The Ashiel Mystery, Mrs. Charles Bryce [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

meant!

 

Whose curiosity was to be faced? The behaviour of members of a Nihilist

society could hardly be said to be impelled by that motive. Gimblet could

not see that anyone else had shown any symptom of it. Had "curiosity,"

then, some other meaning?

 

The detective, as has been said, was an amateur of the antique. When not

at work, a great part of his time was passed in the neighbourhood of

curiosity shops, and the merchandise they dealt in immediately occurred

to him in connection with the word.

 

Did the dead man refer to some peculiarity of the ancient keep? Was

there, perhaps, the figure or picture of a bull within the castle whose

horn pointed to the ultimate place of concealment? It would have seemed,

Gimblet thought, that the hidden receptacle in the secret stair was

difficult enough to find; but the reason the papers were not placed in

there was plain to him after a minute's reflection. It was doubtless

because they were too bulky to be contained in the shallow drawer. At all

events, there was certainly another hiding-place; and, on the whole, the

best plan seemed to be to see if the castle could produce any curiosity

that would offer a solution of the problem.

 

To the castle, accordingly, he went, and asked to see Lord Ashiel. He was

shown into the smoking-room, where Mark was kneeling on the hearth-rug

surrounded by piles of folded and docketed papers. The door of a small

cupboard in the wall beside the fireplace stood open, revealing a row of

deep shelves stacked with the same neat packets.

 

"Still hunting for the will, you see," he said, looking up as Gimblet

entered, "I'm beginning to give up hope of finding it, but it's a mercy

to have something to do these days."

 

"Rather a tedious job, isn't it?" said the detective, looking down at the

musty tape-bound bundles.

 

"Well, it gives one rather a kink in the back after a time," Mark

admitted. "But I shan't feel easy in my mind till I've looked through

everything, and I'm getting a very useful idea of the estate accounts in

the meantime. It _is_ rather a long business, but I'm getting on with it,

slow but sure. There are such a fearful lot."

 

"Are all these cupboards full of papers?" Gimblet asked, looking round

him at the numerous little doors in the panelling.

 

"Stuffed with them, every blessed one of them," Mark replied rather

gloomily. "And the worst of it is, I'm pretty certain they're nothing but

these dusty old bills and letters. But there's nowhere else to look, and

I know he kept nearly everything here."

 

Gimblet sauntered round the room, pulling open the drawers and peeping in

at the piles of documents.

 

"What an accumulation!" he remarked. "None of these cupboards are locked,

I see," he added.

 

"No, he never locked anything up," said Mark. "I've heard him boast he

never used a key. Do you know, if one had time to read them, I believe

some of these old letters might be rather amusing. It looked as if my

grandfather and his fathers had kept every single one that ever was

written to them. I've just come across one from Raeburn, the painter, and

I saw another, a quarter of an hour ago, from Lord Clive."

 

"Really," said Gimblet eagerly, "which cupboard were they in? I should

like to see them immensely some time."

 

"They were in this one," said Mark, pointing to the shelves

opposite him.

 

Gimblet stood facing it, and looked hopefully round him in all directions

for anything like a bull. There was nothing, however, to suggest such an

animal, and he reflected that interesting though these old letters might

be it would be going rather far to refer to them as curiosities. Suddenly

an idea struck him.

 

"I suppose you haven't come across anything concerning a Papal Bull?"

he inquired.

 

"No," said Mark, looking up in surprise. "It's not very likely I should,

you know."

 

"No, I suppose not," said Gimblet. "Still, you old families did get hold

of all sorts of odd things sometimes, and your uncle was a bit of a

collector, wasn't he?"

 

"Uncle Douglas," said Mark, "not he! He didn't care a bit for that kind

of thing. You can see in the drawing-room the sort of horrors he used to

buy. He was thoroughly early Victorian in his tastes, and ought to have

been born fifty years sooner than he was."

 

"Dear me," said Gimblet. "I don't know why I thought he was rather by way

of being a connoisseur. Well, well, I mustn't waste any more time. I

wanted to ask you if you would mind my going all over the house. I may

see something suggestive. Who knows? At present I have only examined the

library and your uncle's bedroom."

 

"By all means," said Mark. "Blanston will show you anything you want to

see. Oh, by the by, you like to be alone, don't you? I was forgetting.

Well, go anywhere you like; and good luck to your hunting!"

 

On a writing-table in one of the bedrooms, Gimblet found a paper-weight

in the bronze shape of a Spanish toro, head down, tail brandishing, a

fine emblem of goaded rage. But there was nothing promising about the

round mahogany table on which it stood: no drawer, secret or otherwise

could all his measurings and tappings discover; the animal, when lifted

up by the horn and dangled before the detective's critical eye,

proclaimed itself modern and of no artistic merit. It was like a hundred

others to be had in any Spanish town, and by no expanding of terms could

it be considered a curiosity.

 

Except for this one more than doubtful find, he drew the whole house

absolutely blank. There were very few specimens of ancient work in the

castle, which like so many other old houses had been stripped of

everything interesting it contained in the middle of the nineteenth

century, and entirely refurnished and redecorated in the worst possible

taste. With the exception of some family portraits, the lacquered clock

in the library was the one genuine survival of the Victorian holocaust,

and though Gimblet passed nearly half an hour in contemplating it he

could not see any way of connecting it with a bull, nor was he a whit the

wiser when he finally turned his back on it than he had been at the

beginning.

CHAPTER XV

 

Blanston, to whom he appealed, could give no useful information. Yes,

some of the plate was old, but that was all at the bank in London. Mrs.

Haviland, his lordship's sister, had liked it on the table when his

lordship entertained in his London house, and it had not been carried

backwards and forwards to Scotland since her ladyship's death.

 

He knew of nothing resembling a bull in his lordship's possession, unless

it was the picture of cows that hung in the drawing-room opposite the one

of the dead stag.

 

Gimblet had already exhausted the possibilities of that highly varnished

oil-painting, and he went forth from the house in a state of deep

dejection.

 

As he descended the drive he heard his name called, and looking back

perceived the short, sturdy figure of Lady Ruth hurrying down the road

behind him.

 

"If you are going back to the cottage, Mr. Gimblet," she panted, "let us

walk together. I ran after you when I saw your hat go past the window,

for I couldn't stand those frowsty old papers of Mark's any longer."

 

Gimblet waited till she came up, still talking, although considerably out

of breath.

 

"We will go by the road, if you don't mind," she said, "the lochside is

rather rough for me. I have been paying a visit of charity, and very hard

work it is paying visits in the country when you don't keep a conveyance

of any kind, and I really can't afford even a donkey. You see the

Judge's income died with him, poor dear, in spite of those foolish

sayings about not being able to take your money with you to the better

land, where I am sure one would want it just as much as anywhere else,

for the better life you lead, the more expensive it is. No one could be

generous, or charitable, or unselfish, with nothing to give up or to give

away. That's only common sense, and I always say that common sense is

such a help when called upon to face problems of a religious kind.

 

"My uncle was a bishop and a very learned theologian, I assure you; but

he always held that it was impious to apply plain common sense to matters

so far above us, and that is why he and my poor husband were never on

speaking terms; not from any fault of the Judge's, who had been trained

to think about logic and all that kind of thing which is so useful to

people at the Bar.

 

"But it takes all sorts to make a world, as he often used to say to

himself, and if every one was exactly alike one would feel almost as

solitary as if the whole earth was empty and void, while, as for virtues

and good qualities, they would automatically cease to exist, so that a

really good man would simply long to go to hell and have some opportunity

to show his goodness. That always seemed very reasonable to me, but I am

just telling you what my husband used to say, because I really don't know

much about these things, and he was such a clever man, and what he said

was always listened to with great interest and respect at the Old Bailey.

If it hadn't been, of course he would have cleared the court.

 

"But as I was telling you, his money went with him, though I know he

always meant to insure his life, which is such a boring thing to think of

when a man has many calls on his purse. And so, I live, as you see, in a

very quiet way up here, and sometimes get down to the South for a month

or six weeks in the winter, where I have many kind friends. But I find

the hills rather trying to my legs as time goes on, and I don't very

often walk as far as I have to-day. Still charity, as they say, covers a

multitude of miles, and I really thought it my duty to come and see how

poor Mark was bearing up all alone at Inverashiel. I was afraid he would

be terribly unhappy, poor boy, so soon after the funeral, and Juliet

Byrne having refused him, and everything. Though of course he can't be

pitied for inheriting Inverashiel, such a lovely place, is it not? And

quantities of property in the coal district, you know, besides. He is

really a very lucky young man."

 

"It is indeed a most beautiful country," Gimblet observed, as Lady

Ruth's breath gave out completely, and she stopped by the roadside to

regain it. He was deep in thought, and glad to escape the necessity of

frequent speech.

 

"Yes," she said, as they moved slowly on, "I had a delightful walk here,

and found him much more cheerful than I had feared. It is such a good

thing he has all those papers to look over. It is everything, at a time

like this, to have an occupation. It is so dreadful to think of dear

David with absolutely nothing to do in that horrid cell. I wonder if they

allow him to smoke, or to keep a tame mouse, which I remember reading is

such a comfort to prisoners. I do hope, Mr. Gimblet, that you will soon

be able to get him out of it."

 

Before Gimblet could reply, the silence was broken by the rumble of

wheels; and a farmer's cart came up behind them, driven by a thin man

in a black coat, who had evidently attended the funeral earlier in the

day. The road, at the point they had reached, was beginning to ascend;

and the stout pony between the shafts slowed resolutely to a walk as he

leant against