The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

THE ADVENTURE OF THE JACOBEAN HOUSE by C.N. & A.M. Williamson

Early “impossible crime” stories sometimes used gimmicks that were later outlawed as unfair by aficionados of the miracle mystery. The obvious one was the secret panel, which was popular in Victorian mystery novels. Although the following story does include a secret panel, it is not directly related to the solution of the mystery, and although the device used is another one of those later abandoned by authors, its use here is both ingenious and fascinating. Charles Williamson (1859-1920) was an English journalist who married American writer Alice Livingston (1869-1933) in 1895. They began collaborating in 1902, when they hit on the idea of a novel based on a series of accounts of a man who is acting as a chauffeur, driving an American heiress around Europe. The book, The Lightning Conductor (1902), was so popular that they produced a whole series of books based on car journeys. The title of The Scarlet Runner (1908) refers to the car by which detective Christopher Race travels to solve his next mystery. It shows just how romantic the car was perceived in its early days. The book enjoyed some success and was even adapted into a silent film in 1916. The following is one of the more baffling episodes.

The day after Christopher Race came back to London from his tour with the man of the “Missing Chapter” he found on his table a queer telegram. It said: “Please come at once with your car and try solve mystery at old house now used as hotel patronized by motorists. Same rate paid per day for necessary time as for automobile tour.-SIDNEY CHESTER, Wood House, New Forest. References, London and Scottish Bank.” And the message was dated two days back.

Christopher did not see why he should be applied to as a solver of mysteries. However, the telegram sounded interesting. He liked old houses, and his desire to accept the offer was whetted by the fact that it had been made several days ago, and might have been passed on to someone else by this time.

At all events, he thought he would answer the wire, and he did so before washing away the dust of travel which he had accumulated at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

“Just back from journey. Found telegram,” he wired. “Am I still wanted? If so, can come.”

When an answer arrived he had Scarlet Runner ready for another start.

“Yes, urgently wanted,” ran the reply. “Hope you can start this afternoon. But don’t come to Wood House. Will meet you at the Sandboy and Owl, within mile of Ringhurst as you come from London. Please let me know probable hour of arrival. – CHESTER.”

Christopher wired again, “Hope to reach you about seven.” And his hope was justified, as it usually was when he had to depend upon Scarlet Runner. He had often passed the Sandboy and Owl, and remembered the roadside inn for its picturesqueness, so that he lost no time in finding the way.

“I have come to see a Mr Chester, who will be here in ten or fifteen minutes,” Race said to the landlord, who looked as if he might have had a meritorious past as a coachman in some aristocratic household.

The sporting eye of the old man suddenly twinkled. “I think, sir,” he answered, “that the person you expect has arrived, and is waiting in my private parlour, which I have given up for the – for the purpose.”

The landlord’s manner and slight hesitation, as if in search of the right word, struck Christopher as odd; but it was too late to catechize the old man in regard to Mr Chester, no matter how diplomatically.

The dusk of autumn draped the oak-beamed hall with shadow, and one lamp only made darkness seem more visible. The landlord opened a door at the end of a dim corridor, and said respectfully to someone out of sight, “The gentleman with the motor has arrived.” Then he backed out of the way, and Christopher stepped over the threshold. He saw a girl rise up from a chair, crumpling a telegram which she had been reading by the light of a shaded lamp.

She wore a riding habit, and a neat hat on sleek hair the colour of ripening wheat. She was charmingly pretty, in a flowerlike way. Her great eyes, which now appeared black, would be blue by daylight, and her figure was perfect in the well-cut habit; but she was either pale and anxious-looking, or else the lamplight gave that effect.

“I beg your pardon,” exclaimed Christopher. “I’ve come from London to see a Mr Sidney Chester, and was told I should find him here, but-”

“I’m Sidney Chester,” said the girl. “It was I who telegraphed for you to come and help us.”

Christopher was surprised, but he kept his countenance, and pretended to take this revelation as a matter of course.

“Sidney is a woman’s name as well as a man’s,” she went on, “and there was no use explaining in a telegram. Please sit down, and I’ll – no, I can’t promise to make you understand, for the thing’s beyond understanding; but I’ll tell you about it. First, though, I’d better explain why I sent for you. I don’t mean to flatter you, but if there’s any chance of the mystery being solved, it can only be done by a man of your sort – clever and quick of resource, as well as an accomplished motorist. That’s my reason; now for my story. But perhaps you’ve heard of Wood House and the strange happenings there? We’ve tried to keep the talk out of the papers, but it was impossible; and there’ve been paragraphs in most of them for the last fortnight.”

“I’ve been touring for a fortnight,” replied Christopher, “and hav’n’t paid much attention to the papers.”

“I’m glad,” answered the girl, “because you’ll listen to what I have to tell you with an unbiased mind. You don’t even know about Wood House itself?”

Christopher had to admit ignorance, though he guessed from the girl’s tone that the place must be famous, apart from its mysterious reputation.

“It’s a beautiful old house,” she went on, the harassed expression of her face softening into tenderness. “There are pictures and accounts of it in books about the county. We’ve got the loveliest oak panelling in nearly all the rooms, and wonderful furniture. Of course, we love it dearly – my mother and I, the only ones of the family who are left – but we’re disgustingly poor; our branch of the Chesters have been growing poorer for generations. We had to see everything going to pieces, and there was no money for repairs. There were other troubles, too – oh, I may as well tell you, since you ought to know everything concerning us if you’re to do any good. I was silly enough to fall in love with a man who ought to marry an heiress, for he’s poor, too, and has a title, which makes poverty harder and more grinding. He’s let his house – a show place – and because he won’t give me up and look for a rich girl (he wouldn’t have to look far or long), he’s trying to get a fortune out of a ranch in Colorado. That made me feel as if I must do something, and we couldn’t let Wood House, because there’s a clause in father’s will against our doing so. We’re obliged to live there, or forfeit it to the person who would have inherited it if the place had been entailed and had had to go to a male heir.

“But no such thought came to poor father as that mother and I would dream of making the house into an hotel, so it didn’t occur to him to provide against such a contingency. It was I who had the idea – because I was desperate for money; and I heard how people like old houses in these days – Americans and others who aren’t used to things that are antique. At last I summoned up courage to propose to mother that we should advertise to entertain motorists and other travellers.

“Every penny we could spare, and a lot we couldn’t, we spent on advertising, when she’d consented, and two months ago we opened the house as an hotel. Our old servants were good about helping, and we got in several new ones. We began to make the most astonishing success, and I was delighted. I thought if all went on well I need have nothing to do with managing the place after this year. I might marry if I liked, and there would be the income rolling in; so you see, after these dreams, what it is to find ruin staring us in the face. That sounds melodramatic, but it’s the truth.”

“The truth often is melodramatic,” said Christopher. “I’ve discovered that lately. Things happen in real life that would be sneered at by the critics as preposterous.”

“This thing that is happening to us is preposterous,” said Miss Chester. “People come to our house, perhaps for dinner or lunch, or perhaps for several days. But which ever it may be, during one of the meals – always the last if they’re having more than one – every piece of jewellery they may be wearing, and all the money in their pockets and purses – except small silver and copper – disappear mysteriously.”

“Perhaps not mysteriously,” suggested Christopher. “You mentioned having engaged new servants. One of them may be an expert thief.”

“Of course, that was our first idea,” said the girl. “But it would be impossible for the most expert thief, even a conjurer, to pull ladies’ rings from their fingers, unfasten clasps of pearl dog-collars, take off brooches and bracelets or belts with gold buckles, and remove studs from shirt-fronts or sleeve-links from cuffs, without the knowledge of the persons wearing the things.”

“Yes, that would be impossible,” Christopher admitted.

“Well, that is what happens at Wood House every day, and has been happening for the last fortnight. People sit at the table, and apparently everything goes on in the most orderly way; yet at the end of the meal their valuables are gone.”

“It sounds like a fairy story,” said Christopher.

“Or a ghost story,” amended Sidney Chester.

Christopher did not smile, for the girl’s childish face looked so distressed that to make light of what was tragedy to her would have been cruel. The ghost theory, however, he was not ready to entertain.

“I think the explanation will turn out to be more prosaic,” he said. “It would be difficult for ghosts to make jewellery and money invisible as well as themselves.”

“Yes,” replied Miss Chester, seriously.

“So we must turn our attention elsewhere.”

“Ah, but where?”

“I suppose that’s what you want me to find out?”

“Exactly. And I wouldn’t let you come to Wood House until I’d told you the story. Whatever It is that works the mischief there mustn’t know that you are different from any other tourist. You’re prepared now. I want you to watch, to set your wits to work to find out the mystery. Of course, you must leave your valuables in care of the landlord here. You’ll motor over this evening, won’t you, and say you wish to have a room?”

“With pleasure,” said Christopher. “And I’ll do my best to help.”

“Thanks for taking an interest. Then I’ll go now. I shall just be able to ride home in time for dinner.”

“But there are questions still which I’d better ask you,” said Christopher; “as we’re not to have any private communication at Wood House. How many indoor servants have you?”

“Three housemaids, one dear old thing who has been with us for years, and two young girls lately got in – one from London, one from our own neighbourhood; a butler we’ve had since I can remember, two new footmen from London, and an old cook-housekeeper, who has had two assistants since we opened as an hotel. That’s all, except a stray creature or two about the kitchen. I must tell you, too, that with the new servants we had the best of references. They’ve been with us for two months now, and the mystery only began, as I said, a fortnight ago. The first thing that happened was when a rich American family, doing a motor tour round England, came to stop for a night, and were so delighted with the place that they made up their minds to stay from Saturday to Monday. On Sunday night at dinner the two girls and their mother lost jewellery worth thousands, and Mr Van Rensalaer, the father, was robbed of five hundred pounds in notes – all he had with him except his letter of credit, which wasn’t taken. You can imagine how they felt – and how we felt. Of course, we sent for a detective, but he could discover nothing. He said it was the queerest affair he ever heard of. Not a jewel, not a penny has ever been recovered; and at least twenty people who have come to us since have suffered in the same way.”

“Still, they come. You haven’t lost your clients?” said Christopher.

“Not yet; for though most of those who arrive have read about the mystery in the papers (if they haven’t, we feel obliged to warn them) they don’t believe the stories. They think the thing must have been planned to work up a sensation, and they’re so certain things stolen will come back, though they’re enchanted with the house at first, before the Thing happens. Just now we’re getting crowds who come to try and ferret out the mystery, or because they’ve made bets that they won’t lose anythying. But soon the sort of people we want will stop away, and we shall get only vulgar curiosity-mongers; then, when we cease to be a nine days’ wonder, there’ll be nobody, and we shall have to give up. That’s what I look forward to, and it will break my heart.”

“Something will have to be done,” said Christopher – puzzled, but anxious to be encouraging. “Have you no guest who has been with you several weeks?”

“One,” the girl returned, half reluctantly, as if she guessed his reason for putting this question. “It’s – a man.”

“A young man?”

“Yes, a young man.”

“How long has he been in the house?”

“Several weeks. He’s painting a picture, using the King’s room, as we call it, for a background – the room Charles II had when an ancestor of ours was hiding him, and would dart down into a secret place underneath whenever a dangerous visitor arrived.”

“Oh, an artist?”

“Not a professional. He-”.

“Can’t you remember how long he has been with you?”

“Between three weeks and a fortnight.” The girl blushed, her white face lovely in its sudden flush of colour. “I see what’s in your mind. But there’s nothing in that, I assure you. The merest coincidence. You don’t look as if you were ready to believe me, but you will when I tell you that it’s Sir Walter Raven, the man I’m engaged to marry. When I wrote him about our scheme he didn’t like the idea, but soon I let him know what a success it was proving. I even hinted that I might think over the resolution I’d made not to marry him for years, because, after all, I mightn’t have to be a burden. He was so excited over the letter that he left his ranch in charge of his partner and came over at once. It was a great surprise to see him, but – it was a very agreeable one. He’s been my one comfort – except, of course, our dear cousins – since the evil days began.”

“He hasn’t been able to throw any light on the problem?”

“No, though he’s tried in every way.”

“Does he know you’ve sent for me?”

“I haven’t told him, because it would seem as if I couldn’t trust him to get to the bottom of the mystery. You see, though he’s tremendously clever, he isn’t that sort of man. He’s been in the Army, and used to drift along, amusing himself as he could, until he met me, and decided to go to work. He’s different from you.”

“Not so different as she thinks,” Christopher said to himself; only he had been driven from amusement to work by a reason less romantic, and, unlike Sir Walter Raven, had not met the right woman yet, but he expected to find her some day.

“When you’ve got hold of a clue, as I feel you will,” Sidney Chester went on, “then I’ll tell Sir Walter, and he’ll be delighted. Till then, though, you shall be for him, as for everybody else except myself, a guest in the house, like other guests. Luckily, we can give you a place to keep that famous car of yours. We’ve had part of the stables made into a garage. Now, have you asked me everything?”

“Not yet,” answered Christopher, selfishly less sorry to detain her than he would have been had she been middle-aged and plain. “I want to know what servants are in the rooms where these robberies occur?”

“The butler, Nelson, in the dining-hall, or one of the footmen if the meal is being served in a private sitting-room.”

“Only those, except the guests?”

“Since the mystery began I’ve sometimes been there to watch and superintend, and one of my cousins, either Morley or his wife. And in the dining-hall Sir Walter Raven is kind enough to keep an eye on what goes on, while appearing to be engaged with his luncheon or dinner.”

“Yet the robberies take place just the same under your very eyes?”

“Yes. That is the mysterious part. The whole thing is like a dream. But you will see for yourself. Only, as I said, take care not to have anything about you which They – whoever, whatever They are – can steal.”

“I don’t think I shall trouble to put away my valuables,” said Christopher. “It wouldn’t break me if I lost them, and I can’t feel that such a thing will happen to me.”

“Ah, others have felt that, and regretted their confidence.”

“I sha’n’t regret mine,” laughed the young man. “And I never carry much money.”

“Remember, I’ve warned you!” cried the girl.

“My blood be on my own head,” he smiled, in return, and at last announced that the catechism was finished. She gave him her hand, and he shook it reassuringly; then, it being understood that, as it was late, he would dine at the inn and arrive at Wood House after nine, she left him. Five minutes later, standing at the window, he saw her ride off on a fine hunter.

As he ate chops and drank a glass of ale Christopher considered what he had heard of the mystery, and did not know what to think of it.

He could not believe that things happened as Miss Chester described. He thought that a sensitive imagination, rendered more vivid by singular events, must have led her into exaggeration. However, he was keenly interested, and the fact that Sir Walter Raven had been in the house since the strange happenings began added to the piquancy of the situation. He admired the girl so much that he would regret disillusionment for her; yet her fiancé’s presence for precisely that length of time was an odd coincidence. He might be anxious to force her to abandon the scheme which he appeared to approve, and – he might have hit upon a peculiar way of doing it. How he could have gone about accomplishing such an object in such a manner Christopher could not see; yet his attention focused on Sir Walter Raven as a central figure in the mystery.

The road from the Sandboy and Owl, through Ringhurst and on to Wood House, was beautiful. Christopher had passed over it before, and, coming to the gateway and lodge of the place he sought, he remembered having remarked both, though he had not then known the name of the estate.

He steered Scarlet Runner between tall stone gate-posts topped with stone lions supporting shields, acknowledged a salutation from an elderly man at the door of the old black and white lodge, and drove up a winding avenue under beeches and oaks.

Suddenly, rounding a turn, he came in sight of the house, standing in the midst of a lawn cleared of trees, in a forest-like park.

It was a long, low building of irregular shape, the many windows with tiny lozenge-panes brightly-lit behind their curtains. In the moonlight the projecting upper storeys with gabled roofs and ivy-draped chimneys, the walls chequered in black and white, with wondrous diapering of trefoils, quatrefoils, and chevrons, were clearly defined against a wooded background. The house could have few peers in picturesqueness if one searched all England. Christopher was not surprised that the plan of turning it into an hotel had attracted many motorists and other tourists.

He was received by a mild, old, white-haired butler, and a footman in neat livery was sent to show him the way to the garage. Scarlet Runner disposed of for the night, he returned to the house and entered a square hall, where a fire of logs in a huge fireplace sent red lights flickering over the carved ceiling, the fine antique cabinets stored with rare china, the gate-legged tables, and high-backed chairs.

His name was announced as if he had been an invited guest arriving at a country house, and from a group near the fireplace came forward to welcome him a young man with a delightful face. Glancing past him for an instant, as he advanced, Christopher saw Sidney Chester in evening dress; a dainty old lady whom he took to be her mother; a rather timid-looking little woman, whose pretty features seemed almost plain in contrast with Miss Chester’s; a handsome, darkly sunburnt young man, with a soldierly, somewhat arrogant air; also seven or eight strangers, divided into different parties scattered about the hall.

“How do you do? Is it possible we’re to have the pleasure of entertaining the famous Mr Race?” said the young man who came to greet Christopher. “My name is Morley Chester, and I play host for my cousins, Mrs Chester and her daughter.”

Christopher disclaimed the adjective bestowed upon him, but admitted that he was the person who had had a certain adventure in Dalvania, and one or two others that had somehow got into the papers. Then Mr Chester introduced him to the two cousins, mother and daughter (he meeting the girl as if for the first time), to the pretty, quiet young woman who was, it appeared, Mrs Morley Chester, and added an informal word or two which made Sir Walter Raven and Mr Christopher Race known to each other.

Sidney Chester’s fiancé was, after all, very pleasant and frank in manner, his haughty air being the effect, perhaps, of a kind of proud reserve. Christopher could not help feeling slightly drawn to the young man, as he usually was to handsome people; but there was no doubt in his mind that Mr Morley Chester was an agreeable person. He was not fine-looking, but his way of speaking was so individual and engaging that Christopher did not wonder at Miss Chester for referring to him as her dear cousin.

Assuredly he was the right man for this trying position. His tact and graciousness must put the shyest stranger at ease, and he struck the happy mean between the professional and amateur host, necessary in a country house where paying guests were taken.

He went with Christopher to show two or three rooms which were free, and the new arrival having selected one, and settled about the price, Morley Chester said, half laughingly, half ruefully, “I suppose you’ve heard about our mystery?”

Christopher confessed that rumours had reached him.

“We think it right to warn everyone who comes,” said his host. “Not that our warnings have much effect. People think nothing will happen to them – that they won’t be caught napping; or it amuses them to lose their things, as one gives up one’s watch or rings to a conjurer to see what he will do. At worst, though, you’re safe for some time.

“The ghostly thief – as we’ve begun to believe him – lets our visitors alone until just before they’re leaving. He always seems to know their intentions. It’s a new way of ‘speeding the parting guest.’ But, if I make light of our troubles, we feel them seriously enough in reality.”

Christopher was offered supper, but refused, as he had lately dined; and he did not go downstairs again until after the ladies had gone to bed. Then he joined the men in the smoking-room, and observed with veiled interest not only the guests, but the servants who brought in whisky and soda. There was not a face of which he could say to himself that the expression was sly or repellent.

Before Mr Chester and Sir Walter Raven no one mentioned the trouble in the house; but next morning, sitting in the hall which was the favourite gathering-place, he caught scraps of gossip. No one present had yet been robbed, but everyone had heard something queer from others who had left the place, and as a rich brewer, lately knighted, intended to go away in his motor after luncheon that day, he was being chaffed by his acquaintances.

“I suppose you’ll give your watch and money to your chauffeur before you sit down for the last meal?” laughed an American girl who had arrived some days before in her motor-car.

“No, I sha’n’t,” replied Sir Henry Smithson, valiantly. “I don’t believe in this nonsense. I’ll show you what I have got on me, and as I am now so shall I be when I go into the dining-hall.”

With this he displayed a gorgeous repeater, with his monogram and crest in brilliants; indicated a black pearl scarf-pin, turned a sapphire and diamond ring set in aluminium on a fat finger, and jingled a store of coins his pocket, which he announced to be gold, amounting to fifty pounds. “I’ve a few notes, too,” said he, “and I expect to have them just the same when I finish my lunch as when I go in.”

“Well, we shall all lunch at the same time, and watch,” remarked the American girl.

The paying guests at Wood House either breakfasted in their own rooms or in a cheerful morning room, more modern than most parts of the quaint old house; therefore, Christopher Race had not seen the dining-hall of which Miss Chester had spoken. He did not join in the conversation with the brewer; nevertheless, when he saw that gentleman swaggering to luncheon, he followed at a distance, everybody else moving in the same direction at the same time.

It was, indeed, a beautiful room, this dining-hall which Sidney Chester had praised. It was wainscoted to the ceiling in old oak carved in the exquisite linen fold pattern, and though it was worm-eaten and showed signs of excessive age, Christopher, who called himself a judge of antiquities, thought the panelling would be almost worth its weight in gold.

The tables for guests were arranged somewhat oddly, probably, Christopher supposed, with a view to showing off the room and its furniture to advantage. The tables were small, of a size to accommodate parties of from two to eight persons, and ranged along two sides of the dining-hall, placed against one of the walls. In the middle of the room stood a huge old refectory table, with carved sides and legs, and leaves to draw out, a splendid specimen of the Tudor period; but no plates were laid upon this. It was used as a serving table; and against the wall on the right of the door, as one entered from the great hall, was a magnificent oak sideboard, loaded with handsome pieces of ancient silver.

Christopher had a table to himself at the end of the long room, and Sir Henry Smithson sat at a larger one not far away. He had invited the American girl, her chaperon, and Sir Walter Raven to share with him his farewell meal, and much champagne flowed. There was a good deal of talk and laughter at that and other tables, but the luncheon was served by the butler and two footmen in ceremonious style, Mr Morley Chester unostentantiously superintending behind a screen which hid the door used by the servants. Not one of the three ladies of the Chester family was in the room.

All went on in the most orderly manner, and the food was good, as well as nicely served, though it struck Christopher that it was rather long between courses. He ate with good appetite until the meal was drawing to an end, when he began to realize that he was tired, and would be glad to get into the garden and smoke a cigarette. He liked the smell of the old oak which came to him from the panelled wall, yet he thought that the fresh air would be pleasant.

Suddenly, as Christopher was beginning upon biscuits and cheese, Sir Henry Smithson sprang up in his chair, exclaiming, “By Jove!”

Then came a clatter of voices at his table, both ladies there crying out in consternation.

“What has happened?” asked Morley Chester, coming out from behind the screen, while Sir Walter Raven sat looking pale and concerned, and the mild-faced butler saved himself from dropping a bottle of port.

“Everything has gone!” ejaculated Miss Reese, the American. “His watch and chain – his ring – his scarf-pin – and -”

“And my money,” finished Sir Henry Smithson.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” stammered Mr Chester. “I begged you to be careful.”

“Oh, I’ve got myself to blame, I suppose,” broke in the brewer. He gave a rough laugh, but it did not sound genuine. “Who on earth would have thought such things could be? Well, seeing’s believing. This is the queerest house I was ever in. It’s bewitched.”

“So we are beginning to think,” said Chester, deeply mortified. “I can’t begin to express my regret -”

“My own fault,” said Sir Henry. “I’ll say no more about it – for the present. But I wouldn’t be sorry to see that repeater of mine again. If you don’t mind I’ll send a detective down on this business.”

Chester assured him that he would like nothing better, and that he only hoped the detective might be more successful than others they had already had at their own expense. People left their tables and crowded round Sir Henry, who was, indeed, shorn of the jewellery he had displayed before luncheon. No one seemed to doubt his word that it had disappeared during the meal without his knowledge, but Christopher made a mental note to write up to town for information concerning the brewer’s character. He was a responsible man by reputation, but he might have eccentricities. He might wish to draw attention to himself by pretending to be a victim of the mystery.

Presently, after the dining-hall had been searched in vain for trace of the lost treasures, Sir Henry Smithson went off in his motor, a sadder and a wiser man.

After this, whenever any guest was about to leave the house, history repeated itself, except in one or two instances where precaution had been considered the better part of valour, and no jewellery or money brought into the dining-hall for the last meal.

Meanwhile Christopher had had a look into the two private sitting-rooms, which were separated from the dining-hall only by one long, narrow room used of late as a kind of office. He even ordered dinner in one of them, but nothing happened during the meal.

“I believe people do it themselves when nobody is looking,” Christopher thought that night, meditating in his own room. “Can it be that there is some supernatural influence in this old house which puts people into an hysterical state, hypnotizes them, so to speak, and makes them do abnormal things?”

Certain it was that he had grown nervous and, as he expressed it, “jumpy.” He suffered from headache, an ailment he had scarcely known before; slept fitfully, starting awake, often with the fancy that he heard a sound in his bedroom. When he dreamed, it was always of old oak and the smell of oak. He felt dull and disinclined to think for long on any subject. In the mornings when he got up there were lines under his eyes, and he had little appetite. Either he imagined it, or the Morley Chesters and their cousin Sidney also looked ill. Perhaps this was not surprising, as the mystery in the house caused them constant anxiety, but Sir Walter Raven was losing his sunburnt tint, and it seemed to Christopher more or less the same with the butler and footman, and all the guests who remained longer than three or four days at Wood House. He was the last man to dwell on ghostly fancies, yet after he remained for a week at the place without being able to earn a penny of the money Miss Chester had offered, he was half ready to credit the idea that the house was haunted.

“If anybody had been doing conjuring tricks I should have had the wit to discover it by this time,” he reflected. But if there was anything material to discover, professionals were no more successful than the amateur. There was a new footman in the dining-room, and Morley Chester whispered to Christopher one day that he was a detective in the employ of Sir Henry Smithson.

Race had almost abandoned his suspicions of Sir Walter Raven, whom he liked more and more, when, on his eighth night at Wood House, a sound startled him from a dream of linen fold patterned panelling. Usually, when he waked thus, it was to find all silent, and he would turn over and fall asleep once more, telling himself that the noise had been part of his dream. But this time it continued. There was a queer creaking behind the wainscot.

Of course, it might be rats. Rats could make any sort of sound in the night; and yet he did not think that rats had made this sound. It was too like a foot treading on a loose board, and then stepping on it a second time.

Christopher struck a match and looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. He determined to stop awake the next night and listen for the same thing again. He did so; and it came, at almost exactly the same hour. That day, and the day before, a mysterious disappearance of jewellery had taken place.

In the morning Christopher asked the servant who brought his morning tea who occupied the adjoining room. “Sir Walter Raven,” was the answer. Race was angry with himself for not having learned earlier who his neighbour was; but during the day, as he passed, and saw the door of the next room ajar, he glanced in. It seemed to him that there was an inexplicable distance between this door and his. The rooms were supposed to adjoin each other. His own door was near the dividing wall, and so was Sir Walter’s, yet there was a wide space between.

Through the open door of Sir Walter Raven’s room he could see a low window, with a cushioned seat in the embrasure. In his room there was one of the same size and shape. To prevent mistake he propped a book against the lozenge-panes of his own window, and went out to walk round the rambling house and reconnoitre.

Yes, there was the book; and there was Sir Walter’s window farther on towards the left. But there was something between which did not puzzle Christopher as much as it would had he not noticed the distance separating the doors of the two adjoining rooms. Half-way between the two low windows was a tiny one, so overgrown with ivy that it was all but invisible, even to an observant eye.

“Sir Walter Raven must have a cupboard in his wall, lit by that little window,” Christopher decided, “or else there’s a secret ‘hidie hole’ between his room and mine.”

As Sir Walter’s door stood open, Christopher could peer into the room, by pausing as he passed through the corridor, and discover for himself whether there was a cupboard door in the wall. If anyone saw him looking in, it would be simple to explain that he had absent-mindedly mistaken the room for his own, farther on. But he was not seen and had plenty of time, lingering on the threshold, to make certain that no cupboard door was visible in the oak wainscot of the wall. If there were a door it was a secret one.

Christopher was sure now that some place of concealment existed between his room and Sir Walter Raven’s, and he was sure, too, that someone entered there at night. What was that someone’s errand, and had it any connection with the mystery? This was a question which Christopher considered it his business to find out as soon as possible.

To begin with, he tapped the wainscoting in his own room, and was interested to discover that his knock gave out a hollow sound. He believed that there was but the one thickness of oak between him and the secret, whatever it might be, which lay beyond.

The panelling here was simple, without any elaboration of carving. The wainscot, which reached from floor to ceiling, was divided into large squares framed in a kind of fluting. Having examined each of these squares on the wall nearest Sir Walter Raven’s he gave up the hope that there was any hidden door or sliding panel.

“I could saw out a square, though,” he thought, “and look at what’s on the other side; or I could squeeze through if it seemed worth while. A panel behind the curtain of my bed would do; and I could stick it in again, so that if anybody suspected there was something up they would hardly be able to see what I’d been doing.”

Apparently no one ever entered the hiding-place except in the night, about two o’clock. The noises behind the wainscoting continued for a few minutes only, and after that all was silence.

In the afternoon Christopher motored into Ringhurst to buy a small saw, and a bull’s-eye lantern such as policemen use. On the way back he overtook Sir Walter with Sidney, and they accepted his offer to give them a lift back to Wood House. “Queer thing, I’m used to tramping about the whole day, and don’t turn a hair after a twenty-five-mile walk; but lately I feel done up after eight,” said the young man, who was looking pale and heavy-eyed. “I suppose it must be that the climate’s relaxing.”

Christopher was pricked with a guilty pang. He was engaged by Miss Chester to act as a detective, and yet he felt ashamed of suspecting and plotting against the man she loved. He liked Raven, too. Altogether, keen as he was to fathom the mystery, he wished that he had never come to Wood House.

They talked about the robberies as Christopher drove the car home, Sidney sitting beside him, Sir Walter leaning forward in the tonneau. “After all, it will end in our going away from the dear old place,” sighed Sidney, with tears in her eyes. “The strain is wearing mother out; and, you know, if neither of us continues living in the house it will go, as I told you, to the man who would have been the heir had the entail not been broken.”

“You’ll both come out with me to Colorado and forget your troubles. Let the chap have the place, and be thankful it’s off your hands,” said Raven.

He spoke with the sincerity of a lover, not like a schemer who would force a woman to his will by foul means if fair ones proved not strong enough.

“I feel a beast spying on him and working against him,” thought Christopher. “Suppose he knows nothing about the secret place next his room? Suppose the noises are made by rats? And what if, after all, the people who think they have been robbed never have been robbed? I’ll give Raven the benefit of the doubt until I’ve tried one more experiment.”

Tea was going on in the hall when Scarlet Runner arrived at Wood House. There were letters for Christopher, and he announced in the hearing of everyone, including the servants, that unless he should get a telegram advising him to the contrary he must leave Wood House, where he had spent such an enjoyable fortnight, immediately after breakfast the next morning.

“You’ll not come back to us?” asked Sidney, with veiled meaning in her voice.

Christopher pretended not to notice the meaning. “I’m sorry to say I shan’t be able to,” he answered. “Already I’ve been here longer than I expected.”

He did not mean to take any money from the girl, but though she could not be aware of this resolution, she seemed really sorry to have him go, failure as he had been – thus far.

Christopher took longer over dressing for dinner that night than usual. He hesitated whether to wear the studs and sleeve-links he liked best, or others which he did not care about. Also he was half minded to lock his watch up in his suit-case. Finally, however, he resolved to make his experiment bravely. “I’m not hysterical,” he said to himself, “though I might get to be if I stopped here much longer. I shan’t steal my own things and hide them, if that’s what other people do.”

Throughout his stay at Wood House he had taken his meals at the same small table, except once or twice when he had been asked to join new-made acquaintances for dinner. But to-night he invited Sir Walter Raven to dine with him, “as it was his last evening.” The young man accepted, and they talked of Colorado. Sir Walter was inviting him to come out to his ranch some day, when suddenly the expression of the once healthy, sunburnt, now slightly haggard face changed.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Raven, the blood mounting to his forehead.

“What’s the matter?” asked Christopher.

“I’m not a particularly observant chap, but I suppose I would have noticed if you’d come in without your shirt-studs. You didn’t by any chance forget to put them in, did you?”

“No; I had them in, right enough,” said Race. Looking down he saw that the white expanse of his evening shirt lacked the finish of the two pearl studs he had worn when he came into the room. His cuffs hung loose, empty of his favourite pair of links. Hastily touching his watch-pocket, he found it limp and flat.

“Well, yes, it is ‘by Jove,’” he remarked, grimly.

“Shall we call Morley Chester and tell him what’s happened?” asked Raven.

“No,” said Christopher, who sat with his back turned towards the other occupants of the room, his table being at the end by a window, and he having given his usual seat to his guest; “I’d rather not make a fuss. I shall sit till the others have gone, and no one will be the wiser. I’m sick of sensations, and don’t want to pose as the hero of one if I can help it.”

“Some people seem to like it,” said Raven.

“So I’ve thought,” replied Christopher. But his theory was upset. He could not believe in any ghostly influence strong enough to impose illusions upon his mind. A queer thrill went through him. He was struck with horror by the mystery, which had never impressed itself so vividly upon him before.

It was a relief when the rest of the diners left the room, and he was free to slip away without making statements or answering questions. Luckily for him – if unluckily for the Chesters – there were few guests in the house. Those who were there – with the exception of Sir Walter Raven – were new arrivals, and strangers to Christopher. For this reason he escaped the fire of curiosity which raged round most departing visitors at Wood House. He went to his room, locked the door, and, having listened with his ear at the wainscoting, presently began as noiselessly as possible to saw out a selected square from the oak panelling behind his curtained four-poster bed. The saw was sharp, and he worked as energetically as if he had an injury to avenge. In an hour he had the panel ready to come out of its frame. But he did not venture to take it out and commence his explorations until the house was still for the night.

Not once while he worked had there been the faintest sound on the other side. Removing the square of wainscoting at last as if it had been a pane in a window (odd, the oak here hadn’t half that strong, subtle fragrance of rich old wood that it had downstairs in the dining-hall and the two private sitting-rooms!), Christopher turned on the light of his lantern and peered into the obscurity on the other side.

There was a hollow space between this wall and the next – a space rather more than two feet wide. Christopher had moved his bed, and cut into a panel so low down that to peer into the opening he had to kneel. The square aperture he had made was so large that by squeezing he could thrust his shoulders through as well as his head. So far as he could see, there was no door on the opposite side, nor was there furniture of any sort in the secret place the stream of light lit up. But at the far corner there was something low and long, and blacker than the darkness. It might be a heavy beam, he thought, against a wall, or it might be a box.

Withdrawing his head, he looked at the quaint grandfather clock which stood in a corner of his room. It was never right within half an hour, but he had now no watch to consult. According to the old timepiece it wanted twenty minutes to two. Perhaps it was later, perhaps earlier; but, in any case, Christopher had time to make researches before the nightly footfalls were due.

It was difficult to wriggle through the square hole in the wainscoting, but he did it, after ridding himself of coat and waistcoat. Now he stood in a long, narrow space between the walls of his own room and Sir Walter Raven’s. He had slipped off his pumps, and in stockinged feet began cautious explorations, the lantern making a pathway of light. The thing he had seen at the far end was not a beam. It was a box – two boxes – three boxes – of common wood, such as come into every household from the stores. They had lids, but the lids were not nailed down. Christopher lifted one. The box was filled with jewellery, heaped up in neat piles, according to its kind, on some dark garment folded underneath. There were a pile of bracelets, a pile of brooches, a pile of rings, and a collection of watches like glittering gold eggs in a nest. The second box had the same description of contents, though there were more miscellaneous articles – gold or jewelled belt-buckles, hatpins, a diamond dog-collar or two, and several strings of pearls. In the third box, much smaller than the other two, were purses, some of leather, some of gold or silver netting; cigarette-cases with jewelled monograms; and, weighted down by a lump of gold chains, lay a quantity of bank-notes.

The ghost of Wood House did his work in a business-like manner!

Of gold coins there were none. Even the most prudent ghost might venture to put these to use without delay, when a sharp and practised eye had found them not to be marked suspiciously.

“What a haul it has been,” Christopher said to himself. His valuables did not appear to have been added to the collection, but he shrewdly suspected that they would be put into place that night. He had only to wait and see who came to put them there; or should he go farther in this adventure first?

Behind the row of wooden boxes was a square hole, black as the heart of night. Christopher’s lantern showed him that from the top of this opening descended a narrow staircase, winding round upon itself like a corkscrew. He set his foot on the first step, and it squeaked. Then he knew what it was that had waked him every night – a foot treading upon that stair – perhaps other stairs below.

“I’ll see what’s at the bottom,” thought Christopher; and was in the act of stepping over the low barrier of boxes when he heard a distant sound.

It was faint, yet it made Christopher pause. He withdrew his foot from the top step of the stairway, and, covering the light, lay on his side behind the boxes which would, until a person advancing had risen to a level higher than the wooden lids, form a screen to hide him.

The sound continued, growing gradually more distinct. Someone was tip-toeing towards the stairs. Someone was on the stairs. Someone was coming up. There was a wavering glimmer of light, a little light, like that of a candle.

Christopher lay very still. He hardly even breathed.

The light was moving up the dark wall, and throwing a strange black shadow, which might be the shadow of a head. A stair creaked. Another stair. That clock must have been slow, or else the ghost was before its time. Now there was a long-drawn, tired breath, like a sigh, and in the advancing light gleamed something white and small. For a moment it hung in the midst of shadow, then it descended on the lid of the middle box. It was a woman’s hand.

Quick as thought Christopher seized and held it tightly, at the same instant rising up and flashing his lantern.

There was a stifled gasp; the hand struggled vainly; he pulled it towards him, though its owner stumbled and nearly fell, and Christopher found himself face to face with Mrs Morley Chester.

“Let me go!” she panted. “Oh, I implore you!”

“I’ll not let you go,” said Christopher, in a voice as low as hers, but mercilessly determined. “This game is up. You shall tell me everything, or I swear I’ll alarm the house, send for the police, and have you arrested, you and your husband.”

“Not my husband!” faltered the “dear little cousin,” the pretty, timid creature who had always seemed to Christopher pathetic in her gentle self-effacement, her desire to help Cousin Sidney. “He – he has nothing to do with this. I-”

“Oh, yes, he has; everything to do with it,” insisted Christopher, brutally, meaning to frighten her. “You couldn’t have managed this yourself. I’m not an ordinary guest. I’m here as a detective, and I’ve been working up the case for a fortnight. Now, I want your confession. Be quick, please, or you’ll regret it.”

“How cruel you are!” sobbed the woman.

Christopher laughed. “How cruel you have both been to those who trusted you – and to others likely to be suspected in your stead.”

“I would do anything for Morley,” said Morley’s wife.

Still holding her wrist, he pulled her gently, but firmly, up to the top of the steps, and did not loosen his grasp until he stood between her and the stairway.

“If you wish to save him you know what to do,” the young man said.

“You won’t send us to prison if I tell you the whole story?”

“I’ll do my best for you, if you make a clean breast of it; but the contents of these boxes must be restored to their owners, for your cousin’s sake if nothing else. I promise to shut my eyes to your escaping with your husband, before any public revelation is made, provided I’m satisfied that you tell me the whole truth now.”

“I will, oh, I will! You know, Morley would have had this place if common justice had been done – if the entail hadn’t been broken.”

“Ah, he is the heir of whom Miss Chester spoke!”

“Of course, who else could be? He’s the only one left in the male line. And think what it was for him to find out through an expert, whose word he couldn’t doubt, that there’s coal enough under the park to make him an immensely rich man, if only he hadn’t been robbed of his rights.”

“He didn’t tell Miss Chester of this discovery?”

“Naturally not. If she or her mother gave up living here the estate would come to him after all. He hoped for that. And when he heard of her plan to open a kind of hotel he helped her get a licence and offered to manage the business. That was because he had an idea, which he hoped he could work. His father, who died when Morley was a boy, was a professor of chemistry, and made some clever inventions and discoveries, but they never brought in money. There was one thing he found after spending a year in Persia for his health. He discovered that out of a plant there – a plant no one had ever thought of importance before – an extract could be produced which would make people unconscious, at the same time causing their muscles to remain so rigid that if they were standing they would remain on their feet, or would not drop what they might be holding in their hands. When they came to themselves again they would not feel ill, would not even know they had lost consciousness for a moment.

“Morley’s father was much excited about this preparation and hoped it would be as important as curare, if not chloroform. He named the stuff arenoform, as nearly as possible after the plant, and published his discovery to the medical profession. But then came a dreadful blow. After many experiments to change and improve it, nothing could be done to prolong unconsciousness enough to make arenoform really useful to doctors and surgeons. The effect wouldn’t last longer than five or six minutes, and the patients were terribly exhausted next day, so that the stuff would not do even for dentists in extracting teeth, as it was more depressing than gas. One of the most wonderful things about it was that a lot of people could be made unconscious at once, even in a big room, by a spray of arenoform floating in the air. But though that was curious and interesting, it was not of practical use, so arenoform was a failure.

“The disappointment was so great that Morley’s father was never the same again. He always hoped that some experiment would make the thing a success, and, instead of gaining the fortune he’d expected, he spent more money than he could spare from his family in importing quantities of the plant from Persia, and manufacturing the extract in his own laboratory. Then he died, and there were hundreds and hundreds of the bottles in the house, of no use to anybody; but Morley had promised his dying father not to let them be destroyed. Everyone forgot the discovery of arenoform, for you see Dr Chester has been dead twenty years. Only Morley didn’t forget; and it was the existence of that quantity of arenoform in the house left him by his father which put the idea of coming here into his head. He experimented with the stuff on a dog, and found it was as powerful as on the day it was made. Then he told me, and I promised to help in any way I could.

“Next to the dining-hall on one side, and separating it from the two rooms used as private sitting-rooms for guests, is a long, rather ugly room which Morley asked Sidney to give him as a private office. Night after night he worked there before the house was opened to the public, and afterwards too, perfecting his scheme. He perforated the walls, so that, by means of a little movable machine which I could work, a spray of arenoform could be showered through the oak wainscoting either into the dining-hall on one side or the two sitting-rooms on the other. Then he had the tables ranged along the wall; and as one peculiarity of arenoform is that it smells like wood – wonderfully like old oak – no detective could have suspected anything by coming to sniff about the place afterwards. Besides, the perforations in the wainscoting are so small that they seem no different from the worm-holes which are slowly spoiling the old oak.

“When Morley was in the dining-hall or one of the sitting-rooms – which ever place we planned to have something happen – I would be in the locked office, and at a signal which he would give me when most of the servants were out of the room waiting to bring in a new course, I would turn on the spray. He always kept at the very farthest end of the room, behind the screen, and put his face to an open window there. Then, when everybody in the room was under the influence, which they were in a minute or two, he would take whatever he wanted from some unconscious man or woman, or even several persons, before anyone woke up. We’ve had no one to help us except an assistant of the cook, whom I bribed to make it as long between courses as possible. When I was ready to have the servants go in with the next dish I would touch a little electric bell in the office which Morley had arranged to communicate with the kitchen. The cook’s assistant knows nothing, though, except that for some reason it was convenient to me not to have the meals hurried, and to be able to regulate exactly the moment when the different courses should go in.

“Of course, the horrid stuff has affected our health – Morley’s and mine – as well as that of everybody else, who has been near when the machine was worked, or lived in the house for any length of time. But we hoped that Sidney and her mother would soon give up. Then the place would be Morley’s, and we would be repaid for everything. While if they held on we should at least have the jewels.

“When Morley was working at the walls he discovered the way into this secret place out of our office – not the only ‘hidie hole’ in the house – but neither Sidney nor her mother knows of its existence. We thought it would be useful to get things out of the way, for fear of detectives searching our boxes, and so it has been. Morley has always sent me up, because I am so light and small and don’t make as much noise on the creaking stairs as a man would. Now you know the whole story. And if you have any sense of justice you’ll admit that Morley isn’t to blame, when the place should have been his, and not Sidney’s or her mother’s.”

Long before dawn Mr and Mrs Morley Chester left Wood House. Next day Christopher told Sidney and Sir Walter Raven the tale as it had been told to him. Also, he mentioned the coal. Also, he showed them the store of jewels and bank-notes.

Where the Morley Chesters went Christopher and others did not know, and did not want to know; but when an advertisement was put into all the most important papers that the mysterious thief at Wood House had been discovered, and that everybody who had lost anything could have it returned by claiming it, the enlightened police were unable to get upon the track of the missing ones.

Christopher would not accept any payment from Sidney Chester. But he would like to have a piece of her wedding-cake to “dream on.” He did not think that it would cause him to dream of old oak.