The Black Abbot
against it is, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy’s or a girl’s, can
you? Don’t you sometimes find that very embarrassing?”
“I’ve never found it so yet,” said the girl, leading the way up to her
room.
She waited till Mary had taken off her hat before she gave her news.
“Arthur is in town, but he’ll be back to-night,” she said. “Have you
seen the newspapers?”
Miss Wenner shook her head vigorously.
“I never read the newspapers,” she said reprovingly. “They’re always
full of lies, and after the way they roasted me over my breach----”
She coughed.
For a moment Leslie had a wild idea that the reference was an
indelicate one, and then the truth came to her.
“Did you ever have a breach of promise action?” she asked, in
astonishment.
Mary was very red, and her embarrassment was painful to witness.
“I did have a little trouble with a young gentleman I went to business
with,” she admitted. “I was a mere girl at the time, young and silly
as it were, and I must say that I felt that I had to stand up for my
rights. A lot of people think it was unladylike, but I say that a girl
who is an orphan without parents must look after herself. I got fifty
pounds, and it wasn’t worth the trouble and the nuisance.”
There was something about the girl that Leslie liked. Unconsciously
she was amusing, but there was a sterling value in her, she thought,
and Leslie had an uncanny knowledge of women.
“No, I never read the papers, Miss Gwyn. After being told by the
_Daily Megaphone_ that I had a curious mentality--I shall never forget
those words--I’ve given up the papers.”
“Then you haven’t heard what has happened at Fossaway Manor?” asked
Leslie.
The startled girl listened, her mouth an O of amazement and horror.
“Thomas? Why, I was only talking with him the other day! You don’t
think Harry is killed?”
Leslie shook her head.
“I don’t know what to think. Mr. Alford is very confident that he is
still alive, and they have just received a strange message which seems
to bear that out.”
The girl was shocked, and Leslie could not help feeling that she was
hurt, too.
“Harry Chelford was the best fellow in the world,” said Mary quietly.
“He was a little irritable and difficult to get on with--you don’t
mind me talking about him?”
“No,” said Leslie. “You probably do not know that our engagement was
broken off?”
This seemed to be a greater shock still.
“Broken off? I’ll bet that was Dick Alford’s doing----”
“Mr. Alford had nothing to do with it,” said Leslie, and Mary made a
rapid reëstimation of Dick Alford’s character, and she was eminently
adjustable.
“Dick Alford is not a bad fellow really,” she said diplomatically.
“There is a great deal about him that I like. And he is _so_
good-looking!”
She was a shrewd, discerning gamin, who had won through by her ability
to adjust her views at a moment’s notice. And in a fraction of a
second she had realized that perfect harmony with Arthur Gwyn’s sister
could be ensured only if her views on Richard Alford underwent a very
thorough reorganization.
“I didn’t get on very well with him; I used to think he was a bit
overbearing. But it must have been rather a trial for him, poor
fellow!” A pause, and then: “I seem to have come at a pretty bad time,
Miss--Leslie. Would you like me to go back to London?”
“Wait,” said her hostess, and, running downstairs, called Dick on the
’phone. He had just returned to the house as she rang.
“Surely,” he said. “Bring her up. I think that would be rather a good
idea. And, Leslie, perhaps you would like to stay here the night.
Arthur can come along, too--you might leave him a note or wire him.”
The idea was so appealing that she put no obstacles in the way, and
returned to carry Dick’s invitation to her guest. Miss Wenner accepted
with an alacrity that was almost indelicate.
“I may be able to be of some help,” she said. “I know the ins and outs
of that place, and all the nooks and crannies. It is the treasure
that’s done it all, Leslie! He was always after that silly Life Water,
and I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t got into bad company.”
“But Harry never went out.”
“Oh, yes, he did,” was the surprising reply. “He often slipped off to
London when Mr. Alford was away. And there was something queer about
it, because Harry made me promise I would never tell Mr. Richard, as
he called him.”
“How often did that happen?” asked Leslie.
“Sometimes once a month, sometimes twice or three times a month. He
never went to the front drive; he followed the field path through the
cutting, and I used to arrange for a Horsham motor cab to meet him. He
used to go from Horsham and come back the same way, and I’ve known him
to ring me up before he came back, to ask me if Mr. Richard had
returned.”
Leslie wondered if Dick knew this.
“I’ve known him to go as many as three times a week when Mr. Richard
was up in Yorkshire, looking after the Doncaster estate,” added Mary,
and, virtuously: “I hope I have not let any cats out of the bag: all
young men are a bit wild.”
XLVI
The adaptability of Miss Wenner was never more strikingly
illustrated than in her greeting of Dick Alford. There was a coyness,
a shy friendliness in her glance, which might have deceived an
uninitiated spectator into believing that they were old lovers, parted
by cruel circumstances and meeting after an absence of years. Dick,
weary and heartbroken as he was, found in her the first cause for
amusement he had had in twenty-four hours.
He had had rooms prepared for them in the east wing, which was
opposite to that in which his own room and Harry’s were situated.
There were two small apartments with a connecting door, which he had
assigned to Leslie and her guest. The next room had been prepared for
Arthur, and was adjoining.
“I’ve moved Puttler to this wing, too,” he explained, “though I don’t
suppose the poor fellow will get very much sleep for a night or two.”
After he had shown them the rooms he took his departure, and Leslie
followed him along the corridor and overtook him at the head of the
stairs.
“There is really nothing I can do, I suppose, Dick?” For she had
accepted the story of the disordered accounts as being a plausible
excuse on his part to get her to Fossaway Manor.
To her surprise he said, “Yes,” and took her below to the study.
“Here are the estate accounts. I haven’t touched them for three or
four days. Do you know anything about figures?”
She nodded wisely.
“Will you start in by checking these wages sheets? You’ll find the
books on the shelf, and you will be able to get the hang of my rather
simple system.”
He gave her instructions how to deal with the bills that had
accumulated, and left her very contented. It was half-an-hour before
she remembered that she had left Mary Wenner in her room, and hurried
upstairs to apologize. She was to find Mary a very capable assistant,
for not only was the girl efficient in her work, but she knew all the
domestic mysteries of Fossaway.
The two girls lunched alone, for Dick had sent a message to say that
he would not be back in time.
“The place gives me the creeps,” said Mary with a shudder, and her
nervousness was not affectation. “The whole thing is frightful! Poor
Thomas killed, and Harry taken away heaven knows where---- Oh!” She
sprang to her feet, and her face had gone pale. “I know where Harry
is,” she said, quivering with excitement. “I know, I know!”
“Where?” asked the wondering Leslie.
The girl ran out of the room into the hall.
“Where is Mr. Alford?” she asked quickly. “I must see him at once.”
“He telephoned from Red Farm,” said Leslie. “Perhaps we can get him.”
She turned the handle of the old-fashioned instrument and gave the Red
Farm number.
“Is that you, Dick? How lucky!”
“I expected it was you. Is anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.
“No; Mary Wenner has something she wants to tell you.” She lowered her
voice. “She thinks she knows where Harry is hidden.”
There was a silence at the other end.
“She’s not----”
“No, no, no.” With Mary within earshot, it was impossible to assure
Dick that the girl was not trying to make a sensation.
“I’ll come over right away,” he said.
They went out to the head of the drive to meet him, and Mary offered
her theory.
“I must have been mad not to have told you about this before. I don’t
know where my wits have gone,” she said. “After all my
treasure-hunting and the horrible experience I had that night with
Gilder, and not to think of it now, when I practically came down to
show Mr. Gwyn the place--well, I’m surprised at myself!”
Dick listened with growing impatience to this preliminary.
“Where do you think my brother is?”
“Where?” said Miss Wenner triumphantly. “Why, under the Abbey--that’s
where. I’ll show you.”
They walked side by side across the meadow, and as they went Miss
Wenner related the startling story of her adventures after treasure.
“Of course, I always knew that it didn’t belong to me, even if I found
it,” she said virtuously; “but Mr. Gilder was so very pressing that I
couldn’t very well refuse him, especially after what he’d written in
vanishing ink, though I’ve got the ink back again, as he’ll find out
one of these days.”
Leslie listened, scarcely crediting her ears. Yet, unless Mary Wenner
had an imagination of a particularly inventive nature, it was hardly
likely that she could have made the story up.
Dick examined the great corner-stone of the tower. He stood by,
watching curiously, whilst, with a pair of scissors which she took
from her bag, the girl pressed back the catch and sent the
corner-stone turning noisily on its invisible hinge.
The opening was between twelve and fifteen inches wide. A stout man
could never have entered by that way, as Dick pointed out.
“You had better stay here; I’ll go down,” he said.
“You’ll want a light,” warned Mary.
There was a lamp in his pocket. He had spent the morning peering into
impossible dark places. In a second he had disappeared down the
moss-grown stairs, and Leslie waited with palpitating heart for his
reappearance. Presently they heard his voice.
“Come down.”
“Not me,” said Mary hastily. “I’ve been there once, thank you!”
And Leslie went alone guided by the light he showed from step to step.
Now she was standing with him in the vaulted room. He tried first one
and then the other of the two doors leading from the antechamber, but
neither yielded to his touch. It was pitch dark save for the
fan-shaped ray of the lamp. He swept the light along wall and floor,
and presently she saw the focus halt upon a broken flagstone.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. He had moved the light to the narrow
entrance of the room. “Up you go; there is nothing here but mice and
memories. I have always known there were underground vaults in the
Abbey. In fact, I think there was a report on them by one of my recent
forbears.”
Although he was immediately behind her, his voice seemed to come from
a distance. She was walking, and he gave her no help with his lamp, so
that she had to feel her way up. Turning her head, she saw that he was
ascending the stairs backward, keeping the light covering the stairs
below.
“Hurry,” he said tersely, and she stumbled up the remaining steps and
emerged into the blessed daylight.
It was some time before he joined them, and when he came out she saw
that he was white to the lips.
“What did you see, Dick?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said, and slammed the stone door tight.
Of the little party, only Miss Wenner was unaffected by the atmosphere
which Dick Alford brought from that vaulted room.
“… so far as Mr. Gilder said--and I don’t trust the man entirely, as