The valet folded his lips closely, but after a moment replied: ‘Well, you see, Mr Stubbs, that is my business. I have my reasons.’
The Runner eyed him with growing disfavour. ‘Lookee!’ he pronounced. ‘When I go ferreting for news of a desprit criminal, that’s dooty. When you does the same thing, Mr Gregg, it looks to me uncommon like Spitefulness, and Spitefulness is what I don’t hold with, and never shall.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Mr Peabody.
The valet smiled again, but unpleasantly, and said in his silky way: ‘Why, you may say so if you choose, Mr Stubbs. And I hope I may ask whom you saw at the Red Lion?’
‘I didn’t see no desprit criminal,’ answered Mr Stubbs. ‘It’s my belief there ain’t no desprit criminal. Is it likely the place would house such with a Justice of the Peace putting up there?’
‘You went into the little back bedchamber? They let you go there?’
‘I went into two back bedchambers, one which is the landlord’s and the other which the young French lady’s maid has.’
The valet’s eyelids were quickly raised. ‘Her maid? Did you see her maid?’
‘Ay, poor wench, I saw her right enough, and I heard Miss a-scolding of her all for breaking a bottle.’
‘What was she like?’ demanded Gregg, leaning forward again.
Mr Stubbs looked at him with a shade of uneasiness in his eyes. ‘Why, I didn’t get much sight of her face, she being crying into her shawl fit to break her heart.’
‘Ah, so you didn’t see her face!’ said Gregg. ‘Perhaps she was a tall girl – a very tall girl?’
Mr Stubbs had been engaged in filling a long clay pipe, but he laid it down, and said slowly: ‘Ay, she was a rare, strapping wench. She had yaller hair, by what I could see of it.’
Gregg sat back in his chair and set his finger-tips together, and over them surveyed the Runners with a peculiar glint in his eyes. ‘So that was it!’ he said. ‘Well, well!’
‘What do you mean, “that was it”?’ said Mr Stubbs.
‘Only that you have seen Ludovic Lavenham; yes, and let him slip through your fingers too, I dare say.’
Mr Peabody, observing his colleague’s evident discomfiture, came gallantly to the rescue. ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘What we’ve done is, we’ve Lulled him – if so be it is him, which we ain’t proved yet. What we have to do now is to make a Pounce, and that, Mr Gregg, is what we decided to do without any help of yourn.’
‘You had better have made your pounce when you had him under your hand,’ said the valet dryly. ‘It is said in these parts that there are cellars below the ones you may see at the Red Lion; cellars which only Nye and Clem know the way into.’
‘If that’s true, we shall find them,’ said Mr. Stubbs, with resolution.
‘I hope you may,’ responded Gregg. ‘But take my advice, and go armed! The man you are after is indeed desperate, and I fancy he will not be without his pistols.’
The Runners exchanged glances. ‘I did hear tell of him being handy with his pops,’ remarked Mr Stubbs in a casual voice.
‘They say he never misses,’ said Gregg, lowering his eyes demurely. ‘If I were in your shoes, I should think it as well to shoot him before he could shoot me.’
‘Yes, I dare say,’ said Mr Stubbs bitterly, ‘but we ain’t allowed to go a-shooting of coves.’
‘But if you told – both of you – how he shot first, and would have escaped, it would surely be overlooked?’ suggested Gregg gently.
It was left to Mr Peabody to sum up the situation, but this he did not do until the valet had gone. Then he said to his troubled companion: ‘You know what this looks like to me, Jerry? It looks to me like as if there’s someone unaccountable anxious to have this Ludovic Lavenham put away quick – ah, and quiet, too!’
Mr Stubbs shook his head gloomily, and after a long silence, said: ‘We got to do our dooty, William.’
Their duty took them up the road to the Red Lion very early next morning. Their plan of surprising the household was frustrated by Nye, who had taken the precaution of setting Clem on the watch. By the time the Runners had reached the inn Ludovic had been roused, and haled, protesting, to the cellar, and his room swept bare of all trace of him. The Runners were not gratified by the least sign of surprise in Nye, who greeted them with no more than the natural annoyance of a landlord knocked up at an unseasonable hour. In the tap-room Clem was prosaically engaged in scrubbing the floor; he turned a blank, inquiring face towards the Runners, and with the stolid air of one who has work to do, returned to his task.
‘Well, and what might you be wanting at this hour of the morning?’ asked Nye testily.
‘What we want is a word with that abigail we saw yesterday,’ said Mr Stubbs.
‘Do you mean Mamzelle’s Lucy?’ said Nye.
‘Ah, that’s the one I mean,’ nodded Mr Stubbs.
‘Well, if you want a word with her, you’d best get on the Brighton stage. She ain’t here any longer.’
Mr Stubbs gave him a penetrating look, and said deeply: ‘You’re quite sure of that, are you, Mr Nye?’
‘Of course I’m sure! I told you yesterday how it would be. Miss turned her off. What do you want with her? She was a rare silly wench, and not so well-favoured neither.’
‘You know what I want with her,’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘You’re harbouring a dangerous criminal, Mr Nye, and that wench was him!’
This pronouncement, so far from striking terror into the landlord, seemed to afford him the maximum amount of amusement. After staring at the Runners in a bemused way for several minutes, he allowed a smile to spread slowly over his face. The smile led to a chuckle, the chuckle to a veritable paroxysm of laughter. The landlord, wiping his eyes with the corner of his apron, bade Clem share the joke, and as soon as it had been explained to him, Clem did share it. In fact, he continued to snigger behind his hand for much longer than the Runners thought necessary.
When Nye was able to stop laughing he begged Mr Stubbs to tell him what had put such a notion into his head, and when Mr Stubbs, hoping that this card at least might prove to be a trump, said that he had received information, he at first looked at him very hard, and then said: ‘Information, eh? Then I’ll be bound I know who gave you that same information! It was a scrawny fellow with a white face and the nastiest pair of daylights you ever saw! A fellow of the name of Gregg: that’s who it was!’
Mr Stubbs was a trifle disconcerted, and said guardedly: ‘I don’t say it was, and I don’t say it wasn’t.’
‘Lord love you, you needn’t tell me!’ said Nye, satisfied that his shot had gone home. ‘He’s had a spite against me since I don’t know when, while as for his master, if a stranger was to stop for half a day in this place, he’d go mad thinking it was Mr Ludovic come home to stop him taking what don’t belong to him. You’ve been properly roasted, that’s what you’ve been.’
‘I don’t know that,’ replied Mr Stubbs. ‘All I know is it’s very highly suspicious that that abigail ain’t here no more, and what I want to see, Mr Nye, is those cellars of yourn.’
‘Well, I’ve got something better to do than to take you down to my cellars,’ said Nye. ‘If you want to see ’em, you go and see ’em. I don’t mind.’
An hour later, when Sir Hugh came down to breakfast, a pleasing idea dawned in Nye’s brain, and as he set a dish of ham and eggs before his patron, he told him that the Runners were in the house again. Sir Hugh, more interested in his breakfast than in the process of the Law, merely replied that as long as they kept from poking their noses into his room, he had no objection to their presence.
‘Oh, they won’t do that, sir!’ said Nye, pouring him out a cup of coffee. ‘They’re down in the cellar.’
Sir Hugh was inspecting a red sirloin, and said in a preoccupied voice: ‘In the c
ellar, are they?’ Suddenly he let his eyeglass fall, and swung round in his chair to look at the landlord. ‘What’s that you say? In the cellar?’
‘Yes, sir. They’ve been there the best part of an hour now – off and on.’
Sir Hugh was a man not easily moved, but this piece of intelligence roused him most effectively from his habitual placidity. ‘Are you telling me you’ve let that red-nosed scoundrel loose in the cellars!’ he demanded.
‘Well, sir, seeing as he’s an officer of the Law, and with a warrant, I didn’t hardly like to gainsay him,’ said Nye apologetically.
‘Warrant be damned!’ said Sir Hugh. ‘There’s a pipe of Chambertin down there which I bought from you! What the devil are you about, man?’
‘I thought you wouldn’t be pleased, sir, but there! what can I do? They’ve got it into their heads there’s a secret cellar. They’re hunting for it. Clem tells me it’s something shocking the way they’re pulling the kegs about.’
‘Pulling the –’ Words failed Sir Hugh. He rose, flinging down his napkin, and strolled from the parlour towards the tap-room and the cellar stairs.
Fifteen minutes later Miss Thane, entering the room, was mildly surprised to find her brother’s chair empty, and inquired of Nye what had become of him.
‘It was on account of them Runners, ma’am,’ said Nye.
‘What! are they here again?’ exclaimed Miss Thane.
‘Ay, they’re here, ma’am, a-hunting for the way into my hidden cellar. Oh, Mr Ludovic’s safe enough! But on account of my mentioning to Sir Hugh how them Runners was disturbing the wine downstairs, he got up, leaving his breakfast like you see, and went off in a rare taking to see what was happening.’
Miss Thane cast one glance at Nye’s wooden countenance, and said: ‘You were certainly born to be hanged, Nye. What was happening?’
‘Well, ma’am, by what I heard in the tap-room they had pulled my kegs about a thought roughly, and what with that and Sir Hugh getting it into his head they was wishful to tap the Nantes brandy, there was a trifle of a to-do. Clem tells me it was rare to hear Sir Hugh handle them. By what I understand, he’s laid it on them not to move any kegs by so much as an inch, and what he told them about wilful damage frightened them fair silly – that and the high tone he took with them.’
‘They didn’t ask him what he knew of Lord Lavenham, did they?’ said Miss Thane anxiously.
‘They didn’t have no chance to ask him, ma’am. He told them they might look for all the criminals they chose, so long as they didn’t tamper with the liquor, nor go nosing round his bedchamber.’
‘But, Nye, what if they find your hidden cellar?’ said Miss Thane.
He smiled dourly. ‘They won’t do that – not while they keep to the open cellars. In fact, while Sir Hugh was telling them what their duty was, and what it wasn’t, I was able to take Mr Ludovic his breakfast.’
‘Where is your secret cellar, Nye?’
He looked at her for a moment, and then replied: ‘You’ll be the ruin of me yet, ma’am. It’s under the floor of my store-room.’
Sir Hugh came back into the room presently. He gave it as his opinion that the Runners were either drunk or half-witted and said that he fancied they would have no more trouble with them. Upon his sister’s inquiring hopefully whether he had contrived to get rid of them, he replied somewhat severely that he had made no such attempt. He had merely defined their duties to them and warned them of the consequences of overstepping the limits of the law.
Both Nye and Miss Thane were dissatisfied, but there was no doubt that the irruption of Sir Hugh into the cellars had done much to damp the Runners’ ardour. His air of unquestionable authority, his knowledge of the law, and the fact of his being acquainted, apparently, with the magistrate in charge at Bow Street made them conscious of a great disinclination to fall foul of him again. Nor could they feel, when they had discussed the point between themselves, that a house which held so rigid a legal precisian was the place in which to look for a hardened criminal. They had failed on two occasions to find the least trace of Ludovic Lavenham; the landlord, who should be most nearly concerned, seemed to look upon their search with indifference; and had it not been for the suspicious circumstance of the abigail’s disappearance, they would have been much inclined to have returned to London. The valet’s words, however, had been explicit. They decided to prosecute a further search for a hidden cellar, and to keep the inn under observation in the hope of surprising Ludovic in an attempt to escape.
While this search, which entailed a patient tapping of the walls and the floor of the other cellars, was in progress, Nye seized the opportunity to visit Ludovic. He returned presently and reported that his lordship wouldn’t stay patient for long; in fact, was already threatening to come out of hiding and deal with the Runners in his own fashion.
‘Really, one cannot blame him,’ said Miss Thane judicially. ‘It is most tiresome of these people to continue to haunt us. It quite puts an end to our adventures.’
‘Yes, it does,’ agreed Eustacie. ‘Besides, I am afraid that Ludovic will catch cold in the cellar.’
‘Very true,’ said Miss Thane. ‘There is nothing for it: since Hugh has been so useless in the matter, we must get rid of the Runners ourselves.’
‘You have not seen them,’ said Eustacie bitterly. ‘They are the kind of men who stay, and stay, and stay.’
‘Yes, they seem to be a dogged couple, I must say. I am afraid it is your abigail who is at the root of their obstinacy.’ She broke off, and suddenly stood up. ‘My love, I believe I have hit upon a notion! Would you – now, would you say I was a strapping wench?’
‘Of certainty I should not say anything of the kind!’ replied Eustacie, indignant at the implication that she could be capable of such discourtesy. ‘You are very tall, bien entendu, but –’
‘Say no more!’ commanded Miss Thane. ‘I have a Plan!’
Ten
In pursuance of her plan, Miss Thane took care to remain out of sight of the two Runners for the rest of the day. She repaired to her own room, and sat there with an agreeable and blood-curdling romance, and from time to time Eustacie came up to report on the proceedings below-stairs.
Mr Stubbs took an early opportunity of subjecting Eustacie to a searching cross-examination, but from this she emerged triumphant. Having established a reputation for excitability, it was easy for her when in difficulties to become incoherent, and consequently (since she at once took refuge in the French tongue) unintelligible. At the end of half an hour’s questioning, Mr Stubbs, and not his victim, felt quite battered.
He and his companion spent a wearing and an unsatisfactory day. The cellar, besides being extremely cold, revealed no secrets, and a locked cupboard which Mr Peabody discovered in a dark corner of the passage leading to the kitchen was responsible for an unpleasant interlude with the landlord. As soon as Mr Peabody discovered the cupboard, which was partly hidden behind a pile of empty cases and baskets, he demanded the key of Nye. When the landlord, after a prolonged search in which Clem joined, announced that he had lost it, the hopes of both Runners rose high, and Mr Stubbs warned Nye that if he did not immediately produce the key, they would break in the door. Nye retorted that if damage were done to his property, he would lodge a complaint in Bow Street. He said so many times, and with such unwonted emphasis, that there was nothing in the cupboard but some spare crockery that both Runners became agog with suspicion, and resembled nothing so much as a couple of terriers at a rat-hole. They pulled all the empty cases away from the cupboard door, so that Miss Nye, coming out of the kitchen with a loaded tray, fell over them, smashing three plates and scattering a dish of cheese-cakes all down the narrow passage. Miss Nye, too deaf to hear Mr Peabody’s profuse apologies, spoke bitterly and at length on the subject of Men in general, and Bow Street Runners in particular, and when Mr Peabody, wit
h an unlucky idea of repairing the damage, collected all the dusty cheese-cakes together on the larger portion of the broken dish and handed them to her, she so far forgot herself as to box his ears.
The next thing to do, Miss Nye having retired, seething, to the kitchen, was to break down the door of the cupboard. Mr Stubbs thought that Mr Peabody should perform this office, and Mr Peabody considered Mr. Stubbs, who was of bulkier build, the man for the task. It was not until the argument had been settled that they discovered that the door opened outwards. When Mr Stubbs demanded of Nye why he had not divulged this fact at the outset, Nye replied that he did not wish them to break into that cupboard. He added that they would regret it if they did, a hint that made Mr Stubbs draw an unwieldy pistol from his pocket, and warn the supposed occupant of the cupboard that if he did not instantly give himself up, the lock would be blown out of the door. No answer being forthcoming, Mr Stubbs told his assistant to stand ready to Pounce, and, setting the muzzle of his pistol to the lock, pulled the trigger.
The noise made by the shot was quite deafening, and an ominous sound of breaking glass was heard faintly through its reverberations. Commanding Mr Peabody to cover the cupboard with his own pistol, Mr Stubbs seized the handle of the door and pulled it open, carefully keeping in the lee of it as he did so.
Mr Peabody lowered his gun. The cupboard was quite a shallow one, and contained nothing but shelves bearing glass and crockery. Such specimens as had come within the range of the shot had fared badly, a circumstance which roused Nye to immediate and loud-voiced wrath.
The explosion had been heard in other parts of the house, and even a dim echo of it by Miss Nye. She erupted once more from the kitchen, this time armed with the rolling-pin, at precisely the same moment as Sir Hugh Thane, eyeglass raised, loomed up at the other end of the passage.
‘What the devil’s toward?’ demanded Sir Hugh, with all the irritability of a man rudely awakened from his afternoon sleep.