The Ashiel mystery Part 24

Suddenly Juliet came to a quick decision: she would find out what Julia Romaninov 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.

Fronting them, the end of the little turret, with which the wall of the old fortress now came to a sudden termination, could be seen rearing its grey stones above the dark glossy foliage of the hedge, which grew here with peculiar vigour and continued to the extreme edge of the cliff, and even farther.

What was Juliet's surprise to see Julia, when she had found her breath, and taken one quick look round as if to satisfy herself she was un.o.bserved, suddenly cast herself down, in her turn, upon the damp earth, and inserting her head beneath the p.r.i.c.kly barricade of the holly leaves, begin to crawl and wriggle forward until she had completely disappeared under it. What in the world could she be doing?

Minutes pa.s.sed, and she did not reappear. Juliet waited, her nerves stretched in expectation, but nothing happened. Overhead little birds, tomt.i.ts and creepers, played about the bark of the fir-trees; a robin came and looked at her consideringly, with a bright sensible eye; from two hundred feet below, the murmur of the burn rose constant and insistent; but no other sound broke the stillness, nor was there any sign of human life upon the top of the cliff.

At last the girl could stand it no longer. Her patience was exhausted. Curiosity urged her like a goad; and, if she had not much expectation of making any important discovery, she was at least determined to solve the mystery that now perplexed her.

Without more ado she got to her feet, and ran to the holly hedge. There, throwing herself down once more, she parted the leaves with a cautious hand, and followed the path taken by the Russian.

The hedge was old and very thick, more than three yards in width at this end of it. In the middle, the trunks of the trees that formed it rose in a close-growing, impa.s.sable barrier; but just opposite the place where Julia had vanished Juliet found that there was a gap, caused, perhaps, by the death in earlier days of one of the trees, or, as she afterwards thought more likely, by the intentional omission or destruction of one of the young plants. It was a narrow opening, but she managed to wriggle through it.

On the other side, progress was bounded by the wall, whose ma.s.sive granite blocks presented a smooth unbroken surface. Where, then, had Julia gone? The branches did not grow low on this, as on the outer side of the hedge, and there was room to stand, though not to stand upright. Stooping uncomfortably, the girl looked about her, and saw in the soft brown earth the plain print of many footsteps, both going and coming, between the place where she crouched and the end of the wall. She looked behind her, and there were no marks. Clearly, Julia had gone to the end; but what then? The corner of the wall was at the very edge of the precipice; from what she remembered to have seen from below, the rock was too sheer to offer any foothold; besides why, having just climbed to the summit should anyone immediately descend again, and by such an extraordinary route? While these thoughts followed one another in her mind, Juliet had advanced along the track of the footsteps, and clinging tightly to the trunk of the last holly bush she leant forward and looked down.

As she thought, the descent was impossible: the rock fell away at her feet, sheer and smooth; there was no path there that a cat could take. It made her giddy to look, and she drew back hurriedly.

Where, then, could Julia have gone? Not to the left, that was certain, for then she would have emerged again into view. To the right? That seemed impossible. Still, Juliet leant forward again, and peered round the corner of the wall.

There, not more than a couple of feet away, was a small opening, less than eighteen inches wide by about a yard in height. Hidden by the overhanging end of the hedge, it would be invisible from below. Here was the road Julia had taken.

Juliet did not hesitate. She could reach the aperture easily, and it would have been the simplest thing in the world to climb into it, but for the yawning chasm beneath. Holding firmly to the friendly holly, and resisting, with an effort, the temptation to look down, she swung herself bravely over the edge and scrambled into the hole with a gasp of relief. It was, after all, not very difficult. She found herself standing within the entrance of a narrow pa.s.sage built into the thickness of the wall. Beside the opening through which she had come, a little door of oak, grey with age and strengthened with rusty bars and cross-pieces of iron, drooped upon its one remaining hinge. Two huge slabs of stone leaning near it, against the wall, showed how it had been the custom in former centuries to fortify the entrance still more effectively in time of danger.

Juliet did not wait to examine these fragments, interesting though they might be to archaeologists, but hurried down the pa.s.sage as quickly as she could in the darkness that filled it, feeling her way with an outstretched hand upon the stones on either side. As her eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, she saw that though the way was dark it was yet not entirely so: a gloomy light penetrated at intervals through ivy-covered loopholes pierced in the thickness of the outer wall; and she imagined bygone McConachans pouring boiling oil or other hospitable greeting through those slits on to the heads of their neighbours. But surely, she reflected, no one would ever have attacked the castle from that side, where the precipice already offered an impregnable defence; the pa.s.sage must have been used as a means of communication with the outer world, or, perhaps, as a last resort, for the purpose of escape by the beleaguered forces.

After fifty yards or so of comparatively easy progress, the shafts of twilight from the loopholes ceased to permeate the murky darkness in which she walked, and she was obliged to go more slowly, and to feel her way dubiously by the touch of hands and feet.

The floor appeared to her to be sloping away beneath her, and as she advanced the descent became more and more rapid, till she could hardly keep her feet. She went very gingerly, with a vague fear lest the path should stop unexpectedly, and she herself step into s.p.a.ce.

Presently she found herself once more upon level ground, when another difficulty confronted her: the walls came suddenly to an end. Feeling cautiously about her in the darkness, she made out that she had come to a point where another pa.s.sage crossed the one she was following, a sort of cross-road in this unknown country of shade and stone. Here, then, were three possible routes to take, and no means of knowing which of them Julia Romaninov had gone by.

After a little hesitation, she decided to keep straight on. It would at all events be easier to return if she did, and she would be less likely to make a mistake and lose her way. So on she stumbled; and who shall say that Fate had not a hand in this chance decision?

Though the distance she had traversed was inconsiderable, the darkness and uncertainty made it appear to her immense, and each moment she expected to come upon the Russian girl. At every other step she paused and listened, but no sound met her ears except a slight, regular, thudding noise, which she presently discovered, with something of a shock, to be the beating of her own heart. The sound of her progress was almost inaudible. As the day was damp, she was wearing goloshes, and her small, rubber-shod feet fell upon the stone floor with a gentle patter that was scarcely perceptible.

At last she nearly fell over the first step of a flight of stairs.

She mounted them one by one with every precaution her fears could suggest. For by now the first enthusiasm of the chase had worn off, and the solitude and darkness of this strange place had worked upon her nerves till she was terrified of she knew not what, and ready to scream at a touch.

Already she bitterly regretted having started out upon this enterprise of spying. Why had she not gone and reported what she had seen to Mr. Gimblet? That surely would have been the obvious, the sensible course. It was, she reflected, a course still open to her; and in another moment she would have turned and taken it, but even as the thought crossed her mind she was aware that the darkness was sensibly decreased, and in another second she had risen into comparative daylight. As she stood still, debating what she should do, and taking in all that could now be distinguished of her surroundings, she saw that the stairs ended in an open trap-door, leading to a high, black-lined shaft like the inside of a chimney, in which, some two feet above the trap, an odd, narrow curve of gla.s.s acted as a window, and admitted a very small quant.i.ty of light. A streak of light seemed to come also from the wall beside it.

Juliet drew herself cautiously up, till her head was in the chimney, and her eyes level with the slip of gla.s.s.

With a sudden shock of surprise she saw that she was looking into the room which, above all others, she had so much cause to remember ever having entered.

It was, indeed, the library of the castle, and she was looking at it from the inside of that clock into which Gimblet had once before seen Julia Romaninov vanish.

The curtains were drawn in the room, but after the absolute blackness of the stone corridors the semi-dusk looked nearly as bright as full daylight to Juliet, and she had no difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng that there was but one person in the library, and that person Julia.

She was standing by a bookshelf at the far end, near the window, and seemed to be methodically engaged in an examination of the books. Juliet saw her take out first one, then another, musty, leather-bound volume, shake it, turn over the leaves, and put it back in its place after groping with her hand at the back of the shelf. Plainly she was hunting for something. But for what? She had no business where she was, in any case, and Juliet's indignation gathered and swelled within her as she watched this unwarrantable intrusion.

She would confront the girl and ask her what she meant by such behaviour.

But how to get into the library?

Looking about her, she saw that the streak of light in the wall beside her came through a perpendicular crack which might well be the edge of a little door.

She pushed gently and the wood yielded to her fingers.

CHAPTER XVIII

Later on in the afternoon, when Gimblet arrived at the castle, he was immediately shown into the presence of Lord As.h.i.+el, who was pacing the smoking-room restlessly, a cigarette between his teeth. He looked pale and haggard, the strain of the last few days had evidently been too much for him.

Gimblet greeted him sympathetically.

"You have not found your uncle's will, I can see," he began, "and you are fretting at the idea of keeping his daughter out of her fortune. But set your mind at rest; we shall be able to put that right. Is she here, by the way?" he added, remembering Lady Ruth's anxiety.

"Here, of course not! What do you mean?" cried Mark, stopping suddenly in his walk.

"Well, I was sure she was not," Gimblet replied, "but I promised to ask. Lady Ruth is rather upset because Miss Byrne did not come in to lunch. I told her she had probably gone for a longer walk than had been her intention," he added soothingly, for Mark was looking at him with a disturbed expression.

He seemed relieved, however, by the detective's suggestion.

"Yes, no doubt, that would be the reason," he murmured, lighting a fresh cigarette, and throwing himself down in an easy-chair, with his hands clasped behind his head. "No, I haven't found any will, and there's not a corner left that I haven't turned inside out. I suppose he never really made it. Just talked about it, probably, as people are so fond of doing. And now I'm at a loose end; all alone in this big house with no one to speak to and nothing to do with myself. It's a beast of a day, or I should go out and try for a salmon, in self-defence. To-morrow I shall go South. And you, have you found out anything new about the murder yet?"

"I have found out one thing which you will be glad to hear," said Gimblet, "and that is the place where the missing will is concealed."

"What!" cried Mark, leaping to his feet. "Where is it? What does it say?

Give it to me!"

"I haven't got it," Gimblet told him. "I don't know what it says, but I know where to look for it. It is in the statue your uncle put up on the track known as the Green Way. I have found a memorandum of his which sets the matter beyond a doubt."

And he related at length the story of the half-sheet of paper with the mysterious writing, and of how he had learnt by accident of the manner in which the statue fitted in with the obscure directions, omitting nothing except the fact that he had already acted on the information so far as to make certain of the actual existence of the tin box, and saying that he should prefer the papers to be brought to light in the presence of a magistrate.

"I believe there are other doc.u.ments there besides the will," he said, without troubling to explain what excellent reasons he had for such a belief. "I understood from your uncle that there might be some of an almost international importance. In case any dispute should subsequently arise about them, I wish to have more than one reliable witness to their being found. Can you send a man over to the lodge at Glenkliquart, and ask General Tenby to come back with him. I am told that he is a magistrate."

Gimblet did not think it necessary to relate how he had obtained possession of the sheet of paper bearing the injunction to "face curiosity." His adventures on that night savoured too strongly of house-breaking to be drawn attention to.

"Your uncle must have posted it to me in London the day before he died," he said mendaciously. "It was forwarded here, and at first I could make neither head nor tail of it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mark asked impatiently. "And yet," he added reflecting, "I might not have seen to what it referred. Yes, of course I will send over for General Tenby. He can't come for three or four hours, though, which will make it rather late. Are you sure we had not better open the thing sooner? The bull's horn at the south-east corner turns like a key, you say? Suppose some one else finds that out and makes off with whatever may be hidden there."