Terror Keep · Chapter 11 (2/3)

It was about two feet high and eight feet in length, and into this he pulled his way, gripping the roof to aid his progress. The roof ended abruptly; he found nothing but water above him, and he allowed himself to come to the surface, catching hold of a projecting ledge to keep himself afloat whilst he detached the waterproof bag from his belt, and, planting it upon the shelf, took out his flashlamp.

He was in a natural stone chamber, with a broad, vaulted roof. He was, in fact, inside the dome-shaped rock that formed one end of the pool. At the farthermost corner of the chamber was an opening about four feet in height and two feet in width. A rock passage that led downward, he saw. He followed this for about fifty yards and noted that, although nature had hewn or worn this queer corridor at some remote age⁠—possibly it had been an underground waterway before some gigantic upheaval of nature had raised the land above water level⁠—the passage owed something of its practicability to human agency. At one place there were marks of a chisel; at another, unmistakable signs of blasting. Mr. Reeder retraced his steps and came back to the water. He fastened and resealed his lamp, and, drawing a long breath, dived to the bottom and wormed his way through the aperture to the bath and to open air. He came to the surface to gaze into the horror-stricken face of Margaret Belman.

“Oh, Mr. Reeder!” she gasped. “You⁠—you frightened me! I heard you jump in, but when I came here and found the bath empty I thought I must have been mistaken. Where have you been? You couldn’t stay under water all that time.”

“Will you hand me my overcoat?” said Mr. Reeder modestly, and when he had hastily buttoned this about his person: “I have been to see that the County Council’s requirements are fully satisfied,” he said solemnly.

She listened, dazed.

“In all theatres, as you probably know, my dear Miss⁠—um⁠—Margaret, it is essential that there should be certain exits in case of necessity. I have already inspected two this morning, but I rather imagine that the most important of all has so far escaped my observation. What a man! Surely madness is akin to genius!”

He lunched alone, and apparently no man was less interested in his fellow guests than Mr. J. G. Reeder. The two golfers had returned and were eating at the same table. Miss Crewe, who came in late and favoured him with a smile, sat at a little table facing him.

“She is uneasy,” said Mr. Reeder to himself. “That is the second time she has dropped her fork. Presently she will get up, sit with her back to me⁠—I wonder on what excuse?”

Apparently no excuse was necessary. The girl called a waitress toward her and had her glass and tableware shifted to the other side of the table. Mr. Reeder was rather pleased with himself.

Daver minced into the dining room as Mr. Reeder was peeling an apple.

“Good morning, Mr. Reeder. Have you got over your nightmare? I see that you have! A man of iron nerve. I admire that tremendously. Personally, I am the most dreadful coward, and the very hint of a burglar makes me shiver. You wouldn’t believe it, but I had a quarrel with a servant this morning and she left me shaking! You are not affected that way? I see that you are not! Miss Belman tells me that you tried our swimming pool this morning. You enjoyed it? I am sure you did!”

“Won’t you sit down and have coffee?” asked Mr. Reeder politely, but Daver declined the invitation with a flourish and a bow.

“No, no, I have my work. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to Miss Belman for putting me on the track of the most fascinating character of modern times. What a man!” said Mr. Daver, unconsciously repeating J. G. Reeder’s tribute. “I’ve been trying to trace his early career⁠—no, no, I’ll stand: I must run away in a minute or two. Is anything known about his early life? Was he married?”

Mr. Reeder nodded. He had not the slightest idea that John Flack was married, but it seemed a moment to assert the universality of his knowledge. He was quite unprepared for the effect upon Daver. The jaw of the yellow-faced man dropped.

“Married?” he squeaked. “Who told you he was married? Where was he married?”

“That is a matter,” said Mr. Reeder gravely, “which I cannot discuss.”

“Married!” Daver rubbed his little round head irritably, but did not pursue the subject. He made some inane reference to the weather and bustled out of the room.

Mr. Reeder settled himself in what he called the banqueting hall with an illustrated paper, awaiting an opportunity which he knew must present itself sooner or later.

The servants he had passed under review. Girls were employed to wait at table, and these lived in a small cottage on the Siltbury side of the estate. The manservants, including the hall porter, seemed above suspicion. The porter was an old army man with a row of medals across his uniform jacket; his assistant was a chinless youth recruited from Siltbury. He apparently was the only member of the staff that did not live in one of the cottages. In the main, the women servants were an unpromising lot. The infuriated waitress was his only hope, although as likely as not she would talk of nothing but her grievances.

From where he sat he had a view of the lawn. At three o’clock the Colonel and the Rev. Mr. Dean and Olga Crewe passed out of the main gate, evidently bound for Siltbury. He rang the bell and, to his satisfaction, the aggrieved waitress came and took his order for tea.

“This is a nice place,” said Mr. Reeder conversationally.

The girl’s “Yes, sir” was snappy.

“I suppose,” mused Mr. Reeder, looking out of the window, “that this is the sort of situation that a lot of girls would give their heads to get and break their hearts to lose?”

Evidently she did not agree.

“The upstairs work isn’t so bad,” she said, “and there’s not much to do in the dining room. But it’s too slow for me. I was at a big hotel before I came here. I’m going to a better job⁠—and the sooner the better.”

She admitted that the money was good, but she had a longing for that imponderable quantity which she described as “life.” She also expressed a preference for man guests.

“Miss Crewe⁠—so called⁠—gives more trouble than all the rest of the people put together,” she said. “I can’t make her out. First she wants one room, then she wants another. Why she can’t stay with her husband, I don’t know.”

“With her⁠—?” Mr. Reeder looked at her in pained surprise. “Perhaps they don’t get on well together?”

“They used to get on all right. If they weren’t married, I could understand all the mystery they’re making⁠—pretending they’re not, him in his room and she in hers, and meeting like strangers. When all that kind of deceit is going on, things are bound to get lost,” she added inconsequently.

“How long has this been⁠—er⁠—going on?” asked Mr. Reeder.

“Only the last week or so,” said the girl viciously. “I know they’re married, because I’ve seen her marriage certificate⁠—they’ve been married six years. She keeps it in her dressing case.”

She looked at him with sudden suspicion.

“I oughtn’t to have told you that. I don’t want to make trouble for anybody, and I bear them no malice, though they’ve treated me worse’n a dog,” she said. “Nobody else in the house but me knows. I was her maid for two years. But if people don’t treat me right, I don’t treat them right.”

“Married six years? Dear me!” said Mr. Reeder.

And then he suddenly turned his head and faced her.

“Would you like fifty pounds?” he asked. “That is the immense sum I will give you for just one little peep at that marriage certificate.”

The girl went red.

“You’re trying to catch me,” she said, hesitated, and then: “I don’t want to get her into trouble.”

“I am a detective,” said Mr. Reeder, “but I am working on behalf of the Chief Registrar, and we have a doubt as to whether that marriage was legal. I could, of course, search the young lady’s room and find the certificate for myself, but if you would care to help me, and fifty pounds has any attraction for you⁠—”

She paused irresolutely and said she would see. Half an hour later she came into the hall with the news that she had been unsuccessful in her search. She had found the envelope in which the certificate had been kept, but the document itself was gone.

Mr. Reeder did not ask the name of the bridegroom, nor was he mentioned, for he was pretty certain that he knew that fortunate man. He put the question, and the girl answered as he had expected.

“There is one thing I would like to ask you: do you remember the name of the girl’s father?”

“John Crewe, merchant,” she said promptly. “The mother’s name was Hannah. He made me swear on the Bible I’d never tell a soul that I knew they were married.”

“Does anybody else know? You said ‘nobody,’ I think?”

The girl hesitated.

“Yes, Mrs. Burton knows. She knows everything.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Reeder, and, opening his pocketbook, took out two five-pound notes. “What was the husband’s profession⁠—do you remember that?”

The woman’s lips curled.

“Secretary. Why call himself secretary, I don’t know, and him an independent gentleman!”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Reeder again.

He telephoned to Siltbury for a taxicab.

“Are you going out?” asked Margaret, finding him waiting under the portico.

“I am buying a few presents for friends in London,” said Mr. Reeder glibly; “a butter dish or two, suitably inscribed, would, I feel sure, be very acceptable.”

The taxi did not take him to Siltbury. Instead, he followed a road which ran parallel with the sea coast, and which eventually landed him in an impossible sandy track, from which the ancient taxi was extricated with some difficulty.

“I told you this led nowhere, sir,” said the aggrieved driver.

“Then we have evidently reached our destination,” replied Mr. Reeder, applying his weight to push the machine to a more solid foundation.

Siltbury was not greatly favoured by London visitors, the driver told him on the way back. The town had a pebbly beach and people preferred sand.

“There are some wonderful beaches about here,” said the driver, “but you can’t reach ’em.”

They had taken the left-hand road, which would bring them eventually to the town, and had been driving for a quarter of an hour when Mr. Reeder, who sat by the driver, pointed to a large scar in the face of the downs on his right.

“Siltbury Quarries,” explained the cabman. “They’re not worked now; there are too many holes.”

“Holes?”

“The downs are like a sponge,” said the man. “You could lose yourself in the caves. Old Mr. Kimpon used to work the quarries many years ago, and it broke him. There’s a big cave there you can drive a coach and four into! About twenty years ago, three fellows went in to explore the caves and never came out again.”

“Who owns the quarry now?”

Mr. Reeder wasn’t very interested, but when his mind was occupied with a pressing problem he had a trick of flogging along a conversation with appropriate questions, and if he was oblivious of the answers they produced, the sound of the human voice had a sedative effect.

“Mr. Daver owns it now. He bought it after the people were lost in the caves, and had the entrance boarded up. You’ll see it in a minute.”

They were climbing a gentle slope. As they came to the crest, he pointed down a tidy-looking roadway to where, about two hundred yards distant, Reeder saw an oblong gap in the white face of the quarry. Across this, and falling the cavity except for an irregular space at the top, was a heavy wooden gate.

“You can’t see it from here,” said the driver, “but the top hole is blocked with barbed wire.”

“Is that a gate or a hoarding he has fixed across?”

“A gate, sir. Mr. Daver owns all the land from here to the sea. He used to farm about a hundred acres of the downs, but it’s very poor land. In those days he kept his wagons inside the cave.”

“When did he give up farming?” asked Mr. Reeder, interested.

“About six years ago,” was the reply, and it was exactly the reply Mr. Reeder had expected. “I used to see a lot of Mr. Daver before then,” said the driver. “In the old times I had a horse cab, and I was always driving him about. He used to work like a slave⁠—on the farm in the morning, down in the town buying things in the afternoon. He was more like a servant than a master. He used to meet all the trains when visitors arrived⁠—and they had a lot of visitors in those days, more than they have now. Sometimes he went up to London to bring them down. He always went to meet Miss Crewe when the young lady was at school.”

“Do you know Miss Crewe?”

Apparently the driver had seen her frequently, but his acquaintance was very limited.

Reeder got down from the cab and climbed the barred gate on to the private roadway. The soil was chalky and the road had the appearance of having been recently overhauled. He mentioned this fact to the cabman and learned that Mr. Daver kept two old men constantly at work making up the road, though why he should do so he had no idea.

“Where would you like to go now, sir?”

“To a quiet place where I can telephone,” said Mr. Reeder.

These were the facts that he carried with him, and vital facts they were. During the past six years, the life of Mr. Daver had undergone a considerable change. From being a harassed man of affairs, “more like a servant than a master,” he had become a gentleman of leisure. The mystery of the Keep was a mystery no longer. He got Inspector Simpson on the telephone and conveyed to him the gist of his discovery.

“By the way,” said Simpson at the finish, “the gold hasn’t been sent to Australia yet. There has been trouble at the docks. You don’t seriously anticipate a Flack ‘operation,’ do you?”

Mr. Reeder, who had forgotten all about the gold convoy, made a cautious and noncommittal reply.

By the time he returned to Larmes Keep, the other guests had returned. The hall porter said they were expecting a “party” on the morrow, but as he had volunteered that information on the previous evening Mr. Reeder did not take it very seriously. He gathered that the man spoke in good faith, without any wish to deceive, but he saw no signs of unusual activity; nor, indeed, was there accommodation at the Keep for more than a few more visitors.

He looked around for the aggrieved servant and missed her. A discreet inquiry revealed the fact that she had left that afternoon.

Mr. Reeder went to his room, locked the door, and busied himself in the examination of two great scrapbooks which he had brought down with him. They were the official records of Flack and his gang. Perhaps “gang” was hardly a proper description, for he seemed to use and change his associates as a theatrical manager uses and changes his cast. The police knew close on a score of men who from time to time had assisted John Flack in his nefarious transactions. Some had gone to prison, and had spent the hours of their recovered liberty in a vain endeavour to reestablish touch with so generous a paymaster. Some, known to be in his employ, had vanished, and were generally supposed to be living in luxury abroad.

Reeder went through the book, which was full of essential facts, and jotted down the amounts which this strange man had acquired in the course of twenty years’ depredations. The total was a staggering one. Flack had worked feverishly, and though he had paid well he had spent little. Somewhere in England was an enormous reserve. And that somewhere, Mr. Reeder guessed, was very close to his hand.

For what had John Flack worked? To what end was this accumulation of money? Was the sheer greed of the miser behind his thefts? Was he working aimlessly, as a madman works, toward some visionary objective?