*II*
Thinking it probable that he might get some balloons at the nearestvillage about five miles away, Templeton set off to walk there. Eveswould not be back till the afternoon; there was plenty of time. As heleft the shop he met the man Smail, who had been in Noakes's company onthe day of the experiment with the glider. The man leered at him andpassed on.
When Templeton, unsuccessful in his quest, returned to the farm atmidday, he found Mrs. Trenchard in a state of great agitation.
"Oh, Mr. Templeton," she cried, bursting into tears, "to think I'velived to see this day!"
"Why, what's the matter, Mrs. Trenchard?" he asked.
"He's there, sir," she nodded towards her husband's little den, "and'tis ruin to us, and we'll have to go to work'us, and my poor Joe----"
"Come, Mrs. Trenchard, don't be upset. Just tell me all about it.Nothing has happened to Mr. Trenchard, I hope?"
"Only a broken heart, sir. Ah! if he'd only telled me afore! We've hadbad times, as you know, sir; 'twas worse than I knew, and my poor mankep' it all to himself, so's not to worrit me. He went and borrowedmoney of Mr. Noakes, sir, to tide him over harvest. I don't know therights of it; 'tis too much for my poor head; but by what I can make ofit Trenchard signed a paper to say as if he didn't pay back the money bya certain time the farm 'ud belong to Mr. Noakes, and a week afore thetime Mr. Noakes could put a man in to see as we didn't rob him. Andhe's in now, sir, in there--'tis Ted Smail, a rascal of a man as knockshis poor wife about. And what I'll do, Them above only knows."
"Can't Mr. Trenchard turn him out?" asked Templeton.
"'Tis the law, sir; Trenchard owned it all, poor man, and axed mypardon, he did, for bringing it on me. Ah! if he'd only telled meafore! A week's such a little time to get all that money. When hetelled me, wi' tears in his eyes, I said, 'Now just you run up along toLunnon and see your brother, as keeps a public-house and is rolling inmoney. He'll help 'ee, and I'll work myself to skin and bone to pay himback.' And he'd just time to catch the train at the junction, and ifhis brother be hard, as some be, there's nothing but the work'us forus."
"Cheer up, Mrs. Trenchard. Let's hope for the best. I'll talk it overwith Eves when he gets back, and we'll see what can be done."
"Thank 'ee kindly, sir, but don't 'ee go against the law. The law be aterrible creature."
In the afternoon Eves returned with his purchases.
"There you are, old man," he cried, "acid, stoppers, and tubing. You'vegot the balloons?"
"No. I say, Tom, this experiment's off for the time; things here are ina deuce of a mess."
He gave an outline of the domestic troubles.
"Whew!" Eves whistled. "So that's old Noakes's game. That throws aflood of light on the old villain's doings. But we'll dish him yet.The first thing is to get this fellow Smail out of the place. That willmake the old woman feel a little easier."
"I don't see how we can do that. Trenchard signed the deed or whateverit's called, and you may be sure that Noakes kept on the right side ofthe law."
"Well, let's go and see."
They opened the door of the farmer's little room, and beheld Smail lyingon his back on the sofa placidly smoking a very rank tobacco. On a chairwas a basket of provisions and several bottles of beer.
"I say, my man," said Eves, "your boots are rather dirty, you know."
Smail closed one eye and said nothing.
"Mrs. Trenchard doesn't like it, you know," Eves went on. "Don't youthink you'd better go?"
The man was still silent. Eves mutely consulted Templeton. Smail was abig, thick-set fellow; a physical struggle with him might end indisaster.
"Look here, how much do you want to go?" asked Eves. ("I've got somechange," he whispered to Templeton.)
Then the man spoke. Winking and waving his pipe, he declared, hoarsely:
"Here I be, and here I bide."
"We'll give you ten shillings," said Eves.
"Here I be, and here I bide."
"Oh, all right, bide away," said Eves, taking Templeton by the arm."Rotten tobacco, ain't it, Bob?"
They returned to the other room and sat down.
"We can't starve him out," said Eves. "The beggar's got grub enough fora week."
"If we could only entice him out it would be all right," said Templeton,"because I believe I've read somewhere that a bailiff or whatever youcall him can't legally force his way into a house."
"Well, only beer would entice that sort of bounder, and he's got plentyof that. He's a big hulk, but we _might_ manage to chuck him out."
"Dangerous that. Even if we succeeded, we might find ourselves in courtagain."
Eves stuck out his legs and pondered. Suddenly he sat up straight.
"By Jove, I've got it!" he cried. "We'll stink him out."
"How do you mean? It would have to be a powerful stink to upset afellow who can smoke that tobacco."
"Of course; and I haven't wasted my time in the lab, old man. I nevertook any interest in chemistry till I learnt how to make stinks. Whatabout H2S? The very thing. Splendid! We've got the acid; all we wantis--by Jove! where can we get some iron pyrites? That means anothertrip to Weymouth."
"And you probably won't get it there."
"Hang it all; can't we make it some other way?"
"Wait a bit. Don't you remember old Peters making it once by boilingsulphur with tallow? And he told us you get a more steady flow of gasthat way. We've probably got all we want on the premises. But how areyou going to get it into the room?"
"We'll have to find a way. Let's go and investigate."
Inquiry of Mrs. Trenchard elicited the information that her storecupboard ran along the whole length of the room in which Smail had madehimself at home. The wall between them was rather thick, but it wouldcertainly not be impossible to pierce a hole in it.
"Splendid!" said Eves. "We can make the gas in the store cupboard, andpass it into the room through one of our tubes. Of course, we'll haveto lock the man in."
"The gas won't drive him out of the window," said Templeton. "In fact,if he keeps that open the smell will never be strong enough."
"You may be sure the window won't be open. A fellow of that sort revelsin fug. No doubt he'll take an afternoon nap to-morrow. That'll be ourtime. He'll wake up choking, and if I know my man he'll make a dash forthe window and tumble out into the open--by the way, I suppose the gaswon't actually poison him?"
"No; the worst effect, I believe, is sickness and dizziness. We hadbetter start boring our hole to-night, when he's asleep. If we'recareful he won't hear us."
"We must get Mother Trenchard to take out her stores. Shall we tell herwhy?"
"Better not. I'll just say we want to try an experiment."
Mrs. Trenchard somewhat reluctantly agreed to remove her stores for ashort time. From her they obtained a quantity of tallow and a few sticksof brimstone, and in the privacy of their bedroom they broke up andpulverised one of the sticks, and boiled a little of the sulphur powderwith tallow in a tin.
"Ripping stink," said Eves, putting his head out of the window. "It'sgoing to work A1. We'll pound up the rest of the brimstone, and thenwait for night. This is the stuff to give friend Smail. It will bringhim to his senses right enough."
"More likely it'll take his senses away from him to begin with,"answered his fellow-conspirator. "But it won't do him any real harm.Phew, what an aroma!"
After dark, when loud snores from the room proclaimed that its occupantwas asleep, they bored a couple of holes in the partition wall with abrace and bit obtained from Constable Haylock, who was something of acarpenter.
"I'll lend 'em to 'ee with pleasure, sir," he said when Eves requestedthe loan, "purvided 'tis for a legal objeck. As a servant of thenation, 'tud be my ruin if so be you was committing a felony."
"That's all right, constable," replied Eves. "We're only going to bore acouple of holes for Mrs. Trenchard."
&nbs
p; After an hour's careful work there were two small holes in the wall,about six niches apart and a few inches above the floor, just under thesofa. Satisfied that all was now ready for the morrow's experiment, thelads went to bed.
Next afternoon Templeton assured himself, by a peep from the outsidethrough the closed window, that Smail had settled himself on the sofa tosleep over his heavy midday meal. Eves then quietly opened the door,abstracted the key, and locked the door from the outside. Their simpleapparatus was already fitted up in the store cupboard--an old saucepanover a spirit lamp, with two holes in the lid through which they hadpassed two lengths of glass tubing, the other ends of which projectedslightly into the room. Their next move was to lock all the housedoors, except one leading to the garden at the back. By this time theyhad found it necessary to tell Mrs. Trenchard what they were about, andshe was rather timorously awaiting results.
"Whatever you do, Mrs. Trenchard, don't open the door to the fellowafter we get him out," said Eves, impressively. "Templeton says hecan't legally force his way in, so keep the doors shut and leave therest to us."
Templeton lit the spirit lamp and closed the store-room door. In a fewminutes the nauseating fumes of sulphuretted hydrogen stole through thecracks into the passage.
"Gracious goodness, we'll all be poisoned!" cried Mrs. Trenchard.
"No, it's quite harmless, I assure you, though rather horrid," saidEves. "Look here, Bob, you paste some strips of paper over the crackswhile I go outside and see how things are getting on."
He went out of the back door, hastened round to the front, and peeped inat the window. Smail was sleeping on his back with his mouth open, onehand dangling over the side of the sofa. The gas being colourless, Eveshad no evidence that the experiment was working until he put his nose tothe lower sill and got a faint whiff of the fetid odour. Minute afterminute passed, and there was no sign that the gas was having any effecton the sleeper. At last, however, he stirred, sniffed, and looked roundthe room. Then he got up, looked under the table, under the sofa,examined his basket of provisions, turned up on end two empty beerbottles. Seized with a fit of coughing, he made for the door, tugged atthe handle, shouted, then dashed to the window, pulled back the catch,tumbled out, and ran towards the front entrance.
Eves had slipped out of sight, but the moment the man's back was turnedhe ran to the window, sprang on to the sill, and braving the fumes,prepared to dispute any attempt to re-enter by the same way.
Meanwhile Smail was thundering at the front door, mingling curses withcries to be let in. At this signal that the experiment had succeeded,Templeton threw open the door of the store cupboard, extinguished thelamp, and asked Mrs. Trenchard to open all the inner doors and the upperwindows, so as to clear the air.
Finding the front door closed to him, Smail returned to the window.Eves had now entered the room and stood at the window, holding a poker.Smail approached him, scowling and squaring his fists.
"Just you come out o' that, you young viper," he cried. "You've a-triedto pison me, and I'll have the law of 'ee. That there room's my roomfor now; 'tis the law; so get out."
"Here I be, and here I bide," said Eves, brandishing the poker. "Don'tcome too near, Mr. Smail. You know so much about the law that you'll beaware you're committing a felony if you try to force your way in. Youdon't want to go to quod again, Mr. Smail, I'm sure. Besides, I don'tthink your head's hard enough to stand a whack from this poker."
"'HERE I BE, AND HERE I BIDE,' SAID EVES, BRANDISHING THEPOKER."]
"I say, Tom, don't be violent," said Templeton, coming up behind him.
"I'm just explaining," replied Eves. "Cut down to the village, Bob, andfetch old Haylock. He'll expound the law to Mr. Smail."
Smail spluttered and cursed, but he was evidently doubtful on the pointof law, and after standing irresolutely in front of the window for aminute or so he turned on his heel and shambled out through the gate.
"Splendid, old man!" cried Eves. "There's no law that I know againstmaking a stink, and he went out of his own accord."
"That's all very well, but the important thing is, will old Trenchard beable to raise enough money to pay off Noakes? I wish Aunt Caroline werehere. She'd be able to advise; she's had a good deal to do withlawyers, one way and another. If I knew where she was I'd wire her."
"Well, all we've to do at present is to keep Smail and Noakes out tillthe farmer gets back. From what I make of it, Trenchard still has a fewdays' grace before his debt to Noakes becomes due, and anything mayhappen in that time."