The Ashiel Mystery - Mrs. Charles Bryce (novels to improve english TXT) 📗
- Author: Mrs. Charles Bryce
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fishin' and was up here for it last year as well. He has his ain boat and
is aye on the water trailin' aefter the salmon."
"A great many sporting foreigners come to our island nowadays," Gimblet
remarked. "Does he get many fish?"
"Oh, it's a grand place for salmon," said the inn-keeper with obvious
pride. "And there's troots tac. And pike, mair's the peety," he added.
"Dear me," said Gimblet, "just what my friend wants. I'm sorry you
can't take him in. I must tell him to write in good time next year if
he wants a room."
As he parted from the landlord upon the doorstep of the Crianan Hotel,
the _Rob Roy_--the second of the two loch steamers--was edging away from
the pier, under a cloud of black smoke from her funnel The rain had
stopped; the passengers were scattered on the deck, and in the bows of
the vessel the detective caught sight of Julia Romaninov's tweed-clad
form. She was leaning against the rail, and gazing at a distant part of
the loch where a black speck, which might represent a rowing boat, could
faintly be discerned. She had come back, then, from her moorland walk. It
was as Gimblet had expected; and, though he chafed at the delay, he
regretted less than he would have otherwise that he could not catch the
_Rob Roy_.
The _Inverashiel_ would be due on her homeward trip in a couple of hours'
time, and meanwhile he had other business that must be attended to.
He went first to the post office, where he registered and posted to
Scotland Yard a packet he had brought with him. Then, after asking
his way of the sociable landlord of the hotel, he proceeded to the
police station, a single-storied stone building standing at the end
of a side street.
Here he made himself known to the inspector, and imparted information
which made that personage open his eyes considerably wider than was
his custom.
"If you will bring one of your men, and come with me yourself," said
Gimblet, at the conclusion of the interview, "I think I shall be able to
convince you that a mistake has been made. In the meantime there will be
no harm done by a watch being kept on the foreign gentleman who is at
this moment trolling for salmon on the loch."
The inspector agreed; and when the _Inverashiel_ started, an hour later,
on her voyage down the loch, she carried the two policemen on her deck,
as well as the most notorious detective she was ever likely to have the
privilege of conveying.
It was nearly three o'clock when they landed on the Inverashiel pier.
The weather, which for the last few hours had looked like clearing, had
now turned definitely to rain; clouds had descended on the hills, and the
trees in the valleys stooped and dripped in the saturated, mist-laden
air. Gimblet conducted the men to the cottage, where Lady Ruth anxiously
awaited them.
"If you don't mind their staying here," he suggested to her, "while I go
up to the castle and consult Lord Ashiel about a magistrate, it will be
most convenient, on account of the distance."
"By all means," said Lady Ruth. "I feel safer with them. I expect you
will find Miss Byrne up there. She has not come in to lunch, and I think
she probably met Mark and went to lunch at the castle. She ought to know
better than to go to lunch alone with a young man, and I am just
wondering if she has changed her mind and accepted him after all. Girls
are kittle cattle, but I've got quite fond of that one, and I hope she's
not forgotten poor David so soon. I really am feeling anxious about her."
"I daresay she has only walked farther than she intended," said Gimblet,
"or perhaps she came to a burn or some place she couldn't get over, and
has had to go round a mile or two. Depend on it, that's what's happened.
But I promise you that if she is at the castle I will bring her back when
I return."
CHAPTER XVIIBehind the shrubberies, which lay at the back of the holly hedge that
surrounded the little enclosed garden outside the library, beyond the
end of the battlements, and reached by a disused footpath, a great tree
stood upon the edge of the steep hillside and thrust its sweeping
branches over the void.
Its trunk was grey and moss-grown; moss carpeted the ground between its
protruding roots, but the bracken and heather held back, and left a
half-circle beneath it, untenanted by their kind. It would seem that all
vegetation fears to venture beneath the shade of the beech; and for the
most part it stands solitary, shunned by other growing things except
moss, which creeps undaunted where its more vigorous brothers lack the
courage to establish themselves.
Here came Juliet that morning.
A week ago, David Southern had shown her the path to the tree. It had
been a favourite haunt of his when he was a boy, he told her. It was a
private chamber to which he resorted on the rare occasions when he was
disposed to solitude; when something had gone wrong with his world he had
been used to retire there with his dog, or, more seldom, a book. There he
had been accustomed to lie, his back supported by the tree, and hold
forth to the dog upon the troubles and difficulties of life and the
general crookedness of things; or, if a book were his companion, he
would gaze out, between the pages, at distant Crianan clinging faintly to
the knees of Ben Ghusy, and watch the swift change of passing cloud and
hanging curtain of mist upon the faces of the hills and loch.
It had been a place all his own; secret from every one, even from Mark,
his companion during all those holidays that he had spent at Inverashiel.
Somehow, David told Juliet--and it was a confidence he had seldom before
imparted to anyone--he had never quite managed to hit it off with Mark.
He couldn't say why, exactly. No doubt it was his own fault; but there
was no accounting for one's likes and dislikes.
And with quick regret at having betrayed his carefully suppressed
feelings in regard to his cousin, David had laughed apologetically, and
spoken of other things.
Here, then, just as the steamer _Rob Roy_ was drawing close to the wooden
landing-stage at the edge of the loch, with Julia Romaninov still
standing in the bows; here, because she had once been to this place with
him, because without her he had so often sat upon these mossy roots, came
Juliet to dream of her love.
Like him, she seated herself against the tree trunk at the giddy brink of
the precipitous rock; like him, her eyes rested on the smooth waters
below her, or on the far-away misty distance where Crianan slumbered;
but, unlike him, her eyes, as they looked, were filled with tears. Where
was he now? Oh, David, poor unjustly treated David! In what narrow cell,
lighted only by a high, iron-barred window--for so the scene shaped
itself in her mind--with uncovered floor of stone, bare walls and a bench
to lie on, was the man she loved wearing away his days under the burden
of so frightful an accusation?
For the thousandth time Juliet's blood boiled within her at the
thought, and she grew hot with anger and indignant scorn. That anyone
should have dared to suspect him! Why were such fools, such wicked,
evil-working imbeciles as the police allowed to exist for one moment
upon the face of the globe? But no doubt they had some hidden motive in
arresting him, for it was quite incredible that they really imagined he
had committed this appalling crime. She could not understand their
motive, to be sure, but without doubt there must have been some reason
which was not clear to her.
Oh, David, David! Was he thinking of her, as she was thinking of him? Did
he know, by instinct, that she would be doing all that could be done to
bring about his release? But was she? Again her mind was filled with the
disquieting question, was there nothing that might be done, that she was
leaving undone? Had she forgotten something, neglected something? She was
sure Gimblet did not believe David to be guilty, but was he certain of
being able to prove his innocence? He did not seem to have discovered
much at present.
Suddenly, in the midst of her distress, she smiled to herself.
At least Miss Tarver had shown herself in her true colours, and was no
more to be considered. Juliet felt that she could almost forgive her for
her readiness to believe the worst. It was dreadful, yes, and shameful
that anyone else should think for a moment that David could be capable of
such a deed, but in Miss Tarver, perhaps, the thought had not been
inexcusable. On the whole, it was so nice of her to break the engagement
that she might be forgiven the ridiculous reason she had advanced for
doing it. Of course, Juliet assured herself, it was a mere pretext,
because _no_ one could possibly believe it. And in this manner she
continued to reiterate her conviction that the suspicions entertained of
her lover were all assumed for some darkly obscure purpose.
So the morning wore away. A shower or two passed down the valley, but
under the thick tent of the beech leaves she scarcely felt it. She was,
besides, dressed for bad weather; and the grey and mournful face of the
day was in harmony with her mood.
There was something comforting in this high perch. She seemed more aloof
from the troubles and despair of the last few days than she had imagined
possible. There was a calm, a remoteness, about the grey mountains,
disappearing and reappearing from behind their screen of cloud but
unchanged and unmoved by what went on around and among them, that was in
some way reassuring.
The burn that ran at the bottom of the hill on which she sat, hurrying
down to the loch in such turbulent foaming haste, she was able to
compare, with a sad smile, to herself. The loch, she thought, was wide
and impassive as justice, which did not allow itself to be influenced by
the emotions. The burn would get down just the same without so much
turmoil and fuss; and she would see David's name cleared, equally surely,
if she waited calmly on events, instead of burning her heart out in
hopeless impatience and anxiety.
As she gazed, with some such thoughts as these, down to the stream
that splashed on its way below her, her attention was caught by a
movement in the bushes half-way down the steep slope at the top of
which she was sitting.
The day was windless and no leaf moved on any tree. There must be some
animal among the shrubs that covered the embankment, some large animal,
since its movements caused so much commotion; for, as she watched, first
one bush and then another stirred and bent and was shaken as if by
something thrusting its way through the dense growth.
What could it be? A sheep, perhaps; there were many of them on the
hillsides. This must be one that had strayed far from the rest. And yet
would a sheep make so much stir? Juliet drew back a little behind the
trunk of the beech-tree. Could it be a deer? She could not hear any sound
of the creature's advance, for the air was full of the clamour of the
burn, but she could trace the direction of its progress by shaking leaves
and swinging boughs. It seemed to be gradually mounting the slope.
Suddenly a head emerged from the waving mass of a rhododendron, and with
astonishment Juliet saw that it was that of Julia Romaninov.
Her first impulse was to lean forward and call her, but as she did so the
cry died unheard
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