He saw that she was short and slight, with a beautiful little head set gracefully upon her upright slender figure. Her expression was proud and self-contained, but the large dark eyes that glowed beneath long black lashes were in themselves striking evidence of a passionate nature sternly repressed, and an eloquent contradiction to the firm, tightly compressed lips. Here, thought Gimblet, was a nature which might pursue its object with cold and calculating tenacity, and then at the last moment let the prize slip through its fingers at some sudden call upon the emotions.
For the time being her thoughts were evidently fixed upon her present purpose, to the exclusion of all considerations such as might have been expected to obtrude themselves upon the mind of a young girl engaged in a nocturnal raid. The dark solitude, the lateness of the hour, the surreptitious manner of her entry into the room, all these, which might well have occasioned some degree of nervousness in the coolest of housebreakers, appeared to produce, in her, nothing of the sort. As calmly as if she were sitting by her own bedside, she examined the documents in Lord Ashiel's bureau, sorting and folding the contents of one drawer after another as if it were the most commonplace thing in the world to go over other people's private papers in the dead of night.
And what was she looking for?
Gimblet felt no doubt on that subject. This could surely be no other than Julia, the adopted daughter of Countess Romaninov, whom Lord Ashiel had for so long supposed to be his daughter. In some way or other she must have discovered the problematic relationship, and now she was hunting for proof of her birth, or perhaps for the will which should deprive her of her inheritance. It was even possible that the dead peer had been mistaken, and that Julia was indeed his daughter and not unaware of the fact. But what was she doing here, and where did she come from? Surely Juliet had told him that all the guests had left the castle.
Gimblet had never seen her before; but, as he watched her slow deliberate movements and quick intelligent eyes, he had an odd feeling that they were already acquainted. She reminded him of some one; how, he couldn't say. Perhaps it was the features, perhaps merely the expression, but if they had never previously met, at least he must have seen some one she resembled. Rack his brains as he might, he could not remember who it was. He put the thought aside. Sooner or later the recollection would come to him.
The night was a warm one, and Gimblet felt no need for his coat, though he was a little uneasy lest his white shirt should show up against the dark background if she should chance to look out. Behind him the trees in the wood stirred noisily and untiringly in the wind, and from time to time an owl cried out of the gloom; but no sound from within the castle reached his ears throughout the long hour during which he stood watching while deftly and methodically the young lady in the library went about her business. He wondered if this girl, who stealthily, in the night, by the gleam of a pocket lantern, was engaged in such questionable employment, were unwarrantably ransacking the belongings of her former host, or believed herself to be exercising a daughter's right in going over the papers of a dead parent.
The time came when the last paper was examined, the last drawer quietly pushed back into its place; then, with every sign of disappointment, she slowly rose, and taking up her torch made the tour of the room as if debating whether she had not left some corner unexplored. But the library was scantily furnished, apart from the books that lined the walls, and though she drew more than one volume from its place, and thrust a hand into the back of the shelf, it was with a dispirited air. Soon, with a glance at her watch, she abandoned the search, and slowly and hesitatingly moved in the direction of the door and laid her fingers upon the handle.
She did not turn it, however, but stood irresolute, her eyes on the floor. After a moment of indecision, the detective saw her mouth compress firmly, and with a quick movement of the head, as if she were shaking herself free from some persistent and troublesome thought, she turned and walked deliberately towards the alcove at the end of the room.
"Now," thought Gimblet, "we shall see where the secret door is concealed."
Judge of his surprise and excitement, when the girl stopped before the tall case of the lacquered clock and, opening it, stepped inside and drew the door to behind her. For five minutes, with nose pressed to the pane of the window, the detective waited, expecting her to reappear; then an idea struck him, and he clapped his hand against his leg in his exasperation at not having guessed before.
He turned immediately, and using the same precautions as before made good his retreat, and returned by way of the drawing-room window to the library.
All was silent there, and the empty room displayed no sign of its nocturnal visitors. Gimblet did not hesitate. He went straight to the clock and pulled open the door. The black interior was as empty and bare as when he had previously examined it, but he betrayed neither astonishment nor doubt as to his next action.
Stooping down he ran his hand over the painted wooden flooring. As he expected, his fingers encountered a small knob in one of the corners, and he had no sooner pressed it when the whole bottom of the case fell suddenly away beneath his touch. As he stretched down the hand that held the electric torch, the light fell upon an open trap-door and the topmost step of a narrow flight of stairs, which descended into the thickness of the wall.
Gimblet stepped into the case, and lowered himself quickly through the hole at the bottom.
The stairs proved to be but a short flight, ending in a low passage, which wound away through the wall of the ancient building. The detective felt little doubt that it led to another concealed opening in some distant part of the castle. But he had other things to think of for the moment.
"The clock—eleven—steps." The meaning of Lord Ashiel's dying words was, he thought, plain enough now.
Running up the stairs again, he descended more slowly, counting the treads as he went.
There were fifteen.
Gimblet bent down and held his torch so that the light fell bright upon the eleventh step.
It presented identically the same appearance as the rest, the rough-hewn stone dipping slightly in the middle as if many feet had trodden it in the course of the centuries which had elapsed since it was first placed there, but in every respect the worn surface resembled those of the steps above and below it, as far as Gimblet could see.
He tapped it, and it gave forth the same sound as its neighbours. Then he lowered the torch and ran its beams along the front of the step; high up, under the overhanging edge of the tread above it, it seemed as if there were a flaw or crack in the stone. He knocked upon it, and it gave back a different sound to the stone around it.
Clearly it was wood, not stone, though so cleverly painted to imitate its surroundings that it was a thousand to one against anyone ever noticing it; and yes, there was a little circular depression in the middle of it. Gimblet's thumb pressed heavily against the place, and immediately there was a click, and a long narrow drawer flew out.
In it lay a single sheet of paper, and Gimblet's fingers shook with excitement as he drew it forth.
A moment's pause while he perused the writing upon it, and then the exultation on his face dwindled away. He could perceive no meaning in these apparently random sentences.
"Remember that where there's a way there's a will. Face curiosity and take the bull by the horn."
Was this the cipher, of which he had never received the key? The papers he had hoped to find must be hidden elsewhere. No doubt in some place whose whereabouts was indicated, if he could only understand it, by the incomprehensible message he held.
He stared at it for some minutes in an endeavour to find the translation; then, reflecting that this was neither the time nor place for deciphering cryptograms, he placed it carefully in an inner pocket, and after a hasty exploration of the passage beyond which did not reveal anything interesting except from an archaeological point of view, he thoughtfully mounted to the room above.
Closing the trap-door, and making sure that everything in the library was left as he had found it, Gimblet made his exit from the castle in the same manner as he had entered it, and groped his silent way home through the darkness.
A convenient creeper made it easy to climb on to the porch of Lady Ruth's house, now wrapped in peaceful slumber; and so in at his own window once more. The noise of the wind, which had now freshened to the strength of half a gale, drowned any sound of his return, and he lost no time in getting to bed and to sleep. The puzzle must keep till to-morrow. It was one of Gimblet's rules to take proper rest when it was at all possible, for he knew that his work suffered if he came to it physically exhausted.
Gimblet was up early next morning, refreshed by a sound and dreamless sleep.
For two hours before breakfast he wrestled with the cryptic message on the sheet of paper, trying first one way and then another of solving the riddle it presented, but still finding no solution. He was silent and preoccupied during the morning meal, replying to inquiries as to his headache, alternately, with obvious inattention and exaggerated gratitude. Neither of the ladies spoke much, however, and his absent-mindedness passed almost unnoticed.
Lord Ashiel was to be buried that day. Before they left the dining-room sombre figures could be seen striding along the high road towards Inverashiel: inhabitants of the scattered villages, and people from the neighbouring estates, hurrying to show their respect to the dead peer for the last time.
The tragic circumstances of the murder had aroused great excitement all over the countryside, and a large gathering assembled at the little island at the head of the loch, where the McConachans had left their bones since the early days of the youth of the race.
From the surrounding glens, from distant hills and valleys, and even from far-away Edinburgh and Oban, came McConachans, to render their final tribute to the head of the clan. It was surprising to see how large was the muster; for the most part a company of tall, thin men, with lean faces and drooping wisps of moustache.
To a mournful dirge on the pipes, Ashiel was laid in his rocky grave, and the throng of black-garmented people was ferried back the way it had come. Gimblet, wrapped to the ears in a thick overcoat, and with a silk scarf wound high round his neck, shivered in the cold air, for the wind had veered to the north, and the first breath of the Arctic winter was already carried on it. The waters of the loch had turned a slaty black; little angry waves broke incessantly over its surface; and inky black clouds were gathering slowly on the distant horizon. It looked as if the fine weather were at an end; as if Nature herself were mourning angrily at the wanton destruction of her child. The pity and regret Gimblet had felt, as he stood by the murdered man's grave, suddenly turned to a feeling of rage, both with himself and with the victim of the crime.
Why in the world had he not managed to guard against a danger of whose imminence he had had full warning? And why in the name of everything that was imbecile had Lord Ashiel, who knew much better than anyone else how real the danger was, chosen to sit at a lighted window, and offer so tempting a target to his enemy?
Suddenly, in the midst of his musings, a sound fell on the detective's ear; a voice he had heard before, low and musical, and curiously resonant. He looked in the direction from which it came and saw two people standing together, a little apart, in the crowd of those waiting at the water's edge for a craft to carry them ashore. There were only two or three boats; and, though the ghillies bent to their oars with a will, every one could not cross the narrow channel which divided the island from the mainland at one and the same time. A group had already formed on the beach of those who were not the first to get away, and among these were the two figures that had attracted Gimblet's attention.
They were two ladies, who stood watching the boats, which had landed their passengers and were now returning empty.
The nearest to him, a tall woman of ample proportions, was visibly affected by the ceremony she had just witnessed, and dabbed from time to time at her eyes with a handkerchief.
But it was her companion who interested him. She was short and slender; her slightness accentuated by the long dress of black cloth and the small plain hat of the same colour which she wore. A thick black veil hung down over her face and obscured it from his view, but about her general appearance there was something strangely familiar. In a moment Gimblet knew what it was, and where he had seen her before. He had caught sight, in her hand, of a little bag of striped black satin with purple pansies embroidered at intervals upon it. Just such a bag had lain upon the table of his flat in Whitehall a few weeks ago, on the day when its owner had stolen the envelope entrusted to him by Lord Ashiel.
"It is she," breathed the detective, "the widow!"
And for one wild moment he was on the point of accosting her and demanding his missing letter. Wiser counsels prevailed, however, and he moved away to the other side of the small group of mourners gathered on the stony beach.
When he ventured to look at her again, it was over the shoulder of a stalwart Highlander, whose large frame effectually concealed all of the little detective except his hat and eyes. A further surprise was in store for him. The lady had lifted her veil and displayed the features of the girl he had watched in the library on the preceding night.
Gimblet had seen enough. He turned away, and found Juliet at his elbow.
She would have passed him by, absorbed in her sorrow for the father she had found and lost in the space of one short hour, but he laid her hand upon her arm.
"Tell me," he begged, "who are those two ladies waiting for the boat?"
Juliet's eyes followed the direction of his own.
"Those," she said, "are Mrs. Clutsam and Miss Julia Romaninov."
"Ah," Gimblet murmured. "They were among your fellow-guests at the castle, weren't they?"
"Yes."
Juliet's reply was short and a little cold. She could not understand why the detective should choose this moment to question her on trivial details. It showed, she considered, a lamentable lack of tact, and involuntarily she resented it.
"But surely you told me that every one had left Inverashiel," persistedGimblet, unabashed.
He seemed absurdly eager for the information. No doubt, Juliet reflected bitterly, he admired Julia. Most men would.
"Mrs. Clutsam lives in another small house of my father's, near here," she replied stiffly. "She asked Miss Romaninov to stay with her for a few days till she could arrange where to go to. This disaster naturally upset every one's plans."
"She has a beautiful face," said Gimblet. "Who would think—" he murmured, and stopped abruptly.
"Perhaps you would like me to introduce you?"
Juliet spoke with lofty indifference, but the dismay in Gimblet's tone as he answered disarmed her.
"On no account," he cried, "the last thing! Besides, for that matter," he added truthfully, "we have met before."
"Then you will have the pleasure of renewing your acquaintance," Juliet suggested mischievously. Gimblet had shown himself so genuinely aghast that her resentful suspicions had vanished.
"I expect to have an opportunity of doing so," he agreed seriously. "That young lady," he went on in a low, confidential tone, "played a trick on me that I find it hard to forgive. I look forward, with some satisfaction, to the day when the laugh will be on my side. I admit I ought to be above such paltry considerations, but, what would you? I don't think I am. But please don't mention my presence to her, or her friend. I imagine she has not so far heard of it."
"I won't if you don't like," said Juliet. "I don't suppose I shall see them to speak to. But why do you feel so sure she doesn't know you are here?"
"Oh, how should she?" Gimblet returned evasively. "I don't suppose my presence would appear worth commenting upon to anyone but yourself or Lord Ashiel, unless Lady Ruth should mention it."
"I don't think she will," said Juliet. "She said she could not speak to anyone to-day, and she and Mark have gone off together in his own boat. I said I would walk home."
"Won't you drive with me?" Gimblet suggested.
He had hired a "machine" from the distant village of Inverlegan to carry him to and from the funeral. But Juliet preferred to walk, finding in physical exercise the only relief she could obtain from the aching trouble that oppressed and sickened her.
Gimblet drove back alone to the cottage. He had much to occupy his thoughts.
Once back in his room he turned his mind to the writing on the sheet of paper.
"Remember that where there's a way there's a will. Face curiosity and take the bull by the horn."
The message, as Gimblet read it, was as puzzling as if it had been completely in cipher.
If certain of the words possessed some arbitrary meaning to which the key promised by Lord Ashiel would have furnished the solution, there seemed little hope of understanding the message until the key was found. The word "way," for instance, might stand for another that had been previously decided on, and if rightly construed probably indicated the place where the papers were concealed. "Will," "face," "curiosity," "bull" and "horn" were likely to represent other very different words, or perhaps even whole sentences.
Without the key it was hopeless to search along that line; such search must end, as it would begin, in conjecture only. He would see if anything more promising could be arrived at by taking the message as it was and assuming that all the words bore the meaning usually attributed to them. For more than an hour Gimblet racked his brains to read sense into the senseless phrases, and at the end of that time was no wiser than at the beginning.
"Where there's a way there's a will." Was it by accident or design that the order in which the words way and will were placed was different from the one commonly assigned to them? Had Lord Ashiel made a mistake in arranging the message? Or did the "will" refer to his will and testament? If so, why should he take so roundabout a way of designating it? Doubtless because something more important than the will was involved; indeed, if anything was clear, from the ambiguous sentence and the precaution that Ashiel had taken that though it fell into the hands of his enemies it should convey nothing to them, it was that he considered the mystification of the uninitiated a matter of transcendental importance. It was plain he contemplated the possibility of the Nihilists knowing where to look for his message; and at the thought Gimblet shifted uneasily in his chair, remembering his first encounter with their representative.
"Face curiosity and take the bull by the horn." Perhaps those words, as they stood, contained some underlying sense, which at present it was hard to read in them. What it was, seemed impossible to guess. To take the bull by the horn, is a common enough expression, and might represent no more than a piece of advice to act boldly; on the whole that was not likely, for would anyone wind up such a carefully veiled communication with so trite and everyday a saying, or finish such an obscure message with so ordinary a sentiment?
"Face curiosity," however, was perhaps a direction how to proceed. The only trouble was to know what in the world it meant!
Whose curiosity was to be faced? The behaviour of members of a Nihilist society could hardly be said to be impelled by that motive. Gimblet could not see that anyone else had shown any symptom of it. Had "curiosity," then, some other meaning?
The detective, as has been said, was an amateur of the antique. When not at work, a great part of his time was passed in the neighbourhood of curiosity shops, and the merchandise they dealt in immediately occurred to him in connection with the word.
Did the dead man refer to some peculiarity of the ancient keep? Was there, perhaps, the figure or picture of a bull within the castle whose horn pointed to the ultimate place of concealment? It would have seemed, Gimblet thought, that the hidden receptacle in the secret stair was difficult enough to find; but the reason the papers were not placed in there was plain to him after a minute's reflection. It was doubtless because they were too bulky to be contained in the shallow drawer. At all events, there was certainly another hiding-place; and, on the whole, the best plan seemed to be to see if the castle could produce any curiosity that would offer a solution of the problem.
To the castle, accordingly, he went, and asked to see Lord Ashiel. He was shown into the smoking-room, where Mark was kneeling on the hearth-rug surrounded by piles of folded and docketed papers. The door of a small cupboard in the wall beside the fireplace stood open, revealing a row of deep shelves stacked with the same neat packets.
"Still hunting for the will, you see," he said, looking up as Gimblet entered, "I'm beginning to give up hope of finding it, but it's a mercy to have something to do these days."
"Rather a tedious job, isn't it?" said the detective, looking down at the musty tape-bound bundles.
"Well, it gives one rather a kink in the back after a time," Mark admitted. "But I shan't feel easy in my mind till I've looked through everything, and I'm getting a very useful idea of the estate accounts in the meantime. Itisrather a long business, but I'm getting on with it, slow but sure. There are such a fearful lot."
"Are all these cupboards full of papers?" Gimblet asked, looking round him at the numerous little doors in the panelling.
"Stuffed with them, every blessed one of them," Mark replied rather gloomily. "And the worst of it is, I'm pretty certain they're nothing but these dusty old bills and letters. But there's nowhere else to look, and I know he kept nearly everything here."
Gimblet sauntered round the room, pulling open the drawers and peeping in at the piles of documents.
"What an accumulation!" he remarked. "None of these cupboards are locked,I see," he added.
"No, he never locked anything up," said Mark. "I've heard him boast he never used a key. Do you know, if one had time to read them, I believe some of these old letters might be rather amusing. It looked as if my grandfather and his fathers had kept every single one that ever was written to them. I've just come across one from Raeburn, the painter, and I saw another, a quarter of an hour ago, from Lord Clive."
"Really," said Gimblet eagerly, "which cupboard were they in? I should like to see them immensely some time."
"They were in this one," said Mark, pointing to the shelves opposite him.
Gimblet stood facing it, and looked hopefully round him in all directions for anything like a bull. There was nothing, however, to suggest such an animal, and he reflected that interesting though these old letters might be it would be going rather far to refer to them as curiosities. Suddenly an idea struck him.
"I suppose you haven't come across anything concerning a Papal Bull?" he inquired.
"No," said Mark, looking up in surprise. "It's not very likely I should, you know."
"No, I suppose not," said Gimblet. "Still, you old families did get hold of all sorts of odd things sometimes, and your uncle was a bit of a collector, wasn't he?"
"Uncle Douglas," said Mark, "not he! He didn't care a bit for that kind of thing. You can see in the drawing-room the sort of horrors he used to buy. He was thoroughly early Victorian in his tastes, and ought to have been born fifty years sooner than he was."
"Dear me," said Gimblet. "I don't know why I thought he was rather by way of being a connoisseur. Well, well, I mustn't waste any more time. I wanted to ask you if you would mind my going all over the house. I may see something suggestive. Who knows? At present I have only examined the library and your uncle's bedroom."
"By all means," said Mark. "Blanston will show you anything you want to see. Oh, by the by, you like to be alone, don't you? I was forgetting. Well, go anywhere you like; and good luck to your hunting!"
On a writing-table in one of the bedrooms, Gimblet found a paper-weight in the bronze shape of a Spanish toro, head down, tail brandishing, a fine emblem of goaded rage. But there was nothing promising about the round mahogany table on which it stood: no drawer, secret or otherwise could all his measurings and tappings discover; the animal, when lifted up by the horn and dangled before the detective's critical eye, proclaimed itself modern and of no artistic merit. It was like a hundred others to be had in any Spanish town, and by no expanding of terms could it be considered a curiosity.
Except for this one more than doubtful find, he drew the whole house absolutely blank. There were very few specimens of ancient work in the castle, which like so many other old houses had been stripped of everything interesting it contained in the middle of the nineteenth century, and entirely refurnished and redecorated in the worst possible taste. With the exception of some family portraits, the lacquered clock in the library was the one genuine survival of the Victorian holocaust, and though Gimblet passed nearly half an hour in contemplating it he could not see any way of connecting it with a bull, nor was he a whit the wiser when he finally turned his back on it than he had been at the beginning.
Blanston, to whom he appealed, could give no useful information. Yes, some of the plate was old, but that was all at the bank in London. Mrs. Haviland, his lordship's sister, had liked it on the table when his lordship entertained in his London house, and it had not been carried backwards and forwards to Scotland since her ladyship's death.
He knew of nothing resembling a bull in his lordship's possession, unless it was the picture of cows that hung in the drawing-room opposite the one of the dead stag.
Gimblet had already exhausted the possibilities of that highly varnished oil-painting, and he went forth from the house in a state of deep dejection.
As he descended the drive he heard his name called, and looking back perceived the short, sturdy figure of Lady Ruth hurrying down the road behind him.
"If you are going back to the cottage, Mr. Gimblet," she panted, "let us walk together. I ran after you when I saw your hat go past the window, for I couldn't stand those frowsty old papers of Mark's any longer."
Gimblet waited till she came up, still talking, although considerably out of breath.
"We will go by the road, if you don't mind," she said, "the lochside is rather rough for me. I have been paying a visit of charity, and very hard work it is paying visits in the country when you don't keep a conveyance of any kind, and I really can't afford even a donkey. You see the Judge's income died with him, poor dear, in spite of those foolish sayings about not being able to take your money with you to the better land, where I am sure one would want it just as much as anywhere else, for the better life you lead, the more expensive it is. No one could be generous, or charitable, or unselfish, with nothing to give up or to give away. That's only common sense, and I always say that common sense is such a help when called upon to face problems of a religious kind.
"My uncle was a bishop and a very learned theologian, I assure you; but he always held that it was impious to apply plain common sense to matters so far above us, and that is why he and my poor husband were never on speaking terms; not from any fault of the Judge's, who had been trained to think about logic and all that kind of thing which is so useful to people at the Bar.
"But it takes all sorts to make a world, as he often used to say to himself, and if every one was exactly alike one would feel almost as solitary as if the whole earth was empty and void, while, as for virtues and good qualities, they would automatically cease to exist, so that a really good man would simply long to go to hell and have some opportunity to show his goodness. That always seemed very reasonable to me, but I am just telling you what my husband used to say, because I really don't know much about these things, and he was such a clever man, and what he said was always listened to with great interest and respect at the Old Bailey. If it hadn't been, of course he would have cleared the court.
"But as I was telling you, his money went with him, though I know he always meant to insure his life, which is such a boring thing to think of when a man has many calls on his purse. And so, I live, as you see, in a very quiet way up here, and sometimes get down to the South for a month or six weeks in the winter, where I have many kind friends. But I find the hills rather trying to my legs as time goes on, and I don't very often walk as far as I have to-day. Still charity, as they say, covers a multitude of miles, and I really thought it my duty to come and see how poor Mark was bearing up all alone at Inverashiel. I was afraid he would be terribly unhappy, poor boy, so soon after the funeral, and Juliet Byrne having refused him, and everything. Though of course he can't be pitied for inheriting Inverashiel, such a lovely place, is it not? And quantities of property in the coal district, you know, besides. He is really a very lucky young man."
"It is indeed a most beautiful country," Gimblet observed, as Lady Ruth's breath gave out completely, and she stopped by the roadside to regain it. He was deep in thought, and glad to escape the necessity of frequent speech.
"Yes," she said, as they moved slowly on, "I had a delightful walk here, and found him much more cheerful than I had feared. It is such a good thing he has all those papers to look over. It is everything, at a time like this, to have an occupation. It is so dreadful to think of dear David with absolutely nothing to do in that horrid cell. I wonder if they allow him to smoke, or to keep a tame mouse, which I remember reading is such a comfort to prisoners. I do hope, Mr. Gimblet, that you will soon be able to get him out of it."
Before Gimblet could reply, the silence was broken by the rumble of wheels; and a farmer's cart came up behind them, driven by a thin man in a black coat, who had evidently attended the funeral earlier in the day. The road, at the point they had reached, was beginning to ascend; and the stout pony between the shafts slowed resolutely to a walk as he leant against the collar. The man lifted his hat as Lady Ruth wished him good day.
"I saw you at the funeral, Angus McConachan," she said. "A sad business.A terrible business." And she shook her head mournfully.
The farmer stopped the willing pony.
"That it is, my leddy," he assented. "It's a black day indeed, when the heed o' a clan is struck doon by are o' his ain bleed. It's a great peety that the lad would ha' forgot what he owed to his salt. But I'm thinkin' they'll be hangin' him afore the year's oot."
"Oh, Angus," cried Lady Ruth, in horrified tones, "don't talk in that dreadful way. I'm quite, quite sure Sir David never had any part in the thing. It's all a mistake, and this gentleman here is going to find out who really fired the shot."
"Well, I hope ye'll be richt, my leddy," was all the farmer would commit himself to, as he gathered up the reins. Then he hesitated, looking down on the hot, flushed countenance of the lady in the road beneath him. "If yer leddyship will be tackin' a seat in the machine," he hazarded, "it'll maybe save ye the trail up the brae."
Lady Ruth accepted the suggestion with great content. She was getting very tired, and was finding the walk more exhausting than she had bargained for. She lost no time in climbing up beside Angus, and the fat pony was induced to continue its reluctant progress.
Near the top of the hill the road forked into two branches, that which led to the right continuing parallel with the loch, whilst the other diverged over the hill towards Auchtermuchty, a town some fifteen miles distant. The stout pony unhesitatingly took the turning to the left.
The farmer looked at Lady Ruth inquiringly.
"Will ye get doon here, my leddy?" he asked; "or will ye drive on as far as the sheepfold? It will be shorter for ye tae walk doon fay there, by the burn and the Green Way."
"I should like to do that;" said Lady Ruth, "if you don't mind taking me so far. Perhaps you would give Mr. Gimblet a lift too, now that we're on top of the hill?"
The man readily consented, and Gimblet, who was following on foot, was called and informed of the proposed change of route. He scrambled into the back of the cart and they rattled along the upper road, the stout pony no doubt wearing a very aggrieved expression under its blinkers.
When another mile had been traversed, they were put down at a place where a rough track led down across the moor by the side of an old stone sheepfold.
The cart jogged off to the sound of a chorus of thanks, and Lady Ruth and Gimblet started down the heather-grown path. They rounded the corners of the deserted fold, and walked on into the golden mist of sunset which spread in front of them, enveloping and dazzling. The clouds of the morning had rolled silently away to the horizon, the wind had dropped to a mere capful; and the midges were abroad in their hosts, rejoicing in the improvement in the weather.
"I don't believe it's going to rain after all," said Lady Ruth. "The sun looks rather too red, perhaps, to be quite safe, though itissupposed to be the shepherd's delight. I can only say that, if he was delighted with the result of some of the red sunsets we get up here, he'd be easily pleased, and for my part I'm never surprised at anything. These midges are past belief, aren't they?"
They were, Gimblet agreed heartily. He gathered a handful of fern and tried to keep them at bay, but they were persevering and ubiquitous. Soon the path led them away from the open moor, and into the wood of birches and young oaks which clung to the side of the hill. A little farther, and Gimblet heard the distant gurgling of a burn; presently they were picking their way between moss-covered boulders on the edge of a rocky gully. Great tufts of ferns dotted the steep pitch of the bank below; the stream that clattered among the stones at the bottom shone very cool and shadowy under the alders; and a clearing on the other side revealed, over the receding woods, the broken hill-tops of a blue horizon.
The path wound gradually downward to the waterside, and in a little while they crossed it by means of a row of stepping-stones over which Lady Ruth passed as boldly as her companion.
Another hundred yards of shade, and they came out into a long narrow glen, carpeted with short springy turf, and bordered, as by an avenue, with trees knee-deep in bracken. The rectangular shape and enclosed nature of the glade came as a surprise in the midst of the wild woodlands. The place had more the air of forming part of pleasure grounds near to the haunts of man, and the eye wandered instinctively in search of a house. The effect of artificiality was increased by a large piece of statuary representing a figure carved in stone and standing upon a high oblong pediment, which stood a little distance down the glen.
Gimblet did not repress his feeling of astonishment.
"What a strange place!" he exclaimed. "Who would have expected to find this lawn tucked away in the woods. Or is there a house somewhere at hand?"
"No," Lady Ruth answered, "there is nothing nearer than my cottage half a mile away; and this short grass and flat piece of ground are entirely natural. Nothing has been touched, except here and there a tree cut out to keep the borders straight. The late Lady Ashiel, the wife of my unfortunate cousin, was very fond of this place. Although it is farther, she always walked round by it when she came to see me at the cottage. That absurd statue was put up last year as a sort of memorial to her—a most unsuitable one to my mind, she being a chilly sort of woman, poor dear, who always shivered if she saw so much as a hen moulting. I'm sure it would distress her terribly if she knew that poor creature over there had to stand in the glen in all weathers, year in and year out, with only a rag to cover her. And a stone rag at that, which is a cold material at the best. Yes, this is only the beginning of a track which runs for miles across the hills to the South. It is so green that you can always make it out from the heights, and there are all sorts of legends about it. It is supposed to be the road over which the clans drove back the cattle they captured in the old days when they were always raiding each other. They have a name for it In the Gaelic, which means the Green Way."
"The Green Way," Gimblet repeated mechanically. For a moment his brain revolved with wild imaginings.
"Yes," repeated Lady Ruth. "Sometimes they call it 'The Way,' for short. It is a favourite place for picnics from Crianan. My cousin used to allow them to come here, and the place is generally made hideous with egg-shells and paper and old bottles. One of the gardeners comes and tidies things up once a week in the summer. People are so absolutely without consciences."
"Is there a bull here?" cried Gimblet. He was quivering with excitement.
"Goodness gracious, I hope not!" said Lady Ruth. "Do you see any cattle?I can't bear those long-horned Highlanders!"
"No," said Gimblet. "I thought perhaps—But what is the statue? The design, surely, is rather a strange one for the place."
"Most extraordinary," assented Lady Ruth. "He got it in Italy and had it sent the whole way by sea. It took all the king's horses and all the king's men to get it up here, I can tell you. And, as I say, nothing less apropos can one possibly imagine. That poor thin female with such very scanty clothing is hardly a cheerful object on a Scotch winter's day, and as for those little naked imps they would make anyone shiver, even in August."
They had drawn near the sculptured group. It consisted of the slightly draped figure of a girl, bending over an open box, or casket, from which a crowd of small creatures, apparently, as Lady Ruth had said, imps or fairies, were scrambling and leaping forth.
Gimblet gazed at it intently, as if he had never seen a statue before. In a moment his face cleared and he turned to Lady Ruth with burning eyes.
"It is Pandora," he cried. "Curiosity! Pandora and her box. Is it not Pandora?"
Lady Ruth stared at him amazed.
"I believe it is," she said, "that or something of the sort. I'm not very well up in mythology."
"Of course it is," cried Gimblet. "Face curiosity! And here's the bull, or I'll eat my microscope," he added, advancing to the side of the group and laying a hand upon the pedestal.
Lady Ruth followed his gaze with some concern. She was beginning to doubt his sanity. But there, sure enough, beneath his pointing finger, she perceived a row of carved heads: the heads of bulls, garlanded in the Roman manner, and forming a kind of cornice round the top of the great rectangular stone stand.
Gimblet glanced to right and left, up the glen and down it. There was no one to be seen. The sun had fallen by this time beneath the rim of the hills; a greyness of twilight was spread over the whole scene, and under the trees the dusk of night was already silently ousting the day. He turned once more to Lady Ruth.
"Lady Ruth," he said, "can you keep a secret?"
"My husband trusted me," she replied. "He was judicious as well as judicial."
"I am sure I may follow his example," Gimblet said, after looking at her fixedly for a moment. "So I will tell you that I believe I am on the point of discovering Lord Ashiel's missing will—and not that alone. Somewhere, concealed probably within a few feet of where we are standing, we may hope to find other and far more important documents, involving, perhaps, not only the welfare of one or two individuals but that of kings and nations. Apart from that, and to speak of what most immediately concerns us at present, I am convinced that within this stone will be found the true clue to the author of the murder."
"You don't say so," gasped Lady Ruth, her round eyes rounder than ever.
"I found some directions in the handwriting of the murdered man," went on Gimblet, "which I could not understand at first. But their meaning is plain enough now. 'Take the bull by the horn,' he says. Well, here are the bulls, and I shall soon know which is the horn."
He walked round to the front of the statue, so that he faced the stooping figure of Pandora, and laid his hand upon one of the curved and projecting horns of the left-hand bull. Nothing happened, and he tried the next. There were seven heads in all along the face of the great block, and he tested six of them without perceiving anything unusual. Was it possible that he was mistaken, and that, after all, the words of the message did not refer to the statue?
When he grasped the first horn of the last head, the hand that did so was shaking with excitement and suspense. It seemed, like the rest, to possess no attribute other than mere decoration. And yet, and yet—surely he had missed some vital point. He would go over them again. There remained, however, the last horn, and as he took hold of it with a premonitory dread of disappointment, he felt that it was loose in its socket, and that he could by an effort turn it completely over. With a triumphant cry he twisted it round, and at the same moment Lady Ruth started back with an exclamation of alarm.
She was standing where he had left her, and was nearly knocked down by the great slab of stone which, as Gimblet turned the horn of the bull, swung sharply out from the end of the pediment, till it hung like a door invitingly open and disclosing a hollow chamber within the stone.
Within the opening, on the floor at the far end, stood a large tin despatch-box.
The door was a good eighteen inches wide; plenty of room for Gimblet to climb in, swollen with exultation though he might be. In less than three seconds he had scrambled through the aperture and was stooping over the box. It seemed to be locked, but a key lay on the top of the lid. He lost no time in inserting it, and in a moment threw open the case and saw that it was full of papers.
Suddenly there was another cry from Lady Ruth as, for no apparent cause and without the slightest warning, the stone door slammed itself back into position, and he was left a prisoner in the total darkness of the vault. He groped his way to the doorway and pushed against it with all his strength. He might as well have tried to move the side of a mountain. But, after an interval long enough for him to have time to become seriously uneasy, the door flew open again, and the agitated countenance of Lady Ruth welcomed him to the outside world.
"Do get out quick," she cried. "If it does it again while you're half in and half out, you'll be cracked in two as neatly as a walnut."
Gimblet hurried out, clutching the precious box. No sooner was he safely standing on the turf than the door shut again with a violence that gave Pandora the appearance of shaking with convulsions of silent merriment.
"I wasn't sure how it opened," said Lady Ruth, "but I tried all the horns and got it right at last. How lucky I was with you!"
"Yes, indeed," said Gimblet. "I am very thankful you were."
They twisted the horn again, and stood together to watch the recurring phenomenon of the closing door.
"It must be worked by clockwork," the detective said, and taking out his watch he timed the interval that elapsed between the opening and shutting. "It stays open for thirty seconds," he remarked after two or three experiments. "No doubt the mechanism is concealed in the thickness of the stone. At all events it seems to be in good working order."
Squatting on the grass, he opened the tin box, and examined the papers with which it was filled. A glance showed him that they were what he expected, and he replaced the box where he had found it, while Lady Ruth manipulated the horn of the bull.
"I have no right to the papers," he explained to her, as they walked homeward in the gathering dusk. "It would be more satisfactory if a magistrate were present at the official opening of the statue, and I will see what can be done about that to-morrow. In the meantime, and considering that we have been interfering with other people's property, I shall be much obliged if you will keep our discovery secret."
And talking in low, earnest tones, he explained to her more fully all that was likely to be implied by the papers they had unearthed.
With her white paint and her scarlet smokestack, theInverashiel—one of the two small steamers that during the summer months plied up and down the loch, and incidentally carried on communication between Inverashiel and Crianan—was a picturesque addition to the landscape, as she approached the wooden landing-stage that stood half a mile below the promontory on which the castle was built. It was the morning of Friday, the day following the funeral, and clouds were settling slowly down on to the tops and shoulders of the hills in spite of the brilliant sunset of the previous evening. The loch lay dark and still, its surface wore an oily, treacherous look; every detail of theInverashiel'stub-like shape was reflected and beautifully distorted in the water, which broke in long low waves from her bows as she swerved round to come alongside the pier.
As the few passengers who were waiting for her crossed the short gangway, a shower burst over the loch and in a few minutes had driven every one into the little cabin, except the two or three men who constituted the officers and crew of the steamer. One of these was in the act of slackening the rope by which the boat had been warped alongside, when a running, gesticulating figure appeared in the distance, shouting to them to wait for him.
Waited for accordingly he was; and in a few minutes Gimblet, rather out of breath after his run, hurried on board, and with a word of apology and thanks to the obliging skipper turned, like the other passengers, towards the shelter of the cabin.
With his hand on the knob of the door he hesitated. Through the glass top he had just caught sight of a figure that seemed familiar. He had seen that tweed before; the short girl with her back to him was wearing the dress in which he had seen her on the Wednesday night, searching among Lord Ashiel's papers in the library at the castle. It was Julia Romaninov beyond a doubt, and Gimblet drew back quickly and took up his position behind the funnels on the after-deck. In spite of the rain he remained there until the boat reached Crianan, leaning against the rail with his collar turned up and his soft felt hat pulled down over his ears, so that little of him was visible except the tip of his nose.
His mind, always active, was busier than usual as he watched the ripples roll away in endless succession from the sides of theInverashiel—which looked so strangely less white on closer inspection—or followed the smooth soaring movements of the gulls that swooped and circled around her, as she puffed and panted on her way across the black, taciturn waters.
As they drew near to Crianan he concealed himself still more carefully behind a pile of crates, and not till Miss Romaninov had left the steamer did he emerge from his hiding-place and step warily off the boat.
The young lady was still in sight, making her way up the steep pitch of the main street, and the detective followed her discreetly, loitering before shop windows, as if fascinated by the display of Scottish homespuns, or samples of Royal Stewart tartan, and taking an extraordinary interest in fishing-tackle and trout-flies.
But, though the girl looked back more than once, the little man in the ulster who was so intent on picking his way between the puddles did not apparently provide her with any food for suspicion; and she made no attempt to see who was so carefully sheltered beneath the umbrella he carried.
At last they left the cobble-stones of the little town and emerged upon the high road, which here ran across the open moorland.
It was difficult now to continue the pursuit unobserved: and Gimblet became absorbed in the contemplation of an enormous cairngorm, which was masquerading as an article of personal adornment in the window of the last outlying shop.
From this position—not without its embarrassments, since a couple of barefooted children came instantly to the door, where they stood and stared at him unblinkingly—he saw the Russian advancing at a rapid pace across the moor; and, look where he would, could perceive no means of keeping up with her unobserved upon the bare side of the hill.
Just as he decided that the distance separating them had increased to an extent which warranted his continuing the chase, he joyfully saw her slacken her pace, and at the same moment a man, who must have been sitting behind a boulder beside the road, rose to his feet out of the heather, and came forward to meet her. For ten long minutes they stood talking, driving poor Gimblet to the desperate expedient of entering the shop and demanding a closer acquaintance with the cairngorm. It is humiliating to relate that he recoiled before it when it was placed in his hand, and nearly fled again into the road. However, he pulled himself together and held the proud proprietress, a gaunt, grey-haired woman with knitting-needles ever clicking in her dexterous hands, in conversation upon the theme of its unique beauties until the subject was exhausted to the point of collapse.
Every other minute he must stroll to the door and take a look up and down the road. A friend, he explained, had promised to meet him in that place; and though the shopwoman plainly doubted his veracity, and kept a sharp eye that he did not take to his heels with the cairngorm, she did not go so far as to suggest his removing himself from the zone of temptation.
At last, when for the twentieth time he put his nose round the doorpost, he saw that the pair had separated, and were walking in opposite directions, the girl continuing on her way, while the man returned to the town. He was, indeed, not a hundred yards off.
Gimblet plunged once more into the shop, and fastened upon some pencils with a zeal not very convincing after his disappointing vacillation over the brooch. The gaunt woman cheered up, however, when he bought the first seventeen she offered him, and, the stock being exhausted, finished by purchasing a piece of india-rubber, a stylographic pen, and a penny paper of pins, which she pressed upon him as particularly suited to his needs and charged him fourpence for.
By the time he issued forth into the open air, his pockets full of packages, the stranger had passed the shop and was turning the corner of the next house. To him, now, Gimblet devoted his powers of shadowing.
There was no great difficulty about it. The man walked straight before him, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and as he strode along the wet roads Gimblet noted with satisfaction the long, narrow, pointed footprints that were deeply impressed in the muddy places. He had no doubt they were the same as those he had noticed on the beach on the day of his arrival at Inverashiel.
The stranger turned into the Crianan Hotel, which stands on the lake front, fifty yards from the landing-place of the loch steamers. Gimblet passed the door without pausing and went down to the loch, where he mingled with the boatmen and loafers who congregated by the waterside.
He kept, however, a strict eye on the door of the hotel, and after a quarter of an hour saw the object of his attentions emerge with fishing-rod and basket, and cross the road directly towards him. Gimblet had not been able to see his face before, but now he had a good look as he passed close beside him.
He was a tall, fair man, evidently a foreigner, but with nothing very striking about his appearance. A pointed yellow beard hid the lower part of his face, and, for the rest, his nose was short, his eyes blue and close together, and his forehead high and narrow. He looked closely at Gimblet as he went by, and for a moment the eyes of the two men met, both equally inscrutable and unflinching; then the stranger glanced aside and strode on to where a small boat lay moored. The detective turned his back while the fair man got in and pushed off into the loch.
"Gentleman going fishing?" he remarked to a man who lounged hard by upon the causeway.
"He's axtra fond o' the feeshin'," was the reply, "for a' that he's a foreign shentleman."
Waiting till the boat had become a distant speck on the face of the waters, Gimblet made his way into the inn and entered into conversation with the landlord, on the pretext of engaging rooms for a friend. The landlord was sorry, but the house was full.
"If ye wanted them in a fortnicht's time," he said, "ye could hae the hale hotel; but tae the end o' the holidays we're foll up. Folks tak' their rooms a month in advance; they come here for the fishin' on the loch, and because my hoose is the maist comfortable in the Hielands."
"Indeed, I can well believe that," Gimblet assured him. "I suppose you get a lot of tourists passing through, though, Americans, for instance?"
"We hardly ever hae a room tae tak' them in. No, I seldom hae an American bidin' here; they maistly gang doon the loch," said the innkeeper.
"I thought," said Gimblet, "that was a foreign-looking man whom I saw a little while ago, coming out of the hotel."
"We hae ae gintleman bidin' here wha belongs tae foreign pairts," the landlord admitted. "A Polish gintleman, he is, Count Pretovsky, a vary nice gintleman. I couldna just cae him a tourist. He's vary keen on the fishin' and was up here for it last year as well. He has his ain boat and is aye on the water trailin' aefter the salmon."
"A great many sporting foreigners come to our island nowadays," Gimblet remarked. "Does he get many fish?"
"Oh, it's a grand place for salmon," said the inn-keeper with obvious pride. "And there's troots tac. And pike, mair's the peety," he added.
"Dear me," said Gimblet, "just what my friend wants. I'm sorry you can't take him in. I must tell him to write in good time next year if he wants a room."
As he parted from the landlord upon the doorstep of the Crianan Hotel, theRob Roy—the second of the two loch steamers—was edging away from the pier, under a cloud of black smoke from her funnel The rain had stopped; the passengers were scattered on the deck, and in the bows of the vessel the detective caught sight of Julia Romaninov's tweed-clad form. She was leaning against the rail, and gazing at a distant part of the loch where a black speck, which might represent a rowing boat, could faintly be discerned. She had come back, then, from her moorland walk. It was as Gimblet had expected; and, though he chafed at the delay, he regretted less than he would have otherwise that he could not catch theRob Roy.
TheInverashielwould be due on her homeward trip in a couple of hours' time, and meanwhile he had other business that must be attended to.
He went first to the post office, where he registered and posted to Scotland Yard a packet he had brought with him. Then, after asking his way of the sociable landlord of the hotel, he proceeded to the police station, a single-storied stone building standing at the end of a side street.
Here he made himself known to the inspector, and imparted information which made that personage open his eyes considerably wider than was his custom.
"If you will bring one of your men, and come with me yourself," said Gimblet, at the conclusion of the interview, "I think I shall be able to convince you that a mistake has been made. In the meantime there will be no harm done by a watch being kept on the foreign gentleman who is at this moment trolling for salmon on the loch."
The inspector agreed; and when theInverashielstarted, an hour later, on her voyage down the loch, she carried the two policemen on her deck, as well as the most notorious detective she was ever likely to have the privilege of conveying.
It was nearly three o'clock when they landed on the Inverashiel pier.
The weather, which for the last few hours had looked like clearing, had now turned definitely to rain; clouds had descended on the hills, and the trees in the valleys stooped and dripped in the saturated, mist-laden air. Gimblet conducted the men to the cottage, where Lady Ruth anxiously awaited them.
"If you don't mind their staying here," he suggested to her, "while I go up to the castle and consult Lord Ashiel about a magistrate, it will be most convenient, on account of the distance."
"By all means," said Lady Ruth. "I feel safer with them. I expect you will find Miss Byrne up there. She has not come in to lunch, and I think she probably met Mark and went to lunch at the castle. She ought to know better than to go to lunch alone with a young man, and I am just wondering if she has changed her mind and accepted him after all. Girls are kittle cattle, but I've got quite fond of that one, and I hope she's not forgotten poor David so soon. I really am feeling anxious about her."
"I daresay she has only walked farther than she intended," said Gimblet, "or perhaps she came to a burn or some place she couldn't get over, and has had to go round a mile or two. Depend on it, that's what's happened. But I promise you that if she is at the castle I will bring her back when I return."
Behind the shrubberies, which lay at the back of the holly hedge that surrounded the little enclosed garden outside the library, beyond the end of the battlements, and reached by a disused footpath, a great tree stood upon the edge of the steep hillside and thrust its sweeping branches over the void.
Its trunk was grey and moss-grown; moss carpeted the ground between its protruding roots, but the bracken and heather held back, and left a half-circle beneath it, untenanted by their kind. It would seem that all vegetation fears to venture beneath the shade of the beech; and for the most part it stands solitary, shunned by other growing things except moss, which creeps undaunted where its more vigorous brothers lack the courage to establish themselves.
Here came Juliet that morning.
A week ago, David Southern had shown her the path to the tree. It had been a favourite haunt of his when he was a boy, he told her. It was a private chamber to which he resorted on the rare occasions when he was disposed to solitude; when something had gone wrong with his world he had been used to retire there with his dog, or, more seldom, a book. There he had been accustomed to lie, his back supported by the tree, and hold forth to the dog upon the troubles and difficulties of life and the general crookedness of things; or, if a book were his companion, he would gaze out, between the pages, at distant Crianan clinging faintly to the knees of Ben Ghusy, and watch the swift change of passing cloud and hanging curtain of mist upon the faces of the hills and loch.
It had been a place all his own; secret from every one, even from Mark, his companion during all those holidays that he had spent at Inverashiel. Somehow, David told Juliet—and it was a confidence he had seldom before imparted to anyone—he had never quite managed to hit it off with Mark. He couldn't say why, exactly. No doubt it was his own fault; but there was no accounting for one's likes and dislikes.
And with quick regret at having betrayed his carefully suppressed feelings in regard to his cousin, David had laughed apologetically, and spoken of other things.
Here, then, just as the steamerRob Roywas drawing close to the wooden landing-stage at the edge of the loch, with Julia Romaninov still standing in the bows; here, because she had once been to this place with him, because without her he had so often sat upon these mossy roots, came Juliet to dream of her love.
Like him, she seated herself against the tree trunk at the giddy brink of the precipitous rock; like him, her eyes rested on the smooth waters below her, or on the far-away misty distance where Crianan slumbered; but, unlike him, her eyes, as they looked, were filled with tears. Where was he now? Oh, David, poor unjustly treated David! In what narrow cell, lighted only by a high, iron-barred window—for so the scene shaped itself in her mind—with uncovered floor of stone, bare walls and a bench to lie on, was the man she loved wearing away his days under the burden of so frightful an accusation?
For the thousandth time Juliet's blood boiled within her at the thought, and she grew hot with anger and indignant scorn. That anyone should have dared to suspect him! Why were such fools, such wicked, evil-working imbeciles as the police allowed to exist for one moment upon the face of the globe? But no doubt they had some hidden motive in arresting him, for it was quite incredible that they really imagined he had committed this appalling crime. She could not understand their motive, to be sure, but without doubt there must have been some reason which was not clear to her.
Oh, David, David! Was he thinking of her, as she was thinking of him? Did he know, by instinct, that she would be doing all that could be done to bring about his release? But was she? Again her mind was filled with the disquieting question, was there nothing that might be done, that she was leaving undone? Had she forgotten something, neglected something? She was sure Gimblet did not believe David to be guilty, but was he certain of being able to prove his innocence? He did not seem to have discovered much at present.
Suddenly, in the midst of her distress, she smiled to herself.
At least Miss Tarver had shown herself in her true colours, and was no more to be considered. Juliet felt that she could almost forgive her for her readiness to believe the worst. It was dreadful, yes, and shameful that anyone else should think for a moment that David could be capable of such a deed, but in Miss Tarver, perhaps, the thought had not been inexcusable. On the whole, it was so nice of her to break the engagement that she might be forgiven the ridiculous reason she had advanced for doing it. Of course, Juliet assured herself, it was a mere pretext, becausenoone could possibly believe it. And in this manner she continued to reiterate her conviction that the suspicions entertained of her lover were all assumed for some darkly obscure purpose.
So the morning wore away. A shower or two passed down the valley, but under the thick tent of the beech leaves she scarcely felt it. She was, besides, dressed for bad weather; and the grey and mournful face of the day was in harmony with her mood.
There was something comforting in this high perch. She seemed more aloof from the troubles and despair of the last few days than she had imagined possible. There was a calm, a remoteness, about the grey mountains, disappearing and reappearing from behind their screen of cloud but unchanged and unmoved by what went on around and among them, that was in some way reassuring.
The burn that ran at the bottom of the hill on which she sat, hurrying down to the loch in such turbulent foaming haste, she was able to compare, with a sad smile, to herself. The loch, she thought, was wide and impassive as justice, which did not allow itself to be influenced by the emotions. The burn would get down just the same without so much turmoil and fuss; and she would see David's name cleared, equally surely, if she waited calmly on events, instead of burning her heart out in hopeless impatience and anxiety.
As she gazed, with some such thoughts as these, down to the stream that splashed on its way below her, her attention was caught by a movement in the bushes half-way down the steep slope at the top of which she was sitting.
The day was windless and no leaf moved on any tree. There must be some animal among the shrubs that covered the embankment, some large animal, since its movements caused so much commotion; for, as she watched, first one bush and then another stirred and bent and was shaken as if by something thrusting its way through the dense growth.
What could it be? A sheep, perhaps; there were many of them on the hillsides. This must be one that had strayed far from the rest. And yet would a sheep make so much stir? Juliet drew back a little behind the trunk of the beech-tree. Could it be a deer? She could not hear any sound of the creature's advance, for the air was full of the clamour of the burn, but she could trace the direction of its progress by shaking leaves and swinging boughs. It seemed to be gradually mounting the slope.
Suddenly a head emerged from the waving mass of a rhododendron, and with astonishment Juliet saw that it was that of Julia Romaninov.
Her first impulse was to lean forward and call her, but as she did so the cry died unheard upon her lips. For the manner of Julia's advance struck her as very odd. The girl was bending nearly double, and moving with a caution that seemed very strange and unnecessary. What was the matter? Was she stalking something? Crouching as she was in the bushes, she would not be seen by anyone on the path below. Did she not want to be seen? It looked more and more like it. But why in the world should Julia creep along as if she feared to be observed? Where was she going, and why?
Suddenly Juliet came to a quick decision: she would find out what JuliaRomaninov was doing.
She backed hurriedly into the bracken, and made her way slowly and cautiously around the clearing under the beech-tree to the edge of the hill again, keeping under cover of the fern and heather. When she peered over, Julia had disappeared from view beneath the rhododendrons.
For a minute Juliet's eyes searched the side of the slope below. Then she drew back her head quickly, for she had caught sight of another bush shaking uneasily a little way beyond the gap in which she had had her first glimpse of the cause of the disturbance. Cowering low in the bracken she crept along the top, keeping a foot or two from the edge, where the rock fell nearly perpendicularly for a few yards before its angle changed to the comparatively gradual, though actually steep slope of the hill which Julia was climbing.
From time to time she looked cautiously between clumps of fern or heath, to make sure that she was keeping level with her unconscious quarry.
The front of the hill swung round in a bold curve till it reached the castle; and it soon became evident that, if both girls continued to advance along the lines they were following, they would converge at a point where the end of the battlemented wall met the great holly hedge that formed two sides of the garden enclosure.
Juliet perceived this when she was not more than a dozen yards from the corner, and dropped at full length to the soft ground, at a spot where she could see between the stalks and under the leaves, and yet herself remain concealed. She had not long to wait. In a minute, Julia's face appeared over the brow of the hill. She pulled herself up by a young fir sapling that hung over the brink, and stood for a moment, flushed and panting after her long climb. She was dressed in a greenish tweed, which blended with the woodland surroundings, and her shoulder was turned to the place where Juliet lay wondering whether she would be discovered.