Chapter IV: Part 4

The house and surrounding trees obstructed his view, but a five-minutes’ walk brought him through a thin plantation to the Priory fields. Now he saw, unless his judgment was at fault, that the light must have come from the direction of the Abbey ruins. He stood for ten minutes in the shadow of a wood, but no light showed. And then, as his foot was raised to walk forward, he saw it again--just a momentary flicker, and this time there was no doubt that it came from the Abbey. No intelligent poacher would waste five minutes on that part of the estate, though there were trout in the Ravensrill, and the burrows of a few hares in its banks.

He moved forward steadily up the slope of the Mound and soon he could distinguish the chaos of stone and crumbling walls. The intruder was no expert burglar, for again the light flickered. Was it Gilder, he wondered, as he followed the course of the little river. Had that sinister man returned to admire the view of the Abbey by moonlight? The east was turning gray; the cold morning wind had freshened; but though he wore only a thin dinner suit, Dick did not feel the cold. Stealthily he climbed to the top of the Mound, pausing to take observation.

Again the light, this time not fifty yards away, and he could make out the figure of a man moving slowly amidst the broken walls. He was searching the ground diligently.

“Lost anything?” asked Dick.

The visitor spun round with a startled cry.

“Hullo! Who are you?” he asked hoarsely, and Dick recognized the voice.

It was Arthur Gwyn!

A painful and embarrassing moment for Arthur Gwyn!

“Hullo!” he said awkwardly. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Were you looking for an opiate?” asked Dick politely. “You should have come up to the house; my brother has a small drug store, and we might have been able to find you something for your insomnia.”

“Don’t be amusing,” growled Arthur, thrown off his balance. “What I meant was, I couldn’t sleep so I came out for a walk. This place interests me.”

“I never knew you were an archæologist before, and a midnight archæologist at that! The country simply swarms with ’em!” said the ironical young man. “Or perhaps you’re a moth hunter? Or did you come out to hear the nightingale? It’s rather late in the season.”

“See here, Alford, I don’t want you to get funny at my expense. I tell you I came out for a walk. You’re not going to suggest I’m trespassing, are you? If it comes to that, what are _you_ doing here?”

He heard Dick chuckle and went hot under the collar.

“I am attached to the estate: I thought you knew that,” said Dick at last; “and one of my jobs is to challenge suspicious-looking individuals at whatever hour they show themselves or their flash lamps.”

“Oh, you saw the light, did you? I thought somebody would.” Arthur was himself again. “The truth is, Dick, I had a horrible dream that woke me up. I dreamt I saw that wretched Black Abbot, and the dream was so vivid that I resolved to come along and have a look at the place. It was on the edge of the cutting that he was last seen.”

“Oh, a ghost-hunter!” murmured Dick. “That of course explains everything. You came armed, I see? Very wise!”

Arthur had been praying that this objectionable man would not notice the steel crowbar he carried, but the eyes of the other were peculiarly sharp, and there was just enough dawn light to reveal the nature of the instrument he carried.

“You didn’t see the Black Abbot, I suppose?” said Dick, in his polite conversational way. “No? I shouldn’t imagine you would. It’s rather late for him. Our family ghosts keep early hours. They are a respectable lot, and the Abbot, as you probably know, was a highly respectable and even a religious man, though not, I believe, untouched by the horrid voice of scandal.”

He was walking by Arthur’s side to the cut road as he spoke, and the light was not good enough for him to see the dull flush that came to that good-looking man’s face, but he could guess it.

“I don’t want to quarrel with you, Alford, but I have the greatest objection to your being sarcastic at my expense. I don’t know why I should explain anything to you, but you’ve been a good friend of mine to-night and I’m telling you the truth. And really, it’s hardly playing the game to doubt my word.”

Dick said nothing to this, but poised himself watchfully on the edge of the cut, until the ruffled man had disappeared from sight. What was the meaning of all this? he wondered. What attraction had the Abbey ruins for these strangely assorted people? First Mary Wenner, then Gilder, and now Arthur Gwyn. What was there about these ancient stones which would bring the fastidious lawyer from his bed to make an early-morning search? He knew Arthur rather well, much better in fact than he guessed. He hated discomfort of all sorts, but here he was, at four o’clock in the morning, absurdly but suitably attired in a golf suit of irreproachable pattern, a crowbar in one hand and an electric torch in the other, turning over the rubbish of the Abbey and seeking--what? The treasure!

Not till that moment did the solution flash upon Dick Alford, and he was so overcome that he sat down on the nearest sandstone block and laughed till the tears came into his eyes.

The treasure! Harry had infected these prosaic people with his obsession. But how? Obviously, Mary Wenner was the connecting link. There was a time, he remembered, when she was an enthusiastic seconder to Harry’s efforts, and believed as implicitly in the existence of this mythical gold as did her employer. Arthur was a friend of hers: he had heard them “Arthur” and “Mary” each other; and, through Arthur, Gilder must have come into the knowledge. So that was the explanation! And the Chelford treasure was obviously the windfall that Arthur Gwyn expected.

He was smiling to himself all the way back to the house, until a thought came into his mind that turned the joke of it. Suppose they were right and he was wrong? Suppose there was a treasure to be found? No sooner did the thought occur than he had laughed it out of his mind. These people merely reflected Harry’s enthusiasm and faith.

He fastened the door of his study and went up to the room that overlooked the gardens of Fossaway Manor. Immediately opposite his door was a narrow passageway ending in stairs, as narrow, that led to the servants’ quarters. As his step sounded on the grand stairway, a shadowy figure that had been prowling about the corridor slipped into the narrow entrance and crouched down. Thomas, the footman, saw Dick go into his room and close the door, and he breathed more freely. He waited, but he could hear no movement.

Silence reigned in Fossaway Manor. No sound came from the world outside. In five minutes Dick was lying in a profound slumber. He had drawn down the blinds that the light should not break his rest, and the room was in almost complete darkness.

* * *

Ordinarily he would have heard a sound, the sound of the floor boards creaking outside his door, and would have been awake instantly. Twice the planks creaked under a heavy weight, but he did not stir. And then the handle of his door turned slowly and the door itself moved the fraction of an inch. The thing outside listened, showing its white teeth in a grin. The sound of Dick Alford’s regular breathing came out to him and he pushed the door open a little farther, and, crouching, moved stealthily toward the bed, feeling for the brass rail at the foot.

Not a sound came from the intruder, and yet he was shaking with laughter. He fumbled in his pocket and took out a long-bladed clasp knife and opened it carefully, testing the edge with his thumb. Then, slowly, his long fingers went out to locate the position of the body. The Angel of Death hovered in that second above the sleeping man.

From the hall below came a woman’s voice--distraught--beside herself with fear.

“Dick--Dick, for God’s sake!”

Dick turned uneasily in his sleep and half opened his eyes.

XXII

“Dick!”

It was a girl’s voice, sharp with fear, that came from the hall below.

“Dick!”

The thing with the knife dropped the weapon and, cringing back toward the door, hesitated a second, and slipped out.

“Dick!”

Again the voice, and Dick woke. Was he dreaming? Slipping out of bed, he threw open the door and walked on to the landing.

“Who’s calling?” he asked, husky with sleep.

“It is I--Leslie! Dick, I want you.”

He went back to his bedroom, pulled a dressing gown from a hook and raced down the stairs, dressing as he went. She was standing in the gloom of the hall, a slim figure. She had no hat; her bare feet were thrust into slippers, and she wore an overcoat over what was evidently a hastily assumed skirt.

“What is the matter, dear?”

He pushed open the door of his study and led her in. She was trembling from head to foot.

“I don’t know. Something dreadful has happened,” she gasped. “I thought my car would wake you--didn’t you hear it?”

“Something dreadful has happened? What?” he asked quickly.

“I don’t know. I suppose I’ve got everything out of proportion--I saw Arthur fighting with a man on the lawn. It was dreadful. I thought I must have been mistaken and went to his room, but the bed was empty and had not been slept in. By the time I could get downstairs on to the lawn, they had disappeared. Oh, Dick, what can have happened?”

“Fighting?” He was incredulous. “I saw Arthur--I don’t know how long ago; it may have been an hour or two. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping.”

It was daylight now; the clock over the mantelpiece showed it to be a quarter past five.

“Just wait a moment. I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”

He ran up the stairs and in five minutes rejoined her, dressed, and, lifting her into the car, he sent the little machine flying down the drive.

“How did you get into the house?”

“I came through your study. I rang the bell at the door, but nobody answered me. And then I tried your French windows and they were open.”

“I’m always forgetting to lock them. I’m glad I did. And they will never be locked in the future,” said Dick. “Now, just tell me what happened?”

She told her story coherently. Her very association with this man had restored her failing courage. And as she grew calmer, she became penitent.

“What a scare cat you will think I am!” she said ruefully. “I don’t know what time it was--about half an hour ago, I think--but I was sleeping when I heard voices. I went to the window and looked out. It was still rather dark; there are an awful lot of trees before the house, but I could see two men, and I wouldn’t have known one of them was Arthur, only I heard him speaking angrily.”

“Did you hear anything he said?”

“No, they were too far away. They were near the laurels that hide the house from the road. And then I saw Arthur strike the man, and they began to struggle, and that is all I saw. By the time I’d got downstairs they had disappeared.”

“But you say you saw him? How could you?”

Dick gave a version of his encounter with the lawyer that was more flattering to Arthur than was deserved.

“But that couldn’t be true!” she said, in perplexity. “He hadn’t been to bed at all. What is the meaning of it, Dick?”

“The Lord knows!” said Dick piously. “I wish my friend Puttler were here.”

The car ran through the cutting and took the long, straight road to Willow House, they were turning into the drive when Dick saw a man walking in front of him.

“There’s your Arthur,” he said, and she uttered a little cry of thankfulness.

It was Arthur with a difference. His nose had been bleeding, his eye was slightly discoloured. In other circumstances Dick would have laughed, but the girl was so concerned with her brother’s injuries that it would have been brutal even to find anything amusing in the discomfiture of this dandified young lawyer.

“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “I met a poacher and had a slight argument with him.”

The knees of his new golfing knickers were soiled and torn; the knuckles of his hand were red and bleeding. Dick felt that it was not the moment to ask him questions, and followed the brother and sister into the house, an interested and cautious observer of events.

The servants had been roused and one of them brought some coffee, and Dick, who had been half dead from sleepiness, accepted the steaming cup gratefully.

“What _do_ you think has happened, Dick?” she asked, when Arthur had gone up to his room to treat his injuries, having refused all the assistance she offered.

“I think he has told us what has happened. He had trouble with a poacher. In other words, he had a vulgar fight. It is one of those distressing happenings that the best of men cannot always avoid.”

She shot a suspicious glance at him.

“You don’t mean that, Dick. And it couldn’t have been a poacher. I’m perfectly sure it was Mr. Gilder.”

Dick was not prepared to contest this point of view. The probability of Arthur’s assailant being his head clerk was one that had occurred to him. But why should Gilder be in the vicinity of Willow House at that hour of the morning? At a suitable opportunity he would ask Arthur Gwyn for the truth.

He was conscious that she was looking at him, and, meeting her eyes, he saw something that made him catch his breath.

“What shall I ever do without you?” she asked, with a gesture of helplessness. “I run to you crying every time I am hurt, and you appear by magic whenever I’m in trouble! Dick, one of these days I’m going to be a disgrace to my sex!”

“I hope not, Leslie,” he smiled. “What particularly outrageous thing have you in mind?”

She nodded wisely.

“You will see,” she said. “I also can be mysterious!”

He declined the loan of her car and returned on foot to the house. Unless Harry’s sleeping draught had taken effect, he would have heard the car, for his room faced the drive. But no sound came from the King’s Chamber, as his sleeping apartment was magniloquently termed, and Dick went to his room and took off his clothes.

He was getting into bed when his foot touched something hard and shiny, and, stooping, he picked it up.

“Moses!” said Dick under his breath, and switched on the light.

The knife was a new one, its edge razor-sharp. He turned it over and over in his hand and frowned. Then, walking to the door, he locked it; and Dick did not usually sleep behind a locked door. But he realized that the twenty-four hours through which he was passing were pregnant with unpleasant possibilities.

XXIII

The office of Gwyn & Gwyn was thrown into some disorder the next morning by a most unexpected occurrence. Mr. Fabrian Gilder, for the first time in his twenty-five years’ association with the business, did not put in an appearance. Instead, came a note to the senior clerk, asking that a certain drawer in his desk should be opened and the contents thereof sent by special messenger to Mr. Gilder’s house in Regent’s Park. There was a postscript to the note.

It is unlikely that I shall return to the business. I have handed my resignation to Mr. Gwyn, and intend to devote my time to the development of my private affairs.

A wire from Arthur Gwyn appointed the senior clerk to take the place of the retired Gilder: an arrangement not altogether to the satisfaction of the senior clerk, for there were unpleasant whisperings about Gwyn & Gwyn, hints of dire developments to come that made the older members of the staff quake in their shoes.

Arthur did not appear that day, nor the next, and the mystery of Gilder’s resignation remained unsolved, for the confidential messenger who carried his papers to his flat, and who expected to hear from him the reason for his sudden departure, was not admitted. Mr. Gilder was in bed; he had come up from the country early in the morning and had met with a slight accident whilst getting out of his car. Apparently he had remained awake long enough to write his letter to the office, but was now sleeping, so the servant said. And she spoke the truth, though he did not sleep as soundly as he might have done had his lips not been cut and his shoulder slightly strained. You cannot indulge in fisticuffs in the uncertain light of dawn without incurring a certain amount of damage.

Curiosity was not the besetting vice of Dick Alford; even if it had been, he would not have spared the time to make a call at Gwyn & Gwyn’s to discover the extent of Mr. Gilder’s damage. He had his bath and shaved just before lunch, and came downstairs to find that the noon train had brought him a visitor.

Sergeant Puttler he recognized, though he had never seen him before, from the description that his friend had sent him. He was a tall, gaunt man of forty. The tired-looking brown eyes that gazed with gentle melancholy from their deep sockets reminded him of a sick and sorrowful chimpanzee he had once seen. His forehead was low, his upper lip long, and his arms reached almost to his knees. These features, added to a constitutional stoop, contributed to his unprepossessing appearance. Poor Mr. Puttler was not unaware of the simian mould in which his frame was cast, and it was, apparently, a matter which alternately depressed and pleased him.

“Well, sir, how do you like me?” he said without a smile, though there was a twinkle of malicious joy in his brown eyes. “I’ve known people to faint the first time they’ve seen me, especially romantical people.”

“I sha’n’t faint,” smiled Dick, “possibly because I’m not romantical.”

The footman came in at that moment, and evidently romance tinged his soul, for at the sight of the strange, long-armed man he visibly staggered and blinked.

“Take Mr. Puttler up to his room. Afterward, Puttler, come and dine and I have something to tell you.”

The dazed Thomas led the way up the stairs to a room next door to that occupied by Dick. The housekeeper had been warned of his coming and the room was ready. He deposited his suitcase and took stock of his rather handsome surroundings.

“Is there anything further I can do, sir?” asked Thomas.

Sergeant Puttler blinked at him.

“Nothing, thank you.” And, as Thomas was going: “What do you call yourself now?”

“Me, sir--my name is Thomas Luck.”

Puttler shook his head sadly.

“Thomas Bad Luck,” he said: “William Hard Lines or Henry Too Bad. Does your master know that your name is Sleisser and that you’ve done a stretch in Dartmoor?”

“No,” said the man sullenly.

“He will, Thomas--he will,” said the detective gently, and with murder in his eyes the footman slunk out of the room.

Mr. Puttler came downstairs purring with satisfaction.

“Are you sure that is my room, Mr. Alford?” he asked. “Not expecting the Prince of Wales, are you? I’ve always been ambitious to sleep in a four-poster bed.… Now, Mr. Alford.”

“First of all, I must introduce you to my brother. By the way, he is rather of a nervous disposition, and I’ve told him that you’re a member of an accountancy firm who has come down to help me with my books.”

Mr. Puttler expressed his agreement with this mild form of deception. He was taken to the big library and formally introduced. Harry Chelford was so used to the advent of Dick’s extraordinary guests that he saw nothing unusual in the appearance of the simian Puttler. Happily, he was near-sighted, and though it was a startling experience to find himself shaking hands across a very broad desk, which an ordinary man could not have spanned, he did not realize the cause of the phenomenon.

Dick entertained accountants, land agents, an occasional bailiff or two, so that there was no novelty in the invitation. Learned-looking strangers came to his table from time to time and were introduced and passed out of his mind.

“He will be staying six weeks,” Dick had told him, “and you mustn’t object to his prowling round the place, because I want to get a true valuation of the estate, and he has his own peculiar methods.”

“You might get him to price the Black Abbot,” said Harry, half dourly, half amused. “What we want, Dick, is not so much a valuer as a good policeman.”

Dick Alford thought that the coming guest might fulfil both functions, but he did not say so.

He ushered his visitor back to his own little office, carefully closed the door and sat down at his desk.

“Now, make yourself comfortable. Do you smoke?”

Mr. Puttler fumbled in his pocket and produced a black pipe.

“It’s not very aristocratic,” he apologized, “but I prefer ’bacca to cigars and cigarettes.”

“I’ll join you,” said Dick.

His study had two doors: one that opened into the hall and one into a side corridor running back to the housekeeper’s room. The two men had been talking for ten minutes, though, as far as Mr. Puttler was concerned, his contribution to the discourse was limited to an occasional question, when Thomas came noiselessly down the side corridor, peeped into the hall, and walked back to the study door. There was a look of apprehension upon his lean and shapeless face which was not without cause. Stooping, he put his eye to the keyhole. He could just see the end of the settee and the head and shoulders of the strange visitor. He was holding something in his hand--a white-handled knife, and was examining it with curiosity. Thomas bent his head and pressed his ear against the hole.

Dick’s back was to the door and he was speaking in a lower tone than usual, and this reacted to the disadvantage of the eavesdropper, for only a few distinct and intelligible sentences came to him.

“… might have been somebody admitted to the house by one of the servants,” was the first thing he heard. A few minutes later, Mr. Puttler, whose voice was distinct, asked: “Was the window in the library open?” And he heard Dick say, “Yes,” and add something which he could not catch.

The soles and heels of Thomas’s boots were of rubber. He passed into the hall and made another reconnaissance, then returned to his listening post, in time to hear Dick say:

“My brother hasn’t an enemy in the world.… I am afraid I can’t say the same.…”

Once the listener caught the word “treasure” and once he heard the name of “Arthur Gwyn,” but in what association he could not learn. Again Thomas visited the hall. He could not take the risk of being seen listening at the door. He was free from observation so far as he knew. The old Chelford butler was in the servants’ hall. Dick and his brother did not lunch till two, an unholy hour from the point of view of servants, but very suitable for Dick and his peculiar occupation.

He squinted through the keyhole again. The detective still had the knife in his hand and was looking at it intently. He heard him say, “This is new,” and then Dick entered upon a long and apparently explanatory statement, not a word of which came to the disgusted man who was listening. He was most anxious to hear some reference to himself, but, if it was made, he did not overhear his name.

Soon after, however, a familiar phrase caught his ear. Dick Alford was talking about the Black Abbot, and he heard rather a sketchy description of that spook. Then his voice dropped again, and coincident with this Thomas heard the stately footsteps of the butler, slipped back to the housekeeper’s room, and was busy in the pantry when the stout Mr. Glover found him.

XXIV

The luncheon was not a genial meal. Harry had acquired the disgraceful habit of bringing a book to his meals, and he was utterly absorbed in the volume and left Dick and his visitor to carry on a conversation as though he were not present.

Mr. Puttler, who was a man of wide experience, was neither embarrassed by his magnificent surroundings--for Lord Chelford lived in a princely style, three footmen and a butler waiting upon them--nor did he feel it necessary to live up to the state in which he found himself. He was altogether unaffected, had a fund of anecdotes, and could tell funny stories without apparently enjoying them himself, which is the art of amusement. Only once did Dick interrupt his brother’s reading.

“Leslie is coming to tea,” he said. “She ’phoned over just before lunch.”

Harry Chelford looked up and his face fell.

“That is very unfortunate,” he said. “I had promised myself an uninterrupted afternoon with Fra Hickler. I’ve just had a facsimile edition sent to me from Leipzig. Hickler, you remember, Dick, was a cloistered monk in the days of Elizabeth, our abbey being one of the few that was not interfered with by Henry the Eighth or by Elizabeth either; partly, I think, because our particular order of monks were antagonistic to the Jesuits.…”

Dick listened patiently, and when his brother had exhausted the history of the Black Fathers of Chelfordbury--

“You’ll have to be civil and come to tea, and after that I’ve no doubt Leslie will not object to your going back to Fra Hickler, who was a German, I presume?”

“He was a German,” said Harry gravely. “And the circumstances which brought him to Chelfordbury were rather peculiar.”

“The best German I ever read about”--it was Mr. Puttler who interrupted--“was Robinson Crusoe.”

Dick thought it was a crude jest on the part of his guest, but, if it was so, Mr. Puttler was unconscious of his humour. Harry stared at the “accountant.” He took such statements as these very seriously indeed.

“I am not well acquainted with Robinson Crusoe,” he said, “but surely you are wrong in saying that he was a German? I have always regarded such characters as typically English.”

“He was a German,” said Mr. Puttler firmly, “though few people are aware of the fact. If you look at the first page of the story you’ll see these words: ‘My father was a merchant of Bremen,’ and Bremen’s in Germany, or I’m a Dutchman. And if his father was a German, he was a German, because there was no such thing as naturalization in those days.”

Having dropped his literary thunderbolt, Puttler was prepared to take up the subject which Dick had interrupted by his question.

“The trouble with church music, Mr. Alford, is that it’s a little too sugary. It appeals to the senses. I’ve had many an argument with my brother churchwardens----”

“Are you a churchwarden?” asked Dick, in surprise.

Again the gleam of laughter in the man’s deep-set eyes.

“It’s hard to believe,” he said modestly, “but I am.”

Soon after this, Harry left the table, and was gone five minutes when he returned with a fat volume under his arm.

“You’re right, Mr.----”

“Puttler,” suggested Dick.

“You’re right about Robinson Crusoe. What an extraordinary fact, to think that one has lived all one’s life under such a mistaken impression!”

This evidence of literary skill on the part of the visitor brought a remarkable change in Harry’s attitude. Before, Puttler might have had no existence. He was one with the milkman, the grocer, and the village postman.

He took Puttler affectionately by the arm and led him into the library, and there Dick left them, knowing exactly the course of instruction that Mr. Puttler would receive; for Harry’s first act was to unlock his desk and take out the Diary. He was relieved to have Puttler off his hands for an hour or two. Dick that day was experiencing a sense of unbelievable relief. A great burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and one of his more pressing and secret troubles had been half dissipated.

He ran halfway down the drive to meet Leslie’s car, and leapt on the running-board while the car was moving.

“Practising for a tram-conductor,” he said cheerily. “I’ve decided on my profession, when you arrive at Fossaway Manor, mistress of all these demesnes.”

“When will that be, Dick?” she asked, looking steadily ahead.

“Never, I hope.”

In his lightness of heart he had not kept that usual guard on his tongue, and the words were out before he could stop them. Twice he had been taken off his guard, and he would have given anything to unsay his words.

Apparently she did not attach any great significance to them, for she did not turn her head, sending the car spinning to the broad gravelled place before the old porch. He jumped down when she stopped the machine and helped her alight.

“I have to prepare you for a curious bird,” he said, and described Mr. Puttler with more truth than flattery.

“What is he, Dick?”

“He’s an accountant,” said Dick glibly. “He’s also quite an amusing fellow and full of weird information. I’m going to try a little on you. Do you know that Robinson Crusoe was a German?”

“Why, of course, his father lived in Bremen,” she said, and he was still laughing when he took her into the library.

In the presence of his fiancée Lord Chelford exhibited a nervousness and a _gaucherie_ which might have been understandable if he were meeting her for the first time. He had never quite overcome the novelty of his engagement, and his attitude toward her was one of awe rather than of reverence.

“How do you do, Leslie?”

He had never kissed her in his life; now he held her hand for a fraction of a second and dropped it as though it burnt him.

“Do you know Mr. Tuttler?”

“Puttler,” said the other, and Leslie looked into the melancholy eyes and read something in them that Dick had missed, and possibly Mr. Puttler’s closest associate had not seen.

She did not pay him the poor compliment of feeling sorry for him, though she read in those quick-lighting deeps a craving for woman’s sympathy which nature, by her cruel handiwork, had repelled in advance.

“Glad to know you, Miss Gwyn. I know your brother--Mr. Arthur Gwyn, the solicitor, isn’t it? I thought so.”

“Has Arthur come?” asked Harry.

“No,” said Dick. “We’re going to have tea in the drawing-room. Will you come along, Harry?”

“Surely, surely,” he said hastily. “You’ll excuse me, dear----” It was an effort to employ even so banal an expression of affection.

When they reached the beautiful drawing-room, with its windows open to the terrace, and a riot of gorgeous sulphur chrysanthemums showing above the stone balustrade, they found they were alone. Mr. Puttler had melted away as they were passing through the hall. He explained, afterward, that he wanted to stroll through the gardens, but the girl knew that the man’s uncanny instinct had told him that, of all the people in the world, these two were satisfied best with each other’s company.

“Did you sleep?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I didn’t get up till lunch time,” he said. “And you?”

She shook her head.

“No, I couldn’t sleep. Poor Arthur!”

“Did you try beefsteak?” he asked brutally. “Really, the most incongruous company I can imagine is a black eye and Arthur Gwyn!”

“He is awfully shaken,” she said seriously. “I have never known him to be so upset. It _was_ Mr. Gilder.”

“I knew,” said Dick, “or, at least, I guessed. Did you find out the cause of the quarrel?”

She hesitated.

“I don’t know; I think it was something to do with me.”

“What was Gilder doing at your house?”

“Arthur didn’t tell me,” she replied. “From what he said I gather that Mr. Gilder had been watching Arthur and had followed him somewhere.”

“To the Abbey ruins--yes, that is quite possible. And of course your brother objected to that, naturally. Why are they watching each other?”

“Is Arthur watching Gilder?” she asked in surprise.

“It almost looks like it. Leslie, I want to tell you something that nobody else knows, not even Harry. It may bring a little ease to your mind in the dark hours of the night. Puttler is a detective, a Scotland Yard man.”

She stared at him.

“A detective? Why on earth----?”

“Things have been happening that I don’t very much like,” said Dick. “I’ve been worried nearly sick about them, and though I’m quite capable of dealing with most contingencies, the Lord has ordained that I should take seven hours’ rest in every twenty-four, and there must be somebody awake when I’m asleep.”

“The Black Abbot--is that what is worrying you?”

He bit his lip thoughtfully.

“Yes and no. Some aspects of the Black Abbot’s activities trouble me more than I should like to confess. Leslie, do you believe in the treasure?”

“The Chelford treasure?” she asked, in surprise. “And what do you mean by believing in it? It is true that the gold was brought to Fossaway Manor in olden times, isn’t it?”

“Perfectly true,” said Dick, “and perfectly true, I should imagine, that it was taken away. But do you believe that it has any existence, that it can be found? Suppose one dug up every square inch of the park, pulled down this old house of ours, probed into the bowels of the earth, do you think it is possible that the gold could be found? Because, if you don’t, there are other people who do besides Harry.”

“Do you believe?” she challenged.

He heaved a deep sigh.

“Heaven knows, I’m ready to believe anything! And I thought I should never drag down my lofty intelligence to such deeps. But, Leslie, my dear, I am getting----” He paused for a word.

“Convinced?”

“Not exactly convinced, but shaken in my obstinacy. I’ve become a doubter of my own scepticism, and that’s the worst mental condition a man can reach--or almost the worst,” he added.

“Does Harry know you are a convert?” Her fine eyes twinkled with mischief.

“He suspects me,” said Dick gloomily. “If I thought the money was here----”

She regarded him steadily.

“Would it make a big difference to you, Dick?” she asked.

“Me personally?” He shook his head. “Lord, no! It would make a difference to the----” He paused. “To Harry. I was going to say the estate. The estate, to me, is something distinct from any personality. It stands for the agglomeration of dead men’s efforts, the cumulative sum of all their strivings.”

She looked at him for a long time in wonder. She loved him in this serious mood of his.

“You’ve made rather a fetish of Fossaway Manor and the Chelford estates, haven’t you?”

“Have I?” He was genuinely surprised. “I wonder…” And then he laughed. “It isn’t a bad line for a second son to exalt the estates to which he will never succeed, above the personality of the man who will get it! It makes him rather superior to the real heir. Put my fetish worship down to vanity, for the Lord knows I have my share of that.”

“I doubt it,” she said quietly. “Come out on to the terrace. Your flowers are lovely.”

“‘Everything in the garden----’” he began, but she checked him with a warning finger.

“If you get banal I shall go in and find Puttler.”

XXV

She leaned on the gray stone balustrade and looked down upon the wind-stirred tresses of great golden chrysanthemums, each as big as a large-sized saucer. They were not all gold; there were deep red blooms and snowy white and flaming orange, and beyond them a huge bed of late-flowering roses; even from this distance, she could catch the delicate fragrance of them.

“It’s a beautiful old place,” she said in a hushed voice. “I don’t wonder that you love it. How long has your family owned this estate, Dick?”

“Eight hundred years,” he said. “The first of the Chelfords sliced off the head of the original owner and stole the property. Successive generations of Chelfords, whose own heads were cut off with monotonous regularity, enclosed a few thousand acres of common land belonging to the people--and there you are!”

She laughed softly.

“You have very few illusions, have you?”

“None,” was his curt reply, and somehow the answer hurt her.

They had to send twice for Harry before he put in an appearance, and he seemed disappointed to find that Puttler was not there.

“That is quite an intelligent fellow, Dick,” he said, delicately spearing a cucumber sandwich. “He has an extraordinary knowledge of history, particularly English history. Unfortunately, he doesn’t read German” [Harry read German as well as he read English, French, or Italian] “but I have persuaded him to take up the study. Have you everything you want, Leslie?”

He had helped her to nothing, and was happy to find that her requirements had been supplied. Only twice he spoke to her: once to ask about Arthur, and the other time when he made an oblique reference to his forthcoming marriage.

“Marriage ceremonies and the pomp of them are a little indelicate, I think. It is a barbarous custom, these veils and bridesmaids and barbaric orange-blossoms. Now in America I am told that it is quite the usual thing to be married in a drawing-room. I’m sure that could be arranged, couldn’t it, Dick? The bishop is quite an obliging old gentleman.”

“Turn Puttler on him: he’s an authority on church ritual,” said Dick.

“The man is an authority on most things,” said Harry, with unaccustomed enthusiasm. “He was telling me that possibly there was some cryptogram in existence which would give a direct clue as to the treasure.” And then, seeing the half smile on the girl’s face, he gave one of his rare boyish laughs. “We are still chasing shadows, Leslie, but it is a very substantial shadow, believe me. Now, Puttler thinks…”

They listened without comment to Puttler’s views, which in this case were neither informative nor particularly brilliant.

“Puttler’s mind apparently runs to dungeons, and there are dungeons to this place,” said Harry vigorously. “I am going to have a look round to-morrow. There are probably secret places under the floor which might be profitably examined.”

“The dungeons, as you call them, are wine cellars,” said Dick ominously; “and if Puttler goes fooling around my port there will be trouble! Besides which, Harry, I don’t suppose there has been a single ancestor of ours who hasn’t dug up the floor of that unfortunate dungeon--one of them in the days of the Regency had the walls stripped, and the beggar never replaced the stone. It cost our father the best part of a thousand pounds to repair the damage done by this old gold-hound!”

Dick noticed that whilst Harry was present the girl’s manner was just a little strained and unreal, and she was nervous, too, started when she was addressed, and was content to listen without including herself in the conversation. It was not until Harry had gone, with a lame apology, back to the library that she became her real self again, and the old Leslie crept forth from its hiding place. Once, whilst he and his brother were discussing the affair of the dungeons, she had walked on to the terrace, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her in profile, a slim, frail-looking girl, with her delicate face and her glorious hair, and in the setting she looked almost ethereal. It was as though some old masterpiece of Botticelli had come to life.

When the door had closed on Harry she came back and sat down with a little grimace.

“Was it very rude of me to go out? Dicky, I can’t work up any interest in the things that really fascinate Harry! Whatever will he talk about when the treasure is found?”

“The treasure? Oh, you mean the gold? He will probably talk about you.”

She made a little moue.

“I’m too young to be interesting to Harry, three hundred years too young,” she said. “Now tell me about your detective. I liked what I saw of him. He is to be your little guardian angel? And, Dick, will he have a beat--is that the word? Because, if he has, I do hope he’ll take in Willow House. I’ll even lend him my car.”

“Are you really frightened?”

She thought for a while before she replied.

“I think I am,” she said. “When I was a child the first air raids fascinated me, the second were interesting, but after the third or fourth they became--just air raids. And the Black Abbot--well, he’s very picturesque, Dick, but he’s rather terrifying. Didn’t you tell me that Harry feared him?”

“He does a little.”

“Why, I wonder?”

“Harry is naturally of a nervous temperament,” said Dick. “People are born that way, and it is absurd to talk of ‘cowardice’ where they are concerned. Now I was born without the knowledge of nerves, and I daresay if you saw me chasing the Black Abbot you would think I was terribly brave. As a matter of fact, it is simply because I’ve no imagination.”

“That isn’t true,” she said. “Why do you always belittle yourself?”

“Because I am by nature excessively modest,” he said gravely, and at that moment they caught sight of Mr. Puttler strolling through the long lines of rose trees that ran parallel with the eastern wing. Together they went down the terrace steps and intercepted him.

“It is a lovely place,” said Mr. Puttler, shaking his head in admiration. “I’ve never seen so many roses together in my life, except at Covent Garden Market, and they’re not roses, they’re just merchandise.”

“I’ve told Miss Gwyn that you’re a detective, Puttler.”

Puttler frowned at this.

“You know Miss Gwyn better than I do,” he said good-humouredly. “Speaking for myself, I find that life is much easier to live if you keep your mouth shut. Not,” he added hastily, “that I want to be offensive. That’s only my way of reasoning and my way of talking. There used to be an officer in our division who rose from the rank of plain police constable to superintendent by the simple process of never saying anything to anybody. If he was asked for his opinion on a matter he used to shake his head and say there was much to be said on both sides but he had his own private opinion, and even when he was called into a case he’d say nothing, but listen to what everybody else said and smile. That smile was worth a thousand a year to him.”

They crossed the rose garden and were strolling across the lawn. Under a huge elm Mr. Puttler stopped to continue a story which was fated never to be finished.

“One day the superintendent said to this man, whose name was Carter, ‘Carter,’ he said, ‘I can’t understand----’”

_Crack!_

A bullet snicked past the detective’s face, struck the bole of the tree, and sent the bark splintering. From a clump of rhododendron bushes two hundred yards away floated a pale blue cloud.

“Down on your face!” said Dick hoarsely, and dragged the girl to the ground, only just in time.

_Crack!_

The second bullet struck a little lower. A splinter of bark hummed past the girl’s ear.

“There’s someone in those bushes who doesn’t like me,” said Mr. Puttler.

Pulling a long-barrelled Browning from his pocket and bending low, he sprinted toward the bushes, zigzagging as he ran.

A third shot rang out and the running man pitched forward on his face and lay still.

XXVI

Dick flew forward to the prostrate figure, and, kneeling by his side, turned him on his back. His eyelids were working spasmodically, but there was no sign of injury, except a bruise on the side of his face which had been caused by his coming violently into contact with the ground. And then Dick saw the man’s right boot. The sole had been ripped off and there was a patch of blood showing on the toe of the sock. At the sound of a rustling skirt Dick turned his head. The girl was coming toward them.

“Go back behind that tree and don’t move,” he shouted authoritatively, but for once she did not obey him.

She was rather pale, but there was no other evidence of fear, as she knelt by his side and began to unfasten the collar of the stricken man.

“He’s stunned. I don’t think it’s anything worse than that,” said Dick. “I thought at first he was finished--look at his boot!”

He was pulling it off gingerly and the operation must have hurt a little, because the detective winced and opened his eyes.

“Hullo! What has happened?” he asked, looking round. “Did that bird shoot me?”

“I don’t think he’s hurt you very much.” Dick was looking at the foot. The bullet had ricochetted, cutting a shallow gash on the man’s instep, but there was no other injury.

“Do you feel fit enough to look after Miss Gwyn?” said Dick.

The detective reached round for the gun he had dropped and humped himself to his feet. Without another word, Dick raced across the grass-land to the bushes, and the girl watched him in terror, expecting every second to hear the fourth and the fatal shot.

After five minutes he emerged from the bushes, holding something in his hand which he was examining curiously as he walked toward them.

“A Lee-Enfield rifle, army pattern,” he said. “I found these shells.”

He put them into the detective’s hand. Puttler examined the exploded cartridges carefully.

“You didn’t see him, of course?” he said.

“No, I think he must have got round to the back of the house. The bushes ran practically from the west wing of Fossaway Manor to the end of the Mound. He might of course be still hidden in the bushes, but the probability is that he made his getaway as soon as he saw you fall,” said Dick. “I think we’d better go inside and I will find you a pair of shoes, unless you have a spare supply.”

They were halfway to the house when they met Lord Chelford.

“Who was that shooting?” he asked irritably. “Dick, I told you that I did not want rabbit shooting or any other kind of shooting within half a mile of the house. It gets on my nerves terribly. Really, I think you must show a little more consideration.”

The girl had opened her lips to explain when Dick caught her eye, and with splendid mendacity she invented a hurried but effective excuse.

“My fault, Harry. I saw a stoat, and I hate stoats.”

The fact that none of them carried a rifle was unnoticed by Harry.

“Well, of course…” He was obviously taken back by her championship. “If that’s the case it can’t be helped. Only in future, Dick, old boy…”

He walked rapidly back to the house.

“Why shouldn’t he be told?” asked Leslie. Then, realizing the foolishness of the question, she was all penitence. “There is no reason why he should be, of course. I was silly to suggest it. But, Dick, who did such a terrible thing? It couldn’t have been an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident: of that I can assure you,” said Mr. Puttler, nursing his injury. “The first two shots that were fired hit the tree within three inches of each other. Are you going to notify the local police, Mr. Alford?”

Dick thought for a moment, then decided against that course, and to Leslie’s surprise the detective approved.

“I think you’re right,” said Puttler. “Where is the nearest rifle range?”

“About fifteen miles away,” said Dick sardonically. “You needn’t follow that line of thought.”

“I’m not following any line of thought,” said the detective. “I’m only foreseeing possible alibis. I spend my life standing in front of alibis and waving a red flag.”

Through the tan, Dick’s face was gray. He seemed suddenly to have gone old, and Leslie looked at him anxiously.

“Dick, at whom were they shooting?”

“I don’t know that they were shooting at anybody,” he said wearily. “They just loosed off a few rounds to scare us.”

And then he laughed; it was a fierce, hard little laugh, and she winced at the sound of it.

“I am thinking of Harry and his nerves, and the stoat and every damned ridiculous---- I beg your pardon, Leslie; I’m afraid I’m getting rattled.”

She smiled at this.

“Dick, will you say good-bye to Harry for me? I promised my brother I would come home early. No, really, you need not take me. I’m not at all afraid of being held up by armed desperadoes!”

“Neither am I,” said Dick, “but I don’t fancy you overmuch as a driver.”

And in her annoyance at this false accusation she forgot to resist his escort.

By the time he had returned to the house, Puttler had secured a dressing for his foot. The injury was so slight that he could resume his shoes, and pooh-poohed the suggestion that he had better lie up that night.

“It was a narrow escape,” he said, “but I’m rather glad I got that bullet, and that it didn’t go where it was intended.”

Dick looked at him steadily.

“For whom was it intended?” he asked.

Without hesitation came the reply:

“For Miss Leslie Gwyn: I thought you knew that.”

Dick could find no answer, but in his heart of hearts he knew that Puttler was speaking the truth.

XXVII

Mr. Fabrian Gilder, sometime head clerk to the firm of Gwyn & Gwyn, and now a gentleman of leisure, was in one sense a hard man. He did not forgive even slight injuries, and in the past had gone a long way out of his path to get even with those who had the misfortune to affront him. And Arthur Gwyn had offended beyond hope of forgiveness. A few days before, Gilder would have thought it a very simple matter to be revenged upon his enemy; but now the simple process of laying an information and of preferring a charge of forgery was contingent upon four bills which were in his possession being repudiated by the man who was alleged to have backed them.

He could do no more than present those interesting documents, and this he did through his bank. Dick had already made arrangements for their redemption. It was not entirely an act of philanthropy on his part, for he was a business man, and took over from the frankly reluctant Mr. Gwyn the choice of a number of unsalable shares which Dick regarded as having a certain value. The bills, which had been renewed from time to time, were met, and that ended Mr. Gilder’s chance of carrying his threat into execution.

He was the type of man who thrived on opposition. Though it would be true to say that he had fallen in love with Leslie Gwyn the first time he had seen her, which was months before that unpleasant scene at his flat, his desire for her grew as his chance of winning her receded farther and farther into the background.

On the night that Dick had found him examining the ruins of the Abbey, Mr. Gilder had returned to the cut road when he thought the coast was clear and had discovered yet another in quest of the treasure. He had witnessed the interview between the two men and had followed Arthur back to Willow House with no other intention than to offer his help, for a consideration, in discovering this mythical fortune. For Mr. Gilder had heard quite enough that day he surprised his employer with Mary Wenner, to know that somewhere under the Abbey lay either the fortune or its key. He had overtaken Arthur on the drive, and Arthur was in an unpleasant mood: hot with the man at the interruption of his search, smarting under the sting of Dick Alford’s sarcasm.

At first, startled by the unexpected apparition of his head clerk, Arthur had snarled round on him, and there and then discharged him from his service and defied him to do his worst. It was Gilder who had struck the first blow.

When Arthur was in his more unpleasant moods he said things that no self-respecting man could endure, and the black eye which the lawyer nursed was an advertisement of his indiscretion.