Scarhaven Keep, J. S. Fletcher [best short books to read .txt] 📗

I was in a witness box,” he added, with a sly glance at Vickers. “You remember that day of the inquest on the actor gentleman, guv’nor? Well, of course, when I went to give evidence at Scarhaven, at that there inquest, I never expected but what the police ’ud collar me at the end of it. However, I didn’t mean that they should, if I could help it, so I watched things pretty close, intending to slip off when I saw a chance. Well, now, you’ll bear in mind that there was a bit of a dustup when the thing was over⁠—some on ’em cheering the Squire and some on ’em grousing about the verdict, and between one and t’other I popped out and off, and you yourself saw me making for the moors. Of course, me, knowing them moors back o’ Scarhaven as I do, it was easy work to make myself scarce on ’em in ten minutes⁠—not all the police north o’ the Tees could ha’ found me a quarter of an hour after I’d hooked it out o’ that schoolroom! Well, but the thing then was⁠—where to go next? ’Twasn’t no good going to Hobkin’s Hole again⁠—now that them chaps knew I was in the neighbourhood they’d soon ha’ smoked me out o’ there. Once I thought of making for Norcaster here, and going into hiding down by the docks⁠—I’ve one or two harbours o’ refuge there. But I had reasons for wishing to stop in my own country⁠—for a bit at any rate. And so, after reckoning things up, I made for a spot as Mr. Vickers there’ll know by name of the Reaver’s Glen.”

“Good place, too, for hiding,” remarked Vickers with a nod.

“Best place on this coast⁠—seashore and inland,” said Spurge. “And as you two London gentlemen doesn’t know it, I’ll tell you about it. If you was to go out o’ Scarhaven harbour and turn north, you’d sail along our coast line up here to the mouth of Norcaster Bay and you’d think there was never an inlet between ’em. But there is. About halfway between Scarhaven and Norcaster there’s a very narrow opening in the cliffs that you’d never notice unless you were close in shore, and inside that opening there’s a cove that’s big enough to take a thousand-ton vessel⁠—aye, and half a dozen of ’em! It was a favourite place for smugglers in the old days, and they call it Darkman’s Dene to this day in memory of a famous old smuggler that used it a good deal. Well, now, at the land end of that cove there’s a narrow valley that runs up to the moorland and the hills, full o’ rocks and crags and precipices and suchlike⁠—something o’ the same sort as Hobkin’s Hole but a deal wilder, and that’s known as the Reaver’s Glen, because in other days the cattle lifters used to bring their stolen goods, cattle and sheep, down there where they could pen ’em in, as it were. There’s piles o’ places in that glen where a man can hide⁠—I picked out one right at the top, at the edge of the moors, where there’s the ruins of an old peel tower. I could get shelter in that old tower, and at the same time slip out of it if need be into one of fifty likely hiding places amongst the rocks. I got into touch with my cousin Jim Spurge⁠—the one-eyed chap at the Admiral’s Arms, Mr. Copplestone, that night⁠—and I got in a supply of meat and drink, and there I was. And⁠—as things turned out, Chatfield had got his eye on the very same spot!”

Spurge paused for a minute, and picking out a match from a stand which stood on the table, began to trace imaginary lines on the mahogany.

“This is how things is there,” he said, inviting his companions’ attention. “Here, like, is where this peel tower stands⁠—that’s a thick wood as comes close up to its walls⁠—that there is a road as crosses the moors and the wood about, maybe, a hundred yards or so behind the tower on the land side. Now, there, one afternoon as I was in that there tower, a-reading of a newspaper that Jim had brought me the night before, I hears wheels on that moorland road, and I looked out through a convenient loophole, and who should I see but Peter Chatfield in that old pony trap of his. He was coming along from the direction of Scarhaven, and when he got abreast of the tower he pulled up, got out, left his pony to crop the grass and came strolling over in my direction. Of course, I wasn’t afraid of him⁠—there’s so many ways in and out of that old peel as there is out of a rabbit warren⁠—besides, I felt certain he was there on some job of his own. Well, he comes up to the edge of the glen, and he looks into it and round it, and up and down at the tower, and he wanders about the heaps of fallen masonry that there is there, and finally he puts thumbs in his armhole and went slowly back to his trap. ‘But you’ll be coming back, my old swindler!’ says I to myself. ‘You’ll be back again I doubt not at all!’ And back he did come⁠—that very night. Oh, yes!”

“Alone?” asked Copplestone.

“A-lone!” replied Spurge. “It had got to be dark, and I was thinking of going to sleep, having nought else to do and not expecting cousin Jim that night, when I heard the sound of horses’ feet and of wheels. So I cleared out of my hole to where I could see better. Of course, it was Chatfield⁠—same old trap and pony⁠—but this time he came from Norcaster way. Well, he gets out, just where he’d got out before, and he leads the pony and trap across the moor to close by the tower. I could tell by the way