The Black Abbot
you can well understand, Leslie--there were only pieces of music in
lead cylinders--that was the word, ‘cylinders.’ To me they looked
rather more like rolls. And this Black Abbot must have cleared them
out whilst we had gone. Mr. Gilder _was_ disappointed. In fact, he was
quite rude to me over the telephone. I do think a gentleman should
keep his temper in all circumstances, don’t you, dear?”
Leslie agreed mechanically.
What had Dick seen? What object was it that showed for a second in the
light of his lamp?
Near to the house he made an excuse to them. He had to go back to Red
Farm to finish his interview with the obstinate Mr. Leonard; but he
did not take his car. He said he would take the short cut, and Leslie
thought it was not the moment to question him. She watched him until
he disappeared in the fold of the ground. He was heading for the
Abbey. The other girl had gone in to finish her lunch, and Leslie
hesitated. The thought of his going back to that dark room again
filled her with blind panic. She wanted to call out to him and bring
him back, but he was out of hearing now, and she obeyed an impulse and
went after him.
He was not in sight until she climbed the second of the gentle slopes.
Here she stopped; he might resent being overlooked, and she lay down
on the grass, watching him. She saw him come to the square tower,
pause at the corner, and disappear apparently into space. From such a
distance, the effect of his entry was eerie. The entrance was so small
that he seemed to melt into the solid stonework. Ten minutes passed, a
quarter of an hour, and then a long, interminable wait; she heard the
village clock strike two. A lark in the blue was singing his
passionate song; over by Red Farm a donkey was braying--a ludicrous
accompaniment to what might be stark tragedy.
She was on the point of rising and running across to the ruins, to
follow him into the depths, when he appeared again. He came slowly
forth, turned and closed the stone door and leaned against it, his
head on his arm, a picture of tragic despair.
She stopped and sank down on her knees, the better to escape
observation, and presently he walked slowly away, and it was the gait
of a broken man.
XLVII
Hurrying back the way she had come, she joined Mary in the study.
Puttler she had not seen since the early morning, when he cycled to
Willow House to bring the notice he had found.
“My dear,” said Mary, “I’m not so sure I shall stay here to-night.
This place is full of shocks! I’d like to see your brother very much
indeed, but you can tell him all about the room under the Abbey, can’t
you? That’s where the gold is--you mark my words!”
“The gold?” Leslie for a moment did not understand. “Oh, you mean the
Chelford treasure?”
The horrible thing! It was behind all this misery; behind the killing
of Thomas and the disappearance of Harry. She said as much, and Miss
Wenner, not pausing in her typewriting, calmly expressed the view that
it was very likely.
Shock followed shock indeed! At half-past four Leslie’s maid brought a
letter which had come by special delivery. It was in Arthur’s writing;
she tore it open and read:
Dear Leslie:
You are under no circumstances to marry Gilder. I refuse to allow you
to sacrifice yourself for me, now or at any time. I am going away to
France for a few months, and will return when things have blown over.
Ordinarily quick-witted, it was a long time before Leslie could
understand the significance of this message. When she did, she took
the letter to Dick, and he read it without comment and handed it back
to her.
“What does that mean, Dick?”
“It means that Arthur has taken the line of least resistance,” he
said. “To put it vulgarly, he has bolted!”
Her heart sank, and in that moment she felt terribly alone. As if he
read her thoughts, he went on:
“He has certainly precipitated the crisis, but I don’t see exactly how
it will affect you. There was nothing else in the letter?”
She shook her head and opened the envelope, and then saw a slip of
paper which she had overlooked. It was an authority to sell his
business, drawn up in legal form, and had evidently been added as an
afterthought.
“If there are no further defalcations that ought to be worth
something,” said Dick. “I’ll see what I can do.”
But on this point she was firm.
“I think you’ve enough trouble without mine,” she said quietly. “Did
you find anything in the ruins?”
He started.
“Why--no,” he said, a little unconvincingly. “Did you see me go back?”
“I’m afraid I spied on you,” she said, with a pathetic little smile.
“Dick, I’m so worried about you; I wish you wouldn’t go into these
places alone.”
“There was nothing to fear,” he said. “I thought I saw something on
the floor which gave me a clue to Harry’s fate, but it was
nothing--nothing.”
He changed the subject abruptly. She had a feeling that he was not
telling her all that he had seen.
Mary and she had dinner alone, and Mr. Glover, the butler, free from
the restraining presence of Dick Alford, was inclined to be talkative.
“There’s no doubt Mr. Alford looks after the policemen. I have had to
get a food basket ready--thermos flask and everything the heart can
desire. Personally, miss, I don’t believe in pampering the police.
They’re only dissatisfied when they go back to their own homes. He
won’t have anybody take the basket down to them either. ‘No,’ he said,
‘I’ll take it myself. You have it ready at nine o’clock, put it just
outside the servants’ door.’ My own opinion is that they’d be much
more pleased with bread and cheese and a bottle of beer. What’s the
good of making chicken sandwiches for policemen? And having a bottle
of the best wine up from the cellar! It’s a waste of good food!”
Leslie listened, petrified. Now she understood!
The food was not for the police--it was for Harry! Harry, held
prisoner in Chelford Abbey--by whom?
XLVIII
The bane of life that day had been the London reporters. The Red
Lion Inn at Chelfordbury was already filled with them, and not an hour
passed that one did not make his way to the house in a vain endeavour
to interview the Second Son. One intercepted him in Elm Drive, and to
him, as to the rest, he gave the same reply.
“You boys can’t expect me to tell you any more than I already know,”
he said, at bay. “My brother has disappeared, but I believe he is
still alive.”
“Who do you think is responsible for these outrages, Mr. Alford?”
asked the reporter.
Dick shook his head.
“If I knew, it isn’t reasonable to suppose that I should be discussing
the matter with you.”
“Is it the Black Abbot?”
“The Black Abbot has nothing whatever to do with this crime,” said
Dick shortly. “Unless I credit you with being so foolish as to believe
in ghosts, it is unnecessary for me to tell you that there is no such
thing as a Black Abbot, and the figure that has been seen in these
grounds was somebody masquerading for his own purpose.”
“A practical joke?” suggested the newspaper man.
Dick shook his head.
“I don’t think it was a practical joke; indeed, I am sure there is
something very serious behind it. But I can’t tell you any more.”
“Mr. Alford,” said the reporter, “I’m going to ask you a very delicate
question, and I hope you won’t think it an impertinence. If your
brother is dead, then the title comes to you, does it not?”
“Yes,” said Dick.
“You won’t be offended if I tell you that there is a little talk in
the village of some antagonism between your brother and you. I am told
there have been frequent quarrels.”
Dick mastered his anger with a great effort, realizing that the
reporter was not intending to be impertinent, but simply epitomizing
the gossip of the countryside.
“My brother was very nervous and quick-tempered,” he said, “but I’ve
never had a serious quarrel with him in my life.”
“Is it true that Lord Chelford’s fiancée, Miss Leslie Gwyn, recently
broke off her engagement with your brother?”
“Perfectly true,” said Dick, stifling his impatience.
“And yet she is staying at Fossaway Manor as your guest?” The keen
eyes of the reporter were watching him closely. He saw the blood mount
to his victim’s cheeks and hastened to add: “I’m merely telling you
what other people will tell you, Mr. Alford. I have a much wider
experience of the uncharity and suspicion that surround every man
associated with a crime like this. If you are annoyed with me I can
understand it, but I can assure you that I only want to help you.”
“That I quite believe,” said Dick with a smile. “But you can
understand just how embarrassing your questions are. I will tell you
the truth and you may put it into your paper. I am satisfied there is
a very terrible danger overhanging Miss Leslie Gwyn, and it is for
that reason, and that reason alone, I have asked her to stay at the
hall, which is under police protection and where I know she will be
safe. Her brother has gone abroad, and I cannot allow her to stay at
Willow House alone.”
“You mean she is in danger from the same person that killed Thomas the
footman, and who is responsible for the disappearance of Lord
Chelford?”
Dick nodded, and the newspaper man made a mental note.
“Thank you,” he said. “You will find that this little talk has cleared
the air. In cases like this, if you clear up the minor mysteries as
you go along, it makes for everybody’s comfort.”
Dick, who had been trembling with anger through the interview, had to
agree, in the calm moments which followed, that the reporter had taken
a sane view of the matter. When he met Leslie a few minutes later, he
told her of the interview. She was in the study alone, and had just
finished writing a letter, which lay face downward on the
blotting-pad. She saw him glance at the envelope and turned it up. It
was addressed to Fabrian Gilder.
“What have you said?” he asked.
“I’ve told him that I’ve considered the matter, and I’ve decided that
I could not marry him--in any circumstances it would be impossible
now, so soon after Harry’s disappearance.”
He picked up the letter and, taking out his pocket case, tore off a
stamp and affixed it.
“I’ll see that this goes,” he said grimly. Then, seeing her tired
face: “Poor old girl, you’re having a bad time.”
The pressure of her hand, the love and sympathy in her voice, were
almost too much for him, and he had to set his teeth or he would have
taken her in his arms, and, in that place of tragedy and horror, told
her of the love that was shaking him, and which had added a new and
fearful burden to his overstrung nerves.
“Go to bed early,” he said, with an effort at gaiety, “and rise with
the dawn. I shall be busy till very late.”
“The butler was telling me that you have ordered a basket of food for
the policemen.”
Not a muscle of his face moved.
“That is so; one or two men who are patrolling the cutting need a
little light refreshment. They cannot get to the house and we haven’t
men to relieve them.”
She was sensible enough not to pursue the subject.
It was only on her earnest entreaty that, as the night grew on, Mary
Wenner remained. The girl was a bundle of nerves, started at every
sound, paled and flushed with the opening of a door, and the sound of
a falling plate in the servery whilst they were at dinner had made her
scream.
“I can’t help it, my dear; I’m naturally temperamental,” she
explained. “And this house has got me shivering. I can’t leave another
young lady without a chaperon, or I’d fly off to London before it got
dark.”
She had been in the library that afternoon, she told Leslie, and the
sight of that familiar room with its empty chair had been almost the
last straw.
“I had to have a good cry,” she confessed, “and I’m not ashamed of it.