The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer
‘What are you wishful to do?’ Chirk asked.
‘Keep Henry Stornaway’s name out of it, if I can. If I can’t, get him out of the country before Stogumber knows the whole!’
‘And Coate?’
The Captain’s jaw hardened. ‘No. I’m damned if I will! No, by God! There are two dead men at least to be laid to his account, for I’ll swear it was he who shot those guards! He and that man of his, maybe. That’s another thing, Jerry! We could reveal these chests to Stogumber, but he wants more than the gold: he wants the men who stole it. What proof is there that Coate was the arch-thief?’
‘Well,’ said Chirk, stroking his chin reflectively, ‘it would look uncommon like he must have done the business – him being at Kellands, wouldn’t it?’
‘It might look smoky, but unless Stogumber has proof, which I’ll swear he has not, it’s not enough to warrant an arrest. Lord, I don’t know what I am going to do, but give me a little time before you go to Stogumber!’
His wry smile twisted Chirk’s lips. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d had my orders from that mort o’ mine I was to do what you tell me, Soldier? I won’t deny that if it was Rose’s cousin which had run his head into this noose I’d feel the way you do. I’ll stand buff, and there’s my famble on it!’
He stretched out his hand, and John gripped it warmly. ‘Thank you! You’re a damned good fellow! I have one day at least to consider what I can do: I fancy Stogumber won’t do much spying today. He’ll be feeling as sick as a horse, and will very likely keep his bed. But he’s been recognized: we have to bear that in mind! That must have been why he was set upon last night. If Coate were to take fright, and run for it – why, that would solve the thing for us! If he don’t – lord, I wish I saw my way!’
‘I daresay you will,’ Chirk replied. ‘I’m bound to say I don’t, but that don’t signify.’ He looked up at John. ‘Was Ned Brean in this?’
‘I think, undoubtedly,’ John said. He glanced round at the encircling gloom, and Chirk saw that the good-humoured expression had quite vanished from his face. ‘There was the gate to be passed, and there must have been an urgent need of a strong man to assist in carrying these chests from the lane to this place. There were no wheel-ruts off the lane, nor could a heavily laden vehicle have been dragged across the ditch. The chests must have been carried by hand – and Henry would be useless for such work.’
‘What queers me,’ said Chirk, ‘is how they ever got ’em down that “regular stairway” of yours! Why, it was as much as I could do to get down holding on to the wall, and any rock that came handy! If I’d tried to carry anything, I’d have foundered, sure as a gun!’
‘I fancy they lowered them with ropes. They must have!’ John said, picking up his lantern, and walking round the cases. ‘Yes, here we are! A couple of coils of stout rope.’
Chirk was frowning. ‘If Ned was working with Coate, where is he?’ he demanded. ‘I remember what Benny said about being woke up by a waggon one night, and Ned going off like he did. What took him off again last Saturday, and where did he pike to? Did he get scared, d’ye think?’
‘No, I don’t think that. I think – he came here.’
Chirk glanced up swiftly, a question in his face, and then his eyes travelled as swiftly to the one open chest. ‘It was him broke that open? Tipping the rest of ’em the double?’
‘Trying to, perhaps. He didn’t succeed. The chest is full.’
Chirk got up with a jerk. ‘Look ’ee here, Soldier – ! What’s in your noddle, for God’s sake?’
‘Where is he?’ said John significantly. ‘Why did the news that Brean had gone away alarm Henry Stornaway so much? Why did Henry come here the night before last? And what did he find here to make him look as though he had seen a ghost?’
Chirk passed his tongue between his lips, and cast a staring look about him. ‘Maybe – we’d do well to search a bit more!’ he said, a trifle thickly. He gave a shiver. ‘God, I’ll be glad to be out of this place!’
The light from John’s lantern was being cast on to the ground, slowly moving in a wide arc. ‘If he was surprised here – and killed here, there should be some sign of it.’
‘There was no call to kill him!’
‘There may have been a fight.’
‘Ay, likely enough!’ Chirk said, after a moment. ‘He’d have fought, Ned would.’
He said no more, and for a few minutes only the rushing noise of water, which seemed to come from deep within the hill, broke the silence. Then the Captain’s lantern was lowered, and he knelt, keenly inspecting the ground. Chirk, who had been searching along one of the walls, saw, and trod quickly over to his side. The Captain pressed the palm of one hand on the ground, and lifted it, and held it in the light.
Chirk swallowed audibly, and said in a rough voice: ‘Where did they put him? We got to find him, Soldier!’
‘Follow the bloodstains,’ John replied, rising and moving forward, his eyes fixed to the ground. ‘He bled a great deal, Chirk. There was a sticky pool of it where I laid my hand. This looks like some more of it.’ He stooped again. ‘Yes. And here!’
‘Going towards that other passage you saw,’ Chirk said. ‘I’m for trying that way: they wouldn’t have left him here, and the chests being here no one had any call to go farther.’
He walked forward, and his lantern presently found the hole in the rock. It was narrow, and low; more blood was to be detected there; and after one look at it, Chirk went on, John following him.
The passage was only a few feet long; it opened into a far broader and loftier passage, colder than all the rest, and with water dripping from the rock. Chirk stopped short, exclaiming: ‘There is a river, and we’ve come to it! Lord, I never saw the like of it! Look at it coming out of that tunnel in the rock! It’s quite shallow, though. Do you tell me a little stream like this can flood the whole place?’
‘Yes, when the water rises. Look at the slime on the walls! It goes up as far as you can see.’ John began to walk along the passage, beside the stream. It plunged into the rock again some fifty yards on, where the passage came to an end, blocked by a mass of loose rocks and rubble, which showed where a part of the roof had fallen in. John set his lantern down, and, his face very grim, began to remove the stones and the boulders from the pile. Chirk came to join him, and in silence followed his example. A choking sound broke from him suddenly, and he sprang back, shuddering. A hand was protruding from amongst fragments of rock, piled up in a rough cairn. In another minute John had uncovered the upper half of a man’s body. He picked up the lantern and held it above the body. ‘Well? Is this Brean?’
Chirk nodded, his eyes on an ugly gash where the neck joined the shoulder. ‘Knifed!’ he said unsteadily. ‘His hand – Soldier, it was like a slab of ice, and wet – slimy wet!’
‘Do you wonder at it, in this temperature? I don’t know how long a body might remain here without rotting: some time, I daresay. That’s just as well, for Stogumber must see this! Help me to cover it again! This is what Henry found – and it’s my belief he didn’t know Brean had been murdered, but suspected it, and came because he suspected it.’
‘If Coate did this –’
‘Either he, or his man, Gunn. He must have had some inkling of what Brean meant to do. He may even have been watching him at night. It seems certain he followed him here.’
‘I don’t hold with Brean trying to diddle him, but he didn’t have to murder him!’ Chirk said, with suppressed violence. ‘He’s got pistols, no question! He could have held Ned up easy enough! What does he want to stick a damned chive into him for?’
‘I should imagine that once he knew Brean was unsafe he meant to kill him. He may have mistrusted his aim in this poor light, and so preferred to use a knife. He seems partial to knives. If it hadn’t been for you, I suppose Stogumber’s body would have been brought here as well.’
He straigh
‘I’m agreeable,’ Chirk said shortly.
As they tied the last knot presently, he said: ‘What’s to be done with Benny, poor little brat?’
‘I’ll take care of that.’
‘You ain’t going to tell him – what we found there?’ Chirk said, with a jerk of his thumb.
‘Of course not. I shan’t tell him anything yet. Later, he must know that his father’s dead, but I don’t think he’ll grieve much. There, that’s done! Let us be off!’
The return journey to the mouth of the cavern was accomplished without very much difficulty. The mist had cleared away, but there was no one in sight. They secured the fence again, replaced the gorse bushes, and went away to where they had tethered the horses.
‘I’ll brush now,’ Chirk said. ‘I’ll come to the toll-house tonight, though. You know my signal! If all’s bowman, open the kitchen-door; if there’s any stranger with you, leave it shut!’
‘Where can I find you, if I should need you quickly?’ John asked, a detaining hand on the mare’s bridle.
Chirk looked down at him with a faint smile. ‘So now you’ve got to know the case where I rack up, have you, Soldier? And what’s the cove as owns it going to say to that?’
‘Nothing, when you tell him I shan’t squeak beef on him,’ returned John.
‘A gentleman like you hasn’t got any business to go to flash kens, nor to hobnob with bridle-culls neither!’ said Chirk severely. ‘If find me you must, take the Ecclesfield road out o’ Sheffield, till you come to a boozing-ken called the Ram’s Head, and say to the buffer, The Whit be burnt!’
‘Much obliged to you! I won’t forget!’
‘I don’t know as I’m so very pleased to know that!’ retorted Chirk. He wheeled Mollie round, and said over his shoulder: ‘And whatever you do, don’t call for a glass of beer! Arms and legs is all they keep there – no body!’
Thirteen
Finding that Ben’s services were not required, that day, either by the innkeeper or by Huggate, John left him in charge of the pike, midway through the morning, and walked down the road to the village. He was desirous of obtaining news of Gabriel Stogumber; and it was with satisfaction that he learned from Sopworthy that that sturdy gentleman was keeping his bed.
‘It’s a queer set-out, so it is!’ said the landlord, pushing a tankard of his nappy ale towards the Captain. ‘He tells me as he was pounced on last night by a couple o’ foot-scamperers, but whatever would such be hopeful of prigging on this road? That’s what has me fair humdudgeoned! The like has never happened, not in all the years I’ve lived here!’ He perceived a splash of spilt ale on the counter, and wiped it carefully. ‘Asked me all manner of questions about you, he did, Mr Staple. ’Course, there was naught I could tell him, excepting you was a kinsman of Brean’s – which I done! But what I would like to know, sir, – me being a man as likes to keep on the windy side o’ the law – what kind of a queer cove is this Stogumber?’
The Captain was spared the necessity of answering this question by the sudden irruption into the tap of Mr Nathaniel Coate, who had ridden into Crowford from the Manor, and now stormed into the Blue Boar, demanding the landlord in stentorian accents. His fancy had prompted him to sport a striped toilinette waistcoat under a coat of corbeau-cloth, and this combination, worn, as it was, with breeches of Angola-cloth and hunting-boots with white tops, so powerfully affected the Captain that for a full minute he sat with his tankard halfway to his mouth, and his gaze riveted upon the astonishing vision. He felt stunned, and looked quite as stupid as he would have wished. Mr Coate, who had looked rather narrowly at him, upon first entering the tap, seemed to be reassured by the fixed stare. ‘Well, hempseed!’ he said. ‘Take care your eyes don’t fall out of their sockets! Did you never see a gentleman before?’
‘I never see a gentleman like you afore,’ drawled the Captain. He shook his head, and took a pull at his ale. ‘As fine as fivepence, you be!’ he said, in the tone of one who had beheld a marvel.
Mr Coate turned a contemptuous shoulder to him, and addressed himself to the landlord. ‘What a clodpole! I suppose that in these benighted parts you never see anyone who is up to the knocker!’
The landlord, who had listened with a wooden countenance to the Captain’s sudden illiteracy, followed a lead of which he heartily approved, and replied: ‘No, sir. Never! I disremember when I saw Squire himself in such toggery. Slap up to the echo, I make no doubt! And what can I do for you, sir?’
Mr Coate eyed him a little suspiciously, but his hard scrutiny was met with such a bland look of incomprehension that it was impossible to suspect Sopworthy of malice. He gave one of his rough laughs, and said: ‘Damme if I was ever in such a backward place! What you can do for me, fellow, is to direct me to the nearest constable! By God, a pretty state of affairs when a gentleman can’t step out to blow a cloud, and to stretch his legs, without being attacked by armed ruffians! Ay, you may stare!’ He wheeled about, stabbing a finger at John. ‘You, there, rustic! You’re the gatekeeper, ain’t you? Who passed the pike last night?’
John shook his head. ‘Didn’t see no armed ruffians,’ he said.
‘Where was you attacked, sir?’ asked Sopworthy, staring.
‘Why, at the very gate of the Manor! I’m a handy man with my fives, but if my man hadn’t come along when he did I might have lost more than my watch and my fobs – ay, and sustained worse injury than a blow on the head which had almost knocked the wits out of me! One of the rascals set upon me from behind: it would have gone hard with him had he faced me, I can tell you!’
He continued in this strain for several minutes, while the Captain, his countenance still schooled to an expression of open-mouthed vacuity, studied him carefully.
To anyone who knew the world it was not difficult to recognize the order from which he sprang. Men very like him were to be met with in any large city, obtaining footholds on the fringes of Society, and earning a tolerable livelihood by decoying gullible young gentlemen of fortune to gaming-hells, or introducing them to horse-dealers who might be depended upon to sell them, at fabulous prices, showy-looking animals which, instead of being the sweet-goers or beautiful steppers which these Captain Sharps swore them to be, turned out to be confirmed limpers or incurable millers.
Such persons were nearly always knowledgeable in all matters of sport, bruising riders and expert dragsmen, and able to give good accounts of themselves in the boxing-ring, for these were accomplishments certain to make a good impression on their prospective victims. They knew as well how to toad-eat as to bully; and since they were almost invariably furnished with reliable racing-tips to impart to patrons, and could be relied upon to discover a really prime hunter, for a valued patron, and to acquire the animal for a ridiculously low price, it was seldom that they failed to attach themselves to several members of the ton who tolerated them for the sake of these useful attributes.
To this confraternity, John judged, Mr Coate unquestionably belonged; but there hung about him an indefinable suggestion of force not usually found in the hangers-on of Society. That he was ruthless, John already knew; that he had a brazen courage, he now acknowledged. His policy was declared: the knowledge that a law-officer was on his trail would not frighten him into abandoning his schemes. Since his attempt to dispose of Stogumber had failed, he had adopted a line of conduct which, while it was unlikely to deceive Stogumber, would be hard to counter.
It soon appeared, from the information he was pouring out with such seeming carelessness, that he had whisked Gunn out of the way. He described the man as having sustained injuries which made it impossible for him to fulfil his duties; said with a crack of scornful l
The Captain, having learned enough, did not linger in the Blue Boar, but paid his shot, and slouched off, leaving the landlord to explain to Coate that if he desired to enlist the services of a constable he must ride to Tideswell – a piece of intelligence which provoked him to break into a fury of objurgation, and a declaration that he would be damned if he would put himself to so much trouble only to seek out some gapeseed who, he dared swear, would be of no more use than a month-old baby.
From the circumstance of his having got rid of Gunn, the Captain, so much more acute than he had given Coate reason to suppose, strongly suspected that it must have been Gunn who had recognized in Stogumber a Bow Street Runner. It seemed probable, therefore, that it was Gunn, and not his master, who was known to the officers of the law. Bold Coate might be, but he was not a fool, and for a man previously convicted of crime to remain openly at Kellands, once his presence there had been discovered by the Runner, would have been an act almost lunatic in its foolhardiness.
The Captain reached the toll-house again to find that Joseph Lydd had ridden from the Manor with a scribbled note from Nell. As he broke the wafer that sealed it, he said: ‘Lead the cob into the garden, out of sight: Coate is in the village, and will be returning, I fancy, at any minute.’