HOUNDS PASTURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3763, 27 April 1926, Page 5

HOUNDS PASTURE

By

Vincent Cornier.

Copyright.—For the Witness.)

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Thorroldan Priory, a grim old house at the edge of the North Yorkshire moors is the centre of a grim and baffling mystery. A hound howls; a stranger arrives. This man, Magerison, takes up his quarters in the place. He has some hold over Thorrold, the master of the Priory. He presumes on this to tell Dorothy Thorrold, the old man s grand-daughter, that he intends to make her his wife. Margerison proves, and forces Thorrold to admit, that John Barnabv, who has worked ae a servant in the Priory, is in reality the next heir, and Dorothy’s brother. Looking for the hound Barnaby is shot in the shoulder by someone hiding in Hound’s Pasture, a field in which a treasure, hidden by monks, is said to be buried. The wound turns out i,o have been caused by a diamond, not a bullet 1 A duck shot in Hound's Pasture has its crop filled with gems worth two thousand pounds. While examining them Magerison is attacked—by a ghostly monk, says Dorothy, who saw the thing "materialise’ behind him. He is knocked unconscious, and the jewels are stolen. Dorothy now betrays her love for him. Together they resolve to solve the mystery. No one is found in the locked room in which the attack was made, but while searching a spectral figure of a monk is seen. Magerison fires at it, but it is not harmed I Dorothy accidentally grips a carved boss of oak, and she and Magerison fall together thrpugh.-a secret aperture in the wall. Old Thorrold bursts open the study door, and Igod, his.confidential servant, and he quarrel, Igod accuses his master of being—a murderer ! Meanwhile Magerison and Dorothy Thorrold explore the place into which they fell on the opening of the secret panel. They find themselves in a deserted lead mine gallery beneath the Priory. Igod and Thorrold, baffled by the pair’s disappearance, decide to join forces. While they are talking Richard Leathley, Thorrold’s enemy, suddenly appears—seemly from nowhere! CHAPTER XVI.—RICHARD LEATHLEY IS CONFOUNDED. Thorrold and Igod looked’ like men taken p* and at Jlie point of death—-their features seemed so plastic and livid as to be actually repulsive. Richard Leathley, Thorrold’s deadly enemy, the mysterious pivot on which the whole of the weird history of Tliorroldaq Priory for the last thirty years had turned . . . was at last before them ini the flesh. Whatever cause for fear Thorrold had, Leathley’s evil grin accentuated it. “So we meet face to face again, Thorrold”—hip tones were grim—“for the first tftrie in a generation! I can’t say that your welcome is either fraternal or exuberant* Surely to goodnes3 you’re not so scared of me that you need look like a corpse? What’s become of the Thorrold of former days—eh?” “How—how did you get—in.here?” Thorrold’s voice was thick, and far down in his throat. “That’s my business,” was Leathley’s smiling answer. “You haven’t replied to what 1 asked, Thorrold! Let me repeat —What’s got you down to your knees? Where’s the truculent —all—the scoundrel who’s defied me all these years? . . . Learned sense, eh? He’s decided that a simpie existence—at a price—is better than a complicated one ... at a cost; is that it, Thorrold?” “You think I’m afraid of you?” ’! “Well—what d’vou want?” Leathley grinned. * “You’d better have asked, ‘ What have you come to take?’ Thorrold! My answer to that question would be what you have known it would be for thirty years .V . ever since that night, you remember, that you ” “Thorrold raised his arms, shakily, as though to ward off a vicious blow at his face., “Don’t—for the —the love of heaven % . . . don’t!’* Leathley sneered. “Fastidious as ever—eh? Right, I mustn’t offend your susceptibilities, I suppose. You think me crude, no doubt; I’ll try to correct the trait what time I'm, dealing with you. Will that satisfy you?” Thorrold did not answer the. enigmatic query. Only old Igod spoke: “Tha* hell-hound—tha’! What’s tha’ gotten up thee sleeve? What’s tha* cettin’ at? What’s tha’ want, Leathley?” Richard Leathley ignored the old fellow, save for a shrugging of his shoulders and a sarcastic smile. He sharpened his wits once more against tho steel of Thorrold’s agonised spirit. “ Does my arrangement suit your supreme highness ? ” lie taunted. “Would the magnificent Thorrold of Thorroldan Priory, squire of Thewle, and lord of the Manor of Thorroldan—and God above knows what else besides ! . , , condescend, mark you—to come down to the level of an ordinary sort of ruffian? In short, should we declare a will be a much easier fate for you than truce and discuss a—a settlement-? Think it over, Thorrold \ a capitulation to mo , a much easier fate for you than • . *f "m • » a bowling out by Magerison! ” That stung the master of Thorroldan.

“ Magerison—wh-what d’you know of him? ”

“ Again the wrong question, Thorrold! It’s what does the swine know about—me! He knows all there is to be known, I think; that’s just where the devilish awkwardness of the position lies! Don’t you—you see ” Then Thorrold did an amazing thing. He flung back his head, colour rushed back to his cheeks—and he laughed and laughed until tears came in his eyes. Strangely enough old Igod soon became infected by the same merriment. For a moment or so he had stood, dumbfounded, gazing alternately at his master and at Leathlev . . . now a wintry smile nipped at his lips; broke to a grin—then to a thin and cackling “ Eeh—eeh —eeh! ” Gone was Lcathlcy’s arrogance; his poise and aplomb went with it. Shifty to foot, and his fingers began to twitch, eyed and awkward, he stepped from foot his face to gres T . The laughter of Thorrold was Homeric; that of Igod—that of a Satyr. . . . Leathlev, of whom two men had lived half a lifetime in fear was in that one strange period of satanical mirth transformed into the veriest clown: into the buffooning counterpart of the villain whose role lie, for so long, had played. CHAPTER XVII.—A STRANGE REALISATION. Igod it was who retaliated. This time he was not to be ignored. “ See—see, tlia’ asks—eh? Yis, we see, Mister Richard Leathlev! Tha’s browt dahn t’ thee marrow bones an’ all—eh? Eeh—eeh—eeh! . . . Tha’s flummoxed properly an’ all! ” Igod cracked his bony knuckles and appeared, in a moment, to throw off his thick cloak of age, to stand where he had stood—3o long years before that night: a sturdy, Yorkshire serving-man, whole-heartedly pledged to his master’s cause. “Tha’s tell’t on it yossei’ that Magerison can bowl we twain aht: then tha’s damned fule enow, t’blurt aht that he knaws all theer is t’be knawn abaht thee—eeh—ecli—eeh! Lord’s sakes alive—tha’s—tha’s faliled thee neet an’ proper. . . Dosta not. see that t’ maister an’ Aa, dosna fear* ye a minute longer ” “ For the. simple reason, Leathley, that Magerison, and I think I’ve taken his measure correctly, is of that type which is damnably hard to convince otherwise than that stern morality alone pays in the long run.” Thorrold’s voice was perfectly steady. “ You pitiful thing, Leathley! Really, I’m sorry for you! And I’m beginning to feel shame for myself! To think of it—just to think of it! Here I am, a man who has—l confess it—lived in mortal dread of your very name ... so supremely placed, now’, that —that I’m going to tell you what I intend doing. Your reign of terror is ending—mine, beginning, will teach you something, Richard Leathley!” And Thorrold, quite calm, carefully seated himself and clasped his white hands over the head of his stick. Leathley’s tall figure—he'was a blackbearded, wild-eyed man, dressed shabbily in a garb something like that w r orn at work-a-day times by gamekeepers—w’ilted. He had not much to say, but all he did say was woefully to the point. “Yes—you—you are right,” lie muttered. “ Magerison knows ... in the end he’ll tell! ” » “ Aye! Aye, thou dog, thou’s held t’ maister under thee thumb all this long time an’ all, ’cos why? ’Cos ye knew he darn’t tell on ye, Leathley. Nah another know’s o’ ye rottenness, an’ ye says it versel—lie’ll tell . . . tha’s forced like an owld dog fox t’ earth—eh ? ” “ Stalemate, I think,” admitted Leathley. “Checkmate, I think,” smiled Thorrold. Leathley’s sullen and Ifang-dog silence made another admission for him. Then ... “ Now the air is cleared somewhat, Leathley,” Thorrold went on, “ I’ll lie able to discuss—ah-j-affairs without fear, I think! So—you came for the treasure to-nigfit—eh ” Leathley nodded, looking transfixed at the master of Thorroldan’s confident mask of a face. “Thought so! And you’ll have to go without it, Leathley, even as you had to go without the minor part of it you thought so certainly was yours . y . that cropful of stones that was in the duck you sliot in Hound’s Pasture! ” “ You—you know of that ? ” “ Why certainly, man! Do you take me to be so great a fool as all that? I’ve known for years that every November, when that certain kind of duck lands on this const from the Baltic, you’ve shot ’em in Hound’s Pasurc so soon as they’ve fed for the first time after landing. Strangely enough, generations of those birds have filled their crops with gems, found hereabouts . . w’here, exactly, I don’t know’; neither do you, Richard Leathley! The fact remains, however, that they get scattered stones from the monks* treasure with which to grind their food—l’ve known

you’ve beeu kept at arm’s length all these years simply because I never interfered with—with your —er —peculiar sport. . . It provided you with such an income you see, Leathlev, that I knew it paid better than —than the blackmailing you would undoubtedly have practised on me, otherwise! ” There was a moment’s silence. “ You—are telling me, Thorrold,” Leathley’s voice was hoarse, “ that you don’t know where the treasure is hidden . . . you tell me that ? ” Thorrold’s brows arched, and he smiled. “ Precisely—my poor fool! ” he chuckled. “ I’ve never even bothered my head to look for it. Why should I? I’ve got quite sufficient for my needs; I don’t see the fun in digging up half the countryside for the matter of a little more.” “You—haven’t got—the treasure? You don’t know—its—its hiding place?” “ I’ve told you no once, Leathley! ” “ Then whv, in God’s name, did you — commit murder to get your hands on ft 30 years ago ? ” And Thorrold seemed suddenly to become like Igod. Age was no longer his enemy; he was very strong. “ The passion you betray, my dear Leathley,” he murmured, “ and the words you use prove to me that you have convinced yourself of something I have suddenly realised is altogethei a lie of your own making . . . you have been trapped, my good Leathley—trapped, you hear?” Igod bent forward listening. Leathley’s face for some peculiar reason was becoming drawn. “ Yes—trapped . . . like the rat you are! I did not commit murder, Leathley—thank God, I realise it now, you dog! You committed murder, Leathlev —you murdered him there—in that—that hole. . . . Ah! God above me, I—l can see it all now—you did it—you did it! ” Thorrold got to his feet, shaking as in a frenzy. Igod’s expression was terrible, and he made, like an old gaunt cat, softly toward the baffled and terrified stranger. “ You killed him, Leathley ” —Thorrold’s voice was almost a shriek—- “ and—self-confessed almost, you’re here with me . . . you did it—that murder—and put the blame on me . . . you killed him ... to get your hands on the treasure of Hound’s Pasture, you scoundrel! ” If ever guilt was in man’s eves before it now was in those of Richard Leathley. Aghast and trembling he staggered back —his hand searching . • . searching. . . . “ Igod understood; and. said so ” “ Look out, maister! He’s feeling for t’ spring o’ some secret panel or t’ other so’s he’ll be able to get away—look out. . . . No, A’ll settle him, first! ” And Igod acted on his sudden decision. He leapt for Leathley’s throat, and caught at it. Together the two fell, struggling madly. . . Igod slowly strangled the man; slowly was blotting the light of aay for ever from his eyes—so slowly. (To be continued.)