The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story by Mrs. Charles Bryce (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

believe it's going to rain after all," said Lady Ruth. "The sun looks rather too red, perhaps, to be quite safe, though it is supposed to be the shepherd's delight. I can only say that, if he was delighted with the result of some of the red sunsets we get up here, he'd be easily pleased, and for my part I'm never surprised at anything. These midges are past belief, aren't they?"

They were, Gimblet agreed heartily. He gathered a handful of fern and tried to keep them at bay, but they were persevering and ubiquitous. Soon the path led them away from the open moor, and into the wood of birches and young oaks which clung to the side of the hill. A little farther, and Gimblet heard the distant gurgling of a burn; presently they were picking their way between moss-covered boulders on the edge of a rocky gully. Great tufts of ferns dotted the steep pitch of the bank below; the stream that clattered among the stones at the bottom shone very cool and shadowy under the alders; and a clearing on the other side revealed, over the receding woods, the broken hill-tops of a blue horizon.

The path wound gradually downward to the waterside, and in a little while they crossed it by means of a row of stepping-stones over which Lady Ruth passed as boldly as her companion.

Another hundred yards of shade, and they came out into a long narrow glen, carpeted with short springy turf, and bordered, as by an avenue, with trees knee-deep in bracken. The rectangular shape and enclosed nature of the glade came as a surprise in the midst of the wild woodlands. The place had more the air of forming part of pleasure grounds near to the haunts of man, and the eye wandered instinctively in search of a house. The effect of artificiality was increased by a large piece of statuary representing a figure carved in stone and standing upon a high oblong pediment, which stood a little distance down the glen.

Gimblet did not repress his feeling of astonishment.

"What a strange place!" he exclaimed. "Who would have expected to find this lawn tucked away in the woods. Or is there a house somewhere at hand?"

"No," Lady Ruth answered, "there is nothing nearer than my cottage half a mile away; and this short grass and flat piece of ground are entirely natural. Nothing has been touched, except here and there a tree cut out to keep the borders straight. The late Lady Ashiel, the wife of my unfortunate cousin, was very fond of this place. Although it is farther, she always walked round by it when she came to see me at the cottage. That absurd statue was put up last year as a sort of memorial to her—a most unsuitable one to my mind, she being a chilly sort of woman, poor dear, who always shivered if she saw so much as a hen moulting. I'm sure it would distress her terribly if she knew that poor creature over there had to stand in the glen in all weathers, year in and year out, with only a rag to cover her. And a stone rag at that, which is a cold material at the best. Yes, this is only the beginning of a track which runs for miles across the hills to the South. It is so green that you can always make it out from the heights, and there are all sorts of legends about it. It is supposed to be the road over which the clans drove back the cattle they captured in the old days when they were always raiding each other. They have a name for it In the Gaelic, which means the Green Way."

"The Green Way," Gimblet repeated mechanically. For a moment his brain revolved with wild imaginings.

"Yes," repeated Lady Ruth. "Sometimes they call it 'The Way,' for short. It is a favourite place for picnics from Crianan. My cousin used to allow them to come here, and the place is generally made hideous with egg-shells and paper and old bottles. One of the gardeners comes and tidies things up once a week in the summer. People are so absolutely without consciences."

"Is there a bull here?" cried Gimblet. He was quivering with excitement.

"Goodness gracious, I hope not!" said Lady Ruth. "Do you see any cattle?
I can't bear those long-horned Highlanders!"

"No," said Gimblet. "I thought perhaps—But what is the statue? The design, surely, is rather a strange one for the place."

"Most extraordinary," assented Lady Ruth. "He got it in Italy and had it sent the whole way by sea. It took all the king's horses and all the king's men to get it up here, I can tell you. And, as I say, nothing less apropos can one possibly imagine. That poor thin female with such very scanty clothing is hardly a cheerful object on a Scotch winter's day, and as for those little naked imps they would make anyone shiver, even in August."

They had drawn near the sculptured group. It consisted of the slightly draped figure of a girl, bending over an open box, or casket, from which a crowd of small creatures, apparently, as Lady Ruth had said, imps or fairies, were scrambling and leaping forth.

Gimblet gazed at it intently, as if he had never seen a statue before. In a moment his face cleared and he turned to Lady Ruth with burning eyes.

"It is Pandora," he cried. "Curiosity! Pandora and her box. Is it not Pandora?"

Lady Ruth stared at him amazed.

"I believe it is," she said, "that or something of the sort. I'm not very well up in mythology."

"Of course it is," cried Gimblet. "Face curiosity! And here's the bull, or I'll eat my microscope," he added, advancing to the side of the group and laying a hand upon the pedestal.

Lady Ruth followed his gaze with some concern. She was beginning to doubt his sanity. But there, sure enough, beneath his pointing finger, she perceived a row of carved heads: the heads of bulls, garlanded in the Roman manner, and forming a kind of cornice round the top of the great rectangular stone stand.

Gimblet glanced to right and left, up the glen and down it. There was no one to be seen. The sun had fallen by this time beneath the rim of the hills; a greyness of twilight was spread over the whole scene, and under the trees the dusk of night was already silently ousting the day. He turned once more to Lady Ruth.

"Lady Ruth," he said, "can you keep a secret?"

"My husband trusted me," she replied. "He was judicious as well as judicial."

"I am sure I may follow his example," Gimblet said, after looking at her fixedly for a moment. "So I will tell you that I believe I am on the point of discovering Lord Ashiel's missing will—and not that alone. Somewhere, concealed probably within a few feet of where we are standing, we may hope to find other and far more important documents, involving, perhaps, not only the welfare of one or two individuals but that of kings and nations. Apart from that, and to speak of what most immediately concerns us at present, I am convinced that within this stone will be found the true clue to the author of the murder."

"You don't say so," gasped Lady Ruth, her round eyes rounder than ever.

"I found some directions in the handwriting of the murdered man," went on Gimblet, "which I could not understand at first. But their meaning is plain enough now. 'Take the bull by the horn,' he says. Well, here are the bulls, and I shall soon know which is the horn."

He walked round to the front of the statue, so that he faced the stooping figure of Pandora, and laid his hand upon one of the curved and projecting horns of the left-hand bull. Nothing happened, and he tried the next. There were seven heads in all along the face of the great block, and he tested six of them without perceiving anything unusual. Was it possible that he was mistaken, and that, after all, the words of the message did not refer to the statue?

When he grasped the first horn of the last head, the hand that did so was shaking with excitement and suspense. It seemed, like the rest, to possess no attribute other than mere decoration. And yet, and yet—surely he had missed some vital point. He would go over them again. There remained, however, the last horn, and as he took hold of it with a premonitory dread of disappointment, he felt that it was loose in its socket, and that he could by an effort turn it completely over. With a triumphant cry he twisted it round, and at the same moment Lady Ruth started back with an exclamation of alarm.

She was standing where he had left her, and was nearly knocked down by the great slab of stone which, as Gimblet turned the horn of the bull, swung sharply out from the end of the pediment, till it hung like a door invitingly open and disclosing a hollow chamber within the stone.

Within the opening, on the floor at the far end, stood a large tin despatch-box.

The door was a good eighteen inches wide; plenty of room for Gimblet to climb in, swollen with exultation though he might be. In less than three seconds he had scrambled through the aperture and was stooping over the box. It seemed to be locked, but a key lay on the top of the lid. He lost no time in inserting it, and in a moment threw open the case and saw that it was full of papers.

Suddenly there was another cry from Lady Ruth as, for no apparent cause and without the slightest warning, the stone door slammed itself back into position, and he was left a prisoner in the total darkness of the vault. He groped his way to the doorway and pushed against it with all his strength. He might as well have tried to move the side of a mountain. But, after an interval long enough for him to have time to become seriously uneasy, the door flew open again, and the agitated countenance of Lady Ruth welcomed him to the outside world.

"Do get out quick," she cried. "If it does it again while you're half in and half out, you'll be cracked in two as neatly as a walnut."

Gimblet hurried out, clutching the precious box. No sooner was he safely standing on the turf than the door shut again with a violence that gave Pandora the appearance of shaking with convulsions of silent merriment.

"I wasn't sure how it opened," said Lady Ruth, "but I tried all the horns and got it right at last. How lucky I was with you!"

"Yes, indeed," said Gimblet. "I am very thankful you were."

They twisted the horn again, and stood together to watch the recurring phenomenon of the closing door.

"It must be worked by clockwork," the detective said, and taking out his watch he timed the interval that elapsed between the opening and shutting. "It stays open for thirty seconds," he remarked after two or three experiments. "No doubt the mechanism is concealed in the thickness of the stone. At all events it seems to be in good working order."

Squatting on the grass, he opened the tin box, and examined the papers with which it was filled. A glance showed him that they were what he expected, and he replaced the box where he had found it, while Lady Ruth manipulated the horn of the bull.

"I have no right to the papers," he explained to her, as they walked homeward in the gathering dusk. "It would be more satisfactory if a magistrate were present at the official opening of the statue, and I will see what can be done about that to-morrow. In the meantime, and considering that we have been interfering with other people's property, I shall be much obliged if you will keep our discovery secret."

And talking in low, earnest tones, he explained to her more fully all that was likely to be implied by the papers they had unearthed.

CHAPTER XVI

With her white paint and her scarlet smokestack, the Inverashiel—one of the two small steamers that during the summer months plied up and down the loch, and incidentally carried on communication between Inverashiel and Crianan—was a picturesque addition to the landscape, as she approached the wooden landing-stage that stood half a mile below the promontory