All at once he was startled by the disappearance of the light, and could not for a moment think what had happened. Then he remembered that only Stornaway knew that he was unarmed, and realized that Coate, ignorant of his exact whereabouts, must be afraid to betray his own position. At that moment, he collided with the wall, stubbing one foot, and grazing one out-thrust hand. He turned again, feeling his way along it, his other hand, still gripping his shoes, stretched out to encounter the chest which had been set up on its end.
A light appeared again, wobbling and wavering. He knew it must be cast from Stornaway’s lantern, and was not surprised when he heard Coate say furiously: “Cover your lantern, fool! Do you want to make a target of yourself?”
“He has no pistols with him!” Stornaway’s voice, raised in extreme agitation, seemed to echo all round the roof.
Now for it! thought John, and in that instant found the chests, and dropped to the ground behind them. Beside the first of these, which his hand had brushed, and which he knew to be up-ended, stood two more, one on top of the other; beyond them the other three had been set down side by side, and were not deep enough to afford him any cover. Crouching behind the first chests, he at last abandoned his shoes, and waited for Coate to come within his reach. He heard the hasty tread of shod feet, saw the light approaching, and gathered himself together in readiness. The light swept the wall at the end of the chamber, found the entrance to the slope, and stayed there for a moment: the possibility that he was escaping from the cavern had obviously occurred to Coate. One swift glance over his shoulder showed the Captain that Stornaway was still standing at the far end of the chamber, aimlessly turning his lantern this way and that. While Coate’s attention was still fixed on the way of escape, the Captain rose silently to his feet, stepped sideways, clear of the first chest, and, as the beam of light swung towards him, launched himself straight at it. He reached Coate, before the light was focused fully upon him, colliding with him, chest to chest, and flinging one arm round him, pinioning his left arm, holding the lantern, to his side, and grabbing his right just below the elbow.
The lantern fell to the ground with the tinkle of breaking glass; a little flicker of flame ran over the rock, and died; in darkness the two men swayed and struggled desperately, John trying to hold Coate powerless while he shifted his grip on his right arm to the wrist, all the time keeping this pistol hand pointing harmlessly upwards, and Coate striving with all his might to wrench free from an encircling arm that was holding him in a bear’s hug.
He was a shorter man than John, but thickset, and very powerful, as John soon discovered. Hampered as he was by the necessity of maintaining his cramping hold on that dangerous right arm, he had to put forth every ounce of his great strength to continue holding Coate so closely pressed against himself that he could neither get his left hand to the second pistol John could feel digging into his ribs, nor find the knife which John guessed he carried somewhere about his person. Fractionally, as they struggled together, shifting this way and that over the damp, uneven rock-floor, John was moving his grip nearer and nearer to Coate’s wrist. His stockinged feet, holding the slippery ground more securely than Coate’s boots, gave him a slight advantage. His toes suffered, but they were by this time so numbed by the cold that he was scarcely aware of being trodden on.
For a minute they battled in complete darkness, but Stornaway came hurrying and stumbling up the length of the cavern, wildly waving his lantern about in an attempt to discover their whereabouts. Its light, vacillating in a way that betrayed how Stornaway’s hand must be trembling, fell on Coate’s face, and showed it livid, sweat starting on it, the lips drawn back in a grimace like a dog’s snarl from clenched teeth. It showed his right arm, uplifted and held by John’s grip round it, and his left still trying to work free from the hug which clamped it to his body. In an agony of indecision, Stornaway teetered about the swaying couple, his own pistol in his hand. Once he raised it, and as he did so, the position of the struggling pair altered, and it was Coate’s back which was turned towards him instead of John’s. His eyes fixed on them, he ventured closer; the Captain saw him, and with a superhuman effort which made his muscles crack swung Coate round, interposing his body between himself and Stornaway. Stornaway, who seemed scarcely to know what to do, retreated a step, and ran round the group. So riveted was his attention that he failed to perceive that another light than the one he carried now illuminated the scene. His change of position had brought him between the combatants and the entrance to the chamber, his back turned to this, and he never saw Jeremy Chirk’s arrival. The highwayman, hearing the stamp and scrape of shod feet ahead when he was halfway down the perilous stair, and the unconscious cries Stornaway kept on uttering, abandoned caution, and came down the rest of the steep descent with a reckless speed which left his more ponderous companion far in the rear, and raced down the slope to the opening into the main chamber. There he paused, coolly surveying the three men before him, keeping the beam of his lantern steadily upon them.
The Captain’s hand had reached Coate’s wrist; Stornaway, standing behind him, lifted his pistol, and tried to aim it. His hand was shaking like a leaf, so that the muzzle wobbled lamentably. A deafening report as Coate’s gun exploded was succeeded so immediately by a second that this sounded like a sharp echo, reverberating round the vaulted roof of the chamber. A couple of stalactites dropped on to the floor, and Coate’s empty pistol fell with a crash, just as Stornaway, who had uttered a queer groan, crumpled where he stood, and collapsed in an inert heap.
The Captain, suddenly releasing Coate, sprang back, his great chest heaving, and his fists up. He met a rushing attack with a left and a murderous right that brought Coate down. He was up again in an instant, a hand fumbling at his waist. The Captain saw the flash of steel in the lantern-light, and hurled himself with such force at him that both men went down together. But the Captain was uppermost, and his hands were at Coate’s throat. Mr. Chirk, perceiving this, and aware that the panting Runner had reached the entrance, and was standing at his elbow, shifted his lantern, and directed its beam on to Stornaway’s still figure.
Mr. Stogumber, out of breath, first amazed by the extent of the cavern, and then shaken by a fall on the stair, was feeling a little dazed, and was unable for a few moments to marshal his wits into order. He had heard what sounded like two shots, he had seen Coate’s attempt to stab the Captain, and he had seen the two men go down in a wildly struggling tangle of arms and legs. Then they were lost in darkness, and he found himself staring at a dead man on the ground before him. “Here!” he ejaculated. “What——How——?”
Chirk slid a long-nosed pistol unobtrusively into the wide pocket of his coat. “The poor fellow was shot, trying to help the Soldier,” he said sadly. “Dropped him like a pigeon, Coate did! Ah, well, it ain’t no use crying over spilt milk!”
“Get out o’ my way!” Stogumber said fiercely, thrusting him aside, and swinging his lantern to pick up the forms of Coate and the Captain.
Chirk, whose quick, listening ears, had already caught the sound for which he had been waiting, made no effort to stop him, but directed his own lantern towards the spot where he had seen the two men struggling on the ground. The struggle was over. Coate lay spread-eagled, and beside him, on his knee, labouring to recover his breath, his head sunk forward, was the Captain.
“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.
“No, I haven’t. There’s a great deal of untidiness about this business, and I don’t like untidiness! I must make all right for Stogumber.”
“I’m obliged to you,” said the Runner heavily. “I ain’t complaining, but the more I thinks on it the more I wonder what they’re going to say, up at Headquarters, when they knows that I let you come into this cavern without me, ah, and let you break Coate’s neck, ’stead of leaving that to the hangman!”
They had emerged again into the main chamber. John led the way across it, and stood for a moment, looking down at Coate’s body. “I wasn’t here at all,” he said.
“Eh?” ejaculated Stogumber, taken aback.
The Captain turned away, and limped to the chests, setting the lantern he had taken from Chirk on the upturned one, and sitting down on another. “I think I had very little to do with the business,
” he said, considering the matter.
“Little to do with it?” gasped Stogumber. “Why—”
“You stow your gab, Redbreast, and put your hearing-cheats forward!” interrupted Chirk. “If you wasn’t here, Soldier, who was it broke Coate’s neck?”
“No one,” replied the Captain. “He fell on the stairs, trying to make his escape.”
“So he did!” said Chirk. “What’s more, I saw him with these very ogles! We’ll put him there natural, so as them as Mr. Stogumber brings to fetch these here bodies away will find him there, just like he told ’em they would!”
“It could have happened that way,” admitted Stogumber cautiously.
“It did happen that way, so don’t let’s have any argle-bargle!” begged Chirk. “What I want to know is, who discovered the cavern, and all this rhino?”
“You did. We have already decided on that, so let me have no argle-bargle from you. I had my own reasons for bearing a hand in the adventure, and I want no part of the reward. I imagine that will be between you and Stogumber.”
“There’ll be plenty for three,” said Stogumber.
“Well, I don’t want it, and would prefer to have my name kept out of the business.” He sat frowning into the darkness. “I wonder what brought Coate here today?” he said.
“If it comes to that, Soldier, it’s queering me a bit to know what brought Stornaway here!” confessed Chirk ruefully.
“Well, it ain’t queering me!” said Stogumber explosively. “I’ve told you already I won’t—”
“Stornaway came with you and Stogumber,” said the Captain, paying no heed to the interruption. “Stogumber could scarcely persuade him to believe that his friend was so villainous. In fact, he wouldn’t believe it without the proof of his own eyes. So you brought him here, and showed him both the treasure, and Brean’s body.”
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