The Crowned Skull Page 26

  ‘Take it out—take it out,’ he moaned, ‘I’ll tell you everything.’

  ‘No, you treacherous dog,’ panted Forde, glaring at him, ‘you’ll try this game on again with some other weapon.’

  ‘I have nothing—nothing else on me.’

  Forde rose slowly and placed his foot on Polwin’s wrist, then carefully went through his pockets, while the steward cursed him like a prophet. Finding a revolver, he took charge of it, and then, pulling up the knife, he flung Polwin aside and sat down, pointing the weapon at his head, the knife, having done its useful work, being under him.

  But there was no more fight in the steward. He bound up his wounded hand with his handkerchief and sullenly groaned with the pain. Below, in the mist, they heard the whimper of a human voice, and both men guessed that Morgan was hunting like a sleuth-hound for his enemy. Polwin for the first time turned craven.

  ‘Morgan Bowring! Don’t let him—’

  In a flash Forde saw how the land lay. Polwin feared the madman, and the barrister took advantage of this to get him down to the Tregeagle mine to face Sir Hannibal.

  ‘Morgan,’ he said deliberately, ‘will kill you as soon as he sets eyes on you, and I dare say Mrs. Carney has armed him with a pistol or a knife. It is just the sort of thing she would do. In your condition, Mr. Polwin’—Forde glanced at the bleeding hand which the man was nursing in agony—‘I don’t think you’ll be able to fight a madman as you fought me.’

  ‘Don’t! Don’t!’ pleaded the steward, all his nerve gone; ‘I’m afraid of Morgan. He’s mad, and lunatics have such strength. Besides, you would not let him touch me, would you, Mr. Forde?’

  ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see Morgan sticking or shooting you,’ said Oswald grimly, ‘for you are at the bottom of all this trouble.’

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘I say yes, yes! You killed Bowring, you put it about that Trevick was guilty, you fired the Grange, indirectly, of course; and you are the gentleman who forged that second will.’

  ‘It’s a lie.’

  ‘I can prove otherwise. However, I’ll give you your choice: Either you can stay here and I’ll send Morgan along to deal with you as he wants to—’

  ‘Oh!’ Polwin uttered a low cry, like a tormented animal. ‘No, not that.’

  ‘Or else,’ went on the barrister pitilessly, ‘you must come with me to the Tregeagle mine to explain your doings to Sir Hannibal.’

  ‘He’s there, is he?’ muttered the steward, getting on to his feet; ‘if I’d known that—’

  ‘You’d have put the police on his track?’

  ‘Why not? Bowring left him the money, which is rightfully mine.’

  ‘You liar! As if I hadn’t heard the truth from Mrs. Krent—’

  ‘My wife doesn’t know the truth.’

  ‘Mrs. Krent is not your wife, and Krent is not your name. You are Hugh Carney, who has committed bigamy, arson, murder and forgery. A pretty catalogue of crime to place before a jury, sir!’

  ‘I can defend myself,’ whimpered Polwin, and again below they heard the low, animal-like cries of the madman hunting for his prey.

  ‘I’ll give you a chance of defending yourself to Sir Hannibal. Get on!’ And driving Polwin before him like a sheep, Forde went down the hill. He did not know where he was, but deemed that by walking downward in any direction he would certainly strike the high road. And once there, he could get into the path for the Tregeagle mine. Another cry near at hand sent Polwin away with his captor readily enough. It was strange that so bold and dangerous a man should be so afraid of an idiot, whom he knew so well. But Morgan was more than an idiot now. He was a homicidal maniac, and Polwin’s threat that he should be locked up had made him determined to kill Polwin. All the same, Forde wondered at the abject fear displayed by the villain. The sweat was pouring off the man’s forehead and cheeks as they dropped downwards in the mists, Forde holding Polwin’s arm in case he should escape.

  Down and down they went amongst the briars and bracken and wet herbage, sometimes stumbling against a fence, or dropping into a ditch, or crashing against a huge granite stone. Finally, after half an hour, the mists grew thinner, and they came upon the high road. Across this the barrister guided his captive, and made him enter the stony track which led down to the grey tower of the Tregeagle mine. The air was quite clear here, but the band of mist still stretched between the sun and the earth. Above was fine weather, and below everything could be clearly seen, but the bank of mist stretched along the moors like a white cloud. And in that mist probably Morgan Bowring, hounded on by Mrs. Carney as one of the furies, was hunting.

  Just as they dipped into the watercourse which did duty for a road to the mine a man came running up quickly in a lumbering way. He was Anak, who had emerged as they crossed the road from the quarries, which were close at hand.

  ‘What’s all this?’ shouted the big man.

  Polwin’s eyes glittered, and he gave a wrench, as if to get away. But the next instant a revolver was at his ear and the barrister was speaking softly and rapidly:

  ‘Make Anak go with us to the mine, you dog,’ said Oswald savagely, ‘or I’ll blow your brains out.’

  ‘All right,’ muttered Polwin, ‘only don’t say that I’m his father.’

  ‘Doesn’t he know?’

  ‘No. He might kill me else. His devil of a mother has made him hate me. See, here he comes running up.’

  ‘What are you doing with Mr. Polwin?’ asked Anak threatening; ‘he is a friend of mine.’

  ‘He is more than a friend, he is your father,’ said Forde quickly.

  Polwin gave a cry and tried to get away, but the barrister held fast to his shoulder, and he winced with the pain of his wounded hand.

  ‘What!’ cried Anak fiercely, ‘are you my father, who deserted—’

  ‘Shut up,’ interrupted Forde sternly, ‘and come with me to the Tregeagle mine, Carney. This man has to render an account of his actions.

  ‘To me,’ cried Anak; ‘I’ll kill him.’

  ‘There has been too much killing,’ said Forde, forcing the steward down the watercourse, ‘he has to explain himself to Trevick.’

  ‘To Sir Hannibal? Is he in the Tregeagle—’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Carney,’ cried the barrister imperiously, ‘and come with me. You have cherished wrong feelings against Sir Hannibal, as you will learn. All will be explained.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Polwin with a significant look at his son; ‘all will be explained.’

  The big man changed colour and seemed to be somewhat dazed over the sudden discovery which the barrister had thrust upon him. They were still near the high road, and Polwin would have begun to argue in the hope of escaping. At that moment down the bank and out of the mist came Morgan in full cry. He carried an axe in his hand and leaped across the road with a bellow of rage when he saw the steward.

  ‘Stop him!’ cried Polwin, with a scream like that of a woman, and went tearing down the road to the mine dragging Forde after him at top speed. He was terrified for his life, and no wonder. Morgan, with his glittering eyes and disordered raiment and axe, looked anything but a safe man to tackle.

  But Anak, although he could not guess what all this was about, opened his mighty arms, and into them ran the madman, blind with rage. Leaving the two to struggle together, Polwin and Forde raced on and came to the slippery black rocks over the grey rubble tower. Down went the steward, scrambling like a cat. Oswald allowed him to go by himself, as he saw that the man, crazy with terror, certainly would seek shelter in the mine as the lesser of two evils.

  Forde, holding on to the tough grass, went over the black rocks also, and in a wonderfully short space of time the pair were standing under the shadow of the tower.

  ‘I know the mine! Come along!’ gasped the steward, hurrying round the corner amongst the fallen stones; ‘follow, follow!’

  Forde did so, when unexpectedly the steward rolled on to the rocks and would have slipped over to certa
in death but that the barrister caught him back in time. Polwin was gnashing his teeth with pain and weakness, for with his wounded hand and loss of blood and mad haste scrambling down the cliffs he was about spent.

  ‘Here!’ he said, setting his teeth and stripping off his coat, ‘tie your handkerchief tightly round my arm or I’ll lose too much blood.’

  The barrister saw the necessity of this, since the man’s bandaged hand was covered with blood. He bound his handkerchief tightly as a ligature round Polwin’s left arm above the elbow, and then assisted him to put on his coat. All the time Polwin, still terror-struck, kept glancing at the cliffs, expecting every moment to see Morgan with the axe.

  ‘Let’s get down,’ he muttered, running towards a gaping hole. ‘This is one way, and the most difficult, into the mine. The other slopes upward—the gallery, I mean—to within ten feet of the perpendicular shaft; this is straight all the way down. Look!’

  ‘No,’ said Forde, suspecting that the treacherous little man would push him over; ‘you go first.’

  Polwin, with a look of baffled hate, did so, and considering his almost useless left hand, and pain and a certain amount of weakness, he went downward at a perfectly miraculous rate of speed. The thought of Morgan lent fictitious strength to his muscles, for no ordinary man in such a condition could have reached the bottom of that dangerous shaft without being smashed. As Forde himself followed he wondered how it would be possible to get up again.

  The ladder had vanished, and the two went down holding on by decayed beams and projecting stones and obtaining precarious foothold where the crumbling of the sides had left niches. Silent and determined, they dropped down and down, until the blue sky was but a radiant speck at the end of a long tube.

  Finally they alighted, so to speak, on the earth of the first level, which ran directly towards and under the ocean. Polwin, strangely enough, seemed to know the way well, and plunged forward unhesitatingly. But he did not get ahead of the barrister, who thought that it was time to put a check on this too great freedom. Seizing the man’s arm, he readjusted the useful revolver to his ear.

  ‘You know what you’ll get if you try to escape?’ he breathed hurriedly.

  ‘That’s all right,’ snapped Polwin, dragging forward; ‘I’m going in here only to willingly.’

  ‘To escape Morgan Bowring?’ sneered Oswald contemptuously.

  ‘And to settle accounts with Trevick,’ retorted the other.

  There was evidently some devilment in the man’s mind, but not seeing what mischief he could do with a revolver at his ear, Forde permitted him, under restraint, to lead the way.

  On and on they crawled in those nightmare regions, the steward apparently seeing in the dark like a cat. At all events, he never mistook the way or stumbled, and Forde, by holding on, got forward fairly well. Then he bethought himself of the signal and sang ‘Home, Sweet Home’.

  Hardly had he got through a couple of lines when he heard a shout. A light appeared, then another, then a third, and the two men hurried towards this unexpected illumination.

  ‘Here—over here, Forde,’ cried Sir Hannibal loudly.

  Still gripping his prisoner, the barrister stumbled onward, and when he came within the circle of triple lights, found himself facing not only Trevick, but Dericka and Miss Anne Stretton.

  Chapter XXV Disaster

  The amazement of Forde at beholding the ladies was only equalled by the surprise of Sir Hannibal when he saw Polwin sullenly standing in the grip of the barrister.

  ‘How did you come here?’ he asked with nervous haste; ‘what do you want of me?’

  ‘Ask Mr. Forde that,’ whined the steward in a fawning manner, belied by the ferocious glitter of his usually meek eyes; ‘he made me come.’

  Trevick faced round. ‘Well?’ he asked the young man apprehensively.

  Forde did not reply immediately to the question. Forcing Polwin to his knees, he stood over him with the revolver, ready to fire should the man attempt to escape.

  ‘Keep still,’ said Oswald as the steward snapped and snarled like the mongrel dog he was. ‘You want to settle accounts with Sir Hannibal; here he is, settle them.’

  Trevick’s knees shook under him, and he would have fallen but that Anne put her arm within his. Dericka was the first person to break a somewhat oppressive silence:

  ‘Why did you bring this man here, Oswald?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘I’ll explain, and so will he,’ said the barrister, ‘but first tell me how you come to be in the mine with Miss Stretton?’

  ‘I brought her early this morning,’ said Anne quickly. ‘When I reached St. Ewalds last night I went at once to the Dower House and found Miss Trevick waiting up for her father. I explained, and she came on this morning with me to see what could be done.’

  ‘But that awful shaft, how did you get down?’

  ‘We came by the other,’ explained Dericka swiftly; ‘it is only a little distance away from this very spot.’

  ‘But it is so difficult to get down.’

  ‘No,’ said Trevick, trying to appear cool; ‘the other shaft is both difficult and dangerous, but the one these girls came by is easy. A ten-foot ladder took them down to a slope which descends to this level. Miss Stretton and myself found this easy way one day when we explored the mine. There is no difficulty in getting either out or in, Forde. But if you—’

  ‘Then I hope Morgan won’t come that way,’ said Oswald to himself.

  Dericka overheard. ‘What’s that you say?’ she asked.

  ‘Mrs. Carney told me that Morgan knows all the mines of this district, and therefore he must be aware of this second way, and will come by that probably,’ and he looked at the sullen Polwin, who shuddered with apprehension.

  ‘Why should Morgan come at all?’ asked Anne quickly.

  ‘Because he overheard Polwin, here, say last night to Mrs. Krent that he ought to be locked up for setting the Grange on fire. Morgan is terrified at the idea, and is mad enough to kill this man if he can get at him. We left him on the high road struggling with Anak, but if he escapes he will certainly come here, and then—’ Forde looked at Polwin again.

  That individual spoke harshly and to the point. ‘In that case you had better let me settle accounts with Sir Hannibal, as you say, and then I can hide myself in the recesses of the mine before that madman arrives.’

  ‘Are you afraid of him?’ asked Dericka with contempt.

  Polwin raised his wounded hand. ‘I can’t fight against a lunatic with an axe, hampered by this wound,’ he said coolly.

  ‘Who hurt you, Polwin?’ asked Trevick anxiously.

  ‘I did,’ said Forde readily, ‘but not before he had tried to stab me. Also,’ he flourished the revolver, ‘this weapon belongs to our friend. I took it from him and intend to use it against him unless he explains how he killed Bowring.’

  ‘What?’ cried all three in a breath; ‘did—’

  ‘No, I did not,’ said Polwin loudly, and would have struggled to his feet but that Forde’s hand on his shoulder kept him on his knees.

  ‘You did,’ said the barrister sternly; ‘Mrs. Carney—your wife—hinted as much, and—’

  ‘Oh,’ interrupted Sir Hannibal, ‘is Mrs. Carney aware of—’

  Forde interrupted in his turn. ‘I believe she knows everything, and only held her tongue because she did not know until an hour or two ago that Polwin was her husband. But you knew it, Trevick?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Hannibal, unsteadily, ‘I knew it, but I was forced to hold my tongue.’

  ‘And you’ll hold it still,’ threatened the steward, ‘else it will be the worse for you.’

  ‘There can be nothing worse than this, Polwin.’

  ‘Oh, yes; the gallows.’