CHAPTER XXIV
A PROWLER OF THE NIGHT
Down we plunged into the cellar, through the trapand to the Door of Bewilderment.
“Don’t expect too much,” admonished Larry; “Ican’t promise you a single Spanish coin.”
“Perish the ambition! We have blocked Pickering’sgame, and nothing else matters,” I said.
We crawled through the hole in the wall and lightedcandles. The room was about seven feet square. Atthe farther end was an oblong wooden door, close to theceiling, and Larry tugged at the fastening until it camedown, bringing with it a mass of snow and leaves.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we are at the edge of theravine. Do you see the blue sky? And yonder, if youwill twist your necks a bit, is the boat-house.”
“Well, let the scenic effects go and show us whereyou found those papers,” I urged.
“Speaking of mysteries, that is where I throw up myhands, lads. It’s quickly told. Here is a table, and hereis a tin despatch box, which lies just where I found it.It was closed and the key was in the lock. I took outthat packet—it wasn’t even sealed—saw the characterof the contents, and couldn’t resist the temptation totry the effect of an announcement of its discovery onyour friend Pickering. Now that is nearly all. I foundthis piece of paper under the tape with which the envelopewas tied, and I don’t hesitate to say that whenI read it I laughed until I thought I should shakedown the cellar. Read it, John Glenarm!”
He handed me a sheet of legal-cap paper on whichwas written these words:
HE LAUGHS BEST WHO LAUGHS LAST
“What do you think is so funny in this?” I demanded.
“Who wrote it, do you think?” asked Stoddard.
“Who wrote it, do you ask? Why, your grandfatherwrote it! John Marshall Glenarm, the cleverest, grandestold man that ever lived, wrote it!” declaimed Larry,his voice booming loudly in the room. “It’s all a greatbig game, fixed up to try you and Pickering,—but principallyyou, you blockhead! Oh, it’s grand, perfectly,deliciously grand,—and to think it should be my goodluck to share in it!”
“Humph! I’m glad you’re amused, but it doesn’tstrike me as being so awfully funny. Suppose thosepapers had fallen into Pickering’s hands; then wherewould the joke have been, I should like to know!”
“On you, my lad, to be sure! The old gentlemanwanted you to study architecture; he wanted you tostudy his house; he even left a little pointer in an oldbook! Oh, it’s too good to be true!”
“That’s all clear enough,” observed Stoddard, knockingupon the despatch box with his knuckles. “But whydo you suppose he dug this hole here with its outlet onthe ravine?”
“Oh, it was the way of him!” explained Larry. “Heliked the idea of queer corners and underground passages.This is a bully hiding-place for man or treasure,and that outlet into the ravine makes it possible to getout of the house with nobody the wiser. It’s in keepingwith the rest of his scheme. Be gay, comrades! To-morrowwill likely find us with plenty of business onour hands. At present we hold the fort, and let us havea care lest we lose it.”
We closed the ravine door, restored the brick as bestwe could, and returned to the library. We made a listof the Pickering notes and spent an hour discussing thisnew feature of the situation.
“That’s a large amount of money to lend one man,”said Stoddard.
“True; and from that we may argue that Mr. Glenarmdidn’t give Pickering all he had. There’s moresomewhere. If only I didn’t have to run—” and Larry’sface fell as he remembered his own plight.
“I’m a selfish pig, old man! I’ve been thinking onlyof my own affairs. But I never relied on you as muchas now!”
“Those fellows will sound the alarm against Donovan,without a doubt, on general principles and to landa blow on you,” remarked Stoddard thoughtfully.
“But you can get away, Larry. We’ll help you offto-night. I don’t intend to stand between you and liberty.This extradition business is no joke,—if theyever get you back in Ireland it will be no fun gettingyou off. You’d better run for it before Pickering andhis sheriff spring their trap.”
“Yes; that’s the wise course. Glenarm and I canhold the fort here. His is a moral issue, really, and I’min for a siege of a thousand years,” said the clergymanearnestly, “if it’s necessary to beat Pickering. I maygo to jail in the end, too, I suppose.”
“I want you both to leave. It’s unfair to mix youup in this ugly business of mine. Your stake’s biggerthan mine, Larry. And yours, too, Stoddard; why, yourwhole future—your professional standing and prospectswould be ruined if we got into a fight here with the authorities.”
“Thank you for mentioning my prospects! I’venever had them referred to before,” laughed Stoddard.“No; your grandfather was a friend of the Church andI can’t desert his memory. I’m a believer in a vigorousChurch militant and I’m enlisted for the whole war.But Donovan ought to go, if he will allow me to advisehim.”
Larry filled his pipe at the fireplace.
“Lads,” he said, his hands behind him, rocking gentlyas was his way, “let us talk of art and letters,—I’m goingto stay. It hasn’t often happened in my life thatthe whole setting of the stage has pleased me as muchas this. Lost treasure; secret passages; a gentlemanrogue storming the citadel; a private chaplain on thepremises; a young squire followed by a limelight; sheriff,school-girls and a Sisterhood distributed throughthe landscape,—and me, with Scotland Yard loomingduskily in the distance. Glenarm, I’m going to stay.”
There was no shaking him, and the spirits of all ofus rose after this new pledge of loyalty. Stoddardstayed for dinner, and afterward we began again oureternal quest for the treasure, our hopes high fromLarry’s lucky strike of the afternoon, and with a neweagerness born of the knowledge that the morrow wouldcertainly bring us face to face with the real crisis. Weranged the house from tower to cellar; we overhauledthe tunnel, for, it seemed to me, the hundredth time.
It was my watch, and at midnight, after Stoddard andLarry had reconnoitered the grounds and Bates and Ihad made sure of all the interior fastenings, I sentthem off to bed and made myself comfortable with apipe in the library.
I was glad of the respite, glad to be alone,—to considermy talk with Marian Devereux at St. Agatha’s,and her return with Pickering. Why could she not alwayshave been Olivia, roaming the woodland, or thegirl in gray, or that woman, so sweet in her dignity,who came down the stairs at the Armstrongs’? Herown attitude toward me was so full of contradictions;she had appeared to me in so many moods and guises,that my spirit ranged the whole gamut of feeling as Ithought of her. But it was the recollection of Pickering’sinfamous conduct that colored all my doubts ofher. Pickering had always been in my way, and here,but for the chance by which Larry had found the notes,I should have had no weapon to use against him.
The wind rose and drove shrilly around the house.A bit of scaffolding on the outer walls rattled loosesomewhere and crashed down on the terrace. I grewrestless, my mind intent upon the many chances of themorrow, and running forward to the future. Even ifI won in my strife with Pickering I had yet my wayto make in the world. His notes were probably worthless,—I did not doubt that. I might use them to procurehis removal as executor, but I did not look forwardwith any pleasure to a legal fight over a property thathad brought me only trouble.
Something impelled me to go below, and, taking alantern, I tramped somberly through the cellar, glancedat the heating apparatus, and, remembering that thechapel entrance to the tunnel was unguarded, followedthe corridor to the trap, and opened it. The cold airblew up sharply and I thrust my head down to listen.
A sound at once arrested me. I thought at first itmust be the suction of the air, but Glenarm House wasno place for conjectures, and I put the lantern aside andjumped down into the tunnel. A gleam of light showedfor an instant, then the darkness and silence were complete.
I ran rapidly over the smooth floor, which I had traversedso often that I knew its every line. My onlyweapon was o
ne of Stoddard’s clubs. Near the Doorof Bewilderment I paused and listened. The tunnelwas perfectly quiet. I took a step forward and stumbledover a brick, fumbled on the wall for the openingwhich we had closed carefully that afternoon, and atthe instant I found it a lantern flashed blindingly inmy face and I drew back, crouching involuntarily, andclenching the club ready to strike.
“Good evening, Mr. Glenarm!”
Marian Devereux’s voice broke the silence, and MarianDevereux’s face, with the full light of the lanternupon it, was bent gravely upon me. Her voice, as Iheard it there,—her face, as I saw it there,—are thethings that I shall remember last when my hour comesto go hence from this world. The slim fingers, as theyclasped the wire screen of the lantern, held my gaze fora second. The red tam-o’-shanter that I had associatedwith her youth and beauty was tilted rakishly on oneside of her pretty head. To find her here, seeking, likea thief in the night, for some means of helping ArthurPickering, was the bitterest drop in the cup. I felt asthough I had been struck with a bludgeon.
“I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed. “Theredoesn’t seem to be anything to say, does there? Well,we do certainly meet under the most unusual, not to sayunconventional, circumstances, Squire Glenarm. Pleasego away or turn your back. I want to get out of thisdonjon keep.”
She took my hand coolly enough and stepped downinto the passage. Then I broke upon her stormily.
“You don’t seem to understand the gravity of whatyou are doing! Don’t you know that you are riskingyour life in crawling through this house at midnight?—that even to serve Arthur Pickering, a life is a prettybig thing to throw away? Your infatuation for thatblackguard seems to carry you far, Miss Devereux.”
She swung the lantern at arm’s length back and forthso that its rays at every forward motion struck my facelike a blow.
“It isn’t exactly pleasant in this cavern. Unless youwish to turn me over to the lord high executioner, I willbid you good night.”
“But the infamy of this—of coming in here to spyupon me—to help my enemy—the man who is seekingplunder—doesn’t seem to trouble you.”
“No, not a particle!” she replied quietly, and then,with an impudent fling, “Oh, no!” She held up the lanternto look at the wick. “I’m really disappointed tofind that you were a little ahead of me, Squire Glenarm.I didn’t give you credit for so much—perseverance.But if you have the notes—”
“The notes! He told you there were notes, did he?The coward sent you here to find them, after his othertools failed him?”
She laughed that low laugh of hers that was like thebubble of a spring.
“I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed.]
“Of course no one would dare deny what the greatSquire Glenarm says,” she said witheringly.
“You can’t know what your perfidy means to me,” Isaid. “That night, at the Armstrongs’, I thrilled atthe sight of you. As you came down the stairway Ithought of you as my good angel, and I belonged to you,—all my life, the better future that I wished to makefor your sake.”
“Please don’t!” And I felt that my words hadtouched her; that there were regret and repentance inher tone and in the gesture with which she turned fromme.
She hurried down the passage swinging the lanternat her side, and I followed, so mystified, so angered byher composure, that I scarcely knew what I did. Sheeven turned, with pretty courtesy, to hold the light forme at the crypt steps,—a service that I accepted perforceand with joyless acquiescence in the irony of it.I knew that I did not believe in her; her conduct as toPickering was utterly indefensible,—I could not forgetthat; but the light of her eyes, her tranquil brow, thesensitive lips, whose mockery stung and pleased in abreath,—by such testimony my doubts were alternatelyreinforced and disarmed. Swept by these changingmoods I followed her out into the crypt.
“You seem to know a good deal about this place, andI suppose I can’t object to your familiarizing yourselfwith your own property. And the notes—I’ll give myselfthe pleasure of handing them to you to-morrow.You can cancel them and give them to Mr. Pickering,—a pretty pledge between you!”
I thrust my hands into my pockets to give an impressionof ease I did not feel.
“Yes,” she remarked in a practical tone, “three hundredand twenty thousand dollars is no mean sum ofmoney. Mr. Pickering will undoubtedly be delightedto have his debts canceled—”
“In exchange for a life of devotion,” I sneered. “Soyou knew the sum—the exact amount of these notes.He hasn’t served you well; he should have told you thatwe found them to-day.”
“You are not nice, are you, Squire Glenarm, when youare cross?”
She was like Olivia now. I felt the utter futility ofattempting to reason with a woman who could becomea child at will. She walked up the steps and out intothe church vestibule. Then before the outer door shespoke with decision.
“We part here, if you please! And—I have not theslightest intention of trying to explain my errand intothat passage. You have jumped to your own conclusion,which will have to serve you. I advise you notto think very much about it,—to the exclusion of moreimportant business,—Squire Glenarm!”
She lifted the lantern to turn out its light, and itmade a glory of her face, but she paused and held ittoward me.
“Pardon me! You will need this to light you home.”
“But you must not cross the park alone!”
“Good night! Please be sure to close the door to thepassage when you go down. You are a dreadfully heedlessperson, Squire Glenarm.”
She flung open the outer chapel-door, and ran alongthe path toward St. Agatha’s. I watched her in thestarlight until a bend in the path hid her swift-movingfigure.
Down through the passage I hastened, her lanternlighting my way. At the Door of Bewilderment I closedthe opening, setting up the line of wall as we had leftit in the afternoon, and then I went back to the library,freshened the fire and brooded before it until Bates cameto relieve me at dawn.