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30 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
Jerramy, thirty years' stage-door keeper at the Theatre Royal, Norcaster, had come to regard each successive Monday morning as a time for the renewal of old acquaintance. For at any rate forty-six weeks of the fifty-two, theatrical companies came and went at Norcaster with unfailing regularity. The company which presented itself for patronage in the first week of April in one year was almost certain to present itself again in the corresponding week of the next year. Sometimes new faces came with
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
The three men stood for a while silently looking at each other. Copplestone, as a stranger, secretly wondered why the two managers seemed so concerned; to him a delay of half an hour in keeping an appointment did not appear to be quite as serious as they evidently considered it. But he had never met Bassett Oliver, and knew nothing of his ways; he only began to comprehend matters when Rothwell turned to Stafford with an air of decision. "Look here!" he said. "You'd better go and make inquiry at
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
It was not from any idle curiosity that Copplestone made up his mind to await the girl's nearer approach. There was no other human being in view, and he was anxious to get some information about the rocks whose grim outlines were rapidly becoming faint and indistinct in the gathering darkness. And so as the girl came towards him, picking her way across the pools which lay amidst the brown ribs of sand, he went forward, throwing away all formality and reserve in his eagerness. "Forgive me for spe
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Copplestone had kept a sharp watch on Marston Greyle and his cousin when they walked off, and he had seen that they had parted at a point a little farther along the shore road—the man turning up into the wood, the girl going forward along the quay which led to the other half of the village. He quickened his pace and followed her, catching her up as she came to a path which led towards the old church. At the sound of his hurrying steps she turned and faced him, and he saw in the light of a cottag
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
If Copplestone had followed his first natural impulse, he would have laughed aloud at this solemnly propounded question: as it was, he found it difficult to content himself with a smile. "Isn't it a little early to arrive at any conclusion, of any sort, Mr. Chatfield?" he asked. "You haven't made up your own mind, surely?" Chatfield pursed up his long thin lips and shook his head, continuing to stare fixedly at Copplestone. "Now I may have, and I may not have, mister," he said at last, suddenly
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Copplestone looked up with interest as the door of the private parlour was thrown open, and a tall, handsome young woman burst in with a briskness of movement which betokened unusual energy and vivacity. He got an impression of the old estate agent's daughter in one glance, and wondered how Chatfield came to have such a good-looking girl as his progeny. The impression was of dark, sparkling eyes, a mass of darker, highly-burnished hair, bright colour, a flashing vivacious smile, a fine figure, a
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Stafford was back at Scarhaven before breakfast time next morning, bringing with him a roll of copies of the Norcaster Daily Chronicle , one of which he immediately displayed to Copplestone and Mrs. Wooler, who met him at the inn door. He pointed with great pride to certain staring headlines. "I engineered that!" he exclaimed. "Went round to the newspaper office last night and put them up to everything. Nothing like publicity in these cases. There you are! That's the style, Copplestone!—every hu
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The look of blank astonishment which spread over Copplestone's face on hearing this announcement seemed to afford his companion great amusement, and she laughed merrily as she signed to him to turn back towards the woods. "All the same," she observed, "I know how to steal a countermarch on Master Chatfield. Come along!—you shan't be disappointed." "Does your cousin know of that?" asked Copplestone. "Are those his orders?" Audrey's lips curled a little, and she laughed again—but this time the lau
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Copplestone carried the queer-looking missive into his private sitting-room and carefully examined it, back and front, before slitting it open. The envelope was of the cheapest kind, the big splotch of red wax at the flap had been pressed into flatness by the summary method of forcing a coarse-grained thumb upon it; the address was inscribed in ill-formed characters only too evidently made with difficulty by a bad pen, which seemed to have been dipped into watery ink at every third or fourth let
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Spurge and his visitor sat staring at each other in silence for a few minutes; the silence was eventually broken by Copplestone. "Of course," he said reflectively, "if Mr. Oliver was looking round those ruins he could easily spend half an hour there." "Just so," agreed Spurge. "He could spend an hour. If so be as he was one of these here antiquarian-minded gents, as loves to potter about old places like that, he could spend two hours, three hours, profitable-like. But he'd have come out in the e
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
By the time Copplestone and the pseudo-curate had reached the plateau of open ground surrounding the ruins it seemed as if half the population of Scarhaven had gathered there. Men, women and children were swarming about the door in the curtain wall, all manifesting an eager desire to pass through. But the door was strictly guarded. Chatfield, armed with a new oak cudgel stood there, masterful and lowering; behind him were several estate labourers, all keeping the people back. And within the door
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Copplestone saw little of his bed that night. At seven o'clock in the evening came a telegram from Sir Cresswell Oliver, saying that he and Petherton were leaving at once, would reach Norcaster soon after midnight, and would motor out to Scarhaven immediately on arrival. Copplestone made all arrangements for their reception, and after snatching a couple of hours' sleep was up to receive them. By two o'clock in the morning Sir Cresswell and the old solicitor and Gilling—smuggled into their sittin
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Amongst the little group of actors and actresses who had come over from Norcaster to hear all that was to be told concerning their late manager, sat an old gentleman who, hands folded on the head of his walking cane, and chin settled on his hands, watched the proceedings with silent and concentrated attention. He was a striking figure of an old gentleman—tall, distinguished-looking, handsome, with a face full of character, the strong lines and features of which were further accentuated by his si
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters—one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certainly not written the other two. The letter which Audrey had handed to Mr. Dennie was penned in the style commonly known as commercial—plain, commonplace, utterly lacking in the characteristics which are supposed to denote imagination and a sense of artistry. It was the sort of caligraphy which one co
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
The two younger men received this announcement with no more than looks of astonished inquiry, but the elder one coughed significantly, had further recourse to his snuff-box and turned to Mrs. Greyle with a knowing glance. "My dear lady!" he said impressively. "Now this is a matter in which I believe I can be of service—real service! You may have forgotten the fact—it is all so long ago—and perhaps I never mentioned it in the old days—but the truth is that before I went on the stage, I was in the
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Sir Cresswell Oliver took the cablegram from Petherton and read it over slowly, muttering the precise and plain wording to himself. "Don't you think, Petherton, that we had better get a clear notion of our exact bearings?" he said as he laid it back on the solicitor's desk. "Seems to me that the time's come when we ought to know exactly where we are. As I understand it, the case is this—rightly or wrongly we suspect the present holder of the Scarhaven estates. We suspect that he is not the right
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
Gilling's cheerful optimism was the sort of desirable quality that is a good thing to have, but all the optimism in the world is valueless in face of impregnable difficulty. And the difficulty of tracing Chatfield and his sick companion in a city the size of Bristol did indeed seem impregnable when Gilling and Copplestone had been attacking it for twenty-four hours. They had spent a whole day in endeavouring to get news; they had gone in and out of hotels until they were sick of the sight of one
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Gilling's glance at his companion was quiet enough, but it spoke volumes. Here, by sheer chance, was such a revelation as they had never dreamed of hearing!—here was the probable explanation of at least half the mystery. He turned composedly to the landlady. "I've already told you who and what I am," he said, pointing to the card which he had handed to her. "There are certain mysterious circumstances about this affair which I want to get at. What you've said just now is abundant evidence that yo
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Copplestone had seen and learned enough of Audrey Greyle during his brief stay at Scarhaven to make him assured that she would not have sent for him save for very good and grave reasons. It had been with manifest reluctance that she had given him her promise to do so: her entire behaviour during the conference with Mr. Dennie and Gilling had convinced him that she had an inherent distaste for publicity and an instinctive repugnance to calling in the aid of strangers. He had never expected that s
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Vickers sprang back at that door as the sharp click of the turning key caught his ear, and Copplestone, preceding him and following Audrey, who had advanced fearlessly into the cabin, pulled himself up with a sudden, sickening sense of treachery. The two young men looked at each other, and a dead silence fell on them and the girl. Then Vickers laid his hand on the door and shook it. "Locked in!" he muttered with a queer glance at his companions. "What does that mean?" "Nothing good!" growled Cop
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
To each of these three young people this was the most surprising moment which life had yet afforded. It was an astonishing thing to find a fellow mortal there at all, but to find that mortal was the Scarhaven estate agent was literally short of marvellous. What was also astounding was to see Chatfield's only too evident distress. Swathed in a heavy, old-fashioned ulster, with a plaid shawl round his shoulders and a deerstalker hat tied over head and ears with a bandanna handkerchief he sat on th
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Half-an-hour later, when Vickers regained the top of the cliff and once more looked across the island towards the far-off point, the figure which he had previously seen making for it had turned back, and was plodding steadily across the coarse grass and rock-strewn moorland in his own direction. Chatfield had evidently taken a bird's eye view of the situation from the vantage point of the slope and had come to the conclusion that the higher part of the island was the most likely point from which
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
Chatfield, his arms filled with masses of dried bracken and coarse grass, turned sharply on hearing Vickers's call and stared hard and long in the direction which the young solicitor pointed out. His small, crafty eyes became dilated to their full extent—suddenly they contracted again with a look of cunning satisfaction, and throwing away his burdens he drew out a big many-coloured handkerchief and mopped his high forehead as if the perspiration which burst out were the result of intense mental
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
Before Vickers and his companions had recovered from the surprise which this extraordinary cool message had given them, the men had bundled Chatfield across the beach and into the boat and were pulling quickly back to the Pike . Audrey broke the silence with a ringing laugh. "Captain Andrius is certainly the perfection of polite pirates," she exclaimed. "More food—more wraps—and books and papers! Was any marooned mariner ever one-half so well treated?" "What's the fellow mean about no vessel pas
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
Such of the folk of the "Angel" hotel—a night porter, a waiter, a chamber-maid—as were up and about that grey morning, wondered why the two old gentlemen who had arrived from London the day before should rise from their beds to hold a secret and mysterious conference with the three young ones who, with a charming if tired-looking young lady, drove up before the city clocks had struck six. But Sir Cresswell Oliver and Mr. Petherton knew that there was no time to be lost, and as soon as Audrey had
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
Zachary Spurge, presently ushered in by Gilling, who carefully closed the door behind himself and his companion, looked as if his recent lodging had been of an even rougher nature than that in which Copplestone had found him at their first meeting. The rough horseman's cloak in which he was buttoned to the edge of a red neckerchief and a stubbly chin was liberally ornamented with bits of straw, scraps of furze and other odds and ends picked up in woods and hedge-rows. Spurge, indeed, bore unmist
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
Gilling took the message from Sir Cresswell and thoughtfully read it over. Then he handed it back and motioned the old seaman to look at Spurge. "I think you ought to know what this man has just told us, sir," he said. "We've got a story from him that exactly fits in with what Chatfield told Mr. Vickers when the Pike returned to carry him off yesterday. Chatfield, you'll remember, said that the gold he'd withdrawn from the bank is hidden somewhere—well, there's no doubt that this man Zachary Spu
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
The man was lying face downwards in the grass and weeds which clustered thickly at the foot of the hedgerow, and on the line of rough, weatherbeaten neck which showed between his fur cap and his turned-up collar there was a patch of dried blood. Very still and apparently lifeless he looked, but Vickers suddenly bent down, laid strong hands on him and turned him over. "He's not dead!" he exclaimed. "Only unconscious from a crack on his skull. Gilling!—where's that brandy you brought?—hand me the
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
The quiet place was a narrow alley, which opening out of the Market Square in which the car had come to a halt, suddenly twisted away into a labyrinth of ancient buildings that lay between the centre of the town and the river. Not until Spurge had conducted Copplestone quite away from their late companions did he turn and speak; when he spoke his words were accompanied by a glance which suggested mystery as well as confidence. "Guv'nor!" he said. "What's going to be done?" "Have you pulled me do
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
Spurge led Copplestone a little way up the narrow alley from the mouth of which they had observed the recent proceedings, suddenly turned off into a still narrower passage, and emerged at the rear of an ancient building of wood and stones which looked as if a stout shove or a strong wind would bring it down in dust and ruin. "Back o' that old sail-loft what looks out on this cut," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder at Copplestone. "Now, guv'nor, we're going in here. As I said before, I've
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