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

saw that

it was full of papers.

 

Suddenly there was another cry from Lady Ruth as, for no apparent cause

and without the slightest warning, the stone door slammed itself back

into position, and he was left a prisoner in the total darkness of the

vault. He groped his way to the doorway and pushed against it with all

his strength. He might as well have tried to move the side of a mountain.

But, after an interval long enough for him to have time to become

seriously uneasy, the door flew open again, and the agitated countenance

of Lady Ruth welcomed him to the outside world.

 

"Do get out quick," she cried. "If it does it again while you're half in

and half out, you'll be cracked in two as neatly as a walnut."

 

Gimblet hurried out, clutching the precious box. No sooner was he safely

standing on the turf than the door shut again with a violence that gave

Pandora the appearance of shaking with convulsions of silent merriment.

 

"I wasn't sure how it opened," said Lady Ruth, "but I tried all the horns

and got it right at last. How lucky I was with you!"

 

"Yes, indeed," said Gimblet. "I am very thankful you were."

 

They twisted the horn again, and stood together to watch the recurring

phenomenon of the closing door.

 

"It must be worked by clockwork," the detective said, and taking out his

watch he timed the interval that elapsed between the opening and

shutting. "It stays open for thirty seconds," he remarked after two or

three experiments. "No doubt the mechanism is concealed in the thickness

of the stone. At all events it seems to be in good working order."

 

Squatting on the grass, he opened the tin box, and examined the papers

with which it was filled. A glance showed him that they were what he

expected, and he replaced the box where he had found it, while Lady Ruth

manipulated the horn of the bull.

 

"I have no right to the papers," he explained to her, as they walked

homeward in the gathering dusk. "It would be more satisfactory if a

magistrate were present at the official opening of the statue, and I will

see what can be done about that to-morrow. In the meantime, and

considering that we have been interfering with other people's property, I

shall be much obliged if you will keep our discovery secret."

 

And talking in low, earnest tones, he explained to her more fully all

that was likely to be implied by the papers they had unearthed.

CHAPTER XVI

 

With her white paint and her scarlet smokestack, the _Inverashiel_--one

of the two small steamers that during the summer months plied up and

down the loch, and incidentally carried on communication between

Inverashiel and Crianan--was a picturesque addition to the landscape,

as she approached the wooden landing-stage that stood half a mile below

the promontory on which the castle was built. It was the morning of

Friday, the day following the funeral, and clouds were settling slowly

down on to the tops and shoulders of the hills in spite of the

brilliant sunset of the previous evening. The loch lay dark and still,

its surface wore an oily, treacherous look; every detail of the

_Inverashiel's_ tub-like shape was reflected and beautifully distorted

in the water, which broke in long low waves from her bows as she

swerved round to come alongside the pier.

 

As the few passengers who were waiting for her crossed the short gangway,

a shower burst over the loch and in a few minutes had driven every one

into the little cabin, except the two or three men who constituted the

officers and crew of the steamer. One of these was in the act of

slackening the rope by which the boat had been warped alongside, when a

running, gesticulating figure appeared in the distance, shouting to them

to wait for him.

 

Waited for accordingly he was; and in a few minutes Gimblet, rather out

of breath after his run, hurried on board, and with a word of apology and

thanks to the obliging skipper turned, like the other passengers, towards

the shelter of the cabin.

 

With his hand on the knob of the door he hesitated. Through the glass top

he had just caught sight of a figure that seemed familiar. He had seen

that tweed before; the short girl with her back to him was wearing the

dress in which he had seen her on the Wednesday night, searching among

Lord Ashiel's papers in the library at the castle. It was Julia Romaninov

beyond a doubt, and Gimblet drew back quickly and took up his position

behind the funnels on the after-deck. In spite of the rain he remained

there until the boat reached Crianan, leaning against the rail with his

collar turned up and his soft felt hat pulled down over his ears, so that

little of him was visible except the tip of his nose.

 

His mind, always active, was busier than usual as he watched the

ripples roll away in endless succession from the sides of the

_Inverashiel_--which looked so strangely less white on closer

inspection--or followed the smooth soaring movements of the gulls that

swooped and circled around her, as she puffed and panted on her way

across the black, taciturn waters.

 

As they drew near to Crianan he concealed himself still more carefully

behind a pile of crates, and not till Miss Romaninov had left the steamer

did he emerge from his hiding-place and step warily off the boat.

 

The young lady was still in sight, making her way up the steep pitch of

the main street, and the detective followed her discreetly, loitering

before shop windows, as if fascinated by the display of Scottish

homespuns, or samples of Royal Stewart tartan, and taking an

extraordinary interest in fishing-tackle and trout-flies.

 

But, though the girl looked back more than once, the little man in the

ulster who was so intent on picking his way between the puddles did

not apparently provide her with any food for suspicion; and she made

no attempt to see who was so carefully sheltered beneath the umbrella

he carried.

 

At last they left the cobble-stones of the little town and emerged upon

the high road, which here ran across the open moorland.

 

It was difficult now to continue the pursuit unobserved: and Gimblet

became absorbed in the contemplation of an enormous cairngorm, which was

masquerading as an article of personal adornment in the window of the

last outlying shop.

 

From this position--not without its embarrassments, since a couple of

barefooted children came instantly to the door, where they stood and

stared at him unblinkingly--he saw the Russian advancing at a rapid pace

across the moor; and, look where he would, could perceive no means of

keeping up with her unobserved upon the bare side of the hill.

 

Just as he decided that the distance separating them had increased to an

extent which warranted his continuing the chase, he joyfully saw her

slacken her pace, and at the same moment a man, who must have been

sitting behind a boulder beside the road, rose to his feet out of the

heather, and came forward to meet her. For ten long minutes they stood

talking, driving poor Gimblet to the desperate expedient of entering the

shop and demanding a closer acquaintance with the cairngorm. It is

humiliating to relate that he recoiled before it when it was placed in

his hand, and nearly fled again into the road. However, he pulled himself

together and held the proud proprietress, a gaunt, grey-haired woman with

knitting-needles ever clicking in her dexterous hands, in conversation

upon the theme of its unique beauties until the subject was exhausted to

the point of collapse.

 

Every other minute he must stroll to the door and take a look up and down

the road. A friend, he explained, had promised to meet him in that place;

and though the shopwoman plainly doubted his veracity, and kept a sharp

eye that he did not take to his heels with the cairngorm, she did not go

so far as to suggest his removing himself from the zone of temptation.

 

At last, when for the twentieth time he put his nose round the doorpost,

he saw that the pair had separated, and were walking in opposite

directions, the girl continuing on her way, while the man returned to the

town. He was, indeed, not a hundred yards off.

 

Gimblet plunged once more into the shop, and fastened upon some pencils

with a zeal not very convincing after his disappointing vacillation over

the brooch. The gaunt woman cheered up, however, when he bought the first

seventeen she offered him, and, the stock being exhausted, finished by

purchasing a piece of india-rubber, a stylographic pen, and a penny paper

of pins, which she pressed upon him as particularly suited to his needs

and charged him fourpence for.

 

By the time he issued forth into the open air, his pockets full of

packages, the stranger had passed the shop and was turning the corner of

the next house. To him, now, Gimblet devoted his powers of shadowing.

 

There was no great difficulty about it. The man walked straight before

him, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and as he strode along

the wet roads Gimblet noted with satisfaction the long, narrow, pointed

footprints that were deeply impressed in the muddy places. He had no

doubt they were the same as those he had noticed on the beach on the day

of his arrival at Inverashiel.

 

The stranger turned into the Crianan Hotel, which stands on the lake

front, fifty yards from the landing-place of the loch steamers. Gimblet

passed the door without pausing and went down to the loch, where he

mingled with the boatmen and loafers who congregated by the waterside.

 

He kept, however, a strict eye on the door of the hotel, and after a

quarter of an hour saw the object of his attentions emerge with

fishing-rod and basket, and cross the road directly towards him. Gimblet

had not been able to see his face before, but now he had a good look as

he passed close beside him.

 

He was a tall, fair man, evidently a foreigner, but with nothing very

striking about his appearance. A pointed yellow beard hid the lower part

of his face, and, for the rest, his nose was short, his eyes blue and

close together, and his forehead high and narrow. He looked closely at

Gimblet as he went by, and for a moment the eyes of the two men met, both

equally inscrutable and unflinching; then the stranger glanced aside and

strode on to where a small boat lay moored. The detective turned his back

while the fair man got in and pushed off into the loch.

 

"Gentleman going fishing?" he remarked to a man who lounged hard by upon

the causeway.

 

"He's axtra fond o' the feeshin'," was the reply, "for a' that he's a

foreign shentleman."

 

Waiting till the boat had become a distant speck on the face of the

waters, Gimblet made his way into the inn and entered into conversation

with the landlord, on the pretext of engaging rooms for a friend. The

landlord was sorry, but the house was full.

 

"If ye wanted them in a fortnicht's time," he said, "ye could hae the

hale hotel; but tae the end o' the holidays we're foll up. Folks tak'

their rooms a month in advance; they come here for the fishin' on the

loch, and because my hoose is the maist comfortable in the Hielands."

 

"Indeed, I can well believe that," Gimblet assured him. "I suppose you

get a lot of tourists passing through, though, Americans, for instance?"

 

"We hardly ever hae a room tae tak' them in. No, I seldom hae an American

bidin' here; they maistly gang doon the loch," said the innkeeper.

 

"I thought," said Gimblet, "that was a foreign-looking man whom I saw a

little while ago, coming out of the hotel."

 

"We hae ae gintleman bidin' here wha belongs tae foreign pairts," the

landlord admitted. "A Polish gintleman, he is, Count Pretovsky, a vary

nice gintleman. I