The Toll-Gate

Chapter 12

ALMOST immediately, he found himself able to stand upright, and holding the lantern high saw that he was standing in a roughly vaulted chamber of considerable size. Chirk, entering behind him, and looking around, said, with a certain amount of satisfaction: “Well, there ain’t nothing here, that’s certain! Queer sort of a place to find in a hill! Was it made natural?”

“Quite natural. Have you never been inside a limestone cavern before?”

“No, I can’t say as I have. I’ve heard tell of them, though. Big, ain’t it?”

“Bigger than you think, I fancy.” John walked forward, still holding up the lantern. “Yes, I thought as much! This is only the antechamber, Jerry.” He walked to the back of the cave, where a narrow opening, like a rude Gothic doorway, led into a passage through the rock. This ran slightly downwards into dense darkness. The lantern-light showed the uneven rock-face gleaming damply; underfoot the ground was soft, mushy with moisture; and the air felt dank. John heard Chirk draw in his breath sharply, and said, amusement in his voice: “Have your nerves enough steel for this adventure?”

“What you’ve got bottom for, I have!” Chirk answered through his teeth. “Go on!”

John went forward, easily at first, but was soon obliged to duck his head, and, in a very few moments, to bend almost double. He could hear Chirk breathing hard behind him, and said: “Careful! The roof’s devilish low ahead: we may have to crawl!”

They were not actually obliged to do this, but by the time they had reached a loftier space they were thankful to pause, and to stand upright. Something grazed John’s head as he straightened his aching back, and he directed the lantern’s beam upwards, running it over the roof of the chamber. “By Jupiter!” he said softly. “That’s something to have seen, Jerry!”

“What are they?” asked Chirk, staring upwards. “They look like icicles to me, and the lord knows it’s cold enough!”

“Not icicles: stalactites. They’re formed by the dripping of the water—thousands of years of it! I told you this would be a capital go!”

“I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself more,” said Chirk sardonically. “If this was where young Stornaway came, I’m not surprised he caught a chill! Look, Soldier! The walls are streaming wet! What makes ’em so?”

“Water, of course. What’s more, it’s Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter there’s a river somewhere below us. There’s one in the Peak cavern, and a boat on it: Miss Nell told me about it. Are you ready to go on?”

“I’m within ames-ace of going back!” replied Chirk, with mordant humour. “Howsever, if we’ve got to go on, let’s cut line and go!”

John had moved cautiously forward, peering ahead. “Take care!” he said suddenly. “We’re dropping down fast now, and there’s a damned lot of loose rubble! Hell and the devil confound it, I wish I hadn’t put these boots on! Lord, it’s a regular stairway! Look!”

The passage had widened considerably. Chirk, who was standing with his lantern directed on to the rock-face above his head, withdrew his fascinated gaze to glance down the steep descent. Fragments of jutting rock did indeed form the semblance of a stairway, but the drop from one to another was sometimes of several feet, and for the most part the ground was littered with rubble, and treacherously loose stones, some of them of great size. It was not difficult to perceive how Henry Stornaway’s father had broken a leg in the cavern. Chirk said so, with some asperity. He then begged the Captain to pause. “Just you cast your ogles over this devil’s work!” he adjured him, keeping the beam of his lantern fixed on the rock. “Don’t you tell me that wicked face came there natural, Soldier!”

It took John a moment to perceive what was holding Chirk chained to the spot. Then he laughed, and said: “Good God, it’s only the weathering of the rock that’s done that! If we had the time to waste, I daresay we could pick out a dozen weird faces!”

“Thank’ee, I’d as lief go on!” said Chirk. “But for the lord’s sake take care how you set your feet down!”

The descent, though it was not very long, took time, but close to the walls the rocks were reasonably firm, and after perhaps thirty feet the staircase became a slope, down which it was easy to walk. Occasionally the roof dipped suddenly, making it necessary for them to stoop, and once a long stalactite knocked Chirk’s hat off. The cold was intense, and a faint sound of rushing, steadily increasing, did nothing to add to Chirk’s enjoyment.

“Hear that noise?” John said, in a satisfied voice. “I told you there would be a river! Now what have we come to?”

The ground had ceased to slope downwards, and the passage suddenly widened. The sweep of John’s lantern failed to discover the walls, and when he turned it upwards it only dimly illuminated the roof.

“We must have reached the main cavern. Jupiter, what a place! Stay where you are. I want to find how big it is, and whether it leads on farther still.” He moved to one side as he spoke, playing the lantern before him. In a moment it lit up the rock-face, jagged and gleaming. Chirk, standing at the entrance to the huge chamber, watched it travel on, and then swing round to light the wall opposite to where he stood. A black cavity yawned, and the Captain said, his words resounding eerily: “I’ve found another passage!”

“I see you have,” replied Chirk.

To his secret relief, the Captain moved on, and presently rounded the corner of the chamber, and began to make his way slowly back towards the entrance, his lantern playing all over the rock-face. “Chirk, this is a wonderful place!” he declared. “Come over here! The rock’s honeycombed with galleries above our heads! I wish we had a ladder! There’s no reaching them without one!”

“I don’t doubt you’d like to go crawling along a lot of galleries,” said Chirk tartly, walking towards him, and gazing up with revulsion, “but we’ve got no call to do so, because if there ain’t no ladder here it stands to reason no one—” He broke off, with a startled oath, almost losing his balance, as his foot came up against some obstacle. He recovered it, and brought the beam of his lantern downwards. His voice changed; he said with careful calm: “Never mind the galleries! Just you come over here, Soldier!”

John turned. “What—” Then he too stopped abruptly, for Chirk was holding the storm-lantern high, and by its golden light he saw a number of corded chests ranged along the side of the cavern. “Good God!” he ejaculated.

Three or four strides brought him up to Chirk, who, finding one chest standing on end, set his lantern down on it, and said: “That’s a coach-wheel I owe you. Lordy, I’d have laid you any odds there’d be nothing here! But what the devil’s in them?”

The Captain was on his knee, closely scrutinizing one of the chests. “Chirk!” he said, rather oddly. “Unless I’m much mistaken—this is an official seal!”

“What?” demanded Chirk, so sharply that his voice seemed to echo round the cavern. He too dropped on his knee, staring at the red seal over the knot of the cord. Then he rose, and ran his eyes over the other chests. “Six of ’em, and all alike!” he said softly, and whistled. “Small—” he bent and with an effort lifted the end of one—”but remarkable heavy!”

“The seal’s been broken on this one, and—yes, the lock’s been forced!” John said, pausing beside a chest which had been set down upon another. “Well!—let us see what’s inside it!”

He put his lantern down on another of the chests, and set to work to untie the knot. The cord fell away, and he lifted the lid. The chest was packed with neat little bags, and the chink of metal as John picked one up was not needed to tell him what these must contain. He untied the string about its neck, plunged in his hand, and drew out a fistful of yellow coins, and held them in the lantern-light, staring down at them.

“Wansbeck ford!” Chirk cried, after a stunned minute. “That’s why I know the name! Lord, what a clunch, what a totty-headed dummy! How could I have been such a beetlehead as to have forgot it?”

John looked up at him. “What has Wansbeck ford to do with this?”

Chirk was breathing rather rapidly. “Don’t you never read the newspapers, Soldier?”

“I do, yes, but not with any particular attention in these peaceful times. Tell me what I should have read and did not!”

“A couple o’ sennights back—a Government coach, bound for Manchester!” uttered Chirk jerkily. “Took the wrong fork somewhere short of a place called Ashbourne—matter of twenty-five to thirty miles south-west of here. It was after dark, and seemingly a lonesome stretch o’ country. By what I read, it was as clever a hold-up as I ever heard of! ’Cos what did they do? They—”

“Changed the two arms of the signpost!”

“You did read about it!”

“No. Go on!”

“Well, it’s like you said. That’s what they did. By God, they had it planned bang-up! There ain’t so much as a cottage within half a mile of this ford, and there’s a steepish drop down to it, and up t’other side, and woods either side of the lane. The coach was set on when it was pulling out of the stream. There was two guards shot dead afore they could aim their barkers. The driver, and another man with him, which was at the horses’ heads at the time, was found gagged and trussed up like cackling-cheats next morning. The coach had been broke open, and not a chest left inside of it.” He paused, and wiped the back of his hand across his brow.

“And you’re telling me it was Henry Stornaway and Coate which did it? Lord love me, I don’t know when I’ve been so flabbergasted! But—what do they want to leave ’em here for? There’s only one been opened, and there ain’t nothing gone from it, by the looks of it! I see it would queer anyone to know where to stack all these chests, but what I don’t see is why they’ve took none of the gelt away! Well! They say as it’s an ill wind as blows no one any good! Here, let’s see if there’s Yellow Goblins in all these bags!”

“They are not Yellow Goblins.”

Chirk looked sharply at him, struck by an odd note in his voice. “What? You’re not going to tell me they’re counterfeit? With that seal on the cases?”

“Not counterfeit, but not guineas. Take a look!”

Chirk stared down at the coins in John’s hand. He picked one up, to inspect it more closely, and said: “Danged if I ever see one of them before, but they’re gold all right and tight, and new-minted! What are they, Soldier?”

“Do you never read the newspapers? They are the new coins—the sovereigns which are to replace the guineas!”

“Are they?” Chirk turned the piece he was holding over, regarding it with interest. “They’re the first I’ve seen.” He added, with a grin: “Ah, well, I won’t quarrel over the odd shillings! Lord love us, there must be thirty or forty thousand pounds in these cases! And to think if it hadn’t been for Rose I wouldn’t have come along with you today! No more rank-riding! A snug farm—and never did I think to see the day!”

He thrust his hand into the chest as he spoke, and would have lifted out of it another of the bags had not the Captain caught his wrist, and held it. “Put that down! You’ll take none of this money, Chirk!”

An ugly look came into Chirk’s eyes. He said: “Won’t I? Take care, Soldier!”

John let him go. “If that’s the mind you’re in, draw your pistol, and add me to the men who have been murdered for this gold!”

Chirk flushed, and growled: “Ah, have done! You know I wouldn’t do that! But you can’t stop me taking some of it! There’ll never come such a chance again! It’s all very well for a well-breeched cove like you to stick to pound dealing, but—”

“Pound dealing! Ay, that’s just what this is!” John interrupted, with a short laugh. “These are pounds, not the old guineas! You fool, don’t you see why the chests have been stored here, and not a sovereign taken from them? This is the most perilous treasure that was ever stolen! One of these coins would send you to the gallows! Take a bag of them, and try if you can buy your farm with them! Try if there’s a fence alive who will give you flimsies in exchange for them! I’ll come to see you hanged! This coinage was only minted this summer: none of it’s in circulation yet! That’s why it has been stored in this place! I should doubt whether it would be safe to touch it under a year.”

Chirk sat down limply on one of the chests. “A year! But—it could be hid away! just a few bags of it!”

John dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Jerry! I didn’t tell you, but Stogumber—the man you rescued last night—isn’t searching for an estate, as he’s tried to hoax us into believing. He’s searching for this gold, and for the men who stole it. He’s a Bow Street Runner!”

The shoulder stiffened under his hand. “What?” Chirk said. “A Redbreast? A Redbreast which I—I!—saved from being stuck in the back?”

“You never did a better day’s work in your life. He’s not ungrateful, and I fancy I see how he may be made more grateful yet! Don’t look so blue-devilled! You’ll win your fortune! Why, Jerry, where have your wits gone begging? There will be a huge reward paid to the man who discovers these chests! You told me you wanted no more than a monkey to set you up: if all these cases hold sovereigns and half-sovereigns, as I think they may well, a monkey won’t be more than a fraction of what the Government will pay for their recovery!”

Chirk drew in his breath with a hissing sound. “That’s so!” he said, as though a great light had dawned. “And pound dealing, too! But this Redbreast—! You’re not gammoning me, Soldier?”

“No. While you were holding his head over the sink last night, I picked up the notebook which had fallen from his pocket when we threw his coat aside. Have you heard of Occurrence Books?” Chirk nodded. “This was one. He doesn’t know yet that I’ve smoked him: I think he has a notion I too may be concerned in this business.”

“Well, he’ll soon know you ain’t.”

“Not too soon, if I can contrive it! Chirk, you found the gold, and the reward will be yours, but will you trust me to manage the business as will be best for all of us?”

“Ay, but it wasn’t me found the dibs!” Chirk pointed out. “It was you brought me here! I may be a bridle-cull, but I’m danged if I’m a cove as diddles my friends!”

“I may have brought you here, but did I find these chests? All I found was a gallery! I don’t want the reward, so let us have no more talk of that! What I want is to keep Miss Nell and the Squire out of this business—and Henry Stornaway, too, for their sakes, though it goes against the grain! I don’t know how I may do that, but some way there must be! Sir Peter must not know what you and I have discovered, and I’d give all I possess to keep it from Miss Nell too! How much Stogumber knows already I can’t guess: something he must know, for why else should he have come to this district? But not much, surely! If he had proof to bring against Coate or Henry, he would have arrested them; if he knew where this gold was hid we shouldn’t have found it here today!”

“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-humored 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 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!”