Of course there was nothing to prevent them going on to St Austell, or even beyond – except for their infinitely careful prearranged plans. The Reverend and Mrs Arthur May were to leave the coach at Lostwithiel, her condition having become worse, so that they would choose to spend the night at the Talbot Inn and continue their journey on the morrow. After a decent interval at the Talbot Inn for rest they would take a stroll in the late afternoon twilight and would not return. This walk would take them in as gentle a manner as was seemly along the left bank of the River Fowey, a couple of miles downstream until they came to Lantyan Wood, almost opposite to St Winnow. They would find a stone-built folly put up in the previous century and would shelter there for the rest of the evening. In the meantime Lieutenant Morgan Lean would alight as expected at St Austell. There he would stroll a few hundred yards up the little town to Kellow’s Hotel where the day before yesterday he had stabled three horses. Having redeemed these, he would ride out and disappear into the night.
In fact he would ride east again by St Blazey Gate, and Tywardreath to Golant. Just before the village he would take a left turn which in a couple of miles would bring him to the folly in Lantyan Wood. Timing was not of the essence here, but when they rehearsed the ride in the daylight it had taken four hours. At the latest he ought to be there by 10 p.m.; thereafter they would have all night to ride across country to the Gatehouse – cloaked to avoid notice of their very noticeable clothing – where they would change into their own things and have their disguises burnt – wigs and all – before dawn.
‘Sir?’ said Jeremy, aware that he had unexpectedly been asked a question.
‘Your benefice, sir. Are you returning to it?’
‘No, no, we live in Devonshire. We are to spend a month with my sister in Falmouth. Perhaps we should not have undertaken the journey, but my wife has been very well until a week or so ago.’
Mr Rose tut-tutted sympathetically. ‘You have other children?’
‘A boy of five.’
‘A bonny lad, I’m sure. I have no children myself. My wife died of the smallpox two years after we were wed and I have not cared to remarry. However, my lot has led me into many pleasant places. For instance . . .’ He was off again.
Stephen, sitting beside him and facing Paul, was conscious that there was a sprinkling of sawdust on the floor. There had been more sawdust than they had expected. They had not been careful enough. The sawdust looked new, not grey and muddy as it would have done if it had been left on the floor for some time. And yet . . . who could possibly see any cause for suspicion in such a sign? Unless the man were a seer or a thought-reader, how could he conceivably imagine what had been going on before he arrived, just behind where he was sitting, and what would begin again immediately they were rid of him? The greater danger would be the moment when he got out. One of the coachmen bending inwards to put down the step might notice it. Stephen moved his boot, apparently stretching, rubbed the heel of the boot over the floor, dirtying and obscuring the sawdust.
‘D’you know, I have a very interesting case in my hands at the moment. One William Allen, a cardmaker, who died seventy-odd years ago, left in his will the sum of five shillings, out of a house in Fore Street, to be given to ten poor widows at Christmas for ever. But there is now a move to stop it, to discontinue it, on the plea that it is contrary to the Mortmain Act. D’you know what that is?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Allow me to explain . . .’
For God’s sake, where is Dobwalls? Stephen thought. He was not sure he agreed with all of Jeremy’s arrangements anyhow: they were too elaborate, kept too closely to the apparent pattern of the Brighton robbery. Far better for them all to have alighted at St Austell, and, when the coach had gone on, to walk up the street to Kellow’s Hotel, pick up the three horses, and bolt off. If they had not been recognized in the coach it was unlikely they should be recognized in St Austell; darkness would all soon after they left; they would have disappeared effectively into the dark, even have been seen riding east so as to put prying eyes off. In Stephen’s view, the simplest ways were always the best.
Jeremy was for more carefully covering their tracks. If they left the coach at different times the authorities would be much more confused. Just as when he and his friends had read the account in The Morning Post, no one would be able to decide whom to suspect, and where to start looking. Also, Jeremy had argued, if the first robbery became known to the bank – and banks even as far apart as Coutts and Warleggan & Willyams might well have some sort of contact, particularly over a robbery – the almost identical nature of the thefts would lead them to blame the same gang. If the people responsible for the first robbery were caught, no one would believe their denials as to the second. And as anyhow it was a hanging matter, they could not very well be punished more than once for the double offence.
‘You should pause on your way home, sir, spend a day at the inn, see Liskeard; it is well worth a visit,’ said Mr Rose.
‘Indeed.’
‘A very handsome church, St Martin’s. They tell me it is the second largest in the county. John Hony is the present vicar. Been there more than thirty years. Excellent good man. I am sure he would welcome the opportunity of meeting a fellow cleric such as yourself. Where did you say was your incumbency?’
‘Sidmouth.’ Jeremy used the first town that came to his mind.
‘Ah yes. Indeed yes. Did you also know that Mr Edward Gibbon, the famous historian, represented Liskeard in Parliament nearly forty years ago? Not that he ever saw the town, so far as I know. He stood in the Eliot interest. Don’t think he ever made much of a name for himself in the House.’
Paul thought: Damn and rot this man! He stands between . . . between us all and a lot of money. With it, with his share, Stephen would no doubt buy a privateer and put himself in command of it; so hope to make more money while the war lasted. Jeremy similarly was working out some private war in his own mind over the girl Cuby Trevanion. Paul had never believed there could have been that much intensity and bitterness in his old friend. Far from being the ‘led’ in this dangerous expedition, he was the ‘leader’. Not only did the private war involve Cuby, it extended to embrace the Warleggan family. If this robbery were successful the only regret it seemed Jeremy would feel would be that the sum taken would not be sufficient to bring the bank down.
Whereas he, Paul thought, his ambition was really the only justifiable one, in that he was engaging in this adventure largely to save his father from a debtors’ prison. (Of course he had all a young man’s ambitions for fine living and fine clothes; but at least he was not caterwauling after some young woman who had jilted him. ‘My lord,’ he would say before the judge put on the black cap, ‘at least my motives were not frivolous; I was attempting to save my family from penury and starvation.’)
‘Not that his literary work was faultless,’ said Mr Rose, blinking over his spectacles. ‘I think Mr Gibbon was by temper incapable of apprehending spiritual aspirations by sympathetic insight, and he assailed with sneer and innuendo what he did not understand in the Christian faith yet feared openly to attack. Don’t you agree, sir?’
‘Indeed I do.’
‘His end was miserable, as you no doubt know. While still a young man he suffered a rupture and thereafter persistently neglected it. In his latest years such was his corpulency and his gout’ – Mr Rose briefly looked down at his own great stomach – ‘that he developed a varicocele and thereafter was perforce buttoned up in the morning and never opened till he was undressed at night, so that every need of nature was performed in his clothes. I believe he was so noisome that no one could endure to be near him. Eventually dropsy supervened . . .’
‘Please,’ said Jeremy. ‘My wife . . .’
‘Of course. I beg your pardon, madam.’
The coach was slowing.
‘Dobwalls,’ said Stephen.
‘Indeed.’ Mr Rose beamed again. ‘Where I leave you, alas. I may say, sir, and you, ma’am, and you, Li
eutenant, that I have seldom known a journey pass so quickly and so pleasantly. I must therefore acknowledge the elegance and the seemliness of your company. I wish you all good day.’
This was a stage merely to take people up and put them down, so there was no blowing of horns or other formality. Mr Rose eased his bulk out of the interior and one outside passenger alighted with him. After he had left there was a pause of a minute or more. Marshall thrust his head in.
‘Beg pardon, cap’n; Mr Jewell, your friend, cap’n, Mr Jewell, don’t belong to be turning up.’
‘It seems not,’ said Stephen, bracing himself to fight off another request for the spare seat.
‘Well, thur tis, cap’n, thur tis. Some folk do act some strange, wasting all that thur money. Eh, well, we’d best be off now. Looks, ma’am, as if you’ll not be disturbed the more.’
He shut the door and climbed up on to the driver’s seat. The coach moved on.
II
The little saws were almost useless, for, however much greased, they grated on the wood, and you couldn’t keep to a regular rhythm lest the steadiness of the sound should be picked up outside.
The clock face was completely cut through from midday until the half-hour, and again from three-quarters to the end. The wood was moving now; by pressing on it it would bend. Better that it should come out towards them, for if it fell inwards it might clatter. Jeremy got his fingers in the holes around five past and pulled. The wood screeched. He hastily let go and for a minute or so all work was suspended. It was Paul’s turn to keep watch but he had been so concerned to see the operation completed that he had not been looking out. The coach slowly stopped.
By now the three young men had slipped into a routine of replacing the lining and cushions and burying the tools so quickly that the interior was set to rights almost before the coachmen got down. Paul lowered the blind and, forgetting his supposed indisposition, lowered the window and looked out.
He quickly withdrew. ‘Looks like a fallen tree,’ he said in relief. He subsided in his corner, hand over eyes; no one else moved.
Stephen now looked out. ‘Aye. Praise to the Lord it is only a branch. Sit still! They’re shifting it . . . Damned thing is still attached to the trunk: they’ll have to twist it out of the way . . . All’s well, I believe . . . Fools are tidying up some smaller branches! What do they want to do, brush the road? What’s the time, Jeremy?’
‘Quiet,’ Jeremy muttered. ‘Collect yourself!’
Through the half-open window they could hear the voices of the coachmen and the passengers; it seemed as if they were arguing about something; but presently it ceased. As Stephen shut the window and then drew up the blind there was a clambering on the coach, a crying to the horses, and the coach lurched into motion once again.
‘Now!’ said Jeremy.
Stephen drilled two more holes and Jeremy clawed with his fingernails again, found a hold and pulled. The clock face was coming, and silently. At the last it twisted in his grasp and clung by three thin strands of wood. Paul passed up the saw. Now the sawing did not resound so much. The circular piece of wood, indented all the way round its edge like a cog-wheel, came away in Jeremy’s hands.
He passed it to Paul, his own fingers not so steady; thrust his hand into the cavity now exposed and at once grasped one of the boxes.
It was heavy and he had to get his other hand in and lever it towards the edge of the port-hole they had made; then a firmer grasp and a heave, and it was in the coach.
A box about twelve inches square by six deep and made of thin steel, it had a handle for carrying, and the catch was secured by a stout padlock. It was enormously heavy for its size. Jeremy went back to the seat compartment and groped about inside. He soon found the second box and fished that out too. This was somewhat smaller – about twelve by nine by four – and was quite disproportionately lighter. It also had a steel handle for carrying but was locked with an ordinary built-in keyhole. The metal of which it was made looked similar to the first.
If the coach stopped now the cushion and lining could be replaced as swiftly as ever, but they could only conceal the two boxes under Paul’s skirts as best they could, and the circular wooden face somewhere else.
They screwed together the crowbars and Stephen put one end through the loop of the padlock and bunched his muscles. He applied all his weight and force until the veins in his forehead showed and the sweat ran down his face. He gave up with a grunt. At the end he thought he had felt something begin to give, but perhaps it was the steel of the box that was bending, near the staple. In the meantime Paul had taken out his bunch of keys and was trying each one in the lock of the smaller box.
‘Let me try,’ said Jeremy. He took the crowbar from Stephen and inserted it from the other side of the padlock loop. In spite of his thinness he was muscularly strong; and once again the toughened steel of the crowbar was pitted against the lock. There were two or three curious cracking sounds but the lock held. Jeremy relaxed, slumped back on the seat and let out a breath.
‘How long would it take to file it?’ Stephen said.
‘Too long, I think. And the box is too big to carry away.’
Stephen shook it. There was a promising rattle. ‘God’s eyes, we got to force it!’ He tried again, his wig awry, his hands slippery with sweat. Eventually he sat back, defeated a second time.
‘Wait,’ said Jeremy. He took up the crowbar and in order to gain greater purchase inserted it into the padlock loop only a couple of inches. It seemed that something was giving at last, but then the crowbar slipped and he caught the knuckles of his left hand a jarring blow on the side of the box. He dropped the bar, sucking his knuckles and cursing. Blood began to well up over three fingers of his hand.
‘That’s fine,’ snarled Stephen. ‘If that falls in the coach it’ll look as if we’ve committed a murder!’
It was all the sympathy available. While Jeremy tried to wrap his fingers in his handkerchief Stephen went to work again . . .
‘Holy Mackerel!’ exclaimed Paul.
They stopped and turned and saw the smaller box open. He showed his teeth in a stark grin.
‘The seventh key only! I thought these locks were often made to a pattern!’
They stared at four thick piles of banknotes, held by red elastic cord. Paul lifted them out, put them on the seat. His hands were shaking too. Under the notes were other papers: deeds and the like.
The coach rattled peaceably on its way.
‘Put ’em away – quick,’ Jeremy snapped. His hand was still bleeding but he pulled on his black gloves to hide the injury.
Paul began to stuff the notes into an inner pocket sewn into his skirts. He hesitated about the other papers.
‘Those too,’ Jeremy said. ‘Anything that’ll cause Warleggan’s Bank more trouble.’
The papers disappeared. Jeremy snatched up the box, shut it, thrust it back at once into the driver’s compartment. He blew out a breath, glad to see one piece of evidence out of sight.
‘There’s a tidy pack of money there, by Heaven!’ said Paul. ‘I wonder how much. If—’
‘Forget it. Look, would any of those keys fit this lock?’
‘I doubt it. The tumblers are usually differently placed in a padlock . . .’
While the other two grimly watched he tried one key after another. There were twenty on the bunch, and some were clearly unsuitable as to size.
The coach was slowing. Jeremy prised open the blind.
‘It only looks like a hill, but . . . Is there one round here, Paul?’
‘I don’t think a bad one. There’s a fierce one out of Lostwithiel the other side. What is the time?’
Jeremy pulled out his watch. ‘Five and twenty past one. We’re due in Lostwithiel in about half an hour.’
‘They’re no cursed use in this lock,’ Paul said, stuffing the keys back in his pocket. ‘It’s make or break with this one.’
The coach was at a walking pace, but no one was getting down.
> ‘Keep your eyes open, Paul,’ Jeremy said. ‘We may be coming to some halt unknown to you. We don’t – can’t take a risk now . . .’
In turn they once again attacked the padlock. It cracked, and the steel of the box bent, but the lock and the staple still held.
‘What it needs’, said Stephen, ‘is a pickaxe. I could burst it open in no time with one of those.’
‘So we could with gunpowder,’ Jeremy said angrily; ‘we could as well use one as the other here.’
Paul said: ‘If we keep to the rest of the plan we haven’t more than twenty minutes. We could, of course, settle for the one box.’
Stephen paused to wipe the sweat from his face. ‘Any notion how much you have?’
‘Five-pound notes, twenty-pound Bank of England notes, some Bank Post Bills – a tidy sum.’
‘This’, said Stephen, ‘might be full of copper and small silver pieces. The banks are always short of change.’
Jeremy took the crowbar from him and weighed it in his hands. In fact his gloves gave him a better grip. ‘We don’t know how many of those notes will be negotiable. And I’ll be disappointed and surprised if there is only copper in here.’
‘If we ever find out.’
Paul said: ‘Why not all stop on until St Austell? We could well file it through in another hour.’
‘Or maybe brazen it out and carry it off,’ said Stephen.
‘You could cover it with your scarf. Who is to recollect exactly what we all brought on with us?’
‘I shall have enough to carry, for God’s sake,’ snarled Paul. ‘Tools and the rest.’
Jeremy stopped. ‘We have to avoid panic. At present no one suspects in the smallest measure. Let it stay so! Even if it means taking only what was in the small box.’
‘After we’re gone,’ said Paul, ‘let Stephen try. There’s a good chance of him being in here alone. We could leave him just the crowbar and the file . . .’
The horses were trotting again.
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