by Sax Rohmer
“But would that rule apply to mediæval English?”
“Ah,” said Lorian thoughtfully, “most sage counsellor! A wise and timely thought! I’m afraid it wouldn’t.”
“What now?”
Lorian scratched his head in perplexity.
“Suppose,” he suggested, “we write down the words plainly, and see if, treating each one separately, we can find other meanings to them.”
Accordingly, upon a sheet of paper, I wrote:
Wherso eer thee doome bee Looke untoe ye strypped tree Offe ragged staffe. Upon itte ley Golde toe greene ande kay toe kay.
Our efforts in the proposed direction were rewarded with poor success. Some gibberish even less intelligible than the original was the only result of our labour.
Lorian threw down his pencil and began to reload his pipe.
“Let us consider possible meanings to the original words,” he said. “Do you know of anything in the neighbourhood which might answer to the description of a ‘strypped tree’?”
I shook my head.
“What has occasioned your sudden interest in the thing?” I asked wearily.
“It is a long story,” he replied; “and I have an idea that there’s no time to be lost in solving the Riddle!”
However, even Lorian’s enthusiasm flagged at last. We were forced to admit ourselves hopelessly beaten by the Riddle. I went to my own room feeling thoroughly tired. But I was not destined to sleep long. A few minutes after closing my eyes (or so it seemed), came a clamouring at the door.
I stumbled sleepily out of bed, and, slipping on my dressing-gown, admitted Lorian. Colonel Reynor stood immediately behind him.
“Most extraordinary business!” began the latter breathlessly. “Sybil had — you tell him, Harry!”
“Well,” said Lorian, “it is not unexpected! Listen: Sybil woke up a while ago, with the idea that she had forgotten something or lost something — you know the frame of mind! She went to her dressing-table and found the family ring missing!”
“The ring!” burst in the Colonel excitedly. “Amazing!”
“She remembered having taken it off, during the evening, to — er — to put another one on! But she was unable to recall having replaced it. She determined to run down and see if she had left it upon the seat in the corner of the library. Well, she went downstairs in her dressing-gown, and, carrying a candle, very quietly, in order to wake no one, crossed to the library and searched unavailingly. She heard a faint noise outside in the hall.”
Lorian paused. Felix Hulme had joined the party.
“What’s the disturbance?” he asked.
“Oh,” said Lorian, turning to him, “it’s about Sybil. She was down in the library a while ago to look for something, and heard a sort of grating sound out in the hall. She came out, and almost fell over an iron-bound chest, about a foot and a half long, which stood near the bottom of the staircase!”
“Good heavens, Lorian!” I cried, “how had it come there?”
“Sybil says,” he resumed, “that she could not believe her eyes. She stooped to examine the thing ... and with a thrill of horror saw it to be roughly marked with a skull and cross-bones!”
“My dear Lorian,” said Hulme, “are you certain that Miss Reynor was awake?”
“She woke us quickly enough!” interrupted the Colonel. “Poor girl, she was shaking dreadfully. Thought it was a supernatural appearance. She’s with her mother now.”
“But the box!” I cried. “Where is the box?”
“That’s the mystery,” answered Colonel Reynor. “I was downstairs two minutes later, and there was nothing of the kind to be seen! Has our Ragstaff ghost started walking again, I wonder? You ought to know, Hulme; you’re in the Turret Room — that is the authentic haunted chamber!”
“I was aroused by the bell ringing,” replied Hulme. “I am a very light sleeper. But I heard or saw nothing supernatural.”
“By the way, Hulme,” said my friend, “the Turret Room is directly above the hall. I have a theory. Might I come up with you for a moment?”
“Certainly,” replied Hulme.
We all went up to the Turret Room. Having climbed the stairs to this apartment, you enter it by descending three steps. It is octagonal and panelled all around. My friend tapped the panels and sounded all the oaken floor-boards. Then, professing himself satisfied, he bade Hulme good night, and accompanied me to my room.
VI
Ragstaff Park slumbered once more. But Lorian sat upon the edge of my bed, smoking and thinking hard. He had been to his own room for the print of the Riddle, and it lay upon a chair before him.
“Listen to this,” he said suddenly: “(a) Some one breaks into the governor’s studio, and takes nothing. His drawings of the Ragstaff Riddle happen to be at my studio. (b) You hear a noise in the night, and see (1) a bright light; (2) a gleaming rod. (c) You and I see a bright light on the following night, and presumably proceeding from the same place; i.e., the hall. (d) Something I have not mentioned before — Hulme has a camera in his kit! And he doesn’t want the fact known!”
“What do you mean?”
“I tested him the other night, by inquiring if anyone could lend me a camera. He did not volunteer! The morning following the mysterious business in the hall, observed by you, I saw a photographic printing frame in his window! He must have one of those portable developers with him.”
“And to what does all this point?”
“To the fact that he has made at least three attempts to obtain a copy of the Riddle, and has at last succeeded!”
“Three!”
“I really think so. The evidence points to him as the person who broke into the studio. He made a bad slip. He referred to the matter, and cited Horace Baxter as his informant. Baxter is away!”
“But this is serious!”
“I should say so! He couldn’t attempt to photograph the panel in daylight, so he employed magnesium ribbon at night! First time his tripod slipped. It is evidently one of the light, telescopic kind. His negative proved useless. It was one of the metal legs of the tripod which you saw shining! The second time he was more successful. That was the light of his magnesium ribbon you and I saw from the drive!”
“But, Lorian, I went down and searched the hall!”
“Now we come on to the, at present, conjectural part,” explained Lorian. “My theory is that Hulme, somewhere or other, has come across some old documents which give the clue to those secret passages said to exist in Ragstaff, but which the Colonel has never been able to locate. I feel assured that there is some means of secret communication between the Turret Room and the hall. I further believe that Hulme has in some way got upon the track of another secret — that of the Riddle.”
“But what is the secret of the Riddle?”
“In my opinion the Riddle is a clue to another hiding-place, evidently not connected with the maze of passages; possibly what is known as a Priest’s Hole. As you know, Hulme asked Sybil to marry him. I believe the man to be in financial straits; so that we must further assume the Riddle to conceal the whereabouts of a treasure, since the Reynors are far from wealthy.”
“The chest! Lorian! The chest!” I cried.
“Quite so. But what immediately preceded its appearance? The loss of the family ring! If I am not greatly in error, Hulme found that ring! And the ring is the key to the riddle! Do you recall the shape of the bezel? Simply a square peg of gold! Look at the photograph!”
He was excited, for once.
“What does it say?” he continued: “‘Ye strypped tree!’ That means the device of leaves, twigs, and acorns — stripped from a tree — see? Here, at the bottom of the panel, is such a group, and (this is where we have been so blind!) intertwined with the design is the word CAEG — Ancient Saxon for key! Look! ‘Golde toe Greene and kay toe kay’! Amongst the green leaves is a square hole. The gold knob on the ring fits it!”
For a moment I was too greatly surprised for speech. Then:
&nbs
p; “You think Hulme discovered this?”
“I do. And I think Sybil’s mislaying her ring gave him his big chance. He had got the chest out whilst she was in the library. He must have been inside somewhere looking for it when she passed through the hall. Then, hearing her approach from the library, he was forced to abandon his heavy ‘find’ and hide in the secret passage which communicates with his room. Directly she ran upstairs he returned for the chest!”
I looked him hard in the face.
“We don’t want a scene, Lorian,” I began. “Besides, it’s just possible you may be wrong.”
“I agree,” said Lorian. “Come up to his room, now.”
Passing quietly upstairs, we paused before the door of the Turret Room. A faint light showed under it. Lorian glanced at me — then knocked.
“Who’s there?” came sharply.
“Lorian,” answered my friend. “I want a chat with you about the secret passage and the old treasure chest — before speaking to the Colonel!”
There was a long silence, then:
“Just a moment,” came hoarsely. “Don’t come in until I call.”
We looked at one another doubtfully. A long minute passed. I could hear a faint sound within. At last came Hulme’s voice:
“All right. Come in.”
As Lorian threw the door open, a faint click sounded from somewhere.
The Turret Room was empty!
“By heaven! he’s given us the slip!” cried my friend.
We glanced around the room. A candle burnt upon the table. And upon the bed stood an iron-barred chest, with a sheet of notepaper lying on its lid!
Lorian pounced upon the note. We read it together.
“Mr. Henry Lorian” (it went), “I realize that you have found me out. I will confess that I had no time to open the chest. But as matters stand I only ask you not to pursue me. I have taken nothing not my own. The ring, and an interesting document which I picked up some years ago, are on the table. Offer what explanation of my disappearance you please. I am in your hands.”
We turned again to the table. Upon a piece of worn parchment lay the missing ring. Lorian spread out the parchment and bent over it.
“Why,” I cried, “it is a plan of Ragstaff Park!”
“With a perfect network of secret passages!” added my friend, “and some instructions, apparently, as to how to enter them. It bears the initials ‘R. R.’ and, in brackets, ‘Capt. S.’ I begin to understand.”
He raised the candle and stepped across to the ancient chest. It bore a roughly designed skull and cross-bones, and, in nearly defaced red characters, the words:
“CAPTAIN SATAN.”
“Captain Satan!” I said. “He was one of the most bloodthirsty pirates who ever harried the Spanish Main!”
“He was,” agreed Lorian; “and his real name was Roderick Reynor. He evidently solved the riddle some generations earlier than Hulme — and stored his bloodstained hoard in the ancient hiding-place. Also, you see, he knew about the passages.”
“What shall we do?”
“Hulme has surrendered. You can see that the chest has not been opened. Therefore there is only one thing that we can do. We must keep what we know to ourselves, return the chest to its hiding-place, and proclaim that we have found the missing ring!”
Down to the hall we bore the heavy chest. The square knob on the ring fitted, as Lorian had predicted, into the hole half hidden among the oak leaves of the design. Without much difficulty we forced back the fastening (it proved to be of a very simple pattern), and slid the whole panel aside. A small, square chamber was revealed by the light of the candle — quite empty.
“As I had surmised,” said my friend; “a Priest’s Hole.”
We carried the chest within, and reclosed the panel, which came to with a sharp click.
* * * * * *
The story which we invented to account for Hulme’s sudden departure passed muster; for one topic usurped the interests of all — the ghostly box, with its piratical emblem.
“My boy,” Colonel Reynor said to Lorian, “I cannot pretend to explain what Sybil saw. But it bears curiously upon a certain black page in the family history. If the chest had been tangible, and had contained a fortune, I would not have opened it. Let all pertaining to that part of our records remain buried, say I.”
“Which determines our course,” explained Lorian to me. “The chest is not ours, and the Colonel evidently would rather not know about it. I regret that I lack the morals of a burglar.”
The Master of Hollow Grange
I
Jack Dillon came to Hollow Grange on a thunderous black evening when an ebony cloud crested the hill-top above, and, catching the upflung rays of sunset, glowed redly like the pall of Avalon in the torchlight. Through the dense ranks of firs cloaking the slopes a breeze, presaging the coming storm, whispered evilly, and here in the hollow the birds were still.
The man who had driven him from the station glanced at him, with a curiosity thinly veiled.
“What about your things, sir?” he inquired.
Dillon stared rather blankly at the ivy-covered lodge, which, if appearances were to be trusted, was unoccupied.
“Wait a moment; I will ring,” he said curtly; for this furtive curiosity, so ill concealed, had manifested itself in the manner of the taxi-driver from the moment that Dillon had directed him to drive to Hollow Grange.
He pushed open the gate and tugged at the iron ring which was suspended from the wall of the lodge. A discordant clangour rewarded his efforts, the cracked note of a bell that spoke from somewhere high up in the building, that seemed to be buffeted to and fro from fir to fir, until it died away, mournfully, in some place of shadows far up the slope. In the voice of the bell there was something furtive, something akin to the half-veiled curiosity in the eyes of the man who stood watching him; something fearful, too, in both, as though man and bell would whisper: “Return! Beware of disturbing the dwellers in this place.”
But Dillon angrily recalled himself to the realities. He felt that these ghostly imaginings were born of the Boche-maltreated flesh, were products of lowered tone; that he would have perceived no query in the glance of the taxi-driver and heard no monkish whisper in the clang of the bell had he been fit, had he been fully recovered from the effects of his wound. Monkish whisper? Yes, that was it — his mind had supplied, automatically, an aptly descriptive term: the cracked bell spoke with the voice of ancient monasteries, had in it the hush of cloisters and the sigh of renunciation.
“Hang it all!” muttered Dillon. “This won’t do.”
A second time he awoke the ghostly bell-voice, but nothing responded to its call; man, bird, and beast had seemingly deserted Hollow Grange. He was conscious of a sudden nervous irritation, as he turned brusquely and met the inquiring glance of the taxi-man.
“I have arrived before I was expected,” he said. “If you will put my things in the porch here I will go up to the house and get a servant to fetch them. They will be safe enough in the meantime.”
His own words increased his irritability; for were they not in the nature of an apology on behalf of his silent and unseen host? Were they not a concession to that nameless query in the man’s stare? Moreover, deep within his own consciousness, some vague thing was stirring; so that, the man dismissed and promptly departing, Dillon stood glancing from the little stack of baggage in the lodge porch up the gloomy, narrow, and over-arched drive, indignantly aware that he also carried a question in his eyes.
The throb of the motor mounting the steep, winding lane grew dim and more dim until it was borne away entirely upon the fitful breeze. Faintly he detected the lowing of cattle in some distant pasture; the ranks of firs whispered secretly one to another, and the pall above the hills grew blacker and began to extend over the valley.
Amid that ominous stillness of nature he began to ascend the cone-strewn path. Evidently enough, the extensive grounds had been neglected for years, and that few pedestrians, a
nd fewer vehicles, ever sought Hollow Grange was demonstrated by the presence of luxuriant weeds in the carriage way. Having proceeded for some distance, until the sheer hillside seemed to loom over him like the wall of a tower, Dillon paused, peering about in the ever-growing darkness. He was aware of a physical chill; certainly no ray of sunlight ever penetrated to this tunnel through the firs. Could he have mistaken the path and be proceeding, not toward the house, but away from it and into the midnight of the woods mantling the hills?
There was something uncomfortable in that reflection; momentarily he knew a childish fear of the darkening woods, and walked forward rapidly, self-assertively. Ten paces brought him to one of the many bends in the winding road — and there, far ahead, as though out of some cavern in the very hillside, a yellow light shone.
He pressed on with greater assurance until the house became visible. Now he perceived that he had indeed strayed from the carriage-sweep in some way, for the path that he was following terminated at the foot of a short flight of moss-covered brick steps. He mounted the steps and found himself at the bottom of a terrace. The main entrance was far to his left and separated from the terrace by a neglected lawn. That portion of the place was Hanoverian and ugly, whilst the wing nearest to him was Tudor and picturesque. Excepting the yellow light shining out from a sunken window almost at his feet, no illuminations were visible about the house, although the brewing storm had already plunged the hollow into premature night.
Indeed, there was no sign of occupancy about the strange-looking mansion, which might have hidden forgotten for centuries in the horseshoe of the hills. He had sought for rest and quiet; here he should find them. The stillness of the place was of that sort which almost seems to be palpable; that can be seen and felt. A humid chill arose apparently from the terrace, with its stone pavings outlined in moss, crept up from the wilderness below and down from the fir-woods above.
A thought struggled to assume form in his mind. There was something reminiscent about this house of the woods, this silent house which struck no chord of human companionship, in which was no warmth of life or love. Suddenly, the thought leapt into complete being.
