The groom who brought Dick Alford’s horse to the door had a report to make.
“That fellow was seen last night, sir.”
“Which fellow is this?” asked Dick, as he swung into the saddle.
“The Black Abbot, sir. Gill, the gamekeeper up at Long Meadow Cottage, saw him at four o’clock this morning walking through the long meadow. By the time Gill got his gun he’d vanished.”
“And what was the Black Abbot doing in the Long Meadow?” asked Dick sardonically. “Picking buttercups?”
“It’s rather late for buttercups, sir,” said the unimaginative groom. “But Gill says that if he’d had his gun he’d have taken a pot at him.”
“And there would have been an inquest, and the best Gill could hope for would be a verdict of justifiable homicide. You can tell Gill from me that the Black Abbot is to be tackled--by hand! A live ghost will tell us a lot, but a dead ghost is practically useless as an information bureau.”
He cantered through the home meadows, behind the house, and, avoiding the Abbey ruins, rejoined the winding Ravensrill. Setting his horse at a walk, he followed the bank of the stream, his mind so completely occupied by the events of the past twenty-four hours that he would have passed unnoticed the girl who was lying face downward on the opposite bank.
It was a glorious morning, warm and sunny. The sky was an unblemished blue, the world was bathed in yellow radiance. Overhead, a flight of migratory birds were moving southward, and the faint chatter of them came down to him.…
“Good-morning, Sir Galahad!”
He reined up his horse and looked round in bewilderment. Presently he saw her.
“Good-morning, Guinevere!” he said, and, turning his horse’s head to the stream, he came gingerly down the slope and sent the reluctant horse into the water.
“Be careful!”
“There’s a ford here,” he said. “In fact,” as he emerged with his horse’s girth dripping, “this is the original Chelford. Knights in armour, and probably Britons in feathers and woad, have crossed Ravensrill at this spot. What on earth are you doing?”
He slipped to the ground, dropping the reins, and allowed his mount to forage at will. She was lying now at full length, but resting on her elbows. Immediately beneath her face was a slab of rock in the centre of which a hole some eighteen inches in diameter had been worn. When he saw this he laughed softly.
“Leslie, what questions have you to ask the Wishing Well?”
Why it was called the Wishing Well he had never learnt--no water had ever risen from that deep cavity which, by some freak of nature, extended to unplumbed depths. Yet here, generations of country swains had come to prostrate themselves and bellow into the cavity the burden of their hearts’ desire. And tradition had it that the well answered them clearly and intelligibly.
“I’m asking about me.” Her face was pink, probably from her unusual posture.
“And what said the well?” he mocked.
She scrambled to her knees and pushed back the hair from her forehead.
“I’ll not tell you. Ask something!”
With a growl and a groan he stretched himself on the warm grass and, hollowing his hands, roared into the crevice:
“What is going to happen to Leslie?”
They waited, and then the echo came back, queerly distorted yet distinct.
“Marry her!”
They laughed together. It was the trick of some hollow place below that through the ages had sent back the same reply to every question.
He got up to his feet.
“I wish you wouldn’t wander around without my escort,” he said seriously, and she laughed.
Never had he seen her looking more beautiful than that morning. She was a thing of air and sunlight, a baffling unreality that did not belong to the sordid world in which he was living.
“I got up early and was bored, so I went walking, and then I thought of the well and wondered whether it had learnt any new tricks. Arthur’s very conscious of his eye and he won’t go out until his face is normal. Poor Arthur!” She hesitated, looking at him. “You haven’t found----” She did not finish the sentence.
“The gentleman who did the shooting? No, but we have a pretty shrewd idea. By the way, I have fired Thomas. You remember that hang-dog footman who was always near at hand when he shouldn’t have been?”
“What has he done?” she asked.
“Nothing particular. He is an ex-convict: Puttler recognized him as soon as he arrived; and I found him at three o’clock this morning coming out of the library and made him turn out his pockets. He had no very considerable sum of money in his possession, but the chances are that he had cached it. Poor old Harry is such a slacker in the matter of keeping accounts that it will be almost impossible to secure a conviction. Of course, Thomas swore the money we found--not a large amount--was his, and as it meant a fuss in waking up Harry, who I am perfectly sure could have given us no information, we allowed the brute to get away with it.”
“Where is he now?”
“Thomas? I expect he caught the first train for London. I don’t suppose he’ll be applying for a job in the neighbourhood, but to be on the safe side you had better tell your brother.”
There was a moment of silence, then she asked:
“Did you find the rifle?”
He shook his head.
“It was an army rifle, but there isn’t such a thing at Fossaway Manor, though there are plenty in the village. In fact, nearly a dozen of our people working on the estate are Territorials. Puttler says that a poacher’s gang was responsible.”
Dick was a poor liar, but Leslie suspected nothing and did not question this theory. If she had, she might have pointed out that poachers use shotguns and snares, and that the rifle as an instrument for the destruction of game was about as valuable as a steam-hammer for tacking down carpets.
They walked across the field toward Willow House, Dick leading his horse.
“I want you to make me a promise, Leslie,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked, knowing before he spoke what it would be.
“I want you to promise me not to take these early morning walks, to use your car and to keep to the roads.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Why? Surely there is no danger? You’re not afraid of the Black Abbot?”
But he did not answer her smile.
“No,” he said. “I’m not afraid especially of the Black Abbot, but I’m very much afraid of the something that is behind the Black Abbot.”
She knew that he did not wish to be questioned further, and changed the subject. She had a visitor coming, she told him, and only when she told him who it was, did his eyes twinkle.
“Good Lord! That lady? I suppose you realize you’re harbouring a dangerous rival?”
“Don’t be horrid, Dick. The poor girl was very fond of Harry, and in the letter she wrote to me she told me that she hoped I wouldn’t be embarrassed by her coming----”
“She would say that,” said Dick grimly.
“--and that she had almost forgotten Harry’s stupid infatuation.”
Dick stopped to laugh.
“Can you beat that?” he asked, with tears in his eyes. “Jumping snakes! ‘Harry’s stupid infatuation’! Well, I won’t be ungenerous.”
“Don’t,” she warned him. “I’m rather sorry for the girl.”
“Don’t,” he mimicked. “You need never be sorry for Mary. If you keep her off the subject of me, you’ll have a very pleasant week-end. But in the matter of Richard Alford she is a fanatic. I won’t tell you the horrid things she says of me, because it would prejudice you against her.”
“How do you know?” she challenged. “Quite a number of people say horrid things about Richard Alford.”
“Not to you,” he said quietly, and she flushed and again changed the subject.
“I don’t know why I’m up so early; I didn’t go to bed till two.”
“It was ten minutes past two when your light went out,” he said promptly, and she stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“I happened to be passing your house.”
He was in such a hurry to explain that she was suspicious.
“The Black Abbot was about last night. Puttler and I did a little ghost-hunting.”
“Did you see him?”
He shook his head.
“Nobody saw him except a terrified gamekeeper.”
Suddenly she turned to him with a little gasp of surprise.
“It was you!” she accused.
“What was me?”
“I am sure I saw somebody at the lower end of the drive. You were smoking a cigar: I could see the little red glow; and at first I thought it was Harry, and this morning I found the end of the cigar near the lodge gates--Richard Alford, do you ever sleep?”
“Frequently,” he said, with a smile, and put his arm round her shoulder. “I’m being brotherly: take no alarm,” he mocked her. “Leslie, dear, will you promise?”
“What?” she asked.
“Not to wander through the fields at odd hours. I don’t want to alarm you--I feel a brute as it is--but there may be real danger for the next day or two. Please don’t ask me what it is, because I can’t tell you; I’m not so sure that I know.”
She turned this over in her mind for a long time.
“Has it to do with the Chelford treasure?” she asked, and, to her surprise, he nodded.
