The Toll-Gate (37 page)

Chirk slid a long-nosed pistol unobtrusively into the wide pocket of his coat. "The poor fellow was shot, trying to help the Soldier," he said sadly. "Dropped him like a pigeon, Coate did! Ah, well, it ain't no use crying over spilt milk!"

"Get out o' my way!" Stogumber said fiercely, thrusting him aside, and swinging his lantern to pick up the forms of Coate and the Captain.

Chirk, whose quick, listening ears, had already caught the sound for which he had been waiting, made no effort to stop him, but directed his own lantern towards the spot where he had seen the two men struggling on the ground. The struggle was over. Coate lay spreadeagled, and beside him, on his knee, labouring to recover his breath, his head sunk forward, was the Captain.

"By God, the cull did stick that chive into him!" Stogumber exclaimed, hurrying forward. "Capting Staple, sir! Here, big 'un, let me see how bad you're hurt! Bring that light closer, you! Catch hold of this lantern o' mine, too, so as I'll have my hands free! Shake your shambles, now!"

The Captain lifted his head, and passed one shaking hand across his dripping brow. "I'm not hurt," he said thickly. "Only winded. Leather waistcoat saved me. Thought it might."

"Lordy, I thought you was a goner!" said Stogumber, mopping his own brow. He looked down at Coate, and bent, staring. He raised his shoulders from the ground, and let them fall again. "Capting Staple," he said, in an odd voice, fixing his eyes on the Captain's face. "His neck's broke!"

"Yes," agreed the Captain. "I'm afraid it is."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THERE was a long silence. The Captain glanced down into the hard little eyes that still stared unblinkingly at him, an expression in them impossible to divine, returned their gaze dispassionately for a moment, and then turned his head to address Chirk. "Be a good fellow, Jerry, and fetch my shoes for me! They're behind the chests, and my feet are frozen stiff. Leave me one of those lanterns!"

Chirk handed him Stogumber's lantern, and walked away to where the chests stood. John looked at the Runner again. "Well?"

"Big 'un," said Stogumber slowly, "that cull's neck weren't broke by accident. You done it, and I got a notion I know why! Likewise, I know now why you was so very anxious I shouldn't be in this here cavern when Coate came into it. I never believed that Canterbury tale you pitched me about young Stornaway, and no more I don't now! You broke Coate's neck because you knew he'd whiddle the scrap on Stornaway if I was allowed to snabble him!"

The Captain, listening to this with an air of mild interest, said thoughtfully: "Well, you may tell that story to your commanding officer, if you choose, of course. But, if I were you, I don't think I should!"

There was another silence, pregnant with emotion. Mr. Stogumber's gaze shifted from the Captain's face to his waistcoat. He made a discovery. "He did stick his chive into you!"

"I felt it prick me," acknowledged John, "but I think it scarcely penetrated the leather." He unbuttoned his waistcoat as he spoke, and disclosed a tear in his shirt, and a red stain. He laid bare the wound, and wiped away a trickle of blood. "Just a scratch," he said. "Not half an inch deep!"

"Ah!" said Stogumber. "But if you hadn't been wearing that leather waistcoat we'd be putting you to bed with a shovel, big 'un! Plumb over the heart that is! I'm bound to say I disremember when I've met a cove as is as full of mettle as what you be! And impudence, if you think I'm going to tell 'em in Bow Street that Stornaway never had nothing to do with the robbery!"

"How d'ye make that out, Redbreast?" enquired Chirk, returning with the Captain's shoes. "When here's me as saw the poor fellow shot down—which you didn't, being a long way behind me at the time, and quite took up with tumbling down them stairs."

"I didn't see it, but two shots is what I heard, and well you know it!" said Stogumber. "I'm not saying as I blame you, for I'll be bound he was trying to put a bullet into the big 'un here, but it wasn't Coate's pop as killed him: it was yours!"

Chirk shook his head. "That was the echo you heard," he said. "Wunnerful, it is! Was you thinking of clapping clinkers on to me?"

Stogumber breathed audibly through his nose. "No, bridle-cull, I ain't going to charge you with bloody murder, because for one thing I'm beholden to you, and for another I'd sooner see that sheep-biter laying there than the big 'un! But you don't gammon me, neither of you, that Mr. Henry Stornaway wasn't as queer a cull as ever I see, because I knows what I knows, and that's pitching it a trifle too strong!"

"You go stow your whids and plant 'em!" recommended Chirk. "Seems to me——"

"That's enough!" The Captain, looking up from forcing one bruised foot, not without difficulty, into his shoe, spoke authoritatively. "We've not reached the end of this yet. I want you first to inspect the chests, Stogumber. Come!"

"One of 'em's open," said Chirk. "Did you do that, Soldier?"

"Yes, Stornaway and I opened it to see what was in it. But we didn't break the seals or the lock. Someone had opened it before us, though I don't think any of the bags were stolen from it. Take a look!"

Mr. Stogumber, running his eye over the chests, said reverently: "All on 'em! All six on 'em! Lord, I thank'ee! There don't look to be nothing gone from this one. Quite certain sure it wasn't you as broke the lock, big 'un?"

"Well, may I be snitched!" exclaimed Chirk. "So now you've took it into that cod's head o' yours that the Soldier's a prig, have you? If that don't beat all to shivers! P'raps you'd like to have me turn out my pockets?"

"I ain't accusing neither of you of no such thing," said Stogumber, carefully closing the chest. "All I says is that if the Capting did break the lock, for to see what was in the chest, it's what anyone might ha' done, even though he mightn't like to mention it. And the only thing as I've a fancy to see out of your pockets, queer-cull, is that long-nosed pop of yours!" He began to rope the chest again, adding frankly: "And I don't know as I've so very much of a fancy to see that neither—things being the way they are! If you didn't break this lock, big 'un, who did?"

The Captain, who had seated himself on one of the chests, said, rather wearily: "I suspect, the gatekeeper. I told you we had not yet come to the end."

"The gatekeeper!" said Stogumber, turning it over in his mind. "By Hooky, you've very likely hit it! Came up here to help himself to the rhino, and—— We got to search this place!"

"What a peery cove you are, Redbreast!" said Chirk admiringly. "No one wouldn't think so, to look at you, neither!"

"You pick up your glim, Jack-Sauce, and come and help me look around this hole in the ground!" said Stogumber.

The Captain rose to his feet again, and followed them, limping a little.

The passage leading to the river was soon discovered, and in another few minutes Stogumber, having stared in amazement at the stream, swept his lantern along the chamber, and saw the body of the murdered gatekeeper.

It had been partially disinterred, and its appearance was so ghastly that Chirk, who had not expected to see it exposed, gave a sharp gasp, and involuntarily recoiled. Mr. Stogumber did not recoil. He walked solidly forward, and in phlegmatic silence surveyed it. "Knifed!" he said, and looked over his shoulder. "Does either of you coves know if the corp is Brean?"

"Ay, that's him," said Chirk shortly. "And if it's all the same to you, Redbreast, I'd take it very kind in you if you was to stop shining your glim on him!"

"I'm agreeable," responded the Runner. He came back to where John was standing, leaning his shoulder against the wall. "If, big 'un," he said, "you seen that poor cove like we see him now afore this—mind, I ain't asking no questions!—all I says is, if you did, I don't blame you for breaking Coate's neck, and dang me, I'd like to shake that great famble of yours! Though it goes against the shins with me that I can't bring him to the nubbing-cheat!" he added regretfully, his square hand lost in the Captain's. "The best thing we can do now is to brush. I got to send for my patrol, and it looks like you're a trifle fagged, Capting Staple."

"I'm not tired, but my feet are thawing, and one of them's devilish bruised," said John. "We'll go back into the main chamber, but we can't leave the cavern like this."

"God love you, Soldier, ain't you had enough yet?" demanded Chirk irascibly.

"No, I haven't. There's a great deal of untidiness about this business, and I don't like untidiness! I must make all right for Stogumber."

"I'm obliged to you," said the Runner heavily. "I ain't complaining, but the more I thinks on it the more I wonder what they're going to say, up at Headquarters, when they knows that I let you come into this cavern without me, ah, and let you break Coate's neck, 'stead of leaving that to the hangman!"

They had emerged again into the main chamber. John led the way across it, and stood for a moment, looking down at Coate's body. "I wasn't here at all," he said.

"Eh?" ejaculated Stogumber, taken aback.

The Captain turned away, and limped to the chests, setting the lantern he had taken from Chirk on the upturned one, and sitting down on another. "I think I had very little to do with the business," he said, considering the matter.

"Little to do with it?" gasped Stogumber. "Why——"

"You stow your gab, Redbreast, and put your hearing-cheats forward!" interrupted Chirk. "If you wasn't here, Soldier, who was it broke Coate's neck?"

"No one," replied the Captain. "He fell on the stairs, trying to make his escape."

"So he did!" said Chirk. "What's more, I saw him with these very ogles! We'll put him there natural, so as them as Mr. Stogumber brings to fetch these here bodies away will find him there, just like he told 'em they would!"

"It could have happened that way," admitted Stogumber cautiously.

"It did happen that way, so don't let's have any argle-bargle!" begged Chirk. "What I want to know is, who discovered the cavern, and all this rhino?"

"You did. We have already decided on that, so let me have no argle-bargle from you! I had my own reasons for bearing a hand in the adventure, and I want no part of the reward. I imagine that will be between you and Stogumber."

"There'll be plenty for three," said Stogumber.

"Well, I don't want it, and would prefer to have my name kept out of the business." He sat frowning into the darkness. "I wonder what brought Coate here today?" he said.

"If it comes to that, Soldier, it's queering me a bit to know what brought Stornaway here!" confessed Chirk ruefully.

"Well, it ain't queering me!" said Stogumber explosively. "I've told you already I won't——"

"Stornaway came with you and Stogumber," said the Captain, paying no heed to the interruption. "Stogumber could scarcely persuade him to believe that his friend was so villainous. In fact, he wouldn't believe it without the proof of his own eyes. So you brought him here, and showed him both the treasure, and Brean's body."

"Never saw a cove so goshswoggled!" corroborated Chirk.

"Keep that long tongue of yours still, Jerry!" commanded the Captain. "Of course I see what must have happened! Stornaway was such a ninny-hammer that he made Coate suspicious that he had discovered the truth. When Coate found that he had left the house mysteriously, he came to look for him here, because it was Stornaway who told him about this cavern in the first place!"

"That," said Stogumber bitterly, "is the only true thing you've said yet, Capting Staple!"

"If ever I seen such a death's head on a mopstick!" exclaimed the irrepressible Chirk. "Nothing don't please him!"

"Very well," said the Captain, getting up. "If only the truth will do for you, let's tell the truth—all of it! You sat at your ease in the Blue Boar while I baited a trap for Coate; you didn't call up your patrol because I told you not to; you joined hands with a bridle-cull, and let him persuade you not to enter the cavern until I had done what I had to there; you——"

"That'll do!" said Stogumber. "There's ways and ways of telling the truth! And while you're reckoning up the things I done, don't you go forgetting who broke Coate's neck, big 'un, else I'd have to remind you!"

"Oh, I won't forget!" promised the Captain. "I was alone and unarmed—my reserves not having come up!—and I had a desperate fight with a man who held a loaded pistol. If, when we fell together on this rock-floor, his neck was broken, I fancy no one will blame me for it!"

A silence fell. Chirk coughed deprecatingly. "I ain't never been one for throwing a rub in the way, like this swelltrap we've got here, Soldier, but I'm bound to say I ain't so very anxious you and him should blab all the truth!"

The Captain laughed. "Nor I, Jerry! Come, Stogumber, what's to be gained by blackening that wretched creature's name? You found no proof that he was a party to these crimes, and although you say he would have shot me in the back you don't know that either, for you were not here. He's no longer alive to answer for himself: let him rest!"

Stogumber looked up at him under lowering brows. "You'd go into the witness-box and swear you knew him for an honest man, wouldn't you, Capting Staple?" he growled. "On your oath, you would, I don't doubt!"

"Stogumber, what could I do but that? His cousin is my wife!"

Chirk gave a long whistle. "So-ho! To be sure, you been smelling of April and May ever since I met you, but I never suspicioned you was married!"