“Gilder proposed to you, I understand?” said Dick quietly.
“Did he tell you?” She fetched a long sigh. “Yes; I was amazed. I suppose it was very complimentary, but why did he do it in such a great hurry, do you think?”
Dick took a cigarette from the box she offered him and lit it before he replied.
“That is exactly what I’ve come to discover,” he said. “I feel rather like a grand inquisitor, but I must know.”
“And I can’t tell you.”
She was acting. He knew that her one object was to turn him from an interview with her brother, and she in turn knew that her efforts would be in vain.
“You had no hint of this precious proposal in advance? Arthur told you nothing?”
“No; Arthur couldn’t possibly have known. He told me that Mr. Gilder wanted us to see his new flat, and although it was a great bore going out to tea with somebody one doesn’t know, I went——”
“To oblige Arthur, of course?”
“No,” she insisted; “you must credit me with a reasonable amount of feminine curiosity. Bachelors’ establishments intrigue me. Your one drawback, from my point of view, is that you’ve only a poky little office and, I presume, a wretched little servant’s bedroom.”
“For a second son I’m rather well off,” said Dick with a quizzical smile. “You are sure Arthur didn’t give you any forewarning of this proposal?”
“Absolutely sure. He was as much astonished as I was.”
“Have you discussed it with him?” he asked quickly.
She hesitated.
“Yes, I spoke about it in the car on the way down, and Arthur was rather—astonished.”
“Only astonished—not furious?”
“He may have been furious, too. Arthur doesn’t carry his heart on his sleeve.”
“I should imagine not,” said Dick drily, and then: “Will you ask him if I can see him for five minutes?”
She looked at him with troubled eyes.
“You’re not going to quarrel, are you, Dick?”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m going to ask him a question or two. You realize that I’m entitled to know.”
“Why are you ‘entitled’?”
“Don’t you think I am?” he asked gently.
Her eyes went up to his for a second, and then dropped, as she read something there that thrilled and hurt her. Without a word she went out into the hall and knocked at Arthur’s door.
“What does he want? I can’t be bothered to-night,” said Arthur Gwyn fretfully. “What a fellow he is for interrupting people when they’re busy!”
“I think you’d better see him, Arthur,” she said, and added: “And get it over.”
He shot a quick glance at her.
“What do you mean—get what over?” he asked.
“Whatever there is to get over,” said Leslie quietly.
Arthur looked down at the picturesque confusion of papers that covered his library table.
“All right, shoot him in,” he said ungraciously.
XVII
He did not attempt to rise from his chair when Dick entered, closing the door behind him.
“Sit down, will you, Alford? Leslie tells me you want to see me.”
“Leslie need not have given you that message. I’d already told you this afternoon that I would come to you for an explanation.”
“Of what?”
“Of the unpleasant happening at Gilder’s flat. This man proposed to your sister—you know that?”
“Leslie told me,” said the other, after a moment’s silence.
“And you were annoyed, one supposes? You will dismiss this clerk of yours to-morrow?”
The other leaned back in his chair.
“I don’t see why I should,” he said coolly. “After all, it’s no crime for any man to propose to a pretty girl. Of course, he’s not the sort of fellow I should choose for a brother-in-law, but if brothers had to choose husbands for their sisters, you know, Alford, there would be some very queer marriages!”
“What is his pull?” asked Dick quietly.
“I don’t——”
“What is his hold on you?”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Just what I say. You would never tolerate a man like Gilder paying attentions to your sister, apart from the insult he offered to a prospective Countess of Chelford, unless he had such a grip on you that all your natural indignation was crushed by the fear of some consequence he held over your head.”
Arthur Gwyn found it difficult to control his voice.
“My dear fellow, how very melodramatic!” he scoffed. “Hold over me! You must have been studying the latest Drury Lane play! Naturally, I would rather see Leslie married to your brother, but I certainly would put no obstacle in her way if her heart was set elsewhere.”
“On Gilder, in fact?”
“On Gilder,” nodded Arthur gravely, as though the matter had been the subject of deep thought and much self-communion.
And then Dick Alford asked a question that brought the man to his feet, white and shaking.
“Is it the question of the bills?”
“The—the what?” faltered the lawyer.
“The four bills which were supposed to be backed by my brother—the signatures being forgeries. I thought you knew that I had seen them. They were shown to me at the bank, and fortunately I did not disclaim them—fortunately for you, I mean. When I went to see them again they were taken up. I presume Mr. Fabrian Gilder redeemed them. That would have cost him a little over five thousand pounds, and I presume he did not do that out of sheer altruism.”
Arthur Gwyn’s mouth was dry; he could scarcely articulate.
“I didn’t know until to-day,” he muttered. “Harry was ill at the time. The money was due to me for—for—legal costs. I went down to the bank to take them up and found they had been honoured.”
“Was that the pull?”
He did not meet the steady gaze that was fixed on him.
“Yes, that was the pull, if you want to know. You don’t suppose I’d allow Leslie to marry a swine like Gilder unless—unless he had something on me, do you? Can’t you understand my position, Alford? I’m ruined! That fellow could send me to jail—he still can.”
Dick shook his head.
“Fire him to-morrow,” he said. “If he produces the bills I will undertake that Harry will acknowledge the signatures.”
The pink came back to the colourless face of the lawyer.
“You’ll do this?” he said eagerly. “My God! you don’t know what a weight you’ve lifted off my mind. You’re a brick, by jove! I’ll fire him to-morrow.”
He held out an eager hand and Dick took it with some hesitation. At the best of times Arthur Gwyn did not impress him; at this moment, almost incoherent with relief, he seemed a pitiful coward.
“I will pay Harry every penny. I have something on the stocks now that will bring me in a fortune, that will wipe out all my debts and put me on my feet again.”
There was humour in the situation; for the thing which was to rehabilitate his fortunes was no less than the barefaced robbery of Harry Chelford’s inheritance! But Arthur was not conscious of the irony of the position. He would deal with Gilder in the morning. Thank God he had not gone still deeper into the mire! The knowledge that in his pocketbook was another bill as yet unuttered, did not cool the glow of virtue he was experiencing. Henceforth he would walk the straight way.
“There’s one thing you could do for me, Alford—hurry along that marriage. Fix it for next month if you can. Leslie is just a foolish girl, she is trying to put off the inevitable, but that’s natural, isn’t it? Can’t you buck up Harry——”
Dick Alford looked at him steadily.
“The matter must be left entirely to Leslie,” he said, and there was something very definite and final in those words.
They came out of the library together; Leslie waiting, a little fearful, saw the smile on her brother’s face and breathed a sigh of thankfulness.
“You’re not going?” Dick was reaching for his cap.
“I have to get back to the house,” he said, and, seeing her look of disappointment, he stood irresolutely.
“Come along in and play mah-jongg. I am in a mah-jongg mood,” said Arthur, almost jovially.
If there was one thing that Dick could not endure that night it was to sit vis-à-vis with Arthur Gwyn. He would have liked to stay with the girl, but for the moment her brother seemed an inevitable third. And he was terribly informative. Arthur was in his most expansive mood.
“Here is something that will interest you!”
He pointed to the wall. Hanging against a dark wooden shield was an iron dagger—black and sinister, the handle worn smooth, the long blade notched and jagged. Dick had seen it before.
“That should be at your place, Alford. The veritable dagger of the veritable Black Abbot’s slayer—Hubert of Redruth! Look at his arms on the hilt.…”
“I have seen it,” said Dick shortly. “Put on your coat and come for a walk, Leslie,” he suggested, and the obliging Arthur, who would have been agreeable to any scheme he propounded, seconded the suggestion.
XVIII
The night was cool and dark. There was a full moon, visible at intervals through the drift of clouds. Leslie slipped her arm into his as they walked down the dark avenue toward the road.
“Did you quarrel?” she asked.
“N-no, we didn’t quarrel,” said Dick. “There was a little plain speaking, but I think it cleared the air, and, after all, that was what I came for. He is dismissing Gilder to-morrow.”
She was silent at this, and did not speak again until they were on the road.
“Is that wise?” she asked. “I’m a little afraid of the man. I feel he would be a very bad enemy.”
She heard his soft laugh and felt reassured.
“He’s that all right,” said Dick; “the worst enemy any man could have, I should imagine. But an enemy is only dangerous in ratio to his hurting power. I don’t think Mr. Gilder will hurt anybody.”
“Not Arthur?” she asked.
“Not Arthur, and certainly not you.”
She squeezed his arm in hers.
“You’d be a wonderful brother,” she said.
“I am,” he said curtly, and she smiled in the darkness. “Your handsome relative asked me to persuade you to marry next month, and I told him point-blank that I would do nothing of the kind. Leslie, do you know that you never see Harry from one week-end to another?”
She had realized that for a long time, and it was a constant subject for self-reproach that she had less and less desire for her fiancé’s society.
“He is really not interested in me, Dick,” she said. “Harry is so absorbed in his treasure hunt and his queer chase after the elixir of life——”
“He’s told you that, has he?” asked Dick quickly.
“Why, of course!” she scoffed. “Do you know, Dick, he has almost convinced me that there is something in his idea?”
She waited for him to reply.
“Don’t you think so?”
“In the Life Water… perhaps there is.”
“And in the treasure?” she asked.
“Maybe. Generations of Chelfords have hunted for that wretched gold, and I suppose in the past four hundred years almost as much money has been spent in the search as the treasure is worth! I’m perfectly sure in my own mind that Good Queen Bess of pious memory bagged every bar of it!”
“And I’m perfectly sure she didn’t,” was the surprising reply. “I’ve been reading Elizabethan history very carefully, and the year that your ancestor hid his gold was the year that the Queen was so hard-pressed for money that she had to borrow from the Lombards.”
He stopped.
“Is that so?” incredulously.
“Absolutely. And if you weren’t such a sceptic and would read a little more, you would know what any schoolchild could tell you, that in 1582 the Queen was broke. Do you object to that vulgar word?”
“It is a familiar one at any rate,” he laughed.
They had reached the deep cutting, and he turned to the left, opened a gate, and they walked up a little path toward the ruins of Chelford Abbey.
The moon was showing through a rift in the clouds.
“You ought to see the Abbey by moonlight, if you’ve never seen it. It’s rather beautiful,” he said, as he gave her a hand to assist her up the steep path.
As they came in sight of the broken walls and towers of this ancient place of peace, something of the solemnity of the scene entered her heart, and she stood still, looking spellbound upon the wreckage of a once great abbey. The Abbey ruins stood on the broadest surface of what was locally known as the Mound—the high embankment which ran almost from Fossaway Abbey to the road, following the course of the little Ravensrill. Here, if tradition spoke the truth, a place of sacrifice had stood, before the English church had risen in flint, before the Norman monks laid chisel to stone on their great abbey.
The moon softened and idealized the broken stonework, and in her mind she went back through the years to those ancient times when the black-robed figures of the monks moved where she now stood. Below, to the left, she could see the fret of sparkling silver where the moon reflected in the Ravensrill. Here they had sat, these ancient men, with their fishing-rods, discussing the little events of their narrow world. They had passed into dust, and this great abbey, the pride of their eyes and the work of their hands, was crumbling rapidly into like nothingness.
“It is wonderful!” she breathed.
Were her eyes deceiving her? She could have sworn she saw something moving in the shadow of the old tower. He heard the quick intake of her breath.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know—my imagination, I think. I thought I saw somebody moving there.”
He followed the direction of her eyes.
“There would be nobody here at this time of the night, unless it is the Black Abbot,” he said jocularly, “and we’re not scared of him, are we?”
“I’m not, for one,” she said, with a firmness that she was far from feeling.
At that moment she heard something—something that turned her blood to water. It was a low moan of anguish, a sobbing diminuendo of sound that began on a high note and wailed down the scale until it was inaudible.
“What was that?” she asked, grasping his arm.
He did not speak; he was straining his eyes toward the shadows.
Again the sound, this time a wail that ended in a scream. He caught the girl by the shoulder. At that moment he had seen a figure moving away from the Abbey toward the river. A tall, black figure that showed clearly in the moonlight. She saw it, too.
“Don’t leave me, Dick!” she begged, as she felt him strain away from her.
Then of a sudden she felt his tension relax.
“Let him go,” he said, half to himself.
She clung to him desperately, frantically, as the figure stumbled and staggered toward the trees that would presently engulf him. The dreadful Thing ran on, stopping now and again to turn and gibber and mouth at the man and the woman who stood motionless on the edge of the cutting. Waving wild arms, now howling in dreadful glee, now screaming in senseless fear, it vanished in the dark of the wood—an obscene, uncleanly thing, that belonged to bad dreams and the horrid imaginings of madness. Far away in the distance came the howl of him, and then the night swallowed him up.
“How dreadful!”
And then her knees gave under her and she remembered no more.
XIX
Leslie opened her eyes and frowned up into the face that was bent over her. She was lying on the verge of the road, for Dick had carried her down into the cutting and a hundred yards toward Willow House.
“Oh, how awful!” she shuddered, and closed her eyes. “It was the Black Abbot?”
Dick Alford did not reply for a while. His anxiety for the girl was such that all other interests had passed from his mind.
“I am all right now,” she said, and, with his assistance, stood shakily on her feet. “I told you I was a fool. This is my crazy day! Dick, what was it?”
“He was too far away from me to see,” said Dick; “probably one of our stupid villagers under the influence of drink.”
She shook her head.
“No, it was not that, Dick! It was——” She shuddered again. “I think I’d better go home.”
“I think you’d be wise,” he said gravely. “I wish I hadn’t brought you out now.”
She laughed a little shakily and clung to him tighter.
“In a way I’m glad you did,” she said, as they walked slowly toward her home. “Dick, I had all sorts of queer dreams: just before I woke up I felt somebody kiss me. It was so convincing that I can still feel the lips on my cheek.”
“I kissed you,” he said, without shame. “I thought the shock would bring you to life!”
Her laughter was almost hysterical, for Leslie’s nerves were jangled and on edge.
“You might at least have denied that,” she said. “Dick, you have no subtlety!”
As they walked slowly toward the house, she noticed that he looked back once or twice.
“You’re not expecting that—that thing to follow us, are you?” she asked, her teeth chattering.
“No, I thought I heard a car” (which was true). “I’ll swear I saw a haze of light over the crest of the road, but I must have been mistaken.”
He was not mistaken, and knew it. A car had been following them, had been slowly ascending the hill to the cutting; he had seen the reflected rays from the lamps distinctly, and had heard the soft purr of engines. What was more certain than anything else, the car could not have turned in that narrow road, so that the only explanation was that the unknown driver had switched off his lights and stopped his machine.
“Let me look at you.” He turned her to the moonlight and lifted her face. “I don’t know whether you’re horribly pale or whether it’s a trick of the moon,” he said, “but you look mighty ill: You had better go straight to bed, preferably without seeing your brother.”
“Why?” she asked, in surprise.
“I don’t want this spook story to get around, for one thing,” he said. “And for another—oh well, the other doesn’t matter.”
Leslie realized that she was walking at a much slower pace than her physical weakness justified. She was still a little shaky, but in every sense had recovered from the shock. Too sane to believe in ghosts, she had, nevertheless, been shaken by the terrible experience. She leaned heavily on Dick’s arm as they paced up the avenue to the house, turning on to the grass that Arthur should not hear their footsteps and come out to give them a boisterous welcome. Presently, with a sigh, she dropped his arm.
“I’m glad I went out,” she said, in a low voice. “And I’m rather glad——” She did not finish the sentence.
The silence that followed was a little disturbing for both of them. Suddenly she faced him.
“Dick, do you want me to marry your brother?”
He did not answer.
“Do you—really?”
She heard his sigh in the dark. She could not see his face, for they stood in the shadow of a great cedar immediately before the house.
“I don’t know,” he said. There was a bleakness in his voice she had heard once before. “It isn’t a question of my liking. I can offer you no reason why you should not marry him. You must do what you want, Leslie. The decision must rest entirely with you—and if I were a praying man, I would spend the night praying that you did right.”
“Do you wish me to marry him?” she asked again.
“I cannot tell you.” His voice was hard, and there swept over her a wave of unreasonable anger and resentment against his detachment.
“I won’t ask you that question again,” she said, her voice trembling. “Good-night, Dick.”
She ran into the hall and up to her room, and long after she had gone, he stood where she had left him, looking wistfully at the door which had closed upon her.
With something like despair at his heart, Dick Alford walked quickly along the road toward Fontwell Cutting. He had something to distract his mind for the moment.
There was no sign of the car, and, instead of passing through the cutting gates, he continued over the brow of the hill.
When he went out at night he invariably carried a small flash lamp (he kept a supply of them at the house, for his electric supply had a trick of failing at inconvenient moments) and this he took from his pocket, and, switching on, threw the light on the road, sweeping the beam from side to side. This was not a main thoroughfare, and, except his own and Gwyn’s car, and an occasional tradesman’s Ford, there was little traffic. He saw the diamond-shaped impress of Arthur Gwyn’s Rolls, could pick out his own little machine, and presently he saw a new track: the track of tires with an arrow-shaped tread. He could distinguish the exact spot at which it had stopped. Apparently the driver had made no attempt to turn, but had gone backward some distance. He followed the trail till it curved round, apparently into an open field. The wagon gate was closed, but on the loamy earth the mark of wheels was very apparent.
Red Farm! thought Dick, and, opening the gate, he went into the field. His search was a very short one, for the deserted car was parked close under the hedge parallel with the road. All the lights were out, but the radiator was still hot. He examined the machine carefully; it bore a London number and was new: an American touring car, replete with all the gadgets of its kind. He made a careful note of the number and, walking back to the gate, sat on the top rail and waited.
His vigil was not a protracted one. From where he sat he could see over the swelling hill the top curve of the Abbey arch, and five minutes after he had taken up his position he saw a figure silhouetted against the skyline cross the brow and descend the hill toward him.
Fossaway Park was enclosed in a large-meshed wire net fence, which offered no obstacle to any person who wished to surmount it; but the stranger had evidently not reconnoitred the ground very thoroughly, for Dick heard the clang of the wire as some heavy object struck against it, a curse, and presently he could discern a figure climbing over the wide mesh and drop into the road.
For a few seconds it was out of sight, and then he saw it again, silhouetted against the white of the road. Nearer and nearer it came.
“Good-evening, Mr. Gilder,” said Dick politely. “Are you seeing the sights of Chelfordbury?”
Gilder started violently and almost dropped the heavy stick he was carrying.
“Hullo!” he stammered. “Who the dickens are you?”
A beam of light shot suddenly from his hand and focussed the questioner.
“Oh, you!” said Gilder, taking a long breath. “Gosh! you scared me! I was just admiring your old ruins by moonlight. They’re rather fine.”
“On behalf of the ruins, I thank you,” said Dick, with elaborate courtesy. “Any nice things that you can say about Chelford Abbey are deeply appreciated by its present owner.”
The man was disconcerted and obviously ill at ease.
“I left my car in the field; I thought it might get in the way of traffic——” he began.
“The traffic around here between ten and midnight is not very numerous,” said Dick; “but if you have the illusion that Red Farm is your property, it is quite understandable that your car should be parked there. What is the game, Gilder?”
He was conscious that the man’s eyes were peering at him.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘game.’ Is it unlawful to admire a moonlight view?”
“It is unlawful to trespass on my brother’s property,” said Dick. “May I repeat my question: What is the game?”
“I don’t understand you. Do you mind letting me get through that gate? I am going home.”
Dick Alford descended from the gate slowly and pushed it open.
“You are a suspicious character, Gilder.”
The man snapped round at him.
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Just what I say. You are a suspicious character. It is very suspicious to find you loafing around Fossaway Park at this hour of the night, particularly after certain things which have happened recently.”
“Do you think I am the Black Abbot?” sneered the man, and Dick’s chuckle came from the darkness.
“There are many interesting possibilities about you, Gilder. What did you expect to find in the Abbey?”
“I tell you I was merely admiring the view by moonlight. If that is an offence you can bring me before a bench of magistrates.”
Dick, his hands in his pockets, stood watching the man as he switched on the lights of the car and started it.
“The place to admire the ruins is from the crest of the hill, not from the ruin itself,” he said. “If you had been a normal admirer you would never have been out of sight. May I also suggest that it wasn’t necessary to switch off your lights or to hide your car—the best view of the Abbey is from the upper road. Gilder, you had better be careful.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It is a warning,” said Dick. “And a man as clever as you would not lightly despise such a warning. By the way, my solicitors are starting an action to-morrow to set aside your agreement with Farmer Leonard. I am hoping that you will not involve yourself in the expense of defending the action.”
“That is a matter that I shall discuss with your lawyers,” said Gilder, as he started the car.
Dick watched the machine as it waddled over the furrows and turned on to the road, and followed it out, closing the gate behind it.
“Do you know anything about racing, Gilder?”
Gilder turned with a jerk. Was this man privy to his secrets?
“I know a little—why?”
“Do you know what a warning-off notice is?”
Gilder stared at him open-mouthed.
“Yes, it is a notice issued by the Jockey Club warning people off Newmarket Heath.”
“Splendid!” said Dick. “Will you take a warning-off notice from me? I warn you off Willow House and all that is contained therein!”
“And if I don’t accept the warning?”
“You’ll be sorry, as I’ve remarked before,” said Dick.
Gilder jammed in his clutch and the car jerked forward with a whine, and soon its tail lights had disappeared round the end of the road.
XX
The Second Son climbed the fence, though the gate was near enough, and, passing the Abbey ruins, walked briskly toward Fossaway Manor. His way brought him past the wing of the house in which his brother’s library was situated. One of the big leaded windows was open and he caught a glimpse of Harry at his desk, sitting in the half light, his head on his hands, a book before him. Dick sighed and continued on his way.
Thomas, the footman, answered the bell he rang.
“Get me some coffee and biscuits. I shall be working late,” he said.
When the man had gone, he went to his desk and unlocked the post bag that had come up from the station that night and shook out a heap of letters. He sorted them over carefully, and, selecting one, opened it. The letter bore the Royal crest and the plain address “New Scotland Yard,” and was from an old school friend of his:
Dear Dick:
Thank you for your rather extraordinary letter, but I am afraid we can do nothing for you officially. Private detectives, of course, are punk for your purpose, and the best I can do for you is as follows. We have a detective sergeant at headquarters named Puttler—you may have seen his name in connection with the Hatton Garden robbery. He’s a very efficient man and marked for promotion, but rather a weird-looking bird. At the Yard we call him “Monkey Puttler,” though he is universally liked in spite of this unflattering sobriquet. Puttler never takes any kind of holiday, and is generally supposed to spend his spare time in criminal investigation and to sleep in an odd corner of the Yard. He is entitled to six weeks’ holiday leave. Of course, in ordinary circumstances he would never dream of taking six minutes, but I have had a talk with him, and with the complete approval of our chief (it was necessary to tell him what you wanted) Puttler will spend his holiday at Fossaway Manor. As I said before, he is rather a queer-looking creature, a rabid teetotaller, a strong churchman, with violent views on church music. You can rely absolutely upon his discretion. I’ve told him that you will pay him ten pounds a week and all his expenses. I only wish I could let you have him permanently, but I trust that in six weeks your trouble will be cleared up.
Dick put the letter carefully in his inside pocket, and, walking across the hall, went into the library. Lord Chelford heard the door close and looked up.
“Hullo, Dick!” he said, quite amiably. “What is the news?”
Before he answered, Dick Alford walked to the window through which he had seen his brother, pulled it close, and fastened the lock.
“What is wrong?” growled Chelford.
“Our monkish friend has been seen,” he said, “and I think it advisable that your window should be kept closed.”
Harry Chelford’s hand went up to his lips.
“Can’t we do anything with that fellow?” he asked fretfully. “Where are the police? What do we pay them for? It’s monstrous that the countryside should be terrified by… Really, Dick, couldn’t you do something?”
“The police are doing everything that can be done,” Dick replied.
He charged his pipe carefully and lit it with a match which he took from a silver container on Harry’s table.
“I’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said. “Put away that infernal book and talk.”
With evident reluctance Lord Chelford closed the thick tome over which he had been poring and leaned back in his chair with an air of resignation.
“Leslie? I don’t see very much of her,” he said. “She’s a very intelligent girl and knows how busy I am. Not every woman would show so much understanding. Did you see Arthur?”
Dick nodded.
“I had a ’phone message saying that he was coming over in the morning. He wants me to sign some documents in connection with Leslie’s estate—good fellow, Arthur.”
“Very,” said Dick, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
“Yes, I owe a lot to Arthur.” Harry looked up through his horn-rimmed spectacles and nodded as he spoke. “I shouldn’t have met Leslie, and certainly I shouldn’t have had any idea of marrying,” he went on naïvely, “but Arthur was very keen to get a husband for her who wasn’t a fortune-hunter. And of course, the money will be useful.”
Dick listened patiently to this disjointed explanation for the forthcoming marriage. He had heard it before in identically the same terms.
“Why do you want to marry money at all?” he asked. “We’re not paupers.”
Harry Chelford shrugged his thin shoulders.
“I suppose we’re not,” he said indifferently. “I never bother about the money side. You’re such a clever old bird, Dick, that I’m spared that. By heavens, I don’t know where I should be if it wasn’t for you. Do you get all you want yourself, Dicky?”
Dick Alford nodded.
“A nice girl,” his brother went on, “and, as I say, a sensible girl. I wish you’d get her over to dinner one night; there are several things I want to talk about to Arthur. There’s the Doncaster estate, for example. I had a letter from somebody the other day, saying that they were willing to pay a very big price for Creethorpes. I don’t see any reason in the world why we shouldn’t sell.”
“But I do,” said Dick, puffing slowly at his pipe. “I also have had the offer, and when I get one that approximates to my eyes as being near the Creethorpes value, we may sell. But the price that has been offered is ludicrous.”
“A hundred and twenty thousand pounds?” murmured Lord Chelford, shaking his head disparagingly. “I don’t see how you can improve on that, Dick.”
“We can try,” said Dick.
His eyes were roaming the desk, and after a while he saw a book which was seldom far away from his brother’s hand, and, getting up, he reached over and took it, Chelford watching with a triumphant smile.
“It’s got you, has it, old man?” he asked. “I thought it would sooner or later. You’re too sensible to dismiss the Chelford treasure as a myth.”
Dick turned the old pages covered with pale writing: the diary of that lord of Chelford who had suffered for his disloyalty at the hands of the common headman.
The idea had come to him in the middle of the previous night, and all that day the old diary had come in and out of his mind at odd and incongruous moments. Whilst it was not true that he had been won over to his brother’s faith in the existence of the treasure, his curiosity had been piqued by a vague recollection of one line in the diary. He turned it up now and read:
These ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be dry and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand.…
“I am only wondering,” he said, as he handed back the book, “what effect the drought had upon the hiding place; why rain would have spoilt his plan, as apparently it would.”
“Ha-ha!” said his lordship, almost boisterously. “The poison is working, Richard! You will become as ardent a treasure-hunter as I. Shall I tell you where the gold was hidden?” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his eyes gleaming. “In a cave, or an underground chamber of some kind. There are three references in this diary to a chesil.” He turned the pages rapidly. “Listen, here is one,” he said, and read:
“This day Tom Goodman brought me the chesil from Brighthelmstone.…”
“Which is Brighton, I presume?” asked Dick.
His brother nodded, turning the pages.
“Here is another reference,” he said.
“The new chesil has come. I have left it near the place and those dull wights who see it will know little of its value to me.”
Dick smiled.
“It must have been something remarkable in the way of chesils,” he said. “It doesn’t mention its size or its shape?”
“Nowhere; I have searched the diary for that.”
There came a tap at the door; it was Thomas.
“Will you have your coffee here, sir?”
“No, put it in my room.”
“Are you working to-night, Dick?” asked Chelford.
“After you’ve gone to bed, Harry,” said Dick, with a laugh, “and I think it is about time you went. One of these days you’ll have a breakdown and I’ll have to call in your pet abomination.”
“Ugh!” shivered Chelford. “Never bring a doctor into this house—I loathe them!”
He got up, stretched himself with a yawn, and Dick followed him out of the room.
“I shall sleep well to-night,” said his lordship, pushing back his long black hair with a characteristic gesture. “If I’d only known of that stuff before!”
“What stuff is this?” asked Dick good-humouredly.
Never a day passed that some new patent medicine did not come into the house, some cure-all, accompanied by pages of closely printed literature. Lord Chelford’s patent-medicine habit was a vicious circle. The literature of one cure-all revealed symptoms of which he had never been conscious before. No sooner had he settled upon a miraculous nostrum than it was superseded by one even more dazzling in its promises.
Dick followed him up the stairs into the long room where he spent the few hours he could tear himself away from his library. A four-poster bed, an old dressing chest, a deep closet in which his scanty wardrobe hung, and a very long table, the surface of which was literally covered with bottles and small boxes, comprised the furniture of his room, with the exception of a battered armchair before the fireplace. There must have been more than a hundred boxes and packages on the table. Some of these came in consequence of standing orders given years before and never countermanded: these had never been opened. There were cures for asthma, for bronchitis, for rheumatism, marvellous liniments, amazing sleep-inducers, nerve tonics—every disease to which the human system is liable had its antidote in that collection.
By the side of his bed on a small table was a jug of hot water and a glass. Chelford opened a tin chosen from the medley of bottles and boxes, took out two small white pellets and dropped them into a glass, covering them with water. He stirred them till they were dissolved, Dick watching, half amused, half pitiful.
“Ah!” Chelford put down the glass. “That’s the stuff! No drugs, Dick—just a mixture of natural elements that bring rest to the tired brain and sleep to weary eyes!”
“I guess you’re quoting the label,” said Dick, with a laugh. “Even cocaine is a natural element. And there’s nothing nearer to nature than morphia. You’re an old goop, Harry, and if I had my way I’d take all these infernal bottles and dump them into the round pond.”
“I should probably be dead in a month,” said Harry with a smile, as he began to undress, “and you’d have to stand your trial for wilful murder!”
Dick closed the door behind him, waited till he heard the bolt shot home, then went downstairs to his own room. His coffee was waiting and he began his three-hour task: the opening and answering of letters, the examination of leaflets and the inspection of bills. There were checks to be signed, envelopes to be addressed, and it was nearly three o’clock before he rose stiffly, and, pushing open the door of the French windows, walked out upon the lawn.
XXI
There was a sign of dawn in the sky. The air was sweet and pure and he drew great breaths of nature’s champagne before he lit his pipe and strolled noiselessly along the lawn, keeping parallel with the face of the house.
He had never felt less sleepy, and he was debating in his mind whether he should take a cold bath and go on with some work that he had left unfinished on the previous day, when he saw, only for a second, a pin point of light in the distance. It was a white, star-like flicker that dawned and disappeared almost instantly.
“If that isn’t a flash lamp I’m a Dutchman,” he muttered, went back into his room, and, taking down a shotgun, slipped a handful of cartridges into the pocket of his dinner jacket.
There had been a number of poaching affrays in the neighbourhood, and the unknown poachers were a desperate gang who had never hesitated to shoot. Dick felt it best to be on the safe side, and, with the gun under his arm and two shells rammed home into the breech, he strolled across to where he had seen the light.
It is a fact that Dick Alford had no constitutional objection to poachers. His views on the subject had shocked many a hoary-headed country justice, for Dick held to the line that it was pardonable for any man to “shoot for the cooking pot,” and to him poaching was a mild joke.
The house and surrounding trees obstructed his view, but a five-minutes’ walk brought him through a thin plantation to the Priory fields. Now he saw, unless his judgment was at fault, that the light must have come from the direction of the Abbey ruins. He stood for ten minutes in the shadow of a wood, but no light showed. And then, as his foot was raised to walk forward, he saw it again—just a momentary flicker, and this time there was no doubt that it came from the Abbey. No intelligent poacher would waste five minutes on that part of the estate, though there were trout in the Ravensrill, and the burrows of a few hares in its banks.
He moved forward steadily up the slope of the Mound and soon he could distinguish the chaos of stone and crumbling walls. The intruder was no expert burglar, for again the light flickered. Was it Gilder, he wondered, as he followed the course of the little river. Had that sinister man returned to admire the view of the Abbey by moonlight? The east was turning gray; the cold morning wind had freshened; but though he wore only a thin dinner suit, Dick did not feel the cold. Stealthily he climbed to the top of the Mound, pausing to take observation.
Again the light, this time not fifty yards away, and he could make out the figure of a man moving slowly amidst the broken walls. He was searching the ground diligently.
“Lost anything?” asked Dick.
The visitor spun round with a startled cry.
“Hullo! Who are you?” he asked hoarsely, and Dick recognized the voice.
It was Arthur Gwyn!
A painful and embarrassing moment for Arthur Gwyn!
“Hullo!” he said awkwardly. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Were you looking for an opiate?” asked Dick politely. “You should have come up to the house; my brother has a small drug store, and we might have been able to find you something for your insomnia.”
“Don’t be amusing,” growled Arthur, thrown off his balance. “What I meant was, I couldn’t sleep so I came out for a walk. This place interests me.”
“I never knew you were an archæologist before, and a midnight archæologist at that! The country simply swarms with ’em!” said the ironical young man. “Or perhaps you’re a moth hunter? Or did you come out to hear the nightingale? It’s rather late in the season.”
“See here, Alford, I don’t want you to get funny at my expense. I tell you I came out for a walk. You’re not going to suggest I’m trespassing, are you? If it comes to that, what are you doing here?”
He heard Dick chuckle and went hot under the collar.
“I am attached to the estate: I thought you knew that,” said Dick at last; “and one of my jobs is to challenge suspicious-looking individuals at whatever hour they show themselves or their flash lamps.”
“Oh, you saw the light, did you? I thought somebody would.” Arthur was himself again. “The truth is, Dick, I had a horrible dream that woke me up. I dreamt I saw that wretched Black Abbot, and the dream was so vivid that I resolved to come along and have a look at the place. It was on the edge of the cutting that he was last seen.”
“Oh, a ghost-hunter!” murmured Dick. “That of course explains everything. You came armed, I see? Very wise!”
Arthur had been praying that this objectionable man would not notice the steel crowbar he carried, but the eyes of the other were peculiarly sharp, and there was just enough dawn light to reveal the nature of the instrument he carried.
“You didn’t see the Black Abbot, I suppose?” said Dick, in his polite conversational way. “No? I shouldn’t imagine you would. It’s rather late for him. Our family ghosts keep early hours. They are a respectable lot, and the Abbot, as you probably know, was a highly respectable and even a religious man, though not, I believe, untouched by the horrid voice of scandal.”
He was walking by Arthur’s side to the cut road as he spoke, and the light was not good enough for him to see the dull flush that came to that good-looking man’s face, but he could guess it.
“I don’t want to quarrel with you, Alford, but I have the greatest objection to your being sarcastic at my expense. I don’t know why I should explain anything to you, but you’ve been a good friend of mine to-night and I’m telling you the truth. And really, it’s hardly playing the game to doubt my word.”
Dick said nothing to this, but poised himself watchfully on the edge of the cut, until the ruffled man had disappeared from sight. What was the meaning of all this? he wondered. What attraction had the Abbey ruins for these strangely assorted people? First Mary Wenner, then Gilder, and now Arthur Gwyn. What was there about these ancient stones which would bring the fastidious lawyer from his bed to make an early-morning search? He knew Arthur rather well, much better in fact than he guessed. He hated discomfort of all sorts, but here he was, at four o’clock in the morning, absurdly but suitably attired in a golf suit of irreproachable pattern, a crowbar in one hand and an electric torch in the other, turning over the rubbish of the Abbey and seeking—what? The treasure!
Not till that moment did the solution flash upon Dick Alford, and he was so overcome that he sat down on the nearest sandstone block and laughed till the tears came into his eyes.
The treasure! Harry had infected these prosaic people with his obsession. But how? Obviously, Mary Wenner was the connecting link. There was a time, he remembered, when she was an enthusiastic seconder to Harry’s efforts, and believed as implicitly in the existence of this mythical gold as did her employer. Arthur was a friend of hers: he had heard them “Arthur” and “Mary” each other; and, through Arthur, Gilder must have come into the knowledge. So that was the explanation! And the Chelford treasure was obviously the windfall that Arthur Gwyn expected.
He was smiling to himself all the way back to the house, until a thought came into his mind that turned the joke of it. Suppose they were right and he was wrong? Suppose there was a treasure to be found? No sooner did the thought occur than he had laughed it out of his mind. These people merely reflected Harry’s enthusiasm and faith.
He fastened the door of his study and went up to the room that overlooked the gardens of Fossaway Manor. Immediately opposite his door was a narrow passageway ending in stairs, as narrow, that led to the servants’ quarters. As his step sounded on the grand stairway, a shadowy figure that had been prowling about the corridor slipped into the narrow entrance and crouched down. Thomas, the footman, saw Dick go into his room and close the door, and he breathed more freely. He waited, but he could hear no movement.
Silence reigned in Fossaway Manor. No sound came from the world outside. In five minutes Dick was lying in a profound slumber. He had drawn down the blinds that the light should not break his rest, and the room was in almost complete darkness.
* * *
Ordinarily he would have heard a sound, the sound of the floor boards creaking outside his door, and would have been awake instantly. Twice the planks creaked under a heavy weight, but he did not stir. And then the handle of his door turned slowly and the door itself moved the fraction of an inch. The thing outside listened, showing its white teeth in a grin. The sound of Dick Alford’s regular breathing came out to him and he pushed the door open a little farther, and, crouching, moved stealthily toward the bed, feeling for the brass rail at the foot.
Not a sound came from the intruder, and yet he was shaking with laughter. He fumbled in his pocket and took out a long-bladed clasp knife and opened it carefully, testing the edge with his thumb. Then, slowly, his long fingers went out to locate the position of the body. The Angel of Death hovered in that second above the sleeping man.
From the hall below came a woman’s voice—distraught—beside herself with fear.
“Dick—Dick, for God’s sake!”
Dick turned uneasily in his sleep and half opened his eyes.
XXII
“Dick!”
It was a girl’s voice, sharp with fear, that came from the hall below.
“Dick!”
The thing with the knife dropped the weapon and, cringing back toward the door, hesitated a second, and slipped out.
“Dick!”
Again the voice, and Dick woke. Was he dreaming? Slipping out of bed, he threw open the door and walked on to the landing.
“Who’s calling?” he asked, husky with sleep.
“It is I—Leslie! Dick, I want you.”
He went back to his bedroom, pulled a dressing gown from a hook and raced down the stairs, dressing as he went. She was standing in the gloom of the hall, a slim figure. She had no hat; her bare feet were thrust into slippers, and she wore an overcoat over what was evidently a hastily assumed skirt.
“What is the matter, dear?”
He pushed open the door of his study and led her in. She was trembling from head to foot.
“I don’t know. Something dreadful has happened,” she gasped. “I thought my car would wake you—didn’t you hear it?”
“Something dreadful has happened? What?” he asked quickly.
“I don’t know. I suppose I’ve got everything out of proportion—I saw Arthur fighting with a man on the lawn. It was dreadful. I thought I must have been mistaken and went to his room, but the bed was empty and had not been slept in. By the time I could get downstairs on to the lawn, they had disappeared. Oh, Dick, what can have happened?”
“Fighting?” He was incredulous. “I saw Arthur—I don’t know how long ago; it may have been an hour or two. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping.”
It was daylight now; the clock over the mantelpiece showed it to be a quarter past five.
“Just wait a moment. I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
He ran up the stairs and in five minutes rejoined her, dressed, and, lifting her into the car, he sent the little machine flying down the drive.
“How did you get into the house?”
“I came through your study. I rang the bell at the door, but nobody answered me. And then I tried your French windows and they were open.”
“I’m always forgetting to lock them. I’m glad I did. And they will never be locked in the future,” said Dick. “Now, just tell me what happened?”
She told her story coherently. Her very association with this man had restored her failing courage. And as she grew calmer, she became penitent.
“What a scare cat you will think I am!” she said ruefully. “I don’t know what time it was—about half an hour ago, I think—but I was sleeping when I heard voices. I went to the window and looked out. It was still rather dark; there are an awful lot of trees before the house, but I could see two men, and I wouldn’t have known one of them was Arthur, only I heard him speaking angrily.”
“Did you hear anything he said?”
“No, they were too far away. They were near the laurels that hide the house from the road. And then I saw Arthur strike the man, and they began to struggle, and that is all I saw. By the time I’d got downstairs they had disappeared.”
“But you say you saw him? How could you?”
Dick gave a version of his encounter with the lawyer that was more flattering to Arthur than was deserved.
“But that couldn’t be true!” she said, in perplexity. “He hadn’t been to bed at all. What is the meaning of it, Dick?”
“The Lord knows!” said Dick piously. “I wish my friend Puttler were here.”
The car ran through the cutting and took the long, straight road to Willow House, they were turning into the drive when Dick saw a man walking in front of him.
“There’s your Arthur,” he said, and she uttered a little cry of thankfulness.
It was Arthur with a difference. His nose had been bleeding, his eye was slightly discoloured. In other circumstances Dick would have laughed, but the girl was so concerned with her brother’s injuries that it would have been brutal even to find anything amusing in the discomfiture of this dandified young lawyer.
“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “I met a poacher and had a slight argument with him.”
The knees of his new golfing knickers were soiled and torn; the knuckles of his hand were red and bleeding. Dick felt that it was not the moment to ask him questions, and followed the brother and sister into the house, an interested and cautious observer of events.
The servants had been roused and one of them brought some coffee, and Dick, who had been half dead from sleepiness, accepted the steaming cup gratefully.
“What do you think has happened, Dick?” she asked, when Arthur had gone up to his room to treat his injuries, having refused all the assistance she offered.
“I think he has told us what has happened. He had trouble with a poacher. In other words, he had a vulgar fight. It is one of those distressing happenings that the best of men cannot always avoid.”
She shot a suspicious glance at him.
“You don’t mean that, Dick. And it couldn’t have been a poacher. I’m perfectly sure it was Mr. Gilder.”
Dick was not prepared to contest this point of view. The probability of Arthur’s assailant being his head clerk was one that had occurred to him. But why should Gilder be in the vicinity of Willow House at that hour of the morning? At a suitable opportunity he would ask Arthur Gwyn for the truth.
He was conscious that she was looking at him, and, meeting her eyes, he saw something that made him catch his breath.
“What shall I ever do without you?” she asked, with a gesture of helplessness. “I run to you crying every time I am hurt, and you appear by magic whenever I’m in trouble! Dick, one of these days I’m going to be a disgrace to my sex!”
“I hope not, Leslie,” he smiled. “What particularly outrageous thing have you in mind?”
She nodded wisely.
“You will see,” she said. “I also can be mysterious!”
He declined the loan of her car and returned on foot to the house. Unless Harry’s sleeping draught had taken effect, he would have heard the car, for his room faced the drive. But no sound came from the King’s Chamber, as his sleeping apartment was magniloquently termed, and Dick went to his room and took off his clothes.
He was getting into bed when his foot touched something hard and shiny, and, stooping, he picked it up.
“Moses!” said Dick under his breath, and switched on the light.
The knife was a new one, its edge razor-sharp. He turned it over and over in his hand and frowned. Then, walking to the door, he locked it; and Dick did not usually sleep behind a locked door. But he realized that the twenty-four hours through which he was passing were pregnant with unpleasant possibilities.
XXIII
The office of Gwyn & Gwyn was thrown into some disorder the next morning by a most unexpected occurrence. Mr. Fabrian Gilder, for the first time in his twenty-five years’ association with the business, did not put in an appearance. Instead, came a note to the senior clerk, asking that a certain drawer in his desk should be opened and the contents thereof sent by special messenger to Mr. Gilder’s house in Regent’s Park. There was a postscript to the note.
It is unlikely that I shall return to the business. I have handed my resignation to Mr. Gwyn, and intend to devote my time to the development of my private affairs.
A wire from Arthur Gwyn appointed the senior clerk to take the place of the retired Gilder: an arrangement not altogether to the satisfaction of the senior clerk, for there were unpleasant whisperings about Gwyn & Gwyn, hints of dire developments to come that made the older members of the staff quake in their shoes.
Arthur did not appear that day, nor the next, and the mystery of Gilder’s resignation remained unsolved, for the confidential messenger who carried his papers to his flat, and who expected to hear from him the reason for his sudden departure, was not admitted. Mr. Gilder was in bed; he had come up from the country early in the morning and had met with a slight accident whilst getting out of his car. Apparently he had remained awake long enough to write his letter to the office, but was now sleeping, so the servant said. And she spoke the truth, though he did not sleep as soundly as he might have done had his lips not been cut and his shoulder slightly strained. You cannot indulge in fisticuffs in the uncertain light of dawn without incurring a certain amount of damage.
Curiosity was not the besetting vice of Dick Alford; even if it had been, he would not have spared the time to make a call at Gwyn & Gwyn’s to discover the extent of Mr. Gilder’s damage. He had his bath and shaved just before lunch, and came downstairs to find that the noon train had brought him a visitor.
Sergeant Puttler he recognized, though he had never seen him before, from the description that his friend had sent him. He was a tall, gaunt man of forty. The tired-looking brown eyes that gazed with gentle melancholy from their deep sockets reminded him of a sick and sorrowful chimpanzee he had once seen. His forehead was low, his upper lip long, and his arms reached almost to his knees. These features, added to a constitutional stoop, contributed to his unprepossessing appearance. Poor Mr. Puttler was not unaware of the simian mould in which his frame was cast, and it was, apparently, a matter which alternately depressed and pleased him.
“Well, sir, how do you like me?” he said without a smile, though there was a twinkle of malicious joy in his brown eyes. “I’ve known people to faint the first time they’ve seen me, especially romantical people.”
“I sha’n’t faint,” smiled Dick, “possibly because I’m not romantical.”
The footman came in at that moment, and evidently romance tinged his soul, for at the sight of the strange, long-armed man he visibly staggered and blinked.
“Take Mr. Puttler up to his room. Afterward, Puttler, come and dine and I have something to tell you.”
The dazed Thomas led the way up the stairs to a room next door to that occupied by Dick. The housekeeper had been warned of his coming and the room was ready. He deposited his suitcase and took stock of his rather handsome surroundings.
“Is there anything further I can do, sir?” asked Thomas.
Sergeant Puttler blinked at him.
“Nothing, thank you.” And, as Thomas was going: “What do you call yourself now?”
“Me, sir—my name is Thomas Luck.”
Puttler shook his head sadly.
“Thomas Bad Luck,” he said: “William Hard Lines or Henry Too Bad. Does your master know that your name is Sleisser and that you’ve done a stretch in Dartmoor?”
“No,” said the man sullenly.
“He will, Thomas—he will,” said the detective gently, and with murder in his eyes the footman slunk out of the room.
Mr. Puttler came downstairs purring with satisfaction.
“Are you sure that is my room, Mr. Alford?” he asked. “Not expecting the Prince of Wales, are you? I’ve always been ambitious to sleep in a four-poster bed.… Now, Mr. Alford.”
“First of all, I must introduce you to my brother. By the way, he is rather of a nervous disposition, and I’ve told him that you’re a member of an accountancy firm who has come down to help me with my books.”
Mr. Puttler expressed his agreement with this mild form of deception. He was taken to the big library and formally introduced. Harry Chelford was so used to the advent of Dick’s extraordinary guests that he saw nothing unusual in the appearance of the simian Puttler. Happily, he was near-sighted, and though it was a startling experience to find himself shaking hands across a very broad desk, which an ordinary man could not have spanned, he did not realize the cause of the phenomenon.
Dick entertained accountants, land agents, an occasional bailiff or two, so that there was no novelty in the invitation. Learned-looking strangers came to his table from time to time and were introduced and passed out of his mind.
“He will be staying six weeks,” Dick had told him, “and you mustn’t object to his prowling round the place, because I want to get a true valuation of the estate, and he has his own peculiar methods.”
“You might get him to price the Black Abbot,” said Harry, half dourly, half amused. “What we want, Dick, is not so much a valuer as a good policeman.”
Dick Alford thought that the coming guest might fulfil both functions, but he did not say so.
He ushered his visitor back to his own little office, carefully closed the door and sat down at his desk.
“Now, make yourself comfortable. Do you smoke?”
Mr. Puttler fumbled in his pocket and produced a black pipe.
“It’s not very aristocratic,” he apologized, “but I prefer ’bacca to cigars and cigarettes.”
“I’ll join you,” said Dick.
His study had two doors: one that opened into the hall and one into a side corridor running back to the housekeeper’s room. The two men had been talking for ten minutes, though, as far as Mr. Puttler was concerned, his contribution to the discourse was limited to an occasional question, when Thomas came noiselessly down the side corridor, peeped into the hall, and walked back to the study door. There was a look of apprehension upon his lean and shapeless face which was not without cause. Stooping, he put his eye to the keyhole. He could just see the end of the settee and the head and shoulders of the strange visitor. He was holding something in his hand—a white-handled knife, and was examining it with curiosity. Thomas bent his head and pressed his ear against the hole.
Dick’s back was to the door and he was speaking in a lower tone than usual, and this reacted to the disadvantage of the eavesdropper, for only a few distinct and intelligible sentences came to him.
“… might have been somebody admitted to the house by one of the servants,” was the first thing he heard. A few minutes later, Mr. Puttler, whose voice was distinct, asked: “Was the window in the library open?” And he heard Dick say, “Yes,” and add something which he could not catch.
The soles and heels of Thomas’s boots were of rubber. He passed into the hall and made another reconnaissance, then returned to his listening post, in time to hear Dick say:
“My brother hasn’t an enemy in the world.… I am afraid I can’t say the same.…”
Once the listener caught the word “treasure” and once he heard the name of “Arthur Gwyn,” but in what association he could not learn. Again Thomas visited the hall. He could not take the risk of being seen listening at the door. He was free from observation so far as he knew. The old Chelford butler was in the servants’ hall. Dick and his brother did not lunch till two, an unholy hour from the point of view of servants, but very suitable for Dick and his peculiar occupation.
He squinted through the keyhole again. The detective still had the knife in his hand and was looking at it intently. He heard him say, “This is new,” and then Dick entered upon a long and apparently explanatory statement, not a word of which came to the disgusted man who was listening. He was most anxious to hear some reference to himself, but, if it was made, he did not overhear his name.
Soon after, however, a familiar phrase caught his ear. Dick Alford was talking about the Black Abbot, and he heard rather a sketchy description of that spook. Then his voice dropped again, and coincident with this Thomas heard the stately footsteps of the butler, slipped back to the housekeeper’s room, and was busy in the pantry when the stout Mr. Glover found him.