The Blue Book/The Gallowstree Mystery/Part 2

by J. S. Fletcher

 

There is a certain rich romantic
flavor to a J. S. Fletcher novel
that has not previously been
achieved since Stevenson. You
must surely read this one; even if
you missed the first installment,
the synopsis below will enable
you easily to pick up the thread.

 

 

“Black Money,” “The Middle of
Things” and “The Great Mar-
quenmore Case” have made the
author of this fine story known
to our readers; so when we say
“The Gallowstree Mystery” is
the most fascinating of all, you
will know it is exceptional indeed.

 

(What Has Already Happened:)

THIS history of black crime (in which a deal of mystery and some love-making will have to be duly chronicled) begins with the unexpected reappearance of my ne'er-do-well Uncle Joseph Krevin at our little seacoast village of Middlebourne. I was eighteen then and had begun the study of law, but an illness had set me back, and I was just beginning to get around again under the care of my much older sister Keziah.

Well, Uncle Joseph turned up one bright spring morning and got scant welcome from Keziah, who had little fondness for him or his kind. However, we took him in. And that night it all began. For we, and others of the village were roused by a wild scream from the direction of Gallowstree Point, a sandspit on which there still stood the remains of an old gibbet. And when an investigating party hurried thither with lanterns, the body of a man was found tied to the old gibbet, a rope twisted tight about his neck. And from the distance there came the retreating sound of oars.

This dreadful event was only the beginning of many strange happenings: When we told Uncle Joseph of the murder out on Gallowstree he collapsed in a faint. And next morning when we went to call him to breakfast, he had disappeared.

A Scotland Yard detective named Cherry came down to investigate the matter, and he and I soon became good friends. And presently we had more than a murder to perplex us. For Miss Ellingham—a wealthy woman who had lived in the Orient, who had bought the estate of Middlebourne Grange near us, and established herself there with a varied retinue of servants—reported that a tremendously valuable and ancient Chinese vase, along with a pair of rare little idols, had been stolen from her collection.

Was there any connection between these two crimes in our peaceful village? It seemed probable, but none of the small clues which Cherry developed got us very far. He had more hope of certain investigations to be made in London; and you can imagine my delight when he invited me to accompany him thither. (The story continues in detail:)

 

 

ALTHOUGH I was now eighteen years of age, fancied myself not a little, and was about to enter on life as a full-fledged articled clerk with a tailed coat and top hat, I still regarded my sister Keziah with awe, as being head and autocrat of our family; and when Cherry flung out this exciting proposition, I turned on her as a small boy might turn on a stern headmaster of whom a holiday is suddenly craved. And inwardly I quaked, for Keziah's always stern face grew dark with something very closely resembling horror.

“London!” she exclaimed. “Him? And I'd like to know whatever for, Mister? The very idea!”

“There are reasons, ma'am,” answered Cherry. “I wont say state reasons, though they are almost of that nature. But—reasons! Good reasons. Police reasons, if you like.”

“I don't want Ben mixing up with police,” snapped Keziah tartly. “I don't mind his going about a bit with you—you're in plain clothes, and look something like a gentleman, and you seem a very decent young fellow. But if it comes to uniforms—”

“Ben will not associate with uniforms, ma'am,” interrupted Cherry. “He'll just go with me on a quiet little trip, tomorrow morning, and I'll deliver him to you again, safe and sound, on Sunday evening. I want him.”

“And for what do you want him, pray?” demanded Keziah. “Let's be knowing that!”

“Well, if you will have it, he may be useful to me in tracing that uncle of yours, Mr. Joseph Krevin,” replied Cherry. “He might identify him. Let him come! The sooner Mr. Krevin's little mystery is cleared up, the better—for everybody, you included, ma'am,” he added with a significant look. “And—it wont cost you anything.”

“Let me go, Keziah!” I pleaded.

“Oh, you'll be ready enough to go, my lad, I'll warrant!” exclaimed Keziah satirically. “You'd be off this instant, no doubt! But if you're strong enough to go traipsing about London, you're strong enough to start lawyering at Mr. Philbrick's—that'll be a deal better than running after good-for-naughts like Joseph Krevin. And you give one such short notice!” she went on, turning to Cherry. “How do you think I can get him ready to go voyaging all that way by tomorrow morning?”

“That way—sixty miles!” said Cherry “Lord save us, ma'am—he isn't going to the North Pole! Ready? What is there to do to make him ready? Nothing, I should think!”

“That's all you know!” retorted Keziah. “I shall have to get out his best clothes and air them—he's never had 'em on since his illness. And it's past ten o'clock—and you'd better go away, and let me get to work.”

“Meet me at the station at a quarter to nine, Ben,” said Cherry, making for the door. “I'll take every care of him, Miss Heckitt—and good night!”

KEZIAH made no reply beyond a mumbled phrase or two—she was already opening and shutting the drawers of a great press wherein she kept our best garments in camphor and lavender. Presently she had my Sunday suit and clean linen on a clothes-horse before the fire—and next morning when she hurried me off to the station as spick and span as if I had been going to a wedding, I verily believe that she was secretly delighted that she had turned me out looking as important as the occasion demanded.

“And mind you don't get lost in those streets!” she called to me as I opened the garden gate. “And if you do see your Uncle Joseph—”

But there, for once in her life, Keziah failed for words, and after shaking her head dismally, waved her hand, went in and shut the door. And it was not out of ingratitude that I immediately put her out of my mind, which, to tell the truth, was seething with anticipations of adventure.

There was not much adventure to start with. Cherry had an armful of newspapers when I met him at the station, and he occupied himself during most of our two hours' journey in reading them, passing one after the other over to me as he finished each. Every paper was full of our affair—and to my astonishment, I saw that the theft of the Kang-he vase was already reported. There was, to be sure, not so much of that, but there was a plenitude of stuff about the murder of Cousins, and its peculiarly grisly character, and no end of speculation and surmise. I remarked to Cherry that I had had no idea we were all being so much written about, and he laughed.

“It's those inside the game who see least of it, Ben,” said he. “The outsiders, the spectators, see most! This is a bit of fat for these newspaper fellows—yards of good copy it gives 'em. And see how they theorize and speculate and suggest about it! Well, it all helps. The press is a valuable adjunct to the police, and I've known cases in which an astute young reporter did better work than a trained detective. And that reminds me, my lad, that when we get to London Bridge, two friends of mine, belonging to the Department, are to meet me, and I shall want a bit of private talk with them; but that wont take long.”

THE two friends were awaiting us, evidently by arrangement, just outside the barrier. One was a young man of about Cherry's own age; the other was a middle-aged man; both were very ordinary in appearance and might have been anything in the clerk or tradesman way. Instead of looking the alert, keen-faced, sharp-eyed individuals I had always fancied detectives to be, they seemed to be remarkably apathetic, unemotional and casual in appearance. And as we walked across to the refreshment-room, toward which all three turned as if it were a matter of course that they should, they talked, somewhat lackadaisically, about the weather, and the eldest man remarked that if we didn't get rain soon, his kitchen garden at Golders Green was going to be a frost—which eventuality he seemed to regard as the last thing in catastrophes.

When we got into the refreshment-room, Cherry installed me at a table in a corner, with a glass of port to console me; he and the other two got together at a quiet spot of the bar, and with glasses in hand began to talk. And I, watching them closely, saw then that they were waking up and debating keenly enough whatever it was that Cherry first told them: there was a good deal of stroking of chins, and tapping of fingers, and exchange of nods and winks. Eventually all three seemed to come to some conclusion; the two strangers went away, once more looking unconcerned and apathetic, and Cherry came back to me.

“That's one bit of business done, Ben!” he said cheerfully. “Now come upstairs to the dining-room, and we'll have some lunch. And then—we'll get on to our own special business, whatever luck we have with it!”

I was curious enough to know if he had learned anything from the two men who had just gone away, but too shy to ask him. A few mintues later, however, when we had picked up our knives and forks, he suddenly leaned across the table to me.

“Ben,” he said, “did you ever hear of your Uncle Joseph being in India—or anywhere else in the East?”

“No!” I answered promptly. “Never! But then, I never heard anything of Uncle Joseph till he turned up that morning. Keziah never talked of him, and as you know, he'd been away from our parts nineteen years or so—never been near us.”

“Um! Well, he'd be somewhere or other,” he remarked. “And I'd very much like to know if that somewhere was in Eastern climes at any period. Curious gentleman, altogether, your Uncle Joseph, and I wonder if we shall get any news of him in Old Gravel Lane?”

“Is that where we're going?” I asked.

“Precisely, Ben—where else?” he answered. “To begin with, at any rate. We're going to visit the establishment of Crippe, marine stores dealer. Who Crippe may be we don't know. Perhaps he's Krevin—your Uncle Joseph. If he is, Ben, I don't think we shall find him. If he isn't, and there's a Crippe who really is Crippe, then we want to know why Krevin carried Crippe's cards in his pocket. Perhaps Crippe will tell us; perhaps he wont. This business, Ben, consists largely of the question-and-answer system. Plenty of questions—but getting satisfactory answers is the difficulty, and sometimes the very devil!”

WE went off across London Bridge after a while, and turning left at the Monument, walked by Eastcheap and the Tower into the region of the docks. I had never been in that part of London before, my two previous excursions to the center of things having been in the West End, in Keziah's company, and among fashionable surroundings and fine shops, and I thought everything in this hitherto unexplored neighborhood very squalid and grimy. But Old Gravel Lane was worse than any of its approaches—a narrow, gloomy street leading down to the river between black-walled buildings. It was a paradise now, said Cherry, to what it had been, but I failed to see anything paradisiacal about it, and I felt considerable misgiving when at last, on a board obscured by dirt and age we saw the name “Crippe.”

“Here we are!” said Cherry. “And the gentleman does business on Saturday afternoons, and there, no doubt, he is!”

He pushed aside a half-open door, and there, standing in the middle of a place that was half shed and half shop, badly lighted, and evil-smelling, we saw a man who wore all the airs of proprietorship. He was a little sturdy man, with a round paunch and a big head—his paunch was gay with a fancy waistcoat, and his head half-buried in a big, brand-new Panama hat; a just-lighted cigar, half a foot long, stuck out of one corner of his clean-shaven lips. As for the rest or him, he had a goatee beard, very stiff and fiery red in hue, and he had shed his coat, and in his shirt-sleeves—and with at least two aggressively bright diamond rings glittering on his dirty fingers—was industriously sorting and counting a pile of coarse canvas bags that lay on the floor at his feet. All round him were the things that you find in a marine stores dealer's place of business; in the background, in a sort of tank faced with glass, a young, thin-faced man sat writing at a desk.

CHERRY advanced to the shirt-sleeved gentleman with interested politeness.

“Mr. Crippe?” he inquired.

The man finished counting his sacks—those he had in hand, at any rate—before he replied. And his reply was thrown over his shoulder:

“And two's nine, and two's eleven, and two's thirteen,” he said. “Eight dozen, Jenkinson—thirteen as twelve..... That's me! Who are you?”

Cherry took out one of his professional cards, and Mr. Crippe's hands being free by that time, he deigned to accept it, and having first balanced a gold-mounted pince-nez on his snub nose, to read it, he turned a sharp eye on both of us, passed me over with a mere glance, and settled on my companion.

“Well, wha' d'yer want?” he demanded. “Sharp, now!”

Cherry produced one of Mr. Crippe's own cards.

“To ask a question about this,” he answered. “Two of your cards were left at a house on the South Coast by a man named Joseph Krevin. Do you know Krevin?”

“Yes! Know Joe Krevin well enough! What about him?”

“Is he in your employ?”

“No—not in what you'd call a regular way, anyhow. He does a bit on commission—no salary. Job now and then. Carries my business cards, to be sure, and drops one where he sees a chance of doing a bit.”

“Have you seen him lately, Mr. Crippe?”

“Not for a fortnight or three weeks—no!”

“Can you give me his private address?”

“Can't! Don't know it. Don't know anything about Joe Krevin's private affairs. And what do you want him for?”

“He's missing,” replied Cherry diplomatically. “This young man is his nephew. His family want to trace him. And as we found your card in a house where he'd been—”

“Aye, well, I can't help you!” interrupted Mr. Crippe, waving the bediamonded fingers. “No notion whatever where he hangs out. Only comes in here, casual-like, now and again.”

Cherry glanced at the glass-fronted tank; he like myself, had noticed that the clerk was listening for all he was worth.

“Perhaps your assistant—” he began.

“They might know at Zetterquist's,” said the clerk. “That was his house of call round here—in St. George Street. Try the saloon parlor.”

WE bade Mr. Crippe a good afternoon; Mr. Crippe bade us nothing, and turned again to his canvas bags. We went out into the dismal street.

“Well, you see, Ben, we got some information after all!” remarked Cherry, cheerfully. “We know more about Uncle Joseph now than we did five minutes ago. Uncle Joseph occasionally does a bit of business with and for Mr. Crippe. And if Mr. Crippe doesn't know where Uncle Joseph pitches his little tent, perhaps Zetterquists do. Quite satisfactory, so far. And now for Zetterquist's.”

He led me up Old Gravel Lane and round a corner into another more pretentious but still gloomy and squalid street. We had to look about a bit there, but eventually we found what we wanted. Zetterquist & Vanderpant turned out to be an old-fashioned wine and spirits vault; there was a part where they seemed to do wholesale business, another where there were public bars, and yet a third evidently reserved for superior customers.

Into this we turned, and found our way to a quaint old parlor, the walls of which were chiefly decorated with pictures and engravings of sailing ships, models of the same, and odds and ends that, judging from their character and appearance, had doubtless been brought there from far-off places. There were a few customers in the dark corners of this room, and as most of them wore blue serge suits, had deeply tanned complexions, and obviously preferred rum to any other liquor, I set them down as seafaring parties from the neighboring docks. Also there was in that room, which had a highly seasoned atmosphere of spirits, lemons and strong tobacco, a little bar in one corner, and behind it an elderly, highly respectable person in an alpaca coat, who was industriously polishing glasses and seemed uncommonly surprised to see us. But he listened politely to Cherry's prefatory remarks, and was evidently quite interested in the professional card which he presented. He was interested, too, in me, when he heard that I was Mr. Joseph Krevin's nephew.

“Yes, we know Mr. Krevin here,” he said. “The fact is, he's a sort of traveler for our firm—on commission, you understand. Picks up an order here and there, and sends it on—I fancy he does that sort of thing for various other firms—not in our line, you know—other lines. General commission agent—that's his line of business. But he's not been in here, and we haven't heard anything of him, lately. Two or three weeks, I should say.”

“What I particularly want is his private address,” observed Cherry. “Can you give it?”

“I can!” replied the man behind the bar. “I shouldn't give it, you know, to anybody, but as you're what you are, and as he's missing, I will. It's 241 Calthorpe Street—that's off Gray's Inn Road.”

CHERRY remarked that he knew Calthorpe Street well enough, and after thanking our informant, we left Zetterquist's and the company of sea-captains, and went away—to find an omnibus going toward Bloomsbury.

“Easy enough to strike Calthorpe Street, Ben,” remarked Cherry. “A well-known lodging-house street, that! But I doubt if we shall strike Uncle Joseph. However, we now know an extra bit more about him. Sort of odd-job man, he is. And odd-job men meet queer company, and get mixed up in queer doings.”

He was right in prophesying that we shouldn't strike Uncle Joseph. Number 241 Calthorpe Street, proved to be a dismal, shabby sort of house, and the landlady who opened the door to us was equally shabby and even more dismal. No, Mr. Krevin wasn't at home, and what's more, hadn't been at home since last Monday morning, and she didn't know when he would be at home, for he was given to being away many days at a time, sometimes. No, he hadn't lived there very long—some few months only; and she believed he'd just come from foreign parts when he came there. Yes, we could look at his room if we liked; it didn't matter—nothing seemed to matter, to her.

We went up to Uncle Joseph's room—a bed-sitting-room, more comfortable than the exterior of the house would have led one to suppose. And in the moment of our entrance, Cherry's keen eyes struck on something. There was an addressed envelope that had come through the post lying on the table, and he picked it up with a sharp exclamation.

“Look at this, Ben!” he said. “See? The postmark! Middlebourne!”

CHAPTER X

Tom Scripture

BEFORE I had time to voice my surprise at seeing the familiar postmark, Cherry had turned back the torn flap of the envelope, and we both saw that it was empty. He thrust it into my hand with an exclamation of disappointment.

“Blank!” he muttered. “Nothing there! But still—the postmark! That's Middlebourne, right enough. And the handwriting—do you recognize it, Ben?”

“No!” I answered promptly. “I don't know it. But Nellie Apps and her mother, who keep the post office, might—though there are two or three hundred people in Middlebourne, you know!”

“Aye! And this mayn't have been written by any one of 'em, but by a stranger, there for the time being,” he said. “All the same here's the cover of a letter posted from Middlebourne to Mr. Joseph Krevin on a precise date—-and that date, Ben, as you'll observe, was three days before Joseph Krevin turned up at your house! Very good—we must find out who sent that letter. It's not a commonplace style of writing, either.”

HE put the envelope in his pocket, and began to look round. But there was little to see—so I thought. Uncle Joseph appeared to have few belongings. There was a goodly stock of clothes, linen, and the like in the drawers, which Cherry opened and glanced into; there were a few books on a shelf, some old pipes and a cigar-box or two on the mantelpiece, and a pile of papers and magazines on a side-table. But no private papers or letters lay about, and though there was a rickety writing-desk in one corner of the room, there was nothing in or on it that gave us any indication of Uncle Joseph's doings or pursuits, other than a few more business cards of Mr. Crippe, and a price-list bearing the name of Zetterquist & Vanderpant. On a shelf above it, however, stood some carved figures and ornaments, and Cherry pointed to them with a significant glance.

“I don't think there's much doubt that your mysterious relative has been in the East during those years in which his family never heard of him, Ben,” he remarked. “Look at those things—mementoes of his travels, I imagine! Indian ware, I believe—oh, yes, I think Uncle Joseph has smelled the East—and no doubt picked up some Eastern notions as to how things should be done!”

The pile of papers and magazines lay just by his hand, and he began to tum it over, apparently without aim. But suddenly he pulled out an illustrated journal with a colored cover and held it toward me with a laugh.

“This is like the children's game where you get hot or get cold in searching for something, Ben!” he said. “We're getting hot! See this—the Lady's Circle! And the very same issue as that in which the interview with Miss Ellingham appears! And—ho-ho! Look here, my boy! What do you think of that?”

He spread the paper out before me, pointing triumphantly, and I saw at once what he meant. The page on which the photograph of Miss Ellingham's drawing-room and of the Kang-he vase appeared had been torn out!

We looked at each other. And Cherry began to fold up the mutilated journal, preparatory to putting it in his pocket.

“Yes, that's it, Ben, my boy!” he said, as if assenting to some proposition which I had just put into words, though as a matter of fact, I hadn't spoken. “You're right! Your Uncle Joseph has had some share in the theft of that Kang-he vase! We're on the track, Ben! And we've done a very good afternoon's work, and now we'll knock off and go to my little flat, which isn't very far away, and when we've had a wash and a tidy-up, we'll get a bit of dinner and go to a theater or a music-hall—whichever and wherever you like! Oh, yes, I think I'm beginning to see through the brick wall, Ben!”

I fancied that I was beginning to see through it myself, but I said nothing; if there was any thought in my head at all, it was of Keziah, and of what she, with all her notions about family honor and the like, would say if it were proved that Uncle Joseph Krevin was a thief. We went downstairs again; Cherry had a word or two with the dismal landlady; then he took me off to his flat, which, as he had said, was not far away, being, as a matter of fact, on the other side of Gray's Inn Road, in Doughty Street, and in a house close by one in which, he assured me with great pride, Charles Dickens used to live.

IT was a very nice little bachelor flat, cozy and comfortable, and quite big enough, he said with a laugh, for a single man who could get his own breakfast ready and had all his other meals out. It was well fitted up, too, and there was a telephone there, and while we were washing and tidying ourselves preparatory to going out pleasuring, the telephone-bell rang sharply. Cherry was at it some little time; when he returned to me in the bathroom, he nodded at me as if to signify that he had some news.

“We're getting on fine, Ben!” he said cheerfully. “That was a ring-up from one of the men we met at London Bridge this morning. Didn't I tell you that the work of the press was a very valuable adjunct to the work of the police? Just so! And the result of the announcement in this morning's papers about Miss Ellingham's loss has had a result already. A Mr. Spelwyn, of Bedford Square,—no great distance away,—has been telephoning our headquarters this afternoon about it. He's evidently an authority, an expert, and a collector, in the matter of that Chinese stuff, so of course he'd be attracted by the news. And he's informed our department that if whoever has the affair in hand will call on him tomorrow morning, he'll give the caller some information. I've got the affair in hand! So tomorrow morning, my boy, 321 Bedford Square, at eleven o'clock sharp! And I wonder what Mr. Spelwyn's got to tell!”

HOWEVER, I think neither of us speculated much on that during the rest of that Saturday evening. Cherry took me to dinner at a Soho restaurant where there were all sorts of strange people to be seen, and then to a theater—a rare treat for me, who had never seen anything but a pantomime or two at Kingshaven; and the novelty and excitement of these things drove the Middlebourne mysteries, Cousins, Uncle Joseph, the Kang-he vase, and all the rest of it, clean out of my mind.

But they revived next morning when Cherry and I, presenting ourselves at Bedford Square, were shown by a stolid-faced manservant into a library or study, wherein, ranged on shelves, or exhibited in cases, were quantities of pots and plates, as Keziah would have called them, which were doubtless as rare and valuable as they seemed to me odd and ugly.

Mr. Spelwyn, who joined us presently, was a little middle-aged, pleasant-mannered gentleman, with a twinkling eye. He seemed much interested in Cherry, whom he evidently considered very young for his job, and before he told us anything himself, he examined us very thoroughly as to Miss Ellingham, her vase, its history, its location in her drawing-room, and so on. He had not heard of the illustrated article in the Lady's Circle; and he sniffed, almost contemptuously, when Cherry, who carried Miss Ellingham's copy in his pocket, showed it to him.

“The woman was asking to be robbed!” he exclaimed. “There are a dozen men in London who would go for that vase after seeing these photographs and learning how insecurely it was kept, and how easily it could be got at! I wonder at Miss Ellingham, with her experience of the East. To keep a treasure like that in an open cupboard in a drawing-room which the veriest tyro in housebreaking could so easily enter—preposterous!”

“Do you know any of the dozen men in London you refer to, sir?” inquired Cherry.

MR. SPELWYN affected not to hear this direct question; anyway, he didn't answer it. Instead he pointed to the interview with Miss Ellingham.

“The name of this ware is wrongly spelled there,” he said. “It should be K'ang-hsi—instead of what it is.”

“I'm afraid I'm not much concerned with the spelling, sir,” remarked Cherry, laughing. “Chinese orthography—”

“Just so, just so!” said Mr. Spelwyn. “Well, I'd better tell you what I promised your people I would tell—I think, more than probably, it has something to do with this affair at Middlebourne Grange. You know, of course, that I am a collector of this sort of thing, and an expert in Chinese porcelain. Well, about, I think, three weeks ago, I was waited on by a man who came to inquire if I cared to buy a genuine K'ang-hsi vase, and if I did, what I would give for it? I asked him at once what he would ask for such a vase, and I knew by his answer that he knew what he was talking about—he wanted seven thousand pounds. So I made short work of him; I told him that if he had such a vase to offer, I should be glad to see it, and we could discuss the price and everything else when he placed it before me. He went off—and I never heard more of him.”

“Will you describe that man, sir?” suggested Cherry.

“To be sure! I took particular stock of him,” replied Mr. Spelwyn. “A big, round-faced, clean-shaven man, very smooth-tongued, plausible, and polite in an old-fashioned way—well-dressed and prosperous-looking. I formed the opinion that he had at some time of his life seen something of the East. As I say, he never returned; and I have thought since that he may have called on me, knowing me to be an expert, just to hear what I had to say when he named seven thousand pounds as the price of the vase he spoke of.”

“And you said nothing?” remarked Cherry.

“Nothing beyond what I have told you,” replied Mr. Spelwyn.

We went away soon after that; and outside the house, Cherry turned to me with a shake of his head.

“Ben, my friend!” he said, “that big round-faced, clean-shaven man with the smooth tongue and polite manners, is your Uncle Joseph! Seems so to me, anyhow, from your description of him. I wonder if he got hold of Miss Ellingham's vase that night he was away from your house—and if that man Cousins had anything to do with the actual theft? But—who strangled Cousins and tied him up to that old gibbet-post? Nice tangle! Well, let's get some lunch, and then we'll take the afternoon train to Middlebourne and go on with our work there.”

“The envelope?” I suggested.

“Exactly, Ben!” he assented. “We've got to find out whose handwriting it is that figures on that envelope. Uncle Joseph had some correspondent at Middlebourne—who was, or is, he? That's my next job, and the sooner I get to it the better.”

BUT when we reached Middlebourne, toward the end of that Sunday afternoon, we found a new development awaiting us. Veller saw us walking down the street and called us into his cottage. With his usual slowness of speech, he did no more than invite us to be seated when we entered, and himself sat down too, spreading his big hands over his waistcoat, twiddling his thumbs and grinning at us; his wife, in her Sunday best, was just making ready to go to her chapel down the street, and until she had departed and closed the door behind her, Veller continued to twiddle and to grin. But there was that in his grin which suggested things.

“Well? You've got something to tell, Veller!” remarked Cherry. “The Missus is off now—out with it!”

Veller grinned more widely than ever, glanced at the door, glanced at me, leaned forward, and sank his voice to a tone which indicated his sense of mystery.

“That there Tom Scripture,” he whispered, “'tis along of him!”

He nodded, once, twice, thrice after delivering himself of this; and Cherry stared from him to me, and back again.

“Who's Tom Scripture?” he asked. “And what's along of him?”

“He means Tom Scripture, the fisherman,” said I. “He lives down our lane. What about Tom, Veller?”

Veller summoned his wits.

“Tom Scripture,” he answered, “he come along home from the fishing-banks yesterday—been out there, in the Channel, a matter of nights and days. And he was in the Spotted Cow last night and heard the news o' this affair at Gallowstree Point. And when he'd had a pint or two, or maybe three, said—so I'm informed—that he could say something about that there, and would when the right time and the right man came along! And no more—not then, anyhow.”

“Well—haven't you been at him?” asked Cherry.

“Went round this morning,” replied Veller. “I see him after his breakfast. He allowed he'd said what he was reported to have said. And would stand to it, too! But wouldn't say nothing to me. 'London police is my mark!' he said. 'I aint going to tell nothing to nobody but London police! Bring me a London police,' he says, 'and I'll give him vallyble information. But no less!' So I left him—till you came back. Him having heard there was a Scotland Yard man, though a young 'un, on the job, though away for the time being, so to speak! And what it is that Tom Scripture can tell, I don't know. But judging from his manner, I should say—something.”

Cherry jumped out of his chair and said:

“Come on! Where's this chap live?”

WE found Tom Scripture leaning over the fence of his garden, in his Sunday garments, smoking his pipe. He was a tough-faced seafaring person, more given to silence than to speech, and he looked Cherry well over from top to toe before he condescended to say anything—indeed, I think he was only moved to open his lips by the production of Cherry's official card, which, being presented to him, he turned over and over in his great fingers as if it were a charm or a talisman. But he spoke, looking from one to the other of us, his three visitors.

“This here it is, young man,” he said, waving his short pipe as if about to beat time with it. “You being a Scotland Yarder, though uncommon juvenile, but still one, and armed, as they say, with what they call creedentials, and me not going to tell nothing to nobody but what is such, and no other, London police being, as you might say, more fitted to deal with these matters o' life and death than country bobbies—and no disrespeck to you, Veller, what's a friendly neighbor. But last Wednesday morning, before sunrise, I was a-going out with my boat, to the banks, for two or three days' fishing, when, as I sails down the creek there toward the bar, I sees something what was unusual—uncommon so! The which was a man, a-standing as still as a graven image on them rocks at Fliman's End!”

“How far were you away from him?” asked Cherry.

“A mile and a bit, maybe,” replied Scripture. “But I carries a good glass—a ship's glass what I bought, a bargain, years ago, on the Hard, at Kingshaven. And I claps it to my eye and takes an observation. And I sees him plain—a big, fine-built man, in dark-colored shore-clothes. He stands on them rocks, as if looking round; then he comes down and walks about a bit. And then I see something else; there was a boat drawed up on the beach, maybe fifty yards away, in front o' the rocks. Now, I never heard of no stranger and no boat being there, at Fliman's End, at that time of a morning: Take my solemn 'davy that there feller weren't up to no good—and was summun as hasn't nothing to do with these parts, neither.”

“You didn't do anything—hail him, or anything of that sort?” suggested Cherry.

“Nothin', master! Me and my son, young Tom, we see him and the boat, and takes a good look at 'em, and wonders, and goes about our own business,” answered Scripture. “But—that there man weren't up to no good, I repeats! What call had he there, I asks you?”

Cherry said gravely that he'd think that very important question well over, and presently he and I went away to our house, so that he might redeem his promise to Keziah and deliver me up to her safe and sound. He appeared to be much more impressed by Scripture's story than I was.

“Ben,” he said suddenly as we neared our garden gate, “that sounds like your precious Uncle Joseph! A big, fine-built man in dark-colored shore-clothes, eh? And this was not long after Uncle Joseph had quietly slipped out of your house. But Ben—there's a devil of a mystery in something that Scripture told us. Ben, what about the boat?”

CHAPTER XI

The Fish-Bag

FOR all my recent experiences, I was not yet up to the subtle workings of the detective mind, and when Cherry said this, I turned and stared at him in blank wonder.

“The boat?” I exclaimed. “Why, what of it? And which boat, Mr. Cherry?”

“There's only one boat in question, my lad!” he answered. “The boat that Tom Scripture says he saw drawn up on the beach at Fliman's End. He saw a boat there, and he saw a man! Now, we suppose—I suppose, anyhow!—the man to have been your strangely behaving uncle, Mr. Joseph Krevin. I think Mr. Krevin went to Fliman's End, for purposes of his own, when he left your house during Tuesday night—that is, early on Wednesday morning. He left his Zetterquist & Vanderpant brandy bottle—empty, Ben!—there, anyway, in the cave. Yes, I feel sure Uncle Joseph was the big man in dark-colored clothes whom Tom Scripture saw through his very good glass, bought, a bargain, on the Hard at Kingshaven. But if he was—how did Uncle Joseph get the boat there?”

“Can't follow you!” I said. “I don't see what you mean!”

“You don't see why he shouldn't have a boat there?” he remarked, laughing. “But now let your mind go back to what we saw when we went there with Veller, and the boy and girl. We saw one set of footprints in the sand, Ben, the smooth, untouched sand, above high-water mark, and those prints led from the cave to the edge of the beach at that mark—to where the sands are no longer dry, but wet from regular washing of the tides. From the cave, mind you! But nothing to the cave! Now, supposing Uncle Joseph, when he left your house in the early morning, had appropriated somebody's boat here in the creek—there are plenty of small boats about, as we can see at this moment; there they are!—and had pulled himself round to Fliman's End, beaching his boat while he went up to the cave, there'd have been a track across those sands to the cave! But there wasn't! And that leads me to think—what I've thought all along,” he concluded with sudden abruptness. “Just that!”

“And that is—what?” I asked.

“That when Krevin left your house he went to Fliman's End to keep a previously made appointment!” he answered sharply. “Cut-and-dried affair, my lad! Somebody came to meet him there—with a boat. Why?”

“Tom Scripture said nothing about seeing any man in the boat, or about it,” said I. “If there'd been a man in charge of it—”

“Scripture mayn't have seen him—evidently didn't see him,” he interrupted. “The man may have been sitting in the boat, waiting until Krevin went down to him; he even may have been lying down in the boat, asleep. But that's how I figure it, Ben—somebody took a boat to Fliman's End that morning to meet Uncle Joseph, and took Uncle Joseph away from Fliman's End in that boat, and that somebody must have been a somebody belonging to these parts! That's flat! And again I say—who?”

“Supposing the boat had come off from a ship—outside the bar?” I suggested.

“I think not, Ben,” he answered. “Tom Scripture sailed his craft outside the bar, and if he'd seen any vessel hanging about there, he'd have told us. No, it's pretty much what I've been thinking all through: if Krevin and the dead man, Cousins, were fellow-conspirators in the Kang-he vase affair, as I'm sure they were, I think they'd a third accomplice. And who the devil he may be licks me altogether, so far—though he's probably the man whose handwriting is on the envelope I've got! However, here we are at your place—and there's your good sister, looking out for us.”

KEZIAH was at the door of our house, gazing along the lane, her hand shading the sun from her eyes. At sight of us she retreated indoors, and when we presently walked in, she was doing just what I knew she would be doing—making the tea. She gave us an admonitory look.

“You're late!” she said. “You should have been here half an hour ago. I knew what time that London train came in, and how long it would take you to walk down from the station, and I had tea ready to the minute—all but making the tea. And I want mine—it's already long past my regular hour!”

“It's very kind of you to have tea ready at all, ma'am,” said Cherry. “We'd have hurried if we'd known, but we found some highly important business awaiting us, and had to attend to it. Well, here's Ben, home again, safe and sound, and in the best of health and spirits, ma'am—and I hope we find you so?”

Keziah muttered something about having a deal to try her spirits, and bade us seat ourselves. She was very silent while we ate and drank, and she asked no questions about our trip to London, and as she was naturally inquisitive and liked to turn everybody's mind inside out about such things, I felt sure that something had happened during my absence. But I knew her better than to ask questions; Keziah had taught me from childhood that it is a foolish thing to hurry other folks' cattle, and I waited, sure that whatever was on her mind would come out. And out it came, when Cherry had protested that he couldn't eat another mouthful nor drink another drop—and it came, too, in a flood.

“Then if you've both done, I'll tell you something that's been on my soul ever since within an hour of Ben's going out of that door yesterday morning!” she exclaimed. “And a nice thing, too, for any respectable Christian woman as has always been proud of her family to have to keep to herself for a day and a night and a day beyond that! Such wickedness and goings-on! I marvel that some sinners has the impudence to show their brazen faces at honest peoples' doors, let alone ask to sleep in their beds!”

“What's the matter, ma'am?” inquired Cherry, quietly kicking me under the table. “You've evidently made some discovery?”

“And I should think I have made a discovery!” retorted Keziah, with one of her characteristic snorts. “And it's not so much what it is in itself, as the discoveries that'll spring out of it! And in my best bedroom, too, of all places—the very chamber in which my father and mother looked their last on this wicked world and went to a better—couldn't be worse, anyway!—and their father and mother, on the father's side, at least, before them, for that matter! Scandalous, I call it!”

“And the precise nature, ma'am?” asked Cherry, solicitously and at the same time giving me another sly kick. “Something that upset you, I'm afraid?”

“And who wouldn't have been upset?” demanded Keziah, almost fiercely. “Everybody in this neighborhood knows that we Heckitts—and we've been in this house two hundred years, and in this parish for twice as long, as you may see from the gravestones in the churchyard—have always been of the highest respectability; there's naught common about us! And when I find things in my own best bedroom that suggests untold wickedness—but of course you don't understand what I'm talking about,” she broke off impatiently. “You see, after Ben, there, had gone away yesterday morning, I decided I'd clear out that best bedroom; it hadn't been cleared out since he,”—she spoke the personal pronoun with intense scorn and bitterness, and we both knew that she referred to Uncle Joseph Krevin,—“since he slept in it! So when I'd done my various jobs down here, I went up and set to work. But I never did any work, for I hadn't been five minutes in that room before I discovered what I'm now going to show you—and you can draw your own conclusions from it!”

WE followed Keziah upstairs to the best bedroom. I saw at once what preparations she had made for beginning a grand clean-up. The window curtains were looped; the valances were turned up round the bed; newspapers and dust-cloths were laid over the furniture; a sweeping-brush leaned against a wall, and a dustpan lay at the end of the shaft, unused. But there everything had come to a sudden stop; whatever it was that Keziah had discovered, the discovery had taken all the heart out of her. And as she had a veritable passion for cleaning and dusting, being what they call house-proud, I knew that Keziah must have received a pretty smart shock.

The dressing-table in that room was draped with figured muslin, spread over a glazed linen cover—I remember how it used to crackle if you kicked against it. It crackled now as Keziah went straight to and tipped it, revealing, underneath, as commonplace an article as you could think of—a bass-matting fish-basket! It was the sort of thing that you can see by the dozen, hanging in any fishmonger's shop, or thrown away, a cheap thing, soon done with, on refuse-heaps. I saw, too, as it lay there, a derelict object, where it had come from—there were black letters on its side: “Shardham, Fish, Game, & Poultry Dealer, Kingshaven.” And it was obviously empty.

“You look at that now! Take it in your hand!” exclaimed Keziah indignantly. “The very idea of that being left in my best sleeping-chamber! Shameful!”

I think Cherry, who by that time was looking more puzzled than I had ever seen him during the course of these bewilderments, began to have some notion that there was either an infernal machine in the fish-bag, or that it contained some ancient crab or possibly defunct lobster whose presence would naturally be objectionable to any self-respecting housewife. Anyway, he approached the exhibit with diffidence, and took hold of its looped handle gingerly, looking doubtfully at Keziah as he did so. But nothing exploded, and there was certainly no obnoxious odor—and his wonder grew greater.

“Yes ma'am?” he said innocently. “I see this bag—a fish-bag, evidently. It—it appears to be empty, ma'am!”

“Empty!” snorted Keziah. “Aye, I dare say—but not so empty as you'd think, young man! Now, come! Didn't you show me the other night some bits of shavings—packing stuff—that you'd picked up on the carpet in Miss Ellingham's drawing-room? Of course you did! I remember 'em. Now you look into that fish-bag!”

WITH a sudden gleam of intelligence Cherry drew the mouth of the bag open, and he and I looked inside. There, sticking to the rough sides of the matting, were, without doubt, bits, odds and ends of shavings, the thin, wiry stuff that pots and glasses are packed in. He uttered an exclamation as he drew some loose ends out and laid them carefully on the smooth pediment of the mahogany-mounted mirror. But before he could do more, Keziah had her hand on his arm, twisting him round toward the old-fashioned four-poster bed.

“And look here!” she said, pointing to the floor near the bedside. “There's more of that stuff—shreds of it, dropped on my carpet! And though I'm not a detective, I can put two and two together as well and as quickly as any man Jack of you! Those shavings are identical with those that you brought away in your pocketbook from that drawing-room at the Grange! And when Joseph Krevin came in here that night on which he disappeared, he had that vase with the foreigneering name with him, in that fish-bag, packed in those shavings; and as sure as my name's Keziah Heckitt, he transferred it to his own bag in this room, and threw the fish-bag under my dressing-table—the dishonest ne'er-do-good that he is! And if I'm not right, then three and four don't make seven—so there!”

Cherry had taken out his pocketbook. Silently he produced from it an envelope in which he had carefully stored the bits of stuff he had picked up on Miss Ellingham's drawing-room carpet, and compared its contents with the shavings gathered from our own, and from the fish-bag.

“Of course!” sniffed Keziah. “Anybody with half an eye could see they're identical. Joseph Krevin's had to do with the theft of that Chinese pot! And I'll warrant that that's the first time that this house was ever disgraced by having stolen property brought into it—shameful!”

Cherry remarked soothingly that no stigma would rest upon the house because of Uncle Joseph Krevin's evil doings, but Keziah refused to be comforted, and she stalked downstairs to wash up the tea-things.

LEFT alone in the best bedroom, Cherry and I looked at each other.

“I think she put two and two together quite successfully, Ben!” he said. “There's not much doubt that Krevin brought the vase here when he came in that night. But that other man—Cousins! What part did he play? What was he doing at Gallowstree Point? Who murdered him? Was it one man—or two?”

“Could one man, with nobody to help him, have tied another up to a post, as he was tied?” I answered, conscious of a gruesome recollection of what Keziah and I had witnessed. “If you'd only seen it—”

“I know—I know!” he said. “Veller gave me one full description—Captain Marigold treated me to another. Yes, I suppose one man could—if he first got a rope round his victim's neck. But why? What was the motive? And I'm wondering, Ben, if that precious uncle of yours knew anything about that murder before you and your sister came back to tell him?”

He went over to the window, and drawing the curtain aside, looked out on the creek and on Gallowstree Point. The creek was glowing in the last light of the weakening sun; it looked very peaceful and beautiful in the evening calm. But the rocky promontory at the Point was dark and forbidding as ever, and the old gallows-post, with its fingerlike arm and the iron cage-lantern swinging from it, stood up against the white surf-line at the bar, a black and sinister patch on the quiet scene.

“I don't know whether he did or not,” I said. “All I know is that it gave him what Keziah calls a turn when we did tell him. He crumpled up—and I had to get his brandy-bottle out of his bag.”

“You opened the bag—yourself?” he asked quickly. “What was in it, Ben—not the Kang-he vase, of course—then.”

“I saw all that was in it,” I answered. “There was precious little. Some socks, handkerchiefs, a collar or two, and the brandy-bottle. He was wearing his pajamas, and his brush and comb were on the dressing-table.”

“Would there have been room in that bag, when he'd put those things in, for the vase as well—packed in shavings?” he inquired.

“Plenty!” said I. “It was a roomy bag—an old, well-worn one.”

CHERRY was collecting the shavings as he talked; and presently, having put the fish-bag in a drawer, we went downstairs, and after a word or two with Keziah, who was still in a state of high indignation at Uncle Joseph's temerity in using her best bedroom as a receptacle for stolen goods, we went out and up to the village, Cherry being intent on finding out if they knew anything at the post office of the handwriting on the envelope which we had found in the lodgings at Calthorpe Street. I posted him up, on the way, about the keeping of the post office. Mrs. Apps and her daughter Nellie kept it; they received and dispatched all the telegrams, too; in fact, they did everything, and there was no one in the neighborhood more likely to identify the handwriting of any inhabitant of Middlebourne. But neither Mrs. Apps nor Nellie, whom we found about to sit down to that very important meal, Sunday supper, recognized the writing which Cherry laid before them as that of any person known to them. It was not a common style of writing, however, but rather of a peculiar nature, and both mother and daughter considered it for some time as if it awoke some recollection in them.

“If I've ever seen that writing before, Mister,” said Mrs. Apps at length, “it's been on a telegram. Somehow, I've a notion that I have seen it, but when I couldn't say. And if I have, that's where it's been.”

“You don't send many telegrams from here, do you?” asked Cherry.

“A good many more than anybody would think,” replied Mrs. Apps. “You see, this telegraph office serves three villages. And nowadays you'd be surprised how those motorists call in and send telegrams—you see, we're on the roadside, and it's handy for them; we've a lot of telegraphic business that way.”

“Well, you keep your telegrams, don't you?” suggested Cherry. “Just so. Can't you kindly look them over, and see if you haven't got any in a handwriting resembling that?”

Mrs. Apps promised that she would do this, and we left the envelope with her and went away. Outside the Apps cottage we parted—Cherry to go to his lodgings at the village inn, and I to repair homeward, where Keziah was no doubt waiting to catechize me about London.

However, I was not to come under her catechetical powers just then; as I walked down our lane, I saw Miss Ellingham's butler, Carsie, coming along on the other side, as if returning from a Sunday evening stroll. He was very prim and proper in his attire, and he wore a silk hat and primrose-colored kid gloves. And at sight of me he hesitated for a moment, and then came across the roadway, plainly desirous of speech.

CHAPTER XII

The Pink and Mauve Pajamas

I SHOULD have been hard put to it to explain the exact why-and-wherefore, but I was conscious of a feeling as regards Carsie that I didn't like him. It was little I had ever seen of him, to be sure—twice or thrice at the Grange, in his mistress' presence, and now and then in the village street; but there was something in his soft gait and his subdued manner of talking that made me think of things, animals, that slink. However, there was nothing slinking in his present approach; he came up confidently enough, and his first words were almost affectionate in their tone.

“Good evening, Mr. Ben!” he said. “A nice evening, sir! Glad to see you out and about again; this summer air will do you good after your long spell indoors.”

I thanked him for his politeness, and stood looking at him, a bit awkwardly, and secretly wishing that he would go on his way. But he seemed inclined to linger, and more than that, to talk.

“Any more news about these extraordinary mysteries, Mr. Ben?” he asked, with a glance which was plainly intended to suggest that whatever conversation might ensue was to be regarded as strictly confidential. “We hear next to nothing across there at the Grange; you're more in the thick of things down here by the village.”

“I know of nothing very definite,” I answered.

He nodded, and began making holes in the turf at our feet with the ferrule of his neatly rolled umbrella.

“Well, it's as queer a business as ever I heard of in my life, Mr. Ben!” he remarked. “And I've seen a bit of the world—and some out-of-the-way bits, too! Of course, what most interests me is the burglary—that, I suppose, is what the police would call it—at our place. To be sure,—between you and me, you know,—I think my mistress laid herself open to that! If that Chinese vase is worth all that she now says it is—why, it was practically inviting burglars to come and take it when she let its picture and its situation in our drawing-room be advertised in a paper! There'll be swell mobsmen in London, no doubt, that specialize in that sort of thing. Of course, I never had the least idea that the vase was in any way valuable—no more than any other old ornament of its sort! Seems remarkable, Mr. Ben, that a bit of a thing like that should be worth—thousands of pounds, I understand?”

“It's because of its rarity,” I answered. “I don't suppose there are many like it, in England, anyhow.”

“Just so—I suppose that's it,” he assented. “I've no knowledge of that sort of thing myself. But those two little images, now, that went at the same time, Mr. Ben? Do you think,—you'll have had opportunities of hearing things that I haven't,—do you think, now, that they'd be worth anything? Anything handsome, I mean, of course.”

“Can't say, Mr. Carsie,” I replied. “I've no means of knowing.”

He nodded again, as if fully accepting my statement, and went on punching holes in the turf.

“Just so—just so!” he said. “Well, it's an odd thing, Mr. Ben, and perhaps what should be called a coincidence, that those little images—ugly things they are, too!—had only been there in that cabinet cupboard a day or two when they were stolen! I saw the mistress put them there myself. She was dusting out that cabinet one day when I was in the drawing-room, and she says, all of a sudden: 'That shelf would do with something more on it, I think, Carsie,' she says. 'And I believe I've got the very things locked up somewhere.' And she went out of the room and presently came back with those two images, and put them in the cabinet, one on each side that Chinese vase. 'That looks better,' she said, as if she admired the effect. Couldn't see it myself, you know, Mr. Ben—foul and loathsome objects, I call those figures, one of 'em particularly.”

“I never saw them,” said I, seeing him pause for my opinion.

“Well, they're not in accordance with what you may style English taste,” he continued. “One of 'em—why, it had ever so many heads and arms—a monstrosity, I call it! And t'other had some animal's head instead of a human being's! But there's no accounting for taste, and of course the mistress has lived in India, and she's used to seeing such objects, no doubt. However, there was a queer thing happened that day she put these images in the open cabinet, Mr. Ben. I chanced to go into the drawing-room that afternoon while the mistress was playing lawn-tennis with young Mr. Bryce in the garden, and lo and behold, there was that Indian fellow, Mandhu Khan, a-worshiping of those images! Fact, Mr. Ben! Anyway, he was bending down in front of 'em, making queer motions with his hands and arms; it gave me quite a turn! Made me think of a line of Mr. Kipling's poetry, which I'm partial to:

The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone—

“It fairly did, Mr. Ben! And in an English drawing-room too—things with as many heads as one of these three-headed calves you read about in the papers!”

HE shook his own head and its smart silk hat, sorrowfully, as if Miss Ellingham's taste in heathen images was not in keeping with the best traditions, and then suddenly tapped my arm with an extended forefinger.

“But I'll tell you what I think, Mr. Ben!” he exclaimed. “I think the whole thing has been the work of a smart London gang, and that that man who was found scragged at the gallowstree there was one of 'em! I think they quarreled over their loot, as they call it, and two of 'em did for the third. And what may the police be thinking about it, Mr. Ben—you'll have heard things, no doubt?”

Fortunately for me, Keziah came to our garden gate just then, and loudly demanded my presence at the supper-table, and with a hasty remark to the butler that I didn't know what the official police mind was on the subject, I made my excuses and left him. And after supper I went early to bed, being tired with my adventures, and if I dreamed that night, it was rather of the wonders of London than of Chinese vases and Indian images. But these came back to me next morning, and I was puzzling my head about them as I lounged the time away—I was still regarded as a convalescent—on the beach in front of our house when Pepita Marigold came along.

Pepita, who spent most of her time running wild out of doors, was as unconcerned and gay of heart as ever. But I wasn't—I had a crow to pull with her. And I tried to look at her as a severe judge might look at a criminal arraigned before him in the dock. Unfortunately, Pepita was one of those people at whom you can't look in that way—for very long, at any rate. She came up to where I sat on the edge of a turned-up boat, and dropped down beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world that we should sit side by side.

“Hello, Ben!” she exclaimed. “I wondered if I'd find you about. You've been to London, haven't you, Ben—come along, tell about it!”

But I made an effort to preserve my severity of countenance.

“Pepita,” I said, “I've got something to say to you! Didn't you promise me you'd be my girl, Pepita? You know you did!”

She gave me a half-demure, half-roguish glance out of her eye-corners, from under her thick eyelashes, and whether of set purpose or not, moved her slim figure appreciably nearer on the edge of the boat.

“Well, I haven't said I'm not, Ben, have I?” she answered in a wheedling voice. “Don't be horrid—tell about London!”

“No!” I said firmly. “You've been going about with Bryce Ellingham, Pepita! And I'm not going to have my girl going about with anybody! If you knew anything about the law, Pepita, you'd know that a verbal contract—”

She slipped her hand inside my arm and gave it a squeeze.

“Oh, Ben!” she murmured. “I don't know anything at all about verbal contracts, and I don't care two pins about Bryce Ellingham—he's a mere kid! And I do want to know about London and what you did there. Don't be a beast, Ben, and I'll be your girl more than ever! Let's go for a nice walk somewhere—be good, now!”

THERE was no resisting Pepita, when her eyes got to work and her voice became cooing, and I fell an immediate victim and let her lead me off. We went across the fields toward Wreddlesham, a place half-town, half-village, that lay on the coast to the east of Middlebourne, some two miles from Middlebourne Grange. It got its name from a little river, the Wreddle, that came down from the hills some distance inland, and after many windings, ran into the sea between two clifflike promontories, beneath the eastern one of which Wreddlesham itself lay, a queer, ramshackle collection of old houses and cottages grouped about an ancient church and a ruinous tide-mill. Once upon a time Wreddlesham had been of some importance, but it had gradually fallen into decay, and now looked as hopeless and forlorn as any scarecrow of the fields: its trade had gone; half its houses were empty; and it was a rare thing to see a vessel tied up to either of its slowly rotting wharves.

Our walk through the meadows, which proved entirely satisfactory, and reëstablished a proper understanding between us on the subject of my strict proprietorship of her charms, brought Pepita and myself out on the western of the two cliffs between which the Wreddle ran into the sea. There were two or three cottages on that cliff, fishermen's cottages, and we sat down on the turf near one, in the full blaze of the sun and sweep of the wind. And we had not been sitting there five minutes before I saw something that made me jump to my feet with a suddenness that startled Pepita into following my example.

“What is it?” she exclaimed.

I laid a hand on her shoulder and turned her toward one of the cottages—an isolated building near the edge of the cliff. On a wide expanse of headland at its side a quantity of washing was hung out on lines to dry; the various articles flapped loudly in the breeze.

“Pepita!” said I in my most solemn tones. “Do you see that?”

“See what?” she asked. “Washing? Of course I do! What about it?”

“Pepita,” I continued still more gravely, “if I show you something, you'll just keep the knowledge of it to yourself till I give you leave to speak! Washing—yes! But what sort of washing? Now, Pepita, look there—follow my finger! Do you see a suit of pajamas in pink and mauve stripes—a very grand suit? You do? Very well, Pepita, as sure as I'm a living man, that's Uncle Joseph Krevin's!”

PEPITA let out a gasp of astonishment. She knew pretty nearly everything about Uncle Joseph and his doings at Middlebourne, and I had told her during our walk as much as I thought it good for her to know about our discoveries concerning him in London.

“Are—are you sure, Ben?” she asked in almost awe-stricken tones. “His?”

“Dead certain!” I declared. “His! Those are the very things he was wearing when Keziah and I went up to his room to tell him about the murder. Pink and mauve stripes! I know 'em!”

“But I dare say there are a lot of pink-and-mauve pajamas about,” she remarked. “You see them in the shops at Kingshaven.”

“Yes, and you see blue and white, and red and yellow, and green and scarlet, and all sorts of colors!” said I. “But those are Uncle Joseph Krevin's, as sure as I'm a living man! And I'm going a bit nearer to have a look at them—they might have his name, or at any rate his initials, on them. Come along!”

We stole nearer the lines on which the washing was hung out; eventually we got close to the garments in which I took such interest. And I let out an exclamation which was meant to indicate a sense of triumph.

“There, what did I tell you!” I said, pointing to a label inside the waistband. “Look at that!”

Pepita looked, and shook her head.

“I don't see that that proves anything, she remarked. “It says 'Remnant, Outfitter, Southampton Row, London.' Well—what's that?”

“You don't draw conclusions as I do, Pepita,” said I. “Of course, you can't be expected to—you haven't had the experience. And you don't know London. Now, if you did, you'd know that Calthorpe Street, where Uncle Joseph lodges, is within a few minutes' walk of Southampton Row. See? Oh, it's as plain as that flagstaff! But where is Uncle Joseph, that his pajamas should be flopping about here?”

A WOMAN came out of the cottage close by. She carried a big wicker basket, and was evidently going to collect the things already dried. She came along the line, gathering them in, until she was close to us—we had by that time perched ourselves on a convenient mass of rock that cropped out from the turf. She was a good-natured looking woman, a fisherman's wife, I thought, and I bade her good-day in order to get into conversation with her.

“A grand morning for drying clothes!” I remarked as she busied herself. “Just the right sort of wind.”

“Oh, they're dry in no time, a morning like this,” she answered. “What with the wind and the sun, they're no trouble at all.”

I pointed my stick at the pajamas, which she was just then taking down and laying away in her basket.

“Bit of finery, there!” I said jokingly. “You could see them a mile off!”

““Aye, they're pretty gay!” she assented laughingly. “They belong to a London gentleman, those, that's stopping at the Shooting Star—I do a bit o' washing for folks that they have there now and then. Of course, some gentlemen like these new-fangled things, and some likes the old-fashioned nightgown—it's all a question of taste.”

I agreed with her; and presently, her basket filled, she went back to her cottage. I turned on Pepita.

“Did you hear that?” I exclaimed. “They belong to a London gentleman, stopping at the Shooting Star! Pepita, that London gentleman is my undesirable relative Uncle Joseph Krevin! Sure and certain!”

Pepita looked at me with admiring eyes.

“Ben,” she said, “why don't you go in for being a detective? I think you'd be an awful good hand! And it's a lot more exciting than sitting in a law-office.”

“No!” I answered sternly. “Don't you tempt me, Pepita! I dare say I'd do awfully well as a detective; I'm beginning to learn a lot about it, and how it's done. But I've been destined for the law ever since I was twelve years old, and I'm going to have a career in it, Pepita—never you fear! Still, there's no harm in doing a bit of detective work now and then, and I'm going to do a bit now. Come on, to the edge of the cliff.”

PEPITA followed me to where the promontory sank sheer down to the ravine through which the little river ran to the sea. Below us, on the other bank, lay Wreddlesham, dead-alive as a decaying place can be. But I looked little at its red roofs and gray walls; all my attention was given to the Shooting Star, a big, rambling old inn that stood between the eastern wharf and the village. It had once been a house of some importance, but it was quiet enough now, and from where we stood, looking down on it, there was not a sign of life to be seen about it, save for a dog that lay basking in the sunlight before its front door.

“Pepita,” I said, suddenly, “I'm going into the Shooting Star, to see if I can see or hear of Uncle Joseph! Come on! You can look round the wharf while I go in. I'll get a glass of ale and keep my eyes open while I'm drinking it.”

“You don't think there's any danger, Ben?” she asked as we began to descend the cliff. “You're all alone, you know.”

“You have to run risks at this business,” I replied loftily. “I'm not afraid of running one now. And I'm pretty cute, you know, Pepita.”

We crossed the Wreddle by an old wooden bridge at the top of the little harbor, and strolled down to the wharf in front of the inn as if we were loafers, idling about. And after a while, leaving Pepita seated on a pile of old planks near an ancient bulk left high and dry on the beach, I went off to the Shooting Star. There was a door just within its big, empty hall labeled “Bar Parlor;” I pushed it open and stuck my inquisitive head into the opening.

CHAPTER XIII

The Result of Vainglory

THE room was empty—empty of human presence, anyway. I saw at the first glance that it was a shabby, faded place, in keeping with all that one could see of the house itself, from the outside. The matting on the floor was worn and in holes; the furniture was qualified for a second-hand shop; here and there the wall-paper hung in ribbons. There was a bar on one side, and some shelves behind it, but neither showed much evidence of trade; the stock of bottles on the shelves was negligible. Nevertheless there was an aroma of stale beer and inferior spirits, mingled with the smell of rank tobacco, and a couple of recently used glasses on the counter showed that somebody had been in the room not long before.

I went in and looked around more narrowly, intent on discovering any possible sign of Uncle Joseph Krevin's temporary residence in this derelict hostelry. And before I had been across the threshold a moment, I found one—an unmistakable one, too. There was a shabby writing-table in one of the windows, and on its ledge I saw a tobacco pipe which I knew to be Uncle Joseph's property—I had seen him smoking it at our house. It was a pipe of peculiar shape, with a square instead of a rounded bowl, and it had a perforated-silver top to it. I picked it up—the bowl was faintly warm. I judged from that—putting two and two together in the approved detective fashion—that my precious kinsman was somewhere about. But as I laid the pipe back in its place, I made a second discovery, and I saw at once that it was equally important with the first—Cherry, perhaps, might have considered it more important. There was a cheap, uncorked bottle of ink on the dusty writing-table, and a much-corroded steel pen near it, and on a loose sheet of ancient blotting-paper, an envelope, addressed to some wine-and-spirits firm. It needed but a glance at it to assure me that the handwriting was identical with that which I had seen on the envelope found in Uncle Joseph's lodgings in Calthorpe Street. There was no doubt about that—I was as certain of it as if I had had the two envelopes before me, side by side.

I think it was at that particular point that I said farewell to common sense and calm judgment. What I ought to have done was to go quietly away and tell Cherry of my discoveries. But I was young and impulsive and anxious to distinguish myself—perhaps I wanted to show Pepita how very clever I was. I think I had a notion of bringing the whole thing to a dramatic climax there and then, by my own unaided efforts. And instead of following Keziah's oft-repeated advice to count twenty before deciding on any important step, I rushed on my fate, beginning the rush by going out again to the front of the inn and beckoning Pepita to come to me at the door. Pepita came, diffident, wide-eyed, wondering.

“What is it, Ben?” she demanded. “You look as if you'd found something!”

“I have!” said I in a whisper intended to convey a world of meaning. “Something that'll surprise you—and everybody! Look here—just do as I tell you. There's nobody about—come inside with me, and keep your ears and eyes open, and you'll see what happens. Come on!”

She looked at the unpromising frontage of the place with evident disfavor.

“Doesn't look very nice, Ben,” she objected. “If the people are as dirty as the house—”

“Never mind!” said I. “You'll be all right; I'll see to that! And it'll be better than a play! Follow me, now.”

I led her to the room which I had just left, and pointing her to the cleanest of the old chairs, knocked loudly on the counter of the bar. I knocked, still louder, three or four times, and got no answer. Then, just as I was thinking of exploring more of the house, a door at the back of the bar opened, and a man stood before us.

I took this man for the landlord, whose name, Charles Getch, I had already noticed on the signboard outside. He was not a nice-looking man. To begin with, there was something sinister about his face; to end with, he had a curious cast in his left eye. He was a big man, as big as Uncle Joseph, but more muscular—a man, I thought, of great strength. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, high above his elbow, and I noticed what powerful arms he possessed; it flashed across my mind that he had been, perhaps, a pugilist in his day. And there was nothing polite or welcoming about his manner; instead, he gave me a cold look and as coldly demanded what he could do for me.

“You can give me a bottle of Bass and another of lemonade, if you please,” I said. “I've knocked about a dozen times!”

“More or less—less, I think,” he answered coolly. “I heard you, my lad—but I was otherwise occupied, just then.”

I saw that I should get no advantage in any exchange of words with this man, and it nettled me. And as soon as I had got my beer and I had given Pepita the lemonade, I let off my heavy artillery in what I hoped would be a crushing broadside.

“Mr. Krevin in?” I demanded, laying down half a crown. “Mr. Joseph Krevin?”

He gave me a quick, inquiring glance as he picked up the coin, and his reply came sharp as my question.

“Nobody of that name here, young fellow!” he answered. “Don't know the name!”

He threw down my change, as if in defiance, and turning away from me, searched for a clean glass and got himself a drink from a bottle which, I noticed, he kept apart from the other small stock. That done, he thrust his hands in his trousers pockets and leaning against the door from which he had recently emerged, stared at me.

“I think Mr. Krevin is here,” said I. “In fact, I know he is! That's his pipe lying on the ledge, and I've just seen his pajamas, sent from here to be washed at the cottage on the cliff. And if you want to know more, I'm his nephew, and I want to see him—particularly!”

THE man's face was changing, swiftly, all the time I was speaking. When I mentioned and pointed to the pipe, he frowned; when I spoke of the pajamas, his eyes grew dark, as with sudden anger and vexation. But as soon as I mentioned my relationship, his face cleared in a queer, quick, mysterious fashion, and his manner became almost bland and his tongue silky-soft.

“Oh—you mean the gentleman from London that's doing a bit of fishing hereabouts,” he said. “Well, now, you might think it strange, but I'd never got his name—right, at any rate. Oh—and you're his nephew, eh? And what might your name be, now?”

“If he's about, tell him that Mr. Heckitt would like to see him,” I replied loftily. “He'll understand.”

He muttered something about believing the gentleman might be in the garden, or fishing on the river-bank at the back, and opening the door behind him, went off. I turned to Pepita.

“There, you see!” said I. “Nothing like insistence—and directness! And I shall adopt the same tone with Uncle Joseph, and ask him, straight out, what he's doing here.”

But Pepita shook her head. Somehow she seemed much less confident about things than I was.

“Ben!” she whispered, after a glance at the door through which the landlord had vanished. “Ben don't you think it's a very queer thing that your uncle should be here at all?”

I didn't grasp her meaning, and looked a query.

“Within a couple of miles of Middlebourne, where the police have been inquiring about his doings for some days?” she went on. “And you and Mr. Cherry looking for him, too! And this is a public-house, isn't it? Men must go in and out of here, every day—and how is it nobody's seen him?”

“Seems odd, certainly,” I agreed. “But then, Middlebourne people don't come this way; there's nothing to cross the river for. And you heard the landlord say that he didn't know his name—properly, at any rate. And again—he may be hiding here.”

“If he is,” said Pepita, “then that man who's just gone out knows about it, and is in some secret with him. Be careful, Ben—why not go outside?”

“Outside?” I asked. “Why outside?”

“So that we can run away if—well, if there's any sign of bother, or anything of that sort,” she replied. “Supposing—supposing your uncle doesn't want you to know he's here, and is angry because you've come—eh?”

“I'm not afraid of his anger,” I declared. “I've got the law behind me, Pepita! You don't know how powerful the law is! When a man's bucked by the law—”

BUT before I could enlarge on this topic, the landlord reappeared. This time he came in by the door which led to the hall. He smiled at us—and I'm not sure that his smile was not worse than his scowl.

“Come this way,” he said invitingly. “He'll be with you in a minute—quite a surprise, he says, to have a call. If you and the young lady'll follow me—”

We followed him, innocently enough. I remember glancing through the open front door as we passed it, and seeing the bright sunlight lying broad-spread on the wharf outside, and shining on the dancing river and the sea beyond; it would have been well for us if we had damned Uncle Joseph heartily and left him and his host to their devices and turned and fled while we had the chance! I think Pepita had this in mind, but she owned a certain quality, wholly feminine, of passive acquiescence in male projects, and she followed obediently—as I did, too. And Getch went ahead—down a long, vaultlike passage.

It was, as I think I have said, a big house—a real old-fashioned place that once upon a time, in the days when Wreddlesham was a port of importance, had doubtless done a great trade. We turned and twisted a good deal in following our guide, and if I had preserved a hap'orth of common sense, I should have gathered an idea of danger from more than one thing. We passed many rooms, the doors of which were open. But we did not see a single soul about the place, nor did we hear the sound of a human voice; the big house was strangely silent and solitary. Once I had a notion of going no farther, but the idea of confronting Uncle Joseph in dramatic fashion drove it away. And suddenly, at the end of a little passage which broke off from a bigger one, our guide threw open the door of a room and stood aside with a wave of his hand.

“Join you in a minute,” he said, fixing his queer eye on us. “Make yourselves at home!”

We walked into the room; he closed the door on us. I fancied—it may have been only fancy—that I heard him laugh as he did so. But there was no fancy about the next sound. It was that of a key turning in the lock—and it was followed the next instant by another—a bolt driven home into its staple.

And the next thing was a cry from Pepita—Pepita, trembling, and with one of her little brown hands clutching my arm.

“Ben! Oh, Ben! They've trapped us!”

THAT sobered me—as if a bucketful of ice-cold water had been thrown in my face. My grand notions of a dramatic climax went as a fluff of thistledown goes in the wind, and I suddenly saw what an arrant fool I was. Yet I put out a hand, mechanically, and tried the door—fast enough, that door was, solid as granite. I heard my heart beating as I turned to Pepita.

“Don't be frightened!” I said, feeling myself more afraid than I had ever felt in my life. “It—it can't last! He—they—perhaps they've locked us in while Uncle Joseph gets away; and in any case—”

“What, Ben?” she asked nervously as I paused in sheer perplexity. “What?”

“They can't lock us up here forever!” I asserted. “We shall be missed—”

“But nobody saw us come here!” she interrupted. “There wasn't a soul about when we came on the wharf outside—don't you remember?”

I remembered only too well. That outer bit of Wreddlesham was deserted enough, and I couldn't call to mind that we had seen a living soul since leaving the washing woman on the cliff. And she had retreated into her cottage before we turned away, and probably had no idea as to the direction we had afterwards taken. But I wasn't going to remind Pepita of that.

“It's impossible!” said I, endeavoring to answer what I took to be her meaning. “People can't be got rid of this way in these days. We shall soon be missed and looked for. Your father—and Keziah—and Cherry—and everybody—”

“It might take them days and days to find us,” she said. “Oh, Ben, is there no way of getting out?”

I had been looking round as we talked. The room into which Getch had ushered us was a fair-sized one, fitted up as a bed-sitting-room—that is, it contained a suite of old-fashioned furniture and had in one corner a queer old four-poster bed. But it had only one door and one window; the door I knew to be fast. And the window was fast, too—screwed down, I found on examining it, and fitted on its outside with thin but sufficiently strong bars of iron. The panes of glass in the casements were small; if I smashed one to fragments, the aperture was not big enough to creep through. And there was no way of attracting the attention of folk without, for immediately in front of the window, at about a yard and a half's distance, rose a high blank wall of gray stone, evidently the back of some barn, or stable, or warehouse.

“There's nothing for it but to wait,” I said. “And—it's all my fault! I never dreamed of this, Pepita!”

“Oh, never mind, Ben!” she answered quickly. “It's perhaps as you say—they've locked us up while they get away, and they'll send somebody to let us out. But—how long will that be?”

I KNEW no more than she did on that point. But my brain had been at work while I examined our surroundings, and I now knew a few things which I certainly hadn't known when we came, light-hearted and unsuspecting, across the river to fall into this booby-trap. One was that Uncle Joseph Krevin was in hiding here, and had probably been here ever since the night he left our house. Another was that Getch, the landlord (concerning whom I had been cudgeling my brains, with the result that I remembered having heard of him as a new-comer in our parts, who had only recently taken over the license of this house), was an associate of Uncle Joseph's and possibly a sharer in his misdeeds. And a third, which came to me in a sudden flash of illumination, was that the Shooting Star was the mysterious S. S. of the penciled card which Uncle Joseph had left with the landlady of the Crab and Lobster at Fishampton to be handed to Sol Cousins. Joseph Krevin, Sol Cousins, Charles Getch—that, no doubt, was the triumvirate. And we were safe in the clutches of two of them. For I had no doubt whatever that Uncle Joseph was under the roof of this half-deserted inn.

The time dragged by slowly. Because of the high wall in front of the window, the light was bad in that room. Neither Pepita nor I had a watch, and we did not know how the day was going. But judging by the time whereat we had entered the place, it must have been well past noon when we heard the bolt outside withdrawn, the key turned. The door was opened, just enough to admit a hard-faced, dour-looking woman who carried a tray; she had set it down on the table and was out of the room again before I could do anything; the door was relocked and bolted.

“Anyway, we're not to starve!” I said, trying to cheer up Pepita with a laugh. “Here's enough to eat and drink, at all events!”

The tray was well laden with food, plain but good. And being young and hungry, we ate and drank and tried to fancy it was a picnic. But then came the afternoon, and more weary waiting. We talked and talked—until we could talk no longer. And it must have been very near the first approach of evening when the door opened again and the sinister-looking landlord came in, followed immediately by the big bulk and smug countenance of Uncle Joseph Krevin.

CHAPTER XIV

Under Examination

MY first instinct, immediately followed out, was to spring to my feet in an attitude of readiness—my second, acted on in the same movement, to plant myself in front of Pepita. And at that, Uncle Joseph Krevin, for reasons best known to himself, held up a fat, disapproving hand.

“I'm surprised at you, Nephew Benjamin, acting as if there was any likelihood of harm coming to a young lady while I'm present!” he said in his most sanctimonious manner. “And sorry I am that the pretty miss should be put to any inconvenience, such as this here unfortunate state o' things! But all that comes through you, Benjamin, a-poking of your nose into matters as doesn't concern you!”

I was boiling with rage, all the fiercer because I had a shrewd idea that it was utterly ineffectual, and I maintained my ground, keeping Pepita in her chair behind me. And I dared to be as impudent as I could.

“That's all rot!” I retorted. “And you look here—both of you! If you don't let us walk out of this house, and at once, you'll both find yourself in a hole! You're liable to prosecution now, and—”

But Uncle Joseph once more held up the fat hand.

“I wouldn't excite myself, if I were you, Benjamin,” he interrupted. “Excitement's bad for anybody, and I can't allow it to myself, consequent upon my weak heart. And there's no occasion for it, neither. All that me and Mr. Getch wants is a little private conversation, and it rests with you, Benjamin, to make it of a friendly nature. Me and Mr. Getch don't want to have no words with you, I'm sure—we're kindly-natured men, I think, and disposed to treat them fair as treats us fair. And I should suggest, Benjamin, that you resume your seat, and prove yourself amenable to what we'll call the present circumstances.”

“The present circumstances are that you've locked up Miss Marigold and myself against our wills and are liable to severe punishment for it!” said I. “And you'll get it! Do you think we've no friends, and that they wont track us? We shall have been looked for ever since noon, and—”

Again the wave of the fat hand and the unctuous voice—Uncle Joseph was evidently cocksure about the safety of his own situation.

“I wouldn't worrit myself about them things if I was you, Benjamin,” he said. “You're as safe here—and the young lady—as we are from interruption. It'll be a long time before any notion gets abroad that you're where you are or anybody comes seeking you at the Shooting Star—and if they did, they'd go away no wiser than when they came! You wasn't seen to come here by anybody, Nephew Benjamin, and 'cepting me and Mr. Getch and the lady what brought you your dinner, there's nobody knows you are here. And I should advise you to make the best of the sittywation and be friendly. Friendly—that's all we want.”

“Are you going to let us out?” I demanded.

UNCLE JOSEPH made no very immediate reply. Instead, he took a chair,—the best and biggest chair in the room,—and plumping himself into it, settled his big figure comfortably, and placing his hands on his pudgy knees, looked at us in turn. As for the landlord, he leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets, watching. It seemed a long time before Uncle Joseph spoke.

“That's one o' them questions as is difficult to answer, Benjamin,” he said at last, after chewing the proposition well over. “You'd ought to know, as one intended for the law, that there is questions to which it's uncommon difficult to give a plain affirmytive or an ekally plain neggytive to. I can conceive the difficulty myself, for if I happened to be put in a witness-box—”

“You'll find yourself in something else than a witness-box, if you go on!” I broke in rudely, and of set purpose. “There's another spot—the dock! That's more likely to be your destination—on the way to something still more impossible to escape from!”

I FELT a tug at my coat, and Pepita spoke gently:

“Don't, Ben!” she murmured. “There's no need—”

“Thank you, Missie!” said Uncle Joseph. “There is no need, as you kindly say, and glad I am to find that Benjamin has somebody at his elbow to admonish him. It doesn't become young men to show violence to their elders, especially when those elders is rellytives—brothers o' their own mothers, too!”

“Who's showing violence!” I exclaimed. “If anybody's had any violence shown to them, it's us! You—”

“Oh, no, Nephew Benjamin, I think not!” remonstrated Uncle Joseph. “No, Benjamin, I really couldn't allow that suggestion in Mr. Getch's presence. Mr. Getch, I'm sure, wouldn't hurt a canary bird, let alone a young lady and gentleman—”

“Never laid a finger on 'em!” muttered Getch. “Not me!”

“And sent you in a handsome dinner, I'm told,” continued Uncle Joseph reproachfully. “Same as him and me had ourselves! No, Benjamin, considering as how you come here like a enemy, a-poking your nose into matters which don't concern you, I think you've been treated uncommon well—I do indeed, and I'm sure Missie there'll agree with me.”

“You leave Miss Marigold alone!” said I. “What do you want?”

Uncle Joseph nodded and rubbed his hands. “That's the first sensible remark we've heard you make, Benjamin!” he said. “That's more like it! And as I said before, and now repeats, all we want is friendliness. Friendly answers, Benjamin, to friendly questions!”

“Such as—what?” I demanded.

“Well, such as—what did you come here for?” he asked. “Come, now!”

“To see you—as I told him,” I answered, pointing at Getch.

BUT Uncle Joseph's head wagged.

“You aint so fond of me as all that, Nephew Benjamin,” he said, sorrowfully. “You and Keziah, you wasn't pleased to see your blood-relation, I'm afraid. No, Benjamin, I think you didn't come here for that!”

“Leastways, not altogether!” remarked Getch with a sardonic laugh. “Oh, no!”

“Not altogether, as Mr. Getch kindly remarks,” added Uncle Joseph. “I think you came to see if I was here, Benjamin, along of having recognized garments of mine a-hanging on the cliff.”

“What if I did?” said I.

“Then I'm afraid, Benjamin, that, having ascertained I was here, you'd have straightway gone back to Middlebourne and told it that I was,” he retorted. “And that wouldn't have suited my plans.”

“I dare say!” I exclaimed scornfully. “I can quite believe that! Well, perhaps I should. You know as well as I do that you're under suspicion.”

“I could say a good deal about that, Benjamin; I could say much about that!” he remarked solemnly. “Every man knows his own business best, and them that's most suspected is ofttimes most innocent. Now, of what am I suspected, Nephew Benjamin? I ask you—friendly!”

I hesitated awhile, watching him, and wondering. I felt sure by that time that no personal violence was likely to be offered to Pepita or myself, and that these two were probably detaining us in order to get information, or until such time as they could get safely away. And hastily summing up the situation, I decided on a policy of frankness—it seemed to me that it would pay, that if I put my cards on the table I should stand a good chance of seeing Uncle Joseph's hand. And thereafter it would be a case of whose wits were sharpest.

“You're suspected of knowing something about the murder of that man Cousins, and of the theft of Miss Ellingham's Chinese vase!” I said suddenly. “That's what!”

He drew his hands back from his knee-caps, and began slowly rubbing them to and fro on his big legs.

“Dear, dear!” he said. “And supposing I did know what we'll call something about them matters, Benjamin?” He paused a second or two at that, regarding me with a sidelong glance. “Something, I say, not partiklarizing how much—what right does that give the police to look for me?”

“They want to know what you know,” I answered.

“Uncommon kind of 'em, I'm sure!” he said with a flash of humor. “Like them, too—always a-wanting somebody else to do their work for 'em. They've no imagination, them police fellers, Benjamin—as you'll find out, long before you're lord chancellor. Now, you know, Benjamin, for all that you, or Veller, or that young Scotland Yard chap knows, I might be—eh?”

“What?” I asked, as he paused on a shy glance. “What?”

“I might be on the very same game that they're on!” he said. “Come, now!”

I started, staring at him.

“You aren't a detective!” I exclaimed.

HE gave me an almost contemptuous look which developed into a certain hardening about eyes and lips.

“You don't know what I am, my lad!” he retorted in a different tone. “You know nothing! But now then,”—and here he began to speak as if he were a bullying cross-examiner, and I a witness at his mercy,—“you tell me! What's that young Cherry found out about me? And let me tell you, my lad,—for we are blood-relations, when all's said and done!—you be candid with me, and I'll be candid with you, and don't you forget that at a word from me, Getch, here, can keep you and the young lady locked up, and at a word he can let you go—eh?”

Here indeed was a sudden and surprising change! But I resolved to stick to my plan—I would let him see what a hole he was in.

“Cherry knows a lot!” I answered. “He knows, to begin with, that you and Cousins met at the Crab and Lobster, at Fishampton.”

“Oh!” he said. “It's a lot to know, that! And—what else?”

“And that you left cards in our best bedroom with the name of Crippe, marine stores dealer of Old Gravel Lane, London, on them,” I continued. “He's seen Crippe.”

“Wouldn't get much out of Crippe, neither!” he muttered.

“But you left your brandy-bottle in the cave at Fliman's End,” I went on. “And there was a name on the label—Zetterquist & Vanderpant, St. George Street. Cherry saw them—and he got something there!”

“What?” he demanded.

“The address of your lodgings in Calthorpe Street,” I replied, watching him narrowly.

“Aye?” he said almost unconcernedly. “And—went there?”

“He went there—and he'd good luck there too!” said I, scarcely able to keep a note of triumph out of my voice.

“Good luck, eh, Benjamin?” he said. “And—what might it be, now?”

“He'd two finds,” I replied. “He found a copy of the Lady's Circle amongst your papers, from which you'd torn out the page on which there's a picture of Miss Ellingham's Chinese vase. He also found an envelope lying on your table, the postmark of which was Middlebourne.”

I was looking for him to exchange glances with Getch, at that. But they didn't exchange as much as the flutter of an eyelash: they seemed quite unconcerned. And Uncle Joseph's voice became cooing again.

“Aye, Benjamin, aye—and what more did this clever young man find out?” he asked.

“Nothing more then,” I answered.

“No?” he said. “Ah! Anything anywhere else—in this damning chain of evidence?”

I was puzzled by Uncle Joseph's manner, by then. There was something behind all this at which I couldn't guess. But I thought to floor him with my reserve blow.

“I dare say you've heard the name of Mr. Spelwyn—the famous collector?” I said, keeping an eye on him. “Spelwyn—expert in this China rare stuff.”

“It's not unfamiliar, Benjamin,” he answered. “I've heard of a good many things and people—in London and elsewhere.”

“Spelwyn says you called on him and offered him a Kang-he vase,” I said slowly, watching the effect. “He told Cherry so! You!”

I saw a curious smile break out about the corners of his lips. But it didn't spread. He composed his features immediately, and his manner changed once again—to a combination of unctuousness and facetiousness.

“Well, now, that is news!” he said slowly. “Deary-me-to-day! I thought we should get at something in time. So I called on Mr. Spelwyn and offered to sell him a—what might it be termed?—a Kang-he vase, did I? Oh—ah! Well, Benjamin, one lives, and one learns! Just so!”

“Didn't you?” I asked.

He made no answer. Instead he rose from his chair and looked at Getch.

“I think, Mr. Getch, it's time these young people had a dish of tea sent in to them,” he said, “—and a trifle of that nice cake of your housekeeper's. And meanwhile you and me can do a bit of reflecting on what we've heard. So—”

He made for the door, and Getch's hand went to it. I spoke, sharply.

“What about me?” I demanded. “You promised! And this girl—”

“There's no harm'll come to the girl, Benjamin, and none to you,” said Uncle Joseph over his shoulder. “You shall have your tea—while me and Mr. Getch has ours and does a spell of meditating. Afterward—”

THEY were out of the door, and it was locked and bolted again within a minute, and there was nothing to do but wait upon their pleasure. And oddly enough, just then I remembered that once, when I was a little chap, Keziah had taken me to the zoölogical gardens, where I had been much impressed by the captive wild beasts, walking, walking, walking round the iron-barred cages out of which, poor devils, they couldn't get. I felt as I think they must have felt, at that moment. And I think I swore—softly, but definitely.

“Yes,” remarked Pepita, “exactly. But I say, Ben, it's no use slanging that fat old scamp, you know! That's not the way to get round him. Why don't you have a go at him with his own weapons, Ben?”

“Because I'm not skilled in the use of 'em!” I retorted sulkily. “I'm not up to slyness, and subterfuge, and lying, and all the rest of it! What I say is—damn him, and Getch too!”

“I thought you were going to be a lawyer, Ben,” she said. “You needn't lie, and you needn't be sly, but you can be—what do they call it—diplomatic?”

“How are you to be diplomatic with that old devil?” I demanded. “He's as full of cunning as the sea's full of water!”

“All the same,” she went on, “if he comes again, I should try to get round him. For oh, Ben, suppose—suppose, they kept us here all night, and all tomorrow—”

“They—or he—promised that no harm should come to you, Pepita,” I said. “And I can't believe they'll keep us here much longer. I think they'll let us go when it gets dark.”

“It's getting dark now,” she remarked, glancing round the gloomy room. “Whatever shall we do if they leave us without light, Ben? I'd be so frightened—”

But just then the hard-faced woman was admitted quickly, and as quickly let out again. She brought us tea—plenty of good things, too—and she left a lamp on the tray. We ate and drank, and Pepita, remarking that Uncle Joseph had some creditable points in him and would evidently not allow us to starve, ended up by expressing a pious hope that his and Getch's meditations would prove favorable to us, and result in our speedy release.

“As I said—perhaps when it's dark,” I remarked. “Under the darkness—”

I glanced toward the window as I spoke, and my tongue was suddenly checked. There, peering in from outside through the glass of a lower pane, his face seen clearly in the light of the lamp, his eyes staring straight at me, was Miss Ellingham's Hindu servant, Mandhu Khan!

CHAPTER XV

Melsie Island

I ALMOST upset the tea-things and the table in the dart that I made for that window. The suddenness of my rush there checked the scream on Pepita's lips; she twisted sharply round in her chair, and I know that she was just in time to see too. But quick as I was, the face had gone by the time I reached the casement; in what I could see of the narrow space between me and the blank wall opposite, there was nothing. I slewed round again to Pepita, who had half-risen from the table staring.

“You saw?” I exclaimed. “Didn't you?”

“I saw!” she answered. “That brown-faced man at the Grange—looking in! Oh, Ben—what was he wanting?”

“To see what he could!” said I. “Spying round! Pepita, you can bet your life that chap's on the hunt for Uncle Joseph! That's it—sure as Fate!”

“Shall you tell them?” she asked.

But I had already thought of that. I began to see chances, excellent chances, arising out of this episode.

“Not one word!” said I. “We'll keep that to ourselves. “I'm not afraid of Mandhu Khan—Miss Ellingham says he's a very faithful and dependable servant. Do you know what I think? I think that Mandhu Khan is on the track of Uncle Joseph. They're awfully clever, those chaps, I'm told—see things that we don't, and are skilled in tracing people, and I should say Mandhu Khan has taken up the search for his mistress' stolen property, and he's got an idea that Uncle Joseph Krevin has got it, and is lying doggo here at the Shooting Star. So—he comes and peeps in at the window! See?”

“Do you think he'll tell—tell people at Middlebourne, I mean—that he's seen us, Ben?” she asked.

“Sure and certain, Pepita!” I declared. “Lucky thing for us that he came peeping round! Of course he'll tell! But look here—if these chaps come back, as they're sure to when they've meditated, as Uncle Joseph styled it, not a word about that face at the window! We'll keep that to ourselves. And for anything we know, there may be others round about—Cherry, for instance.”

MY assurances seemed to revive Pepita's spirits—though, to do her full justice, she had never shown anything but steady resolve to go through with things; and we sat down again and finished our tea, each of us keeping an eye on the window. However, we saw no more of Mandhu Khan's brown face and big eyes. Nothing happened; the evening wore on; nobody came; it looked as if we were condemned to imprisonment for the night. And at last, after many nods and yawns, Pepita began to show signs of weariness.

“Ben,” she said suddenly, “I'm sleepy—it's long past my bedtime. I can't keep awake—can't! What shall we do, Ben?”

“You must lie down and go to sleep,” I declared firmly. “Nothing else for it! And you can be sure of this—I sha'n't sleep! I'll keep watch. Come on, now—you're quite safe, and you'll be asleep in two minutes.”

She hesitated awhile; then, with a smile of utter sleepiness, she went over to the bed in the corner and lay down. As for me, I dragged a big chair right in front of the door and took my place in it.

“Good-night, now, Pepita!” I said in very grandfatherly fashion. “Don't worry—and go to sleep! I shouldn't wonder if we find the door open in the morning—it's my opinion these chaps will make themselves scarce in the night.”

She made no answer for a time: then she spoke, in a whisper.

“Wont you kiss me good-night, Ben?” she said. “I'd feel safer, I think, if you did—somehow!”

I went over and kissed her, and she lifted her arms and put them round my neck.

“I'm your girl now, aren't I, Ben?” she whispered. “Oh, Ben—if they come back, don't go running any risks! I know you're as brave as a lion, but—”

At that very minute we heard the bolt withdrawn outside, and I started away from her, and she jumped hastily from the bed, with a startled exclamation.

“They're here now!” she said. “Ben—be careful!”

THE key turned; the door opened; and there stood Getch. He was in seagoing clothes and sea-boots and had an oil-skin hat pulled close over his face.

“Now, my lad,” he said in a domineering tone that roused my temper, “come on—and the girl too! Follow me—or walk in front. Lively, now!”

“No!” I said, motioning Pepita to keep behind me. “Not till I know where we're going.”

He came a step or two into the room.

“Look here, young fellow-my-lad!” he said in a lower voice and more insolent tone. “You just listen to me! You aint dealing with Joe Krevin at this minute, though you'll see plenty of him presently—you're dealing with me! You and the girl come on at once, and do as you're told, or I'll put you through it in a fashion you wont like, and carry the girl off whether she likes it or not! D'ye hear that—and d'ye see this?” he went on, raising his right arm and hand. “If I give you one real good 'un with that, my lad, you'll drop off to a sort of sleep that'll keep you quiet enough for a good while—and you'll wonder if an earthquake hit you when you wake! Now, come on!”

I felt Pepita's hand on my arm, and knew what its pressure meant.

“Where?” I asked. “Is it safe—for her?”

“Don't you ask questions, my young cockerel!” he sneered. “You heard what your uncle said before he left you. No harm to either as long as you do what you're told. And damned soft stuff to give you, in my opinion! If I'd had my way, I'd ha' wrung your young neck and chucked you in the tideway hours ago. March, now!”

He stood aside in the doorway, and motioned us into the passage. We went—silently. It was dark there, but Getch picked up a lantern which had been standing on the floor, with its face turned to the wall, and presently guided us forward, through what seemed to be a labyrinth of cellars and windings until at last I saw a gray aperture in front and felt a breath of sea air blowing toward us. And suddenly he turned out his light, and passing through an open doorway, we found ourselves on a narrow quay at the side of the river and saw dimly perceptible things in the faint gleam of a waning moon.

And the first thing was a boat, at our feet, and in it a cloaked and much obscured figure, big and bulky, sitting in the stern, surrounded by what seemed to be a number of bundles, boxes, or packages. Uncle Joseph, no doubt! But the next instant we heard his voice, in a faint whisper.

“Give the young lady this here coat,” he said. “It'll protect her! And as for you, Benjamin, you must make shift with one o' these rugs—the night's not so cold as all that, and we aren't facing a long voyage. Help her in, Benjamin!”

But with the coat in my hands which he flung to me, I made a last appeal.

“Look here!” I said. “I don't mind what happens to me, but you surely aren't going to carry off a young girl, at night, in this way? Just think—”

“We've been doing a deal o' thinking, Benjamin,” he interrupted, in a whisper. “Me and Mr. Getch has thought and thought, and we're a-doing what we consider best and kindest for all parties. There's no harm'll come to the young lady, Benjamin, while she's in my charge, nor to you, neither, if you behave yourself. At worst, it's only a bit of temp'ry inconvenience. So be a good lad, and behave friendly!”

“But—” I began.

GETCH cut short what I was going to say by unceremoniously thrusting me headlong into the boat, whither Pepita hastened to follow me, before he could lay hands on her. He jumped in himself then and seized the oars; a few strokes from his powerful arms, and we were out in the river and heading for the bar at its mouth and the open sea beyond. And I judged then that it was now very late at night, for as the little town became dimly visible, there was not a light to be seen in any of its windows. As for the house we had just left, it stood black and forbidding against the chalk cliffs beyond.

Nobody said anything for a while. Uncle Joseph remained at the tiller, humped up like a bale of goods; Pepita and I, side by side, and holding each other's hands, cowered near him, amidst the packages; Getch was busy with his oars. He was a powerful hand at that job; within a few minutes he had us over the bar and out into the sea; he made still better progress there, for the dark waters were calm as a mill-pond. And once outside the bar and well off the land, I looked about me, especially in front, in the endeavor to fix our destination. My idea, at first, was that they were going off to some ship, but I gave that up at once, for the visibility was good, and as far as I could see, there was no ship anywhere in sight—certainly not one with her necessary lights burning. For a time I was doubtful, but when Uncle Joseph continued to steer us straight ahead of the river mouth, I knew at last where we were going. And that was Melsie Island.

I began to get a clearer notion of the situation when I had decided on that. Melsie was a small island which, as near as I could reckon, lay right opposite the rocks and caves of Fliman's End, at a distance of from two and a half to three miles. It was about three-quarters of a mile in length, and half a mile wide—a wild, rocky, barren place, over the outer edges of which one could see the waves dashing in bad weather, and on which nobody lived. And it was seldom that anybody ever went to it from the mainland; there was nothing to go for. I had been on it once, when I was out with Tom Scripture in his boat; he had put into one of its coves for some reason or other, and I and his son had raced over the grim rocks and deserted stretches of sand while he remained on the beach.

But once upon a time folks had lived on the island—monks, in the old, far-off days. There had been a famous religious house there—Melsie Abbey; you could see the ruins of it from our creek; and I, of course, had explored them when I was roaming about with Tom Scripture's boy. They were considerable, but they consisted chiefly of roofless walls and fallen masses of masonry; still, there was one part which, I had noticed on my inspection, was still in very fair preservation and could easily have been made habitable, and that was the main tower, which the last Abbot of Melsie had only just finished building when he and his brethren were turned adrift on the world.

AFTER Getch had pulled a mile from the mouth of the river, he stepped a mast and set a small sail, and there being a nice breeze blowing from land, we bowled merrily away in the direction of the island, and before long saw its dark bulk showing ahead. All this time our two captors preserved a strict and gloomy silence; indeed, they neither exchanged a) word between themselves, nor spoke to us until we were close on our destination. Then Getch made some remark to Uncle Joseph about trying the old landing-place, and after commanding me to give a hand with the sail, he took the tiller himself and steered the boat into a sort of passage between high black rocks, finally bringing us alongside a quay which I have no doubt had been artificially fashioned in the monastic days for the convenience of the inhabitants.

It was quiet enough on that island; there was indeed, a sense of deathlike quietness on it, and I think that both Pepita and myself stepped ashore feeling as if we were about to be immured in a tomb. But Getch gave us no time for these or any other thoughts; now that we were landed, he seemed to assert himself as chief authority and began to order us all about, Uncle Joseph included. We had to help in unloading the boat, and then in carrying the various packages, and just as I had expected, Getch directed us to take them up to the tower in the ruins; we made two or three journeys before we had cleared everything. They were not heavy packages—I guessed, and rightly, that they contained food and drink. But there were also plenty of rugs, cushions, old coats and the like; Uncle Joseph carried most of these, and when we had got up the last of the parcels, he flung an armful toward me.

“You must just do what you can to make the young lady a bit of a nest, Benjamin,” he said in his suavest tones. “It's not what you might call a boo-dwaw, this, but we must make the best of circumstances, and fortunately the night's warm and this here chamber is dry. And in the morning we'll see what we can do to make ourselves a bit more comfortable.”

We were in a lower room of the tower, and Getch had lighted a lantern, by the light of which, small as its gleam was in that cavernous space, we could see to do things. I made a couch for Pepita in the cleanest corner I could find, and persuaded her to lie down. And I'll say this for Uncle Joseph—he was kindly and considerate enough to her, suggesting that she might like something to eat, and ordering me to see what I could find for her. But Pepita wanted nothing—except that I should stay near her. And stay near her I did, making shift as well as I could with a couple of horse-rugs, and I was thankful that within a few minutes she was fast asleep.

I myself would gladly have slept, for very weariness, but I was too uneasy. Getch and Uncle Joseph had opened a bottle of spirits and a cask of water; I watched them drinking and smoking for some time. They were very quiet and quite orderly; from their attitude and behavior they might have been discussing some peaceful domestic question. And suddenly, without knowing that I was on the verge of it, I dropped headlong into the abyss of sleep.

WHEN I woke again, just as suddenly, there was no sign of Getch. The morning sun was shining through the leadless window-places high up in the eastern wall, and I heard the crying of sea-birds and chatter of choughs, hovering around the parapet of the tower. Pepita was still fast asleep in her corner; her face, rosy-pink, half-buried in the crook of her arm, her breath coming softly and regularly. And over in his corner, half-buried in rugs and wrappings, his big bulk propped up against the angle of the wall, Uncle Joseph was asleep too—asleep and snoring gently.

I got quietly to my feet, stiff and aching from the hardness of my couch, and looked about me. In the gloom of the night, I had not been able to get any very accurate idea of the exact nature of the things we had brought up from the boat. But I now saw that, whatever the reason of this flight to the island might be, Uncle Joseph was well provisioned. There was a great deal of canned stuff, meats, fruits; there was bread sufficient to last for several days; there were two cases of bottled beer and half a dozen bottles of spirits; it occasioned me a good deal of disquietude to see all this, for it seemed to argue that we might be kept in captivity for some time. Nor was I much comforted when I also saw tea, coffee and sugar and found a couple of square tins filled with cakes—these doubtless would be welcome to Pepita, but they too foreshadowed a longer residence on the island than I desired.

But it was something to be free of Getch. Relieved of his presence, I might possibly circumvent Uncle Joseph and contrive to signal some passing vessel. Unfortunately, as I knew from lifelong experience of that coast, vessels scarcely ever come near Melsie Island—still, there might be a chance. I went out to have a look round. And anxious to be absolutely certain about Getch, I first directed my steps to the landing-place among the rocks to see if his boat was still there. It wasn't—and I knew then that he had gone in the night, and that we three had the island to ourselves.

CHAPTER XVI

The Brown Hand

THAT was a summer morning of great beauty, by land and sea, and under any other circumstances I should have rejoiced in my surroundings. I could see all the places along the coast, and pick out the bolder features of the island hills; as I stood there, gazing shoreward, I could have named a dozen such features, from the gray tower of our own parish church at Middlebourne to the great grove of beech on Belconbury Beacon, fifteen miles away to the eastward, and to the high buildings and tall ships' masts in the docks at Kingshaven, half that distance to the west.

But close as all these things looked in that pellucid morning air, I felt that for all practical purposes Pepita and I—for the time being, at any rate—were as far off them as if we had been in some island of the Pacific. There were reasons for that feeling, and good ones, due to the peculiar nature of the coast in our neighborhood. For some distance from the shore-line the sea thereabouts was very shallow; the shallow waters extended for many miles into the Channel. And Kingshaven itself could only be entered by a passage running far away from Melsie Island, while our own light craft at Middlebourne and Wreddlesham, coming out from thence to the fishing-grounds, could only get in or out by another equally remote on the other side. Melsie Island, in short, was out of the way of craft of any sort. And so I knew that there was small chance of anybody coming to rescue Pepita and myself from this strangely brought about imprisonment.

As far as I knew, nobody knew that Getch had brought us here, though it might be that our departure from the Shooting Star, in company with Uncle Joseph, had been witnessed by Mandhu Khan. But on that we could not count—and there was always the possibility that the Hindu man-servant was in league with Uncle Joseph and Getch, and had come spying at our prison-window on their behalf, just to see what we were doing. We could count on nothing. No doubt Captain Marigold was actively on the search for his daughter, and I was sure that Keziah would not let her tongue rest in demanding me—I felt, too, that Cherry would bestir himself in seeking for both. But who would dream of our having been carried off to this place? There we were—straight in front of their noses!—and as I have said, we might as well have been in Samoa.

BUT why had we been brought there, at all? That was the question which had been forcing itself upon me from the moment in which Getch unceremoniously bundled me into his boat. On the mere surface of things, it did not seem very difficult to get an answer to this question. Whether he had actually stolen it or not, there was no doubt whatever—in my mind, anyway—that my precious kinsman, Uncle Joseph Krevin, was in possession of the Kang-he vase, nor that the rascally landlord of the Shooting Star was his accomplice. It seemed to me, putting together the various things of which I was aware, that the whole business worked itself out something like this: Uncle Joseph, the murdered man Cousins and Getch were accomplices in the plot to rob Miss Ellingham of her exceedingly valuable piece of Chinese vase, for their own profit. Probably Cousins effected the actual theft, and handed over the vase to Uncle Joseph in the fish-bag found by Keziah under our best bedroom dressing-table; Uncle Joseph, in the privacy of that sacred chamber, transferred the loot to his own venerable brown bag. Meanwhile, down there at Gallowstree Point, Cousins was murdered—why and by whom Heaven only knew! But Keziah and I told Uncle Joseph that Cousins was murdered—and Uncle Joseph cleared out, bag and all.

I thought—piecing the bits together in my mental review—that he went away to Fliman's End, and was there, in the gray morning, taken off in a boat by Getch, and carried across the creek, past the scene of the murder and Middlebourne Grange, to the Shooting Star at Wreddlesham. No doubt he thought he could get away from Wreddlesham during that day, or on the succeeding night—no doubt, too, he and his host found that he couldn't, every neighboring railway station and bus-route being watched. So at the Shooting Star he remained, snug and safe—until Pepita and I walked in. He was safe no longer, then—and so Getch had conveyed him here, to Melsie Island, and us with him. But—how did he expect to escape from the island, and—when?

I WAS not reassured about our prospects of escape when, presently, I went back to the tower. Pepita, who seemed to have a genius for sound slumber under any conditions, was still fast asleep in her corner. But Uncle Joseph was wide awake, and when I entered, was looking about him, regarding the various packages with a speculative eye. He nodded at me in quite friendly fashion.

“I hope you've passed a comfortable night, Benjamin?” he remarked. “The young lady, I see, is still in the land of Nod, as they call it. As for me, I've slept in a many better places, and in a many worse. I think, if I were you, Benjamin, my lad, I should see about getting ready a bit o' something to eat.”

He nodded at the boxes and cases we had carried ashore, and it was when I began to investigate their contents that I felt doubts about the term, long or short, of our detention on the island. We were certainly provisioned for some time; there was not only the stuff to eat, but the materials wherewith to cook it—spirit-stoves, kettles, frying-pans and the like; Uncle Joseph seemed to take a deep interest in all of them.

“I think I should advise one o' them cold tongues this morning, Benjamin,” he said thoughtfully. “They're toothsome and tender, ready for table, and easy opened: we can try something more ambitious another time, as we get accustomed to fending for ourselves. You're no doubt of a domesticated turn, Benjamin?”

I gave that question the go-by, though I proceeded, being hungry, to get breakfast ready.

“How long do you suppose, or am I to understand, that we're going to have to fend for ourselves?” I asked. “I should like to know.”

“I couldn't say, Benjamin,” he answered meekly. “I've no idea! It depends on circumstances, you see, and you're no doubt well aware, youthful though you are, that circumstances is queer things—we can't always control 'em.”

“I certainly can't control mine,” I retorted as I lighted the spirit-stove, and filled the kettle from a keg of water which had come with the other goods, “or I shouldn't have been here!”

“Well, well, and I shouldn't either, if I could control mine, Benjamin!” he said. “Leastways, my present unfortunate ons! But a deal of experience of life, Benjamin, has taught me what similar experience'll doubtless teach you—that circumstances was made to make the best of. I'll sniff the morning air outside a bit, while you make the repast ready.”

HE got up from his improvised but quite comfortable couch, and moved off to the open doorway. And I saw then that he had made a pillow of his old brown bag—the bag which had been deposited on our porch at midnight, at the very beginning of all these happenings. He had slept on it—no doubt, to keep it close to him, and he kept it close to him now, for he carried it under his left arm. Through the open doorway I saw him standing with it, there closely held, as he stood on the platform of rocky land outside the tower, looking from one point of the compass to another; he continued to hold it there all the time he stood or strolled about there, and he had it still folded in his arm when he came back. And I said to myself on seeing this that I was quite willing to lay any odds, however extravagant in figure, that packed within that beastly old bag was the Kang-he vase!

I got breakfast ready, taking care that it was a good one, and awoke Pepita. Once fairly awake and realizing the situation, she seemed disposed to take the whole thing as not a bad joke, and the breakfast as a picnic, and her light-heartedness was uncommonly welcome. She began to help me in laying things out but presently she seemed to remember something, and looked round with another expression in her face.

“Ben,” she whispered, “I see your fat old uncle out there—but where's the man from the inn, the bad man?”

“He's hopped it, Pepita!” said I. “Gone in the night, I think; anyway, he'd gone when I woke. We're alone with my respected uncle.”

“I don't mind him, Ben,” she remarked. “I don't think he's such a bad sort. But that other man frightened me. Have you found out what they brought us here for, Ben?”

“No!” said I. “But I know what I think, and I'll tell you after. Look here, you take a tip from me, Pepita. Just behave as if you were taking all this as a sort of picnic, and don't show any fear of the old chap outside there—I sha'n't! We've got to stick it out in his company, and we may as well fall in with his idea that we should be friendly. After all, we're not going to starve, and Uncle Joseph wont cut our throats—at least, I think not; and we're bound to be rescued, so we may as well make the best of it.”

“Oh, I'm all right, Ben!” she agreed, cheerfully. “And I'm not afraid of Uncle Joseph—not I! I could get round him, Ben, if I wanted!”

THERE was no need for her to play any tricks of that sort. Uncle Joseph, presently returning, lured, no doubt, by the pleasant aroma of the hot coffee, was as bland and polite to her as if she had been a princess and he a courtier. He gave her the best slices of the tongue and the cream off the milk, and commanded me to open a jar of raspberry jam—young ladies, he observed, were partial to sweet things, and as we had one in our company we must treat her according. Jailer or no jailer, Uncle Joseph was exceedingly complaisant, and reminded me of nothing so much as a Sunday-school superintendent, presiding over a treat to the best boys and girls. And if he had any anxiety about his situation, it certainly had no effect on his appetite, for he ate and drank with gusto.

This strange meal came to an end, and while Uncle Joseph—who said grace devoutly, as if quite accustomed to such ritual, as I have no doubt he was—filled and lighted his pipe, Pepita and I, in our rôle of faithful attendants, began to clear up the things. But there arose a difficulty.

“Where are we going to find water to wash up with?” said I. “We can't go on using what's in that keg; it'll be done in no time. And for that matter, where are we going to get drinking water, when this is finished?”

I looked at Uncle Joseph, as if he were an authority, and he nodded in response.

“Just so, Benjamin,” he replied. “Water is what we cannot do without. But I made inquiry on that there point—of Mr. Getch, of course. Mr. Getch is a clever man, Benjamin—a man of ideas! Mr. Getch pointed out that once upon a time this here island was tenanted by monks. This very tower, as we're a-sitting in, is the tower of their church. Monks, Benjamin, is men. Where men lives, there must be water—that's how Mr. Getch argued it, and I take it to ha' been very clever of him. There'll be water somewheres on this island, Benjamin—must be, 'cause o' the monks!”

“It's three hundred and fifty years, at least, since there were any monks here!” I exclaimed, furbishing up my recollections of history. “Nearer four hundred if anything, and I don't think anybody's ever lived here since. If they had a well, or a spring, how do you suppose we can find it?”

“I don't think that'll be a very difficult job, Benjamin,” he answered calmly. “Them monks would have their dwelling-places close to the church—I suppose they're represented in the ruins that lies about all round this here tower. And the water'll not be far off. It might be a little fresh-water stream, a-tinkling down to the sea. Now, I should suggest that you and Missie, there, should go and look for it—it'll be a nice occypation for you this fine morning, and if you linger on the way to do a bit o' love-making, well, there's no hurry that I know of. The washing-up can wait.”

WE were not slow to take his hint, and armed with a can and a kettle, we set off on our quest. But before we had reached the door of the tower, he called us back, hailing me by name, in a somewhat different tone—a note of admonition had come into his voice.

“Of course, Benjamin,” he said when we turned to him where he sat, solemnly smoking, the old bag at his side, “of course you'll understand that you aren't to do nothing to attract attention to this here island? No waving of pocket-handkerchiefs, nor lighting of fires, nor nothing of that sort, Benjamin—such can't be permitted, and I take your word of honor in advance that it wont be done. You must bide easy, you and Missie there, till the hour of our release comes—we might ha' been in far worse predicaments than this, Benjamin, I assure you! For we have food and drink, and you'll no doubt find water for domestic purposes, and what more can anybody desire? I've been worse lodged than this, in my time, Benjamin, more than once—oh, yes, I have indeed!”

He waved us away, as if there was no more to be said about it, and we went—reduced, for the time being, to silence by his humbugging unctuousness. We stopped out some time, too, and made a thorough examination of our more immediate surroundings, and found that in one matter Uncle Joseph had been a good prophet—there was a clear stream of good water at the back of the ruins, running from high ground to the sea, through a fern-clad ravine. Eventually we filled our vessels from it and went back to the tower—and the first thing I noticed was that Uncle Joseph was moving about, putting our goods ship-shape, and that the old brown bag had completely disappeared. I knew then that he had sent us out on purpose. He wanted to hide the brown bag. He had doubtless buried it somewhere in the undergrowth outside the ruins, or among the masses of fallen masonry which lay around the tower. Anyway we saw it no more—and for the rest of the time he went about freely, sometimes climbing the still usable stair to the head of the tower, sometimes strolling in and out of the ruins. The day wore on; we ate and drank, and did everything and nothing. Night came again; at Uncle Joseph's request I helped him to rig up a sort of door out of planks and logs that lay about. At last we all retired, as on the previous night—to our corners. I was last to sleep, and first to wake, and when I woke it was with a sudden consciousness that something was wrong. The gray light was just beginning to steal into the tower, and by it I saw a brown hand and long, sinewy brown arm thrust through a hole in our rude door, feeling, groping—

The concluding third of this captivating novel is even more delightful. Watch for it in the next, the July, issue.