The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel
"And you women are endurance personified – in those circumstances!" he responded with a little significant laugh. "When your hearts are involved, your common sense vanishes to make room for it. I've seen it a thousand times before… Really, Miss Duggan, you have been an indefatigable guide. I don't believe there's a nook or cranny of this place which I haven't seen, is there?"
"Only the cellars – or, properly speaking, the dungeons. And they're of no interest to anybody. Father keeps the wines down there, of course, and anything that does not require too much storage. But, excepting for the cellar, the place is never entered from one year's end to another. Not a servant would go down into them for double wages. The peasant-girl is supposed to stay there when she is not out on her nightly prowl for the man who abducted her!"
"Indeed? That's interesting. I suppose I couldn't go down? Dungeons are a perfect passion with me, for I've an insatiable curiosity, and always want to go poking my nose where no one else does. Sort of brand of my profession, I suppose. Do you think you could find energy enough to take me down?"
"Certainly."
She led the way down an L-shaped passage, which led past the kitchens and the servants' hall, and gave out upon a little stone courtyard set apart from the house and bounded about with a high wall through which arrow-slits gave the true mediæval touch, and then down to the right of this through a huge oaken door which opened noiselessly, showing a flight of steep, uneven stone steps leading down into a dark, damp-smelling interior.
At the top of the steps she paused and looked back at him over the curve of her shoulder, making a wry face.
"You still want to go?" she asked jestingly. "I'm a brave woman, Mr. Deland, but I wouldn't undertake this journey alone for anything! There's —rats!"
"As well as ghosts? But this is morning, and Scotland, and the twentieth century – so lead on, Macduff," he answered her in the same jesting spirit. "Or would you like me to go first?"
She shivered and twitched up her shoulders.
"No; I'll do the honours properly. This way. If you've a torch on you, you'll need it at the bottom of these stairs. It's as dark as pitch."
"I have."
Cleek produced it, and they proceeded upon the uncanny journey. The steps led down, down, into what seemed the very bowels of the earth (which indeed they were), until they reached a little square opening from which iron-grilled doorways looked out upon them from every side, saving for one oak door on the left, which Miss Duggan pointed out as the wine-cellar.
"H'm! And smells like it, too," put in Cleek, with a sniff – "What's behind that door is worth a fortune, I'll be bound. Hello! here's a candle-end stuck in a bottle! Now, who the dickens uses that, I wonder?"
"The servants, I suppose. They come down through their own stairs, Mr. Deland – over there on the left – you can see them if you look hard enough. They're wooden ones, and were put in by my father's grandsire, for the convenience of the house. The servants don't like this way at all. They prefer to come through the butler's pantry."
"And those stairs lead up there? I see. Hello! Here's a chain attached to this iron post. What's that?"
"The prisoner's chain. This room here" – she pointed to the grilled door opening next to the cellar "was kept for political prisoners, I believe. And those two across the way were for personal enemies of the family."
"And are there any others?"
"Yes – through that first door on the right – but you won't get me to go into them," she responded with a laugh. "It's horrible in there. There's a rack and one or two thumbscrews and other articles which belong to the Spanish Inquisition period; as well as rats innumerable. My bravery vanishes at this point. I'll not go a step farther!"
"But you don't mind if I do?"
"Not a bit. I'll wait here. But there's nothing to see – really. And it's getting perilously near lunch-time."
Cleek cocked his head persuasively at her.
"I won't be a minute – really. But that thumbscrew has got me guessing, as our American cousins say. I suppose there's no lock on the door? Gad! but it opens easily enough. Been fairly recently oiled, I take it?"
"Not that I know of. In fact, I don't believe any one's been in the place since Ross came down here, three months ago, to show a friend round. Perhaps he oiled it then."
"Perhaps. I won't be a minute, really. And I've another torch, if you'd like it. Here." He tossed it to her, and, keeping his spot light ahead of him, entered the dark, dank, evil-smelling place, his footsteps ringing upon the stone flooring and sending the echoes scampering into the corners, together with more tangible – and verminous – things. There was nothing in the first room, but beyond it he came upon the Torture Chamber and all those instruments of cruelty which marked a less kindly period of the world's history. And this Chamber was larger than the other cell. Rusty hooks hung from the ceiling, of incredible size and suggesting unthinkable horrors, and over all hung the odour of damp and decay, mingled with something more modern, which caused Cleek to stop suddenly and sniff like a terrier scenting a rat.
"Strange!" he said to the silence and the solitude of that awful place, "but she said the cellars were over there! But if someone hasn't been drinking spirits here a short time ago, I miss my guess! And, what's more, someone has! A solitary debauch, I suppose. Now, who the dickens would have thought it?"
His torch caught a glimmer of something that shone like glass – which was glass, in fact, and resolved itself into a cracked tumbler beside which stood a syphon of soda and an empty bottle smelling strongly of whisky.
"Whew! Nice little place for a quiet read and a smoke – I don't think!" he apostrophized it. "With rats in the corners and ghosts all around – brrh! He's a strange fellow who likes this sort of company, I must say. But there's nothing to be nosed out here in this pleasant little den. I'll just take a glimpse through the next one, and then get back to Miss Duggan, or she'll be getting the creeps and run."
He had started back, and had just swung his torch through the doorway beyond, when of a sudden he stopped, sucked in his breath, and fairly ran into the place, head down, nose to the ground, like a dog, every faculty alert.
What he saw there is not recorded, for just at that moment he heard Miss Duggan's clear voice calling him, and he had perforce to answer. But he had time to stoop suddenly and swoop down upon something white but slightly bloodstained which lay on the ground before him, dart a hasty glance at it, and cram it into his pocket, before swinging round upon his heel and answering her summons; and all the time saying to himself: "Who'd have thought it? Now who the dickens would have thought it?"
Meanwhile he fingered the slightly bloodstained handkerchief which he had picked up, and upon which by the light of his torch he had remarked the initials "R. D." embroidered in one corner. And he laughed softly and joyfully clapped his hands together.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN THE SWORD FELL
Luncheon at Aygon Castle resolved itself into a somewhat dull and ceremonious affair, and although there were a good many of them round the festive board, conversation languished and laughter was noticeable by its absence.
"What a devil of a family to live with! – sitting as though there were a cold-water poultice on top of 'em," mentally registered Cleek as he surveyed the company and tried his best to add to the general interest by anecdotes of a recent tour in Ireland; but his conversational efforts evoked only an occasional "Indeed?" from Sir Andrew. Entertaining these people ought to be a paid task in itself, he decided. They hadn't got any further with civilization than the hired-jester period. Gloom was glory to the atmosphere of that room during the interminable meal. He looked from one to another keenly.
First the old laird, solemn as a judge, and concerned only with what was put before him, with the strange greed of the very old; and at the foot of the table, his lady, offering a contrast that was as darkness to day. Cleek sat on the right of his host with Maud Duggan beside him, and opposite her brother Ross – a big, broad-shouldered, hawk-nosed chap with the small blue eye of the Scot, keen as a knife-blade, and showing in the winged flare of nostril the blood that ran in his veins. A likable, clever fellow. Cleek warmed to him on sight. And yet – his eye swung on him again. Next to Ross sat Miss McCall, eyes downcast, speaking only when spoken to, very patiently the servant of a mistress who would instantly quell any attempt at familiarity or breach of position upon her part; and next to Miss McCall, little Cyril, black-haired, brown-eyed, wide-lipped as any other Italian boy, with the soft olive bloom upon his cheeks that is youth's own birthright.
"And they called him Cyril! – a wishy-washy name like that!" thought Cleek disgustedly, looking long at him. "What a perfectly beautiful boy! And looks delicate, too. No wonder the mother loves him. There's something appealing in those pansy eyes of his that would lure blood from a stone. I must have a chat with him later on. He'll tell me much of this strange family, if I get the right side of him to begin with."
He commenced tactics right away, and caught Cyril's boyish fancy in a wonderful story of a heroic and marvellous engine-driver whom he had known.
"And I'll tell you some more about him, too – after lunch is over – if you'll take me out and show me the grounds of this beautiful place," he promised, with a nod and a smile which won Cyril's hero-worshipping soul instantly and gained for Cleek an ally who, if handled in the right way, might prove more useful than he had at first imagined. "There's one story I remember about the Calais express, and how that chap got the better of a pack of Apaches who were after the mail-bags. Gospel-truth! – it's wonderful! We're goin' to be good pals, Cyril, I can see."
"Only, please, please do not fill his mind up with any more imaginings, Mr. Deland, than he has already got for himself," threw in Lady Paula, with an arch glance at Cleek and a little self-conscious laugh. "He is already filled to the brim with his stepbrother's electrical madnesses. Ross has woven a spell over him, I think, in which – what do you call it? – flex and tungsten and short-circuits and all the rest of that impossible jargon of these light-fiends are inextricably mixed. I sometimes fear for Cyril's sanity! He talks in his sleep all night long of these things, and then wakes in the morning, pale as death. But I cannot make him do other than spend all these beautiful, long summer days in that stuffy laboratory with Ross, watching him at what he calls his experiments."
She flashed a smile into Ross Duggan's suddenly flushed face, as though the words she spoke bore no intended sting and innocence alone had prompted her to speak her mind thus freely. But the timed shaft had its desired effect, for Cyril turned quickly upon his mother with darkening brows.
"So silly of you, Mater, not wanting me to learn all about that ripping electricity. And Ross knows such a lot, too, and I love to sit and watch him. And he lets me help sometimes – don't you, Ross?"
"Yes, old chap."
"Well, then, I can't see what all the fuss is about, Mater. I really can't. Why, that light in my room's ripping for reading at night, instead of the fuggy old lamp we used to have there, and – "
An agonized look from Maud Duggan sent his brave words trailing off into nothingness. But already the mischief was done. The black cloud had settled upon Sir Andrew's face, and the sluggish blood was clotting in temple veins and cheeks, telling of the anger within. The pin-point eyes under their beetling brows were more steel-like than ever. He rose to his feet suddenly, and brought one shaking fist down upon the table-top with a force that sent the glasses jangling and the table silver rattling to the tune of it.
"Have done!" he thundered furiously, trembling in a rage that had become an old man's obsession, and which responded to the constant playing upon it like a deep-throated viola in the hands of a musician who understood it; "have done with all this extravagant nonsense! Haven't I threatened Ross enough as it is, to take his time-wasting, money-eating experiments out of my house? – and now he not only disobeys my spoken word, but actually causes the illness of my youngest son himself. Pale? – of course the boy is pale! Hanging about indoors in a stuffy room, watching his father's money poured out like water to tickle the fancy of a fool who is old enough to know better! I'll have none of him – none of him! He may sing for his bread and butter in future! – go out into the streets and beg for it, as better beggers than he have done! But he'll leave the house – he – "
"Father!"
It was Maud Duggan who spoke, rising quickly and hurrying round to him, to put an arm about his shaking shoulders. "We have a guest – a stranger – "
"This is no time for guests or strangers! The moment has come, and I'll have done with it once and for all!" he thundered back at her, with an old man's persistence, and the single-mindedness of the ill and aged. "Mr. Deland will pardon what must seem an extraordinary outburst, but Mr. Deland will not stop it. I am master here, and my will is law. I mean to enforce it. My mind is made up. Shall I watch my boy Cyril grow up into just another such maniac, think you? Until he has not rested content but that the whole Highlands be lit with his precious electricity – at the price of his father's fortune?.. Paula, my dear – m-my medicine – " He shook slightly, and then an ague took him and he trembled. He dropped back into his chair, a huddled, shivering old man in whom the power of his anger had burnt the frail spirit into a mere husk of its former strength; and in an instant Lady Paula was upon her feet, running round to him, and fumbling as she ran with her fingers in her bodice.
"My dear! – my dear! You must not so excite yourself. It is not good for you. Not right," she said soothingly, taking his head in her arms and pillowing it against her breast; meanwhile with her other hand she deftly unscrewed the top of a little bottle she had drawn from her blouse, and shook out one tiny pellet, which she placed between his trembling lips. "Take this, dearest, and you will feel better… A light drug, Mr. Deland, which the doctor orders at such times. Poor dear! – poor dear! it is such a constant worry to him, this continuous quarrel with his own flesh-and-blood. If you had really loved your father, Ross – "
"As you love him, no doubt I should be able to emulate your methods of attack better," he returned, stung suddenly out of his bitter silence by the reproach. "But I have been brought up in another school, Paula, where we deal square blows that do not strike below the belt, and where we do not let our ambitions play upon a flattered old man's affections quite so cleverly or so perceptibly as you do!"
"Stop!"
The mischief was out, the damage was done, and in one moment that dull and insignificant luncheon-table had been transformed into something that was more like a third-rate melodrama than a family quarrel among people of the better class. But the thing had been thrashed out so many times before that politeness had worn thin, and each one spoke his mind with a bitterness which left nothing to the imagination. Here was the actual canker of a family's innermost heart, with all the outer covering worn thin by constant bickerings and the whole ugly reality of the thing starkly revealed.
Cleek's face went grim as he watched the blanched faces about the table. The stammering, broken voice of Sir Andrew tore into the sudden silence. The old man was struggling up out of his chair, and from the detaining arms of wife and daughter, face livid, lips twitching, the vein in his transparent temple standing out like a piece of blue whip-cord. His clenched hand shook in the air, trembling with the force that he put into it.
"Stop it! How dare you say such words to my wife – how dare you! You shall pay for this, Ross Duggan, and pay dearly! To-night I alter my will – to-night I strike your name from it forever and make the estates over to someone else. But your name goes out of it – as you do —to-night!.. Paula, your arm."
He swung toward his wife with all the dignity of his years and his inheritance, and took the arm she held out to him, clinging to it as a child to its mother's skirts, and falteringly left the room, where his words had fallen upon those remaining like the sword of Damocles itself. Ross had gone white – deathly white, as had Maud Duggan herself – and all the indignity of this thing before a stranger to their household showed itself in his tense countenance.
"Gad! I'll go – and go now!" he rapped out, in a very fever of fury and outraged pride. "And glad to get away, too! Such an infernal hell-nest of a place as she has made out of a decent British home!"
"Ross! She's my mater, you know."
"Sorry, old chap! I forgot for a moment. But it shan't occur again. I'll be off, Maud, and get along to Cynthia's. She'll have something to say about this, I daresay, and her Guv'nor will probably give me a leg-up in finding a job. I'm better out of this. Mr. Deland, you've been the unwilling victim of an unpleasant scene – and a family scene, which is most unpleasant of all. I must apologize to you. Had I foreseen anything of the sort, we would have postponed your luncheon until a later date. It might have been more agreeable for you. Good-bye, and I'm sorry I shan't see more of you. I'm clearing off now, Maud – you can send along my things later."
Maud Duggan's eyes searched his face, a look in them of agonized question, as if she was unable to believe the evidence of her own ears. Then she ran to him and caught him suddenly by the arm.
"Ross, dear, you mustn't be so hasty! You mustn't!" she entreated, squeezing his arm in her two hands as he looked down at her with his set, angry face. "You know Father, dear. He'll wish in half an hour, he'd bitten his tongue out sooner than spoken to you like that. You know he will. You're his first-born and his favourite – as you have always been. Try and see this thing clearly. Don't act in a hurry, dear. Just wait – wait until this evening, for my sake if not for your own. Don't leave me here to stick the thing out by myself. It isn't fair to me."
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