“Have you any views on chesils?”
“Yes, sir,” said the other confidently. “He thinks chesil is an instrument. He doesn’t seem to realize that in Elizabethan times ‘chesil’ meant ‘gravel’ or ‘shingle.’ ”
Dick stopped and stared at him.
“Is that so?” he asked.
“Ever heard of a place called Chelsea?” said the informative Mr. Puttler. “Do you know what ‘Chelsea’ means? It means ‘Chesil Ey’ or Shingle Island. Why, the word isn’t even obsolete; you’ll find it in any dictionary. The new ‘chesil’ that is spoken of in the Diary is a load of shingle he got from Brighthelmstone. That’s Brighton. Now, why did the old bird want shingle? Obviously to put in some kind of concrete or mortar.”
“For heaven’s sake don’t start on the treasure, or I shall go mad!” groaned Dick. “At any rate, you don’t believe in its existence, thank goodness!”
“I do,” said the surprising man emphatically. “I’m as sure that those thousand bars of gold are in existence as I’m certain you and I are walking up this road. Your brother’s got a book down that shows all Queen Elizabeth’s private accounts; there’s the million she stole from the Spanish ships that put into an English port when they were on their way to Holland; there’s the money she got from Drake and the other seagoing burglars; but there’s not a hint of the Chelford gold.”
“Then where is it?” asked Dick in exasperation.
“Ask me before I go,” replied the other cryptically.
XXXIX
A dozen letters were written and burnt in the fireplace of her bedroom before Leslie composed the one that was eventually placed in an envelope and addressed to “Fabrian Gilder, Esq., 35, Regency Mansions, London.” She had written:
Dear Mr. Gilder:
I agree to your terms. The money or equivalent shares must be deposited in the Horsham branch of the Southern & Midland Bank, in the name of Leslie Gilder, so that I may have control of the account from the moment I am married. I do not expect you to trust the word of one of my family, and I presume that you will wish the marriage to take place in the next few days. Will you please make arrangements for the ceremony, and tell me when and where I am to meet you? I expect it to be at a registrar’s office by special license. I can only say that, although this marriage is not of my seeking, you may trust me to be a loyal wife.
Very sincerely,
Leslie Gwyn.
The last post was collected by a motor-cyclist postman at ten o’clock from a little wall box not a hundred yards from the house. There was an earlier collection, but somehow she could not bring herself to post the letter until the very last moment. Ten o’clock was an unusually late hour for a country collection, but it was the last box on the postman’s route and was an especially convenient arrangement, not only for the inhabitants of Fossaway Manor, but for the tenant farmers who wished to notify their daily consignments.
She saw Arthur at dinner after the letter was written, but beyond the exchange of a few commonplaces they did not speak. He went back to his study, carrying his coffee with him, and she was left alone to the contemplation of the dark future. She wished she had seen Dick before she wrote, but it was too late now. Gilder had asked her to give him his answer that night, and she had promised.
What would Dick say? She screwed up her eyes tightly as though to hide the vision of him, and her lips trembled.
“No weakness, Danton!” It was a favourite quotation of her childhood, and had been the slogan at all moments when tears were near at hand.
She took the letter from her bag and looked at it. Stamped, addressed, she had but to drop this into the little letter box, and thereafter the angle of life was twisted to a new prospect: the bleakest, dreariest prospect that any woman had faced.
And it had to be done. The hands of the clock moved slowly and inexorably round. Nine o’clock—a quarter after—twenty minutes before ten; she set her teeth and got up from the little table where she had been trying in vain to concentrate her mind upon a game of patience, went upstairs and put on her hat and coat, and, with the letter tightly gripped in her hand, stole down across the hall, opened the door, and went out.
It was very dark; she could scarcely see her way down the drive. Clear of the overhanging trees, her eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, made out the road. She thought that she saw somebody on the road ahead and heard footsteps, but she was nervous, she told herself. Nevertheless, she stopped and listened. She heard nothing and went on.
A few minutes’ walk brought her to the pillar box, and here she waited. A big spot of rain fell upon her hand; she heard the sough of the wind through the trees; and then, far away, she saw a tiny star of light and heard the faint clank of the postman’s cycle. She thrust the letter into the box and turned to retrace her steps.
Then it occurred to her that the postman would pass her, and she did not wish to see him. Which way should she go? Her heart and inclinations beckoned to Fossaway Manor. Dick—she must see Dick. She fought against the madness; the postman’s light grew brighter. Then she ran down toward the cut road, through the gate and up the slope to the Abbey. There she sat down to recover her breath, and presently she saw the reflection of a lamp, heard the thunder of the postman’s motor-cycle as it passed.
There went fate, on that dark road, noisily, bumpily. The red light faded from sight, and she got up, walked leisurely past the Abbey ruins, without one thought of ghosts or haunting spirits, and took the lower and shorter path to the Manor.
She was halfway across the long meadow when she stopped. Fear was clutching at her heart; she could feel the flesh creep on her neck, and, turning, looked back. Somebody was following her. Consciously she had heard no sound, but to her heart flashed a warning signal that set it racing. She could see nobody. It must be her imagination, she told herself; yet here, reason and instinct were at variance, and instinct won. She knew there was somebody immediately behind her, less than twenty yards away.
She could intercept the long drive to Fossaway Manor before she could reach the house. She decided to make the longer journey, and, turning abruptly, walked with quick strides across the velvety grass-land in the direction of the elms which flanked the drive. Once she looked back, and thought she saw a moving shape. She quickened her steps, broke into a gentle run. She must not allow blind panic to overcome her, she told herself.
Again she looked back but saw nothing, and, ashamed of her fear, she slowed to a walk and reached the elms and the drive with heartfelt thankfulness. Exactly how she should break in upon Dick she did not know. She hoped he would be in his study, and that she could call him out from the lawn.
Nearer and nearer she came to the house, and then, of a sudden, she whipped round. Somebody was behind her: she was sure of it now. She heard the sound of feet upon the gravelled road.
“Who is there?” she called.
There was no answer, but the footsteps stopped. They might be walking on the grassy verge, she thought, and, turning, ran up the drive. Whoever followed was running, too. She heard a sibilant whisper and her blood turned cold. Then, as she emerged from the trees, she saw a figure against the gray sheen of the round pound, saw the shape of it—the long habit and the heavy cowl. With a scream she flew.
The drive continuing past the window would bring her to Dick’s study. She saw with a gasp of relief that the door was open and a light shining inside. Over her shoulder she saw the queer shape again, and screamed. In an instant Dick was out of the study and had caught her in his arms.
He listened to her breathless story, then, almost carrying her to his room, he put her in a chair and ran out into the night. In a few minutes he came back.
“I saw nothing,” he said. “It was the Black Abbot, you say?”
“I don’t know; something in a cowl and habit: I’m sure of that.”
It was a bad introduction to the story she had to tell; indeed, in her terror, she almost forgot the object of her visit.
“Did Arthur come with you?”
She shook her head.
“Dick, I know,” were the first words she said when she had recovered her breath.
“You know what?”
“About Lady Chelford’s money.”
She saw his face change.
“Did he tell you?” he asked, the red coming into his face.
“Not Arthur, no. It was Gilder.”
“Mr. Gilder told you? I knew he had been and I knew he had called. Was that why he came?”
She nodded.
“For nothing else?”
“Yes; he came to offer me the money.”
She saw his eyes narrow.
“He did? At a price, of course?”
She nodded.
“And you—what did you say?”
She found a difficulty in breathing; speech for the moment was impossible without making a fool of herself.
“You agreed?”
She nodded again.
“I have just posted the letter to him,” she said.
She saw him bite his lip and a red spot of blood showed. If he had stormed at her, cursed her, she could have borne it; but he did no more than look at her. There was nothing in his gaze that was uncharitable.
“Oh, Dick, Dick!” She was sobbing on his breast and his arms were about her, comforting her.
“You can’t do it, my dear. Anything is better than that.”
She shook her head, incapable of speech.
“I tell you anything is better than that.” His voice was hard, uncompromising. “Better Arthur go down for five years than that you should live in hell all your life! I know that man—I know his kind—it isn’t his years, it’s his mind and his evil heart. If he were twenty I would say, ‘No, you can’t do it, Leslie.’ ”
She pushed herself gently away from him and dried her eyes.
“I must, Dick; I have given my word. I cannot trick him. The last thing I said to him was ‘If I tell you I will marry you, you can make the arrangements about the money—I will not fail you.’ I cannot fail him; I cannot fail myself.”
His face was drawn and haggard.
“This can’t be!” he said. “Something will happen. I don’t know what——”
He stopped.
“What’s that?” she gasped, terrified.
From somewhere in the grounds came a shrill shriek that was hardly human. Again it came: a sobbing, blubbering shriek that turned her heart to ice.
“Stay here,” said Dick, as he made for the open window, but she flung herself upon him.
“You sha’n’t go! You mustn’t go!” she cried wildly. “Dick, something dreadful is happening. Oh, God! listen, Dick!”
This time the shriek was shriller, and died away into a thin wail of sound.
He pushed her aside and ran out on to the lawn.
“From which way did it come, do you think?”
“Over there.” She pointed ahead to the drive.
“Let me come with you—do, please do!” she begged. “I dare not be left alone.”
He hesitated.
“Come,” he said roughly, and took her arm with a grip that made her wince.
Together they ran toward Elm Drive, and then he stopped.
“Go back and get my hand lamp. It’s on my writing table,” he said. “I will wait here for you.”
She fled back to the room, took up the lamp with fingers that trembled so violently that she could scarcely hold it, and rejoined him.
“It was over there. I heard something a second ago. If I hadn’t promised to wait…”
He turned on the light, swinging its rays over the ground before him, and going ahead of her. Presently she saw him stop and a circle of light focus on something black that lay huddled on the grass.
“Stay where you are,” he commanded, “and turn your back.”
A voice hailed him in the distance: it was Puttler, and, guided by the lamp, he came on the scene.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Dick in a low voice.
At his feet was the huddled figure of a man. He was lying on his face, and was attired from head to foot in a long black habit around which a rope was girdled.
“The Black Abbot?” said Puttler incredulously. “Is he dead?”
“Look,” said Dick, and pointed to the wet shoulder and the horror of the throat.
Puttler knelt down, and, putting his arms under the figure, turned it on its back.
The face was covered by a black cowl, and this he gently raised.
“Merciful God!” said Dick, in a hushed voice.
He was looking into the gray face of Thomas, the footman.
XL
“Thomas—the Black Abbot!”
Dick looked at the pitiable thing, bewildered; and then he remembered the girl and, with a low word of instruction to Puttler, went back to her.
“Is he—dead?” she asked fearfully.
“Yes, I’m afraid he is.”
“Who—who is it?”
“One of the servants,” he said evasively.
“Not Thomas?”
Why she should think it was Thomas she could not for the life of her tell.
“Yes—Thomas.”
She made no inquiries, and they walked back without a word to his room. He rang the bell, and, to the footman who answered:
“Ask Mr. Glover to come to me,” he said.
The old butler came apprehensively. All the servants had heard the scream in the park.
“Where is his lordship?”
“He went up to bed about five minutes ago, Mr. Alford.”
“Had he heard—anything?”
“No, sir. He’s so particular about our talking of the Black Abbot——”
“How do you know it was the Black Abbot?” asked Dick sharply, and the butler explained that somebody had seen the figure in the grounds.
“He was trying to open a window. One of the maids looking out of her window saw him walking on the paved path below, and raised an alarm. Has he hurt anybody, Mr. Richard?”
“No, he has hurt nobody,” said Dick.
He drew the butler out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
“A man has been found in the grounds in the dress of a black abbot—and he is dead—murdered!”
“Good Lord, sir!” said the startled servant. “Is it anybody we know?”
“Thomas,” said Dick laconically, and the old man staggered back against the panelled wall.
“Not our Thomas? Thomas Luck, the man who was dismissed?”
Dick nodded.
“Get the servants to bed. Tell them that the scream came from somebody who was skylarking and that we caught him—anything you like.” Then, catching a glimpse of the man’s ashen face: “First of all you’d better go down into the dining-room and help yourself to a good stiff glass of brandy and water; you look a corpse, man!”
“Thomas!” muttered the old man. “It’s terrible! Do you think——”
Dick cut short his question.
“Do as I tell you; get the servants to bed. The police will be up here soon enough, but I’ll arrange that your staff are not questioned till the morning.”
He went back to the girl.
“As for you, young lady,” he said, with a grim smile, “I seem to spend my life taking you back to your home.”
“Couldn’t I stay?” she asked timidly.
Dick shook his head.
“We shall have to call in the police, and I want to keep your name out of the business. Arthur is at home?”
“Yes, Arthur is at home,” she said listlessly.
At that moment the telephone bell rang and he took up the instrument.
“Is that Lord Chelford’s house?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Yes,” said Dick shortly.
“I’m speaking from the sub post office. That isn’t Lord Chelford speaking?”
“No, it’s Mr. Alford,” said Dick.
“Well, listen, Mr. Alford. Have you sent anything very important from the local post-box?”
“Why?” asked Dick quickly.
“Because our roundsman reported that the box had been tampered with. He couldn’t get in his key, so the letters that had been posted between six and ten have not yet been collected.”
Dick uttered an exclamation.
“Right! When it’s cleared, will you ask the postman to bring the letters up to the hall? There are one or two that I want to withdraw.”
The man at the other end of the wire hesitated.
“Why, in the special circumstances, yes,” he said, and Dick hung up the receiver and turned slowly to the girl.
“The letter box hasn’t been cleared.”
Slowly the significance of the words dawned upon her.
“What shall I do?” she whispered.
“Give me authority to withdraw your letter to Gilder. There are six more days.”
She held her breath. For a second a vision of her brother in convict’s garb came to her eyes, and then she looked at the man before her. Something of his vitality, his confidence, passed to her soul.
“I will do as you tell me,” she said, in a voice little above a whisper. “But, Dick, what will happen?”
“I am going to do my duty,” said Dick.
And all that sleepless night, as she tossed from side to side in her bed, she pondered those words but could find no solution to their mystery.
XLI
Puttler, unshaven and weary-eyed, dragged himself to the study and poured out a large cup of tea that the butler had brought in, and drank it at a gulp.
“Scotland Yard has given me charge of this case, for which you may thank your stars!” he said. “Considering we’ve had to do all our work between eleven and four, I think I’ve set up a record in investigation. Thomas’s monkish attire was hired, as you thought, from a theatrical costumier’s in Wardour Street——”
“I saw him coming out with a bundle under his arm and wondered what use he could find for fancy dress,” interrupted Dick.
“That is fact No. 1,” counted Puttler. “Fact No. 2 is that he was making ready for a getaway. He even tried to open your local letter box, probably earlier in the evening. Do you send money by post?”
“My brother does, frequently. It’s a habit I’ve tried to cure, without success.”
“That is fact No. 2,” said Puttler. “He couldn’t open the box, but we found the key on him. He had moved everything of value from Gilder’s house. I found his portmanteau packed and cached in the field where you say Gilder parks his car. And obviously he was coming to relieve your brother of any loose cash he might find in the library. I found his tools scattered on the flower bed under one of the library windows.”
“How was he killed?” asked Dick.
Puttler scratched his head.
“By a regiment of soldiers, to judge from the appearance of him!”
They talked till the sleepy-eyed Mr. Glover staggered in and asked permission to go to bed, and then they walked out into the cold morning and joined the party of police that were searching the grounds.
“I suppose the best thing we can do is to go to bed also,” said Dick, and at that instant Puttler stooped and picked something from the long grass.
It was a long dagger, its steel hilt black with age, the blade coated with something that was still wet. They looked at one another.
“Do you know this?”
Dick nodded mutely.
“What is it?” asked Puttler.
“It is the dagger that once belonged to the Black Abbot’s slayer,” said Dick.
The man’s jaw dropped.
“Where does it come from?”
Dick shook his head.
“The last time I saw it,” he said slowly, “it was hanging in the hall of Arthur Gwyn’s house.”
XLII
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Puttler, who had literary leanings.
Dick heard his name shouted in an agitated voice, and, looking round, saw the butler running toward him, no longer sleepy-eyed, but very alert and white.
“What is the matter, Clover?”
“The maid… foolish girl only just told me… frightened!” gasped the old man, and pointed to the open study windows.
Dick walked quickly back, followed by Puttler. Drooping in his study chair was a plain-looking girl, wearing over her coarse nightdress a man’s overcoat; her lank hair falling over her shoulders, she presented a sight which at any other time would have moved Dick Alford to laughter.
“Now, Alice, tell Mr. Alford what you told me,” said the old butler, beside himself with anxiety.
It was some time before she could speak coherently, and then she told her amazing story. She had gone to bed in the servants’ quarters soon after eleven, with a sick headache. She had heard nothing of the scream, but at some time—which she placed with accuracy, having an alarm clock with a phosphorescent dial by her bedside, at 1.45—she heard “a terrible commotion” downstairs. Her room was immediately above Lord Chelford’s. She heard shouts and screams, the smashing of glass and the sounds of a struggle.…
“Hurry, hurry, woman!” said Dick, frantic with anxiety. “Downstairs, in his lordship’s room—are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” whimpered the girl. “I simply dared not get up for fear I was murdered. I simply laid there and fainted and come to again.…”
Before she had finished, Dick was across the hall and running up the stairs two at a time. He tried the door of Harry’s room but it was bolted. He called him by name, and hammered on the panels, but there was no answer.
“We’d better break in the door,” said Puttler. “Have you got an axe?”
Mr. Glover went downstairs in search of the tool and returned with an axe and a case-opener. In a second the panel of the door was smashed and Dick peered in.
All the blinds save one were drawn, and the exception afforded sufficient light to enable him to examine the room. He gave one glance and his heart sank. The room was in hopeless confusion; the bedclothes were thrown on the floor, two mirrors, one a cheval glass, had been smashed; the uncurtained window was open. Dick put his hand through the hole in the panel and unbolted the door, and the two men ran in.
There were signs as of a terrible struggle. The wreckage of two chairs lay scattered about the floor. The table which had held the medicines was overturned and the floor was littered with broken glass and wet with the spilt medicines.
Puttler walked over to the bed. The mattress had been half dragged to the floor but the pillows were still in their place, and one of these and a part of the under sheet were smothered with blood.
Dick examined the open window. Three or four of the leaded panes were broken, and the steel rod that kept the windows open was bent as though a heavy weight had rested upon it. The ground was about fifteen feet below, and immediately under the window a large rhododendron bush had been broken as though by some heavy weight thrown upon it. Without hesitation, Dick threw his legs across the window sill, poised himself a moment, and dropped to the ground. There was blood on the leaves of the bush; he could find no footprints. Searching the ground, he came upon a smudge of blood against one of the buttresses of the wall.
By this time Puttler, who had chosen a more sedate method of descent, had joined him, and the two men went on, keeping to the paved path, and searched the ground for a further trail.
“This happened when we were in the grounds with the local police,” said Puttler.
He had been full of self-reproaches all night, and now Dick silenced him.
“It can’t be helped,” he said. “The fault is as much mine as yours. I ought to have expected this, after the killing of Thomas. Knowing what I know, I should have gone up to his room and stayed there with him, or at least outside. Poor old Harry! Poor old boy!”
His voice broke, and for a second there were tears in his eyes.
“What is this?”
The paving ended abruptly and was continued with a rolled gravel path, and there were marks here of something heavy being dragged along. These ceased as suddenly as the paving.
“Wait,” said Dick, as the solution dawned upon him.
He ran back along the wall of the wing, turned the corner, and stopped before the first of the library windows. It was open, and, drawing himself up, he dropped into the darkened room and pulled back the curtains. So far he had not examined the library; his practised eye, familiar with almost every book on the shelves, told him that somebody had been here. One section of the shelves had been almost cleared. A drawer in Harry’s desk had been broken open, and on the floor he found an empty cash box.
He made a brief and hurried survey, and, returning to the open by the window, he rejoined the detective and told him of his discovery.
Beyond the gravelled path and the dragging marks, all trace of Harry was lost. Ahead of them, at a distance of four or five hundred yards, was the river. To the left, and at this point out of sight, the Abbey ruins.
An hour’s search brought them no nearer to discovery, and Dick went back to his room to find the first of the dishevelled reporters stepping from his hired car.
XLIII
Mr. Gilder rose at six o’clock that morning. He had spent a restless night and welcomed the dawn. The first post did not arrive until eight o’clock, and he met the postman at the door. There were half a dozen letters for him, and he carried them into his room and examined them eagerly. Only one bore a familiar postmark and that was in a hand which he recognized. He tore it open and found a few scrawled lines.
If I don’t see you again, thank you for your kindness, and don’t think too badly of your old friend.
So Thomas had gone! With a curse he threw the letter into the fireplace and went back, accosting the postman as he descended from the upper floors of the apartments.
“No, sir, there’s no other letter.” The man went through his bundle carefully. “There is another post at half-past nine. The country post doesn’t usually get into town in time for the first delivery.”
Gilder slammed the door and went back to sulk in his room. By this time his servants were about. At nine o’clock they called him to breakfast, but a glance at the contents of the dishes did not tempt him.
His newspapers were placed folded at his hand. He opened the first, and on the centre page a paragraph arrested his eye.
STRANGE HAPPENING AT HAUNTED MANOR HOUSE
By telephone, Chelfordbury, 2 A. M.
There has been a tragic sequel to the appearance of the Black Abbot in the grounds of Fossaway Manor. At eleven o’clock last night, Mr. Richard Alford, hearing screams, ran out from the house and discovered the dead body of a man in the habit of a monk. He had been terribly injured, there being no less than nine wounds. The man has been identified as Thomas Luck, a former footman in the employ of the Earl of Chelford.
Gilder uttered an exclamation and put down the paper. Thomas! His first thought was for himself. Suppose it were known that this man had been staying at his cottage, he would be dragged into the affair; inquiries would be made, and he would figure at a coroner’s inquest, if not in a murder trial. Cold-bloodedly he cursed the dead man for his folly.
Gilder had no doubt in his mind what had occurred. Thomas had gone back to Fossaway Manor to get the remainder of the cash out of the box in Chelford’s room. And then—was Thomas the Black Abbot, after all? It was quite possible that he had used this disguise on other occasions, and he was in a position very favourable to such a masquerade.
It was nine o’clock; the next editions would be out in an hour. He could, if he wished, have called up a tradesman he knew in Chelfordbury, but that would associate his name with the crime, and these villagers gossiped.
For the time being, all thought of the expected letter went out of his mind. But as the tragedy became familiar to him, his thoughts came back to Leslie Gwyn. The country post would bring the letter, and he would act generously, munificently. There should be no higgling, no bargaining, no balancing of accounts to the last penny. Her word would be sufficient. Overnight he had written his letter, prepared the grand gesture which should break down the last barrier of mental resistance; and, with his knowledge of women, he did not doubt what form the reaction would take.
He went into the little library where he did his work, opened a combination wall safe and took out the letter. He had read it again and again after it had been written, and with every reading he had the warm glow of complacency which men derive from the contemplation of their own generosity.
My dear Leslie:
Thank you for your letter. I did not doubt that you would keep your word. My answer you will find enclosed herewith—a blank check. I make no stipulations, I extract no conditions. Draw the check for as much money as your brother requires to clear himself from his dreadful situation. I have given instructions to the bank that the check is to be honoured without question.
Fabrian.
It was characteristic of the man, who kept three banking accounts, that the check was drawn on a branch where his balance was exactly the amount required to liquidate Arthur Gwyn’s liability. It would have been a simple matter to fill in the form for the amount required, but there was a certain nobility, a magnificence, in the blank check. It was a carte-blanche upon his fortune. He replaced the letter in the envelope, put it back in the safe and pushed the door close, as the telephone bell rang.
The caller was the man who had taken his place at the office. Had he heard anything about Gwyn?
“We haven’t seen anything of him since you left, and the letters we have sent down for him to sign haven’t been returned.”
Gilder comforted the anxious man with the assurance that Arthur would put in an appearance some day that week. At the back of his mind there was still a great uneasiness about the tragedy at Chelfordbury. He sent his maid out to get a copy of the sporting editions, but they had not arrived at Regent’s Park, and he decided to take a taxi to Piccadilly Circus, and, if necessary, to Fleet Street, to get an early copy. Such a journey would serve the purpose of filling in the time until the country post arrived.
It was at Oxford Circus that he saw the first newspaper contents bill. The first said “Terrible Tragedy in Sussex Village”; the second made him sit bolt upright in the car: “Well-known Earl Kidnapped and Murdered.”
XLIV
Gilder stopped the taxi and, springing out, grabbed at a paper. A flaring headline met his eye.
LORD CHELFORD CARRIED OFF BY UNKNOWN MURDERER.
FEARED DOUBLE TRAGEDY IN A
SUSSEX VILLAGE
There were other sub-headings, but his eye ran down to the story.
At 11 o’clock last night screams were heard in the grounds of Fossaway Manor, the fine old Tudor mansion which has been the country seat of the Earls of Chelford for hundreds of years. The Hon. Richard Alford, the only brother of Lord Chelford, ran out, accompanied by Detective-Sergeant Puttler, who was staying at the Manor as Mr. Alford’s guest. They were horrified to discover, lying on the grass, the dead body of a man dressed in the habit of the famous Black Abbot. The local police were immediately called in, and hardly had their investigations begun when, unknown to them, a second tragedy occurred. A maid in the employ of the Earl of Chelford, Alice Barter, who sleeps in a room over that occupied by Lord Chelford, states that at one-forty-five o’clock in the morning she heard sounds of a terrific struggle in his lordship’s room. In terror, she did not report the occurrence till four o’clock in the morning. Lord Chelford’s door was broken open and a terrible scene met the eyes of the police officers. The room was in confusion: mirrors and furniture were smashed; and it was evident from the indications that a terrible struggle had taken place, and, either stunned or killed, Lord Chelford was pulled to the window and thrown out. A search of the grounds left no doubt that his body was dragged for some distance along the ground. At the moment of telephoning, says our correspondent, no trace of the body has been found, but from certain indications there can be little doubt that the unfortunate peer has been a victim of foul play. Certain of his property is missing, whilst a cash box which he kept in the drawer of a desk in his library has been found empty. Detective-Sergeant Puttler of Scotland Yard is in charge of the case.
The newsboy was still waiting for payment. Mr. Gilder put his hand in his pocket mechanically and, giving him a shilling, reëntered the cab.
“Drive me round the Outer Circle,” he said. He wanted time to think.
In a dim, uneasy way he realized how deeply he was involved in this tragedy. Fabrian Gilder had a lawyer’s mind. He saw the connection between Thomas, himself, and Chelford. Thomas, a known thief, harboured in his cottage, goes out, with or without associates, and is killed. Chelford, lately engaged to the girl whom Gilder himself was pursuing, disappears in circumstances which leave no doubt as to his death.
Round and round the Regent’s Park Circle the cab moved slowly, and all the time he was piecing together a version which would sound plausible. He had known Thomas; was aware that the man was dismissed, but did not know his criminal connections. The man had asked for shelter for a few days, and in charity Gilder had given it to him. He himself was in London when the crime was committed; had unchallengeable alibis if necessary.
Perhaps he was exaggerating the seriousness of the situation, he thought. Putting his head out of the window, he directed the driver to take him to Regency Mansions. He had forgotten his key; had to ring the bell, and the maid who opened the door handed him the post, which had arrived a few minutes before. He examined the three letters carefully: none was from Leslie. But at the moment he was too occupied with the happenings at Chelfordbury to be disappointed.
And then came a thunderbolt.
“Mr. Arthur Gwyn is waiting for you in the library,” said the girl.
“Mr. Gwyn!” he said in astonishment. “When did he come?”
“Ten minutes ago, sir.”
“Oh!” said Gilder blankly.
Had she sent her brother instead of a letter? Had she told him… well, it was a situation that had to be faced.
He walked carelessly into the little library and found Arthur Gwyn sitting in one of the easiest chairs, a book in his hand, a half-smoked cigar between his teeth.
“Good-morning, Gilder.”
His voice was cheerful and almost amiable, and for a moment Mr. Gilder’s heart leapt. This was a friendly ambassador sent by the girl to make the necessary arrangements.
“I think we’d better forget all that’s passed,” said Arthur. “We both lost our temper, and there’s no sense in keeping the old trouble alive. You don’t mind my smoking?”
He replaced the book he had taken from one of the shelves, dusted his knees carefully, and then laughed.
“You’re thinking of marrying Leslie, I understand?”
Gilder nodded, watching his visitor closely.
“Expecting a letter from her? Well, I’m afraid you won’t get it.”
“Why not?” asked the other, with a sudden tightening at his heart.
“Because friend Thomas, who spent the evening in wholesale robbery—incidentally, he stole a very ancient dagger from my hall, a silver teapot, and a few other etceteras—added to his infamy by attempting to rob a letter box. He didn’t succeed in opening the box, but he put the lock out of order.”
Gilder breathed again.
“So there was no collection, eh?” he said huskily. “Well, that is rather a relief.”
There was a quizzical smile in Arthur Gwyn’s eyes; the discolouration on the left cheek had faded to a pale green.
“I understand you’re going to help me?”
“I am going to get you out of your trouble, yes.”
“It occurred to me”—Arthur leaned sideways and very carefully dusted the ash of his cigar into a silver tray on the library table—“it occurred to me that you might care to give me proof and evidence of your good feeling.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Gilder.
Arthur hesitated.
“I wondered whether you would write me a letter, to the effect that you are lending me this very large sum. You see, Gilder, although you plan to marry my sister, I am vain enough to wish that it should not be regarded as a gift or the price—the price of her marriage—but as a loan to me.” He laughed. “Don’t look at me like that, my dear fellow. I am not asking you for money, I am seeking a salve to my conscience. I don’t want people to say ‘Leslie Gwyn was sold for fifty thousand pounds.’ I want to produce evidence that you did no more than lend me the money.”
A slow smile dawned on Gilder’s face.
“There’s no objection to that,” he said. “I’ll give it to you now, if you like. Do you mind if I address you as ‘Dear—Arthur’?”
“Charmed,” murmured Arthur.
“One has to keep up the pretence of friendliness,” said Gilder as he wrote rapidly; “and really, I’ve no strong feeling against you, Gwyn. You’ve been a useful man to me.”
“Damned useful,” said Arthur, without heat.
The man blotted the letter, brought it across, and Arthur Gwyn read it carefully.
“Thank you,” he said, folded and put it into his pocket. “You may think I’m rather weak—which of course I am—and vain. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about that! You will hear from Leslie when the mail box is cleared—that is, if the letters are intact. There is some suspicion that our friend Thomas, baffled in his attempt to open the box, and inspired with that instinct for destruction which is one of the characteristics of the unbalanced criminal, threw in a couple of lighted matches. I had the curiosity to smell at the letter slot, and I think it is very likely that the police theory is correct.”
He rose, took up his silk hat, and stifled a yawn.
“We’ve had rather an exciting night in my part of the world. You’ve probably read all about it in the newspapers?”
“Has Chelford been found?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Not at the time I left,” he said. “Unfortunately Leslie was a witness, if not to the murder, to the finding of the first body. The poor little girl was knocked all to pieces. Don’t bother her for a day or two—do you mind?”
He held out his hand and Gilder took the soft, cool palm in his.
“I think we shall get on together, Gwyn.”
“I’m sure we shall,” said Arthur. “Do you mind showing me the way out? Your flat is rather like a box of tricks, and I’m never sure which is a door and which is a cupboard.”
Arthur dispensed with his car. A taxicab took him into the City, and another cab to a small flat in Gray’s Inn where he slept when he was in town. He changed into a plain blue suit, carefully and reluctantly shaved off his moustache, and took from his pocket a pair of newly purchased horn-rimmed pince-nez. Surveying himself in the glass with a certain amount of satisfaction, he sat down and wrote a letter to his sister, then, taking a final survey of the little flat where he had spent many a happy bachelor evening, he locked the door, went out and posted the letter in the Holborn post office.
Another taxicab took him to Croyden aërodrome, where he arrived in the early afternoon. He showed the officer his brand-new passport.
“That’s in order, Mr. Steele,” said the official. “Your taxi is waiting.”
His “taxi” was a sturdy two-seater aëroplane. Five minutes after his arrival he was zooming up to the blue, and was soon a speck in the hazy sky, heading for France, possibly for Genoa, as likely as not, by an Italian liner, for Rio de Janeiro. Everything depended on how Mr. Fabrian Gilder swallowed the pill which Arthur had administered.
XLV
“Burnt,” said Dick, with considerable satisfaction. “The poor brute did some good in his life—Heaven forgive me for speaking ill of him. Where is your Arthur?”
“My Arthur went to town very early,” said Leslie. “There is no news of Harry?”
He shook his head.
“None,” he said.
He looked dreadfully tired and broken, she thought.
“I’m so sorry!”
He took her hand and patted it.
“I wish you would go away somewhere, Leslie,” he said. “Couldn’t you take a long voyage?”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want you out of the way. I don’t exactly know why, but I’m rather worried about you. Get Arthur——”
He stopped. It was quite possible that Arthur would not be a free agent at the end of the week; and, reading his thoughts, she smiled sadly.
“What am I to do about Mr. Gilder?”
“Let him write. He is hardly likely to leave you in peace. But you understand, of course, that until Harry is found there is no danger to your brother. Until he appears, no action can be taken.”
She looked at him pityingly.
“Do you think he is alive?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied shortly. “Puttler doesn’t think so, but I do. We are dragging the Ravensrill to-day, but it is not deep enough to hide—a body.”
He covered his face with his hands.
“I wish I were a million miles away, perched on some solitary star,” he said wearily.
She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.
“You’d be very hot,” she said, with a pathetic attempt at gaiety, “unless I have forgotten all my astronomy.”
He put his arm about her shoulder and hugged her. It was an affectionate brotherly hug, and no more.
“You’ve got to go away, my dear. What about the prosaic Bournemouth? Or the vulgar but wholesome Margate?”
Again she shook her head.
“Or London, which I am told is a health resort?”
“You’re very anxious for me to go really?”
“Very,” he said, with an emphasis that betrayed his concern.
She drew back from him and faced him.
“Dick, will you tell me something without any evasion?”
He nodded.
“Do you think that I am in any personal danger?”
“I am sure of it,” he said. “It would be cruel not to tell you the truth. The shot that was fired the other day was intended for you. It was fired by a man who is as brilliant a shot as any in England, and the height of the bullet mark told us that it was aimed directly at your heart.”
She listened, stupefied, unbelieving.
“But why?” she asked, bewildered. “I have no enemies, Dick; I have wronged nobody. Who could do such a wicked thing?”
“If I told you, you would perhaps be no wiser,” he said. “There is a man in this world who hates you and hates me, and has good reason from his point of view. Now that I’ve told you the truth, will you go?”
She thought awhile.
“I’ll wait until Arthur comes back,” she said, “and ask him to take me to London.”
And with that he was satisfied.
He was leaving the house when Puttler’s cycle swung into the drive.
“Anything wrong?” asked Dick quickly.
“I don’t know. Look at this.”
He took from his pocket a large sheet of foolscap paper; roughly printed in pencil were the words:
Lord Chelford is safe. Don’t search for him, or he will be killed.
The Black Abot.
The word “Abbot” was printed with one “b.” The placard had been found hanging to the twig of a tree, the jagged hole at the top showing where the mystery man had threaded the paper.
“We found it halfway between the ruins and the house,” said Puttler. “Curiously enough, we had only been searching that part of the grounds a quarter of an hour before.”
Dick handed the warning back to him.
“Is that a bad joke or do you believe this paper?” asked Leslie anxiously. “And, Dick, couldn’t I be some help? I know Fossaway Manor so well, and I am sure there must be places where the police haven’t looked. Do you know there are tiny caves in the banks of the Ravensrill?”
“They’ve all been searched, and they’re not big enough to hold a large-sized dog,” said Dick. “If you want to be helpful you can come up to the Manor and put my correspondence in order. I am afraid it has been neglected in these days, and there are a whole lot of bills and things to be entered up.”
He had no real need for her, he thought, but whilst she was in the neighbourhood he was anxious that she should be under his eyes. She may have suspected something of this, but she gratefully accepted the offer.
“Drive up,” he warned her; “keep to the main road and the main drive. Don’t stop for anybody, however well you know them, and take no notice if you hear somebody shout at you.”
In spite of her anxiety she laughed.
“How very alarming that sounds!”
After he had gone she busied herself with the affairs of the house, arranged the dinner for that night, and was on the point of leaving, when somebody rang the front-door bell. She was putting on her hat before the mirror in her bedroom when the maid came up.
“Miss Wenner?” cried Leslie, aghast, and only then did she remember that at Arthur’s request she had written inviting the girl to spend the week-end with them.
Here was a complication she had not foreseen. And yet, in the space between her room and the hall, she had made up her mind, that, if there was one thing she welcomed at this moment, it was the society of a woman.
Mary Wenner was in the hall and greeted her as effusively as if they had been bosom friends, though in truth Leslie scarcely knew the girl.
“My dear, I’m so glad to be back in this lovely old country!” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking, as I was driving past dear old Fossaway Manor, how perfectly peaceful everything is!”
Leslie could have screamed! Peaceful!
“Perhaps it isn’t quite as peaceful as it looks, Miss Wenner,” she said drily.
“Call me Mary,” begged the girl. “I do so dislike formalism and standoffness! It will be so awkward if Arthur calls me by my name and you call me Miss… I mean…?”
“Well, I’ll call you Mary with pleasure,” said Leslie. “I think you know my name?”
“A beautiful name,” said the ecstatic Miss Wenner. “The only thing against it is, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy’s or a girl’s, can you? Don’t you sometimes find that very embarrassing?”
“I’ve never found it so yet,” said the girl, leading the way up to her room.
She waited till Mary had taken off her hat before she gave her news.
“Arthur is in town, but he’ll be back to-night,” she said. “Have you seen the newspapers?”
Miss Wenner shook her head vigorously.
“I never read the newspapers,” she said reprovingly. “They’re always full of lies, and after the way they roasted me over my breach——” She coughed.
For a moment Leslie had a wild idea that the reference was an indelicate one, and then the truth came to her.
“Did you ever have a breach of promise action?” she asked, in astonishment.
Mary was very red, and her embarrassment was painful to witness.
“I did have a little trouble with a young gentleman I went to business with,” she admitted. “I was a mere girl at the time, young and silly as it were, and I must say that I felt that I had to stand up for my rights. A lot of people think it was unladylike, but I say that a girl who is an orphan without parents must look after herself. I got fifty pounds, and it wasn’t worth the trouble and the nuisance.”
There was something about the girl that Leslie liked. Unconsciously she was amusing, but there was a sterling value in her, she thought, and Leslie had an uncanny knowledge of women.
“No, I never read the papers, Miss Gwyn. After being told by the Daily Megaphone that I had a curious mentality—I shall never forget those words—I’ve given up the papers.”
“Then you haven’t heard what has happened at Fossaway Manor?” asked Leslie.
The startled girl listened, her mouth an O of amazement and horror.
“Thomas? Why, I was only talking with him the other day! You don’t think Harry is killed?”
Leslie shook her head.
“I don’t know what to think. Mr. Alford is very confident that he is still alive, and they have just received a strange message which seems to bear that out.”
The girl was shocked, and Leslie could not help feeling that she was hurt, too.
“Harry Chelford was the best fellow in the world,” said Mary quietly. “He was a little irritable and difficult to get on with—you don’t mind me talking about him?”
“No,” said Leslie. “You probably do not know that our engagement was broken off?”
This seemed to be a greater shock still.
“Broken off? I’ll bet that was Dick Alford’s doing——”
“Mr. Alford had nothing to do with it,” said Leslie, and Mary made a rapid reëstimation of Dick Alford’s character, and she was eminently adjustable.
“Dick Alford is not a bad fellow really,” she said diplomatically. “There is a great deal about him that I like. And he is so good-looking!”
She was a shrewd, discerning gamin, who had won through by her ability to adjust her views at a moment’s notice. And in a fraction of a second she had realized that perfect harmony with Arthur Gwyn’s sister could be ensured only if her views on Richard Alford underwent a very thorough reorganization.
“I didn’t get on very well with him; I used to think he was a bit overbearing. But it must have been rather a trial for him, poor fellow!” A pause, and then: “I seem to have come at a pretty bad time, Miss—Leslie. Would you like me to go back to London?”
“Wait,” said her hostess, and, running downstairs, called Dick on the ’phone. He had just returned to the house as she rang.
“Surely,” he said. “Bring her up. I think that would be rather a good idea. And, Leslie, perhaps you would like to stay here the night. Arthur can come along, too—you might leave him a note or wire him.”
The idea was so appealing that she put no obstacles in the way, and returned to carry Dick’s invitation to her guest. Miss Wenner accepted with an alacrity that was almost indelicate.
“I may be able to be of some help,” she said. “I know the ins and outs of that place, and all the nooks and crannies. It is the treasure that’s done it all, Leslie! He was always after that silly Life Water, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t got into bad company.”
“But Harry never went out.”
“Oh, yes, he did,” was the surprising reply. “He often slipped off to London when Mr. Alford was away. And there was something queer about it, because Harry made me promise I would never tell Mr. Richard, as he called him.”
“How often did that happen?” asked Leslie.
“Sometimes once a month, sometimes twice or three times a month. He never went to the front drive; he followed the field path through the cutting, and I used to arrange for a Horsham motor cab to meet him. He used to go from Horsham and come back the same way, and I’ve known him to ring me up before he came back, to ask me if Mr. Richard had returned.”
Leslie wondered if Dick knew this.
“I’ve known him to go as many as three times a week when Mr. Richard was up in Yorkshire, looking after the Doncaster estate,” added Mary, and, virtuously: “I hope I have not let any cats out of the bag: all young men are a bit wild.”
XLVI
The adaptability of Miss Wenner was never more strikingly illustrated than in her greeting of Dick Alford. There was a coyness, a shy friendliness in her glance, which might have deceived an uninitiated spectator into believing that they were old lovers, parted by cruel circumstances and meeting after an absence of years. Dick, weary and heartbroken as he was, found in her the first cause for amusement he had had in twenty-four hours.
He had had rooms prepared for them in the east wing, which was opposite to that in which his own room and Harry’s were situated. There were two small apartments with a connecting door, which he had assigned to Leslie and her guest. The next room had been prepared for Arthur, and was adjoining.
“I’ve moved Puttler to this wing, too,” he explained, “though I don’t suppose the poor fellow will get very much sleep for a night or two.”
After he had shown them the rooms he took his departure, and Leslie followed him along the corridor and overtook him at the head of the stairs.
“There is really nothing I can do, I suppose, Dick?” For she had accepted the story of the disordered accounts as being a plausible excuse on his part to get her to Fossaway Manor.
To her surprise he said, “Yes,” and took her below to the study.
“Here are the estate accounts. I haven’t touched them for three or four days. Do you know anything about figures?”
She nodded wisely.
“Will you start in by checking these wages sheets? You’ll find the books on the shelf, and you will be able to get the hang of my rather simple system.”
He gave her instructions how to deal with the bills that had accumulated, and left her very contented. It was half-an-hour before she remembered that she had left Mary Wenner in her room, and hurried upstairs to apologize. She was to find Mary a very capable assistant, for not only was the girl efficient in her work, but she knew all the domestic mysteries of Fossaway.
The two girls lunched alone, for Dick had sent a message to say that he would not be back in time.
“The place gives me the creeps,” said Mary with a shudder, and her nervousness was not affectation. “The whole thing is frightful! Poor Thomas killed, and Harry taken away heaven knows where—— Oh!” She sprang to her feet, and her face had gone pale. “I know where Harry is,” she said, quivering with excitement. “I know, I know!”
“Where?” asked the wondering Leslie.
The girl ran out of the room into the hall.
“Where is Mr. Alford?” she asked quickly. “I must see him at once.”
“He telephoned from Red Farm,” said Leslie. “Perhaps we can get him.”
She turned the handle of the old-fashioned instrument and gave the Red Farm number.
“Is that you, Dick? How lucky!”
“I expected it was you. Is anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.
“No; Mary Wenner has something she wants to tell you.” She lowered her voice. “She thinks she knows where Harry is hidden.”
There was a silence at the other end.
“She’s not——”
“No, no, no.” With Mary within earshot, it was impossible to assure Dick that the girl was not trying to make a sensation.
“I’ll come over right away,” he said.
They went out to the head of the drive to meet him, and Mary offered her theory.
“I must have been mad not to have told you about this before. I don’t know where my wits have gone,” she said. “After all my treasure-hunting and the horrible experience I had that night with Gilder, and not to think of it now, when I practically came down to show Mr. Gwyn the place—well, I’m surprised at myself!”
Dick listened with growing impatience to this preliminary.
“Where do you think my brother is?”
“Where?” said Miss Wenner triumphantly. “Why, under the Abbey—that’s where. I’ll show you.”
They walked side by side across the meadow, and as they went Miss Wenner related the startling story of her adventures after treasure.
“Of course, I always knew that it didn’t belong to me, even if I found it,” she said virtuously; “but Mr. Gilder was so very pressing that I couldn’t very well refuse him, especially after what he’d written in vanishing ink, though I’ve got the ink back again, as he’ll find out one of these days.”
Leslie listened, scarcely crediting her ears. Yet, unless Mary Wenner had an imagination of a particularly inventive nature, it was hardly likely that she could have made the story up.
Dick examined the great corner-stone of the tower. He stood by, watching curiously, whilst, with a pair of scissors which she took from her bag, the girl pressed back the catch and sent the corner-stone turning noisily on its invisible hinge.
The opening was between twelve and fifteen inches wide. A stout man could never have entered by that way, as Dick pointed out.
“You had better stay here; I’ll go down,” he said.
“You’ll want a light,” warned Mary.
There was a lamp in his pocket. He had spent the morning peering into impossible dark places. In a second he had disappeared down the moss-grown stairs, and Leslie waited with palpitating heart for his reappearance. Presently they heard his voice.
“Come down.”
“Not me,” said Mary hastily. “I’ve been there once, thank you!”
And Leslie went alone guided by the light he showed from step to step.
Now she was standing with him in the vaulted room. He tried first one and then the other of the two doors leading from the antechamber, but neither yielded to his touch. It was pitch dark save for the fan-shaped ray of the lamp. He swept the light along wall and floor, and presently she saw the focus halt upon a broken flagstone.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. He had moved the light to the narrow entrance of the room. “Up you go; there is nothing here but mice and memories. I have always known there were underground vaults in the Abbey. In fact, I think there was a report on them by one of my recent forbears.”
Although he was immediately behind her, his voice seemed to come from a distance. She was walking, and he gave her no help with his lamp, so that she had to feel her way up. Turning her head, she saw that he was ascending the stairs backward, keeping the light covering the stairs below.
“Hurry,” he said tersely, and she stumbled up the remaining steps and emerged into the blessed daylight.
It was some time before he joined them, and when he came out she saw that he was white to the lips.
“What did you see, Dick?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said, and slammed the stone door tight.
Of the little party, only Miss Wenner was unaffected by the atmosphere which Dick Alford brought from that vaulted room.
“… so far as Mr. Gilder said—and I don’t trust the man entirely, as you can well understand, Leslie—there were only pieces of music in lead cylinders—that was the word, ‘cylinders.’ To me they looked rather more like rolls. And this Black Abbot must have cleared them out whilst we had gone. Mr. Gilder was disappointed. In fact, he was quite rude to me over the telephone. I do think a gentleman should keep his temper in all circumstances, don’t you, dear?”
Leslie agreed mechanically.
What had Dick seen? What object was it that showed for a second in the light of his lamp?
Near to the house he made an excuse to them. He had to go back to Red Farm to finish his interview with the obstinate Mr. Leonard; but he did not take his car. He said he would take the short cut, and Leslie thought it was not the moment to question him. She watched him until he disappeared in the fold of the ground. He was heading for the Abbey. The other girl had gone in to finish her lunch, and Leslie hesitated. The thought of his going back to that dark room again filled her with blind panic. She wanted to call out to him and bring him back, but he was out of hearing now, and she obeyed an impulse and went after him.
He was not in sight until she climbed the second of the gentle slopes. Here she stopped; he might resent being overlooked, and she lay down on the grass, watching him. She saw him come to the square tower, pause at the corner, and disappear apparently into space. From such a distance, the effect of his entry was eerie. The entrance was so small that he seemed to melt into the solid stonework. Ten minutes passed, a quarter of an hour, and then a long, interminable wait; she heard the village clock strike two. A lark in the blue was singing his passionate song; over by Red Farm a donkey was braying—a ludicrous accompaniment to what might be stark tragedy.
She was on the point of rising and running across to the ruins, to follow him into the depths, when he appeared again. He came slowly forth, turned and closed the stone door and leaned against it, his head on his arm, a picture of tragic despair.
She stopped and sank down on her knees, the better to escape observation, and presently he walked slowly away, and it was the gait of a broken man.