Part 18

Neither man spoke until they were back in the little study, and then Puttler looked gloomily at his companion.

“What do you make of that?”

“Heaven knows!” groaned Dick.

The study door was closed, and he had pulled across a dark curtain which had been hung that day for the purpose.

“I suppose I’d better get out, though I don’t suppose I shall find anything.”

“Wait until I’ve had the remainder of your coffee and I’ll come with you,” said Puttler. “No, Mr. Alford, I never felt less like sleep. We shall have daylight in a couple of hours. Wait.”

He turned out the oil lamp which had been requisitioned from the kitchen, blew down the glass chimney, and the room was in darkness.

“Now you can pull open those curtains and go out,” he said, “if that is your way.”

Dick moved the curtains slightly and looked out. The world lay peaceful, silent, in the pallid light of the moon, and as he opened the door, the sweet scent of the earth and the cold morn greeted him fragrantly.

His foot was raised to step across the threshold when Puttler’s big hand closed round his arm.

“Wait,” he whispered again.

Dick stood motionless.

“I see nothing,” he said in the same tone.

Still Puttler held him, his head bent, listening.

“All right,” he said, released his grip, and stepped out on to the little terrace before the Second Son.

He gave a swift glance left and right.

“What was it?” asked Dick, in surprise.

“Somebody breathing,” was Puttler’s astonishing reply. “You won’t believe that I could hear a man breathing a dozen yards away, but I can. It’s one of my many animal qualities.”

He took a little run, cleared the gravel path in a bound, and went noiselessly along the grass to the left. Presently Dick saw him returning at a jog-trot. The detective went past and disappeared round the wing of the block. In a few minutes he returned.

“Hearing and scent are my two qualities. Can you smell anything?”

Dick sniffed the morning air.

“No,” he confessed.

“Come along with me.”

This time he walked softly across the path, explaining that he was afraid of waking the girls who slept almost immediately above them.

They went to the end of the wing, and then the sergeant halted.

“Now do you smell anything?” he asked.

Dick sniffed again. There was a sweet odour in the air, the scent of some exotic flower that seemed familiar to him.

“Does anybody in this house smoke scented cigarettes?” asked the detective, and Dick went suddenly cold.

“Harry!”

“Your brother, eh?” Puttler’s deep-set eyes surveyed him in the half light. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is smoking them. Where were they kept?”

“In the library as a rule.”

Puttler began searching the grounds with the aid of his lamp. He had not gone far before he saw something and picked it up. It was a half-smoked cigarette with a rose-leaf tip.

“Humph!” muttered Puttler, and continued his search--a search which yielded no further evidence.

Retracing their steps, they passed the study door, and Puttler, who was walking a little ahead, stumbled over something and put his light to the ground.

“You keep rather a lot of ladders about here, Mr. Alford,” he said, in a low voice. “A library ladder outside? What’s the great idea?”

The ladder was lying parallel with the gravel drive, and Puttler examined it rung by rung.

“That wasn’t here last night, I’ll take my oath,” he said.

“No,” said Dick, puzzled; “it usually hangs on two pegs near the garage.”

He lifted it up. It was a long, light, triangular ladder tapering to a point at the top, and used by the staff for outside window cleaning.

“You had better have it chained up,” was all Puttler said after he had finished his inspection. “The man who brought this here was the man who cut off your light supply and, incidentally----”

Far away in the grounds came the faint sound of a man’s voice, challenging in military fashion.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

“That’s Renwick, a local man,” said Puttler immediately.

They ran toward the sound of the voice, and presently saw the flicker of his lantern; and it was a badly scared man who challenged them a few minutes later. He had seen nothing, he said, but he had heard voices.

“One of them was laughing. I thought at first it was you, Sergeant, but when I heard it again it was so wild that I got a little nervous.”

“Did anybody answer your challenge?”

“No, but the voices stopped. I couldn’t hear the woman’s voice----”

“The woman’s voice?” said Dick quickly. “Was it a woman? Surely you’re mistaken?”

“I could swear to it,” said the watcher. “It was the woman’s voice I heard first, and the man who laughed. I think the voices must have stopped as soon as I put my lamp on.”

“In what direction?”

The policeman pointed across Long Meadow, the shallow, valley-like depression which ran parallel with the rising ground on which the Abbey stood. To the left there were a number of cottages, occupied in the main by people working on the estate, two gamekeepers, a carter and a groom. It was from one of these cottages that the Black Abbot had been seen and reported by a terrified gamekeeper.

“They sounded as if they were walking away from you over the Mound to the river--or to the ruins?” suggested Puttler.

“Well,” confessed the man, “they might have been going that way: I can’t be sure.”

“That certainly beats the band,” said the sergeant, as they were moving in the direction the man had indicated.

“He must have been mistaken,” said Dick with emphasis. “They were walking away from him----”

“They,” repeated Puttler significantly. “I don’t think he was wrong at all.”

“There is another possible solution,” said Dick. “Sometimes the people at Chelfordbury avail themselves of a short cut across the park to a neighbouring village.”

“At three o’clock in the morning?”

“There may have been a dance,” suggested Dick lamely.

“A short cut through a park that’s known to be haunted and where a murder was committed two nights ago?”

There was no answer to this.

They reached the bank and followed along the top till they were parallel with the Abbey, but there was no sign of man or woman, and they turned back. In spite of his protestations of wakefulness, Sergeant Puttler did not resist the suggestion that he should take his sleep. Dick was left alone to his vigil.

By the time daylight came he was a very weary man. Twice in the night he had visited the two men posted in the corridors above, found them awake, but in each case with nothing to report.

“Thank goodness, at any rate, somebody’s had some sleep!” he muttered, as he passed under the girl’s window and glanced up.

The morning wind which stirred the trees and filled the world with the pleasant music of rustling leaves moved also the casement window of the room which he had assigned to Mary Wenner. The window swayed to and fro slowly, and he inwardly condemned the girl for not carrying out his instructions.

By six o’clock the first of the servants was stirring; smoke was crawling lazily from one of the big twisted chimneys. He was sitting in envious contemplation of Sergeant Puttler when the door of the study burst violently open and Mary Wenner came in. She was in her dressing gown; her untidy hair floated over her face.

“Mr. Alford,” she asked agitatedly, “have you seen Leslie?”

He was on his feet in an instant and the movement woke the sleeping detective.

“No; she’s with you, isn’t she?”

“We went to bed together,” said the girl, in a tremulous tone, “but when I woke up just now she was not in the room. I waited awhile, thinking she was taking her bath, and then I went outside and asked the man you put there. He said she hadn’t come out of the room!”

Puttler, listening, dragged himself erect.

“The ladder!” he said simply, and Dick reeled under the blow. The Black Terror of Fossaway Manor had in his grip the woman for whom he would have given his soul and counted it no heavy price.

Running out on to the lawn, Puttler searched beneath the window. Yes, there were the marks of the ladder in the mould of a garden bed, and on the ladder itself he found confirmatory proof. Lifting it against the wall, he scrambled up, and came breast-high to the window-sill on its top-most rung. Drawing himself up, he sprang into the room and looked round for some clue. By this time Mary Wenner, followed by Dick, had come through the door.

“Her dressing gown isn’t gone!” whimpered Mary, pointing to the hook where it had hung. “But her shoes are. She must have dressed--and I didn’t hear.”

The tired man at the door had heard no sound in the night. A thick carpet covered the floor. Mary said that, when she woke, the door which communicated between the two rooms was closed.

She had heard no sound at all, and claimed that she was a light sleeper, which, in fact, she was not. When she had gone to sleep the candle was burning. Examining this, Dick saw that it would not have been alight for more than an hour. There were two burnt matches in the tray, which meant that the candle had been extinguished once and lit again.

“I wonder she didn’t wake me; I’m usually a light sleeper.…”

Dick left the girl explaining to the watcher who had been on guard outside the door.

“It was her voice, of course, that the patrol man heard in the dark. I blame myself that I didn’t jump at that idea.”

“I’d like to keep all the blame!” said Dick bitterly. “Oh, God! it doesn’t bear thinking about!”

He went away on a solitary search; none saw him slip through the back of the house, and he moved under cover of the river bank. When he returned, after an absence of two hours, Puttler told him that there was a message from the Home Office awaiting him. That institution had rung up twice. Dick got through after a wait, and learned that he was talking to an important under-secretary.

“Could you run up to London for an hour?”

“Is it necessary?” asked Dick, and he explained with all rapidity the happenings of the night.

“I’m afraid you had better see us as soon as you possibly can. In view of all the circumstances you cannot come too soon.”

With a curse Dick hung up the ’phone, and this time he took Harry’s big two-seater, a car that his brother had only used a dozen times, but the use of which he had steadfastly refused to anybody else.

Just as he was leaving he recalled a resolution he had made in the night; he ran upstairs into his room, and, bolting the door, opened a locked drawer of his dressing chest and took out something which he put carefully in his bag. That must be removed from Fossaway Manor as soon as possible, he thought. He put the bag in the boot of the car and sent the machine flying down the drive.

Midway between Horsham and Dorking, a motorist, coming from the opposite direction by another route, shot at a fast pace from a forked road right across his path. Dick jammed on the brakes and the big car skidded halfway round, struck the concrete curb with a thud, but no damage was done, and he went on, with a glare at the goggled driver of the machine at fault that was murderous.

He did not hear the cover of the dickey snap open, nor did he see the brown bag leap up and roll over on to the sidewalk. But the man in the other car saw all this through his big goggles, and, restarting his machine, brought it to the curb.

And there and then, Fabrian Gilder discovered the secret of the Black Abbot!

LI

At nine o’clock that morning Mr. Fabrian Gilder had risen intending to make a hurried visit to his country cottage. The newspapers had been full of the Chelford tragedy, but no mention had been made of the fact that Thomas had been Mr. Gilder’s guest. Such a happening, he realized, being an intelligent man, must necessarily upset all arrangements and plans that the girl had made.

There was a lot about Fabrian Gilder that was admirable. To his servants he was a kind master; to all who knew him superficially, an excellent and even a generous friend. He was in truth no worse than the average man in point of desires, a little better in his fairness of dealing. Arthur Gwyn had been legitimate prey, but he had, he thought, treated him with scrupulous fairness. He had succeeded, by the exploitation of the lawyer’s weakness, in amassing a very considerable fortune; but then, the City of London, and, for the matter of that, the City of New York, was filled with rich men who had founded their houses upon the cupidity or folly of men who were now almost penniless.

He glanced at the morning papers. There was nothing new reported from Chelford, except the little interview that one reporter had had with Dick, and that paragraph was, in many ways, very comforting to Gilder, for it explained why the girl--and then his eye caught sight of a line.

Mr. Alford said he had asked Miss Leslie Gwyn to stay at Fossaway Manor whilst her brother was abroad.…

Abroad? He frowned. If Arthur Gwyn had gone abroad he must have left very suddenly. He had seen him only a day or two before. But perhaps that was one of Dick Alford’s lies to save the girl’s face. Still, it was disquieting.

He was pondering this matter when the maid brought him his morning letters, and the first he saw was one in a well-known hand. It was from Leslie. He tore it open with trembling fingers, took out the half sheet of paper and read the few lines. He read it not once but many times. So that was that! She had changed her mind.

It did not occur to him that she had not made any promise but he was so sure of her, so satisfied in his mind that she would agree to his proposal, that he felt he had been tricked.

When the shock had worn off, his anger and resentment grew. Very well: if she could not keep her promise, he at least would keep his. He understood now, he thought. Arthur had bolted, and there was no necessity for the girl to make her sacrifice. He had been fooled, tricked. He pushed the chair back from the table, leaving his breakfast untouched, and, going into his library, turned the handle of the combination and pulled open the door of the safe with a savage jerk. There was the letter, all ready to post, and at the sight of it his heart grew hard and sour.

He took out the letter, made to tear it into fragments, and then remembered that inside was a blank check. He pulled out the sheet of notepaper and felt for the little pink slip that in his magnificence he had signed with a complacent flourish. It was not there!

Gilder peered into the envelope with a frown. Gone! He searched the safe: it might have fallen out, though how, he could not imagine; but there was no sign of the check. He unlocked his drawer and took out his check-book. There was the counterfoil, and written across it, “For Leslie----.” He had intended to show her that counterfoil one of these days, when she felt more kindly toward him.

With his head in his hands he tried to remember when he had last seen the check, and then he recalled that it was on the morning Arthur Gwyn had called to see him. At that thought he went white. Surely he had closed the safe? Again he struggled to remember, minute by minute, that fateful morning. He had been looking at the letter, he had put it away, he had closed the door, and then--the telephone bell had rung and he had forgotten to fasten the safe!

He pulled the ’phone toward him now and called furiously for a number. It was twenty past nine; most of the staff of the bank would be there. When the call was answered:

“I am Mr. Gilder,” he said quickly. “Is the manager there?… No? Then the sub-manager will do. It is very urgent.”

He waited whilst the clerk went to investigate. Presently he heard the voice of a man he knew--the manager himself.

“I just came in at this moment. Is anything wrong?”

“Fletcher, do you remember my telling you that I should be sending down a check for fifty thousand pounds and asking you to honour it?”

“Yes; I honoured it.”

For a second Gilder was speechless.

“You honoured it? Who presented the check?”

“Arthur Gwyn--it was made out in his favour. I notified you last night; didn’t you get my letter?”

“I haven’t opened all my post yet,” said Gilder steadily. “Thank you.”

He hung up the receiver, breathing heavily. For now he remembered clearly every event of the morning: the coming of Arthur Gwyn, and his seemingly absurd proposal, that Gilder should write a note expressing his willingness to lend the money. That was the trick of it! Not only had Arthur got the fifty thousand, but with that letter he had a complete answer to any charge of fraud.

He sat with clasped hands, every vein on his forehead swollen, and murder in his heart. Tricked! And she should know. She had been a party to the fraud--unwittingly, perhaps, but nevertheless a party. She must have told him of this money.…

Whatever else he was, Fabrian Gilder had the gift of clear thinking. Five minutes’ riotous fury, and he was his cold self again. Of course she couldn’t have helped in the fraud. It was the accident of leaving the safe unlocked, and Arthur Gwyn’s known inquisitiveness--he could never resist reading even Gilder’s private letters; Arthur had no sense of other people’s privacy.

What could he do now? He thought the matter out. He must tell the girl, and perhaps she would regard herself as being under an obligation to him. If she had any sense of honour she must fulfil her promise, whatever she had written in her letter that morning.

He telephoned for his car to be brought round from the garage, and came back to his breakfast table and made an attempt to eat.

He would try Leslie first, telling her nothing about the letter he had given to her brother, and threaten him with a warrant for fraud. Perhaps this strengthened rather than weakened his position. He grew cheerful as the thought took shape.

He passed slowly out of London, for all the streets in the metropolis seemed to be “up,” and at last struck the open country, avoiding the main roads and taking a more circuitous route which would bring him to the main Sussex road between Dorking and Horsham. With a clear road before him, he sent his car at full speed. He was not well acquainted with the road, but he knew that he joined the old Roman “street” at a gentle angle, and he did not slow down as he approached the principal thoroughfare.

Left of him, on the London side, the road was clear; to the right, the view was a little obstructed. He sounded his klaxon and came out on to the main thoroughfare at thirty miles an hour.

He saw the car just in time, jammed on his brakes, and threw the machine into reverse. The big car ahead of him skidded round; he caught one malevolent gleam from Dick Alford’s eyes, and then he saw the bag and, driving to the side of the road, picked it up. His first inclination was to leave it; he had no particular desire to help the Second Son; but there are certain innate decencies to be observed by motorists, even though they loathe each other, and he picked the little grip from the sidewalk and threw it into the back of his car.

As he did so, it opened, and, turning to fasten it, he saw something that made him change his mind. Getting out of the car, he lifted the bag to the sidewalk, opened it wide and pulled out--the sombre habit and cowl of the Black Abbot!

LII

So Dick Alford was the Black Abbot! It was unbelievable; he could hardly credit the importance of his find. Here, then, was the greatest lever of all. Beside this, the threat of a charge against Leslie Gwyn’s brother faded to unimportance. He snapped the lock, put the bag carefully back in the car, and, restarting his engine, moved at a slower pace toward Chelfordbury.

He stopped in the village, where he was recognized, and heard at first hand from the innkeeper the story of the strange happenings at the “big house.”

“They do say that something’s happened to the young lady from Willow House.”

“What!” Gilder almost shouted the word. “You don’t mean Miss Gwyn?”

“Yes, Miss Gwyn,” nodded the landlord. “I haven’t got the rights of it yet, it’s only a rumour down here, but, Lord bless your heart, Mr. Gilder, there’s never been so many rumours in this village since I came to live here forty-eight years ago. Some say that his lordship’s been murdered”--he lowered his voice and looked round--“by his brother! Mr. Alford is a very hard man, though the people who work for him have got nothing to say against him, but that doesn’t seem possible to me.”

Gilder’s mind was in a whirl. He did not want to know anything about Dick Alford or his reputation.

“Who told you this story about Miss Gwyn?” he asked, and the landlord, looking round the group that had formed outside the Red Lion, pointed to a man.

“He’s a carter up at the big house,” he said.

“Fetch him here,” said Gilder.

When the carter arrived:

“What is this story about Miss Gwyn?” Gilder asked.

The man looked a little sheepish to find himself the centre of interest.

“I don’t know nowt about it,” he said. “It’s only what I heerd that monkey-faced gentleman saying to Mr. Richard. He says, ‘I don’t think any harm’s come to her.’ And one of the maids says that that young lady who used to be his lordship’s secretary----”

“Miss Wenner? Is she there?” asked Gilder quickly.

“Yes, she come up last night.”

“What about her?” asked Gilder.

“They say she’s been crying her eyes out all the morning. That’s all I know about it. They do say something bad happened to the young lady early this morning, and the way Mr. Richard has been running about and him looking as ill as death----”

“I hope something’s going to be done about this Black Abbot,” interjected the innkeeper. “My womenfolk are so frightened they want to sit up half the night.”

Gilder looked at him with a queer expression.

“You needn’t be afraid of the Black Abbot,” he said. “I am going to lay that ghost to-day.”

“You, Mr. Gilder?” said the man, in surprise.

But it was not the occasion for confidences, and Gilder, getting back into his car, turned it about and went up the road till he came to the lodge gates. Here a policeman on duty would have barred his progress, but fortunately he was a local man who knew the lawyer.