The Talisman Ring

‘Well, if you want a word with her, you’d best get on the Brighton stage. She ain’t here any longer.’

Mr Stubbs gave him a penetrating look, and said deeply: ‘You’re quite sure of that, are you, Mr Nye?’

‘Of course I’m sure! I told you yesterday how it would be. Miss turned her off. What do you want with her? She was a rare silly wench, and not so well-favoured neither.’

‘You know what I want with her,’ said Mr Stubbs. ‘You’re harbouring a dangerous criminal, Mr Nye, and that wench was him!’

This pronouncement, so far from striking terror into the landlord, seemed to afford him the maximum amount of amusement. After staring at the Runners in a bemused way for several minutes, he allowed a smile to spread slowly over his face. The smile led to a chuckle, the chuckle to a veritable paroxysm of laughter. The landlord, wiping his eyes with the corner of his apron, bade Clem share the joke, and as soon as it had been explained to him, Clem did share it. In fact, he continued to snigger behind his hand for much longer than the Runners thought necessary.

When Nye was able to stop laughing he begged Mr Stubbs to tell him what had put such a notion into his head, and when Mr Stubbs, hoping that this card at least might prove to be a trump, said that he had received information, he at first looked at him very hard, and then said: ‘Information, eh? Then I’ll be bound I know who gave you that same information! It was a scrawny fellow with a white face and the nastiest pair of daylights you ever saw! A fellow of the name of Gregg: that’s who it was!’

Mr Stubbs was a trifle disconcerted, and said guardedly: ‘I don’t say it was, and I don’t say it wasn’t.’

‘Lord love you, you needn’t tell me!’ said Nye, satisfied that his shot had gone home. ‘He’s had a spite against me since I don’t know when, while as for his master, if a stranger was to stop for half a day in this place, he’d go mad thinking it was Mr Ludovic come home to stop him taking what don’t belong to him. You’ve been properly roasted, that’s what you’ve been.’

‘I don’t know that,’ replied Mr Stubbs. ‘All I know is it’s very highly suspicious that that abigail ain’t here no more, and what I want to see, Mr Nye, is those cellars of yourn.’

‘Well, I’ve got something better to do than to take you down to my cellars,’ said Nye. ‘If you want to see ’em, you go and see ’em. I don’t mind.’

An hour later, when Sir Hugh came down to breakfast, a pleasing idea dawned in Nye’s brain, and as he set a dish of ham and eggs before his patron, he told him that the Runners were in the house again. Sir Hugh, more interested in his breakfast than in the process of the Law, merely replied that as long as they kept from poking their noses into his room, he had no objection to their presence.

‘Oh, they won’t do that, sir!’ said Nye, pouring him out a cup of coffee. ‘They’re down in the cellar.’

Sir Hugh was inspecting a red sirloin, and said in a preoccupied voice: ‘In the c

ellar, are they?’ Suddenly he let his eyeglass fall, and swung round in his chair to look at the landlord. ‘What’s that you say? In the cellar?’

‘Yes, sir. They’ve been there the best part of an hour now – off and on.’

Sir Hugh was a man not easily moved, but this piece of intelligence roused him most effectively from his habitual placidity. ‘Are you telling me you’ve let that red-nosed scoundrel loose in the cellars!’ he demanded.

‘Well, sir, seeing as he’s an officer of the Law, and with a warrant, I didn’t hardly like to gainsay him,’ said Nye apologetically.

‘Warrant be damned!’ said Sir Hugh. ‘There’s a pipe of Chambertin down there which I bought from you! What the devil are you about, man?’

‘I thought you wouldn’t be pleased, sir, but there! what can I do? They’ve got it into their heads there’s a secret cellar. They’re hunting for it. Clem tells me it’s something shocking the way they’re pulling the kegs about.’

‘Pulling the –’ Words failed Sir Hugh. He rose, flinging down his napkin, and strolled from the parlour towards the tap-room and the cellar stairs.

Fifteen minutes later Miss Thane, entering the room, was mildly surprised to find her brother’s chair empty, and inquired of Nye what had become of him.

‘It was on account of them Runners, ma’am,’ said Nye.

‘What! are they here again?’ exclaimed Miss Thane.

‘Ay, they’re here, ma’am, a-hunting for the way into my hidden cellar. Oh, Mr Ludovic’s safe enough! But on account of my mentioning to Sir Hugh how them Runners was disturbing the wine downstairs, he got up, leaving his breakfast like you see, and went off in a rare taking to see what was happening.’

Miss Thane cast one glance at Nye’s wooden countenance, and said: ‘You were certainly born to be hanged, Nye. What was happening?’

‘Well, ma’am, by what I heard in the tap-room they had pulled my kegs about a thought roughly, and what with that and Sir Hugh getting it into his head they was wishful to tap the Nantes brandy, there was a trifle of a to-do. Clem tells me it was rare to hear Sir Hugh handle them. By what I understand, he’s laid it on them not to move any kegs by so much as an inch, and what he told them about wilful damage frightened them fair silly – that and the high tone he took with them.’

‘They didn’t ask him what he knew of Lord Lavenham, did they?’ said Miss Thane anxiously.

‘They didn’t have no chance to ask him, ma’am. He told them they might look for all the criminals they chose, so long as they didn’t tamper with the liquor, nor go nosing round his bedchamber.’

‘But, Nye, what if they find your hidden cellar?’ said Miss Thane.

He smiled dourly. ‘They won’t do that – not while they keep to the open cellars. In fact, while Sir Hugh was telling them what their duty was, and what it wasn’t, I was able to take Mr Ludovic his breakfast.’