'For tonight you must dispense with the services of your maid, as I have no intention of giving you the chance to smuggle out a letter or message. I am about to lock you in here, and I shall give the servants orders that if you ring your bell they are not to answer it. Moreover, I do not mean to leave the house. I'll doss down in one of your spare bedrooms. You are to be up and dressed in travelling clothes by eight o'clock. I will by then have made arrangements for our journey.'
As she stared at him in silent dismay, she was not a pretty sight. Her eyelash black had run and her cheeks looked raddled. She had clearly gone to pieces, and he felt confident that she would give him no trouble. But he was taking no chances; so, having locked her door behind him and put the key in his pocket, he went down to the basement to deal with the servants.
They were still sitting round the table talking in low voices in Erse. As he entered the room they fell silent and looked up at him apprehensively. He gave them a smile and said pleasantly:
‘I have questioned her ladyship and I am now satisfied that none of you is involved in the serious crime of which die is accused. Providing that you obey my orders, you have nothing to fear.' Taking the paper from his pocket he handed it to the footman and went on, 'As proof of my authority, here is the warrant for her ladyship's arrest.'
The man took it, stared at it a moment, then murmuring, 'It's no great one at the readin' I am,' he passed it to the lady's maid, who slowly read it aloud before handing it back to Roger.
'Now,' he said. 'Had I arrived here earlier I should have taken her ladyship to the Castle for the night. As things are, it will be more convenient for her to remain here locked in her bedroom. If she rings her bell, none of you is to answer it. In the morning you,' he pointed to the cook, 'will prepare two breakfast trays by seven o'clock. You,' he pointed to the maid, 'will take one up and leave it outside her ladyship's door and put the other in the dining room for me. Tomorrow I have to take her ladyship some thirty miles into the country to confront a confederate. You,' he pointed at the footman, 'will go out and secure for me a two-horse coach from a livery stables, with a coachman prepared to drive that distance. It is to be here, in front of the house, at eight o'clock.'
He produced a guinea from his waistcoat pocket, gave it to the cook and said, 'In the depths of the country it may not be possible for us to get a decent midday meal, so when you have finished cooking breakfast I wish you to go out and get some things for me. At one of the better hostelries nearby you should be able to buy a ready-cooked chicken or duck, with some slices of ham and a cake or some pastries, also two bottles of red wine. We'll need butter and bread as well. Pack them all into a basket, with plates and cutlery, so that they are ready for me when we set off. There should be a few shillings change. You may keep them for your trouble.'
Delighted at such a windfall, she smilingly bobbed him her thanks as he added, 'You may now all stay up or go to bed as you wish. But none of you is to leave the house before tomorrow morning.'
From the beginning he had thought it most unlikely that any of this group of servants would have the temerity to challenge his authority; now, having shown them the warrant he felt confident that none of them would sneak out in the night to inform the police that a stranger had come to the house, browbeaten them and locked their mistress in her bedroom.
Going up to the second floor he found the room opposite Maureen Luggala's to be another bedroom. The bed was not made up, but folded blankets and sheets lay beneath the coverlet. Well satisfied with his evening's work, but still desperately worried about Susan and Charles, he partially undressed, made the bed and, still wearing his underclothes, settled down for the night.
In the morning he woke early, but remained in bed until his turnip watch told him that it was half-past six. That he was unable to shave or do his hair annoyed him, but he was able to wash as an ewer of water stood in a basin in one corner of the room. By the time he had dressed it was seven o'clock and, on going out onto the landing, he saw that a breakfast tray had been set down outside Maureen's door. Unlocking it, he pushed the tray inside and called out to her, 'Here is your breakfast. We start in an hour's time. Be ready by then. I dislike being kept waiting.'
Downstairs in the dining room the pretty maid served him, and he found that the cook had done him well: a fried herring with two poached eggs to follow, and the remains of a cold sirloin on the side-board in case he still felt hungry. But he scarcely noticed what he was eating, because his mind was so occupied by thoughts of his coming encounter with the witch.
A little before eight o'clock he went down to the basement, inspected the picnic basket and had it brought up to the hall, then he went upstairs to fetch Maureen Luggala. She was sitting waiting for him with, he was pleased to see, a cowed look on her face, for he had feared that during the night her terror of the witch could have caused her to change her mind and he might have considerable trouble in making her obey him.
‘I have a coach below,' he said. 'Where shall I tell the man to take us?'
'Along the road through County Wicklow, that leads to Tullow,' she replied tonelessly.
'Good. You can tell the servants as we go through the hall that you expect to be back in a few days. In no circumstances are you to mention my name in front of them. Susan stayed here and I do not wish them to connect me with her. I gave them no name, and they know me only as a police agent.'
'How long shall I be away?' she asked anxiously. 'That. . . that is if Katie O'Brien does not keep me with her and enslave me.'
'You need not fear that; for I do not intend that you should even see her. Provided you behave yourself and do as I tell you, you should be home again before very long.'
With a sigh of relief she led the way out of the room. In the hall she spoke a few quick words to her maid. Roger
told the coachman the road to take, then handed her into the coach. The footman put the basket on the opposite seat and closed the door. As they drove off Roger smiled to himself. His blackmail had succeeded.
The way lay almost due south and on leaving Dublin they passed through Donnybrook Fair. In view of their anything but friendly relations, for the two of them to have to travel together for a considerable distance created an awkward situation, and for the first few miles they sat side by side in silence. But as they passed Galloping Green, with its solitary inn and smithy, Roger found his speculations about what might have happened to Susan so worrying that, to divert his mind from them, he decided to break the strain, and asked Maureen if she had found life in Dublin dull after having lived for several years in London.
She readily responded that she missed the magnificent spectacles provided by the great entertainments given by London's wealthiest hostesses, but she had many old friends in Dublin and found the quieter social life there very pleasant.
From that point on they exchanged remarks intermittently, and she told him the names of the Anglo-Irish nobles whose mansions lay behind the long, stone walls they passed, and pointed out to him as they approached, features of interest such as Bray Head and the rushing Dargle river. There were stretches of beautiful, bright green grass, on which small flocks of sheep grazed, but no sign of cultivation.
About twelve miles from Dublin the narrow road became more winding as it entered the upward slopes to the Wicklow mountains, with the Sugar Loaf high above the ivy-covered trees on the right. A little further on a track to their left led toward the monastic settlement of Glendalough to which, Maureen said, the religious came from all over Ireland.
From that point onward the slopes became steeper, with deep, wooded valleys made very picturesque by granite boulders lying among the trees which were now showing their young spring leaves of tender green. Climbing all the time at walking pace, they eventually emerged from the trees on to high, flat moorland where heather grew between clumps of gorse. Then came more patches of woodland from which they came out on to another wide stretch of moorland, known as Featherbed Mountain. Mauree
n told him that Dublin drew a large part of its peat for fires from there.
As they crossed this area for a mile or so, they, passed through low cloud, but came out of it to see on their left a deep valley in which lay the lochs Tay and Dan and a river where, here and there, white foam cascaded over clumps of rocks. Half a mile further on Roger noticed two stone pillars, evidently a gateway, but from which the gate had disappeared. The road veered off half right from them.
A moment later Maureen called to the coachman to pull up, then she turned to Roger and pointed to the gateway. 'It is here. There is a steep drive down for over a mile. At the bottom of the valley lies the loch, and near its edge, the castle.'
'What is this place called ?' Roger asked.
'Luggala,' she replied. 'The castle was the ancestral home of my late husband's family. He took me to see over it once, shortly after we were married. It is little but a ruin now. Only a few rooms are habitable, but it seemed a good place for Katie to go into hiding, because she was in trouble.'
Roger nodded. 'Yes. I knew about that. And you are right. In the past two miles we haven't passed even a cottage. I've rarely seen a more desolate piece of country.' Poking his head out of the window, he told the coachman to drive past the gate and on.
'Where are we going,' she asked anxiously.
'To find a suitable spot in which to have our meal. It is just on one o'clock, and we've been on the road for nearly five hours, so I am now hungry.'
Evidently glad that he had not decided to have their meal there in front of the gateway, she did not demur; and they drove on for the best part of two miles, until they came to another wood. There Roger halted the coach,, picked up the basket and prepared to get out.
'What are you about to do?' she leaned forward quickly. 'Surely we can eat here in the coach ?'
He shook his head. 'No. As it is a fine day I prefer the woods. There will probably be some wild flowers: dwarf daffodils, anemones and kingcups.'
Reluctantly she allowed him to hand her out, and accompanied him about thirty yards along a path into the wood. There, evidently fearing that he intended to avenge himself on her for having given his daughter into the power of the witch, and anxious to remain in sight of ‘ the coachman, she halted and said, 'This will serve. I do not wish to go any further.'
'You will do as I tell you,' he said sharply. 'I have promised that I will not harm you or prevent your returning to Dublin. Come now, or as an alternative I'll take you with me to visit Katie O'Brien.'
She shuddered, gasped, 'No! No!,' and hurried after him until he had led her deep into the wood, at least a quarter of a mile from the stony, rutted track which was termed a road.
Sitting down on a grassy bank at one side of a small clearing, they ate their meal in silence, and shared one bottle of the wine. Roger then stood up, wrapped a chicken thigh and a large piece of cake in paper, put them in one of his capacious pockets and the second bottle of wine in the other. Smiling at her, he said :
'Here, my lady, we part. The odds are that you will have to walk a good part of the way back to Dublin before you can get a lift. Anyway it is as good as certain that you will have to spend tonight out on the moor.'
As she began to protest, he cut her short. 'For iniquities of which you have been guilty I am letting you off very lightly. And should I learn later that you lost your way in the darkness, fell in a ditch and broke your neck, it would not cause me one moment's loss of sleep.'
Turning his back on her he set off at a gentle run to ensure that, should she follow him, he would reach the coach well ahead of her. When he reached it, he said to the coachman:
'The lady who was with me is spending the night with friends who have a house on the far side of the wood. Take me back now to that gateway where the road bends, and set me down there.'
The man gave him a curious glance, but did as he was bade. On leaving the coach Roger told him that he was also staying the night with friends in the neighbourhood, then paid him off, gave him a lavish tip and sent him back to Dublin.
Roger had grudged the time he had given to getting rid of Maureen Luggala; but he had felt it a precaution he dared not neglect because, had he left her the use of the coach, it was possible that, to make her peace with Katie O'Brien, she might have driven to the castle by some other route and warned the witch that he was on his way there. But, as he stood for a moment in the stone gateway, he realised that he had lost nothing, because he had time on his hands. It was barely three o'clock, so there were several hours of daylight yet in which to reconnoitre the place and, impatient as he was to learn what had happened to Susan and whether Charles was there, it would have been stupidly rash to attempt to enter the castle until he had the full cover of night.
The grass-grown drive led steeply down, bordered on both sides by screens of trees: pines, beeches and laurels. Beyond them on the right the ground rose abruptly, but on the left it shelved down to a deep valley, on the far side of which, a mile or more away, rose another greenish hillside speckled with white stone boulders.
As he proceeded, his footfalls made no sound on the bright green grass. No bird was singing and the silence seemed uncanny. The drive snaked down, becoming still steeper after every curve, so that he doubted whether a coach, empty and drawn by fewer than four horses could ever have got up it. After descending for half a mile, between the trunks of the trees on his left he caught his first glimpse of the loch far below in the valley. His eyes alert for any sign of movement, he covered another half mile. That brought him to some thirty feet above the level of the lake, over the edge of which some outward sloping trees projected. Through a gap between their leafy branches he saw a part of the ruined castle. Another few hundred paces brought him to the end of the drive. It emerged into a small, flat, triangular area with trees here and there, bounded on three sides by steep hillsides. On the fourth side lay the long loch and the castle rose from its nearest end.
Keeping well under cover Roger stood looking at it for several minutes, taking in every detail. He decided that either it had been built on a small island, or hundreds of tons of rough stone had been dumped in the lake to form its foundations, for it appeared to be entirely surrounded by water, which served the purpose of a moat. From where he stood the nearest part of the castle was about forty yards from the shore, at the edge of which showed a rim, only about two feet in depth, of what looked liked sand, but might be silt. The main building was very old and the greater part of it had fallen into ruin. One tower still stood, but the much lower jagged edges of others showed where they had broken off. Gaping holes appeared here and there in the battlements, and a wall had collapsed revealing the empty interior of a lofty chamber.
The place showed no sign at all of being inhabited. No wind ruffled the surface of the lake or stirred the branches of the trees. Everything was so utterly still that it was vaguely sinister. As far as Roger could see along the valley there was no other habitation or evidence of life, and the castle could not be seen from the road on the high ground along which he had come in the coach. Surrounded as it was by desolate mountains and moorland, and not having been lived in for many years, even people who knew of its existence would be unlikely to suspect that it was being used as a hide-out; so it would have been next to impossible to find a better one.
Selecting a group of bushes among which he could sit concealed, yet continue to keep an eye on the castle, he settled down to his long wait. The hours dragged by while he remained there speculating fruitlessly on what might happen when he entered the castle. Would he find Susan sane, or driven mad through the hellish domination of the witch ? And what of Charles? Would he be there, a willing participant of whatever went on, or was his disappearance due to his death in some unguessable mishap?
At last the shadows began to fall. When they were deep enough Roger made his way cautiously from tree to tree across the flat ground, until he could see the other side of the castle. There, an even greater part of the building had collapsed f
rom age. A whole section had fallen outward, so that hundreds of slabs of the granite with which it had been built now formed a rocky causeway, slanting down from a height of about forty feet at the castle end until only odd corners of its last stones projected out of the shallow water about twenty feet from the shore.
At one side, the high pyramid of stones at the castle end ran down to partly cover a landing place, to which a rowing boat was moored. Beyond the boat rose a high, arched doorway, and the light was still good enough for Roger to see that it was iron-bound and solid, so there was little hope of his being able to force it.
Seeking some other means of entrance, he moved further along the shore. Just beyond the peak of the great pile of fallen stones, the building took a different form, due to a wing that had evidently been added many centuries later. The part that Roger could see consisted only of a single, flat-roofed storey about thirty-five feet above the water. There were two diamond-paned windows in it, suggesting the late seventeenth century. One of them was a little open. Although he could not see round the corner, he guessed that this new wing continued on there, as all the rooms would then have a lovely view right down the lake, and this must be the part of the castle still occupied. Yet, as with the derelict ruin, there was no sign of life, and the sinister silence remained unbroken.
Choosing another spot where he could watch without being seen, he again sat down, took out his leg of chicken and bottle of wine and slowly ate his .supper. By the time he had finished full darkness had fallen, but he had no intention of attempting to enter the castle until the inmates could be expected to be asleep.
At about eight o'clock the two windows became dimly lit, and a form only vaguely seen through the diamond panes drew curtains across them. Chinks of faint light continued to show between the curtains; then, about an hour later, the windows became dark again. Judging by the time, Roger assumed the windows gave on to the dining room, and that the witch and her companions had just finished their evening meal, so would soon be going to bed. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he gave them another two hours before standing up, stretching himself and making sure that the pistol he had thrust into his belt was properly primed.
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