The Mystery of Cloomber, Arthur Conan Doyle [most important books of all time txt] 📗

head if you intend to speak with the general. He is not a man to stand any nonsense.”

“Right you are. He was always a hard nut to crack. But isn’t this him coming down the avenue?”

I looked through the gate and saw that it was indeed the general, who, having either seen us or been attracted by our voices, was hurrying down towards us. As he advanced he would stop from time to time and peer at us through the dark shadow thrown by the trees, as if he were irresolute whether to come on or no.

“He’s reconnoitering!” whispered my companion with a hoarse chuckle. “He’s afraid—and I know what he’s afraid of. He won’t be caught in a trap if he can help it, the old ‘un. He’s about as fly as they make ‘em, you bet!”

Then suddenly standing on his tiptoes and waving his hand through the bars of the gate, he shouted at the top of his voice:

“Come on, my gallant commandant! Come on! The coast’s clear, and no enemy in sight.”

This familiar address had the effect of reassuring the general, for he came right for us, though I could tell by his heightened colour that his temper was at boiling point.

“What, you here, Mr. West?” he said, as his eye fell upon me. “What is it you want, and why have you brought this fellow with you?”

“I have not brought him with me, sir,” I answered, feeling rather disgusted at being made responsible for the presence of the disreputable-looking vagabond beside me. “I found him on the road here, and he desired to be directed to you, so I showed him the way. I know nothing of him myself.”

“What do you want with me, then?” the general asked sternly, turning to my companion.

“If you please, sir,” said the ex-corporal, speaking in a whining voice, and touching his moleskin cap with a humility which contrasted strangely with the previous rough independence of his bearing, “I’m an old gunner in the Queen’s service, sir, and knowing your name by hearing it in India I thought that maybe you would take me as your groom or gardener, or give me any other place as happened to be vacant.”

“I am sorry that I cannot do anything for you, my man,” the old soldier answered impressively.

“Then you’ll give me a little just to help me on my way, sir,” said he cringing mendicant. “You won’t see an old comrade go to the bad for the sake of a few rupees? I was with Sale’s brigade in the Passes, sir, and I was at the second taking of Cabul.”

General Heatherstone looked keenly at the supplicant, but was silent to his appeal.

“I was in Ghuznee with you when the walls were all shook down by an earthquake, and when we found forty thousand Afghans within gunshot of us. You ask me about it, and you’ll see whether I’m lying or not. We went through all this when we were young, and now that we are old you are to live in a fine bungalow, and I am to starve by the roadside. It don’t seem to me to be fair.”

“You are an impertinent scoundrel,” said the general. “If you had been a good soldier you would never need to ask for help. I shall not give you a farthing.”

“One word more, sir,” cried the tramp, for the other was turning away, “I’ve been in the Tarada Pass.”

The old soldier sprang round as if the words had been a pistol-shot.

“What—what d’ye mean?” he stammered. “I’ve been in the Tarada Pass, sir, and I knew a man there called Ghoolab Shah.”

These last were hissed out in an undertone, and a malicious grin overspread the face of the speaker.

Their effect upon the general was extraordinary. He fairly staggered back from the gateway, and his yellow countenance blanched to a livid, mottled grey. For a moment he was too overcome to speak. At last he gasped out:

“Ghoolab Shah’ Who are you who know Ghoolab Shah?”

“Take another look,” said the tramp, “your sight is not as keen as it was forty years ago.”

The general took a long, earnest look at the unkempt wanderer in front of him, and as he gazed I saw the light of recognition spring up in his eyes.

“God bless my soul!” he cried. “Why, it’s Corporal Rufus Smith.”

“You’ve come on it at last,” said the other, chuckling to himself. “I was wondering how long it would be before you knew me. And, first of all, just unlock this gate, will you? It’s hard to talk through a grating. It’s too much like ten minutes with a visitor in the cells.”

The general, whose face still bore evidences of his agitation, undid the bolts with nervous, trembling fingers. The recognition of Corporal Rufus Smith had, I fancied, been a relief to him, and yet he plainly showed by his manner that he regarded his presence as by no means an unmixed blessing.

“Why, Corporal,” he said, as the gate swung open, “I have often wondered whether you were dead or alive, but I never expected to see you again. How have you been all these long years?”

“How have I been?” the corporal answered gruffly. “Why, I have been drunk for the most part. When I draw my money I lay it out in liquor, and as long as that lasts I get some peace in life. When I’m cleaned out I go upon tramp, partly in the hope of picking up the price of a dram, and partly in order to look for you.”

“You’ll excuse us talking about these private matters, West,” the general said, looking round at me, for I was beginning to move away. “Don’t leave us. You know something of this matter already, and may find yourself entirely in the swim with us some of these days.”

Corporal Rufus Smith looked round at me in blank astonishment.

“In the swim with us?” he said. “However did he get there?”

“Voluntarily, voluntarily,” the general explained, hurriedly sinking his voice. “He is a neighbour of mine, and he has volunteered his help in case I should ever need it.”

This explanation seemed, if anything, to increase the big stranger’s surprise.

“Well, if that don’t lick cock-fighting!” he exclaimed, contemplating me with admiration. “I never heard tell of such a thing.”

“And now you have found me, Corporal Smith,” said the tenant of Cloomber, “what is it that you want of me?”

“Why, everything. I want a roof to cover me, and clothes to wear, and food to eat, and, above all, brandy to drink.”

“Well, I’ll take you in and do what I can for you,” said the general slowly. “But look here, Smith, we must have discipline. I’m the general and you are the corporal; I am the master and you are the man. Now, don’t let me have to remind you of that again.”

The tramp drew himself up to his full height and raised his right hand with the palm forward in a military salute.

“I can take you on as gardener and get rid of the fellow I have got. As to brandy, you shall have an allowance and no more. We are not deep drinkers at the Hall.”

“Don’t you take opium, or brandy, or nothing yourself, sir?” asked Corporal Rufus Smith.

“Nothing,” the general said firmly.

“Well, all I can say is, that you’ve got more nerve and pluck than I shall ever have. I don’t wonder now at your winning that Cross in the Mutiny. If I was to go on listening night after night to them things without ever taking a drop of something to cheer my heart—why, it would drive me silly.”

General Heatherstone put his hand up, as though afraid that his companion might say too much.

“I must thank you, Mr. West,” he said, “for having shown this man my door. I would not willingly allow an old comrade, however humble, to go to the bad, and if I did not acknowledge his claim more readily it was simply because I had my doubts as to whether he was really what he represented himself to be. Just walk up to the Hall, Corporal, and I shall follow you in a minute.”

“Poor fellow!” he continued, as he watched the newcomer hobbling up the avenue in the ungainly manner which I have described. “He got a gun over his foot, and it crushed the bones, but the obstinate fool would not let the doctors take it off. I remember him now as a smart young soldier in Afghanistan. He and I were associated in some queer adventures, which I may tell you of some day, and I naturally feel sympathy towards him, and would befriend him. Did he tell you anything about me before I came?”

“Not a word,” I replied.

“Oh,” said the general carelessly, but with an evident expression of relief, “I thought perhaps he might have said something of old times. Well, I must go and look after him, or the servants will be frightened, for he isn’t a beauty to look at. Good-bye!”

With a wave of the hand the old man turned away from me and hurried up the drive after this unexpected addition to his household, while I strolled on round the high, black paling, peering through every chink between the planks, but without seeing a trace either of Mordaunt or of his sister.

I have now brought this statement down to the coming of Corporal Rufus Smith, which will prove to be the beginning of the end.

I have set down soberly and in order the events which brought us to Wigtownshire, the arrival of the Heatherstones at Cloomber, the many strange incidents which excited first our curiosity and finally our intense interest in that family, and I have briefly touched upon the circumstances which brought my sister and myself into a closer and more personal relationship with them. I think that there cannot be a better moment than this to hand the narrative over to those who had means of knowing something of what was going on inside Cloomber during the months that I was observing it from without.

Israel Stakes, the coachman, proved to be unable to read or write, but Mr. Mathew Clark, the Presbyterian Minister of Stoneykirk, has copied down his deposition, duly attested by the cross set opposite to his name. The good clergyman has, I fancy, put some slight polish upon the narrator’s story, which I rather regret, as it might have been more interesting, if less intelligible, when reported verbatim. It still preserves, however, considerable traces of Israel’s individuality, and may be regarded as an exact record of what he saw and did while in General Heatherstone’s service.