LXIV
There was no question as to Harry’s activity. He had rolled a heavy boulder from the débris in the passage and, placing it in the centre of the floor, he could reach the stone roof, which was in six petal-shaped sectors. The lens of his lamp had been removed so that the light was diffused, and she had a better view of the room.
There were little holes at intervals that looked as if they had once held hat-pegs, though why anybody should come into these depths to hang up his hat, she could not imagine. And then the real value of this peculiar chamber occurred to her. She found against the wall a long, rusty hook, so thin that she could break it. This had been the meat storeroom of the Abbey, the mediæval equivalent to a refrigerator. The atmosphere was deathly cold. It seemed a very long way from the Abbey, but in reality it was not more than a hundred and fifty yards. The old monks had found this cavern, had dressed and strengthened it, had lined and converted it to their own use. That explained why this chamber, so far distant from the main building, had received the ancient architects’ attention.
Harry was in his shirt sleeves, which were rolled up, revealing his thin but sinewy arms. He had managed to get the claw of the crowbar between two of the stones, and was working at them gradually, talking the while to himself in an undertone. Her anxiety increased. The paroxysm, when it came, would be short, but what would be the end of it? Her mouth went dry and she felt for the knife she had put in her pocket and stealthily opening the blade, thrust it through the lining to keep it in place.
Presently Harry paused, wiped the perspiration from his forehead with his arm, and looked down at her. His horn-rimmed spectacles had slipped down his nose and he stopped to adjust them.
“Dick has no intention whatever of rescuing us. I think that you ought to know that.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Harry,” she said.
But opposition only made him worse and he snapped down at her.
“You’re a fool! All women are fools! I tell you it is a plot. Dick has no more intention of rescuing us…”
He stopped suddenly and passed his hand across his eyes.
“I wish I had brought the picture,” he muttered, and glared at her. “But for you I should have taken it with me, and now I’ve left it behind for that swine to jeer at!”
She looked up at the roof.
“You’re doing splendidly, Harry,” and, his attention distracted, he attacked the roof again.
“You can trust me, Leslie,” he said. “I am the only person in the world you can trust. You have no enemies. The Black Abbot is dead! I killed him, and I am very proud of the fact. Every Chelford should kill at least one Black Abbot, and I have had the approval of my illustrious ancestor.”
By this time the claw of the crowbar had been worked deep into the crevice he had made, and he began to lever slowly. As she watched him she saw the stone move. It dropped suddenly an eighth of an inch, and he raised an excited shout.
“You see, you see!” he said, in his shrill voice. “Dick never dreamt I would be able to do that, or he would not have allowed me to use this crowbar.”
He got down from the stone, scooped up two handfuls of water from the worn channel, and drank, dashing the remainder of the water into his face before he leapt again on the stone and went to work with renewed vigour. Backward and forward he levered the jemmy, and again the stone dropped, until it was perceptibly out of place.
“You must be careful, Harry,” she warned him. “That may come down with a rush and hurt you.”
He was sensible enough to see this, changed the position of the stone, and worked from the other angle. And then, without warning, all that she had predicted happened. He leapt aside into the open doorway as with a crash the sector fell and broke into fragments on the stone pavement.
“You see, you see!” he screamed. “I’ve done it!”
A steady shower of shingle was falling. He struck upward with the point of his crowbar and the shower increased until it made a heap on the ground.
And then he saw the edge of a box.
“Look, look, look!”
His trembling hands could scarcely hold the tool. With the energy of dementia he dug away at the shingle beneath it, and presently, gripping it by the edge, he pulled it clear. It was a tiny chest, a miniature of those she had seen at Fossaway Manor, six inches in length, four inches broad and as deep. With his crowbar he pried open the lid and the rusted iron hasp parted with a snap. Inside was what appeared to be a bundle of discoloured cloth. He lifted it out.
“There’s something heavy here,” he said hoarsely, and his hands shook so, that in pity she came forward and helped unwrap the thing that the box held. Presently it came to light: a long flask containing a colourless fluid. The bottle was heavily sealed at the top.
He snatched it from her hand; a frenzied gleam in the staring eyes.
“The elixir!” he croaked. “The Life Water! Oh, God be thanked!”
She tried to take it from him, but he snarled round on her like an angry dog.
“You devil!” he screamed. “You’re in league with Dick! You’re trying to rob me of life! But you sha’n’t, you sha’n’t!”
The flask was corked with a piece of wood that had swollen. He dragged at it with his teeth and presently extracted the stopper.
“I shall live eternally! But you shall die! He shall find you here dead, and realize…”
He put the flask to his lips and drank. She covered her eyes with her hands, then, as he moved, gripped the knife.
And then she heard something drop with a heavy crash to the floor and looked. The shingle was still sliding down like sand in an hourglass, but now something big and heavy thudded to the ground. It looked ludicrously like a yellow candle, but its weight was such that the first bar struck the pavement and the impact bent it hook-shape. Another followed. She watched, fascinated, as they came, first slowly, then in a stream, from the triangular space in the roof—scores, hundreds of yellow candles thundering down in twos and threes amidst the flow of shingle.
“The gold, the gold!” screamed Harry. “But he shall never have it!”
He lifted the lamp, but as his arm rose she stooped swiftly. The crash of the lamp as it struck the wall came to her and she crouched back toward the wishing well. She heard a loud crash in the chamber; a sector of the roof had given under the strain, and now, with a hiss and a rush, shingle and ingot were falling until they almost filled the room. They flowed about her feet like a heavy stream. She struggled to get it underfoot and became more and more engulfed.
“Dick, Dick!” she screamed, but he did not hear her.
He had reached the broken roof of the Cold Room and was slipping and sliding down the heap of shingle under which lay a man who was dead before the torrent of stone was loosened. Later they found him, gripping a crystal flask in his hand. What it had contained, no man ever knew.