The Toll-Gate

Chapter 15

THE Captain, having stabled Beau, walked back to the toll-house across the field, and entered it by the backdoor. He found Mr. Babbacombe alone, seated by the fire, and sipping brandy and water. Mr. Babbacombe raised a weary eyebrow, and said: “What, didn’t they offer you a bed? How shabby!”

The Captain grinned at him. “I beg pardon! Have I been away so long? Where’s Ben? Have you murdered him?”

“No, but I found him such a dead bore that I sent him to bed. Pike-keeping couldn’t be worse than playing casino with that bird-witted boy. I only had to open the gate twice—each time to your groom-acquaintance. Happily he knew what the toll was, for I did not.”

“Yes, I met Joseph on my way back,” John said, rather absently. He poured himself out some brandy, while his friend sleepily watched him. He glanced down at Babbacombe. “Did Chirk come?”

“I imagine he did, since Ben slid from the place in what he no doubt considered to be an unobtrusive fashion.”

“I hope he means to come again tomorrow. If not, I must go in search of him, and I fancy that will mean a twenty-mile ride, if not more.”

“If you’re trying to tell me, Jack, that you want me to make a cake of myself, minding the pike while you’re away——”

“No, Ben can attend to it during the day. But I don’t want you to go back to Edenhope tomorrow!”

Mr. Babbacombe yawned. “Dear boy—not the slightest intention of doing so! Someone must carry the news to your mother that you’ve been taken off to Newgate.”

“You’re a devilish good fellow, Bab!” said the Captain gratefully.

“I’m not. Don’t choose to have it said of me that I’m the sort of queer fish who leaves his friends in the lurch. Now perhaps you’ll tell me what you’ve been doing up at the Manor? For one who has come from attending a deathbed you’ve a mighty cheerful appearance.”

“I haven’t. At least, the Squire’s alive still. I’ve come from a wedding!”

Mr. Babbacombe sat up with a jerk. “You’ve come from——Whose wedding?” he demanded uneasily.

“My own!”

“Oh, my God!” ejaculated Mr. Babbacombe. “Now I know you’re touched in your upper works!”

“Oh, no, I’m not!” John said, the corners of his mouth tilting upwards.

Mr. Babbacombe saw it, and groaned. “If you think that is the news I’ll carry to your mother, you’re mightily mistaken!” he declared. “It’s the girl you mentioned, I collect? Miss Stornaway? So that’s why you’re so devilish anxious to keep Henry Stornaway’s name clean! Lord, what made you do such a thing, you crazy gudgeon?”

“I fell in love with her the instant I saw her,” replied John, with a simplicity that defied disbelief. He smiled, as Mr. Babbacombe’s jaw dropped. “Did you think I was indulging in a fit of quixotry? Oh, no! She is—well, never mind that! You will meet her presently, and then you will understand. I am the happiest man on earth!”

“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.”

“Tell him,” said Mr. Stogumber earnestly, “that there’s a fat reward for the cove as does that!”

“He knows it. But what he doesn’t know is how safe it may be for a bridle-cull to meddle in such matters.”

“Who’s to say as he’s a bridle-cull?” demanded Stogumber.

“He never gave me no reason to think he was! Come to think of it, I’d say he weren’t, because he never took nothing off me, and he might have, easy!” He added, after a pause for thought: “Besides which, bridle-culls ain’t none of my business. I’m a Conductor—sent on this task special!”

“Where’s your patrol?” asked John, surprised.

“That’s my business, Capting. Don’t you fret: I can summon my patrol fast enough, even though I don’t see fit to have ’em taking up their quarters in this here village so as everyone can wonder how there come to be so many strangers suddenly wishful to visit Crowford!” said Mr. Stogumber, with asperity.

“Well, you won’t need them,” said John cheerfully. “I am going to be your patrol.”

“Thanking you kindly, sir, I don’t know as I need trouble you.”

“But I do. Without me, Stogumber, you won’t find the treasure, or lay your hands on the man who stole it—and I fancy you wish to do that. Of course, if I’m mistaken, and you’re content to recover the currency, I’ll tell Jerry to disclose his information to you with no more ado. But if you want the thief as well, then you must leave it to me to bring you to him.”

“Ho! And p’raps, Capting Staple, sir, I know already who stole it!”

“I should think, undoubtedly you must have at least a strong suspicion,” agreed John. “And I am quite certain that you have no proof, and no possibility of finding proof, unless I take a hand. Would you consider it proof enough if you found the thief and the treasure together?”

“I don’t ask no more!” said Stogumber, fixedly regarding him.

“Then nurse that shoulder of yours until you hear from me again,” said John. “Let it be known that you are a great deal weaker than you are, and in no case to stir out of doors. It would be an excellent notion if you were to put your arm in a sling. You have been recognized: if you are thought to have been too badly hurt to be dangerous, my task will be the easier. I believe I may be able to deliver your man into your hands, but you must let me go to work in my own way. I shan’t keep you waiting for long, I hope.”

There was a long silence, while Stogumber wrestled with himself in thought. Suddenly he said: “Capting Staple, to cut no wheedle, there’s two men as I’m after, not one!”

“That is why I didn’t, at the outset, tell you that I’d bubbled your lay,” responded John coolly. “In the position I’m in, the suspicion that you were also after Henry Stornaway made it damned awkward for me! Since then, however, I’ve been able to satisfy myself that you’re wrong in thinking he has been anything more than a foolish catspaw in the business.”

“I daresay you have, but you ain’t satisfied me!” said Stogumber. “I’ll tell you to your head, sir, it weren’t Coate as led me to this place, but Stornaway!”

There was nothing in John’s face to betray how very unwelcome this piece of information was to him. Bent on discovering the extent of Stogumber’s knowledge, he shrugged, and said: “Because the silly goosecap made friends with a rogue?”

“No, sir, because he made friends with a certain party as works in the Treasury, which I ain’t going to name, because he’s an honest cove, even if he is a gabster, and got to mentioning things he shouldn’t ought to have breathed to no one! It was Stornaway which knew when that consignment was to be sent off to Manchester; and the reason young—the other party—talked of it was that it weren’t an ordinary consignment, not by any manner of means it weren’t! That currency, Capting, ain’t been seen yet, because it’s the new gold money, which makes it interesting. Ah, and dangerous!”

“So that’s it, is it?” said John, admirably simulating surprise. “And because one gabster whispers the interesting news to another, who in his turn passes it on to I daresay every friend he happens to meet, you think he planned the robbery! Perhaps even took part in all the violent deeds performed at Wansbeck ford!”

“I don’t know as I go so far as to say he took part in it, but that he was the cove as planned it I got good reason to think!” said Stogumber, a little stung by the mockery in John’s voice.

Almost sighing his relief, John retorted: “Then I fancy you’re not acquainted with Henry Stornaway!” He burst out laughing. “Good God, man, he is the most blubber-headed flat I ever encountered in all my days! Foolish beyond permission—a bleater, created to be nailed by every leg in town! The clumsiest gull-catcher could do him, brown as a berry, only by flattering him a little before pitching him his gammon! Have you seen him? He’s a Bartholomew baby, and thinks himself a buck of the first head. He wears a driving-coat with fifteen capes, and a very down-the-road man you would take him to be, until you saw him handling the ribbons! It is such pigeons as he who keep the Coates of this world up in the stirrups!”

Suspicion, incredulity, doubt, uneasiness seemed to possess the Runner’s mind in turn. He said: “Ay, but Stornaway ain’t well-breeched—not by any means he ain’t!”

“Not so well-breeched as he was before he became acquainted with Coate!” replied John, drawing a bow at a venture.

“That might be so,” agreed Stogumber cautiously. “But what made him bring Coate here, if he didn’t know nothing about the robbery?”

“Coate did,” instantly responded the Captain. “The devil of a fellow is Coate, you know! A clipping rider—and always horses of the right stamp! Never been bullfinched in his life! Hob-nobs with all the Melton men; rattles you off a dozen great names in a sentence; knows every on-dit of Society; and will introduce you to what he would have you believe to be the most exclusive gaming-clubs in town! Lord, he had only to hint that he would be glad to rusticate for a space, had always, perhaps, had a fancy to visit Derbyshire, and Stornaway would be so much flattered he would jump at the chance of entertaining such a Blood!”

“I’m not saying that mightn’t be so,” said Stogumber slowly, “but when he found Coate wasn’t made welcome at the Manor, and was making up to Miss Stornaway till she was fair persecuted by him—which anyone can learn only by putting his listeners forward in this here village—why would he drive his old grandpa into his coffin sooner than tell Coate to show his shapes? What makes him so set on keeping him up at Kellands?”

“I have my own notion about that,” returned the Captain with ready mendacity. “It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Stornaway’s deep in debt to him. In fact, I’d be willing to lay you odds on it. Now, you thought I had taken Brean’s place to knock up a lark, but you were mistaken. I reached the gate after dark last Saturday, and when I found that urchin you’ve seen in charge of it, and scared out of his wits, and heard that his father had gone out for an hour the night before and hadn’t been seen since, I thought there was something damned smoky going on. Well, Stogumber, I have an odd liking for the unusual, and it seemed to me I might find it interesting to discover just what was afoot. It wasn’t long before I had learnt that both Sir Peter and Miss Stornaway were persuaded that Coate was playing an undergame. They were excessively uneasy, and each of them attempted to convince Henry that his friend was by no means the bang-up Corinthian he thinks him, but a regular Captain Sharp. He didn’t believe them. In his besotted eyes, they were a pair of country bumpkins, unable to recognize a choice spirit when they saw one. What, in the name of all that was wonderful, he asked them, could a Captain Sharp find to gain in this sleepy place? They had no more notion than he had: they still have none—but either something has happened to shake Henry’s confidence in Coate, or his grandfather’s words set up a seed of doubt in his mind. Perhaps Coate’s man disclosed your presence in the district. I don’t know that, but I do know that Henry too has become uneasy. Since he is by far too cow-hearted to tell a bully like Coate to pack his trunks, he has taken to his bed on one of the flimsiest excuses I ever heard. In any ordinary case that would certainly be a way of getting rid of an unwanted guest, but this is not an ordinary case, and it has failed. It is time Henry learned just what the case is. If he does not die of heart failure, he will be mighty anxious to prove to the world that although he may have been a dupe he was never a robber or a murderer.”

“Or mighty anxious to warn Coate they’ve been rumbled!” interjected Stogumber, his eyes never wavering from the Captain’s face.

“Coate don’t need warning: he knows who you are. If Stornaway were in his confidence, he’d know that too. If you are right in your suspicions, neither of them will stir an inch. But if you are wrong, Stornaway will do what he can to save himself from being arrested as an accomplice,. and so bringing his name into dishonour.”

“I’ll allow he might—if I am wrong,” acknowledged Stogumber. “P’raps you’ll tell me, sir, how he could set about convincing me—me not being easy to convince?”

“Yes, I’ll tell you,” John answered. “The hiding-place of your sovereigns would occur only to those who know this country well, remember! Jerry knows it, and it plainly occurred to him very speedily. Well, Stornaway knows it too! He may think I am telling him a Banbury story, but if he is innocent he won’t hesitate to go with me to this hiding place, to discover what truth there may be in my tale.” Mr. Stogumber thought this over. After a lengthy pause, he demanded: “And how would that bring Coate next or nigh the hiding-place?”

“Stogumber, when you set a trap, do you tell people where it lies, and what you have baited it with?”

“No,” said Stogumber, staring at him. “I can’t say as I do.”

“Nor do I!” said the Captain, with the flash of a disarming grin.