Scarhaven Keep by J. S. Fletcher (best value ebook reader TXT) 📕

parts. Bassett thereupon wrote to the author and said what I, his reader, thought, and kindly offered, as he knew Gaines intimately, to show the little work to him on his return to England. And this Mr. Marston Greyle wrote back, thanking Bassett warmly and accepting his kind offer. Accordingly, I brought the play with me to England. Montagu Gaines, however, had just set off on a two years’ tour to Australia⁠—consequently, the play and the author’s two letters have remained in my possession ever since. And⁠—here they are!”

Mr. Dennie laid his hand dramatically on his packet, looked significantly at his audience, and went on.

“Now, when I heard all that I did hear at that inquest yesterday,” he said, “I naturally remembered that I had in my possession two letters which were undoubtedly written to Bassett Oliver by a young man named Marston Greyle, whom Oliver⁠—just as undoubtedly!⁠—had personally met in St. Louis. And so when the inquest was over, Mr. Copplestone, I recalled myself to Mrs. Greyle here, whom I had known many years ago, and I walked back to this house with her and her charming daughter, and⁠—don’t be angry, Mrs. Greyle⁠—while the mother’s back was turned⁠—on hospitable thoughts intent⁠—I got the daughter to lend me⁠—secretly⁠—a letter written by the present Squire of Scarhaven. Armed with that, I went home to my lodgings in Norcaster, found the letter written by the American Marston Greyle, and compared it with them. And⁠—here is the result!”

The old actor selected the two American letters from his papers, laid them out on the table, and placed the letter which Audrey had given him beside them.

“Now!” he said, as his three companions bent eagerly over these exhibits, “Look at those three letters. All bear the same signature, Marston Greyle⁠—but the handwriting of those two is as different from that of this one as chalk is from cheese!”

XIV By Private Treaty

There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters⁠—one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certainly not written the other two. The letter which Audrey had handed to Mr. Dennie was penned in the style commonly known as commercial⁠—plain, commonplace, utterly lacking in the characteristics which are supposed to denote imagination and a sense of artistry. It was the sort of caligraphy which one comes across every day in shops and offices and banks⁠—there was nothing in any upstroke, downstroke or letter which lifted it from the very ordinary. But the other two letters were evidently written by a man of literary and artistic sense, possessing imagination and a liking for effect. It needed no expert in handwriting to declare that two totally different individuals had written those letters.

“And now,” observed Mr. Dennie, breaking the silence and putting into words what each of the others was vaguely feeling, “the question is⁠—what does all this mean? To start with, Marston Greyle is a most uncommon name. Is it possible there can be two persons of that name? That, at any rate, is the first thing that strikes me.”

“It is not the first thing that strikes me,” said Mrs. Greyle. She took up the typescript which the old actor had brought in his packet, and held its title page significantly before him. “That is the first thing that strikes me!” she exclaimed. “The Marston Greyle who sent this to Bassett Oliver said according to your story⁠—that he sprang from a very old family in England, and that this is a dramatization of a romantic episode in its annals. Now there is no other old family in England named Greyle, and this episode is of course, the famous legend of how Prince Rupert once sought refuge in the Keep yonder and had a love passage with a lady of the house. Am I right, Mr. Dennie?”

“Quite right, ma’am, quite correct,” replied the old actor. “It is so⁠—you have guessed correctly!”

“Very well, then⁠—the Marston Greyle who wrote this, and those letters, and who met Bassett Oliver was without doubt the son of Marcus Greyle, who went to America many years ago. He was the same Marston Greyle, who, his father being dead, of course succeeded his uncle, Stephen John Greyle⁠—that seems an absolute certainty. And in that case,” continued Mrs. Greyle, looking earnestly from one to the other, “in that case⁠—who is the man now at Scarhaven Keep?”

A dead silence fell on the little room. Audrey started and flushed at her mother’s eager, pregnant question; Mr. Dennie sat up very erect and took a pinch of snuff from his old-fashioned box. Copplestone pushed his chair away from the table and began to walk about. And Mrs. Greyle continued to look from one face to the other as if demanding a reply to her question.

“Mother!” said Audrey in a low voice. “You aren’t suggesting⁠—”

“Ahem!” interrupted Mr. Dennie. “A moment, my dear. There is nothing, I believe,” he continued, waxing a little oracular, “nothing like plain speech. We are all friends⁠—we have a common cause⁠—justice! It may be that justice demands our best endeavours not only as regards our deceased friend, Bassett Oliver, but in the interests of⁠—this young lady. So⁠—”

“I wish you wouldn’t, Mr. Dennie!” exclaimed Audrey. “I don’t like this at all. Please don’t!”

She turned, almost instinctively, to seek Copplestone’s aid in repressing the old man. But Copplestone was standing by the window, staring moodily at the windswept quay beyond the garden, and Mr. Dennie waved his snuffbox and went on.

“An old man’s privilege!” he said. “In your interests, my dear. Allow me.” He turned again to Mrs. Greyle. “In plain words, ma’am, you are wondering if the present holder of the estates is really what he claims to be. Plain English, eh?”

“I am!” answered Mrs. Greyle with a distinct ring of challenge and defiance. “And now that it comes to the truth, I have wondered that ever since he came here. There!”

“Why, mother?” asked Audrey, wonderingly.

“Because he doesn’t possess a single Greyle characteristic,” replied Mrs. Greyle, readily enough, “I ought to