Begumbagh Part 18

"It is very strange," I thought, for I had not seen him go out; and then, all at once I gave quite a start, for I felt that he must have done what Sir John had told him to do--gone.

"That won't do," I said directly after. "He wouldn't have gone like that;" and I went straight to Sir John's room and told him, as in duty bound, what I had found out, for Mr Barclay was not the young man to be fast and stop out of nights and want the servants to screen him. There was something wrong, I felt sure, and so I said.

"No," said the old gentleman, as he sat up in bed, and then began to dress; "he wouldn't go at my wish; but that girl over the way is playing with him, and he is too proud to stand it any longer, besides being mortified at making such an a.s.s of himself. There's nothing wrong, Burdon. He has gone, and a good job too."

Of course, I couldn't contradict my master; but I went up and examined Mr Barclay's room, to find nothing missing, not so much as a shirt or a pair of socks, only his crush-hat, and the light overcoat from the bra.s.s peg in the front hall; and I shook my head.

Miss Virginia looked paler than ever at breakfast; but nothing more was said up-stairs. Of course, the servants gossiped; and as it was settled that Mr Barclay had done what his father had told him, a week pa.s.sed away, and matters settled down with Miss Adela Mimpriss sitting at the window just as usual, doing worsted-work, and the old house looking as grim as ever, and as if a bit of paint and a man to clean the windows would have been a blessing to us all.

Every time the postman knocked, Miss Virginia would start; and her eyes used to look so wild and large, that when I'd been to the little box and found nothing from Mr Barclay, I used to give quite a gulp; and many's the time I've stood back in the dining-room and shook my fist at Miss Adela sitting so smooth and handsome at the opposite house, and wished she'd been at the world's end before she came there.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER SEVEN.

A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.

Mr Barclay had been gone three weeks, and no news from him; and I was beginning to think that he had gone off in a huff all at once, though I often wondered how he would manage for want of money, when one night, as I sat nursing Tom, I thought I'd look through my desk, that I hadn't opened for three or four years, and have a look at a few old things I'd got there--a watch Sir John gave me, but which I never wore; six spade-ace guineas; and an old gold pin, beside a few odds and ends that I'd had for a many years; and some cash. Tom didn't seem to like it, and he stared hard at the desk as I took it on my knees, opened it, lifted one of the flaps, and put my hand upon the old paper which contained the statement about the old gold plate. No; I did not. I put my hand on the place where it ought to have been; but it wasn't there.

"I must have put it in the other side," I said to myself; and I opened the other lid.

Then I turned cold, and ran my hand here and there, wild-like, to stop at last with my mouth open, staring. The paper was gone! So was the money, and every article of value that I had h.o.a.rded up.

For a few minutes I was too much stunned even to think; and when at last I could get my brain to work, I sat there, feeling a poor, broken, weak old man, and I covered my face with my hands and cried like a child.

"To think of it!" I groaned at length--"him so handsome and so young-- him whom I'd always felt so proud of--proud as if he'd been my own son.

Why, it would break his father's heart if he knew. It's that woman's doing," I cried savagely. "She turned his head, or he'd never have done such a cruel, base, bad act as to rob a poor old man like me." For I'd recollected lending Mr Barclay my keys, and I felt that sooner than ask his father for money, he had taken what he could find, and gone. "Let him!" I said savagely at last. "But he needn't have stolen them. I'd have given him everything I'd got. I'd have sold out the hundred pounds I've got in the bank and lent him that. But he didn't know what he was doing, poor boy. That woman has turned his brain."

"Ah, well!" I said at last bitterly, "it's my secret. Sir John shall never know. He trusted me with one, and now his son--" I stopped short there, for I recollected the paper, and fell all of a tremble, thinking of that gold plate, and that some one else knew of its hiding-place now; and I asked myself what I ought to do. For a long time I struggled; but at last I felt that, much as I wanted to hide Mr Barclay's cruelly mean act, I must not keep this thing a secret. "It's my duty to tell my master," I said at last, "and I must." So I went up to where Sir John was sitting alone, pretending to enjoy his wine, but looking very yellow and old and sunken of face. "He's fretting about Master Barclay," I said to myself, and I felt that I could not tell him that the lad had taken my little treasures, but that he must know about the paper, so I up and told him only this at once; and that's why he said I was an old fool, and that it was all my fault.

"You old fool!" he cried excitedly, "what made you write such a paper?

It was like telling all the world."

"I thought it would be so shocking, Sir John, if we were both to die and the things were forgotten."

"Shocking? Be a good job," he cried. "A man who has a lot of gold in his care is always miserable.--Taken out of your desk, you say. When?"

"Ah, that I can't tell, Sir John. It might have been done years ago, for aught I know."

"And the old gold plate all stolen and melted down, and spent. Here have I been thinking you a trustworthy man. There; we must see to it at once. I shan't rest till I know it is safe."

It seemed to me then that he s.n.a.t.c.hed at the chance of finding something to do to take his attention off his trouble, for when I asked him if I should get a bricklayer to come in, he turned upon me like a lion.

"Burdon," he said, "we'll get this job done, and then I shall have to make arrangements for you to go into an imbecile ward."

"Very good, Sir John," I said patiently.

"Very good!" he cried, laughing now. "There; be off, and get together what tools you have, and as soon as the servants have gone to bed, we'll go and open the old cellar ourselves."

STORY TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE SIGNET RING.

It was exactly twelve o'clock by the chiming timepiece in the hall.

Just the hour for such a task, I felt with a sort of shiver, as Sir John came down to the pantry, where I had candles ready, and a small crowbar used for opening packing-cases, and a screw-driver.

"Everybody seems quiet up-stairs, Burdon," says Sir John, "so let's get to work at once.--But, hillo! just put out a lamp?"

"No, Sir John," I said. "I often smell that now; but I've never been able to make out what it is."

"Humph! Strange," he says; and then we went straight to the cellar, the great baize door at the top of the kitchen steps being shut; and directly after we were standing on the damp sawdust with the bins of wine all round.

"It hasn't been touched, apparently, and there seems to be no need; but I should like to see if it is all right. But we shall never get through there, Burdon," he says, looking at the bricked-up wall, across the way to the inner cellar.

"I don't know," I said, taking off my coat and rolling up my sleeves, to find that though the highest price had been paid for that bricklaying, the cheat of a fellow who had the job had used hardly a bit of sand and bad lime, so that, after I had loosened one brick and levered it out, all the others came away one at a time quite clear of the mortar.

"Never mind," says Sir John. "Out of evil comes good. I'll try that sherry too, Burdon, and we'll put some fresh in its place. But if that's left twenty years, we shall never live to taste it, eh?"

I shook my head sadly as I worked away in that arch, easily reaching the top bricks, which were only six feet from the sawdust; and, as is often the case, what had seemed a terrible job proved to be easy.

"There," he says; "the place will be sweeter now. We'll just have a glance at the old chests, and then we must build up the empty bottles again. To-morrow, I'll order in some more wine--for my son."

He said that last so solemnly that I looked up at him as he stood there with the light shining in his eyes.

"As'll come back some day, sorry for the past, Sir John," I said, "and ready to do what you wish."

"Please G.o.d, Burdon!" he says, bowing his head for a bit. Then he looked up quite sharply, and took a candle, and I the other. "Come along," he says in his old, quiet, stern way; and I was half afraid I had offended him, as he stepped in at the opening and stood at the mouth of the inner cellar. Then I heard him give a sharp sniff; and I smelt it too--that same odour of burnt oil. We neither of us spoke as we walked over the damp black sawdust, both thinking of the likelihood of foul air being in the place; but we found we could breathe all right; and as we held up the candles, the light shone on the black-looking old chests, every one with its padlocks and seals all right, just as we had left them all those years before.

I looked up at Sir John, and he gave me a satisfied nod as he tried one of the seals, and then we both stood as if turned to stone, for from just at my feet there came a dull knocking sound, and as I looked down, I could see the black sawdust shake.

What I wanted to do was to run, for I felt that the place was haunted; but I couldn't move, and when I looked at Sir John, he was holding up his right hand, as if to order me to be silent. Then he held his candle down, for there was another sound, but this time more of a grinding cracking in a dull sort of way, just as if some one was forcing an iron chisel in between the joints of the stones. Then there was a long pause, and I half thought it had been fancy; but soon after, as I stood there hardly able to breathe, the sawdust just in one place was heaved up about an inch.

I was terribly alarmed, not knowing what to think; but Sir John was brave as brave, and he signed to me not to speak, and stood watching till there was a dull cracking sound, the sawdust was heaved up again, and all at once I seemed to get a hot puff of that burnt oily smell right in my nose. Then I began to understand, and felt afraid in a different fashion, as I knew that we had only got there just in time.

The next minute Sir John made a movement toward me, took my candle and turned it upside down, so that it went out, and then pointed back toward the outer cellar, as he put his lips to my ear:

"Iron bar!"

I stepped back softly, and got the iron bar from where it lay on the edge of a bin, and I was about to pick up the screw-driver, when I remembered where the wooden mallet lay, and I picked up that before stepping softly back to where Sir John was watching the floor; and now I could see that the sawdust was higher in one place, as if a flagstone had been heaved up a little at one end.

There was no doubt about it, for, as I handed the crowbar, the end of the stone was wrenched up a little higher and then stuck; for it was tightly held by those on either side; but it was up far enough to let a thin ray of dull light come up through the floor and shine on the side of one of the old chests.

It was a curious scene there, in that gloomy cellar: Sir John standing on one side, candle in his left, the iron bar in his right hand, and me on the other bending down ready with the mallet to hit over the head the first that should come up through the floor. For, though horribly alarmed, I could understand now what it all meant--an attempt to steal the gold in the chests, though how those who were working below had managed to get there was more than I could have said.

As we watched, the smell of the burnt oil came through, and I knew that it must have been going on for a long time.

All at once we could hear a low whispering, and then there was a grinding noise of iron against stone; the flag gritted and gave a little, but it held fast all along; and I could understand that the man who was trying to wrench it up had no room to work, and therefore no power to wrench up the stone. Then came the faint whispering again, and it seemed to sound hollow. Then another grinding noise, and the end of the flag was moved a trifle higher, so that the line of light on the old chest looked two or three inches broad.