Collected works of j s f.., p.737
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 737
Mr. Smeaton and I hurried outside the station — a car or two stood in the yard, and we picked out the best. As we got in, Chisholm came up to us.
“You’d better have a word or two with our men along the road, Mr. Hugh,” said he. “There’s not many between here and the part you’re going to, but you’d do no harm to give them an idea of what it is you’re after, and tell them to keep their eyes open — and their ears, for that matter.”
“Aye, we’ll do that, Chisholm,” I answered. “And do you keep eyes and ears open here in Berwick! I’ll give ten pounds, and cash in his hand, to the first man that gives me news; and you can let that be known as much as you like, and at once — whether Andrew Dunlop thinks it’s throwing money away or not!”
And then we were off; and maybe that he might draw me away from over much apprehension, Mr. Smeaton began to ask me about the road which Maisie would take to get to the Heseltons’ farm — the road which we, of course, were taking ourselves. And I explained to him that it was just the ordinary high-road that ran between Berwick and Kelso that Maisie would follow, until she came to Cornhill, where she would turn south by way of Mindrum Mill, where — if that fact had anything to do with her disappearance — she would come into a wildish stretch of country at the northern edge of the Cheviots.
“There’ll be places — villages and the like — all along, I expect?” he asked.
“It’s a lonely road, Mr. Smeaton,” I answered. “I know it well — what places there are, are more off than on it, but there’s no stretch of it that’s out of what you might term human reach. And how anybody could happen aught along it of a summer’s evening is beyond me! — unless indeed we’re going back to the old kidnapping times. And if you knew Maisie Dunlop, you’d know that she’s the sort that would put up a fight if she was interfered with! I’m wondering if this has aught to do with all yon Carstairs affair? There’s been such blackness about that, and such villainy, that I wish I’d never heard the name!”
“Aye!” he answered. “I understand you. But — it’s coming to an end. And in queer ways — queer ways, indeed!”
I made no reply to him — and I was sick of the Carstairs matters; it seemed to me I had been eating and drinking and living and sleeping with murder and fraud till I was choked with the thought of them. Let me only find Maisie, said I to myself, and I would wash my hands of any further to-do with the whole vile business.
But we were not to find Maisie during the long hours of that weary afternoon and the evening that followed it. Mr. Lindsey had bade me keep the car and spare no expense, and we journeyed hither and thither all round the district, seeking news and getting none. She had been seen just once, at East Ord, just outside Berwick, by a man that was working in his cottage garden by the roadside — no other tidings could we get. We searched all along the road that runs by the side of Bowmont Water, between Mindrum and the Yetholms, devoting ourselves particularly to that stretch as being the loneliest, and without result. And as the twilight came on, and both of us were dead weary, we turned homeward, myself feeling much more desperate than even I did when I was swimming for my very life in the North Sea.
“And I’m pretty well sure of what it is, now, Mr. Smeaton!” I exclaimed as we gave up the search for that time. “There’s been foul play! And I’ll have all the police in Northumberland on this business, or—”
“Aye!” he said, “it’s a police matter, this, without doubt, Moneylaws. We’d best get back to Berwick, and insist on Murray setting his men thoroughly to work.”
We went first to Mr. Lindsey’s when we got back, his house being on our way. And at sight of us he hurried out and had us in his study. There was a gentleman with him there — Mr. Ridley, the clergyman who had given evidence about Gilverthwaite at the opening of the inquest on Phillips.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE LINK
I KNEW BY one glance at Mr. Lindsey’s face that he had news for us; but there was only one sort of news I was wanting at that moment, and I was just as quick to see that, whatever news he had, it was not for me. And as soon as I heard him say that nothing had been heard of Maisie Dunlop during our absence, I was for going away, meaning to start inquiries of my own in the town, there and then, dead-beat though I was. But before I could reach the door he had a hand on me.
“You’ll just come in, my lad, and sit you down to a hot supper that’s waiting you and Mr. Smeaton there,” he said, in that masterful way he had which took no denial from anybody. “You can do no more good just now — I’ve made every arrangement possible with the police, and they’re scouring the countryside. So into that chair with you, and eat and drink — you’ll be all the better for it. Mr. Smeaton,” he went on, as he had us both to the supper-table and began to help us to food, “here’s news for you — for such news as it is affects you, I’m thinking, more than any man that it has to do with. Mr. Ridley here has found out something relating to Michael Carstairs that’ll change the whole course of events! — especially if we prove, as I’ve no doubt we shall, that Michael Carstairs was no other than your father, whom you knew as Martin Smeaton.”
Smeaton turned in his chair and looked at Mr. Ridley, who — he and Mr. Lindsey having taken their supper before we got in — was sitting in a corner by the fire, eyeing the stranger from Dundee with evident and curious interest.
“I’ve heard of you, sir,” said he. “You gave some evidence at the inquest on Phillips about Gilverthwaite’s searching of your registers, I think?”
“Aye; and it’s a fortunate thing — and shows how one thing leads to another — that Gilverthwaite did go to Mr. Ridley!” explained Mr. Lindsey. “It set Mr. Ridley on a track, and he’s been following it up, and — to cut matters short — he’s found particulars of the marriage of Michael Carstairs, who was said to have died unmarried. And I wish Portlethorpe hadn’t gone home to Newcastle before Mr. Ridley came to me with the news.”
Tired as I was, and utterly heart-sick about Maisie, I pricked up my ears at that. For at intervals Mr. Lindsey and I had discussed the probabilities of this affair, and I knew that there was a strong likelihood of its being found out that the mysterious Martin Smeaton was no other than the Michael Carstairs who had left Hathercleugh for good as a young man. And if it were established that he was married, and that Gavin Smeaton was his lawful son, why, then — but Mr. Ridley was speaking, and I broke off my own speculations to listen to him.
“You’ve scarcely got me to thank for this, Mr. Smeaton,” he said. “There was naturally a good deal of talk in the neighbourhood after that inquest on Phillips — people began wondering what that man Gilverthwaite wanted to find in the parish registers, of which, I now know, he examined a good many, on both sides the Tweed. And in the ordinary course of things — and if some one had made a definite search with a definite object — what has been found now could have been found at once. But I’ll tell you how it was. Up to some thirty years ago there was an old parish church away in the loneliest part of the Cheviots which had served a village that gradually went out of existence — though it’s still got a name, Walholm, there’s but a house or two in it now; and as there was next to no congregation, and the church itself was becoming ruinous, the old parish was abolished, and merged in the neighbouring parish of Felside, whose rector, my friend Mr. Longfield, has the old Walholm registers in his possession. When he read of the Phillips inquest, and what I’d said then, he thought of those registers and turned them up, out of a chest where they’d lain for thirty years anyway; and he at once found the entry of the marriage of one Michael Carstairs with a Mary Smeaton, which was by licence, and performed by the last vicar of Walholm — it was, as a matter of fact, the very last marriage which ever took place in the old church. And I should say,” concluded Mr. Ridley, “that it was what one would call a secret wedding — secret, at any rate, in so far as this: as it was by licence, and as the old church was a most lonely and isolated place, far away from anywhere, even then there’d be no one to know of it beyond the officiating clergyman and the witnesses, who could, of course, be asked to hold their tongues about the matter, as they probably were. But there’s the copy of the entry in the old register.”
Smeaton and I looked eagerly over the slip of paper which Mr. Ridley handed across. And he, to whom it meant such a vast deal, asked but one question:
“I wonder if I can find out anything about Mary Smeaton!”
“Mr. Longfield has already made some quiet inquiries amongst two or three old people of the neighbourhood on that point,” remarked Mr. Ridley. “The two witnesses to the marriage are both dead — years ago. But there are folk living in the neighbourhood who remember Mary Smeaton. The facts are these: she was a very handsome young woman, not a native of the district, who came in service to one of the farms on the Cheviots, and who, by a comparison of dates, left her place somewhat suddenly very soon after that marriage.”
Smeaton turned to Mr. Lindsey in the same quiet fashion.
“What do you make of all this?” he asked.
“Plain as a pikestaff,” answered Mr. Lindsey in his most confident manner. “Michael Carstairs fell in love with this girl and married her, quietly — as Mr. Ridley says, seeing that the marriage was by licence, it’s probable, nay, certain, that nobody but the parson and the witnesses ever knew anything about it. I take it that immediately after the marriage Michael Carstairs and his wife went off to America, and that he, for reasons of his own, dropped his own proper patronymic and adopted hers. And,” he ended, slapping his knee, “I’ve no doubt that you’re the child of that marriage, that your real name is Gavin Carstairs, and that you’re the successor to the baronetcy, and — the real owner of Hathercleugh, — as I shall have pleasure in proving.”
“We shall see,” said Smeaton, quietly as ever. “But — there’s a good deal to do before we get to that, Mr. Lindsey! The present holder, or claimant, for example? What of him?”
“I’ve insisted on the police setting every bit of available machinery to work in an effort to lay hands on him,” replied Mr. Lindsey. “Murray not only communicated all that Hollins told us last night to the Glasgow police this morning, first thing, but he’s sent a man over there with the fullest news; he’s wired the London authorities, and he’s asked for special detective help. He’s got a couple of detectives from Newcastle — all’s being done that can be done. And for you too, Hugh, my lad!” he added, turning suddenly to me. “Whatever the police are doing in the other direction, they’re doing in yours. For, ugly as it may sound and seem, there’s nothing like facing facts, and I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, that this disappearance of Maisie Dunlop is all of a piece with the rest of the villainy that’s been going on — I am indeed!”
I pushed my plate away at that, and got on my feet. I had been dreading as much myself, all day, but I had never dared put it into words.
“You mean, Mr. Lindsey, that she’s somehow got into the hands of — what? — who?” I asked him.
“Something and somebody that’s at the bottom of all this!” he answered, shaking his head. “I’m afraid, lad, I’m afraid!”
I went away from all of them then, and nobody made any attempt to stop me, that time — maybe they saw in my face that it was useless. I left the house, and went — unconsciously, I think — away through the town to my mother’s, driving my nails into the palms of my hands, and cursing Sir Gilbert Carstairs — if that was the devil’s name! — between my teeth. And from cursing him, I fell to cursing myself, that I hadn’t told at once of my seeing him at those crossroads on the night I went the errand for Gilverthwaite.
It had been late when Smeaton and I had got to Mr. Lindsey’s, and the night was now fallen on the town — a black, sultry night, with great clouds overhead that threatened a thunderstorm. Our house was in a badly-lighted part of the street, and it was gloomy enough about it as I drew near, debating in myself what further I could do — sleep I knew I should not until I had news of Maisie. And in the middle of my speculations a man came out of the corner of a narrow lane that ran from the angle of our house, and touched me on the elbow. There was a shaft of light just there from a neighbour’s window; in it I recognized the man as a fellow named Scott that did odd gardening jobs here and there in the neighbourhood.
“Wisht, Mr. Hugh!” said he, drawing me into the shadows of the lane; “I’ve been waiting your coming; there’s a word I have for you — between ourselves.”
“Well?” said I.
“I hear you’re promising ten pounds — cash on the spot — to the man that can give you some news of your young lady?” he went on eagerly. “Is it right, now?”
“Can you?” I asked. “For if you can, you’ll soon see that it’s right.”
“You’d be reasonable about it?” he urged, again taking the liberty to grip my arm. “If I couldn’t just exactly give what you’d call exact and definite news, you’d consider it the same thing if I made a suggestion, wouldn’t you, now, Mr. Hugh? — a suggestion that would lead to something?”
“Aye, would I!” I exclaimed. “And if you’ve got any suggestions, Scott, out with them, and don’t beat about! Tell me anything that’ll lead to discovery, and you’ll see your ten pound quickly.”
“Well,” he answered, “I have to be certain, for I’m a poor man, as you know, with a young family, and it would be a poor thing for me to hint at aught that would take the bread out of their mouths — and my own. And I have the chance of a fine, regular job now at Hathercleugh yonder, and I wouldn’t like to be putting it in peril.”
“It’s Hathercleugh you’re talking of, then?” I asked him eagerly. “For God’s sake, man, out with it! What is it you can tell me?”
“Not a word to a soul of what I say, then, at any time, present or future, Mr. Hugh?” he urged.
“Oh, man, not a word!” I cried impatiently. “I’ll never let on that I had speech of you in the matter!”
“Well, then,” he whispered, getting himself still closer: “mind you, I can’t say anything for certain — it’s only a hint I’m giving you; but if I were in your shoes, I’d take a quiet look round yon old part of Hathercleugh House — I would so! It’s never used, as you’ll know — nobody ever goes near it; but, Mr. Hugh, whoever and however it is, there’s somebody in it now!”
“The old part!” I exclaimed. “The Tower part?”
“Aye, surely!” he answered. “If you could get quietly to it—”
I gave his arm a grip that might have told him volumes.
“I’ll see you privately tomorrow, Scott,” I said. “And if your news is any good — man! there’ll be your ten pound in your hand as soon as I set eyes on you!”
And therewith I darted away from him and headlong into our house doorway.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE OLD TOWER
MY MOTHER WAS at her knitting, in her easy-chair, in her own particular corner of the living-room when I rushed in, and though she started at the sight of me, she went on knitting as methodically as if all the world was regular as her own stitches.
“So you’ve come to your own roof at last, my man!” she said, with a touch of the sharpness that she could put into her tongue on occasion. “There’s them would say you’d forgotten the way to it, judging by experience — why did you not let me know you were not coming home last night, and you in the town, as I hear from other folks?”
“Oh, mother!” I exclaimed. “How can you ask such questions when you know how things are! — it was midnight when Mr. Lindsey and I got in from Newcastle, and he would make me stop with him — and we were away again to Edinburgh first thing in the morning.”
“Aye, well, if Mr. Lindsey likes to spend his money flying about the country, he’s welcome!” she retorted. “But I’ll be thankful when you settle down to peaceful ways again. Where are you going now?” she demanded. “There’s a warm supper for you in the oven!”
“I’ve had my supper at Mr. Lindsey’s, mother,” I said, as I dragged my bicycle out of the back-place. “I’ve just got to go out, whether I will or no, and I don’t know when I’ll be in, either — do you think I can sleep in my bed when I don’t know where Maisie is?”
“You’ll not do much good, Hugh, where the police have failed,” she answered. “There’s yon man Chisholm been here during the evening, and he tells me they haven’t come across a trace of her, so far.”
“Chisholm’s been here, then?” I exclaimed. “For no more than that?”
“Aye, for no more than that,” she replied. “And then this very noon there was that Irishwoman that kept house for Crone, asking at the door for you.”
“What, Nance Maguire!” I said. “What did she want?”
“You!” retorted my mother. “Nice sort of people we have coming to our door in these times! Police, and murderers, and Irish—”
“Did she say why she wanted me?” I interrupted her.
“I gave her no chance,” said my mother. “Do you think I was going to hold talk with a creature like that at my steps?”
“I’d hold talk with the devil himself, mother, if I could get some news of Maisie!” I flung back at her as I made off. “You’re as bad as Andrew Dunlop!”
There was the house door between her and me before she could reply to that, and the next instant I had my bicycle on the road and my leg over the saddle, and was hesitating before I put my foot to the pedal. What did Nance Maguire want of me? Had she any news of Maisie? It was odd that she should come down — had I better not ride up the town and see her? But I reflected that if she had any news — which was highly improbable — she would give it to the police; and so anxious was I to test what Scott had hinted at, that I swung on to my machine without further delay or reflection and went off towards Hathercleugh.
