The Quiet Gentleman

‘Now tell me you don’t believe me! I expect that!’

‘Not at all. Where, when, and how?’

Martin cast him a sullen glance. ‘I don’t know when – except that it was not long after I had shot the rabbit, and I’ve no notion when that may have been, except that it can’t have been a great while before you were fired at. I’d had no sport; I thought I might as well try for a brace of wood-pigeons, but you know what they are! There’s no getting them, unless you lie-up, once they’ve been alarmed! I crouched down behind a thicket, to wait. I suppose someone stalked me: I don’t know! All I know is that I was struck a stunning blow from behind. I do know that, but nothing more, until I came to myself, and how much later that was I’ve no notion!’

There was a short silence. ‘And your spaniel?’ said the Earl.

‘Not with me,’ Martin answered, colouring. He raised his eyes. ‘He had run a thorn into his foot, and was dead lame! I would not take him. Ask Hickling if that’s not true! Oh, yes! I know what you are thinking! Hickling would tell any lie to oblige me, would he not?’

‘I don’t know. Would he?’

‘I daresay! This is the truth!’

‘Very well: go on!’

‘I tell you, I don’t know what happened! I didn’t come to myself till I was being taken off somewhere, in a cart, or something. I couldn’t see: I was trussed up, and gagged, and there was a sack over my head – not that I cared, for my head was aching fit to split, and I cared for nothing, then, except being jolted so much that I think I went off into another swoon. I don’t remember that, but I do remember feeling devilish bad. And then I wasn’t in a vehicle, but lying on the ground somewhere. It might have been a cow-byre: it smelled like it, but I couldn’t see, or move, and I don’t know. I don’t even know how long I was there: hours and hours, I think! I suppose I slept part of the time. I must have, because I woke up with a start when someone began to haul me up. And then there was more of that curst jolting, and being hauled out of the cart again, and rolling down and down and down!’

‘Rolling down where?’ asked the Earl.

‘It was a sand-pit, but I didn’t know that at the time.’

‘Oh! And who rescued you from the sand-pit?’

‘No one. I managed to get free. If I hadn’t, I might be there now, for it was miles from anywhere, and disused, I think.’

‘But how did you contrive to free yourself then, when you had been unable to do so before?’ asked Miss Morville, quite mystified.

‘I suppose the cord must have frayed,’ Martin said, hesitatingly. ‘Or perhaps it worked loose – no, that wasn’t it, because when I found I could move my arms at last, I strained and strained, and the cord broke, so I think it must have frayed, or was weak in one place. Look!’ He thrust his sleeve up, and showed a bruised and chafed forearm.

‘I will give you some arnica for it, if you would like it,’ said Miss Morville kindly.

He swung round to face her. ‘I don’t want it! You think it’s all lies, don’t you?’

‘Oh, no! Only one should never allow oneself to be carried away by exciting stories, and I am bound to observe that it would not be so very difficult to inflict such a bruise with one’s own hands. I daresay it all happened exactly as you have described, but one can readily understand why it was that Theo and Lord Ulverston would not believe you.’

‘I am much obliged to you! Why don’t you say you think I’m a murderer, and be done with it?’

‘Martin,’ interrupted Gervase, ‘why were you stunned, kept in durance vile, and finally rolled into a sand-pit?’

‘Good God, if I knew that – ! I suppose some desperate fellow meant to rob me!’

‘And were you robbed?’ asked Gervase.

‘No, because I had no money on me! A man don’t carry money in his pockets when he goes out shooting!’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ agreed Gervase. ‘It does not seem to have occurred to that desperate fellow. Do you think he may have rolled you into the sand-pit in a pet at finding you so little worth his trouble?’

‘No. It wasn’t robbery, of course. I see that now, but at the time – Well, I know it sounds smoky, but it’s true! I never thought about not having any money until I got out of that sand-pit. Then I remembered I hadn’t as much as a groat in my pocket!’

‘Was that why you decided to come back?’

Martin flushed. ‘I always meant to come back! It’s why I didn’t reach Stanyon till past ten o’clock tonight! At least, it is, in part! I can tell you, I didn’t feel so stout when I first got free! I couldn’t stand, and my head was aching till I could scarcely see out of my eyes, and I had such a thirst – ! As soon as my legs would bear me, all I cared for was to get out of that pit, and find some water! Well, I did get out, and I had no more idea of where I was than – than anything, but there was a wood quite close, and I thought very likely there might be a stream near it, and so there was! And then I – I –’

‘You?’

‘I went to sleep!’ Martin said. ‘I think I must have slept for hours, because it was very little past dawn when I got that sack off my head, and it was past noon when I woke up, judging from the sun. I felt better then, and I set out to get to the nearest village. Such a figure as I must have looked! I could see they took me for a common vagrant, at the alehouse. They had no post there, of course, and the landlord said he had no horse I might hire, but I might be accommodated at Guyhirne, which was not far.’

‘And were you?’