The Second Shot Read Online Free PDF Page A

said that women are the unscrupulous sex. In this matter I judged that Ethel had absolutely no scruples at all.
    ‘I see. And Miss Scott-Davies? What part is she to play in this Machiavellian scheme?’
    ‘Armorel? Oh, I just asked her to balance the numbers. Though I thought it would do no harm to show Elsa what sort of a family she’d be marrying into. Besides, there’s no love lost between Armorel and Eric, you know.’
    ‘Really? I understood they were brought up together, since Armorel’s parents died when she was a small child. I thought they looked on each other as brother and sister.’
    ‘Exactly,’ said Ethel, with unusual cynicism. ‘Anyhow, you can take it from me that there isn’t any love lost between them. It’s a matter of money, I think,’ she added indifferently.
    ‘Armorel’s parents hadn’t any, and though Mr Scott-Davies practically adopted her he didn’t mention her in his will, with the vague idea that Eric would provide. I believe Armorel’s feeling is that Eric doesn’t provide enough.’
    ‘So you merely asked her to make the numbers even. In other words, presumably, to balance me. Am I to assume that I have any part in the plot, then, besides that of your advisor?’
    ‘Yes, Cyril, you are,’ Ethel smiled. ‘You’re cast for the part of second walking gentleman.’
    ‘At Minton Deeps I usually prefer to be a lying gentleman,’ I replied humorously, for I usually try to season even the most serious conversation with such small quips. ‘When I think of the sun on your bracken…Still, on this occasion perhaps I’ll forego my rug and laziness. So what do you require of your second walking gentleman?’
    ‘I want you to do your best to distract Elsa’s attention from Eric,’ Ethel replied more earnestly. ‘Show a preference for her company, get her to go out for walks with you, take her out in your car, show her little attentions; she’ll appreciate them from a man so much older than herself.’
    ‘Come, Ethel,’ I had to protest. ‘Only sixteen years older, when all’s said; and just as young, perhaps, in spirit.’
    ‘Anyhow, she’ll appreciate them. In fact, Cyril,’ Ethel added with another smile, ‘while my chief plot is simmering up to boiling-point, you’ve got to fill up the time in cutting Eric out of Elsa’s affections. After all, you shouldn’t find it so difficult. There’s no doubt which is the better man of the two, if only the poor girl’s eyes can be made to see it.’
    ‘You mean,’ I said dubiously, ‘that I’m to encourage Miss Verity to entertain expectations of affection from me and then, as soon as Scott-Davies has been removed from her horizon, disappoint her?’
    ‘Oh,’ said Ethel carelessly, ‘till Eric really has been removed from it, we can leave the horizon to look after itself. In the meantime we’ve got to save the child from herself; and I appeal to you, Cyril, not only as one of my oldest and dearest friends, but as one of the few men I can rely on with enough understanding and sympathy to rescue Elsa from as horrible a danger as ever threatened an unsuspecting girl.’
    ‘You make me feel just like a knight-errant, Ethel,’ I said lightly, for in her earnestness she was again showing signs of becoming distressingly dramatic.
    My little jest had the effect of checking her symptoms. ‘Well, you’ll be doing a better job of work than any of those old things ever did,’ she laughed.
    ‘A Paladin in Pince-nez,’ I said gaily. ‘Very well, Ethel, you may count on me to help you to the full extent of my powers of deceiving innocent girlhood.’ I maintained my light tone while I gave my promise, for to tell the truth I was feeling more than a little touched both by the peril in which Miss Verity stood and the fidelity of Ethel in her resolute attempts to avert it; and I feared that she might divine it.

chapter two
    During the next few days matters proceeded more or less as might have been expected, while this