Джорджетт Хейер - The Toll-Gate

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 wagon 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 straightened himself, and went to wash his hands in the stream. The icy coldness of the water numbed his fingers; he wiped them dry on his handkerchief, rubbed them briskly to restore the circulation, and said: “It’s time we were going. We have still to cord up that chest again.”

“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 tollhouse 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!”

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?”