XLVII
Hurrying back the way she had come, she joined Mary in the study. Puttler she had not seen since the early morning, when he cycled to Willow House to bring the notice he had found.
“My dear,” said Mary, “I’m not so sure I shall stay here to-night. This place is full of shocks! I’d like to see your brother very much indeed, but you can tell him all about the room under the Abbey, can’t you? That’s where the gold is—you mark my words!”
“The gold?” Leslie for a moment did not understand. “Oh, you mean the Chelford treasure?”
The horrible thing! It was behind all this misery; behind the killing of Thomas and the disappearance of Harry. She said as much, and Miss Wenner, not pausing in her typewriting, calmly expressed the view that it was very likely.
Shock followed shock indeed! At half-past four Leslie’s maid brought a letter which had come by special delivery. It was in Arthur’s writing; she tore it open and read:
Dear Leslie:
You are under no circumstances to marry Gilder. I refuse to allow you to sacrifice yourself for me, now or at any time. I am going away to France for a few months, and will return when things have blown over.
Ordinarily quick-witted, it was a long time before Leslie could understand the significance of this message. When she did, she took the letter to Dick, and he read it without comment and handed it back to her.
“What does that mean, Dick?”
“It means that Arthur has taken the line of least resistance,” he said. “To put it vulgarly, he has bolted!”
Her heart sank, and in that moment she felt terribly alone. As if he read her thoughts, he went on:
“He has certainly precipitated the crisis, but I don’t see exactly how it will affect you. There was nothing else in the letter?”
She shook her head and opened the envelope, and then saw a slip of paper which she had overlooked. It was an authority to sell his business, drawn up in legal form, and had evidently been added as an afterthought.
“If there are no further defalcations that ought to be worth something,” said Dick. “I’ll see what I can do.”
But on this point she was firm.
“I think you’ve enough trouble without mine,” she said quietly. “Did you find anything in the ruins?”
He started.
“Why—no,” he said, a little unconvincingly. “Did you see me go back?”
“I’m afraid I spied on you,” she said, with a pathetic little smile. “Dick, I’m so worried about you; I wish you wouldn’t go into these places alone.”
“There was nothing to fear,” he said. “I thought I saw something on the floor which gave me a clue to Harry’s fate, but it was nothing—nothing.”
He changed the subject abruptly. She had a feeling that he was not telling her all that he had seen.
Mary and she had dinner alone, and Mr. Glover, the butler, free from the restraining presence of Dick Alford, was inclined to be talkative.
“There’s no doubt Mr. Alford looks after the policemen. I have had to get a food basket ready—thermos flask and everything the heart can desire. Personally, miss, I don’t believe in pampering the police. They’re only dissatisfied when they go back to their own homes. He won’t have anybody take the basket down to them either. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll take it myself. You have it ready at nine o’clock, put it just outside the servants’ door.’ My own opinion is that they’d be much more pleased with bread and cheese and a bottle of beer. What’s the good of making chicken sandwiches for policemen? And having a bottle of the best wine up from the cellar! It’s a waste of good food!”
Leslie listened, petrified. Now she understood!
The food was not for the police—it was for Harry! Harry, held prisoner in Chelford Abbey—by whom?