Cleek cocked his head persuasively at her.
"I won't be a minute – really. But that thumbscrew has got me guessing, as our American cousins say. I suppose there's no lock on the door? Gad! but it opens easily enough. Been fairly recently oiled, I take it?"
"Not that I know of. In fact, I don't believe any one's been in the place since Ross came down here, three months ago, to show a friend round. Perhaps he oiled it then."
"Perhaps. I won't be a minute, really. And I've another torch, if you'd like it. Here." He tossed it to her, and, keeping his spot light ahead of him, entered the dark, dank, evil-smelling place, his footsteps ringing upon the stone flooring and sending the echoes scampering into the corners, together with more tangible – and verminous – things. There was nothing in the first room, but beyond it he came upon the Torture Chamber and all those instruments of cruelty which marked a less kindly period of the world's history. And this Chamber was larger than the other cell. Rusty hooks hung from the ceiling, of incredible size and suggesting unthinkable horrors, and over all hung the odour of damp and decay, mingled with something more modern, which caused Cleek to stop suddenly and sniff like a terrier scenting a rat.
"Strange!" he said to the silence and the solitude of that awful place, "but she said the cellars were over there! But if someone hasn't been drinking spirits here a short time ago, I miss my guess! And, what's more, someone has! A solitary debauch, I suppose. Now, who the dickens would have thought it?"
His torch caught a glimmer of something that shone like glass – which was glass, in fact, and resolved itself into a cracked tumbler beside which stood a syphon of soda and an empty bottle smelling strongly of whisky.
"Whew! Nice little place for a quiet read and a smoke – I don't think!" he apostrophized it. "With rats in the corners and ghosts all around – brrh! He's a strange fellow who likes this sort of company, I must say. But there's nothing to be nosed out here in this pleasant little den. I'll just take a glimpse through the next one, and then get back to Miss Duggan, or she'll be getting the creeps and run."
He had started back, and had just swung his torch through the doorway beyond, when of a sudden he stopped, sucked in his breath, and fairly ran into the place, head down, nose to the ground, like a dog, every faculty alert.
What he saw there is not recorded, for just at that moment he heard Miss Duggan's clear voice calling him, and he had perforce to answer. But he had time to stoop suddenly and swoop down upon something white but slightly bloodstained which lay on the ground before him, dart a hasty glance at it, and cram it into his pocket, before swinging round upon his heel and answering her summons; and all the time saying to himself: "Who'd have thought it? Now who the dickens would have thought it?"
Meanwhile he fingered the slightly bloodstained handkerchief which he had picked up, and upon which by the light of his torch he had remarked the initials "R. D." embroidered in one corner. And he laughed softly and joyfully clapped his hands together.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN THE SWORD FELL
Luncheon at Aygon Castle resolved itself into a somewhat dull and ceremonious affair, and although there were a good many of them round the festive board, conversation languished and laughter was noticeable by its absence.
"What a devil of a family to live with! – sitting as though there were a cold-water poultice on top of 'em," mentally registered Cleek as he surveyed the company and tried his best to add to the general interest by anecdotes of a recent tour in Ireland; but his conversational efforts evoked only an occasional "Indeed?" from Sir Andrew. Entertaining these people ought to be a paid task in itself, he decided. They hadn't got any further with civilization than the hired-jester period. Gloom was glory to the atmosphere of that room during the interminable meal. He looked from one to another keenly.
First the old laird, solemn as a judge, and concerned only with what was put before him, with the strange greed of the very old; and at the foot of the table, his lady, offering a contrast that was as darkness to day. Cleek sat on the right of his host with Maud Duggan beside him, and opposite her brother Ross – a big, broad-shouldered, hawk-nosed chap with the small blue eye of the Scot, keen as a knife-blade, and showing in the winged flare of nostril the blood that ran in his veins. A likable, clever fellow. Cleek warmed to him on sight. And yet – his eye swung on him again. Next to Ross sat Miss McCall, eyes downcast, speaking only when spoken to, very patiently the servant of a mistress who would instantly quell any attempt at familiarity or breach of position upon her part; and next to Miss McCall, little Cyril, black-haired, brown-eyed, wide-lipped as any other Italian boy, with the soft olive bloom upon his cheeks that is youth's own birthright.
"And they called him Cyril! – a wishy-washy name like that!" thought Cleek disgustedly, looking long at him. "What a perfectly beautiful boy! And looks delicate, too. No wonder the mother loves him. There's something appealing in those pansy eyes of his that would lure blood from a stone. I must have a chat with him later on. He'll tell me much of this strange family, if I get the right side of him to begin with."
He commenced tactics right away, and caught Cyril's boyish fancy in a wonderful story of a heroic and marvellous engine-driver whom he had known.
"And I'll tell you some more about him, too – after lunch is over – if you'll take me out and show me the grounds of this beautiful place," he promised, with a nod and a smile which won Cyril's hero-worshipping soul instantly and gained for Cleek an ally who, if handled in the right way, might prove more useful than he had at first imagined. "There's one story I remember about the Calais express, and how that chap got the better of a pack of Apaches who were after the mail-bags. Gospel-truth! – it's wonderful! We're goin' to be good pals, Cyril, I can see."
"Only, please, please do not fill his mind up with any more imaginings, Mr. Deland, than he has already got for himself," threw in Lady Paula, with an arch glance at Cleek and a little self-conscious laugh. "He is already filled to the brim with his stepbrother's electrical madnesses. Ross has woven a spell over him, I think, in which – what do you call it? – flex and tungsten and short-circuits and all the rest of that impossible jargon of these light-fiends are inextricably mixed. I sometimes fear for Cyril's sanity! He talks in his sleep all night long of these things, and then wakes in the morning, pale as death. But I cannot make him do other than spend all these beautiful, long summer days in that stuffy laboratory with Ross, watching him at what he calls his experiments."
She flashed a smile into Ross Duggan's suddenly flushed face, as though the words she spoke bore no intended sting and innocence alone had prompted her to speak her mind thus freely. But the timed shaft had its desired effect, for Cyril turned quickly upon his mother with darkening brows.
"So silly of you, Mater, not wanting me to learn all about that ripping electricity. And Ross knows such a lot, too, and I love to sit and watch him. And he lets me help sometimes – don't you, Ross?"
"Yes, old chap."
"Well, then, I can't see what all the fuss is about, Mater. I really can't. Why, that light in my room's ripping for reading at night, instead of the fuggy old lamp we used to have there, and – "
An agonized look from Maud Duggan sent his brave words trailing off into nothingness. But already the mischief was done. The black cloud had settled upon Sir Andrew's face, and the sluggish blood was clotting in temple veins and cheeks, telling of the anger within. The pin-point eyes under their beetling brows were more steel-like than ever. He rose to his feet suddenly, and brought one shaking fist down upon the table-top with a force that sent the glasses jangling and the table silver rattling to the tune of it.
"Have done!" he thundered furiously, trembling in a rage that had become an old man's obsession, and which responded to the constant playing upon it like a deep-throated viola in the hands of a musician who understood it; "have done with all this extravagant nonsense! Haven't I threatened Ross enough as it is, to take his time-wasting, money-eating experiments out of my house? – and now he not only disobeys my spoken word, but actually causes the illness of my youngest son himself. Pale? – of course the boy is pale! Hanging about indoors in a stuffy room,