The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story

by Mrs. Charles Bryce

  CHAPTER XIV

  Gimblet was up early next morning, refreshed by a sound anddreamless sleep.

  For two hours before breakfast he wrestled with the cryptic message onthe sheet of paper, trying first one way and then another of solving theriddle it presented, but still finding no solution. He was silent andpreoccupied during the morning meal, replying to inquiries as to hisheadache, alternately, with obvious inattention and exaggeratedgratitude. Neither of the ladies spoke much, however, and hisabsent-mindedness passed almost unnoticed.

  Lord Ashiel was to be buried that day. Before they left the dining-roomsombre figures could be seen striding along the high road towardsInverashiel: inhabitants of the scattered villages, and people from theneighbouring estates, hurrying to show their respect to the dead peer forthe last time.

  The tragic circumstances of the murder had aroused great excitement allover the countryside, and a large gathering assembled at the littleisland at the head of the loch, where the McConachans had left theirbones since the early days of the youth of the race.

  From the surrounding glens, from distant hills and valleys, and even fromfar-away Edinburgh and Oban, came McConachans, to render their finaltribute to the head of the clan. It was surprising to see how large wasthe muster; for the most part a company of tall, thin men, with leanfaces and drooping wisps of moustache.

  To a mournful dirge on the pipes, Ashiel was laid in his rocky grave, andthe throng of black-garmented people was ferried back the way it hadcome. Gimblet, wrapped to the ears in a thick overcoat, and with a silkscarf wound high round his neck, shivered in the cold air, for the windhad veered to the north, and the first breath of the Arctic winter wasalready carried on it. The waters of the loch had turned a slaty black;little angry waves broke incessantly over its surface; and inky blackclouds were gathering slowly on the distant horizon. It looked as if thefine weather were at an end; as if Nature herself were mourning angrilyat the wanton destruction of her child. The pity and regret Gimblet hadfelt, as he stood by the murdered man's grave, suddenly turned to afeeling of rage, both with himself and with the victim of the crime.

  Why in the world had he not managed to guard against a danger of whoseimminence he had had full warning? And why in the name of everything thatwas imbecile had Lord Ashiel, who knew much better than anyone else howreal the danger was, chosen to sit at a lighted window, and offer sotempting a target to his enemy?

  Suddenly, in the midst of his musings, a sound fell on the detective'sear; a voice he had heard before, low and musical, and curiouslyresonant. He looked in the direction from which it came and saw twopeople standing together, a little apart, in the crowd of those waitingat the water's edge for a craft to carry them ashore. There were only twoor three boats; and, though the ghillies bent to their oars with a will,every one could not cross the narrow channel which divided the islandfrom the mainland at one and the same time. A group had already formed onthe beach of those who were not the first to get away, and among thesewere the two figures that had attracted Gimblet's attention.

  They were two ladies, who stood watching the boats, which had landedtheir passengers and were now returning empty.

  The nearest to him, a tall woman of ample proportions, was visiblyaffected by the ceremony she had just witnessed, and dabbed from time totime at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  But it was her companion who interested him. She was short and slender;her slightness accentuated by the long dress of black cloth and the smallplain hat of the same colour which she wore. A thick black veil hung downover her face and obscured it from his view, but about her generalappearance there was something strangely familiar. In a moment Gimbletknew what it was, and where he had seen her before. He had caught sight,in her hand, of a little bag of striped black satin with purple pansiesembroidered at intervals upon it. Just such a bag had lain upon the tableof his flat in Whitehall a few weeks ago, on the day when its owner hadstolen the envelope entrusted to him by Lord Ashiel.

  "It is she," breathed the detective, "the widow!"

  And for one wild moment he was on the point of accosting her anddemanding his missing letter. Wiser counsels prevailed, however, and hemoved away to the other side of the small group of mourners gathered onthe stony beach.

  When he ventured to look at her again, it was over the shoulder of astalwart Highlander, whose large frame effectually concealed all of thelittle detective except his hat and eyes. A further surprise was in storefor him. The lady had lifted her veil and displayed the features of thegirl he had watched in the library on the preceding night.

  Gimblet had seen enough. He turned away, and found Juliet at his elbow.

  She would have passed him by, absorbed in her sorrow for the father shehad found and lost in the space of one short hour, but he laid her handupon her arm.

  "Tell me," he begged, "who are those two ladies waiting for the boat?"

  Juliet's eyes followed the direction of his own.

  "Those," she said, "are Mrs. Clutsam and Miss Julia Romaninov."

  "Ah," Gimblet murmured. "They were among your fellow-guests at thecastle, weren't they?"

  "Yes."

  Juliet's reply was short and a little cold. She could not understand whythe detective should choose this moment to question her on trivialdetails. It showed, she considered, a lamentable lack of tact, andinvoluntarily she resented it.

  "But surely you told me that every one had left Inverashiel," persistedGimblet, unabashed.

  He seemed absurdly eager for the information. No doubt, Juliet reflectedbitterly, he admired Julia. Most men would.

  "Mrs. Clutsam lives in another small house of my father's, near here,"she replied stiffly. "She asked Miss Romaninov to stay with her for afew days till she could arrange where to go to. This disaster naturallyupset every one's plans."

  "She has a beautiful face," said Gimblet. "Who would think--" hemurmured, and stopped abruptly.

  "Perhaps you would like me to introduce you?"

  Juliet spoke with lofty indifference, but the dismay in Gimblet's tone ashe answered disarmed her.

  "On no account," he cried, "the last thing! Besides, for that matter," headded truthfully, "we have met before."

  "Then you will have the pleasure of renewing your acquaintance," Julietsuggested mischievously. Gimblet had shown himself so genuinely aghastthat her resentful suspicions had vanished.

  "I expect to have an opportunity of doing so," he agreed seriously. "Thatyoung lady," he went on in a low, confidential tone, "played a trick onme that I find it hard to forgive. I look forward, with somesatisfaction, to the day when the laugh will be on my side. I admit Iought to be above such paltry considerations, but, what would you? Idon't think I am. But please don't mention my presence to her, or herfriend. I imagine she has not so far heard of it."

  "I won't if you don't like," said Juliet. "I don't suppose I shallsee them to speak to. But why do you feel so sure she doesn't knowyou are here?"

  "Oh, how should she?" Gimblet returned evasively. "I don't suppose mypresence would appear worth commenting upon to anyone but yourself orLord Ashiel, unless Lady Ruth should mention it."

  "I don't think she will," said Juliet. "She said she could not speak toanyone to-day, and she and Mark have gone off together in his own boat.I said I would walk home."

  "Won't you drive with me?" Gimblet suggested.

  He had hired a "machine" from the distant village of Inverlegan to carryhim to and from the funeral. But Juliet preferred to walk, finding inphysical exercise the only relief she could obtain from the achingtrouble that oppressed and sickened her.

  Gimblet drove back alone to the cottage. He had much to occupy histhoughts.

  Once back in his room he turned his mind to the writing on thesheet of paper.

  "Remember that where there's a way there's a will. Face curiosity andtake the bull by the horn."

  The message, as Gimblet read it, was as puzzling as if it had beencompletely in cipher.

  If certain of the words p
ossessed some arbitrary meaning to which the keypromised by Lord Ashiel would have furnished the solution, there seemedlittle hope of understanding the message until the key was found. Theword "way," for instance, might stand for another that had beenpreviously decided on, and if rightly construed probably indicated theplace where the papers were concealed. "Will," "face," "curiosity,""bull" and "horn" were likely to represent other very different words, orperhaps even whole sentences.

  Without the key it was hopeless to search along that line; such searchmust end, as it would begin, in conjecture only. He would see if anythingmore promising could be arrived at by taking the message as it was andassuming that all the words bore the meaning usually attributed to them.For more than an hour Gimblet racked his brains to read sense into thesenseless phrases, and at the end of that time was no wiser than at thebeginning.

  "Where there's a way there's a will." Was it by accident or design thatthe order in which the words way and will were placed was different fromthe one commonly assigned to them? Had Lord Ashiel made a mistake inarranging the message? Or did the "will" refer to his will and testament?If so, why should he take so roundabout a way of designating it?Doubtless because something more important than the will was involved;indeed, if anything was clear, from the ambiguous sentence and theprecaution that Ashiel had taken that though it fell into the hands ofhis enemies it should convey nothing to them, it was that he consideredthe mystification of the uninitiated a matter of transcendentalimportance. It was plain he contemplated the possibility of the Nihilistsknowing where to look for his message; and at the thought Gimblet shifteduneasily in his chair, remembering his first encounter with theirrepresentative.

  "Face curiosity and take the bull by the horn." Perhaps those words, asthey stood, contained some underlying sense, which at present it was hardto read in them. What it was, seemed impossible to guess. To take thebull by the horn, is a common enough expression, and might represent nomore than a piece of advice to act boldly; on the whole that was notlikely, for would anyone wind up such a carefully veiled communicationwith so trite and everyday a saying, or finish such an obscure messagewith so ordinary a sentiment?

  "Face curiosity," however, was perhaps a direction how to proceed. Theonly trouble was to know what in the world it meant!

  Whose curiosity was to be faced? The behaviour of members of a Nihilistsociety could hardly be said to be impelled by that motive. Gimblet couldnot see that anyone else had shown any symptom of it. Had "curiosity,"then, some other meaning?

  The detective, as has been said, was an amateur of the antique. When notat work, a great part of his time was passed in the neighbourhood ofcuriosity shops, and the merchandise they dealt in immediately occurredto him in connection with the word.

  Did the dead man refer to some peculiarity of the ancient keep? Wasthere, perhaps, the figure or picture of a bull within the castle whosehorn pointed to the ultimate place of concealment? It would have seemed,Gimblet thought, that the hidden receptacle in the secret stair wasdifficult enough to find; but the reason the papers were not placed inthere was plain to him after a minute's reflection. It was doubtlessbecause they were too bulky to be contained in the shallow drawer. At allevents, there was certainly another hiding-place; and, on the whole, thebest plan seemed to be to see if the castle could produce any curiositythat would offer a solution of the problem.

  To the castle, accordingly, he went, and asked to see Lord Ashiel. He wasshown into the smoking-room, where Mark was kneeling on the hearth-rugsurrounded by piles of folded and docketed papers. The door of a smallcupboard in the wall beside the fireplace stood open, revealing a row ofdeep shelves stacked with the same neat packets.

  "Still hunting for the will, you see," he said, looking up as Gimbletentered, "I'm beginning to give up hope of finding it, but it's a mercyto have something to do these days."

  "Rather a tedious job, isn't it?" said the detective, looking down at themusty tape-bound bundles.

  "Well, it gives one rather a kink in the back after a time," Markadmitted. "But I shan't feel easy in my mind till I've looked througheverything, and I'm getting a very useful idea of the estate accounts inthe meantime. It _is_ rather a long business, but I'm getting on with it,slow but sure. There are such a fearful lot."

  "Are all these cupboards full of papers?" Gimblet asked, looking roundhim at the numerous little doors in the panelling.

  "Stuffed with them, every blessed one of them," Mark replied rathergloomily. "And the worst of it is, I'm pretty certain they're nothing butthese dusty old bills and letters. But there's nowhere else to look, andI know he kept nearly everything here."

  Gimblet sauntered round the room, pulling open the drawers and peeping inat the piles of documents.

  "What an accumulation!" he remarked. "None of these cupboards are locked,I see," he added.

  "No, he never locked anything up," said Mark. "I've heard him boast henever used a key. Do you know, if one had time to read them, I believesome of these old letters might be rather amusing. It looked as if mygrandfather and his fathers had kept every single one that ever waswritten to them. I've just come across one from Raeburn, the painter, andI saw another, a quarter of an hour ago, from Lord Clive."

  "Really," said Gimblet eagerly, "which cupboard were they in? I shouldlike to see them immensely some time."

  "They were in this one," said Mark, pointing to the shelvesopposite him.

  Gimblet stood facing it, and looked hopefully round him in all directionsfor anything like a bull. There was nothing, however, to suggest such ananimal, and he reflected that interesting though these old letters mightbe it would be going rather far to refer to them as curiosities. Suddenlyan idea struck him.

  "I suppose you haven't come across anything concerning a Papal Bull?"he inquired.

  "No," said Mark, looking up in surprise. "It's not very likely I should,you know."

  "No, I suppose not," said Gimblet. "Still, you old families did get holdof all sorts of odd things sometimes, and your uncle was a bit of acollector, wasn't he?"

  "Uncle Douglas," said Mark, "not he! He didn't care a bit for that kindof thing. You can see in the drawing-room the sort of horrors he used tobuy. He was thoroughly early Victorian in his tastes, and ought to havebeen born fifty years sooner than he was."

  "Dear me," said Gimblet. "I don't know why I thought he was rather by wayof being a connoisseur. Well, well, I mustn't waste any more time. Iwanted to ask you if you would mind my going all over the house. I maysee something suggestive. Who knows? At present I have only examined thelibrary and your uncle's bedroom."

  "By all means," said Mark. "Blanston will show you anything you want tosee. Oh, by the by, you like to be alone, don't you? I was forgetting.Well, go anywhere you like; and good luck to your hunting!"

  On a writing-table in one of the bedrooms, Gimblet found a paper-weightin the bronze shape of a Spanish toro, head down, tail brandishing, afine emblem of goaded rage. But there was nothing promising about theround mahogany table on which it stood: no drawer, secret or otherwisecould all his measurings and tappings discover; the animal, when liftedup by the horn and dangled before the detective's critical eye,proclaimed itself modern and of no artistic merit. It was like a hundredothers to be had in any Spanish town, and by no expanding of terms couldit be considered a curiosity.

  Except for this one more than doubtful find, he drew the whole houseabsolutely blank. There were very few specimens of ancient work in thecastle, which like so many other old houses had been stripped ofeverything interesting it contained in the middle of the nineteenthcentury, and entirely refurnished and redecorated in the worst possibletaste. With the exception of some family portraits, the lacquered clockin the library was the one genuine survival of the Victorian holocaust,and though Gimblet passed nearly half an hour in contemplating it hecould not see any way of connecting it with a bull, nor was he a whit thewiser when he finally turned his back on it than he had been at thebeginning.