Chapter 11 The Gates of Doom by Rafael Sabatini
PAUNCEFORT'S MOVE
Captain Gaynor, duly enlarged from durance by the good offices of Mr Templeton, and looking somewhat jaded and hollow-eyed as a result of his unpleasant night in the Gatehouse—an appearance which lent colour to the debauch of which he claimed to be victim—was an object of mirth and the butt of a deal of spurious wit on the part of the very jubilant Second Secretary.
When this had somewhat spent itself, the Captain explained the object of his visit to town.
"I was on my way to wait upon you, sir, when this befell me," he announced unblushingly. "I am hoping that by now you may have found some commission for me."
The statesman's face lengthened. In Lord Carteret's present mood it would be worse than futile to approach him on such a subject. But he refrained from saying so. He contented himself with deploring that so far naught of a quality worthy of the Captain's high attainments had offered itself; but he protested that it was a matter he must not be thought to be neglecting, and soon he hoped to have the good fortune of offering Captain Gaynor something that he would consider acceptable. The Captain expressed his profound indebtedness.
"Meanwhile," said he, "I am for Scotland. I have friends there whom I desire to visit, whom I have not seen for years."
His destination, as a matter of fact, was Rome and his master's Court, to report his failure. But to announce that he was returning abroad at such a moment must call for explanation, might even savour of flight, and were therefore imprudent in the extreme.
"You will keep me advised of your whereabouts?" said Mr Templeton.
"I shall be roaming," was the answer. "So perhaps 'twill be best, should you have letters for me, that you address to me at Childe's—my bankers here, with whom I shall be in communication. I shall report myself to you immediately on my return to town."
On that, with the compliments which the occasion called for, they parted.
Mr Templeton hired a chair, and went to wait upon Lord Carteret, whilst Gaynor and his friend Sir Richard sauntered off together.
Upon the pretence of repairing the loss he had suffered by the picking of his pockets yesternight, Captain Gaynor paid a visit to Childe's, upon whom he had a letter of credit. He drew there a sum sufficient for the journey that lay before him. Next, towards noon, they looked in at "White's", and for an hour or so they lounged there in amiable talk of the pleasant season they had spent in Italy in each other's company, and of other matters.
At the end of that hour they parted, the Captain to return to Chertsey and Sir Richard announcing that upon the morrow he was for his seat in Devonshire, where he hoped that Harry would visit him ere he left England for the post in the colonies that was to be obtained him.
Captain Gaynor detested the deception he was practising upon his friend, detested having used him in his need. He would have liked at parting to tell him the truth of matters, but he dared not for his very life's sake.
He walked from "White's" to the post-house at Charing Cross and thence rode post to "The World's End" at Chelsea, where he but stayed for a word with Maclean and to recover his own horse.
Heavy-hearted, now that the adventure was at an end, with all the burden of a sense of failure upon him, he rode on to Chertsey; and heaviest of all was the knowledge that tomorrow he must look his last upon that sweet lady he had met in the enchanted garden. Never again, it seemed to him would he ride fancy-free, never again find the cup of adventure all satisfying, never again be content to wander and take pleasure in the wandering. All was changed. All was very dark ahead in a world that but a little week ago had been so full of sunshine.
Meanwhile Mr Templeton had gone to lay before Lord Carteret the desired evidence of Captain Gaynor's whereabouts, together with conclusive proofs of the error under which the Secretary of State had laboured.
This he performed with an abundance of smirks, an occasional chuckle and many a "Did I not tell your lordship how it was?" Finally he withdrew in magnificent, dignified triumph, his knowledge and perspicacity entirely vindicated, leaving his superior not only discomfited but extremely raw at his discomfiture. For to be guffawed over in such a manner by your underling, and to be forced almost to admit that you have sneered at warnings which an intelligent man would have heeded, is not to be endured complacently by any. Least of all is it to be endured by a Secretary of State when the chastening falls from such soft, pompous hands as those of a Mr Templeton.
Lord Carteret, as is the wont of men in high office, looked about for someone upon whom he might visit his ill-humour and to whom he might impart some of his own rawness. To him in this questing mood comes that morning my Lord Pauncefort, very resplendent in black periwig and saffron-coloured coat.
"Good morning, my lord!" the statesman greeted him, in a tone that implied that he wished the viscount anything but a good morning. "I was about to send for you." Lord Carteret—a man of a comfortable habit of body, with a hooked nose, a crafty mouth, and small round eyes that were singularly penetrating and level—scowled upon his visitor. "What cock-and-bull tale was this ye brought me concerning one Captain Gaynor?"
"Cock-and-bull tale" echoed Pauncefort, taken aback by the question and still more by the tone of it. He drew himself up to the full of his magnificent height, and stared down haughtily upon the Secretary of State. He was not accustomed to being addressed in the manner that Lord Carteret employed this morning.
But he did not long maintain his stare or his haughty poise. The thin lips of the minister wore a sneer and the round little eyes flashed a contempt before which Lord Pauncefort was forced to lower his own. A slight flush crept into his swarthy cheeks.
Men such as Lord Carteret may use men such as Lord Pauncefort; but from the moment they so use them equality ceases between them and is never again to be resumed. To Lord Carteret, the viscount was just a vulgar spy, to be used with contempt, paid his dirty wages and scorned as was his proper due. All this he showed in that faintly sneering mouth and disdainful eyes. "Those were my words," he said steadily, and he repeated them. "Cock-and-bull tale. This Captain Gaynor was not at Chelsea last evening, and it has been made plain to me that it is impossible he should be Captain Jenkyn, as you have said. It was made plain to me yesterday; but I persisted under your assurances, and as a consequence I have enabled that coxcomb Templeton to laugh at me this morning. Now his Majesty's Government, my lord," he continued mercilessly, "is not paying you for fictions, but for exact—for scrupulously exact—information."
"And you have had it," answered Pauncefort in a dull voice.
The statesman rapped the table impatiently with his knuckles. "In this case we have not."
"In this case more than in any other," Pauncefort insisted. "What should it profit me to accuse an innocent man who can prove his innocence as soon as he speaks?"
"Yet that precisely appears to be Captain Gaynor's case."
"Appears to be—ay. The fellow is slippery as Satan himself."
Lord Carteret pooh-poohed the statement. He proceeded to relate where and how Captain Gaynor had spent the night. Pauncefort listened attentively.
"At what hour did the watch discover him?" he inquired.
"At nightfall, I am informed."
"That would be at about half-past nine. And at what time were the arrests effected at Chelsea?"
"At something before nine. He can hardly have been in both places within the time and drunk himself into a stupor in between. Besides, why should he?"
"To set up an alibi, in case it should be necessary. Was he drunk at all?"
Lord Carteret shrugged impatiently. "The watch affirm it: they should know, and Templeton swears he still stinks of brandy."
"And yet, that he is Captain Jenkyn I know; and that he was at Chelsea last night I'll make oath."
"Had he been taken with the others, the fact that he is an agent of the Pretender would have been established, and we could have dealt with him. As it is—why, as it is, I must believe that Templeton is right and that he is—"
"He is Captain Jenkyn, my lord," Pauncefort insisted still.
"You are becoming plaguily monotonous, sir," snapped Carteret. "If you would prove a little more and affirm a little less I should be better pleased with you. Ye see, we can't hang the fellow on your bare word. Indeed anybody's word would be almost better in the ears of a court than that of an informer. You understand?"
That he understood his countenance showed. "My lord," he burst out angrily, "you are putting an affront upon me!"
The minister surveyed him coolly. "I am calling things by the names that belong to them," he answered icily. And my lord was compelled to swallow that added insult—his very proper and inevitable wage.
"I'll wish your lordship a good morning" he said stiffly. He bowed curtly and gained the door. There, a thought striking him, he turned. "You said, I think, that Sir Henry Tresh was the justice before whom Captain Gaynor was brought at Westminster?"
"That is so," said his lordship. "Come to me again when your information stands upon better foundations."
The viscount went out raging, and kicked a flunkey out of his way to vent a little of the fumes with which he was swollen to bursting-point.
He straightway sought the magistrate upon a pretence of being a friend of Captain Gaynor's who had just received news of his arrest. Sir Henry informed him that the Captain was already at large, whereafter his lordship lingered in talk concerning the erstwhile prisoner, and in the course of their entertainment Chance favoured Pauncefort in a manner entirely unexpected. He learnt that Sir Henry had been at "The World's End" at Chelsea last night when the arrest of the plotters was being effected, and he learnt something further, something which was imparted that evening to Sir Richard Tollemache Templeton by his cousin.
"What, think you, is my Lord Carteret's present view of your friend Gaynor?" inquired the Second Secretary.
"Does he hang there still?" quoth Sir Richard in surprise.
"'Tis an obsession with him—an obsession! Oh, 'tis incredible that fatuity should go to such lengths—incredible! And the story itself would be incredible to any but a man who is—ah—lost to all sense of the ridiculous. Why, listen to't. It transpires that by an odd chance Sir Henry Tresh was at 'The World's End' last night when the arrests were made. He was sitting over his wine with a friend when the stir took place. Having witnessed it he goes to his wife's room, finds the door locked, and believes that he hears voices within the room. He knocks; there is a delay, and finally the cuckold is admitted. He demands an explanation of those sounds, of the delay and of the extraordinary agitation in which he finds her. Whereupon she tells him that a gentleman unknown to her entered her room and locked the door, leaving thereafter by the window.
"Sir Henry—a most obliging husband, this—believes her implicitly, assumes that like enough the fellow would be one of the Jacobites who escaped the general arrest. Today my Lord Carteret hears the story, and concludes—can you credit it?—that here, at last, is the explanation of why Captain Jenkyn was not taken with the others. If he were to pause there, I could credit him still with an—ah—with a remnant of sanity. But straightway Captain Jenkyn becomes Captain Gaynor again, in spite of the alibi, the credentials and all else. What, I ask you, Tollemache, can you say to such a man?"
"God help England, I think," answered Sir Richard. "And the worst of it all is that he threatens to execute the warrant for Captain Jenkyn upon Captain Gaynor."
"Is he quite mad?" asked Tollemache.
"Quite—oh, quite!" And Mr Templeton shook his great head. "He'll be in Bedlam before the year is out. But I've washed my hands of the affair. I have told him so. I have warned him. Let the consequences of it—if indeed he goes so far—recoil upon his own head. I shall take measures to protect mine. I shall publish it broadcast that in this blunder at least I am not concerned, that indeed I have done all in my power to avert it. Then, when his lordship rightly becomes the—ah—laughing-stock of the country for an alarmist who sees Jacobite agents in every shadow, then we shall see—we shall see." And Mr Templeton washed his hands in the air, his eyes glowing upon a vision of power that should be transferred to his own more capable hands as a proper and fitting result of his chief's disgrace and downfall.