Scarhaven Keep Page 11

  CHAPTER XI

  BENEATH THE BRAMBLES

  By the time Copplestone and the pseudo-curate had reached the plateau ofopen ground surrounding the ruins it seemed as if half the population ofScarhaven had gathered there. Men, women and children were swarming aboutthe door in the curtain wall, all manifesting an eager desire to passthrough. But the door was strictly guarded. Chatfield, armed with a newoak cudgel stood there, masterful and lowering; behind him were severalestate labourers, all keeping the people back. And within the door stoodMarston Greyle, evidently considerably restless and perturbed, and everynow and then looking out on the mob which the fast-spreading rumour hadcalled together. In one of these inspections he caught sight ofCopplestone, and spoke to Chatfield, who immediately sent one of hisbody-guard through the throng.

  "Mr. Greyle says will you go forward, sir?" said the man. "Your friendcan go in too, if he likes."

  "That's your clerical garb," whispered Copplestone as he and Gilling madetheir way to the door. "But why this sudden politeness?"

  "Oh, that's easy to reckon up," answered Gilling. "I see through it. Theywant creditable and respectable witnesses to something or other. Thisbig, heavy-jowled man is Chatfield, of course?"

  "That's Chatfield," responded Copplestone. "What's he after?"

  For the agent, as the two young men approached, ostentiously turned awayfrom them, moving a few steps from the door. He muttered a word or two tothe men who guarded it and they stood aside and allowed Copplestone andthe curate to enter. Marston Greyle came forward, eyeing Gilling with asharp glance of inspection. He turned from him to Copplestone.

  "Will you come in?" he asked, not impolitely and with a certain anxietyof manner. "I want you to--to be present, in fact. This gentleman is afriend of yours?"

  "An acquaintance of an hour," interposed Gilling, with ready wit. "I havejust come to stay at the inn--for my health's sake."

  "Perhaps you'll be kind enough to accompany us?" said Greyle. "The factis, Mr. Copplestone, we've found Mr. Bassett Oliver's body."

  "I thought so," remarked Copplestone.

  "And as soon as the police come up," continued Greyle, "I want you all tosee exactly where it is. No one's touched it--no one's been near it. Ofcourse, he's dead!"

  He lifted his hand with a nervous gesture, and the two others, who werewatching him closely, saw that he was trembling a good deal, and that hisface was very pale.

  "Dead!--of course," he went on. "He--he must have been killedinstantaneously. And you'll see in a minute or two why the body wasn'tfound before--when we made that first search. It's quite explainable. Thefact is--"

  A sudden bustle at the door in the wall heralded the entrance of twopolicemen. The Squire went forward to meet them. The prospect ofimmediate action seemed to pull him together and his manner changed toone of assertive superintendence of things.

  "Now, Mr. Chatfield!" he called out. "Keep all these people away! Closethe door and let no one enter on any excuse. Stay there yourself and seethat we are not interrupted. Come this way now," he went on, addressingthe policemen and the two favoured spectators.

  "You've found him, then, sir?" asked the police-sergeant in a thickwhisper, as Greyle led his party across the grass to the foot of theKeep. "I suppose it's all up with the poor gentleman; of course? Thedoctor, he wasn't in, but they'll send him up as soon--"

  "Mr. Bassett Oliver is dead," interrupted Greyle, almost harshly. "Nodoctors can do any good. Now, look here," he continued, pulling them to asudden halt, "I want all of you to take particular notice of this oldtower--the Keep. I believe you have not been in here before, Mr.Copplestone--just pay particular attention to this place. Here you see isthe Keep, standing in the middle of what I suppose was the courtyard ofthe old castle. It's a square tower, with a stair-turret at one angle.The stair in that turret is in a very good state of preservation--infact, it is quite easy to climb to the top, and from the top there's afine view of land and sea: the Keep itself is nearly a hundred feet inheight. Now the inside of the Keep is completely gutted, as you'llpresently see--there isn't a floor left of the five or six which wereonce there. And I'm sorry to say there's very little protection whenone's at the top--merely a narrow ledge with a very low parapet, which inplaces is badly broken. Consequently, any one who climbs to the top mustbe very careful, or there's the danger of slipping off that ledge andfalling to the bottom. Now in my opinion that's precisely what happenedon Sunday afternoon. Oliver evidently got in here, climbed the stairs inthe turret to enjoy the view and fell from the parapet. And why his bodyhasn't been found before I'll now show you."

  He led the way to the extreme foot of the Keep, and to a very low-archeddoor, at which stood a couple of the estate labourers, one of whomcarried a lighted lantern. To this man the Squire made a sign.

  "Show the way," he said, in a low voice.

  The man turned and descended several steps of worn and moss-covered stonewhich led through the archway into a dark, cellar-like place smellingstrongly of damp and age. Greyle drew the attention of his companions toa heap of earth and rubbish at the entrance.

  "We had to clear all that out before we could get in here," he said."This archway hadn't been opened for ages. This, of course, is the verylowest story of the Keep, and half beneath the level of the groundoutside. Its roof has gone, like all the rest, but as you see, somethingelse has supplied its place. Hold up your lantern, Marris!"

  The other men looked up and saw what the Squire meant. Across the tower,at a height of some fifteen or twenty feet from the floor, Nature, leftunchecked, had thrown a ceiling of green stuff. Bramble, ivy, and otherspreading and climbing plants had, in the course of years, made acomplete network from wall to wall. In places it was so thick that nolight could be seen through it from beneath; in other places it was thinand glimpses of the sky could be seen from above the grey, tunnel-likewalls. And in one of those places, close to the walls, there was adistinct gap, jagged and irregular, as if some heavy mass had recentlyplunged through the screen of leaf and branch from the heights above, andbeneath this the startled searchers saw the body, lying beside a heap ofstones and earth in the unmistakable stillness of death.

  "You see how it must have happened," whispered Greyle, as they all bentround the dead man. "He must have fallen from the very top of theKeep--from the parapet, in fact--and plunged through this mass of greenstuff above us. If he had hit that where it's so thick--there!--it mighthave broken his fall, but, you see, he struck it at the very thinnestpart, and being a big and heavyish man, of course, he'd crash rightthrough it. Now of course, when we examined the Keep on Monday morning,it never struck us that there might be something down here--if you go upthe turret stairs to the top and look down on this mass of green stufffrom the very top, you'll see that it looks undisturbed; there's scarcelyanything to show that he fell through it, from up there. But--he did!"

  "Whose notion was it that he might be found here?" asked Copplestone.

  "Chatfield's," replied the Squire. "Chatfield's. He and I were up at thetop there, and he suddenly suggested that Oliver might have fallen fromthe parapet and be lying embedded in that mass of green stuff beneath. Wedidn't know then--even Chatfield didn't know--that there was this emptyspace beneath the green stuff. But when we came to go into it, we foundthere was, so we had that archway cleared of all the stone and rubbishand of course we found him."

  "The body'll have to be removed, sir," whispered the police-sergeant."It'll have to be taken down to the inn, to wait the inquest."

  Marston Greyle started.

  "Inquest!" he said. "Oh!--will that have to be held? I suppose so--yes.But we'd better wait until the doctor comes, hadn't we? I want him--"

  The doctor came into the gloomy vault at that moment, escorted byChatfield, who, however, immediately retired. He was an elderly,old-fashioned somewhat fussy-mannered person, who evidently attachedmuch more importance to the living Squire than to the dead man, and helistened to all Marston Greyle's explanations and theories with greatdefer
ence and accepted each without demur. "Ah yes, to be sure!" he said,after a perfunctory examination of the body. "The affair is easilyunderstood. It is precisely as you suggest, Squire. The unfortunate manevidently climbed to the top of the tower, missed his footing, and fellheadlong. That slight mass of branch and leaf would make littledifference--he was, you see, a heavy man--some fourteen or fifteen stone,I should think. Oh, instantaneous death, without a doubt! Well, well,these constables must see to the removal of the body, and we must let myfriend the coroner know--he will hold the inquest tomorrow, no doubt.Quite a mere formality, my dear sir!--the whole thing is as plain as apikestaff. It will be a relief to know that the mystery is nowsatisfactorily solved."

  Outside in the welcome freshness, Copplestone turned to the doctor.

  "You say the inquest will be held tomorrow?" he asked. The doctor lookedhis questioner up and down with an inquiry which signified doubt as toCopplestone's right to demand information.

  "In the usual course," he replied stiffly.

  "Then his brother, Sir Cresswell Oliver, and his solicitor, Mr.Petherton, must be wired for from London," observed Copplestone, turningto Greyle. "I'll communicate with them at once. I suppose we may go upthe tower?" he continued as Greyle nodded his assent. "I'd like to seethe stairs and the parapet."

  Greyle looked a little doubtful and uneasy.

  "Well, I had meant that no one should go up until all this was goneinto," he answered. "I don't want any more accidents. You'll be careful?"

  "We're both young and agile," responded Copplestone.

  "There's no need for alarm. Do you care to go up, Mr. Gilling?"

  The pseudo-curate accepted the invitation readily, and he andCopplestone entered the turret. They had climbed half its height beforeCopplestone spoke.

  "Well?" he whispered. "What do you think?"

  "It may be accident," muttered Gilling. "It--mayn't."

  "You think he might have been--what?--thrown down?"

  "Might have been caught unawares, and pushed over. Let's see what thereis up above, anyway."

  The stair in the turret, much worn, but comparatively safe, and lightedby loopholes and arrow-slits, terminated in a low arched doorway, throughwhich egress was afforded to a parapet which ran completely round theinner wall of the Keep. It was in no place more than a yard wide; thebalustrading which fenced it in was in some places completely gone, amere glance was sufficient to show that only a very cool-headed andextremely sure-footed person ought to traverse it. Copplestone contentedhimself with an inspection from the archway; he looked down and saw atonce that a fall from that height must mean sure and swift death: he saw,too, that Greyle had been quite right in saying that the sudden plunge ofOliver's body through the leafy screen far beneath had made littledifference to the appearance of that screen as seen from above. And nowthat he saw everything it seemed to him that the real truth might welllie in one word--accident.

  "Coming round this parapet?" asked Gilling, who was looking narrowlyabout him.

  "No!" replied Copplestone. "I can't stand looking down from greatheights. It makes my head swim. Are you?"

  "Sure!" answered Gilling. He took off his heavy overcoat and handed it tohis companion. "Mind holding it?" he asked. "I want to have a good lookat the exact spot from which Oliver must have fallen. There's thegap--such as it is, and it doesn't look much from here, does it?--in thegreen stuff, down below, so he must have been here on the parapet exactlyabove it. Gad! it's very narrow, and a bit risky, this, when all's saidand done!"

  Copplestone watched his companion make his way round to the place fromwhich it was only too evident Oliver must have fallen. Gilling wentslowly, carefully inspecting every yard of the moss and lichen-coveredstones. Once he paused some time and seemed to be examining a part of theparapet with unusual attention. When he reached the precise spot at whichhe had aimed, he instantly called across to Copplestone.

  "There's no doubt about his having fallen from here!" he said. "Some ofthe masonry on the very edge of this parapet is loose. I could dislodgeit with a touch."

  "Then be careful," answered Copplestone. "Don't cross that bit!"

  But Gilling quietly continued his progress and returned to his companionby the opposite side from which he had set out, having thus accomplishedthe entire round. He quietly reassumed his overcoat.

  "No doubt about the fall," he said as they turned down the stair. "Thenext thing is--was it accidental?"

  "And--as regards that--what's to be done next?" asked Copplestone.

  "That's easy. We must go at once and wire for Sir Cresswell and oldPetherton," replied Gilling. "It's now four-thirty. If they catch anevening express at King's Cross they'll get here early in the morning. Ifthey like to motor from Norcaster they can get here in the small hours.But--they must be here for that inquest."

  Greyle was talking to Chatfield at the foot of the Keep when they gotdown. The agent turned surlily away, but the Squire looked at both withan unmistakable eagerness.

  "There's no doubt whatever that Oliver fell from the parapet," saidCopplestone. "The marks of a fall are there--quite unmistakably."

  Greyle nodded, but made no remark, and the two made their way throughthe still eager crowd and went down to the village post-office. Both werewondering, as they went, about the same thing--the evident anxiety andmental uneasiness of Marston Greyle.