The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  ‘Not with me,’ Martin answered, colouring. He raised his eyes. ‘He had run a thorn into his foot, and was dead lame! I would not take him. Ask Hickling if that’s not true! Oh, yes! I know what you are thinking! Hickling would tell any lie to oblige me, would he not?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would he?’

  ‘I daresay! This is the truth!’

  ‘Very well: go on!’

  ‘I tell you, I don’t know what happened! I didn’t come to myself till I was being taken off somewhere, in a cart, or something. I couldn’t see: I was trussed up, and gagged, and there was a sack over my head – not that I cared, for my head was aching fit to split, and I cared for nothing, then, except being jolted so much that I think I went off into another swoon. I don’t remember that, but I do remember feeling devilish bad. And then I wasn’t in a vehicle, but lying on the ground somewhere. It might have been a cow-byre: it smelled like it, but I couldn’t see, or move, and I don’t know. I don’t even know how long I was there: hours and hours, I think! I suppose I slept part of the time. I must have, because I woke up with a start when someone began to haul me up. And then there was more of that curst jolting, and being hauled out of the cart again, and rolling down and down and down!’

  ‘Rolling down where?’ asked the Earl.

  ‘It was a sand-pit, but I didn’t know that at the time.’

  ‘Oh! And who rescued you from the sand-pit?’

  ‘No one. I managed to get free. If I hadn’t, I might be there now, for it was miles from anywhere, and disused, I think.’

  ‘But how did you contrive to free yourself then, when you had been unable to do so before?’ asked Miss Morville, quite mystified.

  ‘I suppose the cord must have frayed,’ Martin said, hesitatingly. ‘Or perhaps it worked loose – no, that wasn’t it, because when I found I could move my arms at last, I strained and strained, and the cord broke, so I think it must have frayed, or was weak in one place. Look!’ He thrust his sleeve up, and showed a bruised and chafed forearm.

  ‘I will give you some arnica for it, if you would like it,’ said Miss Morville kindly.

  He swung round to face her. ‘I don’t want it! You think it’s all lies, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, no! Only one should never allow oneself to be carried away by exciting stories, and I am bound to observe that it would not be so very difficult to inflict such a bruise with one’s own hands. I daresay it all happened exactly as you have described, but one can readily understand why it was that Theo and Lord Ulverston would not believe you.’

  ‘I am much obliged to you! Why don’t you say you think I’m a murderer, and be done with it?’

  ‘Martin,’ interrupted Gervase, ‘why were you stunned, kept in durance vile, and finally rolled into a sand-pit?’

  ‘Good God, if I knew that – ! I suppose some desperate fellow meant to rob me!’

  ‘And were you robbed?’ asked Gervase.

  ‘No, because I had no money on me! A man don’t carry money in his pockets when he goes out shooting!’

  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ agreed Gervase. ‘It does not seem to have occurred to that desperate fellow. Do you think he may have rolled you into the sand-pit in a pet at finding you so little worth his trouble?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t robbery, of course. I see that now, but at the time – Well, I know it sounds smoky, but it’s true! I never thought about not having any money until I got out of that sand-pit. Then I remembered I hadn’t as much as a groat in my pocket!’

  ‘Was that why you decided to come back?’

  Martin flushed. ‘I always meant to come back! It’s why I didn’t reach Stanyon till past ten o’clock tonight! At least, it is, in part! I can tell you, I didn’t feel so stout when I first got free! I couldn’t stand, and my head was aching till I could scarcely see out of my eyes, and I had such a thirst – ! As soon as my legs would bear me, all I cared for was to get out of that pit, and find some water! Well, I did get out, and I had no more idea of where I was than – than anything, but there was a wood quite close, and I thought very likely there might be a stream near it, and so there was! And then I – I –’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I went to sleep!’ Martin said. ‘I think I must have slept for hours, because it was very little past dawn when I got that sack off my head, and it was past noon when I woke up, judging from the sun. I felt better then, and I set out to get to the nearest village. Such a figure as I must have looked! I could see they took me for a common vagrant, at the alehouse. They had no post there, of course, and the landlord said he had no horse I might hire, but I might be accommodated at Guyhirne, which was not far.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘No. That is –’ Martin stole a glance from his brother’s face to Miss Morville’s. ‘I didn’t go there. I know this was folly, but – I fell in with some country-fellow driving a waggon, and he took me up, and that was when I learned what had happened to you, St Erth!’

  ‘Learned it from a waggoner?’

  ‘I might have learned it from a dozen such, I daresay! Some carrier who was at Cheringham this morning spread the story everywhere he went! The waggoner told me that you had been murdered and that I had disappeared, and was being everywhere looked for! Of course, I might have guessed it wasn’t as bad as that, but – well, I –’

  ‘Took fright?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do!’ Martin blurted out. ‘I thought if anyone recognized me – or guessed who I was – I should find myself hustled off to gaol – I, Martin Frant! All I could think of to do was to get back here without being seen, and – and discover how it was, and think what I must do. But that fellow, Chard, was hunting for me, and I had been seen, of course, though no one knew me, all that way from Stanyon, and in such a rig! But I suppose when he described me, and what I was wearing, those curst bumpkins set him on my track. He came up with me in that village – driving my gig, too! – and – and then I heard how it was, and he brought me home as though I had been a felon, and he my gaoler, bringing me up to the Assize, or something! And after that, there was Theo – and Ulverston! – not believing a word I said, and declaring I should not see you! But I had to see you, and tell you – !’

  Miss Morville, who had been watching the weary face against the pillow, said: ‘Well, Martin, now that you have done so, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will go away again, and leave his lordship to sleep! There is nothing more to be done tonight, you know, and I daresay, if you wish it, your brother will see you again tomorrow.’

  She wished then that she had not said this, for the Earl moved his head in a gesture of dissent, and his lips framed the one word: ‘No.’

  Martin saw it too, and said sharply: ‘St Erth, you can’t mean – St Erth, you’ll let me come and see you tomorrow, surely!’

  ‘No. You can have nothing more to say to me. Keep away from this room! When I am on my feet again – we will see.’

  A frightened look, almost one of panic, came into Martin’s face. He started forward involuntarily, exclaiming: ‘Gervase, you don’t mean to accuse me of this? You can’t think I would commit murder?’

  A queer little smile flitted across the Earl’s eyes. ‘You haven’t murdered me.’

  ‘I never tried to! You must believe me! We’re – we’re half-brothers! Only think of the scandal!’

  ‘I have thought of it. I told Theo I had caught a glimpse of a thick-set fellow, dressed in homespuns, hiding in the thicket.’ Martin drew a shuddering sigh. ‘I knew you could not – did you see such a fellow?’

  ‘I saw no one.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ Martin asked, frowning down at him. ‘Because – Well, never mind!’ He caught Miss Morville’s eye, and said: ‘Oh, very well! I’m going! Only if you are afraid to let me enter your room, and I am to have Chard standing guard over me in this way –’

  ‘You sha