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The House of Strange Secrets
A DETECTIVE STORY
BY
A. Eric Bayly
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE STRANGE AFFAIR ON THE LONELY MOOR 1
II.--THE MAN THAT DISAPPEARED 9
III.--THE MYSTERY OF THE PADDED FOOTPRINTS 17
IV.--GOOD NEWS AND BAD 28
V.--SELENE'S STORY 33
VI.--THE FIRST ENCOUNTER 39
VII.--THE HAUNTED BARN AND ITS STRANGE INHABITANT 52
VIII.--THE SILENT HOUSE AND THE FOLKS THAT DWELT THERE 58
IX.--THE MAJOR'S MESSAGE AND HOW IT WAS DELIVERED 66
X.--THE AFFAIR OF THE BICYCLE 75
XI.--IN THE LION'S DEN 80
XII.--THE MAJOR REVEALS HIS SECRET 86
XIII.--THE HORRORS OF DURLEY DENE 95
XIV.--THE FIGURE IN THE MOONLIGHT 99
XV.--MAJOR JONES' ERRAND 106
XVI.--THE MAN FROM BURTON'S 116
XVII.--MR. POTTER'S SOLUTION 125
XVIII.--AN ASTOUNDING CONFESSION 130
XIX.--A TRUCE AND A PROMISE 139
XX.--MR. HORNCASTLE, FROM DARTMOOR 145
XXI.--MR. POTTER SHOWS HIS HAND 153
XXII.--WHOSE WAS THE WRITING? 162
XXIII.--THE MYSTERY OF THE MANSE BARN 170
XXIV.--THE FATE OF THE EAVESDROPPER 177
XXV.--IN THE OAK-PANELLED HALL 185
XXVI.--LIGHT IN DARK PLACES 191
XXVII.--THE SQUIRE'S STORY 201
XXVIII.--THE SQUIRE'S STORY (CONTINUED) 205
XXIX.--THE SQUIRE'S STORY (CONTINUED) 215
XXX.--THE SQUIRE'S STORY (CONCLUSION) 224
XXXI.--THE BEGINNING OF THE END 230
XXXII.--THE WIZARD'S MARSH 236
XXXIII.--A MAN FROM THE GRAVE 244
XXXIV.--SOLVING THE MYSTERY 249
XXXV.--THE LAST TWIST IN THE YARN 257
CHAPTER I
THE STRANGE AFFAIR ON THE LONELY MOOR
"Squire Carrington's carriage, this way, please," proclaimed this
magnificent powdered footman wearing the Marquis of Moorland's livery.
His stentorian tones echoing from the porch, over which were suspended
the nobleman's arms, interrupted an edifying conversation between Squire
Carrington's coachman and the individual who presided over another local
dignitary's stables, both of whom, with their carriages, had taken
refuge from the inclement weather beneath the stately ash trees which
were the pride of their noble owner and his gardener (by the way, a far
more important personage).
"Well, good e'ning to yer, Mr. Wilkes," remarked the Carrington
coachman, flicking up his horses; "I'll tell yer some more about the
ole man and 'is hexentricities next time I 'ave the pleasure of renooing
our acquaintance." And wrapping his topcoat round him, so as to shield
his valuable carcase from the drizzling rain, the venerable retainer in
charge of Mr. Harold Carrington's spirited greys turned his horses'
heads and drew up the carriage--a coach of out-of-date pattern--at the
front door, which had been held open for two gentlemen in evening dress
who were effecting an early departure from the annual ball given by the
Marquis to all the neighbouring gentry.
The elder of the two was an extremely tall, cadaverous, and grizzled man
of perhaps sixty years of age. This was Squire Carrington himself, the
owner of the manse, situate in the neighbouring village of Northden;
while his companion was his only son, Laurence, a handsome young fellow
of two-and-twenty, quite as tall as his father, but, unlike Mr.
Carrington, senior, well built and of athletic appearance.
The elder man paused for a moment in the porch.
To the casual observer he would have appeared to be buttoning his glove,
but to the keen eye of Laurence it seemed that the cause of the older
gentleman's sudden stop was to give himself an opportunity of peering
nervously into the night before taking the few steps necessary to reach
the carriage waiting outside. This scrutiny being evidently
satisfactory, Mr. Carrington hurried forward, entered the vehicle, and
ensconced himself in the far corner. Laurence followed, after taking a
glance back at the capacious hall, brilliantly lighted with fairy lamps
and thronged with vivacious ladies and laughing men on their way to or
from the supper rooms.
The front door closed, shutting out the gay scene from the young man's
gaze. The coachman whipped up his horses, and in a moment the carriage
was bowling down the dark avenue, presently emerging into the rain and
the high road beyond.
"Shame to leave so awfully early," muttered Laurence, leaning back on
the comfortable cushions and lighting a cigarette.
"You know my reasons," answered Mr. Carrington. "I--well, I don't like
to have the carriage out too late, and, besides, it's twelve o'clock
already."
"Twelve o'clock, yes; just the best time, dad, you know it is! And why
couldn't I have walked home or got a lift in the Everards' waggonette,
as I suggested? Another of these absurd fears of yours, I suppose. My
dear dad, what on earth would the people say if they learned that you,
a J.P., magistrate, and all the rest of it, were actually frightened
out of your life of burglars?"
"Laurence, you must not speak like that, nor take advantage of my
little--er--weakness." And the old gentleman relapsed into a silence
broken only by the patter of the rain on the carriage windows and the
clatter of the horses' hoofs on the macadam road.
"Nice girl, that Miss Scott!" Laurence remarked, after a long pause;
"not extraordinary pretty, but there's something awfully taking about
her. Did you see her hair? Of course you didn't. But it was something
worth seeing--a mass of golden tresses. I never saw anything like it.
And her smile! I danced five times with her--all waltzes; but I suppose
that was not wrong, eh? She's clever, and no mistake, for a girl her
age. I don't suppose she's more than nineteen."
"Born in 1867, that is twenty-five years old now," mumbled Mr.
Carrington half aloud.
"Twenty-five, Dad! How on earth do you know her age?" exclaimed the
young man in tones of surprise.
"What--what? Did I speak? Oh, nothing. I was just then rather deep in my
thoughts."
"'Pon my word," said Laurence, "I believe you're getting into your
second dotage, Daddy."
The old gentleman did not reply. He seemed too occupied with his own
meditations to take any notice of his son's further remarks either upon
the festivities at the Marquis's house or the young lady who had
attracted him to no small degree, and whose praises he continued to sing
throughout the first part of the eight miles' drive to Northden.
Those who are acquainted with that part of the North Riding of Yorkshire
in which the village mentioned lies will recollect that the road between
Northden and the Marquis of Moorland's seat runs for some little
distance along the east edge of the extensive moor, from which, at a
prehistoric period, some ancestor of the august owner of the
neighbouring country took his title. The Carrington carriage was halfway
across this stretch of heath--the most deserted part of the route--when
the coachman suddenly became aware of the fact that some other vehicle
or person was closely following in his rear. Turning round in his seat,
he glared into the darkness behind, and fancied that he discerned the
figure of a man on horseback riding immediately behind the carriage.
He thought nothing of this, deciding that the fellow-traveller was
either a mounted postman riding home, or some country doctor who had
been called out at a late hour to visit a patient in some distant part
of his large district of practice.
For some reason or other, however, the coachman happened to glance back
again a minute or two later, when he was astounded beyond measure to see
that the supposed man on horseback was a cyclist, and that, with what
the coachman set down as "confounded impidence," he was riding alongside
the coach, and cautiously peering in through the steam-coated window at
the occupants of the carriage!
Now, James Moggin was a servant who had no little respect for the person
of his lord and master (though he did occasionally allude to him in
conversing with particularly intimate acquaintances as the "ole man"),
and this cyclist's action he considered a dastardly outrage upon the
privacy of Mr. Carrington and his son. He therefore drew up suddenly,
and seizing his whip, intended, in his own words, to give the
misdemeanant "a 'elp on 'is way." But though he did not know it, by so
doing he gave the inquisitive cyclist the opportunity he needed.
The dark figure on the machine, pedalling suddenly forward, made his way
in front of the carriage, dismounted lightly, and threw down the cycle
upon the ground in such a way that the horses could not proceed without
stepping upon it. Moggin, perforce, drew up hurriedly, and bent forward
in an endeavour to scrutinise the features of the strange bicyclist. In
the darkness he was unable to perceive more than the mere outline of his
form, but even that was sufficient to cause his feelings of surprise to
give way to a sensation of horror. There was something strange, what he
did not know, about the man who had so suddenly and silently compelled
him to draw up in the dreariest part of the great bare moor. He
shuddered, and noticed that the horses were both trembling.
Meanwhile let us return to the inmates of the carriage.
Laurence had vainly endeavoured to draw his father into conversation,
but the old man seemed so engrossed in his meditations that his son
eventually ceased from lamenting Mr. Carrington's peculiar behaviour,
and gave himself up to the enjoyment of his cigarette and pleasant
thoughts, in which the central figure was none other than Miss Selene
Scott, his newly made acquaintance.
Of a sudden the old man sprang up in his seat, and clutched wildly at
Laurence's arm.
"Good heavens!" he cried in accents demonstrative of mortal dread, "did
you see that face at the window?"
"Don't be absurd, Dad," exclaimed Laurence somewhat angrily, "if you
scream like that, old Moggin will be getting down to see if I'm
murdering you. Gracious me," he added after a pause, "what's the fellow
stopping for?"
The young man did not have to wait long for an answer to his last
question. With startling suddenness the right-hand window of the vehicle
was struck by something outside that could not be seen owing to the
steam. A loud clatter of falling glass ensued, and for a moment a large
jagged hole in the pane yawned at them. Then in this space there
appeared first a hideous-looking dark face, and then, when that portion
of the intruder's anatomy was withdrawn, a long, bony hand gripping a
cocked revolver which was directed precisely at Squire Carrington's
head.
The report of a shot rang out, and almost simultaneously the opposite
window glass smashed amid a terrific din. Through the smoke that filled
the carriage Laurence turned and looked at his father. With a low moan,
the Squire had flung up his hands and fallen forward senseless upon the
floor!