The Black Abbot
Lord Chelford,’ etcetera, etcetera.”
At first she did not understand, and then a slow smile dawned on her
face.
“I see,” she nodded. “That means that if anything comes out, you’re
acting for him and not for yourself. Arthur, there are times when I
think you’re clever!”
Arthur Gwyn smiled as he put his arm about her and led her to the
window. Below, thick streams of road traffic were passing east and
west. A great lorry was under his eyes; he saw an inscription on its
side, “5 tons.” It would require three such lorries to move the
Chelford treasure, he thought, and for a moment his head reeled.
“I’ll tell you how clever I am when I handle the first bar of the
Chelford treasure. And you’ll know how clever you are when I’ve dealt
with the last. There’s two millions in this. Now, tell me, where is
this gold?”
She looked at him for a second, and then, lowering her voice:
“In the vaults of Chelford Abbey,” she said.
For a second neither spoke, and then:
“Will you see your sister, Mr. Gwyn? She has just arrived.”
Arthur Gwyn spun round, an oath on his lips. Gilder had come
noiselessly into the room, his inscrutable eyes fixed upon his
employer. Not a muscle of his face betrayed whether or not he had
overheard the last words.
IX
Leslie Gwyn’s occupations at Willow House were well defined. Though
her brother did not maintain a very expensive or elaborate
establishment, he lived in a style consonant with the position he held
in the county. There were little dinner parties, an occasional dance,
and in the winter, Arthur, who was a good man to hounds and was
ambitious to be master of the local pack, entertained on a lavish
scale the more prominent members of the hunt. In these amenities
Leslie acted as hostess for her brother, and at all times was the real
housekeeper of the establishment. For all his extravagance he was a
careful and grudging house master, required that the necessities of
life should be bought in the cheapest markets, that the best at the
lowest price should be found upon his table.
The resolve to go to town that morning had been born of a sudden
impulse. The day was her own and she could do as she liked with it.
For some reason the idea of lunching alone did not appeal to her. She
had a wild thought of going on to Fossaway Manor, but remembered that
Wednesday was a day that Dick Alford gave up entirely to visiting his
tenant farmers. She did not attempt to explain to herself why the
prospect of lunching tête-à-tête with her fiancé was even more
distasteful than lunching alone. She had got beyond the point of
finding excuses for herself; she felt a certain recklessness; was
conscious that her manner and attitude of mind were defiant. Against
what and whom?
With a lift of her pretty shoulders she shrugged the matter out of
consideration. All that she knew was that the preoccupation of Dick
Alford and the unlikelihood of seeing him, made a visit to Fossaway
Manor not only undesirable but out of the question.
She would go to town: the decision was taken in an instant, and she
went upstairs and dressed hurriedly, whilst the gardener wheeled her
little two-seater to the drive before the house. Five minutes later
she was spinning along the straight road toward the railway station.
She had plenty of time; indeed, there was a certainty that she would
arrive at the rail at least half-an-hour before the train left, even
if it pulled out on time.
As she entered Fontwell Cutting she thought she saw a familiar form
crossing the field toward the road a quarter of a mile away, and her
heart jumped for no known reason. The high walls of the cut road shut
out her view, but when she emerged and slid down the steep little hill
to the village road, she discovered that she had not been mistaken,
and brought her car to a halt as Dick Alford opened a field gate and
came out.
He greeted her with a wave of his hand and a smile, and, to her
consternation, would have passed on had she not called him back.
“You are very jumpy and cross this morning,” she said, and to her
surprise he admitted that fault, though she had seen nothing in his
manner to deserve the challenge she had made.
“I am very annoyed indeed. If there is one thing I don’t want to see,
it is our good farms turned into little residential estates for the
City gentry! I sold Red Farm to Mr. Leonard last week, under the
impression that the old”--he checked a naughty word--“gentleman wanted
to extend his holding, though why on earth he should want to buy Red
Farm, which is the poorest land around here, I couldn’t guess.”
“And what has he done?”
Dick was indeed very much annoyed, she noticed now, and was secretly
amused. She had a woman’s satisfaction in seeing the man she liked
thrown momentarily off his balance and revealing himself in a light
that was new to her.
“And what has the old--gentleman done?” she mocked him.
“He has resold the farm to a wretched man in London--though the
purchaser is not aware that such a sale is invalid without my
signature.”
“A stranger?” she asked.
“Yes; though he has been living in the neighbourhood all summer. He
has a cottage somewhere about here.”
“On the Ravensrill?” she asked, in surprise.
“That is the fellow,” he nodded. “I’ve never seen him, but I
understood he was only staying here for a few months. And now I find
that the beggar’s bought Red Farm and intends putting up something in
stucco with bow windows! And I daresay he will dig an artificial pond,
start a rosary, and turn God’s productive acres into a forcing house
for sickly flowers!”
“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked coolly, and he stared at her. “After
all, you said this was the poorest land round here, and if it cannot
be useful it may as well be beautiful. I rather like artificial ponds
and rosaries.”
In spite of his annoyance he laughed.
“Then probably you’ll go to Mr. Gilder’s house-warming,” he said.
She started.
“Who?” she asked.
“Mr. Gilder. He’s something in the City--probably a deuce of a swell
in his own way, but I wish he’d gone somewhere else. And as to
Leonard, I’ve already told him that I shall not go to his funeral.”
“Dick, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she said indignantly.
“Poor old man!” Then, in a different voice: “You don’t know his
Christian name?”
“Whose--Leonard’s?”
“Don’t be stupid--Mr. Gilder’s.”
Dick frowned.
“Fabrian,” he said at last. “What a name! It sounds like a secret
society!”
She wondered if Arthur knew of this enterprise of his clerk: it was
hardly likely that Mr. Gilder would buy property in the neighbourhood
without consulting his chief. For the moment she deemed it prudent to
turn the subject.
“If you were nice and kind and brotherly,” she said, “you would come
along with me to the station and garage my car like a nice man.”
He stood irresolutely, and for a moment she went hot at the implied
rebuff. And then:
“I’m wasting my master’s time,” he said, “but there are occasions when
pleasure must interfere with duty, and this is one of them. Do you
mind if I drive? I have no faith in women drivers.”
“You are very rude,” she said, but nevertheless moved aside to let him
take the wheel.
“How is Harry this morning?”
“Fine,” he said sardonically. And then, heartily ashamed of himself:
“Harry is trying a new patent medicine. You’ve never been in his
bedroom? That is an indelicate question to ask, but have you?”
She shook her head, the hint of laughter in her eyes.
“There are about eight hundred and forty-five varieties of patent
medicines in Harry’s bedroom,” he said grimly. “Once every three
months we have a spring-cleaning and chuck ’em out! Really, there
isn’t very much wrong with Harry, and if he did not read patent
medicine advertisements he would be a happier man. Just now he’s
trying something for his nerves, and if there’s anything left in the
bottle at the end of the week I shall take it myself.”
“Poor Harry!” she said softly.
“Yes, I’m a brute to grouse,” he said, almost gruffly, and seemed to
imply in some subtle fashion that she was a provocative party to his
brutality.
It occurred to her as strange that he never spoke about the time when
she would be mistress of Fossaway Manor. It would have been natural in
him to say, “When you’re married I hope you’ll cure Harry of that
nonsense,” but he had made no such reference. That was the strange
thing about Dick, that he never even suggested or hinted of a coming
time when she would be Countess of Chelford. In one way she was glad
he did not--especially now.
They wound slowly through the leafy lanes, passed a little wood, all
olive, russet, and purple with the decay of autumn, and came to the
station ten minutes ahead of time.
“You have had no further visit from your Black Abbot?” she asked, as
they strolled on to the station platform.
He shook his head.
“No; the police came last night to make inquiries. I don’t suppose it
will go much farther. You read about it in the newspaper, of course?”
She shook her head.
“Servants talk,” she said.
“I really don’t believe in this Black Abbot,” he went on. “It is queer
that Harry is scared of this spook. He never goes outside the house
when the old Abbot is reported in the neighbourhood.”
“You don’t believe either?”
He pursed his lips.
“When I see a ghost I shall believe it. Until then I am politely
sceptical.”
As the train drew out of the station she put her head out of the
window and looked back. He was standing stock still upon the platform
where she had left him; and although she could not see his face, she
felt that he was gazing after her, and thought she detected a certain
tenseness in his very attitude--all of which was very pleasing to Miss
Leslie Gwyn.
X
Strange as it may seem, she had never visited her brother’s office
on High Holborn before she left her taxi at the door and came up in
the elevator to his magnificent suite. Her appearance had a prosaic
cause. She had left the country without a penny: a fact she did not
realize till the ticket collector, working through the train, came
into her compartment and aroused her from a daydream to the
realization that she had neither ticket nor money to pay for it. She
gave the man her card, and a taxi brought her to Holborn.
She was to have another novel experience. A tall, thick-set man, with
iron-gray hair and a strong, attractive face, had come into the
waiting room to meet her. She remembered him as the solitary fisherman
who had sat fishing for hours on the bank of Ravensrill, without,
apparently, catching anything. So this was the redoubtable Mr. Gilder
of whom Arthur had so often spoken. She was not especially curious
about him. He was a head clerk, and, by Arthur’s account, a clever man
at his work; but now that she saw him, she was impressed. He was
distinctive--outside of type. The average of humanity you may pass in
the street without noticing. It would have been impossible to see
Fabrian Gilder once without recognizing him instantly after the
passage of years. The jaw was almost square, his big mouth was so
tightly drawn that he seemed to be lipless; a powerful nose, a pair of
penetrating gray eyes, under straggly, uneven eyebrows; this, and the
breadth of his shoulders, conveyed an imponderable expression of
power.
“You are Miss Gwyn, of course?” he said. “I would have recognized your
relationship with your brother even if I had not known your name.”
It was a little shock to Leslie that she in any way resembled Arthur,
for Arthur’s good looks were of a variety which she neither envied nor
admired.
“He is engaged at the moment. If you’ll sit down I’ll go along and
tell him.”
His eyes did not leave her face. She had often seen in stories the