Part 16

“Not at the time I left,” he said. “Unfortunately Leslie was a witness, if not to the murder, to the finding of the first body. The poor little girl was knocked all to pieces. Don’t bother her for a day or two--do you mind?”

He held out his hand and Gilder took the soft, cool palm in his.

“I think we shall get on together, Gwyn.”

“I’m sure we shall,” said Arthur. “Do you mind showing me the way out? Your flat is rather like a box of tricks, and I’m never sure which is a door and which is a cupboard.”

Arthur dispensed with his car. A taxicab took him into the City, and another cab to a small flat in Gray’s Inn where he slept when he was in town. He changed into a plain blue suit, carefully and reluctantly shaved off his moustache, and took from his pocket a pair of newly purchased horn-rimmed pince-nez. Surveying himself in the glass with a certain amount of satisfaction, he sat down and wrote a letter to his sister, then, taking a final survey of the little flat where he had spent many a happy bachelor evening, he locked the door, went out and posted the letter in the Holborn post office.

Another taxicab took him to Croyden aërodrome, where he arrived in the early afternoon. He showed the officer his brand-new passport.

“That’s in order, Mr. Steele,” said the official. “Your taxi is waiting.”

His “taxi” was a sturdy two-seater aëroplane. Five minutes after his arrival he was zooming up to the blue, and was soon a speck in the hazy sky, heading for France, possibly for Genoa, as likely as not, by an Italian liner, for Rio de Janeiro. Everything depended on how Mr. Fabrian Gilder swallowed the pill which Arthur had administered.

XLV

“Burnt,” said Dick, with considerable satisfaction. “The poor brute did some good in his life--Heaven forgive me for speaking ill of him. Where is your Arthur?”

“My Arthur went to town very early,” said Leslie. “There is no news of Harry?”

He shook his head.

“None,” he said.

He looked dreadfully tired and broken, she thought.

“I’m so sorry!”

He took her hand and patted it.

“I wish you would go away somewhere, Leslie,” he said. “Couldn’t you take a long voyage?”

“Why?” she asked.

“I want you out of the way. I don’t exactly know why, but I’m rather worried about you. Get Arthur----”

He stopped. It was quite possible that Arthur would not be a free agent at the end of the week; and, reading his thoughts, she smiled sadly.

“What am I to do about Mr. Gilder?”

“Let him write. He is hardly likely to leave you in peace. But you understand, of course, that until Harry is found there is no danger to your brother. Until he appears, no action can be taken.”

She looked at him pityingly.

“Do you think he is alive?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied shortly. “Puttler doesn’t think so, but I do. We are dragging the Ravensrill to-day, but it is not deep enough to hide--a body.”

He covered his face with his hands.

“I wish I were a million miles away, perched on some solitary star,” he said wearily.

She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.

“You’d be very hot,” she said, with a pathetic attempt at gaiety, “unless I have forgotten all my astronomy.”

He put his arm about her shoulder and hugged her. It was an affectionate brotherly hug, and no more.

“You’ve got to go away, my dear. What about the prosaic Bournemouth? Or the vulgar but wholesome Margate?”

Again she shook her head.

“Or London, which I am told is a health resort?”

“You’re very anxious for me to go really?”

“Very,” he said, with an emphasis that betrayed his concern.

She drew back from him and faced him.

“Dick, will you tell me something without any evasion?”

He nodded.

“Do you think that I am in any personal danger?”

“I am sure of it,” he said. “It would be cruel not to tell you the truth. The shot that was fired the other day was intended for you. It was fired by a man who is as brilliant a shot as any in England, and the height of the bullet mark told us that it was aimed directly at your heart.”

She listened, stupefied, unbelieving.

“But why?” she asked, bewildered. “I have no enemies, Dick; I have wronged nobody. Who could do such a wicked thing?”

“If I told you, you would perhaps be no wiser,” he said. “There is a man in this world who hates you and hates me, and has good reason from his point of view. Now that I’ve told you the truth, will you go?”

She thought awhile.

“I’ll wait until Arthur comes back,” she said, “and ask him to take me to London.”

And with that he was satisfied.

He was leaving the house when Puttler’s cycle swung into the drive.

“Anything wrong?” asked Dick quickly.

“I don’t know. Look at this.”

He took from his pocket a large sheet of foolscap paper; roughly printed in pencil were the words:

Lord Chelford is safe. Don’t search for him, or he will be killed.

The Black Abot.

The word “Abbot” was printed with one “b.” The placard had been found hanging to the twig of a tree, the jagged hole at the top showing where the mystery man had threaded the paper.

“We found it halfway between the ruins and the house,” said Puttler. “Curiously enough, we had only been searching that part of the grounds a quarter of an hour before.”

Dick handed the warning back to him.

“Is that a bad joke or do you believe this paper?” asked Leslie anxiously. “And, Dick, couldn’t I be some help? I know Fossaway Manor so well, and I am sure there must be places where the police haven’t looked. Do you know there are tiny caves in the banks of the Ravensrill?”

“They’ve all been searched, and they’re not big enough to hold a large-sized dog,” said Dick. “If you want to be helpful you can come up to the Manor and put my correspondence in order. I am afraid it has been neglected in these days, and there are a whole lot of bills and things to be entered up.”

He had no real need for her, he thought, but whilst she was in the neighbourhood he was anxious that she should be under his eyes. She may have suspected something of this, but she gratefully accepted the offer.

“Drive up,” he warned her; “keep to the main road and the main drive. Don’t stop for anybody, however well you know them, and take no notice if you hear somebody shout at you.”

In spite of her anxiety she laughed.

“How very alarming that sounds!”

After he had gone she busied herself with the affairs of the house, arranged the dinner for that night, and was on the point of leaving, when somebody rang the front-door bell. She was putting on her hat before the mirror in her bedroom when the maid came up.

“Miss Wenner?” cried Leslie, aghast, and only then did she remember that at Arthur’s request she had written inviting the girl to spend the week-end with them.

Here was a complication she had not foreseen. And yet, in the space between her room and the hall, she had made up her mind, that, if there was one thing she welcomed at this moment, it was the society of a woman.

Mary Wenner was in the hall and greeted her as effusively as if they had been bosom friends, though in truth Leslie scarcely knew the girl.

“My dear, I’m so glad to be back in this lovely old country!” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking, as I was driving past dear old Fossaway Manor, how perfectly peaceful everything is!”

Leslie could have screamed! Peaceful!

“Perhaps it isn’t quite as peaceful as it looks, Miss Wenner,” she said drily.

“Call me Mary,” begged the girl. “I do so dislike formalism and standoffness! It will be so awkward if Arthur calls me by my name and you call me Miss… I mean…?”

“Well, I’ll call you Mary with pleasure,” said Leslie. “I think you know my name?”

“A beautiful name,” said the ecstatic Miss Wenner. “The only thing against it is, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy’s or a girl’s, can you? Don’t you sometimes find that very embarrassing?”

“I’ve never found it so yet,” said the girl, leading the way up to her room.

She waited till Mary had taken off her hat before she gave her news.

“Arthur is in town, but he’ll be back to-night,” she said. “Have you seen the newspapers?”

Miss Wenner shook her head vigorously.

“I never read the newspapers,” she said reprovingly. “They’re always full of lies, and after the way they roasted me over my breach----” She coughed.

For a moment Leslie had a wild idea that the reference was an indelicate one, and then the truth came to her.

“Did you ever have a breach of promise action?” she asked, in astonishment.

Mary was very red, and her embarrassment was painful to witness.

“I did have a little trouble with a young gentleman I went to business with,” she admitted. “I was a mere girl at the time, young and silly as it were, and I must say that I felt that I had to stand up for my rights. A lot of people think it was unladylike, but I say that a girl who is an orphan without parents must look after herself. I got fifty pounds, and it wasn’t worth the trouble and the nuisance.”

There was something about the girl that Leslie liked. Unconsciously she was amusing, but there was a sterling value in her, she thought, and Leslie had an uncanny knowledge of women.

“No, I never read the papers, Miss Gwyn. After being told by the _Daily Megaphone_ that I had a curious mentality--I shall never forget those words--I’ve given up the papers.”

“Then you haven’t heard what has happened at Fossaway Manor?” asked Leslie.

The startled girl listened, her mouth an O of amazement and horror.

“Thomas? Why, I was only talking with him the other day! You don’t think Harry is killed?”

Leslie shook her head.

“I don’t know what to think. Mr. Alford is very confident that he is still alive, and they have just received a strange message which seems to bear that out.”

The girl was shocked, and Leslie could not help feeling that she was hurt, too.

“Harry Chelford was the best fellow in the world,” said Mary quietly. “He was a little irritable and difficult to get on with--you don’t mind me talking about him?”

“No,” said Leslie. “You probably do not know that our engagement was broken off?”

This seemed to be a greater shock still.

“Broken off? I’ll bet that was Dick Alford’s doing----”

“Mr. Alford had nothing to do with it,” said Leslie, and Mary made a rapid reëstimation of Dick Alford’s character, and she was eminently adjustable.

“Dick Alford is not a bad fellow really,” she said diplomatically. “There is a great deal about him that I like. And he is _so_ good-looking!”

She was a shrewd, discerning gamin, who had won through by her ability to adjust her views at a moment’s notice. And in a fraction of a second she had realized that perfect harmony with Arthur Gwyn’s sister could be ensured only if her views on Richard Alford underwent a very thorough reorganization.

“I didn’t get on very well with him; I used to think he was a bit overbearing. But it must have been rather a trial for him, poor fellow!” A pause, and then: “I seem to have come at a pretty bad time, Miss--Leslie. Would you like me to go back to London?”

“Wait,” said her hostess, and, running downstairs, called Dick on the ’phone. He had just returned to the house as she rang.

“Surely,” he said. “Bring her up. I think that would be rather a good idea. And, Leslie, perhaps you would like to stay here the night. Arthur can come along, too--you might leave him a note or wire him.”

The idea was so appealing that she put no obstacles in the way, and returned to carry Dick’s invitation to her guest. Miss Wenner accepted with an alacrity that was almost indelicate.

“I may be able to be of some help,” she said. “I know the ins and outs of that place, and all the nooks and crannies. It is the treasure that’s done it all, Leslie! He was always after that silly Life Water, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t got into bad company.”

“But Harry never went out.”

“Oh, yes, he did,” was the surprising reply. “He often slipped off to London when Mr. Alford was away. And there was something queer about it, because Harry made me promise I would never tell Mr. Richard, as he called him.”

“How often did that happen?” asked Leslie.

“Sometimes once a month, sometimes twice or three times a month. He never went to the front drive; he followed the field path through the cutting, and I used to arrange for a Horsham motor cab to meet him. He used to go from Horsham and come back the same way, and I’ve known him to ring me up before he came back, to ask me if Mr. Richard had returned.”

Leslie wondered if Dick knew this.

“I’ve known him to go as many as three times a week when Mr. Richard was up in Yorkshire, looking after the Doncaster estate,” added Mary, and, virtuously: “I hope I have not let any cats out of the bag: all young men are a bit wild.”

XLVI

The adaptability of Miss Wenner was never more strikingly illustrated than in her greeting of Dick Alford. There was a coyness, a shy friendliness in her glance, which might have deceived an uninitiated spectator into believing that they were old lovers, parted by cruel circumstances and meeting after an absence of years. Dick, weary and heartbroken as he was, found in her the first cause for amusement he had had in twenty-four hours.

He had had rooms prepared for them in the east wing, which was opposite to that in which his own room and Harry’s were situated. There were two small apartments with a connecting door, which he had assigned to Leslie and her guest. The next room had been prepared for Arthur, and was adjoining.

“I’ve moved Puttler to this wing, too,” he explained, “though I don’t suppose the poor fellow will get very much sleep for a night or two.”

After he had shown them the rooms he took his departure, and Leslie followed him along the corridor and overtook him at the head of the stairs.

“There is really nothing I can do, I suppose, Dick?” For she had accepted the story of the disordered accounts as being a plausible excuse on his part to get her to Fossaway Manor.

To her surprise he said, “Yes,” and took her below to the study.

“Here are the estate accounts. I haven’t touched them for three or four days. Do you know anything about figures?”

She nodded wisely.

“Will you start in by checking these wages sheets? You’ll find the books on the shelf, and you will be able to get the hang of my rather simple system.”

He gave her instructions how to deal with the bills that had accumulated, and left her very contented. It was half-an-hour before she remembered that she had left Mary Wenner in her room, and hurried upstairs to apologize. She was to find Mary a very capable assistant, for not only was the girl efficient in her work, but she knew all the domestic mysteries of Fossaway.

The two girls lunched alone, for Dick had sent a message to say that he would not be back in time.

“The place gives me the creeps,” said Mary with a shudder, and her nervousness was not affectation. “The whole thing is frightful! Poor Thomas killed, and Harry taken away heaven knows where---- Oh!” She sprang to her feet, and her face had gone pale. “I know where Harry is,” she said, quivering with excitement. “I know, I know!”

“Where?” asked the wondering Leslie.

The girl ran out of the room into the hall.

“Where is Mr. Alford?” she asked quickly. “I must see him at once.”

“He telephoned from Red Farm,” said Leslie. “Perhaps we can get him.”

She turned the handle of the old-fashioned instrument and gave the Red Farm number.

“Is that you, Dick? How lucky!”

“I expected it was you. Is anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.

“No; Mary Wenner has something she wants to tell you.” She lowered her voice. “She thinks she knows where Harry is hidden.”

There was a silence at the other end.

“She’s not----”

“No, no, no.” With Mary within earshot, it was impossible to assure Dick that the girl was not trying to make a sensation.

“I’ll come over right away,” he said.

They went out to the head of the drive to meet him, and Mary offered her theory.

“I must have been mad not to have told you about this before. I don’t know where my wits have gone,” she said. “After all my treasure-hunting and the horrible experience I had that night with Gilder, and not to think of it now, when I practically came down to show Mr. Gwyn the place--well, I’m surprised at myself!”

Dick listened with growing impatience to this preliminary.

“Where do you think my brother is?”

“Where?” said Miss Wenner triumphantly. “Why, under the Abbey--that’s where. I’ll show you.”

They walked side by side across the meadow, and as they went Miss Wenner related the startling story of her adventures after treasure.

“Of course, I always knew that it didn’t belong to me, even if I found it,” she said virtuously; “but Mr. Gilder was so very pressing that I couldn’t very well refuse him, especially after what he’d written in vanishing ink, though I’ve got the ink back again, as he’ll find out one of these days.”

Leslie listened, scarcely crediting her ears. Yet, unless Mary Wenner had an imagination of a particularly inventive nature, it was hardly likely that she could have made the story up.

Dick examined the great corner-stone of the tower. He stood by, watching curiously, whilst, with a pair of scissors which she took from her bag, the girl pressed back the catch and sent the corner-stone turning noisily on its invisible hinge.

The opening was between twelve and fifteen inches wide. A stout man could never have entered by that way, as Dick pointed out.

“You had better stay here; I’ll go down,” he said.

“You’ll want a light,” warned Mary.

There was a lamp in his pocket. He had spent the morning peering into impossible dark places. In a second he had disappeared down the moss-grown stairs, and Leslie waited with palpitating heart for his reappearance. Presently they heard his voice.

“Come down.”

“Not me,” said Mary hastily. “I’ve been there once, thank you!”

And Leslie went alone guided by the light he showed from step to step.

Now she was standing with him in the vaulted room. He tried first one and then the other of the two doors leading from the antechamber, but neither yielded to his touch. It was pitch dark save for the fan-shaped ray of the lamp. He swept the light along wall and floor, and presently she saw the focus halt upon a broken flagstone.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. He had moved the light to the narrow entrance of the room. “Up you go; there is nothing here but mice and memories. I have always known there were underground vaults in the Abbey. In fact, I think there was a report on them by one of my recent forbears.”

Although he was immediately behind her, his voice seemed to come from a distance. She was walking, and he gave her no help with his lamp, so that she had to feel her way up. Turning her head, she saw that he was ascending the stairs backward, keeping the light covering the stairs below.

“Hurry,” he said tersely, and she stumbled up the remaining steps and emerged into the blessed daylight.

It was some time before he joined them, and when he came out she saw that he was white to the lips.

“What did you see, Dick?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said, and slammed the stone door tight.

Of the little party, only Miss Wenner was unaffected by the atmosphere which Dick Alford brought from that vaulted room.

“… so far as Mr. Gilder said--and I don’t trust the man entirely, as you can well understand, Leslie--there were only pieces of music in lead cylinders--that was the word, ‘cylinders.’ To me they looked rather more like rolls. And this Black Abbot must have cleared them out whilst we had gone. Mr. Gilder _was_ disappointed. In fact, he was quite rude to me over the telephone. I do think a gentleman should keep his temper in all circumstances, don’t you, dear?”

Leslie agreed mechanically.

What had Dick seen? What object was it that showed for a second in the light of his lamp?

Near to the house he made an excuse to them. He had to go back to Red Farm to finish his interview with the obstinate Mr. Leonard; but he did not take his car. He said he would take the short cut, and Leslie thought it was not the moment to question him. She watched him until he disappeared in the fold of the ground. He was heading for the Abbey. The other girl had gone in to finish her lunch, and Leslie hesitated. The thought of his going back to that dark room again filled her with blind panic. She wanted to call out to him and bring him back, but he was out of hearing now, and she obeyed an impulse and went after him.

He was not in sight until she climbed the second of the gentle slopes. Here she stopped; he might resent being overlooked, and she lay down on the grass, watching him. She saw him come to the square tower, pause at the corner, and disappear apparently into space. From such a distance, the effect of his entry was eerie. The entrance was so small that he seemed to melt into the solid stonework. Ten minutes passed, a quarter of an hour, and then a long, interminable wait; she heard the village clock strike two. A lark in the blue was singing his passionate song; over by Red Farm a donkey was braying--a ludicrous accompaniment to what might be stark tragedy.

She was on the point of rising and running across to the ruins, to follow him into the depths, when he appeared again. He came slowly forth, turned and closed the stone door and leaned against it, his head on his arm, a picture of tragic despair.

She stopped and sank down on her knees, the better to escape observation, and presently he walked slowly away, and it was the gait of a broken man.

XLVII

Hurrying back the way she had come, she joined Mary in the study. Puttler she had not seen since the early morning, when he cycled to Willow House to bring the notice he had found.