Dead Men's Money

by J. S. Fletcher

There was another policeman with him, and they stepped past the body and followed me into the little room and looked round curiously. I left them whispering, and opened the door that Hollins had pointed out. There was a stair there, as he had said, set deep in the thick wall, and I went a long way up it before I came to another door, in which there was a key set in the lock. And in a moment I had it turned, and there was Maisie, and I had her in my arms and was flooding her with questions and holding the light to her face to see if she was safe, all at once.

"You've come to no harm?—you're all right?—you've not been frightened out of your senses?—how did it all come about?" I rapped out at her. "Oh, Maisie, I've been seeking for you all day long, and—"

And then, being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a glass of water to my lips that she snatched up from a table, and encouraging me, who should have been consoling her—all within the minute of my setting eyes on her, and me so weak, as it seemed, that I could only cling on to her hand, making sure that I had really got her.

"There, there, it's all right, Hugh!" she murmured, patting my arm as if I had been some child that had just started awake from a bad dream. "There's no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this black hole of a place!—I've had food and drink and a light, as you see—they promised me I should have no harm when they locked me in. But oh, it's seemed like it was ages since then!"

"They? Who?" I demanded. "Who locked you in?"

"Sir Gilbert and that butler of his—Hollins," she answered. "I took the short cut through the grounds here last night, and I ran upon the two of them at the corner of the ruins, and they stopped me, and wouldn't let me go, and locked me up here, promising I'd be let out later on."

"Sir Gilbert!" I exclaimed. "You're sure it was Sir Gilbert?"

"Of course I'm sure!" she replied. "Who else? And I made out they were afraid of my letting out that I'd seen them—it was Sir Gilbert himself said they could run no risks."

"You've seen him since?" I asked. "He's been in here?"

"No—not since last night," she answered. "And Hollins not since this morning when he brought me some food—I've not wanted for that," she went on, with a laugh, pointing to things that had been set on the table. "And he said, then, that about midnight, tonight, I'd hear the key turned, and after that I was free to go, but I'd have to make my way home on foot, for he wasn't wanting me to be in Berwick again too soon."