WHEN THE BLOW FELL
It was not an easy road Cleek traversed, for in the darkness and in the
utter absence of lamps of any sort the lane became a thing of stones and
pitfalls for the unwary traveller, and there were many times when he was
down upon his hands and knees in the soft, sweet-smelling,
heather-thatched hillside, having lost footing with the road altogether,
and only his pocket-lamp kept him from absolute downfall and disaster.
But the great gates were reached at last, and he saw that they had been
set ajar, so that he could slip in undisturbed, if he wished--a little
forethought on Maud Duggan's part for which he silently thanked her.
He slid in between them, glanced a moment up at Rhea's great bronze
figure etched out against the moonlit sky and taking on a supernatural
lifelikeness which was eery beyond words, and then darted up the
driveway, groping his way in the shadows toward the great house which of
a sudden seemed to be blazing with light from every window, as though
the soul of it had suddenly been awakened out of its sleep and it had
come to life in one huge simultaneous effort.
Under the tread of his light feet the gravel barely moved, and having
got his bearings that same afternoon, he pelted up in the darkness
toward the front door, stopped suddenly, listened, darted leftward
toward the lawns, and came--_phut!_--up against somebody who was running
in the opposite direction, swift-breathing like a man pursued, and who,
having met the impact of Cleek's tautened body, stationed there for just
such a purpose, bounded back again and gave out an involuntary gasp of
astonishment and ill-concealed irritation.
"Whew! I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said this stranger, as Cleek
flashed on his lamp and sent its rays travelling up the man's slim
figure from top to toe. "Who the--why the--what the----?"
"Awfully sorry, I'm sure," responded Cleek, with a light laugh, in his
best blithering-idiot manner, "but I happened to be strollin' up in this
direction to pay a call upon Miss Maud Duggan, and fell into you. So
beastly dark in these parts, doncherknow. After London, a chap is likely
to lose his bearin's. Exceedin'ly sorry and all that."
The man stopped suddenly and, bending forward, peered up under Cleek's
tweed cap into the face beneath it. Cleek saw him as a slim, handsome
fellow of the leisure classes, lithe of limb and athletic of body, and
in that small ray of torch-light, augmented by the moon's pale gleams,
liked the look of him, though he was startled by the meeting--that was
obvious--and a little shaken as well.
"Eh? What's that? Miss Duggan, did you say? Then what's your name, may I
ask? You're a stranger to these parts, I suppose?"
"Yes. Up for the salmon-fishin', doncherknow. Strollin' back to the
Castle, are you? We'll go together. My name's Deland--Arthur Deland. Am
I permitted to know yours?"
"Certainly. But I'm not--going to the Castle to-night. I've--I've
just--come from there, you see, and was on my way home again when we
cannoned into each other. My name's Macdonald, Angus Fletcher Macdonald.
I'm a--particular friend of Miss Duggan's.... But time's getting along,
and I've a good distance to go. So I'll be off, if you don't mind.
Good-night."
"Good-night."
Cleek nodded to him in the half dark, then as the man swung away from
him down the wide drive, turned in his tracks and watched him till the
moon, hiding under a cloud, hid him, too.
"Macdonald, eh? The unfortunate lover whom the father will not
countenance. H'm. Wonder what he was doing here at this time of night?
Rather nervous, I should say, at our encounter. And why the dickens--if
anything's happened--didn't he know something about it? It's a good
twenty minutes since she signalled to me, and if he's just come from
the house----"
Of a sudden he stopped short and sucked in his breath as a new thought
penetrated itself into that perfectly pigeon-holed and regulated
mentality of his. "Gad! surely _he_ hasn't---- Well! I ought to have
detained him and brought him back on some pretext--if anything really
_has_ happened to cause her to want me at this hour of the night....
Well, I'll nip along and find out. And if anything's really wrong, I
shan't forget _that_ gentleman in a hurry."
He reached the house without further adventure, and rang the door-bell
with a steady hand. But he was hardly prepared for its response. For at
the sound of it Maud Duggan came running toward him, her face white as a
dead face, her eyes wild, her hair untidy, and clutching him by the arm
fairly hauled him into the hallway, just as the butler--stung out of his
calm demeanour by the happenings of that night--appeared from the end of
the hall and came toward them.
"Oh, I'm so glad you came, so glad, Mr. Deland!" she shrilled out in a
high-pitched, terrified voice. "It was lucky you turned up as--as you
promised. But I'm afraid our game of c-cards cannot take place.
Because--oh, how can I say it? How? A terrible thing has happened, Mr.
Deland, and that which I feared has come to pass, only in a much more
awful manner! My--my f-father has been murdered, in full sight of us
all, right there in the library, just as he was about to draw up a new
will to disinherit Ross. Foully ... murdered ... poor darling!"
Then the sobs caught in her throat, and she turned away a moment and hid
her face in her handkerchief, while Cleek, mastering his curiosity and
amazement at this curious and amazing statement, waited a moment for her
to regain her composure. Then:
"My dear young lady!" he cried in a low-pitched, even voice. "Murdered!
And in the presence of you all! Then of course you know who his murderer
is."
"I don't, I don't! We none of us know! None of us!" she ejaculated,
shutting her hands together and lifting a tear-stained, haggard face to
his. "Oh, Mr. Deland, that is the terrible, the mysterious part of it
all. It happened in a flash. Suddenly the lights went out; we heard the
wheel humming, just as the Peasant Girl said it would hum, and then ...
then ... the lights came up again, and there he lay, shot through the
temple and stabbed to the heart, quite, quite dead!"
"Whew! Rather a marvellous happening, I must say," gave out Cleek,
laying a hand upon her shaking shoulder and edging her tenderly toward
the open door of that little ante-room into which he had been shown
only that morning, when the old laird himself had entered upon their
conversation, with his lady in attendance. And now he was dead!
murdered! It seemed indeed hardly credible. "Sit down awhile, and then
tell me at your leisure all the happenings which took place. Got any
brandy in the house? Or have you had some? No? Well, I've always a flask
handy. Now, take a pull at this, and then lean back in that chair and
close your eyes. You'll be a different person, I assure you. Here's my
flask. Make it a good peg, too."
Dumbly she did as she was bidden, acting as a sick child does, without
question, and thankful only for a directing hand. Meanwhile, Cleek stood
over her, watching how the colour ebbed slowly back into her pallid
cheeks and the red crept again into her blue lips, and congratulating
himself that he had been just in time, and no more, before she would
have fainted.
She shut her eyes as he had told her, and when a few minutes had
elapsed, Cleek leaned forward and touched her gently upon the wrist.
"Now let's hear all about it--if you're able. Where is your stepmother?"
"Upstairs in her room--prostrate." She spat the words out with positive
venom. "Ross is with his father, bowed down with grief, poor old boy;
while his fiancee, Cynthia Debenham, who came back with him, and her
cousin, Catherine Dowd, are in the house somewhere, seeing to the
necessary household arrangements."
"And you've telephoned the police?"
"Yes. And then signalled to you. They'll be along presently, I suppose?"
"Possibly--yes. I'd have brought my own man if I had only known. Mr.
Narkom will be here in the morning to take charge of affairs. I sent for
him to-day. And the rest of the household?"
"Cyril is with his mother. Wakened up out of his sleep, poor boy, by all
the commotion, and of course hardly aware yet of what a terrible tragedy
has happened here in his own home. The servants are huddled together
like frightened rabbits, and the women refuse to put in any appearance
at all. Miss McCall has been trying to get them in hand--she's so quiet
and yet so resourceful, you know, Mr. Deland--and she has helped us such
a lot in that way."
"And that accounts for every one, then? No one left the house since
the--the thing took place?"
"Not a soul. There was no reason to, you see. And no one has been here,
either. Callers to Aygon Castle are few and far between, Mr. Deland, as
you can imagine. We're so very far from civilization."
"I see. And no one's been to the place at all, you say? Beyond the
immediate family, and this Miss--Miss Dowd and your brother's fiancee?
They returned with him, I suppose, after having persuaded him not to
take such a foolhardy view of the case which I heard this morning? Well,
I'm glad he came back, if only--for this. Poor chap! it will ease his
conscience, at any rate. And those are the only people who have entered
this place to-night, Miss Duggan? You are positive of that?"
She lifted wide eyes to his face. There was conviction in every line of
her own.
"Absolutely positive, Mr. Deland."
"Well, that's all right, then." Cleek nodded slowly at her but his lips
were grim. Either _she_ or Macdonald had lied. For he had heard him say,
in that broken, staccato voice of his, "I've just--come from there, you
see, and was on my way home again." And a dollar to a ducat that _she_
was not at fault. Well, the man Macdonald would want watching. And if he
_had_ "done a bunk," as the boys say, he would know his man instantly
and scout all Britain over for him--though at present his motive for
connection with the crime was certainly unknown.
He sent his keen eyes over her wan face, and came to his own
conclusions. Here was no liar, if he knew the signs. Then he leaned
toward her.
"Now," said he, "just tell me--what happened. All about it. Don't leave
anything out--not the veriest little thing. How did you all happen to be
in the library in the first place?"
"As I told you, Father had summoned us all there for the purpose of
disinheriting Ross by crossing his name from his will, and in the
presence of witnesses substituting another instead."
"And whose name, may I ask?"
She bent her head suddenly, and put one hand against her cheek.
"Mine, Mr. Deland."
"_Yours?_... Oho! And not young Cyril's, then?"
"No. Upon that Father was adamant. He said justice must be done to the
elder family--that is Ross and me, as you know--and he would see justice
done. If Ross could not have the rightful inheritance because of his
unfitness (poor Ross!) then it was to come to me, unless I saw fit to
marry Captain Macdonald. In that event it all went to charity.
Naturally, I protested with him."
"Why?"
"Because, don't you see? I hoped he would perhaps relent and leave
Ross's name where it was. The ignominy to the poor boy would have been
so terrible--if he had struck his name out. Ross would never have got
over it--never! He is so proud of his house, so wrapped up in it in
every way."
"And did your father manage to destroy the will then before
it--happened?"
"No. He had it in his hands. I was wrestling with him, trying to get it
away, and Paula had caught me by the shoulders and was endeavouring to
get me away, too, when the lights suddenly went out, and--and came up
again. And there he was in his chair--_dead_!"
"And you say that you heard the sound of the spinning wheel 'humming' in
the darkness? You really did hear that, Miss Duggan?"
"Yes--I would swear to it on my oath."
"And how then did your father die? By what means?"
"By a shot through his temple, I suppose (though he was stabbed as
well)--although there was no noise, Mr. Deland, nothing to tell us that
the awful thing was happening, save the failing of the current at that
moment."
"H'm. I see. A soundless pistol--in fact, an air-gun. Any one in the
house got such a thing, do you know?"
She shook her head.
"Not that I know of, unless ... but he gave his away long ago."
"Who, may I ask?"
She sent suddenly startled eyes up into his face, as though she realized
that she had unguardedly been trapped into a damaging admission.
"Why--why--my brother Ross, Mr. Deland," she said in a hoarse,
frightened voice.