The Crowned Skull Page 24

  Trevick had lighted a very excellent cigar, but it dropped from his nerveless fingers as his face paled. ‘What’s up now?’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right; don’t alarm yourself,’ said Forde soothingly; ‘but you’ll have to clear out of this place and take refuge in another mine. Penrith knows where you are, he followed Miss Stretton here, and threatens to give the show away to-morrow.’

  ‘Ah! He is my rival, I knew that he would harm me if he could,’ said Sir Hannibal, recovering his cigar, ‘but I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘You will shortly. Give me a match, I want to light my pipe. Oh, I have heaps and heaps of news for you. The Grange is burnt down.’

  ‘What!’ Trevick again started and stared. ‘Impossible!’

  ‘Not at all. It seems that Morgan Bowring was playing with fire and threw some matches about—at least, that is Polwin’s story. However, the old house is gone: nothing is left standing but four walls.’

  ‘Will my misfortunes never end?’ said Trevick desperately.

  ‘Yes, and soon. The darkest hour is before dawn, remember. And, after all, Trevick, you have won the love of a really good, clever woman.’

  ‘Are you speaking of Miss Stretton?’

  ‘I am. But I’d better tell you from the beginning,’ and then the young man related the visit of Mrs. Krent about the new will, detailed how he had come to be present at the fire, and finished with an account of the interview in Penrith’s library.

  ‘What do you think, Trevick?’ he asked when he had finished.

  Sir Hannibal put his hands to his aching head. ‘I am quite bewildered, Forde. I don’t know what to say. But one thing is clear; I must get away.’

  ‘To the Tregeagle mine, near the shore. Miss Stretton advises that place,’ said Oswald rapidly.

  Trevick drew back with a gasp. ‘It’s dangerous—the sea—’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ interrupted the other impatiently; ‘all the safer so far as your liberty is concerned. No one will think you are such a fool as to hide in so dangerous a place. We must get away before dawn. In the meantime, with your permission, I’ll take a short nap. Wake me about six o’clock and we’ll journey to the Land of Goshen.’

  Sir Hannibal nodded, and the barrister, who was dropping with fatigue, threw himself full length on that grassy bed and closed his eyes. In less than five minutes his snores proclaimed that he was enjoying a thorough rest.

  Trevick still smoked and sat by the smouldering fire upon which he had placed some fresh fuel. He thought of the whole miserable business in which he was involved, and after thinking everything well over he had to confess that his troubles were of his own making. Had he behaved well in South Africa he would not have got into Bowring’s clutches and thus have become the prey of the rascally Krent, alias Polwin. Certainly the money had come to him, but now even that was gone. ‘But I can’t believe that the second will is genuine,’ said Sir Hannibal half aloud, as he watched the dying embers; ‘it might be, though. Bowring was just the man to sell me in that way.’

  He said something like this to Forde when, some few hours later, the two, climbing the shaft with bundles on their backs, stole across the moors in the reddening flush of dawn. The morning was clear, the sun shining after the rain, and the breaking light revealed the beauty and mystery of the wide moorlands. Overhead was a steel-hued sky flecked with still clouds, and eastward broke the glorious dawn like a freshly budding rose. But the two men had little time to watch the silent workings of Nature, as they wished to reach the Tregeagle mine by the shore before it grew much later. The quarrymen rose early to their work, and since they were inspired by Anak to believe Sir Hannibal guilty, he assuredly would meet with a short shrift from anyone he might chance upon. The two wayfarers therefore put their best legs foremost and hurried down to where the ocean gleamed rosy with the dawn-lights.

  ‘About that will,’ said Trevick, as their feet brushed away the heavy dew and they dropped steadily shoreward, ‘do you think it is genuine?’

  ‘No,’ said Forde briskly, for he felt much better after the rest and food. ‘In the first place Polwin has been dodging about the Grange and might have hidden it: in the second, the two witnesses are discharged servants who defended him last night, and therefore must be his instruments; and thirdly, Polwin knows that if Mrs. Krent is made the trustee for the money he can get what he wants out of her. If she hadn’t been made the trustee I might have thought the will genuine, but a clever man like Bowring would scarcely have chosen an illiterate woman for such a post. Polwin by appointing Mrs. Krent, his dearly beloved wife, has shown his hand rather too plainly.’

  ‘Still,’ said Trevick doubtfully, ‘it is just the sort of trick Bowring would have loved to play me.’

  ‘I dare say, and for all I know there may have been a genuine second will in the house. If so, it is destroyed, and this one will not stand water. I’ll show it to Gratton and take his opinion. You will have the money after all, Sir Hannibal.’

  ‘Dericka has it; I have given it to Dericka.’

  ‘Nonsense. Neither I nor Dericka need so much. When you are cleared of this charge you can come back and marry Miss Stretton and use the money to re-establish the family.’

  ‘I don’t deserve such good fortune,’ sighed the baronet penitently.

  ‘There,’ said Forde, somewhat mercilessly, ‘I quite agree with you. But I think, Trevick, that you have been punished for your follies, so I shall say no more. You may depend upon my doing my best to clear your character in every way. It is my opinion that everything lies with Polwin.’

  ‘I think so also,’ assented the baronet; ‘if you could bring Polwin to the Tregeagle mine I might make a bargain with him.’

  Forde turned suddenly, with an approving look on his dark face.

  ‘That isn’t a bad idea,’ he said musingly; ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Only don’t let Polwin give me away.’

  ‘He’ll have to give himself away first,’ said the young man grimly; ‘here we are at the seashore, Trevick. You take the lead and show me where the mine is.’

  Sir Hannibal nodded and went carefully down the slippery slope to where the black rocks frowned over the clear waters. On the verge he pointed to a square tower built of rubble, standing about thirty feet above sea-level.

  ‘Behind that is the mouth of the mine,’ he said.

  Forde drew back. ‘I don’t wonder it is dangerous. Good heavens, it is on the very verge of the ocean!’

  ‘It is under the ocean itself,’ said Trevick dryly; ‘a rich mine, Forde, which had to be abandoned on account of the danger of working it. However, it will afford me a refuge for a time. Give me that other bundle and I’ll climb down.’

  ‘Shall I not come?’ asked Forde, unslinging the bundle of food and giving it to his companion.

  ‘No; you had better get back before there is a chance of anyone meeting you, so that no suspicion may be aroused. Good-bye!’ And without further words Trevick began to descend towards the grey tower. Forde watched him for a few minutes, then remembering that precious time was passing, he briskly turned on his heel and made for the uplands with all haste. Now that Sir Hannibal was safe and off his hands, at the worst he could say that he had come out for a morning walk to explain his presence on the moors.

  He had intended to walk straight to St. Ewalds in order to advise Dericka of her father’s safety. But when he passed the quarries he heard a shout, and shortly Morgan came dancing towards him. The idiot had apparently been out all night also, as his clothes were damp and covered with bits of grass and bracken. He was not his usual merry self, for his eyes gleamed with anger, and he flourished his arms in a threatening manner. Forde placed himself on his guard when he saw this maniac rushing towards him, but Morgan’s intentions were quite pacific. He came up with a run, and eyed Oswald earnestly.

  ‘Why aren’t you at the Manor House?’ asked the barrister.

  ‘He would lock me up,’ babbled the idiot fiercely; ‘yes, I
heard it last night. He would part me from Jenny: he would lock me up. But I know what to do. I have it—I have it—I have it.’

  ‘Have what?’ asked Forde wonderingly.

  ‘Come and see—in Mother Witch’s hut.’ And Morgan swarmed like a monkey up the steep path which led to Mrs. Carney’s abode.

  Oswald followed, as he thought that from Morgan’s babblings he might learn something.

  ‘Who will lock you up?’ he asked the poor creature, ‘not Jenny?’

  ‘No, no! But that wicked man mother hates. Polwin—oh, yes, Polwin.’

  ‘I thought that you liked him, Morgan?’

  ‘I did. He was kind to Morgan: he gave Morgan toys, and gave him drink—when—when—’ He stopped, and an expression of cunning overspread his pale face. Then he began to scramble upward again. ‘But by it I can curse him, and Mother Witch can’t do ghostly things while Anak is with her. But to-day we will curse Polwin, and then he won’t lock me up. No! No! No!’

  More convinced than ever that he was on the verge of discovering something, Forde climbed briskly after the insane man. In a short space of time he arrived at the small plateau before the humble hut of Mrs. Carney. The door was open, and into the house Morgan rushed, gibbering like a baboon. Forde, not knowing what he was about to do, waited outside. There was a sound of angry, shrill cries within, and then the idiot rushed out, followed by Anak’s mother, terribly angry and using extremely bad language.

  ‘With this we will curse him,’ cried the idiot, tossing a red object like a ball into the air, ‘his bones will waste—his brain will boil. He’ll be struck with evil things, and Morgan will dance and dance over his grave.’ He stopped and turned pompously towards the barrister. ‘I am Herodias’s daughter, and this is the head of John the Baptist,’ he said; ‘see how I dance,’ and he began to throw himself about in a mincing way. Quickening his steps, he grew excited and tossed about rapidly the red round object which looked like a football. This terrible performance was ended by the red ball rolling to Forde’s feet. Then the young man uttered a cry of amazement.

  He saw before him the scarlet-hued, silver-crowned Death’s Head of Moolu’s son.

  Chapter XXIII Anak’s Mother

  Forde stooped to pick up the red skull with mixed feelings. He wondered how it had come into possession of the idiot, and what strange thought in the madman’s brains led him to believe that Polwin could be cursed in connection with so weird an object. But as he touched the Death’s Head Morgan flung himself forward, and snatching it from him with a guttural cry, bounded on to a moderately high rock near the cabin with the leap of a cat, and sat there nursing the uncanny relic of humanity with a cunning and dangerous expression. Forde, taken by surprise, stared motionless.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Carney, tottering forward and mumbling as usual, ‘he’s fond of that, is Morgan: it’s like a doll to a lass.’

  ‘How did he obtain possession of it?’ asked the barrister; ‘it belonged to Polwin—it is connected with the murder.’

  ‘Polwin!’ repeated the old woman, squatting down on her hams like a savage; ‘he’s my son’s friend. I’ve never set eyes on him myself, but Hugh likes him.’

  ‘Anak, you mean?’

  ‘My son’s name is Hugh, as was his father’s before him,’ mumbled the crone, ‘though they do call him Anak from the size of him. Aye, there are giants in these days, though it’s after the Flood instead of before it. Not but what folk are marrying and drinking and sinning now, as they did then, young sir.’

  ‘You remember me, Mrs. Carney?’

  ‘Aye. You’re the young gentleman who knocked down Anak—if you will call him so. And clever you are to do that seeing how big he is, Mr. Forde. Well, well, there are worse sons than Anak, for he keeps his old mother like a queen, bless him.’

  The idiot still moped and mowed on the rock, fondling the skull.

  Oswald glanced from him to Mrs. Carney, and from that unsightly old creature to the miserable hut which she called home. Her notion of being kept like a queen was indeed sordid, and he wondered how she could endure so wretched an existence, especially as he discerned in her manner and speech, that which argued that she had not always occupied so lowly a condition. Forde involuntarily put a leading question to her:

  ‘What is your past, Mrs. Carney?’

  The beldam looked up, and her black eyes, brilliant as those of a young girl, flashed angrily. Her face was wrinkled and yellow and not over-clean, her hair was white, her body was bowed, and her brown hands were like the claws of a bird—a vulture’s for choice. Also her nose and chin nearly met, and she looked exactly like the bad fairy of a child’s book. Yet in those eyes shone the fierce, free spirit of inextinguishable youth, and Forde would not have been surprised had she dropped her worn body like a ragged garment and shone out a nymph of grace. Those eyes should have been set as jewels in the face of a young and lovely woman. Now they sent out lightnings towards Forde because of his indiscreet question.

  ‘What’s my past got to do with you, young man?’

  Oswald shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nothing; only you seem to have seen better days.’

  ‘Aye, that I have, but I don’t tell you anything about them,’ grumbled Mrs. Carney, and then, with the inconsistency of old age, she at once began to mumble out her life story. At first she spoke almost too softly for Forde to hear, so he waited until she warmed up before giving her his entire attention. Lighting his pipe, he sat down on a stone near the door of the hut and watched the squatting figure of the aged witch—for witch she was, if looks went for anything, as they assuredly did in the middle ages when an old woman was required to be tar-barrelled. Morgan, humming weird songs to himself, still played fantastically with his gruesome toy, and everywhere the earth was growing warm and bright under the influence of the newly-risen sun.

  ‘Aye, aye!’ muttered Mrs. Carney, plucking at the fringe of her ragged skirt. ‘I was pretty once: no girl prettier, but that Trevick man he made me hate everyone.’

  ‘Did he do you wrong?’ asked Forde softly, so as not to break the current of her thoughts.

  ‘He! No. No one ever did me wrong,’ cried the old hag, ‘I was too clever for them all. Sir Hannibal—drat the man for a false lover—he wanted me to run away with him. But I said marriage or nothing; yes, I said that—no wrongdoing for the prettiest girl in St. Ewalds, or out of it, for the matter of that. But he wouldn’t. Bless you, those Trevicks think a heap of themselves, and he looked on me as dirt. On me,’ cried Mrs. Carney, rising, and her voice leaping an octave, ‘me, who was a lady’s maid, and was well educated as a companion to gentry. Aye. I knew French at one time, and could play the piano and paint on velvet, and do things the like of which are never heard of nowadays. But Trevick left me to go to London, and never came back. Out of sight, out of mind with him. Oh, deary me.’ She hid her hands under her apron and stared at the glimpse of blue sea seen between the rocks, viewing probably in her mind’s eye the golden days of her distant youth.

  Forde made no remark, knowing that she would recommence the story after a time, and anxious to hear all that she could say about herself.

  ‘Yes,’ went on the old woman, still gazing at the ocean, ‘he left me, did Trevick, but I wasn’t one to pine away for such as he. Oh, no, not at all. There were lots of them, and when Miss Gyles—she that I was companion to—got married, I could pick and choose a handsome man as well as she. And I did. I picked out the ugliest of the bunch. Lord knows why I did it,’ muttered the witch, rubbing her beaky nose; ‘he wasn’t tall nor fine-looking, and he wasn’t rich. I couldn’t get Trevick, but Bowring was willing to make me his wife, though I never could abear him. Nor Carney either, for the matter of that. But he got round me in his wheedling way and we were married. Then he left me to starve,’ said Mrs. Carney angrily, ‘with Hugh a babe at the breast.’

  ‘Where did he go?’ asked Forde idly.

  ‘Lord knows, young man. He disappeared like a drop of water over five and twenty year
s ago, if not more, and never have I set eyes on him since—no, never.’

  ‘He may be dead.’

  ‘Dead!’ echoed the hag with a screech; ‘men like Carney never die, I can tell you, young sir. Good men die, pretty babes die, strong wenches die, but the devil looks after his own, and Carney was the son of Old Nick, for all his wheedling and pious talk. Well, he’s gone’—she flung her apron over her head, rocking to and fro in her grief—‘and I’m left here like a bare stone on the hillside.’

  Forde looked at the grey stone walls of the hut, with the moss and lichens growing in the cracks; at the thatched roof of dried grass and fern; at the small window and crazy door, and pitied the pair who dwelt there. Anak certainly could look after himself, and was strong enough to laugh at the weather when living in such a tumbledown house, but Mrs. Carney was frail and looked decidedly ill.