The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story Page 19

  CHAPTER XIX

  When Juliet, incensed and indignant at the Russian's behaviour,discovered the door in the clock and was on the point of opening itand making her presence known, a noise of steps in the passage madeher pause. As she listened, there was the sound of a key turning inthe lock, the library door was thrown suddenly open, and Mark steppedinto the room.

  Juliet saw Julia's expression as she sprang round to face the newcomer.She saw it change, swift as lightning, from a look of horrified dismay toone of sudden transforming tenderness, as the girl recognized theintruder, that the hand already in the act of pushing open the door ofthe clock fell inert and limp to her side, and if she had been able tomove she would have lost no time in retreating. She knew instinctivelythat she was seeing a secret laid bare which she had no right to spyupon. And yet, though her impulse was to fly from the place inembarrassment and confusion, something stronger than her naturaldiscretion and delicacy held her where she stood. For Julia had not comehere for the purpose of meeting Mark. She had come with a purpose lesspersonal: something, Juliet felt convinced, that was in some way vaguelydiscreditable, and at the same time menacing. It could be for no harmlessreason that she had taken this secret, dangerous way into the castle.

  And so Juliet kept her ground, blushing at her role of spy, and avertingher eyes as Julia dropped the book she was holding and ran forward tomeet Mark, with that tell-tale look upon her face.

  But Mark did not show the same pleasure. He stood, holding the handle ofthe door, which he had closed gently behind him, and looking with acertain sternness at the girl.

  "Julia," he said, "you here! What are you doing?"

  "Oh, Mark," she cried, not answering his question, "aren't you glad tosee me? It is so long, oh, it is so long since I saw you!"

  She threw her arms round his neck with a happy laugh, and drew his facedown to hers.

  "Darling! darling!" she murmured. "How can we live without each other forone single day!"

  She spoke in a low, soft voice. To Juliet, to whom every purling syllablewas painfully audible, it sounded cooingly, like the voice of doves.

  To the surprise of the girl to whom Mark had proposed marriage two daysbefore, when she ventured to peep through her spy window, Mark's armswere round Julia and he was kissing her ardently.

  But after a moment he released himself gently.

  "You haven't told me, dear," he said, "what you are doing here."

  His voice held a note of authority before which Julia's assurancevanished.

  "I--I wasn't doing anything," she muttered.

  "Julia!" he remonstrated.

  "Well," she said, with some show of defiance, "I suppose anyone may takea book from the library."

  "Of course," he said, "you may take anything of mine you want. Still, asyou are not staying in the house--In short, it seems to me that themore obvious course would have been to have said something to me aboutit; and besides," he added, struck by a sudden thought, "how in the worlddid you get in? The door was locked, and the key is on the outside."

  "Oh, if you're going to make such a fuss about nothing," she exclaimedpetulantly, her toe beginning to tap the boards, "it's not worthexplaining anything to you." She turned away and walked towards thefireplace.

  "I'm not making a fuss," Mark said quietly, "but you must tell me, Julia,what you are doing here, and how you came. To speak plainly, I don'tbelieve you came for a book."

  "If you don't believe me, what's the good of my saying anything?" sheretorted. "Oh, how horrid you are to-day, Mark. I don't believe you loveme a bit, any more." And leaning her head against the mantelpiece, sheburst into tears.

  "You know it isn't that, Julia," he said, looking at her fixedly. "Don'tcry, there's a dear, good girl. You know that I love you. Why, you're theonly thing in the whole world that I really want. But you must tell mehow you came here. Tell me," he repeated, taking her hands from her face,and forcing her to look at him, "what you want in the library. Tell me,Julia, I want to know."

  She seemed to struggle to keep silence, but to be unable to resist hisquestioning eyes.

  "I suppose I must tell you," she murmured; "it's not that I don't wantto. But they would kill me if they knew. Oh, Mark, I ought not to tellyou, but how can I keep anything secret from my beloved? Swear to methat you will never repeat it, or try to hinder me in what I have to do?"

  He bent and kissed her.

  "Julia," he said, "can't you trust me?"

  "I do, I do," she cried. "While you love me, I trust you. But if you leftoff, what then? That is the nightmare that haunts me. Mark, Mark, whatwould become of me if you were to change towards me?"

  He kissed her again, murmuring reassuring words that did not reachJuliet's ears. "So tell me now," he ended, "what you were doing here."

  "Mark," she said nervously, "you know where my childhood was passed?"

  "In St. Petersburg," he replied wonderingly.

  "Yes, in Petersburg. And you know how things are there. It is sodifferent from your England, my England. For I am English really, Mark,although that thought always seems so strange to me; since during so manyyears I believed myself to be a Russian. I am the daughter of Englishparents; my father was a very respectable London plumber of the name ofHarsden, whose business went to the bad and who died, leaving my motherto face ruin and starvation with a family of five small children, of whomI was the last. When a lady who took an interest in the parish in whichwe lived suggested that a friend of hers should adopt one of thechildren, my mother was only too thankful to accept the proposal, and Iwas the one from whom she chose to be parted. I have never seen hersince, but she is still alive, and I send her money from time to time.

  "The lady who adopted me was Countess Romaninov, and I believedmyself her child till a day or two before she died, when she told me,to my lasting regret, the true story of my origin. But I was broughtup a Russian, and I shall never feel myself to be English. Somehow thesoil you live on in your childhood seems to get into your bones, asyou say here. It is true that I speak your language easily, but it wasRussian that my baby lips first learned. My sympathies, my point ofview, my friends, all except yourself, are Russian. And I have oneessentially Russian attribute, I am a member of what you would call aNihilist society."

  Mark interrupted her with an interjection of surprise, but she nodded herhead defiantly, and continued:

  "All my life, all my private ends and desires must be governed by theneeds of my country. First and foremost I exist that the rule of theTyrant may be abolished, and the Slav be free to work out his ownsalvation; he shall be saved from the fate that now overwhelms andcrushes him; dragged bodily from under the heel of the oppressor. I amnot the only one. We are many who think as one mind. And the day is notfar distant when our sacrifices shall bear fruit. Ah, Mark, what a greatcause, what a noble purpose, is this of ours! Perhaps I shall be able toconvert you, to fire your cold British blood with my enthusiasm?"

  She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. But he made no reply, andafter a moment she continued, placing her hand fondly upon his shoulderas she spoke.

  "Our plan is to terrify the rulers into submission. We must not shrinkfrom killing, and killing suddenly and unexpectedly, till they abandonthe wickedness of their ways. They must never know what it is to feelsafe. And we see to it that they do not. Death waits for them at thestreet corner, on their travels, at their own doorsteps. They never knowat what moment the bomb may not be thrown, or the pistol fired. It issad that explosives are so unreliable. There are many difficulties. Youwould not believe the obstacles that we find placed in our path at everyturning. And for those who are suspected there is Siberia, and themines. But it is worth it. It is worth anything to feel that one isworking and risking all for one's country, and one's fellow-countrymen.It is an honour to belong to a band of such noble men and women. But nowand then one is admitted who turns out to be unworthy. Yes, even such acause as ours has traitors to contend with. And your uncle, Lord Ashiel,was one of them."

&nb
sp; "What," said Mark incredulously, "Uncle Douglas a Nihilist? Nonsense.It's impossible."

  "He was, really. For he joined the 'Friends of Man' when he was at theBritish Embassy at Petersburg long years ago; and no sooner had he beeninitiated than he turned round and denounced the society and all itsworks. Worse still, he declared his intention of hindering it fromcarrying out its programme. He would have been got rid of there andthen, but as ill-luck would have it he had, by an unheard-of chain ofaccidents, become possessed of an important document belonging to thesociety. It was, indeed, a list of the principal people on the executivecommittee that fell into his hands, and he took the precaution ofsending it to England, with instructions that if anything happened tohim it should be forwarded to the Russian Police, before he made knownhis ridiculous objections to our programme. Here, as you willunderstand, was a most impossible situation with which there wasapparently no means of coping.

  "For years that one man hampered and frustrated our entire organization.He was practically able to dictate his own terms, for he announced hisintention of publishing the list of names if we carried out any importantproject, and no device could be contrived to stop his being as good ashis word. The tyrant has walked unscathed except by mere privateenterprise, and the government we could have caused to crumble to theground has flourished and continued to work evil as before. We have beencrippled, paralysed in every direction. It was only last year that thereseemed reason to think that Lord Ashiel had removed the document from theBank of England where it had for so long been guarded, and there appearedto be a possibility that he now kept it in his own house. If that wereso, there seemed a good chance of getting hold of it, and how proud I am,Mark, to think that it was I who was chosen to make the attempt!

  "I came to England with the best introductions into society, and had nodifficulty in making friends with your aunt and obtaining an invitationto stay here. Last year I did not succeed in gaining any information.Your uncle, for some reason, seemed rather to avoid me, and I did notmake any headway towards gaining his confidence. I never could be sure ifhe suspected me. This year there was a question of replacing me by someone else, but it was judged that Lord Ashiel's suspicions would becertainly awakened by the appearance of another Russian, so, in the hopethat I was not associated in his mind with the people to which he hadbehaved so basely, I was ordered to try again.

  "A member of the society, who occupies a high and responsible position onthe council, accompanied me to the neighbourhood, and from time to time Ireport to him and receive his advice and instructions. He stays inCrianan, so that I have some one within reach to go to for advice. Atleast, so I am officially informed, but I know very well he is reallythere to keep watch on me, for it is not the habit of the society totrust its members more than is unavoidable. If it is possible, I go oncea week to Crianan and make my report, but I can't always manage to go,and then he rows across the loch after dark and I go out and meet him. Hewas to come on the night of the murder, and my first thought when I heardof it was that he might be caught in the shrubberies and mistaken for themurderer. But it appears that he had already taken alarm, and I amthankful to say he was able to escape in good time."

  "So David really did see some one wandering about that night," Markcommented thoughtfully. "Ah, Julia, if you'd told me all this earliereverything might have been different. Poor old David need never have beendragged into it at all."

  She looked at him a moment, as if puzzled, and then continued her story.

  "It was thought that I might be able to bring about your uncle's death bysome means that should have all the appearance of an accident, and soperhaps not involve action on the part of those who hold thedocument--that is, if it should prove not to be in his own keeping--forhe had always assured the council that no decisive step would be takenexcept as a retort to signs of violence on our part, whether directedtowards himself or others.

  "I have not been able to find any trace of the list. I thought I had itone day in London, when I followed Lord Ashiel to a detective's office,and managed to gain possession of an envelope given him by Lord Ashiel,but as far as I could make out it contained nothing of any importance. Itwas a bitter disappointment. You can imagine the consternation into whichwe were thrown by the murder. It seemed certain that his death would beattributed to our organization, and if anyone held the list for him itwould be published immediately. Four days have passed, however, and mysuperior has received a cable saying that so far all is well. It looksmore and more as if the list had been kept here, but I have huntedeverywhere and found nothing. Oh, I have searched without ceasing sincethe moment I heard of his death! I came here even on the very night ofthe murder, and moved the body with my own hands in order to get at thebureau drawers. There is a secret way into the room through that oldclock there, which leads into the grounds; I found it long ago, one daywhen I was exploring outside in the shrubberies. I have often been here,and searched, and searched again. Do you know anything of this document,Mark? If you do, I beg and implore you to give it to me. Otherwise Icannot answer for your life; and, as for our marriage, that is out of thequestion unless I am successful in my undertaking."

  It may be imagined with what amazement and growing horror Juliet listenedto this avowal. That Julia, the girl with whom she had associated onterms of easy familiarity which had been near to becoming something likeintimacy in the close contact and companionship of a country-house life,that this girl, an honoured guest in Lord Ashiel's house, should havegained her footing there for her own treacherous ends, or at the biddingof a band of political assassins! Juliet could scarcely believe her earsas she heard the calm, indifferent tone in which Julia spoke of thedrawbacks to "getting rid" of Lord Ashiel, and of the contemplated"accident" which was to have befallen him. She would have fled from whereshe stood, if mingled fear and curiosity to hear more had not rooted herto the spot. Her alarm was tempered by the presence of Mark. If this girlshould discover her hiding there and show signs of the violence thatmight be expected from such a character, Mark would be there to protecther. She could trust him to know how to deal with the Russian, whose truenature must now be apparent to him.

  But Mark, to her astonishment, had not drawn away from Julia with therepugnance and disgust that were to be expected. Instead, he was lookingat her, strangely, indeed, but almost eagerly.

  "It was you, then, who moved the body! To think that I never guessed!" hemurmured, half to himself. "If I had known, I might have spared myselfthe trouble to--" Then more loudly he reproached his companion.

  "And you have never said a word to me! Oh, Julia, you didn't trust me."He shook his head at her mournfully.

  "Trust you!" she retorted. "Did you trust me? But I would have trustedyou," she added, gazing fondly into his eyes, "if I had dared risk thepunishment that will surely be meted out to me if it is known I have doneso. You don't know how rigid the rules of our society are. But youhaven't told me yet if you have the list."

  "Not I," he said. "I never heard of its existence. I suppose thatanonymous letter that came addressed to Uncle Douglas after his death hadsomething to do with that."

  "Did a letter come from Paris? They sent them to him from time to time.It prevented his suspecting me. But you will give me the list if you findit, won't you? It means everything to me."

  "Of course I will," he promised. "It is no earthly good to me, so far asI know. But you, when you were looking for it, did you, among all thepapers you examined, ever come across such a thing as a will?"

  "No, never," she replied. "Mrs. Clutsam told me it could not be found.You may be sure, if I had discovered one which did not leave youeverything, I should have destroyed it."

  "Dear little Julia!" Mark drew her to him and kissed her. "How sweet youare. There is no one like you!"

  "Really? Do you really love me, Mark?"

  "Darling, of course I do."

  "Will you always? Are you quite, quite sure that I am the one girl in allthe world for you, as you are the one man for me?"

 
"Darling, you are the only one in the world I have ever so much aslooked at."

  "Would you never, never forget me, or marry anyone else, no matter whathappened?"

  "Never," he assured her, "never."

  She sighed contentedly.

  "What should I do if you forgot me, Mark? I should die. But," she addedin a different tone, "I think I should kill you first!"

  Mark laughed a little uneasily.

  "Hush, hush," he said, "you mustn't talk so much about killing. A minuteago you were talking of killing my poor old uncle. If I took youseriously what should I think? It is lucky I love you as I do, otherwisedoesn't it occur to you that it might get you into trouble to talk inthis wild way?"

  "You can take me as seriously as you like," she answered gravely. "I amserious enough, God knows. But I shouldn't talk about it, even to you, ifI didn't _know_ it was safe. You see, I know you are like me."

  "Like you? I'm dashed if I am! How do you mean? I am like you?"

  She looked at him squarely, and nodded.

  "Yes," she said, "you are like me. You would not hesitate to kill if youthought it necessary. You think just the same as me on that subject. Onlyyou have gone farther than I have--yet."

  "Julia," he cried, "what do you mean?"

  "I mean that I know all about you, Mark," she replied gravely. "I knowwhat you think you have kept secret from me. I know it was you who killedyour uncle."

  With a muffled cry Mark shook himself free, and sprang away from her.

  "What are you saying?" he whispered hoarsely. "You are mad, girl! But Iwon't have such lies uttered, I won't have it, I tell you."

  With terrified amazement Juliet saw his face change, become ugly,distorted. But Julia showed no sign of alarm.

  "Why get so excited?" she asked calmly. "What does it matter? Do youimagine I would betray you? I, who would sell my soul for you! I know youdid it. It is no use keeping up this pretence of innocence to me, who hadmore right to kill him than you. Why shouldn't you kill who you wish? Butdon't say you didn't do it. It is foolish. I saw you."

  "It is a lie. You can't have seen me," Mark declared again, but with lessassurance. "You were in the drawing-room all the time. Lady Ruth andMaisie Tarver both said so. The drawing-room doesn't even look out on thegarden. There is no room that does, except the library, and you weren'tthere then, anyhow."

  "I didn't see you fire the shot," said Julia, "but I saw you afterwardswhen you went to put back your rifle in the gun-room. I told you thatafter the first search in the grounds was over, and everyone had goneup to bed, I slipped out of the house by the door near the gunroom, andcame round to the library to see if Lord Ashiel had carried the list onhim. When I came back, I let myself in quietly by the door which I hadleft unbolted, and had just got half-way up the back stairs when Iheard footsteps in the passage below, and crouched down behind thebanisters. I saw you come along the passage, carrying an electriclantern in one hand and your rifle in the other. I saw you look roundanxiously before opening the gun-room door and going in. When you hadvanished, I hurried on up to my room, for it was not the time or placeto tell you what I had seen, but I left a crack of my door open, andafter rather a long while saw you pass along the passage to your ownroom; this time without your gun. I knew, of course, that you had beencleaning it and putting it away."

  She spoke with the indifference with which one may refer to a regrettablebut incontrovertible fact, and Mark seemed to feel it useless to denywhat she said.

  "You had no right to spy on me," he exclaimed angrily when she had done.

  "Oh, Mark," she cried, dismayed, "I wasn't spying. It was the merestaccident. And I think it's horrid of you to mind my knowing. Why didn'tyou tell me all about it before. I might have helped you, I'm sure."

  But he would have none of her endearments, and threw off the hand shelaid upon his arm with a rough gesture.

  "Mark, oh, Mark," she wailed, "don't be angry with me! You know I can'tbear it. I can bear anything but that. Don't, don't be angry with me."

  She had but one thought; it was for him, and he who ran might read itshining in the depths of her great eyes. After a few minutes of sulking,Mark relented.

  "No one could be angry with you for long, Julia," he declared.

  Instantly she was once more all smiles.

  "Don't ever be angry with me again," she urged, her hands in his. "Andnow that you have forgiven me, tell me all about it. What made you dosuch a dreadful thing, Mark? You must have had some good reason, I know.I never would doubt that."

  "There's nothing much to tell," he said unwillingly. "I had a goodreason, yes. I must have money. It is for your sake, darling, that I mustget it. I can't marry you without it. I hadn't meant to kill him, if Icould get it without. He was ill, and had left his fortune to me. Ithought I should get it in time, by letting Nature take her course. Itwas that or ruin, and I really had to do it for your sake, darling. Ididn't want to hurt the old boy. Why should I? It's not a pleasant thingto have to do. But I had no choice--there was no other way of gettingenough money, and I simply had to get it. It was his life or mine. Youdon't understand. I can't explain. It just had to be done, and there's anend of it. Everything was going wrong. That girl, that Byrne girl, Iimagined he was going to marry her. You know we all did. That would havespoilt everything. At first I thought she could be got out of the way,but she seemed to bear a charmed life."

  "What?" cried Julia, "did you try to kill her too?"

  "Why, if anyone had to be got rid of," he admitted defiantly, "it seemedbetter to go for a stranger, like her, than for my own uncle. Come, youmust see that, surely! She was nothing to me, and, anyhow, my hand wasforced. It's very hard that I should have been put in such a position.I'm the last person to do harm to a fly, but one must think of oneself."

  Since it was no use denying the murder, he seemed to find some sort ofsatisfaction in telling Julia of his other crimes. And yet, though hetried hard to speak with an affectation of indifference, it was plainthat he kept a watchful eye upon his listener, and was ready to fastenresentfully upon the first sign of horror, or even disapproval. For allhis efforts, the tone of his disclosures was at once swaggering andsuspicious; but he need have had no anxiety as to the spirit in whichthey would be received. It was clear that Julia brought to his judgmentno remembrance of ordinary human standards of conduct. To her he wasabove such criticisms, as the Immortals might be supposed to be abovethe rules that applied to dwellers upon earth. What he did was right inher eyes, because he did it, and she admired his brutality, as she adoredthe rest of him, whole-heartedly, without reservation.

  "I had a shot at her," he went on, "one day on the moor when she was withDavid; but I missed her. It was a rotten shot. I can't think how I cameto do it. Then when she fell into the river--I saw her standing by it asI came home from stalking.... I had walked on ahead, and where the pathruns along above the waterfall pool I happened to go to the edge and lookover. There she was on a stone right at the edge, by the deepest part. Itlooked as if she'd been put there on purpose, and I should have been afool to miss such a chance. It's no good going against fate. As a matterof fact I thought I'd got her sitting this time. I caught up the nearestpiece of rock and dropped it down on her. That was a good shot, though Isay it, but it hit her on the shoulder instead of the head as luck wouldhave it, which was bad luck for me. However, in she went, and I thoughtall was well and lost no time in getting away from the place. If ithadn't been for that meddling fool Andy!... Well, then, at dinner, UncleDouglas came out with the news that she was his daughter, not hisintended, and everything looked worse than ever. Afterwards when she wentto talk to him in the library, and passed through the billiard-room whereI was knocking the balls about and feeling pretty savage, I can tell you,I happened, by a fluke, to ask her if she knew where David was. She saidhe'd gone into the garden.

  "Then I saw my chance, and it seemed too good to miss. Why should I letmy inheritance be stolen from me? I ran off to the gun-room for a gun. Imeant to take David's
rifle, but I found he hadn't cleaned it, so I leftit alone and took mine, as the thing was really too important to riskusing a strange gun unless it was absolutely necessary, and his is alittle shorter in the stock than I like. I nipped back and let myself outof the passage door into the enclosed garden. It was a black night,though I knew my way blindfolded about there. But the curtains of thelibrary were drawn, and I couldn't see between them without stepping onthe flower bed. I knew too much to leave my footmarks all over them, butI had to get on to the bed to have a chance of getting a shot. So I gotthe long plank the gardeners use to avoid stepping on the flower bedswhen they're bedding out, from the tool-house behind the holly hedgewhere I knew it was kept, and put it down near the hedge. It is held upclear of the ground by two cross pieces of wood, one at each end, youknow, so there would be no marks left to identify me by.

  "When I walked to the end of the plank, I could see straight into themiddle of the room; but they must have been sitting near the fire, for noone was in sight. I could see the writing bureau and the chair in frontof it, and dimly in the back of the room I could make out the face of theclock, but that was all.

  "Well, I stood there for what seemed a long while. You've no idea howcramping it is to stand on a narrow plank with no room to take a stepforward or back, for long at a time. And I don't mind telling you I got abit jumpy, waiting there. If anyone chanced to come along, what could Isay by way of explanation? I couldn't think of anything the least likelyto wash. And somehow, in the dark, one begins to imagine things. I sawDavid coming at me across the lawn every other minute. And it seemed sohideously likely that he should come. I knew he was somewhere out in thegrounds. By Jove, if he had, he'd have got the bullet instead of UncleDouglas! But he didn't come. Those beastly shadows and shapes andwhisperings and rustlings that seemed to be all round me, hiding in thenight, turned out to be nothing after all. But when I didn't fancy him atmy elbow, I imagined he was in the gunroom, wondering where the dickensmy rifle had got to.

  "Oh, I had a happy half-hour among the roses, I tell you! A rifle is aheavy thing too. I leant it up against a rose-bush and tried to sit downon the plank, but it wouldn't do, and I saw I must bear it standing, orUncle Douglas might cross in front of the slit between the curtainswithout my having time to get a shot. You must remember I'd been on thehill all day, so that I was very stiff to begin with. It got so bad thatI began to think it was hardly worth the candle at last--and it's awonder I didn't miss him clean--when, just as I was on the point ofgiving the whole thing up and going in again, he came suddenly into myfield of vision, and actually sat down at the table.

  "I took a careful aim and fired. I saw him fall forward, and then Ijumped off the plank and hurled it back under the hedge before I ran forthe house. I had left the door ajar, and I just stayed to close it, andthen darted into the empty billiard-room and thrust my rifle under asofa. It was a quick bit of work. I had counted on Juliet Byrne waiting amoment or two to see if she could do anything to help him before sheroused the house, or it roused itself, and she was rather longer than Iexpected. I don't mind owning I got into a panic when minutes passed andno one appeared, and I began to think I must have missed the old boyaltogether. I was within an ace of going to make certain, when the dooropened and in she came. Oh well, you know all the rest. That silly oldass, David, was still mooning about in the garden, thinking of her, Isuppose, which was very lucky for me."

  Julia had listened with absorbed interest.

  "I think it is wonderful," she said, "that you should have gone throughall that for my sake. I shall always try to deserve it, my dear. Was itall, all for me, that you did it, truly?"

  "Yes," Mark assured her, gruffly monosyllabic.

  "But how was it," she asked caressingly, "that Sir David's footprintswere found all over the rose-bed. What was he doing there?"

  "That was an afterthought," Mark admitted. "It was a tophole idea. Afterevery one had gone upstairs, I crept down and got my Mannlicher fromwhere I had hidden it, and took it to the gun-room, where I cleaned itand put it in its usual place. It was lucky for me that David had lefthis weapon dirty. It was jolly unlike him to do it. I was thinking what agood thing it was, and how well things looked like turning out--for Ithought I could manage the girl if she was able to prove that she reallywas a McConachan--and it struck me I ought to be able to contrive thatthe business should look a bit blacker against poor old David. Every oneknew he'd had a row with Uncle Douglas about his beastly dog, and if Icould only manufacture a little more evidence against him I knew I shouldbe pretty safe, one way and another. I was going back to the garden toput by the gardener's plank, when I thought of using his boots. It didn'ttake long to find them among all the boots used that day by thehousehold, which were ranged in a row in the place where they clean themin the back premises. His bootmakers' name was in them. I took them, andwhen I got to the garden door I put them on, and went out and trampledabout among the roses till I was pretty sure that even the blindestcountry bobby couldn't fail to notice the tracks I'd left, though ofcourse I couldn't see them myself in the dark. Then I got the plank outof the hedge and put it away where I'd found it. After that, I took theboots back, and went to bed; and very glad I was to get there. Now you'veheard the whole story."

  "How clever you are," murmured the girl. "There's no one like you," shesaid, "no one." Mark smiled rather fatuously. He evidently shared heropinion that his brains were something slightly out of the way. "Andeverything happened just as you'd planned," she went on admiringly. "Theysuspected Sir David from the first. I should have, myself, if I hadn'tknown it was you who had done it."

  "Yes," said Mark, "they suspected him, the silly idiots! They might haveknown he hasn't the initiative to do a thing like that. And the girlcan't prove her relationship to Uncle Douglas, just as I expected. Ithought there might be some difficulty about that. But I wish I couldfind the will he made in her favour. I should feel safer then, for shetold me he said he'd worded it so that she should get the money whethershe was proved his daughter or not. And who knows what other mad clauseshe may have put in it. Lately, for some reason I could never make out, Ifelt sure he had changed towards me. He let fall a hint one day that hislegacies to me were conditional on my good behaviour. I don't feel easyabout it at all. Some one must have been telling him things--poisoninghis mind. But I've hunted high and low, and found nothing. I'm sick oflooking over musty old bills."

  "Oh, we shall find it between us now," said Julia hopefully. "I wish Ihad some idea where the list I want is, though," she added.

  "There's that detective, too," pursued Mark. "That fellow Gimblet. I'mrather fed up with him. Not that he seems any use at his work, thoughhe's supposed to be rather first-class at it, I believe."

  "Gimblet! Is that who it is? Mrs. Clutsam told me a London detectivewas here, but I didn't know who it was. I have met him before, andfound him very easy to manage. I don't think you need be afraid ofanything he may do."

  "I shall be glad when he's off the place, anyhow," said Mark.

  "I shall be glad when the whole business is over and forgotten," Juliarejoined. "I wish we could be married at once, Mark darling. But whycan't it be given out that we are engaged. I don't understand why weshould keep it a secret now. I can't stand seeing so little of you as Ihave these last few days."

  "Be patient, darling, wait just a little longer. There are reasons, as Ihave told you. I must get my financial affairs straight, for one thing,before I allow you to tie yourself to me. Suppose I turn out to be abeggar? I couldn't let you marry me then, you know."

  "Mark!" Julia's voice was full of reproach. "You know perfectly well howlittle I care about your money. I would be only too glad to marry you ifyou hadn't a penny. But perhaps you mean that if you were poor youwouldn't want to burden yourself with a wife?"

  "You know how I adore you, Julia. How can you suggest such a thing? Icouldn't even dream of a life without you. You show how little you knowme. But, believe me, it is wisest to wait a short time longer before weare
publicly engaged. You must take my word for it, and not made meunhappy by imagining such cruel things. Come, let us look for this listof yours. What were you doing--searching among the books?"

  "Yes," said she, rising, as he went towards a bookshelf, and followinghim. "I thought it might be hidden between the leaves of one of these oldvolumes. One reads of such things."

  "I wonder," he said absently. "The will, too, may be here. Is there aBible anywhere? I believe that's a favourite place of concealment. Then,when the heir is virtuous and reads his Bible, he gets the legacy, youknow; while, if he isn't, he doesn't. A sort of poetic justice is metedout. If I find it in that way I shall take it as a sign that I am reallythe virtuous one and that Heaven absolves me from all blame."

  He spoke mockingly, but Julia answered very seriously:

  "Of course you ought to have it; and if I don't blame you, why shouldanyone else?"

  "Well," he said after a pause, "at all events I mean to get it, whetheror no, if I have to pull down every stone of the place. That reminds me,"he added, "where is the secret entrance you use? Through this old clock?Who would have thought it?"

  In a moment Juliet realized that she was going to be caught. She hadbeen so absorbed in listening to the dreadful revelations that had beenmade during the last half-hour that not till now had she considered howdangerous was her position.

  As he spoke, Mark threw open the door of the clock case. Too late, sheturned to fly; he caught her by the arm and, with a stifled oath, draggedher into the room.

  "How long have you been there?" he cried, and fell to swearing horribly;while Julia stood by, not speaking, but looking at Juliet with anexpression which frightened her more than all his violence.