Free The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope Page A

perhaps just as well that Dick opened the door of the dining parlor at that moment and came quickly into the room, his gloves and riding whip still in his hand. His face was quite calm and entirely courteous — but it was the distant, formal courtesy he always drew on like armor when he had to deal with people he disliked. If he had gone to the gallows, I am sure he would have faced the executioner with exactly that air of remote politeness.
    "Ah, there you are, sir," he said levelly, closing the door behind him and putting his gloves and whip down on the table. "One of your men was good enough to tell me you were here. What wind's blown you to Orange County?"
    "Well, we're just by way of being a sort of advance guard for General Washington," replied Colonel Van Spurter, baring his teeth in what I suppose he meant to be a subtle smile. "He's on the road behind us now with about ten men and a couple of aides — ought to get in sometime before night. The truth is he seems to think the situation around here has gotten so out of hand he ought to come up and find out what's going on for himself. He isn't in a specially good humor, either. You'd better think up a good story to tell him, Dickie old boy. Otherwise, he's likely to fling you out of your command, and appoint somebody who really knows Peaceable Sherwood."
    "Ogden Van Spurter, for instance?" Dick's voice was still perfectly level, but I could see the hand that hung down at his side suddenly clench so hard that the knuckles turned white.
    "It's possible. You know I never was one to go around blowing my own horn like other officers I could mention, but — well, it's possible."
    Dick did not answer, and there was a pause while Colonel Van Spurter finished his grapes, and emptied the handful of rinds and seeds back into the fruit dish on the sideboard.
    "What's all this about your having trouble with Peaceable Sherwood, anyway, Dick?" he demanded complainingly. "I'm not one to go around blowing my own horn, but I don't think it would take me more'n a couple of weeks to deal with him, even if I had my hands tied behind my back. Why, I met him myself in New York last winter, and he's nothing to frighten a rabbit — skinny white-faced runt who minces about like a dancing master — most of the time he looks half asleep."
    "He must be very different from you, Colonel Van Spurter," I could not help remarking in the sweet, humble manner I used only when I was feeling my deadliest. Dick would have taken warning from the tone at once, but it passed completely over the head of Colonel Van Spurter, who evidently thought that I had fallen victim to his charm, and returned my look with one so warm that it might have ripened the apples in the fruit dish.
    "Well now, I guess that's so," he admitted handsomely. "I was never one to go around blowing my own horn, as I say, but — "
    "Just how were you thinking of dealing with Peaceable Sherwood, sir?" Dick cut in before he could blow his own horn any more.
    Colonel Van Spurter, preening himself a little, offered us three plans in quick succession: two, Dick had tried already, and one so far-fetched that after a slight argument even he was obliged to admit it was impossible.
    "Well, what are you doing that's any better?" he inquired at last, rather sulkily.
    "Very little, I'm afraid. But I've just gotten on the trail of two farmers in the neighborhood I strongly suspect are secret members of the gang, and my men are watching them now."
    "Watching them? Why haven't you sent over a squad and arrested them?"
    "Partly because there isn't any real evidence yet," Dick explained patiently; "but mostly because I want to find out exactly how Peaceable Sherwood is managing to communicate with them. That's the one weak point of his whole system. He has to send his orders to every man separately, because nobody except himself knows who all the others are. You see why he does it, of course. In that way, he's protected and so are they — anybody taken