The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Part 5

"Yes, I suppose you _would_ call it that," she responded, crossing over to him and looking down at the thing in question. "Though, really, why Father has it here I cannot imagine. Its history is certainly not a credit to the line. For it belonged to the very girl I was going to tell you about. It belonged to the Family Ghost. Here is the story. The villagers believe it to this day, and couldn't be persuaded to enter the Castle grounds at night upon any pretext whatever. But of course the educated folk don't. Early in the sixteenth century a wild head of the Macduggan clan abducted a young--and I imagine beautiful--peasant-girl when she was sitting at her wheel, spinning, and ran away with her--wheel and all--and brought her here, so legend says, to this very room. The girl, whose name, I believe, was Dhurea, or something like that, stabbed herself with the sharp-pointed spindle of the wheel, and in doing so laid a curse upon the Macduggan clan. She--she was going to have a child, Mr. Deland, and as she was dying, she swore that in every generation a Duggan should die a violent death, and that the sound of her spinning wheel should predict the moment when death was near."

"Oho!" said Cleek, in two different tones. "That differs a good deal from the story Mr. Fairnish tells. There was a child, I understood, and this child was stolen by the grandparents. That's not correct, then?"

"There are various interpretations of the legend. No one knows the truth--only that she killed herself and cursed the family in that unpleasant manner."

"And has the curse come true?"

For a moment Miss Duggan hesitated. Then she sent startled eyes up into his face. There was the look of a dog at bay in them.

"I don't believe the story, Mr. Deland! I don't believe a _word_ of it, for such things cannot possibly be, in this civilized country," she answered in a scared tone. "And yet--ever since that day, one at least of each generation has died unnaturally. And now--in _this_ generation there is only Father and Ross.... This peasant-girl is supposed to haunt our dear Castle, and after midnight to stalk the place over, looking for the man who dishonoured her and who has been dead these many generations past."

"H'm! I see. And so, naturally, she cannot find him. A weird story, and more pleasant in the daylight than in the dark. And this is the lady's spinning wheel, I take it? Your father has it by his writing-table, I see. Rather in the way, isn't it?"

"It used to stand over there, in the corner, but Paula declared that it was too dark there, and that it did not show to its full beauty. So she moved it. Father lets her do whatever she wishes. And of course it does show better there, by the window, doesn't it? And as it's Father's _left_ hand that comes beside it, Mr. Deland, I don't really see that it much matters."

"No, I suppose not.... h.e.l.lo! we've been a long time here, haven't we?

And I haven't seen the half of the place yet. Isn't that the luncheon gong? Or is it just your tangy Highland air that makes me hungry enough to imagine it?"

"Neither," said she, laughing. "That's Rhea's bell. It hangs just under the bronze statue of Rhea--you remember the one I showed you yesterday as we came home together?--and it rings upon the entrance of any one through the great gate. A clumsy contraption, which has never been altered in all these years."

"But quite useful--with unwanted visitors," he replied, stooping suddenly and picking up something off the carpet. "h.e.l.lo, what's this?

Looks like a bit of flexible electric wire. Something of your brother's hobby, no doubt."

He held it out to her in the open palm of his hand. It was just a little sc.r.a.p of crimson-covered flexible wire, and she barely noticed it.

"And ... h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo! No electricity used in here, either. I suppose that's because your father doesn't approve?"

"Yes. Ross wired the room--or had it wired with the aid of an electrician--and then installed the light. But Father was so angry that he would rarely ever use it. Sticks to the musty old lamp over there, for most things."

"And is the room still wired?"

"Yes. There's a wall plug over there by the door. Why, Mr. Deland?"

"Oh, nothing. Then that would account for this fragment of flexible wire, wouldn't it? H'm. Yes. I see. I see."

But what he saw he did not at that moment mention, and Miss Duggan had to guess at his meaning.

"But it was done ten days ago-- I must really speak to the servants and tell them to keep the place cleaner than they do. Fancy leaving odd pieces about like that!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, sensitive to any suggestion of poor management upon the part of Castle authorities. But Cleek did not hear. He was standing over by the wall-plug, looking down at it, and then kneeling, began to examine it minutely. She watched him in amazement, unused to his methods.

"Why, Mr. Deland--"

"Oh, just looking at how your brother does his work. Quite a good workman, isn't he?" said Cleek, rising slowly to his feet, and pocketing the bit of flexible wire forthwith.

And that was the last word she could get out of him upon the subject.

CHAPTER V

A STARTLING DISCOVERY

Within one short hour Cleek had explored the Castle from end to end, in company with a tireless girl for whom every stick and stone of the grand old place held a memory that was as sacred to her as the church is to the priest who has pa.s.sed all his days in the service of it. But they met no other members of the family just then. Only, as they pa.s.sed through the left wing, where the servants' quarters lay beyond, Cleek was introduced to Johanna McCall--paid hireling and companion of Lady Paula, and not too pleased with her job, either, if all he read in that frightened face of hers was true.

He found her a little pale slip of a thing, with wide, anxious eyes set in an ivory-tinted, utterly colourless face, and with hair that was "mousey" and straight, and a mouth that might tremble at an unkind word as a child's does.

She bowed to him timidly and extended a slender hand.

"How do you do," she said, in a soft, toneless sort of voice which matched her poor, toneless, utterly downtrodden personality. "Your stepmother, Miss Duggan? She is in the study, I suppose? I have her embroidery silks, and she wanted them immediately. But it took such a time to get them disentangled. Master Cyril was playing with them last night. I--oh, I do hope she won't be angry!"

"Don't worry, Miss McCall. Rome won't fall, you know, even if she does speak an unkind word to you in her hasty fas.h.i.+on," gave back Maud Duggan, with a kindly pressure of one hand upon the frail girl's arm.

"And she's busy just now with Sir Andrew. Looking over some accounts, I believe. I should wait for her in her boudoir, if I were you. She's bound to ring if she wants you."

"Yes, perhaps that would be better."

Miss McCall hurried down the corridor, silent-footed, as a paid companion should always be, and Cleek shook his head as she vanished through an open door at the end of the pa.s.sage.

"Poor little frightened thing!" he said softly. "And all for a pittance which, in her sort of profession, must necessarily be small!"

"Yes, and she works like a black for it, too," gave back Maud Duggan heatedly. "Slogs away all the day long, running errands for--_her_--sewing, darning, mending, writing interminable letters which Paula tears up afterward and decides not to send. And gets not a crumb of comfort for her pains. Paula is terribly hard upon her, Mr. Deland.

I wonder the girl stands it; only--there's an attraction."

"And you women are endurance personified--in those circ.u.mstances!" he responded with a little significant laugh. "When your hearts are involved, your common sense vanishes to make room for it. I've seen it a thousand times before.... Really, Miss Duggan, you have been an indefatigable guide. I don't believe there's a nook or cranny of this place which I haven't seen, is there?"

"Only the cellars--or, properly speaking, the dungeons. And they're of no interest to anybody. Father keeps the wines down there, of course, and anything that does not require too much storage. But, excepting for the cellar, the place is never entered from one year's end to another.

Not a servant would go down into them for double wages. The peasant-girl is supposed to stay there when she is not out on her nightly prowl for the man who abducted her!"

"Indeed? That's interesting. I suppose I couldn't go down? Dungeons are a perfect pa.s.sion with me, for I've an insatiable curiosity, and always want to go poking my nose where no one else does. Sort of brand of my profession, I suppose. Do you think you could find energy enough to take me down?"

"Certainly."

She led the way down an L-shaped pa.s.sage, which led past the kitchens and the servants' hall, and gave out upon a little stone courtyard set apart from the house and bounded about with a high wall through which arrow-slits gave the true mediaeval touch, and then down to the right of this through a huge oaken door which opened noiselessly, showing a flight of steep, uneven stone steps leading down into a dark, damp-smelling interior.

At the top of the steps she paused and looked back at him over the curve of her shoulder, making a wry face.

"You still want to go?" she asked jestingly. "I'm a brave woman, Mr.

Deland, but I wouldn't undertake this journey alone for anything!

There's--_rats_!"

"As well as ghosts? But this is morning, and Scotland, and the twentieth century--so lead on, Macduff," he answered her in the same jesting spirit. "Or would you like me to go first?"

She s.h.i.+vered and twitched up her shoulders.

"No; I'll do the honours properly. This way. If you've a torch on you, you'll need it at the bottom of these stairs. It's as dark as pitch."

"I have."

Cleek produced it, and they proceeded upon the uncanny journey. The steps led down, down, into what seemed the very bowels of the earth (which indeed they were), until they reached a little square opening from which iron-grilled doorways looked out upon them from every side, saving for one oak door on the left, which Miss Duggan pointed out as the wine-cellar.