The Heath Hover Mystery

Chapter Fifteen

Overreachings

It might have been somewhere in the middle of the morning, or a trifle earlier, that Mervyn, from his bedroom window descried a well-looking, comfortably-dressed stranger leisurely descending the stair-like path which led down from the sluice, and him he eyed with curiosity, for visitors were scarce.

He himself, being unseen, was able to take in every detail of the new arrival’s outward appearance with all the more ease and accuracy. He noted for instance that the other had a keen, clear, sunburnt face, and a light, firm, easy step, that showed the very pink of condition, that he was tall, and carried himself well, and then he fell to wondering who the devil he was and what he wanted. Some friend of Melian’s perhaps, possibly a former admirer – and somehow the idea of such a contingency seemed unpalatable. Here they were – the two of them – as jolly as possible together; he, at any rate, didn’t want any interloping nuisance from outside.

But from that his mind flew off to another conjecture – one less palatable still. He had had about enough of mysterious strangers, he told himself. What if this one had come on the same sort of errand, and with the thought he slipped his Browning pistol into a handy pocket, and made up his mind to keep the other man carefully in front of him. Likewise he took his time about admitting the said other man.

“I’m afraid I’m taking rather a liberty,” began the latter. “The fact is, Mr Mervyn, I’m particularly interested in old houses, old furniture, old panelling, and such like, and I have heard a good deal about Heath Hover in that line. Allow me to introduce myself,” – tendering a card.

“Yes? Come in, Mr – Helston Varne,” said the other, having glanced at it. “There are odds and ends of old sticks, but they are for the most part stowed away in unused rooms that would take about a week’s dusting to render fit for entrance. That’s a quaint old fireplace, if you notice.”

“I should think it was,” answered Varne, vividly interested. And then he expatiated in technical terms, which increasingly bored his host and made the latter wish him at the devil more heartily than ever. That was the worst of these collectors and antiquarians and people, they were always ramming their jargon down unappreciative throats. It was a pity Melian was not on hand, he began to think. She had an eye to all that sort of thing, and could answer with knowledge. And then he suddenly decided that his own boredom was the lesser evil. The stranger was a well-looking man – a fine looking man – and spoke with a pleasant voice and refined accent. Her uncle preferred Melian fancy free, at any rate for some time to come. Were she here, these two would be finding out tastes in common. Yes, on the whole, he was glad she had driven into Clancehurst with old Joe after breakfast. Up till then he had not been glad; in fact, hardly was she out of sight than he had regretted not having accompanied her. It was rare indeed that he failed to accompany her anywhere; but that morning he had felt somewhat out of sorts.

The stranger passed from one thing to another, admiring the panelling and discanting thereon. Then he said:

“I should like to take another view of the house from outside, Mr Mervyn. It’s marvellously picturesque as seen from the road, and now I’ve seen the interior I shall be able to read new beauties into it.”

“Certainly,” assented Mervyn, beginning to think the speaker was a little over enthusiastic, or a little cracked – only he didn’t look the last. “We’ll go up to the road. The path you came down is the shortest.”

They went up, Mervyn contriving that the other should lead. When they gained the sluice, Varne stood expatiating afresh, on gables and old chimney stacks. His host was more bored than ever, and was wishing to this and to that he would straightway take himself off as he had come. Would he?

“That’s a curious old door I noticed in the corner of your room, Mr Mervyn,” he said, when he had exhausted his instructive technicalities, which Mervyn had defined to himself as a damned boring prosy lecture. “If I might venture to trespass upon your kindness for a minute or two further I should so greatly like to examine it. The fact is,” he went on, “I’m quite a stranger in these parts, I found a homely little pub quite by the merest chance, The Woodcock, at Upper Gidding, homely but clean – you know it, I dare say – and I concluded to rest there for a day or two, and look around this lovely bit of country. I’ve got a bicycle with me, but I walked over here to-day.”

“Oh,” groaned Mervyn to himself. “That means I shall have to ask the fool to stay lunch, I suppose.”

“The fool” had turned, and was looking up the pond.

“Is this – excuse me, Mr Mervyn, it must be. Is this the place they were telling me about where an unknown man was bravely rescued from drowning under the ice in the middle of the night, by – by, I am sure, yourself?” And he turned to his host with a pleasant suggestion of admiration in his eyes.

“This is the place you mean, Mr – Varne. But I don’t know there’s anything particularly ‘brave’ in shoving out a ladder for the other fool to claw hold of.”

He spoke shortly – almost rudely. This he recognised in time.

“I’m afraid I’m rather abrupt, Mr Varne,” he explained. “If so, excuse me. The fact is, I’ve been more than ‘fed-up’ with that particular episode, and, not to put too fine a point upon it, I’m dead sick of the barest references to it. It was fairly unpleasant to me having the poor devil dying in my house, and all the nuisance of inquest and police investigations, and the rest of it – as you can imagine. Now the whole thing’s a thing of the past, and I want to forget all about it.”

“Quite so, Mr Mervyn, quite so. It is I who must apologise.”

“Oh, no need for that. If you’re ready I shall be happy to show you that door.”

“That will be very good of you.”

They went down the path again, Mervyn still contriving that his visitor should lead the way. Halfway down, the latter stopped short.

“Here is another point that hitherto has escaped me,” he said. “That foreground of chimney stack, thrown out by the background of tree-masses, leafless now, but even with a characteristic beauty at that – ‘wine-coloured woods’ some one called it – I forget who – now there’s a picture for you, one that a Yeend King for instance, would be at his best with, and still more so when it’s a soaring wall of foliage.”

“No doubt,” agreed Mervyn. And then he felt glad that the stranger had his back turned full towards him, for even he could hardly restrain a sudden, if ever so slight change of colour caused by that which now set all his pulses humming. For the said stranger’s right foot as he stood, was planted, firmly planted, on a stone, a rounded stone half embedded in the earth, and that foot was obviously, though stealthily, trying whether that stone was easily movable, or not movable at all. And with this consciousness a sudden resolve had come upon Mervyn.

“Yes, it’s all you say,” he went on, in an equable tone. “Are you an artist, may I ask, as well as a connoisseur in antiquities?”

“Oh well, only as amateur. I have done a little with the brush – but, only as an amateur.”

They had re-entered the house, chatting lightly, easily. Then the visitor made a set at the door in the corner.

“Yes. That’s something of a bit of old work,” he pronounced admiringly. “Why there are connoisseurs who would give tall prices for that bit of wood, I can tell you, Mr Mervyn.”

“Then I wish to the devil ‘that bit of wood’ belonged to me,” returned Mervyn, with something of a sour grin. “They could have it and welcome. One door’s as good as another to me, as long as it shuts tight and keeps draughts out. I’d much rather have the ‘tall prices.’ Will you take a whisky and soda?”

“No thanks. I rarely touch spirits in the daytime. A ‘nightcap’ before turning in is a very good thing. But – you’re very kind.”

He was feeling the graining of the door with his finger nails, then he turned the handle. This he held admiringly.

“Why, what a splendid piece of antique. This handle is worth a lot. And, what’s on the other side?”

“Only a black hole of a cellar, where I don’t keep anything. It’s too damp, for one thing. Like to see it?”

“Immensely.”

“Right. I’ll get a bit of candle and the key.”

Having done both, Mervyn opened the door.

“Mind the steps,” he said, holding the candle over the head of the other and still contriving that he should be in advance. “There are ten of them.”

“All right. I can see – What the – ?”

He broke off, turning to rush back. But it was too late. With the soft but quick closing of the door above and behind him, Helston Varne realised that he had made a fool of himself – as Nashby had not done; but this he did not know, for Nashby had not told him quite everything. Now he stood in dense, impenetrable pitchy blackness – and feeling very damp and chill at that.

“Well I’m damned?” he ejaculated to himself. “Well I am damned.” And sitting down on a cold stone step he began to think the matter out.

His gaoler the while, saying nothing, calmly withdrew the key from the lock and put it in his pocket. Then he went leisurely to the front door and looked out. There was no sign of anybody moving on the strip of lonely road above. He stood apparently unconcerned on the sluice, but in reality, listening intently. There were twitterings of small birds and the sweet singing of an early thrush, but of human footsteps or voices, or of wheels, there was no sound. Then he descended, equally leisurely. On one of the earth steps he paused; then, drawing out his handkerchief, blew his nose. The handkerchief dropped, by accident. He stooped to pick it up; was equally leisurely over the process too. Finally, when he did pick it up, he stood for a moment, stamping as though in the most natural way in the world to warm his feet – or one foot – upon a stone. Then he returned to the house, but he had forgotten to return his handkerchief to his pocket. He was carrying it – in a somewhat absent minded manner – in his hand. Incidentally, he was thinking that it was not an unmixed evil that old Judy should be suffering from a return of her “roomatics” that day, and should have remained “to whoäm.” There was no one at Heath Hover but himself – and his prisoner.

The latter, meanwhile, was beginning to experience what the expression “outer darkness” meant, for assuredly he was now in it. No glimmer of light – not the very faintest, was there to relieve it. Black as impenetrable pitch. He waited till his eyesight should have been accustomed to the change to see if any stray dim thread came in from anywhere; a grating, a ventilator, what not? But none came. The door itself might have been cemented into the wall for any thread of light that came from it. But Varne felt no alarm. He was unarmed, but on that account felt no misgiving; “What was the game?” was the thought that held possession of his mind.

He struck a wax vesta and looked around. He was about halfway down the flight of stone steps. The walls of the vault glistened with slime and damp in the flickering light. Nashby had described the place exactly. He struck another. Yes. It was all solid, massive masonry – hard, unyielding. But here he was – at about twelve midday – entombed in a dungeon of blackest night. He began to feel interested. But, meanwhile, it was cold – devilish cold.

Then, being there, he thought he might as well take a look round this – cellar, Mervyn had called it – on his own, and to this end he cautiously descended to the bottom of the stone stairs. But of wax vestas he had only a limited supply, and it behoved him to be careful with them. Still he managed to obtain a good reconnaissance of the floor and walls, enough to bear out Nashby’s description of the place.

He returned up the steps. The door, he noticed, was quite smooth on this side, with no handle, and – no key hole; so that any one shut in, as he was, might shout or call till the crack of doom. It fitted its aperture like a slab.

For the first time Varne began to feel a little uneasy. He was also feeling more than a little cold. The place had almost the temperature of an ice-vault. What if Mervyn had purposely shut him in and proposed to leave him here until cold and starvation had done their work? After all, he could pretend he had done the thing for a practical joke, and it would be difficult to prove the contrary. And the worst of it was he – Varne – had given nobody the slightest idea as to where he intended going. Even Nashby would not have occasion to miss him – not for some days at any rate. But it certainly was getting most confoundedly cold.

He thought he would try the effect of knocking, and to this end got out the hardest thing about him, a substantial pocket knife to wit. Surely the rat-tat-tat would carry through the door. He also called out several times. But – no answer.

He began to feel resentful – grim. Had he carried a pistol he would have felt himself justified in blowing the lock of the door away – if he could locate it, that is. But he had not. Really, this was past a joke. And – the cold!

A very unpleasant idea now struck Varne. What if this vault really were a secret refrigerating chamber, in which, for purposes of his own, his “host” now intended to reduce him to frozen meat? He had taken pretty accurate stock of Mervyn during their brief intercourse, and had formed the conclusion that he was a man who would be quite capable of such a thing, given an adequate motive. It was a rotten way of ending a startlingly successful, though not much blazoned career, decided Helston Varne, sitting there in the inky blackness, his teeth now chattering like the proverbial castanets. But he almost told himself that he deserved it for being such a poisonous fool as to allow himself to be entrapped in so transparently callow a fashion.

The shadowless ink of the atmosphere weighed him down more and more, and strong man as he was, he felt that it was affecting his nerve. And the cold! His theory of the refrigerating chamber had now become a fixed idea. Oh, for light – for warmth! He must have been hours in that dreadful vault.

He would make another trial. With the handle of the pocket knife he hammered again and again upon the door with all his might. Also he shouted, but his ordinarily strong voice sounded in his now appalled ears a mere quavering rumble. A moment’s pause to listen, and – the door opened.

Mervyn was standing looking at him with a faintly enquiring, half-amused expression on his face, Helston Varne almost staggered into the blessed light of day.

Chapter Sixteen

Another Light

The two men stood looking at each other, and their expressions of countenance would have furnished a study.

“Well, Mr Varne?” began Mervyn: “I hope you’ve effected a thoroughly exhaustive and satisfactory investigation.”

“Fairly, thanks,” said the other, pretending to enter into the humour of the thing, while in reality feeling grim and resentful. “But it’s rather cold in there, you know.”

“Yes, I do know. I was admiring your scientific enthusiasm in the cause of ‘old stones,’ as my niece calls them, that induced you to stick it all that time.”

“Induced me? Why I couldn’t get out,” was the short reply.

“No. You can’t open that door from the inside. It’d be the most deadly place to get shut up in if no one knew you were there. Rather.”

There seemed a latent meaning in the words, at least, so Helston Varne found himself reading them.

“Well, you’d better have a whisky and soda now, or at any rate a copious mouthful of three star – that’ll warm you up more,” went on Mervyn in the most matter of fact way, and diving into a sideboard he produced both. This time Varne did not decline. The revivifying warmth, the blessed light of day, were fast counteracting his resentment. Still, not altogether, for he said in a half amazed, half joking manner:

“I suppose I must congratulate you on carrying out a practical joke thoroughly when you do undertake one, Mr Mervyn. But at the same time it might prove dangerous with some people. According to British law turning a key on an independent fellow-subject is a ground for action for false imprisonment.”

“Law – did you say?” returned Mervyn, in a gouty, gusty sort of way. “Why, I was administering law what time you were being smacked in the nursery – or ought to have been.”

This was a pretty nasty one for Helston Varne, somewhat famed clearer-up of mysteries. But he took it equably. The other eyed him not in the least kindly.

“Who turned any key on you?” he said abruptly.

“Well, I was locked in there, wasn’t I?”

“Not by me – and certainly no one has been in here since,” answered Mervyn. “Just try that door handle, will you?”

“I don’t know that I will,” laughed the other, again becoming alive to the importance of keeping up his character of artistic – and unprofessional stranger. “I think I’ve had about enough of it. There’s something uncanny about it. I’d better keep away from it.”

“All right then. Look here,” Mervyn went to the door and turned the handle – there was no key in the lock – then opened it slightly.

“That’s all right, Mr Mervyn,” answered the other, with a jolly laugh. “I wasn’t serious in what I said. Besides, I can take a joke as well as anybody. Don’t you worry about that.”

“I thought it only the thing to leave you undisturbed while you made your investigations,” rejoined Mervyn, “but seem to have left you too long. And now, if you’re ready for lunch – so am I. It’s later than usual, but there’s no point in waiting any longer.”

Varne glanced at the clock opposite. It was nearly two. When he had entered his recent prison it was just half past twelve. He had spent an hour and a half nearly, down there in the cold and darkness. Heavens! and it seemed eight times that period. His resentment partially revived with the recollection, and he was about to refuse, when a sound struck upon his ears, the sweet, clear, full voice of a girl. That decided him.

“Well, thanks, Mr Mervyn, I think I am too, after my morning’s experiences,” and he laughed again.

“We’re late, Joe. I told you we should be,” the voice was saying. “You’d much better have let me drive. Now bring in the things – you can put up the trap afterwards.”

The visitor, listening, thought he had never heard quite such a voice. And then its owner appeared.

She came into the room mapped in large warm furs. The day, though bright, carried a sharp tinge in the wind, and had imparted a delightful pink glow to her cheeks, and the blue eyes were dancing. The visitor did not miss the effect of the straight firm walk, the erect carriage of the golden head, crowned with an exceedingly becoming toque.

“Just fancy, Uncle Seward,” she began – and then stopped short as she became alive to the presence of a stranger. Her uncle introduced them. No stiff or conventional bow, but out went a long, gloved hand, in frank, easy fashion, and the straight glance of the blue eyes met those of the other, in which surprise and admiration would hardly be dissembled. Helston Varne remembered his pronouncement upon her when talking with Nashby. “She’s lovely, and so uncommon looking.” Now it came home to him, that if possible, he had even then hardly done her justice. A new light seemed likely to lead away from the Heath Hover mystery.