The Toll-Gate Read online

  ‘Lord, has Bow Street been asking questions about me at the Horse Guards? I shall never hear the end of it!’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but by what I can make out nothing you done wouldn’t surprise the gentleman which supplied the information,’ said Stogumber dryly. ‘But, Capting Staple, I’d take it very kind in you if you was to explain to me why, since it seems you’ve took to gatekeeping by way of knocking up a lark, you was so careful not to let me think as you’d seen my Occurrence Book t’other night?’

  ‘You’re fair and far off,’ John replied. ‘I didn’t turn myself into a gatekeeper for any such reason. Nor did I know, when I saw your book, what had brought you here.’

  The unblinking stare was once more bent upon him. ‘Oh! And do you now – if I ain’t taking a liberty?’

  ‘Yes, I know now, which is why I’ve come to see you. You are trying to find a certain consignment of currency, which was stolen about three weeks ago at the Wansbeck ford.’

  ‘How might you have discovered that?’ demanded Stogumber, his stare hardening.

  ‘Partly through you, partly through the man to whom you owe your life. You asked me once if I knew the Wansbeck ford. I didn’t, but when I mentioned it to – Jerry – he told me what had happened there. He reads the newspapers; I don’t. No, he had nothing to do with the robbery: in fact, his ambition is to leave his present calling, and settle down to pound dealing and married life.’

  ‘It is, is it? P’raps he knew where the baggage was hid?’

  ‘He didn’t know, but he knows this district,’ said John significantly.

  Stogumber half started up from his chair, and sank back again, wincing a little. ‘Are you telling me that bridle-cull has boned the fence?’ he gasped.

  ‘If you mean, has he discovered where the treasure is hidden, yes. He tells me it is where no one would ever find it who did not know this district very well.’

  Mr Stogumber breathed heavily.

  ‘However,’ continued John, sternly repressing a twitching lip, ‘the knowledge is perfectly safe with him. He seems to think that this currency is far too dangerous to be touched.’ He watched the effect of this pronouncement, and was satisfied. ‘What he is anxious to do is to reveal its whereabouts to the proper authorities.’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Mr Stogumber earnestly, ‘that there’s a fat reward for the cove as does that!’

  ‘He knows it. But what he doesn’t know is how safe it may be for a bridle-cull to meddle in such matters.’

  ‘Who’s to say as he’s a bridle-cull?’ demanded Stogumber. ‘He never gave me no reason to think he was! Come to think of it, I’d say he weren’t, because he never took nothing off me, and he might have, easy!’ He added, after a pause for thought: ‘Besides which, bridle-culls ain’t none of my business. I’m a Conductor – sent on this task special!’

  ‘Where’s your patrol?’ asked John, surprised.

  ‘That’s my business, Capting. Don’t you fret: I can summon my patrol fast enough, even though I don’t see fit to have ’em taking up their quarters in this here village so as everyone can wonder how there come to be so many strangers suddenly wishful to visit Crowford!’ said Mr Stogumber, with asperity.

  ‘Well, you won’t need them,’ said John cheerfully. ‘I am going to be your patrol.’

  ‘Thanking you kindly, sir, I don’t know as I need trouble you.’

  ‘But I do. Without me, Stogumber, you won’t find the treasure, or lay your hands on the man who stole it – and I fancy you wish to do that. Of course, if I’m mistaken, and you’re content to recover the currency, I’ll tell Jerry to disclose his information to you with no more ado. But if you want the thief as well, then you must leave it to me to bring you to him.’

  ‘Ho! And p’raps, Capting Staple, sir, I know already who stole it!’

  ‘I should think, undoubtedly you must have at least a strong suspicion,’ agreed John. ‘And I am quite certain that you have no proof, and no possibility of finding proof, unless I take a hand. Would you consider it proof enough if you found the thief and the treasure together?’

  ‘I don’t ask no more!’ said Stogumber, fixedly regarding him.

  ‘Then nurse that shoulder of yours until you hear from me again,’ said John. ‘Let it be known that you are a great deal weaker than you are, and in no case to stir out of doors. It would be an excellent notion if you were to put your arm in a sling. You have been recognized: if you are thought to have been too badly hurt to be dangerous, my task will be the easier. I believe I may be able to deliver your man into your hands, but you must let me go to work in my own way. I shan’t keep you waiting for long, I hope.’

  There was a long silence, while Stogumber wrestled with himself in thought. Suddenly he said: ‘Capting Staple, to cut no wheedle, there’s two men as I’m after, not one!’

  ‘That is why I didn’t, at the outset, tell you that I’d bubbled your lay,’ responded John coolly. ‘In the position I’m in, the suspicion that you were also after Henry Stornaway made it damned awkward for me! Since then, however, I’ve been able to satisfy myself that you’re wrong in thinking he has been anything more than a foolish catspaw in the business.’

  ‘I daresay you have; but you ain’t satisfied me!’ said Stogumber. ‘I’ll tell you to your head, sir, it weren’t Coate as led me to this place, but Stornaway!’

  There was nothing in John’s face to betray how very unwelcome this piece of information was to him. Bent on discovering the extent of Stogumber’s knowledge, he shrugged, and said: ‘Because the silly goosecap made friends with a rogue?’

  ‘No, sir, because he made friends with a certain party as works in the Treasury, which I ain’t going to name, because he’s an honest cove, even if he is a gabster, and got to mentioning things he shouldn’t ought to have breathed to no one! It was Stornaway which knew when that consignment was to be sent off to Manchester; and the reason young – the other party – talked of it was that it weren’t an ordinary consignment, not by any manner of means it weren’t! That currency, Capting, ain’t been seen yet, because it’s the new gold money, which makes it interesting. Ah, and dangerous!’

  ‘So that’s it, is it?’ said John, admirably simulating surprise. ‘And because one gabster whispers the interesting news to another, who in his turn passes it on to I daresay every friend he happens to meet, you think he planned the robbery! Perhaps even took part in all the violent deeds performed at Wansbeck ford!’

  ‘I don’t know as I go so far as to say he took part in it, but that he was the cove as planned it I got good reason to think!’ said Stogumber, a little stung by the mockery in John’s voice.

  Almost sighing his relief, John retorted: ‘Then I fancy you’re not acquainted with Henry Stornaway!’ He burst out laughing. ‘Good God, man, he is the most blubber-headed flat I ever encountered in all my days! Foolish beyond permission – a bleater, created to be nailed by every leg in town! The clumsiest gull-catcher could do him, brown as a berry, only by flattering him a little before pitching him his gammon! Have you seen him? He’s a Bartholomew baby, and thinks himself a buck of the first head. He wears a driving coat with fifteen capes, and a very down-the-road man you would take him to be, until you saw him handling the ribbons! It is such pigeons as he who keep the Coates of this world up in the stirrups!’

  Suspicion, incredulity, doubt, uneasiness seemed to possess the Runner’s mind in turn. He said: ‘Ay, but Stornaway ain’t well-breeched – not by any means he ain’t!’

  ‘Not so well-breeched as he was before he became acquainted with Coate!’ replied John, drawing a bow at a venture.

  ‘That might be so,’ agreed Stogumber cautiously. ‘But what made him bring Coate here, if he didn’t know nothing about the robbery?’

  ‘Coate did,’ instantly responded the Captain. ‘The devil of a fellow is Coate, you know! A clipping rider – and always