J. S. Fletcher - The Collected Works of J. S. Fletcher - 17 Novels & 28 Short Stories (Illustrated Edition)

Smeaton turned in his chair and looked at Mr. Ridley, who—he and Mr. Lindsey having taken their supper before we got in—was sitting in a corner by the fire, eyeing the stranger from Dundee with evident and curious interest.

"I've heard of you, sir," said he. "You gave some evidence at the inquest on Phillips about Gilverthwaite's searching of your registers, I think?"

"Aye; and it's a fortunate thing—and shows how one thing leads to another—that Gilverthwaite did go to Mr. Ridley!" explained Mr. Lindsey. "It set Mr. Ridley on a track, and he's been following it up, and—to cut matters short—he's found particulars of the marriage of Michael Carstairs, who was said to have died unmarried. And I wish Portlethorpe hadn't gone home to Newcastle before Mr. Ridley came to me with the news."

Tired as I was, and utterly heart-sick about Maisie, I pricked up my ears at that. For at intervals Mr. Lindsey and I had discussed the probabilities of this affair, and I knew that there was a strong likelihood of its being found out that the mysterious Martin Smeaton was no other than the Michael Carstairs who had left Hathercleugh for good as a young man. And if it were established that he was married, and that Gavin Smeaton was his lawful son, why, then—but Mr. Ridley was speaking, and I broke off my own speculations to listen to him.

"You've scarcely got me to thank for this, Mr. Smeaton," he said. "There was naturally a good deal of talk in the neighbourhood after that inquest on Phillips—people began wondering what that man Gilverthwaite wanted to find in the parish registers, of which, I now know, he examined a good many, on both sides the Tweed. And in the ordinary course of things—and if some one had made a definite search with a definite object—what has been found now could have been found at once. But I'll tell you how it was. Up to some thirty years ago there was an old parish church away in the loneliest part of the Cheviots which had served a village that gradually went out of existence—though it's still got a name, Walholm, there's but a house or two in it now; and as there was next to no congregation, and the church itself was becoming ruinous, the old parish was abolished, and merged in the neighbouring parish of Felside, whose rector, my friend Mr. Longfield, has the old Walholm registers in his possession. When he read of the Phillips inquest, and what I'd said then, he thought of those registers and turned them up, out of a chest where they'd lain for thirty years anyway; and he at once found the entry of the marriage of one Michael Carstairs with a Mary Smeaton, which was by licence, and performed by the last vicar of Walholm—it was, as a matter of fact, the very last marriage which ever took place in the old church. And I should say," concluded Mr. Ridley, "that it was what one would call a secret wedding—secret, at any rate, in so far as this: as it was by licence, and as the old church was a most lonely and isolated place, far away from anywhere, even then there'd be no one to know of it beyond the officiating clergyman and the witnesses, who could, of course, be asked to hold their tongues about the matter, as they probably were. But there's the copy of the entry in the old register."

Smeaton and I looked eagerly over the slip of paper which Mr. Ridley handed across. And he, to whom it meant such a vast deal, asked but one question:

"I wonder if I can find out anything about Mary Smeaton!"

"Mr. Longfield has already made some quiet inquiries amongst two or three old people of the neighbourhood on that point," remarked Mr. Ridley. "The two witnesses to the marriage are both dead—years ago. But there are folk living in the neighbourhood who remember Mary Smeaton. The facts are these: she was a very handsome young woman, not a native of the district, who came in service to one of the farms on the Cheviots, and who, by a comparison of dates, left her place somewhat suddenly very soon after that marriage."

Smeaton turned to Mr. Lindsey in the same quiet fashion.

"What do you make of all this?" he asked.

"Plain as a pikestaff," answered Mr. Lindsey in his most confident manner. "Michael Carstairs fell in love with this girl and married her, quietly—as Mr. Ridley says, seeing that the marriage was by licence, it's probable, nay, certain, that nobody but the parson and the witnesses ever knew anything about it. I take it that immediately after the marriage Michael Carstairs and his wife went off to America, and that he, for reasons of his own, dropped his own proper patronymic and adopted hers. And," he ended, slapping his knee, "I've no doubt that you're the child of that marriage, that your real name is Gavin Carstairs, and that you're the successor to the baronetcy, and—the real owner of Hathercleugh,—as I shall have pleasure in proving."

"We shall see," said Smeaton, quietly as ever. "But—there's a good deal to do before we get to that, Mr. Lindsey! The present holder, or claimant, for example? What of him?"

"I've insisted on the police setting every bit of available machinery to work in an effort to lay hands on him," replied Mr. Lindsey. "Murray not only communicated all that Hollins told us last night to the Glasgow police this morning, first thing, but he's sent a man over there with the fullest news; he's wired the London authorities, and he's asked for special detective help. He's got a couple of detectives from Newcastle—all's being done that can be done. And for you too, Hugh, my lad!" he added, turning suddenly to me. "Whatever the police are doing in the other direction, they're doing in yours. For, ugly as it may sound and seem, there's nothing like facing facts, and I'm afraid, I'm very much afraid, that this disappearance of Maisie Dunlop is all of a piece with the rest of the villainy that's been going on—I am indeed!"

I pushed my plate away at that, and got on my feet. I had been dreading as much myself, all day, but I had never dared put it into words.

"You mean, Mr. Lindsey, that she's somehow got into the hands of—what?—who?" I asked him.

"Something and somebody that's at the bottom of all this!" he answered, shaking his head. "I'm afraid, lad, I'm afraid!"

I went away from all of them then, and nobody made any attempt to stop me, that time—maybe they saw in my face that it was useless. I left the house, and went—unconsciously, I think—away through the town to my mother's, driving my nails into the palms of my hands, and cursing Sir Gilbert Carstairs—if that was the devil's name!—between my teeth. And from cursing him, I fell to cursing myself, that I hadn't told at once of my seeing him at those crossroads on the night I went the errand for Gilverthwaite.

It had been late when Smeaton and I had got to Mr. Lindsey's, and the night was now fallen on the town—a black, sultry night, with great clouds overhead that threatened a thunderstorm. Our house was in a badly-lighted part of the street, and it was gloomy enough about it as I drew near, debating in myself what further I could do—sleep I knew I should not until I had news of Maisie. And in the middle of my speculations a man came out of the corner of a narrow lane that ran from the angle of our house, and touched me on the elbow. There was a shaft of light just there from a neighbour's window; in it I recognized the man as a fellow named Scott that did odd gardening jobs here and there in the neighbourhood.

"Wisht, Mr. Hugh!" said he, drawing me into the shadows of the lane; "I've been waiting your coming; there's a word I have for you—between ourselves."

"Well?" said I.

"I hear you're promising ten pounds—cash on the spot—to the man that can give you some news of your young lady?" he went on eagerly. "Is it right, now?"

"Can you?" I asked. "For if you can, you'll soon see that it's right."