Chapter 7
There were ladders up the front of the Victoria Hotel as Violet came out, with a large rush basket on her arm and a tall alpenstock with an iron point in her hand.
Glaziers were still putting glass in all the broken windows. It was four days after the explosion of the ship which had brought blasting powder for the quarries.
Mr. Price, the proprietor, was standing in the front garden watching the workmen. He was dressed in a new suit of shining black.
"Good morning, Mr. Price," said Violet.
"Good morning, Miss Wilkins." He looked with polite inquiry at the basket on the girl's arm.
"I am going up the mountain, Mr. Price," Violet said sweetly. "I am taking a few little comforts to Winter, our old gardener, for whom you so kindly found a home in the Carnedd Farm."
"Very kind of you, miss, I'm sure. Up there in the clear air the poor fellow will benefit extremely. I've always said," Mr. Price continued, "why send consumptives to Switzerland when our own Welsh mountain air is quite as good?
"I quite agree with you, Mr. Price, and that is why my mother and I brought poor Winter here. The funerals are today, are they not?
"Yes, miss; and I don't blame you for being well out of the whole affair. You see, the ship was his lordship's. It was one of the three boats that bring blasting powder regularly for the quarries. Of course most of the crew will never be recovered, but the captain's and the mate's bodies have been found. They were both Pendrylas men, both married and with large families. Then three of the stevedores were killed -- they were in the boats."
"It is frightfully sad, Mr. Price," said Violet.
"It is indeed, miss; but his lordship has come down very handsome, that I must say. The widows will all be pensioned and the children provided for. And as for the funerals, there will be black horses and plumes, and all the coffins have silver fittings. Mr. Conway Flint is in Pendrylas now overseeing all the arrangements."
Violet nodded farewell and set out upon her walk. She wore a short golfing skirt and high boots with nails in the soles. Coming out of the hotel grounds, she walked a little along the sea road and then entered a winding lane with high hedges on either side. For nearly half a mile she tramped upwards. On either side of the lane, at various distances, she came across large gates opening into the drives of terraced villas, belonging to rich Manchester and Liverpool people. Then, little by little, the lane grew narrower, the big houses were left behind and it became a path between scattered bungalows, until at last a gate and a stile opened straight upon the lower slopes of the mountain.
In front of her stretched the Green Gorge -- a narrow cleft between two great hills, covered with soft turf. She pushed open the gate and felt her feet upon the real beginning of the hills. With the basket on her arm and the alpenstock assisting her progress, she strode blithely onwards to where the high top of the Gorge cut the sky between the peaks with a straight line of purple heather. "I'll sit down when I get to the top," Violet said to herself.
It took her nearly half an hour of climbing, and then she came out upon an immense plateau or tableland, one thousand feet above the sea. She turned and looked back. The Gorge now seemed like the green waterway of a brook. Immediately below it were the red-tiled roofs of the villas. Below that again she saw the Victoria Hotel, looking like a Swiss toy -- a fringe of greenery, a tiny white ribbon of road, a white beach and then the sea.
She stood, tall and beautiful, gazing down below upon the sunlit glories, and then filling her lungs with the clean air she turned and faced another prospect. She was on a great high tableland. Rolling moors of heather and budding gorse stretched away in an unending vista. To her left, a quarter of a mile away, a huge, stony, rounded dome rose up into the sky -- the famous Bilberry Hill. To her right, and far higher than either, was a grim, scarped peak of slate, rising so high that even on this jocund midday a little fleecy cloud caressed its summit. And beyond, at the edge of the vast moors, were other peaks, higher and more menacing. They seemed to make a great rampart to the unknown.
A lark or two were singing high in the turquoise sky. Some early bees were booming among the bilberry bushes -- it was high noon, glorious and peaceful.
Violet sat down upon a large boulder stained with grey and orange lichens. She stuck her alpenstock in the ground and pulled a letter from her pocket.
"Now, darling," she said, "I'll read you again up here in the clean, pure air."
She opened the envelope. It had arrived by the morning's post, together with several small parcels -- the parcels were in the rather heavy basket she had carried from the hotel.
This was the letter:
You will get this tomorrow, darling, with my directions. The night after I shall come again to Pwylog. The things I send, you must take to Winterbotham directly you get them. It has been a fine move to establish him in that mountain farm as a consumptive. He will tell you what he has discovered, and when you come down from the mountains send me a telegram detailing everything. The cipher is quite simple. I am sure you won't have any difficulty as far as that is concerned.
For my part, I have been very hard at work, and I have discovered two things -- both of them most significant. The first is in connection with the explosion of the Quarry Queen. It is this: No cargo of ordinary blasting powder -- which is gelatine -- could possibly have had the effect upon the land that the explosion actually did have.
Thanks to you, I am rather a great person in Liverpool now. I heard the explosion discussed by people who knew -- experts. I also met Major Sayer, the stupid old Board of Trade expert, at the Reform Club. Of course the affair was not of any great importance as far as Liverpool went; still, it was talked over.
To cut a long story short, the Board of Trade could see nothing extraordinary in the incident, but one or two real experts are confident that there must have been some very different explosives on board the Quarry Queen. I give you this for what it is worth, but it may be another link. Secondly, I want you to remember a certain name -- Sachs.
I have discovered that Mr. Conway Flint has recently been entertaining a certain Carl Sachs at the Midland Adelphi Hotel. We are stumbling along in the dark, but every clue may prove of immense assistance. Sachs has been recognized in Liverpool. He is the famous expert of the Skoda Steel Foundry in Austria. I cannot say in the least what it may mean, but strange thoughts are beginning to revolve in my mind.
Violet made a little grimace as she turned a page of small and clear handwriting. This was all very well, but... Ah! there was what she wanted to see far more.
She devoured the burning words of love that closed the letter, until the high place where she sat became golden and irradiated to the exclusion of all other thoughts. What did it matter, after all, about their quest? She loved Gerald, Gerald loved her -- the sky, the sea, the mountains sang and shone in chorus.
For nearly half an hour she sat there in a dream. Then, as a slight shadow of cloud passed before the sun and turned the heather grey, she rose with a sigh.
"Go on, you little beast," she said to herself, "go and do your work. Both you and he made it a solemn condition that you should not marry before this mystery was probed to the bottom. Get to work, Violet, my girl."
She laughed aloud at her fantasy, gathered up the heavy basket, caught up her stick and began to tramp onwards through the heather and gorse.
She knew what she had to do for the next mile. She followed a smooth green sheep track which did not deviate in any way. When she came to a clump of wind-bitten birch trees and a little ruined chapel she was to look at her map and take out the pocket compass which she had bought in Conway.
She strode along, the rich mountain air filling her lungs, until the huddled trees and the ruined granite chapel rose into view. She came up to the place. It was indescribably melancholy. The walls of the little meetinghouse still stood, but the slate roof had fallen in. There was a pool of stagnant water before the doorway -- a forlorn and deserted spot. It was the first time s
he had climbed so high up among the mountains and a slight but very definite depression stole over her.
She pulled out the envelope upon which Mr. Price had traced her route in blue pencil, put it upon a flat stone and the little compass on that. She watched the needle quiver, pause and stop.
"That must be the way," she said to herself, as she saw a narrow path stretching westwards. "There is the green hill behind which the farm must stand. Poor Winterbotham -- what a remote and lonely life for him!
In that clear air all the landmarks seemed much nearer than they really were. Violet had walked for nearly an hour over the moor and round the base of the green eminence before she came in sight of the mountain farm. It was a long, low, whitewashed building, covered with slate and surrounded by a granite wall. As she came up to the gate of the little garden in front of the house she heard voices. An old Welsh woman came out of the porch, followed by a little fat man of about fifty, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes bright blue, and his hair, which was plentiful, was the colour of straw. Winterbotham followed. He looked pale -- he had naturally a sallow complexion, and this had been assisted by art. He walked with a bowed back, leaning upon a stick, and every now and then he coughed.
"Well, I thank you," said the plump and smiling little stranger to the farmer's wife. "Never have I better milk tasted. I was fatigued with my walk upon the mountains. You will not take any money, so I thank you for your hospitality." He bowed and smiled.
"And you, my poor man," he said to Winterbotham, "I hope your complaint will cured be soon. This air is wonderful! I have been here for three weeks now and am much improved in health."
"Staying at the castle, sir, I suppose?" Winterbotham said, humbly touching his cap.
"At the castle," said the little fat man with a wave of his hand. "I am an engineer and am superintending pumping machinery of a deep artesian well the Lord Pendrylas has bored." He beamed upon the farmer's wife and tapped her upon the shoulder. "Ah, the water," he cried with a chuckle and in an ecstasy of admiration, "from the very heart of the mountain, so cold as ice it come. But not better than your milk, madam. Ah, see, a goddess approaches."
He had turned and noticed Violet at the gate, and taking off his soft felt hat the little man made a low and sweeping bow, like a cavalier upon the stage.
"It's my mistress, sir," said Winterbotham in a thin voice. "My kind mistress that has put me here to get well," and he hobbled down to the gate towards the girl.
The fat little man preceded him and pulled the gate open with another bow. Then with a final smile of goodwill he skipped out on to the moor and trotted away, waving his stick and humming a merry tune.
Violet, after a word or two with the farmer's wife, a placid old dame to whom Winterbotham introduced her, accompanied the sick man into the sitting room set apart for his use.
She closed the door. Immediately Winterbotham rose erect. He was a clever actor. Ten years seemed to fall from him in a second as he pulled out a chair for Violet.
"Eh, miss, I'm rather glad ye've come."
Violet laughed. "I hope you feel stronger today," she said. "Isn't it very lonely here?"
Winterbotham gave a sudden sharp cackle of laughter. Humour was not his strong point. "Lonely, miss? On the contrary, every moment I can get away from this house is full of interest. Eh, but it's a strange world I'm in, and more like living in a story of bogles than ordinary Christian life."
"Bogles?" Violet asked. She did not understand the North Country word.
"Yes, miss, wizards and magicians. I shouldn't be surprised to meet the Witch of Endor at sundown in this place."
"Well, you can tell me all about it in a minute. First of all, several parcels arrived this morning from Mr. Boynton. Here they are. I pretended I was bringing you calves-foot jelly."
Winterbotham was on the basket like a monkey on a nut and withdrew several packages. He whipped out a knife from his pocket and cut the string of the first one. It contained a small square box, which he opened and lifted out an instrument of dull steel which extended as he did so like a pair of lazy tongs.
"What's that? "Violet asked in some surprise.
"A small skeleton periscope, miss. With this I can lie hidden in the heather and just push it up and see all that's going on around about the castle, and who goes in and out each day. And this," he continued, "is a pair of strong prism binoculars, plus eight magnification. They also will be useful."
He laid his hand upon a third package. "That will be the cylinder which I asked Mister Boynton to make for me," he muttered. "I'll tell you the use of that in a minute, miss, when ye've heard my story."
"I'll tell you something first, Winterbotham," Violet said. "It is a dead secret, of course, like all that passes between you and me."
He looked up quickly, and his face grew bright at what he saw in hers. "Is that so, missy," he said, before she had spoken a word. "Aye, I'm reet glad to hear it. Eh, that's the best of news."
Violet blushed. "But I have told you nothing," she said, marvelling at the man's keenness.
"Your bonny face has told me," he said. "You and Mister Boynton have fixed it up, isn't that so, miss?
His hand was outstretched in the splendid North Country warmth of feeling, so frequently hidden under a dry and cold exterior. She took it.
"Yes, Winterbotham," she said. "Some day we are going to be married. But we have both agreed that we will not even think of it until we have discovered the mystery which started with Peter Fanshawe at the works. By the way, to change the subject, who was that man I saw going out of the house just now?"
"He had been for a walk on the moors, miss, and he knocked at the farm door to ask Mrs. Llewellyn for a glass of milk as he was parched. I was in the kitchen and we had a bit of a chat like. He comes from the castle. He has a sort of foreign turn to his speech, though his English is good enough."
"Have you ever heard of the Skoda Works in Austria?"
Why, yes, miss, everyone that has to do with machinery knows them."
"Well, unless I am very much mistaken, that gentleman comes from there."
"I shouldn't be at all surprised, miss," Winterbotham said. "He said he was erecting pumping machinery at the castle."
"Yes, I heard him. One more question. Is the name 'Sachs' familiar to you?"
"Sachs, miss? I should rather think so. There's no engineer that doesn't know it. Sachs is the first hydraulic engineer. He is to hydraulic machinery what Faraday is to electricity."
:"Well, you have just been talking to him."
Winterbotham jumped up from his chair. "Good heavens, miss, you don't say so! To think that Elijah Winterbotham should have shaken hands with the great Sachs. Eh, this is a day that I shall remember."
Violet smiled at the little man's professional eagerness. "Quite so," she said dryly; "but what is Mr. Sachs doing at the castle? Erecting machinery for an ornamental artesian well? Do you think that?"
Winterbotham sobered in a moment. "Lord!" he said, "the plot thickens, miss, and no mistake."
"It does," she answered gravely. "Both Mr. Boynton and myself think we are on the threshold of very great events. And now tell me, Winterbotham, have you discovered anything?"
"I'm on my way to do so, miss. First of all, I have surveyed the castle. I've got as near to it as I could. It's not allowed to be photographed or included in any of the pictures of the great houses of England, therefore few people have got any idea of it. I'm not an antiquarian, miss, but the castle is a real wild place of the old days. The outer walls go all round it and there are towers everywhere. There's a deep moat all round filled with water fed by a running stream from the mountains. In the centre is a great square tower like the White Tower in the Tower of London -- the keep, I think they call it. The whole place must cover many acres of ground."
"But people must be constantly passing in and out? It is not a prison!" Violet said.
"Perhaps not, miss, but it's summat like it. It's a little kingdo
m contained within itself. Except for milk, butter, eggs and such-like, which come from the moor farms, and which are taken in at the entrance, all the other supplies come in by sea in the earl's ships. They go up in the quarry trucks, and wagons and horses and sometimes a big motor lorry meet the packages at the top and take them to the castle along the road that has been especially made. There are private telephone and telegraph wires from the castle to Pendrylas. There's an office with two men in charge, and that's how his lordship communicates with the outer world."
Violet sighed. "It seems rather hopeless."
"Don't think that, miss," Winterbotham said. "His lordship and his people are so secure in there, they have taken so many precautions to keep intruders away, that you may be sure by this time that they think no one will ever penetrate beyond the veil they have cast over this part of the country."
"Exactly, Winterbotham."
"Quite so; and their very confidence will end in their undoing. If Mister Boynton and myself, together, backed by your money, miss, can't get inside that place somehow or other, my name is not Elijah Winterbotham."
"You might manage it at night, perhaps," Violet said. "I suppose they do not have armed guards walking about the battlements!
"Too clever for that, miss. Even in the mountains that would attract too much attention. No, there's something else, but just as good."
"And what is that?"
"Have you ever heard of a Welsh mastiff, miss?"
Violet shook her head.
''Well, you wouldn't have. Not one person in a hundred ever has. Only a few scientific dog breeders know the name. I know a bit about dogs myself, miss. I've done a bit of coursing with greyhounds. I have also had a few prize whippets in my time, but it's only just lately I've heard of the Welsh mastiff. The breed is almost extinct, miss. There are only about thirty in the world."
"You are a many-sided man, Winterbotham," Violet said. "Go on."
"Those thirty belong to his lordship. A Welsh mastiff, miss, is a great, tawny-coloured, short-haired dog, as big as a calf, and fierce as a tiger. One of them would pull down an elephant, I do believe. Each night, miss, as the tenants of these lonely farms in the mountains know, two couples of these dogs are loosed round the castle."
Violet shuddered. "It sounds like the Middle Ages," she said.
Winterbotham smiled. He touched the unopened parcel. "This'll solve the problem, miss."
"What is that?"
"It's a cylinder of highly concentrated gas with a tap to let out a jet of it at any moment. A mere whiff of it will down one of those dogs -- or a man for that matter -- in an instant. I told Mister Boynton exactly what I wanted, and he has sent it. He's a great chemist, miss."
"But if you kill the dogs they will be found in the daytime and suspicion will be aroused."
"It won't kill them; it'll simply put them to sleep for a few hours. When they wake up they will be sick dogs, but there won't be any harm done that anyone could detect. We're going to carry out this business by scientific methods, miss. That's what we're going to do!"
They talked for a little longer, and Violet lunched upon a bowl of fresh milk and some biscuits. She told Winterbotham that Boynton would arrive on the evening of the next day, and about half-past two in the afternoon she left the farm.
The brightness of the morning had gone. The high upland was ashen-grey. All the colours seemed to have faded out of the heather and gorse. The silence was absolute.
As she followed the sheep track Violet saw that on all the great peaks that rose out of the plateau fleecy clouds like masses of cotton wool were beginning to descend.
The light grew livid, and she seemed the only living thing in those vast solitudes. As little by little the mist rolled down the peaks, a great awe stole into her soul. Yes, this might well be an enchanted land! It was a fit setting for that gloomy castle three miles away, which was beginning to colour and dominate all her thoughts -- the Castle Dangerous, with its hidden and sinister chief.
She pushed along briskly, anxious to strike the Green Gorge again and come down into the world of life and movement. But it seemed very far away. She had been thinking deeply and had not noticed the flight of time, but when she looked at her wristwatch she found she had been walking for more than an hour. She stood still and gazed around. A little frightened exclamation came from her.
Great walls of mist were rolling over the moor, descending upon her from all points like a converging army of ghosts. She pulled out the little map, realizing that she must lose no time, and then felt her pocket for the compass. The compass was not there.
In an instant she knew that she was lost. She had not the slightest idea of her direction. The mist was upon her, white, cold and damp. It circled and pirouetted round her as if in mockery, and she braced herself with all her courage to meet the situation.
What was she to do? If she stood where she was she might remain there all night long. On the other hand, if she went on walking she might come to the terrible quarry precipices, which would mean instant death. She shuddered at the thought. Then she remembered that she was on the plateau -- level in all directions for at least a mile and a half. She stood in a well-defined track; it must lead somewhere. The only thing to do was to go on.
She set her teeth, dug viciously into the turf with her alpenstock, and once more started to walk. For nearly twenty minutes she stumbled on. Now and then the mist thinned and she could see a hundred yards or so before her. Again it would thicken into a horrible grey twilight. The ground continued level, but it began to be interspersed with great granite boulders, which seemed like crouching shapes of evil watching her as she went by. She was not exactly frightened. She had gone through too much during the last few weeks to know actual fear, but she was highly strung and nervous, and when a curious muffled sound struck her ear she stood still and trembled. What was it coming through the mist? It was like no sound she had ever heard before -- a deep, vibrating hum, felt rather than heard.
She bent her head forward and listened intently. Could it be that she was near some little chapel of the mountains, and that some unknown person was playing on the pedal notes of an organ ? No, it was not that. The sound began to change as she hurried towards it, pressing through the mist like a noise heard under a blanket. There was now a definite sense of music, but it was not organ music.
Louder and louder it grew in gusty waves of wild and eerie harmony; music not of this world -- witches' music! Her heart beat furiously. Each instant the giant's thrilling grew louder and more perilously sweet. She lost all sense of fear. She began to hurry as if drawn by an overmastering power which had her in its grip. She almost danced along the path. She knew she was listening to the telyn, or giant harp of Wales. Suddenly something vast and black rose up before her, seeming to sway in the mist. She stood and stared upwards, and something like an immense square archway, an enormous gallows of stone, hung blank against the white. There was a swirling of the mist, and other vast erections started into view on either side.
The music was quite close now, and was rising by half-tones and tones to a wild march of triumph, utterly barbaric, terribly beautiful, and as if the very soul of Evil itself were calling upon strange gods.
She knew where she was then. This was the world-renowned Druid circle of Twmpa, of which she had heard. It was not more than half a mile from Castle Ynad.
A loud cry burst from her. She had no control over her voice. It seemed forced from the very depths of her being. A great throbbing wail of music crashed out in answer and died away into silence.
As if at that moment the unseen harpist had chosen to become embodied -- a spirit taking the form of flesh -- the mist rolled back like a curtain. Twelve yards away there was a tall black figure standing upon a little mound with the great arm of the harp rising above its head. On either side of this apparition there were the figures of two huge beasts, motionless, as if carved in stone.