The Mystery Of An Old Murder Page 7

  "It is his now, my dear. It was his grandfather's. And—" Mr. Bulteel checked himself. "But what have you there? Is that the old Milton Mrs. Trelawny gave you?"

  "Yes, sir. I was trying to imagine what these figures and the dragon could mean. Mr. Bulteel, do you think Captain O'Brien knew Mr. Vyvyan?"

  "Why, my dear?" he asked sharply.

  "I fancied he might have known him and recognized his snuff-box. He started so when Kitty showed it to him. Did you not notice, sir?"

  Mr. Bulteel's ruddy countenance paled slightly. He had been down to the harbour since dinner, and found old Tregony puzzling his brains to remember who it was Captain O'Brien reminded him of.

  "I could ha' sworn I'd seed the cap'n his self," he said to Mr. Bulteel, thrusting his great brown hand into his hair, and staring at him in a hopelessly puzzled fashion. "But considerin' as how he's never set foot in Cornwall afore, an' I've niver been out of it, I can't ha' seed 'en, I s'pose."

  This talk had left a strange, terrible suspicion lurking in Mr. Bulteel's mind, and Marjorie's words tended to strengthen it. He stared at her for a moment, and then hastily recovered himself.

  "It must have been your fancy, my dear. He has been in India nearly all his life, and could not have known the old squire. But let us look at these mysterious figures of yours. Do you expect to get a clue to the secret passage out of them? It might be a fine thing for your cousin Robert if you could. St. Mawan folks believe there's a mint of money hidden away there."

  He tried to speak jokingly, but the attempt was a dismal failure, and after a cursory look at the book he went out of the room again.

  "What can be the matter with Uncle James?" asked Kitty as soon as he had gone. "He is worried about business, I suppose. I have seen cousin Hollies look like that when things have gone wrong on the Stock Exchange. But you don't know what the Stock Exchange is, do you?"

  "Do you?" asked Marjorie, looking up with such a sparkle of fun in her blue eyes that Kitty was forced to confess her notions about it were very hazy. Kitty was finding out that it was amusing to talk to Marjorie, even though she showed so little interest in the fashionable world, and soon got tired of talking about dress.

  "There, I have finished my letter, Marjorie," she exclaimed, folding up the big sheet. "Come and sit by the window. Put away that book."

  "In a moment," Marjorie said absently. She had laughed at Mr. Bulteel's suggestion that the figures contained a clue to the secret passage, yet she could not tear herself away from them.

  Kitty stood before the long mirror for a moment, patting her curls, and shaking out the scanty skirt of her white muslin dress, and then went to the window.

  "Marjorie, do come here. There is such a funny old woman driving down the street. I am sure she must have come out of the ark."

  "In a minute," Marjorie repeated, without looking up. It had suddenly flashed upon her that 1607 was the date cut over the doorway in the panelled passage. The dragon might refer to the carving on the panels; but what did the 3 stand for? Had it any meaning at all?

  "Marjorie, she is stopping here. Is she going into the bank? No, she is coming to the house door. Do look at that queer fat pony. I wonder if Aunt Mary will bring her upstairs; not the pony, but the funny old woman who was driving it."

  Marjorie put down her book in despair and came to the window.

  A small, rather shabby pony-carriage was before the house door, and one of the bank clerks stood bareheaded by the fat pony with his hands in his pockets. A smile began to dance in Marjorie's eyes and curl up the corners of her lips as she looked down at the shabby equipage.

  "Kitty, I know who your old woman is who came out of the ark. I saw her and the pony in Bodmin, and father told me who she was. It is Lady Barmouth."

  "Marjorie, that old creature Lady Barmouth! She is lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte."

  "Yes, father told me so. He said you would know in a moment that she was a great lady when she spoke. I hope she will come upstairs, Kitty."

  It seemed a strange thing to Kitty that Marjorie should be so cool and self-possessed, while she, who had seen so much more of the world, should be trembling with shyness at the thought of having to converse with a real live countess. But Marjorie was too free from self-consciousness to be shy. And her mother and Aunt Nell had trained her too well for her to behave awkwardly in any presence, however august.

  Mrs. Bulteel was in the dining room, and a moment or two elapsed before she brought the visitor upstairs. Lady Barmouth had come on business. She had her diamonds with her, the famous Barmouth diamonds. She wished Mr. Bulteel to take charge of them for a week. They were generally kept in the London bank, she explained to Mrs. Bulteel, but she had brought them into the country to wear at a ball the St. Aubyns were giving to celebrate their son's coming of age, and she could not sleep soundly at night while they were in the house. The leather cases containing the jewels were still in her hand when she came into the drawing-room. She had heard from Mrs. Bulteel about her young visitors, and she had expressed a wish to see them. She was a little old woman, dressed in a big straw bonnet and a brown cloak that was a good deal the worse for wear. But, as Marjorie had said, you knew she was a great lady the moment she spoke. Not that she was haughty or overbearing, or condescendingly gracious. She chatted away as familiarly and freely as if she had been a neighbour dropped in for an hour's gossip, but she was the great lady all the same, and the boldest could not have taken a liberty with her.

  After talking to the girls for a little while, she opened the cases and showed them her diamonds. The white fire of the stones seemed to fill the room as she held up the necklace, smiling at the look of awed admiration in the girls' faces.

  "Put it away, put it away, my lady," cried Mr. Bulteel laughingly. "I will lock them up in the safe at once, if you please. When do you want them—next Wednesday night? I will drive over with them myself."

  Kitty's little head was full of Lady Barmouth and the diamonds all the rest of the day. She was too much in awe of her uncle to talk much in his presence, but that evening at Mrs. Carah's party, while most of the elders were at whist in the dining-room, her tongue wagged freely.

  Captain O'Brien had declined to take a hand at whist on account of his failing eyesight. But he made himself very agreeable upstairs with the younger members of the party, and Kitty found in him an attentive listener to her gay chatter. She was telling him that Mr. Bulteel intended to drive to Barmouth House himself on Wednesday night with the diamonds, when a look she caught from Marjorie, who was helping Mrs. Carah at the tea-table, made her stop short.

  "Barmouth House? Is that far from here?" asked Captain O'Brien. "And is it really necessary to take precautions against thieves in Cornwall? I thought robbery was unknown here. But I suppose I am wrong. Will your uncle have the town constable as an escort? There is only one, is there not?"

  But Kitty was no longer eager to talk. As soon as she could she slipped to Marjorie's side. "What made you look at me like that, Marjorie ?" she asked in a whisper. "Was it wrong of me to speak of the diamonds?"

  "I do not think Mr. Bulteel would like it," Marjorie whispered back again. "I would not say any more, Kitty."

  Kitty shrugged her shoulders and made a grimace, but she had learnt to respect Marjorie's opinion, and she was silent about the diamonds for the rest of the evening.

  CHAPTER 9

  on the king’s highway

  It was a great relief to Mr. Bulteel to hear next morning that Captain O'Brien had gone to Padstow to buy a boat, and would be absent a few days. He had gone in the van,— Tregelles went twice a week to Padstow as well as to Bodmin,—and would return in it the next market-day, which happened to be Wednesday. There was to be a party at the Vicarage on Wednesday night, to which he had been invited, and the van would bring him home just in time for it.

  The knowledge that he was no longer in St. Mawan lifted a great weight from Mr. Bulteel's mind; it gave him time to think what he ought to do. He found it, howeve
r, more and more difficult to decide this the more he thought of it, and when Wednesday came he was still unable to see his road clearly.

  It had been a troubled, anxious week for him in more ways than one. The dark suspicion which had taken possession of him, haunting him day and night, would of itself have been enough to render him irritable and moody and unlike himself. But business troubles came to add to his anxiety, and coming at a time when he was least able to bear them, their effect on him was out of all proportion to their importance.

  In a tiny town like St. Mawan rumour thrives on the scantiest fare, and when Tregelles came back from Bodmin on Saturday night with the news of the failure of a Plymouth firm with whom Mr. Bulteel was known to have dealings, no one who saw the banker's altered looks or heard his growling voice but believed that his loss was far greater than it was declared to be.

  On Monday morning Tregelles withdrew his precious savings from the bank, and replaced them with grunts of satisfaction in the leather bags under his hearthstone. He had insisted on having it all in gold; the old clerk, who had been in Bulteel's for forty years and more, stared at him as if he could not have heard aright when he refused the banknotes offered him. But Tregelles did not care how the clerk looked. "I can't afford to run no risks," he told his passengers on Tuesday afternoon in Bodmin market-place. And the farmers' wives had looked at each other with alarmed faces, each thinking of the little store laid up in the bank for a rainy day, or of the egg-and-butter money, mostly in notes signed "James Bulteel", hidden snugly away in the stocking-foot till rent-day came.

  But "Bulteel's" had too firm a place in the confidence of St. Mawan for its credit to be shaken in a hurry, and though a few people besides Tregelles withdrew their accounts, and less was paid in than usual, nothing had happened to alarm Mr. Bulteel when the bank closed on Wednesday afternoon.

  He started about six o'clock on his drive to Barmouth House. Mrs. Bulteel and the girls drove with him as far as the Vicarage, which was just outside the town on the Bodmin Road.

  The old vicar was in the garden waiting to receive his guests. He came to the gate to ask Mr. Bulteel to get back as quickly as he could.

  "Supper is at nine o'clock; there'll be time for a rubber after that if you're not late," he told him. The vicar loved a good game of whist, and the banker was an opponent worth having.

  "I shall be back before nine, never fear," Mr. Bulteel promised. "Teazer has not been out of the stable today. He'll not let the grass grow under him."

  At the rate the trap went up the quiet valley road it did not seem likely that the vicar would be kept waiting for his rubber. Mrs. Bulteel looked after it with a shade of anxiety on her placid face. She wished that her husband would have done what she had asked him to, and taken Prior, his head clerk, or one of the younger ones, with him. It was a lonely drive to Barmouth House, along the highroad as far as Polruan Hill and then by an unfrequented crossroad. She laughed at her own fears the next moment, and was ready to be keenly interested in the vicar's tulips, as she and the girls went round the garden with him in the twilight.

  But the time seemed to go very slowly, and as she played whist in the parlour after tea she found herself listening breathlessly to the old clock in the hall as it struck the hours and half-hours in its deep mellow notes. She was not a nervous woman, but an indefinable sense of danger oppressed her that evening. And she longed with painful intensity for her husband's return.

  Kitty and Marjorie were the only young people in the party, and Kitty found it decidedly dull. Even Captain O'Brien, when he came, preferred cards to conversation with her, and joined the vicar and Mrs. Bulteel and Mrs. Carah at a game of whist.

  But he played carelessly, and the vicar, who, like Mrs. Battle, loved "the rigour of the game", began to eye him with deep disfavour as the game went on. The old vicar had a nature as sweet and sunny as a child's, except at the card-table. But a partner who trumped his best card and forgot to follow his lead roused a bitter animosity in him, and only the remembrance that Captain O'Brien was a guest in his own house prevented him from uttering the scathing sarcasms that rose to his lips. He gave up his place as soon as he could, and devoted himself to amusing Kitty and Marjorie, whom he found looking at a portfolio of old prints and drawings his wife had found for them.

  Kitty had been yawning dismally over them, but Marjorie soon became interested when she discovered that many of them were cleverly executed drawings of the Manor House, from different points of view.

  "Ah! my sister did those, thirty years ago and more," the vicar said, glancing at them. "You have seen the old house, haven't you, my dear?"

  "Only the front and the hall and the panelled passage," said Marjorie, hesitating a little.

  The vicar gave her a quick, kind glance. He understood why she had faltered. But he made no reference to the mystery whose shadow still lay so darkly over the old house. He went on speaking of the drawings. "That is the sun-dial in the garden at the back of the house. Go and look at it when you are in the house again. It is older than the house itself. And here is a drawing that will interest you still more. It is a bit of the old castle that was pulled down to build the present house."

  Both Marjorie and Kitty looked with interest at the little sketch of the ruined gateway, its mouldering stones wreathed thickly with ivy. "It was pulled down by Squire Vyvyan; the foundations gave way, and it became dangerous. But some of the granite blocks in it were used in building the summer-house. It is easy to distinguish them; each one has the Vyvyan dragon cut in it—three of them, just as on the shield of Sir Gilbert Vyvyan in Ladrock Church. Probably all the granite blocks in the old castle were stamped in the same manner. You will find a few of the old stones in the present building, if you look for them. There is one near the kitchen door, close to the panelling. It is worn down, but by looking closely you can just make out the tails of two of the dragons and the head of the other."

  Marjorie was hanging on his words with breathless interest, and the announcement of supper at that moment came as a most unwelcome interruption. She had been about to speak of that puzzling row of figures in the title-page of the Milton. Did that 3 with the tiny cross before it refer to the stone with its three dragons, which the vicar had spoken of as near the door above which the date 1607 was carved? She was eager to know what the vicar thought, and determined to ask him as soon as an opportunity offered itself.

  At supper she was seated at Mrs. Fortescue's end of the long table, next Captain O'Brien and opposite Mrs. Bulteel. She noticed how pale and anxious Mrs. Bulteel was looking, and suddenly found herself listening with a beating heart for the sound of wheels on the road, though till that moment no thought of danger had associated itself in her mind with Mr. Bulteel's journey.

  It seemed as if that indefinable foreboding which had seized on Mrs. Bulteel was now laying its chill grasp on the rest of the company.

  Before the end of the meal the conversation began to languish, and though no one spoke of Mr. Bulteel, except to suggest in cheery tones some plausible excuse for his late arrival, his appearance would have been hailed with intense relief.

  Captain O'Brien had appeared greatly disappointed at not finding Mr. Bulteel at the Vicarage when he arrived, and he asked Marjorie several questions at supper as to the direction in which Barmouth House lay, and its distance from St. Mawan.

  "I am anxious to ask Mr. Bulteel's advice about a boat I am thinking of buying," he said in his gentle, hesitating voice, which most people found so pleasant, but which always set Marjorie's nerves on edge. "I must decide tomorrow morning. I felt sure I should find Mr. Bulteel here, especially as I was a little late in arriving. I missed my way on the downs. My eyes do not serve me well."

  Marjorie did her best to answer him politely, but she was glad when they rose from table, and she could escape from further conversation with him. She went back to the portfolio of drawings in the drawing-room, and Kitty presently joined her.

  "They have sat down to whist again," she whispe
red with a pout. "How long will it be before we shall be able to go home, Marjorie? This is duller than Mrs. Carah's party. Just look behind you. How dismal they all look, staring at their cards! Captain O'Brien is the only one who wants to talk, and Mr. Carah is frowning at him."

  "They will hear you, Kitty," Marjorie whispered, not venturing to turn round.

  "No, they are too busy. Poor Captain O'Brien, I am sure he must be bored to death. I wish Uncle James would come and take his place, then he could talk to us. But he has a very bad memory, Marjorie. He ought to have known Uncle James would not be here till late. You scolded me for telling him about the diamonds, do you remember?"

  "Could a country mouse venture to scold a town one?" said Marjorie, her eyes dancing as she looked at Kitty. "I wish the vicar would come in, Kitty. I want to ask him about that dragon stone."

  Kitty yawned. "Do think of something more lively than that, for goodness' sake, Marjorie. I am half-asleep as it is."

  Marjorie was beginning some merry reply when she heard Mrs. Bulteel speaking to her, and turned quickly round.

  "Marjorie, I have left my spectacles in the dining-room. Will you fetch them for me, my dear?"

  Marjorie went quickly on her errand. She opened the dining-room door, and then drew hastily back. The vicar was just inside, talking to a tall, dark-haired man, who was carrying his hat in his hand.

  The vicar would not let her go. "Come in, my dear. This is your cousin Robert, Marjorie."

  He drew her in, and shut the door behind. her. He was very pale and excited, but Marjorie did not notice that in her trembling eagerness, as she put her little hand into Robert Carew's and looked up at him. He held her hand tightly for a moment, but he had no time to speak. Mr. Fortescue went rapidly on:

  "He has brought us bad news, my dear. We must break it to Mrs. Bulteel as best we can. No, it is not as bad as that," he added quickly, as Marjorie turned a terrified white face upon him. "But Mr. Bulteel has been robbed of the diamonds. and badly hurt into the bargain. Your cousin found him lying senseless on the road, half-way between this and Polruan Hill. His horse, poor old Teazer, dead beside him — shot, and the diamonds gone."