The House with the Twisted Chimneys/Chapter 9

Did you ever see a wily gray rat caught in a trap? Or, still more thrilling, a pair of wily gray rats?

This is what I saw that same night, when I had motored back from Courtenaye Abbey to Dawley St. Ann.

But let me begin with what happened first.

Jim wished to go with me, in order to be on hand in case of trouble. But the reason I'd hoped to find him at the abbey was because we have not only one secret room there of which every one knows—including tourists at a shilling a head—but another of which no outsiders have been told. The latter might come in handy, and I begged Jim to stand by pending developments.

I'd asked Terry to dine, and forgotten the invitation; consequently he was at the inn in a worried state when I returned. He feared there had been an accident, and had not known where to seek for my remains. But in my private parlor, over a hasty meal—I was starving—I told him the tale as I had told it to Jim.

Of course, he behaved just as I'd expected: leaped to his feet and proposed breaking into the wing of the garden court.

“They may kill her to-night!” he raved. “They'll be capable of anything when they find the boy gone!”

I'd hardly begun to point out that the girl had never been in less danger, when some one tapped at the door. We both jumped at the sound, but it was only a maid of the inn. She announced that a servant from Dun Moat was asking for me, on business of importance.

Terry and I threw each other a look as I said:

“Give Captain Burns time to go; then bring the person here.”

Terry went at my command, but not far. He was ordered to the public parlor to toy with books of beauty. Of course, it was old Hedwig Kram who had come.

Her eyes darted hawklike glances round the room, seeming to penetrate the chintz valances on chairs and sofa! She announced that the son of Lord Scarlett was lost. He was being searched for everywhere. She had called to learn if I had seen him.

“Why do you think of me?” I inquired arrogantly.

The boy had been noticed peeping out of the window when I walked in the garden. He had said that I was a “pretty lady,” and that he “wished he were down there with me.” He would get me to take him in my motor, if I had one.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I can't tell you where he is,” I said. “And even if I could, why should I? Let Lord and Lady Scarlett call if they wish to catechize me.”

“They cannot come,” objected the old woman. “Her ladyship is prostrated with grief. His lordship is with her.”

“As they please!” I returned. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

The creature was driven to bay. She loved the “venomous little brute!”

“Would you have something more to say if they did come?” she faltered. “Something about the child?”

“I might,” I drawled, “rack my memory for the time when I last saw him.”

“You do know where he is?” she squealed.

“I'm afraid,” I said, “that I must ask you to leave my room.”

She bounced out as if she'd been shot from an air gun!

It was ten o'clock, but light enough for me to see her scuttling along the road as I peered through the window. When she had scuttled far enough I called Terry.

“The Scarletts are coming!” I sang, to the tune of “The Campbells.” “Whether it's maternal instinct or a guilty conscience or what, Madame Defarge has guessed I've got the child. She'll be doubly sure when Kram reports my gay quips and quirks. To get here by the shortest and quietest way, the Scarletts must pass your lodgings. The instant you see them, take Jones and race to Dun Moat. When you get there, you'll know what to do. But just in case they hide the girl as a Roland for my Oliver, I'm going to play the most beautiful game of bluff you ever saw.”

“I wish I could see it!” said Terry.

“But you'd rather see Cecil! You'd better start now. It's on the cards that the Scarletts came part way with Kram to wait for her news.”

Whether they had done this or not, I don't know. But the effect on Terry of the suggestion was good. And certainly the pair did arrive almost before it seemed that Kram's short legs could have got her to Dun Moat.

They gloomed into my sitting room like a pair of funeral mutes.

“My servant tells me you have seen my son,” the woman I'd known as Lady Scarlett flung at me.

“She has imagination!” I smiled.

“You mean to say you have not seen him?” blustered Bertie, père.

“I say neither that I have nor that I haven't,” I replied. “The little I know about the child inclines me to believes he wasn't too happy at home; so why should I be”

“Oh, you admit knowing something!” The woman caught me up like a dropped stitch in her knitting. “I believe you've got the child here. We can have you arrested for kidnaping. The police”

I laughed. “Have the police ever seen the little lamb? If they have, they might doubt that his attractions would tempt a woman in my position to crime. You see, you've no proof. But I'll agree to let the local police look under my bed and into my wardrobes, if you agree to let them search the suite you occupy at Dun Moat, on proof I can produce.”

“What are you hinting at?” snapped the late Lord Scarlett. “Do yow intimate that we've hidden our own child at home, and come to you with some blackmailing scheme”

“No,” I stopped him. “I don't think you could safely try on a blackmail stunt. My 'hints,' as you call them, concerned the real Lady Scarlett, the legitimate daughter of your elder brother, Cecil, and his namesake.”

As I flung this bomb, I sprang up and stood conspicuously close to the old-fashioned bell rope.

The man and woman sprang up also. The former had turned yellowish green, the latter brick-red. They looked like badly lit stage demons.

“So, that's it!” sputtered the woman when she could speak.

“That's it,” I echoed. “Now, do you still want to call the police and charge me with kidnaping? You can search my rooms yourselves if you like You'll find nothing. Can you say the same of your own?”

“Yes!” Scarlett jerked out the word. “We can and do say the same Do you think we're fools enough to leave the place alone, with only old Kram's guard, if we had some one concealed there?”

“Ah, the cap fits!” I cried. “I didn't accuse you. As you said, I merely 'hinted.'”

I scored a point, to judge by their looks. But they had scored against me also! I realized that my guess had not been wrong. There was a secret hiding place to which the garden-court suite had access. That was one reason why the Scarletts had chosen the suite. By this time Terry Burns was there, with Kram laughing in her sleeve, while pretending to be outraged at his intrusion. If only I were on the spot instead of Terry, I might have a sporting chance to ferret out the secret, for I, so to speak, had been reared in an atmosphere of “hidie holes” for priests, cavaliers, and kings, of whom several in times of terror had found asylum at the abbey. But Terry Burns was an American. It wasn't in his blood to detect secret springs and locks!

1 ceased to depend on what Terry might do, and “fell back upon myself.”

“You talk like a madwoman!” sneered Madame Defarge. But her hands trembled.

“Mine is inspired madness,” said I. And then I did feel an inspiration coming, as one feels a sneeze in church. “Of course,” I went on, “if you've hidden the poor, drugged girl in that cubby-hole under the twisted chimney”

The woman would have sprung at me if Scarlett had not grabbed her arm. My hand was on the tassel of the bell rope, and joy was in my heart, for at st I'd got their best trump. If Bertie the Second was the ace, the twisted chimney had supplied its jack!

“Keep your head, Hilda,” Scarlett warned his wife. “There's a vile plot against us. This—er—lady and her American partner have tricked us into letting Dun Moat, with the object of blackmail. We must be careful”

“No,” I corrected him, “you must be frank! So will I. We knew nothing of your secret when we came to Dun Moat. We got on the track by accident. As a matter of fact, Captain Burns saw the real Lady Scarlett at the window, and she would have called to him for help if she could. No doubt by that time she'd realized that you were slowly doing her to death”

“What a devilish accusation!” Scarlett boomed. “Since you know so much, in self-defense I'll tell you the true history of this girl. We have taken my brother's daughter into our house.

“We have given her shelter. She is not legitimate. My brother was married in England before going to Australia, and his wife, an actress, still lives. Therefore, to make known Cecil's parentage would be to accuse her father of bigamy and soil his name. Hearing the truth about him turned her brain. She was taken ill and raved in delirium. My wife was nursing her in the garden-court rooms when you came with Burns and begged us to let the house. My poverty tempted me to consent. For the honor of my family I wished to hide the girl. And frankly—you ask for frankness—had she died despite my wife's care, I should have tried to give the body private burial. Now you've heard the whole unvarnished tale.”

“No doubt I've heard the tale you told poor Cecil,” I said. “Now I understand how you persuaded her to hide like a criminal while you two thoroughly cooked up your plot against her. But the tale isn't unvarnished! It's all varnish and nothing else. I'm not my grandmother's granddaughter for nothing! What she didn't know and remember about the 'noble families of England,' especially in her own county, wasn't worth knowing. I inherit some of her stories and all of her memory. The last Lord Scarlett, your elder brother, went to Australia because that actress he was madly in love with had a husband who popped up and made himself disagreeable. Oh, I can prove everything against you! And I know where the true Lady Scarlett is at this minute. You can prove nothing against me. You don't know where your son is, and you won't know until you hand that poor child from Australia over to Captain Burns and me. If you do that, and she recovers from your wife's 'nursing,' I can promise for all concerned that bygones shall be bygones, and your boy shall be returned to you. I dare say that's 'compounding a felony' or something. But I'll go as far as that. What's your answer?”

The two glared into one another's eyes. I thought each said to the other: “This was your idea. It's all your fault. I told you how it would end!” But wise pots don't waste time in calling kettles black. They saved their soot-throwing for me!

“You are indeed a true descendant of old Elizabeth Courtenaye,” rasped the man. “You're even more dangerous and unscrupulous than your grandmother! My wife and I are innocent. But you and your American are in a position to turn appearances against us. Besides, you have our son in your power, and rather than the police should be called into this affair by either side, my brother's daughter, ill as she is, shall be handed over to you when Bertie is returned to us.”

“That won't do,” I objected. “Bertie is at a distance. I can't communicate with—his guardian—until the post office opens to-morrow. On condition that Lady Scarlet is released to-night, however, and only on that condition, I'll guarantee that Bertie shall be with you by ten-thirty in the morning. Meanwhile, you can be packing to clear out of Dun Moat, as I hardly think you'll care to claim your niece's hospitality longer, in the circumstances,”

“We have no money!” the woman choked.

“You've forgotten what you took from Lady Scarlett, and six weeks' advance of rent paid you by Captain Burns; twelve hundred pounds. He'll forget, too, if you offer the right inducement. You could have had more from him if you hadn't insisted on the clause leaving you free to turn your tenant out at a fortnight's notice after the first month. I understand now why you wanted it! If the girl had signed her name to a document you'd prepared, leaving all her money to you, shares in some Australian mine, perhaps, it would have been convenient to you for her to die. And then”

“Why waste time in accusations?” quailed Scarlett. “We won't waste it defending ourselves! If you're anxious to get hold of the girl, come with ts and we'll turn over all responsibility to you.”

“Very well,” I said, and pulled the bell.

The woman started.

“What are you doing that for?” she jerked.

“I wish to order the taxi to take us to Dun Moat,” I explained. “I confess, I'm not so fond of your society that I'd care to walk a mile with you at night along a lonely road. I'm not a coward, I hope. But you'd be two against one. And you might hold me up”

“As you've held us up!” the man broke in.

“Exactly,” I agreed.

Wolves in sheep's clothing must behave like sheep when they're in danger of having their nice white wool stripped off. No doubt this is the reason that, when we arrived at the outside entrance of the bachelor's wing, my companions were meek as Mary's lamb.

Inside the suite of the garden court, we found Terry Burns and his man raging, and Kram sulking, in a room with a broken window. Terry had smashed the glass in order to get in, but his raid had been vain. To do the old servant justice, she had the instinct of loyalty. I believe that no bribe would have induced her to betray her mistress. It remained for the Scarletts to give themselves away, which they did, with the secret of the room under the twisted chimney.

The room was built into the huge thickness of the wall which formed a junction between the old house and the more modern wing. The wonderful chimney was not a true chimney at all, but gave ventilation and light, also a means of escape by way of a rope ladder over the roof. But the rope had fallen to pieces long ago, and the prisoner of this night might never have found means of escape, had it not been for that trump card named Bertie. The room under the twisted chimney would have been a convenient home substitute for the family vault.

Fate was for us, however, and for her. Even the Lady with the Shears might have felt compunction in cutting short the thread of so fair, so sweet a life as Cecil Scarlett's. Anyhow, that was what Terry said in favor of destiny when some days had passed and it was clear that with good care the girl would live.

We didn't take her to the inn, as I had planned when keeping the taxi, for Terry, caring less than nothing now for the night's rest of Princess Avalesco, ruthlessly routed the ladies from their beauty sleep. What they thought about us, and about the half-conscious invalid, I don't know, for, true to my bargain with the Scarletts, no explanations detrimental to them were made. I think it passed with them that the girl had arrived, ill, in a late train, and that Terry, emboldened by love for her, begged his tenant's hospitality. So, you see, they were partly right. Besides, the Princess Avalesco had lived in Roumania, where anything can happen.

When Jim brought back Bertie, he brought also a doctor, by request. The doctor was his friend, and Jim's friends are generally ready—to—well, to overlook unconventionalities.

I told you that Princess Avalesco loved herself so much she didn't miss Terry's love. She missed it so little that, after a few weeks' romance, she proposed a bedside wedding at Dun Moat, with herself as hostess, for, of course, nothing would induce her to shorten her tenancy!

Cecil had confessed to falling in love with Terry through the window at first sight. Therefore, the wedding did take place, with Jim Courtenaye as best man and myself as “matron of honor,” as the Americans say. Cecil looked so divine as a bride that no woman who saw her could have helped wishing to be married against a background of pillows! I almost envied her. But Jim said that he didn't envy Terry. His ideal of a bride was different, and he was prepared to describe her to me some day, when I was in a good mood!