CHAPTER XXIII
A STARTLING DENOUEMENT
And so it came about that Dollops and Cleek, both wearing dark suits(procured in Cleek's case at the Three Fishers, and from his owndressing-bag), and with caps pulled down over their faces and falsemoustaches decorating their upper lips as a protection againstunforeseen discovery, made their way out in the clear moonlight towardthat "gravel pit" of which Dollops had spoken, and padded soft-footedlydown the hill toward the little "shanty" to which Dollops guided them,and after a quick glance at it, pushed on into the darkness of thenight; down, down, down into the valley--to the thing that lay thererevealed in the moon's rays, and which in the face of the to-morrow'ssun would have vanished like the picture upon an exposed camera film.
But to-night--to-night they could see the whole panorama of it, lyingclose to the earth, concealed behind a huge furze-bush upon thehillside, stomachs flat against the face of it, eyes sharpened upon thatidentical spot which told so much to them of what they sought. Perhaps adozen men worked there--perhaps more--coats off, shirt-sleeves rolledup--big, bonny men of brawn and muscle, come of a stock as tough as thegranite of the hillside itself and hardened by the keen winds and thekeener air of the Highlands that had given them birth.
"Giants!" whispered Dollops awe-inspiringly, his lips close againstCleek's ear.
"_Thieves!_" responded Cleek, with a quick intake of the breath. "Gad!they're a lot, Dollops! And if they caught us up here, hidden away, ourchances would be exactly nil. Where's your friend Balmy, eh?"
"Dahn there--under that big flare, sir--'im wiv the blue shirt and thered neck-cloth. Likely lookin' blighter, ain't 'e?"
"H'm. Not very. Not a sound, boy! There's a couple of 'em coming thisway. Got it in barrels, have they? Gad! I'd like to have a look at oneof those homely articles. I'll swear there's a false bottom to it, if Iknow anything of this kind of trickery.... Hello!--there's Tweed Coat!"
"Tweed Coat," thus named, passed a stone's throw in front of them, hisarm linked with another man's, his head downbent. But Cleek had seen themoonlight upon his face, and knew his man at last. Ross Duggan had wornthat coat this morning, or one so like it that even he, hawk-eyeddetective that he was, could have told no difference between them. Themoonlight struck upon the white bosom of his evening-dress shirt,making it shine like a strip of ivory, and at something which hiscompanion said to him, he caught it close together, and turned thecollar of the jacket up about his throat.
First the handkerchief so plainly marked "R. D." and now this! But thatsuch a man should be mixed up in a thing of this sort, an illicit thingwhich was against all laws and regulations of the land that had bornehim, made Cleek's mouth go grim. The handkerchief, the coat; andnow--the man. That little chain was completed, and every link weldedtogether. At least some part of the mystery was clear at last.
The pair passed close against them where they lay in the darkness, soclose that Cleek's fingers might have reached out and caught at theother's trouser-leg and tripped him. But the time was not yet ripe forarrests. Better let the thing go unsuspected until to-morrow afternoon,and then, when the Coroner's Inquest was at hand, rally them alltogether in the library once more, and make the final settlement.
Here was only a part of the thing, not the whole thing itself, and if heknew one of his men, he did not yet feel certain of the other. The nightshould bring that uncertainty into clarity if possible.
The darkness hid the couple from view at length, and when theirfootsteps had died away into silence, Cleek touched Dollops upon theshoulder and commenced wriggling upon his stomach down toward the nextfurze-bush, and out into the open, lying flat as Indians do, until theyhad slid the distance between the two clumps of shrubs, and layconcealed, some twelve feet nearer to the scene of operations.
"See anything of your Dago friend?" whispered Cleek, after they hadwatched for a while in silence at this hive of living industry which,when the dawn had penetrated through the veil of night, would havepassed out of sight and vision as though it were a mirage of their ownimagining.
Dollops's voice was barely above a breath.
"Yessir. Just dahn there ter the right. Feller wiv the big blackmoustache. Slim-'ipped Johnny in the dark suit. Got blinkers on 'im likeblack velvet from wot I sees. Proper furriner--the dirty dog! Find 'im,sir?"
"Not yet. Oh! yes, I see! H'm. An _Italian_ all right. But what thedickens is an Italian doing in these outlandish parts? And whatattraction can this perishing climate have for people of their ilk?First the Lady of the Castle--and now this one. Unless.... Gad! theremight be some connection between 'em. Did you find any trace of CaptainMacdonald's handwriting, Dollops, to show me?"
"Yessir. Got a letter from 'is groom. Pinched it while we was a-talkin'.'E showed it ter me, an' it's in me pocket. Summink wrong _there_,Gov'nor?"
"So wrong that it will take more than a little explaining upon thegentleman's part to put it right, my lad," responded Cleek in a whisper."I want to see that letter--badly. But it will have to wait until we areback again at the house. And we'll be back in a jiffy. I'm satisfiedwith the result of this night's work, in this direction, at any rate,Dollops. You've done well--better than I could have done in similarcircumstances, and I'm downright pleased with you!"
"Lor', sir!" Dollops's voice was choking with joyful emotion. "If yergoes and frows any more buckets at me, me chest will expand that big wivpride as they'll be spottin' us in a trick--strite they will! But I'mglad I've made up for that footlin' mistyke over the lydy.... Gawd!Look, Guv'nor--look! 'Oo's this a-comin' now? A woman--strike me pink,if it ain't! And a lydy, too, from the cut of 'er. Now, 'oo in 'eavin'snyme is _she_?"
His pointing finger brought Cleek's eyes instantly into the line of it,and Cleek's face in the moonlight went suddenly pale. Dollops's eyesrested on the grim mask of his face, palely visible from the moon'srays. Then, at a sign from Cleek, he ducked his own head into the grassand lay motionless, as his master had already done.
And by the sound of the soft footsteps, coming from somewhere behindthem, Cleek and his companion knew that the woman had reached the spotwhere they were lying hidden under the great clump of gorse. Then a handreached down and touched Cleek softly upon the shoulder, and a woman'svoice spoke into the darkness with a tender inflection; and at sound ofit every nerve in his body tightened like wire for the tensity of thesituation.
"Ross," said the woman's voice tenderly, "Ross dear, get up--get up! Ifollowed you here to-night, because I--I wanted to talk with you-- I_had_ to talk with you, to tell you something! I simply had to. But I'vebeen a fool to break parole, as you have done, with that man with thehawk eyes in the Castle even at this minute. But so much hangs uponit--Ross, so much! Look up and speak to me, and, whoever your companionis, tell him to go away until we have had a word together. Look up, lookup--_do_!"