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

over to his companions in the dining room to which they adjourned.

“This is from Mrs. Greyle,” he said. “ ‘All right and much relieved by wire from Thurso. Bring Audrey home as quick as possible.’ That’s good! And this⁠—Great Scott! This is from Gilling! Listen!⁠—‘Just heard from Petherton of your rescue. Come straight and sharp Norcaster. Meet me at the Angel. Big things afoot. Spurge most anxious see you. Important news. Gilling.’ So things have been going on,” he concluded, turning the second telegram over to Vickers. “I suppose we’ll have to travel all night?”

“Night express in an hour,” replied Vickers. “We shall make Norcaster about five-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Then let us wire the time of our arrival to Gilling. I’m anxious to know what has brought him up there,” said Copplestone. “And we’ll wire to Mrs. Greyle, too,” he added, turning to Audrey. “She’ll know then that you’re absolutely on the way.”

“I wonder what we’re on the way to?” remarked Vickers with a grim smile. “It strikes me that our recent alarms and excursions will have been as nothing to what awaits us at Norcaster.”

What did await them on a cold, dismal morning at Norcaster was Gilling, stamping up and down a windswept platform. And Gilling seized on Copplestone almost before he could alight from the train.

“Come to the Angel straight off!” he said. “Mrs. Greyle’s there awaiting her daughter. I’ve work for you and Vickers at once⁠—that chap Spurge is somewhere about the Angel, too⁠—been hanging round there since yesterday, heavy with news that he’ll give to nobody but you.”

XXV The Squire

Such of the folk of the Angel hotel⁠—a night porter, a waiter, a chambermaid⁠—as were up and about that grey morning, wondered why the two old gentlemen who had arrived from London the day before should rise from their beds to hold a secret and mysterious conference with the three young ones who, with a charming if tired-looking young lady, drove up before the city clocks had struck six. But Sir Cresswell Oliver and Mr. Petherton knew that there was no time to be lost, and as soon as Audrey had been restored to and carried off by her mother to Mrs. Greyle’s room, they summoned Vickers and Copplestone to a private parlour and demanded their latest news. Sir Cresswell listened eagerly, and in silence, until Copplestone described the return of the Pike; at that he broke his silence.

“That’s precisely what I feared!” he exclaimed. “Of course, if she’s been hurriedly repainted and renamed, she stands a fair chance of getting away. Our instructions to the patrol boats up there are to look for a certain vessel, the Pike⁠—naturally they won’t look for anything else. We must get the wireless to work at once.”

“But there’s this,” said Copplestone. “They certainly fetched old Chatfield to make him hand over the gold! They won’t go away without that! And he said that he’d hidden the gold somewhere near Scarhaven. Therefore, they’ll have to come down this coast to get it.”

“Not necessarily,” replied Sir Cresswell, with a knowing shake of the head. “You may be sure they’re alive to all the exigencies of the situation. They could do several things once they’d got Chatfield on board again. Some of them could land with him at some convenient port and make him take them to where he’s hidden the money; they could recapture that and go off to some other port, to which the yacht had meanwhile been brought round. If we only knew where Chatfield had planted that money⁠—”

“He said near Scarhaven, unmistakably,” remarked Vickers.

“Near Scarhaven!” repeated Sir Cresswell, laughing dismally. “That’s a wide term⁠—a very wide one. Behind Scarhaven, as you all know, are hills and moors and valleys and ravines in which one could hide a Dreadnought! Well, that’s all I can think of⁠—getting into communication with patrol boats and coastguard stations all along the coast between here and Wick. And that mayn’t be the least good. Somebody may have escorted Chatfield ashore after they left you yesterday, brought him hereabouts by rail or motorcar, and the yacht may have made a wide detour round the Shetlands and be now well on her way to the North Atlantic.”

“But in that case⁠—the money?” asked Copplestone.

“They would get hold of the money, take it clean away, and ship it from Liverpool, or Glasgow, or⁠—anywhere,” replied Sir Cresswell. “You may be sure they’ve plenty of resources at command, and that they’ll work secretly. Of course, we must keep a look out round about here for any sign or reappearance of Chatfield, but, as I say, this country is so wild that he and his companions can easily elude observation, especially as they’re sure to come by night. Still, we must do what we can, and at once. But first, there are one or two things I want to ask you young men⁠—you said, Mr. Vickers, that Chatfield solemnly insisted to you that he did not know that the man who had posed as Marston Greyle was not Marston Greyle?”

“He did,” replied Vickers, “and though Chatfield is an unmitigated old scoundrel, I believe him.”

“You do!” exclaimed Gilling, who was listening eagerly. “Oh, come!”

“I do⁠—as a professional man,” answered Vickers, stoutly, and with an appealing glance at his brother solicitor. “Mr. Petherton will tell you that we lawyers have a curious gift of intuition. With all Chatfield’s badness, I do really believe that the old fellow does not know whether the man we’ll call the Squire is Marston Greyle or not! He’s doubtful⁠—he’s puzzled⁠—but he doesn’t know.”

“Odd!” murmured Sir Cresswell, after a minute’s silence. “Odd! Very, very odd! That shows that there’s still some extraordinary mystery about this which we haven’t even guessed at. Well, now, another question⁠—you got the idea that someone else was aboard the yacht?”

“Someone other than Andrius⁠—in authority⁠—yes!” answered Vickers. “We certainly thought that.”

“Did you think it was the man we know as the Squire?” asked Sir Cresswell.

“We had a notion that he might be there,” replied Vickers, with a