Chapter XV: The Smugglers' Cache

As the car swung up to the door, Hermione came out and stood in the opening, watching its two occupants rather anxiously. Iza Marsh got out and Daneham drove round to the garage.

"Well, my dear, you look scared. What's the matter?" demanded the elder woman.

"Nothing. Tell me, what did you find?"

"Nothing either. But my nothing is true, yours is not. Tell me, what is it, child?"

"Oh, really nothing, it doesn't matter, I suppose," she spoke wearily. "Dick and I had words, but we understand each other now, so that's something."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Though you don't look too overjoyed by it," commented Iza, crisply. "Where is the man? Gone, I hope."

"Oh, no. He has gone to the tower. He has a perfect right, of course, to do what he can to help the police, but--well--of course, I shall have to tell you--he really believes that poor Dominic is alive--and--and mixed up in this business. He knows about the date on the paper, and he means to find him if he can. We have made a sort of bargain. I was in a way forced to make it; besides, in a way, he is justified. He says that as Dominic has never been near me it means that either he is really dead, or that he has ceased to care."

"Yes, my dear, I can't help agreeing to that," said her friend. "It's my one stumbling-block. Well so I suppose the bargain is that if he finds he does still care and in some way or another can't come to you, he'll sheer off and leave him alone, is that it?"

"Yes. But if, on the other hand, it is as he thinks it is, then--well, you can guess what will happen then."

"Yes, child, I think I can. And if he sticks to his bargain, well and good, but will he?"

"That's it. I don't feel that I can trust or believe in him, and I'm terribly frightened of what will happen and--and--" But here suddenly Hermione, who had gone through much during her friend's absence broke down and the next instant was in the stout woman's arms.

"My poor darling. Don't cry, child, and don't worry. If your boy is alive, he shan't fall into that man's hands, bargain or no bargain. My word! I could gladly shoot the brute for worrying you like that. But the worst of it is we can't afford to quarrel with him or prevent his coming here. He's got us on the score of the smuggling stunt. And if we objected he would have a perfect right to go to the police, and that we don't want at any price. All we can do is to carry on and try and beat him at his own game--by low cunning. How it's to be done, I can't say for the moment, but there'll be some way, my dear, and after all, you may be distressing yourself to no purpose. How do we know that there'll be anyone to catch? That Frenchman said he had done. Well, perhaps he had. At any rate, Bessington can't stop here for ever, and he can't stay here unless you ask him to. So what he proposes to do, I can't imagine."

"He is staying only twenty miles away," replied Hermione, drying her tears. "He can come over here at any time, night and day. There is nothing to prevent him. And if we refuse to allow him, very likely the police will come, and they will station a destroyer or a Government boat of some kind in the bay, and then Dominic will never be able to come, and how can I know where he is? Don't you see, dear? I am longing, aching for him to come. If I could only find the person who is signalling and bribe them to send for him, I would give all I possess, indeed I would."

"I know. I quite see that, and I'm afraid in the matter of the signalling person we are as far off as ever. Betty has never sent a letter from here in her life. So it looks as though it's not her at all."

"Then who is it, who can it be?"

"I don't know, my dear, but I've got an idea in my head and mean to see what comes of it. I intend to walk over to the cottage myself while Betty is working here, and do a bit of poking round. And I'm going directly after we've had tea. And here's Frank, so just tell him all about it and don't worry any more."

It was impossible to feel despondent with two such cheerful and optimistic friends.

"Let him hunt, he'll find nothing," said Frank Daneham. "If the police did not, and you and I and the sharpest woman in the world--represented by Iza--did not, why should he? He can do nothing, after all. Above all, do not let us quarrel with him. If our friends, the smugglers, are coming back, they will come; worrying won't stop them. And when they come it will be at night. Bessington won't be here at night. My only fear is that they won't come. And I should very much like to meet that young Frenchman again and return the compliment he paid to me." He turned to Iza, with a smile. "By all means go and poke about at Betty's cottage," he went on. "I don't know what you think you'll find or even what you propose to look for, but go, if it seems good to you."

"It's only a theory," was the reply, and directly she had had her tea she went.

Betty MacIvor's cottage was in the direction of the tower, but further inland, and to reach it, several fields had to be traversed by a narrow path. On the way there Iza Marsh had a good view of the tower, but so far as she could see from that distance, there were no signs of Colonel Bessington.

"Perhaps he's drawn blank, feels a fool, is afraid to face Hermione after his disgraceful behaviour, and has gone home," she thought, and continued her walk in happy ignorance of the true state of things over at the tower.

Arrived at length at Betty's cottage, and having overcome her preliminary sensation of bewilderment and amazement, that any human being could bear to inhabit such a lonely dwelling all by herself, she first of all knocked perfunctorily at the door--well aware of the fact that no one was within to answer it--and finding it locked and the windows fastened, she proceeded to prowl round the premises in search of anything suspicious in the nature of telephone wires, which at first she had thought might possibly exist, but which her search proved to be unfounded.

There was a small garden at the back of the cottage, and what looked to be a fowl-house at the end of it, but neither sign of cock nor hen, or anything appertaining to the farmyard did she see. At which her hopes rose abundantly, and her steps quickened along the path that led to it. And here she found what--as she would put it--common sense had told her to look for. The end of the fowl-house, instead of being made of solid wooden boards as were the other three sides, consisted of fine meshed wire netting, and, looking through this, she saw, instead of the domestic fowl, five very fine pigeons.

"Carrier!" she exclaimed, triumphantly. "So now we know, and that's one up to Bessington, drat him! All we have to do now is to threaten old Betty with exposure and we have the field to ourselves."

With which optimistic solution of all their difficulties, she started back on her way home. And once again glancing across over the rugged bit of moorland which separated the area of agricultural ground upon which she walked and the jagged rocks near the sea, she noted the absence of anyone at the tower, and supposed either that her first surmise had been correct, or else that Colonel Bessington had gone where she was now going.

"To report failure," she thought, with a nod of her head at her own success. "Which, by the way, he shall not share. If Betty is to be dealt with, she will be dealt with by us."

But if she had been successful, how much more so had been Richard Bessington.

No sooner had he tumbled to the meaning of the clock--the solving of the mystery of which had taken him as many minutes as it had taken Dominic Arden days--than he proceeded to put his discovery to the test.

He first of all adjusted the hands pointing to the respective figures to an exact and minute nicety, guessing that the mechanism of the safe--as he supposed it to be--would require that before it would open. Having done so, he took hold of the left side of the clock face and pulled it towards him.

To his intense surprise, instead of the clock face only opening and revealing a receptacle for depositing stolen goods, the whole length of the wooden structure--of the grandfather type--came forward, revealing not a safe but another door exactly corresponding with the clock face and with the same dials and hands, only on the reverse side. And whereas the clock opened inwards, the second door opened outwards and revealed an opening in the wall through which a man could pass with ease, and the top step of a flight of steps which disappeared into darkness.

For a moment he stood where he was looking down into the black depth from which a cold, damp, musty draught was coming. This, then, was the answer to what had so puzzled Frank Daneham. Namely, how the Frenchman could have got the goods away in time without being seen by Hermione that night. This, too, explained where he must have lain hid while the police inspector was keeping his watch. Obviously a room beneath the tower, possibly even another exit that way. But of this he must make sure. What a thousand pities he had not thought to bring his electric torch with him, now lying uselessly on the table beside his bed at the Glen.

All he possessed was a cigarette-lighter which, when ignited, burned a tiny flame until the methylated spirit was exhausted. He had fortunately had it replenished that morning and for want of a better it would have to serve. So he lit it and slowly and very carefully began his descent of the stairs, pausing only to feel with his stick and make sure that the next step was solid. At the fourteenth step he struck solid ground, and by dint of careful pacing found that he was in an underground vault of some twenty feet square and which had an opening at one end large enough for a fair-sized car to pass down.

Down this passage or tunnel, therefore, he went, hoping fervently that the light would hold out until he had gained the end, wherever it might lead to.

It led, after fifty yards' walking, straight down in a steep incline right into a wide and swiftly-running river which appeared to run underground for some considerable distance, and at the end of the tunnel he saw the faint light of day and the vision of pine trees.

Here he had, perforce, to stop, having no wish to get wet and, indeed, not feeling absolutely sure that he could stand up against the force of the water, which looked, in the faint glimmer of his light, exceedingly deep, but which to his surprise, when he tested it with his stick, was not more than a foot in depth.

"Easy for a car to make her way up that," he thought. "And no one in their senses would ever dream that down the river--even if they dared to venture through the tunnel--would be found an entrance to the tower. Wonderfully ingenious, and not surprising there was a mystery about a car."

So thinking, he turned and, as he did so, his tiny light flickered and went out. But it would, he reflected, be easy to find his way back, for there was but the one passage, and he knew that at a bend in it some way along, he would see the glimmer of light through the clock at the top of the steps to direct him.

And as he felt his way back, passing a hand along the rough walls of the tunnel--hacked out, no doubt, by smugglers some hundred or more years ago, and once more used by the descendants of their trade--he wondered what he should do with his knowledge.

One thing now was certain, and that was the fact of Dominic Arden's existence. For it must have been he who, with sardonic humour, had set the clock at that date, and afraid or too wise to come himself again had told his friend where to set the hands in order to open the secret door, and because that friend was afflicted with a bad memory, had written it down for him.

What should he do? Keep the knowledge to himself or tell the police, and let them set men to watch in the underground room? That, perhaps, was his duty; his duty, too, to tell those at Ardenmore House. But was duty always necessary? After all, it was he who had discovered the secret, not they or the police. And if they knew, Hermione, at least, would do her best to thwart him in every way. If, also, he told the police, the matter would be taken over by them, and he would have no more say in it. And he wanted a say, very badly indeed.

But also, he could do nothing alone. Single-handed, he would be powerless against the smuggling gang if they returned. And there was only one man whom he could ask to help him. On the other hand, did he keep it to himself and manage to capture any of the gang, what would the authorities say when they discovered that he had known of this place and had not informed them?

Above all, what would Hermione say?

It was a very nasty problem which he had to solve, and he realized that he had only the time during which he would walk that half-mile back to the house in which to solve it.

He gained the steps at last, mounted them and then examined the back of the clock-which had now swung back against the wall. He saw that each number consisted of a steel disc which, as the hand pointed to it, shot out, fitting into a corresponding blank space on the other door, which opened inwards over the steps. In order to set the clock it was necessary to stand on the second step with a light and with the other door closed. There were dials and hands exactly similar to those on the front face of the clock, and according to the position in which those were set, so only could the door be opened by setting them on the face of the clock in a similar position. Then when so set, the clock must be drawn into place, the hands moved to any figure or number save those set at the back, when automatically the discs would shoot out, clipping the two doors together, and rendering them immovable until the magic date was reset once more on the clock face, when again the discs would shoot, this time into space, releasing the doors from one another. Once forget the date fixed on the back, and woebetide the unfortunate criminal wishing to escape at a moment's notice through the secret door. For the combinations were so many that it would be almost impossible to hit on the exact date by accident. Even should he get the year exact, the month and the day, if the date of the month was wrong, that disc would still hold the two doors together, refusing to release them until the magic number was set.

"A wonderful contrivance," he thought, as he drew the inner door to, swung back the clock face, and began to readjust the hands. He placed them as near as possible to where he had found them, tried the door, and discovered it firmly shut. Then, with a glance at his wrist-watch, which showed him it was past five o'clock, he set out upon the walk home.

And on the way he made up his mind as to what he should do. Right or wrong he had told Hermione he would win her. By fair means or foul--After all who should be a judge as to what was fair in love?

He reached the house as Iza Marsh came down the garden path on her return from Betty's cottage.

"Well," she said, cheerfully, "find anything?"

"Nothing at all," he replied, quietly.

"Same here," said she laconically, and wondered if the man was as big a liar as she was.