The landscape through which Merton passed on his northward way to
Kirkburn, whither Logan had summoned him, was blank with snow. The snow
was not more than a couple of inches deep where it had not drifted, and,
as frost had set in, it was not likely to deepen. There was no fear of
being snowed up.
Merton naturally passed a good deal of his time in wondering what had
occurred at Kirkburn, and why Logan needed his presence. 'The poor old
gentleman has passed away suddenly, I suppose,' he reflected, 'and Logan
may think that I know where he has deposited his will. It is in some
place that the marquis called "the hidie hole," and that, from his
vagrant remarks, appears to be a secret chamber, as his ancestor meant to
keep James VI. there. I wish he had cut the throat of that prince, a bad
fellow. But, of course, I don't know where the chamber is: probably some
of the people about the place know, or the lawyer who made the will.'
However freely Merton's consciousness might play round the problem, he
could get no nearer to its solution. At Berwick he had to leave the
express, and take a local train. In the station, not a nice station, he
was accosted by a stranger, who asked if he was Mr. Merton? The
stranger, a wholesome, red-faced, black-haired man, on being answered in
the affirmative, introduced himself as Dr. Douglas, of Kirkburn. 'You
telegraphed to my friend Logan the news of the marquis's illness,' said
Merton. 'I fear you have no better news to give me.'
Dr. Douglas shook his head.
A curious little crowd was watching the pair from a short distance. There
was an air of solemnity about the people, which was not wholly due to the
chill grey late afternoon, and the melancholy sea.
'We have an hour to wait, Mr. Merton, before the local train starts, and
afterwards there is a bit of a drive. It is cold, we would be as well in
the inn as here.'
The doctor beat his gloved hands together to restore the circulation.
Merton saw that the doctor wished to be with him in private, and the two
walked down into the town, where they got a comfortable room, the doctor
ordering boiling water and the other elements of what he called 'a
cheerer.' When the cups which cheer had been brought, and the men were
alone, the doctor said:
'It is as you suppose, Mr. Merton, but worse.'
'Great heaven, no accident has happened to Logan?' asked Merton.
'No, sir, and he would have met you himself at Berwick, but he is engaged
in making inquiries and taking precautions at Kirkburn.'
'You do not mean that there is any reason to suspect foul play? The
marquis, I know, was in bad health. You do not suspect--murder?'
'No, sir, but--the marquis is gone.'
'I _know_ he is gone, your telegram and what I observed of his health led
me to fear the worst.'
'But his body is gone--vanished.'
'You suppose that it has been stolen (you know the American and other
cases of the same kind) for the purpose of extracting money from the
heir?'
'That is the obvious view, whoever the heir may be. So far, no will has
been found,' the doctor added some sugar to his cheerer, and some whisky
to correct the sugar. 'The neighbourhood is very much excited. Mr.
Logan has telegraphed to London for detectives.'
Merton reflected in silence.
'The obvious view is not always the correct one,' he said. 'The marquis
was, at least I thought that he was, a very eccentric person.'
'No doubt about _that_,' said the doctor.
'Very well. He had reasons, such reasons as might occur to a mind like
his, for wanting to test the character and conduct of Mr. Logan, his only
living kinsman. What I am going to say will seem absurd to you, but--the
marquis spoke to me of his malady as a kind of "dwawming," I did not know
what he meant, at the time, but yesterday I consulted the glossary of a
Scotch novel: to _dwawm_, I think, is to lose consciousness?'
The doctor nodded.
'Now you have read,' said Merton, 'the case published by Dr. Cheyne, of a
gentleman, Colonel Townsend, who could voluntarily produce a state of
"dwawm" which was not then to be distinguished from death?'
'I have read it in the notes to Aytoun's _Scottish Cavaliers_,' said the
doctor.
'Now, then, suppose that the marquis, waking out of such a state, whether
voluntarily induced (which is very improbable) or not, thought fit to
withdraw himself, for the purpose of secretly watching, from some
retreat, the behaviour of his heir, if he has made Mr. Logan his heir? Is
that hypothesis absolutely out of keeping with his curious character?'
'No. It's crazy enough, if you will excuse me, but, for these last few
weeks, at any rate, I would have swithered about signing a fresh
certificate to the marquis's sanity.'
'You did, perhaps, sign one when he made his will, as he told me?'
'I, and Dr. Gourlay, and Professor Grant,' the doctor named two
celebrated Edinburgh specialists. 'But just of late I would not be so
certain.'
'Then my theory need not necessarily be wrong?'
'It can't but be wrong. First, I saw the man dead.'
'Absolute tests of death are hardly to be procured, of course you know
that better than I do,' said Merton.
'Yes, but I am positive, or as positive as one can be, in the
circumstances. However, that is not what I stand on. _There was a
witness who saw the marquis go_.'
'Go--how did he go?'
'He disappeared.'
'The body disappeared?'
'It did, but you had better hear the witness's own account; I don't think
a second-hand story will convince you, especially as you have a theory.'
'Was the witness a man or a woman?'
'A woman,' said the doctor.
'Oh!' said Merton.
'I know what you mean,' said the doctor. 'You think, it suits your
theory, that the marquis came to himself and--'
'And squared the female watcher,' interrupted Merton; 'she would assist
him in his crazy stratagem.'
'Mr. Merton, you've read ower many novels,' said the doctor, lapsing into
the vernacular. 'Well, your notion is not unthinkable, nor pheesically
impossible. She's a queer one, Jean Bower, that waked the corpse, sure
enough. However, you'll soon be on the spot, and can examine the case
for yourself. Mr. Logan has no idea but that the body was stolen for
purposes of blackmail.' He looked at his watch. 'We must be going to
catch the train, if she's anything like punctual.'
The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously
by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after
three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their
destination, Drem.
The doctor's own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.
'The marquis had neither machine nor horse,' the doctor explained.
Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three
squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal
through the freezing snow. Out of one village, the lights twinkling in
the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of
hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by
heraldic animals.
'The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,' said the
doctor.
At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and
walked.
'You see the pits come up close to the house,' said the doctor, as they
reached the crest. He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern
slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but
ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.
'Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs? I think I see a
red roof,' said Merton.
'Ay, that's Strutherwick, a fishing village,' replied the doctor.
'A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,'
said Merton.
'Ay, that is just it,' acquiesced the doctor.
'But,' asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep
black in front of them, 'what is that rope stretched about the lawn for?
It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.' Dark
figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into
the gathering gloom. The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.
The door of the house opened, and a man's figure stood out against the
lamp light within.
'Is that you, Merton?' came Logan's voice from the doorway.
Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, 'Mr. Logan will tell you what
the rope's for.'
The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton's baggage,
pleaded an engagement, and said 'Good-bye,' among the thanks of Logan. An
old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton's light
luggage up a black turnpike stair.
'I've put you in the turret; it is the least dilapidated room,' said
Logan. 'Now, come in here.'
He led the way into a hall on the ground-floor. A great fire in the
ancient hearth, with its heavy heraldically carved stone chimney-piece,
lit up the desolation of the chamber.
'Sit down and warm yourself,' said Logan, pushing forward a ponderous
oaken chair, with a high back and short arms.
'I know a good deal,' said Merton, his curiosity hurrying him to the
point; 'but first, Logan, what is the rope on the stakes driven in round
the house for?'
'That was my first precaution,' said Logan. 'I heard of the--of what has
happened--about four in the morning, and I instantly knocked in the
stakes--hard work with the frozen ground--and drew the rope along, to
isolate the snow about the house. When I had done that, I searched the
snow for footmarks.'
'When had the snow begun to fall?'
'About midnight. I turned out then to look at the night before going to
bed.'
'And there was nothing wrong then?'
'He lay on his bed in the laird's chamber. I had just left it. I left
him with the watcher of the dead. There was a plate of salt on his
breast. The housekeeper, Mrs. Bower, keeps up the old ways. Candles
were burning all round the bed. A fearful waste he would have thought
it, poor old man. The devils! If I could get on their track!' said
Logan, clenching his fist.
'You have found no tracks, then?'
'None. When I examined the snow there was not a footmark on the roads to
the back door or the front--not a footmark on the whole area.'
'Then the removal of the body from the bedroom was done from within.
Probably the body is still in the house.'
'Certainly it has been taken out by no known exit, if it _has_ been taken
out, as I believe. I at once arranged relays of sentinels--men from the
coal-pits. But the body is gone; I am certain of it. A fishing-boat
went out from the village, Strutherwick, before the dawn. It came into
the little harbour after midnight--some night-wandering lover saw it
enter--and it must have sailed again before dawn.'
'Did you examine the snow near the harbour?'
'I could not be everywhere at once, and I was single-handed; but I sent
down the old serving-man, John Bower. He is stupid enough, but I gave
him a note to any fisherman he might meet. Of course these people are
not detectives.'
'And was there any result?'
'Yes; an odd one. But it confirms the obvious theory of body-snatching.
Of course, fishers are early risers, and they went trampling about
confusedly. But they did find curious tracks. We have isolated some of
them, and even managed to carry off a couple. We dug round them, and
lifted them. A neighbouring laird, Mr. Maitland, lent his ice-house for
storing these, and I had one laid down on the north side of this house to
show you, if the frost held. No ice-house or refrigerator _here_, of
course.'
'Let me see it now.'
Logan took a lighted candle--the night was frosty, without a wind--and
led Merton out under the black, ivy-clad walls. Merton threw his
greatcoat on the snow and knelt on it, peering at the object. He saw a
large flat clod of snow and earth. On its surface was the faint impress
of a long oval, longer than the human foot; feathery marks running in
both directions from the centre could be descried. Looking closer,
Merton detected here and there a tiny feather and a flock or two of down
adhering to the frozen mass.
'May I remove some of these feathery things?' Merton asked.
'Certainly. But why?'
'We can't carry the clod indoors, it would melt; and it _may_ melt if the
weather changes; and by bad luck there may be no feathers or down
adhering to the other clods--those in the laird's ice-house.'
'You think you have a clue?'
'I think,' said Merton, 'that these are emu's feathers; but, whether they
are or not, they look like a clue. Still, I _think_ they are emu's
feathers.'
'Why? The emu is not an indigenous bird.'
As he spoke, an idea--several ideas--flashed on Merton. He wished that
he had held his peace. He put the little shreds into his pocket-book,
rose, and donned his greatcoat. 'How cold it is!' he said. 'Logan,
would you mind very much if I said no more just now about the feathers? I
really have a notion--which may be a good one, or may be a silly one--and,
absurd as it appears, you will seriously oblige me by letting me keep my
own counsel.'
'It is damned awkward,' said Logan testily.
'Ah, old boy, but remember that "damned awkward" is a damned awkward
expression.'
'You are right,' said Logan heartily; 'but I rose very early, I'm very
tired, I'm rather savage. Let's go in and dine.'
'All right,' said Merton.
'I don't think,' said Logan, as they were entering the house, 'that I
need keep these miners on sentry go any longer. The bird--the body, I
mean--has flown. Whoever the fellows were that made these tracks, and
however they got into and out of the house, they have carried the body
away. I'll pay the watchers and dismiss them.'
'All right,' said Merton. 'I won't dress. I must return to town by the
night train. No time to be lost.'
'No train to be caught,' said Logan, 'unless you drive or walk to Berwick
from here--which you can't. You can't walk to Dunbar, to catch the
10.20, and I have nothing that you can drive.'
'Can I send a telegram to town?'
'It is four miles to the nearest telegraph station, but I dare say one of
the sentinels would walk there for a consideration.'
'No use,' said Merton. 'I should need to wire in a cipher, when I come
to think of it, and cipher I have none. I must go as early as I can to-
morrow. Let us consult Bradshaw.'
They entered the house. Merton had a Bradshaw in his dressing-bag. They
found that he could catch a train at 10.49 A.M., and be in London about 9
P.M.
'How are you to get to the station?' asked Logan. 'I'll tell you how,'
he went on. 'I'll send a note to the inn at the place, and order a trap
to be here at ten. That will give you lots of time. It is about four
miles.'
'Thank you,' said Merton; 'I see no better way.' And while Logan went to
pay and dismiss the sentries and send a messenger, a grandson of the old
butler with the note to the innkeeper, Merton toiled up the narrow
turnpike stair to the turret chamber. A fire had been burning all day,
and in firelight almost any room looks tolerable. There was a small four-
poster bed, with slender columns, a black old wardrobe, and a couple of
chairs, one of the queer antiquated little dressing-tables, with many
drawers, and boxes, and a tiny basin, and there was a perfectly new tub,
which Logan had probably managed to obtain in the course of the day.
Merton's evening clothes were neatly laid out, the shutters were closed,
curtains there were none; in fact, he had been in much worse quarters.
As he dressed he mused. 'Cursed spite,' thought he, 'that ever I was
born to be an amateur detective! And cursed be my confounded thirst for
general information! Why did I ever know what _Kurdaitcha_ and
_Interlinia_ mean? If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock
Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be! Suppose I drop the
whole affair! But I've been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an
idea. Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves. Sufficient for
the day is the evil thereof.'
Merton descended the turnpike stair, holding on to the rope provided for
that purpose in old Scotch houses. He found Logan standing by the fire
in the hall. They were waited on by the old man, Bower. By tacit
consent they spoke, while he was present, of anything but the subject
that occupied their minds. They had quite an edible
dinner--cock-a-leekie, brandered haddocks, and a pair of roasted fowls,
with a mysterious sweet which was called a 'Hattit Kit.'
'It is an historical dish in this house,' said Logan. 'A favourite with
our ancestor, the conspirator.'
The wine was old and good, having been laid down before the time of the
late marquis.
'In the circumstances, Logan,' said Merton, when the old serving man was
gone, 'you have done me very well.'
'Thanks to Mrs. Bower, our butler's wife,' said Logan. 'She is a truly
remarkable woman. She and her husband, they are cousins, are members of
an ancient family, our hereditary retainers. One of them, Laird Bower,
was our old conspirator's go-between in the plot to kidnap the king, of
which you have heard so much. Though he was an aged and ignorant man, he
kept the secret so well that our ancestor was never even suspected, till
his letters came to light after his death, and after Laird Bower's death
too, luckily for both of them. So you see we can depend on it that this
pair of domestics, and their family, were not concerned in this new
abomination; so far, the robbery was not from within.'
'I am glad to hear that,' said Merton. 'I had invented a theory, too
stupid to repeat, and entirely demolished by the footmarks in the snow, a
theory which hypothetically implicated your old housekeeper. To be sure
it did not throw any doubt on her loyalty to the house, quite the
reverse.'
'What was your theory?'
'Oh, too silly for words; that the marquis had been only in a trance, had
come to himself when alone with the old lady, who, the doctor said, was
watching in the room, and had stolen away, to see how you would conduct
yourself. Childish hypothesis! The obvious one, body-snatching, is
correct. This is very good port.'
'If things had been as you thought possible, Jean Bower was not the woman
to balk the marquis,' said Logan. 'But you must see her and hear her
tell her own story.'
'Gladly,' said Merton, 'but first tell me yours.'
'When I arrived I found the poor old gentleman unconscious. Dr. Douglas
was in attendance. About noon he pronounced life extinct. Mrs. Bower
watched, or "waked" the corpse. I left her with it about midnight, as I
told you; about four in the morning she aroused me with the news that the
body had vanished. What I did after that you know. Now you had better
hear the story from herself.'
Logan rang a handbell, there were no other bells in the keep, and asked
the old serving-man, when he came, to send in Mrs. Bower.
She entered, a very aged woman, dressed in deep mourning. She was tall,
her hair of an absolutely pure white, her aquiline face was drawn, her
cheeks hollow, her mouth almost toothless. She made a deep courtesy,
repeating it when Logan introduced 'my friend, Mr. Merton.'
'Mrs. Bower,' Logan said, 'Mr. Merton is my oldest friend, and the
marquis saw him in London, and consulted him on private business a few
days ago. He wishes to hear you tell what you saw the night before
last.'
'Maybe, as the gentleman is English, he'll hardly understand me, my lord.
I have a landward tongue,' said Mrs. Bower.
'I can interpret if Mr. Merton is puzzled, Mrs. Bower, but I think he
will understand better if we go to the laird's chamber.'
Logan took two lighted candles, handing two to Merton, and the old woman
led them upstairs to a room which occupied the whole front of the ancient
'peel,' or square tower, round which the rest of the house was built. The
room was nearly bare of furniture, except for an old chair or two, a
bureau, and a great old bed of state, facing the narrow deep window, and
standing on a kind of dais, or platform of three steps. The heavy old
green curtains were drawn all round it. Mrs. Bower opened them at the
front and sides. At the back against the wall the curtains, embroidered
with the arms of Restalrig, remained closed.
'I sat here all the night,' said Mrs. Bower, 'watching the corp that my
hands had streikit. The candles were burning a' about him, the saut lay
on his breast, only aefold o' linen covered him. My back was to the
window, my face to his feet. I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does
nae guid, it does nae harm.' She recited in a monotone:
'When thou frae here away art past--
Every nicht and all--
To Whinny-muir thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy saul.
'If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon--
Every nicht and all--
Sit thee down and put them on,
And Christ receive thy saul
'Alas, he never gave nane, puir man,' said the woman with a sob.
At this moment the door of the chamber slowly opened. The woman turned
and gazed at it, frowning, her lips wide apart.
Logan went to the door, looked into the passage, closed the door and
locked it; the key had to be turned twice, in the old fashion, and worked
with a creaking jar.
'I had crooned thae last words,
And Christ receive thy saul,
when the door opened, as ye saw it did the now. It is weel kenned that a
corp canna lie still in a room with the door hafflins open. I rose to
lock it, the catch is crazy. I was backing to the door, with my face to
the feet o' the corp. I saw them move backwards, slow they moved, and my
heart stood still in my breist. Then I saw'--here she stepped to the
head of the bed and drew apart the curtains, which opened in the
middle--'I saw the curtain was open, and naething but blackness ahint it.
Ye see, my Lord, ahint the bed-heid is the entrance o' the auld secret
passage. The stanes hae lang syne fallen in, and closed it, but my Lord
never would have the hole wa'ed up. "There's nae draught, Jean, or nane
to mention, and I never was wastefu' in needless repairs," he aye said.
Weel, when I looked that way, his face, down to the chafts, was within
the blackness, and aye draw, drawing further ben. Then, I shame to say
it, a sair dwawm cam ower me, I gae a bit chokit cry, and I kenned nae
mair till I cam to mysel, a' the candles were out, and the chamber was
mirk and lown. I heard the skirl o' a passing train, and I crap to the
bed, and the skirl kind o' reminded me o' living folk, and I felt a' ower
the bed wi' my hands. There was nae corp. Ye ken that the Enemy has
power, when a corp lies in a room, and the door is hafflins closed.
Whiles they sit up, and grin and yammer. I hae kenned that. Weel, how
long I had lain in the dwawm I canna say. The train that skirled maun
hae been a coal train that rins by about half-past three in the morning.
There was a styme o' licht that streeled in at the open door, frae a
candle your lordship set on a table in the lobby; the auld lord would hae
nae lichts in the house after the ten hours. Sae I got to the door, and
grippit to the candle, and flew off to your lordship's room, and the rest
ye ken.'
'Thank you, very much, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan. 'You quite understand,
Merton, don't you?'
'I thoroughly understand your story, Mrs. Bower,' said Merton.
'We need not keep you any longer, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan. 'Nobody need
sit up for us; you must be terribly fatigued.'
'You wunna forget to rake out the ha' fire, my lord?' said the old lady,
'I wush your Lordship a sound sleep, and you, sir,' so she curtsied and
went, Logan unlocking the door.
'And I was in London this morning!' said Merton, drawing a long breath.
'You're over Tweed, now, old man,' answered Logan, with patriotic
satisfaction.
'Don't go yet,' said Merton. 'You examined the carpet of the room; no
traces there of these odd muffled foot-coverings you found in the snow?'
'Not a trace of any kind. The salt was spilt, some of it lay on the
floor. The plate was not broken.'
'If they came in, it would be barefoot,' said Merton.
'Of course the police left traces of official boots,' said Logan. 'Where
are they now--the policemen, I mean?'
'Two are to sleep in the kitchen.'
'They found out nothing?'
'Of course not.'
'Let me look at the hole in the wall.' Merton climbed on to the bed and
entered the hole. It was about six feet long by four wide. Stones had
fallen in, at the back, and had closed the passage in a rough way, indeed
what extent of the floor of the passage existed was huddled with stones.
Merton examined the sides of the passage, which were mere rubble.
'Have you looked at the floor beneath those fallen stones?' Merton asked.
'No, by Jove, I never thought of that,' said Logan.
'How could they have been stirred without the old woman hearing the
noise?'
'How do you know they were there before the marquis's death?' asked
Merton, adding, 'this hole was not swept and dusted regularly. Either
the entrance is beneath me, or--"the Enemy had power"--as Mrs. Bower
says.'
'You must be right,' said Logan. 'I'll have the stones removed
to-morrow. The thing is clear. The passage leads to somewhere outside
of the house. There's an abandoned coal mine hard by, on the east.
Nothing can be simpler.'
'When once you see it,' said Merton.
'Come and have a whisky and soda,' said Logan.