The duke and Mr. Overton were on their feet at once. There could be no mistake about the direction whence these sounds came. A force of men, acting upon a given signal, had made an attack upon the Castle cottages.
"Oh, don't be alarmed, Duke. Don't be alarmed, Mr. Overton," said Cleek, coming up with them as master and man, realizing the state of affairs, moved hastily to the nearest window and tried vainly to peer through the intervening trees. "It is nothing very serious—only a small detachment of police, aided by some of your own gamekeepers, paying their respects to Mr. and Mrs. John Hurdon. It will be over soon, and the interesting party will take a turn at oakum-picking with this gentleman—dear, clever man!"
Here his hands reached over quickly toward those of the land-steward; there was a jingle and a click, and by the time Overton became aware that something cold had touched his wrists, the handcuffs were locked and the thing was done.
He gave a queer sort of cry—half gasp, half howl—and lurched backward in a panic.
"In the name of God——" he began, but got no farther, for Cleek's hand was on his shoulder and Cleek's voice was saying soothingly:
"Oh, fie, my friend! So tender a heart should be mated with a reverent tongue. And if you must cry out, surely there is another name more fitting to the occasion? But why cry at all? You cannot alter matters. It is fated, you see, that none of you is ever to go up that underground tunnel or touch one article of that splendid gold service, even though Captain Paul Sandringham is dead and, as Carstairs said, 'It makes one the less to reckon with!' Sit down, Mr. Overton, and make yourself comfortable until Mr. Naylor comes back to take care of you. And let me take this opportunity to thank you for our very pleasant walk up from the station yesterday. Do you know, I always did like that ghost story from the time when I first read it in a fiction magazine, and it lost none of its charm through your telling. Oh, yes—I'm the same person—I'm the George Headland you told it to. The one your sister and the gypsy woman have been following all day is a fake. I expect he and his mate have rounded on them by this time and have taken them into custody, and—— Fainted, by jupiter! Ah, they are a weak-nerved lot, this sneaking kind, when it comes to the final corner, and it's the wall behind them and the law in front. Pardon? Oh, yes, Marquis! Oh, yes, Captain Weatherley. That was the game: tunnelling from the Hurdons' cottage to the Castle to get at the Essex gold service which they knew would be brought down from the bank for Lady Adela's wedding; and they have been at it for eleven months. Captain Paul Sandringham's was the mind that conceived the thing—how I know this I'll tell you in due time—and he planned the scheme with this fellow a year ago in Ostend when first the duke made public his intention to marry again. He has been over, too, off and on, and taken an actual hand in the work, has the late captain, and I dare say he would have been over again to-morrow night to take part in the final act of the little drama if the curtain had not been rung down on all the dramas for him the day before yesterday. Oh! he was a clever schemer, was Captain Paul Sandringham, and he neglected nothing. That is the strongest point in the whole armour of the educated criminal: the brains to reason and the wit to provide for all contingencies. You cannot tunnel the earth for a distance of ninety-six yards without having a deal of refuse to dispose of, you know; therefore, the prophecy had to take in the question of a choked river, and there had to be phantom wheels to account for the vehicle which conveyed it to the stream by night; there had to be those bells which are ringing now to account for the supernatural agency, and there had to be a curse on the adjoining cottage to prevent——"
Here he stopped—his ear caught by a confused murmur of voices rising above the clashing of the bells.
"Let us go and see the rest of the interesting collection," he said. "I think the raid is over, and Mr. Naylor's fishers are pulling in the nets."
He turned and walked briskly out of the vicarage and, taking a short cut across the churchyard, made his way to the curve of the road, the bells still clashing out discordantly as he passed through the lich-gate and turned to the Castle cottages—and the duke and the marquis, the captain and the vicar, and Mr. Maverick Narkom, too, followed close upon his heels.