Chapter 6
The proprietor of the hotel at Pwylog, the select little watering place a mile from the slate-cutters' village and port of Pendrylas, was singularly pleased with himself.
In the ordinary course of events it was far too early for the season to begin. It would be several weeks before the earliest visitors arrived, despite the fineness of the spring, and yet good Mr. Price had let the whole of his first floor to a wealthy old lady and her daughter. There was a French maid, a fine motorcar and a chauffeur in addition. Some beautiful furniture had arrived to supplement the landlord's own somewhat scanty comforts. Mrs. Wilkins had assented to his terms without the slightest demur.
The fast train for Holyhead had just run through the little station by the side of the sea and its echoes rolled like thunder in the mountains above. A bale of the morning's newspapers and letters had been thrown out automatically as the express tore past. In another twenty minutes the hotel bag was brought to the door, where Mr. Price was standing admiring the beauty of the morning. He himself took the letters and papers up to the first floor. Knocking at the door, he was bidden to enter, and found Miss Wilkins just finishing breakfast, her mother never appearing much before noon."
"A fine day whatever, miss," said Mr. Price, gazing appreciatively at the tall young lady with the dead-black hair and brilliant blue eyes. "And here's your letters and the papers from Liverpool."
Miss Wilkins took her bundle with a bright smile. Immediately the door closed she glanced rapidly over the envelopes. Apparently the one she sought was not there, for with a slight frown she put the letters aside and opened a Liverpool daily. She spread the broadsheet out upon the table and began to go through the columns carefully, as if looking for something. Then her face lighted up.
Under the heading "Personal" she read as follows:
We understand that Miss Violet Milton, niece and heiress of our late honoured townsman, Sir William Milton of the Milton Paper Mills, has left Liverpool for London. Miss Milton had, it is known, thought of making a considerable stay in the city, but recent sad events -- in which she has the sympathy of everyone -- have altered her decision."
"That's all right," Violet said to herself. "Gerald" -- she called him Gerald to herself now -- "has managed that very well. I wonder at what hotel I am staying in London."
With a little laugh she went on with her scrutiny of the paper and then suddenly stiffened into attention as her eye fell upon some headlines in large black type. It was the report of the inquest on Peter Fanshawe, late director of the Milton Paper Mills. The body had been found five days ago, at a moment when the prolonged absence of Fanshawe from business had already begun to draw comment and alarm, more particularly as no one at the works had received any intimation of a proposed absence.
The whole business world of Liverpool had been greatly excited by the event. This Violet knew very well, not only from the reports in the newspapers, but also from Gerald Boynton's exhaustive letters. The wildest rumours had got about. Fanshawe's method of life was no secret to a great many important people, and there were many whisperings, mutterings and noddings of heads on the Exchange and in the clubs. Nothing, however, had been definitely known, and today public curiosity was set at rest.
The inquest was reported verbatim, but the evidence condensed amounted to this: The body of Peter Fanshawe had been discovered floating off New Brighton. It had been taken to the mortuary and was identified by Mr. Mosscrop, the head cashier of the Milton Mills, and also by Mr. Gerald Boynton, the chief chemist. Doctors announced that the body had been immersed for several days. In their opinion death was not due to drowning, but to a blow on the head, delivered by some blunt instrument which had fractured the skull. It was an unsettled question whether Fanshawe was dead or only unconscious when he fell or was thrown into the river.
His movements were traced up to a point some seven days before. The last known of them was that he had gone to Manchester by an early morning train. The waiter at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, who knew deceased slightly, swore that he had lunched there upon that day in company with a tall gentleman, whose face he had not seen, as they were not at his particular table. From that moment all traces of Fanshawe's movements were lost. Apparently he had not returned to the works.
The police had interrogated everyone who was likely to have seen him, and no one had. His housekeeper and butler at Birkenhead stated that their master's movements were very erratic. He had left the house early on the day he was seen in Manchester at lunchtime; since then he had not returned. The supposition was that he had come by his death on the night of that day.
And there the evidence stopped dead.
Various people were interrogated as to the facts of Mr. Fanshawe's private life. The answers were all very guarded, but anyone reading through the report could see that Fanshawe, in addition to his business activities, had led a life of reckless pleasure. Nevertheless there was not the slightest hint of his having any personal enemies. The police brought forward several witnesses -- reluctant witnesses, be it said -- who, under pressure of the coroner, admitted that Fanshawe owed them very large sums of money, but one and all made haste to state that they had not held the slightest fear of not being paid. Finally, the manager of Fanshawe's bank admitted that his balance stood at nearly fifty thousand pounds.
Further questioning of this witness elicited an extraordinary fact. It was that until quite recently the dead man had been heavily overdrawn, but that his personal assurance of an immediate settlement was so precise and confident that the bank authorities forbore to press him. This statement was verified only a day or so before his death. The money was paid on a draft on a New York bank, which had been duly honoured. This bank had been questioned by cable and had replied that the money had been lodged with them through various sources in such a way that they were quite unable to trace it. It was an ordinary discounting transaction and no more.
The coroner remarked that doubtless pressure could be brought and the original payer of the money found, though if the bank authorities were unwilling to give information it would be very difficult. Here the police intervened and said they were satisfied, and this was not relevant to the inquiry. The jury returned an open verdict.
Violet put down the paper. So that was all! It seemed that the police, at least, would never solve the mystery, but then they did not know what she and Boynton knew. To her it seemed one more link in the chain. The money must have been given to Fanshawe by Lord Llandrylas, or through his agents.
Well, Gerald was coming to the hotel that night for the first time. The real campaign was only just beginning.
What had happened many days earlier was this:
With the full dawn they had made Pendrylas and watched the long, white Mabinogion edge its way into the harbour.
About a quarter of an hour afterwards, the tug had steamed up and anchored some quarter of a mile out. A boat had been lowered and Harrop and Winterbotham had rowed ashore.
They were there for nearly three hours, while Gerald and Violet sat secure from shore observation in the cabin in a fever of impatience. They had breakfasted together, and during the meal had said but little. Afterwards, in order to relieve the tension of her thoughts, the young man had talked upon every subject but the one nearest their hearts. And he had succeeded in interesting her. In that long two hours' conference, while the sun climbed the clear sky and the tug rocked lazily on a sea like glass, he seemed to grow nearer to her than before. Hitherto all their meetings had been full of action and excitement. Now, for the first time, there was an enforced lull.
He told her, shyly at first, but more confidently afterwards, in answer to her questioning, much about his own life. He had touched on that subject at the Midland Hotel, but now his unconscious revelation of self was freer and more complete. He was an excellent companion, witty and trenchant in all his views of life. But he was much more than this. Violet was under no illusion as to her own mental abilities. She knew they were high above the
average. But now, for the second time in her life, she came in close contact with an intellect of the first order.
Her late employer, Bud Kinsolving, was a marvellous man, but he was limited. His brain was a steel machine for making money and nothing more. The man had cared for nothing whatever outside Wall Street. Here, in the grotesque little cabin of the tug, was a brain of wide culture, in addition to its quality of specialization. Moreover, Violet defined a strength of purpose equal to that of the famous American financier's.
It was with real surprise that they both heard the approaching boat hail the tug and found that it was nearly noon.
Captain Harrop, very flushed, and with an aroma of strong spirits, but sober enough, tumbled on deck and down into the cabin, his vast face grinning like "Humpty Dumpty" in the picture-book. He was followed by little Winterbotham, whose keen, terrier-like face was blazing with excitement.
"We've found out what you want to know, sir," said the captain thickly. "I'm going to start the engines again and we will steam on round Anglesea. We can make for Liverpool again towards dusk. I'll leave my new first mate to tell his story."
When he had gone they shut the door, and Winterbotham sat down. "It's for Ynad Castle right enough," he began breathlessly. "Miss, there's been more than twenty of these cases coming from the mill to Pendrylas during the last two months. They have always arrived at dawn from Liverpool and in the yacht. While Captain Harrop was drinking his whisky I went out on to the harbour side and got into talk with one or two. It was easy to make friends -- I took a couple of chaps and filled them up wi' beer. Them cases are taken on a lorry to the foot of the slate-hauling railway. It goes straight up the mountainside almost like a ladder, and the great railway trucks come down to load up the steamers in the river. They have had a crane fixed up on the quay, and the cases are swung onto the trucks and hauled to the very top of the mountain. Then another truck and horses take them over the winding road to the Castle Ynad. That's all that is known about them. The earl gets lots of things from all over the world like that. He won't have anything to do with the railways because he doesn't own them. But the Mabinogion is a new arrival and these cases something special, so they've been noticed."
"And no one has any idea what they contain?" Boynton asked.
"Not a soul knows anything," said Winterbotham. "No one ever sees his lordship. Mr. Conway Flint manages everything at Pendrylas -- that is to say, there's a regular manager, Mr. Rees, but when there's anything special Mr. Flint comes down over the mountains and sees to it. Not one of the people in the village has ever been into the castle, or near it. It's guarded like the Tower of London in the old days!"
This had been the substance of Winterbotham's information, though he subsequently added many details, all of which Boynton noted down for future reference. The tug had weighed anchor and proceeded westwards. At the approach of dusk, and far out to sea, it turned and made for the Mersey at full speed.
At eight o'clock that night Violet had quietly returned to her house in the Milton Paper Works, and at nine o'clock Boynton came to her again. He shook his head as he entered the library. "Nothing, Miss Milton," he said. "Of course I have not made any direct inquiries, except in a casual way to ask if Mr. Fanshawe has been at the works. Nothing has been seen of him, so it is evident that the body has not been discovered."
"And you have thought out our plans, as you promised?"
"Yes. What I propose is this. About a mile from Pendrylas there is a pretty little watering-place called Pwylog. It consists of a few villas owned by Manchester people, a row of superior lodging-houses and a charming hotel at the top of the village on the lowest slope of the mountains. Now neither you nor I -- we have every reason to believe -- are known to any of Lord Llandrylas' people. I want you and Mrs. Wilkins to go tomorrow to this hotel. It will be quite empty now. I want you to settle down there for some time. Somehow or other you must get Mrs. Wilkins to agree that you will pass as her daughter, Miss Wilkins. Do you think that is possible?"
Violet's cheque book was lying on the table beside her. She tapped it with one finger and smiled. Boynton smiled too.
"Very well, then, I shall leave that part of it to you. It is essential that there will be no connection between Miss Wilkins of the Victoria Hotel, Pwylog, and Miss Milton of Liverpool. Leave all your servants here on board wages. I will arrange to get a car for you from Manchester and engage a new chauffeur, and by the month. If you want a maid, don't take your present one, but telegraph for a French maid from London."
"Very well," said Violet meekly -- she liked taking orders from this masterful young man.
"You see my plan?"
"Vaguely."
"It will mean that, quite unsuspected, we can have a base for operations within a few miles of the castle itself. You have already told me that you are prepared to spend any amount of money in getting to the very heart of this dark matter. I warn you it may cost a great deal. But with your intelligence and money and with my co-operation we will get to the bottom of it!"
"I will twenty tomorrow," Violet said. "I would not give it up now for the whole of my fortune."
"Then I will remain here for the present. Poor Fanshawe's body is certain to be discovered before long. There will be a great uproar and scandal. I must be on the spot. Winterbotham and myself will have to exercise the very greatest care, but I don't see how anything can be discovered. As soon as everything is over, things will go on as before, but if you will allow me, I will constantly be at Pwylog. We will draw out a definite plan of campaign and carry it through to the bitter end."
"Will it not be thought strange that I should disappear in this way?"
"I will arrange all that. I will have paragraphs put in the papers at the right moment. Fortunately no one in Liverpool knows you yet."
Violet took a sudden resolution. "There is one other thing, Mr. Boynton. Nobody yet knows what we know, but we are aware that the works are now without a director. As soon as the discovery is made I wish you to take up Mr. Fanshawe's position and assume entire direction of the mills."
Boynton flushed deeply. "Miss Milton," he said in a hesitating voice, "I don't think I can; I really don't think"
"You don't think you are capable of doing it, Mr. Boynton?" she asked quietly. "Answer me frankly."
The young man bit his lip. "I could do it, of course," he said. "It would be childish of me to pretend otherwise. I am not Fanshawe's equal in experimental work, but I believe I will become so in the future."
"Then why"
"It is too big a thing for me, Miss Milton. I am already in one of the finest positions in the paper-making trade -- for a young man, that is. To accept this directorship would be too -- oh, well, it would be as if some simple curate was suddenly made Archbishop of Canterbury. I should immediately become one of the world dictators in the paper trade."
There was a very long ivory paperknife in the shape of a sword on the library table. Violet took it up and with a laugh she struck Gerald on the shoulder.
"There!" she said, "you have received the award. You must obey me in all things."
There was a sudden gleam in the young man's eyes, and his lips tightened, while his face went white. The girl was almost afraid of what she had done. Her heart was beating rapidly. Then she saw him make a tremendous effort at self-control. For a second or two he shook with it, and her whole heart rejoiced to see it.
He got up from his chair on the other side of the writing table where he had been sitting, and asked permission to light a cigarette. He walked up and down the library for half a minute. Then he threw the cigarette away.
"Very well, then, Miss Milton," he said. "I accept this stupendous, this most generous offer of yours. I will make no propositions except one. I will do my best and," he continued, with a little laugh that relieved the tension, "there will be no midnight experiments and no strange ships in the night!"
Thus it had been arranged, and now Violet was sitting in the pleasant room of the Pwylog Hotel,
which overlooked the sea, and wondering what was going to happen. "The decks are all clear for action," she thought. "Now the real battle begins."
And again the strangeness and unreality of it overwhelmed her. Less than three months ago she was a stenographer in a New York office, now she was rich beyond dreaming. And even that was not enough! She was embarked upon a dark and perilous enterprise, which so far was wrapt in the profoundest mystery. Of her own free will she had gone into it, determined to pursue it to the end. And by her side, counselling, directing, leading, was the One Man in the world! For she knew that now, knew it very well, and as the deep sweetness of the thought stabbed her heart with a divine pain, she covered her face with her hands as if it might betray her secret.
Then she rose from her seat, folded up the papers and put them in a drawer before going through her correspondence, which was uninteresting. He would be there that night, and she longed for his coming. Meanwhile there was a long day to get through. She started out to Pendrylas and sat upon the quay, watching the great slate trucks run up the mountainside behind, like flies, or come rolling and rattling along the rails to the end of the pier where a steamer was waiting for their load.
Now and again, faint and far away, came the muffled roar of blasting, echoing like thunder among the tops of the mountains. The sea was placid as a mirror. The sun was full and strong, and the quarrymen sang at their work with tuneful Celtic voices.
Mrs. Herbert Wilkins appeared at lunch, placid and incurious as ever. Hers was not to reason why. She was perfectly content to do all that Violet bade her: to eat largely and sleep long, and to watch her little balance at the bank putting forth fresh shoots.
"What I always say, my dear," was about the only remark she vouchsafed at lunch, "is that you never really appreciate sole unless it has been caught the same morning as it is eaten, as these are. I have never tasted better, and that good Mr. Price assures me that red mullet will be coming in very soon."
In the afternoon they drove to Conway in the car and spent an hour or two wandering over the quaint old castle, and then at six they returned. Dinner was ordered at eight, and punctually at half-past seven Violet heard the throb of a powerful motor coming up the long road by the sea, which gleamed white in the dusk between the flower-studded hedges. Gerald had arrived!
The dinner was a joyful one, Mrs. Herbert Wilkins making Boynton's arrival the excuse for ordering a bottle of champagne, "as Mr. Boynton must be tired after his long journey." Mr. Boynton, it turned out, did not drink champagne, so the old lady nearly finished the bottle herself, retiring to her virtuous couch at nine o'clock, cooing a benediction on the young people, and conscious of a day well spent.
The waiter removed the dinner things, candles were lit upon the mantelpiece, and Gerald and Violet were alone. The long windows, which led out to a balcony, were wide open. Nothing could be heard but the soft lapping noise of the tide upon the shingle, the voices of sailors and the creak of oars as boats passed to and fro from a ship that had come in during the evening. It lay a quarter of a mile out to sea and had three red lights burning on its mast. The air was soft and warm; it was an ideal night.
"I have much to tell you, Miss Milton," Gerald began. "I believe we are on the threshold of great things. You saw the papers this morning? Well, the business of Fanshawe need trouble us no longer -- for the present at any rate. Nothing whatever has been discovered. There is no link to connect his death with the man up there." He made a quick gesture with his hand towards the mountains behind the hotel. "And nothing whatever has transpired about the visits of the yacht by night. We start fair."
They were standing by the window looking out to sea, and Violet was trembling with eagerness to heat more.
"First of all," Gerald began, and then he stopped suddenly.
In an instant, pat upon his words, the whole sea, sky, encircling mountains and the room where they stood became bright, as bright as day.
There was a sound like a deep sigh and then an appalling crash, louder than the loudest thunder, so awful in its suddenness and alarm that the very heart stood still. In less than a second afterwards there came a noise as of the beating of a million gongs, long, reverberating and beyond all description. Simultaneously a whirlwind struck the house, until it seemed rocking to its very foundations. The windows were blown in with a crash of broken glass and woodwork. Violet was thrown against the opposite wall of the room as if by a giant hand. Boynton crashed against the table, staggered, caught his head on the side and fell upon the floor like a doll.
The mighty gongs thundered away in the distance. There was a loud chorus of shouts and shrieks, while Violet fought and struggled like a drowning person against a great blackness that seemed to overwhelm her. With all the forces of her will she struggled, gasping, crying out aloud, and then the horror passed from her and she was sane.
She tottered from the wall and looked around her with a wild stare. The four candles upon the mantelpiece were burning with perfect stillness, and in their light she saw Gerald, white and still, among the broken glass upon the floor. A thin crimson stream was flowing down his cheek.
In an instant Violet was on her knees beside him, supporting his head upon her arm, bending over him, calling to him. "Gerald! Gerald! My love! Are you dead? Oh, Gerald, come back, come back!"
It was indeed as if her voice had called him. She felt a slight movement upon her arm. Then the eyes opened slowly and gazed into her own. They were glazed and dull, but as she called to him consciousness came back and they became starry bright. "Violet!" he said.