The Black Abbot
were taken up. I presume Mr. Fabrian Gilder redeemed them. That would
have cost him a little over five thousand pounds, and I presume he did
not do that out of sheer altruism.”
Arthur Gwyn’s mouth was dry; he could scarcely articulate.
“I didn’t know until to-day,” he muttered. “Harry was ill at the time.
The money was due to me for--for--legal costs. I went down to the bank
to take them up and found they had been honoured.”
“Was that the pull?”
He did not meet the steady gaze that was fixed on him.
“Yes, that was the pull, if you want to know. You don’t suppose I’d
allow Leslie to marry a swine like Gilder unless--unless he had
something on me, do you? Can’t you understand my position, Alford? I’m
ruined! That fellow could send me to jail--he still can.”
Dick shook his head.
“Fire him to-morrow,” he said. “If he produces the bills I will
undertake that Harry will acknowledge the signatures.”
The pink came back to the colourless face of the lawyer.
“You’ll do this?” he said eagerly. “My God! you don’t know what a
weight you’ve lifted off my mind. You’re a brick, by jove! I’ll fire
him to-morrow.”
He held out an eager hand and Dick took it with some hesitation. At
the best of times Arthur Gwyn did not impress him; at this moment,
almost incoherent with relief, he seemed a pitiful coward.
“I will pay Harry every penny. I have something on the stocks now that
will bring me in a fortune, that will wipe out all my debts and put me
on my feet again.”
There was humour in the situation; for the thing which was to
rehabilitate his fortunes was no less than the barefaced robbery of
Harry Chelford’s inheritance! But Arthur was not conscious of the
irony of the position. He would deal with Gilder in the morning. Thank
God he had not gone still deeper into the mire! The knowledge that in
his pocketbook was another bill as yet unuttered, did not cool the
glow of virtue he was experiencing. Henceforth he would walk the
straight way.
“There’s one thing you could do for me, Alford--hurry along that
marriage. Fix it for next month if you can. Leslie is just a foolish
girl, she is trying to put off the inevitable, but that’s natural,
isn’t it? Can’t you buck up Harry----”
Dick Alford looked at him steadily.
“The matter must be left entirely to Leslie,” he said, and there was
something very definite and final in those words.
They came out of the library together; Leslie waiting, a little
fearful, saw the smile on her brother’s face and breathed a sigh of
thankfulness.
“You’re not going?” Dick was reaching for his cap.
“I have to get back to the house,” he said, and, seeing her look of
disappointment, he stood irresolutely.
“Come along in and play mah-jongg. I am in a mah-jongg mood,” said
Arthur, almost jovially.
If there was one thing that Dick could not endure that night it was to
sit vis-à-vis with Arthur Gwyn. He would have liked to stay with the
girl, but for the moment her brother seemed an inevitable third. And
he was terribly informative. Arthur was in his most expansive mood.
“Here is something that will interest you!”
He pointed to the wall. Hanging against a dark wooden shield was an
iron dagger--black and sinister, the handle worn smooth, the long
blade notched and jagged. Dick had seen it before.
“That should be at your place, Alford. The veritable dagger of the
veritable Black Abbot’s slayer--Hubert of Redruth! Look at his arms on
the hilt.…”
“I have seen it,” said Dick shortly. “Put on your coat and come for a
walk, Leslie,” he suggested, and the obliging Arthur, who would have
been agreeable to any scheme he propounded, seconded the suggestion.
XVIII
The night was cool and dark. There was a full moon, visible at
intervals through the drift of clouds. Leslie slipped her arm into his
as they walked down the dark avenue toward the road.
“Did you quarrel?” she asked.
“N-no, we didn’t quarrel,” said Dick. “There was a little plain
speaking, but I think it cleared the air, and, after all, that was
what I came for. He is dismissing Gilder to-morrow.”
She was silent at this, and did not speak again until they were on the
road.
“Is that wise?” she asked. “I’m a little afraid of the man. I feel he
would be a very bad enemy.”
She heard his soft laugh and felt reassured.
“He’s that all right,” said Dick; “the worst enemy any man could have,
I should imagine. But an enemy is only dangerous in ratio to his
hurting power. I don’t think Mr. Gilder will hurt anybody.”
“Not Arthur?” she asked.
“Not Arthur, and certainly not you.”
She squeezed his arm in hers.
“You’d be a wonderful brother,” she said.
“I am,” he said curtly, and she smiled in the darkness. “Your handsome
relative asked me to persuade you to marry next month, and I told him
point-blank that I would do nothing of the kind. Leslie, do you know
that you never see Harry from one week-end to another?”
She had realized that for a long time, and it was a constant subject
for self-reproach that she had less and less desire for her fiancé’s
society.
“He is really not interested in me, Dick,” she said. “Harry is so
absorbed in his treasure hunt and his queer chase after the elixir of
life----”
“He’s told you that, has he?” asked Dick quickly.
“Why, of course!” she scoffed. “Do you know, Dick, he has almost
convinced me that there is something in his idea?”
She waited for him to reply.
“Don’t you think so?”
“In the Life Water… perhaps there is.”
“And in the treasure?” she asked.
“Maybe. Generations of Chelfords have hunted for that wretched gold,
and I suppose in the past four hundred years almost as much money has
been spent in the search as the treasure is worth! I’m perfectly sure
in my own mind that Good Queen Bess of pious memory bagged every bar
of it!”
“And I’m perfectly sure she didn’t,” was the surprising reply. “I’ve
been reading Elizabethan history very carefully, and the year that
your ancestor hid his gold was the year that the Queen was so
hard-pressed for money that she had to borrow from the Lombards.”
He stopped.
“Is that so?” incredulously.
“Absolutely. And if you weren’t such a sceptic and would read a little
more, you would know what any schoolchild could tell you, that in 1582
the Queen was broke. Do you object to that vulgar word?”
“It is a familiar one at any rate,” he laughed.
They had reached the deep cutting, and he turned to the left, opened a
gate, and they walked up a little path toward the ruins of Chelford
Abbey.
The moon was showing through a rift in the clouds.
“You ought to see the Abbey by moonlight, if you’ve never seen it.
It’s rather beautiful,” he said, as he gave her a hand to assist her
up the steep path.
As they came in sight of the broken walls and towers of this ancient
place of peace, something of the solemnity of the scene entered her
heart, and she stood still, looking spellbound upon the wreckage of a
once great abbey. The Abbey ruins stood on the broadest surface of
what was locally known as the Mound--the high embankment which ran
almost from Fossaway Abbey to the road, following the course of the
little Ravensrill. Here, if tradition spoke the truth, a place of
sacrifice had stood, before the English church had risen in flint,
before the Norman monks laid chisel to stone on their great abbey.
The moon softened and idealized the broken stonework, and in her mind
she went back through the years to those ancient times when the
black-robed figures of the monks moved where she now stood. Below, to
the left, she could see the fret of sparkling silver where the moon
reflected in the Ravensrill. Here they had sat, these ancient men,
with their fishing-rods, discussing the little events of their narrow
world. They had passed into dust, and this great abbey, the pride of
their eyes and the work of their hands, was crumbling rapidly into
like nothingness.
“It is wonderful!” she breathed.
Were her eyes deceiving her? She could have sworn she saw something
moving in the shadow of the old tower. He heard the quick intake of
her breath.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know--my imagination, I think. I thought I saw somebody
moving there.”
He followed the direction of her eyes.
“There would be nobody here at this time of the night, unless it is
the Black Abbot,” he said jocularly, “and we’re not scared of him, are
we?”
“I’m not, for one,” she said, with a firmness that she was far from
feeling.
At that moment she heard something--something that turned her blood to
water. It was a low moan of anguish, a sobbing diminuendo of sound
that began on a high note and wailed down the scale until it was
inaudible.
“What was that?” she asked, grasping his arm.
He did not speak; he was straining his eyes toward the shadows.
Again the sound, this time a wail that ended in a scream. He caught
the girl by the shoulder. At that moment he had seen a figure moving
away from the Abbey toward the river. A tall, black figure that showed
clearly in the moonlight. She saw it, too.
“Don’t leave me, Dick!” she begged, as she felt him strain away from
her.
Then of a sudden she felt his tension relax.
“Let him go,” he said, half to himself.
She clung to him desperately, frantically, as the figure stumbled and
staggered toward the trees that would presently engulf him. The
dreadful Thing ran on, stopping now and again to turn and gibber and
mouth at the man and the woman who stood motionless on the edge of the
cutting. Waving wild arms, now howling in dreadful glee, now screaming
in senseless fear, it vanished in the dark of the wood--an obscene,
uncleanly thing, that belonged to bad dreams and the horrid imaginings
of madness. Far away in the distance came the howl of him, and then
the night swallowed him up.
“How dreadful!”
And then her knees gave under her and she remembered no more.
XIX
Leslie opened her eyes and frowned up into the face that was bent
over her. She was lying on the verge of the road, for Dick had carried
her down into the cutting and a hundred yards toward Willow House.
“Oh, how awful!” she shuddered, and closed her eyes. “It was the Black
Abbot?”
Dick Alford did not reply for a while. His anxiety for the girl was
such that all other interests had passed from his mind.
“I am all right now,” she said, and, with his assistance, stood
shakily on her feet. “I told you I was a fool. This is my crazy day!
Dick, what was it?”
“He was too far away from me to see,” said Dick; “probably one of our
stupid villagers under the influence of drink.”
She shook her head.
“No, it was not that, Dick! It was----” She shuddered again. “I think
I’d better go home.”
“I think you’d be wise,” he said gravely. “I wish I hadn’t brought you
out now.”
She laughed a little shakily and clung to him tighter.
“In a way I’m glad you did,” she said, as they walked slowly toward
her home. “Dick, I had all sorts of queer dreams: just before I woke
up I felt somebody kiss me. It was so convincing that I can still feel
the lips on my cheek.”
“I kissed you,” he said, without shame. “I thought the shock would
bring you to life!”
Her laughter was almost hysterical, for Leslie’s nerves were jangled
and on edge.
“You might at least have denied that,” she said. “Dick, you have no
subtlety!”
As they walked slowly toward the house, she noticed that he looked
back once or twice.
“You’re not expecting that--that thing to follow us, are you?” she
asked, her teeth chattering.
“No, I thought I heard a car” (which was true). “I’ll swear I saw a
haze of light over the crest of the road, but I must have been
mistaken.”
He was not mistaken, and knew it. A car had been following them, had
been slowly ascending the hill to the cutting; he had seen the