Rodney Stone by Arthur Conan Doyle (best books to read non fiction .TXT) 📕

“Hark!” he cried. “Listen to that!”

“What is it?” we cried, all three.

“The betting! Listen again!”

Out of the babel of voices and roaring of wheels outside the window a single sentence struck sharply on our ears.

“Even money upon Sir Charles’s nominee!”

“Even money!” cried my uncle. “It was seven to one against me, yesterday. What is the meaning of this?”

“Even money either way,” cried the voice again.

“There’s somebody knows something,” said Belcher, “and there’s nobody has a better right to know what it is than we. Come on, sir, and we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

The village street was packed with people, for they had been sleeping twelve and fifteen in a room, whilst hundreds of gentlemen had spent the night in their carriages. So thick was the throng that it was no easy matter to get out of the George. A drunken man, snoring horribly in his breathing, was curled up in the passage, absolutely oblivious to the stream of people who flowed round and occasionally over him.

“What’s the betting, boys?” asked Belcher, from the steps.

“Even money, Jim,” cried several voices.

“It was long odds on Wilson when last I heard.”

“Yes; but there came a man who laid freely the other way, and he started others taking the odds, until now you can get even money.”

“Who started it?”

“Why, that’s he! The man that lies drunk in the passage. He’s been pouring it down like water ever since he drove in at six o’clock, so it’s no wonder he’s like that.”

Belcher stooped down and turned over the man’s inert head so as to show his features.

“He’s a stranger to me, sir.”

“And to me,” added my uncle.

“But not to me,” I cried. “It’s John Cumming, the landlord of the inn at Friar’s Oak. I’ve known him ever since I was a boy, and I can’t be mistaken.”

“Well, what the devil can HE know about it?” said Craven.

“Nothing at all, in all probability,” answered my uncle. “He is backing young Jim because he knows him, and because he has more brandy than sense. His drunken confidence set others to do the same, and so the odds came down.”

“He was as sober as a judge when he drove in here this morning,” said the landlord. “He began backing Sir Charles’s nominee from the moment he arrived. Some of the other boys took the office from him, and they very soon brought the odds down amongst them.”

“I wish he had not brought himself down as well,” said my uncle. “I beg that you will bring me a little lavender water, landlord, for the smell of this crowd is appalling. I suppose you could not get any sense from this drunken fellow, nephew, or find out what it is he knows.”

It was in vain that I rocked him by the shoulder and shouted his name in his ear. Nothing could break in upon that serene intoxication.

“Well, it’s a unique situation as far as my experience goes,” said Berkeley Craven. “Here we are within a couple of hours of the fight, and yet you don’t know whether you have a man to represent you. I hope you don’t stand to lose very much, Tregellis.”

My uncle shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and took a pinch of his snuff with that inimitable sweeping gesture which no man has ever ventured to imitate.

“Pretty well, my boy!” said he. “But it is time that we thought of going up to the Downs. This night journey has left me just a little effleure, and I should like half an hour of privacy to arrange my toilet. If this is my last kick, it shall at least be with a well-brushed boot.”

I have heard a traveller from the wilds of America say that he looked upon the Red Indian and the English gentleman as closely akin, citing the passion for sport, the aloofness and the suppression of the emotions in each. I thought of his words as I watched my uncle that morning, for I believe that no victim tied to the stake could have had a worse outlook before him. It was not merely that his own fortunes were largely at stake, but it was the dreadful position in which he would stand before this immense concourse of people, many of whom had put their money upon his judgment, if he should find himself at the last moment with an impotent excuse instead of a champion to put before them. What a situation for a man who prided himself upon his aplomb, and upon bringing all that he undertook to the very highest standard of success! I, who knew him well, could tell from his wan cheeks and his restless fingers that he was at his wit’s ends what to do; but no stranger who observed his jaunty bearing, the flecking of his laced handkerchief, the handling of his quizzing glass, or the shooting of his ruffles, would ever have thought that this butterfly creature could have had a care upon earth.

It was close upon nine o’clock when we were ready to start for the Downs, and by that time my uncle’s curricle was almost the only vehicle left in the village street. The night before they had lain with their wheels interlocking and their shafts under each other’s bodies, as thick as they could fit, from the old church to the Crawley Elm, spanning the road five-deep for a good half-mile in length. Now the grey village street lay before us almost deserted save by a few women and children. Men, horses, carriages—all were gone. My uncle drew on his driving-gloves and arranged his costume with punctilious neatness; but I observed that he glanced up and down the road with a haggard and yet expectant eye before he took his seat. I sat behind with Belcher, while the Hon. Berkeley Craven took the place beside him.

The road from Crawley curves gently upwards to the upland heather-clad plateau which extends for many miles in every direction. Strings of pedestrians, most of them so weary and dust-covered that it was evident that they had walked the thirty miles from London during the night, were plodding along by the sides of the road or trailing over the long mottled slopes of the moorland. A horseman, fantastically dressed in green and splendidly mounted, was waiting at the crossroads, and as he spurred towards us I recognised the dark, handsome face and bold black eyes of Mendoza.

“I am waiting here to give the office, Sir Charles,” said he. “It’s down the Grinstead road, half a mile to the left.”

“Very good,” said my uncle, reining his mares round into the crossroad.

“You haven’t got your man there,” remarked Mendoza, with something of suspicion in his manner.

“What the devil is that to you?” cried Belcher, furiously.

“It’s a good deal to all of us, for there are some funny stories about.”

“You keep them to yourself, then, or you may wish you had never heard them.”

“All right, Jem! Your breakfast don’t seem to have agreed with you this morning.”

“Have the others arrived?” asked my uncle, carelessly.

“Not yet, Sir Charles. But Tom Oliver is there with the ropes and stakes. Jackson drove by just now, and most of the ringkeepers are up.”

“We have still an hour,” remarked my uncle, as he drove on. “It is possible that the others may be late, since they have to come from Reigate.”

“You take it like a man, Tregellis,” said Craven. “We must keep a bold face and brazen it out until the last moment.”

“Of course, sir,” cried Belcher. “I’ll never believe the betting would rise like that if somebody didn’t know something. We’ll hold on by our teeth and nails, Sir Charles, and see what comes of it.”

We could hear a sound like the waves upon the beach, long before we came in sight of that mighty multitude, and then at last, on a sudden dip of the road, we saw it lying before us, a whirlpool of humanity with an open vortex in the centre. All round, the thousands of carriages and horses were dotted over the moor, and the slopes were gay with tents and booths. A spot had been chosen for the ring, where a great basin had been hollowed out in the ground, so that all round that natural amphitheatre a crowd of thirty thousand people could see very well what was going on in the centre. As we drove up a buzz of greeting came from the people upon the fringe which was nearest to us, spreading and spreading, until the whole multitude had joined in the acclamation. Then an instant later a second shout broke forth, beginning from the other side of the arena, and the faces which had been turned towards us whisked round, so that in a twinkling the whole foreground changed from white to dark.

“It’s they. They are in time,” said my uncle and Craven together.

Standing up on our curricle, we could see the cavalcade approaching over the Downs. In front came a huge yellow barouche, in which sat Sir Lothian Hume, Crab Wilson, and Captain Barclay, his trainer. The postillions were flying canary-yellow ribands from their caps, those being the colours under which Wilson was to fight. Behind the carriage there rode a hundred or more noblemen and gentlemen of the west country, and then a line of gigs, tilburies, and carriages wound away down the Grinstead road as far as our eyes could follow it. The big barouche came lumbering over the sward in our direction until Sir Lothian Hume caught sight of us, when he shouted to his postillions to pull up.

“Good morning, Sir Charles,” said he, springing out of the carriage. “I thought I knew your scarlet curricle. We have an excellent morning for the battle.”

My uncle bowed coldly, and made no answer.

“I suppose that since we are all here we may begin at once,” said Sir Lothian, taking no notice of the other’s manner.

“We begin at ten o’clock. Not an instant before.”

“Very good, if you prefer it. By the way, Sir Charles, where is your man?”

“I would ask YOU that question, Sir Lothian,” answered my uncle. “Where is my man?”

A look of astonishment passed over Sir Lothian’s features, which, if it were not real, was most admirably affected.

“What do you mean by asking me such a question?”

“Because I wish to know.”

“But how can I tell, and what business is it of mine?”

“I have reason to believe that you have made it your business.”

“If you would kindly put the matter a little more clearly there would be some possibility of my understanding you.”

They were both very white and cold, formal and unimpassioned in their bearing, but exchanging glances which crossed like rapier blades. I thought of Sir Lothian’s murderous repute as a duellist, and I trembled for my uncle.

“Now, sir, if you imagine that you have a grievance against me, you will oblige me vastly by putting it into words.”

“I will,” said my uncle. “There has been a conspiracy to maim or kidnap my man, and I have every reason to believe that you are privy to it.”

An ugly sneer came over Sir Lothian’s saturnine face.

“I see,” said he. “Your man has not come on quite as well as you had expected in his training, and you are hard put to it to invent an excuse. Still, I should have thought that you might have found a more probable one, and one which would entail less serious consequences.”

“Sir,” answered my uncle, “you are a liar, but how great a liar you are nobody knows save yourself.”

Sir