Kitabı oku: «King of Ranleigh: A School Story», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XI
BERT MAKES A DISCOVERY
There had been burglaries in the neighbourhood. Bert was quite correct when he asserted the fact emphatically.
"Lots of 'em, too," he repeated in a hoarse whisper, drawing Clive and Hugh after him across the rafters, which in days gone by had supported the floor of the chamber leading to the gallery of the chapel within the deserted tower. "Just listen to this," he went on, in more natural tones, when he had conducted them back to the window by which they had gained an entrance. "There was a burglary at the Evansons', eh?"
"Big one," agreed Clive. "They're five miles away from this."
"And a heap of stuff was taken. That's three months ago."
"More – four months," asserted Hugh, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets and shrinking his neck into his collar. Hugh, in fact, wore a most severe and thoughtful expression. Then he seemed to have thought of something important. His hands shot from his pockets suddenly. He searched the belt beneath his coat, secured round his middle. "Might want 'em, eh?" he asked, fingering the dagger with which he had so thoughtfully provided himself. Clive, too, copied the movement.
"Rot!" observed Bert very curtly. "As if we could venture to fight those beggars down there. Besides, it isn't proved that they are burglars. They may be merely tramps."
"Aren't tramps burglars, then?" asked Clive hotly.
"Of course!" from Hugh.
"Rot again!" said Bert. "Tramps may be pilferers. They're not burglars – at least, not as a general rule. Burglars nowadays dress more or less like gentlemen, live in fine houses or hotels, and employ all the latest scientific appliances."
"Such as X-rays, and that sort," reflected Clive.
"And diamond drills, and dynamite, and gloved hands, and – and the rest of 'em," added Hugh.
"Right – tramps can't afford those things. They may pilfer; they don't set out to become downright burglars. Now, those beggars below aren't all the same."
"One of 'em's the blackguard who threatened Clive and me some while ago," Hugh reminded him. "An out-and-out ruffian he looks too. More of the tramp style, I should call him. So there goes bang your idea that these chaps are burglars."
"In fact, it's a mare's nest," grinned Clive. "These fellows are just tramps or out-of-works, or something of the sort. Homeless fellows, who find that the old tower gives cheap and splendid lodgings. Think of it – nothing to pay for house-rent, no rates and no taxes, no neighbours, either, no annoyance from noisy dogs, or from cocks and hens, no children playing pranks, and – "
"Dry up, do!" said Bert fiercely. "Just shows that you two chaps go about the world with your eyes half closed. That's the worst of being amateur mechanics. Everything that isn't something to do with an engine, a motor, or – or a what-not, isn't worth taking notice of."
"Here!" began Hugh indignantly, for breezes frequently arose between the two brothers. Hugh was not the lad to be down-trodden. Indeed, as a matter of actual fact, it was he who oftenmost triumphed. The easy-going, dreaming Bert usually collapsed early in such arguments and agreed to whatever was passing.
"Shut up!" he retorted curtly enough on this occasion, and to the astonishment of Clive, and, be it added, to Hugh's own astonishment also, for that young gentleman bit the words he was about to utter off short at the very tip of his tongue.
"Well?" he asked lamely.
"Who said that that blackguard didn't look like a tramp? He does – any ass can see that – but the others don't. They're better dressed – roughly, I'll admit, but better. But they're disguised. Whoever saw chaps of their supposed position – labourers you'd call 'em – smoking cigarettes out of gold-mounted holders?"
"Oh! Eh?" ejaculated Hugh, his breath rather taken away.
"You didn't notice, then?"
"Er – no."
"Nor you, Clive?"
"No. But I saw it, if you can see the difference in what seems rather a contradictory statement. What'd Old B. call that if he were taking us in classics?"
"Hang old B.!" declared Bert irreverently.
It made the others flush to hear him speak in such fashion. Bert say such a thing of Old B., one of his particular favourites! Clive and Hugh looked askance at the comrade they knew as a rule as a smooth-spoken, wool-gathering fellow. Here he was decidedly emphatic – brusque, to say the least of it, in fact quite rude, and hurling names about in a manner which might be that of Masters', but was certainly not that customary to Bert Seymour. Hugh wondered what next was coming. Clive grinned sheepishly, and then suddenly straightened his features. Half an hour before he wouldn't have minded Bert's seeing that grin of derision. Now he was positively afraid.
"Er – oh – er, yes," he said lamely.
"Eh?" asked Bert sharply.
"Oh, nothing."
"Then don't gas. Look here. What I've said is true enough. Hugh didn't see what I've mentioned. Well," said Bert, with cold scorn, "no one expects anything better from Hugh."
"I say! Look here!"
"But Clive saw it, for a wonder," the elder of the lads went on without faltering. "So it's true enough. Three of those chaps are impostors. The fourth keeps house down here for 'em, and lets 'em know how things are going."
"What things?" asked Hugh sulkily.
"What things! Why, who's away from home, or going away shortly. Who's a big swell, with lots of cash and lots of jewels. What the police are doing. Whether they suspect anyone in particular. What clue they have to the perpetrators – "
"How much?" asked Clive.
"Perpetrators. Fellows who did the job," said Bert, with cold scorn again. In fact, his tones were icy. He might have been speaking to little children. "What clue they have to the perpetrators of the burglaries, and what chance there is of cracking other cribs."
His grip of the situation was really amazing. Clive remembered all of a sudden that Bert had already made quite a name for himself in the school Debating Society. It was strange, he had often thought, that a fellow usually so retiring and so dreamy should be ready to get on to his feet and speak before an audience. He himself would have shivered in his shoes if called upon to debate. Yet Bert turned not so much as a hair.
"Ready to get on to his hind legs and gas at any moment and on any subject," Hugh had once observed. "Glad he keeps his gas for the Debating Society and don't let it off on us. Bert's a wonder."
He was a distinct surprise on this occasion – at any rate, what might with justice be described as a dark horse. For here was Bert gripping the intricacies of the situation as if he'd been thinking them out for hours. And what was more to the point, though usually content to take third place, as we have explained, he had of a sudden crumpled up all but the feeblest attempts to contradict him, had hurled scorn at his friends, and was now virtually in command of the party. He was a wonder indeed! At last he was being taken seriously.
"So we take it as agreed that these beggars are burglars," he said. "The next question is, how are we going to act?"
"The police. Send for 'em," suggested Clive.
"Yes, we will, in time, as soon as we've proved to our own satisfaction that the thing we've discovered is no mare's nest. Hugh, how long would it take you to nip down by the ivy?"
"To the ground?"
"Of course. Where else, donkey?"
"Two minutes," answered that young fellow when he had squinted from the window.
"Then you stay here and wait for a signal. I hope not to have to send it. But if I do, hop."
"Eh?"
"Clear off. Get home to father and then to the police."
"Yes. But you?"
"Clive and I will remain. I've discovered already that the stairs which once led to the first floor have fallen down. The floor's a very high one, and unless there is some easier way up elsewhere, where we haven't yet explored, those fellows wouldn't be able to get at us. That leaves us safe. While they're trying to get us down, you'll be off. See?"
"And you'll keep them trying till I can get the police. I've got it. Hooray!"
"Shut up!" commanded Bert.
Hugh showed wonderful obedience. He even looked admiringly at his brother, and that was very unusual with him. In fact, Hugh's conceit was large up to this moment. He was more than apt to lay down the law, especially where Bert was concerned. And now he had met his master. Where strength of character – real strength – was required, Bert had as if by magic suddenly become leader of the trio.
"Stay there and wait. Keep your eye open," he said. "Come on, Clive."
They went off across the old room, through the archway, and so to that other chamber across the floor beams of which lay the road to the gallery over the tumble-down chapel. What memories, what imaginations that old place brought up too! Clive recollected the tales he had so often read of times gone by when people lived in similar places, in fortified towers and castles. When strife between adjacent barons was frequent, almost incessant, when sudden raids were made, and when the surrounding people, the serfs and tillers of the soil, all who owed allegiance to one of the mighty barons, hastened, at the blowing of a horn, to the castle, driving maybe their cattle before them, and accompanied by their wives and children. He could see them here, massed in a huge square open place in the heart of the tower. He pictured himself as one of them – the sentry, in fact – perched on that high smaller tower on the roof to which they had ascended, peering out over the country and watching the blazing of the homesteads and the approach of the attackers. He closed his eyes, this imaginative Clive, and saw the galleries and roof and windows peopled by men-at-arms in leathern jerkins, armed with bows and arrows, or with clumsy arquebuses. Many, too, with huge halberds. There were others up on the roof, poising masses of rock on their shoulders, ready to hurl them down upon the enemy approaching the door. There too, amongst them, was the noble baron himself, with his spouse, while between them stood a trumpeter. He could see the envoy of the enemy approach on his horse, a white flag attached to his lance, could hear the flare of his trumpet summons, and his demand that the tower should be surrendered. And then, still with soaring imagination, he grew enthusiastic as he conjured up the haughty refusal of the baron, the first blows struck, the noise and shouts of the contestants.
"S – s – she! Go quietly. You'll let 'em hear us." Bert brought him suddenly to his senses, and perhaps it was as well that he did so, for at the moment Clive was balancing himself in the centre of one of the floor beams, wabbling somewhat giddily, and looking as if he might fall on to the massed-up debris down below, all that remained now of the massive floor on which the ancient occupants of this room had trodden. Yes, it was a place to conjure up all sorts of strange ideas. One could picture the huge oak table in the centre of this room, the rush mats on the floor, the forms and rough chairs round the huge, open fireplace. But Clive had dreamed long enough. It was strange indeed to hear of his dreaming. That was the sort of thing one expected of Bert. And here he was perfectly wideawake, the reverse of dreaming, as practical and unromantic as could well be imagined.
"S – s – she!" he whispered. "I heard 'em moving. Stop a bit. They may be listening."
No. The drone of voices came to their ears. Sometimes it appeared as if all four men must be talking at one and the same time. Then there were but two or one. Later, there was loud, raucous laughter. Then a man coughed and choked, and once more there was loud laughter, louder this time, for three joined in it.
"Just the moment to move forward," whispered Bert. "Come on."
He gained the gallery, and Clive soon afterwards. Then they crept to the ruined balustrade and peeped over. Yes, there were the four men, and now that Clive's interest and powers of observation had been stimulated he remarked at once that whereas the three men, strangers to him, were clad in rough clothing, as if they were labourers, two were certainly smoking cigarettes from gold-tipped holders. At least, it looked as if the bands surrounding the holders were gold.
"Might be simply cheap gilt," he told himself. "All the same, it's fishy to see 'em smoking cigarettes from holders. That's the sort of thing Susanne'd do. He don't think anything of a fellow who don't use one, and says that cigarettes aren't worth smoking otherwise. Wonder when I'll be able to smoke and enjoy it?"
It was one of Clive's ambitions, one destined, it seemed, to be long deferred. For we must be perfectly candid on this subject. Clive, like a huge number of other young fellows who attempt to smoke, in their heart of hearts abhor the thing. Only the fancied grandness of the practice lets them repeat it. Perhaps, also, it is because smoking is so strictly forbidden, and is such a severely punished offence because of its decidedly harmful effects, that boys dare attempt it. In any case, speaking of Clive, we have to faithfully record the fact that a cigarette went far to make him feel positively sick, and being a sensible fellow he had decided against the practice. Even Susanne had lost his keenness, while Hugh and Bert had never once shown an inclination in that direction. Indeed, to do the "Old Firm" but simple justice, they were models where smoking was concerned.
Down below, in the body of the ruined chapel, beneath an expanse of roof still supported on some half-dozen pillars, and situated so close to the edge that the two above could easily perceive them, were the four men whose voices they had heard, the head and shoulders of one of them, however, being still invisible. They sat for the most part on masses of stone which had once been portions of pillars. But one occupied a chair, while now that he had more time for observation, Bert saw that, far in the background, and only partly visible, was an iron bedstead, on which lay a bundle of blankets. A wood fire blazed in the centre of the circle formed by the men, and propped on iron legs above it was an iron pot. Near by, also, were glasses and a bottle.
"A chap could easily get across over there, and lie down immediately over their heads," whispered Bert, of a sudden, when they had been looking downward for some few minutes, vainly trying to overhear what was passing between the men. "I suppose it's all right trying to overhear, eh? Don't like sneaks of that sort as a rule. But here, eh?"
His eyebrows went up questioningly. Clive jerked his head.
"All's fair," he answered. "If they're burglars, why it's – "
"Playing the game?"
"Exactly."
"Then you think we could get over there? I'll try, at any rate. You stay and watch. If I succeed, you follow."
Bert went off at once along the gallery, creeping close beside the wall, for the balustrade had in parts disappeared entirely. Nor was it such an easy task to reach the spot he had pointed out, for once more it was necessary to cross a part where the roof of the chapel had disappeared as completely as had the balustrade. There was, in fact, simply a stone archway left, across which he must walk to gain the position he sought. And it must be remembered that that archway was not by any means low. The pillars supporting it towered upward a considerable height, so that looking down made one giddy. A few hours before, Bert would have hesitated. The masterful Hugh also, fully conscious of his prowess in the gymnasium, would in all probability have elected to leave the task unaccomplished. But Bert was transformed. He swept difficulties aside as if they did not exist. Measuring the height of the archway, and its breadth, he stepped on to it, held his arms widely outstretched, and commenced the passage, while Clive looked on, his heart in his mouth.
"He'll fall," he thought. "Just fancy Bert's venturing. George! He's across, and now he's beckoning. I've got to chance it too."
He felt dismayed. Where there was a difficult tree to be climbed when he and Hugh were bird's-nesting, Clive made light of the business. He scoffed at heights, at weakened and rotten branches, and laughed at the very idea that he should fall. But walking the tight-rope was an altogether different class of undertaking, and what was this feat but tight-rope walking?
"Jolly well like it," he thought. "Of course, the arch is steady. But it's awfully narrow, and it's such a height. If one tripped, one would be over. That'd kill a fellow."
He crept along the gallery, stole softly to the arch, and then looked over. It made him feel quite queer when he peered down into the ruined chapel. Clive felt like funking. He was on the point of shaking his head in Bert's direction. And then he changed his mind. What Bert could do, he would.
"As if I'd let him beat me!" he thought. "He'd call me a funk. He's been slinging names around freely since this began. Like his cheek! Just fancy Bert slinging names at a fellow!"
A hot flush rose to his cheeks at the thought. If he had hesitated to make this attempt to cross a moment earlier, he was now eager to set out.
"Just fancy being licked by Bert. Not me! Rather get smashed into mincemeat down below than have him jeering."
And off he went across the narrow archway, with Bert watching him anxiously, as if doubtful of his capacity to cross. If Clive could have read his friend's thoughts he would have flushed even redder than he had done a little while before, for conditions were reversed with a vengeance. It was always a matter of doubt with Clive and Hugh, and with the somewhat bumptious Masters, to tell the tale fully, whether Bert, when accompanying the Old Firm on some of its more reckless expeditions, would ruin its success by his natural timidity. And here he was ready to call Clive a funk if need be, and anxiously wondering whether he were capable of doing what he, Bert, had done!
"Ah! Glad you managed it. Thought you might get giddy and fall," he whispered. "Now lie down and don't kick up a beastly row. I want to listen."
There was sudden movement down below. One of the four under observation – and now that Clive and Bert had changed their point of vantage, invisible to them, for they were almost directly beneath – rose from the stone seat he had been occupying, kicked the logs on the fire till they sent a stream of sparks upward, and then sauntered out into that part of the chapel exposed to the sky. Where a roof should have been, there was now nothing but the broken ends of what had, doubtless, once been finely carved stone arches. They poked their shattered tips from the farther wall like so many fingers, and attracted the attention of the fellow below. Seeing him suddenly appear, Clive lay even flatter, and he, too, took stock of those remains of broken arches. And then, straightway, he pictured the chapel as it had been, with its carved and ornamental roof, its beautiful stone pillars, its aisles, its pews. And in amongst the latter those people of a bygone day. Men in armour, ladies in the fashion of the time, retainers stationed everywhere. He even fancied he heard the low-voiced music of the organ, the chanting of the choir, the deep bass notes of the priest in attendance. And then he was startled into the reality of things as they were. For the man below was speaking. Despite his clothes, one would have sworn that he had some pretensions to being a gentleman. He was still smoking a cigarette, and now knocked the end against one of the pillars of the chapel so as to clear it of ash. Then he looked around, as if admiring the ruins.
"A queer place to be hidden in, eh?" he asked, flourishing the cigarette. "Romantic and all that. Haunted, they tell me. All the better. No one likely to interfere."
His voice was singularly tuneful. Had Clive or Bert met him elsewhere and seen him dressed in other raiment they would decidedly have proclaimed him to be a gentleman. But then, the times we live in are strange ones.
"The most honest, sometimes the most ragged," Bert murmured. "The more gentlemanly, sometimes the cleverer rascal. That chap's good looking."
Clive nodded. "Yes," he said. "I believe I've seen him somewhere else before this."
"Round about here?"
This time Clive shook his head. He could not recollect; but of this he was sure, he had seen this man, and under different circumstances.
"I'll swear he was well dressed then," he whispered. "But let's shut up. They're gassing."
"All the better," repeated the man out in the open, stretching his arms and yawning. "There's less chance of interference. But I'll tell you this. I'd rather we could work during the daytime than at night. I never was one for staying up. I'm a beggar to sleep. If only every other person would sleep during the hours of daylight, I for one would be contented."
"Listen to the selfish beggar," came an answer from directly beneath the listeners. "Here's Joe wishes to be left alone to do his work during the daytime, just because he likes to sleep at night. As if he weren't having his reward. Listen to this, Joe. Good things are not to be had without the expenditure of trouble, and without inconvenience to one's self. That's something worth remembering. Think what you get for a night's work. More than the average man makes in a whole year, perhaps. And if we're lucky, and things turn out as we hope, why, there's a fortune for each one of us. We're out for a big haul. The stuff's there, or should be. There don't seem a chance of our being interfered with, while here's Peter, who knows the inns and outs of every corner, able to advise us where to work, and, what's even better, able to keep watch when we're gone, and no doubt to throw dust in the eyes of those who might be inquisitive."
"For instance, the police," came from the third man, with a satirical laugh. "I'd just like to know what they'll make of this business we're after. But we've been too cute for 'em up to now, and I'm not afraid of running across them. This haul's bound to be either nothing or a real big un, and if it is, why, there'll be quite a little excitement in the neighbourhood."
Bert nudged Clive. "Hear that?" he asked, in a whisper. "They're going to attempt a haul."
"Here, too," answered Clive excitedly. "But exactly where?"
"Ah! That's what we've got to discover. They've evidently put the police off the scent, and we were quite right in thinking that the fellow who lives in this place picks up all local information for these fellows. Look out! They're at it again."
"Say, Joe," they heard from one of the men still invisible. "Let's look at that sketch again. I'm not sure where the window actually is, nor in what condition. But perhaps Peter will tell us. Now, lad, let's hear it."
There was a short pause, and then another voice chimed in, one less musical and far less cultured.
"The window. Oh, ah! Well, now, it's right away agin the very corner, and if there ever was a window that was strong, why, it's that there window. But the job can be done, particular by you gents that has had sich practice."
"Going to enter by a window," whispered Bert hoarsely. "But where?"
"And seein' as you've got the right sort o' tools, why it's jest as good as finished," went on the fellow known as Peter. "After that, why, it lies with yourselves. If you're careful I can't see as there's a chance of interference, and if the stuff's there, why, you has it. As for the police, they're safe. Why, bless you, when there's one of your night jobs on, and it ain't quite sort o' healthy for the police to be about, I jest manages to send 'em word somehow that there's a poachin' business comin' off, and that there poachin' business ain't never in the neighbourhood you're workin'. What's more, the news ain't never given by me, nor by the same man, never. Them police is jest little babies."
Evidently Peter had little opinion of the arm of the law. He held the local sergeant and his constable in open contempt, and now he was gloating over the clever means by which he had managed to hoodwink them. Clive heard him cackling. He slouched out into the open, crammed his pipe with tobacco which the man called Joe offered, and lit the weed by means of a piece of smouldering wood picked from the fire.
As for Clive and Bert, they withdrew a little later. They were still wanting precise information as to the part where this burglary was to be attempted, and they were not at all sure that the plan was to be carried out that night.
"But it's likely enough," reflected Bert. "Chaps like these don't come down to the country to hang about. They've chosen one of the large houses, and Peter will have thrown dust in the eyes of the police and sent 'em in the opposite direction. To-night'll be dark, for there's no moon just now. Now, what's to be done in the matter?"
That was a most difficult question. Gathered about the window by which they had entered, the three debated the point with hushed voice and eager gesture. Observation and the words they had overheard had been amply sufficient to convince them of the importance of their discovery. Only their own determination had gained admission to the ruined tower for them. But thanks to that they had unearthed a nest of burglars. The matter could not rest there.
"Impossible!" declared Bert resolutely, which sentiment Clive and Hugh echoed. "We'd have the neighbourhood shouting taunts at us and declaring we were funks. Those chaps below have brought this thing on themselves. They ought to have seen to it that no one could clamber into the tower. They didn't. That's their fault. But, as a result, we know that they're burglars."
"Yes. Regular rotters," Hugh agreed.
"And our duty's as plain as possible."
Clive pushed his hands deep into his pockets and looked decidedly stubborn.
"Yes, it is a duty," Bert admitted. "What's more, we're going to carry it through. Just you chaps shut up talking while I think a bit. You gas so much that you make a fellow's wits go wandering."
He had become quite spiteful. Hugh actually flinched under this reprimand and failed to retort. Clive coloured, looked indignant, and then turned to gaze out of the window. Each was therefore left to his thoughts, and though a method of procedure might not yet have been come at, this was quite certain: each one was fully determined that nothing should make him flinch from the task so unexpectedly set him. The arrest of those scheming burglars was decidedly a duty.
