The Toll-Gate

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Let him not weep for that!” said Captain Staple, through his even, white teeth. “I will settle all scores with this villain, and in full!”

  “Well, sir,” said Joseph, with a deprecatory cough, “seeing as Mr. Huby was in such a taking, Mr. Winkfield took the liberty of telling him so. Which heartened him up wonderful—If I may say so!”

  “Did you tell me you must go to Sheffield today?” John asked abruptly. “When will you be here again?”

  “Oh, I’ll be back by six o’clock at latest, sir! The London mail’s due at four. It might be a minute or two late, but not above a quarter of an hour, at this season! What was you wanting me to do?”

  “Come and take my place here after dark! I must see Miss Nell!”

  Joseph nodded. “I’ll come if I can, gov’nor,” he promised. “But I better be off now—if that Coate has passed the gate!”

  He had not, but in a few minutes he came into sight, trotting briskly down the road. John sent Ben out to open the gate; and, after a discreet pause, Joseph mounted the cob, and rode off in his wake.

  The Captain then took pity on Ben, and released him from his duties, merely recommending him to eat his dinner before sallying forth to join certain of his cronies on an afternoon of high adventure. Since Mrs. Skeffling had left a stew redolent of onions simmering on the hob, Ben thought well of following this advice. He tried to engage the Captain in conversation, but found him to be in an abstracted mood. As his parent, by the simple expedient of clouting him heavily, had trained him not to obtrude his chatter upon unwilling ears, he immediately stopped talking, consumed with startling rapidity an enormous plateful of steak, and slid from the toll-house before his protector could (in the manner of adult persons) change his mind, and set him to perform some wearisome task.

  The Captain finished his own meal In a more leisurely style, and, still deeply considering the problem which lay before him, washed up the crockery. He was wiping his hands on a towel when an imperative voice intruded upon his consciousness.

  “Gate! Gate, there!” it called.

  The Captain turned his head quickly. The call was repeated, in exasperated accents. The Captain cast the towel aside, and strode out into the road.

  Drawn up before the toll-house was a sporting curricle, to which a pair of match-bays was harnessed. The bays were sweating a little, and their legs were mud-splashed, like the wheels of the curricle, but the turn-out was a handsome one, and nothing more point-device could have been imagined than the gentleman holding the reins in one elegantly gloved hand.

  He was the model of a nonpareil attired for a journey in rural surroundings, and only the exquisite cut of his coat and breeches, and the high polish on his top-boots, drew attention to his person. His waistcoat was of a sober dove-colour; the points of his collar stiff, but by no means exaggeratedly high; his cravat tied with artistry, but without flamboyance. A beaver hat, of the same delicate hue as his waistcoat, was set at a slight angle on a head of glossy, carefully arranged locks; and cast over the back of the empty seat beside him was a very long and full-skirted greatcoat embellished with a number of shoulder-capes. Upon the Captain’s appearance on the threshold of the toll-house, he transferred the reins to his whip hand, and with his disengaged hand sought the quizzing-glass which hung on a black riband round his neck, and raised it to one eye.

  For a moment they stared at one another, the fair giant, in leather breeches and waistcoat, and a coarse shirt open at the throat, standing apparently transfixed; and the Tulip of Fashion looking him over from head to foot, an expression on his face of gathering anguish. “Good Gad!” he said faintly.

  “Bab!” ejaculated the Captain. “What the devil—?”

  “Dear boy—taken the words out of my mouth! What the devil—?” said Mr. Babbacombe.

  “Confound you, what’s brought you here?” demanded the Captain.

  “Just reconnoitering, dear boy!” said Mr. Babbacombe, late of the 10th Hussars, with an airy wave of the quizzing-glass. “No good flying into a miff, Jack! Dash it, no business to write me mysterious letters if you don’t mean me to come and see what kind of a lark you’re kicking up!”

  “Damn you!” John said, reaching up to grip his hand. “I might have known it indeed, you inquisitive fribble! Did you bring my gear with you?”

  Mr. Babbacombe removed his driving-coat from the seat beside him, disclosing a bulky package. Indicating this, with every evidence of revulsion, he said: “Take it! If there had been room for your portmanteaux as well as my own, dashed if I wouldn’t have brought ’em! You great gudgeon, we had to smash the locks! I hadn’t the keys!”

  “Oh, that’s of no consequence!” said John, picking up the package, and tucking it under his arm. “But what’s this about your portmanteaux? I don’t see them!”

  “No, no, I left ’em at the inn!”

  “What inn?”

  “Little place down the road. I don’t remember what it’s called, but you must know it! It’s only a mile away, dash it!”

  “You can’t stay at the Blue Boar!” John exclaimed.

  “Just racking up for the night,” explained Mr. Babbacombe. “Seems a snug little inn. Anything amiss with it?”

  “Bab, have you been asking for me there?”

  “Wasn’t necessary. Fact of the matter is, Jack, I’ve had news of you for some way along the road. Dashed roadbook of mine ain’t to be trusted ’cross country, so there was nothing for it but to ask the way. No, I didn’t say a word about you, but it’s my belief you couldn’t mention the Crowford Toll-gate anywhere for six or seven miles round without being told that there’s a queer new keeper to it, the size of a mountain. As for the ale-draper at this Blue Boar of yours, he seemed to twig it was you I wanted the instant I spoke of the tollgate.”

  “Lord!” said John. “Oh, well! It must be all over the village by now, so there’s no help for it! I’m devilish glad to see you, old fellow, but you must brush tomorrow! It won’t do if certain fellows here get wind of you.”

  “I must what?” said Mr. Babbacombe, all at sea.

  “Brush! Pike! Lope off!” said John, his eyes brimful of laughter. “In your own flash tongue, depart!”

  “Yes, I know you’re up to fun and gig,” said Mr. Babbacombe severely. “Not but what I must depart tomorrow, because I didn’t bring Fockerby along with me, and what with having to see to it that the ostler at the inn I stayed at last night looked after these tits of mine, and being obliged to dashed well stand over the boots this morning—and even now they don’t look as they should—my boots, I mean!—it’s devilish exhausting! Where can I stable the bays? I can’t talk to you on the high road!”

  “Well, you can’t stable them here. You must take them back to the Blue Boar.”

  “But I want to talk to you!” objected Mr. Babbacombe.

  “Of course, but you must see there’s no place for a curricle here, let alone a pair of horses! You’ll have to walk back: it’s not much more than a mile! Oh, lord! here’s the carrier! Mind, now, Bab, you’ve mistaken the road!” He then said, raising his voice: “No, sir, you should ha’ turned right-handed, short of the village!” and turned from the curricle to fetch the tickets from the office.

  Mr. Babbacombe sat in a trance-like state, listening to an interchange of conversation, during the course of which he learned that his eccentric friend was apparently keeping the gate for someone called Brean. The carrier seemed surprised that this person had not yet returned; Mr. Babbacombe was even more surprised to hear that Mr. Brean was John’s cousin. No sooner had the pike been closed behind the carrier than he exclaimed: “If you are not the most complete hand I ever knew! Now, Jack, stop bamming, and tell me what the devil you’re doing!”

  “I will,” John promised, grinning up at him, “but take that natty turn-out of yours away first! If Sopworthy—that’s your ale-draper!—knows you’ve come here to see me, you may as well borrow his cob: I can stable him in the henhouse.”

  “Jack!” said M
r. Babbacombe. “Are you stabling your own horse in a dashed hen-house?”

  “No, no, he’s in that barn, up there! Now, do be off, Bab!” He watched Mr. Babbacombe turn his pair, and bethought him of something, and called out: “Wait, Bab!—I daresay you won’t see him, but if you should meet a fellow at the Blue Boar called Stogumber, take care what you say to him! He was nursing a broken head and a gashed shoulder this morning, but if he gets wind of such an out-and-outer as you, putting up at the inn, he’s bound to think it smoky, and very likely he’ll leave his bed to discover what your business may be. You’d better tell him you came here to visit Sir Peter Stornaway, up at the Manor, but hearing that he’s very ill you’ve thought it best not to intrude upon the family. Now, don’t forget!—Stornaway—Kellands Manor! Stogumber’s a Bow Street Runner, but he don’t know I’ve bubbled him.”

  Mr. Babbacombe regarded him in fascinated horror. “A Bow Street—No, by God, I’ll be damned if I’ll go another yard until you’ve told me what kind of a kick-up this is! Dear boy, you ain’t murdered anyone?”

  “Lor” bless you, gov’nor, I ain’t a queer cove!” said the Captain outrageously. “Nor no trap ain’t wishful to snabble me!”

  “Dutch comfort! Do you mean the Runner ain’t after you?”

  “No, he only suspects he may be,” replied the Captain. “He thinks I’m a trifle smoky.”

  “If he knew as much about you as I do,” said Mr. Babbacombe, with feeling, “he’d know you’re a dangerous lunatic, and dashed well put you under restraint!”

  With these embittered words, he drove off, leaving the Captain laughing, and waving farewell.

  Half an hour later he was once more at the tollhouse, dismounting from the landlord’s cob, which animal he apostrophized as the greatest slug he had ever crossed in his life. The hen-house, he considered, would be a fitting stable; and allowing John to lead the cob away, he entered the tollhouse, and was discovered by his friend, a few minutes later, inspecting the premises with interest not unmixed with consternation.

  “How do you like my quarters?” John asked cheerfully.

  “Well, your bedroom ain’t so bad, but where do you sit?” enquired Mr. Babbacombe.

  “Here, in the kitchen, of course!”

  “No, really, Jack!”

  “Lord, you’ve grown very nice, haven’t you? Were you never billeted in a Portuguese cottage, with no glass in the windows, and a fire burning in the middle of the floor, so that you were blinded by the smoke?”

  “I was,” acknowledged Mr. Babbacombe. “That’s why I sold out!”

  “Don’t you try to play off the airs of an exquisite on me, my buck! Sit down! By the way, why the devil didn’t you pack up my cigarillos with the rest of my gear? I’ve none left!”

  With a sigh, Mr. Babbacombe produced a case from his pocket, and held it out. “Because you didn’t tell me to, of course. Here you are!”

  “Bless you!” said the Captain. “Well, now we’ll blow a cloud together, Bab, and I’ll tell you what I’m doing here!”

  After this promising beginning he seemed to find it hard to continue, and for a moment or two sat staring into the fire, smoking, and frowning slightly. Mr. Babbacombe, his elegant form disposed as comfortably as a Windsor chair would permit, watched him through his lashes, but preserved a patient silence. John looked up at last, a rueful smile in his eyes. “It all came about by accident,” he said.

  Mr. Babbacombe sighed. “I knew that,” he replied. “You’ve never been in a scrape yet but what it came about by accident. The thing is, no one else has these accidents. However, I ain’t going to argue about it! Why did you send your baggage to Edenhope, though? Been puzzling me!”

  “I was coming to stay with you!” said the Captain indignantly.

  “Well, what made you change your mind?” mildly enquired Mr. Babbacombe.

  “I’ll tell you,” said the Captain obligingly; and settled down to give him a brief account of his present adventure. Certain aspects of it he chose to keep to himself, perhaps considering them to be irrelevant, and although the Squire’s name occurred frequently during his recital, the most glancing of references only were made to his granddaughter. But the rest of the story he told his friend without reservation.

  Mr. Babbacombe, listening in astonishment, and with no more than an occasional interruption, learned with incredulity that the Captain had no immediate intention of divulging to Stogumber the whereabouts of the treasure. He was moved to protest, saying in deeply moved accents: “No, really, my dear fellow—! Only one thing to be done! Tell the Redbreast at once!”

  “If you had paid the least heed to what I have been saying,” retorted John, “you would know that what I am trying to do is to keep young Stornaway’s name out of this!”

  “Well, you can’t do it, and, damme, I don’t see why you should wish to! Sounds to me like a devilish loose fish!”

  “Yes, a contemptible creature! But I promised his grandfather I would do my possible to keep his name clean!”

  “So you may have—though I’ll be damned if I see why you should!—but you didn’t know then what kind of a business he was mixed up in! I tell you, this is serious, Jack! Good God, it’s a hanging matter!”

  “Don’t I know it!”

  “Well, it don’t seem to me as though you’ve the least notion of it!” said Mr. Babbacombe, with considerable asperity. “Dash it, who is this old fellow, and what made you take such a fancy to him?”

  This home question brought the colour up into John’s face. Avoiding his friend’s eye, he was just about to embark on an explanation, which sounded lame even in his own ears, when he was interrupted by a shout from the road. Never more thankful to be recalled to his duties, he apologized hastily to Mr. Babbacombe, and went off to open the gate, and to collect the toll. By the time he returned to the kitchen, he was once more in command of himself, and the situation, and informed Babbacombe crisply that he had his own sufficient reasons for desiring to spare Sir Peter as much pain as possible. “It don’t matter why: it is so!” he said. “Just accept that, will you, Bab?”

  Mr. Babbacombe was conscious of a horrid sinking at the pit of his stomach. “You’re doing it rather too brown, Jack!” he said uneasily. “The more I think of it, the more I’m sure there’s more to this affair than you’ve told me!”

  The Captain looked guilty, but there was a decided twinkle in his eye. “Well, yes, there is a little more!” he acknowledged. “No, no, I had nothing to do with stealing those sovereigns! don’t look so horrified! But—well, never mind that now! The thing is, I’ve given the Squire my word I’ll do my utmost to shield Henry, and I will! Nothing you can say is going to stop me, Bab, so spare yourself the trouble of saying it!”

  Mr. Babbacombe groaned, and expressed the bitter wish that he had never come to Crowford. “I might have known I should find you in some damned, crazy fix!” he said. “If you don’t put a rope round your own neck it will be a dashed miracle! How can you keep Henry out of it? Now, don’t tell me you mean to help t’other fellow to escape as well, because for one thing I know you too well to believe you; and for another, if you did do anything so totty-headed, the chances are the Redbreast would arrest you and this highwayman of yours! Stands to reason!”

  John laughed. “Chirk might not be able to prove an alibi, but I imagine I could. But you may be perfectly easy on that head! I don’t mean to let Coate escape! No, not for anything that was offered me!”

  “That’s all very well,” objected Babbacombe, “but you can’t have one arrested without the other! The fellow’s bound to squeak beef on Henry!”

  John nodded. “Yes, naturally I have thought of that. I wish I knew how deeply he may be implicated! I must discover that.”

  This was said with decision, and with a certain hardening of the muscles round his mouth. Mr. Babbacombe, looking up at the fair, handsome face, with the smiling eyes that held so level and steady a regard, and the good-humour that dwelled round that firm mouth, re
flected gloomily that Crazy Jack was the oddest of fellows. Anyone would take him for a man with as level a head as his frank eyes, and so, in general, he was; but every now and then a demon of mischief seemed to take possession of him, and then, as now, he would plunge headlong into any perilous adventure that offered. It was quite useless to argue with him. For all his easygoing ways, and the kindliness which endeared him to so many people, there was never any turning him from his purpose, once he had made up his mind. He had a streak of obstinacy, and although he had never in the smallest degree resented the attempts of his friends to stand in the way of his will, Mr. Babbacombe could not call to mind when the most forceful of representations had born the least weight with him. If you stood in his way, he just put you aside, perfectly kindly, but quite inexorably; and if you swore at him, when all was done, for having done a crazy, dangerous thing, although he was genuinely penitent for having caused a friend anxiety you could see that he was puzzled to know why you should worry about him at all.

  “The trouble with you, Jack,” said Mr. Babbacombe, following, aloud, the trend of these thoughts, “is that you’re neither to lead nor drive!”

  John glanced down at him, amusement springing to his face. “Yes, I am. Why, what a fellow you make me out to be!”

  “Once you’ve taken a notion into your silly head, one might as well try reasoning with a mule as with you!” insisted Babbacombe.

  “Well,” said John apologetically, wrinkling his brow, “a man ought to be able to make up his mind for himself, and once he’s done so he shouldn’t let himself be turned from his purpose. I daresay I’m wrong, but so I think. In this case, I know very well what I’m about—and I swear to you I’m not funning, Bab! I own, at the outset I thought it might be good sport to keep the gate for a day or two, and try whether I could discover what was afoot here, but that’s all changed, and I’m serious—oh, more than ever in my life! And also I am quite determined,” he added.