Mr. Coate eyed him a little suspiciously, but his hard scrutiny was met with such a bland look of incomprehension that it was impossible to suspect Sopworthy of malice. He gave one of his rough laughs, and said: “Damme if I was ever in such a backward place! What you can do for me, fellow, is to direct me to the nearest constable! By God, a pretty state of affairs when a gentleman can’t step out to blow a cloud, and to stretch his legs, without being attacked by armed ruffians! Ay, you may stare!” He wheeled about, stabbing a finger at John. “You, there, rustic! You’re the gatekeeper, ain’t you? Who passed the pike last night?”
John shook his head. “Didn’t see no armed ruffians,” he said.
“Where was you attacked, sir?” asked Sopworthy, staring.
“Why, at the very gate of the Manor! I’m a handy man with my fives, but if my man hadn’t come along when he did I might have lost more than my watch and my fobs—ay, and sustained worse injury than a blow on the head which had almost knocked the wits out of me! One of the rascals set upon me from behind: it would have gone hard with him had he faced me, I can tell you!” He continued in this strain for several minutes, while the Captain, his countenance still schooled to an expression of open-mouthed vacuity, studied him carefully.
To anyone who knew the world it was not difficult to recognize the order from which he sprang. Men very like him were to be met with in any large city, obtaining footholds on the fringes of Society, and earning a tolerable livelihood by decoying gullible young gentlemen of fortune to gaming hells, or introducing them to horse-dealers who might be depended upon to sell them, at fabulous prices, showy looking animals which, instead of being the sweet-goers or beautiful steppers which these Captain Sharps swore them to be, turned out to be confirmed limpers or incurable millers.
Such persons were nearly always knowledgeable in all matters of sport, bruising riders and expert dragsmen, and able to give good accounts of themselves in the boxing-ring, for these were accomplishments certain to make a good impression on their prospective victims. They knew as well how to toad-eat as to bully; and since they were almost invariably furnished with reliable racing-tips to impart to patrons, and could be relied upon to discover a really prime hunter, for a valued patron, and to acquire the animal for a ridiculously low price, it was seldom that they failed to attach themselves to several members of the ton who tolerated them for the sake of these useful attributes.
To this confraternity, John judged, Mr. Coate unquestionably belonged; but there hung about him an indefinable suggestion of force not usually found in the hangers-on of Society. That he was ruthless, John already knew; that he had a brazen courage, he now acknowledged. His policy was declared: the knowledge that a law-officer was on his trail would not frighten him into abandoning his schemes. Since his attempt to dispose of Stogumber had failed, he had adopted a line of conduct which, while it was unlikely to deceive Stogumber, would be hard to counter.
It soon appeared, from the information he was pouring out with such seeming carelessness, that he had whisked Gunn out of the way. He described the man as having sustained injuries which made it impossible for him to fulfill his duties; said with a crack of scornful laughter that he was blue-devilled with fright; and added that he had packed him off to Sheffield, with instructions to return to London by the stage-coach. “For I’d as lief have no servant as a bleater that thinks every bush a bogle, as the saying is!”
The Captain, having learnt enough, did not linger in the Blue Boar, but paid his shot, and slouched off, leaving the landlord to explain to Coate that if he desired to enlist the services of a constable he must ride to Tideswell—a piece of intelligence which provoked him to break into a fury of objurgation, and a declaration that he would be damned if he would put himself to so much trouble only to seek out some gapeseed who, he dared swear, would be of no more use than a month-old baby.
From the circumstance of his having got rid of Gunn, the Captain, so much more acute than he had given Coate reason to suppose, strongly suspected that it must have been Gunn who had recognized in Stogumber a Bow Street Runner. It seemed probable, therefore, that it was Gunn, and not his master, who was known to the officers of the law. Bold Coate might be, but he was not a fool, and for a man previously convicted of crime to remain openly at Kellands, once his presence there had been discovered by the Runner, would have been an act almost lunatic in its foolhardiness.