Pistols For Two and Other Stories

1

There were only three persons partaking of dinner at the inn, for it was neither a posting-house, nor a hostelry-much patronized by stage-coaches. The man in the moleskin waistcoat, who sat on one of the settles flanking the fireplace in the coffee-room, gave no information about himself; the young lady and gentleman on the other side were more forthcoming.

The lady had been set down at the Pelican after dusk by a cross-country coach. Her baggage was as modest as her appearance, the one consisting of a bandbox and a corded trunk; the other of brown curls smoothed neatly under a bonnet, a round cashmere gown made high to the neck and boasting neither frills nor lace, serviceable half-boots, and tan gloves, and a drab pelisse. Only two things belied the air of primness she seemed so carefully to cultivate: the jaunty bow which tied her bonnet under one ear, and the twinkle in her eye, which was as sudden as it was refreshing.

The gentleman was her senior by several years: an open-faced, pleasant young man whose habit proclaimed the man of business. He wore a decent suit of clothes, with a waistcoat that betrayed slight sartorial ambition; his linen was well-laundered, and the points of his shirt-collar starched; but he had tied his neckcloth with more regard for propriety than fashion, and he displayed none of the trinkets that proclaimed the dandy. However, the watch he consulted was a handsome gold repeater, and he wore upon one finger a signet-ring, with his monogram engraved, so that it was reasonable to suppose him to be a man of some substance.

He was fresh from Lisbon, he told the landlord, as he set down his two valises in the tap-room, and had landed at Portsmouth that very day. Tomorrow he was going to board a coach which would carry him within walking-distance of his paternal home: a rare surprise for his parents that would be, for they had not the least expectation of seeing him! He had been out of England for three years: it seemed like a dream to be back again.

The landlord, a burly, rubicund man with a smiling countenance, entered into the exile’s excitement with indulgent good humour. Young master was no doubt come home on leave from the Peninsula? Not wounded, he did hope? No, oh, no! Young master had not the good fortune to be a soldier. He was employed in a counting-house, and had no expectation of getting his transfer from Lisbon for years. But—with offhand pride—he had suddenly been informed that there was a place for him at headquarters in the City, and had jumped aboard the first packet. No time to warn his parents: he would take them by surprise, and wouldn’t they gape and bless themselves at the sight of him, by Jupiter! He had meant to have put up at the Swan, in the centre of the town, but such a press of custom had they that they had been obliged to turn him away. The same at the George: he hoped he was going to be more fortunate at the Pelican?

The landlord, gently edging him into the coffee-room, reassured him: he should have a good bedchamber, and the sheets well aired, a hot brick placed in the bed, and a fire lit in the grate. The gentleman from Lisbon said: ‘Thank the Lord for that! I have had my fill of tramping from inn to inn, I can tell you! What’s more, I’m devilish sharp-set! What’s for dinner?’

He was promised a dish of mutton and haricot beans, with soup to go before it, and a dish of broccoli to accompany it. He rubbed his hands together, saying boyishly: ‘Mutton! Real English mutton! That’s the dandy! That’s what I’ve been longing for any time these three years! Bustle about, man!—I could eat the whole carcase!’

By this time he had been coaxed into the coffee-room, a low-pitched apartment, with shuttered windows, one long table, and an old-fashioned hearth flanked by high-backed settles. On one of these, toasting her feet, sat the young lady; on the other, his countenance obscured by the journal he was perusing, was the man in the moleskin waistcoat. He paid no heed to the newcomer; but the lady tucked her toes under the settle, and assumed an attitude of stiff propriety.

The gentleman from Lisbon trod over to the fire, and stood before it, warming his hands. After a slight pause he observed with a shy smile that these November evenings were chilly.

The lady agreed to it, but volunteered no further remark. The gentleman, anxious that all the world should have a share in his joy, said that he was quite a stranger to England. He added hopefully that his name was John Cranbrook.

The lady subjected him to a speculative, if slightly surreptitious, scrutiny. Apparently she was satisfied, for she relaxed her decorous pose, and said that hers was Mary Gateshead.

He seemed much gratified by this confidence, and bowed politely, and said how do you do? This civility encouraged Miss Gateshead to invite him to sit down, which he instantly did, noticing as he did so that a pair of narrow eyes had appeared above the sheets of the journal on the opposite settle, and were fixed upon him. But as soon as his own encountered them they disappeared again, and all he could see, in fat black print, was an advertisement for Pears’ Soap, and another adjuring him to consider the benefits to be derived from using Russia Oil regularly on the hair.

Searching his mind for something with which to inaugurate a conversation, Mr Cranbrook asked Miss Gateshead whether she too had found the Swan and the George full.

She replied simply: ‘Oh, no! I could not afford the prices they charge at the big inns! I am a governess.’

‘Are you?’ said Mr Cranbrook, with equal simplicity. ‘I am a clerk in Nathan Spennymore’s Counting-house. In the ordinary way I can’t afford ‘em either, but I’m very plump in the pocket just now!’ He patted his breast as he spoke, and laughed, his eyes dancing with such pride and pleasure that Miss Gateshead warmed to him, and invited him to tell her how this delightful state of affairs had come about.

He was nothing loth, and while the man in the moleskin waistcoat read his paper, and the landlord laid the covers on the table, he told her how he had been sent out to Lisbon three years ago, and what it was like there—very well in its way, but a man would rather choose to be at home!—and how an unexpected stroke of good fortune had befallen him, and he was to occupy a superior place in the London house. He didn’t know why he should have been chosen, but Miss Gateshead might imagine how he had jumped at the chance!

Miss Gateshead suggested that the promotion might be a reward for good service, which made Mr Cranbrook blush vividly, and say that he was sure it was no such thing. In haste to change the subject, he enquired after her prospects and destination. Miss Gateshead was the eldest daughter of a curate with a numerous progeny, and she was bound for her first situation. Very eligible, she assured him! A large house, not ten miles from this place; and Mrs Stockton, her employer, had graciously promised to send the gig to the Pelican to fetch her in the morning.

‘I should have thought she might have sent a closed carriage in this weather,’ said John bluntly.

‘Oh, no! Not for the governess!’ Miss Gateshead said, shocked.

‘It may rain!’ he pointed out

She laughed. ‘Pooh, I shan’t melt in a shower of rain!’

‘You might take a chill,’ insisted John severely. ‘I don’t think Mrs Stockton can be at all an amiable person!’

‘Oh, do not say so! I am in such a quake already, in case I do not give satisfaction!’ said Miss Gateshead. ‘And there are nine children—only fancy!—so that I might be employed there for years!’

She seemed to regard this prospect with satisfaction, but Mr Cranbrook had no hesitation in favouring her with his own quite contrary views on such a fate.

The landlord came in, bearing the leg of mutton, which he set down on a massive sideboard. His wife, a decent-looking, stout woman in a mob-cap, arranged various removes on the table, bobbed a curtsy to Miss Gateshead, and asked if she would care for a glass of porter, or some tea.

Miss Gateshead accepted the offer of tea, and, after a moment’s hesitation, untied the strings of her bonnet, and laid this demure creation down on the settle. Her curls, unconfined, showed a tendency to become a trifle wayward, but, rather to John’s disappointment, she rigorously smoothed them into decorum.

The man in the moleskin waistcoat folded his journal, and bore it to the table, propping it up against a tarnished cruet, and continuing laboriously to peruse it. His attitude indicated that he preferred his own company, so his fellow-guests abandoned any ideas they might have had of including him in their chat, and took their places at the other end of the board. The landlady dumped a pot of tea at Miss Gateshead’s elbow, flanking it with a chipped jug of milk, and a cup and saucer; and John bespoke a pint of ale, informing Miss Gateshead, with his ingenuous grin, that home-brewed was one of the things he had chiefly missed in Portugual.

‘And what for you, sir?’ asked Mrs Fyton, addressing herself to the man at the bottom of the table.

‘Mr Waggleswick’ll take a heavy-wet as usual,’ said her spouse, sharpening the carving-knife.

It was at this point that John, suppressing an involuntary chuckle, discovered the twinkle in Miss Gateshead’s eye. They exchanged looks brimful of merriment, each perfectly understanding that the other found the name of Waggleswick exquisitely humorous.

The soup, ladled from a large tureen, was nameless and savourless, but Miss Gateshead and Mr Cranbrook, busily engaged in disclosing to one another their circumstances, family histories, tastes, dislikes, and aspirations, drank it without complaint. Mr Waggleswick seemed even to like it, for he called for a second helping. The mutton which followed the soup was underdone and tough, and the side-dish of broccoli would have been improved by straining. Mr Cranbrook grimaced at Miss Gateshead, and remarked during one of the landlord’s absences from the room that the quality of the dinner made him fearful of the condition of the bedchambers.

‘I don’t think they can enjoy much custom here,’ said Miss Gateshead wisely. ‘It is the most rambling old place, but no one seems to be staying here but ourselves, and you can lose yourself in the passages! In fact, I did,’ she added, sawing her way through the meat on her plate. ‘I have not dared to look at the sheets, but I have the most old-fashioned bed, and I asked them not to make up the fire again because it was smoking so dreadfully. And what is more I haven’t seen a chambermaid, and you can see there is no waiter, so I am sure they don’t expect guests.’

‘Well, I don’t think you should be putting up at a place little better than a hedge-tavern!’ said John.

‘Mrs Stockton wrote that it was cheap, and the landlady would take care of me,’ she explained. ‘Indeed, both she and the landlord have been most obliging, and if only the sheets are clean I am sure I shall have nothing to regret,’

Some cheese succeeded the mutton, but as it looked more than a little fly-blown the two young persons left Mr Waggleswick to the sole enjoyment of it, and retired again to the settle by the fire. The room being indifferently lit by a single lamp suspended above the table Mr Waggleswick elected to remain in his place with his absorbing journal. When he had finished his repast he noisily picked his teeth for some time, but at last pushed back his chair, and took himself off.

Miss Gateshead, who had been covertly observing him, whispered: ‘What a strange-looking man! I don’t like him above half, do you?’

‘Well, he is not precisely handsome, I own!’ John replied, grinning.

‘His nose is crooked!’

‘Broken. I dare say he is a pugilist.’

‘How horrid! I am glad I am not alone with him here!’

That made him laugh. ‘Why, we can’t accuse him of forcing his attentions on us, I am sure!’

‘Oh, no! But there is something about him which I cannot like. Did you notice how he watched you?’

‘Watched me? He barely raised his eyes above the newspaper!’

‘He did when he thought you were not looking at him. I know he was listening to every word we said, too. I have the oddest feeling that he may even be listening now!’

‘I would wager a large sum he is consuming another of his heavy-wets in the tap rather!’ replied John.

The door opened as he spoke, and Miss Gateshead’s nervous start was infectious enough to make him look round sharply. But it was only the landlady who came into the room, with a tray, on which she began to pile the plates and cutlery. She remarked that it was a foggy night, so that she had tightly closed the shutters in the bedrooms.

‘Get a lot of fog hereabouts, we do,’ she said, wiping a spoon on her apron, and casting it into a drawer in the sideboard. ‘Like a blanket it’ll be before morning, but it’ll clear off. I come from Norfolk myself, but a body gets used to anything. It’s the clay.’

‘Who is our fellow-guest?’ asked John.

‘Mr Waggleswick? He’s an agent of some sort: I don’t rightly know. Travels all over, by what he tells me. We’ve had him here two-three times before. He’s not much to look at, but he don’t give no trouble. I’ll bring your candles in presently. Your room is at the end of the passage, sir: turn to the right at the top of the stairs, and you’ll come to it. Fyton took your bags up.’

2

Waggleswick did not return to the coffee-room, and as no other visitors, other than the local inhabitants, who crowded into the tap-room across the passage, came to the Pelican, Miss Gateshead and Mr Cranbrook were left to sit on either side of the fire, chatting cosily together. Miss Gateshead was most interested to hear about Portugal, and as John, like so many young travellers, had filled a fat sketch-book with his impressions of an unknown countryside, it was not long before she had persuaded him to fetch down from his room this treasure.

The landlord was busy in the tap, and Mrs Fyton was nowhere to be seen, so John went upstairs unescorted, trusting to the landlady’s directions.

Another of the hanging oil-lamps lit the staircase, and rather feebly cast a certain amount of light a little way along the passage above, but beyond its radius all was in darkness. For a moment John hesitated, half-inclined to go back for a candle, but as his eyes grew more accustomed to the murk he thought that he could probably grope his way along the corridor to the room at the end of it. He did this, not entirely without mishap, since he tripped down one irrelevant step in the passage, and up two others, slightly ricking his ankle in the process, and uttering an exasperated oath. However, he reached the end of the passage, and found that there was a door confronting him. He opened it, and peeped in, and saw, by the light of a fire burning in the high barred grate, his two valises, standing in the centre of the room. As he knelt before them, tugging at the strap round the larger of them, he glanced cursorily round the apartment. It was of a respectable size, and boasted a very large bed, hung with ancient curtains, and bearing upon it a quilt so thick as to present more the appearance of a feather-mattress than of a coverlet. The rest of the furniture was commonplace and old-fashioned, and comprised several chairs, a dressing-table, a washstand, a huge mahogany wardrobe, a table by the bed, and a wall-cupboard on the same side of the room as the fireplace. A pair of dingy blinds imperfectly concealed the warped shutters bolted across the window. Some attempt to embellish the room had been made, for a singularly hideous china group stood in the middle of the mantelpiece, and a religious engraving hung above it. Mr Cranbrook hoped that Miss Gateshead’s room might be less gloomy: for himself he cared little for his surroundings, but he could imagine that a lady might find such an apartment comfortless, and even rather daunting.

The sketch-book was easily found, and he went off with it, shutting the door of the room behind him. He remembered the treacherous steps in the corridor, and went more carefully, putting out a hand to feel his way by touching the wall. It encountered not the wall, but something warm and furry.

He snatched it back, his eyes straining in the darkness, his heart suddenly hammering. Whatever he had touched was living and silent, and quite motionless. ‘Who’s that?’ he said quickly, an absurd, nameless dread knocking in his chest.

There was a slight pause, as though of hesitation, and then a voice said in a grumbling tone: ‘Why can’t you take care where you’re a-going, young master?’

Mr Cranbrook recognized the voice, which he had heard speaking to the landlord, and knew that what he had touched was a moleskin waistcoat. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, relieved, yet suspicious.

‘What’s that to you?’ retorted Waggleswick. ‘I suppose a cove can go to his room without axing your leave!’

‘I didn’t mean—But why were you spying on me?’

‘Spying on you? That’s a loud one! What would I want to do that for?’ said Waggleswick scornfully.

John could think of no reason, and was silent. He heard a movement, and guessed that Waggleswick was walking away from him. A moment later a door opened farther down the passage, and the glow of firelight within the room silhouetted Waggleswick’s figure for a brief instant before he went in, and shut the door behind him.

John hesitated, on the brink of retracing his steps to lock his own door. Then he recollected that he carried his money on his person, and had packed nothing of value in his valises, and he shrugged, and proceeded on his way.

Miss Gateshead was seated where he had left her. She greeted him with a smile that held some relief, and confided to him that she hated foggy nights.

‘There’s not much fog in the house,’ he replied reassuringly.

‘No, but it muffles all the noises, and makes one think the world outside dead!’ she said. She perceived that he did not quite appreciate this, and coloured. ‘It is only a foolish fancy, of course! I don’t think I like this house. A rat has been gnawing in the wainscoting in that corner, and a few minutes ago I heard the stairs creak, and quite thought it must be you. Do you believe in ghosts?’

‘No, certainly not,’ said John firmly, resolving to make no mention of his encounter with Mr Waggleswick.

‘Well, I didn’t think I did,’ confessed Miss Gateshead, ‘but I have the horridest feeling all the time that there is someone just behind me!’

Mr Cranbrook did not feel quite comfortable about the Pelican himself, but since it was plainly his part to comfort Miss Gateshead he adopted a bracing tone, saying that she was perhaps tired after her journey, and was suffering from an irritation of the nerves. She accepted this explanation meekly, and came to sit at the table, so that she could more clearly see Mr Cranbrook’s Peninsular sketches.

Shortly after ten o’clock the landlady came in with two tallow candles, stuck into pewter holders. She offered to escort Miss Gateshead up to bed, and since John thought he might as well go to bed too as sit on a settle beside a dying fire, he said that he would also go upstairs. He and Miss Gateshead had reached an excellent understanding by this time, and although nothing so blunt had passed between them as a declaration on Mr Cranbrook’s part that he meant to follow up this chance acquaintanceship with a view to extending it rather considerably, his intention was as patent as it was unavowed. Nor did Miss Gateshead make any attempt to discourage him in his resolve. She was even much inclined to think there was a good deal to be said for his vehemently expressed opinion that the life of a governess would not at all suit her.

They took up their candles, and followed Mrs Fyton upstairs. The noise had died down in the tap; Mrs Fyton said that they kept early hours in these parts, besides that folks were anxious to get home before the fog came down really thick. The light of the candle she carried threw wavering, grotesque shadows on the walls, and disclosed, upstairs, two other passages, leading off at right-angles from the one which ran the length of the house.

‘You know your way, sir,’ said Mrs Fyton, nodding a chaperon’s dismissal to John. ‘Come along, miss!’

John knew an impulse to accompany Miss Gateshead at least to her door. He thought she was looking scared, and guessed that this was probably the first time she had ever been alone in a strange inn. However, Mrs Fyton seemed a motherly woman, who might be trusted to look after a young lady, so he said good night, and contented himself with lingering at the head of the stairs until he had seen which door it was that led into Miss Gateshead’s room. It lay at the far end of the house to his, with Waggleswick’s between them; an arrangement John did not much like—though what evil intentions a middle-aged man of business putting up at an unfrequented inn could harbour in his breast he was unable to imagine. He went on to his own room, leaving the door ajar behind him. His valises were just as he had left them, and until he heard the landlady go down the stairs again he occupied himself in unpacking such articles as he would require for the night. When Mrs Fyton’s footsteps had died away, he picked up his candle, and went softly along the passage, and scratched on Miss Gateshead’s door.

‘Who is it?’

Her voice sounded frightened; he said reassuringly: ‘Only me—Cranbrook! I wanted to be sure you are quite comfortable: I won’t come in.’

Apparently Miss Gateshead had no dread of this new acquaintance at least. There was a step within the room, the door was opened, and she stood on the threshold, whispering: ‘I am so glad you have come! I have discovered that there is no key in this lock, and I know I shan’t sleep a wink! Did you see that dreadful creature as we came up the stairs?’

‘Waggleswick?’ he said sharply, looking down the passage. ‘No! Where was he?’

‘In the corridor that leads to the back stairs. I caught a glimpse of him, but he stepped out of sight on the instant. I told you he was spying on us!’

‘It’s impossible! Why should he?’ Mr Cranbrook said, in a lowered tone. ‘Shall I go down and ask Mrs Fyton for a key to your door?’

‘I am persuaded it would not be the least avail. I dare say it has been lost for years, for this is the most ramshackle, neglected place I ever was in! The dust under my bed—! Oh, I do wish Mrs Stockton would have fetched me tonight!’

‘So do I—at least, no, I don’t, for if she had I should not have met you,’ said John honestly. ‘But it is very uncomfortable for you, and I don’t like that! Mind, I don’t believe that fellow Waggleswick means any harm: ten to one it is all curiosity! but put a chair under your doorhandle, if you are afraid.’

This suggestion found favour. Miss Gateshead wondered that she should not have thought of it for herself, thanked him, and once more bade him good night.

He went back to his own room, pausing at the entrance to the corridor that led to the back stairs, and peering down it. He could see no one, nor did any sound, other than those issuing from the tap downstairs, come to his ears.

3

He had a book packed in his valise, which he had meant to read in the chair by his fire, but this was reduced to glowing embers, and when he would have put more coal on it he found that there was no scuttle in the room. It hardly seemed worth while to ring for it, so he undressed, and got into bed, setting the candle on the table beside him, and thrusting his watch and his pocket-book under the pillow. The bed was a feather one, and though rather smothering, not uncomfortable. He opened his book, and began to read, occasionally raising his head to listen intently. His room was situated too far from the tap for him to be able to hear the murmur of voices there. He heard nothing at all, not even the stir of a mouse.

This dense stillness began presently to make him feel uneasy. It was not very late, and it would have been natural had some sounds broken the silence. In any inn one expected to hear noises: the voices of other guests; footsteps; the slam of a door; the clatter of crockery; or the rumble of wheels in the courtyard. The Pelican, of course, had no courtyard, and obviously did not enjoy much custom; but it did seem odd that he had seen no servant in the house other than the tapster. One would have thought that there would have been at least a waiter, and a chambermaid. He wondered who would clean the boots he had put outside his door, and whether anyone would bring him any shaving-water in the morning.

The silence was so profound that when a coal dropped in the grate it made him start. He was neither a nervous nor an imaginative young man, and the realization that Miss Gateshead had communicated to him some of her alarm vexed him. More than once he found himself lowering his book to glance round the room; and the creak of the chair in which he had sat to pull off his boots actually made him sit up in bed to make sure that he was alone.

When the candle was burnt down to a stub he began to be sleepy; and after finding that the printed words before his eyes were running one into the other, he closed the book, and snuffed the candle. A faint glow showed that the fire still lived. He turned on his side, the feather-bed billowing about him, and in less than ten minutes was asleep.

He awoke he knew not how much later, but so suddenly and with such a certainty that something had roused him that he was alert on the instant, and listening intently. His first thought was that Miss Gateshead must have called to him, but not a sound reached his ears. The glow from the hearth had disappeared; the room was in darkness.

He raised himself on his elbow. As he crouched thus, his ears straining, his eyes trying unavailingly to pierce the night, the conviction that he was not alone took such strong possession of his mind that the sweat broke out on his body. He stretched out his hand, and groped cautiously on the table for the tinder-box. It brushed against the candlestick, which made a tiny sound as it was shifted on the table, and in that moment it seemed to John that something moved in the room. He said breathlessly: ‘Who’s there?’

As he spoke, his fingers closed over the tinder-box. He sat up with a jerk, felt the bed move as something cannoned into it, and, even as he flung up his hands to grapple his unknown visitant, was thrust roughly down again on to his pillows, a hand clamped over his mouth, and another gripping his throat in a strangling hold. He struggled madly, trying to wrench away the clutch on his windpipe. His hands brushed against something warm and furry; a voice breathed in his ear: ‘Dub your mummer!’

He tore at the unyielding hands, writhing, and trying to kick his feet free of the bedclothes, the bed creaking under his frenzied efforts. The grip on his throat tightened till the blood roared in his ears, and he felt his senses slipping from him. ‘Still! Still!’ hissed Waggleswick. ‘One squeak out of you, and I’ll land you a facer as’ll put you to sleep for a se’ennight! Bow Street, clod-pole!—Bow Street!’

He stopped struggling, partly from surprise at these last words, partly because the breath was choked out of him. The hand on his throat slightly relaxed its grip. He drew a sobbing breath, and distinctly heard the creak of boards under a stealthy footfall. It seemed to come from the direction of the wall-cupboard beside the fireplace.

‘For God’s sake, lay you still!’ Mr Waggleswick’s breath was hot in his ear.

He was free, and heard the stir of the bed-curtains, as though Waggleswick had shrunk behind them. He lay perfectly still, rigid and sweating. If Waggleswick were indeed a Bow Street Runner, he ought undoubtedly to obey his instructions; if he were not, it did not seem as though he would have much compunction in silencing those who defied him in a manner highly unpleasant to them. The darkness seemed to press on his eyeballs; he had difficulty still in breathing, but his senses were quite acute, and he caught the sound of a key softly, slowly turning in a lock. This unquestionably came from the direction of the cupboard; a faint lightening of the gloom gradually appeared as the door of the cupboard opened, as though a very dim light had been concealed there. It was obscured by a monstrous shadow, and then dwindled, as the door was pushed to again.

A loose floor-board cracked; John’s fists clenched unconsciously, but a warning hand coming from out of the curtains and pressing his shoulder kept him otherwise motionless.

Someone was coming inch by inch towards the bed: someone who knew the disposition of the furniture so exactly that he made no blunder. The heavy coverlet stirred over John’s limbs, and, as his hands came up instinctively, smothering folds were over his face, pressed down and down over nose and mouth. He grabbed at his new assailant’s wrists, but before his fingers could close on them the pressure abruptly left his face, and he heard a sudden scuffle, a strangled, startled oath, and the quick shifting of stockinged feet on the floor.

He flung the quilt off, groping for the tinder-box, which he had dropped on the bed.

“The glim! light the glim!’ panted Waggleswick.

A chair went over with a crash; something was knocked flying from the dressing-table, as the two men swayed and struggled about the room. John’s desperate fingers found the tinder-box, and as with trembling fingers he contrived to strike a light from it, a heavy thud shook the room.

The tiny flame flared up; the landlord and Waggleswick were writhing and heaving together on the floor, silent but murderous.

John lit the candle, and tumbled out of bed, hurrying to Waggleswick’s aid. The treatment he had suffered during the last few minutes had considerably shaken him, and he felt rather dizzy, nor did a wild kick from one of Fyton’s plunging legs do anything to improve his condition. The landlord was immensely strong, and for several minutes he made it impossible for the two other men to overpower him. He and Waggleswick rolled on the floor, locked together, but at last John managed to grab one of his arms, as he was attempting to gouge out Waggleswick’s eye, and to twist it with all his might. Waggleswick, who happened at that moment to be uppermost, was thus enabled to drive home a shattering blow to the jaw. This half stunned the landlord, and before he could recover Waggleswick had vigorously banged his head on the floor. This deprived him of his wits for several minutes, and by the time he was at all able to continue the struggle a pair of handcuffs had been locked round his wrists.

‘Bide, and watch him!’ commanded Waggleswick, out of breath, much abraded, but still surprisingly active. ‘Take my barker, and don’t stand no gammon!’ With that, he thrust a pistol into Mr Cranbrook’s hand, and dived into the cupboard, adding over his shoulder: ‘Hit him over the head with the butt, if he don’t stay still! I don’t want him shot: he’s one for the Nubbing Cheat, he is!’

John found that his knees were shaking. He sat down, and curtly bade the landlord, who seemed to be trying to get up, to stay where he was. He had only just recovered his breath when a glimmer of light shone through the cupboard door, growing brighter as footsteps approached. Mr Waggleswick came back into the room with a lamp.

‘All’s bowman!’ he announced, taking his gun away from John. ‘Caught both the bites red-handed. She’s as bad as he is, and worse! Get up, hang-gallows!’

He endorsed this command with a kick, and the landlord heaved himself to his feet. A settled, dogged expression had descended on to his face; he did not speak, but when John met his eyes he saw that there was so malevolent a look in them that it was almost impossible to believe he could be the same man as the comfortable, smiling host of a few hours earlier.

John shuddered, and turned away to pick up his breeches. When he had pulled these on over his nightshirt, and had thrust his feet into a pair of shoes, Waggleswick invited him to come down and see what had awaited him in the wash-house below his room.

‘Jem and me’ll lock the cull and his moll in the cellar till morning,’ he said. ‘Taken me a rare time to snabble you, my buck, ain’t it? You’ll pay for it! Get down them dancers, and don’t you go for to forget that this litle pop o’ mine is mightly liable to go off! Mighty liable it is!’

He motioned the landlord to go before him into the cupboard, grinning at John’s face of horror. ‘Didn’t suspicion what there was behind these here doors, did you?’ he said.

‘I never tried to open them. Good God, a stairway?’

‘Down to the wash-house. Took me three visits to get a sight of them, too! Ah, and you’d have gone down ‘em feet first if I hadn’t have been here, master, like a good few other young chubs! To think I been here four times, and never a blow come worth the biting until you walked in tonight, with your pocket-full o’ flimseys, and your talk of no one suspicioning you was in England! Axing your pardon, you was a regular noddy, wasn’t you, sir?’

Mr Cranbrook agreed to it humbly, and brought up the rear of the little procession that wound its way down a steep, twisting stair to a stone-flagged wash-house, where a huge copper was steaming in one corner, and the tapster was standing over Mrs Fyton, loudly protesting her innocence of evil intent in a chair in the middle of the room.

‘My assistant—junior, o’ course, but a fly cove!’ said Waggleswick, jerking a thumb at the tapster. ‘All right, Jem: we’ll stow ‘em away under hatches now!’

John, whose revolted gaze had alighted on a chopper, lying on a stout, scrubbed table, was looking a little pale. He was left to his own reflections while the prisoners were driven down to the cellar; and his half-incredulous and wholly nauseated inspection of the wash-house made it unnecessary for Waggleswick to inform him, as he did upon his return with Jem, that it had been the Fytons’ practice to chop up the bodies of their victims, and to boil down the remains in the copper. ‘Though I don’t rightly know what they done with the heads,’ added Mr Waggleswick thoughtfully.

John had heard tales reminiscent of this gruesome disclosure, but he had imagined that they belonged to an age long past.

‘Lor’ no, sir!’ said Waggleswick indulgently. ‘There’s plenty of willains alive today! We’ve had this ken in our eye I dunno how long, but that Fyton he was a cunning one!’

‘Ah!’ nodded Jem, signifying portentous assent.

‘You might have told me!’ John said hotly.

‘Well,’ said Waggleswick, scratching his chin, ‘I might, o’ course, but you was in the nature of a honey-fall, sir, and I wasn’t so werry sure as you’d be agreeable to laying in your bed awaiting for Fyton to come an’ murder you unbeknownst if I was to tell you what my lay was.’

A horrible thought crossed John’s mind. ‘Miss Gates-head!’

‘She’s all right and tight! She was knowed to be putting up here, and Fyton never ran no silly risks.’

‘Adn’t got no ‘addock stuffed with beans neither,’ interpolated Jem, somewhat incomprehensibly.

Waggleswick said severely: ‘Don’t talk that cant to flash coves as don’t understand it, sap-head! What he means, sir, is she hadn’t no full purse, like you told us all you had!’

‘Not but what Fyton might ha’ done a bit in the body-snatching line,’ suggested Jem.

Mr Cranbrook shuddered.

‘Well, he ain’t snatched her body,’ pointed out Mr Waggleswick.

John looked at him. ‘She must not know of this! It is ghastly!’

Waggleswick scratched his chin again. ‘I dunno as she need. She won’t be wanted as a witness—like you will, sir!’

‘Yes, of course: I know that! I am very willing. Has that monster disposed of many travellers in this frightful way?’

‘There’s no saying,’ replied Waggleswick. ‘Not above two or three since we got wind of it in Bow Street.’

‘And before? It is horrible to think of!’

‘Ah!’ agreed Jem. ‘Dear knows ‘ow many went into that there copper afore us Runners come down ‘ere!’

On this macabre thought, Mr Cranbrook retired again to his interrupted repose, if not to enjoy much slumber, at least to employ his time profitably in thinking out what plausible tale he would concoct for Miss Gateshead’s benefit in the morning.

4

They met in the coffee-room, still shuttered and unaired. Miss Gateshead was unbarring the shutters when John came into the room, and her comments on the lack of orderly management in the inn were pungent and to the point.

‘I tugged and tugged at the bell, and who do you think brought me a can of hot water at last?’ she said. ‘The tapster!’

‘It is too bad! But the thing is that they were cast into a pucker by the landlady’s being taken ill in the night,’ explained John glibly. ‘Should you mind putting on your bonnet, and stepping out with me to partake of breakfast at one of the other inns?’

‘Not at all!’ replied Miss Gateshead promptly. ‘I am very sorry for the landlady, but she almost deserves to be taken ill for keeping her house in such a shocking state! I will fetch my bonnet and pelisse directly.’ She paused, coloured slightly, and said in a shamefaced voice: ‘I am afraid you must have thought me very foolish last night! Indeed, I cannot imagine what can have possessed me to be so nonsensical! I never slept better in my life! Is it not odd what absurd fancies one can take into one’s head when one is a little tired?’

‘Most odd!’ agreed Mr Cranbrook, barely repressing a shiver.