The Ashiel mystery Part 25

"I am absolutely sure we needn't fear anything of the sort, because I have the best of reasons for being positive that no one has the slightest inkling of the secret," Gimblet a.s.sured him. "There is a whole gang of scoundrels after the doc.u.ment of which your uncle told me, who are ready to spend any money, or risk any penalty, in order to obtain it. They will not be deterred even by having to pay for it with their lives. You may be quite sure that if anyone had suspected where it was concealed, it would not have been allowed to remain there, and we should find the cache empty. But we may safely argue that they have not found it, since in that case they certainly would not hang about the neighbourhood."

"Do you mean to say," cried Mark, "that you think there are any of these Nihilist people lurking about? That letter which came for Uncle Douglas-the letter from Paris-I guessed it meant something of the sort."

"There is a foreigner staying at Crianan," said Gimblet, "whom I have every reason to suspect. More than that, there has been a Russian in your very midst who, I am afraid, you will be shocked to hear, is hand in glove with him."

"Whom do you mean?" exclaimed Mark, "not-not Julia Romaninov?" It seemed to the detective that he winced as he uttered the name of the girl. Silently Gimblet bowed his head, and for a minute the two men stood without a word. "Then," stammered Mark, "you think that she-that she-Oh," he cried, "I can hardly believe that!"

Gimblet did not reply, but after a few moments walked over to the writing-table and spread out a piece of notepaper. He kept his back turned towards the young man, who seemed thankful for an opportunity to recover his composure.

His face was still working nervously, however, when at length the detective turned and held out a pen towards him.

"Will you not write at once to General Tenby?" he suggested.

Mark sat down before the blotting-pad.

"He will be at home," he said mechanically. "This weather will have driven them in early if they have been shooting."

The note was written and dispatched by a groom on horseback, and then Gimblet bade an revoir to his host at the door of the castle.

"I will go back to the cottage," he said; "I have an acc.u.mulation of correspondence that absolutely must be attended to, and I do not think there is anything to be done up here before General Tenby comes. Once we have the Nihilist papers in our hands I have a little plan by which I think our birds may be trapped. Will you meet me at the cottage at half-past six? The General will have to pa.s.s it on the way to Inverashiel, and we can stop him as he goes by."

"It will be about seven o'clock, I expect," said Mark, "when he gets down from Glenkliquart. I'll be with you before he is. The Lord knows how I shall get through the time till he comes. I loathe writing letters, but this afternoon I'm dashed if I don't almost envy you and your correspondence."

"I know it is the waiting that tells on one," Gimblet said, his voice full of kindly sympathy. "What you want is to get right away from this place. Its a.s.sociations must be horrible to you. No one could really be astonished if you never set foot in it again."

Mark laughed rather bitterly.

"That's just what I feel like," he said shortly. "My uncle killed; my cousin arrested; my friend accused. Miss Byrne refusing to let me behave decently to her about the money. Oh well," he pulled himself up, and spoke in a more guarded tone, "one gets used to everything in time, no doubt, but just at present, I'm afraid, I am rather depressing company. See you later."

They went their ways, Gimblet going forth into the drenching rain which was now falling down the road, through the soaking woodlands to the cottage, where the Crianan policemen still smoked their pipes undisturbed. Lady Ruth met him at the gate, running down in her waterproof when she saw him approaching.

"Where is Juliet?" she cried. "Wasn't she at Inverashiel?"

"Hasn't she come back?" asked Gimblet, answering her question by another.

"No sign of her. What can have happened? Mr. Gimblet, I am really getting dreadfully anxious. She must have gone on to the hills and lost her way in the mist."

"She is sure to get back in time," Gimblet tried to rea.s.sure her, though he himself was beginning to wonder at the girl's absence. "Perhaps," he added, "she is at Mrs. Clutsam's. I daresay that's the truth of it."

"She can't be there," Lady Ruth answered. "Mrs. Clutsam told me she was going out all day, to-day, to visit her husband's sister who is staying somewhere twenty miles from here on the Oban road, and longing, of course, to hear all about the murder at first hand. Relations are so exacting, and if they are relations-in-law they become positive Shylocks. Juliet may have gone to the lodge though, all the same, and stayed to keep the Romaninov girl company."

She seemed to be satisfied with this explanation; and Gimblet had tea with her, and then went to write his letters.

Soon after six one of the policemen went down to the high road to lie in wait for General Tenby, and about twenty minutes past the hour wheels rattled on the gravel of the short carriage-drive, and the General drove up to the door. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man of between fifty and sixty, with a red face and a keen blue eye, and a precise, jerky manner.

"Ah, Lady Ruth! Glad to see you bearing up so well under these tragic circ.u.mstances," he said, shaking hands with that lady, who came to the door to welcome him. "Poor Ashiel ought to have had shutters to his windows. Dreadful mistake, no shutters: lets in draughts and colds in the head, if nothing worse. These old houses are all the same. No safety in them from anything. Young McConachan wrote me an urgent note to come over. Don't quite see what for, but here I am. Eh? What do you say? Oh, detective from London, is it? How d'ye do? Perhaps you can tell me what the programme is?"

"Young Lord Ashiel promised to meet us here at half-past six," Gimblet told him. "We expect to put our hands on some important doc.u.ments, and I was anxious you should be present."

"Quite unnecessary. Absolutely ridiculous. Still, here I am. May as well come along."

The General went on talking to Lady Ruth, but after a few minutes the inspector from Crianan sent in to ask if he could speak to him, and they retired together to Lady Ruth's little private sitting-room, where they remained closeted for some time. While the old soldier was listening to what the policeman had to tell him, Gimblet began to show signs of restlessness. He went to the door and looked about him. The weather was clearing, the clouds breaking and scudding fast before a wind which had arisen in the North; a tinge of blue showed here and there in the interstices between them, while a veil of mist that trailed after them shone faintly orange in the rays of the hidden sun.

Gimblet went back and sat down in the drawing-room with the Scotsman in his hand. He put it down after a few minutes, however, and began fidgeting about the room. Then he went and conferred with the second of the two policemen, and as he was talking to him the General and the inspector reappeared.

"I think," said Gimblet, coming towards them, "that we will not wait any longer for Lord Ashiel."

General Tenby, staring at him with rather a strange expression, nevertheless silently a.s.sented, and the four men started on their walk to the green way.

As they went up the glen a ray of sunshine emerged from between the flying clouds, and fell upon the statue at the end of the enclosed glade. Away to the right their eyes could follow the track of a distant shower; and as they went a rainbow curved across the sky, stretching from hill to hill like some great monumental arch set up for the celestial armies to march under on their return from the conquest of the earth.

"That statue," Gimblet remarked to the General, who walked beside him, "is a specimen of the worst modern Italian sculpture. The figure of Pandora is modelled like a sack of potatoes; the composition is weak and unsatisfactory; and the pediment on which the whole group is poised large enough to support three others of the same size."

The General grunted.

"I always understood that the late Lord Ashiel knew what he was about," he said stiffly. "He told me himself that it cost him a great deal of money."

Gimblet sighed. He could not help feeling that it was a pity Lord Ashiel had not earlier fallen into the habit of consulting him.

Still, he was bound to admit that though the stone group, regarded as a work of art, was altogether deplorable, the general effect of the erection, in its rectangular setting of forest, was excellent. The whole scene was one of peaceful and romantic beauty. Poets might have sat themselves down in that moist and shining spot; and, forgetful of the possibilities of rheumatism, found their muse inspiring beyond the ordinary.

Gimblet was at heart something of a poet, but he felt no inclination to communicate the feelings which the place and hour aroused in him to any of his companions; and it was in a silence which had in it something dimly foreboding that the party drew near to the statue.

In silence, Gimblet approached the great block of stone and laid his hand upon the projecting horn of the bull. Equally silently the two policemen had taken up positions at the end of the pedestal; the General stood behind them, alert and interested.

After a swift glance, which took in all these details, Gimblet turned the horn round in its socket.

The hidden door swung open, and there was a sound of muttered exclamations from the police and a loud oath from the General. Gimblet sprang round the corner of the pedestal, and there, as he expected, cowering in the mouth of the disclosed cavity, and looking, in his fury of fear and mortification, for all the world like some trapped vermin, crouched Lord Ashiel, glaring at his liberators with a rage that was hardly sane.

Beyond him, on the floor at the back, they could see the tin dispatch box standing open and empty.

The two policemen, acting on instructions previously given them, made one simultaneous grab at the young man and dragged him into the open with several seconds to spare before the door slammed to again, in obedience to the invisible mechanism that controlled it. They set him on his legs on the wet turf, and stood, one on each side of him, a retaining hand still resting on either arm.

For a moment Mark gazed from the General to the detective, his eyes full of hatred. Then he controlled himself with an effort, and when he spoke it was with a forced lightness of manner.

"I have to thank you for letting me out," he said. "The air in there was getting terrible." He paused, and filled his lungs ostentatiously, but no one answered him. Losing something of his a.s.sumed calmness, he went on, uneasily: "I just thought I'd come along and see if there was any truth in Mr. Gimblet's story; and I was quite right to doubt it, since there isn't. He's not quite as clever as he thinks, for he was as positive as you like that my uncle's will was hidden here, but as a matter of fact it's not, as I was taking the trouble to make sure when that cursed statue shut me in. There's nothing in it of any sort except an empty tin box."

"There's nothing in it now," said Gimblet, speaking for the first time, "because I had no doubt you meant to destroy the will if you found it, so I removed it to a safe place last night. As for the other papers, I have sent them to London, where they will be still safer. I knew you would give yourself away by coming here. That's why I told you the secret of the bull's horn."

Mark's face was dreadful to see. He made a menacing step forward as if he would throw himself upon the detective. But the strong right hands of Inspector Cameron and Police Constable Fraser tightened on his arms and restrained his further action. He seemed for the first time to be conscious of their presence.

"Leave go of my arm," he shouted. "What the devil do you mean by putting your dirty hands on me?"

"My lord," said the inspector, "you had better come quietly. I am here to arrest you for the murder of your uncle, Lord Ashiel, and I warn you that anything you say may be used against you."

"Are you going to arrest the whole family?" scoffed Mark. "Where's your warrant, man?"

"I have it here, my lord," replied the inspector, fumbling in his pocket for the paper the astonished General had signed when the inspector had imparted to him, in Lady Ruth's little sitting-room, the information he had received from Mr. Gimblet.

As Inspector Cameron fumbled, the young man, with a sudden jerk which found them unprepared, threw off the hold upon his arms and leaped aside.