Dead Men's Money
by
J. S. Fletcher
Part 4 out of 5
there'd be a lot of things that no solicitor would know, even if he sat
at Michael's dying bed!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "But we'll see. And
talking of beds, it's time I was showing you to yours, and that we were
all between the sheets, for it's one o'clock in the morning, and we'll
have to be stirring again at six sharp. And I'll tell you what we'll do,
Portlethorpe, to save time--we'll just take a mere cup of coffee and a
mouthful of bread here, and we'll breakfast in Edinburgh--we'll be there
by eight-thirty. So now come to your beds."
He marshalled us upstairs--he and Mr. Portlethorpe had already taken
their night-caps while they talked,--and when he had bestowed the senior
visitor in his room, he came to me in mine, carrying an alarm clock which
he set down at my bed-head.
"Hugh, my man!" he said, "you'll have to stir yourself an hour before
Mr. Portlethorpe and me. I've set that implement for five o'clock. Get
yourself up when it rings, and make yourself ready and go round to
Murray at the police-station--rouse him out of his bed. Tell him what we
heard from that man Hollins tonight, and bid him communicate with the
Glasgow police to look out for Sir Gilbert Carstairs. Tell him, too,
that we're going on to Edinburgh, and why, and that, if need be, I'll
ring him up from the Station Hotel during the morning with any news we
have, and I'll ask for his at the same time. Insist on his getting in
touch with Glasgow--it's there, without doubt, that Lady Carstairs went
off, and where Sir Gilbert would meet her; let him start inquiries
about the shipping offices and the like. And that's all--and get your
bit of sleep."
I had Murray out of his bed before half-past five that morning, and I
laid it on him heavily about the Glasgow affair, which, as we came to
know later, was the biggest mistake we made, and one that involved us in
no end of sore trouble; and at a quarter-past six Mr. Lindsey and Mr.
Portlethorpe and I were drinking our coffee and blinking at each other
over the rims of the cups. But Mr. Lindsey was sharp enough of his wits
even at that hour, and before we set off from Berwick he wrote out a
telegram to Mr. Gavin Smeaton, asking him to meet us in Edinburgh during
the day, so that Mr. Portlethorpe might make his acquaintance. This
telegram he left with his housekeeper--to be dispatched as soon as the
post-office was open. And then we were off, and by half-past eight were
at breakfast in the Waverley Station; and as the last stroke of ten was
sounding from the Edinburgh clocks we were walking into the premises of
the Scottish-American Bank.
The manager, who presently received us in his private rooms, looked at
Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Portlethorpe with evident surprise--it may have been
that there was mystery in their countenances. I know that I, on my part,
felt as if a purblind man might have seen that I was clothed about with
mystery from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot! And he appeared
still more surprised when Mr. Lindsey, briefly, but fully, explained why
we had called upon him.
"Of course, I've read the newspapers about your strange doings at
Berwick," he observed, when Mr. Lindsey--aided by some remarks from Mr.
Portlethorpe--had come to the end of his explanation. "And I gather that
you now want to know what we, here, know of Sir Gilbert Carstairs and Mr.
John Paley. I can reply to that in a sentence--nothing that is to their
discredit! They are two thoroughly estimable and trustworthy gentlemen,
so far as we are aware."
"Then there _is_ a Mr. John Paley?" demanded Mr. Lindsey, who was
obviously surprised.
The manager, evidently, was also surprised--by the signs of Mr.
Lindsey's surprise.
"Mr. John Paley is a stockbroker in this city," he replied. "Quite well
known! The fact is, we--that is, I--introduced Sir Gilbert Carstairs to
him. Perhaps," he continued, glancing from one gentleman to the other, "I
had better tell you all the facts. They're very simple, and quite of an
ordinary nature. Sir Gilbert Carstairs came in here, introducing himself,
some months ago. He told me that he was intending to sell off a good deal
of the Carstairs property, and that he wanted to reinvest his proceeds in
the very best American securities. I gathered that he had spent a lot of
time in America, that he preferred America to England, and, in short,
that he had a decided intention of going back to the States, keeping
Hathercleugh as a place to come to occasionally. He asked me if I could
recommend him a broker here in Edinburgh who was thoroughly well
acquainted with the very best class of American investments, and I at
once recommended Mr. John Paley. And--that's all I know, gentlemen."
"Except," remarked Mr. Lindsey, "that you know that considerable
transactions have taken place between Mr. Paley and Sir Gilbert
Carstairs. We know that, from what we heard last night in Newcastle."
"Precisely!--then you know as much as I can tell you," replied the
manager. "But I have no objection to saying that large sums of money,
coming from Sir Gilbert Carstairs, have certainly been passed through Mr.
Paley's banking account here, and I suppose Mr. Paley has made the
investments which Sir Gilbert desired--in fact, I know he has. And--I
should suggest you call on Mr. Paley himself."
We went away upon that, and it seemed to me that Mr. Lindsey was somewhat
taken aback. And we were no sooner clear of the bank than Mr.
Portlethorpe, a little triumphantly, a little maliciously, turned on him.
"There! what did I say?" he exclaimed. "Everything is in order, you see,
Lindsey! I confess I'm surprised to hear about those American
investments; but, after all, Sir Gilbert has a right to do what he likes
with his own. I told you we were running our heads against the
wall--personally, I don't see what use there is in seeing this Mr. Paley.
We're only interfering with other people's business. As I say, Sir
Gilbert can make what disposal he pleases of his own property."
"And what I say, Portlethorpe," retorted Mr. Lindsey, "is that I'm going
to be convinced that it is his own property! I'm going to see Paley
whether you do or not--and you'll be a fool if you don't come."
Mr. Portlethorpe protested--but he accompanied us. And we were very soon
in Mr. John Paley's office--a quiet, self-possessed sort of man who
showed no surprise at our appearance; indeed, he at once remarked that
the bank manager had just telephoned that we were on the way, and why.
"Then I'll ask you a question at once," said Mr. Lindsey. "And I'm sure
you'll be good enough to answer it. When did you last see Sir Gilbert
Carstairs?"
Mr. Paley immediately turned to a diary which lay on his desk, and
gave one glance at it. "Three days ago," he answered promptly.
"Wednesday--eleven o'clock."
CHAPTER XXX
THE CARSTAIRS MOTTO
Mr. Lindsey reflected a moment after getting that precise answer, and he
glanced at me as if trying to recollect something.
"That would be the very morning after the affair of the yacht?" he
asked of me.
But before I could speak, Mr. Paley took the words out of my mouth.
"Quite right." he said quietly. "I knew nothing of it at the time, of
course, but I have read a good deal in the newspapers since. It was the
morning after Sir Gilbert left Berwick in his yacht."
"Did he mention anything about the yacht to you?" inquired Mr. Lindsey.
"Not a word! I took it that he had come in to see me in the ordinary
way," replied the stockbroker. "He wasn't here ten minutes. I had no idea
whatever that anything had happened."
"Before we go any further," said Mr. Lindsey, "may I ask you to tell us
what he came for? You know that Mr. Portlethorpe is his solicitor?--I am
asking the question on his behalf as well as my own."
"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you," answered Mr. Paley. "He came on
perfectly legitimate business. It was to call for some scrip which I
held--scrip of his own, of course."
"Which he took away with him?" suggested Mr. Lindsey.
"Naturally!" replied the stockbroker. "That was what he came for."
"Did he give you any hint as to where he was going?" asked Mr.
Lindsey. "Did he, for instance, happen to mention that he was leaving
home for a time?"
"Not at all," answered Mr. Paley. "He spoke of nothing but the business
that had brought him. As I said just now, he wasn't here ten minutes."
It was evident to me that Mr. Lindsey was still more taken aback. What we
had learned during the last half-hour seemed to surprise him. And Mr.
Portlethorpe, who was sharp enough of observation, saw this, and made
haste to step into the arena.
"Mr. Lindsey," he said, "has been much upset by the apparently
extraordinary circumstances of Sir Gilbert Carstairs' disappearance--and
so, I may say, has Sir Gilbert's sister, Mrs. Ralston. I have pointed out
that Sir Gilbert himself may have--probably has--a quite proper
explanation of his movements. Wait a minute, Lindsey!" he went on, as Mr.
Lindsey showed signs of restiveness. "It's my turn, I think." He looked
at Mr. Paley again. "Your transactions with Sir Gilbert have been quite
in order, all through, I suppose--and quite ordinary?"
"Quite in order, and quite ordinary," answered the stockbroker readily.
"He was sent to me by the manager of the Scottish-American Bank, who
knows that I do a considerable business in first-class American
securities and investments. Sir Gilbert told me that he was disposing of
a great deal of his property in England and wished to re-invest the
proceeds in American stock. He gave me to understand that he wished to
spend most of his time over there in future, as neither he nor his wife
cared about Hathercleugh, though they meant to keep it up as the family
estate and headquarters. He placed considerable sums of money in my hands
from time to time, and I invested them in accordance with his
instructions, handing him the securities as each transaction was
concluded. And--that's really all I know."
Mr. Lindsey got in his word before Mr. Portlethorpe could speak again.
"There are just two questions I should like to ask--to which nobody can
take exception, I think," he said. "One is--I gather that you've invested
all the money which Sir Gilbert placed in your hands?"
"Yes--about all," replied Mr. Paley. "I have a balance--a small balance."
"And the other is this," continued Mr. Lindsey: "I suppose all these
American securities which he now has are of such a nature that they could
be turned into cash at any time, on any market?"
"That is so--certainly," assented Mr. Paley. "Yes, certainly so."
"Then that's enough for me!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey, rising and beckoning
me to follow. "Much obliged to you, sir."
Without further ceremony he stumped out into the street, with me at his
heels, to be followed a few minutes later by Mr. Portlethorpe. And
thereupon began a warm altercation between them which continued until all
three of us were stowed away in a quiet corner of the smoking-room in the
hotel at which it had been arranged Mr. Gavin Smeaton was to seek us on
his arrival--and there it was renewed with equal vigour; at least, with
equal vigour on Mr. Lindsey's part. As for me, I sat before the two
disputants, my hands in my pockets, listening, as if I were judge and
jury all in one, to what each had to urge.
They were, of course, at absolutely opposite poles of thought. One man
was approaching the matter from one standpoint; the other from one
diametrically opposed to it. Mr. Portlethorpe was all for minimizing
things, Mr. Lindsey all for taking the maximum attitude. Mr. Portlethorpe
said that even if we had not come to Edinburgh on a fool's errand--which
appeared to be his secret and private notion--we had at any rate got the
information which Mr. Lindsey wanted, and had far better go home now and
attend to our proper business, which, he added, was not to pry and peep
into other folks' affairs. He was convinced that Sir Gilbert Carstairs
was Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and that Mrs. Ralston's and Mr. Lindsey's
suspicions were all wrong. He failed to see any connection between Sir
Gilbert and the Berwick mysteries and murders; it was ridiculous to
suppose it. As for the yacht incident, he admitted it looked at least
strange; but, he added, with a half-apologetic glance at me, he would
like to hear Sir Gilbert's version of that affair before he himself made
up his mind about it.
"If we can lay hands on him, you'll be hearing his version from the
dock!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "Your natural love of letting things go
smoothly, Portlethorpe, is leading you into strange courses! Man
alive!--take a look at the whole thing from a dispassionate attitude!
Since the fellow got hold of the Hathercleugh property, he's sold
everything, practically, but Hathercleugh itself; he's lost no time in
converting the proceeds--a couple of hundred thousand pounds!--into
foreign securities, which, says yon man Paley, are convertible into cash
at any moment in any market! Something occurs--we don't know what,
yet--to make him insecure in his position; without doubt, it's mixed
up with Phillips and Gilverthwaite, and no doubt, afterwards, with
Crone. This lad here accidentally knows something which might be
fatal--Carstairs tries, having, as I believe, murdered Crone, to drown
Moneylaws! And what then? It's every evident that, after leaving
Moneylaws, he ran his yacht in somewhere on the Scottish coast, and
turned her adrift; or, which is more likely, fell in with that
fisher-fellow Robertson at Largo, and bribed him to tell a cock-and-bull
tale about the whole thing--made his way to Edinburgh next morning, and
possessed himself of the rest of his securities, after which, he clears
out, to be joined somewhere by his wife, who, if what Hollins told us
last night is true--and it no doubt is,--carried certain valuables off
with her! What does it look like but that he's an impostor, who's just
made all he can out of the property while he'd the chance, and is now
away to enjoy his ill-gotten gains? That's what I'm saying,
Portlethorpe--and I insist on my common-sense view of it!"
"And I say it's just as common-sense to insist, as I do, that it's all
capable of proper and reasonable explanation!" retorted Mr. Portlethorpe.
"You're a good hand at drawing deductions, Lindsey, but you're bad in
your premises! You start off by asking me to take something for granted,
and I'm not fond of mental gymnastics. If you'd be strictly logical--"
They went on arguing like that, one against the other, for a good hour,
and it seemed to me that the talk they were having would have gone on for
ever, indefinitely, if, on the stroke of noon, Mr. Gavin Smeaton had not
walked in on us. At sight of him they stopped, and presently they were
deep in the matter of the similarity of the handwritings, Mr. Lindsey
having brought the letter and the will with him. Deep, at any rate, Mr.
Lindsey and Mr. Portlethorpe were; as for Mr. Gavin Smeaton, he appeared
to be utterly amazed at the suggestion which Mr. Lindsey threw out to
him--that the father of whom he knew so little was, in reality, Michael
Carstairs.
"Do you know what it is you're suggesting, Lindsey?" demanded Mr.
Portlethorpe, suddenly. "You've got the idea into your head now that this
young man's father, whom he's always heard of as one Martin Smeaton, was
in strict truth the late Michael Carstairs, elder son of the late Sir
Alexander--in fact, being the wilful and headstrong man that you are,
you're already positive of it?"
"I am so!" declared Mr. Lindsey. "That's a fact, Portlethorpe."
"Then what follows?" asked Mr. Portlethorpe. "If Mr. Smeaton there is the
true and lawful son of the late Michael Carstairs, his name is not
Smeaton at all, but Carstairs, and he's the true holder of the baronetcy,
and, as his grandfather died intestate, the legal owner of the property!
D'you follow that?"
"I should be a fool if I didn't!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "I've been
thinking of it for thirty-six hours."
"Well--it'll have to be proved," muttered Mr. Portlethorpe. He had been
staring hard at Mr. Gavin Smeaton ever since he came in, and suddenly he
let out a frank exclamation. "There's no denying you've a strong
Carstairs look on you!" said he. "Bless and save me!--this is the
strangest affair!"
Smeaton put his hand into his pocket, and drew out a little package which
he began to unwrap.
"I wonder if this has anything to do with it," he said. "I remembered,
thinking things over last night, that I had something which, so the
Watsons used to tell me, was round my neck when I first came to them.
It's a bit of gold ornament, with a motto on it. I've had it carefully
locked away for many a long year!"
He took out of his package a heart-shaped pendant, with a much-worn gold
chain attached to it, and turned it over to show an engraved inscription
on the reverse side.
"There's the motto," he said. "You see--_Who Will, Shall_. Whose is it?"
"God bless us!" exclaimed Mr. Portlethorpe. "The Carstairs motto!
Aye!--their motto for many a hundred years! Lindsey, this is an
extraordinary thing!--I'm inclined to think you may have some right in
your notions. We must--"
But before Mr. Portlethorpe could say what they must do, there was a
diversion in our proceedings which took all interest in them clean away
from me, and made me forget whatever mystery there was about Carstairs,
Smeaton, or anybody else. A page lad came along with a telegram in his
hand asking was there any gentleman there of the name of Moneylaws? I
took the envelope from him in a whirl of wonder, and tore it open,
feeling an unaccountable sense of coming trouble. And in another minute
the room was spinning round me; but the wording of the telegram was
clear enough:
"Come home first train Maisie Dunlop been unaccountably missing since
last evening and no trace of her. Murray."
I flung the bit of paper on the table before the other three, and,
feeling like my head was on fire, was out of the room and the hotel, and
in the street and racing into the station, before one of them could find
a word to put on his tongue.
CHAPTER XXXI
NO TRACE
That telegram had swept all the doings of the morning clear away from me.
Little I cared about the Carstairs affairs and all the mystery that was
wrapping round them in comparison with the news which Murray had sent
along in that peculiarly distressing fashion! I would cheerfully have
given all I ever hoped to be worth if he had only added more news; but he
had just said enough to make me feel as if I should go mad unless I could
get home there and then. I had not seen Maisie since she and my mother
had left Mr. Lindsey and me at Dundee--I had been so fully engaged since
then, what with the police, and Mrs. Ralston, and Mr. Portlethorpe, and
the hurried journeys, first to Newcastle and then to Edinburgh, that I
had never had a minute to run down and see how things were going on.
What, of course, drove me into an agony of apprehension was Murray's use
of that one word "unaccountably." Why should Maisie be "unaccountably"
missing? What had happened to take her out of her father's house?--where
had she gone, that no trace of her could be got?--what had led to this
utterly startling development?--what--
But it was no use speculating on these things--the need was for action.
And I had seized on the first porter I met, and was asking him for the
next train to Berwick, when Mr. Gavin Smeaton gripped my arm.
"There's a train in ten minutes, Moneylaws," said he quietly. "Come away
to it--I'll go with you--we're all going. Mr. Lindsey thinks we'll do as
much there as here, now."
Looking round I saw the two solicitors hurrying in our direction, Mr.
Lindsey carrying Murray's telegram in his hand. He pulled me aside as we
all walked towards the train.
"What do you make of this, Hugh?" he asked. "Can you account for any
reason why the girl should be missing?"
"I haven't an idea," said I. "But if it's anything to do with all the
rest of this business, Mr. Lindsey, let somebody look out! I'll have no
mercy on anybody that's interfered with her--and what else can it be? I
wish I'd never left the town!"
"Aye, well, we'll soon be back in it," he said, consolingly. "And we'll
hope to find better news. I wish Murray had said more; it's a mistake to
frighten folk in that way--he's said just too much and just too little."
It was a fast express that we caught for Berwick, and we were not long in
covering the distance, but it seemed like ages to me, and the rest of
them failed to get a word out of my lips during the whole time. And my
heart was in my mouth when, as we ran into Berwick station, I saw
Chisholm and Andrew Dunlop on the platform waiting us. Folk that have
had bad news are always in a state of fearing to receive worse, and I
dreaded what they might have come to the station to tell us. And Mr.
Lindsey saw how I was feeling, and he was on the two of them with an
instant question.
"Do you know any more about the girl than was in Murray's wire?" he
demanded. "If so, what? The lad here's mad for news!"
Chisholm shook his head, and Andrew Dunlop looked searchingly at me.
"We know nothing more," he answered. "You don't know anything yourself,
my lad?" he went on, staring at me still harder.
"I, Mr. Dunlop!" I exclaimed. "What do you think, now, asking me a
question like yon! What should I know?"
"How should I know that?" said he. "You dragged your mother and my lass
all the way to Dundee for nothing--so far as I could learn; and--"
"He'd good reason," interrupted Mr. Lindsey. "He did quite right. Now
what is this about your daughter, Mr. Dunlop? Just let's have the plain
tale of it, and then we'll know where we are."
I had already seen that Andrew Dunlop was not over well pleased with
me--and now I saw why. He was a terrible hand at economy, saving every
penny he could lay hands on, and as nothing particular seemed to have
come of it, and--so far as he could see--there had been no great reason
for it, he was sore at my sending for his daughter to Dundee, and all the
sorer because--though I, of course, was utterly innocent of it--Maisie
had gone off on that journey without as much as a by-your-leave to him.
And he was not over ready or over civil to Mr. Lindsey.
"Aye, well!" said he. "There's strange doings afoot, and it's not my will
that my lass should be at all mixed up in them, Mr. Lindsey! All this
running up and down, hither and thither, on business that doesn't
concern--"
Mr. Lindsey had the shortest of tempers on occasion, and I saw that he
was already impatient. He suddenly turned away with a growl and
collared Chisholm.
"You're a fool, Dunlop," he exclaimed over his shoulder; "it's your
tongue that wants to go running! Now then, sergeant!--what is all this
about Miss Dunlop? Come on!"
My future father-in-law drew off in high displeasure, but Chisholm
hurriedly explained matters.
"He's in a huffy state, Mr. Lindsey," he said, nodding at Andrew's
retreating figure. "Until you came in, he was under the firm belief that
you and Mr. Hugh had got the young lady away again on some of this
mystery business--he wouldn't have it any other way. And truth to tell, I
was wondering if you had, myself! But since you haven't, it's here--and I
hope nothing's befallen the poor young thing, for--"
"For God's sake, man, get it out!" said I. "We've had preface
enough--come to your tale!"
"I'm only explaining to you, Mr. Hugh," he answered, calmly. "And I
understand your impatience. It's like this, d'ye see?--Andrew Dunlop
yonder has a sister that's married to a man, a sheep-farmer, whose place
is near Coldsmouth Hill, between Mindrum and Kirk Yetholm--"
"I know!" I said. "You mean Mrs. Heselton. Well, man?"
"Mrs. Heselton, of course," said he. "You're right there. And last
night--about seven or so in the evening--a telegram came to the Dunlops
saying Mrs. Heselton was taken very ill, and would Miss Dunlop go over?
And away she went there and then, on her bicycle, and alone--and she
never reached the place!"
"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Lindsey.
"Because," answered Chisholm, "about nine o'clock this morning in comes
one of the Heselton lads to Dunlop to tell him his mother had died during
the night; and then, of course, they asked did Miss Dunlop get there in
time, and the lad said they'd never set eyes on her. And--that's all
there is to tell, Mr. Lindsey."
I was for starting off, with, I think, the idea of instantly mounting
my bicycle and setting out for Heselton's farm, when Mr. Lindsey
seized my elbow.
"Take your time, lad," said he. "Let's think what we're doing. Now then,
how far is it to this place where the girl was going?"
"Seventeen miles," said I, promptly.
"You know it?" he asked. "And the road?"
"I've been there with her--many a time, Mr. Lindsey," I answered. "I
know every inch of the road."
"Now then!" he said, "get the best motor car there is in the town, and be
off! Make inquiries all the way along; it'll be a queer thing if you
can't trace something--it would be broad daylight all the time she'd be
on her journey. Make a thorough search and full inquiry--she must have
been seen." He turned to Mr. Smeaton, who had stood near, listening. "Go
with him!" he said. "It'll be a good turn to do him--he wants company."
Mr. Smeaton and I hurried outside the station--a car or two stood in the
yard, and we picked out the best. As we got in, Chisholm came up to us.
"You'd better have a word or two with our men along the road, Mr. Hugh,"
said he. "There's not many between here and the part you're going to, but
you'd do no harm to give them an idea of what it is you're after, and
tell them to keep their eyes open--and their ears, for that matter."
"Aye, we'll do that, Chisholm," I answered. "And do you keep eyes and
ears open here in Berwick! I'll give ten pounds, and cash in his hand, to
the first man that gives me news; and you can let that be known as much
as you like, and at once--whether Andrew Dunlop thinks it's throwing
money away or not!"
And then we were off; and maybe that he might draw me away from over much
apprehension, Mr. Smeaton began to ask me about the road which Maisie
would take to get to the Heseltons' farm--the road which we, of course,
were taking ourselves. And I explained to him that it was just the
ordinary high-road that ran between Berwick and Kelso that Maisie would
follow, until she came to Cornhill, where she would turn south by way of
Mindrum Mill, where--if that fact had anything to do with her
disappearance--she would come into a wildish stretch of country at the
northern edge of the Cheviots.
"There'll be places--villages and the like--all along, I expect?" he
asked.
"It's a lonely road, Mr. Smeaton," I answered. "I know it well--what
places there are, are more off than on it, but there's no stretch of it
that's out of what you might term human reach. And how anybody could
happen aught along it of a summer's evening is beyond me!--unless indeed
we're going back to the old kidnapping times. And if you knew Maisie
Dunlop, you'd know that she's the sort that would put up a fight if she
was interfered with! I'm wondering if this has aught to do with all yon
Carstairs affair? There's been such blackness about that, and such
villainy, that I wish I'd never heard the name!"
"Aye!" he answered. "I understand you. But--it's coming to an end. And in
queer ways--queer ways, indeed!"
I made no reply to him--and I was sick of the Carstairs matters; it
seemed to me I had been eating and drinking and living and sleeping with
murder and fraud till I was choked with the thought of them. Let me only
find Maisie, said I to myself, and I would wash my hands of any further
to-do with the whole vile business.
But we were not to find Maisie during the long hours of that weary
afternoon and the evening that followed it. Mr. Lindsey had bade me keep
the car and spare no expense, and we journeyed hither and thither all
round the district, seeking news and getting none. She had been seen just
once, at East Ord, just outside Berwick, by a man that was working in his
cottage garden by the roadside--no other tidings could we get. We
searched all along the road that runs by the side of Bowmont Water,
between Mindrum and the Yetholms, devoting ourselves particularly to that
stretch as being the loneliest, and without result. And as the twilight
came on, and both of us were dead weary, we turned homeward, myself
feeling much more desperate than even I did when I was swimming for my
very life in the North Sea.
"And I'm pretty well sure of what it is, now, Mr. Smeaton!" I exclaimed
as we gave up the search for that time. "There's been foul play! And I'll
have all the police in Northumberland on this business, or--"
"Aye!" he said, "it's a police matter, this, without doubt, Moneylaws.
We'd best get back to Berwick, and insist on Murray setting his men
thoroughly to work."
We went first to Mr. Lindsey's when we got back, his house being on our
way. And at sight of us he hurried out and had us in his study. There was
a gentleman with him there--Mr. Ridley, the clergyman who had given
evidence about Gilverthwaite at the opening of the inquest on Phillips.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE LINK
I knew by one glance at Mr. Lindsey's face that he had news for us; but
there was only one sort of news I was wanting at that moment, and I was
just as quick to see that, whatever news he had, it was not for me. And
as soon as I heard him say that nothing had been heard of Maisie Dunlop
during our absence, I was for going away, meaning to start inquiries of
my own in the town, there and then, dead-beat though I was. But before I
could reach the door he had a hand on me.
"You'll just come in, my lad, and sit you down to a hot supper that's
waiting you and Mr. Smeaton there," he said, in that masterful way he
had which took no denial from anybody. "You can do no more good just
now--I've made every arrangement possible with the police, and they're
scouring the countryside. So into that chair with you, and eat and
drink--you'll be all the better for it. Mr. Smeaton," he went on, as he
had us both to the supper-table and began to help us to food, "here's
news for you--for such news as it is affects you, I'm thinking, more
than any man that it has to do with. Mr. Ridley here has found out
something relating to Michael Carstairs that'll change the whole course
of events!--especially if we prove, as I've no doubt we shall, that
Michael Carstairs was no other than your father, whom you knew as
Martin Smeaton."
Smeaton turned in his chair and looked at Mr. Ridley, who--he and Mr.
Lindsey having taken their supper before we got in--was sitting in a
corner by the fire, eyeing the stranger from Dundee with evident and
curious interest.
"I've heard of you, sir," said he. "You gave some evidence at the inquest
on Phillips about Gilverthwaite's searching of your registers, I think?"
"Aye; and it's a fortunate thing--and shows how one thing leads to
another--that Gilverthwaite did go to Mr. Ridley!" explained Mr.
Lindsey. "It set Mr. Ridley on a track, and he's been following it up,
and--to cut matters short--he's found particulars of the marriage of
Michael Carstairs, who was said to have died unmarried. And I wish
Portlethorpe hadn't gone home to Newcastle before Mr. Ridley came to me
with the news."
Tired as I was, and utterly heart-sick about Maisie, I pricked up my ears
at that. For at intervals Mr. Lindsey and I had discussed the
probabilities of this affair, and I knew that there was a strong
likelihood of its being found out that the mysterious Martin Smeaton was
no other than the Michael Carstairs who had left Hathercleugh for good as
a young man. And if it were established that he was married, and that
Gavin Smeaton was his lawful son, why, then--but Mr. Ridley was speaking,
and I broke off my own speculations to listen to him.
"You've scarcely got me to thank for this, Mr. Smeaton," he said. "There
was naturally a good deal of talk in the neighbourhood after that inquest
on Phillips--people began wondering what that man Gilverthwaite wanted to
find in the parish registers, of which, I now know, he examined a good
many, on both sides the Tweed. And in the ordinary course of things--and
if some one had made a definite search with a definite object--what has
been found now could have been found at once. But I'll tell you how it
was. Up to some thirty years ago there was an old parish church away in
the loneliest part of the Cheviots which had served a village that
gradually went out of existence--though it's still got a name, Walholm,
there's but a house or two in it now; and as there was next to no
congregation, and the church itself was becoming ruinous, the old parish
was abolished, and merged in the neighbouring parish of Felside, whose
rector, my friend Mr. Longfield, has the old Walholm registers in his
possession. When he read of the Phillips inquest, and what I'd said then,
he thought of those registers and turned them up, out of a chest where
they'd lain for thirty years anyway; and he at once found the entry of
the marriage of one Michael Carstairs with a Mary Smeaton, which was by
licence, and performed by the last vicar of Walholm--it was, as a matter
of fact, the very last marriage which ever took place in the old church.
And I should say," concluded Mr. Ridley, "that it was what one would call
a secret wedding--secret, at any rate, in so far as this: as it was by
licence, and as the old church was a most lonely and isolated place, far
away from anywhere, even then there'd be no one to know of it beyond the
officiating clergyman and the witnesses, who could, of course, be asked
to hold their tongues about the matter, as they probably were. But
there's the copy of the entry in the old register."
Smeaton and I looked eagerly over the slip of paper which Mr. Ridley
handed across. And he, to whom it meant such a vast deal, asked but
one question:
"I wonder if I can find out anything about Mary Smeaton!"
"Mr. Longfield has already made some quiet inquiries amongst two or three
old people of the neighbourhood on that point," remarked Mr. Ridley. "The
two witnesses to the marriage are both dead--years ago. But there are
folk living in the neighbourhood who remember Mary Smeaton. The facts are
these: she was a very handsome young woman, not a native of the district,
who came in service to one of the farms on the Cheviots, and who, by a
comparison of dates, left her place somewhat suddenly very soon after
that marriage."
Smeaton turned to Mr. Lindsey in the same quiet fashion.
"What do you make of all this?" he asked.
"Plain as a pikestaff," answered Mr. Lindsey in his most confident
manner. "Michael Carstairs fell in love with this girl and married her,
quietly--as Mr. Ridley says, seeing that the marriage was by licence,
it's probable, nay, certain, that nobody but the parson and the witnesses
ever knew anything about it. I take it that immediately after the
marriage Michael Carstairs and his wife went off to America, and that he,
for reasons of his own, dropped his own proper patronymic and adopted
hers. And," he ended, slapping his knee, "I've no doubt that you're the
child of that marriage, that your real name is Gavin Carstairs, and that
you're the successor to the baronetcy, and--the real owner of
Hathercleugh,--as I shall have pleasure in proving."
"We shall see," said Smeaton, quietly as ever. "But--there's a good deal
to do before we get to that, Mr. Lindsey! The present holder, or
claimant, for example? What of him?"
"I've insisted on the police setting every bit of available machinery to
work in an effort to lay hands on him," replied Mr. Lindsey. "Murray not
only communicated all that Hollins told us last night to the Glasgow
police this morning, first thing, but he's sent a man over there with
the fullest news; he's wired the London authorities, and he's asked
for special detective help. He's got a couple of detectives from
Newcastle--all's being done that can be done. And for you too, Hugh, my
lad!" he added, turning suddenly to me. "Whatever the police are doing in
the other direction, they're doing in yours. For, ugly as it may sound
and seem, there's nothing like facing facts, and I'm afraid, I'm very
much afraid, that this disappearance of Maisie Dunlop is all of a piece
with the rest of the villainy that's been going on--I am indeed!"
I pushed my plate away at that, and got on my feet. I had been dreading
as much myself, all day, but I had never dared put it into words.
"You mean, Mr. Lindsey, that she's somehow got into the hands
of--what?--who?" I asked him.
"Something and somebody that's at the bottom of all this!" he answered,
shaking his head. "I'm afraid, lad, I'm afraid!"
I went away from all of them then, and nobody made any attempt to stop
me, that time--maybe they saw in my face that it was useless. I left the
house, and went--unconsciously, I think--away through the town to my
mother's, driving my nails into the palms of my hands, and cursing Sir
Gilbert Carstairs--if that was the devil's name!--between my teeth. And
from cursing him, I fell to cursing myself, that I hadn't told at once of
my seeing him at those crossroads on the night I went the errand for
Gilverthwaite.
It had been late when Smeaton and I had got to Mr. Lindsey's, and the
night was now fallen on the town--a black, sultry night, with great
clouds overhead that threatened a thunderstorm. Our house was in a
badly-lighted part of the street, and it was gloomy enough about it as I
drew near, debating in myself what further I could do--sleep I knew I
should not until I had news of Maisie. And in the middle of my
speculations a man came out of the corner of a narrow lane that ran from
the angle of our house, and touched me on the elbow. There was a shaft of
light just there from a neighbour's window; in it I recognized the man as
a fellow named Scott that did odd gardening jobs here and there in the
neighbourhood.
"Wisht, Mr. Hugh!" said he, drawing me into the shadows of the lane;
"I've been waiting your coming; there's a word I have for you--between
ourselves."
"Well?" said I.
"I hear you're promising ten pounds--cash on the spot--to the man that
can give you some news of your young lady?" he went on eagerly. "Is it
right, now?"
"Can you?" I asked. "For if you can, you'll soon see that it's right."
"You'd be reasonable about it?" he urged, again taking the liberty to
grip my arm. "If I couldn't just exactly give what you'd call exact and
definite news, you'd consider it the same thing if I made a suggestion,
wouldn't you, now, Mr. Hugh?--a suggestion that would lead to something?"
"Aye, would I!" I exclaimed. "And if you've got any suggestions, Scott,
out with them, and don't beat about! Tell me anything that'll lead to
discovery, and you'll see your ten pound quickly."
"Well," he answered, "I have to be certain, for I'm a poor man, as you
know, with a young family, and it would be a poor thing for me to hint at
aught that would take the bread out of their mouths--and my own. And I
have the chance of a fine, regular job now at Hathercleugh yonder, and I
wouldn't like to be putting it in peril."
"It's Hathercleugh you're talking of, then?" I asked him eagerly. "For
God's sake, man, out with it! What is it you can tell me?"
"Not a word to a soul of what I say, then, at any time, present or
future, Mr. Hugh?" he urged.
"Oh, man, not a word!" I cried impatiently. "I'll never let on that I had
speech of you in the matter!"
"Well, then," he whispered, getting himself still closer: "mind you, I
can't say anything for certain--it's only a hint I'm giving you; but if I
were in your shoes, I'd take a quiet look round yon old part of
Hathercleugh House--I would so! It's never used, as you'll know--nobody
ever goes near it; but, Mr. Hugh, whoever and however it is, there's
somebody in it now!"
"The old part!" I exclaimed. "The Tower part?"
"Aye, surely!" he answered. "If you could get quietly to it--"
I gave his arm a grip that might have told him volumes.
"I'll see you privately tomorrow, Scott," I said. "And if your news is
any good--man! there'll be your ten pound in your hand as soon as I set
eyes on you!"
And therewith I darted away from him and headlong into our house doorway.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE OLD TOWER
My mother was at her knitting, in her easy-chair, in her own particular
corner of the living-room when I rushed in, and though she started at the
sight of me, she went on knitting as methodically as if all the world was
regular as her own stitches.
"So you've come to your own roof at last, my man!" she said, with a touch
of the sharpness that she could put into her tongue on occasion. "There's
them would say you'd forgotten the way to it, judging by experience--why
did you not let me know you were not coming home last night, and you in
the town, as I hear from other folks?"
"Oh, mother!" I exclaimed. "How can you ask such questions when you know
how things are!--it was midnight when Mr. Lindsey and I got in from
Newcastle, and he would make me stop with him--and we were away again to
Edinburgh first thing in the morning."
"Aye, well, if Mr. Lindsey likes to spend his money flying about the
country, he's welcome!" she retorted. "But I'll be thankful when you
settle down to peaceful ways again. Where are you going now?" she
demanded. "There's a warm supper for you in the oven!"
"I've had my supper at Mr. Lindsey's, mother," I said, as I dragged my
bicycle out of the back-place. "I've just got to go out, whether I will
or no, and I don't know when I'll be in, either--do you think I can sleep
in my bed when I don't know where Maisie is?"
"You'll not do much good, Hugh, where the police have failed," she
answered. "There's yon man Chisholm been here during the evening, and he
tells me they haven't come across a trace of her, so far."
"Chisholm's been here, then?" I exclaimed. "For no more than that?"
"Aye, for no more than that," she replied. "And then this very noon
there was that Irishwoman that kept house for Crone, asking at the
door for you."
"What, Nance Maguire!" I said. "What did she want?"
"You!" retorted my mother. "Nice sort of people we have coming to our
door in these times! Police, and murderers, and Irish--"
"Did she say why she wanted me?" I interrupted her.
"I gave her no chance," said my mother. "Do you think I was going to hold
talk with a creature like that at my steps?"
"I'd hold talk with the devil himself, mother, if I could get some
news of Maisie!" I flung back at her as I made off. "You're as bad as
Andrew Dunlop!"
There was the house door between her and me before she could reply to
that, and the next instant I had my bicycle on the road and my leg over
the saddle, and was hesitating before I put my foot to the pedal. What
did Nance Maguire want of me? Had she any news of Maisie? It was odd that
she should come down--had I better not ride up the town and see her? But
I reflected that if she had any news--which was highly improbable--she
would give it to the police; and so anxious was I to test what Scott had
hinted at, that I swung on to my machine without further delay or
reflection and went off towards Hathercleugh.
And as I crossed the old bridge, in the opening murmur of a coming storm,
I had an illumination which came as suddenly as the first flash of
lightning that followed just afterwards. It had been a matter of
astonishment to me all day long that nobody, with the exception of the
one man at East Ord, had noticed Maisie as she went along the road
between Berwick and Mindrum on the previous evening--now I remembered,
blaming myself for not having remembered it before, that there was a
short cut, over a certain right-of-way, through the grounds of
Hathercleugh House, which would save her a good three miles in her
journey. She would naturally be anxious to get to her aunt as quickly as
possible; she would think of the nearest way--she would take it. And now
I began to understand the whole thing: Maisie had gone into the grounds
of Hathercleugh, and--she had never left them!
The realization made me sick with fear. The idea of my girl being trapped
by such a villain as I firmly believed the man whom we knew as Sir
Gilbert Carstairs to be was enough to shake every nerve in my body; but
to think that she had been in his power for twenty-four hours, alone,
defenceless, brought on me a faintness that was almost beyond sustaining.
I felt physically and mentally ill--weak. And yet, God knows! there never
was so much as a thought of defeat in me. What I felt was that I must get
there, and make some effort that would bring the suspense to an end for
both of us. I was beginning to see how things might be--passing through
those grounds she might have chanced on something, or somebody, or Sir
Gilbert himself, who, naturally, would not let anybody escape him that
could tell anything of his whereabouts. But if he was at Hathercleugh,
what of the tale which Hollins had told us the night before?--nay, that
very morning, for it was after midnight when he sat there in Mr.
Lindsey's parlour. And, suddenly, another idea flashed across me--Was
that tale true, or was the man telling us a pack of lies, all for some
end? Against that last notion there was, of course, the torn scrap of
letter to be set; but--but supposing that was all part of a plot, meant
to deceive us while these villains--taking Hollins to be in at the other
man's game--got clear away in some totally different direction? If it
was, then it had been successful, for we had taken the bait, and all
attention was being directed on Glasgow, and none elsewhere, and--as far
as I knew--certainly none at Hathercleugh itself, whither nobody expected
Sir Gilbert to come back.
But these were all speculations--the main thing was to get to
Hathercleugh, acting on the hint I had just got from Scott, and to take
a look round the old part of the big house, as far as I could. There was
no difficulty about getting there--although I had small acquaintance with
the house and grounds, never having been in them till the night of my
visit to Sir Gilbert Carstairs. I knew the surroundings well enough to
know how to get in amongst the shrubberies and coppices--I could have got
in there unobserved in the daytime, and it was now black night. I had
taken care to extinguish my lamp as soon as I got clear of the Border
Bridge, and now, riding along in the darkness, I was secure from the
observation of any possible enemy. And before I got to the actual
boundaries of Hathercleugh, I was off the bicycle, and had hidden it in
the undergrowth at the roadside; and instead of going into the grounds by
the right-of-way which I was convinced Maisie must have taken, I climbed
a fence and went forward through a spinny of young pine in the direction
of the house. Presently I had a fine bit of chance guidance to it--as I
parted the last of the feathery branches through which I had quietly made
my way, and came out on the edge of the open park, a vivid flash of
lightning showed me the great building standing on its plateau right
before me, a quarter of a mile off, its turrets and gables vividly
illuminated in the glare. And when that glare passed, as quickly as it
had come, and the heavy blackness fell again, there was a gleam of light,
coming from some window or other, and I made for that, going swiftly and
silently over the intervening space, not without a fear that if anybody
should chance to be on the watch another lightning flash might reveal my
advancing figure.
But there had been no more lightning by the time I reached the plateau on
which Hathercleugh was built; then, however, came a flash that was more
blinding than the last, followed by an immediate crash of thunder right
overhead. In that flash I saw that I was now close to the exact spot I
wanted--the ancient part of the house. I saw, too, that between where I
stood and the actual walls there was no cover of shrubbery or coppice or
spinny--there was nothing but a closely cropped lawn to cross. And in the
darkness I crossed it, there and then, hastening forward with
outstretched hands which presently came against the masonry. In the same
moment came the rain in torrents. In the same moment, too, came something
else that damped my spirits more than any rains, however fierce and
heavy, could damp my skin--the sense of my own utter helplessness. There
I was--having acted on impulse--at the foot of a mass of grey stone which
had once been impregnable, and was still formidable! I neither knew how
to get in, nor how to look in, if that had been possible; and I now saw
that in coming at all I ought to have come accompanied by a squad of
police with authority to search the whole place, from end to end and top
to bottom. And I reflected, with a grim sense of the irony of it, that to
do that would have been a fine long job for a dozen men--what, then, was
it that I had undertaken single-handed?
It was at this moment, as I clung against the wall, sheltering myself as
well as I could from the pouring rain, that I heard through its steady
beating an equally steady throb as of some sort of machine. It was a very
subdued, scarcely apparent sound, but it was there--it was unmistakable.
And suddenly--though in those days we were only just becoming familiar
with them--I knew what it was--the engine of some sort of automobile; but
not in action; the sound came from the boilers or condensers, or whatever
the things were called which they used in the steam-driven cars. And it
was near by--near at my right hand, farther along the line of the wall
beneath which I was cowering. There was something to set all my curiosity
aflame!--what should an automobile be doing there, at that hour--for it
was now nearing well on to midnight--and in such close proximity to a
half-ruinous place like that? And now, caring no more for the rain than
if it had been a springtide shower, I slowly began to creep along the
wall in the direction of the sound.
And here you will understand the situation of things better, if I say
that the habitable part of Hathercleugh was a long way from the old part
to which I had come. The entire mass of building, old and new, was of
vast extent, and the old was separated from the new by a broken and
utterly ruinous wing, long since covered over with ivy. As for the old
itself, there was a great square tower at one corner of it, with walls
extending from its two angles; it was along one of these walls that I was
now creeping. And presently--the sound of the gentle throbbing growing
slightly louder as I made my way along--I came to the tower, and to the
deep-set gateway in it, and I knew at once that in that gateway there was
an automobile drawn up, all ready for being driven out and away.
Feeling quietly for the corner of the gateway, I looked round,
cautiously, lest a headlight on the car should betray my presence. But
there was no headlight, and there was no sound beyond the steady throb of
the steam and the ceaseless pouring of the rain behind me. And then, as I
looked, came a third flash of lightning, and the entire scene was lighted
up for me--the deep-set gateway with its groined and arched roof, the
grim walls at each side, the dark massive masonry beyond it, and there,
within the shelter, a small, brand-new car, evidently of fine and
powerful make, which even my inexperienced eyes knew to be ready for
departure from that place at any moment. And I saw something more during
that flash--a half-open door in the wall to the left of the car, and the
first steps of a winding stair.
As the darkness fell again, blacker than ever, and the thunder crashed
out above the old tower, I stole along the wall to that door, intending
to listen if aught were stirring within, or on the stairs, or in the
rooms above. And I had just got my fingers on the rounded pillar of the
doorway, and the thunder was just dying to a grumble, when a hand seized
the back of my neck as in a vice, and something hard, and round, and cold
pressed itself insistingly into my right temple. It was all done in the
half of a second; but I knew, just as clearly as if I could see it, that
a man of no ordinary strength had gripped me by the neck with one hand,
and was holding a revolver to my head with the other.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE BARGAIN
It may be that when one is placed in such a predicament as that in which
I then found myself, one's wits are suddenly sharpened, and a new sense
is given to one. Whether that is so or not, I was as certain as if I
actually saw him that my assailant was the butler, Hollins. And I should
have been infinitely surprised if any other voice than his had spoken--as
he did speak when the last grumble of the thunder died out in a sulky,
reluctant murmur.
"In at that door, and straight up the stairs, Moneylaws!" he commanded.
"And quick, if you don't want your brains scattering. Lively, now!"
He trailed the muzzle of the revolver round from my temple to the back of
my head as he spoke, pressing it into my hair in its course in a fashion
that was anything but reassuring. I have often thought since of how I
expected the thing to go off at any second, and how I was--for it's a
fact--more curious than frightened about it. But the sense of
self-preservation was on me, self-assertive enough, and I obliged him,
stumbling in at the door under the pressure of his strong arm and of the
revolver, and beginning to boggle at the first steps--old and much worn
ones, which were deeply hollowed in the middle. He shoved me forward.
"Up you go," he said, "straight ahead! Put your arms up and out--in front
of you till you feel a door--push it open."
He kept one hand on the scruff of my neck--too tightly for comfort--and
with the other pressed the revolver into the cavity just above it, and in
this fashion we went up. And even in that predicament I must have had my
wits about me, for I counted two-and-twenty steps. Then came the door--a
heavy, iron-studded piece of strong oak, and it was slightly open, and as
I pushed it wider in the darkness, a musty, close smell came from
whatever was within.
"No steps," said he, "straight on! Now then, halt--and keep halting! If
you move one finger, Moneylaws, out fly your brains! No great loss to the
community, my lad--but I've some use for them yet."
He took his hand away from my neck, but the revolver was still pressed
into my hair, and the pressure never relaxed. And suddenly I heard a snap
behind me, and the place in which we stood was lighted up--feebly, but
enough to show me a cell-like sort of room, stone-walled, of course, and
destitute of everything in the furnishing way but a bit of a cranky old
table and a couple of three-legged stools on either side of it. With the
released hand he had snapped the catch of an electric pocket-lamp, and in
its blue glare he drew the revolver away from my head, and stepping
aside, but always covering me with his weapon, motioned me to the further
stool. I obeyed him mechanically, and he pulled the table a little
towards him, sat down on the other stool, and, resting his elbow on the
table ledge, poked the revolver within a few inches of my nose.
"Now, we'll talk for a few minutes, Moneylaws," he said quietly, "Storm
or no storm, I'm bound to be away on my business, and I'd have been off
now if it hadn't been for your cursed peeping and prying. But I don't
want to kill you, unless I'm obliged to, so you'll just serve your own
interests best if you answer a question or two and tell no lies. Are
there more of you outside or about?"
"Not to my knowledge!" said I.
"You came alone?" he asked.
"Absolutely alone," I replied.
"And why?" he demanded.
"To see if I could get any news of Miss Dunlop," I answered.
"Why should you think to find Miss Dunlop here--in this old ruin?" he
argued; and I could see he was genuinely curious. "Come now--straight
talk, Moneylaws!--and it'll be all the better for you."
"She's missing since last night," I replied. "It came to me that she
likely took a short cut across these grounds, and that in doing so she
fell in with Sir Gilbert--or with you--and was kept, lest she should let
out what she'd seen. That's the plain truth, Mr. Hollins."
He was keeping his eyes on me just as steadily as he kept the revolver,
and I saw from the look in them that he believed me.
"Aye!" he said. "I see you can draw conclusions, if it comes to it.
But--did you keep that idea of yours strictly to yourself, now?"
"Absolutely!" I repeated.
"You didn't mention it to a soul?" he asked searchingly.
"Not to a soul!" said I. "There isn't man, woman, or child knows
I'm here."
I thought he might have dropped the muzzle of the revolver at that, but
he still kept it in a line with my nose and made no sign of relaxing
his vigilance. But, as he was silent for the moment, I let out a
question at him.
"It'll do you no harm to tell me the truth, Mr. Hollins," I said. "Do you
know anything about Miss Dunlop? Is she safe? You've maybe had a young
lady yourself one time or another--you'll understand what I'm feeling
about it?"
He nodded solemnly at that and in quite a friendly way.
"Aye!" he answered. "I understand your feelings well enough,
Moneylaws--and I'm a man of sentiment, so I'll tell you at once that the
lass is safe enough, and there's not as much harm come to her as you
could put on a sixpence--so there! But--I'm not sure yet that you're safe
yourself," he went on, still eyeing me consideringly. "I'm a soft-hearted
man, Moneylaws--or else you wouldn't have your brains in their place at
this present minute!"
"There's a mighty lot of chance of my harming you, anyway!" said I, with
a laugh that surprised myself. "Not so much as a penknife on me, and you
with that thing at my head."
"Aye!--but you've got a tongue in that head," said he. "And you might be
using it! But come, now--I'm loth to harm you, and you'd best tell me a
bit more. What's the police doing?"
"What police do you mean?" I inquired.
"Here, there, everywhere, anywhere!" he exclaimed. "No quibbles,
now!--you'll have had plenty of information."
"They're acting on yours," I retorted. "Searching about Glasgow for Sir
Gilbert and Lady Carstairs--you put us on to that, Mr. Hollins."
"I had to," he answered. "Aye, I put Lindsey on to it, to be sure--and he
took it all in like it was gospel, and so did all of you! It gained time,
do you see, Moneylaws--it had to be done."
"Then--they aren't in Glasgow?" I asked.
He shook his big head solemnly at that, and something like a smile came
about the corners of his lips.
"They're not in Glasgow, nor near it," he answered readily, "but where
all the police in England--and in Scotland, too, for that matter--'ll
find it hard to get speech with them. Out of hand, Moneylaws!--out of
hand, d'ye see--for the police!"
He gave a sort of chuckle when he said this, and it emboldened me to come
to grips with him--as far as words went.
"Then what harm can I do you, Mr. Hollins?" I asked. "You're not in any
danger that I know of."
He looked at me as if wondering whether I wasn't trying a joke on him,
and after staring a while he shook his head.
"I'm leaving this part--finally," he answered. "That's Sir Gilbert's
brand-new car that's all ready for me down the stairs; and as I say,
whether it's storm or no storm, I must be away. And there's just two
things I can do, Moneylaws--I can lay you out on the floor here, with
your brains running over your face, or I can--trust to your honour!"
We looked at each other for a full minute in silence--our eyes meeting in
the queer, bluish light of the electric pocket-lamp which he had set on
the table before us. Between us, too, was that revolver--always pointing
at me out of its one black eye.
"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Hollins," said I at length, "I'd prefer
you to trust to my honour. Whatever quality my brains may have, I'd
rather they were used than misused in the way you're suggesting! If it's
just this--that you want me to hold my tongue--"
"I'll make a bargain with you," he broke in on me. "You'd be fine and
glad to see your sweetheart, Moneylaws, and assure yourself that she's
come to no harm, and is safe and well?"
"Aye! I would that!" I exclaimed. "Give me the chance, Mr. Hollins!"
"Then give me your word that whatever happens, whatever comes, you'll
not mention to the police that you've seen me tonight, and that whenever
you're questioned you'll know nothing about me!" he said eagerly.
"Twelve hours' start--aye, six!--means safety to me, Moneylaws. Will
you keep silence?"
"Where's Miss Dunlop?" asked I.
"You can be with her in three minutes," he answered, "if you'll give me
your word--and you're a truthful lad, I think--that you'll both bide
where you are till morning, and that after that you'll keep your tongue
quiet. Will you do that?"
"She's close by?" I demanded.
"Over our heads," he said calmly. "And you've only to say the word--"
"It's said, Mr. Hollins!" I exclaimed. "Go your ways! I'll never breathe
a syllable of it to a soul! Neither in six, nor twelve, nor a thousand
hours!--your secret's safe enough with me--so long as you keep your word
about her--and just now!"
He drew his free hand off the table, still watching me, and still keeping
up the revolver, and from a drawer in the table between us pulled out a
key and pushed it over.
"There's a door behind you in yon corner," he said. "And you'll find a
lantern at its foot--you've matches on you, no doubt. And beyond the door
there's another stair that leads up to the turret, and you'll find her
there--and safe--and so--go your ways, now, Moneylaws, and I'll go mine!"
He dropped the revolver into a side pocket of his waterproof coat as he
spoke, and, pointing me to the door in the corner, turned to that by
which he had entered. And as he turned he snapped off the light of his
electric lamp, while I myself, having fumbled for a box of matches,
struck one and looked around me for this lantern he had mentioned. In
its spluttering light I saw his big figure round the corner--then, just
as I made for the lantern, the match went out and all was darkness again.
As I felt for another match, I heard him pounding the stair--and suddenly
there was a sort of scuffle and he cried out loudly once, and there was
the sound of a fall, and then of lighter steps hurrying away, and then a
heavy, rattling groan. And with my heart in my mouth and fingers
trembling so that I could scarcely hold the match, I made shift to light
the candle in the lantern, and went fearfully after him. There, in an
angle of the stairway, he was lying, with the blood running in dark
streams from a gap in his throat; while his hands, which he had
instinctively put up to it, were feebly dropping away and relaxing on his
broad chest. And as I put the lantern closer to him he looked up at me in
a queer, puzzled fashion, and died before my very eyes.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE SWAG
I shrank back against the mouldy wall of that old stairway shivering as
if I had been suddenly stricken with the ague. I had trembled in every
limb before ever I heard the sound of the sudden scuffle, and from a
variety of reasons--the relief of having Hollins's revolver withdrawn
from my nose; the knowledge that Maisie was close by; the gradual
wearing-down of my nerves during a whole day of heart-sickening
suspense,--but now the trembling had deepened into utter shaking: I heard
my own teeth chattering, and my heart going like a pump, as I stood
there, staring at the man's face, over which a grey pallor was quickly
spreading itself. And though I knew that he was as dead as ever a man can
be, I called to him, and the sound of my own voice frightened me.
"Mr. Hollins!" I cried. "Mr. Hollins!"
And then I was frightened still more, for, as if in answer to my summons,
but, of course, because of some muscular contraction following on death,
the dead lips slightly parted, and they looked as if they were grinning
at me. At that I lost what nerve I had left, and let out a cry, and
turned to run back into the room where we had talked. But as I turned
there were sounds at the foot of the stair, and the flash of a bull's-eye
lamp, and I heard Chisholm's voice down in the gateway below.
"Hullo, up there!" he was demanding. "Is there anybody above?"
It seemed as if I was bursting my chest when I got an answer out to him.
"Oh, man!" I shouted, "come up! There's me here--and there's murder!"
I heard him exclaim in a dismayed and surprised fashion, and mutter some
words to somebody that was evidently with him, and then there was heavy
tramping below, and presently Chisholm's face appeared round the corner;
and as he held his bull's-eye before him, its light fell full on Hollins,
and he jumped back a step or two.
"Mercy on us!" he let out. "What's all this? The man's lying dead!"
"Dead enough, Chisholm!" said I, gradually getting the better of my
fright. "And murdered, too! But who murdered him, God knows--I don't! He
trapped me in here, not ten minutes ago, and had me at the end of a
revolver, and we came to terms, and he left me--and he was no sooner down
the stairs here than I heard a bit of a scuffle, and him fall and groan,
and I ran out to find--that! And somebody was off and away--have you seen
nobody outside there?"
"You can't see an inch before your eyes--the night's that black," he
answered, bending over the dead man. "We've only just come--round from
the house. But whatever were you doing here, yourself?"
"I came to see if I could find any trace of Miss Dunlop in this old
part," I answered, "and he told me--just before this happened--she's in
the tower above, and safe. And I'll go up there now, Chisholm; for if
she's heard aught of all this--"
There was another policeman with him, and they stepped past the body and
followed me into the little room and looked round curiously. I left them
whispering, and opened the door that Hollins had pointed out. There was a
stair there, as he had said, set deep in the thick wall, and I went a
long way up it before I came to another door, in which there was a key
set in the lock. And in a moment I had it turned, and there was Maisie,
and I had her in my arms and was flooding her with questions and holding
the light to her face to see if she was safe, all at once.
"You've come to no harm?--you're all right?--you've not been frightened
out of your senses?--how did it all come about?" I rapped out at her.
"Oh, Maisie, I've been seeking for you all day long, and--"
And then, being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly
felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I
should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a
couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a
glass of water to my lips that she snatched up from a table, and
encouraging me, who should have been consoling her--all within the
minute of my setting eyes on her, and me so weak, as it seemed, that I
could only cling on to her hand, making sure that I had really got her.
"There, there, it's all right, Hugh!" she murmured, patting my arm as if
I had been some child that had just started awake from a bad dream.
"There's no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this
black hole of a place!--I've had food and drink and a light, as you
see--they promised me I should have no harm when they locked me in. But
oh, it's seemed like it was ages since then!"
"They? Who?" I demanded. "Who locked you in?"
"Sir Gilbert and that butler of his--Hollins," she answered. "I took the
short cut through the grounds here last night, and I ran upon the two of
them at the corner of the ruins, and they stopped me, and wouldn't let me
go, and locked me up here, promising I'd be let out later on."
"Sir Gilbert!" I exclaimed. "You're sure it was Sir Gilbert?"
"Of course I'm sure!" she replied. "Who else? And I made out they were
afraid of my letting out that I'd seen them--it was Sir Gilbert himself
said they could run no risks."
"You've seen him since?" I asked. "He's been in here?"
"No--not since last night," she answered. "And Hollins not since this
morning when he brought me some food--I've not wanted for that," she went
on, with a laugh, pointing to things that had been set on the table.
"And he said, then, that about midnight, tonight, I'd hear the key
turned, and after that I was free to go, but I'd have to make my way home
on foot, for he wasn't wanting me to be in Berwick again too soon."
"Aye!" I said, shaking my head. "I'm beginning to see through some of it!
But, Maisie, you'll be a good girl, and just do what I tell you?--and
that's to stay where you are until I fetch you down. For there's more
dreadfulness below--where Sir Gilbert may be, Heaven knows, but Hollins
is lying murdered on the stair; and if I didn't see him murdered, I saw
him take his last breath!"
She, too, shook a bit at that, and she gripped me tighter.
"You're not by yourself, Hugh?" she asked anxiously. "You're in no
danger?"
But just then Chisholm called up the stair of the turret, asking was Miss
Dunlop safe, and I bade Maisie speak to him.
"That's good news!" said he. "But will you tell Mr. Hugh to come down to
us?--and you'd best stop where you are yourself, Miss Dunlop--there's no
very pleasant sight down this way. Have you no idea at all who did this?"
he asked, as I went down to him. "You were with him?"
"Man alive, I've no more idea than you have!" I exclaimed. "He was making
off somewhere in yon car that's below--he threatened me with the loss of
my life if I didn't agree to let him get away in peace, and he was going
down the stairs to the car when it happened. But I'll tell you this:
Miss Dunlop says Sir Gilbert was here last night!--and it was he and
Hollins imprisoned her above there--frightened she'd let out on them if
she got away."
"Then the Glasgow tale was all lies?" he exclaimed. "It came from
this man, too, that's lying dead--it's been a put-up thing, d'ye
think, Mr. Hugh?"
"It's all part of a put-up thing, Chisholm," said I. "Hadn't we better
get the man in here, and see what's on him? And what made you come here
yourselves?--and are there any more of you about?"
"We came asking some information at the house," he answered, "and we were
passing round here, under the wall, on our way to the road, when we heard
that car throbbing, and then saw your bit of a light. And that's a good
idea of yours, and we'll bring him into this place and see if there's
aught to give us a clue. Slip down," he went on, turning to the other
man, "and bring the headlights off the car, so that we can see what we're
doing. Do you think this is some of Sir Gilbert's work, Mr. Hugh?" he
whispered when we were alone. "If he was about here, and this Hollins was
in some of his secrets--?"
"Oh, don't ask me!" I exclaimed. "It seems like there was nothing but
murder on every hand of us! And whoever did this can't be far away--only
the night's that black, and there's so many holes and corners hereabouts
that it would be like searching a rabbit-warren--you'll have to get help
from the town."
"Aye, to be sure!" he agreed. "But we'll take a view of things
ourselves, first. There may be effects on him that'll suggest
something."
We carried the body into the room when the policeman came up with the
lamps from the car, and stretched it out on the table at which Hollins
and I had sat not so long before; though that time, indeed, now seemed to
me to belong to some other life! And Chisholm made a hasty examination of
what there was in the man's pockets, and there was little that had any
significance, except that in a purse which he carried in an inner pocket
of his waistcoat there was a considerable sum of money in notes and gold.
The other policeman, who held one of the lamps over the table while
Chisholm was making this search, waited silently until it was over, and
then he nodded his head at the stair.
"There's some boxes, or cases, down in yon car," he remarked. "All
fastened up and labelled--it might be worth while to take a look into
them, sergeant. What's more, there's tools lying in the car that looks
like they'd been used to fasten them up."
"We'll have them up here, then," said Chisholm. "Stop you here, Mr. Hugh,
while we fetch them--and don't let your young lady come down while that's
lying here. You might cover him up," he went on, with a significant nod.
"It's an ill sight for even a man's eyes, that!"
There were some old, moth-eaten hangings about the walls here and there,
and I took one down and laid it over Hollins, wondering while I did this
office for him what strange secret it was that he had carried away into
death, and why that queer and puzzled expression had crossed his face in
death's very moment. And that done, I ran up to Maisie again, bidding her
be patient awhile, and we talked quietly a bit until Chisholm called me
down to look at the boxes. There were four of them--stout, new-made
wooden cases, clamped with iron at the corners, and securely screwed
down; and when the policemen invited me to feel the weight, I was put in
mind, in a lesser degree, of Gilverthwaite's oak-chest.
"What do you think's like to be in there, now, Mr. Hugh?" asked Chisholm.
"Do you know what I think? There's various heavy metals in the
world--aye, and isn't gold one of the heaviest?--it'll not be lead that's
in here! And look you at that!"
He pointed to some neatly addressed labels tacked strongly to each
lid--the writing done in firm, bold, print-like characters:
_John Harrison, passenger, by S.S. Aerolite.
Newcastle to Hamburg_.
I was looking from one label to the other and finding them all alike,
when we heard voices at the foot of the stair, and from out of them came
Superintendent Murray's, demanding loudly who was above.
CHAPTER XXXVI
GOLD
There was quite a company of men came up the stair with Murray, crowding,
all of them, into the room, with eyes full of astonishment at what they
saw: Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and a policeman or two, and--what
was of more interest to me--a couple of strangers. But looking at these
more closely, I saw that I had seen one of them before--an elderly man,
whom I recognized as having been present in court when Carter was brought
up before the magistrates; a quiet, noticing sort of man whom I
remembered as appearing to take great and intelligent interest in the
proceedings. And he and the other man now with him seemed to take just as
keen an interest in what Chisholm and I had to tell; but while Murray was
full of questions to both of us, they asked none. Only--during that
questioning--the man whom I had never seen before quietly lifted the
hanging which I had spread over Hollins's dead body, and took a searching
look at his face.
Mr. Lindsey drew me aside and pointed at the elderly man whom I
remembered seeing in the police court.
"You see yon gentleman?" he whispered. "That's a Mr. Elphinstone,
that was formerly steward to old Sir Alexander Carstairs. He's
retired--a good many years, now, and lives the other side of Alnwick,
in a place of his own. But this affair's fetched him into the light
again--to some purpose!"
"I saw him in the court when Carter was before the bench, Mr. Lindsey,"
I remarked.
"Aye!--and I wish he'd told me that day what he could have told!"
exclaimed Mr. Lindsey under his breath. "But he's a cautious, a very
cautious man, and he preferred to work quietly, and it wasn't until very
late tonight that he came to Murray and sent for me--an hour, it was,
after you'd gone home. The other man with him is a London detective. Man!
there's nice revelations come out!--and pretty much on the lines I was
suspecting. We'd have been up here an hour ago if it hadn't been for yon
storm. And--but now that the storm's over, Hugh, we must get Maisie
Dunlop out of this; come up, now, and show me where she is--that first,
and the rest after."
We left the others still grouped around the dead man and the boxes which
had been brought up from the car, and I took Mr. Lindsey up the stairs to
the room in the turret which had served Maisie for a prison all that
weary time. And after a word or two with her about her sore adventures,
Mr. Lindsey told her she must be away, and he would get Murray to send
one of the policemen with her to see her safe home--I myself being still
wanted down below. But at that Maisie began to show signs of distinct
dislike and disapproval.
"I'll not go a yard, Mr. Lindsey," she declared, "unless you'll give me
your word that you'll not let Hugh out of your sight again till all this
is settled and done with! Twice within this last few days the lad's been
within an inch of his life, and they say the third time pays for all--and
how do I know there mightn't be a third time in his case? And I'd rather
stay by him, and we'll take our chances together--"
"Now, now!" broke in Mr. Lindsey, patting her arm. "There's a good
half-dozen of us with him now, and we'll take good care no harm comes to
him or any of us; so be a good lass and get you home to Andrew--and tell
him all about it, for the worthy man's got a bee in his bonnet that we've
been in some way responsible for your absence, my girl. You're sure you
never set eyes on Sir Gilbert again after he and Hollins stopped you?" he
asked suddenly, as we went down the stair. "Nor heard his voice down
here--or anywhere?"
"I never saw him again, nor heard him," answered Maisie. "And till Hugh
came just now, I'd never seen Hollins himself since morning and--Oh!"
She had caught sight of the still figure stretched out in the lower room,
and she shrank to me as we hurried her past it and down to the gateway
below. Thither Murray followed us, and after a bit more questioning he
put her in a car in which he and some of the others had come up, and sent
one of his men off with her; but before this Maisie pulled me away into
the darkness and gripped me tight by the arm.
"You'll promise me, Hugh, before ever I go, that you'll not run yourself
into any more dangers?" she asked earnestly. "We've been through enough
of that, and I'm just more than satisfied with it, and it's like as if
there was something lurking about--"
She began to shiver as she looked into the black night about us--and it
was indeed, although in summer time, as black a night as ever I saw--and
her hand got a tighter grip on mine.
"How do you know yon bad man isn't still about?" she whispered. "It was
he killed Hollins, of course!--and if he wanted to kill you yon time in
the yacht, he'll want again!"
"It's small chance he'll get, then, now!" I said. "There's no fear of
that, Maisie--amongst all yon lot of men above. Away you go, now, and get
to your bed, and as sure as sure I'll be home to eat my breakfast with
you. It's my opinion all this is at an end."
"Not while yon man's alive!" she answered. "And I'd have far rather
stayed with you--till it's daylight, anyway."
However, she let me put her into the car; and when I had charged the
policeman who went with her not to take his eyes off her until she was
safe in Andrew Dunlop's house, they went off, and Mr. Lindsey and I
turned up the stair again. Murray had preceded us, and under his
superintendence Chisholm was beginning to open the screwed-up boxes. The
rest of us stood round while this job was going on, waiting in silence.
It was no easy or quick job, for the screws had been fastened in after a
thoroughly workmanlike fashion, and when he got the first lid off we saw
that the boxes themselves had been evidently specially made for this
purpose. They were of some very strong, well-seasoned wood, and they were
lined, first with zinc, and then with thick felt. And--as we were soon
aware--they were filled to the brim with gold. There it lay--roll upon
roll, all carefully packed--gold! It shone red and fiery in the light of
our lamps, and it seemed to me that in every gleam of it I saw devils'
eyes, full of malice, and mockery, and murder.
But there was one box, lighter than the rest, in which, instead of gold,
we found the valuable things of which Hollins had told Mr. Lindsey and
Mr. Portlethorpe and myself when he came to us on his lying mission, only
the previous midnight. There they all were--the presents that had been
given to various of the Carstairs baronets by royal donors--carefully
packed and bestowed. And at sight of them, Mr. Lindsey looked
significantly at me, and then at Murray.
"He was a wily and a clever man, this fellow that's lying behind us," he
muttered. "He pulled our hair over our eyes to some purpose with his tale
of Lady Carstairs and her bicycle--but I'm forgetting," he broke off, and
drew me aside. "There's another thing come out since you left me and
Smeaton tonight," he whispered. "The police have found out something for
themselves--I'll give them that credit. That was all lies--lies, nothing
but lies!--that Hollins told us,--all done to throw us off the scent. You
remember the tale of the registered letter from Edinburgh?--the police
found out last evening from the post folks that there never was any
registered letter. You remember Hollins said Lady Carstairs went off on
her bicycle? The police have found out she never went off on any
bicycle--she wasn't there to go off. She was away early that morning; she
took a train south from Beal station before breakfast--at least, a veiled
woman answering her description did,--and she's safe hidden in London, or
elsewhere, by now, my lad!"
"But him--the man--Sir Gilbert, or whoever he is?" I whispered. "What of
him, Mr. Lindsey?"
"Aye, just so!" he said. "I'm gradually piecing it together, as we go on.
It would seem to me that he made his way to Edinburgh after getting rid
of you, as he thought and hoped--probably got there the very next
morning, through the help of yon fisherman at Largo, Robertson, who, of
course, told us and the police a pack of lies!--and when he'd got the
last of these securities from Paley, he worked back here, secretly, and
with the help of Hollins, and has no doubt kept quiet in this old tower
until they could get away with that gold! Of course, Hollins has been in
at all this--but now--who's killed Hollins? And where's the chief
party--the other man?"
"What?" I exclaimed. "You don't think he killed Hollins, then?"
"I should be a fool if I did, my lad," he answered. "Bethink
yourself!--when all was cut and dried for their getting off, do you
think he'd stick a knife in his confederate's throat? No!--I can see
their plan, and it was a good one. Hollins would have run those cases
down to Newcastle in a couple of hours; there'd have been no suspicion
about them, and no questions which he couldn't answer--he'd have gone
across to Hamburg with them himself. As for the man we know as Sir
Gilbert, you'll be hearing something presently from Mr. Elphinstone
yonder; but my impression is, as Maisie never saw or heard of him during
the night and day, that he got away after his wife last night--and with
those securities on him!"
"Then--who killed Hollins?" I said in sheer amazement. "Are there others
in at all this?"
"You may well ask that, lad," he responded, shaking his head. "Indeed,
though we're nearing it, I think we're not quite at the end of the lane,
and there'll be a queer turning or two in it, yet, before we get out. But
here's Murray come to an end of the present business."
Murray had finished his inspection of the cases and was helping Chisholm
to replace the lids. He, Chisholm, and the detective were exchanging
whispered remarks over this job; Mr. Elphinstone and Mr. Gavin Smeaton
were talking together in low voices near the door. Presently Murray
turned to us.
"We can do no more here, now, Mr. Lindsey," he said, "and I'm going to
lock this place up until daylight and leave a man in the gateway below,
on guard. But as to the next step--you haven't the least idea in your
head, Moneylaws, about Hollins's assailant?" he went on, turning to me.
"You heard and saw--nothing?"
"I've told you what I heard, Mr. Murray," I answered. "As to seeing
anything, how could I? The thing happened on the stair there, and I was
in this corner unlocking the inner door."
"It's as big a mystery as all the rest of it!" he muttered. "And it's
just convincing me there's more behind all this than we think for. And
one thing's certain--we can't search these grounds or the neighbourhood
until the light comes. But we can go round to the house."
He marched us all out at that, and himself locked up the room, leaving
the dead man with the chests of gold; and having stationed a constable in
the gateway of the old tower, he led us off in a body to the habited part
of the house. There were lights there in plenty, and a couple of
policemen at the door, and behind them a whole troop of servants in the
hall, half dressed, and open-mouthed with fright and curiosity.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE DARK POOL
As I went into that house with the rest of them, I had two sudden
impressions. One was that here at my side, in the person of Mr. Gavin
Smeaton, was, in all probability, its real owner, the real holder of the
ancient title, who was coming to his lawful rights in this strange
fashion. The other was of the contrast between my own coming at that
moment and the visit which I had paid there, only a few evenings
previously, when Hollins had regarded me with some disfavour and the
usurper had been so friendly. Now Hollins was lying dead in the old ruin,
and the other man was a fugitive--and where was he?
Murray had brought us there to do something towards settling that point,
and he began his work at once by assembling every Jack and Jill in the
house and, with the help of the London detective, subjecting them to a
searching examination as to the recent doings of their master and
mistress and the butler. But Mr. Lindsey motioned Mr. Elphinstone, and
Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and myself into a side-room and shut the door on us.
"We can leave the police to do their own work," he remarked, motioning
us to be seated at a convenient table. "My impression is that they'll
find little out from the servants. And while that's afoot, I'd like to
have that promised story of yours, Mr. Elphinstone--I only got an idea of
it, you know, when you and Murray came to my house. And these two would
like to hear it--one of them, at any rate, is more interested in this
affair than you'd think or than he knew of himself until recently."
Now that we were in a properly lighted room, I took a more careful look
at the former steward of Hathercleugh. He was a well-preserved,
shrewd-looking man of between sixty and seventy: quiet and observant, the
sort of man that you could see would think a lot without saying much. He
smiled a little as he put his hands together on the table and glanced at
our expectant faces--it was just the smile of a man who knows what he is
talking about.
"Aye, well, Mr. Lindsey," he responded, "maybe there's not so much
mystery in this affair as there seems to be once you've got at an idea.
I'll tell you how I got at mine and what's come of it. Of course, you'll
not know, for I think you didn't come to Berwick yourself until after I'd
left the neighbourhood--but I was connected with the Hathercleugh estate
from the time I was a lad until fifteen years ago, when I gave up the
steward's job and went to live on a bit of property of my own, near
Alnwick. Of course, I knew the two sons--Michael and Gilbert; and I
remember well enough when, owing to perpetual quarrelling with their
father, he gave them both a good lot of money and they went their
several ways. And after that, neither ever came back that I heard of, nor
did I ever come across either, except on one occasion--to which I'll
refer in due course. In time, as I've just said, I retired; in time, too,
Sir Alexander died, and I heard that, Mr. Michael being dead in the West
Indies, Sir Gilbert had come into the title and estates. I did think,
once or twice, of coming over to see him; but the older a man gets, the
fonder he is of his own fireside--and I didn't come here, nor did I ever
hear much of him; he certainly made no attempt to see me. And so we come
to the beginning of what we'll call the present crisis. That beginning
came with the man who turned up in Berwick this spring."
"You mean Gilverthwaite?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
"Aye--but I didn't know him by that name!" assented Mr. Elphinstone, with
a sly smile. "I didn't know him by any name. What I know is this. It must
have been about a week--certainly not more--before Gilverthwaite's death
that he--I'm sure of his identity, because of his description--called on
me at my house, and with a good deal of hinting and such-like told me
that he was a private inquiry agent, and could I tell him something about
the late Michael Carstairs?--and that, it turned out, was: Did I know if
Michael was married before he left England, and if so, where, and to
whom? Of course, I knew nothing about it, and as the man wouldn't give me
the least information I packed him off pretty sharply. And the next thing
I heard was of the murder of John Phillips. I didn't connect that with
the visit of the mysterious man at first; but of course I read the
account of the inquest, and Mr. Ridley's evidence, and then I began to
see there was some strange business going on, though I couldn't even
guess at what it could be. And I did nothing, and said nothing--there
seemed nothing, then, that I could do or say, though I meant to come
forward later--until I saw the affair of Crone in the newspapers, and I
knew then that there was more in the matter than was on the surface. So,
when I learnt that a man named Carter had been arrested on the charge of
murdering Crone, I came to Berwick, and went to the court to hear what
was said when Carter was put before the magistrates. I got a quiet seat
in the court--and maybe you didn't see me."
"I did!" I exclaimed. "I remember you perfectly, Mr. Elphinstone."
"Aye!" he said with an amused smile. "You're the lad that's had his
finger in the pie pretty deep--you're well out of it, my man! Well--there
I was, and a man sitting by me that knew everybody, and before ever the
case was called this man pointed out Sir Gilbert Carstairs coming in and
being given a seat on the bench. And I knew that there was a fine to-do,
and perhaps nobody but myself knowing of it, for the man pointed out to
me was no Sir Gilbert Carstairs, nor any Carstairs at all--not he! But--I
knew him!"
"You knew him!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "Man!--that's the first direct bit
of real illumination we've had! And--who is he, then, Mr. Elphinstone?"
"Take your time!" answered Mr. Elphinstone. "We'll have to go back a bit:
you'll put the police court out of your mind a while. It's about--I
forget rightly how long since, but it was just after I gave up the
stewardship that I had occasion to go up to London on business of my own.
And there, one morning, as I was sauntering down the lower end of Regent
Street, I met Gilbert Carstairs, whom I'd never seen since he left home.
He'd his arm in mine in a minute, and he would have me go with him to his
rooms in Jermyn Street, close by--there was no denying him. I went, and
found his rooms full of trunks, and cases, and the like--he and a friend
of his, he said, were just off on a sort of hunting-exploration trip to
some part of Central America; I don't know what they weren't going to do,
but it was to be a big affair, and they were to come back loaded up with
natural-history specimens and to make a pile of money out of the venture,
too. And he was telling me all about it in his eager, excitable way when
the other man came in, and I was introduced to him. And, gentlemen,
that's the man I saw--under the name of Sir Gilbert Carstairs--on the
bench at Berwick only the other day! He's changed, of course--more than I
should have thought he would have done in fifteen years, for that's about
the time since I saw him and Gilbert together there in Jermyn
Street,--but I knew him as soon as I clapped eyes on him, and whatever
doubt I had went as soon as I saw him lift his right hand to his
moustache, for there are two fingers missing on that hand--the middle
ones--and I remembered that fact about the man Gilbert Carstairs had
introduced to me. I knew, I tell you, as I sat in that court, that the
fellow there on the bench, listening, was an impostor!"
We were all bending forward across the table, listening
eagerly--and there was a question in all our thoughts, which Mr.
Lindsey put into words.
"The man's name?"
"It was given to me, in Jermyn Street that morning, as Meekin--Dr.
Meekin," answered Mr. Elphinstone. "Gilbert Carstairs, as you're aware,
was a medical man himself--he'd qualified, anyway--and this was a friend
of his. But that was all I gathered then--they were both up to the eyes
in their preparations, for they were off for Southampton that night,
and I left them to it--and, of course, never heard of them again. But
now to come back to the police court the other day: I tell you, I
was--purposely--in a quiet corner, and there I kept till the case was
over; but just when everybody was getting away, the man on the bench
caught sight of me--"
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey, looking across at me. "Ah! that's another
reason--that supplements the ice-ax one! Aye!--he caught sight of you,
Mr. Elphinstone--"
"And," continued Mr. Elphinstone, "I saw a queer, puzzled look come into
his face. He looked again--looked hard. I took no notice of his look,
though I continued to watch him, and presently he turned away and went
out. But I knew he had recognized me as a man he had seen somewhere. Now
remember, when Gilbert Carstairs introduced me to this man, Gilbert did
not mention any connection of mine with Hathercleugh--he merely spoke
of me as an old friend; so Meekin, when he came into these parts, would
have no idea of finding me here. But I saw he was afraid--badly
afraid--because of his recognition and doubt about me. And the next
question was--what was I to do? I'm not the man to do things in haste,
and I could see this was a black, deep business, with maybe two murders
in it. I went off and got my lunch--and thought. At the end of it, rather
than go to the police, I went to your office, Mr. Lindsey. And your
office was locked up, and you were all away for the day. And then an idea
struck me: I have a relative--the man outside with Murray--who's a
high-placed officer in the Criminal Investigation Department at New
Scotland Yard--I would go to him. So--I went straight off to London by
the very next South express. Why? To see if he could trace anything about
this Meekin."
"Aye!" nodded Mr. Lindsey admiringly. "You were in the right of it,
there--that was a good notion. And--you did?"
"Not since the Jermyn Street affair," answered Mr. Elphinstone. "We
traced him in the medical register all right up to that point. His name
is Francis Meekin--he's various medical letters to it. He was in one of
the London hospitals with Gilbert Carstairs--he shared those rooms in
Jermyn Street with Gilbert Carstairs. We found--easily--a man who'd
been their valet, and who remembered their setting off on the hunting
expedition. They never came back--to Jermyn Street, anyway. Nothing was
ever heard or seen of them in their old haunts about that quarter from
that time. And when we'd found all that out, we came straight down,
last evening, to the police--and that's all, Mr. Lindsey. And, of
course, the thing is plain to me--Gilbert probably died while in this
man's company; this man possessed himself of his letters and papers and
so on; and in time, hearing how things were, and when the chance came,
he presented himself to the family solicitors as Gilbert Carstairs.
Could anything be plainer?"
"Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "It's a sure case--and simple when you
see it in the light of your knowledge; a case of common personation. But
I'm wondering what the connection between the Gilverthwaite and Phillips
affair and this Meekin has been--if we could get at it?"
"Shall I give you my theory?" suggested Mr. Elphinstone. "Of course, I've
read all there's been in the newspapers, and Murray told me a lot last
night before we came to you, and you mentioned Mr. Ridley's
discovery,--well, then, I've no doubt whatever that this young gentleman
is Michael Carstairs' son, and therefore the real owner of the title and
estates! And I'll tell you how I explain the whole thing. Michael
Carstairs, as I remember him--and I saw plenty of him as a lad and a
young man--was what you'd call violently radical in his ideas. He was a
queer, eccentric, dour chap in some ways--kindly enough in others. He'd a
most extraordinary objection to titles, for one thing; another, he
thought that, given a chance, every man ought to make himself. Now, my
opinion is that when he secretly married a girl who was much below him in
station, he went off to America, intending to put his principles in
practice. He evidently wanted his son to owe nothing to his birth; and
though he certainly made ample and generous provision for him, and gave
him a fine start, he wanted him to make his own life and fortune. That
accounts for Mr. Gavin Smeaton's bringing-up. But now as regards the
secret. Michael Carstairs was evidently a rolling stone who came up
against some queer characters--Gilverthwaite was one, Phillips--whoever
he may have been--another. It's very evident, from what I've heard from
you, that the three men were associates at one time. And it may be--it's
probably the case--that in some moment of confidence, Michael let out his
secret to these two, and that when he was dead they decided to make more
inquiries into it--possibly to blackmail the man who had stepped in, and
whom they most likely believed to be the genuine Sir Gilbert Carstairs.
Put it this way: once they'd found the documentary evidence they wanted,
the particulars of Michael's marriage, and so on, what had they to do but
go to Sir Gilbert--as they thought him to be--and put it to him that, if
he didn't square them to keep silence, they'd reveal the truth to his
nephew, whom, it's evident, they'd already got to know of as Mr. Gavin
Smeaton. But as regards the actual murder of Phillips--ah, that's a
mystery that, in my opinion, is not like to be solved! The probability is
that a meeting had been arranged with Sir Gilbert--which means, of
course, Meekin--that night, and that Phillips was killed by him. As to
Crone--it's my opinion that Crone's murder came out of Crone's own greed
and foolishness; he probably caught Meekin unawares, told what he knew,
and paid the penalty."
"There's another possible theory about the Phillips murder," remarked Mr.
Gavin Smeaton. "According to what you know, Mr. Elphinstone, this Meekin
is a man who has travelled much abroad--so had Phillips. How do we know
that when Meekin and Phillips met that night, Meekin wasn't recognized by
Phillips as Meekin--and that Meekin accordingly had a double incentive to
kill him?"
"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "Capital theory!--and probably the right
one. But," he continued, rising and making for the door, "all the
theories in the world won't help us to lay hands on Meekin, and I'm going
to see if Murray has made out anything from his search and his
questioning."
Murray had made out nothing. There was nothing whatever in the private
rooms of the supposed Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his wife to suggest any
clue to their whereabouts: the servants could tell nothing of their
movements beyond what the police already knew. Sir Gilbert had never been
seen by any of them since the morning on which he went into Berwick to
hear the case against Carter: Lady Carstairs had not been seen since her
departure from the house secretly, two mornings later. Not one of all the
many servants, men or women, could tell anything of their master or
mistress, nor of any suspicious doings on the part of Hollins during the
past two days, except that he had been away from the house a good deal.
Whatever share the butler had taken in these recent events, he had played
his part skilfully.
So--as it seemed--there was nothing for it but to look further away, the
impression of the police being that Meekin had escaped in one direction
and his wife in another, and that it had been their plan that Hollins
should foregather with them somewhere on the Continent; and presently we
all left Hathercleugh House to go back to Berwick. As we crossed the
threshold, Mr. Lindsey turned to Mr. Gavin Smeaton with a shrewd smile.
"The next time you step across here, sir, it'll be as Sir Gavin
Carstairs!" he said. "And we'll hope that'll not long be delayed!"
"I'm afraid there's a good deal to do before you'll be seeing that, Mr.
Lindsey," answered the prospective owner. "We're not out of the wood yet,
you know."
We certainly were not out of the wood--so far as I was concerned, those
last words might have been prophetic, as, a little later, I was inclined
to think Maisie's had been before she went off in the car. The rest of
them, Mr. Lindsey and his group, Murray and his, had driven up from
Berwick in the first conveyances they could get at that time of night,
and they now went off to where they had been waiting in a neighbouring
shed. They wanted me to go with them--but I was anxious about my bicycle,
a nearly new machine. I had stowed it away as securely as I could under
some thick undergrowth on the edge of the woods, but the downpour of rain
had been so heavy that I knew it must have soaked through the foliage,
and that I should have a nice lot of rust to face, let alone a saturated
saddle. So I went away across the park to where I had left it, and the
others drove off to Berwick--and so both Mr. Lindsey and myself broke our
solemn words to Maisie. For now I was alone--and I certainly did not
anticipate more danger.
But not only danger, but the very threatening of death was on me as I
went my way. We had stayed some time in Hathercleugh House, and the dawn
had broken before we left. The morning came clear and bright after the
storm, and the newly-risen sun--it was just four o'clock, and he was
nicely above the horizon--was transforming the clustering raindrops on
the firs and pines into glistening diamonds as I plunged into the thick
of the woods. I had no other thought at that moment but of getting home
and changing my clothes before going to Andrew Dunlop's to tell the
news--when, as I crossed a narrow cut in the undergrowth, I saw, some
distance away, a man's head slowly look out from the trees. I drew back
on the instant, watching. Fortunately--or unfortunately--he was not
looking in my direction, and did not catch even a momentary glance of me,
and when he twisted his neck in my direction I saw that he was the man
we had been talking of, and whom I now knew to be Dr. Meekin. And it
flashed on me at once that he was hanging about for Hollins--all
unconscious that Hollins was lying dead there in the old tower.
So--it was not he who had driven that murderous knife into
Hollins's throat!
I watched him--myself securely hidden. He came out of his shelter,
crossed the cut, went through the belt of wood which I had just passed,
and looked out across the park to the house--all this I saw by cautiously
edging through the trees and bushes behind me. He was a good forty yards
away from me at that time, but I could see the strained, anxious
expression on his face. Things had gone wrong--Hollins and the car had
not met him where he had expected them--and he was trying to find out
what had happened. And once he made a movement as if he would skirt the
coppices and make for the tower, which lay right opposite, but with an
open space between it and us--and then he as suddenly drew back, and
began to go away among the trees.
I followed him, cautiously. I had always been a bit proud of what I
called my woodcraft, having played much at Red Indians as a youngster,
and I took care to walk lightly as I stalked him from one brake to
another. He went on and on--a long way, right away from Hathercleugh, and
in the direction of where Till meets Tweed. And at last he was out of the
Hathercleugh grounds, and close to the Till, and in the end he took to a
thin belt of trees that ran down the side of the Till, close by the place
where Crone's body had been found, and almost opposite the very spot, on
the other bank, where I had come across Phillips lying dead; and suddenly
I saw what he was after. There, right ahead, was an old boat, tied up to
the bank--he was making for it, intending doubtless to put himself across
the two rivers, to get the north bank of the Tweed, and so to make for
safety in other quarters.
It was there that things went wrong. I was following cautiously, from
tree to tree, close to the river-bank, when my foot caught in a trail of
ground bramble, and I went headlong into the brushwood. Before I was well
on my feet, he had turned and was running back at me, his face white with
rage and alarm, and a revolver in his hand. And when he saw who it was,
he had the revolver at the full length of his arm, covering me.
"Go back!" he said, stopping and steadying himself.
"No!" said I.
"If you come a yard further, Moneylaws, I'll shoot you dead!" he
declared. "I mean it! Go back!"
"I'm not coming a foot nearer," I retorted, keeping where I was. "But I'm
not going back. And whenever you move forward, I'm following. I'm not
losing sight of you again, Mr. Meekin!"
He fairly started at that--and then he began looking on all sides of me,
as if to find out if I was accompanied. And all of a sudden he plumped
me with a question.
"Where is Hollins?" he asked. "I'll be bound you know!"
"Dead!" I answered him. "Dead, Mr. Meekin! As dead as Phillips, or as
Abel Crone. And the police are after you--all round--and you'd better
fling that thing into the Till there and come with me. You'll not get
away from me as easily now as you did yon time in your yacht."
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