THE LAYING OF THE VALEHAMPTON "GHOST"
AS they issued from the churchyard a couple of gamekeepers, standing on guard with loaded shotguns, challenged them.
"That's all right, Norton," said Cleek, as one of them stepped forward to bar the way. "It is only His Grace and the rest of us coming to see the final kick-up. You can let us pass with impunity."
"Right, sir," said Norton, and stepped aside.
"The beggars made fine work of it, didn't they, Mr. Narkom?" said Cleek with a laugh, as he pointed to the battered condition of the raided cottage. "Door, window, and half the wall battered down! They were an energetic lot! Did they all go in, then, Norton?"
"Yes, sir, every blessed one of them; and Mr. Naylor himself with the lot. They'll be coming out in a minute, I'm thinking—fancy I can hear someone running."
He had scarcely more than finished speaking than there came a clatter of hasty footsteps running up wooden steps, and presently a man, smeared and streaked with yellow clay, dashed in through the scullery door of the cottage and flung himself across the main room, as if running for dear life.
The two gamekeepers rushed forward, and their guns went up like clockwork.
"Now, then, you! Stop where you are," sang out Norton. "You don't take your hook without there's a line on it—and a sinker, too, if you don't look sharp. Hands up!"
The runner obeyed one part of the command at least. That is to say, he stopped short, but instead of throwing up his hands he shouted out in a voice of great excitement:
"Don't make a fool of yourself, Norton; it is only I—Naylor. Get a litter! Get a doctor! We've nabbed the two Hurdons and the gypsy, Costivan; but that fellow Carstairs had a pistol with him, the brute, and after putting a ball through Weston's leg and another into Farley's cap, the beggar shot himself."
"What's that? Shot himself? Carstairs?"
"Oh, that you, Mr. Cleek, is it? Yes, sir, shot himself—through the temple, and I'm afraid he's done himself in."
"Dead?"
"As a doornail, sir. Hole in his head you could put your two fingers in! It's Weston I want the doctor and the litter for. Carstairs won't need anything any more—his little jig is done!"
"And I let the beggar slip me like that!" said Cleek, striking his tongue against the roof of his mouth with a mild clicking sound thrice repeated. "A cold-blooded butcher of that fellow's type—the one real tiger in the whole skulking pack of jackals—and to get off so easily! Too bad, too bad. Well, it can't be helped, I suppose. You got the others all safe and sound, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, all three."
"Close to the end, were they?"
"Very close, sir. Just as you reckoned. They'd have been in before morning. The floor of the strong-room was just beginning to show in places, and they had the soup all ready and waiting. We nabbed them just in time."
Here the sound of a woman's smothered screams and of men's curses became dimly audible. Mr. Naylor jerked his thumb backward over his shoulder in the direction from which they came.
"That will be them now," he said. "They are bringing the lot up."
"Get down and stop them, then," said Cleek. "All these good people will not care to see an exhibition of that sort now that it has taken a tragic turn. Hold them there for another ten minutes. Don't bring even Weston up. The sight would not be a pleasant one for the duke."
Here Mr. Narkom, waiting only for Naylor to take his departure, chose to deliver a dig at his friend.
"I notice," he said in an undertone, "that for all your fine scorn of dukes you are taking devilish good care of this one."
"Excellent, my friend! Your powers of observation are improving. Notice anything else as well?"
"Yes. You are conducting this affair somewhat off your usual lines, and instead of being bowled over with astonishment by your revelations, this particular duke doesn't seem surprised at anything."
"He isn't. I told him everything beforehand. Doctor Forsyth advised it; his heart is weak. Any more questions, please?"
"Yes, one. In the name of Heaven, what did you cut up that fainting caper for last night?"
"Come over to the cottage door. Look there. See that thing in the corner? By the sofa there—with the quilt half over it?"
"Mean the box with the wire netting over the front?"
"Exactly. That's what I did it for. I wanted to see if there was such a thing here. It was necessary to get down on the floor to see it, and there it was."
"But what on earth——?"
Mr. Narkom did not bother to complete the sentence. It would have been useless. Cleek had walked away and left him—going back to the place where the duke and the others were standing.
"I think, Duke, it will be as well to return to the vicarage," he said, "and leave the rest of this unpleasant business to the law alone. I am sorry, gentlemen, that I have put you all to the useless trouble of coming out here. I should not have done so had I known or even guessed of Carstairs' act. Still, it doesn't matter. You know the result; you know the game. The robbery of the gold service has been prevented, the criminals unmasked, and—that's all. I think we may be satisfied that the riddle has been solved."
"Do you? Well, I'm blest if I do, then!" exclaimed Captain Weatherley. "There is one little point which you decidedly have not cleared up, if you don't mind my saying so. That thing!" Here he flung out his hand and made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the bell-tower, from which the discordant clang had all the time been sounding. "How about that, please? Who has been managing that little dodge, and—how?"
"Oh, the ghost, you mean?"
"Yes, the ghost, the power—the thing, or whatever it is, that rings bells without ropes, and yet—Uppingham, Essex, look round, look round, for Heaven's sake. It has got beyond mere sound alone—it has become visible now—visible! Look, there's a light there—a light!"
"Yes," said Cleek. "It appeared for the first time last night. It gave me quite a shock for the minute, until I remembered."
"Remembered?"
"Yes. Our friend Mr. Overton arranged it for me. He knew, of course, that 'George Headland' would inspect the place some time or another, and he wanted to back up his little ghost story of the night before."
"Overton? Overton, Mr. Cleek?"
"Yes; he is a quite ingenious gentleman when you come to know him—only he is not very original at bottom, I fear. Would you like to see the Valehampton ghost laid, Captain? Would you like to know how bells can be rung without hands or ropes, or wires, or anything of that sort, gentlemen? Very well, then, step this way, and you shall."
Here, beckoning Norton to follow, he walked to the lich-gate, opened it, and, accompanied by the six men, led the way to the belfry.
The clanging bells still flung their discord upon the air, the globe of light still circled in the darkness of the tower's top, and, although the head which had devised it was laid low and the hand which had directed it was now a manacled one, the Valehampton ghost still played its uncanny part.
Cleek turned to the gamekeeper, a smile hovering around his lips.
"Gun for a minute, please, Norton. Thanks. Keep your eyes on the light, gentlemen, and stand back a bit. All ready, are you?"
Bang! Bang!
The gun barked twice in rapid succession, and two charges of buckshot rattled against the bells. A scream, almost human in its note, shrilled out from the tower's top, the ball of light lurched outward and came tumbling downward till it struck the earth with a curious crunching sound, and then lay quiet in a cloud of fullers' earth.
"Gentlemen, the Valehampton Ghost," said Cleek; then he whipped out his torch and switched a circle of light upon it where it lay—a little black monkey with a wire muzzle over its mouth and a sponge that glowed brightly and smelt strongly of phosphorus fastened to the top of its shattered head. And hard by the spot where it lay there was one single trail of its footprints going across the fullers' earth and pointing toward the stone tower.