“Burnt,” said Dick, with considerable satisfaction. “The poor brute did some good in his life--Heaven forgive me for speaking ill of him. Where is your Arthur?”
“My Arthur went to town very early,” said Leslie. “There is no news of Harry?”
He shook his head.
“None,” he said.
He looked dreadfully tired and broken, she thought.
“I’m so sorry!”
He took her hand and patted it.
“I wish you would go away somewhere, Leslie,” he said. “Couldn’t you take a long voyage?”
“Why?” she asked.
“I want you out of the way. I don’t exactly know why, but I’m rather worried about you. Get Arthur----”
He stopped. It was quite possible that Arthur would not be a free agent at the end of the week; and, reading his thoughts, she smiled sadly.
“What am I to do about Mr. Gilder?”
“Let him write. He is hardly likely to leave you in peace. But you understand, of course, that until Harry is found there is no danger to your brother. Until he appears, no action can be taken.”
She looked at him pityingly.
“Do you think he is alive?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied shortly. “Puttler doesn’t think so, but I do. We are dragging the Ravensrill to-day, but it is not deep enough to hide--a body.”
He covered his face with his hands.
“I wish I were a million miles away, perched on some solitary star,” he said wearily.
She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.
“You’d be very hot,” she said, with a pathetic attempt at gaiety, “unless I have forgotten all my astronomy.”
He put his arm about her shoulder and hugged her. It was an affectionate brotherly hug, and no more.
“You’ve got to go away, my dear. What about the prosaic Bournemouth? Or the vulgar but wholesome Margate?”
Again she shook her head.
“Or London, which I am told is a health resort?”
“You’re very anxious for me to go really?”
“Very,” he said, with an emphasis that betrayed his concern.
She drew back from him and faced him.
“Dick, will you tell me something without any evasion?”
He nodded.
“Do you think that I am in any personal danger?”
“I am sure of it,” he said. “It would be cruel not to tell you the truth. The shot that was fired the other day was intended for you. It was fired by a man who is as brilliant a shot as any in England, and the height of the bullet mark told us that it was aimed directly at your heart.”
She listened, stupefied, unbelieving.
“But why?” she asked, bewildered. “I have no enemies, Dick; I have wronged nobody. Who could do such a wicked thing?”
“If I told you, you would perhaps be no wiser,” he said. “There is a man in this world who hates you and hates me, and has good reason from his point of view. Now that I’ve told you the truth, will you go?”
She thought awhile.
“I’ll wait until Arthur comes back,” she said, “and ask him to take me to London.”
And with that he was satisfied.
He was leaving the house when Puttler’s cycle swung into the drive.
“Anything wrong?” asked Dick quickly.
“I don’t know. Look at this.”
He took from his pocket a large sheet of foolscap paper; roughly printed in pencil were the words:
Lord Chelford is safe. Don’t search for him, or he will be killed.
The Black Abot.
The word “Abbot” was printed with one “b.” The placard had been found hanging to the twig of a tree, the jagged hole at the top showing where the mystery man had threaded the paper.
“We found it halfway between the ruins and the house,” said Puttler. “Curiously enough, we had only been searching that part of the grounds a quarter of an hour before.”
Dick handed the warning back to him.
“Is that a bad joke or do you believe this paper?” asked Leslie anxiously. “And, Dick, couldn’t I be some help? I know Fossaway Manor so well, and I am sure there must be places where the police haven’t looked. Do you know there are tiny caves in the banks of the Ravensrill?”
“They’ve all been searched, and they’re not big enough to hold a large-sized dog,” said Dick. “If you want to be helpful you can come up to the Manor and put my correspondence in order. I am afraid it has been neglected in these days, and there are a whole lot of bills and things to be entered up.”
He had no real need for her, he thought, but whilst she was in the neighbourhood he was anxious that she should be under his eyes. She may have suspected something of this, but she gratefully accepted the offer.
“Drive up,” he warned her; “keep to the main road and the main drive. Don’t stop for anybody, however well you know them, and take no notice if you hear somebody shout at you.”
In spite of her anxiety she laughed.
“How very alarming that sounds!”
After he had gone she busied herself with the affairs of the house, arranged the dinner for that night, and was on the point of leaving, when somebody rang the front-door bell. She was putting on her hat before the mirror in her bedroom when the maid came up.
“Miss Wenner?” cried Leslie, aghast, and only then did she remember that at Arthur’s request she had written inviting the girl to spend the week-end with them.
Here was a complication she had not foreseen. And yet, in the space between her room and the hall, she had made up her mind, that, if there was one thing she welcomed at this moment, it was the society of a woman.
Mary Wenner was in the hall and greeted her as effusively as if they had been bosom friends, though in truth Leslie scarcely knew the girl.
“My dear, I’m so glad to be back in this lovely old country!” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking, as I was driving past dear old Fossaway Manor, how perfectly peaceful everything is!”
Leslie could have screamed! Peaceful!
“Perhaps it isn’t quite as peaceful as it looks, Miss Wenner,” she said drily.
“Call me Mary,” begged the girl. “I do so dislike formalism and standoffness! It will be so awkward if Arthur calls me by my name and you call me Miss… I mean…?”
“Well, I’ll call you Mary with pleasure,” said Leslie. “I think you know my name?”
“A beautiful name,” said the ecstatic Miss Wenner. “The only thing against it is, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy’s or a girl’s, can you? Don’t you sometimes find that very embarrassing?”
“I’ve never found it so yet,” said the girl, leading the way up to her room.
She waited till Mary had taken off her hat before she gave her news.
“Arthur is in town, but he’ll be back to-night,” she said. “Have you seen the newspapers?”
Miss Wenner shook her head vigorously.
“I never read the newspapers,” she said reprovingly. “They’re always full of lies, and after the way they roasted me over my breach----” She coughed.
For a moment Leslie had a wild idea that the reference was an indelicate one, and then the truth came to her.
“Did you ever have a breach of promise action?” she asked, in astonishment.
Mary was very red, and her embarrassment was painful to witness.
“I did have a little trouble with a young gentleman I went to business with,” she admitted. “I was a mere girl at the time, young and silly as it were, and I must say that I felt that I had to stand up for my rights. A lot of people think it was unladylike, but I say that a girl who is an orphan without parents must look after herself. I got fifty pounds, and it wasn’t worth the trouble and the nuisance.”
There was something about the girl that Leslie liked. Unconsciously she was amusing, but there was a sterling value in her, she thought, and Leslie had an uncanny knowledge of women.
“No, I never read the papers, Miss Gwyn. After being told by the Daily Megaphone that I had a curious mentality--I shall never forget those words--I’ve given up the papers.”
“Then you haven’t heard what has happened at Fossaway Manor?” asked Leslie.
The startled girl listened, her mouth an O of amazement and horror.
“Thomas? Why, I was only talking with him the other day! You don’t think Harry is killed?”
Leslie shook her head.
“I don’t know what to think. Mr. Alford is very confident that he is still alive, and they have just received a strange message which seems to bear that out.”
The girl was shocked, and Leslie could not help feeling that she was hurt, too.
“Harry Chelford was the best fellow in the world,” said Mary quietly. “He was a little irritable and difficult to get on with--you don’t mind me talking about him?”
“No,” said Leslie. “You probably do not know that our engagement was broken off?”
This seemed to be a greater shock still.
“Broken off? I’ll bet that was Dick Alford’s doing----”
“Mr. Alford had nothing to do with it,” said Leslie, and Mary made a rapid reëstimation of Dick Alford’s character, and she was eminently adjustable.
“Dick Alford is not a bad fellow really,” she said diplomatically. “There is a great deal about him that I like. And he is so good-looking!”
She was a shrewd, discerning gamin, who had won through by her ability to adjust her views at a moment’s notice. And in a fraction of a second she had realized that perfect harmony with Arthur Gwyn’s sister could be ensured only if her views on Richard Alford underwent a very thorough reorganization.
“I didn’t get on very well with him; I used to think he was a bit overbearing. But it must have been rather a trial for him, poor fellow!” A pause, and then: “I seem to have come at a pretty bad time, Miss--Leslie. Would you like me to go back to London?”
“Wait,” said her hostess, and, running downstairs, called Dick on the ’phone. He had just returned to the house as she rang.
“Surely,” he said. “Bring her up. I think that would be rather a good idea. And, Leslie, perhaps you would like to stay here the night. Arthur can come along, too--you might leave him a note or wire him.”
The idea was so appealing that she put no obstacles in the way, and returned to carry Dick’s invitation to her guest. Miss Wenner accepted with an alacrity that was almost indelicate.
“I may be able to be of some help,” she said. “I know the ins and outs of that place, and all the nooks and crannies. It is the treasure that’s done it all, Leslie! He was always after that silly Life Water, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t got into bad company.”
“But Harry never went out.”
“Oh, yes, he did,” was the surprising reply. “He often slipped off to London when Mr. Alford was away. And there was something queer about it, because Harry made me promise I would never tell Mr. Richard, as he called him.”
“How often did that happen?” asked Leslie.
“Sometimes once a month, sometimes twice or three times a month. He never went to the front drive; he followed the field path through the cutting, and I used to arrange for a Horsham motor cab to meet him. He used to go from Horsham and come back the same way, and I’ve known him to ring me up before he came back, to ask me if Mr. Richard had returned.”
Leslie wondered if Dick knew this.
“I’ve known him to go as many as three times a week when Mr. Richard was up in Yorkshire, looking after the Doncaster estate,” added Mary, and, virtuously: “I hope I have not let any cats out of the bag: all young men are a bit wild.”
