Chapter XX: Alec Crosby Makes Good

"I don't know what it is, Marshy," said Hermione, as she and her friend were seated together in the drawing-room after dinner, and more than twenty-four hours after she had paid her visit to Betty, a visit which had been fraught with so much joy, anxiety, and subsequent fear, "but I feel as though we ought not to be sitting here doing nothing. I feel that something ought to be done, now--at once. I wish I could explain why I feel this, but I can't."

"Oh, you needn't explain, my dear," replied her friend, putting down her knitting. "I feel it myself. I've been trying to turn this horrid heel and I've had to unpick it twice, just because I can't focus my mind on it. Of course, it's this beastly uncertainty that's at the bottom of it, or else I should put it down to liver. But, honestly, there's nothing really to worry about. The Frenchman can't be here yet, not until he knows the place is safe, and he's got to see it in black and white in the papers before he'll budge. Tomorrow night at the earliest, I put it."

"I know," agreed Hermione. "Of course you must be right, but all the same I keep on feeling that you are not, and that there's something we ought to consider. I feel that we are wasting valuable time. I'm sorry to be such a nuisance, but would you go with me to the tower? It's a little after nine and I hate to ask Frank, as he promised to go at twelve to-night, just on the chance, you know. And yet I know that he thinks it is utterly useless. He's such a dear and I hate to impose on him, Marshy."

"If you realized, my dear, that to ask him to do anything for you is to give him the greatest pleasure in his life, I think you wouldn't talk nonsense about imposing on him."

"Oh, I do realize it and I feel an absolute beast. For I know--how could any sane woman not know it?--that he is awfully fond of me."

"Yes, my dear. It's obvious, even to an old noodle like me, that the man's head over ears in love with you, and always has been. But there it is, just one of the ill chances of life, and it's no good crying over spilled milk. There, get your things on. A mile walk will do us both good. We eat far too much, and that Hibernian cook of yours, my child, is ruining my figure--if I ever had one to ruin. You slim creatures can eat what you like, and nothing seems to make you swell as it does me. It's a crime on the part of Nature that makes one female run to fat unless she starves, and another remain thin if she eats ten meals a day with potatoes at each of them. However, there it is, and one has to grin and bear it."

Very soon, and in spite of all Frank Daneham could say to dissuade them, the two set out on their walk to the tower, reached it, found it as usual unoccupied and the sea devoid of any kind of vessel.

"Never mind, I'm glad we came if only to put my mind at rest," said Hermione. "And while we are here, let's see once more if we can discover what it was Dominic found out about the clock."

Whereupon she again made a careful examination of the mechanism, turning the hands to this figure and that, and finally leaving them in the state in which Richard Bessington had found them an hour later.

The two women returned home, relieved in their minds, it is true, but Hermione bitterly indignant with herself that she could not discover the secret of the clock.

"I shall probably find it out when it's too late," she said dejectedly, "and I feel that such a lot depends on it."

"Child, don't be so optimistic," said her friend, dryly. "You'll make me feel quite cheerful before you've done, and that would be a big mistake. As a matter of fact you ought to get to bed early after all this worry and excitement. You'll be worn out, my dear."

"I don't budge until Frank comes back from his walk to-night," said Hermione, with great decision.

But Frank Daneham did not go for a walk that night, for, as he was on the point of leaving the drawing-room to go into the hall for his coat and hat, there came a sharp tap on the windows, the thick curtains of which were not drawn, and through whose red blinds the glow of the lamp could be seen by anyone outside.

"What's that?" Hermione was on her feet, and running to the door, called Frank, sharply. "Do come here," she cried. "There's someone outside, rapping on the window. There I do you hear? there it is again."

For once more came the sharp tap, tap, repeated more violently than before, and Frank Daneham strode to the window, drew back the blind and opened it.

"What is it? Who is there?"

"It's me, Alec Crosby, from the Glen. Can I come in and speak to you? I saw your light and didn't want to make a disturbance by ringing the bell."

"Go round to the door and I'll let you in," said Daneham, quickly, and in another minute he and the the women were running down the passage to the front door which was soon opened and Crosby, hot, dishevelled, and in a violent state of excitement came in.

"How on earth--" began Daneham, but the newcomer interrupted him.

"Never mind yet how I came here. I've got to tell you something. I've--I've--been a low-down blackguard and I've got to make good. Can you give me something to drink? My throat's dry with running. I've run all the way from the tower here."

"The tower?" cried Hermione, and went white to the lips.

Daneham ran into the dining-room, poured out a whisky-and-soda and brought it quickly back to the panting and exhausted man, who gulped it down gratefully.

"Thank you, now I can talk. It's about that feller Bessington. Fact is he--well, he found out the secret of that infernal clock when he was over there the other day--"

"Good God!" exclaimed Frank. "The lying skunk. He said he had discovered nothing. Are you sure of this, Crosby?"

"Yes," replied the other, while Hermione stared in silent amazement and fear, fear of what she should hear next. "Sure thing he found it, and more than that, he saw the old woman loose off a carrier pigeon--when he was on his way back that was--and he twigged, or rather I did, that the Frenchman would probably be staying where the pigeon flew to with the message, would then wire his boat and try and get away by the tower to-night."

"Oh!" cried Hermione, desperately. "That's what we ought to have thought of. But how do you know all this, Mr. Crosby?"

"Never mind that now," said Daneham. "Did the Frenchman come, Crosby?"

"He did," was the grim reply. "You see, we had motored over here, parked our car in the wood, and walked to the tower, where we stayed waiting for him in the lower room."

"What lower room, my good man?" demanded Iza. "Remember you are talking in riddles to us. We didn't know you were in this thing at all."

"I was helping Bessington, damn him," was the reply. "But I'll tell you as clearly as I can. There's a room under the clock room, where the Frenchy parked his car; you get to it by wading through the river and through that tunnel--"

"By Jove! Where we were the other day!" cried Frank.

"You couldn't have guessed," said Crosby. "Bessington only discovered it by finding out that the clock was a combination safe door, which you set by a date, and which I'll explain later. The date was actually set for Monday, December the third, nineteen-seventeen."

"Ah!" a cry from Hermione, and she clutched her friend by the arm.

"Steady, child," said Iza. "Don't faint, my dear, there may be a lot for us to do yet."

"Go on, man, what happened?" asked Daneham. "But first of all, tell me how you come to know all this and to be here, it will make it easier to understand."

"Well, that's simple enough. Bessington told me all about young Arden, you know, and the possibility of his being alive, and then when this smuggling stunt came along, he connected Arden with it. Told me he wanted to see the young man to find out why he kept away, and asked me to help him. It sounded all right and I agreed, just for the fun of the smuggler hunt. Didn't think any harm of Bessington until--well--until it was too late, you see."

"I think I see." Daneham's face was stern. "Well, tell us what happened."

"What happened was this--" And then Alec Crosby proceeded in a graphic manner--interspersed with many forcible ejaculations regarding his own folly in ever having been mixed up in the dirty business--to describe the events which had followed their arrival at the tower. And his hearers stood listening with bated breath, Hermione clutching her friend's hand tightly in her own, fear and horror depicted on her drawn face as she realized only too clearly what it all meant, and would mean, to Dominic Arden.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Daneham, when Crosby paused, breathless for a moment. "It's difficult to believe that Bessington could have descended to such a thing as this, or that the Frenchman--who struck me, in spite of what he did to me, as rather a nice fellow--could turn out such a contemptible blackguard."

"I refuse to believe it possible," said Iza Marsh, emphatically, though more to try and reassure Hermione than through any real conviction on her part. "I believe there's something more than meets the eye here."

"I'm afraid not," said Crosby, bitterly. "Bessington took me in and the Frenchy took you in, Daneham. I don't set up for being a saint myself, but, hang it all! There's a limit to a fellow's villainy."

"But could you do nothing at all?" cried Hermione, piteously.

"Do? What could I do?" he returned. "I could only stand there and listen to 'em. I did warn Bessington that he risked his life by going with the fellow on his boat, but he laughed at me. He knew he was safe enough, and he knew he'd got me, too. Knew I couldn't go to the police and tell 'em about it, because they'd nab me as an accessory in letting the fellow escape. He didn't think I'd come and split to you, though, and as soon as I saw the blackguards well away in their damned boat--pardon, ladies--I ran hell for leather down to you. I didn't know my way, of course, but I guessed the path I found would lead to this house. Here's the blighter's card with his address," he added, taking it from his note-case and handing it to Daneham, who glanced at it and nodded.

"I wonder if it would be better to hand this over to the police and let them go after the man themselves," he said.

"My dear Frank!" struck in Iza, vehemently. "You can't do that, unless you want to give Mr. Arden away. That's where they've got us, don't you see?"

"Of course I see," was the frowning reply. "Well, thank you, Crosby, for what you've done. Is there anything more that you have to tell us?"

"Only one thing, and that is, that if you get off in the car early to-morrow, you'll catch the express at Wick in the morning, be in London next morning, and then get over to France. They'll not get to the Chateau in less than forty hours, going at top speed all the way, and if all goes well, you should get there almost as soon as they do in their damned motorboat. At any rate you'll be able to help the lad, and that's all I can say at the moment. I'm sick and sorry, but I believed in Bessington. 'Pon my honour I did."

Daneham's answer was to hold out his hand. "That's all right, man. You've made good, and how the devil could you have guessed? But what strikes me in all this is, not that young Arden is in any danger, but that Bessington is asking to be thrown overboard."

"Don't you believe it," was the reply. "That damned French scoundrel is all out for his own skin. You just get off as soon as you can if you don't want young Arden to be dragged back and hanged. You can fight duels in France, you know. All you have to do is to call that fellow out and kill him; the Frenchy, too, if necessary, though I don't think that will be, for he's probably playing a deep game if we only knew it. Anyhow, what do you say about it?"

"There is nothing to be said, except that I, for one, am going," said Hermione in a steady voice. "Frank, you will come?"

"My dear girl, what a question," was his only reply.

"And you certainly don't go without me, my dear," said Iza Marsh, brusquely.

"Yes, we'll all go," said Daneham. "Crosby, keep your mouth shut about all this--but, of course, I needn't say that, I know."

"Don't you worry, old man. I'll get right off to London and lie low. You know my address, look me up if and when you get back. And don't worry about Mackay here. Bessington told me that he'd sent him a note saying he thought there was nothing in the affair and not to expect him for a bit, as he was going away or something. Anyhow, they won't bother you. And don't you worry, either, Mrs. Rodenberg. That young feller-me-lad will be all right, you'll see."

Hermione held out her hand impulsively.

"May I thank you, Mr. Crosby, for what you have done?" she said.

"If you'll forgive me, that's all I ask," was the gruff reply.