The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I!" scornfully repeated Mr. Castlemaine. "What do you suppose should take me to such a place as that, at midnight? If all your points are as correct as that, Mr. Bent, your story will not hold much water."

"I said it was not likely to be Mr. Castlemaine," spoke up the superintendent of the coastguard. "I told Mr. Bent so at the time."

"I put it to you all, generally, whether it was likely," pursued Mr. Castlemaine, glancing defiantly about him.

"All I can say is this," said John Bent: "that if it was not Mr. Castlemaine, my eyes must have strangely deceived me, and young Mr. Anthony's must have deceived him. Why, the night was as light as day."

"Eyes do deceive sometimes," remarked Mr. Castlemaine. "I know that mine have on occasion deceived me at night, good though their sight is. And of all deceptive lights, the moon's light is the worst."

"Sir, if it was not you it must have been your wraith," said John Bent, evidently not inclined to give in. "You passed close by us sideways, coming out of the Chapel Lane, and crossed the road in front of us. Had you just turned your head sharp to the right, you must have seen us under the hedge."

"Was it the Grey Friar, think you?" asked Mr. Castlemaine. And John Bent did not like the bantering tone, or the suppressed laugh that went around.

"That some one crossed from the Chapel Lane may be true: for I do not see how you could purely imagine it," conceded Mr. Castlemaine, after a pause. "But it was not I. Neither can I understand nor conceive what anybody should want in the chapel ruins at that time of night. We are most of us rather given to shun the place."

"True, true," murmured the room.

"And the locked gate," proceeded Mr. Castlemaine, "how do you account for that? Where did the key come from to lock it? According to what you say, John Bent, it would appear that Mr. Anthony Castlemaine must have locked it; since you maintain that no one went in or came out subsequently to himself. If he locked it, he must have unlocked it. At least, that is the inference naturally to be drawn."