A CURIOUS STORY.
A bright and cheery morning with a soft westerly breeze. The flowing
sea sparkled in the sunlight; the little boats danced upon its waves;
the birds on the land sang merry songs to one another, cheated into a
belief that spring had come in.
There had been commotion in the streets of Stilborough on the previous
day, and especially around the banker's door, as we have already seen;
but that commotion was open and above board, as compared with the stir
that was this morning agitating Greylands. For, report was running
wildly about that some mysterious and unaccountable disaster had
happened to Anthony Castlemaine.
Anthony Castlemaine had disappeared. There was no other word, save
that, applicable to the event: he had disappeared. And as Greylands
had taken a warm fancy to the young man, it rose up in great
agitation. Almost with morning light the village was being searched
for him and inquiry made. People turned out of their cottages,
fishermen left their boats, some of the Grey Sisters even came forth
from the Nunnery: all eagerly asking what and how much was true.
The originator of the rumour was John Bent. He did not seem to know a
great deal more than other people; but nobody, save him, knew anything
at all. The Dolphin Inn was besieged; work was at a standstill; Mrs.
Bent allowed even her servant, Molly, to stand listening, with her
arms akimbo, unreproved.
The story told by John Bent was a curious one. And, it should be
intimated, that, but for the fears stirring within the landlord's own
breast, the disappearance would not have been thought so much of at
this early stage. But John Bent had caught up the fear that some fatal
harm had chanced to the young man in fact, that he had been murdered!
The landlord could not account for this strong impression; he
acknowledged that: but it was there, and he freely spoke it out. The
substance of the tale he told was as follows.
After Anthony Castlemaine had darted across the road and through the
gate in the wake of his uncle the Master of Greylands, as previously
related, John Bent stood still, watching for a minute or two, but
could not see or hear anything of either of them. He then, finding the
night air somewhat cold, stamped up and down the path, not losing
sight of the opposite gate, and waiting for Anthony to come out of it.
Close upon this there rang out the report of a pistol. It was
accompanied, almost simultaneously, by an awful cry; the cry of a man
in agony. John Bent wondered where the cry came from and what it
meant, but he never thought to connect either cry or pistol with
Anthony Castlemaine. The time passed: John Bent began to find this
waiting wearisome; he thought what a long confab his guest was
enjoying with Mr. Castlemaine, and hoped they were settling matters
amicably: and he wondered somewhat at their remaining in that dark,
ghostly Keep, instead of choosing the open moonlight. By-and-by a
sailor staggered past--for he had been taking more grog than was good
for him--towards his home in the village. He was smoking; and John
Bent took his own pipe from his pocket, filled it, and lighted it by
the sailor's. The pipe consoled John Bent, and the minutes passed
somewhat less tediously: but when one o'clock rang out and there were
no signs of the young man, he began to think it very strange. "Surely
they'd not stay all this while in that haunted Friar's Keep!--and not
a place to sit down on, and nothing but cold pillared cloisters to
walk or stand in, and them dark!" cried John to himself--and he
deliberated what he should do. The prospect of marching into the
Friar's Keep in search of his guest was not altogether congenial to
his taste, for John Bent did not like the chance of meeting ghosts
more than Greylands did: neither did he care to proceed home himself
and leave Anthony Castlemaine to follow at leisure. Another quarter of
an hour elapsed; and then--finding there was no help for it and quite
tired out--he put on a bold spirit, and crossed over to enter the
gate. But the gate was locked.
The gate was locked. And, had John Bent seen the whole row of high,
substantial palings suddenly lifted into the air, or thrown down to
the earth, he would not have stood more transfixed with astonishment.
For that gate had never been known to be locked, within his
remembrance. There certainly was a lock to it, but it had always
lacked a key. The latch was good, and that was all the fastening used,
or needed. John Bent stood with open mouth, gasping out his surprise
to the air.
"What on earth does this mean?"
He shook the gate. At least, he would have shaken it, had it been less
substantially firm: but it scarcely moved under his hand. And then he
set on and shouted at the top of his voice, hoping his guest would
hear.
"Mr. Anthony Castlemaine! Shall you be much longer, Mr. Anthony
Castlemaine?"
The light breeze took his voice over the chapel ruins and carried its
echoes out to sea; but there came back no answer of any kind.
"Well, this is a rum go," cried John, looking up, and down, and round
about, in his bewilderment. "Surely Mr. Anthony can't have come out
and gone home!" he added, the unlikely notion flashing on him; for,
when thoroughly puzzled we are all apt to catch at straws of
improbability. "He couldn't have come out without my seeing him, and
me never beyond view of the gate: unless it was in the minute that I
was lighting my pipe by Jack Tuff's, when I had my back turned. But
yet--how was it Mr. Anthony did not see me?"
Unable to solve these doubts, but still thinking that was how it must
have been, the landlord went home with a rapid step. Before he gained
it, he had quite made his mind up that it was so; he fully believed
his guest was by this time sound asleep in his bed, and called himself
a donkey for waiting out all that while. John Bent put his hand on
the handle of his door to enter softly, and found it fastened.
Fastened just as firmly as the gate had been.
"Where's Ned, I wonder?" he cried aloud, alluding to his man; and he
knocked with his hand pretty sharply.
There was no more response to this knock than there had been to the
shouts he had been lately sending forth. He knocked again and shook
the door. The moonbeams still played upon the sea; a white sail or two
of the night fishing boats gleamed out; he put his back against the
door and gazed on the scene while he waited. No good, as he knew, to
go round to the front entrance; that was sure to be closed. John
knocked the third time.
The window above his head was flung open at this juncture, and Mrs.
Bent's nightcapped head came out.
"Oh, it's you, is it!" she tartly cried. "I thought, for my part, you
had taken up your abode in the road for the night."
"Ned's sitting up, I suppose, Dorothy. Why does he not open the door?"
"Ned will not open the door till he has my orders. There! A pretty
decent thing, this is, for a respectable householder of your age to
come home between one and two in the morning! If you are so fond of
prancing up and down the road in the moonlight, filling a fresh pipe
at every trick and turn, why don't you stay there till the house is
opened to-morrow?"
"Jack Tuff must have told you that!"
"Yes, Jack Tuff did tell it me," retorted Mrs. Bent. "I stayed at the
door looking for you till half after twelve. And a tidy state he was
in!" added the good lady in additional wrath. "His nose touching the
ground, a'most every step he took!"
"Just let me come in, Dorothy. I've not stayed out all this while for
pleasure--as you may be sure."
"You've stayed for aggravation perhaps; to keep people up. Where's Mr.
Anthony Castlemaine?"
"He's come home, isn't he?"
"I dare say you know very well whether he is or not!" returned Mrs.
Bent from her window.
"But Dorothy, woman, it is for him I've been waiting. He went into the
Friar's Keep, and he's never come out again--unless he came when I did
not see him."
"The Friar's Keep!" repeated the landlady, in the most mocking tone
she could use. "What excuse will you invent next?"
"It's no excuse: it's true. We saw Mr. Castlemaine go in there, and
Mr. Anthony ran over and followed him, saying he'd have out the
quarrel under the moonlight. And I stood cooling my heels outside,
waiting for him all that while; till at last I began to think he must
have come out and passed me unseen. He has come home, has he not?"
"He is not come home," said Mrs. Bent.
"Well, let the door be opened."
As the story sounded a mysterious one, and Mrs. Bent had her
curiosity, and as her husband moreover was a staid man, not at all
given to this kind of offence in general, she allowed him to come in,
herself opening the door. He gave her a summary of the story, she
wrapped in a warm shawl while she stood to listen to it and to make
her comments. Anthony Castlemaine had not come home; she had seen
nothing at all of him; or of anybody else, tipsy Jack Tuff excepted.
A kind of scared feeling, a presentiment of evil, crept over John
Bent. For the first time, he began to wonder whether the pistol-shot
he had heard had struck the young man, whether the agonised cry was
his. He went into Anthony's bedroom, and saw with his own eyes that it
was empty. It was not that he questioned his wife's word; but he felt
confused and doubtful altogether--as though it were not possible that
Anthony could be absent in this unaccountable manner.
"I must go back and look for him, Dorothy woman."
"You'll take the key with you, then," said Mrs. Bent; who, for a
wonder, did not oppose the proposition: in fact, she thought it right
that he should go. And back went John Bent to the Friar's Keep.
He did not at all like this solitary walking, lovely though the night
was; he would rather have been asleep in bed. The Grey Nunnery lay
steeped in silence and gloom; not a single light shone from any of its
windows; a sure sign that just now there could be no sick inmates
there. John Bent reached the gate again, and the first thing he did
was to try it.
It yielded instantly. It opened at his touch. And the man stood not
much less amazed than he had before been to find it fastened. At that
moment the sound of approaching footsteps in the road struck on his
ear; he turned swiftly, his heart beating with eager hope: for he
thought they might prove to be the steps of Anthony Castlemaine.
But they were those of Mr. Nettleby. The officer was returning from
his mission of night supervision, whatever it might especially be.
John Bent met him, and told his tale.
"Nonsense!" cried the superintendent, after he had listened. "They
would not be likely to stay in those deserted cloisters of the Friar's
Keep. Are you sure it was Mr. Castlemaine you saw go in?"
"Quite sure. But I can't think what he could want there."
"You don't think you were dreaming?" asked Mr. Nettleby, who by this
time evidently fancied the tale was altogether more like a dream than
a reality. "I don't believe the gate has a key, or that it ever had
one."
He was examining the gate as he spoke. The lock was there as usual;
but of any sign that a key had been in it that night there was none.
Crossing the ruins, they stood looking out over the sea; at the line
of glittering moonlight, at the distant boats catching their fish.
From that they went into the Friar's Keep. Its moss-eaten Gothic door
lay open to the chapel ruins. Pillars of stone supported the
floor--the floor which the spirit of the dead-and-gone Grey Friar was
supposed to haunt. It was rather a ghostly-looking place altogether;
the intersecting pillars and the arches above, and some open arches
facing the sea, where a little light streamed through. They could not
see the sea from this place, for the outer wall was nearly as high as
they were; but not so high as the arches; and the light and the salt
fresh smell of the sea came wafting in. There they stood on the stone
floor of those cloisters--as people had fallen into the way of calling
them--and shouted out the name of Anthony Castlemaine. Neither sight
nor sound came back in answer: all was quiet and lonely as the grave;
there was not the slightest sign that any one had been there.
"If they did come in here, as you say," observed Mr. Nettleby, with
that same ring of disbelief in his voice, "I'll tell you what it is,
Bent. They must have come out again at once, and gone home together to
Greylands' Rest."
This view of the case had not presented itself to the mind of John
Bent. He revolved it for an instant, and then saw that it was the most
feasible solution of the problem. But he did not feel quite satisfied;
for it was difficult to fancy Anthony Castlemaine would so go off
without telling him. Still he accepted it; and he and the officer
quitted the Keep, and turned their steps homeward. In his own mind the
superintendent fully believed John Bent had been asleep and dreaming;
it was so impossible to fancy any sane man promenading in the chapel
ruins or the Keep at night. And the Master of Greylands, of all
people!
"Did you get upon the trail of any smugglers at Beeton asked John
Bent.
"No," said Mr. Nettleby, rather savagely, for he had had his night's
work for nothing. "Couldn't see any traces of them. I do suspect that
Beeton, though. I believe it contains a nest of the lawless wretches!"
He turned in at his own gate as he spoke. The landlord went on and was
speedily at home again. Anthony Castlemaine had not come in.
Before eight o'clock in the morning, John Bent, feeling doubtful and
uneasy, went up to Greylands' Rest. He noticed that all the blinds
were down, and some of the shutters closed. Miles, the servant man,
was outside the back-entrance door, shaking mats.
"I thought none of you could be up yet," began the landlord, "with all
the blinds down! I'm sure the house looks as though somebody had died
in it."
"And somebody has died, more's the pity; though not in the house,"
replied Miles, turning his face, full of grave concern, on the
speaker. "A messenger was here soon after six this morning to fetch
the master to Stilborough. Mr. Peter Castlemaine died suddenly last
night."
The landlord was shocked. He could hardly believe it. "Mr. Peter
Castlemaine dead!" he exclaimed. "It can't be true, Miles."
"It's too true," returned Miles.
"But he was so strong and healthy! He had not a trace of illness about
him!"
"Ay. But they say it was the heart."
"Well, it's sad news any way, and I'm sorry for him," said John Bent.
"Is young Mr. Castlemaine here?"
"Not just now. He'll be home some time this afternoon. He went off to
Newerton yesterday on business."
"I don't mean him--Mr. Harry. I mean Mr. Anthony Castlemaine."
"What should bring that young man here?" loftily retorted Miles, who
made a point of sharing in all the prejudices of his master.
John Bent told his tale. It was listened to with disbelieving and
resentful ears.
"My master in at that there blessed scared place, the Friar's Keep, at
twelve o'clock at night! Well, I wonder what next you'll say, Mr.
Bent?"
"But I saw him go in," returned John Bent.
"It couldn't have been him. It's not likely. What should he want
there? When us servants went to bed at ten, the master was in the red
parlour. As to that other young man you speak of, that he has not been
anigh the house I can answer for."
John Bent felt as if he were in the midst of a fog, through which no
light could be seen. "You say Mr. Castlemaine is at Stilborough,
Miles?"
"He went off there soon after six o'clock. And wasn't he cut up when
he heard the news about his brother!" added Miles. "His lips and face
had no more red in them than that"--pointing to a snowdrop under
the wall. "He looked just like a man who had got a shock."
It was of no use for John Bent to linger. Anthony Castlemaine was not
to be heard of at Greylands' Rest. He took his departure; and, in the
absence of any other clue to follow, went making inquiries in the
village. Before long, not a single inhabitant, from one end of it to
the other, but had heard and was making comments on his tale.
The Dolphin Inn was a crowded place that day, and its landlord the
centre of attraction. People were in and out incessantly, listening to
the singular history. Numbers flocked to the Friar's Keep, and to
every other spot in Greylands likely or unlikely for a man to be
hidden in, dead or living; but there was no trace anywhere of the
presence of Anthony Castlemaine. Setting aside the disappearance, the
tale itself excited wonder; and that part of it relating to the
entrance into the chapel ruins of Mr. Castlemaine, and the subsequent
sound of a shot and cry, and of the locked gate, was received by some
with incredulity. Opinions were hazarded that the landlord's eyes
might have deceived him, his ears and his fingers played him false;
that Mr. Castlemaine must have been altogether a myth; the supposed
locked gate been only his awkwardness, and the shot and cry nothing
but the scream of a sea bird. In this one latter point, however, John
Bent's account was established by other testimony, coming, singular to
say, from the Grey Ladies. It appeared that Sister Mildred was very
ill that night, and two of the others sat up with her, Sisters Mona
and Ann. The room of the Superioress faced the sea, and was the last
room at the end next the chapel ruins. As the Sisters sat there
watching in the stillness of the night, they were suddenly startled by
the sound of a shot, and by a scream as from some one wounded. So, in
regard to the truth of this part of John Bent's account, there could
no longer be a doubt.
In the afternoon Mr. Castlemaine returned from Stilborough. The
commotion Greylands was in rendered it impossible for him to remain
long ignorant of what had taken place, and of the manner in which
his name was mixed up with it. Being a man of quick perception, of
penetrating judgment, he could not fail to see that some suspicion must
attach to himself in the public mind; that the alleged story, taken
in conjunction with previous facts: the pretentions of his nephew to
Greylands' Rest, and their hostile meeting in the fields earlier in
the day: must inevitably excite doubt and comment. Proud, haughty, and
self-contained though the Master of Greylands was, this matter was of
too grave a nature, and might bring too many unpleasant consequences
in its train, for him to ignore it. He deemed it well to throw himself
forthwith into the battle; and he went out to the Dolphin. On his way
he encountered Commodore Teague. The latter had been at sea since early
morning in his cutter--as he was apt to call that sailing boat of
his--and had but now, on landing, had his ears assailed with the story.
A few exchanged sentences between Mr. Castlemaine and the Commodore,
and they parted; Mr. Castlemaine proceeding to the inn.
"What is this absurd story?" he demanded of John Bent, lifting his
hat as he entered the best kitchen to the knot of people assembled
there. "I cannot make head or tail of it."
For the fiftieth time at least, the landlord recounted the history. It
was listened to with breathless interest, even by those who had done
nothing but listen to it for many previous hours.
"And do you expect sensible people to believe this, John Bent?" were
the first answering words of the Master of Greylands.
"It's true, whether they believe it or not," said John. "It was
yourself, sir, was it not, that we saw pass through the gate into the
chapel ruins?"
"I!" scornfully repeated Mr. Castlemaine. "What do you suppose
should take me to such a place as that, at midnight? If all your
points are as correct as that, Mr. Bent, your story will not hold much
water."
"I said it was not likely to be Mr. Castlemaine," spoke up the
superintendent of the coastguard. "I told Mr. Bent so at the time."
"I put it to you all, generally, whether it was likely," pursued Mr.
Castlemaine, glancing defiantly about him.
"All I can say is this," said John Bent: "that if it was not Mr.
Castlemaine, my eyes must have strangely deceived me, and young Mr.
Anthony's must have deceived him. Why, the night was as light as day."
"Eyes do deceive sometimes," remarked Mr. Castlemaine. "I know that
mine have on occasion deceived me at night, good though their sight
is. And of all deceptive lights, the moon's light is the worst."
"Sir, if it was not you it must have been your wraith," said John
Bent, evidently not inclined to give in. "You passed close by us
sideways, coming out of the Chapel Lane, and crossed the road in front
of us. Had you just turned your head sharp to the right, you must have
seen us under the hedge."
"Was it the Grey Friar, think you?" asked Mr. Castlemaine. And John
Bent did not like the bantering tone, or the suppressed laugh that
went around.
"That some one crossed from the Chapel Lane may be true: for I do not
see how you could purely imagine it," conceded Mr. Castlemaine, after
a pause. "But it was not I. Neither can I understand nor conceive what
anybody should want in the chapel ruins at that time of night. We are
most of us rather given to shun the place."
"True, true," murmured the room.
"And the locked gate," proceeded Mr. Castlemaine, "how do you account
for that? Where did the key come from to lock it? According to what
you say, John Bent, it would appear that Mr. Anthony Castlemaine must
have locked it; since you maintain that no one went in or came out
subsequently to himself. If he locked it, he must have unlocked it. At
least, that is the inference naturally to be drawn."
"I say that the gate never was locked," put in Superintendent
Nettleby. "The latch might have caught at the minute, and caused Mr.
Bent to fancy it was locked."
"You may as well tell me I don't know when a place is open and when
it's shut," retorted John Bent.
"And the pistol, again!--or gun?" remonstrated Mr. Castlemaine. "It
does not stand to reason that people should be firing off guns and
pistols at midnight. I fancy that must be altogether a mistake----"
"The Grey Ladies can speak to that much, sir," interrupted Mrs. Bent.
"As Sister Ann, here, can tell you."
Mr. Castlemaine turned on his heel and brought his eyes to bear on
Sister Ann. She was sitting in the corner near the clock, her basket
as usual in her hand. For she had come out to do errands, and been
seduced by curiosity into the Dolphin, to take her share in the
gossip.
"Yes, sir, we heard the pistol, or gun, whichever it was, and the
human cry that came with it," she said to Mr. Castlemaine. "Sister
Mona and I were watching in Sister Mildred's room--for the fever was
very bad upon her last night, and she was restless and wandering, poor
lady! It was all quite still. I was knitting and Sister Mona was
reading; you might have heard a pin drop indoors or out; when there
burst upon our ears a loud shot, followed by a human cry. A thrilling
scream, it was, making me and sister Mona start up in terror."
"It was like a death scream," said John Bent. "And I cannot," he
added, looking at Mr. Castlemaine, "get it out of my head that it was
his scream--young Mr. Anthony's."
"From what direction did it come?" asked Mr. Castlemaine of the
landlord.
"I can't tell, sir. I was walking about on the opposite side of the
road, and at first I thought it came from seaward; but it sounded very
near."
"It sounded to us as though it came from the chapel rains, or from the
strip of beach below it," said Sister Aim. "We did not hear anything
more."
"And I did not think at the time to connect that shot and scream with
Mr. Anthony Castlemaine," pursued John Bent. "It never came anigh my
mind to do it, never. It do now."
"Well, it is altogether a most extraordinary and unaccountable
affair," remarked Mr. Castlemaine. "Strange to say, I was abroad last
night myself and near the spot, but not as late as you describe this
to have been. Between ten and eleven I went down the lane as far as
the Hutt. Teague was, I had heard, purposing to go out in his boat for
a few hours to-day; and I, not having been very well, lately, thought
I should like to go with him, and went down to say so. I stayed and
had a pipe with him, and I think it must have been half-past eleven
when I left."
"And did you go straight home from the Hutt, sir?" asked John Bent,
eagerly.
"I went straight home from the Hutt's door to my door," emphatically
replied Mr. Castlemaine.
"And did not go anigh the other end of the lane at all?--nor the
Friar's Keep?"
"Certainly not. I tell you I went straight home. I went direct from
Teague's house to mine."
That Mr. Castlemaine was candid in stating this matter spontaneously,
when he might have concealed it, his hearers mentally saw, and it told
in his favour. But it did not lessen the perplexity, or the mist that
the affair was shrouded in. He turned to depart.
"I shall at once institute a thorough search; and, if necessary,
summon the law to my aid," said he. "Not that I fear any real harm has
befallen my nephew Anthony; but it will be satisfactory to ascertain
where he is. I fancy he must have gone off somewhere, perhaps on some
sudden and uncontemplated impulse. It may be, that he is given to take
these impromptu flights; as was his father before him, my brother
Basil."
Mr. Castlemaine passed out as he spoke, with a bend of the head to the
company. He was looking pale and ill; they could but notice it
throughout the entire interview; and his face had a worn, sad cast of
sorrow on it, never before seen there.
"He has brought that look back from Stilborough," remarked John Bent.
"There are bad fears, it's whispered, about his brother's death: we
have not got the particulars yet. But as to Mr. Anthony's having
walked off in any promiscuous manner, it's the silliest thought that
ever was spoken."
Commodore Teague, in his blue sailor's costume, came looming in, his
hands in his pockets. He had made haste down from the Hutt (having
been obliged to go there on landing, to carry his gun and sundry other
articles from his boat, and to light his fires) to hear the details of
the mysterious story or, as he chose to express it, the wrongs and the
rights on't.
So John Bent once more recounted the particulars, assisted by the
tongues of all the company--for they did not stand in awe of this
listener as they did of Mr. Castlemaine. The Commodore listened with
incredulity: not to say ridicule.
"Look here, John Bent, you may tell that tale to the marines. I can
explain away some of it myself. Bless my heart! To think you folk
should be running your head again all them marvels, when there's none
to run 'em against. That gun that went off was mine," concluded the
Commodore; who liked to put on a free-and-easy grammar when in
familiar intercourse with Greylands, though he could be a gentleman
when with such people as the Castlemaines.
"Your gun!"
"It was. And as to Mr. Castlemaine, you no more saw him go into the
Friar's Keep than you saw me go. Last night, I was smoking my pipe and
cleaning my gun--for I meant to shoot a few birds out at sea
to-day--when who should come knocking at the Hutt door but Mr.
Castlemaine. He'd been feeling out of sorts, he said, and thought a
sail would do him good, and would like to go with me to-day--for it
seems the whole parish had heard I was going. With all my heart, I
answered; I'd be proud of his company. He sat down and took a pipe;
smoking's contagious, you know: and we talked about this and that. When
he left I saw him to the door, and watched him turn up the lane towards
his house. It don't stand to reason he'd come down again."
"He told us all this himself, Commodore."
"Did he!--what, Mr. Castlemaine? Well, it's true. After he was gone, I
got to my gun again, which I had laid aside when he entered. It struck
twelve before I finished it. After that, I loaded it, took it to the
door, and fired it off into the air. That was the shot you heard,
landlord."
"And the cry?"
"Never was any cry to hear. 'Twas fancy. I made none, and I know I
heard none."
"What time was it when your gun went off?"
"Past twelve; I don't rightly know how much. I went to bed and to
sleep without looking at the clock. This morning word was brought me
that Mr. Castlemaine had been fetched to Stilborough; and I took out
Ben Little in the boat instead."
But this explanation did not go for so much as it might have done. The
Commodore was in the habit of telling the most incredible sea yarns;
and faith, in that respect, was wanting in him. Moreover, the strong
impression on John Bent's mind was, that it was a pistol-shot he had
heard, not a gun. Above all, there remained the one broad fact of the
disappearance: Anthony Castlemaine had been alive and well and amidst
them the previous night, and to-day he was not. Altogether the
commotion, the dread, and the sense of some mysterious evil increased:
and lying upon many a heart, more or less, was a suspicion of the part
played in it by Mr. Castlemaine.
Dusk was approaching when a horseman rode past the Dolphin: Mr. Harry
Castlemaine on his return from Newerton. Seeing what looked like an
unusual bustle round the inn doors, he pulled up. Molly ran out.
"What's agate?" asked Mr. Harry. "You seem to have got all the world
and his wife here."
"It's feared as it's murder, sir," returned simple Molly.
"Murder!"
"Well, sir, Mr. Anthony Castlemaine went into the Friar's Keep last
night, and have never come out again. It's thought he was shot there.
A dreadful cry was heard."
"Shot! Who shot him?"
"'Tain't known, sir. Some says it was Mr. Castlemaine that was in
there along of him."
Harry Castlemaine drew up his haughty head; a dark frown knitted his
brow. But that she was a woman, ignorant and stupid, and evidently
unconscious of all the word's might imply, he might have struck her as
she stood.
"And there's dreadful news in from Stilborough, Mr. Harry, sir,"
resumed the girl. "Mr. Peter Castlemaine was found dead in his chamber
last night."
"What?" shouted Harry, thinking she must be playing upon him with all
these horrors.
"It's true, sir. The Master of Greylands have not long got back from
seeing him. He died quite sudden, poor gentleman, shut up in his room,
and not a soul anigh him to watch his last breath."
It was almost too much. His uncle dead, his cousin disappeared, his
father suspected he knew not yet of what. Never a more cruel moment,
than that had dawned for Harry Castlemaine.