The Black Abbot
sounded with terrifying distinctness.
With trembling hands she pulled up the catch and pushed the casement
open. A man was standing down below, and for a second she did not
recognize him. And then everything went round; she had to grip the
window ledge for support.
It was Harry Chelford!
“Is that you, my dear?” His voice was little above a whisper but
remarkably clear.
She managed to answer:
“Yes.”
She was so dumbfounded that she could not ask one of the thousand
questions which crowded to her lips.
“Harry! And alive!”
“You are in terrible danger,” he said. “Will you come down? I can get
a ladder.”
Before she could answer he had disappeared, and presently he came
back, carrying a triangular-shaped ladder, and planted it against the
side. The top came within a foot of the window ledge.
“I can’t come, Harry; I’m not dressed. Besides, Miss Wenner is here.”
He raised his finger to his lips.
“Don’t wake her,” he said.
He had a little roll of something in his hand and she noticed that he
was bareheaded.
“Can’t you dress? I must see you.”
“Shall I call Dick?”
“No, no.” In his energy he almost raised his voice and looked back
over his shoulder. “That would spoil everything, and it would endanger
his life. Dress quickly, my dear.”
What should she do? Her first instinct was to run to the door and tell
the guard what she had seen; her second was to obey him. His
earnestness and the terror in his voice made her yield to his
suggestion. Quickly she dressed by candlelight, hoping and praying
that Mary Wenner would wake up. Once she knocked against the girl’s
bed, but Miss Wenner slept peacefully, a seraphic smile on her
good-looking face, and the only notice she took of the disturbance was
to murmur, “Dick!”
It needed that ludicrous interlude to restore Leslie’s courage; for
she could not be amused and afraid at the same time.
Perhaps Dick was waiting below, she thought, and swinging herself over
the sill, she reached out her foot, found the top rung of the ladder,
and came down. Harry was standing on the grass plot, curiously alert
and watchful.
“What is it, Harry?” she asked in a low voice, but he put his finger
to his lips again and led her, not, as she expected, toward the front
of the house, but by a wide circuit, keeping to the shadow of the
trees, until they went past the rosary and near to the stables.
A dog barked as they passed in silence.
“I can’t go any farther, Harry.”
“You must, you must!” His voice was urgent, compelling. “I tell you
that not only my life, but your own is in danger.”
“But what of Miss Wenner?” She drew back.
“They will not touch her. My mother’s spirit will watch that poor
girl--she died in that room.”
Leslie gasped.
“Your mother?” she asked, in an awestricken whisper.
“Come!” He was impatient, caught her by the arm and led her farther
down, until she saw near at hand the gleam of the Ravensrill.
“But, Harry, I can’t go any farther.” She stopped resolutely. “I’m
sure you’re mistaken. Where have you been all this time? Everybody has
been looking for you and Dick has been terribly worried.”
He laughed. (It was the laugh that the watchman heard.)
“Dick is worried? That is rich!”
And now, as the challenge of a distant voice came to her, she saw his
face in the moonlight. He was unshaven, unkempt, grimy of face and
hands; he wore no collar, and stood, a collarless man in a long frock
coat with a wild appearance. Slowly she drew back, dread and fear on
her face, and then he clutched her by the wrists.
“If you scream I will throw you into the river and kneel on you until
you are dead,” he whispered in so calm and matter-of-fact a tone that
she could not believe he was serious.
And yet she had an extra sense which told her that he was not only
serious, but that she was in deadly peril. He kept hold of her wrist,
or she would have taken to flight, though she would have little chance
of escaping one who in his school days was a noted sprinter.… She
remembered something else now and felt sick. Harry Chelford had
captained his public school team at Bisley and had carried everything
before him. This pale, anæmic youth was the greatest shot of his
time. The greatest shot! She remembered the bullet that was meant for
her, and he felt her dragging on his hand but said no word. She must
not lose her nerve at this moment of crisis.
They were making for the ruins. Near the edge of the cutting, Puttler
had told her, were stationed two men; they must see her soon. But
Harry went no farther than the broken tower, and here he paused and
pulled the block of stone aside.
Now she knew; they were going down to that dreadful underground cavern
where Dick had taken her. Dick Alford knew his brother was there! She
knew this long before she saw the basket, still filled with food, that
stood at the bottom of the steps.
LIV
Harry had lit a candle, and, guided by this, she went down the steep
circular stairway.
“He brought me that, food--the devil!” He pointed his shaking finger
to the basket.
“Dick brought it?” she faltered.
He nodded.
“Poisoned,” he said. “But he didn’t catch me. Poisoned every bit of
it!”
He carefully unwrapped a white napkin and showed a dainty pile of
sandwiches, took one and opened it.
“You can see the crystals glittering on the meat,” he said, in so calm
and matter-of-fact a tone that she almost thought she saw something
glitter on the white flesh.
Then he lifted the bottle and looked at it with a smile.
“It was too childish. Nobody but a fool would have dreamt I could be
deceived.” He put the bottle and sandwiches back again carefully and
covered them with the napkin that had been over the basket.
“Come,” he said, and they went farther into the apartment.
She saw a big gap in the floor and a stone standing straightly up from
the centre.
“I have a lamp below. I prepared this place a very long time ago
against such an emergency. Light and food--and all the water you want.
Will you go first?”
He was very courteous and polite, took her hand to guide her, and held
the light so that she could see the stairs, and came down immediately
after, stopping to swing the stone into place.
“Will you hold the candle?” he asked.
She was trembling so violently that her fingers were soon covered with
hot grease, but she did not feel the smart of the boiling wax; her
eyes were fixed upon the man, fascinated.
He was lighting a new storm lantern which burnt, she guessed, paraffin
gas, and it took some time before a brilliant bright light illuminated
the room in which she found herself. It was twice the size of the
apartment above, and neither the walls nor the floor had fallen into
decay. It was almost as new-looking as it had been when the Norman
builders had handed it to the Black Fathers of Chelfordbury.
The first unusual things she saw were two sporting rifles that stood
in a corner of the room. Following her eyes, he smiled.
“I shall not sell my life without a struggle,” he said firmly.
The furniture consisted of a very old refectory table, the top of
which must have been at least four inches in thickness, a long form,
and a high chair that looked like a bishop’s throne. There were no
visible windows, but the ceiling did not quite reach the wall, and
there seemed a space all round the room where air was admitted.
“Excuse me,” he said.
He took the thing he had been carrying, unrolled it, and to her
astonishment, kissed it passionately before he carried it to a
truckle-bed that she had not noticed before and tacked it to a beam
which showed between the stone courses and was in truth the only wood
she had seen in the building.
She looked in amazement, and knew the picture instantly. It was the
head of his mother.
“How lovely!” he sighed. “How wonderful! Do you know, I feel that
nothing matters now, Leslie!”
He smiled at her, and looked at that moment so happy that she could
have cried.
“Richard hated her,” he went on. “He never lost an opportunity of
speaking ill of her. I am told that in my absence he used to bring the
servants into the library and together they would laugh and gibe at
this beautiful martyr.”
“How absurd, Harry! You know Dick would do no such thing,” she said,
stirred to his defence.
But he was not angry, nor did he show any resentment at her
championship.
“You don’t know Dick,” he said simply. “Dick, of course, is the Black
Abbot. I only found it out a week or two ago, when I went into his
room and discovered the costume in a box. He had forgotten to put it
away.”
She did not believe the only truth he had told her so far but she felt
that it would be undiplomatic, to say the least, to argue with him.
“Harry, I can’t stay here, you know,” she said. “There is only one
room, and I have a weakness for a daily bath----”
He walked across the room and pulled aside a sacking that hid one
corner, and pointed dramatically.
“You will find everything you require here,” he said. “This room is
yours. I shall sleep upstairs, only coming below at the first hint of
danger, either to you or to me. The position calls for courage and
patience, and I know that my wife-to-be has those qualities to
excess.”
He was his old, smiling, genial self.
“By-the-way, there are plenty of books to read--I brought some away
from the house. They were rather heavy and I had to drag them a little
bit, but thank heaven I got just what I wanted.”
She noticed them now for the first time, piled at one end of the
refectory table. He took up a volume and turned the leaves lovingly.
“You do not read German? I think you told me that before. It is a
pity, because this is a very fascinating narrative, told by an
outsider of the Chelfords of the period. You will be pleased to learn
that I have located the treasure. It was not difficult. I knew all the
time that it was behind the second door in the room above.”
“Have you known this place for long?”
He nodded.
“For six years,” he said. “I found it on the twenty-first anniversary
of my dear mother’s death. I think I ought to say ‘murder,’ for there
is no doubt that my father, who had all the worst qualities of Dick,
killed her--hanged her.”
Her face contorted with horror.
“In that room?” she said, in a strained voice. “Behind the door?”
He nodded.
“The thing was hushed up. My clever father was too great a man to be
put on trial for his life and the story was circulated that she had
died by her own hand.”
Every word he said was a lie, as she knew, but he believed it. He
explained quite rationally how the light was worked; showed her the
little wash place with the stream of water running from the raw rock
through a cavity into some invisible deeps; even gave her a short
résumé of the history of the place. It had been built by the Black
Abbot himself for his own especial purpose.
“My first idea was that there was another exit here, or rather an
entrance for those peculiar friends of his, but that I have failed to
discover.”
He took up one of the rifles, shot back the bolt with the air of an
expert, and, going up the steps, unfastened the heavy oaken bar that
kept the stone in place.
The slab pivoted round, and she had a wild idea that when it was
closed she would fasten it; but he was evidently prepared for this,
for she heard him drag a paving-stone to the edge of the hole and
place it so that the trap could not close.
“Good-night, Leslie,” he said, peering down at her through his
spectacles. “You will not mind my light? I want to read a chapter
before I sleep.”
For a quarter of an hour no sound broke the silence. She sat on the
bed, her hands clasped on her knees. And then she heard him move and
her breath came faster, but he had only a question to ask.