Chapter 10
The figure that confronted Violet in the great hall of tapestry and armour was that of a dwarf. A little old woman stood there smiling. The creature was dressed in a hooped-out skirt of black velvet. A great mob-cap with crimped white edges framed a tiny brown face like the face of a monkey. Small black eyes glittered; shrivelled lips were parted in a toothless grin. The thing -- the woman -- was incredibly old.
A thin, piping noise came from it -- a whining twitter which sounded like the E string of a violin. The words were in Welsh -- that much Violet recognized.
She had recoiled in momentary horror from this apparition. Now she took courage -- it was so small, fawning, humble and yet wickedly alive!
"What do you want?" Violet said in her clear young voice.
Immediately the little creature began to shuffle across the hall. It walked with a kind of agitated scramble, and every second or so the little monkey head in the great white cap was jerked backwards to see if Violet followed. Once she stopped and beckoned with a hooked finger. A piece of the tapestry was pushed aside and a little pointed door of old oak was revealed. Violet's strange guide opened it and passed through.
The girl followed her. The twittering, whining Welsh became louder. The little old woman waved her hands this way and that in explanation.
The place into which they had come was a bedroom. Here, again, a fire burned upon the hearth. The room was furnished with the most costly luxury. It was modern in many ways, but all the furniture was subordinate to the ancient idea. The low bed of carved oak was filled with snowy linen, and a silken quilt of eiderdown was upon it. The great mirror of the toilet-table was framed in dull copper, and once more it was electric light that hung from the roof of vaulted stone.
The dwarf turned on a tap and hot water flowed into a marble basin. She took a silver bottle of perfume and poured it into the water. She scurried about the room like some strange, unearthly being, a creature out of a fairy tale. Finally she threw a great wrap of purple silk embroidered with green and silver upon the bed. Then she flitted away, and Violet was left alone.
The girl looked round her. She was still bewildered beyond belief, but her fear had passed, though she felt faint and physically weak. Just as she realized this, and the room seemed to sway round her, she gave a cry of delight. Beside the fireplace was a little octagonal table, and on a silver tray was a teapot and a cup. Never had the cup seemed more tonic or been more invigorating. In five minutes Violet felt immeasurably refreshed. She washed in the warm, perfumed water and found toilet materials on the dressing table and rearranged her hair. Then she sat down by the fire to think.
"I am kidnapped, there's no doubt about it, and by a madman. He seems to have unlimited power here and his people obey him like an Eastern king. But there must be limits to which he dare not go. I shall be missed in an hour or two. People will come to look for me. Winterbotham will tell what he knows and Gerald will be telegraphed for. My stay here cannot be very long, for even the Earl of Llandrylas is not above the law."
She reflected that her captor could not possibly know who she was and that her mission was entirely unsuspected. Very well, since this robber chieftain with the angel voice had taken her to his castle, let it be upon his own head. It was dangerous, the situation was critical in the highest degree, but it was a chance. At any rate she, Violet Milton, was the first of all of them to penetrate Castle Ynad. She was near the mystery, the secret of which she had endured so much to discover. Whatever it was, it lurked only a few yards away. It might be that she was to solve it, and she made up her mind bravely to go to any lengths for that end.
"I shall want every ounce of my courage and every wit I possess," she thought. "But it is a game worth the playing!"
A curious exhilaration came over her. The currents of her blood ran fast and free. She felt like a soldier upon the eve of victory. Action! Action! That was the immediate necessity. Feeling for the handle of the dagger in her dress she gave a last look at herself in the long mirror, for she knew she might have need of all her weapons that night. Then, opening the door in the wall-hanging, she passed once more into the great white hall.
It was not empty now. Two footmen with powdered hair, and liveries of green heavily laced with gold, were setting out a small round table. In the centre was a barbaric bowl of soft gold studded with masses of uncut turquoises, and the bowl was heaped and piled with fresh violets. The men moved with incredible quickness and in absolute silence. There were other servants waiting outside the door, for a whole service of glittering plate made its appearance as if by magic. Then, with a sudden throb of her heart, Violet noticed that the table was laid for two people. She sat down by the fire and waited. The servants withdrew, and once again she was left alone.
After about five minutes, somewhere in the distance she heard the deep, muffled roar of a gong and then almost immediately afterwards, but much louder and from close at hand, a sudden blare of trumpets.
The sound caught at the throat with its unexpected and piercing sweetness. It was almost terrible. What did it mean? To whom was it a herald?
In a moment Violet knew.
The door at the far end of the hall was flung open. A man with a white wand appeared and bowed low, though he said no word.
Lord Llandrylas entered, and the door closed.
Violet, from her seat on the oak couch, watched the earl coming up the room towards her. She did not move. There was not the slightest expression in her face. She saw at once that there was an entire difference in his appearance. He wore ordinary evening dress, except for knee breeches of black silk, black silk stockings and shoes with silver buckles. He had not the wild look of wizardry as he had the last time she saw him upon the mountain. Now he was calm and quiet and wonderfully distinguished.
He was like a prince in a court ceremony. Power and pride radiated from him, and yet there was a delicate grace in his every movement. The beautiful, ravaged face, so sad and lofty in expression, glowed with no baleful fires now. He seemed superhuman still -- there could be no other man like him, Violet thought -- but the barbaric savageness had departed.
He came on easily until he was within three yards of her. Then he stopped, his heels clicked together and he bowed. "Madam," he said, "I ask you to do me the honour of dining with me."
Violet knew that everything depended upon the note she struck from the outset. She had no time to think, but acted as instinct prompted her, and she saw afterwards that she was right. Still sitting where she was, she looked him straight in the face with a pride almost equal to his own. "Sir," she said, "a gentleman does not command a lady."
"Madam," he answered in his deep and musical voice, "it was an entreaty."
"Which I am too helpless to refuse, Lord Llandrylas."
"Madam, you are not helpless in this poor house of mine. You are safe here against the whole world, and you command it!"
For one brief moment the monstrous arrogance of this speech touched Violet's sense of humour. She could have laughed aloud, but she restrained herself and rose slowly from her seat. She was both very hungry and very curious. She was not afraid, but a great sense of expectation informed all she did and thought. There was this strange man from another world. It was a contest between them, a contest of willpower and wit. Here was a supreme mystery. Could she get to the heart of it?
She gave a little inclination of the head and Lord Llandrylas offered her his arm with a courtly gesture. She placed her fingers upon it, again laughing to herself as she thought of her ungloved hands, her simple blouse and skirt of Harris tweed, and together they advanced to the table and sat down.
"If you do not mind, we will wait upon ourselves," said the earl in an ordinary society voice, as though they were two friends who had known each other for years. He ladled some soup from a tureen into a gold plate as if he had been doing nothing else all his life.
"There is just one thing," Violet said, "before I break bread in your house. As your hospitality is en
forced, I accept it under protest and recognize no obligations afterwards. You brought me here against my will. You have committed a crime that is against the law, and of course you will have to suffer for it. Meanwhile, if you thoroughly understand that, Lord Llandrylas, I am very hungry and I propose to enjoy my dinner. Moreover, I see no reason why we should not get on very well for the next half-hour or so." And then she smiled.
It was the first time she had smiled that afternoon, and a little colour came into the man's pale face as he bowed again.
"You are a great musician, Lord Llandrylas," Violet said after a moment or two. "It is a pity you do not play in public. There are so few first-rate harpists nowadays."
She had meant to sting him and she saw she had succeeded, though his manner was perfection.
"Ah!" he answered, "I live a very secluded life and I only play for my own pleasure, and" -- he hesitated for a moment and a curious look almost of bewilderment came over his face -- "and at times when I must."
Violet sipped a little wine -- she did not know it, but it was the most famous White Hermitage that the world can produce -- and it sent a thrill through her veins.
"And how are your dear dogs?" she went on, with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Really, I thought I was at the circus when I first came upon you in that curious amphitheatre. Did you teach them their tricks yourself or did your kennel-man? Do you show them at all?
"I have no commerce with the outside world, madam," he answered coldly.
"Then it must be quite refreshing to give a little dinner party like this. Do you always recruit your guests with dogs and huntsmen? It must be wildly exciting, especially in the tourist season."
Little by little the colour was deepening in the earl's face. "I have my own kingdom," he said quietly, "and never venture from it. You know that very well, madam. You are playing a part."
"Yes, by compulsion, the part of your guest. However, it is quite interesting to come across a recluse in these days, though I thought I had heard you were in the slate business."
He gave her one look and it frightened her, though she allowed nothing of it to be seen. But she thought the time had come to play a very daring card. "Since you have admitted me to your jealously guarded domains and are entertaining me so hospitably, Lord Llandrylas," she said, "I think you might be frank with me."
"I was frank with you," he said in a low voice. "I was frank with you on the moors, and I saw by your eyes that you understood me."
"But you told me just now you had no commerce with the outside world, and yet you are interested in papier-mâché, Lord Llandrylas."
There was a sharp, hissing intake of the man's breath. His black eyes dilated. "What do you mean?" he gasped.
"You told me in your Druid song that I was one who came through the mists. Let us assume, then, that I have strange powers. Let us assume that I can see into the recesses of your heart, Lord Llandrylas. I will tell you some pictures that I can see floating all around you in the air."
She bent forward, her left hand on the table, the other raised a little as she pointed over his shoulder. She was acting, and she knew it, but there was a sense of half reality about it also. She threw herself into the part of seer and her voice vibrated strangely.
"I see a ship coming by night to a great city. It comes not once but many times, and what it carries is secret. I see a great genius in that city working for you at your command. I see another city, brighter and fairer than the first. It is a foreign city, with bright boulevards and cafes, and from that city there comes another man, who is a genius also. He is a little, merry man, but there is a great brain hidden away beneath the common place exterior. I see"
She stopped herself just in time. She was about to refer to the murder of Peter Fanshawe, when in one swift moment she realized that this might defeat her whole object. She wanted to frighten her captor. She pretended to far more knowledge than she really had. If he thought that his plans, whatever they were, were discovered and known to others, then they would become useless.
She sank back in her chair and covered her eyes with her hands.
There was a considerable silence. From time to time it was broken by curious little snapping noises like electric sparks -- she heard them quite distinctly. At last she looked up.
If a living face can suddenly freeze into marble, with only the eyes malevolent and blazing with black light, then indeed Violet saw such a face then. The man opposite her seemed turned into a statue. There was nor the slightest motion of him -- only the black fire from his eyes. She seemed to be confronted by something horribly evil, and all the courage of a pure heart and undaunted will rose up to meet it.
She was holding a spoon in her hand -- the spoon with which she had been taking her soup. It was a spoon of solid gold, though she had not noticed it. She rapped with it upon the table.
"Sir," she said, "have I brought you to your bearings now? You met a quiet lady walking about the moors and you brought her here into your fantastic madhouse. You did not think she knew all your secret activities. You know it now!" Each staccato sentence was emphasized by a tap of the spoon on the table.
The man opposite remained a statue. Violet went on.
"In a few hours, Lord Llandrylas, your castle will be assailed. You will have to open your gates to those who will come for me. Do you think because you have forced me here my friends know nothing of where I am? Your crew who ran the ship from Pendrylas to Liverpool, and from Liverpool to Pendrylas, and brought those huge cases from the Milton Paper Works, have not been silent. Lord Llandrylas, you are in a bad way."
The immense crimson fire roared and glowed upon the hearth. The electric lights hanging from the roof of this rich place threw their yellow glory upon fifty thousand pounds' worth of gold plate, and antiquities more valuable than that. The man in the black clothes with the marble face confronted the young, vivid and accusing girl.
Violet was now sure she had won.
"Yes," she said, "the whole world will soon know what you have been doing in Liverpool. And did you not condescend, some time ago, even to honouring Manchester with your presence? The Unseen Powers told me that you -- the chieftain of the mountains -- were walking through the palm court of the Midland Hotel with your bought genius. Now, Lord Llandrylas!"
Suddenly, with the snap of an electric switch turned off, the whole great hall seemed to fade into dimness. The mist of the mountains seemed pressing through the walls. There was a deep, throbbing sound as if the bass string of a harp were being plucked.
Violet lifted her glass and drank a little wine. Her hand was trembling. She looked around. To the physical eye the hall was just the same, rich and splendid beyond imagining. But she knew in her heart that she had gone too far.
She had awakened something beyond her control. She thought she had won. It was not so. She had been playing with unknown forces, and the chill of a dreadful revolution began to steal over her.
He had seemed sane enough, a strange and compelling personality, but one upon which she could play? No!
Lord Llandrylas rose slowly from his seat. The motion was curiously serpentine. He became elongated, growing taller and taller -- it was thus he had seemed upon the moor.
That in itself was horrible, but what ensued was more horrible still. His face began to change -- it changed utterly. Up till now he had been a splendid and courteous gentleman, a little irritated at first, angry towards the end. But he was still Lord Llandrylas.
The light on his face went out. Another light took its place. For some reason or other Violet thought of green fire -- she even raised her head and glanced round the hanging illuminations of the roof. No, there were no green rays falling from them.
She heard a hollow echo. It was the echo of a word, and the word was "Liverpool."
The name of the city was hissed out with hideous malignancy. The man's face writhed, the terrible eyes blazed with maniacal fire, the lips curled away and showed the teeth. "Liverpool!"
Violet knew w
hat she had done. Lord Llandrylas, as she had suspected, was certainly a madman, but his madness was at times in abeyance. She had called up the evil spirit which possessed him, and which even now was shaking the very tenement of the body as if it would burst its bonds in a paroxysm of hate. He rushed round the table to her side and caught her by the wrist. His touch was like flame, his grip like steel.
"Come," he cried, "witch, or devil, or queen, or whatever you are! You know much. You shall know all! I will show you that proud city!"
He dragged her across the hall and a chair fell behind them with a crash. She could not choose but go. Resistance was utterly hopeless. She ran along with him, feeling as if she were going to her death. He flung open the door and tore through it into a vaulted corridor. Then he laughed, the horrible laughter of a maniac. "Come, come! Quick! Quicker!"
Suddenly he released her wrist, but she fled along with him nevertheless, as if caught up in a whirlwind.
"I am mad too," she thought. "This is the end of everything. But at least I am going to know the truth."
At the end of the corridor there was a door. The earl took a key from his pocket. His hand trembled violently, and when at last he inserted it into the lock it was with a savage snarl. A twisting stairway of stone was revealed, lit by electricity. The walls were of immense masses of hewn stone, the narrow spiral stairs worn by the feet of thousands of people.
"Come!" he cried again, and leapt upwards.
On and on they hurried, higher, higher, and through the narrow slits in the eight foot depth of the wall -- slits made for archers in the old days -- the cool night air came flowing. On and on, until at last a little railed platform, another door studded with nails and then they were out upon the highest platform of Castle Ynad's central tower -- three hundred feet up in the air.
The mist had all gone. The black vault of heaven was spangled with stars. The moon was just setting over the sea -- a red, menacing moon, which made a long path as of blood upon the waters far, far below.
All around, the mountain peaks stood sentinel. The scene was inexpressibly solemn and grand.
Lord Llandrylas leant against the battlements, gasping for breath and staring down at the castle buildings -- acres of roofs, walls and tower tops -- a dreadful spectre of the night.
"Eight hundred years ago," he said, "my ancestor, King Hywel, king of this country -- as I am rightful king of it today -- was harried in this castle by the knights of the English King John. It was in the year 1207, and the king had granted a charter for the first time to the city of Liverpool. These barons burnt a great part of Castle Ynad and slew my ancestor, whose son swore to be revenged."
He stopped, struggling with overmastering emotion, clutching at his throat and staring up at the stars. Suddenly he beckoned to Violet and she came up to his side -- her hand was upon the hilt of the dagger at her breast.
"Look!" he said, stretching out one long arm over the battlements. "Look! It is only fifty miles away, that city whose doom is so near."
Violet almost reeled where she stood. She was on the very threshold of discovery, and it was horror, horror undreamt of.
Following the motion of his arm, she saw a dull red glow against the sky, faint and at an immense distance. That was all, but she knew that it meant the city of Liverpool. For a moment she was startled. She reflected how long the journey from Liverpool to Wales had taken, and then she realized that the way was not direct, and that she was now looking towards the city as the crow flies. Only fifty miles away! Why was it that these words seemed to freeze the blood within her?
"It is doomed," the hollow voice began to chant. "The proud and evil city is doomed, and I, Carradoc David Llewellyn Pantydwr, am the avenger! So the spirits of the past told me -- the queen shall come out of the mist and the great city shall burn in ruin."
Suddenly, with monkey-like quickness, the man ran to a little wooden building some yards away like a sentry-box.
"Go to the other side," he shouted, "and look over the battlements down into the courtyard and see what you shall see. Down there lies one who will speak with the city!"
Violet staggered to the opposite side of the tower and stared down at the dark buildings below. She could see the immense central courtyard like the black squares of a chess-board, with here and there a faint, twinkling light. Little ant-like figures were moving everywhere. And in the centre of the courtyard was a long, low building -- or so it seemed from this immense height -- which became more brilliantly illuminated than all the rest. She saw that the roof was of glass and blazed with the fierce blue radiance of arc lights.
From this building a huge black shape was slowly emerging.
In an instant the girl knew. Like a lightning flash everything was made plain.
"Dear God!" she cried, and fell senseless upon the leaden roof.