The Ashiel mystery

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She seemed to be satisfied with this explanation; and Gimblet had tea
with her, and then went to write his letters.

Soon after six one of the policemen went down to the high road to lie in
wait for General Tenby, and about twenty minutes past the hour wheels
rattled on the gravel of the short carriage-drive, and the General drove
up to the door. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man of between fifty and
sixty, with a red face and a keen blue eye, and a precise, jerky manner.

"Ah, Lady Ruth! Glad to see you bearing up so well under these tragic
circumstances," he said, shaking hands with that lady, who came to the
door to welcome him. "Poor Ashiel ought to have had shutters to his
windows. Dreadful mistake, no shutters: lets in draughts and colds in the
head, if nothing worse. These old houses are all the same. No safety in
them from anything. Young McConachan wrote me an urgent note to come
over. Don't quite see what for, but here I am. Eh? What do you say? Oh,
detective from London, is it? How d'ye do? Perhaps you can tell me what
the programme is?"

"Young Lord Ashiel promised to meet us here at half-past six," Gimblet
told him. "We expect to put our hands on some important documents, and I
was anxious you should be present."

"Quite unnecessary. Absolutely ridiculous. Still, here I am. May as well
come along."

The General went on talking to Lady Ruth, but after a few minutes the
inspector from Crianan sent in to ask if he could speak to him, and they
retired together to Lady Ruth's little private sitting-room, where they
remained closeted for some time. While the old soldier was listening to
what the policeman had to tell him, Gimblet began to show signs of
restlessness. He went to the door and looked about him. The weather was
clearing, the clouds breaking and scudding fast before a wind which had
arisen in the North; a tinge of blue showed here and there in the
interstices between them, while a veil of mist that trailed after them
shone faintly orange in the rays of the hidden sun.

Gimblet went back and sat down in the drawing-room with the _Scotsman_ in
his hand. He put it down after a few minutes, however, and began
fidgeting about the room. Then he went and conferred with the second of
the two policemen, and as he was talking to him the General and the
inspector reappeared.

"I think," said Gimblet, coming towards them, "that we will not wait any
longer for Lord Ashiel."

General Tenby, staring at him with rather a strange expression,
nevertheless silently assented, and the four men started on their walk to
the green way.

As they went up the glen a ray of sunshine emerged from between the
flying clouds, and fell upon the statue at the end of the enclosed glade.
Away to the right their eyes could follow the track of a distant shower;
and as they went a rainbow curved across the sky, stretching from hill to
hill like some great monumental arch set up for the celestial armies to
march under on their return from the conquest of the earth.

"That statue," Gimblet remarked to the General, who walked beside him,
"is a specimen of the worst modern Italian sculpture. The figure of
Pandora is modelled like a sack of potatoes; the composition is weak and
unsatisfactory; and the pediment on which the whole group is poised large
enough to support three others of the same size."

The General grunted.

"I always understood that the late Lord Ashiel knew what he was
about," he said stiffly. "He told me himself that it cost him a great
deal of money."

Gimblet sighed. He could not help feeling that it was a pity Lord Ashiel
had not earlier fallen into the habit of consulting him.

Still, he was bound to admit that though the stone group, regarded as
a work of art, was altogether deplorable, the general effect of the
erection, in its rectangular setting of forest, was excellent. The
whole scene was one of peaceful and romantic beauty. Poets might have
sat themselves down in that moist and shining spot; and, forgetful of
the possibilities of rheumatism, found their muse inspiring beyond
the ordinary.

Gimblet was at heart something of a poet, but he felt no inclination to
communicate the feelings which the place and hour aroused in him to any
of his companions; and it was in a silence which had in it something
dimly foreboding that the party drew near to the statue.

In silence, Gimblet approached the great block of stone and laid his hand
upon the projecting horn of the bull. Equally silently the two policemen
had taken up positions at the end of the pedestal; the General stood
behind them, alert and interested.

After a swift glance, which took in all these details, Gimblet turned the
horn round in its socket.

The hidden door swung open, and there was a sound of muttered
exclamations from the police and a loud oath from the General. Gimblet
sprang round the corner of the pedestal, and there, as he expected,
cowering in the mouth of the disclosed cavity, and looking, in his fury
of fear and mortification, for all the world like some trapped vermin,
crouched Lord Ashiel, glaring at his liberators with a rage that was
hardly sane.

Beyond him, on the floor at the back, they could see the tin dispatch
box standing open and empty.

The two policemen, acting on instructions previously given them, made one
simultaneous grab at the young man and dragged him into the open with
several seconds to spare before the door slammed to again, in obedience
to the invisible mechanism that controlled it. They set him on his legs
on the wet turf, and stood, one on each side of him, a retaining hand
still resting on either arm.

For a moment Mark gazed from the General to the detective, his eyes full
of hatred. Then he controlled himself with an effort, and when he spoke
it was with a forced lightness of manner.

"I have to thank you for letting me out," he said. "The air in there was
getting terrible." He paused, and filled his lungs ostentatiously, but
no one answered him. Losing something of his assumed calmness, he went
on, uneasily: "I just thought I'd come along and see if there was any
truth in Mr. Gimblet's story; and I was quite right to doubt it, since
there isn't. He's not quite as clever as he thinks, for he was as
positive as you like that my uncle's will was hidden here, but as a
matter of fact it's not, as I was taking the trouble to make sure when
that cursed statue shut me in. There's nothing in it of any sort except
an empty tin box."

"There's nothing in it now," said Gimblet, speaking for the first time,
"because I had no doubt you meant to destroy the will if you found it, so
I removed it to a safe place last night. As for the other papers, I have
sent them to London, where they will be still safer. I knew you would
give yourself away by coming here. That's why I told you the secret of
the bull's horn."

Mark's face was dreadful to see. He made a menacing step forward as if
he would throw himself upon the detective. But the strong right hands of
Inspector Cameron and Police Constable Fraser tightened on his arms and
restrained his further action. He seemed for the first time to be
conscious of their presence.

"Leave go of my arm," he shouted. "What the devil do you mean by putting
your dirty hands on me?"

"My lord," said the inspector, "you had better come quietly. I am here to
arrest you for the murder of your uncle, Lord Ashiel, and I warn you that
anything you say may be used against you."

"Are you going to arrest the whole family?" scoffed Mark. "Where's your
warrant, man?"

"I have it here, my lord," replied the inspector, fumbling in his pocket
for the paper the astonished General had signed when the inspector had
imparted to him, in Lady Ruth's little sitting-room, the information he
had received from Mr. Gimblet.

As Inspector Cameron fumbled, the young man, with a sudden jerk which
found them unprepared, threw off the hold upon his arms and leaped aside.

As he did so, he plunged his hand into his pocket and drew forth a
little phial.

"You shall never take me alive," he cried, and lifted it to his lips.

"Stop him!" shouted Gimblet.

Throwing his whole weight upon the uplifted arm, he forced the phial away
from Mark's already open mouth; the other men rushed to his assistance,
and between them the frustrated would-be suicide was overpowered, and
held firmly while the inspector fastened a pair of handcuffs over his
wrists. When it was done he raised his pinioned hands, as well as he
could, and shook them furiously at Gimblet.

"It's you I have to thank for this," he shouted. "Curse you, you
eavesdropping spy. But there are surprises in store for you, my friend.
You've got me, it seems, and you say you've got the will. You'll find it
more difficult to lay your hands on the heiress!"

The words and still more the triumphant tone in which they were uttered
cast a chill upon them all.

"What do you mean?" cried Gimblet.

But not another syllable could be got out of the prisoner; and the
inspector, besides, protested against questions being addressed to him.

With all the elation over his capture taken out of him, and with a mind
full of brooding anxiety, Gimblet hurried on ahead of the returning
party, and burst in upon Lady Ruth with eager inquiries.

But Juliet had not returned.

How was anyone to know that she had that morning made her way into the
secret passage of the old tower, and watched through the slip of glass in
the case of the clock what Julia Romaninov was doing in the library?

But leaving Gimblet and Lady Ruth to organize a search for her, we will
return to Juliet in her hiding-place and see what was the end of her
adventure.

CHAPTER XIX

When Juliet, incensed and indignant at the Russian's behaviour,
discovered the door in the clock and was on the point of opening it
and making her presence known, a noise of steps in the passage made
her pause. As she listened, there was the sound of a key turning in
the lock, the library door was thrown suddenly open, and Mark stepped
into the room.

Juliet saw Julia's expression as she sprang round to face the newcomer.
She saw it change, swift as lightning, from a look of horrified dismay to
one of sudden transforming tenderness, as the girl recognized the
intruder, that the hand already in the act of pushing open the door of
the clock fell inert and limp to her side, and if she had been able to
move she would have lost no time in retreating. She knew instinctively
that she was seeing a secret laid bare which she had no right to spy
upon. And yet, though her impulse was to fly from the place in
embarrassment and confusion, something stronger than her natural
discretion and delicacy held her where she stood. For Julia had not come
here for the purpose of meeting Mark. She had come with a purpose less
personal: something, Juliet felt convinced, that was in some way vaguely
discreditable, and at the same time menacing. It could be for no harmless
reason that she had taken this secret, dangerous way into the castle.

And so Juliet kept her ground, blushing at her role of spy, and averting
her eyes as Julia dropped the book she was holding and ran forward to
meet Mark, with that tell-tale look upon her face.

But Mark did not show the same pleasure. He stood, holding the handle of
the door, which he had closed gently behind him, and looking with a
certain sternness at the girl.

"Julia," he said, "you here! What are you doing?"

"Oh, Mark," she cried, not answering his question, "aren't you glad to
see me? It is so long, oh, it is so long since I saw you!"

She threw her arms round his neck with a happy laugh, and drew his face
down to hers.

"Darling! darling!" she murmured. "How can we live without each other for
one single day!"

She spoke in a low, soft voice. To Juliet, to whom every purling syllable
was painfully audible, it sounded cooingly, like the voice of doves.

To the surprise of the girl to whom Mark had proposed marriage two days
before, when she ventured to peep through her spy window, Mark's arms
were round Julia and he was kissing her ardently.

But after a moment he released himself gently.

"You haven't told me, dear," he said, "what you are doing here."

His voice held a note of authority before which Julia's assurance
vanished.

"I--I wasn't doing anything," she muttered.

"Julia!" he remonstrated.

"Well," she said, with some show of defiance, "I suppose anyone may take
a book from the library."

"Of course," he said, "you may take anything of mine you want Still, as
you are not staying in the house--In short, it seems to me that the
more obvious course would have been to have said something to me about
it; and besides," he added, struck by a sudden thought, "how in the world
did you get in? The door was locked, and the key is on the outside."

"Oh, if you're going to make such a fuss about nothing," she exclaimed
petulantly, her toe beginning to tap the boards, "it's not worth
explaining anything to you." She turned away and walked towards the
fireplace.

"I'm not making a fuss," Mark said quietly, "but you must tell me, Julia,
what you are doing here, and how you came. To speak plainly, I don't
believe you came for a book."

"If you don't believe me, what's the good of my saying anything?" she
retorted. "Oh, how horrid you are to-day, Mark. I don't believe you love
me a bit, any more." And leaning her head against the mantelpiece, she
burst into tears.

"You know it isn't that, Julia," he said, looking at her fixedly. "Don't
cry, there's a dear, good girl. You know that I love you. Why, you're the
only thing in the whole world that I really want. But you must tell me
how you came here. Tell me," he repeated, taking her hands from her face,
and forcing her to look at him, "what you want in the library. Tell me,
Julia, I want to know."

She seemed to struggle to keep silence, but to be unable to resist his
questioning eyes.

"I suppose I must tell you," she murmured; "it's not that I don't want
to. But they would kill me if they knew. Oh, Mark, I ought not to tell
you, but how can I keep anything secret from my beloved? Swear to me
that you will never repeat it, or try to hinder me in what I have to do?"

He bent and kissed her.

"Julia," he said, "can't you trust me?"

"I do, I do," she cried. "While you love me, I trust you. But if you left
off, what then? That is the nightmare that haunts me. Mark, Mark, what
would become of me if you were to change towards me?"

He kissed her again, murmuring reassuring words that did not reach
Juliet's ears. "So tell me now," he ended, "what you were doing here."

"Mark," she said nervously, "you know where my childhood was passed?"

"In St. Petersburg," he replied wonderingly.

"Yes, in Petersburg. And you know how things are there. It is so
different from your England, my England. For I am English really, Mark,
although that thought always seems so strange to me; since during so many
years I believed myself to be a Russian. I am the daughter of English
parents; my father was a very respectable London plumber of the name of
Harsden, whose business went to the bad and who died, leaving my mother
to face ruin and starvation with a family of five small children, of whom
I was the last. When a lady who took an interest in the parish in which
we lived suggested that a friend of hers should adopt one of the
children, my mother was only too thankful to accept the proposal, and I
was the one from whom she chose to be parted. I have never seen her
since, but she is still alive, and I send her money from time to time.

"The lady who adopted me was Countess Romaninov, and I believed
myself her child till a day or two before she died, when she told me,
to my lasting regret, the true story of my origin. But I was brought
up a Russian, and I shall never feel myself to be English. Somehow the
soil you live on in your childhood seems to get into your bones, as
you say here. It is true that I speak your language easily, but it was
Russian that my baby lips first learned. My sympathies, my point of
view, my friends, all except yourself, are Russian. And I have one
essentially Russian attribute, I am a member of what you would call a
Nihilist society."

Mark interrupted her with an interjection of surprise, but she nodded her
head defiantly, and continued:

"All my life, all my private ends and desires must be governed by the
needs of my country. First and foremost I exist that the rule of the
Tyrant may be abolished, and the Slav be free to work out his own
salvation; he shall be saved from the fate that now overwhelms and
crushes him; dragged bodily from under the heel of the oppressor. I am
not the only one. We are many who think as one mind. And the day is not
far distant when our sacrifices shall bear fruit. Ah, Mark, what a great
cause, what a noble purpose, is this of ours! Perhaps I shall be able to
convert you, to fire your cold British blood with my enthusiasm?"

She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. But he made no reply, and
after a moment she continued, placing her hand fondly upon his shoulder
as she spoke.

"Our plan is to terrify the rulers into submission. We must not shrink
from killing, and killing suddenly and unexpectedly, till they abandon
the wickedness of their Ways. They must never know what it is to feel
safe. And we see to it that they do not. Death waits for them at the
street corner, on their travels, at their own doorsteps. They never know
at what moment the bomb may not be thrown, or the pistol fired. It is
sad that explosives are so unreliable. There are many difficulties. You
would not believe the obstacles that we find placed in our path at every
turning. And for those who are suspected there is Siberia, and the
mines. But it is worth it. It is worth anything to feel that one is
working and risking all for one's country, and one's fellow-countrymen.
It is an honour to belong to a band of such noble men and women. But now
and then one is admitted who turns out to be unworthy. Yes, even such a
cause as ours has traitors to contend with. And your uncle, Lord Ashiel,
was one of them."

"What," said Mark incredulously, "Uncle Douglas a Nihilist? Nonsense.
It's impossible."

"He was, really. For he joined the 'Friends of Man' when he was at the
British Embassy at Petersburg long years ago; and no sooner had he been
initiated than he turned round and denounced the society and all its
works. Worse still, he declared his intention of hindering it from
carrying out its programme. He would have been got rid of there and
then, but as ill-luck would have it he had, by an unheard-of chain of
accidents, become possessed of an important document belonging to the
society. It was, indeed, a list of the principal people on the executive
committee that fell into his hands, and he took the precaution of
sending it to England, with instructions that if anything happened to
him it should be forwarded to the Russian Police, before he made known
his ridiculous objections to our programme. Here, as you will
understand, was a most impossible situation with which there was
apparently no means of coping.

"For years that one man hampered and frustrated our entire organization.
He was practically able to dictate his own terms, for he announced his
intention of publishing the list of names if we carried out any important
project, and no device could be contrived to stop his being as good as
his word. The tyrant has walked unscathed except by mere private
enterprise, and the government we could have caused to crumble to the
ground has flourished and continued to work evil as before. We have been
crippled, paralysed in every direction. It was only last year that there
seemed reason to think that Lord Ashiel had removed the document from the
Bank of England where it had for so long been guarded, and there appeared
to be a possibility that he now kept it in his own house. If that were
so, there seemed a good chance of getting hold of it, and how proud I am,
Mark, to think that it was I who was chosen to make the attempt!

"I came to England with the best introductions into society, and had no
difficulty in making friends with your aunt and obtaining an invitation
to stay here. Last year I did not succeed in gaining any information.
Your uncle, for some reason, seemed rather to avoid me, and I did not
make any headway towards gaining his confidence. I never could be sure if
he suspected me. This year there was a question of replacing me by some
one else, but it was judged that Lord Ashiel's suspicions would be
certainly awakened by the appearance of another Russian, so, in the hope
that I was not associated in his mind with the people to which he had
behaved so basely, I was ordered to try again.

"A member of the society, who occupies a high and responsible position on
the council, accompanied me to the neighbourhood, and from time to time I
report to him and receive his advice and instructions. He stays in
Crianan, so that I have some one within reach to go to for advice. At
least, so I am officially informed, but I know very well he is really
there to keep watch on me, for it is not the habit of the society to
trust its members more than is unavoidable. If it is possible, I go once
a week to Crianan and make my report, but I can't always manage to go,
and then he rows across the loch after dark and I go out and meet him. He
was to come on the night of the murder, and my first thought when I heard
of it was that he might be caught in the shrubberies and mistaken for the
murderer. But it appears that he had already taken alarm, and I am
thankful to say he was able to escape in good time."

"So David really did see some one wandering about that night," Mark
commented thoughtfully. "Ah, Julia, if you'd told me all this earlier
everything might have been different. Poor old David need never have been
dragged into it at all."

She looked at him a moment, as if puzzled, and then continued her story.

"It was thought that I might be able to bring about your uncle's death by
some means that should have all the appearance of an accident, and so
perhaps not involve action on the part of those who hold the
document--that is, if it should prove not to be in his own keeping--for
he had always assured the council that no decisive step would be taken
except as a retort to signs of violence on our part, whether directed
towards himself or others.

"I have not been able to find any trace of the list. I thought I had it
one day in London, when I followed Lord Ashiel to a detective's office,
and managed to gain possession of an envelope given him by Lord Ashiel,
but as far as I could make out it contained nothing of any importance. It
was a bitter disappointment. You can imagine the consternation into which
we were thrown by the murder. It seemed certain that his death would be
attributed to our organization, and if anyone held the list for him it
would be published immediately. Four days have passed, however, and my
superior has received a cable saying that so far all is well. It looks
more and more as if the list had been kept here, but I have hunted
everywhere and found nothing. Oh, I have searched without ceasing since
the moment I heard of his death! I came here even on the very night of
the murder, and moved the body with my own hands in order to get at the
bureau drawers. There is a secret way into the room through that old
clock there, which leads into the grounds; I found it long ago, one day
when I was exploring outside in the shrubberies. I have often been here,
and searched, and searched again. Do you know anything of this document,
Mark? If you do, I beg and implore you to give it to me. Otherwise I
cannot answer for your life; and, as for our marriage, that is out of the
question unless I am successful in my undertaking."

It may be imagined with what amazement and growing horror Juliet listened
to this avowal. That Julia, the girl with whom she had associated on
terms of easy familiarity which had been near to becoming something like
intimacy in the close contact and companionship of a country-house life,
that this girl, an honoured guest in Lord Ashiel's house, should have
gained her footing there for her own treacherous ends, or at the bidding
of a band of political assassins! Juliet could scarcely believe her ears
as she heard the calm, indifferent tone in which Julia spoke of the
drawbacks to "getting rid" of Lord Ashiel, and of the contemplated
"accident" which was to have befallen him. She would have fled from where
she stood, if mingled fear and curiosity to hear more had not rooted her
to the spot. Her alarm was tempered by the presence of Mark. If this girl
should discover her hiding there and show signs of the violence that
might be expected from such a character, Mark would be there to protect
her. She could trust him to know how to deal with the Russian, whose true
nature must now be apparent to him.

But Mark, to her astonishment, had not drawn away from Julia with the
repugnance and disgust that were to be expected. Instead, he was looking
at her, strangely, indeed, but almost eagerly.

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