We had been watched then, and by the Secret Service detectives. I wasglad that Marjory had promised not to go out till I came. If "Mac's men"had seen her, others might also; and the eyes of the others might havebeen more penetrating, or their reasoning powers more keen. However, Ithought it well to send her a word of warning. I copied Adams's letterinto mine, with just a word or two of love added. I was amazed to findthat altogether it ran to several pages! The gillie of the hotel took itover in a pony cart, with instructions to bring me back an answer toWhinnyfold. For safety I enclosed it in an envelope to Mrs. Jack. Then,when I had written a few notes and telegrams, I biked over to my houseon the cliff.
It was a bleak afternoon and everything seemed grey, sky and sea alike;even the rocks, with their crowning of black seaweed swept with the foamof lapping waves. Inside the house nothing had of course been stirred;but it seemed so bleak without a fire and with the curtains wide, that Imade up a fire of billets and drew the heavy curtains close. As I stoodin the great bay window and looked out on the fretting sea, and listenedto the soughing of the rising wind, a great melancholy seemed to stealover me, so that I became in a way lost in a mist of gloom. So far asI remember, my thoughts were back with the time when I had seen theprocession of the dead coming up out of the sea from the Skares beyond,and of the fierce looking Spaniard who walked alone in their ranks andlooked at me with living eyes. I must have been in a sort of day-dreamand unconscious of all around me; for, though I had not noticed any oneapproaching, I was startled by a knocking at the door. The house was notquite finished; there were electric bells in position, but they had notyet been charged, and there was no knocker on the door. The knocking wasthat of bare knuckles on a panel. I thought of course that it was thegillie back from Crom, for I did not expect any one else; so I went atonce and opened the door. I recoiled with pure wonder. There, lookinggrave and dignified, an incarnation of the word 'gentleman' stood DonBernardino. His eyes, though now serene, and even kindly, were the eyesof the dead man from the sea. Behind him, a few yards off, stood GormalaMacNiel with an eager look on her face, half concealed by such a grinas made me feel as though I had been trapped, or in some way brought tobook. The Spaniard at once spoke:
"Sir, your pardon! I wish much that I may speak with you in private, andsoon. Forgive me if that I trouble you, but it is on a matter of suchmoment, to me at the least, that I have ventured an intrusion. I learnedat the hotel that you had hither come; so with the guidance of this goodlady, who did me much inform, I have found." As he spoke of Gormala,he half turned and made a gesture towards her. She had been watchingour every movement with cat-like eagerness; but when she saw that wewere speaking of her, a dark look swept her face, and she moved awayscowling. The Spaniard went on:
"What I have to say is secret, and I would be alone with you. May itbe that I enter your house; or will you come to mine? I do not mean mycastle of Crom, but the house at Ellon which I have taken, until suchtime as the Senora Jack and that so fair patriot of hers shall wish toleave it." His manner was so gravely courteous and his bearing so noble,that I found it almost impossible to mistrust him, even when thereflashed across my memory that dark red-eyed look of his at Crom, whichrecalled so vividly the dead Spaniard with the living eyes of hate inthe procession of ghosts from the Skares. I felt that, in any case,it could not do any harm to hear what he had to say: 'Forewarned isforearmed' is a good apothegm in dealing with an enemy. I motioned himinto the house; he bowed gravely and entered. As I shut the door behindus, I caught sight of Gormala with an eager look on her face stealingswiftly towards the house. She evidently wanted to be near enough towatch, and to hear if she could.
As I was opening the door of the drawing-room for Don Bernardino toenter, a sudden glimpse of its interior, seen in the dim light throughthe chinks of the shutters, changed my plans. This was the roomimprovised as a dressing room for Marjory, and the clothes which she hadworn in the cave were scattered about the room, hung over the backs ofchairs to dry. Her toilet matters also were on the table. AltogetherI felt that to bring the stranger into the room would not only be anindelicacy towards my wife, but might in some way give a clue to ourenemy to guess our secret. With a hasty excuse I closed the door andmotioned my guest into the dining room across the hall. I asked himto be seated, and then went over to the window and pulled aside thecurtains to give us light. I felt that somehow I was safer in the light,and that it might enable me to learn more than I could have done in thedim twilight of the curtained room.
When I turned round, the Spaniard was still standing, facing me. Heappeared to be studiously keeping himself still; but I could see thatunder his long black lashes his eyes were roaming round the room.Unconsciously to myself, as I know now, my eyes followed his and took inthe frightful untidiness of the place. The great hearth was piled withextinct ashes; the table was littered with unwashed cups and platesand dishes, for we had not cleared up anything after our night in thecave. Rugs and pillows were massed untidily on the floor, and the staleprovisions on the table made themselves manifest in the close atmosphereof the room. I was moving over to throw up the window so as to let in alittle fresh air, when I remembered that Gormala was probably outsidewith her ears strained close to the wall to hear anything that we mightsay. So, instead, I apologised for the disorder, saying that I hadcamped me there for some days whilst working at my book--the excuse Ihad given at the hotel for my spells of solitary life.
The Spaniard bowed low with grave courtesy, and implored that I wouldmake no apology. If there were anything not perfect, and for himself hedid not see it, such deficiencies were swept away and lost in the tideof honour with which I had overwhelmed him in the permission to enter myhouse; and much more to the same effect.
Then he came to the serious side of things and began to speak to thepoint.
CHAPTER XL
THE REDEMPTION OF A TRUST
"Senor, you may wonder why I am here, and why I would speak with youalone and in secret. You have seen me only in a place, which though myown by birthright, was dominated by the presence of ladies, who alas! bytheir nationality and the stress of war were mine enemies. From you isnot such. Our nations are at peace, and there is no personal reason whywe should not be of the most friendly. I come to you, Senor, because itis borne to me that you are cavalier. You can be secret if you will, andyou will recognise the claims of honour and duty, of the highest. Thecommon people know it not; and for the dear ladies who have their ownhonour, our duties in such are not a part of their lives--nay! they arebeyond and above the life as it is to us. I need not tell you of asecret duty of my family, for it is known to me that all of such isalready with you. The secret of the Pope's treasure and of the duty ofmy House to guard and restore it has been in your mind. Oh yes, this Iknow" for he saw I was about to speak. "Have I not seen in your handsthat portion of the book, so long lost!" Here he stopped and his eyesnarrowed; some thought of danger, necessitating caution, had cometo him. I, too, was silent; I wanted to think. Unless I had utterlymisconceived him, he had made an extraordinary admission; one which hadgiven him away completely. The only occasion on which I had seen himwas when he had pointed out to us that the pages which I had foundbelonged to the book in the library. It is true that we had suggested tohim that there was a cipher in the marking of the letters, but he hadnot acknowledged it. At the time he certainly did not convey the idea tous that he believed we had grasped the secret. How then did he know; oron what assumption did he venture to state that I knew his secret. Herewas a difficult point to pass. If I were silent he would take all forgranted; in such case I might not learn anything of his purpose. So Ispoke:
"Your pardon, Sir, but you presume a knowledge on my part of some secrethistory of your family and of a treasure of the Pope; and then accountfor it that you have seen in my hand the book, a part of which was longlost. Am I to take it that because there is, or may be, a secret, anyone who suspects that there is one must know it?" The steady eyes of theSpaniard closed, narrower and narrower still, till the pupils lookedlike those of a cat in the dark; a narrow slit with a cavern of firewithin. For fully half a minute he continued to look at me steadily, andI own that I felt disconcerted. In this matter he had the advantage ofme. I knew that what he said was true; I did know the secret of theburied treasure. He had some way of knowing the extent of my knowledgeof the matter. He was, so far, all truth; I was prevaricating--and weboth knew it! All at once he spoke; as though his mind were made up, andhe would speak openly and frankly. The frankness of a Latin was a felland strange affair:
"Why shall we beat about the bush. I know; you know; and we both knowthat the other knows. I have read what you have written of the secretwhich you have drawn from those marked pages of the law book."
As he spoke the whole detail of his visit to Crom rose before me. Atthat time he had only seen the printed pages of the cipher; he had notseen my transcript which had lain, face down, upon the table. We hadturned it, on hearing some one coming in.
"Then you have been to the castle again!" I said suddenly. My object wasto disconcert him, but it did not succeed. In his saturnine franknesshad been a complete intention, which was now his protection againstsurprise.
"Yes!" he said slowly, and with a smile which showed his teeth, like thewolf's to Red Ridinghood.
"Strange, they did not tell me at Crom," I said as though to myself.
"They did not know!" he answered. "When next I visited my own house, itwas at night, and by a way not known, save to myself." As he spoke, thecanine teeth began to show. He knew that what he had to tell was wrong;and being determined to brazen it out, the cruelty which lay behind hisstrength became manifest at once. Somehow at that moment the racialinstinct manifested itself. Spain was once the possession of the Moors,and the noblest of the old families had some black blood in them. InSpain, such is not, as in the West, a taint. The old diabolism whencesprung fantee and hoo-doo seemed to gleam out in the grim smile ofincarnate, rebellious purpose. It was my cue to throw my antagonist offhis guard; to attack the composite character in such way that one partwould betray the other.
"Strange!" I said, as though to myself again. "To come in secret intoa house occupied by another is amongst civilised people regarded as anoffence!"
"The house is my own!" he retorted quickly, with a swarthy flush.
"Strange, again!" I said. "When Mrs. Jack rented the castle, there wasno clause in her agreement of a right to the owner to enter by a secretway! On the contrary such rights as the owner reserved were exactlyspecified."
"A man has a right to enter his own house, when and how he will; and toprotect the property which is being filched from him by strangers!" Hesaid the last words with such manifest intention of offence that I stoodon guard. Evidently he wanted to anger me, as I had angered him. Idetermined that thenceforward I should not let anything which he mightsay ruffle me. I replied with deliberate exasperation:
"The law provides remedies for any wrongs done. It does not, that Iknow of, allow a man to enter secretly into a house that he has let toanother. There is an implied contract of peaceful possession, unlessentry be specified in the agreement." He answered disdainfully:
"My agent had no right to let, without protecting such a right."
"Ah, but he did; and in law we are bound by the acts of our agents.'_Facit per alium_' is a maxim of law. And as to filching, let me tellyou that all your property at Crom is intact. The pieces of paper thatyou claimed were left in the book; and the book has remained as youyourself placed it on the shelf. I have Mrs. Jack's word that it wouldbe so." He was silent; so, as it was necessary that the facts as theyexisted should be spoken of between us, I went on:
"Am I to take it that you read the private papers on the table of thelibrary during your nocturnal visit? By the way, I suppose it wasnocturnal."
"It was."
"Then sir," I spoke sharply now, "who has done the filching? We--MissDrake and I--by chance discovered those papers. As a matter of fact theywere in an oaken chest which I bought at an auction in the streets ofPeterhead. We suspected a cipher and worked at it till we laid bare themystery. This is what we have done; we who were even ignorant of yourname! Now, what have you done? You come as an admitted guest, bypermission, into a house taken in all good faith by strangers. Whenthere you recognised some papers which had been lost. We restored themto you. Honour demanded that you should have been open with us afterthis. Did you ask if we had discovered the secret of the trust? No! Youwent away openly; and came back like a thief in the night and filchedour secret. Yes sir, you did!" He had raised his hand in indignantprotest. "It was our secret then, not yours. Had you interpreted thesecret cipher for yourself, you would have been within your rights; andI should have had nothing to say. We offered to let you take the bookwith you; but you refused. It is evident that you did not know the wholesecret of the treasure. That you knew there was a treasure and a secretI admit; but the key of it, which we had won through toil, you stolefrom us!"
"Senor!" the voice was peremptory and full of all that was bestand noblest in the man. "A de Escoban is not wont to hear such anallegation; and he who makes such shall in the end have his own deathto answer for!" He stopped suddenly, and at his stopping I exultedsecretly; though I wished to punish him for his insinuation that Marjoryhad filched from him, I had no desire to become entangled in a duel. Iwas determined to go on, however; for I would not, at any hazard, passa slight upon my peerless wife. I think that his sudden pause meantthought; and thought meant a peaceful solution of things on my ownlines. Nevertheless, I went on forcing the issue:
"I rejoice, sir, that you are not accustomed to hear such allegations;I trust that you are also not accustomed to deserve them!" By this timehe was calm again, icily calm. It was wonderful with what rapidity, andhow widely, the pendulum of his nature swung between