Chapter V: Part 5

Gilder might be a bookmaker, but he was not a thief. At least, “thief” was rather an extravagant description of his duplicity. He went back to London half crazy with rage, but a day in bed restored his mental equilibrium and he sat down to plan how best he could frustrate any plans which his late employer had formed for gaining possession of the treasure. By this time Gilder, too, was convinced; his last doubts removed. He had been sceptical as to the treasure’s existence, but he knew such things had happened, and he had a natural desire to be in any scheme which produced immediately and without great labour a vast, undreamed-of sum.

His cut lip healed in a few hours, though it was still swollen, and toward the evening of the second day after his retirement from the firm of Gwyn & Gwyn, he dressed himself with great care, and, calling a taxi, drove to an address he had once scribbled on his white shirt-cuff.

Mary Wenner occupied a tiny flat, every compartment of which might have been contained in one large-sized room. It was perched on the top floor of an apartment house near Baker Street--37, Cranston Mansions. She enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the Metropolitan Railway and such shunting operations as are carried out in that busy centre, and she was as a rule free from callers; for there were no elevators in the house, and to climb up four steep flights of stairs was something of an undertaking.

Mr. Gilder was not strong for physical exertion and cursed the parsimonious builder who had neglected to put in this easy method of transportation. Nevertheless, he climbed, and presently was ringing at the polished bell of No. 135.

Mary had a daily servant, who was a charwoman in the morning, a parlour-maid in the afternoon, and her own natural self after six, at which hour she left for the night. This aged woman, with her dingy white cap askew, opened the door and took the card in to her mistress, leaving Mr. Gilder on the mat. She came back with an ingratiating smile, and pointed to the room where Mary was to be found.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Gilder,” said Miss Wenner conventionally. “I’m sure I never thought that you would be as good as your word. Sit down, won’t you?”

She really was pretty, he observed; in her plain house dress she was prettier than in a more elaborate attire. The flat, though small, was well but not expensively furnished. It left him with the impression that she had bought everything with her own money and he had rather a nice feeling toward her in consequence. For Fabrian Gilder was a queer mixture of Puritan and adventurer. Later, Mary had her flat to thank for certain pleasant developments.

There was only one chair on which he could sit, and this he took.

“You’d like a cup of tea? I’m just going to have mine,” said Miss Wenner. “I’ve been out all day shopping and everything.”

“Are you--er--working?” asked Gilder delicately.

“No, I’m not in business,” replied Miss Wenner, more correctly. Only common people “work”: the gentility “go to business.”

She went out, disappearing into a mysterious cupboard, which had just enough room for a tiny kitchen table and a gas stove, and he heard the rattle of cup against saucer, the _plomp!_ of a gas ring being lighted, and after a while she came back, a little flushed and apologetic.

“Maids are so stupid, aren’t they?” she asked. “You can never trust these common daily people. I had an awfully nice maid but she went away and got married, the stupid child!”

She received very few visitors, she told him. Her “sewing woman” came twice a week. She had a very dear friend--a girl, she hastened to assure him--who spent Tuesday evenings with her and sometimes slept in the flat. But a male visitor was the rarest of phenomena.

“You can’t be too careful,” said Miss Wenner primly. “A girl’s character is her principal asset--don’t you agree Mr. Gilder?”

Mr. Gilder agreed.

“That is what I have always said about my work with Harry--excuse me, I mean Lord Chelford, only we were such awfully good friends that I’ve never dreamt of calling him anything but by his Christian name.”

“And did you call Richard Alford by his Christian name?” asked Mr. Gilder, not without malice.

Her nose went up in the air.

“Him!” she said contemptuously. “I don’t take any more notice of him than I do of any of the other upper servants! He’s educated and all that--went to Eton and Harrow” (even Mr. Gilder winced at this) “but you judge a man by his manners and not by his education. There’s no doubt at all that Dick Alford has the manners of a pig!”

She said this with feeling and no little vehemence. Mr. Gilder, who knew something of the circumstances, understood and almost sympathized.

“I was going to say that down at Fossaway I often felt that it wasn’t right to be in that big house with no lady there except the housekeeper, who of course is a servant, and---- Oh! here you are, Gladys!”

XXVIII

She rose as Gladys brought in the tea tray and laid it carefully on the table. Gladys was sixty, toothless, and more or less chinless. She wore most of her hair in a bun, which overflowed, drooping over her neck in picturesque confusion. Gladys had the smile of one who enjoyed the privilege of entertaining a visitor. She smiled at the girl, smiled at Mr. Gilder, and smiled herself out of the room. Fabrian Gilder thought he had never seen a more ghastly exhibition.

“You’re a good friend of Gwyn’s, aren’t you?” he asked, as he sipped his tea.

She dropped her eyes in maidenly embarrassment.

“We are rather good friends, but no more. We may be something closer--who knows? He has always behaved like a perfect gentleman and treated me like a lady. I must say that for Arthur. But he’s a little trying; don’t you find him so?” she asked, with a girlish naïveté that was a little overdone.

“I have left him,” said Mr. Gilder briefly. “He and I disagreed over a question of policy and I retired. In fact, we had a very bad row and came to blows--I tell you this because you’ll probably learn the facts from him sooner or later.”

Mary was shocked; and when Mary was shocked she covered her rather generous mouth with her two small white hands.

“You don’t tell me!” she said in a hushed voice. “Blows! Is that it?” She nodded her head to his lip.

“That’s it,” said Gilder shortly.

“Blows!” repeated Mary Wenner. “How perfectly disgusting and vulgar!”

“I wanted to talk to you about Arthur Gwyn,” Gilder broke in upon her horrified wonder. “We’re not good friends, but that doesn’t mean I bear him any malice. But, naturally, as we are parted, I don’t feel called upon to protect him and stand between him and his dupes”--he emphasized the last word--“as I have done in the past. You know him as well as I do,” he went on, as she was about to speak. “You know his vanity; you know how perfectly unreliable and insincere he is; you know, too, that he’d get out of any promise he ever made, even if it was in black and white.”

He was watching her narrowly all the time he spoke, and now he saw her eyebrows arch.

“Indeed?” she said coldly. “I don’t know anything about the law, but I can’t see how a gentleman, or a common man for the matter of that, could get out of--what is the expression--legal obligations?”

“Then you don’t know Arthur Gwyn as well as I do,” he said. “But that is beside the point. I haven’t come here to blackguard him or to make him look smaller in your eyes. Not that I could,” he said, anticipating her protest a little ambiguously. “But I believe in a girl having a square deal, especially a working girl who may have nobody in the world to look after her interests. And I tell you that that fellow couldn’t go straight if he was fired from a gun. Now, what about the Chelford treasure?”

At the words she sat bolt upright, and a look of blank astonishment came to her face.

“Do you know?” she gasped.

“Of course I know! You’re going to help him find the gold, and in return----” He paused.

That was exactly what he had come to find out. What obligation had Arthur undertaken in return for the information she would give him? And he was pretty sure of his ground. He knew the girl; had had some dealings with her when she was with Chelford; and since he lived on his knowledge of human beings, he had analyzed her with more or less accuracy. He knew her vanity, her ambition; had heard something of her summary discharge from Fossaway Manor. There was only one reward that Arthur Gwyn could offer.

“He has promised to marry you,” he said, and he was not altogether drawing a bow at a venture.

“Did he tell you that?” she said, with a little catch in her voice. “I hope you don’t think, Mr. Gilder, that I’ve thrown myself at his head? That I wouldn’t do for the best man in the world.” She looked at him thoughtfully, and added: “Old or young. I trust Arthur as a gentleman to fulfil any promise he has made. I am going to do something for him that will make all the difference in the world----”

“When is he going to marry you? After the treasure is discovered, I suppose?”

She nodded.

“He will have to marry me then,” she said.

“I realize that. You’re a girl that has to make her way in the world without influence, and possibly without friends.” Mr. Gilder knew he was on the right tack here. “He can offer you a position and you can offer him money. After all, that is exactly what his sister is doing, and nobody thinks any worse of her for that.”

“Exactly,” murmured Miss Wenner, who had never seen the matter in that light before.

“The point I want to make is this,” he went on: “What bond has he given you?”

“His word of honour,” said Miss Wenner dramatically.

“I daresay. But what valuable bond has he given you?”

“I’ll show you.”

She went into the next room, which was evidently her bedroom, and, returning with her bag, placed it on her knee, opened the flap, and took out, amongst other things, a slip of paper, which she passed across to Mr. Gilder. He read it at a glance, noted the careful emendation which Arthur had made, and passed it back.

“That is valueless,” he said, and her face fell. “What is to prevent his going to Chelford and striking a bargain with him? Where do you come in then? Besides, this is what is known in law as a promise under duress--that is to say, under compulsion. If he is acting in the interests of his client, he can plead that he had to make this promise in order to secure information which you were illegally withholding.”

She stared at him.

“It’s not illegal to know and not to tell?”

He nodded.

“To know of the existence of hidden treasure and to withhold your information is a crime in some countries, and I daresay it is in England. But that’s beside the point. Where do you come in, Miss Wenner?”

She bit her lip thoughtfully.

“I never saw it in that way,” she confessed. “What can I do, Mr. Gilder?”

He felt inclined to offer the obvious solution, “Get him to marry you first,” but changed his mind. Mary Wenner married would be a useless ally.

At the back of his mind he was certain that this rather vulgar girl--for he had a nice and finicking taste in the matter of women--had discovered the Chelford millions. If he had not had this belief he would not have made his call. He believed that by some accident, or by reason of her close association with Harry Chelford, she had unveiled the mystery of the lost gold; and his object now was to discover how far his theory was justified by facts.

“Is there no way of making that agreement more binding, Mr. Gilder?” she asked. “You’re a lawyer--couldn’t you draw up something he wouldn’t wriggle out of? Naturally, I’m too much of a lady to want any man to marry me, if he doesn’t want to marry me. If he just hinted as much I should tell him to go--I should simply say, ‘Oh, very well, I’m not at all anxious to marry, thank you very much.’ I think a girl who throws herself at a man’s head is despicable, don’t you, Mr. Gilder?”

He did not answer this query.

“I could draw you up an agreement that would be legally binding, but I doubt if even that would help you. Why trust him at all?” he asked bluntly.

She dropped her eyes at this.

“Who--or rather whom--could I trust?” she asked, and took an invisible crumb off her dress. “This is such an awful world, and men are so very deceitful, Mr. Gilder. The young ones are the worst, of course, but they haven’t experience. I do think that a man isn’t in the prime of life till he’s about forty-five.” She waited. “Or fifty. He’s sort of settled down and sowed his wild oats, and he doesn’t want to go out at nights and all that. And I’ll admit that Arthur is flighty. I wouldn’t tell it to anybody but you, but he tried to kiss me any number of times, and he once said the most terrible thing to me at Fossaway Manor. I said to him: ‘Arthur, you seem to forget that you’re speaking to a lady,’ and he just curled up and died, if you understand me. I don’t mean that he actually perished----”

“I understand what you mean,” said Gilder, and went on to make his most startling revelation. “Now, listen, Miss Wenner. You’re a sensible girl and I can talk to you as I could talk to very few people.”

This _cliché_ of intensive flattery, which so seldom fails even when employed upon intelligent people, produced in Miss Wenner the strained attentiveness which was called for.

“Suppose I tell you,” said Fabrian Gilder darkly, “that Gwyn is already trying to anticipate your discovery?”

“I beg your pardon?” Mary Wenner was not very strong on the more flowery expressions of speech.

“Suppose he’s trying to get ahead of you--trying to find the gold without your assistance?”

“He wouldn’t dare!” she gasped.

Mr. Gilder nodded very slowly, very deliberately.

“He has already tried,” he said. “Two nights ago I was watching him, suspecting his plan. He went at three o’clock in the morning to the ruins of Chelford Abbey, and he took with him a crowbar.…”

Whilst he was speaking, the red in her face deepened and the wide-opened eyes grew brighter.

“The hound!” she breathed. “The twisting, double-faced monkey!”

It was not a ladylike expression, but for the moment she was superior to shame.

“The dirty, thieving, twisting sneak! To the Abbey--with a crowbar! I’ll take my oath on a Bible that I never breathed a word of where it was hid--I mean hidden. Let him go with his crowbar--ha-ha!” She laughed shrilly, but gave no other evidence of supreme amusement. “I’ll crowbar him! Let him search and scrape and dig and see what he can find.”

He tried to soothe her, but for the moment her soul was breaking in tumultuous waves upon the muddy flats of Arthur’s duplicity.

“He has deceived me! I don’t mean in an unladylike way--I mean--you know what I mean, Mr. Gilder? I trusted that man. I gave him all my heart.” The sob came naturally, but it was largely due to intensified annoyance. “I gave him all that a woman could give a man--information I mean, Mr. Gilder. I don’t want you to get any wrong ideas about me, because I’ve always behaved like a lady, and nobody can point their fingers of scorn at me.”

She grew calm after a while.

“Who can you trust?” she asked bitterly. “Who--can--you--trust?”

“You can trust me.” Fabrian Gilder’s voice was very gentle, almost pleading.

He was rather a good-looking man, she observed; his gray hair gave him distinction.

“You wouldn’t want a legal document from me.…”

“Yes, I would,” she said obstinately. “I don’t trust men.”

“You shall have any document you wish. I will even go as far as compromising myself hopelessly.”

She coughed.

“I don’t think I should go quite as far as that,” she said, misunderstanding him.

“I mean that I would take the risk of detection without safeguarding myself as Arthur Gwyn has done.”

She dabbed her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief.

“Of course, Mr. Gilder--I don’t know you very well, but I’m not going to say that I don’t like you. I’ve always said to Agatha--my Tuesday friend, as I call her--‘Mr. Gilder’s a perfect gentleman.’ In fact, I’m--Mr. Gilder, what is your Christian name?”

“Fabrian,” he said.

She lingered tenderly over the word and smiled, a wistful sideways smile.

“I should call you Fabe, I suppose? It’s a perfectly lovely name.… As I was saying, I don’t want to throw myself at any man’s head.”

“Let us go down to-night.”

Her face changed.

“To the Abbey--to-night?”

He nodded.

“My car will get us down in an hour and a half, and we can wait till it’s dark; and unless there’s a lot of digging to be done----”

“There is no digging,” she said. “But to-night?”

“Why not?” he demanded. “My cottage is less than a mile from the Abbey. If the gold is there and reachable, we could get away with enough to make us rich for life.”

She pondered this, and then:

“I know you’ll think it horrid of me, Mr. Gilder--Fabe--that does sound familiar, doesn’t it?--but I would like something in black and white.”

There and then Mr. Fabrian Gilder produced a document that was enough, as he observed jocularly, to hang him, and, reading it, even Mary Wenner, with her keen instinct for safeguards, was impressed. He wrote the agreement with his own fountain pen, on paper which he provided, and he had brought along that pen in his pocket with a view to such a contingency. It was a new pen, filled with an ink that he had purchased at a novelty store in Wardour Street, and which was guaranteed to fade within six hours of writing.

Miss Wenner read it through, folded it, and put it into her bag, and disappeared into her bedroom. She came back with the bag, but he guessed that the agreement was disposed in some safe place.

“Now, Fabe, what time do you want to start?”

“At nine-thirty?” he suggested, and she nodded.

“And don’t trouble to bring a crowbar,” she said a little viciously, as she remembered Arthur Gwyn’s rank treachery. “I’ll carry all the tools we want in my bag.”

XXIX

The weather had changed that afternoon. Big black clouds had come up from the west; a steady drizzle of rain had set in when Fabrian Gilder brought his car to the rendezvous in Marylebone Road. He had pulled up the hood, and, as a matter of precaution, he had cleared out every portable thing from the tonneau. If there was gold he must find room for it, and he made a careful calculation as to the weight he could carry on each journey.

He was surprised at himself that he had accepted as a fact so readily that there was gold to be taken. From the girl he learned for the first time the extent of the treasure. He had inquired casually of his garage man the amount of strain the back axle would stand. That was unnecessary, for he had once driven four fairly heavy men a considerable journey. Supposing they weighted 170 pounds, that would be the equivalent of twenty bars of gold.

It was nearly ten before the girl appeared. She was wearing a long raincoat and stepped into the seat by his side with a voluble apology.

“I nearly didn’t come,” she said. “I only just remembered after you’d gone that awful Black Abbot.”

He was a little amused.

“You don’t believe in that kind of hokum, do you?” he asked, as the car went swiftly down Baker Street.

“I don’t know.” She was dubious. “He did appear once or twice when I was at the Manor, but we used to believe that these were villagers’ stories. According to the newspapers, they’ve seen more of him lately--ugh!” She shivered.

He tapped his pocket significantly with his hand.

“I’ve got something here that’s mighty bad for abbots black or white!” he said. “Don’t you worry, little girl.”

“No, Fabe,” she said meekly.

Very delicately he suggested that she might call him by the Christian name his parents had given him. There was no diminutive, he explained, and excused his correction by telling her that there was a possibility that she might address him and he would not know to whom she was speaking.

“I don’t believe in long engagements, do you?” She went off at a tangent.

“No, I don’t. They should be short--and sweet!”

They both laughed together, and were in excellent humour by the time they reached the deserted streets of Dorking.

“I only have one anxiety,” he told her. “Mr. Richard Alford has got a habit of prowling round at odd hours. On a night like this he’ll hardly leave his comfortable apartment.”

“Comfortable apartment!” she scoffed. “Why, he’s only got a tiny little office, and his bedroom’s not much bigger than mine. I simply detest the man. He gives himself more airs in a day than dear Harry gives himself in ten years--you don’t mind me saying ‘dear Harry?’ You’re not jealous, are you?”

He assured her he was not at all jealous.

“I should have married Harry if it hadn’t been for him. Harry was simply crazy about me, but Dick hated me--how that man hated me! Mind you, I’ve always snubbed him when he got a little too fresh. I don’t say that he was chasing me--I hate girls who think every man is after them--but he was certainly very attentive once or twice. After lunch or dinner he’d get up and open the door for me, and that’s a thing that Harry never did. But of course I saw through it. It was all deceit and artfulness.”

She chattered at rare intervals, except during the five miles of driving rain that forced its way under the cover and lashed her face.

“It’s a horrible night,” she complained.

“On the contrary, it’s one of the best nights I could have chosen even if I had the ordering of the weather,” said Mr. Gilder.

When they reached the secondary road that led to Chelfordbury he proceeded with greater caution, extinguishing the flaming headlamps and relying upon the two small lights that were placed on the front mudguard. He knew the road so well that there was no danger of mishap; his chief anxiety was that he should not, by the reflected rays of the bigger headlights, be recognized.

A mile from Fossaway Manor he switched out the remaining two lights, for he had a shrewd idea that this section of the road was visible from Lord Chelford’s house. To the nervous girl riding at his side, it seemed that they were in imminent danger every minute of colliding with one of the telegraph posts which ran along the side of the road. Happily she was not aware that the smaller lamps had been extinguished.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I know every inch of this road; I’ve driven up it a hundred times. My cottage lies just beyond Willow House.”

The car, which had been moving silently and smoothly, began to slow as it went up the hill that led to Fontwell Cutting. He switched off the engine, and, jamming on the brakes, got out and opened the gate into Red Farm field. Then, walking alongside the car, he released the brakes and guided it to the place where Dick had found the machine a few nights before.

“Here we are,” he said.

He took her arm; she was shivering, and when she spoke he heard the chatter of her teeth.

“I wish I hadn’t come,” she said, started, and pointed into the dark. “What is that over there?” she whispered fearfully.

“A pollard willow,” he said. “Really, there’s nothing to be afraid of--Mary.”

“I don’t know about that,” she quavered. “Don’t let go of my arm, will you? Have you got a pistol?”

He assured her that he had.

Through the little gate, which he knew was unlocked, up the steep and slippery slope, and immediately ahead of them in the darkness were the solemn ruins.

“I’d rather not show a light,” he said in a low voice. “That was how Gwyn was discovered. Do you know your way?”

“If I can see the tower,” she suggested.

Stooping down to get an artificial skyline, he saw the bulk of the ruined tower and guided her forward. Once she stumbled over a heap of stones and would have screamed if his hand had not covered her mouth.

“For God’s sake, be careful!” he urged. “Now, how do we get to the vault?”

“Wait.” She released his arm and went toward the wall of the tower. He saw her once more, when she was groping her way round. Presently she whispered: “Come along.”

He followed her and reaching out her hand she took his.

“There’s a step down,” she whispered.

They were going into the tower, although he did not remember having seen any opening. He heard a rusty squeak.…

“It’s very narrow; you’ll have to squeeze through.”

The opening, he judged, was about a foot wide, and he had some trouble to pass the obstacle.

“It’s a big corner stone,” she said, in a low voice. “It swings round and opens like a door. It’s the way the old Abbot used to go out when he carried on with Lady Chelford--you’ve heard that bit of scandal, I suppose?”

The “bit of scandal” was some eight hundred years old and was news to him.

“If you’ve got a lamp you can put it on.”

He pulled out his torch and turned the switch. They were in a tiny stone chamber at the top of a circular flight of moss-grown stairs. Above was a vaulted roof, which seemed to be cut out of one piece of stone, as it might well be, for the interior measurements of the tower could not have been much more than four by five. The thickness of the walls he could judge; they had been built in the days when walls had other functions than to support a roof.

“Come along.” She led the way, stepping gingerly on the slithery moss.

He counted twenty-five steps, and then they were in a large stone chamber, so weatherworn that it seemed to be a natural cave. Walls and roof had lost their symmetry, and only the square of it told him that it was the work of man’s hands.

“Have you got the key?”

He nodded. Many years before, Gwyn & Gwyn had defended a famous burglar and had secured his acquittal on a technical error in the indictment. In reward he had presented to his lawyer a key which he claimed would open any door, big or small. It was a curious contrivance, consisting of a steel rod into the end of which strangely shaped projections could be screwed. Arthur had given it to his head clerk as a souvenir, having no interest in such matters himself, and rather scandalized that the firm was engaged in so discreditable a business as defending a burglar. This souvenir had now become an instrument of providence.

“Here is the place.” She still spoke in a whisper, though it was hardly likely they could be overheard.

In each corner of the room, facing them as they turned from the foot of the stairs, was a small, narrow door, deeply recessed. They reminded Mr. Gilder of the cell doors in Dartmoor, and there was a further likeness in another respect. Near the top of the left-hand door was a tiny iron grille, consisting of three rusted bars.

“Look!” she whispered.

He flashed the light of the lamp inside, where a deep, narrow cavern showed, along two sides of which ran a stone bench, and on the bench were innumerable cylinders of significant shape. He inspected the nearest; there was a curious seal at one end.

Fabrian Gilder’s heart beat faster. The girl’s hand that held his arm tightly was trembling.

“I’m so frightened,” she whimpered.

“What are you frightened about?”

“I’m so afraid of that awful Black Abbot.” She was on the verge of hysterical breakdown. He must work quickly.

He was fitting one of the accessories to the rod, and he pushed it in the big keyhole and turned. There was a grind and a click, but when he pulled the door it was fast. Again he tried, fitting another steel accessory, and on the third attempt the key turned with a horrible squeak, and he pulled the door open.

As he did so, the girl gripped his arm frenziedly.

“Look! Oh, my God! Look!” she screamed, and he turned.

Standing at the foot of the stairs was a figure in black, his face hidden under a long cowl. Two eyes they saw, gleaming feverishly upon them. Terrible, menacing, the Black Abbot was coldly surveying them!

XXX

With an oath, Gilder whipped a pistol from his pocket, but in doing so the beam of his lamp fell for a second. When he brought it up again, pistol extended, the figure had vanished.

“Don’t go, don’t go!” she shrieked, gripping his arm. “Oh, Mr. Gilder! Oh, Fabrian--don’t leave me!”

He thrust her aside and ran to the foot of the winding stairs and went cautiously up. He heard the sobbing breath of the girl coming behind him.

“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me in the dark!” she sobbed.

Higher, higher, cautious, watchful, but no sign of a black habit. The little room above was as they had left it; the tiny slit of a door was open.

Brushing past him, the girl stumbled and staggered into the open air and collapsed on to her knees.

“Take me away! Take me away!” she raved. “I wish I had never come!”

Gilder turned with a curse and swung the stone door close, then, half-carrying, half-dragging her, beside himself with fury, in which was mingled no little fear, he brought her to the road and to the car.

The rain was pouring down. He pushed back the hood of the car savagely, so that the full force of the storm should beat upon her--he dare not allow himself to be burdened with a fainting girl. He would take her back to her flat and leave her--there would be plenty of time for him to return and investigate those cylinders.

As for the Black Abbot… he breathed a little more quickly when he thought of that terrifying appearance. Whoever it was--and that it was human he did not doubt--would live to regret this night’s interference.

By the time they reached Horsham, the girl, drenched to the skin, cold and shivering, had got back a little of her balance. Her teeth were chattering, but not with fear. She was inclined to be garrulous, but he answered in monosyllables or not at all.

“I wonder I didn’t die,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything so perfectly horribly ghastly! Did you see the way his eyes glared? They looked as if they were alight, didn’t they, Fabe?”

“Fabrian,” he snapped.

“I never saw anything like it, not even in the pictures,” said Miss Wenner. “Couldn’t we have the hood up, Fabe--Fabrian?”

He stopped the car with a jerk, pulled up the hood and fastened it.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m taking you home. We’ll make another attempt to-morrow night. By the way, how did you get that stone corner piece to turn?”

“I can’t tell you that, Fabrian,” she said firmly and truly. “That’s my only hold over you.”

“Don’t be stupid. You used a bodkin or something, didn’t you? I noticed there was a space between two stones which looked to be artificial.”

“A pair of scissors,” she said. “There’s an iron catch inside that slit--I only found it by accident.”

He knew all he wanted to know now; could dispense with her for the rest of the night, forever, as it happened. He declined her invitation to come upstairs for a drink, and no sooner was she out of sight than he was flying back into Sussex.

Halfway between Dorking and Leatherhead, his gasoline gave out, and he had to wait on the charity of a passing motorist, and it was not a night when traffic was very thick. At last he found a good Samaritan who gave him enough to take the machine to the nearest filling station, and at Dorking, with his tank replenished and a few extra tins against emergency, he went on confidently.

Two o’clock showed on the illuminated dial of his watch when he backed the car into the field and mounted the slope to the ruins. From here onward he moved noiselessly, one step at a time, stopping every few paces to listen. But there was no sign or sound of the cowled figure.

He found the corner of the tower, with his penknife pressed back the catch, and, pulling at the rough stone, the edges of which crumbled in his hand, he opened the door.

Stopping only to examine the upper chamber, he went slowly down the stairs, his pistol in one hand, his lamp in the other. There was no sign of the intruder, but----

The door of the treasure house was closed. He pulled, and it swung open. Flashing his lamp into the long, narrow cell, he saw something that sent the blood from his face. The “ingots” had disappeared, every one of them! Neither the bench to the left nor right held a single cylinder. Beads of perspiration were running down his face as he turned, and it would have been death to any human spook who opposed him, for his heart was bitter against whosoever it was had checked his enterprise.

He made another inspection of the underground chamber. Unlike its fellow, the second door in the opposite corner of the room was solid. Neither peephole nor grating gave a view into the room it guarded. He guessed that behind the nail-studded portal was a room similar to that in which the cylinders had been stored. Trying his key on the lock, he could produce no result. He put his shoulder to the oaken face but the door did not budge by so much as a fraction of an inch.

Before this room the flooring consisted of a long slab of stone that ran without a break to the centre of the apartment, and was the exact width of the narrow doorway. Had this any significance? Kneeling, he examined the stone carefully. It was different from the rest of the paving. The broken stones that formed the floor of the room were worn smooth by the passage of generations of men; this oblong strip was rough-dressed, more like the underside of a paving stone than its chiselled surface. He stamped on one end and felt it give ever so slightly; stamped on the other end and had a like experience. In the middle ran a staple, balancing the stone, and beneath there was a hollow space. Some day or night he would come along and conduct a more careful inspection.…

He came into the upper room to confront a more urgent problem. Just as he was about to extinguish his lamp preparatory to passing through the opening, he saw the stone move. Before he could spring forward it had thudded into its place. From somewhere outside he heard an unearthly chuckle of laughter.

Trapped! He pushed at the door, but it was inflexible. Inch by inch he examined its surface. There must be an opening somewhere, he thought. He remembered the story of the amorous Abbot and his clandestine excursions. It was certain that a means existed for opening the door from the inside.

He searched the wall; nothing appeared. And then it occurred to him to send his light slowly along the floor, which was made up of broken flagstones. One, smaller than the others, attracted his attention, because it lay at a truer level than the rest, and he tugged at its end, and, with great effort, pulled it up. Beneath he saw a great iron ring, so rusted that it was almost razor-thin. With his handkerchief he gripped it and pulled. It gave a little, and, as it did, he saw the door move. Again he strained at the handle and slowly it came up; although the door had moved only an inch he knew it was clear of the invisible catch which held it. Running to the stone, he pressed with all his might. It swung open and he came staggering out into the eerie light of dawn.

The storm had passed; overhead, the stars were shining in the paling sky. Far away to his left a wisp of smoke curled up from the twisted chimneys of Fossaway Manor. Fabrian Gilder wiped his hot face and strove to overcome the bitterness of his defeat. And then, at his feet, he saw something and, stooping with a cry, picked it up. It was one of the cylinders, heavy and laden, that had been dropped by those who had cleared the vault. It was not heavy enough for gold. He knew that at once. The cover was of lead. He tore away the seal, expecting to find an opening, but the cylinder had been sealed at both ends. He carried it quickly down the slope, and in the shelter of the cut road he took out his knife and slit the thin lead end, and pulled out a tightly rolled sheet of parchment. He opened it and stared. It was an ancient missal, beautifully painted and, as a work of art, priceless, but a poor substitute for thirty-five pounds weight of solid gold!

XXXI

And that was all the other cylinders contained, he thought, with a gleam of satisfaction. Whoever had watched him--and he suspected Arthur Gwyn naturally--had had the same disappointment.

It was in this room that the old monks had stored their ancient music. There was a certain grim humour in the thought of how he had spent his night and the reward for it.

He crossed the road, opened the gate, and went into the field where he had left his car, and stood stock still, petrified with amazement. The car had disappeared!

The tracks were plainly visible. They led through the cutting, along the road toward Willow House. There was nothing to do but to tramp after them. A mile beyond Arthur Gwyn’s residence was Ravensrill Cottage, his own property, he thought with some satisfaction, and a snug retreat where a man could get a hot bath in an hour and a steaming cup of tea in a quarter. The prospect was cheering, for he was wet through, weary and footsore.

The tracks passed the entrance of Willow House and continued on the way to the cottage; and when at last he turned the bend of the road that brought his little country home into view, he saw the car standing before the door. There was no sign of any living creature. He went round the house, searched the tiny plantation to the left, and even descended to the banks of the stream, before he opened the door of his cottage and went in.

He put the key in the lock and, to his surprise, on the pressure of his hand, the door opened. The door which opened into his little dining-room yielded to his pressure before he could turn the key. He gazed, stricken dumb with amazement. A small fire was burning in the grate, on which a kettle was steaming. An open teapot was on the hearth, and somebody had broken open a tin of biscuits. He heard a footstep in the next room and swung round to meet the intruder; and at the sight of him, he dropped the point of his levelled Browning.

“Thomas!” he said, unable to believe his eyes. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“Fired this morning,” said the ex-footman curtly.

“This morning? Why, it’s hardly daylight!”

Thomas nodded.

“Alford found me wandering about the house when I ought to have been in bed and asleep,” he said, “and he hoofed me out.”

“But why?”

The man was uncomfortable.

“How do I know why?” he demanded. “That dog never liked me. I think he suspected me of writing to you.”

Gilder knew that this story was a lie, designed to show him under an obligation to this ex-servant. Thomas had been a useful correspondent of his: all that went on at Fossaway Manor had been faithfully recorded for his information.

“You are in trouble. What have you been doing?”

The man pursed his lips.

“Well…” he hesitated, “I may as well tell you the truth. Have you ever heard of Monkey Puttler? Wait a minute, I’ll make the tea.”

He picked up the steaming kettle and filled the pot, and not till he had put it back on the hob did he continue his narrative.

“Monkey Puttler’s a ‘busy.’ Every crook in London knows him, and I know him as well as anybody because he got me three years for a job I did at the Westinghouse Hotel.”

“Burglary?” asked the other, to whom this was news.

“An inside job,” said the other tersely. “You can call it burglary if it gives you any pleasure. Anyway, Monkey caught me and pushed me over the Alps for three long and weary ones. When I came out I got this job. There were pickings to it, too. Chelford isn’t a man who counts his change, and Alford doesn’t dare ask him what he’s done with his money when he comes for more.”

“An ex-convict, eh?” Gilder was slightly shocked and regarded the man from a new angle. “I didn’t know that or I should never have employed you!”

“I had to kid a bit,” confessed Thomas, with a grin.

“You kidded me all right!” replied Gilder.

“Well, I didn’t exactly kid you,” said the other, amused. “But that day when I went to your office and you started cross-examining me about how things were at the Manor with Gwyn, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t earn a few honest dollars.”

“Well? Go on about your friend Monkey--what is his name?”

“Puttler. He came yesterday.”

“To Chelford’s house?” asked Gilder in surprise.

“Yes,” nodded Thomas. “Alford pretended he is an accountant, but he’s a busy all right; I knew him the moment I saw him, and, what’s worse, he knew me. I’d come to Chelford’s service on a false character and I knew my number was up as soon as I saw his ugly phiz. Sure enough, last night Alford gave me notice, told me to clear out to-day. I’ll catch that bird one of these days,” he said, with an ugly look in his face.

“But why this morning?” asked Gilder.

“I was going to tell you,” said the other impatiently. “Chelford keeps a cash box in his library; it’s in the second left-hand drawer, and he’s generally got a wad of stuff there. He’s childish in the matter of money. I knew if I could get my hooks into the stuff I could lift enough to be happy, and leave enough behind so that Chelford couldn’t swear whether I’d had it or not. I got into the library about four this morning, and was going upstairs when Alford spotted me, told me to go up and dress and clear, which I did--he’s got something on his mind, that fellow, he never sleeps!”

“He caught you with the money?” asked Gilder in disgust.

“Not he--I shoved that out of the library window as soon as I got it. I picked it up later.”

“What was Mr. Alford doing, wandering about the house at that hour?”

The man made a grimace.

“You never know when that bird is around,” he said. “He’s not human; I tell you he doesn’t want sleep!”

Though Gilder was certain he was telling the truth, he was equally sure that the man was concealing something. There seemed to him to be gaps in his story, which he bridged readily enough. Wisely he decided that it was not the moment to cross-examine him. On one point he made up his mind. This man and he must part company, and soon.

“Why did you come here?”

“Thought you were in London,” said the other coolly. “I’ve been here before to see you, and I didn’t think you’d mind my using your house for a day or two--maybe a week or two,” he added, his eyes fixed on the other’s face.

Gilder scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“I don’t know that it will do me much good if it’s known that you’re an ex-convict.”

“They needn’t know, why should they?” said the other.

“Did you bring my car here?”

Thomas nodded.

“I was going over to Red Farm first; there’s a groom there who’s a friend of mine. Then I saw your car and thought something had happened to you. I waited for a time, and when you didn’t turn up I brought it along.”

“Did anybody see you?”

“Nobody. It was nearly dark.”

What was the man concealing? The impression that Gilder had--and he was a skilful reader of minds--was that Thomas was bursting with some vital information. Once or twice it had been at the end of his tongue, and he had inhibited the sensation.

“You can stay here if you like; I’m going to town. If I get a letter from the local police saying you’re living in the house, I shall write saying that you have no authority. You understand that I must protect myself?”

“I can understand that, guv’nor.”

Again his lips moved to speak, and again he checked himself.

“What do you want to tell me?”

“It’s too big to tell. I am going to keep it. Maybe if you come down later I’ll spin you a story that’s worth a million dollars.”

Thomas had once spent twelve months in a Canadian penitentiary, and it was his favourite pose that he was an American crook.

“A million dollars--yep!”

XXXII

Gilder poured out the tea, helped himself to biscuits, and, his hunger relieved, went into his room, and from a bureau took a complete change of clothes. The water was too cold for a bath, and he had a rub down with a rough towel as a substitute. He felt another man when shaved and clean and warm. He came back to Thomas, who was smoking a short briar pipe, peering into the fire.

“When you’ve decided to talk, you had better send me a wire--not from Chelfordbury but from Horsham.”

He wrote his address on a page of his notebook, tore it out and gave it to the man, then, cranking up his car, he went back through the dull morning to London.

At ten o’clock he was roused from a heavy sleep to answer the telephone. It was Mary Wenner, and he cursed her under his breath.

“Is that you, Fabe? I’ve been so worried about you all night, my dear. You didn’t go back to that awful place?”

“I’ll come and see you this afternoon,” he interrupted. “Don’t talk on the telephone: people can hear.”

“Fabe, dear”--there was a real note of anxiety in her voice--“you didn’t go back and get any of that gold, did you? I know you’re awfully brave, but I wouldn’t have you risk your life for the world.”

“No, I didn’t get any gold,” he said.

“Oh!” she replied, and in that “Oh!” was disappointment and annoyance. “It wasn’t so bad for you, a man,” she said, with some asperity in her tone. “Here I’ve been laying in bed all night thinking of you, and worrying about you----”

“I will see you this afternoon,” he rasped, and hung up on her.

He had no intention of seeing her that afternoon or any other afternoon, but in this matter his will was not the determining factor. Soon after tea, when he was preparing to go out, she walked into his dining-room unannounced. What she had told his servants, he shuddered to think. She passed swiftly across to him, stooped and kissed him chastely on the brow, and then seated herself by his side.

“Dear,” she said, and he closed his eyes patiently, “do you mind if I do something that seems a teeny-weeny bit deceitful?”

“I don’t mind----” he began.

“But this is something which affects your honour, dear.” Her sober eyes were fixed on his. “You must never think I’m not faithful to you and all that sort of thing, but he’s written to me such a pleading letter----”

“Who has written?” he asked, suddenly interested.

“Arthur. I’ve also had a letter from his sister; she wants me to go down and spend the week-end with them, and of course I’d much rather stay up here with you. But I feel I ought to have it out with Arthur and let him know that my affections are no longer his. After all, even if we didn’t get the fortune, I know that I’m dealing with a gentleman who doesn’t want me for my money alone. And you’re not exactly a pauper, are you, dear? I went and asked a young gentleman I know at Stubbs’ Agency, and they told me that you were worth at least a hundred thousand pounds.”

Gilder groaned.

“And I have your promise, in writing.”

“Yes, you’ve got everything, my dear Mary,” he said wearily.

“And, Fabe, dear, such a curious thing happened about that paper. When I took it from under my pillow this morning what do you think? All the writing had disappeared! You could have knocked me down with a feather.”

He stirred uneasily in his chair.

“That is most extraordinary,” he found words to say.

“I was so upset about it that I took it to a gentleman friend of mine, who’s in the conjuring business. You’ve probably seen him: he takes rabbits out of paper bags, and he says that you must have used invisible ink, and he showed me how to bring the writing back and make it permanent.”

“And did you?” asked Gilder hollowly.

“Why, of course I did, dear. You just squeeze a lemon, rub it over the paper and hold it in front of the fire.”

Gilder’s head reeled. All he could say was “Oh!” This was awkward--very awkward; but it was a difficulty that might easily be surmounted. At the worst he could buy her off for a thousand, and the promise of marriage was contingent.… Still it was a very unpleasant document to be produced even in a breach of promise case; for, strong in the faith of the invisible quality of his ink, he had made an agreement which was very damaging to himself.

“Are you going to stay with the Gwyns?”

“I think so, dear.” The hesitation was assumed, he knew; she had already made up her mind. “I really think that I ought to go. Arthur, of course, is a very old friend, and although he’s nothing to me, any more than the dirt beneath my feet, and I should no more think of throwing myself at his head than I should of flying to the moon--well, I feel I ought to go.”

“Then, for heaven’s sake, go!” he said curtly, and she murmured her thanks, and would have lingered on, but he accompanied her to the door and opened it very pointedly.

He gathered that, whilst she held him to his promise, she had not altogether lost hope of bringing Arthur Gwyn to heel.

She had hardly left the place before a telegraph boy arrived. Gilder was expecting a wire from one of his bookmaking businesses, now in process of liquidation, since their only client had passed from active operations. The telegram was addressed from a village five miles from Chelfordbury and ran:

Get down here as fast as you can. Big news for you.

It was signed “T.”

Would Thomas talk? And what had he to say?

XXXIII

The groom who brought Dick Alford’s horse to the door had a report to make.

“That fellow was seen last night, sir.”

“Which fellow is this?” asked Dick, as he swung into the saddle.

“The Black Abbot, sir. Gill, the gamekeeper up at Long Meadow Cottage, saw him at four o’clock this morning walking through the long meadow. By the time Gill got his gun he’d vanished.”

“And what was the Black Abbot doing in the Long Meadow?” asked Dick sardonically. “Picking buttercups?”

“It’s rather late for buttercups, sir,” said the unimaginative groom. “But Gill says that if he’d had his gun he’d have taken a pot at him.”