The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  “I think we could manage that,” said Fittleworth; “and then we shall want some weights, about two hundredweight altogether.”

  This presented more difficulty, until Katharine conceived the luminous idea of filling a couple of small sacks with earth, which solved the problem perfectly.

  In a few minutes they had collected these appliances and a lantern, and carried them to the Chancellor’s Parlour, when, having bolted the door, they fell to work forthwith. First, the door of the cupboard was propped open with a chair; then Fittleworth laid the two small, but heavy, sacks of earth on the bottom shelf, and, the cupboard now being weighted, he set the point of his walking-stick against the movable board at the back, and gave a heavy thrust. Instantly there was a loud snap and the cupboard rumbled away down the shaft, like a primitive lift, and as the great bronze chain ran out, an enormous stone counterpoise was seen to rise at the side. As on the first occasion, the cupboard stopped about ten feet down and the floor dropped like the trap of a gallows. The next proceeding was to light the lantern and attach it to one end of the rope—the other end being secured, as before, to the table—by which Fittleworth lowered it carefully down the shaft until he had paid out some twenty-five feet. Then as its glimmer still showed nothing but the walls of the shaft, and the view was somewhat obstructed by the cupboard, he decided to go down and reconnoitre.

  “I suppose that ladder’s all right?” said Katharine.

  “It seems to be,” he answered. “The rungs are rusty, but they seem quite firm and strong, and you may trust me to be mighty careful.”

  With this, he let himself over the brink and began slowly to descend, watched anxiously by the two women from above, testing each rung cautiously with his foot before throwing his weight on it. As he passed the suspended cupboard the voice of Simpson from below hailed him with the inquiry:

  “Is that you, Warren?”

  “No,” answered Fittleworth, and continued to descend.

  “Is it Bell?” asked Simpson.

  Fittleworth again replied in the negative, but made a mental note of the name. As he passed the lantern he saw that it had descended to within six or seven feet from the bottom of the shaft, which was covered by a considerable heap of ancient rags and mouldering straw and twigs, thrown down apparently, by some humane person to mitigate the effects of an accidental fall. At one side was a narrow doorway, cut in the chalk, opening upon a short flight of steps, and on the top step a man was sitting, nursing his bare foot.

  It was a curious meeting. The light of the lantern reflected from the walls of the narrow cavity, rendered the two men plainly visible to one another, and the recognition was instantaneous. Fittleworth, of course, “placed” his man without difficulty, but the other was evidently at a loss.

  “I seem to know your face,” he said, looking critically at Fittleworth; “but yet—where have I met you?”

  “In the National Gallery,” Fittleworth replied; and as the other’s face took on an expression of unmistakable alarm, he added: “I’ve not come with hostile intentions. We will talk over our little business later; for the present we have to consider how to get you out of this hole.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Simpson, “that I can’t climb the ladder.’

  “No, of course you can’t,” replied Fittleworth, “we shall have to haul you up. But if I fix you in a loop at the end of the rope, you can help us by hauling yourself up with your hands. What do you say?”

  Simpson thought the plan would answer admirably, and Fittleworth forthwith set about executing it. First, he called up to Katharine to lower a dozen feet more rope. Then, detaching the lantern from the end of the rope, he made a good-sized bowline knot in the latter, and fitted the loop round Simpson’s hips.

  “There,” said he, “I will go up now and help them to hoist, and, when I give the word, you take hold of the ladder and sit down in the loop of the rope. As we haul, you must help yourself up by the ladder, and be careful that you don’t knock that unfortunate foot of yours, which we must have attended to as soon as we get you up.”

  “It’s very good of you,” Simpson began; but Fittleworth, considering that this was no time for the exchange of politenesses, began to re-ascend the ladder. As he stepped out on to the floor of the parlour, he briefly explained the arrangements to his two assistants, and then, having shouted down a warning to the prisoner below, the three began to haul steadily at the rope. It was probably an uncomfortable experience to Simpson, but the plan was highly effective, and in a minute or so the captive appeared at the top of the shaft, and was tenderly helped over the perilous edge.

  As he stood on one foot, supported by Fittleworth, he gazed confusedly about the room, and asked:

  “Where are the others? Warren and Bell, I mean.”

  “They’ve gone into Margate,” replied Fittleworth, “but they’ll be back shortly. Meanwhile, if Mistress Rachel can lend us a bedroom, we will see you comfortably settled, and send for a doctor.”

  “There’s a spare bedroom over this,” said Rachel, “and, as it’s all ready, we can take Mr. Simpson up at once, and then the boy can go off on his bicycle and fetch Dr. Finlay.”

  “I’m sure,” said Simpson, “it’s exceedingly charitable of you all to take so much trouble about me. it’s more than I deserve, after—” he paused to look doubtfully at Rachel, who, for her part, looked as expressionless as a moderately benevolent graven image, and was equally uncommunicative.

  “For the present,” said Fittleworth, “we’ll confine our attention to your foot. When that has been attended to, and your friends arrive, we can discuss other matters.”

  As soon as Simpson had been comfortably settled in the cosy, old-fashioned bedroom, with a wet handkerchief applied to his ankle, the party returned to the Chancellor’s Parlour.

  “Well,” asked Katharine, “what is the next thing to be done?”

  “The next thing,” said Fittleworth, “is to make a little exploration on our own account. There is evidently a chamber or tunnel at the bottom of the shaft, and I propose to go down and see what’s in it.”

  “Then I’m coming down, too,” said Katharine.

  At this Rachel protested most emphatically. “You’d much better not, miss,” she exclaimed. “Supposing you were to fall off the ladder!”

  “I’m not going to suppose anything of the kind, Rachel. You’ll let me come down, won’t you, Joe?” she added wheedlingly.

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” replied Fittleworth. “it’s quite an easy ladder to climb. But we shall want Rachel to keep guard at the top, as we do not want those two good gentlemen; so the housemaid had better be told that, if they arrive before we have finished our explorations, they are to be shown up to Mr. Simpson’s room, and are to wait there for us.”

  The disapproving, but obedient, Rachel received the instructions with resignation, and, having executed them and bolted the door, took her place at the edge of the shaft with an expression of deep foreboding. First, the rope was lowered to its former position, when Fittleworth, steadying himself by it, got on the ladder and descended a few rungs; then Katharine, also grasping the rope and herself frantically grasped by Rachel, essayed the first few perilous steps.

  “It’s really quite safe and easy, Rachel,” she said, as she clung tenaciously to the rusty bars and let herself down cautiously, rung by rung; and, with this assurance, the faithful handmaid was somewhat comforted, though she continued to watch the disappearance of her young mistress into the depths of the shaft with a face of horror and dismay.

  The progress down the ladder occupied little more than a minute, and its completion was duly announced for the benefit of the watcher above.

  “I suppose,” said Katharine, as Fittleworth picked up the lantern, “that you didn’t see anything of the mysterious ‘it’ when you were down here before?

  “No,” he replied,” we are going to find ‘it’ together, Katie; at least, I hope so. Be careful of those steps.”

  T
hey descended the rudely cut steps, rounded by the damp and slimy with fungous growths, and entered a narrow passage, of which the end was lost in obscurity, and of which the floor descended at a sharp angle. Fittleworth held the lantern aloft, throwing its light on the greenish, sweating wails and the roughly-vaulted roof. There was something weirdly impressive in the aspect of this ancient tunnel, which had probably seen no light for centuries but that which now glimmered from the lantern. The lapse of time was marked not only by that eerie vegetation that clothed the wails, but by little stalactites that drooped from projections on the roof, and sparkling stalagmitic masses which had begun to grow up from the floor. But of traces of visitors there were none, excepting that, in one place, under the mantle of vegetation there could be seen on the wail some indistinct initials with a heart and the date 1594. Slowly the explorers advanced down the sloping tunnel, descending at intervals short flights of steps, which were placed at points where the direction of the tunnel changed, and still there was no sign of any concealed object or of any hiding-place. At length, on descending another short flight of steps, they turned into a straight length of tunnel, at the end of which appeared a bright spot of light, cold and bluish in tone as compared with the yellow glimmer of the lantern—evidently daylight. They hurried forward, and, passing a massive wooden gate, which had fallen back on its decayed hinges, came to a roughly-built wall of chalk masonry which blocked the tunnel. The spot of light corresponded to a space from which one of the stones had fallen or crumbled, and Fittleworth had no difficulty in climbing up and applying his eye to the hole.

  “What are you smiling at, Joe?” Katharine asked, as a faint grin appeared on Fittleworth’s face.

  His reply was to descend and assist her to take his place. It was a very curious scene that she looked upon as she peered through the opening; curious by reason of the contrast that it offered with this grim, old tunnel, wrapt in sepulchral darkness and charged with mystery and memories of a generation long since dead and forgotten. A sea cave with a floor of weed strewn sand and the shining beach beyond; and near its entrance a pair of very modern lovers, the swain industriously carving their joint initials with a very conspicuous heart, while the maiden stood by and encouraged him with admiring exclamations.

  “So,” said Fittleworth, as Katharine stepped down, “the world wags pretty much in our days as it did in the year 1594. But, meanwhile, we seem to be at the end of our explorations, and ‘it’ still remains an unknown quantity. I wish I hadn’t been so beastly cocksure with Warren, now.”

  “But it must be hidden here, somewhere in this tunnel,” said Katharine.

  “That doesn’t follow at all. The purpose of these works is pretty obvious, especially when we consider that the tunnel was cut at least as early as the time of Elizabeth. They form a combined escape and death trap. You see that we are looking in near the roof of the cave, and this wall is probably built over a flight of steps. The idea clearly was that a Catholic, or Protestant, as the case might be, could escape down the shaft and out through the cave to a boat. If the pursuers discovered the secret of the cupboard, they would probably be shot down the shaft and killed; and even if they came down the ladder, they could be ambushed at any one of these sharp turns in the tunnel.”

  “Then,” said Katharine, in a tone of disappointment, “you think that ‘it’ may be hidden in some other part of the house?”

  “I’m afraid that’s what it looks like,” replied Fittleworth, “and, as we don’t know what ‘it’ is, or what its size may be, the search for it isn’t so very hopeful.”

  They turned and retraced their steps slowly through the zigzag tunnel and, as they went, they spoke little and apparently thought much. Arrived at the foot of the shaft, Fittleworth, with a reflective air, tied the lantern to the end of the rope, and called out to Rachel to pull it up to the level of the cupboard. Then they began the ascent, Katharine going first.

  When they reached the level of the cupboard, Fittleworth paused and looked round.

  “Wait a minute, Katie,” said he. “I’m going to try a little experiment.”

  Katharine stopped in her climb and, looking-down on him inquisitively, saw him reach across and grasp one of the bags of earth. A good pull dislodged it from the shelf and it fell to the bottom of the shaft with a dull thump.

  “Be careful, Joe!” exclaimed Katharine. “You’ll have the cupboard going up and shutting us in.”

  “I want it to go up a little way,” he replied; and descending a couple of rungs, he put his hand to the bottom of the cupboard and pushed steadily upwards; when the cupboard, relieved of a portion of its weight, rose three or four feet and again came to rest.

  “Eureka!” Fittleworth exclaimed excitedly. “I was right. I thought our secretive friends would not waste such an excellent opportunity.”

  He followed the cupboard up a few steps and, giving it another shove, sent it up a good six feet. Katharine gave a little cry of delight. In the side of the shaft, at the spot that had been hidden by the suspended cupboard, was a deepish recess, fitted with iron hand-holds, and pierced by a narrow doorway. Grasping one of the hand-holds, Fittleworth stepped on the ledge of the recess and entered the doorway.

  “You’re not to go in without me,” Katharine commanded, letting herself down in a mighty hurry.

  “Very well,” said Fittleworth. “Pass me the lantern across, and get a good hold of that handle before you step on the ledge.”

  He took the lantern from her and, backing into the doorway, watched her anxiously as she crossed to the ledge. The perilous passage accomplished, he backed into the doorway with the lantern, and she followed him into a short passage, and from this, into a small, square chamber. As he turned and held the lantern aloft they both uttered an exclamation of joy; for a single glance around the little cell, showed them that they had found the object of their quest. On the floor, near to one wall, raised from the damp surface on blocks of cut chalk, were three rudely-made chests, clamped with iron bands and guarded by massive locks. Fittleworth threw the light of the lantern on each in succession. All of them were roughly fashioned, as if by a ship’s carpenter, and each bore on the lid, in incised lettering, the same inscription: “Shipp, James and Mary. Stowe in ye lazaret”; and then in dotted lettering, as if marked with an awl or marline spike, “His Majesty’s Portion, W.P.”

  “‘W.P.,’” mused Fittleworth. “That would be Sir William Phips, whoever he was. Now, the question is, whose property is this? It’s His Majesty’s portion, but did the king hand it to Sir Andreas as a gift, or only to hold in trust for safe keeping?”

  “Does it matter?” inquired Katharine, with feminine disregard for these niceties.

  “Yes, it does,” replied Fittleworth. “If it belonged to Sir Andreas, it is your property, but if it was the king’s, it’s treasure trove.”

  “Rubbish!” exclaimed Katharine. “King James’ family is extinct, so there’s no question about his heirs; and finding is keeping. Besides, it’s in my house and was put here by my ancestor.”

  “You’re a dishonest little baggage!” laughed Fittleworth, whose private opinions, however, on the moral aspects of treasure trove were much the same as those of most other sensible men, “but perhaps the document may give us some further information. At any rate, it is satisfactory to have found ‘it’ ourselves. And now we had better go up and see if our understudies have arrived yet.”

  He helped Katharine across to the ladder and, as they emerged from the shaft, to Rachel’s unspeakable relief, the front door bell rang.

  That’ll be Mr. Furse and his friend,” remarked Rachel. “The doctor has been and gone away again.”

  “Then,” said Fittleworth, “they had better be shown up to Mr. Simpson’s room, and, when they are ready to see us, perhaps you will kindly let us know.”

  He closed the door of the cupboard, and, as Rachel departed on her mission, he drew two chairs up to the table.

  “There’s one thing I want to say to you,�
� said Katharine. “Of course we have found this property, whatever it is, ourselves, but we should never have found it if it had not been for those three men. They are the real discoverers.”

  Fittleworth assented somewhat dryly, and Katharine went on: “They’ve had an awful lot of trouble, Joe, and they’ve been most clever and ingenious, and when we broke in upon them they were on the very point of winning the reward for all their labour.”

  “They hadn’t found the hiding-place,” objected Fittleworth.

  “No, but I feel sure they would have found it. They are evidently exceedingly clever men—almost as clever as you, Joe.”

  “Rather more so, 1 should say,” laughed Fittleworth. “They did me in the eye pretty neatly.”

  “Well, at any rate,” said Katharine, ignoring this. “they discovered it by sheer cleverness, did by taking infinite trouble, and it will be an awful disappointment to the poor things to have it snatched from them at the last moment.”

  “Well?” said Fittleworth, as Katharine paused interrogatively.

  “Well, don’t you think we ought to let them have at least a substantial share of whatever is in those chests?”

  Fittleworth smiled grimly. “It’s a most irregular business altogether, Katie. In the first place, I, an official of the Gallery, propose to compound a felony by receiving the stolen property, which I fancy we are not going to restore to the owner of the picture.”

  “Certainly not,” said Katharine. “It wasn’t his. It’s mine.”

  And then,” continued Fittleworth, “we propose to make a perfectly illegal arrangement with the robbers for disposing of certain treasure trove which is the property of the Crown.”

  Oh, stuff, Joe!” exclaimed Katharine. “It’s my property, or at least ours, and we’re going to keep it, you know we are. Now, how much are we going to give these poor creatures?”

  “It’s your property, Kate,” said Fittleworth, with a grin; “at least, you say it is, so you must decide.”