The Ashiel mystery Part 22

"Yes," repeated Lady Ruth. "Sometimes they call it 'The Way,' for short. It is a favourite place for picnics from Crianan. My cousin used to allow them to come here, and the place is generally made hideous with egg-sh.e.l.ls and paper and old bottles. One of the gardeners comes and tidies things up once a week in the summer. People are so absolutely without consciences."

"Is there a bull here?" cried Gimblet. He was quivering with excitement.

"Goodness gracious, I hope not!" said Lady Ruth. "Do you see any cattle?

I can't bear those long-horned Highlanders!"

"No," said Gimblet. "I thought perhaps-But what is the statue? The design, surely, is rather a strange one for the place."

"Most extraordinary," a.s.sented Lady Ruth. "He got it in Italy and had it sent the whole way by sea. It took all the king's horses and all the king's men to get it up here, I can tell you. And, as I say, nothing less apropos can one possibly imagine. That poor thin female with such very scanty clothing is hardly a cheerful object on a Scotch winter's day, and as for those little naked imps they would make anyone shiver, even in August."

They had drawn near the sculptured group. It consisted of the slightly draped figure of a girl, bending over an open box, or casket, from which a crowd of small creatures, apparently, as Lady Ruth had said, imps or fairies, were scrambling and leaping forth.

Gimblet gazed at it intently, as if he had never seen a statue before. In a moment his face cleared and he turned to Lady Ruth with burning eyes.

"It is Pandora," he cried. "Curiosity! Pandora and her box. Is it not Pandora?"

Lady Ruth stared at him amazed.

"I believe it is," she said, "that or something of the sort. I'm not very well up in mythology."

"Of course it is," cried Gimblet. "Face curiosity! And here's the bull, or I'll eat my microscope," he added, advancing to the side of the group and laying a hand upon the pedestal.

Lady Ruth followed his gaze with some concern. She was beginning to doubt his sanity. But there, sure enough, beneath his pointing finger, she perceived a row of carved heads: the heads of bulls, garlanded in the Roman manner, and forming a kind of cornice round the top of the great rectangular stone stand.

Gimblet glanced to right and left, up the glen and down it. There was no one to be seen. The sun had fallen by this time beneath the rim of the hills; a greyness of twilight was spread over the whole scene, and under the trees the dusk of night was already silently ousting the day. He turned once more to Lady Ruth.

"Lady Ruth," he said, "can you keep a secret?"

"My husband trusted me," she replied. "He was judicious as well as judicial."

"I am sure I may follow his example," Gimblet said, after looking at her fixedly for a moment. "So I will tell you that I believe I am on the point of discovering Lord Ashiel's missing will-and not that alone. Somewhere, concealed probably within a few feet of where we are standing, we may hope to find other and far more important doc.u.ments, involving, perhaps, not only the welfare of one or two individuals but that of kings and nations. Apart from that, and to speak of what most immediately concerns us at present, I am convinced that within this stone will be found the true clue to the author of the murder."

"You don't say so," gasped Lady Ruth, her round eyes rounder than ever.

"I found some directions in the handwriting of the murdered man," went on Gimblet, "which I could not understand at first. But their meaning is plain enough now. 'Take the bull by the horn,' he says. Well, here are the bulls, and I shall soon know which is the horn."

He walked round to the front of the statue, so that he faced the stooping figure of Pandora, and laid his hand upon one of the curved and projecting horns of the left-hand bull. Nothing happened, and he tried the next There were seven heads in all along the face of the great block, and he tested six of them without perceiving anything unusual. Was it possible that he was mistaken, and that, after all, the words of the message did not refer to the statue?

When he grasped the first horn of the last head, the hand that did so was shaking with excitement and suspense. It seemed, like the rest, to possess no attribute other than mere decoration. And yet, and yet-surely he had missed some vital point. He would go over them again. There remained, however, the last horn, and as he took hold of it with a premonitory dread of disappointment, he felt that it was loose in its socket, and that he could by an effort turn it completely over. With a triumphant cry he twisted it round, and at the same moment Lady Ruth started back with an exclamation of alarm.

She was standing where he had left her, and was nearly knocked down by the great slab of stone which, as Gimblet turned the horn of the bull, swung sharply out from the end of the pediment, till it hung like a door invitingly open and disclosing a hollow chamber within the stone.

Within the opening, on the floor at the far end, stood a large tin despatch-box.

The door was a good eighteen inches wide; plenty of room for Gimblet to climb in, swollen with exultation though he might be. In less than three seconds he had scrambled through the aperture and was stooping over the box. It seemed to be locked, but a key lay on the top of the lid. He lost no time in inserting it, and in a moment threw open the case and saw that it was full of papers.

Suddenly there was another cry from Lady Ruth as, for no apparent cause and without the slightest warning, the stone door slammed itself back into position, and he was left a prisoner in the total darkness of the vault. He groped his way to the doorway and pushed against it with all his strength. He might as well have tried to move the side of a mountain. But, after an interval long enough for him to have time to become seriously uneasy, the door flew open again, and the agitated countenance of Lady Ruth welcomed him to the outside world.

"Do get out quick," she cried. "If it does it again while you're half in and half out, you'll be cracked in two as neatly as a walnut."

Gimblet hurried out, clutching the precious box. No sooner was he safely standing on the turf than the door shut again with a violence that gave Pandora the appearance of shaking with convulsions of silent merriment.

"I wasn't sure how it opened," said Lady Ruth, "but I tried all the horns and got it right at last. How lucky I was with you!"

"Yes, indeed," said Gimblet. "I am very thankful you were."

They twisted the horn again, and stood together to watch the recurring phenomenon of the closing door.

"It must be worked by clockwork," the detective said, and taking out his watch he timed the interval that elapsed between the opening and shutting. "It stays open for thirty seconds," he remarked after two or three experiments. "No doubt the mechanism is concealed in the thickness of the stone. At all events it seems to be in good working order."

Squatting on the gra.s.s, he opened the tin box, and examined the papers with which it was filled. A glance showed him that they were what he expected, and he replaced the box where he had found it, while Lady Ruth manipulated the horn of the bull.

"I have no right to the papers," he explained to her, as they walked homeward in the gathering dusk. "It would be more satisfactory if a magistrate were present at the official opening of the statue, and I will see what can be done about that to-morrow. In the meantime, and considering that we have been interfering with other people's property, I shall be much obliged if you will keep our discovery secret."

And talking in low, earnest tones, he explained to her more fully all that was likely to be implied by the papers they had unearthed.

CHAPTER XVI

With her white paint and her scarlet smokestack, the Inverashiel-one of the two small steamers that during the summer months plied up and down the loch, and incidentally carried on communication between Inverashiel and Crianan-was a picturesque addition to the landscape, as she approached the wooden landing-stage that stood half a mile below the promontory on which the castle was built. It was the morning of Friday, the day following the funeral, and clouds were settling slowly down on to the tops and shoulders of the hills in spite of the brilliant sunset of the previous evening. The loch lay dark and still, its surface wore an oily, treacherous look; every detail of the Inverashiel's tub-like shape was reflected and beautifully distorted in the water, which broke in long low waves from her bows as she swerved round to come alongside the pier.

As the few pa.s.sengers who were waiting for her crossed the short gangway, a shower burst over the loch and in a few minutes had driven every one into the little cabin, except the two or three men who const.i.tuted the officers and crew of the steamer. One of these was in the act of slackening the rope by which the boat had been warped alongside, when a running, gesticulating figure appeared in the distance, shouting to them to wait for him.

Waited for accordingly he was; and in a few minutes Gimblet, rather out of breath after his run, hurried on board, and with a word of apology and thanks to the obliging skipper turned, like the other pa.s.sengers, towards the shelter of the cabin.

With his hand on the k.n.o.b of the door he hesitated. Through the gla.s.s top he had just caught sight of a figure that seemed familiar. He had seen that tweed before; the short girl with her back to him was wearing the dress in which he had seen her on the Wednesday night, searching among Lord Ashiel's papers in the library at the castle. It was Julia Romaninov beyond a doubt, and Gimblet drew back quickly and took up his position behind the funnels on the after-deck. In spite of the rain he remained there until the boat reached Crianan, leaning against the rail with his collar turned up and his soft felt hat pulled down over his ears, so that little of him was visible except the tip of his nose.

His mind, always active, was busier than usual as he watched the ripples roll away in endless succession from the sides of the Inverashiel-which looked so strangely less white on closer inspection-or followed the smooth soaring movements of the gulls that swooped and circled around her, as she puffed and panted on her way across the black, taciturn waters.

As they drew near to Crianan he concealed himself still more carefully behind a pile of crates, and not till Miss Romaninov had left the steamer did he emerge from his hiding-place and step warily off the boat.

The young lady was still in sight, making her way up the steep pitch of the main street, and the detective followed her discreetly, loitering before shop windows, as if fascinated by the display of Scottish homespuns, or samples of Royal Stewart tartan, and taking an extraordinary interest in fishing-tackle and trout-flies.

But, though the girl looked back more than once, the little man in the ulster who was so intent on picking his way between the puddles did not apparently provide her with any food for suspicion; and she made no attempt to see who was so carefully sheltered beneath the umbrella he carried.

At last they left: the cobble-stones of the little town and emerged upon the high road, which here ran across the open moorland.

It was difficult now to continue the pursuit un.o.bserved: and Gimblet became absorbed in the contemplation of an enormous cairngorm, which was masquerading as an article of personal adornment in the window of the last outlying shop.

From this position-not without its embarra.s.sments, since a couple of barefooted children came instantly to the door, where they stood and stared at him unblinkingly-he saw the Russian advancing at a rapid pace across the moor; and, look where he would, could perceive no means of keeping up with her un.o.bserved upon the bare side of the hill.

Just as he decided that the distance separating them had increased to an extent which warranted his continuing the chase, he joyfully saw her slacken her pace, and at the same moment a man, who must have been sitting behind a boulder beside the road, rose to his feet out of the heather, and came forward to meet her. For ten long minutes they stood talking, driving poor Gimblet to the desperate expedient of entering the shop and demanding a closer acquaintance with the cairngorm. It is humiliating to relate that he recoiled before it when it was placed in his hand, and nearly fled again into the road. However, he pulled himself together and held the proud proprietress, a gaunt, grey-haired woman with knitting-needles ever clicking in her dexterous hands, in conversation upon the theme of its unique beauties until the subject was exhausted to the point of collapse.

Every other minute he must stroll to the door and take a look up and down the road. A friend, he explained, had promised to meet him in that place; and though the shopwoman plainly doubted his veracity, and kept a sharp eye that he did not take to his heels with the cairngorm, she did not go so far as to suggest his removing himself from the zone of temptation.

At last, when for the twentieth time he put his nose round the doorpost, he saw that the pair had separated, and were walking in opposite directions, the girl continuing on her way, while the man returned to the town. He was, indeed, not a hundred yards off.