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

couldna just cae him a tourist. He's vary keen on the

fishin' and was up here for it last year as well. He has his ain boat and

is aye on the water trailin' aefter the salmon."

 

"A great many sporting foreigners come to our island nowadays," Gimblet

remarked. "Does he get many fish?"

 

"Oh, it's a grand place for salmon," said the inn-keeper with obvious

pride. "And there's troots tac. And pike, mair's the peety," he added.

 

"Dear me," said Gimblet, "just what my friend wants. I'm sorry you

can't take him in. I must tell him to write in good time next year if

he wants a room."

 

As he parted from the landlord upon the doorstep of the Crianan Hotel,

the _Rob Roy_--the second of the two loch steamers--was edging away from

the pier, under a cloud of black smoke from her funnel The rain had

stopped; the passengers were scattered on the deck, and in the bows of

the vessel the detective caught sight of Julia Romaninov's tweed-clad

form. She was leaning against the rail, and gazing at a distant part of

the loch where a black speck, which might represent a rowing boat, could

faintly be discerned. She had come back, then, from her moorland walk. It

was as Gimblet had expected; and, though he chafed at the delay, he

regretted less than he would have otherwise that he could not catch the

_Rob Roy_.

 

The _Inverashiel_ would be due on her homeward trip in a couple of hours'

time, and meanwhile he had other business that must be attended to.

 

He went first to the post office, where he registered and posted to

Scotland Yard a packet he had brought with him. Then, after asking

his way of the sociable landlord of the hotel, he proceeded to the

police station, a single-storied stone building standing at the end

of a side street.

 

Here he made himself known to the inspector, and imparted information

which made that personage open his eyes considerably wider than was

his custom.

 

"If you will bring one of your men, and come with me yourself," said

Gimblet, at the conclusion of the interview, "I think I shall be able to

convince you that a mistake has been made. In the meantime there will be

no harm done by a watch being kept on the foreign gentleman who is at

this moment trolling for salmon on the loch."

 

The inspector agreed; and when the _Inverashiel_ started, an hour later,

on her voyage down the loch, she carried the two policemen on her deck,

as well as the most notorious detective she was ever likely to have the

privilege of conveying.

 

It was nearly three o'clock when they landed on the Inverashiel pier.

 

The weather, which for the last few hours had looked like clearing, had

now turned definitely to rain; clouds had descended on the hills, and the

trees in the valleys stooped and dripped in the saturated, mist-laden

air. Gimblet conducted the men to the cottage, where Lady Ruth anxiously

awaited them.

 

"If you don't mind their staying here," he suggested to her, "while I go

up to the castle and consult Lord Ashiel about a magistrate, it will be

most convenient, on account of the distance."

 

"By all means," said Lady Ruth. "I feel safer with them. I expect you

will find Miss Byrne up there. She has not come in to lunch, and I think

she probably met Mark and went to lunch at the castle. She ought to know

better than to go to lunch alone with a young man, and I am just

wondering if she has changed her mind and accepted him after all. Girls

are kittle cattle, but I've got quite fond of that one, and I hope she's

not forgotten poor David so soon. I really am feeling anxious about her."

 

"I daresay she has only walked farther than she intended," said Gimblet,

"or perhaps she came to a burn or some place she couldn't get over, and

has had to go round a mile or two. Depend on it, that's what's happened.

But I promise you that if she is at the castle I will bring her back when

I return."

CHAPTER XVII

Behind the shrubberies, which lay at the back of the holly hedge that

surrounded the little enclosed garden outside the library, beyond the

end of the battlements, and reached by a disused footpath, a great tree

stood upon the edge of the steep hillside and thrust its sweeping

branches over the void.

 

Its trunk was grey and moss-grown; moss carpeted the ground between its

protruding roots, but the bracken and heather held back, and left a

half-circle beneath it, untenanted by their kind. It would seem that all

vegetation fears to venture beneath the shade of the beech; and for the

most part it stands solitary, shunned by other growing things except

moss, which creeps undaunted where its more vigorous brothers lack the

courage to establish themselves.

 

Here came Juliet that morning.

 

A week ago, David Southern had shown her the path to the tree. It had

been a favourite haunt of his when he was a boy, he told her. It was a

private chamber to which he resorted on the rare occasions when he was

disposed to solitude; when something had gone wrong with his world he had

been used to retire there with his dog, or, more seldom, a book. There he

had been accustomed to lie, his back supported by the tree, and hold

forth to the dog upon the troubles and difficulties of life and the

general crookedness of things; or, if a book were his companion, he

would gaze out, between the pages, at distant Crianan clinging faintly to

the knees of Ben Ghusy, and watch the swift change of passing cloud and

hanging curtain of mist upon the faces of the hills and loch.

 

It had been a place all his own; secret from every one, even from Mark,

his companion during all those holidays that he had spent at Inverashiel.

Somehow, David told Juliet--and it was a confidence he had seldom before

imparted to anyone--he had never quite managed to hit it off with Mark.

He couldn't say why, exactly. No doubt it was his own fault; but there

was no accounting for one's likes and dislikes.

 

And with quick regret at having betrayed his carefully suppressed

feelings in regard to his cousin, David had laughed apologetically, and

spoken of other things.

 

Here, then, just as the steamer _Rob Roy_ was drawing close to the wooden

landing-stage at the edge of the loch, with Julia Romaninov still

standing in the bows; here, because she had once been to this place with

him, because without her he had so often sat upon these mossy roots, came

Juliet to dream of her love.

 

Like him, she seated herself against the tree trunk at the giddy brink of

the precipitous rock; like him, her eyes rested on the smooth waters

below her, or on the far-away misty distance where Crianan slumbered;

but, unlike him, her eyes, as they looked, were filled with tears. Where

was he now? Oh, David, poor unjustly treated David! In what narrow cell,

lighted only by a high, iron-barred window--for so the scene shaped

itself in her mind--with uncovered floor of stone, bare walls and a bench

to lie on, was the man she loved wearing away his days under the burden

of so frightful an accusation?

 

For the thousandth time Juliet's blood boiled within her at the

thought, and she grew hot with anger and indignant scorn. That anyone

should have dared to suspect him! Why were such fools, such wicked,

evil-working imbeciles as the police allowed to exist for one moment

upon the face of the globe? But no doubt they had some hidden motive in

arresting him, for it was quite incredible that they really imagined he

had committed this appalling crime. She could not understand their

motive, to be sure, but without doubt there must have been some reason

which was not clear to her.

 

Oh, David, David! Was he thinking of her, as she was thinking of him? Did

he know, by instinct, that she would be doing all that could be done to

bring about his release? But was she? Again her mind was filled with the

disquieting question, was there nothing that might be done, that she was

leaving undone? Had she forgotten something, neglected something? She was

sure Gimblet did not believe David to be guilty, but was he certain of

being able to prove his innocence? He did not seem to have discovered

much at present.

 

Suddenly, in the midst of her distress, she smiled to herself.

 

At least Miss Tarver had shown herself in her true colours, and was no

more to be considered. Juliet felt that she could almost forgive her for

her readiness to believe the worst. It was dreadful, yes, and shameful

that anyone else should think for a moment that David could be capable of

such a deed, but in Miss Tarver, perhaps, the thought had not been

inexcusable. On the whole, it was so nice of her to break the engagement

that she might be forgiven the ridiculous reason she had advanced for

doing it. Of course, Juliet assured herself, it was a mere pretext,

because _no_ one could possibly believe it. And in this manner she

continued to reiterate her conviction that the suspicions entertained of

her lover were all assumed for some darkly obscure purpose.

 

So the morning wore away. A shower or two passed down the valley, but

under the thick tent of the beech leaves she scarcely felt it. She was,

besides, dressed for bad weather; and the grey and mournful face of the

day was in harmony with her mood.

 

There was something comforting in this high perch. She seemed more aloof

from the troubles and despair of the last few days than she had imagined

possible. There was a calm, a remoteness, about the grey mountains,

disappearing and reappearing from behind their screen of cloud but

unchanged and unmoved by what went on around and among them, that was in

some way reassuring.

 

The burn that ran at the bottom of the hill on which she sat, hurrying

down to the loch in such turbulent foaming haste, she was able to

compare, with a sad smile, to herself. The loch, she thought, was wide

and impassive as justice, which did not allow itself to be influenced by

the emotions. The burn would get down just the same without so much

turmoil and fuss; and she would see David's name cleared, equally surely,

if she waited calmly on events, instead of burning her heart out in

hopeless impatience and anxiety.

 

As she gazed, with some such thoughts as these, down to the stream

that splashed on its way below her, her attention was caught by a

movement in the bushes half-way down the steep slope at the top of

which she was sitting.

 

The day was windless and no leaf moved on any tree. There must be some

animal among the shrubs that covered the embankment, some large animal,

since its movements caused so much commotion; for, as she watched, first

one bush and then another stirred and bent and was shaken as if by

something thrusting its way through the dense growth.

 

What could it be? A sheep, perhaps; there were many of them on the

hillsides. This must be one that had strayed far from the rest. And yet

would a sheep make so much stir? Juliet drew back a little behind the

trunk of the beech-tree. Could it be a deer? She could not hear any sound

of the creature's advance, for the air was full of the clamour of the

burn, but she could trace the direction of its progress by shaking leaves

and swinging boughs. It seemed to be gradually mounting the slope.

 

Suddenly a head emerged from the waving mass of a rhododendron, and with

astonishment Juliet saw that it was that of Julia Romaninov.

 

Her first impulse was to lean forward and call her, but as she did so the

cry died unheard