Dick examined the writing. It was in the same hand as all the letters he had seen.
“And then,” Havelock went on, “I had the good sense to call up Mrs. Lansdown, and learned for the first time of her daughter’s disappearance.”
“Did you communicate with Scotland Yard?”
“No, I didn’t,” confessed Havelock irritably. “I suppose I should have done, but when I found that our excellent friend, Mr. Martin, had gone out in search of the young lady, I supposed that he would have taken every precaution to secure assistance. She is here, you say?”
Dick opened the door and ushered in the unexpected caller. It was daylight now, to the girl’s intense relief, and with every familiar face she felt herself growing in courage. The shock of her adventure had been for a while paralysing to her mind and body, and had left her tired and incapable of grasping the full significance of her night’s experience. It was light enough to search the grounds, Dick decided, and, refusing Sneed’s assistance, he went alone through the farmyard towards the tombs. Ten minutes’ walk brought him to the iron grille. It was locked, and obviously there was nothing to be gained by searching the vaults, for Stalletti would have made his getaway immediately after the girl’s escape. The only thing to be done now was to go back by the way the girl had come and which she had described well enough to allow him to follow.
A quarter of an hour’s walk brought him to the place where, as nearly as he could guess, Tom Cawler had stayed behind to meet his attacker. He quartered the ground carefully. A struggle on grass would leave few signs except to the careful observer. Presently he found what he was seeking—a torn tuft of turf, the mark of a rubber heel, a depression in the grass, where somebody had lain. He went round the spot in circles, expecting to find signs of a heavy body having been dragged across the ground, but to his surprise this clue was not visible. If Cawler had been killed, and he did not doubt he had been killed, what had been done with the body? To search the innumerable clumps of wood which dotted the park was out of the question. He went back to report his failure.
When he came into the room, the lawyer and Sneed were discussing something in a low tone.
“Mr. Havelock is rather worried about the man whom the young lady saw,” explained Sneed. “He thinks he is still in the house. That isn’t my belief.”
“Where is this Jesuit room?” asked Dick, and Havelock, despite his anxiety, was amused.
“The Jesuit room is a myth!” he said. “I heard that story a year ago and had an architect down to square up the house; he told me there was no space unaccounted for, and the plans prove this. Most of these Tudor houses have some sort of secret apartment, but so far as we know, there is nothing mysterious about Selford Manor except its smelly system of gas-lighting!”
“What do you intend doing?” asked Havelock after the pause which followed.
“My inclination is to return to town. Miss Lansdown must, of course, go back to her mother,” said Dick.
The elder man shook his head gravely.
“I hope Miss Lansdown will agree to stay,” he said. “Possibly—and naturally—she may object, but there is more in Selford’s letter than I dare understand.”
“You mean about not leaving the Manor for twenty-four hours?”
Havelock nodded.
“I take a very serious view of this warning,” he said. “I believe there is a terrible danger lurking somewhere in the background, and I suggest—and I suppose you’ll think I am a scared old man—that we stay here until tomorrow, and that Mr. Sneed brings down a dozen men to patrol the grounds tonight.”
Dick stared at him.
“Do you really mean this?” he asked.
“I do,” said Mr. Havelock, and there was no mistaking his earnestness. “Mr. Sneed is of the same opinion. There have been one or two happenings in the history of this family which I think you ought to know. I won’t be so melodramatic as to suggest that there is a curse overhanging the house of Selford, but it is a fact that, with the exception of the late Lord Selford, five earlier holders of the title have died violently, and in each case the death has been preceded by happenings almost as remarkable as those we have witnessed recently.”
Dick smiled.
“But we’re not members of the Selford family,” he said.
“I think for the moment we may regard ourselves as being identical with the Selford interests,” Havelock answered quickly. “There is a something very sinister in Selford’s continued absence—I never realized that fact so clearly as I do now, I have been a fool to allow—and, I am afraid, to abet his wanderings. All sorts of things may have happened to him.”
Not by so much as a twitch of face did Dick Martin betray his knowledge of the absent Lord Selford’s secret.
“But I can’t allow Miss Lansdown to stay here—” he began.
“I have thought of that, and my idea is to ask her mother to come down. The house is well stocked in the matter of furniture, and I dare say we could get temporary servants from the village. The caretaker knows everybody hereabouts.”
Dick glanced at Sneed and saw, by the fat man’s face, that he agreed.
“I’ll go into the village and get on the phone,” he said. “Anyway, I’d prefer to sleep here today than go back to town. I’m all in.”
It was not so astonishing that Sybil fell in with this view, though Selford’s letter had no influence on her decision. The reaction after such a night was painfully evident. She was tired to the point of exhaustion and could hardly keep awake.
Sneed drew his friend aside.
“This will suit
