The Master of Phoenix Hall (23 page)

“Did he say when he would be returning to Lockwood?”

“In a day or so, he hoped.”

“Well, I suppose it was urgent. That's why he didn't have time to inform me. I really came to inquire about the boy, Mr. Stephenson. How is he?”

“The boy? What are you talking about?”

“The lad who was taken ill night before last. Greg was very upset. He left Mr. Mellory's ball in order to come see about the child.”

“There has been no illness in the school,” Mr. Stephenson said. He looked at me curiously, as though I were making up the episode.

I did not wish to pursue the matter. If Greg had lied to me, there must have been a good reason for it. I doubted seriously if he had gone to Liverpool because of his brother. More than likely his sudden departure had something to do with the mysterious business transaction he had been so excited about the night of the ball.

“Perhaps I was mistaken,” I said. “I must have misunderstood him. I hope you will forgive me my intrusion, Mr. Stephenson. I feel I owe you an apology.”

“Please forget it, Miss Todd.”

“I wonder if I could go to Mr. Ingram's office for a few minutes? There is a book he promised to lend me, and I would like to leave him a note. Would it be an inconvenience to you?”

“Of course not. I'll show you the way.”

Mr. Stephenson led me down the hall and pointed out Greg's office. The door was locked, but he had a master key that opened it. I felt even more like an intruder as I watched the staid little man opening the door, but I felt I had to leave a note and I did want to borrow Greg's copy of
Jane Eyre
.

“I will be in the library if you need me,” Mr. Stephenson said, holding the door open.

“I'll only be a few minutes. I'll find my way out. Please don't let me bother you any more.”

Mr. Stephenson nodded his head, looking at me again with that curious expression. He walked on down the hall, and I stood in the office, listening to his footsteps dying away. The shade was pulled up high, and the last rays of sunlight poured into the small room, revealing an oak bookcase crammed with books and pamphlets, a work table, a sturdy desk and a shabby easy chair upholstered in dark blue. There was a well worn magenta carpet on the floor and an assorted collection of framed engravings on the wall.

I felt uneasy. It was wrong to invade Greg's private domain like this while he was away, and I felt dishonest, but now that I was here my curiosity would not let me leave. The room reflected the man, neat, orderly, dignified, a little worn but revealing cultured taste. I browsed over the book case and found a copy of the Bronte novel. I took it out and went over to the desk to write the note.

There was a green felt ink blotter on the desk, an onyx pen set, a chunk of quartz holding down a stack of student papers. I did not see a tablet or any writing paper, so I opened the top drawer, feeling just a tinge of guilt. There was no tablet. There were more student papers and a notebook filled with columns and columns of figures, with dates beside each entry. I supposed this was the book he kept to list student fees or something of the sort.

The second drawer held the tablet I was looking for, but I did not take it out. Instead, I took out Aunt Lucille's notebooks. There was a sheaf of papers on top, clipped together and covered with Greg's handwriting. I wondered if he had possibly broken the code. I spread the papers out over the desk and sat down, leaning my elbows on the desk and reading the closely written pages.

I do not know how long I may have read. The sunlight that came through the windows took on a vivid orange glow and then began to fade, and outside the heavy veils of twilight began to fall, blurring everything together in a haze of blue. There was barely enough light left for me to see by. I sat there at the desk, trying to put my thoughts in order. A flood of hysteria threatened to overcome me. I knew I could not let that happen.

I turned through the pages of the notebooks, rereading various entries scrawled messily in black ink. At first I had not understood the references to money taken in, to time schedules, to various roads and villages. They had been interspersed with tedious essays about the properties of herbs and rather amusing anecdotes about the peculiarities of the people who came to see my aunt about potions and powders.

Later on, towards the last, it became all too evident what my aunt's real activies were.

January 21st. He thinks he can cheat me. He should know better. He thinks I've done all this for a lark. He thinks I'm an eccentric old woman without moral standards who finds an outlet in all this. He really believes I am as dotty as they say I am. I'm a harmless old woman who fools around with herbs and crazy cures. That's what they all say, and that's his protection. They would never suspect I had anything to do with this business. Without me he hasn't a chance to pull it off. If I were to talk … but he won't dare cross me.

I wondered what “all this” was about. It became increasingly clear as I read on.

January 30th. He says his position protects him. They wouldn't dare connect him with the robberies. If only they knew what a devil he really is! He threatened me today. He said he would have me put out of Dower House and committed. He has the power, he says. Maybe he does, but he wouldn't dare. The others don't matter. They can be replaced. He can't replace me. Without my cover he'd be lost. If anyone else lived in Dower House it would all come out.… He threatened me, but he won't do anything to me. He hasn't got enough yet. When he gets enough, I'll start to worry.

My aunt had been involved with the highwaymen. Somehow or other she had furnished cover for them. I wondered how an old woman living alone in an isolated house could do that. What kind of cover could she give the thieves? Surely they could not come and go at Dower House without being seen. It was a complete puzzle to me, but as I read on the pieces of the puzzle began to fit into place.

February 11th. We were almost found out last night. I had to think quick and lie convincingly in order to save the situation. One of the farm women brought her daughter to see if I had anything that would help the girl's cramps. She had started cramping after supper and when they didn't stop she brought the girl here. It was after midnight and I had them both in the kitchen. I had mixed up a powder and was giving instructions on its use when we heard something crash downstairs. This was followed by voices. The women had been in the house for half an hour. They were quite alarmed. I said the noises had come from the shed in back of the house. I told them I had given two gypsies permission to sleep there for the night. I babbled on about how sound echoed so strangely this near the quarry, and I could see they were convinced, although the woman gave me a lecture about how dangerous gypsies were.… They had knocked over a shelf of my best preserves.

The cellar! I had felt something wrong the first time I saw it. I remembered that horrid, fetid smell and that atmosphere of evil. No wonder I had reacted to it the way I had. They had been using the cellar for rendezvous. They probably met there. Perhaps they changed into their garb there. They could come to Dower House one by one, inconspicuously, without arousing any suspicion, but I wondered how they could all leave together without being seen. I thought about it, and I thought about the cellar, pressing my brows into a frown. There was another mystery here. In the back of my mind something was taunting me, as though a tiny voice I couldn't quite hear was trying to tell me the answers to all my questions.

The last entry in the notebooks caused me to shiver with horror. As I read it I suddenly knew the real reason why Roderick Mellory wanted me away from Dower House.

March 18th. Feeling bad, very bad. Weak. I wonder. Of course he has tea with me, but I know all there is to know about poison. He is a devil, a devil, but he wouldn't do that. But he is very angry. Oh yes, he thought he was going to cheat me. He refused to give me my share, so I took it, took all I was entitled to. Almost half. He will never find it. No one will. He will have to start all over again, unless he listens to reason. He is coming here tonight. Perhaps we can strike a bargain. I am beginning to be a little afraid. I am his match, I know, but he was so incensed when he found I had taken the gold and hidden it.…

I closed the notebooks and sat there in the darkened room. All around me there was silence. A vein throbbed at my temple and my wrists felt weak. I thought about my Aunt Lucille, a poor old woman whom I had never known. She had played a dangerous game with a dangerous man, and she had lost. She had double-crossed him. That had been a mistake. He had killed her for it. He would probably have killed her anyway. It gave me some satisfaction to know that she had outwitted him in at least one respect. How furious he must have been when he discovered that she had stolen from him in turn. Had he ever found the gold that she had hidden so skillfully?

The notebooks had been concealed in the secret drawer along with a revolver and a tarnished old key. I thought about that key. I wondered what lock it fit. I was suddenly quite anxious to find out.

XIII

E
VERY DROP
of color had drainied out of the sky as I drove Billy's wagon back to Dower House. The road ahead was a dark gray ribbon, and the trees were like grotesque black figures crowding in on either side. There was no light left and the stars had not yet appeared. Shadows thickened. A brisk breeze stirred the grasses and rustled the leaves overhead. Billy's gray moved at a brisk trot, as eager to be home as I was. I clicked the reins, urging him on.

I was strangely calm now, despite my hurry. All the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together nicely, and although it was not a pretty picture, it gave me a strong sense of satisfaction to know that any suspicions about Roderick Mellory had been correct. He was the highwayman. He was the man in black who had held up the coach that brought me to Cornwall. Paul Mellory had told me that his brother would stop at nothing to see that Phoenix Hall was completely restored. How true those words had been. Roderick Mellory had discovered a way to recoup the family fortune, and the fact that there was risk involved must have been a challenge to him.

It fit perfectly. He had the means. He had the position. He had an easy access to all private information. Being the Master of Phoenix Hall, he was above reproach. How he must have laughed as he deceived the people he detested, those innocent, naïve village officials who were all too ready to oblige the local aristocrat. My poor old aunt had somehow or other fallen in league with him. He could not very well use Phoenix Hall as a place of rendevous, so he talked my aunt into letting him use the cellar of Dower House. He could meet his cronies there without detection. He had promised the old woman a share of the plunder. When he failed to keep his promise she had stolen from him in turn, and he had killed her, just as he had killed the man whose body had been found in the ravine.

There had been no inquest when my aunt died. There had been no need for one. She was a very old woman who had apparently died a natural death. Only one man knew differently. No wonder Roderick Mellory wanted me out of Dower House. No wonder he had tried to frighten me away. Not only did I make it impossible for him to continue to use the place as a rendezvous, thus making his risks greater, but there was also a strong possibility that I might find some evidence of his crime.

He might have an even stronger motive still. I had no way of knowing that he had made a bargain with my aunt before killing her. I had no way of knowing that he had found the gold she had hidden. Perhaps it was still there. He had continued to stage the robberies after her death. Perhaps he had been trying to make up for what he had lost. It was ironic that he had been clever enough to deceive a whole county and yet had been unable to deceive an old woman. Because of her he would ultimately lose everything.

I did not doubt that my aunt had been senile. After losing her husband she had lived on all alone in the isolated house and that must have gradually worked on her mind. Everyone had called her eccentric. They had looked upon her with amused tolerance and some respect for her bizarre wisdom. She must have been a curious creature, serving as midwife by day and giving succor to thieves by night. Yet she had been shrewd. She had recorded all their transactions in her notebooks, and the notebooks would be proof enough to hang him.

Of course Greg knew. He had known the night of the ball. That probably explained his curious conduct, his extreme nervousness. He had decoded the notebooks and learned the truth about Roderick Mellory. He wanted to put the matter in the right hands, so he had contacted someone from London. The man who had brought a message at the ball was from Scotland Yard, not from the school. Greg had not gone back to Liverpool. He had gone back to London. They were preparing an airtight case against Roderick Mellory before they confronted him with the evidence. Perhaps they were even now spying on Phoenix Hall, waiting to catch him in some incriminating act. There was a big reward offered for the capture of the highwaymen. Greg would get that. It would be enough to enable him to leave the school and do as he wished.

I knew now why he had not told me any of this. It was a perfectly natural reaction on his part. He had not wanted to alarm me. Even in this he was thoughtful and considerate, the perfect gentleman. He had lied to me, true, but he had done so out of a sense of masculine protectiveness. And I had treated him so shabbily, I thought. I would make it up to him. As soon as this was all over with, I would make up for everything. I promised that as I drove towards home.

Night had completely fallen as I turned on the curve of road that led up to Dower House. A thin shell of moon had come out from behind the clouds and it shed mellow light. The roof of Dower House was washed with silver, but the walls were dark, the yard spread with shadows. No lights burned in any window. Nan and Billy had probably gone out for one of their amorous strolls and had not yet returned, and yet it was not like Nan to leave the house in darkness. Possibly they had gone out before dark.