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

“Excellent notion!” he said. “You’re quite a business man⁠—an unusual thing in authors, isn’t it? Come on, then⁠—and that is an inn, too⁠—I can make out the sign now⁠—The Admiral’s Arms⁠—Mary Wooler. Let’s hope Mary Wooler, who’s presumably the landlady, can give us some useful news!”

The Admiral’s Arms proved to be an old-fashioned, capacious hostelry, eminently promising and comfortable in appearance, which stood on the edge of a broad shelf of headland, and commanded a fine view of the little village and the bay. Stafford and Copplestone, turning in at the front door, found themselves in a deep, stone-paved hall, on one side of which, behind a bar window, a pleasant-faced, buxom woman, silk-aproned and smartly-capped, was busily engaged in adding up columns of figures in a big account book. At sight of strangers she threw open a door and smilingly invited them to walk into a snugly furnished bar-parlour where a bright fire burned in an open hearth. Stafford gave his companion a look⁠—this again was just the sort of old-world place which would appeal to Basset Oliver, supposing he had come across it.

“I wonder if you can give me some information?” he asked presently, when the good-looking landlady had attended to their requests for refreshment. “I suppose you are the landlady⁠—Mrs. Wooler? Well, now, Mrs. Wooler, did you have a tall, handsome, slightly grey-haired gentleman in here to lunch yesterday⁠—say about one o’clock?”

The landlady turned on her questioner with an intelligent smile.

“You mean Mr. Oliver, the actor?” she said.

“Good!” exclaimed Stafford, with a hearty sigh of relief. “I do! You know him, then?”

“I’ve often seen him, both at Northborough and at Norcaster,” replied Mrs. Wooler. “But I never saw him here before yesterday. Oh, yes! Of course I knew him as soon as he walked in, and I had a bit of chat with him before he went out, and he remarked that though he’d been coming into these parts for some years, he’d never been to Scarhaven before⁠—usually, he said, he’d gone inland of a Sunday, amongst the hills. Oh, yes, he was here⁠—he had lunch here.”

“We’re seeking him,” said Stafford, going directly to the question. “He ought to have turned up at the Angel hotel at Norcaster last night, and at the theatre today at noon⁠—he did neither. I’m his business manager, Mrs. Wooler. Now can you tell us anything⁠—more than you’ve already told, I mean?”

The landlady, whose face expressed more and more concern as Stafford spoke, shook her head.

“I can’t!” she answered. “I don’t know any more. He was here perhaps an hour or so. Then he went away, saying he was going to have a look round the place. I expected he’d come in again on his way to the station, but he never did. Dear, dear! I hope nothing’s happened to him⁠—such a fine, pleasant man. And⁠—”

“And⁠—what?” asked Stafford.

“These cliffs and rocks are so dangerous,” murmured Mrs. Wooler. “I often say that no stranger ought to go alone here. They aren’t safe, these cliffs.”

Stafford set down his glass and rose.

“I think you’ve got a telephone in your hall,” he said. “I’ll just call up Norcaster and find out if they’ve heard anything. If they haven’t⁠—”

He shook his head and went out, and Copplestone glanced at the landlady.

“You say the cliffs are dangerous,” he said. “Are they particularly so?”

“To people who don’t know them, yes,” she replied. “They ought to be protected, but then, of course, we don’t get many tourists here, and the Scarhaven people know the danger spots well enough. Then again at the end of the south promontory there, beyond the Keep⁠—”

“Is the Keep that high square tower amongst the woods?” asked Copplestone.

“That’s it⁠—it’s all that’s left of the old castle,” answered Mrs. Wooler. “Well, off the point beneath that, there’s a group of rocks⁠—you’d perhaps noticed them as you came down from the station? They’ve various names⁠—there’s the King, the Queen, the Sugar Loaf, and so on. At low tide you can walk across to them. And of course, some people like to climb them. Now, they’re particularly dangerous! On the Queen rock there’s a great hole called the Devil’s Spout, up which the sea rushes. Everybody wants to look over it, you know, and if a man was there alone, and his foot slipped, and he fell, why⁠—”

Stafford came back, looking more cast down than ever.

“They’ve heard nothing there,” he announced. “Come on⁠—we’ll go down and see if we can hear anything from any of the people. We’ll call in and see you later, Mrs. Wooler, and if you can make any inquiries in the meantime, do. Look here,” he went on, when he and Copplestone had got outside, “you take this south side of the bay, and I’ll take the north. Ask anybody you see⁠—any likely person⁠—fishermen and so on. Then come back here. And if we’ve heard nothing⁠—”

He shook his head significantly, as he turned away, and Copplestone, taking the other direction, felt that the manager’s despondency was influencing himself. A sudden disappearance of this sort was surely not to be explained easily⁠—nothing but exceptional happenings could have kept Bassett Oliver from the scene of his week’s labours. There must have been an accident⁠—it needed little imagination to conjure up its easy occurrence. A too careless step, a too near approach, a loose stone, a sudden giving way of crumbling soil, the shifting of an already detached rock⁠—any of these things might happen, and then⁠—but the thought of what might follow cast a greyer tint over the already cold and grey sea.

He went on amongst the old cottages and fishing huts which lay at the foot of the wooded heights on the tops of whose pines and firs the gaunt ruins of the old Keep seemed to stand sentinel. He made inquiry at open doors and of little groups of men gathered on the quay and by the drawn-up boats⁠—nobody knew anything. According to what they told him, most of these people had been out and about all the previous afternoon; it had been a