Scarhaven Keep

by J. S. Fletcher

  CHAPTER XXVII

  THE PEEL TOWER

  Gilling took the message from Sir Cresswell and thoughtfully readit over. Then he handed it back and motioned the old seaman to lookat Spurge.

  "I think you ought to know what this man has just told us, sir," he said."We've got a story from him that exactly fits in with what Chatfield toldMr. Vickers when the _Pike_ returned to carry him off yesterday.Chatfield, you'll remember, said that the gold he'd withdrawn from thebank is hidden somewhere--well, there's no doubt that this man ZacharySpurge knows where it is hidden. It's there now--and the presumption is,of course, that these people on the _Pike_ will certainly come in to thiscoast--somehow!--to get it. So in that case--eh?"

  "Gad!--that's valuable!" said Sir Cresswell, glancing again at Spurge,and with awakened interest. "Let me hear this story."

  Copplestone epitomized Spurge's account, while the poacher listenedadmiringly, checking off the main points and adding a word or two wherehe considered the epitome lacking.

  "Very smart of you, my man," remarked Sir Cresswell, nodding benevolentlyat Spurge when the story was over. "You're in a fair way to find yourselfwell rewarded. Now gentlemen!" he continued, sitting down at the table,and engaging the attention of the others, "I think we had better have acouncil of war. Petherton has just gone to speak to the policeauthorities about those warrants which have been taken out againstChatfield and the impostor, but we can go on in his absence. Now thereseems to be no doubt that those chests which Spurge tells us of containthe gold which Chatfield procured from the bank, and concerning which heseems to have played his associates more tricks than one. However, hisassociates, whoever they are--and mind you, gentlemen, I believe thereare more men than Chatfield and the Squire in all this!--have now got atight grip on Chatfield, and they'll force him to show them where thatgold is--they'll certainly not give up the chances of fifty thousandpounds without a stiff try to get it. So--I'm considering all thepossibilities and probabilities--we may conclude that sooner orlater--sooner, most likely--somebody will visit this old peel tower thatSpurge talks of. But--who? For we're faced with this wireless message.I've no doubt the vessel here referred to is the _Pike_--no doubt at all.Now she was seen making due east, near this side of the Dogger Bank, latelast night--so that it would look as if these men were making forDenmark, or Germany, rather than for this coast. But since receiving thismessage, I have thought that point out. The _Pike_ is, I believe, a veryfast vessel?"

  "Very," answered Vickers. "She can do twenty-seven or eight knots anhour."

  "Exactly," said Sir Cresswell. "Then in that case they may have put inat some Northern port, landed Chatfield and two or three men to keep aneye on him and to accompany him to this old tower, while the _Pike_herself has gone off till a more fitting opportunity arises of dodging insomewhere to pick up the chests which Chatfield and his party will in themeantime have removed. From what I have seen of it this is such a wildpart of the coast that Chatfield and such a small gang as I am imagining,could easily come back here, keep themselves hidden and recover thechests without observation. So our plain duty is to now devise some planfor going to the Reaver's Glen and keeping a watch there until somebodycomes. Eh?"

  "There's another thing that's possible, sir," said Vickers, who hadlistened carefully to all that Sir Cresswell had said. "The _Pike_ isfitted for wireless telegraphy."

  "Yes?" said Sir Cresswell expectantly. "And you think--?"

  "You suggested that there may be more people than Chatfield and theSquire in at this business," continued Vickers. "Just so! We--Copplestoneand myself--know very well that the skipper of the _Pike_, Andrius, is init: that's undeniable. But there may be others--or one other, or two--onshore here. And as the _Pike_ can communicate by wireless, those on boardher may have sent a message to their shore confederates to remove thosechests. So--"

  "Capital suggestion!" said Sir Cresswell, who saw this point at once. "Sowe'd better lose no time in arranging our expedition out there.Spurge--you're the man who knows the spot best--what ought we to do aboutgetting there--in force?"

  Spurge, obviously flattered at being called upon to advise a great man,entered into the discussion with enthusiasm.

  "Your honour mustn't go in force at all!" he said. "What's wanted,gentlemen, is--strategy! Now if you'll let me put it to you, me knowingthe lie of the land, this is what had ought to be done. A small partyought to go--with me to lead. We'll follow the road that cuts across themoorland to a certain point; then we'll take a by-track that gets you toHigh Nick; there we'll take to a thick bit o' wood and coppice that runsright up to the peel tower. Nobody'll track us, nor see us from anypoint, going that way. Three or four of us--these here young gentlemen,now, and me--'ll be enough for the job--if armed. A revolver apiece yourhonour--that'll be plenty. And as for the rest--what you might call areserve force--your honour said something just now about some warrants.Is the police to be in at it, then?"

  "The police hold warrants for the two men we've been chiefly talkingabout," replied Sir Cresswell.

  "Well let your honour come on a bit later with not more than three policeplain-clothes fellows--as far as High Nick," said Spurge. "The police'llknow where that is. Let 'em wait there--don't let 'em come further untilI send back a message by my cousin Jim, You see, guv'nor," he added,turning to Copplestone, whom he seemed to regard as his own specialassociate, "we don't know how things may be. We might have to wait hours.As I view it, me having listened careful to what his honour the Admiralthere says--best respects to your honour--them chaps'll never come a-nighthat place till it's night again, or at any rate, dusk, which'll be aboutseven o'clock this evening. But they may watch, during the day, and it'ud be a foolish thing to have a lot of men about. A small force such asI can hide in that wood, and another in reserve at High Nick, which,guv'nor, is a deep hole in the hill-top--that's the ticket!"

  "Spurge is right," said Sir Cresswell. "You youngsters go with him--get amotor-car--and I'll see about following you over to High Nick with thedetectives. Now, what about being armed?"

  "I've a supply of service revolvers at my office, down this very street,"replied Vickers. "I'll go and get them. Here! Let's apportion our duties.I'll see to that. Gilling, you see about the car. Copplestone, you ordersome breakfast for us--sharp."

  "And I'll go round to the police," said Sir Cresswell. "Now, be carefulto take care of yourselves--you don't know what you've got to deal with,remember."

  The group separated, and Copplestone went off to find the hotel peopleand order an immediate breakfast. And passing along a corridor on his waydownstairs he encountered Mrs. Greyle, who came out of a room near by andstarted at sight of him.

  "Audrey is asleep," she whispered, pointing to the door she had justleft. "Thank you for taking care of her. Of course I was afraid--butthat's all over now. And now the thing is--how are things?"

  "Coming to a head, in my opinion," answered Copplestone. "But how or inwhat way, I don't know. Anyway, we know where that gold is--and they'llmake an attempt on it--that's sure! So--we shall be there."

  "But what fools Peter Chatfield and his associates must be--from theirown villainous standpoint--to have encumbered themselves with all thatweight of gold!" exclaimed Mrs. Greyle. "The folly of it seems incrediblewhen they could have taken it in some more easily portable form!"

  "Ah!" laughed Copplestone. "But that just shows Chatfield's extraordinarydeepness and craft! He no doubt persuaded his associates that it wasbetter to have actual bullion where they were going, and tricked theminto believing that he'd actually put it aboard the _Pike_! If it hadn'tbeen that they examined the boxes which he put on the _Pike_ and foundthey contained lead or bricks, the old scoundrel would have collared thereal stuff for himself."

  "Take care that he doesn't collar it yet," said Mrs. Greyle with a laughas she went into her own room. "Chatfield is resourceful enoughfor--anything. And--take care of yourselves!"

  That was the second admonition to be careful, and Copplestone thought ofboth, as,
an hour later, he, Gilling, Vickers and Spurge sped along thedesolate, wind-swept moorland on their way to the Reaver's Glen. It wasa typically North Country autumnal morning, cold, raw, rainy; the tops ofthe neighbouring hills were capped with dark clouds; sea-birds calleddismally across the heather; the sea, seen in glimpses through vistas offir and pine, looked angry and threatening.

  "A fit morning for a do of this sort!" exclaimed Gilling suddenly. "Is itpretty bare and bleak at this tower of yours, Spurge?"

  "You'll be warm enough, guv'nor, where I shall put you," answered Spurge."One as has knocked about these woods and moors as much as I've had toknows as many places to hide his nose in as a fox does! I'll put you bythat tower where you'll be snug enough, and warm enough, too--and wherenobody'll see you neither. And here's High Nick and out we get."

  Leaving the car in a deep cutting of the hills and instructing the driverto await the return of one or other of them at a wayside farmstead a mileback, the three adventurers followed Spurge into the wood which led tothe top of the Beaver's Glen. The poacher guided them onward by narrowand winding tracks through the undergrowth for a good half-mile; then heled them through thickets in which there was no paths at all; finally,after a gradual and cautious advance behind a high hedge of denseevergreen, he halted them at a corner of the wood and motioned them tolook out through a loosely-laced network of branches.

  "Here we are!" he whispered. "Tower--Reaver's Glen--sea in the distance.Lone spot, ain't it, gentlemen?"

  Copplestone and Gilling, who had never seen this part of the coastbefore, looked out on the scene with lively interest. It was certainly aprospect of romance and of wild, almost savage beauty on which theygazed. Immediately in front of them, at a distance of twenty to thirtyyards, stood the old peel tower, a solid square mass of grey stone,intact as to its base and its middle stories, ruinous and crumbling fromthence to what was left of its battlements and the turret tower at oneangle. The fallen stone lay in irregular heaps on the ground at its foot;all around it were clumps of furze and bramble. From the level plateau onwhich it stood the Glen fell away in horseshoe formation graduallynarrowing and descending until it terminated in a thick covert of fir andpine that ran down to the land end of the cove of which Spurge had toldthem. And beyond that stretched the wide expanse of sea, with here andthere a red-sailed fishing boat tossing restlessly on the white-cappedwaves, and over that and the land was a chill silence, broken only by theoccasional cry of the sea-birds and the bleating of the mountain sheep.

  "A lone spot indeed!" said Gilling in a whisper. "Spurge, where is thatstuff hidden?"

  "Other side of the tower--in an angle of the old courtyard," repliedSpurge, "Can't see the spot from here."

  "And where's that road you told us about?" asked Copplestone. "Themoor road?"

  "Top o' the bank yonder--beyond the tower," said Spurge. "Runs roundyonder corner o' this wood and goes right round it to High Nick, wherewe've cut across from. Hush now, all of you, gentlemen--I'm going tosignal Jim."

  Screwing up his mobile face into a strange contortion, Spurge emittedfrom his puckered lips a queer cry--a cry as of some trapped animal--soshrill and realistic that his hearers started.

  "What on earth's that represent?" asked Gilling. "It's blood-curdling?"

  "Hare, with a stoat's teeth in its neck," answered Spurge. "H'sh--I'llcall him again."

  No answer came to the first nor to the second summons--after a third,equally unproductive, Spurge looked at his companions with a scared face.

  "That's a queer thing, guv'nors!" he muttered. "Can't believe as how ourJim 'ud ever desert a post. He promised me faithfully as how he'd stickhere like grim death until I came back. I hope he ain't had a fit, noraught o' that sort--he ain't a strong chap at the best o' times, and--"

  "You'd better take a careful look round, Spurge," said Vickers."Here--shall I come with you?"

  But Spurge waved a hand to them to stay where they were. He himself creptalong the back of the hedge until he came to a point opposite the nearestangle of the tower. And suddenly he gave a great cry--human enough thistime!--and the three young men rushing forward found him standing by thebody of a roughly-clad man in whom Copplestone recognized the one-eyedodd-job man of the "Admiral's Arms."