Bob shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had caught from the marquis. "It’s not nonsense. I can see bloodshed in their eyes. The marquis looks awfully ferocious, and Williams, too. Of course, I don’t say that Gordon would fight much. And I should snigger to see old De Vere in a duel, shouldn’t you? But if Bramber and the marquis and Williams and Goby get together, I shouldn’t be surprised if they fought with swords or guns. I think Rivaulx would like that. He would stick them all and make ’em squeal, I can tell you. He’s a whale at fencing. He took me to see him once, and when he stamped and said ’Ha-ha,’ like a war-horse, I wondered the other man didn’t run." "If they had a duel, any of them, I shouldn’t speak to them again," said Penelope. "I abhor duels and warfare and weapons, and think they should be abolished in universal peace. And as I am married now, Bob, I hope you will do what you can to make them believe it." "You can make ’em believe it at once," said Bob. "I do think this is absurd. And don’t you see it’s funny, too, Pen?" "No," said Pen, "it’s not. It’s right, and what is right can’t be funny." Bob reflected. "Well, there’s something in that. It ain’t much fun generally." And he returned to Sherlock Holmes. "I wonder what he would do," said Bob to himself, pensively. "There ain’t any footsteps or blood in this. I suppose he’d take a look at Pen and then have a smoke and go out in a hansom and come back very tired. I’ve looked at Pen a lot, but smoking still makes me sick, and I don’t know where to go in a hansom. And I think Holmes would think it mean to follow her when she goes off with Smith in her car. Besides, a hansom can’t catch a sixty-horse Panhard unless it breaks down. I think he would get at it by looking at the men." That put him on the track of a dreadful scheme, a most wicked and immoral scheme, that his hero would have disapproved of. "I believe I have it," said Bob, starting up in wild excitement. "If I go around to them all and say that I’m sure she’s not married, but that she loves the one they hate most, they will jump and be in a rage, won’t they? I should be, I know. And the one that doesn’t jump will be him. I dare say De Vere won’t jump, but he’s not a jumping sort, but he’ll cry, likely. Rivaulx _will_ snort if it isn’t him." He sat and pondered over this lovely scheme. "But if she loves one of ’em, why don’t she own it to him, and why this mystery? They’ll ask that, of course. Oh, but that doesn’t matter; they’ll do the snorting first. And, besides, I could let on that not all of them are in earnest. Ain’t it possible that the one she loves won’t ask her now, and she’s covering up her disappointment? That would make Rivaulx fairly howl, I know. He’s a real good chap, and between howling and weeping he says he wants her to be happy. I’ll do it." He went off to do it at once.