That afternoon, after he had left the Castle and its inhabitants behind, he wired Mr. Narkom, as he had said he would. The enigmatic words which flew across the wire to Scotland Yard, in their own particular code, and made Mr. Narkom fairly jump in excitement, were these: "Full up right to the brim. Come along. Cleek."
CHAPTER VII
THE SUMMONS
Cleek left that house of anger in a strange frame of mind, rather glad to be back again in his own sunny room at the Three Fishers, and away from an influence which seemed somehow horribly malign. The pitched battle that had taken place between father and son—egged on by a designing woman who did not mind to what depths she stooped so that her ends were eventually reached, gave him an eery feeling. There was something venomous about the whole affair, something that reminded him of an asp about to strike. He could not shake that feeling from him. The premonition held firm hold of his faculties.
A walk with Dollops over the moors certainly acted as a refresher, for the lad's ready humour had the true Cockney bite in it and he had seen, with his keen eyes, how the master he loved and reverenced was brooding under the shadow of something he sensed although he could not see. And so his comical faculties were put to good work. Until—tea-time at length reached—Cleek returned to the Inn of the Three Fishers, a little less clouded in heart and brain, and with some of the moody depression shaken from him.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening reading and thinking by the open window of his room, looking out now and then at the whole massive structure of Aygon Castle, with its great gateway, above which Rhea du Macduggan stood everlasting guard. Gad! anything might happen there—and the world be no wiser! It was an appalling thought at best. What secrets had that place held in the past and never revealed to the light of day? What secrets might it not hold in the future?
And those dungeons. The thing he had seen there.... And that handkerchief—so obviously belonging to Ross Duggan, and which now lay in his inner pocket. He fumbled for it and brought it out to the light, examining it minutely. Fine linen, finely monogrammed. Very obviously the handkerchief of an extravagant gentleman. But what on earth he should be doing down there, amidst that, was something which sent the grim lines fleeting about Cleek's mouth and eyes. It couldn't be he—the son of a proud old house like this one! The thing seemed impossible. And yet—there was the handkerchief to prove that fact; and then this electricity business, which obviously ate up a good many private funds. H'm. It would want close looking into, if nothing further proceeded with Miss Duggan's part of the affair.
For an hour or two he sat pondering and dreaming there, the book he had caught up absent-mindedly from the billiard-room book-case lying open in his lap.