understand,” he said. “The offer I have made to you is without
prejudice to any action I may take. Unfortunately for you, Leonard has
no power to re-transfer the property without my brother’s
consent--which means my consent, for I hold his power of attorney.
Leonard may hold the property, but you cannot. You’re a lawyer and it
is not necessary for me to explain the intricacies of a copyhold
lease, and that was all Leonard was buying. If you decide to fight the
case, I’ll take you into court, and you know that I shall get a
verdict against you. I am offering you a chance of settling the matter
amicably.”
“Which I refuse,” said the other promptly.
Dick inclined his head.
“Very good. You will probably, on considering the matter in a calmer
atmosphere, take a different view.”
He walked from the room, swinging his hat. In the doorway he turned.
“As for Miss Leslie Gwyn, you will be well advised to reconsider that
question also.”
“And suppose I don’t?”
Again that unfathomable smile.
“You are going to be sorry,” said Dick cryptically.
XV
Not a word did Leslie say about her interview with Gilder, and her
brother seemed just as anxious to avoid the topic as she. They drove
down from town, and all the time he kept up a ceaseless flow of talk
about affairs which he thought might interest her. He was nervous, and
once, when she woke him from a reverie with a question, he started and
turned red.
“Sorry!” he stammered. “I was thinking of something.”
“And something unpleasant, Arthur,” she said gently.
He was staring straight ahead of him.
“Yes, something damnably unpleasant!”
They were nearing Chelfordbury now, and she put the question that had
trembled on her lips throughout that long journey.
“Arthur, do you know what Mr. Gilder asked me?” And, when he did not
reply: “He proposed to me,” she said.
Still he avoided her eyes.
“Did he?” he asked awkwardly. “Well, that’s an extraordinary thing for
him to do!”
“Arthur, did you know he was going to propose to me when you left us
alone?”
“He isn’t a bad fellow,” said Arthur Gwyn lamely. “Of course, the idea
is preposterous. But, after all, it is no sin for a fellow to fall in
love with a girl and want to marry her--I mean, one can see his point
of view.”
Leslie was a little shocked; she was more than a little angry. But she
kept a tight rein on her tongue.
“But, Arthur, you wouldn’t agree to that? You know I am engaged to
Harry--why, you told me that it was the dream of your life to see me
wearing a coronet! Not that I want to wear the beastly thing, but that
was what you said.”
Ordinarily, Arthur Gwyn was possessed of a ready tongue and a nimble
wit. He had lied his way out of many an embarrassing situation with
more worldly wise people than Leslie. But, somehow, in her presence
his brain refused to function, and his witticisms were banal and
vulgar even to himself.
“My dear little girl,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “it
really doesn’t matter to me whom you marry so long as you’re happy.
Gilder is a very solid man; he has a considerable private fortune.”
This time she swung round on her seat and faced him.
“Arthur, why do you insist upon the fortune? Where is my money?”
The question came point-blank and was not to be fenced with. He roused
himself to meet a situation which had never before arisen.
“Your money? Why, invested, of course!”
He tried very hard, but he could not produce that convincing note
which was so necessary.
“Your fortune is in all sorts of shares and bonds. What a queer
question to ask me, girlie!”
“How much money have I?” she demanded ruthlessly.
“About a quarter of a million--a little more or a little less. For
goodness’ sake don’t talk about money, my dear.”
“But I _will_ talk about it,” she said. “Arthur, have I any at all?”
His laughter did not carry conviction. And usually people accepted his
word. Harry Chelford had asked him only a week before in what stocks
was his late mother’s fortune invested. And Arthur had replied glibly
enough. It was the Miriam Chelford Trust that had occupied his mind
through the journey. Something must be done there. Dick Alford had
started to ask questions, and Dick had a memory like a recording
machine. As for Leslie and her tiresome questions:
“What a silly kid you are! Of course you’ve got money! I wish to
heaven I had half your wad! You’re a very rich little girl, and you
ought to be a very happy little girl.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think I have a penny,” she said, and his heart sank.
With a tremendous effort of will he met her questioning eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know--in a way I hope I’m poor. I know I had money left me,
because you showed me the will a long time ago. But you’ve been
handling it, Arthur, and I’ve an idea that things haven’t been going
too well with you.”
“Do you mean I’ve stolen your fortune?” he asked loudly, and she
smiled.
“I wouldn’t accuse you of that. I think it is possible you may have
invested my fortune--unwisely! And it is quite possible that that
quarter of a million has dwindled and dwindled until it has
disappeared. Is that so?”
He did not answer.
“Is that so?”
“I wish to God you wouldn’t ask such stupid questions,” he said
irritably. “Of course it isn’t so!”
For one wild moment he had the impulse to tell her the truth; but
vanity, a shrinking from the possible effects the news would have upon
the one person in the world for whom he had a grain of affection,
inhibited the confession.
Back he came naturally to the one thought present in his mind, as he
chattered and as he brooded. His last hope lay in the discovery of the
Chelford treasure. If that were found, he could snap his fingers at
Gilder, could restore the wasted fortune of his sister, and establish
himself beyond assail. Gilder would never dare bring his story of the
four bills to a court of law, and if he did, backed by the Chelford
fortune, Arthur could face the storm, confident that, if he made
restoration to the man he had robbed, no evil consequences would
follow. He was grasping at a straw, and knew it. But Mary Wenner was a
shrewd little devil, not the kind of girl who, for the sake of making
a sensation, would come to him with a cock-and-bull story. She might
have been mistaken; on the other hand, she was so brimful of
confidence that he could not believe the story was altogether without
foundation.
The road to Willow House skirted the grounds of Fossaway Manor, and he
saw the crumbling arch, red in the setting sun, standing like a fiery
question mark that attuned with his mood of doubt and hope.
Arrived at his home, he went up to his room to bathe and change before
dinner, and it was with a positive sense of freedom that he found
himself alone. He was a fool not to have told her the truth, he
thought. After dinner he would get her in a softer mood and make a
clean breast of it. And then, at the tail of this decision, came the
recollection of his interview with Mary Wenner. Suppose she had told
the truth? Suppose he found these millions of pounds that had lain for
centuries in the ground? He formed yet another plan.
XVI
To his unspeakable relief, Leslie was in her most cheerful mood
throughout dinner, and the thought of Fabrian Gilder seemed to have
been effectively banished.
“Leslie,” he asked, after the coffee had been served, “I want you to
do me a great favour.”
She looked at him across the table, doubt in her eyes.
“Do you remember Mary Wenner, who used to be Harry’s secretary?”
She nodded.
“Yes. Dick doesn’t like her very much; he was telling me the other
day----”
“Never mind what Dick likes or dislikes,” he said testily. “Great
heavens! Are our lives to be run according to his fancies? I’m very
sorry,” he apologized with a laugh, “but you’ll have to forgive
me--I’m rather nervous to-night.”
“What about Mary Wenner?” she asked.
“I was wondering whether you would like to ask her down here to stay a
week-end? I shall have a lot of work to do, and she’s a very excellent
stenographer. But I’ll be perfectly frank with you and tell you that
that is not the only reason I’d like you to invite her. She’s been in
some kind of scrape and I want to help her through.”
Leslie Gwyn was not curious, or she might have questioned him more
about this mythical trouble.
“I don’t know why she shouldn’t come,” she said. “If you’ll give me
her address I will write to her. I rather fancy that Dick’s main
objection to her is that she had some sort of attachment for Harry.”
“She’s almost forgotten Harry,” smiled her brother. “To be perfectly
candid, I like the girl. She’s not a lady, of course, but ‘lady’
nowadays is a vague and meaningless term. And there was really nothing
in her affair with Harry. I mean it was not serious.”
“I’ve never thought so,” said the girl, and thereupon the question of
Mary Wenner was dismissed.
He had, he said, some work to do that night, and left her alone in the
drawing-room, and for once she did not find time hanging very heavily
upon her hands. Ordinarily the prospect of an evening spent alone
would have seemed intolerably dull, but she had so much to think
about, so many perspectives to adjust, that she rather welcomed her
solitude.
Even at so short a distance of time, her experience with Fabrian
Gilder seemed grotesquely unreal. Perhaps she was still numb from the
shock of it, for, going over that unpleasant feature incident by
incident, she could be neither angry nor amused. Perhaps she was a
little afraid--she still felt the pressure of his strong hands upon
her, still saw the gray fires that burnt in his eyes. And Dick--how
natural it had been to go to him--how safe she had felt! Would it have
been the same if Harry Chelford had providentially arrived? She was
sure in her mind that she would not have run to Harry, or found
comfort in his encircling arms.
She looked at the clock; it was ten minutes after nine. Dick would be
back at Fossaway Manor by now, and she went out into the hall and,
taking off the receiver of the telephone, gave a number.
Arthur’s study door opened into the hall, and he came out.
“To whom are you telephoning?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m calling up Fossaway Manor,” she said.
“You’re not going to invite Dick Alford over, are you?” he demanded
resentfully.
Before she could reply, he heard the ring of a bell in the servants’
quarters and she ran to the door. Through the glass panel she saw the
gleam of a white shirt-front on the unlighted porch, and switched on
the lights. It was Dick, and, with an oath, Arthur Gwyn flung back
into his room and slammed the door. He had hoped that Dick had
forgotten his threat to call that night.
“Enter, Richard of Chelford!” said the girl dramatically, as she threw
open the door. “I was just ’phoning to you. I’m bored to extinction
and I want amusing.”
Which was not true.
“I don’t feel at all amusing,” said Dick, as he closed the door and
hung up his cap on the hat-rack.
She took him by the arm and led him into the drawing-room.
“Arthur is invisible to-night; he is working very hard. He doesn’t
approve of you, and you hardly approve of him, so we sha’n’t be
interrupted! Dick, it was lovely of you to arrive as you did this
afternoon.”
“Gilder proposed to you, I understand?” said Dick quietly.
“Did he tell you?” She fetched a long sigh. “Yes; I was amazed. I
suppose it was very complimentary, but why did he do it in such a
great hurry, do you think?”
Dick took a cigarette from the box she offered him and lit it before
he replied.
“That is exactly what I’ve come to discover,” he said. “I feel rather
like a grand inquisitor, but I must know.”
“And I can’t tell you.”
She was acting. He knew that her one object was to turn him from an
interview with her brother, and she in turn knew that her efforts
would be in vain.
“You had no hint of this precious proposal in advance? Arthur told you
nothing?”
“No; Arthur couldn’t possibly have known. He told me that Mr. Gilder
wanted us to see his new flat, and although it was a great bore going
out to tea with somebody one doesn’t know, I went----”
“To oblige Arthur, of course?”
“No,” she insisted; “you must credit me with a reasonable amount of
feminine curiosity. Bachelors’ establishments intrigue me. Your one
drawback, from my point of view, is that you’ve only a poky little
office and, I presume, a wretched little servant’s bedroom.”
“For a second son I’m rather well off,” said Dick with a quizzical
smile. “You are sure Arthur didn’t give you any forewarning of this
proposal?”
“Absolutely sure. He was as much astonished as I was.”
“Have you discussed it with him?” he asked quickly.
She hesitated.
“Yes, I spoke about it in the car on the way down, and Arthur was
rather--astonished.”
“Only astonished--not furious?”
“He may have been furious, too. Arthur doesn’t carry his heart on his
sleeve.”
“I should imagine not,” said Dick drily, and then: “Will you ask him
if I can see him for five minutes?”
She looked at him with troubled eyes.
“You’re not going to quarrel, are you, Dick?”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m going to ask him a question or two. You realize that I’m
entitled to know.”
“Why are you ‘entitled’?”
“Don’t you think I am?” he asked gently.
Her eyes went up to his for a second, and then dropped, as she read
something there that thrilled and hurt her. Without a word she went
out into the hall and knocked at Arthur’s door.
“What does he want? I can’t be bothered to-night,” said Arthur Gwyn
fretfully. “What a fellow he is for interrupting people when they’re
busy!”
“I think you’d better see him, Arthur,” she said, and added: “And get
it over.”
He shot a quick glance at her.
“What do you mean--get what over?” he asked.
“Whatever there is to get over,” said Leslie quietly.
Arthur looked down at the picturesque confusion of papers that covered
his library table.
“All right, shoot him in,” he said ungraciously.
XVII
He did not attempt to rise from his chair when Dick entered, closing
the door behind him.
“Sit down, will you, Alford? Leslie tells me you want to see me.”
“Leslie need not have given you that message. I’d already told you
this afternoon that I would come to you for an explanation.”
“Of what?”
“Of the unpleasant happening at Gilder’s flat. This man proposed to
your sister--you know that?”
“Leslie told me,” said the other, after a moment’s silence.
“And you were annoyed, one supposes? You will dismiss this clerk of
yours to-morrow?”
The other leaned back in his chair.
“I don’t see why I should,” he said coolly. “After all, it’s no crime
for any man to propose to a pretty girl. Of course, he’s not the sort
of fellow I should choose for a brother-in-law, but if brothers had to
choose husbands for their sisters, you know, Alford, there would be
some very queer marriages!”
“What is his pull?” asked Dick quietly.
“I don’t----”
“What is his hold on you?”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Just what I say. You would never tolerate a man like Gilder paying
attentions to your sister, apart from the insult he offered to a
prospective Countess of Chelford, unless he had such a grip on you
that all your natural indignation was crushed by the fear of some
consequence he held over your head.”
Arthur Gwyn found it difficult to control his voice.
“My dear fellow, how very melodramatic!” he scoffed. “Hold over me!
You must have been studying the latest Drury Lane play! Naturally, I
would rather see Leslie married to your brother, but I certainly would
put no obstacle in her way if her heart was set elsewhere.”
“On Gilder, in fact?”
“On Gilder,” nodded Arthur gravely, as though the matter had been the
subject of deep thought and much self-communion.
And then Dick Alford asked a question that brought the man to his
feet, white and shaking.
“Is it the question of the bills?”
“The--the what?” faltered the lawyer.
“The four bills which were supposed to be backed by my brother--the
signatures being forgeries. I thought you knew that I had seen them.
They were shown to me at the bank, and fortunately I did not disclaim
them--fortunately for you, I mean. When I went to see them again they
were taken up. I presume Mr. Fabrian Gilder redeemed them. That would
have cost him a little over five thousand pounds, and I presume he did
not do that out of sheer altruism.”
Arthur Gwyn’s mouth was dry; he could scarcely articulate.
“I didn’t know until to-day,” he muttered. “Harry was ill at the time.
The money was due to me for--for--legal costs. I went down to the bank
to take them up and found they had been honoured.”
“Was that the pull?”
He did not meet the steady gaze that was fixed on him.
“Yes, that was the pull, if you want to know. You don’t suppose I’d
allow Leslie to marry a swine like Gilder unless--unless he had
something on me, do you? Can’t you understand my position, Alford? I’m
ruined! That fellow could send me to jail--he still can.”
Dick shook his head.
“Fire him to-morrow,” he said. “If he produces the bills I will
undertake that Harry will acknowledge the signatures.”
The pink came back to the colourless face of the lawyer.
“You’ll do this?” he said eagerly. “My God! you don’t know what a
weight you’ve lifted off my mind. You’re a brick, by jove! I’ll fire
him to-morrow.”
He held out an eager hand and Dick took it with some hesitation. At
the best of times Arthur Gwyn did not impress him; at this moment,
almost incoherent with relief, he seemed a pitiful coward.
“I will pay Harry every penny. I have something on the stocks now that
will bring me in a fortune, that will wipe out all my debts and put me
on my feet again.”
There was humour in the situation; for the thing which was to
rehabilitate his fortunes was no less than the barefaced robbery of
Harry Chelford’s inheritance! But Arthur was not conscious of the
irony of the position. He would deal with Gilder in the morning. Thank
God he had not gone still deeper into the mire! The knowledge that in
his pocketbook was another bill as yet unuttered, did not cool the
glow of virtue he was experiencing. Henceforth he would walk the
straight way.
“There’s one thing you could do for me, Alford--hurry along that
marriage. Fix it for next month if you can. Leslie is just a foolish
girl, she is trying to put off the inevitable, but that’s natural,
isn’t it? Can’t you buck up Harry----”
Dick Alford looked at him steadily.
“The matter must be left entirely to Leslie,” he said, and there was
something very definite and final in those words.
They came out of the library together; Leslie waiting, a little
fearful, saw the smile on her brother’s face and breathed a sigh of
thankfulness.
“You’re not going?” Dick was reaching for his cap.
“I have to get back to the house,” he said, and, seeing her look of
disappointment, he stood irresolutely.
“Come along in and play mah-jongg. I am in a mah-jongg mood,” said
Arthur, almost jovially.
If there was one thing that Dick could not endure that night it was to
sit vis-à-vis with Arthur Gwyn. He would have liked to stay with the
girl, but for the moment her brother seemed an inevitable third. And
he was terribly informative. Arthur was in his most expansive mood.
“Here is something that will interest you!”
He pointed to the wall. Hanging against a dark wooden shield was an
iron dagger--black and sinister, the handle worn smooth, the long
blade notched and jagged. Dick had seen it before.
“That should be at your place, Alford. The veritable dagger of the
veritable Black Abbot’s slayer--Hubert of Redruth! Look at his arms on
the hilt.…”
“I have seen it,” said Dick shortly. “Put on your coat and come for a
walk, Leslie,” he suggested, and the obliging Arthur, who would have
been agreeable to any scheme he propounded, seconded the suggestion.
XVIII
The night was cool and dark. There was a full moon, visible at
intervals through the drift of clouds. Leslie slipped her arm into his
as they walked down the dark avenue toward the road.
“Did you quarrel?” she asked.
“N-no, we didn’t quarrel,” said Dick. “There was a little plain
speaking, but I think it cleared the air, and, after all, that was
what I came for. He is dismissing Gilder to-morrow.”
She was silent at this, and did not speak again until they were on the
road.
“Is that wise?” she asked. “I’m a little afraid of the man. I feel he
would be a very bad enemy.”
She heard his soft laugh and felt reassured.
“He’s that all right,” said Dick; “the worst enemy any man could have,
I should imagine. But an enemy is only dangerous in ratio to his
hurting power. I don’t think Mr. Gilder will hurt anybody.”
“Not Arthur?” she asked.
“Not Arthur, and certainly not you.”
She squeezed his arm in hers.
“You’d be a wonderful brother,” she said.
“I am,” he said curtly, and she smiled in the darkness. “Your handsome
relative asked me to persuade you to marry next month, and I told him
point-blank that I would do nothing of the kind. Leslie, do you know
that you never see Harry from one week-end to another?”
She had realized that for a long time, and it was a constant subject
for self-reproach that she had less and less desire for her fiancé’s
society.
“He is really not interested in me, Dick,” she said. “Harry is so
absorbed in his treasure hunt and his queer chase after the elixir of
life----”
“He’s told you that, has he?” asked Dick quickly.
“Why, of course!” she scoffed. “Do you know, Dick, he has almost
convinced me that there is something in his idea?”
She waited for him to reply.
“Don’t you think so?”
“In the Life Water… perhaps there is.”
“And in the treasure?” she asked.
“Maybe. Generations of Chelfords have hunted for that wretched gold,
and I suppose in the past four hundred years almost as much money has
been spent in the search as the treasure is worth! I’m perfectly sure
in my own mind that Good Queen Bess of pious memory bagged every bar
of it!”
“And I’m perfectly sure she didn’t,” was the surprising reply. “I’ve
been reading Elizabethan history very carefully, and the year that
your ancestor hid his gold was the year that the Queen was so
hard-pressed for money that she had to borrow from the Lombards.”
He stopped.
“Is that so?” incredulously.
“Absolutely. And if you weren’t such a sceptic and would read a little
more, you would know what any schoolchild could tell you, that in 1582
the Queen was broke. Do you object to that vulgar word?”
“It is a familiar one at any rate,” he laughed.
They had reached the deep cutting, and he turned to the left, opened a
gate, and they walked up a little path toward the ruins of Chelford
Abbey.
The moon was showing through a rift in the clouds.
“You ought to see the Abbey by moonlight, if you’ve never seen it.
It’s rather beautiful,” he said, as he gave her a hand to assist her
up the steep path.
As they came in sight of the broken walls and towers of this ancient
place of peace, something of the solemnity of the scene entered her
heart, and she stood still, looking spellbound upon the wreckage of a
once great abbey. The Abbey ruins stood on the broadest surface of
what was locally known as the Mound--the high embankment which ran
almost from Fossaway Abbey to the road, following the course of the
little Ravensrill. Here, if tradition spoke the truth, a place of
sacrifice had stood, before the English church had risen in flint,
before the Norman monks laid chisel to stone on their great abbey.
The moon softened and idealized the broken stonework, and in her mind
she went back through the years to those ancient times when the
black-robed figures of the monks moved where she now stood. Below, to
the left, she could see the fret of sparkling silver where the moon
reflected in the Ravensrill. Here they had sat, these ancient men,
with their fishing-rods, discussing the little events of their narrow
world. They had passed into dust, and this great abbey, the pride of
their eyes and the work of their hands, was crumbling rapidly into
like nothingness.
“It is wonderful!” she breathed.
Were her eyes deceiving her? She could have sworn she saw something
moving in the shadow of the old tower. He heard the quick intake of
her breath.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know--my imagination, I think. I thought I saw somebody
moving there.”
He followed the direction of her eyes.
“There would be nobody here at this time of the night, unless it is
the Black Abbot,” he said jocularly, “and we’re not scared of him, are
we?”
“I’m not, for one,” she said, with a firmness that she was far from
feeling.
At that moment she heard something--something that turned her blood to
water. It was a low moan of anguish, a sobbing diminuendo of sound
that began on a high note and wailed down the scale until it was
inaudible.
“What was that?” she asked, grasping his arm.
He did not speak; he was straining his eyes toward the shadows.
Again the sound, this time a wail that ended in a scream. He caught
the girl by the shoulder. At that moment he had seen a figure moving
away from the Abbey toward the river. A tall, black figure that showed
clearly in the moonlight. She saw it, too.
“Don’t leave me, Dick!” she begged, as she felt him strain away from
her.
Then of a sudden she felt his tension relax.
“Let him go,” he said, half to himself.
She clung to him desperately, frantically, as the figure stumbled and
staggered toward the trees that would presently engulf him. The
dreadful Thing ran on, stopping now and again to turn and gibber and
mouth at the man and the woman who stood motionless on the edge of the
cutting. Waving wild arms, now howling in dreadful glee, now screaming
in senseless fear, it vanished in the dark of the wood--an obscene,
uncleanly thing, that belonged to bad dreams and the horrid imaginings
of madness. Far away in the distance came the howl of him, and then
the night swallowed him up.
“How dreadful!”
And then her knees gave under her and she remembered no more.
XIX
Leslie opened her eyes and frowned up into the face that was bent
over her. She was lying on the verge of the road, for Dick had carried
her down into the cutting and a hundred yards toward Willow House.
“Oh, how awful!” she shuddered, and closed her eyes. “It was the Black
Abbot?”
Dick Alford did not reply for a while. His anxiety for the girl was
such that all other interests had passed from his mind.
“I am all right now,” she said, and, with his assistance, stood
shakily on her feet. “I told you I was a fool. This is my crazy day!
Dick, what was it?”
“He was too far away from me to see,” said Dick; “probably one of our
stupid villagers under the influence of drink.”
She shook her head.
“No, it was not that, Dick! It was----” She shuddered again. “I think
I’d better go home.”
“I think you’d be wise,” he said gravely. “I wish I hadn’t brought you
out now.”
She laughed a little shakily and clung to him tighter.
“In a way I’m glad you did,” she said, as they walked slowly toward
her home. “Dick, I had all sorts of queer dreams: just before I woke
up I felt somebody kiss me. It was so convincing that I can still feel
the lips on my cheek.”
“I kissed you,” he said, without shame. “I thought the shock would
bring you to life!”
Her laughter was almost hysterical, for Leslie’s nerves were jangled
and on edge.
“You might at least have denied that,” she said. “Dick, you have no
subtlety!”
As they walked slowly toward the house, she noticed that he looked
back once or twice.
“You’re not expecting that--that thing to follow us, are you?” she
asked, her teeth chattering.
“No, I thought I heard a car” (which was true). “I’ll swear I saw a
haze of light over the crest of the road, but I must have been
mistaken.”
He was not mistaken, and knew it. A car had been following them, had
been slowly ascending the hill to the cutting; he had seen the
reflected rays from the lamps distinctly, and had heard the soft purr
of engines. What was more certain than anything else, the car could
not have turned in that narrow road, so that the only explanation was
that the unknown driver had switched off his lights and stopped his
machine.
“Let me look at you.” He turned her to the moonlight and lifted her
face. “I don’t know whether you’re horribly pale or whether it’s a
trick of the moon,” he said, “but you look mighty ill: You had better
go straight to bed, preferably without seeing your brother.”
“Why?” she asked, in surprise.
“I don’t want this spook story to get around, for one thing,” he said.
“And for another--oh well, the other doesn’t matter.”
Leslie realized that she was walking at a much slower pace than her
physical weakness justified. She was still a little shaky, but in
every sense had recovered from the shock. Too sane to believe in
ghosts, she had, nevertheless, been shaken by the terrible experience.
She leaned heavily on Dick’s arm as they paced up the avenue to the
house, turning on to the grass that Arthur should not hear their
footsteps and come out to give them a boisterous welcome. Presently,
with a sigh, she dropped his arm.
“I’m glad I went out,” she said, in a low voice. “And I’m rather
glad----” She did not finish the sentence.
The silence that followed was a little disturbing for both of them.
Suddenly she faced him.
“Dick, do you want me to marry your brother?”
He did not answer.
“Do you--really?”
She heard his sigh in the dark. She could not see his face, for they
stood in the shadow of a great cedar immediately before the house.
“I don’t know,” he said. There was a bleakness in his voice she had
heard once before. “It isn’t a question of my liking. I can offer you
no reason why you should not marry him. You must do what you want,
Leslie. The decision must rest entirely with you--and if I were a
praying man, I would spend the night praying that you did right.”
“Do you wish me to marry him?” she asked again.
“I cannot tell you.” His voice was hard, and there swept over her a
wave of unreasonable anger and resentment against his detachment.
“I won’t ask you that question again,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Good-night, Dick.”
She ran into the hall and up to her room, and long after she had gone,
he stood where she had left him, looking wistfully at the door which
had closed upon her.
With something like despair at his heart, Dick Alford walked quickly
along the road toward Fontwell Cutting. He had something to distract
his mind for the moment.
There was no sign of the car, and, instead of passing through the
cutting gates, he continued over the brow of the hill.
When he went out at night he invariably carried a small flash lamp (he
kept a supply of them at the house, for his electric supply had a
trick of failing at inconvenient moments) and this he took from his
pocket, and, switching on, threw the light on the road, sweeping the
beam from side to side. This was not a main thoroughfare, and, except
his own and Gwyn’s car, and an occasional tradesman’s Ford, there was
little traffic. He saw the diamond-shaped impress of Arthur Gwyn’s
Rolls, could pick out his own little machine, and presently he saw a
new track: the track of tires with an arrow-shaped tread. He could
distinguish the exact spot at which it had stopped. Apparently the
driver had made no attempt to turn, but had gone backward some
distance. He followed the trail till it curved round, apparently into
an open field. The wagon gate was closed, but on the loamy earth the
mark of wheels was very apparent.
Red Farm! thought Dick, and, opening the gate, he went into the field.
His search was a very short one, for the deserted car was parked close
under the hedge parallel with the road. All the lights were out, but
the radiator was still hot. He examined the machine carefully; it bore
a London number and was new: an American touring car, replete with all
the gadgets of its kind. He made a careful note of the number and,
walking back to the gate, sat on the top rail and waited.
His vigil was not a protracted one. From where he sat he could see
over the swelling hill the top curve of the Abbey arch, and five
minutes after he had taken up his position he saw a figure silhouetted
against the skyline cross the brow and descend the hill toward him.
Fossaway Park was enclosed in a large-meshed wire net fence, which
offered no obstacle to any person who wished to surmount it; but the
stranger had evidently not reconnoitred the ground very thoroughly,
for Dick heard the clang of the wire as some heavy object struck
against it, a curse, and presently he could discern a figure climbing
over the wide mesh and drop into the road.
For a few seconds it was out of sight, and then he saw it again,
silhouetted against the white of the road. Nearer and nearer it came.
“Good-evening, Mr. Gilder,” said Dick politely. “Are you seeing the
sights of Chelfordbury?”
Gilder started violently and almost dropped the heavy stick he was
carrying.
“Hullo!” he stammered. “Who the dickens are you?”
A beam of light shot suddenly from his hand and focussed the
questioner.
“Oh, you!” said Gilder, taking a long breath. “Gosh! you scared me! I
was just admiring your old ruins by moonlight. They’re rather fine.”
“On behalf of the ruins, I thank you,” said Dick, with elaborate
courtesy. “Any nice things that you can say about Chelford Abbey are
deeply appreciated by its present owner.”
The man was disconcerted and obviously ill at ease.
“I left my car in the field; I thought it might get in the way of
traffic----” he began.
“The traffic around here between ten and midnight is not very
numerous,” said Dick; “but if you have the illusion that Red Farm is
your property, it is quite understandable that your car should be
parked there. What is the game, Gilder?”
He was conscious that the man’s eyes were peering at him.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘game.’ Is it unlawful to admire a
moonlight view?”
“It is unlawful to trespass on my brother’s property,” said Dick. “May
I repeat my question: What is the game?”
“I don’t understand you. Do you mind letting me get through that gate?
I am going home.”
Dick Alford descended from the gate slowly and pushed it open.
“You are a suspicious character, Gilder.”
The man snapped round at him.
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Just what I say. You are a suspicious character. It is very
suspicious to find you loafing around Fossaway Park at this hour of
the night, particularly after certain things which have happened
recently.”
“Do you think I am the Black Abbot?” sneered the man, and Dick’s
chuckle came from the darkness.
“There are many interesting possibilities about you, Gilder. What did
you expect to find in the Abbey?”
“I tell you I was merely admiring the view by moonlight. If that is an
offence you can bring me before a bench of magistrates.”
Dick, his hands in his pockets, stood watching the man as he switched
on the lights of the car and started it.
“The place to admire the ruins is from the crest of the hill, not from
the ruin itself,” he said. “If you had been a normal admirer you would
never have been out of sight. May I also suggest that it wasn’t
necessary to switch off your lights or to hide your car--the best view
of the Abbey is from the upper road. Gilder, you had better be
careful.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It is a warning,” said Dick. “And a man as clever as you would not
lightly despise such a warning. By the way, my solicitors are starting
an action to-morrow to set aside your agreement with Farmer Leonard. I
am hoping that you will not involve yourself in the expense of
defending the action.”
“That is a matter that I shall discuss with your lawyers,” said
Gilder, as he started the car.
Dick watched the machine as it waddled over the furrows and turned on
to the road, and followed it out, closing the gate behind it.
“Do you know anything about racing, Gilder?”
Gilder turned with a jerk. Was this man privy to his secrets?
“I know a little--why?”
“Do you know what a warning-off notice is?”
Gilder stared at him open-mouthed.
“Yes, it is a notice issued by the Jockey Club warning people off
Newmarket Heath.”
“Splendid!” said Dick. “Will you take a warning-off notice from me? I
warn you off Willow House and all that is contained therein!”
“And if I don’t accept the warning?”
“You’ll be sorry, as I’ve remarked before,” said Dick.
Gilder jammed in his clutch and the car jerked forward with a whine,
and soon its tail lights had disappeared round the end of the road.
XX
The Second Son climbed the fence, though the gate was near enough,
and, passing the Abbey ruins, walked briskly toward Fossaway Manor.
His way brought him past the wing of the house in which his brother’s
library was situated. One of the big leaded windows was open and he
caught a glimpse of Harry at his desk, sitting in the half light, his
head on his hands, a book before him. Dick sighed and continued on his
way.
Thomas, the footman, answered the bell he rang.
“Get me some coffee and biscuits. I shall be working late,” he said.
When the man had gone, he went to his desk and unlocked the post bag
that had come up from the station that night and shook out a heap of
letters. He sorted them over carefully, and, selecting one, opened it.
The letter bore the Royal crest and the plain address “New Scotland
Yard,” and was from an old school friend of his:
Dear Dick:
Thank you for your rather extraordinary letter, but I am afraid we can
do nothing for you officially. Private detectives, of course, are punk
for your purpose, and the best I can do for you is as follows. We have
a detective sergeant at headquarters named Puttler--you may have seen
his name in connection with the Hatton Garden robbery. He’s a very
efficient man and marked for promotion, but rather a weird-looking
bird. At the Yard we call him “Monkey Puttler,” though he is
universally liked in spite of this unflattering sobriquet. Puttler
never takes any kind of holiday, and is generally supposed to spend
his spare time in criminal investigation and to sleep in an odd corner
of the Yard. He is entitled to six weeks’ holiday leave. Of course, in
ordinary circumstances he would never dream of taking six minutes, but
I have had a talk with him, and with the complete approval of our
chief (it was necessary to tell him what you wanted) Puttler will
spend his holiday at Fossaway Manor. As I said before, he is rather a
queer-looking creature, a rabid teetotaller, a strong churchman, with
violent views on church music. You can rely absolutely upon his
discretion. I’ve told him that you will pay him ten pounds a week and
all his expenses. I only wish I could let you have him permanently,
but I trust that in six weeks your trouble will be cleared up.
Dick put the letter carefully in his inside pocket, and, walking
across the hall, went into the library. Lord Chelford heard the door
close and looked up.
“Hullo, Dick!” he said, quite amiably. “What is the news?”
Before he answered, Dick Alford walked to the window through which he
had seen his brother, pulled it close, and fastened the lock.
“What is wrong?” growled Chelford.
“Our monkish friend has been seen,” he said, “and I think it advisable
that your window should be kept closed.”
Harry Chelford’s hand went up to his lips.
“Can’t we do anything with that fellow?” he asked fretfully. “Where
are the police? What do we pay them for? It’s monstrous that the
countryside should be terrified by… Really, Dick, couldn’t you do
something?”
“The police are doing everything that can be done,” Dick replied.
He charged his pipe carefully and lit it with a match which he took
from a silver container on Harry’s table.
“I’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said. “Put away that infernal book
and talk.”
With evident reluctance Lord Chelford closed the thick tome over which
he had been poring and leaned back in his chair with an air of
resignation.
“Leslie? I don’t see very much of her,” he said. “She’s a very
intelligent girl and knows how busy I am. Not every woman would show
so much understanding. Did you see Arthur?”
Dick nodded.
“I had a ’phone message saying that he was coming over in the morning.
He wants me to sign some documents in connection with Leslie’s
estate--good fellow, Arthur.”
“Very,” said Dick, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
“Yes, I owe a lot to Arthur.” Harry looked up through his horn-rimmed
spectacles and nodded as he spoke. “I shouldn’t have met Leslie, and
certainly I shouldn’t have had any idea of marrying,” he went on
naïvely, “but Arthur was very keen to get a husband for her who
wasn’t a fortune-hunter. And of course, the money will be useful.”
Dick listened patiently to this disjointed explanation for the
forthcoming marriage. He had heard it before in identically the same
terms.
“Why do you want to marry money at all?” he asked. “We’re not
paupers.”
Harry Chelford shrugged his thin shoulders.
“I suppose we’re not,” he said indifferently. “I never bother about
the money side. You’re such a clever old bird, Dick, that I’m spared
that. By heavens, I don’t know where I should be if it wasn’t for you.
Do you get all you want yourself, Dicky?”
Dick Alford nodded.
“A nice girl,” his brother went on, “and, as I say, a sensible girl. I
wish you’d get her over to dinner one night; there are several things
I want to talk about to Arthur. There’s the Doncaster estate, for
example. I had a letter from somebody the other day, saying that they
were willing to pay a very big price for Creethorpes. I don’t see any
reason in the world why we shouldn’t sell.”
“But I do,” said Dick, puffing slowly at his pipe. “I also have had
the offer, and when I get one that approximates to my eyes as being
near the Creethorpes value, we may sell. But the price that has been
offered is ludicrous.”
“A hundred and twenty thousand pounds?” murmured Lord Chelford,
shaking his head disparagingly. “I don’t see how you can improve on
that, Dick.”
“We can try,” said Dick.
His eyes were roaming the desk, and after a while he saw a book which
was seldom far away from his brother’s hand, and, getting up, he
reached over and took it, Chelford watching with a triumphant smile.
“It’s got you, has it, old man?” he asked. “I thought it would sooner
or later. You’re too sensible to dismiss the Chelford treasure as a
myth.”
Dick turned the old pages covered with pale writing: the diary of that
lord of Chelford who had suffered for his disloyalty at the hands of
the common headman.
The idea had come to him in the middle of the previous night, and all
that day the old diary had come in and out of his mind at odd and
incongruous moments. Whilst it was not true that he had been won over
to his brother’s faith in the existence of the treasure, his curiosity
had been piqued by a vague recollection of one line in the diary. He
turned it up now and read:
These ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be
dry and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand.…
“I am only wondering,” he said, as he handed back the book, “what
effect the drought had upon the hiding place; why rain would have
spoilt his plan, as apparently it would.”
“Ha-ha!” said his lordship, almost boisterously. “The poison is
working, Richard! You will become as ardent a treasure-hunter as I.
Shall I tell you where the gold was hidden?” He leaned forward, his
elbows on the table, his eyes gleaming. “In a cave, or an underground
chamber of some kind. There are three references in this diary to a
chesil.” He turned the pages rapidly. “Listen, here is one,” he said,
and read:
“This day Tom Goodman brought me the chesil from Brighthelmstone.…”
“Which is Brighton, I presume?” asked Dick.
His brother nodded, turning the pages.
“Here is another reference,” he said.
“The new chesil has come. I have left it near the place and those dull
wights who see it will know little of its value to me.”
Dick smiled.
“It must have been something remarkable in the way of chesils,” he
said. “It doesn’t mention its size or its shape?”
“Nowhere; I have searched the diary for that.”
There came a tap at the door; it was Thomas.
“Will you have your coffee here, sir?”
“No, put it in my room.”
“Are you working to-night, Dick?” asked Chelford.
“After you’ve gone to bed, Harry,” said Dick, with a laugh, “and I
think it is about time you went. One of these days you’ll have a
breakdown and I’ll have to call in your pet abomination.”
“Ugh!” shivered Chelford. “Never bring a doctor into this house--I
loathe them!”
He got up, stretched himself with a yawn, and Dick followed him out of
the room.
“I shall sleep well to-night,” said his lordship, pushing back his
long black hair with a characteristic gesture. “If I’d only known of
that stuff before!”
“What stuff is this?” asked Dick good-humouredly.
Never a day passed that some new patent medicine did not come into the
house, some cure-all, accompanied by pages of closely printed
literature. Lord Chelford’s patent-medicine habit was a vicious
circle. The literature of one cure-all revealed symptoms of which he
had never been conscious before. No sooner had he settled upon a
miraculous nostrum than it was superseded by one even more dazzling in
its promises.
Dick followed him up the stairs into the long room where he spent the
few hours he could tear himself away from his library. A four-poster
bed, an old dressing chest, a deep closet in which his scanty wardrobe
hung, and a very long table, the surface of which was literally
covered with bottles and small boxes, comprised the furniture of his
room, with the exception of a battered armchair before the fireplace.
There must have been more than a hundred boxes and packages on the
table. Some of these came in consequence of standing orders given
years before and never countermanded: these had never been opened.
There were cures for asthma, for bronchitis, for rheumatism,
marvellous liniments, amazing sleep-inducers, nerve tonics--every
disease to which the human system is liable had its antidote in that
collection.
By the side of his bed on a small table was a jug of hot water and a
glass. Chelford opened a tin chosen from the medley of bottles and
boxes, took out two small white pellets and dropped them into a glass,
covering them with water. He stirred them till they were dissolved,
Dick watching, half amused, half pitiful.
“Ah!” Chelford put down the glass. “That’s the stuff! No drugs,
Dick--just a mixture of natural elements that bring rest to the tired
brain and sleep to weary eyes!”
“I guess you’re quoting the label,” said Dick, with a laugh. “Even
cocaine is a natural element. And there’s nothing nearer to nature
than morphia. You’re an old goop, Harry, and if I had my way I’d take
all these infernal bottles and dump them into the round pond.”
“I should probably be dead in a month,” said Harry with a smile, as he
began to undress, “and you’d have to stand your trial for wilful
murder!”
Dick closed the door behind him, waited till he heard the bolt shot
home, then went downstairs to his own room. His coffee was waiting and
he began his three-hour task: the opening and answering of letters,
the examination of leaflets and the inspection of bills. There were
checks to be signed, envelopes to be addressed, and it was nearly
three o’clock before he rose stiffly, and, pushing open the door of
the French windows, walked out upon the lawn.
XXI
There was a sign of dawn in the sky. The air was sweet and pure and
he drew great breaths of nature’s champagne before he lit his pipe and
strolled noiselessly along the lawn, keeping parallel with the face of
the house.
He had never felt less sleepy, and he was debating in his mind whether
he should take a cold bath and go on with some work that he had left
unfinished on the previous day, when he saw, only for a second, a pin
point of light in the distance. It was a white, star-like flicker that
dawned and disappeared almost instantly.
“If that isn’t a flash lamp I’m a Dutchman,” he muttered, went back
into his room, and, taking down a shotgun, slipped a handful of
cartridges into the pocket of his dinner jacket.
There had been a number of poaching affrays in the neighbourhood, and
the unknown poachers were a desperate gang who had never hesitated to
shoot. Dick felt it best to be on the safe side, and, with the gun
under his arm and two shells rammed home into the breech, he strolled
across to where he had seen the light.
It is a fact that Dick Alford had no constitutional objection to
poachers. His views on the subject had shocked many a hoary-headed
country justice, for Dick held to the line that it was pardonable for
any man to “shoot for the cooking pot,” and to him poaching was a mild
joke.
The house and surrounding trees obstructed his view, but a
five-minutes’ walk brought him through a thin plantation to the Priory
fields. Now he saw, unless his judgment was at fault, that the light
must have come from the direction of the Abbey ruins. He stood for ten
minutes in the shadow of a wood, but no light showed. And then, as his
foot was raised to walk forward, he saw it again--just a momentary
flicker, and this time there was no doubt that it came from the Abbey.
No intelligent poacher would waste five minutes on that part of the
estate, though there were trout in the Ravensrill, and the burrows of
a few hares in its banks.
He moved forward steadily up the slope of the Mound and soon he could
distinguish the chaos of stone and crumbling walls. The intruder was
no expert burglar, for again the light flickered. Was it Gilder, he
wondered, as he followed the course of the little river. Had that
sinister man returned to admire the view of the Abbey by moonlight?
The east was turning gray; the cold morning wind had freshened; but
though he wore only a thin dinner suit, Dick did not feel the cold.
Stealthily he climbed to the top of the Mound, pausing to take
observation.
Again the light, this time not fifty yards away, and he could make out
the figure of a man moving slowly amidst the broken walls. He was
searching the ground diligently.
“Lost anything?” asked Dick.
The visitor spun round with a startled cry.
“Hullo! Who are you?” he asked hoarsely, and Dick recognized the
voice.
It was Arthur Gwyn!
A painful and embarrassing moment for Arthur Gwyn!
“Hullo!” he said awkwardly. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Were you looking for an opiate?” asked Dick politely. “You should
have come up to the house; my brother has a small drug store, and we
might have been able to find you something for your insomnia.”
“Don’t be amusing,” growled Arthur, thrown off his balance. “What I
meant was, I couldn’t sleep so I came out for a walk. This place
interests me.”
“I never knew you were an archæologist before, and a midnight
archæologist at that! The country simply swarms with ’em!” said the
ironical young man. “Or perhaps you’re a moth hunter? Or did you come
out to hear the nightingale? It’s rather late in the season.”
“See here, Alford, I don’t want you to get funny at my expense. I tell
you I came out for a walk. You’re not going to suggest I’m
trespassing, are you? If it comes to that, what are _you_ doing here?”
He heard Dick chuckle and went hot under the collar.
“I am attached to the estate: I thought you knew that,” said Dick at
last; “and one of my jobs is to challenge suspicious-looking
individuals at whatever hour they show themselves or their flash
lamps.”
“Oh, you saw the light, did you? I thought somebody would.” Arthur was
himself again. “The truth is, Dick, I had a horrible dream that woke
me up. I dreamt I saw that wretched Black Abbot, and the dream was so
vivid that I resolved to come along and have a look at the place. It
was on the edge of the cutting that he was last seen.”
“Oh, a ghost-hunter!” murmured Dick. “That of course explains
everything. You came armed, I see? Very wise!”
Arthur had been praying that this objectionable man would not notice
the steel crowbar he carried, but the eyes of the other were
peculiarly sharp, and there was just enough dawn light to reveal the
nature of the instrument he carried.
“You didn’t see the Black Abbot, I suppose?” said Dick, in his polite
conversational way. “No? I shouldn’t imagine you would. It’s rather
late for him. Our family ghosts keep early hours. They are a
respectable lot, and the Abbot, as you probably know, was a highly
respectable and even a religious man, though not, I believe, untouched
by the horrid voice of scandal.”
He was walking by Arthur’s side to the cut road as he spoke, and the
light was not good enough for him to see the dull flush that came to
that good-looking man’s face, but he could guess it.
“I don’t want to quarrel with you, Alford, but I have the greatest
objection to your being sarcastic at my expense. I don’t know why I
should explain anything to you, but you’ve been a good friend of mine
to-night and I’m telling you the truth. And really, it’s hardly
playing the game to doubt my word.”
Dick said nothing to this, but poised himself watchfully on the edge
of the cut, until the ruffled man had disappeared from sight. What was
the meaning of all this? he wondered. What attraction had the Abbey
ruins for these strangely assorted people? First Mary Wenner, then
Gilder, and now Arthur Gwyn. What was there about these ancient stones
which would bring the fastidious lawyer from his bed to make an
early-morning search? He knew Arthur rather well, much better in fact
than he guessed. He hated discomfort of all sorts, but here he was, at
four o’clock in the morning, absurdly but suitably attired in a golf
suit of irreproachable pattern, a crowbar in one hand and an electric
torch in the other, turning over the rubbish of the Abbey and
seeking--what? The treasure!
Not till that moment did the solution flash upon Dick Alford, and he
was so overcome that he sat down on the nearest sandstone block and
laughed till the tears came into his eyes.
The treasure! Harry had infected these prosaic people with his
obsession. But how? Obviously, Mary Wenner was the connecting link.
There was a time, he remembered, when she was an enthusiastic seconder
to Harry’s efforts, and believed as implicitly in the existence of
this mythical gold as did her employer. Arthur was a friend of hers:
he had heard them “Arthur” and “Mary” each other; and, through Arthur,
Gilder must have come into the knowledge. So that was the explanation!
And the Chelford treasure was obviously the windfall that Arthur Gwyn
expected.
He was smiling to himself all the way back to the house, until a
thought came into his mind that turned the joke of it. Suppose they
were right and he was wrong? Suppose there was a treasure to be found?
No sooner did the thought occur than he had laughed it out of his
mind. These people merely reflected Harry’s enthusiasm and faith.
He fastened the door of his study and went up to the room that
overlooked the gardens of Fossaway Manor. Immediately opposite his
door was a narrow passageway ending in stairs, as narrow, that led to
the servants’ quarters. As his step sounded on the grand stairway, a
shadowy figure that had been prowling about the corridor slipped into
the narrow entrance and crouched down. Thomas, the footman, saw Dick
go into his room and close the door, and he breathed more freely. He
waited, but he could hear no movement.
Silence reigned in Fossaway Manor. No sound came from the world
outside. In five minutes Dick was lying in a profound slumber. He had
drawn down the blinds that the light should not break his rest, and
the room was in almost complete darkness.
* * *
Ordinarily he would have heard a sound, the sound of the floor boards
creaking outside his door, and would have been awake instantly. Twice
the planks creaked under a heavy weight, but he did not stir. And then
the handle of his door turned slowly and the door itself moved the
fraction of an inch. The thing outside listened, showing its white
teeth in a grin. The sound of Dick Alford’s regular breathing came out
to him and he pushed the door open a little farther, and, crouching,
moved stealthily toward the bed, feeling for the brass rail at the
foot.
Not a sound came from the intruder, and yet he was shaking with
laughter. He fumbled in his pocket and took out a long-bladed clasp
knife and opened it carefully, testing the edge with his thumb. Then,
slowly, his long fingers went out to locate the position of the body.
The Angel of Death hovered in that second above the sleeping man.
From the hall below came a woman’s voice--distraught--beside herself
with fear.
“Dick--Dick, for God’s sake!”
Dick turned uneasily in his sleep and half opened his eyes.
XXII
“Dick!”
It was a girl’s voice, sharp with fear, that came from the hall below.
“Dick!”
The thing with the knife dropped the weapon and, cringing back toward
the door, hesitated a second, and slipped out.
“Dick!”
Again the voice, and Dick woke. Was he dreaming? Slipping out of bed,
he threw open the door and walked on to the landing.
“Who’s calling?” he asked, husky with sleep.
“It is I--Leslie! Dick, I want you.”
He went back to his bedroom, pulled a dressing gown from a hook and
raced down the stairs, dressing as he went. She was standing in the
gloom of the hall, a slim figure. She had no hat; her bare feet were
thrust into slippers, and she wore an overcoat over what was evidently
a hastily assumed skirt.
“What is the matter, dear?”
He pushed open the door of his study and led her in. She was trembling
from head to foot.
“I don’t know. Something dreadful has happened,” she gasped. “I
thought my car would wake you--didn’t you hear it?”
“Something dreadful has happened? What?” he asked quickly.
“I don’t know. I suppose I’ve got everything out of proportion--I saw
Arthur fighting with a man on the lawn. It was dreadful. I thought I
must have been mistaken and went to his room, but the bed was empty
and had not been slept in. By the time I could get downstairs on to
the lawn, they had disappeared. Oh, Dick, what can have happened?”
“Fighting?” He was incredulous. “I saw Arthur--I don’t know how long
ago; it may have been an hour or two. I don’t know how long I’ve been
sleeping.”
It was daylight now; the clock over the mantelpiece showed it to be a
quarter past five.
“Just wait a moment. I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
He ran up the stairs and in five minutes rejoined her, dressed, and,
lifting her into the car, he sent the little machine flying down the
drive.
“How did you get into the house?”
“I came through your study. I rang the bell at the door, but nobody
answered me. And then I tried your French windows and they were open.”
“I’m always forgetting to lock them. I’m glad I did. And they will
never be locked in the future,” said Dick. “Now, just tell me what
happened?”
She told her story coherently. Her very association with this man had
restored her failing courage. And as she grew calmer, she became
penitent.
“What a scare cat you will think I am!” she said ruefully. “I don’t
know what time it was--about half an hour ago, I think--but I was
sleeping when I heard voices. I went to the window and looked out. It
was still rather dark; there are an awful lot of trees before the
house, but I could see two men, and I wouldn’t have known one of them
was Arthur, only I heard him speaking angrily.”
“Did you hear anything he said?”
“No, they were too far away. They were near the laurels that hide the
house from the road. And then I saw Arthur strike the man, and they
began to struggle, and that is all I saw. By the time I’d got
downstairs they had disappeared.”
“But you say you saw him? How could you?”
Dick gave a version of his encounter with the lawyer that was more
flattering to Arthur than was deserved.
“But that couldn’t be true!” she said, in perplexity. “He hadn’t been
to bed at all. What is the meaning of it, Dick?”
“The Lord knows!” said Dick piously. “I wish my friend Puttler were
here.”
The car ran through the cutting and took the long, straight road to
Willow House, they were turning into the drive when Dick saw a man
walking in front of him.
“There’s your Arthur,” he said, and she uttered a little cry of
thankfulness.
It was Arthur with a difference. His nose had been bleeding, his eye
was slightly discoloured. In other circumstances Dick would have
laughed, but the girl was so concerned with her brother’s injuries
that it would have been brutal even to find anything amusing in the
discomfiture of this dandified young lawyer.
“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “I met a poacher and had a slight
argument with him.”
The knees of his new golfing knickers were soiled and torn; the
knuckles of his hand were red and bleeding. Dick felt that it was not
the moment to ask him questions, and followed the brother and sister
into the house, an interested and cautious observer of events.
The servants had been roused and one of them brought some coffee, and
Dick, who had been half dead from sleepiness, accepted the steaming
cup gratefully.
“What _do_ you think has happened, Dick?” she asked, when Arthur had
gone up to his room to treat his injuries, having refused all the
assistance she offered.
“I think he has told us what has happened. He had trouble with a
poacher. In other words, he had a vulgar fight. It is one of those
distressing happenings that the best of men cannot always avoid.”
She shot a suspicious glance at him.
“You don’t mean that, Dick. And it couldn’t have been a poacher. I’m
perfectly sure it was Mr. Gilder.”
Dick was not prepared to contest this point of view. The probability
of Arthur’s assailant being his head clerk was one that had occurred
to him. But why should Gilder be in the vicinity of Willow House at
that hour of the morning? At a suitable opportunity he would ask
Arthur Gwyn for the truth.
He was conscious that she was looking at him, and, meeting her eyes,
he saw something that made him catch his breath.
“What shall I ever do without you?” she asked, with a gesture of
helplessness. “I run to you crying every time I am hurt, and you
appear by magic whenever I’m in trouble! Dick, one of these days I’m
going to be a disgrace to my sex!”
“I hope not, Leslie,” he smiled. “What particularly outrageous thing
have you in mind?”
She nodded wisely.
“You will see,” she said. “I also can be mysterious!”
He declined the loan of her car and returned on foot to the house.
Unless Harry’s sleeping draught had taken effect, he would have heard
the car, for his room faced the drive. But no sound came from the
King’s Chamber, as his sleeping apartment was magniloquently termed,
and Dick went to his room and took off his clothes.
He was getting into bed when his foot touched something hard and
shiny, and, stooping, he picked it up.
“Moses!” said Dick under his breath, and switched on the light.
The knife was a new one, its edge razor-sharp. He turned it over and
over in his hand and frowned. Then, walking to the door, he locked it;
and Dick did not usually sleep behind a locked door. But he realized
that the twenty-four hours through which he was passing were pregnant
with unpleasant possibilities.
XXIII
The office of Gwyn & Gwyn was thrown into some disorder the next
morning by a most unexpected occurrence. Mr. Fabrian Gilder, for the
first time in his twenty-five years’ association with the business,
did not put in an appearance. Instead, came a note to the senior
clerk, asking that a certain drawer in his desk should be opened and
the contents thereof sent by special messenger to Mr. Gilder’s house
in Regent’s Park. There was a postscript to the note.
It is unlikely that I shall return to the business. I have handed my
resignation to Mr. Gwyn, and intend to devote my time to the
development of my private affairs.
A wire from Arthur Gwyn appointed the senior clerk to take the place
of the retired Gilder: an arrangement not altogether to the
satisfaction of the senior clerk, for there were unpleasant
whisperings about Gwyn & Gwyn, hints of dire developments to come that
made the older members of the staff quake in their shoes.
Arthur did not appear that day, nor the next, and the mystery of
Gilder’s resignation remained unsolved, for the confidential messenger
who carried his papers to his flat, and who expected to hear from him
the reason for his sudden departure, was not admitted. Mr. Gilder was
in bed; he had come up from the country early in the morning and had
met with a slight accident whilst getting out of his car. Apparently
he had remained awake long enough to write his letter to the office,
but was now sleeping, so the servant said. And she spoke the truth,
though he did not sleep as soundly as he might have done had his lips
not been cut and his shoulder slightly strained. You cannot indulge in
fisticuffs in the uncertain light of dawn without incurring a certain
amount of damage.
Curiosity was not the besetting vice of Dick Alford; even if it had
been, he would not have spared the time to make a call at Gwyn &
Gwyn’s to discover the extent of Mr. Gilder’s damage. He had his bath
and shaved just before lunch, and came downstairs to find that the
noon train had brought him a visitor.
Sergeant Puttler he recognized, though he had never seen him before,
from the description that his friend had sent him. He was a tall,
gaunt man of forty. The tired-looking brown eyes that gazed with
gentle melancholy from their deep sockets reminded him of a sick and
sorrowful chimpanzee he had once seen. His forehead was low, his upper
lip long, and his arms reached almost to his knees. These features,
added to a constitutional stoop, contributed to his unprepossessing
appearance. Poor Mr. Puttler was not unaware of the simian mould in
which his frame was cast, and it was, apparently, a matter which
alternately depressed and pleased him.
“Well, sir, how do you like me?” he said without a smile, though there
was a twinkle of malicious joy in his brown eyes. “I’ve known people
to faint the first time they’ve seen me, especially romantical
people.”
“I sha’n’t faint,” smiled Dick, “possibly because I’m not romantical.”
The footman came in at that moment, and evidently romance tinged his
soul, for at the sight of the strange, long-armed man he visibly
staggered and blinked.
“Take Mr. Puttler up to his room. Afterward, Puttler, come and dine
and I have something to tell you.”
The dazed Thomas led the way up the stairs to a room next door to that
occupied by Dick. The housekeeper had been warned of his coming and
the room was ready. He deposited his suitcase and took stock of his
rather handsome surroundings.
“Is there anything further I can do, sir?” asked Thomas.
Sergeant Puttler blinked at him.
“Nothing, thank you.” And, as Thomas was going: “What do you call
yourself now?”
“Me, sir--my name is Thomas Luck.”
Puttler shook his head sadly.
“Thomas Bad Luck,” he said: “William Hard Lines or Henry Too Bad. Does
your master know that your name is Sleisser and that you’ve done a
stretch in Dartmoor?”
“No,” said the man sullenly.
“He will, Thomas--he will,” said the detective gently, and with murder
in his eyes the footman slunk out of the room.
Mr. Puttler came downstairs purring with satisfaction.
“Are you sure that is my room, Mr. Alford?” he asked. “Not expecting
the Prince of Wales, are you? I’ve always been ambitious to sleep in a
four-poster bed.… Now, Mr. Alford.”
“First of all, I must introduce you to my brother. By the way, he is
rather of a nervous disposition, and I’ve told him that you’re a
member of an accountancy firm who has come down to help me with my
books.”
Mr. Puttler expressed his agreement with this mild form of deception.
He was taken to the big library and formally introduced. Harry
Chelford was so used to the advent of Dick’s extraordinary guests that
he saw nothing unusual in the appearance of the simian Puttler.
Happily, he was near-sighted, and though it was a startling experience
to find himself shaking hands across a very broad desk, which an
ordinary man could not have spanned, he did not realize the cause of
the phenomenon.
Dick entertained accountants, land agents, an occasional bailiff or
two, so that there was no novelty in the invitation. Learned-looking
strangers came to his table from time to time and were introduced and
passed out of his mind.
“He will be staying six weeks,” Dick had told him, “and you mustn’t
object to his prowling round the place, because I want to get a true
valuation of the estate, and he has his own peculiar methods.”
“You might get him to price the Black Abbot,” said Harry, half dourly,
half amused. “What we want, Dick, is not so much a valuer as a good
policeman.”
Dick Alford thought that the coming guest might fulfil both functions,
but he did not say so.
He ushered his visitor back to his own little office, carefully closed
the door and sat down at his desk.
“Now, make yourself comfortable. Do you smoke?”
Mr. Puttler fumbled in his pocket and produced a black pipe.
“It’s not very aristocratic,” he apologized, “but I prefer ’bacca to
cigars and cigarettes.”
“I’ll join you,” said Dick.
His study had two doors: one that opened into the hall and one into a
side corridor running back to the housekeeper’s room. The two men had
been talking for ten minutes, though, as far as Mr. Puttler was
concerned, his contribution to the discourse was limited to an
occasional question, when Thomas came noiselessly down the side
corridor, peeped into the hall, and walked back to the study door.
There was a look of apprehension upon his lean and shapeless face
which was not without cause. Stooping, he put his eye to the keyhole.
He could just see the end of the settee and the head and shoulders of
the strange visitor. He was holding something in his hand--a
white-handled knife, and was examining it with curiosity. Thomas bent
his head and pressed his ear against the hole.
Dick’s back was to the door and he was speaking in a lower tone than
usual, and this reacted to the disadvantage of the eavesdropper, for
only a few distinct and intelligible sentences came to him.
“… might have been somebody admitted to the house by one of the
servants,” was the first thing he heard. A few minutes later, Mr.
Puttler, whose voice was distinct, asked: “Was the window in the
library open?” And he heard Dick say, “Yes,” and add something which
he could not catch.
The soles and heels of Thomas’s boots were of rubber. He passed into
the hall and made another reconnaissance, then returned to his
listening post, in time to hear Dick say:
“My brother hasn’t an enemy in the world.… I am afraid I can’t say the
same.…”
Once the listener caught the word “treasure” and once he heard the
name of “Arthur Gwyn,” but in what association he could not learn.
Again Thomas visited the hall. He could not take the risk of being
seen listening at the door. He was free from observation so far as he
knew. The old Chelford butler was in the servants’ hall. Dick and his
brother did not lunch till two, an unholy hour from the point of view
of servants, but very suitable for Dick and his peculiar occupation.
He squinted through the keyhole again. The detective still had the
knife in his hand and was looking at it intently. He heard him say,
“This is new,” and then Dick entered upon a long and apparently
explanatory statement, not a word of which came to the disgusted man
who was listening. He was most anxious to hear some reference to
himself, but, if it was made, he did not overhear his name.
Soon after, however, a familiar phrase caught his ear. Dick Alford was
talking about the Black Abbot, and he heard rather a sketchy
description of that spook. Then his voice dropped again, and
coincident with this Thomas heard the stately footsteps of the butler,
slipped back to the housekeeper’s room, and was busy in the pantry
when the stout Mr. Glover found him.
XXIV
The luncheon was not a genial meal. Harry had acquired the
disgraceful habit of bringing a book to his meals, and he was utterly
absorbed in the volume and left Dick and his visitor to carry on a
conversation as though he were not present.
Mr. Puttler, who was a man of wide experience, was neither embarrassed
by his magnificent surroundings--for Lord Chelford lived in a princely
style, three footmen and a butler waiting upon them--nor did he feel
it necessary to live up to the state in which he found himself. He was
altogether unaffected, had a fund of anecdotes, and could tell funny
stories without apparently enjoying them himself, which is the art of
amusement. Only once did Dick interrupt his brother’s reading.
“Leslie is coming to tea,” he said. “She ’phoned over just before
lunch.”
Harry Chelford looked up and his face fell.
“That is very unfortunate,” he said. “I had promised myself an
uninterrupted afternoon with Fra Hickler. I’ve just had a facsimile
edition sent to me from Leipzig. Hickler, you remember, Dick, was a
cloistered monk in the days of Elizabeth, our abbey being one of the
few that was not interfered with by Henry the Eighth or by Elizabeth
either; partly, I think, because our particular order of monks were
antagonistic to the Jesuits.…”
Dick listened patiently, and when his brother had exhausted the
history of the Black Fathers of Chelfordbury--
“You’ll have to be civil and come to tea, and after that I’ve no doubt
Leslie will not object to your going back to Fra Hickler, who was a
German, I presume?”
“He was a German,” said Harry gravely. “And the circumstances which
brought him to Chelfordbury were rather peculiar.”
“The best German I ever read about”--it was Mr. Puttler who
interrupted--“was Robinson Crusoe.”
Dick thought it was a crude jest on the part of his guest, but, if it
was so, Mr. Puttler was unconscious of his humour. Harry stared at the
“accountant.” He took such statements as these very seriously indeed.
“I am not well acquainted with Robinson Crusoe,” he said, “but surely
you are wrong in saying that he was a German? I have always regarded
such characters as typically English.”
“He was a German,” said Mr. Puttler firmly, “though few people are
aware of the fact. If you look at the first page of the story you’ll
see these words: ‘My father was a merchant of Bremen,’ and Bremen’s in
Germany, or I’m a Dutchman. And if his father was a German, he was a
German, because there was no such thing as naturalization in those
days.”
Having dropped his literary thunderbolt, Puttler was prepared to take
up the subject which Dick had interrupted by his question.
“The trouble with church music, Mr. Alford, is that it’s a little too
sugary. It appeals to the senses. I’ve had many an argument with my
brother churchwardens----”
“Are you a churchwarden?” asked Dick, in surprise.
Again the gleam of laughter in the man’s deep-set eyes.
“It’s hard to believe,” he said modestly, “but I am.”
Soon after this, Harry left the table, and was gone five minutes when
he returned with a fat volume under his arm.
“You’re right, Mr.----”
“Puttler,” suggested Dick.
“You’re right about Robinson Crusoe. What an extraordinary fact, to
think that one has lived all one’s life under such a mistaken
impression!”
This evidence of literary skill on the part of the visitor brought a
remarkable change in Harry’s attitude. Before, Puttler might have had
no existence. He was one with the milkman, the grocer, and the village
postman.
He took Puttler affectionately by the arm and led him into the
library, and there Dick left them, knowing exactly the course of
instruction that Mr. Puttler would receive; for Harry’s first act was
to unlock his desk and take out the Diary. He was relieved to have
Puttler off his hands for an hour or two. Dick that day was
experiencing a sense of unbelievable relief. A great burden had been
lifted from his shoulders, and one of his more pressing and secret
troubles had been half dissipated.
He ran halfway down the drive to meet Leslie’s car, and leapt on the
running-board while the car was moving.
“Practising for a tram-conductor,” he said cheerily. “I’ve decided on
my profession, when you arrive at Fossaway Manor, mistress of all
these demesnes.”
“When will that be, Dick?” she asked, looking steadily ahead.
“Never, I hope.”
In his lightness of heart he had not kept that usual guard on his
tongue, and the words were out before he could stop them. Twice he had
been taken off his guard, and he would have given anything to unsay
his words.
Apparently she did not attach any great significance to them, for she
did not turn her head, sending the car spinning to the broad gravelled
place before the old porch. He jumped down when she stopped the
machine and helped her alight.
“I have to prepare you for a curious bird,” he said, and described Mr.
Puttler with more truth than flattery.
“What is he, Dick?”
“He’s an accountant,” said Dick glibly. “He’s also quite an amusing
fellow and full of weird information. I’m going to try a little on
you. Do you know that Robinson Crusoe was a German?”
“Why, of course, his father lived in Bremen,” she said, and he was
still laughing when he took her into the library.
In the presence of his fiancée Lord Chelford exhibited a nervousness
and a _gaucherie_ which might have been understandable if he were
meeting her for the first time. He had never quite overcome the
novelty of his engagement, and his attitude toward her was one of awe
rather than of reverence.
“How do you do, Leslie?”
He had never kissed her in his life; now he held her hand for a
fraction of a second and dropped it as though it burnt him.
“Do you know Mr. Tuttler?”
“Puttler,” said the other, and Leslie looked into the melancholy eyes
and read something in them that Dick had missed, and possibly Mr.
Puttler’s closest associate had not seen.
She did not pay him the poor compliment of feeling sorry for him,
though she read in those quick-lighting deeps a craving for woman’s
sympathy which nature, by her cruel handiwork, had repelled in
advance.
“Glad to know you, Miss Gwyn. I know your brother--Mr. Arthur Gwyn,
the solicitor, isn’t it? I thought so.”
“Has Arthur come?” asked Harry.
“No,” said Dick. “We’re going to have tea in the drawing-room. Will
you come along, Harry?”
“Surely, surely,” he said hastily. “You’ll excuse me, dear----” It was
an effort to employ even so banal an expression of affection.
When they reached the beautiful drawing-room, with its windows open to
the terrace, and a riot of gorgeous sulphur chrysanthemums showing
above the stone balustrade, they found they were alone. Mr. Puttler
had melted away as they were passing through the hall. He explained,
afterward, that he wanted to stroll through the gardens, but the girl
knew that the man’s uncanny instinct had told him that, of all the
people in the world, these two were satisfied best with each other’s
company.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I didn’t get up till lunch time,” he said. “And you?”
She shook her head.
“No, I couldn’t sleep. Poor Arthur!”
“Did you try beefsteak?” he asked brutally. “Really, the most
incongruous company I can imagine is a black eye and Arthur Gwyn!”
“He is awfully shaken,” she said seriously. “I have never known him to
be so upset. It _was_ Mr. Gilder.”
“I knew,” said Dick, “or, at least, I guessed. Did you find out the
cause of the quarrel?”
She hesitated.
“I don’t know; I think it was something to do with me.”
“What was Gilder doing at your house?”
“Arthur didn’t tell me,” she replied. “From what he said I gather that
Mr. Gilder had been watching Arthur and had followed him somewhere.”
“To the Abbey ruins--yes, that is quite possible. And of course your
brother objected to that, naturally. Why are they watching each
other?”
“Is Arthur watching Gilder?” she asked in surprise.
“It almost looks like it. Leslie, I want to tell you something that
nobody else knows, not even Harry. It may bring a little ease to your
mind in the dark hours of the night. Puttler is a detective, a
Scotland Yard man.”
She stared at him.
“A detective? Why on earth----?”
“Things have been happening that I don’t very much like,” said Dick.
“I’ve been worried nearly sick about them, and though I’m quite
capable of dealing with most contingencies, the Lord has ordained that
I should take seven hours’ rest in every twenty-four, and there must
be somebody awake when I’m asleep.”
“The Black Abbot--is that what is worrying you?”
He bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Yes and no. Some aspects of the Black Abbot’s activities trouble me
more than I should like to confess. Leslie, do you believe in the
treasure?”
“The Chelford treasure?” she asked, in surprise. “And what do you mean
by believing in it? It is true that the gold was brought to Fossaway
Manor in olden times, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly true,” said Dick, “and perfectly true, I should imagine,
that it was taken away. But do you believe that it has any existence,
that it can be found? Suppose one dug up every square inch of the
park, pulled down this old house of ours, probed into the bowels of
the earth, do you think it is possible that the gold could be found?
Because, if you don’t, there are other people who do besides Harry.”
“Do you believe?” she challenged.
He heaved a deep sigh.
“Heaven knows, I’m ready to believe anything! And I thought I should
never drag down my lofty intelligence to such deeps. But, Leslie, my
dear, I am getting----” He paused for a word.
“Convinced?”
“Not exactly convinced, but shaken in my obstinacy. I’ve become a
doubter of my own scepticism, and that’s the worst mental condition a
man can reach--or almost the worst,” he added.
“Does Harry know you are a convert?” Her fine eyes twinkled with
mischief.
“He suspects me,” said Dick gloomily. “If I thought the money was
here----”
She regarded him steadily.
“Would it make a big difference to you, Dick?” she asked.
“Me personally?” He shook his head. “Lord, no! It would make a
difference to the----” He paused. “To Harry. I was going to say the
estate. The estate, to me, is something distinct from any personality.
It stands for the agglomeration of dead men’s efforts, the cumulative
sum of all their strivings.”
She looked at him for a long time in wonder. She loved him in this
serious mood of his.
“You’ve made rather a fetish of Fossaway Manor and the Chelford
estates, haven’t you?”
“Have I?” He was genuinely surprised. “I wonder…” And then he laughed.
“It isn’t a bad line for a second son to exalt the estates to which he
will never succeed, above the personality of the man who will get it!
It makes him rather superior to the real heir. Put my fetish worship
down to vanity, for the Lord knows I have my share of that.”
“I doubt it,” she said quietly. “Come out on to the terrace. Your
flowers are lovely.”
“‘Everything in the garden----’” he began, but she checked him with a
warning finger.
“If you get banal I shall go in and find Puttler.”
XXV
She leaned on the gray stone balustrade and looked down upon the
wind-stirred tresses of great golden chrysanthemums, each as big as a
large-sized saucer. They were not all gold; there were deep red blooms
and snowy white and flaming orange, and beyond them a huge bed of
late-flowering roses; even from this distance, she could catch the
delicate fragrance of them.
“It’s a beautiful old place,” she said in a hushed voice. “I don’t
wonder that you love it. How long has your family owned this estate,
Dick?”
“Eight hundred years,” he said. “The first of the Chelfords sliced off
the head of the original owner and stole the property. Successive
generations of Chelfords, whose own heads were cut off with monotonous
regularity, enclosed a few thousand acres of common land belonging to
the people--and there you are!”
She laughed softly.
“You have very few illusions, have you?”
“None,” was his curt reply, and somehow the answer hurt her.
They had to send twice for Harry before he put in an appearance, and
he seemed disappointed to find that Puttler was not there.
“That is quite an intelligent fellow, Dick,” he said, delicately
spearing a cucumber sandwich. “He has an extraordinary knowledge of
history, particularly English history. Unfortunately, he doesn’t read
German” [Harry read German as well as he read English, French, or
Italian] “but I have persuaded him to take up the study. Have you
everything you want, Leslie?”
He had helped her to nothing, and was happy to find that her
requirements had been supplied. Only twice he spoke to her: once to
ask about Arthur, and the other time when he made an oblique reference
to his forthcoming marriage.
“Marriage ceremonies and the pomp of them are a little indelicate, I
think. It is a barbarous custom, these veils and bridesmaids and
barbaric orange-blossoms. Now in America I am told that it is quite
the usual thing to be married in a drawing-room. I’m sure that could
be arranged, couldn’t it, Dick? The bishop is quite an obliging old
gentleman.”
“Turn Puttler on him: he’s an authority on church ritual,” said Dick.
“The man is an authority on most things,” said Harry, with
unaccustomed enthusiasm. “He was telling me that possibly there was
some cryptogram in existence which would give a direct clue as to the
treasure.” And then, seeing the half smile on the girl’s face, he gave
one of his rare boyish laughs. “We are still chasing shadows, Leslie,
but it is a very substantial shadow, believe me. Now, Puttler thinks…”
They listened without comment to Puttler’s views, which in this case
were neither informative nor particularly brilliant.
“Puttler’s mind apparently runs to dungeons, and there are dungeons to
this place,” said Harry vigorously. “I am going to have a look round
to-morrow. There are probably secret places under the floor which
might be profitably examined.”
“The dungeons, as you call them, are wine cellars,” said Dick
ominously; “and if Puttler goes fooling around my port there will be
trouble! Besides which, Harry, I don’t suppose there has been a single
ancestor of ours who hasn’t dug up the floor of that unfortunate
dungeon--one of them in the days of the Regency had the walls
stripped, and the beggar never replaced the stone. It cost our father
the best part of a thousand pounds to repair the damage done by this
old gold-hound!”
Dick noticed that whilst Harry was present the girl’s manner was just
a little strained and unreal, and she was nervous, too, started when
she was addressed, and was content to listen without including herself
in the conversation. It was not until Harry had gone, with a lame
apology, back to the library that she became her real self again, and
the old Leslie crept forth from its hiding place. Once, whilst he and
his brother were discussing the affair of the dungeons, she had walked
on to the terrace, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her in
profile, a slim, frail-looking girl, with her delicate face and her
glorious hair, and in the setting she looked almost ethereal. It was
as though some old masterpiece of Botticelli had come to life.
When the door had closed on Harry she came back and sat down with a
little grimace.
“Was it very rude of me to go out? Dicky, I can’t work up any interest
in the things that really fascinate Harry! Whatever will he talk about
when the treasure is found?”
“The treasure? Oh, you mean the gold? He will probably talk about
you.”
She made a little moue.
“I’m too young to be interesting to Harry, three hundred years too
young,” she said. “Now tell me about your detective. I liked what I
saw of him. He is to be your little guardian angel? And, Dick, will he
have a beat--is that the word? Because, if he has, I do hope he’ll
take in Willow House. I’ll even lend him my car.”
“Are you really frightened?”
She thought for a while before she replied.
“I think I am,” she said. “When I was a child the first air raids
fascinated me, the second were interesting, but after the third or
fourth they became--just air raids. And the Black Abbot--well, he’s
very picturesque, Dick, but he’s rather terrifying. Didn’t you tell me
that Harry feared him?”
“He does a little.”
“Why, I wonder?”
“Harry is naturally of a nervous temperament,” said Dick. “People are
born that way, and it is absurd to talk of ‘cowardice’ where they are
concerned. Now I was born without the knowledge of nerves, and I
daresay if you saw me chasing the Black Abbot you would think I was
terribly brave. As a matter of fact, it is simply because I’ve no
imagination.”
“That isn’t true,” she said. “Why do you always belittle yourself?”
“Because I am by nature excessively modest,” he said gravely, and at
that moment they caught sight of Mr. Puttler strolling through the
long lines of rose trees that ran parallel with the eastern wing.
Together they went down the terrace steps and intercepted him.
“It is a lovely place,” said Mr. Puttler, shaking his head in
admiration. “I’ve never seen so many roses together in my life, except
at Covent Garden Market, and they’re not roses, they’re just
merchandise.”
“I’ve told Miss Gwyn that you’re a detective, Puttler.”
Puttler frowned at this.
“You know Miss Gwyn better than I do,” he said good-humouredly.
“Speaking for myself, I find that life is much easier to live if you
keep your mouth shut. Not,” he added hastily, “that I want to be
offensive. That’s only my way of reasoning and my way of talking.
There used to be an officer in our division who rose from the rank of
plain police constable to superintendent by the simple process of
never saying anything to anybody. If he was asked for his opinion on a
matter he used to shake his head and say there was much to be said on
both sides but he had his own private opinion, and even when he was
called into a case he’d say nothing, but listen to what everybody else
said and smile. That smile was worth a thousand a year to him.”
They crossed the rose garden and were strolling across the lawn. Under
a huge elm Mr. Puttler stopped to continue a story which was fated
never to be finished.
“One day the superintendent said to this man, whose name was Carter,
‘Carter,’ he said, ‘I can’t understand----’”
_Crack!_
A bullet snicked past the detective’s face, struck the bole of the
tree, and sent the bark splintering. From a clump of rhododendron
bushes two hundred yards away floated a pale blue cloud.
“Down on your face!” said Dick hoarsely, and dragged the girl to the
ground, only just in time.
_Crack!_
The second bullet struck a little lower. A splinter of bark hummed
past the girl’s ear.
“There’s someone in those bushes who doesn’t like me,” said Mr.
Puttler.
Pulling a long-barrelled Browning from his pocket and bending low, he
sprinted toward the bushes, zigzagging as he ran.
A third shot rang out and the running man pitched forward on his face
and lay still.
XXVI
Dick flew forward to the prostrate figure, and, kneeling by his
side, turned him on his back. His eyelids were working spasmodically,
but there was no sign of injury, except a bruise on the side of his
face which had been caused by his coming violently into contact with
the ground. And then Dick saw the man’s right boot. The sole had been
ripped off and there was a patch of blood showing on the toe of the
sock. At the sound of a rustling skirt Dick turned his head. The girl
was coming toward them.
“Go back behind that tree and don’t move,” he shouted authoritatively,
but for once she did not obey him.
She was rather pale, but there was no other evidence of fear, as she
knelt by his side and began to unfasten the collar of the stricken
man.
“He’s stunned. I don’t think it’s anything worse than that,” said
Dick. “I thought at first he was finished--look at his boot!”
He was pulling it off gingerly and the operation must have hurt a
little, because the detective winced and opened his eyes.
“Hullo! What has happened?” he asked, looking round. “Did that bird
shoot me?”
“I don’t think he’s hurt you very much.” Dick was looking at the foot.
The bullet had ricochetted, cutting a shallow gash on the man’s
instep, but there was no other injury.
“Do you feel fit enough to look after Miss Gwyn?” said Dick.
The detective reached round for the gun he had dropped and humped
himself to his feet. Without another word, Dick raced across the
grass-land to the bushes, and the girl watched him in terror,
expecting every second to hear the fourth and the fatal shot.
After five minutes he emerged from the bushes, holding something in
his hand which he was examining curiously as he walked toward them.
“A Lee-Enfield rifle, army pattern,” he said. “I found these shells.”
He put them into the detective’s hand. Puttler examined the exploded
cartridges carefully.
“You didn’t see him, of course?” he said.
“No, I think he must have got round to the back of the house. The
bushes ran practically from the west wing of Fossaway Manor to the end
of the Mound. He might of course be still hidden in the bushes, but
the probability is that he made his getaway as soon as he saw you
fall,” said Dick. “I think we’d better go inside and I will find you a
pair of shoes, unless you have a spare supply.”
They were halfway to the house when they met Lord Chelford.
“Who was that shooting?” he asked irritably. “Dick, I told you that I
did not want rabbit shooting or any other kind of shooting within half
a mile of the house. It gets on my nerves terribly. Really, I think
you must show a little more consideration.”
The girl had opened her lips to explain when Dick caught her eye, and
with splendid mendacity she invented a hurried but effective excuse.
“My fault, Harry. I saw a stoat, and I hate stoats.”
The fact that none of them carried a rifle was unnoticed by Harry.
“Well, of course…” He was obviously taken back by her championship.
“If that’s the case it can’t be helped. Only in future, Dick, old
boy…”
He walked rapidly back to the house.
“Why shouldn’t he be told?” asked Leslie. Then, realizing the
foolishness of the question, she was all penitence. “There is no
reason why he should be, of course. I was silly to suggest it. But,
Dick, who did such a terrible thing? It couldn’t have been an
accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident: of that I can assure you,” said Mr. Puttler,
nursing his injury. “The first two shots that were fired hit the tree
within three inches of each other. Are you going to notify the local
police, Mr. Alford?”
Dick thought for a moment, then decided against that course, and to
Leslie’s surprise the detective approved.
“I think you’re right,” said Puttler. “Where is the nearest rifle
range?”
“About fifteen miles away,” said Dick sardonically. “You needn’t
follow that line of thought.”
“I’m not following any line of thought,” said the detective. “I’m only
foreseeing possible alibis. I spend my life standing in front of
alibis and waving a red flag.”
Through the tan, Dick’s face was gray. He seemed suddenly to have gone
old, and Leslie looked at him anxiously.
“Dick, at whom were they shooting?”
“I don’t know that they were shooting at anybody,” he said wearily.
“They just loosed off a few rounds to scare us.”
And then he laughed; it was a fierce, hard little laugh, and she
winced at the sound of it.
“I am thinking of Harry and his nerves, and the stoat and every damned
ridiculous---- I beg your pardon, Leslie; I’m afraid I’m getting
rattled.”
She smiled at this.
“Dick, will you say good-bye to Harry for me? I promised my brother I
would come home early. No, really, you need not take me. I’m not at
all afraid of being held up by armed desperadoes!”
“Neither am I,” said Dick, “but I don’t fancy you overmuch as a
driver.”
And in her annoyance at this false accusation she forgot to resist his
escort.
By the time he had returned to the house, Puttler had secured a
dressing for his foot. The injury was so slight that he could resume
his shoes, and pooh-poohed the suggestion that he had better lie up
that night.
“It was a narrow escape,” he said, “but I’m rather glad I got that
bullet, and that it didn’t go where it was intended.”
Dick looked at him steadily.
“For whom was it intended?” he asked.
Without hesitation came the reply:
“For Miss Leslie Gwyn: I thought you knew that.”
Dick could find no answer, but in his heart of hearts he knew that
Puttler was speaking the truth.
XXVII
Mr. Fabrian Gilder, sometime head clerk to the firm of Gwyn & Gwyn,
and now a gentleman of leisure, was in one sense a hard man. He did
not forgive even slight injuries, and in the past had gone a long way
out of his path to get even with those who had the misfortune to
affront him. And Arthur Gwyn had offended beyond hope of forgiveness.
A few days before, Gilder would have thought it a very simple matter
to be revenged upon his enemy; but now the simple process of laying an
information and of preferring a charge of forgery was contingent upon
four bills which were in his possession being repudiated by the man
who was alleged to have backed them.
He could do no more than present those interesting documents, and this
he did through his bank. Dick had already made arrangements for their
redemption. It was not entirely an act of philanthropy on his part,
for he was a business man, and took over from the frankly reluctant
Mr. Gwyn the choice of a number of unsalable shares which Dick
regarded as having a certain value. The bills, which had been renewed
from time to time, were met, and that ended Mr. Gilder’s chance of
carrying his threat into execution.
He was the type of man who thrived on opposition. Though it would be
true to say that he had fallen in love with Leslie Gwyn the first time
he had seen her, which was months before that unpleasant scene at his
flat, his desire for her grew as his chance of winning her receded
farther and farther into the background.
On the night that Dick had found him examining the ruins of the Abbey,
Mr. Gilder had returned to the cut road when he thought the coast was
clear and had discovered yet another in quest of the treasure. He had
witnessed the interview between the two men and had followed Arthur
back to Willow House with no other intention than to offer his help,
for a consideration, in discovering this mythical fortune. For Mr.
Gilder had heard quite enough that day he surprised his employer with
Mary Wenner, to know that somewhere under the Abbey lay either the
fortune or its key. He had overtaken Arthur on the drive, and Arthur
was in an unpleasant mood: hot with the man at the interruption of his
search, smarting under the sting of Dick Alford’s sarcasm.
At first, startled by the unexpected apparition of his head clerk,
Arthur had snarled round on him, and there and then discharged him
from his service and defied him to do his worst. It was Gilder who had
struck the first blow.
When Arthur was in his more unpleasant moods he said things that no
self-respecting man could endure, and the black eye which the lawyer
nursed was an advertisement of his indiscretion.
Gilder might be a bookmaker, but he was not a thief. At least, “thief”
was rather an extravagant description of his duplicity. He went back
to London half crazy with rage, but a day in bed restored his mental
equilibrium and he sat down to plan how best he could frustrate any
plans which his late employer had formed for gaining possession of the
treasure. By this time Gilder, too, was convinced; his last doubts
removed. He had been sceptical as to the treasure’s existence, but he
knew such things had happened, and he had a natural desire to be in
any scheme which produced immediately and without great labour a vast,
undreamed-of sum.
His cut lip healed in a few hours, though it was still swollen, and
toward the evening of the second day after his retirement from the
firm of Gwyn & Gwyn, he dressed himself with great care, and, calling
a taxi, drove to an address he had once scribbled on his white
shirt-cuff.
Mary Wenner occupied a tiny flat, every compartment of which might
have been contained in one large-sized room. It was perched on the top
floor of an apartment house near Baker Street--37, Cranston Mansions.
She enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the Metropolitan Railway and such
shunting operations as are carried out in that busy centre, and she
was as a rule free from callers; for there were no elevators in the
house, and to climb up four steep flights of stairs was something of
an undertaking.