The Chestermarke Instinct Part 39

"Hollis and I walked about the paths in the wood for some time, discussing this affair. I asked at last what he proposed to do. He inquired if I thought the Chestermarkes would be keen about preserving their secret. I replied that in my opinion, seeing that they were highly respectable country-town bankers, chiefly doing business with ultra-respectable folk, they would be very sorry indeed to have it come out that they were also money-lenders in London, and evidently very extortionate ones. Hollis then said that that was his own opinion, and it would influence the line he proposed to take. He said that he had a cheque in his pocket, already made out for ten thousand pounds, and only requiring filling up with the names of payee and drawer; he would like to see Gabriel Chestermarke, tell him what he had discovered, offer him the cheque in full satisfaction of young Lester's liabilities to the Markham concern, and hint plainly that if his offer of it was not accepted, he would take steps which would show that Gabriel Chestermarke and G.o.dwin Markham were one and the same person.

"Now, I had no objection to this. I had not told you of it, Neale, but I had already determined to resign my position as manager at Chestermarke's. I had grown tired of it. I was going to resign as soon as I returned from my holiday. So I a.s.sented to Hollis's proposal, and offered to accompany him to the Warren--I don't mind admitting that I was a little--perhaps a good deal--eager to see how Gabriel would behave when he discovered that his double dealing was found out--and known to me. We therefore set off across Ellersdeane Hollow. I have been told while lying here that some of you found the pipe which you, Betty, gave me last Christmas, lying near the old tower--quite right. I lost it there that night, as I was showing Hollis the view, in the moonlight, from the top of the crags. I meant to pick it up as we returned, but what happened put it completely out of my mind.

"Hollis and I crossed the moor and the high road and went into the little lane, or carriage-drive, which leads to the Warren. Half-way down it we met Joseph Chestermarke. He was coming away from the Warren--from the garden. He, of course, wanted to know if we were going to see his uncle. I told him that my companion, Mr. Frederick Hollis, a London solicitor, had come specially from town to see Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke, and that, being an old friend of mine, he had first come to see me.

Joseph therefore said that we were too late to find his uncle at home: Gabriel, he went on, had been suffering terribly from insomnia, and, by his doctor's advice, he was trying the effect of a long solitary walk every night before going to bed, and he had just started out over the moor at the back of his house. Turning to Hollis, he asked if he could do anything--was his visit about banking business?

"Now I determined to settle at once the question as to Joseph's partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of the Conduit Street concern. Before Hollis could reply, I spoke. I said, 'Mr. Hollis wishes to see your uncle on the affairs of Lieutenant Lester and the G.o.dwin Markham loans.'

I watched Joseph closely. The moonlight was full on his face. He started--a little. And he gave me a swift, queer look which was gone as quickly as it came--it meant 'So you know!' Then he answered in quite an a.s.sured, off-hand manner, 'Oh, I know all about that, of course! I can deal with it as well as my uncle could. Come back across the moor to my house--we'll have a drink, and a cigar, and talk it over with Mr.

Hollis.'

"I nudged Hollis's arm, and we turned back with Joseph towards Scarnham, crossing the Hollow in another direction, by a track which leads straight from a point exactly opposite the Warren to the foot of Scarnham Bridge, near the wall of Joseph Chestermarke's house. It is not a very long way--half an hour's sharp walk. We did not begin talking business--as a matter of fact, Hollis began talking about the curious nature of that patch of moorland and about the old lead-mines. And when we were nearly half-way, the affair happened which, I suppose, led to all that has happened since. It--gave Joseph Chestermarke an opening.

"Having lost my pipe, and being now going in a different direction from that necessary to recover it, I had nothing to smoke. Joseph Chestermarke offered me a cigar. He opened his case. I was taking a cigar from it when Hollis stepped aside to one of the old shafts which stood close by, and resting his hands on the parapet leaned over the coping, either to look down or to drop something down. Before we had grasped what he was doing, certainly before either of us could cry out and warn him, the parapet completely collapsed before him and he disappeared into the mine! He was gone in a second--with just one scream. And after that--we heard nothing.

"We hurried to the place and got as near as we dared. Joseph Chestermarke dropped on his hands and knees, and peered over and listened. There was not a sound--except the occasional dropping of loosened pebbles. And we both knew that in that drop of seventy or eighty feet, Hollis must certainly have met his death.

"We hastened away to the town--to summon a.s.sistance. I don't think we had any very clear ideas, except to tell the police, and to see if we could get one of the fire brigade men to go down. I was in a dreadful state about the affair. I felt as though some blame attached to me. By the time we reached the bridge I felt like fainting. And Joseph suggested we should go in through his garden door to his workshop--he had some brandy there, he said--it would revive me. He took me in, up the garden, and into the workshop: I dropped down on a couch he had there, feeling very ill. He went to a side table, mixed something which looked--and tasted--like brandy and soda, brought it to me, and bade me drink it right off. I did so--and within I should say a minute, I knew nothing more.

"The next I knew I awoke in pitch darkness, feeling very ill. It was some little time before I could gather my wits together. Then I remembered what had happened. I felt about--I was lying on what appeared to be a couch or small bed, covered with rugs. But there was something strange--apart from the darkness and the silence. Then I discovered that I was chained!--chained round my waist, and that the chain had other chains attached to it. I felt along one of them, then along the other--they terminated in rings in a wall.

"I can't tell you what I felt until daylight came--I knew, however, that I was at Joseph Chestermarke's--perhaps at Gabriel's--mercy. I had discovered their secret--Hollis was out of the way--but what were they going to do with me? Oddly enough, though I had always had a secret dislike of Gabriel, and even some sort of fear of him, believing him to be a cruel and implacable man, it was Joseph that I now feared. It was he who had drugged and trapped me without a doubt. Why? Then I remembered something else. I had told Joseph--but not Gabriel--about my temporary custody of Lady Ellersdeane's jewels, and he knew where they were safely deposited at the bank--in a certain small safe in the strong room, of which he had a duplicate key.

"I found myself--when the light came--in a small room, or cell, in which was a bed, a table, a chair, a dressing-table, evidently a retreat for Joseph when he was working in his laboratory at night. But I soon saw that it was also a strong room. I could hear nothing--the silence was terrible. And--eventually--so was my hunger. I could rise--I could even pace about a little--but there was no food there--and no water.

"I don't know how long it was, nor when it was, that Joseph Chestermarke came. But when he came, he brought his true character with him. I could not have believed that any human being could be so callous, so brutal, so coldly indifferent to another's sufferings. I thought as I listened to him of all I had heard about that ancestor of his who had killed a man in cold blood in the old house at the bank--and I knew that Joseph Chestermarke would kill me with no more compunction, and no less, than he would show in crushing a beetle that crossed his path.

"His cruelty came out in his frankness. He told me plainly that he had me in his power. n.o.body knew where I was--n.o.body could get to know. His uncle knew nothing of the Hollis affair--no one knew. No one would be told. His uncle, moreover, believed I had run away with convertible securities and Lady Ellersdeane's jewels--he, Joseph, would take care that he and everybody should continue to think so. And then he told me cynically that he had helped himself to the missing securities and to the jewels as well--the event of Sat.u.r.day night, he said, had just given him the chance he wanted, and in a few days he would be out of this country and in another, where his great talent as a chemist and an inventor would be valued and put to grand use. But he was not going empty-handed, not he!--he was going with as much as ever he could rake together.

"And it was on that first occasion that he told me what he wanted of me.

You know, Neale, that I am trustee for two or three families in this town. Joseph knew that I held certain securities--deposited in a private safe of mine at the bank--which could be converted into cash in, say, London, at an hour's notice. He had already helped himself to them, and had prepared a doc.u.ment which only needed my signature to enable him to deal with them. That signature would have put nearly a quarter of a million into his pocket.

"He used every endeavour to make me sign the paper which he brought. He said that if I would sign, he would leave an ample supply of the best food and drink within my reach, and that I should be released within thirty-six hours, by which time he would be out of England. When I steadily refused he had recourse to cruelty. Twice he beat me severely with a dog-whip; another time he a.s.saulted me with hands and feet, like a madman. And then, when he found physical violence was no good, he told me he would slowly starve me to death. But he was doing that all along.

The first three days I had nothing but a little soup and dry bread--the remaining part of the time, nothing but dry bread. And during the last two days, I knew that there was something in that bread which sent me off into long, continued periods of absolute unconsciousness. And--I was glad!

"That's all. You know the rest--better than I do. I don't know yet how that explosion came about. He had been in to me only a few minutes before it happened, badgering me again to sign that authority. And--I felt myself weakening. Flesh and blood were alike at their end of endurance. Then--it came! And as I say, that's all!--but there's one thing I wanted to ask you. Have those jewels been found?"

"Yes!" replied Neale. "They were found--all safe--in a suit-case in Joseph's house, along with a lot of other valuables--money, securities, and so on. He was evidently about to be off; in fact, the luggage was all ready, and so was a cab which he'd ordered, and in which he was presumably going to Ellersdeane."

"And another thing," said Horbury, turning from one to the other, "I heard this morning that you'd left the Bank, Neale. What are you going to do? What has happened?"

Betty looked at Neale warningly, stooped over the invalid, kissed him, rose and took Neale's unwounded arm.

"No more talk today, Uncle John!" she commanded. "Wait until tomorrow.

Then--if you're very good--we shall perhaps tell you what is going to happen to--both of us!"

THE END