A week passed away. The shadow of the caravan no longer fell on the
green meadow by the lake, and the straggling population of Aberglyn,
unsuspicious of foul play, had already forgotten both the caravan and
the owner.
And if facts were to be taken into consideration in estimating the
extent of her memory, Matt too had forgotten. It was common talk now,
that she, the grammarless castaway, the neglected _protégée_ of William
Jones, was to be married to the master of the great house! Nay, the very
day was fixed; and that very day was only two sunrises distant; and Monk
of Monkshurst had in his pocket a special license, which he had
procured, at an expenditure of five pounds, from London.
Doubtless, in any other more populous locality the affair would have
occasioned no little scandal, and many ominous shakings of the head; but
the inhabitants were few and far between, and had little or no time
for idle gossiping. The coastguardsmen and their wives were the only
individuals who exhibited any interest, and even their excitement was
faint and evanescent, like the movements of a fish in a shallow and
unwholesome pool.
But the really extraordinary part of the whole affair was the conduct of
Matt herself. Apparently quite cured of her former repugnance to a union
with Monk, she made no objection whatever to the performance of the
ceremony, and laughed merrily when she was informed that the day was
fixed. Monk, in his grim, taciturn way, was jubilant. He came to and fro
constantly, and assumed the manners of a lover. Had he been less bent on
one particular object two things might have struck him as curious:--(1)
That Matt, though she had consented to marry him, steadfastly refused
to wear his ring, or accept any other presents; and (2) that she still
shrunk, with persistent and ill-disguised dislike, from his caresses.
It was now late in the month of August, and the weather was broken by
troublous winds and a fretful moon. For several weeks William Jones, in
his mortal terror, had refrained from visiting the cave; he had never
set his foot therein, indeed, since the night of the assassination. At
last he could bear the suspense no longer. Suppose some one else had
discovered his treasure, and robbed him? Suppose some subterranean
change had obliterated the landmarks or submerged the cavern! Suppose
a thousand dreadful things! Tired of miserable supposition, William
determined, despite his terror, to make sure.
So late one windy and rainy night he stole forth with his unlit lantern,
and fought his way in the teeth of half a gale to the familiar place,
which he found, however, with some little difficulty. He was neither
superstitious nor imaginative, but throughout the journey he was a prey
to nameless terrors. Every gust of wind went through his heart like a
knife; every sound of wind or sea made that same heart stop and listen.
Only supreme greed and miserly anxiety led him on. But at last he
gained the cave, within which there was a sound as of clashing legions,
clarions shrieking, drums beating, all the storm and stress of the awful
waters clashing on the cliffs without, and boiling with unusual screams
through the black slit between the cave and the Devil’s Cauldron.
Trembling, with perspiration standing in great beads on his face, he
searched the cave for the corpse of the murdered man, expecting to
find it well advanced in decomposition. Strange to say, however, it had
disappeared.
William Jones was at once relieved and alarmed; relieved because he was
spared a horrible experience; alarmed because he could not account for
the disappearance.
A little reflection, however, suggested that one of those tidal waves
so common on the coast might have arisen well up into the cavern, washed
away the body from its place on the shingle, and carried it away in the
direction of the Cauldron.
“In which case,” he reflected, “them coastguard chaps would find it some
day among the rocks or on the shore, and think it had been drowned in
the way of natur’.”
Satisfied that everything else was undisturbed, he retired as hastily as
possible, sealed up the entrance to the cavern, and ran hastily home.
The morning of the marriage came--a fine sunny morning. An open dog-cart
belonging to Monk, and driven by one of his servants, stood at William
Jones’s door, and close to it a light country cart, borrowed by William
Jones himself from a neighbouring farmer. The population, consisting
of an aged coastguardsman, two coastguardsmen’s wives, and half-a-dozen
dejected children, crowded in front of the cottage.
The bridegroom, attired in decent black, with a flower in his
button-hole, stood waiting impatiently in the garden. Despite the
festive occasion, he had a gloomy and hangdog appearance. Presently
there emerged from the door William Jones, attired in a drowned seaman’s
suit several sizes too large for him, and wearing a chimney-pot hat and
a white rosette. Leaning on his arm was Matt, dressed in a dress of blue
silk, neatly made for her by one of the coastguard women, out of damaged
materials supplied by Jones, a light straw hat with blue ribbons to
match, and a light lace shawl. Behind this pair hobbled William Jones’s
father, whose costume was nautical like his son’s, but more damaged, and
who also sported a chimney-pot hat and a white rosette.
The crowd gave a feeble cheer. Matt looked round and smiled, but mingled
with her smile there was a kind of vague anxiety and expectation.
It was arranged that Monk should drive Matt in the dog-cart, while
William Jones and his father followed in the commoner vehicle. At
Pencroes, where the ceremony was to be performed, they were to meet with
one Mr. Penarvon, a country squire and kindred spirit of Monk’s, who had
promised to be “best man.”
Monk took the reins, while Matt got in and seated herself beside him,
the groom getting up behind; and away they went along the sand-choked
road, followed by Jones and his father.
The day was bright and merry, but Matt never thought of the old proverb,
“Happy is the bride that the sun shines on;” she was too busy examining
the prospect on every side of her. All at once, as the bridal procession
wound round the edge of the lonely lake, she uttered a cry of delight.
There, standing in its old place by the lake-side, was the caravan.
Monk looked pale--there was something ghostly in the re-appearance even
of this inanimate object. He was a man of strong nerve, however, and he
speedily smiled at his own fears.
As they approached the spot they saw Tim standing near the vehicle in
conversation with two strange gentlemen, one a little elderly man in
black broadcloth, the other a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, wearing a
light overcoat and a wideawake hat. Directly the procession approached,
this group separated, and its three members walked severally into the
road, he with the wideawake hat standing right in the centre of the road
quietly smoking a cigar.
As the dog-cart came up he held up his hand. Unable to proceed without
running him down, Monk pulled up angrily.
“What is it? Why do you block the road?” he cried fiercely, “Excuse
me, governor,” returned the other coolly. “Mr. Monk of Monkhurst, I
believe?”
“That’s my name.”
“Sorry to trouble you on such a day, but I should like a few words with
you.”
“I cannot stay--I am going to be married!”
“So I heard,” said the man, lifting his hat and bowing with a grin to
Matt. “Glad to see you, miss. How do you do? But the fact is, Mr. Monk,
my business won’t keep. Be good enough to step this way.” Full of some
unaccountable foreboding, inspired partly by the stranger’s suave, yet
determined, manner, partly by the reappearance of the caravan, Monk
alighted, and followed the other across the grass to the close vicinity
of the house on wheels. The little elderly man followed, and the man who
had first spoken went through the ceremony of introduction.
“This is Mr. Monk, sir. Mr. Monk, this gentleman is Mr. Lightwood, of
the firm of Lightwood and Lightwood, solicitors, Chester.”
“And you--who the devil are _you?_” demanded Monk with his old savagery.
“My name is Marshall, Christian name, John, though my friends call me
Jack,” answered the other with airy impudence. “John Marshall, governor,
of the detective force.”
Monk now went pale indeed. But recovering himself he cried, “I know
neither of you. I warned you that I was in haste. What do you want? Out
with it!”
The little man now took up the conversation, speaking in a prim
business-like voice, and occasionally referring to a large note-book
which he carried.
“Mr. Monk, you are, I am informed, the sole heir male of the late
Colonel Monk, your cousin by the father’s side, who was supposed to have
died in India in the year 1862.”
“Yes, that’s true. What then?”
“On the report of his death, his name being included in an official list
of officers killed and wounded in action, and it being understood
that he died without lawful issue, you laid claim to the demesne of
Monkshurst, in Cheshire, and that of the same name in Anglesea. Your
claim was recognized, and in 1864 you took possession.”
“Well. Have you detained me to hear only what I already knew?”
“Pardon me, I have not finished. I have now to inform you that you
inherited under a misconception, first because Colonel Monk was married
and had issue, secondly, because he did not die in India, but reached
the shores of England, where he perished in the shipwreck of the ship
_Trinidad_, in the year 1864.”
Monk was livid. At this moment Jones, who had been watching the scene
from a distance, came over, panting and perspiring in ill-concealed
terror.
“Lor’, Mr. Monk, what’s the matter? Look ye now, we shall be late for
the wedding.”
As he spoke Marshall, the detective, clapped him playfully on the
shoulder.
“How d’ye do, William Jones? I’ve often heard of you, and wished to know
you. Pray stop where you are. I’ll talk to _you_ presently.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Monk now said with dogged desperation,
“with all this rigmarole, Mr. Lightwood, or whatever your name is. It
seems to me you are simply raving. If I am not my cousin’s heir, who is,
tell me that?”
“His daughter,” said the man quietly.
“He never married, and he never had a daughter.”
“His daughter, an infant twelve or fourteen months old, sailed to
England with him, was shipwrecked with him, but saved by a special
Providence, and has since been living in this place under the name of
Matt Jones.”
“Your intended bride, you know,” added Marshall with an insinuating
smile. “Hullo, where _is_ the young lady?”
Monk looked round towards the dog-cart and on every side, but Matt was
nowhere to-be seen.
“I see her go into that theer cart,” said William Jones.
“Call her,” cried Monk. “I’ll stay no longer here. Listen to me, you two.
Whether you are telling truth or lies, that girl is going to become my
wife--I have her guardian’s consent, and she herself, I may tell you,
fully appreciates the honour I am doing her.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Lightwood, smiling. “Unfortunately I, as Miss Monk’s
legal adviser, must have a say in the matter. Doubtless this marriage
would be a very pretty arrangement for keeping the late Colonel Monk’s
fortune and property in your possession, but I cannot conscientiously
approve of the young lady’s marriage to an _assassin_.”
“An assassin!--what--what do you mean?” gasped Monk, staggering as if
from a blow.
“Tell him, Mr. Marshall.”
“All right, sir. Well, you see, Mr. Monk of Monkshurst,” continued
the detective, grimly yet playfully, “you’re accused of making away
with--murdering, in fact--a young gentleman who came to Aberglyn a few
weeks ago in that little house on wheels; and this nice friend of yours,”
(here he again slapped William Jones on the shoulder) “is accused of
being your accomplice.”
“No, no. I never done it! I’m innocent, I am!” cried William Jones.
“Tell ’em, Mr. Monk, tell ’em--I’d nowt to do with it.”
“Silence, you fool,” said the other; then he added, turning on his
accusers, “You are a couple of madmen, I think! I know nothing of the
young man you speak of! I have heard that he is missing, that is all;
but there is no evidence that any harm has come to him, for his body has
not been found.”
Here Marshall turned with a wink to William Jones, and nudged him in the
ribs.
“Don’t you think now,” he asked, “it might be worth while looking for it
in _that little underground parlour_ of yours, down alongside the sea?”
William Jones uttered a despairing groan, and fell on his knees.
“I’m ruined!” he cried. “Oh, Mr. Monk, it’s your doing! Lord help me!
They knows everything.”
“Curse you, hold your tongue!” said Monk, with a look of mad contempt
and hatred. “These men are only playing upon your fears, but they cannot
frighten _me._”
“No?” remarked the detective, lighting his cigar, which had gone out. “I
think we shall even manage _that_ in time.”
As he spoke he carelessly, and as if inadvertently, drew out a pair of
steel handcuffs, which he looked at reflectively, threw up and caught
underhand in the air.
“You accuse me of assassination?” said Monk, trembling violently. “I
warn you to beware, for I will not suffer such accusations without
seeking redress. If you have any proof of the truth of your preposterous
charge, produce it.”
At this moment Matt, looking bright as sunshine, leaped out of the
caravan.
“There’s my proof,” said Marshall. “Miss Monk, this amiable bridegroom
of yours denies being concerned in harming Mr. Charles Brinkley. Is he
telling the truth?”
Matt’s face darkened, and she looked at Monk with eyes of cordial
detestation.
“No,” she said, “he’s lying!”
“Matt,” cried Monk fiercely, “take care!”
“He’s lying,” she repeated, not heeding him. “I see him do it with my
own two eyes, and I see William Jones helping him and looking on. They
thought that no one was nigh, but _I_ was. I was hiding behind them
sacks and barrels in the cave!”
* * * * *
Monk now felt that the game was almost up, for he was beset on every
side, and the very ground seemed opening under his feet. The wretched
Jones, in a state bordering on frenzy, remained on his knees wailing
over his own ruin. The two strangers, Lightwood and Marshall, looked
on as calm but interested spectators. Matt, having delivered her
home-thrust of accusation, stood and gazed into Monk’s face with cool
defiance, “It is a plot!” Monk cried, presently, “an infamous plot to
ruin me! You have-been tampering, I see, with this wild girl, whom you
foolishly suppose kin to me by blood. Arrest me, if you please--I shall
not take the trouble to resist, for I am perfectly innocent in this
matter.”
He added, while they looked at one another as if somewhat puzzled--
“As to the girl’s relationship with my dead cousin, the very idea is
absurd. Where are the proofs of her birthright?”
“Here,” said a quiet voice.
Monk turned his eyes and started back in wonder, while William Jones
shrieked and fell forward on his face. Standing before them in the
sunshine was the reality or the semblance of--the murdered young man of
the caravan!