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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75273-0.txt b/75273-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07c9904 --- /dev/null +++ b/75273-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15280 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75273 *** + + +Death in the Dusk + +by Virgil Markham + +Jacobsen Publishing Company, Inc. +Copyright 1928 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. + + + +CONTENTS + + Prefatory Words + Persons in this Chronicle + I. The Obtrusion of Parson Lolly + II. The Bull + III. The House + IV. The Bidding Feast + V. Kingmaker + VI. Strain + VII. Court of Inquiry + VIII. Wager of Battel + IX. The Bone + X. The Laugh + XI. Superintendent Salt + XII. Noah’s Flood + XIII. The Weapon + XIV. The Fiendish Cat of the Sisters Delambre + XV. The Rainbow + XVI. Parchment—and Paper + XVII. Lancelot’s Ultimatum + XVIII. Grisly Planting + XIX. The Deathless Arm + XX. The Recrudescence of Parson Lolly + XXI. The Midnight Expedition + XXII. The Beginning of the End: Parabola + XXIII. Miss Lebetwood and a Campstool + XXIV. Bannerlee’s Secret + XXV. The Flight of Parson Lolly + XXVI. Blood on the Portrait + XXVII. The Purr of the Cat! + XXVIII. The Crash + XXIX. Rescue + The Communication of April 17, 1926 + + + +PREFATORY WORDS + +The journal of Alfred Bannerlee, of Balzing (Kent), is at last to be +published practically in full, and without the alteration of any name. +I say “at last,” but I suppose there are some who would leap with joy +if the closely-written pages of the Oxford antiquarian and athlete +were utilized, like Carlyle’s first “French Revolution,” for building +a cheery fire. Lord Ludlow certainly is one. + +It seems incredible, but Mr. Bannerlee has requested Ludlow to write +an introduction to the book. Perhaps Mr. Bannerlee was pulling the +baronial leg. Of all the party of poor half-maddened people who +emerged from Aidenn Vale after the powerful doings recorded in this +Journal, I can imagine none less likely to perform this service for +the diarist who clung faithfully to the task of recording terrors in +the midst of terror and didn’t hesitate to display the baronial +character at its craftiest. Small wonder, I should think, that on the +eve of publication of what he himself admits is “an unbelievable and +utterly veracious narrative” Lord Ludlow sails for unknown seas, and +makes no secret of the fact that England’s loss is permanent. + +Now, since his Lordship promises never to come back, I don’t see any +reason why I shouldn’t publish his recent letter to me, and thereby, +perhaps, satisfy Mr. Bannerlee. + + “Brillig, Ambleside, Westmorland, + December 27, 1927. + + My dear Markham: + + One can scarcely conjecture what maggot of audacity was in the brain + of Alfred Bannerlee, Esq., when he forwarded me his diary with the + request that I write a foreword to accompany it ‘to give the stamp + of reality.’ When you perceive the light in which I am placed in + this unbelievable and utterly veracious narrative, you will not need + to reflect in order to understand why I decline to have anything to + do with the document. In accordance with Mr. Bannerlee’s wish, I am + sending the diary to you, ‘an obscure but ambitious author,’ and I + do not suppose that you will object to having your name upon the + title-page. The whole arrangement impresses me as asinine, but, + after all, the manuscript is Mr. Bannerlee’s and he should be + allowed full scope to play the fool with it. + + In fairness to the author, however, I must abate the indictment. I + do no more than allude to what seem to me distinct virtues in this + account. They will appeal to others likewise, if they are virtues. + In the first place, there is nothing of that grisly, putrid stuff + going nowadays under the name of modern psychology, although a + pedlar of this ‘science’ could have found no end of matter for his + hole and corner methods. Second point: I am not a devotee of the + enormous literature dealing with the hounding and capture of + wrongdoers. But I will venture a pronouncement in my egregious + innocence, to wit, that not in any half-dozen combined of these + would-be ‘shockers’ published in a lifetime will be found as many + trials and alarums and as much genuine mystification as make up this + compendium of the bedevilment of Parson Lolly, the mad behaviour of + the milkman, the invisible omnipresence of Sir Brooke Mortimer, + the enigma of the mystic bone, the Legend of Sir Pharamond’s + imperishable arm, and the machinations of the ultimate contriver, I + will not call him ‘fiend,’ working through and behind all. + + And here it is my wish to express my wholehearted esteem for (then) + Miss Paula Lebetwood. I dislike the whole species of American girls, + but intelligence compels exceptions to every rule. Some of us judged + her harshly, no doubt, but she took the road leading to success, and + if she seemed cold-hearted, she chose wisely. Had she been a weaker + woman, snuffling and inept, the narrative would not now be on the + verge of publication. In spite of this, wherever she is, I wish her + well. + + I myself shall not remain in England to witness the effervescence of + the multitude over this narrative. Democratic outbursts rather gall + me. On the eve of the publication of the Journal, my yacht, with me + on board, sails for waters unknown. I seek as far as I may a + shoreless cruise. I am old, and mankind is not my hobby. Perhaps I + shall linger in the beauty of the Mediterranean where there are two + skies, perhaps drift endlessly in the steady strength of the Trades, + perhaps dare the dark Antarctic seas—or find beyond the sunset. One + thing stands sure; it is unthinkable that I shall ever set foot in + Britain again. So here I take farewell of those who with me shared + the dread, wonder and aftermath of _Death in the Dusk_. (By the way, + I don’t like that title of Bannerlee’s.) + + Pray accept my congratulations on your recent appointment, and + believe me your sincere friend, and + + Faithfully yours, + Ludlow.” + +It is well, I believe, to point out that the minds of all those +present at Highglen House among the sorcerous hills of Wales during +the early autumn of 1925, the mind which directed the writing of this +Journal was, save perhaps one, the best fitted for presenting the +closest account possible to the truth. The one other mind which could +possibly equal this record in truthfulness would be that which +actually contrived the series of demoniacal events in the Vale of +Aidenn Water. The queer, tense, potentially tragic, and ultimately +fatal situation discovered by Mr. Bannerlee after his serio-comic +descent from the Forest through the fog contained so many +cross-currents and tangled nets of misunderstanding, prejudice and +enmity that no other could have pretended to the shadow of fairness in +his (or her) statement of the case. For the sake of truth, then +(though God knows what disadvantages offset that!), it was well that +Mr. Bannerlee was plunged into the seething midst of the Bidding +Feast. + +I shall not dilate upon the morbid eagerness with which the public +will seize upon this Journal. This is no hackneyed chronicle of raw +head and bloody bones. The consternation caused by the events in +Aidenn Vale, constituting, upon their emergence after the flood, a +problem of what may genuinely be called universal interest, will never +be forgotten by those old enough to realize their dreadfulness. The +nine days’ terror became a nine days’ wonder, and without hyperbole it +may be said that the fate of one nation hung upon the Radnorshire +riddles. The public has never been informed of all there was to be +told, nor, as sporadic (and totally erroneous) statements and versions +in the press signify, has the public lost its interest. Here, for the +first time, is offered for general perusal this unbelievable and +utterly veracious document. Need I comment further? + +This is not, of course, the original form of Mr. Bannerlee’s diary. +What he wrote until the turmoil of events forced him to stay +his hand on the evening of the 9th of October was necessarily +briefer, more compact, and—to a reader not in touch with the +circumstances—unintelligible. His recasting of the manuscript, which +involved its enlargement to thrice its original length is, it seems to +me, one of the most notable of his feats. Hard it must have been for +him to alter this account from the sketch-book manner of an ordinary +diary, to give the convincing gloss of rumination and reflection, to +reveal precise details of fact, the links of cogitation, and the +phases of feeling which poured in upon him. I think, too, that he has +well preserved the sense of imminence, the uncertainty as to the +morrow, which was, I am told, present in the original version. If +portions of the work seem lacking in spontaneity, let me remind the +reader that it was impossible for Mr. Bannerlee to limit himself to a +mere polychronicon of episodes, frilled with running comment on +persons, and edged with a neat pattern of emotions. Clearness demanded +he should sometimes _elucidate_ and the white heat of events must have +time to cool before they can be handled analytically. + +Only last month I myself visited New Aidenn again. A word of +self-introduction to Superintendent Salt made that rather wonderful +policeman my good friend at once, and he personally conducted me +through the Vale where death and terror had danced. It is all as +Bannerlee describes it; even the atmosphere of mystery has not +departed, and while Salt and I came down by Aidenn Water through the +dusk, I was glad to have him there, glad and nevertheless uneasy. The +villagers and the folk of the countryside know well that Parson Lolly +is not dead yet, though his age is nearer five hundred than four +hundred years, and often they see his black cloak whisk through some +twilight copse, or see him far off above the hills, poised against the +sunset. + +Some day I shall write my own book about Salt: that other mystery of +East Wales, the frightful affair of the Straight Road. But enough. + + Virgil Markham + +St. John’s Wood, +London, February 26, 1928. + + + + DEATH IN THE DUSK + + Being Alfred Bannerlee’s own revision + and enlargement of his journal notes + from the evening of October 2, 1925, + to the breaking off, October 9. Together + with the conclusion of the narrative + later supplied by him, and the + communication of April 17, 1926. + + + + To + Paula Andrews + in loving memory of + Paula Lebetwood + and to + Mrs. Robert Cullen + in grateful memory of Lib + + + +PERSONS IN THIS CHRONICLE + + The Narrator + Alfred Bannerlee of Balzing in Kent, + athlete and antiquarian + + Host and Hostess of the Bidding Feast + The Honourable Crofts Pendleton + Mrs. (Alberta) Pendleton + + The Betrothed + Sean Cosgrove + Paula Lebetwood + + Guests + Herbert Pinckney, Baron Ludlow and Ditherington + Ted Belvoir + Mrs. (Marvel) Belvoir + Gilbert Maryvale, Esq. + Mr. Charlton Oxford + Mrs. Eve Bartholomew + Miss Millicent Mertoun + Dr. Stephen Aire + Lib Dale + Bob Cullen + + Servants + Blenkinson, patriarch + Soames, footman + Hughes, gamekeeper + Finlay, head gardener + Wheeler, chauffeur and handy man + Morgan, handy man + Tenney, handy man + Toby, boy + Rosa Clay, cook + Ruth Clay, housekeeper + Ardelia Lacy, lady’s maid + Jael, parlourmaid + Harmony, housemaid + Em, kitchenmaid + + Nebulous or Mysterious Persons + The gorilla man + The menagerie keeper + Sir Brooke Mortimer + The sisters Delambre + The red-bearded runner + The youth in the library + The man in the tower + + Officials + Superintendent Salt + Dr. Niblett, Coroner + “Scotland Yard” + + Super-Sleuth + Harry Heatheringham + + Arch-Lord of Disorder + PARSON LOLLY + + + +CHAPTER I + +The Obtrusion of Parson Lolly + + Highglen House, Aidenn Vale, Radnorshire, + October 3, 1925. 12.30 A.M. + +Heaven smile on us if it can! Heaven watch and ward us. This is a +wedding party! + +Crofts Pendleton has just brought me the fresh candles and this +writing-book. He wished me God-speed in my endeavours and good-night. + +“Good-night!” It sounded like a travesty, or a challenge. + +Surely I am the sane one here if anyone is. Yet I cannot name the +curse that lies on my spirit and keeps in my eyes the vision of the +two faces, the golden hair above the black! Never-to-be-forgotten +moment! But I shall not let it unnerve me now, as it seemed to then. + +The worst of it is that I am confined in a musty chamber (among +store-rooms!) on the second floor where the web-scribbled ceiling +slants down with the roof and the eaves murmur uncannily just above my +window—a room to make flesh thrill and creep. It looks like a chamber +where murderers may have lurked in bygone days. The narrow, deep-set +window, the old twisty candle-brackets high on the stone wall, the +joined chest with never a nail to fasten its boards, the severely +plain four-square bedstead—they all remind me that I am in a building +centuries old where any or every fiendish deed may have been +performed. I wish that this storey, like the rest of the house, were +equipped with a good up-to-date electric service. The blinking light +of candles is not very comfortable in the gloom. + +Nearly a page written, yet nothing pertinent said. This isn’t economy +in words. But now I’ll banish megrims, cease rambling, and come to the +situation. + +I have been in Highglen House for a scant six hours. Events have been +moving with intermittent swiftness ever since I came, and they had not +been precisely quiet before my arrival. To-night, though it takes +until dawn, I shall describe as far as I can the happenings of the +last day unless I drift off to sleep in the process. But no, even with +doors locked, sleep is not likely to trouble anyone much to-night, not +after the alarm all of us—I don’t except myself in this case—have just +had. + +Moreover, until the nowhere-to-be-found Sir Brooke puts in an +appearance, or some word is heard from him, there will be little rest +for me, with Eve Bartholomew knocking at the door every fifteen +minutes, with, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Bannerlee; are you still up? It’s +_so_ silly of me, of course—Sir Brooke can take care of himself as +well as any of us—better, I’m sure, than most—and yet I’m not so +sure—but it’s really odd, isn’t it? Now I know it’s silly of me—but +I’ve just had another idea. Don’t you think it’s possible that Sir +Brooke took the wrong train? Of course I don’t know whether you can do +that in Shrewsbury in the afternoon—but perhaps he got on the wrong +platform, or something—he never was an expert on getting about, poor +dear—and then he may have gone to sleep and not noticed where he was +going. He has a way of doing that in trains—I know him so well, you +see. Perhaps he didn’t learn until he got off at some scrubby little +place where there’s no telegraph. And then, of course, that explains +why there’s been no message from him.” + +I have learned a good deal about Sir Brooke’s character since Mrs. B. +began her raids with a Macbethean knocking and a stage whisper. His +chief trait seems to be utter fickleness of memory, his next that +something, or lack of something, which makes able-bodied women like +Mrs. B. call men “dear” with “poor” prefixed. He is near-sighted, +liable to vertigo philanthropic, and a nuisance. + +I said Macbethean knocking—I suppose that proves I’m a little +highly-strung myself. Certainly she caused a warm, douche-like +sensation to pass clear over my scalp to the nape of my neck. We have +had an evening which would make the staidest— + +I have a severe mind to draw a line through these pages and begin +anew. This isn’t what I intended at all. My candles are bearded now, +and I haven’t scratched my subject. I repent and reform this very +instant. I am going to try to put down things in order, as they have +unfolded themselves in the course of one of the most amazing days I, +or any human being, ever lived through. + +Yet first (before taking my way back to the hilltop where I wandered +this afternoon, never having so much as heard of Highglen House!) +while the spirit is urgent and the clutch of sense is keen, I’ll +transcribe the maddening events of the half-hour just past. Before I +forget—but shall I ever forget? + +There they were in the Hall of the Moth, civilizees of assorted +temperaments, ignoring their alarms, submerging their differences, and +levelling their intellects in the fascination of a card game. How +“instructive and amusing” had been my introduction by Pendleton to +each of them in this very Hall scarcely more than an hour before! Save +for Alberta, that luscious wife of his, I had never laid eyes on one +of them previous to this evening. + +Straight on my entering the Hall, Pendleton had cavalierly handed me +around from person to person. + +First he revealed me to his wife, who set down her cards and rose with +one of the gladdest smiles I have ever seen. She was tall and +gracious. Her face, surrounded by its lustre of close-clipped, wavy +hair, was a joy to look at, being both pearly-clear and firm, like an +exquisite lily-petal of classic marble. + +“Alfred! We hear that you have been raiding Aidenn Forest.” + +“Please!” I laughed. “I wouldn’t call it anything so forcible as—” + +But already Pendleton had presented me to Mrs. Belvoir. I withdrew my +hand from its clasp of Alberta’s and took the cold fingers of the +colourless man’s wife. What thoughts lay behind those brooding lids +and that close-lipped mouth? Her face had a wavering indistinctness, +like a face seen under flowing water. + +“How do you do?” she said in that rich voice, gave me one full look +with eyes cold and pale as sapphires, and blinked languidly, as if the +discussion were closed. + +Pendleton did not let me linger in perplexity. He gave me up to +Belvoir, who shook hands with a faint smile, saying, “Mr. Bannerlee +and I spelled our names to each other in the hall a little while ago.” + +Next was Lord Ludlow. “I’ve seen him,” remarked his Lordship, gazing +at me with a little asperity, crinkling the skin over the high-pitched +bridge of his nose, and sat down, for he was wishful of continuing the +game, or of giving the impression that such was his desire. + +I was whisked to the second table and made acquainted with the sole +woman there. Eve Bartholomew (God give her peace!) grasped my hand for +a tug or two, exclaiming hurriedly, “Oh, how do you do?” And she +added, with ill-feigned casualness, “They say you’ve been out on the +hills to-day. You’re sure you haven’t seen Sir Brooke?” + +“Quite sure, Mrs. Bartholomew.” + +“Or hear of anyone who might be him—he?” + +“No.” + +Next I was set face-to-face with her partner, the red-faced young man, +who I was not surprised to learn was Sean Cosgrove. His head was +large, his features large, too, without being lubberly. The ruddiness +of his complexion was accentuated by his very black and shining hair, +short and thick. There was something grim and settled in the line of +his jaw, and his blazing black eyes bore out the character of +determination. He shook hands unsmiling, gravely. + +“My congratulations,” I offered. + +He gave a short bow, looking at the floor. Then, “I have heard of +you,” he said, with not a trace of Irish lilt or accent in his speech. + +“Is it possible?” + +“You are a searcher for the buried lore of antiquity. Is not that so?” +he asked with a certain lofty seriousness. + +“I have done a little research among the British saints, but I hardly +expected my labours—” + +“They honour you,” asserted Cosgrove, but my smile of deprecation and +anything further he was about to say were cut off by Pendleton, who +relentlessly kept me on the go, and I faced the next guest. + +Two men had been partners at this table; I now found myself staring at +a waxed moustache, and a very elegantly tapered and needle-pointed +specimen of craftsmanship it was. The rest of his face was nothing +remarkable, only a little swarthy-purplish with brandy, and a trifle +stary-eyed. I was not prepossessed with this gentleman, judging him to +be the sort who shows his cleverness to an assorted public in quips to +barmaids and dance-hall musicians. His name, “Mr. Charlton Oxford,” +struck me as strainedly aristocratic, though no fault of his. + +“Chawmed.” + +“Aesthete,” flashed through my brain, but a query-note raised itself +after the word. “Just plain fool,” I concluded. + +“You _are_ being bandied about, aren’t you?” + +I was surprised by the fluence and ease of his voice, and his +lightening smile, the big darkish man’s who had been dealing the cards +so ritualistically a few minutes before. He lifted his weight as if it +were that of a bubble, and I saw that indeed he was big, bearing his +torso on stanchion-legs. His mass must have been twice mine. + +“Gilbert Maryvale, our complete man of business—iron-castings,” said +Pendleton, with evident gladness that his tale was over. + +I saw a quick brightness come and go in Gilbert Maryvale’s eyes at +that description, as if the eyeball had darted out a little from its +station under thatch-brows. + +“The winner of the Newman Prize for Lucid Prose, I think, in—let me +see—Nineteen-nineteen? May I congratulate you, Mr. Bannerlee, although +the time is past? I have read your ‘Poets of Enervation’ with +delight.” + +“No, Mr. Maryvale, that was not my essay.” + +“Surely I haven’t mistaken the name?” + +“You have mistaken only the man. ‘Poets of Enervation’ was the +overflow of my cousin Norval’s pen. We were in the University +together. I made a bid for the Newman myself, but was buried. Norval +and I are often mistaken for each other, even in our literary +occupations.” + +“No doubt you ran him close,” observed the big man twinkingly. + +“I’m afraid not. And now, as Mr. Cosgrove has said, I am devoted to +dustier things, and the prose I give my time to is far from lucid.” + +“But you wring lucidity out of it.” + +Maryvale resumed his seat, picked up his hand, as did the rest, for in +spite of much invitation I insisted on remaining aloof from the game. +Broad capable cheek-bones, sudden forceful chin he had, but I had an +awareness there was much more than capability and force in this +“complete man of business.” That allusion to the Prize Essay for Lucid +Prose was a poser. Was there another trafficker in iron-castings in +the United Kingdom who had read “Poets of Enervation”?—or one who +would speak of it kindly if he had? + +Well, all this was past, half-forgotten in ensuing talk. But now, at +one minute to midnight, a new presence was in the Hall, threatening +the mirth of the Feast! Anger! + +For Lord Ludlow and Sean Cosgrove were having a beautiful row. + +The Irishman’s gaze was hard and heavy, and seemed to bore into his +antagonist. His face, I noticed, was still suffusing with blood. No +one else ventured to intervene as madly as I had just done, and the +silence when the two men ceased parleying was like the yawn of ocean +after a gigantic wave. + +Cosgrove’s bitterness seemed to be growing steadily, like the awful +momentum of a railway train, and I had no doubt that the time was not +many seconds away when he would arise and beard his foe with menacing +hands. Lord Ludlow’s acerbity was like the nervous, sputtering +viciousness of a dynamo. From his eyes seemed to come green electric +sparks, while he shifted his ire from me toward Cosgrove again. + +“As for you, sir—” + +“I accuse you—” + +Hark! + +The great Hall of the Moth where we stood was gripped in a new hush, +for the clock in the corner was speaking. I had regarded it curiously +in the evening, a fine old carcase with hood, waist, and base +enveloped in spider’s web marqueterie which obliterated the graining +of the wood. The brass dial was finely engraved, and Cupid’s head +appeared four times delicately chiselled in the spandrils. + +Now its chime gave the burden it has tolled for two hundred years, and +midnight was ringing sternly through the House from the Hall of the +Moth. It is a strange clock, devised by some brooding or twisted or +philosophic mind long ago: it strikes, they say, only at midnight, +proclaiming the death and the birth of a day. The tones, vigorous and +vibrant, were mellow with centuries, and their song was poignant. + +Like some greybeard councillor’s, the old clock’s voice appeared to +abash the hasty peer and the slowly enraged Irishman. They stared at +each other in grimness for an interim of seconds before his Lordship +shrugged his shoulders, cackled “Humph!” loudly, and turned to the +disrupted card-table. Cosgrove’s clenched hands came down in his lap +relaxed, and he, too, turned back to his table, moving his lips +without utterance. + +But the game did not go on. It could hardly have pursued its placid +course again after this very distressing interruption of our peace, +even if the crying sound had not begun from somewhere outside the +Hall. + +A low, tremulous, wheedling cry, strangled sometimes into a moan—it +froze every face and turned every eye to stone. + +“What’s that?” gulped Eve Bartholomew. . . . + +“_Where_ is it?” asked Belvoir, and one could tell that the “stick of +dynamite” had not much breath to spare. + +But no one seemed to have the breath or the brain to answer him. My +own belief for a moment was that it proceeded from a plane above our +heads, instead of from somewhere in the long portrait-lined passage +outside the Hall of the Moth. This seemed to be Pendleton’s notion, +too, for with a tense “upstairs!” our host moved to the nearest door +to the corridor. But Alberta Pendleton, dismayed (like all of us, no +doubt) by the thought of the hovering menace that had shadowed +Highglen House, hurried across to her husband and clung to him, +positively clung to him, as I have seen actresses do in plays. + +“No, Crofts dear—no, no! Wait—let someone go with you!” + +“It’s up there,” declared Pendleton with steel-trap enunciation. “The +damned thing’s come again—up there.” + +“That’s why you mustn’t go.” + +“It’s up there,” he said doggedly, and tugged to loose himself. But +she took step for step with him, finally turning in his path with her +back against the door. + +“We’ll all go,” said Maryvale. + +“All the men,” said Cosgrove. “The women lock the doors behind us.” + +“Ring for the servants,” said someone shakenly, I think Charlton +Oxford. + +“Listen! . . . It’s not there any more. . . . It’s stopped.” We +listened with Mrs. Bartholomew; beyond our taut breathings and the +tick-tack-tock of the carcase in the corner—nothing. + +“Ring for the servants, I tell you!” + +“Listen! It’s out there.” + +“Out there!” + +“On the lawn.” + +Unmistakably now the low wordless cry came through the half-opened +french window leading to the broad lawns beyond the entrance drive. +Pendleton was across the room in a trice, heedless of Alberta’s +protest; so were Maryvale and Cosgrove and I; so were all of us. We +followed our host through the window-entrance. Out to the darkness we +went from the bright-lit hall in a little throng, and when we were +outside, hearing the lonesome, half-whining cry no more, we recoiled +and huddled a little, like scared titmice. + +Hardly a quarter of a minute—prolonged by our bewilderment and +dread—could have gone by, and we stood irresolute upon the fringe of +the lawn, when the cry came toward us again, and now it was followed +by a woman’s voice, different from the cry: + +“Oh, come here, come here! I couldn’t call you and leave her alone.” + +At the sound of that voice Cosgrove stamped like a raving beast. +“Paula,” he bellowed, and plunged across the obscurity of the lawn. + +Following among those whose urgence was less than his, my eyes, which +deviated from straight ahead, caught sight of a spine-stirring thing. +It was motion, but of what? A darker mass on the dark sward. Size, +shape, untellable—but moving, moving to the right, now seeming to +crawl, now leaping—only an amorphous blob of black—moving, and +swiftly, toward the north, moving stilly, with only a small rustling +sound at whiles. + +“Look there!” I exclaimed to someone who was near me, catching his +arm. (It was Oxford.) + +“Hey! What!” + +“That—going off there—a black thing.” + +“I don’t see it.” Nor did he want to, I judged. + +I guided his arm, extending it in the proper line. “Sight by that.” + +But I could not make him see it. He and I then diverged from the +others, not much to his liking, and while we hastened after the +nameless thing, I bethought me that I had changed my electric torch to +these clothes. I hauled it from a side pocket, darted a cone of yellow +ahead of us, cast an elliptic figure of yellow on the grass, but found +no trace of the thing. + +Oxford, however, saw an object ahead which made him give a yell. He +stopped petrified, and I followed his look far before us. What we both +then saw was too distant to be the thing I had observed nearby, unless +it were indeed a fiend possessed of superhuman powers. He was crossing +a patch of ground a hundred yards away where the moon streamed down +unscathed by clouds; save for the quick, brief clearing, indeed, we +should not have caught sight of him. Like the hopping, gliding thing +on the lawn, he was black, or robed in black. Contrary to report, +however, if this were Parson Lolly, his figure appeared not to be tall +but distinctly short and squatty. Just then the fringe of a cloud +partly obfuscated the moon, but still that space was clearer than all +around it. While the figure glided toward the trees, it seemed to +heave its shoulders and grow a foot, two feet, taller! Again it +writhed itself into greater height, its long cloak billowing, and +again! Just before gaining the covert of branches, it turned toward us +a moment, twice the height of a man. And its head, if head it had, was +only a pointed thing with unguessable features in the cavern of its +hood. The moon was absolutely overcast when the figure, again wheeling +about, went beneath the trees. + +“Do we go after it?” I asked sardonically. + +“We—we do not.” + +“Righto.” + +I heard a gurgle from Oxford’s lips and guessed that his heart must be +rotating in his throat. His shoulder to my touch was quivering, and +while we went to rejoin the rest he staggered as if in drink, although +certainly sober. But his nerves aren’t the best, I shouldn’t wonder, +for there must be regular occasions when he quaffs and quaffs again. + +They were a chastened, vaguely murmurous company we discovered almost +beneath the arch of the ancient gate-house with its ivy swarming up +and up, now standing lone, its walls on either side all shorn away. +Only a spurt or two of a match they had to see by, until I came with +my torch and they made way for me. The light on the weather-beaten +stone was like the circle of an old medallion or mellowed painting: +two women, one pallid and lifeless, the other, seated on the grass, +supporting the lovely, unconscious head on her knees. + +I supposed instantly that this was the young English-woman, Millicent +Mertoun, who lay wan—the most beautiful creature, I believe, I have +ever seen. Fine breeding, fine spirit were in her stricken face. Cold +loveliness, indeed, with the life gone out of it; eyes set widely +apart, closed beneath straight black eyebrows which were now lifted +apeak with the intensity of strain that showed in the fine lines +across her forehead and the slight drawing-back of her short upper +lip, disclosing her large, evenly graduated teeth. The lashes that +rested upon her cheeks were remarkably long, deep black, and it was +their fragile, almost imperceptible stirring alone that betokened a +possible reawakening to life. Her chin was softly rounded, and in the +disorder of her abundant black hair a delicate ear was exposed. The +suspension of life had withdrawn the blood from the full-contoured +lips, left the cheeks pallid, but while I gazed at the face and the +aristocratic little neck, twined about so by the tumbling length of +masses of black hair, I had a whisper of what beauty the face might +have when expression was restored to it, and the eyes, of unguessable +depth and sweetness, were open. + +Of the other woman’s head I caught only the partly averted profile, +while she bent over Miss Mertoun, with one hand clasping together at +the throat the unconscious girl’s loose gown, apparently a garment of +negligée. She, of course, must be the American girl, for it was at the +sound of her voice that Sean Cosgrove had torn across the lawn. There +was dignity, I thought, in her head with its straitly fastened +golden-brown hair, and a lovely tenderness in the solicitude of her +pose. + +She was in the midst of speech, relating the adventure which had +brought her and her companion to that plight. She did not look up or +turn her head when the light from my hand broke over her, and all the +while she spoke her watchful gaze was for the features of the girl +whose senses were benumbed. American speech it was, yet the words came +from her lips with a chiselled precision, the tone tending toward +viola depth. + +“—blinding, yes, not blinding alone, but maddening. I got her into +looser clothing—she wouldn’t go to bed. She gave no sign of fainting, +but the pain drove her into delirium more than once, and I almost sent +for someone else to help me with her. Then the pain went down, and +suddenly she went to sleep.” + +Someone, I think Cosgrove, took a step nearer. “No, keep away, please. +Don’t try to move her yet.” + +“But, Paula, how did you ever come—?” + +The American girl precluded the end of Alberta Pendleton’s question. +“Of course I am coming to that. She went sound asleep, and I thought +it better not to undress her; so I let her lie on the bed, and I +curled up in the chair by the window. Millicent’s wretched evening had +left me tired out, too, and I don’t remember anything more until when +I woke up to find her awake again and wandering about. There was +enough light from the globe by the mirror to see that she was terribly +distressed, but it was not with pain this time. She was suffering from +some—” + +Paula Lebetwood hesitated for a moment, then recommenced. “I think she +was walking in her sleep.” + +A note of surprise and pity came from all our mouths. + +“Were her eyes open?” asked Mrs. Belvoir. + +“Yes, with the darkest vagueness in them.” + +“Didn’t she recognize you?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“What?” + +“You see, it all happened so quickly. Only a couple of seconds after I +had roused myself the clock in the Hall of the Moth commenced ringing +midnight. Millicent stopped for a moment and put her hand to her +heart, a queer thing, I thought. ‘It’s his music,’ she said, and made +for the door.” + +Renewed exclamations of surprise attested our close-held interest. + +“She ran down the hall—” + +“But, Paula, did you let her—?” + +“She was too strong for me, or perhaps too quick. She twisted away +from me when I tried to prevent her from leaving the room. She almost +flew down the hall; I was afraid she would throw herself down the +stairs, and I caught up with her just in time. We came down—” + +“Did she make any sound?” burst in Pendleton. + +“Yes, a wailing sound—if there were any words, I couldn’t distinguish +them. Didn’t you hear her? Oh, I was wishing you would. I didn’t dare +to cry out, you know, since she was in that dangerous state.” + +“We heard, dear,” said Alberta Pendleton. “But the sound kept +changing, and we were undecided.” + +“She had a definite intention to go out, and out of the front entrance +we went whether I would or not. And then, then, while we were far away +on the lawn, we saw the—the—I can’t name it.” + +“What was it like?” asked Pendleton, and I recall that all of us +closed in a little further to hear. + +“The head, I suppose you’d call it. It was—awful.” + +“What—where?” + +“Didn’t any of you see it?” she asked in much surprise, yet not for a +second lifting her intent look from Millicent Mertoun’s face. “It was +just after that I noticed that foul reek of blood.” + +“Blood!” That was Eve Bartholomew’s cry. + +“Oh, haven’t you noticed that either? The smell was so bad, I feared +it would have some ghastly effect on Millicent. I hoped she wouldn’t +notice it, in her condition. And then—we were beyond the gate-house, +coming back toward the mansion, when we saw—the head.” + +“Where, for God’s sake?” + +“About a hundred feet away from us. I heard something stirring first, +something scuttling, you might say. Then we saw it. Ugh! . . . +Straight out of hell, surely. . . .” + +Pendleton’s excitement was getting too much for him, and he broke +through courtesy. “Why do you keep boggling it? Where was it? What did +it do?” + +“Crofts!” reprimanded Alberta. + +Still with averted face, Paula Lebetwood tried to satisfy our fuming +host. “Where? I don’t know exactly where. Near the gate-house here, I +suppose. It seemed thirty or forty yards away. It was enormous, about +six feet high—oh, fully that. It hung in the air—there wasn’t any body +beneath. And it didn’t do anything, just remained there long enough to +be seen, half a second, perhaps, and disappeared with a sort of sigh. +I thought I heard a sigh. It—well, it simply went out. . . . It was +hideous.” + +“What did it look like, dear?” asked Alberta, more to anticipate her +bluff husband than to satisfy curiosity, for her question was +tremulous. + +“Hideous—a great round head with red goggle eyes and a hole for a nose +and broken teeth all grinning. It looked alive and staring—worse than +any mask I’ve ever seen—an indecent thing. . . . Oh, don’t think that +it was hallucination—poor Millicent saw it too, though it came and +went like the winking of an eye. It seemed to strike to her heart—and +to mine, for that matter—and she could manage to walk only a few steps +more—on my arm—through the archway before she weakened and collapsed, +and I saw you all there outside the french window, and called.” + +She turned her head full toward us for the first time since Oxford and +I had come from our private chase. Such was my position when she +lifted her bent head that I, and only I, saw, on the yellow-lit ground +revealed beyond, a small placard with uncouth letters thereon, large +enough to be read in spite of their unshapeliness: + + P A R S O N L O L L Y S e N d s R E G a R D s L o o K O U T + F O R P A R S O N L O L L Y + +A storm sprang in my mind, such a whirlwind of spirit as I believe I +have never before experienced, when behind the quick, expectant face +of this American girl, one so tender to her stricken friend, one so +fearless, I saw that obscene sign. She was at first dazzled by the +light in my hand, and her dark blue eyes show wonderfully bright and +wild. Her gold hair then had a fine-spun beauty. And beside the old +gate-tower lay the sneering message of one who affronted both manhood +and womanhood. Anger at the marauder who made beauty his victim, shame +for being duped, fear of being duped again, a craving to bring the +rascal down—these and I know that not what other unleashed gales met +in the cross-roads of my mind. The winds rose to raving, towered into +hurricanes. My soul was dizzy, staggering. I was not rational at that +moment—then the gales went down. I bit my lip hard, stepped around the +two women there, picked up the sign (which had been printed with a +smudgy pencil on a stiff folio sheet) and showed it to the rest. + +“Parson Lolly!” exclaimed more than one. + +Then Oxford, perhaps intending to be jocose, said, + +“‘Beware of Parson Lolly.’ Beggar’s a bit late, it seems to me.” + +“At least,” said Crofts Pendleton thickly “it proves he’s human—the +devil!” + +“_In some ways human_, perhaps,” amended Maryvale. + +“What else, then?” + +“Less than human. Consider the birds of the air, my friends. They are, +I suppose, less than human—yet—they—can—fly!” + +I gave a stout shrug to rid myself of the disquiet compelled by such a +suggestion. + +Anxiety over Miss Mertoun’s exposure to the midnight air prompted +Alberta Pendleton, not for the first time, to urge taking her inside +the Hall. But Miss Lebetwood shook her head in a determined manner, +and with a gesture showed that she believed it was too far to carry +her to the mansion. + +“It’s very mild out here now,” she declared. “I know sleep-walking +people. If she were to wake up while she’s being taken, it might have +some long-lasting ill effect. Alberta, please don’t ask again. I want +her to be in my arms when she opens her eyes. You good people don’t +need to stay. I—and Sean—can wait here with her alone.” + +But none of us would go. Then while we waited to see a greater sign of +life than the restlessness of those long black lashes on the pallid +cheek, down from the dark north came that ragged, hungry voice I had +heard while alone earlier in the night, a cry that tore at our nerves +and congealed our blood to ice-drops in our veins. A carnal, raving +cry, thinning to a shriek that pierced the ear, swelling to a howl +that loosened the knees. + +Of that dire, abysmal wail of mad desire, an overtone must have found +a counterpart in Cosgrove’s spirit. Out of the past of his kind, that +had seen things more clearly in the dusk than in the plain light of +day, that had loved cries of battle and death more than joyful cries, +some strain may have wrung the man’s soul. Terribly to all of us, he +raised his voice in answer to the inhuman call; I, at least, had no +sense of body or of time and place while he burst into a black rain of +words, a torrent of rancour, and defiance against the fiend of the +pit, whose incarnate self he seemed to hear in the voice of the beast. + +But a low call from Paula Lebetwood reduced him to a stunning silence. +“I think she’s coming to.” + +The unconscious girl’s fingers fluttered briefly; her lips stirred; +her whole body stirred a little. She turned once, twice, restlessly, +and sank, with a little sigh, comfortably and trustingly into the +American girl’s embrace. The trace of a sneer had vanished from her +face, and her breast moved with her breathing. + +“She’s sleeping now,” said Alberta Pendleton, and stooped beside the +pair on the grass. + +Miss Lebetwood whispered, “Dearest, do you hear me? Do you know me? +It’s Paula. . . . Dearest, do you hear me?” She stroked the pale +forehead free of its last furrow. + +“Yes,” came like a shadow of a word from the sleeping girl. + +“Dearest, Paula wants you to come with her.” Still she spoke, +soothing, caressing, in the effort to woo her to awaken peacefully. +And the eyes of Millicent Mertoun opened, revealing themselves to be +of a deep blackness that rivalled her errant hair, opened to see only +the smile of love on the face of the American girl bending over her; +and the English girl smiled too. + +“Your headache is all gone, isn’t it, dearest?” + +“Yes . . . but where . . . is this?” + +“Don’t be frightened, dear. It’s the lawn by the gate-house. Now we’re +going inside.” + +“But how? . . . I don’t understand . . . these people.” + +Miss Lebetwood kissed her cheek, leaned her forehead against it. +“Never mind, dearest. Everyone is a friend, you know. Can you walk? +Here, now.” + +The English girl was sitting up; she rubbed her eyes, and sent short, +bewildered looks this way and that, far from comprehending her +situation. Too many of the party were trying to explain everything to +her, and she was beginning to look desperate and unhappy. + +“Never mind the silly people,” said Miss Lebetwood sensibly. +“See—we’re just a few steps away from the house—where we’ve been +before, you know. Now we must go in. Sean, help me.” + +The Irishman and the women at last began to support the strengthless +girl into the Hall. It must have been a full quarter of an hour since +we had poured out from that vaulted chamber into the enigmatic night +and had heard the call from the gate-house. Now the servants were +roused, summoned by someone, and lanterns were rushing across the lawn +in our direction. I had commenced to go with the party about Miss +Mertoun, desirous of casting a light before their feet. But Pendleton +called me back somewhat peremptorily. + +“Bright enough from the Hall for ’em not to stumble by.” Alone in the +great mansion the Hall of the Moth sparkled forth, but the glare from +its massive chandelier was a sure guiding light. “We need you here,” +added our host; “there’s a good deal more of this needs looking at.” + +At a phrase from him the lanterns began to swing hither and thither +about the lawn, and we men of the party passed across the drawbridge +under the resounding gate-house arch. + +“Is this usually lowered?” I asked. + +“Usually. Can be raised for the sport of it. It’s part of the main +drive, you see. It must have been hereabout that they smelt—” + +He had no need to say more. + +“Great God, what an unholy stench!” + +“It _is_ blood!” + +“Bottles of it.” + +Crofts Pendleton’s voice shook. “I hope—it’s not—anything serious.” + +Just then nothing could have struck us as amusing. Lord Ludlow +interjected, “Remember, sir, that there is a missing man—” + +“Oh, Lord, look there! My boot!” + +Belvoir lifted a foot for inspection, while I turned the eye of the +torch upon it. The leather was stained with a fluid dark and thick. + +“My God!” observed Pendleton. + +“It’s jolly well begun to clot.” + +“Look out, you chaps, you’ll mire yourselves.” + +“Show us the place, Bannerlee.” + +My torch exposed a patch of darkened grass only a foot or so each way. +There was nothing else about nearby. + +Pendleton, half aghast, kneeled on the edge of the patch and studied +it. + +“A lot of blood’s been spilled here. It must have soaked down, a +goodish bit of it, but there’s quite a pool about the grass roots. +This spot will have to be guarded to-night. Pity we’ve tramped about.” + +A thick voice lifted in excitement from the north of us. + +“Oh, Mister Crofts, sir, do come here.” + +“What is it, Tenney? Let it stay, whatever it is.” + +“Small fear I’ll touch it, sir. It’s one of them old fightin’ irons.” + +“A weapon, by heaven!” exclaimed Lord Ludlow. + +“Has it blood on it?” + +“All sticky dried, sir.” + +We were beside the quaking man-servant in a jiffy or two, staring +curiously where lay a small battle-axe, with an inconsiderable curve +of blade. It was a weapon of uncommon slightness. Both metal and wood +were dark with the same viscous fluid, the handle being quite +slobbered with it. + +“From the armoury!” cried our host. “The foul devil’s actually been +inside the house! Don’t touch it!” + +“That weapon was on the wall at a quarter before eight,” said Lord +Ludlow. (Ah, I knew why he could say that!) “I was passing through to +the library for my glasses.” (There, to be sure, the old rascal +prevaricated.) + +“You don’t say!” + +“This looks like a serious crime,” remarked his Lordship. + +“Serious crime!” Pendleton snorted. “Ludlow, you surprise me. I +thought it was child’s play.” + +“I think that by a serious crime our noble friend means a particular +crime—don’t you, Ludlow? Isn’t it the customary euphemism?” asked +Belvoir. + +“I mean murder, sir.” + +“Should have said so in the first place,” growled Pendleton, and +added, “No need to say it at all.” + +“It’s jolly irregular, though,” declared Oxford. “All that blood in +one spot, and this gory thing over here.” + +“This was not done according to rule,” rejoined his Lordship. + +“It was not carried out as planned,” declared Cosgrove, who had come +out from the mansion again. + +“And one, er, detail only needs to be filled in.” That was Belvoir +from somewhere in the darkness behind us. “The, er, _corpus delicti_.” + +“Gad, yes—scatter, now—search—all the way to Aidenn Water.” + +The cluster of lanterns spread into kaleidoscopic figures again, +although the men seemed none too happy to leave the protection of one +another. But they did not discover any further traces of the marauder +or a vestige of a victim who might have furnished all that blood. My +own light picked up the last find of the night, a round, battered +object on the grass even further north than the blood-stained axe. + +“A hat!” + +“Can it be Sir Brooke’s?” + +Pendleton leaped ahead of us and snatched it from the ground, held it +from him contemptuously. + +“I doubt it.” + +“I can tell you certainly that it is not Sir Brooke’s!” + +One man, at least, jumped at the sound of a female voice among us. +There was Eve Bartholomew, standing tall and tragic, clinging, I +thought, to the last pinch of nerve she possessed. + +“I couldn’t help being interested, you know,” she remarked +ingenuously, and gave a little high-keyed laugh. “I just came from the +Hall. But I can assure you that Sir Brooke has nothing to do with this +affair. He would be mad to take any part in it. He would be mad to +wear that rag of a disreputable hat.” + +“Yes, Mrs. Bartholomew,” I agreed, “he would. I was about to say, +before you identified the hat as not Sir Brooke’s, that it belongs to +me. I wore it down the slopes of Aidenn Vale.” + +“You did!” + +“Yes—none too new when I set forth with it this morning, it has +suffered a lifetime’s wear and tear with me to-day. That is the +history of the hat.” + +“But where did you see it last?” demanded Pendleton. + +“I left it hanging in the entrance-hall. And I saw it on the rack as +you and I came down the stairs before we went in to the Bidding +Feast.” + +“By gad, I remember it too,” he assented. “Then if—” + +But he never finished that sentence, whose protases and apodoses might +have filled an hour. Quick with surmise, we turned back to the house. + +Millicent Mertoun and her retinue had by this time gone upstairs, but +the Hall of the Moth was full of the women-servants of the house, +arrayed in white as if risen from their graves in winding sheets. A +small boy in a nightgown, scared half to death, was blubbering +soulfully, as were some of the women. Blenkinson, the butler, the only +man of them who had not got into clothes and gone forth, was quieting +everyone with loud sibilance. + +Pendleton confronted them somewhat nervously. + +“There’s been too much racket about nothing,” he asserted. “Miss +Mertoun walked a little in her sleep. That’s really all that’s +happened. You’re all very silly, you see, to take on so. Now get to +bed.” + +But when they had departed he turned upon Eve Bartholomew with a face +full of bale. “I can tell you one thing about Sir Brooke. If he +doesn’t show up to-morrow and clear things up a bit, he’ll find no +Bidding Feast when he gets here. I’ll invite ’em to clear out. I’m not +going to have my guests hounded and threatened.” + +Mrs. Bartholomew gasped. “Why, you can’t say that Sir Brooke has +anything—” + +“I don’t know,” scowled Pendleton, “but I want him—here!” + +We are truly blissful marriage celebrators. + +. . . . A thought had been germinating in my mind ever since the +moment of my near-madness on the lawn, when the iniquity of Parson +Lolly had so taken hold of me. When we were alone: + +“Crofts, I want to prove I’m not crazy. Show me where you want me to +sleep, and give me a book to write in. And keep it quiet, for heaven’s +sake.” + +“A book to write in?” + +“I have many words within me craving to be penned. Give me a book to +write in, and show me my room.” + +Well, this is the room, and these some of the words. + +Now to tell of the many things that happened to me to-day before these +many things. + + + +CHAPTER II + +The Bull + + Yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon. + +About this time I was sitting on a damp sharp stone, looking about me +and seeing nothing. I had walked for a long while and gotten nowhere. +For there was persistent mist still in the uplands, and I had strayed +into the thick of it and was hopelessly befogged, hungry, and a trifle +anxious about the probable duration of my helplessness. + +My thoughts just then were largely retrospect. I had set out +from—well, I have forgotten the spelling of the place, but it’s no +matter.¹ The names in Wales have fascinating orthography and, to one +not adept, rather unobvious pronunciations. I had set out from this +place which must be anonymous in order to search for something that +had not been seen for several centuries, the private oratory or shrine +or cell of St. Tarw, a rather unbelievable name, or, in the American +idiom, a bully one, whichever way you look at it, for a Welsh saint. +It’s one that anybody can say without arduous practice. The saint +himself was a rather incredible individual. It happens that I know +something of saints, they being a particular hobby of mine, and yet I +was uncertain at that moment whether St. Tarw was a man or was a +whisper on the faëry breeze of legend. But as it happened, in the +course of researches in London, I found hints that, man or whisper, he +had left or there had been left for him in what to-day is Radnorshire, +a monument of stone in which he did his devotions, or had been +believed to do them. + + ¹ Actually Llanbadarnfynydd, nine miles away, where I had put up + before. My landlord had given me a lift half-way down in his + Morris. (Author’s note.) + +It was in the Book of Sylvan Armitage that I ran across the clue. The +Book is a chronicle of the diversions of a sixteenth-century +gentleman, and mine is a genuine first printing of 1598. It contains +an allusion which I am confident refers to a performance of the +“Merchant of Venice” at Blackfriars, which allusion would stagger the +erudite who prate glibly of the “order of Shakespeare’s plays,” if +they gave it a thought. But much more interesting to me is the +reference to the devotional seat of St. Tarw. + +Sylvan Armitage, progressing through Wales in 1594, visited the house +of an Englishman residing in that lately war-distraught country. On +one of their “long gaddynges and peregrinations afoot,” for riding was +not feasible among these broken mountains, they came upon a humble +structure of “hewn stones, much dishevelled and marvellously coated by +moss,” says Sylvan Armitage. He adds that the “cella” had been built +under a bank, and that this very fact was then threatening its +existence. Small chance of success then for me. + +So yesterday while I sat on my ungrateful seat with the mist wreathing +about me, I half-abandoned the search before it had properly begun. +For the dozenth time I took out the letter I had received the day +before from my dear old friends, Jack and Mary Bonnet of Bristol. +Their barque, recently returned from Australia, will leave the +dry-dock in a day or so and take the sea again from Bristol next +Monday. Would I join them in a “terror and pleasure” trip somewhere +around Africa or the Scandinavian coast? Of course, I reflected, it +would take me fully a week to wind up my affairs in preparation for +such an ocean journey. I must drop the saint business. I looked at the +fog, felt sick of saints, and almost decided I would go. + +I had let down my burden, a soldier’s knapsack and a fairly +well-loaded one, to the grass beside my feet. I decided to eat my +luncheon. I tucked the Bonnet letter away and took out my +beef-sandwiches, milk in a thermos-flask, and walnut meats, a +substantial meal in small compass. My long morning’s tramp on the +uplands had made me very hungry. It was not only the tramp, but the +slipping and falling and crawling, for the yellow grass was long and +trodden flat by cattle, making the side slopes very toilsome, and, in +the mist, risky, for you sometimes did not know whether you might fall +ten feet or a thousand. + +I had been exploring Aidenn Forest, but I had early left the lowland +area of trees. The uplands, miles of broad-topped hills in a range of +horseshoe shape, were given over largely to cattle-grazing. There were +long pastures of rolling and heaving slopes, like the gently-breathing +ocean of midsummer. My meal over, I unfolded my contour-map of the +Geographical Institute and pondered over it, trying by recollection +and inference to determine just where I was. But I had not the +remotest clue to slope or distance. I might have been at one extreme +of the horseshoe or the other, or any spot betwixt. It was two +o’clock. + +Neither my literary nor my philosophic studies, which are supposed to +chasten the mind to resignation, comforted my thoughts in the least, +but suddenly I was aware of a change in the atmosphere. The mist +seemed suffused with silver, then with gold. Soon the phantoms of fog +had retracted far on either side in lofty, shifting, sun-rayed banks, +and the air became clear about me. But I remained in doubt about my +position. + +For the mist had cleared only to the shoulders of the hills, and left +the rolling heights a-sparkle like early morning; but the valleys and +the great outer hills of Wales, girding Aidenn Forest, were blind to +me. From the declining sun I could tell which way was west, but +knowledge of that direction alone was no use. Was I on the western +curve of the horseshoe or the opposite? Nor did it help to recall that +my ascent of Aidenn Forest had been the north, where the two curves +meet, the open part of the horseshoe being to the south. I was as +confused as ever. + +At least I could walk freely, keep to the smooth uplands without peril +of falling down some gap or gully. I strode on in the grandeur of the +sun, the mighty halo of mist extending a mile all around, a more +gorgeous glory than bully St. Tarw or any other of the blessed men of +earth ever wore. The towering wall of mist was warm with the light +that occasionally melted through and dazzled the ragged hill-slope +underneath; the cloud-caps wreathed and spired like golden smoke, and +I went on proudly and merrily in my enormous prison. I felt like a +god, exultant. I reached out my hands and lifted my face to the +heavens. My loneliness apotheosized me. I laughed. I shouted, +_ebriatus_. Never before have I experienced that sense of space and +power, that vigour beyond muscle and sense, that reckless rapture! + +Nearly an hour passed. Grasshoppers leapt to either side of my path +with little soft comings to earth; the sound was like the first drops +of rain. Black-game and grouse twice or thrice scampered and scudded +from my feet, and suddenly out of the fog which had closed in on my +left swept a great bevy of unknown birds with a thunder of wings. I +judged then that I was not far from the brink of a steep pitch on the +edge of the uplands. The mist which had glorified me was beginning to +hem me more straitly and I bore away to the right, being wary of +pitfalls. + +Gradually, while I moved up and down the placid slopes and crossed +wide expanses wherein I was an ephemeral topic for cows and shambling +tattered ponies, an inexpressible sense told me precisely where I was +on the lofty horseshoe of Aidenn Forest. Fragmentary half-submerged +memories of my contour-map, of the dip of the slopes where I trod, of +instructions proffered me by scraggy, wry-spoken yokels (with obligato +of a pig screaming at a gate), of the arc described by the sun, of the +bated breath of the breeze—all these united to fix my certainty. My +feet just at that moment were ascending on the flattened grass of a +small summit; Mynydd Tarw I knew it was, whose highest spot was +considerably above two thousand feet. Mynydd Tarw, on the verge of the +horseshoe’s eastern bend, was where I had concluded the oratory of St. +Tarw was most likely to be found. + +I explored the hill and all about, but unfortunately it was creased +and gorged by channels, tiny valleys. Trees and rank underbrush grew +in these troughs, increasing in thickness down the declivity, and the +banners of mist were tangled in the trees. The trunks were clammy, the +fallen leaves dank, the earth too soft for good footing. My shoes sank +over the ankles in leaves and loam. Bereft of my halo, I had little +joy. And after an hour of climbing up and down, groping and grasping, +of peering for traces of foundered or buried walls, I realized, with a +shock that sickened me, that I was out of my reckoning in the lower +fog again, and that I could not trace my way back. I could not even +tell in which direction Mynydd Tarw lay. + +I was almost frantic. It was now past mid-afternoon, less than two +hours before sunset, and had I known the bee-line to my hostel in the +difficultly-pronounced village, I could not have reached it before +darkness had long covered Wales. + +The valleys, immersed in mist below me, were a wilderness, and broad +of expanse; once on the uplands again, however, I believed I could +find Mynydd Tarw, and thence strike on the true way home. As for +exploring the Vale of Aidenn Water itself, I had no reason to believe +that man had ever built a habitation there. To regain the uplands was +my anxious wish; but not even this was an easy feat. I was weary +already, from physical exertion and strain of mind, but it should have +been easy to keep my course upward, however slow my progress. Yet the +yellow grass and the heather was flat and long, and whether still dry +or drenched with fog, slippery and maddening to ascend upon. Moreover, +I would find myself in channels torn and scarred by water, now +streamless in summer season, but choked with thorny creepers and thick +spear-like stalks in malign barriers. + +But I persevered, although I found the mist had grown thicker above as +day declined. Presently I recognized the sweet smell of new-cut hay in +fields above me, and soon afterward kneeing myself to the sharp edge +of a parapet of rock, I rejoiced to see the smoky round of the sun. +There was a line of wild apple-trees along the rim of the uplands at +this point. The crooked branches and straggling shoots of them made +them all like black hats of witches wreathed with tattered ribbons, +save for the one directly before me, through whose limbs +half-despoiled of leaves the sun sent a wicked leering shine that made +me singularly uneasy. + +I had come into a region thickly populated with cattle. There were a +score on the hillock to my right, and when I had gone thence over a +bristling wire fence I found a hundred more filling the twilight plain +with their shadows. There was not a sound from the widespread throng, +but I had a feeling that each dispassionate bovine head was turned +toward me, and I advanced with something of the shyness of a child +crossing a drawing-room where he feels every eye cold and critical. A +little the uncanny sense gripped me that I had happened upon some land +undiscovered by Gulliver, where cows were people, and very superior +people. There had been so few of them visible all day, now so many; I +could not rid myself of the notion that I was an intruder. (Just then +the reasonable explanation did not occur to me that atmospheric +conditions had much to do with the migrations of the beasts from place +to place on the horseshoe.) + +Across an unkempt stone wall which I whipped up laggard muscles to +leap—I was going rapidly—sweet-fleshed sheep, of orthodox tan, the +cross of Welsh mountain breed with black-faced “Shrops,” were nudging +one another in an anxious mass. I looked toward the sinking sun and +discerned a black rift perhaps a mile distant: the Vale of Aidenn +Water, with the prominences of the western arm of the horseshoe, Great +Rhos, Esgair Nantau, and Vron Hill, nosing up to the sky even another +mile beyond. + +Then down on me came dark ruin with a rush. + +I was aware appallingly of some vaster shadow blotting out the +gorgeous disc which lay on the western hills, a shadow blatant, +militant, perilous. A sting of fear in my breast goaded me to instant +flight; I was plunging away all in an instant, every part of me in +panic, without realization of what it was from which I fled. + +Ten seconds of rushing flight, a frantic glance behind me, and my +returning faculties told me what that fell form was, horned and pawed, +with cavorting death-like head and eyes evilly a-gleam, the shape +rampaging, the feet tremendous on the shaken ground. I knew too well +those signs of the Hereford breed, the twining horns and the white +face so startlingly suggestive of the skull beneath. It was a bull, +the hugest bull on earth, insane with murderous passion. + +Terror winged me in that course for life. Once I stumbled and rolled +down a slope littered with small stones, but my speed was scarcely +lessened. I must have regained my feet, for I drove myself through a +patch of merciless nettles and awful thorns, yet was hardly sensible +of being torn and stabbed. Not until long afterward did I feel the +heavy bruise, like the mark of an iron palm, which my hard and firmly +fastened pack had printed between my shoulder-blades, saving me a +worse blow. Now my due training for the mile at the University, not so +very long ago, and the desire for strict regimen then instilled in me, +and my frequent jaunts on foot through broad countrysides, were in +good stead. In the beginning of this breathless chase, I had had a +wide margin of advantage, and now I was all but holding my own, when +ahead of me I saw deliverance. For I had turned westward in flight +across the leveller hilltop, and the brink of the Vale of Aidenn +Water, with its slope looking a precipice all around and its hollow +now a mammoth bowl of impenetrable fog, was less than a furlong away +ahead. + +Risk had to be taken to make safety sure. I chanced another ugly fall +by a quick twist of my neck. I led by twenty yards. Gradually, +therefore, I diminished my pace so that at the verge of the cliff only +ten feet might separate us—and just before I would have leaped out +into the turbid air, I used every remaining particle of strength in a +sidewise lunge downward to the grass, letting the bull flash with +unconquerable momentum over the edge. + +But I myself was a vessel of momentum and could not by any frantic +clutching and clawing soever keep myself from sliding over the brink +and slipping from an abrupt decline to a sharper one, whence with +horrified mind I felt myself go over the verge of nothingness! While I +fell backward with eyes staring to the lurid sky, I saw the hulk of +the bull shoot out from the summit of the cliff. Never have I seen a +thing as black as the mass of the beast, with limbs winnowing in the +air and head and vast nose outstretched. The black body would have +crushed me to pulp had I not flung myself aside a moment before. I +know that I must have been still in the air when the bull struck a +thrust-out ledge far below the cliff—I had caught just an instant’s +glare of one eye, demoniac and hopeless—then the animal went bellowing +and thumping down through the fog into unseen depths until one final +crash and cry ended sound in ghastly silence. + + + +CHAPTER III + +The House + +I don’t suppose I was in the air a second, but there was time enough +for me to rue my neglect of Jack Bonnet’s invitation. Why hadn’t I +turned round and gone away from the Forest and let the oratory go +hang? + +I was aware soon afterward that I was still alive in a queer place +under the shelter of the hilltop, a place all caved-in earth and +half-buried squarish rock, like heavy tombstones thickly lichened, and +resting, some of them, one upon the other. I was on my back with my +head on a pillow of fungi; beneath the pillow, however, was a +sufficiently flinty foundation. For a long time I remained supine, and +listened with interest while my heart gradually resumed a normal rate. +The upper tangle of the fog was just beyond and below me; yet when I +looked at the dark brink above, I realized that never, never could I +climb back at the spot where I had fallen. But I felt a great +gladness. + +I explored the place little more than was necessary to get my +bearings. So upon regaining enough strength I commenced to creep along +the face of the cliff, now and then dipping into the region of the +mist and losing sight of the sky, which was growing desolate of light. +At length I found a slope where the grass was short and turf firm, a +sward. I went now at a pace between a walk and a run and congratulated +myself on making headway, though the brow of the ravine was forbidding +above me still. Then the bank became startlingly overgrown with trees, +and the drizzle was thicker among them. + +I slowed to a snail’s pace, and that was well for me. All too soon my +foot gave way on the left-hand edge of a mass of undergrowth quite +impenetrable to sight. I struggled to take hold of something, did, in +fact, grasp stems that yielded instantly to my weight, for they were +frail and grew on a perpendicular face of earth. Once more I had the +exquisitely dreadful sensation of falling whither I could not tell. My +body ripped down through a mesh and tangle of shrubs that availed +almost nothing to stay my descent. I accelerated. + +Then my ribs struck a goodly branch with a knock that did indeed break +my fall, but before I could twine an arm about this saviour, I had +jounced to a lower branch, thence to the ground, this time with only a +moderate jar. + +I was on a narrow rocky path with the densely overgrown hill on one +hand and the mist of the Vale—yawning space—on the other. I thought +for a flash that I had invaded the home-ledge of some unrecorded ape +or gorilla. For a creature cried out in my very face, a man coming up, +as it were, out of the living rock of the path before me. He was +fustian-clad, heavy-set, dark-featured, scowling frightfully, and my +impression was that he was almost spent of breath. His mouth gaped in +a rictus of strain and fear. + +“Mawkerdjey—immilath acowal!” So they sounded, the words he spat in my +face, the shout he shouted uninterpretable by my English ears in that +cranny of Wales. But meaningless as was the shout to me, it remained +clear in my auditive memory, as a scene sometimes is keenly limned in +one’s inattentive sight. And I was sure it was not Welsh. Nor was this +because Radnorshire is a backsliding county where the ancient language +has yielded to the new. The shape and stress of the cry were unlike +what speech I have heard in the remoter areas where Welsh is still +spoken. + +In an instant the fellow had scuffled past me and was ascending in the +fog, while yet I leaned on my hand with buzzing senses and jerky mind. +I staggered to my feet and looked upward along the path. At the head +of the rise a glimmer of sea-green sunset-light lingered, and the +broad bulk of the man staggered against that semi-darkness, a +diminishing silhouette. At length I saw him reach the top of the rise, +throw up his hands in a sort of gesture of weary achievement, and +disappear to the uplands beyond. + +Excitedly, and full of profitless conjecture as to what might be his +business upon the rolling solitudes of Aidenn Forest, I turned on my +way down the zigzag path, being resolved to explore the Vale for +shelter since now it was hopeless to make my way over the fells and +crags to my Welsh tavern lodging that night. The outcry of the +ape-like man was still distinct in my ears, an undecipherable shout, +one, I knew, strange even in this region of strange tongues. + +I had paused, arrested by a sound the like of which I have never +known, a roaring sound, not the boom of cannon or the rage of water or +the thunder of avalanche, all of which I have heard. It came from +below and far away, a gentle roar; I thought it might be some +superhuman voice. As a fact, while I listened, I became convinced that +it was a voice of great power with something unique and quite baffling +in its quality, one full capable of terrifying a man of unsteady +nerves. Yet I was sure that in a different context I would recognize +that quality as a natural thing. The muffled echoes of the voice +rocked around the Vale; words I am sure there were, the same phrase or +sentence repeated many times, but the utmost strain of ear and +faculties did not enable me to distinguish the meaning of a syllable. +Then the distant shout and its reflections ceased, and I heard only +the still grasses. I went on, full of living fancies. + +A new sound greeted me out of the darkness, the rippling song of a +nightingale on my right beyond the brink. The trees in the depths of +Aidenn Vale, then, must be near below. And presently finding almost +level ground, I heard the chuckle of water, and discerned a lofty fall +of dulled silver, indeed passed it so close that the rising spray +touched my cheek. Thus I had found Aidenn Water, not far from its +springs on the shoulder of Black Mixen at the upper end of the +horseshoe. + +Straining my sight in the clogged air, I could trace the black thread +of the watercourse on my right hand. Beside it I trod, to the broken +descant of amorous birds. And while I went the way of the stream south +among the wilding trees, the dark mist paled. I raised my eyes; great +Whimble hill loomed before me, and over its stern summit crept a +chipped and gibbous moon, softly lustering. While the moon went up the +sky, I trolled on southward in air grey and spectral under the +frowning summits of Aidenn Vale. + +The pathway left the stream for a gentle rise through the trees. Still +I could hear Aidenn Water clamour down the Vale while it skipped +along. Soon I emerged from the thick of the wood into an open space, +the level summit of a vast mound, and with a certain freshening of +surprise found myself approaching a lonely wall built by human +strength. + +A wall—no more—ruinous and desolate, toppled in many places from its +original height. + +Passing closer, I discovered the confounded and scattered remnant of +other wasted walls, strewn like bones in the brightening glamour of +the moon. And midway among them stood one tree of mighty stature, +doubtless rendered even more towering by the witchery of mist and +moonlight. + +Sometimes acoustic conditions prevent one from hearing what goes on +just round the corner only a few feet away. So, then, my path led me +toward the south-west end of the ruin, and precisely at the standing +angle of the stone I ran into another man. I did literally run into +him, for he was soft and spongy, and my first feeling was that I had +encountered a hot-water bottle strolling as leisurely as if on the +Mall. + +We recoiled from a position cheek by jowl. A light flashed in my eyes, +and at the same instant I directed the glare of my pocket-torch, which +I still possessed, into his eyes. Our speeches, too, crossed each +other. + +“Pardon! I didn’t hear you, sir!” + +“What are you doing here?” + +It was not the greeting I had expected; in fact, I felt it quite +discourteous. Moreover, he kept the spot-light of his dark-lantern +playing on my features for some time, and his piercing eyes studied me +critically. In return I gave his exterior a good scrutiny. + +My light revealed a tall figure, appearing excessively, grotesquely +tall because it was wearing a very high, narrow top-hat, almost a +steeple-hat. The man was large and round as well as long. His face +compared with the rest of his body was relatively narrow; I saw +glittering eyes and a long, straight nose, eyebrows black like coals, +and a mantling, pointed beard, also very thick and fiercely black. +What gave me the creeps was that this beard did not grow quite +straight, but was tilted a little to the left. + +His clothing, I saw in this long dissection, was that of an elderly +man, a black double-breasted frock-coat, not cutaway, and black +trousers which descended to elastic-sided boots. And under the arm +toward which the beard slanted was lodged an old, bulgy umbrella with +a large metal handle. He quickly shifted this article into his right +hand, grasping it toward the point so that it might be a weapon of +considerable moment, his left hand holding the dark-lantern. + +He was the first to break the silence. Smiling, he replaced the +umbrella under his arm. + +“Ah, pardon me, please. I see that you are on my side.” His voice, now +I noticed it, was rather deep, and yet rather young for one of his +solemn appearance. + +“I’m sure I’m not against you,” I answered, and lowered my light out +of his eyes. He followed suit. + +“You are one of the natives of this region?” he asked, and with his +question came the thought to me that he might be a foreigner, although +his full, somewhat throaty voice was perfectly assimilated to the +Anglican inflections. Those coat-skirts somehow gave him a little of a +Continental aspect—and that umbrella! Didn’t Schubert always carry an +umbrella? or was I thinking of Paul Pry? + +“I should say not,” I responded. “I, too, am a stranger.” + +“Ah, you, _too_? What a pity!” + +“Yes, am I not correct in believing that you—” + +“Quite so, sir; my name, sir, is Septimus MacWilloughby, and I was +taught not far from Birmingham. And now, sir, will you kindly tell me +what you have been doing here?” + +“Been doing? Doing? Why, nothing, in the sense you seem to mean. And +have you any business with me? Isn’t it rather—?” + +“It is necessary.” + +“I lost my way in fog up there on the hilltops and came down into the +Vale in the hope of finding some sort of shelter. I was just passing +by this—” + +“Yes, of course,” said Mr. MacWilloughby, in what seemed to me a +rather meditative tone. “Tell me, please: in your travelling to-day +have you run across a very small grey spaniel, with ink-spots?” + +I was reduced to repeating, “With ink-spots?” + +“Yes, certainly: I repeat, a small grey spaniel, with ink-spots. The +dog was not to blame if the bottle was too near the edge of the table. +No, I see that you have not. Well then, by chance you may have seen a +pair of Scandinavian ponies, both lame in the off foreleg?” + +“I certainly have not.” + +“Dear me,” sighed my interlocutor. He stabbed the ground with his +umbrella, leaned upon it with both hands, large, red, bloated hands, +nervously twitching fat fingers. “And finally, did you notice whether +any snakes—” + +I was growing exasperated, whether or not this _soi-disant_ +MacWilloughby was making merry at my expense. + +“Don’t you know,” I asked harshly, “that there are no snakes in +Radnorshire?” + +“But these were from my menagerie. Dear me, my menagerie will be +dreadfully depleted, I fear. You didn’t—?” + +“Look here,” I exploded; “have you a Bull of Bashan on your list? If +you have, your bull’s dead—I can tell you so much. With the exception +of a cave-man who was running up the path there, every animal I’ve +seen has been indigenous.” + +“But snakes—from my menagerie,” he protested mildly, ignoring my tone. +He indicated with the umbrella and his free hand, for a pencil of +moonlight from rifted clouds had caused us both to stow away our +torches. “Snakes about so long.” + +“No, no!” + +He shrugged disappointedly. “Well! if it must be. Then you will tell +me, please, which of these hills”—he included them all with a sweep of +the umbrella—“is called Kerry Hill?” + +“Why, none of them. Kerry Hill is outside this county, thirty miles +away.” + +“Oh, so far away? Then I must be leaving at once. I have a friend who +lives in a little house on the top of that hill, and he will be +anxious for me.” + +Whereupon Mr. MacWilloughby strode past me, but checked himself. +“Stay—what was that you said about a cave-man?” + +I was willing to humour him a little longer. “Oh, I met _him_ right +enough. He shouted some gibberish in my face and passed me going to +the uplands.” + +“Oh? Now that is very good. You may think it inexcusable of me, sir, +but I had the idea for a little while that you were that cave-man. I +asked you those questions partly to hear a little of your language. +Now, since you say Kerry Hill is so far, I really—” + +He commenced to walk away, but I protested. + +“I think it’s time you answered a question or two of mine. I don’t +know what possesses you to climb into that wilderness, even if your +whole menagerie is kicking its heels up there—they’ll keep. But you +can at least tell me what I’m likely to find further down the Vale. +Shall I find anyone there?” + +The stranger’s face, in spite of its startling features, grew really +pleasant with a smile. “I believe you will find someone further down. +Yes, I believe you will find all you want.” + +“I’m not looking for any special number of people,” I told him tartly. +“I want a house—shelter—a place to stop overnight. Am I clear?” + +Mr. MacWilloughby seemed to have lost interest in his surroundings. In +answer to my question he murmured, “Yes, you are very likely to find a +house,” but his thought seemed to be running in other channels. He was +biting the beard of his nether lip. Suddenly he drew himself up. “You +might mention—if you decide to stop—to the master of the hostelry, +that his many watch-dogs are causing me inconvenience. Secretly, you +understand. All this you must tell him secretly. I enjoy the society +of the menagerie, and of many kinds of dogs—the Russian wolf-hound, +the Dalmatian—but I do not care for the two-legged kind he has out +to-night. It is not a thing I like to mention, you understand—it is so +delicate—but when one is actually precluded from stepping across a +stile—” Hand and umbrella made an expressive gesture. “You catch my +drift, I perceive.” + +“I’ll be sure to tell him,” I remarked sardonically. + +“You will?” he exclaimed with a parade of pleasure. “Then in that case +I shall not need protection against the rain.” + +His arm shot out, and I saw the umbrella fly up like a thick javelin +through the air, to disappear beyond the wall beside which we stood. + +“Another thing!” he cried, and I detected a real note of sincerity in +his tempestuous voice. “Tell the golden-haired woman that I have +warned her to beware of the blighter with the red face and the pot of +money. She should dismiss him—utterly. I have seen what I have seen.” + +I emitted a dry “No doubt.” + +“Thank you, sir, for your great courtesy,” said Mr. MacWilloughby. His +lofty hat he removed with a flowing ease; he bent his back in an +old-time inclination. Then in the fluctuating moonlight I saw not only +black beard and brows, but as well a wriggling mass of black hair. He +was smiling, but his smile now had a touch of wildness, even of +ghoulishness. He set his hat upon his brows again. + +“I shall not need even finger-nails if I meet another like you,” he +said. + +He turned on his heel and continued his stately promenade toward the +summit of the Vale. I watched him until the moon surrendered and the +mist had him. Where was he going? To join that prehistoric man on the +hill? And where in heaven’s name had he come _from_? + +Mad? Was he mad? No more mad than I. I realized, the moment he had +projected his umbrella, that he was eminently sane. But he had +overplayed his part a little—for his audience. + +Continuing on my southward way, I soon passed the site of what had +been the outer walls of this great castle, though now little remained +save one block of hewn stone upon another here and there. Most of the +material had probably been carried off to build some mansion of a +later age. + +I left the ruin, advancing down the Vale, whose bounds of lofty crag +and hanger were darkly visible for a little while. But I could not +leave behind me the thought of the huge man and his eccentric +speeches. Only new surprises could reave that vision from me; and +presently, passing a large, white-painted, wood-gate, I was startled +to observe that although I was in a wilderness, it was an +extraordinarily well-ordered wilderness. The trees along the path, ash +and sycamore, I believed, stood at like distances from one another and +were spaced regularly opposite. I seemed to be marching along a smooth +avenue in a park; the remoter trees, too, although they were obscure +as fleeing ghosts, appeared to flee away in serried ranks. The spaces +in the glades looked clear of underbrush. I was glad to note these +signs, if signs they were, of human tending, with their suggestion of +human nearness, for even my refreshened strength was slipping away +from me and the welts and strains of my body were clamouring again. + +Quicker than I had expected, I was out of the toy wilderness into a +clear space of thirty-odd yards (the dominant moon showed me this), +and Aidenn Water was roaming close beside my path. A brook going to +join the larger stream from some hill-recess on my left was crossed by +an old stone bridge with urns at the ends of its stone balustrades, a +ridiculously massive structure for so insignificant a watercourse. But +a few seconds later I passed another object built with overplus of +formality and ostentation, a semi-rustic house which could have been +no more than a summer-house, quite unsuited for habitation but freaked +and loaded with statuary and gewgaws. + +“The eighteenth century!” I murmured. “What nightmares did they not +have in the Age of Reason? Am I now to find a geometrical mansion of +Georgian brick?” + +I had entered a new zone of drizzle and mist when I had my first +evidence of the house appertaining hereto. The fog thickened almost to +the density of a wall, and when the well-ordered path ceased at the +edge of the lawns, I blundered against a tree trunk, one of three +standing alone in gloom and grandeur in the open space. I generously +cursed the spirits, whose exhalation, as every Welsh peasant used to +know, the mist is. By a flash of my torch I recognized the three +tapering shapes as horizontal cypresses, and at once I felt relief, +for I was sure that these none-too-hardy trees must be of a recent and +venturesome planting. I was becoming convinced that human lives were +not far from me. + +A few steps more and I was standing on a pebble walk beneath the +shorter northern wall of a definitely up-to-date structure. The stone +may have been old stone, but it had been smoothed off within a +generation, and the ivy had evidently been somewhat restricted in its +rambling in order that the broad-spread glass of this storey might not +be effaced from the light. Why all this glass? A conservatory? I +stepped across the walk, flashed my torch, peered in, saw a glimmering +galaxy of flowers, sniffed and detected a hint of their thick odour, +was satisfied. A conservatory it was, extending from end to end of +this northern wall, with unlit, wide-paned windows from end to end +save where a steep outer stair led up to a small roofless platform and +door in the first storey; and I perceived a vague second storey, above +which chimneys sprouted. + +Now, I should not have lingered here more than a few seconds, had not +there burst forth a chill sound that actually took me out of myself +for a moment, a caterwauling from somewhere behind me and further +toward the mountain wall of the ravine. It seemed impossible that such +a desecration of silence could proceed from a single throat. It was a +sobbing cry full of hunger, but there was positive anger and direness +in it. It had a quality, too, of immitigable anguish, as though all +the hopelessness of dumb beasts were its burden. Once the throbbing +cry subsided into a gruff growl, and then, strangely enough, was the +first time that I recognized its clamour as that of a cat. “But,” I +remembered thinking, “it must be a cat as big as a wolf.” And while +the last throes of the savage wailing echoed back from the hill, I +looked up to the gloomy heights of the mansion, as if I expected each +dark window to flare with inquiring light. + +[Illustration: A map of the area surrounding Highglen House. Close to +the house are some ruins and the Stables. A road leads from the +stables, past the house, and then down the map. Off to the left is a +grove of strawberry trees, in the middle of which sits a hard tennis +court. At the top right corner of the map is a building labelled “Farm +of the sisters Delambre”. The farm sits close to a fence, which runs +across the map until it meets the river, labelled “Aidenn Water”. The +river runs down the left side of the map, turning briefly towards the +middle of the map where it crosses under the road. Between Highglen +House and the farm is a footpath, halfway along which it passes a +small structure labelled “18th Century Summer House”. A small brook +branches off of Aidenn Water which crosses the footpath at a small +bridge, and from there another footpath continues up the map, through +a gate in the fence, and beyond.] + +In puzzlement and lively eagerness to discover more about this +mansion, I turned to the right and followed the walk to the corner of +the conservatory, where it joined a drive that wound out of the +right-hand darkness. I discovered that the side of the house extended +a hundred feet or more parallel to the course of Aidenn Water. +Visible, too, on the broad lawn at four or five rods’ distance from +the house was a tall, two-legged thing, fifty feet high by a rough +judgment, an erection of twin towers with a passageway above and +between, the whole standing lonely, dark and still. + +The conservatory’s narrow side ended in the jutting of a tower, quite +black. Between this and the next tower, its counterpart, I caught dim +glimpses of modern french windows, a pair of them, evidently belonging +to the same large room. There was a formal entrance between the second +tower and the third, but since it was unlit, I decided to go further +in hopes of finding the main portal. Yet I had a view of what was +behind the door, and again I paused, fascinated. + +Inside the third tower, the projecting half of an octagon studded with +little windows, I saw a taper burning low in an old candlestick +fastened like a bracket on the wall, a thing of fantastic crooks and +curlicues. The light was blue and brittle, for the wick was surfeited +with grease. But I was able to see three men in the panelled hallway, +two of them standing, or perhaps leaning, against the wall. Of these I +perceived no more than their dark featureless forms, and a marked +stiffness in their attitudes. On the opposite side of the hall from +the candle, they were too vague to be any more particularized than as +human forms. The third man, save for his little tuft of white hair, +had been no more than a smudge either. + +For he was bent over, his back toward me, _and he was picking the +pockets of the other two men_! I can describe his actions in no better +way. They, seemingly stupefied, made no motion to prevent! + +I must say that the old, white-tufted fellow was not very adroit at +his work. I stood absolutely spell-bound while I watched him paw about +the clothing of the two others. The candle guttered with special +vehemence, and the pilferer turned upward to it an anxious eye. Then +he appeared to make a decision; standing full length, he crossed to +the candle and lifted his lean fingers to snuff it. I was impressed by +a sight of his narrow brown face, vulturine in contour, with the tall, +furrowed brow of a student, the thin, pale lips of an ascetic, and the +broken-off jaw of a fighter. The expression was whimsical and wily. +The light glinted for an instant on a green eye, on white smiling +teeth, and on the diamond stud in his shirt-front. Then the fingers +smothered the feeble flame, and he was in the darkness with those +dazed ones I suspected were his victims. + +And I hastened around the fourth tower, larger than the rest, at the +southern extremity of the mansion. What was I to do? Had I in fact +witnessed the induction to a serious crime? Was it my duty to report +what I had seen? It must depend on circumstances; perhaps the old +tufted sinner was the proprietor himself. I must be cautious. I must +be dissimulative. + +Above all, I must not be surprised. + +An electric chandelier sparkled in the large corner tower, revealing +it to be part of the sumptuous library of the mansion, empty of +persons. I found the entrance I sought in the middle of the south end +of the building. The crunching drive made a great circle, leading to a +square-arched, ivied entry. A barred lamp above the vestibule faintly +revealed the arms of the house cut in stone at the apex of the arch, +and surmounting this, as a sort of crest, was the rude but +unmistakable image of a cat’s head. I dimly perceived a feline nose +with faintest trace of whisker running along it, and triangular ears. +The mouth was grinning, not pleasantly. + +Here was matter for vast surprise, but I must not _be_ surprised! + +I stepped underneath the arch, to the broad iron-bound black-door. +Another pale light revealed the knocker, an iron piece in the shape of +the paw of a cat. There was also the button of an electric bell. I +grasped the paw and struck twice. + +Almost immediately the door opened. “Come in,” said a voice. “You’ve +been—” + +_I must not be surprised!_ But I gaped, and gurgled, for all I know. + +The sturdy square-set fellow in evening dress who had opened the door +so suddenly and who now stood in the half-light was staring at me, +beginning to look a little _distrait_. + +“Oh, so you’re not—” he commenced brusquely, and, changing his tone, +recommenced, “But _are_ you, or aren’t—?” + +“No, no,” I managed to gasp. “I’m not—I don’t think so.” + +I had known nothing of Aidenn Vale or of the ruins, mansions, or +creatures in it. But I knew this man! + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Bidding Feast + +“Pendleton!” I exclaimed, “the Honourable Crofts Pendleton!” + +“Eh?” + +“Hail, fellow well met! This _is_ a lark!” + +The man was nonplussed. It had always been, at least for me, one of +his chief charms when we were in the same college, the haziness and +obstruction of mind that were so queerly assorted with his solidity of +physique. Now, eight years between, he was bulkier than ever and (I +was willing to wager) yet more detached from reality in his mental +operations. + +He was scratching his fine mane of hair now, irresolute. And he really +had reason to be confused while we confronted each other in the +dimly-lit porch. For I presented such a scotched and scrambled +appearance as never before, mould-mud-and-sweat-clotted, +unrecognizable no doubt even to my most accustomed friends. Why should +he not be startled when in this gear and guise I greeted him with +burbling cheer? + +He looked so dumbly helpless that I had to laugh. + +“Man, man, do you mean to say that you don’t remember me by my voice?” + +“Your voice?” repeated Pendleton. “Yes, it sounds familiar” (he was +lying), “but somehow I can’t—” + +I kept chuckling, and he looked hurt; so I said, “Of course you can’t. +I’m Bannerlee, Alfred Bannerlee.” + +The announcement drove him back a pace. “No!” + +“Emphatically yes.” + +He was studying me intently now, quite rapt. “But how on earth did you +find your way up the Vale? It must be full of stinking fog down there +in New Aidenn.” + +“I came _down_ the Vale!” I announced. “There’s a thimbleful of mist +up in the north, too.” + +“_Down_ the Vale! You say you came down the Vale!” Then suddenly +realization and recognition of me burst upon him for the first time, +and he reached for my hand and gave it a good pumping, grasped my +elbow, and took me inside. “My dear man, my dear fellow, you must have +had a sickening time. Delighted to have you with us. By gad! How on +earth did you ever find this nook in the woods?” + +“I’m an antiquarian, you know, a nomad. I might better ask how you did +the same,” I rejoined. “And, er, are you the butler?” + +“No. Of course not. I’m the host. Why, what do you mean?” He stared at +me with the old uncertainty. + +“You answered my knock with remarkable alacrity.” + +“Oh, I was just at the door, going to open it anyhow. I was on my way +to my room when I heard you out there.” He gestured toward the drive. +“I imagined you’d want to be let right in.” + +“But, my dear Crofts, you didn’t know who I was.” + +“Oh, yes, I did. That is, I thought I did. Oh, there’s a fine state of +confusion here. You see, we’ve been waiting for Sir Brooke Mortimer +since before dinner. And as he’s not sent word, we’re still waiting +for him.” + +“Oh?” I said. + +“Yes,” said he. + +We were standing just inside the hall, which contained some of the +finest screen panelling I have seen. I guessed, rightly, that it was +Henry VIII. work. A multitude of little heads peered out from the wall +beneath coats-of-arms, and the foliated edges of the wood were as +delicate as lace. There was a settle standing on the left-hand side, +where the ceiling sloped down sharply, evidently beneath a winding +stair. + +Pendleton seemed struck by a sudden thought. “You’d like to change, +perhaps?” + +“My dear man! If you’ll fit me out! I shall perish otherwise. As I am, +I’d rather not see people.” + +“Well—would you mind waiting here a moment? I’ll fetch Blenkinson. Not +long. There’s a good fellow.” + +He was gone, and I sat me down on the restful settle with some +gyrating thoughts to compose. + +But before I had time to set one thought beside another, a new man in +evening dress came breezing nonchalantly past me to the door, which he +opened and peered out of, to close it in a moment with a small shiver. +It had grown chilly out-of-doors during the latter hour of my odyssey. +Turning, he beheld me in my recess. + +“Hello,” he exclaimed mildly. “So you _have_ come. No news of him?” + +He was, I now think, one of the most deceptive-appearing persons I +have ever encountered, of a type emphatically British, but the extreme +of his type. He was the nonpareil for unobtrusiveness and lack of +distinction; without even the stamp of vulgarity, he was ordinary and +unnoticeable to the last degree. I have never seen a man who appeared +to possess so many properties of a vacuum. His age, perhaps, was +somewhere about the third decade. He was of no particular height +(actually about five feet seven) or weight (about ten stone ten), and +his face was all that was commonplace. A pair of futilely brown +moustaches divided it into upper and lower portions, in the superior +of which pastel-grey eyes kept an unblinking but unobservant watch; +below, his mouth and jaw were neither strong nor weak. His complexion +was pale but not to excessive sallowness, and his brownish hair, +rather thin, was faintly flecked with grey. His dinner coat fitted +exceptionally well. + +“Yes, I have come,” I answered, “but I’m not sure I’m the ‘you’ you +mean.” + +“Why, you’re Hughes, the keeper, aren’t you?” + +“No, I’m just a friend of Pendleton’s.” + +“Oh, is that so?” + +He was not cloudy and remote like Crofts Pendleton; rather I thought I +detected even a trace of the sardonic in his tone, and I must have +flushed at the remembrance of my rough and woebegone attire. + +“I don’t look the part, I admit.” + +“Well, no, you don’t.” He held out his hand with a cordiality +surprising to me. “Belvoir’s my name—Ted Belvoir. It’s B-e-l-v-o-i-r, +you know.” + +“Bannerlee’s mine. B-a-n-n—” + +“Oh, that’s all right. I spelled mine out on account of these +Americans. They think it’s funny to pronounce it ‘Beaver!’” + +“Americans!” + +“Why, you must be quite a stranger here. Didn’t you know—” + +“I know nothing. I am indeed an utter stranger, save for being +acquainted with Pendleton. You see that I’m rather the worse for wear; +well, I’ve been running and scrambling and climbing all over Aidenn +Forest to-day, and to cap the climax I fell into this Vale and +blundered upon this house.” + +“All over Aidenn Forest?” + +“Yes, I am an antiquary of sorts.” + +“Now, that’s very interesting, very interesting. Why, you may +have—have you seen anyone?” There was a glimmer of excitement in his +pale eyes. + +Now suddenly it occurred to me that reticence might be useful in this +mansion whereof I knew so little and that little full of perplexity. + +“Why, what sort of person?” + +“Oh, a gentleman prowling at a loose end.” + +“I should say not,” I assured him, “unless he was mightily +transmogrified.” + +“Well, that delays us again.” + +“I suppose the man you mean is, er, Sir Brooke Mortimer.” + +“Yes.” His eyes widened. “Now, how did you know that?” + +“Pendleton told me before he went to fetch the butler.” + +“That’s the man, that’s the man. Irritating, isn’t it? Hughes and some +of the other servants have gone in search. That’s why our host takes +so long to get Blenkinson, who must be busy.” + +“You don’t tell me the servants have gone out to scour for him!” + +“He’s such an irregular blighter, you know. May have tried to walk it +from New Aidenn or even from somewhere else on the line. They’re going +to telephone down when the station-master comes for the evening train. +You see, he wasn’t due on any particular train, but they expected him +to send word ahead. So they’re in a pretty pass.” + +“What’s the man look like?” + +“Oh, a little, piddling sort of minnikin. Wearing a couple of pairs of +glasses, most likely, and sure to be smoking an offensive cigar. +Speaks with a lisp when he gets excited—sometimes when he isn’t. You +couldn’t have seen him?” + +“No,” I avouched. “Neither to-day nor any other day.” I had already +resolved, by the by, to tell no stranger about the men I had seen. I +wanted to be believed. + +I refrained from asking why Sir Brooke’s presence was so necessary for +the comfort of all, but my new acquaintance evidently saw the question +in my face, for he answered it in a manner to provoke my curiosity yet +further. “He’s going to propose the health of the bride, y’know.” + +A third personage came round from the other side of the stairs, and +the blood in my veins gave a little leap when I recognized the +white-haired man whose suspicious behaviour I had overlooked in the +dim room with the tower windows. His gaze was inquiring, as if he had +come to see whose the voices were, and when he saw my unaccustomed +face, he gave a cluck, as if to say, “I know who _you_ are,” and +demanded peremptorily: + +“Are you the missing idiot?” + +I said, “Perhaps.” + +His little dark eyes sparkled. “Then you’re not—no, I see you’re not. +You haven’t, by the way, seen a lost sheep of a knight outside?” + +“No.” + +Somehow Belvoir had melted away upon the coming of this gentleman; now +the old fellow, with his eyes pursuing the other down the hall out of +my view, snapped, “So much the better. We have at least one crazy man +here already.” + +“Indeed! What is his name?” I asked with much enjoyment, expecting to +hear Belvoir identified, for I judged that no love was lost between +these two. + +“Cosgrove!” + +“Oh! I haven’t heard of him, I believe.” + +“Well, you will.” + +He was gone! + +I listened to his waning footsteps down the hall for only a brace of +seconds before I had made a hasty, rash decision. I would see, before +anyone else, what was the state of affairs inside the room where I had +witnessed this old fellow’s dubious practices. I edged around the +curve of the stair, saw him moving briskly away at the other end of +the wainscoted and carpeted passage, which was quite broad enough to +be called a good-sized gallery. There were two doors on the right, +four on the left (counting one by the stair-foot, where the corridor +broadened almost into a room), and one away at the far end, which last +must lead into the conservatory. A collection of portraits, large and +small, hung over and between the doors, although, since the hall was +wholly enclosed by rooms, they must never be seen save by artificial +light. + +By the time I had comprehended so much, the old gentleman had +disappeared through the farthest door at the left. An entrance behind +the stairs I judged to lead into the library where the light was +blazing, perhaps as a beacon for Sir Brooke. The room I sought must +lie beyond the door facing the stair-foot. I felt like a burglarious +person while I opened it and stole into darkness, taking out my +electric-torch. And the moment afterward I felt like a fool. + +The yellow cone of light played on walls hung with trophies and +weapons of every age and sort. I saw the old candle-bracket by the +window, and the closed doors leading to rooms on each side, as well as +to the open. Standing where the “men” had been were two hollow suits +of armour, complete in plate and chain. + +So the old codger’s only crime must have been a little harmless +fussing about. Still, why had he chosen near-darkness when there was, +as now I saw, an electric switch beside the door? Perhaps the switch +was out of order; I had not the courage to try it and see. Almost, but +not quite, I acquitted the white-haired gentleman of evil design. + +I lost no time in returning to my station in the hall. I was on the +settle, and had almost decided that Crofts Pendleton had forgotten me +when he appeared apologetically, with the butler, carrying a loaded +tray, at his heels. + +“If it’s compatible with bathing, I got Blenkinson to put some dishes +together. Dinner’s just over.” + +“My dear Crofts, you’re too thoughtful.” + +“Very seldom, I assure you,” he smiled. + +“Certainly, I’d like to break the edge of appetite, anyhow.” + +“Then we’ll go up to my room.” + +Blenkinson, with impeccable whiskers, looked as if he might be the +Master of University College. With the tray, he followed us up the +circular stairs, whose well reached into the dim heights of the second +storey. A room on the right of the first landing was Pendleton’s. + +“Hullo, it’s dark! I expected Ludlow had come up. He complained of +feeling seedy.” + +The long corridor of this floor, which I later found to lead to the +door of the landing of the outside stairs at the north end of the +building, was invisible until Pendleton touched a button on the wall. + +“Ludlow? Is he the tufted individual, hawk-like?” + +“Why, yes. Have you seen him?” + +“We have conversed slightly. He’s downstairs.” + +“He must be feeling better,” murmured Crofts. Yet somehow I distrusted +that his Lordship had suffered even a little twinge. + +Now Blenkinson withdrew discreetly as a Dean, after examining each +dish on the tray and giving every cover an approving caress. + +“May I ask a question?” + +“Blaze away.” + +“Aren’t things a little out of order here, to-night? Or are there no +ladies present?” + +“There are ladies, plenty of ’em. But what do you mean?” + +“Why are the men prowling around the House? Where are the ladies? +Don’t they customarily leave the men at the board?” + +“Oh, yes, usually.” There was a light in his eyes that caused me to +expect something quite illogical and characteristic. “But here it’s +the other way round.” + +“What?” + +“Here the men leave the table to the ladies. It’s the local custom.” + +It had come, the sublimely ridiculous. But still—I ventured: “Then +most of your guests are Welsh folk?” + +“Not one; all English and American. But ‘When in Rome,’ you know, +Bannerlee. I like to pay tribute to the _mores_ of the place. That’s a +word of Belvoir’s; you know what I mean.” + +In anyone but Crofts Pendleton I should have held such deference to +the manners of the parish or the borough or the shire to be a gesture +of mock. But mockery was out of the question in that face of perfect +guilelessness. So innocent and susceptible were those big features +that I had a momentary impulse to tell him that there appeared to be +“goings-on” in the House. But I forbore. + +So, beginning to lay aside my reeking clothes, I asked him the nature +of the party, and if it were in celebration of a particular occasion, +and in so doing I met point-blank another of his vague notions, +disassociated from the working of any ordinary mind. + +“A very special occasion indeed,” he declared. “We are having a +wedding party—that is, there’s going to be a wedding party; to-night +it’s a Bidding Feast.” + +“Bidding Feast?” + +“Yes,” said Crofts, evincing much pleasure in his revelation. “It +accords with the folk custom. You look oddly. Haven’t you heard of +it?” + +“Not sufficiently, I fear.” + +“It’s very old, very old, to help the married-pair-to-be to set up +housekeeping.” + +“Then I am amiss in not knowing something of it, having turned +desultory antiquarian since we were last together. Tell me about it.” + +He seemed shy and apologetic. “Of course we don’t go into all of +it—the donations of bread and cheese and sugar and such, or promissory +notes (they’ve been recognized as legal obligations in the courts, you +know). We haven’t had any of that, or selling cakes and ale for the +enrichment of the couple. These are wealthy people. And we’ve +dispensed with the ‘inviter.’” + +“Oh, you have?” I asked ironically. “What, perchance, is he?” + +“A professional in the business exclusively. He tramps the country for +several days ahead and bids the householders with a set of humorous +doggerel verses, or printed ballad. I’ve several works describing it +all in the library downstairs. It used to be a universal thing in +Wales, but it’s almost a dead-letter now.” He looked as if he were +about to sigh. + +“And you say that you’re reviving it for a couple who are not Welsh?” + +“Welsh? Of course they’re not Welsh. Paula Lebetwood’s an American, +and Sean Cosgrove—well, he’s an Irishman.” + +“One hopes so. And how goes the Feast?” + +“We’re being terribly festive! Under the circumstances, you +know. . . .” + +Here was the maddest, one might say the most pitiful, of Pendleton’s +fancies. A Welsh Bidding Feast for setting up a couple in +housekeeping—only minus the Welsh folk, minus the donations, minus the +cakes and ale, minus the “inviter,” minus about everything, in fact, +except the good intentions of the host! A ghost of a Bidding Feast. + +“Surely, Crofts,” I remarked, “if you are trying to revive the good +old Welsh customs, you might suggest a bundling party.” + +He went red, but was too good-natured to take offence. “Nonsense, man. +Don’t mention it. Why, it’s an immoral thing. Sermons used to be +preached against it.” + +“But under the circumstances!” I repeated his phrase. “Morality is a +question of local custom, isn’t it? The _mores_, you know.” + +“_Mores?_ Oh, you sound like Belvoir, who’s been getting everybody in +a stew.” He overlooked his own introduction of the word. + +“Well, I shan’t propose it, my dear man. I know that I should be +mobbed, without a Welshman in the Vale to protect me.” + +A flicker of movement crossed his features, and his voice was +constrained, even grave. “Without a Welshman?—well, I don’t know.” + +“You’re aggrieved, Crofts. What’s the matter?” + +“This place is full of wild-eyed superstitions,” he declared, +beginning to pace the length of the room. “We have a few Welsh +servants—they keep the place up while it’s unoccupied—and they’re agog +with the Gwyllion and the Tylwyth Teg. They’re stirring up the rest +with tales of the haggish fairies and dwarfs and goblins that seem to +infect this locality.” + +“Well,” I laughed, yet with a pinch of queerness in thinking of the +near-apparition who had occurred on the ledge-path, “as long as nobody +has met his own funeral and the dames and peers of elfin-land keep +outside the walls—” + +“But that’s just it!” he cried vexatiously. “There’s _been_ an +invasion. The women have made me put all their best jewellery in the +strong-box, and still they’re fretting.” + +I paused in the act of drying my back. “You don’t mean—” + +“The worst visitant of all is in our midst, and unless we dispose of +him our nerves will be in tatters!” Then he lapsed into sudden +contrition for his vehemence. “Of course I’m not such a fool as to +believe any of it.” + +“The supernatural, you mean?” + +“That’s why I said I’m not so sure we haven’t a Welshman in our midst. +He must be at the bottom of it all. Confound it, somebody must be.” + +“Whom do you mean by ‘he’?” + +“Parson Lolly,” answered Pendleton, with slightly bated breath, and I +remember that I was impressed into silence for a moment. + +“_Parson_ Lolly?” + +“So he is called.” + +“And who may the Parson be?” + +“A legend, just a damned legend.” + +“And a Welshman too?” + +“That’s it!” he exclaimed with an eager gesture. “Don’t you see it +must be so, or else there’s hell let loose in this valley? It must be +a man, must be, must be! Only—” He checked himself. + +“Well?” + +“No man can do the things Parson Lolly is said to do.” + +I made a complete break in my toilet and scrutinized my friend, who +was visibly shaken. He said, “It’s no use trying to describe how it +feels to be a host in the midst of such a hullabaloo. It’s the very +devil. And I can’t _do_ anything to stop it. Helplessness is a +terrible thing.” + +“Now tell me some of this nonsense,” I urged. “And first of all, why +‘Parson’? It’s creepy.” + +“It certainly is,” he agreed. “That designation adds oddness, +sinister, too, to the whole portrait of him.” + +“What else is there in his portrait?” + +“He’s old, several hundred years old at the most conservative estimate +of the servants. His business is general mischief and bedevilment and, +I surmise, thievery.” + +“What does he look like?” + +“He has the face of a demon, red with hell-fire, and streaked with +smoke. He has the likeness of a man otherwise, but he wears a great +flowing robe of black; there’s where the ‘Parson’ part comes in, I +suppose. The robe is vaster than any prelate’s of earth, though there +again you have the sinister touch. He—he flies in it, Bannerlee, like +an enormous crow! He’s been seen flying away over the Bach Hill.” + +“How far is Bach Hill from here?” + +“About two miles.” + +I resumed my dressing, and simulated a laugh, for it would not do to +seem too much impressed with this fol-de-rol. Pendleton maintained his +appearance of dead seriousness. + +“I wonder if there’s anything else. Oh, yes—his voice.” + +“Voice?” My question must have been sharp. + +“It’s a young voice and an old voice in one. He’s been heard, +Bannerlee.” Pendleton licked his lips. “I’ve heard him myself.” + +“You must leave this, Crofts,” I admonished, dimly aware that I was +cribbing from literature. “You’re letting your imagination make sport +of you, of course; but, tell me, what’s been the spring of all your +troubles? What’s actually happened here?” + +His mood had shifted. “No, let’s change the subject. This is no way to +receive a guest, with omens and warnings.” + +“But, good heavens, you only make it worse when you stop at the +warnings. I want to hear some of the facts.” + +“You really do?” + +“This is absurd. Of course I do.” + +But Crofts’ mind was then in an unwilling state as regarded retailing +the misdeeds of the Parson. He became sketchy. At first there had been +annoyances among the servants, the overturning of pots and skillets, +the displacement of articles, some so thoroughly removed that they +never would be found. For the past forty-eight hours these trifles had +been throwing the kitchen into an uproar, but one more serious thing +had occurred the previous evening in the presence of the guests who +had already arrived. All Pendleton would tell me of this outrage was +that it had to do with the smashing of the conservatory window, and +that then the voice of the Parson had been heard by everyone. + +“It makes me feel sometimes, for a minute or two, that there may be +something in it,” he muttered finally. “Why isn’t it possible that +someone has found a method of flying with a minimum of mechanical aid? +It will happen sooner or later.” + +“When I see him taking off, I’ll believe—not otherwise.” + +“That’s the sensible thing to say—very sensible.” + +Now in the course of this long conversation I had disencumbered myself +of my damp-heavy explorer’s gear, had cavorted in the bath between the +rooms of Pendleton and his wife, had donned his dressing-gown and +shaved with his razor, had covered myself with one of his old business +suits, now “uncomfortably snug” for his frame, but flappingly loose +for mine. The food I had reserved until after the bath; although the +things were now cool, I took half a cupful of coffee and sampled the +leg of a duck. I resolved to confide one thing to Pendleton now; +perhaps it would bring him some relief. So, swiftly explaining my +movements in Aidenn Forest that day, I related my adventures with the +man on the ledge-path, and hinted that he might be at the root of the +mischief. + +“What time was that?” + +“Over two hours ago, I suppose.” + +He shook his head, wistfully. “No, I wish it was as simple as you +suggest. But the Parson was making trouble among the servants only an +hour before you came.” + +I thought of the menagerie-keeper, yet somehow he didn’t fit into this +situation. + +“I’m sorry, Crofts. Still, you mustn’t let such antics disturb you.” + +“I won’t, I won’t,” he promised, but I thought his protest a little +feverish. + +While we went downstairs I gave him the best imitation I could of the +stranger’s cry on the ledge-path, and asked him if he believed it was +Welsh. + +“No,” he said, with the gravity of conviction, “no, that’s certainly +not Welsh.” + +Bless his simple heart! I believe he knows no more Cumraeg than I. + +We moved along the galley-passage, and nighed the third left-hand +entrance. + +Now, just as we were about to enter, while we heard the voices of +festivity inside, he turned to me suddenly. + +“I’m sending the boy to your village beyond the hills to-morrow +morning—whatever-its-name-is—for your things. You’re to be one of us, +of course.” + +“My dear Crofts, I hate to intrude.” + +“No intrusion. And there are other equal strangers among us. Will you +stay on for a couple of days?” + +“I’d be delighted.” + +“Then I’ll announce you as one of us.” + +We joined the Bidding Feast. + +I motioned my host to precede me into the midst of the party. Now it +so happened that we entered with none to observe us, for this door +opened beneath an old musicians’ gallery. + +We had no sooner entered this shady spot than I placed my hand on +Pendleton’s sleeve and put finger to lips, and stood to take in the +scene in silence. The head of a cat, with ears singularly set back, +made a rest for the hand at the pillared foot of the winding +balustrade to the gallery. It had given me a moment’s shock at first, +but now I set my fingers along that smooth nose and peered covertly +from the concealment of the little staircase. The Bidding Feast, save +for floral and evergreen festoons about the Hall, had all the look of +two tables of ordinary auction bridge. + +But I hardly did more than give a secret glance at the guests before +surveying the extent and features of the Hall itself. Flat-ceilinged, +its wooden roof supported by braced thirty-foot timbers, a room +regular in its right-angularity, it nevertheless gave the impression +of spaciousness. It was two storeys in height, full forty feet in +length, and obviously of great age, perhaps a bulwark of war, for its +ashlar masonry was undisguised by arras, woodwork, or plaster. +Somehow, save for the chimney-piece in the wall beyond which the +conservatory lay, a fireplace which was massive without being +cumbrous, the appointments of the room seemed to me inept. All the +Tudor furniture was gone, and in its stead was a collection of +mahogany and walnut pieces from the lion-mask period—and later—looking +frail and prettified in that ancient stronghold of defence. The +woven-backed chairs, the spindly animal-legs of the tables with their +claw-feet, the spider’s web marqueterie decorations, were to my mind +strongly out of keeping. The waxed floor was in part covered by old +English “Turky” carpets. Altogether a medley of anachronisms was the +Hall of the Moth, but its walls a-frown and towering chimney-place +lent nevertheless a thrill of antique grandeur. + +[Illustration: A plan of the ground floor of Highglen House. The front +door is at the bottom of the plan, opening into a narrow corridor +leading through the middle of the house, as well as a winding +staircase to the next floor. Large doors immediately to the left of +the front door connect to a library in the bottom left corner of the +building. Above the library is the armoury. The armoury has doors on +all sides, including one to the outside. Above the armoury is a large +room labelled “Hall of the Moth”. The door between the armoury and the +Hall of the Moth is underneath a raised platform labelled “Musicians’ +Gallery”. Both the Hall of the Moth and the central corridor have +doors to the conservatory, which runs along the top of the plan, and +has a large window along most of the top wall. The right-hand side of +the plan is mostly taken up by the dining-room, which the conservatory +connects to directly. Below the dining-room are the kitchen and +pantries.] + +Two of the eight card-players I recognized, of course, Lord Ludlow and +Belvoir, who were opposed to each other at the nearer table, where the +deal had just been made. Lord Ludlow, who was facing me, lifted his +cards from the table, arching his brows above the pince-nez which now +clung to his sharp-wedged nose. Satisfaction gleamed from all quarters +of his countenance. + +“_You_ haven’t the right kind of face for cards,” I thought; then a +notion made me mutter, “Or, I wonder?” The old dissembler! + +I was impressed by the vague familiarity of the back of Lord Ludlow’s +partner, and guessed her to be the hostess of the Bidding Feast. I had +known Alberta Pendleton in the early days, and had seen that stately +back preceding me up the aisle at her wedding. It had taken on added +dignity, if anything, in the intervening years, and I expected, +rightly, that her delicate beauty (Pendleton had been ungodly lucky) +would have ripened into greater loveliness. + +Belvoir, on her right, was opposite a woman I intuitively knew must be +his wife, for she might have been his widow. It was not only that she +looked older than she was, and gave that impression, for she was +gowned in black relieved by grey, and that her cheek was pale, having +a worn softness, or that her composed voice, rather full and sweet, +seemed full of twilight memories; she had the half-experienced, +half-expectant air which bereft females wear. And indeed I supposed it +could hardly be otherwise for her, married as she was to a man who +seemed without a trace of colour, without a morsel of flesh to him, or +a drop of blood, the acme of innocuousness. + +At the far table three men were playing with one woman, whose back was +turned to me. Facing her, and me, sat a bright-eyed, youngish fellow +with short black hair, a face almost crimson-red, and on his right and +left respectively a dandified-looking chap with waxed moustaches, and +a good solid individual of immobile swarthy countenance, the image of +a substantial, dependable Englishman. This ponderous person was +dealing with a regular, unhurried motion that recalled to me the +grinding of the mills of God. + +“A pretty kettle of fish!” I murmured to myself, and added to Crofts, +“A variegated lot, old fellow! So many different tempers and +purposeful minds reduced to the same dead level by the permutations of +fifty-two pasteboard slips. Saddening, Crofts, saddening.” + +“All intimates, one way or another,” he whispered. “Good friends, mind +you, but you’ll find them fighting half the time.” + +“They certainly look engrossed in the game.” + +“Ah, but that’s a pretence. They keep up a very brave front, but any +trifling disturbance would set them wild.” + +“You don’t say so.” + +“I tell you, man, there’s something foul and fearful in this damned +Vale. I half regret—well, come on. You’ve got to meet them sometime. +They’ve all heard about you.” + + + +CHAPTER V + +Kingmaker + +Forthwith commenced that three-legged race I have already described, +in whose zigzag course I was presented to all these people in about +two minutes. + +While my mind was still in a haze, a small thing caught my eye and +made me give a much larger thing a rapid, cursory, and at the same +time careful survey. The small thing was still another image of a +cat’s head, this one in profile with jaws apart and bared teeth, the +head forming a heraldic badge tucked into one spandril of the Hall +fire-arch. The renewed sight of this insistent emblem had a bad effect +on me. The leering head at the outer door, the sleek head at the foot +of the balustrade, and this vindictive head brought the sharp, +nerve-tearing cry of the outer darkness into my ears again. + +“Crofts”—I must have spoken with asperity—“why the devil didn’t your +family choose some holier badge than a damned cat’s head, with nothing +funny or Cheshire-ish about it?” + +“My family? Not my family.” + +“Oh, not—” + +“Lord, no. Dirty thing, isn’t it, that one? But not mine. Bought this +place a couple of years ago. Look there, for a primitive genealogical +sign.” + +I thought at first he was pointing to the badge and I leaned to +examine it at closer quarters. The spandrils of the fire-arch had the +usual long crinkled leaves of the early Tudors; on one lay the royal +rose, on the other the badge of the head. + +“No, no, not that—the mantel-tree itself.” + +Pendleton tapped the very old and thoroughly blackened beam of oak +resting on the upraised hands and the heads of a pair of grotesque +knee-bent dwarfs in lieu of corbels. And while I stared at it, +somewhat at a loss to grasp his meaning, he passed his hand along its +outer surface, saying, “If you can’t see, feel.” + +This mantel-tree, obviously the original, though forming more than +merely an incipient shelf, was unusually low for the period (if I knew +anything of such) and I had to lean a bit to get my eyes flush to it. +My fingers felt the slight roughness of lettering, and I deciphered, +in French characters, the smoke-stained names “Arthur Kay” and +“Biatryx Kay,” which Pendleton assured me I read correctly. + +“None of your ilk, you say?” + +“Oh, no! Quite the most ancient family in these parts. Here before the +House itself, before the castle.” + +“That ruin up the Vale?” + +“No, I mean the castle this house is remnant of. That other—up the +Vale—that was the Kays’ too.” + +“And the head of the cat?” + +He shrugged. “You ought to know more of these things than I, you +gravedigger. It’s part of their coat-of-arms. Look.” + +I had already taken in the entire fireplace. It was in harmony with +the grey walls. The over-mantel, like the interior of the unlit +chimney-place itself, was composed of large stone blocks, very +ancient, and the beam on which the names were cut formed a canopy from +which it receded to the summit of the lofty chamber. The +half-obliterate vestiges of what must have been a cross were visible +in the centre of this curtain of rock, and on either side a shield +with unrecognizable blurs for quarters. Only where Pendleton pointed I +could see what might have been a feline profile. + +As my host remarked, the subject of bearings lay more aptly in my +special province than in his (which was, I remember, the excellence of +sodium and its compounds). I was about to launch into a necessarily +brief statement of what this device might signify, when Blenkinson +entered and murmured something inaudible to his master. + +“People at New Aidenn,” remarked Pendleton with slight ellipsis. “Be +back at once.” This last was a promise, not an imperative. + +He followed the servant out, and my exegesis was, as it happened, for +ever postponed. Gilbert Maryvale, whose partner, Oxford, had made the +declaration, seeing me solitary, rose from his chair with the peculiar +lightness that was so unexpected and came to my side. + +He looked at me with inquiry in his very dark eyes while he settled +himself against the over-mantel. “Word from Sir Brooke?” + +“I believe Pendleton’s gone to ’phone the station-master at New +Aidenn. We’ll know, doubtless, in a minute or two.” + +“Yes, doubtless.” + +I thought I perceived a greater interest striving to suppress itself +in him; I looked at him sharply. “Just why, Mr. Maryvale, are we all +agog over this gentleman’s absence?” + +He was abashed for an instant, then, cocked an eye in humorous +confession, and spoke low. “Caught, I suppose. Well, Mr. Bannerlee, I +don’t think that, barring an exception or two”—he hitched a shoulder +toward the nearer table where Mrs. Bartholomew was deliberating +whether to play the ace or not—“I don’t think we _are_ particularly +agog as a whole. One may have one reason, one another, but mine is +that I believe Sir Brooke Mortimer is a good deal different from what +he seems. And you may be sure that I’d not be telling you that if I +weren’t sure that his real purpose will be revealed—” + +He said more, but I did not take in the sense of it. Eve Bartholomew, +I noticed, played the ace, which was immediately trumped by Oxford; +but that was a trifle. What had taken me out of mind for a moment was +the striking similarity of his words to the thought in my own brain, +that the people in Aidenn Vale were other than they seemed. This, +great as was my attraction to it, was scarcely a topic to be pursued +with my acquaintance of a few minutes, and my next contribution to +talk turned the subject. + +“I was about to ask Pendleton a question; may I victimize you?” + +“Why, certainly—if I can—” + +I lowered my voice to half its volume. “I am sure that you can. This, +according to our host, is a genuine old Welsh Bidding Feast. But as +far as I could discover, most of the attributes are missing, and +especially the most essential one of all.” + +“What’s that?” + +“The bride in prospect. I am quite certain she is not, er, here.” + +He laughed with his eyes, throwing back his head quite gleefully. “You +may be sure she’s not. Of course, our good Cosgrove’s American +betrothed—did Pendleton tell you she’s American?—isn’t in sight just +now. The fact is, Miss Mertoun—Oxford’s her cousin—has been headachy +all evening, and Miss Lebetwood has been staying with her since she +went to her room.” + +Crofts Pendleton had returned; he was beside us on the heels of my +latest speech, and his face revealed excitement somewhat chastened by +alarm. + +“Shall I tell ’em all at once?” + +“But what’s to tell?” asked Maryvale. + +“He wasn’t on the night train, but the station-keeper thinks +someone like him came up in the afternoon. How he—supposing it was +he—missed getting in the motor—there Wheeler was waiting for him +especially—unless he wanted the walk—he _would_—well, shall I?” + +“It will raise nobody’s spirits,” said Maryvale. “But suppose you do.” + +“Hughes and the men are back from below the bridge,” muttered Crofts. +“They’ve seen nothing of him either.” He clapped his hands for +attention. + +I kept my eyes on Crofts while he made his statement, but out of the +tail of one I noticed that Maryvale was scanning the inhabitants of +the Hall, as if to catch the effect upon each. The effect was strong. +When my eye took in the room, everyone had laid down his cards and was +looking at the blank countenance across the table. There was hardly a +word spoken; no one asked a question. Then Eve Bartholomew took up her +hand once more. + +“Sir Brooke is a sensible man,” she announced. “He has probably +returned to New Aidenn to put up for the night. And there are men +looking for him if he is lost. Let’s go on playing.” + +By her determination, which at the time I divined to be only a +courageous sham, she drew the widely surmising minds in the room back +to a focus on bridge. A few minutes later Maryvale, with a courteous +but irresistible gesture, waved Pendleton into his place at the table +opposite Charlton Oxford, and my host picked up the newly-dealt cards +with perturbed countenance. Maryvale rested a foot on the +fire-dogs—they were of much later date than the fireplace itself, +their brass enriched with blue and white enamel—and took from the +mantel-shelf a long-stemmed clay pipe, a veritable churchwarden. This +he carefully packed with a shaggy sort of tobacco and smoked with +deep-drawn pleasure, having offered me an excellent cigar, which I +declined in memory and anticipation of flight from bulls. + +Presently, since Eve Bartholomew had given the fumes several looks +askance, and sniffed, Maryvale with a smile led me to the nearest of +two entrances of french windows, opened it, and stepped outside. I +followed, descending a step or two to the drive beyond which lay the +lawn. The air was mild again and the fog had become only a mystery in +the trees. + +“Too chilly for you?” + +“By no means.” + +“We’ll stroll.” + +At that moment we were beside the little jutting tower between the +Hall of the Moth and the glassed conservatory, with a small rockery +just across the drive. I noted that the scent of flowers at that spot +was remarkably strong, almost as the heady reek of the interior must +be. I asked Maryvale if he did not notice it too. + +“Ah, yes. But that’s because there’s no glass in that window. They’re +burning some oil-heating business inside until the glazier comes.” + +“Why, what’s happened?” + +“You’ve not heard?” + +“I think Crofts—he wasn’t at all explicit.” + +“Nor could he be. It was only a matter of a crash of a splintering +window, and a shout by a most hollow and bewildering voice. Then, I +must admit, there were other shouts from some of us, and one or two of +the ladies were not above screaming. And nothing was discovered save +the fragments of glass.” + +“What did the voice seem to say?” + +“It was clear enough. It shouted some rigmarole about Parson Lolly. +‘Parson Lolly’s here,’ or ‘Look out for Parson Lolly,’ or something of +the kind.” + +“What do you make of it? It worries Crofts severely.” + +“Do you wonder? No, I don’t profess to make anything of it myself. We +must wait until we have more evidence.” + +“Which may be most unpleasant.” + +“Oh, as for being afraid . . .” + +We paused, I remember, by one of the large french windows looking into +the Hall of the Moth. At the table nearest us Cosgrove carefully noted +down the score. He picked up the pack, shuffled deliberately, dealt. +The cards flew bewilderingly from his hand like a flock of +humming-birds released from a cage; they swirled and gleamed in the +light. Yet Cosgrove’s arms were motionless; only his right hand and +wrist moved as swift as the eye could conveniently follow. + +“Cosgrove,” murmured Maryvale; “what a man!” + +“What do you mean?” + +My companion’s surprise was thoroughly ingenuous. “You don’t know +about Sean Cosgrove?” + +“I don’t know much about any Irishman.” + +“Irishman or not, he’s a rarity—a sort of hardness next to positive +stolidity, yet with plenty of _savoir faire_—caution in thought and +preparation, and then a sure swiftness like that dealing of the cards; +add to it a consecration to an idea so whimsical and quaint that +heaven must laugh, and heaven must speed him.” + +“What idea may that be?” + +“It’s one of those secrets everyone knows—Ireland redeemed.” + +My “oh” was certainly disappointed. + +Maryvale looked for some time at the red face of him before he chose +to enlighten me further. “Many wild young Irishmen have burned and +blazed for Ireland free, but never one I’ve known had the genius of +imagination of this man.” He added in a low-toned parenthesis, +“Barring the Marquess of Killarney, I’ve no doubt he’s the wealthiest +Irishman in the realm.” + +“That’s enough distinction for one Hibernian.” + +“Seldom known in his race, surely. And he saves his money, looking +always to the gleam of his great goal.” + +“Well enough, Mr. Maryvale—but you speak as if he had some special +vision.” + +“A Free State is nothing compared to the bright morning in mind.” + +“Ah, an anarchist!” + +Maryvale chuckled. “That was certainly an unlucky dive of logic, my +friend. No, Mr. Bannerlee, Sean Cosgrove aspires to restore the +ancient dynasties of Munster and Leinster!” + +“But—well, how will he find the lines? They’re extinct, aren’t they?” + +“I should hesitate to say categorically where Cosgrove is planning to +discover them.” + +“But how will he set about it?” + +“Well, if I tell you baldly, you’ll think he’s utterly mad. He’s going +to advertise in the _Times_.” + +A vast vacuum of seconds must have gone by, while I looked again +intently at the huge face so solemn over its slips of pasteboard, +before I ventured, “And what do you think of him yourself, then?” + +“Let me explain what I meant when I said that Cosgrove will advertise +in the _Times_ to find the true rulers of Munster and Leinster. He +will not advertise there alone; he will put the inquiry in every +little rag and sheet. He will send men among the peasants on the land +to ask. He will receive answers, will he not, Mr. Bannerlee?” + +“Of every sort.” + +“Of every sort, as you say. The genealogist will ridicule, the +republican will sneer or snarl, the crank will present his ready-made +conclusions, the peasant will tell the tale his grandmother’s +grandmother crooned to her and she to him. And Sean Cosgrove will +receive every answer for the sake of the good that may be in it. He is +ready to examine every contention of the genealogist, to sift the +fables rigorously, to get at the root of every wild story, to +criticize every legend—and in the end he will find his man, or find +his truth! Let us go in.” + +We reopened the french windows, entered the Hall of the Moth. + +I looked at him, who had so suddenly, yet so unaffectedly, made almost +an intimate of me in the brief hour of acquaintance, tried to appraise +the pent brows and the fugitive, almost wistful eyes of Gilbert +Maryvale, the “complete man of business.” Those eyes, what were they +seeking, or what had they discovered? They saw deeps, I knew, +soundings surely unsuspected by these more or less ordinary people, by +that old vulture with white plumage, Ludlow—or Belvoir the +nonentity—or, certainly, this fancy man Charlton Oxford—or our +unimaginative host, Crofts Pendleton—or Sean Cosgrove himself, who +from Maryvale’s account must represent the quintessence of insurgency +and holy tradition. + +These “ordinary people,” I had called them. But were they, any of +them, ordinary? My total impression of that company at the Bidding +Feast had become one of masks and shadows. Such obvious contradiction +as seemed to exist in the case of Maryvale and such duplicity as +Ludlow’s might have their subtler likenesses in everyone. Mrs. +Belvoir, with her melodious voice, might be a volcano which had never +gone up in flame and ruin; this dapper Charlton Oxford might be a +leading light of the Society for the Cherishing of Atheism. Crofts +Pendleton had assured me that their air of studious interest while +rapt in the complexities of cards was a dissembling of fear, but I +wondered if it might not be a dissembling of something else as well, +something which I could not then grasp intuitively. But I felt its +existence, just as a man in a pitch-dark room may be, they say, aware +of another presence. + +Maryvale, catching me look first at him, then at the absorbed +contestants, drew a mistaken deduction. + +“No, Mr. Bannerlee, no sign of any of them wanting to give me my place +back again. There’s a riveting fascination in cards if you’re keyed +right.” I believe he looked a bit ashamed of his cross-bred metaphor. +“One of the many forms in which chance plays pranks upon us. All, all +thralled.” + +“Some more and some less, however.” + +“Oh, of course, but my point was that no one escapes the lure. Even +the unlikeliest—” + +“Mr. Cosgrove, that would be, I have—” + +“I think not, I really am sure not. Oh, no.” + +“What? You don’t mean his Lordship?” + +Maryvale took his pipe in his hand, smiling, waved it. “You do not +know us, Mr. Bannerlee. We are really quite a surprising company, we +friends of Cosgrove, and his, er, enemies. Now who, beside the +respected Mr. Charlton Oxford here, seems to you to personify most +thoroughly the spirit of conformity, the one cut out most neatly for a +player of auction bridge?” + +I needed not to hesitate one whit, but with a nudge indicated Belvoir. +“He seems made to fit into any background.” + +Maryvale laughed long and with absolute silence. “Yes, yes,” he +whispered, “a family man, I grant you, with legitimate children, a +householder in suburbia—so far so good. That’s irony _in excelso_. But +for deep down conformity of spirit, like the thousand and one of his +neighbours in Golders Green, ye gods! Why, man, he’s the most radical +wight in England—a stick of dynamite!” + +“He!” + +“Haven’t you read his ‘Bypaths’?” + +“His! Good God!” + +Then from the farther table came a cackle from Ludlow: “Well, I say it +_is_ so! . . . Saint Paul knew as much psychology as any of your +puffed-up pedagogues.” + +Alberta Pendleton (who was his partner) said promptly, “Did you play +the deuce?” Our hostess is more tactful than her husband. + +Belvoir gave a thin Italian sort of snicker. “He’s trying to,” he +said. + +I just made out the low, luscious voice of Mrs. Belvoir: “Ted, that +wasn’t good. Half a crown, please.” + +“The family penalty for a pun,” explained Maryvale. + +Ludlow gave a sudden sneeze, a whooping big sneeze, which must have +disturbed the cards on the table. “I beg—” he said, and sneezed again. + +My face being turned toward Maryvale, and Ludlow’s back being toward +me, I had no more than an imperfect glimpse out of the tail of my eye +at what happened next. Our noble friend drew his handkerchief out of +his breast-pocket with a bit of a flourish, and something white and +smaller came out along with it. At that precise instant Ludlow was +preoccupied with a third sneeze which took him unawares and made his +plumed head bob down to the green board. There was consternation at +his table, amusement at the other, but I was the only one who saw the +object fly off to the left, poise for the cleaving of an instant in +flight, and glide and swoop gracefully down to the floor beside the +long-case clock in the corner. There it lay, a slightly crumpled slip +of notepaper, scrawled upon. + +I gave some small exclamation, crossed in front of Maryvale, picked up +the morsel. It was certainly not my intention to scrutinize the +writing, but it was impossible in the act of recovery not to see some +words. All that made the least imprint in my consciousness were the +two concluding lines: + + “. . . you leave it in the mail—you know where; I’ll come and + get it.” + +Not even the signature gave me any impression; but it, I must confess, +looked like an intentional enigma. + +A step or two across the floor would have taken me and the slip to the +discomposed Ludlow, but in my way was a large reddish hand, attached +to a long arm, and the arm hung on the shoulder of an Irishman whose +naturally red face was filling with unaccustomed blood. + +“Mine, sir,” said the bridegroom-to-be. + +I shook my head. “No, Mr. Cosgrove, you must be mistaken. I saw—” + +“No doubt. Mine, I said.” + +“But I saw it come out of the pocket of Lord Ludlow.” + +“No doubt.” Cosgrove swung about in his chair with a ruddy scowl. “And +I’ll trouble his Lordship to explain how a piece of my private +correspondence arrived in his pocket, and will he please tell me what +use he thought to make of it?” + +Our minds play us pranks. The quarrel itself should have engrossed me, +but an absurd irrelevant detail about Cosgrove seized my attention. +This was the first time that I had seen the back of his head. His +black hair, I have stated, was short cut, and at the rear the recent +clipping had left a broad streak of white between his splay ears, so +that a person seeing him from behind for the first time, far from +supposing him the wealthiest bachelor in Ireland, might take him for a +yokel just come from his potato patch, rawly scissored for the fair, +to complete with other yokels for the favour of rustic beauties. + +Then my glance shifted to Lord Ludlow, who also had swung about in his +chair, stiff and upright, his small bright green eyes sparkling, his +face full of indignation, like an affronted gerfalcon’s. + +“What do you mean, sir? I have no interest in your correspondence, I +am sure.” + +“Leave your pretences, shame on you, sir!” said Cosgrove (to whom I +had in impotence surrendered the slip). “This is a private +communication. I repeat, what presumption—” + +“You’re mad,” scoffed Lord Ludlow. “I know nothing about your +communications. I don’t carry them about—” + +Quite half-wittedly I interjected a hasty, “But my dear Ludlow, I saw +it fall when your handkerchief—” + +This was mere idiocy, diverting the wrath of the god to my own +shoulders. The thin man turned spryly upon me. “If you will kindly +confine yourself to your own business, Mr. Bannerlee, without +excursions into the fantastic.” + +“Mr. Bannerlee is right, I have no doubt,” asserted Sean Cosgrove with +ponderous emphasis; “and he is prying into no one’s business when he +tells the lawful truth.” + +“Fiddle-dee-dee!” cackled Ludlow. + + +_Explicit!_ Here, with the hurly-burly of the quarrel is completed the +exposition; what admired disorder ensued in the next fifteen minutes I +described at the outset of my half-the-night’s scribbling.¹ What has +it meant? What does it portend? I am sure now that the intangible +feeling impressed upon me in the Hall was one of hostility, not the +sort divulged by semi-secret looks and half-heard imprecations, but a +congeries of criss-crossed feuds hidden completely by the thick veneer +of social amenity. + + ¹ All this is more than four times as much as I wrote that night, + but I did set down something more than five thousand words. + (Author’s note.) + +Well! sleep we must in spite of thunder. I have written as often I +used to, feverishly, with absorption, but never with such a theme! +What will to-morrow bring? What shall I have to relate to-morrow +midnight? Nothing dull, I hope; I trust nothing grievous. + +(Eve Bartholomew, whom I thought I heard prowling an hour ago, left a +slip of paper under the door: “Money! I’ve known Sir Brooke to forget +it before.” + +Poor devil of a woman?) + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Strain + + October 3. 9.15 P.M. + +I awoke, late in the morning, of course, very much refreshed. For a +moment or two I was puzzled by my situation; then the tenseness and +terror of the preceding night stung me. I knew that brooding over +those wild events would lead to no good—of this and other matters I +had already made up my mind. I kicked off the bedclothes and ventured +out of my door. It was a minute or two past ten, and on my secret +march in last night’s borrowed dressing-robe down to Pendleton’s room +for a bath, I found no sign of any other guest. + +Half an hour later, in the dinner-room across the corridor from the +Hall of the Moth, I sought breakfast. On the threshold, his back +toward me, I found Ludlow vehement, making warlike gestures at someone +inside. + +He looked unnaturally thin and bent, Ludlow, attired in a suit of +cottage tweed, a smoky grey, a thing surely inherited from some +plethoric uncle, for it hung on his Lordship like a bag and at the +same time was too short in particulars. His trousers were certainly +not intended to show all that length of woollen sock, and his wrists +shot out from his sleeves like a conjurer’s whenever, as now, he +straightened his arms. His Oxford collar, cut off too soon, exposed a +lean craning neck. + +Belvoir was seated at the table. He was on the point of remarking in +his blandest voice: + +“And you know, my dear Ludlow, the notion of obscenity is certainly +modern.” + +“No such thing,” sputtered Lord Ludlow. “Your opinions are atrocious, +sir, and your books are vile. You should be boiled in oil for your +opinions, sir—and for your books you should, er, er—be parboiled!” + +“And you, my good sir, should be embalmed,” rejoined Belvoir with +equanimity. “You _are_ embalmed, by Jove! A good job, too. That will +explain everything.” + +“Thank you, sir!” + +“Not at all. My good sir, have you ever descended to fundamentals from +that altitude of sublime cerebration that you seem to be soaring in +whenever I expound my lowly beliefs?” + +“Fundamentals? What do you mean by fundamentals?” + +“I mean facts.” + +“You mean a perversion of the facts, sir!” + +Belvoir had caught sight of my grinning face over Ludlow’s shoulder, +and for my benefit, I believe, he carried on a spirited rejoinder. “My +books, upon which you have delivered so restrained a stricture, are +little more than depositories of facts, my good sir. When I assert +that modesty is a purely conventional matter, I am not spinning a yarn +from an arm-chair. When I remark that modern marriage—all marriage—is +the outcome of hardened tribal customs, I am not foining in +intellectual darkness. When I comment on the different conceptions of +chastity, instancing the preparation for marriage of Babylonian girls +in the temples of the priests—” + +Ludlow had been standing still as death during these words, but I +could see that his cleaver-like brownish cheek had been taking on a +very amiable purple hue. The mention of Babylon fired him. + +“Babylon! Filth! Pah!” + +“Quite so, if you are viciously entangled in the nets of your own +particular hidebound, Tory—” + +“You’re a fool, sir, and the sooner you—” + +“But how beautiful to the Babylonian woman—” + +“Rubbish! In the first place, you haven’t any—” + +“Even you, Ludlow, if you had happened to be a priest in Baby—” + +“Outrageous, sir! What right—” + +“Why will a Brahmin wash—” + +“I am not a Brahmin either, or a—” + +“Or take the case of murder. With us it is a crime, but in—” + +“Poppycock! Would you do a murder, sir, to show your immunity to +so-called custom?” + +“I’m too kind-hearted,” murmured Belvoir. + +“And yet you recommend us to throw overboard everything we have saved +from the past—to cast convention to the winds—to wallow in a sty of +the senses—to debauch—” + +After a few purple seconds, like a puny Jeremiah, lifting spindle arms +out of his sleeves while he raised his fists, he turned and stalked +forth in a billow of smoke-grey tweed, kicking a porridge-bowl along +the floor. Beholding me, he snapped “Good morning” while he went past. + +“Lord Ludlow doesn’t stomach new ideas very readily. His digestion was +formed during the supremacy of the late lamented V.R.” + +Belvoir spoke from the floor, wherefrom he smilingly recovered the +porridge-bowl. I then saw that other dishes, and silver, lay +scattered. + +The “stick of dynamite” explained, “The good Ludlow _will_ jump +incontinent to his feet when he wants to bully someone, regardless of +whether his tray’s on his lap or not. He _will_ eat his breakfast off +a tray.” + +“Good lord!” + +“Oh, small harm. I did not press my argument until he had emptied +every dish. As you see, neither ham nor egg hath left a stain.” + +I helped him recover the _disiecta membra_. While we collected the +crockery from the carpet, Belvoir murmured, “Poor Ludlow! Too many +spinning-mills—I’m afraid some of them are going on in his brain.” + +“Spinning-mills!” + +“Yes, didn’t you know? Our noble friend is chairman of a good few +businesses in cloth—from Ulster to the Outer Hebrides.” + +“But really, Mr. Belvoir, I’m surprised to find you carrying on any +academic controversy this morning.” + +“Eh?” His features held a vague look of trouble. + +I had set about loading a goodly plate at the sideboard. “Well, it +strikes me that you were having a row about the wrong thing.” + +“The wrong thing?” + +“Gad, man, hasn’t anything happened here to set tongues wagging, that +you must bicker with the noble Lord about folkways and the comparative +conceptions of chastity?” + +“Why, you don’t mean—” + +“Great Scott, is everyone in the House as indifferent as you two? Am I +the only one who remembers there was a massacre last night?” + +“Well,” hesitated he, “I suppose that those signs and evidences—at +night—” + +“You mean, now it’s good broad morning sunlight, everyone has calmed?” + +“Considerably, Mr. Bannerlee. Even Miss Mertoun, who saw that horror, +wanted to go out of doors this morning, but Miss Lebetwood forbade +it.” + +“Miss Mertoun!” I looked up astonished from sausage and bacon and +steaming coffee. + +“Last night, you know, we supposed that she would have to remain in +bed half a week. But a blue morning sky re-creates the world, and +people. Besides, a couple of the most painful enigmas are considerably +lightened. What do you lack? Milk?” + +“Yes.” + +“You won’t find any, I’m afraid. The milkman’s man—we’ve had it over +the ’phone—is in the throes of a nervous breakdown.” + +“Doesn’t Crofts keep a cow of his own?” + +“He does, but the beast has failed ignobly. Well, as I was saying, +last evening’s troubles are mostly dissipated.” + +“Which?” + +“Sir Brooke, for one. Pendleton has had a note from him in the morning +post.” + +“He’s not coming?” + +“Well, what should you say? The note consisted of three words: ‘Wait +for me.’ What should you say?” + +“What does Pendleton say?” + +Belvoir laughed. “Poor chap, he’s almost off his chump still, as you +may guess. Governing a household threatened with theft and no one +knows what else is out of his line. He’s in high dudgeon over it—wants +to know how long he’s supposed to wait, why he should be expected to +wait at all, and so forth. _He_, if you like, hasn’t forgotten last +night.” + +“What I can’t see is, why this gentleman’s absence should paralyze the +proceedings.” + +Belvoir winked. “We can’t have the Feast proper unless the bride’s +health is drunk, and Sir Brooke is assigned to proposing the toast.” + +A few seconds went by while I absorbed this statement. “No one else +could propose it, of course?” + +Belvoir grinned. “Well, opinions differ. Crofts says anybody can, but +Cosgrove solemnly insists that no one else _shall_!” + +“What difference—?” + +“You’ll have to ask Cosgrove; but he won’t tell you the answer, the +real answer, that is. He’s put his foot down, though. No, Sir Brooke +means no Bidding Feast; that’s flat.” + +“How long do you suppose the festivities can be postponed?” + +“A day, says Pendleton. Then if he had his way, the marriage would +take place, Brooke or no.” + +“The marriage! With all that ugliness and horror unexplained?” + +Belvoir shrugged. “What would you have? The fact is that the blood is +not so significant as we thought. Pendleton would have sent for the +police to-day, I dare say, in spite of his stand last night, but the +source of the blood has been found, or rather missed.” + +“The source?” + +“A possible or probable source. A sucking-pig with all necessary +qualifications is gone from the sties. Pendleton seems to believe that +a poacher may have slaughtered it, or that someone has indulged in a +ritualistic blood orgy, or that—but we can’t make out what he thinks, +if he knows himself. Come outside, Mr. Bannerlee, and see for yourself +how the exhibits have lost their grisliness in daylight.” + +We met Pendleton at the foot of the stairs. His greeting to me was +effusive yet a trifle strained. He had been going up to call me; +hadn’t expected that after my long—here he looked at Belvoir, +bethought himself, and stammered—well, he hadn’t expected me to be up +so soon. The boy Toby, he said, had at nine o’clock been sent on his +bicycle through New Aidenn to the ineffable village, to fetch my bag +from the inn, and incidentally to re-inquire about the reported +appearance of Sir Brooke at New Aidenn station. Most of the guests, +however, believed the identification had been mistaken. As a fact, Sir +Brooke was quite irresponsible enough to stay overnight and not +’phone. But since the message— Were we going out? He’d come, too. + +On the lawn beyond the mighty gate-house—and herefrom in the daytime +we could see the narrow glitter of Aidenn Water beyond the +tennis-court some distance up the bank—on the lawn the blood-pool, now +a dry clot, and the hatchet with helve and blade both stained, were +fenced off with guards of chicken-wire. + +“And don’t you think these are serious testimony?” + +“To what? to what?” Pendleton inquired. “What can we make of Parson—” + +“You have swallowed this Parson Lolly, hook, line, and sinker. Now I—” + +“You and Oxford weren’t so chirpy last evening,” observed our host. + +I was indignant. “Well! Did I seem to be in the same condition of +nerves—” + +“You saw the same thing.” + +“But, Crofts, man, it surely can be explained somehow without—” + +He was impatient. “Yes, of course, everything can be explained. Things +have been happening, oh, quite explainable things, all of them—only +not one of them _has_ been explained. But what I object to is giving +them an explanation that’s pure conjecture. You evidently think +there’s been murder here. You seem to believe that’s human blood. How +do you know it isn’t pig’s blood?” + +“Why not try to get someone here who can tell?” + +“Someone _is_ coming,” snapped Pendleton. + +“Oh, you have sent—” + +“No; more guests arriving, that’s all. Late comers.” + +“Like Sir Brooke?” + +“No, not like Sir Brooke. Sir Brooke promised to come yesterday; these +weren’t expected until to-day.” + +“And one of them will be able to tell—” + +“Doctor Aire should be able to tell,” said Pendleton wearily. “Come on +over to the court, and let’s forget this.” + +I acceded gladly enough. Belvoir begged off on the score of writing +letters, and Cosgrove, that moment hailing us from the library window, +came through the armoury door in baggy knickers and an Irish edition +of a sportsman’s coat (black and astonishingly high in the collar). + +While Cosgrove, Pendleton, and I moved along northward and surveyed +the meagre walls of the glazed conservatory, we could tell from the +mere vestiges that that large room and the storey of three +bed-chambers ranged above it were later engraftings to the house. The +tinting of the stones was bolder, undarkened, and brick had been used +to some extent north of the tower that marked the limit of the +original wall. + +An odd thing, that conservatory window fractured by the Parson in his +latest escapade. Brilliant purple clematis framed the lower expanses +of conservatory glass. Beneath a small birch-tree opposite the great +burst-in window we paused for a moment in order that I might see the +damaged section. Again the blooms within sent out a heady breath. The +gap in the glass was extremely irregular in shape, a good five feet in +its tallest dimension, half that in its widest. To-day, said +Pendleton, the glazier from New Aidenn, already come for a preliminary +examination, would bring his paraphernalia and close up the place. + +“That’s quite an opening unprotected.” + +“Oh, no fear,” said Crofts, “the door from the conservatory into the +corridor had been double-locked and bolted from the corridor side. +Always is, anyhow, unless someone wants to go in to make music.” + +“Make music?” + +“Yes, the piano’s there, you know.” + +“And how do you account for the shape of the smash? It looks as if +someone walking on air had stepped through the glass.” + +“Someone flying?” muttered Cosgrove, running his finger along the edge +of the broken pane. + +Pendleton made a movement of annoyance. “Oh, I don’t try to explain +it. I leave that to you, sleuth-hound. That description of yours +sounds very probable to me.” + +“Our poor, dear host,” I murmured pityingly. “Forgive me for harping +on the ungrateful chord of mystery.” + +From beyond the thick-clumped shrubs to the north and toward Aidenn +Water came a staccato of handclapping and a few bright tones of voices +in the fresh, vibrant sunlight. The sounds reminded Pendleton of our +objective. + +“Come along to the tennis. That must be Paula playing.” + +“Isn’t it a bit late in the year for tennis?” + +“I suppose so, but Paula would play it in Iceland.” + +“She is good then, I take it?” + +“Very good. She’d give you a run, Bannerlee.” + +“Oh, Lord, I’m no use any more. What sort of court have you, Crofts?” + +“Hard. Too much rain here for anything else.” + +While we went our way, I was all alert for signs of the billowing and +swelling marauder of last night, and I thought ruefully how a +fictional detective finds clues even in bent grass-blades. I kept my +eyes wide. We crossed the lawn and passed near the cypress trees where +the black-robed creature had disappeared. Surreptitiously I looked for +footprints; nothing was distinguishable. + +Before reaching the track leading to the pretentious bridge over the +tributary stream, we swung left through the bushes and soon came to a +knoll full of scaly-red, twisted strawberry trees. + +“These are aliens in England,” explained Cosgrove to me, while we +wound our way upward through the plantation. “But in my country they +are natives. I like nothing better than to loiter among them; they +almost make me think I am in old Muckross again. There is one reason +why I like your Highglen estate, friend Crofts.” + +We found a pleasant clearing there, where we could lie, having a view +both of the lawns and of the tennis. The strawberry trees extend +thickly beyond the knoll and around the court, which is only a few +yards away from Aidenn Water where it comes straight down the middle +of the Vale before making quite a detour toward the western +escarpment. A doubles match was in progress, and the knot of +spectators was too intent on the exchanges to notice us. + +“There’s Paula,” indicated Crofts. “Look at that shot! She’s master of +us all with the racquet.” + +A white-skirted player had given a leap, a _whang_ was to be heard +even from our vantage-point, and another patter of applause. I thought +the Irishman looked satisfied. + +“I approve of the excellence of women in games,” he said. + +We reclined at our ease and had a good view of Miss Lebetwood and her +partner grinding down their opponents. Cosgrove, it developed, had +never played tennis, nor did he any other game—now. In his “youth,” he +told us, he had been a good Rugger player, I think he called himself a +“dangerous partisan”; “murderous” I thought might be the fitter word +while I gazed at his countenance full of heavy seriousness and +wondered when this young man considered his “youth” to have ended. + +He swept his arm toward the enclosure where the players darted and +skipped. “As for this juvenile pastime, my part in it has been +confined to holding the fish-net.” + +I gave an astonished “Fish-net!” + +“Yes, on the stream bank.” + +Crofts Pendleton rolled over so that he might address me. “We lose a +good few balls here.” + +“Well, these tangled strawberry trees might swallow any number.” + +“There’s more in it than that. It seems almost uncanny sometimes how +many are never recovered.” + +Cosgrove said, “The number of missing balls is extraordinary.” + +“Yes, and wild shots often go into Aidenn Water. We usually have +someone on the bank with the net to recapture them floating down!” + +“That must be a grateful task.” + +“It is like all other labours of love,” rejoined Crofts, “a joy to the +doer, a wonder to the Philistine.” + +I looked sharply at my friend; little nippy speeches like that were +not like him. + +Our talk drifted away from the games. I mentioned that ruin farther up +the Vale, which I was eager to see by daylight. Cosgrove had some wild +tale about it which he told with sonorous impressiveness—only, while I +watched the lithe leaps of Paula Lebetwood and witnessed the accuracy +of her shots, the gist of the history escaped me. At this moment all I +can recall of it is that the word “treachery” kept coming in. Even if +I was distracted from appreciation, Cosgrove seemed to derive a pure +pleasure from hearing himself pour forth. But Crofts Pendleton did not +dote on the tale; instead this account, doubtless half fact, half +legend, seemed to remind him of present broils. + +During an exchange of courts, I let my gaze alight on Mynydd Tarw, +that northern hill above the ruin, whereon Aidenn Water begins at +Shepherd’s Well. My glance roved down the western line of hills, Black +Mixen, Great Rhos, Esgair Nantau, and Vron Hill, the last directly +opposite us across the Water. + +“Do you see it?” Crofts said suddenly. + +“What?” I asked, rolling over with a start. + +“The tumulus on Vron Hill. Some old josser lying up there with a ton +of stones on his chest.” + +“No, I don’t see it.” + +“Neither do I. Funny thing about it, it lies just over the shoulder of +the Hill from where we are. At sunset, though, it looks quite grand up +there, if you can see it.” + +“Somehow I’ve noticed that,” I remarked gravely. + +“What do you mean?” + +“Things look better if you can see them.” + +Crofts brushed aside my feeble attempt at leg-pulling. “Seriously, +though, Bannerlee, you should have a try at it this evening—from your +window, or from outside on the balcony. I’m no good at old stones and +that kind of thing, but I do get a thrill when I think of that codger +up there sleeping it off. He chose a breezy place to wait for +Judgment.” + +“I will have a look,” I promised. “I can’t see, though, why this +antique gentleman selected that Hill in preference to any one of +several others hereabout.” I indicated with my arm. “Why, that one, +for instance, or that one, must be a couple of hundred feet higher. +Don’t you think so?” I put it to Cosgrove, but he hesitated to commit +himself, and Crofts said that I had better ask Miss Lebetwood, if I +were too lazy to consult an ordnance map. + +“She’s hot stuff at all that, really—very useful.” + +I saw Cosgrove give his head a doleful wag. + +“Her brother—American army officer—killed,” explained our host. +“Before he sailed for France she made him teach her all he knew, +apparently. She and he would pore over the maps and plans together, I +understand.” + +“Yes,” came in Cosgrove with his voice like the great slow tramp of +oxen, “she has too many of these unwomanly things in her head, I +misdoubt. Photography—” + +“Topography, you mean,” contradicted Crofts, surprised out of his +jaded condition into smothered laughter by the Irishman’s blunder. +“Topography, not photography.” + +“I said photography, and I’ll stick to it,” replied Cosgrove with +never a smile. “And topography as well. Do you call them fit studies +for a woman?” + +“They, and others like them, are the very things that make you ache +for her,” said Pendleton with what I considered remarkable +penetration. “They form part of the wonder of her, the quality that +makes it hard for you to realize just what a prize you’ve captured. +Come man, frankly, what would you give to have her for your wife two +days from now if she didn’t have intellect as well as a treasury of +golden hair and emotions which permit a strange susceptibility to such +as you?” + +I looked curiously at Cosgrove, to see how he would take the +challenge. He took it stolidly, with never a sign on his rufous +countenance; only after a while his eyebrows lifted sharply, as if he +considered the possibility of truth in his friend’s words. + +For my part, I soon was too absorbed in the dart and dip of the tennis +ball to notice much more of the talk. Pendleton kept trying to tell me +more about Miss Lebetwood, how she loved climbing, how on earlier +visits she had taken the unpromising lad Toby in hand and uncovered +surprising intelligence in him. It all had something to do with +photography—or was it topography?—no matter. She had even brought down +some apparatus—or was it maps?—and given it to him. Cosgrove kept +still now, while our host rambled on, evidently glad of any topic he +could talk of without unpleasant associations. + +Suddenly the game was over, and everyone concerned trooped toward the +House. Pendleton was hailed by somebody and had to join the returning +party, though I think he would have been glad to remain out of sight +of his country home just then. I was well content to stay with +Cosgrove, for the man rather fascinated me; his mind seemed to be full +of admirable inconsistencies. + +We strolled southward where Aidenn Water makes that monstrous sweep to +the west beyond the towered gate, and further where the stream swings +sharply eastward again under the very toes of the bounding hills. +There stood the bridge, a crossing of one arch: ill-hewn, moss-grown +moor stone with a two-foot parapet, quite immeasurably old and quite +quaint, with an immemorial ash-tree overlooking it from this side. The +water stole peacefully underneath. I expressed surprise that it would +bear any considerable weight, and Cosgrove with an air of commenting +on the irrelevant remarked that he did not suppose it was ever +expected to bear any greater weight than Pendleton’s motor or a +tradesman’s team and wagon. + +“Look at it, I say, look at it. They build no bridges like that +to-day.” + +We remained several minutes there beside the water-crossing, which was +indeed picturesque, then turned toward the half-hidden House in some +haste, for the sky had gradually been overcast and now there was a +premonition of showers in the nip of the wind. + +We hastened through the main portal of the House, beneath the stone +head of the cat, just in time to escape a flicker and dash of rain. + +There at the foot of the stair-well was Pendleton again, with a long, +sour face. + +I suppressed a desire to laugh. + +“Well?” + +“That damned, diseased pest!” + +“What! Not the Parson once more!” + +Cosgrove cannoned an incredulous “No!” + +With the suddenness of a conjurer our host thrust before our noses a +second cardboard placard scrawled across with uncouth printing mingled +of capitals and small letters, now composing a message of more +sinister purport: + + L o o K o u T F O R P A R S O N L O L L Y H e M E A n s + B U S I N e S S + +“Ah, yes,” I murmured with perhaps a little too much surface effort at +nonchalance. “Parson Lolly means business now. He was only trifling +last night.” + +“He was interrupted last night—be sure of that,” intoned Cosgrove. + +“Damned lucky for us, then.” + +Pendleton was unsteady with righteous embarrassment and rage when +Cosgrove interrogated him. “Where was this thing found?—who found +it?—when—” + +“Harmony—one of the housemaids—the vixen,” snapped Pendleton, and +seemed unable to make headway. + +“Why is the good Harmony held in such opprobrium?” I inquired. + +“I swear she’s lying—the minx—or she put it there herself.” + +“Where?” + +“In your room, Sean, lying in the middle of the floor.” + +Perhaps Pendleton had been saving that item for rather a stiff jolt at +the last. I happened to be looking at Cosgrove and saw his eyebrows +jerk upward prodigiously, as if they were going to fly off his +forehead, and the eyes beneath them bulged and stared like glass. + +“In my room? When was this?” + +“She just came down from doing the beds—says she found it there not +five minutes ago.” + +“Hem,” said Cosgrove, his features settling into a study. + +“Come, come,” urged Pendleton, making a nervous movement of +impatience. “Tell us—when were you in your room last?” + +“A little after nine, I think,” answered Cosgrove, solemnly scratching +his black-thatched head behind the left ear, his look scowling and +intent upon the floor, his brow cleft by one heavy wrinkle. “I saw the +boy riding the bicycle out of the barn; that would be nine, you said. +I heard Lord Ludlow quarrelling with the man Soames for bringing him +the wrong color of towel, a quarter of an hour later—fully. And I came +out in the corridor in time to see Soames disappear down the stair.” + +“After a quarter past nine,” said Pendleton. “That leaves over two +hours—unless Harmony—” + +“It couldn’t have been there and you not see it?” I asked. + +“In the centre of the floor? Mr. Bannerlee!” + +“Are you implying that it was left there last night?” + +“I withdraw the suggestion, Crofts,” I said, “although—” + +“There are enough ‘if’s’ and ‘although’s’ in this to—to stock a +political editor,” grumbled our host. + +“Has the placard any mark, any peculiarity—” + +“For identification, you mean?” Pendleton turned the cardboard over +between his fingers, dubiously. “It’s like last night’s—cut round the +edges with scissors or a knife—might have been part of the bottom of a +box of sweets.” His voice was despairing. “I suppose enough board for +twenty foul things like this comes into this house every week. And in +all Wales—” + +“Our search—supposing we go about a search—will hardly be as broad as +that,” said Cosgrove, and I was struck, as many times before, by the +lack of lightness in his voice. He meant just that: that if the +placard were investigated, the whole country need not be drawn into +the matter. + +Our host turned to the Irishman: “Search won’t do any good; that’s +certain sure. But I’ll have the servants up this afternoon. +(Bannerlee, you be with me while I question ’em and tell me what you +think of their candour—you’ve no prejudices, you know.) Sean, what do +you think of it? Are you alarmed?” + +Cosgrove laughed contemptuously. + +“But it’s directed to you this time.” + +“It’s casual, casual. What could anyone—what could this meddler have +against me?” + +“It was left in your room.” + +“By chance,” insisted Cosgrove. “There could have been no malice +toward me in it.” + +“But, by gad, what shall I tell the people here?” + +“Nothing—and swear the woman Harmony to whisper never a word.” + +“Yes, of course, I’ve sworn her on the Bible until she was +blue-scared, the jade. But this thing?” + +Cosgrove reached out and took the placard. He tore it across, placed +the pieces together and tore it again, and repeatedly, and handed the +bits back to Crofts. + +“Make a small fire in the Hall.” + +It impressed me as a really brave thing, and I believe that Crofts +felt the same admiration for him who dismissed such a message, +apparently out of the air, from man or superman or sub-man. + +“Here goes, then.” + +“Has the boy come back with my bag?” + +“Not for at least another hour, I’m afraid. He has a long hilly road +to ride—down through New Aidenn and all the way around by the south +skirts of Aidenn Forest.” + +“Sir Brooke?” + +“Not a nail of him. But the others have come.” + +I echoed, “Others? Guests?” + +“Doctor Aire and the two young, very young Americans.” + +“And what says the Doctor to the blood on the lawn?” asked Cosgrove. + +“He took some of it up for microscopy. He can tell if it’s probably +human or not. He’s more than a little interested.” + +We had entered the Hall of the Moth from the portrait corridor, and +through the plenteous windows saw a swift rain pouring down. + +“The evidence is getting wet.” + +“Canvas spread over,” Crofts assured us. “And _this_ evidence now gets +carbonized.” + +We watched the fragments of cardboard smoulder, flare, and become +consumed in the fireplace where raindrops spattered down the chimney, +until only ashes were left, and a tiny spire of smoke. Cosgrove +disintegrated the ash with the poker. + +“_That’s_ a blessing,” said Crofts, taking out his watch. +“Luncheon-bell in ten minutes. Between now and then I shall smoke not +less than three cigarettes.” + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Court of Inquiry + +We ate beneath a sprinkling of electric lights and my mind was glum +with foreboding. + +As usual, Ludlow made himself manifest. His sneer in a shrill staccato +was apparently directed against Doctor Stephen Aire, a new arrival. +Him I had not yet met, the table being already seated when I came down +from revising my toilet in my lofty bed-chamber. + +“—and the wrigglings and windings of the new psychology, the _new_ +psychology, forsooth!” + +A diatribe by Lord Ludlow I already considered to be in the nature of +a treat, and I leaned forward to see how the challenge would be +received by Doctor Aire, who was seated at the same side of the table +as I. All that was visible of him, of course, was head and shoulders, +extraordinarily broad and square shoulders in rough purplish tweed, +and a shocking small and yellowy-looking head with tight-stretched +skin, a balt spot like a tonsure in a ring of sparse grey hair, and +short pepper-and-salt moustache. His eyes (I could see, for he sat +only two away from me) were small and bright and seemed to be +twinkling amusement. + +“The new psychology, sir—” + +“No, Ludlow,” clicked the doctor, his thin bloodless lips curved +sharply upward at the ends, “not the _new_ psychology, of course. +_Why, Saint Paul knew as much psychology as anyone living to-day!_” + +At this iteration of his own words of the night before his Lordship +stared, swallowed, and collapsed into silence. A small but delighted +squeak produced by a morsel of a girl at the other end gave away the +secret of pre-arrangement, and a laugh murmured about the table. + +Now, I was not the only one who particularly noticed this very young +lady, “Lib” (short for Liberty!) Dale. While I took in her appearance, +I became almost intuitively aware of another gaze making an angle with +mine. Cosgrove was staring at her, so enigmatically that I removed my +glance from her to him, just as she turned her blue eyes upon me with +a quick little movement of her head. Vastly _interested_, totally +engrossed, seemed Sean Cosgrove just then, but the quality of his +interest was untellable. In the judgment of a second, I guessed his to +be a look of, almost, aversion; he seemed fascinated, yet scandalized. +Then the fleeting expression was gone, and he leaned back, turned to +his neighbour. + +Now I was aware that another beside myself was intent on Cosgrove! + +Pendleton sat in sole occupancy of the head of the board. The ends of +the table, however, were broad enough to seat two of our numerous +party, and Alberta Pendleton shared the foot with a youth of sturdy +appearance. Bob Cullen completed the American group among us. His +alert eyes had the queer habit of blinking owlishly at whiles; he +possessed also a pug nose, a good, clean-cut mouth, and a jaw meatless +and determined. Between the mode of his smooth black hair and that of +“Lib” Dale’s there was, as far as I could see, little to tell. He was +very shy. His contributions to conversation, such as I had happened to +overheard, had been “That’s right,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” addressed with +schoolboy gruffness to Alberta Pendleton, who smiled on him with +aunt-like approbation. He has attended for a year, I understand, one +of the great American universities. + +He, then, was staring at Cosgrove, while the Irishman’s regard rested +in trouble on the boyish features of “Lib” Dale. The American youth’s +face went unwontedly white, and his eyes, now wide open, glared. There +was nothing puzzled in his expression, only resentment and a vague +awe, as if he knew he confronted a better man than he. + +Then Cosgrove shifted, and the drama of three seconds, which has taken +three pages to describe, was over. + +Chairs scraped; we rose to our several heights. “Lib” and Bob were +distinctly the shortest among us, and Doctor Aire was not much taller. +But the physician, standing up, was the strangest creature in the +room—a clockwork man. + +That broad-shouldered body in the tweed-suiting was boiler-shaped, and +the long, gaunt arms and short, stodgy legs, seemed casual appendages +joined at convenient locations. Atop this mechanical contrivance his +head stuck like an absurd plaster carving on a pedestal. I could not +but feel a queer, half-repugnant sensation when, on my being +introduced to him, his yellowy, almost Chinese-looking face was close +to mine, and I saw only the blue shadows where his eyes had retreated +and the narrow-lipped mouth nigh to white in its bloodlessness. + +I looked about to be presented to the pair of young Americans; they +had already skipped out of the room. + +“Since it’s still raining and we’re tired of the things we’ve been +doing anyhow, we’re going to get Doctor Aire to tell us about the old +magic in this neighbourhood,” said Alberta. + +“That will be frightfully jolly,” I remarked, surprised at the bizarre +field of knowledge evidently studied by the physician. + +“I’m afraid it will be, as you say, ‘frightfully jolly,’” remarked +Doctor Aire, with his smile at the very ends of his mouth. “I’m not +sure the subject—in view of events—” + +“Why not the new magic instead?” asked Crofts. + +Doctor Aire turned his head sharply; I almost expected to hear a +ratchet click. “What’s that?” + +“The stuff in old Watts’ attic, I mean. We’ve found a conjurer’s +outfit there, Doctor. Why not give ’em a show? That performance of +yours at Coventry was as good as any professional’s.” + +“Oh, we’ll settle that in the Hall,” smiled Alberta. “Come along, Mr. +Bannerlee.” + +“But I want him here,” objected Crofts. “We’re going to examine the +servants.” + +“You really want me?” I exclaimed. “But I don’t know your +servants—haven’t seen but four of ’em yet.” + +“That’s just it,” he explained. “I want someone to be here who can get +a good unprejudiced impression of how they behave.” + +“Well, if I can assist—” + +“But have you asked Mr. Bannerlee if he _wants_ to stay and listen to +the silly—” + +Crofts besought me. “Oh, come, Bannerlee, you know as much as Doctor +Aire does about magic—you with your antiquities.” + +“On the contrary, it is one of the fields where I have done very +little spading, but—” + +“There, see,” smiled Alberta. + +“But I was going to say that this interrogation of yours sounds +particularly interesting. I’ll stay, if you don’t mind, Alberta.” + +“Of course not,” laughed Pendleton’s good-natured wife. “I only tried +to protect you. Crofts is a fearfully long-winded inquisitor.” + +“I think I am the best judge—” began he, but the door closed, cutting +short his speech and her laugh. + +There were thirteen servants in the room when the tale was made. The +dessert dishes from luncheon had not been removed. Crofts sat at the +head of the board; I was inconspicuous in the curtained recess of the +window where Belvoir had sat at breakfast-time. + +From this vantage-point I had my first glimpse of the grounds +immediately east of the House. I saw an unexpected lawn with lovely +flower-patches extending to the kitchen-gardens. On both sides were +topless and toppled walls much gnawed by time, clearly a portion of +the ancient, much vaster edifice of which Highglen House is a +survival. A group of well-preserved square stone buildings about +thirty yards away on my right were, of course, the stables and garage. + +The half-dozen women-servants and two elderly men-servants, besides +the magisterial Blenkinson, were in chairs along the inner side of the +room, while the other men stood with marked differences of composure +before the screens that guarded the entrance to the pantries and the +kitchen. The number of “below-stairs” folk would have been much +greater, of course, had not the Pendletons requested their guests not +to bring personal servants. Thus we men all valeted ourselves, and for +the ladies the staff of maids had to “go round.” + +Pendleton began bluntly: “It’s about this foolishness of Parson +Lolly.” + +Blenkinson lifted the lid of one eye, the better to observe the master +of the House. “And did you mean to say, sir, if I may make so bold, +that any of _us_ have anything to do with the honfortunate affair?” + +“Everything, everything!” said Crofts, and to allay a hum of dismay +and dignity offended, hastily added, “Oh, don’t misunderstand, please. +I mean just this: this Parson Lolly—this ridiculous Parson Lolly—of +course, we don’t believe in any such nonsense. What I want to do is to +get from each one of you, if you can pull yourselves together and give +plain, straightforward statements—I want to find the origin of this +folk-tale—this fairy-story—from each one of you—that is—do you see?” + +“Can’t say as we do—speakin’ for me at least,” drawled a +gaunt tawny-faced man in a leather coat and vest and corduroy +riding-breeches, a cartridge-belt hanging over his arm. His voice had +the pleasant modulation of this countryside, with a little chirruppy +uptilt at the end of each phrase. + +“Hughes, I expected—you see, of course, that it’s that common talk of +you—all of you—and such as you, that spreads such wild, romantic, and +unfounded legends through the countryside. Now, a man four hundred +years old—which of you has seen such a man?” + +“If I may hinterpose,” came in Blenkinson again, “I might remind you, +sir, that most of us are not of Welsh extraction. These foolish +stories don’t ’ave much credit with us from London and other parts, +you may be sure.” + +This speech was approved by vigorous nods on the part of several, +while three or four, the darker-faced and smaller ones, glowered for a +bit, particularly two of the women, strikingly handsome and strikingly +alike. Old Finlay the gardener smiled with sublime sarcasm, such as to +elicit a question from Pendleton. + +“I was thinkin’ as how they was all flummoxed and flabbergasted last +night. It tickle me—that it do. They fules!” The ancient slapped his +knee and burst into a silent guffaw. “Why, they tales—” + +“One moment, Finlay,” said Pendleton; “we must go through this in an +orderly way.” + +“Sir,” Blenkinson cautioned. + +“Oh, yes, yes, of course—what you say is very true—forgotten about +it.” Pendleton scratched his head, saw light suddenly. “Why, of +course, er—most of you are English, not British—” + +“What’s that, sir?” + +“Not Welsh—same thing. I suppose, then—there won’t be much—well, let’s +see how much we do know. I’ll take you in turn.” + +He spoke to the men standing by the screen. “Wheeler, Tenney, +Morgan—any of you had any, er, experiences in the stables? Wheeler?” + +“No, sir,” answered a young, rubicund fellow with a swollen and +discoloured cheek and blue-ringed eye. (He drove the Pendleton car.) +“Nothing but when we were called out last night.” + +“Where did you get that eye?” + +“Fell over pitchfork, sir, and hit the side of a stall.” + +“Tenney, you?” + +“No, sir.” He who answered was a tired-looking man, whose eyelids were +most of the time let down. The two words, his total contribution to +the inquiry, were drawn out to the length of polysyllables. + +“Morgan, you’re a Welshman from around this district. You must have a +lot of these old wives’ tales simmering inside that head of yours.” + +The man, a swart, square-bearded little man, speaking with the +sing-song of local accent, answered that he had heard tell of Parson +Lolly “out of the cradle.” + +“I’ve no doubt—ignorant folly,” commented Pendleton. “Well, what is +all this nonsense?” + +“You mean about Parson Lolly, sir?” + +“Yes, what about him?” + +“Well, sir, they do say he be the biggest of the farises and he be out +of sight of any man for age.” + +“Farises?” + +“He means the fairies, sir,” interpreted one of the women, a mite of a +person sitting on the edge of her chair, with a wisp of tartan colour +at the throat of her black lady’s maid’s uniform. + +“Eh? Oh, Ardelia, thanks,” exclaimed Pendleton, while the stableman +Morgan mumbled something about the propriety of a “not Welshly +person’s” keeping still, and one of the two handsome women gave +her small fellow-servant an unsisterly look and ejaculated, +“Hop-o’-my-thumb!” + +“Go on, Morgan,” bade Pendleton, quieting a general stir. + +The ensuing account was full of omens and transformation, of black +calves and fairy ovens, of wizard marks, sucking pigs, “low winds,” +and horses ridden by the “goblin trot” in stables at night. + +“Great Scott, man! Do you believe all this?” + +The “London servants” and those from other parts tittered. + +Morgan seemed to be weighing his words. “Well, that be hard to say, +sir.” + +“What’s hard about it? Don’t you know what believing is?” + +“Right well I do, sir, but—” + +The small Ardelia woman with the fleck of colour at her collar bobbed +forward. “If he can’t say it, I’ll say it for him. Sometimes he does +believe, and sometimes he doesn’t. Now, Saul Morgan, say if ’tisn’t +so.” + +The stableman gave her a critical glare, but assented. “That’s nigh +the way of it, as Miss Lacy says, sir.” + +“Well!” snorted the interlocutor. “Sometimes you do and sometimes you +don’t! And what causes these changes of front?” + +“I beg your pardon, sir?” + +“What makes you believe—” + +“Well, sir, sometimes it’s right dark outside, you understand, and +things or somethin’ you can’t see—well, they—” + +“What, the things you can’t see?” + +“Yes, sir. They have a way of surely creepin’ in your blood, if you +understand what I mean, sir.” + +“Yes,” said Pendleton, settling back, and, I thought, shivering a +little, “I suppose I do.” + +Morgan, on account of his complete and ingenuous exegesis of the lore +of Parson Lolly, the object of much ironic commiseration from the +“Londoners,” pulled out a florid handkerchief and wiped the beads from +his brow. He stole a half-ashamed glance at the diminutive Ardelia +Lacy, whose wide disapproving eyes made him squirm and shrink. + +Pendleton turned to the women ranged along the wall, whose examination +was shorter. Harmony, Em, and Jael, minxes with buxom bodies and good +fresh faces, were “not Welshly people,” and had no traditions of +Parson Lolly in their mental make-up, but they evidently had some +respect for him born of the stories of indigenous servants. Harmony’s +troubled look showed, to be sure, that she was remembering painfully +to keep the secret of the new announcement of the Parson, but by none +save Crofts and me was her embarrassment marked. Ardelia Lacy, minute +and prim, personal maid of Alberta Pendleton, was also a “Londoner.” + +The two dark-featured, vivacious women, were the “Clays,” Rosa and +Ruth, cook and housekeeper, nieces, it appeared, of Hughes. Rosa Clay +it was who had shown a little animosity toward the “foreign” Ardelia, +indicating possibly a rivalry in respect to the favour of Morgan the +stableman. They knew of no doings of Parson Lolly prior to the arrival +of the guests for the Bidding Feast. + +There remained three men-servants grouped in chairs about the foot of +the table: Blenkinson the staid, Soames, footman, with mutton-chops +and unction, and old Finlay the gardener with his irrepressible silent +guffaws. And in the background against the screen loomed the figure of +the man in out-of-doors clothing and cartridge-belt, the gamekeeper. +Crofts looked at Soames and Blenkinson reflectively, but passed them +as already examined. He raised his eyes. + +“How about you, Hughes?” + +“_What_ about me, sir?” Again the keeper’s voice betrayed his kinship +of race with Morgan. + +“You, too, have this mythology of the Parson pat, like Morgan?” + +“Well, sir, I hardly think Morgan had it ‘pat,’ as you say,” answered +the man, turning the eyes in his motionless head toward the stableman, +who muttered something unintelligible. “I don’t think he was very well +taught, sir—things mixed up, or something, and things that didn’t +belong there, you might say. Now, as it was always told me—I come from +down Powys-way, sir—” + +“You surprise me, Hughes, a man of your age and sense. Now, what about +this? While the House was empty and you and the rest were caretaking, +what signs were of Parson Lolly then? I don’t mean larks and pigeons—I +mean real evidence lying around, or real activity.” + +“Nothing, sir.” + +“Not anywhere in the preserve? Not in the whole estate?” + +“No, sir. Nothing used to happen until you brought down the folk that +are here now.” + +“I see, I see. And you know nothing of the cause of the disturbances +of the last few days?” + +There was an ominous pause, while Hughes seemed to be considering his +words. The room grew a little tenser; Pendleton looked up in surprise. + +“What! You do!” + +“Well, sir, I might say so; it’s connected with what I’ve heard about +Parson Lolly. But it’s an old story, sir—tells about the great lord +who built the castle that was here.” + +“Ha! it does? About Sir Pharamond Kay?” + +“It’s sure to, sir.” + +“Sir Pharamond—hm—built this castle—exactly—well, come on, man; what +is this?” + +Contrasted with Morgan’s, that was a thoroughly intelligible tale the +tall keeper recited in his voice with the mellow burr and up-ended +sentences. Under those conditions of semi-darkness and suspense in the +old, black-beamed chamber, it made a thoroughly moving story. And to +one who knew the rigours and alarums of feudatory existence, who +realized the ingrown awe of their masters felt by peasants with a long +tradition of ancestral servitude to imperious Lords Marchers, it was +quite obvious what a foothold in fact this tale of enchantments must +have had. For from his youth, or ever that most ancient castle up the +Vale was destroyed, Sir Pharamond Kay had been a wizard, and between +him and Parson Lolly, then presumably a magnus in the prime of his +powers, existed a rivalry shrewd and unflagging! + +Wizards, to be sure, are not born but made, and Sir Pharamond went +through complicated and profound measures to acquire his occult +influence. This was before he had achieved his turbulent lordship, and +his father ruled all Aidenn Forest with mailed fist. Sir Pharamond +first unbaptized himself by three times spewing out water from the +Holy Well. Then he stitched up his own lips with three stitches and +for a certain space fasted and remained dumb. When he had unsealed his +mouth again, he went by himself to a lonely room and did certain rites +with a Bible, a fire, and a circle drawn with blood upon the floor, +whereafter the Bible was ashes and Sir Pharamond, as he well deserved, +was a true and certified wizard. + +All this while Parson Lolly, whose sphere of influence included Aidenn +Forest, had been watching the career of the ambitious necromancer with +baleful interest, and now the older magician believed that he must try +conclusions with the usurper or be shorn of his potency in this +region. In the guise of a skipping hare he invaded the castle, and +having come into the presence of its lord, suddenly assumed his wizard +shape and challenged Sir Pharamond to a contest for supremacy. This +took place at the Four Stones (monuments of an eldern time still +standing lonely in a field-corner some miles beyond the mouth of the +Vale) and the Lord of Aidenn proved to have an Evil Eye so strong the +Parson was put to rout. In the form of a buzzard he fled to the +desolate summit of Black Mixen at the top of Aidenn Forest. But Sir +Pharamond, having assumed the shape of a small caterpillar, clung with +all his legs between the shoulders of the bird and reconfronted his +rival when he alighted where The Riggles are now. Those enormous +scratches are the marks of his buzzard-claws. + +Then when the Parson strove with powers enforced by the deadly fear he +was in, the tide of battle turned. On that solitary hilltop, moreover, +the elemental influences were on the side of the older magician. With +a dart of his beak the Parson sank a deep wound in the cheek of Sir +Pharamond, destroying the efficacy of his Evil Eye. Then it was the +Lord of Aidenn’s time to flee, and he escaped to the innermost black +sanctuary of his castle. + +But Parson Lolly overthrew the castle, whose skeleton of clay slate +chunks lies wasting up the Vale to this day. + +Thenceforth, although Sir Pharamond lived on, his magic was only the +shadow of what it had been, and he lived in perpetual dread of Parson +Lolly. He built him a new castle where the mill had stood, and where +Highglen House stands to-day. But he never found content within his +re-erected halls. The menace of the Parson hung over his days and +nights. Whenever in his woeful heart he meditated regaining his former +ascendancy, from the cheek of his portrait on the wall blood would run +and in his own cheek he would feel overwhelming pain, as when the +Parson had driven his buzzard-beak into the flesh. + +“One moment!” interjected Crofts. “Do you mean the painting in the +corridor?” + +“No, sir; it’s that little one way up on the wall of the Hall of the +Moth as I mean.” + +“Ah!” My host licked somewhat dry lips. “Go on.” + +“There’s not so much more to it, sir, I expect. The Parson finally +_would_ make an end of Sir Pharamond. He sent Sir Pharamond’s own +corpse-candle for Sir Pharamond to see.” + +“Corpse-candle!” + +“A dimmery light, sir—it floats in the air. It’s a sure sign of a +death in these parts. And the Tolaeth sounded, too; so Sir Pharamond +knew then that it was all up with him.” + +“The Tolaeth—I don’t think I know what that means,” said Crofts. The +Welsh folk stirred just a little. + +The keeper’s voice fell, I do not think by design. “The rappin’s, sir, +that come just before a person dies. Tappin’, sir, like—” + +Our hearts were in our throats while he finished the speech in a +sudden gasp—“like that.” + +For from the other side of the corridor wall, high toward the ceiling, +had sounded three sharp knocks. + +And again, before a breath was taken in the room, three knocks +again—and again. + +“It’s the Three Thumps.” Morgan’s voice was that of a strangling man. + +“Coffin-making,” muttered one of the Clay sisters, her eyes lightless. + +I saw Crofts’ glance flit about the room, taking in the whole group. +I, too, had thought of collusion, but the number of servants was +complete; none had slipped out while the keeper’s story was in +progress. + +Crofts remained irresolute for only a few seconds before he jumped up +and sprang to the door, flung it open and glared down the corridor. + +“Empty,” he said, and I could not tell whether satisfaction or +distress was uppermost in his voice. Then the silence for a bit was +blank and appalling. He returned to the table. “Get on with your +story, Hughes. We’ll find out about this fol-de-rol later.” + +“Well, sir, the Lord of Aidenn was sure to fight the Parson again when +the signs had come. He still tried to get back his magic power, and +the blood stood out on the picture and the pain came in his cheek. But +he knew that it was life-and-death, and he kept repeating his spells +and made a man of wax against the Parson. But just as he was going to +drive a bodkin through the man of wax, the pain of his old wound made +him stagger, and everyone heard the Parson laughing though they +couldn’t see him, and the portrait fell down from the wall—and Sir +Pharamond was dead!” + +All of us, I believe, drew a long, grateful breath. Crofts sat +quietly, seeming to cogitate. + +At length he said, “Look here, Hughes. That’s a priceless fairy-tale, +but what makes you think it may have any connection with what’s going +on here?” + +The keeper hunched a shoulder toward the corridor wall. “You’ve just +heard that, sir. And if there _is_ a Parson Lolly, sir—” + +Crofts leapt in the breach to nullify this dangerous beginning. “We’ll +not discuss such a preposterous supposition.” + +“They do say, sir,” appended Hughes, “that blood will come on the face +of the picture when the time comes for Highglen House to be +destroyed.” + +“Destroyed?” + +“Yes, sir. By Parson Lolly.” + +There was no denying that Hughes had scored several palpable hits, +besides the unaccountable business of the knocking on the wall, and +Crofts was glad to dismiss him, so to speak, from the witness-box. + +I, seated in the embrasure of the window a little way behind +Pendleton, had an unobstructed view of the upper iron-bound door +leading into the portrait-corridor. While, then, I happened to glance +at the substantial iron handle of the door, for it had no knob, the +roots of my hair stirred and a thrill shot down my spine. + +For, very slowly, the black bar was turning while something outside +softly pressed downward on the handle. + +The fascination that took hold of me then was almost hypnotic. I +forgot the room, the people there, the cracked fleering voice of the +old gardener; all that existed for me then was the slowly descending +bar. To call attention to the thing never so much as occurred to me. +Nothing occurred to me. When the bolt of the lock had been drawn back, +the door began to open with imperceptible motion—an inch—two +inches—and was at rest. The handle gradually returned to its +horizontal position. It seemed as if I had taken only one breath +during those four or five minutes. + +Crofts’ questioning went on, and little by little I came out from the +spell of the door, which remained ajar. The questioning went on, with +some secret listener outside in the passage. Still I held silence, +for, clouded with excitement as was my mind in those minutes, the +notion of danger did not possess me. I kept my eyes on the motionless +door, dreading that it might open further, distinctly unwilling to see +what it might disclose—and the questioning went on. + +Pendleton was learning nothing from Finlay; I was vaguely aware that +the old gardener was fencing with the over-anxious Crofts. + +Then a thing occurred to relieve the tension: from the kitchen entry +came sound of hurried movement, of a dish falling to the floor, and +presently was visible the tousled head of a boy peering around the +edge of the screen, a head surprised into a gape by sight of the +assemblage. + +“Come in, Toby,” said Crofts. “We’re—” + +“I just got back, sir, with Mr. Bannerlee’s bag and all. Oh, sir,” +cried the head, bringing its body into the room, “the Water’s swellin’ +awfully from the rain—” + +His hair was quite tangential, and his shoes and clothing bore marks +of the storm. An ulster dangled both ends from his shoulders. He was +breathing hard with exertion added to stress of spirit. + +Pendleton began to explain to him: “We are trying to clear up this +business of—” + +“I waited under ellum, till the rain stopped,” persisted the excited +lad. “It went under old bridge with a roar and a roar. I misdoubt—” + +The exciting thought of the door softly released and pushed ajar had +grown weaker in my mind upon the entrance of Toby. But again my eyes +chanced to light upon the portal, and again my blood rushed pell-mell +through a throbbing temple. For, unless my senses were false, the door +trembled a little, as if uncertain whether to open farther or to shut. +The secret watcher’s hand must be upon it still! + +In a daze I arose and came out of my retirement in the window-place. + +“Crofts,” I said. . . . “Crofts.” + +So hushed was my voice that he spun around in his chair with open +mouth, and the servants’ chorus gave a slight gasp. + +I tried to open a path through my throat for words to issue. + +“Crofts . . . there’s something—someone, I mean—watching us.” + +“How? What on earth do you mean? What’s the matter with you?” + +I extended my arm toward where showed a long narrow slit of blackness +between jamb and door-edge. + +“There.” + +“How do you know?” + +My courage was small, but I summoned more to add to what I had. “I saw +the door opened from the passageway. I tell you this inquiry has been +overheard.” + +I strode toward the door, while from behind me came the scrape of +Crofts rising to his feet, and the rustle of the servants. Open that +door I would, if the fourfold centenarian himself were waiting outside +to do me mischief. But I believed, and would not have been sorry to +discover, that the unknown visitant had by this time fled, and with +this hope upholding me I gripped the handle-piece and jerked the +portal open. + +But no! A man stood in the corridor. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Wager of Battel + +Gilbert Maryvale! + +“Oh, you!” exclaimed Pendleton, and appeared completely contented at +once. + +“Isn’t it awful?” asked Maryvale. “Isn’t it awful?” + +Pendleton and I stared speechless at him; in me, at least, the old +surprise had given place to new astonishment twice as strong. What was +the matter with this man? The only light in the long windowless +corridor came from a translucent electric globe far at the foot of the +stairs, but even in the vaguely illuminated passage I realized that +something had happened to Maryvale. + +“I saw the boy coming by the drive, and I thought he might—there might +be some news of Sir Brooke at last. The doctor is telling some +powerful things. I’ve been in and out of there twice. I always—I +thought I’d better get away . . . came to see if the boy had . . .” + +“One question, Mr. Maryvale,” I said quickly. “Were you in the +corridor a while ago tapping the wall with something?” + +“Why, yes, with my friend Crofts’ cane.” He turned to our host. “But I +assure you I did not harm the cane.” + +“The cane be hanged,” responded Crofts. “But why in thunder did you do +it?” + +An expression vanished from Maryvale’s eyes almost before it deepened +there, a softness, a look of meekness, a chastened look; I thought it +a revelation of painful things kept subdued. + +“Something suggested to me that there might be a secret passage in one +of the walls of the corridor. I was trying, high up—” + +Our host made a disgusted sound. “One thing you may depend upon, +Gilbert, no matter what happens. In this extant portion of the castle +there are no secret passages. There’s not so much as a priest’s hole +or a trap-door or a double wall to a cupboard. There’s one bogie laid, +anyhow. You may as well know that you made fools of us in there. Where +the devil did you go afterward?” + +“I’m sorry if I annoyed you. I just went back into the Hall of the +Moth. But Doctor Aire—I didn’t care for the hobby of Doctor Aire. So I +returned again to hear if there was anything about Sir Brooke.” + +The servants, of course, had clustered around the door with quite +natural and honourable inquisitiveness. Pendleton turned on them. + +“You may go—and mind, don’t talk about this all afternoon. The subject +is closed.” Ah, trustful Crofts! + +So out of the dining-hall they filed to their aloof world of +below-stairs: Ruth and Rosa Clay of lustrous person, Ardelia Lacy +(giving the Welsh stableman a look in passing that was obviously a +piece of her mind, though its crushing significance was hardly clear +from the evidence), the maids, Jael, Em, and Harmony. Morgan and his +fellow stablemen, Tenney and Wheeler, got out next, and the tall +keeper gravely followed them behind the screen. Soames and Blenkinson +both had hard work getting rid of old Finlay, who seemed to think that +the occasion demanded more of his japes, and who finally thrust his +head out from behind the screen for one last comprehensive wink at me. + +Pendleton turned to the boy, who had set about his somewhat unorthodox +task of clearing the dessert dishes. + +“Did you inquire about Sir Brooke, Toby?” + +“Yes, sir, I did,” answered the lad, looking white over a load of +china and glass ware on a tray. + +“No news, I dare say.” + +“Oh, yes, sir, as a fact there was, sir.” + +“Eh? Who told you?” + +“It was the station-master at New Aidenn, sir. He was very angry, sir, +when I told him that you didn’t believe he had seen Sir Brooke. He +said to tell you, sir, that he was certain-sure. Those were the words +I was to tell you, sir.” + +“Did he take a ticket from him?” + +“He can’t exactly remember, sir, but he’s sure he saw him somewhere in +the crowd. He must have taken his ticket, sir.” + +“Bosh!” exclaimed Pendleton. “Why, I have a letter from Sir—” + +Toby continued in his unruffled style. “And he said he remembered Sir +Brooke very well from other times he was here, sir. A thinnish, +middle-sized gentleman, with a bang of mouse-coloured hair over his +eye, and double glasses, and his silk bow tie tilted toward his ear. +He remembered him quite well, you see, sir.” + +“It seems,” said I, putting in my oar for the first time, “that _you_ +remember remarkably well, Toby.” + +The boy gazed at me as if I were a sport of nature, a phenomenon of +dubiety amazing. “Why, he made me repeat what he said until I had it +by heart, sir. He was very angry, Mr. Pendleton.” + +Pendleton was in a brown study, until I plucked his sleeve and +whispered. “Thinking won’t help. Let’s get out of here, or the boy +will have something to regale the servants with.” + +But Toby now proffered a request. “Please, sir, will it be all right +if I take a picture of the servants to-night? Miss Lebetwood gave me +her old flash-light camera when she came down this time, sir, and I +want to use it.” + +(Photography—not topography!) + +“Why, hm, yes, I suppose so. Are the servants for it?” + +“Some are afraid of the flash, sir, but I’ll show ’em how it works.” + +“Go ahead, then, after dinner. Don’t blow up the place.” + +“Thank you, sir. I won’t, sir. Miss Lebetwood will help me, sir.” + +Maryvale was still standing in the corridor when we came out. + +Crofts relieved his pent-up bitterness. “What a man! He sends me a +letter, very explanatory, containing three words: ‘Wait for me.’ He +arrives at New Aidenn station last evening, but doesn’t deign to make +use of the car I sent to meet the train; he even avoids speaking to +the chauffeur, to mention that he intends to walk. He then strolls off +somewhere, apparently to lie low until it pleases him to disclose +himself. He’ll be lucky if he finds the house occupied when he makes +his appearance.” + +“But he may have got lost, of course.” + +“I had men out searching. Every foot of the Vale was beaten last +night.” + +“Still, your men may have missed him.” + +“Well, then,” Crofts declared with fine sarcasm, “suppose the +gentleman did get lost and have to sleep in the nasty, damp Vale and +get sniffles. Where’s he been all to-day? Climbing about up there +where you were yesterday?” + +“Ah, now you are asking reasonably. I can’t imagine. What is it, Mr. +Maryvale?” + +For Maryvale had suddenly grasped my arm. Now he released it, and +ignored my question. + +I could not gauge the look on the face of the “man of business”; it +appeared to have volcanic possibilities, yet subterranean still. To +regain the trivial and commonplace, I sounded Crofts on the matter +that had irritated me ever since I had seen the unstartling words in +the letter of dispute last night. + +“By the way, Crofts, I may have to be sending out a message or two if +I remain here long—” + +“Of course you’ll remain—” + +“Where’s the mail for posting?” + +“Why, just hand whatever you have to one of the servants. If you need +stationery—” + +“But isn’t there a particular place—” + +“Oh, yes, if it’s more convenient—there’s a rack for outgoing mail +under the staircase. It hangs above the end of the settle.” + +“Thank you.” + +Maryvale was busy fingering the lower part of the wide gilt frame of +one of the portraits, a full length representation of a man in cuirass +and metal thigh-plates, holding his helmet in one hand, leaning with +the other arm upon a convenient pedestal; his narrow face looked like +that of a newly-elected thane of Hell. + +“_That’s_ Sir Pharamond Kay,” Pendleton remarked, “first builder of +the castle this House is remnant of.” + +“Yes . . . yes,” Maryvale murmured to himself, concluding his +investigation of the frame. “The gilding is valuable at any rate.” + +Pendleton and I reciprocated glances of bewilderment, but Maryvale +seemed disinclined to explain himself further. He was even unwilling +to precede us back into the Hall of the Moth, which he had deserted a +little while before, and wherein the entire rest of the company were +still listening to Doctor Aire. Alberta Pendleton received us with her +charming smile, and we took places beside her at the foot of the room, +and that other, smaller, bewitched or accursed portrait of Sir +Pharamond glared down on me from the wall. + +The rain having ceased long before, and the clouds being a little +broken, the sun was, so to speak, red in the face from trying to dry +the lawn. The french windows were opened, through the northern one we +caught glimpses of the glassman from New Aidenn making whole the +damaged conservatory window. But there was no tendency toward seeking +the out-of-doors. Most of the party were quite sated with the open-air +sports afforded in Aidenn Vale. + +Doctor Aire, moreover, would have demanded attention under any +circumstances. Apart from the fascination of his subject, there was +authority in the clipped, methodical manner of his speech. Just now he +was telling of the last case of Appeal of Murder, that relic of early +ages whereby one acquitted of a death-crime could be compelled to +defend himself anew by the might of his body. As late as 1819, it +appeared, one Thornton, when acquitted, and when the dead girl’s +brother had made Appeal of Murder against him, had thrown down in +challenge to “wager of battel”—this we were in time to hear—a gauntlet +as strange as the occasion, without either fingers or thumbs, made of +white tanned skin, ornamented with sewn tracery and silk fringes, +crossed by a narrow band of red leather with leather tags and thongs +for fastening. + +Cosgrove was listening. But of a sudden it seemed to me that his +attention was curiously directed beyond Doctor Aire, beyond the +vicissitudes of the accused and acquitted Thornton, who had needed to +go on trial again with only the prowess of his body to defend himself. + +“Listening, surely,” I told myself, and asked myself, “_For +what?_” . . . + +Doctor Aire’s recital went on, encyclopedically. + +“Lord Ellenborough had to admit that the procedure was competent, +although there had not been a whisper of the Appeal throughout the +kingdom for forty years. But the curious crowd was disappointed when +the appellant withdrew; so there was no gladiatorial exhibition for +the chief justice to preside over. It is extremely unlikely that Mary +Ashford’s brother had ever intended to carry his Appeal into force, he +being a slighter man of body than the appellee—and for that reason +Thornton had probably been emboldened to make the brave show he did +with his extraordinary gauntlet of white tanned leather.” + +In the half-darkness underneath the musicians’ gallery were a pair of +listeners who had been within neither the range of my vision nor the +scope of my thought. Now one of them, the young American, Bob Cullen, +became in an instant the cynosure of the company. + +For the youth, scarcely more than a lad, rose from his seat beside Lib +Dale, and the exclamation that came from his lips twisted every neck +in the Hall. + +“So _that_ was it!” The expression of ire on those young, unformed +features was almost comical. + +Despite a hurried, “Bob, don’t be sil,” from Lib, the youth advanced a +couple of steps toward Cosgrove, leaving no doubt against whom his +wrath was directed. He raised his shaking arm and pointed at the +Irishman, he opened his mouth and was attempting articulate words, but +only one word issued, a smothered one: + +“You—you—” + +Cosgrove’s face was a thing to watch, while the parade of emotions +passed across it. Mere surprise vanished with the first turn of his +head along with the rest of the heads. His eyes widened, but for a few +seconds were blank with absolute stupefaction, and when enlightenment +finally appeared to come within him, the resentment expressed in his +lowering brows and glowing eyes seemed to be mingled with a sense of +shame, or else there was no meaning in the sidewise shift of those +eyes and in those irresolute lips. He swallowed, and his head made a +small, sharp jerk in the act. A muscle twitched in his cheek. Bob +Cullen was still saying, “You—you—” and Lib Dale was whispering dire +things to him. + +That other, admirable, American tried to deal with the frenzied youth. +Paula Lebetwood said, “Bob, you’re making a child of yourself. +Remember where you are.” + +“What’s the trouble?” asked Ludlow in a matter-of-fact tone. + +“Ask him—ask him, that’s all!” cried Bob Cullen bitterly, and then, as +is the wont of youths who believe themselves wronged, commenced +himself to explain. “He thought—you thought, Mr. Cosgrove”—(“_Mr._” +Cosgrove; much revealed by that “Mr.”)—“you thought that because you +were bigger and stronger than I was, that you could get away with +talking the way you did. Well, you needn’t think that it was because I +was afraid of you—” + +I noticed that Lib Dale was actually twisting her young compatriot’s +arm in an endeavour to gain his attention, but he held on through +pain, white and red by turns. + +“I’m ready any time you are, Mr. Cosgrove, and don’t you forget it. +I’ll show you, Mr. Cosgrove. I’ll fight you a duel or a wager of +battle or anything—” + +“My dear boy,” slipped in Doctor Aire, who took the interruption of +his narrative in very good humour, “the wager of battle is null and +void. That was the whole upshot of my story, if you had only the +patience—” + +“I don’t care if it’s null and void or not. Mr. Cosgrove, if you’re a +man—” + +Paula Lebetwood had taken hold of the half-hysterical youth’s other +arm; she placed a firm hand across his mouth, effectually stifling +what further wild challenge he might have uttered on the spot. Lib +sank down flushed and pouting, her blue eyes flinging defiance to all +of us. Cosgrove, who had not uttered a word, had a face like a man’s +in an apoplexy, and his head was lower between his shoulders than it +was accustomed to be. + +The youngster Bob Cullen was still standing there like a bulldog in +the centre of the ring, anger adding a degree of dignity to his +stature. Ten, twenty, seconds may have gone by, and still he +confronted the Irishman, whose only recognition of his challenge had +been a turn of his head and that slow dark flame in his face. + +“Well?” demanded Bob Cullen. + +Still the Irishman preserved a silence of stone. + +“Oh, Bob, you sorehead,” cried Lib Dale, grinding her heel into the +carpet. “Of all the id—” + +“But Bob, dear,” pleaded Miss Lebetwood, “what Sean said to Lib was +long, long ago in the spring, and she’s forgotten all about it, and so +should you, you silly kid.” + +The voice of Cosgrove came thundering, overwhelming. “Woman,” he said, +and a quite perceptible thrill passed over us, for he spoke to his +intended wife, and “woman” as he said it then sounded the most brutal +word he could use—“woman, no need for you to defend me. The code of +this young upstart is not my code, by the heavens—nor is yours my +code. Stand aside.” + +“Sean!” + +“Stand aside—did you hear?” + +“But Sean—” + +“While the light is in me, I shall offer it to you, woman, and to all +others I find in need of grace—even if it gall your young upstart +there.” + +Paula Lebetwood had tottered a step backward, with an expression of +the utmost pain and loss upon her face. Suddenly her face was hidden +in her hands, and her shoulders heaved with swift gusts of feeling. +Then she lifted her face tearless and hot-eyed and defiant beneath +golden hair turning to riot. + +“Sean, how unmanly, how cowardly! Oh, if you knew how I despise you +now. Oh, I need air—air!” + +She turned from us abruptly, then paused. Her bosom moved in a long, +slow breathing, and she turned her head to look at her lover, whose +gaze did not meet hers. A veil of anger seemed to fall from her +features, and the fire softened in her eyes. But this was no melting +mood. Instead, a serene aloofness reigned in her face, and she seemed +like one who studied Cosgrove from some region above, studied him with +sympathy and compassion. For a space of time—perhaps a minute—there +was this silence. Then, as if she had shown enough that she was not +embittered by passion, she departed swiftly. + +Through the passage of the french windows she strode, out to the lawn, +and across, to be lost to sight in shrubs alongside the gate-house. + +So, splitting into new faction and fresh enmity at every hour, the +Bidding Feast at last witnessed the discord of the lovers themselves. + +Cosgrove’s rebuke of his betrothed had stunned us, and her answering +rebuke had left us wild and speechless. None stirred to follow Miss +Lebetwood. In me, at least, the strife of feeling was comparable to +the mad stress of the night before, when the first message of Parson +Lolly had been found. I knew a delirium of bewilderment, a very +horror, in the instants following those outbursts. + +Cosgrove’s face, now so blotted with blood, took fantastic dimensions, +seemed twice its size. The room appeared an enormous room, and the +people pigmy people. Sir Pharamond’s portrait leered and sneered. +Every proportion was indecently distorted, and time, like space, was +bereft of its comfortable conventions. The seconds seemed to stagger +past. + +Then Pendleton, no longer held by Alberta, rose so hastily that his +chair banged backward against the stair-post of the little gallery. +“Yes, by gad! Let’s all get some air. This room is stuffy as blazes. +That’s what puts us all at sixes and sevens.” + +“I really think,” observed Eve Bartholomew, “that it’s the absence of +Sir Brooke that gets so on our nerves.” + +“Let’s declare a truce—no, let’s make peace,” smiled Alberta +Pendleton. “Sean, you and Bob haven’t any ill-will, have you?” + +Since his betrothed’s condemnation of him, no petty enmity could very +well find hold in Cosgrove’s soul. His defeat told in his dejected +head and drooped lids. He didn’t answer Alberta. + +But Bob Cullen, whose excitement had flagged, was suddenly overwhelmed +by his former audacity. “I—I suppose you folks must think—you must +think—” + +“That’s all right, Bob,” soothed Alberta; “you just lost your temper +for a minute, that was all. Anybody is likely to do that.” + +“He let Mr. Cosgrove get his goat,” put in Lib Dale in a _sotto voce +obbligato_; she was still much displeased with her compatriot. + +“I’m—I’m sorry—I apologize,” said Bob. + +“As for me,” said Cosgrove suddenly, “I do more than apologize; I make +anew.” + +“Why, Sean, how—what can you mean?” gasped Alberta, for the Irishman +now stood on his feet looking around the Hall without explaining his +remark. + +“Yes, it will do,” muttered Cosgrove. “God can come from there”; and +he gestured toward the musicians’ gallery. + +“G-g-god?” stammered Pendleton. + +“God the Creator,” responded Sean Cosgrove, and he appended a few +words as inconsequential as any Crofts himself could have used: “I’ve +seen the book in your library.” + +“But what do you mean, man?” cried Pendleton. “I never heard—” + +“To-night,” said Cosgrove, “in this Hall we shall rehearse the play of +‘Noah’s Flood.’” + +“‘Noah’s Flood!’” came a gasp from most of us. + +“Animal crackers,” mumbled Bob Cullen obscurely. + +“What’s ‘Noah’s Flood?’” asked Pendleton. “I’ve never seen any book of +that name—” + +“It is inside a book of another name,” answered Cosgrove; “one you +have never opened, I dare say. Here, at five o’clock, we shall have +tea; is it not so? Then I shall unfold—” + +“It’s an old mystery-play,” said Alberta. “Crofts, I’m surprised.” + +“But won’t there be, er, costumes, and so forth?” + +“For me, at least, no costume,” declared Cosgrove. “Man, made in the +image of God, shall need no gaudery. I should scorn to deck and +disguise myself to play my God.” + +“You don’t mean that you’re to appear in the, er, in the—” + +“In the altogether?” finished Eve Bartholomew in a thin +quasi-hysterical tone. “Oh, Mr. Cosgrove—” + +“No doubt,” Doctor Aire put in sardonically, “Sean is thinking of the +mediaeval way of playing Adam and Eve with a screen up to their +necks.” + +“Leave it to me,” said Cosgrove. + +“But won’t all this furniture have to be shifted?” inquired Pendleton +nervously. + +“Leave it to me.” + +“Alone—how will you do it?” + +“With my God-given arms.” + +“But shouldn’t the servants—” + +“I will do everything that must be done. But first,” and here I +thought Cosgrove became a little wistful, “let us go outside and +breathe the God-given air. Leave all to me; assemble here at five +o’clock.” + +He marched out, his face, with a look of grim regret and +determination, turned toward the place in the shrubbery where Paula +Lebetwood had disappeared. The last we saw of him, he had followed her +out of sight. + +The company began to disband. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Bone + +He might hardly have been in the Hall of the Moth all afternoon, had +my impressions been evidence—so quiet he had kept, relapsed out of the +main light of the room into the shadow between the beetling +chimney-mantel and the old long-case clock. Perhaps the indefatigable +quaffing of whiskey-and-sodas, which industry is surely his favourite, +had proved soporific in that dusky alcove, whence only his crossed +feet had appeared, shod sparklingly, spatted sprucely. But now +Charlton Oxford, glazed to a hair, waxed to a needle, was standing in +the aperture of the opened french windows, and his look, whatever his +legs might be, was steady. + +His eyes were fixed upon the gap in the lawn shrubs where Sean +Cosgrove had disappeared. Surely that was an unguarded moment; his +speech, although low, was vehement, since it was addressed to a man +now far out of sight and hearing: + +“Your code, hey? Your damned code.” He wiped the back of his fist +savagely across his mouth; the heartiness of his baleful speech may +have given him the satisfaction of deep drink. + +I, who alone had heard, tiptoed close behind him, and like the tempter +spoke softly over his shoulder. + +“And what may your code be, Mr. Oxford?” + +Frightened, he swung, caught his heel on the carpet edge and thudded +heavily against the corner of the age-blackened mantel, face bleached +and eyes popping. + +“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Bannerlee,” he exclaimed with much relief, and +attempted to pass his alarm off in jest. + +“Yes, and really, what did you mean? I’m interested.” + +“What’s my code, you say? Ha, ha, Mr. Bannerlee, ’s too long, sir, to +put it in so many words, if you know what I mean. . . . But there’s +_one_ thing”—for emphasis he dug a flabby forefinger into my +ribs—“_one_ thing I’d never do that our fine C-Cosgrove wouldn’t have +the decency, the _decency_, sir, if y’understand—and the common sense, +too, damme, if it comes to that, you know—’s much common sense in it +as anything else . . . y’understand . . .” + +“And what article and section of your pandect could Mr. Cosgrove learn +from?” + +Oxford steadied himself, and over his face came a phase of profundity. +He gave me a knowing look, and his voice sank to a sibylline tone: +“Never take another man’s woman—never meddle with ’em!” + +“But a woman unprotected, eh?” I felt like asking, yet refrained, for +someone else was nighing us, one at whose approach Oxford appeared to +feel distressed. The fancy man evaporated into the afternoon sunlight +down the lawn, and Maryvale, who I think had been standing alone in +the centre of the room, was at my elbow. + +That changed look was stronger than ever about him; there seemed a +gaunt and haggard spirit in his eyes. + +“Mr. Bannerlee, you must have heard terrible tales to-day.” + +“Surely none that deserve such a violent—” + +“Oh, yes, yes—some dreadful things have happened in this countryside. +Cosgrove tells me that this morning he related to you the fall of the +old castle, and in there”—he gestured toward the dining-hall—“what +awful things you must have listened to.” + +I smothered a laugh that was half-breathless, for there was real +distress in him. “Mr. Maryvale, you exaggerate—” + +He laid his hand heavily on my arm, and his fingers took hold. “But +there is one story more terrible still!” + +“Indeed, indeed?” + +“Yes, indeed. There are legends of this Vale—none more appalling. Did +they tell you—but they could not—of the Lord Aidenn’s arm that would +not die?” + +“The arm that would not die?” + +“You know the man’s picture, for you examined it in the gallery. And +there”—he motioned toward the portrait—“is the other representation of +that orgulous, cruel man.” + +I stared again at the pitiless, thin face with a slight and enjoyable +stir of nervousness. + +“It is a dreadful legend,” averred Maryvale. “They never found—” He +turned his head, saw something, and ceased. + +For now came a new interruption, and one that I was right glad of, +since Maryvale just then was too remote and metempirical for comfort. +Of his grisly story of the arm of Sir Pharamond Kay, whatever the +fable was, I had no dread; but in the baffling Maryvale himself now +was something unapproachable that moved a mild antipathy in me. + +The interruption came in the form of a small, hoydenish, vivid-lipped +creature called Lib Dale. The last to remain in the Hall, save those +who had spoken with me, she and Bob Cullen had been engaged beneath +the musicians’ gallery in a tense-toned division of ideas. Even while +Maryvale had been drawing near me, I caught a glimpse from the heel of +my eye of Bob shuffling his feet in loathness to depart at the hest of +Lib. At length, apparently in disgrace, he had passed limply through +the farther entrance into the corridor. “Go out and soak your head,” +was Lib’s parting tenderness, which I overheard. Then, spying me with +Maryvale, the startling little thing came to interrupt. The man of +business had checked himself in the midst of his sentence; he seemed +to withdraw into some inner chamber of himself; a darkness enveloped +the peaked soul in his eyes. He was gone, and I was left alone to +encounter the sprightly bit of femininity. + +“How do you do?” she asked. “Shake. You’re you and I’m me. We know +each other’s names, or else they shouldn’t let us out.” + +“No, they shouldn’t,” I retorted feebly, without knowing what I said, +save that it was idiotic. + +“Well, don’t shed tears about it. Don’t be so vulgarly emotional. +Can’t you dig me up a real live saint, Mr. Bannerlee—something I can +take home maybe and show the folks?” + +“I should think that the legends of this countryside—” + +“Or a legend, if it’s handier. I’ve never seen a genuine legend, Mr. +Bannerlee. Lead me to it. Hasn’t my education been neglected?” + +I uttered a faint denial. + +“Oh, yes, it has,” she chortled. “For instance, I get my English all +gummed up. But that’s your fault.” + +“Of course.” + +“Now don’t be sil. You don’t know what I mean. For instance. Have you +noticed how all the books you English writers write about we +Amurricans have us saying ‘I guess’ this and ‘I reckon’ that about +every once or twice in so often? Now, over where I come from nobody +talks that way so that you could notice it, but over here in your +delightful little island we have to pull that kind of stuff once in a +while or the natives wouldn’t know where we’re from. Savvy?” + +“Oh, quite.” + +She had perched on the back of a carved gilt couch with upholstery in +rose _Brocade de Lyons_. + +“And now how about getting busy on that saint proposition? One out of +the Old Testament or anything. Warm puppies! won’t I have the kids at +home goggle-eyed? I should snicker.” + +“Saints in the Old Testament are few. And I’m afraid—” + +“Not so rough, not so rough! What do you mean, you’re afraid? How will +this sound in your biography, that you refused a maiden’s prayer? I’ll +have to take you in hand; you ought to be trained.” She reached down +and gave a tug at a gravitating stocking. “No, from your face I see +it’s hopeless. Well, what are you going to do to keep the ennui away?” + +“I had an idea,” I remarked hopefully. + +“Quick, quick! Don’t keep me in starvation.” + +“In connection with the method of making up the quarrel suggested by +the good Cosgrove—” + +“Yes, yes, I follow you there—everything except the ‘good’—” + +“Since the good Cosgrove says that the text of our play of +pacification is in the library, I was thinking of having a look at it +and refreshing my memory.” + +“I can follow you there, too; only no refreshments here, +thanks—‘Noah’s Flood’ is all news to me as a big, throbbing drammer. +Sounds sort of frisky, I mean riskay, putting all those animals to +bed. Who wrote it?” + +“The authors of the mystery-plays are unknown.” + +“Something fishy there, I’ll bet. Come on, show me this sensation.” + +She grabbed a hand of mine and dragged me through the room of weapons +into the spacious library, a room of irregular shape, since the curve +of the staircase well rounded one wall and the huge jut of the +south-west corner tower made a pocket-like projection almost equal to +a separate room. A monumental mahogany break-front bookcase occupied +the principal straight wall of the room, and other glass-covered +stacks of shelves lined the shorter and the semicircular wall and the +spaces between the windows. Altogether there must have been three +thousand books. + +“Gee whiz, Croftsy must be some reader,” said Lib. “I was never here +before, and I’ve got a brainstorm already.” + +I smiled, wryly, no doubt. “I believe that the library, like the +portraits and the symbol of the cat and the legends of Aidenn Forest, +came to Crofts with the building. In fact, though I haven’t looked +these over, I imagine many of them are of a sort unlikely to interest +our host.” + +Indeed, the major portion of the collection were volumes which could +stir the interest only of the antiquarian and the erudite student of +literature. Few, I am sure, bore the twentieth-century imprint. +Included were old books of all assortments of inconvenient sizes from +folio to duodecimo, and although in their glass prisons, whence no +doubt they were taken and dusted quarterly, they looked spick and +span, still they had a lonesome air, as if longing to be handled for +love. + +I mused. “Now where shall we look for one particular volume in all +this?” + +“Are you putting that as a question, Marshal?” asked Lib. “That’s not +fair. I’m in the enemy’s country here; don’t know the landmarks.” + +“We might look over the ones of reasonable size first. The thing’s a +reprint. Early English Text, I dare say.” + +“I don’t get you, Admiral, but am game to follow you in a leaky boat +to the death. I gathered that this Flood has an alias.” + +“Er—” + +“Doesn’t go under its own name, I mean.” + +“That is correct.” + +“That’s right, you mean. Well, well, Duke, can this be it?” + +She had opened one of the doors of the mahogany case and reached high +from the basis of one toe. The volume she persuaded to fall down and +which she caught was actually a bound issue of the Early English Text +Society and contained the Digby and Coventry Plays. + +“By all that’s wonderful! How did your eyes pick out that title so +quickly?” + +“Never looked at the title—way up there. What do you think I am, +Senator, a telescope? Say! I just took a slant along the shelves.” + +“A slant—along the shelves?” + +“Right. I thought that maybe the ‘good’ Cosgrove had been taking a +peep at the crucial volume lately and maybe hadn’t put it back quite +even. Savvy? Now, let’s have a look.” + +But she wrinkled both nose and forehead from the first sight of +“Processus Noe cum filiis,” and fluttered the pages very much askance. + +“I don’t get this stuff at all. What language is this?” + +“English.” + +“Why, it’s worse than Amurrican.” + +“It’s really Middle English, you know.” + +“No, I don’t. See here, what does a choice morsel like this signify?” +She read, in a manner unknown to linguists, the following lines: + + “Ye men that has wifis whyls they ar’ yong, + If luf youre lifis chastice thare tong: + Me thynk my heart ryfis both levyr and long + To se sich stryfis wedmen emong. + +That looks as if it might mean something.” + +“Yes, Noah was very wroth with his wife.” + +“His wife? His missus?” + +“She was a scold, and Noah, as the gloss of Professor Pollard says, +bids husbands chastise their wives’ tongues early.” + +“Not so hot, not so hot,” remarked Lib, apparently in disparagement. +“Where do all the other folks come in?” + +“Oh, there’ll be parts for everyone. Noah’s family was large, and +there were plenty of animals to go round. . . . He beats her a bit +later on,” I added hopefully. + +She clapped the covers to. “This is too rough for me. It’s not +ladylike. I’m not crazy about—say, what goes on in there?” + +Somebody was making a stir in the armoury, whence issued an occasional +scrabbling sound. Lib poked her head cautiously around the doorpost. + +“Why, Doctor, what would you seem to be doing this elegant afternoon?” + +Doctor Aire was standing with a cutlass in one hand and a claymore in +the other. He lifted his gaze from the floor in surprise and gave an +affable welcome. + +“Oh, hello. I had no idea anyone else was indoors.” + +“We’ve been giving Noah the once over,” said Lib. “What’s the idea of +all the weapons?” + +“Well, you see that early battle-axe lying so well protected out +there, if it was chosen for the commission of crime, has one or two +peculiar things about it. It amused me to find whether—but no, you’d +better guess for yourself. I understand that the subject is taboo just +now, and a very good thing.” + +Lib stamped with animation. “That’s not a bit nice. This is such a +dull afternoon, and now you won’t even tell us your secrets.” + +“Well, there’s one,” smiled the Doctor with a sort of saturnine +indulgence. “Feel the weight of these.” He handed over to her the pair +of weapons. “Take a look over the lot.” He made a sweeping motion to +indicate the walls crowded with arms. “Then think of the axe that lies +out there inclosed by chicken-wire. Then draw your own conclusions.” + +Lib poised the cutlas and claymore and returned them. “Doctor, you’re +a whiz. Any more funny little wrinkles?” + +“Take your time,” said the doctor. “Examine them all.” + +“You give me too much credit,” she declared. “Come on; what have you +found out?” + +Doctor Aire gave a slight shrug, one shoulder lifting higher than the +other. It was a mannerism I had observed before. “Miss Lib, you have +all the brains necessary for this extremely simple point, which I have +practically given away already.” + +“Well, you’re a teaser. I’m not a little girl any more, you know. I +don’t _like_ being teased.” + +“You must think it out for yourself,” insisted the Doctor, still +smiling. + +“Well, I won’t; so there! You’re perfectly horrid!” + +“Perfection in any wise is seldom gained. I am honoured,” he murmured, +but Lib, tossing her head and departing to the lawn, in affected +dudgeon, probably did not hear the conclusion of his courtesy. + +We laughed together while he replaced the weapons to their props and +fastenings upon the wall. + +I looked about the chamber, up the walls crowded with weapons to the +very shadows of the ceiling. Save for the two full-armoured figures of +sheet and mail, most of the equipment I supposed to be Elizabethan or +later, although the Doctor was sure to be a better judge than I. One +gigantic harquebuse _à croc_ with its support attached dominated the +broad wall between the armoury and the Hall of the Moth; all around it +were muskets, calivers, petronels, dags and tacks, and a couple of +blunderbusses, besides firearms whose names I did not know. The short +wall opposite was full of cutting and crushing weapons; hence had come +the two with which the Doctor had been experimenting. Between two sets +of lances standing upright for a frame, the eye was mazed in an +intricate pattern of partisans, maces, falchions, hangers, axes, +poniards, and, one might believe, every other size and shape of +sticker and slasher and pounder. + +“I suppose you alluded to the heft of the axe we found last night out +there? Its weight is certainly inconsiderable.” + +“Yes,” agreed the Doctor with a drawl, “it appears to have been about +the lightest object on the wall. Why did he take that—that hatchet? +I’m inclined to think that it was made for a plaything, not a real +working instrument. Odd, its selection, very odd.” + +“I don’t see why you emphasize the point.” + +“Well, look here, where it was taken from, about shoulder height. Now, +assuming naturally that the man who took it wanted it for business +purposes, why didn’t he take this axe here, something less than a yard +further up? There’s real power in this fellow. Or was the intruder +fumbling around in the dark in a room he wasn’t acquainted with? And +then the blood.” + +“Ah, yes; I have been waiting with interest to hear your decision +there.” + +“No decision is possible immediately, if you ask me where it came +from. I have no kit with me, of course. I accept for the time +Pendleton’s assurance that it belongs to the missing pig, slaughtered +in we don’t know what ritualistic manner. But the position of the +blood on the weapon is what annoys me. You recall it?” + +“The handle was slobbered with it.” + +“And only a few spots on the blade. That would assure us the killing +was done with the axe, even if the weapon weren’t so inefficient. Ah!” +He lifted his hands in an attitude of dismay, a stiffish caryatid-like +pose. “Pendleton’s right. No good comes of talking of these things. +They’ll unravel. I’m going to get cleaned up for the rehearsal at +five, Mr. Bannerlee. I’ve been discussing transplantings with old +Finlay the gardener, and my hands have tested some extra fine dirt.” + +I saw the Doctor swing his body out of the armoury with the regularity +of an automaton, his trunk stiff and upright, his narrow legs working +like scissors; I heard the Doctor enter on the winding stair. + +Then, alone in the armoury, into which the first faint smoke of dusk +was creeping, among so many instruments of death, where the intruder +of the night before had stolen while the mockery of cards was in +progress in the Hall, and where he might steal again—there, then, I +was not at ease. I had flickers of apprehension, and the room seemed +musty, close. Both mentally and bodily I felt cabined, confined. More +than half an hour remaining before we were due in the Hall, I resolved +upon taking a light breather up the Vale, to stir my sluggard blood +and puff away my fancies. + +No one appeared on the lawn or in the environs of the House. As I +faced north up the Vale a fairish breeze met me face to face, and I +realized that the storm was still in the atmosphere. The airy armies +high above the hills were marshalling once more. A little while later +the sun, not far above the ridge, was flecked with cloud, and the +smouldering embers of the beechen hangers were, one might say, +extinguished to black ashes. + +By the time the glories of colour were lost on the hillsides, I had +reached the clearing beyond which lurked the cottage of the sisters +Delambre. This stood in a gorge-like recess, where flowed the small +stream with the ridiculous bridge which I had noted when first I +journeyed down the Vale. Good, full inspirations of the untainted air +had restored physical tone, and my thoughts, too, were less troubled, +perplexed. I was free of most of the jangling discord of the day, of +Belvoir with his eternal harping on morals as accidental products, of +Ludlow in his vigilance to combat offensive ideas, of Lib and Bob and +their little bickerings, of Cosgrove and all the enmities that had +heaped around him: Bob’s and the Baron’s and Charlton Oxford’s, +and—almost—the abrupt flaming of the Irishman and his bride-to-be. +That single incident must have impressed the houseful of us as rudely +as a dozen ordinary quarrels of man to man. + +Of the taste of this unpleasantness I could not wholly rid myself, nor +of another thing, which strengthened in the diminishing of light. This +was the witching time of day—and I could not get away from Parson +Lolly. + +Well I understood Morgan the stableman when he said that there were +whiles when the “otherness” took hold of one. Having crossed the +clearing, I stood near the cottage of the French sisters, who, though +nothing concerning their characters had been told me, I conceived must +be eccentrics, women so distant from their nativity, if not in mere +statute miles, certainly in their lives and surroundings. While I +looked at the cottage, a rugged thing of stone, scarcely two stories +high, with roof of hewn stone tiles, as is common hereabout, I thought +it had a deserted and disappointed appearance. It was far too early, +indeed, for even tired farm-women to be abed; yet no light glimmered +through window or cranny. I approached; I even knocked. No response. + +Puzzled, disturbed, I retraced my path. + +So feeling, I came in view of Highglen House, all dark and still on +the edge of sunset. I passed beneath the clustered cypress trees; I +traversed the northern span of the lawn and passed the conservatory +with its mended panes. I stepped on the driveway where it passed the +Hall of the Moth, intending to advance to the front entrance and ring +the bell there, having enough hold on reality, in spite of my fuming +blood, to recall that my own shaving things had been in my bag +recently fetched by Toby, and that with hot water I could quickly +remove the stubble of the day, before the first reading of “Noah’s +Flood” in the Hall of the Moth. At the moment of my setting foot on +the drive, I remember, the faintest sound of speech wandered to me +from somewhere beyond the gate-house. I could not distinguish any +voices, but there seemed to be both men and women in the party, +doubtless returning from beside Aidenn Water. + +Then I chanced to look inside the Hall of the Moth. + +Now, now, now is the time when I need to hold each sense and faculty +to accurate account. For what I saw then, what then I took to be +hallucination, now I know too well was something real, something +serious, and something totally inexplicable to all who have heard of +it. + +Through the cleft between the eminences of Esgair Nantau and Vron Hill +a single dart from the sun still leaped, lustering the twilight about +the house. A fragment of that glimmer, about the size of a top-hat but +rudely circular in shape, played and smouldered mild, high on the bare +stone of the inner wall of the room. Except for this wavering spot, +dusk had taken possession of the empty Hall, wherein even the masses +of the furniture were invisible to me. + +The chanciest glance took in the gloom of the chamber, but before I +had looked elsewhere, my eyes perceived yet one other thing +distinguishable in the obscurity, and all the blood in me leaped. To +indicate definitely the position of the object, I should say that to +the best of my affrighted recollection it was just beyond the couch +which Lib Dale had mounted earlier in the afternoon during her talk +with me, although the couch itself, like the rest of the furniture, +was now absorbed in the pool of darkness. + +In the air perhaps a foot above the imagined position of the back of +the couch, with no visible means of suspension or support, was what I +can describe only as a clean white bone. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Laugh + +A white bone, six inches long, the broadened knobs at each end a +little darker than the rest—horizontal, perfectly still. + +Perhaps I had gazed at this thing in fascination for twenty or thirty +seconds before it stirred at all. Then the faintest swinging motion +seemed to occur, on a horizontal plane, and suddenly—now my heart was +going mad—it rose a couple of feet as if jerked by a string, and +remained motionless once more, until the swinging recommenced, one end +and then the other moving slightly toward me and away. + +The comforting tones of voices had died; it might have been that I and +that apparition were alone in the Vale, a man and a white irrational +bone. I was of no mind to linger there until the thing should leap up +again and drive me into an apoplexy. And all the while the basis of +reason in me was firm, and there was a voice bidding me quit my folly, +for there could be no bone in the unsupporting air of the Hall. Yet I +did not enter the chamber and get within the same walls as the +apparition; instead I abandoned the place to its ghostly visitant, +hastened around to the front entrance of the House and rang the bell, +although the door itself was unlatched. + +I wanted hot water for shaving. + +Soames, answering the ring, I met at the foot of the winding +staircase. My voice, I believe, was controlled out of its excitement +when I ordered the water, which he promised to bring at once. + +It was with a doubtful, distracted mind that I entered my room and +caused a tiny apex of flame to glow on the fresh candles standing at +either side of my writing-table. For a breath of open air, I swung the +casement window inward. The breeze, forerunner of storm, brushed past +outside, but no more than writhed the candle-flames. + +I looked out. + +As I have stated, my window gives on what I suppose I must call the +balcony, though part of the ancient battlement stands there in lieu of +a balustrade, remnant of an age before even this room was built and +when the top of the wall was no higher than the window-sill. Odd that +the old parapet with its indentations remained when this lofty course +of rooms was made. This wall above the second storey cut off my view +of the lawn, save where a gap of the crenellation permitted me to look +almost straight down to the drive. Directly below me I now saw +nothing, and far beyond the gate-house towers, rising to the level of +the roof of the mansion, was only the dusky dark expanse to Aidenn +Water. But about the twin-legged gate-house itself the afterglow +lingered in a tiny pool. + +I suddenly remembered Crofts’ admonition to have a look at the tomb on +Vron Hill, and my promise that I would. With an athletic effort I +squeezed through my window and stood on the roof outside. To my +disappointment, the sky beyond the Hill was darkened with clouds whose +purple came near to black. The tumulus was indistinguishable against +them. + +I moved to the edge of the parapet and leaned over one of the cops of +the crenelled wall for a better look about. + +It appeared that two or three people were gathered by the winch that +works the drawbridge and were having great glee in their endeavours. +Rusty metal shrilled, a little cloud of laughter burst upward, and the +huge bridge descended. There came a thump when the platform settled +into place. Then amid a new little cloud of laughter, the winch set to +work again, and the bridge commenced to rise. + +My attention was diverted by something at my feet, the merest trifle +lying at the base of one of the merlons: a twisted strand which might +have been part of a piece of light rope. It was about the length of my +finger-joint, far from fresh, one end newly abraded, the other +decayed. It was, as I said, a trifle, but it was curious. I could not +think then, nor can I now, how it got there; and certainly the fresh +abrasion was not more than a couple of days old. I had a notion of +showing it to Crofts for an opinion, but when I considered what the +energetic response of our much-tried host might be when asked to +account for a fragment of half-rotten rope, I changed my mind. But I +tucked away the strand for future reference. + +One last look up and down the empty lawn, and I slipped back into my +room. + +I recalled my shaving, which now must be rapid if I were to be ready +in time for the reading of the play. A few preliminary preparations +made, I ran into an unprecedented number of mishaps. + +I seemed to have an unsteady fit. Soames had not yet come with the hot +water, and I was in a hurry; my watch said a quarter to five. I made a +beginning, however, ridding myself of my coat and shirt and addressing +myself to the oak chest whereinto I had transferred my things from my +bag during the ten-minute interval before luncheon. But at once I +realized the unsuitability of sixteenth-century appointments for +purposes of personal convenience, for the upper drawer was jammed or +stuck. I hauled, jerked, and jogged sidewise. Suddenly, bang! came out +the drawer, but the handle had parted from it, and I, handle in hand, +staggered back, crash! into a stool in the corner of the room. When I +separated myself from the stool, and we were both on our legs again, I +recollected that I had tossed my shaving utensils into the drawer of +the writing-table, as being readier to hand. + +Then indeed I had a brainstorm, an eagerness for haste being added to +my disquiet of mind. Soames might be there with the water at any +moment, and I not ready. Clutching razor and strop, I looked in vain +for a proper place to attach the strop; my dissatisfaction with the +old room as a place for personal embellishment was not diminished at +all when I finally chose one of the curlicues of the candle-bracket on +the north wall for a hook. Like the similar one in the armoury, this +was very old, and like the bureau drawer, it seemed malevolent to +thwart me. Holding the strop firmly while my razor executed loops and +pirouettes, I was aghast a moment later, so suddenly did the fastening +of the bracket give way under the strength of my hold upon the strop. +Squeak! went the old, damp-rotted iron, the candle-holder on its pivot +drooped crazily, and I was staring at the thin red cut beside the +finger-nail where the razor-edge had nicked me. This capped the +climax. + +It was comedy, no doubt. For me, nevertheless, it was a bad +half-minute. I smashed the bracket back to uprightness; one blow +sufficed, since there had been no fissure in the metal itself. But my +finger could not be cured so cavalierly. And shaving now was out of +the question before five o’clock! Of such trivialities are wrought +either contentment or black spirits. + +I chucked away strop and razor and went to the door, wondering what +had become of Soames, and shaking off the drops of fresh blood from +the index-finger of my left hand. + +I heard someone coming up the stairs, and at the same time a peculiar +sound of rending rose from the Hall beneath the threshold where I +stood, followed by the loud slam of a door. + +I said to myself, “There must be someone in the Hall now,” but the +next instant thought, and all else, was reft from me. + +For from some part of the house someone was laughing. No—to avoid +error from the first—I thought then, and at the present hour this all +who heard are willing to swear: the laughter came from no human +throat. Yet is Parson Lolly not human? And if he—but this shows the +inconsistency of our fear. Yes, I will swear it was no human sound +that roared and re-echoed through the House, gleeing and gurgling, +curdling the blood of us who were within the walls. So huge was the +uproar that the place of its source could not be told, and it went on +and on unendurably for immeasurable seconds, to change to silence with +a sudden gulp. + +I dashed to the window for a quick look, and could see nothing in the +darkness, but discovered a glow spreading from immediately below me. +The chandelier in the Hall must be lighted now. Then flinging my coat +on, I rushed out of the room, impelled by a sense of dread and danger, +and an anxiety to get where people were. I met Soames, hot-water can +in hand, at the head of the stairs underneath the solitary electric +bulb. He was green, a mildewed colour, startled into stone. + +I sprang down the stairs without a word, and he, galvanized, followed +with a gasp: + +“Gord, sir, is that _him_?” He meant the Parson. + +On the landing of the first floor stood Lib Dale, her fingers +nervously fluttering about her face. + +“What’s the matter? What’s happened?” + +“Something drastic,” I said, while we went speeding together down to +the entrance vestibule. Soames, still carrying the water, brought up a +thumping rear. + +“Oh, wouldn’t it be awful if someone’s kicked—I mean, if someone’s +been knocked off?” + +“Knocked off?” + +“I mean if an individual has been assassinated,” she explained +haughtily, and then for an instant her impertinent little face went to +chalk. + +We were standing indecisive in the passage. Hardly a minute had passed +since the end of the laughter. A scream suddenly sounded from the lawn +beyond the Hall of the Moth, a cry of agony which might have seemed +terrible had not it been for that astounding laugh which had preceded +it. In its awful context the scream was pitifully thin and feeble, but +it was human, certainly. + +“That’s on the lawn.” + +“Yes, Governor,” choked Lib, following me at a half-run through the +gallery-door of the Hall, through the nearest french windows, and so +to the drive. + +Beside the small tower near the mended conservatory window something +dark was stretched, with three or four people about it. While Lib and +I were still thirty feet away, we could tell in the widespread light +of the Hall chandelier that a body lay there. + +“It’s a corpse,” cried Lib. “Oh, my God, is it Bobby?” She rushed +forward. + +I turned to Soames. “Round up the others, quickly.” + +“Y-yes, sir”; he went back with the ineffable water. + +I remember that just as I came up from the lower french doors of the +Hall, Belvoir, crossing the lawn from the direction of Aidenn Water, +arrived at the other side of the group by the small tower. + +He looked down with a curious, contemplative expression. “This,” he +said, “must be the body we missed last night.” It was not a flippant +speech; it seemed to fit the occasion. + +The body lying here, half on the ground, half on the step to the +french window, with Miss Lebetwood kneeling on one side, Doctor Aire +on the other, was Sean Cosgrove’s. Supine he had fallen, or had been +turned, his face bereft of its solidity, a flabby thing, his eyes +closed, and the edge of a bloody wound showing beneath his left ear, a +wound that apparently had a continuance behind. + +With knit brow Doctor Aire let down Cosgrove’s wrist and shook his +head. His thin lips stirred; he muttered: + +“It’s no use.” + +Miss Lebetwood rose in a paroxysm of pain; she warded off Alberta +Pendleton. In the scattered glow, with hair dishevelled and eyes +afire, she looked like a prophetess of old, pulsing with authority. +With a gesture she put us aside; it was as if she were putting us out +of her thoughts. From us she went, and disappeared in the vacancy of +the lawn. + +Pendleton, smitten by a thought, cried “The weapon!” and dashed into +the Hall. We saw him go to the armoury door and saw the room brighten +with electricity. Then the Doctor and I made the same decision. + +“Don’t touch the body,” cautioned the Doctor, and he and I together +followed our host into the room of weapons, among which he was wildly +ranging in a mad search. + +“Nothing’s been disturbed here,” observed Doctor Aire. + +But Crofts, deaf, continued in his frenzy, drawing every old rickety +sword from its sheath, tearing every weapon from its peg or stud, +rubbing his fingers along the cutting parts. + +“Not there, Crofts, not there!” I cried, taking him by the arm, since +speech had no effect. + +“Which of these did it?” he demanded. + +“None,” answered Doctor Aire decisively. “You can see at a glance—” + +“But one of them must have a stain. There couldn’t have been time to +wipe it dry.” + +“None are stained,” returned the Doctor. “Come with me.” + +He and I had nearly to drag Crofts out to the lawn, to the spot beyond +the gate-house towers where the small axe had lain covered from the +storm. + +“But that’s a puny thing!” + +“Yes,” said the Doctor, “but even a bullet may do damage, and the puny +axe may have been in the hand of one of prodigious strength. A light +weapon and a heavy blow; it may have broken the weapon, of course.” + +“It will hardly be here, in that case,” I suggested. + +We were beside the chicken-wire. There stood Miss Lebetwood, her white +hands clenched against her dark dress. + +Her voice was cold, toneless. “I’ve been waiting here, wondering how +long—” + +“No matter, Miss,” said the doctor, “we’re here—that’s what matters.” + +I lit a match which managed to keep alive in the stir of air. The +canvas, held down by heavy stones, was in place. Crofts yanked the +sheet away. We gasped. + +There lay the small axe, undisturbed. The Doctor stooped and touched +the blood-slobbered handle. + +“It’s dry, absolutely. Well, I’m whipped. I’d have sworn—” + +We were hastening back to the House almost while the words were in his +mouth. Now there must have been a dozen guests and servants clustered +about the body. I turned to Crofts. + +“Who found him there? Was anything seen? Where was he killed?” + +He was too distracted to pay attention. He was running his fingers +through his mane and whispering little phrases to himself. + +A woman with trembling hands held out some white thing. + +“Look,” said Eve Bartholomew. “See what I found when I came by the end +of the House—down there by the large tower.” She pointed toward the +corner round which lay the main entrance. + +“Another—another!” I exclaimed, and Crofts snarled, “It was time for +another, damn his black heart! What does this one say?” + +We read: + + L O o k O u T f o R T H e C A T S C L A W + P A R S O N L O L L Y + +“The Cat’s Claw! What’s that?” + +“How do you expect me to tell?” + +“Again we find this damned thing—too late!” + +“There’s fresh blood on it!” exclaimed Crofts, taking the placard from +my hand. + +“Of course there is, you fool. Look at my finger.” + +“How did you do that?” + +“Razor.” + +Alberta was looking over her husband’s shoulder. “Where did you find +it, Eve?” + +“Right at the corner of the House. It was on the grass, with the +writing downward.” + +“Now,” said I, “if there’s one thing about this atrocious deed that I +can swear to, it is that there was nothing at that spot ten minutes +ago. I rounded the corner to enter the House so as to fetch one of the +men-servants by ringing the door-bell. The grass had nothing on it.” + +“I was over by the gate-house,” said Bob Cullen, “but I wasn’t pulling +the winch. I was waiting for Lib to come out again. I was watching the +end of the House all the time until the lights flared up in the Hall. +I’ll take my oath, I will, that nobody went round the corner after Mr. +Bannerlee.” + +Doctor Aire objected. “But after the chandelier was lit—when that part +of the House and the lawn outside the windows was bright—you might +have overlooked some shadow slipping along the wall further south.” + +Yet this explanation satisfied me no more than it seemed to quell Bob +himself. + +“Look here,” Crofts suddenly roared. “Perhaps _he_—” He flung out an +arm toward the dead man. + +“What do you mean?” + +“He—himself—” + +“This placard was his doing, you think? Impossible!” + +“Why not? There was no one else here. That one in his room this +morning: he took _it_ mighty calmly.” + +“Sean was not a child, or a fool,” said Miss Lebetwood coldly. + +“Who lit the chandelier?” I asked. + +“Ah!” murmured the Doctor, and raised one shoulder higher than the +other. + +“Did anyone see him before—this?” + +Miss Lebetwood spoke. “I was the first to see him, Mr. Bannerlee. He +was kneeling, I thought, on the step outside the window—but he must +have been—falling. . . .” + +“Paula—don’t tell it, dearest,” cried Miss Mertoun. + +“There’s nothing to tell,” said Paula Lebetwood, still brave, still +vibrant, commanding. “I am not going to break down, Millicent dear. +I—have told of myself. . . . That was all. He lifted his hand from the +stone, as if he wanted to reach his head—but he fell forward. That’s +all.” + +“But that unholy bawling laughter—” + +“It was from—somewhere else. It wasn’t very loud out here, but it was +what made me look towards the House. Then I saw—him—while the laugh +was still going on. But I didn’t scream until—afterward, when he +fell.” + +“The lights were on at the time, of course,” observed Doctor Aire. + +“They had been on for a minute or so, I think,” said Miss Lebetwood. +“But I had paid no particular attention when they were lit.” + +“The fact is,” said the Doctor, “we don’t know where he was when he +was struck. He must have been nearby—couldn’t have gone far with a +bludgeoning like that.” + +“Blenkinson, you there?” asked Crofts. + +“I am, sir.” + +“Have you ’phoned Superintendent Salt at New Aidenn?” + +“I ’ave, sir. ’E’s coming, and looking out for hall suspicious +characters on the south road.” + +“All right, then.” + +“Hadn’t the women better go?” asked Ludlow practically. + +“Go in, everybody,” said Crofts. + +“Must _he_ be left?” + +Doctor Aire said, “Put something under the back of his head and cover +his body with something. I’ll stand guard here. He can’t be moved +until the police arrive.” + +“God!” + +A bellowing leaped upon us out of the north, a roar that instead of +tailing away mounted higher and higher upon itself. The wind, which +had been bustling, seemed to disintegrate while the darkness of sound +swept through the Vale. Resonant, tremendous, devastating, the sheer +undifferentiated noise bore down on us, oppressed us with its weight. +Brimming the hills, it actually made the ground tremble. It was +nothing like thunder, but as if something buried alive beneath the +earth had awakened and vociferated horribly. Several of the women +stopped their ears, and there was an awfulness in seeing their mouths +open in screams when the sound was wholly lost in the roar up the +Vale. It was as if they had all gone dumb and raving. Even when it had +ceased at climax, the echoes of the roar bruited from crag to crag +made the Vale alive with sound. And when the final reverberations had +sunk to peace, we gaped at each other silenced for a little while, +even the body of the man forgotten in the overwhelmingness of sound. +When we spoke, it was in whispers. + +“Could that be—thunder?” + +“Thunder—like that?” + +“It was like Judgment.” + +“What was it, then?” + +“I can tell you what it was,” I said. + +They were round me in a moment, greedy. + +“An earthquake?” asked Doctor Aire. + +“A landslide—almost an avalanche—on one of the north-most hills.” + +“But what could have caused it?” + +“There may have been a condition of incipient instability, waiting for +rain, perhaps.” + +“For rain—what rain?” interposed Pendleton. + +In answer to him a vast sheet of purple lightning pictured all the +north of the Vale. It vanished, sweeping us into an instantaneous +blacker darkness, but again it glared, and again, while unmistakable +thunders rang. In that dazzling fulgour the nearby features of the +scene were revealed to us as in bright noontide, but above the Black +Mixen, above Mynydd Tarw, above the other northern peaks, hung a great +tower reaching into illimitable night like a waterfall from heaven. +Again the lightning blazed, and we beheld the hanging shafts, like +sun-pillars among clouds, save that these were black—or like aerial +waterspouts soaring above the earth. And this stupendous cliff of +water was visibly moving toward us, down the Vale! + +Crofts Pendleton turned from the terrific sight, with a bitter-happy +look. He gestured toward the north. In the effulgence and clamour of +the storm he stood like a valiant pygmy. + +“By God,” he shouted, “there’s one direction cut off—for the fiend who +did this!” + +“Particularly if the zigzag path has been blocked by the landslide,” +added Belvoir. + +“Praise God, the police are coming by the south road. There’s no +missing him if he tries to leave the Vale to-night!” + +“Sir Brooke!” cried Eve Bartholomew suddenly. “Sir Brooke! Where is +he?” + +“We should all like to know,” said Crofts. + +These speeches had been shouts. Now the Doctor made a megaphone of his +hands in order to be heard. In a blaze of lightning lasting several +seconds we saw him hunch his shoulder and head toward the top of the +Vale, whence the rain, white rain now, and horrible, was pushing +back towards us. “This will be on us in a minute. We can’t leave +this poor fellow’s remains here, regulations or no. We must get the +location and position of the body down in writing at once. I’ll take +responsibility.” + +Crofts and I stooped to lift by the shoulders and feet respectively. +During our brief act of carrying the corpse into the Hall and +composing it on the couch, the wind suddenly rose into a mighty +strife, and heavy plashing drops of rain came sousing on the windows. +The gale was mad with leaves from the dishevelled autumn trees, which +came knocking on the panes, clung there for moments like silhouettes, +and were whirled on to their fate. + +Crofts stood beside the useless and ironic tea-service, agaze at the +streaming windows. His lips were moving, but I heard no speech from +them. + +I moved over beside him. “Who is Superintendent Salt?” + +“The best man for detective work in Radnorshire, and the Chief +Constable knows it, they say. Lucky for us Salt lives in New Aidenn. +But he’ll never get here to-night—not in this deluge.” + +Something dashed against the window-pane, and from us came a stifled +cry. Handsome Ruth Clay, who had come in to remove the tea things, was +standing with her fist jammed halfway into her mouth, her frightened +eyes staring to the stormy night. + +“What’s the matter?” + +“See, see! The Bird!” + +I followed her look, just in time to see some small dark object blown +before the wind and lost in the howling murk. “It came up against the +window. I saw it.” + +“And what of it?” + +“It’s the Corpse-bird, sir. It means a death!” + +“What!” + +“Oh, I saw it, sir—no feathers it had—only like the down of other +birds’ wings—and eyes like balls of fire!” + +“Nonsense, woman. Besides, this Corpse-bird, as you call it, should +have come before. The damage is done already.” + +“Yes, sir, there’s poor Mr. Cosgrove’s body lying there, sir. But the +Bird means another death.” + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Superintendent Salt + + October 4. 2.35 P.M. + +Yet the two men from New Aidenn had come up the Vale through that +ruinous rain and wind. From the corner library window I myself had +dimly seen them plodding up the leaf-stained drive against the blast, +and had been at the cat-head entrance when Blenkinson admitted them, +grotesquely dishevelled by the storm. The very tall one, whose hat was +gone and who carried a bulgy black instrument-case, was Doctor +Niblett, Coroner as well. Superintendent Salt, a man of more pulp, and +built on the underslung plan, wore a necklet of grizzly beard and had +short curly hair, like a Roman Emperor’s. I at once christened him +Peggotty, “a hairy man with a good-natured face.” + +Quite a little lake had sluiced and oozed from their coats and shoes +before Pendleton came rushing downstairs from his wife’s room. + +“You got here?” + +“I expect so,” answered Superintendent Salt in the indecisive way that +I have learned is universal with native Radnorites. “I had my +neighbour the Coroner come along, Doctor Niblett here.” + +“Oh, yes: glad you did. We’ve met, haven’t we, Doctor? Gad, you look +war-shot, both of you. Is the storm so bad?” + +“We’ve tramped it from beyond the bridge or thereabouts.” + +“Tramped it!” + +“Half the bridge was down, Mr. Pendleton. We were forced to leave the +car on t’other side and make a dash over afoot. The way it looked, Mr. +Pendleton, with the water risin’ so, I doubt you’ve any bridge at all +there by now. The stream’s fair ragin’. And you say there’s been a +killin’ here or something? A guest of yours, maybe? Shockin’.” + +“What a day!” cried Crofts fervently. “This way, gentlemen.” But in +the midst of the portrait-corridor, he paused. “This is murder, and a +damned mysterious murder. There’s been a landslide up the Vale, and +that path must be blocked. Did you pass anyone going south as you came +along?” + +Peggotty, or perhaps I had better let his name go as Salt, responded, +“We did not, and we have a witness who was by the bridge since before +five o’clock to show that nobody had been across either way.” + +“What kind of a witness?” + +“Reliable. The Coroner and I have known him for these a-many years.” +From aloft Doctor Niblett nodded grave agreement. “Road-mender, he is. +Shelterin’ under a tree from the rain. Had been at work just beyond +the bridge, so he couldn’t have missed seein’.” + +Elation seemed to make a dark glow in Pendleton’s soul. “Then he’s +trapped, the dog! That is, if you—did you tell this witness to +watch—?” + +“I think,” said Superintendent Salt, “that we might be havin’ a look +at the body.” + +“Er, yes. Yes, of course—I was taking you. I’ll order a good fire lit +at once to help you dry.” + +I followed Crofts with the overshadowing Coroner and the plump +Superintendent into the Hall of the Moth. Doctor Aire and Lord Ludlow +were waiting there; the body of Sean Cosgrove lay on the couch with +the _Brocade de Lyons_ upholstering, and across it was stretched a +decorative leather skin plucked down from the wall. + +Introductions were curt. Doctor Aire pulled off the cover, revealing +the corpse. The limbs had been adjusted carefully. _Rigor mortis_, of +course, had not yet supervened, and the features, save for the laxity +of the jaw, had much the expression I should have expected to see in +untroubled sleep. First Doctor Niblett bent for his swift, searching +preliminary examination, turning the dead man’s head in his long, +large-jointed fingers. The Superintendent followed in more deliberate +manner, while Niblett went gratefully to the climbing fire. + +It appeared that Salt is not one of those master-minds who require a +vacuum in order to get results. He actually began to function in our +presence! For at length, rising ponderously from his knees, upon which +he had been scrutinizing the soles of the dead man’s shoes, he said, +“See here, where’s the weapon?” + +Crofts shrugged his shoulders, having a bit of a flea in his ear, and +Doctor Aire answered, “We haven’t the slightest idea. There’s a pretty +muddle about weapons. We’ve weapons to burn, but none of them appears +to be connected with the case.” + +“We’ll go into that later, then. You haven’t disturbed the contents of +his clothing, I see.” + +“Certainly not.” + +Methodically Salt removed what Cosgrove carried on him when he died, +turning out each pocket when empty and examining the inside. Besides +the loose coins, watch and chain, and wallet, there were a number of +hand-written and printed sheets in several pockets. + +Ludlow singled out one slip from the heap and called Salt’s attention +to it. “This thing,” he said, “was the subject of some acrimony on the +part of the deceased last night. He accused me, in fact, of pilfering +it.” + +“What’s that?” + +“Perhaps,” continued the wily Ludlow, “I had picked the sheet up +somewhere, absent-mindedly, I suppose, and forgotten about it. It was +rather a tense day. But Mr. Cosgrove saw fit to declare that I had +rifled his correspondence—he claimed it as his, at any rate. Can you +make any more of it than I?” + +“What do you make of it?” asked Salt, who had been reading it the +while. + +I fancied a little spite in his Lordship’s tone. “In the light of +events, nothing. Suppose you show it to my friends here. One of them +may suggest some interpretation that will throw light.” + +Crofts was obviously bursting to get a look at the screed, and I +myself was glad of the opportunity to see what else it contained +besides the singular remark about “the mail.” It commenced without +indication to whom addressed: + + “Dear Sir, + + I suppose that I shall see you before long, and we may discuss the + topic conveniently. + + I must inform you, however, that my principals leave me no option in + the matter. I hope you will realize your untenable and actually + perilous position; we do not want your brains scattered about. On + the evening of my arrival, I shall expect a communication from you, + stating whether you will be amenable. Suppose you leave it in the + mail—you know where; I’ll come and get it.” + +I studied the signature for some time before I made it out: +“Lochinvar.” + +“And you say that you have no idea what this means?” asked Salt. + +“I wish I did!” responded Lord Ludlow; then, looking sorry he had +spoken with such feeling, he added, “I mean that if I did, I might see +some reason for Mr. Cosgrove’s bursting into a tirade against me.” + +“Oh, yes?” remarked the Superintendent dryly, and turned to Crofts. “I +suppose you couldn’t tell when this was delivered?” + +“Not while he was here,” returned Crofts promptly. “The only delivery +is at eleven, and I sort the mail myself. Cosgrove never got any.” + +“Well, I suppose we must show it to the others in the house and see if +anyone recognizes the hand.” Salt stood pondering a moment, then +braced with decision. “And now I think that I’ve heard enough puzzling +odds and ends about this crime. I want somebody to tell the story of +it right straight through, so I’ll get the tit-bits in their proper +places.” + +This was clearly for Crofts, and I did not envy him. I remember that +the rest of us were going to depart when Salt retained us with a +gesture. So we were part of the audience while our host, with much +nervousness and with some little assistance from the rest of us, told +who were in the House, and what, in the main, had happened until the +time Blenkinson had rung up the New Aidenn police station at +five-twenty-two. + +Only once did the Superintendent put in a word. Crofts had been +setting forth as well as he could our bodily dispositions after +we had left the Hall of the Moth. “So none of us could have been +near him, and there’s no trace of anyone else. And there you are, +Superintendent.” + +“Oh—ah—um,” remarked Salt, his eyes moving about the walls. “Secret +passages?” + +“None,” snapped Crofts. + +“Go on, sir, please. This is very interestin’.” + +When our host had finished, Salt emitted a noise both gruff and +complacent. + +“A pretty job,” he observed. He cast a look about the room, as if the +atmosphere of the Hall of the Moth impressed him for the first time, +and he gave a conscious shiver. I saw his eyebrows twitch for a moment +when his glance fell on the iniquitous portrait of Sir Pharamond on +high. “A pretty job and will take a lot of doin’, I expect.” + +“Do you want to see the rest of us now?” asked Crofts. “The party is +waiting in the conservatory.” He indicated the door with a nod. + +The Superintendent regarded the corpse with lack-lustre eye, and +pulled his beard reflectively. “N-no, not to-night, if you please. Not +now, thanks. I’ll take ’em all in the morning. As a plain fact, +there’s too much blood-and-thunder in the atmosphere to-night. Keeps +people from thinkin’ straight. And we can’t catch the murderer +to-night, anyhow.” He paused a moment, blinking thoughtfully again; he +was given to these interludes of cogitation. “But see here; we may +clear this matter up.” He showed the “Lochinvar” letter. “I’ll just +pass this round and see if anyone twigs the writin’.” + +“This way, then,” ushered Crofts. He preceded us into the conservatory +with its great windows, where the company was sitting in little +breathless groups of twos and threes. + +Only Maryvale lingered alone, beyond the grand piano, his fingers +sometimes very lightly pressing the keys in chords of some neutral +mode, neither major nor minor. + +Salt explained that he intended to ask but one question just then, +alleging anxiety lest anyone should be overwrought in the situation of +time, circumstance, and weather. He gave an uneasy look at Maryvale, +whose chords seemed to deepen the sombreness of the rain-beleaguered +room. The “Lochinvar” letter went the rounds, until it reached Eve +Bartholomew beneath a large potted plant whose leaves were like +donkeys’ ears. She gave a pleased cry, then a gasp. + +“Sir Brooke wrote this! . . . But what does it mean!” + +“Never mind what it means, Ma’am,” said Salt. “And who’s Sir Brooke? +Not here, is he?” + +“Don’t you remember?” Crofts asked. “He’s the missing—” + +“Idiot,” murmured Ludlow, and went on to say: “I haven’t known our +infirm absentee as long as this good lady, and his writing is +unfamiliar to me, but it surprises me greatly that he signs himself +‘Lochinvar.’ Curiously unfit I should say. Madam, was that one of his +baptismal names?” + +Mrs. Bartholomew bridled. “I have no doubt Sir Brooke had good reason +to sign himself any way he thought proper.” + +“I have no doubt either,” acquiesced Ludlow, and added the remark, +“Don Quixote.” + +“Haven’t eaten yet?” Salt asked. + +Our host ejaculated, “Hardly!” + +“Suggest you do, then, and everybody try to get some rest. All doors +locked, windows latched. No danger now, of course—only never give +temptation.” + +“This way, then, if you’re for food,” bade Crofts, and led the way +into the dining-room, where he himself was to make a wretched job of +eating. + +The conservatory emptied slowly. A few people followed Crofts; perhaps +two-thirds of men make for the stairs and the cold comfort of their +bedrooms. At the bottom of the well I drew Miss Lebetwood apart from +Mrs. Belvoir. Then, I confess, I felt ashamed, and spoke awkwardly. + +“Miss Lebetwood, forgive me if I—that is, I hope you won’t mind—if you +don’t want to answer—” + +Her voice was quite controlled. “Yes, what’s the matter, Mr. +Bannerlee?” + +“It may not have anything to do with this awful—” + +“What do you want to know, Mr. Bannerlee?” + +“You remember telling how Miss Mertoun—before she wandered out last +night—how she said something about its being ‘his music’? Well—” + +Paula Lebetwood winced and said, “You want to know what that meant?” + +“It’s rather stuck in my mind, you see—and I thought—” + +“You’re not a detective, are you, Mr. Bannerlee?” + +“Why—no—I—” + +“Your name _is_ Bannerlee, isn’t it?” + +“Certainly, Miss Lebetwood.” + +“Forgive me; it was rude. But I am so tired—and your question—” + +“Please don’t—” + +She interrupted, but her hesitation had become as great as mine, and +there was certain displeasure in her tone. “Excuse me, I beg you, but +I—don’t—think I want to tell you, Mr. Bannerlee. I can hardly call it +my—secret, you know.” + +“Pray excuse _me_ for asking. But you may be called on to tell +to-morrow. It will be painful, I’m afraid.” + +“Oh, I hope I won’t have to. Really—really, it has nothing to do +with—” + +She fled up the stairs, and I, full of musing, went into the +dinner-room and tried to eat. But it was no use then. I excused myself +from the group about the table (pale, they were, as if Death itself +had taken a seat at the board) and slowly proceeded to my +second-storey room. + +I wrote in this diary, and while I wrote I heard slight sounds below. +Not until a long time later, when hunger had at last made itself felt +and I hoped to burgle the larder, and stole down near midnight—not +until then did I realize the full import of those sounds. While I +passed through the corridor to reach the dining-room door and thence +the kitchen, the far entrance of the Hall opened, and an unusual glare +of light burst forth. Doctor Aire stood on the threshold. He wore a +cook’s white apron tied beneath his arms and pinned to his trousers +below the knees. He was rubbing his fingers on the edge of it. Using +the instruments of the tall, wordless Coroner, he had just performed +the superfluous but required necropsy upon the body of Sean Cosgrove. + +“The blow on the neck did it; nothing else the matter. He had a whale +of a constitution.” + +Aire, too, was hungry. But it almost robbed me of my appetite again to +see him eating with those gruesome fingers. + +As the Superintendent foresaw, it was well that the _post-mortem_ was +quickly done. After all, we were cut off from escape. The bridge was +wholly gone; so we had already learned by telephone. Burial of the +murdered man somewhere in the Vale might yet be necessary. The +King-maker entombed alone, uncoffined, far removed from the odour of +sanctity! + +Aire, Salt, and I came up together at half-past eleven. Poor Crofts +had been troubled enough about finding places for the two officials +overnight. On the first floor the rooms were filled: the Belvoirs, +Oxford, and Miss Lebetwood take up the left portion of the storey not +part of the upper reaches of the Hall, and on the other side the +Pendletons, the Aires, Bob Cullen, Ludlow, and Miss Mertoun have +rooms. Above these the only habitable chambers are those of Maryvale, +Mrs. Bartholomew, and Lib at the south end, and mine up the passage. +Between my room and Lib’s are two chambers filled with stores of +oddments anything up to a century old. The great rooms across the +passage from me are also depositories and magazines of much that has +been undisturbed since long before Crofts bought Highglen House. + +I knew that our host took Salt and Niblett over the House in a sort of +preliminary inspection about ten o’clock, for they arrived finally at +my antique domicile. Crofts, thoughtless oaf, had given me no warning, +and I was nearly caught in the exercise of pen and ink. I contrived, +however, to thrust my writing-book underneath the table and to snatch +a piece of notepaper. I was inditing a letter when the Superintendent +looked in. + +Then they stood in the doorway and discussed sleeping-quarters. + +“Disadvantages every way,” complained Crofts, “whether you try the +ground floor, the first, or the second—but of course I forgot—there’s +no place available on the first.” + +“The first floor will do us very well,” said Salt. + +“Eh? What do you mean? You surely don’t mean—” + +“Mr. Cosgrove’s room? Yes. Dr. Niblett and I will divide the sleepin’ +there and beside the corpse.” + +Cosgrove had occupied the east-projecting room furthest north in the +older body of the House. Miss Mertoun’s, beyond it, is above the +newly-built conservatory, and since, as I may have said, the +conservatory does not extend the entire width of the house, Cosgrove’s +room juts out, making a notched corner at that end of the mansion. + +“But surely—” + +“I’m leavin’ my superstitions out with my boots to-night,” observed +Salt solemnly. + +“But why not carry the body up there? I’ll have a bed made—” + +Crofts gave it up after a while, though I am sure that not for a +king’s ransom would he himself last night have occupied the narrow +chamber that had been the Irishman’s. The voices became faint down the +passage; the last I heard was Salt’s diminishing assurance. + +“I took the liberty of usin’ your telephone. I gave the Chief +Constable a stiff surprise. There are two of the county police—” + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Noah’s Flood + + Same day. 8.30 P.M. + +And now we know that the Chief Constable has left the direct handling +of the case to Salt, under a discreet supervision from afar. Wise of +the Constable, since he had no hope of reaching the storm-bound house! + +By chance at the bottom landing I met Millicent Mertoun. I thought her +more lovely than ever, though the terrors of the day before had +altered her cheeks to something like the hue of wax. But her +inexpressible dark eyes glowed with undimmed fascination. She smiled, +courageously, I imagined. + +“It’s terrible, isn’t it, Mr. Bannerlee, to have to eat when +everything is so awful? But I’m hungry, really. I couldn’t take a bite +last night.” + +I sympathized. + +“Have you heard anyone speak of finding a scarab, quite a small +scarab?” + +“I’ve just come down myself this morning, you see; so, of course— But +perhaps I can help you look for it. Whereabouts do you think you lost +it?” + +“It’s not mine—it’s Paula’s. She won’t tell anybody about it, of +course, because it’s so unimportant compared with . . . She’s troubled +about it, though. It’s an heirloom, I believe, from someone of her +family who was in Egypt.” + +“I shall have a look for it, I assure you.” + +“I’m afraid it’s no use looking, thanks, unless someone’s just +happened to pick it up. It was a tiny scarab, set in a ring, and it +probably came loose outdoors.” + +“Outdoors!” + +“Yes, she didn’t notice it was gone until after—after—” + +“I see. Well, Miss Mertoun, I’ll let you know in case anyone mentions +such a thing.” + +“Oh, thank you. But don’t say I told you.” + +The straggling procession into the breakfast-room was not merely a +subdued but even a sorry lot. Dismay and hunger both had been at work +on most of us. Few, I believe, had slept. I myself had, but it was a +sleep tossed and pulled by past and future. Food, however, worked its +customary melioration, and when at ten o’clock we were summoned to +meet Salt in the conservatory, scarcely anyone looked the worse for +the mental battering of the day before. I suppose Crofts Pendleton was +actually the hardest hit. + +It transpired that Salt had already been about the grounds, +rain-infested as they were. Insulated in rubber, he had examined the +site of Cosgrove’s death, seen the canvas-covered axe, and made a tour +of the immediate environs of the house. Already, too, he had concluded +an intensive search in Cosgrove’s room and among his belongings, and +to that room the unlucky Irishman’s body had lately been conveyed, +which relieved some of the gloom in the Hall of the Moth. Now, with +the Coroner of few words seated beside him, the Superintendent stood +watchfully in the sinus of the piano while we filed into the +undertakers’ Elysium. The servants were already standing hangdog along +the wall. + +“I’ll have to interview each of you separately, ladies and gentlemen,” +Salt announced. “But I must really get acquainted a bit with you +first, and have your names down. So, if you please, I’ll just ask each +of you in turn to tell who you are and what brought you—I mean what +association you’ve had with Mr. Pendleton here.” + +At this moment Blenkinson took the centre of the stage without a cue. +“If I may hinterpose, sir, I ’ave in my pocket a very comprehensive +document, I may call it, which will simplify your task considerably.” + +“What’s that, for God’s sake?” exclaimed Crofts. + +I am sure that the butler never had so many heads looking at him +before, but with the coolest air he produced from his tail-pocket a +sheaf of papers, and smoothed them lovingly. + +Blenkinson was balancing a pince-nez on the bridge of his nose. “With +your permission, sir, I will read. Hm! Hrrum!” He teed off and began. + +It proved that the butler the evening before had assumed the rôles of +despot and inquisitor in the world below stairs, and had then been my +serious rival for honours in composition. Blenkinson read loudly in a +high, thin voice, a woeful torture to the ear, his eyes behind the +pince-nez bulging whenever he licked his thumb to turn the page. The +screed he unfolded to the gaping company began with a preamble and +concluded with a peroration, and must have been a couple of thousand +words long. It was a vindication of the servants’ hall against base +suspicion in the matter of the late demise of Sean Cosgrove. + +The evidence was in a sort of interlocking system. From the time +Crofts had dismissed his court of inquiry after luncheon, until the +hideous laugh that emanated from we don’t know where, the whole +baker’s dozen of servants were accounted for and quite removed, I +should say, from the province of investigation. + +The boy Toby had been outside the kitchen entry peeling potatoes and +onions all afternoon, on promise, vain, as it proved, of being let off +at night for semi-bucolic revelry in New Aidenn. With him for half the +time were Jael and Em, the maids, who according to the condensed +economy of the house always joined in the “parin’s and dishin’s.” When +released from knives and vegetable-baskets, they resorted to the room +of their companion Harmony, whom they awoke from snores, and the trio +proceeded to improve the afternoon with gossip. Rosa and Ruth Clay +could testify to the earlier snoring of Harmony; under the eye of +Blenkinson they had then prepared tea, had early wheeled the +tea-table, minus tea and hot water, into the Hall, and had gone to the +stables for a bit of genteel chat with Morgan. From then until the +catastrophe they vouched for him, as well as for the other stablemen, +who were moving about, momently in and out of sight, over one hundred +feet from the place of Cosgrove’s death. The jealous eye of Ardelia +Lacy, too, herself seen in and seeing from Alberta Pendleton’s window, +corroborated the Clays; she had come down and was sipping tea in the +kitchen at the moment of the attack upon Cosgrove. Soames polishing +silver until he answered my ring, and old Finlay pottering about in +the flower-beds, were amply vindicated. Even Hughes the keeper was +accounted for in Blenkinson’s compendium, for there was plenty of +evidence that he had been in his room mending a refractory gun for +three solid hours. + +That gives a faint idea of the method of Blenkinson’s “document”; it +does not begin to do justice to the detail and close-meshed cogency of +it. The servants, severally and individually, are out of the +investigation. For my part, I never for a moment considered the +implication of any of them could be other than mad. + +Blenkinson, however, had done more. He had unearthed one or two bits +of evidence that may be valuable. Of these I shall relate one, leaving +the other until the problem occurred of checking Cosgrove’s +whereabouts after he followed Miss Lebetwood from the Hall of the +Moth. + +Very early indeed yesterday morning Jael, polishing the kettle, sat at +the window by the door leading from the kitchen along the passage to +the servants’ rooms. In her carefreeness she was singing a measure, +when her eye caught movement in the kitchen-garden near the chicken +yard. A strange man, “shaped like a lump,” was prowling there. She +opened the window, shouted warning to the stables; the invader uttered +a short heathenish exclamation and ran away toward the head of the +Vale. The men later found his footmarks in a carrot-bed. + +Strange to say, there had been no inclination on the part of the +servants to assign the attributes of Parson Lolly to this interloper. +Perhaps the fact that he left footprints robs him of the distinction. +Instantly, however, I recognized in him the gorilla-man I had +encountered in the twilight when entering the Vale for the first time. +Probably Jael saw him seeking breakfast. + +Blenkinson concluded with a peroration the essence of eloquence, +pleased with himself as an old stager applauded on his return at sixty +in the part of Romeo. For our lively buzz showed that the butler had +stimulated us out of our moroseness, made us forget ourselves, even in +that rainy, melancholy morning. + +“Priceless,” I heard Belvoir chuckle, and our harassed host unbent so +far as to smile, whereas Lib Dale forgot the solemnity of the occasion +in open chortling. Lord Ludlow muttered something about “probably a +stickit minister.” As for the servants, they seemed to be in a stupor +of admiration. + +Whatever Salt may have thought of Blenkinson’s taking evidence behind +his back he kept it to himself. Reaching over, he grasped the document +about to disappear into the coat-tail pocket once more, and placed it +in his own inner pocket instead. + +“Very interestin’,” he remarked. “Now I’m fully informed on that +subject. I could pick out every one of you,” he said to the servants, +“when Mr. Blenkinson here alluded to you. You’re all excused for the +present.” He turned to the guests. “But I’m not clear yet about all of +you ladies and gentlemen. You first, Mr. Pendleton, though. How long, +now, have you owned this place? I seem to recall it’s about two +years.” + +“It is, just.” + +“And did you know Mr. Watts that was here before you?” + +“No, Superintendent, I did not. The House was an unsold portion of old +Watts’ estate. It must have been five years after his death that I +negotiated for it. . . . Wish to God I hadn’t heard of it,” he +appended under his breath. + +“That was all my fault, old fellow,” consoled Alberta Pendleton. + +“This furniture and the pictures, now, eh?” + +“Everything came with the House. Library of books, tooled-leather +style—storerooms full of odd stuff, costumes and furniture, crocks +mostly—but we did find a fine Buhl bureau buried among some stacks of +Victorian newspapers, and dragged it out. There was a little of +everything in the attics. He must have been a prime scholar and +collector, old Watts.” + +“A little of everything, you say? What do you mean, Mr. Pendleton?” + +“Cheese-parings and candle-ends: trash, you know. Some queer pieces +though. Old Watts must have rowed for his college, or with some club, +when he was a youngster. There were oars and other boating +paraphernalia in one of the rooms—so much of it we expected to find a +shell entombed. I ran across equipment there for a parlour +magician—quite elaborate. We were hoping Doctor Aire would give us a +show with it only yesterday. And—well, I’ll take you through the lot, +if you like.” + +“Yes, please.” Salt addressed Alberta. “_You_ hadn’t known Mr. Watts? +You spoke just now—your fault, you said—” + +“Oh, no; I meant that Crofts bought the place because I preferred it +to any other we inspected. It was so out-of-the-way.” She drew the +silk scarf about her shoulders closer, as if she were cold. “But that +makes it all the more horrible now.” + +“Who were the solicitors?” + +Crofts told him. + +“And by the way, Mr. Pendleton, what is your line of business? You, +er, are in business, aren’t you?” + +“Yes,” answered our host briefly. “Drugs. Manchester.” + +I knew that after this preliminary survey, the Superintendent would +interview us separately on the events of the fatal afternoon. + +He chose to commence with Maryvale. Salt held the door open for the +man of business to pass through, entered himself, and carefully closed +the door. It was with a kind of misgiving that I watched them +disappear, for now began the really crucial part of the investigation, +the ascertainment of precise times and places, the attrition of fact +against fact, and the weighing of hypotheses. And I was not at all +sure that I fancied Salt, any more than I had last night in the beat +of the rain. + +The rain continued. The servants had gone, of course, and now the +taciturn Coroner departed to catch up sleep in Crofts’ room; so we +were an intimate group once more. But the blight of cheerlessness had +fallen on us again, and mystery reached its wings of fear about us. +The mutter and hiss of rain sometimes redoubled at the vast windows, +sometimes sank to a whisper, and those windows from their very size, +seemed to admit a darker darkness. Hardly a word was spoken, and that +not always heeded. + +It was a quarter of an hour before Salt appeared with Maryvale. The +official tugged at his border of beard with somewhat dubious +expression. It was not hard to imagine that Maryvale had proved an +unsatisfactory answerer, now that this strange, detached fit was upon +him. Salt nodded to Alberta Pendleton, who passed through the doorway. +Maryvale without a word took the piano-seat she had vacated, and began +softly to play his sequences of brooding, atonic chords. + +The inquiry progressed behind the closed door. Some of us Salt +detained only a couple of minutes, persons who could merely verify, +but not add to the information already at his disposal; others were +with him twenty minutes or more. Among these I was. + +“I don’t think—ah, yes, now I seem to remember. You’re the gentleman +who had a nasty fall or something. Well now, do you mind tellin’ me +how you happened to get here, and if you know anything about this +case?” + +I suppose that I was able to tell him more than anyone else. I decided +then to give my information without stint, since it was not the sort +of thing that could possibly benefit mankind by concealment, and it +might even speed Salt on the track of his theory. I recounted every +incident I have here set down: the search for St. Tarw’s devotional +site, the bull, the gorilla-man, the menagerie-keeper, the winking +window, his Lordship in the armoury, and whatever else did not merely +coincide with other evidence. I did _not_, however, allude to this +diary. Salt, by the way, did me the great honour of hearkening without +gasp or demur to my story of the tall, bulgy man with the Paul +Pry-Schubert umbrella. + +In the end he reverted to the matter of the saint’s oratory. “This +ruin or something you were lookin’ for, now. Maybe I could give you a +feeler for findin’ it.” + +I said that he was very kind, that when I set forth from London the +task had seemed dubious, and now the death of Cosgrove had driven my +hobby well-nigh out of my mind. + +“You’ll soon get over that, I expect,” he encouraged heartily. “Now, +I’m none of your experts on old stones or old codgers, of course, and +I never did hear of the party you mention, but when I was a boy I had +a good share of climbin’—aye, and of fallin’—in Aidenn Forest. I can +mind once runnin’ across something that sounds like your whatnot. By +gummy, sir, if I don’t think I could guide you there yet!” + +And forthwith he gave me a series of directions, which he insisted I +take down. However interested I should have been in these two days +ago, now among grimmer things the project of finding the oratory seems +trivial, seems superfluous. But I jotted down what he told me, thanked +him, and returned to the conservatory. + +The spark of speech had been fanned into life during my absence. They +were talking of the events of the day before—what else could they?—but +they had happened upon a particular and engrossing phase. No longer, +as all last evening, did they repeat to each other what they +themselves had done; they had been over that so many times, all to no +purpose. When, like me, each had given his account of the afternoon, +it was evident that none of them could possibly have been concerned in +the death of Cosgrove, or even could have seen the manner of it. + +Where, as a fact, had they been after the moment of the Irishman’s +disappearance through the shrubs among which Paula Lebetwood had fled? +Well, no one had remained long in the House. The Pendletons and the +Belvoirs, together with Mrs. Bartholomew, had formed a party for a +walk and had gone south. Avoiding the road, they had made their way +through park-like portions of the estate all the way to the bridge, to +marvel at the volume of Aidenn Water there. Far in the distance beyond +the bridge, they had seen the road-mender working his long hours. +Ludlow and Miss Mertoun had struck off for a stroll where Aidenn Water +makes considerable of a bend beneath the western hills. Bob Cullen, +feeling wretched after his dismissal by Lib, had gone alone the +opposite way, kicking a disgusted trail in the turf past the stables +and on beyond to where the steeply-wooded slope of Whimble Hill +commenced. After her departure in dudgeon from the armoury (and from +Doctor Aire and me) Lib had gone outside to look vainly about the +grounds for Bob, then had come in to find Miss Lebetwood, but had +encountered me on the stairs instead. Dr. Aire, having washed +his hands free of gardener’s loam, immediately went out, chanced +upon Maryvale in the tiny grove of cypress trees, and sauntered +up the Vale with him. The men turned off the path to approach the +eighteenth-century summer-house, upon whose rotting steps they sat for +a half an hour. Incidentally, they saw me wandering toward the +deserted farm of the sisters Delambre, and saw me returning therefrom. + +Oxford had spent the most peaceful afternoon of all: seating himself +in the shade of the gate-house to smoke a cigarette, he had gone to +sleep in good earnest. Awakened by a sound, he discovered Miss +Mertoun, Ludlow, and Belvoir amusing themselves by turning the winch +of the drawbridge. Belvoir, having left his wife and the others below +for a brisk walk back along the stream, had met Miss Mertoun and his +Lordship, and had suggested the pastime. By now Bob Cullen had made a +broad circuit of the House, and stood aloof somewhat churlishly, +refusing to be beguiled by the action of the drawbridge. + +My report of my own doings, told at breakfast, and including as it +needs must the impossible bone, had met a polite but agnostic +reception. The table had lapsed into nervous silence. Ludlow, tapping +his pince-nez on one knee crossed over the other, stared out the +eastern window with a crinkly smile. + +“The mystic bone!” he murmured ironically. (The epithet has stuck.) + +“What are you suggesting, Lord Ludlow?” I asked brusquely, for my +feathers were perhaps a little ruffled. + +“I should say you needed to have your sight examined.” + +“It has been, recently, and pronounced excellent.” + +“Then why not consult our friend Doctor Aire, professionally? He has +had something to do with mental cases.” + +I was going to retort when Alberta’s even tones admonished me “not to +notice his nonsense or he’d get vain”; so I let it go at that. + +As for Miss Lebetwood’s hour before the tragedy, she had soon relaxed +her pace among the strawberry trees, and the wave of anger had ebbed +away. She found herself nearby the tennis court. Feeling, she said, +very much ashamed of her lack of self-control, she postponed returning +to the House as long as possible, and began to search industriously +for some of the lost tennis balls. She failed to recover a single one, +and at length, noticing that the planted grove was becoming thick with +twilight, and glancing at her wrist-watch, she realized that she must +hasten back to the House unless she were to miss tea, and appear more +ungracious than ever. She did not, of course, know of the plan to +rehearse “Noah’s Flood,” for neither Cosgrove nor anyone else had she +seen. Aire had spied her just emerging from the thickets to the lawn. +From the time of her outburst against him, she was not to see her +betrothed again until, when half-way across the lawn a few rods above +the gate-house, she saw him kneeling, as she thought, and dying, as it +proved, beside the small tower. + +All this, certainly, was threadbare to tell by this morning; backward +and forward the courses had been traced until there was disgust at the +_resultlessness_ of it all. But now I returned from Salt to find a new +problem had arisen in the company. Miss Lebetwood (who with Millicent +Mertoun was now engaging in the last of Salt’s private conferences) +had said that since Cosgrove had not found her by the tennis court, it +was extremely unlikely that he had ever looked for her at all; and +once she had uttered these words, every person in the conservatory was +acutely aware what a _non sequitur_ yawning lies in the seemingly +harmless assumption that because a man stares hard and plunges into +some bushes he is of necessity searching for something beyond those +bushes. Well then, what _had_ Cosgrove been doing, and where, from +leaving the Hall until receiving his death-blow by the tower? + +In vain we attempted to make out for him an itinerary which would +account for the afternoon. All that the united company could supply +was one fact sandwiched between two uncertainties, and even that fact +had been offered by the servants’ hall. I may record the items thus: + + First uncertainty: Doctor Aire, who left me alone in the armoury a + good quarter of an hour after Cosgrove departed from the Hall, says + that before seeing Maryvale, he caught a glimpse of what may have + been a human face among some dogwood shrubs a little to the right of + the cypress grove. But whether it was Cosgrove’s face, or that of an + intruder, or “the prodigious Parson’s” (who is so familiar that he + seems no intruder), or whether it was no face at all, Aire refuses + to commit himself. He seems rather inclined to believe himself the + victim of an illusion. The scientific mind, I suppose. (Query—Could + _this_ have been the gorilla-man? If so, we have the first evidence + to substantiate any definite person’s presence about the time and + place of Cosgrove’s death.) + + Fact, from Wheeler, the youthful chauffeur, via Blenkinson’s + document: Cosgrove beckoned to Wheeler from behind a corner of the + garage at about ten minutes past four. Answering the signal, Wheeler + had been conducted to a place out of sight among the decaying + stonework. (Stables and garage occupy part, but not all the site of + the ruined south-east portion of the castle.) “I want no one to + overhear us,” said the Irishman, “and I want you to keep eternally + silent about what I am going to say.” For emphasis he placed a pound + note in Wheeler’s hand. “There will be five more for you at the end + of my stay here if you do what I bid you and hold your tongue.” + Wheeler swore eternal fidelity, and Cosgrove gave his orders. “It’s + almost nothing I want. To-night there will be a foolish + entertainment in the House, and everyone will have the costume of an + animal. The costumes, I know, are in the storerooms on the second + floor. Now, I have a friend who must enter the House to me without + anyone being the wiser. He can come in during the mummery if he has + the appearance of an animal, and I want you to see that he finds his + costume. You know my room?” Wheeler said he did not, and Cosgrove + explained that he occupied the room next the inner conservatory + wall. “The tower there juts out corresponding to the one on the + other side between the Hall of the Moth and the conservatory. At a + quarter past nine I shall drop the costume from the tower window; it + will be an extra progeny for the elephant, or some such vanity. I + want you to be on hand from the time I mentioned until my friend + comes a little later, and I want you to see that he gets into the + costume and into the Hall, where the performance begins about ten. + My friend will also come beneath my window, but I shall no longer be + in my room; so you must be there to meet him.” Wheeler guaranteed + satisfaction, and was sure that he and Cosgrove had not been seen + during this colloquy. (Nor had they been, but they had been heard. + Morgan, overhauling a saddle in a harness-closet just beyond the + wall, could verify the tones of the men’s voices, but had + distinguished none of the sense. In vain, later, he tried to wrest + Wheeler’s secret from him.) + + Second uncertainty: Belvoir believes, but is not prepared to swear, + that just as he and Miss Mertoun and the Baron approached the + gate-house from the direction of Aidenn Water, he saw Cosgrove on + the lawn. Two things make Belvoir doubt if he actually did see the + Irishman or not. First, he was talking about and thinking about + something else at the time, and the sight was no more than a surface + impression, so to speak, on his mind. Furthermore, he may have been + tricked by the twilight, for the huge shadow of the gate-house + reached across the lawn just there, even ascending the wall of the + House part way. If he saw the Irishman in the shadow, the image must + have been extremely vague, for not only is the distance considerable + from where the three were walking, but Cosgrove, it must be borne in + mind, was wearing a black coat and dark blue breeches. Belvoir is + extremely uneasy on the prongs of his dilemma. (Those with him saw + nothing.) Asked what position Cosgrove was in, he answers curiously + enough that if he saw the Irishman at all, he had lifted the canvas + cover part way and was regarding the unexplainable battle-axe. + +But I came past soon afterwards, between then and the time Belvoir and +his party reached the tower—and there was no Cosgrove staring at a +battle-axe then! What does Belvoir’s evidence imply, if it is +evidence? Did the axe leap up and smite him while he gazed, and was he +lying there unnoticed by me when I returned from the cottage of the +sisters Delambre? And that “friend” of Cosgrove’s, who was to come at +a little after a quarter past nine—did he arrive so soon? Precious +little he could have done to harm the Irishman at the appointed time. +If only Wheeler had kept the tryst in the storm, instead of forgetting +it completely in the horror of the night until Blenkinson nagged it +into his memory again! Was this “friend” the same whose indeterminate +face Doctor Aire had perhaps seen, perhaps not? To ask these questions +is to realize how vain they are! Yet if we are to know the obscure, +impalpable limbo of truth that lies behind this man’s death, must we +not know the answers? + +The click of the door-lock startled us in the midst of almost lively +discussion. Paula Lebetwood and her friend re-entered the +conservatory, and Salt stood on the threshold with a thin sheet of +bluish paper in his hand. The American girl was paler than before, +and, I thought, exercising great self-restraint. While she took her +seat beside me, I could see the tremors pass along her throat with +each breath. But her eyes were staring at the Superintendent, and my +glance followed hers. + +Salt said, “This paper, I expect, is Mr. Cosgrove’s Will and +Testament.” He held it up for us to grasp at; it was a single +translucent page, a tiny thing to dictate the disposal of great +riches. “With Miss Lebetwood’s permission—I mean by her request—I’m +goin’ to read it to you.” + +“One moment,” darted in his Lordship as Salt was about to begin +without taking breath: “don’t you know that it is highly irregular to +read a copy of a Will until all the legatees—” + +“You’ll see why, sir, in a minute. Besides, this is sure to be the +original of the Will, and all the heirs happen to be present!” + +“Eh?” + +“There’s not much to it, you might say, sir. And Miss Lebetwood +particularly wants there to be no misunderstanding.” + +Forthwith, in that zone of awe, he read the instrument, dated two +months ago. It contained fewer than two hundred words. I do not know +which to admire most, the clear-cut terseness of it, or the hard +cynical sense of its incidental comments, such as, “my body to be +buried as soon as possible after my death and as near as practicable +to the place of my death, with the least emolument to lawyers, +priests, and undertakers.” And withal, according to those of us who +have scanned the law most thoroughly, the Will is adamant to any who +may attempt to break it. + +As for its sense, it devises Cosgrove’s entire fortune to Miss +Lebetwood “for her own absolute use and benefit without exception, +limitation, reservation or condition, forever.” Cosgrove’s brother, +mentioned as having self-denied a share in the estate, is made sole +executor. Rather pathetic, those words: + + “IRELAND DELIVERED is the cross in whose sign I would conquer; but + should I die, without me I know the good work can never go on. + Therefore to her who is, or is to be, my dearest helpmeet and sharer + of these the Lord’s bounties, best fit to use them wisely, I + bequeath all my worldly goods.” + +Salt gave us a few breaths to absorb the shock of this overpowering +disclosure. I was almost clean stupefied, but I confess that a feeling +of despondency came over me at that moment. It was not, of course, +that I grudged Paula Lebetwood the fortune _for herself_. But I had +supposed, in what brief moments I had thought of it, that Cosgrove’s +money would have gone to fight Cosgrove’s good fight, even though a +losing one. The lines of that fine poem recurred to me: + + “They went forth to battle but they always fell: + Their eyes were set above the sullen shields.” + +No, that had not been this Irishman’s philosophy; the great cause must +wait now for the next great man. + +The women had instantly begun to crowd about Miss Lebetwood with +exclamations of surprise and pleasure, a flutter of congratulation +which must have been an ordeal for the American girl. + +Salt extracted from a side pocket an envelope whose flap he loosened +with a pencil. He made the round of the room so that each of us could +see what was inside. “Paper-ash, this is sure to be. It was all there +was in Mr. Cosgrove’s grate. Not a word legible, but one or two blank +bits didn’t get burned, as you see. . . . Now, there’s no paper like +that anywhere in the house; Mr. Pendleton will go surety for it. It’s +different paper from the ‘Lochinvar’ bit. I was wonderin’ if any of +you ladies and gentlemen had some like it—could explain the note, +perhaps.” + +But not even Eve Bartholomew could help the Superintendent now. + +Salt turned to Crofts. “It couldn’t have been in the post, you say?” + +Crofts answered doggedly, “Cosgrove never got any mail.” + +“For a man who never got any mail, he had a tidy bit of mysterious +correspondence. Well, I see I shall have to wait a bit before I find +what little secret was here.” He looked at his large silver watch. +“Thank you very much, all. I don’t think I’ll need to trouble any of +you again soon; so I’ll just take this opportunity to give you a +suggestion, and maybe a bit o’ reassurance. There are a good many +folks we haven’t located that must have somethin’ to do with this +case. You all know about Sir Brooke—Mortimer, I think it is; well, I’m +telegraphin’ for full particulars of him from wherever he came from, +and havin’ a look-out made for him. There are two men Mr. Bannerlee +ran across the night he came that I want to find, and also it seems +that those Frenchwomen, the Delambres, aren’t on their patch of land. +Through one of these outside channels, we’ll come upon a solution. And +that means simply routine police work. However, if I were you, I’d not +go about separately very far from the House, and just for precaution’s +sake you might lock your doors and windows. No alarm, you +understand—only you’ll feel safer. Doctor Niblett will hold the +inquest as soon as possible. I shall probably be here a good bit for +the next few days, and I trust, with the kind permission of Mr. +Pendleton, that you will not end your visits until I am certain-sure +you can’t assist me.” + +“Only too glad, Superintendent to have them all stay until you’ve +cornered the brute,” said Crofts between his teeth. Then, becoming +expansive, he looked about with a satisfied air. “Well, I’m beginning +to think this won’t be a Scotland Yard case after all. And it’s one of +those outsiders surely. Crazy to think it could be any of us.” + +Suddenly a strange voice was in the room. “And I, Mr. Pendleton, +believe in the possible implication of everyone here, including +myself.” Paula Lebetwood said the words, unlike any speech we had +heard from her lips, a terribly controlled utterance, toneless, as if +some insentient thing had spoken. She stood up. The tremor of her +throat was still. + +“Of yourself, dearest?” cried Miss Mertoun. “How awful to say such a +thing!” + +“Of yourself!” echoed half a dozen voices. + +She was looking straight ahead, sightlessly. “Isn’t it too clear for +words? Can’t you understand how _I_ feel?—how I have felt all these +weeks? It rests on me, don’t you see? How can I ever touch a cent that +was his until his killer has paid for his death? Oh, I’ve felt it ever +since he told me—told me he was going to make his Will—” Her eyes +darkened, and the first tinge of feeling came into her voice: +bitterness. “I was a fool. I should have told him—then.” + +Miss Mertoun came over, leaned her cheek against Paula’s, recalling to +me that first scene by the tower on the lawn. “Paula, _dearest_.” +Gently she pressed the American girl back into her seat, soothed her +with soft little speeches, almost made her smile. + +Suddenly Mrs. Bartholomew lifted her head, an expression of +penetrative power on her face, as if she were probing beyond the realm +of sense. She made a quick outreaching gesture with her hands, +withdrew them, clasped them in her lap. She began to speak once, but +checked herself. Then: + +“I have the eeriest feeling, but it is strong, so _strong_!” + +“What feeling do you mean?” asked Alberta Pendleton with bated breath. + +Eve Bartholomew’s eyes were shining wide. “That Sir Brooke is _here_, +_now_, among us!” + +She stirred us. We pitied her then, in silence. Whatever he had been +to her, or she to him— + +She turned to the window close beside her. “This flood may end +to-morrow, but it’s the act of Providence all the same!” + +“Oh, come, Mrs. Bartholomew,” protested Belvoir’s soft voice. “It’s +deuced inconvenient; no two ways about that. We may have to take +spades and bury our poor friend here on the spot if it keeps up.” + +“That was his wish, wasn’t it?” she retorted. “I say this sundering +flood has been our one blessing. How shall the guilty escape now, if +he is not one of us? And if he _is_ one of us—” Her eyes beneath that +lustrous black hair shone like gems in a mine. “If he _is_, he will +betray himself before the flood goes down!” + +“Bravo!” exclaimed Lord Ludlow. “Madam, I applaud you. You have +feeling, and I respect you for it.” + +Miss Lebetwood raised her voice to the man across the room. “That +sounds like an indictment of me, sir.” + +“Never!” + +The American went on. “I suppose I seem to have no grief, no feeling. +I am passionless; oh, yes! I tell you I am devoted to only one thing, +the finding of the murderer. My task commences to-day, this hour, now. +I see by the look on all your faces, and one of them still may be a +murderer’s face, that you are shocked. No, I have sorrow; I am not +hard-hearted, save for a purpose. I have sorrow—you will never know +how much—but I must get it behind me.” + +The easy tones of Superintendent Salt intervened. “Miss, I wouldn’t +feel so. Everyone is heartily takin’ your part. Why you should think +otherwise I don’t know. And have no doubt of one thing: we shall get +at the heart of this mystery soon.” + +“We must,” said Eve Bartholomew. “The innocent suffer as well as the +guilty.” + +“I am now going to make a careful inspection of the House,” said Salt. +“I got the lay of the land before turnin’ in last night, but now, +ladies and gentlemen, I shall take the liberty of lookin’ through your +rooms. Mr. Pendleton, I particularly want to see those store-places +Mr. Cosgrove evidently had a fancy for, and the cellars. Plenty of +cellars, of course?” + +“Plenty. And a sub-cellar no one’s been in since before we bought the +property.” + +“Have you any idea what’s down there?” + +“How should I know? Nothing, I suppose. And anyhow, the trap-covers +are locked with padlocks and sealed with an inch of dust.” + +“Ah, well,” said Salt good-naturedly, “I don’t think I’ll make you +sweep ’em off and unlock ’em. Only take me where they are.” + +Again while he and Pendleton made their way from the conservatory, I +was assailed with doubt concerning the confident Salt. Was he to +fumble the case after all? For it seemed to me in trying to resolve an +enigma so baffling, no opening ought to be ignored. And the +Superintendent was, to say the least, eclectic, when he chose not to +enter the sub-cellars. + +A hand was laid on my shoulder. I looked up, and was held by those +eyes with their unsearchable gleam, Maryvale’s. + +“How will they ever solve this riddle and set this wrong aright, if +they forget the spanning and roofing of the waters, and the deathless +arm?” + +“I do not understand you, Mr. Maryvale.” + +“What were Sir Pharamond’s words? ‘Let traitors beware!’ Mr. +Bannerlee, remember, sir, that they never found the arm of Sir +Pharamond—and his tomb in old Aidenn Church attests it.” + +“What on earth do you mean?” + +“Oh, Gilbert has a theory all his own,” laughed Belvoir in a friendly +manner. “It has absolute novelty to recommend it, and artistic value. +It’s the artistic side that appeals to you, isn’t it, Gilbert?” + +“Truth appeals to me as well.” + +“Well, really—truth!” + +“What is your theory, Mr. Maryvale?” I asked with an attempt to +disregard the twinges of apprehension that I felt in his presence. + +“I have no theory: I have the key.” + +“Gilbert means that the corporeal, material, substantial right arm of +Sir Pharamond Kay, builder of the castle which now is Highglen House, +has risen from its cerements and laid a certain party low. Isn’t that +about it, Gilbert?” + +“It is all you need to know.” + +“But what’s that about the proof being in Old Aidenn Church?” + +Belvoir gave a sly chuckle. “Go there some afternoon and have a look +for yourself, Mr. Bannerlee. Old Aidenn is only three miles beyond New +Aidenn, and both of ’em happen to be as old as Doomsday.” + +“It’s as sound, anyhow, as Crofts’ idea that a murderer couldn’t +escape from Aidenn Vale,” remarked Aire. + +For my part, I looked first at Maryvale’s stooped retreating bulk, and +then at the other two men, who solemnly looked at me. We did not +speak, but the same thought must have been in all of us. The servants +might understandably be shy of strange forms in the dark, but what was +to become of _us_, if we began gravely to discuss wee grey-bearded men +with voices like honey, or pixies perched on toadstools? + +Young Bob Cullen had strayed to the window, was watching the +raindrops, now meandering slowly, now darting down the pane. + +“Talk about Noah’s Flood,” he growled. + +“Forty days he had of it,” mused Lib Dale. “If this keeps up forty +minutes more, I’ll be dotty. Oh, look!” + +The whole conservatory thrilled with light. A golden-green path lay +shimmering across the lawn. It had ceased to rain. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The Weapon + +Suddenly, and very softly, Superintendent Salt was among us once more. +I knew of his presence only when I heard him speak. + +“My Lord, one more question, if you please. The man—Soames I believe +his name is—who has just conducted me to the cellars says you gave him +a letter to post last evening.” + +“I did—confound him! I handed it to him and expressed a wish that if +the storm should cease as suddenly as it commenced, it might reach New +Aidenn in time to go out in this morning’s post. Of course, when the +downpour showed no sign of abating, I had it back.” + +“I presumed so, my Lord. In that case, I shall have to see the letter, +with your permission.” + +“And that you certainly shall not!” + +Salt was like the everlasting hills. “Only the envelope, my Lord. The +superscription is all I need to see.” + +After a long ten-seconds’ hesitation Lord Herbert drew a letter from +his breast-pocket and held it close to the Superintendent’s face. Salt +peered. + +“Hm. Is that it? Seems to be. Stamp uncancelled. To the Bangor and +Newcastle Corporation, eh? 12 Gate Street, London, E. C. Very +innocent, I’m sure, my Lord. Thank you.” + +I saw the quick purple flash into the Baron’s face when Salt read +aloud the words intended only for his eye. “I consider this an +impertinence, sir.” + +“To be called things is all in my day’s work, my Lord,” responded +Salt, and turning to Pendleton, he said, “You ought to open a little +Post Office here.” + +“What on earth for?” + +“For surreptitious mail.” + +“Bangor and Newcastle Corporation,” I could not help repeating +puzzledly, half-aloud, I fear. “What on earth connection can there be +between little Bangor with its agriculture and Druid Circle, and the +coal and battleships of Newcastle-on-Tyne?” + +Ludlow said nothing, but I observed in his eye and in the hook of his +bloodless lip a sublime contempt for my ignorance. + +But at that moment everyone save me was looking toward the door +leading to the Hall of the Moth, which had opened sufficiently to +admit first the head and then the rest of Blenkinson. Again the look +of transcendence appeared natural, even casual on his person. +Spiritual transcendence, that is, for bodily he was in great +bedragglement, as if he had wallowed in the rain just before it ended. + +“Mr. Salt, I beg to report that the weapon ’as been found. I ’ave left +it where I and Finlay discovered it, almost—” + +I think the feeling of elation that visited me was shared by nearly +everyone in the conservatory. I saw faces brightening. But Salt’s did +not. + +The Superintendent gave one leap toward Blenkinson, cutting him dead +off in the midst of his glory. + +“Mr. Blenkinson, your admirable researches—invaluable +assistance—indispensable services—fill me with alarm. Please be more +discreet. Inform me in private of your discoveries, and let _me_ be +the judge whether they are to be shared by these ladies and gentlemen. +For, mind you, _technically_, every person here is under suspicion—and +that goes for you, too, Mr. Blenkinson. You may, or may not, be +revealin’ something valuable to the murderer himself.” + +Under this withering sardonic fire the smug efficiency of the butler +had fallen ingloriously. “I’m—‘gulp’—very sorry, sir, but—‘gulp’—the +fact is, I was so helated—‘gulp’—that I—” + +“Quite,” agreed Salt; “quite. And now, Mr. Blenkinson, if you please, +lead the way to this weapon, whatever it is.” He thrust the butler +before him through the door into the Hall, and looked back upon the +threshold. “Kindly do not let your curiosity to see Mr. Blenkinson’s +find tempt you to follow us, any of you. Thank you.” The door closed. + +The weapon found! Tongues were wagging anew. I thought of the +difference between Salt’s previous assurance to us that the solution +was to be sought among the many missing persons, and his recent +proclamation that no one in the House was exempt as a possible +murderer. Then in the midst of the babble came a still voice close +behind me. I turned; Doctor Aire was leaning over the piano, his +abbreviated form easily sheltering underneath the lifted cover. + +“Mr. Bannerlee, how about a stroll up the Vale, now it promises fair +weather? Mr. Salt has admonished us to go in pairs.” + +“Up the Vale—now? You must be emulating Noah himself, Doctor! The +waters haven’t yet descended from Ararat.” + +“I want to get rid of this cursed miasma of flowers. It’s like some +noxious emanation. My head aches with odours.” + +“But surely it’s out of the question. Why, after this +downpour, the Vale’s certain to be swampland all the way up to +Water-break-its-neck.” + +The yellowy doctor shook his head, smiling. “Strange, but you’re +wrong. You should really dig into the lore of this region, Mr. +Bannerlee. The Welsh name of our locality, I have read, is Maesyfed.” + +“Oh? Meaning?” + +“The absorbent field, probably. For the thirsty soil does wonders +after rain; in summer even Aidenn Water sinks underground for long +distances and leaves its channel dry.” + +“Well, I’m in favour of getting out of here if it can be done.” + +“It can; I know from previous visits. We’ll give the sun and soil a +couple of hours to restore dry footing.” + +“Well enough. I’ll meet you in the library.” + +Salt re-entered just then and took Aire away with a few whispered +words. I wandered into the dinner-room where stragglers were sitting +at belated luncheon, for since yesterday’s disaster the schedule of +meals seems to have fallen into anarchy. I did not stay long at the +board, however; perhaps the fumes of the conservatory had stopped the +pangs of appetite. I excused myself and crossed to the armoury, +intending first to glance over the array of the library shelves in the +hope of discovering something of interest, then to go to my room and +set down some of the multitudinous details of last night and to-day. + +But I never got as far as the library. I heard a strenuous young voice +through its door ajar: + +“Ah, g’wan. You make me laugh—_you_. When they put a lily in your +hand, you’ll deserve the Good Boy’s Epitaph.” + +“What’s that?” demanded Bob suspiciously. + +“‘He loved his grandmother.’” + +“You think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, I wasn’t crazy about this +Cosgrove. I would have been ready to do him in. He was no good for +Paula, even if he did have all that coin. He was a fast worker, that’s +what he was. I guess you ought to know. He was a dirty bum.” + +“‘Swine’ is what you say in this country.” + +“I said I’d have polished him off, and I meant it. Wouldn’t you?” + +“Hush up, Bobby. Keep that stuff under your hat. You don’t want +somebody to overhear you talking crazy, do you?” + +“Well, wouldn’t you?” + +Lib lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “Yes, I would, for a brick +like Paula. My God, what a man Cosgrove was! And she fell for him!” +Then, “Change the subject, change the subject! To hear you talk like +that would give an alligator nervous prostration. Suppose a few of +those detectives were in the armoury.” + +There was a spell of silence, sharply broken by Lib. “Leggo my hand! +What do you think this is, a golf links?” + +“You tol’ me to change the subject,” said Bob with deep grievance. + +“Don’t be sil. Say, I think there _is_ somebody in there. Look quick.” + +But I had fled into the corridor and, laughing heartily within, was +half-way up the stairs. + +In my room I immersed myself in that task of writing which has become +almost my principal interest. I quite lost track of time while I wrote +of Salt’s arrival last evening and the rest of it. With a start I +recalled Aire, looked at my watch, and leaped down the stairs. It was +nearly four. + +The short, spindly-legged man was waiting, and with a touch of +annoyance I saw that Maryvale was consulting some book in a corner of +the library, a book which he put down upon my arrival as if he +expected to accompany us. + +“Gilbert has consented to come along.” + +“Oh? Glad.” + +The sky was unblemished with cloud when we set out for that supposedly +uneventful walk in the bracing hill-air, but the sun had sloped nearly +to the high horizon of the ridge, and the light already had in it a +subtle infiltration of yellow. Some jewels still glittered on the +lawn, but the turf was surprisingly firm and pleasant to the tread. + +We struck under the shade of the cypresses; through the systematic +“wilderness” of planted trees we strode, toward the pretentious +bridge, past the mouldering eighteenth-century summer-house, a thing +quite dismantled and defeated and gutted out. Once I had fancied it as +a possible hiding-place for mysterious visitants, but now I rejected +it utterly. The old smooth lawns there were now ragged stretches of +rough grass, still heavy with the rain where they lay beneath any +trees, and sluggish lake-like ponds were the remains of once sparkling +basins. + +Aire paused where a grey fallen statue and its pedestal lay beside one +of these sad meres, a place where the trees had hunched their +shoulders together to make an extra twilight shade. + +“About here, they say, a former occupant of the mansion, the one who +built that summer-house, was found.” + +“How found?” + +“Dead, Mr. Bannerlee, with his head neatly shorn away from the rest of +him. That was nearly two hundred years ago.” He grunted. “The chap +_ought_ to have been killed for putting up that thing.” + +“Good heavens! Who had done it?” + +“I wish I could tell you. He was never discovered. I don’t think the +victim was a very popular gentleman; so there may have been connivance +in keeping the secret locked away. A baffling affair it must have been +for the Salts of that day. The time-and-space problem was mystifying +then as now it is in Cosgrove’s death.” + +I looked curiously at the little man with the broad shoulders. +“Doctor, you certainly hit upon the queerest tales. Where could you +have found that recorded?” + +“On a special pasted-in leaf of an old family Bible. Quite a +fascinating library Crofts owns without comprehending it.” + +“This is accursed ground,” said Maryvale. “It reeks with lawless +bloodshed.” + +We left the park with its sickly poetry and bore to the right by a +field-path toward the prosaic potato-patch of the sisters Delambre, +where the scarecrow bore almost too great a likeness to Baron Ludlow +in his tweeds to be laid to coincidence. It was here that the brook +later spanned by the absurd bridge came down from the indentation of +the hill. We followed the narrow channel, where the rain-swollen +stream now leaped against its banks, to where the deserted cottage +stood in an oak-clump. The morsel of a stone-roofed house gave only a +shy peep from its covert; it was like a doll’s house, dwarfed by +overshadowing branches. + +“Do you think it possible that these women were concerned either last +night or the night before? What were they like?” + +“Cranky Frenchwomen. I’ve seen them on previous visits,” answered +Aire. “They always gave me the impression of being a couple of—well, I +might say unfrocked nuns, if you understand.” + +“Sounds rather ambiguous, Doctor,” I remarked. + +I was suddenly put in mind of a tale I had heard in another spot of +demon-haunted Wales, and I told it with some gusto. There two sisters +had lived together and managed a small farm with the aid of one man. +They were unfamiliar people and the country-folk were turned askance +to them. The pair would vanish at a particular time of day, and their +hats would be hanging in their bedrooms upon the looking-glass. One +afternoon the farmhand hid under their bed to find out their secret. +He saw them take off their caps and hang them on the glass, whereupon +they themselves immediately turned to cats, and ran to the dairy and +began lapping the cream. + +A somewhat dubious look upon Aire’s face as he gazed at Maryvale +during my recital was, I fear, lost on me, for it gave me a thrilling +pleasure to apply this tale to the sisters Delambre, particularly +since in that grimalkin of appalling voice they had a fit companion +for many an impious Sabbath. + +“And by the way,” I concluded, “the beast spared us its caterwauling +last night.” + +“Last night, but not to-night,” said Maryvale. “It will be hungrier +than ever to-night. We shall hear it, unless—” + +“Unless what?” + +“We shall see,” he parried. + +“It’s a vicious beast, if ever there was one,” said Aire, looking in +one of the cottage windows. “It’s twice the size you’d believe it +could attain. There’s never been any other cat in the Vale whose nine +lives were worth sixpence when this animal discovered its presence.” + +“And the birds,” added Maryvale. “The nightingales that once loved +this valley so—scarcely one is left.” + +Returning toward Aidenn Water at a point somewhat further north, we +heard from beyond a gnarl of blackberry bushes the sound of footsteps +and voices which proved to be those of Salt, wearing rubber boots, and +of Hughes the keeper. They were making their way up the stream by the +principal path, and I noticed that Hughes bore an axe of considerable +heft. + +Salt greeted us while we fell into step. “Sensible to get out of +doors.” + +“But you’re not here for your health, I fancy,” said Aire. + +“I am not. Mr. Hughes here and I are going to devote the last hour of +daylight to satisfyin’ ourselves about traces of the assassin on the +other side of the Vale. We’ve scoured north, south, east, and west on +this side of the stream, and never a footprint of him or anybody else. +Mr. Pendleton seemed a bit anxious we shouldn’t overlook the chance, +and it is a chance.” + +“What is that axe for?” suddenly demanded Maryvale. + +“To chop down a tree, sir,” answered Hughes. “I know where I can make +one fall across the Water. It’s the only way to get over.” + +“I thought as much,” I said. “What, just, is the state of things down +at the bridge?” + +“There isn’t a trace of it left, sir,” Salt informed me. “Sometime +last night the stone ends were undermined by the current. There are +men on the other side, though, riggin’ up a makeshift, and to-morrow, +maybe, if the stream goes down reasonably, we can get out of here, and +get Mr. Cosgrove’s body out, too.” + +Hughes pointed to the north, where the zigzag path down the mountain +had been obliterated by the landslip. “Men from Penybont beyond the +Forest are coming from the other side to clear that up to-morrow, +too.” + +“Well, someone must have been moving heaven and earth!” + +“Yes, sir; Mr. Pendleton was quite busy on the ’phone this afternoon.” + +“That telephone is not the least of our miracles,” I observed. “I +should have expected the line to be smashed to smithereens by the +storm.” + +“Our wires run underground, sir,” said the keeper. + +“What!” + +“Yes, sir, all the way to New Aidenn. There was too much trouble with +it the other way; so Mr. Pendleton had it changed. Now nothing ever +interferes with it.” + +I remembered something. “To bring into this discussion an element +sadly wanting—” + +“What’s that?” + +“Disclosures. Tell me, Superintendent, does the pall of official +secrecy still cover the weapon discovered by the astute Blenkinson?” + +“Not much use trying to keep anything secret hereabout,” said Salt +with a smile, which made me wonder what recent discoveries actually +reposed undivulged beneath that sodden hat and those iron-grey curly +locks. “The lid is off that little matter.” + +“It _is_ the weapon? What had Blenkinson found?” + +“A piece of angular slate, well shaped for holdin’, provided with an +almost sharp edge. Queer, isn’t it? Here’s a chap—I mean the guilty +party—helped himself to what he wanted out of the armoury the night +before; now, when he’s in a killin’ mood, he fetches along a stone. +Plenty of rock like it in the Vale, of course. Seems likely, though, +that it was picked up from that gimcrack rockery old Finlay wants to +get rid of—just opposite the tower where Cosgrove was found.” + +“You’re sure it’s the instrument?” I asked. + +Salt looked at Aire, who said, “The Superintendent called in Doctor +Niblett and me for our opinions on that point. The Coroner and I agree +that in the hands of a vigorous person, who must have approached +Cosgrove secretly from behind, the stone might well have done the +damage.” + +“But where was it lying?” I asked, with incredulity sounding in my +tone. “How could we have missed it?” + +“It wasn’t lyin’ anywhere,” answered Salt. “That’s a feature about it. +It was embedded, sir, almost buried among the flowers outside the +central windows of the Hall. If the rain hadn’t played hob with the +beds, and the man Finlay with Mr. Blenkinson hadn’t been assessin’ the +damage, it might have remained there unnoticed for a tidy while.” + +“By Jove, though, that’s a far-fetched hiding-place.” + +Salt raised his brows. “Is it? I think it was a clever one, sir. One +second he strikes the blow, the next he hurls the weapon straight down +into the loam. Inside half a minute he may be anywhere, and nothin’ to +connect him with the crime. Just a little more energy, and the earth +would have fallen in about the edges and covered the stone completely. +But as it was it must have taken strength, gigantic strength.” + +“It must have taken superhuman strength, Mr. Salt. Why, there had been +rain, but it blew a bit easterly then, and those beds couldn’t have +got much of it. It was nothing like last night’s inundation. The +ground must have been hard.” + +“On the contrary, the ground was exceedingly soft. Remember what it +said in Mr. Blenkinson’s document, sir. Finlay had been waterin’ those +very beds, and waterin’ ’em plenty after four o’clock.” + +“Were there any marks on this stone?” asked Maryvale. “Any signs such +as I understand often guide the police in their search?” + +“No, sir, none. And—” + +“I thought so.” + +Ignoring this somewhat cryptic remark, Salt explained: “Unpolished +stone isn’t a good medium for takin’ impressions. I’ll stake my little +finger, though, it was the stone that finished Mr. Cosgrove.” + +“Here we turn off, sir,” advised Hughes. + +We had been in sight of Aidenn Water much of the time, its cheerful +flow increased to boiling spate. Through a partly cleared copse of +larch, we could see it now, laughing with white teeth and greedy +gurgle along a sort of rapids. The particular tree Hughes intended to +chop was visible, already leaning half across the flood. + +Somewhat to my discomfiture, Aire announced that he intended to +accompany the pair across the stream. “Don’t mind, do you, Bannerlee? +I want to be in at the death of Pendleton’s theory. Or will you two +come along with us? Any objection, Superintendent?” + +“More the merrier,” said Salt. + +But I cared nothing for the death of any theory compared with my +eagerness to get farther north and see the great ruin beneath the +hills again. Maryvale had no love for the thought of crossing above +the churlish Water on a tree-trunk, and said so. We left the three +proceeding to the bank of the stream, but I confess it was with a pang +of premonition that I paced beside the man of business and heard the +sound of the lusty axe grow fainter and fainter. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The Fiendish Cat of the Sisters Delambre + +For half an hour we walked on almost in silence, making the tritest +remarks about our surroundings, particularly those peaks which shut in +the valley ahead of us, from Great Rhos on the left across Black Mixen +to Mynydd Tarw on our right. We now saw only a broken secant of the +sun, and most of our light was reflected from the golden tops of the +hills. Maryvale for some reason maintained an unusually sharp +look-out, glancing restlessly every way among the glades. + +Almost before I was aware, we had reached the outer of those dejected +and scattered walls for so many centuries lying the prey of the +elements and the spoil of house-builders and church-builders from down +the Vale and beyond. + +Some of these still remained high enough to show the embrasures where +the upper windows had been, tall, slender apertures, one of them far +on the other side even now perfect in the stonework of transom and +mullions and semi-rounded arch. It was indeed the ruin of a knightly +house, once spacious and splendid. The fallen walls seemed to have +been struck or hurled outward by some terrific force or inward +convulsion, as if behemoth had stirred and heaved himself from beneath +the floor. + +Flanking the walls to the left, where I had come past two nights ago +and encountered the menagerie-keeper, I peered inside, over a +chin-high portion, and gave an exclamation of surprise. The thick +walls had indeed been hurled down from within. The vast flat slabs of +the floor, what few of them remained, were tossed in disorder, and the +earth on which they lay was piled in fantastic heaps alongside deep, +irregular trenches—all grass-grown now, of course. A few bushes and +one enormous beech tree found livelihood inside the wall. + +For a couple of minutes Maryvale had been standing quiet behind me, +peering this way and that in the twilight, as if he looked for some +particular object. + +“This gutted carcass makes me fancy things,” I laughed. “Come, +Maryvale, sweep the spider-webs out of my mind by flourishing +vigorously the broom of truth. In other words, relate to me something +about this place, and pity on your life if it’s the old story of +‘deflor’d by Glindur.’” + +“Why, haven’t you heard?” + +“If I did it went in one ear and out the other. Say on.” + +I braced my hands on the broken top of the wall and leaped up, making +my seat there. Maryvale joined me with very little effort, and we sat +there kicking our heels schoolboy-like. + +Again I saw him look about very intently, under the beeches, through +the gaps between the stones, across the scrub growth between us and +Aidenn Water a quarter of a mile distant. + +“What are you looking for, Maryvale?” + +“Sathanas.” + +“This place is too thinly populated, my friend. Come, what of this +ancient hold? Bring on your heroes and cravens, your demigods and +dastards.” + +“Gwrn darw—the pile of contention,” muttered Maryvale, and he launched +on the story. + +I had expected another farrago of myth and tradition, perhaps larded +with the same episodes that Hughes had spellbound us with in the +dinner-room yesterday morning. Instead it was a fairly plausible story +from some wholly different source, this account of the first +historical building in Aidenn Vale. I enjoyed listening to the +narrative; Maryvale enjoyed telling it. Gusto was the keynote of his +voice, with its rapid utterance and changes of inflection. He made +drama of it, and a valiant man of Sir Pharamond. + +“Why, Maryvale, where did you learn all this?” + +“This is history,” he affirmed solemnly. + +Moreover, he was beginning to peer about again, turning more than once +in his speech to stare beneath the branches of the trees. That feeling +of repugnance to Maryvale which I had before experienced returned +hazily, and of a sudden I realized how lonely this place was, how +close to us the hills were, and how dark and steep. I might instantly +have urged our return had not my own roving glance caught a black +object protruding from a bush inside the wall. + +I broke in. “Look! Here’s evidence the world’s a madhouse!” + +Down inside the wall I slipped, crossed to the bush, and triumphantly +held high the black umbrella. + +“He was real, Maryvale! He was no nightmare!” + +While I unfastened the loop and opened the umbrella, Maryvale dropped +from his seat and came beside me. He asked me what this was, where it +came from, and whom I had met here, all in a breath. + +“This is a clue, man!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps it has some +manufacturer’s mark—what’s the matter?” + +I could no more have released my arm from Maryvale’s grip than from +the strongest vise. But in a moment his hand relaxed, and then I +caught sight of what he was looking at so hard. + +On the northern wall, twice the height of that whereupon we had been +sitting, crept something darker than the hills against which its form +was obscure. Softly, swiftly, the form slunk along the stones, then +gave a leap to the arched summit of that one perfect window and stood +still, its head lifted, its form now stark against the sky—the form of +an enormous cat, lean and lithe and tigerish. + +Maryvale was breathing loudly. I gave him a swift look; his face was +working, and with his eyes set on the cat of the sisters Delambre, he +drew from a hip pocket the last thing on earth I should have imagined +him to carry, a large revolver, one of the sort called in America, I +believe, a six-shooter. + +But the hideous expression of his face was more alarming still. + +Here was a combination of circumstances I did not envisage hopefully: +the lonely spot, the great cat, the man apparently unbalanced by the +sight of the beast, and the revolver. I had only the umbrella. + +Not a little afraid, I sought safety in valour. I reached out my hand. + +“May I see that, Mr. Maryvale?” + +He let me have the weapon without demur, and while I examined the +deadly thing, I saw out of the corner of my eye that his attention was +still riveted on the shape of the cat. I hesitated to break into that +almost hypnotic absorption. + +Perhaps a minute passed. I had put down the umbrella. + +Then from the gloaming woods that fringed the mountain foot welled a +sound like a bright bubble bursting into a hundred bubbles, a sound +like the spray of a sweet fountain—the song of a nightingale from the +deep solitudes of Black Mixen. + +“The nightingale of Water-break-its-neck,” I thought, for I had heard +someone speak of this lonely music-maker. + +The form of the cat stiffened; gradually it sank to a crouching +posture, as if its prey were near at hand. Then tail and head went up, +and its jaws were sharp against the sky, and the valley bristled with +its starved and destructive yowl. + +Maryvale was a man transformed from trance to action. Spasmodically he +felt his pocket for the pistol, then recollected me. His voice was +jumbled with the cry of the beast. + +“Give me that gun.” + +“Wouldn’t it be better—” + +His utterance was quickly controlled to a whisper. “Give me that gun. +I am going to perform a humane act. I came here for this.” + +“But, Mr. Maryvale—” + +“Don’t you understand?” he burst out. “I will free the soul of a ghoul +from its tenement!” He grabbed the pistol from my hand. + +“For God’s sake—!” + +“I am the best shot in the Midlands with one of these.” He raised the +weapon with a marksman’s care and confidence. + +The animal, surprised by our voices, had reared its head in our +direction, and now, instead of making off, scrambled down from the +window arch and came loping toward us, growling, as if it actually +contemplated an attack. Its fur on end swelled it to twice its size. +Maryvale shifted his aim quickly, and the clustering hills resounded +with the echo of his shot. + +But the cat, unhurt, sprang toward us spitting and snarling, with eyes +that flashed. I realized when I saw those intensely flaming eyes that +green, not red, must be the colour of hell-fire. + +Again the revolver blazed, with no effect save to cause the beast to +give a high leap toward Maryvale, full length upright, all fours +spread wide and clawing, mouth hissing. Maryvale shot point-blank in +the face of the animal, and the beast was enveloped in a fiery cloud, +but it dropped to earth on all fours, fled unscathed past us, and +disappeared beneath a bush. + +Maryvale lifted his hands to the dark and empty sky. “Too strong—too +strong—the infernal magic of this place.” + +I took a step toward the man, grasped the weapon, tugged to get it +from him, cried, “What did you expect? You’ve loaded this pistol with +blank cartridges.” + +“Blanks?” he shouted. “Never a bit.” + +Twenty feet away a straggling thin branch of a rowan tree came over +the western wall and was ebony against the sky, having at the end some +finger-clumps of leaves. Maryvale took quick aim, eyes protruding +grotesquely, and fired; the branch trembled and one of the leaf stems +fell away. Twice again the pistol rang out; the branch itself suddenly +hung down, all but severed by the final bullet. + +Maryvale laughed wildly with tempestuous eyes. “I should have known it +was impossible. You cannot kill the soul of Parson Lolly with lead.” + +He threw away the weapon, went lunging along the wall. I followed, +took him by the shoulder. + +“Maryvale—” + +But he thrust me off, violently, and began to run. I fell with my knee +against a stone, and when I arose my chagrin was great, for apart from +the pain my leg had gone almost dead, and I could scarcely hobble. +Maryvale had found a gap between the stones, leaped through, and +charged down the Vale. When I had managed to drag myself out from the +enclosure, he was beyond sight and hearing. I shouted his name many +times; no answer came back. + +I knew that lamed as I was I must get down the Vale as soon as +possible, for there was no telling what the man might do in this +demented state. He might even have another gun. + +The cat the incarnation of Parson Lolly! Then the realization leaped +on me. What would they say, those in the House, when they were told +that none of the three bullets had done the beast any harm! + +So stunned I was by this lightning-stroke that without knowing what I +did or being aware of my injured knee, I walked on with my brain in a +storm of confusion. When, some time later, I was rid of the shock, but +still wondering, I had gone half a mile and my knee was almost +painless. + +I commenced to run. + +Ten minutes late I encountered Doctor Aire, who fell in beside me +while I gasped what had happened. + +“I was a fool,” he panted. “Fool to leave him alone with you. He was +excited—upset—I saw—that when you were telling—that story down by the +cottage. You’ll have to—go on alone. I can’t—keep up.” + +He dropped behind, and the last thing I heard him say was, “I couldn’t +foresee—a miracle.” + +Talking winded me. I was spent when I reached the summer-house, and +could scarcely walk to the mansion. + +Alone in the Hall of the Moth I found Mrs. Belvoir sitting, rather +pointlessly, it seemed. + +“Maryvale—here?” + +“Yes, Mr. Bannerlee.” + +“Where?” + +“Upstairs. They all followed him when he came in. He is in his room.” + +“Was he violent? Why did they go after him?” + +“Not exactly violent, no. But I don’t think it’s worth while following +him any more.” + +I checked my foot on the threshold. “What do you mean, Mrs. Belvoir?” + +“A personality balanced on a knife-edge is never safe. Poor Gilbert +was too rash when he tempted the Influences in this valley. His mind +is gone, for certain.” + +“Influences?” + +“Of course there are Influences. I can feel them myself. Gilbert is +only the first to give in.” + +I left this placid lady and made what speed I could up the stairs. In +the passage outside Maryvale’s room on the second floor, the Coroner +and the rest of the men were standing. + +“Is he in there?” + +“He is,” answered Crofts. + +“Why don’t you go in to him?” + +“Because—well, because—” + +“Because we all want to stay healthy,” said Bob Cullen. + +I learned what had happened. People in the Hall had seen Maryvale +stagger across the lawn, in their alarm had heard him enter the +armoury and disturb the weapons there. When some of the men looked +into the room, Maryvale had departed, and a sword was missing. They +heard him clamber up the stairs. Consulting in perplexity for a few +moments, they decided to follow. The curious thing about this part of +the affair is that in those doubtful moments Maryvale had not at once +entered his room at the head of the second flight of stairs, but for +some reason had hastened along the passage on that upper floor. For +while the pursuers were on the second flight, Maryvale came rushing +back, invisible (because of the curve in the staircase), and secured +himself in his chamber. Knocking and calling evoked no response, save +once. Then Maryvale flung wide the door, in his hand the drawn sword—a +thin two-edged one like a Toledo blade. + +“I’ll kill anyone who comes in here,” he said. “Leave me to do my +work.” + +“Which,” remarked Ludlow, when Crofts had finished this account, “I +for one am going to accede to, as a reasonable request.” + +We agreed it was best to take turns standing guard. Belvoir, on +account of his being particularly a friend of Maryvale’s, offered to +be the first on duty. We left him there, smoking his pipe, leaning +against the doorpost, his ear to the door. + +What “work” could Maryvale be doing? + +Poor Crofts, a host with a dead man and a madman in his house! I +passed him on the bottom step, gnawing a knuckle, apparently making +quite a meal. + +“Bad luck, old man.” + +He regarded me listlessly. “I had a ’phone call this afternoon from +the Post Office. Harry Heatheringham has wired for full particulars.” + +“Ye Gods! Who is Harry Heatheringham?” + +“Oh, I supposed you knew. One of the really high-powered detectives. +Happens to be a friend of mine.” + +“Scotland Yard?” + +“No, he prefers the country air. He’s a Worcester man. I wonder what +Salt would say.” + +“Ask him; he can’t arrest you for it. By the way, how does the great +man from Worcester happen to be so prompt in sniffing out this case?” + +Crofts became nervous, as he always does when he has something to +conceal. “He—he—we’re, er, in what you might call communication. Dash +it all, I wish the fellow would keep his promises!” + +Salt came in, just before dinner, not a merry meal. He heartily +approved Harry Heatheringham. + +“Do you know, sir, I wouldn’t be sorry to see him on the ground.” + +“I’m damned if I know why he isn’t!” remarked Crofts, and fled to the +telephone, to dictate a lengthy wire. + +It transpired that the Superintendent and his aides had found not the +slightest trace of recent human presence across Aidenn Water. They did +not even find a new puzzle; they found nothing. + +But after dinner Salt made a more fruitful inspection of the rooms on +the second floor, except Maryvale’s. He had been curious to discover +why the demented man had gone down the passage before shutting himself +in. He found why. + +“There was a box of paints and a palette and easel, and some brushes, +in the store-room next to you, Mr. Bannerlee. Mr. Maryvale must have +known about ’em, of course.” + +“Some canvases on stretchers, too, weren’t there?” added Crofts. “All +here before my time. Seems to me I’ve heard old Watts used to dabble +in paints.” + +“They’re all missin’ now, sir,” said Salt. “That’s what he was after.” + +“Paints!” exclaimed Belvoir. “Yes, that explains it, indeed.” + +“What do you mean, sir?” + +“Gilbert Maryvale has been a very unhappy man,” said Belvoir slowly. +“He has been chained to a big business that would have gone to pieces +without him. He has made lots of money, but always wanted to be a +painter. You see, Mr. Superintendent, he had an exquisitely sensitive +spirit, for all his dealing in bills and notes.” + +“I’m tryin’ to see,” said Salt. + +“Well, he will never look in the flabby faces of a Board of Directors +again. He has begun to paint.” + + +Is all the heart-crushing suspense in the world packed into this +little Vale? Beyond the hills, I know, men and women are peacefully +sleeping, and farther beyond, in the Glamorgan collieries, perhaps the +night-shift is working with never a hint of the nameless dread that +keeps us wakeful. + +If I live through the night, I shall get out on the uplands early in +the morning. I know a trick or two of throwing a hitch from tree to +tree. With a stout rope I can climb one of these wooded hillsides, +even if it prove vertical! Then I shall _breathe_! + + + 3.50 A.M. + +I have just awakened with a grim and unalterable thought. Confound +Doctor Stephen Ashmill Aire for his subtle hints and theories. If what +he suggested this afternoon is true, that there is some hidden means +of access to the lawn, what awful consequences are thrust into mind! +Yes, if he is right, the murderer may be one of those people who came +rushing in from all directions while we stood about Cosgrove’s body. I +hesitate to write their names, but it may be Belvoir or Bob Cullen or +Maryvale, for instance, or even one of the women, if in her fury her +arm became iron. + +And that fiendish cat that has driven Maryvale mad and that his +bullets could not harm! + +Worse and worse! + +I shall now dress in tramping kit and doze until dawn.¹ + + ¹ I have postponed until now a note which should have been + inserted some pages ago, but which would then have interrupted + the narrative. References to _the song of the nightingale_ in + this chapter and elsewhere in this diary demonstrate, as I think, + the innocent romanticism of Mr. Bannerlee. Neither he nor Mr. + Maryvale appears to have possessed a rudimentary knowledge of + birds. Nightingales, to be sure, visit Radnorshire, and the old + ones do not leave until autumn, but of course their descant + ceases in _June_, when the task of feeding the young becomes + absorbing. Unquestionably, the bird these gentlemen listened to + was the song-thrush, which (as is well known) _resumes_ its + singing in October, when the now-silent nightingale has departed + from the land. (V. Markham.) + + + +CHAPTER XV + +The Rainbow + + October 5. 10.18 P.M. + +I slipped on my rough shoes, thus completing my toilet, scribbled a +note for Crofts, and passed out of the door. From the top of the +stairs came a soft recurrent sound. Bob Cullen had insisted on +sentinelling outside Maryvale’s apartment during the night; now the +guardsman slept industriously, his head reclining in the angle of the +doorpost, the rest of him curled up, his jaws alarmingly open. + +Not disturbing him, I descended to the first storey, where I placed my +note under Crofts’ door, and continued down. My previous night’s +experience had taught me how to find the food supply readily, and I +stocked my pockets with concentrated nutriment. Letting myself out by +the front entrance, I turned to the left and directed my steps toward +the kitchen demesne betwixt House and stables. + +I was in luck. Twenty yards of fairly stout clothes-line were mine for +the taking. + +With the rope bent over my arm, I hastened past the dinner-room +windows toward the cypresses that marked the first point on any +journey up the Vale. Then I stopped dead. + +For a woman was standing by the far corner of the conservatory, +half-turned from me, looking at an object which she held in her hand. + +With her other hand she made a slight gesture to someone around the +corner, and the next moment I beat a swift retreat to the shelter of a +rank of low birch trees. A man in his shirt sleeves dashed out from +the behind the House, running like mad. He was a man I had never seen +before! + +With great galloping strides, his arms working like pistons, his knees +rising incredibly high, he rushed straight for the clump of cypresses; +there he turned as sharply as his momentum would permit and sped back +to his starting point out of my view. + +He had come and gone so quickly that I had little chance to take in +his appearance. Decidedly, however, he was a long, lank man, and there +was a touch of red about his face in hair and beard. But any attempt +to mark him closely was defeated by mere astonishment at his presence, +and wonder, in the name of reason, at what he was doing. + +I quickly balanced the courses open to me. Should I reveal myself and +challenge these unknowns? Or return secretly to the house and awake +Crofts and Salt? Or continue my journey? + +This last was what I did, for the cloaked woman happened to turn her +head in my direction, and I saw that she was one of the Clays. Unless +the Clays are to be relied on, no one is. As for my curiosity, which +was more than a little, I smothered it. If the many perplexing +incidents in the Vale have not by this time chastened the +inquisitiveness of each one of us, we are difficult to school. + +I went safe in the hiding of the birches until I reached the unshorn +grass of the summer-house park; the blades were loaded with dew. While +I crossed toward the regular path, I caught sight of the unknown +racing again in my direction, and was half-alarmed for fear that he +had espied me and was on my trail. Once more, however, he turned +beneath the cypresses and fled back full tilt. + +I had much to ponder on while I marched through the bleak and clammy +dawn, and pondering made the miles seem shorter. I thought of +Maryvale, who had walked here with me yesterday, of his dark sayings +and the blight upon his spirit—of Doctor Aire, whose theorisings +strike a vague discomfort into my mind. He, by the way, has taken full +responsibility for the sudden madness of Maryvale. He blames himself +for relating the story of the man found decapitated near the +summer-house. That account, together with my yarn a little later about +the witch sisters and the subsequent failure of Maryvale to destroy +the cat, turned the balance of the unfortunate man’s intellect, which +had previously given token of a disposition towards instability. The +incredible fact that three bullets did not injure the beast Aire says +he cannot account for; yet I suspect him, somehow, of keeping close +counsel on the point. + +But even with these matters to turn over and over in a tussle of +thought, constantly I kept wondering about the pair on the lawn, the +man from nowhere practising his uncouth capers, the woman so intent on +what she held in her hand. + +I came to the spot where Salt and the others had parted from Maryvale +and me the evening before, and now I turned aside too, for my +determination was to cross the stream by the fallen tree and to +assault the eastern wall of the Vale. There was no trouble in +clambering along the improvised bridge; I leaped to the ground and in +ten minutes reached the steep base of Great Rhos, prepared for an +hour’s battle with the densely-wooded slope. + +Finally, wet to the waist as if I had waded a stream, I emerged on the +brow of the hill where the heatherstems lay wriggling like the hair of +a thousand Medusas. I walked rapidly, waiting for the sun to break +through and dry me, and when it came soon afterward, I sat under a +whinberry bush by a bank of rare Welsh poppies and ate a few dried +figs and a piece of nut-bread for breakfast. From Shepherd’s Well +nearby I took a long draught. + +The day promised to be glaring hot and abundantly clear on the +uplands, and doubtless steaming in the Vale. I passed on to find some +brink for reconnaissance. Among the hilltops, what a difference a few +feet may make in the prospect! + +I found a place on the edge of the sheer flank of the north of the +Forest where the wide plains and fastnesses for miles about were +revealed in shimmering prospect. I reclined and rested here for long, +dried out thoroughly, and had luncheon: two legs of chicken, a chunk +of unsweetened chocolate, and an orange which had wonderfully escaped +crushing in my ascent. While I ate, I looked at the cloud-flecked +hills spread all about in lovely confusion with fantastic writhen +crests and crowns of Silurian rock. They were scraped and clawed by +rivers channelling: Ithon and Clywedog and Wye gliding down their +shady courses with here and there among them a glimpse of hill-hung +woodlands, or church tower peeping over castle rise, or drowsy village +looking unchanged for centuries. Surely from Aidenn Forest one could +see the better half of Wales. + +Of a sudden I slapped my thigh. “I’ll do it!” + +My large-scale map of the Forest was in my pocket, as was a map of +greater scope, showing Wales and the western counties, from which I +could transfer the angles and make a fairly good job of it. I would +draw sighting lines on the Forest sheet, so as to identify those +magnificent and anonymous hills that showed crags and colours from +twenty, thirty, forty miles away. + +I was at the northern end of the Forest. Should I work here? No, the +sun had not yet driven the vapour from the remotest peaks of which I +wished to find the names. Besides, there was no shelter near, and I +saw some cool-looking groves on Whimble. I headed south for Whimble. + +Wryneck and woodlark sometimes came curiously past while I worked on +my maps under disadvantages, without table or board; I had to fold one +sheet for a straight-edge if I wished to make a mark on the other. +Sighting was difficult without a firm plane surface. But I had +enthusiasm, and patience. I fixed lines pointing to mountains that, +when I had found their names, for the first time seemed real to me, +Cader Idris, the Brecon Beacons, many others—as the tracing I include +here will remind me when I look through these pages in later years. + +I still had some cheese in my pocket. I ate it for tea. + +Then out of the sultry day came a sudden dash of rain along the +hilltops, blotting out my mountains, and hedging in my horizon to the +profiles of the nearby slopes. I realized that the copse of trees I +occupied abutted the field where I had fled from the bull. Fair +shelter must be near. + +I made short work of hastening across the field and climbing down, +this time, to the long broad ledge upon which I had fallen on the +other occasion. There I found refuge from the weather, snugly +ensconced on a lichenous seat of stone where the slaty rock was +hollowed out underneath the eyelid of the hill. In my dim cubicle I +laughed at the storm that was sending down its battery of rain. + +For the first time in the day, I bethought myself of smoking. I had +out pipe and tobacco, filled my pipe, and struck a match. It flamed +and died. I realized in an instant what a tragedy my carelessness had +caused. + +That was my last match. + +I would certainly have cursed myself in the limited number of +languages at my command, had not something I had seen in that moment’s +flare of the match caused me to catch my breath. + +The little recess of the rocks where I had taken refuge was filled +with bracken and some coarse grass. The brief light had shown me that +at the rear of the cave, if I may call it so, the sparser growth had +been crushed down, thoroughly flattened—and the impress was that of a +human form. Someone had used this place of late as his sleeping +quarters! + +I must have sat there stunned for several minutes before I stirred, or +even began to think. When I had gathered my wits, it was not hard +determining to get out of the place at once. Was this sleeper the man +who had shed Cosgrove’s blood? For all that had been discovered, he +might be. But whoever he was, I had no wish to encounter him alone, +and he might at that very moment be hurrying this way to escape the +rain. + +The rain, to be sure, had almost ceased, a fact which did not alter my +determination to be quit of the ledge with all speed. Half a minute +later I was out of the shelter and clambering up the bank, with my +face set toward Mynydd Tarw’s gorsy slopes. And now I watched the +curving limits of the hills with half-apprehensive keenness, expecting +at any moment to see the black dot of the unknown head rise into +sight. + +The shower had all but ceased; through a fine spray of rain the sun +came glinting. I looked across the Vale, over Great Rhos. Ahead of me +among the waste of hills beyond Aidenn Forest the land was black with +storm for leagues, save where one great monument of light rested +thirty miles away on Pen Plinlimon-fawr. On that bleak mountain-top +the zone of splendour shone like a spot of hell touched by some ray of +heaven. + +I had the impulse then to look the opposite way. Yes, as I had +surmised, to the south-east the meadows of Herefordshire were steeped +in sun. And through the gauzy air with its wandering vapour-drops I +saw a rainbow’s glittering bridge from wooded slope to wooded slope +across the mown hayfields, an arch beneath which the distant Malvern +Hills lifted their profile against the sky. + +I remembered then the great freedom and elation I had felt when on the +uplands only two days ago, and wished that among these wonders that +seemed spread for my eyes alone I might regain that long ebullient +rapture. But I could not. Why could I not? + +There I was with pipe and tobacco, perishing for a match! + +Unless the cave-dweller whom I wished not to meet were near, there was +no other smoking creature within miles. + +But stay! I suddenly remembered the men from Penybont, repairing the +one sole path to the uplands. If they had succeeded in establishing a +new trackway, there was my best route back to Highglen House, toward +which I must be tending, since the hour was nearer five than four. And +one of them must have a match. If only they had not given over work +for the day! + +I had still a little distance to go north along the edge of Mynydd +Tarw before reaching the top of the path. Signs of the landslide were +not apparent here; yet I had made but one of the hairpin bends when I +saw a broad scar and scoop where both earth and rock had torn asunder +from the hill. Not until I was half-way to the floor of the Vale did +the course of the landslide obliterate the zigzag path. The workers +had not dug all the earth and stone away, but had made a substantial +walking-surface some feet above the original one. And going a little +further down, I saw to my joy that the men had not yet departed. They +were not working, indeed, but standing about some object on the ground +at the foot of the hill—and I had a premonition like a sword-cut what +that object was. + +It was the ill-clad, coatless body of the gorilla-man. + +Not a quarter of an hour before, the men who had worked to the very +bottom of the path, where the wreckage of the avalanche tailed away, +had seen protruding from the earth a long and hairy arm and purplish +hand. A large stone weighted down the body when it was found, and it +appeared from the position of the corpse, and particularly from the +writhen expression of the features, that the stranger had not been +stricken instantly to death. Instead, he may even have been some way +up the path when he had seen the hillside falling, and may have fled +and nearly escaped. The groping arm upthrust seemed an indication that +had not the heavy stone pinned him under, he might have struggled to +the air, instead of being buried alive. + +“Did any of you know him?” I asked, looking down at the face with its +long, uncouth jaw and narrow temples. + +“No, sir. He must have been a foreigner in these parts.” + +“This is a bit sickening.” I certainly needed a pipe now. “Who has a +match?” + +They were quite as doleful as I. “Sorry, sir, our matches was all wet +in the rain just now. Our coats was lyin’ up beyond, and the shower +got to ’em before we did. Matches are fair ruined.” + +I looked down at the ill-clad body. “By thunder, if I wouldn’t rob a +dead man for a match now. Were there any on him?” + +“Not a one, sir.” The men seemed to regard the idea as a thing of +abhorrence, and I had to laugh my question away as a grim joke. + +A couple of miles southward on the way home, I met the two workmen who +had gone to Highglen House for a shutter on which to transport the +body. Salt was with them, and all three regarded me queerly, which was +natural, for I was carrying, besides the clothes-rope, the umbrella +which I had left in the ruin last night. + +“Decided not to hang yourself?” asked Salt, his eye on the rope. + +I handed him the umbrella, which he received with puzzled brow. +“Item,” I said, “to prove the objective of the menagerie-keeper.” + +“Quite,” he responded. “Have you seen what we’re goin’ after?” + +“I have. He was the first of the men I encountered that night.” + +“I guessed so. Well, this party’s out of it _al_together—time and +distance, you know, time and distance.” + +“I suppose that’s so. Time and distance, the two greatest villains +that ever feazed the detective force. The landslide certainly did not +occur more than fifteen minutes after Cosgrove’s death.” + +“And this man was in it, was he?” + +“What do you mean? Of course he was.” + +“Not just buried there afterward, maybe?” + +“I should say not. By the way, Superintendent, don’t go without +letting me have a match.” + +“Not afraid of the dark, I hope?” Salt looked significantly up among +the trees, where the light was thickening. + +“No, not exactly, but I’m famished for a smoke.” + +“Smokin’ is not one of my virtues,” he responded. “I’m sorry, sir; +you’ll have to wait until you get to the House.” + +I was angry, yes poisonously angry with Salt. It takes all kinds of +lunatics to make up a world, but is there any lunatic as irritating as +the man who doesn’t smoke? + +I returned to the House, having all the while the awareness that forms +were following and eyes watching me in the shadowy walks. To tell the +merciless truth, these episodes of the Unforthcoming Match had +chagrined me so that my nerves were teetering, and I had the +uncomfortable sense that if I were to step from the centre of the path +or make any untoward movement, something disagreeable might happen. I +felt like a prisoner, and even when I had emerged upon the lawn, I did +not like the way the black windows of the House stared at me. + +“Great heavens,” I thought, “am I coming under the thumbs of the +Influences, as Mrs. Belvoir called them?” + +The Vale was dim when I reached the House. I knew that I should surely +find a match-holder on the mantel in the Hall of the Moth. I did, but +some other smoker had abstracted the last match! I hope heaven’s ears +were closed at that moment. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Parchment—and Paper + +There was, of course, a match-holder in the library. I looked into the +room of weapons: although the light shone beyond the library door +ajar, no sound came from inside. I thought the risk worth taking, and +stepped in, rope and all, hoping (in my grimed condition) not to +discover anyone. + +The quiet of the room was deceptive. There were a lot of people there. +Belvoir and Mrs. Belvoir were close together at the table with its red +velvet cover, reading from the same book, which could not have been +very fine sport for him, since he required about one-half the time she +did to peruse a page. In the embrasure of the corner tower, Lord +Ludlow was sitting with his back to the window and his volume held +before his face so that no light from the chandelier might possibly +fall upon what he read. This position he maintained the entire time I +was in the room. In a secluded nook Lib and Bob were standing before a +glass-covered case full of dark and mysterious tomes. + +Belvoir looked up, while his wife began the page he had finished. +“Hello! Where have you been?” + +“On top of the Forest—all over it: a breather. What’s happened?” + +“Man killed by the falling hill the other evening.” + +“Yes; I’ve seen him. I met Salt going up there. But down here—what +about Maryvale?” + +“Quiet all day. He’s working hard—too busy to eat—fact. (Finished it +yet, my dear? Don’t hurry.)” + +“Is he really painting?” + +Belvoir shrugged. “Wish I knew. This morning, through the door, he +said he was, and warned us against interfering with him. Aire’s +standing by at present.” + +“But have you thought—the materials. Oil pigments need to be prepared. +You can’t pick them up on instant’s notice after a number of years, or +decades, and find them suitable.” + +“Salt showed us that yesterday’s dash was far from being Gilbert’s +first visit to the store-room. He had pottered there quite a bit, and +some colours he left behind in his frantic haste are fit for immediate +use.” + +“He has painted before, then?” + +“Yes, but not in this generation. Long ago.” + +“Pity. Did he say what he is working on?” + +“No—no details. There’s another development, though. Did Salt tell +you?” + +“Not a thing.” + +“You remember Sir Brooke?” + +“Do I?” + +“Well, that same useful road-mender who kept the vigil in the car last +evening was interviewed in person by Salt about noon to-day.” + +“But how—” + +“Oh, they’ve rigged up a practicable bridge for one person at a time +down where the old one stood. Salt crossed it unscathed. (Very well, +my dear. Carry on. I’ll catch up with you.)” + +“Yes?” + +“Two nights ago the road-mender saw Sir Brooke as sure as taxes, +crossing the bridge and proceeding up the road toward the House. (I +agree with you, my dear. It’s infernally dull. But Carlyle was a great +man.)” + +“Great Scott! We’re closing in on him.” + +“I wish they’d leave off tracing that old boy,” said a peevish young +feminine voice from the corner. “He’s old enough to take care of +himself. I wish somebody’d trace my tennis balls.” + +“Why,” I smiled, “what’s happened to them?” + +“The usual death,” said Lib. “Bob knocked both of ’em into the Water +this afternoon and presto vanisho! Now we can’t play any more until +somebody goes into town and pries a few loose from the corner store.” + +“Gee, he’s got nerve, that butler,” urged Bob, turning his plus-foured +self toward me, and more toward the light, so that his somewhat +pug-like countenance showed the full measure of affronted innocence. +“You know what he said, Mr. Bannerlee? He said that it served us right +because we played tennis so soon after Mr. Cosgrove died—Cosgrove!” + +“It served you right because you thought my side of the court was in +the next county,” Lib snapped. “Now what can we do, except read?” + +“There are worse things,” I offered mildly. + +“That’s what we’re looking for over there—a good book,” exclaimed the +youth. + +“Well, these are just a little too rich for your taste, I fancy,” I +remarked. I scanned the titles behind the glass; I had not examined +this case before. The shelves were not quite comfortably filled with +bound volumes of learned periodicals and manuscripts in expensive +leather covers, all having their titles impressed in bright gilt. + +“Hullo, now there’s a thing.” + +“What?” asked both juveniles at once, alert for something, even +literature, to break the monotony of their existence. + +I pointed to a cover with the words “MS. Elis Gruffydd” stamped upon +it. “Evidently a copy of part of a historical manuscript I once read. +If I remember rightly, it contains a passage about this house.” + +“Gee whiz, it does?” + +“You’re a wonder,” declared Lib, with her nose pressed against the +glass. “Why, we had that one down and gave it the once over. It was +all Welsh to us.” + +“Oh, I mean in translation,” I hastily amended. “Don’t credit me with +any knowledge of Cumraeg.” + +“What kind of a rag?” + +“The Welsh language,” I explained. “But I should think you’d find +better hunting on those shelves over there.” + +“Those? They look sort of dull.” + +“I realize that the volumes are not provided with art-jackets in three +colours depicting the discovery of slaughtered bodies and the rescue +of lovely women, but behind those drab covers reside the works of Jane +Austen, Scott, and the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens—and Wilkie +Collins!” + +“Christopher! Seems to me I’ve read something quite hot by Wilkie +Collins. Thanks, Mr. Bannerlee, I’ll take a look.” + +Alone, then, at the case in the obscure corner, I opened the glass +doors and ran my eye over the titles at close range. “Old Watts,” as +everyone styles him, had been something of a bibliophile, and I saw +what I believed to be a number of absolute rarities, quite thrown away +on Crofts, of course. I had reached my hand up to a dark corner, where +a couple of volumes were lying on their sides, when an exclamation +from my lips brought Lib back from Wilkie Collins at once. + +“That was a strong one. What’s the matter? See a snake up there?” + +“No, but I found a mighty startling book,” I answered, looking around +and noticing with relief that probably only Lib had heard my +exclamation. Bob and the Belvoirs had departed, and Lord Ludlow was +holding his page so close to his face that I supposed him insensible +to external stimuli. + +“What’s the big kick here?” she asked, looking at the little old book +I had plucked from the shelf and whose age-tawny pages I was +scrabbling through. + +“If Crofts knew what a hoard he has in this library! Why, two or three +of these quartos must be worth their weight in diamonds.” + +“Boy! What a chance! I’d sneak a couple away; only they all look worth +a thin dime to me. What’s this one you’re palpitating about?” + +“This is the volume responsible for my being here, Miss Dale. ‘The +Book of Sylvan Armitage,’ imprint 1598. What do you think of that!” + +She was holding the quarto to the light, screwing up her face while +her eyes roved across the page. Something flickered to the floor. I +stooped and picked it up: a flake of moss. + +“That’s funny,” I said. “Some servant nodded when he dusted here. +Well, how do you like it?” + +“Too many f’s. I get all tangled up reading.” + +“Those aren’t f’s; they’re s’s. You’ll get used to them soon. Poor +Cosgrove would have revelled in this.” + +“Oh, Cosgrove. Funny things he revelled in.” Suddenly she snapped the +quarto closed, and gave a careful look toward the harmless Ludlow, +whose book was still held defiantly against the light, shutting out +the universe. She lowered her voice. “Say, Mr. Bannerlee, remember the +day I came down here, the way Cosgrove was watching me, like a fish?” + +Before I could put in a restraining word, she began a hasty whispered +account of events occurring some months ago, when Cosgrove, already +engaged to Paula Lebetwood, met Lib for the first time at Coventry. +Unquestionably, the orthodox Irishman had been shocked at the daring +dress, behaviour, and speech of this insouciant American minx. Mingled +with his disapproval, however, was a strong spell of attraction which +caused him to be constantly hanging about in her presence. I believe +that just as the element of unexpectedness in Miss Lebetwood’s broadly +capable character was in a large measure responsible for his desire +for her, why here in this alert, sharp wasp of a girl, was also +something Cosgrove had not experienced before, something tantalizing +that would not let him be at peace. His attentions to Lib, so I +gathered from her story, had grown more obnoxious as the days went by, +and reached their climax one evening when by her bad luck he happened +to find her alone at the far end of one of the gardens. + +I had some difficulty at this point in following the extraordinary +language of Miss Dale, especially since her speech now became spiced +with a good many terms expressive of emotion. But it is clear enough +that Cosgrove, detaining her in spite of her unambiguous complaints, +entered into a long exhortation over her, more like a fanatical +Puritan than a son of the Church. At first Lib had been bewildered, +then frightened, for mingled with the Irishman’s obloquy was a strain +which at first she could not comprehend at all, but soon realized was +an appeal to “make his banner her banner,” an invitation of no +uncertain tenour to “ride by his side through the high places of the +world.” The union of repulsion and fascination under which he must +have laboured, as shown in this outburst, was identical with what I +had observed on his face at the luncheon table. + +“And that’s the kind of a bozo Cosgrove was,” perorated Lib. “That’s +the blighter (isn’t that what you say?) that everybody around here +thinks was lily-white. That’s the Eringobragh that Paula’s eating her +heart out on account of his death!” + +“Do you think so?” + +“Do I? Don’t I! Say, I know Paula. She’s the best kid on this little +ol’ earth. Bannerlee, my boy, just because I like to talk like a fool +half the time and can’t get back on the rails the rest, don’t get me +wrong. I love Paula: I have ever since when I was dressed in a towel +and she used to keep me from breaking my neck a dozen times every day. +What I mean is, I know Paula. She hasn’t been natural for months, not +since she got engaged to this devil. She was a darn good sport and +peppy all day long, not one of these heavy thinkers. But ever since +this Cosgrove got so big on the horizon, she’s been worrying for +him—you know—the ‘King in Ireland’ stuff—or worrying _about_ him—the +dog! And since somebody polished him off with that rock, instead of +feeling better, she’s acting so quiet and intense I’m scared to death. +Honestly, I’ve been crazy-scared. Last night she just sat and thought. +I hardly slept last night. I heard you going downstairs awfully early +this A.M.” + +“I wish I could help. But you see it’s so peculiarly and emphatically +a situation where I can do nothing.” + +“I know it, I know it,” she acquiesced mournfully. “Gee, though, I +wish she’d fall in love with you or something like that. I wish she’d +take her mind off that Irishman. To think, he got so fresh with me, +and then he went and bounced one off Mr. Oxford’s jaw.” + +“What?” + +“Sure; didn’t you know? He got sort of green-eyed about Oxey. Maybe he +had a right to; I don’t know. I mean I don’t know about Oxey; he did +seem to be around a lot of the time. Paula wouldn’t look at him, of +course. Then Cosgrove hung one on Oxey’s jaw, and we thought we’d seen +the last of him. But Oxey shows up here last week smooth as +ever—hadn’t given up hope, I guess.” + +“I must tidy myself a bit for dinner. I wish I could help you, Lib. +You mustn’t worry.” + +“I suppose I’m making things out worse than they are.” She took up the +Book of Sylvan Armitage. “I’ll plunge into this exciting narrative, +and try to make some head or tail out of it.” And just as I was going +out of the door, she called with a flash of her usual impudence: +“What’s that you’re smuggling under your coat?” + +“My shoulders,” I laughed. + +“You must have the hump, then,” she rejoined, and when I was at the +stair-foot, I heard her cry, “Oh, look what I’ve found!” but I did not +return to learn of her discovery. + +Nor did I immediately ascend to my room. In truth, one reason why I +left the library was that I had heard voices in the portrait-corridor: +one tone was Crofts’, the other a strange, high-keyed speech I had +never heard before. To learn whose voice this was I had retreated from +Lib and her find. + +I stole to the front entrance, opened the door with the cat-head +knocker, peeped out. A dozen yards away my host was saying good-bye to +the red-headed, red-bearded young man I had seen cavorting on the lawn +at early day-break. The stranger now wore a blue suit of provincial +tailoring and sported a huge yellow flower in his buttonhole. A moment +later they parted, Crofts with a wave of the hand, the youth with a +respectful salute. The owner of Highglen House then walked around past +the library in the direction of the Hall of the Moth. + +I noiselessly gained the lawn and followed the youth, who wandered +with an air of negligence across the grounds by a shrubbery path which +soon was lost in the grove beneath Whimble. Among the trees I ventured +to draw closer to him, and was nearly discovered in consequence. For +when I slipped around a stout oak to creep upon him, I caught him +lying or rather rolling on the other side, convulsed with silent +mirth! I marched backward on tiptoes, collided with a tree, and +returned to the House. + +After a plunge in the bath which Aire has kindly invited me to share, +and after such improvement of my dress as my tramping kit afforded, I +knocked on Crofts’ door and had the secret out of him. He was waging a +pitched battle with some shirt-studs, and would have told me anything +in return for my relief. + +“That red-haired chap? Foggins’ new man. He came ‘sweetheartin’’ this +afternoon, and I had a little talk with him.” + +“But who is Foggins, and how does his new man come to be here at break +of day? How does he come to be here at all?” + +“Oh, they’ve slung a footbridge over the Water down below. Finished +late last night. Foggins sells us our milk. What do you mean by ‘break +of day?’” + +“I saw this milk carrier dashing like a red streak across the lawn +when I set out this morning.” + +“You did! So did I.” + +“You!” + +“I heard him coming round the House past Alberta’s room, while I lay +awake at some ungodly early hour. I looked out, saw he was carrying a +pair of spiked shoes in one hand, the milk can in the other. That +looked queer. So I got into a pair of slippers and my dressing-gown +and went to the upper end of the passage on this floor, intending to +go out of the door and down the outside flight of steps to find what +was up. But I saw everything through the glass. Rosa Clay—” + +“Ah, Rosa!” + +“You see (I got all this from the young chap himself just now) since +this house-party began Rosa and Ardelia have been a little huffy over +this man Morgan. Ardelia seems to bear away the prize; so for spite +Rosa has begun to walk out a bit with this young fellow—seems a good +enough young fellow.” + +“And why the athletic exhibition?” + +“The way of a man with a maid—showing his prowess. Prides himself on +being something of a runner, says he possesses a number of cups and +medals won at fairs and such by fleetness of foot. In fact, this +afternoon he showed me his card of membership in the Brecon and Radnor +Young Men Mercurys.” + +“Ah, now I know what she had in her hand!” + +He gaped; this was new to him. “What do you mean?” + +“She was holding his stop-watch on him.” + +“Curious. His voice reminded me of something, too.” + +I remembered the laughter-spasm of the youth beneath the tree, but +forebore just then to plague my host with new vexation. + +The dinner-gong rang. While we passed down the stairs, I recalled our +words of last evening on this flight of steps. + +“Tell me, Crofts, has the great Harry Heatheringham of Worcester wired +you his solution of these riddles?” + +“He has not, but unless the fool who took my ’phoned telegram at the +Post Office bungled it in transmission he has the facts.” + +“I look forward to seeing him.” + +“So do I. Good Lord, the night you dropped in on us, Bannerlee, I +thought this was Lost Man’s Vale. Sir Brooke omitted to appear, as you +know; but I had already been waiting three days for Heatheringham!” + +“Three days!” + +“Since the Parson Lolly trouble had become serious. I had sent word +for him to come as a guest; he had accepted. And until yesterday’s +wire, I haven’t heard another word from him.” + +It was rather low of me, but I could not resist the second temptation +to prod Crofts a little. I said: + +“I hope you don’t mind my pointing out that you haven’t a particle of +proof that wire came from Heatheringham at all, or that your message +actually reached him, or that he’s alive. How can you tell that you +haven’t been betraying secrets to some unknown enemy, or at least to +some shrewd newspaper reporter?” + +My host seemed to shrink to about half his size. + +To-night’s dinner was the first orderly meal since Cosgrove’s death. +It was good to see people eating again with the suggestion of +appetite. Even Miss Lebetwood had come down and had lost her tense, +restrained look of earlier hours. Opposite me, Lib, most fresh and +radiant, more genuinely girlish than I can remember her before, smiled +on me mystifyingly. + +The men had reverted to the English fashion of remaining behind the +ladies. When we rose from the table I buttonholed Salt. + +“Superintendent, does your censorship permit a letter to go out of the +Vale once in a while?” + +“Now you’re jokin’ me, sir. What is it this time?” + +“No, seriously,” I showed him an envelope containing a note I had +scratched off in my room. “I want to send this to Balzing to-night for +my own copy of Sylvan Armitage. That’s an old book I’ve discovered in +the library here.” + +“Bless my soul! and you want another copy? One for each eye?” + +“Quite so; for comparison.” + +“Of course, Mr. Bannerlee. Carry on.” + +No sooner had we joined the women in the Hall, where a fire was +lighted against the chill of evening, than Lib darted toward me, took +my hand, led me to a small shaky-legged walnut cabinet, one of the +objects which decorate but most inadequately furnish the room. An +ornamental ebony box rested on the cabinet, and lifting the box cover, +Lib revealed the Book of Sylvan Armitage. + +“Prepare for a great shock,” she said, slyly glancing about to ensure +we were not observed. “You should have waited a minute before you +skipped out of the library. Aren’t I clever? I’ll bet your copy at +Balzing hasn’t one of these gadgets.” + +While she spoke she had opened the cover of the quarto, a cover which +looked to be unusually thick. The slim pink fingers of her left hand +were prying, then disappeared beneath the edge of the book, and I saw +that the apparent thickness of the cover was due to the fact that a +pocket of paper had been pasted to the board with cunning, but with no +special secrecy. From the receptacle she drew two folded pages, one +age-stained, the other much younger, even rather new. + +“See that!” she bade in a Gargantuan whisper, thrusting before my face +the yellowed sheet, which was calf-skin. “Read that!” + +“But it’s in Welsh, and the parchment looks at least two centuries +old.” + +“Oh, absolutely—but this goes with it.” She handed me the other piece, +and stood beaming, her smile including and enlivening every feature of +her already brisk countenance. I could not help smiling back, and it +was several seconds before I could turn my glance to the white sheet +of ordinary folio paper, whose close script was legible enough. + +“It doesn’t mean such a much to a low-brow like me,” I heard her say. +“But if that’s not some modern shark’s translation of what’s written +on the skin of the fatted calf, I’ll eat the calf-skin. What about +it?” + +I would have needed only a comparison of the proper names in the first +few lines of each writing to assure me that it was so, had it not been +the obvious conclusion, on the face of it. Lib had discovered an +unpublished document, or part of a document, connected with Highglen +House. + +Two minutes later I had informed the company of the circumstances, and +the Hall was as still as a vacuum. When I realized that all these +people were listening to hear me read from the paper I held in my +hand, my undisciplined hand shook. It is horrible to be nervous, and +have to betray it. + +I shrugged my shoulders and kept my hand as steady as possible. Here +goes: + + “‘. . . in some fear of being ill-received in Cwm Melin, for the + lord there had the name of an intemperate man, one savage to + strangeness when the humour was upon him. But mammering was more + harm than use in the pass to which I had come, and save in that + stronghold I had no surety of shelter from the snow, the town of New + Aidenn lying some uncertain number of miles beyond the Cwm. + Increasing storm and cold compelled me to seek kind reception within + the castle, avouching truly that I was a person who had lost his way + in those wilds and stood in danger of the elements. Being admitted + within the gate and taken before my lord, I was excellently + welcomed. The man himself sat alone before the blazing hearth in a + room called the Hall of the Moth, with weapons and machines and all + the abiliments of war heaped in the corners. He was none of your + pouncing and mincing followers of court, but sprawled like a great + bulchin in his chair, with ragged Abram-coloured beard, immense + mouth, and eyes like yellow flames. He bawled for sewer and + cup-bearer, and a table was straight fetched, and a feast-dish set + thereon, with a manchet and good sherris wine a-plenty. I fell to my + refreshment, nor did it escape my notice that my lord was somewhat + in his cups, which caused him to be exceeding merry and boastful. He + vaunted long about himself and his own great valour and prowess, + exulting mightily in his late triumph over Roger, Earl of + Gwrtheyrnion, which was truly an achievement which will redound in + the history of time. Much he said that is known among men, and + presently fell to speech of Sir Pharamond, fourth lord of that name, + who builded this castle on the mill-site, after his house close + under the valleytop had tumbled to its fall through the perfidy of + the false steward David, a most foul and dastardly act, published + far and wide among men. Very gleefully and asperly did my lord + relate how they had skummed the countryside for the scroyle, and how + they had meted out his fearful fate. Now my lord waxed more strange + and withal crafty in his words, saying that which is not of common + report, relating how above the newly builded battlements Sir + Pharamond had made a tier of chambers, so that rumour whispered he + was mad—but lord Pharamond only smiled, and called the windows of + those chambers his eyes for descrying treachery. And ever afterward, + said my noble host, the builder of the castle on the mill-site was + untroubled by plotters against his peace. Now when I was emboldened + to ask my lord to make this thing clear, he said no word but seized + a flambeau up into his hand and beckoned me to follow. He led me + through the kitchens and down into a cavern that was there, with a + standing pool of water in the midst. This, said my lord, is the + drowning-pit of my ancestor, for it was his merry mood to fling his + disobedient folk into the water with his own hand, not binding them, + but pressing them back into the pit while they essayed to come + ashore. Thirty he had once drowned in a single afternoon. For the + rest, were he werry, he could shuffle them off with no more trouble + than snuffing a night-light. Now do you see, said my lord, but in + such cunning wise that I knew some deceit lurked behind his words. + Nor would he say more, but departed from the vault, leaving me + constrained to follow him or remain in darkness, though wishful to + examine the cavern—yet full of thanks, on the other hand, that he + had not practised upon me the custom of his ancestor. + + Again in the Hall of the Moth my lord laughed immoderately before + the fire, saying that for that gear he himself was proof against all + traitordom, for he kept there a cat that was never tamed, more sure + than forty watch-dogs, more trusty than twenty men-of-war, since + that it leaped to the attack without a snarl or a struggle, full + silently and suddenly, until it had achieved the kill, and it failed + not to lay his enemy low. Beware, said my lord, of gib my cat’s + claw, and how you hear the purring of the cat, for its purr is more + dangerous than the innumerable growl of hounds upon a hunting. The + purring of gib my cat means death. I dared to ask that I might be + shown this beast, provided it purred not at me. My lord, who had + drunk much more wine since we had come from the cavern of the + drowning-pit, bade me thickly go seek the beast for myself, and upon + asking where, he bade me look beneath the perfidious tree, but + beware lest it purr or I was doomed. So I said no more of it, + discerning that while he grew the more merry he grew the more + savage, and might well be goading me on to my destruction. At length + my lord having fallen into a stupor, he was borne to his bed, and I + conducted to mine, among those upper rooms which rose above the + battlements. I slept sound, awakened but once, as I thought, by a + long belch of laughter from some unknown part of the castle. Again + sleep visited me, and in the morning, when the snow had ceased, a + party of my lord’s men being at point of breaking away to New + Aidenn, I made one of their company and reached my destination in + soundness, the afternoon being that of the fourteenth day of + January, 1523.’”¹ + + ¹ It may be necessary, in view of the occurrence later in the + evening when Mr. Bannerlee read this paper by an unknown hand, to + state that the translation here included is both correct and + substantially the same as that which he read. (V. Markham.) + +“Well,” avouched Mrs. Bartholomew, almost before I had completed the +last sentence, “now we know the ancestry of that frightful animal.” + +“The cat of the Delambres, you mean?” asked Belvoir. + +“Yes. No wonder the Frenchwomen left it behind and Mr. Maryvale’s +bullets couldn’t kill it.” + +“The cat’s claw, eh?” mused Belvoir. “‘Beware of the cat’s claw.’ +Funny, Superintendent, that the Lord of Aidenn and Parson Lolly should +use the same words.” + +“I wish someone would tell me,” said I, “what is a perfidious tree.” + +“I should like to know, too,” Alberta declared, “and what’s more, why +anybody should keep a cat under one.” + +“I wish Mr. Maryvale _had_ annihilated that fiendish cat,” said Mrs. +Bartholomew. “It gives me a shiver whenever I think of it somewhere up +there, maybe waiting for one of us.” + +Pendleton looked towards Miss Lebetwood and lowered his voice. “Why, +you don’t mean to say that you think the beast had anything to do with +Cosgrove’s death?” + +“Cats don’t usually hit people with stones,” contributed Bob. + +“Nonsense,” called Ludlow sharply. “Fiendish cat, flying Parson, +perfidious tree, deathless arm, mystic bone, and all balderdash!” + +“Very well, my Lord,” said Salt, who appeared ready to indulge in a +little crossing of swords, “explain this tragedy without the +balderdash.” + +“Explain it _with_!” retorted his Lordship. + +The documents had been passing from hand to hand. “My Lord, I’ll have +a look at that manuscript, if you’ve finished,” said Salt. “No, I mean +the English-written one.” + +“I haven’t it.” + +“But I thought—” + +“I did have it a moment ago. I gave it to—er—” + +“You laid it down on the mantelpiece. I saw you,” said Alberta. + +“Ah, yes; so I did. But it’s not there.” + +Salt raised his voice. “Who has the English manuscript?” + +No response, until a gasp from Bob. “Look, isn’t that it?—in the +fire!” + +Something ashen and fluffy was smouldering on top of the log, +something that turned from grey to translucent pink when the flame +brightened. Salt reached the fireplace in a leap, bent down, +scrutinized the fragment. + +“That’s it, sure enough.” He ever so carefully attempted to remove the +crinkled piece, which vanished at the first touch of the fire-shovel. + +Crofts extended the parchment in mollifying wise. “At any rate,” he +said, “we have the original here. No trouble having a new translation +made.” + +Salt swelled like a small balloon, and his jaw was tight. “No, thank +you, Mr. Pendleton. I’m not having any.” + +I heard Aire’s suppressed exclamation behind me: “Of course not!” + +“What do you mean?” I demanded, turning to the dark, outlandish face +that came only to my shoulder. + +“Why, Salt wants the manuscript because he wants the man who wrote it: +someone, probably, who has lived here or been here before, knew the +book, knew the Welsh language, and, particularly, whose penmanship is +that of the paper.” + +Crofts, crestfallen, was still urging the original parchment. “At any +rate, Superintendent, take charge of this. The burning must have been +an accident; perhaps the sheet fell in the fire. And you can have +another trans—” + +Salt took, or rather snatched, the sheep-skin from Crofts, as much as +to say, “Better this than nothing,” and he did say, “I don’t want +_any_ translation; I want that particular one.” + +“That’s right,” murmured Aire. “Whoever wrote that paper is Parson +Lolly!” + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Lancelot’s Ultimatum + + October 6. 11.25 A.M. + +Was he, I wondered, in the room at all? So far, since eight o’clock, I +had not been able to detect the slightest sound from within the +chamber. For longer and longer periods I listened with my ear to the +door, all senses alert. I thought of knocking, but refrained, for Aire +had counselled against it. But that inhuman stillness inside the room! + +Suddenly footsteps resounded crossing the floor, no secret footsteps, +but blatant and decisive ones. I had hardly time to draw back a little +from the entrance when the door opened and Maryvale stood on the +threshold. + +I was shocked, for with the exception of two days’ bristle he looked +so much himself. When he saw me, he tossed his head back in a laugh +that had the natural ring. + +“Ah, you, Mr. Bannerlee. I wondered which of the gentlemen was +protecting me this morning.” + +Yes, he seemed quite the same as when I had first met him and we paced +the walk outside the Hall of the Moth. Quiet and courteous, sane and +substantial, he smiled on my embarrassment. + +“Aren’t you coming in? You’ve had a long wait.” + +I was trying to meet his cheerful eye and to think at the same time. +“I should rather expect you’d wish to come out.” + +“No, thank you; I have been out.” + +“You have? No one told me.” + +“Of course not,” he said with his fluent ease of manner. “Last night +my oils weren’t quite right, and I looked for some common varnish in +the stable supply room.” + +“Well,” I laughed, “I should think you’d have thought of food before +varnish.” + +“True, I have not been eating very heartily. Some carrots and raw +cabbage from the kitchen garden was all I could obtain. The darkness +rather hindered me.” + +“But I heard nothing of this. Who let you out?” + +“Let me out? My dear sir, I go out when I choose, by the window!” + +“But you couldn’t have climbed down the wall.” + +“Mr. Bannerlee, we seldom know our latent powers. What I set myself to +do, I do. It is a great deal easier than you suppose when the windows +have cornices and the ivy is reasonably firm.” + +“But climbing back?” + +“You have observed the ladder, of course. For the present, I find it +obviates much of the difficulty. Later—” His voice trailed out, and he +changed the subject with a renewed invitation to enter. “I am glad it +is you who are the first to see my work. I think you will know how to +evaluate it.” + +Perhaps I was not prudent, but I was bitterly curious to see what was +the product Maryvale had taken extraordinary measures to create. I +stepped inside, noted the broad, slant-shouldered room to be in order, +saw lying across a chair the thin sword, a mere rapier, with which the +man had threatened to make a ghost of any who interrupted him. A stout +walking-stick would have smashed the blade to splinters in a +twinkling. The bed had not been slept in, or on. The only litter in +the room was near the casement, where easel and canvas stood and rags +and brushes were scattered on the floor. + +“The pigments are not dry yet, of course,” said Maryvale. “Still, the +work is done.” + +Maryvale’s canvas was about four feet each way, and save for an +irregular space in the centre, every inch had been drawn and coloured +with minute care. Almost it might be said that the one derogatory +criticism was that overloaded detail diminished the interest of the +principal subject. For the picture was no mere daub of good +intentions. Though even my inexpert eye saw deficiencies in technique, +they were faults due to a long unpractised hand—they were nothing. +Once on a time, indeed, Maryvale must have studied his art to +advantage, for now in spite of imperfect materials at his command, and +in spite of long unacquaintance with the medium, the power of his idea +overrode the difficulties, and the magnificent though intentionally +uncompleted painting drove its impression home. + +Only, as I have said, the background and lesser adjuncts demanded a +greater share of interest than usual. A peculiar circumstance abetted +this fact. The central figure had no face. + +The scene was above a valley so deep that its bottom was lost in +darkness, where the whole middle air was drenched with rain to the +colour of smoke, through which the sun, westering and low, sent a +shaft of dripping light. Higher, against a black and sullen +mountain-side, the thunder-heads were gathered in inky monochrome, and +down the sky wriggled a huge worm of lightning, so dazzling that it +affected the eye with torture keen as that which a loud shrill sound +inflicts upon the ear. And round about, outside the clouds and within +them, flickered the suggestions of menacing shapes, skinny arms, +abysmal eyes, demonic smiles. + +In the centre, a solitary figure hung in the track of the storm, not +upright, not poised as if for swooping flight, but horizontal in the +turgid air, resting with four limbs widespread, like some unholy ghost +brooding over the nether gulfs of hell—Parson Lolly. The pitch-black +cloak flapped restless in the tempest, and from the indistinguishable +murk below came up the scarlet gleams from unknown forges. + +Parson Lolly’s neck was twisted upward and the face turned toward the +beholder, save that there was no face. Examining closely, I saw that +not the faintest lines had been drawn for one, that Maryvale had +simply ceased at that place in his design. The sinister suggestion was +enforced by the bulk of the decapitated figure against the livid +storm, by the hands with their hint of feline claws, by the shadows +cast downward by those hands, like the doom of pestilence scattered +down the gulf. + +The artist stood by the window, his back to the light, but I could see +the high glint of satisfaction in his eye. + +“You _do_ approve, I can tell.” + +“Maryvale, this is—well, it’s beyond anything I expected. Where did +you study?” + +“Two years with Coselli in Milan. But that was long ago; I could not +have done this then.” + +“What are you going to do about the face?” + +“I doubt that I shall ever finish it,” he said, looking at his +handiwork. “No.” He shook his head and his eyes contracted to points +of light. “It may be the only picture I shall ever paint—” + +“Surely not!” I cried with much feeling. “You have the incommunicable +gift.” + +But Maryvale was far aloof. His voice had changed into that distant +tone that suggested withdrawal beyond the sphere of ordinary mortals. +And when he spoke, I became as cold as ice. + +“I know now why Cosgrove passed away, with all the embroilments and +hubbub he used to cause.” + +I responded with a sense of rigid self-control: “You aren’t, er, +implying he terminated his own existence?” + +“He was killed so that I could paint. When all this excitement and +investigation is over, that is what they will find. I think it is well +his life is ended.” + +“Come now, Mr. Maryvale, without cavil or casuistry, tell me who +performed this beneficial murder.” + +“Someone, I do not know who, of the house of Kay.” + + + Same day. 4.30 P.M. + +For some reason the Superintendent appeared highly gratified and very +lenient toward the universe. Alberta Pendleton, though perhaps no more +curious than the rest of the table, was the only one who ventured to +find out why. Wheedling, she persisted from the fish to the fruit, and +at length wore out Salt’s defences by attrition. + +The table grew still while the Superintendent opened a wallet capable +of holding a couple of folios and very carefully withdrew a piece of +notepaper which he held by a sheath of blotter fastened with a clip. + +“Take it by the corner, _if_ you please, and mind it don’t catch fire. +That was a neat trick somebody played on me last evening, but I’ll +thank you not to repeat it,” he admonished a trifle grimly, opening +the note and handing it to Mrs. Bartholomew, whose eyes grew twice +their size within two seconds while they were fixed on the writing. + +“What does it say?” chorused half a dozen voices, but Mrs. Bartholomew +could only give a huge swallow and an audible sigh, and handed the +paper to Maryvale without looking at him. + +“Read it to us,” besought Crofts, who sat at the far end of the table +and whose turn would not come for at least a couple of minutes. + +Maryvale complied. “‘Sir,—Will no plain speech cause you or your +principals to understand that the die is cast and the snowball is +rolling downhill!’” A long low whistle broke from the reader’s lips. + +“Go on!” (from Crofts.) + +“Oh, Mr. Maryvale, that’s not fair!” + +“Don’t stop, please.” + +“For God’s sake, go on!” + +“I will go on,” said the man of business. “‘My deeds be on my head!’” + +After that perhaps prophetic sentence the silence seemed to sway and +swirl. Alberta asked in a small voice, “Is that all?” + +“No, there is another paragraph, equally concise: ‘I have acquainted +Mr. Oxford sufficiently with the particulars, and I do not see that +there is any need for you and me to discuss the situation. It remains +simply for you to take what measures you consider best, or to accept +the inevitable. You cannot stem the tide.’” + +About twenty-four startled eyes suddenly turned full glare on Charlton +Oxford. + +“No signature?” asked Aire. + +“Yes, the message is signed ‘Lancelot,’ and a postscript adds, ‘These +notes and their method of delivery are an unnecessary risk. I suggest +that your answer be the last, since on my side the question is past +debate.’ That _is_ the end.” + +Oxford sat between Miss Mertoun and Lib Dale, on my side of the board. +Lib promptly struck a finger into his waistcoat, so that he squirmed, +while the English girl looked at her cousin with wide wonder, or a +clever imitation of it, in her fine black eyes. + +“What in thunder have _you_ got to do with this mess?” demanded +Pendleton. + +“Yes, Oxey, old sport,” appended Lib, “what’s all this secret stuff? +Are you a great man and we didn’t know it all the time?” + +But Oxford, his eyes very uncomfortable, made no answer than to shrug +his modish shoulders, and Salt came to his rescue. + +“Don’t press Mr. Oxford, if you please. He is bound in confidence to +me.” + +“This, I believe, is an admissible question,” said Aire. “Is the note +a recent discovery of yours?” + +“Found it an hour ago.” + +“But surely you couldn’t have overlooked it in your previous search in +Mr. Cosgrove’s room.” + +“Right you are. But I didn’t discover this in Mr. Cosgrove’s room.” + +“Oh?” + +“No. It had been delivered.” + +“Delivered? What the devil do you mean?” asked Crofts. + +“It was put where Sir Brooke told Mr. Cosgrove to leave it.” + +“In the mail!” I exclaimed, a great dawn rising in my brain. “Wait a +moment, Superintendent. I’ll tell you where you found that paper!” + +“Gumme, if you haven’t guessed it or something.” + +“In the armoury!” + +“Right.” + +“In the armoury?” Crofts echoed dully, his brow scowling down. + +How clear the recollection was: the armoury in misty bluish light, the +three vague shapes of men, the one with the white tuft and shirt-front +picking the pockets of the other two, the narrow face at the candle +before the room was turned to darkness. Unsuccessful that search must +have been; Cosgrove must have “posted” this letter afterward. But what +was Lord Ludlow’s part in this muddle? Surely he played an extra hand, +perhaps a lone hand. I looked at his guileless countenance and would +have given a guinea to know what was going on behind it. + +I shifted my attention to Salt again. “But there must have been some +disturbance, Superintendent. I don’t believe that even you—” + +“Cleanin’,” acknowledged Salt. “Miss Carmody—Jael, that is—was dustin’ +about. No question she shook it loose, for it was lyin’ on the floor +under the newer suit of armour when I passed through at twelve +o’clock.” + +“But I don’t see—why, the mail is—” commenced Mrs. Bartholomew +diffidently. + +“The coat of mail, the coat of mail,” growled Bob Cullen. + +“That’s it,” said Salt. “You see, Mr. Pendleton, you had a little Post +Office here after all. This note was tucked away between the +chain-mail and the cuirass. Couldn’t have been a better hidin’-place, +as long as there were no children in the house to pick things to +pieces.” + +The ladies had passed from the room, and we were on the point of +following, when Salt recalled us with a casual remark. “Well, I’m +poppin’ off now, gentlemen.” + +“Eh!” exclaimed Crofts. “I thought Dr. Niblett—” + +“We’re off together, sir. The Coroner’s conductin’ the bodies, and I’m +conductin’ the Coroner.” + +“For heaven’s sake, send us some newspapers to read,” I urged. + +“I will, I will.” Salt cast his eye somewhat sardonically about the +circle. “Any more small commissions from any of you gentlemen?” + +We clustered at the doorway where the melancholy caravan set out in +charge of Dr. Niblett. The bodies of Cosgrove and of the unknown, +stitched in sheets and laid along improvised stretchers, were to be +carried by motor as far as the temporary bridge, across which they +must be borne by hand. The undertaker’s van was waiting across the +Water to convey them to the mortuary, where to-morrow they will be +“viewed” by the Coroner’s juries impanelled to sit on the bodies. + +They were gone. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Grisly Planting + +With the departure of the dead men from the House, the mansion seemed +to me for the nonce most lonely. + +I drifted away from the others, into the vacant Hall of the Moth, +slouched down in one of the flimsy chairs. My mind was rather wistful +for the deceased Cosgrove, wanting him back, but not quite sure +whether I preferred him to return alive or dead. + +Voices of persons passing in the armoury came to me. + +Belvoir’s: “Why, Galton proved that long ago. It stands to reason—” + +Lib’s: “Shoot that man!” + +A pause in the universe. Then the lightest sound of feet tripping down +the stairs, the flutter of a white skirt in the corridor, and an +apparition crossed the door. At unexpected sight of me, the apparition +became motionless in a pretty sort of confusion, while I staggered to +my modest height. + +“Oh, Mr. Bannerlee! I didn’t expect to find you here. That horrid old +man!” + +“Why, er—good heavens, Miss Lebetwood, what do you mean?” + +“Blenkinson.” + +“What, the Master of University College!” + +“Why, no—” + +“That’s only my ambition for him, you know. When the post is vacant, I +intend to put up his name for it. But what’s the wretch done?” + +“He scolded me!” + +“The impudent—” + +“Or he would have if he dared. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” + +“But what, specifically?” + +“Well, you see, I was coming out of Millicent’s room. She was going to +have a game with me this afternoon, but told me she felt too tired +after all.” + +“With the last ball disposed of by Bob Cullen?” + +“The last I’d let that precious pair have, that was. I had sense to +keep a few for myself. Well, I was awfully sorry Millicent wasn’t up +to it, and I would have gone back to my own room and changed out of +these clothes. But when I came into the passage, Blenkinson was +stepping along as large as life and as still as a—as a cat. When he +saw me he stopped about six feet away and just let down his jaw and +stared.” + +“Very bad form.” + +“I said, ‘What’s wrong, Blenkinson?’ pretty nippily, I guess, and he +gave a sort of groan and said, ‘They are taking Mr. Cosgrove’s remains +to the mortuary, Miss.’ I didn’t say anything; so he groaned again.” + +“Really, you mustn’t concern yourself with the foibles of a foolish +old servant. Anyone with an ounce of sense would know you mean for the +best.” + +“_Mean_ for the best!” The sweet grave eyes dimmed a little. “I’m +_doing_ for the best! Each day since this happened I’ve been alone for +hours, thinking, thinking, thinking. I know more about Sean than +anyone else here, and I go over every particle of knowledge I possess, +to discover if it can have any bearing on his death. Oh, I’ve thought +so hard that my head hurts—and emotions like this tear you up even if +you’re too busy thinking to pay attention to how you feel. Don’t you +see, Mr. Bannerlee, I mustn’t be a weeping-willow sort of person; I’ve +got to get some relief once in a while. I’ve got to get the air into +my lungs and the blood into my brain, if I’m to do any good. I’m doing +more for Sean by swinging a racquet than I would if I bedewed his brow +with tears.” + +“You’re right, by George! Did you tell this to Blenkinson?” + +“To that old woman!” + +A silence came. I watched her; her eyes wandered restlessly from +object to object within the room. She turned suddenly toward the +window and looked at the glorious day, and as quickly turned to me +again. “Oh, this is too good to be wasted! I must play. I’ve got to +have someone to beat, Mr. Bannerlee; may I beat you?” + +The youth and verve of this girl, her strength of spirit, and the +unspoken appeal in her clear blue eyes, were almost too much for me. +There was a directness about her, like the passage of an arrow to its +mark, unusual in women, I believe, when combined with such softness +and allurement as is hers. I had a very noble impulse to take that +straight and slender body in my arms, and to bestow a needful comfort +of kisses on lips and cheeks and on that cruel golden hair. + +As with most such good impulses, this one changed into something +inferior: I bowed politely. “I’ll do my best,” I said. “Give me ten +minutes. I’ll borrow what I need from Crofts, as usual.” + +“Will you? Oh, thank you so much!” (To be thanked, so earnestly, by a +_dea certe_!) “I warn you, I’ll beat you. I hope you can give me a +battle.” + +Such was my hope, too, when we stepped on the concrete court a quarter +of an hour later. + +I should have been routed had I not been able to deliver a smashing +serve which landed in the proper court about one time in three. These +serves were almost always clean aces, and after one of them I was +startled to hear applause from the little knoll which overlooked the +court some distance away. There was Lib. + +“Hotto servo, old sportsman!” she called. “Glad there’s somebody +Paula’ll let play with her old tennis balls.” + +It was due to happen sooner or later, of course, but it was rather +humiliating immediately afterward to have a wild shot from my racquet +fly many yards over the enclosure. + +“Bravo,” called Miss Dale, and laughed and laughed. “Hotto smasho!” + +“Sorry,” I called, rushing across; “I’ll get it.” + +“Try,” laughed the lonely spectator on the hill. “Serves you right, +Paula. The great big brute of a man!” + +“I think it went into the stream,” said Miss Lebetwood. “You’ll have +to run.” + +“Oh, I’ll save it right enough; plenty of time to intercept it,” I +answered, turning my rush toward Aidenn Water, which, owing to a +convolution of its course, was some forty yards above the end of the +court and about twice that distance from the side-line. + +I kept a careful watch; no ball came down. + +“It must be among the strawberry trees after all,” I said, and we +commenced a search through the planted grove which had been so +grateful to the dead Irishman, while Lib favoured us with audible +quips at our discomfiture. + +“Just the same, I believe it went into the water,” said Miss Lebetwood +at the outset of our hunt. + +“Well, I’m sure it didn’t,” I contradicted. “How could it have? I got +over there in plenty of time—” + +“Well then, find it here.” + +But the ball was not to be found. + +We resumed the match. I served doubles. + +“Don’t lose your nerve,” called Lib. “I’ve mortgaged my—say, folks, +there’s a rumpus up at the House. Jiminy, I’ll bet something’s +happened!” + +Miss Lebetwood and I looked at each other. + +“What is it, Libkins?” she asked sharply. “What do you see?” + +“Slews of people—millions of ’em—running around the House. Say, +there’s Doctor Aire going like a pump-handle. Say, I’m going to see +what this is.” + +I looked at Miss Lebetwood, and we broke into a run, following Lib. + +Although we arrived almost the last of the crowd, Finlay, the +venerable gardener, was still positively drooling with excitement. To +him the credit must go for having inadvertently put a term to more +than one of our galling problems. + +Crofts rather fancies carrying on old Watts’ custom of experiment with +unusual trees and shrubs. For the sake of their jewel-like red +berries, he had a couple of Guelder Rose plants, almost full-grown, +ready to be put in the soil, when Cosgrove’s death set all things +awry. To-day they could not be kept out of the ground any longer. One +of the small trees was to be placed at the turn of the drive around +the front of the House, about fifty feet from the library tower. + +At the appointed site Finlay had merrily tossed up the soil from a +considerable cavity while Miss Lebetwood and I played our game. There +had come a jab of the spade which appeared to make the earth settle +somewhat. Again the gardener pressed the spade with his heel; the +earth seemed to give way. Alarmed, for he knew that there were no +drains passing beneath this lawn, Finlay got out of the pit he had +digged, reached down and poked experimentally with his tool. Of a +sudden, the bottom of the hole sank something like a yard, and a chunk +of antique subterranean masonry, broken off, was revealed, with +sluggish black water visible through the gap. But something else was +showing there, too, besides the mass of soil which had fallen through +the collapsed roof of the waterway: + +A face, with lips, nose, eyelids, cheeks distended into a simple green +sphere—and a hand, its palm covered with thickened, white, and sodden +skin. + +Sir Brooke Mortimer was found. + +I was far too late, of course, to hear what had been said by those +first around the hole. I learned afterwards. Crofts Pendleton, barring +some natural repugnance to the body in process of dissolution, had +seemed to take a sullen joy in the discovery. + +“Here’s your murderer!” he had even cried. + +“No, no! Never!” Eve Bartholomew murmured, gave a slight shriek, and +fainted dead away, to be carried by stalwart persons into the Hall. + +“I wonder,” said Belvoir. + +“Of course not,” declared Miss Lebetwood, and challenged Doctor Aire: +“Isn’t that so?” + +“Yes,” he answered; “he’s been dead at least as long as Sean.” + +The Guelder Rose plant, which must have a new hole dug for it now, lay +alongside the cavity with its branches bound up and its root encased +in a bag. Beside the rose lay the body of the unfortunate Knight, +drawn from the mysterious water-channel. I should not have recognized +it, had it been the corpse of some friend of mine. + +Mastering the disgust that welled in me, I bent over the drawn face, +with its nostrils dilated and eyes forced forward from their sockets. +The dead lips were parted and the blackened tip of the tongue +protruded between the teeth. + +I arose, looked down into the eyes of the physician. “Strangled?” + +He shook his head slightly. “By water only. The tongue’s a +_post-mortem_ result. Look at his fingers.” + +The fingers of the huge hands resting across the chest were covered +with slime, save for two or three, the ends of which appeared +excoriated. + +“He was drowned in this subterranean waterway. God knows how he got +in, but you can see that his fingers clutched at the oozy walls and in +some places must have pressed through the slime to the stone itself. +There’s a mark on his forehead, too, not quite so easily accounted +for. No connection with cause of death, however.” + +“This _is_ Sir Brooke, of course?” I asked. “It might be anyone, for +all the humanity left in the lineaments.” + +“I’m sure it is from the description of the clothing alone,” declared +the Doctor, “but we can satisfy ourselves without delay.” + +He plucked the arms from across the chest, then unbuttoned the coat. +Across the waistcoat extended a black band affixed to a pince-nez with +double lenses. Aire held these up with a significant look, then +reached into the inside pocket and withdrew the dead man’s wallet. +This was conclusive, for inside it was stamped the name in gilt: +Crowell Brooke Mortimer. But the flutter of voices that came was not +for this discovery. + +From between coat and waistcoat two objects had been dislodged, +objects which rolled out upon the lawn: a couple of water-logged +tennis balls. + +I picked one up. The cloth was rotted, and slipped off with a scrape +of the finger. “Well,” I said, “now we know how Sir Brooke lost his +way.” + + + Same day. 9.55 P.M. + +In half an hour Salt was among us once more, and half an hour later he +had come upon the entrance to the underground channel, an arch of +stone masonry veiled by an overhanging branch of alder and almost +wholly submerged in the stream. It lies, as we expected to find, at +the part of Aidenn Water nearest the tennis court, and a fair current +sweeps beneath it. This curious tunnel appears to extend several +hundred feet, and does not end where the Knight’s body was found. The +corpse had been detained by a partial stoppage caused by the collapse +of some of the masonry. But we have not discovered where the channel +rejoins the main stream. If I am at all a judge of facial expressions, +Salt is a disappointed man. Evidently this gruesome factor casts some +elaborate equation of his out of all computation. It struck me at +dinner that Aire, too, looked a bit frustrated. + +Talk in the Hall of the Moth after dinner was equally divided between +pity for Sir Brooke (and for Mrs. Bartholomew, who was absent) and +amazement at the lopped and disordered accounts given of our mystery +in the London papers which Salt had brought with him as he had +promised. I rather enjoyed hearing Ludlow pitch into the gentlemen of +the press, for whom it is obvious he has no love—and for those for +whom he has no love he has no mercy. + +Maryvale came up, and for once I did not feel uneasy at the sight of +him. He was smiling broadly, I thought a little too broadly after what +had occurred this afternoon. I recalled, however, that Aire was now +taking precautions to insulate Maryvale from contact with any +atrocities which may present themselves—and then flashed through my +mind almost the very words which the man of business was about to say. + +“You don’t think so cheaply of my warnings now, Mr. Bannerlee. Now you +must realize what was meant by the spanning and roofing of the +waters.” + +“Fully.” + +“No, sir!—not fully. There is much for you yet to know. But all this +agitation, this ebullition in the newspapers, this official scrutiny, +will lead to nothing.” + +“You refer to what you told me this morning?” + +“As I said, this man Cosgrove was removed because he stood in my way +and in the way of my art.” + +I thrust in sharply. “Did you remove him yourself?” + +“No,” answered Maryvale, “but I have done worse deeds.” + + + 3 o’clock in the morning. + +I have heard a curious thing. A few minutes ago I woke with a start +and lay wondering what had roused me. Then the cry of the cat throbbed +from the upper Vale again. The howl rose and fell endlessly, as it +seemed, until, while it mounted to a new pitch of despair, it broke +off. There has not been the faintest murmur since. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +The Deathless Arm + + October 7. 11.15 A.M. + +A Spartan is among us. + +Not only did Eve Bartholomew appear this morning at breakfast at the +early hour Salt had suggested, but she seemed almost in brighter mood +than before, and I can understand how the discovery of Sir Brooke, for +better or worse, may have taken a burden from her mind. Still, she is +brave, though she spoke with a rather wan utterance, addressing me, +who had the fortune to consume porridge next her in the window. + +“I had expected it,” she said. “Of course I never could have hinted +such a thing before, but I realized that sooner or later such a man as +Sir Brooke must fall foul of one of his many enemies.” + +I uttered some vague sound. + +“Mark my words, Mr. Bannerlee, the villain will be brought to +vengeance for that blow! I understand how Miss Lebetwood feels—why, +Blenkinson, what’s the matter?” + +“N-nothing, Ma’am. I beg your pardon,” said the butler, who had been +fussily arranging the window-shade, and took flight. + +“What did he do?” I asked quickly. + +“He made the most extraordinary grimace I have ever seen. I hope the +man is not subject to, er—anything.” + +“I think not,” I answered drily, guessing well the cause of the facial +disturbance. “But you were saying, Mrs. Bartholomew?” + +“I have something that would do the poor man good. I must speak to him +later. Er, what _was_ I saying?” + +“That you understood how Miss Leb—” + +“I do, indeed! I admire that young woman, and I intend to follow her +example. Until the murderer of Sir Brooke is found, I shall not rest!” + +But this was nothing to what was in store later. An hour afterward +Salt had us all in the conservatory, very much on tenterhooks. When he +had surveyed us with calm and taken the roll mentally, he made a +little speech. + +“Since you’ll all be goin’ to New Aidenn for the inquest this +afternoon, I thought I might give you a few hints. The fact is, we +want as little as possible to come out. I have those orders from +higher up. The Coroner’s business is to ascertain the cause of death, +if he can; the rest is my business. I know Dr. Niblett will play the +game accordin’ to my rules, and he won’t try to carry the question any +deeper than that the deceased came by his death by means of the stone +that Mr. Blenkinson luckily discovered. But there’s no tellin’ what +some busybody juryman or other may want to know; so I want to warn you +there’s one subject you must be shy of—that’s this ‘King in Ireland’ +topic. There’s enough hullabaloo in the Emerald Isle right now without +spreadin’ that.” + +“Still,” said Alberta, “I don’t see how we are quite going to tell +whether a question will lead—” + +“I’m comin’ to that, now. I’m goin’ to share some facts with you. This +that I’m tellin’ you is the result of special information from Miss +Lebetwood, Mrs. Bartholomew, and Lord Ludlow, added to a few small +discoveries of my own. Now, remember, I want you to keep this budget +of facts in mind and not show by a word or a sign that you know +anything about it. That’s the only reason there is for this assembly. +Anybody behind that door, Mr. Pendleton?” + +Crofts flung open the studded portal, revealing emptiness in the +corridor. + +“Servants sometimes like to wait behind doors, just in case anyone +should ring for ’em,” observed Salt. “You might keep an ear open in +that direction, sir. Now, here’s the way of it.” + +From what we heard in the next half-hour, what a change comes over the +picture of Sir Brooke! I had heard of him as capricious, cantankerous, +unsure-footed, gentle-hearted, weak-eyed, sick: the image of +ineptitude. Yet what was he but the emissary of the powers behind the +powers that be!—no fool at all, but the super-confidential spokesman +of an Office powerful and discreet! I had heard of him as a guest like +the others, save that he was to “propose the bride’s health.” Now we +envisage him as coming to meet Cosgrove plenipotentially under the +guise of the Bidding Feast! There had been earlier meetings here +between these men. Indeed, while the revelation increased in scope, I +began to wonder if the whole idea of the Feast was not shrewdly put +upon Crofts by Cosgrove’s suggestion, so that there might be an +out-of-the-way corner for the final tryst between the representatives +of the United Kingdom and of the Kingdom of Ireland about to be +reborn. + +“It may relieve Lord Ludlow’s mind,” said Salt, “if I clear up his +connection with the affair at once. That Bangor and Newcastle address, +sir,” he went on, looking at me, “seemed to give you a turn the other +day, but it was really rather enlightenin’, you know.” + +“I must be very stupid—” + +“Not a bit of it—only you should have studied your geography just a +little more thorough. So should I, for that matter; I didn’t guess the +connection either. You see, both those places are in Ireland.” + +“Ireland!” came several gasps as one. + +“Fact. Two little towns near Belfast, nearer twenty than thirty miles +apart, I shouldn’t wonder.” + +“What goes on in those places?” asked Aire. “I’ve been in Bangor, +County Down. It has no industries to speak of.” + +“Yes, in the main those are seasonable towns; both on the coast, I +believe. But Lord Ludlow and the other principals have projected a +tolerable business in the linen-weavin’ line to give employment to +every inhabitant the winter through; so there’ll be flourishin’ +manufactories in both a year or two from now. And that properly +explains Lord Ludlow’s interest: day by day here he was tryin’ to find +what was goin’ to happen to his pet lamb.” + +“I don’t see what you were in a sweat about,” said Crofts, turning to +Ludlow. “Cosgrove wouldn’t have matured his plans in a generation.” + +“That’s where you’re sure to be wrong, sir,” contradicted Salt. “The +truth is, nobody except Sir Brooke could have had an idea how near +Cosgrove’s coup was to takin’ place. One or two more parties to sound, +a little time to work out the final details and give the final +orders—and the fat would have been in the fire! Why, the papers say +Ireland’s half-mad to-day as it is.” + +“Where do you come in?” asked Crofts belligerently, fixing his eye on +Oxford this time, and that well-nurtured gentleman lost countenance, +but Salt made answer. + +“Mr. Oxford has been pretty close to Mr. Cosgrove all along, as you’ll +recall,” he said to our host. “He may have excited Mr. Cosgrove once +or twice, but that was in another connection altogether.” Although +guardedly, the Superintendent gave a swift look toward Miss Lebetwood. +I intercepted it. “Another connection altogether. I think perhaps that +it was due to Mr. Oxford keepin’ such a good watch on Mr. Cosgrove and +his servant that Sir Brooke made up his mind to come down here when he +did and have the cards laid plain on the table.” + +“This servant, who was he?” put in the insatiable Crofts. “Cosgrove +never brought a servant to any house of mine before.” + +“He’s in the mortuary, too, now.” + +“What, the gorilla-man!” I exclaimed. + +It was so. I comprehended many things in an instant, and Salt’s +re-enforcement of them came tumbling after. The creature I had met +near the top of Mynydd Tarw, who had dwelt in the cleft of the hill, +had been an Irishman, Cosgrove’s servant. That was an Irish yell he +had yelled plump in my face, some adjuration to bid a demon begone, +for he must have taken me for a fiend of the mist when I fell in his +path. The unaccountable burned paper in Cosgrove’s grate was a message +from this man; he it was whom Cosgrove had intended to smuggle into +the House as an “extra progeny for the elephant.” + +I recollected our meeting, how he had seemed to be straining, +staggering, spent with haste, even before he had encountered me and +found a new cause for flight. The presumption was strong that he had +lately met with some alarming experience. What could that have been? +Had he seen the black-bearded unknown, the menagerie-keeper? There was +nothing in that person’s colloquy with me to suggest it. + +More likely the gorilla-man had run across Sir Brooke. Still, in the +mere encounter there could have been no cause for terror; neither was +anything to the other, and the Knight was hardly a figure to inspire +awe. What was more probable than a meeting on the Water bank above the +tennis court? One man was skulking secretly; the other had lost his +way. Possibly there had been a collision, or perhaps the prowler had +only seen the shape of Sir Brooke taking form in the fog, then +suddenly falling in the Water at a fatal mis-step. That abrupt fall, +perhaps one choking cry, no more, before the instant total +disappearance of the body beneath the tunnel arch (of which the +gorilla-man could have no knowledge)—these account sufficiently for +the fear in Cosgrove’s servant, spurring him hillward. This, I +believe—and it is Salt’s belief as well as mine—is the true story. + +“Maybe it’s not quite cricket to criticize Cosgrove, now he’s gone,” +said Crofts in an unusually reflective manner. “I do think that he +might have shot straighter, you know. I don’t see what he was driving +at when he brought this ruffianly man of his down here in secret, to +lurk about, perhaps to thieve, and above all, to be brought among us +in disguise that evening. What was the point of that, I’d like to +know!” + +“No doubt about it,” declared Salt. “Mr. Cosgrove, havin’ no idea what +had happened to Sir Brooke the night before, expected him surely to be +here by the time the Noah thing commenced.” + +“What’s that to do with it?” + +“Why, Mr. Cosgrove was particularly anxious to bring the pair of ’em +together, I expect.” + +Crofts looked at Salt as at one suddenly seized with dementia. “To +bring them together? Why should he want to do that?” + +“To show he meant business, Mr. Pendleton.” + +Aire asked quickly, “Who was this wild man?” + +“Ah, I was wonderin’ who’d ask me,” said Salt. “Please don’t mention +it, ladies and gentlemen, but the man killed by the landslide was sure +to be Toban First, the royal King of Ireland!” + + + Same day. 10.10 P.M. + +A couple of snubbed and highly aggrieved juries brought in verdicts of +“Wilful Murder” and “Misadventure” respectively, as they were told to, +and within half an hour of my entering the mortuary, I was in the +street again. For a few minutes I was busy resisting the minions of +the press, who buzzed about all of us but secured small plenishments +of honey. I surmise that the likelihood of exposure to blandishing +newsgatherers was the principal reason why Blenkinson, finder of the +stone, was the only servant brought from the Vale to give testimony. + +Alberta suggested that instead of returning to the House immediately +the party should spend the afternoon in motors. Everyone gladly +acceded to this means of relief from the oppressive atmosphere of the +Vale; everyone, that is, save Aire, who, having given his evidence in +the second inquest, had withdrawn to prepare for the third, which will +be held in a day or so. At the last moment, since we made too large a +crowd to be packed loosely into the pair of available cars, I, too, +seceded from the group, alleging quite truly that since the afternoon +was fine, tramping and exploring would do me perfectly. + +Time-wracked New Aidenn lies in the shadow of its huge castle mound +whose fortress no longer stands atop, and the vestiges of old city +walls are far out in the fields where the cows find succulent grazing. +In ordinary circumstances these vestiges of greatness and evidences of +decay would have kindled my ardour in the antiquarian way, but now I +was resolved upon two queerer visits. + +I found Aire with Sir Brooke in a side chamber of the mortuary itself. +There was a faint scent of balsam in the room, which was fitted with +some of the appurtenances of a laboratory, and Aire, in a white smock, +had a slip of glass and a pipette in his hand. Sir Brooke lay on a +table at the far end of the room, mercifully covered with a sheet. + +“Ceremonies over?” + +“They are, and no one the wiser. Your duties finished?” + +“Oh, this isn’t duty, exactly. I could shunt it if I wished. Only +chance, you know, has made me the responsible medical witness in all +three deaths; so I have assumed the mantle of whoever corresponds to a +divisional police surgeon in the country. I’m well paid—curiosity, and +all that sort of thing.” + +“Well, has curiosity received any communicable reward?” + +“Prophecy fulfilled, at any rate. As I said, this man was +drowned—drowned and nothing else.” + +“But didn’t you say something about a bruise on the forehead? Mrs. +Bartholomew won’t give you peace until that’s explained.” + +“No, I mentioned a mark, not a bruise. Peculiar thing, you know—no +contusion, just scraping and scratching of the skin above the left +eye. In itself nothing unusual, but there was a long wood splinter +stuck there; that’s the oddest feature of the death.” + +“What’s it like?” + +Aire took from a rack on the wall an envelope, and from it extracted a +thin fragment, about an inch long, dark brown in colour, and feeling +like rock. + +“Why, this isn’t—” + +“It requires microscopy to show that it’s wood at all.” + +“I’d never believe it, surely.” + +“It’s almost petrified. That happens, extremely rarely, when certain +kinds of wood are immersed in running water for long periods. The +organic substance is replaced by precipitated mineral matter.” + +“Well, it doesn’t strike me as being of such vast importance.” + +“One wonders, for instance, what’s kept it submerged and stationary.” + +At the door of departure I laughed. “A question indeed. But I must be +off.” + +“Sounds as if you had plans for the afternoon.” + +“I have. I am going to take a walk—Belvoir’s hint, you remember.” + +“I can’t say I do.” + +“A walk into the past. By the way, you had a letter this morning. May +I ask if it was in reference to the blood-test?” + +“It was, indeed. And pig’s blood you found that night for a certainty. +The test reaction of the blood I sent with anti-human sera was +negative.” + +“There’s some comfort in that, but it leaves the problem no less vexed +than before.” + +“More vexed, if you ask me. If it had been the vital fluid of a man, +we’d have some notion of what we’re looking for. As it is, even the +nature of the problem is vague.” + +“Cannibal,” I said. “Well, I must be going; these roads are new to me. +When I return to New Aidenn, I expect a bit of interesting mail +myself.” + +“Oh, yes?” + +“Yes; I’ve sent for my copy of the Book of Sylvan Armitage—not that +the missing portion of the manuscript is in it. I’ve thumbed the +volume too much to have overlooked anything of that sort. Well, +cheerio.” + +“Cheerio.” Aire returned to his far from cheery work while I set my +footsteps out of town and eastward. + +On every side around the graceful slopes of hills intercepted one +another in a little-changing prospect while I trod the highway across +green Radnor Plain. I passed the prehistoric Four Stones in their +black-grey stoicism, passed Doomsday parks, passed old cottages with +slate-shingled roofs. Above an avenue of oaks the square tower of St. +Stephen’s in Old Aidenn had been gradually mounting the sky ahead of +me, and in due time I diverged from the road and climbed the oak +avenue to the village. + +What would I find beneath that Norman tower? Hints of symbolic +meanings of the “deathless arm” were rife in mind. Are the descendants +of Sir Pharamond Kay living yet? Perhaps—and the suggestion caused me +to bate my breath—one of us guests in Highglen House actually belongs +to the family of Kay. This supposition had not occurred to me before +as a live idea. Now it had force. It was, too, an hypothesis that +offered scope and direction for investigating, and in a subject where +I was more or less at home. Perhaps (a big perhaps) I might play a +large part yet in the untwining of these twisted skeins. + +I will not say that I was growing excited while I procured the church +key from its custodian in one of the handful of straggling houses +remaining of the mediæval town: I had, in fact, been excited and eager +all during my walk across the monotonous plain. I entered the +churchyard by the lych-gate; the place was overcrowded with crumbling +stones among the red-barked yews. The men and women with shears, who +trimmed the grass along the graves of dear ones, looked at me, I +thought, with more than ordinary interest; there must have been marks +of eagerness in my face. I unlocked the wire-screen outer door, found +the portal within the vestibule unfastened, and entered the little +church. + +The empty air smelled sweet and sanctified. The hour was clouded, and +I wished that some of the oil lamps hanging from the low roof might be +lit, for the interior was rather cavernous in the absence of sun. +Searching, I seemed fated to encounter everything but the thing I +sought. These were features with a reputation: the rood screen of fan +tracery and leaf-flower-and-grape carvings, that unique organ-case +dating back to the Gothic period, the window of St. Catherine’s +Wheel—but I spent not a second apiece on them, looking with greater +interest at the tombstones in the floor, at the memorial tablets +between the windows, and at the ’scutcheons painted on the wall with +colours still bright. + +A flash of lightning drove the darkness from even the remotest corners +of the church, and my heart gave a leap. That instant I had seen a +long, bulky object in a recess of the chapel on my left. + +It was the tomb of Sir Pharamond, stained and gnawed by centuries. The +effigies of the lord of Aidenn and his lady rested there in stone, +with small beasts recumbent at their feet. I lit a match to examine +the face and figure of the man. The crown of the head was clean gone, +and a fragment of the chin had fallen away, but it was impossible not +to recognize the sharp, malignant features, the keen lips, the +close-set eyes as being those of the paintings in Highglen House. + +The left arm of the effigy lay across the breast, the mailed fist +clasping a broken sword. The right arm was missing. + +At first I thought that, like the pieces of the head, it had been a +prey to time, but careful examination by the light of a second match +proved the carving to be complete: the chain mail ended neat at the +shoulder. No right arm had ever been there. + +In haste I stooped and lit a third match to read what might be +decipherable of the inscription, but another lightning flash disclosed +the words still distinct on the side of the tomb, and I read while it +thundered: + + Let Trecchours be Ware My Right Arme Shall Not + Dye For soo I have Ordeyned + +These were all the words upon the monument. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The Recrudescence of Parson Lolly + +I chanced upon an alternative road, with more variety in its +prospects, to take me back to the mouth of the Vale, omitting New +Aidenn entirely and saving a third of my journey. Even on this +short-cut southward, I found daylight part drawn into evening when I +reached the top of the vast hill called the Smatcher, shaped like a +loaf of bread, and began to descend through its larches to the +entrance of the Vale. Gleams of sun walked from peak to peak while +violet dusk deepened along the skirts of the hills. On the highway +below me I perceived a human figure trudging toward the branch road to +the House. + +I straightway recognized that sawed-off, machine-like form, and the +peculiar drawing-up of the shoulder with each step. Doctor Aire was +preceding me through the twilight. + +I hailed him and joined him. “I thought the others might pick you up.” + +“Not returned yet, I dare say. Didn’t call for me, at any rate. So I’m +getting my fortnightly exercise.” He looked up at me quizzically. “You +found everything satisfactory?” + +“Damnably the reverse. Why, there never was a right arm on that +effigy. Do you know, Doctor, I believe Maryvale has the mission in +life of plaguing me!” + +“Not you alone, let me assure you. Other persons are agog over his +cryptic remarks. I, for instance.” + +“You? Oh, no.” + +“Yes. You didn’t hear what he told the Pendletons and me this morning +at breakfast? He said that Parson Lolly is dead.” + +“Parson Lolly dead! That was fudge.” + +“On the contrary, he assured us with perfect gravity that the Parson +died last night.” + +“He was pulling your leg.” + +“Not a bit of it. I know Maryvale that well, anyhow.” + +“Give it your own name, then; I’d call it empty talk.” + +Aire twitched around at me in a surprised way. “Never,” he declared. +“Sure, Bannerlee, you must realize by this time that there’s always +something behind what Maryvale says. He doesn’t merely vaporize.” + +We were approaching the temporary bridge. “I wish you’d tell me +exactly what you think of Maryvale, Doctor. I confess that to me +there’s something uncanny about the man. If he’s mad, he ought not to +be loose among us, and if not—” + +“If not?” Aire cocked his head to hear. + +“—if not, he’s up to some subtle game.” + +“Oho, you think so?” + +“What else, for heaven’s sake?” + +He waited to cross the bridge before he answered. “No, that’s not my +reading of Maryvale. I look on him as a man wrestling with an idea, +the idea of Parson Lolly.” + +“And still I don’t get hold of your meaning.” + +“It’s this way. Gilbert Maryvale has come to Aidenn Vale before. Each +time, certainly, a tradition of the countryside, a popular +half-belief, has been mentioned, more often discussed with some +fullness. It is, to say the minimum, a fable of much piquancy, a +legend above the average in interest, this tradition of the +goblin-parson—is it not?” + +“Granted, granted.” + +“Haven’t you often wished that fairy-tales were true? Maryvale has +almost convinced himself to believe in Parson Lolly. His mind hasn’t +conquered the idea, seems to be more or less at the mercy of it. But +sometimes he rebels. Now and then he can see the absurdity as well as +you or I; he can even laugh at the Parson. But again he will fall into +perplexity, confusion, shame, fear over the idea. And he is capable, +under suggestion or after shock, of getting into the throes, quite +possessed with the reality of the unreal, virtually a maniac if you +like that word. At these times he makes the supreme surrender one is +capable of making to ideas.” + +“What is that?” + +“Why, he _acts_ on them. Remember his carrying that revolver up the +Vale.” + +“Thanks, I remember well enough.” We went on in silence a little way, +and then I said quickly, “But that doesn’t explain everything. Madmen +are consistent; that’s why they’re mad. But Maryvale tells me that +someone of the house of Kay did this murder, and sends me over to Old +Aidenn to find out about that missing arm, and—” + +“Of course he is not consistent; that’s why he is _not_ mad, as you +persist in thinking. He is very much mixed, but his ideas don’t fit +into a complete system. I shall be sorry when they do, and I think the +sooner he leaves the Vale the better.” + +“Why don’t you suggest it?” + +“I have, to Salt. However, the Superintendent doesn’t want our group +to be dissolved for a few days yet. I’d have Maryvale out of here in a +jiffy, though, if I felt his mental condition were critical, not +simply fluctuating, for there’s not the remotest possibility of his +being implicated in Cosgrove’s death.” + +“Let me see, where was he, just?” + +“Sitting with me on the steps of the summer-house the whole time +during which the murder could have happened. But if he is shielded +from any further mental concussion, I suppose there’s no harm in his +staying on here a while longer. Besides, you know, he will have it +that the Parson is dead.” + +In the thickening gloom I could make out no expression on the face of +the man keeping step beside me. I spoke cautiously. + +“I take it, then, Doctor, that you don’t think Maryvale may have a +hand in the manifestations of the Parson?” + +He laughed. “Rather not! How could he?” + +“I wish I could tell you. But in any case I suppose—I devoutly hope, +anyhow—that the manifestations are over, and the explanations will be +in order henceforth.” + +“I second you willingly.” + +We went on. I stumbled against a stone in the roadway. “Doctor, you’ve +heard about the man I encountered the night I came here; I mean the +one with the umbrella.” + +“Yes, Salt asked my opinion about that chap.” + +“What opinion could you have?” + +“Question of sanity again.” + +“What do you think?” + +“Hopelessly sane, I should say. You didn’t take him for crazed, did +you?” + +“No; I suppose his talk was fabricated.” + +“From Salt’s account, I judged it was—most of it, anyhow.” + +“Which part do you exempt?” + +“Well, wasn’t there an urgent warning about calling off the dogs, and +a reference to golden-haired woman? Believe me, Bannerlee, this +Mac-whatever-his-name-was meant what he said just then.” + +“Perhaps. But what I wanted to tell you, Doctor, was that I can’t help +connecting Maryvale with that man. The physical differences in their +appearance aren’t so great that they couldn’t be one and the same, +what with a false beard stuck on crooked, and the rest of it. It’s +unlikely, of course, but still—” + +“Tut! it’s impossible.” + +“You don’t know. You weren’t here that night.” + +“Trust Salt. He has ascertained beyond a shade of doubt that Maryvale +and the rest of the party were in the House the whole evening. The +only possibility is that one of the servants _might_ have gone out +looking that way, and you know how likely that is.” + +I gave a shrug to dismiss the whole question as insoluble. “I thank my +stars I wasn’t born a detective.” + +“Curious how dark the House is,” said Aire. “So close to dinner, too.” + +The building had been in sight for a time, but only as a black beast +crouching with closed eyes on the lawn. Now we were some hundred yards +or so distant, but had still to go through the gate-house archway if +we followed the westward trend of the drive. + +I said, “I suppose our friends haven’t appeared. I’d make my outing as +long as possible, too, having to return at last to this devil’s +playground.” + +We passed underneath the arch, crossed the lawn. + +“Even the kitchens looked dark from down below. Can’t tell about them +from this side, though. I certainly expected the motorists to be back +by this time; didn’t you?” + +“Yes, I did.” + +“It looks like a tomb.” + +I was aware that Aire had made a swift movement; then I saw him stock +still, with his hand part way to his lips in a gesture of surprise. + +“No lights, no. But there’s someone in the conservatory.” + +“What!” + +“I saw the gleam of a face at the window of the tower. Just a white +blotch. See that?” + +“Right-o.” + +We made across the lawn at a run, entered the Hall of the Moth by the +unfastened french window, and encountered two figures emerging from +the conservatory. + +“I’m so glad you’ve come!” + +“Miss Lebetwood!” + +“Yes, it’s Millicent and I. Don’t—don’t be afraid,” she added with a +little, unsteady laugh. + +“Are you alone? Is there something the matter with the lights?” + +“The lights are all right. Yes, we’re alone.” + +Aire demanded, “Aren’t the servants here?” + +“They’re all here, I guess. I meant our people, you know. They brought +us to the bridge, so we could come up and have an hour or two of rest +before dinner. They didn’t want to come in yet; so they drove on +again.” + +“But why didn’t you switch on the lights?” Aire queried. “With all +deference to your courage, I should think you would have felt easier +in your minds—” + +“We didn’t dare turn on the light,” said Miss Lebetwood. + +Aire and I barked astonishment. + +Miss Mertoun, who had been clinging to the American girl’s arm, said, +“Do go on, Paula. Tell them what we saw.” + +“It’s very little after all,” said Miss Lebetwood. “We had driven down +to the Wye Valley, had tea, and come back again by five-thirty, and +someone suggested going north to Ludlow before returning to the House. +But Millicent and I said we’d rather be excused; so one car waited on +the main road while the other brought us up and dropped us at the +bridge. We walked very slowly, and it wasn’t until about half an hour +ago that we reached the House. It was pretty dark, you know, even +then, but light from one or two kitchen windows showed in the garden; +so we weren’t scared at all.” + +“Ah,” remarked Aire. “You didn’t come by the drive, then?” + +“Oh, no, it was too dull for us. We came round through the grove under +Whimble and across the lawn south of the House to the cat-head door. +The door wasn’t latched, and we simply walked into the vestibule, and +we would have gone straight upstairs, but Millicent remembered a book +she had left in the Hall of the Moth. So she went in there to get it, +and I waited by the steps, but a moment later I heard her give a small +scream. I ran in—” + +“What had you seen, Miss Mertoun?” asked Aire, turning to the English +girl. + +“Something looked in the window. Paula saw it, too.” + +“‘Something’ is a trifle vague, isn’t it?” + +“But we don’t know what it was.” + +“Well, what was its shape, and how was it dressed?” + +“It was as tall as a man, maybe taller,” said Miss Lebetwood, “and it +was wrapped in a long black robe from the top of its—head to the +ground.” + +“That’s the creature Oxford and I saw on the lawn that first night,” I +exclaimed. + +Aire asked, “What was its face like?” + +Miss Lebetwood spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “It didn’t have any +face.” + +Aire actually staggered back a step, and I reached out for something +to support me, but encountering nothing, concluded to stand upright. + +I found my voice. “You mean you couldn’t see any.” + +“On the contrary, I was quite near the window—that one by the armoury +door. Millicent had left her book on the cabinet there, and had +reached the place before she saw the shape, and I naturally went to +her side. We had all the light there was, and would have seen a face +if there had been any there.” + +Stricken by a memory, I put my hand on Aire’s arm. “Remember, Doctor, +how Maryvale put no face in his portrait?” + +He ignored me, and said, “What then?” + +“We were petrified, of course. It seemed to peer in, if you can +understand, even without a face. The whole attitude of the thing was +inquiring, curious. And then perhaps it saw us, for suddenly it +twisted and hurried away.” + +“Why didn’t you get the servants?” I put in. + +“Things were bad enough without that.” + +“What shall we do, Bannerlee?” + +“Go after it, don’t you think?” + +“Right. You have a torch, haven’t you?” + +“Yes; I’ll fetch it. You stay here to guard the womenfolk.” + +I made dizzy haste up the spiral stairs and down again, and found the +three outside the french window where the intruder had stood. Aire was +lighting matches in search of footprints, but as had been predicted, +vainly. We agreed that it would be best for the two girls to return to +the conservatory and keep watch through the windows, having care to +remain invisible. If anything untoward happened, they were to signal +us by switching on the light, at the same time ringing for the +servants if danger was evident. + +Aire and I went side by side over the lawn toward the small solitary +copse. First one of us flashed the light along the sward while the +other tried to penetrate the darkness ahead; then we reversed duties. +As for footprints, if there were any they were exceedingly light and +vague, and singularly small, but we could not even agree there was a +definite trail. + +The distance from the House to the cypresses was over two hundred +feet, and before we had covered the distance the Vale was filled with +a soft illumination, as if twilight had re-begun. On our right, the +moon was rising over Whimble, a crescent moon glowing like white-hot +metal. Then Aire, who had been looking ahead, drew up. + +“Something’s among the trees for sure.” + +While he spoke I saw movement underneath the horizontal branches, and +that queer, black-robed, conic figure—unmistakably the same I had seen +on the evening of my arrival—swiftened from the shelter of the +cypresses toward the expansive darkness of the park where the +summer-house stood. The long loose-flying sleeves flapped curiously as +if there were no arms within them. The wide garment spread along the +ground, but we had no sight of legs or feet, and I admit I felt uneasy +at the thought that if we caught this unknown, it might prove to have +no face. + +We ran in pursuit, but I was careful not to outstrip Aire, lest the +thing should turn and fell us separately. In consequence, we barely +maintained our distance, and had the mortification of seeing the black +robe merge with the night among the sycamores of the park. + +“Hear that?” + +“It’s jumped into the stream.” + +“Or fallen in.” + +A little way within the park we found the steep-sided channel of the +brook which flowed across the farm of the sisters Delambre, later on +passed beneath the elaborated bridge, and eventually joined Aidenn +Water. The bank at this point was five or six feet high. + +“What next?” + +Aire slid and floundered down to the edge of the rivulet which +whispered along the channel. + +“Can’t tell for certain, but I believe it went toward the bridge.” + +I got down beside him, and we sped between the banks, which gradually +lifted above us. Dry land was scarce, and we did a deal of splashing +in the brook, but by the aid of my torch I seemed to see ahead muddy +traces of other splashing before ours. A wild rose growing on the edge +of the water had been trampled down. + +A couple of short turns in the course of the brook brought us to the +stone bridge, a structure magnificently heavy in the body, but leaving +a semicircular arch only about eighteen inches high for the passage of +water. + +“It’s a blind alley. No man—or woman—could have gone through there. +There isn’t room for a good-sized dog.” + +I bent down and shot the light underneath; there was nothing but water +there. + +“Well—” + +“Up the bank, did it go?” + +I flashed the torch up and down both sides of us. On the one hand was +a miniature precipice more than ten feet high, on the other was a wall +of earth nearly vertical, thickly grown with ivy-leaved toad-flax +showing no sign that anything larger than a mite had travelled over +it. + +“I never—” Aire began. + +I could not repress a tremor when he suddenly looked skyward, showing +that the spell of magic could exist in his bones. I turned my gaze up, +too, as if I really expected to see a black-robed figure floating over +the ruined summer-house or receding into the depths of the night sky. +But it was eastward that Aire was looking, and while we stared, some +solitary winged form flapped across the narrow surface of the moon. + +“We’re beaten,” said Aire. + +“Let’s get out of here. I need a tonic.” + +“Shall we go back?” + +“No; I’ll give you a leg up, and you reach down a hand to me.” + +In this wise we crawled up the toad-flax, and a minute later our wet +feet were taking us back toward the cypress grove again. I kept my +light running along the ground, though my hope was feeble of +discovering any traces of the unknown. But when we had reached the +grove itself, Aire darted forward with a chortling cry. + +No need to tell me what the white thing was that he picked up and held +in a trembling hand. He tried to decipher it in the moonlight before +my torch made the letters clear: + + L o O k O U T F o R m E T o N I G h T P A R S O N L O L L Y + +There was singularly little reaction on the part of anyone; I think +most of the minds in the House are drugged with dangers and alarums. + +“But, I say,” protested Charlton Oxford. “The beastly placard says +to-night, y’know.” + +“Can you use a pistol?” asked Crofts. + +“Yes, but—” + +“You can have mine, then. As for me, I’m going to sleep with one ear +and one eye open, and shan’t be surprised at anything, including being +murdered.” + +Alberta rang for someone to remove the coffee-cups. “And nobody must +whisper a word of it to the servants, must they, Crofts?” + +“Of course not.” + +Blenkinson himself entered, slipped about the room with deferential +soft-footedness, collected the débris, and carried it out on two +trays. I noticed his eyes once or twice sliding into their corners +while he stole an inscrutable look at Miss Lebetwood. + +“Extraordinary staff of servants you have,” remarked Aire, as soon as +the butler had departed. + +“I’m paying double wages,” said Crofts shortly. + +“I agree with Stephen,” declared Belvoir. “And I don’t think wages +alone cut much figure.” + +“Tell them, Crofts,” said Alberta. + +Her husband looked a bit abashed, but having encountered the steady +beam of her eye, growled, “Blenkinson.” + +“Elucidate,” I said. + +“Blest if I know,” confessed Crofts. “But there’s the fact. The +fellow’s a perfect lord among the community, and somehow he’s induced +the lot to believe that he’s able to protect ’em. I don’t know his +method. He just assured me I could depend on him.” + +Silence fell, in which the clock was audible, and I noticed that it +was a quarter to ten. + +Alberta yawned and made a gesture of weariness. “What do you say to +ten o’clock bed, people?” + +Assent was unanimous. + + +Those gate-house towers that nod to me across the lawn—may they +harbour the Parson? Those locked cellars that no one has seen for +years. Who or what may not be down there? There are persons +unaccounted for in the Vale. And where now is the drowning-pit? In +olden days this castle must have had one. Discovering it, would I know +more about the Parson, or about the perfidious tree, or about the +cat’s claw? + +Some of these questions I may be able to answer, if— + +Yes, just now, at eleven minutes to twelve, I tossed a sixpence to +decide. It fell spinning on the table, wobbled provokingly, and said, +“Go forth.” + +Let the Parson beware! If I catch him—or her—to-night! + + + Five minutes to twelve. + +Great God, through my open window— + +Some woman’s voice, very faint. . . . I am not sure whose. It is not +Paula Lebetwood’s. + +It called “Sean, poor Sean!” many times, and died away. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +The Midnight Expedition + + October 8. 11 A.M. + +Furtively, yet with a strange half-fearful pleasure, I made my way in +safety to the top of the stairs and down. I knew it was useless to +inspect the rooms which had been examined many times by day during the +past week. So I would have passed the library entrance without a +moment’s check in my rapid movement, had not a streak of light shot +forth from beneath the door just as I reached the bottom stair. +Someone had lit the chandelier. + +I felt shock. I curdled. To investigate is one thing; to run +point-blank on revelations in the wrong place is another. I had a +panicky impulse to slip upstairs again and lock myself in. But instead +I loitered where I stood, staring at the yellow drugget spread from +the lintel. + +The door was slightly ajar, and I saw a portion of the panelling of +the library wall; yet no sound came from within. A pale screen of +light, of which the edge drew a line on the opposite side of the +corridor, indicated that I might peep into the room through the slit +of the door. And though my curiosity had somehow turned sick within +me, presently I found myself with my eye at the crack. + +My legs seemed to wilt. If it had been Cosgrove himself, burly as +life, I could not have had a worse turn. A trim young fellow, clad in +dinner clothes and wearing a black cap, was inside, and he was a +stranger! + +He had been standing beyond the table, apparently in thought, his head +three-quarters from me, so that I caught only the remote profile of +his smooth face, and a narrow slice of his white shirt-front. But now +he moved across the room to a bookcase just within my triangle of +vision, drew open its glass doors, and commenced looking for some +volume. He stood in full view with his back toward me, turning his +head from side to side in a survey of the upper shelves. I could see +then that though slight of stature, he was, for his height, no mere +skeleton, but of fairly solid build, being even a bit broader across +the hips than at the shoulders. + +A minute later he was beneath the light, his chosen volume lay open +before him. I recognized it instantly as the Book of Sylvan Armitage. +With his face cast into shadow by the peak of his cap, he leaned +across the table with one hand flat on the red velvet, while the other +ran through the pages. I could tell that the outspread hand was +delicate and tapering, an “artistic” hand; but what I wanted to see +plainly was that clean-shaved face. + +Of a sudden he picked the book up from the table, pushed himself erect +from his leaning position, walked toward the armoury door and beyond +my range of vision. There was a click, and the chandelier faded out; a +moment later I heard a tiny jingling sound, as of curtain rings +disturbed. The young man was restoring the portières to their original +places. Then—nothing. + +The debonair manner I discerned in this youth even during observation +so brief and cramped, the easy, natural way in which his dapper feet +carried him across the floor, as if the place belonged to him—all so +much at variance with the stealthy habits of a lawless intruder—rather +increased the numb, foreboding ill-ease I felt. + +At last I ventured into the library, and found it, as I expected, in +moon-bathed vacancy. The armoury and the Hall of the Moth were also +empty save for their furnishings. I stood in the midst of the Hall, +wondering where the young chap had betaken himself, whether out of +doors, which seemed unlikely, whether into some crypt or cove in the +massive walls, which seemed unlikely, too, or into thin air, which, in +spite of the compulsion of ancient sorceries, seemed less likely than +either. Anyhow, he was gone, and it remained for me to consider what +course to take. + +No need to retail my devious thoughts. In the end I saw no good in +rousing the house, particularly since I must reveal my secret +projects. I went on as before, with caution redoubled. + +The corridor—no one there, apparently. The dinner-room—no one there +for certain. The kitchen—now I was in unknown territory. I waited, +listened, breathless. Only the whistle of a bat outside, the creak of +a timber within. I ran the shifting circle of my torch about the +walls, across the floor. A cockroach, devil’s coachman, fled across +the flags, and a great moth with eyes glimmering green fluttered +toward me from some corner. There on its pillar hung the gate-house +key; there, beside the chimney-place where a modern stove presided, +was the door I sought. + +With prodigious care I passed through this portal, for besides leading +ultimately to the bowels of the earth, it ushered me at first into a +passage off which opened the precincts of the servants. These +half-subterranean chambers lay beneath the dinner-room and +conservatory. While I stole past the doors, I had audible evidence +a-plenty that the dwellers within were sleeping soundly enough. + +This passage I was traversing had a distinct downward tendency and +stretched underneath the corridor of the ground floor. It terminated +in a door which, when I passed my light over it, appeared very black +and cumbrous. The key was in the lock. + +To my surprise, when by a series of graded pressures I commenced to +turn this key, it moved easy and soundless, as if very recently oiled. +Beyond was a winding stone stair. + +By way of sensible precaution I removed the key and brought it with +me, having no wish to be immured in the depths for any cause +whatsoever. The stairs, a dozen or so in number, brought me to the +entrance of another passage beneath the first, leading me in exactly +the opposite direction. While it proceeded it widened into a goodly +cellar, and I made out the yawning mouths of bins on either side, a +comforting sight. There were dark archways leading to other caverns. +And when I stamped, an unmistakable hollow sound came from below, +proof that some buried chamber existed there. + +The trap-doors by which one gained these sub-cellars, Crofts had said, +were long disused, inch-deep in dust. And a few seconds later I came +upon one of them, a heavy iron plate in the floor, clamped down with a +clumsy padlock—but the dust was cleared away, and the padlock was not +fastened at all! I picked the thing up from where it was lying by the +flange, and stared at it stupidly. It would never lock anything again; +it had been forced. + +Now, surely, this was none of Salt’s work; he had promised to do no +more than inspect the dust-covered entrances. It became increasingly +evident that someone had preceded me in this search, someone careful +not to be detected while he came, but careless whether it was known +that he had been. God forbid that he was still below! + +With one fierce tug I lifted the door by a ring in the centre; it fell +backward with a heavy clang, and an atmosphere of choking damp came up +from the hole it left. + +A stair descended therein, very steep and narrow, with a thinnish +fuzzy coating which must have been dust, though where it came from +would have been difficult to tell. In the dust there were footprints, +big footprints. + +I didn’t like it, but I went on down. The rough stone walls were +crumbling with water-rot and the sheer decay of age. While the air +grew more smothering, I ran my head into stalactitic cobwebs and +rubbed elbows with evil fungi sprouting in every crevice. + +It seemed as if there must be a hundred of those steps, though +actually they were about the same number as had been in the winding +stair. At length I saw that I had come to the last of them, for the +big footsteps tramped across a lumpy floor, athwart the glistening +path of a snail. The door was earth, soggy and covered with that same +thin dust-layer. + +Midnight was midnight there indeed. Without my torch, I should never +have returned a sane man. Nor did my light, dancing about from wall to +wall, make it endurable. Fungi grew riotously everywhere, and the +cobwebs, black as a funeral, hung down thick from the vaulted ceiling, +like infamous hair. One or two spiders darted out and scurried +immediately back into their loathsome jungle. Whenever I shifted my +light, I had a feeling that from the place left in darkness the vile +growth was reaching out tentacles to grasp and cling to me. + +I intended to make my business here as brief as possible, but first I +must find what the other visitor had been doing before me. I followed +the big footprints across the marshy floor, and noted a thick mark +drawn beside them. Something had been dragged. + +Then the traces ceased, and I drew back suddenly with a cry at my +lips. I had had a narrow escape. + +There was little to tell that the floor stopped here, for like it the +water was covered with an unclean growth. I stood on the brink of the +water-pit, where Aidenn’s lord had once drowned thirty wretches in a +single day! If ever a place was accurst for the cruelties performed +there, this is it. + +Over the stagnant pit the ghastly festoons hung so thick that the +torchlight could scarcely pierce the darkness to the farther wall. +From that wall a queer shape protruded, round like an enormous barrel, +but too vague to be identified. + +I suddenly caught sight of an object beside me on the verge of the +water. A stake had been driven into the earth through the gathered-up +mouth of a large cloth bag. The bottom of the bag hung over the edge +and down into the water, and the weight of its contents drew the whole +bag taut. + +I gave a prolonged look through the shaggy gloom, where the black +streamers faintly shivered in the air my body had stirred. Was some +obscene presence spying on me from the murk? + +Banishing fear, I wrenched up the stake, lifted the bag from the pool, +and let its burden fall upon the floor. Stark and stiff, with its eyes +staring, its tongue thrust out, its fur tousled into knarls and lumps, +its claws extended, the enormous cat of the sisters Delambre lay +outstretched at my feet. I stooped over the body; my fingers touched a +cord drawn tight about the neck. + +So Maryvale had made this abysmal journey before me, and there had +been substance in his madness when he announced that Parson Lolly is +no more. Since bullets would not kill, with cord and water he made +assurance double. The long despairing cry will never shudder down the +Vale again. + +I must have stood there a long while almost oblivious, gazing into the +invisible, until the darkness seemed to enter my brain. The most +infinitesimal sounds crept into my consciousness: the muffled murmur +of water in motion somewhere, the charnel breath of the things that +drooped from the vault, the very voice of silence! Then disgust at my +surroundings mounted in an instant almost to nausea, and I wheeled +about in flight to the cellar above. + +I took the stairs in a leap and a scramble, the trap-cover closed with +a shout behind me while I darted among the bins and arches to the +winding steps. At the top of these I paused to replace the key but not +to turn it, then made tiptoes past the doors until I gained the +kitchen. With the key of the gate-house in my hand I passed into the +dinner-room, thence through the corridor into the conservatory, one of +whose smaller windows I proposed to use as a means of egress. + +The valley seemed pale and quiet in the moonlight. In a trice I had +the casement open and had stepped through to the ground, concealed +beneath those outside stairs leading to the door at the end of the +first floor corridor. I pushed the window shut, and on the instant the +long screech of some predatory night-bird shrilled from the +summer-house park. If it was an omen, it was not for good—and my path +lay among those shadows! + +This was for secrecy. If I passed directly across the lawn, some +wakeful eye in one of the long range of windows might find me out; so +I had no choice but a long three parts of a circle screened by trees. +First I stole behind the birches where I concealed myself at dawn the +other day on catching sight of the red-bearded runner, next through +the cypresses, then the sycamores of the park, and finally the +strawberry trees. These last extended far enough south to enable me to +reach the towers from the side opposite the House. The door was on the +other side, unconcealed, but I had to risk being seen while I unlocked +it. + +I stood still beneath the twin, mute towers for a minute or two before +gathering determination for my effort. Salt, of course, visited this +place the day after his arrival, but has kept his discoveries secret. +My hope, of course, was that someone came here _after_ Salt, in +particular the black-robed object of our pursuit to-night. + +I noticed that the moon was near setting, since it had but a short +progress to make from eastern to western hill. When it was down, the +Vale would be dark indeed. Was it worth waiting until that happened? + +Impatience decided not. I sped around the tower that contained the +door, turned the monumental key, got safely inside the entrance, and +stood with bated breath. Seen or unseen, I was in for it now. Heaven +help me if I found a presence inside these walls. + +My light showed the beginning of the spiral stair; there was +absolutely no sound. I commenced to climb. + +It was a long way up. My stockinged feet were all but noiseless on the +overlapping stony steps, and more than once I checked myself, thinking +that I heard footfalls following mine. The torch, directed downward, +revealed the empty stair winding into nether darkness. This delusion +persisted; indeed, when I was at the point of entering the little room +atop the tower, I thought that I heard even the breath of some +stealthy climber. The light showed only the bare winding beneath me, +and I spoke a murrain on the narrow tower which had no well to enable +me to see clear to the bottom. + +My imagination cooled down, and I set about examining the circular +chamber. Owing to the thickness of the walls, it was only some five +feet in diameter. It was low, and save in the centre, where the +pointed roof gave space, I could not stand upright. For windows it had +three slots, through one of which the moon cast a slanting beam. The +floor was thickly daubed with mud, but this in itself was not +surprising when one considered that Salt had sloshed through here on +the morning of the downpour. + +But that mud would have dried long ago, and this showed signs of damp! + +Eagerly, critically, I bent and studied the floor in the full glare of +my torch. There were dubious faintly moist impressions, of feet, I +believed; but I could make nothing of them. No entire footprint was +evident. Over the general surface of the dirt, however, something +sopping wet had recently been trailed, but not so heavily as to +disturb the topography of the mud. The little ridges and knolls left +by Salt’s rubber boots remained intact, but portions of that +microscopic countryside looked as if they were recovering from an +inundation; in one or two hollows there were positive pools, +one-sixteenth of an inch deep. + +Something exceedingly wet, but not very heavy—what else but the gown +of the creature that had fled from Aire and me and plunged into the +stream? Only, how in the name of magic did that creature evade us to +get here, unless it skipped _up_ the stream, which both Aire and I are +prepared to attest on oath it did not do? + +A flat-headed aperture led the way across the bridge between the +towers. In that direction the water-trail appeared to tend, although +at the edge of the dirt, where the gown had been drawn along the +stones themselves, almost complete evaporation had taken place. +Further along there was no sign of damp at all; I suppose the intruder +had observed the puddles he was making and had lifted the garment +clear from the floor, perhaps doffed it and rolled it under his arm. + +I had to crouch nearly double in that low passageway to reach the +inner room, which now I believed to be the headquarters of Parson +Lolly. My light, cast ahead, showed that it was a chamber of identical +mould with the one I had just quitted, and, much to my relief, it was +empty. One difference there was, indeed: the corresponding stairway +which led down from this tower had for some reason been walled up. I +tested the mortared stones; I pounded them with my fist; I butted them +with my shoulder. They were sound and secure, leaving no doubt that +those stairs condemned to everlasting darkness held no secret +connected with the present mysteries. + +When I had reached this comfortable certainty, I made a detailed +search of the turret. Someone, for sure, had been in the habit of +coming there; I found what appeared to me sufficient evidence of +occupation, and of hurried, perhaps permanent, departure. + +There were pencil-whittlings on the floor, from an indelible pencil; I +know the nasty taste of the aniline preparation. Now, when I +re-examined the Parson’s placard inside the House this evening, I saw, +though I did not comment on the fact, that such a pencil had been used +in writing it. + +There were two or three dark stains, splashes now quite dried, which +yet had a dim, offensive odour when my nose was close to them. To my +mind, no more proof is needed that a young pig was murdered here. + +There were a few short lengths, an inch to four or five inches, of +some pliant fibrous wood, perhaps bamboo, which I cannot account for. +With these, perhaps, are associated the fragments of black crepe I +found cut in wedges, rhombs, and various irregular shapes. + +I detected, while bending near one of the slender openings, a +sub-acrid, faded scent, which seemed specially localized on the sill, +so to speak, of the window, as if some pungent stuff had once been +spilt there and removed. In its proper context the source of the odour +would, I am sure, have been obvious in an instant; yet here it baffled +me. + +Last I found a torn end of paper. The side uppermost was blank, but to +my joy the other proved to contain printed words. The piece was +obviously detached from the title-page of some old book, octavo size, +with which I am not acquainted, though “CATTI” looks obscurely +familiar. I shall hardly have any trouble in identifying it.¹ + + ¹ Reproduced on following page. (V. Markham.) + +I felt actual elation, for Salt would never have overlooked this, or +left it here, supposing he had found it in the course of his +inspection. + +[Illustration: A torn piece of paper, missing much of the left side. +The printing on the paper is laid out like a handbill or a book’s +title page. What can be read says: “The ―es & Vagaries of ―on Catti, +―ones, Esq., ―d Wag of Wales; by ―yn Prichard”.] + +Five minutes had revealed these things; an hour could not reveal more. +I tucked the slip of paper into my breast pocket and departed from the +turret. Half-way across the bridge I was again aware of the sound of +footsteps climbing to the first chamber, but dismissed the idea as a +renewal of the delusion which had troubled me before. + +But there was no mistake this time, as I realized very soon. The +pad-pad of the unknown feet was growing louder, coming nearer. At once +I was terrified, yet possessed of reason. I knew it might be fatal to +let this creature see me before I saw him—it—her. Particularly +disastrous it would be to be caught in this low passageway where I +must go with my head almost touching my knees. I snapped off my light, +staggered into the room beyond, and stood at the edge of the +stair-head, leaning perforce on account of the funnel-roof. It was a +position of vantage. There I was in darkness, whereas whatever was +coming must emerge into the moonlight that shot through the opposite +slit. I might even escape undetected down the stairs if the creature +hurried past me to the bridge and the farther tower. + +But this hope was abortive. The creature knew I was there: that belief +stuck like a knife in my heart. + +The steady steps were only ten feet below, one twist of the stair. +They were like the steps of any ordinary man. + +The moon must have been nearly swallowed by the hills all this time, +for now it went down with appalling suddenness and left the room in +thick and absolute night. I could not see my foe in darkness; could it +see me? + +Every nerve in me was ringing its own alarm. The subtle glue that +holds the body-cells in friendly ties dissolved; it was every cell for +itself. I was fleeing in all directions. + +The creature actually passed me by; I felt the touch of some part of +it, cold as an Arctic stone, on my arm. + +It was like awakening from an evil dream. My fear welled up in fury. +Silently I launched an attack; with the torch I held I let fly in +blind and murderous onslaught. I struck something a blow that glanced; +the torch slipped from my grasp, but the creature staggered and sank +to the floor. I had my hands on its body now, and a crazy exultation +took hold of me when I realized that my opponent was merely a man like +myself and at my mercy. The stroke I had given blindly seemed to have +stunned him, for he made no resistance, but lay crumpled up, as I +found by groping. His breath came harsh and irregular. + +Who was he? For what seemed immeasurable time I searched, but I could +not find my torch. + +Obviously I had made an important capture, and the best thing to do, +since my light was lost, would be to lock the fellow-prisoner in and +go for reinforcements. + +I had a handkerchief; so had he. With their assistance I triced him in +a position from which he would not easily free himself. I placed him +face downward, with his head turned aside for breathing and his legs +doubled back, and I clipped each wrist to the opposite ankle. + +Then I groped my way down the long turnings, found the darkened world +again, locked the tower door, and made for the House. + +The rest was like the return of horrid dreams. With the moon gone, +still the stars gave a grey cast to the darkness. I saw some +fluttering-draped figure descend from the first storey by the outside +stairs; I heard distracted sobbing. I saw vague forms that followed +one another on the lawn, heard phantom calls and a queer hysteric +laughter. The place seemed more alive by night than at any hour of +day. + +Maryvale, I discovered afterward, had come out again, clambered down +all the way by the ivy. Lib, in the room next his, had heard him this +time, caught sight of him, fled across the passage to Mrs. +Bartholomew, shared that lady’s dismay on finding me also flown, +summoned Pendleton, who had roused Aire and come helter-skelter in +pursuit of the errant man of business. Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, in +different styles of negligée, now stood spectators of the course. +Millicent Mertoun, too, had come crying out of doors by those northern +stairs, in her sleep, as she had come that first night with the +American girl watchfully by her side. + +But to-night she roved alone. Where was Paula Lebetwood, whose room is +next the stairs, and who, however soundly she may have slept, must +have heard her dear friend’s weeping? + +Lights were awakening in various chambers. Maryvale, much surprised at +the solicitude of his captors, was explaining courteously that he had +merely descended to “pick herbs.” Alberta Pendleton had appeared and +was taking Miss Mertoun back to the House. + +By the time I had called attention to myself and had caused my story +to penetrate Crofts’ brain, many minutes had gone by. Four of us, +followed by those audacious females, Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, +approached the towers. The door stood open. The intruder, securely +trussed and locked in by me, had made off. He had taken my torch, +invaluable as both light and weapon. + +_Satis._ + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The Beginning of the End: Parabola + + Same day. 3 P.M. + +In spite of early bed last night, no one was downstairs early this +bright morning, Sunday. I myself wanted breakfast at nine, but then I +am the one person in the House who has anything concrete to do (to +wit, this writing)—hence I require the less repose. + +I visited the library before I went for food. To my grim pleasure, the +Book of Sylvan Armitage was back on its shelf. I am always grimly +pleased nowadays when anything baffling turns up. Crofts, by the way, +has proved blatantly sceptical about my experience last night; he said +that if I must go crawling about the House when decent folk are abed, +I mustn’t hold him responsible for what I think I see. + +The telephone jangled in the corridor while I was at the table. I +heard Soames answer and take some message. Presently the servant came +to me. + +“Superintendent Salt is holding on, sir, if you please.” + +“Me, he wants?” + +“He asked for any of the gentlemen, sir. Would you mind speaking to +him?” + +“Not at all.” A few moments later I was saying, “Hello, +Superintendent; this is Bannerlee. Anything I can do for you?” + +“Thanks very much, Mr. Bannerlee. Would you mind givin’ a message to +the doctor—Doctor Aire, I mean?” + +“Delighted.” + +“I’ve been lookin’ up _his_ whereabouts the two days before he came +down to Radnorshire.” + +“_His!_” + +“Yes. Nothing like thoroughness, is there? He might like to know he’s +not the Parson. Tell him he’s absolved, clean character, goes +scot-free.” + +“He’ll be grateful, I’m sure.” + +“Certain to be. Another thing, too, sir. I took the +liberty—unpardonable—of checkin’ _you_ also.” + +“_Me!_” + +The sound must have deafened Salt, for it was a little while before he +resumed, with smothered amusement. “Couldn’t help it, sir. All in the +way of routine. You’re acquitted, too, and can go your ways.” + +“Thanks awfully.” + +“Don’t mention it. By the way, I just told that man to inform Mr. +Pendleton that I’m comin’ up there this afternoon early, around +dinner-time. I’m bringin’ someone with me.” + +“Oh? Any harm in asking who it is?” + +“None at all,” chuckled Salt. “Good-bye.” + +It was about one o’clock when I came downstairs again, after setting +down the record of last night’s expedition. I think everyone was in +the Hall, surrounding Salt and a young fellow in a neat grey suit, who +was lank and had freckles and brown hair. His appearance and manner—he +was smiling most of the time—were engaging. Salt also wore a +respectful grin; in fact, everyone looked brighter for this chap’s +presence, especially Crofts. + +“Come on, Bannerlee,” he said; “let me introduce the beginning of the +end. You can guess who this is.” + +I had a flash of genius. “Yes, I can, by George. It’s Harry—Mr. +Heatheringham.” + +“Right!” declared the young man. “But after all, Mr. Bannerlee, you’ve +an unfair advantage in this guessing business.” + +“You mean—?” + +He winked, took my torch out of his pocket, and handed it to me with a +low bow, such as I had seen somewhere not long before. “Many thanks +for this. I had to borrow it when my own failed last night.” + +“Gods! was it you I hit? I’m most awfully sorry.” + +“It didn’t hurt, really, but for a little while I didn’t know where I +stood—er, that is, I wasn’t standing at all.” He felt a place on the +back of his head. “It’s hardly the size of a teacup—I mean the bump. +And I wasn’t dazed for long either.” + +“I’m glad to hear it,” I avowed. “You certainly lost no time waking +and legging it.” + +“Oh, I was awake, wide enough, when you were fastening me up—and a +neat job, that.” + +“You don’t mean to say—” + +“Yes, but I thought it was better to let you do your worst and untie +myself afterward. I wasn’t sure that the time for explanations had +come, and I wasn’t sure—then—just what you yourself were up to.” + +“But if I’d been someone else, you might have been killed.” + +His eyes were merry. “I knew it wasn’t somebody else. Suppose we call +it a draw.” + +“We’re dying to hear how you escaped,” said Lib. “Why do you keep it +bottled up?” + +“It’s my living, you see,” returned Heatheringham apologetically, but +with his customary smile. “I have to be up to a few of the little +secrets of my trade, or I don’t get any bread and butter. Some do it +on the stage for money, but in my business it comes in valuable in +good earnest to carry a few skeleton keys and know how to twist a hand +out of a knotted handkerchief.” + +Gradually, while talk went on, we disposed ourselves in chairs, making +a group about this young man who showed from the first minute of +acquaintance such a winning, and even naïve, nature. He sat in the +midst of us now, busy parrying all sorts of questions, and I noticed +that while he spoke lightly, he glanced from person to person, making +brief, sharp studies of us. Particularly he kept stealing looks at +Miss Lebetwood and the two younger Americans. + +I had returned the study intensively, striving to capture some elusive +recollection. “Pardon me, Mr. Heatheringham, but really I believe I’ve +met you somewhere—another time, I mean. Am I right?” + +“Yes, indeed, we have met. We’ve been having lovers’ meetings all over +the place. You recollect the umbrella?” + +The menagerie-keeper! I uttered a great gasp. “That was never you in +the crooked black beard!” + +“Wasn’t it, though?” he retorted brightly. “I can see your eyes +popping now, Mr. Bannerlee, when I said, ‘I won’t need finger-nails.’” + +“Incredible! That man was bulbous.” I pointed to the detective’s +hands, which were brown and lean. “Don’t tell me you owned the great +red wrists and fingers that fellow had.” + +“Try a tightly-bound cuff or any other constriction around the wrist +and keep your arms down—see what happens. Your hands will look like +hams. The rest was just a matter of accessories, an inflated +chest-protector, some dowdy clothes, some black hair. A bad disguise, +on the whole.” + +“On the contrary, your twin brother wouldn’t have recognized you.” + +“No, but he would have had me arrested. Disguise should be +unobtrusive, but that one shouted all over the place. To tell the +truth, I used it more to give my friend Crofts Pendleton something to +worry about than for any other reason.” + +“Oh, you did, did you?” said Crofts. + +“Yes, old man. I didn’t realize the situation here might actually be +serious. I merely supposed some sneak-thief was snooping in the +neighbourhood. But it did seem a good chance to have a little sport +with you. You will let yourself in for it,” he accused our muttering +host. “I thought I’d make myself up into a figure of fun and have a +reconnaissance of the scene a couple of nights, just to assure myself +there was no cause for alarm. Then I’d be seen on purpose by some good +honest yokels and perhaps a village idiot or so, and pop in in a day +or two to see what the effect had been in the Vale. But matters turned +out differently from what I had expected, and by the time I met with +you, Mr. Bannerlee, the last thing on earth I wanted was to have it +known I was in the neighbourhood. So I improvised some unnatural +eccentricities and made up a line of desperate talk that I knew would +spoil the last chance of Crofts’ guessing it was me, in case you told +him of your experience, as I felt certain you would.” + +“But I didn’t.” + +“No, you didn’t. And it made no difference, for what I said about the +bothersome watch-dogs wouldn’t have made much impression, would it, +unless our friend knew where it came from? All those men you sent +out,” he told Crofts, “kept treading on my toes. I had to leg it twice +to slip away from them. And that was after I had made some very +material discoveries and would have given a year of my life not to be +seen.” + +“How was I to know that?” said Crofts. “What discoveries do you mean?” + +“I ran into a chap who must have been Sir Brooke Mortimer from what I +know now. He seemed to have lost his way, quite a distance up the +Vale. I set the gentleman going in the right direction and watched him +start back downstream. A bit unsteady, I thought he was—oh, nothing +wrong with him that way, but I could see his eyes weren’t too good. He +didn’t seem able to pick his footing, and he might have stepped into a +hole as big as a house without knowing what had happened to him.” + +“And do you mean to say that he followed your directions +unhesitatingly when according to yourself you looked like something +out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales?” asked Lord Ludlow, who had been playing +finger-exercises on his knees. + +“I don’t believe he quite took me in, my Lord. I’m telling you his +eyesight couldn’t have been good. He might have thought I was a +gentleman-farmer, for all I know—and he seemed like an unsuspicious, +trusting little chap.” + +I saw that the subject was a painful one to be discussed in full +session this way, and I wanted to divert the course of conversation. I +nodded to Salt. + +“The discovery of Mr. Heatheringham knocks one off the list of your +favourite suspects, eh, Superintendent?” + +“Can’t say it does,” he rejoined, with that slow smoulder of humour +underneath the surface. “I’ve known about Mr. Heatheringham since he +arrived in our little community over a week ago.” + +He had! More surprises were let loose. As a measure of sensible +precaution the detective had reported his presence to Salt as soon as +he arrived in New Aidenn. In the early dawn after meeting me, having +learned that there was something worth attention in the way of mystery +in the Vale, the young man discarded the crooked black beard of the +menagerie-keeper and glorified his chin with a rich red one, finely +adapted to his complexion. This emblem he had attached properly, using +separate hairs at the edges and trimming the whole to a nicety. He +commenced a campaign of deceit. + +First Foggins’ driver was tempted from the path of duty with a +five-pound note, and reported sick. While Foggins the milkman was +tearing his hair, in walked the unblushing detective, and Foggins fell +victim to his wiles. That very noon the newly-employed had driven the +milk cart up the Vale. He had explained at the kitchen door, with a +certain amount of wit, though with his ready tongue all the time in +his cheek, why the service was so much delayed and how he had fallen +heir to the position. The listener to this merry tale was Rosa Clay. +It gained the young man a means of contact with affairs inside the +House which might have been extremely valuable had the storm not cut +off the Vale from Foggins’ circuit. + +During the week Heatheringham formed with the Post Office attendant a +mushroom friendship that passeth all legality. So it came about that +Crofts’ impassioned letters were handed to their recipient direct, +without going to Worcester and back. It was, moreover, the detective +himself who had been on the Post Office end of the ’phone when Crofts +dictated his telegram Thursday afternoon with many maledictions on the +stumbling clerk who took the message. + +The dinner-bell had rung and we were on our feet. Salt announced he +mustn’t stay, but would leave the field clear for the younger man. “Do +what he tells you,” he said. “He has an idea from time to time.” + +Heatheringham drew me apart, until the rest were gone, even waving +Crofts ahead. + +“You can do me a favour, Mr. Bannerlee, if you will,” he said with a +laugh in his voice, as if he might have something in the way of a +surprise to try on me. + +“I suppose I owe you a month’s hard labour for battering you last +night—but, of course, I want to help you if I can. What shall it be?” + +“You’re keeping a written record of events, aren’t you?” + +“Crofts told you!” I exclaimed reproachfully—reproachfully in +reference to Crofts, that is. + +“Not a bit of it—just my prowling. I’ve noticed your candles burning +until all hours, and last night I brought a small telescope with me +and had a squint at you from a tree way out by the Water. I could +hardly think that you wrote letters all night, could I?” + +“Well, your guess is right, as it happens, but my penmanship is rather +free and easy, and I don’t think you’ll find much value—” I was +speaking slowly but thinking fast. Had I put down anything positively +libellous, anything I’d hesitate to sign my name to? + +“Let me try, all the same. You and I are both detached onlookers in +this thing, Mr. Bannerlee, and I shouldn’t be surprised if we +supplement each other pretty fully. I’m quite frankly selfish, you +see,” he admitted easily. “I want to know all you know without telling +you what I know.” + +“Oh, I’ll trust you to repay me, not later than noon to-morrow,” I +said. “Come along upstairs with me while I get the sheets for +you—unless you’ll wait until after dinner.” + +“There’s no after dinner for me; I’m not taking dinner,” he answered, +and we went up the stairs together. “I had a snack in New Aidenn with +something like this in prospect. Time’s what counts. It will be dark +too soon to suit me.” + + + Same day. 7 P.M. + +Please God, the experiment is over. It was not long. + +About five this afternoon Heatheringham came into the library where I +was writing about the events of the day. He had wrestled with my +script since I had left him to go down to dinner, and he seemed even +better-humoured than before. + +“I want some tea,” he said. “I want some tea, and yet, while there’s +light, I want a little assistance from the people here.” + +“Are you commandeering the servants, too?” + +“No, I can do without the servants, except that one who brought the +hot water.” + +“Soames?” + +“Right.” + +“Well, you’ll find the rest of us in the conservatory, waiting for +both tea and you. Since the tragedy outside the Hall, the venue of tea +has been shifted.” + +“I suppose they could wait fifteen minutes for their feeding, if I +suffered with them?” + +“We have been in training for martyrdom all week. But what on earth is +this rigmarole you’re going to put us through?” + +“I want you to rehearse a little drama you have already performed +without rehearsal.” + +It was just that. + +“I’m sorry if this is painful to some of you,” he said later in the +conservatory. “But it’s vital. I need to check some observations, and +there’s no way else. I’m awfully sorry to trouble you; really I am, +but it’s my living, you know.” He gave a sly smile. “It’s my living, +and it will help you to escape from here to-morrow. Is it a bargain?” + +From the time Cosgrove left the Hall until Miss Lebetwood found him +dying outside may have been an hour. We were asked to re-enact as +precisely as possible our movements during the last quarter of this +period. + +“You would be asleep, sir, over by the gate-house, if I’m not +mistaken,” said Heatheringham to Oxford. “I’ll let you off the +sleeping. Just be on hand, if you don’t mind. You,” addressing +Belvoir, “would be coming toward the towers and meeting Miss Mertoun +and Lord Herbert. Presently you’d commence monkeying with the winch.” +He spoke to me. “You were returning from the Delambre cottage, weren’t +you? Doctor Aire and Mr. Maryvale must see you from the summer-house. +I think you’ll all work into it.” + +“But how silly!” said Miss Lebetwood. “All I can do is to wander about +the strawberry trees looking for tennis balls I know won’t be there.” + +“It’s all make-believe, you know,” answered Heatheringham. “And I +can’t change the parts around, can I?” + +“I don’t see how my doing that can help.” + +“Still,” insisted the detective deferentially, “it will assist me a +lot if you’ll just go through the motions. Now, is everybody clear +about what he’s to do?” + +“Shall I fetch hot water for Mr. Bannerlee, sir?” asked Soames, who +had been admitted to our company. + +“That’s hardly essential. But you might carry an empty pannikin to +give mental support. Now, shall we commence? Some of the ladies may +need coats. It’s beginning to blow a bit.” + +“Not fair unless you tell us what you’re going to do yourself,” +protested Lib. + +“I’m going to be here, there, and everywhere,” said Heatheringham. +“You may even hear me giving a few stage directions. Come on, people, +I want my tea. One, two, three, go.” + +Little gusts of wind were stirring. Evening frost had caused a +marvellous change in the foliage, and the air was chromatic with +flying leaves. They blew in my face while I breasted my way to the +north end of the sycamore park, where I turned to retrace my steps. +Through the dim light of the wood, I saw the black forms of Maryvale +and Doctor Aire together on the porch of the abandoned summer-house. +They nodded when I came nearest them. I reached the bridge, the +cypresses, the lawn, the mansion itself. I saw people beyond the +gate-house. + +Suddenly I remembered that to keep in character I must peer into the +Hall, and my flesh began to crawl at the thought of seeing the grim, +phantasmal bone. I would not see it, of course, but if I did— + +Then I caught a glimpse of Heatheringham over a hundred yards south of +the House. He seemed to be waving me on, and I assumed that I must be +a little behind my schedule. Without a glance into any of the windows +I obediently rounded the library tower, entered the half-opened door, +not omitting to ring, since I had done so on the previous occasion. +The footman answered the bell with what would have been appalling +suddenness had I not known he had been waiting for me. He received my +instructions for hot water with the same obeisance and the same +perfunctory words in the identical tone as before. I climbed the empty +House to my room. + +I was in a quandary, for it would do no manner of good to take off my +coat and repeat the little battle with myself whose result had been a +wounded finger. I certainly wouldn’t subject my digit to the +safety-razor’s mercies a second time. But for the sake of keeping in +the rhythm of the other day I might perform some of the milder +motions. First I must go out to the balcony, where I had picked up the +odd little scrap of rope. + +I pressed through the window and, standing on the roof outside, saw +the forms of people anticking about the tower and heard the rasp of +the winch. Someone was on the lawn a little distance beyond the walk +that skirts the House—Heatheringham himself. + +“Hello!” I called aloud in the high wind. “Everything working +smoothly?” + +He must have seen me before, for he answered quickly, cupping his +hands. “Yes, I think they’re all in their places. You did come out +there the other day, didn’t you?” + +“I did, and should go in again now if I keep in step.” + +“Did you order that hot water?” + +“Yes, indeed.” + +“How did the servant behave?” + +“Admirably; he didn’t turn a hair.” + +“No, I should think not. Well, carry on. I’m bound this way.” He +shouted the last words in a bristling wind, and set off walking toward +the north. + +“Good hunting,” I called after him. + +I had now been on the roof for nearly five minutes and had equalled +the span of time I spent there before. I returned to my chamber. + +I laid my watch on the table and timed my own part of the programme, +to make as near the proper _rapprochement_ with Soames as I could. I +allowed half a minute for divesting myself of coat and shirt, and as +long again for my struggle with the oak chest and my mishap with the +stool. (The handle of the chest was gone now; no use repeating that +fracas.) Thirty seconds more of searching for a place to attach my +strop, perhaps the remainder of the minute spent in that unhappy +stropping (for luck and devilment I gave the curlicued bracket a jerk +and a smash), fifteen seconds to stare like a fool at the place where +I had formerly cut my finger, a few moments for crossing to the door +and listening for Soames— + +My heart missed a beat or two. Someone _was_ climbing the stairs! + +It was silly of me, of course, to be taken aback by the very thing I +was waiting for, I had heard no one but Soames himself ascending at +his proper time. + +But the slam of the door down below and the deep brawling laughter +which followed— Dear God! they, too, reverberated, and the sound of +that inhuman mirth now held a ghastly message which it had not on the +first occasion. + +And early above the sound of the laughter had I heard a single sharp +explosion, like the report of a firearm? + +I leaped across to the window. This time there was no fan of light +spreading from the Hall, but I saw indecipherable forms criss-crossing +on the lawn, and the sound of conflicting cries floated up in the +lapse of the wind. + +To leave the chamber, to reach the stair-head, took but a second or +two. Again I saw Soames green as an old statue, a grotesque caricature +of Aquarius, stony-lipped with mortal fear, the little empty water-can +dangling from his hand. + +I ignored him, but heard his feet pound down the stairs behind me. +Down at the front entrance, just outside the door, I caught sight of +Lib, still as wax. We looked at each other, mirroring the dread we +saw. + +“Did you hear it?” I said at last. + +Her voice was weak. “The shot, you mean?” + +“Was there a shot?” + +“There was if my ears are working.” + +“Where?” + +She shook her head miserably. “I—I don’t know. I think it was out on +the lawn.” + +“Then why were you coming in?” + +She clenched both little fists and shook them tremblingly. “I was only +doing what the detective told me to do. Besides, he—he came in first.” + +“_He came in!_” + +“He went in this door while I was quite a way from the House.” + +“Then what’s become of him? He couldn’t have fired that shot outside!” + +“Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about it. I got to +the door in time to hear the tail-end of that laugh—that was enough +for me. I don’t want to lead the searching-party. This is the last +time I officiate for any detective.” + +“Come along with me, then. He must be here somewhere.” + +“I think they’re trying to find him outside, sir,” said Soames, who +had stepped warily to the corner of the House. + +“That’s because they don’t know he went in here. Come along, both of +you.” + +We passed into the portrait-corridor, and I shouted Heatheringham’s +name a couple of times, without effect. + +Several of the servants had emerged from their quarters and were +clustered about me while I stood at the door beneath the musicians’ +gallery, scrutinizing the vast gloom of the Hall. Somehow, I was loath +to enter or to switch on the light ready to my hand. + +“Nobody here,” said Lib beside me, in a tone of relief. + +I still moved my glance through the spaces of the room. Feet were +pouring through the front door. I heard Crofts’ voice raised: + +“Heatheringham’s missing. What in thunder are you up to?” + +Then I saw something limned against the dark expanse of the central +window of the Hall: the shape of a man who leaned heavily against the +window-frame, looking out to the lawn. The moment my eyes had +distinguished him, I knew it was Heatheringham. But he was awfully +still! Why hadn’t he heard my shout? + +“Heatheringham!” I called, and was shocked how strained the syllables +crept from my lips. “Heather—” + +“Where is he? Do you see him?” demanded Crofts, pressing to the door. +“Why didn’t you light up—good God!” + +He had switched on the electricity. From outside, beyond the window, +came cry upon excited cry when the form of the detective was revealed +by the blazing chandelier. But we who were behind Harry Heatheringham +could see why he did not answer us, why he did not move. There was a +gaping wound at the base of his brain, and the whole back of his trim +grey coat was black with blood. + +“Lawks!” cried Soames, and seemed about to faint. + +Persons were rushing in from outside now, through the french windows. +Doctor Aire took one look at the wound, and his face was filled with +the most complete astonishment. His little dark eyes came out of their +hiding-places, and even his tobacco-leaf complexion went several +shades wan. + +“Keep the women away,” he snapped at Soames, “and don’t let Maryvale +come in here.” + +“This is horrible, horrible,” Crofts kept saying. + +“Is—is he dead?” asked Bob Cullen timidly, but no one smiled. + +“He is,” answered the Doctor. “Men with holes in their heads like this +are dead as Pharaoh.” + +I ventured to touch the left hand that hung with such dreadful +listlessness. “Why, he’s stiff!” I blurted, and a great shudder shook +me. “He’s stiff! He must have been dead a long time. But, Doctor, I +was talking to him less than five minutes ago!” + +“You were!” exclaimed Crofts in an incredulous bull-voice. + +“Quite so,” said Aire. “I noticed it the moment I saw the poor +fellow.” He, too, touched the left hand. “Stiff, yes, but not cold +yet.” + +“What’s it all mean?” asked Belvoir. + +“He could never be leaning there in that semi-lifelike manner if it +weren’t the case,” said Aire. “I observed it, as I said, when I had +the first glimpse of him. I have heard of it, but I’ve never seen a +case before.” + +“A case of what?” + +“Instant _rigor mortis_. It occurs sometimes, under certain +conditions, in sudden death.” + +Ludlow, who stood near the body on the other side, was regarding it +with awe, but his sharp face quickened with discovery. “Have you +looked at his other hand? There’s a revolver in it.” + +“Then he did fire the shot,” I cried. + +“I’ll stake my life the shot was from somewhere outside,” avouched +Crofts. + +“I’m sure it was,” said Belvoir quietly. + +“The point I wish to make,” said Ludlow, “is that the revolver is +outside. He’s put his hand right through.” + +It was so. Concealed by the fact that the body pressed close to the +window, the right arm half-way to the elbow had been thrust through +the glass and the wrist was supported by one of the cross-bars between +the small panes. The weapon was tightly clutched in the hand, and its +nose pointed upward! + +“What in the name of reason could he have fired at up there?” + +It was when we laid the dead detective, stiff in the original posture, +revolver clamped in hand, on the carpet spread over the _Brocade de +Lyons_ creation that we looked beyond that article of elegance and saw +what had been concealed behind it. + +Splashes of blood from Heatheringham’s wound were on the floor at our +feet, between the body and the couch. Now we beheld more blood, a +trail of it across the floor in drops that led in a long, irregular, +parabolic curve from the couch to the open door by the clock-corner, +and so out into the corridor. There the track ceased abruptly. + +“Hm,” said Aire, standing at the spot. “Here’s where the assailant +tucked his bludgeon away.” He looked up and down the gallery. “Friend +Crofts, why not have another search and see if one of these priceless +paintings doesn’t conceal a door?” + +“There has never been, and is not any secret passage in the House,” +said Crofts decisively. “You can say amen to that.” + +Aire shrugged his shoulders. Lord Ludlow shook his head several times, +though what at no one could tell. Belvoir stared at the last drop of +blood where it stained the blue-carpeted floor as if he were +fascinated by it. Bob Cullen pursed his lips and whistled a ditty of +no tone. Crofts kept putting his hands in his pockets and taking them +out again. + +Insensibly, instinctively, we drew the tiniest bit closer to one +another. Spiritually, we huddled. We were all little men, badly +frightened, in the great House where murder stalked invisible. + + +If this is “the beginning of the end,” what will the end itself be +like? + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Miss Lebetwood and a Campstool + + October 9. Noon. + +“No,” said Miss Lebetwood, “I certainly didn’t do what he wanted me +to. What good would that have been?” + +Salt’s brow was very grave, but his eyes were narrowly upon her. “You +watched him, you say?” + +“Yes, as long as he was in sight from the edge of the strawberry +trees.” + +“What happened?” + +She bit her lip. “Nothing that will really help you.” + +“Let me be the judge of that,” said Salt gently. “What did you see?” + +“By the time I reached the strawberry trees and looked back, the lawn +was empty. It was still empty when—” + +“Excuse me, Miss; what about the gate-house?” + +“I couldn’t see the towers from that spot; I was on the wrong side of +the knoll that overlooks the court.” + +“Quite. Thank you, Miss.” + +“So I watched the lawn and the House. I could almost see it growing +darker while I waited, the light changes so rapidly in the Vale. And I +hate the twilight—all the really terrible things here happen then.” +She broke off, and we knew that she must be thinking of that one +terrible thing in the gloaming of a week ago. Alberta made a movement +as if to check her from continuing. “No, it’s all right. I was just +realizing what a fool I am. The time of day can’t possibly make any +difference.” + +“I don’t believe it does,” acquiesced Salt. “But go on, if you +please.” + +“It was darkening so suddenly that I thought I shouldn’t be able to +recognize anyone who might appear. But when Mr. Bannerlee came out of +the park, I saw him quite plainly. He seemed to hesitate when he came +past the Hall, but then he went on faster and disappeared in the +direction of the front entrance.” + +“Heatheringham beckoned me to hurry,” I put in. + +“There was nobody in sight then, but I believe I heard the winch +working under the towers. A minute or two later Mr. Heatheringham +appeared from down below, looking this side and that, and occasionally +glancing upward.” + +“Are you sure?” asked Salt. + +“Yes, because he caught sight of Mr. Bannerlee, who had come out his +window and was standing on the roof. Mr. Bannerlee waved his hand, and +I could just hear the sound of his voice when he hailed Mr. +Heatheringham, the wind was rushing on so just then. After that I +heard nothing of their voices, but soon afterward Mr. Bannerlee went +in and Mr. Heatheringham commenced to walk quickly up toward the +cypresses. He was looking this side and that again; I thought he was +more intent than before. He broke into a run, but while he was running +he turned—” + +“Turned!” + +“Yes, and ran all the way back to the south end of the House. At the +library corner he slowed to a walk and went out of sight. Then Lib +came along from down the lawn, and she had almost disappeared beyond +the library tower—going toward the main entrance, you know—when I +heard the crack of the revolver. Lib rather tightened up then, and I +saw her look every way at once, but she apparently decided to +disbelieve her ears, for she went on out of sight.” + +“And met Soames and me,” I said. + +“Well, everybody seemed to have heard the shot, though nobody knew +where it had come from. Mr. Pendleton, Lord Ludlow, and the rest began +crossing the lawn this way and that, shouting directions at one +another that nobody heeded. I came on from the trees, but nobody +seemed to see me. After that—well, you know.” + +Salt nodded. “Mr. Pendleton’s told me how they found the body. Just +one question more, Miss, and thank you very much. You couldn’t have +seen anything in the air that Heatheringham might have some reason to +take a shot at? No large bird of any description?” + +“No, sir.” + +“You didn’t hear something like a bird call—something that might have +attracted his attention?” + +“I could hear nothing but the wind. Anyhow, Mr. Heatheringham was +inside the House.” + +“Of course he was,” said Salt. + +But he is no longer. The detective’s body was taken to New Aidenn in +the dead of night. + +Salt’s laborious questions to each one of us went on until eleven, but +the problem of Harry Heatheringham’s taking off remains to-day more +cryptic than Cosgrove’s. The Superintendent acknowledged defeat, and +had the Chief Constable on the ’phone shortly after eleven. Scotland +Yard will be with us presently, although the lack of decent train +connections out of Worcester will prevent the Inspector from reaching +New Aidenn before late dinner time to-night. + +Six burly constables, in pairs, were patrolling the grounds from nine +o’clock until morning, but I think most persons within the House kept +anxious vigil as well. For my own part, I flung myself on my ancient +four-poster and found sleep—sleep, but not rest, for I was visited by +tormenting dreams. The world was mist seethed, and through the long +black lanes between the billows swept a procession of the souls of +murdered ones. Down from the invisible above the swirl sounded a +terrible voice: “Let traitors beware,” and from time to time a blaze +of light burst through, throwing on the curtain of fog the gigantic +shadow of an arm. + +I awoke, and lay awake in a world of real mist until I could endure +inactivity no longer. I dressed and went downstairs, earlier than ever +before, save on that morning when I tried to discover “lost content” +on the hills. It did not surprise me to find Salt already hard at +work; he was examining with almost microscopic care the gouted trail +of blood. But a surprise awaited me. + +It was much too early for breakfast; yet Miss Lebetwood was standing +at the window of the dining-room. Attired in a navy blue sweater and +serge skirt and high laced boots, she appeared very alert and full of +business. + +Seeing that I “took her in,” she smiled and said, “I’m going to follow +in your steps this morning. As soon as I’ve had some breakfast, I’m +off for the hills.” + +“On account of—?” + +“Yes.” + +I simulated a groan. “I should never have let you have it if I thought +it would make you reckless.” + +Now, the fact is that she struck me in a heap last evening by coming +straight up to me and asking to read this diary. How _she_ ever came +to hear of it I can’t imagine, and she was obdurate to my demands for +enlightenment. Only she told me very seriously that since no one else +seemed certain to grapple successfully with the many problems in the +Vale, she was going a step beyond “thinking” and would take an active +course. + +“Somehow I’m sure I’ll be the best detective of the lot,” she said. “I +have kept my mind unprejudiced, you see. And really, Mr. Bannerlee, +I’m positive you have several facts locked away in your book that I +never knew.” + +The end was that she marched away with the book, I may say entirely +against my sense of discretion, while I shuddered at the thought of +her perusing some of the personal comments I had included. + +And now she was bound for the hills! + +I looked through the window, and saw the landscape grey. A bank of fog +stood motionless about the base of Whimble. + +“This is scarcely the day for it, is it? It’s easy to be lost up there +in the mist.” + +She turned from the drear panorama and looked at me kindly. “I can +tell from your voice that you’re very much concerned about me, but +really you shouldn’t be. I’ve had harder climbs than this heaps of +times, and you can depend on me to be back early this afternoon. You +may begin to worry about two o’clock if I don’t appear then”—her chin +tilted with determination—“with what I want.” + +I returned her kind look. “Really, Miss Lebetwood, I hope my, er, +jottings haven’t set you on some false lead.” + +“There’s a lot more in your journal than jottings,” she said, with +serious lines of thought about the eyes. She gave me a glancing look. +“I see you are sceptical.” + +“It’s hardly fair,” I laughed, “that because you’ve turned detective +in earnest, you should try to mystify me like the other sleuths.” + +“What’s this? what’s this?” asked Salt, presenting himself. + +She beckoned him in. “Mr. Salt, have you finished with that horrible +gore for now? Because I want you to ’phone a telegram for me when the +Post Office opens. Will you, please?” + +“With pleasure, Miss. But why honour me with Mr. Bannerlee so handy?” + +“I believe you’re fishing! But didn’t you appoint yourself censor and +want to know all the messages that go out of the Vale?” + +“Not any more, Miss,” responded Salt, running his eye over a slip of +paper she had brought from a skirt pocket. He raised his brows. “To +the Welsh National Library, eh? Aberystwyth, of course.” Again, more +slowly, he perused the message. “H’m, very interestin’, Miss. I’ll +send it without delay, and you’ll know by the time you get back if the +bookworms have the information.” + +“Show it to Mr. Bannerlee, please,” she said. “I don’t want him to +think I’m rude.” + +“No, not for the world,” I smiled, with negative hand raised to +decline the proffered paper. “Since I’m to be denied the pleasure of +accompanying you this morning, I wash my hands of the whole affair. +You shall not have my invaluable advice.” + +“If you went with me this morning,” said Miss Lebetwood, making a +small grimace, “I could promise you one thing: you’d be unutterly +bored. Well, thank goodness, at last here comes my breakfast.” + +Now, a quarter of an hour later, when my own special breakfast had +arrived on a tray, hers had disappeared. We had been talking of tramps +and journeys, comparing experiences, but I noticed that for the last +few minutes her remarks had been very general and not wholly relevant. +It was obvious that she was preoccupied. At last, having built up a +little tower of sugar cubes and toppled it with her finger, she said: + +“I was the man in the library.” + +Naturally, this was too much for me to comprehend and adjust myself to +in a split-second, and I was still groping like a man stunned when she +continued: + +“Yes, the cap was my own, and I had borrowed Bob’s tuxedo and come +down to get that book; it had a fascination for me, and I must say I +was surprised”—with a careful inclination of the head toward the +corridor—“that _he_ hadn’t kept it under lock and key.” + +“Quite so.” + +“So you see why I didn’t come out even when Millicent was wandering +again. I had gone back to my room the way I’d come—that was by the +outer stairs and through one of the french windows I’d undone the +catch of after Blenkinson had gone the rounds—and I was gobbling up +the book, still in borrowed plumage, when the commotion began. I +couldn’t have appeared without starting more fuss than ever; I suppose +I shouldn’t have much more than a rag of reputation left. They +wouldn’t be so surprised in America at a girl’s dressing like a +man—the movies have helped a lot there.” + +“Well, you needn’t take the appalling risk again,” I promised her. “If +you should wish to gorge yourself clandestinely on the pages of Sylvan +Armitage, you may have my copy in perfect secrecy.” + +“Oh, your copy came? Don’t get up, please, and please excuse me if I +don’t wait. Your breakfast will all get cold if I keep you talking.” + +“Not at all. Yes, my copy came through.” + +She had arisen and walked to the door. I had noticed a small campstool +folded and leaning against the wall, and now was surprised to see her +pick it up and tuck it beneath her arm. + +“Are you taking that?” + +She held it so that it opened, showing its green canvas seat. “Yes, +aren’t you in favour of it?” + +“It’s æsthetic, if that’s what you mean. But how odd! If you want +something to sit on, why not take a blanket or an old coat?” + +“Perhaps this isn’t to sit down on.” + +I gaped. “What—what do you mean?” + +She folded the stool and tucked it away again. Her smile was very +sweet and provoking, and it held that little token of wistfulness +which had never left it since Cosgrove’s death. + +The skirt swung briskly out, and the sound of the little boots receded +and died away. On what wild search was she bound? + +Then I stopped eating, while the idea that grew in my mind spread its +ugly branches. What might a stranger think? Not I, of course, who +would stake my life she is better than gold, but some newcomer from +the outside world, such as the Scotland Yard official due here this +evening? Might it not seem a pose? This resolve to play the rôle of +detective, this secret roaming through the House in man’s attire, this +interest in my diary, and this secretive hunting on the hills—would +they not appear parts of an assumed character? Ridiculous, of +course—unthinkable, in actuality—but might it not be thought? And what +trouble, even disaster, might not follow such a false impression? + +Somehow I was not at all amused toward noon by an argument that +sprouted up in the library between Crofts and Aire in connection with +some phase of the Parson Lolly legend. Aire was devil’s advocate in +this discussion, and Crofts persisted in pooh-poohing the tale as all +nonsense, tommyrot, and rubbish. + +“I thought you were a scientist,” bullied our host, but Aire contented +himself with a chuckle, and moved toward the Hall, whence the voice of +Lord Ludlow came in a kind of shrill moan: + +“. . . fundamental decencies . . . civilized life.” + +And I judged that Belvoir had just uttered some devastating platitude +about the geisha girls or the way women choose their husbands in +British Guiana. It occurred to me then a bit strongly that Belvoir +plays the fool, and that if he really thinks our British morality +unsuitable for a civilized temperament (_i. e._ his) he had better +emigrate to the bush or to Terra del Fuego, where he may be uncramped +among the broader and merrier folkways. + +I have mentioned more than once, I believe, the sub-irritant effect +Mrs. Belvoir has upon me; her hazy personality, taken with the odd +remarks she lets fall, hint at something I can’t quite define, but +would like to very much. + +When Aire went through the armoury door, only four of us were left in +the library: Mrs. Belvoir, Alberta, Crofts, and I (in the seclusion of +the tower). Mrs. Belvoir watched the Doctor’s departure, then turned +to Crofts with the promptitude of one who has at last the opportunity +she has been waiting for. + +“I do hope you won’t mind to-night,” she said. + +It would not have been surprising if Crofts had failed to extract a +meaning from this wish, but he seemed to grasp it. His cheek remained +at the same full flush it had reached during the Aire controversy, +while he turned his eyes slowly toward Mrs. Belvoir, and I thought +that the lady had not chosen the likeliest time for wooing his good +graces. + +“You don’t mean to say—” he rumbled. + +“But dear Alberta doesn’t mind—do you?” she asked in sudden appeal +that was answered with ardour rather less than half its own. + +“I didn’t think it could do any harm,” said Alberta, divided between a +reassuring smile at her guest and a warning frown at her husband. +“Probably the Scotland Yard man—” + +“But it’s for him I especially want to give a demonstration,” declared +Mrs. Belvoir with emphatic faintness. “I can help him so much. I think +that perhaps the real difficulty we have had all along is that we have +not looked beyond the visible. I do so wish Sir Brooke were here; he +was so sympathetic. There were always such things of _real value_ +learned when he was present.” + +“I have it!” I exclaimed from my obscurity, striking my thigh. “Mrs. +Belvoir, you are a spiritualistic medium!” + +They all regarded me with amazement bold on their faces, and I turned +my blatancy into apologetic curiosity. “Sorry, but I didn’t know +before, you see. How frightfully interesting. I hope you do give us a +séance to-night, Mrs. Belvoir.” + +“Oh, all right,” muttered Crofts. “But it’s the police you’ll have to +convince, really.” + +“I’ll deal with the police,” said Mrs. Belvoir. + +“As for Sir Brooke’s absence,” I remarked, “why may he not be present? +Perhaps we shall have a message from him, Mrs. Belvoir.” + +I think she discerned levity in me. “Really, Mr. Bannerlee, you may be +surprised by having that very thing happen.” She glided from the room. + +Crofts looked at me bitterly, as if he held me responsible for the +whole business, but instead of pouring out vials of wrath he said, +“How about a drink, Bannerlee? I need one.” + +“Oh, Crofts,” reproached Alberta, “you know it’s still morning.” + +“Well, I haven’t had one so far, have I?” he retorted, ringing, and +stared in oafish surprise when she departed promptly from the room. +“What have I done now, I’d like to know?” + +“You _are_ getting peppered from all directions,” I laughed. “But +cheer up, old man,” I added, hearing a measured tread in the corridor. +“This staff of servants of yours certainly outdoes the crew of any +sinking ship I’ve ever heard of in devotion to duty. After last +night’s catastrophe—well, they deserve medals, platinum ones.” + +Soames slid in and Crofts said, “Whiskey,” cocking an eye at me to see +if I approved. + +“Yes, and by the way, Soames,” I called, while the servant turned on +his heel, “just tell us the truth, will you? Why aren’t you and Morgan +and the rest fifty miles away from here and running for your lives?” + +His face was a flat mask, with expression ironed out of every feature. +“I—I beg your pardon, sir? I don’t understand.” + +“Oh, yes, you do. Come on, man,” I rallied him. “What’s this hold +Blenkinson’s got over you?” + +His countenance remained under rigid muscular control, but his legs +gave a little shiver. He looked at me, and his face was empty of +thought, but then his gaze met his master’s. He paled, for Crofts’ +glare demanded rather than invited confession. + +“It’s—it’s Mr. Blenkinson’s, er, theory, sir.” + +“My God, has Blenkinson a theory too!” Crofts shouted. “A speculative +butler! What next? I don’t pay him to have theories.” + +“No, sir,” agreed Soames. “We all ’ave the greatest confidence in Mr. +Blenkinson.” + +“No doubt,” I said. “And Soames, ah, what is the nature of Mr. +Blenkinson’s theory?” + +The servant had the look of a man ground between millstones. His neck +undulated in a series of gulps. + +“Out with it,” I urged. “Confession is good for the soul.” + +Soames turned an imploring look at me, his eyes like those of a wretch +_in extremis_. + +“Oh, Blenkinson’s theory be damned,” growled Crofts impatiently; “but +don’t tell him I said so. Fetch the whiskey.” + +The servant dashed for the door, and it was Toby who brought in the +decanter and glasses. + + + It is now 2.30 P.M. + +An hour ago it was clear and mild; then the mist redoubled and a chill +came into the air, something we have not experienced before by day. + +She has not returned. I shall try to organize a searching party at +once, and if no one else regards the situation seriously, I’ll go +alone to find her. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +Bannerlee’s Secret + + 2.45 P.M. + +Salt shared my perturbation. Indeed, he adopted the idea of a +searching expedition with such alacrity and energy that one might +suppose Miss Lebetwood to be fleeing from justice! + +There were some bitter things said of her, though, by those, even, who +volunteered readiest for the search. Repressed criticisms of her +seemingly callous behaviour since Cosgrove’s death outcropped now. I +stood by, a coward, for hot answers rose to my lips and I suppressed +them. I remembered that from these hostile thoughts, thoughts more +sinister might spring. + +Just as they were going, I observed that Maryvale was not present. +(Aire, too, was not among us.) Tenney volunteered the information, +gained from Harmony, that Maryvale has again locked himself in his +room. Seeking admittance in her morning round of the bedrooms, she +found the door fastened and received a gruff intimation that she need +not trouble to knock again until further notice. + +I am almost as unwilling to leave Maryvale to his own devices as to +leave Paula Lebetwood unsought for on the hills. But we _must_ find +her! + + + 7.45 P.M. + +The last stragglers have not even yet returned from the uplands. + +Hours of starved hope they were, while I stumbled along the half-blind +paths, often bewildered, once quite lost myself. It was dogged work. I +never should have struggled through without an inexorable motive and +the faintest glimmer of a clue, a clue offered me by Salt many days +ago. Had he not told how in his boyhood he had found “something like” +the oratory of St. Tarw? I had kept the directions he had given, and +now in a forlorn hazard I followed them, since they alone might lead +me to some definite place that she, too, might have sought. + +In observing Salt’s tuition, I was obliged to keep for the most part +below the crown of the hills. The flanks were cut by gorges where +water had eaten its way. In these places I made but indifferent +progress. In a dusky dingle I did no better, and although I gasped in +relief at finding what seemed a path, it proved unfriendly, for it led +me into a covert of dogwood whose small green berries were turning +purple-black, and deserted me there. I got out somehow, although +spines clutched me. Before me, stretching into the upper fog, extended +a curtain of rock and gravel. I attacked it with feet and hands. + +It seemed to go up and up forever. In that frantic climb, out of a +bottom soon invisible, up to a summit veiled in fog, I tore a +finger-nail and broke into the flesh of my left palm. I paused on a +splintery ledge to bind my handkerchief over the wound, and rested +there awhile. It was then that I thought of looking, not up or down, +but sidewise. + +A brief cry escaped me. I could see further on the left, and what I +saw quickened my heart. + +A few yards away the rock curtain ended somewhat abruptly, and beyond +appeared a brief slope full of stunted trees. Even further in the same +direction, the trees gave place to shorter, tangled growth intermixed +with grassy patches. Here and there a monolith thrust up from the +surface, which on the whole was fairly level, though a vague darkness +in the background showed that this clearing was not the summit of any +hill, but a platform more or less below the highest elevation. + +Along the outer edge of the cleared space stood a regiment of trees, +whose ranks were quite dense enough to conceal what lay behind from +eyes in the hollow of the Vale. Having gained the grassy platform with +its curious black stones sprouting and littered about, I found that +while I continued in the same direction over the tumbled grass full of +small scarlet toadstools, the ground grew higher and the dark mass of +the hilltop closer, while the platform narrowed. + +My hope caught fire and blazed. I kept peering ahead and slightly +upward, for the gentle slope persisted. Suddenly I saw Miss Lebetwood, +very dim in the mist. + +She was seated close under the shadowy brow of the hill, with her face +away from me, and her head thrown back, leaning against something. + +A lovely picture she had been that first night by the gate-house +tower; now again I paused, rapt by the grace of her languid, lissome +body, by the pale abstraction of her face—against the ancient gloom of +the oratory of St. Tarw! + +There was not the slightest doubt that this had been the devotional +cell of the saint. Here stood the rude arch, still discernible though +one or two of its stones had been displaced and the rest were mantled +in moss and grass grown downward from above. The projection beside the +door, where her head leaned, had surely once upon a time been the +support of a holy shrine. These scattered rocky benches: on them had +sat the small, dark, half-savage hill-folk, the strange congregations +of the venerable man. + +No, I would not rouse her from that mood of thought or vacancy; I +would be still until she turned and looked at me. So minutes passed, +while her image impressed itself in my mind, in my very heart of +hearts. While I stood there in the grass, awaiting the first movement +of her weary head, even breathing softly that she might not be +disturbed, for the first time I dared to say to myself, bold and +unafraid, “I love her.” + +She did quicken from her inanimate pose, she did turn her head and see +me. She rose swiftly; already I had come very near to her. + +When she attempted to speak, her voice faltered. “So—so you found me?” + +“Yes, Paula,” I said. + +“I was waiting. I heard—” + +My own queer voice filled the pause. “You don’t mean that—you were +waiting—for me?” + +“Yes.” + +“You heard the others calling, and you waited for me?” + +“Yes.” + +Then—I cannot describe what was, only what must have been, for the +white-heat of those moments has annihilated the memory of them—she was +close within my arms, and my lips reached hers. Yes, for that +ineffable once, I must have kissed her, since I remember too well that +when I would have drawn her to me again, she put me away with a gentle +pressure of her hand against my arm. + +She shook her head slowly, her gaze searching mine. +“You—misunderstood, I think. I—I let you because of what I saw in your +eyes. They were soft and wistful for a moment.” + +“But—Paula—” + +“Now I think that you must never do that again.” + +My mind went cold and grey as the world about us. “I’m sorry, then. +Indeed, I must have misunderstood.” + +I saw that some change had rushed over her. Her face became dull and +sad, as if the clammy gloaming that darkened about us had penetrated +to her heart. “Don’t misunderstand me all over again; please don’t. +Your kisses might be very sweet, and their meaning might be dear to +dream about. But you know that I have to set all the woman in me +aside. . . . I must forget dreams,” she said bitterly, and to my +astonishment she put both hands across her eyes and commenced to sob, +sinking down on the stone seat again. I stood by and felt the iron +grind into my soul. + +But half a minute later she looked up with a rueful smile through her +tears. “How perfectly ridiculous of me. What must you think! Don’t +imagine for a minute that I was crying for any such preposterous +reason as I said. It’s just that I’m awfully, awfully tired, and I +_felt_ tired that moment. I was up nearly all last night over your +diary. Please, have you a handkerchief I can use? I’ve nothing but one +of these silly little women’s affairs.” + +I handed over a fairly clean one. “Up all last night and in the hills +all day! You’re a Trojan. But at least you found what you were looking +for?” + +She ceased dabbing for a moment to give me a half-moist look. “Here, +do you mean?” + +“Why, of course.” + +“I found what I wanted, but it wasn’t here. This was afterward. I +somehow had a feeling that you would come here and discover me sooner +or later. These _inane_ tears.” + +I brooded on this for a while, while she removed the last traces of +them. “I suppose it’s no good asking where you found what you really +wanted?” + +“Why, yes—up there on Mynydd Tarw.” + +“But at least you aren’t bringing it back with you as you declared you +would, are you?” + +She gave a strange laugh. “It was too big, a million times too big. So +I have to be satisfied with carrying it here.” She placed a finger +against her forehead. “Now I am ready, sir, if you’ll take me back +down with you. Please let’s go now. There is so much to be done +to-night.” + +“You shall rest to-night, nothing else.” + +“On the contrary—don’t think I’m rude—there’s everything else. Yes, +yes, really. Come, let’s go.” + +She picked up the little campstool, but I took it from her. Slowly we +turned and went away from that place, and while we passed through a +huddling hazel wood where sheep had made a track before us, the sun at +last thridded the mist with hazy golden beams. While we descended the +glen, I looked at her face with the light playing upon its firm, +rounded surfaces and gleaming in her eyes. She was weary, indeed, with +what seemed more than physical exhaustion; I slipped my arm about her +when she appeared almost unable to pick her footing on the precarious +slope. But, “Oh, no, no,” she said, resisting so softly that I pitied +her, and took my arm away. + +When we had discovered the path that led down to Aidenn Water and were +well on our slanting way to the valley bottom, she found more strength +in the smoother footing. Suddenly I felt that she was scrutinizing me, +and I turned my head to hear her ask: + +“What did it remind you of—that place up there?” + +“A graveyard,” I answered almost without thought. + +“Just so. Tell me honestly; have you never been there before?” + +“Before?—there?” I repeated, quite truly surprised. + +“Don’t temporize, please. Confess that you were there before but +didn’t set it down when you wrote your journal. That was the place +where you fell when you escaped from the bull, and it was where you +took shelter from the storm the day you saw the rainbow. Wasn’t it?” I +did not answer but she insisted. “I suppose you had some foolish fear +that if you wrote about it and someone—like poor me—read of the +discovery before you had published it to the world, you might lose the +credit for it. Yes? For it _was_ your discovery, and I only followed +the hints you gave.” + +“Yes,” I said promptly, since my secret was guessed. “It was my +discovery, and I wanted to preserve it for myself. I thought I had +written enough, without being explicit to the point of revelation, to +sustain any claim I might need to make afterward. I suppose you think +I was a very large and egregious idiot?” + +For a little while she did not answer. When I turned to look at her, +her eyes seemed to dwell not on the present but on the past, and there +was the intention of a smile in her face. “No; I think you were +an—antiquarian. Ah, you scholars!” + +“Well, in archæological circles you know—” I broke off. + +“Archæological circles seem about as important as ant-hills to me, +just now. One thing, though, I really learned last night and today—a +platitude I never quite believed in.” + +“A platitude—and not yet discredited?” + +She gave a little laugh. “I mean the one about boxing up truth. You +can hammer down board after board, but the truth is like smoke: it +always finds a new chink in the cover to escape from. Don’t you +see”—she gave a smothered laugh—“the moment you began keeping your +archæological cat in the bag, you had to use all kinds of devices of +wire and rope to keep it there, and more often than not it was you and +not the cat who was tangled!” + +I looked at her in comic dismay. “Well! If you’ve found that out from +the diary you must be a perfect demon of ratiocination!” + +“Hardly; it was obvious. For instance, when Mr. Salt offered you his +suggestions for finding the oratory, you felt obliged to skid all +around the truth that you already knew where it was. You even said +that finding it seemed ‘superfluous.’ That was rather neat, I +thought.” + +I grinned. “So do I. As a fact, I followed his route to the oratory +to-day. And now I have a gleam in my prophetic soul that you found +discrepancies in the rainbow section of the diary.” + +She weighed her answer. “Well, I don’t know. I saw the discrepancies +readily enough. You never were on Whimble all that afternoon, were +you, in spite of the suggestions you scattered to that effect? I +always thought archæologists were profound people, but I had no idea +they were so sly.” + +I mused. “Hm. You are perfectly right. ‘I headed straight for +Whimble. . . .’” + +“Yes, and afterward, ‘It would take me some time to get from where I +was to the edge of Mynydd Tarw.’ That was so, no doubt, but I’d bet +a—a lot that you were on Mynydd Tarw all the while.” + +“Naturally, but I wasn’t going to say so, when the oratory was under +the edge of that particular hill. Yes, you’re right: my secret +entailed quite a number of peccadilloes.” + +I saw her smiling at me. “They became quite inveterate, didn’t they? +But the whole thing goes back to the platitude. Squeeze the truth in +one place and it sticks out in another. Because you _would_ have the +secret of the oratory all to yourself, you had to conceal the innocent +fact that you accidentally left a book there.” + +I stared at her as at a miracle, which indeed she was. “Come, come; +this is on the thick side. You must have been shadowing me.” + +“Only in brain-waves. It was your copy of the Book of Sylvan Armitage, +wasn’t it? How did you happen to leave it there? I can guess you had +it out of your knapsack and studied it for comparison with the place +you had fallen to. Then, perhaps, you laid it down—” + +“I did, and leaned back to rest, just as I found you doing this +afternoon. The Book slipped off the stone and fell inside the shelter +of the oratory. I didn’t notice it when I started up and left the +place. But how on earth did you know?” + +“You mustn’t think it was so wonderful for me to see a plain nose on a +plain face. To begin with, I was surprised to death when I learned +that you hadn’t brought your own copy of the Armitage with you, but +had to send for it from Balzing. Was it likely that you would leave +behind the one work which referred to the oratory of St. Tarw? Then +that evening in the library after the rainbow, some of Lib’s +remarks—‘Having the hump,’ and so forth—sounded as if you might be +concealing something that you had brought with you under your coat. +And finally—well this alone would have been enough to tell me—the day +you were supposed to receive it through the mail, you didn’t call at +the Post Office for it; when you came home from Old Aidenn, you gave +New Aidenn a wide berth and crossed the Smatcher.” + +“Out of my own inkwell I stand condemned,” I laughed. “It’s uncanny, +that’s what it is, the way you get inside my cranium and read my +secret thoughts. Still, you haven’t told me what the fundamental +deduction was. It couldn’t have been a mere guess. How did you _know_ +that I wasn’t on Whimble when I drew the map?” + +“I think you are playing Doctor Watson on purpose. Why, that was the +essence of simplicity. Why, a _primitive_ mind could have told that. +What do you suppose I brought the campstool for? It was as simple +as—as rule of three. You’ll have to discover that for yourself.” + +After silence: + +“What was that you said—about the rapture you felt the first time you +wandered on the uplands? You never could feel the same freedom? You +never could be so happy again?” + +“I think I never shall.” + +“Nor I. I hate this place. It has robbed me of something—something +more than love or any little thing like that.” + +“What do you mean?” I asked, appalled—and when she did not answer, I +asked again, with my hand clenched about her wrist and my eyes burning +into her face, “What do you mean?” + +“I’m not sure . . . but I suppose I mean . . . innocence. Since I came +here, something has happened that I never can forget. I think it will +make all my life worse.” + +We went on. The sunlight was dying. The trees became spectral. In me, +who walked beside this wonderful, clear-spirited girl, a monstrous +horror welled. + +I had a sense of vast, dark, insufferable wings hovering down. Was it +fated that I should need to protect her against herself? Long before +we reached the House, that I had sworn to do, at all costs, whatever +should betide. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The Flight of Parson Lolly + + (There ended my diary. Thenceforth I was to be like a man in a + maelstrom. And now that circumstances have stayed my hand from its + task for weeks on end, I have no confidence that I can record with + due proportion and emphasis events which seem to have been fantastic + and instantaneous as dreams. Frantic suspense, frozen horror, and + the rest are now a whirling memory. But I hope, above all else, that + whoever reads these lines may feel, as those who knew her did, the + splendid nervous courage, the shrewd discernment, and the strange + compassion and mercy, of Paula Lebetwood!) + +Make no mistake. The weary, faltering girl at my side—never, never for +an instant did I suspect her. + +Yet while we lagged through a ruined fairyland, past the wreck of Sir +Pharamond’s first hold, beneath branches where the rooks were +brawling, and between the ordered files of the summer-house park—all +the way my heart grew blacker, and the incubus weighed heavier on my +soul. I feared for her, and fear pressed cold fingers against my lips. + +Blasphemous thoughts; they were not mine. I had no thoughts of her but +reverence. + +They might have been the jangling voices of the birds themselves: +“Look! Here comes the foreign woman who was pledged to the Kingmaker, +but is going to marry his millions instead! Why has she never wept a +tear for the man in his shroud?” What if the trees had voices, these +grey and sombre sycamores? “We saw what happened in the two twilights. +We know where the golden-haired girl was when Cosgrove met his fate. +We know when she left the strawberry grove the day that Heatheringham +rushed toward death. We saw her slip across the shadowed lawn—” + +No, no! If trees could speak, they would declare her innocence. + +Not trees but men would be her judges, cunning men, who might weave +about her a web of suspicion with strands as fine and strong as silk. + +Scotland Yard might be waiting for us when we returned; that is, a +brisk, clear-headed, observant, utterly unprejudiced investigator, a +person whose mind as nearly as might be resembled an inductive and +deductive machine. He would sweep the ground clear of the débris of +false starts and idle speculations, and construct anew. + +The deaths: what would the lynx of justice discover immediately in +respect of them? He would hear of a motive, money. How should he know +better than to impute a sordid impulse to this high-minded girl? He +would hear of a quarrel on the afternoon of Cosgrove’s death. How +should he know that there had been more than mere anger in her mood +when she parted from us, that there had been dignity, aloofness, a +temper far above reprisal? + +But there was worse, much worse. She may have been with Cosgrove the +moment he was struck down! + +Belvoir, coming toward the towers, had seen the Irishman with canvas +lifted regarding the puny battle-axe. In the mixed light, Belvoir had +not been positive he _had_ seen Cosgrove, but the likelihood was that +he had attested to less rather than more than the truth. The American +girl might have been beyond the Irishman at that moment, concealed +partly by his bulk, partly by the darkness of her gown in the +twilight. I, of course, had come past the spot afterward and found the +lawn empty, but the two might easily have gone through one of the +entrances of the House and re-emerged shortly after I had made my +reconnaissance from the parapet. What brief, passionate scene could +then have taken place, such as would have ended by Cosgrove’s turning +away and her hammering him with a rough-and-ready chunk of rock +snatched up from the rim of the flower-bed, I left to the professional +imagination. + +In Heatheringham’s death, we knew her insistence that she had +disobeyed his bidding, and her declaration of what she had seen. But, +again, there was not a tittle of proof of her assertion that she had +remained on the edge of the strawberry trees. Quite safely she could +have slipped back into the House. I wondered, in spite of the arm +thrust through the glass, if the detective might not have been outside +the House when he pressed the trigger, and that straightway he rushed +into the Hall (pursuing something?)—to meet his death. Who waited for +him there? No one could have, save Paula Lebetwood. + +Black—it was black. + +I tried to gain comfort from the obscurities that would confront +Scotland Yard if he tried to build up a theory in this wise. I +recalled the bone, the laugh, the pig’s gore, and other unsolved +conundrums. But Scotland Yard, being an experienced hand, would be +sure to fit them in somewhere. I was sick at heart. + +Yes, I must protect her against the world, and, if need be, against +herself. The proof would be in action. I began wondering whom I could +trust. + +When we came to the fringe of the sycamore park and passed alongside +the cypress trees, one first-storey window showed light in the +northern wall of the House, and we could see radiance from others down +the long façade. + +“Miss Mertoun has returned.” It was the only speech either of us had +offered in two dark and desolate miles. + +“Millicent?” The American girl halted in surprise. “Did they make her +go out, too?” + +“She volunteered like the rest of the ladies for searching in the Vale +itself.” + +“Darling Millicent. I love her better than anything else on earth. She +shouldn’t have tried to find me, Mr. Bannerlee. She isn’t strong, you +know, and this has been a terrible, tragic week for her. She should +never have come to Aidenn Vale, but I didn’t—understand then, as I do +now.” + +Somehow we did not go straight on, but lingered there by the cypresses +with their low-hung darkness. + +“But her week has not been as tragic as yours.” + +Her voice was sombre. “More, much more.” + +“What!” I came closer, peered into her face, where the dusk had +erected shadows. “What do you mean?” + +“You haven’t wondered, I see, about Millicent and Sean.” + +“Wondered? Wondered what, in God’s name?” + +She spoke wearily. “You didn’t know Sean, of course. Neither did I, I +suppose.” + +“What do you mean?” I cried again, with an intolerable heaviness in +me, remembering Lib. + +“Religion and sensuality: they go together often, don’t they? I +thought that if I recognized that—streak in Sean I might disregard it +and it would be like a thing that never was. If that had been +all. . . .” + +I caught up the silence. “You can never make me believe—that Miss +Mertoun—” + +“Oh, of course not. She wasn’t like the others. . . . She hasn’t +offended me; I’m the offender. . . .” + +“Paula, you mustn’t stop. Tell me what you mean.” + +“It’s beastly of me, I suppose . . . especially when someone +else . . . I wonder why it is we confide in people we half-know +instead of our closest friends. But it’s horrible to have a thing pent +up in your brain . . . like a deadly growth.” + +“Tell me, Paula.” + +“If I hadn’t come along, Millicent would be Mrs. Cosgrove now. It +sounds—almost grotesque, doesn’t it? But there it was, a fact that +months and even years couldn’t kill. I never had the least inkling of +it—oh, Millicent’s been a loyal friend to me—until we were all here +and it was—too late. Millicent came, you see, since if she didn’t—I +would never have had a Bidding Feast without Millicent, and she knew +it. But I never guessed . . . until she told me, after midnight, the +night you came.” + +“She—loved him still?” + +“No, hated him then. But the old heart-wound would break out during +sleep. His music, as she called it, came to her through her dreams. +Then she answered what she believed to be—his call.” + +A little wind came winding down the Vale and wrapped its chilly arm +about us. She said, very low: “That was what I meant, partly, when I +spoke of lost innocence a little while ago. I have changed toward +people since I came here. I think I can never trust a person again.” +Then quickly, “We must go in. They’ll be wanting to know I’m safe.” + +I followed where she made a road through the darkness. + +We reached the House at seven-fifteen. At the bottom of the stairs she +turned. “Thank you—thank you more than I can say. May I have the +campstool? I must go up now, really. I—I—have to—think over to-night.” + +I handed over the stool. “If ever—” I commenced, feeling my voice +shake in my throat. + +The boy Toby, his hair all on end as usual, crossed the corridor from +the dinner-room to the Hall. She called his name, and the lad +reappeared, coming toward us bashfully. His eyes, turned on her, were +filled with something like awe, and I remembered how she had made this +seemingly lumpish lad her excellent and devoted scholar. He now +carried a few yards of insulated wire. + +“Has Superintendent Salt returned?” + +“Yes, from the hills, Miss. He came back early, but he’s gone away +again.” + +“Did he leave any message?” + +“He said you wasn’t to mind if he didn’t bring his friend +from—somewhere—” + +“Scotland Yard?” + +“Yes, that’s right. He wouldn’t bring him to-night. He said you was to +go ahead anyhow because the French womenfolks was coming with +Constable Pritchard.” + +“French women!” I exclaimed in surprise and pleasure. “Does he mean +that the sisters Delambre have been brought back?” + +“Sure to be,” said Toby. + +“By George, I’ll be tickled to see what they look like. But what does +it all mean? No one could imagine—” + +Miss Lebetwood silenced me with a gesture and an eager question. “He +was working here this afternoon, then, wasn’t he?” + +“Yes, Miss, but it was a secret or somefing. He put the maids out of +the house at half-past three.” + +“Three-thirty!” I exclaimed again, indignantly now. “He didn’t waste +much of his precious time in the search!” I asked the lad, “Why did he +make the women-servants leave the building? He did, didn’t he?” + +“Yes, sir; he was going to use some gas from a little tank he had with +him all over the ground floor of the House. He said it was a deadly +poisonous gas, and unless they were looking for their deaths if they +got a whiff they had better go down to New Aidenn for the rest of the +afternoon. Wheeler was in the search; so I drove ’em all down to the +bridge in the big car,” Toby recited with pride. + +“And did you come back for a whiff?” asked Miss Lebetwood, smiling +faintly. + +“No, Miss; I went to my workroom in the stables and did some more on +my radio. I only remembered about a quarter past six that I had to fix +the lights in the Hall, and when I came to the House I met Mr. Salt +and the constable’s brother that wasn’t here before coming out with +the gas tank. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Tell ’em they can go +anywhere they like now. I’ve sucked the gas back into the respirator; +so there’s no danger for that matter of fact.’ And then he told me +what I told you.” + +“I suppose most of our people have returned?” + +“Yes, Miss. The ladies are all upstairs or somewhere. There’s them +back from New Aidenn, too, and Mr. Blenkinson and some of the others +from the hills. If you wasn’t found by nine o’clock, they was going to +’phone up Penybont and Bleddfa and maybe get a bloodhound and have a +grand search like they almost had for Sir Brooke Mortimer.” + +“Thank you, Toby,” said the girl, “and thank you again, Mr. Bannerlee. +I _shall_ have to do a bit of thinking now.” She went quickly, almost +lightly, up the steps. Somehow, she had drawn comfort from Salt’s +strange behaviour. + +I followed Toby into the Hall. Quite by chance I had found the person +I could trust, one whose allegiance to the American girl might be as +great as mine. + +He was upon a lofty step-ladder planted beneath the chandelier which +hung some distance clear of the musicians’ gallery. Below him rested a +bushel basket partly filled with electric bulbs. + +“Will you be there long, Toby?” + +“Only to take out the rest of the bulbs, sir, and connect a bit of +wire with the wall-fixture in case they needs it. Only a minute or +two, sir.” + +I drew close to the foot of the ladder and spoke very softly. +“Toby—can you get an hour off before very late to-night—to do +something for Miss Lebetwood?” + +“For Miss Paula?” His funny hair seemed to be a forest of notes of +exclamation. “Of _course_ I can, sir, for Miss Paula.” + +“Right! I knew you would. Come down here a minute, and I’ll give you +directions. This is very secret, mind. If you should meet even Miss +Paula herself, remember you’re not to show a sign you’re the wiser.” + +I laid the trappings of mystery on very thick, enough to make the +souls of a dozen lads lick their lips. I explained how a message might +be delivered at the House later on to-night that would make it +necessary for Miss Lebetwood, and perhaps Miss Mertoun, to leave +without word or warning to anyone by the eleven o’clock train. Secrecy +and haste were the points I stressed. He fell into the plot with so +much spirit that I felt a little ashamed of the deception I was +practising. With eagerness that ran before my suggestions, he promised +to be at New Aidenn station when it opened for the 9.40 train, and to +purchase with money I gave him two tickets for London available by the +late express. He would leave the tickets for me _in the mail_. We went +into the armoury and agreed on a definite spot. He would also secrete +two ladies’ bicycles, property of the Clays, beneath the bush opposite +the third oak tree on the left-hand side of the drive after passing +the gate-house. We went over that complex direction again and again. + +Yes, in these days of the many-tentacled police, the telegraph, and +the radio, I was planning for Paula Lebetwood an escape by flight. +With two hours’ clear start, for I would see that the telephone did +not function and that the shaky bridge should go down behind the +pursued, I could almost guarantee scot-freedom. For of course those +tickets would not be used for getting to London, not when the express +connected at Leominster with fast trains running both north and south. +To what destination I would direct the fugitives, I had better not +say, but it was one which would afford a refuge almost before the +wires were singing with the alarm for her capture. + +At that moment Aire slipped in from the darkness through one of the +french windows. His head was bare, his clothing was somewhat +dishevelled, and he seemed to lack for breath. His mouth was set, with +its thin blue-whitish lips drawn back from the teeth. He stared at us +some time before speaking; then his voice, the first time I had known +it to be so, was instinct with fear. + +“Bannerlee, seen Maryvale?” + +“I’ve just returned with Miss Lebetwood. What makes you ask?” + +“He’s—gone.” + +“He’ll come back.” + +“I’m sure he will. Come in here, Bannerlee.” + +Quite astonished by his tone, I followed him toward the library, +turning at the door to give a pithy glance at the boy, whose hair now +looked like a forest of query-notes. When I entered the library, Aire +had thrown himself down in one of the big leather arm-chairs in a +posture of complete relaxation, and was breathing heavily. Again it +was some time before he spoke. + +“He’s gone, God knows where. He left me an hour ago while we were +walking among the strawberry trees. Went snap off, like breaking a +stick, while I was in the middle of a sentence.” + +“Why, Doctor,” I exclaimed, with a snort of assumed cheerfulness, +“surely you’re making too much of this.” + +He sprang up, paced the breadth of the room, ugly wrinkles on his +brow. “I hope I am. I hope I am. But I’ve bitched the thing so. And +this afternoon he seemed in perfect possession of himself. I’ve been +so damned optimistic that now the reverse— He seemed perfectly normal +late this afternoon, you understand; in fact the two of us were +planning—no matter. I must go out again.” + +“I’ll come along with you.” + +“No, thanks. I’ll have to manage him alone. It will be ‘Horse and +Hattock in the Devil’s name,’ and I fancy I’m the only one who can +play up to him.” + +“But you’ll be in danger.” + +He gave a short laugh. “I think not. I’m more afraid of the things +that can’t hurt.” He looked out to the lawn. “Thank God for a clear +night, and moonlight. You know, the trees seem to have faces in their +trunks; they seem to be grinning and mowing in the wind. That’s the +sort of drivel this thing’s brought me to. Well, I’m off.” + +He made toward the door, but paused with his hand on it. “Don’t say a +word of this to anyone, Bannerlee. I’ll need a free hand if I’m to +bring it off. Cheerio.” + +He plunged into the night. I saw him cross the silver carpet of the +lawn and disappear between the gigantic jaws of the gate-house towers. + +A moment later in the corridor I met Harmony carrying a tray up to +“the young ladies.” She told me that cold viands were laid out in the +dinner-room for those lagging in from the hills. But in spite of my +three hours’ struggle, I was in no humour for feeding, especially +since I was bound to encounter the others and would have to repeat my +adventures again and again. + +I asked the girl if there had been any fresh development during my +absence. + +“Did you hear about what they dug up this afternoon, sir?” + +“Great Scott! You don’t mean another corpse?” + +“Lor’, no, sir, not human. In the garden, it was, where the dogs were +scratching the place to pieces. Someone said get a spade and dig and +see what’s there, and they found it.” + +“What did they find?” + +“A little pig, sir. And it was wrapped in some black cloth they said +must be Parson Lolly’s gown, only it was all tore up and full of holes +and had some funny bits of red paper pinned to it. They do say that +Parson Lolly is too tall for a gown like that. We met Superintendent +Salt when we were coming back from the town, and he was carrying it +with him.” + +“So,” I remarked. “It looks to me as if the Superintendent took +advantage of Miss Lebetwood’s absence to spend a busy afternoon down +here.” + +“Lor’, yes, sir. He was using the gas-expirator and fair drove us out +of the house.” + +“I’m glad he made such a thorough job of inspirating the gas again.” + +“Yes, sir, or it wouldn’t be safe. It’s that wonderful, sir.” + +“It is,” I agreed heartily, and cursed—to myself. + +She with her tray went down the passage while I went up the second +flight, feeling not the shadow of a suspicion of my darling, but the +certainty that before the night was past, she would be accused. I +hurried past Maryvale’s portal with an aching heart. + +Yet such was the settled habit of the week that when I reached my own +door, the turmoil of my mind was stilled. This lonely chamber, which +had such baneful associations for me a week ago, had become a harbour +of refuge. Whatever strife and doom might wait outside, here the +ceiling aslope, the candle-bracket askew, the oaken chest, and the +narrow window before my table invited me to my work. + +I fell to. I wrote steadily. I forgot to be hungry. Once the sound of +a gong quivered through the House, but not until long after it had +died away did I consider what it meant. Then I set down my pen. Mrs. +Belvoir’s séance must be in progress, and Scotland Yard was doubtless +there. I must attend. + +I secured my invaluable pocket light before setting out. Past +Maryvale’s door forbid, down the long stairs, through the corridor of +faces—until a murmurous voice reached me from the Hall of the Moth, a +voice whose tone I recognized though the words were indistinct. Yes, +Mrs. Belvoir was probing beyond the visible. + +Softly I opened the door behind the musicians’ stair, tiptoed over the +threshold, and stood concealed within. Great curtains shut out the +moonlight from the Hall, which was dark indeed, save for the circle of +bulbs on the circumference of the chandelier. These, cased by Toby in +paper, gave very little illumination, and that of a mysterious tinge. +At the other end of the room wavered a lazy fire, composed for the +most part of bluish flame. + +The people seated around the table, which had been placed not far from +the musicians’ stairs, were so vague that I could not tell their +attitude toward the proceedings. I observed at once that Mrs. Belvoir +was not going to “bring the spirits and all,” not yet, at any rate. +For on the table was spread some dark cloth above which I caught the +faint glimmer of glass: a crystal sphere. The woman seated deep in her +chair before the ball must be the pythoness herself. + +Her voice had lapsed when I entered, and a long silence ensued. Then +she said: “It’s no use. I’ve lost it again,” and I saw a white arm +reach up. Instantly a dazzling light shone above her head, from a +special globe connected with the wall-fixture, and Mrs. Belvoir was +gazing intently into the crystal ball. I now saw that the sphere was +erected on a small tripod with legs of different-coloured metals, and +that this structure stood upon a square yellow velvet cloth laid over +a cloth of blue. A mouldy, triangular crust of bread was placed +underneath the crystal, and some statement I had once heard or read, +that “bread possesses a potent protective magic against evil forces,” +occurred to me to explain its presence. + +Neither Salt nor any stranger was there. Mrs. Belvoir, attired in pale +mauve ninon, a heliotrope band above her forehead, and an amethyst pin +at her breast, was brooding over the crystal with eyes that widened +and narrowed with the phase of her thought. Those pale sapphire eyes +were darkened with intensity, and the customary indistinctness of her +face—a mermaid-under-water look—was quite gone. Sometimes her hands +clasped or slid about the sphere; sometimes her fingers rested on her +temples or tapped them gently. Beyond a doubt, she was sincere. + +The assisting parties were either slightly embarrassed or strongly +impressed, all save Belvoir, who sat opposite her; on his face lived a +smile of scepticism. Up went the arm and the Hall was dim once more. + +“I have it now,” said the seeress: “I am in fog, deep fog.” + +“Good,” came a _sotto voce_ from the other end of the table, but the +word was drowned in the current of her speech. Leaning back, but +apparently still gazing at the sphere, in trance-life passivity, she +seemed not so much to utter words as to let the words flow from her +mouth. + +“I am in fog, thick fog; it clings about me.” Her hands made dim +outward movements, as if pressing away the mist that enveloped her. “I +am lost, and there is a malignant spirit nearby, but I am not sure I +know that—yet. I sit down—on a rock. I am not very hungry, but since +there is nothing else to do, I eat what I have brought with me. I wait +for light to penetrate the fog. I wish to find something; perhaps I +fear the malignant spirit that is near. I wish to find the ancient +hermit’s cell. It is a place hallowed by good works and piety. The +malignant spirit will not dare come near me there. I eat and wait. The +mist clears partly away at last. I go on. The sun shines on me; I am +glorified. . . .” + +I suddenly realized it was my story she told. There was nothing +wonderful in this, to be sure, for the narrative of my afternoon on +the hills had long been common property. I listened with care, to see +if she included some detail proving her version to be a brain-picture +really evoked by the crystal and having objective authority. But all +she added to the fable was the “malignant spirit” hovering near me all +the while, a presence which I certainly had no idea was dogging me on +the hilltops. + +It became apparent that the seeress was not interested in me but in +the spirit, and some time before the dénouement I had an inkling of +how the story would end. + +“I am fleeing from the malignant spirit in its carnal shape. I allow +it to overtake me—so far, no farther. We are approaching the brink of +the cliff. I leap aside, and the animal plunges into the gulf. I am +saved, and I hear the carnal shape of the spirit go thundering down, +down, down. I am saved, and the bull is dead.” + +Silence. . . . When Mrs. Belvoir spoke again, her voice had lost its +dreaminess and become positive. But she spoke with effort; the phrases +seemed wrung out of her. + +“The bull is dead. . . . But spiritual force . . . is never +destroyed. . . . The bull is dead. . . . The malignant spirit is +living still. . . . It never ceases to operate. . . . It is +localized. . . .” + +A small sound shattered the tension of that moment: merely the opening +of one of the french windows. + +“My God, what’s that?” cried Eve Bartholomew, before someone reached +above Mrs. Belvoir’s head and lit the bright globe once more. Mrs. +Belvoir turned, intending angry remonstrance, but her voice was +stilled by one look at Doctor Aire. + +He was coatless and collarless, and his shirt and trousers were miry. +His small yellow head seemed to have turned almost white, save for a +ragged cut across his forehead, and while he spoke the man leaned hard +on the back of the _Brocade de Lyons_ couch as if in the last throes +of exhaustion. + +Everyone was standing up; my presence excited no surprise. + +“Maryvale’s—somewhere near.” + +“Doctor! What’s happened to you?” cried Crofts. + +“I’ve had a bout with him on the tennis court. He was a few stone too +heavy for me. I saw him heading for the House—probably wants something +that’s in his room. I’m afraid—he’s insane.” + +“What shall we do, then?” asked Crofts, become very cool in the +crisis. + +“Keep a watch at every entrance, enough of us at each place to tackle +him safely.” + +“Stephen, you mustn’t go out again. You’ve done too much already,” +said Alberta. + +But Aire, though he swayed, hung on grittily, and shook his head. “No, +thanks. A stiff drink will put me right. Just have the men-servants in +here, Crofts, and—” + +Miss Mertoun gave a shrill scream. A creature was looking at us +through the open entrance behind Aire—a strange creature. + +The thing that looked at us was using Maryvale’s face, but it was not +Maryvale any longer. The countenance, blank of any jot of humanity, +had become a mere bag with features. It lingered there only for a +moment, staring at us with incomprehension so complete that a pang of +pity thrilled through me. A woman sobbed. The face was gone. + +Pell-mell the men were gone, too, in a wild chase scattering across +the lawn, and I among them. Yet sorry as I was for Maryvale, he did +not concern me now. I had sterner work even than trammelling a +moonlight madman. + +I determined to risk the notice of my absence in order to make certain +that the bicycles were properly waiting where Toby had promised to +conceal them. Keeping under the shadow of trees where I could, I +hastened across the southern lawn toward the oaks that guard the drive +below the gate-house towers. I was just in time to see someone drag +one of the bicycles from its bushy covert into the full moonlight and +bend over the front tyre with a gleaming blade ready to slash. I +sprang upon this man, mastered him more by the surprise of my leap +than by main strength. He fell face upward, groaning. His knife lay on +the grass ten feet away. + +“Morgan! What crazy work is this?” + +He thrashed about in my inexorable grip, and blurted out his words in +speech that reverted toward the primitive. “The killers, the killers! +They bikes was for them. I saw the lad fetch ’em and hide ’em, aye I +did. ’E’s sweet on ’er since she took notice of ’im.” + +“What are you talking about?” I blustered. “What do you know about the +murderers?” + +He struggled to rise, but I let my weight bear down, and he relapsed +with another groan, though certainly not hurt. “I know who did the +killin’. I’ve known all along.” + +I shook him roughly by the shoulders. “Don’t lie to me. Come, out with +it, now, or I’ll throttle you.” + +“Mr. Blenkinson told us. It’s the sure truth.” + +“_Blenkinson!_” I bawled. “By God, Blenkinson’s got something to +answer for to me. What lies has he been spreading?” + +“He has the proofs. It’s sure as if ’e saw ’em with ’is own eyes.” + +“Saw _what_? Saw _who_?” + +“Saw the killin’s. The three Americans did ’em, and they’ll make +shares of Mr. Cosgrove’s money.” + +My fingers itched for his throat, but black fear blazed in my heart. +“Liar!” I screamed. “They’ll hang you sooner than _her_! Don’t you +know she won’t touch a penny of it until the killer’s found!” + +The man on the ground maintained a sullen obstinacy. “Sometimes them +hangs as isn’t guilty, and them suffers as finds out. The milkman knew +it was ’er, and look what ’appened to ’im.” + +“You poor, blind fool,” I exclaimed bitterly. “There’s jealousy and +hatred in this somewhere. Damn Blenkinson. Why, there isn’t a particle +of evidence—” + +“There is, there is,” he gasped. “There’s court evidence to ’ang ’er +when Mr. Blenkinson comes out with it.” + +“What evidence? Tell me!” + +He writhed in my clutch. “The beetle-stone as she lost from ’er ring +that day. She tried to keep it secret, but it got about. Mr. +Blenkinson found it right in the same place as the stone she did the +killin’ with. There wasn’t a foot between ’em.” + +I pressed my fists against his chest, with a downward thrust now and +then for emphasis. “Your fine Blenkinson’s a liar, do you hear? His +evidence, as you call it, isn’t worth a pin. And if he whispers a word +of his slander, and it comes to my ears, I’ll thrash him within an +inch of his life, do you hear? And the same applies to you—you +contemptible—” + +I stood up quickly. Men were crowding out of the plantation near +Whimble-foot and clamouring toward the House. Had the quarry turned? I +must be present now at any cost. + +This man was cowed sufficiently. He still lay supine; I prodded him +with my foot. “Remember!” I warned him darkly, and commenced running +toward the mansion, stooping to seize the knife where it glittered on +the turf. + +Once only I paused for a moment and looked back. Was there +something—someone—moving stealthily toward the man, who was sitting up +now and feeling himself for bruises? A moment later the figure of a +woman emerged from the shadows, crossed quickly to Morgan, and seemed +to lift him bodily from the ground. I did not immediately grasp that +she had lugged him up by the ear. Now they were arguing, +gesticulating, and though I had heard it seldom, I knew the prim voice +of Miss Ardelia Lacy. + +Smiling to myself, I pressed on. + +The half-dozen men who reached the corner of the House more or less in +a pack were in the nick of time to see the wretched Maryvale, driven +from cover to cover like a hunted beast, drag his body, which had +never before seemed ponderous, to the base of one of the gate-house +towers. He carried what seemed a club with an enormous broadened head. + +He turned there at bay while we closed in upon him, and the awful +wreck of his face with its glaring eyes and bared teeth in the +moonlight will haunt me to my death. He was a beast. While we stood +speechless, he began to climb. + +One hand gripped the queer-looking club, but grasping the ivy with one +hand alone, he raised himself steadily. It was agony to watch this +man-turned-ape mounting where none of us dared to follow. In the thick +wavering growth that clung to the tower sometimes he swung +pendulum-wise, sometimes was almost buried in the foliage, but his +ascent was sure as if he climbed the stairs within. We cried out to +him appeals and abuse; I do not think he heard us. Someone ran to the +stables, shouting for a ladder. + +Maryvale reached the angle where the covered bridge meets the wall of +the tower. Here the ivy thins, and the man made a wide stop to the +roof of the bridge. Then, surely, I felt the supreme horror, when +Maryvale, using the base of a window-slit for foot-rest, lifted +himself over the edge of the turret-roof and carefully but +expeditiously crawled up the slope of stone toward the pointed top. + +We held on shouting, some of us, in sheer desperation. Pendleton made +a frenzied effort to climb the ivy, failed. Maryvale crept on, his +whole body flat against the roof, save for the arm which held the +club-like mass. He reached the pinnacle and lifted himself to a +precarious standing posture, one foot firm on the very apex, the side +of the other foot pressed against the slope. + +For a few moments he bent over the object he had carried; then when he +straightened his body, his arm above his head brandished a flaming, +sizzling torch, and he uttered the only words I had heard him speak +that day. He called out to the night at large: + +“Lolly, Lolly, Parson Lolly!” His voice gloated above the hiss of the +torch. “Who’s the Parson? I’M THE PARSON! AND NOW I’M GOING OVER THE +HILLS: PARSON LOLLY FLIES!” + +The torchlight danced in his face while he laughed shrilly. Then he +launched himself into the air in an enormous leap. + +He fell almost but not quite clear of the sloping roof. Striking it +all awry, he dashed against the roof of the bridge and on down. +Mercifully, he was hurled toward the wall of the tower, and his foot +caught for a second in some loop of the ivy-twine twenty feet from the +ground. His swinging body struck the wall a terrific blow, and he hung +head downward for a moment; his torch, which had drawn a flaming mark +across the night, now blazed upward enveloping him with its flames. +Only for an instant, however. The impact of the collision with the +wall had stunned him, and the torch fell from his hand. The ivy gave +way, and the madman, part of his clothing afire, fell insensible to +the ground at our feet. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Blood on the Portrait + +We had carried Maryvale down to the bridge, and the ambulance from the +Cottage Hospital at Kington had been waiting to take the unfortunate +man away. We did not know until later, of course, that Maryvale would +never walk again, though the delusion which had unhinged his mind no +longer held him in thrall. + +Now we were returning to the House, I and the remnant of the men of +the Bidding Feast. We were a straggling squad. The sense of Fate, of +dark wings closing down, of stern gates clashing, swept over me again +while I wondered which of us would be the next to suffer. One by one +our little group reassembled in the library. There the women were +waiting; there, too, stood Maryvale’s picture of the headless Parson, +more enigmatic than before. Yes, even with the madman’s words ringing +in our ears, none of us could believe that he had indeed been the +arch-lord of disorder who may have destroyed two men. + +Mrs. Belvoir, purpureal priestess, was making agitated efforts to +reassemble her devotees that she might reveal the further activities +of the “malignant spirit”; but the devotees were very slippery. +Indeed, it was natural that after the catastrophe of Maryvale, other +things should disintegrate, and although the terror spread through the +House tightened the little knot of us, soon we might have wandered off +to bed, unless a sudden loud knocking had been audible. + +“The front door, isn’t it?” asked Miss Lebetwood. + +Our host said it was, and added he wondered what the devil— + +“It is a sign for me, I think.” Addressing Mrs. Belvoir: “Marvel, you +must let me take charge now.” + +“Why, what do you mean?” demanded the seeress. + +“We shall see in a moment.” + +Alberta’s firm hand had restrained Crofts from jumping into the +corridor to answer the knock himself. Presently Soames sidled into the +room with a salver which he presented to Miss Lebetwood. Regarding him +closely, I thought he gave her a slanting, snake-like look of mingled +fear and malevolence—and yet on the surface his countenance remained +perfectly respectful. + +“A telegram for you, Miss.” + +“Thank you.” + +Lib gurgled, “Why, Paula, someone’s had the cheek to open it!” + +“I know,” answered Miss Lebetwood, withdrawing two closely-filled +sheets from the envelope already slit. “Those were my instructions.” + +Crofts asked sharply, “Don’t they know those should be ’phoned here?” + +“My directions again,” said the American girl evenly, without glancing +up from the sheet in her hand. Her brief, self-possessed words made us +realize of a sudden that she had assumed leadership quietly and +confidently. “There will be no answer, Soames,” she remarked, and the +man slid out shadow-wise. + +A silence supervened, while we stared at her and she read the message +to the very end. When she was through, her clear blue eyes were bright +with exultation. + +“Yes, it’s what I expected! I think, people, that we will see the end +of our ghastly bewilderment to-night. Won’t you be glad? Oh, I will!” + +Mrs. Belvoir, aware that she was likely to lose the post of cynosure, +countered vaguely. “What do you mean?” she repeated. “I haven’t +finished—” + +“You won’t need to, Marvel dear. I have found a better way to deal +with the malignant spirit you spoke of. I have Mr. Salt’s approval for +what I do. In fact”—she smiled slightly—“I am his deputy.” + +Lord Ludlow’s eyebrows gave a jerk. “His deputy?” + +“Yes, and I believe I am to have a Police-Constable to enforce my +authority. And the—the Frenchwomen from the farm, the Delambres, have +kindly consented to be present here to-night as witnesses.” + +“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Crofts. “Will people be coming in here +all night? Who owns this place, anyhow?” + +Alberta struck a counter-blow. “Of course, Paula dearest, we shall do +anything you like. Shall we have to wait long for those queer old +women?” + +“_They_ are waiting for _you_,” said the American girl, standing by +the door which led through the armoury into the Hall. “Will you enter, +please, and take your seats as before?” + +“I don’t like this,” objected Crofts, blocking our way. “In my opinion +there should be no jiggery-pokery without Salt or this Scotland Yard +man he was supposed to bring. Why doesn’t he do as he intended?” + +“Hush, dear,” said Alberta, “or Paula will have her Constable arrest +you and lock you up in the gate-house.” + +“He may appear later on, of course,” the American girl suggested, not +very hopefully. “You can trust me, though, to—” + +“Later? Later?” Crofts grumbled. “Are we going to be kept up all +night?” + +But now Paula Lebetwood ignored him. “Please follow me,” she said, +brushing past, and Crofts gave way. + +Like creatures under a spell we moved into the Hall, a place still +obscured from the moon and illumined now only by the pale ring of +lights from the chandelier by the gallery. I offered to switch on the +other chandelier, which hung near the chimney-piece, but she said she +wished it to remain dark for the present. While she spoke, she lit the +one bright globe beneath which Mrs. Belvoir had sat, and took her own +place beneath it. + +“Please interrupt me as little as possible,” she requested, +“especially in this early part where I know my way. I’ll try not to +waste time, though I don’t expect this to be a really short meeting. +No, don’t say anything, yet.” + +It was hard to repress some exclamation of wonder when I saw the two +women who sat in semi-darkness near the great expanse of the +chimney-piece. Very quiet they had been, and took no notice of us +while we entered. They seemed to be absorbed in the embers of the +fire, from which only an occasional blue flame winked like an eye. One +of them, the squatter of the two, seemed particularly aloof, and only +her flattish nose and broad forehead peeped beyond the queer +old-fashioned hood still drawn over her head. The other, who wore an +expansive coverchief, was taller and more stalwart, with a strong +face, large chin, and eyes which shone even in the gloom. She appeared +from time to time to take some interest in us and our proceedings. But +on the whole the presence of these foreign sisters was eerie and +evasive. + +More stolid than either of these appeared the bovine Constable who sat +near them and seemed to have them in charge. + +“Geewhilikins!” emitted Bob, and the state of Lib could be imagined +from the fact that she brazenly allowed him to clutch her hand and +keep it. + +Paula Lebetwood indicated the sisters Delambre with a gesture. +“These—gentlewomen: you know who they are, of course. Before to-night +is over we shall all be grateful to them for coming here. But it’s +late, I know, and you are all anxious to hear my—revelation; so I’ll +commence at once.” + +Her revelation! God grant that no prank of fate should cause _her_ to +be snared in whatever trap she was setting! + +“Don’t think, please, that I am certain myself what to-night’s result +is going to be,” she went on while we settled into our seats around +the shadowy board. “If I did, I wouldn’t waste your time. But I +think—yes, I am almost certain—that you will find out before you leave +your places. And perhaps I had better put this in evidence first.” + +She picked up the creased sheets of the telegram which lay on the +table before her and handed them to Charlton Oxford. “It’s the answer +to a wire Mr. Salt sent for me this morning. As you see, it’s from the +Welsh National Library at Aberystwyth.” + +“That is surely far afield,” remarked Ludlow. + +“It may seem so. But I believe that when Mr. Salt hears of it, he’ll +agree with me that it’s an important item in our list. In fact, my +Lord, it’s the keystone of my arch.” + +While his eyes travelled along the lines, Oxford’s face was blank. +Obviously he did not perceive the slightest link between the matter of +the telegram and the matter in hand. He was not even puzzled; he was +irretrievably befogged. + +“Will someone repeat it aloud, please? It will save so much time.” + +Crofts snatched the sheets from Oxford’s fingers and commenced to +read. The eagerness in his voice subsided while he went on to an +uncomfortable conclusion with an air that he was being made a fool. +Our confusion increased with rapt attention, but the sisters Delambre +seemed utterly uninterested, and I believe that the Constable had +already dropped into a doze. The message ran about as follows:¹ + + ¹ The original has been supplied. (V. Markham.) + + ADEQUATE DESCRIPTION MANUSCRIPT IN CATALOGUE MOSTYN COLLECTION TO + WHICH IT FORMERLY BELONGED STOP ORIGINAL NOW IN CARDIFF UNIVERSITY + LIBRARY STOP COPIES MAY EXIST STOP MOSTYN SAYS ELIS GRUFFYDD SELF + STYLED SOLDIER OF CALAIS WAS NATIVE GRONNANT UCHA IN PARISH LLANASSA + FLINTSHIRE LIVED ABOUT 1490–1560 STOP CUSTODIAN WINGFIELD PALACE + SEVEN YEARS BEFORE JOINING RETINUE AT CALAIS STOP BEST KNOWN AS + AUTHOR AND SCRIBE OF LARGE POLYCHRONICON IN WELSH IN TWO MANUSCRIPT + VOLUMES STOP FIRST BEGINS CREATION ENDING BATTLE OF HASTINGS STOP + SECOND CONTINUES TO 1552 STOP FOLIOS 365–657 CONTAIN EYE WITNESS + ACCOUNTS MANY TRANSACTIONS INCLUDING TRIALS IN STAR CHAMBER STOP NO + MENTION IN MOSTYN OF REFERENCE TO CWM MELIN OR AIDENN VALE STOP CAN + ASSURE YOU NO PASSAGE OF THIS MANUSCRIPT HAS BEEN PUBLISHED STOP. + +“May I have it back? Thank you. And now straight to the point. People, +I suppose you think that if we could only put our fingers down tight +on one person, our troubles would be over. I mean Parson Lolly—not the +Parson of Mr. Maryvale’s sad delusion, but the real one.” + +“I should say so,” remarked Crofts. + +“Well,” she said very quietly, “if there is one part of these +mysteries I know I hold the clue of, it’s the Parson. I _know_ who the +Parson is.” + +The tableful of us stiffened as if we had been plunged in an electric +bath. + +“Then who, who, who?” Crofts burst out. + +“You mustn’t excite yourself. There never was any reason to be excited +about Parson Lolly. Parson Lolly is a dud.” + +“Yes, he is!” hooted Bob incredulously. + +“Yes, he is, I tell you. I can’t believe for a minute that he has any +unusual power. You can hardly say that he has any power at all; at +least, it’s delusive rather than formidable. Why, he’s done nothing +but deliver threats and make gestures, and some of us have been +imagining we’re the victims of supernatural pranks.” + +“Supernatural or not,” growled Crofts, “I’ll give him a fine quarter +of an hour when I lay hands on him. Who is he?” + +The American girl looked him straight in the eye, severely, and he +subsided with vague rumblings. “Now, I stipulate that you shall do +nothing of the sort. If you intend to make this the excuse for working +off your surplus bad temper, I won’t go any further.” + +“I’ll go bail for him,” promised Alberta. + +“Oh, don’t pay any attention to me,” said Crofts. + +The American girl leaned her chin in her hand and studied the table +with thoughtful eyes. She spoke slowly, tentatively. “Suppose I set +the evidence before you and see if your conclusion isn’t the same as +mine. Beginning, perhaps, with that night Millicent wandered out on +the lawn, and I with her. It was the clock in the corner there that +started all the trouble; neither the Parson nor any human being here +could have foreseen the effect that melody would have on Millicent +when she heard it through her dreams. But somewhere on the lawn we two +collided, you might say, with a separate series of events. First of +all it was the devilish, goggling face that glared down at us from an +instant from the air. And let me remind you that it was not only an +enormous face—I was frightened, but I’m not exaggerating—it was also +high up in the air. We know the Parson is tall when he stands full +length, but even he can’t extend indefinitely. Well, we saw this +perfectly hellish face, just for an instant, and it hasn’t been seen +again—that way. Mr. Salt took most of it away with him when he left +the Vale this evening.” + +“What’s that?” jogged in Crofts. + +“Let me go on, please. The head was one thing. Then there was the +placard: ‘Parson Lolly sends regards. Look out for Parson Lolly.’ That +was the first of a number of such messages that have been found all +about the place, and why _this_ one, at any rate, should have caused +us such great alarm, I can only account for by supposing that we’d +caught the spirit of panic from the servants. On sober reflection, I +should think that that placard demonstrated a sort of ingenuousness in +Parson Lolly.” + +“A damned funny sort of ingenuousness,” remarked our host. “What about +the axe and the blood we found?” + +“I was just going to remind you of them. The blood, as you know, we +learned to be that of one of a batch of little pigs, and its carcass +was found this afternoon along with the head. As for the axe, you +remember that Doctor Aire pointed out how light and impracticable it +was, and how it had been removed from low down on the armoury wall. +The final thing was that Mr. Bannerlee’s hat had been deposited on the +lawn. The rest was merely excitement. I am able, though, to add a +point or two borrowed from Mr. Bannerlee.” + +I received a burning glance from Crofts. “From you? Have you been +holding something back all this time?” + +The American girl swiftly continued. “These are notes from the diary +Mr. Bannerlee commenced that night.” + +They all exclaimed, “Diary!” + +“Yes, yes; don’t be so surprised at everything, or we shan’t get +through. Don’t let them bother you, Mr. Bannerlee. A little later I’ll +say something more general about the diary, but now I confine myself +to a pair of small points. One is that while he came down the path +from the uplands to the Vale, he heard a voice somewhere in the fog +below, shouting—an indeterminate sort of voice with a quality he +couldn’t quite describe. Now, I believe that was Parson Lolly’s voice, +the same queer voice we heard the night before Mr. Bannerlee came. And +the second point is this. Late in the afternoon before Sean met his +death, Mr. Bannerlee was standing on the roof outside his window. +Crofts had told him how the sun strikes the tumulus in Great Rhos at +sunset. Mr. Bannerlee looked down, as it chanced, and saw a tiny piece +of rope beneath the parapet that runs along there. It was lying at the +edge of one of the merlons, which have been scraped fairly smooth and +have their corners sharp. It is my belief that this scrap was part of +the clothes-line rope and that it had something to do with Parson +Lolly’s visit the night the conservatory window was smashed, also on +the night previous to Mr. Bannerlee’s advent.” + +“Look here,” Crofts broke in. He had gradually been sliding to the +edge of his chair again. “Why can’t you give up beating about the bush +and tell us out and out?” + +“I’d have to go over it all anyhow,” returned Miss Lebetwood. “I’m +wondering if these straws seem to you to point the way I think they +do. You must let me tell this in my own way. There isn’t much more, +and for that I have to thank Mr. Bannerlee also.” + +“You mean my visit to the tower?” I asked. “The Superintendent could +help you there. He must have scoured the place long before me.” + +“He did, as it happens. But he left matters there as he found them, +and it was through reading your diary that I heard of the variegated +lot of objects which probably belonged to the Parson. For instance, +you found shavings from the pencil which had written the placards. You +also saw some splashes, unquestionably the blood of the little pig. +Then there were fragments of wood and scraps of crêpe, left over from +the construction of the head. Another thing was a pungent smell that +you couldn’t identify. I think that was all except a torn-off corner +of the title-page of a book; something ending in ‘CATTI.’ I would have +telegraphed for information about that, too, this morning, but when I +asked the Superintendent, he was able to tell me right away what the +book is. It’s been quite a common one in Wales for generations: ‘The +Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti,’ who is described as a wild +wag of Wales. He was a real person two hundred years ago, Mr. Salt +told me, and a great many legends have sprung up about him, so that +his exploits as a highwayman and a hero and a man of chivalry make up +quite a readable book. It was borrowed from your library, Crofts, but +I noticed this morning that it was back in its place.” + +Our host now seemed sunk in meditative gloom. “What of it?” + +“Well, suppose I recapitulate. As I see it, the night before Mr. +Bannerlee came, the Parson intended to invade the House, but his plans +were awry. Although the head was made, he didn’t bring it with him; +this was to be an experimental sortie. He came by way of the kitchen +yard, and took down the clothes-line that was hanging there and +brought it with him. He made a loop, a lasso, with one end of the rope +and flung it up the side of the House until he succeeded in drawing it +tight about one of the merlons of the battlement. Then he began +shouting through a megaphone, and even if you had heard his voice +previously you wouldn’t have recognized it then. And he was still +shouting while he commenced to walk up the wall of the House.” + +I thought Crofts was going to levitate from his chair. “A megaphone!” + +“But, my dear young lady,” objected Aire, “the man must have had a +hand too many. I grant you, he might have hauled himself up the +outside of the House, but he’d need both hands for it; where does the +megaphone come in?” + +“You people will interrupt,” said the American girl. “The explanation +is simple. The megaphone came from old Watts’ storeroom, of course. +Don’t you remember that there are relics in there of early days of +sport—even some oars and a sliding seat from a shell? A rowing +coxswain uses a megaphone, doesn’t he, and there’s an attachment for +keeping it tight against his mouth while both hands are occupied with +the rudder chains. Parson Lolly, I imagine, can manage as well as most +coxswains. Anyhow, he _was_ climbing, and he _was_ shouting when his +foot slipped and there he dangled. Instead of letting go the rope, he +held on, and the result was that he began to sway back and forth. Of +course he tried to steady himself by reaching one foot out to the +wall, but instead of checking his momentum he kicked away from the +wall, and his pendulum swing carried him neatly through the window of +the conservatory. He wasn’t as much as scratched.” + +“Unbelievable,” declared Crofts. “And supposing by a miracle he wasn’t +cut to pieces, what became of him?” + +The American girl went on quietly. “When my brother was a high-school +lad, he had a soccer ball at home. One evening in an unlit hall he +stepped on it accidentally and it sent him clean through a glass door +without his losing a drop of blood. It isn’t an unusual thing, after +all. As for how the Parson got away, he really didn’t—then. You see, +the swing of the rope had gradually ground it to bits where it rubbed +against the sharpened merlon. When the Parson swung through the +window, the rope broke and he came down on his feet inside the +conservatory. Lucky for him, perhaps, that he did, if he wanted to +evade us, for all he had to do was to draw the rope in after him and +wait until we had spent our patience looking for him in the grounds. +None of us had a thought of searching inside.” + +“Well, I’m—” Crofts muttered, breaking off into stupefaction. No one +else said a word, only stared at the American girl, and waited. + +“That night we may assume Parson Lolly escaped as soon as the coast +was clear. But he escaped only to plan new mischief for the next +evening. And again his schemes miscarried. I think it is easier to +reconstruct what happened this time. For one thing, he brought the +head with him.” Crofts seemed about to break in, but desisted. “He was +carrying the blood as well; he must have slaughtered the piglet a +little while before he set out from the tower, for the blood had not +begun to clot. Earlier, he had been prowling inside the House and had +pilfered the little battle-axe and the cap belonging to Mr. +Bannerlee.” + +“But, dearest, you aren’t making it a bit clearer,” said Alberta. +“What could it have all been for?” + +“It was to give us the scare of our lives.” + +“And didn’t it?” muttered Oxford. “Dash him!” + +“But not as planned. Sean pointed that out at once, I believe. The +Parson’s intention that night was to stage a fictitious murder. There +were the weapon, the gore, and the hat which was to be discovered +reeking with blood. We were to find these things, and in the midst of +our excitement we were to be thrown into a panic when the head—went +off—probably somewhere on the battlement, or even above.” + +“The head, the infernal head!” + +“Yes, Crofts; it appeared when they dug it up this afternoon—Harmony +told me—that it had been constructed somewhat like a kite and could +have been flown quite easily. That occurred, in fact. When Millicent +and I inadvertently crossed the Parson’s path and he dropped +everything and legged it, the kite did fly up a little way, and +then—went off.” She addressed me. “When it crashed to the ground, Mr. +Bannerlee, the Parson still held the cord, and you distinguished the +head as a black mass sliding across the lawn.” + +“I grant you the kite and the rest of the fol-de-rol,” cut in Lord +Ludlow, in a voice like the broken edge of a cake of ice. “I fancy, +however, that this ‘going off,’ as you call it, needs more explanation +than you’ll readily find.” + +“The hellish thing couldn’t have been lit with a match like a +Hallowe’en turnip,” added Crofts. + +The American girl slowly shook her head and smiled. “On the contrary, +for me that was about the easiest guess of all as soon as I read how +Mr. Bannerlee smelt powder in the tower. Don’t you see, the Parson +must have carried a small dry battery connected by a length of wire +with the magnesium charge in the head? It was an ordinary flash-light +powder such as is used for taking photographs.” + +There was a long interval of sagging silence. I cannot speak for +others, but my own mind struggled with an obstacle it could not grasp. +There must be some egregious contradiction involved in this idea. +Flashlight! Who had owned a flashlight? + +“But, Miss Lebetwood, you yourself—it can’t be—you’re the photography +expert here. You didn’t—yourself—” + +“Wait a moment! I’ve got it!” Aire whistled. “Someone told me other +other day—you’d been teaching Toby how to take flashlight photographs. +Didn’t you bring down some old apparatus of yours and give it to him +last week?” + +“Quite right,” said the American girl. “It’s been Toby all along, of +course.” + +“Toby!” Crofts was only beginning to see the light. + +“Toby, who else?” + +“God!” Crofts seemed to choke for breath. “Do you mean to say that lad +killed Cosgrove—killed Heatheringham? I can’t believe it.” + +“He never killed anybody. Don’t you see, Parson Lolly has no +connection with these murders?” + +“Eh, what?” + +“Well, what do you know about that?” + +“I’ll be switched!” + +“I’ll be damned!” + +The American girl gave Ludlow a particular look. “It hardly needed the +new psychology to give us the right lead. I’m amazed, really I am, +that no one has thought of it before. Why, what activities did the +Parson engage in? His plots were just the sort of thing that an +artless—and artful—child would plan to frighten a grown person.” + +“Or a grown person to frighten a child,” appended Aire. + +“Yes, I think so, but there could be no such intention here, of +course. As soon as I got my wits about me the night Mr. Bannerlee +arrived, I suspected some juvenile escapade. The details unfolded to +fit the theory. There was the little battle-axe from low on the wall, +whereas the big ones hung out of reach. That later night, who but a +small boy could have crawled underneath the arch of the bridge in the +park when the Doctor and Mr. Bannerlee were so brisk on his trail? +Then there was the book: hardly anyone but a lad nowadays would take +much interest in a work as naïve as ‘Twm Shon Catti.’ A boy, however, +might be much struck with it, and it probably fired Toby to emulation +of Twm—a bloodyish emulation. There was his cloak, too—that was rather +puerile, although it was a neat dodge all the same.” + +“Where does the neat dodge come in?” I asked. + +“Why, to add to his stature. A tiny Parson Lolly would be in danger of +being identified with a boy, if there happened to be a boy in the +neighbourhood. That was the reason for the exceedingly large and +flowing garb. He must have had strapped to his shoulders one of those +contrivances that magicians use to ‘produce’ objects, an apparatus +that could be folded or extended by pressure on some spring. No wonder +Millicent and I saw no head on him! That sort of stunt is as old as +conjuring, I believe, and the appliance probably came from the +exhaustless variety of old Watts’ attics.” + +The American girl leaned back in her chair, settling her head against +the leather and closing her eyes, as if grateful for a chance to rest. +The accumulation of details which she had picked out left no doubt +whatever that the houseful of us had been hoaxed and flummoxed by a +child, that Aidenn Vale was Cock Lane repeated on a twentieth century +scale. + +_But it could not be!_ + +There were facts, cold, stony facts, that loomed mountain high, +cutting off this path. These facts could not be avoided. + +“But, Miss Lebetwood!” I cried hoarsely, “it won’t do.” + +“Won’t do!” resounded the voice of our host, a man of imponderable +mind. + +“The placards!” I insisted. “Why, I remember clearly the one in +Cosgrove’s room had been left after Toby had gone to wherever-it-was +to fetch my bag—absolutely no question about that. That afternoon, +too, the one Mrs. Bartholomew picked up by the library tower: I’ll +swear by the beard of the Prophet it wasn’t there when I went past a +few minutes before the tragedy occurred. And Toby was peeling potatoes +then. It’s inconceivable—absolutely inconceivable—that he could have +had anything to do with them.” + +Her eyes still shut, Miss Lebetwood said quietly, “I think I can tell +who it was. Not Toby, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t alter the rest of +what I’ve said about him. Toby didn’t write those placards, or leave +them, and I am sure he knows no more about them than he knows +about—that one there!” + +The hair at the back of my neck prickled, and my spine seemed to be +wriggling in convulsions. A dozen cries, loud or stunned, sounded as +if from one multi-vocal throat. For the American girl’s eyes were open +now, and her arm pointed to the musicians’ gallery. Indistinct, +hanging outside the bright zone of the globe, but unmistakable, a +fifth placard was suspended from the rail of the balustrade. + +“My God!” + +“I’ll take oath that wasn’t there when we came in,” declared Crofts, +and many voices supported him. + +It was I who rose like a brisk automaton, kicked my chair back against +the wall, and sped up the stairs to the gallery, where I had never set +foot before. The placard hung by a black thread attached to a pin. I +seized it, carried it down to the light. Now we might have been some +multi-headed creature studying the inscription: + + T O n i g H T m y L A s t N i G H t B e S t R E G a r d s + P A R S O N L O L L Y + +Only the American girl remained limp in her chair, not bending forward +for a sight of the words. While my gaze, as it must, fell on her and +lingered there, ever such a shadowy smile crept from her lips to her +eyes. + +“Good people, good, good people, please don’t misjudge me. That +placard has been hanging there since long before you came in. You +didn’t see it because you weren’t on the look-out for it.” + +“You knew it was there?” Crofts boomed. “And you didn’t warn us?” + +“Warn you? Against myself?” + +“Against yourself, dearest?” cried Millicent Mertoun, her face +suddenly worn with anxiety. + +Miss Lebetwood said, “I wrote that placard. I wrote it this evening +and put it up there after Marvel’s crystal-gazing to-night. I did it +just to show you that anybody could make a placard like that. This is +the fifth, and perhaps the four others were done by four different +persons.” + +Accompanying the last words of her speech, the first strokes of twelve +began to sound from the clock in the corner. There was a spell in the +sound of its old music. We were hushed. + +For the only time I saw Lord Ludlow’s face absolutely grey with fear. +“There’s something moving in the wall!” + +“Not in the wall—on the wall!” + +Indeed, high up, above our solitary light, something rubbed and +scraped near the portrait of Sir Pharamond. From somewhere else in the +room came a soft murmur, as of a smooth-running reel. Belvoir caught +hold of the bulb by its brass top and raised it overhead. Within the +brightness now, the colours of the portrait were sharper and more +brilliant than they had appeared in the austere dimness of the Hall. + +But Sir Pharamond was not still; he writhed and rocked, and a loud +outcry was evidence we saw the blood oozing from the wound upon his +cheek. + +A moment later down fell Sir Pharamond with a sound of splintering +wood and ripping canvas. The wall where the portrait had been was +quite smooth and blank. + +The quiet chime of the old clock had not ceased to ring. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +The Purr of the Cat! + +Blood on the pallid cheek of Sir Pharamond, and his downfall, as had +been prophesied in the olden time! I saw no one else, heard no one +else, only gaped at the ruined portrait and was conscious of the +clock’s melodious voice. An epoch seemed to pass before my senses +ceased to dance, and I found myself one of the faltering semicircle +which closed about the shattered portrait. + +But beyond the area of brightness I made out indistinctly the most +amazing thing of all. The sisters Delambre sat by the fireplace +precisely as they had been since we entered the Hall. The short, +stodgy one seemed quite absorbed in the flickering embers; the taller +of the two had merely turned her head in our direction. Even the +Constable seemed bereft of reflexes. This lack of surprise, this +apathy, this uncanny silence impressed me just then as a thing more +incredible than the disaster close at hand. + +I still stared at the strange pair, while conscious that Aire had +slipped before us, standing over the wreck of the portrait. He turned +and faced us, and the small voice of the man seemed charged with a +booming importance. + +I heard him vaguely. “I told Salt,” came in somewhere, and then, +“Crofts put me up to it, really.” + +“You’re crazy, crazy,” claimed Crofts. + +“I tell you it never would have happened if you hadn’t been so +fractious this morning. I said this sort of thing might conceivably +take place. Well, it has, that’s all.” + +Eve Bartholomew ventured. “You mean that you—you—” + +“Very simply indeed.” Aire hunched his shoulders appreciatively. “A +matter of two spools and a bit of string connected with the mechanism +of the chimes. A scurvy conjurer’s trick; that’s all. I apologize.” + +“But the blood!” I cried in a sudden access of emotion. “Spools and +strings don’t produce blood. I saw it oozing from the cheek!” + +Aire smiled, shook his head slightly. “No, they don’t. But then, you +didn’t see blood oozing from the cheek.” + +Half a dozen hot affirmatives contradicted him. + +“I tell you no. You’re all acquainted with the prophecy of the bloody +cheek, and you were all hypnotized.” + +“Don’t try to tell me,” bullied Crofts, brushing the little man aside +and bending to the wreckage. + +Aire smiled dryly. “That’s not blood, you see; it’s painted blood.” + +“Wh-at!” cried Crofts, holding up a portion of the canvas. “You daubed +this stuff on my painting?” + +“Not I; Maryvale. And that’s not your painting, by the way.” + +Crofts could only mutter. + +“Don’t be disturbed, my friend. This portrait is a rush order, as they +say in America, a copy done for me this afternoon by Maryvale. You’ll +find the original under his mattress, poor chap.” + +“Well, of all—” Crofts relapsed into dumb glowering. + +Aire made a slight movement of disdain. “Why be so upset? It was only +a trick—a cheap trick, I admit—and I take the full responsibility, +ladies and gentlemen. I almost wish it hadn’t occurred, but dogmatic +people sometimes get on my nerves. And now let’s forget about it and +get back to the table; we were really learning something there. Paula, +I hope this hasn’t too awfully disconcerted you? You can go on with +it?” + +She forced a smile. “Yes, certainly. Do come on, people; it’s getting +awfully late.” + +We returned to our places not much more comforted than when we had +sprung from them a few minutes before. It was all very well to speak +of parlour tricks, but there was no ease in sitting around the table +in that darkened room with those images of lethargy dwelling by the +fire, and no cheer in waiting through the lonesome night, wondering +from what direction some new terror might leap upon us. But there we +were. + +“. . . bearings of Sean’s death,” Paula Lebetwood was saying. She went +on in a strange voice: “He was struck and fell dying where I found him +by the tower. Then the weapon, as we now know, was hurled down there, +too. But we have to admit that as far as we can tell none of us could +have been at the tower at that time. Nobody except Wheeler met Sean—or +will admit he did—after our quarrel in the Hall. So, stated in those +terms, there is an irreconcilable contradiction in Sean’s death. Only +there is no contradiction save in words; for we know, well enough, +that somebody _must_ have struck him, and therefore somebody must have +been there. + +“In Mr. Heatheringham’s death there were differences, though in some +respects it was much the same. In the first place, he must have seen +something hostile or there would have been no revolver shot. The trail +of blood across the floor, too, showed what had been the murderer’s +line of retreat. But the most unusual thing, surely, is one that +Doctor Aire can explain better than I. Will you, Doctor?” + +Aire looked at her inquiringly. “I suppose you mean the +rigidity—cadaveric spasm, as we call it? What do you want me to—?” + +“It shows something about the way he was killed, doesn’t it?” + +“Yes, it does. The topic is of great interest to one of my profession; +we come across it so seldom, save on the battlefield. We know +something about it, though, enough to be sure that there are certain +definite predisposing factors.” + +She nodded. “Yes, I meant that. Please go on.” + +“_Sudden_ death is one, and death due to violent disturbance of +nervous system. Then the last contraction of the muscles during life +persists with more rigidity even than in the usual _rigor_.” + +“I’m sure you people see what I mean by harping on these gruesome +things,” said the girl. “Thank you, Doctor. This abnormal state of +things taken with the shot through the broken window proves that Mr. +Heatheringham was killed right where we found him. I mean he couldn’t +have been bludgeoned outside—say where I found Sean lying—and have +crawled back into the Hall and raised himself to the window to fire at +whoever might have been there. So far, we have no idea who was with +him; yet I think it must have been one of the servants or one of +us—more likely one of us.” + +No one chose to say anything in the brief silence she left. Presently, +in a fresher tone, she resumed. + +“That’s how the problem stood yesterday: just death, simple and +inexplicable—violent death without a real motive—violent death without +an agent, apparently. Even the discovery of the stone has been no help +in finding the agent; anybody could have grabbed a stone from the +rockery.” + +Crofts muttered, “Why go over all that again? We’ve known it from the +start.” + +“I apologize. I only mentioned those things to go on to say that it’s +useless to think about them any longer. We could continue for weeks +and months mulling over motive and method—mulling over time and place +and all the rest of it that makes an endless circle. Last night, +though, I thought of a new way.” + +“New?” the words sprang from Belvoir’s lips. + +She paused and looked about the table. “I—I’m a little nervous about +telling you my idea. The thing was, I suddenly thought of Mr. +Bannerlee’s diary.” + +“That’s a fine one!” I put in ironically. “You thought of it when +nobody but Crofts and Heatheringham had ever heard of it—unless +Heatheringham told Salt!” + +“As it happens, I’ve known about it all along. A few minutes before +luncheon the day of Sean’s death, you and Crofts came upstairs to the +first-storey landing together. I had changed after playing tennis and +was just going downstairs. Although the two of you suddenly lowered +your voices when you saw me, I had already heard you, Mr. Bannerlee, +say that you had been up till nearly morning and had done more than +five thousand words. Crofts said he hoped you had got it straight, and +that left no doubt what you had been writing. But I was much too +polite, then, to let you know I guessed what you were doing. . . . And +before I go on, people, let me say that as far as I can tell, no +record has ever been written with fewer mistakes.” + +“Thank you,” I acknowledged. + +“Humanly and”—here she slipped in a smile—“archæologically speaking, +that is. You can’t expect one person to write a story that would +satisfy every question that flits through another person’s mind. I’m +not sure that I like his style, either,” she remarked, rather +abstractedly, “though you couldn’t judge it very well in that +fragmentary state—except, I think, he fancies his power of description +and likes to make a passage effective now and then. But while I read, +I began to feel the diary was just suited to the purpose I had in +mind.” + +“Which was—?” said Lord Ludlow, who gave the impression of +long-suffering patience. + +“I wanted to find the killer without bothering how he killed. I +expected the diary would help me to look on all you people divested of +my own prejudices. Through the diary I could judge you more fairly, +and more strictly than I could in my own mind. Meeting you there would +be like meeting new persons, all of you except Crofts and Alberta +being new to Mr. Bannerlee. The diary is really full of side-lights on +people and little bits of character. Maybe, though, I was expecting +too much from Mr. Bannerlee. How could he come to know us in a day, or +a week? He couldn’t. He saw us only from the outside and the diary +reveals only the outside of us. Without being disrespectful either to +you or to Mr. Bannerlee, I must say I was reminded of clowns in a +circus. Most of us seemed to be doing the same thing over and over +again. Ted Belvoir and Lord Ludlow were eternally carrying on a silly +debate; Eve was making a fresh prophecy every day, and not one of them +came true; Crofts seemed to be growing grouchier every time he was +mentioned; Gilbert Maryvale spent most of his afternoons leaving +cryptic remarks about, so to speak; Lib’s mission in life was talking +gibberish to Mr. Bannerlee. Everyone seemed to be posing as an idiot, +quite an innocent idiot. Well, it turned out that my most important +discovery in the diary wasn’t a character after all, but a fact.” + +“A fact you didn’t know before?” asked Belvoir. + +The American girl smiled faintly. “First of all, though, if Mr. +Bannerlee doesn’t mind, I want to tell you the big secret he’s been +keeping from us. Do you mind, Mr. Bannerlee?” + +I bowed the responsibility on to her shoulders with a smile. “I think +you should tell us beforehand how you found out—what you did. I’d like +to know myself.” + +“I was going to. People, you remember the other day, Mr. Bannerlee +went on the hilltops again, and he was so taken with the view of +distant mountains that he drew sighting lines on his map to show which +ones were visible. The sighting lines, of course, were drawn from the +same spot, and that spot was on Whimble. After orienting his map, he +squinted across it, looking toward the Malvern Hills and the Black +Mountain and elsewhere to establish lines of vision. He could even see +to Plinlimon; that’s about thirty miles away. You did see Plinlimon +that day, didn’t you?” + +“Certainly.” + +“Well, that was how I knew you hadn’t been on Whimble, whose highest +point has an elevation of about 1950 feet. The highest point on +Plinlimon is less than 2500. Thirty miles apart and only five hundred +feet difference. Now, if Mr. Bannerlee stood anywhere on Whimble and +he looked toward Plinlimon, Great Rhos, just across the Vale, would be +between him and the mountain. Great Rhos is a flattish sort of hill, +and its elevation is 2166. Think that over.” + +“How idiotically, infernally stupid of me!” I cried. + +“But I don’t see—” said Eve Bartholomew blankly. + +Others about the table uttered exclamations that showed their +understanding or betrayed their confusion. + +The American girl turned to Mrs. Bartholomew. “You see, dear, if you +were nineteen feet high and wanted to see something ten yards away +that was five feet higher than you, you couldn’t do it if there was a +wall a foot higher than you less than a yard away.” + +To give her credit, Mrs. Bartholomew grasped the point instantly. But +she still was dubious. “Then how did Mr. Bannerlee see the mountain?” + +“He must have been somewhere else.” + +“But you said he _said_ he was on Whimble.” + +I laughed. “No, I didn’t say so, Mrs. Bartholomew. I was satisfied to +let people think so, though.” + +“Why was that?” interjected Lord Ludlow sharply. + +The American girl turned to him. “He wanted to reserve a little share +of glory for himself. Why should he have told us his special secret, +or even write it down in the House, before he knew what kind of people +we were? I think Mr. Bannerlee was very sensible.” + +I smiled, recalling a somewhat different reaction to my +“antiquarianism” that afternoon. + +“But what does it all mean?” Mrs. Bartholomew came in plaintively. + +“That’s what I wondered this morning,” answered the American girl. +“Mr. Bannerlee, I suppose by this time you know the reason why I took +that campstool; in fact, you had written the reason yourself +somewhere. ‘What a difference a few feet make in the prospect!’ You +are a bit taller than I am, and there was just that barest risk that +you could see further from Whimble than I could. But when I reached +the tippy-top of the hill and set my campstool there and stood on it, +I knew I had as good a chance as you of peeping over Great Rhos. But I +couldn’t. So I knew you must have been somewhere else when you saw +Plinlimon, and I could only suppose that the reason you’d hidden your +whereabouts was your discovery of the oratory, after three hundred +years.” + +“The oratory!” Doctor Aire reached out a hand to me. “My +congratulations, Bannerlee!” + +“And mine!” said Belvoir. + +“After three hundred years!” + +“The oratory!” cried Lib. “Bannerlee, you’ve been false to me. +Couldn’t you trust lil’ Lib?” + +“So that was it,” muttered Crofts. “You needn’t have been so close +about it.” + +“Really a downy bird,” giggled Alberta. + +I faced the American girl. “This is almost—gratuitous, you know. These +unfortunate people are waiting for you to cast some light upon their +darkness, not to herald any trifling discovery of mine.” + +“Yes, I _had_ better be getting on toward solving the mystery, if +we’re ever to be done to-night. The queer thing is that guessing about +Mr. Bannerlee’s discovery is what put me on some sort of a track. In +fact, if Mr. Bannerlee’s matches hadn’t given out that afternoon he +saw the rainbow, I never, never would have seen the path—that sounds +like a figure of speech almost, and a paradox, but I mean just that.” + +“Matches!” + +“Yes, Mr. Bannerlee, by the time you had reached the House you might +have been excused for thinking Fate was playing with you. And, by the +way, people, a little while ago Mr. Bannerlee explained to me how he +had brought his quarto of Sylvan Armitage to Radnorshire with him +after all. Naturally, when he left it in the oratory by chance, he did +not care to tell us about it, on account of his precious secret. So he +had just recovered his copy and was bringing it down the Vale with him +that afternoon.” + +“Aren’t you going to get out of the sixteenth century?” inquired +Ludlow. “It seems to me that you are leading this discussion along the +lines of a wranglers’ tea-party.” + +“Do forgive me for wasting so much time. The Book of Sylvan Armitage +interests me so much; indeed, it helped me tremendously. Mr. Bannerlee +caught me reading it the other night; did he tell you?” + +“Nothing criminal in that,” said Belvoir. + +“N-no, but it was slightly—unconventional. The passage where Armitage +happened upon the oratory was an admirable parallel to Mr. Bannerlee’s +account in his diary, as I learned later. Yes, I came to be very glad +indeed that I had stolen down at midnight to get the Book. . . . Now, +people, I can’t go any further without telling you another secret +about Mr. Bannerlee. He won’t forgive me for this, I’m afraid. But +he’s not only a gentleman and a scholar”—I suppressed my indignation +at this outrageous statement—“not only a discoverer of things so old +that they are new—he is also an altruist!” + +I bowed my head giddily under this monstrous charge, and heard her go +on to say: “He is defending one of us, one, I think, whom he had never +seen before!” + +If dismay were a sign of guilt, there was not an innocent one among +them. Their alarm testified, I think, to the fact that they had hoped, +and hope begot belief, that the crime would be traced at last to +someone outside the Vale. They had all been innocent to each other +before; now to suppose the murderer sat among them was a shock as +great as murder itself. + +“Someone in this room?” whispered Crofts in a voice far different from +his bullying voice. + +“Someone at this table?” asked Eve Bartholomew. + +“Someone at this table.” + +Belvoir made a show of pulling himself together. “See here, Bannerlee, +is this true?” + +“That’s not a fair question, is it?” said the American girl. “Mr. +Bannerlee cannot know how much I know about—” + +I said, “Frankly, Miss Lebetwood, you are not being as direct as you +promised to be. I am at a loss as to the ‘altruism’ you refer to. Tell +us plainly what you mean, and perhaps I can be of some assistance. You +are mistaken if you believe that I would shield anyone for a moment +who had deliberate murder at his door.” + +“That’s fair. Well, my trump-card is that I know who burned the +evidence that incriminated one of us; no matter how I know. You burnt +it, Mr. Bannerlee, you yourself.” + +Their haggard white faces were turned on me. I felt my cheeks flush. +“I think you are alarming our fellow-guests without good reason. Why, +granting, as you believe, I _did_ drop the paper in the fire, and +supposing there were the least connection between the writer and the +crime—which seems improbable—the mere fact that the Book at this +moment belongs to Crofts’ library doesn’t indicate that one of you +discovered the parchment during some visit here and filled an idle +hour doing its contents into an obsolete style of English. None of +you, as far as I know, are Celtic experts.” + +“Emphatically!” declared Lord Ludlow, fixing a reproachful gaze on the +American girl. “Miss, you are confusing a wild shot in the dark with +the reasoning process. This piece of translator’s work, probably done +by someone outside this Valley and quite unknown to us, can have no +connection with any atrocity committed here. You are far afield, and I +do not think you will help us much unless, as I said, you lift us from +the plane of a wranglers’ tea-party.” + +“You may be right,” she confessed. “I shan’t try to convince you. But +it was a tempting lead. And surely it’s not true to say there’s no +connection between the parchment story and events which have occurred +this week.” Elbows on table, she rested her head on her hands, +speaking very thoughtfully. “For instance, in the old story Hughes +related after lunch that day he called this place the castle on the +mill-site. An old, old map in the library gives Aidenn Vale as ‘Cwm +Melin,’ which means ‘Mill Valley,’ I’ve learned, and that is what the +Vale was called in the manuscript; do you remember? The parchment +explains, too, what was meant by the ‘spanning and roofing of the +waters,’ one of Mr. Maryvale’s mystifying utterances. It referred +simply to the fact that when Sir Pharamond built his second castle +here, he roofed in the Water; I suppose the present stream beyond the +towers is a deflected one and the channel where Sir Brooke was found +is the original course. That may seem far-fetched, but the proof is +that Doctor Aire took from Sir Brooke’s forehead a splinter of the +petrified wood of the mill-wheel itself. When Sir Brooke was carried +down the subterranean stream, his body must have collided with the +edge of the mill-wheel, and passed on. Mr. Bannerlee, in his +expedition to the cellar, must have actually seen the casing of the +wheel, all overgrown with hideous fungi. So there _are_ connections, +of a sort.” + +“Quite interesting in the abstract,” said Ludlow tartly. “We are +looking for something, however, which has a tangible link with a crime +of violence. May I suggest that if you have nothing more to offer us, +this meeting adjourns?” + +She had not lifted her head; her fists ground into her forehead. “I +shall try to satisfy you, sir, again with Mr. Bannerlee’s assistance. +I think you will recall that there was a sentence in the parchment to +the effect that Sir Pharamond disposed of his enemies ‘with no more +trouble than snuffing a night-light.’ Now, within five minutes after +reaching the House, Mr. Bannerlee discovered a curious thing. Looking +through the armoury window, he saw _you_, Ludlow. _And what were you +doing there? You were snuffing a candle that stood in the old bracket +on the wall!_” + +Ludlow’s chair was flung back. He was on his feet, putty-faced, +staring at her in utter consternation. + +“Are you accusing me?” + +Before she could answer, our attention swung to the other end of the +Hall. From somewhere in that semi-darkness came a muffled rasping +sound, as of some huge beast that purred. + +Crofts was on his feet now, with eyes that strained to overcome the +gloom. He called, “What’s that?” + +Aire strode half-way to the fireplace, turning his head this way and +that. “There _is_ something moving in the wall this time. Only where?” + +“No!” I shouted, above the increasing hubbub. “IT’S THE PURR OF THE +CAT! The purr of the cat means death! Clear the Hall!” + +But I was too late. A glaring light leaped from nowhere, light so +intense it pierced the brain. The walls and roof blazed with white +fire. The persons in the Hall were like figures of clay, presented and +fixed for all eternity in one or another cast of horror. Some had +cowered back beneath the gallery, some had their hands before their +faces, some were forever fleeing, foot lifted, toward the door. + +The Constable and one of the sisters had retreated from the +chimney-piece, while the other woman stooped low before the fireplace. +A thing with the size and form of a man had been lying there at their +feet, unseen. In this white instant I saw the woman grasp this figure, +raising it above her head. + +The collapse of the mantelshelf—a black projectile flying toward me +and veering away—a stunning crash—a long greedy laughter rising from +below, clutching us, tearing us, subsiding in a sudden burst of +silence. + +Darkness succeeded light. The strong arm of the Delambre woman still +held the man upright: a headless body. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The Crash + +Again I smelt powder. + +In tingling silence some of us crossed the Hall and regarded the +headless thing. Belvoir lit the other chandelier, and in its sparkle, +to my immeasurable relief, the figure proved to be the scarecrow which +had served in the sisters’ field. The woman who had stooped in the +fireplace and held the effigy in the path of the leaping, swinging bar +sat in her chair, again impassive. I noted her admirable hands, strong +and hairy like a man’s, her face, broad and full of flesh, but firm +and capable. The bumpkinish policeman touched me on the sleeve and +pointed to the table, a sign we should keep to our own end of the +Hall. + +I noted a disturbance there. Crofts, towering over the American girl, +shook her with rude fingers clamped into her shoulders. + +“You—you—” + +While I returned to our group, I was struck with the curious feeling +that someone was missing there. Someone had slipped out. Vaguely I +wondered who it had been, and whether his absence would be revealed +when we took our places once more. But we were not to sit down +together again that night. + +The American girl had drawn away from Crofts and stood looking at him, +not angrily, but with a certain speculation in her gaze. My blood +rushed up when I saw her white skin bruised by the marks his fingers +had made. She said, “You think I—?” + +“Murderess!” That was like Crofts. + +Several of us protested at his folly; the rest were horrified into +dumbness. + +Her steady gaze did not fail. “You do suspect me. So did Mr. +Heatheringham—and Mr. Blenkinson has done me the honour also. But I +didn’t do it, people, and—sometimes—I wonder if anybody did . . . at +least in the sense we’ve been thinking.” + +“Nobody did! with that damned engine—that thunderbolt! Nobody did!” + +“Don’t shout so. That engine, as you call it, was Mr. Salt’s discovery +this afternoon while the House was cleared. I had nothing to do with +it just now.” + +Crofts’ jaw fell. “Cleared? The House cleared? There wasn’t anything +in this ‘lost’ business?” + +“Very little. I did want to find Mr. Bannerlee’s oratory, but +principally I hoped to draw you kind people out of the Vale. Mr. Salt +and I have been associated in a lawful conspiracy. He and the Scotland +Yard Inspector—” + +“Who?” + +“The Scotland Yard man. He was to arrive at New Aidenn by motor early +in the afternoon since the trains were slow. While the House was +empty, they investigated, and found this machine. Mr. Salt expected +something like it. This was the real weapon, of course; that stone +half buried in the loam was a blind.” + +“You’ve known this—long?” + +“How could I? I had a hint of it when I kept finding in so many places +how the old castle here was built on a mill-site: Cwm Melin, you know. +It even happened that Mr. Bannerlee knew that name and that name only +for this place. He had never heard of Aidenn Vale.” + +“The devil with Bannerlee. What’s a mill got to do with it?” + +“The mill-wheel, don’t you see, winds up the spring of the machine. It +must be quite automatic, and I dare say at this moment the cat’s +claw—I suppose that’s what it is—the long heavy arm of iron, is ready +to leap out again.” + +Doctor Aire’s face revealed a ferment within. “By jingo—I think I have +it. That mocking roar—hideous—was the sound of water tumbling into a +cistern, or a heavy cask. Then if the cistern discharged over the +wheel, the gear actuating the arm would wind until—yes, by thunder, +that’s it!” + +“What’s what?” + +“We heard the purr. That was the gear winding against the resistance +of the spring—a sword-spring, perhaps. When the tension exceeded the +strength of the spring, the accursed thing let fly. There must be a +shaft. . . .” The Doctor lapsed into mumbling. + +“Beneath the perfidious tree!” screamed Mrs. Bartholomew so suddenly +that we all jumped. “What does that mean?” + +Miss Lebetwood answered, “There was once a cross—see the traces—carved +on the chimney.” + +Aire had his eye shrewdly on her. “We can credit you with the +flashlight, can’t we?” + +She nodded. “Yes; the camera’s in the gallery, and there were powders +attached to several places on the wall. Constable Pritchard +manipulated the electric button that ignited them. I hope we have +obtained a decent picture of the claw in mid-air.” + +“But who—who’s responsible?” asked Mrs. Bartholomew plaintively, with +outspread hands. + +“Dead too long to make any difference,” said Aire. + +“Could this, er, machine last for centuries?” Crofts demanded, +shouldering his way to the Doctor. + +“For millenniums, without oiling,” returned Aire. “Why not? The really +important thing is—” + +“I’ve got it!” I cried. “About your question, Mrs. Bartholomew. +Remember, Miss Lebetwood, what Maryvale told me the day he finished +his picture? Someone, he said, of the house of Kay. And, by heaven, he +was right!” + +“The really necessary thing,” persisted Aire, “is to dismantle this +machine without getting killed. It will be ticklish work, though, +since it’s automatically prepared to lunge out with its claw on five +seconds’ notice. We’ll have to make a start with the cistern and the +wheel.” + +“That’s not the first thing, Doctor,” said the American girl. + +Aire turned toward her in surprise. “Nothing can be more urgent. You +wouldn’t leave this thing for a night or for an hour, would you, like +a gun primed and cocked? Why, at any moment, sooner or later, the +equilibrium—” + +“I think not, and if we hear the purr again we can keep our distance. +Something needs to be done, however, before you take the machine +apart. We must find the real murderer.” + +We gave vent to all kinds of sounds, mainly incredulous. + +“Listen! We have _not_ discovered yet the person here who knows Welsh +and whom Mr. Bannerlee is shielding.” + +I commenced a vain “I haven’t admitted—” but my speech was charged +down. + +“I can prove you are!” she cried. “Yes, sir! I want to know why you +are shielding him, or her. All day long I haven’t got my mind off +those matches you wanted so badly after recovering your own copy of +the Book. Do you know, it’s my belief you knew you were carrying +evidence dangerous to someone, and you wanted to destroy it before you +reached the House. I think it was the translation you actually did +destroy later on.” + +“Look here—” put in Crofts, reaching out a hand. His face might have +been that of a man sinking under water for the third time. “Look +here—” + +“Crofts!” cried Alberta, her eyes bright with agony. + +“The parchment and translation were in old Watts’ copy,” Belvoir +snapped. + +I doubt if she heard them, intent as she was on the molten stream of +her thought. “This translation, done off-hand, betrayed someone of us +who had a competent knowledge of Welsh and consequently a head-start, +at any rate, in knowledge of the cat’s claw.” + +“It was in old Watts’ copy,” muttered Belvoir. + +“When you came into the library, Mr. Bannerlee, you were about +satiated with your attempts to burn the paper. But even if you +couldn’t destroy it, you could get it off your person, and you did +that. You told how you ‘reached your hand up into a dark corner,’ and +you might have added ‘and changed my quarto with the one on the +shelf.’ What happened a few minutes later when you and Lib were +looking over your copy? A flake of moss fell to the floor; Lib must +have noticed it, for you were scrupulous to mention it in the diary, +and you passed it off with some remark about careless dusting. But I +read in Armitage about moss, and I read about mossy stones in the +diary, and I’ve seen plenty of mossy ones around the oratory, and you +can’t tell me that the copy with the parchment in it wasn’t the one +you’d left up there last week. So I imagine you knew well enough what +Lib had found when she called out to you while you were leaving the +library.” + +“How absurd!” I cried. + +“‘Imagine’ is a well-chosen word,” said Lord Ludlow crisply. “I am not +much edified by this botanical excursion. You can’t accuse a man of +being accessory to murder because of the way he turns a phrase.” + +“Thanks, Ludlow,” I nodded. “There’s no need, really—” + +“The thing I am driving at,” said the American girl in a quiet little +voice that drilled its way into our brains, “is that you, Mr. +Bannerlee, wrote the translation yourself. There is no other +conclusion, is there?” + +“Wilder and wilder!” I exclaimed. “This is too bad, Miss Lebetwood, +when you’ve realized all along that I have no knowledge of Welsh.” + +Our speech had settled into a duel with unmerciful give-and-take. “Are +you sure? Consider this: In the diary your early references to the +Welsh language were all natural and ambiguous, which puzzled me +mightily when I came to other things later on. Then I saw that you +must be taking advantage of those early references to conceal the fact +that you are really quite adept in Welsh.” + +“Took advantage? That’s rather strong, isn’t it?” + +“Well, just think. You made a pun on the name of St. Tarw, which means +‘bull.’ You even went out of your way to use an American expression, +that it was a ‘bully name.’ A little later, when the man you call the +gorilla-man shouted at you in Irish, you knew quite definitely that he +did _not_ shout in Welsh, although Welsh and Irish belong to the same +race of languages, and that particular expression must sound about the +same in one language as in the other. + +“But these were trivial compared with the point they hinted at, and +that telegram there clinches the point. You told Lib all about how you +read Ellis Griffiths’ history, and now we know the manuscript has +never been printed, let alone translated.” + +She came close to me, still speaking, and I yielded a step before the +accusations she flung out like weapons. “You destroyed the manuscript +you yourself had made. You hurled the stone from the rockery into the +earth from the balcony outside your room. And at the same time you +dropped the placard the wind carried down to the corner of the House, +and it was you who left the earlier placard in Sean’s room that +morning when everyone else was downstairs.” + +My voice sounded horribly ineffective in its attempt at surprise. “You +accuse _me_! You accuse _me_—of—?” + +“I do, I do! Haven’t I been putting you on your guard all morning and +all afternoon—ever since I showed you the campstool? Haven’t I been +telling you what I know and hinting what I’ve guessed? Haven’t I done +enough—?” + +My laugh, to show contempt, was also a failure. “Preposterous. It’s +a—vertebrate without a skeleton: your theory. I didn’t want to kill +your lover. What motive could I have had?” + +Those blue eyes could be as sharp as steel. She seemed to be the +embodiment of intellect become passionate. “Motive? Something +overwhelmed you stronger than any motive: impulse. If you had thought +two minutes, Sean would be alive to-day. You had motive, yes, though +I’m ashamed to describe it, but the impulse dwarfed the cause behind +it, for once. You had been thinking about it, hadn’t you, ever since +the night before, and all day long, or there would have been no +threatening message in Sean’s room—but it was that chance, that chance +in a thousand that settled it. I understand now what has always seemed +to me the greatest mystery of all: the motive you had for the diary +and the tremendous trouble you took in writing five thousand words +overnight.” + +“I set down the reason plainly: I wanted to clear up the muddle we all +were in.” + +“That may have been so when you took up your pen, but before you laid +it down the diary had become a greater thing than any mere alignment +of facts; it had become your defence! You were someone else, Mr. +Bannerlee; the bright and cheery, affable, not-too-scholarly, +antiquarian and athlete—all that part of you subservient now to +something else: Iago!” + +“Who was Iago?” asked Mrs. Bartholomew with troubled mouth. “Something +in Shakes—” + +“The spider spins its web with all its cunning bound up in instinct. +While you spun your web, Mr. Bannerlee, all your cunning was bound up +in intellect, and you loved each shrewd knot and strand. Yes, that was +it; you came to be in love with artifice, you laughed in your sleeve +at Salt and Doctor Aire and Heatheringham and me—all people who were +trying to break through your web.” + +I had hold of myself now, in spite of the tumult of my heart, and +could return blow for blow. “What nonsense! What a fool I’d be if I +killed a man to preen myself for intellectual superiority. I tell you +again, I never wanted to kill your lover. What reason had I?” + +Her eyes fell for a moment before mine, and a little storm of wrinkles +crossed her brow. “Impulse, impulse, I said, didn’t I? I think you +wrote of it, three times at least. That first night by the tower—when +I and the Parson’s sign were together inside the circle your torch had +cast? Again, after Sean and I had quarrelled, and yet again as you +walked up the Vale in the twilight and could not forget the quarrel. +Afterward too, when you were so depressed on learning that I was to be +immensely rich. You covered it well, oh, yes! But could I fail to know +what was tugging at you all the while?” She raised her eyes to mine +for a long, grave look. “I suppose you would call it being in love +with me, wouldn’t you?” + +I fought down the thing in my throat. “And suppose I was—suppose I +am—what difference does it make? Must I plead guilty to a crime I +never dreamed of because I had the bad luck to take a fancy to the +face of a woman who’s denied to me? I was well enough when I walked on +the mountain and felt as if I could move the earth. I wish to God I +had stayed up there, and not come down into this place where Fate +takes the strings and plays her hellish tricks!” + +She gave me the most mournful look I have ever seen on any face. +“That’s why I can’t despise you, you know, though I’ve tried. I can’t +look on you as a—a thing of horror. You’ve played the game right +through: you put down every prevarication and evasion you had made, +and then you let me read the diary. You just—gave yourself away, and +did it without a murmur. When you were up there alone on the Forest +and exulted in your loneliness, you were a man any woman would have +given a lot to march beside. And then you came down here among us—and +how quickly you proved that all our gods have feet of clay.” + +My indignation howled at highest pitch. “I tell you for the last time +that I deny absolutely the trumped-up charge you keep senselessly +repeating.” + +She shook her head. “Denial’s no good. Do you think, as everyone seems +to believe, that terrible machine worked by chance just now, by some +overplus of pressure or loss of equilibrium? No, Mr. Bannerlee; a man +set the cat purring and the claw lunging. Do you know where he is?” + +Silence. . . . + +“A man did it?” I repeated, my voice parched and scraping, my body +numb as a block of wood. “A man—did it?” I remembered I had felt that +one of us had secretly left the Hall. But no—that had been after the +deviltry of the machine. + +“A man in this House—in your room, Mr. Bannerlee. Twelve-fifteen was +the time set.” + +I saw faces leaping and jigging around me, one of them with great blue +eyes and crown of golden hair swinging enormous toward me and swinging +giddily away again. The door into the corridor, which I had not seen +opened, was suddenly closed from outside. I heard a sea of voices, and +above them shot out the voice of Crofts, booming like a huge wave: + +“But my God, how was it done?” + +“They found out this afternoon,” said the American girl, “and Mr. Salt +scratched off a few details for me. The mantelpiece is as old as the +castle, and looks and feels sound enough, but it swings down by means +of an invisible hinge. The claw operates it. The claw must be +articulated in some way with a shaft driven from a water-wheel in the +wall below. The purring sound from the clash of the teeth would draw +anyone toward the fireplace, just in the path of the flying bar as he +stooped to find where the noise came from. The blow was so terrific it +drove Sean through the opening of the french windows, to crawl a yard +or two—and die. Heatheringham was already dead when he was hurled +against the glass, and his arm striking upward and through the pane +that way caused the revolver he was carrying cocked to explode. I +think—that’s all.” + +She had recited all this with the most studied coolness and precision, +this account of the machine—a device surely the creation of a haunted +and tortuous brain. The account completed, the driving-force which had +sustained her was gone, and she looked weary almost to haggardness. +Pity and shame and grief wrenched me for the part I had played in the +fatal story. When Mrs. Belvoir ended her close-lipped listening of an +hour with a querulous question, I heard someone, Alfred Bannerlee, +speaking as if from far away. + +“I’ll tell you about that. It was the cats’ heads stuck everywhere +about here that made me wonder if I hadn’t dropped into Cwm Melin, as +it was called in the parchment account. ‘Hear the cat purring under +the perfidious tree’ was fresh in my mind. There was a cat’s head on +the firearch, and there had been a cross above. I can’t say that, er, +gave the show away, but it stirred me up a bit. Upstairs, though, when +I saw the bracket on the wall and thought of ‘no more trouble than +snuffing a night-light,’ an idea seemed spread out as plain as an open +book. I never thought of the mechanism as a certainty, only as a +possibility—barely that. I swear that when I tugged with my razor +strop and brought the wretched bracket down, I had no idea what might +happen. From what I hear, there must be some sort of weighted valve +controlling the flow from the cistern to the water-wheel. A chain from +the bracket operates the valve and sets the whole damned business in +motion. But I didn’t understand that then. It was all like a +dream—what happened—” + +The faces passed into a blur again, jerking up and down. Voices roared +and voices were thin echoes shivering into silence. Everything was +moving, even the sisters Delambre. One strode across the room like a +tempest, tossing her garments this way and that. The other came +waddling after, and was engaged in a mighty struggle with her hood. +The hood came away, revealing a goodly beard. + +A comic-opera transformation had taken place. Suddenly it was Salt who +was standing before me, Salt and a giant of a man with beefy face. +Salt’s expression was ridiculous, for he was doing his best to make it +stern and menacing. The words in the air seemed to come from his lips: + +“Quietly, Mr. Bannerlee.” + +Then I thought that I had fainted. But I had not; instantaneous, utter +darkness had swept into the Hall. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +Rescue + +Like an imbecile, I waited stock-still in the darkness for the light +to return. The sudden eclipse, however, had checked my foes as well. I +heard their footsteps cease like those of men who had walked over a +cliff. + +Not a gleam penetrated the murk. There were cries for light, and +someone tried to scratch a match, ineffectually. I began to move. + +I partly lost my balance, lurched against a man, and heard his +Lordship’s bitter plaint from the level of my knees. I blundered into +the passage without disabling anyone else. Intuition kept me from +blundering toward the front entrance; later I realized that would have +been too obvious a way. I groped to the left, feeling along the +right-hand wall. + +I seemed to wake up in the dinner-room. + +Someone else was in there. I heard an anxious whisper: “Bannerlee +. . . Bannerlee . . . that you?” + +I recognized a friend. “Yes.” + +From the invisible a small, damp, clutching paw clasped my hand. “You +gotta get out of this. Out the window. Snap into it.” + +We were together on the east lawn, running. Thank God the moon had +gone down. Thank God the servants were asleep. + +“It’s a—wise egg that knows—its own rooster. Bannerlee, your +offsprings—couldn’t spot you—as the bloke that finished Cosgrove. Step +on it! I can—keep up.” + +“What happened to the lights?” + +“I happened to ’em—that’s all.” + +We approached a black smudge across the greater dark: a band of trees. +We entered into their depths. I stopped, held her back. + +She whispered frantically, “Step on it! You can’t stay here!” + +“No, but I have to decide what comes next. Steady on! Don’t worry +about me; I’ll come clear. What did you do? Are the lights finished +for good?” + +“Did you notice I’d sneaked out? I was afraid the lid ’ud blow off, +soon and I wanted to do my bit. I had the dickens of a time finding +the fuse-box in the kitchen. I pulled off the handle of the big switch +com_pletely_, and gave the rest of the works a kick so a lot of stuff +fell down to the floor. I also cut the telephone connection into bits +to round off a good night’s effort.” + +“Wonderful. I’m surprised you weren’t killed by the current.” + +“Never mind wonderful. I know my electricity. All in the good cause. +Only step on the gas!” + +“By Jove, I will!” I cried, divining the sense of this saying. “I must +get a tin of petrol—no, two tins. First, though, listen. Will you do +something more for me?” + +“Yes, yes—anything. But make it snappy.” + +“I want my diary. Get hold of it and wait for word from me. Where can +I write you safely?” + +“You’re crazy. They’ll trace you sure as—” + +“Not if you do this right. The book is in the desk drawer in my room. +It’s not locked. It’s your part to conceal the thing, here, until the +wind blows over a bit. The police will believe I have it, and I want +it—for a good reason. Eventually you can recover it and mail it to the +name and address I write you. Where can a letter reach you safely?” + +“I don’t know. American Express, London.” + +“No good. Are you going to be in the Continent this winter?” + +“I think so. Mummy’s hipped on Nice.” + +“American Express, Nice, then. You can send for my letter if you don’t +go there after all. By the way, it will be addressed to Miss, er, +Sarah Vale. Can you remember?” + +“Yes, yes; I’ll write it down when I get in.” She hung on my arm +imploringly. “Step on it now! You’ll get caught if you keep hanging +around with these by-the-ways and can-you-remembers. My God, you’ve +only a couple o’ minutes’ leeway. I don’t see how you’ll make it.” + +I laughed and patted her shoulder. “My dear Lib, I have a start of at +least two hours, probably more. But I shan’t be foolhardy and lessen +the time I have. Goodbye, Lib. I can never thank you for what you’ve +done.” + +“Good-bye forever, Bannerlee.” Dim white arms reached around my neck, +and her lips touched mine in a brisk little kiss. “I’m awful sorry +Paula had to spill the beans. She took the line Cosgrove was her man, +and—and all that sort of rot. Say you aren’t mad at me, or anything. +’Cause I’m to blame for all this trouble, I guess.” + +“No! How could you be?” + +“I saw you drop the translation in the fire that night, and like an +ass I let Paula find it out. But I didn’t mean any harm; honest I +didn’t.” + +I touched her cheek with my fingers. “You’re absolved, little Lib. It +could have made no difference, eventually. You’re going to be Mrs. +Cullen some day, aren’t you?” + +“Oh, gee, I don’t know. I s’pose I’ll have to be, to get some peace +and quiet.” + +“I shall send you a beautiful present from Central Africa or Siam or +elsewhere. May I kiss the bride again?” + +I might. And yet again. + +I turned away, but swung back. “Tell her—I’ll never forget her. And +I’ll always be sorry for the pain I’ve caused her. That’s all.” + +“I will; sure I will. But, Bannerlee, I want to say something. I think +it’s the limit a real man like you has to light out because something +happened to that doggone Irishman. I think it’s a goldarn pity Paula +couldn’t have fallen for you—hard. Then she would have kept quiet if +they’d torn out her finger-nails, instead of seeing her duty and doing +it to-night, like a fool. I’m awful sorry. _Now step on it!_” + +She glided and glimmered away. I was a lone outlaw against the world. + +Not a moment squandered now. I dashed for the stables, with which I +was fairly familiar. Cautiously using my torch, I penetrated the +section transformed into the garage. A minute later, with two petrol +tins hugged to my breast, I fled down the Vale for life. There had not +been a single shout from the environs of the House. + +I carried the tins across Aidenn Water and set one down, returning +with the other to the temporary log bridge, which I must burn behind +me. It must have made a comfortable blaze, soaked as it was with +petrol, but I could not stop to witness this holocaust to Mercury. + +Salt’s car was waiting there. I deposited the emergency tin of petrol +in the rear, jumped in, and had no difficulty in starting the engine. +The key had been left on the dashboard, as I knew it would be. With +the fire rising behind me, merrily I rolled out of the mouth of the +Vale to the main road and toward New Aidenn, embarking on a brief +career of constructive vandalism. + +My object was to cut off for as long as might be the communications of +my enemies, the inhabitants of the earth. The torch revealed that +along the edge of the road eight or ten telephone wires were strung, +but shortly before entering the town I jumped out of the car, +clambered up the short pole, and with the aid of gloves and other +things in the tool-box snipped both right and left. + +There were no street lamps in New Aidenn, I had heard, and I thought +it safe to assume that no constable would venture out of doors there +as late as one o’clock in the morning to recognize my borrowed motor. +Not a soul was stirring; the Police Station was dark. I passed through +safely, and halted the car on the other side of the town to give some +attention to the wires running that way. + +My destination was Hereford, but I had until nearly three o’clock to +reach there, and no danger of my losing my road. So I often halted in +my journey when I had passed a village which might contain a +telephone, in order to secure it from business too early in the +morning. Thus I reached Hereford about ten minutes before the +north-to-west express was due. + +I left the useful car in an alley near the station, hoping it would be +recognized about dawn and not until then. When the train was puffing +beside the platform, I boldly applied at the window for a first-class +ticket to Exeter (I had been about to say “Bristol,” when I happened +to think “Don’t be so childishly obvious, like an ordinary criminal. +Let Salt think he’s up against a real antagonist.”) I explained that I +had intended to drop off at Hereford, but would not break my journey +until further on because a person I had met on the train told me there +wasn’t a decent hotel in the place. I needed some excuse, of course, +for the fact that I was not wearing hat and coat. The booking-clerk +seemed rather sleepy, and I remained a little longer talking to him, +to insure that he would remember me. + +Then I boarded the train and entered a first-class compartment where a +gentleman was sleeping. His hat and coat, however, would not fit me. I +merely scraped some of the mud (quite distinctive mud that said +“Aidenn Vale” as plainly as words) on the floor there. I thought of +leaving more “clues,” but decided not to butter the bread too thick. I +passed on to another compartment in search of vestments. From a +gentleman who was slumbering with his head hanging off the seat I +obtained not only hat and coat, but a mackintosh which from a distance +would look just as well inside-out. + +I then found an empty compartment and sat there, wearing my new-found +raiment, until the engine snorted and hunched its shoulders and +commenced crawling southward. When the train had left the platform, I +glanced from the off window to insure that the station yard was dark, +then unlatched the door and dropped safely to the ground. + +All immediately required was to keep out of sight until the +corresponding express from west to north should come in. It should +have arrived a quarter of an hour afterward, but to my disgust it was +late, and I had a worried thirty minutes among some coals. I devoted +the time to cleaning my boots with my handkerchief, which I stuffed in +my pocket, to be burned later. At length the express pulled in, and +when all appeared ready for departure, I walked quickly up the track +beside it. The south-bound platform was deserted now. This fact +enabled me to choose an empty compartment and enter it by the off +door. + +Suddenly remembering my plans for the morrow, however, I stepped out +on the platform and bought some fruit from a yawning lad who conducted +a buffet on wheels. I had thought at first of stealing the stuff, but +buying it would be less ostentatious. When I had paid for what I had +chosen, I took the first opportunity to steal quite a bit more. + +I had really been very lucky. During my absence from the compartment, +tickets had been inspected and doors locked. Lacking a ticket for this +particular train, I might have been embarrassed. Now I walked +hurriedly toward the end of the train, past the ticket-inspector, +around the rear coach, and along to the off door of my empty +compartment again. + +I rode north. + +At Shrewsbury I alighted for precaution just before the train drew +into the platform, and re-entered my compartment when the engine had +been changed. Near Crewe I definitely abandoned the train, climbed the +bank of a shallow cutting, and got over the hedge. It was still rather +dark, but I had no difficulty in finding a satisfactory bit of +woodland where I might lie hidden all day. + +I was staking everything on one chance, that Paula Lebetwood had +remembered the references to the Bonnet yacht and that my +ticket-taking and perhaps the mud from my boots would serve to +concentrate the attention of the authorities upon Bristol. If Jack and +Mary hadn’t altered their plans, they would be slipping out of harbour +this morning with the tide, probably five hours before the dogs of +righteousness would arrive hungry at the docks. It seemed reasonable +that the authorities should assume that I was aboard the barque. I +knew for certain that she carried no wireless, and that barring an +unexpected encounter there was no chance of police disillusionment +until she put in in Norway—or Africa. + +I intended never to be seen unless for urgent cause, and then, if +possible, by the under-intelligent. Empty compartments on fast trains +by night were to be had for the taking, and even if the expresses +should be crowded, the stopping trains were available, though on them +it would be necessary to turn out at every station. In the barely +credible contingency of my being nipped and made to pay my fare, I had +plenty of money, for I had cashed a fairly large cheque before setting +out for Aidenn Forest, and I had not stopped to tip the servants +before leaving Highglen House. The train by night and secluded slumber +by day; these were indicated for my recovery. + +I shall not detail my week-long, decidedly boring expedition to Hull. +After a couple of days my personal appearance became run-down, and I +dropped into a small market town on market day, asked a constable +directing traffic to assist me to a hairdresser’s, found the place +down a dark dead-end and up a shaky stair, and enjoyed a haircutting, +shampoo, and shave. I told the attendant that I looked and felt a new +man, bought a packet of safety-razor blades, tipped him enough but not +too much, chatted pleasantly about the price of heifers, and departed. + +About nine that evening, in a restaurant in a larger town, I expressed +a predilection for pickled walnuts. + +Not long afterwards I stepped out of a station wash-room, an +unobtrusive dark gentleman to the roots of my hair, with eyebrows that +gave a special appearance to my face. + +I carried a passport, thanks to Jack and Mary. From Hull one Albert +Barrerdale sailed eight days after Alfred Bannerlee had stumbled out +of the Hall of the Moth. Praises be for the men who are supposed to +scrutinize the details on passports, and don’t. + + +Now on my Mediterranean island (whose name, pardon me, I do not mean +to give) I enjoy perpetual sun and the fruits of never-ceasing summer. +I might rest here secure for the term of my natural life, and I might +achieve a sort of happiness, for here no sensuous pleasure is withheld +from man. Air, sea, and land conspire to lull the soul, and at night +from the village creep up strains of music sweet and spicy. I might +remain—but I think I shall move on. + +The Bonnets saved me; no doubt of that. Overweening sleuth-hounds met +a sharp rebuff three months later when the Bonnet barque, not having +touched at any port, returned to Bristol dock. The emphatic statement +of Jack and Mary that I had not been on board, a statement which they +later attested in order to dispel public mutterings against their +veracity, stunned the police, who had been sitting back and waiting +for me to be delivered up to them from India or Madagascar. The hounds +then were willing, but found no scent. Moreover, since I had not been +aboard the barque, they _knew_ that I could not have escaped from +England, knowledge that must have proved rather a hindrance than a +help. + +The diary reached me in a picturesque village in a small Balkan +country. Its disappearance that night, by the way, gave rise to the +amazing belief among several of my fellow-guests that I had secreted +myself within the House, and the consequence was a general desertion +next day. After receiving the pages, I carried them with me for weeks +before lighting on my isle and commencing my work anew. Now the +manuscript is ready to return, rounded, coherent, and decked with +proper ornament. + +My purpose? I have done it for _her_ sake. I don’t care a penny for +the gaping world; all I ask is, let this book stand as the monument of +an ardour which exceeded the orthodox. Let it be a fantastic tribute +to a mistress who never can be mine. Let it take the place of a sigh +and a sob for love’s labours lost. While I handled and recast this +matter, I lived near her again in Highglen House, shared hours that +held all life’s sweetness, and remembered that she did not despise me! + +If I may offer a suggestion to you who are to receive this manuscript, +I advise that you present it unaltered to the public as a piece of +fiction, with the name of some obscure but ambitious author upon the +title-page. And if he will be so generous, I trust that Lord Ludlow +will write a foreword to give the thing the stamp of reality. + +I trust, finally, that I may be forgiven if I remark that this is the +_last_ that will ever be heard of me. + +Paula! + + + +THE COMMUNICATION OF APRIL 17, 1926 + +No matter where I am. It is a different place from where you think, +and it will be no good tracing this letter, for you’ll find only that +you are mistaken. The man who is going to take it to Rangoon and mail +it two months hence, is an outcast like myself and will certainly keep +faith. + +Occasionally a paper gets through to me from England, and I read it +with more or less amusement. Bloodthirsty wretches, the English, who +would like nothing better than to see me suspended between time and +eternity. But it shall not be. + +There has been some discussion as to what “really” happened the +evening Maryvale attempted to shoot the cat. One copy of a newspaper I +came across contained a sort of symposium on the subject. One or two +letters came near the simple truth, which was that, being afraid of +Maryvale’s revolver, I took the chance which was offered to remove the +bullets from as many cartridges as I could, managing to insure that +his first three shots would be ineffective. Hints that I deliberately +intended to craze the poor fellow, for whom I had a sincere liking, +are false. + +Through Lord Ludlow my diary has reached the authorities upon +guarantee that it will not be confiscated, and from official +announcements it seems they believe it to be an equal mixture of +necessary truth and designing falsehood. To my astonishment, moreover, +they have reported that it is a masterpiece of indiscretion—which is +nonsense. About myself, to be sure, I have perhaps written a thing or +two that most men would not care to have known of them during life. +But I am dead. Yes, in all that concerns life as I knew it, my +friends, my studies, my pleasures—in all that matters—I am dead. The +authorities, however, scoff at the diary, and adduce the “mystic +bone.” + +Fools! The episode of the bone hanging white in the gloom was not +invention, or delusion either. It was the white patch on Cosgrove’s +head while he waited in the darkness and surveyed the Hall, planning +Noah’s Flood and the crisis which would arise when Sir Brooke met the +gorilla-man. The close-cropped nape of his neck between his black hair +and the black collar of his sportsman’s coat, and the knobs that were +his ears—I did not comprehend at first that these were what I saw. +When my amazement and alarm had subsided, and I realized that Cosgrove +was in there—I think I hated him then. His odious behaviour toward his +intended wife and the sinister hint beneath Bob’s bitter outbreak had +rankled. My survey from outside my window a minute later happened to +prove that no one was in the immediate vicinity of the Hall. Otherwise +I should hardly have felt the sense of satisfaction snug at the heart +of my shivering soul when—after the bracket had given way—I realized +that _something had happened_! But not until I reached the lawn did I +know that it had happened to Cosgrove. I shall never be sure in my +inmost soul whether or not I was quite aware that this trivial act +might loose some destructive force—whether I am a murderer or the toy +of Fate. + +They say, however, that the placards I left and the stone I cast down +from the balcony convince me of malice prepense. They do not, though +they seem to do so. + +The placard I left in Cosgrove’s chamber that morning (the bottom of a +cardboard box I found in the store-rooms) meant no more than what it +said: mischief. I never had any delusion about the supernatural aspect +of Parson Lolly; indeed, the stressing of that element had made +me a little suspicious of Cosgrove himself. Celts do odd things. I +believed that for some clandestine reason he might be behind the +manifestations, and I thought it would be good sport to play his own +game against him. I merely proved to be wrong. + +The second placard was a flash of inspiration, after the bracket had +given way and pandemonium burst out below me. There might be a way of +shifting the onus, if anything actually catastrophic had taken +place!—if there _had_ been a cat’s claw, and—! Parson Lolly again! It +did not take twenty seconds to dash into the storeroom, find the cover +of the same box, scrawl the words, and fling the placard out of the +window for the wind to carry. Later I destroyed every scrap of the +box. + +The stone I pitched down late that night. It was an obvious +afterthought, and a good one. + +As for Heatheringham’s death, it was black misfortune and nothing +else. It appears that on account of Cosgrove’s Will he looked askance +on Paula Lebetwood, but even had he suspected me, I do not think I +could have been so callous as to wipe him from the earth in a bloody +smear. I was doubtful that minute in my room, which was the more +prudent course for me: to dash the bracket down, creating a new +disturbance, or to leave it untouched. Prudence certainly decided to +let the accursed thing alone, but one moment’s recklessness defied +prudence. I solemnly assert that I believed the Hall was empty and +Heatheringham somewhere in the twilight north of the House. + +Salt, it seems, was a shrewder fellow than his appearance betokened. +He had suspected me from the first night he came to the House. “The +way he looked at Miss Lebetwood, or rather the way he avoided looking +at her, set me thinking”; such are the words which commence an +interview given to one of the more lurid newspapers. Salt’s homely yet +somehow handsome face, accompanied by well-combed beard, adorns this +report, which concludes with an irony I suppose must be accidental: “I +am glad Mr. Bannerlee didn’t injure my car.” + +While irony is fresh in mind, irony was never more dramatic than in +that business of the water-wheel, facts they found when the claw was +dismantled and the channel investigated. That the Knight’s dead body, +blundering down the channel, should have dislodged the obstruction +which otherwise would have prevented the wheel from turning and the +claw from darting out! So Sir Brooke, elderly and infirm, stumbling to +his death, fulfilled his mission after all. + +I have received a message from Lib, and I may as well close with that. +It was transmitted to me through an American newspaper, by means of a +simple “dictionary” cipher code I explained to her in a farewell +letter from that Mediterranean isle of mine: + + “Dear Bannerlee Paula’s going to marry a guy named Frank Andrews she + knew here in the States before she bumped into Cosgrove Bobby and I + too as soon as Bobby is twenty one the first boy will be named after + you why not I hope you are not too sad in that place wherever you + are and I wish you could come and see us sometime but I guess you’d + better not a plain-clothes policeman says good morning to me every + day when I go round the corner so it wouldn’t be healthy for you + here I sure wish Paula had met you before this Andrews or Cosgrove + there would have been nothing to it and everything would be rosy + Paula is terribly sorry but she doesn’t hate you Love Lib.” + +Well, some day in the forties, when the Radnorshire riddles are buried +in oblivion beneath the ashes of a hundred other mysteries—I shall +return! I shall visit little Lib, and find it difficult to recognize +in her matronly staidness a trace of the dash and frankness of her +liking for me. Perhaps, too, I shall pat that “first boy” on the head. + +Shall I dare to see _her_? Or, shall I stand outside her lighted +window, remembering. That would be better, I believe. I can be nothing +to her then, but once— + +After all, she did not despise me! + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + +This transcription follows the text of the Jacobsen Publishing Company +edition published in 1928. However, the following alterations have +been made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the +text: + + * “Pharmond” has been changed to “Pharamond” (Preface). + * “morsal” has been changed to “morsel” (Chapter IV). + * “catridge-belt” has been changed to “cartridge-belt” (Chapter VII). + * “rerespectively” has been changed to “respectively” (Chapter X). + * “rcok” has been changed to “rock” (Chapter XV). + * “scyamores” has been changed to “sycamores” (Chapter XXI). + * “criss-crosing” has been changed to “criss-crossing” + (Chapter XXII). + * “mose” has been changed to “most” (Chapter XXIII). + * “Mrs Belvoir” has been changed to “Mrs. Belvoir” (Chapter XXIII). + * “Whimple” has been changed to “Whimble” (Chapter XXIV). + * “had same funny bits” has been changed to “had some funny bits” + (Chapter XXV). + * Five occurrences of mismatched quotation marks has been repaired. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75273 *** diff --git a/75273-h/75273-h.htm b/75273-h/75273-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abc94fb --- /dev/null +++ b/75273-h/75273-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17111 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="utf-8"> +<title>Death in the Dusk</title> +<link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> +body { + margin: 1em auto; + max-width: 40em; +} +p { + margin: 0; + text-indent: 1.5em; + text-align: justify; +} +hr { + width: 40%; + margin: 1em 30%; +} +h1 { + margin: 2em 0; + text-align: center; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +h2 { + margin: 2em 0; + text-align: center; +} +blockquote { margin: 1em; } +figure { text-align: center; } +img { max-width: 95%; } +#titlepage { padding: 10% 0; } +#subtitlepage { padding: 25% 15%; } +#dedication { padding: 30% 0; } +td.n { + text-align: right; + vertical-align: top; +} +td.t { + font-variant: small-caps; + padding-left: 1em; +} +.authorprefix { + font-style: italic; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + margin: 1em 0; +} +.author { + font-size: x-large; + font-weight: bold; + margin-bottom: 6em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.publisher { + font-size: large; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} +.copyright { + font-size: small; + margin-top: 1em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.prefacesig { + font-variant: small-caps; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0; +} +.dedicatory { + padding-top: 0.5em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} +.dedicatee { + font-size: large; + letter-spacing: 0.1em; + padding-top: 0.5em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.title { + font-size: small; + letter-spacing: 0.1em; + margin: 1em auto; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.name { + margin: 0 4em 0 6em; + text-align: left; + text-indent: -2em; +} +.dateline { + font-style: italic; + text-indent: 0; +} +.diarydate { + font-style: italic; + margin: 2em 0 1em 0; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0; +} +.meridienne { + font-size: small; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.verse p { + margin-left: 4em; + text-indent: -2em; +} +.letter .dateline { + display: table; + font-style: italic; + margin: 0 0 0 auto; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; +} +.salutation { text-indent: 0; } +.valediction { + font-style: italic; + margin-right: 2em; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0; +} +.letter .signature { + font-style: italic; + margin-right: 1em; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0; +} +.placard p { + letter-spacing: 0.1em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} +.inscription p { + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} +.verse { font-style: italic; } +.diarynote { + font-style: italic; + margin: 1em 0; +} +.footnotesep { + border-bottom: 1px solid black; + margin-top: 2em; + width: 25%; +} +.footnote { + font-size: small; + margin-top: 0.5em; +} +.notesig { font-variant: small-caps; } +.document { font-style: italic; } +div.chapter { page-break-before: always; } +div.section { page-break-before: always; } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75273 ***</div> + +<figure> + <img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book cover"> +</figure> + +<div class="section" id="titlepage"> + +<h1>Death in the Dusk</h1> +<p class="authorprefix">by</p> +<p class="author">Virgil Markham</p> + +<p class="publisher">Jacobsen Publishing Company, Inc.</p> +<p class="copyright">Copyright 1928 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="contents"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td class="t"><a href="#preface">Prefatory Words</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td class="t"><a href="#dramatis">Persons in this Chronicle</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">I</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch01">The Obtrusion of Parson Lolly</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">II</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch02">The Bull</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">III</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch03">The House</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">IV</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch04">The Bidding Feast</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">V</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch05">Kingmaker</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">VI</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch06">Strain</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">VII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch07">Court of Inquiry</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">VIII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch08">Wager of Battel</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">IX</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch09">The Bone</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">X</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch10">The Laugh</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XI</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch11">Superintendent Salt</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch12">Noah’s Flood</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XIII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch13">The Weapon</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XIV</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch14">The Fiendish Cat of the Sisters + Delambre</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XV</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch15">The Rainbow</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XVI</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch16">Parchment—and Paper</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XVII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch17">Lancelot’s Ultimatum</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XVIII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch18">Grisly Planting</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XIX</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch19">The Deathless Arm</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XX</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch20">The Recrudescence of Parson Lolly</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXI</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch21">The Midnight Expedition</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch22">The Beginning of the End: Parabola</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXIII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch23">Miss Lebetwood and a Campstool</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXIV</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch24">Bannerlee’s Secret</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXV</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch25">The Flight of Parson Lolly</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXVI</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch26">Blood on the Portrait</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXVII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch27">The Purr of the Cat!</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXVIII</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch28">The Crash</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="n">XXIX</td> + <td class="t"><a href="#ch29">Rescue</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td></td> + <td class="t"><a href="#epilogue">The Communication of April 17, + 1926</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="preface"> + +<h2>Prefatory Words</h2> + +<p>The journal of Alfred Bannerlee, +of Balzing (Kent), is at last to be published practically in full, +and without the alteration of any name. I say “at last,” but I +suppose there are some who would leap with joy if the +closely-written pages of the Oxford antiquarian and athlete were +utilized, like Carlyle’s first “French Revolution,” for building +a cheery fire. Lord Ludlow certainly is one.</p> + +<p>It seems incredible, but Mr. Bannerlee has requested Ludlow +to write an introduction to the book. Perhaps Mr. Bannerlee +was pulling the baronial leg. Of all the party of poor +half-maddened people who emerged from Aidenn Vale after the +powerful doings recorded in this Journal, I can imagine none +less likely to perform this service for the diarist who clung +faithfully to the task of recording terrors in the midst of terror +and didn’t hesitate to display the baronial character at its +craftiest. Small wonder, I should think, that on the eve of +publication of what he himself admits is “an unbelievable and +utterly veracious narrative” Lord Ludlow sails for unknown +seas, and makes no secret of the fact that England’s loss is +permanent.</p> + +<p>Now, since his Lordship promises never to come back, I +don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t publish his recent letter +to me, and thereby, perhaps, satisfy Mr. Bannerlee.</p> + +<blockquote class="letter"> + + <p class="dateline">“Brillig, Ambleside, Westmorland, <br> + December 27, 1927.</p> + + <p class="salutation">My dear Markham:</p> + + <p>One can scarcely conjecture what maggot of audacity + was in the brain of Alfred Bannerlee, Esq., when he + forwarded me his diary with the request that I write a + foreword to accompany it ‘to give the stamp of reality.’ When + you perceive the light in which I am placed in this unbelievable + and utterly veracious narrative, you will not need to + reflect in order to understand why I decline to have + anything to do with the document. In accordance with Mr. + Bannerlee’s wish, I am sending the diary to you, ‘an obscure + but ambitious author,’ and I do not suppose that you will + object to having your name upon the title-page. The whole + arrangement impresses me as asinine, but, after all, the + manuscript is Mr. Bannerlee’s and he should be allowed + full scope to play the fool with it.</p> + + <p>In fairness to the author, however, I must abate the + indictment. I do no more than allude to what seem to me + distinct virtues in this account. They will appeal to others + likewise, if they are virtues. In the first place, there is + nothing of that grisly, putrid stuff going nowadays under + the name of modern psychology, although a pedlar of this + ‘science’ could have found no end of matter for his hole + and corner methods. Second point: I am not a devotee of + the enormous literature dealing with the hounding and + capture of wrongdoers. But I will venture a pronouncement in + my egregious innocence, to wit, that not in any half-dozen + combined of these would-be ‘shockers’ published in a + lifetime will be found as many trials and alarums and as much + genuine mystification as make up this compendium of the + bedevilment of Parson Lolly, the mad behaviour of the + milkman, the invisible omnipresence of Sir Brooke Mortimer, + the enigma of the mystic bone, the Legend of Sir Pharamond’s + imperishable arm, and the machinations of the ultimate + contriver, I will not call him ‘fiend,’ working through and + behind all.</p> + + <p>And here it is my wish to express my wholehearted esteem + for (then) Miss Paula Lebetwood. I dislike the whole + species of American girls, but intelligence compels exceptions + to every rule. Some of us judged her harshly, no doubt, + but she took the road leading to success, and if she seemed + cold-hearted, she chose wisely. Had she been a weaker woman, + snuffling and inept, the narrative would not now be on the + verge of publication. In spite of this, wherever she is, I wish + her well.</p> + + <p>I myself shall not remain in England to witness the + effervescence of the multitude over this narrative. Democratic + outbursts rather gall me. On the eve of the publication of + the Journal, my yacht, with me on board, sails for waters + unknown. I seek as far as I may a shoreless cruise. I am + old, and mankind is not my hobby. Perhaps I shall linger + in the beauty of the Mediterranean where there are two + skies, perhaps drift endlessly in the steady strength of the + Trades, perhaps dare the dark Antarctic seas—or find beyond + the sunset. One thing stands sure; it is unthinkable that I + shall ever set foot in Britain again. So here I take farewell + of those who with me shared the dread, wonder and aftermath + of <i>Death in the Dusk</i>. (By the way, I don’t like that + title of Bannerlee’s.)</p> + + <p>Pray accept my congratulations on your recent + appointment, and believe me your sincere friend, and</p> + + <p class="valediction">Faithfully yours,</p> + <p class="signature">Ludlow.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is well, I believe, to point out that the minds of all those +present at Highglen House among the sorcerous hills of Wales +during the early autumn of 1925, the mind which directed +the writing of this Journal was, save perhaps one, the best +fitted for presenting the closest account possible to the truth. +The one other mind which could possibly equal this record in +truthfulness would be that which actually contrived the series +of demoniacal events in the Vale of Aidenn Water. The queer, +tense, potentially tragic, and ultimately fatal situation +discovered by Mr. Bannerlee after his serio-comic descent from +the Forest through the fog contained so many cross-currents +and tangled nets of misunderstanding, prejudice and enmity +that no other could have pretended to the shadow of fairness +in his (or her) statement of the case. For the sake of truth, +then (though God knows what disadvantages offset that!), it +was well that Mr. Bannerlee was plunged into the seething +midst of the Bidding Feast.</p> + +<p>I shall not dilate upon the morbid eagerness with which +the public will seize upon this Journal. This is no hackneyed +chronicle of raw head and bloody bones. The consternation +caused by the events in Aidenn Vale, constituting, upon their +emergence after the flood, a problem of what may genuinely +be called universal interest, will never be forgotten by those +old enough to realize their dreadfulness. The nine days’ terror +became a nine days’ wonder, and without hyperbole it may be +said that the fate of one nation hung upon the Radnorshire +riddles. The public has never been informed of all there was to +be told, nor, as sporadic (and totally erroneous) statements +and versions in the press signify, has the public lost its +interest. Here, for the first time, is offered for general perusal +this unbelievable and utterly veracious document. Need I +comment further?</p> + +<p>This is not, of course, the original form of Mr. Bannerlee’s +diary. What he wrote until the turmoil of events forced him +to stay his hand on the evening of the 9th of October was +necessarily briefer, more compact, and—to a reader not in touch +with the circumstances—unintelligible. His recasting of the +manuscript, which involved its enlargement to thrice its original +length is, it seems to me, one of the most notable of his feats. +Hard it must have been for him to alter this account from +the sketch-book manner of an ordinary diary, to give the +convincing gloss of rumination and reflection, to reveal precise +details of fact, the links of cogitation, and the phases of +feeling which poured in upon him. I think, too, that he has well +preserved the sense of imminence, the uncertainty as to the +morrow, which was, I am told, present in the original version. +If portions of the work seem lacking in spontaneity, let me +remind the reader that it was impossible for Mr. Bannerlee +to limit himself to a mere polychronicon of episodes, frilled +with running comment on persons, and edged with a neat +pattern of emotions. Clearness demanded he should sometimes <em>elucidate</em> +and the white heat of events must have time to cool +before they can be handled analytically.</p> + +<p>Only last month I myself visited New Aidenn again. A +word of self-introduction to Superintendent Salt made that +rather wonderful policeman my good friend at once, and he +personally conducted me through the Vale where death and +terror had danced. It is all as Bannerlee describes it; even the +atmosphere of mystery has not departed, and while Salt and +I came down by Aidenn Water through the dusk, I was glad +to have him there, glad and nevertheless uneasy. The villagers +and the folk of the countryside know well that Parson Lolly +is not dead yet, though his age is nearer five hundred than four +hundred years, and often they see his black cloak whisk through +some twilight copse, or see him far off above the hills, poised +against the sunset.</p> + +<p>Some day I shall write my own book about Salt: that other +mystery of East Wales, the frightful affair of the Straight +Road. But enough.</p> + +<p class="prefacesig">Virgil Markham</p> +<p class="dateline">St. John’s Wood,</p> +<p class="dateline">London, February 26, 1928.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="subtitlepage"> + +<h2>Death in the Dusk</h2> + +<p>Being Alfred Bannerlee’s own revision +and enlargement of his journal notes +from the evening of October 2, 1925, +to the breaking off, October 9. +Together with the conclusion of the +narrative later supplied by him, and the +communication of April 17, 1926.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="dedication"> + +<p class="dedicatory">To</p> +<p class="dedicatee">Paula Andrews</p> +<p class="dedicatory">in loving memory of</p> +<p class="dedicatee">Paula Lebetwood</p> +<p class="dedicatory">and to</p> +<p class="dedicatee">Mrs. Robert Cullen</p> +<p class="dedicatory">in grateful memory of Lib</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="dramatis"> + +<h2>Persons in this Chronicle</h2> + +<p class="title">The Narrator</p> + +<p class="name">Alfred Bannerlee of Balzing in Kent, +athlete and antiquarian</p> + +<p class="title">Host and Hostess of the Bidding Feast</p> + +<p class="name">The Honourable Crofts Pendleton</p> +<p class="name">Mrs. (Alberta) Pendleton</p> + +<p class="title">The Betrothed</p> + +<p class="name">Sean Cosgrove</p> +<p class="name">Paula Lebetwood</p> + +<p class="title">Guests</p> + +<p class="name">Herbert Pinckney, Baron Ludlow and Ditherington</p> +<p class="name">Ted Belvoir</p> +<p class="name">Mrs. (Marvel) Belvoir</p> +<p class="name">Gilbert Maryvale, Esq.</p> +<p class="name">Mr. Charlton Oxford</p> +<p class="name">Mrs. Eve Bartholomew</p> +<p class="name">Miss Millicent Mertoun</p> +<p class="name">Dr. Stephen Aire</p> +<p class="name">Lib Dale</p> +<p class="name">Bob Cullen</p> + +<p class="title">Servants</p> + +<p class="name">Blenkinson, patriarch</p> +<p class="name">Soames, footman</p> +<p class="name">Hughes, gamekeeper</p> +<p class="name">Finlay, head gardener</p> +<p class="name">Wheeler, chauffeur and handy man</p> +<p class="name">Morgan, handy man</p> +<p class="name">Tenney, handy man</p> +<p class="name">Toby, boy</p> +<p class="name">Rosa Clay, cook</p> +<p class="name">Ruth Clay, housekeeper</p> +<p class="name">Ardelia Lacy, lady’s maid</p> +<p class="name">Jael, parlourmaid</p> +<p class="name">Harmony, housemaid</p> +<p class="name">Em, kitchenmaid</p> + +<p class="title">Nebulous or Mysterious Persons</p> + +<p class="name">The gorilla man</p> +<p class="name">The menagerie keeper</p> +<p class="name">Sir Brooke Mortimer</p> +<p class="name">The sisters Delambre</p> +<p class="name">The red-bearded runner</p> +<p class="name">The youth in the library</p> +<p class="name">The man in the tower</p> + +<p class="title">Officials</p> + +<p class="name">Superintendent Salt</p> +<p class="name">Dr. Niblett, Coroner</p> +<p class="name">“Scotland Yard”</p> + +<p class="title">Super-Sleuth</p> + +<p class="name">Harry Heatheringham</p> + +<p class="title">Arch-Lord of Disorder</p> + +<p class="name">PARSON LOLLY</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch01"> + +<h2>I. <br> The Obtrusion of Parson Lolly</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">Highglen House, Aidenn Vale, Radnorshire, <br> +October 3, 1925. 12.30 <span class="meridienne">A.M.</span></p> + +<p>Heaven smile on us if it can! Heaven watch and +ward us. This is a wedding party!</p> + +<p>Crofts Pendleton has just brought me the fresh candles and +this writing-book. He wished me God-speed in my endeavours +and good-night.</p> + +<p>“Good-night!” It sounded like a travesty, or a challenge.</p> + +<p>Surely I am the sane one here if anyone is. Yet I cannot name +the curse that lies on my spirit and keeps in my eyes the vision +of the two faces, the golden hair above the black! +Never-to-be-forgotten moment! But I shall not let it unnerve me now, as +it seemed to then.</p> + +<p>The worst of it is that I am confined in a musty chamber +(among store-rooms!) on the second floor where the +web-scribbled ceiling slants down with the roof and the eaves +murmur uncannily just above my window—a room to make +flesh thrill and creep. It looks like a chamber where murderers +may have lurked in bygone days. The narrow, deep-set window, +the old twisty candle-brackets high on the stone wall, the joined +chest with never a nail to fasten its boards, the severely plain +four-square bedstead—they all remind me that I am in a +building centuries old where any or every fiendish deed may have +been performed. I wish that this storey, like the rest of the house, +were equipped with a good up-to-date electric service. The +blinking light of candles is not very comfortable in the gloom.</p> + +<p>Nearly a page written, yet nothing pertinent said. This isn’t +economy in words. But now I’ll banish megrims, cease +rambling, and come to the situation.</p> + +<p>I have been in Highglen House for a scant six hours. Events +have been moving with intermittent swiftness ever since I came, +and they had not been precisely quiet before my arrival. +To-night, though it takes until dawn, I shall describe as far as I +can the happenings of the last day unless I drift off to sleep +in the process. But no, even with doors locked, sleep is not +likely to trouble anyone much to-night, not after the alarm all +of us—I don’t except myself in this case—have just had.</p> + +<p>Moreover, until the nowhere-to-be-found Sir Brooke puts +in an appearance, or some word is heard from him, there will +be little rest for me, with Eve Bartholomew knocking at the +door every fifteen minutes, with, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Bannerlee; +are you still up? It’s <em>so</em> silly of me, of course—Sir Brooke can +take care of himself as well as any of us—better, I’m sure, than +most—and yet I’m not so sure—but it’s really odd, isn’t it? +Now I know it’s silly of me—but I’ve just had another idea. +Don’t you think it’s possible that Sir Brooke took the wrong +train? Of course I don’t know whether you can do that in +Shrewsbury in the afternoon—but perhaps he got on the wrong +platform, or something—he never was an expert on getting +about, poor dear—and then he may have gone to sleep and not +noticed where he was going. He has a way of doing that in +trains—I know him so well, you see. Perhaps he didn’t learn +until he got off at some scrubby little place where there’s no +telegraph. And then, of course, that explains why there’s been +no message from him.”</p> + +<p>I have learned a good deal about Sir Brooke’s character since +Mrs. B. began her raids with a Macbethean knocking and a +stage whisper. His chief trait seems to be utter fickleness of +memory, his next that something, or lack of something, which +makes able-bodied women like Mrs. B. call men “dear” with +“poor” prefixed. He is near-sighted, liable to vertigo +philanthropic, and a nuisance.</p> + +<p>I said Macbethean knocking—I suppose that proves I’m a +little highly-strung myself. Certainly she caused a warm, +douche-like sensation to pass clear over my scalp to the nape of +my neck. We have had an evening which would make the +staidest—</p> + +<p>I have a severe mind to draw a line through these pages and +begin anew. This isn’t what I intended at all. My candles +are bearded now, and I haven’t scratched my subject. I repent +and reform this very instant. I am going to try to put down +things in order, as they have unfolded themselves in the course +of one of the most amazing days I, or any human being, ever +lived through.</p> + +<p>Yet first (before taking my way back to the hilltop where +I wandered this afternoon, never having so much as heard of +Highglen House!) while the spirit is urgent and the clutch +of sense is keen, I’ll transcribe the maddening events of the +half-hour just past. Before I forget—but shall I ever forget?</p> + +<p>There they were in the Hall of the Moth, civilizees of +assorted temperaments, ignoring their alarms, submerging their +differences, and levelling their intellects in the fascination of a +card game. How “instructive and amusing” had been my +introduction by Pendleton to each of them in this very Hall +scarcely more than an hour before! Save for Alberta, that luscious +wife of his, I had never laid eyes on one of them previous +to this evening.</p> + +<p>Straight on my entering the Hall, Pendleton had cavalierly +handed me around from person to person.</p> + +<p>First he revealed me to his wife, who set down her cards and +rose with one of the gladdest smiles I have ever seen. She was +tall and gracious. Her face, surrounded by its lustre of +close-clipped, wavy hair, was a joy to look at, being both pearly-clear +and firm, like an exquisite lily-petal of classic marble.</p> + +<p>“Alfred! We hear that you have been raiding Aidenn Forest.”</p> + +<p>“Please!” I laughed. “I wouldn’t call it anything so forcible +as—”</p> + +<p>But already Pendleton had presented me to Mrs. Belvoir. +I withdrew my hand from its clasp of Alberta’s and took the +cold fingers of the colourless man’s wife. What thoughts lay +behind those brooding lids and that close-lipped mouth? Her +face had a wavering indistinctness, like a face seen under flowing +water.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” she said in that rich voice, gave me one +full look with eyes cold and pale as sapphires, and blinked +languidly, as if the discussion were closed.</p> + +<p>Pendleton did not let me linger in perplexity. He gave me up +to Belvoir, who shook hands with a faint smile, saying, “Mr. +Bannerlee and I spelled our names to each other in the hall a +little while ago.”</p> + +<p>Next was Lord Ludlow. “I’ve seen him,” remarked his Lordship, +gazing at me with a little asperity, crinkling the skin over +the high-pitched bridge of his nose, and sat down, for he was +wishful of continuing the game, or of giving the impression that +such was his desire.</p> + +<p>I was whisked to the second table and made acquainted with +the sole woman there. Eve Bartholomew (God give her peace!) +grasped my hand for a tug or two, exclaiming hurriedly, “Oh, +how do you do?” And she added, with ill-feigned casualness, +“They say you’ve been out on the hills to-day. You’re sure +you haven’t seen Sir Brooke?”</p> + +<p>“Quite sure, Mrs. Bartholomew.”</p> + +<p>“Or hear of anyone who might be him—he?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Next I was set face-to-face with her partner, the red-faced +young man, who I was not surprised to learn was Sean Cosgrove. +His head was large, his features large, too, without being +lubberly. The ruddiness of his complexion was accentuated by +his very black and shining hair, short and thick. There was +something grim and settled in the line of his jaw, and his blazing +black eyes bore out the character of determination. He shook +hands unsmiling, gravely.</p> + +<p>“My congratulations,” I offered.</p> + +<p>He gave a short bow, looking at the floor. Then, “I have +heard of you,” he said, with not a trace of Irish lilt or accent +in his speech.</p> + +<p>“Is it possible?”</p> + +<p>“You are a searcher for the buried lore of antiquity. Is not +that so?” he asked with a certain lofty seriousness.</p> + +<p>“I have done a little research among the British saints, but I +hardly expected my labours—”</p> + +<p>“They honour you,” asserted Cosgrove, but my smile of +deprecation and anything further he was about to say were cut off +by Pendleton, who relentlessly kept me on the go, and I faced +the next guest.</p> + +<p>Two men had been partners at this table; I now found myself +staring at a waxed moustache, and a very elegantly tapered and +needle-pointed specimen of craftsmanship it was. The rest +of his face was nothing remarkable, only a little swarthy-purplish +with brandy, and a trifle stary-eyed. I was not prepossessed +with this gentleman, judging him to be the sort who +shows his cleverness to an assorted public in quips to +barmaids and dance-hall musicians. His name, “Mr. Charlton +Oxford,” struck me as strainedly aristocratic, though no fault +of his.</p> + +<p>“Chawmed.”</p> + +<p>“Aesthete,” flashed through my brain, but a query-note raised +itself after the word. “Just plain fool,” I concluded.</p> + +<p>“You <em>are</em> being bandied about, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>I was surprised by the fluence and ease of his voice, and his +lightening smile, the big darkish man’s who had been dealing +the cards so ritualistically a few minutes before. He lifted his +weight as if it were that of a bubble, and I saw that indeed he +was big, bearing his torso on stanchion-legs. His mass must have +been twice mine.</p> + +<p>“Gilbert Maryvale, our complete man of business—iron-castings,” +said Pendleton, with evident gladness that his tale +was over.</p> + +<p>I saw a quick brightness come and go in Gilbert Maryvale’s +eyes at that description, as if the eyeball had darted out a little +from its station under thatch-brows.</p> + +<p>“The winner of the Newman Prize for Lucid Prose, I think, +in—let me see—Nineteen-nineteen? May I congratulate you, +Mr. Bannerlee, although the time is past? I have read your +‘Poets of Enervation’ with delight.”</p> + +<p>“No, Mr. Maryvale, that was not my essay.”</p> + +<p>“Surely I haven’t mistaken the name?”</p> + +<p>“You have mistaken only the man. ‘Poets of Enervation’ +was the overflow of my cousin Norval’s pen. We were in the +University together. I made a bid for the Newman myself, but +was buried. Norval and I are often mistaken for each other, even +in our literary occupations.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt you ran him close,” observed the big man +twinkingly.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid not. And now, as Mr. Cosgrove has said, I am +devoted to dustier things, and the prose I give my time to is far +from lucid.”</p> + +<p>“But you wring lucidity out of it.”</p> + +<p>Maryvale resumed his seat, picked up his hand, as did the +rest, for in spite of much invitation I insisted on remaining aloof +from the game. Broad capable cheek-bones, sudden forceful chin +he had, but I had an awareness there was much more than +capability and force in this “complete man of business.” That +allusion to the Prize Essay for Lucid Prose was a poser. Was +there another trafficker in iron-castings in the United Kingdom +who had read “Poets of Enervation”?—or one who would speak +of it kindly if he had?</p> + +<p>Well, all this was past, half-forgotten in ensuing talk. But +now, at one minute to midnight, a new presence was in the Hall, +threatening the mirth of the Feast! Anger!</p> + +<p>For Lord Ludlow and Sean Cosgrove were having a beautiful +row.</p> + +<p>The Irishman’s gaze was hard and heavy, and seemed to bore +into his antagonist. His face, I noticed, was still suffusing with +blood. No one else ventured to intervene as madly as I had just +done, and the silence when the two men ceased parleying was +like the yawn of ocean after a gigantic wave.</p> + +<p>Cosgrove’s bitterness seemed to be growing steadily, like the +awful momentum of a railway train, and I had no doubt that +the time was not many seconds away when he would arise and +beard his foe with menacing hands. Lord Ludlow’s acerbity +was like the nervous, sputtering viciousness of a dynamo. From +his eyes seemed to come green electric sparks, while he shifted +his ire from me toward Cosgrove again.</p> + +<p>“As for you, sir—”</p> + +<p>“I accuse you—”</p> + +<p>Hark!</p> + +<p>The great Hall of the Moth where we stood was gripped in +a new hush, for the clock in the corner was speaking. I had +regarded it curiously in the evening, a fine old carcase with hood, +waist, and base enveloped in spider’s web marqueterie which +obliterated the graining of the wood. The brass dial was finely +engraved, and Cupid’s head appeared four times delicately +chiselled in the spandrils.</p> + +<p>Now its chime gave the burden it has tolled for two hundred +years, and midnight was ringing sternly through the House from +the Hall of the Moth. It is a strange clock, devised by some +brooding or twisted or philosophic mind long ago: it strikes, +they say, only at midnight, proclaiming the death and the birth +of a day. The tones, vigorous and vibrant, were mellow with +centuries, and their song was poignant.</p> + +<p>Like some greybeard councillor’s, the old clock’s voice appeared +to abash the hasty peer and the slowly enraged Irishman. +They stared at each other in grimness for an interim of seconds +before his Lordship shrugged his shoulders, cackled “Humph!” +loudly, and turned to the disrupted card-table. Cosgrove’s +clenched hands came down in his lap relaxed, and he, too, turned +back to his table, moving his lips without utterance.</p> + +<p>But the game did not go on. It could hardly have pursued +its placid course again after this very distressing interruption +of our peace, even if the crying sound had not begun from +somewhere outside the Hall.</p> + +<p>A low, tremulous, wheedling cry, strangled sometimes into +a moan—it froze every face and turned every eye to stone.</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” gulped Eve Bartholomew. . . .</p> + +<p>“<em>Where</em> is it?” asked Belvoir, and one could tell that the +“stick of dynamite” had not much breath to spare.</p> + +<p>But no one seemed to have the breath or the brain to answer +him. My own belief for a moment was that it proceeded from a +plane above our heads, instead of from somewhere in the long +portrait-lined passage outside the Hall of the Moth. This seemed +to be Pendleton’s notion, too, for with a tense “upstairs!” our +host moved to the nearest door to the corridor. But Alberta +Pendleton, dismayed (like all of us, no doubt) by the thought +of the hovering menace that had shadowed Highglen House, +hurried across to her husband and clung to him, positively clung +to him, as I have seen actresses do in plays.</p> + +<p>“No, Crofts dear—no, no! Wait—let someone go with you!”</p> + +<p>“It’s up there,” declared Pendleton with steel-trap +enunciation. “The damned thing’s come again—up there.”</p> + +<p>“That’s why you mustn’t go.”</p> + +<p>“It’s up there,” he said doggedly, and tugged to loose himself. +But she took step for step with him, finally turning in his +path with her back against the door.</p> + +<p>“We’ll all go,” said Maryvale.</p> + +<p>“All the men,” said Cosgrove. “The women lock the doors +behind us.”</p> + +<p>“Ring for the servants,” said someone shakenly, I think +Charlton Oxford.</p> + +<p>“Listen! . . . It’s not there any more. . . . It’s stopped.” +We listened with Mrs. Bartholomew; beyond our taut breathings +and the tick-tack-tock of the carcase in the corner—nothing.</p> + +<p>“Ring for the servants, I tell you!”</p> + +<p>“Listen! It’s out there.”</p> + +<p>“Out there!”</p> + +<p>“On the lawn.”</p> + +<p>Unmistakably now the low wordless cry came through the +half-opened french window leading to the broad lawns beyond +the entrance drive. Pendleton was across the room in a trice, +heedless of Alberta’s protest; so were Maryvale and Cosgrove +and I; so were all of us. We followed our host through the +window-entrance. Out to the darkness we went from the bright-lit +hall in a little throng, and when we were outside, hearing the +lonesome, half-whining cry no more, we recoiled and huddled +a little, like scared titmice.</p> + +<p>Hardly a quarter of a minute—prolonged by our bewilderment +and dread—could have gone by, and we stood irresolute +upon the fringe of the lawn, when the cry came toward us again, +and now it was followed by a woman’s voice, different from the +cry:</p> + +<p>“Oh, come here, come here! I couldn’t call you and leave +her alone.”</p> + +<p>At the sound of that voice Cosgrove stamped like a raving +beast. “Paula,” he bellowed, and plunged across the obscurity of +the lawn.</p> + +<p>Following among those whose urgence was less than his, my +eyes, which deviated from straight ahead, caught sight of a +spine-stirring thing. It was motion, but of what? A darker mass on +the dark sward. Size, shape, untellable—but moving, moving +to the right, now seeming to crawl, now leaping—only an +amorphous blob of black—moving, and swiftly, toward the +north, moving stilly, with only a small rustling sound at whiles.</p> + +<p>“Look there!” I exclaimed to someone who was near me, +catching his arm. (It was Oxford.)</p> + +<p>“Hey! What!”</p> + +<p>“That—going off there—a black thing.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see it.” Nor did he want to, I judged.</p> + +<p>I guided his arm, extending it in the proper line. “Sight by +that.”</p> + +<p>But I could not make him see it. He and I then diverged +from the others, not much to his liking, and while we hastened +after the nameless thing, I bethought me that I had changed +my electric torch to these clothes. I hauled it from a side pocket, +darted a cone of yellow ahead of us, cast an elliptic figure of +yellow on the grass, but found no trace of the thing.</p> + +<p>Oxford, however, saw an object ahead which made him give +a yell. He stopped petrified, and I followed his look far before +us. What we both then saw was too distant to be the thing I +had observed nearby, unless it were indeed a fiend possessed of +superhuman powers. He was crossing a patch of ground a +hundred yards away where the moon streamed down unscathed by +clouds; save for the quick, brief clearing, indeed, we should not +have caught sight of him. Like the hopping, gliding thing on the +lawn, he was black, or robed in black. Contrary to report, however, +if this were Parson Lolly, his figure appeared not to be tall +but distinctly short and squatty. Just then the fringe of a cloud +partly obfuscated the moon, but still that space was clearer +than all around it. While the figure glided toward the trees, it +seemed to heave its shoulders and grow a foot, two feet, taller! +Again it writhed itself into greater height, its long cloak +billowing, and again! Just before gaining the covert of branches, it +turned toward us a moment, twice the height of a man. And its +head, if head it had, was only a pointed thing with unguessable +features in the cavern of its hood. The moon was absolutely +overcast when the figure, again wheeling about, went beneath the +trees.</p> + +<p>“Do we go after it?” I asked sardonically.</p> + +<p>“We—we do not.”</p> + +<p>“Righto.”</p> + +<p>I heard a gurgle from Oxford’s lips and guessed that his +heart must be rotating in his throat. His shoulder to my touch +was quivering, and while we went to rejoin the rest he staggered +as if in drink, although certainly sober. But his nerves +aren’t the best, I shouldn’t wonder, for there must be regular +occasions when he quaffs and quaffs again.</p> + +<p>They were a chastened, vaguely murmurous company we +discovered almost beneath the arch of the ancient gate-house +with its ivy swarming up and up, now standing lone, its walls +on either side all shorn away. Only a spurt or two of a match +they had to see by, until I came with my torch and they made +way for me. The light on the weather-beaten stone was +like the circle of an old medallion or mellowed painting: two +women, one pallid and lifeless, the other, seated on the grass, +supporting the lovely, unconscious head on her knees.</p> + +<p>I supposed instantly that this was the young English-woman, +Millicent Mertoun, who lay wan—the most beautiful creature, +I believe, I have ever seen. Fine breeding, fine spirit were in her +stricken face. Cold loveliness, indeed, with the life gone out of +it; eyes set widely apart, closed beneath straight black eyebrows +which were now lifted apeak with the intensity of strain that +showed in the fine lines across her forehead and the slight +drawing-back of her short upper lip, disclosing her large, evenly +graduated teeth. The lashes that rested upon her cheeks were +remarkably long, deep black, and it was their fragile, almost +imperceptible stirring alone that betokened a possible reawakening +to life. Her chin was softly rounded, and in the disorder of her +abundant black hair a delicate ear was exposed. The suspension +of life had withdrawn the blood from the full-contoured lips, +left the cheeks pallid, but while I gazed at the face and the +aristocratic little neck, twined about so by the tumbling length +of masses of black hair, I had a whisper of what beauty the face +might have when expression was restored to it, and the eyes, of +unguessable depth and sweetness, were open.</p> + +<p>Of the other woman’s head I caught only the partly averted +profile, while she bent over Miss Mertoun, with one hand clasping +together at the throat the unconscious girl’s loose gown, +apparently a garment of negligée. She, of course, must be the +American girl, for it was at the sound of her voice that Sean +Cosgrove had torn across the lawn. There was dignity, I +thought, in her head with its straitly fastened golden-brown hair, +and a lovely tenderness in the solicitude of her pose.</p> + +<p>She was in the midst of speech, relating the adventure which +had brought her and her companion to that plight. She did not +look up or turn her head when the light from my hand broke +over her, and all the while she spoke her watchful gaze was for +the features of the girl whose senses were benumbed. American +speech it was, yet the words came from her lips with a chiselled +precision, the tone tending toward viola depth.</p> + +<p>“—blinding, yes, not blinding alone, but maddening. I got +her into looser clothing—she wouldn’t go to bed. She gave no +sign of fainting, but the pain drove her into delirium more than +once, and I almost sent for someone else to help me with her. +Then the pain went down, and suddenly she went to sleep.”</p> + +<p>Someone, I think Cosgrove, took a step nearer. “No, keep +away, please. Don’t try to move her yet.”</p> + +<p>“But, Paula, how did you ever come—?”</p> + +<p>The American girl precluded the end of Alberta Pendleton’s +question. “Of course I am coming to that. She went sound +asleep, and I thought it better not to undress her; so I let her lie +on the bed, and I curled up in the chair by the window. Millicent’s +wretched evening had left me tired out, too, and I don’t +remember anything more until when I woke up to find her +awake again and wandering about. There was enough light from +the globe by the mirror to see that she was terribly distressed, +but it was not with pain this time. She was suffering from +some—”</p> + +<p>Paula Lebetwood hesitated for a moment, then +recommenced. “I think she was walking in her sleep.”</p> + +<p>A note of surprise and pity came from all our mouths.</p> + +<p>“Were her eyes open?” asked Mrs. Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“Yes, with the darkest vagueness in them.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t she recognize you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“You see, it all happened so quickly. Only a couple of seconds +after I had roused myself the clock in the Hall of the Moth +commenced ringing midnight. Millicent stopped for a moment +and put her hand to her heart, a queer thing, I thought. ‘It’s his +music,’ she said, and made for the door.”</p> + +<p>Renewed exclamations of surprise attested our close-held +interest.</p> + +<p>“She ran down the hall—”</p> + +<p>“But, Paula, did you let her—?”</p> + +<p>“She was too strong for me, or perhaps too quick. She twisted +away from me when I tried to prevent her from leaving the +room. She almost flew down the hall; I was afraid she would +throw herself down the stairs, and I caught up with her just +in time. We came down—”</p> + +<p>“Did she make any sound?” burst in Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“Yes, a wailing sound—if there were any words, I couldn’t +distinguish them. Didn’t you hear her? Oh, I was wishing you +would. I didn’t dare to cry out, you know, since she was in that +dangerous state.”</p> + +<p>“We heard, dear,” said Alberta Pendleton. “But the sound +kept changing, and we were undecided.”</p> + +<p>“She had a definite intention to go out, and out of the front +entrance we went whether I would or not. And then, then, while +we were far away on the lawn, we saw the—the—I can’t name +it.”</p> + +<p>“What was it like?” asked Pendleton, and I recall that all of +us closed in a little further to hear.</p> + +<p>“The head, I suppose you’d call it. It was—awful.”</p> + +<p>“What—where?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t any of you see it?” she asked in much surprise, yet not +for a second lifting her intent look from Millicent Mertoun’s +face. “It was just after that I noticed that foul reek of blood.”</p> + +<p>“Blood!” That was Eve Bartholomew’s cry.</p> + +<p>“Oh, haven’t you noticed that either? The smell was so +bad, I feared it would have some ghastly effect on Millicent. +I hoped she wouldn’t notice it, in her condition. And +then—we were beyond the gate-house, coming back toward the +mansion, when we saw—the head.”</p> + +<p>“Where, for God’s sake?”</p> + +<p>“About a hundred feet away from us. I heard something +stirring first, something scuttling, you might say. Then we saw +it. Ugh! . . . Straight out of hell, surely. . . .”</p> + +<p>Pendleton’s excitement was getting too much for him, and +he broke through courtesy. “Why do you keep boggling it? +Where was it? What did it do?”</p> + +<p>“Crofts!” reprimanded Alberta.</p> + +<p>Still with averted face, Paula Lebetwood tried to satisfy our +fuming host. “Where? I don’t know exactly where. Near the +gate-house here, I suppose. It seemed thirty or forty yards away. +It was enormous, about six feet high—oh, fully that. It hung +in the air—there wasn’t any body beneath. And it didn’t do +anything, just remained there long enough to be seen, half a +second, perhaps, and disappeared with a sort of sigh. I thought I +heard a sigh. It—well, it simply went out. . . . It was +hideous.”</p> + +<p>“What did it look like, dear?” asked Alberta, more to +anticipate her bluff husband than to satisfy curiosity, for her +question was tremulous.</p> + +<p>“Hideous—a great round head with red goggle eyes and a +hole for a nose and broken teeth all grinning. It looked alive and +staring—worse than any mask I’ve ever seen—an indecent thing. . . . +Oh, don’t think that it was hallucination—poor Millicent +saw it too, though it came and went like the winking of an eye. +It seemed to strike to her heart—and to mine, for that +matter—and she could manage to walk only a few steps more—on my +arm—through the archway before she weakened and collapsed, +and I saw you all there outside the french window, and called.”</p> + +<p>She turned her head full toward us for the first time since +Oxford and I had come from our private chase. Such was my +position when she lifted her bent head that I, and only I, saw, +on the yellow-lit ground revealed beyond, a small placard with +uncouth letters thereon, large enough to be read in spite of their +unshapeliness:</p> + +<blockquote class="placard"> + + <p>PARSON LOLLY SeNds REGaRDs LooK OUT + FOR PARSON LOLLY</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>A storm sprang in my mind, such a whirlwind of spirit as I +believe I have never before experienced, when behind the quick, +expectant face of this American girl, one so tender to her +stricken friend, one so fearless, I saw that obscene sign. She was +at first dazzled by the light in my hand, and her dark blue +eyes show wonderfully bright and wild. Her gold hair then had +a fine-spun beauty. And beside the old gate-tower lay the +sneering message of one who affronted both manhood and womanhood. +Anger at the marauder who made beauty his victim, shame +for being duped, fear of being duped again, a craving to bring +the rascal down—these and I know that not what other unleashed +gales met in the cross-roads of my mind. The winds rose +to raving, towered into hurricanes. My soul was dizzy, +staggering. I was not rational at that moment—then the gales went +down. I bit my lip hard, stepped around the two women there, +picked up the sign (which had been printed with a smudgy +pencil on a stiff folio sheet) and showed it to the rest.</p> + +<p>“Parson Lolly!” exclaimed more than one.</p> + +<p>Then Oxford, perhaps intending to be jocose, said,</p> + +<p>“ ‘Beware of Parson Lolly.’ Beggar’s a bit late, it seems to +me.”</p> + +<p>“At least,” said Crofts Pendleton thickly “it proves he’s +human—the devil!”</p> + +<p>“<em>In some ways human</em>, perhaps,” amended Maryvale.</p> + +<p>“What else, then?”</p> + +<p>“Less than human. Consider the birds of the air, my friends. +They are, I suppose, less than human—yet—they—can—fly!”</p> + +<p>I gave a stout shrug to rid myself of the disquiet compelled by +such a suggestion.</p> + +<p>Anxiety over Miss Mertoun’s exposure to the midnight air +prompted Alberta Pendleton, not for the first time, to urge +taking her inside the Hall. But Miss Lebetwood shook her head in +a determined manner, and with a gesture showed that she +believed it was too far to carry her to the mansion.</p> + +<p>“It’s very mild out here now,” she declared. “I know sleep-walking +people. If she were to wake up while she’s being taken, +it might have some long-lasting ill effect. Alberta, please don’t +ask again. I want her to be in my arms when she opens her +eyes. You good people don’t need to stay. I—and Sean—can wait +here with her alone.”</p> + +<p>But none of us would go. Then while we waited to see a +greater sign of life than the restlessness of those long black lashes +on the pallid cheek, down from the dark north came that ragged, +hungry voice I had heard while alone earlier in the night, a +cry that tore at our nerves and congealed our blood to ice-drops +in our veins. A carnal, raving cry, thinning to a shriek that +pierced the ear, swelling to a howl that loosened the knees.</p> + +<p>Of that dire, abysmal wail of mad desire, an overtone must +have found a counterpart in Cosgrove’s spirit. Out of the past +of his kind, that had seen things more clearly in the dusk than +in the plain light of day, that had loved cries of battle and death +more than joyful cries, some strain may have wrung the man’s +soul. Terribly to all of us, he raised his voice in answer to the +inhuman call; I, at least, had no sense of body or of time and +place while he burst into a black rain of words, a torrent of +rancour, and defiance against the fiend of the pit, whose +incarnate self he seemed to hear in the voice of the beast.</p> + +<p>But a low call from Paula Lebetwood reduced him to a +stunning silence. “I think she’s coming to.”</p> + +<p>The unconscious girl’s fingers fluttered briefly; her lips +stirred; her whole body stirred a little. She turned once, twice, +restlessly, and sank, with a little sigh, comfortably and +trustingly into the American girl’s embrace. The trace of a sneer +had vanished from her face, and her breast moved with her +breathing.</p> + +<p>“She’s sleeping now,” said Alberta Pendleton, and stooped +beside the pair on the grass.</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood whispered, “Dearest, do you hear me? Do +you know me? It’s Paula. . . . Dearest, do you hear me?” She +stroked the pale forehead free of its last furrow.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” came like a shadow of a word from the sleeping girl.</p> + +<p>“Dearest, Paula wants you to come with her.” Still she spoke, +soothing, caressing, in the effort to woo her to awaken +peacefully. And the eyes of Millicent Mertoun opened, revealing +themselves to be of a deep blackness that rivalled her errant hair, +opened to see only the smile of love on the face of the American +girl bending over her; and the English girl smiled too.</p> + +<p>“Your headache is all gone, isn’t it, dearest?”</p> + +<p>“Yes . . . but where . . . is this?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be frightened, dear. It’s the lawn by the gate-house. +Now we’re going inside.”</p> + +<p>“But how? . . . I don’t understand . . . these people.”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood kissed her cheek, leaned her forehead against +it. “Never mind, dearest. Everyone is a friend, you know. Can +you walk? Here, now.”</p> + +<p>The English girl was sitting up; she rubbed her eyes, and +sent short, bewildered looks this way and that, far from +comprehending her situation. Too many of the party were trying to +explain everything to her, and she was beginning to look +desperate and unhappy.</p> + +<p>“Never mind the silly people,” said Miss Lebetwood sensibly. +“See—we’re just a few steps away from the house—where we’ve +been before, you know. Now we must go in. Sean, help me.”</p> + +<p>The Irishman and the women at last began to support the +strengthless girl into the Hall. It must have been a full quarter +of an hour since we had poured out from that vaulted chamber +into the enigmatic night and had heard the call from the +gate-house. Now the servants were roused, summoned by someone, +and lanterns were rushing across the lawn in our direction. I +had commenced to go with the party about Miss Mertoun, +desirous of casting a light before their feet. But Pendleton called +me back somewhat peremptorily.</p> + +<p>“Bright enough from the Hall for ’em not to stumble by.” +Alone in the great mansion the Hall of the Moth sparkled forth, +but the glare from its massive chandelier was a sure guiding +light. “We need you here,” added our host; “there’s a good deal +more of this needs looking at.”</p> + +<p>At a phrase from him the lanterns began to swing hither and +thither about the lawn, and we men of the party passed across +the drawbridge under the resounding gate-house arch.</p> + +<p>“Is this usually lowered?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Usually. Can be raised for the sport of it. It’s part of the +main drive, you see. It must have been hereabout that they +smelt—”</p> + +<p>He had no need to say more.</p> + +<p>“Great God, what an unholy stench!”</p> + +<p>“It <em>is</em> blood!”</p> + +<p>“Bottles of it.”</p> + +<p>Crofts Pendleton’s voice shook. “I hope—it’s not—anything +serious.”</p> + +<p>Just then nothing could have struck us as amusing. Lord +Ludlow interjected, “Remember, sir, that there is a missing +man—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord, look there! My boot!”</p> + +<p>Belvoir lifted a foot for inspection, while I turned the eye +of the torch upon it. The leather was stained with a fluid dark +and thick.</p> + +<p>“My God!” observed Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“It’s jolly well begun to clot.”</p> + +<p>“Look out, you chaps, you’ll mire yourselves.”</p> + +<p>“Show us the place, Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>My torch exposed a patch of darkened grass only a foot or +so each way. There was nothing else about nearby.</p> + +<p>Pendleton, half aghast, kneeled on the edge of the patch and +studied it.</p> + +<p>“A lot of blood’s been spilled here. It must have soaked down, +a goodish bit of it, but there’s quite a pool about the grass roots. +This spot will have to be guarded to-night. Pity we’ve tramped +about.”</p> + +<p>A thick voice lifted in excitement from the north of us.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mister Crofts, sir, do come here.”</p> + +<p>“What is it, Tenney? Let it stay, whatever it is.”</p> + +<p>“Small fear I’ll touch it, sir. It’s one of them old fightin’ +irons.”</p> + +<p>“A weapon, by heaven!” exclaimed Lord Ludlow.</p> + +<p>“Has it blood on it?”</p> + +<p>“All sticky dried, sir.”</p> + +<p>We were beside the quaking man-servant in a jiffy or two, +staring curiously where lay a small battle-axe, with an +inconsiderable curve of blade. It was a weapon of uncommon +slightness. Both metal and wood were dark with the same viscous +fluid, the handle being quite slobbered with it.</p> + +<p>“From the armoury!” cried our host. “The foul devil’s +actually been inside the house! Don’t touch it!”</p> + +<p>“That weapon was on the wall at a quarter before eight,” +said Lord Ludlow. (Ah, I knew why he could say that!) “I +was passing through to the library for my glasses.” (There, to +be sure, the old rascal prevaricated.)</p> + +<p>“You don’t say!”</p> + +<p>“This looks like a serious crime,” remarked his Lordship.</p> + +<p>“Serious crime!” Pendleton snorted. “Ludlow, you surprise +me. I thought it was child’s play.”</p> + +<p>“I think that by a serious crime our noble friend means a +particular crime—don’t you, Ludlow? Isn’t it the customary +euphemism?” asked Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“I mean murder, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Should have said so in the first place,” growled Pendleton, +and added, “No need to say it at all.”</p> + +<p>“It’s jolly irregular, though,” declared Oxford. “All that +blood in one spot, and this gory thing over here.”</p> + +<p>“This was not done according to rule,” rejoined his Lordship.</p> + +<p>“It was not carried out as planned,” declared Cosgrove, who +had come out from the mansion again.</p> + +<p>“And one, er, detail only needs to be filled in.” That was +Belvoir from somewhere in the darkness behind us. “The, +er, <i>corpus delicti</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Gad, yes—scatter, now—search—all the way to Aidenn +Water.”</p> + +<p>The cluster of lanterns spread into kaleidoscopic figures again, +although the men seemed none too happy to leave the protection +of one another. But they did not discover any further traces of +the marauder or a vestige of a victim who might have furnished +all that blood. My own light picked up the last find of the night, +a round, battered object on the grass even further north than +the blood-stained axe.</p> + +<p>“A hat!”</p> + +<p>“Can it be Sir Brooke’s?”</p> + +<p>Pendleton leaped ahead of us and snatched it from the ground, +held it from him contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“I doubt it.”</p> + +<p>“I can tell you certainly that it is not Sir Brooke’s!”</p> + +<p>One man, at least, jumped at the sound of a female voice +among us. There was Eve Bartholomew, standing tall and +tragic, clinging, I thought, to the last pinch of nerve she +possessed.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t help being interested, you know,” she remarked +ingenuously, and gave a little high-keyed laugh. “I just came +from the Hall. But I can assure you that Sir Brooke has nothing +to do with this affair. He would be mad to take any part +in it. He would be mad to wear that rag of a disreputable +hat.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mrs. Bartholomew,” I agreed, “he would. I was about +to say, before you identified the hat as not Sir Brooke’s, that it +belongs to me. I wore it down the slopes of Aidenn Vale.”</p> + +<p>“You did!”</p> + +<p>“Yes—none too new when I set forth with it this morning, +it has suffered a lifetime’s wear and tear with me to-day. That +is the history of the hat.”</p> + +<p>“But where did you see it last?” demanded Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“I left it hanging in the entrance-hall. And I saw it on the +rack as you and I came down the stairs before we went in to the +Bidding Feast.”</p> + +<p>“By gad, I remember it too,” he assented. “Then if—”</p> + +<p>But he never finished that sentence, whose protases and apodoses +might have filled an hour. Quick with surmise, we turned +back to the house.</p> + +<p>Millicent Mertoun and her retinue had by this time gone +upstairs, but the Hall of the Moth was full of the women-servants +of the house, arrayed in white as if risen from their +graves in winding sheets. A small boy in a nightgown, scared +half to death, was blubbering soulfully, as were some of the +women. Blenkinson, the butler, the only man of them who had +not got into clothes and gone forth, was quieting everyone with +loud sibilance.</p> + +<p>Pendleton confronted them somewhat nervously.</p> + +<p>“There’s been too much racket about nothing,” he asserted. +“Miss Mertoun walked a little in her sleep. That’s really +all that’s happened. You’re all very silly, you see, to take on so. +Now get to bed.”</p> + +<p>But when they had departed he turned upon Eve Bartholomew +with a face full of bale. “I can tell you one thing about +Sir Brooke. If he doesn’t show up to-morrow and clear things +up a bit, he’ll find no Bidding Feast when he gets here. I’ll +invite ’em to clear out. I’m not going to have my guests hounded +and threatened.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bartholomew gasped. “Why, you can’t say that Sir +Brooke has anything—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” scowled Pendleton, “but I want +him—here!”</p> + +<p>We are truly blissful marriage celebrators.</p> + +<p>. . . . A thought had been germinating in my mind ever since +the moment of my near-madness on the lawn, when the iniquity +of Parson Lolly had so taken hold of me. When we were alone:</p> + +<p>“Crofts, I want to prove I’m not crazy. Show me where you +want me to sleep, and give me a book to write in. And keep it +quiet, for heaven’s sake.”</p> + +<p>“A book to write in?”</p> + +<p>“I have many words within me craving to be penned. Give +me a book to write in, and show me my room.”</p> + +<p>Well, this is the room, and these some of the words.</p> + +<p>Now to tell of the many things that happened to me to-day +before these many things.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch02"> + +<h2>II. <br> The Bull</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">Yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>About this time I was sitting on a damp sharp +stone, looking about me and seeing nothing. I had walked for a +long while and gotten nowhere. For there was persistent mist +still in the uplands, and I had strayed into the thick of it and +was hopelessly befogged, hungry, and a trifle anxious about the +probable duration of my helplessness.</p> + +<p>My thoughts just then were largely retrospect. I had set +out from—well, I have forgotten the spelling of the place, but +it’s no matter.<a href="#note1" id="noteref1">¹</a> +The names in Wales have fascinating orthography +and, to one not adept, rather unobvious pronunciations. +I had set out from this place which must be anonymous in +order to search for something that had not been seen for several +centuries, the private oratory or shrine or cell of St. Tarw, a +rather unbelievable name, or, in the American idiom, a bully +one, whichever way you look at it, for a Welsh saint. It’s one +that anybody can say without arduous practice. The saint himself +was a rather incredible individual. It happens that I know +something of saints, they being a particular hobby of mine, and +yet I was uncertain at that moment whether St. Tarw was a +man or was a whisper on the faëry breeze of legend. But as it +happened, in the course of researches in London, I found hints +that, man or whisper, he had left or there had been left for him +in what to-day is Radnorshire, a monument of stone in which +he did his devotions, or had been believed to do them.</p> + +<p>It was in the Book of Sylvan Armitage that I ran across the +clue. The Book is a chronicle of the diversions of a sixteenth-century +gentleman, and mine is a genuine first printing of 1598. +It contains an allusion which I am confident refers to a +performance of the “Merchant of Venice” at Blackfriars, which +allusion would stagger the erudite who prate glibly of the “order +of Shakespeare’s plays,” if they gave it a thought. But much +more interesting to me is the reference to the devotional seat +of St. Tarw.</p> + +<p>Sylvan Armitage, progressing through Wales in 1594, visited +the house of an Englishman residing in that lately +war-distraught country. On one of their “long gaddynges and +peregrinations afoot,” for riding was not feasible among these +broken mountains, they came upon a humble structure of “hewn +stones, much dishevelled and marvellously coated by moss,” +says Sylvan Armitage. He adds that the “cella” had been built +under a bank, and that this very fact was then threatening its +existence. Small chance of success then for me.</p> + +<p>So yesterday while I sat on my ungrateful seat with the mist +wreathing about me, I half-abandoned the search before it had +properly begun. For the dozenth time I took out the letter I +had received the day before from my dear old friends, Jack and +Mary Bonnet of Bristol. Their barque, recently returned from +Australia, will leave the dry-dock in a day or so and take the +sea again from Bristol next Monday. Would I join them in a +“terror and pleasure” trip somewhere around Africa or the +Scandinavian coast? Of course, I reflected, it would take me +fully a week to wind up my affairs in preparation for such an +ocean journey. I must drop the saint business. I looked at the +fog, felt sick of saints, and almost decided I would go.</p> + +<p>I had let down my burden, a soldier’s knapsack and a fairly +well-loaded one, to the grass beside my feet. I decided to eat +my luncheon. I tucked the Bonnet letter away and took out +my beef-sandwiches, milk in a thermos-flask, and walnut meats, +a substantial meal in small compass. My long morning’s tramp +on the uplands had made me very hungry. It was not only +the tramp, but the slipping and falling and crawling, for the +yellow grass was long and trodden flat by cattle, making the +side slopes very toilsome, and, in the mist, risky, for you +sometimes did not know whether you might fall ten feet or a +thousand.</p> + +<p>I had been exploring Aidenn Forest, but I had early left the +lowland area of trees. The uplands, miles of broad-topped hills +in a range of horseshoe shape, were given over largely to +cattle-grazing. There were long pastures of rolling and heaving slopes, +like the gently-breathing ocean of midsummer. My meal over, +I unfolded my contour-map of the Geographical Institute and +pondered over it, trying by recollection and inference to +determine just where I was. But I had not the remotest clue to +slope or distance. I might have been at one extreme of the +horseshoe or the other, or any spot betwixt. It was two o’clock.</p> + +<p>Neither my literary nor my philosophic studies, which are +supposed to chasten the mind to resignation, comforted my +thoughts in the least, but suddenly I was aware of a change in +the atmosphere. The mist seemed suffused with silver, then with +gold. Soon the phantoms of fog had retracted far on either side +in lofty, shifting, sun-rayed banks, and the air became clear +about me. But I remained in doubt about my position.</p> + +<p>For the mist had cleared only to the shoulders of the hills, +and left the rolling heights a-sparkle like early morning; but +the valleys and the great outer hills of Wales, girding Aidenn +Forest, were blind to me. From the declining sun I could tell +which way was west, but knowledge of that direction alone +was no use. Was I on the western curve of the horseshoe or the +opposite? Nor did it help to recall that my ascent of Aidenn +Forest had been the north, where the two curves meet, the open +part of the horseshoe being to the south. I was as confused as +ever.</p> + +<p>At least I could walk freely, keep to the smooth uplands +without peril of falling down some gap or gully. I strode on in +the grandeur of the sun, the mighty halo of mist extending a +mile all around, a more gorgeous glory than bully St. Tarw or +any other of the blessed men of earth ever wore. The towering +wall of mist was warm with the light that occasionally melted +through and dazzled the ragged hill-slope underneath; the +cloud-caps wreathed and spired like golden smoke, and I went +on proudly and merrily in my enormous prison. I felt like a +god, exultant. I reached out my hands and lifted my face to the +heavens. My loneliness apotheosized me. I laughed. I +shouted, <i>ebriatus</i>. Never before have I experienced that sense of space +and power, that vigour beyond muscle and sense, that reckless +rapture!</p> + +<p>Nearly an hour passed. Grasshoppers leapt to either side of +my path with little soft comings to earth; the sound was like +the first drops of rain. Black-game and grouse twice or thrice +scampered and scudded from my feet, and suddenly out of the +fog which had closed in on my left swept a great bevy of +unknown birds with a thunder of wings. I judged then that I +was not far from the brink of a steep pitch on the edge of the +uplands. The mist which had glorified me was beginning to +hem me more straitly and I bore away to the right, being wary +of pitfalls.</p> + +<p>Gradually, while I moved up and down the placid slopes and +crossed wide expanses wherein I was an ephemeral topic for +cows and shambling tattered ponies, an inexpressible sense told +me precisely where I was on the lofty horseshoe of Aidenn +Forest. Fragmentary half-submerged memories of my contour-map, +of the dip of the slopes where I trod, of instructions proffered +me by scraggy, wry-spoken yokels (with obligato of a pig +screaming at a gate), of the arc described by the sun, of the +bated breath of the breeze—all these united to fix my certainty. +My feet just at that moment were ascending on the flattened +grass of a small summit; Mynydd Tarw I knew it was, whose +highest spot was considerably above two thousand feet. Mynydd +Tarw, on the verge of the horseshoe’s eastern bend, was where +I had concluded the oratory of St. Tarw was most likely to be +found.</p> + +<p>I explored the hill and all about, but unfortunately it was +creased and gorged by channels, tiny valleys. Trees and rank +underbrush grew in these troughs, increasing in thickness down +the declivity, and the banners of mist were tangled in the trees. +The trunks were clammy, the fallen leaves dank, the earth too +soft for good footing. My shoes sank over the ankles in leaves +and loam. Bereft of my halo, I had little joy. And after an +hour of climbing up and down, groping and grasping, of peering +for traces of foundered or buried walls, I realized, with a +shock that sickened me, that I was out of my reckoning in the +lower fog again, and that I could not trace my way back. I +could not even tell in which direction Mynydd Tarw lay.</p> + +<p>I was almost frantic. It was now past mid-afternoon, less +than two hours before sunset, and had I known the bee-line to +my hostel in the difficultly-pronounced village, I could not have +reached it before darkness had long covered Wales.</p> + +<p>The valleys, immersed in mist below me, were a wilderness, +and broad of expanse; once on the uplands again, however, I +believed I could find Mynydd Tarw, and thence strike on the +true way home. As for exploring the Vale of Aidenn Water +itself, I had no reason to believe that man had ever built a +habitation there. To regain the uplands was my anxious wish; +but not even this was an easy feat. I was weary already, from +physical exertion and strain of mind, but it should have been +easy to keep my course upward, however slow my progress. Yet +the yellow grass and the heather was flat and long, and +whether still dry or drenched with fog, slippery and maddening +to ascend upon. Moreover, I would find myself in channels torn +and scarred by water, now streamless in summer season, but +choked with thorny creepers and thick spear-like stalks in +malign barriers.</p> + +<p>But I persevered, although I found the mist had grown +thicker above as day declined. Presently I recognized the sweet +smell of new-cut hay in fields above me, and soon afterward +kneeing myself to the sharp edge of a parapet of rock, I rejoiced +to see the smoky round of the sun. There was a line of wild +apple-trees along the rim of the uplands at this point. The +crooked branches and straggling shoots of them made them all +like black hats of witches wreathed with tattered ribbons, save +for the one directly before me, through whose limbs half-despoiled +of leaves the sun sent a wicked leering shine that made +me singularly uneasy.</p> + +<p>I had come into a region thickly populated with cattle. There +were a score on the hillock to my right, and when I had gone +thence over a bristling wire fence I found a hundred more filling +the twilight plain with their shadows. There was not a sound +from the widespread throng, but I had a feeling that each +dispassionate bovine head was turned toward me, and I advanced +with something of the shyness of a child crossing a drawing-room +where he feels every eye cold and critical. A little the +uncanny sense gripped me that I had happened upon some +land undiscovered by Gulliver, where cows were people, and +very superior people. There had been so few of them visible all +day, now so many; I could not rid myself of the notion that I +was an intruder. (Just then the reasonable explanation did not +occur to me that atmospheric conditions had much to do with +the migrations of the beasts from place to place on the +horseshoe.)</p> + +<p>Across an unkempt stone wall which I whipped up laggard +muscles to leap—I was going rapidly—sweet-fleshed sheep, +of orthodox tan, the cross of Welsh mountain breed with +black-faced “Shrops,” were nudging one another in an anxious mass. +I looked toward the sinking sun and discerned a black rift +perhaps a mile distant: the Vale of Aidenn Water, with the +prominences of the western arm of the horseshoe, Great Rhos, +Esgair Nantau, and Vron Hill, nosing up to the sky even +another mile beyond.</p> + +<p>Then down on me came dark ruin with a rush.</p> + +<p>I was aware appallingly of some vaster shadow blotting out +the gorgeous disc which lay on the western hills, a shadow +blatant, militant, perilous. A sting of fear in my breast goaded +me to instant flight; I was plunging away all in an instant, +every part of me in panic, without realization of what it was +from which I fled.</p> + +<p>Ten seconds of rushing flight, a frantic glance behind me, +and my returning faculties told me what that fell form was, +horned and pawed, with cavorting death-like head and eyes +evilly a-gleam, the shape rampaging, the feet tremendous on the +shaken ground. I knew too well those signs of the Hereford +breed, the twining horns and the white face so startlingly +suggestive of the skull beneath. It was a bull, the hugest bull on +earth, insane with murderous passion.</p> + +<p>Terror winged me in that course for life. Once I stumbled +and rolled down a slope littered with small stones, but my speed +was scarcely lessened. I must have regained my feet, for I +drove myself through a patch of merciless nettles and awful +thorns, yet was hardly sensible of being torn and stabbed. Not +until long afterward did I feel the heavy bruise, like the mark +of an iron palm, which my hard and firmly fastened pack had +printed between my shoulder-blades, saving me a worse blow. +Now my due training for the mile at the University, not so +very long ago, and the desire for strict regimen then instilled in +me, and my frequent jaunts on foot through broad countrysides, +were in good stead. In the beginning of this breathless chase, I +had had a wide margin of advantage, and now I was all but +holding my own, when ahead of me I saw deliverance. For I +had turned westward in flight across the leveller hilltop, and +the brink of the Vale of Aidenn Water, with its slope looking a +precipice all around and its hollow now a mammoth bowl of +impenetrable fog, was less than a furlong away ahead.</p> + +<p>Risk had to be taken to make safety sure. I chanced another +ugly fall by a quick twist of my neck. I led by twenty yards. +Gradually, therefore, I diminished my pace so that at the verge +of the cliff only ten feet might separate us—and just before I +would have leaped out into the turbid air, I used every remaining +particle of strength in a sidewise lunge downward to the +grass, letting the bull flash with unconquerable momentum over +the edge.</p> + +<p>But I myself was a vessel of momentum and could not by +any frantic clutching and clawing soever keep myself from +sliding over the brink and slipping from an abrupt decline to a +sharper one, whence with horrified mind I felt myself go over +the verge of nothingness! While I fell backward with eyes staring +to the lurid sky, I saw the hulk of the bull shoot out from +the summit of the cliff. Never have I seen a thing as black as +the mass of the beast, with limbs winnowing in the air and head +and vast nose outstretched. The black body would have crushed +me to pulp had I not flung myself aside a moment before. I know +that I must have been still in the air when the bull struck a +thrust-out ledge far below the cliff—I had caught just an +instant’s glare of one eye, demoniac and hopeless—then the +animal went bellowing and thumping down through the fog into +unseen depths until one final crash and cry ended sound in +ghastly silence.</p> + +<div class="footnotesep"></div> + +<p class="footnote" id="note1">¹ +Actually Llanbadarnfynydd, nine miles away, where I had put up +before. My landlord had given me a lift half-way down in his Morris. +(Author’s note.) +<a href="#noteref1">↩︎</a></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch03"> + +<h2>III. <br> The House</h2> + +<p>I don’t suppose I was in the air a second, but there +was time enough for me to rue my neglect of Jack Bonnet’s +invitation. Why hadn’t I turned round and gone away from the +Forest and let the oratory go hang?</p> + +<p>I was aware soon afterward that I was still alive in a queer +place under the shelter of the hilltop, a place all caved-in earth +and half-buried squarish rock, like heavy tombstones thickly +lichened, and resting, some of them, one upon the other. I was +on my back with my head on a pillow of fungi; beneath +the pillow, however, was a sufficiently flinty foundation. For a +long time I remained supine, and listened with interest while +my heart gradually resumed a normal rate. The upper tangle +of the fog was just beyond and below me; yet when I looked +at the dark brink above, I realized that never, never could I +climb back at the spot where I had fallen. But I felt a great +gladness.</p> + +<p>I explored the place little more than was necessary to get my +bearings. So upon regaining enough strength I commenced to +creep along the face of the cliff, now and then dipping into the +region of the mist and losing sight of the sky, which was growing +desolate of light. At length I found a slope where the grass +was short and turf firm, a sward. I went now at a pace between +a walk and a run and congratulated myself on making headway, +though the brow of the ravine was forbidding above me still. +Then the bank became startlingly overgrown with trees, and the +drizzle was thicker among them.</p> + +<p>I slowed to a snail’s pace, and that was well for me. All too +soon my foot gave way on the left-hand edge of a mass of +undergrowth quite impenetrable to sight. I struggled to take hold of +something, did, in fact, grasp stems that yielded instantly to my +weight, for they were frail and grew on a perpendicular face +of earth. Once more I had the exquisitely dreadful sensation of +falling whither I could not tell. My body ripped down through +a mesh and tangle of shrubs that availed almost nothing to stay +my descent. I accelerated.</p> + +<p>Then my ribs struck a goodly branch with a knock that did +indeed break my fall, but before I could twine an arm about this +saviour, I had jounced to a lower branch, thence to the ground, +this time with only a moderate jar.</p> + +<p>I was on a narrow rocky path with the densely overgrown +hill on one hand and the mist of the Vale—yawning space—on +the other. I thought for a flash that I had invaded the +home-ledge of some unrecorded ape or gorilla. For a creature cried +out in my very face, a man coming up, as it were, out of the +living rock of the path before me. He was fustian-clad, heavy-set, +dark-featured, scowling frightfully, and my impression was +that he was almost spent of breath. His mouth gaped in a rictus +of strain and fear.</p> + +<p>“Mawkerdjey—immilath acowal!” So they sounded, the +words he spat in my face, the shout he shouted uninterpretable +by my English ears in that cranny of Wales. But meaningless +as was the shout to me, it remained clear in my auditive memory, +as a scene sometimes is keenly limned in one’s inattentive sight. +And I was sure it was not Welsh. Nor was this because Radnorshire +is a backsliding county where the ancient language has +yielded to the new. The shape and stress of the cry were unlike +what speech I have heard in the remoter areas where Welsh is +still spoken.</p> + +<p>In an instant the fellow had scuffled past me and was ascending +in the fog, while yet I leaned on my hand with buzzing +senses and jerky mind. I staggered to my feet and looked upward +along the path. At the head of the rise a glimmer of sea-green +sunset-light lingered, and the broad bulk of the man staggered +against that semi-darkness, a diminishing silhouette. At length I +saw him reach the top of the rise, throw up his hands in a sort +of gesture of weary achievement, and disappear to the uplands +beyond.</p> + +<p>Excitedly, and full of profitless conjecture as to what might +be his business upon the rolling solitudes of Aidenn Forest, I +turned on my way down the zigzag path, being resolved to explore +the Vale for shelter since now it was hopeless to make my +way over the fells and crags to my Welsh tavern lodging that +night. The outcry of the ape-like man was still distinct in my +ears, an undecipherable shout, one, I knew, strange even in this +region of strange tongues.</p> + +<p>I had paused, arrested by a sound the like of which I have +never known, a roaring sound, not the boom of cannon or the +rage of water or the thunder of avalanche, all of which I have +heard. It came from below and far away, a gentle roar; I +thought it might be some superhuman voice. As a fact, while I +listened, I became convinced that it was a voice of great power +with something unique and quite baffling in its quality, one full +capable of terrifying a man of unsteady nerves. Yet I was sure +that in a different context I would recognize that quality as a +natural thing. The muffled echoes of the voice rocked around the +Vale; words I am sure there were, the same phrase or sentence +repeated many times, but the utmost strain of ear and faculties +did not enable me to distinguish the meaning of a syllable. Then +the distant shout and its reflections ceased, and I heard only the +still grasses. I went on, full of living fancies.</p> + +<p>A new sound greeted me out of the darkness, the rippling +song of a nightingale on my right beyond the brink. The trees +in the depths of Aidenn Vale, then, must be near below. And +presently finding almost level ground, I heard the chuckle of +water, and discerned a lofty fall of dulled silver, indeed passed +it so close that the rising spray touched my cheek. Thus I had +found Aidenn Water, not far from its springs on the shoulder +of Black Mixen at the upper end of the horseshoe.</p> + +<p>Straining my sight in the clogged air, I could trace the +black thread of the watercourse on my right hand. Beside it +I trod, to the broken descant of amorous birds. And while I +went the way of the stream south among the wilding trees, the +dark mist paled. I raised my eyes; great Whimble hill loomed +before me, and over its stern summit crept a chipped and +gibbous moon, softly lustering. While the moon went up the sky, +I trolled on southward in air grey and spectral under the +frowning summits of Aidenn Vale.</p> + +<p>The pathway left the stream for a gentle rise through the +trees. Still I could hear Aidenn Water clamour down the Vale +while it skipped along. Soon I emerged from the thick of the +wood into an open space, the level summit of a vast mound, and +with a certain freshening of surprise found myself approaching +a lonely wall built by human strength.</p> + +<p>A wall—no more—ruinous and desolate, toppled in many +places from its original height.</p> + +<p>Passing closer, I discovered the confounded and scattered remnant +of other wasted walls, strewn like bones in the brightening +glamour of the moon. And midway among them stood one tree +of mighty stature, doubtless rendered even more towering by +the witchery of mist and moonlight.</p> + +<p>Sometimes acoustic conditions prevent one from hearing what +goes on just round the corner only a few feet away. So, then, +my path led me toward the south-west end of the ruin, and precisely +at the standing angle of the stone I ran into another man. +I did literally run into him, for he was soft and spongy, and my +first feeling was that I had encountered a hot-water bottle +strolling as leisurely as if on the Mall.</p> + +<p>We recoiled from a position cheek by jowl. A light flashed +in my eyes, and at the same instant I directed the glare of my +pocket-torch, which I still possessed, into his eyes. Our speeches, +too, crossed each other.</p> + +<p>“Pardon! I didn’t hear you, sir!”</p> + +<p>“What are you doing here?”</p> + +<p>It was not the greeting I had expected; in fact, I felt it quite +discourteous. Moreover, he kept the spot-light of his dark-lantern +playing on my features for some time, and his piercing +eyes studied me critically. In return I gave his exterior a good +scrutiny.</p> + +<p>My light revealed a tall figure, appearing excessively, +grotesquely tall because it was wearing a very high, narrow +top-hat, almost a steeple-hat. The man was large and round as well +as long. His face compared with the rest of his body was +relatively narrow; I saw glittering eyes and a long, straight nose, +eyebrows black like coals, and a mantling, pointed beard, also +very thick and fiercely black. What gave me the creeps was that +this beard did not grow quite straight, but was tilted a little to +the left.</p> + +<p>His clothing, I saw in this long dissection, was that of an +elderly man, a black double-breasted frock-coat, not cutaway, +and black trousers which descended to elastic-sided boots. And +under the arm toward which the beard slanted was lodged an +old, bulgy umbrella with a large metal handle. He quickly +shifted this article into his right hand, grasping it toward the +point so that it might be a weapon of considerable moment, his +left hand holding the dark-lantern.</p> + +<p>He was the first to break the silence. Smiling, he replaced the +umbrella under his arm.</p> + +<p>“Ah, pardon me, please. I see that you are on my side.” His +voice, now I noticed it, was rather deep, and yet rather young +for one of his solemn appearance.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I’m not against you,” I answered, and lowered my +light out of his eyes. He followed suit.</p> + +<p>“You are one of the natives of this region?” he asked, and +with his question came the thought to me that he might be a +foreigner, although his full, somewhat throaty voice was perfectly +assimilated to the Anglican inflections. Those coat-skirts +somehow gave him a little of a Continental aspect—and that +umbrella! Didn’t Schubert always carry an umbrella? or was I +thinking of Paul Pry?</p> + +<p>“I should say not,” I responded. “I, too, am a stranger.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, you, <em>too</em>? What a pity!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, am I not correct in believing that you—”</p> + +<p>“Quite so, sir; my name, sir, is Septimus MacWilloughby, +and I was taught not far from Birmingham. And now, sir, will +you kindly tell me what you have been doing here?”</p> + +<p>“Been doing? Doing? Why, nothing, in the sense you seem +to mean. And have you any business with me? Isn’t it rather—?”</p> + +<p>“It is necessary.”</p> + +<p>“I lost my way in fog up there on the hilltops and came down +into the Vale in the hope of finding some sort of shelter. I was +just passing by this—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course,” said Mr. MacWilloughby, in what seemed +to me a rather meditative tone. “Tell me, please: in your +travelling to-day have you run across a very small grey spaniel, +with ink-spots?”</p> + +<p>I was reduced to repeating, “With ink-spots?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, certainly: I repeat, a small grey spaniel, with ink-spots. +The dog was not to blame if the bottle was too near the edge of +the table. No, I see that you have not. Well then, by chance you +may have seen a pair of Scandinavian ponies, both lame in the +off foreleg?”</p> + +<p>“I certainly have not.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” sighed my interlocutor. He stabbed the ground +with his umbrella, leaned upon it with both hands, large, red, +bloated hands, nervously twitching fat fingers. “And finally, +did you notice whether any snakes—”</p> + +<p>I was growing exasperated, whether or not this <i>soi-disant</i> +MacWilloughby was making merry at my expense.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know,” I asked harshly, “that there are no snakes +in Radnorshire?”</p> + +<p>“But these were from my menagerie. Dear me, my menagerie +will be dreadfully depleted, I fear. You didn’t—?”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” I exploded; “have you a Bull of Bashan on your +list? If you have, your bull’s dead—I can tell you so much. With +the exception of a cave-man who was running up the path there, +every animal I’ve seen has been indigenous.”</p> + +<p>“But snakes—from my menagerie,” he protested mildly, +ignoring my tone. He indicated with the umbrella and his free +hand, for a pencil of moonlight from rifted clouds had caused +us both to stow away our torches. “Snakes about so long.”</p> + +<p>“No, no!”</p> + +<p>He shrugged disappointedly. “Well! if it must be. Then you +will tell me, please, which of these hills”—he included them all +with a sweep of the umbrella—“is called Kerry Hill?”</p> + +<p>“Why, none of them. Kerry Hill is outside this county, +thirty miles away.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, so far away? Then I must be leaving at once. I have a +friend who lives in a little house on the top of that hill, and he +will be anxious for me.”</p> + +<p>Whereupon Mr. MacWilloughby strode past me, but checked +himself. “Stay—what was that you said about a cave-man?”</p> + +<p>I was willing to humour him a little longer. “Oh, I met <em>him</em> +right enough. He shouted some gibberish in my face and +passed me going to the uplands.”</p> + +<p>“Oh? Now that is very good. You may think it inexcusable of +me, sir, but I had the idea for a little while that you were that +cave-man. I asked you those questions partly to hear a little of +your language. Now, since you say Kerry Hill is so far, I +really—”</p> + +<p>He commenced to walk away, but I protested.</p> + +<p>“I think it’s time you answered a question or two of mine. +I don’t know what possesses you to climb into that wilderness, +even if your whole menagerie is kicking its heels up there—they’ll +keep. But you can at least tell me what I’m likely to +find further down the Vale. Shall I find anyone there?”</p> + +<p>The stranger’s face, in spite of its startling features, grew +really pleasant with a smile. “I believe you will find someone +further down. Yes, I believe you will find all you want.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not looking for any special number of people,” I told +him tartly. “I want a house—shelter—a place to stop overnight. +Am I clear?”</p> + +<p>Mr. MacWilloughby seemed to have lost interest in his +surroundings. In answer to my question he murmured, “Yes, you +are very likely to find a house,” but his thought seemed to be +running in other channels. He was biting the beard of his +nether lip. Suddenly he drew himself up. “You might mention—if +you decide to stop—to the master of the hostelry, that his +many watch-dogs are causing me inconvenience. Secretly, you +understand. All this you must tell him secretly. I enjoy the +society of the menagerie, and of many kinds of dogs—the +Russian wolf-hound, the Dalmatian—but I do not care for the +two-legged kind he has out to-night. It is not a thing I like to +mention, you understand—it is so delicate—but when one is +actually precluded from stepping across a stile—” Hand and +umbrella made an expressive gesture. “You catch my drift, I +perceive.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be sure to tell him,” I remarked sardonically.</p> + +<p>“You will?” he exclaimed with a parade of pleasure. “Then +in that case I shall not need protection against the rain.”</p> + +<p>His arm shot out, and I saw the umbrella fly up like a thick +javelin through the air, to disappear beyond the wall beside +which we stood.</p> + +<p>“Another thing!” he cried, and I detected a real note of +sincerity in his tempestuous voice. “Tell the golden-haired woman +that I have warned her to beware of the blighter with the red +face and the pot of money. She should dismiss him—utterly. I +have seen what I have seen.”</p> + +<p>I emitted a dry “No doubt.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir, for your great courtesy,” said Mr. +MacWilloughby. His lofty hat he removed with a flowing ease; he +bent his back in an old-time inclination. Then in the fluctuating +moonlight I saw not only black beard and brows, but as well +a wriggling mass of black hair. He was smiling, but his smile +now had a touch of wildness, even of ghoulishness. He set his +hat upon his brows again.</p> + +<p>“I shall not need even finger-nails if I meet another like +you,” he said.</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel and continued his stately promenade +toward the summit of the Vale. I watched him until the moon +surrendered and the mist had him. Where was he going? To +join that prehistoric man on the hill? And where in heaven’s +name had he come <em>from</em>?</p> + +<p>Mad? Was he mad? No more mad than I. I realized, +the moment he had projected his umbrella, that he was +eminently sane. But he had overplayed his part a little—for his +audience.</p> + +<p>Continuing on my southward way, I soon passed the site +of what had been the outer walls of this great castle, though +now little remained save one block of hewn stone upon another +here and there. Most of the material had probably been carried +off to build some mansion of a later age.</p> + +<p>I left the ruin, advancing down the Vale, whose bounds of +lofty crag and hanger were darkly visible for a little while. But +I could not leave behind me the thought of the huge man and +his eccentric speeches. Only new surprises could reave that +vision from me; and presently, passing a large, white-painted, +wood-gate, I was startled to observe that although I was in a +wilderness, it was an extraordinarily well-ordered wilderness. +The trees along the path, ash and sycamore, I believed, stood at +like distances from one another and were spaced regularly +opposite. I seemed to be marching along a smooth avenue in a +park; the remoter trees, too, although they were obscure as +fleeing ghosts, appeared to flee away in serried ranks. The spaces +in the glades looked clear of underbrush. I was glad to note these +signs, if signs they were, of human tending, with their +suggestion of human nearness, for even my refreshened strength was +slipping away from me and the welts and strains of my body +were clamouring again.</p> + +<p>Quicker than I had expected, I was out of the toy wilderness +into a clear space of thirty-odd yards (the dominant moon +showed me this), and Aidenn Water was roaming close beside +my path. A brook going to join the larger stream from some +hill-recess on my left was crossed by an old stone bridge with +urns at the ends of its stone balustrades, a ridiculously massive +structure for so insignificant a watercourse. But a few seconds +later I passed another object built with overplus of formality +and ostentation, a semi-rustic house which could have been no +more than a summer-house, quite unsuited for habitation but +freaked and loaded with statuary and gewgaws.</p> + +<p>“The eighteenth century!” I murmured. “What nightmares +did they not have in the Age of Reason? Am I now to find a +geometrical mansion of Georgian brick?”</p> + +<p>I had entered a new zone of drizzle and mist when I had my +first evidence of the house appertaining hereto. The fog thickened +almost to the density of a wall, and when the well-ordered +path ceased at the edge of the lawns, I blundered against a +tree trunk, one of three standing alone in gloom and grandeur +in the open space. I generously cursed the spirits, whose +exhalation, as every Welsh peasant used to know, the mist is. By a +flash of my torch I recognized the three tapering shapes as +horizontal cypresses, and at once I felt relief, for I was sure +that these none-too-hardy trees must be of a recent and venturesome +planting. I was becoming convinced that human lives were +not far from me.</p> + +<p>A few steps more and I was standing on a pebble walk beneath +the shorter northern wall of a definitely up-to-date +structure. The stone may have been old stone, but it had been +smoothed off within a generation, and the ivy had evidently been +somewhat restricted in its rambling in order that the broad-spread +glass of this storey might not be effaced from the light. +Why all this glass? A conservatory? I stepped across the walk, +flashed my torch, peered in, saw a glimmering galaxy of flowers, +sniffed and detected a hint of their thick odour, was satisfied. A +conservatory it was, extending from end to end of this northern +wall, with unlit, wide-paned windows from end to end save +where a steep outer stair led up to a small roofless platform and +door in the first storey; and I perceived a vague second storey, +above which chimneys sprouted.</p> + +<p>Now, I should not have lingered here more than a few seconds, +had not there burst forth a chill sound that actually took +me out of myself for a moment, a caterwauling from somewhere +behind me and further toward the mountain wall of the ravine. +It seemed impossible that such a desecration of silence could +proceed from a single throat. It was a sobbing cry full of hunger, +but there was positive anger and direness in it. It had a quality, +too, of immitigable anguish, as though all the hopelessness of +dumb beasts were its burden. Once the throbbing cry subsided +into a gruff growl, and then, strangely enough, was the first +time that I recognized its clamour as that of a cat. “But,” I +remembered thinking, “it must be a cat as big as a wolf.” +And while the last throes of the savage wailing echoed back +from the hill, I looked up to the gloomy heights of the mansion, +as if I expected each dark window to flare with inquiring light.</p> + +<figure> + <img src="images/map.jpg" alt="A map of the area surrounding + Highglen House. Close to the house are some ruins and the Stables. + A road leads from the stables, past the house, and then down the + map. Off to the left is a grove of strawberry trees, in the middle + of which sits a hard tennis court. At the top right corner of the + map is a building labelled “Farm of the sisters Delambre”. The + farm sits close to a fence, which runs across the map until it + meets the river, labelled “Aidenn Water”. The river runs down the + left side of the map, turning briefly towards the middle of the + map where it crosses under the road. Between Highglen House and + the farm is a footpath, halfway along which it passes a small + structure labelled “18th Century Summer House”. A small brook + branches off of Aidenn Water which crosses the footpath at a small + bridge, and from there another footpath continues up the map, + through a gate in the fence, and beyond."> +</figure> + +<p>In puzzlement and lively eagerness to discover more about +this mansion, I turned to the right and followed the walk to the +corner of the conservatory, where it joined a drive that wound +out of the right-hand darkness. I discovered that the side of the +house extended a hundred feet or more parallel to the course +of Aidenn Water. Visible, too, on the broad lawn at four or +five rods’ distance from the house was a tall, two-legged thing, +fifty feet high by a rough judgment, an erection of twin towers +with a passageway above and between, the whole standing lonely, +dark and still.</p> + +<p>The conservatory’s narrow side ended in the jutting of a +tower, quite black. Between this and the next tower, its +counterpart, I caught dim glimpses of modern french windows, a +pair of them, evidently belonging to the same large room. There +was a formal entrance between the second tower and the third, +but since it was unlit, I decided to go further in hopes of finding +the main portal. Yet I had a view of what was behind the door, +and again I paused, fascinated.</p> + +<p>Inside the third tower, the projecting half of an octagon +studded with little windows, I saw a taper burning low in an +old candlestick fastened like a bracket on the wall, a thing of +fantastic crooks and curlicues. The light was blue and brittle, +for the wick was surfeited with grease. But I was able to see +three men in the panelled hallway, two of them standing, or +perhaps leaning, against the wall. Of these I perceived no more +than their dark featureless forms, and a marked stiffness in their +attitudes. On the opposite side of the hall from the candle, they +were too vague to be any more particularized than as human +forms. The third man, save for his little tuft of white hair, had +been no more than a smudge either.</p> + +<p>For he was bent over, his back toward me, <em>and he was picking +the pockets of the other two men</em>! I can describe his actions in no +better way. They, seemingly stupefied, made no motion to +prevent!</p> + +<p>I must say that the old, white-tufted fellow was not very +adroit at his work. I stood absolutely spell-bound while I +watched him paw about the clothing of the two others. The +candle guttered with special vehemence, and the pilferer turned +upward to it an anxious eye. Then he appeared to make a decision; +standing full length, he crossed to the candle and lifted +his lean fingers to snuff it. I was impressed by a sight of his +narrow brown face, vulturine in contour, with the tall, furrowed +brow of a student, the thin, pale lips of an ascetic, and +the broken-off jaw of a fighter. The expression was whimsical +and wily. The light glinted for an instant on a green eye, on +white smiling teeth, and on the diamond stud in his shirt-front. +Then the fingers smothered the feeble flame, and he was in the +darkness with those dazed ones I suspected were his victims.</p> + +<p>And I hastened around the fourth tower, larger than the +rest, at the southern extremity of the mansion. What was I to +do? Had I in fact witnessed the induction to a serious crime? +Was it my duty to report what I had seen? It must depend on +circumstances; perhaps the old tufted sinner was the proprietor +himself. I must be cautious. I must be dissimulative.</p> + +<p>Above all, I must not be surprised.</p> + +<p>An electric chandelier sparkled in the large corner tower, +revealing it to be part of the sumptuous library of the mansion, +empty of persons. I found the entrance I sought in the middle +of the south end of the building. The crunching drive made a +great circle, leading to a square-arched, ivied entry. A barred +lamp above the vestibule faintly revealed the arms of the house +cut in stone at the apex of the arch, and surmounting this, as a +sort of crest, was the rude but unmistakable image of a cat’s +head. I dimly perceived a feline nose with faintest trace of +whisker running along it, and triangular ears. The mouth was +grinning, not pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Here was matter for vast surprise, but I must not <em>be</em> +surprised!</p> + +<p>I stepped underneath the arch, to the broad iron-bound +black-door. Another pale light revealed the knocker, an iron +piece in the shape of the paw of a cat. There was also the +button of an electric bell. I grasped the paw and struck twice.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately the door opened. “Come in,” said a +voice. “You’ve been—”</p> + +<p><em>I must not be surprised!</em> But I gaped, and gurgled, for all I +know.</p> + +<p>The sturdy square-set fellow in evening dress who had opened +the door so suddenly and who now stood in the half-light was +staring at me, beginning to look a little <i>distrait</i>.</p> + +<p>“Oh, so you’re not—” he commenced brusquely, and, +changing his tone, recommenced, “But <em>are</em> you, or aren’t—?”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” I managed to gasp. “I’m not—I don’t think so.”</p> + +<p>I had known nothing of Aidenn Vale or of the ruins, +mansions, or creatures in it. But I knew this man!</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch04"> + +<h2>IV. <br> The Bidding Feast</h2> + +<p>“Pendleton!” I exclaimed, “the Honourable +Crofts Pendleton!”</p> + +<p>“Eh?”</p> + +<p>“Hail, fellow well met! This <em>is</em> a lark!”</p> + +<p>The man was nonplussed. It had always been, at least for me, +one of his chief charms when we were in the same college, the +haziness and obstruction of mind that were so queerly assorted +with his solidity of physique. Now, eight years between, he was +bulkier than ever and (I was willing to wager) yet more +detached from reality in his mental operations.</p> + +<p>He was scratching his fine mane of hair now, irresolute. And +he really had reason to be confused while we confronted each +other in the dimly-lit porch. For I presented such a scotched +and scrambled appearance as never before, mould-mud-and-sweat-clotted, +unrecognizable no doubt even to my most accustomed +friends. Why should he not be startled when in this +gear and guise I greeted him with burbling cheer?</p> + +<p>He looked so dumbly helpless that I had to laugh.</p> + +<p>“Man, man, do you mean to say that you don’t remember me +by my voice?”</p> + +<p>“Your voice?” repeated Pendleton. “Yes, it sounds +familiar” (he was lying), “but somehow I can’t—”</p> + +<p>I kept chuckling, and he looked hurt; so I said, “Of course +you can’t. I’m Bannerlee, Alfred Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>The announcement drove him back a pace. “No!”</p> + +<p>“Emphatically yes.”</p> + +<p>He was studying me intently now, quite rapt. “But how on +earth did you find your way up the Vale? It must be full of +stinking fog down there in New Aidenn.”</p> + +<p>“I came <em>down</em> the Vale!” I announced. “There’s a +thimbleful of mist up in the north, too.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Down</em> the Vale! You say you came down the Vale!” Then +suddenly realization and recognition of me burst upon him for +the first time, and he reached for my hand and gave it a good +pumping, grasped my elbow, and took me inside. “My dear +man, my dear fellow, you must have had a sickening time. +Delighted to have you with us. By gad! How on earth did you +ever find this nook in the woods?”</p> + +<p>“I’m an antiquarian, you know, a nomad. I might better ask +how you did the same,” I rejoined. “And, er, are you the +butler?”</p> + +<p>“No. Of course not. I’m the host. Why, what do you mean?” +He stared at me with the old uncertainty.</p> + +<p>“You answered my knock with remarkable alacrity.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was just at the door, going to open it anyhow. I was on +my way to my room when I heard you out there.” He gestured +toward the drive. “I imagined you’d want to be let right in.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear Crofts, you didn’t know who I was.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I did. That is, I thought I did. Oh, there’s a fine +state of confusion here. You see, we’ve been waiting for Sir +Brooke Mortimer since before dinner. And as he’s not sent +word, we’re still waiting for him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh?” I said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said he.</p> + +<p>We were standing just inside the hall, which contained some +of the finest screen panelling I have seen. I guessed, rightly, +that it was Henry VIII. work. A multitude of little heads +peered out from the wall beneath coats-of-arms, and the foliated +edges of the wood were as delicate as lace. There was a settle +standing on the left-hand side, where the ceiling sloped down +sharply, evidently beneath a winding stair.</p> + +<p>Pendleton seemed struck by a sudden thought. “You’d like to +change, perhaps?”</p> + +<p>“My dear man! If you’ll fit me out! I shall perish otherwise. +As I am, I’d rather not see people.”</p> + +<p>“Well—would you mind waiting here a moment? I’ll fetch +Blenkinson. Not long. There’s a good fellow.”</p> + +<p>He was gone, and I sat me down on the restful settle with +some gyrating thoughts to compose.</p> + +<p>But before I had time to set one thought beside another, a +new man in evening dress came breezing nonchalantly past me +to the door, which he opened and peered out of, to close it in a +moment with a small shiver. It had grown chilly out-of-doors +during the latter hour of my odyssey. Turning, he beheld me in +my recess.</p> + +<p>“Hello,” he exclaimed mildly. “So you <em>have</em> come. No news +of him?”</p> + +<p>He was, I now think, one of the most deceptive-appearing +persons I have ever encountered, of a type emphatically British, +but the extreme of his type. He was the nonpareil for +unobtrusiveness and lack of distinction; without even the stamp of +vulgarity, he was ordinary and unnoticeable to the last degree. +I have never seen a man who appeared to possess so many +properties of a vacuum. His age, perhaps, was somewhere about the +third decade. He was of no particular height (actually about +five feet seven) or weight (about ten stone ten), and his face +was all that was commonplace. A pair of futilely brown moustaches +divided it into upper and lower portions, in the superior of +which pastel-grey eyes kept an unblinking but unobservant +watch; below, his mouth and jaw were neither strong nor +weak. His complexion was pale but not to excessive sallowness, +and his brownish hair, rather thin, was faintly flecked with +grey. His dinner coat fitted exceptionally well.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have come,” I answered, “but I’m not sure I’m the +‘you’ you mean.”</p> + +<p>“Why, you’re Hughes, the keeper, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m just a friend of Pendleton’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, is that so?”</p> + +<p>He was not cloudy and remote like Crofts Pendleton; rather +I thought I detected even a trace of the sardonic in his tone, and +I must have flushed at the remembrance of my rough and +woebegone attire.</p> + +<p>“I don’t look the part, I admit.”</p> + +<p>“Well, no, you don’t.” He held out his hand with a cordiality +surprising to me. “Belvoir’s my name—Ted Belvoir. It’s +B-e-l-v-o-i-r, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Bannerlee’s mine. B-a-n-n—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s all right. I spelled mine out on account of these +Americans. They think it’s funny to pronounce it ‘Beaver!’ ”</p> + +<p>“Americans!”</p> + +<p>“Why, you must be quite a stranger here. Didn’t you +know—”</p> + +<p>“I know nothing. I am indeed an utter stranger, save for +being acquainted with Pendleton. You see that I’m rather the +worse for wear; well, I’ve been running and scrambling and +climbing all over Aidenn Forest to-day, and to cap the climax +I fell into this Vale and blundered upon this house.”</p> + +<p>“All over Aidenn Forest?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am an antiquary of sorts.”</p> + +<p>“Now, that’s very interesting, very interesting. Why, you +may have—have you seen anyone?” There was a glimmer of +excitement in his pale eyes.</p> + +<p>Now suddenly it occurred to me that reticence might be +useful in this mansion whereof I knew so little and that little +full of perplexity.</p> + +<p>“Why, what sort of person?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, a gentleman prowling at a loose end.”</p> + +<p>“I should say not,” I assured him, “unless he was mightily +transmogrified.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that delays us again.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose the man you mean is, er, Sir Brooke Mortimer.”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” His eyes widened. “Now, how did you know that?”</p> + +<p>“Pendleton told me before he went to fetch the butler.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the man, that’s the man. Irritating, isn’t it? Hughes +and some of the other servants have gone in search. That’s why +our host takes so long to get Blenkinson, who must be busy.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t tell me the servants have gone out to scour for +him!”</p> + +<p>“He’s such an irregular blighter, you know. May have tried +to walk it from New Aidenn or even from somewhere else on +the line. They’re going to telephone down when the station-master +comes for the evening train. You see, he wasn’t due on +any particular train, but they expected him to send word ahead. +So they’re in a pretty pass.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the man look like?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, a little, piddling sort of minnikin. Wearing a couple of +pairs of glasses, most likely, and sure to be smoking an offensive +cigar. Speaks with a lisp when he gets excited—sometimes when +he isn’t. You couldn’t have seen him?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I avouched. “Neither to-day nor any other day.” I +had already resolved, by the by, to tell no stranger about the +men I had seen. I wanted to be believed.</p> + +<p>I refrained from asking why Sir Brooke’s presence was so +necessary for the comfort of all, but my new acquaintance +evidently saw the question in my face, for he answered it in a +manner to provoke my curiosity yet further. “He’s going to +propose the health of the bride, y’know.”</p> + +<p>A third personage came round from the other side of the +stairs, and the blood in my veins gave a little leap when I +recognized the white-haired man whose suspicious behaviour I +had overlooked in the dim room with the tower windows. His +gaze was inquiring, as if he had come to see whose the voices +were, and when he saw my unaccustomed face, he gave a cluck, +as if to say, “I know who <em>you</em> are,” and demanded peremptorily:</p> + +<p>“Are you the missing idiot?”</p> + +<p>I said, “Perhaps.”</p> + +<p>His little dark eyes sparkled. “Then you’re not—no, I see +you’re not. You haven’t, by the way, seen a lost sheep of a +knight outside?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Somehow Belvoir had melted away upon the coming of this +gentleman; now the old fellow, with his eyes pursuing the other +down the hall out of my view, snapped, “So much the better. +We have at least one crazy man here already.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed! What is his name?” I asked with much enjoyment, +expecting to hear Belvoir identified, for I judged that no love +was lost between these two.</p> + +<p>“Cosgrove!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! I haven’t heard of him, I believe.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you will.”</p> + +<p>He was gone!</p> + +<p>I listened to his waning footsteps down the hall for only a +brace of seconds before I had made a hasty, rash decision. I +would see, before anyone else, what was the state of affairs +inside the room where I had witnessed this old fellow’s dubious +practices. I edged around the curve of the stair, saw him moving +briskly away at the other end of the wainscoted and carpeted +passage, which was quite broad enough to be called a good-sized +gallery. There were two doors on the right, four on the left +(counting one by the stair-foot, where the corridor broadened +almost into a room), and one away at the far end, which last +must lead into the conservatory. A collection of portraits, large +and small, hung over and between the doors, although, since +the hall was wholly enclosed by rooms, they must never be seen +save by artificial light.</p> + +<p>By the time I had comprehended so much, the old gentleman +had disappeared through the farthest door at the left. An +entrance behind the stairs I judged to lead into the library where +the light was blazing, perhaps as a beacon for Sir Brooke. The +room I sought must lie beyond the door facing the stair-foot. I +felt like a burglarious person while I opened it and stole into +darkness, taking out my electric-torch. And the moment +afterward I felt like a fool.</p> + +<p>The yellow cone of light played on walls hung with trophies +and weapons of every age and sort. I saw the old candle-bracket +by the window, and the closed doors leading to rooms +on each side, as well as to the open. Standing where the “men” +had been were two hollow suits of armour, complete in plate +and chain.</p> + +<p>So the old codger’s only crime must have been a little harmless +fussing about. Still, why had he chosen near-darkness when +there was, as now I saw, an electric switch beside the door? +Perhaps the switch was out of order; I had not the courage to +try it and see. Almost, but not quite, I acquitted the +white-haired gentleman of evil design.</p> + +<p>I lost no time in returning to my station in the hall. I was +on the settle, and had almost decided that Crofts Pendleton had +forgotten me when he appeared apologetically, with the butler, +carrying a loaded tray, at his heels.</p> + +<p>“If it’s compatible with bathing, I got Blenkinson to put +some dishes together. Dinner’s just over.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Crofts, you’re too thoughtful.”</p> + +<p>“Very seldom, I assure you,” he smiled.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, I’d like to break the edge of appetite, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“Then we’ll go up to my room.”</p> + +<p>Blenkinson, with impeccable whiskers, looked as if he might +be the Master of University College. With the tray, he followed +us up the circular stairs, whose well reached into the dim +heights of the second storey. A room on the right of the first +landing was Pendleton’s.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, it’s dark! I expected Ludlow had come up. He +complained of feeling seedy.”</p> + +<p>The long corridor of this floor, which I later found to lead +to the door of the landing of the outside stairs at the north end +of the building, was invisible until Pendleton touched a button +on the wall.</p> + +<p>“Ludlow? Is he the tufted individual, hawk-like?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes. Have you seen him?”</p> + +<p>“We have conversed slightly. He’s downstairs.”</p> + +<p>“He must be feeling better,” murmured Crofts. Yet somehow +I distrusted that his Lordship had suffered even a little twinge.</p> + +<p>Now Blenkinson withdrew discreetly as a Dean, after examining +each dish on the tray and giving every cover an +approving caress.</p> + +<p>“May I ask a question?”</p> + +<p>“Blaze away.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t things a little out of order here, to-night? Or are +there no ladies present?”</p> + +<p>“There are ladies, plenty of ’em. But what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Why are the men prowling around the House? Where are +the ladies? Don’t they customarily leave the men at the board?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, usually.” There was a light in his eyes that caused +me to expect something quite illogical and characteristic. “But +here it’s the other way round.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Here the men leave the table to the ladies. It’s the local +custom.”</p> + +<p>It had come, the sublimely ridiculous. But still—I ventured: +“Then most of your guests are Welsh folk?”</p> + +<p>“Not one; all English and American. But ‘When in Rome,’ +you know, Bannerlee. I like to pay tribute to the <i>mores</i> of the +place. That’s a word of Belvoir’s; you know what I mean.”</p> + +<p>In anyone but Crofts Pendleton I should have held such deference +to the manners of the parish or the borough or the shire +to be a gesture of mock. But mockery was out of the question +in that face of perfect guilelessness. So innocent and susceptible +were those big features that I had a momentary impulse to tell +him that there appeared to be “goings-on” in the House. But +I forbore.</p> + +<p>So, beginning to lay aside my reeking clothes, I asked him +the nature of the party, and if it were in celebration of a +particular occasion, and in so doing I met point-blank another +of his vague notions, disassociated from the working of any +ordinary mind.</p> + +<p>“A very special occasion indeed,” he declared. “We are +having a wedding party—that is, there’s going to be a wedding +party; to-night it’s a Bidding Feast.”</p> + +<p>“Bidding Feast?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Crofts, evincing much pleasure in his revelation. +“It accords with the folk custom. You look oddly. Haven’t you +heard of it?”</p> + +<p>“Not sufficiently, I fear.”</p> + +<p>“It’s very old, very old, to help the married-pair-to-be to set +up housekeeping.”</p> + +<p>“Then I am amiss in not knowing something of it, having +turned desultory antiquarian since we were last together. Tell +me about it.”</p> + +<p>He seemed shy and apologetic. “Of course we don’t go into +all of it—the donations of bread and cheese and sugar and such, +or promissory notes (they’ve been recognized as legal obligations +in the courts, you know). We haven’t had any of that, or selling +cakes and ale for the enrichment of the couple. These are +wealthy people. And we’ve dispensed with the ‘inviter.’ ”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you have?” I asked ironically. “What, perchance, is +he?”</p> + +<p>“A professional in the business exclusively. He tramps the +country for several days ahead and bids the householders with +a set of humorous doggerel verses, or printed ballad. I’ve +several works describing it all in the library downstairs. It used +to be a universal thing in Wales, but it’s almost a dead-letter +now.” He looked as if he were about to sigh.</p> + +<p>“And you say that you’re reviving it for a couple who are +not Welsh?”</p> + +<p>“Welsh? Of course they’re not Welsh. Paula Lebetwood’s an +American, and Sean Cosgrove—well, he’s an Irishman.”</p> + +<p>“One hopes so. And how goes the Feast?”</p> + +<p>“We’re being terribly festive! Under the circumstances, you +know. . . .”</p> + +<p>Here was the maddest, one might say the most pitiful, of +Pendleton’s fancies. A Welsh Bidding Feast for setting up a +couple in housekeeping—only minus the Welsh folk, minus the +donations, minus the cakes and ale, minus the “inviter,” minus +about everything, in fact, except the good intentions of the host! +A ghost of a Bidding Feast.</p> + +<p>“Surely, Crofts,” I remarked, “if you are trying to revive +the good old Welsh customs, you might suggest a bundling +party.”</p> + +<p>He went red, but was too good-natured to take offence. “Nonsense, +man. Don’t mention it. Why, it’s an immoral thing. +Sermons used to be preached against it.”</p> + +<p>“But under the circumstances!” I repeated his phrase. +“Morality is a question of local custom, isn’t it? The <i>mores</i>, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Mores?</i> Oh, you sound like Belvoir, who’s been getting +everybody in a stew.” He overlooked his own introduction of +the word.</p> + +<p>“Well, I shan’t propose it, my dear man. I know that I +should be mobbed, without a Welshman in the Vale to protect +me.”</p> + +<p>A flicker of movement crossed his features, and his voice was +constrained, even grave. “Without a Welshman?—well, I +don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“You’re aggrieved, Crofts. What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>“This place is full of wild-eyed superstitions,” he declared, +beginning to pace the length of the room. “We have a few +Welsh servants—they keep the place up while it’s unoccupied—and +they’re agog with the Gwyllion and the Tylwyth Teg. +They’re stirring up the rest with tales of the haggish fairies and +dwarfs and goblins that seem to infect this locality.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” I laughed, yet with a pinch of queerness in thinking +of the near-apparition who had occurred on the ledge-path, “as +long as nobody has met his own funeral and the dames and peers +of elfin-land keep outside the walls—”</p> + +<p>“But that’s just it!” he cried vexatiously. “There’s <em>been</em> an +invasion. The women have made me put all their best jewellery +in the strong-box, and still they’re fretting.”</p> + +<p>I paused in the act of drying my back. “You don’t mean—”</p> + +<p>“The worst visitant of all is in our midst, and unless we dispose +of him our nerves will be in tatters!” Then he lapsed into +sudden contrition for his vehemence. “Of course I’m not such +a fool as to believe any of it.”</p> + +<p>“The supernatural, you mean?”</p> + +<p>“That’s why I said I’m not so sure we haven’t a Welshman +in our midst. He must be at the bottom of it all. Confound it, +somebody must be.”</p> + +<p>“Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”</p> + +<p>“Parson Lolly,” answered Pendleton, with slightly bated +breath, and I remember that I was impressed into silence for +a moment.</p> + +<p>“<em>Parson</em> Lolly?”</p> + +<p>“So he is called.”</p> + +<p>“And who may the Parson be?”</p> + +<p>“A legend, just a damned legend.”</p> + +<p>“And a Welshman too?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it!” he exclaimed with an eager gesture. “Don’t you +see it must be so, or else there’s hell let loose in this valley? It +must be a man, must be, must be! Only—” He checked +himself.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“No man can do the things Parson Lolly is said to do.”</p> + +<p>I made a complete break in my toilet and scrutinized my +friend, who was visibly shaken. He said, “It’s no use trying to +describe how it feels to be a host in the midst of such a +hullabaloo. It’s the very devil. And I can’t <em>do</em> anything to stop it. +Helplessness is a terrible thing.”</p> + +<p>“Now tell me some of this nonsense,” I urged. “And first of +all, why ‘Parson’? It’s creepy.”</p> + +<p>“It certainly is,” he agreed. “That designation adds oddness, +sinister, too, to the whole portrait of him.”</p> + +<p>“What else is there in his portrait?”</p> + +<p>“He’s old, several hundred years old at the most conservative +estimate of the servants. His business is general mischief and +bedevilment and, I surmise, thievery.”</p> + +<p>“What does he look like?”</p> + +<p>“He has the face of a demon, red with hell-fire, and streaked +with smoke. He has the likeness of a man otherwise, but he +wears a great flowing robe of black; there’s where the ‘Parson’ +part comes in, I suppose. The robe is vaster than any prelate’s +of earth, though there again you have the sinister touch. He—he +flies in it, Bannerlee, like an enormous crow! He’s been seen +flying away over the Bach Hill.”</p> + +<p>“How far is Bach Hill from here?”</p> + +<p>“About two miles.”</p> + +<p>I resumed my dressing, and simulated a laugh, for it would +not do to seem too much impressed with this fol-de-rol. +Pendleton maintained his appearance of dead seriousness.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if there’s anything else. Oh, yes—his voice.”</p> + +<p>“Voice?” My question must have been sharp.</p> + +<p>“It’s a young voice and an old voice in one. He’s been heard, +Bannerlee.” Pendleton licked his lips. “I’ve heard him myself.”</p> + +<p>“You must leave this, Crofts,” I admonished, dimly aware +that I was cribbing from literature. “You’re letting your +imagination make sport of you, of course; but, tell me, what’s been +the spring of all your troubles? What’s actually happened here?”</p> + +<p>His mood had shifted. “No, let’s change the subject. This is +no way to receive a guest, with omens and warnings.”</p> + +<p>“But, good heavens, you only make it worse when you stop +at the warnings. I want to hear some of the facts.”</p> + +<p>“You really do?”</p> + +<p>“This is absurd. Of course I do.”</p> + +<p>But Crofts’ mind was then in an unwilling state as regarded +retailing the misdeeds of the Parson. He became sketchy. At first +there had been annoyances among the servants, the overturning +of pots and skillets, the displacement of articles, some so +thoroughly removed that they never would be found. For the +past forty-eight hours these trifles had been throwing the kitchen +into an uproar, but one more serious thing had occurred the +previous evening in the presence of the guests who had already +arrived. All Pendleton would tell me of this outrage was that +it had to do with the smashing of the conservatory window, and +that then the voice of the Parson had been heard by everyone.</p> + +<p>“It makes me feel sometimes, for a minute or two, that there +may be something in it,” he muttered finally. “Why isn’t it +possible that someone has found a method of flying with a +minimum of mechanical aid? It will happen sooner or later.”</p> + +<p>“When I see him taking off, I’ll believe—not otherwise.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the sensible thing to say—very sensible.”</p> + +<p>Now in the course of this long conversation I had disencumbered +myself of my damp-heavy explorer’s gear, had cavorted in +the bath between the rooms of Pendleton and his wife, had +donned his dressing-gown and shaved with his razor, had +covered myself with one of his old business suits, now “uncomfortably +snug” for his frame, but flappingly loose for mine. The +food I had reserved until after the bath; although the things +were now cool, I took half a cupful of coffee and sampled the +leg of a duck. I resolved to confide one thing to Pendleton now; +perhaps it would bring him some relief. So, swiftly explaining +my movements in Aidenn Forest that day, I related my adventures +with the man on the ledge-path, and hinted that he might +be at the root of the mischief.</p> + +<p>“What time was that?”</p> + +<p>“Over two hours ago, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>He shook his head, wistfully. “No, I wish it was as simple +as you suggest. But the Parson was making trouble among the +servants only an hour before you came.”</p> + +<p>I thought of the menagerie-keeper, yet somehow he didn’t +fit into this situation.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Crofts. Still, you mustn’t let such antics disturb +you.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t, I won’t,” he promised, but I thought his protest +a little feverish.</p> + +<p>While we went downstairs I gave him the best imitation I +could of the stranger’s cry on the ledge-path, and asked him if +he believed it was Welsh.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, with the gravity of conviction, “no, that’s +certainly not Welsh.”</p> + +<p>Bless his simple heart! I believe he knows no more Cumraeg +than I.</p> + +<p>We moved along the galley-passage, and nighed the third +left-hand entrance.</p> + +<p>Now, just as we were about to enter, while we heard the +voices of festivity inside, he turned to me suddenly.</p> + +<p>“I’m sending the boy to your village beyond the hills +to-morrow morning—whatever-its-name-is—for your things. +You’re to be one of us, of course.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Crofts, I hate to intrude.”</p> + +<p>“No intrusion. And there are other equal strangers among +us. Will you stay on for a couple of days?”</p> + +<p>“I’d be delighted.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll announce you as one of us.”</p> + +<p>We joined the Bidding Feast.</p> + +<p>I motioned my host to precede me into the midst of the party. +Now it so happened that we entered with none to observe us, for +this door opened beneath an old musicians’ gallery.</p> + +<p>We had no sooner entered this shady spot than I placed my +hand on Pendleton’s sleeve and put finger to lips, and stood to +take in the scene in silence. The head of a cat, with ears +singularly set back, made a rest for the hand at the pillared foot of +the winding balustrade to the gallery. It had given me a moment’s +shock at first, but now I set my fingers along that smooth +nose and peered covertly from the concealment of the little +staircase. The Bidding Feast, save for floral and evergreen +festoons about the Hall, had all the look of two tables of ordinary +auction bridge.</p> + +<p>But I hardly did more than give a secret glance at the guests +before surveying the extent and features of the Hall itself. +Flat-ceilinged, its wooden roof supported by braced thirty-foot +timbers, a room regular in its right-angularity, it nevertheless gave +the impression of spaciousness. It was two storeys in height, full +forty feet in length, and obviously of great age, perhaps a +bulwark of war, for its ashlar masonry was undisguised by arras, +woodwork, or plaster. Somehow, save for the chimney-piece in +the wall beyond which the conservatory lay, a fireplace which +was massive without being cumbrous, the appointments of the +room seemed to me inept. All the Tudor furniture was gone, +and in its stead was a collection of mahogany and walnut pieces +from the lion-mask period—and later—looking frail and prettified +in that ancient stronghold of defence. The woven-backed +chairs, the spindly animal-legs of the tables with their claw-feet, +the spider’s web marqueterie decorations, were to my mind +strongly out of keeping. The waxed floor was in part covered +by old English “Turky” carpets. Altogether a medley of +anachronisms was the Hall of the Moth, but its walls a-frown +and towering chimney-place lent nevertheless a thrill of +antique grandeur.</p> + +<figure> + <img src="images/hall.jpg" alt="A plan of the ground floor of + Highglen House. The front door is at the bottom of the plan, + opening into a narrow corridor leading through the middle of the + house, as well as a winding staircase to the next floor. Large + doors immediately to the left of the front door connect to a + library in the bottom left corner of the building. Above the + library is the armoury. The armoury has doors on all sides, + including one to the outside. Above the armoury is a large room + labelled “Hall of the Moth”. The door between the armoury and the + Hall of the Moth is underneath a raised platform labelled + “Musicians’ Gallery”. Both the Hall of the Moth and the central + corridor have doors to the conservatory, which runs along the top + of the plan, and has a large window along most of the top wall. + The right-hand side of the plan is mostly taken up by the + dining-room, which the conservatory connects to directly. Below + the dining-room are the kitchen and pantries."> +</figure> + +<p>Two of the eight card-players I recognized, of course, Lord +Ludlow and Belvoir, who were opposed to each other at the +nearer table, where the deal had just been made. Lord Ludlow, +who was facing me, lifted his cards from the table, arching his +brows above the pince-nez which now clung to his sharp-wedged +nose. Satisfaction gleamed from all quarters of his countenance.</p> + +<p>“<em>You</em> haven’t the right kind of face for cards,” I thought; +then a notion made me mutter, “Or, I wonder?” The old +dissembler!</p> + +<p>I was impressed by the vague familiarity of the back of Lord +Ludlow’s partner, and guessed her to be the hostess of the +Bidding Feast. I had known Alberta Pendleton in the early days, +and had seen that stately back preceding me up the aisle at her +wedding. It had taken on added dignity, if anything, in the +intervening years, and I expected, rightly, that her delicate +beauty (Pendleton had been ungodly lucky) would have ripened +into greater loveliness.</p> + +<p>Belvoir, on her right, was opposite a woman I intuitively +knew must be his wife, for she might have been his widow. It +was not only that she looked older than she was, and gave that +impression, for she was gowned in black relieved by grey, and +that her cheek was pale, having a worn softness, or that her +composed voice, rather full and sweet, seemed full of twilight +memories; she had the half-experienced, half-expectant air +which bereft females wear. And indeed I supposed it could +hardly be otherwise for her, married as she was to a man who +seemed without a trace of colour, without a morsel of flesh to +him, or a drop of blood, the acme of innocuousness.</p> + +<p>At the far table three men were playing with one woman, +whose back was turned to me. Facing her, and me, sat a +bright-eyed, youngish fellow with short black hair, a face almost +crimson-red, and on his right and left respectively a +dandified-looking chap with waxed moustaches, and a good solid +individual of immobile swarthy countenance, the image of a +substantial, dependable Englishman. This ponderous person was +dealing with a regular, unhurried motion that recalled to me the +grinding of the mills of God.</p> + +<p>“A pretty kettle of fish!” I murmured to myself, and added +to Crofts, “A variegated lot, old fellow! So many different +tempers and purposeful minds reduced to the same dead level by the +permutations of fifty-two pasteboard slips. Saddening, Crofts, +saddening.”</p> + +<p>“All intimates, one way or another,” he whispered. “Good +friends, mind you, but you’ll find them fighting half the time.”</p> + +<p>“They certainly look engrossed in the game.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but that’s a pretence. They keep up a very brave front, +but any trifling disturbance would set them wild.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t say so.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, man, there’s something foul and fearful in this +damned Vale. I half regret—well, come on. You’ve got to meet +them sometime. They’ve all heard about you.”</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch05"> + +<h2>V. <br> Kingmaker</h2> + +<p>Forthwith commenced that three-legged race I +have already described, in whose zigzag course I was presented +to all these people in about two minutes.</p> + +<p>While my mind was still in a haze, a small thing caught my +eye and made me give a much larger thing a rapid, cursory, and +at the same time careful survey. The small thing was still +another image of a cat’s head, this one in profile with jaws apart +and bared teeth, the head forming a heraldic badge tucked into +one spandril of the Hall fire-arch. The renewed sight of this +insistent emblem had a bad effect on me. The leering head at +the outer door, the sleek head at the foot of the balustrade, and +this vindictive head brought the sharp, nerve-tearing cry of +the outer darkness into my ears again.</p> + +<p>“Crofts”—I must have spoken with asperity—“why the +devil didn’t your family choose some holier badge than a +damned cat’s head, with nothing funny or Cheshire-ish about +it?”</p> + +<p>“My family? Not my family.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, not—”</p> + +<p>“Lord, no. Dirty thing, isn’t it, that one? But not mine. +Bought this place a couple of years ago. Look there, for a +primitive genealogical sign.”</p> + +<p>I thought at first he was pointing to the badge and I leaned +to examine it at closer quarters. The spandrils of the fire-arch +had the usual long crinkled leaves of the early Tudors; on one +lay the royal rose, on the other the badge of the head.</p> + +<p>“No, no, not that—the mantel-tree itself.”</p> + +<p>Pendleton tapped the very old and thoroughly blackened +beam of oak resting on the upraised hands and the heads of a +pair of grotesque knee-bent dwarfs in lieu of corbels. And while +I stared at it, somewhat at a loss to grasp his meaning, he +passed his hand along its outer surface, saying, “If you can’t +see, feel.”</p> + +<p>This mantel-tree, obviously the original, though forming +more than merely an incipient shelf, was unusually low for the +period (if I knew anything of such) and I had to lean a bit to +get my eyes flush to it. My fingers felt the slight roughness of +lettering, and I deciphered, in French characters, the +smoke-stained names “Arthur Kay” and “Biatryx Kay,” which +Pendleton assured me I read correctly.</p> + +<p>“None of your ilk, you say?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no! Quite the most ancient family in these parts. Here +before the House itself, before the castle.”</p> + +<p>“That ruin up the Vale?”</p> + +<p>“No, I mean the castle this house is remnant of. That +other—up the Vale—that was the Kays’ too.”</p> + +<p>“And the head of the cat?”</p> + +<p>He shrugged. “You ought to know more of these things than +I, you gravedigger. It’s part of their coat-of-arms. Look.”</p> + +<p>I had already taken in the entire fireplace. It was in harmony +with the grey walls. The over-mantel, like the interior of the +unlit chimney-place itself, was composed of large stone blocks, +very ancient, and the beam on which the names were cut formed +a canopy from which it receded to the summit of the lofty chamber. +The half-obliterate vestiges of what must have been a cross +were visible in the centre of this curtain of rock, and on either +side a shield with unrecognizable blurs for quarters. Only where +Pendleton pointed I could see what might have been a feline +profile.</p> + +<p>As my host remarked, the subject of bearings lay more aptly +in my special province than in his (which was, I remember, the +excellence of sodium and its compounds). I was about to launch +into a necessarily brief statement of what this device might +signify, when Blenkinson entered and murmured something +inaudible to his master.</p> + +<p>“People at New Aidenn,” remarked Pendleton with slight +ellipsis. “Be back at once.” This last was a promise, not an +imperative.</p> + +<p>He followed the servant out, and my exegesis was, as it +happened, for ever postponed. Gilbert Maryvale, whose partner, +Oxford, had made the declaration, seeing me solitary, rose from +his chair with the peculiar lightness that was so unexpected and +came to my side.</p> + +<p>He looked at me with inquiry in his very dark eyes while +he settled himself against the over-mantel. “Word from Sir +Brooke?”</p> + +<p>“I believe Pendleton’s gone to ’phone the station-master at +New Aidenn. We’ll know, doubtless, in a minute or two.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, doubtless.”</p> + +<p>I thought I perceived a greater interest striving to suppress +itself in him; I looked at him sharply. “Just why, Mr. +Maryvale, are we all agog over this gentleman’s absence?”</p> + +<p>He was abashed for an instant, then, cocked an eye in humorous +confession, and spoke low. “Caught, I suppose. Well, Mr. +Bannerlee, I don’t think that, barring an exception or +two”—he hitched a shoulder toward the nearer table where Mrs. +Bartholomew was deliberating whether to play the ace or not—“I +don’t think we <em>are</em> particularly agog as a whole. One may +have one reason, one another, but mine is that I believe Sir +Brooke Mortimer is a good deal different from what he seems. +And you may be sure that I’d not be telling you that if I +weren’t sure that his real purpose will be revealed—”</p> + +<p>He said more, but I did not take in the sense of it. Eve +Bartholomew, I noticed, played the ace, which was immediately +trumped by Oxford; but that was a trifle. What had taken me +out of mind for a moment was the striking similarity of his +words to the thought in my own brain, that the people in Aidenn +Vale were other than they seemed. This, great as was my +attraction to it, was scarcely a topic to be pursued with my +acquaintance of a few minutes, and my next contribution to talk +turned the subject.</p> + +<p>“I was about to ask Pendleton a question; may I victimize +you?”</p> + +<p>“Why, certainly—if I can—”</p> + +<p>I lowered my voice to half its volume. “I am sure that you +can. This, according to our host, is a genuine old Welsh Bidding +Feast. But as far as I could discover, most of the attributes +are missing, and especially the most essential one of all.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“The bride in prospect. I am quite certain she is not, er, here.”</p> + +<p>He laughed with his eyes, throwing back his head quite +gleefully. “You may be sure she’s not. Of course, our good +Cosgrove’s American betrothed—did Pendleton tell you she’s +American?—isn’t in sight just now. The fact is, Miss +Mertoun—Oxford’s her cousin—has been headachy all evening, and Miss +Lebetwood has been staying with her since she went to her +room.”</p> + +<p>Crofts Pendleton had returned; he was beside us on the +heels of my latest speech, and his face revealed excitement +somewhat chastened by alarm.</p> + +<p>“Shall I tell ’em all at once?”</p> + +<p>“But what’s to tell?” asked Maryvale.</p> + +<p>“He wasn’t on the night train, but the station-keeper thinks +someone like him came up in the afternoon. How he—supposing +it was he—missed getting in the motor—there Wheeler was +waiting for him especially—unless he wanted the +walk—he <em>would</em>—well, shall I?”</p> + +<p>“It will raise nobody’s spirits,” said Maryvale. “But suppose +you do.”</p> + +<p>“Hughes and the men are back from below the bridge,” muttered +Crofts. “They’ve seen nothing of him either.” He clapped +his hands for attention.</p> + +<p>I kept my eyes on Crofts while he made his statement, but +out of the tail of one I noticed that Maryvale was scanning the +inhabitants of the Hall, as if to catch the effect upon each. The +effect was strong. When my eye took in the room, everyone had +laid down his cards and was looking at the blank countenance +across the table. There was hardly a word spoken; no one asked +a question. Then Eve Bartholomew took up her hand once more.</p> + +<p>“Sir Brooke is a sensible man,” she announced. “He has +probably returned to New Aidenn to put up for the night. And +there are men looking for him if he is lost. Let’s go on playing.”</p> + +<p>By her determination, which at the time I divined to be only +a courageous sham, she drew the widely surmising minds in the +room back to a focus on bridge. A few minutes later Maryvale, +with a courteous but irresistible gesture, waved Pendleton into +his place at the table opposite Charlton Oxford, and my host +picked up the newly-dealt cards with perturbed countenance. +Maryvale rested a foot on the fire-dogs—they were of much +later date than the fireplace itself, their brass enriched with blue +and white enamel—and took from the mantel-shelf a long-stemmed +clay pipe, a veritable churchwarden. This he carefully +packed with a shaggy sort of tobacco and smoked with deep-drawn +pleasure, having offered me an excellent cigar, which I +declined in memory and anticipation of flight from bulls.</p> + +<p>Presently, since Eve Bartholomew had given the fumes several +looks askance, and sniffed, Maryvale with a smile led me +to the nearest of two entrances of french windows, opened it, +and stepped outside. I followed, descending a step or two to the +drive beyond which lay the lawn. The air was mild again and +the fog had become only a mystery in the trees.</p> + +<p>“Too chilly for you?”</p> + +<p>“By no means.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll stroll.”</p> + +<p>At that moment we were beside the little jutting tower between +the Hall of the Moth and the glassed conservatory, with +a small rockery just across the drive. I noted that the scent +of flowers at that spot was remarkably strong, almost as the +heady reek of the interior must be. I asked Maryvale if he did +not notice it too.</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes. But that’s because there’s no glass in that window. +They’re burning some oil-heating business inside until the +glazier comes.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what’s happened?”</p> + +<p>“You’ve not heard?”</p> + +<p>“I think Crofts—he wasn’t at all explicit.”</p> + +<p>“Nor could he be. It was only a matter of a crash of a +splintering window, and a shout by a most hollow and bewildering +voice. Then, I must admit, there were other shouts from some +of us, and one or two of the ladies were not above screaming. +And nothing was discovered save the fragments of glass.”</p> + +<p>“What did the voice seem to say?”</p> + +<p>“It was clear enough. It shouted some rigmarole about +Parson Lolly. ‘Parson Lolly’s here,’ or ‘Look out for Parson +Lolly,’ or something of the kind.”</p> + +<p>“What do you make of it? It worries Crofts severely.”</p> + +<p>“Do you wonder? No, I don’t profess to make anything of it +myself. We must wait until we have more evidence.”</p> + +<p>“Which may be most unpleasant.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, as for being afraid . . .”</p> + +<p>We paused, I remember, by one of the large french windows +looking into the Hall of the Moth. At the table nearest us +Cosgrove carefully noted down the score. He picked up the pack, +shuffled deliberately, dealt. The cards flew bewilderingly from +his hand like a flock of humming-birds released from a cage; +they swirled and gleamed in the light. Yet Cosgrove’s arms +were motionless; only his right hand and wrist moved as swift +as the eye could conveniently follow.</p> + +<p>“Cosgrove,” murmured Maryvale; “what a man!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>My companion’s surprise was thoroughly ingenuous. “You +don’t know about Sean Cosgrove?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know much about any Irishman.”</p> + +<p>“Irishman or not, he’s a rarity—a sort of hardness next to +positive stolidity, yet with plenty of <i>savoir faire</i>—caution in +thought and preparation, and then a sure swiftness like that +dealing of the cards; add to it a consecration to an idea so +whimsical and quaint that heaven must laugh, and heaven must +speed him.”</p> + +<p>“What idea may that be?”</p> + +<p>“It’s one of those secrets everyone knows—Ireland redeemed.”</p> + +<p>My “oh” was certainly disappointed.</p> + +<p>Maryvale looked for some time at the red face of him before +he chose to enlighten me further. “Many wild young Irishmen +have burned and blazed for Ireland free, but never one I’ve +known had the genius of imagination of this man.” He added +in a low-toned parenthesis, “Barring the Marquess of Killarney, +I’ve no doubt he’s the wealthiest Irishman in the realm.”</p> + +<p>“That’s enough distinction for one Hibernian.”</p> + +<p>“Seldom known in his race, surely. And he saves his money, +looking always to the gleam of his great goal.”</p> + +<p>“Well enough, Mr. Maryvale—but you speak as if he had +some special vision.”</p> + +<p>“A Free State is nothing compared to the bright morning in +mind.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, an anarchist!”</p> + +<p>Maryvale chuckled. “That was certainly an unlucky dive of +logic, my friend. No, Mr. Bannerlee, Sean Cosgrove aspires to +restore the ancient dynasties of Munster and Leinster!”</p> + +<p>“But—well, how will he find the lines? They’re extinct, +aren’t they?”</p> + +<p>“I should hesitate to say categorically where Cosgrove is +planning to discover them.”</p> + +<p>“But how will he set about it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, if I tell you baldly, you’ll think he’s utterly mad. +He’s going to advertise in the <i>Times</i>.”</p> + +<p>A vast vacuum of seconds must have gone by, while I looked +again intently at the huge face so solemn over its slips of +pasteboard, before I ventured, “And what do you think of him +yourself, then?”</p> + +<p>“Let me explain what I meant when I said that Cosgrove +will advertise in the <i>Times</i> to find the true rulers of Munster +and Leinster. He will not advertise there alone; he will put the +inquiry in every little rag and sheet. He will send men among +the peasants on the land to ask. He will receive answers, will +he not, Mr. Bannerlee?”</p> + +<p>“Of every sort.”</p> + +<p>“Of every sort, as you say. The genealogist will ridicule, +the republican will sneer or snarl, the crank will present his +ready-made conclusions, the peasant will tell the tale his +grandmother’s grandmother crooned to her and she to him. And Sean +Cosgrove will receive every answer for the sake of the good +that may be in it. He is ready to examine every contention of +the genealogist, to sift the fables rigorously, to get at the root +of every wild story, to criticize every legend—and in the end +he will find his man, or find his truth! Let us go in.”</p> + +<p>We reopened the french windows, entered the Hall of the +Moth.</p> + +<p>I looked at him, who had so suddenly, yet so unaffectedly, +made almost an intimate of me in the brief hour of acquaintance, +tried to appraise the pent brows and the fugitive, almost +wistful eyes of Gilbert Maryvale, the “complete man of +business.” Those eyes, what were they seeking, or what had they +discovered? They saw deeps, I knew, soundings surely unsuspected +by these more or less ordinary people, by that old vulture +with white plumage, Ludlow—or Belvoir the nonentity—or, +certainly, this fancy man Charlton Oxford—or our unimaginative +host, Crofts Pendleton—or Sean Cosgrove himself, who +from Maryvale’s account must represent the quintessence of +insurgency and holy tradition.</p> + +<p>These “ordinary people,” I had called them. But were they, +any of them, ordinary? My total impression of that company +at the Bidding Feast had become one of masks and shadows. +Such obvious contradiction as seemed to exist in the case of +Maryvale and such duplicity as Ludlow’s might have their +subtler likenesses in everyone. Mrs. Belvoir, with her melodious +voice, might be a volcano which had never gone up in flame and +ruin; this dapper Charlton Oxford might be a leading light +of the Society for the Cherishing of Atheism. Crofts Pendleton +had assured me that their air of studious interest while rapt in +the complexities of cards was a dissembling of fear, but I +wondered if it might not be a dissembling of something else +as well, something which I could not then grasp intuitively. +But I felt its existence, just as a man in a pitch-dark room may +be, they say, aware of another presence.</p> + +<p>Maryvale, catching me look first at him, then at the absorbed +contestants, drew a mistaken deduction.</p> + +<p>“No, Mr. Bannerlee, no sign of any of them wanting to give +me my place back again. There’s a riveting fascination in cards +if you’re keyed right.” I believe he looked a bit ashamed of his +cross-bred metaphor. “One of the many forms in which chance +plays pranks upon us. All, all thralled.”</p> + +<p>“Some more and some less, however.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course, but my point was that no one escapes the +lure. Even the unlikeliest—”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cosgrove, that would be, I have—”</p> + +<p>“I think not, I really am sure not. Oh, no.”</p> + +<p>“What? You don’t mean his Lordship?”</p> + +<p>Maryvale took his pipe in his hand, smiling, waved it. +“You do not know us, Mr. Bannerlee. We are really quite a +surprising company, we friends of Cosgrove, and his, er, +enemies. Now who, beside the respected Mr. Charlton Oxford +here, seems to you to personify most thoroughly the spirit of +conformity, the one cut out most neatly for a player of auction +bridge?”</p> + +<p>I needed not to hesitate one whit, but with a nudge indicated +Belvoir. “He seems made to fit into any background.”</p> + +<p>Maryvale laughed long and with absolute silence. “Yes, yes,” +he whispered, “a family man, I grant you, with legitimate +children, a householder in suburbia—so far so good. That’s +irony <i>in excelso</i>. But for deep down conformity of spirit, like the +thousand and one of his neighbours in Golders Green, ye gods! +Why, man, he’s the most radical wight in England—a stick of +dynamite!”</p> + +<p>“He!”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you read his ‘Bypaths’?”</p> + +<p>“His! Good God!”</p> + +<p>Then from the farther table came a cackle from Ludlow: +“Well, I say it <em>is</em> so! . . . Saint Paul knew as much psychology +as any of your puffed-up pedagogues.”</p> + +<p>Alberta Pendleton (who was his partner) said promptly, +“Did you play the deuce?” Our hostess is more tactful than her +husband.</p> + +<p>Belvoir gave a thin Italian sort of snicker. “He’s trying to,” +he said.</p> + +<p>I just made out the low, luscious voice of Mrs. Belvoir: +“Ted, that wasn’t good. Half a crown, please.”</p> + +<p>“The family penalty for a pun,” explained Maryvale.</p> + +<p>Ludlow gave a sudden sneeze, a whooping big sneeze, which +must have disturbed the cards on the table. “I beg—” he said, +and sneezed again.</p> + +<p>My face being turned toward Maryvale, and Ludlow’s back +being toward me, I had no more than an imperfect glimpse +out of the tail of my eye at what happened next. Our noble +friend drew his handkerchief out of his breast-pocket with a bit +of a flourish, and something white and smaller came out along +with it. At that precise instant Ludlow was preoccupied with +a third sneeze which took him unawares and made his plumed +head bob down to the green board. There was consternation at +his table, amusement at the other, but I was the only one who +saw the object fly off to the left, poise for the cleaving of an +instant in flight, and glide and swoop gracefully down to the +floor beside the long-case clock in the corner. There it lay, a +slightly crumpled slip of notepaper, scrawled upon.</p> + +<p>I gave some small exclamation, crossed in front of Maryvale, +picked up the morsel. It was certainly not my intention +to scrutinize the writing, but it was impossible in the act +of recovery not to see some words. All that made the least +imprint in my consciousness were the two concluding lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="document"> + + <p>“. . . you leave it in the mail—you know where; I’ll + come and get it.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Not even the signature gave me any impression; but it, I must +confess, looked like an intentional enigma.</p> + +<p>A step or two across the floor would have taken me and +the slip to the discomposed Ludlow, but in my way was a +large reddish hand, attached to a long arm, and the arm +hung on the shoulder of an Irishman whose naturally red +face was filling with unaccustomed blood.</p> + +<p>“Mine, sir,” said the bridegroom-to-be.</p> + +<p>I shook my head. “No, Mr. Cosgrove, you must be +mistaken. I saw—”</p> + +<p>“No doubt. Mine, I said.”</p> + +<p>“But I saw it come out of the pocket of Lord Ludlow.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt.” Cosgrove swung about in his chair with a ruddy +scowl. “And I’ll trouble his Lordship to explain how a piece +of my private correspondence arrived in his pocket, and will he +please tell me what use he thought to make of it?”</p> + +<p>Our minds play us pranks. The quarrel itself should have +engrossed me, but an absurd irrelevant detail about Cosgrove +seized my attention. This was the first time that I had seen +the back of his head. His black hair, I have stated, was short +cut, and at the rear the recent clipping had left a broad streak +of white between his splay ears, so that a person seeing him +from behind for the first time, far from supposing him the +wealthiest bachelor in Ireland, might take him for a yokel just +come from his potato patch, rawly scissored for the fair, to +complete with other yokels for the favour of rustic beauties.</p> + +<p>Then my glance shifted to Lord Ludlow, who also had +swung about in his chair, stiff and upright, his small bright +green eyes sparkling, his face full of indignation, like an +affronted gerfalcon’s.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, sir? I have no interest in your +correspondence, I am sure.”</p> + +<p>“Leave your pretences, shame on you, sir!” said Cosgrove +(to whom I had in impotence surrendered the slip). “This +is a private communication. I repeat, what presumption—”</p> + +<p>“You’re mad,” scoffed Lord Ludlow. “I know nothing about +your communications. I don’t carry them about—”</p> + +<p>Quite half-wittedly I interjected a hasty, “But my dear +Ludlow, I saw it fall when your handkerchief—”</p> + +<p>This was mere idiocy, diverting the wrath of the god to +my own shoulders. The thin man turned spryly upon me. “If +you will kindly confine yourself to your own business, Mr. +Bannerlee, without excursions into the fantastic.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bannerlee is right, I have no doubt,” asserted Sean +Cosgrove with ponderous emphasis; “and he is prying into no +one’s business when he tells the lawful truth.”</p> + +<p>“Fiddle-dee-dee!” cackled Ludlow.</p> + +<hr> + +<p><em>Explicit!</em> Here, with the hurly-burly of the quarrel is +completed the exposition; what admired disorder ensued in the +next fifteen minutes I described at the outset of my half-the-night’s +scribbling.<a href="#note2" id="noteref2">¹</a> +What has it meant? What does it portend? +I am sure now that the intangible feeling impressed upon me +in the Hall was one of hostility, not the sort divulged by +semi-secret looks and half-heard imprecations, but a congeries of +criss-crossed feuds hidden completely by the thick veneer of +social amenity.</p> + +<p>Well! sleep we must in spite of thunder. I have written as +often I used to, feverishly, with absorption, but never with +such a theme! What will to-morrow bring? What shall I have +to relate to-morrow midnight? Nothing dull, I hope; I trust +nothing grievous.</p> + +<p>(Eve Bartholomew, whom I thought I heard prowling an +hour ago, left a slip of paper under the door: “Money! I’ve +known Sir Brooke to forget it before.”</p> + +<p>Poor devil of a woman?)</p> + +<div class="footnotesep"></div> + +<p class="footnote" id="note2">¹ +All this is more than four times as much as I wrote that night, +but I did set down something more than five thousand words. (Author’s +note.) +<a href="#noteref2">↩︎</a></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch06"> + +<h2>VI. <br> Strain</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 3. 9.15 P.M.</p> + +<p>I awoke, late in the morning, of course, very +much refreshed. For a moment or two I was puzzled by my +situation; then the tenseness and terror of the preceding night +stung me. I knew that brooding over those wild events would +lead to no good—of this and other matters I had already made +up my mind. I kicked off the bedclothes and ventured out of my +door. It was a minute or two past ten, and on my secret march +in last night’s borrowed dressing-robe down to Pendleton’s +room for a bath, I found no sign of any other guest.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, in the dinner-room across the corridor +from the Hall of the Moth, I sought breakfast. On the +threshold, his back toward me, I found Ludlow vehement, +making warlike gestures at someone inside.</p> + +<p>He looked unnaturally thin and bent, Ludlow, attired in a +suit of cottage tweed, a smoky grey, a thing surely inherited +from some plethoric uncle, for it hung on his Lordship like +a bag and at the same time was too short in particulars. His +trousers were certainly not intended to show all that length +of woollen sock, and his wrists shot out from his sleeves like +a conjurer’s whenever, as now, he straightened his arms. His +Oxford collar, cut off too soon, exposed a lean craning neck.</p> + +<p>Belvoir was seated at the table. He was on the point of +remarking in his blandest voice:</p> + +<p>“And you know, my dear Ludlow, the notion of obscenity +is certainly modern.”</p> + +<p>“No such thing,” sputtered Lord Ludlow. “Your opinions +are atrocious, sir, and your books are vile. You should be boiled +in oil for your opinions, sir—and for your books you should, +er, er—be parboiled!”</p> + +<p>“And you, my good sir, should be embalmed,” rejoined +Belvoir with equanimity. “You <em>are</em> embalmed, by Jove! A good +job, too. That will explain everything.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir!”</p> + +<p>“Not at all. My good sir, have you ever descended to +fundamentals from that altitude of sublime cerebration that you +seem to be soaring in whenever I expound my lowly beliefs?”</p> + +<p>“Fundamentals? What do you mean by fundamentals?”</p> + +<p>“I mean facts.”</p> + +<p>“You mean a perversion of the facts, sir!”</p> + +<p>Belvoir had caught sight of my grinning face over Ludlow’s +shoulder, and for my benefit, I believe, he carried on a +spirited rejoinder. “My books, upon which you have delivered +so restrained a stricture, are little more than depositories of +facts, my good sir. When I assert that modesty is a purely +conventional matter, I am not spinning a yarn from an arm-chair. +When I remark that modern marriage—all marriage—is the +outcome of hardened tribal customs, I am not foining in +intellectual darkness. When I comment on the different conceptions +of chastity, instancing the preparation for marriage of +Babylonian girls in the temples of the priests—”</p> + +<p>Ludlow had been standing still as death during these words, +but I could see that his cleaver-like brownish cheek had been +taking on a very amiable purple hue. The mention of Babylon +fired him.</p> + +<p>“Babylon! Filth! Pah!”</p> + +<p>“Quite so, if you are viciously entangled in the nets of your +own particular hidebound, Tory—”</p> + +<p>“You’re a fool, sir, and the sooner you—”</p> + +<p>“But how beautiful to the Babylonian woman—”</p> + +<p>“Rubbish! In the first place, you haven’t any—”</p> + +<p>“Even you, Ludlow, if you had happened to be a priest in +Baby—”</p> + +<p>“Outrageous, sir! What right—”</p> + +<p>“Why will a Brahmin wash—”</p> + +<p>“I am not a Brahmin either, or a—”</p> + +<p>“Or take the case of murder. With us it is a crime, but +in—”</p> + +<p>“Poppycock! Would you do a murder, sir, to show your +immunity to so-called custom?”</p> + +<p>“I’m too kind-hearted,” murmured Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“And yet you recommend us to throw overboard everything +we have saved from the past—to cast convention to the +winds—to wallow in a sty of the senses—to debauch—”</p> + +<p>After a few purple seconds, like a puny Jeremiah, lifting +spindle arms out of his sleeves while he raised his fists, he +turned and stalked forth in a billow of smoke-grey tweed, +kicking a porridge-bowl along the floor. Beholding me, he +snapped “Good morning” while he went past.</p> + +<p>“Lord Ludlow doesn’t stomach new ideas very readily. His +digestion was formed during the supremacy of the late +lamented V.R.”</p> + +<p>Belvoir spoke from the floor, wherefrom he smilingly +recovered the porridge-bowl. I then saw that other dishes, and +silver, lay scattered.</p> + +<p>The “stick of dynamite” explained, “The good Ludlow <em>will</em> +jump incontinent to his feet when he wants to bully someone, +regardless of whether his tray’s on his lap or not. He <em>will</em> eat +his breakfast off a tray.”</p> + +<p>“Good lord!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, small harm. I did not press my argument until he had +emptied every dish. As you see, neither ham nor egg hath left +a stain.”</p> + +<p>I helped him recover the <i>disiecta membra</i>. While we collected +the crockery from the carpet, Belvoir murmured, “Poor +Ludlow! Too many spinning-mills—I’m afraid some of them +are going on in his brain.”</p> + +<p>“Spinning-mills!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, didn’t you know? Our noble friend is chairman of +a good few businesses in cloth—from Ulster to the Outer +Hebrides.”</p> + +<p>“But really, Mr. Belvoir, I’m surprised to find you carrying +on any academic controversy this morning.”</p> + +<p>“Eh?” His features held a vague look of trouble.</p> + +<p>I had set about loading a goodly plate at the sideboard. +“Well, it strikes me that you were having a row about the +wrong thing.”</p> + +<p>“The wrong thing?”</p> + +<p>“Gad, man, hasn’t anything happened here to set tongues +wagging, that you must bicker with the noble Lord about +folkways and the comparative conceptions of chastity?”</p> + +<p>“Why, you don’t mean—”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott, is everyone in the House as indifferent as you +two? Am I the only one who remembers there was a massacre +last night?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” hesitated he, “I suppose that those signs and +evidences—at night—”</p> + +<p>“You mean, now it’s good broad morning sunlight, +everyone has calmed?”</p> + +<p>“Considerably, Mr. Bannerlee. Even Miss Mertoun, who +saw that horror, wanted to go out of doors this morning, but +Miss Lebetwood forbade it.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Mertoun!” I looked up astonished from sausage and +bacon and steaming coffee.</p> + +<p>“Last night, you know, we supposed that she would have +to remain in bed half a week. But a blue morning sky +re-creates the world, and people. Besides, a couple of the most +painful enigmas are considerably lightened. What do you lack? +Milk?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t find any, I’m afraid. The milkman’s man—we’ve +had it over the ’phone—is in the throes of a nervous +breakdown.”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t Crofts keep a cow of his own?”</p> + +<p>“He does, but the beast has failed ignobly. Well, as I was +saying, last evening’s troubles are mostly dissipated.”</p> + +<p>“Which?”</p> + +<p>“Sir Brooke, for one. Pendleton has had a note from him +in the morning post.”</p> + +<p>“He’s not coming?”</p> + +<p>“Well, what should you say? The note consisted of three +words: ‘Wait for me.’ What should you say?”</p> + +<p>“What does Pendleton say?”</p> + +<p>Belvoir laughed. “Poor chap, he’s almost off his chump still, +as you may guess. Governing a household threatened with +theft and no one knows what else is out of his line. He’s in high +dudgeon over it—wants to know how long he’s supposed to +wait, why he should be expected to wait at all, and so +forth. <em>He</em>, if you like, hasn’t forgotten last night.”</p> + +<p>“What I can’t see is, why this gentleman’s absence should +paralyze the proceedings.”</p> + +<p>Belvoir winked. “We can’t have the Feast proper unless the +bride’s health is drunk, and Sir Brooke is assigned to +proposing the toast.”</p> + +<p>A few seconds went by while I absorbed this statement. +“No one else could propose it, of course?”</p> + +<p>Belvoir grinned. “Well, opinions differ. Crofts says +anybody can, but Cosgrove solemnly insists that no one +else <em>shall</em>!”</p> + +<p>“What difference—?”</p> + +<p>“You’ll have to ask Cosgrove; but he won’t tell you the +answer, the real answer, that is. He’s put his foot down, +though. No, Sir Brooke means no Bidding Feast; that’s +flat.”</p> + +<p>“How long do you suppose the festivities can be postponed?”</p> + +<p>“A day, says Pendleton. Then if he had his way, the +marriage would take place, Brooke or no.”</p> + +<p>“The marriage! With all that ugliness and horror +unexplained?”</p> + +<p>Belvoir shrugged. “What would you have? The fact is that +the blood is not so significant as we thought. Pendleton would +have sent for the police to-day, I dare say, in spite of his stand +last night, but the source of the blood has been found, or rather +missed.”</p> + +<p>“The source?”</p> + +<p>“A possible or probable source. A sucking-pig with all necessary +qualifications is gone from the sties. Pendleton seems to +believe that a poacher may have slaughtered it, or that someone +has indulged in a ritualistic blood orgy, or that—but we +can’t make out what he thinks, if he knows himself. Come outside, +Mr. Bannerlee, and see for yourself how the exhibits have +lost their grisliness in daylight.”</p> + +<p>We met Pendleton at the foot of the stairs. His greeting to +me was effusive yet a trifle strained. He had been going up to +call me; hadn’t expected that after my long—here he looked +at Belvoir, bethought himself, and stammered—well, he hadn’t +expected me to be up so soon. The boy Toby, he said, had at +nine o’clock been sent on his bicycle through New Aidenn to +the ineffable village, to fetch my bag from the inn, and +incidentally to re-inquire about the reported appearance of Sir +Brooke at New Aidenn station. Most of the guests, however, +believed the identification had been mistaken. As a fact, Sir +Brooke was quite irresponsible enough to stay overnight and +not ’phone. But since the message— Were we going out? He’d +come, too.</p> + +<p>On the lawn beyond the mighty gate-house—and herefrom +in the daytime we could see the narrow glitter of Aidenn Water +beyond the tennis-court some distance up the bank—on the +lawn the blood-pool, now a dry clot, and the hatchet with +helve and blade both stained, were fenced off with guards of +chicken-wire.</p> + +<p>“And don’t you think these are serious testimony?”</p> + +<p>“To what? to what?” Pendleton inquired. “What can we +make of Parson—”</p> + +<p>“You have swallowed this Parson Lolly, hook, line, and +sinker. Now I—”</p> + +<p>“You and Oxford weren’t so chirpy last evening,” observed +our host.</p> + +<p>I was indignant. “Well! Did I seem to be in the same +condition of nerves—”</p> + +<p>“You saw the same thing.”</p> + +<p>“But, Crofts, man, it surely can be explained somehow +without—”</p> + +<p>He was impatient. “Yes, of course, everything can be +explained. Things have been happening, oh, quite explainable +things, all of them—only not one of them <em>has</em> been explained. +But what I object to is giving them an explanation that’s pure +conjecture. You evidently think there’s been murder here. +You seem to believe that’s human blood. How do you know it +isn’t pig’s blood?”</p> + +<p>“Why not try to get someone here who can tell?”</p> + +<p>“Someone <em>is</em> coming,” snapped Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you have sent—”</p> + +<p>“No; more guests arriving, that’s all. Late comers.”</p> + +<p>“Like Sir Brooke?”</p> + +<p>“No, not like Sir Brooke. Sir Brooke promised to come +yesterday; these weren’t expected until to-day.”</p> + +<p>“And one of them will be able to tell—”</p> + +<p>“Doctor Aire should be able to tell,” said Pendleton wearily. +“Come on over to the court, and let’s forget this.”</p> + +<p>I acceded gladly enough. Belvoir begged off on the score +of writing letters, and Cosgrove, that moment hailing us from +the library window, came through the armoury door in baggy +knickers and an Irish edition of a sportsman’s coat (black and +astonishingly high in the collar).</p> + +<p>While Cosgrove, Pendleton, and I moved along northward +and surveyed the meagre walls of the glazed conservatory, we +could tell from the mere vestiges that that large room and the +storey of three bed-chambers ranged above it were later +engraftings to the house. The tinting of the stones was bolder, +undarkened, and brick had been used to some extent north of the +tower that marked the limit of the original wall.</p> + +<p>An odd thing, that conservatory window fractured by the +Parson in his latest escapade. Brilliant purple clematis framed +the lower expanses of conservatory glass. Beneath a small +birch-tree opposite the great burst-in window we paused for a +moment in order that I might see the damaged section. Again the +blooms within sent out a heady breath. The gap in the glass +was extremely irregular in shape, a good five feet in its tallest +dimension, half that in its widest. To-day, said Pendleton, the +glazier from New Aidenn, already come for a preliminary +examination, would bring his paraphernalia and close up the place.</p> + +<p>“That’s quite an opening unprotected.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no fear,” said Crofts, “the door from the conservatory +into the corridor had been double-locked and bolted from the +corridor side. Always is, anyhow, unless someone wants to go +in to make music.”</p> + +<p>“Make music?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the piano’s there, you know.”</p> + +<p>“And how do you account for the shape of the smash? It +looks as if someone walking on air had stepped through the +glass.”</p> + +<p>“Someone flying?” muttered Cosgrove, running his finger +along the edge of the broken pane.</p> + +<p>Pendleton made a movement of annoyance. “Oh, I don’t try +to explain it. I leave that to you, sleuth-hound. That +description of yours sounds very probable to me.”</p> + +<p>“Our poor, dear host,” I murmured pityingly. “Forgive me +for harping on the ungrateful chord of mystery.”</p> + +<p>From beyond the thick-clumped shrubs to the north and +toward Aidenn Water came a staccato of handclapping and a +few bright tones of voices in the fresh, vibrant sunlight. The +sounds reminded Pendleton of our objective.</p> + +<p>“Come along to the tennis. That must be Paula playing.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it a bit late in the year for tennis?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so, but Paula would play it in Iceland.”</p> + +<p>“She is good then, I take it?”</p> + +<p>“Very good. She’d give you a run, Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord, I’m no use any more. What sort of court have +you, Crofts?”</p> + +<p>“Hard. Too much rain here for anything else.”</p> + +<p>While we went our way, I was all alert for signs of the +billowing and swelling marauder of last night, and I thought +ruefully how a fictional detective finds clues even in bent +grass-blades. I kept my eyes wide. We crossed the lawn and passed +near the cypress trees where the black-robed creature had +disappeared. Surreptitiously I looked for footprints; nothing +was distinguishable.</p> + +<p>Before reaching the track leading to the pretentious bridge +over the tributary stream, we swung left through the bushes +and soon came to a knoll full of scaly-red, twisted strawberry +trees.</p> + +<p>“These are aliens in England,” explained Cosgrove to me, +while we wound our way upward through the plantation. “But +in my country they are natives. I like nothing better than to +loiter among them; they almost make me think I am in old +Muckross again. There is one reason why I like your +Highglen estate, friend Crofts.”</p> + +<p>We found a pleasant clearing there, where we could lie, +having a view both of the lawns and of the tennis. The +strawberry trees extend thickly beyond the knoll and around the +court, which is only a few yards away from Aidenn Water +where it comes straight down the middle of the Vale before +making quite a detour toward the western escarpment. A +doubles match was in progress, and the knot of spectators was +too intent on the exchanges to notice us.</p> + +<p>“There’s Paula,” indicated Crofts. “Look at that shot! +She’s master of us all with the racquet.”</p> + +<p>A white-skirted player had given a leap, a <i>whang</i> was to +be heard even from our vantage-point, and another patter of +applause. I thought the Irishman looked satisfied.</p> + +<p>“I approve of the excellence of women in games,” he said.</p> + +<p>We reclined at our ease and had a good view of Miss +Lebetwood and her partner grinding down their opponents. +Cosgrove, it developed, had never played tennis, nor did he any +other game—now. In his “youth,” he told us, he had been a +good Rugger player, I think he called himself a “dangerous +partisan”; “murderous” I thought might be the fitter word +while I gazed at his countenance full of heavy seriousness and +wondered when this young man considered his “youth” to have +ended.</p> + +<p>He swept his arm toward the enclosure where the players +darted and skipped. “As for this juvenile pastime, my part in +it has been confined to holding the fish-net.”</p> + +<p>I gave an astonished “Fish-net!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, on the stream bank.”</p> + +<p>Crofts Pendleton rolled over so that he might address me. +“We lose a good few balls here.”</p> + +<p>“Well, these tangled strawberry trees might swallow any +number.”</p> + +<p>“There’s more in it than that. It seems almost uncanny +sometimes how many are never recovered.”</p> + +<p>Cosgrove said, “The number of missing balls is +extraordinary.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and wild shots often go into Aidenn Water. We +usually have someone on the bank with the net to recapture +them floating down!”</p> + +<p>“That must be a grateful task.”</p> + +<p>“It is like all other labours of love,” rejoined Crofts, “a joy +to the doer, a wonder to the Philistine.”</p> + +<p>I looked sharply at my friend; little nippy speeches like that +were not like him.</p> + +<p>Our talk drifted away from the games. I mentioned that +ruin farther up the Vale, which I was eager to see by daylight. +Cosgrove had some wild tale about it which he told with +sonorous impressiveness—only, while I watched the lithe leaps +of Paula Lebetwood and witnessed the accuracy of her shots, +the gist of the history escaped me. At this moment all I can +recall of it is that the word “treachery” kept coming in. Even +if I was distracted from appreciation, Cosgrove seemed to +derive a pure pleasure from hearing himself pour forth. But +Crofts Pendleton did not dote on the tale; instead this account, +doubtless half fact, half legend, seemed to remind him of +present broils.</p> + +<p>During an exchange of courts, I let my gaze alight on +Mynydd Tarw, that northern hill above the ruin, whereon +Aidenn Water begins at Shepherd’s Well. My glance roved +down the western line of hills, Black Mixen, Great Rhos, +Esgair Nantau, and Vron Hill, the last directly opposite us +across the Water.</p> + +<p>“Do you see it?” Crofts said suddenly.</p> + +<p>“What?” I asked, rolling over with a start.</p> + +<p>“The tumulus on Vron Hill. Some old josser lying up there +with a ton of stones on his chest.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t see it.”</p> + +<p>“Neither do I. Funny thing about it, it lies just over the +shoulder of the Hill from where we are. At sunset, though, it +looks quite grand up there, if you can see it.”</p> + +<p>“Somehow I’ve noticed that,” I remarked gravely.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Things look better if you can see them.”</p> + +<p>Crofts brushed aside my feeble attempt at leg-pulling. +“Seriously, though, Bannerlee, you should have a try at it this +evening—from your window, or from outside on the balcony. I’m +no good at old stones and that kind of thing, but I do get a +thrill when I think of that codger up there sleeping it off. +He chose a breezy place to wait for Judgment.”</p> + +<p>“I will have a look,” I promised. “I can’t see, though, why +this antique gentleman selected that Hill in preference to any +one of several others hereabout.” I indicated with my arm. +“Why, that one, for instance, or that one, must be a couple +of hundred feet higher. Don’t you think so?” I put it to +Cosgrove, but he hesitated to commit himself, and Crofts said +that I had better ask Miss Lebetwood, if I were too lazy +to consult an ordnance map.</p> + +<p>“She’s hot stuff at all that, really—very useful.”</p> + +<p>I saw Cosgrove give his head a doleful wag.</p> + +<p>“Her brother—American army officer—killed,” explained +our host. “Before he sailed for France she made him teach +her all he knew, apparently. She and he would pore over the +maps and plans together, I understand.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” came in Cosgrove with his voice like the great slow +tramp of oxen, “she has too many of these unwomanly things +in her head, I misdoubt. Photography—”</p> + +<p>“Topography, you mean,” contradicted Crofts, surprised out +of his jaded condition into smothered laughter by the +Irishman’s blunder. “Topography, not photography.”</p> + +<p>“I said photography, and I’ll stick to it,” replied Cosgrove +with never a smile. “And topography as well. Do you call +them fit studies for a woman?”</p> + +<p>“They, and others like them, are the very things that make +you ache for her,” said Pendleton with what I considered +remarkable penetration. “They form part of the wonder of her, +the quality that makes it hard for you to realize just what +a prize you’ve captured. Come man, frankly, what would you +give to have her for your wife two days from now if she didn’t +have intellect as well as a treasury of golden hair and +emotions which permit a strange susceptibility to such as you?”</p> + +<p>I looked curiously at Cosgrove, to see how he would take the +challenge. He took it stolidly, with never a sign on his rufous +countenance; only after a while his eyebrows lifted sharply, as +if he considered the possibility of truth in his friend’s words.</p> + +<p>For my part, I soon was too absorbed in the dart and dip +of the tennis ball to notice much more of the talk. Pendleton +kept trying to tell me more about Miss Lebetwood, how she +loved climbing, how on earlier visits she had taken the +unpromising lad Toby in hand and uncovered surprising +intelligence in him. It all had something to do with photography—or +was it topography?—no matter. She had even brought down +some apparatus—or was it maps?—and given it to him. Cosgrove +kept still now, while our host rambled on, evidently +glad of any topic he could talk of without unpleasant +associations.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the game was over, and everyone concerned trooped +toward the House. Pendleton was hailed by somebody and had +to join the returning party, though I think he would have been +glad to remain out of sight of his country home just then. I +was well content to stay with Cosgrove, for the man rather +fascinated me; his mind seemed to be full of admirable +inconsistencies.</p> + +<p>We strolled southward where Aidenn Water makes that +monstrous sweep to the west beyond the towered gate, and +further where the stream swings sharply eastward again under +the very toes of the bounding hills. There stood the bridge, +a crossing of one arch: ill-hewn, moss-grown moor stone with +a two-foot parapet, quite immeasurably old and quite quaint, +with an immemorial ash-tree overlooking it from this side. The +water stole peacefully underneath. I expressed surprise that it +would bear any considerable weight, and Cosgrove with an +air of commenting on the irrelevant remarked that he did +not suppose it was ever expected to bear any greater weight +than Pendleton’s motor or a tradesman’s team and wagon.</p> + +<p>“Look at it, I say, look at it. They build no bridges like +that to-day.”</p> + +<p>We remained several minutes there beside the water-crossing, +which was indeed picturesque, then turned toward the +half-hidden House in some haste, for the sky had gradually been +overcast and now there was a premonition of showers in the +nip of the wind.</p> + +<p>We hastened through the main portal of the House, beneath +the stone head of the cat, just in time to escape a flicker +and dash of rain.</p> + +<p>There at the foot of the stair-well was Pendleton again, +with a long, sour face.</p> + +<p>I suppressed a desire to laugh.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“That damned, diseased pest!”</p> + +<p>“What! Not the Parson once more!”</p> + +<p>Cosgrove cannoned an incredulous “No!”</p> + +<p>With the suddenness of a conjurer our host thrust before +our noses a second cardboard placard scrawled across with +uncouth printing mingled of capitals and small letters, now +composing a message of more sinister purport:</p> + +<blockquote class="placard"> + + <p>LooK ouT FOR PARSON LOLLY He MEAns + BUSINeSS</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“Ah, yes,” I murmured with perhaps a little too much surface +effort at nonchalance. “Parson Lolly means business now. +He was only trifling last night.”</p> + +<p>“He was interrupted last night—be sure of that,” intoned +Cosgrove.</p> + +<p>“Damned lucky for us, then.”</p> + +<p>Pendleton was unsteady with righteous embarrassment and +rage when Cosgrove interrogated him. “Where was this thing +found?—who found it?—when—”</p> + +<p>“Harmony—one of the housemaids—the vixen,” snapped +Pendleton, and seemed unable to make headway.</p> + +<p>“Why is the good Harmony held in such opprobrium?” I +inquired.</p> + +<p>“I swear she’s lying—the minx—or she put it there +herself.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“In your room, Sean, lying in the middle of the floor.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps Pendleton had been saving that item for rather +a stiff jolt at the last. I happened to be looking at Cosgrove +and saw his eyebrows jerk upward prodigiously, as if they +were going to fly off his forehead, and the eyes beneath them +bulged and stared like glass.</p> + +<p>“In my room? When was this?”</p> + +<p>“She just came down from doing the beds—says she found +it there not five minutes ago.”</p> + +<p>“Hem,” said Cosgrove, his features settling into a study.</p> + +<p>“Come, come,” urged Pendleton, making a nervous movement +of impatience. “Tell us—when were you in your room +last?”</p> + +<p>“A little after nine, I think,” answered Cosgrove, solemnly +scratching his black-thatched head behind the left ear, his look +scowling and intent upon the floor, his brow cleft by one heavy +wrinkle. “I saw the boy riding the bicycle out of the barn; +that would be nine, you said. I heard Lord Ludlow quarrelling +with the man Soames for bringing him the wrong color of +towel, a quarter of an hour later—fully. And I came out in +the corridor in time to see Soames disappear down the stair.”</p> + +<p>“After a quarter past nine,” said Pendleton. “That leaves +over two hours—unless Harmony—”</p> + +<p>“It couldn’t have been there and you not see it?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“In the centre of the floor? Mr. Bannerlee!”</p> + +<p>“Are you implying that it was left there last night?”</p> + +<p>“I withdraw the suggestion, Crofts,” I said, “although—”</p> + +<p>“There are enough ‘if’s’ and ‘although’s’ in this to—to +stock a political editor,” grumbled our host.</p> + +<p>“Has the placard any mark, any peculiarity—”</p> + +<p>“For identification, you mean?” Pendleton turned the cardboard +over between his fingers, dubiously. “It’s like last +night’s—cut round the edges with scissors or a knife—might have +been part of the bottom of a box of sweets.” His voice was +despairing. “I suppose enough board for twenty foul things like +this comes into this house every week. And in all Wales—”</p> + +<p>“Our search—supposing we go about a search—will hardly +be as broad as that,” said Cosgrove, and I was struck, as many +times before, by the lack of lightness in his voice. He meant just +that: that if the placard were investigated, the whole country +need not be drawn into the matter.</p> + +<p>Our host turned to the Irishman: “Search won’t do any +good; that’s certain sure. But I’ll have the servants up this +afternoon. (Bannerlee, you be with me while I question ’em +and tell me what you think of their candour—you’ve no +prejudices, you know.) Sean, what do you think of it? Are you +alarmed?”</p> + +<p>Cosgrove laughed contemptuously.</p> + +<p>“But it’s directed to you this time.”</p> + +<p>“It’s casual, casual. What could anyone—what could this +meddler have against me?”</p> + +<p>“It was left in your room.”</p> + +<p>“By chance,” insisted Cosgrove. “There could have been no +malice toward me in it.”</p> + +<p>“But, by gad, what shall I tell the people here?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing—and swear the woman Harmony to whisper never +a word.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course, I’ve sworn her on the Bible until she was +blue-scared, the jade. But this thing?”</p> + +<p>Cosgrove reached out and took the placard. He tore it +across, placed the pieces together and tore it again, and +repeatedly, and handed the bits back to Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Make a small fire in the Hall.”</p> + +<p>It impressed me as a really brave thing, and I believe that +Crofts felt the same admiration for him who dismissed such a +message, apparently out of the air, from man or superman or +sub-man.</p> + +<p>“Here goes, then.”</p> + +<p>“Has the boy come back with my bag?”</p> + +<p>“Not for at least another hour, I’m afraid. He has a long +hilly road to ride—down through New Aidenn and all the +way around by the south skirts of Aidenn Forest.”</p> + +<p>“Sir Brooke?”</p> + +<p>“Not a nail of him. But the others have come.”</p> + +<p>I echoed, “Others? Guests?”</p> + +<p>“Doctor Aire and the two young, very young Americans.”</p> + +<p>“And what says the Doctor to the blood on the lawn?” +asked Cosgrove.</p> + +<p>“He took some of it up for microscopy. He can tell if it’s +probably human or not. He’s more than a little interested.”</p> + +<p>We had entered the Hall of the Moth from the portrait +corridor, and through the plenteous windows saw a swift rain +pouring down.</p> + +<p>“The evidence is getting wet.”</p> + +<p>“Canvas spread over,” Crofts assured us. “And <em>this</em> +evidence now gets carbonized.”</p> + +<p>We watched the fragments of cardboard smoulder, flare, +and become consumed in the fireplace where raindrops spattered +down the chimney, until only ashes were left, and a tiny +spire of smoke. Cosgrove disintegrated the ash with the poker.</p> + +<p>“<em>That’s</em> a blessing,” said Crofts, taking out his watch. +“Luncheon-bell in ten minutes. Between now and then I shall +smoke not less than three cigarettes.”</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch07"> + +<h2>VII. <br> Court of Inquiry</h2> + +<p>We ate beneath a sprinkling of electric lights and my +mind was glum with foreboding.</p> + +<p>As usual, Ludlow made himself manifest. His sneer in a +shrill staccato was apparently directed against Doctor Stephen +Aire, a new arrival. Him I had not yet met, the table being +already seated when I came down from revising my toilet in +my lofty bed-chamber.</p> + +<p>“—and the wrigglings and windings of the new psychology, +the <em>new</em> psychology, forsooth!”</p> + +<p>A diatribe by Lord Ludlow I already considered to be in +the nature of a treat, and I leaned forward to see how the +challenge would be received by Doctor Aire, who was seated +at the same side of the table as I. All that was visible of him, +of course, was head and shoulders, extraordinarily broad and +square shoulders in rough purplish tweed, and a shocking small +and yellowy-looking head with tight-stretched skin, a balt spot +like a tonsure in a ring of sparse grey hair, and short +pepper-and-salt moustache. His eyes (I could see, for he sat only two +away from me) were small and bright and seemed to be +twinkling amusement.</p> + +<p>“The new psychology, sir—”</p> + +<p>“No, Ludlow,” clicked the doctor, his thin bloodless lips +curved sharply upward at the ends, “not the <em>new</em> psychology, of +course. <em>Why, Saint Paul knew as much psychology as anyone +living to-day!</em>”</p> + +<p>At this iteration of his own words of the night before his +Lordship stared, swallowed, and collapsed into silence. A small +but delighted squeak produced by a morsel of a girl at the +other end gave away the secret of pre-arrangement, and a +laugh murmured about the table.</p> + +<p>Now, I was not the only one who particularly noticed this +very young lady, “Lib” (short for Liberty!) Dale. While I +took in her appearance, I became almost intuitively aware of +another gaze making an angle with mine. Cosgrove was staring +at her, so enigmatically that I removed my glance from +her to him, just as she turned her blue eyes upon me with a +quick little movement of her head. Vastly <em>interested</em>, totally +engrossed, seemed Sean Cosgrove just then, but the quality of +his interest was untellable. In the judgment of a second, I +guessed his to be a look of, almost, aversion; he seemed +fascinated, yet scandalized. Then the fleeting expression was gone, +and he leaned back, turned to his neighbour.</p> + +<p>Now I was aware that another beside myself was intent on +Cosgrove!</p> + +<p>Pendleton sat in sole occupancy of the head of the board. +The ends of the table, however, were broad enough to seat two +of our numerous party, and Alberta Pendleton shared the +foot with a youth of sturdy appearance. Bob Cullen completed +the American group among us. His alert eyes had the queer +habit of blinking owlishly at whiles; he possessed also a pug +nose, a good, clean-cut mouth, and a jaw meatless and +determined. Between the mode of his smooth black hair and that of +“Lib” Dale’s there was, as far as I could see, little to tell. He +was very shy. His contributions to conversation, such as I had +happened to overheard, had been “That’s right,” and “Yes, +Ma’am,” addressed with schoolboy gruffness to Alberta +Pendleton, who smiled on him with aunt-like approbation. He has +attended for a year, I understand, one of the great American +universities.</p> + +<p>He, then, was staring at Cosgrove, while the Irishman’s +regard rested in trouble on the boyish features of “Lib” Dale. +The American youth’s face went unwontedly white, and his +eyes, now wide open, glared. There was nothing puzzled in his +expression, only resentment and a vague awe, as if he knew he +confronted a better man than he.</p> + +<p>Then Cosgrove shifted, and the drama of three seconds, +which has taken three pages to describe, was over.</p> + +<p>Chairs scraped; we rose to our several heights. “Lib” and +Bob were distinctly the shortest among us, and Doctor Aire +was not much taller. But the physician, standing up, was the +strangest creature in the room—a clockwork man.</p> + +<p>That broad-shouldered body in the tweed-suiting was boiler-shaped, +and the long, gaunt arms and short, stodgy legs, seemed +casual appendages joined at convenient locations. Atop this +mechanical contrivance his head stuck like an absurd plaster +carving on a pedestal. I could not but feel a queer, +half-repugnant sensation when, on my being introduced to him, +his yellowy, almost Chinese-looking face was close to mine, +and I saw only the blue shadows where his eyes had retreated +and the narrow-lipped mouth nigh to white in its +bloodlessness.</p> + +<p>I looked about to be presented to the pair of young +Americans; they had already skipped out of the room.</p> + +<p>“Since it’s still raining and we’re tired of the things we’ve +been doing anyhow, we’re going to get Doctor Aire to tell us +about the old magic in this neighbourhood,” said Alberta.</p> + +<p>“That will be frightfully jolly,” I remarked, surprised at +the bizarre field of knowledge evidently studied by the +physician.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it will be, as you say, ‘frightfully jolly,’ ” +remarked Doctor Aire, with his smile at the very ends of his +mouth. “I’m not sure the subject—in view of events—”</p> + +<p>“Why not the new magic instead?” asked Crofts.</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire turned his head sharply; I almost expected to +hear a ratchet click. “What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“The stuff in old Watts’ attic, I mean. We’ve found a +conjurer’s outfit there, Doctor. Why not give ’em a show? That +performance of yours at Coventry was as good as any +professional’s.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’ll settle that in the Hall,” smiled Alberta. “Come +along, Mr. Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>“But I want him here,” objected Crofts. “We’re going to +examine the servants.”</p> + +<p>“You really want me?” I exclaimed. “But I don’t know +your servants—haven’t seen but four of ’em yet.”</p> + +<p>“That’s just it,” he explained. “I want someone to be here +who can get a good unprejudiced impression of how they +behave.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if I can assist—”</p> + +<p>“But have you asked Mr. Bannerlee if he <em>wants</em> to stay +and listen to the silly—”</p> + +<p>Crofts besought me. “Oh, come, Bannerlee, you know as +much as Doctor Aire does about magic—you with your +antiquities.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, it is one of the fields where I have done +very little spading, but—”</p> + +<p>“There, see,” smiled Alberta.</p> + +<p>“But I was going to say that this interrogation of yours +sounds particularly interesting. I’ll stay, if you don’t mind, +Alberta.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” laughed Pendleton’s good-natured wife. +“I only tried to protect you. Crofts is a fearfully long-winded +inquisitor.”</p> + +<p>“I think I am the best judge—” began he, but the door +closed, cutting short his speech and her laugh.</p> + +<p>There were thirteen servants in the room when the tale +was made. The dessert dishes from luncheon had not been +removed. Crofts sat at the head of the board; I was +inconspicuous in the curtained recess of the window where Belvoir +had sat at breakfast-time.</p> + +<p>From this vantage-point I had my first glimpse of the grounds +immediately east of the House. I saw an unexpected lawn with +lovely flower-patches extending to the kitchen-gardens. On +both sides were topless and toppled walls much gnawed by +time, clearly a portion of the ancient, much vaster edifice of +which Highglen House is a survival. A group of well-preserved +square stone buildings about thirty yards away on my right +were, of course, the stables and garage.</p> + +<p>The half-dozen women-servants and two elderly men-servants, +besides the magisterial Blenkinson, were in chairs +along the inner side of the room, while the other men stood +with marked differences of composure before the screens that +guarded the entrance to the pantries and the kitchen. The +number of “below-stairs” folk would have been much greater, +of course, had not the Pendletons requested their guests not to +bring personal servants. Thus we men all valeted ourselves, +and for the ladies the staff of maids had to “go round.”</p> + +<p>Pendleton began bluntly: “It’s about this foolishness of +Parson Lolly.”</p> + +<p>Blenkinson lifted the lid of one eye, the better to observe +the master of the House. “And did you mean to say, sir, if I +may make so bold, that any of <em>us</em> have anything to do with +the honfortunate affair?”</p> + +<p>“Everything, everything!” said Crofts, and to allay a hum +of dismay and dignity offended, hastily added, “Oh, don’t +misunderstand, please. I mean just this: this Parson Lolly—this +ridiculous Parson Lolly—of course, we don’t believe in any +such nonsense. What I want to do is to get from each one of +you, if you can pull yourselves together and give plain, +straightforward statements—I want to find the origin of this +folk-tale—this fairy-story—from each one of you—that is—do you +see?”</p> + +<p>“Can’t say as we do—speakin’ for me at least,” drawled a +gaunt tawny-faced man in a leather coat and vest and corduroy +riding-breeches, a cartridge-belt hanging over his arm. His voice +had the pleasant modulation of this countryside, with a little +chirruppy uptilt at the end of each phrase.</p> + +<p>“Hughes, I expected—you see, of course, that it’s that +common talk of you—all of you—and such as you, that spreads +such wild, romantic, and unfounded legends through the +countryside. Now, a man four hundred years old—which of you +has seen such a man?”</p> + +<p>“If I may hinterpose,” came in Blenkinson again, “I might +remind you, sir, that most of us are not of Welsh extraction. +These foolish stories don’t ’ave much credit with us from +London and other parts, you may be sure.”</p> + +<p>This speech was approved by vigorous nods on the part +of several, while three or four, the darker-faced and smaller +ones, glowered for a bit, particularly two of the women, +strikingly handsome and strikingly alike. Old Finlay the gardener +smiled with sublime sarcasm, such as to elicit a question from +Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“I was thinkin’ as how they was all flummoxed and flabbergasted +last night. It tickle me—that it do. They fules!” The +ancient slapped his knee and burst into a silent guffaw. “Why, +they tales—”</p> + +<p>“One moment, Finlay,” said Pendleton; “we must go +through this in an orderly way.”</p> + +<p>“Sir,” Blenkinson cautioned.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, yes, of course—what you say is very true—forgotten +about it.” Pendleton scratched his head, saw light +suddenly. “Why, of course, er—most of you are English, not +British—”</p> + +<p>“What’s that, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Not Welsh—same thing. I suppose, then—there won’t be +much—well, let’s see how much we do know. I’ll take you in +turn.”</p> + +<p>He spoke to the men standing by the screen. “Wheeler, +Tenney, Morgan—any of you had any, er, experiences in the +stables? Wheeler?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” answered a young, rubicund fellow with a swollen +and discoloured cheek and blue-ringed eye. (He drove the +Pendleton car.) “Nothing but when we were called out last +night.”</p> + +<p>“Where did you get that eye?”</p> + +<p>“Fell over pitchfork, sir, and hit the side of a stall.”</p> + +<p>“Tenney, you?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.” He who answered was a tired-looking man, whose +eyelids were most of the time let down. The two words, his +total contribution to the inquiry, were drawn out to the length +of polysyllables.</p> + +<p>“Morgan, you’re a Welshman from around this district. You +must have a lot of these old wives’ tales simmering inside that +head of yours.”</p> + +<p>The man, a swart, square-bearded little man, speaking with +the sing-song of local accent, answered that he had heard tell +of Parson Lolly “out of the cradle.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve no doubt—ignorant folly,” commented Pendleton. +“Well, what is all this nonsense?”</p> + +<p>“You mean about Parson Lolly, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, what about him?”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, they do say he be the biggest of the farises and +he be out of sight of any man for age.”</p> + +<p>“Farises?”</p> + +<p>“He means the fairies, sir,” interpreted one of the women, +a mite of a person sitting on the edge of her chair, with a wisp +of tartan colour at the throat of her black lady’s maid’s +uniform.</p> + +<p>“Eh? Oh, Ardelia, thanks,” exclaimed Pendleton, while the +stableman Morgan mumbled something about the propriety of +a “not Welshly person’s” keeping still, and one of the two +handsome women gave her small fellow-servant an unsisterly +look and ejaculated, “Hop-o’-my-thumb!”</p> + +<p>“Go on, Morgan,” bade Pendleton, quieting a general stir.</p> + +<p>The ensuing account was full of omens and transformation, +of black calves and fairy ovens, of wizard marks, sucking pigs, +“low winds,” and horses ridden by the “goblin trot” in stables +at night.</p> + +<p>“Great Scott, man! Do you believe all this?”</p> + +<p>The “London servants” and those from other parts tittered.</p> + +<p>Morgan seemed to be weighing his words. “Well, that be +hard to say, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What’s hard about it? Don’t you know what believing is?”</p> + +<p>“Right well I do, sir, but—”</p> + +<p>The small Ardelia woman with the fleck of colour at her +collar bobbed forward. “If he can’t say it, I’ll say it for him. +Sometimes he does believe, and sometimes he doesn’t. Now, +Saul Morgan, say if ’tisn’t so.”</p> + +<p>The stableman gave her a critical glare, but assented. “That’s +nigh the way of it, as Miss Lacy says, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well!” snorted the interlocutor. “Sometimes you do and +sometimes you don’t! And what causes these changes of front?”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, sir?”</p> + +<p>“What makes you believe—”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, sometimes it’s right dark outside, you +understand, and things or somethin’ you can’t see—well, they—”</p> + +<p>“What, the things you can’t see?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. They have a way of surely creepin’ in your blood, +if you understand what I mean, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Pendleton, settling back, and, I thought, +shivering a little, “I suppose I do.”</p> + +<p>Morgan, on account of his complete and ingenuous exegesis +of the lore of Parson Lolly, the object of much ironic +commiseration from the “Londoners,” pulled out a florid +handkerchief and wiped the beads from his brow. He stole a +half-ashamed glance at the diminutive Ardelia Lacy, whose wide +disapproving eyes made him squirm and shrink.</p> + +<p>Pendleton turned to the women ranged along the wall, whose +examination was shorter. Harmony, Em, and Jael, minxes with +buxom bodies and good fresh faces, were “not Welshly people,” +and had no traditions of Parson Lolly in their mental make-up, +but they evidently had some respect for him born of the stories +of indigenous servants. Harmony’s troubled look showed, to be +sure, that she was remembering painfully to keep the secret of +the new announcement of the Parson, but by none save Crofts +and me was her embarrassment marked. Ardelia Lacy, minute +and prim, personal maid of Alberta Pendleton, was also a +“Londoner.”</p> + +<p>The two dark-featured, vivacious women, were the “Clays,” +Rosa and Ruth, cook and housekeeper, nieces, it appeared, of +Hughes. Rosa Clay it was who had shown a little animosity +toward the “foreign” Ardelia, indicating possibly a rivalry in +respect to the favour of Morgan the stableman. They knew of +no doings of Parson Lolly prior to the arrival of the guests for +the Bidding Feast.</p> + +<p>There remained three men-servants grouped in chairs about +the foot of the table: Blenkinson the staid, Soames, footman, +with mutton-chops and unction, and old Finlay the gardener +with his irrepressible silent guffaws. And in the background +against the screen loomed the figure of the man in out-of-doors +clothing and cartridge-belt, the gamekeeper. Crofts looked +at Soames and Blenkinson reflectively, but passed them as +already examined. He raised his eyes.</p> + +<p>“How about you, Hughes?”</p> + +<p>“<em>What</em> about me, sir?” Again the keeper’s voice betrayed +his kinship of race with Morgan.</p> + +<p>“You, too, have this mythology of the Parson pat, like +Morgan?”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, I hardly think Morgan had it ‘pat,’ as you say,” +answered the man, turning the eyes in his motionless head +toward the stableman, who muttered something unintelligible. +“I don’t think he was very well taught, sir—things mixed up, +or something, and things that didn’t belong there, you might +say. Now, as it was always told me—I come from down +Powys-way, sir—”</p> + +<p>“You surprise me, Hughes, a man of your age and sense. +Now, what about this? While the House was empty and you +and the rest were caretaking, what signs were of Parson Lolly +then? I don’t mean larks and pigeons—I mean real evidence +lying around, or real activity.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Not anywhere in the preserve? Not in the whole estate?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir. Nothing used to happen until you brought down +the folk that are here now.”</p> + +<p>“I see, I see. And you know nothing of the cause of the +disturbances of the last few days?”</p> + +<p>There was an ominous pause, while Hughes seemed to be +considering his words. The room grew a little tenser; +Pendleton looked up in surprise.</p> + +<p>“What! You do!”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, I might say so; it’s connected with what I’ve +heard about Parson Lolly. But it’s an old story, sir—tells +about the great lord who built the castle that was here.”</p> + +<p>“Ha! it does? About Sir Pharamond Kay?”</p> + +<p>“It’s sure to, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Sir Pharamond—hm—built this castle—exactly—well, +come on, man; what is this?”</p> + +<p>Contrasted with Morgan’s, that was a thoroughly intelligible +tale the tall keeper recited in his voice with the mellow burr +and up-ended sentences. Under those conditions of semi-darkness +and suspense in the old, black-beamed chamber, it made a +thoroughly moving story. And to one who knew the rigours and +alarums of feudatory existence, who realized the ingrown awe +of their masters felt by peasants with a long tradition of +ancestral servitude to imperious Lords Marchers, it was quite +obvious what a foothold in fact this tale of enchantments must +have had. For from his youth, or ever that most ancient castle +up the Vale was destroyed, Sir Pharamond Kay had been a +wizard, and between him and Parson Lolly, then presumably +a magnus in the prime of his powers, existed a rivalry shrewd +and unflagging!</p> + +<p>Wizards, to be sure, are not born but made, and Sir Pharamond +went through complicated and profound measures to acquire +his occult influence. This was before he had achieved his +turbulent lordship, and his father ruled all Aidenn Forest with +mailed fist. Sir Pharamond first unbaptized himself by three +times spewing out water from the Holy Well. Then he stitched +up his own lips with three stitches and for a certain space +fasted and remained dumb. When he had unsealed his mouth +again, he went by himself to a lonely room and did certain +rites with a Bible, a fire, and a circle drawn with blood upon +the floor, whereafter the Bible was ashes and Sir Pharamond, +as he well deserved, was a true and certified wizard.</p> + +<p>All this while Parson Lolly, whose sphere of influence +included Aidenn Forest, had been watching the career of the +ambitious necromancer with baleful interest, and now the older +magician believed that he must try conclusions with the usurper +or be shorn of his potency in this region. In the guise of a +skipping hare he invaded the castle, and having come into the +presence of its lord, suddenly assumed his wizard shape and +challenged Sir Pharamond to a contest for supremacy. This +took place at the Four Stones (monuments of an eldern time +still standing lonely in a field-corner some miles beyond the +mouth of the Vale) and the Lord of Aidenn proved to have +an Evil Eye so strong the Parson was put to rout. In the +form of a buzzard he fled to the desolate summit of Black +Mixen at the top of Aidenn Forest. But Sir Pharamond, having +assumed the shape of a small caterpillar, clung with all his +legs between the shoulders of the bird and reconfronted his +rival when he alighted where The Riggles are now. Those +enormous scratches are the marks of his buzzard-claws.</p> + +<p>Then when the Parson strove with powers enforced by the +deadly fear he was in, the tide of battle turned. On that solitary +hilltop, moreover, the elemental influences were on the side of +the older magician. With a dart of his beak the Parson sank a +deep wound in the cheek of Sir Pharamond, destroying the +efficacy of his Evil Eye. Then it was the Lord of Aidenn’s time +to flee, and he escaped to the innermost black sanctuary of his +castle.</p> + +<p>But Parson Lolly overthrew the castle, whose skeleton of +clay slate chunks lies wasting up the Vale to this day.</p> + +<p>Thenceforth, although Sir Pharamond lived on, his magic +was only the shadow of what it had been, and he lived in +perpetual dread of Parson Lolly. He built him a new castle where +the mill had stood, and where Highglen House stands to-day. +But he never found content within his re-erected halls. The +menace of the Parson hung over his days and nights. Whenever +in his woeful heart he meditated regaining his former +ascendancy, from the cheek of his portrait on the wall blood +would run and in his own cheek he would feel overwhelming +pain, as when the Parson had driven his buzzard-beak into the +flesh.</p> + +<p>“One moment!” interjected Crofts. “Do you mean the +painting in the corridor?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir; it’s that little one way up on the wall of the +Hall of the Moth as I mean.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” My host licked somewhat dry lips. “Go on.”</p> + +<p>“There’s not so much more to it, sir, I expect. The Parson +finally <em>would</em> make an end of Sir Pharamond. He sent Sir +Pharamond’s own corpse-candle for Sir Pharamond to see.”</p> + +<p>“Corpse-candle!”</p> + +<p>“A dimmery light, sir—it floats in the air. It’s a sure sign +of a death in these parts. And the Tolaeth sounded, too; so +Sir Pharamond knew then that it was all up with him.”</p> + +<p>“The Tolaeth—I don’t think I know what that means,” +said Crofts. The Welsh folk stirred just a little.</p> + +<p>The keeper’s voice fell, I do not think by design. “The +rappin’s, sir, that come just before a person dies. Tappin’, sir, +like—”</p> + +<p>Our hearts were in our throats while he finished the speech +in a sudden gasp—“like that.”</p> + +<p>For from the other side of the corridor wall, high toward +the ceiling, had sounded three sharp knocks.</p> + +<p>And again, before a breath was taken in the room, three +knocks again—and again.</p> + +<p>“It’s the Three Thumps.” Morgan’s voice was that of a +strangling man.</p> + +<p>“Coffin-making,” muttered one of the Clay sisters, her eyes +lightless.</p> + +<p>I saw Crofts’ glance flit about the room, taking in the whole +group. I, too, had thought of collusion, but the number of +servants was complete; none had slipped out while the keeper’s +story was in progress.</p> + +<p>Crofts remained irresolute for only a few seconds before he +jumped up and sprang to the door, flung it open and glared +down the corridor.</p> + +<p>“Empty,” he said, and I could not tell whether satisfaction +or distress was uppermost in his voice. Then the silence for a +bit was blank and appalling. He returned to the table. “Get +on with your story, Hughes. We’ll find out about this fol-de-rol +later.”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, the Lord of Aidenn was sure to fight the Parson +again when the signs had come. He still tried to get back his +magic power, and the blood stood out on the picture and the +pain came in his cheek. But he knew that it was life-and-death, +and he kept repeating his spells and made a man of wax against +the Parson. But just as he was going to drive a bodkin through +the man of wax, the pain of his old wound made him stagger, +and everyone heard the Parson laughing though they couldn’t +see him, and the portrait fell down from the wall—and Sir +Pharamond was dead!”</p> + +<p>All of us, I believe, drew a long, grateful breath. Crofts sat +quietly, seeming to cogitate.</p> + +<p>At length he said, “Look here, Hughes. That’s a priceless +fairy-tale, but what makes you think it may have any +connection with what’s going on here?”</p> + +<p>The keeper hunched a shoulder toward the corridor wall. +“You’ve just heard that, sir. And if there <em>is</em> a Parson Lolly, +sir—”</p> + +<p>Crofts leapt in the breach to nullify this dangerous beginning. +“We’ll not discuss such a preposterous supposition.”</p> + +<p>“They do say, sir,” appended Hughes, “that blood will come +on the face of the picture when the time comes for Highglen +House to be destroyed.”</p> + +<p>“Destroyed?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. By Parson Lolly.”</p> + +<p>There was no denying that Hughes had scored several palpable +hits, besides the unaccountable business of the knocking +on the wall, and Crofts was glad to dismiss him, so to speak, +from the witness-box.</p> + +<p>I, seated in the embrasure of the window a little way behind +Pendleton, had an unobstructed view of the upper iron-bound +door leading into the portrait-corridor. While, then, I +happened to glance at the substantial iron handle of the door, +for it had no knob, the roots of my hair stirred and a thrill +shot down my spine.</p> + +<p>For, very slowly, the black bar was turning while something +outside softly pressed downward on the handle.</p> + +<p>The fascination that took hold of me then was almost +hypnotic. I forgot the room, the people there, the cracked +fleering voice of the old gardener; all that existed for me then +was the slowly descending bar. To call attention to the thing +never so much as occurred to me. Nothing occurred to me. +When the bolt of the lock had been drawn back, the door +began to open with imperceptible motion—an inch—two +inches—and was at rest. The handle gradually returned to its +horizontal position. It seemed as if I had taken only one breath +during those four or five minutes.</p> + +<p>Crofts’ questioning went on, and little by little I came out +from the spell of the door, which remained ajar. The questioning +went on, with some secret listener outside in the passage. +Still I held silence, for, clouded with excitement as was my +mind in those minutes, the notion of danger did not possess me. +I kept my eyes on the motionless door, dreading that it might +open further, distinctly unwilling to see what it might +disclose—and the questioning went on.</p> + +<p>Pendleton was learning nothing from Finlay; I was vaguely +aware that the old gardener was fencing with the over-anxious +Crofts.</p> + +<p>Then a thing occurred to relieve the tension: from the +kitchen entry came sound of hurried movement, of a dish falling +to the floor, and presently was visible the tousled head of a +boy peering around the edge of the screen, a head surprised into +a gape by sight of the assemblage.</p> + +<p>“Come in, Toby,” said Crofts. “We’re—”</p> + +<p>“I just got back, sir, with Mr. Bannerlee’s bag and all. +Oh, sir,” cried the head, bringing its body into the room, “the +Water’s swellin’ awfully from the rain—”</p> + +<p>His hair was quite tangential, and his shoes and clothing +bore marks of the storm. An ulster dangled both ends from his +shoulders. He was breathing hard with exertion added to stress +of spirit.</p> + +<p>Pendleton began to explain to him: “We are trying to clear +up this business of—”</p> + +<p>“I waited under ellum, till the rain stopped,” persisted the +excited lad. “It went under old bridge with a roar and a roar. +I misdoubt—”</p> + +<p>The exciting thought of the door softly released and pushed +ajar had grown weaker in my mind upon the entrance of Toby. +But again my eyes chanced to light upon the portal, and +again my blood rushed pell-mell through a throbbing temple. +For, unless my senses were false, the door trembled a little, as +if uncertain whether to open farther or to shut. The secret +watcher’s hand must be upon it still!</p> + +<p>In a daze I arose and came out of my retirement in the +window-place.</p> + +<p>“Crofts,” I said. . . . “Crofts.”</p> + +<p>So hushed was my voice that he spun around in his chair +with open mouth, and the servants’ chorus gave a slight gasp.</p> + +<p>I tried to open a path through my throat for words to issue.</p> + +<p>“Crofts . . . there’s something—someone, I +mean—watching us.”</p> + +<p>“How? What on earth do you mean? What’s the matter +with you?”</p> + +<p>I extended my arm toward where showed a long narrow +slit of blackness between jamb and door-edge.</p> + +<p>“There.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know?”</p> + +<p>My courage was small, but I summoned more to add to +what I had. “I saw the door opened from the passageway. +I tell you this inquiry has been overheard.”</p> + +<p>I strode toward the door, while from behind me came the +scrape of Crofts rising to his feet, and the rustle of the +servants. Open that door I would, if the fourfold centenarian +himself were waiting outside to do me mischief. But I believed, +and would not have been sorry to discover, that the unknown +visitant had by this time fled, and with this hope upholding me +I gripped the handle-piece and jerked the portal open.</p> + +<p>But no! A man stood in the corridor.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch08"> + +<h2>VIII. <br> Wager of Battel</h2> + +<p>Gilbert Maryvale!</p> + +<p>“Oh, you!” exclaimed Pendleton, and appeared completely +contented at once.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it awful?” asked Maryvale. “Isn’t it awful?”</p> + +<p>Pendleton and I stared speechless at him; in me, at least, +the old surprise had given place to new astonishment twice as +strong. What was the matter with this man? The only light +in the long windowless corridor came from a translucent electric +globe far at the foot of the stairs, but even in the vaguely +illuminated passage I realized that something had happened +to Maryvale.</p> + +<p>“I saw the boy coming by the drive, and I thought he +might—there might be some news of Sir Brooke at last. The doctor +is telling some powerful things. I’ve been in and out of there +twice. I always—I thought I’d better get away . . . came to +see if the boy had . . .”</p> + +<p>“One question, Mr. Maryvale,” I said quickly. “Were you +in the corridor a while ago tapping the wall with something?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, with my friend Crofts’ cane.” He turned to our +host. “But I assure you I did not harm the cane.”</p> + +<p>“The cane be hanged,” responded Crofts. “But why in +thunder did you do it?”</p> + +<p>An expression vanished from Maryvale’s eyes almost before +it deepened there, a softness, a look of meekness, a chastened +look; I thought it a revelation of painful things kept +subdued.</p> + +<p>“Something suggested to me that there might be a secret +passage in one of the walls of the corridor. I was trying, high +up—”</p> + +<p>Our host made a disgusted sound. “One thing you may depend +upon, Gilbert, no matter what happens. In this extant +portion of the castle there are no secret passages. There’s not +so much as a priest’s hole or a trap-door or a double wall to a +cupboard. There’s one bogie laid, anyhow. You may as well +know that you made fools of us in there. Where the devil did +you go afterward?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry if I annoyed you. I just went back into the +Hall of the Moth. But Doctor Aire—I didn’t care for the +hobby of Doctor Aire. So I returned again to hear if there +was anything about Sir Brooke.”</p> + +<p>The servants, of course, had clustered around the door with +quite natural and honourable inquisitiveness. Pendleton turned +on them.</p> + +<p>“You may go—and mind, don’t talk about this all +afternoon. The subject is closed.” Ah, trustful Crofts!</p> + +<p>So out of the dining-hall they filed to their aloof world of +below-stairs: Ruth and Rosa Clay of lustrous person, Ardelia +Lacy (giving the Welsh stableman a look in passing that was +obviously a piece of her mind, though its crushing significance +was hardly clear from the evidence), the maids, Jael, Em, and +Harmony. Morgan and his fellow stablemen, Tenney and +Wheeler, got out next, and the tall keeper gravely followed +them behind the screen. Soames and Blenkinson both had hard +work getting rid of old Finlay, who seemed to think that the +occasion demanded more of his japes, and who finally thrust +his head out from behind the screen for one last comprehensive +wink at me.</p> + +<p>Pendleton turned to the boy, who had set about his +somewhat unorthodox task of clearing the dessert dishes.</p> + +<p>“Did you inquire about Sir Brooke, Toby?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, I did,” answered the lad, looking white over a +load of china and glass ware on a tray.</p> + +<p>“No news, I dare say.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, sir, as a fact there was, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Eh? Who told you?”</p> + +<p>“It was the station-master at New Aidenn, sir. He was +very angry, sir, when I told him that you didn’t believe he +had seen Sir Brooke. He said to tell you, sir, that he was +certain-sure. Those were the words I was to tell you, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Did he take a ticket from him?”</p> + +<p>“He can’t exactly remember, sir, but he’s sure he saw him +somewhere in the crowd. He must have taken his ticket, +sir.”</p> + +<p>“Bosh!” exclaimed Pendleton. “Why, I have a letter from +Sir—”</p> + +<p>Toby continued in his unruffled style. “And he said he +remembered Sir Brooke very well from other times he was here, +sir. A thinnish, middle-sized gentleman, with a bang of +mouse-coloured hair over his eye, and double glasses, and his silk +bow tie tilted toward his ear. He remembered him quite well, +you see, sir.”</p> + +<p>“It seems,” said I, putting in my oar for the first time, +“that <em>you</em> remember remarkably well, Toby.”</p> + +<p>The boy gazed at me as if I were a sport of nature, a +phenomenon of dubiety amazing. “Why, he made me repeat +what he said until I had it by heart, sir. He was very angry, +Mr. Pendleton.”</p> + +<p>Pendleton was in a brown study, until I plucked his sleeve +and whispered. “Thinking won’t help. Let’s get out of here, +or the boy will have something to regale the servants with.”</p> + +<p>But Toby now proffered a request. “Please, sir, will it +be all right if I take a picture of the servants to-night? Miss +Lebetwood gave me her old flash-light camera when she came +down this time, sir, and I want to use it.”</p> + +<p>(Photography—not topography!)</p> + +<p>“Why, hm, yes, I suppose so. Are the servants for it?”</p> + +<p>“Some are afraid of the flash, sir, but I’ll show ’em how +it works.”</p> + +<p>“Go ahead, then, after dinner. Don’t blow up the place.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir. I won’t, sir. Miss Lebetwood will help +me, sir.”</p> + +<p>Maryvale was still standing in the corridor when we came +out.</p> + +<p>Crofts relieved his pent-up bitterness. “What a man! He +sends me a letter, very explanatory, containing three words: +‘Wait for me.’ He arrives at New Aidenn station last +evening, but doesn’t deign to make use of the car I sent to +meet the train; he even avoids speaking to the chauffeur, +to mention that he intends to walk. He then strolls off +somewhere, apparently to lie low until it pleases him to disclose +himself. He’ll be lucky if he finds the house occupied when +he makes his appearance.”</p> + +<p>“But he may have got lost, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I had men out searching. Every foot of the Vale was +beaten last night.”</p> + +<p>“Still, your men may have missed him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” Crofts declared with fine sarcasm, “suppose +the gentleman did get lost and have to sleep in the nasty, +damp Vale and get sniffles. Where’s he been all to-day? +Climbing about up there where you were yesterday?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, now you are asking reasonably. I can’t imagine. What +is it, Mr. Maryvale?”</p> + +<p>For Maryvale had suddenly grasped my arm. Now he +released it, and ignored my question.</p> + +<p>I could not gauge the look on the face of the “man of business”; +it appeared to have volcanic possibilities, yet subterranean +still. To regain the trivial and commonplace, I sounded +Crofts on the matter that had irritated me ever since I had +seen the unstartling words in the letter of dispute last night.</p> + +<p>“By the way, Crofts, I may have to be sending out a +message or two if I remain here long—”</p> + +<p>“Of course you’ll remain—”</p> + +<p>“Where’s the mail for posting?”</p> + +<p>“Why, just hand whatever you have to one of the servants. +If you need stationery—”</p> + +<p>“But isn’t there a particular place—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, if it’s more convenient—there’s a rack for outgoing +mail under the staircase. It hangs above the end of the +settle.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you.”</p> + +<p>Maryvale was busy fingering the lower part of the wide +gilt frame of one of the portraits, a full length representation +of a man in cuirass and metal thigh-plates, holding his helmet +in one hand, leaning with the other arm upon a convenient +pedestal; his narrow face looked like that of a newly-elected +thane of Hell.</p> + +<p>“<em>That’s</em> Sir Pharamond Kay,” Pendleton remarked, “first +builder of the castle this House is remnant of.”</p> + +<p>“Yes . . . yes,” Maryvale murmured to himself, concluding +his investigation of the frame. “The gilding is valuable at +any rate.”</p> + +<p>Pendleton and I reciprocated glances of bewilderment, but +Maryvale seemed disinclined to explain himself further. He +was even unwilling to precede us back into the Hall of the +Moth, which he had deserted a little while before, and wherein +the entire rest of the company were still listening to Doctor +Aire. Alberta Pendleton received us with her charming smile, +and we took places beside her at the foot of the room, and that +other, smaller, bewitched or accursed portrait of Sir +Pharamond glared down on me from the wall.</p> + +<p>The rain having ceased long before, and the clouds being +a little broken, the sun was, so to speak, red in the face from +trying to dry the lawn. The french windows were opened, +through the northern one we caught glimpses of the glassman +from New Aidenn making whole the damaged conservatory +window. But there was no tendency toward seeking the +out-of-doors. Most of the party were quite sated with the open-air +sports afforded in Aidenn Vale.</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire, moreover, would have demanded attention under +any circumstances. Apart from the fascination of his subject, +there was authority in the clipped, methodical manner of +his speech. Just now he was telling of the last case of Appeal +of Murder, that relic of early ages whereby one acquitted of a +death-crime could be compelled to defend himself anew by +the might of his body. As late as 1819, it appeared, one +Thornton, when acquitted, and when the dead girl’s brother had +made Appeal of Murder against him, had thrown down +in challenge to “wager of battel”—this we were in time to +hear—a gauntlet as strange as the occasion, without either +fingers or thumbs, made of white tanned skin, ornamented +with sewn tracery and silk fringes, crossed by a narrow +band of red leather with leather tags and thongs for +fastening.</p> + +<p>Cosgrove was listening. But of a sudden it seemed to me that +his attention was curiously directed beyond Doctor Aire, +beyond the vicissitudes of the accused and acquitted Thornton, +who had needed to go on trial again with only the prowess of +his body to defend himself.</p> + +<p>“Listening, surely,” I told myself, and asked myself, “<em>For +what?</em>” . . .</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire’s recital went on, encyclopedically.</p> + +<p>“Lord Ellenborough had to admit that the procedure was +competent, although there had not been a whisper of the +Appeal throughout the kingdom for forty years. But the curious +crowd was disappointed when the appellant withdrew; so there +was no gladiatorial exhibition for the chief justice to preside +over. It is extremely unlikely that Mary Ashford’s brother +had ever intended to carry his Appeal into force, he being a +slighter man of body than the appellee—and for that reason +Thornton had probably been emboldened to make the brave +show he did with his extraordinary gauntlet of white tanned +leather.”</p> + +<p>In the half-darkness underneath the musicians’ gallery were +a pair of listeners who had been within neither the range of +my vision nor the scope of my thought. Now one of them, the +young American, Bob Cullen, became in an instant the cynosure +of the company.</p> + +<p>For the youth, scarcely more than a lad, rose from his seat +beside Lib Dale, and the exclamation that came from his lips +twisted every neck in the Hall.</p> + +<p>“So <em>that</em> was it!” The expression of ire on those young, +unformed features was almost comical.</p> + +<p>Despite a hurried, “Bob, don’t be sil,” from Lib, the youth +advanced a couple of steps toward Cosgrove, leaving no doubt +against whom his wrath was directed. He raised his shaking +arm and pointed at the Irishman, he opened his mouth and was +attempting articulate words, but only one word issued, a +smothered one:</p> + +<p>“You—you—”</p> + +<p>Cosgrove’s face was a thing to watch, while the parade of +emotions passed across it. Mere surprise vanished with the first +turn of his head along with the rest of the heads. His eyes +widened, but for a few seconds were blank with absolute +stupefaction, and when enlightenment finally appeared to come within +him, the resentment expressed in his lowering brows and glowing +eyes seemed to be mingled with a sense of shame, or else +there was no meaning in the sidewise shift of those eyes and in +those irresolute lips. He swallowed, and his head made a small, +sharp jerk in the act. A muscle twitched in his cheek. Bob +Cullen was still saying, “You—you—” and Lib Dale was +whispering dire things to him.</p> + +<p>That other, admirable, American tried to deal with the +frenzied youth. Paula Lebetwood said, “Bob, you’re making a +child of yourself. Remember where you are.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the trouble?” asked Ludlow in a matter-of-fact +tone.</p> + +<p>“Ask him—ask him, that’s all!” cried Bob Cullen bitterly, +and then, as is the wont of youths who believe themselves +wronged, commenced himself to explain. “He thought—you +thought, Mr. Cosgrove”—(“<em>Mr.</em>” Cosgrove; much revealed +by that “Mr.”)—“you thought that because you were bigger +and stronger than I was, that you could get away with talking +the way you did. Well, you needn’t think that it was +because I was afraid of you—”</p> + +<p>I noticed that Lib Dale was actually twisting her young +compatriot’s arm in an endeavour to gain his attention, but he +held on through pain, white and red by turns.</p> + +<p>“I’m ready any time you are, Mr. Cosgrove, and don’t you +forget it. I’ll show you, Mr. Cosgrove. I’ll fight you a duel or +a wager of battle or anything—”</p> + +<p>“My dear boy,” slipped in Doctor Aire, who took the +interruption of his narrative in very good humour, “the wager of +battle is null and void. That was the whole upshot of my +story, if you had only the patience—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care if it’s null and void or not. Mr. Cosgrove, if +you’re a man—”</p> + +<p>Paula Lebetwood had taken hold of the half-hysterical +youth’s other arm; she placed a firm hand across his mouth, +effectually stifling what further wild challenge he might have +uttered on the spot. Lib sank down flushed and pouting, her +blue eyes flinging defiance to all of us. Cosgrove, who had not +uttered a word, had a face like a man’s in an apoplexy, and +his head was lower between his shoulders than it was accustomed +to be.</p> + +<p>The youngster Bob Cullen was still standing there like a +bulldog in the centre of the ring, anger adding a degree of +dignity to his stature. Ten, twenty, seconds may have gone by, +and still he confronted the Irishman, whose only recognition +of his challenge had been a turn of his head and that slow dark +flame in his face.</p> + +<p>“Well?” demanded Bob Cullen.</p> + +<p>Still the Irishman preserved a silence of stone.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bob, you sorehead,” cried Lib Dale, grinding her +heel into the carpet. “Of all the id—”</p> + +<p>“But Bob, dear,” pleaded Miss Lebetwood, “what Sean said +to Lib was long, long ago in the spring, and she’s forgotten +all about it, and so should you, you silly kid.”</p> + +<p>The voice of Cosgrove came thundering, overwhelming. +“Woman,” he said, and a quite perceptible thrill passed over +us, for he spoke to his intended wife, and “woman” as he said +it then sounded the most brutal word he could use—“woman, +no need for you to defend me. The code of this young upstart +is not my code, by the heavens—nor is yours my code. Stand +aside.”</p> + +<p>“Sean!”</p> + +<p>“Stand aside—did you hear?”</p> + +<p>“But Sean—”</p> + +<p>“While the light is in me, I shall offer it to you, woman, +and to all others I find in need of grace—even if it gall your +young upstart there.”</p> + +<p>Paula Lebetwood had tottered a step backward, with an +expression of the utmost pain and loss upon her face. Suddenly +her face was hidden in her hands, and her shoulders heaved +with swift gusts of feeling. Then she lifted her face tearless +and hot-eyed and defiant beneath golden hair turning to riot.</p> + +<p>“Sean, how unmanly, how cowardly! Oh, if you knew +how I despise you now. Oh, I need air—air!”</p> + +<p>She turned from us abruptly, then paused. Her bosom +moved in a long, slow breathing, and she turned her head to +look at her lover, whose gaze did not meet hers. A veil of +anger seemed to fall from her features, and the fire softened in +her eyes. But this was no melting mood. Instead, a serene +aloofness reigned in her face, and she seemed like one who studied +Cosgrove from some region above, studied him with sympathy +and compassion. For a space of time—perhaps a minute—there +was this silence. Then, as if she had shown enough that +she was not embittered by passion, she departed swiftly.</p> + +<p>Through the passage of the french windows she strode, out +to the lawn, and across, to be lost to sight in shrubs alongside +the gate-house.</p> + +<p>So, splitting into new faction and fresh enmity at every +hour, the Bidding Feast at last witnessed the discord of the +lovers themselves.</p> + +<p>Cosgrove’s rebuke of his betrothed had stunned us, and her +answering rebuke had left us wild and speechless. None stirred +to follow Miss Lebetwood. In me, at least, the strife of feeling +was comparable to the mad stress of the night before, when +the first message of Parson Lolly had been found. I knew a +delirium of bewilderment, a very horror, in the instants +following those outbursts.</p> + +<p>Cosgrove’s face, now so blotted with blood, took fantastic +dimensions, seemed twice its size. The room appeared an +enormous room, and the people pigmy people. Sir Pharamond’s +portrait leered and sneered. Every proportion was indecently +distorted, and time, like space, was bereft of its comfortable +conventions. The seconds seemed to stagger past.</p> + +<p>Then Pendleton, no longer held by Alberta, rose so hastily +that his chair banged backward against the stair-post of the +little gallery. “Yes, by gad! Let’s all get some air. This room is +stuffy as blazes. That’s what puts us all at sixes and sevens.”</p> + +<p>“I really think,” observed Eve Bartholomew, “that it’s the +absence of Sir Brooke that gets so on our nerves.”</p> + +<p>“Let’s declare a truce—no, let’s make peace,” smiled Alberta +Pendleton. “Sean, you and Bob haven’t any ill-will, have you?”</p> + +<p>Since his betrothed’s condemnation of him, no petty enmity +could very well find hold in Cosgrove’s soul. His defeat told +in his dejected head and drooped lids. He didn’t answer +Alberta.</p> + +<p>But Bob Cullen, whose excitement had flagged, was +suddenly overwhelmed by his former audacity. “I—I suppose +you folks must think—you must think—”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right, Bob,” soothed Alberta; “you just lost +your temper for a minute, that was all. Anybody is likely to +do that.”</p> + +<p>“He let Mr. Cosgrove get his goat,” put in Lib Dale in a +<i>sotto voce obbligato</i>; she was still much displeased with her +compatriot.</p> + +<p>“I’m—I’m sorry—I apologize,” said Bob.</p> + +<p>“As for me,” said Cosgrove suddenly, “I do more than +apologize; I make anew.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Sean, how—what can you mean?” gasped Alberta, +for the Irishman now stood on his feet looking around the +Hall without explaining his remark.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it will do,” muttered Cosgrove. “God can come from +there”; and he gestured toward the musicians’ gallery.</p> + +<p>“G-g-god?” stammered Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“God the Creator,” responded Sean Cosgrove, and he appended +a few words as inconsequential as any Crofts himself +could have used: “I’ve seen the book in your library.”</p> + +<p>“But what do you mean, man?” cried Pendleton. “I never +heard—”</p> + +<p>“To-night,” said Cosgrove, “in this Hall we shall rehearse +the play of ‘Noah’s Flood.’ ”</p> + +<p>“ ‘Noah’s Flood!’ ” came a gasp from most of us.</p> + +<p>“Animal crackers,” mumbled Bob Cullen obscurely.</p> + +<p>“What’s ‘Noah’s Flood?’ ” asked Pendleton. “I’ve never +seen any book of that name—”</p> + +<p>“It is inside a book of another name,” answered Cosgrove; +“one you have never opened, I dare say. Here, at five o’clock, +we shall have tea; is it not so? Then I shall unfold—”</p> + +<p>“It’s an old mystery-play,” said Alberta. “Crofts, I’m +surprised.”</p> + +<p>“But won’t there be, er, costumes, and so forth?”</p> + +<p>“For me, at least, no costume,” declared Cosgrove. “Man, +made in the image of God, shall need no gaudery. I should +scorn to deck and disguise myself to play my God.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean that you’re to appear in the, er, in the—”</p> + +<p>“In the altogether?” finished Eve Bartholomew in a thin +quasi-hysterical tone. “Oh, Mr. Cosgrove—”</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” Doctor Aire put in sardonically, “Sean is +thinking of the mediaeval way of playing Adam and Eve with a +screen up to their necks.”</p> + +<p>“Leave it to me,” said Cosgrove.</p> + +<p>“But won’t all this furniture have to be shifted?” inquired +Pendleton nervously.</p> + +<p>“Leave it to me.”</p> + +<p>“Alone—how will you do it?”</p> + +<p>“With my God-given arms.”</p> + +<p>“But shouldn’t the servants—”</p> + +<p>“I will do everything that must be done. But first,” and +here I thought Cosgrove became a little wistful, “let us go +outside and breathe the God-given air. Leave all to me; +assemble here at five o’clock.”</p> + +<p>He marched out, his face, with a look of grim regret and +determination, turned toward the place in the shrubbery where +Paula Lebetwood had disappeared. The last we saw of him, he +had followed her out of sight.</p> + +<p>The company began to disband.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch09"> + +<h2>IX. <br> The Bone</h2> + +<p>He might hardly have been in the Hall of the Moth +all afternoon, had my impressions been evidence—so quiet he +had kept, relapsed out of the main light of the room into the +shadow between the beetling chimney-mantel and the old long-case +clock. Perhaps the indefatigable quaffing of whiskey-and-sodas, +which industry is surely his favourite, had proved +soporific in that dusky alcove, whence only his crossed feet +had appeared, shod sparklingly, spatted sprucely. But now +Charlton Oxford, glazed to a hair, waxed to a needle, was +standing in the aperture of the opened french windows, and +his look, whatever his legs might be, was steady.</p> + +<p>His eyes were fixed upon the gap in the lawn shrubs where +Sean Cosgrove had disappeared. Surely that was an unguarded +moment; his speech, although low, was vehement, since it was +addressed to a man now far out of sight and hearing:</p> + +<p>“Your code, hey? Your damned code.” He wiped the back +of his fist savagely across his mouth; the heartiness of his +baleful speech may have given him the satisfaction of deep +drink.</p> + +<p>I, who alone had heard, tiptoed close behind him, and like +the tempter spoke softly over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“And what may your code be, Mr. Oxford?”</p> + +<p>Frightened, he swung, caught his heel on the carpet edge +and thudded heavily against the corner of the age-blackened +mantel, face bleached and eyes popping.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Bannerlee,” he exclaimed with much +relief, and attempted to pass his alarm off in jest.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and really, what did you mean? I’m interested.”</p> + +<p>“What’s my code, you say? Ha, ha, Mr. Bannerlee, ’s too +long, sir, to put it in so many words, if you know what I +mean. . . . But there’s <em>one</em> thing”—for emphasis he dug a +flabby forefinger into my ribs—“<em>one</em> thing I’d never do that +our fine C‑Cosgrove wouldn’t have the decency, the <em>decency</em>, +sir, if y’understand—and the common sense, too, damme, if +it comes to that, you know—’s much common sense in it as +anything else . . . y’understand . . .”</p> + +<p>“And what article and section of your pandect could Mr. +Cosgrove learn from?”</p> + +<p>Oxford steadied himself, and over his face came a phase +of profundity. He gave me a knowing look, and his voice +sank to a sibylline tone: “Never take another man’s +woman—never meddle with ’em!”</p> + +<p>“But a woman unprotected, eh?” I felt like asking, yet +refrained, for someone else was nighing us, one at whose +approach Oxford appeared to feel distressed. The fancy man +evaporated into the afternoon sunlight down the lawn, and +Maryvale, who I think had been standing alone in the centre of +the room, was at my elbow.</p> + +<p>That changed look was stronger than ever about him; there +seemed a gaunt and haggard spirit in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bannerlee, you must have heard terrible tales +to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Surely none that deserve such a violent—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, yes—some dreadful things have happened in this +countryside. Cosgrove tells me that this morning he related +to you the fall of the old castle, and in there”—he gestured +toward the dining-hall—“what awful things you must have +listened to.”</p> + +<p>I smothered a laugh that was half-breathless, for there was +real distress in him. “Mr. Maryvale, you exaggerate—”</p> + +<p>He laid his hand heavily on my arm, and his fingers took +hold. “But there is one story more terrible still!”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, indeed?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. There are legends of this Vale—none more +appalling. Did they tell you—but they could not—of the Lord +Aidenn’s arm that would not die?”</p> + +<p>“The arm that would not die?”</p> + +<p>“You know the man’s picture, for you examined it in the +gallery. And there”—he motioned toward the portrait—“is +the other representation of that orgulous, cruel man.”</p> + +<p>I stared again at the pitiless, thin face with a slight and +enjoyable stir of nervousness.</p> + +<p>“It is a dreadful legend,” averred Maryvale. “They never +found—” He turned his head, saw something, and ceased.</p> + +<p>For now came a new interruption, and one that I was right +glad of, since Maryvale just then was too remote and +metempirical for comfort. Of his grisly story of the arm of Sir +Pharamond Kay, whatever the fable was, I had no dread; but in +the baffling Maryvale himself now was something +unapproachable that moved a mild antipathy in me.</p> + +<p>The interruption came in the form of a small, hoydenish, +vivid-lipped creature called Lib Dale. The last to remain in +the Hall, save those who had spoken with me, she and Bob +Cullen had been engaged beneath the musicians’ gallery in a +tense-toned division of ideas. Even while Maryvale had been +drawing near me, I caught a glimpse from the heel of my eye +of Bob shuffling his feet in loathness to depart at the hest of +Lib. At length, apparently in disgrace, he had passed limply +through the farther entrance into the corridor. “Go out and +soak your head,” was Lib’s parting tenderness, which I +overheard. Then, spying me with Maryvale, the startling little +thing came to interrupt. The man of business had checked +himself in the midst of his sentence; he seemed to withdraw into +some inner chamber of himself; a darkness enveloped the peaked +soul in his eyes. He was gone, and I was left alone to encounter +the sprightly bit of femininity.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” she asked. “Shake. You’re you and I’m +me. We know each other’s names, or else they shouldn’t let +us out.”</p> + +<p>“No, they shouldn’t,” I retorted feebly, without knowing +what I said, save that it was idiotic.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t shed tears about it. Don’t be so vulgarly +emotional. Can’t you dig me up a real live saint, Mr. +Bannerlee—something I can take home maybe and show the folks?”</p> + +<p>“I should think that the legends of this countryside—”</p> + +<p>“Or a legend, if it’s handier. I’ve never seen a genuine +legend, Mr. Bannerlee. Lead me to it. Hasn’t my education +been neglected?”</p> + +<p>I uttered a faint denial.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, it has,” she chortled. “For instance, I get my +English all gummed up. But that’s your fault.”</p> + +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“Now don’t be sil. You don’t know what I mean. For +instance. Have you noticed how all the books you English +writers write about we Amurricans have us saying ‘I guess’ +this and ‘I reckon’ that about every once or twice in so often? +Now, over where I come from nobody talks that way so that +you could notice it, but over here in your delightful little island +we have to pull that kind of stuff once in a while or the natives +wouldn’t know where we’re from. Savvy?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, quite.”</p> + +<p>She had perched on the back of a carved gilt couch with +upholstery in rose <i>Brocade de Lyons</i>.</p> + +<p>“And now how about getting busy on that saint proposition? +One out of the Old Testament or anything. Warm +puppies! won’t I have the kids at home goggle-eyed? I should +snicker.”</p> + +<p>“Saints in the Old Testament are few. And I’m afraid—”</p> + +<p>“Not so rough, not so rough! What do you mean, you’re +afraid? How will this sound in your biography, that you +refused a maiden’s prayer? I’ll have to take you in hand; you +ought to be trained.” She reached down and gave a tug at a +gravitating stocking. “No, from your face I see it’s hopeless. +Well, what are you going to do to keep the ennui away?”</p> + +<p>“I had an idea,” I remarked hopefully.</p> + +<p>“Quick, quick! Don’t keep me in starvation.”</p> + +<p>“In connection with the method of making up the quarrel +suggested by the good Cosgrove—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, I follow you there—everything except the +‘good’—”</p> + +<p>“Since the good Cosgrove says that the text of our play of +pacification is in the library, I was thinking of having a look +at it and refreshing my memory.”</p> + +<p>“I can follow you there, too; only no refreshments here, +thanks—‘Noah’s Flood’ is all news to me as a big, throbbing +drammer. Sounds sort of frisky, I mean riskay, putting all +those animals to bed. Who wrote it?”</p> + +<p>“The authors of the mystery-plays are unknown.”</p> + +<p>“Something fishy there, I’ll bet. Come on, show me this +sensation.”</p> + +<p>She grabbed a hand of mine and dragged me through the +room of weapons into the spacious library, a room of irregular +shape, since the curve of the staircase well rounded one wall +and the huge jut of the south-west corner tower made a pocket-like +projection almost equal to a separate room. A monumental +mahogany break-front bookcase occupied the principal straight +wall of the room, and other glass-covered stacks of shelves +lined the shorter and the semicircular wall and the spaces +between the windows. Altogether there must have been three +thousand books.</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz, Croftsy must be some reader,” said Lib. “I was +never here before, and I’ve got a brainstorm already.”</p> + +<p>I smiled, wryly, no doubt. “I believe that the library, like +the portraits and the symbol of the cat and the legends of +Aidenn Forest, came to Crofts with the building. In fact, +though I haven’t looked these over, I imagine many of them +are of a sort unlikely to interest our host.”</p> + +<p>Indeed, the major portion of the collection were volumes +which could stir the interest only of the antiquarian and +the erudite student of literature. Few, I am sure, bore the +twentieth-century imprint. Included were old books of all +assortments of inconvenient sizes from folio to duodecimo, and +although in their glass prisons, whence no doubt they were +taken and dusted quarterly, they looked spick and span, still +they had a lonesome air, as if longing to be handled for love.</p> + +<p>I mused. “Now where shall we look for one particular +volume in all this?”</p> + +<p>“Are you putting that as a question, Marshal?” asked Lib. +“That’s not fair. I’m in the enemy’s country here; don’t know +the landmarks.”</p> + +<p>“We might look over the ones of reasonable size first. The +thing’s a reprint. Early English Text, I dare say.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t get you, Admiral, but am game to follow you in a +leaky boat to the death. I gathered that this Flood has an +alias.”</p> + +<p>“Er—”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t go under its own name, I mean.”</p> + +<p>“That is correct.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right, you mean. Well, well, Duke, can this be +it?”</p> + +<p>She had opened one of the doors of the mahogany case and +reached high from the basis of one toe. The volume she +persuaded to fall down and which she caught was actually a bound +issue of the Early English Text Society and contained the +Digby and Coventry Plays.</p> + +<p>“By all that’s wonderful! How did your eyes pick out that +title so quickly?”</p> + +<p>“Never looked at the title—way up there. What do you +think I am, Senator, a telescope? Say! I just took a slant along +the shelves.”</p> + +<p>“A slant—along the shelves?”</p> + +<p>“Right. I thought that maybe the ‘good’ Cosgrove had been +taking a peep at the crucial volume lately and maybe hadn’t +put it back quite even. Savvy? Now, let’s have a look.”</p> + +<p>But she wrinkled both nose and forehead from the first sight +of “Processus Noe cum filiis,” and fluttered the pages very much +askance.</p> + +<p>“I don’t get this stuff at all. What language is this?”</p> + +<p>“English.”</p> + +<p>“Why, it’s worse than Amurrican.”</p> + +<p>“It’s really Middle English, you know.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t. See here, what does a choice morsel like this +signify?” She read, in a manner unknown to linguists, the +following lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="verse"> + + <p>“Ye men that has wifis whyls they ar’ yong,</p> + <p>If luf youre lifis chastice thare tong:</p> + <p>Me thynk my heart ryfis both levyr and long</p> + <p>To se sich stryfis wedmen emong.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>That looks as if it might mean something.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Noah was very wroth with his wife.”</p> + +<p>“His wife? His missus?”</p> + +<p>“She was a scold, and Noah, as the gloss of Professor Pollard +says, bids husbands chastise their wives’ tongues early.”</p> + +<p>“Not so hot, not so hot,” remarked Lib, apparently in +disparagement. “Where do all the other folks come in?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’ll be parts for everyone. Noah’s family was large, +and there were plenty of animals to go round. . . . He beats +her a bit later on,” I added hopefully.</p> + +<p>She clapped the covers to. “This is too rough for me. It’s +not ladylike. I’m not crazy about—say, what goes on in there?”</p> + +<p>Somebody was making a stir in the armoury, whence issued +an occasional scrabbling sound. Lib poked her head cautiously +around the doorpost.</p> + +<p>“Why, Doctor, what would you seem to be doing this elegant +afternoon?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire was standing with a cutlass in one hand and a +claymore in the other. He lifted his gaze from the floor in +surprise and gave an affable welcome.</p> + +<p>“Oh, hello. I had no idea anyone else was indoors.”</p> + +<p>“We’ve been giving Noah the once over,” said Lib. “What’s +the idea of all the weapons?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you see that early battle-axe lying so well protected +out there, if it was chosen for the commission of crime, has +one or two peculiar things about it. It amused me to find +whether—but no, you’d better guess for yourself. I understand +that the subject is taboo just now, and a very good thing.”</p> + +<p>Lib stamped with animation. “That’s not a bit nice. This +is such a dull afternoon, and now you won’t even tell us your +secrets.”</p> + +<p>“Well, there’s one,” smiled the Doctor with a sort of saturnine +indulgence. “Feel the weight of these.” He handed over +to her the pair of weapons. “Take a look over the lot.” He +made a sweeping motion to indicate the walls crowded with +arms. “Then think of the axe that lies out there inclosed by +chicken-wire. Then draw your own conclusions.”</p> + +<p>Lib poised the cutlas and claymore and returned them. +“Doctor, you’re a whiz. Any more funny little wrinkles?”</p> + +<p>“Take your time,” said the doctor. “Examine them all.”</p> + +<p>“You give me too much credit,” she declared. “Come on; +what have you found out?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire gave a slight shrug, one shoulder lifting higher +than the other. It was a mannerism I had observed before. +“Miss Lib, you have all the brains necessary for this extremely +simple point, which I have practically given away already.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’re a teaser. I’m not a little girl any more, you +know. I don’t <em>like</em> being teased.”</p> + +<p>“You must think it out for yourself,” insisted the Doctor, +still smiling.</p> + +<p>“Well, I won’t; so there! You’re perfectly horrid!”</p> + +<p>“Perfection in any wise is seldom gained. I am honoured,” +he murmured, but Lib, tossing her head and departing to the +lawn, in affected dudgeon, probably did not hear the conclusion +of his courtesy.</p> + +<p>We laughed together while he replaced the weapons to their +props and fastenings upon the wall.</p> + +<p>I looked about the chamber, up the walls crowded with +weapons to the very shadows of the ceiling. Save for the two +full-armoured figures of sheet and mail, most of the equipment +I supposed to be Elizabethan or later, although the Doctor +was sure to be a better judge than I. One gigantic harquebuse <i>à +croc</i> with its support attached dominated the broad wall +between the armoury and the Hall of the Moth; all around it +were muskets, calivers, petronels, dags and tacks, and a couple +of blunderbusses, besides firearms whose names I did not know. +The short wall opposite was full of cutting and crushing +weapons; hence had come the two with which the Doctor had +been experimenting. Between two sets of lances standing upright +for a frame, the eye was mazed in an intricate pattern of +partisans, maces, falchions, hangers, axes, poniards, and, one +might believe, every other size and shape of sticker and slasher +and pounder.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you alluded to the heft of the axe we found last +night out there? Its weight is certainly inconsiderable.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” agreed the Doctor with a drawl, “it appears to have +been about the lightest object on the wall. Why did he take +that—that hatchet? I’m inclined to think that it was made for +a plaything, not a real working instrument. Odd, its +selection, very odd.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why you emphasize the point.”</p> + +<p>“Well, look here, where it was taken from, about shoulder +height. Now, assuming naturally that the man who took it +wanted it for business purposes, why didn’t he take this axe +here, something less than a yard further up? There’s real power +in this fellow. Or was the intruder fumbling around in the +dark in a room he wasn’t acquainted with? And then the +blood.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes; I have been waiting with interest to hear your +decision there.”</p> + +<p>“No decision is possible immediately, if you ask me where +it came from. I have no kit with me, of course. I accept for +the time Pendleton’s assurance that it belongs to the missing +pig, slaughtered in we don’t know what ritualistic manner. +But the position of the blood on the weapon is what annoys +me. You recall it?”</p> + +<p>“The handle was slobbered with it.”</p> + +<p>“And only a few spots on the blade. That would assure us +the killing was done with the axe, even if the weapon weren’t +so inefficient. Ah!” He lifted his hands in an attitude of dismay, +a stiffish caryatid-like pose. “Pendleton’s right. No good +comes of talking of these things. They’ll unravel. I’m going +to get cleaned up for the rehearsal at five, Mr. Bannerlee. I’ve +been discussing transplantings with old Finlay the gardener, +and my hands have tested some extra fine dirt.”</p> + +<p>I saw the Doctor swing his body out of the armoury with +the regularity of an automaton, his trunk stiff and upright, +his narrow legs working like scissors; I heard the Doctor enter +on the winding stair.</p> + +<p>Then, alone in the armoury, into which the first faint smoke +of dusk was creeping, among so many instruments of death, +where the intruder of the night before had stolen while the +mockery of cards was in progress in the Hall, and where he +might steal again—there, then, I was not at ease. I had flickers +of apprehension, and the room seemed musty, close. Both +mentally and bodily I felt cabined, confined. More than half an +hour remaining before we were due in the Hall, I resolved +upon taking a light breather up the Vale, to stir my sluggard +blood and puff away my fancies.</p> + +<p>No one appeared on the lawn or in the environs of the +House. As I faced north up the Vale a fairish breeze met me +face to face, and I realized that the storm was still in the +atmosphere. The airy armies high above the hills were marshalling +once more. A little while later the sun, not far above the +ridge, was flecked with cloud, and the smouldering embers of +the beechen hangers were, one might say, extinguished to black +ashes.</p> + +<p>By the time the glories of colour were lost on the hillsides, +I had reached the clearing beyond which lurked the cottage +of the sisters Delambre. This stood in a gorge-like recess, where +flowed the small stream with the ridiculous bridge which I +had noted when first I journeyed down the Vale. Good, full +inspirations of the untainted air had restored physical tone, +and my thoughts, too, were less troubled, perplexed. I was free +of most of the jangling discord of the day, of Belvoir with his +eternal harping on morals as accidental products, of Ludlow +in his vigilance to combat offensive ideas, of Lib and Bob and +their little bickerings, of Cosgrove and all the enmities that had +heaped around him: Bob’s and the Baron’s and Charlton +Oxford’s, and—almost—the abrupt flaming of the Irishman and +his bride-to-be. That single incident must have impressed the +houseful of us as rudely as a dozen ordinary quarrels of man +to man.</p> + +<p>Of the taste of this unpleasantness I could not wholly rid +myself, nor of another thing, which strengthened in the +diminishing of light. This was the witching time of day—and I +could not get away from Parson Lolly.</p> + +<p>Well I understood Morgan the stableman when he said that +there were whiles when the “otherness” took hold of one. +Having crossed the clearing, I stood near the cottage of the +French sisters, who, though nothing concerning their characters +had been told me, I conceived must be eccentrics, women so +distant from their nativity, if not in mere statute miles, +certainly in their lives and surroundings. While I looked at the +cottage, a rugged thing of stone, scarcely two stories high, +with roof of hewn stone tiles, as is common hereabout, I thought +it had a deserted and disappointed appearance. It was far too +early, indeed, for even tired farm-women to be abed; yet no +light glimmered through window or cranny. I approached; I +even knocked. No response.</p> + +<p>Puzzled, disturbed, I retraced my path.</p> + +<p>So feeling, I came in view of Highglen House, all dark and +still on the edge of sunset. I passed beneath the clustered +cypress trees; I traversed the northern span of the lawn and +passed the conservatory with its mended panes. I stepped on +the driveway where it passed the Hall of the Moth, intending +to advance to the front entrance and ring the bell there, +having enough hold on reality, in spite of my fuming blood, to +recall that my own shaving things had been in my bag recently +fetched by Toby, and that with hot water I could quickly +remove the stubble of the day, before the first reading of +“Noah’s Flood” in the Hall of the Moth. At the moment of +my setting foot on the drive, I remember, the faintest sound +of speech wandered to me from somewhere beyond the gate-house. +I could not distinguish any voices, but there seemed to +be both men and women in the party, doubtless returning from +beside Aidenn Water.</p> + +<p>Then I chanced to look inside the Hall of the Moth.</p> + +<p>Now, now, now is the time when I need to hold each sense +and faculty to accurate account. For what I saw then, what +then I took to be hallucination, now I know too well was +something real, something serious, and something totally +inexplicable to all who have heard of it.</p> + +<p>Through the cleft between the eminences of Esgair Nantau +and Vron Hill a single dart from the sun still leaped, lustering +the twilight about the house. A fragment of that glimmer, +about the size of a top-hat but rudely circular in shape, played +and smouldered mild, high on the bare stone of the inner wall +of the room. Except for this wavering spot, dusk had taken +possession of the empty Hall, wherein even the masses of the +furniture were invisible to me.</p> + +<p>The chanciest glance took in the gloom of the chamber, but +before I had looked elsewhere, my eyes perceived yet one other +thing distinguishable in the obscurity, and all the blood in me +leaped. To indicate definitely the position of the object, I +should say that to the best of my affrighted recollection it was +just beyond the couch which Lib Dale had mounted earlier in +the afternoon during her talk with me, although the couch +itself, like the rest of the furniture, was now absorbed in the +pool of darkness.</p> + +<p>In the air perhaps a foot above the imagined position of the +back of the couch, with no visible means of suspension or +support, was what I can describe only as a clean white bone.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch10"> + +<h2>X. <br> The Laugh</h2> + +<p>A white bone, six inches long, the broadened knobs +at each end a little darker than the rest—horizontal, perfectly +still.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I had gazed at this thing in fascination for twenty +or thirty seconds before it stirred at all. Then the faintest +swinging motion seemed to occur, on a horizontal plane, and +suddenly—now my heart was going mad—it rose a couple of +feet as if jerked by a string, and remained motionless once +more, until the swinging recommenced, one end and then the +other moving slightly toward me and away.</p> + +<p>The comforting tones of voices had died; it might have +been that I and that apparition were alone in the Vale, a +man and a white irrational bone. I was of no mind to linger +there until the thing should leap up again and drive me into +an apoplexy. And all the while the basis of reason in me was +firm, and there was a voice bidding me quit my folly, for +there could be no bone in the unsupporting air of the Hall. +Yet I did not enter the chamber and get within the same walls +as the apparition; instead I abandoned the place to its ghostly +visitant, hastened around to the front entrance of the House +and rang the bell, although the door itself was unlatched.</p> + +<p>I wanted hot water for shaving.</p> + +<p>Soames, answering the ring, I met at the foot of the winding +staircase. My voice, I believe, was controlled out of its +excitement when I ordered the water, which he promised to +bring at once.</p> + +<p>It was with a doubtful, distracted mind that I entered my +room and caused a tiny apex of flame to glow on the fresh +candles standing at either side of my writing-table. For a +breath of open air, I swung the casement window inward. The +breeze, forerunner of storm, brushed past outside, but no +more than writhed the candle-flames.</p> + +<p>I looked out.</p> + +<p>As I have stated, my window gives on what I suppose I +must call the balcony, though part of the ancient battlement +stands there in lieu of a balustrade, remnant of an age before +even this room was built and when the top of the wall was +no higher than the window-sill. Odd that the old parapet with +its indentations remained when this lofty course of rooms was +made. This wall above the second storey cut off my view of the +lawn, save where a gap of the crenellation permitted me to look +almost straight down to the drive. Directly below me I now +saw nothing, and far beyond the gate-house towers, rising to +the level of the roof of the mansion, was only the dusky dark +expanse to Aidenn Water. But about the twin-legged +gate-house itself the afterglow lingered in a tiny pool.</p> + +<p>I suddenly remembered Crofts’ admonition to have a look at +the tomb on Vron Hill, and my promise that I would. With +an athletic effort I squeezed through my window and stood on +the roof outside. To my disappointment, the sky beyond the +Hill was darkened with clouds whose purple came near to +black. The tumulus was indistinguishable against them.</p> + +<p>I moved to the edge of the parapet and leaned over one of +the cops of the crenelled wall for a better look about.</p> + +<p>It appeared that two or three people were gathered by the +winch that works the drawbridge and were having great glee +in their endeavours. Rusty metal shrilled, a little cloud of +laughter burst upward, and the huge bridge descended. There +came a thump when the platform settled into place. Then +amid a new little cloud of laughter, the winch set to work +again, and the bridge commenced to rise.</p> + +<p>My attention was diverted by something at my feet, the +merest trifle lying at the base of one of the merlons: a twisted +strand which might have been part of a piece of light rope. It +was about the length of my finger-joint, far from fresh, one +end newly abraded, the other decayed. It was, as I said, a +trifle, but it was curious. I could not think then, nor can I now, +how it got there; and certainly the fresh abrasion was not more +than a couple of days old. I had a notion of showing it to +Crofts for an opinion, but when I considered what the energetic +response of our much-tried host might be when asked to +account for a fragment of half-rotten rope, I changed my mind. +But I tucked away the strand for future reference.</p> + +<p>One last look up and down the empty lawn, and I slipped +back into my room.</p> + +<p>I recalled my shaving, which now must be rapid if I were +to be ready in time for the reading of the play. A few +preliminary preparations made, I ran into an unprecedented +number of mishaps.</p> + +<p>I seemed to have an unsteady fit. Soames had not yet come +with the hot water, and I was in a hurry; my watch said a +quarter to five. I made a beginning, however, ridding myself +of my coat and shirt and addressing myself to the oak chest +whereinto I had transferred my things from my bag during +the ten-minute interval before luncheon. But at once I realized +the unsuitability of sixteenth-century appointments for +purposes of personal convenience, for the upper drawer was +jammed or stuck. I hauled, jerked, and jogged sidewise. +Suddenly, bang! came out the drawer, but the handle had parted +from it, and I, handle in hand, staggered back, crash! into a +stool in the corner of the room. When I separated myself +from the stool, and we were both on our legs again, I recollected +that I had tossed my shaving utensils into the drawer of +the writing-table, as being readier to hand.</p> + +<p>Then indeed I had a brainstorm, an eagerness for haste +being added to my disquiet of mind. Soames might be there +with the water at any moment, and I not ready. Clutching +razor and strop, I looked in vain for a proper place to attach +the strop; my dissatisfaction with the old room as a place +for personal embellishment was not diminished at all when I +finally chose one of the curlicues of the candle-bracket on the +north wall for a hook. Like the similar one in the armoury, +this was very old, and like the bureau drawer, it seemed +malevolent to thwart me. Holding the strop firmly while my razor +executed loops and pirouettes, I was aghast a moment later, +so suddenly did the fastening of the bracket give way under +the strength of my hold upon the strop. Squeak! went the old, +damp-rotted iron, the candle-holder on its pivot drooped crazily, +and I was staring at the thin red cut beside the finger-nail +where the razor-edge had nicked me. This capped the climax.</p> + +<p>It was comedy, no doubt. For me, nevertheless, it was a bad +half-minute. I smashed the bracket back to uprightness; one +blow sufficed, since there had been no fissure in the metal itself. +But my finger could not be cured so cavalierly. And shaving +now was out of the question before five o’clock! Of such +trivialities are wrought either contentment or black spirits.</p> + +<p>I chucked away strop and razor and went to the door, +wondering what had become of Soames, and shaking off the drops +of fresh blood from the index-finger of my left hand.</p> + +<p>I heard someone coming up the stairs, and at the same time +a peculiar sound of rending rose from the Hall beneath the +threshold where I stood, followed by the loud slam of a door.</p> + +<p>I said to myself, “There must be someone in the Hall now,” +but the next instant thought, and all else, was reft from me.</p> + +<p>For from some part of the house someone was laughing. +No—to avoid error from the first—I thought then, and at the +present hour this all who heard are willing to swear: the +laughter came from no human throat. Yet is Parson Lolly not +human? And if he—but this shows the inconsistency of our +fear. Yes, I will swear it was no human sound that roared and +re-echoed through the House, gleeing and gurgling, curdling +the blood of us who were within the walls. So huge was the +uproar that the place of its source could not be told, and it +went on and on unendurably for immeasurable seconds, to +change to silence with a sudden gulp.</p> + +<p>I dashed to the window for a quick look, and could see +nothing in the darkness, but discovered a glow spreading from +immediately below me. The chandelier in the Hall must be +lighted now. Then flinging my coat on, I rushed out of the +room, impelled by a sense of dread and danger, and an anxiety +to get where people were. I met Soames, hot-water can in +hand, at the head of the stairs underneath the solitary electric +bulb. He was green, a mildewed colour, startled into stone.</p> + +<p>I sprang down the stairs without a word, and he, +galvanized, followed with a gasp:</p> + +<p>“Gord, sir, is that <em>him</em>?” He meant the Parson.</p> + +<p>On the landing of the first floor stood Lib Dale, her fingers +nervously fluttering about her face.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”</p> + +<p>“Something drastic,” I said, while we went speeding together +down to the entrance vestibule. Soames, still carrying +the water, brought up a thumping rear.</p> + +<p>“Oh, wouldn’t it be awful if someone’s kicked—I mean, +if someone’s been knocked off?”</p> + +<p>“Knocked off?”</p> + +<p>“I mean if an individual has been assassinated,” she explained +haughtily, and then for an instant her impertinent little face +went to chalk.</p> + +<p>We were standing indecisive in the passage. Hardly a minute +had passed since the end of the laughter. A scream suddenly +sounded from the lawn beyond the Hall of the Moth, a cry +of agony which might have seemed terrible had not it been for +that astounding laugh which had preceded it. In its awful +context the scream was pitifully thin and feeble, but it was +human, certainly.</p> + +<p>“That’s on the lawn.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Governor,” choked Lib, following me at a half-run +through the gallery-door of the Hall, through the nearest +french windows, and so to the drive.</p> + +<p>Beside the small tower near the mended conservatory window +something dark was stretched, with three or four people +about it. While Lib and I were still thirty feet away, we could +tell in the widespread light of the Hall chandelier that a body +lay there.</p> + +<p>“It’s a corpse,” cried Lib. “Oh, my God, is it Bobby?” She +rushed forward.</p> + +<p>I turned to Soames. “Round up the others, quickly.”</p> + +<p>“Y‑yes, sir”; he went back with the ineffable water.</p> + +<p>I remember that just as I came up from the lower french +doors of the Hall, Belvoir, crossing the lawn from the direction +of Aidenn Water, arrived at the other side of the group by +the small tower.</p> + +<p>He looked down with a curious, contemplative expression. +“This,” he said, “must be the body we missed last +night.” It was not a flippant speech; it seemed to fit the +occasion.</p> + +<p>The body lying here, half on the ground, half on the step +to the french window, with Miss Lebetwood kneeling on one +side, Doctor Aire on the other, was Sean Cosgrove’s. Supine +he had fallen, or had been turned, his face bereft of its solidity, +a flabby thing, his eyes closed, and the edge of a bloody wound +showing beneath his left ear, a wound that apparently had a +continuance behind.</p> + +<p>With knit brow Doctor Aire let down Cosgrove’s wrist +and shook his head. His thin lips stirred; he muttered:</p> + +<p>“It’s no use.”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood rose in a paroxysm of pain; she warded off +Alberta Pendleton. In the scattered glow, with hair dishevelled +and eyes afire, she looked like a prophetess of old, pulsing with +authority. With a gesture she put us aside; it was as if she +were putting us out of her thoughts. From us she went, and +disappeared in the vacancy of the lawn.</p> + +<p>Pendleton, smitten by a thought, cried “The weapon!” and +dashed into the Hall. We saw him go to the armoury door +and saw the room brighten with electricity. Then the Doctor +and I made the same decision.</p> + +<p>“Don’t touch the body,” cautioned the Doctor, and he and +I together followed our host into the room of weapons, among +which he was wildly ranging in a mad search.</p> + +<p>“Nothing’s been disturbed here,” observed Doctor Aire.</p> + +<p>But Crofts, deaf, continued in his frenzy, drawing every +old rickety sword from its sheath, tearing every weapon from +its peg or stud, rubbing his fingers along the cutting parts.</p> + +<p>“Not there, Crofts, not there!” I cried, taking him by the +arm, since speech had no effect.</p> + +<p>“Which of these did it?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“None,” answered Doctor Aire decisively. “You can see at +a glance—”</p> + +<p>“But one of them must have a stain. There couldn’t have +been time to wipe it dry.”</p> + +<p>“None are stained,” returned the Doctor. “Come with me.”</p> + +<p>He and I had nearly to drag Crofts out to the lawn, to the +spot beyond the gate-house towers where the small axe had +lain covered from the storm.</p> + +<p>“But that’s a puny thing!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the Doctor, “but even a bullet may do damage, +and the puny axe may have been in the hand of one of +prodigious strength. A light weapon and a heavy blow; it may +have broken the weapon, of course.”</p> + +<p>“It will hardly be here, in that case,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>We were beside the chicken-wire. There stood Miss +Lebetwood, her white hands clenched against her dark dress.</p> + +<p>Her voice was cold, toneless. “I’ve been waiting here, +wondering how long—”</p> + +<p>“No matter, Miss,” said the doctor, “we’re here—that’s +what matters.”</p> + +<p>I lit a match which managed to keep alive in the stir of +air. The canvas, held down by heavy stones, was in place. +Crofts yanked the sheet away. We gasped.</p> + +<p>There lay the small axe, undisturbed. The Doctor stooped +and touched the blood-slobbered handle.</p> + +<p>“It’s dry, absolutely. Well, I’m whipped. I’d have sworn—”</p> + +<p>We were hastening back to the House almost while the +words were in his mouth. Now there must have been a dozen +guests and servants clustered about the body. I turned to +Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Who found him there? Was anything seen? Where was he +killed?”</p> + +<p>He was too distracted to pay attention. He was running his +fingers through his mane and whispering little phrases to +himself.</p> + +<p>A woman with trembling hands held out some white thing.</p> + +<p>“Look,” said Eve Bartholomew. “See what I found when +I came by the end of the House—down there by the large +tower.” She pointed toward the corner round which lay the +main entrance.</p> + +<p>“Another—another!” I exclaimed, and Crofts snarled, “It +was time for another, damn his black heart! What does this +one say?”</p> + +<p>We read:</p> + +<blockquote class="placard"> + + <p>LOok OuT foR THe CATS CLAW PARSON LOLLY</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“The Cat’s Claw! What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“How do you expect me to tell?”</p> + +<p>“Again we find this damned thing—too late!”</p> + +<p>“There’s fresh blood on it!” exclaimed Crofts, taking the +placard from my hand.</p> + +<p>“Of course there is, you fool. Look at my finger.”</p> + +<p>“How did you do that?”</p> + +<p>“Razor.”</p> + +<p>Alberta was looking over her husband’s shoulder. “Where +did you find it, Eve?”</p> + +<p>“Right at the corner of the House. It was on the grass, +with the writing downward.”</p> + +<p>“Now,” said I, “if there’s one thing about this atrocious +deed that I can swear to, it is that there was nothing at that +spot ten minutes ago. I rounded the corner to enter the House +so as to fetch one of the men-servants by ringing the door-bell. +The grass had nothing on it.”</p> + +<p>“I was over by the gate-house,” said Bob Cullen, “but I +wasn’t pulling the winch. I was waiting for Lib to come out +again. I was watching the end of the House all the time until +the lights flared up in the Hall. I’ll take my oath, I will, that +nobody went round the corner after Mr. Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire objected. “But after the chandelier was lit—when +that part of the House and the lawn outside the windows +was bright—you might have overlooked some shadow +slipping along the wall further south.”</p> + +<p>Yet this explanation satisfied me no more than it seemed +to quell Bob himself.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” Crofts suddenly roared. “Perhaps <em>he</em>—” He +flung out an arm toward the dead man.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“He—himself—”</p> + +<p>“This placard was his doing, you think? Impossible!”</p> + +<p>“Why not? There was no one else here. That one in his +room this morning: he took <em>it</em> mighty calmly.”</p> + +<p>“Sean was not a child, or a fool,” said Miss Lebetwood +coldly.</p> + +<p>“Who lit the chandelier?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” murmured the Doctor, and raised one shoulder higher +than the other.</p> + +<p>“Did anyone see him before—this?”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood spoke. “I was the first to see him, Mr. +Bannerlee. He was kneeling, I thought, on the step outside +the window—but he must have been—falling. . . .”</p> + +<p>“Paula—don’t tell it, dearest,” cried Miss Mertoun.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing to tell,” said Paula Lebetwood, still brave, +still vibrant, commanding. “I am not going to break down, +Millicent dear. I—have told of myself. . . . That was all. +He lifted his hand from the stone, as if he wanted to reach +his head—but he fell forward. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“But that unholy bawling laughter—”</p> + +<p>“It was from—somewhere else. It wasn’t very loud out +here, but it was what made me look towards the House. Then +I saw—him—while the laugh was still going on. But I didn’t +scream until—afterward, when he fell.”</p> + +<p>“The lights were on at the time, of course,” observed +Doctor Aire.</p> + +<p>“They had been on for a minute or so, I think,” said Miss +Lebetwood. “But I had paid no particular attention when they +were lit.”</p> + +<p>“The fact is,” said the Doctor, “we don’t know where he +was when he was struck. He must have been nearby—couldn’t +have gone far with a bludgeoning like that.”</p> + +<p>“Blenkinson, you there?” asked Crofts.</p> + +<p>“I am, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Have you ’phoned Superintendent Salt at New Aidenn?”</p> + +<p>“I ’ave, sir. ’E’s coming, and looking out for hall suspicious +characters on the south road.”</p> + +<p>“All right, then.”</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t the women better go?” asked Ludlow +practically.</p> + +<p>“Go in, everybody,” said Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Must <em>he</em> be left?”</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire said, “Put something under the back of his +head and cover his body with something. I’ll stand guard here. +He can’t be moved until the police arrive.”</p> + +<p>“God!”</p> + +<p>A bellowing leaped upon us out of the north, a roar that +instead of tailing away mounted higher and higher upon itself. +The wind, which had been bustling, seemed to disintegrate +while the darkness of sound swept through the Vale. Resonant, +tremendous, devastating, the sheer undifferentiated noise bore +down on us, oppressed us with its weight. Brimming the hills, +it actually made the ground tremble. It was nothing like +thunder, but as if something buried alive beneath the earth had +awakened and vociferated horribly. Several of the women +stopped their ears, and there was an awfulness in seeing their +mouths open in screams when the sound was wholly lost in +the roar up the Vale. It was as if they had all gone dumb and +raving. Even when it had ceased at climax, the echoes of the +roar bruited from crag to crag made the Vale alive with sound. +And when the final reverberations had sunk to peace, we +gaped at each other silenced for a little while, even the body of +the man forgotten in the overwhelmingness of sound. When +we spoke, it was in whispers.</p> + +<p>“Could that be—thunder?”</p> + +<p>“Thunder—like that?”</p> + +<p>“It was like Judgment.”</p> + +<p>“What was it, then?”</p> + +<p>“I can tell you what it was,” I said.</p> + +<p>They were round me in a moment, greedy.</p> + +<p>“An earthquake?” asked Doctor Aire.</p> + +<p>“A landslide—almost an avalanche—on one of the +north-most hills.”</p> + +<p>“But what could have caused it?”</p> + +<p>“There may have been a condition of incipient instability, +waiting for rain, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“For rain—what rain?” interposed Pendleton.</p> + +<p>In answer to him a vast sheet of purple lightning pictured +all the north of the Vale. It vanished, sweeping us into an +instantaneous blacker darkness, but again it glared, and again, +while unmistakable thunders rang. In that dazzling fulgour +the nearby features of the scene were revealed to us as in +bright noontide, but above the Black Mixen, above Mynydd +Tarw, above the other northern peaks, hung a great tower +reaching into illimitable night like a waterfall from heaven. +Again the lightning blazed, and we beheld the hanging shafts, +like sun-pillars among clouds, save that these were black—or +like aerial waterspouts soaring above the earth. And this +stupendous cliff of water was visibly moving toward us, down +the Vale!</p> + +<p>Crofts Pendleton turned from the terrific sight, with a +bitter-happy look. He gestured toward the north. In the +effulgence and clamour of the storm he stood like a valiant +pygmy.</p> + +<p>“By God,” he shouted, “there’s one direction cut off—for +the fiend who did this!”</p> + +<p>“Particularly if the zigzag path has been blocked by the +landslide,” added Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“Praise God, the police are coming by the south road. There’s +no missing him if he tries to leave the Vale to-night!”</p> + +<p>“Sir Brooke!” cried Eve Bartholomew suddenly. “Sir Brooke! +Where is he?”</p> + +<p>“We should all like to know,” said Crofts.</p> + +<p>These speeches had been shouts. Now the Doctor made a +megaphone of his hands in order to be heard. In a blaze of +lightning lasting several seconds we saw him hunch his shoulder +and head toward the top of the Vale, whence the rain, white +rain now, and horrible, was pushing back towards us. “This will +be on us in a minute. We can’t leave this poor fellow’s remains +here, regulations or no. We must get the location and position +of the body down in writing at once. I’ll take responsibility.”</p> + +<p>Crofts and I stooped to lift by the shoulders and feet +respectively. During our brief act of carrying the corpse into +the Hall and composing it on the couch, the wind suddenly +rose into a mighty strife, and heavy plashing drops of rain +came sousing on the windows. The gale was mad with leaves +from the dishevelled autumn trees, which came knocking on +the panes, clung there for moments like silhouettes, and were +whirled on to their fate.</p> + +<p>Crofts stood beside the useless and ironic tea-service, agaze +at the streaming windows. His lips were moving, but I heard no +speech from them.</p> + +<p>I moved over beside him. “Who is Superintendent Salt?”</p> + +<p>“The best man for detective work in Radnorshire, and +the Chief Constable knows it, they say. Lucky for us Salt +lives in New Aidenn. But he’ll never get here to-night—not +in this deluge.”</p> + +<p>Something dashed against the window-pane, and from us came +a stifled cry. Handsome Ruth Clay, who had come in to remove +the tea things, was standing with her fist jammed halfway into +her mouth, her frightened eyes staring to the stormy night.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>“See, see! The Bird!”</p> + +<p>I followed her look, just in time to see some small dark +object blown before the wind and lost in the howling murk. +“It came up against the window. I saw it.”</p> + +<p>“And what of it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the Corpse-bird, sir. It means a death!”</p> + +<p>“What!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I saw it, sir—no feathers it had—only like the down +of other birds’ wings—and eyes like balls of fire!”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense, woman. Besides, this Corpse-bird, as you call it, +should have come before. The damage is done already.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, there’s poor Mr. Cosgrove’s body lying there, sir. +But the Bird means another death.”</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch11"> + +<h2>XI. <br> Superintendent Salt</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 4. 2.35 P.M.</p> + +<p>Yet the two men from New Aidenn had come up the +Vale through that ruinous rain and wind. From the corner +library window I myself had dimly seen them plodding up the +leaf-stained drive against the blast, and had been at the +cat-head entrance when Blenkinson admitted them, grotesquely +dishevelled by the storm. The very tall one, whose hat was +gone and who carried a bulgy black instrument-case, was +Doctor Niblett, Coroner as well. Superintendent Salt, a man of +more pulp, and built on the underslung plan, wore a necklet +of grizzly beard and had short curly hair, like a Roman +Emperor’s. I at once christened him Peggotty, “a hairy man with a +good-natured face.”</p> + +<p>Quite a little lake had sluiced and oozed from their coats +and shoes before Pendleton came rushing downstairs from his +wife’s room.</p> + +<p>“You got here?”</p> + +<p>“I expect so,” answered Superintendent Salt in the indecisive +way that I have learned is universal with native Radnorites. +“I had my neighbour the Coroner come along, Doctor +Niblett here.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes: glad you did. We’ve met, haven’t we, Doctor? +Gad, you look war-shot, both of you. Is the storm so bad?”</p> + +<p>“We’ve tramped it from beyond the bridge or thereabouts.”</p> + +<p>“Tramped it!”</p> + +<p>“Half the bridge was down, Mr. Pendleton. We were +forced to leave the car on t’other side and make a dash over +afoot. The way it looked, Mr. Pendleton, with the water +risin’ so, I doubt you’ve any bridge at all there by now. The +stream’s fair ragin’. And you say there’s been a killin’ here +or something? A guest of yours, maybe? Shockin’.”</p> + +<p>“What a day!” cried Crofts fervently. “This way, gentlemen.” +But in the midst of the portrait-corridor, he paused. +“This is murder, and a damned mysterious murder. There’s +been a landslide up the Vale, and that path must be blocked. +Did you pass anyone going south as you came along?”</p> + +<p>Peggotty, or perhaps I had better let his name go as Salt, +responded, “We did not, and we have a witness who was by +the bridge since before five o’clock to show that nobody had +been across either way.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of a witness?”</p> + +<p>“Reliable. The Coroner and I have known him for these +a-many years.” From aloft Doctor Niblett nodded grave +agreement. “Road-mender, he is. Shelterin’ under a tree from +the rain. Had been at work just beyond the bridge, so he +couldn’t have missed seein’.”</p> + +<p>Elation seemed to make a dark glow in Pendleton’s soul. +“Then he’s trapped, the dog! That is, if you—did you tell +this witness to watch—?”</p> + +<p>“I think,” said Superintendent Salt, “that we might be havin’ +a look at the body.”</p> + +<p>“Er, yes. Yes, of course—I was taking you. I’ll order a +good fire lit at once to help you dry.”</p> + +<p>I followed Crofts with the overshadowing Coroner and the +plump Superintendent into the Hall of the Moth. Doctor +Aire and Lord Ludlow were waiting there; the body of Sean +Cosgrove lay on the couch with the <i>Brocade de Lyons</i> +upholstering, and across it was stretched a decorative leather +skin plucked down from the wall.</p> + +<p>Introductions were curt. Doctor Aire pulled off the cover, +revealing the corpse. The limbs had been adjusted carefully. <i>Rigor +mortis</i>, of course, had not yet supervened, and the +features, save for the laxity of the jaw, had much the expression +I should have expected to see in untroubled sleep. First Doctor +Niblett bent for his swift, searching preliminary examination, +turning the dead man’s head in his long, large-jointed +fingers. The Superintendent followed in more deliberate +manner, while Niblett went gratefully to the climbing fire.</p> + +<p>It appeared that Salt is not one of those master-minds who +require a vacuum in order to get results. He actually began to +function in our presence! For at length, rising ponderously +from his knees, upon which he had been scrutinizing the soles +of the dead man’s shoes, he said, “See here, where’s the +weapon?”</p> + +<p>Crofts shrugged his shoulders, having a bit of a flea in his +ear, and Doctor Aire answered, “We haven’t the slightest idea. +There’s a pretty muddle about weapons. We’ve weapons to +burn, but none of them appears to be connected with the case.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll go into that later, then. You haven’t disturbed the +contents of his clothing, I see.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not.”</p> + +<p>Methodically Salt removed what Cosgrove carried on him +when he died, turning out each pocket when empty and examining +the inside. Besides the loose coins, watch and chain, +and wallet, there were a number of hand-written and printed +sheets in several pockets.</p> + +<p>Ludlow singled out one slip from the heap and called Salt’s +attention to it. “This thing,” he said, “was the subject of +some acrimony on the part of the deceased last night. He +accused me, in fact, of pilfering it.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” continued the wily Ludlow, “I had picked the +sheet up somewhere, absent-mindedly, I suppose, and forgotten +about it. It was rather a tense day. But Mr. Cosgrove saw +fit to declare that I had rifled his correspondence—he claimed +it as his, at any rate. Can you make any more of it than I?”</p> + +<p>“What do you make of it?” asked Salt, who had been +reading it the while.</p> + +<p>I fancied a little spite in his Lordship’s tone. “In the light +of events, nothing. Suppose you show it to my friends here. +One of them may suggest some interpretation that will throw +light.”</p> + +<p>Crofts was obviously bursting to get a look at the screed, and +I myself was glad of the opportunity to see what else it +contained besides the singular remark about “the mail.” It +commenced without indication to whom addressed:</p> + +<blockquote class="document"> + + <p class="salutation">“Dear Sir,</p> + + <p>I suppose that I shall see you before long, and we may + discuss the topic conveniently.</p> + + <p>I must inform you, however, that my principals leave me + no option in the matter. I hope you will realize your + untenable and actually perilous position; we do not want your + brains scattered about. On the evening of my arrival, I + shall expect a communication from you, stating whether you + will be amenable. Suppose you leave it in the mail—you + know where; I’ll come and get it.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I studied the signature for some time before I made it out: +“Lochinvar.”</p> + +<p>“And you say that you have no idea what this means?” +asked Salt.</p> + +<p>“I wish I did!” responded Lord Ludlow; then, looking +sorry he had spoken with such feeling, he added, “I mean that +if I did, I might see some reason for Mr. Cosgrove’s bursting +into a tirade against me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes?” remarked the Superintendent dryly, and turned +to Crofts. “I suppose you couldn’t tell when this was delivered?”</p> + +<p>“Not while he was here,” returned Crofts promptly. “The +only delivery is at eleven, and I sort the mail myself. Cosgrove +never got any.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose we must show it to the others in the house +and see if anyone recognizes the hand.” Salt stood pondering +a moment, then braced with decision. “And now I think that +I’ve heard enough puzzling odds and ends about this crime. I +want somebody to tell the story of it right straight through, +so I’ll get the tit-bits in their proper places.”</p> + +<p>This was clearly for Crofts, and I did not envy him. I +remember that the rest of us were going to depart when Salt +retained us with a gesture. So we were part of the audience +while our host, with much nervousness and with some little +assistance from the rest of us, told who were in the House, +and what, in the main, had happened until the time Blenkinson +had rung up the New Aidenn police station at +five-twenty-two.</p> + +<p>Only once did the Superintendent put in a word. Crofts had +been setting forth as well as he could our bodily dispositions +after we had left the Hall of the Moth. “So none of us could +have been near him, and there’s no trace of anyone else. And +there you are, Superintendent.”</p> + +<p>“Oh—ah—um,” remarked Salt, his eyes moving about the +walls. “Secret passages?”</p> + +<p>“None,” snapped Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Go on, sir, please. This is very interestin’.”</p> + +<p>When our host had finished, Salt emitted a noise both gruff +and complacent.</p> + +<p>“A pretty job,” he observed. He cast a look about the room, +as if the atmosphere of the Hall of the Moth impressed him +for the first time, and he gave a conscious shiver. I saw his +eyebrows twitch for a moment when his glance fell on the +iniquitous portrait of Sir Pharamond on high. “A pretty job +and will take a lot of doin’, I expect.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want to see the rest of us now?” asked Crofts. +“The party is waiting in the conservatory.” He indicated the +door with a nod.</p> + +<p>The Superintendent regarded the corpse with lack-lustre +eye, and pulled his beard reflectively. “N‑no, not to-night, if +you please. Not now, thanks. I’ll take ’em all in the morning. +As a plain fact, there’s too much blood-and-thunder in the +atmosphere to-night. Keeps people from thinkin’ straight. And +we can’t catch the murderer to-night, anyhow.” He paused a +moment, blinking thoughtfully again; he was given to these +interludes of cogitation. “But see here; we may clear this +matter up.” He showed the “Lochinvar” letter. “I’ll just pass +this round and see if anyone twigs the writin’.”</p> + +<p>“This way, then,” ushered Crofts. He preceded us into +the conservatory with its great windows, where the company +was sitting in little breathless groups of twos and threes.</p> + +<p>Only Maryvale lingered alone, beyond the grand piano, his +fingers sometimes very lightly pressing the keys in chords of +some neutral mode, neither major nor minor.</p> + +<p>Salt explained that he intended to ask but one question just +then, alleging anxiety lest anyone should be overwrought in +the situation of time, circumstance, and weather. He gave an +uneasy look at Maryvale, whose chords seemed to deepen the +sombreness of the rain-beleaguered room. The “Lochinvar” +letter went the rounds, until it reached Eve Bartholomew beneath +a large potted plant whose leaves were like donkeys’ ears. +She gave a pleased cry, then a gasp.</p> + +<p>“Sir Brooke wrote this! . . . But what does it mean!”</p> + +<p>“Never mind what it means, Ma’am,” said Salt. “And who’s +Sir Brooke? Not here, is he?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember?” Crofts asked. “He’s the +missing—”</p> + +<p>“Idiot,” murmured Ludlow, and went on to say: “I haven’t +known our infirm absentee as long as this good lady, and his +writing is unfamiliar to me, but it surprises me greatly that he +signs himself ‘Lochinvar.’ Curiously unfit I should say. Madam, +was that one of his baptismal names?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bartholomew bridled. “I have no doubt Sir Brooke +had good reason to sign himself any way he thought proper.”</p> + +<p>“I have no doubt either,” acquiesced Ludlow, and added the +remark, “Don Quixote.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t eaten yet?” Salt asked.</p> + +<p>Our host ejaculated, “Hardly!”</p> + +<p>“Suggest you do, then, and everybody try to get some rest. +All doors locked, windows latched. No danger now, of +course—only never give temptation.”</p> + +<p>“This way, then, if you’re for food,” bade Crofts, and led +the way into the dining-room, where he himself was to make a +wretched job of eating.</p> + +<p>The conservatory emptied slowly. A few people followed +Crofts; perhaps two-thirds of men make for the stairs and the +cold comfort of their bedrooms. At the bottom of the well +I drew Miss Lebetwood apart from Mrs. Belvoir. Then, I +confess, I felt ashamed, and spoke awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“Miss Lebetwood, forgive me if I—that is, I hope you won’t +mind—if you don’t want to answer—”</p> + +<p>Her voice was quite controlled. “Yes, what’s the matter, +Mr. Bannerlee?”</p> + +<p>“It may not have anything to do with this awful—”</p> + +<p>“What do you want to know, Mr. Bannerlee?”</p> + +<p>“You remember telling how Miss Mertoun—before she +wandered out last night—how she said something about its +being ‘his music’? Well—”</p> + +<p>Paula Lebetwood winced and said, “You want to know +what that meant?”</p> + +<p>“It’s rather stuck in my mind, you see—and I thought—”</p> + +<p>“You’re not a detective, are you, Mr. Bannerlee?”</p> + +<p>“Why—no—I—”</p> + +<p>“Your name <em>is</em> Bannerlee, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, Miss Lebetwood.”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me; it was rude. But I am so tired—and your +question—”</p> + +<p>“Please don’t—”</p> + +<p>She interrupted, but her hesitation had become as great as +mine, and there was certain displeasure in her tone. “Excuse +me, I beg you, but I—don’t—think I want to tell you, Mr. +Bannerlee. I can hardly call it my—secret, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Pray excuse <em>me</em> for asking. But you may be called on to +tell to-morrow. It will be painful, I’m afraid.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I hope I won’t have to. Really—really, it has nothing +to do with—”</p> + +<p>She fled up the stairs, and I, full of musing, went into the +dinner-room and tried to eat. But it was no use then. I +excused myself from the group about the table (pale, they were, +as if Death itself had taken a seat at the board) and slowly +proceeded to my second-storey room.</p> + +<p>I wrote in this diary, and while I wrote I heard slight sounds +below. Not until a long time later, when hunger had at last +made itself felt and I hoped to burgle the larder, and stole +down near midnight—not until then did I realize the full +import of those sounds. While I passed through the corridor to +reach the dining-room door and thence the kitchen, the far +entrance of the Hall opened, and an unusual glare of light burst +forth. Doctor Aire stood on the threshold. He wore a cook’s +white apron tied beneath his arms and pinned to his trousers +below the knees. He was rubbing his fingers on the edge of it. +Using the instruments of the tall, wordless Coroner, he had +just performed the superfluous but required necropsy upon the +body of Sean Cosgrove.</p> + +<p>“The blow on the neck did it; nothing else the matter. He +had a whale of a constitution.”</p> + +<p>Aire, too, was hungry. But it almost robbed me of my +appetite again to see him eating with those gruesome fingers.</p> + +<p>As the Superintendent foresaw, it was well that the <i>post-mortem</i> +was quickly done. After all, we were cut off from +escape. The bridge was wholly gone; so we had already learned +by telephone. Burial of the murdered man somewhere in the +Vale might yet be necessary. The King-maker entombed alone, +uncoffined, far removed from the odour of sanctity!</p> + +<p>Aire, Salt, and I came up together at half-past eleven. +Poor Crofts had been troubled enough about finding places +for the two officials overnight. On the first floor the rooms +were filled: the Belvoirs, Oxford, and Miss Lebetwood take +up the left portion of the storey not part of the upper reaches +of the Hall, and on the other side the Pendletons, the Aires, +Bob Cullen, Ludlow, and Miss Mertoun have rooms. Above +these the only habitable chambers are those of Maryvale, Mrs. +Bartholomew, and Lib at the south end, and mine up the +passage. Between my room and Lib’s are two chambers filled +with stores of oddments anything up to a century old. The great +rooms across the passage from me are also depositories and +magazines of much that has been undisturbed since long before +Crofts bought Highglen House.</p> + +<p>I knew that our host took Salt and Niblett over the House +in a sort of preliminary inspection about ten o’clock, for they +arrived finally at my antique domicile. Crofts, thoughtless oaf, +had given me no warning, and I was nearly caught in the +exercise of pen and ink. I contrived, however, to thrust my +writing-book underneath the table and to snatch a piece of +notepaper. I was inditing a letter when the Superintendent +looked in.</p> + +<p>Then they stood in the doorway and discussed +sleeping-quarters.</p> + +<p>“Disadvantages every way,” complained Crofts, “whether +you try the ground floor, the first, or the second—but of course +I forgot—there’s no place available on the first.”</p> + +<p>“The first floor will do us very well,” said Salt.</p> + +<p>“Eh? What do you mean? You surely don’t mean—”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cosgrove’s room? Yes. Dr. Niblett and I will divide +the sleepin’ there and beside the corpse.”</p> + +<p>Cosgrove had occupied the east-projecting room furthest north +in the older body of the House. Miss Mertoun’s, beyond it, is +above the newly-built conservatory, and since, as I may have +said, the conservatory does not extend the entire width of the +house, Cosgrove’s room juts out, making a notched corner at +that end of the mansion.</p> + +<p>“But surely—”</p> + +<p>“I’m leavin’ my superstitions out with my boots to-night,” +observed Salt solemnly.</p> + +<p>“But why not carry the body up there? I’ll have a bed +made—”</p> + +<p>Crofts gave it up after a while, though I am sure that not +for a king’s ransom would he himself last night have occupied +the narrow chamber that had been the Irishman’s. The voices +became faint down the passage; the last I heard was Salt’s +diminishing assurance.</p> + +<p>“I took the liberty of usin’ your telephone. I gave the Chief +Constable a stiff surprise. There are two of the county +police—”</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch12"> + +<h2>XII. <br> Noah’s Flood</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">Same day. 8.30 P.M.</p> + +<p>And now we know that the Chief Constable has left +the direct handling of the case to Salt, under a discreet +supervision from afar. Wise of the Constable, since he had no hope +of reaching the storm-bound house!</p> + +<p>By chance at the bottom landing I met Millicent Mertoun. +I thought her more lovely than ever, though the terrors of +the day before had altered her cheeks to something like the +hue of wax. But her inexpressible dark eyes glowed with +undimmed fascination. She smiled, courageously, I imagined.</p> + +<p>“It’s terrible, isn’t it, Mr. Bannerlee, to have to eat when +everything is so awful? But I’m hungry, really. I couldn’t +take a bite last night.”</p> + +<p>I sympathized.</p> + +<p>“Have you heard anyone speak of finding a scarab, quite a +small scarab?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve just come down myself this morning, you see; so, of +course— But perhaps I can help you look for it. Whereabouts +do you think you lost it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s not mine—it’s Paula’s. She won’t tell anybody about it, +of course, because it’s so unimportant compared with . . . She’s +troubled about it, though. It’s an heirloom, I believe, from +someone of her family who was in Egypt.”</p> + +<p>“I shall have a look for it, I assure you.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid it’s no use looking, thanks, unless someone’s +just happened to pick it up. It was a tiny scarab, set in a ring, +and it probably came loose outdoors.”</p> + +<p>“Outdoors!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she didn’t notice it was gone until after—after—”</p> + +<p>“I see. Well, Miss Mertoun, I’ll let you know in case +anyone mentions such a thing.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank you. But don’t say I told you.”</p> + +<p>The straggling procession into the breakfast-room was not +merely a subdued but even a sorry lot. Dismay and hunger +both had been at work on most of us. Few, I believe, had slept. +I myself had, but it was a sleep tossed and pulled by past and +future. Food, however, worked its customary melioration, and +when at ten o’clock we were summoned to meet Salt in the +conservatory, scarcely anyone looked the worse for the mental +battering of the day before. I suppose Crofts Pendleton was +actually the hardest hit.</p> + +<p>It transpired that Salt had already been about the grounds, +rain-infested as they were. Insulated in rubber, he had +examined the site of Cosgrove’s death, seen the canvas-covered +axe, and made a tour of the immediate environs of the house. +Already, too, he had concluded an intensive search in +Cosgrove’s room and among his belongings, and to that room the +unlucky Irishman’s body had lately been conveyed, which +relieved some of the gloom in the Hall of the Moth. Now, with +the Coroner of few words seated beside him, the Superintendent +stood watchfully in the sinus of the piano while we filed +into the undertakers’ Elysium. The servants were already +standing hangdog along the wall.</p> + +<p>“I’ll have to interview each of you separately, ladies and +gentlemen,” Salt announced. “But I must really get acquainted +a bit with you first, and have your names down. So, if you +please, I’ll just ask each of you in turn to tell who you are +and what brought you—I mean what association you’ve had +with Mr. Pendleton here.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Blenkinson took the centre of the stage +without a cue. “If I may hinterpose, sir, I ’ave in my pocket +a very comprehensive document, I may call it, which will +simplify your task considerably.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that, for God’s sake?” exclaimed Crofts.</p> + +<p>I am sure that the butler never had so many heads looking +at him before, but with the coolest air he produced from his +tail-pocket a sheaf of papers, and smoothed them lovingly.</p> + +<p>Blenkinson was balancing a pince-nez on the bridge of his +nose. “With your permission, sir, I will read. Hm! Hrrum!” +He teed off and began.</p> + +<p>It proved that the butler the evening before had assumed +the rôles of despot and inquisitor in the world below stairs, and +had then been my serious rival for honours in composition. +Blenkinson read loudly in a high, thin voice, a woeful torture +to the ear, his eyes behind the pince-nez bulging whenever he +licked his thumb to turn the page. The screed he unfolded to +the gaping company began with a preamble and concluded with +a peroration, and must have been a couple of thousand words +long. It was a vindication of the servants’ hall against base +suspicion in the matter of the late demise of Sean Cosgrove.</p> + +<p>The evidence was in a sort of interlocking system. From the +time Crofts had dismissed his court of inquiry after luncheon, +until the hideous laugh that emanated from we don’t know +where, the whole baker’s dozen of servants were accounted for +and quite removed, I should say, from the province of +investigation.</p> + +<p>The boy Toby had been outside the kitchen entry peeling +potatoes and onions all afternoon, on promise, vain, as it proved, +of being let off at night for semi-bucolic revelry in New Aidenn. +With him for half the time were Jael and Em, the maids, +who according to the condensed economy of the house always +joined in the “parin’s and dishin’s.” When released from +knives and vegetable-baskets, they resorted to the room of their +companion Harmony, whom they awoke from snores, and the +trio proceeded to improve the afternoon with gossip. Rosa and +Ruth Clay could testify to the earlier snoring of Harmony; +under the eye of Blenkinson they had then prepared tea, had +early wheeled the tea-table, minus tea and hot water, into the +Hall, and had gone to the stables for a bit of genteel chat with +Morgan. From then until the catastrophe they vouched for +him, as well as for the other stablemen, who were moving about, +momently in and out of sight, over one hundred feet from the +place of Cosgrove’s death. The jealous eye of Ardelia Lacy, +too, herself seen in and seeing from Alberta Pendleton’s +window, corroborated the Clays; she had come down and was +sipping tea in the kitchen at the moment of the attack upon +Cosgrove. Soames polishing silver until he answered my ring, +and old Finlay pottering about in the flower-beds, were amply +vindicated. Even Hughes the keeper was accounted for in +Blenkinson’s compendium, for there was plenty of evidence +that he had been in his room mending a refractory gun for +three solid hours.</p> + +<p>That gives a faint idea of the method of Blenkinson’s +“document”; it does not begin to do justice to the detail and +close-meshed cogency of it. The servants, severally and +individually, are out of the investigation. For my part, I never +for a moment considered the implication of any of them could +be other than mad.</p> + +<p>Blenkinson, however, had done more. He had unearthed +one or two bits of evidence that may be valuable. Of these +I shall relate one, leaving the other until the problem +occurred of checking Cosgrove’s whereabouts after he followed +Miss Lebetwood from the Hall of the Moth.</p> + +<p>Very early indeed yesterday morning Jael, polishing the +kettle, sat at the window by the door leading from the kitchen +along the passage to the servants’ rooms. In her carefreeness +she was singing a measure, when her eye caught movement in +the kitchen-garden near the chicken yard. A strange man, +“shaped like a lump,” was prowling there. She opened the +window, shouted warning to the stables; the invader uttered +a short heathenish exclamation and ran away toward the head +of the Vale. The men later found his footmarks in a +carrot-bed.</p> + +<p>Strange to say, there had been no inclination on the part of +the servants to assign the attributes of Parson Lolly to this +interloper. Perhaps the fact that he left footprints robs him +of the distinction. Instantly, however, I recognized in him the +gorilla-man I had encountered in the twilight when entering +the Vale for the first time. Probably Jael saw him seeking +breakfast.</p> + +<p>Blenkinson concluded with a peroration the essence of +eloquence, pleased with himself as an old stager applauded on +his return at sixty in the part of Romeo. For our lively buzz +showed that the butler had stimulated us out of our moroseness, +made us forget ourselves, even in that rainy, melancholy +morning.</p> + +<p>“Priceless,” I heard Belvoir chuckle, and our harassed host +unbent so far as to smile, whereas Lib Dale forgot the solemnity +of the occasion in open chortling. Lord Ludlow muttered +something about “probably a stickit minister.” As for the +servants, they seemed to be in a stupor of admiration.</p> + +<p>Whatever Salt may have thought of Blenkinson’s taking +evidence behind his back he kept it to himself. Reaching over, +he grasped the document about to disappear into the coat-tail +pocket once more, and placed it in his own inner pocket +instead.</p> + +<p>“Very interestin’,” he remarked. “Now I’m fully informed +on that subject. I could pick out every one of you,” he said +to the servants, “when Mr. Blenkinson here alluded to you. +You’re all excused for the present.” He turned to the guests. +“But I’m not clear yet about all of you ladies and gentlemen. +You first, Mr. Pendleton, though. How long, now, have you +owned this place? I seem to recall it’s about two years.”</p> + +<p>“It is, just.”</p> + +<p>“And did you know Mr. Watts that was here before you?”</p> + +<p>“No, Superintendent, I did not. The House was an unsold +portion of old Watts’ estate. It must have been five years after +his death that I negotiated for it. . . . Wish to God I hadn’t +heard of it,” he appended under his breath.</p> + +<p>“That was all my fault, old fellow,” consoled Alberta +Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“This furniture and the pictures, now, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Everything came with the House. Library of books, tooled-leather +style—storerooms full of odd stuff, costumes and furniture, +crocks mostly—but we did find a fine Buhl bureau buried +among some stacks of Victorian newspapers, and dragged it +out. There was a little of everything in the attics. He must +have been a prime scholar and collector, old Watts.”</p> + +<p>“A little of everything, you say? What do you mean, Mr. +Pendleton?”</p> + +<p>“Cheese-parings and candle-ends: trash, you know. Some +queer pieces though. Old Watts must have rowed for his +college, or with some club, when he was a youngster. There +were oars and other boating paraphernalia in one of the +rooms—so much of it we expected to find a shell entombed. +I ran across equipment there for a parlour magician—quite +elaborate. We were hoping Doctor Aire would give us a +show with it only yesterday. And—well, I’ll take you through +the lot, if you like.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, please.” Salt addressed Alberta. “<em>You</em> hadn’t known +Mr. Watts? You spoke just now—your fault, you said—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; I meant that Crofts bought the place because +I preferred it to any other we inspected. It was so out-of-the-way.” +She drew the silk scarf about her shoulders closer, as if +she were cold. “But that makes it all the more horrible now.”</p> + +<p>“Who were the solicitors?”</p> + +<p>Crofts told him.</p> + +<p>“And by the way, Mr. Pendleton, what is your line of +business? You, er, are in business, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered our host briefly. “Drugs. Manchester.”</p> + +<p>I knew that after this preliminary survey, the Superintendent +would interview us separately on the events of the fatal +afternoon.</p> + +<p>He chose to commence with Maryvale. Salt held the door +open for the man of business to pass through, entered himself, +and carefully closed the door. It was with a kind of misgiving +that I watched them disappear, for now began the really +crucial part of the investigation, the ascertainment of precise +times and places, the attrition of fact against fact, and the +weighing of hypotheses. And I was not at all sure that I fancied +Salt, any more than I had last night in the beat of the rain.</p> + +<p>The rain continued. The servants had gone, of course, and +now the taciturn Coroner departed to catch up sleep in +Crofts’ room; so we were an intimate group once more. But +the blight of cheerlessness had fallen on us again, and mystery +reached its wings of fear about us. The mutter and hiss of +rain sometimes redoubled at the vast windows, sometimes sank +to a whisper, and those windows from their very size, seemed +to admit a darker darkness. Hardly a word was spoken, and +that not always heeded.</p> + +<p>It was a quarter of an hour before Salt appeared with Maryvale. +The official tugged at his border of beard with somewhat +dubious expression. It was not hard to imagine that Maryvale +had proved an unsatisfactory answerer, now that this strange, +detached fit was upon him. Salt nodded to Alberta Pendleton, +who passed through the doorway. Maryvale without a word +took the piano-seat she had vacated, and began softly to play +his sequences of brooding, atonic chords.</p> + +<p>The inquiry progressed behind the closed door. Some of +us Salt detained only a couple of minutes, persons who could +merely verify, but not add to the information already at +his disposal; others were with him twenty minutes or more. +Among these I was.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think—ah, yes, now I seem to remember. You’re the +gentleman who had a nasty fall or something. Well now, do +you mind tellin’ me how you happened to get here, and if +you know anything about this case?”</p> + +<p>I suppose that I was able to tell him more than anyone +else. I decided then to give my information without stint, +since it was not the sort of thing that could possibly benefit +mankind by concealment, and it might even speed Salt on +the track of his theory. I recounted every incident I have +here set down: the search for St. Tarw’s devotional site, +the bull, the gorilla-man, the menagerie-keeper, the winking +window, his Lordship in the armoury, and whatever else did +not merely coincide with other evidence. I did <em>not</em>, however, +allude to this diary. Salt, by the way, did me the great honour +of hearkening without gasp or demur to my story of the tall, +bulgy man with the Paul Pry-Schubert umbrella.</p> + +<p>In the end he reverted to the matter of the saint’s oratory. +“This ruin or something you were lookin’ for, now. Maybe I +could give you a feeler for findin’ it.”</p> + +<p>I said that he was very kind, that when I set forth from +London the task had seemed dubious, and now the death of +Cosgrove had driven my hobby well-nigh out of my mind.</p> + +<p>“You’ll soon get over that, I expect,” he encouraged heartily. +“Now, I’m none of your experts on old stones or old codgers, +of course, and I never did hear of the party you mention, +but when I was a boy I had a good share of climbin’—aye, +and of fallin’—in Aidenn Forest. I can mind once runnin’ +across something that sounds like your whatnot. By gummy, +sir, if I don’t think I could guide you there yet!”</p> + +<p>And forthwith he gave me a series of directions, which he +insisted I take down. However interested I should have been +in these two days ago, now among grimmer things the project +of finding the oratory seems trivial, seems superfluous. But I +jotted down what he told me, thanked him, and returned to +the conservatory.</p> + +<p>The spark of speech had been fanned into life during my +absence. They were talking of the events of the day before—what +else could they?—but they had happened upon a particular +and engrossing phase. No longer, as all last evening, did +they repeat to each other what they themselves had done; they +had been over that so many times, all to no purpose. When, +like me, each had given his account of the afternoon, it was +evident that none of them could possibly have been concerned +in the death of Cosgrove, or even could have seen the manner +of it.</p> + +<p>Where, as a fact, had they been after the moment of the +Irishman’s disappearance through the shrubs among which +Paula Lebetwood had fled? Well, no one had remained long +in the House. The Pendletons and the Belvoirs, together with +Mrs. Bartholomew, had formed a party for a walk and had +gone south. Avoiding the road, they had made their way +through park-like portions of the estate all the way to the +bridge, to marvel at the volume of Aidenn Water there. Far in +the distance beyond the bridge, they had seen the road-mender +working his long hours. Ludlow and Miss Mertoun had struck +off for a stroll where Aidenn Water makes considerable of a +bend beneath the western hills. Bob Cullen, feeling wretched +after his dismissal by Lib, had gone alone the opposite way, +kicking a disgusted trail in the turf past the stables and on +beyond to where the steeply-wooded slope of Whimble Hill +commenced. After her departure in dudgeon from the armoury +(and from Doctor Aire and me) Lib had gone outside to look +vainly about the grounds for Bob, then had come in to find +Miss Lebetwood, but had encountered me on the stairs +instead. Dr. Aire, having washed his hands free of gardener’s +loam, immediately went out, chanced upon Maryvale in the +tiny grove of cypress trees, and sauntered up the Vale with +him. The men turned off the path to approach the eighteenth-century +summer-house, upon whose rotting steps they sat for +a half an hour. Incidentally, they saw me wandering toward +the deserted farm of the sisters Delambre, and saw me +returning therefrom.</p> + +<p>Oxford had spent the most peaceful afternoon of all: seating +himself in the shade of the gate-house to smoke a cigarette, +he had gone to sleep in good earnest. Awakened by a sound, +he discovered Miss Mertoun, Ludlow, and Belvoir amusing +themselves by turning the winch of the drawbridge. Belvoir, +having left his wife and the others below for a brisk walk +back along the stream, had met Miss Mertoun and his Lordship, +and had suggested the pastime. By now Bob Cullen had +made a broad circuit of the House, and stood aloof somewhat +churlishly, refusing to be beguiled by the action of the +drawbridge.</p> + +<p>My report of my own doings, told at breakfast, and including +as it needs must the impossible bone, had met a polite +but agnostic reception. The table had lapsed into nervous +silence. Ludlow, tapping his pince-nez on one knee crossed +over the other, stared out the eastern window with a crinkly +smile.</p> + +<p>“The mystic bone!” he murmured ironically. (The epithet +has stuck.)</p> + +<p>“What are you suggesting, Lord Ludlow?” I asked +brusquely, for my feathers were perhaps a little ruffled.</p> + +<p>“I should say you needed to have your sight examined.”</p> + +<p>“It has been, recently, and pronounced excellent.”</p> + +<p>“Then why not consult our friend Doctor Aire, professionally? +He has had something to do with mental cases.”</p> + +<p>I was going to retort when Alberta’s even tones admonished +me “not to notice his nonsense or he’d get vain”; so I +let it go at that.</p> + +<p>As for Miss Lebetwood’s hour before the tragedy, she had +soon relaxed her pace among the strawberry trees, and the +wave of anger had ebbed away. She found herself nearby the +tennis court. Feeling, she said, very much ashamed of her lack +of self-control, she postponed returning to the House as long +as possible, and began to search industriously for some of +the lost tennis balls. She failed to recover a single one, +and at length, noticing that the planted grove was becoming +thick with twilight, and glancing at her wrist-watch, she +realized that she must hasten back to the House unless she were +to miss tea, and appear more ungracious than ever. She did +not, of course, know of the plan to rehearse “Noah’s Flood,” +for neither Cosgrove nor anyone else had she seen. Aire had +spied her just emerging from the thickets to the lawn. From +the time of her outburst against him, she was not to see her +betrothed again until, when half-way across the lawn a few +rods above the gate-house, she saw him kneeling, as she thought, +and dying, as it proved, beside the small tower.</p> + +<p>All this, certainly, was threadbare to tell by this morning; +backward and forward the courses had been traced until there +was disgust at the <em>resultlessness</em> of it all. But now I returned +from Salt to find a new problem had arisen in the company. +Miss Lebetwood (who with Millicent Mertoun was now engaging +in the last of Salt’s private conferences) had said that +since Cosgrove had not found her by the tennis court, it was +extremely unlikely that he had ever looked for her at all; and +once she had uttered these words, every person in the +conservatory was acutely aware what a <i>non sequitur</i> yawning lies in +the seemingly harmless assumption that because a man stares +hard and plunges into some bushes he is of necessity searching +for something beyond those bushes. Well then, what <em>had</em> +Cosgrove been doing, and where, from leaving the Hall until +receiving his death-blow by the tower?</p> + +<p>In vain we attempted to make out for him an itinerary which +would account for the afternoon. All that the united company +could supply was one fact sandwiched between two uncertainties, +and even that fact had been offered by the servants’ +hall. I may record the items thus:</p> + +<blockquote> + + <p>First uncertainty: Doctor Aire, who left me alone in the + armoury a good quarter of an hour after Cosgrove departed + from the Hall, says that before seeing Maryvale, he caught + a glimpse of what may have been a human face among some + dogwood shrubs a little to the right of the cypress grove. + But whether it was Cosgrove’s face, or that of an intruder, + or “the prodigious Parson’s” (who is so familiar that he + seems no intruder), or whether it was no face at all, Aire + refuses to commit himself. He seems rather inclined to believe + himself the victim of an illusion. The scientific mind, I + suppose. (Query—Could <em>this</em> have been the gorilla-man? + If so, we have the first evidence to substantiate any definite + person’s presence about the time and place of Cosgrove’s + death.)</p> + + <p>Fact, from Wheeler, the youthful chauffeur, via + Blenkinson’s document: Cosgrove beckoned to Wheeler from + behind a corner of the garage at about ten minutes past four. + Answering the signal, Wheeler had been conducted to a + place out of sight among the decaying stonework. (Stables + and garage occupy part, but not all the site of the ruined + south-east portion of the castle.) “I want no one to + overhear us,” said the Irishman, “and I want you to keep + eternally silent about what I am going to say.” For emphasis he + placed a pound note in Wheeler’s hand. “There will be five + more for you at the end of my stay here if you do what + I bid you and hold your tongue.” Wheeler swore eternal + fidelity, and Cosgrove gave his orders. “It’s almost nothing + I want. To-night there will be a foolish entertainment in the + House, and everyone will have the costume of an animal. + The costumes, I know, are in the storerooms on the second + floor. Now, I have a friend who must enter the House to + me without anyone being the wiser. He can come in during + the mummery if he has the appearance of an animal, and + I want you to see that he finds his costume. You know my + room?” Wheeler said he did not, and Cosgrove explained + that he occupied the room next the inner conservatory wall. + “The tower there juts out corresponding to the one on the + other side between the Hall of the Moth and the conservatory. + At a quarter past nine I shall drop the costume from + the tower window; it will be an extra progeny for the + elephant, or some such vanity. I want you to be on hand from + the time I mentioned until my friend comes a little later, and + I want you to see that he gets into the costume and into the + Hall, where the performance begins about ten. My friend + will also come beneath my window, but I shall no longer + be in my room; so you must be there to meet him.” Wheeler + guaranteed satisfaction, and was sure that he and Cosgrove + had not been seen during this colloquy. (Nor had they been, + but they had been heard. Morgan, overhauling a saddle in a + harness-closet just beyond the wall, could verify the tones + of the men’s voices, but had distinguished none of the sense. + In vain, later, he tried to wrest Wheeler’s secret from him.)</p> + + <p>Second uncertainty: Belvoir believes, but is not prepared + to swear, that just as he and Miss Mertoun and the Baron + approached the gate-house from the direction of Aidenn + Water, he saw Cosgrove on the lawn. Two things make + Belvoir doubt if he actually did see the Irishman or not. + First, he was talking about and thinking about something + else at the time, and the sight was no more than a surface + impression, so to speak, on his mind. Furthermore, he may + have been tricked by the twilight, for the huge shadow of + the gate-house reached across the lawn just there, even + ascending the wall of the House part way. If he saw the + Irishman in the shadow, the image must have been extremely + vague, for not only is the distance considerable from where + the three were walking, but Cosgrove, it must be borne in + mind, was wearing a black coat and dark blue breeches. + Belvoir is extremely uneasy on the prongs of his dilemma. + (Those with him saw nothing.) Asked what position Cosgrove + was in, he answers curiously enough that if he saw the + Irishman at all, he had lifted the canvas cover part way and + was regarding the unexplainable battle-axe.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>But I came past soon afterwards, between then and the +time Belvoir and his party reached the tower—and there was +no Cosgrove staring at a battle-axe then! What does Belvoir’s +evidence imply, if it is evidence? Did the axe leap up and smite +him while he gazed, and was he lying there unnoticed by me +when I returned from the cottage of the sisters Delambre? +And that “friend” of Cosgrove’s, who was to come at a little +after a quarter past nine—did he arrive so soon? Precious little +he could have done to harm the Irishman at the appointed time. +If only Wheeler had kept the tryst in the storm, instead of +forgetting it completely in the horror of the night until +Blenkinson nagged it into his memory again! Was this “friend” the +same whose indeterminate face Doctor Aire had perhaps seen, +perhaps not? To ask these questions is to realize how vain they +are! Yet if we are to know the obscure, impalpable limbo of +truth that lies behind this man’s death, must we not know the +answers?</p> + +<p>The click of the door-lock startled us in the midst of +almost lively discussion. Paula Lebetwood and her friend +re-entered the conservatory, and Salt stood on the threshold with +a thin sheet of bluish paper in his hand. The American girl +was paler than before, and, I thought, exercising great +self-restraint. While she took her seat beside me, I could see the +tremors pass along her throat with each breath. But her eyes +were staring at the Superintendent, and my glance followed hers.</p> + +<p>Salt said, “This paper, I expect, is Mr. Cosgrove’s Will and +Testament.” He held it up for us to grasp at; it was a single +translucent page, a tiny thing to dictate the disposal of great +riches. “With Miss Lebetwood’s permission—I mean by her +request—I’m goin’ to read it to you.”</p> + +<p>“One moment,” darted in his Lordship as Salt was about +to begin without taking breath: “don’t you know that it is +highly irregular to read a copy of a Will until all the +legatees—”</p> + +<p>“You’ll see why, sir, in a minute. Besides, this is sure to +be the original of the Will, and all the heirs happen to be +present!”</p> + +<p>“Eh?”</p> + +<p>“There’s not much to it, you might say, sir. And Miss +Lebetwood particularly wants there to be no misunderstanding.”</p> + +<p>Forthwith, in that zone of awe, he read the instrument, +dated two months ago. It contained fewer than two hundred +words. I do not know which to admire most, the clear-cut +terseness of it, or the hard cynical sense of its incidental +comments, such as, “my body to be buried as soon as possible +after my death and as near as practicable to the place of my +death, with the least emolument to lawyers, priests, and +undertakers.” And withal, according to those of us who have scanned +the law most thoroughly, the Will is adamant to any who +may attempt to break it.</p> + +<p>As for its sense, it devises Cosgrove’s entire fortune to Miss +Lebetwood “for her own absolute use and benefit without +exception, limitation, reservation or condition, forever.” +Cosgrove’s brother, mentioned as having self-denied a share in the +estate, is made sole executor. Rather pathetic, those words:</p> + +<blockquote> + + <p>“IRELAND DELIVERED is the cross in whose sign I + would conquer; but should I die, without me I know the good + work can never go on. Therefore to her who is, or is to be, + my dearest helpmeet and sharer of these the Lord’s bounties, + best fit to use them wisely, I bequeath all my worldly goods.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Salt gave us a few breaths to absorb the shock of this +overpowering disclosure. I was almost clean stupefied, but I +confess that a feeling of despondency came over me at that +moment. It was not, of course, that I grudged Paula Lebetwood +the fortune <em>for herself</em>. But I had supposed, in what brief +moments I had thought of it, that Cosgrove’s money would have +gone to fight Cosgrove’s good fight, even though a losing one. +The lines of that fine poem recurred to me:</p> + +<blockquote class="verse"> + + <p>“They went forth to battle but they always fell:</p> + <p>Their eyes were set above the sullen shields.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>No, that had not been this Irishman’s philosophy; the great +cause must wait now for the next great man.</p> + +<p>The women had instantly begun to crowd about Miss Lebetwood +with exclamations of surprise and pleasure, a flutter of +congratulation which must have been an ordeal for the +American girl.</p> + +<p>Salt extracted from a side pocket an envelope whose flap +he loosened with a pencil. He made the round of the room +so that each of us could see what was inside. “Paper-ash, this +is sure to be. It was all there was in Mr. Cosgrove’s grate. Not +a word legible, but one or two blank bits didn’t get burned, +as you see. . . . Now, there’s no paper like that anywhere +in the house; Mr. Pendleton will go surety for it. It’s different +paper from the ‘Lochinvar’ bit. I was wonderin’ if any of +you ladies and gentlemen had some like it—could explain the +note, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>But not even Eve Bartholomew could help the +Superintendent now.</p> + +<p>Salt turned to Crofts. “It couldn’t have been in the post, +you say?”</p> + +<p>Crofts answered doggedly, “Cosgrove never got any mail.”</p> + +<p>“For a man who never got any mail, he had a tidy bit of +mysterious correspondence. Well, I see I shall have to wait a +bit before I find what little secret was here.” He looked at +his large silver watch. “Thank you very much, all. I don’t +think I’ll need to trouble any of you again soon; so I’ll just +take this opportunity to give you a suggestion, and maybe a +bit o’ reassurance. There are a good many folks we haven’t +located that must have somethin’ to do with this case. You +all know about Sir Brooke—Mortimer, I think it is; well, I’m +telegraphin’ for full particulars of him from wherever he +came from, and havin’ a look-out made for him. There are +two men Mr. Bannerlee ran across the night he came that I +want to find, and also it seems that those Frenchwomen, the +Delambres, aren’t on their patch of land. Through one of these +outside channels, we’ll come upon a solution. And that means +simply routine police work. However, if I were you, I’d not go +about separately very far from the House, and just for +precaution’s sake you might lock your doors and windows. No +alarm, you understand—only you’ll feel safer. Doctor Niblett +will hold the inquest as soon as possible. I shall probably be +here a good bit for the next few days, and I trust, with the +kind permission of Mr. Pendleton, that you will not end your +visits until I am certain-sure you can’t assist me.”</p> + +<p>“Only too glad, Superintendent to have them all stay until +you’ve cornered the brute,” said Crofts between his teeth. Then, +becoming expansive, he looked about with a satisfied air. “Well, +I’m beginning to think this won’t be a Scotland Yard case +after all. And it’s one of those outsiders surely. Crazy to think +it could be any of us.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly a strange voice was in the room. “And I, Mr. +Pendleton, believe in the possible implication of everyone +here, including myself.” Paula Lebetwood said the words, +unlike any speech we had heard from her lips, a terribly +controlled utterance, toneless, as if some insentient thing had +spoken. She stood up. The tremor of her throat was still.</p> + +<p>“Of yourself, dearest?” cried Miss Mertoun. “How awful +to say such a thing!”</p> + +<p>“Of yourself!” echoed half a dozen voices.</p> + +<p>She was looking straight ahead, sightlessly. “Isn’t it too clear +for words? Can’t you understand how <em>I</em> feel?—how I have +felt all these weeks? It rests on me, don’t you see? How can I +ever touch a cent that was his until his killer has paid for his +death? Oh, I’ve felt it ever since he told me—told me he was +going to make his Will—” Her eyes darkened, and the first +tinge of feeling came into her voice: bitterness. “I was a fool. +I should have told him—then.”</p> + +<p>Miss Mertoun came over, leaned her cheek against Paula’s, +recalling to me that first scene by the tower on the lawn. +“Paula, <em>dearest</em>.” Gently she pressed the American girl back +into her seat, soothed her with soft little speeches, almost +made her smile.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Mrs. Bartholomew lifted her head, an expression +of penetrative power on her face, as if she were probing +beyond the realm of sense. She made a quick outreaching gesture +with her hands, withdrew them, clasped them in her lap. She +began to speak once, but checked herself. Then:</p> + +<p>“I have the eeriest feeling, but it is strong, so <em>strong</em>!”</p> + +<p>“What feeling do you mean?” asked Alberta Pendleton +with bated breath.</p> + +<p>Eve Bartholomew’s eyes were shining wide. “That Sir +Brooke is <em>here</em>, <em>now</em>, among us!”</p> + +<p>She stirred us. We pitied her then, in silence. Whatever +he had been to her, or she to him—</p> + +<p>She turned to the window close beside her. “This flood +may end to-morrow, but it’s the act of Providence all the +same!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come, Mrs. Bartholomew,” protested Belvoir’s soft +voice. “It’s deuced inconvenient; no two ways about that. +We may have to take spades and bury our poor friend here on +the spot if it keeps up.”</p> + +<p>“That was his wish, wasn’t it?” she retorted. “I say this +sundering flood has been our one blessing. How shall the +guilty escape now, if he is not one of us? And if he <em>is</em> one +of us—” Her eyes beneath that lustrous black hair shone like +gems in a mine. “If he <em>is</em>, he will betray himself before the +flood goes down!”</p> + +<p>“Bravo!” exclaimed Lord Ludlow. “Madam, I applaud you. +You have feeling, and I respect you for it.”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood raised her voice to the man across the room. +“That sounds like an indictment of me, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Never!”</p> + +<p>The American went on. “I suppose I seem to have no grief, +no feeling. I am passionless; oh, yes! I tell you I am devoted +to only one thing, the finding of the murderer. My task +commences to-day, this hour, now. I see by the look on all your +faces, and one of them still may be a murderer’s face, that you +are shocked. No, I have sorrow; I am not hard-hearted, save +for a purpose. I have sorrow—you will never know how +much—but I must get it behind me.”</p> + +<p>The easy tones of Superintendent Salt intervened. “Miss, +I wouldn’t feel so. Everyone is heartily takin’ your part. Why +you should think otherwise I don’t know. And have no doubt +of one thing: we shall get at the heart of this mystery soon.”</p> + +<p>“We must,” said Eve Bartholomew. “The innocent suffer +as well as the guilty.”</p> + +<p>“I am now going to make a careful inspection of the House,” +said Salt. “I got the lay of the land before turnin’ in last +night, but now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall take the liberty +of lookin’ through your rooms. Mr. Pendleton, I particularly +want to see those store-places Mr. Cosgrove evidently had a +fancy for, and the cellars. Plenty of cellars, of course?”</p> + +<p>“Plenty. And a sub-cellar no one’s been in since before we +bought the property.”</p> + +<p>“Have you any idea what’s down there?”</p> + +<p>“How should I know? Nothing, I suppose. And anyhow, +the trap-covers are locked with padlocks and sealed with an +inch of dust.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, well,” said Salt good-naturedly, “I don’t think I’ll +make you sweep ’em off and unlock ’em. Only take me where +they are.”</p> + +<p>Again while he and Pendleton made their way from the +conservatory, I was assailed with doubt concerning the confident +Salt. Was he to fumble the case after all? For it seemed +to me in trying to resolve an enigma so baffling, no opening +ought to be ignored. And the Superintendent was, to say the +least, eclectic, when he chose not to enter the sub-cellars.</p> + +<p>A hand was laid on my shoulder. I looked up, and was held +by those eyes with their unsearchable gleam, Maryvale’s.</p> + +<p>“How will they ever solve this riddle and set this wrong +aright, if they forget the spanning and roofing of the waters, +and the deathless arm?”</p> + +<p>“I do not understand you, Mr. Maryvale.”</p> + +<p>“What were Sir Pharamond’s words? ‘Let traitors beware!’ +Mr. Bannerlee, remember, sir, that they never found +the arm of Sir Pharamond—and his tomb in old Aidenn +Church attests it.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Gilbert has a theory all his own,” laughed Belvoir +in a friendly manner. “It has absolute novelty to recommend +it, and artistic value. It’s the artistic side that appeals to you, +isn’t it, Gilbert?”</p> + +<p>“Truth appeals to me as well.”</p> + +<p>“Well, really—truth!”</p> + +<p>“What is your theory, Mr. Maryvale?” I asked with an attempt +to disregard the twinges of apprehension that I felt in +his presence.</p> + +<p>“I have no theory: I have the key.”</p> + +<p>“Gilbert means that the corporeal, material, substantial +right arm of Sir Pharamond Kay, builder of the castle which +now is Highglen House, has risen from its cerements and +laid a certain party low. Isn’t that about it, Gilbert?”</p> + +<p>“It is all you need to know.”</p> + +<p>“But what’s that about the proof being in Old Aidenn +Church?”</p> + +<p>Belvoir gave a sly chuckle. “Go there some afternoon and +have a look for yourself, Mr. Bannerlee. Old Aidenn is only +three miles beyond New Aidenn, and both of ’em happen to +be as old as Doomsday.”</p> + +<p>“It’s as sound, anyhow, as Crofts’ idea that a murderer +couldn’t escape from Aidenn Vale,” remarked Aire.</p> + +<p>For my part, I looked first at Maryvale’s stooped retreating +bulk, and then at the other two men, who solemnly looked at +me. We did not speak, but the same thought must have been +in all of us. The servants might understandably be shy of +strange forms in the dark, but what was to become of <em>us</em>, +if we began gravely to discuss wee grey-bearded men with +voices like honey, or pixies perched on toadstools?</p> + +<p>Young Bob Cullen had strayed to the window, was watching +the raindrops, now meandering slowly, now darting down +the pane.</p> + +<p>“Talk about Noah’s Flood,” he growled.</p> + +<p>“Forty days he had of it,” mused Lib Dale. “If this keeps +up forty minutes more, I’ll be dotty. Oh, look!”</p> + +<p>The whole conservatory thrilled with light. A golden-green +path lay shimmering across the lawn. It had ceased to rain.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch13"> + +<h2>XIII. <br> The Weapon</h2> + +<p>Suddenly, and very softly, Superintendent Salt +was among us once more. I knew of his presence only when I +heard him speak.</p> + +<p>“My Lord, one more question, if you please. The man—Soames +I believe his name is—who has just conducted me to +the cellars says you gave him a letter to post last evening.”</p> + +<p>“I did—confound him! I handed it to him and expressed +a wish that if the storm should cease as suddenly as it +commenced, it might reach New Aidenn in time to go out in this +morning’s post. Of course, when the downpour showed no sign +of abating, I had it back.”</p> + +<p>“I presumed so, my Lord. In that case, I shall have to see +the letter, with your permission.”</p> + +<p>“And that you certainly shall not!”</p> + +<p>Salt was like the everlasting hills. “Only the envelope, my +Lord. The superscription is all I need to see.”</p> + +<p>After a long ten-seconds’ hesitation Lord Herbert drew a +letter from his breast-pocket and held it close to the +Superintendent’s face. Salt peered.</p> + +<p>“Hm. Is that it? Seems to be. Stamp uncancelled. To the +Bangor and Newcastle Corporation, eh? 12 Gate Street, +London, E. C. Very innocent, I’m sure, my Lord. Thank you.”</p> + +<p>I saw the quick purple flash into the Baron’s face when +Salt read aloud the words intended only for his eye. “I +consider this an impertinence, sir.”</p> + +<p>“To be called things is all in my day’s work, my Lord,” +responded Salt, and turning to Pendleton, he said, “You ought +to open a little Post Office here.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth for?”</p> + +<p>“For surreptitious mail.”</p> + +<p>“Bangor and Newcastle Corporation,” I could not help +repeating puzzledly, half-aloud, I fear. “What on earth +connection can there be between little Bangor with its agriculture +and Druid Circle, and the coal and battleships of +Newcastle-on-Tyne?”</p> + +<p>Ludlow said nothing, but I observed in his eye and in the +hook of his bloodless lip a sublime contempt for my ignorance.</p> + +<p>But at that moment everyone save me was looking toward +the door leading to the Hall of the Moth, which had opened +sufficiently to admit first the head and then the rest of +Blenkinson. Again the look of transcendence appeared natural, even +casual on his person. Spiritual transcendence, that is, for +bodily he was in great bedragglement, as if he had wallowed +in the rain just before it ended.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Salt, I beg to report that the weapon ’as been found. +I ’ave left it where I and Finlay discovered it, almost—”</p> + +<p>I think the feeling of elation that visited me was shared +by nearly everyone in the conservatory. I saw faces +brightening. But Salt’s did not.</p> + +<p>The Superintendent gave one leap toward Blenkinson, +cutting him dead off in the midst of his glory.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Blenkinson, your admirable researches—invaluable +assistance—indispensable services—fill me with alarm. Please be +more discreet. Inform me in private of your discoveries, and +let <em>me</em> be the judge whether they are to be shared by these +ladies and gentlemen. For, mind you, <em>technically</em>, every person +here is under suspicion—and that goes for you, too, Mr. +Blenkinson. You may, or may not, be revealin’ something valuable +to the murderer himself.”</p> + +<p>Under this withering sardonic fire the smug efficiency of +the butler had fallen ingloriously. “I’m—‘gulp’—very sorry, +sir, but—‘gulp’—the fact is, I was so helated—‘gulp’—that +I—”</p> + +<p>“Quite,” agreed Salt; “quite. And now, Mr. Blenkinson, +if you please, lead the way to this weapon, whatever it is.” He +thrust the butler before him through the door into the Hall, +and looked back upon the threshold. “Kindly do not let your +curiosity to see Mr. Blenkinson’s find tempt you to follow us, +any of you. Thank you.” The door closed.</p> + +<p>The weapon found! Tongues were wagging anew. I thought +of the difference between Salt’s previous assurance to us that +the solution was to be sought among the many missing +persons, and his recent proclamation that no one in the House +was exempt as a possible murderer. Then in the midst of the +babble came a still voice close behind me. I turned; Doctor Aire +was leaning over the piano, his abbreviated form easily +sheltering underneath the lifted cover.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bannerlee, how about a stroll up the Vale, now it +promises fair weather? Mr. Salt has admonished us to go in +pairs.”</p> + +<p>“Up the Vale—now? You must be emulating Noah himself, +Doctor! The waters haven’t yet descended from Ararat.”</p> + +<p>“I want to get rid of this cursed miasma of flowers. It’s +like some noxious emanation. My head aches with odours.”</p> + +<p>“But surely it’s out of the question. Why, after this +downpour, the Vale’s certain to be swampland all the way up to +Water-break-its-neck.”</p> + +<p>The yellowy doctor shook his head, smiling. “Strange, but +you’re wrong. You should really dig into the lore of this +region, Mr. Bannerlee. The Welsh name of our locality, I +have read, is Maesyfed.”</p> + +<p>“Oh? Meaning?”</p> + +<p>“The absorbent field, probably. For the thirsty soil does +wonders after rain; in summer even Aidenn Water sinks +underground for long distances and leaves its channel dry.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m in favour of getting out of here if it can be +done.”</p> + +<p>“It can; I know from previous visits. We’ll give the sun and +soil a couple of hours to restore dry footing.”</p> + +<p>“Well enough. I’ll meet you in the library.”</p> + +<p>Salt re-entered just then and took Aire away with a few +whispered words. I wandered into the dinner-room where +stragglers were sitting at belated luncheon, for since yesterday’s +disaster the schedule of meals seems to have fallen into +anarchy. I did not stay long at the board, however; perhaps +the fumes of the conservatory had stopped the pangs of +appetite. I excused myself and crossed to the armoury, intending +first to glance over the array of the library shelves in the hope +of discovering something of interest, then to go to my room +and set down some of the multitudinous details of last night +and to-day.</p> + +<p>But I never got as far as the library. I heard a strenuous +young voice through its door ajar:</p> + +<p>“Ah, g’wan. You make me laugh—<em>you</em>. When they put a +lily in your hand, you’ll deserve the Good Boy’s Epitaph.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” demanded Bob suspiciously.</p> + +<p>“ ‘He loved his grandmother.’ ”</p> + +<p>“You think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, I wasn’t crazy +about this Cosgrove. I would have been ready to do him in. +He was no good for Paula, even if he did have all that coin. +He was a fast worker, that’s what he was. I guess you ought +to know. He was a dirty bum.”</p> + +<p>“ ‘Swine’ is what you say in this country.”</p> + +<p>“I said I’d have polished him off, and I meant it. Wouldn’t +you?”</p> + +<p>“Hush up, Bobby. Keep that stuff under your hat. You don’t +want somebody to overhear you talking crazy, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Well, wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p>Lib lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “Yes, I would, +for a brick like Paula. My God, what a man Cosgrove was! +And she fell for him!” Then, “Change the subject, change +the subject! To hear you talk like that would give an alligator +nervous prostration. Suppose a few of those detectives were +in the armoury.”</p> + +<p>There was a spell of silence, sharply broken by Lib. “Leggo +my hand! What do you think this is, a golf links?”</p> + +<p>“You tol’ me to change the subject,” said Bob with deep +grievance.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be sil. Say, I think there <em>is</em> somebody in there. Look +quick.”</p> + +<p>But I had fled into the corridor and, laughing heartily +within, was half-way up the stairs.</p> + +<p>In my room I immersed myself in that task of writing which +has become almost my principal interest. I quite lost track +of time while I wrote of Salt’s arrival last evening and the +rest of it. With a start I recalled Aire, looked at my watch, +and leaped down the stairs. It was nearly four.</p> + +<p>The short, spindly-legged man was waiting, and with a +touch of annoyance I saw that Maryvale was consulting some +book in a corner of the library, a book which he put down +upon my arrival as if he expected to accompany us.</p> + +<p>“Gilbert has consented to come along.”</p> + +<p>“Oh? Glad.”</p> + +<p>The sky was unblemished with cloud when we set out for +that supposedly uneventful walk in the bracing hill-air, but +the sun had sloped nearly to the high horizon of the ridge, +and the light already had in it a subtle infiltration of yellow. +Some jewels still glittered on the lawn, but the turf was +surprisingly firm and pleasant to the tread.</p> + +<p>We struck under the shade of the cypresses; through the +systematic “wilderness” of planted trees we strode, toward the +pretentious bridge, past the mouldering eighteenth-century +summer-house, a thing quite dismantled and defeated and gutted +out. Once I had fancied it as a possible hiding-place for +mysterious visitants, but now I rejected it utterly. The old smooth +lawns there were now ragged stretches of rough grass, still +heavy with the rain where they lay beneath any trees, and +sluggish lake-like ponds were the remains of once sparkling +basins.</p> + +<p>Aire paused where a grey fallen statue and its pedestal lay +beside one of these sad meres, a place where the trees had +hunched their shoulders together to make an extra twilight +shade.</p> + +<p>“About here, they say, a former occupant of the mansion, +the one who built that summer-house, was found.”</p> + +<p>“How found?”</p> + +<p>“Dead, Mr. Bannerlee, with his head neatly shorn away +from the rest of him. That was nearly two hundred years ago.” +He grunted. “The chap <em>ought</em> to have been killed for putting +up that thing.”</p> + +<p>“Good heavens! Who had done it?”</p> + +<p>“I wish I could tell you. He was never discovered. I don’t +think the victim was a very popular gentleman; so there may +have been connivance in keeping the secret locked away. A +baffling affair it must have been for the Salts of that day. The +time-and-space problem was mystifying then as now it is in +Cosgrove’s death.”</p> + +<p>I looked curiously at the little man with the broad shoulders. +“Doctor, you certainly hit upon the queerest tales. Where could +you have found that recorded?”</p> + +<p>“On a special pasted-in leaf of an old family Bible. Quite a +fascinating library Crofts owns without comprehending it.”</p> + +<p>“This is accursed ground,” said Maryvale. “It reeks with +lawless bloodshed.”</p> + +<p>We left the park with its sickly poetry and bore to the right +by a field-path toward the prosaic potato-patch of the sisters +Delambre, where the scarecrow bore almost too great a likeness +to Baron Ludlow in his tweeds to be laid to coincidence. +It was here that the brook later spanned by the absurd bridge +came down from the indentation of the hill. We followed the +narrow channel, where the rain-swollen stream now leaped +against its banks, to where the deserted cottage stood in an +oak-clump. The morsel of a stone-roofed house gave only a shy +peep from its covert; it was like a doll’s house, dwarfed by +overshadowing branches.</p> + +<p>“Do you think it possible that these women were concerned +either last night or the night before? What were they like?”</p> + +<p>“Cranky Frenchwomen. I’ve seen them on previous visits,” +answered Aire. “They always gave me the impression of being +a couple of—well, I might say unfrocked nuns, if you +understand.”</p> + +<p>“Sounds rather ambiguous, Doctor,” I remarked.</p> + +<p>I was suddenly put in mind of a tale I had heard in another +spot of demon-haunted Wales, and I told it with some gusto. +There two sisters had lived together and managed a small farm +with the aid of one man. They were unfamiliar people and the +country-folk were turned askance to them. The pair would +vanish at a particular time of day, and their hats would be +hanging in their bedrooms upon the looking-glass. One afternoon +the farmhand hid under their bed to find out their secret. +He saw them take off their caps and hang them on the glass, +whereupon they themselves immediately turned to cats, and ran +to the dairy and began lapping the cream.</p> + +<p>A somewhat dubious look upon Aire’s face as he gazed at +Maryvale during my recital was, I fear, lost on me, for it +gave me a thrilling pleasure to apply this tale to the sisters +Delambre, particularly since in that grimalkin of appalling +voice they had a fit companion for many an impious Sabbath.</p> + +<p>“And by the way,” I concluded, “the beast spared us its +caterwauling last night.”</p> + +<p>“Last night, but not to-night,” said Maryvale. “It will be +hungrier than ever to-night. We shall hear it, unless—”</p> + +<p>“Unless what?”</p> + +<p>“We shall see,” he parried.</p> + +<p>“It’s a vicious beast, if ever there was one,” said Aire, +looking in one of the cottage windows. “It’s twice the size you’d +believe it could attain. There’s never been any other cat in the +Vale whose nine lives were worth sixpence when this animal +discovered its presence.”</p> + +<p>“And the birds,” added Maryvale. “The nightingales that +once loved this valley so—scarcely one is left.”</p> + +<p>Returning toward Aidenn Water at a point somewhat +further north, we heard from beyond a gnarl of blackberry +bushes the sound of footsteps and voices which proved to be +those of Salt, wearing rubber boots, and of Hughes the keeper. +They were making their way up the stream by the principal +path, and I noticed that Hughes bore an axe of considerable +heft.</p> + +<p>Salt greeted us while we fell into step. “Sensible to get out +of doors.”</p> + +<p>“But you’re not here for your health, I fancy,” said Aire.</p> + +<p>“I am not. Mr. Hughes here and I are going to devote the +last hour of daylight to satisfyin’ ourselves about traces of the +assassin on the other side of the Vale. We’ve scoured north, +south, east, and west on this side of the stream, and never +a footprint of him or anybody else. Mr. Pendleton seemed +a bit anxious we shouldn’t overlook the chance, and it is a +chance.”</p> + +<p>“What is that axe for?” suddenly demanded Maryvale.</p> + +<p>“To chop down a tree, sir,” answered Hughes. “I know +where I can make one fall across the Water. It’s the only way +to get over.”</p> + +<p>“I thought as much,” I said. “What, just, is the state of +things down at the bridge?”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t a trace of it left, sir,” Salt informed me. +“Sometime last night the stone ends were undermined by the current. +There are men on the other side, though, riggin’ up a +makeshift, and to-morrow, maybe, if the stream goes down +reasonably, we can get out of here, and get Mr. Cosgrove’s body +out, too.”</p> + +<p>Hughes pointed to the north, where the zigzag path down +the mountain had been obliterated by the landslip. “Men from +Penybont beyond the Forest are coming from the other side to +clear that up to-morrow, too.”</p> + +<p>“Well, someone must have been moving heaven and earth!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; Mr. Pendleton was quite busy on the ’phone this +afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“That telephone is not the least of our miracles,” I observed. +“I should have expected the line to be smashed to smithereens +by the storm.”</p> + +<p>“Our wires run underground, sir,” said the keeper.</p> + +<p>“What!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, all the way to New Aidenn. There was too much +trouble with it the other way; so Mr. Pendleton had it changed. +Now nothing ever interferes with it.”</p> + +<p>I remembered something. “To bring into this discussion +an element sadly wanting—”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“Disclosures. Tell me, Superintendent, does the pall of +official secrecy still cover the weapon discovered by the astute +Blenkinson?”</p> + +<p>“Not much use trying to keep anything secret hereabout,” +said Salt with a smile, which made me wonder what recent +discoveries actually reposed undivulged beneath that sodden hat +and those iron-grey curly locks. “The lid is off that little +matter.”</p> + +<p>“It <em>is</em> the weapon? What had Blenkinson found?”</p> + +<p>“A piece of angular slate, well shaped for holdin’, provided +with an almost sharp edge. Queer, isn’t it? Here’s a chap—I +mean the guilty party—helped himself to what he wanted +out of the armoury the night before; now, when he’s in a +killin’ mood, he fetches along a stone. Plenty of rock like it in +the Vale, of course. Seems likely, though, that it was picked +up from that gimcrack rockery old Finlay wants to get rid +of—just opposite the tower where Cosgrove was found.”</p> + +<p>“You’re sure it’s the instrument?” I asked.</p> + +<p>Salt looked at Aire, who said, “The Superintendent called +in Doctor Niblett and me for our opinions on that point. The +Coroner and I agree that in the hands of a vigorous person, +who must have approached Cosgrove secretly from behind, the +stone might well have done the damage.”</p> + +<p>“But where was it lying?” I asked, with incredulity +sounding in my tone. “How could we have missed it?”</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t lyin’ anywhere,” answered Salt. “That’s a feature +about it. It was embedded, sir, almost buried among the flowers +outside the central windows of the Hall. If the rain hadn’t +played hob with the beds, and the man Finlay with Mr. Blenkinson +hadn’t been assessin’ the damage, it might have remained +there unnoticed for a tidy while.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove, though, that’s a far-fetched hiding-place.”</p> + +<p>Salt raised his brows. “Is it? I think it was a clever one, +sir. One second he strikes the blow, the next he hurls the +weapon straight down into the loam. Inside half a minute +he may be anywhere, and nothin’ to connect him with +the crime. Just a little more energy, and the earth would +have fallen in about the edges and covered the stone +completely. But as it was it must have taken strength, gigantic +strength.”</p> + +<p>“It must have taken superhuman strength, Mr. Salt. Why, +there had been rain, but it blew a bit easterly then, and those +beds couldn’t have got much of it. It was nothing like last +night’s inundation. The ground must have been hard.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, the ground was exceedingly soft. Remember +what it said in Mr. Blenkinson’s document, sir. Finlay +had been waterin’ those very beds, and waterin’ ’em plenty after +four o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“Were there any marks on this stone?” asked Maryvale. +“Any signs such as I understand often guide the police in their +search?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir, none. And—”</p> + +<p>“I thought so.”</p> + +<p>Ignoring this somewhat cryptic remark, Salt explained: +“Unpolished stone isn’t a good medium for takin’ impressions. +I’ll stake my little finger, though, it was the stone that finished +Mr. Cosgrove.”</p> + +<p>“Here we turn off, sir,” advised Hughes.</p> + +<p>We had been in sight of Aidenn Water much of the time, +its cheerful flow increased to boiling spate. Through a partly +cleared copse of larch, we could see it now, laughing with white +teeth and greedy gurgle along a sort of rapids. The particular +tree Hughes intended to chop was visible, already leaning +half across the flood.</p> + +<p>Somewhat to my discomfiture, Aire announced that he intended +to accompany the pair across the stream. “Don’t mind, +do you, Bannerlee? I want to be in at the death of Pendleton’s +theory. Or will you two come along with us? Any objection, +Superintendent?”</p> + +<p>“More the merrier,” said Salt.</p> + +<p>But I cared nothing for the death of any theory compared +with my eagerness to get farther north and see the great ruin +beneath the hills again. Maryvale had no love for the thought +of crossing above the churlish Water on a tree-trunk, and +said so. We left the three proceeding to the bank of the stream, +but I confess it was with a pang of premonition that I paced +beside the man of business and heard the sound of the lusty +axe grow fainter and fainter.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch14"> + +<h2>XIV. <br> The Fiendish Cat of the Sisters Delambre</h2> + +<p>For half an hour we walked on almost in silence, +making the tritest remarks about our surroundings, particularly +those peaks which shut in the valley ahead of us, from Great +Rhos on the left across Black Mixen to Mynydd Tarw on our +right. We now saw only a broken secant of the sun, and most of +our light was reflected from the golden tops of the hills. +Maryvale for some reason maintained an unusually sharp look-out, +glancing restlessly every way among the glades.</p> + +<p>Almost before I was aware, we had reached the outer of +those dejected and scattered walls for so many centuries lying +the prey of the elements and the spoil of house-builders and +church-builders from down the Vale and beyond.</p> + +<p>Some of these still remained high enough to show the +embrasures where the upper windows had been, tall, slender +apertures, one of them far on the other side even now perfect +in the stonework of transom and mullions and semi-rounded +arch. It was indeed the ruin of a knightly house, once spacious +and splendid. The fallen walls seemed to have been struck or +hurled outward by some terrific force or inward convulsion, as +if behemoth had stirred and heaved himself from beneath the +floor.</p> + +<p>Flanking the walls to the left, where I had come past two +nights ago and encountered the menagerie-keeper, I peered +inside, over a chin-high portion, and gave an exclamation of +surprise. The thick walls had indeed been hurled down from +within. The vast flat slabs of the floor, what few of them +remained, were tossed in disorder, and the earth on which they +lay was piled in fantastic heaps alongside deep, irregular +trenches—all grass-grown now, of course. A few bushes and +one enormous beech tree found livelihood inside the wall.</p> + +<p>For a couple of minutes Maryvale had been standing quiet +behind me, peering this way and that in the twilight, as if he +looked for some particular object.</p> + +<p>“This gutted carcass makes me fancy things,” I laughed. +“Come, Maryvale, sweep the spider-webs out of my mind by +flourishing vigorously the broom of truth. In other words, +relate to me something about this place, and pity on your life if +it’s the old story of ‘deflor’d by Glindur.’ ”</p> + +<p>“Why, haven’t you heard?”</p> + +<p>“If I did it went in one ear and out the other. Say on.”</p> + +<p>I braced my hands on the broken top of the wall and leaped +up, making my seat there. Maryvale joined me with very little +effort, and we sat there kicking our heels schoolboy-like.</p> + +<p>Again I saw him look about very intently, under the beeches, +through the gaps between the stones, across the scrub growth +between us and Aidenn Water a quarter of a mile distant.</p> + +<p>“What are you looking for, Maryvale?”</p> + +<p>“Sathanas.”</p> + +<p>“This place is too thinly populated, my friend. Come, what +of this ancient hold? Bring on your heroes and cravens, your +demigods and dastards.”</p> + +<p>“Gwrn darw—the pile of contention,” muttered Maryvale, +and he launched on the story.</p> + +<p>I had expected another farrago of myth and tradition, perhaps +larded with the same episodes that Hughes had spellbound +us with in the dinner-room yesterday morning. Instead it was +a fairly plausible story from some wholly different source, this +account of the first historical building in Aidenn Vale. I +enjoyed listening to the narrative; Maryvale enjoyed telling it. +Gusto was the keynote of his voice, with its rapid utterance and +changes of inflection. He made drama of it, and a valiant man +of Sir Pharamond.</p> + +<p>“Why, Maryvale, where did you learn all this?”</p> + +<p>“This is history,” he affirmed solemnly.</p> + +<p>Moreover, he was beginning to peer about again, turning +more than once in his speech to stare beneath the branches of +the trees. That feeling of repugnance to Maryvale which I +had before experienced returned hazily, and of a sudden I +realized how lonely this place was, how close to us the hills +were, and how dark and steep. I might instantly have urged +our return had not my own roving glance caught a black +object protruding from a bush inside the wall.</p> + +<p>I broke in. “Look! Here’s evidence the world’s a +madhouse!”</p> + +<p>Down inside the wall I slipped, crossed to the bush, and +triumphantly held high the black umbrella.</p> + +<p>“He was real, Maryvale! He was no nightmare!”</p> + +<p>While I unfastened the loop and opened the umbrella, +Maryvale dropped from his seat and came beside me. He +asked me what this was, where it came from, and whom I had +met here, all in a breath.</p> + +<p>“This is a clue, man!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps it has some +manufacturer’s mark—what’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>I could no more have released my arm from Maryvale’s +grip than from the strongest vise. But in a moment his hand +relaxed, and then I caught sight of what he was looking at so +hard.</p> + +<p>On the northern wall, twice the height of that whereupon +we had been sitting, crept something darker than the hills +against which its form was obscure. Softly, swiftly, the form +slunk along the stones, then gave a leap to the arched summit +of that one perfect window and stood still, its head lifted, its +form now stark against the sky—the form of an enormous cat, +lean and lithe and tigerish.</p> + +<p>Maryvale was breathing loudly. I gave him a swift look; +his face was working, and with his eyes set on the cat of the +sisters Delambre, he drew from a hip pocket the last thing on +earth I should have imagined him to carry, a large revolver, +one of the sort called in America, I believe, a six-shooter.</p> + +<p>But the hideous expression of his face was more alarming +still.</p> + +<p>Here was a combination of circumstances I did not envisage +hopefully: the lonely spot, the great cat, the man apparently +unbalanced by the sight of the beast, and the revolver. +I had only the umbrella.</p> + +<p>Not a little afraid, I sought safety in valour. I reached out +my hand.</p> + +<p>“May I see that, Mr. Maryvale?”</p> + +<p>He let me have the weapon without demur, and while I +examined the deadly thing, I saw out of the corner of my eye +that his attention was still riveted on the shape of the cat. I +hesitated to break into that almost hypnotic absorption.</p> + +<p>Perhaps a minute passed. I had put down the umbrella.</p> + +<p>Then from the gloaming woods that fringed the mountain +foot welled a sound like a bright bubble bursting into a +hundred bubbles, a sound like the spray of a sweet fountain—the +song of a nightingale from the deep solitudes of Black Mixen.</p> + +<p>“The nightingale of Water-break-its-neck,” I thought, for +I had heard someone speak of this lonely music-maker.</p> + +<p>The form of the cat stiffened; gradually it sank to a crouching +posture, as if its prey were near at hand. Then tail and +head went up, and its jaws were sharp against the sky, and the +valley bristled with its starved and destructive yowl.</p> + +<p>Maryvale was a man transformed from trance to action. +Spasmodically he felt his pocket for the pistol, then recollected +me. His voice was jumbled with the cry of the beast.</p> + +<p>“Give me that gun.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t it be better—”</p> + +<p>His utterance was quickly controlled to a whisper. “Give me +that gun. I am going to perform a humane act. I came here +for this.”</p> + +<p>“But, Mr. Maryvale—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you understand?” he burst out. “I will free the soul +of a ghoul from its tenement!” He grabbed the pistol from +my hand.</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake—!”</p> + +<p>“I am the best shot in the Midlands with one of these.” He +raised the weapon with a marksman’s care and confidence.</p> + +<p>The animal, surprised by our voices, had reared its head in +our direction, and now, instead of making off, scrambled +down from the window arch and came loping toward us, +growling, as if it actually contemplated an attack. Its fur on +end swelled it to twice its size. Maryvale shifted his aim +quickly, and the clustering hills resounded with the echo of his +shot.</p> + +<p>But the cat, unhurt, sprang toward us spitting and snarling, +with eyes that flashed. I realized when I saw those intensely +flaming eyes that green, not red, must be the colour of +hell-fire.</p> + +<p>Again the revolver blazed, with no effect save to cause the +beast to give a high leap toward Maryvale, full length upright, +all fours spread wide and clawing, mouth hissing. Maryvale +shot point-blank in the face of the animal, and the beast was +enveloped in a fiery cloud, but it dropped to earth on all fours, +fled unscathed past us, and disappeared beneath a bush.</p> + +<p>Maryvale lifted his hands to the dark and empty sky. “Too +strong—too strong—the infernal magic of this place.”</p> + +<p>I took a step toward the man, grasped the weapon, tugged to +get it from him, cried, “What did you expect? You’ve loaded +this pistol with blank cartridges.”</p> + +<p>“Blanks?” he shouted. “Never a bit.”</p> + +<p>Twenty feet away a straggling thin branch of a rowan tree +came over the western wall and was ebony against the sky, +having at the end some finger-clumps of leaves. Maryvale took +quick aim, eyes protruding grotesquely, and fired; the branch +trembled and one of the leaf stems fell away. Twice again the +pistol rang out; the branch itself suddenly hung down, all but +severed by the final bullet.</p> + +<p>Maryvale laughed wildly with tempestuous eyes. “I should +have known it was impossible. You cannot kill the soul of +Parson Lolly with lead.”</p> + +<p>He threw away the weapon, went lunging along the wall. +I followed, took him by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Maryvale—”</p> + +<p>But he thrust me off, violently, and began to run. I fell with +my knee against a stone, and when I arose my chagrin was +great, for apart from the pain my leg had gone almost dead, +and I could scarcely hobble. Maryvale had found a gap between +the stones, leaped through, and charged down the Vale. When +I had managed to drag myself out from the enclosure, he was +beyond sight and hearing. I shouted his name many times; no +answer came back.</p> + +<p>I knew that lamed as I was I must get down the Vale as +soon as possible, for there was no telling what the man might +do in this demented state. He might even have another gun.</p> + +<p>The cat the incarnation of Parson Lolly! Then the realization +leaped on me. What would they say, those in the House, +when they were told that none of the three bullets had done +the beast any harm!</p> + +<p>So stunned I was by this lightning-stroke that without +knowing what I did or being aware of my injured knee, I walked +on with my brain in a storm of confusion. When, some time +later, I was rid of the shock, but still wondering, I had gone +half a mile and my knee was almost painless.</p> + +<p>I commenced to run.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes late I encountered Doctor Aire, who fell in +beside me while I gasped what had happened.</p> + +<p>“I was a fool,” he panted. “Fool to leave him alone with +you. He was excited—upset—I saw—that when you were +telling—that story down by the cottage. You’ll have to—go on +alone. I can’t—keep up.”</p> + +<p>He dropped behind, and the last thing I heard him say was, +“I couldn’t foresee—a miracle.”</p> + +<p>Talking winded me. I was spent when I reached the +summer-house, and could scarcely walk to the mansion.</p> + +<p>Alone in the Hall of the Moth I found Mrs. Belvoir +sitting, rather pointlessly, it seemed.</p> + +<p>“Maryvale—here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr. Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“Upstairs. They all followed him when he came in. He is +in his room.”</p> + +<p>“Was he violent? Why did they go after him?”</p> + +<p>“Not exactly violent, no. But I don’t think it’s worth +while following him any more.”</p> + +<p>I checked my foot on the threshold. “What do you mean, +Mrs. Belvoir?”</p> + +<p>“A personality balanced on a knife-edge is never safe. Poor +Gilbert was too rash when he tempted the Influences in this +valley. His mind is gone, for certain.”</p> + +<p>“Influences?”</p> + +<p>“Of course there are Influences. I can feel them myself. +Gilbert is only the first to give in.”</p> + +<p>I left this placid lady and made what speed I could up the +stairs. In the passage outside Maryvale’s room on the second +floor, the Coroner and the rest of the men were standing.</p> + +<p>“Is he in there?”</p> + +<p>“He is,” answered Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you go in to him?”</p> + +<p>“Because—well, because—”</p> + +<p>“Because we all want to stay healthy,” said Bob Cullen.</p> + +<p>I learned what had happened. People in the Hall had seen +Maryvale stagger across the lawn, in their alarm had heard +him enter the armoury and disturb the weapons there. When +some of the men looked into the room, Maryvale had departed, +and a sword was missing. They heard him clamber up the +stairs. Consulting in perplexity for a few moments, they +decided to follow. The curious thing about this part of the +affair is that in those doubtful moments Maryvale had not at +once entered his room at the head of the second flight of stairs, +but for some reason had hastened along the passage on that +upper floor. For while the pursuers were on the second flight, +Maryvale came rushing back, invisible (because of the curve in +the staircase), and secured himself in his chamber. Knocking +and calling evoked no response, save once. Then Maryvale +flung wide the door, in his hand the drawn sword—a thin +two-edged one like a Toledo blade.</p> + +<p>“I’ll kill anyone who comes in here,” he said. “Leave me to +do my work.”</p> + +<p>“Which,” remarked Ludlow, when Crofts had finished this +account, “I for one am going to accede to, as a reasonable +request.”</p> + +<p>We agreed it was best to take turns standing guard. Belvoir, +on account of his being particularly a friend of Maryvale’s, +offered to be the first on duty. We left him there, smoking his +pipe, leaning against the doorpost, his ear to the door.</p> + +<p>What “work” could Maryvale be doing?</p> + +<p>Poor Crofts, a host with a dead man and a madman in his +house! I passed him on the bottom step, gnawing a knuckle, +apparently making quite a meal.</p> + +<p>“Bad luck, old man.”</p> + +<p>He regarded me listlessly. “I had a ’phone call this +afternoon from the Post Office. Harry Heatheringham has wired +for full particulars.”</p> + +<p>“Ye Gods! Who is Harry Heatheringham?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I supposed you knew. One of the really high-powered +detectives. Happens to be a friend of mine.”</p> + +<p>“Scotland Yard?”</p> + +<p>“No, he prefers the country air. He’s a Worcester man. I +wonder what Salt would say.”</p> + +<p>“Ask him; he can’t arrest you for it. By the way, how does +the great man from Worcester happen to be so prompt in +sniffing out this case?”</p> + +<p>Crofts became nervous, as he always does when he has +something to conceal. “He—he—we’re, er, in what you might +call communication. Dash it all, I wish the fellow would keep +his promises!”</p> + +<p>Salt came in, just before dinner, not a merry meal. He +heartily approved Harry Heatheringham.</p> + +<p>“Do you know, sir, I wouldn’t be sorry to see him on the +ground.”</p> + +<p>“I’m damned if I know why he isn’t!” remarked Crofts, +and fled to the telephone, to dictate a lengthy wire.</p> + +<p>It transpired that the Superintendent and his aides had found +not the slightest trace of recent human presence across Aidenn +Water. They did not even find a new puzzle; they found +nothing.</p> + +<p>But after dinner Salt made a more fruitful inspection +of the rooms on the second floor, except Maryvale’s. He +had been curious to discover why the demented man had +gone down the passage before shutting himself in. He found +why.</p> + +<p>“There was a box of paints and a palette and easel, and +some brushes, in the store-room next to you, Mr. Bannerlee. +Mr. Maryvale must have known about ’em, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Some canvases on stretchers, too, weren’t there?” added +Crofts. “All here before my time. Seems to me I’ve heard +old Watts used to dabble in paints.”</p> + +<p>“They’re all missin’ now, sir,” said Salt. “That’s what he +was after.”</p> + +<p>“Paints!” exclaimed Belvoir. “Yes, that explains it, indeed.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Gilbert Maryvale has been a very unhappy man,” said +Belvoir slowly. “He has been chained to a big business that +would have gone to pieces without him. He has made lots of +money, but always wanted to be a painter. You see, Mr. +Superintendent, he had an exquisitely sensitive spirit, for all his +dealing in bills and notes.”</p> + +<p>“I’m tryin’ to see,” said Salt.</p> + +<p>“Well, he will never look in the flabby faces of a Board of +Directors again. He has begun to paint.”</p> + +<hr> + +<p>Is all the heart-crushing suspense in the world packed into +this little Vale? Beyond the hills, I know, men and women are +peacefully sleeping, and farther beyond, in the Glamorgan +collieries, perhaps the night-shift is working with never a hint +of the nameless dread that keeps us wakeful.</p> + +<p>If I live through the night, I shall get out on the uplands +early in the morning. I know a trick or two of throwing a +hitch from tree to tree. With a stout rope I can climb one +of these wooded hillsides, even if it prove vertical! Then I +shall <em>breathe</em>!</p> + +<p class="diarydate">3.50 <span class="meridienne">A.M.</span></p> + +<p>I have just awakened with a grim and unalterable thought. +Confound Doctor Stephen Ashmill Aire for his subtle hints and +theories. If what he suggested this afternoon is true, that there +is some hidden means of access to the lawn, what awful +consequences are thrust into mind! Yes, if he is right, the +murderer may be one of those people who came rushing in from all +directions while we stood about Cosgrove’s body. I hesitate +to write their names, but it may be Belvoir or Bob Cullen or +Maryvale, for instance, or even one of the women, if in her +fury her arm became iron.</p> + +<p>And that fiendish cat that has driven Maryvale mad and +that his bullets could not harm!</p> + +<p>Worse and worse!</p> + +<p>I shall now dress in tramping kit and doze until dawn.<a +href="#note3" id="noteref3">¹</a></p> + +<div class="footnotesep"></div> + +<p class="footnote" id="note3">¹ +I have postponed until now a note which should have been inserted +some pages ago, but which would then have interrupted the narrative. References +to <em>the song of the nightingale</em> in this chapter and elsewhere +in this diary demonstrate, as I think, the innocent romanticism of Mr. +Bannerlee. Neither he nor Mr. Maryvale appears to have possessed a +rudimentary knowledge of birds. Nightingales, to be sure, visit +Radnorshire, and the old ones do not leave until autumn, but of course their +descant ceases in <em>June</em>, when the task of feeding the young becomes +absorbing. Unquestionably, the bird these gentlemen listened to was +the song-thrush, which (as is well known) <em>resumes</em> its singing in +October, when the now-silent nightingale has departed from the land. +(<span class="notesig">V. Markham.</span>) + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch15"> + +<h2>XV. <br> The Rainbow</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 5. 10.18 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>I slipped on my rough shoes, thus completing my +toilet, scribbled a note for Crofts, and passed out of the door. +From the top of the stairs came a soft recurrent sound. Bob +Cullen had insisted on sentinelling outside Maryvale’s apartment +during the night; now the guardsman slept industriously, his +head reclining in the angle of the doorpost, the rest of him +curled up, his jaws alarmingly open.</p> + +<p>Not disturbing him, I descended to the first storey, where I +placed my note under Crofts’ door, and continued down. My +previous night’s experience had taught me how to find the food +supply readily, and I stocked my pockets with concentrated +nutriment. Letting myself out by the front entrance, I turned +to the left and directed my steps toward the kitchen demesne +betwixt House and stables.</p> + +<p>I was in luck. Twenty yards of fairly stout clothes-line +were mine for the taking.</p> + +<p>With the rope bent over my arm, I hastened past the +dinner-room windows toward the cypresses that marked the first +point on any journey up the Vale. Then I stopped dead.</p> + +<p>For a woman was standing by the far corner of the +conservatory, half-turned from me, looking at an object which +she held in her hand.</p> + +<p>With her other hand she made a slight gesture to someone +around the corner, and the next moment I beat a swift retreat +to the shelter of a rank of low birch trees. A man in his shirt +sleeves dashed out from the behind the House, running like +mad. He was a man I had never seen before!</p> + +<p>With great galloping strides, his arms working like pistons, +his knees rising incredibly high, he rushed straight for the +clump of cypresses; there he turned as sharply as his momentum +would permit and sped back to his starting point out of +my view.</p> + +<p>He had come and gone so quickly that I had little chance to +take in his appearance. Decidedly, however, he was a long, +lank man, and there was a touch of red about his face in hair +and beard. But any attempt to mark him closely was defeated +by mere astonishment at his presence, and wonder, in the name +of reason, at what he was doing.</p> + +<p>I quickly balanced the courses open to me. Should I reveal +myself and challenge these unknowns? Or return secretly to +the house and awake Crofts and Salt? Or continue my journey?</p> + +<p>This last was what I did, for the cloaked woman happened +to turn her head in my direction, and I saw that she was one +of the Clays. Unless the Clays are to be relied on, no one is. +As for my curiosity, which was more than a little, I smothered +it. If the many perplexing incidents in the Vale have not by +this time chastened the inquisitiveness of each one of us, we +are difficult to school.</p> + +<p>I went safe in the hiding of the birches until I reached the +unshorn grass of the summer-house park; the blades were loaded +with dew. While I crossed toward the regular path, I caught +sight of the unknown racing again in my direction, and was +half-alarmed for fear that he had espied me and was on my +trail. Once more, however, he turned beneath the cypresses +and fled back full tilt.</p> + +<p>I had much to ponder on while I marched through the bleak +and clammy dawn, and pondering made the miles seem shorter. +I thought of Maryvale, who had walked here with me yesterday, +of his dark sayings and the blight upon his spirit—of +Doctor Aire, whose theorisings strike a vague discomfort into +my mind. He, by the way, has taken full responsibility for the +sudden madness of Maryvale. He blames himself for relating +the story of the man found decapitated near the summer-house. +That account, together with my yarn a little later about the +witch sisters and the subsequent failure of Maryvale to destroy +the cat, turned the balance of the unfortunate man’s intellect, +which had previously given token of a disposition towards +instability. The incredible fact that three bullets did not injure +the beast Aire says he cannot account for; yet I suspect him, +somehow, of keeping close counsel on the point.</p> + +<p>But even with these matters to turn over and over in a +tussle of thought, constantly I kept wondering about the pair +on the lawn, the man from nowhere practising his uncouth +capers, the woman so intent on what she held in her hand.</p> + +<p>I came to the spot where Salt and the others had parted +from Maryvale and me the evening before, and now I turned +aside too, for my determination was to cross the stream by the +fallen tree and to assault the eastern wall of the Vale. There +was no trouble in clambering along the improvised bridge; I +leaped to the ground and in ten minutes reached the steep base +of Great Rhos, prepared for an hour’s battle with the +densely-wooded slope.</p> + +<p>Finally, wet to the waist as if I had waded a stream, I +emerged on the brow of the hill where the heatherstems lay +wriggling like the hair of a thousand Medusas. I walked +rapidly, waiting for the sun to break through and dry me, and +when it came soon afterward, I sat under a whinberry bush by +a bank of rare Welsh poppies and ate a few dried figs and a +piece of nut-bread for breakfast. From Shepherd’s Well nearby +I took a long draught.</p> + +<p>The day promised to be glaring hot and abundantly clear +on the uplands, and doubtless steaming in the Vale. I passed +on to find some brink for reconnaissance. Among the hilltops, +what a difference a few feet may make in the prospect!</p> + +<p>I found a place on the edge of the sheer flank of the north +of the Forest where the wide plains and fastnesses for miles +about were revealed in shimmering prospect. I reclined and +rested here for long, dried out thoroughly, and had luncheon: +two legs of chicken, a chunk of unsweetened chocolate, and an +orange which had wonderfully escaped crushing in my ascent. +While I ate, I looked at the cloud-flecked hills spread all about +in lovely confusion with fantastic writhen crests and crowns of +Silurian rock. They were scraped and clawed by rivers +channelling: Ithon and Clywedog and Wye gliding down their shady +courses with here and there among them a glimpse of hill-hung +woodlands, or church tower peeping over castle rise, or drowsy +village looking unchanged for centuries. Surely from Aidenn +Forest one could see the better half of Wales.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden I slapped my thigh. “I’ll do it!”</p> + +<p>My large-scale map of the Forest was in my pocket, as was +a map of greater scope, showing Wales and the western counties, +from which I could transfer the angles and make a fairly +good job of it. I would draw sighting lines on the Forest sheet, +so as to identify those magnificent and anonymous hills that +showed crags and colours from twenty, thirty, forty miles +away.</p> + +<p>I was at the northern end of the Forest. Should I work here? +No, the sun had not yet driven the vapour from the remotest +peaks of which I wished to find the names. Besides, there was +no shelter near, and I saw some cool-looking groves on +Whimble. I headed south for Whimble.</p> + +<p>Wryneck and woodlark sometimes came curiously past while +I worked on my maps under disadvantages, without table or +board; I had to fold one sheet for a straight-edge if I wished to +make a mark on the other. Sighting was difficult without a firm +plane surface. But I had enthusiasm, and patience. I fixed lines +pointing to mountains that, when I had found their names, for +the first time seemed real to me, Cader Idris, the Brecon +Beacons, many others—as the tracing I include here will +remind me when I look through these pages in later years.</p> + +<p>I still had some cheese in my pocket. I ate it for tea.</p> + +<p>Then out of the sultry day came a sudden dash of rain along +the hilltops, blotting out my mountains, and hedging in my +horizon to the profiles of the nearby slopes. I realized that the +copse of trees I occupied abutted the field where I had fled +from the bull. Fair shelter must be near.</p> + +<p>I made short work of hastening across the field and climbing +down, this time, to the long broad ledge upon which I had +fallen on the other occasion. There I found refuge from the +weather, snugly ensconced on a lichenous seat of stone where +the slaty rock was hollowed out underneath the eyelid of the +hill. In my dim cubicle I laughed at the storm that was +sending down its battery of rain.</p> + +<p>For the first time in the day, I bethought myself of smoking. +I had out pipe and tobacco, filled my pipe, and struck a match. +It flamed and died. I realized in an instant what a tragedy my +carelessness had caused.</p> + +<p>That was my last match.</p> + +<p>I would certainly have cursed myself in the limited number +of languages at my command, had not something I had seen in +that moment’s flare of the match caused me to catch my breath.</p> + +<p>The little recess of the rocks where I had taken refuge was +filled with bracken and some coarse grass. The brief light had +shown me that at the rear of the cave, if I may call it so, the +sparser growth had been crushed down, thoroughly flattened—and +the impress was that of a human form. Someone had +used this place of late as his sleeping quarters!</p> + +<p>I must have sat there stunned for several minutes before +I stirred, or even began to think. When I had gathered my wits, +it was not hard determining to get out of the place at once. +Was this sleeper the man who had shed Cosgrove’s blood? For +all that had been discovered, he might be. But whoever he was, +I had no wish to encounter him alone, and he might at that +very moment be hurrying this way to escape the rain.</p> + +<p>The rain, to be sure, had almost ceased, a fact which did not +alter my determination to be quit of the ledge with all speed. +Half a minute later I was out of the shelter and clambering up +the bank, with my face set toward Mynydd Tarw’s gorsy +slopes. And now I watched the curving limits of the hills with +half-apprehensive keenness, expecting at any moment to see the +black dot of the unknown head rise into sight.</p> + +<p>The shower had all but ceased; through a fine spray of rain +the sun came glinting. I looked across the Vale, over Great +Rhos. Ahead of me among the waste of hills beyond Aidenn +Forest the land was black with storm for leagues, save where +one great monument of light rested thirty miles away on Pen +Plinlimon-fawr. On that bleak mountain-top the zone of +splendour shone like a spot of hell touched by some ray of +heaven.</p> + +<p>I had the impulse then to look the opposite way. Yes, as I +had surmised, to the south-east the meadows of Herefordshire +were steeped in sun. And through the gauzy air with its +wandering vapour-drops I saw a rainbow’s glittering bridge from +wooded slope to wooded slope across the mown hayfields, an +arch beneath which the distant Malvern Hills lifted their +profile against the sky.</p> + +<p>I remembered then the great freedom and elation I had felt +when on the uplands only two days ago, and wished that among +these wonders that seemed spread for my eyes alone I might +regain that long ebullient rapture. But I could not. Why could +I not?</p> + +<p>There I was with pipe and tobacco, perishing for a match!</p> + +<p>Unless the cave-dweller whom I wished not to meet were +near, there was no other smoking creature within miles.</p> + +<p>But stay! I suddenly remembered the men from Penybont, +repairing the one sole path to the uplands. If they had succeeded +in establishing a new trackway, there was my best route back +to Highglen House, toward which I must be tending, since the +hour was nearer five than four. And one of them must have a +match. If only they had not given over work for the day!</p> + +<p>I had still a little distance to go north along the edge of +Mynydd Tarw before reaching the top of the path. Signs of +the landslide were not apparent here; yet I had made but one +of the hairpin bends when I saw a broad scar and scoop where +both earth and rock had torn asunder from the hill. Not until +I was half-way to the floor of the Vale did the course of the +landslide obliterate the zigzag path. The workers had not dug +all the earth and stone away, but had made a substantial +walking-surface some feet above the original one. And going a +little further down, I saw to my joy that the men had not yet +departed. They were not working, indeed, but standing about +some object on the ground at the foot of the hill—and I had a +premonition like a sword-cut what that object was.</p> + +<p>It was the ill-clad, coatless body of the gorilla-man.</p> + +<p>Not a quarter of an hour before, the men who had worked +to the very bottom of the path, where the wreckage of the +avalanche tailed away, had seen protruding from the earth a +long and hairy arm and purplish hand. A large stone weighted +down the body when it was found, and it appeared from the +position of the corpse, and particularly from the writhen +expression of the features, that the stranger had not been stricken +instantly to death. Instead, he may even have been some way +up the path when he had seen the hillside falling, and may have +fled and nearly escaped. The groping arm upthrust seemed an +indication that had not the heavy stone pinned him under, he +might have struggled to the air, instead of being buried alive.</p> + +<p>“Did any of you know him?” I asked, looking down at the +face with its long, uncouth jaw and narrow temples.</p> + +<p>“No, sir. He must have been a foreigner in these parts.”</p> + +<p>“This is a bit sickening.” I certainly needed a pipe now. +“Who has a match?”</p> + +<p>They were quite as doleful as I. “Sorry, sir, our matches +was all wet in the rain just now. Our coats was lyin’ up +beyond, and the shower got to ’em before we did. Matches are +fair ruined.”</p> + +<p>I looked down at the ill-clad body. “By thunder, if I wouldn’t +rob a dead man for a match now. Were there any on +him?”</p> + +<p>“Not a one, sir.” The men seemed to regard the idea as a +thing of abhorrence, and I had to laugh my question away as +a grim joke.</p> + +<p>A couple of miles southward on the way home, I met the +two workmen who had gone to Highglen House for a shutter +on which to transport the body. Salt was with them, and all +three regarded me queerly, which was natural, for I was +carrying, besides the clothes-rope, the umbrella which I had +left in the ruin last night.</p> + +<p>“Decided not to hang yourself?” asked Salt, his eye on the +rope.</p> + +<p>I handed him the umbrella, which he received with puzzled +brow. “Item,” I said, “to prove the objective of the +menagerie-keeper.”</p> + +<p>“Quite,” he responded. “Have you seen what we’re goin’ +after?”</p> + +<p>“I have. He was the first of the men I encountered that +night.”</p> + +<p>“I guessed so. Well, this party’s out of it <em>al</em>together—time +and distance, you know, time and distance.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose that’s so. Time and distance, the two greatest +villains that ever feazed the detective force. The landslide +certainly did not occur more than fifteen minutes after +Cosgrove’s death.”</p> + +<p>“And this man was in it, was he?”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean? Of course he was.”</p> + +<p>“Not just buried there afterward, maybe?”</p> + +<p>“I should say not. By the way, Superintendent, don’t go +without letting me have a match.”</p> + +<p>“Not afraid of the dark, I hope?” Salt looked significantly +up among the trees, where the light was thickening.</p> + +<p>“No, not exactly, but I’m famished for a smoke.”</p> + +<p>“Smokin’ is not one of my virtues,” he responded. “I’m +sorry, sir; you’ll have to wait until you get to the House.”</p> + +<p>I was angry, yes poisonously angry with Salt. It takes all +kinds of lunatics to make up a world, but is there any lunatic +as irritating as the man who doesn’t smoke?</p> + +<p>I returned to the House, having all the while the awareness +that forms were following and eyes watching me in the +shadowy walks. To tell the merciless truth, these episodes of +the Unforthcoming Match had chagrined me so that my nerves +were teetering, and I had the uncomfortable sense that if I were +to step from the centre of the path or make any untoward +movement, something disagreeable might happen. I felt like a +prisoner, and even when I had emerged upon the lawn, I did +not like the way the black windows of the House stared at +me.</p> + +<p>“Great heavens,” I thought, “am I coming under the thumbs +of the Influences, as Mrs. Belvoir called them?”</p> + +<p>The Vale was dim when I reached the House. I knew that +I should surely find a match-holder on the mantel in the Hall +of the Moth. I did, but some other smoker had abstracted the +last match! I hope heaven’s ears were closed at that +moment.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch16"> + +<h2>XVI. <br> Parchment—and Paper</h2> + +<p>There was, of course, a match-holder in the library. +I looked into the room of weapons: although the light +shone beyond the library door ajar, no sound came from inside. +I thought the risk worth taking, and stepped in, rope and all, +hoping (in my grimed condition) not to discover anyone.</p> + +<p>The quiet of the room was deceptive. There were a lot of +people there. Belvoir and Mrs. Belvoir were close together +at the table with its red velvet cover, reading from the same +book, which could not have been very fine sport for him, since +he required about one-half the time she did to peruse a page. +In the embrasure of the corner tower, Lord Ludlow was sitting +with his back to the window and his volume held before +his face so that no light from the chandelier might possibly +fall upon what he read. This position he maintained the entire +time I was in the room. In a secluded nook Lib and Bob were +standing before a glass-covered case full of dark and mysterious +tomes.</p> + +<p>Belvoir looked up, while his wife began the page he had +finished. “Hello! Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>“On top of the Forest—all over it: a breather. What’s +happened?”</p> + +<p>“Man killed by the falling hill the other evening.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I’ve seen him. I met Salt going up there. But down +here—what about Maryvale?”</p> + +<p>“Quiet all day. He’s working hard—too busy to eat—fact. +(Finished it yet, my dear? Don’t hurry.)”</p> + +<p>“Is he really painting?”</p> + +<p>Belvoir shrugged. “Wish I knew. This morning, through +the door, he said he was, and warned us against interfering +with him. Aire’s standing by at present.”</p> + +<p>“But have you thought—the materials. Oil pigments need +to be prepared. You can’t pick them up on instant’s notice after +a number of years, or decades, and find them suitable.”</p> + +<p>“Salt showed us that yesterday’s dash was far from being +Gilbert’s first visit to the store-room. He had pottered there +quite a bit, and some colours he left behind in his frantic haste +are fit for immediate use.”</p> + +<p>“He has painted before, then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but not in this generation. Long ago.”</p> + +<p>“Pity. Did he say what he is working on?”</p> + +<p>“No—no details. There’s another development, though. Did +Salt tell you?”</p> + +<p>“Not a thing.”</p> + +<p>“You remember Sir Brooke?”</p> + +<p>“Do I?”</p> + +<p>“Well, that same useful road-mender who kept the vigil in +the car last evening was interviewed in person by Salt about +noon to-day.”</p> + +<p>“But how—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’ve rigged up a practicable bridge for one person +at a time down where the old one stood. Salt crossed it +unscathed. (Very well, my dear. Carry on. I’ll catch up with +you.)”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“Two nights ago the road-mender saw Sir Brooke as sure +as taxes, crossing the bridge and proceeding up the road toward +the House. (I agree with you, my dear. It’s infernally dull. +But Carlyle was a great man.)”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott! We’re closing in on him.”</p> + +<p>“I wish they’d leave off tracing that old boy,” said a peevish +young feminine voice from the corner. “He’s old enough to +take care of himself. I wish somebody’d trace my tennis balls.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” I smiled, “what’s happened to them?”</p> + +<p>“The usual death,” said Lib. “Bob knocked both of ’em into +the Water this afternoon and presto vanisho! Now we can’t +play any more until somebody goes into town and pries a few +loose from the corner store.”</p> + +<p>“Gee, he’s got nerve, that butler,” urged Bob, turning his +plus-foured self toward me, and more toward the light, so +that his somewhat pug-like countenance showed the full +measure of affronted innocence. “You know what he said, Mr. +Bannerlee? He said that it served us right because we played +tennis so soon after Mr. Cosgrove died—Cosgrove!”</p> + +<p>“It served you right because you thought my side of the +court was in the next county,” Lib snapped. “Now what can +we do, except read?”</p> + +<p>“There are worse things,” I offered mildly.</p> + +<p>“That’s what we’re looking for over there—a good book,” +exclaimed the youth.</p> + +<p>“Well, these are just a little too rich for your taste, I fancy,” +I remarked. I scanned the titles behind the glass; I had not +examined this case before. The shelves were not quite +comfortably filled with bound volumes of learned periodicals and +manuscripts in expensive leather covers, all having their titles +impressed in bright gilt.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, now there’s a thing.”</p> + +<p>“What?” asked both juveniles at once, alert for something, +even literature, to break the monotony of their existence.</p> + +<p>I pointed to a cover with the words “MS. Elis Gruffydd” +stamped upon it. “Evidently a copy of part of a historical +manuscript I once read. If I remember rightly, it contains a passage +about this house.”</p> + +<p>“Gee whiz, it does?”</p> + +<p>“You’re a wonder,” declared Lib, with her nose pressed +against the glass. “Why, we had that one down and gave it the +once over. It was all Welsh to us.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I mean in translation,” I hastily amended. “Don’t +credit me with any knowledge of Cumraeg.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of a rag?”</p> + +<p>“The Welsh language,” I explained. “But I should think +you’d find better hunting on those shelves over there.”</p> + +<p>“Those? They look sort of dull.”</p> + +<p>“I realize that the volumes are not provided with art-jackets +in three colours depicting the discovery of slaughtered +bodies and the rescue of lovely women, but behind those drab +covers reside the works of Jane Austen, Scott, and the Brontës, +Thackeray, Dickens—and Wilkie Collins!”</p> + +<p>“Christopher! Seems to me I’ve read something quite hot by +Wilkie Collins. Thanks, Mr. Bannerlee, I’ll take a look.”</p> + +<p>Alone, then, at the case in the obscure corner, I opened the +glass doors and ran my eye over the titles at close range. +“Old Watts,” as everyone styles him, had been something of +a bibliophile, and I saw what I believed to be a number of +absolute rarities, quite thrown away on Crofts, of course. I +had reached my hand up to a dark corner, where a couple of +volumes were lying on their sides, when an exclamation from +my lips brought Lib back from Wilkie Collins at once.</p> + +<p>“That was a strong one. What’s the matter? See a snake up +there?”</p> + +<p>“No, but I found a mighty startling book,” I answered, +looking around and noticing with relief that probably only Lib +had heard my exclamation. Bob and the Belvoirs had departed, +and Lord Ludlow was holding his page so close to his face that +I supposed him insensible to external stimuli.</p> + +<p>“What’s the big kick here?” she asked, looking at the little +old book I had plucked from the shelf and whose age-tawny +pages I was scrabbling through.</p> + +<p>“If Crofts knew what a hoard he has in this library! Why, +two or three of these quartos must be worth their weight in +diamonds.”</p> + +<p>“Boy! What a chance! I’d sneak a couple away; only they +all look worth a thin dime to me. What’s this one you’re +palpitating about?”</p> + +<p>“This is the volume responsible for my being here, Miss +Dale. ‘The Book of Sylvan Armitage,’ imprint 1598. What +do you think of that!”</p> + +<p>She was holding the quarto to the light, screwing up her +face while her eyes roved across the page. Something flickered +to the floor. I stooped and picked it up: a flake of moss.</p> + +<p>“That’s funny,” I said. “Some servant nodded when he +dusted here. Well, how do you like it?”</p> + +<p>“Too many f’s. I get all tangled up reading.”</p> + +<p>“Those aren’t f’s; they’re s’s. You’ll get used to them soon. +Poor Cosgrove would have revelled in this.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Cosgrove. Funny things he revelled in.” Suddenly she +snapped the quarto closed, and gave a careful look toward the +harmless Ludlow, whose book was still held defiantly against +the light, shutting out the universe. She lowered her voice. +“Say, Mr. Bannerlee, remember the day I came down here, the +way Cosgrove was watching me, like a fish?”</p> + +<p>Before I could put in a restraining word, she began a hasty +whispered account of events occurring some months ago, when +Cosgrove, already engaged to Paula Lebetwood, met Lib for +the first time at Coventry. Unquestionably, the orthodox Irishman +had been shocked at the daring dress, behaviour, and speech +of this insouciant American minx. Mingled with his disapproval, +however, was a strong spell of attraction which caused +him to be constantly hanging about in her presence. I believe +that just as the element of unexpectedness in Miss Lebetwood’s +broadly capable character was in a large measure responsible +for his desire for her, why here in this alert, sharp wasp of a +girl, was also something Cosgrove had not experienced before, +something tantalizing that would not let him be at peace. His +attentions to Lib, so I gathered from her story, had grown +more obnoxious as the days went by, and reached their climax +one evening when by her bad luck he happened to find her +alone at the far end of one of the gardens.</p> + +<p>I had some difficulty at this point in following the extraordinary +language of Miss Dale, especially since her speech now +became spiced with a good many terms expressive of emotion. +But it is clear enough that Cosgrove, detaining her in spite of +her unambiguous complaints, entered into a long exhortation +over her, more like a fanatical Puritan than a son of the Church. +At first Lib had been bewildered, then frightened, for mingled +with the Irishman’s obloquy was a strain which at first she +could not comprehend at all, but soon realized was an appeal +to “make his banner her banner,” an invitation of no uncertain +tenour to “ride by his side through the high places of the +world.” The union of repulsion and fascination under which +he must have laboured, as shown in this outburst, was +identical with what I had observed on his face at the luncheon +table.</p> + +<p>“And that’s the kind of a bozo Cosgrove was,” perorated +Lib. “That’s the blighter (isn’t that what you say?) that +everybody around here thinks was lily-white. That’s the +Eringobragh that Paula’s eating her heart out on account of +his death!”</p> + +<p>“Do you think so?”</p> + +<p>“Do I? Don’t I! Say, I know Paula. She’s the best kid on +this little ol’ earth. Bannerlee, my boy, just because I like to +talk like a fool half the time and can’t get back on the rails the +rest, don’t get me wrong. I love Paula: I have ever since when +I was dressed in a towel and she used to keep me from breaking +my neck a dozen times every day. What I mean is, I know +Paula. She hasn’t been natural for months, not since she got +engaged to this devil. She was a darn good sport and peppy all +day long, not one of these heavy thinkers. But ever since this +Cosgrove got so big on the horizon, she’s been worrying for +him—you know—the ‘King in Ireland’ stuff—or worrying <em>about</em> +him—the dog! And since somebody polished him off with +that rock, instead of feeling better, she’s acting so quiet and +intense I’m scared to death. Honestly, I’ve been crazy-scared. +Last night she just sat and thought. I hardly slept last night. +I heard you going downstairs awfully early this <span class="meridienne">A.M.</span>”</p> + +<p>“I wish I could help. But you see it’s so peculiarly and +emphatically a situation where I can do nothing.”</p> + +<p>“I know it, I know it,” she acquiesced mournfully. “Gee, +though, I wish she’d fall in love with you or something like +that. I wish she’d take her mind off that Irishman. To think, he +got so fresh with me, and then he went and bounced one off +Mr. Oxford’s jaw.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Sure; didn’t you know? He got sort of green-eyed about +Oxey. Maybe he had a right to; I don’t know. I mean I don’t +know about Oxey; he did seem to be around a lot of the time. +Paula wouldn’t look at him, of course. Then Cosgrove hung +one on Oxey’s jaw, and we thought we’d seen the last of him. +But Oxey shows up here last week smooth as ever—hadn’t +given up hope, I guess.”</p> + +<p>“I must tidy myself a bit for dinner. I wish I could help +you, Lib. You mustn’t worry.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose I’m making things out worse than they are.” She +took up the Book of Sylvan Armitage. “I’ll plunge into this +exciting narrative, and try to make some head or tail out of it.” +And just as I was going out of the door, she called with a +flash of her usual impudence: “What’s that you’re smuggling +under your coat?”</p> + +<p>“My shoulders,” I laughed.</p> + +<p>“You must have the hump, then,” she rejoined, and when +I was at the stair-foot, I heard her cry, “Oh, look what I’ve +found!” but I did not return to learn of her discovery.</p> + +<p>Nor did I immediately ascend to my room. In truth, one +reason why I left the library was that I had heard voices in +the portrait-corridor: one tone was Crofts’, the other a strange, +high-keyed speech I had never heard before. To learn whose +voice this was I had retreated from Lib and her find.</p> + +<p>I stole to the front entrance, opened the door with the +cat-head knocker, peeped out. A dozen yards away my host was +saying good-bye to the red-headed, red-bearded young man I +had seen cavorting on the lawn at early day-break. The stranger +now wore a blue suit of provincial tailoring and sported a huge +yellow flower in his buttonhole. A moment later they parted, +Crofts with a wave of the hand, the youth with a respectful +salute. The owner of Highglen House then walked around +past the library in the direction of the Hall of the Moth.</p> + +<p>I noiselessly gained the lawn and followed the youth, who +wandered with an air of negligence across the grounds by a +shrubbery path which soon was lost in the grove beneath +Whimble. Among the trees I ventured to draw closer to him, +and was nearly discovered in consequence. For when I slipped +around a stout oak to creep upon him, I caught him lying or +rather rolling on the other side, convulsed with silent mirth! +I marched backward on tiptoes, collided with a tree, and +returned to the House.</p> + +<p>After a plunge in the bath which Aire has kindly invited me +to share, and after such improvement of my dress as my tramping +kit afforded, I knocked on Crofts’ door and had the secret +out of him. He was waging a pitched battle with some +shirt-studs, and would have told me anything in return for my +relief.</p> + +<p>“That red-haired chap? Foggins’ new man. He came +‘sweetheartin’ ’ this afternoon, and I had a little talk with +him.”</p> + +<p>“But who is Foggins, and how does his new man come to be +here at break of day? How does he come to be here at all?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’ve slung a footbridge over the Water down below. +Finished late last night. Foggins sells us our milk. What do +you mean by ‘break of day?’ ”</p> + +<p>“I saw this milk carrier dashing like a red streak across the +lawn when I set out this morning.”</p> + +<p>“You did! So did I.”</p> + +<p>“You!”</p> + +<p>“I heard him coming round the House past Alberta’s room, +while I lay awake at some ungodly early hour. I looked out, +saw he was carrying a pair of spiked shoes in one hand, the milk +can in the other. That looked queer. So I got into a pair of +slippers and my dressing-gown and went to the upper end of the +passage on this floor, intending to go out of the door and down +the outside flight of steps to find what was up. But I saw +everything through the glass. Rosa Clay—”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Rosa!”</p> + +<p>“You see (I got all this from the young chap himself just +now) since this house-party began Rosa and Ardelia have been +a little huffy over this man Morgan. Ardelia seems to bear away +the prize; so for spite Rosa has begun to walk out a bit with +this young fellow—seems a good enough young fellow.”</p> + +<p>“And why the athletic exhibition?”</p> + +<p>“The way of a man with a maid—showing his prowess. Prides +himself on being something of a runner, says he possesses a +number of cups and medals won at fairs and such by fleetness of +foot. In fact, this afternoon he showed me his card of +membership in the Brecon and Radnor Young Men Mercurys.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, now I know what she had in her hand!”</p> + +<p>He gaped; this was new to him. “What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“She was holding his stop-watch on him.”</p> + +<p>“Curious. His voice reminded me of something, too.”</p> + +<p>I remembered the laughter-spasm of the youth beneath the +tree, but forebore just then to plague my host with new +vexation.</p> + +<p>The dinner-gong rang. While we passed down the stairs, +I recalled our words of last evening on this flight of steps.</p> + +<p>“Tell me, Crofts, has the great Harry Heatheringham of +Worcester wired you his solution of these riddles?”</p> + +<p>“He has not, but unless the fool who took my ’phoned telegram +at the Post Office bungled it in transmission he has the +facts.”</p> + +<p>“I look forward to seeing him.”</p> + +<p>“So do I. Good Lord, the night you dropped in on us, Bannerlee, +I thought this was Lost Man’s Vale. Sir Brooke omitted +to appear, as you know; but I had already been waiting three +days for Heatheringham!”</p> + +<p>“Three days!”</p> + +<p>“Since the Parson Lolly trouble had become serious. I had +sent word for him to come as a guest; he had accepted. And +until yesterday’s wire, I haven’t heard another word from +him.”</p> + +<p>It was rather low of me, but I could not resist the second +temptation to prod Crofts a little. I said:</p> + +<p>“I hope you don’t mind my pointing out that you haven’t a +particle of proof that wire came from Heatheringham at all, or +that your message actually reached him, or that he’s alive. How +can you tell that you haven’t been betraying secrets to some +unknown enemy, or at least to some shrewd newspaper +reporter?”</p> + +<p>My host seemed to shrink to about half his size.</p> + +<p>To-night’s dinner was the first orderly meal since Cosgrove’s +death. It was good to see people eating again with the +suggestion of appetite. Even Miss Lebetwood had come down and +had lost her tense, restrained look of earlier hours. Opposite +me, Lib, most fresh and radiant, more genuinely girlish than +I can remember her before, smiled on me mystifyingly.</p> + +<p>The men had reverted to the English fashion of remaining +behind the ladies. When we rose from the table I buttonholed +Salt.</p> + +<p>“Superintendent, does your censorship permit a letter to go +out of the Vale once in a while?”</p> + +<p>“Now you’re jokin’ me, sir. What is it this time?”</p> + +<p>“No, seriously,” I showed him an envelope containing a +note I had scratched off in my room. “I want to send this to +Balzing to-night for my own copy of Sylvan Armitage. That’s +an old book I’ve discovered in the library here.”</p> + +<p>“Bless my soul! and you want another copy? One for each +eye?”</p> + +<p>“Quite so; for comparison.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Mr. Bannerlee. Carry on.”</p> + +<p>No sooner had we joined the women in the Hall, where a +fire was lighted against the chill of evening, than Lib darted +toward me, took my hand, led me to a small shaky-legged +walnut cabinet, one of the objects which decorate but most +inadequately furnish the room. An ornamental ebony box rested +on the cabinet, and lifting the box cover, Lib revealed the +Book of Sylvan Armitage.</p> + +<p>“Prepare for a great shock,” she said, slyly glancing about +to ensure we were not observed. “You should have waited +a minute before you skipped out of the library. Aren’t I +clever? I’ll bet your copy at Balzing hasn’t one of these +gadgets.”</p> + +<p>While she spoke she had opened the cover of the quarto, a +cover which looked to be unusually thick. The slim pink fingers +of her left hand were prying, then disappeared beneath the +edge of the book, and I saw that the apparent thickness of the +cover was due to the fact that a pocket of paper had been +pasted to the board with cunning, but with no special secrecy. +From the receptacle she drew two folded pages, one +age-stained, the other much younger, even rather new.</p> + +<p>“See that!” she bade in a Gargantuan whisper, thrusting +before my face the yellowed sheet, which was calf-skin. “Read +that!”</p> + +<p>“But it’s in Welsh, and the parchment looks at least two +centuries old.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, absolutely—but this goes with it.” She handed me the +other piece, and stood beaming, her smile including and +enlivening every feature of her already brisk countenance. I could +not help smiling back, and it was several seconds before I could +turn my glance to the white sheet of ordinary folio paper, whose +close script was legible enough.</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t mean such a much to a low-brow like me,” I +heard her say. “But if that’s not some modern shark’s translation +of what’s written on the skin of the fatted calf, I’ll eat the +calf-skin. What about it?”</p> + +<p>I would have needed only a comparison of the proper names +in the first few lines of each writing to assure me that it was +so, had it not been the obvious conclusion, on the face of it. +Lib had discovered an unpublished document, or part of a +document, connected with Highglen House.</p> + +<p>Two minutes later I had informed the company of the +circumstances, and the Hall was as still as a vacuum. When I +realized that all these people were listening to hear me read +from the paper I held in my hand, my undisciplined hand +shook. It is horrible to be nervous, and have to betray it.</p> + +<p>I shrugged my shoulders and kept my hand as steady as +possible. Here goes:</p> + +<blockquote class="document"> + + <p>“ ‘. . . in some fear of being ill-received in Cwm Melin, for + the lord there had the name of an intemperate man, one savage + to strangeness when the humour was upon him. But mammering + was more harm than use in the pass to which I had come, + and save in that stronghold I had no surety of shelter from + the snow, the town of New Aidenn lying some uncertain + number of miles beyond the Cwm. Increasing storm and cold + compelled me to seek kind reception within the castle, avouching + truly that I was a person who had lost his way in those wilds + and stood in danger of the elements. Being admitted within + the gate and taken before my lord, I was excellently welcomed. + The man himself sat alone before the blazing hearth in a room + called the Hall of the Moth, with weapons and machines + and all the abiliments of war heaped in the corners. He was + none of your pouncing and mincing followers of court, but + sprawled like a great bulchin in his chair, with ragged + Abram-coloured beard, immense mouth, and eyes like yellow flames. + He bawled for sewer and cup-bearer, and a table was straight + fetched, and a feast-dish set thereon, with a manchet and good + sherris wine a-plenty. I fell to my refreshment, nor did it + escape my notice that my lord was somewhat in his cups, which + caused him to be exceeding merry and boastful. He vaunted + long about himself and his own great valour and prowess, + exulting mightily in his late triumph over Roger, Earl of + Gwrtheyrnion, which was truly an achievement which will + redound in the history of time. Much he said that is known + among men, and presently fell to speech of Sir Pharamond, + fourth lord of that name, who builded this castle on the mill-site, + after his house close under the valleytop had tumbled to its + fall through the perfidy of the false steward David, a most foul + and dastardly act, published far and wide among men. Very + gleefully and asperly did my lord relate how they had skummed + the countryside for the scroyle, and how they had meted out his + fearful fate. Now my lord waxed more strange and withal + crafty in his words, saying that which is not of common report, + relating how above the newly builded battlements Sir + Pharamond had made a tier of chambers, so that rumour whispered + he was mad—but lord Pharamond only smiled, and called the + windows of those chambers his eyes for descrying treachery. + And ever afterward, said my noble host, the builder of the + castle on the mill-site was untroubled by plotters against his + peace. Now when I was emboldened to ask my lord to make + this thing clear, he said no word but seized a flambeau up into + his hand and beckoned me to follow. He led me through the + kitchens and down into a cavern that was there, with a + standing pool of water in the midst. This, said my lord, is the + drowning-pit of my ancestor, for it was his merry mood to + fling his disobedient folk into the water with his own hand, + not binding them, but pressing them back into the pit while + they essayed to come ashore. Thirty he had once drowned in a + single afternoon. For the rest, were he werry, he could shuffle + them off with no more trouble than snuffing a night-light. + Now do you see, said my lord, but in such cunning wise that + I knew some deceit lurked behind his words. Nor would he + say more, but departed from the vault, leaving me constrained + to follow him or remain in darkness, though wishful to + examine the cavern—yet full of thanks, on the other hand, that + he had not practised upon me the custom of his ancestor.</p> + + <p>Again in the Hall of the Moth my lord laughed immoderately + before the fire, saying that for that gear he himself + was proof against all traitordom, for he kept there a cat + that was never tamed, more sure than forty watch-dogs, more + trusty than twenty men-of-war, since that it leaped to the + attack without a snarl or a struggle, full silently and suddenly, + until it had achieved the kill, and it failed not to lay his + enemy low. Beware, said my lord, of gib my cat’s claw, and + how you hear the purring of the cat, for its purr is more + dangerous than the innumerable growl of hounds upon a + hunting. The purring of gib my cat means death. I dared to ask + that I might be shown this beast, provided it purred not at + me. My lord, who had drunk much more wine since we had + come from the cavern of the drowning-pit, bade me thickly go + seek the beast for myself, and upon asking where, he bade me + look beneath the perfidious tree, but beware lest it purr or I + was doomed. So I said no more of it, discerning that while + he grew the more merry he grew the more savage, and might + well be goading me on to my destruction. At length my lord + having fallen into a stupor, he was borne to his bed, and I + conducted to mine, among those upper rooms which rose above + the battlements. I slept sound, awakened but once, as I + thought, by a long belch of laughter from some unknown part + of the castle. Again sleep visited me, and in the morning, when + the snow had ceased, a party of my lord’s men being at point + of breaking away to New Aidenn, I made one of their company + and reached my destination in soundness, the afternoon being + that of the fourteenth day of January, 1523.’ ”<a href="#note4" + id="noteref4">¹</a></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“Well,” avouched Mrs. Bartholomew, almost before I had +completed the last sentence, “now we know the ancestry of that +frightful animal.”</p> + +<p>“The cat of the Delambres, you mean?” asked Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“Yes. No wonder the Frenchwomen left it behind and Mr. +Maryvale’s bullets couldn’t kill it.”</p> + +<p>“The cat’s claw, eh?” mused Belvoir. “ ‘Beware of the cat’s +claw.’ Funny, Superintendent, that the Lord of Aidenn and +Parson Lolly should use the same words.”</p> + +<p>“I wish someone would tell me,” said I, “what is a +perfidious tree.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to know, too,” Alberta declared, “and what’s +more, why anybody should keep a cat under one.”</p> + +<p>“I wish Mr. Maryvale <em>had</em> annihilated that fiendish cat,” said +Mrs. Bartholomew. “It gives me a shiver whenever I think of +it somewhere up there, maybe waiting for one of us.”</p> + +<p>Pendleton looked towards Miss Lebetwood and lowered his +voice. “Why, you don’t mean to say that you think the beast +had anything to do with Cosgrove’s death?”</p> + +<p>“Cats don’t usually hit people with stones,” contributed +Bob.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” called Ludlow sharply. “Fiendish cat, flying +Parson, perfidious tree, deathless arm, mystic bone, and all +balderdash!”</p> + +<p>“Very well, my Lord,” said Salt, who appeared ready to +indulge in a little crossing of swords, “explain this tragedy +without the balderdash.”</p> + +<p>“Explain it <em>with</em>!” retorted his Lordship.</p> + +<p>The documents had been passing from hand to hand. “My +Lord, I’ll have a look at that manuscript, if you’ve finished,” +said Salt. “No, I mean the English-written one.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t it.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought—”</p> + +<p>“I did have it a moment ago. I gave it to—er—”</p> + +<p>“You laid it down on the mantelpiece. I saw you,” said +Alberta.</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes; so I did. But it’s not there.”</p> + +<p>Salt raised his voice. “Who has the English manuscript?”</p> + +<p>No response, until a gasp from Bob. “Look, isn’t that it?—in +the fire!”</p> + +<p>Something ashen and fluffy was smouldering on top of the +log, something that turned from grey to translucent pink +when the flame brightened. Salt reached the fireplace in a leap, +bent down, scrutinized the fragment.</p> + +<p>“That’s it, sure enough.” He ever so carefully attempted +to remove the crinkled piece, which vanished at the first +touch of the fire-shovel.</p> + +<p>Crofts extended the parchment in mollifying wise. “At any +rate,” he said, “we have the original here. No trouble having a +new translation made.”</p> + +<p>Salt swelled like a small balloon, and his jaw was tight. “No, +thank you, Mr. Pendleton. I’m not having any.”</p> + +<p>I heard Aire’s suppressed exclamation behind me: “Of course +not!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” I demanded, turning to the dark, +outlandish face that came only to my shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Why, Salt wants the manuscript because he wants the man +who wrote it: someone, probably, who has lived here or been +here before, knew the book, knew the Welsh language, and, +particularly, whose penmanship is that of the paper.”</p> + +<p>Crofts, crestfallen, was still urging the original parchment. +“At any rate, Superintendent, take charge of this. The +burning must have been an accident; perhaps the sheet fell in +the fire. And you can have another trans—”</p> + +<p>Salt took, or rather snatched, the sheep-skin from Crofts, as +much as to say, “Better this than nothing,” and he did say, “I +don’t want <em>any</em> translation; I want that particular one.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” murmured Aire. “Whoever wrote that paper +is Parson Lolly!”</p> + +<div class="footnotesep"></div> + +<p class="footnote" id="note4">¹ +It may be necessary, in view of the occurrence later in the evening +when Mr. Bannerlee read this paper by an unknown hand, to state +that the translation here included is both correct and substantially the +same as that which he read. (<span class="notesig">V. Markham.</span>) +<a href="#noteref4">↩︎</a></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch17"> + +<h2>XVII. <br> Lancelot’s Ultimatum</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 6. 11.25 <span class="meridienne">A.M.</span></p> + +<p>Was he, I wondered, in the room at all? So far, since +eight o’clock, I had not been able to detect the slightest sound +from within the chamber. For longer and longer periods I +listened with my ear to the door, all senses alert. I thought of +knocking, but refrained, for Aire had counselled against it. But +that inhuman stillness inside the room!</p> + +<p>Suddenly footsteps resounded crossing the floor, no secret +footsteps, but blatant and decisive ones. I had hardly time to +draw back a little from the entrance when the door opened +and Maryvale stood on the threshold.</p> + +<p>I was shocked, for with the exception of two days’ bristle he +looked so much himself. When he saw me, he tossed his head +back in a laugh that had the natural ring.</p> + +<p>“Ah, you, Mr. Bannerlee. I wondered which of the +gentlemen was protecting me this morning.”</p> + +<p>Yes, he seemed quite the same as when I had first met him +and we paced the walk outside the Hall of the Moth. Quiet and +courteous, sane and substantial, he smiled on my +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you coming in? You’ve had a long wait.”</p> + +<p>I was trying to meet his cheerful eye and to think at the same +time. “I should rather expect you’d wish to come out.”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you; I have been out.”</p> + +<p>“You have? No one told me.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” he said with his fluent ease of manner. +“Last night my oils weren’t quite right, and I looked for some +common varnish in the stable supply room.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” I laughed, “I should think you’d have thought of +food before varnish.”</p> + +<p>“True, I have not been eating very heartily. Some carrots and +raw cabbage from the kitchen garden was all I could obtain. +The darkness rather hindered me.”</p> + +<p>“But I heard nothing of this. Who let you out?”</p> + +<p>“Let me out? My dear sir, I go out when I choose, by the +window!”</p> + +<p>“But you couldn’t have climbed down the wall.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bannerlee, we seldom know our latent powers. What +I set myself to do, I do. It is a great deal easier than you +suppose when the windows have cornices and the ivy is +reasonably firm.”</p> + +<p>“But climbing back?”</p> + +<p>“You have observed the ladder, of course. For the present, +I find it obviates much of the difficulty. Later—” His voice +trailed out, and he changed the subject with a renewed +invitation to enter. “I am glad it is you who are the first to +see my work. I think you will know how to evaluate it.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps I was not prudent, but I was bitterly curious to see +what was the product Maryvale had taken extraordinary +measures to create. I stepped inside, noted the broad, +slant-shouldered room to be in order, saw lying across a chair the +thin sword, a mere rapier, with which the man had threatened +to make a ghost of any who interrupted him. A stout walking-stick +would have smashed the blade to splinters in a twinkling. +The bed had not been slept in, or on. The only litter in the +room was near the casement, where easel and canvas stood +and rags and brushes were scattered on the floor.</p> + +<p>“The pigments are not dry yet, of course,” said Maryvale. +“Still, the work is done.”</p> + +<p>Maryvale’s canvas was about four feet each way, and save +for an irregular space in the centre, every inch had been +drawn and coloured with minute care. Almost it might be +said that the one derogatory criticism was that overloaded +detail diminished the interest of the principal subject. For the +picture was no mere daub of good intentions. Though even +my inexpert eye saw deficiencies in technique, they were +faults due to a long unpractised hand—they were nothing. +Once on a time, indeed, Maryvale must have studied his art +to advantage, for now in spite of imperfect materials at his +command, and in spite of long unacquaintance with the medium, +the power of his idea overrode the difficulties, and the +magnificent though intentionally uncompleted painting drove +its impression home.</p> + +<p>Only, as I have said, the background and lesser adjuncts +demanded a greater share of interest than usual. A peculiar +circumstance abetted this fact. The central figure had no +face.</p> + +<p>The scene was above a valley so deep that its bottom was +lost in darkness, where the whole middle air was drenched +with rain to the colour of smoke, through which the sun, +westering and low, sent a shaft of dripping light. Higher, +against a black and sullen mountain-side, the thunder-heads +were gathered in inky monochrome, and down the sky wriggled +a huge worm of lightning, so dazzling that it affected the eye +with torture keen as that which a loud shrill sound inflicts +upon the ear. And round about, outside the clouds and within +them, flickered the suggestions of menacing shapes, skinny +arms, abysmal eyes, demonic smiles.</p> + +<p>In the centre, a solitary figure hung in the track of the +storm, not upright, not poised as if for swooping flight, but +horizontal in the turgid air, resting with four limbs +widespread, like some unholy ghost brooding over the nether +gulfs of hell—Parson Lolly. The pitch-black cloak flapped +restless in the tempest, and from the indistinguishable murk +below came up the scarlet gleams from unknown forges.</p> + +<p>Parson Lolly’s neck was twisted upward and the face turned +toward the beholder, save that there was no face. Examining +closely, I saw that not the faintest lines had been drawn for +one, that Maryvale had simply ceased at that place in his +design. The sinister suggestion was enforced by the bulk of the +decapitated figure against the livid storm, by the hands with +their hint of feline claws, by the shadows cast downward by +those hands, like the doom of pestilence scattered down the +gulf.</p> + +<p>The artist stood by the window, his back to the light, but I +could see the high glint of satisfaction in his eye.</p> + +<p>“You <em>do</em> approve, I can tell.”</p> + +<p>“Maryvale, this is—well, it’s beyond anything I expected. +Where did you study?”</p> + +<p>“Two years with Coselli in Milan. But that was long ago; +I could not have done this then.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do about the face?”</p> + +<p>“I doubt that I shall ever finish it,” he said, looking at +his handiwork. “No.” He shook his head and his eyes contracted +to points of light. “It may be the only picture I shall +ever paint—”</p> + +<p>“Surely not!” I cried with much feeling. “You have the +incommunicable gift.”</p> + +<p>But Maryvale was far aloof. His voice had changed into +that distant tone that suggested withdrawal beyond the sphere +of ordinary mortals. And when he spoke, I became as cold +as ice.</p> + +<p>“I know now why Cosgrove passed away, with all the +embroilments and hubbub he used to cause.”</p> + +<p>I responded with a sense of rigid self-control: “You aren’t, +er, implying he terminated his own existence?”</p> + +<p>“He was killed so that I could paint. When all this excitement +and investigation is over, that is what they will find. +I think it is well his life is ended.”</p> + +<p>“Come now, Mr. Maryvale, without cavil or casuistry, tell +me who performed this beneficial murder.”</p> + +<p>“Someone, I do not know who, of the house of Kay.”</p> + +<p class="diarydate">Same day. 4.30 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>For some reason the Superintendent appeared highly gratified +and very lenient toward the universe. Alberta Pendleton, +though perhaps no more curious than the rest of the table, +was the only one who ventured to find out why. Wheedling, +she persisted from the fish to the fruit, and at length wore out +Salt’s defences by attrition.</p> + +<p>The table grew still while the Superintendent opened a +wallet capable of holding a couple of folios and very carefully +withdrew a piece of notepaper which he held by a sheath +of blotter fastened with a clip.</p> + +<p>“Take it by the corner, <em>if</em> you please, and mind it don’t +catch fire. That was a neat trick somebody played on me last +evening, but I’ll thank you not to repeat it,” he admonished +a trifle grimly, opening the note and handing it to Mrs. +Bartholomew, whose eyes grew twice their size within two seconds +while they were fixed on the writing.</p> + +<p>“What does it say?” chorused half a dozen voices, but Mrs. +Bartholomew could only give a huge swallow and an audible +sigh, and handed the paper to Maryvale without looking at +him.</p> + +<p>“Read it to us,” besought Crofts, who sat at the far end of +the table and whose turn would not come for at least a couple +of minutes.</p> + +<p>Maryvale complied. “ ‘Sir,—Will no plain speech cause you +or your principals to understand that the die is cast and the +snowball is rolling downhill!’ ” A long low whistle broke from +the reader’s lips.</p> + +<p>“Go on!” (from Crofts.)</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Maryvale, that’s not fair!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t stop, please.”</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, go on!”</p> + +<p>“I will go on,” said the man of business. “ ‘My deeds be on +my head!’ ”</p> + +<p>After that perhaps prophetic sentence the silence seemed +to sway and swirl. Alberta asked in a small voice, “Is that +all?”</p> + +<p>“No, there is another paragraph, equally concise: ‘I have +acquainted Mr. Oxford sufficiently with the particulars, and +I do not see that there is any need for you and me to discuss +the situation. It remains simply for you to take what measures +you consider best, or to accept the inevitable. You cannot stem +the tide.’ ”</p> + +<p>About twenty-four startled eyes suddenly turned full glare +on Charlton Oxford.</p> + +<p>“No signature?” asked Aire.</p> + +<p>“Yes, the message is signed ‘Lancelot,’ and a postscript +adds, ‘These notes and their method of delivery are an +unnecessary risk. I suggest that your answer be the last, since on +my side the question is past debate.’ That <em>is</em> the end.”</p> + +<p>Oxford sat between Miss Mertoun and Lib Dale, on my side +of the board. Lib promptly struck a finger into his waistcoat, +so that he squirmed, while the English girl looked at her +cousin with wide wonder, or a clever imitation of it, in her fine +black eyes.</p> + +<p>“What in thunder have <em>you</em> got to do with this mess?” +demanded Pendleton.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Oxey, old sport,” appended Lib, “what’s all this secret +stuff? Are you a great man and we didn’t know it all the +time?”</p> + +<p>But Oxford, his eyes very uncomfortable, made no answer +than to shrug his modish shoulders, and Salt came to his +rescue.</p> + +<p>“Don’t press Mr. Oxford, if you please. He is bound in +confidence to me.”</p> + +<p>“This, I believe, is an admissible question,” said Aire. “Is +the note a recent discovery of yours?”</p> + +<p>“Found it an hour ago.”</p> + +<p>“But surely you couldn’t have overlooked it in your +previous search in Mr. Cosgrove’s room.”</p> + +<p>“Right you are. But I didn’t discover this in Mr. Cosgrove’s +room.”</p> + +<p>“Oh?”</p> + +<p>“No. It had been delivered.”</p> + +<p>“Delivered? What the devil do you mean?” asked Crofts.</p> + +<p>“It was put where Sir Brooke told Mr. Cosgrove to leave +it.”</p> + +<p>“In the mail!” I exclaimed, a great dawn rising in my +brain. “Wait a moment, Superintendent. I’ll tell you where +you found that paper!”</p> + +<p>“Gumme, if you haven’t guessed it or something.”</p> + +<p>“In the armoury!”</p> + +<p>“Right.”</p> + +<p>“In the armoury?” Crofts echoed dully, his brow scowling +down.</p> + +<p>How clear the recollection was: the armoury in misty +bluish light, the three vague shapes of men, the one with the +white tuft and shirt-front picking the pockets of the other +two, the narrow face at the candle before the room was turned +to darkness. Unsuccessful that search must have been; +Cosgrove must have “posted” this letter afterward. But what +was Lord Ludlow’s part in this muddle? Surely he played +an extra hand, perhaps a lone hand. I looked at his guileless +countenance and would have given a guinea to know what was +going on behind it.</p> + +<p>I shifted my attention to Salt again. “But there must have +been some disturbance, Superintendent. I don’t believe that +even you—”</p> + +<p>“Cleanin’,” acknowledged Salt. “Miss Carmody—Jael, that +is—was dustin’ about. No question she shook it loose, for it +was lyin’ on the floor under the newer suit of armour when +I passed through at twelve o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t see—why, the mail is—” commenced Mrs. +Bartholomew diffidently.</p> + +<p>“The coat of mail, the coat of mail,” growled Bob Cullen.</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” said Salt. “You see, Mr. Pendleton, you had +a little Post Office here after all. This note was tucked away +between the chain-mail and the cuirass. Couldn’t have been a +better hidin’-place, as long as there were no children in the +house to pick things to pieces.”</p> + +<p>The ladies had passed from the room, and we were on the +point of following, when Salt recalled us with a casual remark. +“Well, I’m poppin’ off now, gentlemen.”</p> + +<p>“Eh!” exclaimed Crofts. “I thought Dr. Niblett—”</p> + +<p>“We’re off together, sir. The Coroner’s conductin’ the +bodies, and I’m conductin’ the Coroner.”</p> + +<p>“For heaven’s sake, send us some newspapers to read,” I +urged.</p> + +<p>“I will, I will.” Salt cast his eye somewhat sardonically +about the circle. “Any more small commissions from any of +you gentlemen?”</p> + +<p>We clustered at the doorway where the melancholy caravan +set out in charge of Dr. Niblett. The bodies of Cosgrove and +of the unknown, stitched in sheets and laid along improvised +stretchers, were to be carried by motor as far as the temporary +bridge, across which they must be borne by hand. The +undertaker’s van was waiting across the Water to convey them to +the mortuary, where to-morrow they will be “viewed” by the +Coroner’s juries impanelled to sit on the bodies.</p> + +<p>They were gone.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch18"> + +<h2>XVIII. <br> Grisly Planting</h2> + +<p>With the departure of the dead men from the +House, the mansion seemed to me for the nonce most lonely.</p> + +<p>I drifted away from the others, into the vacant Hall of +the Moth, slouched down in one of the flimsy chairs. My +mind was rather wistful for the deceased Cosgrove, wanting +him back, but not quite sure whether I preferred him to +return alive or dead.</p> + +<p>Voices of persons passing in the armoury came to me.</p> + +<p>Belvoir’s: “Why, Galton proved that long ago. It stands +to reason—”</p> + +<p>Lib’s: “Shoot that man!”</p> + +<p>A pause in the universe. Then the lightest sound of feet +tripping down the stairs, the flutter of a white skirt in the +corridor, and an apparition crossed the door. At unexpected +sight of me, the apparition became motionless in a pretty sort +of confusion, while I staggered to my modest height.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Bannerlee! I didn’t expect to find you here. That +horrid old man!”</p> + +<p>“Why, er—good heavens, Miss Lebetwood, what do you +mean?”</p> + +<p>“Blenkinson.”</p> + +<p>“What, the Master of University College!”</p> + +<p>“Why, no—”</p> + +<p>“That’s only my ambition for him, you know. When the +post is vacant, I intend to put up his name for it. But what’s +the wretch done?”</p> + +<p>“He scolded me!”</p> + +<p>“The impudent—”</p> + +<p>“Or he would have if he dared. That’s the same thing, +isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“But what, specifically?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, I was coming out of Millicent’s room. She +was going to have a game with me this afternoon, but told +me she felt too tired after all.”</p> + +<p>“With the last ball disposed of by Bob Cullen?”</p> + +<p>“The last I’d let that precious pair have, that was. I had +sense to keep a few for myself. Well, I was awfully sorry +Millicent wasn’t up to it, and I would have gone back to my +own room and changed out of these clothes. But when I came +into the passage, Blenkinson was stepping along as large as +life and as still as a—as a cat. When he saw me he stopped +about six feet away and just let down his jaw and stared.”</p> + +<p>“Very bad form.”</p> + +<p>“I said, ‘What’s wrong, Blenkinson?’ pretty nippily, I guess, +and he gave a sort of groan and said, ‘They are taking Mr. +Cosgrove’s remains to the mortuary, Miss.’ I didn’t say +anything; so he groaned again.”</p> + +<p>“Really, you mustn’t concern yourself with the foibles of a +foolish old servant. Anyone with an ounce of sense would know +you mean for the best.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Mean</em> for the best!” The sweet grave eyes dimmed a +little. “I’m <em>doing</em> for the best! Each day since this happened +I’ve been alone for hours, thinking, thinking, thinking. I know +more about Sean than anyone else here, and I go over every +particle of knowledge I possess, to discover if it can have any +bearing on his death. Oh, I’ve thought so hard that my head +hurts—and emotions like this tear you up even if you’re too +busy thinking to pay attention to how you feel. Don’t you +see, Mr. Bannerlee, I mustn’t be a weeping-willow sort of +person; I’ve got to get some relief once in a while. I’ve got +to get the air into my lungs and the blood into my brain, +if I’m to do any good. I’m doing more for Sean by swinging +a racquet than I would if I bedewed his brow with tears.”</p> + +<p>“You’re right, by George! Did you tell this to Blenkinson?”</p> + +<p>“To that old woman!”</p> + +<p>A silence came. I watched her; her eyes wandered restlessly +from object to object within the room. She turned +suddenly toward the window and looked at the glorious day, +and as quickly turned to me again. “Oh, this is too good to +be wasted! I must play. I’ve got to have someone to beat, +Mr. Bannerlee; may I beat you?”</p> + +<p>The youth and verve of this girl, her strength of spirit, and +the unspoken appeal in her clear blue eyes, were almost too +much for me. There was a directness about her, like the +passage of an arrow to its mark, unusual in women, I believe, +when combined with such softness and allurement as is hers. +I had a very noble impulse to take that straight and slender +body in my arms, and to bestow a needful comfort of kisses +on lips and cheeks and on that cruel golden hair.</p> + +<p>As with most such good impulses, this one changed into +something inferior: I bowed politely. “I’ll do my best,” I +said. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll borrow what I need from +Crofts, as usual.”</p> + +<p>“Will you? Oh, thank you so much!” (To be thanked, so +earnestly, by a <i>dea certe</i>!) “I warn you, I’ll beat you. I hope +you can give me a battle.”</p> + +<p>Such was my hope, too, when we stepped on the concrete +court a quarter of an hour later.</p> + +<p>I should have been routed had I not been able to deliver +a smashing serve which landed in the proper court about one +time in three. These serves were almost always clean aces, +and after one of them I was startled to hear applause from +the little knoll which overlooked the court some distance away. +There was Lib.</p> + +<p>“Hotto servo, old sportsman!” she called. “Glad there’s +somebody Paula’ll let play with her old tennis balls.”</p> + +<p>It was due to happen sooner or later, of course, but it +was rather humiliating immediately afterward to have a wild +shot from my racquet fly many yards over the enclosure.</p> + +<p>“Bravo,” called Miss Dale, and laughed and laughed. “Hotto +smasho!”</p> + +<p>“Sorry,” I called, rushing across; “I’ll get it.”</p> + +<p>“Try,” laughed the lonely spectator on the hill. “Serves +you right, Paula. The great big brute of a man!”</p> + +<p>“I think it went into the stream,” said Miss Lebetwood. +“You’ll have to run.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll save it right enough; plenty of time to intercept +it,” I answered, turning my rush toward Aidenn Water, +which, owing to a convolution of its course, was some forty +yards above the end of the court and about twice that distance +from the side-line.</p> + +<p>I kept a careful watch; no ball came down.</p> + +<p>“It must be among the strawberry trees after all,” I said, +and we commenced a search through the planted grove which +had been so grateful to the dead Irishman, while Lib favoured +us with audible quips at our discomfiture.</p> + +<p>“Just the same, I believe it went into the water,” said Miss +Lebetwood at the outset of our hunt.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m sure it didn’t,” I contradicted. “How could it +have? I got over there in plenty of time—”</p> + +<p>“Well then, find it here.”</p> + +<p>But the ball was not to be found.</p> + +<p>We resumed the match. I served doubles.</p> + +<p>“Don’t lose your nerve,” called Lib. “I’ve mortgaged my—say, +folks, there’s a rumpus up at the House. Jiminy, I’ll bet +something’s happened!”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood and I looked at each other.</p> + +<p>“What is it, Libkins?” she asked sharply. “What do you +see?”</p> + +<p>“Slews of people—millions of ’em—running around the +House. Say, there’s Doctor Aire going like a pump-handle. +Say, I’m going to see what this is.”</p> + +<p>I looked at Miss Lebetwood, and we broke into a run, +following Lib.</p> + +<p>Although we arrived almost the last of the crowd, Finlay, +the venerable gardener, was still positively drooling with +excitement. To him the credit must go for having inadvertently +put a term to more than one of our galling problems.</p> + +<p>Crofts rather fancies carrying on old Watts’ custom of +experiment with unusual trees and shrubs. For the sake of +their jewel-like red berries, he had a couple of Guelder Rose +plants, almost full-grown, ready to be put in the soil, when +Cosgrove’s death set all things awry. To-day they could not +be kept out of the ground any longer. One of the small trees +was to be placed at the turn of the drive around the front +of the House, about fifty feet from the library tower.</p> + +<p>At the appointed site Finlay had merrily tossed up the soil +from a considerable cavity while Miss Lebetwood and I played +our game. There had come a jab of the spade which appeared +to make the earth settle somewhat. Again the gardener pressed +the spade with his heel; the earth seemed to give way. Alarmed, +for he knew that there were no drains passing beneath this +lawn, Finlay got out of the pit he had digged, reached down +and poked experimentally with his tool. Of a sudden, the +bottom of the hole sank something like a yard, and a chunk +of antique subterranean masonry, broken off, was revealed, +with sluggish black water visible through the gap. But something +else was showing there, too, besides the mass of soil which +had fallen through the collapsed roof of the waterway:</p> + +<p>A face, with lips, nose, eyelids, cheeks distended into a +simple green sphere—and a hand, its palm covered with thickened, +white, and sodden skin.</p> + +<p>Sir Brooke Mortimer was found.</p> + +<p>I was far too late, of course, to hear what had been said by +those first around the hole. I learned afterwards. Crofts +Pendleton, barring some natural repugnance to the body in process +of dissolution, had seemed to take a sullen joy in the +discovery.</p> + +<p>“Here’s your murderer!” he had even cried.</p> + +<p>“No, no! Never!” Eve Bartholomew murmured, gave a +slight shriek, and fainted dead away, to be carried by stalwart +persons into the Hall.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” said Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” declared Miss Lebetwood, and challenged +Doctor Aire: “Isn’t that so?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he answered; “he’s been dead at least as long as +Sean.”</p> + +<p>The Guelder Rose plant, which must have a new hole dug +for it now, lay alongside the cavity with its branches bound +up and its root encased in a bag. Beside the rose lay the body +of the unfortunate Knight, drawn from the mysterious water-channel. +I should not have recognized it, had it been the corpse +of some friend of mine.</p> + +<p>Mastering the disgust that welled in me, I bent over the +drawn face, with its nostrils dilated and eyes forced forward +from their sockets. The dead lips were parted and the +blackened tip of the tongue protruded between the teeth.</p> + +<p>I arose, looked down into the eyes of the physician. +“Strangled?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head slightly. “By water only. The tongue’s +a <i>post-mortem</i> result. Look at his fingers.”</p> + +<p>The fingers of the huge hands resting across the chest were +covered with slime, save for two or three, the ends of which +appeared excoriated.</p> + +<p>“He was drowned in this subterranean waterway. God +knows how he got in, but you can see that his fingers clutched +at the oozy walls and in some places must have pressed through +the slime to the stone itself. There’s a mark on his forehead, +too, not quite so easily accounted for. No connection with +cause of death, however.”</p> + +<p>“This <em>is</em> Sir Brooke, of course?” I asked. “It might be +anyone, for all the humanity left in the lineaments.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure it is from the description of the clothing alone,” +declared the Doctor, “but we can satisfy ourselves without +delay.”</p> + +<p>He plucked the arms from across the chest, then unbuttoned +the coat. Across the waistcoat extended a black band affixed +to a pince-nez with double lenses. Aire held these up with a +significant look, then reached into the inside pocket and +withdrew the dead man’s wallet. This was conclusive, for inside +it was stamped the name in gilt: Crowell Brooke Mortimer. +But the flutter of voices that came was not for this discovery.</p> + +<p>From between coat and waistcoat two objects had been +dislodged, objects which rolled out upon the lawn: a couple of +water-logged tennis balls.</p> + +<p>I picked one up. The cloth was rotted, and slipped off with +a scrape of the finger. “Well,” I said, “now we know how +Sir Brooke lost his way.”</p> + +<p class="diarydate">Same day. 9.55 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>In half an hour Salt was among us once more, and half +an hour later he had come upon the entrance to the underground +channel, an arch of stone masonry veiled by an overhanging +branch of alder and almost wholly submerged in the +stream. It lies, as we expected to find, at the part of Aidenn +Water nearest the tennis court, and a fair current sweeps +beneath it. This curious tunnel appears to extend several +hundred feet, and does not end where the Knight’s body was +found. The corpse had been detained by a partial stoppage +caused by the collapse of some of the masonry. But we have +not discovered where the channel rejoins the main stream. +If I am at all a judge of facial expressions, Salt is a +disappointed man. Evidently this gruesome factor casts some +elaborate equation of his out of all computation. It struck me at +dinner that Aire, too, looked a bit frustrated.</p> + +<p>Talk in the Hall of the Moth after dinner was equally +divided between pity for Sir Brooke (and for Mrs. Bartholomew, +who was absent) and amazement at the lopped and disordered +accounts given of our mystery in the London papers +which Salt had brought with him as he had promised. I rather +enjoyed hearing Ludlow pitch into the gentlemen of the press, +for whom it is obvious he has no love—and for those for +whom he has no love he has no mercy.</p> + +<p>Maryvale came up, and for once I did not feel uneasy at the +sight of him. He was smiling broadly, I thought a little too +broadly after what had occurred this afternoon. I recalled, +however, that Aire was now taking precautions to insulate +Maryvale from contact with any atrocities which may present +themselves—and then flashed through my mind almost the +very words which the man of business was about to say.</p> + +<p>“You don’t think so cheaply of my warnings now, Mr. +Bannerlee. Now you must realize what was meant by the +spanning and roofing of the waters.”</p> + +<p>“Fully.”</p> + +<p>“No, sir!—not fully. There is much for you yet to know. +But all this agitation, this ebullition in the newspapers, this +official scrutiny, will lead to nothing.”</p> + +<p>“You refer to what you told me this morning?”</p> + +<p>“As I said, this man Cosgrove was removed because he stood +in my way and in the way of my art.”</p> + +<p>I thrust in sharply. “Did you remove him yourself?”</p> + +<p>“No,” answered Maryvale, “but I have done worse deeds.”</p> + +<p class="diarydate">3 o’clock in the morning.</p> + +<p>I have heard a curious thing. A few minutes ago I woke +with a start and lay wondering what had roused me. Then +the cry of the cat throbbed from the upper Vale again. The +howl rose and fell endlessly, as it seemed, until, while it +mounted to a new pitch of despair, it broke off. There has not +been the faintest murmur since.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch19"> + +<h2>XIX. <br> The Deathless Arm</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 7. 11.15 <span class="meridienne">A.M.</span></p> + +<p>A Spartan is among us.</p> + +<p>Not only did Eve Bartholomew appear this morning at +breakfast at the early hour Salt had suggested, but she seemed +almost in brighter mood than before, and I can understand +how the discovery of Sir Brooke, for better or worse, may +have taken a burden from her mind. Still, she is brave, though +she spoke with a rather wan utterance, addressing me, who +had the fortune to consume porridge next her in the window.</p> + +<p>“I had expected it,” she said. “Of course I never could have +hinted such a thing before, but I realized that sooner or +later such a man as Sir Brooke must fall foul of one of his +many enemies.”</p> + +<p>I uttered some vague sound.</p> + +<p>“Mark my words, Mr. Bannerlee, the villain will be brought +to vengeance for that blow! I understand how Miss Lebetwood +feels—why, Blenkinson, what’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>“N‑nothing, Ma’am. I beg your pardon,” said the butler, +who had been fussily arranging the window-shade, and took +flight.</p> + +<p>“What did he do?” I asked quickly.</p> + +<p>“He made the most extraordinary grimace I have ever seen. +I hope the man is not subject to, er—anything.”</p> + +<p>“I think not,” I answered drily, guessing well the cause of +the facial disturbance. “But you were saying, Mrs. +Bartholomew?”</p> + +<p>“I have something that would do the poor man good. I +must speak to him later. Er, what <em>was</em> I saying?”</p> + +<p>“That you understood how Miss Leb—”</p> + +<p>“I do, indeed! I admire that young woman, and I intend +to follow her example. Until the murderer of Sir Brooke is +found, I shall not rest!”</p> + +<p>But this was nothing to what was in store later. An hour +afterward Salt had us all in the conservatory, very much on +tenterhooks. When he had surveyed us with calm and taken +the roll mentally, he made a little speech.</p> + +<p>“Since you’ll all be goin’ to New Aidenn for the inquest +this afternoon, I thought I might give you a few hints. The +fact is, we want as little as possible to come out. I have those +orders from higher up. The Coroner’s business is to ascertain +the cause of death, if he can; the rest is my business. I know +Dr. Niblett will play the game accordin’ to my rules, and he +won’t try to carry the question any deeper than that the +deceased came by his death by means of the stone that Mr. +Blenkinson luckily discovered. But there’s no tellin’ what +some busybody juryman or other may want to know; so I +want to warn you there’s one subject you must be shy of—that’s +this ‘King in Ireland’ topic. There’s enough hullabaloo +in the Emerald Isle right now without spreadin’ that.”</p> + +<p>“Still,” said Alberta, “I don’t see how we are quite going +to tell whether a question will lead—”</p> + +<p>“I’m comin’ to that, now. I’m goin’ to share some facts +with you. This that I’m tellin’ you is the result of special +information from Miss Lebetwood, Mrs. Bartholomew, and +Lord Ludlow, added to a few small discoveries of my own. +Now, remember, I want you to keep this budget of facts in +mind and not show by a word or a sign that you know anything +about it. That’s the only reason there is for this assembly. +Anybody behind that door, Mr. Pendleton?”</p> + +<p>Crofts flung open the studded portal, revealing emptiness +in the corridor.</p> + +<p>“Servants sometimes like to wait behind doors, just in case +anyone should ring for ’em,” observed Salt. “You might keep +an ear open in that direction, sir. Now, here’s the way of it.”</p> + +<p>From what we heard in the next half-hour, what a change +comes over the picture of Sir Brooke! I had heard of him +as capricious, cantankerous, unsure-footed, gentle-hearted, +weak-eyed, sick: the image of ineptitude. Yet what was he but the +emissary of the powers behind the powers that be!—no fool +at all, but the super-confidential spokesman of an Office powerful +and discreet! I had heard of him as a guest like the others, +save that he was to “propose the bride’s health.” Now we +envisage him as coming to meet Cosgrove plenipotentially under +the guise of the Bidding Feast! There had been earlier +meetings here between these men. Indeed, while the revelation +increased in scope, I began to wonder if the whole idea of the +Feast was not shrewdly put upon Crofts by Cosgrove’s suggestion, +so that there might be an out-of-the-way corner for the +final tryst between the representatives of the United Kingdom +and of the Kingdom of Ireland about to be reborn.</p> + +<p>“It may relieve Lord Ludlow’s mind,” said Salt, “if I clear +up his connection with the affair at once. That Bangor and +Newcastle address, sir,” he went on, looking at me, “seemed to +give you a turn the other day, but it was really rather +enlightenin’, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I must be very stupid—”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it—only you should have studied your geography +just a little more thorough. So should I, for that matter; +I didn’t guess the connection either. You see, both those places +are in Ireland.”</p> + +<p>“Ireland!” came several gasps as one.</p> + +<p>“Fact. Two little towns near Belfast, nearer twenty than +thirty miles apart, I shouldn’t wonder.”</p> + +<p>“What goes on in those places?” asked Aire. “I’ve been in +Bangor, County Down. It has no industries to speak of.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, in the main those are seasonable towns; both on the +coast, I believe. But Lord Ludlow and the other principals +have projected a tolerable business in the linen-weavin’ line to +give employment to every inhabitant the winter through; so +there’ll be flourishin’ manufactories in both a year or two +from now. And that properly explains Lord Ludlow’s interest: +day by day here he was tryin’ to find what was goin’ to happen +to his pet lamb.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see what you were in a sweat about,” said Crofts, +turning to Ludlow. “Cosgrove wouldn’t have matured his +plans in a generation.”</p> + +<p>“That’s where you’re sure to be wrong, sir,” contradicted +Salt. “The truth is, nobody except Sir Brooke could have had +an idea how near Cosgrove’s coup was to takin’ place. One or +two more parties to sound, a little time to work out the final +details and give the final orders—and the fat would have been +in the fire! Why, the papers say Ireland’s half-mad to-day as +it is.”</p> + +<p>“Where do you come in?” asked Crofts belligerently, fixing +his eye on Oxford this time, and that well-nurtured gentleman +lost countenance, but Salt made answer.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Oxford has been pretty close to Mr. Cosgrove all +along, as you’ll recall,” he said to our host. “He may have +excited Mr. Cosgrove once or twice, but that was in another +connection altogether.” Although guardedly, the Superintendent +gave a swift look toward Miss Lebetwood. I intercepted +it. “Another connection altogether. I think perhaps that it was +due to Mr. Oxford keepin’ such a good watch on Mr. Cosgrove +and his servant that Sir Brooke made up his mind to +come down here when he did and have the cards laid plain +on the table.”</p> + +<p>“This servant, who was he?” put in the insatiable Crofts. +“Cosgrove never brought a servant to any house of mine +before.”</p> + +<p>“He’s in the mortuary, too, now.”</p> + +<p>“What, the gorilla-man!” I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>It was so. I comprehended many things in an instant, and +Salt’s re-enforcement of them came tumbling after. The +creature I had met near the top of Mynydd Tarw, who had dwelt +in the cleft of the hill, had been an Irishman, Cosgrove’s +servant. That was an Irish yell he had yelled plump in my +face, some adjuration to bid a demon begone, for he must have +taken me for a fiend of the mist when I fell in his path. The +unaccountable burned paper in Cosgrove’s grate was a +message from this man; he it was whom Cosgrove had intended +to smuggle into the House as an “extra progeny for the +elephant.”</p> + +<p>I recollected our meeting, how he had seemed to be straining, +staggering, spent with haste, even before he had encountered +me and found a new cause for flight. The presumption +was strong that he had lately met with some alarming +experience. What could that have been? Had he seen the +black-bearded unknown, the menagerie-keeper? There was nothing in +that person’s colloquy with me to suggest it.</p> + +<p>More likely the gorilla-man had run across Sir Brooke. +Still, in the mere encounter there could have been no cause +for terror; neither was anything to the other, and the Knight +was hardly a figure to inspire awe. What was more probable +than a meeting on the Water bank above the tennis court? +One man was skulking secretly; the other had lost his way. +Possibly there had been a collision, or perhaps the prowler had +only seen the shape of Sir Brooke taking form in the fog, +then suddenly falling in the Water at a fatal mis-step. That +abrupt fall, perhaps one choking cry, no more, before the +instant total disappearance of the body beneath the tunnel arch +(of which the gorilla-man could have no knowledge)—these +account sufficiently for the fear in Cosgrove’s servant, +spurring him hillward. This, I believe—and it is Salt’s belief as +well as mine—is the true story.</p> + +<p>“Maybe it’s not quite cricket to criticize Cosgrove, now +he’s gone,” said Crofts in an unusually reflective manner. “I +do think that he might have shot straighter, you know. I don’t +see what he was driving at when he brought this ruffianly +man of his down here in secret, to lurk about, perhaps to +thieve, and above all, to be brought among us in disguise that +evening. What was the point of that, I’d like to know!”</p> + +<p>“No doubt about it,” declared Salt. “Mr. Cosgrove, havin’ +no idea what had happened to Sir Brooke the night before, +expected him surely to be here by the time the Noah thing +commenced.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that to do with it?”</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr. Cosgrove was particularly anxious to bring the +pair of ’em together, I expect.”</p> + +<p>Crofts looked at Salt as at one suddenly seized with +dementia. “To bring them together? Why should he want to +do that?”</p> + +<p>“To show he meant business, Mr. Pendleton.”</p> + +<p>Aire asked quickly, “Who was this wild man?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, I was wonderin’ who’d ask me,” said Salt. “Please +don’t mention it, ladies and gentlemen, but the man killed by +the landslide was sure to be Toban First, the royal King of +Ireland!”</p> + +<p class="diarydate">Same day. 10.10 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>A couple of snubbed and highly aggrieved juries brought +in verdicts of “Wilful Murder” and “Misadventure” respectively, +as they were told to, and within half an hour of my +entering the mortuary, I was in the street again. For a few +minutes I was busy resisting the minions of the press, who +buzzed about all of us but secured small plenishments of +honey. I surmise that the likelihood of exposure to blandishing +newsgatherers was the principal reason why Blenkinson, finder +of the stone, was the only servant brought from the Vale to +give testimony.</p> + +<p>Alberta suggested that instead of returning to the House +immediately the party should spend the afternoon in motors. +Everyone gladly acceded to this means of relief from the +oppressive atmosphere of the Vale; everyone, that is, save Aire, +who, having given his evidence in the second inquest, had +withdrawn to prepare for the third, which will be held in a day +or so. At the last moment, since we made too large a crowd +to be packed loosely into the pair of available cars, I, too, +seceded from the group, alleging quite truly that since the +afternoon was fine, tramping and exploring would do me +perfectly.</p> + +<p>Time-wracked New Aidenn lies in the shadow of its huge +castle mound whose fortress no longer stands atop, and the +vestiges of old city walls are far out in the fields where the +cows find succulent grazing. In ordinary circumstances these +vestiges of greatness and evidences of decay would have +kindled my ardour in the antiquarian way, but now I was +resolved upon two queerer visits.</p> + +<p>I found Aire with Sir Brooke in a side chamber of the +mortuary itself. There was a faint scent of balsam in the room, +which was fitted with some of the appurtenances of a laboratory, +and Aire, in a white smock, had a slip of glass and a +pipette in his hand. Sir Brooke lay on a table at the far end of +the room, mercifully covered with a sheet.</p> + +<p>“Ceremonies over?”</p> + +<p>“They are, and no one the wiser. Your duties finished?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, this isn’t duty, exactly. I could shunt it if I wished. +Only chance, you know, has made me the responsible medical +witness in all three deaths; so I have assumed the mantle of +whoever corresponds to a divisional police surgeon in the +country. I’m well paid—curiosity, and all that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“Well, has curiosity received any communicable reward?”</p> + +<p>“Prophecy fulfilled, at any rate. As I said, this man was +drowned—drowned and nothing else.”</p> + +<p>“But didn’t you say something about a bruise on the +forehead? Mrs. Bartholomew won’t give you peace until that’s +explained.”</p> + +<p>“No, I mentioned a mark, not a bruise. Peculiar thing, you +know—no contusion, just scraping and scratching of the skin +above the left eye. In itself nothing unusual, but there was +a long wood splinter stuck there; that’s the oddest feature +of the death.”</p> + +<p>“What’s it like?”</p> + +<p>Aire took from a rack on the wall an envelope, and from +it extracted a thin fragment, about an inch long, dark brown +in colour, and feeling like rock.</p> + +<p>“Why, this isn’t—”</p> + +<p>“It requires microscopy to show that it’s wood at all.”</p> + +<p>“I’d never believe it, surely.”</p> + +<p>“It’s almost petrified. That happens, extremely rarely, when +certain kinds of wood are immersed in running water for long +periods. The organic substance is replaced by precipitated +mineral matter.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it doesn’t strike me as being of such vast importance.”</p> + +<p>“One wonders, for instance, what’s kept it submerged and +stationary.”</p> + +<p>At the door of departure I laughed. “A question indeed. But +I must be off.”</p> + +<p>“Sounds as if you had plans for the afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“I have. I am going to take a walk—Belvoir’s hint, you +remember.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t say I do.”</p> + +<p>“A walk into the past. By the way, you had a letter this +morning. May I ask if it was in reference to the blood-test?”</p> + +<p>“It was, indeed. And pig’s blood you found that night for +a certainty. The test reaction of the blood I sent with +anti-human sera was negative.”</p> + +<p>“There’s some comfort in that, but it leaves the problem no +less vexed than before.”</p> + +<p>“More vexed, if you ask me. If it had been the vital fluid +of a man, we’d have some notion of what we’re looking for. +As it is, even the nature of the problem is vague.”</p> + +<p>“Cannibal,” I said. “Well, I must be going; these roads +are new to me. When I return to New Aidenn, I expect a bit +of interesting mail myself.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I’ve sent for my copy of the Book of Sylvan Armitage—not +that the missing portion of the manuscript is in it. I’ve +thumbed the volume too much to have overlooked anything of +that sort. Well, cheerio.”</p> + +<p>“Cheerio.” Aire returned to his far from cheery work while +I set my footsteps out of town and eastward.</p> + +<p>On every side around the graceful slopes of hills intercepted +one another in a little-changing prospect while I trod the +highway across green Radnor Plain. I passed the prehistoric Four +Stones in their black-grey stoicism, passed Doomsday parks, +passed old cottages with slate-shingled roofs. Above an avenue +of oaks the square tower of St. Stephen’s in Old Aidenn had +been gradually mounting the sky ahead of me, and in due time I +diverged from the road and climbed the oak avenue to the +village.</p> + +<p>What would I find beneath that Norman tower? Hints +of symbolic meanings of the “deathless arm” were rife in mind. +Are the descendants of Sir Pharamond Kay living yet? +Perhaps—and the suggestion caused me to bate my breath—one of +us guests in Highglen House actually belongs to the family +of Kay. This supposition had not occurred to me before as a +live idea. Now it had force. It was, too, an hypothesis that +offered scope and direction for investigating, and in a subject +where I was more or less at home. Perhaps (a big perhaps) I +might play a large part yet in the untwining of these twisted +skeins.</p> + +<p>I will not say that I was growing excited while I procured +the church key from its custodian in one of the handful of +straggling houses remaining of the mediæval town: I had, +in fact, been excited and eager all during my walk across the +monotonous plain. I entered the churchyard by the lych-gate; +the place was overcrowded with crumbling stones among the +red-barked yews. The men and women with shears, who +trimmed the grass along the graves of dear ones, looked at me, +I thought, with more than ordinary interest; there must have +been marks of eagerness in my face. I unlocked the wire-screen +outer door, found the portal within the vestibule +unfastened, and entered the little church.</p> + +<p>The empty air smelled sweet and sanctified. The hour was +clouded, and I wished that some of the oil lamps hanging from +the low roof might be lit, for the interior was rather cavernous +in the absence of sun. Searching, I seemed fated to encounter +everything but the thing I sought. These were features with a +reputation: the rood screen of fan tracery and leaf-flower-and-grape +carvings, that unique organ-case dating back to the +Gothic period, the window of St. Catherine’s Wheel—but I +spent not a second apiece on them, looking with greater +interest at the tombstones in the floor, at the memorial tablets +between the windows, and at the ’scutcheons painted on the +wall with colours still bright.</p> + +<p>A flash of lightning drove the darkness from even the +remotest corners of the church, and my heart gave a leap. That +instant I had seen a long, bulky object in a recess of the chapel +on my left.</p> + +<p>It was the tomb of Sir Pharamond, stained and gnawed by +centuries. The effigies of the lord of Aidenn and his lady rested +there in stone, with small beasts recumbent at their feet. I lit +a match to examine the face and figure of the man. The crown +of the head was clean gone, and a fragment of the chin had +fallen away, but it was impossible not to recognize the sharp, +malignant features, the keen lips, the close-set eyes as being those +of the paintings in Highglen House.</p> + +<p>The left arm of the effigy lay across the breast, the mailed +fist clasping a broken sword. The right arm was missing.</p> + +<p>At first I thought that, like the pieces of the head, it had been +a prey to time, but careful examination by the light of a second +match proved the carving to be complete: the chain mail ended +neat at the shoulder. No right arm had ever been there.</p> + +<p>In haste I stooped and lit a third match to read what might +be decipherable of the inscription, but another lightning flash +disclosed the words still distinct on the side of the tomb, and I +read while it thundered:</p> + +<blockquote class="inscription"> + + <p>Let Trecchours be Ware My Right Arme Shall Not + Dye For soo I have Ordeyned</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These were all the words upon the monument.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch20"> + +<h2>XX. <br> The Recrudescence of Parson Lolly</h2> + +<p>I chanced upon an alternative road, with more +variety in its prospects, to take me back to the mouth of the +Vale, omitting New Aidenn entirely and saving a third of my +journey. Even on this short-cut southward, I found daylight +part drawn into evening when I reached the top of the vast hill +called the Smatcher, shaped like a loaf of bread, and began to +descend through its larches to the entrance of the Vale. Gleams +of sun walked from peak to peak while violet dusk deepened +along the skirts of the hills. On the highway below me I +perceived a human figure trudging toward the branch road to the +House.</p> + +<p>I straightway recognized that sawed-off, machine-like form, +and the peculiar drawing-up of the shoulder with each step. +Doctor Aire was preceding me through the twilight.</p> + +<p>I hailed him and joined him. “I thought the others might +pick you up.”</p> + +<p>“Not returned yet, I dare say. Didn’t call for me, at any +rate. So I’m getting my fortnightly exercise.” He looked up +at me quizzically. “You found everything satisfactory?”</p> + +<p>“Damnably the reverse. Why, there never was a right arm +on that effigy. Do you know, Doctor, I believe Maryvale has +the mission in life of plaguing me!”</p> + +<p>“Not you alone, let me assure you. Other persons are agog +over his cryptic remarks. I, for instance.”</p> + +<p>“You? Oh, no.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. You didn’t hear what he told the Pendletons and me +this morning at breakfast? He said that Parson Lolly is +dead.”</p> + +<p>“Parson Lolly dead! That was fudge.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, he assured us with perfect gravity that +the Parson died last night.”</p> + +<p>“He was pulling your leg.”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it. I know Maryvale that well, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“Give it your own name, then; I’d call it empty talk.”</p> + +<p>Aire twitched around at me in a surprised way. “Never,” +he declared. “Sure, Bannerlee, you must realize by this time +that there’s always something behind what Maryvale says. He +doesn’t merely vaporize.”</p> + +<p>We were approaching the temporary bridge. “I wish you’d +tell me exactly what you think of Maryvale, Doctor. I confess +that to me there’s something uncanny about the man. If he’s +mad, he ought not to be loose among us, and if not—”</p> + +<p>“If not?” Aire cocked his head to hear.</p> + +<p>“—if not, he’s up to some subtle game.”</p> + +<p>“Oho, you think so?”</p> + +<p>“What else, for heaven’s sake?”</p> + +<p>He waited to cross the bridge before he answered. “No, that’s +not my reading of Maryvale. I look on him as a man wrestling +with an idea, the idea of Parson Lolly.”</p> + +<p>“And still I don’t get hold of your meaning.”</p> + +<p>“It’s this way. Gilbert Maryvale has come to Aidenn Vale +before. Each time, certainly, a tradition of the countryside, a +popular half-belief, has been mentioned, more often discussed +with some fullness. It is, to say the minimum, a fable of much +piquancy, a legend above the average in interest, this tradition +of the goblin-parson—is it not?”</p> + +<p>“Granted, granted.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you often wished that fairy-tales were true? Maryvale +has almost convinced himself to believe in Parson Lolly. +His mind hasn’t conquered the idea, seems to be more or less +at the mercy of it. But sometimes he rebels. Now and then he +can see the absurdity as well as you or I; he can even laugh at +the Parson. But again he will fall into perplexity, confusion, +shame, fear over the idea. And he is capable, under suggestion +or after shock, of getting into the throes, quite possessed with the +reality of the unreal, virtually a maniac if you like that word. +At these times he makes the supreme surrender one is capable +of making to ideas.”</p> + +<p>“What is that?”</p> + +<p>“Why, he <em>acts</em> on them. Remember his carrying that revolver +up the Vale.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks, I remember well enough.” We went on in silence a +little way, and then I said quickly, “But that doesn’t explain +everything. Madmen are consistent; that’s why they’re mad. +But Maryvale tells me that someone of the house of Kay did +this murder, and sends me over to Old Aidenn to find out about +that missing arm, and—”</p> + +<p>“Of course he is not consistent; that’s why he is <em>not</em> mad, +as you persist in thinking. He is very much mixed, but his ideas +don’t fit into a complete system. I shall be sorry when they do, +and I think the sooner he leaves the Vale the better.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you suggest it?”</p> + +<p>“I have, to Salt. However, the Superintendent doesn’t want +our group to be dissolved for a few days yet. I’d have Maryvale +out of here in a jiffy, though, if I felt his mental condition +were critical, not simply fluctuating, for there’s not the remotest +possibility of his being implicated in Cosgrove’s death.”</p> + +<p>“Let me see, where was he, just?”</p> + +<p>“Sitting with me on the steps of the summer-house the whole +time during which the murder could have happened. But if he +is shielded from any further mental concussion, I suppose there’s +no harm in his staying on here a while longer. Besides, you +know, he will have it that the Parson is dead.”</p> + +<p>In the thickening gloom I could make out no expression on +the face of the man keeping step beside me. I spoke cautiously.</p> + +<p>“I take it, then, Doctor, that you don’t think Maryvale may +have a hand in the manifestations of the Parson?”</p> + +<p>He laughed. “Rather not! How could he?”</p> + +<p>“I wish I could tell you. But in any case I suppose—I devoutly +hope, anyhow—that the manifestations are over, and the +explanations will be in order henceforth.”</p> + +<p>“I second you willingly.”</p> + +<p>We went on. I stumbled against a stone in the roadway. +“Doctor, you’ve heard about the man I encountered the night +I came here; I mean the one with the umbrella.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Salt asked my opinion about that chap.”</p> + +<p>“What opinion could you have?”</p> + +<p>“Question of sanity again.”</p> + +<p>“What do you think?”</p> + +<p>“Hopelessly sane, I should say. You didn’t take him for +crazed, did you?”</p> + +<p>“No; I suppose his talk was fabricated.”</p> + +<p>“From Salt’s account, I judged it was—most of it, +anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“Which part do you exempt?”</p> + +<p>“Well, wasn’t there an urgent warning about calling off +the dogs, and a reference to golden-haired woman? Believe me, +Bannerlee, this Mac-whatever-his-name-was meant what he +said just then.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps. But what I wanted to tell you, Doctor, was that +I can’t help connecting Maryvale with that man. The physical +differences in their appearance aren’t so great that they couldn’t +be one and the same, what with a false beard stuck on crooked, +and the rest of it. It’s unlikely, of course, but still—”</p> + +<p>“Tut! it’s impossible.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know. You weren’t here that night.”</p> + +<p>“Trust Salt. He has ascertained beyond a shade of doubt that +Maryvale and the rest of the party were in the House the +whole evening. The only possibility is that one of the +servants <em>might</em> have gone out looking that way, and you know how +likely that is.”</p> + +<p>I gave a shrug to dismiss the whole question as insoluble. +“I thank my stars I wasn’t born a detective.”</p> + +<p>“Curious how dark the House is,” said Aire. “So close to +dinner, too.”</p> + +<p>The building had been in sight for a time, but only as a +black beast crouching with closed eyes on the lawn. Now we +were some hundred yards or so distant, but had still to go +through the gate-house archway if we followed the westward +trend of the drive.</p> + +<p>I said, “I suppose our friends haven’t appeared. I’d make +my outing as long as possible, too, having to return at last to +this devil’s playground.”</p> + +<p>We passed underneath the arch, crossed the lawn.</p> + +<p>“Even the kitchens looked dark from down below. Can’t tell +about them from this side, though. I certainly expected the +motorists to be back by this time; didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did.”</p> + +<p>“It looks like a tomb.”</p> + +<p>I was aware that Aire had made a swift movement; then +I saw him stock still, with his hand part way to his lips in a +gesture of surprise.</p> + +<p>“No lights, no. But there’s someone in the conservatory.”</p> + +<p>“What!”</p> + +<p>“I saw the gleam of a face at the window of the tower. Just +a white blotch. See that?”</p> + +<p>“Right‑o.”</p> + +<p>We made across the lawn at a run, entered the Hall of the +Moth by the unfastened french window, and encountered two +figures emerging from the conservatory.</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad you’ve come!”</p> + +<p>“Miss Lebetwood!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s Millicent and I. Don’t—don’t be afraid,” she added +with a little, unsteady laugh.</p> + +<p>“Are you alone? Is there something the matter with the +lights?”</p> + +<p>“The lights are all right. Yes, we’re alone.”</p> + +<p>Aire demanded, “Aren’t the servants here?”</p> + +<p>“They’re all here, I guess. I meant our people, you know. +They brought us to the bridge, so we could come up and have +an hour or two of rest before dinner. They didn’t want to +come in yet; so they drove on again.”</p> + +<p>“But why didn’t you switch on the lights?” Aire queried. +“With all deference to your courage, I should think you would +have felt easier in your minds—”</p> + +<p>“We didn’t dare turn on the light,” said Miss Lebetwood.</p> + +<p>Aire and I barked astonishment.</p> + +<p>Miss Mertoun, who had been clinging to the American +girl’s arm, said, “Do go on, Paula. Tell them what we +saw.”</p> + +<p>“It’s very little after all,” said Miss Lebetwood. “We had +driven down to the Wye Valley, had tea, and come back again +by five-thirty, and someone suggested going north to Ludlow +before returning to the House. But Millicent and I said we’d +rather be excused; so one car waited on the main road while +the other brought us up and dropped us at the bridge. We +walked very slowly, and it wasn’t until about half an hour +ago that we reached the House. It was pretty dark, you know, +even then, but light from one or two kitchen windows showed +in the garden; so we weren’t scared at all.”</p> + +<p>“Ah,” remarked Aire. “You didn’t come by the drive, then?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, it was too dull for us. We came round through +the grove under Whimble and across the lawn south of the +House to the cat-head door. The door wasn’t latched, and we +simply walked into the vestibule, and we would have gone +straight upstairs, but Millicent remembered a book she had +left in the Hall of the Moth. So she went in there to get it, +and I waited by the steps, but a moment later I heard her give +a small scream. I ran in—”</p> + +<p>“What had you seen, Miss Mertoun?” asked Aire, turning +to the English girl.</p> + +<p>“Something looked in the window. Paula saw it, too.”</p> + +<p>“ ‘Something’ is a trifle vague, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“But we don’t know what it was.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what was its shape, and how was it dressed?”</p> + +<p>“It was as tall as a man, maybe taller,” said Miss Lebetwood, +“and it was wrapped in a long black robe from the top of +its—head to the ground.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the creature Oxford and I saw on the lawn that +first night,” I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Aire asked, “What was its face like?”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “It didn’t +have any face.”</p> + +<p>Aire actually staggered back a step, and I reached out for +something to support me, but encountering nothing, concluded +to stand upright.</p> + +<p>I found my voice. “You mean you couldn’t see any.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, I was quite near the window—that one +by the armoury door. Millicent had left her book on the +cabinet there, and had reached the place before she saw the +shape, and I naturally went to her side. We had all the light +there was, and would have seen a face if there had been any +there.”</p> + +<p>Stricken by a memory, I put my hand on Aire’s arm. +“Remember, Doctor, how Maryvale put no face in his +portrait?”</p> + +<p>He ignored me, and said, “What then?”</p> + +<p>“We were petrified, of course. It seemed to peer in, if you +can understand, even without a face. The whole attitude of +the thing was inquiring, curious. And then perhaps it saw us, +for suddenly it twisted and hurried away.”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you get the servants?” I put in.</p> + +<p>“Things were bad enough without that.”</p> + +<p>“What shall we do, Bannerlee?”</p> + +<p>“Go after it, don’t you think?”</p> + +<p>“Right. You have a torch, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I’ll fetch it. You stay here to guard the +womenfolk.”</p> + +<p>I made dizzy haste up the spiral stairs and down again, and +found the three outside the french window where the intruder +had stood. Aire was lighting matches in search of footprints, +but as had been predicted, vainly. We agreed that it would be +best for the two girls to return to the conservatory and keep +watch through the windows, having care to remain invisible. +If anything untoward happened, they were to signal us by +switching on the light, at the same time ringing for the +servants if danger was evident.</p> + +<p>Aire and I went side by side over the lawn toward the small +solitary copse. First one of us flashed the light along the sward +while the other tried to penetrate the darkness ahead; then we +reversed duties. As for footprints, if there were any they were +exceedingly light and vague, and singularly small, but we +could not even agree there was a definite trail.</p> + +<p>The distance from the House to the cypresses was over +two hundred feet, and before we had covered the distance the +Vale was filled with a soft illumination, as if twilight had +re-begun. On our right, the moon was rising over Whimble, a +crescent moon glowing like white-hot metal. Then Aire, who +had been looking ahead, drew up.</p> + +<p>“Something’s among the trees for sure.”</p> + +<p>While he spoke I saw movement underneath the horizontal +branches, and that queer, black-robed, conic figure—unmistakably +the same I had seen on the evening of my arrival—swiftened +from the shelter of the cypresses toward the +expansive darkness of the park where the summer-house stood. +The long loose-flying sleeves flapped curiously as if there were +no arms within them. The wide garment spread along the +ground, but we had no sight of legs or feet, and I admit I +felt uneasy at the thought that if we caught this unknown, it +might prove to have no face.</p> + +<p>We ran in pursuit, but I was careful not to outstrip Aire, +lest the thing should turn and fell us separately. In +consequence, we barely maintained our distance, and had the +mortification of seeing the black robe merge with the night +among the sycamores of the park.</p> + +<p>“Hear that?”</p> + +<p>“It’s jumped into the stream.”</p> + +<p>“Or fallen in.”</p> + +<p>A little way within the park we found the steep-sided channel +of the brook which flowed across the farm of the sisters +Delambre, later on passed beneath the elaborated bridge, and +eventually joined Aidenn Water. The bank at this point was +five or six feet high.</p> + +<p>“What next?”</p> + +<p>Aire slid and floundered down to the edge of the rivulet +which whispered along the channel.</p> + +<p>“Can’t tell for certain, but I believe it went toward the +bridge.”</p> + +<p>I got down beside him, and we sped between the banks, which +gradually lifted above us. Dry land was scarce, and we did a +deal of splashing in the brook, but by the aid of my torch I +seemed to see ahead muddy traces of other splashing before +ours. A wild rose growing on the edge of the water had been +trampled down.</p> + +<p>A couple of short turns in the course of the brook brought us +to the stone bridge, a structure magnificently heavy in the +body, but leaving a semicircular arch only about eighteen inches +high for the passage of water.</p> + +<p>“It’s a blind alley. No man—or woman—could have gone +through there. There isn’t room for a good-sized dog.”</p> + +<p>I bent down and shot the light underneath; there was +nothing but water there.</p> + +<p>“Well—”</p> + +<p>“Up the bank, did it go?”</p> + +<p>I flashed the torch up and down both sides of us. On the +one hand was a miniature precipice more than ten feet high, +on the other was a wall of earth nearly vertical, thickly grown +with ivy-leaved toad-flax showing no sign that anything larger +than a mite had travelled over it.</p> + +<p>“I never—” Aire began.</p> + +<p>I could not repress a tremor when he suddenly looked skyward, +showing that the spell of magic could exist in his bones. +I turned my gaze up, too, as if I really expected to see a +black-robed figure floating over the ruined summer-house or receding +into the depths of the night sky. But it was eastward that Aire +was looking, and while we stared, some solitary winged form +flapped across the narrow surface of the moon.</p> + +<p>“We’re beaten,” said Aire.</p> + +<p>“Let’s get out of here. I need a tonic.”</p> + +<p>“Shall we go back?”</p> + +<p>“No; I’ll give you a leg up, and you reach down a hand +to me.”</p> + +<p>In this wise we crawled up the toad-flax, and a minute later +our wet feet were taking us back toward the cypress grove +again. I kept my light running along the ground, though my +hope was feeble of discovering any traces of the unknown. But +when we had reached the grove itself, Aire darted forward +with a chortling cry.</p> + +<p>No need to tell me what the white thing was that he picked +up and held in a trembling hand. He tried to decipher it in the +moonlight before my torch made the letters clear:</p> + +<blockquote class="placard"> + + <p>LoOk OUT FoR mE ToNIGhT PARSON LOLLY</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>There was singularly little reaction on the part of anyone; +I think most of the minds in the House are drugged with +dangers and alarums.</p> + +<p>“But, I say,” protested Charlton Oxford. “The beastly +placard says to-night, y’know.”</p> + +<p>“Can you use a pistol?” asked Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but—”</p> + +<p>“You can have mine, then. As for me, I’m going to sleep +with one ear and one eye open, and shan’t be surprised at +anything, including being murdered.”</p> + +<p>Alberta rang for someone to remove the coffee-cups. “And +nobody must whisper a word of it to the servants, must they, +Crofts?”</p> + +<p>“Of course not.”</p> + +<p>Blenkinson himself entered, slipped about the room with +deferential soft-footedness, collected the débris, and carried +it out on two trays. I noticed his eyes once or twice sliding +into their corners while he stole an inscrutable look at Miss +Lebetwood.</p> + +<p>“Extraordinary staff of servants you have,” remarked Aire, +as soon as the butler had departed.</p> + +<p>“I’m paying double wages,” said Crofts shortly.</p> + +<p>“I agree with Stephen,” declared Belvoir. “And I don’t +think wages alone cut much figure.”</p> + +<p>“Tell them, Crofts,” said Alberta.</p> + +<p>Her husband looked a bit abashed, but having encountered +the steady beam of her eye, growled, “Blenkinson.”</p> + +<p>“Elucidate,” I said.</p> + +<p>“Blest if I know,” confessed Crofts. “But there’s the fact. +The fellow’s a perfect lord among the community, and somehow +he’s induced the lot to believe that he’s able to protect +’em. I don’t know his method. He just assured me I could +depend on him.”</p> + +<p>Silence fell, in which the clock was audible, and I noticed +that it was a quarter to ten.</p> + +<p>Alberta yawned and made a gesture of weariness. “What do +you say to ten o’clock bed, people?”</p> + +<p>Assent was unanimous.</p> + +<hr> + +<p>Those gate-house towers that nod to me across the lawn—may +they harbour the Parson? Those locked cellars that no +one has seen for years. Who or what may not be down there? +There are persons unaccounted for in the Vale. And where now +is the drowning-pit? In olden days this castle must have had +one. Discovering it, would I know more about the Parson, or +about the perfidious tree, or about the cat’s claw?</p> + +<p>Some of these questions I may be able to answer, if—</p> + +<p>Yes, just now, at eleven minutes to twelve, I tossed a sixpence +to decide. It fell spinning on the table, wobbled +provokingly, and said, “Go forth.”</p> + +<p>Let the Parson beware! If I catch him—or her—to-night!</p> + +<p class="diarydate">Five minutes to twelve.</p> + +<p>Great God, through my open window—</p> + +<p>Some woman’s voice, very faint. . . . I am not sure whose. +It is not Paula Lebetwood’s.</p> + +<p>It called “Sean, poor Sean!” many times, and died away.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch21"> + +<h2>XXI. <br> The Midnight Expedition</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 8. 11 <span class="meridienne">A.M.</span></p> + +<p>Furtively, yet with a strange half-fearful +pleasure, I made my way in safety to the top of the stairs and +down. I knew it was useless to inspect the rooms which had +been examined many times by day during the past week. So I +would have passed the library entrance without a moment’s +check in my rapid movement, had not a streak of light shot +forth from beneath the door just as I reached the bottom stair. +Someone had lit the chandelier.</p> + +<p>I felt shock. I curdled. To investigate is one thing; to run +point-blank on revelations in the wrong place is another. I +had a panicky impulse to slip upstairs again and lock myself +in. But instead I loitered where I stood, staring at the yellow +drugget spread from the lintel.</p> + +<p>The door was slightly ajar, and I saw a portion of the +panelling of the library wall; yet no sound came from within. A +pale screen of light, of which the edge drew a line on the +opposite side of the corridor, indicated that I might peep into +the room through the slit of the door. And though my curiosity +had somehow turned sick within me, presently I found myself +with my eye at the crack.</p> + +<p>My legs seemed to wilt. If it had been Cosgrove himself, +burly as life, I could not have had a worse turn. A trim +young fellow, clad in dinner clothes and wearing a black cap, +was inside, and he was a stranger!</p> + +<p>He had been standing beyond the table, apparently in thought, +his head three-quarters from me, so that I caught only the remote +profile of his smooth face, and a narrow slice of his white +shirt-front. But now he moved across the room to a bookcase +just within my triangle of vision, drew open its glass doors, +and commenced looking for some volume. He stood in full +view with his back toward me, turning his head from side to +side in a survey of the upper shelves. I could see then that +though slight of stature, he was, for his height, no mere skeleton, +but of fairly solid build, being even a bit broader across +the hips than at the shoulders.</p> + +<p>A minute later he was beneath the light, his chosen volume +lay open before him. I recognized it instantly as the Book of +Sylvan Armitage. With his face cast into shadow by the peak +of his cap, he leaned across the table with one hand flat on the +red velvet, while the other ran through the pages. I could tell +that the outspread hand was delicate and tapering, an “artistic” +hand; but what I wanted to see plainly was that clean-shaved +face.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden he picked the book up from the table, pushed +himself erect from his leaning position, walked toward the +armoury door and beyond my range of vision. There was a +click, and the chandelier faded out; a moment later I heard a +tiny jingling sound, as of curtain rings disturbed. The young +man was restoring the portières to their original places. +Then—nothing.</p> + +<p>The debonair manner I discerned in this youth even during +observation so brief and cramped, the easy, natural way in +which his dapper feet carried him across the floor, as if the +place belonged to him—all so much at variance with the stealthy +habits of a lawless intruder—rather increased the numb, +foreboding ill-ease I felt.</p> + +<p>At last I ventured into the library, and found it, as I +expected, in moon-bathed vacancy. The armoury and the Hall of +the Moth were also empty save for their furnishings. I stood +in the midst of the Hall, wondering where the young chap had +betaken himself, whether out of doors, which seemed unlikely, +whether into some crypt or cove in the massive walls, which +seemed unlikely, too, or into thin air, which, in spite of the +compulsion of ancient sorceries, seemed less likely than either. +Anyhow, he was gone, and it remained for me to consider what +course to take.</p> + +<p>No need to retail my devious thoughts. In the end I saw no +good in rousing the house, particularly since I must reveal my +secret projects. I went on as before, with caution redoubled.</p> + +<p>The corridor—no one there, apparently. The dinner-room—no +one there for certain. The kitchen—now I was in unknown +territory. I waited, listened, breathless. Only the whistle of a +bat outside, the creak of a timber within. I ran the shifting +circle of my torch about the walls, across the floor. A cockroach, +devil’s coachman, fled across the flags, and a great moth +with eyes glimmering green fluttered toward me from some +corner. There on its pillar hung the gate-house key; there, +beside the chimney-place where a modern stove presided, was +the door I sought.</p> + +<p>With prodigious care I passed through this portal, for besides +leading ultimately to the bowels of the earth, it ushered +me at first into a passage off which opened the precincts of the +servants. These half-subterranean chambers lay beneath the +dinner-room and conservatory. While I stole past the doors, I +had audible evidence a-plenty that the dwellers within were +sleeping soundly enough.</p> + +<p>This passage I was traversing had a distinct downward +tendency and stretched underneath the corridor of the ground +floor. It terminated in a door which, when I passed my light +over it, appeared very black and cumbrous. The key was in the +lock.</p> + +<p>To my surprise, when by a series of graded pressures I +commenced to turn this key, it moved easy and soundless, as if +very recently oiled. Beyond was a winding stone stair.</p> + +<p>By way of sensible precaution I removed the key and brought +it with me, having no wish to be immured in the depths for +any cause whatsoever. The stairs, a dozen or so in number, +brought me to the entrance of another passage beneath the first, +leading me in exactly the opposite direction. While it proceeded +it widened into a goodly cellar, and I made out the yawning +mouths of bins on either side, a comforting sight. There were +dark archways leading to other caverns. And when I stamped, +an unmistakable hollow sound came from below, proof that +some buried chamber existed there.</p> + +<p>The trap-doors by which one gained these sub-cellars, Crofts +had said, were long disused, inch-deep in dust. And a few +seconds later I came upon one of them, a heavy iron plate in the +floor, clamped down with a clumsy padlock—but the dust was +cleared away, and the padlock was not fastened at all! I +picked the thing up from where it was lying by the flange, and +stared at it stupidly. It would never lock anything again; it +had been forced.</p> + +<p>Now, surely, this was none of Salt’s work; he had promised +to do no more than inspect the dust-covered entrances. It +became increasingly evident that someone had preceded me in this +search, someone careful not to be detected while he came, but +careless whether it was known that he had been. God forbid +that he was still below!</p> + +<p>With one fierce tug I lifted the door by a ring in the centre; +it fell backward with a heavy clang, and an atmosphere of +choking damp came up from the hole it left.</p> + +<p>A stair descended therein, very steep and narrow, with a +thinnish fuzzy coating which must have been dust, though +where it came from would have been difficult to tell. In the dust +there were footprints, big footprints.</p> + +<p>I didn’t like it, but I went on down. The rough stone walls +were crumbling with water-rot and the sheer decay of age. +While the air grew more smothering, I ran my head into +stalactitic cobwebs and rubbed elbows with evil fungi sprouting in +every crevice.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if there must be a hundred of those steps, though +actually they were about the same number as had been in the +winding stair. At length I saw that I had come to the last of +them, for the big footsteps tramped across a lumpy floor, +athwart the glistening path of a snail. The door was earth, +soggy and covered with that same thin dust-layer.</p> + +<p>Midnight was midnight there indeed. Without my torch, +I should never have returned a sane man. Nor did my light, +dancing about from wall to wall, make it endurable. Fungi +grew riotously everywhere, and the cobwebs, black as a funeral, +hung down thick from the vaulted ceiling, like infamous hair. +One or two spiders darted out and scurried immediately back +into their loathsome jungle. Whenever I shifted my light, I +had a feeling that from the place left in darkness the vile growth +was reaching out tentacles to grasp and cling to me.</p> + +<p>I intended to make my business here as brief as possible, +but first I must find what the other visitor had been doing +before me. I followed the big footprints across the marshy +floor, and noted a thick mark drawn beside them. Something +had been dragged.</p> + +<p>Then the traces ceased, and I drew back suddenly with a cry +at my lips. I had had a narrow escape.</p> + +<p>There was little to tell that the floor stopped here, for like +it the water was covered with an unclean growth. I stood on +the brink of the water-pit, where Aidenn’s lord had once +drowned thirty wretches in a single day! If ever a place was +accurst for the cruelties performed there, this is it.</p> + +<p>Over the stagnant pit the ghastly festoons hung so thick that +the torchlight could scarcely pierce the darkness to the farther +wall. From that wall a queer shape protruded, round like an +enormous barrel, but too vague to be identified.</p> + +<p>I suddenly caught sight of an object beside me on the verge +of the water. A stake had been driven into the earth through +the gathered-up mouth of a large cloth bag. The bottom of +the bag hung over the edge and down into the water, and the +weight of its contents drew the whole bag taut.</p> + +<p>I gave a prolonged look through the shaggy gloom, where +the black streamers faintly shivered in the air my body had +stirred. Was some obscene presence spying on me from the +murk?</p> + +<p>Banishing fear, I wrenched up the stake, lifted the bag from +the pool, and let its burden fall upon the floor. Stark and stiff, +with its eyes staring, its tongue thrust out, its fur tousled into +knarls and lumps, its claws extended, the enormous cat of the +sisters Delambre lay outstretched at my feet. I stooped over +the body; my fingers touched a cord drawn tight about the +neck.</p> + +<p>So Maryvale had made this abysmal journey before me, and +there had been substance in his madness when he announced +that Parson Lolly is no more. Since bullets would not kill, with +cord and water he made assurance double. The long +despairing cry will never shudder down the Vale again.</p> + +<p>I must have stood there a long while almost oblivious, gazing +into the invisible, until the darkness seemed to enter my +brain. The most infinitesimal sounds crept into my consciousness: +the muffled murmur of water in motion somewhere, the +charnel breath of the things that drooped from the vault, the +very voice of silence! Then disgust at my surroundings mounted +in an instant almost to nausea, and I wheeled about in flight +to the cellar above.</p> + +<p>I took the stairs in a leap and a scramble, the trap-cover +closed with a shout behind me while I darted among the bins +and arches to the winding steps. At the top of these I paused to +replace the key but not to turn it, then made tiptoes past the +doors until I gained the kitchen. With the key of the gate-house +in my hand I passed into the dinner-room, thence through +the corridor into the conservatory, one of whose smaller +windows I proposed to use as a means of egress.</p> + +<p>The valley seemed pale and quiet in the moonlight. In a +trice I had the casement open and had stepped through to the +ground, concealed beneath those outside stairs leading to the +door at the end of the first floor corridor. I pushed the window +shut, and on the instant the long screech of some predatory +night-bird shrilled from the summer-house park. If it was an +omen, it was not for good—and my path lay among those +shadows!</p> + +<p>This was for secrecy. If I passed directly across the lawn, +some wakeful eye in one of the long range of windows might +find me out; so I had no choice but a long three parts of a +circle screened by trees. First I stole behind the birches where +I concealed myself at dawn the other day on catching sight of +the red-bearded runner, next through the cypresses, then the +sycamores of the park, and finally the strawberry trees. These +last extended far enough south to enable me to reach the towers +from the side opposite the House. The door was on the other +side, unconcealed, but I had to risk being seen while I unlocked +it.</p> + +<p>I stood still beneath the twin, mute towers for a minute or +two before gathering determination for my effort. Salt, of +course, visited this place the day after his arrival, but has kept +his discoveries secret. My hope, of course, was that someone +came here <em>after</em> Salt, in particular the black-robed object of our +pursuit to-night.</p> + +<p>I noticed that the moon was near setting, since it had but a +short progress to make from eastern to western hill. When it +was down, the Vale would be dark indeed. Was it worth +waiting until that happened?</p> + +<p>Impatience decided not. I sped around the tower that contained +the door, turned the monumental key, got safely inside +the entrance, and stood with bated breath. Seen or unseen, I +was in for it now. Heaven help me if I found a presence inside +these walls.</p> + +<p>My light showed the beginning of the spiral stair; there was +absolutely no sound. I commenced to climb.</p> + +<p>It was a long way up. My stockinged feet were all but +noiseless on the overlapping stony steps, and more than once I +checked myself, thinking that I heard footfalls following mine. +The torch, directed downward, revealed the empty stair winding +into nether darkness. This delusion persisted; indeed, when +I was at the point of entering the little room atop the tower, I +thought that I heard even the breath of some stealthy climber. +The light showed only the bare winding beneath me, and I +spoke a murrain on the narrow tower which had no well to +enable me to see clear to the bottom.</p> + +<p>My imagination cooled down, and I set about examining +the circular chamber. Owing to the thickness of the walls, it +was only some five feet in diameter. It was low, and save in +the centre, where the pointed roof gave space, I could not stand +upright. For windows it had three slots, through one of which +the moon cast a slanting beam. The floor was thickly daubed +with mud, but this in itself was not surprising when one +considered that Salt had sloshed through here on the morning of +the downpour.</p> + +<p>But that mud would have dried long ago, and this showed +signs of damp!</p> + +<p>Eagerly, critically, I bent and studied the floor in the full +glare of my torch. There were dubious faintly moist impressions, +of feet, I believed; but I could make nothing of them. +No entire footprint was evident. Over the general surface of +the dirt, however, something sopping wet had recently been +trailed, but not so heavily as to disturb the topography of the +mud. The little ridges and knolls left by Salt’s rubber boots +remained intact, but portions of that microscopic countryside +looked as if they were recovering from an inundation; in one or +two hollows there were positive pools, one-sixteenth of an inch +deep.</p> + +<p>Something exceedingly wet, but not very heavy—what else +but the gown of the creature that had fled from Aire and me +and plunged into the stream? Only, how in the name of magic +did that creature evade us to get here, unless it skipped <em>up</em> the +stream, which both Aire and I are prepared to attest on oath +it did not do?</p> + +<p>A flat-headed aperture led the way across the bridge between +the towers. In that direction the water-trail appeared to tend, +although at the edge of the dirt, where the gown had been +drawn along the stones themselves, almost complete evaporation +had taken place. Further along there was no sign of damp +at all; I suppose the intruder had observed the puddles he was +making and had lifted the garment clear from the floor, +perhaps doffed it and rolled it under his arm.</p> + +<p>I had to crouch nearly double in that low passageway to +reach the inner room, which now I believed to be the headquarters +of Parson Lolly. My light, cast ahead, showed that it +was a chamber of identical mould with the one I had just +quitted, and, much to my relief, it was empty. One difference +there was, indeed: the corresponding stairway which led down +from this tower had for some reason been walled up. I tested +the mortared stones; I pounded them with my fist; I butted +them with my shoulder. They were sound and secure, leaving +no doubt that those stairs condemned to everlasting darkness +held no secret connected with the present mysteries.</p> + +<p>When I had reached this comfortable certainty, I made +a detailed search of the turret. Someone, for sure, had been +in the habit of coming there; I found what appeared to me +sufficient evidence of occupation, and of hurried, perhaps +permanent, departure.</p> + +<p>There were pencil-whittlings on the floor, from an indelible +pencil; I know the nasty taste of the aniline preparation. Now, +when I re-examined the Parson’s placard inside the House this +evening, I saw, though I did not comment on the fact, that +such a pencil had been used in writing it.</p> + +<p>There were two or three dark stains, splashes now quite +dried, which yet had a dim, offensive odour when my nose +was close to them. To my mind, no more proof is needed that +a young pig was murdered here.</p> + +<p>There were a few short lengths, an inch to four or five +inches, of some pliant fibrous wood, perhaps bamboo, which I +cannot account for. With these, perhaps, are associated the +fragments of black crepe I found cut in wedges, rhombs, and +various irregular shapes.</p> + +<p>I detected, while bending near one of the slender openings, +a sub-acrid, faded scent, which seemed specially localized on +the sill, so to speak, of the window, as if some pungent stuff +had once been spilt there and removed. In its proper context +the source of the odour would, I am sure, have been obvious +in an instant; yet here it baffled me.</p> + +<p>Last I found a torn end of paper. The side uppermost was +blank, but to my joy the other proved to contain printed words. +The piece was obviously detached from the title-page of some +old book, octavo size, with which I am not acquainted, though +“CATTI” looks obscurely familiar. I shall hardly have any +trouble in identifying it.<a href="#note5" id="noteref5">¹</a></p> + +<p>I felt actual elation, for Salt would never have overlooked +this, or left it here, supposing he had found it in the course +of his inspection.</p> + +<figure> + <img src="images/fragment.png" alt="A torn piece of paper, missing + much of the left side. The printing on the paper is laid out like + a handbill or a book’s title page. What can be read says: “The ―es + & Vagaries of ―on Catti, ―ones, Esq., ―d Wag of Wales; by ―yn + Prichard”."> +</figure> + +<p>Five minutes had revealed these things; an hour could not +reveal more. I tucked the slip of paper into my breast pocket +and departed from the turret. Half-way across the bridge I +was again aware of the sound of footsteps climbing to the first +chamber, but dismissed the idea as a renewal of the delusion +which had troubled me before.</p> + +<p>But there was no mistake this time, as I realized very soon. +The pad-pad of the unknown feet was growing louder, coming +nearer. At once I was terrified, yet possessed of reason. I knew +it might be fatal to let this creature see me before I saw +him—it—her. Particularly disastrous it would be to be caught in +this low passageway where I must go with my head almost +touching my knees. I snapped off my light, staggered into the +room beyond, and stood at the edge of the stair-head, leaning +perforce on account of the funnel-roof. It was a position of +vantage. There I was in darkness, whereas whatever was +coming must emerge into the moonlight that shot through the +opposite slit. I might even escape undetected down the stairs if +the creature hurried past me to the bridge and the farther +tower.</p> + +<p>But this hope was abortive. The creature knew I was there: +that belief stuck like a knife in my heart.</p> + +<p>The steady steps were only ten feet below, one twist of the +stair. They were like the steps of any ordinary man.</p> + +<p>The moon must have been nearly swallowed by the hills all +this time, for now it went down with appalling suddenness and +left the room in thick and absolute night. I could not see my +foe in darkness; could it see me?</p> + +<p>Every nerve in me was ringing its own alarm. The subtle +glue that holds the body-cells in friendly ties dissolved; it was +every cell for itself. I was fleeing in all directions.</p> + +<p>The creature actually passed me by; I felt the touch of +some part of it, cold as an Arctic stone, on my arm.</p> + +<p>It was like awakening from an evil dream. My fear welled +up in fury. Silently I launched an attack; with the torch I +held I let fly in blind and murderous onslaught. I struck +something a blow that glanced; the torch slipped from my grasp, +but the creature staggered and sank to the floor. I had my hands +on its body now, and a crazy exultation took hold of me when +I realized that my opponent was merely a man like myself and +at my mercy. The stroke I had given blindly seemed to have +stunned him, for he made no resistance, but lay crumpled up, +as I found by groping. His breath came harsh and irregular.</p> + +<p>Who was he? For what seemed immeasurable time I +searched, but I could not find my torch.</p> + +<p>Obviously I had made an important capture, and the best +thing to do, since my light was lost, would be to lock the +fellow-prisoner in and go for reinforcements.</p> + +<p>I had a handkerchief; so had he. With their assistance I +triced him in a position from which he would not easily free +himself. I placed him face downward, with his head turned +aside for breathing and his legs doubled back, and I clipped +each wrist to the opposite ankle.</p> + +<p>Then I groped my way down the long turnings, found the +darkened world again, locked the tower door, and made for +the House.</p> + +<p>The rest was like the return of horrid dreams. With the +moon gone, still the stars gave a grey cast to the darkness. I +saw some fluttering-draped figure descend from the first storey +by the outside stairs; I heard distracted sobbing. I saw vague +forms that followed one another on the lawn, heard phantom +calls and a queer hysteric laughter. The place seemed more +alive by night than at any hour of day.</p> + +<p>Maryvale, I discovered afterward, had come out again, clambered +down all the way by the ivy. Lib, in the room next his, +had heard him this time, caught sight of him, fled across the +passage to Mrs. Bartholomew, shared that lady’s dismay on +finding me also flown, summoned Pendleton, who had roused +Aire and come helter-skelter in pursuit of the errant man of +business. Lib and Mrs. Bartholomew, in different styles of +negligée, now stood spectators of the course. Millicent Mertoun, +too, had come crying out of doors by those northern stairs, in +her sleep, as she had come that first night with the American +girl watchfully by her side.</p> + +<p>But to-night she roved alone. Where was Paula Lebetwood, +whose room is next the stairs, and who, however soundly she +may have slept, must have heard her dear friend’s +weeping?</p> + +<p>Lights were awakening in various chambers. Maryvale, much +surprised at the solicitude of his captors, was explaining +courteously that he had merely descended to “pick herbs.” +Alberta Pendleton had appeared and was taking Miss Mertoun +back to the House.</p> + +<p>By the time I had called attention to myself and had caused +my story to penetrate Crofts’ brain, many minutes had gone by. +Four of us, followed by those audacious females, Lib and Mrs. +Bartholomew, approached the towers. The door stood open. +The intruder, securely trussed and locked in by me, had made +off. He had taken my torch, invaluable as both light and +weapon.</p> + +<p><i>Satis.</i></p> + +<div class="footnotesep"></div> + +<p class="footnote" id="note5">¹ +Reproduced on following page. (<span class="notesig">V. Markham.</span>) +<a href="#noteref5">↩︎</a></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch22"> + +<h2>XXII. <br> The Beginning of the End: Parabola</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">Same day. 3 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>In spite of early bed last night, no one was downstairs +early this bright morning, Sunday. I myself wanted breakfast +at nine, but then I am the one person in the House who has +anything concrete to do (to wit, this writing)—hence I require +the less repose.</p> + +<p>I visited the library before I went for food. To my grim +pleasure, the Book of Sylvan Armitage was back on its shelf. I +am always grimly pleased nowadays when anything baffling +turns up. Crofts, by the way, has proved blatantly sceptical +about my experience last night; he said that if I must go +crawling about the House when decent folk are abed, I mustn’t +hold him responsible for what I think I see.</p> + +<p>The telephone jangled in the corridor while I was at the +table. I heard Soames answer and take some message. +Presently the servant came to me.</p> + +<p>“Superintendent Salt is holding on, sir, if you please.”</p> + +<p>“Me, he wants?”</p> + +<p>“He asked for any of the gentlemen, sir. Would you mind +speaking to him?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all.” A few moments later I was saying, “Hello, +Superintendent; this is Bannerlee. Anything I can do for you?”</p> + +<p>“Thanks very much, Mr. Bannerlee. Would you mind givin’ +a message to the doctor—Doctor Aire, I mean?”</p> + +<p>“Delighted.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been lookin’ up <em>his</em> whereabouts the two days before +he came down to Radnorshire.”</p> + +<p>“<em>His!</em>”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Nothing like thoroughness, is there? He might like +to know he’s not the Parson. Tell him he’s absolved, clean +character, goes scot-free.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll be grateful, I’m sure.”</p> + +<p>“Certain to be. Another thing, too, sir. I took the +liberty—unpardonable—of checkin’ <em>you</em> also.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Me!</em>”</p> + +<p>The sound must have deafened Salt, for it was a little while +before he resumed, with smothered amusement. “Couldn’t help +it, sir. All in the way of routine. You’re acquitted, too, and can +go your ways.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks awfully.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t mention it. By the way, I just told that man to +inform Mr. Pendleton that I’m comin’ up there this afternoon +early, around dinner-time. I’m bringin’ someone with me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh? Any harm in asking who it is?”</p> + +<p>“None at all,” chuckled Salt. “Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>It was about one o’clock when I came downstairs again, +after setting down the record of last night’s expedition. I think +everyone was in the Hall, surrounding Salt and a young fellow +in a neat grey suit, who was lank and had freckles and brown +hair. His appearance and manner—he was smiling most of +the time—were engaging. Salt also wore a respectful grin; in +fact, everyone looked brighter for this chap’s presence, especially +Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Come on, Bannerlee,” he said; “let me introduce the +beginning of the end. You can guess who this is.”</p> + +<p>I had a flash of genius. “Yes, I can, by George. It’s +Harry—Mr. Heatheringham.”</p> + +<p>“Right!” declared the young man. “But after all, Mr. +Bannerlee, you’ve an unfair advantage in this guessing +business.”</p> + +<p>“You mean—?”</p> + +<p>He winked, took my torch out of his pocket, and handed it +to me with a low bow, such as I had seen somewhere not long +before. “Many thanks for this. I had to borrow it when my +own failed last night.”</p> + +<p>“Gods! was it you I hit? I’m most awfully sorry.”</p> + +<p>“It didn’t hurt, really, but for a little while I didn’t know +where I stood—er, that is, I wasn’t standing at all.” He felt a +place on the back of his head. “It’s hardly the size of a +teacup—I mean the bump. And I wasn’t dazed for long either.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad to hear it,” I avowed. “You certainly lost no time +waking and legging it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was awake, wide enough, when you were fastening +me up—and a neat job, that.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to say—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I thought it was better to let you do your worst +and untie myself afterward. I wasn’t sure that the time for +explanations had come, and I wasn’t sure—then—just what +you yourself were up to.”</p> + +<p>“But if I’d been someone else, you might have been killed.”</p> + +<p>His eyes were merry. “I knew it wasn’t somebody else. +Suppose we call it a draw.”</p> + +<p>“We’re dying to hear how you escaped,” said Lib. “Why +do you keep it bottled up?”</p> + +<p>“It’s my living, you see,” returned Heatheringham apologetically, +but with his customary smile. “I have to be up to a +few of the little secrets of my trade, or I don’t get any bread +and butter. Some do it on the stage for money, but in my +business it comes in valuable in good earnest to carry a few +skeleton keys and know how to twist a hand out of a knotted +handkerchief.”</p> + +<p>Gradually, while talk went on, we disposed ourselves in +chairs, making a group about this young man who showed +from the first minute of acquaintance such a winning, and even +naïve, nature. He sat in the midst of us now, busy parrying +all sorts of questions, and I noticed that while he spoke lightly, +he glanced from person to person, making brief, sharp studies +of us. Particularly he kept stealing looks at Miss Lebetwood +and the two younger Americans.</p> + +<p>I had returned the study intensively, striving to capture +some elusive recollection. “Pardon me, Mr. Heatheringham, +but really I believe I’ve met you somewhere—another time, I +mean. Am I right?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed, we have met. We’ve been having lovers’ +meetings all over the place. You recollect the umbrella?”</p> + +<p>The menagerie-keeper! I uttered a great gasp. “That was +never you in the crooked black beard!”</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t it, though?” he retorted brightly. “I can see your +eyes popping now, Mr. Bannerlee, when I said, ‘I won’t need +finger-nails.’ ”</p> + +<p>“Incredible! That man was bulbous.” I pointed to the +detective’s hands, which were brown and lean. “Don’t tell me +you owned the great red wrists and fingers that fellow had.”</p> + +<p>“Try a tightly-bound cuff or any other constriction around +the wrist and keep your arms down—see what happens. Your +hands will look like hams. The rest was just a matter of +accessories, an inflated chest-protector, some dowdy clothes, some +black hair. A bad disguise, on the whole.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, your twin brother wouldn’t have +recognized you.”</p> + +<p>“No, but he would have had me arrested. Disguise should +be unobtrusive, but that one shouted all over the place. To tell +the truth, I used it more to give my friend Crofts Pendleton +something to worry about than for any other reason.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you did, did you?” said Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Yes, old man. I didn’t realize the situation here might +actually be serious. I merely supposed some sneak-thief was +snooping in the neighbourhood. But it did seem a good chance +to have a little sport with you. You will let yourself in for it,” +he accused our muttering host. “I thought I’d make myself +up into a figure of fun and have a reconnaissance of the scene +a couple of nights, just to assure myself there was no cause +for alarm. Then I’d be seen on purpose by some good honest +yokels and perhaps a village idiot or so, and pop in in a day or +two to see what the effect had been in the Vale. But matters +turned out differently from what I had expected, and by the +time I met with you, Mr. Bannerlee, the last thing on earth I +wanted was to have it known I was in the neighbourhood. So +I improvised some unnatural eccentricities and made up a line +of desperate talk that I knew would spoil the last chance of +Crofts’ guessing it was me, in case you told him of your +experience, as I felt certain you would.”</p> + +<p>“But I didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“No, you didn’t. And it made no difference, for what I said +about the bothersome watch-dogs wouldn’t have made much +impression, would it, unless our friend knew where it came +from? All those men you sent out,” he told Crofts, “kept +treading on my toes. I had to leg it twice to slip away from +them. And that was after I had made some very material +discoveries and would have given a year of my life not to be +seen.”</p> + +<p>“How was I to know that?” said Crofts. “What discoveries +do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I ran into a chap who must have been Sir Brooke Mortimer +from what I know now. He seemed to have lost his way, quite +a distance up the Vale. I set the gentleman going in the right +direction and watched him start back downstream. A bit +unsteady, I thought he was—oh, nothing wrong with him that +way, but I could see his eyes weren’t too good. He didn’t seem +able to pick his footing, and he might have stepped into a hole +as big as a house without knowing what had happened to +him.”</p> + +<p>“And do you mean to say that he followed your directions +unhesitatingly when according to yourself you looked like +something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales?” asked Lord Ludlow, who +had been playing finger-exercises on his knees.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe he quite took me in, my Lord. I’m telling +you his eyesight couldn’t have been good. He might have +thought I was a gentleman-farmer, for all I know—and he +seemed like an unsuspicious, trusting little chap.”</p> + +<p>I saw that the subject was a painful one to be discussed in +full session this way, and I wanted to divert the course of +conversation. I nodded to Salt.</p> + +<p>“The discovery of Mr. Heatheringham knocks one off the +list of your favourite suspects, eh, Superintendent?”</p> + +<p>“Can’t say it does,” he rejoined, with that slow smoulder of +humour underneath the surface. “I’ve known about Mr. +Heatheringham since he arrived in our little community over +a week ago.”</p> + +<p>He had! More surprises were let loose. As a measure of +sensible precaution the detective had reported his presence to +Salt as soon as he arrived in New Aidenn. In the early dawn +after meeting me, having learned that there was something +worth attention in the way of mystery in the Vale, the young +man discarded the crooked black beard of the menagerie-keeper +and glorified his chin with a rich red one, finely adapted to +his complexion. This emblem he had attached properly, using +separate hairs at the edges and trimming the whole to a nicety. +He commenced a campaign of deceit.</p> + +<p>First Foggins’ driver was tempted from the path of duty +with a five-pound note, and reported sick. While Foggins the +milkman was tearing his hair, in walked the unblushing detective, +and Foggins fell victim to his wiles. That very noon the +newly-employed had driven the milk cart up the Vale. He had +explained at the kitchen door, with a certain amount of wit, +though with his ready tongue all the time in his cheek, why +the service was so much delayed and how he had fallen heir to +the position. The listener to this merry tale was Rosa Clay. +It gained the young man a means of contact with affairs inside +the House which might have been extremely valuable had the +storm not cut off the Vale from Foggins’ circuit.</p> + +<p>During the week Heatheringham formed with the Post Office +attendant a mushroom friendship that passeth all legality. +So it came about that Crofts’ impassioned letters were handed +to their recipient direct, without going to Worcester and back. +It was, moreover, the detective himself who had been on the +Post Office end of the ’phone when Crofts dictated his telegram +Thursday afternoon with many maledictions on the stumbling +clerk who took the message.</p> + +<p>The dinner-bell had rung and we were on our feet. Salt +announced he mustn’t stay, but would leave the field clear for +the younger man. “Do what he tells you,” he said. “He has an +idea from time to time.”</p> + +<p>Heatheringham drew me apart, until the rest were gone, +even waving Crofts ahead.</p> + +<p>“You can do me a favour, Mr. Bannerlee, if you will,” he +said with a laugh in his voice, as if he might have something +in the way of a surprise to try on me.</p> + +<p>“I suppose I owe you a month’s hard labour for battering +you last night—but, of course, I want to help you if I can. +What shall it be?”</p> + +<p>“You’re keeping a written record of events, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Crofts told you!” I exclaimed reproachfully—reproachfully +in reference to Crofts, that is.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit of it—just my prowling. I’ve noticed your candles +burning until all hours, and last night I brought a small +telescope with me and had a squint at you from a tree way out +by the Water. I could hardly think that you wrote letters all +night, could I?”</p> + +<p>“Well, your guess is right, as it happens, but my penmanship +is rather free and easy, and I don’t think you’ll find much +value—” I was speaking slowly but thinking fast. Had I put +down anything positively libellous, anything I’d hesitate to +sign my name to?</p> + +<p>“Let me try, all the same. You and I are both detached +onlookers in this thing, Mr. Bannerlee, and I shouldn’t be +surprised if we supplement each other pretty fully. I’m quite +frankly selfish, you see,” he admitted easily. “I want to know +all you know without telling you what I know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ll trust you to repay me, not later than noon +to-morrow,” I said. “Come along upstairs with me while I get +the sheets for you—unless you’ll wait until after dinner.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no after dinner for me; I’m not taking dinner,” +he answered, and we went up the stairs together. “I had a +snack in New Aidenn with something like this in prospect. +Time’s what counts. It will be dark too soon to suit me.”</p> + +<p class="diarydate">Same day. 7 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>Please God, the experiment is over. It was not long.</p> + +<p>About five this afternoon Heatheringham came into the +library where I was writing about the events of the day. He +had wrestled with my script since I had left him to go +down to dinner, and he seemed even better-humoured than +before.</p> + +<p>“I want some tea,” he said. “I want some tea, and yet, while +there’s light, I want a little assistance from the people here.”</p> + +<p>“Are you commandeering the servants, too?”</p> + +<p>“No, I can do without the servants, except that one who +brought the hot water.”</p> + +<p>“Soames?”</p> + +<p>“Right.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ll find the rest of us in the conservatory, waiting +for both tea and you. Since the tragedy outside the Hall, the +venue of tea has been shifted.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose they could wait fifteen minutes for their feeding, +if I suffered with them?”</p> + +<p>“We have been in training for martyrdom all week. But +what on earth is this rigmarole you’re going to put us through?”</p> + +<p>“I want you to rehearse a little drama you have already +performed without rehearsal.”</p> + +<p>It was just that.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry if this is painful to some of you,” he said later +in the conservatory. “But it’s vital. I need to check some +observations, and there’s no way else. I’m awfully sorry to trouble +you; really I am, but it’s my living, you know.” He gave a +sly smile. “It’s my living, and it will help you to escape from +here to-morrow. Is it a bargain?”</p> + +<p>From the time Cosgrove left the Hall until Miss Lebetwood +found him dying outside may have been an hour. We were +asked to re-enact as precisely as possible our movements during +the last quarter of this period.</p> + +<p>“You would be asleep, sir, over by the gate-house, if I’m not +mistaken,” said Heatheringham to Oxford. “I’ll let you off +the sleeping. Just be on hand, if you don’t mind. You,” +addressing Belvoir, “would be coming toward the towers and +meeting Miss Mertoun and Lord Herbert. Presently you’d +commence monkeying with the winch.” He spoke to me. “You +were returning from the Delambre cottage, weren’t you? +Doctor Aire and Mr. Maryvale must see you from the +summer-house. I think you’ll all work into it.”</p> + +<p>“But how silly!” said Miss Lebetwood. “All I can do is to +wander about the strawberry trees looking for tennis balls I +know won’t be there.”</p> + +<p>“It’s all make-believe, you know,” answered Heatheringham. +“And I can’t change the parts around, can I?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see how my doing that can help.”</p> + +<p>“Still,” insisted the detective deferentially, “it will assist me +a lot if you’ll just go through the motions. Now, is everybody +clear about what he’s to do?”</p> + +<p>“Shall I fetch hot water for Mr. Bannerlee, sir?” asked +Soames, who had been admitted to our company.</p> + +<p>“That’s hardly essential. But you might carry an empty +pannikin to give mental support. Now, shall we commence? +Some of the ladies may need coats. It’s beginning to blow a +bit.”</p> + +<p>“Not fair unless you tell us what you’re going to do +yourself,” protested Lib.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to be here, there, and everywhere,” said Heatheringham. +“You may even hear me giving a few stage directions. +Come on, people, I want my tea. One, two, three, go.”</p> + +<p>Little gusts of wind were stirring. Evening frost had caused +a marvellous change in the foliage, and the air was chromatic +with flying leaves. They blew in my face while I breasted my +way to the north end of the sycamore park, where I turned to +retrace my steps. Through the dim light of the wood, I saw +the black forms of Maryvale and Doctor Aire together on the +porch of the abandoned summer-house. They nodded when I +came nearest them. I reached the bridge, the cypresses, the +lawn, the mansion itself. I saw people beyond the gate-house.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I remembered that to keep in character I must peer +into the Hall, and my flesh began to crawl at the thought of +seeing the grim, phantasmal bone. I would not see it, of course, +but if I did—</p> + +<p>Then I caught a glimpse of Heatheringham over a hundred +yards south of the House. He seemed to be waving me on, and +I assumed that I must be a little behind my schedule. Without +a glance into any of the windows I obediently rounded the +library tower, entered the half-opened door, not omitting to +ring, since I had done so on the previous occasion. The +footman answered the bell with what would have been appalling +suddenness had I not known he had been waiting for me. He +received my instructions for hot water with the same obeisance +and the same perfunctory words in the identical tone as before. +I climbed the empty House to my room.</p> + +<p>I was in a quandary, for it would do no manner of good to +take off my coat and repeat the little battle with myself whose +result had been a wounded finger. I certainly wouldn’t subject +my digit to the safety-razor’s mercies a second time. But for +the sake of keeping in the rhythm of the other day I might +perform some of the milder motions. First I must go out to +the balcony, where I had picked up the odd little scrap of +rope.</p> + +<p>I pressed through the window and, standing on the roof +outside, saw the forms of people anticking about the tower and +heard the rasp of the winch. Someone was on the lawn a little +distance beyond the walk that skirts the +House—Heatheringham himself.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” I called aloud in the high wind. “Everything +working smoothly?”</p> + +<p>He must have seen me before, for he answered quickly, +cupping his hands. “Yes, I think they’re all in their places. +You did come out there the other day, didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I did, and should go in again now if I keep in step.”</p> + +<p>“Did you order that hot water?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed.”</p> + +<p>“How did the servant behave?”</p> + +<p>“Admirably; he didn’t turn a hair.”</p> + +<p>“No, I should think not. Well, carry on. I’m bound this +way.” He shouted the last words in a bristling wind, and set +off walking toward the north.</p> + +<p>“Good hunting,” I called after him.</p> + +<p>I had now been on the roof for nearly five minutes and had +equalled the span of time I spent there before. I returned to +my chamber.</p> + +<p>I laid my watch on the table and timed my own part of the +programme, to make as near the proper <i>rapprochement</i> with +Soames as I could. I allowed half a minute for divesting myself +of coat and shirt, and as long again for my struggle with +the oak chest and my mishap with the stool. (The handle of +the chest was gone now; no use repeating that fracas.) Thirty +seconds more of searching for a place to attach my strop, +perhaps the remainder of the minute spent in that unhappy +stropping (for luck and devilment I gave the curlicued bracket a +jerk and a smash), fifteen seconds to stare like a fool at the +place where I had formerly cut my finger, a few moments for +crossing to the door and listening for Soames—</p> + +<p>My heart missed a beat or two. Someone <em>was</em> climbing the +stairs!</p> + +<p>It was silly of me, of course, to be taken aback by the very +thing I was waiting for, I had heard no one but Soames +himself ascending at his proper time.</p> + +<p>But the slam of the door down below and the deep brawling +laughter which followed— Dear God! they, too, reverberated, +and the sound of that inhuman mirth now held a ghastly +message which it had not on the first occasion.</p> + +<p>And early above the sound of the laughter had I heard a +single sharp explosion, like the report of a firearm?</p> + +<p>I leaped across to the window. This time there was no fan +of light spreading from the Hall, but I saw indecipherable +forms criss-crossing on the lawn, and the sound of conflicting +cries floated up in the lapse of the wind.</p> + +<p>To leave the chamber, to reach the stair-head, took but a +second or two. Again I saw Soames green as an old statue, a +grotesque caricature of Aquarius, stony-lipped with mortal +fear, the little empty water-can dangling from his hand.</p> + +<p>I ignored him, but heard his feet pound down the stairs behind +me. Down at the front entrance, just outside the door, I +caught sight of Lib, still as wax. We looked at each other, +mirroring the dread we saw.</p> + +<p>“Did you hear it?” I said at last.</p> + +<p>Her voice was weak. “The shot, you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Was there a shot?”</p> + +<p>“There was if my ears are working.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head miserably. “I—I don’t know. I think it +was out on the lawn.”</p> + +<p>“Then why were you coming in?”</p> + +<p>She clenched both little fists and shook them tremblingly. +“I was only doing what the detective told me to do. Besides, +he—he came in first.”</p> + +<p>“<em>He came in!</em>”</p> + +<p>“He went in this door while I was quite a way from the +House.”</p> + +<p>“Then what’s become of him? He couldn’t have fired that +shot outside!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about +it. I got to the door in time to hear the tail-end of that laugh—that +was enough for me. I don’t want to lead the searching-party. +This is the last time I officiate for any detective.”</p> + +<p>“Come along with me, then. He must be here somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“I think they’re trying to find him outside, sir,” said Soames, +who had stepped warily to the corner of the House.</p> + +<p>“That’s because they don’t know he went in here. Come +along, both of you.”</p> + +<p>We passed into the portrait-corridor, and I shouted +Heatheringham’s name a couple of times, without effect.</p> + +<p>Several of the servants had emerged from their quarters +and were clustered about me while I stood at the door beneath +the musicians’ gallery, scrutinizing the vast gloom of the Hall. +Somehow, I was loath to enter or to switch on the light ready +to my hand.</p> + +<p>“Nobody here,” said Lib beside me, in a tone of relief.</p> + +<p>I still moved my glance through the spaces of the room. +Feet were pouring through the front door. I heard Crofts’ voice +raised:</p> + +<p>“Heatheringham’s missing. What in thunder are you up to?”</p> + +<p>Then I saw something limned against the dark expanse of +the central window of the Hall: the shape of a man who leaned +heavily against the window-frame, looking out to the lawn. +The moment my eyes had distinguished him, I knew it was +Heatheringham. But he was awfully still! Why hadn’t he +heard my shout?</p> + +<p>“Heatheringham!” I called, and was shocked how strained +the syllables crept from my lips. “Heather—”</p> + +<p>“Where is he? Do you see him?” demanded Crofts, pressing +to the door. “Why didn’t you light up—good God!”</p> + +<p>He had switched on the electricity. From outside, beyond +the window, came cry upon excited cry when the form of +the detective was revealed by the blazing chandelier. But we +who were behind Harry Heatheringham could see why he did +not answer us, why he did not move. There was a gaping wound +at the base of his brain, and the whole back of his trim grey +coat was black with blood.</p> + +<p>“Lawks!” cried Soames, and seemed about to faint.</p> + +<p>Persons were rushing in from outside now, through the french +windows. Doctor Aire took one look at the wound, and his +face was filled with the most complete astonishment. His little +dark eyes came out of their hiding-places, and even his +tobacco-leaf complexion went several shades wan.</p> + +<p>“Keep the women away,” he snapped at Soames, “and don’t +let Maryvale come in here.”</p> + +<p>“This is horrible, horrible,” Crofts kept saying.</p> + +<p>“Is—is he dead?” asked Bob Cullen timidly, but no one +smiled.</p> + +<p>“He is,” answered the Doctor. “Men with holes in their +heads like this are dead as Pharaoh.”</p> + +<p>I ventured to touch the left hand that hung with such +dreadful listlessness. “Why, he’s stiff!” I blurted, and a great +shudder shook me. “He’s stiff! He must have been dead a long +time. But, Doctor, I was talking to him less than five +minutes ago!”</p> + +<p>“You were!” exclaimed Crofts in an incredulous +bull-voice.</p> + +<p>“Quite so,” said Aire. “I noticed it the moment I saw the +poor fellow.” He, too, touched the left hand. “Stiff, yes, but not +cold yet.”</p> + +<p>“What’s it all mean?” asked Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“He could never be leaning there in that semi-lifelike manner +if it weren’t the case,” said Aire. “I observed it, as I said, when +I had the first glimpse of him. I have heard of it, but I’ve +never seen a case before.”</p> + +<p>“A case of what?”</p> + +<p>“Instant <i>rigor mortis</i>. It occurs sometimes, under certain +conditions, in sudden death.”</p> + +<p>Ludlow, who stood near the body on the other side, was +regarding it with awe, but his sharp face quickened with +discovery. “Have you looked at his other hand? There’s a +revolver in it.”</p> + +<p>“Then he did fire the shot,” I cried.</p> + +<p>“I’ll stake my life the shot was from somewhere outside,” +avouched Crofts.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure it was,” said Belvoir quietly.</p> + +<p>“The point I wish to make,” said Ludlow, “is that the +revolver is outside. He’s put his hand right through.”</p> + +<p>It was so. Concealed by the fact that the body pressed close +to the window, the right arm half-way to the elbow had been +thrust through the glass and the wrist was supported by one +of the cross-bars between the small panes. The weapon was +tightly clutched in the hand, and its nose pointed upward!</p> + +<p>“What in the name of reason could he have fired at up +there?”</p> + +<p>It was when we laid the dead detective, stiff in the original +posture, revolver clamped in hand, on the carpet spread over +the <i>Brocade de Lyons</i> creation that we looked beyond that +article of elegance and saw what had been concealed behind it.</p> + +<p>Splashes of blood from Heatheringham’s wound were on the +floor at our feet, between the body and the couch. Now we +beheld more blood, a trail of it across the floor in drops that +led in a long, irregular, parabolic curve from the couch to the +open door by the clock-corner, and so out into the corridor. +There the track ceased abruptly.</p> + +<p>“Hm,” said Aire, standing at the spot. “Here’s where the +assailant tucked his bludgeon away.” He looked up and down +the gallery. “Friend Crofts, why not have another search and +see if one of these priceless paintings doesn’t conceal a door?”</p> + +<p>“There has never been, and is not any secret passage in the +House,” said Crofts decisively. “You can say amen to that.”</p> + +<p>Aire shrugged his shoulders. Lord Ludlow shook his head +several times, though what at no one could tell. Belvoir stared +at the last drop of blood where it stained the blue-carpeted +floor as if he were fascinated by it. Bob Cullen pursed his lips +and whistled a ditty of no tone. Crofts kept putting his hands +in his pockets and taking them out again.</p> + +<p>Insensibly, instinctively, we drew the tiniest bit closer to +one another. Spiritually, we huddled. We were all little men, +badly frightened, in the great House where murder stalked +invisible.</p> + +<hr> + +<p>If this is “the beginning of the end,” what will the end itself +be like?</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch23"> + +<h2>XXIII. <br> Miss Lebetwood and a Campstool</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">October 9. Noon.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Miss Lebetwood, “I certainly didn’t do +what he wanted me to. What good would that have been?”</p> + +<p>Salt’s brow was very grave, but his eyes were narrowly +upon her. “You watched him, you say?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, as long as he was in sight from the edge of the +strawberry trees.”</p> + +<p>“What happened?”</p> + +<p>She bit her lip. “Nothing that will really help you.”</p> + +<p>“Let me be the judge of that,” said Salt gently. “What did +you see?”</p> + +<p>“By the time I reached the strawberry trees and looked back, +the lawn was empty. It was still empty when—”</p> + +<p>“Excuse me, Miss; what about the gate-house?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t see the towers from that spot; I was on the wrong +side of the knoll that overlooks the court.”</p> + +<p>“Quite. Thank you, Miss.”</p> + +<p>“So I watched the lawn and the House. I could almost see it +growing darker while I waited, the light changes so rapidly +in the Vale. And I hate the twilight—all the really terrible +things here happen then.” She broke off, and we knew that she +must be thinking of that one terrible thing in the gloaming of a +week ago. Alberta made a movement as if to check her from +continuing. “No, it’s all right. I was just realizing what a fool +I am. The time of day can’t possibly make any difference.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe it does,” acquiesced Salt. “But go on, if you +please.”</p> + +<p>“It was darkening so suddenly that I thought I shouldn’t +be able to recognize anyone who might appear. But when Mr. +Bannerlee came out of the park, I saw him quite plainly. He +seemed to hesitate when he came past the Hall, but then he +went on faster and disappeared in the direction of the front +entrance.”</p> + +<p>“Heatheringham beckoned me to hurry,” I put in.</p> + +<p>“There was nobody in sight then, but I believe I heard the +winch working under the towers. A minute or two later Mr. +Heatheringham appeared from down below, looking this side +and that, and occasionally glancing upward.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure?” asked Salt.</p> + +<p>“Yes, because he caught sight of Mr. Bannerlee, who had +come out his window and was standing on the roof. Mr. Bannerlee +waved his hand, and I could just hear the sound of his +voice when he hailed Mr. Heatheringham, the wind was rushing +on so just then. After that I heard nothing of their voices, +but soon afterward Mr. Bannerlee went in and Mr. Heatheringham +commenced to walk quickly up toward the cypresses. +He was looking this side and that again; I thought he was +more intent than before. He broke into a run, but while he was +running he turned—”</p> + +<p>“Turned!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and ran all the way back to the south end of the +House. At the library corner he slowed to a walk and went +out of sight. Then Lib came along from down the lawn, and she +had almost disappeared beyond the library tower—going toward +the main entrance, you know—when I heard the crack of +the revolver. Lib rather tightened up then, and I saw her look +every way at once, but she apparently decided to disbelieve her +ears, for she went on out of sight.”</p> + +<p>“And met Soames and me,” I said.</p> + +<p>“Well, everybody seemed to have heard the shot, though +nobody knew where it had come from. Mr. Pendleton, Lord +Ludlow, and the rest began crossing the lawn this way and +that, shouting directions at one another that nobody heeded. I +came on from the trees, but nobody seemed to see me. After +that—well, you know.”</p> + +<p>Salt nodded. “Mr. Pendleton’s told me how they found the +body. Just one question more, Miss, and thank you very much. +You couldn’t have seen anything in the air that Heatheringham +might have some reason to take a shot at? No large bird of +any description?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t hear something like a bird call—something +that might have attracted his attention?”</p> + +<p>“I could hear nothing but the wind. Anyhow, Mr. +Heatheringham was inside the House.”</p> + +<p>“Of course he was,” said Salt.</p> + +<p>But he is no longer. The detective’s body was taken to New +Aidenn in the dead of night.</p> + +<p>Salt’s laborious questions to each one of us went on until +eleven, but the problem of Harry Heatheringham’s taking off +remains to-day more cryptic than Cosgrove’s. The Superintendent +acknowledged defeat, and had the Chief Constable on the +’phone shortly after eleven. Scotland Yard will be with us +presently, although the lack of decent train connections out of +Worcester will prevent the Inspector from reaching New +Aidenn before late dinner time to-night.</p> + +<p>Six burly constables, in pairs, were patrolling the grounds +from nine o’clock until morning, but I think most persons within +the House kept anxious vigil as well. For my own part, I flung +myself on my ancient four-poster and found sleep—sleep, but +not rest, for I was visited by tormenting dreams. The world was +mist seethed, and through the long black lanes between the +billows swept a procession of the souls of murdered ones. +Down from the invisible above the swirl sounded a terrible +voice: “Let traitors beware,” and from time to time a blaze of +light burst through, throwing on the curtain of fog the gigantic +shadow of an arm.</p> + +<p>I awoke, and lay awake in a world of real mist until I could +endure inactivity no longer. I dressed and went downstairs, +earlier than ever before, save on that morning when I tried +to discover “lost content” on the hills. It did not surprise me +to find Salt already hard at work; he was examining with almost +microscopic care the gouted trail of blood. But a surprise +awaited me.</p> + +<p>It was much too early for breakfast; yet Miss Lebetwood +was standing at the window of the dining-room. Attired in +a navy blue sweater and serge skirt and high laced boots, she +appeared very alert and full of business.</p> + +<p>Seeing that I “took her in,” she smiled and said, “I’m going +to follow in your steps this morning. As soon as I’ve had +some breakfast, I’m off for the hills.”</p> + +<p>“On account of—?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>I simulated a groan. “I should never have let you have it if +I thought it would make you reckless.”</p> + +<p>Now, the fact is that she struck me in a heap last evening +by coming straight up to me and asking to read this diary. +How <em>she</em> ever came to hear of it I can’t imagine, and she was +obdurate to my demands for enlightenment. Only she told me +very seriously that since no one else seemed certain to grapple +successfully with the many problems in the Vale, she was +going a step beyond “thinking” and would take an active +course.</p> + +<p>“Somehow I’m sure I’ll be the best detective of the lot,” she +said. “I have kept my mind unprejudiced, you see. And really, +Mr. Bannerlee, I’m positive you have several facts locked away +in your book that I never knew.”</p> + +<p>The end was that she marched away with the book, I may +say entirely against my sense of discretion, while I shuddered at +the thought of her perusing some of the personal comments I +had included.</p> + +<p>And now she was bound for the hills!</p> + +<p>I looked through the window, and saw the landscape grey. +A bank of fog stood motionless about the base of Whimble.</p> + +<p>“This is scarcely the day for it, is it? It’s easy to be lost up +there in the mist.”</p> + +<p>She turned from the drear panorama and looked at me +kindly. “I can tell from your voice that you’re very much +concerned about me, but really you shouldn’t be. I’ve had harder +climbs than this heaps of times, and you can depend on me +to be back early this afternoon. You may begin to worry about +two o’clock if I don’t appear then”—her chin tilted with +determination—“with what I want.”</p> + +<p>I returned her kind look. “Really, Miss Lebetwood, I hope +my, er, jottings haven’t set you on some false lead.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a lot more in your journal than jottings,” she said, +with serious lines of thought about the eyes. She gave me a +glancing look. “I see you are sceptical.”</p> + +<p>“It’s hardly fair,” I laughed, “that because you’ve turned +detective in earnest, you should try to mystify me like the +other sleuths.”</p> + +<p>“What’s this? what’s this?” asked Salt, presenting himself.</p> + +<p>She beckoned him in. “Mr. Salt, have you finished with that +horrible gore for now? Because I want you to ’phone a telegram +for me when the Post Office opens. Will you, please?”</p> + +<p>“With pleasure, Miss. But why honour me with Mr. +Bannerlee so handy?”</p> + +<p>“I believe you’re fishing! But didn’t you appoint yourself +censor and want to know all the messages that go out of the +Vale?”</p> + +<p>“Not any more, Miss,” responded Salt, running his eye over +a slip of paper she had brought from a skirt pocket. He raised +his brows. “To the Welsh National Library, eh? Aberystwyth, +of course.” Again, more slowly, he perused the message. “H’m, +very interestin’, Miss. I’ll send it without delay, and you’ll +know by the time you get back if the bookworms have the +information.”</p> + +<p>“Show it to Mr. Bannerlee, please,” she said. “I don’t want +him to think I’m rude.”</p> + +<p>“No, not for the world,” I smiled, with negative hand raised +to decline the proffered paper. “Since I’m to be denied the +pleasure of accompanying you this morning, I wash my hands of +the whole affair. You shall not have my invaluable advice.”</p> + +<p>“If you went with me this morning,” said Miss Lebetwood, +making a small grimace, “I could promise you one thing: you’d +be unutterly bored. Well, thank goodness, at last here comes my +breakfast.”</p> + +<p>Now, a quarter of an hour later, when my own special +breakfast had arrived on a tray, hers had disappeared. We had +been talking of tramps and journeys, comparing experiences, +but I noticed that for the last few minutes her remarks had +been very general and not wholly relevant. It was obvious that +she was preoccupied. At last, having built up a little tower of +sugar cubes and toppled it with her finger, she said:</p> + +<p>“I was the man in the library.”</p> + +<p>Naturally, this was too much for me to comprehend and +adjust myself to in a split-second, and I was still groping like +a man stunned when she continued:</p> + +<p>“Yes, the cap was my own, and I had borrowed Bob’s +tuxedo and come down to get that book; it had a fascination +for me, and I must say I was surprised”—with a careful +inclination of the head toward the corridor—“that <em>he</em> hadn’t +kept it under lock and key.”</p> + +<p>“Quite so.”</p> + +<p>“So you see why I didn’t come out even when Millicent was +wandering again. I had gone back to my room the way I’d +come—that was by the outer stairs and through one of the +french windows I’d undone the catch of after Blenkinson had +gone the rounds—and I was gobbling up the book, still in +borrowed plumage, when the commotion began. I couldn’t have +appeared without starting more fuss than ever; I suppose I +shouldn’t have much more than a rag of reputation left. They +wouldn’t be so surprised in America at a girl’s dressing like a +man—the movies have helped a lot there.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you needn’t take the appalling risk again,” I promised +her. “If you should wish to gorge yourself clandestinely on +the pages of Sylvan Armitage, you may have my copy in +perfect secrecy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, your copy came? Don’t get up, please, and please +excuse me if I don’t wait. Your breakfast will all get cold if +I keep you talking.”</p> + +<p>“Not at all. Yes, my copy came through.”</p> + +<p>She had arisen and walked to the door. I had noticed a small +campstool folded and leaning against the wall, and now was +surprised to see her pick it up and tuck it beneath her arm.</p> + +<p>“Are you taking that?”</p> + +<p>She held it so that it opened, showing its green canvas seat. +“Yes, aren’t you in favour of it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s æsthetic, if that’s what you mean. But how odd! If you +want something to sit on, why not take a blanket or an old +coat?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps this isn’t to sit down on.”</p> + +<p>I gaped. “What—what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>She folded the stool and tucked it away again. Her smile +was very sweet and provoking, and it held that little token of +wistfulness which had never left it since Cosgrove’s death.</p> + +<p>The skirt swung briskly out, and the sound of the little +boots receded and died away. On what wild search was she +bound?</p> + +<p>Then I stopped eating, while the idea that grew in my +mind spread its ugly branches. What might a stranger think? +Not I, of course, who would stake my life she is better than +gold, but some newcomer from the outside world, such as the +Scotland Yard official due here this evening? Might it not seem +a pose? This resolve to play the rôle of detective, this secret +roaming through the House in man’s attire, this interest in my +diary, and this secretive hunting on the hills—would they not +appear parts of an assumed character? Ridiculous, of +course—unthinkable, in actuality—but might it not be thought? And +what trouble, even disaster, might not follow such a false +impression?</p> + +<p>Somehow I was not at all amused toward noon by an argument +that sprouted up in the library between Crofts and Aire +in connection with some phase of the Parson Lolly legend. +Aire was devil’s advocate in this discussion, and Crofts +persisted in pooh-poohing the tale as all nonsense, tommyrot, and +rubbish.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were a scientist,” bullied our host, but Aire +contented himself with a chuckle, and moved toward the Hall, +whence the voice of Lord Ludlow came in a kind of shrill +moan:</p> + +<p>“. . . fundamental decencies . . . civilized life.”</p> + +<p>And I judged that Belvoir had just uttered some devastating +platitude about the geisha girls or the way women choose +their husbands in British Guiana. It occurred to me then a +bit strongly that Belvoir plays the fool, and that if he really +thinks our British morality unsuitable for a civilized temperament +(<i>i. e.</i> his) he had better emigrate to the bush or to Terra +del Fuego, where he may be uncramped among the broader +and merrier folkways.</p> + +<p>I have mentioned more than once, I believe, the sub-irritant +effect Mrs. Belvoir has upon me; her hazy personality, taken +with the odd remarks she lets fall, hint at something I can’t +quite define, but would like to very much.</p> + +<p>When Aire went through the armoury door, only four of +us were left in the library: Mrs. Belvoir, Alberta, Crofts, and +I (in the seclusion of the tower). Mrs. Belvoir watched +the Doctor’s departure, then turned to Crofts with the +promptitude of one who has at last the opportunity she has been +waiting for.</p> + +<p>“I do hope you won’t mind to-night,” she said.</p> + +<p>It would not have been surprising if Crofts had failed to +extract a meaning from this wish, but he seemed to grasp +it. His cheek remained at the same full flush it had reached +during the Aire controversy, while he turned his eyes slowly +toward Mrs. Belvoir, and I thought that the lady had not +chosen the likeliest time for wooing his good graces.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to say—” he rumbled.</p> + +<p>“But dear Alberta doesn’t mind—do you?” she asked in +sudden appeal that was answered with ardour rather less than +half its own.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t think it could do any harm,” said Alberta, divided +between a reassuring smile at her guest and a warning frown +at her husband. “Probably the Scotland Yard man—”</p> + +<p>“But it’s for him I especially want to give a demonstration,” +declared Mrs. Belvoir with emphatic faintness. “I can help +him so much. I think that perhaps the real difficulty we have +had all along is that we have not looked beyond the visible. +I do so wish Sir Brooke were here; he was so sympathetic. +There were always such things of <em>real value</em> learned when he +was present.”</p> + +<p>“I have it!” I exclaimed from my obscurity, striking my +thigh. “Mrs. Belvoir, you are a spiritualistic medium!”</p> + +<p>They all regarded me with amazement bold on their faces, +and I turned my blatancy into apologetic curiosity. “Sorry, +but I didn’t know before, you see. How frightfully interesting. +I hope you do give us a séance to-night, Mrs. Belvoir.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right,” muttered Crofts. “But it’s the police you’ll +have to convince, really.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll deal with the police,” said Mrs. Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“As for Sir Brooke’s absence,” I remarked, “why may he +not be present? Perhaps we shall have a message from him, +Mrs. Belvoir.”</p> + +<p>I think she discerned levity in me. “Really, Mr. Bannerlee, +you may be surprised by having that very thing happen.” She +glided from the room.</p> + +<p>Crofts looked at me bitterly, as if he held me responsible +for the whole business, but instead of pouring out vials of +wrath he said, “How about a drink, Bannerlee? I need one.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Crofts,” reproached Alberta, “you know it’s still +morning.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I haven’t had one so far, have I?” he retorted, ringing, +and stared in oafish surprise when she departed promptly +from the room. “What have I done now, I’d like to know?”</p> + +<p>“You <em>are</em> getting peppered from all directions,” I laughed. +“But cheer up, old man,” I added, hearing a measured tread +in the corridor. “This staff of servants of yours certainly +outdoes the crew of any sinking ship I’ve ever heard of in +devotion to duty. After last night’s catastrophe—well, they +deserve medals, platinum ones.”</p> + +<p>Soames slid in and Crofts said, “Whiskey,” cocking an eye +at me to see if I approved.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and by the way, Soames,” I called, while the servant +turned on his heel, “just tell us the truth, will you? Why +aren’t you and Morgan and the rest fifty miles away from +here and running for your lives?”</p> + +<p>His face was a flat mask, with expression ironed out of +every feature. “I—I beg your pardon, sir? I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, you do. Come on, man,” I rallied him. “What’s +this hold Blenkinson’s got over you?”</p> + +<p>His countenance remained under rigid muscular control, but +his legs gave a little shiver. He looked at me, and his face +was empty of thought, but then his gaze met his master’s. He +paled, for Crofts’ glare demanded rather than invited +confession.</p> + +<p>“It’s—it’s Mr. Blenkinson’s, er, theory, sir.”</p> + +<p>“My God, has Blenkinson a theory too!” Crofts shouted. +“A speculative butler! What next? I don’t pay him to have +theories.”</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” agreed Soames. “We all ’ave the greatest +confidence in Mr. Blenkinson.”</p> + +<p>“No doubt,” I said. “And Soames, ah, what is the nature +of Mr. Blenkinson’s theory?”</p> + +<p>The servant had the look of a man ground between +millstones. His neck undulated in a series of gulps.</p> + +<p>“Out with it,” I urged. “Confession is good for the soul.”</p> + +<p>Soames turned an imploring look at me, his eyes like +those of a wretch <i>in extremis</i>.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Blenkinson’s theory be damned,” growled Crofts +impatiently; “but don’t tell him I said so. Fetch the whiskey.”</p> + +<p>The servant dashed for the door, and it was Toby who +brought in the decanter and glasses.</p> + +<p class="diarydate">It is now 2.30 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>An hour ago it was clear and mild; then the mist redoubled +and a chill came into the air, something we have not +experienced before by day.</p> + +<p>She has not returned. I shall try to organize a searching +party at once, and if no one else regards the situation +seriously, I’ll go alone to find her.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch24"> + +<h2>XXIV. <br> Bannerlee’s Secret</h2> + +<p class="diarydate">2.45 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>Salt shared my perturbation. Indeed, he adopted +the idea of a searching expedition with such alacrity and +energy that one might suppose Miss Lebetwood to be fleeing from +justice!</p> + +<p>There were some bitter things said of her, though, by +those, even, who volunteered readiest for the search. +Repressed criticisms of her seemingly callous behaviour since +Cosgrove’s death outcropped now. I stood by, a coward, for +hot answers rose to my lips and I suppressed them. I remembered +that from these hostile thoughts, thoughts more sinister +might spring.</p> + +<p>Just as they were going, I observed that Maryvale was not +present. (Aire, too, was not among us.) Tenney volunteered +the information, gained from Harmony, that Maryvale has +again locked himself in his room. Seeking admittance in her +morning round of the bedrooms, she found the door fastened +and received a gruff intimation that she need not trouble to +knock again until further notice.</p> + +<p>I am almost as unwilling to leave Maryvale to his own +devices as to leave Paula Lebetwood unsought for on the +hills. But we <em>must</em> find her!</p> + +<p class="diarydate">7.45 <span class="meridienne">P.M.</span></p> + +<p>The last stragglers have not even yet returned from the +uplands.</p> + +<p>Hours of starved hope they were, while I stumbled along +the half-blind paths, often bewildered, once quite lost myself. +It was dogged work. I never should have struggled through +without an inexorable motive and the faintest glimmer of +a clue, a clue offered me by Salt many days ago. Had he not +told how in his boyhood he had found “something like” the +oratory of St. Tarw? I had kept the directions he had given, +and now in a forlorn hazard I followed them, since they alone +might lead me to some definite place that she, too, might have +sought.</p> + +<p>In observing Salt’s tuition, I was obliged to keep for the +most part below the crown of the hills. The flanks were cut +by gorges where water had eaten its way. In these places I +made but indifferent progress. In a dusky dingle I did no +better, and although I gasped in relief at finding what seemed +a path, it proved unfriendly, for it led me into a covert of +dogwood whose small green berries were turning purple-black, +and deserted me there. I got out somehow, although spines +clutched me. Before me, stretching into the upper fog, +extended a curtain of rock and gravel. I attacked it with feet +and hands.</p> + +<p>It seemed to go up and up forever. In that frantic climb, +out of a bottom soon invisible, up to a summit veiled in fog, +I tore a finger-nail and broke into the flesh of my left palm. +I paused on a splintery ledge to bind my handkerchief over +the wound, and rested there awhile. It was then that I +thought of looking, not up or down, but sidewise.</p> + +<p>A brief cry escaped me. I could see further on the left, +and what I saw quickened my heart.</p> + +<p>A few yards away the rock curtain ended somewhat +abruptly, and beyond appeared a brief slope full of stunted +trees. Even further in the same direction, the trees gave +place to shorter, tangled growth intermixed with grassy patches. +Here and there a monolith thrust up from the surface, which +on the whole was fairly level, though a vague darkness in the +background showed that this clearing was not the summit +of any hill, but a platform more or less below the highest +elevation.</p> + +<p>Along the outer edge of the cleared space stood a regiment +of trees, whose ranks were quite dense enough to conceal +what lay behind from eyes in the hollow of the Vale. Having +gained the grassy platform with its curious black stones +sprouting and littered about, I found that while I continued +in the same direction over the tumbled grass full of small +scarlet toadstools, the ground grew higher and the dark mass +of the hilltop closer, while the platform narrowed.</p> + +<p>My hope caught fire and blazed. I kept peering ahead and +slightly upward, for the gentle slope persisted. Suddenly I saw +Miss Lebetwood, very dim in the mist.</p> + +<p>She was seated close under the shadowy brow of the hill, +with her face away from me, and her head thrown back, +leaning against something.</p> + +<p>A lovely picture she had been that first night by the +gate-house tower; now again I paused, rapt by the grace of her +languid, lissome body, by the pale abstraction of her +face—against the ancient gloom of the oratory of St. Tarw!</p> + +<p>There was not the slightest doubt that this had been the +devotional cell of the saint. Here stood the rude arch, still +discernible though one or two of its stones had been +displaced and the rest were mantled in moss and grass grown +downward from above. The projection beside the door, where +her head leaned, had surely once upon a time been the support +of a holy shrine. These scattered rocky benches: on them +had sat the small, dark, half-savage hill-folk, the strange +congregations of the venerable man.</p> + +<p>No, I would not rouse her from that mood of thought or +vacancy; I would be still until she turned and looked at me. +So minutes passed, while her image impressed itself in my +mind, in my very heart of hearts. While I stood there in the +grass, awaiting the first movement of her weary head, even +breathing softly that she might not be disturbed, for the first +time I dared to say to myself, bold and unafraid, “I love +her.”</p> + +<p>She did quicken from her inanimate pose, she did turn her +head and see me. She rose swiftly; already I had come very +near to her.</p> + +<p>When she attempted to speak, her voice faltered. “So—so +you found me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Paula,” I said.</p> + +<p>“I was waiting. I heard—”</p> + +<p>My own queer voice filled the pause. “You don’t mean +that—you were waiting—for me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“You heard the others calling, and you waited for me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Then—I cannot describe what was, only what must have +been, for the white-heat of those moments has annihilated +the memory of them—she was close within my arms, and my +lips reached hers. Yes, for that ineffable once, I must have +kissed her, since I remember too well that when I would +have drawn her to me again, she put me away with a gentle +pressure of her hand against my arm.</p> + +<p>She shook her head slowly, her gaze searching mine. +“You—misunderstood, I think. I—I let you because of what I saw +in your eyes. They were soft and wistful for a moment.”</p> + +<p>“But—Paula—”</p> + +<p>“Now I think that you must never do that again.”</p> + +<p>My mind went cold and grey as the world about us. “I’m +sorry, then. Indeed, I must have misunderstood.”</p> + +<p>I saw that some change had rushed over her. Her face became +dull and sad, as if the clammy gloaming that darkened +about us had penetrated to her heart. “Don’t misunderstand +me all over again; please don’t. Your kisses might be very +sweet, and their meaning might be dear to dream about. But +you know that I have to set all the woman in me aside. . . . +I must forget dreams,” she said bitterly, and to my +astonishment she put both hands across her eyes and commenced to +sob, sinking down on the stone seat again. I stood by and felt +the iron grind into my soul.</p> + +<p>But half a minute later she looked up with a rueful smile +through her tears. “How perfectly ridiculous of me. What +must you think! Don’t imagine for a minute that I was +crying for any such preposterous reason as I said. It’s just +that I’m awfully, awfully tired, and I <em>felt</em> tired that moment. +I was up nearly all last night over your diary. Please, have +you a handkerchief I can use? I’ve nothing but one of these +silly little women’s affairs.”</p> + +<p>I handed over a fairly clean one. “Up all last night and +in the hills all day! You’re a Trojan. But at least you found +what you were looking for?”</p> + +<p>She ceased dabbing for a moment to give me a half-moist +look. “Here, do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I found what I wanted, but it wasn’t here. This was +afterward. I somehow had a feeling that you would come here +and discover me sooner or later. These <em>inane</em> tears.”</p> + +<p>I brooded on this for a while, while she removed the last +traces of them. “I suppose it’s no good asking where you +found what you really wanted?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes—up there on Mynydd Tarw.”</p> + +<p>“But at least you aren’t bringing it back with you as you +declared you would, are you?”</p> + +<p>She gave a strange laugh. “It was too big, a million times +too big. So I have to be satisfied with carrying it here.” She +placed a finger against her forehead. “Now I am ready, sir, +if you’ll take me back down with you. Please let’s go now. +There is so much to be done to-night.”</p> + +<p>“You shall rest to-night, nothing else.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary—don’t think I’m rude—there’s +everything else. Yes, yes, really. Come, let’s go.”</p> + +<p>She picked up the little campstool, but I took it from her. +Slowly we turned and went away from that place, and while +we passed through a huddling hazel wood where sheep had +made a track before us, the sun at last thridded the mist with +hazy golden beams. While we descended the glen, I looked +at her face with the light playing upon its firm, rounded +surfaces and gleaming in her eyes. She was weary, indeed, +with what seemed more than physical exhaustion; I slipped +my arm about her when she appeared almost unable to pick +her footing on the precarious slope. But, “Oh, no, no,” she said, +resisting so softly that I pitied her, and took my arm away.</p> + +<p>When we had discovered the path that led down to Aidenn +Water and were well on our slanting way to the valley +bottom, she found more strength in the smoother footing. +Suddenly I felt that she was scrutinizing me, and I turned my +head to hear her ask:</p> + +<p>“What did it remind you of—that place up there?”</p> + +<p>“A graveyard,” I answered almost without thought.</p> + +<p>“Just so. Tell me honestly; have you never been there +before?”</p> + +<p>“Before?—there?” I repeated, quite truly surprised.</p> + +<p>“Don’t temporize, please. Confess that you were there +before but didn’t set it down when you wrote your journal. +That was the place where you fell when you escaped from the +bull, and it was where you took shelter from the storm the +day you saw the rainbow. Wasn’t it?” I did not answer but +she insisted. “I suppose you had some foolish fear that if you +wrote about it and someone—like poor me—read of the +discovery before you had published it to the world, you might +lose the credit for it. Yes? For it <em>was</em> your discovery, and I +only followed the hints you gave.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said promptly, since my secret was guessed. “It +was my discovery, and I wanted to preserve it for myself. +I thought I had written enough, without being explicit to +the point of revelation, to sustain any claim I might need to +make afterward. I suppose you think I was a very large and +egregious idiot?”</p> + +<p>For a little while she did not answer. When I turned to +look at her, her eyes seemed to dwell not on the present but +on the past, and there was the intention of a smile in her face. +“No; I think you were an—antiquarian. Ah, you scholars!”</p> + +<p>“Well, in archæological circles you know—” I broke off.</p> + +<p>“Archæological circles seem about as important as ant-hills +to me, just now. One thing, though, I really learned last +night and today—a platitude I never quite believed in.”</p> + +<p>“A platitude—and not yet discredited?”</p> + +<p>She gave a little laugh. “I mean the one about boxing up +truth. You can hammer down board after board, but the +truth is like smoke: it always finds a new chink in the cover +to escape from. Don’t you see”—she gave a smothered laugh—“the +moment you began keeping your archæological cat in the +bag, you had to use all kinds of devices of wire and rope to +keep it there, and more often than not it was you and not +the cat who was tangled!”</p> + +<p>I looked at her in comic dismay. “Well! If you’ve found +that out from the diary you must be a perfect demon of +ratiocination!”</p> + +<p>“Hardly; it was obvious. For instance, when Mr. Salt offered +you his suggestions for finding the oratory, you felt +obliged to skid all around the truth that you already knew +where it was. You even said that finding it seemed +‘superfluous.’ That was rather neat, I thought.”</p> + +<p>I grinned. “So do I. As a fact, I followed his route to the +oratory to-day. And now I have a gleam in my prophetic +soul that you found discrepancies in the rainbow section of +the diary.”</p> + +<p>She weighed her answer. “Well, I don’t know. I saw the +discrepancies readily enough. You never were on Whimble +all that afternoon, were you, in spite of the suggestions you +scattered to that effect? I always thought archæologists were +profound people, but I had no idea they were so sly.”</p> + +<p>I mused. “Hm. You are perfectly right. ‘I headed straight +for Whimble. . . .’ ”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and afterward, ‘It would take me some time to get +from where I was to the edge of Mynydd Tarw.’ That was +so, no doubt, but I’d bet a—a lot that you were on Mynydd +Tarw all the while.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally, but I wasn’t going to say so, when the oratory +was under the edge of that particular hill. Yes, you’re +right: my secret entailed quite a number of peccadilloes.”</p> + +<p>I saw her smiling at me. “They became quite inveterate, +didn’t they? But the whole thing goes back to the platitude. +Squeeze the truth in one place and it sticks out in another. +Because you <em>would</em> have the secret of the oratory all to yourself, +you had to conceal the innocent fact that you accidentally +left a book there.”</p> + +<p>I stared at her as at a miracle, which indeed she was. “Come, +come; this is on the thick side. You must have been shadowing +me.”</p> + +<p>“Only in brain-waves. It was your copy of the Book of +Sylvan Armitage, wasn’t it? How did you happen to leave +it there? I can guess you had it out of your knapsack and +studied it for comparison with the place you had fallen to. +Then, perhaps, you laid it down—”</p> + +<p>“I did, and leaned back to rest, just as I found you doing +this afternoon. The Book slipped off the stone and fell inside +the shelter of the oratory. I didn’t notice it when I started +up and left the place. But how on earth did you know?”</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t think it was so wonderful for me to see a +plain nose on a plain face. To begin with, I was surprised +to death when I learned that you hadn’t brought your own +copy of the Armitage with you, but had to send for it from +Balzing. Was it likely that you would leave behind the one +work which referred to the oratory of St. Tarw? Then that +evening in the library after the rainbow, some of Lib’s +remarks—‘Having the hump,’ and so forth—sounded as if +you might be concealing something that you had brought with +you under your coat. And finally—well this alone would have +been enough to tell me—the day you were supposed to receive +it through the mail, you didn’t call at the Post Office for it; +when you came home from Old Aidenn, you gave New Aidenn +a wide berth and crossed the Smatcher.”</p> + +<p>“Out of my own inkwell I stand condemned,” I laughed. +“It’s uncanny, that’s what it is, the way you get inside my +cranium and read my secret thoughts. Still, you haven’t told +me what the fundamental deduction was. It couldn’t have +been a mere guess. How did you <em>know</em> that I wasn’t on +Whimble when I drew the map?”</p> + +<p>“I think you are playing Doctor Watson on purpose. Why, +that was the essence of simplicity. Why, a <em>primitive</em> mind +could have told that. What do you suppose I brought the +campstool for? It was as simple as—as rule of three. You’ll +have to discover that for yourself.”</p> + +<p>After silence:</p> + +<p>“What was that you said—about the rapture you felt the +first time you wandered on the uplands? You never could feel +the same freedom? You never could be so happy again?”</p> + +<p>“I think I never shall.”</p> + +<p>“Nor I. I hate this place. It has robbed me of +something—something more than love or any little thing like that.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” I asked, appalled—and when she +did not answer, I asked again, with my hand clenched about +her wrist and my eyes burning into her face, “What do you +mean?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not sure . . . but I suppose I mean . . . innocence. +Since I came here, something has happened that I never can +forget. I think it will make all my life worse.”</p> + +<p>We went on. The sunlight was dying. The trees became +spectral. In me, who walked beside this wonderful, +clear-spirited girl, a monstrous horror welled.</p> + +<p>I had a sense of vast, dark, insufferable wings hovering +down. Was it fated that I should need to protect her against +herself? Long before we reached the House, that I had sworn +to do, at all costs, whatever should betide.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch25"> + +<h2>XXV. <br> The Flight of Parson Lolly</h2> + +<p class="diarynote">(There ended my diary. Thenceforth I was to be like a +man in a maelstrom. And now that circumstances have stayed +my hand from its task for weeks on end, I have no confidence +that I can record with due proportion and emphasis events +which seem to have been fantastic and instantaneous as dreams. +Frantic suspense, frozen horror, and the rest are now a +whirling memory. But I hope, above all else, that whoever reads +these lines may feel, as those who knew her did, the splendid +nervous courage, the shrewd discernment, and the strange +compassion and mercy, of Paula Lebetwood!)</p> + +<p>Make no mistake. The weary, faltering girl at my +side—never, never for an instant did I suspect her.</p> + +<p>Yet while we lagged through a ruined fairyland, past the +wreck of Sir Pharamond’s first hold, beneath branches where +the rooks were brawling, and between the ordered files of the +summer-house park—all the way my heart grew blacker, and +the incubus weighed heavier on my soul. I feared for her, and +fear pressed cold fingers against my lips.</p> + +<p>Blasphemous thoughts; they were not mine. I had no +thoughts of her but reverence.</p> + +<p>They might have been the jangling voices of the birds +themselves: “Look! Here comes the foreign woman who was +pledged to the Kingmaker, but is going to marry his millions +instead! Why has she never wept a tear for the man in his +shroud?” What if the trees had voices, these grey and sombre +sycamores? “We saw what happened in the two twilights. We +know where the golden-haired girl was when Cosgrove met his +fate. We know when she left the strawberry grove the day +that Heatheringham rushed toward death. We saw her slip +across the shadowed lawn—”</p> + +<p>No, no! If trees could speak, they would declare her +innocence.</p> + +<p>Not trees but men would be her judges, cunning men, who +might weave about her a web of suspicion with strands as fine +and strong as silk.</p> + +<p>Scotland Yard might be waiting for us when we returned; +that is, a brisk, clear-headed, observant, utterly unprejudiced +investigator, a person whose mind as nearly as might be +resembled an inductive and deductive machine. He would sweep +the ground clear of the débris of false starts and idle +speculations, and construct anew.</p> + +<p>The deaths: what would the lynx of justice discover immediately +in respect of them? He would hear of a motive, money. +How should he know better than to impute a sordid impulse to +this high-minded girl? He would hear of a quarrel on the +afternoon of Cosgrove’s death. How should he know that there +had been more than mere anger in her mood when she parted +from us, that there had been dignity, aloofness, a temper far +above reprisal?</p> + +<p>But there was worse, much worse. She may have been with +Cosgrove the moment he was struck down!</p> + +<p>Belvoir, coming toward the towers, had seen the Irishman +with canvas lifted regarding the puny battle-axe. In the +mixed light, Belvoir had not been positive he <em>had</em> seen Cosgrove, +but the likelihood was that he had attested to less rather +than more than the truth. The American girl might have +been beyond the Irishman at that moment, concealed partly +by his bulk, partly by the darkness of her gown in the twilight. +I, of course, had come past the spot afterward and found the +lawn empty, but the two might easily have gone through one +of the entrances of the House and re-emerged shortly after I +had made my reconnaissance from the parapet. What brief, +passionate scene could then have taken place, such as would +have ended by Cosgrove’s turning away and her hammering +him with a rough-and-ready chunk of rock snatched up from +the rim of the flower-bed, I left to the professional imagination.</p> + +<p>In Heatheringham’s death, we knew her insistence that she +had disobeyed his bidding, and her declaration of what she had +seen. But, again, there was not a tittle of proof of her assertion +that she had remained on the edge of the strawberry trees. +Quite safely she could have slipped back into the House. +I wondered, in spite of the arm thrust through the glass, if the +detective might not have been outside the House when he +pressed the trigger, and that straightway he rushed into the Hall +(pursuing something?)—to meet his death. Who waited for +him there? No one could have, save Paula Lebetwood.</p> + +<p>Black—it was black.</p> + +<p>I tried to gain comfort from the obscurities that would +confront Scotland Yard if he tried to build up a theory in this +wise. I recalled the bone, the laugh, the pig’s gore, and other +unsolved conundrums. But Scotland Yard, being an experienced +hand, would be sure to fit them in somewhere. I was +sick at heart.</p> + +<p>Yes, I must protect her against the world, and, if need be, +against herself. The proof would be in action. I began +wondering whom I could trust.</p> + +<p>When we came to the fringe of the sycamore park and +passed alongside the cypress trees, one first-storey window +showed light in the northern wall of the House, and we could +see radiance from others down the long façade.</p> + +<p>“Miss Mertoun has returned.” It was the only speech either +of us had offered in two dark and desolate miles.</p> + +<p>“Millicent?” The American girl halted in surprise. “Did +they make her go out, too?”</p> + +<p>“She volunteered like the rest of the ladies for searching +in the Vale itself.”</p> + +<p>“Darling Millicent. I love her better than anything else on +earth. She shouldn’t have tried to find me, Mr. Bannerlee. +She isn’t strong, you know, and this has been a terrible, +tragic week for her. She should never have come to Aidenn +Vale, but I didn’t—understand then, as I do now.”</p> + +<p>Somehow we did not go straight on, but lingered there by +the cypresses with their low-hung darkness.</p> + +<p>“But her week has not been as tragic as yours.”</p> + +<p>Her voice was sombre. “More, much more.”</p> + +<p>“What!” I came closer, peered into her face, where the +dusk had erected shadows. “What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t wondered, I see, about Millicent and Sean.”</p> + +<p>“Wondered? Wondered what, in God’s name?”</p> + +<p>She spoke wearily. “You didn’t know Sean, of course. +Neither did I, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” I cried again, with an intolerable +heaviness in me, remembering Lib.</p> + +<p>“Religion and sensuality: they go together often, don’t they? +I thought that if I recognized that—streak in Sean I might +disregard it and it would be like a thing that never was. If +that had been all. . . .”</p> + +<p>I caught up the silence. “You can never make me +believe—that Miss Mertoun—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of course not. She wasn’t like the others. . . . She +hasn’t offended me; I’m the offender. . . .”</p> + +<p>“Paula, you mustn’t stop. Tell me what you mean.”</p> + +<p>“It’s beastly of me, I suppose . . . especially when someone +else . . . I wonder why it is we confide in people we half-know +instead of our closest friends. But it’s horrible to have a +thing pent up in your brain . . . like a deadly growth.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me, Paula.”</p> + +<p>“If I hadn’t come along, Millicent would be Mrs. Cosgrove +now. It sounds—almost grotesque, doesn’t it? But there +it was, a fact that months and even years couldn’t kill. I +never had the least inkling of it—oh, Millicent’s been a loyal +friend to me—until we were all here and it was—too late. +Millicent came, you see, since if she didn’t—I would never +have had a Bidding Feast without Millicent, and she knew it. +But I never guessed . . . until she told me, after midnight, +the night you came.”</p> + +<p>“She—loved him still?”</p> + +<p>“No, hated him then. But the old heart-wound would break +out during sleep. His music, as she called it, came to her +through her dreams. Then she answered what she believed to +be—his call.”</p> + +<p>A little wind came winding down the Vale and wrapped +its chilly arm about us. She said, very low: “That was what +I meant, partly, when I spoke of lost innocence a little while +ago. I have changed toward people since I came here. I think +I can never trust a person again.” Then quickly, “We must +go in. They’ll be wanting to know I’m safe.”</p> + +<p>I followed where she made a road through the darkness.</p> + +<p>We reached the House at seven-fifteen. At the bottom of +the stairs she turned. “Thank you—thank you more than I +can say. May I have the campstool? I must go up now, really. +I—I—have to—think over to-night.”</p> + +<p>I handed over the stool. “If ever—” I commenced, feeling +my voice shake in my throat.</p> + +<p>The boy Toby, his hair all on end as usual, crossed the +corridor from the dinner-room to the Hall. She called his name, +and the lad reappeared, coming toward us bashfully. His eyes, +turned on her, were filled with something like awe, and I +remembered how she had made this seemingly lumpish lad her +excellent and devoted scholar. He now carried a few yards +of insulated wire.</p> + +<p>“Has Superintendent Salt returned?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, from the hills, Miss. He came back early, but he’s +gone away again.”</p> + +<p>“Did he leave any message?”</p> + +<p>“He said you wasn’t to mind if he didn’t bring his friend +from—somewhere—”</p> + +<p>“Scotland Yard?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s right. He wouldn’t bring him to-night. He said +you was to go ahead anyhow because the French womenfolks +was coming with Constable Pritchard.”</p> + +<p>“French women!” I exclaimed in surprise and pleasure. +“Does he mean that the sisters Delambre have been brought +back?”</p> + +<p>“Sure to be,” said Toby.</p> + +<p>“By George, I’ll be tickled to see what they look like. But +what does it all mean? No one could imagine—”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood silenced me with a gesture and an eager +question. “He was working here this afternoon, then, wasn’t +he?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss, but it was a secret or somefing. He put the +maids out of the house at half-past three.”</p> + +<p>“Three-thirty!” I exclaimed again, indignantly now. “He +didn’t waste much of his precious time in the search!” I asked +the lad, “Why did he make the women-servants leave the +building? He did, didn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; he was going to use some gas from a little tank +he had with him all over the ground floor of the House. He +said it was a deadly poisonous gas, and unless they were +looking for their deaths if they got a whiff they had better go +down to New Aidenn for the rest of the afternoon. Wheeler +was in the search; so I drove ’em all down to the bridge in the +big car,” Toby recited with pride.</p> + +<p>“And did you come back for a whiff?” asked Miss +Lebetwood, smiling faintly.</p> + +<p>“No, Miss; I went to my workroom in the stables and did +some more on my radio. I only remembered about a quarter +past six that I had to fix the lights in the Hall, and when I +came to the House I met Mr. Salt and the constable’s brother +that wasn’t here before coming out with the gas tank. ‘It’s all +right,’ he said. ‘Tell ’em they can go anywhere they like +now. I’ve sucked the gas back into the respirator; so there’s +no danger for that matter of fact.’ And then he told me what +I told you.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose most of our people have returned?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss. The ladies are all upstairs or somewhere. +There’s them back from New Aidenn, too, and Mr. Blenkinson +and some of the others from the hills. If you wasn’t found +by nine o’clock, they was going to ’phone up Penybont and +Bleddfa and maybe get a bloodhound and have a grand search +like they almost had for Sir Brooke Mortimer.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Toby,” said the girl, “and thank you again, +Mr. Bannerlee. I <em>shall</em> have to do a bit of thinking now.” She +went quickly, almost lightly, up the steps. Somehow, she had +drawn comfort from Salt’s strange behaviour.</p> + +<p>I followed Toby into the Hall. Quite by chance I had +found the person I could trust, one whose allegiance to the +American girl might be as great as mine.</p> + +<p>He was upon a lofty step-ladder planted beneath the chandelier +which hung some distance clear of the musicians’ gallery. +Below him rested a bushel basket partly filled with electric +bulbs.</p> + +<p>“Will you be there long, Toby?”</p> + +<p>“Only to take out the rest of the bulbs, sir, and connect +a bit of wire with the wall-fixture in case they needs it. Only +a minute or two, sir.”</p> + +<p>I drew close to the foot of the ladder and spoke very softly. +“Toby—can you get an hour off before very late +to-night—to do something for Miss Lebetwood?”</p> + +<p>“For Miss Paula?” His funny hair seemed to be a forest +of notes of exclamation. “Of <em>course</em> I can, sir, for Miss Paula.”</p> + +<p>“Right! I knew you would. Come down here a minute, and +I’ll give you directions. This is very secret, mind. If you should +meet even Miss Paula herself, remember you’re not to show +a sign you’re the wiser.”</p> + +<p>I laid the trappings of mystery on very thick, enough to +make the souls of a dozen lads lick their lips. I explained how +a message might be delivered at the House later on to-night +that would make it necessary for Miss Lebetwood, and perhaps +Miss Mertoun, to leave without word or warning to anyone +by the eleven o’clock train. Secrecy and haste were the points +I stressed. He fell into the plot with so much spirit that I felt +a little ashamed of the deception I was practising. With +eagerness that ran before my suggestions, he promised to be at New +Aidenn station when it opened for the 9.40 train, and to +purchase with money I gave him two tickets for London available +by the late express. He would leave the tickets for me <em>in the +mail</em>. We went into the armoury and agreed on a definite +spot. He would also secrete two ladies’ bicycles, property of +the Clays, beneath the bush opposite the third oak tree on the +left-hand side of the drive after passing the gate-house. We +went over that complex direction again and again.</p> + +<p>Yes, in these days of the many-tentacled police, the +telegraph, and the radio, I was planning for Paula Lebetwood +an escape by flight. With two hours’ clear start, for I would +see that the telephone did not function and that the shaky +bridge should go down behind the pursued, I could almost +guarantee scot-freedom. For of course those tickets would not +be used for getting to London, not when the express connected +at Leominster with fast trains running both north and +south. To what destination I would direct the fugitives, I +had better not say, but it was one which would afford a refuge +almost before the wires were singing with the alarm for her +capture.</p> + +<p>At that moment Aire slipped in from the darkness through +one of the french windows. His head was bare, his clothing +was somewhat dishevelled, and he seemed to lack for breath. +His mouth was set, with its thin blue-whitish lips drawn +back from the teeth. He stared at us some time before speaking; +then his voice, the first time I had known it to be so, was +instinct with fear.</p> + +<p>“Bannerlee, seen Maryvale?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve just returned with Miss Lebetwood. What makes you +ask?”</p> + +<p>“He’s—gone.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll come back.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure he will. Come in here, Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>Quite astonished by his tone, I followed him toward the +library, turning at the door to give a pithy glance at the +boy, whose hair now looked like a forest of query-notes. When +I entered the library, Aire had thrown himself down in one of +the big leather arm-chairs in a posture of complete relaxation, +and was breathing heavily. Again it was some time before +he spoke.</p> + +<p>“He’s gone, God knows where. He left me an hour ago +while we were walking among the strawberry trees. Went +snap off, like breaking a stick, while I was in the middle of +a sentence.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Doctor,” I exclaimed, with a snort of assumed +cheerfulness, “surely you’re making too much of this.”</p> + +<p>He sprang up, paced the breadth of the room, ugly wrinkles +on his brow. “I hope I am. I hope I am. But I’ve bitched +the thing so. And this afternoon he seemed in perfect possession +of himself. I’ve been so damned optimistic that now the +reverse— He seemed perfectly normal late this afternoon, you +understand; in fact the two of us were planning—no matter. +I must go out again.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll come along with you.”</p> + +<p>“No, thanks. I’ll have to manage him alone. It will be +‘Horse and Hattock in the Devil’s name,’ and I fancy I’m +the only one who can play up to him.”</p> + +<p>“But you’ll be in danger.”</p> + +<p>He gave a short laugh. “I think not. I’m more afraid of +the things that can’t hurt.” He looked out to the lawn. “Thank +God for a clear night, and moonlight. You know, the trees +seem to have faces in their trunks; they seem to be grinning +and mowing in the wind. That’s the sort of drivel this thing’s +brought me to. Well, I’m off.”</p> + +<p>He made toward the door, but paused with his hand on it. +“Don’t say a word of this to anyone, Bannerlee. I’ll need a +free hand if I’m to bring it off. Cheerio.”</p> + +<p>He plunged into the night. I saw him cross the silver carpet +of the lawn and disappear between the gigantic jaws of the +gate-house towers.</p> + +<p>A moment later in the corridor I met Harmony carrying +a tray up to “the young ladies.” She told me that cold viands +were laid out in the dinner-room for those lagging in from +the hills. But in spite of my three hours’ struggle, I was in +no humour for feeding, especially since I was bound to +encounter the others and would have to repeat my adventures +again and again.</p> + +<p>I asked the girl if there had been any fresh development +during my absence.</p> + +<p>“Did you hear about what they dug up this afternoon, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott! You don’t mean another corpse?”</p> + +<p>“Lor’, no, sir, not human. In the garden, it was, where the +dogs were scratching the place to pieces. Someone said get a +spade and dig and see what’s there, and they found it.”</p> + +<p>“What did they find?”</p> + +<p>“A little pig, sir. And it was wrapped in some black cloth +they said must be Parson Lolly’s gown, only it was all tore +up and full of holes and had some funny bits of red paper +pinned to it. They do say that Parson Lolly is too tall for +a gown like that. We met Superintendent Salt when we were +coming back from the town, and he was carrying it with him.”</p> + +<p>“So,” I remarked. “It looks to me as if the Superintendent +took advantage of Miss Lebetwood’s absence to spend a busy +afternoon down here.”</p> + +<p>“Lor’, yes, sir. He was using the gas-expirator and fair +drove us out of the house.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad he made such a thorough job of inspirating the +gas again.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir, or it wouldn’t be safe. It’s that wonderful, sir.”</p> + +<p>“It is,” I agreed heartily, and cursed—to myself.</p> + +<p>She with her tray went down the passage while I went up +the second flight, feeling not the shadow of a suspicion of my +darling, but the certainty that before the night was past, she +would be accused. I hurried past Maryvale’s portal with an +aching heart.</p> + +<p>Yet such was the settled habit of the week that when I +reached my own door, the turmoil of my mind was stilled. +This lonely chamber, which had such baneful associations +for me a week ago, had become a harbour of refuge. Whatever +strife and doom might wait outside, here the ceiling +aslope, the candle-bracket askew, the oaken chest, and the +narrow window before my table invited me to my work.</p> + +<p>I fell to. I wrote steadily. I forgot to be hungry. Once the +sound of a gong quivered through the House, but not until +long after it had died away did I consider what it meant. +Then I set down my pen. Mrs. Belvoir’s séance must be in +progress, and Scotland Yard was doubtless there. I must +attend.</p> + +<p>I secured my invaluable pocket light before setting out. +Past Maryvale’s door forbid, down the long stairs, through the +corridor of faces—until a murmurous voice reached me from +the Hall of the Moth, a voice whose tone I recognized though +the words were indistinct. Yes, Mrs. Belvoir was probing +beyond the visible.</p> + +<p>Softly I opened the door behind the musicians’ stair, +tiptoed over the threshold, and stood concealed within. Great +curtains shut out the moonlight from the Hall, which was +dark indeed, save for the circle of bulbs on the circumference +of the chandelier. These, cased by Toby in paper, gave very +little illumination, and that of a mysterious tinge. At the +other end of the room wavered a lazy fire, composed for the +most part of bluish flame.</p> + +<p>The people seated around the table, which had been placed +not far from the musicians’ stairs, were so vague that I could +not tell their attitude toward the proceedings. I observed at +once that Mrs. Belvoir was not going to “bring the spirits and +all,” not yet, at any rate. For on the table was spread some +dark cloth above which I caught the faint glimmer of glass: +a crystal sphere. The woman seated deep in her chair before +the ball must be the pythoness herself.</p> + +<p>Her voice had lapsed when I entered, and a long silence ensued. +Then she said: “It’s no use. I’ve lost it again,” and I saw +a white arm reach up. Instantly a dazzling light shone above +her head, from a special globe connected with the wall-fixture, +and Mrs. Belvoir was gazing intently into the crystal +ball. I now saw that the sphere was erected on a small tripod +with legs of different-coloured metals, and that this structure +stood upon a square yellow velvet cloth laid over a cloth of +blue. A mouldy, triangular crust of bread was placed +underneath the crystal, and some statement I had once heard or +read, that “bread possesses a potent protective magic against +evil forces,” occurred to me to explain its presence.</p> + +<p>Neither Salt nor any stranger was there. Mrs. Belvoir, +attired in pale mauve ninon, a heliotrope band above her +forehead, and an amethyst pin at her breast, was brooding over +the crystal with eyes that widened and narrowed with the +phase of her thought. Those pale sapphire eyes were darkened +with intensity, and the customary indistinctness of her +face—a mermaid-under-water look—was quite gone. Sometimes her +hands clasped or slid about the sphere; sometimes her fingers +rested on her temples or tapped them gently. Beyond a doubt, +she was sincere.</p> + +<p>The assisting parties were either slightly embarrassed or +strongly impressed, all save Belvoir, who sat opposite her; +on his face lived a smile of scepticism. Up went the arm and +the Hall was dim once more.</p> + +<p>“I have it now,” said the seeress: “I am in fog, deep fog.”</p> + +<p>“Good,” came a <i>sotto voce</i> from the other end of the table, +but the word was drowned in the current of her speech. Leaning +back, but apparently still gazing at the sphere, in trance-life +passivity, she seemed not so much to utter words as to +let the words flow from her mouth.</p> + +<p>“I am in fog, thick fog; it clings about me.” Her hands +made dim outward movements, as if pressing away the mist +that enveloped her. “I am lost, and there is a malignant spirit +nearby, but I am not sure I know that—yet. I sit down—on +a rock. I am not very hungry, but since there is nothing else +to do, I eat what I have brought with me. I wait for light +to penetrate the fog. I wish to find something; perhaps I +fear the malignant spirit that is near. I wish to find the +ancient hermit’s cell. It is a place hallowed by good works and +piety. The malignant spirit will not dare come near me there. +I eat and wait. The mist clears partly away at last. I go +on. The sun shines on me; I am glorified. . . .”</p> + +<p>I suddenly realized it was my story she told. There was +nothing wonderful in this, to be sure, for the narrative of my +afternoon on the hills had long been common property. I +listened with care, to see if she included some detail proving +her version to be a brain-picture really evoked by the crystal +and having objective authority. But all she added to the fable +was the “malignant spirit” hovering near me all the while, +a presence which I certainly had no idea was dogging me on +the hilltops.</p> + +<p>It became apparent that the seeress was not interested in me +but in the spirit, and some time before the dénouement I had +an inkling of how the story would end.</p> + +<p>“I am fleeing from the malignant spirit in its carnal shape. +I allow it to overtake me—so far, no farther. We are +approaching the brink of the cliff. I leap aside, and the animal +plunges into the gulf. I am saved, and I hear the carnal +shape of the spirit go thundering down, down, down. I am +saved, and the bull is dead.”</p> + +<p>Silence. . . . When Mrs. Belvoir spoke again, her voice +had lost its dreaminess and become positive. But she spoke +with effort; the phrases seemed wrung out of her.</p> + +<p>“The bull is dead. . . . But spiritual force . . . is never +destroyed. . . . The bull is dead. . . . The malignant spirit +is living still. . . . It never ceases to operate. . . . It is +localized. . . .”</p> + +<p>A small sound shattered the tension of that moment: merely +the opening of one of the french windows.</p> + +<p>“My God, what’s that?” cried Eve Bartholomew, before +someone reached above Mrs. Belvoir’s head and lit the bright +globe once more. Mrs. Belvoir turned, intending angry +remonstrance, but her voice was stilled by one look at Doctor +Aire.</p> + +<p>He was coatless and collarless, and his shirt and trousers +were miry. His small yellow head seemed to have turned +almost white, save for a ragged cut across his forehead, and +while he spoke the man leaned hard on the back of the <i>Brocade +de Lyons</i> couch as if in the last throes of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>Everyone was standing up; my presence excited no surprise.</p> + +<p>“Maryvale’s—somewhere near.”</p> + +<p>“Doctor! What’s happened to you?” cried Crofts.</p> + +<p>“I’ve had a bout with him on the tennis court. He was a +few stone too heavy for me. I saw him heading for the +House—probably wants something that’s in his room. I’m +afraid—he’s insane.”</p> + +<p>“What shall we do, then?” asked Crofts, become very cool +in the crisis.</p> + +<p>“Keep a watch at every entrance, enough of us at each place +to tackle him safely.”</p> + +<p>“Stephen, you mustn’t go out again. You’ve done too much +already,” said Alberta.</p> + +<p>But Aire, though he swayed, hung on grittily, and shook +his head. “No, thanks. A stiff drink will put me right. Just have +the men-servants in here, Crofts, and—”</p> + +<p>Miss Mertoun gave a shrill scream. A creature was looking +at us through the open entrance behind Aire—a strange +creature.</p> + +<p>The thing that looked at us was using Maryvale’s face, but +it was not Maryvale any longer. The countenance, blank of +any jot of humanity, had become a mere bag with features. It +lingered there only for a moment, staring at us with +incomprehension so complete that a pang of pity thrilled through +me. A woman sobbed. The face was gone.</p> + +<p>Pell-mell the men were gone, too, in a wild chase scattering +across the lawn, and I among them. Yet sorry as I was for +Maryvale, he did not concern me now. I had sterner work +even than trammelling a moonlight madman.</p> + +<p>I determined to risk the notice of my absence in order to +make certain that the bicycles were properly waiting where +Toby had promised to conceal them. Keeping under the shadow +of trees where I could, I hastened across the southern lawn +toward the oaks that guard the drive below the gate-house +towers. I was just in time to see someone drag one of the +bicycles from its bushy covert into the full moonlight and +bend over the front tyre with a gleaming blade ready to slash. +I sprang upon this man, mastered him more by the surprise of +my leap than by main strength. He fell face upward, +groaning. His knife lay on the grass ten feet away.</p> + +<p>“Morgan! What crazy work is this?”</p> + +<p>He thrashed about in my inexorable grip, and blurted out +his words in speech that reverted toward the primitive. “The +killers, the killers! They bikes was for them. I saw the lad +fetch ’em and hide ’em, aye I did. ’E’s sweet on ’er since she +took notice of ’im.”</p> + +<p>“What are you talking about?” I blustered. “What do you +know about the murderers?”</p> + +<p>He struggled to rise, but I let my weight bear down, and he +relapsed with another groan, though certainly not hurt. “I +know who did the killin’. I’ve known all along.”</p> + +<p>I shook him roughly by the shoulders. “Don’t lie to me. +Come, out with it, now, or I’ll throttle you.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Blenkinson told us. It’s the sure truth.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Blenkinson!</em>” I bawled. “By God, Blenkinson’s got something +to answer for to me. What lies has he been spreading?”</p> + +<p>“He has the proofs. It’s sure as if ’e saw ’em with ’is own +eyes.”</p> + +<p>“Saw <em>what</em>? Saw <em>who</em>?”</p> + +<p>“Saw the killin’s. The three Americans did ’em, and they’ll +make shares of Mr. Cosgrove’s money.”</p> + +<p>My fingers itched for his throat, but black fear blazed in +my heart. “Liar!” I screamed. “They’ll hang you sooner +than <em>her</em>! Don’t you know she won’t touch a penny of it until the +killer’s found!”</p> + +<p>The man on the ground maintained a sullen obstinacy. +“Sometimes them hangs as isn’t guilty, and them suffers as +finds out. The milkman knew it was ’er, and look what +’appened to ’im.”</p> + +<p>“You poor, blind fool,” I exclaimed bitterly. “There’s +jealousy and hatred in this somewhere. Damn Blenkinson. Why, +there isn’t a particle of evidence—”</p> + +<p>“There is, there is,” he gasped. “There’s court evidence to +’ang ’er when Mr. Blenkinson comes out with it.”</p> + +<p>“What evidence? Tell me!”</p> + +<p>He writhed in my clutch. “The beetle-stone as she lost from +’er ring that day. She tried to keep it secret, but it got about. +Mr. Blenkinson found it right in the same place as the stone +she did the killin’ with. There wasn’t a foot between ’em.”</p> + +<p>I pressed my fists against his chest, with a downward thrust +now and then for emphasis. “Your fine Blenkinson’s a liar, do +you hear? His evidence, as you call it, isn’t worth a pin. And +if he whispers a word of his slander, and it comes to my ears, +I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life, do you hear? And +the same applies to you—you contemptible—”</p> + +<p>I stood up quickly. Men were crowding out of the plantation +near Whimble-foot and clamouring toward the House. +Had the quarry turned? I must be present now at any cost.</p> + +<p>This man was cowed sufficiently. He still lay supine; I +prodded him with my foot. “Remember!” I warned him darkly, +and commenced running toward the mansion, stooping to seize +the knife where it glittered on the turf.</p> + +<p>Once only I paused for a moment and looked back. Was +there something—someone—moving stealthily toward the man, +who was sitting up now and feeling himself for bruises? A +moment later the figure of a woman emerged from the shadows, +crossed quickly to Morgan, and seemed to lift him bodily from +the ground. I did not immediately grasp that she had lugged +him up by the ear. Now they were arguing, gesticulating, and +though I had heard it seldom, I knew the prim voice of Miss +Ardelia Lacy.</p> + +<p>Smiling to myself, I pressed on.</p> + +<p>The half-dozen men who reached the corner of the House +more or less in a pack were in the nick of time to see the +wretched Maryvale, driven from cover to cover like a hunted +beast, drag his body, which had never before seemed ponderous, +to the base of one of the gate-house towers. He carried +what seemed a club with an enormous broadened head.</p> + +<p>He turned there at bay while we closed in upon him, and +the awful wreck of his face with its glaring eyes and bared +teeth in the moonlight will haunt me to my death. He was a +beast. While we stood speechless, he began to climb.</p> + +<p>One hand gripped the queer-looking club, but grasping the +ivy with one hand alone, he raised himself steadily. It was +agony to watch this man-turned-ape mounting where none of us +dared to follow. In the thick wavering growth that clung to +the tower sometimes he swung pendulum-wise, sometimes was +almost buried in the foliage, but his ascent was sure as if he +climbed the stairs within. We cried out to him appeals and +abuse; I do not think he heard us. Someone ran to the stables, +shouting for a ladder.</p> + +<p>Maryvale reached the angle where the covered bridge meets +the wall of the tower. Here the ivy thins, and the man made a +wide stop to the roof of the bridge. Then, surely, I felt the +supreme horror, when Maryvale, using the base of a window-slit +for foot-rest, lifted himself over the edge of the turret-roof +and carefully but expeditiously crawled up the slope of +stone toward the pointed top.</p> + +<p>We held on shouting, some of us, in sheer desperation. +Pendleton made a frenzied effort to climb the ivy, failed. +Maryvale crept on, his whole body flat against the roof, save for +the arm which held the club-like mass. He reached the pinnacle +and lifted himself to a precarious standing posture, one +foot firm on the very apex, the side of the other foot pressed +against the slope.</p> + +<p>For a few moments he bent over the object he had carried; +then when he straightened his body, his arm above his head +brandished a flaming, sizzling torch, and he uttered the only +words I had heard him speak that day. He called out to the +night at large:</p> + +<p>“Lolly, Lolly, Parson Lolly!” His voice gloated above the hiss +of the torch. “Who’s the Parson? I’M THE PARSON! AND +NOW I’M GOING OVER THE HILLS: PARSON +LOLLY FLIES!”</p> + +<p>The torchlight danced in his face while he laughed shrilly. +Then he launched himself into the air in an enormous leap.</p> + +<p>He fell almost but not quite clear of the sloping roof. Striking +it all awry, he dashed against the roof of the bridge and +on down. Mercifully, he was hurled toward the wall of the +tower, and his foot caught for a second in some loop of the +ivy-twine twenty feet from the ground. His swinging body struck +the wall a terrific blow, and he hung head downward for a +moment; his torch, which had drawn a flaming mark across +the night, now blazed upward enveloping him with its flames. +Only for an instant, however. The impact of the collision with +the wall had stunned him, and the torch fell from his hand. +The ivy gave way, and the madman, part of his clothing afire, +fell insensible to the ground at our feet.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch26"> + +<h2>XXVI. <br> Blood on the Portrait</h2> + +<p>We had carried Maryvale down to the bridge, and +the ambulance from the Cottage Hospital at Kington had been +waiting to take the unfortunate man away. We did not know +until later, of course, that Maryvale would never walk again, +though the delusion which had unhinged his mind no longer +held him in thrall.</p> + +<p>Now we were returning to the House, I and the remnant +of the men of the Bidding Feast. We were a straggling squad. +The sense of Fate, of dark wings closing down, of stern gates +clashing, swept over me again while I wondered which of us +would be the next to suffer. One by one our little group +reassembled in the library. There the women were waiting; there, +too, stood Maryvale’s picture of the headless Parson, more +enigmatic than before. Yes, even with the madman’s words +ringing in our ears, none of us could believe that he had +indeed been the arch-lord of disorder who may have destroyed +two men.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Belvoir, purpureal priestess, was making agitated +efforts to reassemble her devotees that she might reveal the +further activities of the “malignant spirit”; but the devotees +were very slippery. Indeed, it was natural that after the +catastrophe of Maryvale, other things should disintegrate, and +although the terror spread through the House tightened the +little knot of us, soon we might have wandered off to bed, +unless a sudden loud knocking had been audible.</p> + +<p>“The front door, isn’t it?” asked Miss Lebetwood.</p> + +<p>Our host said it was, and added he wondered what the +devil—</p> + +<p>“It is a sign for me, I think.” Addressing Mrs. Belvoir: +“Marvel, you must let me take charge now.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what do you mean?” demanded the seeress.</p> + +<p>“We shall see in a moment.”</p> + +<p>Alberta’s firm hand had restrained Crofts from jumping +into the corridor to answer the knock himself. Presently +Soames sidled into the room with a salver which he presented to +Miss Lebetwood. Regarding him closely, I thought he gave +her a slanting, snake-like look of mingled fear and malevolence—and +yet on the surface his countenance remained perfectly +respectful.</p> + +<p>“A telegram for you, Miss.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you.”</p> + +<p>Lib gurgled, “Why, Paula, someone’s had the cheek to +open it!”</p> + +<p>“I know,” answered Miss Lebetwood, withdrawing two +closely-filled sheets from the envelope already slit. “Those were +my instructions.”</p> + +<p>Crofts asked sharply, “Don’t they know those should be +’phoned here?”</p> + +<p>“My directions again,” said the American girl evenly, without +glancing up from the sheet in her hand. Her brief, +self-possessed words made us realize of a sudden that she had +assumed leadership quietly and confidently. “There will be no +answer, Soames,” she remarked, and the man slid out +shadow-wise.</p> + +<p>A silence supervened, while we stared at her and she read +the message to the very end. When she was through, her +clear blue eyes were bright with exultation.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s what I expected! I think, people, that we will see +the end of our ghastly bewilderment to-night. Won’t you be +glad? Oh, I will!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Belvoir, aware that she was likely to lose the post of +cynosure, countered vaguely. “What do you mean?” she +repeated. “I haven’t finished—”</p> + +<p>“You won’t need to, Marvel dear. I have found a better +way to deal with the malignant spirit you spoke of. I have +Mr. Salt’s approval for what I do. In fact”—she smiled +slightly—“I am his deputy.”</p> + +<p>Lord Ludlow’s eyebrows gave a jerk. “His deputy?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and I believe I am to have a Police-Constable to +enforce my authority. And the—the Frenchwomen from the farm, +the Delambres, have kindly consented to be present here +to-night as witnesses.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Crofts. “Will people be +coming in here all night? Who owns this place, anyhow?”</p> + +<p>Alberta struck a counter-blow. “Of course, Paula dearest, +we shall do anything you like. Shall we have to wait long for +those queer old women?”</p> + +<p>“<em>They</em> are waiting for <em>you</em>,” said the American girl, standing +by the door which led through the armoury into the Hall. +“Will you enter, please, and take your seats as before?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like this,” objected Crofts, blocking our way. “In +my opinion there should be no jiggery-pokery without Salt or +this Scotland Yard man he was supposed to bring. Why doesn’t +he do as he intended?”</p> + +<p>“Hush, dear,” said Alberta, “or Paula will have her +Constable arrest you and lock you up in the gate-house.”</p> + +<p>“He may appear later on, of course,” the American girl +suggested, not very hopefully. “You can trust me, though, +to—”</p> + +<p>“Later? Later?” Crofts grumbled. “Are we going to be +kept up all night?”</p> + +<p>But now Paula Lebetwood ignored him. “Please follow me,” +she said, brushing past, and Crofts gave way.</p> + +<p>Like creatures under a spell we moved into the Hall, a place +still obscured from the moon and illumined now only by the +pale ring of lights from the chandelier by the gallery. I offered +to switch on the other chandelier, which hung near the chimney-piece, +but she said she wished it to remain dark for the present. +While she spoke, she lit the one bright globe beneath which +Mrs. Belvoir had sat, and took her own place beneath it.</p> + +<p>“Please interrupt me as little as possible,” she requested, +“especially in this early part where I know my way. I’ll try not +to waste time, though I don’t expect this to be a really short +meeting. No, don’t say anything, yet.”</p> + +<p>It was hard to repress some exclamation of wonder when I +saw the two women who sat in semi-darkness near the great +expanse of the chimney-piece. Very quiet they had been, and +took no notice of us while we entered. They seemed to be +absorbed in the embers of the fire, from which only an occasional +blue flame winked like an eye. One of them, the squatter of +the two, seemed particularly aloof, and only her flattish nose +and broad forehead peeped beyond the queer old-fashioned hood +still drawn over her head. The other, who wore an expansive +coverchief, was taller and more stalwart, with a strong face, +large chin, and eyes which shone even in the gloom. She +appeared from time to time to take some interest in us and our +proceedings. But on the whole the presence of these foreign +sisters was eerie and evasive.</p> + +<p>More stolid than either of these appeared the bovine +Constable who sat near them and seemed to have them in charge.</p> + +<p>“Geewhilikins!” emitted Bob, and the state of Lib could +be imagined from the fact that she brazenly allowed him to +clutch her hand and keep it.</p> + +<p>Paula Lebetwood indicated the sisters Delambre with a +gesture. “These—gentlewomen: you know who they are, of +course. Before to-night is over we shall all be grateful to them +for coming here. But it’s late, I know, and you are all anxious +to hear my—revelation; so I’ll commence at once.”</p> + +<p>Her revelation! God grant that no prank of fate should +cause <em>her</em> to be snared in whatever trap she was setting!</p> + +<p>“Don’t think, please, that I am certain myself what to-night’s +result is going to be,” she went on while we settled +into our seats around the shadowy board. “If I did, I wouldn’t +waste your time. But I think—yes, I am almost certain—that +you will find out before you leave your places. And perhaps I +had better put this in evidence first.”</p> + +<p>She picked up the creased sheets of the telegram which lay +on the table before her and handed them to Charlton Oxford. +“It’s the answer to a wire Mr. Salt sent for me this morning. +As you see, it’s from the Welsh National Library at +Aberystwyth.”</p> + +<p>“That is surely far afield,” remarked Ludlow.</p> + +<p>“It may seem so. But I believe that when Mr. Salt hears of +it, he’ll agree with me that it’s an important item in our list. +In fact, my Lord, it’s the keystone of my arch.”</p> + +<p>While his eyes travelled along the lines, Oxford’s face was +blank. Obviously he did not perceive the slightest link +between the matter of the telegram and the matter in hand. He +was not even puzzled; he was irretrievably befogged.</p> + +<p>“Will someone repeat it aloud, please? It will save so much +time.”</p> + +<p>Crofts snatched the sheets from Oxford’s fingers and commenced +to read. The eagerness in his voice subsided while he +went on to an uncomfortable conclusion with an air that he +was being made a fool. Our confusion increased with rapt +attention, but the sisters Delambre seemed utterly uninterested, +and I believe that the Constable had already dropped into a +doze. The message ran about as follows:<a href="#note6" id="noteref6">¹</a></p> + +<blockquote class="telegram"> + + <p>ADEQUATE DESCRIPTION MANUSCRIPT IN CATALOGUE MOSTYN + COLLECTION TO WHICH IT FORMERLY BELONGED STOP + ORIGINAL NOW IN CARDIFF UNIVERSITY LIBRARY STOP + COPIES MAY EXIST STOP MOSTYN SAYS ELIS GRUFFYDD SELF + STYLED SOLDIER OF CALAIS WAS NATIVE GRONNANT UCHA + IN PARISH LLANASSA FLINTSHIRE LIVED ABOUT 1490–1560 + STOP CUSTODIAN WINGFIELD PALACE SEVEN YEARS BEFORE + JOINING RETINUE AT CALAIS STOP BEST KNOWN AS AUTHOR + AND SCRIBE OF LARGE POLYCHRONICON IN WELSH IN TWO + MANUSCRIPT VOLUMES STOP FIRST BEGINS CREATION ENDING + BATTLE OF HASTINGS STOP SECOND CONTINUES TO 1552 STOP + FOLIOS 365–657 CONTAIN EYE WITNESS ACCOUNTS MANY + TRANSACTIONS INCLUDING TRIALS IN STAR CHAMBER STOP + NO MENTION IN MOSTYN OF REFERENCE TO CWM MELIN OR + AIDENN VALE STOP CAN ASSURE YOU NO PASSAGE OF THIS + MANUSCRIPT HAS BEEN PUBLISHED STOP.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“May I have it back? Thank you. And now straight to the +point. People, I suppose you think that if we could only put +our fingers down tight on one person, our troubles would be +over. I mean Parson Lolly—not the Parson of Mr. Maryvale’s +sad delusion, but the real one.”</p> + +<p>“I should say so,” remarked Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said very quietly, “if there is one part of these +mysteries I know I hold the clue of, it’s the Parson. I <em>know</em> +who the Parson is.”</p> + +<p>The tableful of us stiffened as if we had been plunged in an +electric bath.</p> + +<p>“Then who, who, who?” Crofts burst out.</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t excite yourself. There never was any reason +to be excited about Parson Lolly. Parson Lolly is a dud.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he is!” hooted Bob incredulously.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he is, I tell you. I can’t believe for a minute that he +has any unusual power. You can hardly say that he has any +power at all; at least, it’s delusive rather than formidable. +Why, he’s done nothing but deliver threats and make gestures, +and some of us have been imagining we’re the victims of +supernatural pranks.”</p> + +<p>“Supernatural or not,” growled Crofts, “I’ll give him a fine +quarter of an hour when I lay hands on him. Who is he?”</p> + +<p>The American girl looked him straight in the eye, severely, +and he subsided with vague rumblings. “Now, I stipulate that +you shall do nothing of the sort. If you intend to make this +the excuse for working off your surplus bad temper, I won’t +go any further.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go bail for him,” promised Alberta.</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t pay any attention to me,” said Crofts.</p> + +<p>The American girl leaned her chin in her hand and studied +the table with thoughtful eyes. She spoke slowly, tentatively. +“Suppose I set the evidence before you and see if your +conclusion isn’t the same as mine. Beginning, perhaps, with that +night Millicent wandered out on the lawn, and I with her. +It was the clock in the corner there that started all the trouble; +neither the Parson nor any human being here could have foreseen +the effect that melody would have on Millicent when she +heard it through her dreams. But somewhere on the lawn we +two collided, you might say, with a separate series of events. +First of all it was the devilish, goggling face that glared down +at us from an instant from the air. And let me remind you that +it was not only an enormous face—I was frightened, but I’m +not exaggerating—it was also high up in the air. We know the +Parson is tall when he stands full length, but even he can’t +extend indefinitely. Well, we saw this perfectly hellish face, +just for an instant, and it hasn’t been seen again—that way. +Mr. Salt took most of it away with him when he left the Vale +this evening.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” jogged in Crofts.</p> + +<p>“Let me go on, please. The head was one thing. Then there +was the placard: ‘Parson Lolly sends regards. Look out for +Parson Lolly.’ That was the first of a number of such messages +that have been found all about the place, and why <em>this</em> +one, at any rate, should have caused us such great alarm, I +can only account for by supposing that we’d caught the spirit +of panic from the servants. On sober reflection, I should think +that that placard demonstrated a sort of ingenuousness in Parson +Lolly.”</p> + +<p>“A damned funny sort of ingenuousness,” remarked our host. +“What about the axe and the blood we found?”</p> + +<p>“I was just going to remind you of them. The blood, as +you know, we learned to be that of one of a batch of little pigs, +and its carcass was found this afternoon along with the head. +As for the axe, you remember that Doctor Aire pointed out +how light and impracticable it was, and how it had been +removed from low down on the armoury wall. The final thing +was that Mr. Bannerlee’s hat had been deposited on the lawn. +The rest was merely excitement. I am able, though, to add a +point or two borrowed from Mr. Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>I received a burning glance from Crofts. “From you? Have +you been holding something back all this time?”</p> + +<p>The American girl swiftly continued. “These are notes from +the diary Mr. Bannerlee commenced that night.”</p> + +<p>They all exclaimed, “Diary!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes; don’t be so surprised at everything, or we shan’t +get through. Don’t let them bother you, Mr. Bannerlee. A +little later I’ll say something more general about the diary, but +now I confine myself to a pair of small points. One is that +while he came down the path from the uplands to the Vale, +he heard a voice somewhere in the fog below, shouting—an +indeterminate sort of voice with a quality he couldn’t quite +describe. Now, I believe that was Parson Lolly’s voice, the +same queer voice we heard the night before Mr. Bannerlee +came. And the second point is this. Late in the afternoon before +Sean met his death, Mr. Bannerlee was standing on the roof +outside his window. Crofts had told him how the sun strikes +the tumulus in Great Rhos at sunset. Mr. Bannerlee looked +down, as it chanced, and saw a tiny piece of rope beneath the +parapet that runs along there. It was lying at the edge of one +of the merlons, which have been scraped fairly smooth and have +their corners sharp. It is my belief that this scrap was part of +the clothes-line rope and that it had something to do with +Parson Lolly’s visit the night the conservatory window was +smashed, also on the night previous to Mr. Bannerlee’s +advent.”</p> + +<p>“Look here,” Crofts broke in. He had gradually been sliding +to the edge of his chair again. “Why can’t you give up +beating about the bush and tell us out and out?”</p> + +<p>“I’d have to go over it all anyhow,” returned Miss Lebetwood. +“I’m wondering if these straws seem to you to point the +way I think they do. You must let me tell this in my own +way. There isn’t much more, and for that I have to thank +Mr. Bannerlee also.”</p> + +<p>“You mean my visit to the tower?” I asked. “The Superintendent +could help you there. He must have scoured the place +long before me.”</p> + +<p>“He did, as it happens. But he left matters there as he found +them, and it was through reading your diary that I heard of +the variegated lot of objects which probably belonged to the +Parson. For instance, you found shavings from the pencil +which had written the placards. You also saw some splashes, +unquestionably the blood of the little pig. Then there were +fragments of wood and scraps of crêpe, left over from the +construction of the head. Another thing was a pungent smell +that you couldn’t identify. I think that was all except a +torn-off corner of the title-page of a book; something ending in +‘CATTI.’ I would have telegraphed for information about +that, too, this morning, but when I asked the Superintendent, +he was able to tell me right away what the book is. It’s been +quite a common one in Wales for generations: ‘The Adventures +and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti,’ who is described as +a wild wag of Wales. He was a real person two hundred years +ago, Mr. Salt told me, and a great many legends have sprung +up about him, so that his exploits as a highwayman and a hero +and a man of chivalry make up quite a readable book. It was +borrowed from your library, Crofts, but I noticed this +morning that it was back in its place.”</p> + +<p>Our host now seemed sunk in meditative gloom. “What +of it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, suppose I recapitulate. As I see it, the night before +Mr. Bannerlee came, the Parson intended to invade the House, +but his plans were awry. Although the head was made, he +didn’t bring it with him; this was to be an experimental sortie. +He came by way of the kitchen yard, and took down the +clothes-line that was hanging there and brought it with him. +He made a loop, a lasso, with one end of the rope and flung +it up the side of the House until he succeeded in drawing it +tight about one of the merlons of the battlement. Then he +began shouting through a megaphone, and even if you had +heard his voice previously you wouldn’t have recognized it +then. And he was still shouting while he commenced to walk up +the wall of the House.”</p> + +<p>I thought Crofts was going to levitate from his chair. “A +megaphone!”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear young lady,” objected Aire, “the man must +have had a hand too many. I grant you, he might have hauled +himself up the outside of the House, but he’d need both hands +for it; where does the megaphone come in?”</p> + +<p>“You people will interrupt,” said the American girl. “The +explanation is simple. The megaphone came from old Watts’ +storeroom, of course. Don’t you remember that there are +relics in there of early days of sport—even some oars and a +sliding seat from a shell? A rowing coxswain uses a megaphone, +doesn’t he, and there’s an attachment for keeping it +tight against his mouth while both hands are occupied with +the rudder chains. Parson Lolly, I imagine, can manage as +well as most coxswains. Anyhow, he <em>was</em> climbing, and +he <em>was</em> shouting when his foot slipped and there he dangled. +Instead of letting go the rope, he held on, and the result was +that he began to sway back and forth. Of course he tried to +steady himself by reaching one foot out to the wall, but instead +of checking his momentum he kicked away from the wall, and +his pendulum swing carried him neatly through the window +of the conservatory. He wasn’t as much as scratched.”</p> + +<p>“Unbelievable,” declared Crofts. “And supposing by a +miracle he wasn’t cut to pieces, what became of him?”</p> + +<p>The American girl went on quietly. “When my brother was +a high-school lad, he had a soccer ball at home. One evening +in an unlit hall he stepped on it accidentally and it sent him +clean through a glass door without his losing a drop of blood. +It isn’t an unusual thing, after all. As for how the Parson +got away, he really didn’t—then. You see, the swing of the +rope had gradually ground it to bits where it rubbed against +the sharpened merlon. When the Parson swung through the +window, the rope broke and he came down on his feet inside +the conservatory. Lucky for him, perhaps, that he did, if he +wanted to evade us, for all he had to do was to draw the +rope in after him and wait until we had spent our patience +looking for him in the grounds. None of us had a thought of +searching inside.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m—” Crofts muttered, breaking off into stupefaction. +No one else said a word, only stared at the American +girl, and waited.</p> + +<p>“That night we may assume Parson Lolly escaped as soon +as the coast was clear. But he escaped only to plan new +mischief for the next evening. And again his schemes miscarried. +I think it is easier to reconstruct what happened this +time. For one thing, he brought the head with him.” Crofts +seemed about to break in, but desisted. “He was carrying the +blood as well; he must have slaughtered the piglet a little +while before he set out from the tower, for the blood had not +begun to clot. Earlier, he had been prowling inside the House +and had pilfered the little battle-axe and the cap belonging to +Mr. Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>“But, dearest, you aren’t making it a bit clearer,” said +Alberta. “What could it have all been for?”</p> + +<p>“It was to give us the scare of our lives.”</p> + +<p>“And didn’t it?” muttered Oxford. “Dash him!”</p> + +<p>“But not as planned. Sean pointed that out at once, I believe. +The Parson’s intention that night was to stage a fictitious +murder. There were the weapon, the gore, and the hat which +was to be discovered reeking with blood. We were to find these +things, and in the midst of our excitement we were to be +thrown into a panic when the head—went off—probably +somewhere on the battlement, or even above.”</p> + +<p>“The head, the infernal head!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Crofts; it appeared when they dug it up this +afternoon—Harmony told me—that it had been constructed somewhat +like a kite and could have been flown quite easily. That +occurred, in fact. When Millicent and I inadvertently crossed +the Parson’s path and he dropped everything and legged it, the +kite did fly up a little way, and then—went off.” She +addressed me. “When it crashed to the ground, Mr. Bannerlee, +the Parson still held the cord, and you distinguished the head +as a black mass sliding across the lawn.”</p> + +<p>“I grant you the kite and the rest of the fol-de-rol,” cut in +Lord Ludlow, in a voice like the broken edge of a cake +of ice. “I fancy, however, that this ‘going off,’ as you call it, +needs more explanation than you’ll readily find.”</p> + +<p>“The hellish thing couldn’t have been lit with a match like +a Hallowe’en turnip,” added Crofts.</p> + +<p>The American girl slowly shook her head and smiled. “On +the contrary, for me that was about the easiest guess of all as +soon as I read how Mr. Bannerlee smelt powder in the tower. +Don’t you see, the Parson must have carried a small dry +battery connected by a length of wire with the magnesium charge +in the head? It was an ordinary flash-light powder such as is +used for taking photographs.”</p> + +<p>There was a long interval of sagging silence. I cannot +speak for others, but my own mind struggled with an obstacle +it could not grasp. There must be some egregious contradiction +involved in this idea. Flashlight! Who had owned a +flashlight?</p> + +<p>“But, Miss Lebetwood, you yourself—it can’t be—you’re +the photography expert here. You didn’t—yourself—”</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment! I’ve got it!” Aire whistled. “Someone told +me other other day—you’d been teaching Toby how to take +flashlight photographs. Didn’t you bring down some old +apparatus of yours and give it to him last week?”</p> + +<p>“Quite right,” said the American girl. “It’s been Toby all +along, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Toby!” Crofts was only beginning to see the light.</p> + +<p>“Toby, who else?”</p> + +<p>“God!” Crofts seemed to choke for breath. “Do you mean +to say that lad killed Cosgrove—killed Heatheringham? I can’t +believe it.”</p> + +<p>“He never killed anybody. Don’t you see, Parson Lolly has +no connection with these murders?”</p> + +<p>“Eh, what?”</p> + +<p>“Well, what do you know about that?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be switched!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be damned!”</p> + +<p>The American girl gave Ludlow a particular look. “It hardly +needed the new psychology to give us the right lead. I’m +amazed, really I am, that no one has thought of it before. +Why, what activities did the Parson engage in? His plots +were just the sort of thing that an artless—and artful—child +would plan to frighten a grown person.”</p> + +<p>“Or a grown person to frighten a child,” appended Aire.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think so, but there could be no such intention here, +of course. As soon as I got my wits about me the night Mr. +Bannerlee arrived, I suspected some juvenile escapade. The details +unfolded to fit the theory. There was the little battle-axe +from low on the wall, whereas the big ones hung out of reach. +That later night, who but a small boy could have crawled +underneath the arch of the bridge in the park when the Doctor +and Mr. Bannerlee were so brisk on his trail? Then there +was the book: hardly anyone but a lad nowadays would take +much interest in a work as naïve as ‘Twm Shon Catti.’ A +boy, however, might be much struck with it, and it probably +fired Toby to emulation of Twm—a bloodyish emulation. +There was his cloak, too—that was rather puerile, although it +was a neat dodge all the same.”</p> + +<p>“Where does the neat dodge come in?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Why, to add to his stature. A tiny Parson Lolly would be +in danger of being identified with a boy, if there happened to +be a boy in the neighbourhood. That was the reason for the +exceedingly large and flowing garb. He must have had strapped +to his shoulders one of those contrivances that magicians use +to ‘produce’ objects, an apparatus that could be folded or +extended by pressure on some spring. No wonder Millicent and +I saw no head on him! That sort of stunt is as old as conjuring, +I believe, and the appliance probably came from the +exhaustless variety of old Watts’ attics.”</p> + +<p>The American girl leaned back in her chair, settling her +head against the leather and closing her eyes, as if grateful for +a chance to rest. The accumulation of details which she had +picked out left no doubt whatever that the houseful of us +had been hoaxed and flummoxed by a child, that Aidenn Vale +was Cock Lane repeated on a twentieth century scale.</p> + +<p><em>But it could not be!</em></p> + +<p>There were facts, cold, stony facts, that loomed mountain +high, cutting off this path. These facts could not be avoided.</p> + +<p>“But, Miss Lebetwood!” I cried hoarsely, “it won’t do.”</p> + +<p>“Won’t do!” resounded the voice of our host, a man of +imponderable mind.</p> + +<p>“The placards!” I insisted. “Why, I remember clearly the +one in Cosgrove’s room had been left after Toby had gone to +wherever-it-was to fetch my bag—absolutely no question about +that. That afternoon, too, the one Mrs. Bartholomew picked up +by the library tower: I’ll swear by the beard of the Prophet +it wasn’t there when I went past a few minutes before the +tragedy occurred. And Toby was peeling potatoes then. It’s +inconceivable—absolutely inconceivable—that he could have +had anything to do with them.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes still shut, Miss Lebetwood said quietly, “I think +I can tell who it was. Not Toby, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t +alter the rest of what I’ve said about him. Toby didn’t write +those placards, or leave them, and I am sure he knows no +more about them than he knows about—that one there!”</p> + +<p>The hair at the back of my neck prickled, and my spine +seemed to be wriggling in convulsions. A dozen cries, loud or +stunned, sounded as if from one multi-vocal throat. For the +American girl’s eyes were open now, and her arm pointed to +the musicians’ gallery. Indistinct, hanging outside the bright +zone of the globe, but unmistakable, a fifth placard was +suspended from the rail of the balustrade.</p> + +<p>“My God!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll take oath that wasn’t there when we came in,” declared +Crofts, and many voices supported him.</p> + +<p>It was I who rose like a brisk automaton, kicked my chair +back against the wall, and sped up the stairs to the gallery, +where I had never set foot before. The placard hung by a black +thread attached to a pin. I seized it, carried it down to the +light. Now we might have been some multi-headed creature +studying the inscription:</p> + +<blockquote class="placard"> + + <p>TOnigHT my LAst NiGHt BeSt REGards PARSON + LOLLY</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Only the American girl remained limp in her chair, not +bending forward for a sight of the words. While my gaze, as +it must, fell on her and lingered there, ever such a shadowy +smile crept from her lips to her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Good people, good, good people, please don’t misjudge me. +That placard has been hanging there since long before you +came in. You didn’t see it because you weren’t on the look-out +for it.”</p> + +<p>“You knew it was there?” Crofts boomed. “And you didn’t +warn us?”</p> + +<p>“Warn you? Against myself?”</p> + +<p>“Against yourself, dearest?” cried Millicent Mertoun, her +face suddenly worn with anxiety.</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood said, “I wrote that placard. I wrote it this +evening and put it up there after Marvel’s crystal-gazing +to-night. I did it just to show you that anybody could make a +placard like that. This is the fifth, and perhaps the four others +were done by four different persons.”</p> + +<p>Accompanying the last words of her speech, the first strokes +of twelve began to sound from the clock in the corner. There +was a spell in the sound of its old music. We were hushed.</p> + +<p>For the only time I saw Lord Ludlow’s face absolutely grey +with fear. “There’s something moving in the wall!”</p> + +<p>“Not in the wall—on the wall!”</p> + +<p>Indeed, high up, above our solitary light, something rubbed +and scraped near the portrait of Sir Pharamond. From +somewhere else in the room came a soft murmur, as of a +smooth-running reel. Belvoir caught hold of the bulb by its brass top +and raised it overhead. Within the brightness now, the colours +of the portrait were sharper and more brilliant than they had +appeared in the austere dimness of the Hall.</p> + +<p>But Sir Pharamond was not still; he writhed and rocked, +and a loud outcry was evidence we saw the blood oozing from +the wound upon his cheek.</p> + +<p>A moment later down fell Sir Pharamond with a sound of +splintering wood and ripping canvas. The wall where the +portrait had been was quite smooth and blank.</p> + +<p>The quiet chime of the old clock had not ceased to ring.</p> + +<div class="footnotesep"></div> + +<p class="footnote" id="note6">¹ +The original has been supplied. (<span class="notesig">V. Markham.</span>) +<a href="#noteref6">↩︎</a></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch27"> + +<h2>XXVII. <br> The Purr of the Cat!</h2> + +<p>Blood on the pallid cheek of Sir Pharamond, and +his downfall, as had been prophesied in the olden time! I saw +no one else, heard no one else, only gaped at the ruined +portrait and was conscious of the clock’s melodious voice. An +epoch seemed to pass before my senses ceased to dance, and I +found myself one of the faltering semicircle which closed about +the shattered portrait.</p> + +<p>But beyond the area of brightness I made out indistinctly +the most amazing thing of all. The sisters Delambre sat by +the fireplace precisely as they had been since we entered the +Hall. The short, stodgy one seemed quite absorbed in the +flickering embers; the taller of the two had merely turned her +head in our direction. Even the Constable seemed bereft of +reflexes. This lack of surprise, this apathy, this uncanny silence +impressed me just then as a thing more incredible than the +disaster close at hand.</p> + +<p>I still stared at the strange pair, while conscious that Aire +had slipped before us, standing over the wreck of the portrait. +He turned and faced us, and the small voice of the man seemed +charged with a booming importance.</p> + +<p>I heard him vaguely. “I told Salt,” came in somewhere, and +then, “Crofts put me up to it, really.”</p> + +<p>“You’re crazy, crazy,” claimed Crofts.</p> + +<p>“I tell you it never would have happened if you hadn’t +been so fractious this morning. I said this sort of thing might +conceivably take place. Well, it has, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>Eve Bartholomew ventured. “You mean that you—you—”</p> + +<p>“Very simply indeed.” Aire hunched his shoulders appreciatively. +“A matter of two spools and a bit of string connected +with the mechanism of the chimes. A scurvy conjurer’s trick; +that’s all. I apologize.”</p> + +<p>“But the blood!” I cried in a sudden access of emotion. +“Spools and strings don’t produce blood. I saw it oozing from +the cheek!”</p> + +<p>Aire smiled, shook his head slightly. “No, they don’t. But +then, you didn’t see blood oozing from the cheek.”</p> + +<p>Half a dozen hot affirmatives contradicted him.</p> + +<p>“I tell you no. You’re all acquainted with the prophecy of +the bloody cheek, and you were all hypnotized.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t try to tell me,” bullied Crofts, brushing the little man +aside and bending to the wreckage.</p> + +<p>Aire smiled dryly. “That’s not blood, you see; it’s painted +blood.”</p> + +<p>“Wh‑at!” cried Crofts, holding up a portion of the canvas. +“You daubed this stuff on my painting?”</p> + +<p>“Not I; Maryvale. And that’s not your painting, by the +way.”</p> + +<p>Crofts could only mutter.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be disturbed, my friend. This portrait is a rush order, +as they say in America, a copy done for me this afternoon by +Maryvale. You’ll find the original under his mattress, poor +chap.”</p> + +<p>“Well, of all—” Crofts relapsed into dumb glowering.</p> + +<p>Aire made a slight movement of disdain. “Why be so upset? +It was only a trick—a cheap trick, I admit—and I take the full +responsibility, ladies and gentlemen. I almost wish it hadn’t +occurred, but dogmatic people sometimes get on my nerves. +And now let’s forget about it and get back to the table; we +were really learning something there. Paula, I hope this hasn’t +too awfully disconcerted you? You can go on with it?”</p> + +<p>She forced a smile. “Yes, certainly. Do come on, people; it’s +getting awfully late.”</p> + +<p>We returned to our places not much more comforted than +when we had sprung from them a few minutes before. It was +all very well to speak of parlour tricks, but there was no ease in +sitting around the table in that darkened room with those +images of lethargy dwelling by the fire, and no cheer in waiting +through the lonesome night, wondering from what direction +some new terror might leap upon us. But there we were.</p> + +<p>“. . . bearings of Sean’s death,” Paula Lebetwood was +saying. She went on in a strange voice: “He was struck and +fell dying where I found him by the tower. Then the weapon, +as we now know, was hurled down there, too. But we have to +admit that as far as we can tell none of us could have been at +the tower at that time. Nobody except Wheeler met Sean—or +will admit he did—after our quarrel in the Hall. So, stated +in those terms, there is an irreconcilable contradiction in Sean’s +death. Only there is no contradiction save in words; for we +know, well enough, that somebody <em>must</em> have struck him, and +therefore somebody must have been there.</p> + +<p>“In Mr. Heatheringham’s death there were differences, +though in some respects it was much the same. In the first +place, he must have seen something hostile or there would have +been no revolver shot. The trail of blood across the floor, too, +showed what had been the murderer’s line of retreat. But the +most unusual thing, surely, is one that Doctor Aire can explain +better than I. Will you, Doctor?”</p> + +<p>Aire looked at her inquiringly. “I suppose you mean the +rigidity—cadaveric spasm, as we call it? What do you want +me to—?”</p> + +<p>“It shows something about the way he was killed, doesn’t +it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it does. The topic is of great interest to one of my +profession; we come across it so seldom, save on the battlefield. +We know something about it, though, enough to be sure that +there are certain definite predisposing factors.”</p> + +<p>She nodded. “Yes, I meant that. Please go on.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Sudden</em> death is one, and death due to violent disturbance +of nervous system. Then the last contraction of the muscles +during life persists with more rigidity even than in the +usual <i>rigor</i>.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you people see what I mean by harping on these +gruesome things,” said the girl. “Thank you, Doctor. This +abnormal state of things taken with the shot through the broken +window proves that Mr. Heatheringham was killed right where +we found him. I mean he couldn’t have been bludgeoned +outside—say where I found Sean lying—and have crawled back +into the Hall and raised himself to the window to fire at +whoever might have been there. So far, we have no idea who +was with him; yet I think it must have been one of the +servants or one of us—more likely one of us.”</p> + +<p>No one chose to say anything in the brief silence she left. +Presently, in a fresher tone, she resumed.</p> + +<p>“That’s how the problem stood yesterday: just death, simple +and inexplicable—violent death without a real motive—violent +death without an agent, apparently. Even the discovery of the +stone has been no help in finding the agent; anybody could have +grabbed a stone from the rockery.”</p> + +<p>Crofts muttered, “Why go over all that again? We’ve known +it from the start.”</p> + +<p>“I apologize. I only mentioned those things to go on to say +that it’s useless to think about them any longer. We could +continue for weeks and months mulling over motive and +method—mulling over time and place and all the rest of it that makes +an endless circle. Last night, though, I thought of a new +way.”</p> + +<p>“New?” the words sprang from Belvoir’s lips.</p> + +<p>She paused and looked about the table. “I—I’m a little +nervous about telling you my idea. The thing was, I suddenly +thought of Mr. Bannerlee’s diary.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a fine one!” I put in ironically. “You thought of +it when nobody but Crofts and Heatheringham had ever heard +of it—unless Heatheringham told Salt!”</p> + +<p>“As it happens, I’ve known about it all along. A few minutes +before luncheon the day of Sean’s death, you and Crofts +came upstairs to the first-storey landing together. I had changed +after playing tennis and was just going downstairs. Although +the two of you suddenly lowered your voices when you saw me, +I had already heard you, Mr. Bannerlee, say that you had been +up till nearly morning and had done more than five thousand +words. Crofts said he hoped you had got it straight, and that +left no doubt what you had been writing. But I was much too +polite, then, to let you know I guessed what you were doing. . . . +And before I go on, people, let me say that as far as I +can tell, no record has ever been written with fewer +mistakes.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” I acknowledged.</p> + +<p>“Humanly and”—here she slipped in a smile—“archæologically +speaking, that is. You can’t expect one person to write +a story that would satisfy every question that flits through +another person’s mind. I’m not sure that I like his style, either,” +she remarked, rather abstractedly, “though you couldn’t judge +it very well in that fragmentary state—except, I think, he +fancies his power of description and likes to make a passage +effective now and then. But while I read, I began to feel the +diary was just suited to the purpose I had in mind.”</p> + +<p>“Which was—?” said Lord Ludlow, who gave the +impression of long-suffering patience.</p> + +<p>“I wanted to find the killer without bothering how he killed. +I expected the diary would help me to look on all you people +divested of my own prejudices. Through the diary I could +judge you more fairly, and more strictly than I could in my own +mind. Meeting you there would be like meeting new persons, +all of you except Crofts and Alberta being new to Mr. +Bannerlee. The diary is really full of side-lights on people and +little bits of character. Maybe, though, I was expecting too +much from Mr. Bannerlee. How could he come to know us in +a day, or a week? He couldn’t. He saw us only from the outside +and the diary reveals only the outside of us. Without being +disrespectful either to you or to Mr. Bannerlee, I must say I +was reminded of clowns in a circus. Most of us seemed to be +doing the same thing over and over again. Ted Belvoir and +Lord Ludlow were eternally carrying on a silly debate; Eve +was making a fresh prophecy every day, and not one of them +came true; Crofts seemed to be growing grouchier every time +he was mentioned; Gilbert Maryvale spent most of his afternoons +leaving cryptic remarks about, so to speak; Lib’s mission +in life was talking gibberish to Mr. Bannerlee. Everyone +seemed to be posing as an idiot, quite an innocent idiot. Well, it +turned out that my most important discovery in the diary +wasn’t a character after all, but a fact.”</p> + +<p>“A fact you didn’t know before?” asked Belvoir.</p> + +<p>The American girl smiled faintly. “First of all, though, if +Mr. Bannerlee doesn’t mind, I want to tell you the big secret +he’s been keeping from us. Do you mind, Mr. Bannerlee?”</p> + +<p>I bowed the responsibility on to her shoulders with a smile. +“I think you should tell us beforehand how you found +out—what you did. I’d like to know myself.”</p> + +<p>“I was going to. People, you remember the other day, Mr. +Bannerlee went on the hilltops again, and he was so taken with +the view of distant mountains that he drew sighting lines on his +map to show which ones were visible. The sighting lines, of +course, were drawn from the same spot, and that spot was on +Whimble. After orienting his map, he squinted across it, +looking toward the Malvern Hills and the Black Mountain and +elsewhere to establish lines of vision. He could even see to +Plinlimon; that’s about thirty miles away. You did see +Plinlimon that day, didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that was how I knew you hadn’t been on Whimble, +whose highest point has an elevation of about 1950 feet. The +highest point on Plinlimon is less than 2500. Thirty miles +apart and only five hundred feet difference. Now, if Mr. +Bannerlee stood anywhere on Whimble and he looked toward +Plinlimon, Great Rhos, just across the Vale, would be between +him and the mountain. Great Rhos is a flattish sort of +hill, and its elevation is 2166. Think that over.”</p> + +<p>“How idiotically, infernally stupid of me!” I cried.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t see—” said Eve Bartholomew blankly.</p> + +<p>Others about the table uttered exclamations that showed +their understanding or betrayed their confusion.</p> + +<p>The American girl turned to Mrs. Bartholomew. “You see, +dear, if you were nineteen feet high and wanted to see +something ten yards away that was five feet higher than you, you +couldn’t do it if there was a wall a foot higher than you less +than a yard away.”</p> + +<p>To give her credit, Mrs. Bartholomew grasped the point +instantly. But she still was dubious. “Then how did Mr. +Bannerlee see the mountain?”</p> + +<p>“He must have been somewhere else.”</p> + +<p>“But you said he <em>said</em> he was on Whimble.”</p> + +<p>I laughed. “No, I didn’t say so, Mrs. Bartholomew. I was +satisfied to let people think so, though.”</p> + +<p>“Why was that?” interjected Lord Ludlow sharply.</p> + +<p>The American girl turned to him. “He wanted to reserve a +little share of glory for himself. Why should he have told us +his special secret, or even write it down in the House, before +he knew what kind of people we were? I think Mr. +Bannerlee was very sensible.”</p> + +<p>I smiled, recalling a somewhat different reaction to my +“antiquarianism” that afternoon.</p> + +<p>“But what does it all mean?” Mrs. Bartholomew came in +plaintively.</p> + +<p>“That’s what I wondered this morning,” answered the American +girl. “Mr. Bannerlee, I suppose by this time you know the +reason why I took that campstool; in fact, you had written the +reason yourself somewhere. ‘What a difference a few feet make +in the prospect!’ You are a bit taller than I am, and there was +just that barest risk that you could see further from Whimble +than I could. But when I reached the tippy-top of the hill and +set my campstool there and stood on it, I knew I had as good +a chance as you of peeping over Great Rhos. But I couldn’t. +So I knew you must have been somewhere else when you saw +Plinlimon, and I could only suppose that the reason you’d +hidden your whereabouts was your discovery of the oratory, +after three hundred years.”</p> + +<p>“The oratory!” Doctor Aire reached out a hand to me. “My +congratulations, Bannerlee!”</p> + +<p>“And mine!” said Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“After three hundred years!”</p> + +<p>“The oratory!” cried Lib. “Bannerlee, you’ve been false +to me. Couldn’t you trust lil’ Lib?”</p> + +<p>“So that was it,” muttered Crofts. “You needn’t have been +so close about it.”</p> + +<p>“Really a downy bird,” giggled Alberta.</p> + +<p>I faced the American girl. “This is almost—gratuitous, you +know. These unfortunate people are waiting for you to cast +some light upon their darkness, not to herald any trifling +discovery of mine.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I <em>had</em> better be getting on toward solving the mystery, +if we’re ever to be done to-night. The queer thing is that +guessing about Mr. Bannerlee’s discovery is what put me on +some sort of a track. In fact, if Mr. Bannerlee’s matches hadn’t +given out that afternoon he saw the rainbow, I never, never +would have seen the path—that sounds like a figure of speech +almost, and a paradox, but I mean just that.”</p> + +<p>“Matches!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mr. Bannerlee, by the time you had reached the +House you might have been excused for thinking Fate was +playing with you. And, by the way, people, a little while ago +Mr. Bannerlee explained to me how he had brought his quarto +of Sylvan Armitage to Radnorshire with him after all. Naturally, +when he left it in the oratory by chance, he did not care +to tell us about it, on account of his precious secret. So he +had just recovered his copy and was bringing it down the +Vale with him that afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you going to get out of the sixteenth century?” +inquired Ludlow. “It seems to me that you are leading this +discussion along the lines of a wranglers’ tea-party.”</p> + +<p>“Do forgive me for wasting so much time. The Book of +Sylvan Armitage interests me so much; indeed, it helped me +tremendously. Mr. Bannerlee caught me reading it the other +night; did he tell you?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing criminal in that,” said Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“N‑no, but it was slightly—unconventional. The passage +where Armitage happened upon the oratory was an admirable +parallel to Mr. Bannerlee’s account in his diary, as I learned +later. Yes, I came to be very glad indeed that I had stolen +down at midnight to get the Book. . . . Now, people, I can’t +go any further without telling you another secret about Mr. +Bannerlee. He won’t forgive me for this, I’m afraid. But he’s +not only a gentleman and a scholar”—I suppressed my indignation +at this outrageous statement—“not only a discoverer +of things so old that they are new—he is also an altruist!”</p> + +<p>I bowed my head giddily under this monstrous charge, and +heard her go on to say: “He is defending one of us, one, I think, +whom he had never seen before!”</p> + +<p>If dismay were a sign of guilt, there was not an innocent +one among them. Their alarm testified, I think, to the fact +that they had hoped, and hope begot belief, that the crime +would be traced at last to someone outside the Vale. They +had all been innocent to each other before; now to suppose +the murderer sat among them was a shock as great as murder +itself.</p> + +<p>“Someone in this room?” whispered Crofts in a voice far +different from his bullying voice.</p> + +<p>“Someone at this table?” asked Eve Bartholomew.</p> + +<p>“Someone at this table.”</p> + +<p>Belvoir made a show of pulling himself together. “See here, +Bannerlee, is this true?”</p> + +<p>“That’s not a fair question, is it?” said the American girl. +“Mr. Bannerlee cannot know how much I know about—”</p> + +<p>I said, “Frankly, Miss Lebetwood, you are not being as direct +as you promised to be. I am at a loss as to the ‘altruism’ you +refer to. Tell us plainly what you mean, and perhaps I can +be of some assistance. You are mistaken if you believe that I +would shield anyone for a moment who had deliberate murder +at his door.”</p> + +<p>“That’s fair. Well, my trump-card is that I know who +burned the evidence that incriminated one of us; no matter +how I know. You burnt it, Mr. Bannerlee, you yourself.”</p> + +<p>Their haggard white faces were turned on me. I felt my +cheeks flush. “I think you are alarming our fellow-guests +without good reason. Why, granting, as you believe, I <em>did</em> drop +the paper in the fire, and supposing there were the least +connection between the writer and the crime—which seems +improbable—the mere fact that the Book at this moment belongs to +Crofts’ library doesn’t indicate that one of you discovered the +parchment during some visit here and filled an idle hour doing +its contents into an obsolete style of English. None of you, as far +as I know, are Celtic experts.”</p> + +<p>“Emphatically!” declared Lord Ludlow, fixing a reproachful +gaze on the American girl. “Miss, you are confusing a wild +shot in the dark with the reasoning process. This piece of +translator’s work, probably done by someone outside this Valley +and quite unknown to us, can have no connection with any +atrocity committed here. You are far afield, and I do not think +you will help us much unless, as I said, you lift us from the +plane of a wranglers’ tea-party.”</p> + +<p>“You may be right,” she confessed. “I shan’t try to convince +you. But it was a tempting lead. And surely it’s not true to +say there’s no connection between the parchment story and +events which have occurred this week.” Elbows on table, she +rested her head on her hands, speaking very thoughtfully. “For +instance, in the old story Hughes related after lunch that day +he called this place the castle on the mill-site. An old, old map +in the library gives Aidenn Vale as ‘Cwm Melin,’ which means +‘Mill Valley,’ I’ve learned, and that is what the Vale was +called in the manuscript; do you remember? The parchment +explains, too, what was meant by the ‘spanning and roofing +of the waters,’ one of Mr. Maryvale’s mystifying utterances. +It referred simply to the fact that when Sir Pharamond built +his second castle here, he roofed in the Water; I suppose the +present stream beyond the towers is a deflected one and the +channel where Sir Brooke was found is the original course. +That may seem far-fetched, but the proof is that Doctor Aire +took from Sir Brooke’s forehead a splinter of the petrified +wood of the mill-wheel itself. When Sir Brooke was carried +down the subterranean stream, his body must have collided with +the edge of the mill-wheel, and passed on. Mr. Bannerlee, in his +expedition to the cellar, must have actually seen the casing of +the wheel, all overgrown with hideous fungi. So there <em>are</em> +connections, of a sort.”</p> + +<p>“Quite interesting in the abstract,” said Ludlow tartly. “We +are looking for something, however, which has a tangible link +with a crime of violence. May I suggest that if you have +nothing more to offer us, this meeting adjourns?”</p> + +<p>She had not lifted her head; her fists ground into her forehead. +“I shall try to satisfy you, sir, again with Mr. Bannerlee’s +assistance. I think you will recall that there was a sentence +in the parchment to the effect that Sir Pharamond disposed of +his enemies ‘with no more trouble than snuffing a night-light.’ +Now, within five minutes after reaching the House, Mr. +Bannerlee discovered a curious thing. Looking through the +armoury window, he saw <em>you</em>, Ludlow. <em>And what were you +doing there? You were snuffing a candle that stood in the old +bracket on the wall!</em>”</p> + +<p>Ludlow’s chair was flung back. He was on his feet, +putty-faced, staring at her in utter consternation.</p> + +<p>“Are you accusing me?”</p> + +<p>Before she could answer, our attention swung to the other +end of the Hall. From somewhere in that semi-darkness came +a muffled rasping sound, as of some huge beast that purred.</p> + +<p>Crofts was on his feet now, with eyes that strained to +overcome the gloom. He called, “What’s that?”</p> + +<p>Aire strode half-way to the fireplace, turning his head this +way and that. “There <em>is</em> something moving in the wall this time. +Only where?”</p> + +<p>“No!” I shouted, above the increasing hubbub. “IT’S THE +PURR OF THE CAT! The purr of the cat means death! +Clear the Hall!”</p> + +<p>But I was too late. A glaring light leaped from nowhere, +light so intense it pierced the brain. The walls and roof blazed +with white fire. The persons in the Hall were like figures of +clay, presented and fixed for all eternity in one or another cast +of horror. Some had cowered back beneath the gallery, some +had their hands before their faces, some were forever fleeing, +foot lifted, toward the door.</p> + +<p>The Constable and one of the sisters had retreated from +the chimney-piece, while the other woman stooped low before +the fireplace. A thing with the size and form of a man had been +lying there at their feet, unseen. In this white instant I saw +the woman grasp this figure, raising it above her head.</p> + +<p>The collapse of the mantelshelf—a black projectile flying +toward me and veering away—a stunning crash—a long greedy +laughter rising from below, clutching us, tearing us, subsiding +in a sudden burst of silence.</p> + +<p>Darkness succeeded light. The strong arm of the Delambre +woman still held the man upright: a headless body.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch28"> + +<h2>XXVIII. <br> The Crash</h2> + +<p>Again I smelt powder.</p> + +<p>In tingling silence some of us crossed the Hall and regarded +the headless thing. Belvoir lit the other chandelier, and in its +sparkle, to my immeasurable relief, the figure proved to be +the scarecrow which had served in the sisters’ field. The +woman who had stooped in the fireplace and held the effigy in +the path of the leaping, swinging bar sat in her chair, again +impassive. I noted her admirable hands, strong and hairy like +a man’s, her face, broad and full of flesh, but firm and capable. +The bumpkinish policeman touched me on the sleeve and +pointed to the table, a sign we should keep to our own end of +the Hall.</p> + +<p>I noted a disturbance there. Crofts, towering over the American +girl, shook her with rude fingers clamped into her +shoulders.</p> + +<p>“You—you—”</p> + +<p>While I returned to our group, I was struck with the curious +feeling that someone was missing there. Someone had slipped +out. Vaguely I wondered who it had been, and whether his +absence would be revealed when we took our places once +more. But we were not to sit down together again that night.</p> + +<p>The American girl had drawn away from Crofts and stood +looking at him, not angrily, but with a certain speculation in +her gaze. My blood rushed up when I saw her white skin +bruised by the marks his fingers had made. She said, “You +think I—?”</p> + +<p>“Murderess!” That was like Crofts.</p> + +<p>Several of us protested at his folly; the rest were horrified +into dumbness.</p> + +<p>Her steady gaze did not fail. “You do suspect me. So did +Mr. Heatheringham—and Mr. Blenkinson has done me the +honour also. But I didn’t do it, people, and—sometimes—I +wonder if anybody did . . . at least in the sense we’ve been +thinking.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody did! with that damned engine—that thunderbolt! +Nobody did!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t shout so. That engine, as you call it, was Mr. +Salt’s discovery this afternoon while the House was cleared. I +had nothing to do with it just now.”</p> + +<p>Crofts’ jaw fell. “Cleared? The House cleared? There +wasn’t anything in this ‘lost’ business?”</p> + +<p>“Very little. I did want to find Mr. Bannerlee’s oratory, +but principally I hoped to draw you kind people out of the +Vale. Mr. Salt and I have been associated in a lawful +conspiracy. He and the Scotland Yard Inspector—”</p> + +<p>“Who?”</p> + +<p>“The Scotland Yard man. He was to arrive at New Aidenn +by motor early in the afternoon since the trains were slow. +While the House was empty, they investigated, and found +this machine. Mr. Salt expected something like it. This was +the real weapon, of course; that stone half buried in the loam +was a blind.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve known this—long?”</p> + +<p>“How could I? I had a hint of it when I kept finding in +so many places how the old castle here was built on a mill-site: +Cwm Melin, you know. It even happened that Mr. Bannerlee +knew that name and that name only for this place. He had +never heard of Aidenn Vale.”</p> + +<p>“The devil with Bannerlee. What’s a mill got to do with it?”</p> + +<p>“The mill-wheel, don’t you see, winds up the spring of the +machine. It must be quite automatic, and I dare say at this +moment the cat’s claw—I suppose that’s what it is—the long +heavy arm of iron, is ready to leap out again.”</p> + +<p>Doctor Aire’s face revealed a ferment within. “By jingo—I +think I have it. That mocking roar—hideous—was the sound +of water tumbling into a cistern, or a heavy cask. Then if the +cistern discharged over the wheel, the gear actuating the arm +would wind until—yes, by thunder, that’s it!”</p> + +<p>“What’s what?”</p> + +<p>“We heard the purr. That was the gear winding against the +resistance of the spring—a sword-spring, perhaps. When the +tension exceeded the strength of the spring, the accursed thing +let fly. There must be a shaft. . . .” The Doctor lapsed into +mumbling.</p> + +<p>“Beneath the perfidious tree!” screamed Mrs. Bartholomew +so suddenly that we all jumped. “What does that mean?”</p> + +<p>Miss Lebetwood answered, “There was once a cross—see +the traces—carved on the chimney.”</p> + +<p>Aire had his eye shrewdly on her. “We can credit you with +the flashlight, can’t we?”</p> + +<p>She nodded. “Yes; the camera’s in the gallery, and there +were powders attached to several places on the wall. Constable +Pritchard manipulated the electric button that ignited +them. I hope we have obtained a decent picture of the claw in +mid-air.”</p> + +<p>“But who—who’s responsible?” asked Mrs. Bartholomew +plaintively, with outspread hands.</p> + +<p>“Dead too long to make any difference,” said Aire.</p> + +<p>“Could this, er, machine last for centuries?” Crofts +demanded, shouldering his way to the Doctor.</p> + +<p>“For millenniums, without oiling,” returned Aire. “Why not? +The really important thing is—”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got it!” I cried. “About your question, Mrs. +Bartholomew. Remember, Miss Lebetwood, what Maryvale told +me the day he finished his picture? Someone, he said, of the +house of Kay. And, by heaven, he was right!”</p> + +<p>“The really necessary thing,” persisted Aire, “is to dismantle +this machine without getting killed. It will be ticklish work, +though, since it’s automatically prepared to lunge out with its +claw on five seconds’ notice. We’ll have to make a start with +the cistern and the wheel.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not the first thing, Doctor,” said the American girl.</p> + +<p>Aire turned toward her in surprise. “Nothing can be more +urgent. You wouldn’t leave this thing for a night or for an +hour, would you, like a gun primed and cocked? Why, at any +moment, sooner or later, the equilibrium—”</p> + +<p>“I think not, and if we hear the purr again we can keep our +distance. Something needs to be done, however, before you +take the machine apart. We must find the real murderer.”</p> + +<p>We gave vent to all kinds of sounds, mainly incredulous.</p> + +<p>“Listen! We have <em>not</em> discovered yet the person here who +knows Welsh and whom Mr. Bannerlee is shielding.”</p> + +<p>I commenced a vain “I haven’t admitted—” but my speech +was charged down.</p> + +<p>“I can prove you are!” she cried. “Yes, sir! I want to know +why you are shielding him, or her. All day long I haven’t got +my mind off those matches you wanted so badly after recovering +your own copy of the Book. Do you know, it’s my belief +you knew you were carrying evidence dangerous to someone, +and you wanted to destroy it before you reached the House. I +think it was the translation you actually did destroy later on.”</p> + +<p>“Look here—” put in Crofts, reaching out a hand. His face +might have been that of a man sinking under water for the +third time. “Look here—”</p> + +<p>“Crofts!” cried Alberta, her eyes bright with agony.</p> + +<p>“The parchment and translation were in old Watts’ copy,” +Belvoir snapped.</p> + +<p>I doubt if she heard them, intent as she was on the molten +stream of her thought. “This translation, done off-hand, +betrayed someone of us who had a competent knowledge of Welsh +and consequently a head-start, at any rate, in knowledge of the +cat’s claw.”</p> + +<p>“It was in old Watts’ copy,” muttered Belvoir.</p> + +<p>“When you came into the library, Mr. Bannerlee, you were +about satiated with your attempts to burn the paper. But even +if you couldn’t destroy it, you could get it off your person, +and you did that. You told how you ‘reached your hand up +into a dark corner,’ and you might have added ‘and changed +my quarto with the one on the shelf.’ What happened a few +minutes later when you and Lib were looking over your copy? +A flake of moss fell to the floor; Lib must have noticed it, +for you were scrupulous to mention it in the diary, and you +passed it off with some remark about careless dusting. But I +read in Armitage about moss, and I read about mossy stones +in the diary, and I’ve seen plenty of mossy ones around the +oratory, and you can’t tell me that the copy with the parchment +in it wasn’t the one you’d left up there last week. So I imagine +you knew well enough what Lib had found when she called out +to you while you were leaving the library.”</p> + +<p>“How absurd!” I cried.</p> + +<p>“ ‘Imagine’ is a well-chosen word,” said Lord Ludlow +crisply. “I am not much edified by this botanical excursion. +You can’t accuse a man of being accessory to murder because +of the way he turns a phrase.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks, Ludlow,” I nodded. “There’s no need, really—”</p> + +<p>“The thing I am driving at,” said the American girl in a +quiet little voice that drilled its way into our brains, “is that +you, Mr. Bannerlee, wrote the translation yourself. There is +no other conclusion, is there?”</p> + +<p>“Wilder and wilder!” I exclaimed. “This is too bad, Miss +Lebetwood, when you’ve realized all along that I have no +knowledge of Welsh.”</p> + +<p>Our speech had settled into a duel with unmerciful give-and-take. +“Are you sure? Consider this: In the diary your early +references to the Welsh language were all natural and +ambiguous, which puzzled me mightily when I came to other +things later on. Then I saw that you must be taking advantage +of those early references to conceal the fact that you are +really quite adept in Welsh.”</p> + +<p>“Took advantage? That’s rather strong, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, just think. You made a pun on the name of St. Tarw, +which means ‘bull.’ You even went out of your way to use +an American expression, that it was a ‘bully name.’ A little +later, when the man you call the gorilla-man shouted at you in +Irish, you knew quite definitely that he did <em>not</em> shout in +Welsh, although Welsh and Irish belong to the same race +of languages, and that particular expression must sound about +the same in one language as in the other.</p> + +<p>“But these were trivial compared with the point they hinted +at, and that telegram there clinches the point. You told Lib +all about how you read Ellis Griffiths’ history, and now we +know the manuscript has never been printed, let alone +translated.”</p> + +<p>She came close to me, still speaking, and I yielded a step +before the accusations she flung out like weapons. “You +destroyed the manuscript you yourself had made. You hurled the +stone from the rockery into the earth from the balcony outside +your room. And at the same time you dropped the placard +the wind carried down to the corner of the House, and it was +you who left the earlier placard in Sean’s room that morning +when everyone else was downstairs.”</p> + +<p>My voice sounded horribly ineffective in its attempt at +surprise. “You accuse <em>me</em>! You accuse <em>me</em>—of—?”</p> + +<p>“I do, I do! Haven’t I been putting you on your guard all +morning and all afternoon—ever since I showed you the +campstool? Haven’t I been telling you what I know and hinting +what I’ve guessed? Haven’t I done enough—?”</p> + +<p>My laugh, to show contempt, was also a failure. “Preposterous. +It’s a—vertebrate without a skeleton: your theory. +I didn’t want to kill your lover. What motive could I have +had?”</p> + +<p>Those blue eyes could be as sharp as steel. She seemed to +be the embodiment of intellect become passionate. “Motive? +Something overwhelmed you stronger than any motive: impulse. +If you had thought two minutes, Sean would be alive to-day. +You had motive, yes, though I’m ashamed to describe it, +but the impulse dwarfed the cause behind it, for once. You +had been thinking about it, hadn’t you, ever since the night +before, and all day long, or there would have been no +threatening message in Sean’s room—but it was that chance, that +chance in a thousand that settled it. I understand now what has +always seemed to me the greatest mystery of all: the motive +you had for the diary and the tremendous trouble you took in +writing five thousand words overnight.”</p> + +<p>“I set down the reason plainly: I wanted to clear up the +muddle we all were in.”</p> + +<p>“That may have been so when you took up your pen, but +before you laid it down the diary had become a greater thing +than any mere alignment of facts; it had become your defence! +You were someone else, Mr. Bannerlee; the bright and cheery, +affable, not-too-scholarly, antiquarian and athlete—all that +part of you subservient now to something else: Iago!”</p> + +<p>“Who was Iago?” asked Mrs. Bartholomew with troubled +mouth. “Something in Shakes—”</p> + +<p>“The spider spins its web with all its cunning bound up in +instinct. While you spun your web, Mr. Bannerlee, all your +cunning was bound up in intellect, and you loved each shrewd +knot and strand. Yes, that was it; you came to be in love +with artifice, you laughed in your sleeve at Salt and Doctor +Aire and Heatheringham and me—all people who were trying +to break through your web.”</p> + +<p>I had hold of myself now, in spite of the tumult of my heart, +and could return blow for blow. “What nonsense! What a +fool I’d be if I killed a man to preen myself for intellectual +superiority. I tell you again, I never wanted to kill your +lover. What reason had I?”</p> + +<p>Her eyes fell for a moment before mine, and a little storm +of wrinkles crossed her brow. “Impulse, impulse, I said, didn’t +I? I think you wrote of it, three times at least. That first +night by the tower—when I and the Parson’s sign were together +inside the circle your torch had cast? Again, after Sean and I +had quarrelled, and yet again as you walked up the Vale in +the twilight and could not forget the quarrel. Afterward too, +when you were so depressed on learning that I was to be +immensely rich. You covered it well, oh, yes! But could I fail +to know what was tugging at you all the while?” She raised +her eyes to mine for a long, grave look. “I suppose you would +call it being in love with me, wouldn’t you?”</p> + +<p>I fought down the thing in my throat. “And suppose I +was—suppose I am—what difference does it make? Must I plead +guilty to a crime I never dreamed of because I had the bad +luck to take a fancy to the face of a woman who’s denied to +me? I was well enough when I walked on the mountain and +felt as if I could move the earth. I wish to God I had stayed +up there, and not come down into this place where Fate takes +the strings and plays her hellish tricks!”</p> + +<p>She gave me the most mournful look I have ever seen on any +face. “That’s why I can’t despise you, you know, though I’ve +tried. I can’t look on you as a—a thing of horror. You’ve +played the game right through: you put down every prevarication +and evasion you had made, and then you let me read the +diary. You just—gave yourself away, and did it without a +murmur. When you were up there alone on the Forest and +exulted in your loneliness, you were a man any woman would +have given a lot to march beside. And then you came down +here among us—and how quickly you proved that all our +gods have feet of clay.”</p> + +<p>My indignation howled at highest pitch. “I tell you for +the last time that I deny absolutely the trumped-up charge +you keep senselessly repeating.”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “Denial’s no good. Do you think, as +everyone seems to believe, that terrible machine worked by +chance just now, by some overplus of pressure or loss of +equilibrium? No, Mr. Bannerlee; a man set the cat purring +and the claw lunging. Do you know where he is?”</p> + +<p>Silence. . . .</p> + +<p>“A man did it?” I repeated, my voice parched and scraping, +my body numb as a block of wood. “A man—did it?” I +remembered I had felt that one of us had secretly left the +Hall. But no—that had been after the deviltry of the machine.</p> + +<p>“A man in this House—in your room, Mr. Bannerlee. +Twelve-fifteen was the time set.”</p> + +<p>I saw faces leaping and jigging around me, one of them +with great blue eyes and crown of golden hair swinging +enormous toward me and swinging giddily away again. The door +into the corridor, which I had not seen opened, was suddenly +closed from outside. I heard a sea of voices, and above them +shot out the voice of Crofts, booming like a huge wave:</p> + +<p>“But my God, how was it done?”</p> + +<p>“They found out this afternoon,” said the American girl, +“and Mr. Salt scratched off a few details for me. The mantelpiece +is as old as the castle, and looks and feels sound enough, +but it swings down by means of an invisible hinge. The claw +operates it. The claw must be articulated in some way with a +shaft driven from a water-wheel in the wall below. The +purring sound from the clash of the teeth would draw anyone +toward the fireplace, just in the path of the flying bar as he +stooped to find where the noise came from. The blow was so +terrific it drove Sean through the opening of the french +windows, to crawl a yard or two—and die. Heatheringham was +already dead when he was hurled against the glass, and his +arm striking upward and through the pane that way caused +the revolver he was carrying cocked to explode. I think—that’s +all.”</p> + +<p>She had recited all this with the most studied coolness and +precision, this account of the machine—a device surely the +creation of a haunted and tortuous brain. The account completed, +the driving-force which had sustained her was gone, and +she looked weary almost to haggardness. Pity and shame and +grief wrenched me for the part I had played in the fatal story. +When Mrs. Belvoir ended her close-lipped listening of an hour +with a querulous question, I heard someone, Alfred +Bannerlee, speaking as if from far away.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you about that. It was the cats’ heads stuck +everywhere about here that made me wonder if I hadn’t dropped +into Cwm Melin, as it was called in the parchment account. +‘Hear the cat purring under the perfidious tree’ was fresh in +my mind. There was a cat’s head on the firearch, and there +had been a cross above. I can’t say that, er, gave the show +away, but it stirred me up a bit. Upstairs, though, when I saw +the bracket on the wall and thought of ‘no more trouble than +snuffing a night-light,’ an idea seemed spread out as plain as +an open book. I never thought of the mechanism as a certainty, +only as a possibility—barely that. I swear that when I tugged +with my razor strop and brought the wretched bracket down, +I had no idea what might happen. From what I hear, there +must be some sort of weighted valve controlling the flow from +the cistern to the water-wheel. A chain from the bracket +operates the valve and sets the whole damned business in motion. +But I didn’t understand that then. It was all like a +dream—what happened—”</p> + +<p>The faces passed into a blur again, jerking up and down. +Voices roared and voices were thin echoes shivering into +silence. Everything was moving, even the sisters Delambre. +One strode across the room like a tempest, tossing her garments +this way and that. The other came waddling after, and was +engaged in a mighty struggle with her hood. The hood came +away, revealing a goodly beard.</p> + +<p>A comic-opera transformation had taken place. Suddenly it +was Salt who was standing before me, Salt and a giant of a +man with beefy face. Salt’s expression was ridiculous, for he +was doing his best to make it stern and menacing. The words +in the air seemed to come from his lips:</p> + +<p>“Quietly, Mr. Bannerlee.”</p> + +<p>Then I thought that I had fainted. But I had not; +instantaneous, utter darkness had swept into the Hall.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch29"> + +<h2>XXIX. <br> Rescue</h2> + +<p>Like an imbecile, I waited stock-still in the darkness +for the light to return. The sudden eclipse, however, had +checked my foes as well. I heard their footsteps cease like those +of men who had walked over a cliff.</p> + +<p>Not a gleam penetrated the murk. There were cries for +light, and someone tried to scratch a match, ineffectually. I +began to move.</p> + +<p>I partly lost my balance, lurched against a man, and heard +his Lordship’s bitter plaint from the level of my knees. +I blundered into the passage without disabling anyone else. +Intuition kept me from blundering toward the front +entrance; later I realized that would have been too obvious +a way. I groped to the left, feeling along the right-hand +wall.</p> + +<p>I seemed to wake up in the dinner-room.</p> + +<p>Someone else was in there. I heard an anxious whisper: +“Bannerlee . . . Bannerlee . . . that you?”</p> + +<p>I recognized a friend. “Yes.”</p> + +<p>From the invisible a small, damp, clutching paw clasped +my hand. “You gotta get out of this. Out the window. Snap +into it.”</p> + +<p>We were together on the east lawn, running. Thank God +the moon had gone down. Thank God the servants were +asleep.</p> + +<p>“It’s a—wise egg that knows—its own rooster. Bannerlee, +your offsprings—couldn’t spot you—as the bloke that finished +Cosgrove. Step on it! I can—keep up.”</p> + +<p>“What happened to the lights?”</p> + +<p>“I happened to ’em—that’s all.”</p> + +<p>We approached a black smudge across the greater dark: a +band of trees. We entered into their depths. I stopped, held +her back.</p> + +<p>She whispered frantically, “Step on it! You can’t stay here!”</p> + +<p>“No, but I have to decide what comes next. Steady on! +Don’t worry about me; I’ll come clear. What did you do? +Are the lights finished for good?”</p> + +<p>“Did you notice I’d sneaked out? I was afraid the lid ’ud +blow off, soon and I wanted to do my bit. I had the dickens +of a time finding the fuse-box in the kitchen. I pulled off the +handle of the big switch com<em>pletely</em>, and gave the rest of the +works a kick so a lot of stuff fell down to the floor. I also cut +the telephone connection into bits to round off a good night’s +effort.”</p> + +<p>“Wonderful. I’m surprised you weren’t killed by the +current.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind wonderful. I know my electricity. All in the +good cause. Only step on the gas!”</p> + +<p>“By Jove, I will!” I cried, divining the sense of this saying. +“I must get a tin of petrol—no, two tins. First, though, +listen. Will you do something more for me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes—anything. But make it snappy.”</p> + +<p>“I want my diary. Get hold of it and wait for word from +me. Where can I write you safely?”</p> + +<p>“You’re crazy. They’ll trace you sure as—”</p> + +<p>“Not if you do this right. The book is in the desk drawer in +my room. It’s not locked. It’s your part to conceal the thing, +here, until the wind blows over a bit. The police will believe +I have it, and I want it—for a good reason. Eventually you +can recover it and mail it to the name and address I write +you. Where can a letter reach you safely?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. American Express, London.”</p> + +<p>“No good. Are you going to be in the Continent this +winter?”</p> + +<p>“I think so. Mummy’s hipped on Nice.”</p> + +<p>“American Express, Nice, then. You can send for my letter +if you don’t go there after all. By the way, it will be +addressed to Miss, er, Sarah Vale. Can you remember?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes; I’ll write it down when I get in.” She hung on +my arm imploringly. “Step on it now! You’ll get caught if +you keep hanging around with these by-the-ways and +can-you-remembers. My God, you’ve only a couple o’ minutes’ +leeway. I don’t see how you’ll make it.”</p> + +<p>I laughed and patted her shoulder. “My dear Lib, I have +a start of at least two hours, probably more. But I shan’t be +foolhardy and lessen the time I have. Goodbye, Lib. I can +never thank you for what you’ve done.”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye forever, Bannerlee.” Dim white arms reached +around my neck, and her lips touched mine in a brisk little +kiss. “I’m awful sorry Paula had to spill the beans. She took +the line Cosgrove was her man, and—and all that sort of rot. +Say you aren’t mad at me, or anything. ’Cause I’m to blame +for all this trouble, I guess.”</p> + +<p>“No! How could you be?”</p> + +<p>“I saw you drop the translation in the fire that night, and +like an ass I let Paula find it out. But I didn’t mean any +harm; honest I didn’t.”</p> + +<p>I touched her cheek with my fingers. “You’re absolved, little +Lib. It could have made no difference, eventually. You’re +going to be Mrs. Cullen some day, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, gee, I don’t know. I s’pose I’ll have to be, to get some +peace and quiet.”</p> + +<p>“I shall send you a beautiful present from Central Africa or +Siam or elsewhere. May I kiss the bride again?”</p> + +<p>I might. And yet again.</p> + +<p>I turned away, but swung back. “Tell her—I’ll never forget +her. And I’ll always be sorry for the pain I’ve caused her. +That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“I will; sure I will. But, Bannerlee, I want to say something. +I think it’s the limit a real man like you has to light +out because something happened to that doggone Irishman. I +think it’s a goldarn pity Paula couldn’t have fallen for +you—hard. Then she would have kept quiet if they’d torn out her +finger-nails, instead of seeing her duty and doing it to-night, +like a fool. I’m awful sorry. <em>Now step on it!</em>”</p> + +<p>She glided and glimmered away. I was a lone outlaw against +the world.</p> + +<p>Not a moment squandered now. I dashed for the stables, +with which I was fairly familiar. Cautiously using my torch, +I penetrated the section transformed into the garage. A minute +later, with two petrol tins hugged to my breast, I fled down +the Vale for life. There had not been a single shout from the +environs of the House.</p> + +<p>I carried the tins across Aidenn Water and set one down, +returning with the other to the temporary log bridge, which I +must burn behind me. It must have made a comfortable blaze, +soaked as it was with petrol, but I could not stop to witness +this holocaust to Mercury.</p> + +<p>Salt’s car was waiting there. I deposited the emergency +tin of petrol in the rear, jumped in, and had no difficulty +in starting the engine. The key had been left on the dashboard, +as I knew it would be. With the fire rising behind me, +merrily I rolled out of the mouth of the Vale to the main +road and toward New Aidenn, embarking on a brief career +of constructive vandalism.</p> + +<p>My object was to cut off for as long as might be the +communications of my enemies, the inhabitants of the earth. +The torch revealed that along the edge of the road eight or +ten telephone wires were strung, but shortly before entering +the town I jumped out of the car, clambered up the short +pole, and with the aid of gloves and other things in the +tool-box snipped both right and left.</p> + +<p>There were no street lamps in New Aidenn, I had heard, +and I thought it safe to assume that no constable would venture +out of doors there as late as one o’clock in the morning +to recognize my borrowed motor. Not a soul was stirring; the +Police Station was dark. I passed through safely, and halted +the car on the other side of the town to give some attention +to the wires running that way.</p> + +<p>My destination was Hereford, but I had until nearly three +o’clock to reach there, and no danger of my losing my road. +So I often halted in my journey when I had passed a village +which might contain a telephone, in order to secure it from +business too early in the morning. Thus I reached Hereford +about ten minutes before the north-to-west express was due.</p> + +<p>I left the useful car in an alley near the station, hoping it +would be recognized about dawn and not until then. When +the train was puffing beside the platform, I boldly applied at +the window for a first-class ticket to Exeter (I had been +about to say “Bristol,” when I happened to think “Don’t be +so childishly obvious, like an ordinary criminal. Let Salt think +he’s up against a real antagonist.”) I explained that I had +intended to drop off at Hereford, but would not break my +journey until further on because a person I had met on the train +told me there wasn’t a decent hotel in the place. I needed some +excuse, of course, for the fact that I was not wearing hat and +coat. The booking-clerk seemed rather sleepy, and I remained a +little longer talking to him, to insure that he would +remember me.</p> + +<p>Then I boarded the train and entered a first-class compartment +where a gentleman was sleeping. His hat and coat, however, +would not fit me. I merely scraped some of the mud +(quite distinctive mud that said “Aidenn Vale” as plainly +as words) on the floor there. I thought of leaving more “clues,” +but decided not to butter the bread too thick. I passed on to +another compartment in search of vestments. From a gentleman +who was slumbering with his head hanging off the seat I +obtained not only hat and coat, but a mackintosh which from +a distance would look just as well inside-out.</p> + +<p>I then found an empty compartment and sat there, wearing +my new-found raiment, until the engine snorted and hunched +its shoulders and commenced crawling southward. When the +train had left the platform, I glanced from the off window to +insure that the station yard was dark, then unlatched the door +and dropped safely to the ground.</p> + +<p>All immediately required was to keep out of sight until +the corresponding express from west to north should come in. +It should have arrived a quarter of an hour afterward, but to +my disgust it was late, and I had a worried thirty minutes +among some coals. I devoted the time to cleaning my boots with +my handkerchief, which I stuffed in my pocket, to be burned +later. At length the express pulled in, and when all appeared +ready for departure, I walked quickly up the track beside it. +The south-bound platform was deserted now. This fact enabled +me to choose an empty compartment and enter it by the +off door.</p> + +<p>Suddenly remembering my plans for the morrow, however, +I stepped out on the platform and bought some fruit from a +yawning lad who conducted a buffet on wheels. I had thought +at first of stealing the stuff, but buying it would be less +ostentatious. When I had paid for what I had chosen, I took the +first opportunity to steal quite a bit more.</p> + +<p>I had really been very lucky. During my absence from the +compartment, tickets had been inspected and doors locked. +Lacking a ticket for this particular train, I might have been +embarrassed. Now I walked hurriedly toward the end of the +train, past the ticket-inspector, around the rear coach, and +along to the off door of my empty compartment again.</p> + +<p>I rode north.</p> + +<p>At Shrewsbury I alighted for precaution just before the +train drew into the platform, and re-entered my compartment +when the engine had been changed. Near Crewe I definitely +abandoned the train, climbed the bank of a shallow cutting, +and got over the hedge. It was still rather dark, but I had no +difficulty in finding a satisfactory bit of woodland where I +might lie hidden all day.</p> + +<p>I was staking everything on one chance, that Paula +Lebetwood had remembered the references to the Bonnet yacht +and that my ticket-taking and perhaps the mud from my +boots would serve to concentrate the attention of the authorities +upon Bristol. If Jack and Mary hadn’t altered their plans, +they would be slipping out of harbour this morning with the +tide, probably five hours before the dogs of righteousness would +arrive hungry at the docks. It seemed reasonable that the +authorities should assume that I was aboard the barque. I knew +for certain that she carried no wireless, and that barring an +unexpected encounter there was no chance of police +disillusionment until she put in in Norway—or Africa.</p> + +<p>I intended never to be seen unless for urgent cause, and then, +if possible, by the under-intelligent. Empty compartments on +fast trains by night were to be had for the taking, and even +if the expresses should be crowded, the stopping trains were +available, though on them it would be necessary to turn out at +every station. In the barely credible contingency of my being +nipped and made to pay my fare, I had plenty of money, for +I had cashed a fairly large cheque before setting out for Aidenn +Forest, and I had not stopped to tip the servants before +leaving Highglen House. The train by night and secluded slumber +by day; these were indicated for my recovery.</p> + +<p>I shall not detail my week-long, decidedly boring expedition +to Hull. After a couple of days my personal appearance +became run-down, and I dropped into a small market town on +market day, asked a constable directing traffic to assist me to a +hairdresser’s, found the place down a dark dead-end and up a +shaky stair, and enjoyed a haircutting, shampoo, and shave. +I told the attendant that I looked and felt a new man, bought +a packet of safety-razor blades, tipped him enough but not +too much, chatted pleasantly about the price of heifers, and +departed.</p> + +<p>About nine that evening, in a restaurant in a larger town, +I expressed a predilection for pickled walnuts.</p> + +<p>Not long afterwards I stepped out of a station wash-room, +an unobtrusive dark gentleman to the roots of my hair, with +eyebrows that gave a special appearance to my face.</p> + +<p>I carried a passport, thanks to Jack and Mary. From Hull +one Albert Barrerdale sailed eight days after Alfred Bannerlee +had stumbled out of the Hall of the Moth. Praises be for +the men who are supposed to scrutinize the details on +passports, and don’t.</p> + +<hr> + +<p>Now on my Mediterranean island (whose name, pardon +me, I do not mean to give) I enjoy perpetual sun and the +fruits of never-ceasing summer. I might rest here secure for +the term of my natural life, and I might achieve a sort of +happiness, for here no sensuous pleasure is withheld from man. +Air, sea, and land conspire to lull the soul, and at night from +the village creep up strains of music sweet and spicy. I might +remain—but I think I shall move on.</p> + +<p>The Bonnets saved me; no doubt of that. Overweening +sleuth-hounds met a sharp rebuff three months later when +the Bonnet barque, not having touched at any port, returned +to Bristol dock. The emphatic statement of Jack and Mary +that I had not been on board, a statement which they later +attested in order to dispel public mutterings against their +veracity, stunned the police, who had been sitting back and waiting +for me to be delivered up to them from India or Madagascar. +The hounds then were willing, but found no scent. Moreover, +since I had not been aboard the barque, they <em>knew</em> that +I could not have escaped from England, knowledge that must +have proved rather a hindrance than a help.</p> + +<p>The diary reached me in a picturesque village in a small +Balkan country. Its disappearance that night, by the way, gave +rise to the amazing belief among several of my fellow-guests +that I had secreted myself within the House, and the consequence +was a general desertion next day. After receiving the +pages, I carried them with me for weeks before lighting on my +isle and commencing my work anew. Now the manuscript is +ready to return, rounded, coherent, and decked with proper +ornament.</p> + +<p>My purpose? I have done it for <em>her</em> sake. I don’t care a +penny for the gaping world; all I ask is, let this book stand as +the monument of an ardour which exceeded the orthodox. +Let it be a fantastic tribute to a mistress who never can be +mine. Let it take the place of a sigh and a sob for love’s +labours lost. While I handled and recast this matter, I lived +near her again in Highglen House, shared hours that held +all life’s sweetness, and remembered that she did not despise +me!</p> + +<p>If I may offer a suggestion to you who are to receive this +manuscript, I advise that you present it unaltered to the public +as a piece of fiction, with the name of some obscure but +ambitious author upon the title-page. And if he will be so +generous, I trust that Lord Ludlow will write a foreword to +give the thing the stamp of reality.</p> + +<p>I trust, finally, that I may be forgiven if I remark that this +is the <em>last</em> that will ever be heard of me.</p> + +<p>Paula!</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="epilogue"> + +<h2>The Communication of <br> April 17, 1926</h2> + +<p>No matter where I am. It is a different place from +where you think, and it will be no good tracing this letter, +for you’ll find only that you are mistaken. The man who is +going to take it to Rangoon and mail it two months hence, +is an outcast like myself and will certainly keep faith.</p> + +<p>Occasionally a paper gets through to me from England, and +I read it with more or less amusement. Bloodthirsty wretches, +the English, who would like nothing better than to see me +suspended between time and eternity. But it shall not be.</p> + +<p>There has been some discussion as to what “really” happened +the evening Maryvale attempted to shoot the cat. One +copy of a newspaper I came across contained a sort of symposium +on the subject. One or two letters came near the simple +truth, which was that, being afraid of Maryvale’s revolver, +I took the chance which was offered to remove the bullets +from as many cartridges as I could, managing to insure that +his first three shots would be ineffective. Hints that I +deliberately intended to craze the poor fellow, for whom I had a +sincere liking, are false.</p> + +<p>Through Lord Ludlow my diary has reached the authorities +upon guarantee that it will not be confiscated, and from official +announcements it seems they believe it to be an equal mixture +of necessary truth and designing falsehood. To my astonishment, +moreover, they have reported that it is a masterpiece +of indiscretion—which is nonsense. About myself, to be sure, +I have perhaps written a thing or two that most men would +not care to have known of them during life. But I am dead. +Yes, in all that concerns life as I knew it, my friends, my +studies, my pleasures—in all that matters—I am dead. The +authorities, however, scoff at the diary, and adduce the “mystic +bone.”</p> + +<p>Fools! The episode of the bone hanging white in the gloom +was not invention, or delusion either. It was the white patch +on Cosgrove’s head while he waited in the darkness and +surveyed the Hall, planning Noah’s Flood and the crisis which +would arise when Sir Brooke met the gorilla-man. The close-cropped +nape of his neck between his black hair and the black +collar of his sportsman’s coat, and the knobs that were his +ears—I did not comprehend at first that these were what I +saw. When my amazement and alarm had subsided, and I +realized that Cosgrove was in there—I think I hated him then. +His odious behaviour toward his intended wife and the sinister +hint beneath Bob’s bitter outbreak had rankled. My survey +from outside my window a minute later happened to prove +that no one was in the immediate vicinity of the Hall. Otherwise +I should hardly have felt the sense of satisfaction snug at +the heart of my shivering soul when—after the bracket had +given way—I realized that <em>something had happened</em>! But not +until I reached the lawn did I know that it had happened +to Cosgrove. I shall never be sure in my inmost soul whether +or not I was quite aware that this trivial act might loose some +destructive force—whether I am a murderer or the toy of Fate.</p> + +<p>They say, however, that the placards I left and the stone +I cast down from the balcony convince me of malice prepense. +They do not, though they seem to do so.</p> + +<p>The placard I left in Cosgrove’s chamber that morning +(the bottom of a cardboard box I found in the store-rooms) +meant no more than what it said: mischief. I never had any +delusion about the supernatural aspect of Parson Lolly; +indeed, the stressing of that element had made me a little +suspicious of Cosgrove himself. Celts do odd things. I believed that +for some clandestine reason he might be behind the manifestations, +and I thought it would be good sport to play his own +game against him. I merely proved to be wrong.</p> + +<p>The second placard was a flash of inspiration, after the +bracket had given way and pandemonium burst out below me. +There might be a way of shifting the onus, if anything actually +catastrophic had taken place!—if there <em>had</em> been a cat’s claw, +and—! Parson Lolly again! It did not take twenty seconds +to dash into the storeroom, find the cover of the same box, +scrawl the words, and fling the placard out of the window +for the wind to carry. Later I destroyed every scrap of the box.</p> + +<p>The stone I pitched down late that night. It was an +obvious afterthought, and a good one.</p> + +<p>As for Heatheringham’s death, it was black misfortune and +nothing else. It appears that on account of Cosgrove’s Will he +looked askance on Paula Lebetwood, but even had he suspected +me, I do not think I could have been so callous as to wipe +him from the earth in a bloody smear. I was doubtful that +minute in my room, which was the more prudent course for +me: to dash the bracket down, creating a new disturbance, or +to leave it untouched. Prudence certainly decided to let the +accursed thing alone, but one moment’s recklessness defied +prudence. I solemnly assert that I believed the Hall was empty +and Heatheringham somewhere in the twilight north of the +House.</p> + +<p>Salt, it seems, was a shrewder fellow than his appearance +betokened. He had suspected me from the first night he came +to the House. “The way he looked at Miss Lebetwood, or +rather the way he avoided looking at her, set me thinking”; +such are the words which commence an interview given to one +of the more lurid newspapers. Salt’s homely yet somehow +handsome face, accompanied by well-combed beard, adorns +this report, which concludes with an irony I suppose must be +accidental: “I am glad Mr. Bannerlee didn’t injure my car.”</p> + +<p>While irony is fresh in mind, irony was never more dramatic +than in that business of the water-wheel, facts they found when +the claw was dismantled and the channel investigated. That +the Knight’s dead body, blundering down the channel, should +have dislodged the obstruction which otherwise would have +prevented the wheel from turning and the claw from darting +out! So Sir Brooke, elderly and infirm, stumbling to his death, +fulfilled his mission after all.</p> + +<p>I have received a message from Lib, and I may as well close +with that. It was transmitted to me through an American +newspaper, by means of a simple “dictionary” cipher code I +explained to her in a farewell letter from that Mediterranean +isle of mine:</p> + +<blockquote class="document"> + + <p>“Dear Bannerlee Paula’s going to marry a guy named + Frank Andrews she knew here in the States before she bumped + into Cosgrove Bobby and I too as soon as Bobby is twenty one + the first boy will be named after you why not I hope you are + not too sad in that place wherever you are and I wish you + could come and see us sometime but I guess you’d better not a + plain-clothes policeman says good morning to me every day + when I go round the corner so it wouldn’t be healthy for you + here I sure wish Paula had met you before this Andrews or + Cosgrove there would have been nothing to it and everything + would be rosy Paula is terribly sorry but she doesn’t hate you + Love Lib.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Well, some day in the forties, when the Radnorshire riddles +are buried in oblivion beneath the ashes of a hundred other +mysteries—I shall return! I shall visit little Lib, and find it +difficult to recognize in her matronly staidness a trace of the +dash and frankness of her liking for me. Perhaps, too, I shall +pat that “first boy” on the head.</p> + +<p>Shall I dare to see <em>her</em>? Or, shall I stand outside her lighted +window, remembering. That would be better, I believe. I can +be nothing to her then, but once—</p> + +<p>After all, she did not despise me!</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="transcriber"> + +<h2>Transcriber’s Note</h2> + +<p>This transcription follows the text of the Jacobsen Publishing +Company edition published in 1928. However, the following alterations +have been made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors +in the text:</p> + +<ul> + <li>“Pharmond” has been changed to “Pharamond” (Preface).</li> + <li>“morsal” has been changed to “morsel” (Chapter IV).</li> + <li>“catridge-belt” has been changed to “cartridge-belt” (Chapter VII).</li> + <li>“rerespectively” has been changed to “respectively” (Chapter X).</li> + <li>“rcok” has been changed to “rock” (Chapter XV).</li> + <li>“scyamores” has been changed to “sycamores” (Chapter XXI).</li> + <li>“criss-crosing” has been changed to “criss-crossing” (Chapter XXII).</li> + <li>“mose” has been changed to “most” (Chapter XXIII).</li> + <li>“Mrs Belvoir” has been changed to “Mrs. Belvoir” (Chapter XXIII).</li> + <li>“Whimple” has been changed to “Whimble” (Chapter XXIV).</li> + <li>“had same funny bits” has been changed to “had some funny bits” + (Chapter XXV).</li> + <li>Five occurrences of mismatched quotation marks has been repaired.</li> +</ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75273 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75273-h/images/cover.jpg b/75273-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cf9670 --- /dev/null +++ b/75273-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75273-h/images/fragment.png b/75273-h/images/fragment.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4fb0945 --- /dev/null +++ b/75273-h/images/fragment.png diff --git a/75273-h/images/hall.jpg b/75273-h/images/hall.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b5d896 --- /dev/null +++ b/75273-h/images/hall.jpg diff --git a/75273-h/images/map.jpg b/75273-h/images/map.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..408eb67 --- /dev/null +++ b/75273-h/images/map.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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