing lacking but an orchestra and chorus girls. Knowing our revered Lord Chief Justice of the day, the ancient Coleridge, I wasn’t surprised, for he was a jolly old buck with a tremendous fund of good stories; once made a speech lasting twenty-three days, they tell me, and was responsible for the three-mile limit, in case you’re interested.

You may be sure I was sorely tempted once or twice to view the spectacle, but decided reluctantly to keep clear—when you’ve had a hand in engineering a disaster it’s best to stand well out from under to avoid falling debris. I knew Bertie and Co wouldn’t advertise my part in the affair, which was deplorable enough with-out the notorious Flashy being dragged in, and sure enough they didn’t. One or two who knew I’d been at Tranby quizzed me, but I took a stern and silent line—you know, shockin' biznai, old comrade, beyond belief, state o' the Army, damnable altogether , , , that sort of thing.

Aside from the verdict, which I’ll tell you presently in case you_ don’t know, the great sensation was the storm that burst over the head of our unfortunate Heir Apparent. God forbid I should ever feel sorry for the fat bounder, but even I was astonished at the way the press and pulpits laid into him; you’d have thought he’d been kidnapping nuns and selling ’em to the Port Said brothels. And all because he’d been playing baccarat! "Woe to the Monarchy!" wailed one rag, another spoke of a "chorus of condemnation", and the rest expressed shock and disgust, denounced his taste for the "lowest type of gambling", and recoiled from the spectacle of "the future King of England officiating at a gamblers' orgy". Even the Times went wild with terms like "regret", "concern", and "distress", a Scotch journal decided that "the Prince is evidently not what he ought to be", but the leader I liked best was the one that said the British Empire was humiliated and the rest of civilisation was pointing the finger at us.

As to the trial itself, you can go to the official record if you’ve a mind to, but I flatter myself you won’t learn much that I haven’t told you. The lawyers went back and forth over every blessed moment of those three nights, every shift of those damned counters, every syllable of who said what to whom, and what expressions they wore, and what they thought and why, over and over, and I dare say at the end of it the jury were as fogged as the public. The biggest guns of the day fought the case: Clarke, the Solicitor-General, no less, who appeared for Cumming, was reckoned the shrewdest mouthpiece of the day, while the defendants were rep-resented by two of the best hatchet-men in the business, Charles Russell and young Asquith—you know the latter as the buffoon who infests Number 10 Downing Street at the moment, and my recollection of him is as a shining morning face to which I once presented a prize at the City of London School, but for all that he was accounted a sharp hand in court, while Russell was a human hawk, and looked it.

Reading the press reports, I concluded that the evidence given didn’t differ much from what I myself remembered of events, and in nothing essential. Owen Williams had drawn up a précis of what had happened at Tranby, in which various holes were picked: there seemed to be uncertainty over the order of the interviews on the Wednesday evening, and some vagueness as to who had suggested presenting the damning document to Cumming—which wasn’t surprising, since it had been yours truly, and they were keeping me out of it. Elspeth likewise: I’d been worried that she might be called as a witness, since on the first night she’d sat as an onlooker, and on the second had for a time taken Lady Coventry’s place next to Cumming, but either they’d forgotten about her—or more likely they’d remembered, and had realised that the last thing the trial needed was her drivelling brightly in the witness-box. Like several others of the party, she wasn’t even mentioned.

None of which mattered to the case. Cumming, in evidence, repeated his flat denial of the charges, claiming that he’d lost his head and signed the paper only because he’d been persuaded that there was no other way to avoid a public scandal. He got in a sly thrust at Bertie by suggesting that H.R.H. had been chiefly concerned to cover his own ample rear—which, as I knew, was gospel true.

The five accusers stuck by their stories pretty well, although Clarke, who was obviously a complete hand at confusing the issue with trivial questions, claimed to find all kinds of discrepancies in their testimony; he also hinted, ever so delicately, that a couple of them might have been tight, had great fun about Lycett Green’s being a master of foxhounds, and took a nice injured line of surprise that in view of Cumming’s pledged word, stainless character, and so forth, they weren’t prepared to admit they’d been mistaken. His final speech was four times as long as that of Russell, who simply went straight at Cumming’s throat: why hadn’t he demanded to be brought face to face with his accusers, as any honest man would have done? He also reminded the jury that the five accusers weren’t alone in thinking Cumming guilty; the Prince, Williams, and Coventry thought so too.

In all that I read, I could put my finger on only one flat lie: the defendants' denial that there had been any arrangement to keep watch on Cumming’s play the second night. Well, I ask you! You’re told a man has been cheating, and don’t keep an eye on him next time? Pull the other one, Walker; you watch him like a lynx. According to Owen Williams, they’d told him they’d agreed to watch, but now, in the witness-box, they were claiming they’d done no such thing. Their reason was plain enough: they didn’t want to be thought of as spying on a fellow guest, and there was some fine wriggling under cross-examination—one of ’em, I think it was Lycett Green, absolutely said: "Knowing the man had cheated, I looked, but not with a view to watching", which is as fine a piece of humbug as I could ha' thought up myself. Not that it made a ha’porth of difference: they’d seen what they’d seen, and held by it.

By the morning of the seventh day, with the cases of both sides completed, the thing was on a knife-edge: half the Town was positive Gordon-Cumming was the biggest cheat since Jacob, while t’other half held that Clarke had shown up the five accusers for unreliable idiots (if not vindictive parvenus) whose evidence wasn’t worth stale beans. Perambulating from the Park to the Temple during the day, I heard Cumming damned and defended in the clubs, but the farther east I walked, the more I encountered a truly British phenomenon: among the commonalty, the anti-Cummings wanted to see him done down for precisely the same reason that the pro-Cummings hoped he’d win: because he was a toff. The lord-haters were full of righteous indignation about the pampered rich rioting and gaming while honest folk went hungry, so to Hell with Cumming and the Prince of Wales and the lot of ’em; on the other side were the forelock-tuggers who thought it "a bleedin' disgrice that a proper gent wot ’ad fought for Queen an' country" should be defamed by the likes o' them nobodies. No wonder the foreigners can’t understand us.

No doubt because I hoped to see him sunk to perdition, I could imagine several excellent reasons why the jury should find in his favour and award him thumping damages. Foremost in my mind still, you see, was the conviction that he couldn’t have cheated; spite and prejudice aside, it wasn’t in the man’s nature. But it was up to the jury now, and no doubt all hung on the direction they would receive from the venerable Coleridge. The early editions were carrying his summing-up at length, and I studied it eagerly in the corner of a Fleet Street pub, with a pie and pint to keep me company.

The day’s proceedings had begun with a protest from that ass Owen Williams, demanding to make a statement against the Solicitor-General, Clarke, who, says Williams, had accused him of an "abominable crime—of sacrificing an innocent man".

Coleridge couldn’t remember what exact words had been used, but told Williams that counsel could say what they dam' well liked in Court, and would Williams kindly keep quiet and give him, Coleridge, some judging-room, or words to that effect. After which Williams presumably retired, gnashing, and Coleridge addressed the twelve good men and true.

It must have been a sight to see, for he apparently played the wise, simple old codger, peering over his glasses while he told the jury what brilliant chaps Clarke and Russell and Asquith were: he didn’t say they were too clever by half, exactly, but he thought it no bad thing that "the humble jog-trot" of his summing-up should intervene between their fireworks and the verdict.

Having put the wigged brigade in their place, he told the jury something that was news to me: that cheating at cards was an offence for which you could be nailed in court. He then went on to remind them that Clarke had said Cumming wasn’t interested in soaking his accusers; they would bear that in mind if the question of damages arose. (A hundred to eight he’ll tell ’em to find for Cumming, thinks I.) And another thing: whether they disapproved of gambling or not was beside the point, which was simply this: did Cumming cheat or not?

He rambled on, fairly reasonably it seemed to me, about the actual play, and the witnesses' testimony, and caused some mirth by describing Cumming’s system of betting as sounding like "coup d'état". Well, he knew it couldn’t be coup d'état, but it was some French expression or other … oh, coup de trois, was it? Ah, well … On he went, honest old Coleridge, as gentle and benign as could be, drawing the jury’s attention to various points, reminding them that it didn’t matter a hoot what he thought, it was up to them, and all he could do was raise questions for them, which they must answer. Only once did he rouse himself, to have a brief bicker with Clarke for seeming to turn up his nose at the social standing of some of the accusers. It wasn’t Lycett Green’s fault that his father was an engineer, was it? And if young Jack Wilson was a shiftless layabout, what was wrong with that? And if the Wilsons toad-ate the Prince, why, who did not?

Clarke said he hadn’t called Lycett Green’s father an engineer, and Coleridge said, well, if he hadn’t, his junior had. No he hadn’t, either, says Clarke, but Coleridge ignored him and said he didn’t see why a chap should be laughed at because his father was an engineer, and if a chap liked hobnobbing with the Prince, where was the harm, eh? It wouldn’t prejudice him against Gordon-Cumming, anyway, and that was the point.

Furthermore, this stuff about Gordon-Cumming losing his head didn’t impress the bench. Cumming had had lots of time to think before he signed the paper, and knew what he was doing. He hadn’t asked to be confronted by his accusers, either; pretty rum, that seemed to Coleridge. And he hadn’t returned his winnings—put ’em in the bank, 238 quids' worth. Well, well …

Having read this far, I felt the odds were shifting in the direction of the defendants, but you still couldn’t tell. Then the silly old buffer got on to a new tack: the Prince of Wales. Well, Coleridge couldn’t see the throne toppling simply because the Prince had played baccarat. The Prince had a busy public life, opening things and making speeches and listening to speeches, and a hell of a bore it must be, in Coleridge’s view, so if he wanted to enjoy himself of an evening, why not? Some people might say why not read the Bible instead of playing baccarat, but it was a free country, wasn’t it?

Sound stuff, in its way, interspersed with quotations from Shakespeare (including a bit of Henry V at Agincourt on the subject of honour), and other authors with whom he didn’t doubt the jury were familiar, and a few Latin tags to remind them that this was serious work—and then, at the end of his summing-up, when they must have been sitting in a restful fog, he left off playing the genial philosophising old buffer and delivered the thrust that settled the case once and for all.

Would an innocent man, he wondered, sign a document stating he had cheated, simply to prevent its being known that the Prince of Wales had played baccarat? Would a man allow himself to be called a card-sharp rather than have it known that the Prince had done something of which many people might disapprove? No, Coleridge couldn’t swallow that.

The jury retired … and that, blast it, was as far as the report went, so I set off for home, and it was in the gentle even-fall that I came on a newsboy hollering "Verdict!" on the corner of Bruton Street, and there it was in the stop press: the jury had taken only thirteen minutes to find for the defendants.

So that was Cumming ruined. The twelve good men had declared him a cheat and a liar.

I confess it took me aback—splendid news though it was. How the devil had a jury of Englishmen, brought up to give a man the benefit of the doubt, come to that conclusion? Still, they’d been in court, and I had not—and they’d reached their decision double quick, hadn’t they just, in hardly more time than it would take to call for votes round the table. No doubts, apparently, and certainly no arguments.

Strangely, where opinion had been evenly divided before, it swung violently to Cumming after the verdict. One learned journal opined that you wouldn’t have hung a dog on the evidence that he’d cheated, and I heard it said on every side that the thing should never have come to trial at all: it should have been settled at Tranby, and would have been but for ill-advised zeal on the part of the Prince’s friends to save him from scandal.

The irony was that in spite of all the reverential treatment and may-it-please-your-royal-highnessing he’d received in court, the trial did Bertie more damage than any other incident in his well-spotted career. The press, as I’ve said, damned him from Belgrade to breakfast, and when he issued a statement (with the blessing, they say, of the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury) protesting that he had a horror of gambling, and did his utmost to discourage it, he was seen for the windy little hypocrite he was, and hooted in the streets.

Cumming was finished socially and professionally, of course, and had the sense to resign, marry his American girl, and retire to Scotland; if I knew him at all, any shame he felt would be nothing to his rage against the society that had branded him, and the prince who’d betrayed him, and I dare say he’s brooding in his Highland fastness this minute, armoured in righteous wrath, despising the world that cast him out. Small wonder, for I can tell you now, at the end of my little tale … Gordon-Cumming was railroaded. He didn’t cheat at baccarat.

I learned this within twenty-four hours of the verdict, but there was nothing to be done, even if I’d wanted to. No one would have credited the truth for a moment; I didn’t myself, at first, for it beggared belief. But there can be no doubt about it, for it fits exactly with the evidence of both sides, and the source is unimpeachable—I’ve lived with her seventy years, after all, and know that while she may suppress a little veri and suggest a touch of falsi on occasion, Elspeth ain’t a liar.

We were at breakfast, which for me in my indulgent age was Russian style (sausage, brandy, and coffee) and for her the fodder of her native heath: porridge, ham, eggs, black pudding, some piscine abomination called Arbroath smokies, oatcakes, rolls, and marmalade (God knows how she’s kept her figure), while we read the morning journals. Usually she reads and prattles together, but that morning she was silent, absorbing the Cumming debacle. When she’d laid her eye-glasses aside she sat for a while, stirring her tea in a thoughtful, contented manner.

"Rum business, that," says I. "D’ye know, old girl, it’s beyond me. Granted he’s a poisonous tick … I still can’t believe he cheated."

"Neither he did," says she.

"What’s that? Oh, I see … you don’t think it likely, either. Well, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for certain, but—"

"Oh, but I do know," says she, laying down her spoon. "He did not cheat at all. Well, I think not, on the first night, and I know he did not, on the second." She sipped her tea, while I choked on my brandy.

"What d’you mean—you know? You don’t know a thing about it! Why, when I asked you, that night at Tranby … remember, whether he’d been jockeying his stakes, you didn’t know what I meant, even!"

"I knew perfectly well what you meant, but it would not have been prudent to say anything just then. It would not have suited," says she calmly, "at all."

"You mean … you’re saying you knew then he hadn’t cheated?" In my agitation I overset my cup, coffee all over the shop. "But … how could you possibly … what the blazes are you talking about?"

"There is no need to fly at me, or take that crabbit tone," says she, rising swiftly. "Quick, put a plate under the cloth before it stains the table! Drat, such a mess! Here, let me ’tend to it, and you ring for Jane … oh, the best walnut!"

"Damn Jane and the walnut! Will you tell me what you mean!" She had the cloth back, clucking and mopping the table with a napkin. "Elspeth! What’s this rot about Cumming not cheating? How do you know, dammit?"

"It’s a mercy your cup had gone cold … oh, how vexing! It’ll have to be French polished." She peered at the wood. "Oh, dear, why did I not wait till you were settled—guid kens I should know by now what you’re like in the morning." She discarded the napkin with dainty distaste and resumed her seat. "Sir William Gordon-Cumming did not cheat. That is what I mean." She sighed, in a Patient Griselda sort of way. "The fact is, you see … I did."

Lord knows what I looked like in that moment, a cod on a slab likely. She lifted a swift warning finger.

"Now, please, my love, do not raise your voice, or rage at me. It’s done, and there is no undoing it, and the servants would hear. If you are angry, I’m sorry, but if you’ll just bide quiet and hear me out, you may not be too angry, I hope." She smiled at me as though I were an infant drooling in my crib, and took a sip of tea.

"Now, then. It was I who added counters to his stakes, just once or twice, and not nearly as often as they said—why, I was quite shocked when I read in the papers last week, the kind of evidence they were giving, even Mrs Wilson—dear me, if there had been that much hankey-pankey with the counters the whole world must have seen, the Prince and everyone! The way folk deceive themselves! But I suppose," she shrugged, "that the General Solicitor or whatever they call him was right, and they saw what they wanted to see … only they didn’t, if you know what I mean, for it wasn’t Billy Cumming cheating, it was me … or should it be I? Anyway, I only did it now and then … well, three or four times, perhaps, I’m not sure, but often enough to make them think he was cheating, I’m glad to say," she added complacently. "And you should not be angry, I think, because he deserved it, and I was right."

It’s hard, when your life has contained as many hellish surprises as mine, to put ’em in order of disturbance—Gul Shah appearing in that Afghan dungeon, Cleonie whipping off her eye-patch, meeting Bismarck in his nightmare castle, waking to find myself trussed over a gun muzzle at Gwalior, and any number of equally beastly shocks, but I’ve never been more thoroughly winded than by those incredible words across the breakfast dishes on Wednesday, June 10th, 1891 … from Elspeth of all people! For a moment I wondered if she was making a ghastly joke, or if that pea-brain had given way at last … but no, I knew her artless prattle too well, and that she meant every damned word and there was no point in bellowing disbelief. I forced myself to be calm and sit mum while I downed my brandy and poured another stiff ’un before demanding, no doubt in an incredulous croak:

"You’re telling me that he didn’t cheat … but you did—and that you were laying a plant on him?" Seeing her bewildered, I translated: "Making him look guilty, dammit! For the love of God, woman—why?"

Her eyes widened. "Why, to punish him! To pay him out for his bad conduct! His … his black wickedness!" All of a sudden she was breathing fiery indignation, Boadicea in a lace dressing-gown. "And so I did, and now he is disgraced, and a pariah and a hissing, and serve him right! He should be torn by wild horses, so he should! He is a base, horrid man, and I hope he suffers as he deserves!" She began to butter toast ferociously, while I sat stricken, wondering what the devil he’d done, horrid suspicions leaping to mind, but before I could voice them she gave one of her wordless Caledonian exclamations of impatience, left off buttering, tossed her head, and regained her composure.

"Oh, feegh! Harry, I beg your pardon, getting het-up in that unseemly way … oh, but when I think of him …" She took a deep breath, and spooned marmalade on to her plate. "But it’s by with now, thank goodness, and he’s paid for a villain, de’il mend him, and I’m the happy woman that’s done it, for I never thought to have the chance, and long I bided, waiting the day." As always when deeply moved she was getting Scotcher by the minute, but now she paused for a mouthful of toast. "And then, at Tranby, when I heard that Wilson loon whispering to his friend, and under-stood what was what, I soon saw in a blink how I might settle his hash for him, once for all. And I did that!" says she, taking a grim nibble. "Oh, if only I could make marmalade like Granny Morrison’s .. there’s no right flavour to this bought stuff. Would you oblige me with the honey, dearest?"

I shoved it across in a daze. The enormity, the impossibility of what she said she’d done, her fury against Cumming for heaven knew what unimaginable reason—I still couldn’t take it in, but I knew that if you’re to get sense out of Elspeth you must let her babble to a finish in her own weird way, giving what assistance you may. I clutched at the nearest straw.

"What did Wilson whisper? To whom? When?"

"Why, on the first night, when the Prince said `Who’s for baccarat, everyone?' and they went to play in the smoking-room, and Count Lutzow and I and Miss Naylor and Lady Brougham went to watch." She frowned at the honey. "Is it very fattening, do you suppose? Oh, well … So the Prince said `Shall you and I make a jolly bank together, Lady Flashman?' but I said I did not know the rules and must watch till I got the hang of it, and then I should be honoured to help him, and he said, quite jocose, `Ah, well, one of these days, then', and Count Lutzow found me a chair next to that young fellow with the poker up his back, like all the Guardees, what’s his name -? "

"Berkeley Levett, you mean? Elspeth, for mercy’s sake—"

"Like enough … he might have been Berkeley Square for all the sense I could get from him … so then they played, and after a wee while, the Wilson boy—the one they call Jack, though his name is Arthur, I think, or is it Stanley?—anyway, I heard him whisper to Levett, `I say, this is a bit hot!' which I thought odd, when it wasn’t at all, I was quite chilly away from the fire, and without my shawl … but a moment later I saw he meant something quite otherwise, for he whispered again, that the man next to him was cheating—and I saw he meant Billy Cumming … Harry, dear, would you ring for hot water? The pot has gone quite cold—I’m sure they don’t make delft as they used to, or perhaps the cosy is getting thin—they stuff them with anything at all these days, we always had a good thick woollen one at home that Grizel knitted, but they do tend to smell rather, after a while …"

Husbands tend to lose their reason rather, after a while, too, so lest you should suffer likewise I’ll relieve her account with a précis: she had heard Levett say Wilson must be mistaken, and Wilson had told him to look for himself. Lady Flashman, scenting mischief breast-high, had also fixed her bonny blue gimlets on the suspect, seen him drop red counters on his paper after coups had been called, and heard Levett mutter, `By jove, it is too hot!'—but unlike the two young men she had concluded that Cumming was playing fair. Simple she may be, but she has her country’s instinct for anything to do with money and sharp practice, and her unerring eye had spotted what they had missed …

"For I was positive, Harry, that he did not drop his counters until after the Prince had paid the wagers, and what he was doing was laying his wager for the next coup. Well," says she earnestly, "that was not cheating, was it? But they thought it was, you see. They did not understand that he was playing that French system of his, the coup de thingamabob which was mentioned in court last week—I did not understand it myself till I read about it in the papers and realised he was telling the truth when he said he did not cheat. But at the time, of course, I did not know about the French coup thing … and while I did not think he was cheating, how could I be sure, when they thought he was, and I supposed they knew more about the game than I did? In any event," she concluded cheerfully, "it did not signify whether he had cheated or not, so long as they thought he did. Do you see, my love?"

Heaven forfend that I should ever fail to grasp something that was clear to her, but as I gazed into those forget-me-not eyes fixed so eagerly on mine I had to confess myself somewhat buffaloed, and begged her to continue, which she did at length, and gradually light began to dawn. Later that night, after the game, Count Lutzow (the cabbage-eating poont-fancier whom she fleeced at back-gammon two nights later) had come to her like Rumour painted full of tongues, with news that a scandalous crisis was at hand: Sir William Gordon-Cumming had been seen cheating, and watch was to be kept on him the following night. How Lutzow had heard this, God alone knows, for according to what was said in court young Wilson had confided his suspicions to no one on the Monday night except Levett and, later, his mother: but there you are, Lutzow had got wind of it somehow. Sly bastards, these squareheads. Of course, he swore dear Lady Flashman to silence …

I could hold in no longer. "But dammit all, girl, why didn’t you say something then? You believed he hadn’t cheated, and that Wilson and Levett were mistaken … and yet you let ’em lay a trap for him on the following night—for that’s what it was—"

"I should think I did!" cries she. "It was then I saw my chance to be revenged on him. Whether he’d cheated or no' the first night, I could make sure he was seen to cheat on the Tuesday, when every eye would be on him. It was ever so easy," she went on serenely. "I begged Lady Coventry to give me her place beside him, and—forgive me, dearest, and do not be too shocked—I put my knee against his, and smiled `couthie and slee', to fetch him, for he always had a fancy to me, you know, and men are so vain and silly, even an old dame like me can gowk them … well, it was no work at all to have him put his hand on mine to guide me in making my bets, and I saw to it that he kept it there, and made a flirt of it, our hands together whenever we wagered … and that is how counters came to be on his paper when they should not have been—"

This was too much. "Of all the nonsense! Don’t tell me you can palm a gaming-chip—as if you were Klondike Kate! Why, it would take a top sharp, a first-rate mechanic—"

"Harry," says she quietly, and held out her hand, the empty palm towards me. "Take my hand, love … yours on the back of mine, so … and now we lay them down … and then we take them away …"

So help me God, there was the little round lid of the mustard pot on the cloth which had been bare. I gaped, struggling for speech.

"My God … where on earth did you learn that?"

"Oh, ever so long ago—from that friend of yours in the 11th Hussars, what was his name? Brand? O’Brien? It’s the simplest sleight of hand, really—"

"Bryant! That damned toad!"

"Please, Harry, do not thunder! He was the cleverest conjurer, you remember—"

"He was a low, conniving blackguard! D’you know he once laid a plant on me, made me out a cheat and swindler in front of Bentinck and D’Israeli and half the bloody country …" A dreadful suspicion struck me: had the loathsome Bryant been another of her fancy-men? "When the blue blazes did you know him?"

"Oh, how can I remember? ’Twas years and years since, about the Crimea time, I think, when we were acquainted with Lord Cardigan, and O’Brien or Brand was one of his officers, and showed me ever so many diverting tricks—surely you mind how I used to amuse Havvy and wee Selina with them? No, well, you must have been from home … At all events," says she reasonably, "if O’Bryant once embarrassed you with his jiggery-pokery … would that be the time Papa sent you away to Africa? My, he was a dour man when he wanted to be … well, you can see it was not hard for me to do the like by Billy Cumming, was it?"

There is a tide in the affairs of men when you simply have to chuck it—as, for example, when you learn that the wife of your unsuspecting bosom is a practised thimblerigger who has used her flash arts to ruin an innocent man. For it must all be true: she could never have invented anything so wild—and it fitted the facts and solved the mystery. And while no normal being would even have thought of such a thing, or had the audacity to attempt it, Elspeth has always been that alarming mixture of an idiot and a bearcat for nerve. Being a poltroon myself, I blurted out the first thing that came into my head.

"But, dear God—suppose you’d been caught?"

"Fiddlesticks! Have I not just shown you? And who," she looked droll, "would ever suspect dear old Lady Flashman? Once, perhaps, I was a wee bit gallus, when he was playing with his pencil, and I took his hand as though to write something between us … and pushed a counter over the line. And the silly gommerils all swore in court that he had done it! Why, I was as safe as Coutts' !"

D’you know, looking at that angelic smile, and contemplating what she’d done, I was almost scared of her, for the first time in fifty years. My Elspeth, whose kindly, feckless good nature I’d taken for granted, had confessed with shameless satisfaction to a crime that would have shocked Delilah. If she’d burned Cumming at the stake she couldn’t have done worse by him … and suddenly I found myself thinking of Sonsee-Array and Narreeman and the Dragon Empress and the Amazons and Ranavalona (I’ve known some fragile little blossoms in my time) and their genius for finding a man’s tenderest spot and twisting till he squeals … and realising that my gentle helpmeet was their sister under her cream and roses skin. Well, ex Elspetho semper aliquid novi, thinks I, who’d have believed it, and thank God she’s on my side. But what, in the name of all that was wonderful, could Cumming have done to drive her to such a monstrous revenge?

"I don’t care to' say!" was her astonishing reply when I demanded to be told (not for the first time, you’ll note). Her smile had vanished. "It was too … too outré for words!"

Her vocabulary being what it is, that might mean anything from farting to high treason. I felt an icy clutch at my innards, of rage against Cumming for whatever atrocious offence he might have given her, and of fear that I might be expected to do something dangerous about it, like offering to shoot the swine. But I couldn’t leave it there. Having told her appalling tale with happy abandon, she was now plainly uneasy at my question, frowning and looking askance. "Please do not ask me," says she.

I knew roaring and pounding the table wouldn’t serve, so I waited, pushed back my chair, and patted my knee. "Here, old lady," says I, and after a moment she came round and seated herself on my creaking thigh. "Now then, you’re bound to tell me, you know, and I shan’t be a bit angry either, honest Injun. You can kick twenty Cummings into the gutter, and I’ll lose no sleep, ’cos I know my girl wouldn’t do such a … such a thing without good cause. But I must know why you paid him out—and why you didn’t tell me all about it that night at Tranby." I gave her a squeeze and a kiss and my quizziest Flashy smile. "We’ve never had any secrets from each other, have we?" I’ll fry in Hell, no doubt about it.

"I couldn’t tell you then," says she, nestling against my shoulder. "I feared you would be angry, and might … might tell people … no, no, you would not do that, but you might have done something, I don’t know what, to … to interfere, and spoil it, and prevent him meeting his just deserts, the dirty beast!" Only Elspeth can talk like that with a straight face; comes of Paisley and reading novels. Her mouth was drooping, and there were absolute tears in her eyes. "You see, I knew what I had done was dreadful and … and dishonourable—and you are the very soul of honour!" She said it, God help me. "The chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, that’s what the Queen called you, I heard her—"

"Bless me, did she?"

"—and if I had told you at Tranby, why, you would have been in such a fix, on the horns of Tantalus, whether to speak out, which I knew you wouldn’t ever do, for my sake, or else be an … an accomplice in my dishonourable deed! And that would not have done!" She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. "So I had to be silent, and deceive you, and I’m so sorry for that, dearest, I truly am—but not for what I did to Billy Cumming, and if you blame me, I can’t help it! Oh, Harry, I have so wanted to confess it all to you, so many, many times, but I was bound to wait until the trial was over, you see, for then it would be too late!" She had her arms round my neck, eyes piteous in entreaty. "Oh, Harry, my jo, can you forgive me? If you don’t, I think I’ll die … for I only did it for love of you and … and your honour!"

You understand now why I said that Elspeth must be allowed to babble to a conclusion if you’re to reach sense at last. Well, we were getting on.

"Dear lass," says I, trying not to wince with my leg cracking under the strain, "whatever does my honour have to do with it? And for heaven’s sake, what did Gordon Cumming do—to make you hate him so, and serve him such a ghastly turn?"

At last it came, in a whisper, her head bowed.

"He … he called you a coward."

I dam' near let her fall on the floor. "What was that?"

"A coward!" Her head came up, and suddenly she was fairly blazing with rage. "He said it to my face! He did! Oh, I burn with shame to think of it, the vile falsehood! The evil, wicked story-teller! He said you had run away from the Seekhs or the Zulus or someone at that place in Africa, Isal-something-or-other—"

"Isan’lwana? God love us, who didn’t?" But she was too angry to hear me, raging on in full spate about how the brazen rascal had dared to say that I had fled headlong, and escaped in a cart while my comrades perished, and had skulked in the hospital at Rorke’s Drift (all true, except the bit about the hospital—a fat chance anyone had to skulk with the roof on fire and those fearsome black buggers coming through the wall), and she had been so distraught by his slanders that she had removed from his presence, nigh weeping, and if she had been a man she would have slain him on the spot.

"To hear him lying in his jealous teeth, the toad, defaming you, the bravest, gallantest, best soldier in all the world, as everyone knows, that have won the V.C. and done ever so many heroic deeds, the Hector of Afghanistan and the Bayard of Balaclava it said in the papers, and I cut them out every one, and keep them, and didn’t I see you fight like a lion against those disagreeable folk in Madagascar, and you brought me away safe and sound, and had followed to the ends of the earth all for my sake, and rescued me, that didn’t deserve it, and you the dearest, kindest valiant knight, so you are …" At which point she buried her face in my neck and howled for a spell, while I moved her fine poundage on to a convenient chair and massaged my numbed limb, marvel-ling at the mysterious workings of the female mind. She continued to cling to me, uttering muffled anathemas against Cumming, and at last came to the surface, moist and pink.

"I would not have told you if you had not pressed me," gulps she, "for it soils my lips to have to repeat his sinful lies. He tried to dishonour you, and I was resolved to dishonour him by hook or crook, if it took a lifetime, and if what I did was dishonourable, too, and underhand and sly, I don’t care a docken! He’s a cur, and that’s what he is, and now every dog on the midden kens what he is!"

It ain’t easy for a sonsy matron with blonde curls to look like the wrath of God, but she was managing uncommon well. She sniffed, defiant and soulful together.

"Now you know the kind of woman you married. And if you spurn me it will break my heart—but I would do it again, a thousand times!" I’ll swear she gritted her teeth. "No one—no one!—speaks ill of my hero, and that’s the size of it!"

And that, dear reader, is why William Gordon-Cumming was cast into outer darkness: because he’d blown on Flashy’s honour. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? It had been his bad luck that where an ordinary wife would have treated his insults with icy disdain, or at most urged her husband to call on the cad with a horsewhip, my eccentric lady had nursed her vengeance for years before ruining him with a stratagem so dangerous (never mind its warped lunacy) that my blood still runs cold to think of it, twenty years on. Social ruin aside, the crazy bitch could have gone to gaol for criminal conspiracy—not that that would enter her empty head, or deter her if it had. The only qualm she’d felt was that if I learned the truth of the disgraceful way she’d engineered Cumming’s downfall, I might recoil from her in virtuous disgust—which only goes to show that after fifty years she knew no more of my true character than I, apparently, did of hers.

And she’d done it all for a mere word: coward (a true word, if she’d only known it). Aye … and for the love of Harry. Well, I ain’t the most sentimental chap, as you know, but as I thought about that, and considered her while she dried her tears … dammit, I was touched. Not many husbands are given such proof of loyalty, and fidelity, and devotion carried to the point of insanity—not that I’m saying she’s mad, mind, but … well, you’re bound to agree there’s something loose up yonder. Still, barmy or not, the little darling deserved every comfort I could give her, and I was about to embrace her with cries of reassurance … when a thought crossed my mind.

She was watching me with pink-nosed anxiety. "Oh, Harry, can you forgive me? Oh, why do you look so stern? Do you despise me?"

"Eh? Oh, lord, no! What, despise you? Good God, girl, I’m proud of you!" And I hugged her, slightly preoccupied.

"Are you sure? Oh, my darling, when I see you frown … and I know that what I did was ignoble and … and unladylike, and not at all the thing, and how could you be proud of me—oh, I fear that you disdain me! Please, dear one, tell me it’s not so!" She put her hands either side of my face, imploring at point-blank, which ain’t helpful when you’re trying to think. I forced myself to sound sincere and hearty.

"Of course I don’t disdain you, you little goose! What, for snookering Gordon-Cumming so cleverly? I should say not! It was the smartest stunt since Tones Vedras, and—"

"Tones who?"

"—and nothing ignoble about it, so don’t fret your bonny head. He’s well served." Damned right; nothing’s too bad for the man who tells truth about Flashy. But that was by the way …

"Oh, Harry!" She was all over me, arms round my neck, fairly squeaking with joy. "Then you are not angry, and I’m truly for-given? Oh, you are the best, the kindest of husbands …" She kissed me for all she was worth. "And all is truly well?"

"Absolutely! Couldn’t be better. So you mustn’t cry any more—make your pretty nose red if you do. Now, what about that tea you were going to ring for?"

She kissed me again and fled from the room, calling for Jane, but in fact to make repairs to her appearance—as I’d known she would when I mentioned her nose. I wanted a moment to reflect.

Cumming was down the drain: excellent. Elspeth was none the worse for her idiotic behaviour; indeed, she’d done me proud in her misguided way, championing my "honour", as she conceived it: excellent again. She’s solved the Tranby mystery, too, albeit her explanation was as staggering as it was undoubtedly true. On only one little point had she been reticent, and it was exercising me rather.

The whole world knew I was one of the few who’d escaped the Isan’lwana massacre in ’79, but that was no disgrace since there were no living witnesses to my terrified flight, and if Cumming chose to make the worst out of it, much good it would do him, with my heroic reputation. But that was by the way, since I’d gathered that he’d confided his opinion to Elspeth alone: the point was, when precisely had he done so, and in what circumstances? I didn’t doubt he’d called me a coward, you understand, but it ain’t the kind of thing a fellow says by way of social chat over the tea-cups, is it? "Ah, Lady Flashman, delightful weather, is it not? And did you enjoy The Gondoliers? Such jolly tunes! No, I fear the dear Bishop’s health is not what it was … by the by, did I never tell you, your husband’s a bloody poltroon who ran screaming from Isan’lwana? Oh, you hadn’t heard … ?" No, hardly.

In my experience, which is considerable, observations like "coward" are usually made fortissimo at the climax of a first-rate turn-up between a lady and gentleman most intimately acquainted … a lover’s quarrel, perhaps? You’ll recall that Cumming was among those I’d suspected of dancing the honeymoon hornpipe with my dear one in days gone by; it had been no more than my normal suspicion of her, and had gone clean out of my head during the Tranby scandal, but now it was back with a vengeance. Yes …’twould be about ten years since she’d dropped Cumming’s acquaintance abruptly, and my lurid imagination could conjure up the scene in some silken nest of sin around South Audley Street, circa 1880, Cumming all moustachioed and masterful in his long combinations and my adulterous angel bursting proudly out of her corset as they slanged each other across the crumpled sheets of shame. God knows I’ve been there often enough myself, when passion has staled to moody discontent, sullen exchanges wax into recrimination, the errant wife makes odious comparisons to the lover’s disadvantage—and that’s the moment when Lothario, cut to the quick, speaks his mind of the cuckolded husband. "Your precious Harry’s not so much of a man, I can tell you …" followed by a shriek of indignation and the crash of a hurled utensil … aye, that’s how it would have been, devil a doubt; try as I might, I couldn’t picture it any different: Cumming must have been the little trollop’s lover, to call me a coward to her face. If this wasn’t proof, nothing was.

I sat brooding darkly, remembering the straw sticking to the back of her dress after she’d been in the woods with that randy redskin Spotted Tail; Cardigan with his pants round his ankles and her in bare buff when I blundered boozily out of the cupboard where I’d been asleep; the shiny black boots that had betrayed her assignation with that smirking swine Watkins or Watney or what-ever the hell his name was; her preening herself in her sarong before that oily pirate Usman who’d diddled me at cricket … and heaven knew how many others of whom I’d feared the worst. Time and again I’d been torn by jealous unproven suspicion, and resolved to have it out with her … and shirked at the last ’cos I’d rather not know. Well, not this time, bigod; I felt my anger rising as I remembered her protestations that she’d only done the dirty on Cumming to avenge my "honour"—ha! Like as not her true reason for wreaking vengeance on him was because he’d kicked her out of bed … But if that were so, she’d never have said a word to me about laying a plant on him, would she? Oh, lord, were my foul imaginings getting the better of me yet again; was I judging her by my own murky lights? So many times I’d faced this same hideous question: Elspeth, true or false? It was high time I had an answer, and I was going red in the face and growling as she came tripping back into the room, plump and radiant, no sign at all of her recent distress.

"Jane is bringing fresh tea, and some of those little German biscuits, and oh, you’re not angry with me, dearest, and all is --She stopped short in dismay. "Why, Harry, whatever is the matter? Why are you scowling so? Oh, my love, what is it?"

I had risen in my jealous wrath. Now I sat down again, marshalling my words, while she viewed me in pretty alarm.

"Elspeth!" says I … and stopped short in turn. "Ah … what’s that? Bringing tea, is she? Well, now … ah, what about a pot of coffee for the old man, eh? Scowling? No, no, just this leg o' mine giving me a twinge … the old wound, you know … Here, you come and sit on t’other one, and give us a kiss!"

As the black chap said in Shakespeare’s play, ’tis better as it is.