“In that case, dear boy,” said Mr. Babbacombe, rising nobly to the occasion, “nothing for it but to drink your health!”

“Thank you! That is why I must do my possible to rescue young Stornaway. It ain’t that I care what sort of a hell-born babe Nell’s cousin may be——Good God, haven’t we all got relations that are precious loose fish? From anything I’ve ever heard, Bab, most of our grandfathers were nothing more than a set of Bingo-club boys!—but Nell would! So Sir Peter knew: that’s why he got a special license, and had us married out of hand. And that’s why I may need you here!” He finished the brandy in his glass, and stood for a moment, thinking. Then he set down the glass, and said: “The Squire’s had notice to quit, and I think it may be only a matter of hours now, and the devil’s in it that until I’ve settled this business with that pair of rogues I can’t leave this place, or claim my wife. To let Coate know that she is my wife would be to hamstring the only plan I’ve got. I hardly think that he could be black enough—or foolish enough!—to force his suit upon her while her grandfather is still unburied, but I won’t have her subjected to the slightest annoyance! If Henry tries to make it uncomfortable for her, I’ll have her away from the Manor instantly, and give her into your charge, until I have finished what I have to do here.”

“Eh?” said Mr. Babbacombe, startled. “Do you mean you want me to take your wife to Mildenhurst?”

“Good God, no! I’ll take her to Mildenhurst myself, I thank you! At need, you’ll take her to Buxton, and install her at the best inn there, and take care of her until I come.”

“No, really, Jack!” protested Mr. Babbacombe, quite horrified.

“Lord, Bab, don’t be such a sapskull! She’ll have her maid, and her groom, and her major-domo too, if Winkfield will go with her. All I want you to do is to bear her company, and to see that she doesn’t fret. And that puts me in mind of something else! I hope you came here flush in the pocket, because I shall soon be cleaned out, and I must borrow from you.”

Mr. Babbacombe thrust a hand into his pocket, and drew forth a fat bundle.

“A roll of soft!” said the Captain admiringly. “I guessed it! What a thing it is to have a well-blunted friend! No, no, I don’t want it now!—only if I should be obliged to send Nell to Buxton!”

Mr. Babbacombe restored the roll to his pocket. “Well, I’d as lief you didn’t send her!” he said frankly. “It ain’t in my line of country, Jack, dangling after females! What’s more, it seems to me I should be of more use to you if I stayed here, for I can tell by the way you’re looking that you’ve got some dashed dangerous scheme in your head!”

John laughed. “Oh, no! I think I shall come about safely enough!”

“Well, what are you planning to do?” insisted Mr. Babbacombe.

“I can’t tell you that at present, but——”

“Don’t you try to hoax me, Jack!” interrupted his incensed friend. “If you can’t tell me, it means you’re bent on some crack-brained dangerous thing you know dashed well I wouldn’t hear of!”

“Well, you aren’t going to hear of it,” replied John consolingly. “Oh, don’t look so horrified! I don’t mean to cock up my toes, I assure you! However, any bold stroke must carry with it a certain risk, and I’m glad you’ve put me in mind of it. I must make a Will, and you can witness it, and take charge of it. Tomorrow will be time enough for that. Lord, how late it is! Go back to the Blue Boar, old fellow, and don’t have nightmares on my account!”

Nothing more could be got out of him, and since he was plainly thinking of something else while he appeared to listen politely to Mr. Babbacombe’s earnest representations, that ill-used gentleman presently abandoned the losing fight, and departed, freely prophesying disaster. Upon which the Captain went to bed, and dropped into the sleep of one without a care in the world.

He was relieved to learn from Ben, on the following morning, that Chirk proposed to visit the toll-house again that evening, and was able to devote his attention to a more pressing problem. After turning the matter over in his mind while he groomed his horse, he came to the conclusion that his next action must be to reach an understanding with Gabriel Stogumber; and with this end in view he left Ben and Mrs. Skeffling to mind the gate between them, and set off down the road to the village.

It was still early in the morning, and he had no expectation of seeing Mr. Babbacombe, with whose matutinal habits he was familiar; but when he arrived at the Blue Boar he found the landlord and his wife, the boots, and a flustered chambermaid all anxiously engaged in assembling on several trays a breakfast which it was hoped would not be thought unworthy of the most distinguished traveller the inn had ever housed. Until this Lucullan repast had been conveyed to Mr. Babbacombe’s bedchamber no one had more than a distracted nod to bestow upon John, so he left the back premises for the tap, and, finding this empty, penetrated to the small coffee-room. Here he was more fortunate. Seated in solitary state at the head of the table, and partaking of a meal which bore all the signs of having been hastily prepared and served, was Mr. Stogumber. He was looking far from well, and when he was obliged to use his left arm he did so stiffly, and as though it pained him. At sight of John his furrowed brow cleared a little, and he seemed pleased, bidding him an affable good-morning.

“You see I ain’t stuck my spoon in the wall yet, big ’un!” he remarked, adding, with a darkling glance at the muddy coffee in his cup: “Not but what I very likely will, if that out and-outer upstairs means to stay here much longer! They tell me he’s a friend of the Squire’s, but not putting up at the Manor on account of the Squire’s being so poorly. I don’t know how that may be, but what I do know is that there ain’t a soul in this ken as can think of anything else but what he’d fancy for his breakfast, or who’s to ride to Tideswell for special blacking for his boots. It’s took me the best part of an hour to get the Admiral of the Blue out there to let me have anything young Top-of-the-Trees don’t happen to want for my breakfast!”

“A swell cove, eh?” grinned John.

“Ah! Of course, you wouldn’t know him, would you, big ’un?”

John laughed. “On the contrary! I know him well.”

“Well, now!” said Mr. Stogumber, surprised and gratified. “I disremember that you’ve ever been so nice and open afore. If it ain’t too much to ask, who might he be?”

“Not in the least: there’s no secret about that! His name Is Wilfred Babbacombe, and he is a son of Lord Allerthorpe. In London, he lives In chambers, in Albany; at this season he may be found at Edenhope, near Melton Mowbray.”

“Fancy that!” marvelled Stogumber. “Friend of yours, big ’un?”

“A close friend of mine.”

Mr. Stogumber, after surveying him with an unblinking stare, pushed his coffee-cup away, and said: “And you a trooper!”

John shook his head. “No. I was a Captain in the 3rd Dragoon Guards.”

“I know that,” replied Stogumber placidly. “And you lives at Mildenhurst, in Hertfordshire. What I would like to know is why you’ve took it into your noddle all on a sudden to give over trying to flam me?”

“You know that too. I saw your Occurrence Book the other evening.”

“I suspicioned you did,” said Stogumber, quite unperturbed. “I don’t deny it had me in a bit of a quirk at the time, but that was afore I’d had a report on you. I did think it might be a longish time before they’d be able, in London, to discover who you was, if they could do it at all, but since you was so obliging as to tell me your true monarch, and the very regiment you was in, it seems there wasn’t no trouble about it.”

“Lord, has Bow Street being asking questions about me at the Horse Guards? I shall never hear the end of it!”

“I don’t know about that, but by what I can make out nothing you done wouldn’t surprise the gentleman which supplied the information,” said Stogumber dryly. “But, Capting Staple, I’d take it very kind in you if you was to explain to me why, since it seems you’ve took to gatekeeping by way of knocking up a lark, you was so careful not to let me think as you’d seen my Occurrence Book t’other night?”

“You’re fair and far off,” John replied. “I didn’t turn myself into a gatekeeper for any such reason. Nor did I know, when I saw your book, what had brought you here.”

The unblinking stare was once more bent upon him. “Oh! And do you now—if I ain’t taking a liberty?”

“Yes, I know now, which is why I’ve come to see you. You are trying to find a certain consignment of currency, which was stolen about three weeks ago at the Wansbeck ford.”

“How might you have discovered that?” demanded Stogumber, his stare hardening.

“Partly through you, partly through the man to whom you owe your life. You asked me once if I knew the Wansbeck ford. I didn’t, but when I mentioned it to—Jerry—he told me what had happened there. He reads the newspapers; I don’t. No, he had nothing to do with the robbery: in fact, his ambition is to leave his present calling, and settle down to pound dealing and married life.”

“It is, is it? P’raps he knew where the baggage was hid?”

“He didn’t know, but he knows this district,” said John significantly.

Stogumber half started up from his chair, and sank back again, wincing a little. “Are you telling me that bridle-cull has boned the fence?” he gasped.

“If you mean, has he discovered where the treasure is hidden, yes. He tells me it is where no one would ever find it who did not know this district very well.”

Mr. Stogumber breathed heavily.

“However,” continued John, sternly repressing a twitching lip, “the knowledge is perfectly safe with him. He seems to think that this currency is far too dangerous to be touched.” He watched the effect of this pronouncement, and was satisfied. “What he is anxious to do is to reveal its whereabouts to the proper authorities.”