“As yet,” said John, faintly stressing the words, “the Runner doesn’t know of the existence of this cavern. But I fancy I could tell him whereabouts to look for it. Where had you been, Mr. Stornaway, when I encountered you very early in the morning on the lane that leads over the hills? And for what purpose were you carrying a lantern?”
Only a whimper answered him. He remained silent and motionless, waiting. After a long pause, Stornaway whispered: “What do you mean to do? Why have you come here?”
“I am not perfectly sure yet what I mean to do,” John replied. “I came to discover the truth from you. Where is Ned Brean?”
A shudder ran through Stornaway; he covered his face with his shaking hands. “Dead!”
“By whose hand?”
“Nat Coate’s. I swear that’s the truth! If you knew—if you had seen—you would know I’m telling you the truth! He was stabbed! He was a big fellow, and very strong: I could not have stabbed him, or have dragged his body——” He stopped, gulping. “If I tell you the whole, you’ll believe me? You must believe me! When Brean disappeared, I was afraid—but Nat would tell me nothing! So I went one night—because I had to know! I could not bear it! I found Brean!” Another shudder ran through him. “It was horrible, horrible!” He looked up. “He will stick at nothing! Nothing, I tell you! I wish I had never met him! I wish I had never heard of that curst gold! I wish I were dead!”
“That wish at least is likely soon to be fulfilled,” said John dryly. “There are three murdered men to be answered for.”
“I killed none of them!”
John looked at him consideringly. Hope gleamed in the pale eyes which watched him so furtively. Stornaway put out a tentative hand, and ventured to lay it on his breeched knee. John could almost feel his flesh creep under the touch, but he restrained the impulse to shake the hand off, and sat still.
“You’ve no grudge against me!” Stornaway urged, keeping his eyes fixed on that unyielding face. “If you know what I’ve suffered! I swear, had I guessed what it would all mean, I would never have joined Nat in the business!” He saw the Captain’s mouth curl, not pleasantly, and added hastily: “It was madness! The gull-gropers are after me, and this place is so encumbered it will do me no good when my grandfather dies! I tell you, I had to get money!”
“Unfortunate that this money cannot benefit you for many a day to come!” interrupted the Captain scathingly.
“No, well—I didn’t realize that!” Stornaway muttered. “I wish to God I had never touched it! If I could be quit of it all—but how the devil can I? I didn’t kill those men—no one could be sorrier than I am that they are dead!—but what a fix I am in, what a hellish fix I am in!” He gave a groan, and once more buried his face in his hands.
“Do you want to escape from it indeed?”
“I can’t escape from it!”
“If I could be sure that yours was not the hand which killed Brean, I would help you to do so.”
For a moment, the meaning of these words scarcely penetrated to Stornaway’s intelligence. The voice which uttered them was so hard that he could not believe he had heard aright. He looked up, staring. The eyes that looked down into his were as cold as sea-water. But the Captain said steadily: “I could bring you off—if I chose to do it.”
Stornaway passed the tip of his tongue between his lips. A little colour mounted to his cheeks. “There’s a fortune in the cavern!” he said, rather breathlessly. “Only keep your mouth shut, arid you shall have———”
“I do not want your fortune, or any part of it. Nor would it save you if I were to keep my mouth shut. The Runner is not here by chance: he knows that somewhere in this district the gold is hidden. Sooner or later he will find it, make no mistake about that! I’m not here to help you to the enjoyment of a fortune: it goes back to the Treasury. As for you, you may end the affair as a felon and a murderer, or as a mere tool, deceived by a rogue. If you did not kill Brean I have no interest in sending you to the gallows. If you show me Brean’s body, stabbed as you have described, and show me also where the gold is lying, I will bring you off scatheless.”
There was a long pause. “How?” Stornaway said at last, watching him.
“I will tell the Runner that you have been entertaining Coate in all good faith; that when it was proved to you what his reason was for wishing to visit Kellands you realized that it was due to your folly and gabbing tongue that these crimes came about; that in your anxiety to atone for your unwitting share in them you used your best endeavours to discover where the gold was hidden; that you and I went to search for it in one of the caverns with which this country abounds. You will appear a fool, but not a knave.” Stornaway said suspiciously: “Why should you do this?”
“I have a reason,” John replied.
“I don’t understand! What reason could you have?”
The level gaze indifferently scanned his face. “I shall not tell you that. It is nothing you would understand. But you may trust me to do as I have promised.”
Stornaway’s restless eyes shifted. “You want me to take you to the cavern?” he said mechanically, as though he were thinking of something else.
“Yes,” John replied.
There was another pause. Stornaway looked up quickly, and away again. “Not now! I am unwell—I cannot go out into the night air! I won’t do that! I have the sore throat. I caught cold in that place!”
“In the morning,” John said. “We will ride there together.”
“In the morning. . . . How can I know that you are not leading me into a trap?”
“You will lead, not I.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“I give you my word,” John said deliberately, “that if you deal honestly with me I will bring you off safely.”
“I’ll take you there.” Stornaway’s face twitched. He added, with another fleeting look up at John: “Coate must not know, of course. But he does not rise early in the morning. When—when should we go?”
“When you wish.”
“At—yes, at eight, then!”
“Very well. I will meet you in the lane.”
“Yes. Yes, that will be best.” His voice sharpened. “The Runner! What have you told him?”
“Nothing that can harm you.”
“But you knew of the cavern,” Stornaway said, suspicion in his face. “How can I know you have not told him that?”
“You cannot, but I have not.”
Stornaway plucked at the sheet. “I’ll trust you! I have no choice!”
“None,” agreed the Captain calmly.
Chapter 17
IT was three o’clock when the Captain reached the tollhouse again. He entered it through the office, and went into the kitchen so quietly that Chirk, who was seated at the table inspecting a collection of small objects laid upon it, was startled, and half leaped from his chair. When he saw who had entered, he sank down again, exclaiming: “Dang you, Soldier! What call have you to go like a cat?”
“I thought you might be asleep.”
“I had a nimwinks a while ago. What’s now?”
The Captain was looking at the oddments on the table. He raised an eyebrow at Chirk. “Tonight’s haul? Didn’t you tell me you were turning to pound dealing?”
“So I will,” asserted Chirk, scooping up a handful of coins, and bestowing them in his pocket. “Just as soon as I get my fambles on this reward you tell me about, that is! In the meantime, Soldier, my windmill’s dwindled into a nutcracker, so I was bound to make a recover, else I’d have starved.”
John could not help laughing. “I wish you will not! I could lend you some blunt.”
“Thank ’ee, Soldier, breaking shins is what I don’t hold with!” said Chirk, whose morality, though eccentric, was rigid.
John smiled, but said nothing. A handsome gold watch lay on the table, and he picked it up. “You were fortunate, weren’t you? A well-breeched swell!”
“Getting winged ain’t my idea of good fortune!” said Chirk tartly. “If he’d had more than one barker, likely I’d be as dead as a herring by now, for he was a good shot: hit me while his prad was trying to bolt with him!”