Chapter X: 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.