The Castle by the Sea/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE DEATH WATCH
I REACHED the Castle between five and six o'clock and spent some time in exploring the orchard and the copse. Here I was sought by Jackman with the news that a gentleman had called to inquire if he might look over the picture-gallery.
"Did Sir Gilbert allow that?" I asked him.
"Yes, sir; he made no objections, provided they were respectable," he answered.
"Maintain Sir Gilbert's rule," I said, dismissing him and the subject.
The stranger was not gone, I gathered, on my return to the house, but I went straight to my own room and made some notes that had occurred to me in the course of my solitude. Here again Jackman intruded on me. There was another gentleman,—this time to see me. I threw down my pen in chagrin.
"What name?" I asked, wondering if some neighbor had called.
Jackman's silver salver held a card.
"Mr. Edward Joyce," I read. "I know no Joyce, and there's no address. However, show him in."
The moment he entered, I knew him for the second of the two men I had seen at the "Feathers." I gave him good afternoon shortly and awaited his communication. He was sleek mannered, and insinuating, and was elegantly clad in a dark lounge suit.
"Pray excuse me, sir," he began ceremoniously. "But it is my duty to leave this with you."
He took something from his pocket and held it out. I stared.
"What is it?" I asked, all unsuspecting. I had a vague notion that I had before me some commercial traveller with samples, or some wine-merchant's tout. He placed the paper in my hands, and I opened it, while he took up his hat and made preparations for immediate departure. My voice arrested him.
"Stay, what the devil is this?" I asked. "I'm not Sir Gilbert Norroy."
"You will find it all correct, sir," he said, closing his bag with a snap, and as if deprecating my outbreak.
"But, damn it, I tell you I'm not Sir Gilbert," I said, with some impatience.
He looked at me non-committally. I glanced again at the amazing document, which was no other than a writ for eight hundred pounds.
"Do you understand?" I asked sharply.
"Yes, sir. I understand you to deny that you are Sir Gilbert Norroy," he said evenly. "I have carried out my instructions, and much regret the necessity. And now I'll wish you good afternoon, sir."
"Look you here, my good sir," said I, aggravated into anger by his obvious incredulity. "This requires a little more explanation than you have given. You bring me a writ for eight hundred pounds and thrust it into my hands on the supposition that I am Sir Gilbert Norroy. I tell you that I am not. This is Sir Gilbert's property, of which I am tenant for a few months. My name is Brabazon."
For the first time he looked a little disconcerted.
"Brabazon!" he repeated weakly.
"Now, who are you," I went on, "to make this egregious blunder, which any one in the place could have prevented you making, if you had asked a simple question?"
"I represent the solicitors who are acting for th—for the creditor," he said rather awkwardly.
"Then let me recommend you, Mr. Joyce, in all friendliness, to go back to your employers," I said, "and bid them be more careful, if they do not want to face an action for damages. Good afternoon."
He hesitated, lifted his hat and bag, hesitated again, and looked at me.
"You are an unbelieving dog, Mr. Joyce," I said, shaking my head at him; "but they say an Englishman never knows when he is beaten, and I suppose I ought to respect that crass-headedness. Well, will you oblige me by ringing that bell? Thank you."
"I'm sorry, sir," said Mr. Joyce, as he waited. "But my instructions were very explicit."
Jackman arrived at the signal. "Jackman," said I, "this gentleman has got it into his foolish noddle that I am Sir Gilbert Norroy. Would you be good enough to tell him who I am."
"Mr. Brabazon, sir," said Jackman promptly, but with no special enthusiasm.
"And now, Mr. Joyce, pray do not let me delay you," I went on. "I've no doubt you have to catch a train."
He backed out awkwardly, with a stuttered apology, and I went to the window and watched him go. As he passed out, I heard the descending steps of some one in the hall, and Jackman arrived to shut the door politely on me.
"The gentleman who was looking at the pictures is going, sir," he said in explanation, as he closed himself out in the hall to send off the stranger. The stranger departed in the rear of Mr. Joyce. I rang the bell again.
"Who was the visitor?" I demanded of Jackman, when he came. He returned from the hall with a card, which was inscribed "Mr. A. C. Naylor," with the name of a reputable London club.
I had been in Norroy Castle, you will remember, only twenty four hours, and the current events had roused suspicions in me. There was the attempted burglary; there was the note-book; there was this odd mistake of the solicitor's clerk. But it was the note-book that was in my mind at this moment. I leap to conclusions easily, perhaps too lightly; but at least it is more amusing than waiting to be poked up with a pole. This Mr. Naylor had outstayed the light, which no self-respecting picture should endure. And what was there familiar in the cock of his head? At any rate, I would wrest all from life that life was disposed to offer, and I cared not a dump for dinner. I clapped on my cap and bolted after the stranger, just the moment that his identity flashed on me. I knew that Homburg hat now, set so elegantly askew with the correct tip. It was worn by the man whom I had seen as I drove up to the gates of the Castle on the previous evening. My mind connected him with the note-book with a huge interrogation—inconsequently, thank Heaven. I ran after him.
Once out in the open, I took to the grass and sped away in the direction of the gates. The light was failing, as I have indicated, but everything was still clearly visible and would be so for an hour. I had the regiment of chestnuts betwixt me and the drive, and so broke into the meadow which ended my domain on that side, still keeping under the trees. When I reached the gates, Mr. Naylor had already issued and was going down the lane. But here I was brought up by an abrupt chain of new thoughts; for he was descending in a leisurely manner in the company of Mr. Joyce!
This was an association that even my flighty suspicions had not reached. Yet I will admit it opened a world of bright possibilities to me. I was seized with simultaneous rage and delight, and I began to track this pair like a panther. It was comparatively easy to keep beyond eyeshot of them in this meandering, curving lane, and tracked and tracker arrived at the village without disturbance. The two men sought the "Feathers," and after a little interval I followed them. The first person on whom my eyes alighted was Mr. Eustace, burying his long nose in a tankard.
"Hulloa!" he saluted me. "Have a drink." I declined, with a little distance in my voice, which he heeded not at all. "How are the ladies?" he inquired casually, as if he would suggest that I had been with them ever since we parted company; adding, "It's infernally slow, is n't it."
If it was so "slow," I wondered why he was staying here, apparently as a summer visitor, but I was naturally too polite to express my thoughts. However, I was not giving Mr. Eustace much of my attention; it was Mr. Naylor and Mr. Joyce who excited me.
"Is a Mr. Naylor staying here?" I asked the landlord plumply.
Eustace was raising his tankard, and at my question he lowered it again, and stared at me.
"No, sir," said the innkeeper, after due deliberation.
"Is a Mr. Joyce?" I asked, with further bluntness.
Eustace betrayed no interest. "No, sir," again said the man.
"They both came in just now," I persisted, nodding across the passage.
Eustace's gaze followed my finger, and remained there with its customary deliberation.
"Ah, friends of Mr. Horne's, perhaps, sir," said the landlord. "He had some come from Fairburn."
Friends of Mr. Horne's. I had not got very far. Who was Mr. Horne? I had my mental eye on the little fair man with blue eyes, and his head deep in his shoulders. Eustace was whistling cheerily. I got up, and was going out, when the door of the private room across the way opened.
"Landlord!" called a voice, a cultivated, somewhat effeminate voice.
The landlord bustled away to his guest. "That's Naylor," said I, confidentially to Eustace.
He winked at me. "Damned popinjay!" he said.
I did n't know. I had no definite notion about Mr. Naylor, but when the innkeeper returned, he kindly indulged our curiosity, perhaps remembering my questions.
"That gentleman's going to stay to-night. It is Mr. Naylor," he communicated. "T'other's going off to catch the 9.30."
"T'other," I took to mean Mr. Joyce. It was all very simple, no doubt, and I had already spent my interest along with my suspicion. I bade Eustace and the innkeeper good night, and arrived at the Castle as night fell. Then I did my best with a belated dinner, for which Mrs. Jackman had done her best.
Jackman explained this to me humbly, and I apologized.
"The evening was so beautiful, and the country is so lovely," I said; and then I added, "Did Sir Edmund always live here?"
"I believe so, sir," said Jackman. "But I never was here until after his death. Sir Gilbert was my master, sir; Mr. Gilbert, as he was then, before his uncle died."
"Sir Edmund was unmarried?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, rather a recluse, as they call it," explained Jackman; "a gentleman fond of books, though, and pictures."
I remembered the gallery again. "Those jewels and the plate ought to have been sent long ago to safe custody," I declared.
"Yes, sir," agreed Jackman. "Sir Edmund liked to have them on the premises, sir. 'Twas his 'obby. They're family heirlooms, though the estate isn't entailed."
I was in the mood for investigations into the Norroy family, and after my meal I explored the library. I think I almost hoped for a repetition of the alarm of the previous night. But it was quiet enough and silent, and my candle illumined but a patch of its unruffled darkness. I rambled from bookcase to bookcase, quarrying with my eyes. The shelves provided a sort of dado to the gallery throughout, rising to the height of some six feet; and over these the pictures were hung upon the walls. But at the further end, where the door into the strong-room showed, there were no pictures, and the bookcases had run into bays in which one might shelter from the rest of the room in imperfect light and bookworm comfort. But I had not traversed the whole gallery as far as this, when I wearied of my task, and, pausing before a little nest of topography, took out a volume with a pertinent title—"The Inlets of Devon." It was a shabby, faded book, published in the sixties, but I bore it away to inspect in company with two or three of its neighbors. The glorious May weather had rendered my fire unnecessary, but I sat for some time over my tobacco ere retiring, and dipped into the volumes. There was some matter of local interest in the book I have named, which included an account of the Southington inlet with a brief note on Norroy Castle. The range of that coast is pierced with many indentations, all offering promise to the romantic lover of scenery. I know of no coast-line so attractively broken as the shore of South Devon. But at Southington we were even more picturesquely retired than any of our neighbors, recluses from the noise and bustle of the busy ports and watering-places. Our little village in its isolation confronts and claims its own native sea, exercising an air of proprietorship which none can dispute, and indeed which there is none to dispute, unless, perhaps, it be the little hamlet of the Point. And so, according to my guide-book, this tract of country had been notorious once as a theatre for the operations of smugglers. "To that illicit trade," said the writer, "its inaccessibility and loneliness no less than the opportunity of its foreshore gave temptations; and it was reputed that the neighboring gentry winked at the freebooters, if they did not actually participate with them, as sometimes happened during the eighteenth century."
I could quite conceive of the estuary as a charming place to run a cargo, and, if my guide was correct, the Norroys of the Castle had tapped many a keg of smuggled brandy, and strutted in handsome silks that had paid no tribute to King George. The Norroys I had already had the curiosity to look up in a volume of Debrett, while in town. The title had been bought, compulsorily no doubt, from James I, when he was seized of his bright idea for raising money, and had descended in a long and undistinguished line to my landlord, Sir Gilbert. So far as I could discover, the family had never emerged into notice but once, and that was when the seventh baronet, who had entered the army, displayed gallantry in the wars, which no doubt accounted for the gold plate mentioned by Jackman. Otherwise the Norroys lived and died unknown to fame, country squires, hard drinkers, big eaters, and, it seemed, illicit traffickers, deviating oddly into Sir Edmund, the lover of books and pictures. What had happened since his death, I could only surmise, but I had heard rumors, through an acquaintance, of a young man who had "gone the pace." Probably then, content with that single deviation, the family had resumed itself and its level. But as I had never seen my landlord, and only dealt through his solicitors in Chancery Lane, my surmise was but an hypothesis.
The Norroys in turn ceased to interest me, and I yawned, and looked at the clock. It was still early, but I was tired with the strong sea air and my exercise during the day and so I went to bed, armed with a book against emergencies. Yet I found myself unlikely to require that, so sleepy was I. Having undressed, I lay down, and, I believe, should have fallen asleep forthwith, had it not been for what I imagined at first to be the ticking of my watch. At least it merged in my ear with that sound, only seeming to come louder when my head was on the pillow. I might even so have gone off, had it recurred as methodically as the beat of the watch; but suddenly it stopped, and thus arrested my attention. I wondered, flung up my head, and listened. The watch on the dressing-table ticked on comfortably and dully and my head resumed the pillow. I was dozing off, when again the noise started, and this time somewhat louder, but now altogether refusing connection with the humble watch. I rose and listened. The noise ceased, and I lay back to hear it continue. Tick! Tick! Tick! And then ensued silence. I got up once more, and gazed about the room for a clock which might somehow explain the sounds. But nothing of the sort was visible. I went to the window and thrust open a casement wider, parting the curtains, and letting in the fresh night air. The sea mourned on the shingle a quarter of a mile away, and the light of a steamer moving homeward up the Channel picked out the darkness.
I went to bed again, and the tick repeated itself mechanically, monotonously. I was annoyed and aggravated. What on earth was it? I knelt down and put my ear to the floor, and seemed to hear it dulled and distant. Then I got into bed again and it grew almost sonorous. I set my ears to the wall and it had swollen in volume. Ah, I thought to myself, here is the explanation.
As I turned, almost satisfied, footsteps sounded outside in the passage, soft, list-slippered footsteps. I abandoned my riddle to the winds and sprang to the door. If this were my burglar again—!
But it was only Jackman, solemnly and softly doing the rounds ere he retired. He was more alarmed than I, and, as usual, was profuse with his apologies; after last night he had considered it advisable to see that all was well.
I commended his excess of zeal and called his attention to my mystery. He lay on the bed reluctantly, and with the embarrassment of a good servant who is made to take a liberty; and he listened. Then he put his ear to the wall, on my invitation.
"It's the death-tick!" he announced, with a fallen jaw. For the moment Jackman looked human, a creature scared and anxious.
"Nonsense!" said I.
"It's the death- tick, sir," he repeated. "Mrs. Jackman heard it when her mother died."
"Well, neither you nor I are going to die," I said cheerfully. "I'll tell you really what it is; it's the sound of a clock conveyed through the conducting wall. Quite an ordinary phenomenon. Is there a clock up-stairs?"
"In the gallery, sir asked Jackman, and added his answer, "Yes, sir, I wind it up every week."
"Eureka!" I cried triumphantly. "Jackman, we've hit it. The sound comes down some sensitive passage-way in the old wall. That's it."
Jackman did not look convinced; I could see he had fastened his fancy on the death-tick. I dismissed him and went to bed. I was nearly asleep when I suddenly sat up with a thought. Why should the clock up-stairs beat intermittently? Why should it vary its time? And why should it vary also its volume? What a fool I had been to think I had the solution! Was it after all the death-watch in the wall?