“East of what? East of what?” she exclaimed abruptly. “He must have meant east of some important object. Oh, why— Anyway,” she concluded, “it’ll be funny if we can’t go one better than that Britisher cousin of yours.”
“You forget, Mog, that I’m British,” said the big man, grinning mechanically.
“You?” said his wife, indignantly. “Why, you’re quite half American, and nearly as good as some real ones I’ve known.”
“Thank you, dear,” said her husband, gravely; and broke into talk. “Here we have the case in a few words,” he said. “My Cousin Billy was Uncle Gerald’s favourite. I rubbed my uncle up the wrong way when I was a young chap, and got slammed out of his will. I go abroad to dig up the blessed earth until I find the golden acorn. Somehow I miss the acorn, but, anyway, I got you under the mistletoe, Mog, an’ guess I’m not sorrowing!”
His wife grimaced, and threw her gloves at him. He caught them neatly, and continued:
“Meanwhile, Cousin Billy—who’s a bit of a hog in my humble opinion—fails one day to hide some of his funny work from my uncle, who is fearfully upset, and cuts him whack out of the will in turn, whilst I am taken once more into favour, as being perhaps a bit more wholesome-smelling than Billy; though, as the will said flat out, ‘too thoughtless in my speech to my elders and betters.’ Perhaps I was.”
“I’m sure of it,” said his wife, firmly.
“Anyway,” continued her husband, “here you have me back into the to the tune of a hundred thousand pounds—that’s five hundred thousand dollars, Mog! But the estate goes to Cousin Billy through the entail. You won’t understand that, but it doesn’t matter.Cousin Billy has the estate; I have the cash; at least, I mean that was uncle’s intention. Uncle dies of old age, and shock at Cousin Billy’s little goings on. On his death-bed he calls his solicitor across to him, and begins to tell him something, but gets no further than ‘seventy-seven feet due east’, when his speech fails, and he never delivers the rest of his message. After the funeral, the will is read. Consternation and well-earned agony of Cousin Billy, on learning that the estates and the mortgages are his, and the personal cash and effects mine. Consternation, also, later, on the part of the solicitor, who, on going through uncle’s papers and personal matters, can find no traces of cash or ‘paper’ to represent the said five hundred thousand dollars mentioned in the will. He puzzles over final words of uncle’s, but is no wiser.
“Meanwhile, he has cabled across to me. (Lucky he had my address!) We arrive, are told everything. We puzzle, and are no wiser, either. We take up quarters at the venerable village inn—my Cousin Billy not feeling in hospitable mood—and here we are, rightful owners of one hundred thousand pounds, and puzzling our little heads to know what uncle meant when he said, ‘Seventy-seven feet due east—’ What you might call something in the nature of a conundrum, with the solution in Heaven. At least, I hope so.”
Jock Danplank ended his summary of the situation, and sat down on the arm of his wife’s chair. He fumbled in his inside coat-pocket, and brought out a small packet of papers, methodically banded together with elastic. He removed the elastic, and selected a paper which he proceeded to unfold and glance through.
“ J.D.,” said his wife, suddenly. “If that’s the will, let me have a look at it. I’ll bet there’s something you wise men have overlooked. Let me see it.”
“Here, madam!” said her husband, and handed the paper to her. “It’s not the will itself, of course, but it’s an official copy, or whatever it’s called.”
Mrs. Jock Danplank made no reply, but read steadily at the document for some minutes, with occasional little snorts of impatient disgust at the twisted phraseology and the economical punctuation.
“What’s this about your uncle’s writing-table being left to you?” she asked, suddenly looking up at him.
“Oh, that!” said Jock Danplank. “He to left it me as a sort of keepsake, I s’pose.”
“J.D.,” said his wife, earnestly, “you’re an ass. Send for it at once.”
“If you mean,” said her husband, “that you expect to find anything in it, you’re just mistook, my Mog. Old Jellett, the lawyer, and his confidential clerk have been through it in detail; why, he even had a professional cabinet-maker to overhaul it for any secret drawers or recesses—”
“Why,” interrupted his wife, who had not been listening, “there’s a cottage as well.” She had been running her glance down the will, and had come to the item further on. “A cottage and gardens, J.D.”
“Yes,” assented her husband. “That’s where the table is, I understand. The place used to belong to my Aunt Lydia. I remember it when I was a boy; the cottage used to be a little farmhouse then. I suppose uncle must have had the place rebuilt, and turned the fields round it into gardens and private grounds. Jellett tells me it’s quite a decent little place, and that uncle was quite fond of it—used to run down there for quiet weekends from town, instead of opening some of the rooms at the Hall.”
“Well,” said Mary Danplank, “why aren’t we there, instead of here?”
“Oh,” replied her husband, “one hardly likes to go rushing in too soon. We’ll take a walk over to-morrow, if you like, and have a look at it.”
“We’ll go right over this minute.”
The big man rubbed his clean-shaven cheek a moment, meditatively, then swung a powerful knee off the arm of her chair, and stood up.
“Very well, Mog,” he said. “Perhaps you’re right. We’ll go and look after our own interests personally, right away.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Jock Danplank, laying her cheek a moment against his sleeve, “you’re almost as nice and sensible as a real American, J.D.”
“Thank you, Mog,” said her husband simply. And together they went downstairs into the main street of the village.
The landlord was at the door, bowing respectfully a listening ear to a dissipated young man sitting in a smart dogcart with tremendously high wheels.
“Yessir,” said the landlord. “Yessir—yessir.” And between each he nodded profoundly. “Dinner for six gents? Yessir. All shall be as you say, sir.”
“Hullo, Billy!” shouted Jock Danplank. “Glad to see you’re still alive. How’s the mare going?”
His cousin turned in his seat, and glared at him.
“Hang you!” he roared, at last. “Speak when you’re spoken to.”
“Sore about it still, Billy, eh?” said Jock Danplank, loosing his wife’s hand gently from his sleeve. “Better be civil, though, Billy. You look out of condition.”
But his cousin confined his attention now markedly to the stout landlord, who had been expectantly rubbing his hands during this passage between the cousins.
“At seven sharp,” were his last words; and, with that, he whipped up his horse, and bowled away at a smart trot stationwards, without so much as a further glance at Jock Danplank.
“Nice specimen, Mog, for a cousin,” said Jock. And then they set out in the direction of the cottage.
The door was opened by a dear old lady, who proved to have been Uncle Gerald’s housekeeper. She asked them in, carried off Mrs. Danplank to quite the most charming little bedroom she had ever seen, and won her little American heart by her homely, motherly way of speech and natural kindliness.
Later, there was tea, also scones, in one of the sunlit afternoon rooms downstairs; and then old Mrs. Hartleytres took them on a tour of inspection.
There were four small but most exquisitely shaped and furnished rooms downstairs, excluding offices and the mahogany panelled hall. The fourth room proved to be Uncle Gerald’s study. It was done in the deepest rose-tinted shades, and all the outer wall of the room was one long window, out of which opened two glassed doors, French fashion, into a veritable circular sea of rose blooms, to which the window was the only visible entrance. The effect was marvellously beautiful, and Jock Danplank’s diminutive wife uttered an exclamation. But, as it proved, it was not the sight of the rose-tinted room
and the world of blooms beyond that had stirred her to exclaim; it was rather the fact that in the very centre of the room was a gigantic writing-table of old red Spanish mahogany, in the top of which was inlaid a curious pattern in roses, radiating outward from a common centre.
“J.D.,” said his wife, “the table!” And she ran forward to study it. “Why,” she remarked, after looking at it a little, “it’s a fixture, I do believe. Your uncle must have had some real reason for mentio—”
She paused abruptly, and looked at old Mrs. Hartleytres.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the old housekeeper. “Mr. Jellett, the lawyer, has said the same thing to me. He’s been here a dozen times to look at that table; he and Mr. Baker, his chief clerk. They even had a workman in. Mr. Jellett told me he suspected a secret drawer; not the money, ma’am, but a paper to tell where it is. You see, I was present at the reading of the will. Sir Gerald Gwynn was very kind, he left me a thousand pounds.”
Mr. Jock Danplank walked over to the table and pushed it, first one way and then the other, but it did not move. “Firm as a rock,” he muttered, and stooped to look at it; but his wife was already down on her knees, lifting the carpet away a little from one of the pedestals.
“It’s built into the floor, J.D.,” she said, with a note of excitement in her voice. “What’s that been done for?”
Her husband got down also on his knees, and examined it. He looked up presently at Mrs. Hartleytres. “Did the lawyer have this table lifted?” he asked.
But the old housekeeper shook her head.
“No, sir,” she replied. “That table’s never been moved since Sir Gwynn had it put there. He had some queer ways, if you’ll forgive me for saying so; and such a to-do as there was about the fixing of that same table, you never heard.”
Mr. Jock Danplank walked towards the window. “J.D.,” his wife called after him, “if I don’t find anything, I’m going to have this table lifted, and the floor underneath taken up.”
“Very well, Mary,” said her husband. “Perhaps it will be as well, if it can be done without harming things.”
His wife resumed her search, and he walked out into the circular garden. It was exceedingly beautiful, the roses having been trained to make a perfect circular wall of bloom right round, excepting where the French windows opened into the place. In addition to the rose trees, there were numbers of beautifully sculptured groups and figures set around the garden, and in the centre was a very fine specimen of the “Fighting Gladiator”, done in bronze. The ground was one beautiful level of marvellously cultivated grass, smooth and even and pilelike as velvet.
“Splendid!” said Jock Danplank, looking round him with the deepest appreciation. “Simply fine!”
“Yes, sir,” agreed the housekeeper; “I believe this is the second finest rose-garden in England. Sir Gwynn loved this place.” She sighed a little. “Poor gentleman,” she said, “he was dreadfully lonely. I dare say that made him so—so peculiar at times, and so eccentric.”
Mr. Jock Danplank nodded, and rejoined his wife, to continue the tour of the house.
By the time this had been done, evening had set in. And when they got down again to the study, and found that a cheerful fire was easing out the first touch of autumn chill, they appreciated old Mrs. Hartleytres’ suggestion that they should send back the boy with the trap, and stay the night.
“Have your boxes sent over in the morning, ma’am, and stay here for good,” she suggested. “ ’Tis your own place now.”
“That’s hoss-sense, Mrs. Hartleytres,” said Jock’s wife.
And so it was arranged that they should at once enter into so much of their fortune as was discoverable.
Now, I am particular to give the following somewhat trivial details with exactness, as there happened that night a somewhat strange and disturbing thing.
During the evening, whilst Jock Danplank smoked and meditated quietly, his wife went once more through all the various drawers of the big writing-table in one final effort to discover some signs of a secret recess, but without success. Later, her husband took his cigar out into the circular rose garden; and the two of them traipsed round happily on the short-cut grass, enjoying the sense of togetherness in their “very own” grounds. But in no case did they trample on any of the flower-beds; nor, on returning, did Jock Danplank leave the catches of the French window unfastened.
Yet, see what happened. In the morning, Mrs. Danplank was awakened by voices under her window
“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Mr. Biggle.”
“I’m not mistook, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am!” said a husky, shrill voice, which was evidently that of the head-gardener, “When I come, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am; there was the great silly footmarks all acrost my beds—dang un! beggin’ your pardin’, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am; an’ there was the French winder open, showin’ as ’ee come out last night for a smoke-o an’ a walk round. No, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am, I’ll say wot I ’ave to say; Mr. Danplank ain’t no gennelman to do such a thing, not so how he was twenty times Sir Gerald’s own nevvy, which he couldn’t be. It’d make old Sir Gerald turn in ’is grave an’ ’ave the cold shudders, which ’ee ’as, if ’ee was to larn of sich a thing. It would that!”
“Hush, Mr. Biggle!” said the voice of the old housekeeper. “You’ve no right to speak like that of young Mr. Danplank. There’s some mistake. And, anyway, the flower-beds are his own.”
“Eh!” said the shrill, husky voice again. Poor old Sir Gerald’s mebbe tearin’ his hair this very minnit in ’ell—not but ’ee wer’ as bald as a hegg—just to think wot things is comin’ to, Mrs. Hartleytres, ma’am.”
“Hush!” said the housekeeper’s voice again. “They’re sleeping up there, Mr. Biggle. You must see Mr. Danplank yourself when he comes down.”
In the bedroom, little Mrs. Danplank was shaking her husband vigorously.
“ J.D.! J.D.! J.D.!” she said shrilly in his ear. “Wake up! Wake up! There’s been someone in the house, and they’ve been on Biggle’s flower-beds. You’re sure you fastened the window last night?”
“Absolutely!” said her husband, sitting up. He got out, and began to dress; and presently the two of them were investigating matters downstairs.
Little Mrs. Danplank went immediately to the big writing-table, and directly afterwards she called out:
“Someone’s been at this table during the night, J.D.! Someone’s been at the table; all the drawers have got mixed; they’ve not been put back according to their numbers! Look!”
Her husband ran across from where he had been examining the catch of the big French windows, and stooped to look at the table.
“You’re right, Mog,” he said, very seriously.
In the same instant his wife dropped on her knees, and lifted back the carpet quickly from around the pedestals.
“I knew it!” she said bitterly. “I knew it! The table’s been moved! See, the screws have been taken out! Here’s one of them on the carpet! Oh, J.D., suppose they’ve discovered where the money is! Oh, if only we could have caught them! Who do you think it is?”
Mr. Jock Danplank was squatting now beside his wife, examining things, with a very grim face.
“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars, Mog, to a red cent it’s my gentle Cousin Billy,” he said, at last. “I’d like to have caught him. Stand away a moment, dear.”
She obeyed him, and, with one prodigious heave, he lifted the table, tilting it backwards so that he could look underneath; but there was nothing. He propped the table securely in this position with a chair; then, going down on to his knees, he investigated minutely, with the aid of a candle, both the floor and the underneath parts of the pedestals. His wife also joined him in his examination; but at the end of twenty minutes, or more, they had to admit that there were no signs of any secret receptacle.
Yet Mr. Jock Danplank was not satisfied, for, ringing the bell, he asked whether there was such a thing as a brace-bit and a narrow-bladed saw in the house. These were final
ly obtained from the gardener’s workshop, and Jock Danplank began immediately to bore a series of holes in the floor in a line. Then, with the saw, he connected them, until he had sawn across one plank. He repeated the operation several feet away, and finally lifted out the portion of plank he had cut away; but he found the space between the floor and the ceiling below to be perfectly normal in design, as he proved by looking between the beams by the aid of his candle, and also by piercing a small hole through the plaster of the ceiling beneath.
“Nothing there, dear,” he said to his wife. “Cheer up, Mog; we mustn’t be disappointed. I don’t believe for a moment that whoever’s been messing with the table last night found anything.”
“J.D.!” said his diminutive wife soberly. “You don’t know one bit whether the thief found anything or not. You’re just trying to comfort me. Whoever it was must have known something about the table. If it was your Cousin Billy, I’ll bet he knew something we didn’t; and I’ll bet you J.D., we’ll never touch a cent of all that money that your uncle meant you to have.”
“We’ll see, Mog,” said her big husband quietly. “We’ll have breakky now, and then I want to be quiet and think.”
They informed old Mrs. Hartleytres that someone had broken into the house during the night, and meddled with the table. The old lady, dreadfully shocked and disturbed, repeated to them what they already knew, about the gardener finding footmarks on his flower-beds.
“And a dreadful way he is in, too, ma’am, about it,” she said.
How much the gardener was upset, Mr. and Mrs. Jock Danplank discovered for themselves on emerging some time later, through the French window, into the rose garden. They found old Biggle standing over his two men and a boy, and giving fierce attention to the remedying and obliteration of the defacing footmarks. On seeing them approach, he whipped off his dirty old cap, and came remorselessly towards them.
“Mr. Danplank, sir,” he said, his shrill, husky voice trembling with suppressed anger. “I take it as very thoughtless of you, sir, to go traipsing over my flower-beds, like as if they was dirt—which I won’t say, they ain’t, but not to be walked over, sir. I was pretty near minded to give notice, I was that, sir; but I thought as I’d give you one more chance, sir. But I will say wot I thinks, sir, an’ that is as it wer’ a wicked an’ cruel thing to do!”
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places Page 48