The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story by Mrs. Charles Bryce (read out loud books TXT) 📖

was with a forced lightness of manner.

"I have to thank you for letting me out," he said. "The air in there was getting terrible." He paused, and filled his lungs ostentatiously, but no one answered him. Losing something of his assumed calmness, he went on, uneasily: "I just thought I'd come along and see if there was any truth in Mr. Gimblet's story; and I was quite right to doubt it, since there isn't. He's not quite as clever as he thinks, for he was as positive as you like that my uncle's will was hidden here, but as a matter of fact it's not, as I was taking the trouble to make sure when that cursed statue shut me in. There's nothing in it of any sort except an empty tin box."

"There's nothing in it now," said Gimblet, speaking for the first time, "because I had no doubt you meant to destroy the will if you found it, so I removed it to a safe place last night. As for the other papers, I have sent them to London, where they will be still safer. I knew you would give yourself away by coming here. That's why I told you the secret of the bull's horn."

Mark's face was dreadful to see. He made a menacing step forward as if he would throw himself upon the detective. But the strong right hands of Inspector Cameron and Police Constable Fraser tightened on his arms and restrained his further action. He seemed for the first time to be conscious of their presence.

"Leave go of my arm," he shouted. "What the devil do you mean by putting your dirty hands on me?"

"My lord," said the inspector, "you had better come quietly. I am here to arrest you for the murder of your uncle, Lord Ashiel, and I warn you that anything you say may be used against you."

"Are you going to arrest the whole family?" scoffed Mark. "Where's your warrant, man?"

"I have it here, my lord," replied the inspector, fumbling in his pocket for the paper the astonished General had signed when the inspector had imparted to him, in Lady Ruth's little sitting-room, the information he had received from Mr. Gimblet.

As Inspector Cameron fumbled, the young man, with a sudden jerk which found them unprepared, threw off the hold upon his arms and leaped aside.

As he did so, he plunged his hand into his pocket and drew forth a little phial.

"You shall never take me alive," he cried, and lifted it to his lips.

"Stop him!" shouted Gimblet.

Throwing his whole weight upon the uplifted arm, he forced the phial away from Mark's already open mouth; the other men rushed to his assistance, and between them the frustrated would-be suicide was overpowered, and held firmly while the inspector fastened a pair of handcuffs over his wrists. When it was done he raised his pinioned hands, as well as he could, and shook them furiously at Gimblet.

"It's you I have to thank for this," he shouted. "Curse you, you eavesdropping spy. But there are surprises in store for you, my friend. You've got me, it seems, and you say you've got the will. You'll find it more difficult to lay your hands on the heiress!"

The words and still more the triumphant tone in which they were uttered cast a chill upon them all.

"What do you mean?" cried Gimblet.

But not another syllable could be got out of the prisoner; and the inspector, besides, protested against questions being addressed to him.

With all the elation over his capture taken out of him, and with a mind full of brooding anxiety, Gimblet hurried on ahead of the returning party, and burst in upon Lady Ruth with eager inquiries.

But Juliet had not returned.

How was anyone to know that she had that morning made her way into the secret passage of the old tower, and watched through the slip of glass in the case of the clock what Julia Romaninov was doing in the library?

But leaving Gimblet and Lady Ruth to organize a search for her, we will return to Juliet in her hiding-place and see what was the end of her adventure.

CHAPTER XIX

When Juliet, incensed and indignant at the Russian's behaviour, discovered the door in the clock and was on the point of opening it and making her presence known, a noise of steps in the passage made her pause. As she listened, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock, the library door was thrown suddenly open, and Mark stepped into the room.

Juliet saw Julia's expression as she sprang round to face the newcomer. She saw it change, swift as lightning, from a look of horrified dismay to one of sudden transforming tenderness, as the girl recognized the intruder, that the hand already in the act of pushing open the door of the clock fell inert and limp to her side, and if she had been able to move she would have lost no time in retreating. She knew instinctively that she was seeing a secret laid bare which she had no right to spy upon. And yet, though her impulse was to fly from the place in embarrassment and confusion, something stronger than her natural discretion and delicacy held her where she stood. For Julia had not come here for the purpose of meeting Mark. She had come with a purpose less personal: something, Juliet felt convinced, that was in some way vaguely discreditable, and at the same time menacing. It could be for no harmless reason that she had taken this secret, dangerous way into the castle.

And so Juliet kept her ground, blushing at her role of spy, and averting her eyes as Julia dropped the book she was holding and ran forward to meet Mark, with that tell-tale look upon her face.

But Mark did not show the same pleasure. He stood, holding the handle of the door, which he had closed gently behind him, and looking with a certain sternness at the girl.

"Julia," he said, "you here! What are you doing?"

"Oh, Mark," she cried, not answering his question, "aren't you glad to see me? It is so long, oh, it is so long since I saw you!"

She threw her arms round his neck with a happy laugh, and drew his face down to hers.

"Darling! darling!" she murmured. "How can we live without each other for one single day!"

She spoke in a low, soft voice. To Juliet, to whom every purling syllable was painfully audible, it sounded cooingly, like the voice of doves.

To the surprise of the girl to whom Mark had proposed marriage two days before, when she ventured to peep through her spy window, Mark's arms were round Julia and he was kissing her ardently.

But after a moment he released himself gently.

"You haven't told me, dear," he said, "what you are doing here."

His voice held a note of authority before which Julia's assurance vanished.

"I—I wasn't doing anything," she muttered.

"Julia!" he remonstrated.

"Well," she said, with some show of defiance, "I suppose anyone may take a book from the library."

"Of course," he said, "you may take anything of mine you want. Still, as you are not staying in the house—In short, it seems to me that the more obvious course would have been to have said something to me about it; and besides," he added, struck by a sudden thought, "how in the world did you get in? The door was locked, and the key is on the outside."

"Oh, if you're going to make such a fuss about nothing," she exclaimed petulantly, her toe beginning to tap the boards, "it's not worth explaining anything to you." She turned away and walked towards the fireplace.

"I'm not making a fuss," Mark said quietly, "but you must tell me, Julia, what you are doing here, and how you came. To speak plainly, I don't believe you came for a book."

"If you don't believe me, what's the good of my saying anything?" she retorted. "Oh, how horrid you are to-day, Mark. I don't believe you love me a bit, any more." And leaning her head against the mantelpiece, she burst into tears.

"You know it isn't that, Julia," he said, looking at her fixedly. "Don't cry, there's a dear, good girl. You know that I love you. Why, you're the only thing in the whole world that I really want. But you must tell me how you came here. Tell me," he repeated, taking her hands from her face, and forcing her to look at him, "what you want in the library. Tell me, Julia, I want to know."

She seemed to struggle to keep silence, but to be unable to resist his questioning eyes.

"I suppose I must tell you," she murmured; "it's not that I don't want to. But they would kill me if they knew. Oh, Mark, I ought not to tell you, but how can I keep anything secret from my beloved? Swear to me that you will never repeat it, or try to hinder me in what I have to do?"

He bent and kissed her.

"Julia," he said, "can't you trust me?"

"I do, I do," she cried. "While you love me, I trust you. But if you left off, what then? That is the nightmare that haunts me. Mark, Mark, what would become of me if you were to change towards me?"

He kissed her again, murmuring reassuring words that did not reach
Juliet's ears. "So tell me now," he ended, "what you were doing here."

"Mark," she said nervously, "you know where my childhood was passed?"

"In St. Petersburg," he replied wonderingly.

"Yes, in Petersburg. And you know how things are there. It is so different from your England, my England. For I am English really, Mark, although that thought always seems so strange to me; since during so many years I believed myself to be a Russian. I am the daughter of English parents; my father was a very respectable London plumber of the name of Harsden, whose business went to the bad and who died, leaving my mother to face ruin and starvation with a family of five small children, of whom I was the last. When a lady who took an interest in the parish in which we lived suggested that a friend of hers should adopt one of the children, my mother was only too thankful to accept the proposal, and I was the one from whom she chose to be parted. I have never seen her since, but she is still alive, and I send her money from time to time.

"The lady who adopted me was Countess Romaninov, and I believed myself her child till a day or two before she died, when she told me, to my lasting regret, the true story of my origin. But I was brought up a Russian, and I shall never feel myself to be English. Somehow the soil you live on in your childhood seems to get into your bones, as you say here. It is true that I speak your language easily, but it was Russian that my baby lips first learned. My sympathies, my point of view, my friends, all except yourself, are Russian. And I have one essentially Russian attribute, I am a member of what you would call a Nihilist society."

Mark interrupted her with an interjection of surprise, but she nodded her head defiantly, and continued:

"All my life, all my private ends and desires must be governed by the needs of my country. First and foremost I exist that the rule of the Tyrant may be abolished, and the Slav be free to work out his own salvation; he shall be saved from the fate that now overwhelms and crushes him; dragged bodily from under the heel of the oppressor. I am not the only one. We are many who think as one mind. And the day is not far distant when our sacrifices shall bear fruit. Ah, Mark, what a great cause, what a noble purpose, is this of ours! Perhaps I shall be able to convert you, to fire your cold British blood with my enthusiasm?"

She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. But he made no reply, and after a moment she continued, placing her hand fondly upon his shoulder as she spoke.

"Our plan is to terrify the rulers into submission. We must not shrink from killing, and killing suddenly and unexpectedly, till they abandon the wickedness of their ways. They must never