Chapter XI: Adventure of the Miserly Marquis

I. The Marquis consults Gray and Graham

Few men were, and perhaps no marquis was so unpopular as the Marquis of Restalrig, Logan's maternal Scotch cousin, widely removed. He was the last of his family, in the direct line, and on his death almost all his vast wealth would go to nobody knew where. To be sure Logan himself would succeed to the title of Fastcastle, which descends to heirs general, but nothing worth having went with the title. Logan had only the most distant memory of seeing the marquis when he himself was a little boy, and the marquis gave him two sixpences. His relationship to his opulent though remote kinsman had been of no service to him in the struggle for social existence. It carried no 'expectations,' and did not afford the most shadowy basis for a post obit. There was no entail, the marquis could do as he liked with his own.

'The Jews _may_ have been credulous in the time of Horace,' Logan said, 'but now they insist on the most drastic evidence of prospective wealth. No, they won't lend me a shekel.'

Events were to prove that other financial operators were better informed than the chosen people, though to be sure their belief was displayed in a manner at once grotesque and painfully embarrassing.

Why the marquis was generally disliked we might explain, historically, if we were acquainted with the tale of his infancy, early youth, and adolescence. Perhaps he had been betrayed in his affections, and was 'taking it out' of mankind in general. But this notion implies that the marquis once had some affections, a point not hitherto substantiated by any evidence. Perhaps heredity was to blame, some unhappy blend of parentage. An ancestor at an unknown period may have bequeathed to the marquis the elements of his unalluring character. But the only ancestor of marked temperament was the festive Logan of Restalrig, who conspired over his cups to kidnap a king, laid out his plot on the lines of an Italian novel, and died without being detected. This heroic ancestor admitted that he hated 'arguments derived from religion,' and, so far, the Marquis of Restalrig was quite with him, if the arguments bore on giving to the poor, or, indeed, to any one.

In fact the marquis was that unpopular character, a miser. Your miser may be looked up to, in a way, as an ideal votary of Mammon, but he is never loved. On his vast possessions, mainly in coal-fields, he was even more detested than the ordinary run of capitalists. The cottages and farmhouses on his estates were dilapidated and insanitary beyond what is endurable. Of his many mansions, some were kept in decent repair, because he drew many shillings from tourists admitted to view them. But his favourite abode was almost as ruinous as his cottages, and an artist in search of a model for the domestic interior of the Master of Ravenswood might have found what he wanted at Kirkburn, the usual lair of this avaricious nobleman. It was a keep of the sixteenth century, and looked as if it had never been papered or painted since Queen Mary's time. But it was near the collieries; and within its blackened walls, and among its bleak fields and grimy trees, Lord Restalrig chose to live alone, with an old man and an old woman for his attendants. The woman had been his nurse; it was whispered in the district that she was also his illegal-aunt, or perhaps even, so to speak, his illegal stepmother. At all events, she endured more than anybody but a Scotch woman who had been his nurse in childhood would have tolerated. To keep her in his service saved him the cost of a pension, which even the marquis, people thought, could hardly refuse to allow her. The other old servitor was her husband, and entirely under her domination. Both might be reckoned staunch, in the old fashion, 'to the name,' which Logan only bore by accident, his grandmother having wedded a kinless Logan who had no demonstrable connection with the house of Restalrig. Any mortal but the marquis would probably have brought Logan up as his heir, for the churlish peer had no nearer connection. But the marquis did more than sympathise with the Roman emperor who quoted 'after me the Last Day.' The emperor only meant that, after his time, he did not care how soon earth and fire were mingled. The marquis, on the other hand, gave the impression that, he once out of the way, he ardently desired the destruction of the whole human race. He was not known ever to have consciously benefited man or woman. He screwed out what he might from everybody in his power, and made no returns which the law did not exact; even these, as far as the income tax went, he kept at the lowest figure possible.

Such was the distinguished personage whose card was handed to Merton one morning at the office. There had been no previous exchange of letters, according to the rules of the Society, and yet Merton could not suppose that the marquis wished to see him on any but business matters. 'He wants to put a spoke in somebody's wheel,' thought Merton, 'but whose?'

He hastily scrawled a note for Logan, who, as usual, was late, put it in an envelope, and sealed it. He wrote: '_On no account come in_. _Explanation later_! Then he gave the note to the office boy, impressed on him the necessity of placing it in Logan's hands when he arrived, and told the boy to admit the visitor.

The marquis entered, clad in rusty black not unlike a Scotch peasant's best raiment as worn at funerals. He held a dripping umbrella; his boots were muddy, his trousers had their frayed ends turned up. He wore a hard, cruel red face, with keen grey eyes beneath penthouses where age had touched the original tawny red with snow. Merton, bowing, took the umbrella and placed it in a stand.

'You'll not have any snuff?' asked the marquis.

Trevor had placed a few enamelled snuff-boxes of the eighteenth century among the other costly _bibelots_ in the rooms, and, by an unusual chance, one of them actually did contain what the marquis wanted. Merton opened it and handed it to the peer, who, after trying a pinch on his nostrils, poured a quantity into his hand and thence into a little black mull made of horn, which he took from his breast pocket. 'It's good,' he said. 'Better than I get at Kirkburn. You'll know who I am?' His accent was nearly as broad as that of one of his own hinds, and he sometimes used Scottish words, to Merton's perplexity.

'Every one has heard of the Marquis of Restalrig,' said Merton.

'Ay, and little to his good, I'll be bound?'

'I do not listen to gossip,' said Merton. 'I presume, though you have not addressed me by letter, that your visit is not unconnected with business?'

'No, no, no letters! I never was wasteful in postage stamps. But as I was in London, to see the doctor, for the Edinburgh ones can make nothing of the case--a kind of dwawming--I looked in at auld Nicky Maxwell's. She gave me a good character of you, and she is one to lippen to. And you make no charge for a first interview.'

Merton vaguely conjectured that to 'lippen' implied some sort of caress; however, he only said that he was obliged to Miss Maxwell for her kind estimate of his firm.

'Gray and Graham, good Scots names. You'll not be one of the Grahams of Netherby, though?'

'The name of the firm is merely conventional, a trading title,' said Merton; 'if you want to know my name, there it is,' and he handed his card to the marquis, who stared at it, and (apparently from motiveless acquisitiveness) put it into his pocket.

'I don't like an alias,' he said. 'But it seems you are to lippen to.'

From the context Merton now understood that the marquis probably wished to signify that he was to be trusted. So he bowed, and expressed a hope that he was 'all that could be desired in the lippening way.'

'You're laughing at my Doric?' asked the nobleman. 'Well, in the only important way, it's not at my _expense_. Ha! Ha!' He shook a lumbering laugh out of himself.

Merton smiled--and was bored.

'I'm come about stopping a marriage,' said the marquis, at last arriving at business.

'My experience is at your service,' said Merton.

'Well,' went on the marquis, 'ours is an old name.'

Merton remarked that, in the course of historical study, he had made himself acquainted with the achievements of the house.

'Auld warld tales! But I wish I could tell where the treasure is that wily auld Logan quarrelled over with the wizard Laird of Merchistoun. Logan would not implement the contract--half profits. But my wits are wool gathering.'

He began to wander round the room, looking at the mezzotints. He stopped in front of one portrait, and said 'My Aunt!' Merton took this for an exclamation of astonishment, but later found that the lady (after Lawrence) really had been the great aunt of the marquis.

Merton conceived that the wits of his visitor were worse than 'wool gathering,' that he had 'softening of the brain.' But circumstances presently indicated that Lord Restalrig was actually suffering from a much less common disorder--softening of the heart.

He returned to his seat, and helped himself to snuff out of the enamelled gold box, on which Merton deemed it politic to keep a watchful eye.

'Man, I'm sweir' (reluctant) 'to come to the point,' said Lord Restalrig.

Merton erroneously understood him to mean that he was under oath or vow to come to the point, and showed a face of attention.

'I'm not the man I was. The doctors don't understand my case--they take awful fees--but I see they think ill of it. And that sets a body thinking. Have you a taste of brandy in the house?'

As the visitor's weather-beaten ruddiness had changed to a ghastly ashen hue, rather bordering on the azure, Merton set forth the liqueur case, and drew a bottle of soda water.

'No water,' said the peer; 'it's just ma twal' ours, an auld Scotch fashion,' and he took without winking an orthodox dram of brandy. Then he looked at the silver tops of the flasks.

'A good coat!' he said. 'Yours?'

Merton nodded.

'Ye quarter the Douglas Heart. A good coat. Dod, I'll speak plain. The name, Mr. Merton, when ye come to the end o' the furrow, the name is all ye have left. We brought nothing into the world but the name, we take out nothing else. A sore dispensation. I'm not the man I was, not this two years. I must dispone, I know it well. Now the name, that I thought that I cared not an empty whistle for, is worn to a rag, but I cannot leave it in the mire. There's just one that bears it, one Logan by name, and true Logan by the mother's blood. The mother's mother, my cousin, was a bonny lass.'

He paused; his enfeebled memory was wandering, no doubt, in scenes more vivid to him than those of yesterday.

Merton was now attentive indeed. The miserly marquis had become, to him, something other than a curious survival of times past. There was a chance for Logan, his friend, the last of the name, but Logan was firmly affianced to Miss Markham, of the cloak department at Madame Claudine's. And the marquis, as he said, 'had come about stopping a marriage,' and Merton was to help him in stopping it, in disentangling Logan!

The old man aroused himself. 'I have never seen the lad but once, when he was a bairn. But I've kept eyes on him. He _has_ nothing, and since I came to London I hear that he has gone gyte, I mean--ye'll not understand me--he is plighted to a long-legged shop-lass, the daughter of a ne'er-do-well Australian land-louper, a doctor. This must not be. Now I'll speak plain to you, plainer than to Tod and Brock, my doers--ye call them lawyers. _They_ did not make my will.'

Merton prevented himself, by an effort, from gasping. He kept a countenance of cold attention. But the marquis was coming to the point.

'I have left all to the name, lands and rents, and mines, and money. But, unless the lad marries in his own rank, I'll change my will. It's in the hidie hole at Kirkburn, that Logan built to keep King Jamie in, when he caught him. But the fool Ruthvens marred that job, and got their kail through the reek. I'm wandering.' He helped himself to another dram, and went on, 'Ye see what I want, ye must stop that marriage.'

'But,' said Merton, 'as you are so kindly disposed towards your kinsman, this Mr. Logan, may I ask whether it would not be wise to address him yourself, as the head of his house? He may, surely he will, listen to your objections.'

'Ye do not know the Logans.'

Merton concealed his smile.

'Camstairy deevils! It's in the blood. Never once has he asked me for a pound, never noticed me by word or letter. Faith, I wish all the world had been as considerate to auld Restalrig! For me to say a word, let be to make an offer, would just tie him faster to the lass. "Tyne troth, tyne a'," that is the old bye-word.'

Merton recognised his friend in this description, but he merely shook a sympathetic head. 'Very unusual,' he remarked. 'You really have no hope by this method?'

'None at all, or I would not be here on this daft ploy. There's no fool like an auld fool, and, faith, I hardly know the man I was. But they cannot dispute the will. I drew doctors to witness that I was of sound and disponing mind, and I've since been thrice to kirk and market. Lord, how they stared to see auld Restalrig in his pew, that had not smelt appleringie these forty years.'

Merton noted these words, which he thought curious and obscure. 'Your case interests me deeply,' he said, 'and shall receive my very best attention. You perceive, of course, that it is a difficult case, Mr. Logan's character and tenacity being what you describe. I must make careful inquiries, and shall inform you of progress. You wish to see this engagement ended?'

'And the lad on with a lass of his rank,' said the marquis.

'Probably that will follow quickly on the close of his present affection. It usually does in our experience,' said Merton, adding, 'Am I to write to you at your London address?'

'No, sir; these London hotels would ruin the cunzie' (the Mint).

Merton wondered whether the Cunzie was the title of some wealthy Scotch peer.

'And I'm off for Kirkburn by the night express. Here's wishing luck,' and the old sinner finished the brandy.

'May I call a cab for you--it still rains?'

'No, no, I'll travel,' by which the economical peer meant that he would walk.

He then shook Merton by the hand, and hobbled downstairs attended by his adviser.

'Did Mr. Logan call?' Merton asked the office boy when the marquis had trotted off.

'Yes, sir; he said you would find him at the club.'

'Call a hansom,' said Merton, 'and put up the notice, "out."' He drove to the club, where he found Logan ordering luncheon.

'Hullo, shall we lunch together?' Logan asked.

'Not yet: I want to speak to you.'

'Nothing gone wrong? Why did you shut me out of the office?'

'Where can we talk without being disturbed?'

'Try the smoking-room on the top storey,' said Logan, 'Nobody will have climbed so high so early.'

They made the ascent, and found the room vacant: the windows looked out over swirling smoke and trees tossing in a wind of early spring.

'Quiet enough,' said Logan, taking an arm-chair. 'Now out with it! You make me quite nervous.'

'A client has come with what looks a promising piece of business. We are to disentangle--'

'A royal duke?'

'No. _You_!'

'A practical joke,' said Logan. 'Somebody pulling your leg, as people say, a most idiotic way of speaking. What sort of client was he, or she? We'll be even with them.'

'The client's card is here,' said Merton, and he handed to Logan that of the Marquis of Restalrig.

'You never saw him before; are you sure it was the man?' asked Logan, staggered in his scepticism.

'A very good imitation. Dressed like a farmer at a funeral. Talked like all the kailyards. Snuffed, and asked for brandy, and went and came, walking, in this weather.'

'By Jove, it is my venerated cousin. And he had heard about me and Miss ---'

'He was quite well informed.'

Logan looked very grave. He rose and stared out of the window into the mist. Then he came back, and stood beside Merton's chair. He spoke in a low voice:

'This can only mean one thing.'

'Only that one thing,' said Merton, dropping his own voice.

'What did you say to him?'

'I told him that his best plan, as the head of the house, was to approach you himself.'

'And he said?'

'That it was of no use, and that I do not know the Logans.'

'But you do?'

'I think so.'

'You think right. No, not for all his lands and mines I won't.'

'Not for the name?'

'Not for the kingdoms of the earth,' said Logan.

'It is a great refusal.'

'I have really no temptation to accept,' said Logan. 'I am not built that way. So what next? If the old boy could only see her--'

'I doubt if that would do any good, though, of course, if I were you I should think so. He goes north to-night. You can't take the lady to Kirkburn. And you can't write to him.'

'Of course not,' said Logan; 'of course it would be all up if he knew that I know.'

'There is this to be said--it is not a very pleasant view to take--he can't live long. He came to see some London specialist--it is his heart, I think--'

'_His_ heart!

How Fortune aristophanises
And how severe the fun of Fate!'

quoted Logan.

'The odd thing is,' said Merton, 'that I do believe he has a heart. I rather like him. At all events, I think, from what I saw, that a sudden start might set him off at any moment, or an unusual exertion. And he may go off before I tell him that I can do nothing with you--'

'Oh, hang that,' said Logan, 'you make me feel like a beastly assassin!'

'I only want you to understand how the land lies.' Merton dropped his voice again, 'He has made a will leaving you everything.'

'Poor old cock! Look here, I believe I had better write, and say that I'm awfully touched and obliged, but that I can't come into his views, or break my word, and then, you know, he can just make another will. It would be a swindle to let him die, and come into his property, and then go dead against his wishes.'

'But it would be all right to give me away, I suppose, and let him understand that I had violated professional confidence?'

'Only with a member of the firm. That is no violation.'

'But then I should have told him that you _were_ a member of the firm.'

'I'm afraid you should.'

'Logan, you have the ideas of a schoolboy. I _had_ to be certain as to how you would take it, though, of course, I had a very good guess. And as to what you say about the chances of his dying and leaving everything where he would not have left it if he had been sure you would act against his wishes--I believe you are wrong. What he really cares about is "the name." His ghost will put up with your disobedience if the name keeps its old place. Do you see?'

'Perhaps you are right,' said Logan.

'Anyhow, there is no such pressing hurry. One _may_ bring him round with time. A curious old survival! I did not understand all that he said. There was something about having been thrice at kirk and market since he made his will; and something about not having smelled appleringie for forty years. What is appleringie?'

Logan laughed.

'It is a sacred Presbyterian herb. The people keep it in their Bibles and it perfumes the churches. But look here--'

He was interrupted by the entrance of a page, who handed to him a letter. Logan read it and laughed. 'I knew it; they are sharp!' he said, and handed the letter to Merton. It was from a famous, or infamous, money- lender, offering princely accommodation on terms which Mr. Logan would find easy and reasonable.

'They have nosed the appleringie, you see,' he said.

'But I don't see,' said Merton.

'Why the hounds have heard that the old nobleman has been thrice to kirk lately. And as he had not been there for forty years, they have guessed that he has been making his will. Scots law has, or used to have, something in it about going thrice to kirk and market after making a will--disponing they call it--as a proof of bodily and mental soundness. So they have spotted the marquis's pious motives for kirk-going, and guessed that I am his heir. I say--' Logan began to laugh wildly.

'What do you say?' asked Merton, but Logan went on hooting.

'I say,' he repeated, 'it must never be known that the old lord came to consult us,' and here he was again convulsed.

'Of course not,' said Merton. 'But where is the joke?'

'Why, don't you see--oh, it is too good--he has taken every kind of precaution to establish his sanity when he made his will.'

'He told me that he had got expert evidence,' said Merton.

'And then he comes and consults US!' said Logan, with a crow of laughter. 'If any fellow wants to break the will on the score of insanity, and knows, knows he came to us, a jury, when they find he consulted us, will jolly well upset the cart.' Merton was hurt.

'Logan,' he said, 'it is you who ought to be in an asylum, an Asylum for Incurable Children. Don't you see that he made the will long _before_ he took the very natural and proper step of consulting Messrs. Gray and Graham?'

'Let us pray that, if there is a suit, it won't come before a Scotch jury,' said Logan. 'Anyhow, nobody knows that he came except you and me.'

'And the office boy,' said Merton.

'Oh, we'll square the office boy,' said Logan. 'Let's lunch!'

They lunched, and Logan, as was natural, though Merton urged him to abstain, hung about the doors of Madame Claudine's emporium at the hour when the young ladies returned to their homes. He walked home with Miss Markham. He told her about his chances, and his views, and no doubt she did not think him a person of schoolboy ideas, but a Bayard.

Two days passed, and in the afternoon of the third a telegram arrived for Logan from Kirkburn.

'_Come at once_, _Marquis very ill. Dr. Douglas_, _Kirkburn_.'

There was no express train North till 8.45 in the evening. Merton dined with Logan at King's Cross, and saw him off. He would reach his cousin's house at about six in the morning if the train kept time.

About nine o'clock on the morning following Logan's arrival at Kirkburn Merton was awakened: the servant handed to him a telegram.

'_Come instantly. Highly important. Logan_, _Kirkburn_.'

Merton dressed himself more rapidly than he had ever done, and caught the train leaving King's Cross at 10 a.m.

II. The Emu's Feathers

The landscape through which Merton passed on his northward way to Kirkburn, whither Logan had summoned him, was blank with snow. The snow was not more than a couple of inches deep where it had not drifted, and, as frost had set in, it was not likely to deepen. There was no fear of being snowed up.

Merton naturally passed a good deal of his time in wondering what had occurred at Kirkburn, and why Logan needed his presence. 'The poor old gentleman has passed away suddenly, I suppose,' he reflected, 'and Logan may think that I know where he has deposited his will. It is in some place that the marquis called "the hidie hole," and that, from his vagrant remarks, appears to be a secret chamber, as his ancestor meant to keep James VI. there. I wish he had cut the throat of that prince, a bad fellow. But, of course, I don't know where the chamber is: probably some of the people about the place know, or the lawyer who made the will.'

However freely Merton's consciousness might play round the problem, he could get no nearer to its solution. At Berwick he had to leave the express, and take a local train. In the station, not a nice station, he was accosted by a stranger, who asked if he was Mr. Merton? The stranger, a wholesome, red-faced, black-haired man, on being answered in the affirmative, introduced himself as Dr. Douglas, of Kirkburn. 'You telegraphed to my friend Logan the news of the marquis's illness,' said Merton. 'I fear you have no better news to give me.'

Dr. Douglas shook his head.

A curious little crowd was watching the pair from a short distance. There was an air of solemnity about the people, which was not wholly due to the chill grey late afternoon, and the melancholy sea.

'We have an hour to wait, Mr. Merton, before the local train starts, and afterwards there is a bit of a drive. It is cold, we would be as well in the inn as here.'

The doctor beat his gloved hands together to restore the circulation.

Merton saw that the doctor wished to be with him in private, and the two walked down into the town, where they got a comfortable room, the doctor ordering boiling water and the other elements of what he called 'a cheerer.' When the cups which cheer had been brought, and the men were alone, the doctor said:

'It is as you suppose, Mr. Merton, but worse.'

'Great heaven, no accident has happened to Logan?' asked Merton.

'No, sir, and he would have met you himself at Berwick, but he is engaged in making inquiries and taking precautions at Kirkburn.'

'You do not mean that there is any reason to suspect foul play? The marquis, I know, was in bad health. You do not suspect--murder?'

'No, sir, but--the marquis is gone.'

'I _know_ he is gone, your telegram and what I observed of his health led me to fear the worst.'

'But his body is gone--vanished.'

'You suppose that it has been stolen (you know the American and other cases of the same kind) for the purpose of extracting money from the heir?'

'That is the obvious view, whoever the heir may be. So far, no will has been found,' the doctor added some sugar to his cheerer, and some whisky to correct the sugar. 'The neighbourhood is very much excited. Mr. Logan has telegraphed to London for detectives.'

Merton reflected in silence.

'The obvious view is not always the correct one,' he said. 'The marquis was, at least I thought that he was, a very eccentric person.'

'No doubt about _that_,' said the doctor.

'Very well. He had reasons, such reasons as might occur to a mind like his, for wanting to test the character and conduct of Mr. Logan, his only living kinsman. What I am going to say will seem absurd to you, but--the marquis spoke to me of his malady as a kind of "dwawming," I did not know what he meant, at the time, but yesterday I consulted the glossary of a Scotch novel: to _dwawm_, I think, is to lose consciousness?'

The doctor nodded.

'Now you have read,' said Merton, 'the case published by Dr. Cheyne, of a gentleman, Colonel Townsend, who could voluntarily produce a state of "dwawm" which was not then to be distinguished from death?'

'I have read it in the notes to Aytoun's _Scottish Cavaliers_,' said the doctor.

'Now, then, suppose that the marquis, waking out of such a state, whether voluntarily induced (which is very improbable) or not, thought fit to withdraw himself, for the purpose of secretly watching, from some retreat, the behaviour of his heir, if he has made Mr. Logan his heir? Is that hypothesis absolutely out of keeping with his curious character?'

'No. It's crazy enough, if you will excuse me, but, for these last few weeks, at any rate, I would have swithered about signing a fresh certificate to the marquis's sanity.'

'You did, perhaps, sign one when he made his will, as he told me?'

'I, and Dr. Gourlay, and Professor Grant,' the doctor named two celebrated Edinburgh specialists. 'But just of late I would not be so certain.'

'Then my theory need not necessarily be wrong?'

'It can't but be wrong. First, I saw the man dead.'

'Absolute tests of death are hardly to be procured, of course you know that better than I do,' said Merton.

'Yes, but I am positive, or as positive as one can be, in the circumstances. However, that is not what I stand on. _There was a witness who saw the marquis go_.'

'Go--how did he go?'

'He disappeared.'

'The body disappeared?'

'It did, but you had better hear the witness's own account; I don't think a second-hand story will convince you, especially as you have a theory.'

'Was the witness a man or a woman?'

'A woman,' said the doctor.

'Oh!' said Merton.

'I know what you mean,' said the doctor. 'You think, it suits your theory, that the marquis came to himself and--'

'And squared the female watcher,' interrupted Merton; 'she would assist him in his crazy stratagem.'

'Mr. Merton, you've read ower many novels,' said the doctor, lapsing into the vernacular. 'Well, your notion is not unthinkable, nor pheesically impossible. She's a queer one, Jean Bower, that waked the corpse, sure enough. However, you'll soon be on the spot, and can examine the case for yourself. Mr. Logan has no idea but that the body was stolen for purposes of blackmail.' He looked at his watch. 'We must be going to catch the train, if she's anything like punctual.'

The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their destination, Drem.

The doctor's own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.

'The marquis had neither machine nor horse,' the doctor explained.

Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal through the freezing snow. Out of one village, the lights twinkling in the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by heraldic animals.

'The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,' said the doctor.

At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and walked.

'You see the pits come up close to the house,' said the doctor, as they reached the crest. He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.

'Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs? I think I see a red roof,' said Merton.

'Ay, that's Strutherwick, a fishing village,' replied the doctor.

'A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,' said Merton.

'Ay, that is just it,' acquiesced the doctor.

'But,' asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep black in front of them, 'what is that rope stretched about the lawn for? It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.' Dark figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into the gathering gloom. The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.

The door of the house opened, and a man's figure stood out against the lamp light within.

'Is that you, Merton?' came Logan's voice from the doorway.

Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, 'Mr. Logan will tell you what the rope's for.'

The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton's baggage, pleaded an engagement, and said 'Good-bye,' among the thanks of Logan. An old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton's light luggage up a black turnpike stair.

'I've put you in the turret; it is the least dilapidated room,' said Logan. 'Now, come in here.'

He led the way into a hall on the ground-floor. A great fire in the ancient hearth, with its heavy heraldically carved stone chimney-piece, lit up the desolation of the chamber.

'Sit down and warm yourself,' said Logan, pushing forward a ponderous oaken chair, with a high back and short arms.

'I know a good deal,' said Merton, his curiosity hurrying him to the point; 'but first, Logan, what is the rope on the stakes driven in round the house for?'

'That was my first precaution,' said Logan. 'I heard of the--of what has happened--about four in the morning, and I instantly knocked in the stakes--hard work with the frozen ground--and drew the rope along, to isolate the snow about the house. When I had done that, I searched the snow for footmarks.'

'When had the snow begun to fall?'

'About midnight. I turned out then to look at the night before going to bed.'

'And there was nothing wrong then?'

'He lay on his bed in the laird's chamber. I had just left it. I left him with the watcher of the dead. There was a plate of salt on his breast. The housekeeper, Mrs. Bower, keeps up the old ways. Candles were burning all round the bed. A fearful waste he would have thought it, poor old man. The devils! If I could get on their track!' said Logan, clenching his fist.

'You have found no tracks, then?'

'None. When I examined the snow there was not a footmark on the roads to the back door or the front--not a footmark on the whole area.'

'Then the removal of the body from the bedroom was done from within. Probably the body is still in the house.'

'Certainly it has been taken out by no known exit, if it _has_ been taken out, as I believe. I at once arranged relays of sentinels--men from the coal-pits. But the body is gone; I am certain of it. A fishing-boat went out from the village, Strutherwick, before the dawn. It came into the little harbour after midnight--some night-wandering lover saw it enter--and it must have sailed again before dawn.'

'Did you examine the snow near the harbour?'

'I could not be everywhere at once, and I was single-handed; but I sent down the old serving-man, John Bower. He is stupid enough, but I gave him a note to any fisherman he might meet. Of course these people are not detectives.'

'And was there any result?'

'Yes; an odd one. But it confirms the obvious theory of body-snatching. Of course, fishers are early risers, and they went trampling about confusedly. But they did find curious tracks. We have isolated some of them, and even managed to carry off a couple. We dug round them, and lifted them. A neighbouring laird, Mr. Maitland, lent his ice-house for storing these, and I had one laid down on the north side of this house to show you, if the frost held. No ice-house or refrigerator _here_, of course.'

'Let me see it now.'

Logan took a lighted candle--the night was frosty, without a wind--and led Merton out under the black, ivy-clad walls. Merton threw his greatcoat on the snow and knelt on it, peering at the object. He saw a large flat clod of snow and earth. On its surface was the faint impress of a long oval, longer than the human foot; feathery marks running in both directions from the centre could be descried. Looking closer, Merton detected here and there a tiny feather and a flock or two of down adhering to the frozen mass.

'May I remove some of these feathery things?' Merton asked.

'Certainly. But why?'

'We can't carry the clod indoors, it would melt; and it _may_ melt if the weather changes; and by bad luck there may be no feathers or down adhering to the other clods--those in the laird's ice-house.'

'You think you have a clue?'

'I think,' said Merton, 'that these are emu's feathers; but, whether they are or not, they look like a clue. Still, I _think_ they are emu's feathers.'

'Why? The emu is not an indigenous bird.'

As he spoke, an idea--several ideas--flashed on Merton. He wished that he had held his peace. He put the little shreds into his pocket-book, rose, and donned his greatcoat. 'How cold it is!' he said. 'Logan, would you mind very much if I said no more just now about the feathers? I really have a notion--which may be a good one, or may be a silly one--and, absurd as it appears, you will seriously oblige me by letting me keep my own counsel.'

'It is damned awkward,' said Logan testily.

'Ah, old boy, but remember that "damned awkward" is a damned awkward expression.'

'You are right,' said Logan heartily; 'but I rose very early, I'm very tired, I'm rather savage. Let's go in and dine.'

'All right,' said Merton.

'I don't think,' said Logan, as they were entering the house, 'that I need keep these miners on sentry go any longer. The bird--the body, I mean--has flown. Whoever the fellows were that made these tracks, and however they got into and out of the house, they have carried the body away. I'll pay the watchers and dismiss them.'

'All right,' said Merton. 'I won't dress. I must return to town by the night train. No time to be lost.'

'No train to be caught,' said Logan, 'unless you drive or walk to Berwick from here--which you can't. You can't walk to Dunbar, to catch the 10.20, and I have nothing that you can drive.'

'Can I send a telegram to town?'

'It is four miles to the nearest telegraph station, but I dare say one of the sentinels would walk there for a consideration.'

'No use,' said Merton. 'I should need to wire in a cipher, when I come to think of it, and cipher I have none. I must go as early as I can to- morrow. Let us consult Bradshaw.'

They entered the house. Merton had a Bradshaw in his dressing-bag. They found that he could catch a train at 10.49 A.M., and be in London about 9 P.M.

'How are you to get to the station?' asked Logan. 'I'll tell you how,' he went on. 'I'll send a note to the inn at the place, and order a trap to be here at ten. That will give you lots of time. It is about four miles.'

'Thank you,' said Merton; 'I see no better way.' And while Logan went to pay and dismiss the sentries and send a messenger, a grandson of the old butler with the note to the innkeeper, Merton toiled up the narrow turnpike stair to the turret chamber. A fire had been burning all day, and in firelight almost any room looks tolerable. There was a small four- poster bed, with slender columns, a black old wardrobe, and a couple of chairs, one of the queer antiquated little dressing-tables, with many drawers, and boxes, and a tiny basin, and there was a perfectly new tub, which Logan had probably managed to obtain in the course of the day. Merton's evening clothes were neatly laid out, the shutters were closed, curtains there were none; in fact, he had been in much worse quarters.

As he dressed he mused. 'Cursed spite,' thought he, 'that ever I was born to be an amateur detective! And cursed be my confounded thirst for general information! Why did I ever know what _Kurdaitcha_ and _Interlinia_ mean? If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be! Suppose I drop the whole affair! But I've been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an idea. Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'

Merton descended the turnpike stair, holding on to the rope provided for that purpose in old Scotch houses. He found Logan standing by the fire in the hall. They were waited on by the old man, Bower. By tacit consent they spoke, while he was present, of anything but the subject that occupied their minds. They had quite an edible dinner--cock-a-leekie, brandered haddocks, and a pair of roasted fowls, with a mysterious sweet which was called a 'Hattit Kit.'

'It is an historical dish in this house,' said Logan. 'A favourite with our ancestor, the conspirator.'

The wine was old and good, having been laid down before the time of the late marquis.

'In the circumstances, Logan,' said Merton, when the old serving man was gone, 'you have done me very well.'

'Thanks to Mrs. Bower, our butler's wife,' said Logan. 'She is a truly remarkable woman. She and her husband, they are cousins, are members of an ancient family, our hereditary retainers. One of them, Laird Bower, was our old conspirator's go-between in the plot to kidnap the king, of which you have heard so much. Though he was an aged and ignorant man, he kept the secret so well that our ancestor was never even suspected, till his letters came to light after his death, and after Laird Bower's death too, luckily for both of them. So you see we can depend on it that this pair of domestics, and their family, were not concerned in this new abomination; so far, the robbery was not from within.'

'I am glad to hear that,' said Merton. 'I had invented a theory, too stupid to repeat, and entirely demolished by the footmarks in the snow, a theory which hypothetically implicated your old housekeeper. To be sure it did not throw any doubt on her loyalty to the house, quite the reverse.'

'What was your theory?'

'Oh, too silly for words; that the marquis had been only in a trance, had come to himself when alone with the old lady, who, the doctor said, was watching in the room, and had stolen away, to see how you would conduct yourself. Childish hypothesis! The obvious one, body-snatching, is correct. This is very good port.'

'If things had been as you thought possible, Jean Bower was not the woman to balk the marquis,' said Logan. 'But you must see her and hear her tell her own story.'

'Gladly,' said Merton, 'but first tell me yours.'

'When I arrived I found the poor old gentleman unconscious. Dr. Douglas was in attendance. About noon he pronounced life extinct. Mrs. Bower watched, or "waked" the corpse. I left her with it about midnight, as I told you; about four in the morning she aroused me with the news that the body had vanished. What I did after that you know. Now you had better hear the story from herself.'

Logan rang a handbell, there were no other bells in the keep, and asked the old serving-man, when he came, to send in Mrs. Bower.

She entered, a very aged woman, dressed in deep mourning. She was tall, her hair of an absolutely pure white, her aquiline face was drawn, her cheeks hollow, her mouth almost toothless. She made a deep courtesy, repeating it when Logan introduced 'my friend, Mr. Merton.'

'Mrs. Bower,' Logan said, 'Mr. Merton is my oldest friend, and the marquis saw him in London, and consulted him on private business a few days ago. He wishes to hear you tell what you saw the night before last.'

'Maybe, as the gentleman is English, he'll hardly understand me, my lord. I have a landward tongue,' said Mrs. Bower.

'I can interpret if Mr. Merton is puzzled, Mrs. Bower, but I think he will understand better if we go to the laird's chamber.'

Logan took two lighted candles, handing two to Merton, and the old woman led them upstairs to a room which occupied the whole front of the ancient 'peel,' or square tower, round which the rest of the house was built. The room was nearly bare of furniture, except for an old chair or two, a bureau, and a great old bed of state, facing the narrow deep window, and standing on a kind of dais, or platform of three steps. The heavy old green curtains were drawn all round it. Mrs. Bower opened them at the front and sides. At the back against the wall the curtains, embroidered with the arms of Restalrig, remained closed.

'I sat here all the night,' said Mrs. Bower, 'watching the corp that my hands had streikit. The candles were burning a' about him, the saut lay on his breast, only aefold o' linen covered him. My back was to the window, my face to his feet. I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does nae guid, it does nae harm.' She recited in a monotone:

'When thou frae here away art past--
Every nicht and all--
To Whinny-muir thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy saul.

'If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon--
Every nicht and all--
Sit thee down and put them on,
And Christ receive thy saul

'Alas, he never gave nane, puir man,' said the woman with a sob.

At this moment the door of the chamber slowly opened. The woman turned and gazed at it, frowning, her lips wide apart.

Logan went to the door, looked into the passage, closed the door and locked it; the key had to be turned twice, in the old fashion, and worked with a creaking jar.

'I had crooned thae last words,

And Christ receive thy saul,

when the door opened, as ye saw it did the now. It is weel kenned that a corp canna lie still in a room with the door hafflins open. I rose to lock it, the catch is crazy. I was backing to the door, with my face to the feet o' the corp. I saw them move backwards, slow they moved, and my heart stood still in my breist. Then I saw'--here she stepped to the head of the bed and drew apart the curtains, which opened in the middle--'I saw the curtain was open, and naething but blackness ahint it. Ye see, my Lord, ahint the bed-heid is the entrance o' the auld secret passage. The stanes hae lang syne fallen in, and closed it, but my Lord never would have the hole wa'ed up. "There's nae draught, Jean, or nane to mention, and I never was wastefu' in needless repairs," he aye said. Weel, when I looked that way, his face, down to the chafts, was within the blackness, and aye draw, drawing further ben. Then, I shame to say it, a sair dwawm cam ower me, I gae a bit chokit cry, and I kenned nae mair till I cam to mysel, a' the candles were out, and the chamber was mirk and lown. I heard the skirl o' a passing train, and I crap to the bed, and the skirl kind o' reminded me o' living folk, and I felt a' ower the bed wi' my hands. There was nae corp. Ye ken that the Enemy has power, when a corp lies in a room, and the door is hafflins closed. Whiles they sit up, and grin and yammer. I hae kenned that. Weel, how long I had lain in the dwawm I canna say. The train that skirled maun hae been a coal train that rins by about half-past three in the morning. There was a styme o' licht that streeled in at the open door, frae a candle your lordship set on a table in the lobby; the auld lord would hae nae lichts in the house after the ten hours. Sae I got to the door, and grippit to the candle, and flew off to your lordship's room, and the rest ye ken.'

'Thank you, very much, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan. 'You quite understand, Merton, don't you?'

'I thoroughly understand your story, Mrs. Bower,' said Merton.

'We need not keep you any longer, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan. 'Nobody need sit up for us; you must be terribly fatigued.'

'You wunna forget to rake out the ha' fire, my lord?' said the old lady, 'I wush your Lordship a sound sleep, and you, sir,' so she curtsied and went, Logan unlocking the door.

'And I was in London this morning!' said Merton, drawing a long breath.

'You're over Tweed, now, old man,' answered Logan, with patriotic satisfaction.

'Don't go yet,' said Merton. 'You examined the carpet of the room; no traces there of these odd muffled foot-coverings you found in the snow?'

'Not a trace of any kind. The salt was spilt, some of it lay on the floor. The plate was not broken.'

'If they came in, it would be barefoot,' said Merton.

'Of course the police left traces of official boots,' said Logan. 'Where are they now--the policemen, I mean?'

'Two are to sleep in the kitchen.'

'They found out nothing?'

'Of course not.'

'Let me look at the hole in the wall.' Merton climbed on to the bed and entered the hole. It was about six feet long by four wide. Stones had fallen in, at the back, and had closed the passage in a rough way, indeed what extent of the floor of the passage existed was huddled with stones. Merton examined the sides of the passage, which were mere rubble.

'Have you looked at the floor beneath those fallen stones?' Merton asked.

'No, by Jove, I never thought of that,' said Logan.

'How could they have been stirred without the old woman hearing the noise?'

'How do you know they were there before the marquis's death?' asked Merton, adding, 'this hole was not swept and dusted regularly. Either the entrance is beneath me, or--"the Enemy had power"--as Mrs. Bower says.'

'You must be right,' said Logan. 'I'll have the stones removed to-morrow. The thing is clear. The passage leads to somewhere outside of the house. There's an abandoned coal mine hard by, on the east. Nothing can be simpler.'

'When once you see it,' said Merton.

'Come and have a whisky and soda,' said Logan.