Clementina Part 12

O'Toole leaned on their shoulders, crus.h.i.+ng them both down upon the sill of the window.

"It is very like the sound a gentleman makes when he reels home from a tavern."

Gaydon and Misset raised themselves with a common effort springing from a common thought and shot O'Toole back into the room.

"What if it is?" began Misset.

"He was never drunk in his life," said Gaydon.

"It's possible that he has reformed," said O'Toole; and the three men precipitated themselves down the stairs.

The drunkard was Wogan; he was drunk with fatigue and sleeplessness and pain, but he had retained just enough of his sober nature to spare a tired mare who had that day served him well.

The first intimation he received that his friends were on the watch was O'Toole's voice bawling down the street to him.

"Is it a lottery? Tell me we're all rich men," and he felt himself grasped in O'Toole's arms.

"I'll tell you more wonderful things than that," stammered Wogan, "when you have shown me the way to a stable."

"There's one at the back of the house," said Gaydon. "I'll take the horse."

"No," said Wogan, stubbornly, and would not yield the bridle to Gaydon.

O'Toole nodded approval.

"There are two things," said he, "a man never trusts to his friends. One's his horse; t' other's his wife."

Wogan suddenly stopped and looked at O'Toole. O'Toole answered the look loftily.

"It is a little maxim of philosophy. I have others. They come to me in the night."

Misset laughed. Wogan walked on to the stable. It was a long building, and a light was still burning. Moreover, a groom was awake, for the door was opened before they had come near enough to knock. There were twelve stalls, of which nine were occupied, and three of the nine horses stood ready saddled and bridled.

Wogan sat down upon a corn-bin and waited while his mare was groomed and fed. The mare looked round once or twice in the midst of her meal, twisting her neck as far as her halter allowed.

"I am not gone yet, my lady," said he, "take your time."

Wogan made a ghostly figure in the dim shadowy light. His face was of an extraordinary pallor; his teeth chattered; his eyes burned. Gaydon looked at him with concern and said to the groom, "You can take the saddles off. We shall need no horses to-night."

The four men returned to the house. Wogan went upstairs first. Gaydon held back the other two at the foot of the stairs.

"Not a word, not a question, till he has eaten, or we shall have him in bed for a twelvemonth. Misset, do you run for a doctor. O'Toole, see what you can find in the larder."

Wogan sat before the fire without a word while O'Toole spread the table and set a couple of cold partridges upon it and a bottle of red wine. Wogan ate mechanically for a little and afterwards with some enjoyment. He picked the partridges till the bones were clean, and he finished the bottle of wine. Then he rose to his feet with a sigh of something very like to contentment and felt along the mantel-shelf with his hands. O'Toole, however, had foreseen his wants and handed him a pipe newly filled. While Wogan was lighting the tobacco, Misset came back into the room with word that the doctor was out upon his last rounds, but would come as soon as he had returned home. The four men sat down about the fire, and Wogan reached out his hand and felt O'Toole's arm.

"It is you," he said. "There you are, the three of you, my good friends, and this is Schlestadt. But it is strange," and he laughed a little to himself and looked about the room, a.s.suring himself that this indeed was Gaydon's lodging.

"You received a slip of paper?" said he.

"Four days back," said Gaydon.

"And understood?"

"That we were to be ready."

"Good."

"Then it's not a lottery," murmured O'Toole, "and we've drawn no prizes."

"Ah, but we are going to," cried Wogan. "We are safe here. No one can hear us; no one can burst in. But I am sure of that. Misset knows the trick that will make us safe from interruption, eh?"

Misset looked blankly at Wogan.

"Why, one can turn the key," said he.

"To be sure," said Wogan, with a laugh of admiration for that device of which he had bethought himself, and which he ascribed to Misset, "if there's a key; but if there's no key, why, a chair tilted against the door to catch the handle, eh?"

Misset locked the door, not at all comprehending that device, and returned to his seat.

"We are to draw the greatest prize that ever was drawn," resumed Wogan, and he broke off.

"But is there a cupboard in the room? No matter; I forgot that this is Gaydon's lodging, and Gaydon's not the man to overlook a cupboard."

Gaydon jumped up from his chair.

"But upon my word there is a cupboard," he cried, and crossing to a corner of the room he opened a door and looked in. Wogan laughed again as though Gaydon's examination of the cupboard was a very good joke.

"There will be n.o.body in it," he cried. "Gaydon will never feel a hand gripping the life out of his throat because he forgot to search a cupboard."

The cupboard was empty, as it happened. But Gaydon had left the door of the street open when he went out to meet Wogan; there had been time and to spare for any man to creep upstairs and hide himself had there been a man in Schlestadt that night minded to hear. Gaydon returned to his chair.

"We are to draw the biggest prize in all Europe," said Wogan.

"There!" cried O'Toole. "Will you be pleased to remember when next I have an idea that I was right?"

"But not for ourselves," added Wogan.

O'Toole's face fell.

"Oh, we are to hand it on to a third party," said he.

"Yes."

"Well, after all, that's quite of a piece with our luck."

"Who is the third party?" asked Misset.

"The King."