Читать книгу The Black Abbot - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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Dick Alford was in the little study where he usually worked, a businesslike room filled with filing cabinets and deed boxes. The French windows giving to the lawn were open, for though it was September the night was warm, and he was working in his shirt sleeves, a pipe gripped between his teeth, his eyes protected from the overhead light by a big green shade that he wore affixed by a band to his head. If there was a resemblance between Lord Chelford and his mother, not even the keenest observer could trace in Dick Alford the slightest likeness to his half-brother. He was a creature of the open, a six-foot athlete, broad of shoulder and slim of flank, and his tanned face spoke of a life spent on the windy downs. His blue eyes surveyed the footman with a quizzical smile, as he pushed his battered old typewriter aside, relit his pipe, and stretched himself.

“Black Abbot? Good Lord! Have you seen him, Thomas?”

“No, sir, I have not seen him. But Mr. Cartwright, the grocer down in Chelford village ...”

He gave a graphic narrative of Mr. Cartwright’s horror, amazement, and confusion.

“They telephoned up from the Red Lion to ask if his lordship had heard anything about it.” Even Thomas, who believed in nothing except Thomas, shivered. “It is the first time he has been seen for years according to all accounts, though he has been heard howling and moaning. Nobody knows who set fire to the vicarage when the parson was away at the seaside——”

“That will do, Thomas. As to Cartwright, he was drunk,” said Dick cheerily, “or else he saw a shadow.”

He glanced out at the lawn, bathed in the blue-white rays of a full moon.

“You can see things in the moonlight that never were on land or sea. I understood that his lordship said that the Black Abbot was not to be discussed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then shut up!” said Dick.

Pipe in mouth, he strolled across the hall into the dimly lit library.

The three electroliers that hung from the roof were dark. Only the two green-shaded reading lamps that flanked each side of the desk were alight, and these intensified the gloom. Dick closed the door behind him and lounged over toward the desk, pulling a chair behind him.

Chelford frowned at the sight of his brother.

“Really, Dick,” he said irritably, “I wish to heaven you wouldn’t loaf about the place in shirt and breeches. It looks fearfully bad.”

“It feels fearfully cool,” said Dick, sitting down. “Will your nerves sustain the smell of a bit of honest baccy?”

Lord Chelford moved uncomfortably in his chair. Then, reaching out his hand, he snicked open a gold box and took out a cigarette.

“My pipe against your stinkers for a hundred pounds!” said Dick, with a cheery smile. “Cigarettes I can stand, but scented cigarettes——”

“If you don’t like them, Dick, you can go out,” grumbled his lordship fretfully. And then in his abrupt way: “Did you see this newspaper cutting?”

He pulled the paper from under the crystal weight and Dick skimmed the lines.

“We are getting into the public eye, Harry,” he said, “but there is nothing about me—which is unkind.”

“Don’t be stupid. How did that get into the papers?”

“How does anything get into the papers?” asked Dick lazily. “Our spook is almost as useful as a press agent.”

Harry snapped round on him.

“Can’t you take this seriously? Don’t you see that it is worrying me to death? You know the state of my nerves—you have no sympathy, Dick, you’re just as hard as rock! Everybody seems to hate the sight of you.”

Dick pulled at his pipe glumly.

“That is my unfortunate character. I am afraid I am getting efficient. That is the only way I can account for my unpopularity. It keeps me awake at nights——”

“Don’t fool, for heaven’s sake!”

“I’m serious now,” murmured Dick, closing his eyes: “try me with a hymn!”

Harry Chelford turned away with a gesture of utter weariness, fingered the manuscript at his hand, and gazed from his brother to the door. It was a gesture of dismissal and Dick rose.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough work for to-night, Harry?” he asked gently. “You look absolutely all in.”

“I never felt better in my life,” said the other emphatically.

Dick slewed round his head to read the printed page from which his elder brother had been copying, and saw at once that his effort was in vain; the book was written in Old German, and Dick’s linguistic abilities ended at a mastery of restaurant French. Lord Chelford put down the book with a sigh and sat back in his padded chair.

“I suppose you think I’m a fool wasting my time on this”—he raised his hand toward the serried shelves—“when I could be having a very amusing time with Leslie?”

Dick nodded.

“Yes, I think you might be more profitably employed out of doors. Really, for a bridegroom-to-be, you’re the worst slacker I’ve ever struck.”

There was a superiority in Harry Chelford’s smile.

“Happily, Leslie knows she is marrying a bookworm and not an athlete,” he said, and, rising, walked over to where Dick was sitting and dropped his hand on his shoulder. “What would you say if I told you that I was halfway to discovering the real Chelford Treasure?”

Dick knew exactly what he would say, but replied diplomatically:

“I should say you were three parts on the way to discovering the philosopher’s stone,” he said.

But his brother was serious. He paced up and down the long library, his hands behind him, his chin on his breast.

“I expected you to say that,” he said. “I should have been rather surprised if you hadn’t. But the Chelford Treasure has an existence, Dick, and somewhere with it is the greatest treasure of all!”

His brother listened patiently. He knew by heart the story of the thousand bars of pure gold, each bar weighing thirty-five pounds. The legend of the Chelford treasure was inseparable from the Chelford estate.

Harry walked quickly to his desk, pulled open a drawer and took out a small vellum-covered book. The pages were yellow with age and covered with writing that had faded to a pale green.

“Listen,” he said, and began reading:

“On the fifteenth of the month, the same being the feast day of St. James, came Sir Walter Hythe, Kt., from his cruise in the Spanish seas, for the cost of which I raised first three thousand eight hundred pounds and eight thousand pounds from Bellitti the Lombard, and Sir Walter Hythe brought with him on ten wagons one thousand ingots of gold each of thirty-five pounds weight which he had taken from the two Spanish ships Esperanza and Escurial, and these ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be dry and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand, to judge by the portents, deeming it wise not to inform my lord Burleigh of the gold because of the Queen’s Majesty and her covetousness. Also he brought the crystal flask of Life Water which was given to Don Cortés by the priest of the Aztec people, a drop of which upon the tongue will revive even the dead, this being sworn to by Fra Pedro of Sevilla. This I shall hide with great care in the secret place where the gold will be stored. To Sir Walter Hythe, Kt., I had given permission that he keep for himself one hundred bars of like weight and this he did, thanking me civilly, and sailed off from Chichester in his ship the Good Father which ship was wrecked on the Kentish coast, Sir Walter Hythe, his shipmaster, and all his company perishing. Such was his terrible misfortune. As for myself, being in some danger because of the part I have taken in promoting the welfare of my true sovereign lady, Mary——”

Lord Chelford looked up and met the steady eyes of his brother.

“The writing ends there,” he said. “I am certain that he was not interrupted by the arrival of Elizabeth’s soldiers to arrest him for his share in the conspiracy to put Mary on the throne. He must have had time to secrete the treasure. Where is the crystal flask?”

“Where rather is the gold?” asked the practical Dick. “If I know anything about Queen Elizabeth, she bagged it! Nobody ever found it—for four hundred years our respected forefathers have been searching for this gold——”

Lord Chelford made an angry gesture.

“Gold—gold—gold! You think of nothing else! Curse the gold! Find it and keep it. It is the flask I want!” His voice sank to a whisper, his face had grown suddenly moist. “Dick, I’m afraid of death. God! You don’t know how afraid! The fear of it haunts me day and night—I sit here counting the hours, wondering at which my spirit will go from me! You’ll laugh—at that—laugh, laugh!”

But Dick Alford’s face was set, unsmiling.

“I do not laugh—but can’t you see, Harry, that such a thing as an elixir of life is preposterous?”

“Why?” Lord Chelford’s eyes were shining. “Why shouldn’t this discovery have been made by the ancient civilizations? Why is it more wonderful than wireless telegraphy or the disintegration of atoms? Thirty years ago flying was regarded as a miracle. The flask—I want the flask of Life Water! The gold—throw it into the road—let the poor devils take it who want it. I want life—do you understand?—life and the end of fear.”

He dropped heavily into his chair and wiped his streaming forehead.

“The end of fear!” he muttered.

Dick listened, his eyes never leaving his brother’s face. And this was to be Leslie Gwyn’s husband. He shivered at the thought.