As he sat that evening by the parlour fire, wondering for the hundredth time who the mysterious cloaked stranger could have been whose back had been seen by Luke, Dame Marigold suddenly broke the silence by saying, “What do you know about Endymion Leer, Nat?”
“What do I know of Endymion Leer?” he repeated absently. “Why, that he’s a very good leach, with very poor taste in cravats, and, if possible, worse taste in jokes. And that, for some unknown reason, he has a spite against me …”
He broke off in the middle of his sentence, and muttered beneath his breath, “By the Sun, Moon and Stars! Supposing it should be …”
Luke’s stranger had said he feared the Chanticleers.
A strange fellow, Leer! The Note had once sounded in his voice. Where did he come from? Who was he? Nobody knew in Lud-in-the-Mist.
And, then, there were his antiquarian tastes. They were generally regarded as a harmless, unprofitable hobby. And yet … the past was dim and evil, a heap of rotting leaves. The past was silent and belonged to the Silent People … But Dame Marigold was asking another question, a question that had no apparent connection with the previous one: “What was the year of the great drought?”
Master Nathaniel answered that it was exactly forty years ago, and added quizzically, “Why this sudden interest in history, Marigold?”
Again she answered by asking him a question. “And when did Endymion Leer first arrive in Dorimare?”
Master Nathaniel began to be interested. “Let me see,” he said thoughtfully. “It was certainly long before we married. Yes, I remember, we called him in to a consultation when my mother had pleurisy, and that was shortly after his arrival, for he could still only speak broken Dorimarite … it must be thirty years ago.”
“I see,” said Dame Marigold drily. “But I happen to know that he was already in Dorimare at the time of the drought.” And she proceeded to repeat to him her conversation that morning with Miss Primrose.
“And,” she added, “I’ve got another idea,” and she told him about the panel in the Guildhall that sounded hollow and what the guardian had said about the woodpecker ways of Endymion Leer. “And if, partly for revenge for our coldness to him, and partly from a love of power,” she went on, “it is he who has been behind this terrible affair, a secret passage would be very useful in smuggling, and would explain how all your precautions have been useless. And who would be more likely to know about a secret passage in the Guildhall than Endymion Leer!”
“By the Sun, Moon and Stars!” exclaimed Master Nathaniel excitedly, “I shouldn’t be surprised if you were right, Marigold. You’ve got a head on your shoulders with something in it more useful than porridge!”
And Dame Marigold gave a little complacent smile.
Then he sprang from his chair, “I’m off to tell Ambrose!” he cried eagerly.
But would he be able to convince the slow and obstinate mind of Master Ambrose? Mere suspicions are hard to communicate. They are rather like the wines that will not travel, and have to be drunk on the spot.
At any rate, he could but try.
“Have you ever had a vision of Duke Aubrey, Ambrose?” he cried, bursting into his friend’s pipe-room.
Master Ambrose frowned with annoyance. “What are you driving at, Nat?” he said, huffily.
“Answer my question. I’m not chaffing you, I’m in deadly earnest. Have you ever had a vision of Duke Aubrey?”
Master Ambrose moved uneasily in his chair. He was far from proud of that vision of his. “Well,” he said, gruffly, “I suppose one might call it that. It was at the Academy—the day that wretched girl of mine ran away. And I was so upset that there was some excuse for what you call visions.”
“And did you tell anyone about it?”
“Not I!” said Master Ambrose emphatically; then he caught himself up and added, “Oh! yes I believe I did though. I mentioned it to that spiteful little quack, Endymion Leer. I’m sure I wish I hadn’t. Toasted Cheese! What’s the matter now, Nat?”
For Master Nathaniel was actually cutting a caper of triumph and glee.
“I was right! I was right!” he cried joyfully, so elated by his own acumen that for the moment his anxiety was forgotten.
“Read that, Ambrose,” and he eagerly thrust into his hands Luke Hempen’s letter.
“Humph!” said Master Ambrose when he had finished it. “Well, what are you so pleased about?”
“Don’t you see, Ambrose!” cried Master Nathaniel impatiently. “That mysterious fellow in the cloak must be Endymion Leer … nobody else knows about your vision.”
“Oh, yes, Nat, blunt though my wits may be I see that. But I fail to see how the knowledge helps us in any way.” Then Master Nathaniel told him about Dame Marigold’s theories and discoveries.
Master Ambrose hummed and hawed, and talked about women’s reasoning, and rash conclusions. But perhaps he was more impressed, really, than he chose to let Master Nathaniel see. At any rate he grudgingly agreed to go with him by night to the Guildhall and investigate the hollow panel. And, from Master Ambrose, this was a great concession; for it was not the sort of escapade that suited his dignity.
“Hurrah, Ambrose!” shouted Master Nathaniel. “And I’m ready to bet a Moongrass cheese against a flask of your best flower-in-amber that we’ll find that rascally quack at the bottom of it all!”
“You’d always a wonderful eye for a bargain, Nat,” said Master Ambrose with a grim chuckle. “Do you remember, when we were youngsters, how you got my pedigree pup out of me for a stuffed pheasant, so moth-eaten that it had scarcely a feather to its name, and, let me see, what else? I think there was a half a packet of mouldy sugar-candy …”
“And I threw in a broken musical-box whose works used to go queer in the middle of ‘To War, Bold Sons of Dorimare,’ and burr and buzz like
