Chapter III: Part 3

“In other words, you want to buy it back, eh? Well, there’s nothing doing!” said Gilder harshly. “I intend living at Red Farm, and there isn’t a law in the land that can stop me. You may not like my presence, but that is neither here nor there. I am not living at Chelfordbury for the pleasure of seeing you every day of my life.”

Dick nodded.

“I wondered why you wanted to live there at all, but now I think I understand,” he said. “The offer I have made to you is without prejudice to any action I may take. Unfortunately for you, Leonard has no power to re-transfer the property without my brother’s consent--which means my consent, for I hold his power of attorney. Leonard may hold the property, but you cannot. You’re a lawyer and it is not necessary for me to explain the intricacies of a copyhold lease, and that was all Leonard was buying. If you decide to fight the case, I’ll take you into court, and you know that I shall get a verdict against you. I am offering you a chance of settling the matter amicably.”

“Which I refuse,” said the other promptly.

Dick inclined his head.

“Very good. You will probably, on considering the matter in a calmer atmosphere, take a different view.”

He walked from the room, swinging his hat. In the doorway he turned.

“As for Miss Leslie Gwyn, you will be well advised to reconsider that question also.”

“And suppose I don’t?”

Again that unfathomable smile.

“You are going to be sorry,” said Dick cryptically.

XV

Not a word did Leslie say about her interview with Gilder, and her brother seemed just as anxious to avoid the topic as she. They drove down from town, and all the time he kept up a ceaseless flow of talk about affairs which he thought might interest her. He was nervous, and once, when she woke him from a reverie with a question, he started and turned red.

“Sorry!” he stammered. “I was thinking of something.”

“And something unpleasant, Arthur,” she said gently.

He was staring straight ahead of him.

“Yes, something damnably unpleasant!”

They were nearing Chelfordbury now, and she put the question that had trembled on her lips throughout that long journey.

“Arthur, do you know what Mr. Gilder asked me?” And, when he did not reply: “He proposed to me,” she said.

Still he avoided her eyes.

“Did he?” he asked awkwardly. “Well, that’s an extraordinary thing for him to do!”

“Arthur, did you know he was going to propose to me when you left us alone?”

“He isn’t a bad fellow,” said Arthur Gwyn lamely. “Of course, the idea is preposterous. But, after all, it is no sin for a fellow to fall in love with a girl and want to marry her--I mean, one can see his point of view.”

Leslie was a little shocked; she was more than a little angry. But she kept a tight rein on her tongue.

“But, Arthur, you wouldn’t agree to that? You know I am engaged to Harry--why, you told me that it was the dream of your life to see me wearing a coronet! Not that I want to wear the beastly thing, but that was what you said.”

Ordinarily, Arthur Gwyn was possessed of a ready tongue and a nimble wit. He had lied his way out of many an embarrassing situation with more worldly wise people than Leslie. But, somehow, in her presence his brain refused to function, and his witticisms were banal and vulgar even to himself.

“My dear little girl,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “it really doesn’t matter to me whom you marry so long as you’re happy. Gilder is a very solid man; he has a considerable private fortune.”

This time she swung round on her seat and faced him.

“Arthur, why do you insist upon the fortune? Where is my money?”

The question came point-blank and was not to be fenced with. He roused himself to meet a situation which had never before arisen.

“Your money? Why, invested, of course!”

He tried very hard, but he could not produce that convincing note which was so necessary.

“Your fortune is in all sorts of shares and bonds. What a queer question to ask me, girlie!”

“How much money have I?” she demanded ruthlessly.

“About a quarter of a million--a little more or a little less. For goodness’ sake don’t talk about money, my dear.”

“But I _will_ talk about it,” she said. “Arthur, have I any at all?”

His laughter did not carry conviction. And usually people accepted his word. Harry Chelford had asked him only a week before in what stocks was his late mother’s fortune invested. And Arthur had replied glibly enough. It was the Miriam Chelford Trust that had occupied his mind through the journey. Something must be done there. Dick Alford had started to ask questions, and Dick had a memory like a recording machine. As for Leslie and her tiresome questions:

“What a silly kid you are! Of course you’ve got money! I wish to heaven I had half your wad! You’re a very rich little girl, and you ought to be a very happy little girl.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t think I have a penny,” she said, and his heart sank.

With a tremendous effort of will he met her questioning eyes.

“Why do you say that?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know--in a way I hope I’m poor. I know I had money left me, because you showed me the will a long time ago. But you’ve been handling it, Arthur, and I’ve an idea that things haven’t been going too well with you.”

“Do you mean I’ve stolen your fortune?” he asked loudly, and she smiled.

“I wouldn’t accuse you of that. I think it is possible you may have invested my fortune--unwisely! And it is quite possible that that quarter of a million has dwindled and dwindled until it has disappeared. Is that so?”

He did not answer.

“Is that so?”

“I wish to God you wouldn’t ask such stupid questions,” he said irritably. “Of course it isn’t so!”

For one wild moment he had the impulse to tell her the truth; but vanity, a shrinking from the possible effects the news would have upon the one person in the world for whom he had a grain of affection, inhibited the confession.

Back he came naturally to the one thought present in his mind, as he chattered and as he brooded. His last hope lay in the discovery of the Chelford treasure. If that were found, he could snap his fingers at Gilder, could restore the wasted fortune of his sister, and establish himself beyond assail. Gilder would never dare bring his story of the four bills to a court of law, and if he did, backed by the Chelford fortune, Arthur could face the storm, confident that, if he made restoration to the man he had robbed, no evil consequences would follow. He was grasping at a straw, and knew it. But Mary Wenner was a shrewd little devil, not the kind of girl who, for the sake of making a sensation, would come to him with a cock-and-bull story. She might have been mistaken; on the other hand, she was so brimful of confidence that he could not believe the story was altogether without foundation.

The road to Willow House skirted the grounds of Fossaway Manor, and he saw the crumbling arch, red in the setting sun, standing like a fiery question mark that attuned with his mood of doubt and hope.

Arrived at his home, he went up to his room to bathe and change before dinner, and it was with a positive sense of freedom that he found himself alone. He was a fool not to have told her the truth, he thought. After dinner he would get her in a softer mood and make a clean breast of it. And then, at the tail of this decision, came the recollection of his interview with Mary Wenner. Suppose she had told the truth? Suppose he found these millions of pounds that had lain for centuries in the ground? He formed yet another plan.

XVI

To his unspeakable relief, Leslie was in her most cheerful mood throughout dinner, and the thought of Fabrian Gilder seemed to have been effectively banished.

“Leslie,” he asked, after the coffee had been served, “I want you to do me a great favour.”

She looked at him across the table, doubt in her eyes.

“Do you remember Mary Wenner, who used to be Harry’s secretary?”

She nodded.

“Yes. Dick doesn’t like her very much; he was telling me the other day----”

“Never mind what Dick likes or dislikes,” he said testily. “Great heavens! Are our lives to be run according to his fancies? I’m very sorry,” he apologized with a laugh, “but you’ll have to forgive me--I’m rather nervous to-night.”

“What about Mary Wenner?” she asked.

“I was wondering whether you would like to ask her down here to stay a week-end? I shall have a lot of work to do, and she’s a very excellent stenographer. But I’ll be perfectly frank with you and tell you that that is not the only reason I’d like you to invite her. She’s been in some kind of scrape and I want to help her through.”

Leslie Gwyn was not curious, or she might have questioned him more about this mythical trouble.

“I don’t know why she shouldn’t come,” she said. “If you’ll give me her address I will write to her. I rather fancy that Dick’s main objection to her is that she had some sort of attachment for Harry.”

“She’s almost forgotten Harry,” smiled her brother. “To be perfectly candid, I like the girl. She’s not a lady, of course, but ‘lady’ nowadays is a vague and meaningless term. And there was really nothing in her affair with Harry. I mean it was not serious.”

“I’ve never thought so,” said the girl, and thereupon the question of Mary Wenner was dismissed.

He had, he said, some work to do that night, and left her alone in the drawing-room, and for once she did not find time hanging very heavily upon her hands. Ordinarily the prospect of an evening spent alone would have seemed intolerably dull, but she had so much to think about, so many perspectives to adjust, that she rather welcomed her solitude.

Even at so short a distance of time, her experience with Fabrian Gilder seemed grotesquely unreal. Perhaps she was still numb from the shock of it, for, going over that unpleasant feature incident by incident, she could be neither angry nor amused. Perhaps she was a little afraid--she still felt the pressure of his strong hands upon her, still saw the gray fires that burnt in his eyes. And Dick--how natural it had been to go to him--how safe she had felt! Would it have been the same if Harry Chelford had providentially arrived? She was sure in her mind that she would not have run to Harry, or found comfort in his encircling arms.

She looked at the clock; it was ten minutes after nine. Dick would be back at Fossaway Manor by now, and she went out into the hall and, taking off the receiver of the telephone, gave a number.

Arthur’s study door opened into the hall, and he came out.

“To whom are you telephoning?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m calling up Fossaway Manor,” she said.

“You’re not going to invite Dick Alford over, are you?” he demanded resentfully.

Before she could reply, he heard the ring of a bell in the servants’ quarters and she ran to the door. Through the glass panel she saw the gleam of a white shirt-front on the unlighted porch, and switched on the lights. It was Dick, and, with an oath, Arthur Gwyn flung back into his room and slammed the door. He had hoped that Dick had forgotten his threat to call that night.

“Enter, Richard of Chelford!” said the girl dramatically, as she threw open the door. “I was just ’phoning to you. I’m bored to extinction and I want amusing.”

Which was not true.

“I don’t feel at all amusing,” said Dick, as he closed the door and hung up his cap on the hat-rack.

She took him by the arm and led him into the drawing-room.

“Arthur is invisible to-night; he is working very hard. He doesn’t approve of you, and you hardly approve of him, so we sha’n’t be interrupted! Dick, it was lovely of you to arrive as you did this afternoon.”

“Gilder proposed to you, I understand?” said Dick quietly.

“Did he tell you?” She fetched a long sigh. “Yes; I was amazed. I suppose it was very complimentary, but why did he do it in such a great hurry, do you think?”

Dick took a cigarette from the box she offered him and lit it before he replied.

“That is exactly what I’ve come to discover,” he said. “I feel rather like a grand inquisitor, but I must know.”

“And I can’t tell you.”

She was acting. He knew that her one object was to turn him from an interview with her brother, and she in turn knew that her efforts would be in vain.

“You had no hint of this precious proposal in advance? Arthur told you nothing?”

“No; Arthur couldn’t possibly have known. He told me that Mr. Gilder wanted us to see his new flat, and although it was a great bore going out to tea with somebody one doesn’t know, I went----”

“To oblige Arthur, of course?”

“No,” she insisted; “you must credit me with a reasonable amount of feminine curiosity. Bachelors’ establishments intrigue me. Your one drawback, from my point of view, is that you’ve only a poky little office and, I presume, a wretched little servant’s bedroom.”

“For a second son I’m rather well off,” said Dick with a quizzical smile. “You are sure Arthur didn’t give you any forewarning of this proposal?”

“Absolutely sure. He was as much astonished as I was.”

“Have you discussed it with him?” he asked quickly.

She hesitated.

“Yes, I spoke about it in the car on the way down, and Arthur was rather--astonished.”

“Only astonished--not furious?”

“He may have been furious, too. Arthur doesn’t carry his heart on his sleeve.”

“I should imagine not,” said Dick drily, and then: “Will you ask him if I can see him for five minutes?”

She looked at him with troubled eyes.

“You’re not going to quarrel, are you, Dick?”

He shook his head.

“No, I’m going to ask him a question or two. You realize that I’m entitled to know.”

“Why are you ‘entitled’?”

“Don’t you think I am?” he asked gently.

Her eyes went up to his for a second, and then dropped, as she read something there that thrilled and hurt her. Without a word she went out into the hall and knocked at Arthur’s door.

“What does he want? I can’t be bothered to-night,” said Arthur Gwyn fretfully. “What a fellow he is for interrupting people when they’re busy!”

“I think you’d better see him, Arthur,” she said, and added: “And get it over.”

He shot a quick glance at her.

“What do you mean--get what over?” he asked.

“Whatever there is to get over,” said Leslie quietly.

Arthur looked down at the picturesque confusion of papers that covered his library table.

“All right, shoot him in,” he said ungraciously.

XVII

He did not attempt to rise from his chair when Dick entered, closing the door behind him.

“Sit down, will you, Alford? Leslie tells me you want to see me.”

“Leslie need not have given you that message. I’d already told you this afternoon that I would come to you for an explanation.”

“Of what?”

“Of the unpleasant happening at Gilder’s flat. This man proposed to your sister--you know that?”

“Leslie told me,” said the other, after a moment’s silence.

“And you were annoyed, one supposes? You will dismiss this clerk of yours to-morrow?”

The other leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t see why I should,” he said coolly. “After all, it’s no crime for any man to propose to a pretty girl. Of course, he’s not the sort of fellow I should choose for a brother-in-law, but if brothers had to choose husbands for their sisters, you know, Alford, there would be some very queer marriages!”

“What is his pull?” asked Dick quietly.

“I don’t----”

“What is his hold on you?”

“What the devil do you mean?”

“Just what I say. You would never tolerate a man like Gilder paying attentions to your sister, apart from the insult he offered to a prospective Countess of Chelford, unless he had such a grip on you that all your natural indignation was crushed by the fear of some consequence he held over your head.”

Arthur Gwyn found it difficult to control his voice.

“My dear fellow, how very melodramatic!” he scoffed. “Hold over me! You must have been studying the latest Drury Lane play! Naturally, I would rather see Leslie married to your brother, but I certainly would put no obstacle in her way if her heart was set elsewhere.”

“On Gilder, in fact?”

“On Gilder,” nodded Arthur gravely, as though the matter had been the subject of deep thought and much self-communion.

And then Dick Alford asked a question that brought the man to his feet, white and shaking.

“Is it the question of the bills?”

“The--the what?” faltered the lawyer.

“The four bills which were supposed to be backed by my brother--the signatures being forgeries. I thought you knew that I had seen them. They were shown to me at the bank, and fortunately I did not disclaim them--fortunately for you, I mean. When I went to see them again they were taken up. I presume Mr. Fabrian Gilder redeemed them. That would have cost him a little over five thousand pounds, and I presume he did not do that out of sheer altruism.”

Arthur Gwyn’s mouth was dry; he could scarcely articulate.

“I didn’t know until to-day,” he muttered. “Harry was ill at the time. The money was due to me for--for--legal costs. I went down to the bank to take them up and found they had been honoured.”

“Was that the pull?”

He did not meet the steady gaze that was fixed on him.

“Yes, that was the pull, if you want to know. You don’t suppose I’d allow Leslie to marry a swine like Gilder unless--unless he had something on me, do you? Can’t you understand my position, Alford? I’m ruined! That fellow could send me to jail--he still can.”

Dick shook his head.

“Fire him to-morrow,” he said. “If he produces the bills I will undertake that Harry will acknowledge the signatures.”

The pink came back to the colourless face of the lawyer.

“You’ll do this?” he said eagerly. “My God! you don’t know what a weight you’ve lifted off my mind. You’re a brick, by jove! I’ll fire him to-morrow.”

He held out an eager hand and Dick took it with some hesitation. At the best of times Arthur Gwyn did not impress him; at this moment, almost incoherent with relief, he seemed a pitiful coward.

“I will pay Harry every penny. I have something on the stocks now that will bring me in a fortune, that will wipe out all my debts and put me on my feet again.”

There was humour in the situation; for the thing which was to rehabilitate his fortunes was no less than the barefaced robbery of Harry Chelford’s inheritance! But Arthur was not conscious of the irony of the position. He would deal with Gilder in the morning. Thank God he had not gone still deeper into the mire! The knowledge that in his pocketbook was another bill as yet unuttered, did not cool the glow of virtue he was experiencing. Henceforth he would walk the straight way.

“There’s one thing you could do for me, Alford--hurry along that marriage. Fix it for next month if you can. Leslie is just a foolish girl, she is trying to put off the inevitable, but that’s natural, isn’t it? Can’t you buck up Harry----”

Dick Alford looked at him steadily.

“The matter must be left entirely to Leslie,” he said, and there was something very definite and final in those words.

They came out of the library together; Leslie waiting, a little fearful, saw the smile on her brother’s face and breathed a sigh of thankfulness.

“You’re not going?” Dick was reaching for his cap.

“I have to get back to the house,” he said, and, seeing her look of disappointment, he stood irresolutely.

“Come along in and play mah-jongg. I am in a mah-jongg mood,” said Arthur, almost jovially.

If there was one thing that Dick could not endure that night it was to sit vis-à-vis with Arthur Gwyn. He would have liked to stay with the girl, but for the moment her brother seemed an inevitable third. And he was terribly informative. Arthur was in his most expansive mood.

“Here is something that will interest you!”

He pointed to the wall. Hanging against a dark wooden shield was an iron dagger--black and sinister, the handle worn smooth, the long blade notched and jagged. Dick had seen it before.

“That should be at your place, Alford. The veritable dagger of the veritable Black Abbot’s slayer--Hubert of Redruth! Look at his arms on the hilt.…”

“I have seen it,” said Dick shortly. “Put on your coat and come for a walk, Leslie,” he suggested, and the obliging Arthur, who would have been agreeable to any scheme he propounded, seconded the suggestion.

XVIII

The night was cool and dark. There was a full moon, visible at intervals through the drift of clouds. Leslie slipped her arm into his as they walked down the dark avenue toward the road.

“Did you quarrel?” she asked.

“N-no, we didn’t quarrel,” said Dick. “There was a little plain speaking, but I think it cleared the air, and, after all, that was what I came for. He is dismissing Gilder to-morrow.”

She was silent at this, and did not speak again until they were on the road.

“Is that wise?” she asked. “I’m a little afraid of the man. I feel he would be a very bad enemy.”

She heard his soft laugh and felt reassured.

“He’s that all right,” said Dick; “the worst enemy any man could have, I should imagine. But an enemy is only dangerous in ratio to his hurting power. I don’t think Mr. Gilder will hurt anybody.”

“Not Arthur?” she asked.

“Not Arthur, and certainly not you.”

She squeezed his arm in hers.

“You’d be a wonderful brother,” she said.

“I am,” he said curtly, and she smiled in the darkness. “Your handsome relative asked me to persuade you to marry next month, and I told him point-blank that I would do nothing of the kind. Leslie, do you know that you never see Harry from one week-end to another?”

She had realized that for a long time, and it was a constant subject for self-reproach that she had less and less desire for her fiancé’s society.

“He is really not interested in me, Dick,” she said. “Harry is so absorbed in his treasure hunt and his queer chase after the elixir of life----”

“He’s told you that, has he?” asked Dick quickly.

“Why, of course!” she scoffed. “Do you know, Dick, he has almost convinced me that there is something in his idea?”

She waited for him to reply.

“Don’t you think so?”

“In the Life Water… perhaps there is.”

“And in the treasure?” she asked.

“Maybe. Generations of Chelfords have hunted for that wretched gold, and I suppose in the past four hundred years almost as much money has been spent in the search as the treasure is worth! I’m perfectly sure in my own mind that Good Queen Bess of pious memory bagged every bar of it!”

“And I’m perfectly sure she didn’t,” was the surprising reply. “I’ve been reading Elizabethan history very carefully, and the year that your ancestor hid his gold was the year that the Queen was so hard-pressed for money that she had to borrow from the Lombards.”

He stopped.

“Is that so?” incredulously.

“Absolutely. And if you weren’t such a sceptic and would read a little more, you would know what any schoolchild could tell you, that in 1582 the Queen was broke. Do you object to that vulgar word?”

“It is a familiar one at any rate,” he laughed.

They had reached the deep cutting, and he turned to the left, opened a gate, and they walked up a little path toward the ruins of Chelford Abbey.

The moon was showing through a rift in the clouds.

“You ought to see the Abbey by moonlight, if you’ve never seen it. It’s rather beautiful,” he said, as he gave her a hand to assist her up the steep path.

As they came in sight of the broken walls and towers of this ancient place of peace, something of the solemnity of the scene entered her heart, and she stood still, looking spellbound upon the wreckage of a once great abbey. The Abbey ruins stood on the broadest surface of what was locally known as the Mound--the high embankment which ran almost from Fossaway Abbey to the road, following the course of the little Ravensrill. Here, if tradition spoke the truth, a place of sacrifice had stood, before the English church had risen in flint, before the Norman monks laid chisel to stone on their great abbey.

The moon softened and idealized the broken stonework, and in her mind she went back through the years to those ancient times when the black-robed figures of the monks moved where she now stood. Below, to the left, she could see the fret of sparkling silver where the moon reflected in the Ravensrill. Here they had sat, these ancient men, with their fishing-rods, discussing the little events of their narrow world. They had passed into dust, and this great abbey, the pride of their eyes and the work of their hands, was crumbling rapidly into like nothingness.

“It is wonderful!” she breathed.

Were her eyes deceiving her? She could have sworn she saw something moving in the shadow of the old tower. He heard the quick intake of her breath.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know--my imagination, I think. I thought I saw somebody moving there.”

He followed the direction of her eyes.

“There would be nobody here at this time of the night, unless it is the Black Abbot,” he said jocularly, “and we’re not scared of him, are we?”

“I’m not, for one,” she said, with a firmness that she was far from feeling.

At that moment she heard something--something that turned her blood to water. It was a low moan of anguish, a sobbing diminuendo of sound that began on a high note and wailed down the scale until it was inaudible.

“What was that?” she asked, grasping his arm.

He did not speak; he was straining his eyes toward the shadows.

Again the sound, this time a wail that ended in a scream. He caught the girl by the shoulder. At that moment he had seen a figure moving away from the Abbey toward the river. A tall, black figure that showed clearly in the moonlight. She saw it, too.

“Don’t leave me, Dick!” she begged, as she felt him strain away from her.

Then of a sudden she felt his tension relax.

“Let him go,” he said, half to himself.

She clung to him desperately, frantically, as the figure stumbled and staggered toward the trees that would presently engulf him. The dreadful Thing ran on, stopping now and again to turn and gibber and mouth at the man and the woman who stood motionless on the edge of the cutting. Waving wild arms, now howling in dreadful glee, now screaming in senseless fear, it vanished in the dark of the wood--an obscene, uncleanly thing, that belonged to bad dreams and the horrid imaginings of madness. Far away in the distance came the howl of him, and then the night swallowed him up.

“How dreadful!”

And then her knees gave under her and she remembered no more.

XIX

Leslie opened her eyes and frowned up into the face that was bent over her. She was lying on the verge of the road, for Dick had carried her down into the cutting and a hundred yards toward Willow House.

“Oh, how awful!” she shuddered, and closed her eyes. “It was the Black Abbot?”

Dick Alford did not reply for a while. His anxiety for the girl was such that all other interests had passed from his mind.

“I am all right now,” she said, and, with his assistance, stood shakily on her feet. “I told you I was a fool. This is my crazy day! Dick, what was it?”

“He was too far away from me to see,” said Dick; “probably one of our stupid villagers under the influence of drink.”

She shook her head.

“No, it was not that, Dick! It was----” She shuddered again. “I think I’d better go home.”

“I think you’d be wise,” he said gravely. “I wish I hadn’t brought you out now.”

She laughed a little shakily and clung to him tighter.

“In a way I’m glad you did,” she said, as they walked slowly toward her home. “Dick, I had all sorts of queer dreams: just before I woke up I felt somebody kiss me. It was so convincing that I can still feel the lips on my cheek.”

“I kissed you,” he said, without shame. “I thought the shock would bring you to life!”

Her laughter was almost hysterical, for Leslie’s nerves were jangled and on edge.

“You might at least have denied that,” she said. “Dick, you have no subtlety!”

As they walked slowly toward the house, she noticed that he looked back once or twice.

“You’re not expecting that--that thing to follow us, are you?” she asked, her teeth chattering.

“No, I thought I heard a car” (which was true). “I’ll swear I saw a haze of light over the crest of the road, but I must have been mistaken.”

He was not mistaken, and knew it. A car had been following them, had been slowly ascending the hill to the cutting; he had seen the reflected rays from the lamps distinctly, and had heard the soft purr of engines. What was more certain than anything else, the car could not have turned in that narrow road, so that the only explanation was that the unknown driver had switched off his lights and stopped his machine.

“Let me look at you.” He turned her to the moonlight and lifted her face. “I don’t know whether you’re horribly pale or whether it’s a trick of the moon,” he said, “but you look mighty ill: You had better go straight to bed, preferably without seeing your brother.”

“Why?” she asked, in surprise.

“I don’t want this spook story to get around, for one thing,” he said. “And for another--oh well, the other doesn’t matter.”

Leslie realized that she was walking at a much slower pace than her physical weakness justified. She was still a little shaky, but in every sense had recovered from the shock. Too sane to believe in ghosts, she had, nevertheless, been shaken by the terrible experience. She leaned heavily on Dick’s arm as they paced up the avenue to the house, turning on to the grass that Arthur should not hear their footsteps and come out to give them a boisterous welcome. Presently, with a sigh, she dropped his arm.

“I’m glad I went out,” she said, in a low voice. “And I’m rather glad----” She did not finish the sentence.

The silence that followed was a little disturbing for both of them. Suddenly she faced him.

“Dick, do you want me to marry your brother?”

He did not answer.

“Do you--really?”

She heard his sigh in the dark. She could not see his face, for they stood in the shadow of a great cedar immediately before the house.

“I don’t know,” he said. There was a bleakness in his voice she had heard once before. “It isn’t a question of my liking. I can offer you no reason why you should not marry him. You must do what you want, Leslie. The decision must rest entirely with you--and if I were a praying man, I would spend the night praying that you did right.”

“Do you wish me to marry him?” she asked again.

“I cannot tell you.” His voice was hard, and there swept over her a wave of unreasonable anger and resentment against his detachment.

“I won’t ask you that question again,” she said, her voice trembling. “Good-night, Dick.”

She ran into the hall and up to her room, and long after she had gone, he stood where she had left him, looking wistfully at the door which had closed upon her.

With something like despair at his heart, Dick Alford walked quickly along the road toward Fontwell Cutting. He had something to distract his mind for the moment.

There was no sign of the car, and, instead of passing through the cutting gates, he continued over the brow of the hill.

When he went out at night he invariably carried a small flash lamp (he kept a supply of them at the house, for his electric supply had a trick of failing at inconvenient moments) and this he took from his pocket, and, switching on, threw the light on the road, sweeping the beam from side to side. This was not a main thoroughfare, and, except his own and Gwyn’s car, and an occasional tradesman’s Ford, there was little traffic. He saw the diamond-shaped impress of Arthur Gwyn’s Rolls, could pick out his own little machine, and presently he saw a new track: the track of tires with an arrow-shaped tread. He could distinguish the exact spot at which it had stopped. Apparently the driver had made no attempt to turn, but had gone backward some distance. He followed the trail till it curved round, apparently into an open field. The wagon gate was closed, but on the loamy earth the mark of wheels was very apparent.

Red Farm! thought Dick, and, opening the gate, he went into the field. His search was a very short one, for the deserted car was parked close under the hedge parallel with the road. All the lights were out, but the radiator was still hot. He examined the machine carefully; it bore a London number and was new: an American touring car, replete with all the gadgets of its kind. He made a careful note of the number and, walking back to the gate, sat on the top rail and waited.

His vigil was not a protracted one. From where he sat he could see over the swelling hill the top curve of the Abbey arch, and five minutes after he had taken up his position he saw a figure silhouetted against the skyline cross the brow and descend the hill toward him.

Fossaway Park was enclosed in a large-meshed wire net fence, which offered no obstacle to any person who wished to surmount it; but the stranger had evidently not reconnoitred the ground very thoroughly, for Dick heard the clang of the wire as some heavy object struck against it, a curse, and presently he could discern a figure climbing over the wide mesh and drop into the road.

For a few seconds it was out of sight, and then he saw it again, silhouetted against the white of the road. Nearer and nearer it came.

“Good-evening, Mr. Gilder,” said Dick politely. “Are you seeing the sights of Chelfordbury?”

Gilder started violently and almost dropped the heavy stick he was carrying.

“Hullo!” he stammered. “Who the dickens are you?”

A beam of light shot suddenly from his hand and focussed the questioner.

“Oh, you!” said Gilder, taking a long breath. “Gosh! you scared me! I was just admiring your old ruins by moonlight. They’re rather fine.”

“On behalf of the ruins, I thank you,” said Dick, with elaborate courtesy. “Any nice things that you can say about Chelford Abbey are deeply appreciated by its present owner.”

The man was disconcerted and obviously ill at ease.

“I left my car in the field; I thought it might get in the way of traffic----” he began.

“The traffic around here between ten and midnight is not very numerous,” said Dick; “but if you have the illusion that Red Farm is your property, it is quite understandable that your car should be parked there. What is the game, Gilder?”

He was conscious that the man’s eyes were peering at him.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘game.’ Is it unlawful to admire a moonlight view?”

“It is unlawful to trespass on my brother’s property,” said Dick. “May I repeat my question: What is the game?”

“I don’t understand you. Do you mind letting me get through that gate? I am going home.”

Dick Alford descended from the gate slowly and pushed it open.

“You are a suspicious character, Gilder.”

The man snapped round at him.

“What the devil do you mean?”

“Just what I say. You are a suspicious character. It is very suspicious to find you loafing around Fossaway Park at this hour of the night, particularly after certain things which have happened recently.”

“Do you think I am the Black Abbot?” sneered the man, and Dick’s chuckle came from the darkness.

“There are many interesting possibilities about you, Gilder. What did you expect to find in the Abbey?”

“I tell you I was merely admiring the view by moonlight. If that is an offence you can bring me before a bench of magistrates.”

Dick, his hands in his pockets, stood watching the man as he switched on the lights of the car and started it.

“The place to admire the ruins is from the crest of the hill, not from the ruin itself,” he said. “If you had been a normal admirer you would never have been out of sight. May I also suggest that it wasn’t necessary to switch off your lights or to hide your car--the best view of the Abbey is from the upper road. Gilder, you had better be careful.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is a warning,” said Dick. “And a man as clever as you would not lightly despise such a warning. By the way, my solicitors are starting an action to-morrow to set aside your agreement with Farmer Leonard. I am hoping that you will not involve yourself in the expense of defending the action.”

“That is a matter that I shall discuss with your lawyers,” said Gilder, as he started the car.

Dick watched the machine as it waddled over the furrows and turned on to the road, and followed it out, closing the gate behind it.

“Do you know anything about racing, Gilder?”

Gilder turned with a jerk. Was this man privy to his secrets?

“I know a little--why?”

“Do you know what a warning-off notice is?”

Gilder stared at him open-mouthed.

“Yes, it is a notice issued by the Jockey Club warning people off Newmarket Heath.”

“Splendid!” said Dick. “Will you take a warning-off notice from me? I warn you off Willow House and all that is contained therein!”

“And if I don’t accept the warning?”

“You’ll be sorry, as I’ve remarked before,” said Dick.

Gilder jammed in his clutch and the car jerked forward with a whine, and soon its tail lights had disappeared round the end of the road.

XX

The Second Son climbed the fence, though the gate was near enough, and, passing the Abbey ruins, walked briskly toward Fossaway Manor. His way brought him past the wing of the house in which his brother’s library was situated. One of the big leaded windows was open and he caught a glimpse of Harry at his desk, sitting in the half light, his head on his hands, a book before him. Dick sighed and continued on his way.

Thomas, the footman, answered the bell he rang.

“Get me some coffee and biscuits. I shall be working late,” he said.

When the man had gone, he went to his desk and unlocked the post bag that had come up from the station that night and shook out a heap of letters. He sorted them over carefully, and, selecting one, opened it. The letter bore the Royal crest and the plain address “New Scotland Yard,” and was from an old school friend of his:

Dear Dick:

Thank you for your rather extraordinary letter, but I am afraid we can do nothing for you officially. Private detectives, of course, are punk for your purpose, and the best I can do for you is as follows. We have a detective sergeant at headquarters named Puttler--you may have seen his name in connection with the Hatton Garden robbery. He’s a very efficient man and marked for promotion, but rather a weird-looking bird. At the Yard we call him “Monkey Puttler,” though he is universally liked in spite of this unflattering sobriquet. Puttler never takes any kind of holiday, and is generally supposed to spend his spare time in criminal investigation and to sleep in an odd corner of the Yard. He is entitled to six weeks’ holiday leave. Of course, in ordinary circumstances he would never dream of taking six minutes, but I have had a talk with him, and with the complete approval of our chief (it was necessary to tell him what you wanted) Puttler will spend his holiday at Fossaway Manor. As I said before, he is rather a queer-looking creature, a rabid teetotaller, a strong churchman, with violent views on church music. You can rely absolutely upon his discretion. I’ve told him that you will pay him ten pounds a week and all his expenses. I only wish I could let you have him permanently, but I trust that in six weeks your trouble will be cleared up.

Dick put the letter carefully in his inside pocket, and, walking across the hall, went into the library. Lord Chelford heard the door close and looked up.

“Hullo, Dick!” he said, quite amiably. “What is the news?”

Before he answered, Dick Alford walked to the window through which he had seen his brother, pulled it close, and fastened the lock.

“What is wrong?” growled Chelford.

“Our monkish friend has been seen,” he said, “and I think it advisable that your window should be kept closed.”

Harry Chelford’s hand went up to his lips.

“Can’t we do anything with that fellow?” he asked fretfully. “Where are the police? What do we pay them for? It’s monstrous that the countryside should be terrified by… Really, Dick, couldn’t you do something?”

“The police are doing everything that can be done,” Dick replied.

He charged his pipe carefully and lit it with a match which he took from a silver container on Harry’s table.

“I’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said. “Put away that infernal book and talk.”

With evident reluctance Lord Chelford closed the thick tome over which he had been poring and leaned back in his chair with an air of resignation.

“Leslie? I don’t see very much of her,” he said. “She’s a very intelligent girl and knows how busy I am. Not every woman would show so much understanding. Did you see Arthur?”

Dick nodded.

“I had a ’phone message saying that he was coming over in the morning. He wants me to sign some documents in connection with Leslie’s estate--good fellow, Arthur.”

“Very,” said Dick, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yes, I owe a lot to Arthur.” Harry looked up through his horn-rimmed spectacles and nodded as he spoke. “I shouldn’t have met Leslie, and certainly I shouldn’t have had any idea of marrying,” he went on naïvely, “but Arthur was very keen to get a husband for her who wasn’t a fortune-hunter. And of course, the money will be useful.”

Dick listened patiently to this disjointed explanation for the forthcoming marriage. He had heard it before in identically the same terms.

“Why do you want to marry money at all?” he asked. “We’re not paupers.”

Harry Chelford shrugged his thin shoulders.

“I suppose we’re not,” he said indifferently. “I never bother about the money side. You’re such a clever old bird, Dick, that I’m spared that. By heavens, I don’t know where I should be if it wasn’t for you. Do you get all you want yourself, Dicky?”

Dick Alford nodded.

“A nice girl,” his brother went on, “and, as I say, a sensible girl. I wish you’d get her over to dinner one night; there are several things I want to talk about to Arthur. There’s the Doncaster estate, for example. I had a letter from somebody the other day, saying that they were willing to pay a very big price for Creethorpes. I don’t see any reason in the world why we shouldn’t sell.”

“But I do,” said Dick, puffing slowly at his pipe. “I also have had the offer, and when I get one that approximates to my eyes as being near the Creethorpes value, we may sell. But the price that has been offered is ludicrous.”

“A hundred and twenty thousand pounds?” murmured Lord Chelford, shaking his head disparagingly. “I don’t see how you can improve on that, Dick.”

“We can try,” said Dick.

His eyes were roaming the desk, and after a while he saw a book which was seldom far away from his brother’s hand, and, getting up, he reached over and took it, Chelford watching with a triumphant smile.

“It’s got you, has it, old man?” he asked. “I thought it would sooner or later. You’re too sensible to dismiss the Chelford treasure as a myth.”

Dick turned the old pages covered with pale writing: the diary of that lord of Chelford who had suffered for his disloyalty at the hands of the common headman.

The idea had come to him in the middle of the previous night, and all that day the old diary had come in and out of his mind at odd and incongruous moments. Whilst it was not true that he had been won over to his brother’s faith in the existence of the treasure, his curiosity had been piqued by a vague recollection of one line in the diary. He turned it up now and read:

These ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be dry and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand.…

“I am only wondering,” he said, as he handed back the book, “what effect the drought had upon the hiding place; why rain would have spoilt his plan, as apparently it would.”

“Ha-ha!” said his lordship, almost boisterously. “The poison is working, Richard! You will become as ardent a treasure-hunter as I. Shall I tell you where the gold was hidden?” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his eyes gleaming. “In a cave, or an underground chamber of some kind. There are three references in this diary to a chesil.” He turned the pages rapidly. “Listen, here is one,” he said, and read:

“This day Tom Goodman brought me the chesil from Brighthelmstone.…”

“Which is Brighton, I presume?” asked Dick.

His brother nodded, turning the pages.

“Here is another reference,” he said.

“The new chesil has come. I have left it near the place and those dull wights who see it will know little of its value to me.”

Dick smiled.

“It must have been something remarkable in the way of chesils,” he said. “It doesn’t mention its size or its shape?”

“Nowhere; I have searched the diary for that.”

There came a tap at the door; it was Thomas.

“Will you have your coffee here, sir?”

“No, put it in my room.”

“Are you working to-night, Dick?” asked Chelford.

“After you’ve gone to bed, Harry,” said Dick, with a laugh, “and I think it is about time you went. One of these days you’ll have a breakdown and I’ll have to call in your pet abomination.”

“Ugh!” shivered Chelford. “Never bring a doctor into this house--I loathe them!”

He got up, stretched himself with a yawn, and Dick followed him out of the room.

“I shall sleep well to-night,” said his lordship, pushing back his long black hair with a characteristic gesture. “If I’d only known of that stuff before!”

“What stuff is this?” asked Dick good-humouredly.

Never a day passed that some new patent medicine did not come into the house, some cure-all, accompanied by pages of closely printed literature. Lord Chelford’s patent-medicine habit was a vicious circle. The literature of one cure-all revealed symptoms of which he had never been conscious before. No sooner had he settled upon a miraculous nostrum than it was superseded by one even more dazzling in its promises.

Dick followed him up the stairs into the long room where he spent the few hours he could tear himself away from his library. A four-poster bed, an old dressing chest, a deep closet in which his scanty wardrobe hung, and a very long table, the surface of which was literally covered with bottles and small boxes, comprised the furniture of his room, with the exception of a battered armchair before the fireplace. There must have been more than a hundred boxes and packages on the table. Some of these came in consequence of standing orders given years before and never countermanded: these had never been opened. There were cures for asthma, for bronchitis, for rheumatism, marvellous liniments, amazing sleep-inducers, nerve tonics--every disease to which the human system is liable had its antidote in that collection.

By the side of his bed on a small table was a jug of hot water and a glass. Chelford opened a tin chosen from the medley of bottles and boxes, took out two small white pellets and dropped them into a glass, covering them with water. He stirred them till they were dissolved, Dick watching, half amused, half pitiful.

“Ah!” Chelford put down the glass. “That’s the stuff! No drugs, Dick--just a mixture of natural elements that bring rest to the tired brain and sleep to weary eyes!”

“I guess you’re quoting the label,” said Dick, with a laugh. “Even cocaine is a natural element. And there’s nothing nearer to nature than morphia. You’re an old goop, Harry, and if I had my way I’d take all these infernal bottles and dump them into the round pond.”

“I should probably be dead in a month,” said Harry with a smile, as he began to undress, “and you’d have to stand your trial for wilful murder!”

Dick closed the door behind him, waited till he heard the bolt shot home, then went downstairs to his own room. His coffee was waiting and he began his three-hour task: the opening and answering of letters, the examination of leaflets and the inspection of bills. There were checks to be signed, envelopes to be addressed, and it was nearly three o’clock before he rose stiffly, and, pushing open the door of the French windows, walked out upon the lawn.

XXI

There was a sign of dawn in the sky. The air was sweet and pure and he drew great breaths of nature’s champagne before he lit his pipe and strolled noiselessly along the lawn, keeping parallel with the face of the house.

He had never felt less sleepy, and he was debating in his mind whether he should take a cold bath and go on with some work that he had left unfinished on the previous day, when he saw, only for a second, a pin point of light in the distance. It was a white, star-like flicker that dawned and disappeared almost instantly.

“If that isn’t a flash lamp I’m a Dutchman,” he muttered, went back into his room, and, taking down a shotgun, slipped a handful of cartridges into the pocket of his dinner jacket.

There had been a number of poaching affrays in the neighbourhood, and the unknown poachers were a desperate gang who had never hesitated to shoot. Dick felt it best to be on the safe side, and, with the gun under his arm and two shells rammed home into the breech, he strolled across to where he had seen the light.

It is a fact that Dick Alford had no constitutional objection to poachers. His views on the subject had shocked many a hoary-headed country justice, for Dick held to the line that it was pardonable for any man to “shoot for the cooking pot,” and to him poaching was a mild joke.