LIV
Harry had lit a candle, and, guided by this, she went down the steep circular stairway.
“He brought me that, food—the devil!” He pointed his shaking finger to the basket.
“Dick brought it?” she faltered.
He nodded.
“Poisoned,” he said. “But he didn’t catch me. Poisoned every bit of it!”
He carefully unwrapped a white napkin and showed a dainty pile of sandwiches, took one and opened it.
“You can see the crystals glittering on the meat,” he said, in so calm and matter-of-fact a tone that she almost thought she saw something glitter on the white flesh.
Then he lifted the bottle and looked at it with a smile.
“It was too childish. Nobody but a fool would have dreamt I could be deceived.” He put the bottle and sandwiches back again carefully and covered them with the napkin that had been over the basket.
“Come,” he said, and they went farther into the apartment.
She saw a big gap in the floor and a stone standing straightly up from the centre.
“I have a lamp below. I prepared this place a very long time ago against such an emergency. Light and food—and all the water you want. Will you go first?”
He was very courteous and polite, took her hand to guide her, and held the light so that she could see the stairs, and came down immediately after, stopping to swing the stone into place.
“Will you hold the candle?” he asked.
She was trembling so violently that her fingers were soon covered with hot grease, but she did not feel the smart of the boiling wax; her eyes were fixed upon the man, fascinated.
He was lighting a new storm lantern which burnt, she guessed, paraffin gas, and it took some time before a brilliant bright light illuminated the room in which she found herself. It was twice the size of the apartment above, and neither the walls nor the floor had fallen into decay. It was almost as new-looking as it had been when the Norman builders had handed it to the Black Fathers of Chelfordbury.
The first unusual things she saw were two sporting rifles that stood in a corner of the room. Following her eyes, he smiled.
“I shall not sell my life without a struggle,” he said firmly.
The furniture consisted of a very old refectory table, the top of which must have been at least four inches in thickness, a long form, and a high chair that looked like a bishop’s throne. There were no visible windows, but the ceiling did not quite reach the wall, and there seemed a space all round the room where air was admitted.
“Excuse me,” he said.
He took the thing he had been carrying, unrolled it, and to her astonishment, kissed it passionately before he carried it to a truckle-bed that she had not noticed before and tacked it to a beam which showed between the stone courses and was in truth the only wood she had seen in the building.
She looked in amazement, and knew the picture instantly. It was the head of his mother.
“How lovely!” he sighed. “How wonderful! Do you know, I feel that nothing matters now, Leslie!”
He smiled at her, and looked at that moment so happy that she could have cried.
“Richard hated her,” he went on. “He never lost an opportunity of speaking ill of her. I am told that in my absence he used to bring the servants into the library and together they would laugh and gibe at this beautiful martyr.”
“How absurd, Harry! You know Dick would do no such thing,” she said, stirred to his defence.
But he was not angry, nor did he show any resentment at her championship.
“You don’t know Dick,” he said simply. “Dick, of course, is the Black Abbot. I only found it out a week or two ago, when I went into his room and discovered the costume in a box. He had forgotten to put it away.”
She did not believe the only truth he had told her so far but she felt that it would be undiplomatic, to say the least, to argue with him.
“Harry, I can’t stay here, you know,” she said. “There is only one room, and I have a weakness for a daily bath——”
He walked across the room and pulled aside a sacking that hid one corner, and pointed dramatically.
“You will find everything you require here,” he said. “This room is yours. I shall sleep upstairs, only coming below at the first hint of danger, either to you or to me. The position calls for courage and patience, and I know that my wife-to-be has those qualities to excess.”
He was his old, smiling, genial self.
“By-the-way, there are plenty of books to read—I brought some away from the house. They were rather heavy and I had to drag them a little bit, but thank heaven I got just what I wanted.”
She noticed them now for the first time, piled at one end of the refectory table. He took up a volume and turned the leaves lovingly.
“You do not read German? I think you told me that before. It is a pity, because this is a very fascinating narrative, told by an outsider of the Chelfords of the period. You will be pleased to learn that I have located the treasure. It was not difficult. I knew all the time that it was behind the second door in the room above.”
“Have you known this place for long?”
He nodded.
“For six years,” he said. “I found it on the twenty-first anniversary of my dear mother’s death. I think I ought to say ‘murder,’ for there is no doubt that my father, who had all the worst qualities of Dick, killed her—hanged her.”
Her face contorted with horror.
“In that room?” she said, in a strained voice. “Behind the door?”
He nodded.
“The thing was hushed up. My clever father was too great a man to be put on trial for his life and the story was circulated that she had died by her own hand.”
Every word he said was a lie, as she knew, but he believed it. He explained quite rationally how the light was worked; showed her the little wash place with the stream of water running from the raw rock through a cavity into some invisible deeps; even gave her a short résumé of the history of the place. It had been built by the Black Abbot himself for his own especial purpose.
“My first idea was that there was another exit here, or rather an entrance for those peculiar friends of his, but that I have failed to discover.”
He took up one of the rifles, shot back the bolt with the air of an expert, and, going up the steps, unfastened the heavy oaken bar that kept the stone in place.
The slab pivoted round, and she had a wild idea that when it was closed she would fasten it; but he was evidently prepared for this, for she heard him drag a paving-stone to the edge of the hole and place it so that the trap could not close.
“Good-night, Leslie,” he said, peering down at her through his spectacles. “You will not mind my light? I want to read a chapter before I sleep.”
For a quarter of an hour no sound broke the silence. She sat on the bed, her hands clasped on her knees. And then she heard him move and her breath came faster, but he had only a question to ask.
“Tell me, Leslie, did Thomas leave any relations? I should like to provide for them. The man annoyed me, but I really do not regret killing him. But I should not like to feel that his relatives were suffering through my act of justice.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said, and it did not seem to be her voice.