As it happened, he was forced to realize that he could scarcely have done so, had Ben been never so willing. After the unaccustomed excitement of the day, the boy was so sleepy that he dropped off before he had finished his supper, and could not be roused. When picked up, and carried off to his truckle-bed, he did no more than stir, and murmur something unintelligible: it seemed unlikely that anything less than a coach-horn blown in his ear would waken him.
Scarcely an hour later, John had reason to be glad that he had not, after all, gone to Kellands, for he heard the owl’s hoot, twice repeated, which had previously heralded Jeremy Chirk’s arrival at the toll-house. He walked over to the back-door, and opened it. Chirk’s voice, lowered, but sufficiently penetrating, reached him. “Lend a hand here, Soldier!”
John stepped out into the untidy garden, looking towards the wicket-gate. He saw that Chirk, on his feet, was holding it open for Mollie to pass through; and that seated astride the mare was a thick figure which swayed perilously and seemed only to be held in the saddle by Chirk’s hand gripping him. “Now what?” he demanded, striding forward.
“Bear a bob, Soldier!” Chirk adjured him. “I’ve got a cove here as is as sick as a horse. Lift him down, will you? If I was to let go of him, he’d fall, and he’s had one ding on the canister already.”
“Good God, is it Brean?” John exclaimed, hoisting the burly figure out of the saddle.
“Lord love you, no! I dunno who it is. I found him trying to mill his way out of a row, couple o’ miles back—and a well-plucked ’un he seems to be! Else I wouldn’t have meddled. I doubt I’ll regret it yet: it don’t become a man of my calling to meddle in other folks’ business. But I don’t like to see a game fighter set on from behind, and that’s the truth!”
“Stable the mare!” said John briefly.
A few minutes later, Chirk entered the kitchen to find the victim of the late assault slumped in a chair, with the Captain, a somewhat grim look in his face, forcing brandy down his throat.
“Not hopped the twig, has he?” Chirk asked, shutting the door.
“Oh, no!”
“I didn’t think he had. He cast up his accounts, back there along the road, but he didn’t swoon off till a minute or two before I got him to the gate. Someone knifed him in the back.”
“I know that. Help me to strip off his coat!” John said, withdrawing his arm from behind the inert form, and showing his shirt-sleeve stained with blood. “He’s lost a good deal of blood, from the look of things, but I should say it’s not serious.”
Coat and waistcoat were expeditiously removed, and tossed aside. The Captain then ripped up the shirt, and disclosed a long gash down one shoulder, which was still sluggishly bleeding.
“Nothing but a cut. I’ve seen many worse,” said John, going over to the sink, and pouring some water from the pail that stood under it into a tin bowl.
“Ah!” said Chirk, with satisfaction. “I rather suspicioned I spoilt the cull’s aim! I saw the chive he had in his famble flash in the moonlight, so I loosed off one of my barking-irons over his head, because chives I don’t hold with! They showed their shapes quick then!—him and the other cove.”
“Who were they? Did you see their faces?”
“It would have queered me to do that, Soldier: they were muffled up to the eyes. Well, I was wearing a mask myself, but I don’t go winding scarves round my phiz!” He shifted the heavy body he was supporting so that John could more easily bathe the gash. “If they were foot-scamperers, I don’t know what they were doing on this road, nor what they hoped to prig, nor why they set on a chap like this, that wouldn’t have anything in his pockets worth the taking. Sticking a chive into a cove for the sake of a coach-wheel or two, and maybe a silver tatler, is nasty work, Soldier, and I don’t hold with it. Blubberheaded, too,” he added thoughtfully. “That’s the way to get snabbled, sure as a gun! I wonder who this cove is?”
“So do I wonder!” replied John, competently swabbing the wound. “I can tell you his name, however: it’s Stogumber—and I should say he has come by his deserts!”
As though the sound of his own name had penetrated to his consciousness, Mr. Stogumber stirred, and opened his eyes.
“Keep still!” John said, as he winced.
Mr. Stogumber surveyed him vaguely. His dulled gaze then travelled to Chirk’s face. He blinked several times, as though in an effort to clear his sight; and then, the colour beginning to come back into his face, struggled to sit upright. “Thank ’ee!” he uttered.
“Take a candle, and go and fetch the basilicum powder from my room,” John said to Chirk. “You’ll see it amongst my shaving-tackle: it’ll do as well as anything else to put on the wound.”
“Stuck me in the back, did they?” remarked Stogumber, trying to squint over his own shoulder.
“Be still, will you?” said John. “It’s no more than a graze. A case of rogues falling out, eh, Mr. Stogumber?”
A faint, wan smile crossed Stogumber’s face. He sat leaning his elbows on his knees, his head propped in his hands. “I wouldn’t say it was that, not exactly. I’m mortified: that’s what I am—fair mortified! However, I’m obliged to you, Mr. Staple, mortal obliged to you!”
“You’d better keep your gratitude for the man who brought you here,” replied John, pulling some cloths out of a chest, and beginning to rip them up. “If it hadn’t been for him, you’d be dead.”
“I’m much beholden to him,” agreed Stogumber, speaking with a perceptible effort. “And a rare set-out that is! Loosed off his pop, didn’t he? I remember seeing him, a-sitting on his horse like a damned statue. “What I thought was that the cat was in the cream-pot proper, but I see I was mistook. I dunno what the world’s coming to! Me being beholden to a bridle-cull!”
“Stubble it!” said John, borrowing from Chirk’s vocabulary.
Mr. Stogumber gave a chuckle, which changed to a groan. “Oh, my head! I dunno when I’ve took such a wisty crack on it! I ain’t unmindful, Mr. Staple. I’m precious hard to kill, but I don’t deny I was shook up.”
At that moment, Chirk came back into the kitchen with the basilicum powder. Between them, he and John applied it to the wound, placed a pad over it, and bound it in place with the knotted strips of cloth.
“That’s the dandy!” said Chirk encouragingly. “In a brace o’ snaps you’ll be in prime twig, covey!”
“Take and put my noddle under the pump!” begged Stogumber. “It’s going round like a whirligig! What’s more, I’m a-going to shoot the cat again!”
He made a great effort, and hoisted himself to his feet. With commendable promptness Chirk guided his wavering steps to the sink, and held his head over it while this prophecy was fulfilled. The Captain, taking only a cursory and quite unsympathetic interest in his agony, threw the bloodstained water from his bowl out into the garden, and turned to pick up his patient’s coat and waistcoat from the floor. As he stooped to pick up the coat, he saw that a small notebook had fallen out of one of its pockets, and lay open, face downwards, on the floor. He shot one quick glance towards the sink, satisfied himself that Mr. Stogumber’s attention was fully occupied with his stomach’s revolt, and picked up the notebook. Standing with his back to the sink, he inspected it. Rather more than half its pages had been inscribed in an illiterate hand; and a great many entries had been made in some kind of primitive cipher. But on the fly-leaf its owner’s name was written; and, under it, the revealing words: Occurrence Book.
Captain Staple, putting the book back on the floor as he had found it, now knew what Mr. Stogumber’s real profession was. He knew also that Mr. Stogumber was a far more dangerous man than he had supposed him to be, and one whom it might be hard to outwit. He regarded his heaving shoulders thoughtfully, glanced at Chirk’s profile, and turned away, his lips twitching. Captain Staple, faced with a desperate problem, found one aspect at least of the situation irresistibly amusing.