Part 12

I ducked my head, but before I could slip back he had blundered right across my shoulders, which reached, perhaps, to his knees. He went over me with an oath and a crash, and as he struck the floor his pistol exploded.

I drew back with the smoke of it in my mouth and nostrils--and listened. Not a sound came from Leggat's corner, not a groan from the body stretched within reach. The man was dead, for certain; and we others had no time to lose.

A thud in the corridor outside called me to my senses. "Robert Leggat," I cried, "this is a black night's job for you! Lay down that pistol, find your shoes, and run!"

At this distance of time I would give something to know how it took him--this voice calling his true name out of the darkness and across Carthew's body.

"My God! Who is that?" he asked, and I could hear his teeth chattering.

Before I had need to answer, he broke from his corner and flung up the window, but recollected himself, and ran for his shoes. He had scarcely found them when there came that rush upon the stairs for which I had been listening, and a woman's voice screamed, "The Mistress! They've murdered the mistress!"

In my heart I blessed Mrs. Carthew--poor soul--for having swooned so conveniently outside the door. By this time Leggat was clambering across the window sill. What sort of drop lay below it? I saw the black mass of his body framed there for a moment against a sky almost as black, and watched as he lowered himself, and disappeared. I listened for the thud of a fall; but none came, and running to see what had befallen him, I caught another glimpse of him as he stole past a lit skylight in a long flat roof scarcely six feet below.

Here was luck beyond my hoping. The crowd in the passage was still occupied with Mrs. Carthew, but at length someone tried the handle of the door. This was my cue. I clambered out after Leggat--who by this time had disappeared--drew down the window-sash cautiously and wriggled across the leads of the roof, pausing only at the skylight to peer down into an empty room, where a score of wooden-seated chairs stood in disarray by a long table--the deserted auction-room, doubtless. At the far end of this roof a chimney-stack rose gaunt against the night; and flattening myself against the side of it, I waited for the dull crash which told that the crowd had broken in the door.

I had made better speed, you understand, but for the risk of overtaking Leggat and being recognised. As it was, I had set the worst of all terrors barking at his heels, and by and by--it may have been after three minutes' wait--I chuckled at the sound of a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard below me. It was too dark for me to catch sight of the rider as he mounted; but he made for the lower gate of the yard and, once past it, broke into a gallop. As its echoes died away, I began my search for the ladder by which Leggat had descended; found it, as I had expected, in the form of a stout water-pipe; and having reached the ground without mishap, brushed and smoothed my clothes and sauntered up the stable-yard to the hotel archway.

At the foot of the stairs there, I was almost bowled over by the Boots, who came flying down three stairs at a stride. "The Doctor!" he shouted: "the Doctor!" He tore past me and out into the street.

I entered the coffee-room and rang the bell.

I suppose that I rang it at intervals for something like half-an-hour before the waitress found me yawning before the exhausted fire.

"Sale over yet?" I asked pleasantly.

"Sale over? Sale ov--?" She set down the lamp and gasped. "Do you tell me that you've slept through it all?"

"All what, my dear?"

Out it all came in a flood. "The Squire's shot himself! In the Blue Room over your very head--locked the door and shot himself clean through the brains! Poor gentleman, he felt his position, though he did drink so fierce. And now he's gone, and Mrs. Carthew no sooner out of one swoon than into another."

"Bless my soul!" cried I. "Now you speak of it, I _did_ hear something like a pistol shot; but that must have been half-an-hour ago."

"It's a wonder," she said tragically, "his blood didn't drip on you through the ceiling."

It was useless (she agreed with me) to expect Mr. Addison to attend to my business that night. Indeed, though he was doubtless somewhere in the crowd, she could not recall having seen him. It would also be useless, and worse, to seek an interview with Susie, who was attending to her poor mistress.

"Very well," I said. "Then since I can see neither the parson nor the girl, I must make shift with the lawyer. No, my dear, you need not stare at me like that, I don't put my money on my back, like some of your gentry; but while I keep enough in my pocket there's no law in England against my employing as good an attorney as poor Mr. Carthew--or, if I choose, the very same man."

"What? Mr. Retallack?"

I nodded. "That's it--Mr. Retallack. I take it he came to attend the auction, and is upstairs at this moment."

"Why, yes; it was he that gave orders to break in the door and found the body. He began putting questions to Mrs. Carthew, but the poor soul wasn't fit to answer. And then he and Mr. James tackled Susie, who swore she knew nothing of the business until she heard the shot--as we all did--and, running out, found her mistress stretched in the passage: and now she's attending to her in the bedroom with the doctor. So the lawyer's at a standstill."

"Mr. James Carthew? Is _he_ here too?"

"Yes: he's living at his town house this week, but he came here to-night--for the sale, I suppose. He's upstairs now, and his wife along with him; she heard the news cried up the street and came running down all agog with her bonnet on top of her nightcap. But I mustn't stay talking."

"No, indeed you must not," said I. "Here, tell me where you keep your tinder-box.... Now, while I light the candles, do you run upstairs and tell Mr. Retallack privately that a person wishes to speak with him in the coffee-room on an important matter and one connected with to-night's business."

The girl, hungry to be back at the scene of horror, lost no time. I had scarcely time to light the four candles on the chimney-piece when the baize door opened and I found myself bowing to a white-haired little gentleman with a kindly, flustered face. He was plainly suffering from nervous excitement in a high degree, and in the act of bowing attempted to rearrange his shirt-frill with an undecided hand.

"Good evening, Mr. Retallack."

"You sent for me----" he began, and broke off, obviously dismayed by my rough clothes and not altogether liking the look of his customer.

I offered him a chair; he looked at it doubtfully, but shook his head. "My business is of moment," said I, "and of some urgency. That must excuse me for summoning you just now, since as a matter of fact it has less to do with the unhappy pair upstairs than with what I take to be the cause of it. I mean the sale of the Welland estate."

He spread out his hands. "At such a time!" he protested.

"I am glad to find, sir, that you feel so deeply, since it proves you to be a real friend of the family. But as a lawyer you will not let emotion obscure your good sense, or miss a chance of saving Welland for the poor lady and orphan child upstairs merely because it happens to present itself at an untoward moment."

He eyed me, fumbling with the seals at his fob. His mind was by no means clear, but professional instinct seemed to warn him that my words were important.

"I do not know you, sir," he quavered; "but if you are here with any plan of saving Welland, I must tell you sadly that you waste time. I have thought of a hundred plans, sir, but have found none workable. It has destroyed my rest for months--for, with all his failings, I was sincerely attached to young Mr. Carthew, and no less sincerely to his unhappy lady. I warned him a hundred times: but the debts exist, the mortgagees foreclose, and Welland must go."

"Who are the mortgagees?"

"A joint-stock company in London, sir, which lives upon this form of usury. Men with bowels of brass. It was against my strongest warning that Mr. Harry went to them."

"The amount?"

"Thirty-four thousand pounds."

"Will the estate sell for that figure?"

"Scarcely, at a forced sale; unless some purchaser took a special fancy to it or had some special reason for acquiring it."

"Suppose, now, that I offer thirty-four thousand to buy the estate by private contract. Would such an offer be accepted?"

"Indubitably. The mortgagees could offer no objection, even if they wished; for they would be paid; but, in fact, they scarcely hope for so much. You will excuse me, however----"

"In a moment, Mr. Retallack. Still, supposing that I offer thirty-four thousand, a deposit on the purchase money would be required. Can you name the sum?"

"Unless the purchaser were well known in this neighbourhood ten per cent. would be asked, or three thousand four hundred."

"Leaving me a hundred," I said musingly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing: a bad habit I have of talking to myself. Will you pardon a question of some abruptness? You are acquainted, no doubt, with the present Mrs. James Carthew?"

"Slightly." He looked at me in some puzzlement. "She was Mr. James's housekeeper."

"So I have heard. Is she a woman of strong mind? with an influence upon her husband?"

Mr. Retallack positively smiled.

"You may be sure he would never have married her without it. Oh, there's no doubt about the strength of her mind!"

"Middle-aged, I believe? With one child, and not likely to have another?"

"It astonished us all when this one was born. Indeed, people do say--but I mustn't repeat tattle."

"No, indeed. But a man like James Carthew, with a large entail at stake, might be forgiven----" I did not finish my sentence, but stepped to the bell and rang it.

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr. Retallack; "you began by promising--at least by holding out some hope--that Welland might be preserved for Mrs. Harry Carthew and her son. But so far you have told me nothing except that you wish to purchase it yourself."

"I think, rather, that you must have jumped to that conclusion. My dear sir, do I _look_ like a man able to purchase Welland? No, no; I am merely the agent of a friend who is unhappily prevented from treating in person. My dear"--I turned to the waitress who entered at this moment--"would you mind running upstairs and telling Mr. and Mrs. James Carthew that Mr. Addison has ridden home, leaving a packet of notes behind him; and that the person in possession of that packet wishes to see them both--be particular to say 'both'--in private."

"Sir, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Retallack, as the maid shut the door. I turned to find him eyeing me between suspicion and alarm. "Either you have not been frank with me, or you must be ignorant that James Carthew has been no brotherly brother of poor Harry. He is the last man before whom I should care to discuss the purchase of Welland. I have, indeed, more than once suspected him of being in collusion with the Mr. Addison you mention, and, in part, responsible for the disaster into which, as I maintain, that reverend gentleman has hurried my poor friend. If there be any question of James Carthew's purchasing Welland (and I will confess the fear of this has been troubling me) I must decline to listen to it until fate compels me. To-night, with Harry Carthew lying dead in the room above, I will not hear it so much as suggested."

"Then, my excellent Mr. Retallack, do not start suggesting it. Ah, here they are!" said I, pleasantly, as the door opened, and, as I expected, my bald-headed man appeared on the threshold, and was followed by a grim-looking female in a fearsome head-dress compounded of bonnet and nightcap. "Sir," I began, addressing James Carthew with much affability, "it is through our common friend, Mr. Addison, that I venture to commend myself to you and to your good lady."

"And who may you be?" Mrs. James demanded, with sufficient bluntness.

"You may put me down as Captain Richard Steele, madam, of the _Spectator_, not the _Tatler_; and I have sent for you in a hurry, for which I must apologise, because our friend, Mr. Addison, has ridden from Tregarrick to-night on urgent private business, and I am here to carry out certain intentions of his with regard to a bundle of notes which he left in my keeping."

"I don't know you, sir; and I don't know your game," struck in James Carthew roughly; "but if the notes are mine, as I suspect, I beg to state that I never intended----"

"Quite so," I took him up amiably. "You do good by stealth and blush to find it known. But, in view of the sad event upstairs, there can be no harm in my stating before so discreet a lawyer as Mr. Retallack what I had from Mr. Addison's own lips--that these notes were intended by you for the deposit-money on the purchase of Welland."

"Addison had no right----"

"Of course, if I misread his directions, you can refer to him to correct me--when he returns. As it is, I heard it from him most plainly that--thanks to you--Welland was to be rescued and preserved for Mr. Harry Carthew's child. Mr. Retallack tells me that thirty-four thousand pounds is the sum needed, and that, of this, ten per cent., or three thousand four hundred, will be accepted as deposit money. It happens that I have but a short time to spend in Tregarrick, and therefore I have ventured to summon you and madam to bear witness that I hand this sum over to the person competent to receive it." And with this I took the notes from my breast-pocket and began to count them out carefully upon the table.

"This fellow is drunk," said Mr. James Carthew, addressing the lawyer. "The notes are mine, as I can prove. They were entrusted by me to Mr. Addison----"

"Who, it appears, has surrendered them," said Mr. Retallack drily. "Did Mr. Addison give you a receipt?"

"They are mine, and were entrusted to him for a private purpose. This fellow can have come by them in no honest way. Impound them if you will; I can wait for Addison's testimony. But as for intending to make a present of Welland to that brat of Harry's----"

"Not directly to him," I interrupted, having done with my counting, and folding away two notes for fifty pounds apiece in my pocket. "On second thoughts, Mr. Retallack shall make out the conveyance to me, and I will assign a lease retaining the present tenant in possession at a nominal rent of, let me say, five shillings a year. I am sorry to give him so much trouble at this late hour, but it is important that I leave Tregarrick without avoidable delay."

"I can well believe that," James Carthew began. But the lawyer who, without a notion of my drift, was now playing up to me very prettily, interrupted him again.

"This is very well, sir," said he, addressing me; "very well, indeed. But if, as you say, you are leaving Tregarrick, at what date may we expect the purchase to be completed?"

"Why, that I must leave to you and Mr. James Carthew."

"To me, sir?" thundered Mr. James, every vein on his bald head swelling. "To _me_! Are you mad, as well as drunk? When I tell you, Mr. Retallack----"

I glanced up with a smile and caught his wife's eye. And to my dying day I shall respect that woman. From first to last she had listened without the wink of an eyelash; but now she spoke up firmly.

"If I were you, James, I wouldn't be a fool. The best use you can make of your breath is to ask Mr. Retallack to leave the room."

The lawyer, at a nod from me, withdrew.

"Now," said she, as the door closed, "speak up and tell me what's the matter."

"The matter, madam," I answered, "is Addison. He's an escaped convict, and no more a clergyman than--excuse me--you are."

I declare that, still, not an eyelash of her quivered: but her ass of a husband broke in--

"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! Tell us how you came by the notes."

"James, I beg you not to be a fool. Has he cut and run?" she asked.

"He has."

"You can find him?"

"No," said I, "and I don't want to. But I can get a message conveyed that will probably reach and warn him--if he has not thought of it already--to send a letter to the Bishop formally resigning his living."

Then Mrs. James Carthew made a totally unexpected and, as I still hold, a really humorous remark.

"Drat the fellow!" she said. "And he preached an Assize Sermon too!"

But once again her ass of a mate broke in.

"What, in the devil's name, are you parleying about, Maria? Addison or no Addison, you don't suppose I'm to be blackmailed into buying Welland for that young whelp!"

"Just as you please," said I. "If you prefer the money being raised for him on the entail, so be it."

"On the entail?" He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

"Yes, sir; on the entail--_his parents not having employed Mr. Addison to marry them_."

But at this point Mrs. James, without deigning me another look, tucked the poor fool under her arm and carried him off.

I left Tregarrick two days later with a hundred pounds in my pocket: for the odd notes seemed to me a fair commission on a very satisfactory job. Now, as I look back on my adventure, I detect several curious points in it. The first is, that I have never set eyes on Susie Martin: the second, that I never had another interview with Mr. or Mrs. James Carthew: the third, that neither then nor since have I ever had a word of thanks from the lady and child to whom I rendered this signal service. The one, so far as I know, never saw me: the other saw me only for that instant when he dropped me a penny for a trick. To both, I am known only as Captain Richard Steele, and whoever inhabits Welland pays five shillings out of one pocket into another for his tenancy, and will continue to do so. But, perhaps, what the reader will most wonder at, is that I--Gabriel Foot--having my hand on three thousand five hundred pounds, and a clear run for it, should have yielded up all but a hundred for a widow and orphan, who never heard of my existing. Well, perhaps, the secret is that Leggat intended to yield it, and I pride myself on being a better man than Leggat. In short, I have, within limits, a conscience.

RAIN OF DOLLARS

I

At nine o'clock or thereabouts in the morning of January 5, 1809, five regiments of British infantry and a troop of horse artillery with six guns were winding their way down the eastern slope of a ravine beyond Nogales, in the fastnesses of Galicia. They formed the reserve of Sir John Moore's army, retreating upon Corunna; and as they slid or skidded down the frozen road in the teeth of a snowstorm, the men of the 28th and 95th Rifles, who made up the rearguard--for the cavalry had been sent forward as being useless for protection in this difficult country--were forced to turn from time to time and silence the fire of the French, close upon their heels and galling them.

A dirty brown trail, trodden and churned by the main army and again frozen hard, gave them the course of the road as it zig-zagged into the ravine; but, even had the snow obliterated the track, the regiments could have found their way by the dead bodies strewing it--bodies of men, of horses, even of women and children--some heaped by the wind's eddies with thick coverlets of white, so that their forms could only be guessed; others half sunk, with a glazing of thin ice over upturned faces and wide-open eyes; others again flung in stiff contortions across the very road--here a man with his fists clenched to his ribs, there a horse on its back with all four legs in air, crooked, and rigid as poles. The most of these horses had belonged to the dragoons, who, after leading them to the last, had been forced to slaughter them: for the poor brutes cast their shoes on the rough track, and the forage-carts with the cavalry contained neither spare shoes nor nails. The women and children, with sick stragglers and plunderers, had made up that horrible, shameful tail-pipe which every retreating army drags in its wake--a crowd to which the reserve had for weeks acted as whippers-in, herding them through Bembibre, Calcabellos, Villa Franca, Nogales; driving them out of wine-shops; shaking, pricking, clubbing them from drunken stupor into panic; pushing them forward through the snow until they collapsed in it to stagger up no more. Strewn between the corpses along the wayside lay broken carts and cartwheels, bundles, knapsacks, muskets, shakos, split boots, kettles, empty wine-flasks--whatever the weaker had dropped and the stronger had found not worth the gleaning.

The regiments lurched by sullenly, savagely. They were red-eyed with want of sleep and weary from an overnight march of thirty-five miles; and they had feasted their fill of these sights. On this side of Herrerias, for example, they had passed a group of three men, a woman, and a child, lying dead in a circle around a broken cask and a frozen pool of rum. And at Nogales they had drained a wine-vat, to discover its drowned owner at the bottom. They themselves were sick and shaking with abstinence after drunkenness; heavy with shame, too. For though incomparably better behaved than the main body, the reserve had disgraced themselves once or twice, and incurred a stern lesson from Paget, their General. On a low hill before Calcabellos he had halted them, formed them in a hollow square with faces inwards, set up his triangles, and flogged the drunkards collected during the night by the patrols. Then, turning to two culprits taken in the act of robbing a peaceful Spaniard, he had them brought forward with ropes around their necks and hoisted, under a tree, upon the shoulders of the provost-marshal's men. While the ropes were being knotted to the branches overhead, an officer rode up at a gallop to report that the French were driving in our picquets on the other side of the hill. "I am sorry for it, Sir," answered Paget; "but though _that_ angle of the square should be attacked, I shall hang these villains in _this_ one." After a minute's silence he asked his men, "If I spare these two, will you promise me to reform?" There was no answer. "If I spare these men, shall I have your word of honour as soldiers that you will reform?" Still the men kept silence, until a few officers whispered them to say "Yes," and at once a shout of "Yes!" broke from every corner of the square. This had been their lesson, and from Calcabellos onward the division had striven to keep its word. But a sullen flame burned in their sick bodies; and when they fought they fought viciously, as men with a score to wipe off and a memory to drown.

A few hours ago they had resembled scarecrows rather than British soldiers; now, having ransacked at Nogales a train of carts full of Spanish boots and clothing--which had been sent thither by mistake and lay abandoned, without mules, muleteers, or guards--they showed a medley of costumes. Some wore grey breeches, others blue; some black boots, others white, others again black and white together; while not a few carried several pairs slung round their necks. Some had wrapped themselves in _ponchos_, others had replaced the regulation greatcoat with a simple blanket. But, wild crew as they seemed, they swung down the road in good order, kept steady by discipline and the fighting spirit and a present sense of the enemy close at hand.