XLVII
Hurrying back the way she had come, she joined Mary in the study. Puttler she had not seen since the early morning, when he cycled to Willow House to bring the notice he had found.
“My dear,” said Mary, “I’m not so sure I shall stay here to-night. This place is full of shocks! I’d like to see your brother very much indeed, but you can tell him all about the room under the Abbey, can’t you? That’s where the gold is—you mark my words!”
“The gold?” Leslie for a moment did not understand. “Oh, you mean the Chelford treasure?”
The horrible thing! It was behind all this misery; behind the killing of Thomas and the disappearance of Harry. She said as much, and Miss Wenner, not pausing in her typewriting, calmly expressed the view that it was very likely.
Shock followed shock indeed! At half-past four Leslie’s maid brought a letter which had come by special delivery. It was in Arthur’s writing; she tore it open and read:
Dear Leslie:
You are under no circumstances to marry Gilder. I refuse to allow you to sacrifice yourself for me, now or at any time. I am going away to France for a few months, and will return when things have blown over.
Ordinarily quick-witted, it was a long time before Leslie could understand the significance of this message. When she did, she took the letter to Dick, and he read it without comment and handed it back to her.
“What does that mean, Dick?”
“It means that Arthur has taken the line of least resistance,” he said. “To put it vulgarly, he has bolted!”
Her heart sank, and in that moment she felt terribly alone. As if he read her thoughts, he went on:
“He has certainly precipitated the crisis, but I don’t see exactly how it will affect you. There was nothing else in the letter?”
She shook her head and opened the envelope, and then saw a slip of paper which she had overlooked. It was an authority to sell his business, drawn up in legal form, and had evidently been added as an afterthought.
“If there are no further defalcations that ought to be worth something,” said Dick. “I’ll see what I can do.”
But on this point she was firm.
“I think you’ve enough trouble without mine,” she said quietly. “Did you find anything in the ruins?”
He started.
“Why—no,” he said, a little unconvincingly. “Did you see me go back?”
“I’m afraid I spied on you,” she said, with a pathetic little smile. “Dick, I’m so worried about you; I wish you wouldn’t go into these places alone.”
“There was nothing to fear,” he said. “I thought I saw something on the floor which gave me a clue to Harry’s fate, but it was nothing—nothing.”
He changed the subject abruptly. She had a feeling that he was not telling her all that he had seen.
Mary and she had dinner alone, and Mr. Glover, the butler, free from the restraining presence of Dick Alford, was inclined to be talkative.
“There’s no doubt Mr. Alford looks after the policemen. I have had to get a food basket ready—thermos flask and everything the heart can desire. Personally, miss, I don’t believe in pampering the police. They’re only dissatisfied when they go back to their own homes. He won’t have anybody take the basket down to them either. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll take it myself. You have it ready at nine o’clock, put it just outside the servants’ door.’ My own opinion is that they’d be much more pleased with bread and cheese and a bottle of beer. What’s the good of making chicken sandwiches for policemen? And having a bottle of the best wine up from the cellar! It’s a waste of good food!”
Leslie listened, petrified. Now she understood!
The food was not for the police—it was for Harry! Harry, held prisoner in Chelford Abbey—by whom?
XLVIII
The bane of life that day had been the London reporters. The Red Lion Inn at Chelfordbury was already filled with them, and not an hour passed that one did not make his way to the house in a vain endeavour to interview the Second Son. One intercepted him in Elm Drive, and to him, as to the rest, he gave the same reply.
“You boys can’t expect me to tell you any more than I already know,” he said, at bay. “My brother has disappeared, but I believe he is still alive.”
“Who do you think is responsible for these outrages, Mr. Alford?” asked the reporter.
Dick shook his head.
“If I knew, it isn’t reasonable to suppose that I should be discussing the matter with you.”
“Is it the Black Abbot?”
“The Black Abbot has nothing whatever to do with this crime,” said Dick shortly. “Unless I credit you with being so foolish as to believe in ghosts, it is unnecessary for me to tell you that there is no such thing as a Black Abbot, and the figure that has been seen in these grounds was somebody masquerading for his own purpose.”
“A practical joke?” suggested the newspaper man.
Dick shook his head.
“I don’t think it was a practical joke; indeed, I am sure there is something very serious behind it. But I can’t tell you any more.”
“Mr. Alford,” said the reporter, “I’m going to ask you a very delicate question, and I hope you won’t think it an impertinence. If your brother is dead, then the title comes to you, does it not?”
“Yes,” said Dick.
“You won’t be offended if I tell you that there is a little talk in the village of some antagonism between your brother and you. I am told there have been frequent quarrels.”
Dick mastered his anger with a great effort, realizing that the reporter was not intending to be impertinent, but simply epitomizing the gossip of the countryside.
“My brother was very nervous and quick-tempered,” he said, “but I’ve never had a serious quarrel with him in my life.”
“Is it true that Lord Chelford’s fiancée, Miss Leslie Gwyn, recently broke off her engagement with your brother?”
“Perfectly true,” said Dick, stifling his impatience.
“And yet she is staying at Fossaway Manor as your guest?” The keen eyes of the reporter were watching him closely. He saw the blood mount to his victim’s cheeks and hastened to add: “I’m merely telling you what other people will tell you, Mr. Alford. I have a much wider experience of the uncharity and suspicion that surround every man associated with a crime like this. If you are annoyed with me I can understand it, but I can assure you that I only want to help you.”
“That I quite believe,” said Dick with a smile. “But you can understand just how embarrassing your questions are. I will tell you the truth and you may put it into your paper. I am satisfied there is a very terrible danger overhanging Miss Leslie Gwyn, and it is for that reason, and that reason alone, I have asked her to stay at the hall, which is under police protection and where I know she will be safe. Her brother has gone abroad, and I cannot allow her to stay at Willow House alone.”
“You mean she is in danger from the same person that killed Thomas the footman, and who is responsible for the disappearance of Lord Chelford?”
Dick nodded, and the newspaper man made a mental note.
“Thank you,” he said. “You will find that this little talk has cleared the air. In cases like this, if you clear up the minor mysteries as you go along, it makes for everybody’s comfort.”
Dick, who had been trembling with anger through the interview, had to agree, in the calm moments which followed, that the reporter had taken a sane view of the matter. When he met Leslie a few minutes later, he told her of the interview. She was in the study alone, and had just finished writing a letter, which lay face downward on the blotting-pad. She saw him glance at the envelope and turned it up. It was addressed to Fabrian Gilder.
“What have you said?” he asked.
“I’ve told him that I’ve considered the matter, and I’ve decided that I could not marry him—in any circumstances it would be impossible now, so soon after Harry’s disappearance.”
He picked up the letter and, taking out his pocket case, tore off a stamp and affixed it.
“I’ll see that this goes,” he said grimly. Then, seeing her tired face: “Poor old girl, you’re having a bad time.”
The pressure of her hand, the love and sympathy in her voice, were almost too much for him, and he had to set his teeth or he would have taken her in his arms, and, in that place of tragedy and horror, told her of the love that was shaking him, and which had added a new and fearful burden to his overstrung nerves.
“Go to bed early,” he said, with an effort at gaiety, “and rise with the dawn. I shall be busy till very late.”
“The butler was telling me that you have ordered a basket of food for the policemen.”
Not a muscle of his face moved.
“That is so; one or two men who are patrolling the cutting need a little light refreshment. They cannot get to the house and we haven’t men to relieve them.”
She was sensible enough not to pursue the subject.
It was only on her earnest entreaty that, as the night grew on, Mary Wenner remained. The girl was a bundle of nerves, started at every sound, paled and flushed with the opening of a door, and the sound of a falling plate in the servery whilst they were at dinner had made her scream.
“I can’t help it, my dear; I’m naturally temperamental,” she explained. “And this house has got me shivering. I can’t leave another young lady without a chaperon, or I’d fly off to London before it got dark.”
She had been in the library that afternoon, she told Leslie, and the sight of that familiar room with its empty chair had been almost the last straw.
“I had to have a good cry,” she confessed, “and I’m not ashamed of it. Harry was one of the best—you don’t mind me calling him Harry, do you, dear?” And, when Leslie shook her head: “I can’t say that I was fond of him as a young girl ought to be fond of a man she loves, but he was very nice. He had his tempers, the same as the rest of us, but they were only his high spirits. I could never understand why he hated Mr. Alford.”
Leslie looked at her incredulously.
“Hated Mr. Alford?” she repeated. “Surely you’re mistaken? They were very good friends.”
Mary shook her head.
“No, they weren’t,” she said. “It all arose out of her ladyship’s picture.”
“The late Lady Chelford?”
“That was the lady,” nodded Mary. “It happened three years ago. Dick Alford suggested that the portrait should be moved to the gallery. I think he was silly to say it, knowing how Harry adored his mother, and when he said the picture was depressing—and that was the silliest thing of all—Harry got right up in the air! It was dreadful, the things he said to Mr. Alford—and before me, too! Dick Alford realized his mistake: I could see that, and he tried to pacify Harry, but for a fortnight they didn’t speak.”
Leslie was silent. Slowly the inner life of Fossaway Manor was beginning to reveal itself to her; she had seen nothing of these cross-currents, had not suspected, even dimly, the conflicting antagonism which must have been visible to Harry Chelford’s secretary.
“They were very friendly sometimes. You’d think that Harry was fond of him, and I think he was,” Mary continued; “but the quarrels used to break out every now and then, once because Dick always stood with his back to the picture, and never looked at it at all. He hated it, I’m sure of that. Of course, he never took me into his confidence. We were not what you might term good friends. I suppose it was foolish of me to take up Harry’s quarrel, but I never liked Dick—you don’t mind me calling him Dick?—after that.”
She glanced nervously through the window. The sun had set, and dusk was creeping over the great park.
“If I get any sleep to-night I’ll be lucky,” she said. “Do you mind if I leave my door open and keep a light burning?”
“Why, of course not,” smiled Leslie.
“There is a lock on the door, and I asked Glover to find me the key,” Miss Wenner went on. “And I’ll tell you frankly, Leslie, that if he hadn’t found it I wouldn’t have stayed, not for all the money in the world.”
Leslie felt that it would be indiscreet to offer encouragement to a further discussion of this subject, for she was as reluctant to spend the night under that roof as her new-found friend.
XLIX
Though she waited up till nearly eleven, she did not see Dick, and, in response to the repeated hints of the girl, they went upstairs together.
The Manor was lighted by a power plant which was accommodated in a small shed midway between the house and the Ravensrill, and owed its installation to Dick’s enterprise.
Harry had always had candles in his room, Mary told her, but had accepted the lighting of his library as a compromise.
“It’s a very strange thing,” said Mary from her inner room, “but Harry was afraid of electricity. In thunderstorms he always went down into the cellar and stayed there until they were over. He used to have a bed which was made every day in the summer, in case of a storm coming on in the night, and——”
At that moment all the lights in the room went out.
“Have you turned the lights off?” asked Mary’s anxious voice.
“No, I haven’t been near the switch; I expect a fuse has gone,” said the girl.
There were matches and candles on the dressing table, she remembered, and, groping her way to the table, she lit the two candles. Mary was standing in the doorway, very pale and wide-eyed.
“What was the meaning of that?” she asked, her voice sharp with fear, which was beginning to communicate itself to Leslie.
She forced a smile.
“That happens in the best regulated houses,” she said, with spurious gaiety. “The door is locked, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
And then she heard footsteps in the corridor; there was a knock at the door that made Mary jump.
“Are you there, Leslie?” It was Dick’s voice. “Something has gone wrong with the lighting arrangements; we’ll put it right in a minute or two.”
“Are the lights out everywhere?” asked Mary, but he was gone.
Twenty minutes passed and again Leslie heard his footsteps approaching.
“I’m afraid we sha’n’t be able to fix up the lights till the morning. Have you candles? Did Glover put a flash light for you?”
“We’ve everything we want,” said Leslie. “Don’t worry about us: we shall be asleep in ten minutes.”
“Not me,” murmured Miss Wenner tremulously. “I sha’n’t sleep a wink!”
By the light of her candle she had replaced most of the garments she had discarded when the lights went out.
“I knew I oughtn’t to have stayed—there’s somebody coming along the corridor!”
“It is only Mr. Alford.”
But her ears caught the sound of two pairs of feet, and presently Dick’s voice spoke.
“Do you mind if I leave one of Puttler’s men outside your door?” he asked. “Don’t be alarmed if you hear him walking about in the night.”
“Is anything wrong, Dick?”
“No, no, nothing wrong; only I knew Miss Wenner was rather nervous.”
“I am,” quavered Miss Wenner loudly. “It’s very good of you, Mr. Alford.”
“You had better keep your windows fastened,” said Dick. “There is a system of ventilation in the room, so you needn’t be afraid of waking with a headache. Good-night.”
When he had gone, Mary Wenner looked solemnly at her companion.
“Did you hear what he said about keeping the windows shut?” she asked hollowly. “My Gawd!”
“Don’t be silly, Mary.”
Leslie was past feeling comfortable, but she had need to set an example.
“Come along, I’ll help you fasten the windows.”
“ ‘Keep the windows fastened,’ ” repeated Mary Wenner. “There’s something doing!”
They went from one to the other of the leaded windows, closed them and pressed down the catches. Suddenly Mary clutched the girl’s arm fiercely.
“There’s a man under my bed!” she gasped, staring wildly at the drooping counterpane.
With a fluttering heart Leslie lifted the cover, and pulled out a pair of riding boots, the soles of which the frightened secretary had seen, and they both laughed hysterically.
“I wish I could bring my bed into your room.” Mary looked helplessly at the heavy four-poster to which she had been assigned.
“You can come and sleep with me,” said Leslie. “I’ve got a big bed.” And this offer was most gratefully accepted.
“Have a look under your bed first,” said Miss Wenner nervously, and not till this ritual had been observed did she commence very slowly to undress.
Down below in the library, Dick was in consultation with Puttler, who had just returned from a hasty visit to Scotland Yard.
“The batteries were smashed, and an attempt had been made to cut the main cable,” reported Dick. “I got to the power house just after it happened, but I saw nobody.”
Puttler pulled at his comic little nose and there was a look of trouble in his brown eyes.
“The Commissioner thinks you ought to have a dozen men down here and make a clean-up,” he said. “I’ve brought three, and I think they all ought to be inside the house. One we’ve got in the east wing, another in the west, and a patrol in the hall. That will leave you and me and the local ‘flatties’ for the grounds. Though I think we might as well stay here—you want a battalion to patrol the estate properly. By the way, when I was looking round early this morning I found a great mound of earth in the northeast corner of the estate, near the river. One of your gamekeepers told me it was called Chelford Greed. What is the idea?”
Dick was not in an archæological mood, but he explained.
“One of my ancestors—I don’t know which one—planned and carried out a big steal. You probably know that the charter by which we received these lands from King Henry confines the northern boundary of the estate to the course of the Ravensrill, and the ingenious Chelford of the times had the idea of changing the course of the Ravensrill so that the estate would embrace another thousand acres. The Chelford Greed was the dam he built. The natural course of the Ravensrill runs through the Long Meadow. It was one of those clever little pieces of robbery that have made us landed proprietors what we are! As I say, I don’t know which of the Chelfords planned this piece of larceny, because there is no written record, and the legend has come down from mouth to mouth, so to speak.”
He looked up at the big portrait above the fireplace and shook his head.
“Lady,” he said softly, “you’ve given me a lot of trouble!”
Puttler was interested.
“As how?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you one of these days,” said Dick. “I wonder if those girls are asleep?”
He stole quietly up the stairs. The man on duty in the corridor flashed a lamp upon him as he approached.
“No sound,” he whispered, and Dick crept downstairs again.
It was arranged that he and Puttler should snatch a few hours’ sleep in turn, the other patrolling round and round the block of buildings. At two o’clock in the morning he was aroused from a deep slumber to feel Puttler shaking gently at his shoulder.
“Nothing has happened,” said the detective, eyeing with a friendly look the sofa from which Dick struggled. “I’ve warmed up some grub for you.”
A spirit stove was burning on the desk and the kettle above was steaming. Dick poured the black coffee into a glass and scalded himself to wakefulness.
“One of the local men thought he saw somebody moving and challenged,” reported Puttler, settling himself down with a luxurious sigh. “But it was probably only a bush. These birds are jumpy—they see a Black Abbot in every shadow!”
Dick sipped at the boiling fluid and broke a biscuit with his disengaged hand.
“Thank God, this can’t go on much longer!” he said. “By the way, did you bring those papers from London?”
“I gave them to you in the library: they were in the blue envelope.”
Dick put down the glass.
“I’d better keep them in my safe,” he said. “I don’t want the servants to see them.”
He crossed the hall, unlocked the door of the library and went in, mechanically switching on the light, and only then remembering that for the time being Fossaway Manor was denied the service of the little power house. He went back to the study and got his lamp and picked his way across the room to the desk. The envelope was where he had put it, and he slipped this into his pocket. As he did so, he was aware that a cold wind was blowing. He sent his light along the windows. That at the end was open; one of the curtains, which had been drawn across lay in a heap on the ground.
He went to the door and called Puttler softly and the detective joined him.
“Somebody has been here,” he said, and pointed to the curtain and the twisted pole that had supported it.
It was easy to see how the intruder had made his way into the library. Two of the panes near the iron handle which fastened one leaf of the window had been broken, and evidently the midnight visitor, in entering, must have fallen and, catching hold of the curtain to save himself, brought it to the ground, breaking away the pole which was hanging drunkenly.
“I passed here ten minutes ago, and the window was shut then,” said Puttler.
“He may have been inside at the moment,” replied Dick thoughtfully. “I wonder what has been taken?”
He examined the desk. Evidently the intruder had not opened any of the drawers, though, if he had done so, his labours would have been in vain, since Dick had cleared every document out of the room early in the day. As they circulated the room, Puttler stumbled over something.
“Where did this come from?” he asked.
It was a light ladder, and Dick recognized it as one of two that were part of the library furniture, and was employed to reach books from the top shelf of the lower tier.
“When I saw this last it was standing at the end of the room,” he said.
He flashed his lamp up on to the shelves, looking for a gap in the long line of books. So doing, his lamp swept across that space intervening between the shelves which was covered by the portrait of the late Lady Chelford. He could see the big gold frame, caught a glimpse of one white hand hanging gracefully, and then something brought his lamp back. He heard the churchwarden detective swear softly. Himself, he was speechless. The light of his lamp focussed on the place where the woman’s face had been, and where now was a black emptiness.
The face and shoulders of the picture had been cut from the frame, and the ragged strands of canvas told him that it had been cut by an unskilful hand.
L
Neither man spoke until they were back in the little study, and then Puttler looked gloomily at his companion.
“What do you make of that?”
“Heaven knows!” groaned Dick.
The study door was closed, and he had pulled across a dark curtain which had been hung that day for the purpose.
“I suppose I’d better get out, though I don’t suppose I shall find anything.”
“Wait until I’ve had the remainder of your coffee and I’ll come with you,” said Puttler. “No, Mr. Alford, I never felt less like sleep. We shall have daylight in a couple of hours. Wait.”
He turned out the oil lamp which had been requisitioned from the kitchen, blew down the glass chimney, and the room was in darkness.
“Now you can pull open those curtains and go out,” he said, “if that is your way.”
Dick moved the curtains slightly and looked out. The world lay peaceful, silent, in the pallid light of the moon, and as he opened the door, the sweet scent of the earth and the cold morn greeted him fragrantly.
His foot was raised to step across the threshold when Puttler’s big hand closed round his arm.
“Wait,” he whispered again.
Dick stood motionless.
“I see nothing,” he said in the same tone.
Still Puttler held him, his head bent, listening.
“All right,” he said, released his grip, and stepped out on to the little terrace before the Second Son.
He gave a swift glance left and right.
“What was it?” asked Dick, in surprise.
“Somebody breathing,” was Puttler’s astonishing reply. “You won’t believe that I could hear a man breathing a dozen yards away, but I can. It’s one of my many animal qualities.”
He took a little run, cleared the gravel path in a bound, and went noiselessly along the grass to the left. Presently Dick saw him returning at a jog-trot. The detective went past and disappeared round the wing of the block. In a few minutes he returned.
“Hearing and scent are my two qualities. Can you smell anything?”
Dick sniffed the morning air.
“No,” he confessed.
“Come along with me.”
This time he walked softly across the path, explaining that he was afraid of waking the girls who slept almost immediately above them.
They went to the end of the wing, and then the sergeant halted.
“Now do you smell anything?” he asked.
Dick sniffed again. There was a sweet odour in the air, the scent of some exotic flower that seemed familiar to him.
“Does anybody in this house smoke scented cigarettes?” asked the detective, and Dick went suddenly cold.
“Harry!”
“Your brother, eh?” Puttler’s deep-set eyes surveyed him in the half light. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is smoking them. Where were they kept?”
“In the library as a rule.”
Puttler began searching the grounds with the aid of his lamp. He had not gone far before he saw something and picked it up. It was a half-smoked cigarette with a rose-leaf tip.
“Humph!” muttered Puttler, and continued his search—a search which yielded no further evidence.
Retracing their steps, they passed the study door, and Puttler, who was walking a little ahead, stumbled over something and put his light to the ground.
“You keep rather a lot of ladders about here, Mr. Alford,” he said, in a low voice. “A library ladder outside? What’s the great idea?”
The ladder was lying parallel with the gravel drive, and Puttler examined it rung by rung.
“That wasn’t here last night, I’ll take my oath,” he said.
“No,” said Dick, puzzled; “it usually hangs on two pegs near the garage.”
He lifted it up. It was a long, light, triangular ladder tapering to a point at the top, and used by the staff for outside window cleaning.
“You had better have it chained up,” was all Puttler said after he had finished his inspection. “The man who brought this here was the man who cut off your light supply and, incidentally——”
Far away in the grounds came the faint sound of a man’s voice, challenging in military fashion.
“Halt! Who goes there?”
“That’s Renwick, a local man,” said Puttler immediately.
They ran toward the sound of the voice, and presently saw the flicker of his lantern; and it was a badly scared man who challenged them a few minutes later. He had seen nothing, he said, but he had heard voices.
“One of them was laughing. I thought at first it was you, Sergeant, but when I heard it again it was so wild that I got a little nervous.”
“Did anybody answer your challenge?”
“No, but the voices stopped. I couldn’t hear the woman’s voice——”
“The woman’s voice?” said Dick quickly. “Was it a woman? Surely you’re mistaken?”
“I could swear to it,” said the watcher. “It was the woman’s voice I heard first, and the man who laughed. I think the voices must have stopped as soon as I put my lamp on.”
“In what direction?”
The policeman pointed across Long Meadow, the shallow, valley-like depression which ran parallel with the rising ground on which the Abbey stood. To the left there were a number of cottages, occupied in the main by people working on the estate, two gamekeepers, a carter and a groom. It was from one of these cottages that the Black Abbot had been seen and reported by a terrified gamekeeper.
“They sounded as if they were walking away from you over the Mound to the river—or to the ruins?” suggested Puttler.
“Well,” confessed the man, “they might have been going that way: I can’t be sure.”
“That certainly beats the band,” said the sergeant, as they were moving in the direction the man had indicated.
“He must have been mistaken,” said Dick with emphasis. “They were walking away from him——”
“They,” repeated Puttler significantly. “I don’t think he was wrong at all.”
“There is another possible solution,” said Dick. “Sometimes the people at Chelfordbury avail themselves of a short cut across the park to a neighbouring village.”
“At three o’clock in the morning?”
“There may have been a dance,” suggested Dick lamely.
“A short cut through a park that’s known to be haunted and where a murder was committed two nights ago?”
There was no answer to this.
They reached the bank and followed along the top till they were parallel with the Abbey, but there was no sign of man or woman, and they turned back. In spite of his protestations of wakefulness, Sergeant Puttler did not resist the suggestion that he should take his sleep. Dick was left alone to his vigil.
By the time daylight came he was a very weary man. Twice in the night he had visited the two men posted in the corridors above, found them awake, but in each case with nothing to report.
“Thank goodness, at any rate, somebody’s had some sleep!” he muttered, as he passed under the girl’s window and glanced up.
The morning wind which stirred the trees and filled the world with the pleasant music of rustling leaves moved also the casement window of the room which he had assigned to Mary Wenner. The window swayed to and fro slowly, and he inwardly condemned the girl for not carrying out his instructions.
By six o’clock the first of the servants was stirring; smoke was crawling lazily from one of the big twisted chimneys. He was sitting in envious contemplation of Sergeant Puttler when the door of the study burst violently open and Mary Wenner came in. She was in her dressing gown; her untidy hair floated over her face.
“Mr. Alford,” she asked agitatedly, “have you seen Leslie?”
He was on his feet in an instant and the movement woke the sleeping detective.
“No; she’s with you, isn’t she?”
“We went to bed together,” said the girl, in a tremulous tone, “but when I woke up just now she was not in the room. I waited awhile, thinking she was taking her bath, and then I went outside and asked the man you put there. He said she hadn’t come out of the room!”
Puttler, listening, dragged himself erect.
“The ladder!” he said simply, and Dick reeled under the blow. The Black Terror of Fossaway Manor had in his grip the woman for whom he would have given his soul and counted it no heavy price.
Running out on to the lawn, Puttler searched beneath the window. Yes, there were the marks of the ladder in the mould of a garden bed, and on the ladder itself he found confirmatory proof. Lifting it against the wall, he scrambled up, and came breast-high to the window-sill on its top-most rung. Drawing himself up, he sprang into the room and looked round for some clue. By this time Mary Wenner, followed by Dick, had come through the door.
“Her dressing gown isn’t gone!” whimpered Mary, pointing to the hook where it had hung. “But her shoes are. She must have dressed—and I didn’t hear.”
The tired man at the door had heard no sound in the night. A thick carpet covered the floor. Mary said that, when she woke, the door which communicated between the two rooms was closed.
She had heard no sound at all, and claimed that she was a light sleeper, which, in fact, she was not. When she had gone to sleep the candle was burning. Examining this, Dick saw that it would not have been alight for more than an hour. There were two burnt matches in the tray, which meant that the candle had been extinguished once and lit again.
“I wonder she didn’t wake me; I’m usually a light sleeper.…”
Dick left the girl explaining to the watcher who had been on guard outside the door.
“It was her voice, of course, that the patrol man heard in the dark. I blame myself that I didn’t jump at that idea.”
“I’d like to keep all the blame!” said Dick bitterly. “Oh, God! it doesn’t bear thinking about!”
He went away on a solitary search; none saw him slip through the back of the house, and he moved under cover of the river bank. When he returned, after an absence of two hours, Puttler told him that there was a message from the Home Office awaiting him. That institution had rung up twice. Dick got through after a wait, and learned that he was talking to an important under-secretary.
“Could you run up to London for an hour?”
“Is it necessary?” asked Dick, and he explained with all rapidity the happenings of the night.
“I’m afraid you had better see us as soon as you possibly can. In view of all the circumstances you cannot come too soon.”
With a curse Dick hung up the ’phone, and this time he took Harry’s big two-seater, a car that his brother had only used a dozen times, but the use of which he had steadfastly refused to anybody else.
Just as he was leaving he recalled a resolution he had made in the night; he ran upstairs into his room, and, bolting the door, opened a locked drawer of his dressing chest and took out something which he put carefully in his bag. That must be removed from Fossaway Manor as soon as possible, he thought. He put the bag in the boot of the car and sent the machine flying down the drive.
Midway between Horsham and Dorking, a motorist, coming from the opposite direction by another route, shot at a fast pace from a forked road right across his path. Dick jammed on the brakes and the big car skidded halfway round, struck the concrete curb with a thud, but no damage was done, and he went on, with a glare at the goggled driver of the machine at fault that was murderous.
He did not hear the cover of the dickey snap open, nor did he see the brown bag leap up and roll over on to the sidewalk. But the man in the other car saw all this through his big goggles, and, restarting his machine, brought it to the curb.
And there and then, Fabrian Gilder discovered the secret of the Black Abbot!
LI
At nine o’clock that morning Mr. Fabrian Gilder had risen intending to make a hurried visit to his country cottage. The newspapers had been full of the Chelford tragedy, but no mention had been made of the fact that Thomas had been Mr. Gilder’s guest. Such a happening, he realized, being an intelligent man, must necessarily upset all arrangements and plans that the girl had made.
There was a lot about Fabrian Gilder that was admirable. To his servants he was a kind master; to all who knew him superficially, an excellent and even a generous friend. He was in truth no worse than the average man in point of desires, a little better in his fairness of dealing. Arthur Gwyn had been legitimate prey, but he had, he thought, treated him with scrupulous fairness. He had succeeded, by the exploitation of the lawyer’s weakness, in amassing a very considerable fortune; but then, the City of London, and, for the matter of that, the City of New York, was filled with rich men who had founded their houses upon the cupidity or folly of men who were now almost penniless.
He glanced at the morning papers. There was nothing new reported from Chelford, except the little interview that one reporter had had with Dick, and that paragraph was, in many ways, very comforting to Gilder, for it explained why the girl—and then his eye caught sight of a line.
Mr. Alford said he had asked Miss Leslie Gwyn to stay at Fossaway Manor whilst her brother was abroad.…
Abroad? He frowned. If Arthur Gwyn had gone abroad he must have left very suddenly. He had seen him only a day or two before. But perhaps that was one of Dick Alford’s lies to save the girl’s face. Still, it was disquieting.
He was pondering this matter when the maid brought him his morning letters, and the first he saw was one in a well-known hand. It was from Leslie. He tore it open with trembling fingers, took out the half sheet of paper and read the few lines. He read it not once but many times. So that was that! She had changed her mind.
It did not occur to him that she had not made any promise but he was so sure of her, so satisfied in his mind that she would agree to his proposal, that he felt he had been tricked.
When the shock had worn off, his anger and resentment grew. Very well: if she could not keep her promise, he at least would keep his. He understood now, he thought. Arthur had bolted, and there was no necessity for the girl to make her sacrifice. He had been fooled, tricked. He pushed the chair back from the table, leaving his breakfast untouched, and, going into his library, turned the handle of the combination and pulled open the door of the safe with a savage jerk. There was the letter, all ready to post, and at the sight of it his heart grew hard and sour.
He took out the letter, made to tear it into fragments, and then remembered that inside was a blank check. He pulled out the sheet of notepaper and felt for the little pink slip that in his magnificence he had signed with a complacent flourish. It was not there!
Gilder peered into the envelope with a frown. Gone! He searched the safe: it might have fallen out, though how, he could not imagine; but there was no sign of the check. He unlocked his drawer and took out his check-book. There was the counterfoil, and written across it, “For Leslie——.” He had intended to show her that counterfoil one of these days, when she felt more kindly toward him.
With his head in his hands he tried to remember when he had last seen the check, and then he recalled that it was on the morning Arthur Gwyn had called to see him. At that thought he went white. Surely he had closed the safe? Again he struggled to remember, minute by minute, that fateful morning. He had been looking at the letter, he had put it away, he had closed the door, and then—the telephone bell had rung and he had forgotten to fasten the safe!
He pulled the ’phone toward him now and called furiously for a number. It was twenty past nine; most of the staff of the bank would be there. When the call was answered:
“I am Mr. Gilder,” he said quickly. “Is the manager there?… No? Then the sub-manager will do. It is very urgent.”
He waited whilst the clerk went to investigate. Presently he heard the voice of a man he knew—the manager himself.
“I just came in at this moment. Is anything wrong?”
“Fletcher, do you remember my telling you that I should be sending down a check for fifty thousand pounds and asking you to honour it?”
“Yes; I honoured it.”
For a second Gilder was speechless.
“You honoured it? Who presented the check?”
“Arthur Gwyn—it was made out in his favour. I notified you last night; didn’t you get my letter?”
“I haven’t opened all my post yet,” said Gilder steadily. “Thank you.”
He hung up the receiver, breathing heavily. For now he remembered clearly every event of the morning: the coming of Arthur Gwyn, and his seemingly absurd proposal, that Gilder should write a note expressing his willingness to lend the money. That was the trick of it! Not only had Arthur got the fifty thousand, but with that letter he had a complete answer to any charge of fraud.
He sat with clasped hands, every vein on his forehead swollen, and murder in his heart. Tricked! And she should know. She had been a party to the fraud—unwittingly, perhaps, but nevertheless a party. She must have told him of this money.…
Whatever else he was, Fabrian Gilder had the gift of clear thinking. Five minutes’ riotous fury, and he was his cold self again. Of course she couldn’t have helped in the fraud. It was the accident of leaving the safe unlocked, and Arthur Gwyn’s known inquisitiveness—he could never resist reading even Gilder’s private letters; Arthur had no sense of other people’s privacy.
What could he do now? He thought the matter out. He must tell the girl, and perhaps she would regard herself as being under an obligation to him. If she had any sense of honour she must fulfil her promise, whatever she had written in her letter that morning.
He telephoned for his car to be brought round from the garage, and came back to his breakfast table and made an attempt to eat.
He would try Leslie first, telling her nothing about the letter he had given to her brother, and threaten him with a warrant for fraud. Perhaps this strengthened rather than weakened his position. He grew cheerful as the thought took shape.
He passed slowly out of London, for all the streets in the metropolis seemed to be “up,” and at last struck the open country, avoiding the main roads and taking a more circuitous route which would bring him to the main Sussex road between Dorking and Horsham. With a clear road before him, he sent his car at full speed. He was not well acquainted with the road, but he knew that he joined the old Roman “street” at a gentle angle, and he did not slow down as he approached the principal thoroughfare.
Left of him, on the London side, the road was clear; to the right, the view was a little obstructed. He sounded his klaxon and came out on to the main thoroughfare at thirty miles an hour.
He saw the car just in time, jammed on his brakes, and threw the machine into reverse. The big car ahead of him skidded round; he caught one malevolent gleam from Dick Alford’s eyes, and then he saw the bag and, driving to the side of the road, picked it up. His first inclination was to leave it; he had no particular desire to help the Second Son; but there are certain innate decencies to be observed by motorists, even though they loathe each other, and he picked the little grip from the sidewalk and threw it into the back of his car.
As he did so, it opened, and, turning to fasten it, he saw something that made him change his mind. Getting out of the car, he lifted the bag to the sidewalk, opened it wide and pulled out—the sombre habit and cowl of the Black Abbot!
LII
So Dick Alford was the Black Abbot! It was unbelievable; he could hardly credit the importance of his find. Here, then, was the greatest lever of all. Beside this, the threat of a charge against Leslie Gwyn’s brother faded to unimportance. He snapped the lock, put the bag carefully back in the car, and, restarting his engine, moved at a slower pace toward Chelfordbury.
He stopped in the village, where he was recognized, and heard at first hand from the innkeeper the story of the strange happenings at the “big house.”
“They do say that something’s happened to the young lady from Willow House.”
“What!” Gilder almost shouted the word. “You don’t mean Miss Gwyn?”
“Yes, Miss Gwyn,” nodded the landlord. “I haven’t got the rights of it yet, it’s only a rumour down here, but, Lord bless your heart, Mr. Gilder, there’s never been so many rumours in this village since I came to live here forty-eight years ago. Some say that his lordship’s been murdered”—he lowered his voice and looked round—“by his brother! Mr. Alford is a very hard man, though the people who work for him have got nothing to say against him, but that doesn’t seem possible to me.”
Gilder’s mind was in a whirl. He did not want to know anything about Dick Alford or his reputation.
“Who told you this story about Miss Gwyn?” he asked, and the landlord, looking round the group that had formed outside the Red Lion, pointed to a man.
“He’s a carter up at the big house,” he said.
“Fetch him here,” said Gilder.
When the carter arrived:
“What is this story about Miss Gwyn?” Gilder asked.
The man looked a little sheepish to find himself the centre of interest.
“I don’t know nowt about it,” he said. “It’s only what I heerd that monkey-faced gentleman saying to Mr. Richard. He says, ‘I don’t think any harm’s come to her.’ And one of the maids says that that young lady who used to be his lordship’s secretary——”
“Miss Wenner? Is she there?” asked Gilder quickly.
“Yes, she come up last night.”
“What about her?” asked Gilder.
“They say she’s been crying her eyes out all the morning. That’s all I know about it. They do say something bad happened to the young lady early this morning, and the way Mr. Richard has been running about and him looking as ill as death——”
“I hope something’s going to be done about this Black Abbot,” interjected the innkeeper. “My womenfolk are so frightened they want to sit up half the night.”
Gilder looked at him with a queer expression.
“You needn’t be afraid of the Black Abbot,” he said. “I am going to lay that ghost to-day.”
“You, Mr. Gilder?” said the man, in surprise.
But it was not the occasion for confidences, and Gilder, getting back into his car, turned it about and went up the road till he came to the lodge gates. Here a policeman on duty would have barred his progress, but fortunately he was a local man who knew the lawyer.
“Mr. Alford’s away, sir. Do you want to see Sergeant Puttler?”
“Is that the man who has been staying at the hall? What is he—a policeman?”
“A Scotland Yard man, sir,” said the Sussex policeman, with a certain pride. “Though I don’t know they’re much better than our own detectives. You’ll tell him you saw me, will you, and I asked you not to go to the house unless you had business?”
Evidently these were the policeman’s instructions; Gilder promised faithfully to supply this exoneration, and continued up the drive. There was nobody to meet him when he pulled up before the old carved porch, but he had hardly alighted when a long-armed, queer-faced man came from nowhere.
“Good-morning,” said the visitor.
“Good-morning, Mr. Gilder,” said Puttler. “Mr. Alford has had to go to town.”
“I want to see Miss Gwyn,” said Gilder, watching the man closely.
If he had expected an experienced detective-sergeant to betray himself, he was to be disappointed. Puttler did no more than fix him with his melancholy eyes.
“Want to see Miss Gwyn, do you? I’m afraid she’s not at home either.”
“Then perhaps I could see Miss Wenner?”
The sergeant scratched his chin.
“She’s not very well,” he said; “in fact, she’s lying down, and the doctor says she’s not to be disturbed.”
“Is there anything wrong with her?”
“No, there’s nothing very much wrong with her. At the same time,” said Puttler juridically, “there’s nothing very much right with her! It has rather got on her nerves sleeping in this place, and I can’t very well blame her.”
“Do you know where Miss Gwyn has gone?”
Puttler shook his head.
“No,” he said truthfully, “I can’t tell you that; she didn’t tell me.”
“Perhaps you will answer this question,” said the exasperated man: “Has anything happened to her?”
“So far as I know,” said the imperturbable officer, “nothing whatever has happened to her. Are you a friend of hers?”
“I am her fiancé,” said Gilder, on the spur of the moment.
Here he had the satisfaction of seeing that the sergeant was startled.
“Oh, yes, of course, you’re the gentleman she isn’t going to marry.”
It was said in all innocence, without any trace of impertinence, but Mr. Gilder went red and white.
“You see, Mr. Gilder,” the sergeant went on, “I’ve heard quite a lot about—affairs in this neighbourhood; in fact, I’m an authority upon all the gossip and scandal for the past twenty years. And I’m very glad you came, because there are one or two questions I wanted to ask you. For example, I wanted to know how it came about that you placed your cottage at the disposal of an ex-convict. Thomas Luck—so called.”
But here Gilder was ready with his answer.
“I had no idea the man was an ex-convict,” he said. “He told me he had been discharged from the Manor, and as I wanted a caretaker, and he offered to come for a very small sum, I employed him. I was terribly surprised and shocked to hear of his death, but even more shocked to learn of his character.”
Puttler was politely interested. But if he thought that he was going to get rid of Gilder so easily, it was because he did not know the man’s pertinacity.
“I think I must see Miss Wenner before I go,” he said. “At any rate, I’d be glad if you’d send up my name——”
Puttler shook his head.
“It can’t be done, Mr. Gilder,” he said almost cheerfully. “Just now I’m a combination of the Earl of Chelford and the family doctor. In other words, I’m in charge during Mr. Alford’s absence. If you care to wait until he comes back, the drawing-room is at your disposal, but you understand, Mr. Gilder, that you are not in any circumstances to question the servants. I am a great admirer of amateur detectives in my leisure moments, but this is one of my busy days and I can’t afford to have any interference in this case, however well meant it may be.”
Gilder had to accept this invitation. He was determined not to leave the house until he had learned the truth about Leslie Gwyn. The detective conducted him to the drawing-room, the long windows of which were open.
“I’ll ask you not to leave here until Mr. Alford arrives,” he said. “If you require anything, perhaps you will ring?” And, seeing the light in Gilder’s eyes, he added: “One of my men, who is a first-class footman, will attend to you.”
He had not long to wait, as it happened. Dick, who had torn up to town, breaking every speed rule, and so intent upon the object of his visit that he had forgotten even that he had put the bag in the boot, was lucky enough to get through with his interview in a quarter of an hour. It was a very important interview: one on which his own future very largely depended; and there were too many things to think about for him to give a thought to the bag and its contents. His car, white with dust, sped up the drive and came to a halt in the wide space before the porch. He identified the other car and recognized it as the machine that had nearly brought about a nasty accident that morning.
“Gilder, is it?” he said, as he got down.
“Gilder it is, and full of interrogation marks. You saw the secretary?”
Dick nodded.
“Yes. He was very kind, but rather vague. He has given me twelve hours to find Harry, dead or alive.”
“Did you tell him about Miss Gwyn?”
“He wasn’t even interested,” said Dick, with a hard laugh. “Harry, the estate, the title—everything except Leslie! That was the burden of his conversation. In twelve hours I must find him—and believe me, Puttler, in twelve hours I will!”
He went into the drawing-room and greeted Gilder curtly.
“You wanted to see me?”
“I wanted to know what has happened to Leslie Gwyn,” said Gilder.
“I wish to God I knew!” said Dick.
The man stared at him.
“Nothing bad has happened?” he asked in a low voice, and Dick forgave him everything for the sincerity of his concern.
“I’m afraid it is something very unpleasant,” he said, and told the story.
As he did so, he saw the man’s face change and a sceptical smile curved his lips.
“I’ve got something to say to you, and I’d like to say it before a witness, Alford.”
“To me?” said Dick, in surprise, and called over his shoulder to Puttler, who was passing the door. “Mr. Gilder has something he wants to say—I presume it’s something of an unpleasant character,” he said. “Perhaps you had better listen to this, Puttler.”
“Alford has just told me that Miss Gwyn has disappeared, and the inference is, of course, that the Black Abbot has spirited her away. I think that is extremely likely, because the Black Abbot has every interest in holding fast to that young lady.”
“Sensation,” murmured the detective, but Gilder did not notice the interruption.
“For some time past there’s been a queer spook haunting this countryside, an object of terror to Lord Chelford, designed, if anything, to cover the series of outrages which have recently been committed. Chelford’s a weakling—you know that, Alford—but weaklings have children, and once a child is born to Harry Chelford your hope of succession went like that!” He snapped his fingers.
“What are you suggesting?” asked Dick steadily.
“I’m suggesting that you are the Black Abbot!”
Not by so much as a flicker of his eyelid did Dick betray himself.
“I not only suggest it, but I’m prepared to prove it. On your way to town this morning you nearly collided with my car. As you skidded, your bag fell out of the dickey. I picked it up, threw it in the car and found it was open. In that bag was the robe of the Black Abbot, well worn, often used! Do you deny that?”
“You’ve got to bring proof of this.” It was Puttler who spoke.
“Proof!” cried the other triumphantly. “I’ll give you proof!”
He walked rapidly through the hall to where his car was, the two men following him. He had left the bag under a rug at the back of the car.
“There is the bag,” he said, as he pulled the rug from its place. “And here”—he snapped open the bag——
It was empty!
“And here?” said Puttler encouragingly.
“It was there a few minutes ago: I saw it before I came into the grounds. Somebody has taken it. You!” he accused Dick.
Dick smiled.
“Sergeant Puttler will testify that I came straight from my car into your august presence,” he said sarcastically.
“Why don’t you accuse me?” asked Puttler. “I was out here all the time.”
The baffled man looked from one to the other. It was impossible to believe that these two were in league. He knew Puttler by name to be one of the best officers Scotland Yard had ever had. He shrugged his shoulders and dropped his hands to his sides.
“You’ve beaten me, Alford,” he said, “for the time being. But I’m satisfied the girl is within a mile from this house, and I’m not going to rest until she is found. Heaven knows why you’ve done it—she’s fond of you, and there was no need——”
“Don’t be a fool, Gilder,” said Dick roughly. “If you want to help, help! But you’re not going to help by thinking that I’ve raised my hand against Leslie Gwyn. I don’t care whether you’re a friend or whether you are an enemy, but if you can help us bring her back safely I will go on my knees to you!”
Dick’s voice was trembling, vibrant; there was a look in his eyes which not even Gilder, for all his prejudice, could mistake. He held out his hand and Dick Alford took it with a grip that made him wince.
LIII
Despite all her gloomy prognostications as to her sleepless night, the head of Miss Wenner had hardly touched the pillow than her breathing became regular and even noticeable. Leslie Gwyn smiled to herself as she turned over and stealthily extinguished the candle. She had not been lying ten minutes before she realized, from past experience, that many a weary hour would pass before her eyes closed in sleep.
She had the alternative of relighting the candle and reading, or counting myriads of sheep, and the first plan was somewhat hampered in its achievement by the fact that there was nothing in the room to read, and she dare not disturb the sentry, because that would probably wake Mary. So she lay perfectly still, overcoming a mad desire to turn every few minutes, trying to make her mind an absolute blank.
With so much to occupy her thoughts, with the past twenty-four hours and all the terrible shocks they had brought, her effort to turn her mind into a cabbage was a hopeless failure.
She heard a distant village clock striking the half-hours and the hours and was grateful when one o’clock chimed, for she felt she had turned the hill of the night and was approaching the blessed day. There were queer creaks and noises in this old house: strange, stealthy footsteps that seemed very real; fingers brushing along wainscotings, queer little chatterings as of laughter. In spite of her courage, Leslie got up and lit the candle again and felt happier.
She lay on her back, gazing at the ceiling, striving to concentrate upon one little crack that ran from corner to corner; and it seemed as though, as she looked, the room went perceptibly darker, and was filled with a strange unearthly light.
And then she saw behind the door a great steel clothes hook that she did not remember having seen before; and attached was a cord and a shapeless something that hung with terrible limpness… a woman! She opened her eyes wide, almost screamed, but put her hand before her mouth in time.
She had been dreaming, she realized, and she reached out for her handkerchief to wipe her damp face. There was no hook behind the door—nothing. She shivered and turned on her side, looked for the twentieth time at her watch. Twenty-five minutes past one.
Tap, tap!
That was distinct enough. It came from the room which Mary Wenner was to have occupied.
A silence, and then the unmistakable sound of gravel being thrown against a window. Perhaps it was Dick and he wanted to see her. She slipped out of bed, pulled a dressing gown about her, opened the door of the dark room and went in. The windows were closed, but as she entered the room she was startled by a third handful of gravel that sounded with terrifying distinctness.
With trembling hands she pulled up the catch and pushed the casement open. A man was standing down below, and for a second she did not recognize him. And then everything went round; she had to grip the window ledge for support.
It was Harry Chelford!
“Is that you, my dear?” His voice was little above a whisper but remarkably clear.
She managed to answer:
“Yes.”
She was so dumbfounded that she could not ask one of the thousand questions which crowded to her lips.
“Harry! And alive!”
“You are in terrible danger,” he said. “Will you come down? I can get a ladder.”
Before she could answer he had disappeared, and presently he came back, carrying a triangular-shaped ladder, and planted it against the side. The top came within a foot of the window ledge.
“I can’t come, Harry; I’m not dressed. Besides, Miss Wenner is here.”
He raised his finger to his lips.
“Don’t wake her,” he said.
He had a little roll of something in his hand and she noticed that he was bareheaded.
“Can’t you dress? I must see you.”
“Shall I call Dick?”
“No, no.” In his energy he almost raised his voice and looked back over his shoulder. “That would spoil everything, and it would endanger his life. Dress quickly, my dear.”
What should she do? Her first instinct was to run to the door and tell the guard what she had seen; her second was to obey him. His earnestness and the terror in his voice made her yield to his suggestion. Quickly she dressed by candlelight, hoping and praying that Mary Wenner would wake up. Once she knocked against the girl’s bed, but Miss Wenner slept peacefully, a seraphic smile on her good-looking face, and the only notice she took of the disturbance was to murmur, “Dick!”
It needed that ludicrous interlude to restore Leslie’s courage; for she could not be amused and afraid at the same time.
Perhaps Dick was waiting below, she thought, and swinging herself over the sill, she reached out her foot, found the top rung of the ladder, and came down. Harry was standing on the grass plot, curiously alert and watchful.
“What is it, Harry?” she asked in a low voice, but he put his finger to his lips again and led her, not, as she expected, toward the front of the house, but by a wide circuit, keeping to the shadow of the trees, until they went past the rosary and near to the stables.
A dog barked as they passed in silence.
“I can’t go any farther, Harry.”
“You must, you must!” His voice was urgent, compelling. “I tell you that not only my life, but your own is in danger.”
“But what of Miss Wenner?” She drew back.
“They will not touch her. My mother’s spirit will watch that poor girl—she died in that room.”
Leslie gasped.
“Your mother?” she asked, in an awestricken whisper.
“Come!” He was impatient, caught her by the arm and led her farther down, until she saw near at hand the gleam of the Ravensrill.
“But, Harry, I can’t go any farther.” She stopped resolutely. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. Where have you been all this time? Everybody has been looking for you and Dick has been terribly worried.”
He laughed. (It was the laugh that the watchman heard.)
“Dick is worried? That is rich!”
And now, as the challenge of a distant voice came to her, she saw his face in the moonlight. He was unshaven, unkempt, grimy of face and hands; he wore no collar, and stood, a collarless man in a long frock coat with a wild appearance. Slowly she drew back, dread and fear on her face, and then he clutched her by the wrists.
“If you scream I will throw you into the river and kneel on you until you are dead,” he whispered in so calm and matter-of-fact a tone that she could not believe he was serious.
And yet she had an extra sense which told her that he was not only serious, but that she was in deadly peril. He kept hold of her wrist, or she would have taken to flight, though she would have little chance of escaping one who in his school days was a noted sprinter.… She remembered something else now and felt sick. Harry Chelford had captained his public school team at Bisley and had carried everything before him. This pale, anæmic youth was the greatest shot of his time. The greatest shot! She remembered the bullet that was meant for her, and he felt her dragging on his hand but said no word. She must not lose her nerve at this moment of crisis.
They were making for the ruins. Near the edge of the cutting, Puttler had told her, were stationed two men; they must see her soon. But Harry went no farther than the broken tower, and here he paused and pulled the block of stone aside.