The Black Abbot E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 451

Beschreibung

The Black Abbot by Edgar Wallace is a spine-tingling mystery that weaves together ancient legends, hidden treasures, and a sinister figure lurking in the shadows. In the eerie halls of a centuries-old English estate, the legend of the Black Abbot terrifies the locals. When a mysterious death occurs, suspicion falls on the supernatural, but the truth may be far more dangerous. As a cunning detective digs deeper, a web of greed, secrets, and deadly ambition begins to unravel. Will the haunting figure of the Black Abbot be unmasked, or will the truth remain buried with the dead? Perfect for fans of suspense and classic British mysteries.

Leseprobe

The Black Abbot

Author: Edgar Wallace

Edited by: Seif Moawad

Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq eBookstore

Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1926

No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

The Black Abbot

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER XLIX

CHAPTER L

CHAPTER LI

CHAPTER LII

CHAPTER LIII

CHAPTER LIV

CHAPTER LV

CHAPTER LVI

CHAPTER LVII

CHAPTER LVIII

CHAPTER LIX

CHAPTER LX

CHAPTER LXI

CHAPTER LXII

CHAPTER LXIII

CHAPTER LXIV

CHAPTER LXV

Landmarks

Cover

CHAPTER I

"THOMAS!"

"Yes, m'lord."

Thomas the footman waited, a look of concentrated interest on his unprepossessing face, whilst the pale man behind the big library desk sorted out a small pile of Treasury notes.

The battered steel box from which they were taken was full to the brim with Bank and Treasury notes of all denominations in hopeless confusion.

"Thomas!" absently.

"Yes, m'lord."

"Put this money in that envelope—not that one, you fool, the grey one. Is it addressed?"

"Yes, m'lord. 'Herr Lubitz, Frankfurterstrasse 35, Leipzig,' m'lord."

"Lick it down, take it to the post office and register it. Is Mr Richard in his study?"

"No, m'lord, he went out an hour ago."

Harry Alford, 18th Earl of Chelford, sighed. He was on the right side of thirty, thin of face and pale as students are, his jet-black hair emphasising the pallor of his skin. The library in which he worked was a high-roofed building, the walls bisected by a gallery that ran round three sides of the room and was reached by a circular iron staircase in one corner of the apartment. From the roof to the floor every inch of wall space was covered with bookshelves, with this notable exception. Over the great stone fireplace was a full-length painting of a beautiful woman. None who had seen his lordship could make any mistake as to the relationship which existed between himself and that wild-eyed beauty. It was his mother; she had the same delicate features, the same raven hair and dark, fathomless eyes. Lady Chelford had been the most famous debutante of her time, and her tragic end had been the sensation of the early 'nineties. There was no other picture in the room.

His eyes strayed to the portrait now. To Harry Alford, Fossaway Manor, for all its beauty and charm, was a poor casket for such a jewel.

The footman in his sober black livery, his hair powdered white, lingered.

"Is that all, m'lord?"

"That is all," said his lordship gravely. Yet when the man had moved noiselessly to the door—"Thomas!"

"Yes, m'lord."

"I heard something by accident as you passed my window this morning with Filling the groom—er—?"

"He was telling me about the Black Abbot, m'lord." The pale face twitched spasmodically. Even in broad daylight, with the sun streaming through the stained windows and marking the parquet with arabesques of crimson and blue and amethyst, the very mention of the Black Abbot set his heart beating faster.

"Any man in my employ who discusses the Black Abbot will be instantly dismissed. Will you tell your fellow-servants that, Thomas? A ghost! Great God! Are you all mad?"

His face was red now, little veins swelled at his temples, and under the stream of anger his dark eyes seemed to recede into his head.

"Not a word! You understand? It is a lie! A mischievous wicked lie to say that Fossaway is haunted! It is a trick played by some of the louts about the place. That will do!"

He waved the bowing man from his presence and resumed his study of the black-lettered book that had arrived from Germany that morning.

Once outside the library door, Thomas could afford to twist his sallow features to a grin. Only for a second, and then he became serious again. There must be nearly a thousand pounds in that cash-box, and Thomas had once served a three-year sentence for a tenth of that sum. Even Mr Richard Alford, who knew most things, was unaware of this interesting fact.

Thomas had a letter to write, for he maintained a lucrative correspondence with one who had an especial interest in Fossaway Manor, but first he had to report the gist of the conversation to Mr Glover, the butler.

"I don't care what his lordship says (and why he should tell a footman and not me, I don't know); there's a ghost, and all sorts of people have seen it! I wouldn't walk down Elm Drive alone at night for fifty million pounds!" This portly man shook a head that the years had silvered.

"And his lordship believes it too. I wish he was married, that's what I wish. He'll be more sensible then!"

"And we'd get rid of Mr Blooming Alford—eh, Mr Glover."

The butler sniffed.

"There's them that likes him and them that don't," said the oracle. "We've never had a cross word, Thomas—there's somebody at the door."

Thomas hurried to the hall entrance and opened the big door. A girl was standing under the portico. She was pretty in a bold way, red of lips and bright of eye and dressed expensively.

Thomas gave her a grin of recognition.

"Good morning, Miss Wenner—this is a bit of a surprise!"

"Is his lordship in, Thomas?"

The footman pursed his lips dubiously.

"He is in, miss, but I'm afraid I can't take you in to him. Don't blame me, miss, it's Mr Alford's orders."

"Mr Alford!" she sneered. "Do you mean to tell me that I've come all the way from London and can't see Lord Chelford?"

But Thomas kept his hand on the door. He liked the girl, who, when she had been his lordship's secretary, had never given herself airs (the unpardonable sin of the servants' hall), and who always had a smile for the meanest of the domestic staff. He would gladly have admitted her and felt that his lordship would have been pleased to see her, but in the background somewhere hovered Dick Alford, a man of curt speech, who was not only capable of showing him the door but kicking him through it.

"I'm very sorry, miss; but orders is orders, as you know."

"I see!" she nodded ominously. "I'm to be turned away from what might have been my own door, Thomas."

He tried to look his sympathy and succeeded in assuming an expression of imbecility. She smiled at him, shook hands with him graciously and turned away from the portico.

"Miss Wenner," reported Thomas, "her that Alford fired because he thought his lordship was getting sweet on her—"

The library bell rang at that moment and Thomas hastened to answer the call.

"Who was that lady—I saw her through the window?"

"Miss Wenner, m'lord."

A cloud passed over Harry Alford's face.

"Did you—ask her to come in?"

"No, m'lord; Mr Alford gave orders—"

"Of course—yes. I had forgotten. Perhaps it is just as well. Thank you."

He pulled down the green shade over his eyes, for even in the day he worked by artificial light, such was the gloom of the library, and resumed his study of the book.

Yet his mind was not wholly concentrated on the work. Once he rose and walked up and down the library, his hands clasped before him, his chin on his breast. He stopped before the picture of his mother, sighed and walked back to the writing-table. There was a Press paragraph which he had cut out of a London newspaper, and this he read for the third time, not ill-pleased with the unaccustomed experience of finding himself the subject of newspaper comment, and yet irritated by the subject on which the paragraph was based.

Chelfordbury, a sleepy Sussex village, is engaged in the thrilling sport of ghost-hunting. The Black Abbot of Fossaway has, after a period of quiescence, again made his appearance. The legend is that seven hundred years ago, Hubert of Redruth, Abbot of Chelfordbury, was assassinated by order of the second Earl of Chelford. Since then, from time to time, his "ghost" has been seen. During the past few years horrific stories of an Unseen Being that shrieked and howled demoniacally have been current in the county, but the noisy spook was not actually seen until last week.

Fossaway Manor has other romances besides ghosts. Four hundred years ago a great treasure of gold was, according to legend, hidden somewhere on the estate; so effectively, in fact, that it has never been discovered since, although successive Earls of Chelford have searched diligently for the ancestral hoard.

The present Earl of Chelford, who, by the way, is engaged to be married to Miss Leslie Gine, the only sister of Mr Arthur Gine, the well-known solicitor, informed our local representative that he had no doubt that the apparition of the Black Abbot was a practical joke in very doubtful taste on the part of the foolish youth of the neighbourhood.

He made as though to tear the paper, but thought better of it and put the cutting under a paper-weight.

That reference to the practical jokers of the village was reassuring and might be a comfort when the night came and he needed encouragement.

For Lord Chelford believed in the Black Abbot as religiously as he proclaimed his scepticism.

His restless hand moved to the bell-push on his table.

"Has Mr Richard returned?"

"No, m'lord."

Lord Chelford struck the table pettishly with his palm.

"Where on earth does he get to in the mornings?" he asked querulously.

Thomas, very wisely, pretended not to hear.

CHAPTER II

THE reapers had laid low the last of the golden heads, and the sheaves stood like yellow tombstones on Racket Field. Beyond the field was Chelfordbury, where the grey old spire of the church came up from a velvety knoll of trees; beyond again, the green and white downs of Sussex, along the feet of which the railway runs.

Dick Alford sat on a stile on the top of a little hillock and could see across the weald for fifteen miles. He could turn his head and take in the home farm and the green roofs and cupolas of Fossaway Manor, with its broad lawns and its clipped yew hedges. Neither cornfield nor down, manor-house nor pleasaunce, interested him for the moment. His eyes were fixed and his mind centred upon the girl who was walking quickly up the winding path that would bring her presently to where he sat.

She was singing as she walked, the riding crop she carried whirling round and round like a drum-major's baton. His lips twitched to the ghost of a smile. Presently she would see him, and he wondered if she would be annoyed. He had never seen Leslie Gine except in such circumstances that her face was a pleasant mask and her manner conventionally charming. She had been nicely brought up and taught that all things are permissible except one: to make your equal feel foolish.

The song ceased. She had seen him, but she did not check her pace and came quickly up the hill path, slashing at a nettle as she walked.

"Peeping Tom!" she greeted him reproachfully.

She was not so tall as the average English girl, but her slimness gave her height, and the supple movement of her hinted at greater strength than her slight figure suggested. Her face, delicately modelled, had the subtle refinement of her class. Small, beautiful hands and feet, a head finely poised, eyes of a deep grey, and a red mouth that smiled easily, Leslie Gine in rags would have been unmistakably a beautiful lady.

Dick had seen her riding; she gripped the withers with her knees, jockey fashion, and was part of the horse. He had seen her on the polished dancing floor; there was lissom grace in every line. When he danced with her, he held in his arms a fragrant something that had more substance and character than he had thought. The hand on his shoulder was definitely placed, the body which his arm encircled was firm; he could feel the tiny muscles ripple under his hand.

She stood now, her little black riding hat askew, her figure clad in neat black relieved by the lawn collar. Her neatly booted legs were planted stubbornly apart, one gloved hand holding her waist, the other swinging the crop. In her grey eyes was an imp of mischief that gleamed and danced all the merrier for the studied solemnity of every other feature.

Dick Alford, from his vantage place on the top rail of the stile, chewed a blade of toddy grass between his white teeth and surveyed her approvingly.

"Been riding, Leslie?"

"I have been riding," she said gravely, and added: "a horse."

He looked round innocently.

"Where is the favoured animal?" he demanded.

She looked at him suspiciously, but not a muscle of the tanned, lean face so much as twitched.

"I dismounted to pick wild flowers and the beastie ran away. You saw him!" she accused.

"I saw something that looked like a horse running towards Willow House," he confessed calmly. "I thought he had thrown you."

She nodded.

"For that prevarication you can go and find him—I'll wait here," she said, and, when he got down from the stile with a groan: "I meant you to do that, anyway. The moment I saw you I said to myself: 'There's a lazy man who wants exercise!' Sisters-in-law-to-be have privileges."

He winced a little at this. She may have noticed the cloud that came momentarily to his face, for she put out her hand and checked him.

"One of the grooms can find him, Dick. He is such a hungry pig that he is certain to make for his stable. No, I don't mean the groom. Sit down; I want to talk to you."

She swung up to the stile and took the place he had vacated.

"Richard Alford, I don't think you are enjoying the prospect of my being the mistress of Fossaway House?"

"Manor," he corrected.

"Don't quibble—are you?"

"I count the days," he said lightly.

"Are you?"

He took a battered silver case from his hip pocket, selected a cigarette and lit it.

"My dear Leslie—" he began, but she shook her head. She was very serious now.

"You think I will—interfere with things? With the management of the estate—I know poor Harry couldn't manage a small holding—with—oh, with all sorts of things, but I think you are wrong."

He blew three smoke rings into the air before he answered.

"I wish you would manage the estate," he said quietly. "It would be a blessing to me. No, I'm not worried about that. With your money—forgive the brutality—the estate will not count. A bailiff could manage it as well as any second son!"

CHAPTER III

HE spoke without bitterness, without a hint of self-pity, and she was silent. He was a child of a second marriage, and that had made it worse for him. When old Lord Chelford followed Dick's mother to the grave, the second son's portion was his. The estate, the title, the very car he had used as his own, passed from him. A tiny estate in Hertfordshire that brought two hundred a year, some old jewellery of his mother's and a thousand pounds came the way of the second son. And the thousand pounds had never been paid. In some mysterious fashion it had been swallowed up.

Mr Arthur Gine had settled the estate. In all the circumstances Dick felt happier when he did not think of that thousand pounds. Yet, for some reason or other, he thought of it now, and as though she read his thoughts dimly, and associated his reserve with her brother, she asked:

"You don't like Arthur, do you?"

"What makes you say that?" he said, in genuine surprise. He had never betrayed his aversion to the dandified lawyer.

"I know," she nodded wisely. "He exasperates me sometimes, and I can well imagine that a man like you would hate him."

Dick smiled.

"Harry doesn't hate him anyway, and he is the person who counts."

She looked round at him, swinging the crop idly.

"It doesn't seem real to me that I'm to be married at all—it was such a funny proposal, Dick, so polite, so formal, so—unreal! I think if it had come in any other way—" She shook her head.

Dick wondered a little drearily how his brother would propose. Harry was something of a novice at the love game; once he had had a pretty secretary, and on a warm June afternoon Dick had interrupted what was tantamount to a proposal from the enterprising young lady. And the flustered Harry would have agreed to her matrimonial suggestions, only Dick had happened along—and the calculating Miss Wenner had left Fossaway Manor rather hurriedly. He remembered this happening.

"I suppose if he had proposed in the conventional way you wouldn't have accepted him?"

"I don't know," she said dubiously. "But it was quaint and—queer. I like Harry awfully. I have often wondered if he would like me if—" She did not finish her sentence.

"If you weren't so horribly rich?" smiled Dick. "You're not paying him a very high compliment." She held out her arms and he lifted her down, though there seemed no necessity for it, as she was a very agile young person as a rule.

"Dick," she said, as he crossed the stile and they walked side by side towards the main road, "what am I to do?"

"About what?" he asked.

"About Harry and everything."

He had no answer to this.

"Arthur is very keen on my marrying him," she said. "And really, I'm not averse—at least, I don't think so."

"That is the worst of being a great heiress," he bantered.

"I wonder?" Her brow wrinkled in a frown. "And am I a great heiress?"

He stopped and looked at her in surprise.

"Aren't you?"

He seemed so shocked that she laughed.

"I don't know; my uncle left me a lot of money years and years ago. I don't know how much—Arthur has managed my estate for years. I have all the money I need."

"Then don't grouse!" he said crudely, and she laughed again.

"I suppose most girls in my position have their marriages arranged in the way mine has been arranged, and until quite recently I have accepted the idea as part of the inevitable."

"And why have you changed your mind now?" he asked bluntly, and saw the pink come into her face.

"I don't know."

Her answer was very short, almost brusque.

And then she saw the look in his eyes—the infinite yearning, the hopelessness of them. And in a flash there came to her a knowledge of herself.

For some reason which she could not understand she became of a sudden breathless, and almost found a difficulty in speaking. She felt that the thump and thud of her heart must be audible to his ears, and strove desperately to recover her balance. Vividly before her eyes came the picture of her fiancé, the thin, irritable young man—the weakling with all that man needed in his hands, save manhood. A pitiable, nerve-racked creature, now pleading, now bullying—oblivious of the impression he made on the woman who was to share his life. And from this mental figure of him her eyes moved mechanically to the man by her side; calm, serene, radiant in his strength and self-reliance.

Ten minutes later she was walking back to Willow House, and in her heart she struggled with a problem that seemed well-nigh insoluble.

Dick Alford, making his slow progress homeward, saw the lank figure of his brother waiting at the end of the elm drive.

The wind flapped the skirts of his long frock-coat; standing, he stooped slightly and had a trick of thrusting forward his head, which gave him the appearance of a big, ungainly bird. His face was dark with anger, Dick saw as he came up with him.

"I deputise many duties to you, Richard, but I'll do my own love-making, understand that!"

The blood came into Dick Alford's face, but he showed no other sign of his hurt or anger.

"I will not have it—you understand?" Lord Chelford's voice was shrill with childish fury. "I will not have you interfering in my private affairs. You sent one girl away from me, you shall not take Leslie!"

"I am not—" began his brother hotly.

"You are—you are! You don't want me to marry! I am not a fool, Dick! You stand next in the line of succession! I am going to marry Leslie Gine — understand that! You shall not break that engagement."

For a moment the brutality, the injustice of the accusation, left the younger man white and shaking, and then, with a supreme effort, he laughed. Scenes such as this were of almost daily occurrence, but never before had Harry Alford gone so far. In ten minutes the storm would pass, and Harry would be his old lovable self, but for the moment it was bitterly hard to bear.

"Why do you say such horrible things?" he said. "I got rid of Wenner because she was not the wife for you—"

"You didn't want me to marry! You are waiting for my shoes, a dead man's shoes!" almost screamed the elder son. "The last thing in the world you want to see is a new Countess of Chelford. You know it, you know it!"

Dick Alford was silent. God knew his brother spoke the truth! It would be a woeful day for him when Harry Alford brought a wife to this great house to share the dreadful secret which hung like a cloud over Fossaway Manor.

CHAPTER IV

DICK ALFORD was in the little study where he usually worked, a business-like room filled with filing cabinets and deed-boxes. The French windows giving to the lawn were open, for though it was September the night was warm, and he was working in his shirt-sleeves, a pipe gripped between his teeth, his eyes protected from the overhead light by a big green shade that he wore affixed by a band to his head. If there was a resemblance between Lord Chelford and his mother, not even the keenest observer could trace in Dick Alford the slightest likeness to his half-brother. He was a creature of the open, a six-foot athlete, broad of shoulder and slim of flank, and his tanned face spoke of a life spent on the windy downs. His blue eyes surveyed the footman with a quizzical smile as he pushed his battered old typewriter aside, relit his pipe and stretched himself.

"Black Abbot? Good lord! Have you seen him, Thomas?"

"No, sir, I have not seen him. But Mr Cartwright, the grocer down in Chelford village—"

He gave a graphic narrative of Mr Cartwright's horror, amazement and confusion.

"They telephoned up from the 'Red Lion' to ask if his lordship had heard anything about it." Even Thomas, who believed in nothing except Thomas, shivered. "It is the first time he has been seen for years according to all accounts, though he has been heard howling and moaning. Nobody knows who set fire to the vicarage when the parson was away at the seaside—"

"That will do, Thomas. As to Cartwright, he was drunk," said Dick cheerily, "or else he saw a shadow."

He glanced out at the lawn, bathed in the blue-white rays of a full moon.

"You can see things in the moonlight that never were on land or sea. I understood that his lordship said that the Black Abbot was not to be discussed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then shut up!" said Dick.

Pipe in mouth, he strolled across the hall into the dimly lit library.

The three electroliers that hung from the roof were dark. Only the two green-shaded reading-lamps that flanked each side of the desk were alight, and these intensified the gloom. Dick closed the door behind him and lounged over towards the desk, pulling a chair behind him.

Chelford frowned at the sight of his brother.

"Really, Dick," he said irritably. "I wish to heaven you wouldn't loaf about the place in shirt and breeches. It looks fearfully bad."

"It feels fearfully cool," said Dick, sitting down. "Will your nerves sustain the smell of a bit of honest 'baccy?"

Lord Chelford moved uncomfortably in his chair. Then, reaching out his hand, he snicked open a gold box and took out a cigarette.

"My pipe against your stinkers for a hundred pounds!" said Dick, with a cheery smile. "Cigarettes I can stand, but scented cigarettes—"

"If you don't like them, Dick, you can go out," grumbled his lordship fretfully. And then in his abrupt way: "Did you see this newspaper cutting?"

He pulled the paper from under the crystal weight and Dick skimmed the lines.

"We are getting into the public eye, Harry," he said, "but there is nothing about me, which is unkind."

"Don't be stupid. How did that get into the papers?"

"How does anything get into the papers?" asked Dick lazily. "Our spook is almost as useful as a Press agent."

Harry snapped round on him.

"Can't you take this seriously? Don't you see that it is worrying me to death? You know the state of my nerves—you have no sympathy, Dick, you're just as hard as rock! Everybody seems to hate the sight of you."

Dick pulled at his pipe glumly.

"That is my unfortunate character. I am afraid I am getting efficient. That is the only way I can account for my unpopularity. It keeps me awake at nights—"

"Don't fool, for heaven's sake!"

"I'm serious now," murmured Dick, closing his eyes; "try me with a hymn!"

Harry Chelford turned away with a gesture of utter weariness, fingered the manuscript at his hand and gazed from his brother to the door. It was a gesture of dismissal and Dick rose.

"Don't you think you've done enough work for tonight, Harry?" Dick asked gently. "You look absolutely all in."

"I never felt better in my life," said the other emphatically.

Dick slewed round his head to read the printed page from which his elder brother had been copying, and saw at once that his effort was in vain; the book was written in Old German, and Dick's linguistic abilities ended at a mastery of restaurant French. Lord Chelford put down the book with a sigh and sat back in his padded chair.

"I suppose you think I'm a fool wasting my time on this"—he raised his hand towards the serried shelves—"when I could be having a very amusing time with Leslie?"

Dick nodded.

"Yes, I think you might be more profitably employed out of doors. Really, for a bridegroom-to-be, you're the worst slacker I've ever struck."

There was a superiority in Harry Chelford's smile.

"Happily, Leslie knows she is marrying a bookworm and not an athlete," he said, and, rising, walked over to where Dick was sitting and dropped his hand on his shoulder. "What would you say if I told you that I was halfway to discovering the real Chelford treasure?"

Dick knew exactly what he would say, but replied diplomatically.

"I should say you were three parts on the way to discovering the philosopher's stone," he said.

But his brother was serious. He paced up and down the long library, his hands behind him, his chin on his breast.

"I expected you to say that," he said. "I should have been rather surprised if you hadn't. But the Chelford treasure has an existence, Dick, and somewhere with it is the greatest treasure of all!"

His brother listened patiently. He knew by heart the story of the thousand bars of pure gold, each bar weighing thirty-five pounds. The legend of the Chelford treasure was inseparable from the Chelford estate.

Harry walked quickly to his desk, pulled open a drawer and took out a small vellum-covered book. The pages were yellow with age and covered with writing that had faded to a pale green.

"Listen," he said, and began reading.

"On the fifteenth of the month, the same being the feast day of St James, came Sir Walter Hythe Kt from his cruise in the Spanish seas, for the cost of which I raised first three thousand eight hundred pounds and eight thousand pounds from Bellitti the Lombard, and Sir Walter Hythe brought with him on ten wagons one thousand ingots of gold each of thirty-five pounds weight which he had taken from the two Spanish ships Esperanza and Escurial, and these ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be dry and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand, to judge by the portents, deeming it wise not to inform my lord Burleigh of the gold because of the Queen's Majesty and her covetousness. Also he brought the crystal flask of Life Water which was given to Don Cortes by the priest of the Aztec people, a drop of which upon the tongue will revive even the dead, this being sworn to by Fra Pedro of Sevilla. This I shall hide with great care in the secret place where the gold will be stored. To Sir Walter Hythe Kt I had given permission that he keep for himself one hundred bars of like weight, and this he did, thanking me civilly and sailed off from Chichester in his ship the Good Father, which ship was wrecked on the Kentish coast, Sir Walter Hythe, his shipmaster and all his company perishing. Such was his terrible misfortune. As for myself, being in some danger because of the part I have taken in promoting the welfare of my true sovereign lady, Mary—"

Lord Chelford looked up and met the steady eyes of his brother.

"The writing ends there," he said. "I am certain that he was not interrupted by the arrival of Elizabeth's soldiers to arrest him for his share in the conspiracy to put Mary on the throne. He must have had time to secrete the treasure. Where is the crystal flask?"

"Where rather is the gold?" asked the practical Dick. "If I know anything about Queen Elizabeth, she bagged it! Nobody ever found it—for four hundred years our respected forefathers have been searching for this gold—"

Lord Chelford made an angry gesture.

"Gold—gold—gold! You think of nothing else! Curse the gold! Find it and keep it. It is the flask I want!" His voice sank to a whisper, his face had grown suddenly moist. "Dick, I'm afraid of death! God! You don't know how afraid! The fear of it haunts me day and night—I sit here counting the hours, wondering at which my spirit will go from me! You'll laugh—at that—laugh, laugh!"

But Dick Alford's face was set, unsmiling.

"I do not laugh—but can't you see, Harry, that such a thing as an elixir of life is preposterous?"

"Why?" Lord Chelford's eyes were shining. "Why shouldn't this discovery have been made by the ancient civilisations? Why is it more wonderful than wireless telegraphy or the disintegration of atoms? Thirty years ago flying was regarded as a miracle. The flask—I want the flask of Life Water! The gold—throw it into the road—let the poor devils take it who want it. I want life—do you understand?—life and the end of fear."

He dropped heavily into his chair and wiped his streaming forehead.

"The End of Fear!" he muttered.

Dick listened, his eyes never leaving his brother's face. And this was to be Leslie Gine's husband. He shivered at the thought.

CHAPTER V

IF the Honourable Richard Fallington Alford had been regarded by the compilers of such volumes as being sufficiently important to have his biography enshrined in a popular work of reference, his life's work, his hobby and his recreation would be described as "looking after the Chelford estate." His bailiffs said he knew every blade of grass; the tenant farmers swore he could price a standing crop to the last penny of its worth. He knew Fossaway Manor, its strength and weakness, better than the estate architect—could point out where the foundations were scamped by the Elizabethan builders. He could trace the walls of the old castle which Richard of York had burnt and razed, beheading the fourth earl for his treachery under the great archway, one crumbling pier of which still showed its grey and battered head above the roses that now surrounded it. He gave to the broad lands of Chelford a loyal and passionate devotion which any mistress might envy.

In the chill of an autumnal morning, when mist blanketed the hollows and a pale sun was struggling through thin clouds, he strolled across the park towards the abbey ruins. There was little of them left. A truncated tower wrecked by lightning; a high, arched space where an oriel window had once flamed; mounds of scattered stones left where Cromwell's soldiers had overturned them; and, under the carpet of grass, a "feel" of solid pavement.

He drew at his pipe as he stepped out, and the tobacco smelt sweet and wholesome in the cold air.

He was on his way to the home farm, and his errand was a prosaic one. A cow had died in the night, and his cowman had reported symptoms of cattle fever.

The familiar ruins showed up ahead, the half-arch, like a huge question mark, arrested his eye and raised again the well-argued problem of restoration. Some day, when the Chelford ship came home; when that coal vein was proved, or when Harry had a rich wife.

This was an unpleasant thought. His lips curled in a grimace of distaste.

He stopped suddenly.

A figure was walking amongst the ruins—a woman. Her back was towards him and she was obviously unaware of his presence. Something about her figure seemed familiar—Dick turned from the path and walked towards her.

Evidently she did not hear him, for when he spoke she started, uttered a little scream and turned a frightened face to him.

"Good morning, Miss Wenner," he said politely. "You are up and about very early."

There was no need for him to wonder whether this girl had ever forgiven him for the very painful interview that had preceded her retirement. Recognising him, her eyes blazed with hate.

"Good morning, Mr Alford." She was civil enough. "I'm staying in the village and I thought I would like to come up and see the old place."

He nodded gravely.

"You had a similar thought yesterday," he said, "and tried to see my brother."

"Well?" defiantly.

"I gave you to understand, Miss Wenner, that we should all be much happier if you never again passed the lodge gates," he said quietly. "I hate saying this to any woman, but you ought to be the first to recognise how very uncomfortable you make me feel. I thought you would apprehend this."

"Apprehend" was a stilted word, but he could think of no other.

"Is that so?" The colour had deepened in her face. "Is—that—so?"

"That is so," he nodded.

She looked at him for a while and her lips curved.

"I'm sorry I've annoyed the family chaperon," she sneered.

He could admire, in a detached way, her wholesome good looks; could even admire her courage. Her wrathful eyes were fixed on his, the break in her voice betrayed the fury she strove to conceal. As for Dick Alford, he felt a brute.

"I'm extremely sorry if you don't like my calling," she said, her voice razor-sharp and tremulous, "but I think the least Lord Chelford could have done was to see me, considering I've worked for him for three years, and after all that has passed between us—"

"The only thing that passed between you, Miss Wenner, was your weekly wages," said Dick, with maddening calmness.

But now he had taxed her to the limit of endurance.

"He asked me to marry him, and I would have married him if you hadn't put your spoke in!" she said shrilly. "I could get thousands and thousands out of him for breach of promise if I wasn't a lady! You second sons and hangers-on poisoned his mind against me! You ought to be downright ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing penniless pauper!"

Dick was faintly amused at the redundancy.

"You've wrecked and ruined my life," the pretty virago went on, "with your interference, and after all the work I've done! After all them—I mean those hours I've spent with his lordship workin' at the Treasure, an' he told me I was the most helpful secretary he'd ever had—"

He let her talk herself to a sobbing incoherence.

"All this may be true," he said soothingly, "and probably is. The point is, your presence here is a little—indelicate."

Seeing her look round over her shoulder as she was talking, he had taken a quick survey of the ruins, expecting to discover that she had a companion. But there was nobody in sight. The ground sloped steeply from where he stood to the little Ravensrill, the broad brook which had for a thousand years marked the boundary of the manor. Unless somebody was concealed behind the fallen masonry she was alone.

"I suppose you want me to clear out now," she gulped, and he inclined his head.

"I will walk with you to Fontwell Cutting—that is the nearest way to the village," he said, and she was too much occupied with her manufactured misery to resent his offer.

What had she been doing in the abbey ruins so early in the morning? He knew that it was useless to ask her.

As they passed down the steep path to the road she spoke over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't marry him for a million pounds!" she said viciously. "He is going to marry Leslie Gine, isn't he? I wish him joy!"

"I will convey your kind message," he said ironically, an indiscreet rejoinder, for it roused the devil in her.

"Mind he doesn't lose her, that's all!" she screamed. "I know! Everybody knows! You want her money too—the second son's in love with her — that's a nice look-out for Harry Alford!"

He sat swinging his legs over the edge of the bluff, watching her till she was out of sight.

Everybody knew that he loved Leslie Gine! And he only knew it himself at that moment!

CHAPTER VI

IN all the city of London there was perhaps no office more elegant than that in which Mr Arthur Gine spent his leisurely business hours. It was a large room, panelled in white wood, with pink-shaded wall brackets of frosted silver. Its floor was covered with a deep rose carpet into which the feet sank as into an old lawn; and such furnishing as the room held was of the most costly description. Visitors and clients who had business with this dainty lawyer were warned not to smoke in his sacred presence. The windows were doubled to keep out the noises of Holborn; there were exterior sun-blinds to exclude the fugitive rays of pale sunlight which occasionally bathed the City; and long velvet curtains, in harmony with the carpet, to shut out the horrid world that roared and palpitated outside Mr Gine's exquisite chamber. In this room was a faint aroma of roses—he was partial to the more expensive varieties of perfume, and had a standing order with the best of the Grasse houses.

He was a fair man with an unblemished skin and a small yellow moustache; a credit to his hosier and shirt-maker. His wasp-waisted morning coat fitted him without the suspicion of a wrinkle; his grey waistcoat, the severe dark trousers with the thinnest of white stripes, the patent shoes, the exact cravat, were all parts of a sartorial symmetry.

Mr Gine seldom appeared in the courts. His head clerk, a grey hard man of fifty, who was generally supposed by Mr Gine's brother solicitors to be the brains of the business, prepared most of the briefs, interviewed the majority of clients, leaving to his employer the most important.

On a bright morning in the early days of September, Mr Gine's big Rolls glided noiselessly to the kerb, the youthful footman seated by the side of the driver sprang out and opened the door, and Arthur Gine stepped daintily forth. There was a small white rose in his buttonhole, and the passer-by who saw him, noting the perfect shine of his silk hat, the glitter of his patent shoes, and the ebony stick that he carried in his gloved hand, thought he was a bridegroom stopping on his way to church.

He entered the tiny electric lift and was whisked up to the first floor. A porter opened his door with a little bow and Arthur walked in, followed by the servitor, who took his hat, gloves and cane, and disappeared with them to an inner room. Mr Gine sat down at his desk, glanced at the letters that had been left opened for his inspection, and pushed them aside. He pressed an onyx bell-push twice, and in a few seconds his hard-faced managing clerk came in, carrying a wad of papers in his hand.

"Close the door, Gilder. What are these?"

Gilder threw the papers on the polished table.

"Mostly writs," he said curtly.

"For me?"

Gilder nodded, and Arthur Gine turned over the papers idly.

"There is going to be trouble if they give judgment against you for some of these," said Gilder. "Up to now I've managed to keep them out of court, but there are at least three of these which must be paid. I haven't had a chance of speaking to you since I came back from my holidays. Did you lose much at Goodwood?"

"Eight or nine thousand," said Arthur Gine lightly. "It may have been more or less."

"That means you don't know because you haven't paid," said Gilder bluntly.

"I paid a few—the more pressing," the other hastened to assure him. "What are these?"

He fingered the writs again with his beautifully manicured hand.

"One of them is very serious indeed," said Gilder, picking it out from the rest. "The trustees of the Wellman estate are suing you for three thousand pounds—the loan you had from Wellman."

"Can't you fix them?"

Gilder shook his head.

"I can't fix trustees—you know that. This is going to look ugly if it comes into court."

Arthur Gine shrugged his shoulders.

"There is nothing ugly about a loan—"

"You were Wellman's lawyer," interrupted Gilder.

"And he was not capable of managing his affairs. I tell you that will look ugly, and the Law Society will be asking questions. You'll have to raise money to settle this case out of court."

"What are the others?" asked Arthur Gine sulkily.

"There's one for twelve hundred pounds, furniture supplied to Willow House, and another from the vendor of Willow House for balance of purchase- money unpaid."

Arthur Gine leaned back in his chair, took out a gold toothpick and chewed it.

"What is the full amount?"

"About six thousand pounds," said Gilder, gathering up the writs. "Can't you raise it?"

His employer shook his head.

"A bill?"

"Who is going to back it?" asked the lawyer, looking up.

Gilder scratched his chin.

"What about Lord Chelford?" he asked.

CHAPTER VII

ARTHUR GINE laughed softly.

"And what do you imagine Chelford would say if I went to him with such a proposal? You seem to forget, my dear fellow, that to Chelford I am the brother of a young lady who on her twenty-fifth birthday inherits the greater part of a million pounds. I'm not only the brother, but I am her trustee. Besides which, I am managing his mother's estate. What would he think if I tried? Chelford's a fool, but he's not such a fool as that, and I would remind you that all his business affairs are in the hands of the Second Son."

"You mean Alford—why do you call him that?"

"He's always been known as the Second Son since he was a child," said the other impatiently. "He is a shrewd devil, never forget that, Gilder. I don't know whether or not he suspects that I'm a fake, and that Leslie's fortune is a myth, but there have been times when he has asked some deucedly uncomfortable questions."

"Is the fortune a myth?" asked Gilder, and his companion looked at him slyly.

"You ought to know, my friend," he said. "We have been living on it for eight years! The croupiers of Monte Carlo have raked into their treasury quite a lot of it—various bookmakers I could mention have built handsome villas out of it. A myth. It wasn't a myth ten years ago. It was two hundred thousand pounds short of a myth? But today—"

He spread out his hands and eyed the writs with a whimsical smile.

"What do you expect to get from Chelford—he has no money?" asked Gilder.

Mr Gine chuckled.

"You may be sure that before I went to the expense and trouble of buying—or nearly buying—a house adjoining Chelford's place, and before I took the trouble to bring Leslie and him into touch, I took the elementary precaution of sizing up his position. He is comparatively poor, because that brother of his will sell none of the estates. He has the family obsession — their motto is 'Hold Fast.' Harry Chelford is realisable at a quarter of a million—apart from the buried treasure!"

They both laughed at this.

"You've been lucky up to a point," said Gilder seriously. "It was luck to inherit his legal business—"

A clerk came in with some letters to sign at this moment, and, after he was gone: "Does your sister still think she is an heiress?" asked Gilder.

"She has that illusion," replied the other coolly. "Of course she thinks so! You don't imagine Leslie would lend herself to that kind of ramp, do you?"

He took a pen from the silver tray before him, dipped it into the ink, and, drawing a sheet of paper towards him, scribbled down the figures.

"Six thousand pounds is a lot of money," he said. "I lost three times that amount when Black Satin was beaten a short head in the Drayton Handicap. The only thing to do is to rush the wedding."

"What about the Yorkshire property?" suggested the managing clerk.

Arthur Gine made a little grimace.

"I put a man in to buy it. I could have made twenty thousand profit on that. There's coal in abundance; that I have proved. But the Second Son was on the job, damn him!"

There was a long silence.

"What are you going to do?" asked Gilder.

"I don't know. I'm at my wits' end." Arthur Gine threw down the pen. "The position is exquisite torture to a man of my sensibility. Can't you suggest anything?"

"Give me five minutes," said Gilder, and went out.

As Gilder was making his way to his own office, a clerk handed him a letter. It was addressed to him personally, in an illiterate hand. Behind the door of his office bureau he opened the envelope.

The letter began without any preliminary.

His lordship is still working on the Treasure. He had an old book sent to him from Germany last Tuesday, written by a German who was in this country hundreds of years ago. I cannot read the title because of the funny printing, which is like Old English. His lordship has also had a plan sent to him from a London bookseller of Fossaway Manor. His lordship's brother, Mr Alford, has sold Red Farm to Mr Leonard for £3500 (here Mr Gilder smiled). Miss Gine came to tea yesterday with his lordship and Mr Alford, and afterwards Miss Gine and his lordship went for a walk in the home park. There is some talk about the Black Abbot having been seen near the old abbey. He was seen by Thomas Elwin, the half-witted son of Elwin, his lordship's cowman, but nobody takes any notice of this. He has now been seen by Mr Cartwright, the grocer. His lordship has had an offer for his Yorkshire estate, but I heard Mr Alford advise him not to sell, as he was sure there was coal on it.

Gilder nodded, understanding just how his employer's plan had fallen through.

...When I was taking tea into the library I heard his lordship say that he wanted the wedding to take place in October, but Miss Gine said she would like it after Christmas. His lordship said that he didn't mind because he was so busy. Mr Alford said he thought that the marriage settlement should be fixed by Sampson & Howard, who were the old Lord Chelford's solicitors, but his lordship said that he thought the settlement had better be in Mr Gine's hands. I did not hear any more because Mr Alford told me to get out. Miss Wenner, who used to be his lordship's secretary, came down from London yesterday, but Mr Alford has given orders that she is not to be admitted. His lordship did not see her—

Mr Fabrian Gilder's spy reported other minor matters which were less interesting. He read the letter again, put it in his pocket and was busy at his desk for five minutes.

He came back to find his employer leaning over his desk, his head between his hands, and laid a slip of paper before him.

"What is this?" asked Gine, startled.

"A six-months bill for seven thousand pounds. I've put an extra thousand in for luck," said Gilder coolly.

Gine read the document quickly. It was a bill, and required only his signature and that of Harry, Earl of Chelford, to make it convertible into solid cash.

"I dare not do it—I simply dare not do it!"

"Why tell him it's a bill at all?" asked Gilder. "You can get him by himself, spin a yarn—you have a fertile imagination—but I suggest to you that you tell him you need his signature to release some of your sister's property, and once his name is on the back of the bill—"

Arthur Gine looked up sharply. Was it a coincidence that this excuse should be suggested? There was nothing in the head clerk's face to suggest otherwise.

"But when it comes due?" he asked irresolutely, as he turned the document over and over in his hands.

"In six months' time he'll be married, and if things aren't better with you, he'll either have to meet the bill or hush the matter up."

The eyes of the two men met.

"You're on the edge of ruin, my young friend," said Gilder, "and I'm rather concerned. If you go down, my livelihood disappears."

How true this was, Arthur learnt one bitter day.

"You make a deuced sight more out of it than I do," he grumbled, as he wrote the name of a bank across the face of the bill.

"I spend less than you, and when I get money I know how to keep it."

"You might even raise the sum yourself," said his employer, with a feeble attempt at jocularity.

"I might," said Gilder grimly, "but, as I said before, I know how to take care of my own, and lending money to you is not my notion of a good investment."

He had been out of the room only a few minutes when he came back and, closing the door carefully behind him: "Do you know a Miss Wenner?" he asked.

Mr Gine frowned.

"Yes. What does she want?"

"She says she must see you on an urgent personal matter. Is she one of your—friends?"

Arthur shook his head.

"N-no—I have met her. She was Chelford's secretary. Can't you find out what she wants?"

"I've tried, but it is a matter personal to you. Do you want to see her?—I can easily stall her."

Arthur thought for a while. She might have something important to tell him.

"Ask her to come in," he said.

A few minutes later Mary Wenner came into the room and greeted him with a familiar nod.

"Well, my dear, this is an unexpected pleasure. You are getting prettier every time I see you."

She accepted the flattery as her right, and sat on the edge of his desk.

"I've been down to Fossaway, Arthur," she said.

"Silly girl," he smiled. "But I thought that affair was all over and done with. You've got to be good, Mary. Chelford is going to marry my sister."

"Isn't that grand! And I'm not surprised. I saw you working when I was at Fossaway."

She slipped down from the desk and dropped both her hands on his shoulders.

"Arthur, I'm tired of stenogging! And I want like sin to get back on that cold-blooded hound Dick Alford. I've been fired out once for proposing to a man—I'm going to take a second chance. We've been good pals, Arthur."

He murmured something in his alarm.

"Listen—don't turn down a good thing. You can marry me and I'll bring you a bigger dowry than your sister will take to Harry Alford."

He stared at her.

"You? Dowry?" he stammered.

She nodded slowly.

"Marry me, and I'll take you to the place where you can lay your hands on fifteen tons of Spanish gold—the Chelford treasure! Two and a half million pounds!"