“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 18
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 peevy 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.