_AN ADVENTURE IN A PANTRY._
For a quarter of an hour or thereabouts they enjoyed their privacy,
and by that time the pangs of hunger were pretty well assuaged.
Considering the speed at which their jaws had travelled, it would
have been strange had it been otherwise. The inroads they had made
upon the stores were evidence of the dimensions of their appetites.
The beef had lost somewhat of its fair proportions; the ham, cruelly
hacked and carved by Noel, no longer looked respectable; while of the
fowls there was not much left but bones. It would have cut the
scientific carver to the heart to see the havoc wrought by these
'prentice hands--hew and hack, hack and hew; uniformity had not
entered their minds at all. They had only thought to satisfy their
hunger. They had satisfied it; and in so doing had destroyed for
ever the beauty of the joints. The barbarous ill-usage which he had
accorded to the ham struck even Noel's hardened conscience, and he
eyed the ruins with looks of doubt and hesitation.
"I don't think," he said, as he wondered in what direction he should
make a fresh assault, "that that is carved quite so well as it might
be carved, and I should not care to hear what the landlord has to say
when he first rests eyes upon that mangled form; but when a man is
hungry"--and he laid stress upon the word--"such a pettifogging thing
as carving is beneath his notice."
"I hope the landlord will see the argument," said Marmaduke, who had
by no means improved the appearance of the fowls; "but I have my
doubts. What's the next thing we can manage? This pie now; the
outside looks good enough to make one wonder what's within."
"What's the good of wondering?" put in Lionel the practical. "Why
don't you have a cut at it to see? Here, let me get at it."
And get at it he did. It proved to be an apple-pie, baked probably
that morning, and in excellent condition. Without loss of time, and
with unabated vigour, the trio began to make an end of it.
"I'm going to finish it," explained Lionel, as he assisted himself to
a third helping. "When once you've cut a pie, you ought to finish
it, as whatever you leave is sure to spoil. It's nothing but waste
and extravagance to try and keep it till next day."
"I should think you were going to finish it!" said Noel. "You might
as well eat it all at once! Just look at you; do you mean to say
you're going to take all that? What do you suppose you're going to
leave for me? You're the greatest pig I ever saw, Pollyon!"
And he made a dash to recover some of the very liberal portion which
Lionel was placing on his own plate.
"Hold hard!" returned his friend. "What are you doing there? Just
give me some of that crust," for Noel had managed to seize nearly the
whole of it. "Do you hear? give me some of that crust."
And he raised his voice rather louder than was absolutely necessary,
considering that Penharden, who was by no means deaf, was almost
touching him. They were standing at the extreme end of the pantry,
Noel and Lionel wrangling as to what was to be considered a fair
division of the remaining portion of the pie, Tregowan somewhat
apart, too much engaged with emptying his plate to heed their
quarrel. Impunity had made them careless; food had raised their
courage; they had almost forgotten that they were, to say the least
of it, uninvited to the feast they had enjoyed. It never entered
their minds that they had any cause to fear discovery, and at that
moment discovery came.
It is not impossible that the occupants of the coffee-room and of the
other rooms of the hotel had come to the final conclusion that remain
any longer without something to eat and drink they would not. It is
possible that they had impressed this upon the landlord in a manner
which had convinced him of the strength of their resolution. It is
probable that the distracted Mr. Robbins had himself sallied forth in
search of the provisions which they demanded with such strenuous
fervour. However that may be, certain it is that Mr. Robbins did
come out to look for food, and that he came to the place where he
naturally presumed he would be most likely to find it--to the pantry.
Without giving any warning of his approach, with the haste with which
everything that night seemed fated to be done, without having the
slightest suspicion of what was going on inside, he came rushing to
the larder, threw the door wide open, and rushed in. The result was
an effective tableau. Mr. Robbins, like most of the others in his
establishment, was, for reasons easily understood, uncomfortably hot;
the sweat was running down his cheeks, and with a large red
pocket-handkerchief he mopped the perspiration from his brow. He was
a man about middle age, short in stature, but sufficiently developed
in the region of the waist; his hair was very short and stiff, and he
wore two parallel scraps of whiskers upon his ruby cheeks. The sight
which met his view on his first entrance made his cheeks a shade more
rubicund and his hair strive its best to stand on end. His first
impression was that our three friends were thieves, burglars at
least, and that they were bent on robbing him of house and home. So
thinking, he rushed out of the pantry with as much haste as he had
come, shouting--
"Thieves! robbers! Help! help! Here's half-a-dozen murdering
vagabonds in the larder!"
The lads, on their side, were astonished to the full as much as Mr.
Robbins. Duke stood with a plate in one hand and a spoon in the
other. Lionel had not even time to take his fork out of his mouth.
Noel stood grasping what he deemed to be his proper share of the
pie-crust with both his hands; and all three joined in staring at the
intruder with open eyes.
"It's the landlord!" at last cried Lionel, choking down the piece of
pie which he had just put in his mouth. "Here's a go! If I'm not
wrong, the signal is--prepare for squalls!"
"It was Duke brought us. I should never have thought of coming if he
had not proposed it," began Noel, his practical courage being, as
usual, less than his theoretical, instinctively putting the piece of
crust behind his back. But Duke, after the first moment, was in no
way at a loss.
"Quite so; it was Duke who brought you. I am quite aware of that,"
said that young gentleman, haughty all at once. "And, pray, what
have we to fear? I presume we are both able and willing to pay for
what we have eaten? This is an hotel, and you're always allowed to
eat as much as you choose if you pay for it in every hotel I know."
By now Mr. Robbins, having succeeded in bringing the cook and a buxom
lass, probably the kitchen-maid, to his assistance, regained some of
his courage, and ventured to put his head inside the larder door.
"Now, you vagabonds," he said, "it's no good, you know. You're
collared in the very act."
"Who are you calling vagabonds?" cried Duke indignantly, striding
forward with the pie-dish in his hand, as though he intended breaking
it over the landlord's head.
"Drop it!" cried that valiant individual, withdrawing his head with
remarkable celerity, and at the same time pulling to the door,
turning the key, and locking them in, so as to effectually prevent
their escaping. Then, banging his fist against the wire gauze and
bawling through it, "You stop in there; you stop in there till I come
to fetch you out; and that won't be long, you take my word for it.
I'll teach you to threaten honest men, you murdering villain you!"
"If you take my advice," retorted Marmaduke, banging on his side
against the wire panelling, "you'll open this door and let us out
before you make a bigger idiot of yourself than you've done already.
Do you hear, you blundering blockhead? We're gentlemen, not thieves."
"Oh, I daresay, I daresay; they always are!" returned the sarcastic
Mr. Robbins. "I never knew a regular rascal yet who wasn't by his
showing the honestest of gentlemen. I'll open the door and let you
out fast enough, my fine spark, when I've got the right sort of
people here to tackle you."
"Did you ever hear such an idiot?" cried the disgusted Marmaduke,
turning to his friends. Lionel was enjoying the business hugely, but
Noel was by no means in such a cheerful frame of mind; then, turning
to the landlord, "Do you mean to say that you've sent for the police?"
"That's exactly what I do mean to say; precisely the very thing!
What a sharp man you are, to be sure!" And mine host chuckled
audibly at his own humour.
"Then let me tell you that you're the biggest lunatic I ever saw. My
name's Tregowan--Tregowan of Tregowan. We only came in here for
something to eat."
"Ah! now we're coming to it," struck in the landlord, who evidently
had not the faintest notion who it was he was really dealing with;
"but if you take my tip, you'll leave all them explanations till you
come before the justices. Whatever you say will be used against you
at the trial."
"Trial! what do you mean?" stormed Marmaduke, while Pollyon, unable
to contain himself any longer, burst into a roar of laughter.
Penharden, on his side, took the situation much more seriously to
heart.
"Mr. Robbins! Mr. Robbins!" he exclaimed, advancing to the pantry
door and speaking in his most melting tones, "you really are too hard
on us. We are quite willing to pay you."
"Well, if this ain't pretty cool!" burst out the victorious Robbins.
"Here's a fellow asking me to compound a felony right underneath my
very nose. No, young fellow--for young, judging from your voice, you
are, and more shame to you; the law must take its course. You can't
play pitch-and-toss with justice, as you have got to learn."
"But we haven't stolen anything," persisted the anxious Noel.
"Oh, of course; no one ever does! Now, don't you come that game on
me, because it won't wash; and it ain't no use your talking neither,
because not another word do you get out of me until the matter's in
other hands than mine."
"I vote we break the door down," suggested Lionel, who had regarded
the whole affair as a splendid joke, and was bent on still further
mystifying the landlord. "Have you got your revolver handy? If we
were to send a couple of bullets through the old fellow's head, we
might drag his bleeding corpse in here and stuff it in this barrel."
"What! what do I hear?" cried the landlord. "Here! murder! murder!"
and he strained his lungs to their utmost tension.
"Ready?" went on Lionel, raising his voice still louder; "when I say
the word you fire. You fire first, and I'll come after you; we're
sure to hit him between the three of us. He's only a landlord;
there's no harm in killing him!"
"Only a landlord!--no harm! Did anybody ever hear such cold-blooded
villainy? Here! murder! If you're not here in half a minute I'm as
dead as mutton!"
"In less than that!" shouted Lionel. "One!"
"Here! help! help! thieves! They're murdering me!"
"Two!"
"Murder! murder!! murder!!! Do you want to see me lying in my gore?"
"Three!" But before the word was fairly out of Lionel's lips there
was a sound of some one rushing through the door which led into the
hotel; it was Mr. Robbins fleeing for his life!
"Ha! ha, ha!" roared Lionel. "Courageous sort of a gentleman!
Thinks himself as good as dead already I should think, judging from
the noise he makes. Pleasant sort of night we're having!"
"Pleasant!" groaned Noel; "you call it pleasant! If I have another
day like this it will just be more than I can bear. I'm that sore I
hardly know how to contain myself; and now we've got into this
scrape, and all through Marmaduke!"
But while within the pantry they discussed the situation, outside the
valiant Mr. Robbins sought for more assistance. Fairly persuaded
that the marauders whom he had accidentally lighted on were a gang of
ruthless miscreants, who would never for a moment hesitate at such a
trifle as depriving a fellow-creature of his life in order to improve
their chances of escape, he never stopped, hot though he was, until
he had put as much space as possible between himself and them, and
was in the company of others. These others included nothing less
than two members of the local force, who had been summoned to enforce
the majesty of the law. There appeared to be some doubt, however, as
to what was the best way in which that could actually be done--what,
in fact, was the actual offence which the yet-to-be-captured culprits
had committed. The waiter, backed up by the cook and kitchen-maid,
while a crowd of passengers was listening with might and main--alas
for the quiet of the injured folk upstairs!--was volubly explaining
how that there was a gang of ruffians, to the number of a dozen at
the least, in the larder, whom "the Master" had caught in the very
act of making off with all the valuables the house contained, and
whom he had gallantly arrested with his own hand, when the heroic Mr.
Robbins, thus apostrophised, came running up in person, red-hot with
anything but valour.
"Murder! murder!" he exclaimed. "Police, I call on you to do your
dooty. Only by a miracle, as I might say, have I this moment escaped
from being murdered in cold blood." It would have been only by a
miracle that anybody at that moment could have found a drop of cold
blood in all his body. "There's that set of villains down in my
larder that I never set eyes on the like of them before. Not a
minute ago I heard one of them say with my own ears that there was no
harm in killing me, because I was only a landlord! Only a landlord,
indeed! and what is there in a landlord, I should like to know, that
raises him below his fellows? I'll landlord them!" And he mopped
his brow with zeal.
"How many of them are there?" asked a constable, with the air of a
man who knows what he is about, and wished to be understood as such.
"How many? I should say there were--I should say there were five,"
answered the landlord, who, in his excitement, appeared to have seen
double.
"Oh, there's more than that," struck in the cook, who had not even
looked to see; "there's six or seven."
"There's ten," declared the kitchen-maid, who knew as much of the
matter as her friend; "the larder's full of 'em."
"Ah! I daresay--I daresay," observed the constable who had
previously spoken, with his most knowing look; "they mostly go about
in gangs. It isn't the first case we've heard of, of the same kind,
not by any means."
"No, and it won't be the last either," went on his colleague, who was
fat and podgy, and scarcely the sort of person calculated to inspire
one with much terror of the law. "There always is a robbery on
somewhere, and it's no use our trying to stop 'em."
"Quite so," not unreasonably suggested one of the passengers standing
by; "but don't you think that instead of standing talking here it
would be better to go down and effect their capture before they have
the opportunity of doing further mischief?"
"I shouldn't be surprised but what it would," replied constable No.
1, surveying the speaker with his official eye; "I shouldn't be
surprised but what it would."
"Perhaps the gentleman would like to go down and capture them
himself," remarked constable No. 2, with what was evidently meant to
be strong sarcasm. "One man against ten would be about his form, as
I should think. If we listened to all some people say we might do a
great deal better than we do."
Instantly all eyes were turned upon the officious passenger, who
shrunk into the background crestfallen before this display of
official scorn. For some seconds there was silence; no one had
courage enough to tread upon official toes.
"What I propose to do is this," began constable No. 1, and then
stopped short while people waited for him to collect his thoughts a
little. It must have occurred to some of them that the gang of
ruffians had in the meantime a capital opportunity afforded them, of
which they would scarcely fail to avail themselves, of playing high
jinks in the larder.
"Well," after an interval went on the knowing constable, "I should
say that the only thing which we can do is to go and have a look at
them."
"Yes," chorused the passengers, thrilling with excitement, "we'll go
and have a look at them."
"And when we've had a look at 'em--a look at 'em, I should say"----
and he eyed his colleague.
"Certainly, certainly," agreed the podgy one, "I should say we
could." But what it was they could, neither of them took the trouble
to explain.
A general move was made; constable No. 1 like a hero led the van, his
colleague came close upon his heels, while the landlord, the
servants, and the passengers came in a miscellaneous crowd behind.
They had gone some steps when the hero in the van drew up.
"As this is not my house," he observed, "and I am not supposed to
know the ins and outs of it, perhaps some one will come and show the
way. I don't happen to have a dog's nose, to smell out larders."
As it was Mr. Robbins's house, everybody felt that he should act as
guide; but Mr. Robbins had his doubts.
"Suppose they go shooting?" said Mr. Robbins. "I know they will. I
heard them say it."
"What's the odds suppose they do?" inquired the constable. "They can
only kill you, I believe, and that's a case of murder. You don't
mean to let us understand that you're afraid? What! a man like you!
I shouldn't have believed it of a man I've known these fifteen years
and more." Thus beguiled, though by no means easy in his mind, Mr.
Robbins yielded, and once more the march went on.
But, despite his desire to figure well in the eyes of all, mine host
could not conceal the doubts which racked his mind. As they
approached the larder, and therefore the neighbourhood of the gang of
ruffians, his uneasiness increased to such an extent that the
constable was continually compelled to propel him onwards from the
rear. Nor was the constable even zealous in doing that. It was
plain from the desire which every one evinced to lag behind his
fellows, that it was the unanimous opinion of all concerned that they
trode on delicate ground.
"Which is it? Which is the larder?" asked the constable in a
melodramatic whisper, as they approached the pantry door, and every
one started back with dismay at the courage he displayed in even
venturing to speak at all.
"Here! here it is! here's the pantry!" mumbled Mr. Robbins; and he,
with the gallant constable, stood stock-still within some two feet of
the pantry door. All the others followed their notable example.
There they stood in a nervous throng, some in the passage, some on
the threshold of the open door, all waiting, yet dreading to see what
might be seen.
Meanwhile within the larder the three causes of all this terrible
to-do were perfectly conscious that some one was approaching.
"Here they come!" chuckled Lionel, as his quick ear caught the sound
of voices and of footsteps. "Here's the police! Here's a lark, my
boys!"
"Lark!" groaned Noel, "lark! He calls it a lark! Suppose they take
us all to prison?"
"I should like to see them take one of us to prison," replied Lionel,
speaking, with _malice prepense_, at the top of his voice, so that
every word he said might be distinctly heard. "I'll shoot them down
like dogs." The assailants on hearing this stood not upon the order
of their going. "I'll do for a dozen of them, anyhow," and the crowd
went back still farther.
"That's the villain! That's the fellow who said there was no harm in
killing me as I was only a landlord," explained the excited Mr.
Robbins.
"Well, I don't know but I should say that was a boy's voice," said
the podgy constable, "and a gentleman's into the bargain. I don't
say it is so, but that's my impression."
"Then your impression ain't worth two straws," declared his comrade;
"and if I was you I'd keep it to yourself. I know the party, I know
him, and I'll let him know it when I get at him."
Although he said this with such undoubted vigour that one could not
help thinking it would be bad for the "party" when he did "get at
him," he displayed no particular haste in bringing the matter to an
issue. But Marmaduke was determined to bring the matter to an issue
on his own account. Perceiving that Lionel was about to make a fresh
declaration of his bloodthirsty intentions.
"Shut up!" he said, and Lionel for a wonder held his tongue. "I am
going to put an end to this." Going to the door, he rapped against
the wire with his knuckles. "If that is you, Mr. Robbins, I shall be
obliged if you will at once unlock this door. I don't know if you
are aware that you have laid yourself open to an action for false
imprisonment for locking it at all." This was a random shot of
Duke's, and he had no idea how true it was. "I tell you again, as I
told you before, that my name is Marmaduke Tregowan of Tregowan. We
were passengers by the express. We occupy room No. 7. Since we
could get nothing to eat in the coffee-room, we came here and helped
ourselves, and for what we have eaten are ready to pay you whenever
you choose to present your bill."
Had a thunderbolt fallen at their feet, the crowd outside could
scarcely have been more astonished.
"That ain't no robber's voice. That's a young gent, that is,"
declared the podgy constable triumphantly.
"Did he say his name was Tregowan?" said one of the passengers. "One
of the Cornwall Tregowans? If that is the case, landlord, you have
made a pretty mess of it."
"It ain't nothing of the sort," protested Mr. Robbins, who, however,
had his inward qualms; "it's just his flummery."
"Flummery! There you're wrong. I know more than that," maintained
the constable, coming to the front with his most important manner.
"I know a gent's voice when I hear one. Give me the key."
The key was given him, the door was opened, and straightway the three
young gentlemen came out. The surprise was mutual. They stared at
the crowd, and the crowd returned the stare with interest. This was
the gang of ruffians of whom the larder was so full!
"I don't know, Mr. Robbins, if you are satisfied," said Duke in his
haughtiest tones, as though the right were entirely on his side, "or
if this is your idea of practical joking; but if ever a man deserved
thrashing, that man is you."
And with head high in the air he marched off through the crowd.
"One! two! three! Pop! bang! fire!" cried Pollyon, snapping his
fingers in the landlord's face; while Penharden, still in the lowest
spirits, wended his weary way.