The Disentanglers Part 43

'I think,' said Merton, 'that these are emu's feathers; but, whether they are or not, they look like a clue. Still, I _think_ they are emu's feathers.'

'Why? The emu is not an indigenous bird.'

As he spoke, an idea--several ideas--flashed on Merton. He wished that he had held his peace. He put the little shreds into his pocket-book, rose, and donned his greatcoat. 'How cold it is!' he said. 'Logan, would you mind very much if I said no more just now about the feathers? I really have a notion--which may be a good one, or may be a silly one--and, absurd as it appears, you will seriously oblige me by letting me keep my own counsel.'

'It is d.a.m.ned awkward,' said Logan testily.

'Ah, old boy, but remember that "d.a.m.ned awkward" is a d.a.m.ned awkward expression.'

'You are right,' said Logan heartily; 'but I rose very early, I'm very tired, I'm rather savage. Let's go in and dine.'

'All right,' said Merton.

'I don't think,' said Logan, as they were entering the house, 'that I need keep these miners on sentry go any longer. The bird--the body, I mean--has flown. Whoever the fellows were that made these tracks, and however they got into and out of the house, they have carried the body away. I'll pay the watchers and dismiss them.'

'All right,' said Merton. 'I won't dress. I must return to town by the night train. No time to be lost.'

'No train to be caught,' said Logan, 'unless you drive or walk to Berwick from here--which you can't. You can't walk to Dunbar, to catch the 10.20, and I have nothing that you can drive.'

'Can I send a telegram to town?'

'It is four miles to the nearest telegraph station, but I dare say one of the sentinels would walk there for a consideration.'

'No use,' said Merton. 'I should need to wire in a cipher, when I come to think of it, and cipher I have none. I must go as early as I can to- morrow. Let us consult Bradshaw.'

They entered the house. Merton had a Bradshaw in his dressing-bag. They found that he could catch a train at 10.49 A.M., and be in London about 9 P.M.

'How are you to get to the station?' asked Logan. 'I'll tell you how,'

he went on. 'I'll send a note to the inn at the place, and order a trap to be here at ten. That will give you lots of time. It is about four miles.'

'Thank you,' said Merton; 'I see no better way.' And while Logan went to pay and dismiss the sentries and send a messenger, a grandson of the old butler with the note to the innkeeper, Merton toiled up the narrow turnpike stair to the turret chamber. A fire had been burning all day, and in firelight almost any room looks tolerable. There was a small four- poster bed, with slender columns, a black old wardrobe, and a couple of chairs, one of the queer antiquated little dressing-tables, with many drawers, and boxes, and a tiny basin, and there was a perfectly new tub, which Logan had probably managed to obtain in the course of the day.

Merton's evening clothes were neatly laid out, the shutters were closed, curtains there were none; in fact, he had been in much worse quarters.

As he dressed he mused. 'Cursed spite,' thought he, 'that ever I was born to be an amateur detective! And cursed be my confounded thirst for general information! Why did I ever know what _Kurdaitcha_ and _Interlinia_ mean? If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be! Suppose I drop the whole affair! But I've been a.s.s enough to let Logan know that I have an idea. Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'

Merton descended the turnpike stair, holding on to the rope provided for that purpose in old Scotch houses. He found Logan standing by the fire in the hall. They were waited on by the old man, Bower. By tacit consent they spoke, while he was present, of anything but the subject that occupied their minds. They had quite an edible dinner--c.o.c.k-a-leekie, brandered haddocks, and a pair of roasted fowls, with a mysterious sweet which was called a 'Hatt.i.t Kit.'

'It is an historical dish in this house,' said Logan. 'A favourite with our ancestor, the conspirator.'

The wine was old and good, having been laid down before the time of the late marquis.

'In the circ.u.mstances, Logan,' said Merton, when the old serving man was gone, 'you have done me very well.'

'Thanks to Mrs. Bower, our butler's wife,' said Logan. 'She is a truly remarkable woman. She and her husband, they are cousins, are members of an ancient family, our hereditary retainers. One of them, Laird Bower, was our old conspirator's go-between in the plot to kidnap the king, of which you have heard so much. Though he was an aged and ignorant man, he kept the secret so well that our ancestor was never even suspected, till his letters came to light after his death, and after Laird Bower's death too, luckily for both of them. So you see we can depend on it that this pair of domestics, and their family, were not concerned in this new abomination; so far, the robbery was not from within.'

'I am glad to hear that,' said Merton. 'I had invented a theory, too stupid to repeat, and entirely demolished by the footmarks in the snow, a theory which hypothetically implicated your old housekeeper. To be sure it did not throw any doubt on her loyalty to the house, quite the reverse.'

'What was your theory?'

'Oh, too silly for words; that the marquis had been only in a trance, had come to himself when alone with the old lady, who, the doctor said, was watching in the room, and had stolen away, to see how you would conduct yourself. Childish hypothesis! The obvious one, body-s.n.a.t.c.hing, is correct. This is very good port.'

'If things had been as you thought possible, Jean Bower was not the woman to balk the marquis,' said Logan. 'But you must see her and hear her tell her own story.'

'Gladly,' said Merton, 'but first tell me yours.'

'When I arrived I found the poor old gentleman unconscious. Dr. Douglas was in attendance. About noon he p.r.o.nounced life extinct. Mrs. Bower watched, or "waked" the corpse. I left her with it about midnight, as I told you; about four in the morning she aroused me with the news that the body had vanished. What I did after that you know. Now you had better hear the story from herself.'

Logan rang a handbell, there were no other bells in the keep, and asked the old serving-man, when he came, to send in Mrs. Bower.

She entered, a very aged woman, dressed in deep mourning. She was tall, her hair of an absolutely pure white, her aquiline face was drawn, her cheeks hollow, her mouth almost toothless. She made a deep courtesy, repeating it when Logan introduced 'my friend, Mr. Merton.'

'Mrs. Bower,' Logan said, 'Mr. Merton is my oldest friend, and the marquis saw him in London, and consulted him on private business a few days ago. He wishes to hear you tell what you saw the night before last.'

'Maybe, as the gentleman is English, he'll hardly understand me, my lord.

I have a landward tongue,' said Mrs. Bower.

'I can interpret if Mr. Merton is puzzled, Mrs. Bower, but I think he will understand better if we go to the laird's chamber.'

Logan took two lighted candles, handing two to Merton, and the old woman led them upstairs to a room which occupied the whole front of the ancient 'peel,' or square tower, round which the rest of the house was built. The room was nearly bare of furniture, except for an old chair or two, a bureau, and a great old bed of state, facing the narrow deep window, and standing on a kind of dais, or platform of three steps. The heavy old green curtains were drawn all round it. Mrs. Bower opened them at the front and sides. At the back against the wall the curtains, embroidered with the arms of Restalrig, remained closed.

'I sat here all the night,' said Mrs. Bower, 'watching the corp that my hands had streikit. The candles were burning a' about him, the saut lay on his breast, only aefold o' linen covered him. My back was to the window, my face to his feet. I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does nae guid, it does nae harm.' She recited in a monotone:

'When thou frae here away art past-- Every nicht and all-- To Whinny-muir thou comest at last, And Christ receive thy saul.

'If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon-- Every nicht and all-- Sit thee down and put them on, And Christ receive thy saul

'Alas, he never gave nane, puir man,' said the woman with a sob.

At this moment the door of the chamber slowly opened. The woman turned and gazed at it, frowning, her lips wide apart.

Logan went to the door, looked into the pa.s.sage, closed the door and locked it; the key had to be turned twice, in the old fashion, and worked with a creaking jar.

'I had crooned thae last words,

And Christ receive thy saul,

when the door opened, as ye saw it did the now. It is weel kenned that a corp canna lie still in a room with the door hafflins open. I rose to lock it, the catch is crazy. I was backing to the door, with my face to the feet o' the corp. I saw them move backwards, slow they moved, and my heart stood still in my breist. Then I saw'--here she stepped to the head of the bed and drew apart the curtains, which opened in the middle--'I saw the curtain was open, and naething but blackness ahint it.

Ye see, my Lord, ahint the bed-heid is the entrance o' the auld secret pa.s.sage. The stanes hae lang syne fallen in, and closed it, but my Lord never would have the hole wa'ed up. "There's nae draught, Jean, or nane to mention, and I never was wastefu' in needless repairs," he aye said.

Weel, when I looked that way, his face, down to the chafts, was within the blackness, and aye draw, drawing further ben. Then, I shame to say it, a sair dwawm cam ower me, I gae a bit chokit cry, and I kenned nae mair till I cam to mysel, a' the candles were out, and the chamber was mirk and lown. I heard the skirl o' a pa.s.sing train, and I c.r.a.p to the bed, and the skirl kind o' reminded me o' living folk, and I felt a' ower the bed wi' my hands. There was nae corp. Ye ken that the Enemy has power, when a corp lies in a room, and the door is hafflins closed.

Whiles they sit up, and grin and yammer. I hae kenned that. Weel, how long I had lain in the dwawm I canna say. The train that skirled maun hae been a coal train that rins by about half-past three in the morning.

There was a styme o' licht that streeled in at the open door, frae a candle your lordship set on a table in the lobby; the auld lord would hae nae lichts in the house after the ten hours. Sae I got to the door, and grippit to the candle, and flew off to your lordship's room, and the rest ye ken.'

'Thank you, very much, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan. 'You quite understand, Merton, don't you?'

'I thoroughly understand your story, Mrs. Bower,' said Merton.

'We need not keep you any longer, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan. 'n.o.body need sit up for us; you must be terribly fatigued.'