Dead Men's Money, J. S. Fletcher [great novels to read .txt] 📗

do you, Mr. Hollins?" I asked. "You're not in any danger that I know of."

He looked at me as if wondering whether I wasn't trying a joke on him, and after staring a while he shook his head.

"I'm leaving this part—finally," he answered. "That's Sir Gilbert's brand-new car that's all ready for me down the stairs; and as I say, whether it's storm or no storm, I must be away. And there's just two things I can do, Moneylaws—I can lay you out on the floor here, with your brains running over your face, or I can—trust to your honour!"

We looked at each other for a full minute in silence—our eyes meeting in the queer, bluish light of the electric pocket-lamp which he had set on the table before us. Between us, too, was that revolver—always pointing at me out of its one black eye.

"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Hollins," said I at length, "I'd prefer you to trust to my honour. Whatever quality my brains may have, I'd rather they were used than misused in the way you're suggesting! If it's just this—that you want me to hold my tongue—"

"I'll make a bargain with you," he broke in on me. "You'd be fine and glad to see your sweetheart, Moneylaws, and assure yourself that she's come to no harm, and is safe and well?"

"Aye! I would that!" I exclaimed. "Give me the chance, Mr. Hollins!"

"Then give me your word that whatever happens, whatever comes, you'll not mention to the police that you've seen me tonight, and that whenever you're questioned you'll know nothing about me!" he said eagerly. "Twelve hours' start—aye, six!—means safety to me, Moneylaws. Will you keep silence?"

"Where's Miss Dunlop?" asked I.

"You can be with her in three minutes," he answered, "if you'll give me your word—and you're a truthful lad, I think—that you'll both bide where you are till morning, and that after that you'll keep your tongue quiet. Will you do that?"

"She's close by?" I demanded.

"Over our heads," he said calmly. "And you've only to say the word—"

"It's said, Mr. Hollins!" I exclaimed. "Go your ways! I'll never breathe a syllable of it to a soul! Neither in six, nor twelve, nor a thousand hours!—your secret's safe enough with me—so long as you keep your word about her—and just now!"

He drew his free hand off the table, still watching me, and still keeping up the revolver, and from a drawer in the table between us pulled out a key and pushed it over.

"There's a door behind you in yon corner," he said. "And you'll find a lantern at its foot—you've matches on you, no doubt. And beyond the door there's another stair that leads up to the turret, and you'll find her there—and safe—and so—go your ways, now, Moneylaws, and I'll go mine!"

He dropped the revolver into a side pocket of his waterproof coat as he spoke, and, pointing me to the door in the corner, turned to that by which he had entered. And as he turned he snapped off the light of his electric lamp, while I myself, having fumbled for a box of matches, struck one and looked around me for this lantern he had mentioned. In its spluttering light I saw his big figure round the corner—then, just as I made for the lantern, the match went out and all was darkness again. As I felt for another match, I heard him pounding the stair—and suddenly there was a sort of scuffle and he cried out loudly once, and there was the sound of a fall, and then of lighter steps hurrying away, and then a heavy, rattling groan. And with my heart in my mouth and fingers trembling so that I could scarcely hold the match, I made shift to light the candle in the lantern, and went fearfully after him. There, in an angle of the stairway, he was lying, with the blood running in dark streams from a gap in his throat; while his hands, which he had instinctively put up to it, were feebly dropping away and relaxing on his broad chest. And as I put the lantern closer to him he looked up at me in a queer, puzzled fashion, and died before my very eyes.

CHAPTER XXXV THE SWAG

I shrank back against the mouldy wall of that old stairway shivering as if I had been suddenly stricken with the ague. I had trembled in every limb before ever I heard the sound of the sudden scuffle, and from a variety of reasons—the relief of having Hollins's revolver withdrawn from my nose; the knowledge that Maisie was close by; the gradual wearing-down of my nerves during a whole day of heart-sickening suspense,—but now the trembling had deepened into utter shaking: I heard my own teeth chattering, and my heart going like a pump, as I stood there, staring at the man's face, over which a grey pallor was quickly spreading itself. And though I knew that he was as dead as ever a man can be, I called to him, and the sound of my own voice frightened me.

"Mr. Hollins!" I cried. "Mr. Hollins!"

And then I was frightened still more, for, as if in answer to my summons, but, of course, because of some muscular contraction following on death, the dead lips slightly parted, and they looked as if they were grinning at me. At that I lost what nerve I had left, and let out a cry, and turned to run back into the room where we had talked. But as I turned there were sounds at the foot of the stair, and the flash of a bull's-eye lamp, and I heard Chisholm's voice down in the gateway below.

"Hullo, up there!" he was demanding. "Is there anybody above?"

It seemed as if I was bursting my chest when I got an answer out to him.

"Oh, man!" I shouted, "come up! There's me here—and there's murder!"

I heard him exclaim in a dismayed and surprised fashion, and mutter some words to somebody that was evidently with him, and then there was heavy tramping below, and presently Chisholm's face appeared round the corner; and as he held his bull's-eye before him, its light fell full on Hollins, and he jumped back a step or two.

"Mercy on us!" he let out. "What's all this? The man's lying dead!"

"Dead enough, Chisholm!" said I, gradually getting the better of my fright. "And murdered, too! But who murdered him, God knows—I don't! He trapped me in here, not ten minutes ago, and had me at the end of a revolver, and we came to terms, and he left me—and he was no sooner down the stairs here than I heard a bit of a scuffle, and him fall and groan, and I ran out to find—that! And somebody was off and away—have you seen nobody outside there?"

"You can't see an inch before your eyes—the night's that black," he answered, bending over the dead man. "We've only just come—round from the house. But whatever were you doing here, yourself?"

"I came to see if I could find any trace of Miss Dunlop in this old part," I answered, "and he told me—just before this happened—she's in the tower above, and safe. And I'll go up there now, Chisholm; for if she's heard aught of all this—"

There was another policeman with him, and they stepped past the body and followed me into the little room and looked round curiously. I left them whispering, and opened the door that Hollins had pointed out. There was a stair there, as he had said, set deep in the thick wall, and I went a long way up it before I came to another door, in which there was a key set in the lock. And in a moment I had it turned, and there was Maisie, and I had her in my arms and was flooding her with questions and holding the light to her face to see if she was safe, all at once.

"You've come to no harm?—you're all right?—you've not been frightened out of your senses?—how did it all come about?" I rapped out at her. "Oh, Maisie, I've been seeking for you all day long, and—"

And then, being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a glass of water to my lips that she snatched up from a table, and encouraging me, who should have been consoling her—all within the minute of my setting eyes on her, and me so weak, as it seemed, that I could only cling on to her hand, making sure that I had really got her.

"There, there, it's all right, Hugh!" she murmured, patting my arm as if I had been some child that had just started awake from a bad dream. "There's no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this black hole of a place!—I've had food and drink and a light, as you see—they promised me I should have no harm when they locked me in. But oh, it's seemed like it was ages since then!"

"They? Who?" I demanded. "Who locked you in?"

"Sir Gilbert and that butler of his—Hollins," she answered. "I took the short cut through the grounds here last night, and I ran upon the two of them at the corner of the ruins, and they stopped me, and wouldn't let me go, and locked me up here, promising I'd be let out later on."

"Sir Gilbert!" I exclaimed. "You're sure it was Sir Gilbert?"

"Of course I'm sure!" she replied. "Who else? And I made out they were afraid of my letting out that I'd seen them—it was Sir Gilbert himself said they could run no risks."

"You've seen him since?" I asked. "He's been in here?"

"No—not since last night," she answered. "And Hollins not since this morning when he brought me some food—I've not wanted for that," she went on, with a laugh, pointing to things that had been set on the table. "And he said, then, that about midnight, tonight, I'd hear the key turned, and after that I was free to go, but I'd have to make my way home on foot, for he wasn't wanting me to be in Berwick again too soon."

"Aye!" I said, shaking my head. "I'm beginning to see through some of it! But, Maisie, you'll be a good girl, and just do what I tell you?—and that's to stay where you are until I fetch you down. For there's more dreadfulness below—where Sir Gilbert may be, Heaven knows, but Hollins is lying murdered on the stair; and if I didn't see him murdered, I saw him take his last breath!"

She, too, shook a bit at that, and she gripped me tighter.

"You're not by yourself, Hugh?" she asked anxiously. "You're in no danger?"

But just then Chisholm called up the stair of the turret, asking was Miss
Dunlop safe, and I bade Maisie speak to him.

"That's good news!" said he. "But will you tell Mr. Hugh to come down to us?—and you'd best stop where you are yourself, Miss Dunlop—there's no very pleasant sight down this way. Have you no idea at all who did this?" he asked, as I went down to him. "You were with him?"

"Man alive, I've no more idea than you have!" I exclaimed. "He was making off somewhere in yon car that's below—he threatened me with the loss of my life if I didn't agree to let him get away in peace, and he was going down the stairs to the car when it happened. But I'll tell you this: Miss Dunlop says Sir Gilbert was here last night!—and it was he and Hollins imprisoned her above there—frightened she'd let out on them if she got away."

"Then the Glasgow tale was all lies?" he exclaimed. "It came from this man, too, that's lying dead—it's been a put-up thing, d'ye think, Mr. Hugh?"

"It's all part of a put-up thing, Chisholm," said I. "Hadn't we better get the man in here, and see what's on him? And what made you come here yourselves?—and are there any more of you about?"

"We came asking some information at the house," he answered, "and we were passing round here,