CHAPTER XII.—WHAT HAPPENED IN LADY ADELA'S TOWER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2603, 3 February 1904, Page 60

CHAPTER XII.— WHAT HAPPENED IN LADY ADELA'S TOWER.

The vehicle which conveyed Helen and Sir Nigel to the railway station had Bcarcely passed out of sight down the long tree-shaded road which led to Bulmei village before Mr Gideon Luttrell set about ■clearing the Chase of every one who would be likely to interfere with his plans for ransacking the place in quest of the liidden parchment. Having previously fortified himself with a, large amount of ready money to meet the emergency, he proceeded to. dismiss all the servants, and to pay each not one, but two, months' wages in lieu of notice, offering as an excuse for his act the explanation that Sir Nigel, having experienced some severe financial losses of late, had determined to retrench, and, by retiring to the Cornish cottage and letting the Chase, furnished, for a lengthy period to an East Indian gentleman — who preferred to be surrounded by servants of his own nationality — hoped to tide ovei his difficulties while there was yet time to do so by practising rigid economy. But — and Mr Luttrell made a great point of this — as it ,was his wish that his former servitors jghould not transfer through being thrown out of employment with so little warning, he presented each with the usual month's pay in lieu of notice, and with a second month's pay, so that all might proceed at once to London, where the chances of speedily obtaining fresh employment were far greater than if bhey lingered in the country. Sir Nigel, he added, would give them all and severally the best of referBnces, arid hoped that, in their own interest, none would delay in starting for the ioetropolis.

The result of this bit of diplomacy upon Mi LuttrelTs part was that noon found the -Chase wholly deserted, and the servants already on their way to town.

"Now the coast is clear at last," he Baid with an air of immeasurable relief jwhen the gates had been locked and he and bis son were left in sole possession of the (house and grounds. "The end I have schemed for, plotted for, prayed for through all these slow-dragging years is attained at last, Abbas, and it cannot be long now before the holy stone is once more on its way to the land of its origin, and to its sacred place in the shrine of the immortal Buddha. I'll tear the house 'down stone by stone but what I will find the hidden parchment that tells where the [Ruby may be found ; and after that Sir (Nigel may discover the series of frauds I have practised, and may get back the wealth I have cheated him ont of as soon as he pleases ; my work will have been done when the sacred jewel has been unearthed and carried back to Ceylon."

"But why give up the wealth even then?" queried Abbas, in whom life at Oxford had developed Sybaritic tastes and a desire to stand as .he had stood there — as a young man of unlimited means. "It is all well enough to fulfil one's allotted task and to do one's duty by one's gods, but the Ruby is not everything." His father shrank from him -with a look of absolute horror.

"It is, to me !" he said. "It is to all who toe worthy of the smile and the blessing d! omnipotent Buddha, ! vcouldst fchou forswear thy gods and hold aught in life so holy a- the restoration of the sacred jstone?"

No, of course not," replied Abbas, halfheartedly "But, at the same time, I dou'v see the jense of returning to Ceylon empxy handed when one can as well do so Hv;(.t a full purse. You have tricked Sir

Nigel out of his fortune, and hs seems to be resigned to tha fact of its being lost to h'm ; then why not keep it always- and 1 go , back to Ceylon a rich, man?"

j "For a fool, commend me to a spendthrift ; and of all spendthrifts, Abbas Luttrell," said his father despairingly. "Did you learn nothing of history when you were ; at Oxford — qualifying for the post of suitor ; for the hand of Mi&s Forrester should there j be no other way fco get at the_ Ruby — that ' you speak like this? Is not Ceylon under j British rule? And is a thief safer there , than here if he robs an Englishman and j defrauds him out of his land* : The minute Sir Nigel appeals to the law. or his , solicitors demand — as they have a right to i do — to see my books and to examine into ■ the accounts of my stewardship, the fraud j will be discovered ; and that once done, the i getting back of his own becomes a mere I matter of form. Let him have his money ! back; what do I want with it? What charm lias it for me, so that I fulfil my 1 mission and get back the Ruby? As a j child, I was reared to understand that this j is the one end and aim of life, the one j reason why I was permitted to be bom j into the world — that I might follow in the 1 footsteps of the father who died trying to 1 acccnvplisb this great work ; and as a man, : it is dearer to me than the light of Jmy eyes. Let me but accomplish my i sacred task, and I care not what happens, I noi what must be my end. But, there ! I we have wasted time enough in idle vapouri ings, Abbas. We have v ork to do now, and it must be done without delay. S:r Nigel's and Miss Forrester's luggage is all packed and ready for shipment ; and | a& I told them that you would travel with I it, you must be off at once. Remember, yon must keep a close watch on them, and set, that they hold no communication with anybody hi these parts, noi yet with Sir Nigel's solicitors, until my work here is done. Intercept all letters they may write or ..hat may be written to them. This wil not be difficult, for I have ordered Allefcsayah and Dhuleep and the other member's of the Brotherhood oi the Rubyto bs 'n the neighbourhood of the cottage and at your command at all times. It womd aot be amiss, perhaps, if you were to tcko seme of them into service there, that there should be no waiting if they should be needed at a moment's time. To allay any suspicion that might arise in Miss Forrester's mind, I have allowed !Mrs Aiillet and her daughter to remain at the cottage. I hardly think, however, that her old nurse or her old nurse's daughtei are so entirely devoted tr Miss Fon ester's interests as - she herself believes, for when I visited them the day before yesterday tc make arrangements for what has now happened, the mother gave ms to understand that she and her daughter knew which side their bread is buttered on, and would not be likely to let any sentimental feeling come between them and a comfortable future. I shall use them as mere instruments for the furtherance of my own ends, of course; and after those ends are accomplished, the women must face the results of their treachery as best they can. Now go, my son, go to your part :n this great work, and mny the smne of noly Bhudda. -go with you. ' And so they parted, Abbas making his way to the station, where lie was to take, the train and to begin his long journey down to Corrwall, and his father going into the steward's ledge to prepare himself for the task of beginning, at last, such search ipv Lady Adela's key to the hiding place of the Great Ruby as he had never been able to prosecute before. For now, the whole house was at his command ; there was no longer any need for stealth no longer any dread of his operations b*mg discovered by Sir Nigel or the servants, and his heart rejoiced thereat. It was a premature rejoicing, however, for although he searched from day to dark, and, from dark to midnight, went about tapping the walls with a hammer in the quest for some spot that should give forth a hollow wand, it was a vain quest altogether, and nothing satisfactory came of

Fagged out, he retired at midnight, only to come back with the dawn and begin the whole stale and unprofitable business over again; and when the new day ended as fruitless as the old one had done, he returned at night to renew the weary search. With lantern on wrist and hammer in hand he prowled about the deserted house, tapping the walls and sounding the flooring, stabbing the old tufted furniture with long pins, searching behind the old paintings in the Picture Gallery, rummaging for secret drawers in all the bureaux and tables and cabinets that showed, by their antiquity, tha*- they ante-dated the period of Sir Nigel's coming into succession, and prodding all the chimneys and all the tiling of all the disused fireplaces the great rambling old house could boast of.

And the end was still the same — nothing.

Thrice he had searched Lady Adela's Tower — as the disused west wing of the Chase was called — three times thrice he had hunted through the musty vaults of the wine cellar, and now, in sheer despair, he went back for perhaps the twentieth time to. the old moth-eaten, rust-corroded, oakpanelled room in which Lady Adela had died. Somehow, he felt that if the parchment were hidden anywhere, it ought to be here, in this place which was so closely associated with the hider of it, and for yet another time he went about sounding the oaken walls and groping about the old carvings for the possible spring to a possible secret panel. And, as before, he found nothing.

"If the thing's anywhere, it ought to be — it must be — here !" he said in an outburst of savage wrath, Jorn of this persistent failure to find anything that smacked of a secret hiding place. "This old wainscot might as well be iron, for all the difference one can detect in tapping one part of it and another. It sounds solid everywhere, and if there's a chink behind it in which even so much as a pin could be hidden, it gives no sign of it at all. I said in the beginning that I'd find tlu parchment if I had

to tear the hous». down stone by stone to do so, and now it's abont time to live up to that. If there's anything behind this oak panelling, I'll iind it to-night ; 1 swenr that I will.''

He was quite desperate now, for a long succession of feihues hnd driven him to that point, and, rushing out of the room he flew back to the lodge, and returned after a time with a sectional crowbar, an augur, a chisel, and an axe. Without a moment of wasted time he set about tearing away the thick oaken sheathing of the walls, spoiling in an hour the work of days, and such work as the joiners and cabinet makers- of the present time have lost the crt of duplicating.

In 60 minutes' time he had ripped tho carved and panelled wainscoting away for a distance of ten yards, and now came to a poi.it where other tactics were necessary. In short, he had reached a spot where the old high-posted tester bedptead upon which, in the days long gone, Lady Adcla had been found done to death by the seekers after the Great Ruby stood with its back to the wall and with the motheaten fragments of what had once been curtains of green brocade still clinging in dusty tatters to its canopied top. To go or with the task of ripping off the oaken wainscot, Mr Luttrell saw that he must remove this cumbersome thing, and saw, too, that he was not equal to the task of it; for it would have required the full strength of two men to drag it away from the wall and give him room to proceed with his vandal's work of demolition. He therefore attacked it with the axe and savagely began to hew it down.

" Get out of the way, you beast of a thing that's trying to baulk me !" he cried, as he hacked away at it. "I'll conquer you, as IVe conquered everything else that has stood in my path, and when I've laid you low, as I've laid every otiiei obstacle that stood in my way "

He said no more. With a loud Tash the canopied top of the bedstead came suddenly down, and splintered itself upon the floor. A cloud of dust putted up as it fell and filled the room with haze, the silken rags that clung to it crumbled like tinder, the whole massy top broke into splinters, and in the midst of all the wreck and ruin a scrap of yellow parchment lay. Mr'Lutirel saw that yellow scrap, and pounced upon it with a cry of undeistanding and delight. He grabbed it irjth eager hancls, and, catching up his lantern, looked at it. A scrawl of faded writing £oVLi\d the face of it, and heading that scrawl he saw the words, "Key to ned the hiding place of the Great Ruby."

He gave a scream of absolute madness as he saw those words, and in a transport of delight began to yell like a madman.

" Found at last — found after oil these years of waiting, oh, holy Buddha !" he cried, in a voice like the voice of a maniac. "It is the key — the key to the hiding p^ce of the sacred Ruby — and thy servant has it in his bonds at last !"

And even as he snoke it went oub of them. With the suddenness of thought, a small dark figure dasliecl through the door and across the room, the lantern vras knocked from his one hand and the parchment grabbed from the other, and, as the light went out and left him in utter daiknes.s, he could hear fleet footsteps .rushing

down the tower stairs.

He gave a shriek and plunged toward the door.

" Come back !" he shouted, in a panic of wrath and excitement. "I saw yon, you little fury ; I recognised you, and 'l'll have the law on j/ou if you don't give that document up !"

"If'yer wants it, come get it, olc£ Dirtywhite!" rang back through the darkness the voice of Jemima Ann. ''But the evenin's will be shorter when yer do, and don't you make no bloomin' mistake about that!" .

Then "smack!" went the door at the foot of the tower staircase, and — save for the raving and shrieking of Mr Gideon Luttrell — "the rest was silence."