XVI.Parchment—and PaperThere was, of course, a match-holder in the library. I looked into the room of weapons: although the light shone beyond the library door ajar, no sound came from inside. I thought the risk worth taking, and stepped in, rope and all, hoping (in my grimed condition) not to discover anyone.The quiet of the room was deceptive. There were a lot of people there. Belvoir and Mrs. Belvoir were close together at the table with its red velvet cover, reading from the same book, which could not have been very fine sport for him, since he required about one-half the time she did to peruse a page. In the embrasure of the corner tower, Lord Ludlow was sitting with his back to the window and his volume held before his face so that no light from the chandelier might possibly fall upon what he read. This position he maintained the entire time I was in the room. In a secluded nook Lib and Bob were standing before a glass-covered case full of dark and mysterious tomes.Belvoir looked up, while his wife began the page he had finished. “Hello! Where have you been?”“On top of the Forest—all over it: a breather. What’s happened?”“Man killed by the falling hill the other evening.”“Yes; I’ve seen him. I met Salt going up there. But down here—what about Maryvale?”“Quiet all day. He’s working hard—too busy to eat—fact. (Finished it yet, my dear? Don’t hurry.)”“Is he really painting?”Belvoir shrugged. “Wish I knew. This morning, through the door, he said he was, and warned us against interfering with him. Aire’s standing by at present.”“But have you thought—the materials. Oil pigments need to be prepared. You can’t pick them up on instant’s notice after a number of years, or decades, and find them suitable.”“Salt showed us that yesterday’s dash was far from being Gilbert’s first visit to the store-room. He had pottered there quite a bit, and some colours he left behind in his frantic haste are fit for immediate use.”“He has painted before, then?”“Yes, but not in this generation. Long ago.”“Pity. Did he say what he is working on?”“No—no details. There’s another development, though. Did Salt tell you?”“Not a thing.”“You remember Sir Brooke?”“Do I?”“Well, that same useful road-mender who kept the vigil in the car last evening was interviewed in person by Salt about noon to-day.”“But how—”“Oh, they’ve rigged up a practicable bridge for one person at a time down where the old one stood. Salt crossed it unscathed. (Very well, my dear. Carry on. I’ll catch up with you.)”“Yes?”“Two nights ago the road-mender saw Sir Brooke as sure as taxes, crossing the bridge and proceeding up the road toward the House. (I agree with you, my dear. It’s infernally dull. But Carlyle was a great man.)”“Great Scott! We’re closing in on him.”“I wish they’d leave off tracing that old boy,” said a peevish young feminine voice from the corner. “He’s old enough to take care of himself. I wish somebody’d trace my tennis balls.”“Why,” I smiled, “what’s happened to them?”“The usual death,” said Lib. “Bob knocked both of ’em into the Water this afternoon and presto vanisho! Now we can’t play any more until somebody goes into town and pries a few loose from the corner store.”“Gee, he’s got nerve, that butler,” urged Bob, turning his plus-foured self toward me, and more toward the light, so that his somewhat pug-like countenance showed the full measure of affronted innocence. “You know what he said, Mr. Bannerlee? He said that it served us right because we played tennis so soon after Mr. Cosgrove died—Cosgrove!”“It served you right because you thought my side of the court was in the next county,” Lib snapped. “Now what can we do, except read?”“There are worse things,” I offered mildly.“That’s what we’re looking for over there—a good book,” exclaimed the youth.“Well, these are just a little too rich for your taste, I fancy,” I remarked. I scanned the titles behind the glass; I had not examined this case before. The shelves were not quite comfortably filled with bound volumes of learned periodicals and manuscripts in expensive leather covers, all having their titles impressed in bright gilt.“Hullo, now there’s a thing.”“What?” asked both juveniles at once, alert for something, even literature, to break the monotony of their existence.I pointed to a cover with the words “MS. Elis Gruffydd” stamped upon it. “Evidently a copy of part of a historical manuscript I once read. If I remember rightly, it contains a passage about this house.”“Gee whiz, it does?”“You’re a wonder,” declared Lib, with her nose pressed against the glass. “Why, we had that one down and gave it the once over. It was all Welsh to us.”“Oh, I mean in translation,” I hastily amended. “Don’t credit me with any knowledge of Cumraeg.”“What kind of a rag?”“The Welsh language,” I explained. “But I should think you’d find better hunting on those shelves over there.”“Those? They look sort of dull.”“I realize that the volumes are not provided with art-jackets in three colours depicting the discovery of slaughtered bodies and the rescue of lovely women, but behind those drab covers reside the works of Jane Austen, Scott, and the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens—and Wilkie Collins!”“Christopher! Seems to me I’ve read something quite hot by Wilkie Collins. Thanks, Mr. Bannerlee, I’ll take a look.”Alone, then, at the case in the obscure corner, I opened the glass doors and ran my eye over the titles at close range. “Old Watts,” as everyone styles him, had been something of a bibliophile, and I saw what I believed to be a number of absolute rarities, quite thrown away on Crofts, of course. I had reached my hand up to a dark corner, where a couple of volumes were lying on their sides, when an exclamation from my lips brought Lib back from Wilkie Collins at once.“That was a strong one. What’s the matter? See a snake up there?”“No, but I found a mighty startling book,” I answered, looking around and noticing with relief that probably only Lib had heard my exclamation. Bob and the Belvoirs had departed, and Lord Ludlow was holding his page so close to his face that I supposed him insensible to external stimuli.“What’s the big kick here?” she asked, looking at the little old book I had plucked from the shelf and whose age-tawny pages I was scrabbling through.“If Crofts knew what a hoard he has in this library! Why, two or three of these quartos must be worth their weight in diamonds.”“Boy! What a chance! I’d sneak a couple away; only they all look worth a thin dime to me. What’s this one you’re palpitating about?”“This is the volume responsible for my being here, Miss Dale. ‘The Book of Sylvan Armitage,’ imprint 1598. What do you think of that!”She was holding the quarto to the light, screwing up her face while her eyes roved across the page. Something flickered to the floor. I stooped and picked it up: a flake of moss.“That’s funny,” I said. “Some servant nodded when he dusted here. Well, how do you like it?”“Too many f’s. I get all tangled up reading.”“Those aren’t f’s; they’re s’s. You’ll get used to them soon. Poor Cosgrove would have revelled in this.”“Oh, Cosgrove. Funny things he revelled in.” Suddenly she snapped the quarto closed, and gave a careful look toward the harmless Ludlow, whose book was still held defiantly against the light, shutting out the universe. She lowered her voice. “Say, Mr. Bannerlee, remember the day I came down here, the way Cosgrove was watching me, like a fish?”Before I could put in a restraining word, she began a hasty whispered account of events occurring some months ago, when Cosgrove, already engaged to Paula Lebetwood, met Lib for the first time at Coventry. Unquestionably, the orthodox Irishman had been shocked at the daring dress, behaviour, and speech of this insouciant American minx. Mingled with his disapproval, however, was a strong spell of attraction which caused him to be constantly hanging about in her presence. I believe that just as the element of unexpectedness in Miss Lebetwood’s broadly capable character was in a large measure responsible for his desire for her, why here in this alert, sharp wasp of a girl, was also something Cosgrove had not experienced before, something tantalizing that would not let him be at peace. His attentions to Lib, so I gathered from her story, had grown more obnoxious as the days went by, and reached their climax one evening when by her bad luck he happened to find her alone at the far end of one of the gardens.I had some difficulty at this point in following the extraordinary language of Miss Dale, especially since her speech now became spiced with a good many terms expressive of emotion. But it is clear enough that Cosgrove, detaining her in spite of her unambiguous complaints, entered into a long exhortation over her, more like a fanatical Puritan than a son of the Church. At first Lib had been bewildered, then frightened, for mingled with the Irishman’s obloquy was a strain which at first she could not comprehend at all, but soon realized was an appeal to “make his banner her banner,” an invitation of no uncertain tenour to “ride by his side through the high places of the world.” The union of repulsion and fascination under which he must have laboured, as shown in this outburst, was identical with what I had observed on his face at the luncheon table.“And that’s the kind of a bozo Cosgrove was,” perorated Lib. “That’s the blighter (isn’t that what you say?) that everybody around here thinks was lily-white. That’s the Eringobragh that Paula’s eating her heart out on account of his death!”“Do you think so?”“Do I? Don’t I! Say, I know Paula. She’s the best kid on this little ol’ earth. Bannerlee, my boy, just because I like to talk like a fool half the time and can’t get back on the rails the rest, don’t get me wrong. I love Paula: I have ever since when I was dressed in a towel and she used to keep me from breaking my neck a dozen times every day. What I mean is, I know Paula. She hasn’t been natural for months, not since she got engaged to this devil. She was a darn good sport and peppy all day long, not one of these heavy thinkers. But ever since this Cosgrove got so big on the horizon, she’s been worrying for him—you know—the ‘King in Ireland’ stuff—or worryingabouthim—the dog! And since somebody polished him off with that rock, instead of feeling better, she’s acting so quiet and intense I’m scared to death. Honestly, I’ve been crazy-scared. Last night she just sat and thought. I hardly slept last night. I heard you going downstairs awfully early thisA.M.”“I wish I could help. But you see it’s so peculiarly and emphatically a situation where I can do nothing.”“I know it, I know it,” she acquiesced mournfully. “Gee, though, I wish she’d fall in love with you or something like that. I wish she’d take her mind off that Irishman. To think, he got so fresh with me, and then he went and bounced one off Mr. Oxford’s jaw.”“What?”“Sure; didn’t you know? He got sort of green-eyed about Oxey. Maybe he had a right to; I don’t know. I mean I don’t know about Oxey; he did seem to be around a lot of the time. Paula wouldn’t look at him, of course. Then Cosgrove hung one on Oxey’s jaw, and we thought we’d seen the last of him. But Oxey shows up here last week smooth as ever—hadn’t given up hope, I guess.”“I must tidy myself a bit for dinner. I wish I could help you, Lib. You mustn’t worry.”“I suppose I’m making things out worse than they are.” She took up the Book of Sylvan Armitage. “I’ll plunge into this exciting narrative, and try to make some head or tail out of it.” And just as I was going out of the door, she called with a flash of her usual impudence: “What’s that you’re smuggling under your coat?”“My shoulders,” I laughed.“You must have the hump, then,” she rejoined, and when I was at the stair-foot, I heard her cry, “Oh, look what I’ve found!” but I did not return to learn of her discovery.Nor did I immediately ascend to my room. In truth, one reason why I left the library was that I had heard voices in the portrait-corridor: one tone was Crofts’, the other a strange, high-keyed speech I had never heard before. To learn whose voice this was I had retreated from Lib and her find.I stole to the front entrance, opened the door with the cat-head knocker, peeped out. A dozen yards away my host was saying good-bye to the red-headed, red-bearded young man I had seen cavorting on the lawn at early day-break. The stranger now wore a blue suit of provincial tailoring and sported a huge yellow flower in his buttonhole. A moment later they parted, Crofts with a wave of the hand, the youth with a respectful salute. The owner of Highglen House then walked around past the library in the direction of the Hall of the Moth.I noiselessly gained the lawn and followed the youth, who wandered with an air of negligence across the grounds by a shrubbery path which soon was lost in the grove beneath Whimble. Among the trees I ventured to draw closer to him, and was nearly discovered in consequence. For when I slipped around a stout oak to creep upon him, I caught him lying or rather rolling on the other side, convulsed with silent mirth! I marched backward on tiptoes, collided with a tree, and returned to the House.After a plunge in the bath which Aire has kindly invited me to share, and after such improvement of my dress as my tramping kit afforded, I knocked on Crofts’ door and had the secret out of him. He was waging a pitched battle with some shirt-studs, and would have told me anything in return for my relief.“That red-haired chap? Foggins’ new man. He came ‘sweetheartin’ ’ this afternoon, and I had a little talk with him.”“But who is Foggins, and how does his new man come to be here at break of day? How does he come to be here at all?”“Oh, they’ve slung a footbridge over the Water down below. Finished late last night. Foggins sells us our milk. What do you mean by ‘break of day?’ ”“I saw this milk carrier dashing like a red streak across the lawn when I set out this morning.”“You did! So did I.”“You!”“I heard him coming round the House past Alberta’s room, while I lay awake at some ungodly early hour. I looked out, saw he was carrying a pair of spiked shoes in one hand, the milk can in the other. That looked queer. So I got into a pair of slippers and my dressing-gown and went to the upper end of the passage on this floor, intending to go out of the door and down the outside flight of steps to find what was up. But I saw everything through the glass. Rosa Clay—”“Ah, Rosa!”“You see (I got all this from the young chap himself just now) since this house-party began Rosa and Ardelia have been a little huffy over this man Morgan. Ardelia seems to bear away the prize; so for spite Rosa has begun to walk out a bit with this young fellow—seems a good enough young fellow.”“And why the athletic exhibition?”“The way of a man with a maid—showing his prowess. Prides himself on being something of a runner, says he possesses a number of cups and medals won at fairs and such by fleetness of foot. In fact, this afternoon he showed me his card of membership in the Brecon and Radnor Young Men Mercurys.”“Ah, now I know what she had in her hand!”He gaped; this was new to him. “What do you mean?”“She was holding his stop-watch on him.”“Curious. His voice reminded me of something, too.”I remembered the laughter-spasm of the youth beneath the tree, but forebore just then to plague my host with new vexation.The dinner-gong rang. While we passed down the stairs, I recalled our words of last evening on this flight of steps.“Tell me, Crofts, has the great Harry Heatheringham of Worcester wired you his solution of these riddles?”“He has not, but unless the fool who took my ’phoned telegram at the Post Office bungled it in transmission he has the facts.”“I look forward to seeing him.”“So do I. Good Lord, the night you dropped in on us, Bannerlee, I thought this was Lost Man’s Vale. Sir Brooke omitted to appear, as you know; but I had already been waiting three days for Heatheringham!”“Three days!”“Since the Parson Lolly trouble had become serious. I had sent word for him to come as a guest; he had accepted. And until yesterday’s wire, I haven’t heard another word from him.”It was rather low of me, but I could not resist the second temptation to prod Crofts a little. I said:“I hope you don’t mind my pointing out that you haven’t a particle of proof that wire came from Heatheringham at all, or that your message actually reached him, or that he’s alive. How can you tell that you haven’t been betraying secrets to some unknown enemy, or at least to some shrewd newspaper reporter?”My host seemed to shrink to about half his size.To-night’s dinner was the first orderly meal since Cosgrove’s death. It was good to see people eating again with the suggestion of appetite. Even Miss Lebetwood had come down and had lost her tense, restrained look of earlier hours. Opposite me, Lib, most fresh and radiant, more genuinely girlish than I can remember her before, smiled on me mystifyingly.The men had reverted to the English fashion of remaining behind the ladies. When we rose from the table I buttonholed Salt.“Superintendent, does your censorship permit a letter to go out of the Vale once in a while?”“Now you’re jokin’ me, sir. What is it this time?”“No, seriously,” I showed him an envelope containing a note I had scratched off in my room. “I want to send this to Balzing to-night for my own copy of Sylvan Armitage. That’s an old book I’ve discovered in the library here.”“Bless my soul! and you want another copy? One for each eye?”“Quite so; for comparison.”“Of course, Mr. Bannerlee. Carry on.”No sooner had we joined the women in the Hall, where a fire was lighted against the chill of evening, than Lib darted toward me, took my hand, led me to a small shaky-legged walnut cabinet, one of the objects which decorate but most inadequately furnish the room. An ornamental ebony box rested on the cabinet, and lifting the box cover, Lib revealed the Book of Sylvan Armitage.“Prepare for a great shock,” she said, slyly glancing about to ensure we were not observed. “You should have waited a minute before you skipped out of the library. Aren’t I clever? I’ll bet your copy at Balzing hasn’t one of these gadgets.”While she spoke she had opened the cover of the quarto, a cover which looked to be unusually thick. The slim pink fingers of her left hand were prying, then disappeared beneath the edge of the book, and I saw that the apparent thickness of the cover was due to the fact that a pocket of paper had been pasted to the board with cunning, but with no special secrecy. From the receptacle she drew two folded pages, one age-stained, the other much younger, even rather new.“See that!” she bade in a Gargantuan whisper, thrusting before my face the yellowed sheet, which was calf-skin. “Read that!”“But it’s in Welsh, and the parchment looks at least two centuries old.”“Oh, absolutely—but this goes with it.” She handed me the other piece, and stood beaming, her smile including and enlivening every feature of her already brisk countenance. I could not help smiling back, and it was several seconds before I could turn my glance to the white sheet of ordinary folio paper, whose close script was legible enough.“It doesn’t mean such a much to a low-brow like me,” I heard her say. “But if that’s not some modern shark’s translation of what’s written on the skin of the fatted calf, I’ll eat the calf-skin. What about it?”I would have needed only a comparison of the proper names in the first few lines of each writing to assure me that it was so, had it not been the obvious conclusion, on the face of it. Lib had discovered an unpublished document, or part of a document, connected with Highglen House.Two minutes later I had informed the company of the circumstances, and the Hall was as still as a vacuum. When I realized that all these people were listening to hear me read from the paper I held in my hand, my undisciplined hand shook. It is horrible to be nervous, and have to betray it.I shrugged my shoulders and kept my hand as steady as possible. Here goes:“ ‘. . . in some fear of being ill-received in Cwm Melin, for the lord there had the name of an intemperate man, one savage to strangeness when the humour was upon him. But mammering was more harm than use in the pass to which I had come, and save in that stronghold I had no surety of shelter from the snow, the town of New Aidenn lying some uncertain number of miles beyond the Cwm. Increasing storm and cold compelled me to seek kind reception within the castle, avouching truly that I was a person who had lost his way in those wilds and stood in danger of the elements. Being admitted within the gate and taken before my lord, I was excellently welcomed. The man himself sat alone before the blazing hearth in a room called the Hall of the Moth, with weapons and machines and all the abiliments of war heaped in the corners. He was none of your pouncing and mincing followers of court, but sprawled like a great bulchin in his chair, with ragged Abram-coloured beard, immense mouth, and eyes like yellow flames. He bawled for sewer and cup-bearer, and a table was straight fetched, and a feast-dish set thereon, with a manchet and good sherris wine a-plenty. I fell to my refreshment, nor did it escape my notice that my lord was somewhat in his cups, which caused him to be exceeding merry and boastful. He vaunted long about himself and his own great valour and prowess, exulting mightily in his late triumph over Roger, Earl of Gwrtheyrnion, which was truly an achievement which will redound in the history of time. Much he said that is known among men, and presently fell to speech of Sir Pharamond, fourth lord of that name, who builded this castle on the mill-site, after his house close under the valleytop had tumbled to its fall through the perfidy of the false steward David, a most foul and dastardly act, published far and wide among men. Very gleefully and asperly did my lord relate how they had skummed the countryside for the scroyle, and how they had meted out his fearful fate. Now my lord waxed more strange and withal crafty in his words, saying that which is not of common report, relating how above the newly builded battlements Sir Pharamond had made a tier of chambers, so that rumour whispered he was mad—but lord Pharamond only smiled, and called the windows of those chambers his eyes for descrying treachery. And ever afterward, said my noble host, the builder of the castle on the mill-site was untroubled by plotters against his peace. Now when I was emboldened to ask my lord to make this thing clear, he said no word but seized a flambeau up into his hand and beckoned me to follow. He led me through the kitchens and down into a cavern that was there, with a standing pool of water in the midst. This, said my lord, is the drowning-pit of my ancestor, for it was his merry mood to fling his disobedient folk into the water with his own hand, not binding them, but pressing them back into the pit while they essayed to come ashore. Thirty he had once drowned in a single afternoon. For the rest, were he werry, he could shuffle them off with no more trouble than snuffing a night-light. Now do you see, said my lord, but in such cunning wise that I knew some deceit lurked behind his words. Nor would he say more, but departed from the vault, leaving me constrained to follow him or remain in darkness, though wishful to examine the cavern—yet full of thanks, on the other hand, that he had not practised upon me the custom of his ancestor.Again in the Hall of the Moth my lord laughed immoderately before the fire, saying that for that gear he himself was proof against all traitordom, for he kept there a cat that was never tamed, more sure than forty watch-dogs, more trusty than twenty men-of-war, since that it leaped to the attack without a snarl or a struggle, full silently and suddenly, until it had achieved the kill, and it failed not to lay his enemy low. Beware, said my lord, of gib my cat’s claw, and how you hear the purring of the cat, for its purr is more dangerous than the innumerable growl of hounds upon a hunting. The purring of gib my cat means death. I dared to ask that I might be shown this beast, provided it purred not at me. My lord, who had drunk much more wine since we had come from the cavern of the drowning-pit, bade me thickly go seek the beast for myself, and upon asking where, he bade me look beneath the perfidious tree, but beware lest it purr or I was doomed. So I said no more of it, discerning that while he grew the more merry he grew the more savage, and might well be goading me on to my destruction. At length my lord having fallen into a stupor, he was borne to his bed, and I conducted to mine, among those upper rooms which rose above the battlements. I slept sound, awakened but once, as I thought, by a long belch of laughter from some unknown part of the castle. Again sleep visited me, and in the morning, when the snow had ceased, a party of my lord’s men being at point of breaking away to New Aidenn, I made one of their company and reached my destination in soundness, the afternoon being that of the fourteenth day of January, 1523.’ ”¹“Well,” avouched Mrs. Bartholomew, almost before I had completed the last sentence, “now we know the ancestry of that frightful animal.”“The cat of the Delambres, you mean?” asked Belvoir.“Yes. No wonder the Frenchwomen left it behind and Mr. Maryvale’s bullets couldn’t kill it.”“The cat’s claw, eh?” mused Belvoir. “ ‘Beware of the cat’s claw.’ Funny, Superintendent, that the Lord of Aidenn and Parson Lolly should use the same words.”“I wish someone would tell me,” said I, “what is a perfidious tree.”“I should like to know, too,” Alberta declared, “and what’s more, why anybody should keep a cat under one.”“I wish Mr. Maryvalehadannihilated that fiendish cat,” said Mrs. Bartholomew. “It gives me a shiver whenever I think of it somewhere up there, maybe waiting for one of us.”Pendleton looked towards Miss Lebetwood and lowered his voice. “Why, you don’t mean to say that you think the beast had anything to do with Cosgrove’s death?”“Cats don’t usually hit people with stones,” contributed Bob.“Nonsense,” called Ludlow sharply. “Fiendish cat, flying Parson, perfidious tree, deathless arm, mystic bone, and all balderdash!”“Very well, my Lord,” said Salt, who appeared ready to indulge in a little crossing of swords, “explain this tragedy without the balderdash.”“Explain itwith!” retorted his Lordship.The documents had been passing from hand to hand. “My Lord, I’ll have a look at that manuscript, if you’ve finished,” said Salt. “No, I mean the English-written one.”“I haven’t it.”“But I thought—”“I did have it a moment ago. I gave it to—er—”“You laid it down on the mantelpiece. I saw you,” said Alberta.“Ah, yes; so I did. But it’s not there.”Salt raised his voice. “Who has the English manuscript?”No response, until a gasp from Bob. “Look, isn’t that it?—in the fire!”Something ashen and fluffy was smouldering on top of the log, something that turned from grey to translucent pink when the flame brightened. Salt reached the fireplace in a leap, bent down, scrutinized the fragment.“That’s it, sure enough.” He ever so carefully attempted to remove the crinkled piece, which vanished at the first touch of the fire-shovel.Crofts extended the parchment in mollifying wise. “At any rate,” he said, “we have the original here. No trouble having a new translation made.”Salt swelled like a small balloon, and his jaw was tight. “No, thank you, Mr. Pendleton. I’m not having any.”I heard Aire’s suppressed exclamation behind me: “Of course not!”“What do you mean?” I demanded, turning to the dark, outlandish face that came only to my shoulder.“Why, Salt wants the manuscript because he wants the man who wrote it: someone, probably, who has lived here or been here before, knew the book, knew the Welsh language, and, particularly, whose penmanship is that of the paper.”Crofts, crestfallen, was still urging the original parchment. “At any rate, Superintendent, take charge of this. The burning must have been an accident; perhaps the sheet fell in the fire. And you can have another trans—”Salt took, or rather snatched, the sheep-skin from Crofts, as much as to say, “Better this than nothing,” and he did say, “I don’t wantanytranslation; I want that particular one.”“That’s right,” murmured Aire. “Whoever wrote that paper is Parson Lolly!”¹ It may be necessary, in view of the occurrence later in the evening when Mr. Bannerlee read this paper by an unknown hand, to state that the translation here included is both correct and substantially the same as that which he read. (V. Markham.)↩︎
There was, of course, a match-holder in the library. I looked into the room of weapons: although the light shone beyond the library door ajar, no sound came from inside. I thought the risk worth taking, and stepped in, rope and all, hoping (in my grimed condition) not to discover anyone.
The quiet of the room was deceptive. There were a lot of people there. Belvoir and Mrs. Belvoir were close together at the table with its red velvet cover, reading from the same book, which could not have been very fine sport for him, since he required about one-half the time she did to peruse a page. In the embrasure of the corner tower, Lord Ludlow was sitting with his back to the window and his volume held before his face so that no light from the chandelier might possibly fall upon what he read. This position he maintained the entire time I was in the room. In a secluded nook Lib and Bob were standing before a glass-covered case full of dark and mysterious tomes.
Belvoir looked up, while his wife began the page he had finished. “Hello! Where have you been?”
“On top of the Forest—all over it: a breather. What’s happened?”
“Man killed by the falling hill the other evening.”
“Yes; I’ve seen him. I met Salt going up there. But down here—what about Maryvale?”
“Quiet all day. He’s working hard—too busy to eat—fact. (Finished it yet, my dear? Don’t hurry.)”
“Is he really painting?”
Belvoir shrugged. “Wish I knew. This morning, through the door, he said he was, and warned us against interfering with him. Aire’s standing by at present.”
“But have you thought—the materials. Oil pigments need to be prepared. You can’t pick them up on instant’s notice after a number of years, or decades, and find them suitable.”
“Salt showed us that yesterday’s dash was far from being Gilbert’s first visit to the store-room. He had pottered there quite a bit, and some colours he left behind in his frantic haste are fit for immediate use.”
“He has painted before, then?”
“Yes, but not in this generation. Long ago.”
“Pity. Did he say what he is working on?”
“No—no details. There’s another development, though. Did Salt tell you?”
“Not a thing.”
“You remember Sir Brooke?”
“Do I?”
“Well, that same useful road-mender who kept the vigil in the car last evening was interviewed in person by Salt about noon to-day.”
“But how—”
“Oh, they’ve rigged up a practicable bridge for one person at a time down where the old one stood. Salt crossed it unscathed. (Very well, my dear. Carry on. I’ll catch up with you.)”
“Yes?”
“Two nights ago the road-mender saw Sir Brooke as sure as taxes, crossing the bridge and proceeding up the road toward the House. (I agree with you, my dear. It’s infernally dull. But Carlyle was a great man.)”
“Great Scott! We’re closing in on him.”
“I wish they’d leave off tracing that old boy,” said a peevish young feminine voice from the corner. “He’s old enough to take care of himself. I wish somebody’d trace my tennis balls.”
“Why,” I smiled, “what’s happened to them?”
“The usual death,” said Lib. “Bob knocked both of ’em into the Water this afternoon and presto vanisho! Now we can’t play any more until somebody goes into town and pries a few loose from the corner store.”
“Gee, he’s got nerve, that butler,” urged Bob, turning his plus-foured self toward me, and more toward the light, so that his somewhat pug-like countenance showed the full measure of affronted innocence. “You know what he said, Mr. Bannerlee? He said that it served us right because we played tennis so soon after Mr. Cosgrove died—Cosgrove!”
“It served you right because you thought my side of the court was in the next county,” Lib snapped. “Now what can we do, except read?”
“There are worse things,” I offered mildly.
“That’s what we’re looking for over there—a good book,” exclaimed the youth.
“Well, these are just a little too rich for your taste, I fancy,” I remarked. I scanned the titles behind the glass; I had not examined this case before. The shelves were not quite comfortably filled with bound volumes of learned periodicals and manuscripts in expensive leather covers, all having their titles impressed in bright gilt.
“Hullo, now there’s a thing.”
“What?” asked both juveniles at once, alert for something, even literature, to break the monotony of their existence.
I pointed to a cover with the words “MS. Elis Gruffydd” stamped upon it. “Evidently a copy of part of a historical manuscript I once read. If I remember rightly, it contains a passage about this house.”
“Gee whiz, it does?”
“You’re a wonder,” declared Lib, with her nose pressed against the glass. “Why, we had that one down and gave it the once over. It was all Welsh to us.”
“Oh, I mean in translation,” I hastily amended. “Don’t credit me with any knowledge of Cumraeg.”
“What kind of a rag?”
“The Welsh language,” I explained. “But I should think you’d find better hunting on those shelves over there.”
“Those? They look sort of dull.”
“I realize that the volumes are not provided with art-jackets in three colours depicting the discovery of slaughtered bodies and the rescue of lovely women, but behind those drab covers reside the works of Jane Austen, Scott, and the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens—and Wilkie Collins!”
“Christopher! Seems to me I’ve read something quite hot by Wilkie Collins. Thanks, Mr. Bannerlee, I’ll take a look.”
Alone, then, at the case in the obscure corner, I opened the glass doors and ran my eye over the titles at close range. “Old Watts,” as everyone styles him, had been something of a bibliophile, and I saw what I believed to be a number of absolute rarities, quite thrown away on Crofts, of course. I had reached my hand up to a dark corner, where a couple of volumes were lying on their sides, when an exclamation from my lips brought Lib back from Wilkie Collins at once.
“That was a strong one. What’s the matter? See a snake up there?”
“No, but I found a mighty startling book,” I answered, looking around and noticing with relief that probably only Lib had heard my exclamation. Bob and the Belvoirs had departed, and Lord Ludlow was holding his page so close to his face that I supposed him insensible to external stimuli.
“What’s the big kick here?” she asked, looking at the little old book I had plucked from the shelf and whose age-tawny pages I was scrabbling through.
“If Crofts knew what a hoard he has in this library! Why, two or three of these quartos must be worth their weight in diamonds.”
“Boy! What a chance! I’d sneak a couple away; only they all look worth a thin dime to me. What’s this one you’re palpitating about?”
“This is the volume responsible for my being here, Miss Dale. ‘The Book of Sylvan Armitage,’ imprint 1598. What do you think of that!”
She was holding the quarto to the light, screwing up her face while her eyes roved across the page. Something flickered to the floor. I stooped and picked it up: a flake of moss.
“That’s funny,” I said. “Some servant nodded when he dusted here. Well, how do you like it?”
“Too many f’s. I get all tangled up reading.”
“Those aren’t f’s; they’re s’s. You’ll get used to them soon. Poor Cosgrove would have revelled in this.”
“Oh, Cosgrove. Funny things he revelled in.” Suddenly she snapped the quarto closed, and gave a careful look toward the harmless Ludlow, whose book was still held defiantly against the light, shutting out the universe. She lowered her voice. “Say, Mr. Bannerlee, remember the day I came down here, the way Cosgrove was watching me, like a fish?”
Before I could put in a restraining word, she began a hasty whispered account of events occurring some months ago, when Cosgrove, already engaged to Paula Lebetwood, met Lib for the first time at Coventry. Unquestionably, the orthodox Irishman had been shocked at the daring dress, behaviour, and speech of this insouciant American minx. Mingled with his disapproval, however, was a strong spell of attraction which caused him to be constantly hanging about in her presence. I believe that just as the element of unexpectedness in Miss Lebetwood’s broadly capable character was in a large measure responsible for his desire for her, why here in this alert, sharp wasp of a girl, was also something Cosgrove had not experienced before, something tantalizing that would not let him be at peace. His attentions to Lib, so I gathered from her story, had grown more obnoxious as the days went by, and reached their climax one evening when by her bad luck he happened to find her alone at the far end of one of the gardens.
I had some difficulty at this point in following the extraordinary language of Miss Dale, especially since her speech now became spiced with a good many terms expressive of emotion. But it is clear enough that Cosgrove, detaining her in spite of her unambiguous complaints, entered into a long exhortation over her, more like a fanatical Puritan than a son of the Church. At first Lib had been bewildered, then frightened, for mingled with the Irishman’s obloquy was a strain which at first she could not comprehend at all, but soon realized was an appeal to “make his banner her banner,” an invitation of no uncertain tenour to “ride by his side through the high places of the world.” The union of repulsion and fascination under which he must have laboured, as shown in this outburst, was identical with what I had observed on his face at the luncheon table.
“And that’s the kind of a bozo Cosgrove was,” perorated Lib. “That’s the blighter (isn’t that what you say?) that everybody around here thinks was lily-white. That’s the Eringobragh that Paula’s eating her heart out on account of his death!”
“Do you think so?”
“Do I? Don’t I! Say, I know Paula. She’s the best kid on this little ol’ earth. Bannerlee, my boy, just because I like to talk like a fool half the time and can’t get back on the rails the rest, don’t get me wrong. I love Paula: I have ever since when I was dressed in a towel and she used to keep me from breaking my neck a dozen times every day. What I mean is, I know Paula. She hasn’t been natural for months, not since she got engaged to this devil. She was a darn good sport and peppy all day long, not one of these heavy thinkers. But ever since this Cosgrove got so big on the horizon, she’s been worrying for him—you know—the ‘King in Ireland’ stuff—or worryingabouthim—the dog! And since somebody polished him off with that rock, instead of feeling better, she’s acting so quiet and intense I’m scared to death. Honestly, I’ve been crazy-scared. Last night she just sat and thought. I hardly slept last night. I heard you going downstairs awfully early thisA.M.”
“I wish I could help. But you see it’s so peculiarly and emphatically a situation where I can do nothing.”
“I know it, I know it,” she acquiesced mournfully. “Gee, though, I wish she’d fall in love with you or something like that. I wish she’d take her mind off that Irishman. To think, he got so fresh with me, and then he went and bounced one off Mr. Oxford’s jaw.”
“What?”
“Sure; didn’t you know? He got sort of green-eyed about Oxey. Maybe he had a right to; I don’t know. I mean I don’t know about Oxey; he did seem to be around a lot of the time. Paula wouldn’t look at him, of course. Then Cosgrove hung one on Oxey’s jaw, and we thought we’d seen the last of him. But Oxey shows up here last week smooth as ever—hadn’t given up hope, I guess.”
“I must tidy myself a bit for dinner. I wish I could help you, Lib. You mustn’t worry.”
“I suppose I’m making things out worse than they are.” She took up the Book of Sylvan Armitage. “I’ll plunge into this exciting narrative, and try to make some head or tail out of it.” And just as I was going out of the door, she called with a flash of her usual impudence: “What’s that you’re smuggling under your coat?”
“My shoulders,” I laughed.
“You must have the hump, then,” she rejoined, and when I was at the stair-foot, I heard her cry, “Oh, look what I’ve found!” but I did not return to learn of her discovery.
Nor did I immediately ascend to my room. In truth, one reason why I left the library was that I had heard voices in the portrait-corridor: one tone was Crofts’, the other a strange, high-keyed speech I had never heard before. To learn whose voice this was I had retreated from Lib and her find.
I stole to the front entrance, opened the door with the cat-head knocker, peeped out. A dozen yards away my host was saying good-bye to the red-headed, red-bearded young man I had seen cavorting on the lawn at early day-break. The stranger now wore a blue suit of provincial tailoring and sported a huge yellow flower in his buttonhole. A moment later they parted, Crofts with a wave of the hand, the youth with a respectful salute. The owner of Highglen House then walked around past the library in the direction of the Hall of the Moth.
I noiselessly gained the lawn and followed the youth, who wandered with an air of negligence across the grounds by a shrubbery path which soon was lost in the grove beneath Whimble. Among the trees I ventured to draw closer to him, and was nearly discovered in consequence. For when I slipped around a stout oak to creep upon him, I caught him lying or rather rolling on the other side, convulsed with silent mirth! I marched backward on tiptoes, collided with a tree, and returned to the House.
After a plunge in the bath which Aire has kindly invited me to share, and after such improvement of my dress as my tramping kit afforded, I knocked on Crofts’ door and had the secret out of him. He was waging a pitched battle with some shirt-studs, and would have told me anything in return for my relief.
“That red-haired chap? Foggins’ new man. He came ‘sweetheartin’ ’ this afternoon, and I had a little talk with him.”
“But who is Foggins, and how does his new man come to be here at break of day? How does he come to be here at all?”
“Oh, they’ve slung a footbridge over the Water down below. Finished late last night. Foggins sells us our milk. What do you mean by ‘break of day?’ ”
“I saw this milk carrier dashing like a red streak across the lawn when I set out this morning.”
“You did! So did I.”
“You!”
“I heard him coming round the House past Alberta’s room, while I lay awake at some ungodly early hour. I looked out, saw he was carrying a pair of spiked shoes in one hand, the milk can in the other. That looked queer. So I got into a pair of slippers and my dressing-gown and went to the upper end of the passage on this floor, intending to go out of the door and down the outside flight of steps to find what was up. But I saw everything through the glass. Rosa Clay—”
“Ah, Rosa!”
“You see (I got all this from the young chap himself just now) since this house-party began Rosa and Ardelia have been a little huffy over this man Morgan. Ardelia seems to bear away the prize; so for spite Rosa has begun to walk out a bit with this young fellow—seems a good enough young fellow.”
“And why the athletic exhibition?”
“The way of a man with a maid—showing his prowess. Prides himself on being something of a runner, says he possesses a number of cups and medals won at fairs and such by fleetness of foot. In fact, this afternoon he showed me his card of membership in the Brecon and Radnor Young Men Mercurys.”
“Ah, now I know what she had in her hand!”
He gaped; this was new to him. “What do you mean?”
“She was holding his stop-watch on him.”
“Curious. His voice reminded me of something, too.”
I remembered the laughter-spasm of the youth beneath the tree, but forebore just then to plague my host with new vexation.
The dinner-gong rang. While we passed down the stairs, I recalled our words of last evening on this flight of steps.
“Tell me, Crofts, has the great Harry Heatheringham of Worcester wired you his solution of these riddles?”
“He has not, but unless the fool who took my ’phoned telegram at the Post Office bungled it in transmission he has the facts.”
“I look forward to seeing him.”
“So do I. Good Lord, the night you dropped in on us, Bannerlee, I thought this was Lost Man’s Vale. Sir Brooke omitted to appear, as you know; but I had already been waiting three days for Heatheringham!”
“Three days!”
“Since the Parson Lolly trouble had become serious. I had sent word for him to come as a guest; he had accepted. And until yesterday’s wire, I haven’t heard another word from him.”
It was rather low of me, but I could not resist the second temptation to prod Crofts a little. I said:
“I hope you don’t mind my pointing out that you haven’t a particle of proof that wire came from Heatheringham at all, or that your message actually reached him, or that he’s alive. How can you tell that you haven’t been betraying secrets to some unknown enemy, or at least to some shrewd newspaper reporter?”
My host seemed to shrink to about half his size.
To-night’s dinner was the first orderly meal since Cosgrove’s death. It was good to see people eating again with the suggestion of appetite. Even Miss Lebetwood had come down and had lost her tense, restrained look of earlier hours. Opposite me, Lib, most fresh and radiant, more genuinely girlish than I can remember her before, smiled on me mystifyingly.
The men had reverted to the English fashion of remaining behind the ladies. When we rose from the table I buttonholed Salt.
“Superintendent, does your censorship permit a letter to go out of the Vale once in a while?”
“Now you’re jokin’ me, sir. What is it this time?”
“No, seriously,” I showed him an envelope containing a note I had scratched off in my room. “I want to send this to Balzing to-night for my own copy of Sylvan Armitage. That’s an old book I’ve discovered in the library here.”
“Bless my soul! and you want another copy? One for each eye?”
“Quite so; for comparison.”
“Of course, Mr. Bannerlee. Carry on.”
No sooner had we joined the women in the Hall, where a fire was lighted against the chill of evening, than Lib darted toward me, took my hand, led me to a small shaky-legged walnut cabinet, one of the objects which decorate but most inadequately furnish the room. An ornamental ebony box rested on the cabinet, and lifting the box cover, Lib revealed the Book of Sylvan Armitage.
“Prepare for a great shock,” she said, slyly glancing about to ensure we were not observed. “You should have waited a minute before you skipped out of the library. Aren’t I clever? I’ll bet your copy at Balzing hasn’t one of these gadgets.”
While she spoke she had opened the cover of the quarto, a cover which looked to be unusually thick. The slim pink fingers of her left hand were prying, then disappeared beneath the edge of the book, and I saw that the apparent thickness of the cover was due to the fact that a pocket of paper had been pasted to the board with cunning, but with no special secrecy. From the receptacle she drew two folded pages, one age-stained, the other much younger, even rather new.
“See that!” she bade in a Gargantuan whisper, thrusting before my face the yellowed sheet, which was calf-skin. “Read that!”
“But it’s in Welsh, and the parchment looks at least two centuries old.”
“Oh, absolutely—but this goes with it.” She handed me the other piece, and stood beaming, her smile including and enlivening every feature of her already brisk countenance. I could not help smiling back, and it was several seconds before I could turn my glance to the white sheet of ordinary folio paper, whose close script was legible enough.
“It doesn’t mean such a much to a low-brow like me,” I heard her say. “But if that’s not some modern shark’s translation of what’s written on the skin of the fatted calf, I’ll eat the calf-skin. What about it?”
I would have needed only a comparison of the proper names in the first few lines of each writing to assure me that it was so, had it not been the obvious conclusion, on the face of it. Lib had discovered an unpublished document, or part of a document, connected with Highglen House.
Two minutes later I had informed the company of the circumstances, and the Hall was as still as a vacuum. When I realized that all these people were listening to hear me read from the paper I held in my hand, my undisciplined hand shook. It is horrible to be nervous, and have to betray it.
I shrugged my shoulders and kept my hand as steady as possible. Here goes:
“ ‘. . . in some fear of being ill-received in Cwm Melin, for the lord there had the name of an intemperate man, one savage to strangeness when the humour was upon him. But mammering was more harm than use in the pass to which I had come, and save in that stronghold I had no surety of shelter from the snow, the town of New Aidenn lying some uncertain number of miles beyond the Cwm. Increasing storm and cold compelled me to seek kind reception within the castle, avouching truly that I was a person who had lost his way in those wilds and stood in danger of the elements. Being admitted within the gate and taken before my lord, I was excellently welcomed. The man himself sat alone before the blazing hearth in a room called the Hall of the Moth, with weapons and machines and all the abiliments of war heaped in the corners. He was none of your pouncing and mincing followers of court, but sprawled like a great bulchin in his chair, with ragged Abram-coloured beard, immense mouth, and eyes like yellow flames. He bawled for sewer and cup-bearer, and a table was straight fetched, and a feast-dish set thereon, with a manchet and good sherris wine a-plenty. I fell to my refreshment, nor did it escape my notice that my lord was somewhat in his cups, which caused him to be exceeding merry and boastful. He vaunted long about himself and his own great valour and prowess, exulting mightily in his late triumph over Roger, Earl of Gwrtheyrnion, which was truly an achievement which will redound in the history of time. Much he said that is known among men, and presently fell to speech of Sir Pharamond, fourth lord of that name, who builded this castle on the mill-site, after his house close under the valleytop had tumbled to its fall through the perfidy of the false steward David, a most foul and dastardly act, published far and wide among men. Very gleefully and asperly did my lord relate how they had skummed the countryside for the scroyle, and how they had meted out his fearful fate. Now my lord waxed more strange and withal crafty in his words, saying that which is not of common report, relating how above the newly builded battlements Sir Pharamond had made a tier of chambers, so that rumour whispered he was mad—but lord Pharamond only smiled, and called the windows of those chambers his eyes for descrying treachery. And ever afterward, said my noble host, the builder of the castle on the mill-site was untroubled by plotters against his peace. Now when I was emboldened to ask my lord to make this thing clear, he said no word but seized a flambeau up into his hand and beckoned me to follow. He led me through the kitchens and down into a cavern that was there, with a standing pool of water in the midst. This, said my lord, is the drowning-pit of my ancestor, for it was his merry mood to fling his disobedient folk into the water with his own hand, not binding them, but pressing them back into the pit while they essayed to come ashore. Thirty he had once drowned in a single afternoon. For the rest, were he werry, he could shuffle them off with no more trouble than snuffing a night-light. Now do you see, said my lord, but in such cunning wise that I knew some deceit lurked behind his words. Nor would he say more, but departed from the vault, leaving me constrained to follow him or remain in darkness, though wishful to examine the cavern—yet full of thanks, on the other hand, that he had not practised upon me the custom of his ancestor.Again in the Hall of the Moth my lord laughed immoderately before the fire, saying that for that gear he himself was proof against all traitordom, for he kept there a cat that was never tamed, more sure than forty watch-dogs, more trusty than twenty men-of-war, since that it leaped to the attack without a snarl or a struggle, full silently and suddenly, until it had achieved the kill, and it failed not to lay his enemy low. Beware, said my lord, of gib my cat’s claw, and how you hear the purring of the cat, for its purr is more dangerous than the innumerable growl of hounds upon a hunting. The purring of gib my cat means death. I dared to ask that I might be shown this beast, provided it purred not at me. My lord, who had drunk much more wine since we had come from the cavern of the drowning-pit, bade me thickly go seek the beast for myself, and upon asking where, he bade me look beneath the perfidious tree, but beware lest it purr or I was doomed. So I said no more of it, discerning that while he grew the more merry he grew the more savage, and might well be goading me on to my destruction. At length my lord having fallen into a stupor, he was borne to his bed, and I conducted to mine, among those upper rooms which rose above the battlements. I slept sound, awakened but once, as I thought, by a long belch of laughter from some unknown part of the castle. Again sleep visited me, and in the morning, when the snow had ceased, a party of my lord’s men being at point of breaking away to New Aidenn, I made one of their company and reached my destination in soundness, the afternoon being that of the fourteenth day of January, 1523.’ ”¹
“ ‘. . . in some fear of being ill-received in Cwm Melin, for the lord there had the name of an intemperate man, one savage to strangeness when the humour was upon him. But mammering was more harm than use in the pass to which I had come, and save in that stronghold I had no surety of shelter from the snow, the town of New Aidenn lying some uncertain number of miles beyond the Cwm. Increasing storm and cold compelled me to seek kind reception within the castle, avouching truly that I was a person who had lost his way in those wilds and stood in danger of the elements. Being admitted within the gate and taken before my lord, I was excellently welcomed. The man himself sat alone before the blazing hearth in a room called the Hall of the Moth, with weapons and machines and all the abiliments of war heaped in the corners. He was none of your pouncing and mincing followers of court, but sprawled like a great bulchin in his chair, with ragged Abram-coloured beard, immense mouth, and eyes like yellow flames. He bawled for sewer and cup-bearer, and a table was straight fetched, and a feast-dish set thereon, with a manchet and good sherris wine a-plenty. I fell to my refreshment, nor did it escape my notice that my lord was somewhat in his cups, which caused him to be exceeding merry and boastful. He vaunted long about himself and his own great valour and prowess, exulting mightily in his late triumph over Roger, Earl of Gwrtheyrnion, which was truly an achievement which will redound in the history of time. Much he said that is known among men, and presently fell to speech of Sir Pharamond, fourth lord of that name, who builded this castle on the mill-site, after his house close under the valleytop had tumbled to its fall through the perfidy of the false steward David, a most foul and dastardly act, published far and wide among men. Very gleefully and asperly did my lord relate how they had skummed the countryside for the scroyle, and how they had meted out his fearful fate. Now my lord waxed more strange and withal crafty in his words, saying that which is not of common report, relating how above the newly builded battlements Sir Pharamond had made a tier of chambers, so that rumour whispered he was mad—but lord Pharamond only smiled, and called the windows of those chambers his eyes for descrying treachery. And ever afterward, said my noble host, the builder of the castle on the mill-site was untroubled by plotters against his peace. Now when I was emboldened to ask my lord to make this thing clear, he said no word but seized a flambeau up into his hand and beckoned me to follow. He led me through the kitchens and down into a cavern that was there, with a standing pool of water in the midst. This, said my lord, is the drowning-pit of my ancestor, for it was his merry mood to fling his disobedient folk into the water with his own hand, not binding them, but pressing them back into the pit while they essayed to come ashore. Thirty he had once drowned in a single afternoon. For the rest, were he werry, he could shuffle them off with no more trouble than snuffing a night-light. Now do you see, said my lord, but in such cunning wise that I knew some deceit lurked behind his words. Nor would he say more, but departed from the vault, leaving me constrained to follow him or remain in darkness, though wishful to examine the cavern—yet full of thanks, on the other hand, that he had not practised upon me the custom of his ancestor.
Again in the Hall of the Moth my lord laughed immoderately before the fire, saying that for that gear he himself was proof against all traitordom, for he kept there a cat that was never tamed, more sure than forty watch-dogs, more trusty than twenty men-of-war, since that it leaped to the attack without a snarl or a struggle, full silently and suddenly, until it had achieved the kill, and it failed not to lay his enemy low. Beware, said my lord, of gib my cat’s claw, and how you hear the purring of the cat, for its purr is more dangerous than the innumerable growl of hounds upon a hunting. The purring of gib my cat means death. I dared to ask that I might be shown this beast, provided it purred not at me. My lord, who had drunk much more wine since we had come from the cavern of the drowning-pit, bade me thickly go seek the beast for myself, and upon asking where, he bade me look beneath the perfidious tree, but beware lest it purr or I was doomed. So I said no more of it, discerning that while he grew the more merry he grew the more savage, and might well be goading me on to my destruction. At length my lord having fallen into a stupor, he was borne to his bed, and I conducted to mine, among those upper rooms which rose above the battlements. I slept sound, awakened but once, as I thought, by a long belch of laughter from some unknown part of the castle. Again sleep visited me, and in the morning, when the snow had ceased, a party of my lord’s men being at point of breaking away to New Aidenn, I made one of their company and reached my destination in soundness, the afternoon being that of the fourteenth day of January, 1523.’ ”¹
“Well,” avouched Mrs. Bartholomew, almost before I had completed the last sentence, “now we know the ancestry of that frightful animal.”
“The cat of the Delambres, you mean?” asked Belvoir.
“Yes. No wonder the Frenchwomen left it behind and Mr. Maryvale’s bullets couldn’t kill it.”
“The cat’s claw, eh?” mused Belvoir. “ ‘Beware of the cat’s claw.’ Funny, Superintendent, that the Lord of Aidenn and Parson Lolly should use the same words.”
“I wish someone would tell me,” said I, “what is a perfidious tree.”
“I should like to know, too,” Alberta declared, “and what’s more, why anybody should keep a cat under one.”
“I wish Mr. Maryvalehadannihilated that fiendish cat,” said Mrs. Bartholomew. “It gives me a shiver whenever I think of it somewhere up there, maybe waiting for one of us.”
Pendleton looked towards Miss Lebetwood and lowered his voice. “Why, you don’t mean to say that you think the beast had anything to do with Cosgrove’s death?”
“Cats don’t usually hit people with stones,” contributed Bob.
“Nonsense,” called Ludlow sharply. “Fiendish cat, flying Parson, perfidious tree, deathless arm, mystic bone, and all balderdash!”
“Very well, my Lord,” said Salt, who appeared ready to indulge in a little crossing of swords, “explain this tragedy without the balderdash.”
“Explain itwith!” retorted his Lordship.
The documents had been passing from hand to hand. “My Lord, I’ll have a look at that manuscript, if you’ve finished,” said Salt. “No, I mean the English-written one.”
“I haven’t it.”
“But I thought—”
“I did have it a moment ago. I gave it to—er—”
“You laid it down on the mantelpiece. I saw you,” said Alberta.
“Ah, yes; so I did. But it’s not there.”
Salt raised his voice. “Who has the English manuscript?”
No response, until a gasp from Bob. “Look, isn’t that it?—in the fire!”
Something ashen and fluffy was smouldering on top of the log, something that turned from grey to translucent pink when the flame brightened. Salt reached the fireplace in a leap, bent down, scrutinized the fragment.
“That’s it, sure enough.” He ever so carefully attempted to remove the crinkled piece, which vanished at the first touch of the fire-shovel.
Crofts extended the parchment in mollifying wise. “At any rate,” he said, “we have the original here. No trouble having a new translation made.”
Salt swelled like a small balloon, and his jaw was tight. “No, thank you, Mr. Pendleton. I’m not having any.”
I heard Aire’s suppressed exclamation behind me: “Of course not!”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, turning to the dark, outlandish face that came only to my shoulder.
“Why, Salt wants the manuscript because he wants the man who wrote it: someone, probably, who has lived here or been here before, knew the book, knew the Welsh language, and, particularly, whose penmanship is that of the paper.”
Crofts, crestfallen, was still urging the original parchment. “At any rate, Superintendent, take charge of this. The burning must have been an accident; perhaps the sheet fell in the fire. And you can have another trans—”
Salt took, or rather snatched, the sheep-skin from Crofts, as much as to say, “Better this than nothing,” and he did say, “I don’t wantanytranslation; I want that particular one.”
“That’s right,” murmured Aire. “Whoever wrote that paper is Parson Lolly!”
¹ It may be necessary, in view of the occurrence later in the evening when Mr. Bannerlee read this paper by an unknown hand, to state that the translation here included is both correct and substantially the same as that which he read. (V. Markham.)↩︎