Fred Fred - The Mystery of the Ravenspurs

Marion found Geoffrey in the corridor. The yellow and purple lights from the leaded windows filled the place with a soft, warm glow. Marion's dark hair was shot with purple; her white dress, as she lounged in a window seat, was turned to gold. She formed a wonderfully fair and attractive picture, if Geoffrey had only heeded it. But, then, Geoffrey had no eyes for any one but Vera.

"What are you going to do?" Marion asked. "Read your fortune in the stars? Get inspiration from the heavenly bodies to combat the power of darkness?"

"I'm going to have a shot at astronomy again," Geoffrey replied, in his most boyish and most enthusiastic manner. "I was considered a bit of swell at it at school. And when I saw this jolly old telescope lying neglected here, I made up my mind to polish my knowledge. I'm going to set it up in the tower turret."

"But it is packed full of boxes – my boxes."

"Well, there is plenty of room for those boxes elsewhere – in fact, we've got space enough to give every box a room to itself. There is an empty bedroom just below. Presently I'm going to shunt all your lumber in there."

Marion nodded approvingly. Of course if Geoffrey said a thing it was done. He might have turned the castle upside down and the girls would have aided and abetted him.

"I should like to be present when those boxes are moved," she said. "There are hundreds of rare and curious things that belonged to my mother – things that the British Museum would long to possess. Remember, my ancestors were rulers in Tibet for thousands of years. Some day I'll show you my curios. But don't begin to move those boxes till I am ready to assist."

"I shall not be ready for an hour, Marion."

"Very well, then, I shall be back in an hour, astronomer."

Geoffrey finished his work presently. Then he ran up to the turret-room and opened the door. The place was dusty and dirty to a degree, and filled with packing-cases. Apparently they were all of foreign make – wooden boxes, with queer inscriptions, lacquered boxes, and one fragile wooden box clamped and decorated in filigree brass.

"A queer thing," Geoffrey murmured. "And old, very old, too."

"Over a thousand years. There is only one more like it in the world, and no Christian eyes save four have ever looked upon it. When you take that box from the room, see that it is the last, Geoffrey. You hear?"

It was Ralph who spoke. He had appeared silently and mysteriously as usual. He spoke calmly, but his twitching lips were eloquent of suppressed excitement.

"Very well," Geoffrey said carelessly. He was getting used to these strange quick appearances and these equally strange requests. "It shall be as you desire, uncle."

Ralph nodded. He gave a swift turn of his head as if looking for some one unconsciously, then he crossed the room and stooped down beside the brass-bound box, which was at the bottom of a pile of packages. His long fingers felt over the quaint brasses.

"A most remarkable-looking pattern," said Geoffrey.

"It is not a pattern at all," Ralph replied.

"The quaint filigree work is a language – the written signs of old Tibet, only you are not supposed to know that; indeed, I only found it out myself a few days ago. It had been a long search; but, as I can only see with my fingers, you can understand that. But this is part of the secret."

Geoffrey was profoundly interested.

"Tell me what the language says?" he asked.

"Not now – perhaps not at all. It is a ghastly and terrible thing, and even your nerves are not fireproof. There is only one thing I have to ask you before I efface myself for the present. When you take up that box to carry it down stairs it is to slip through your fingers. You are to drop it."

"I am to drop that box. Is there anything else?"

"Not for the present. You are smiling; I feel that you are smiling. For Heaven's sake take this seriously; take everything that I say seriously, boy. Oh, I know what is in your mind – I am going in a clumsy way to get something. I might so easily get what I require by a little judicious burglary. That is what your unsophisticated mind tells you. Later you will know better."

Ralph turned cheerfully round and left the room. He paused in the doorway. "Don't forget," he said, "that my visit here is a secret. In fact, everything is a secret until I give you permission to make it public."

This time he left. Geoffrey had managed to drag one or two of the boxes away before Marion appeared. She reproached him gently that he had not waited for her. There might be spooks and bogies in those packages capable of harm.

"I dare say there are," Geoffrey laughed. "But you were such a long time. Every girl seems to imagine that an hour is like a piece of elastic – you can stretch it out as long as you like. At any rate I have done no harm. As far as I can judge there's only one good thing here."

"And what is that?" Marion asked.

Geoffrey pointed to the floor.

"That one," he said. "The queer brass-bound box at the bottom."

Marion caught her breath quickly. The marble pallor of her face showed up more strongly against her dark hair. Geoffrey caught the look and his eyes grew sympathetic.

"What's the matter, little girl?" he asked. "It isn't like you to faint."

"Neither am I going to faint, Geoff. But I had forgotten all about that box. I cannot go into details, for there are some things that we don't talk about to anybody. But that box is connected with rather an unhappy time in my youth."

"Hundreds of years ago," Geoffrey said flippantly.

"Oh, but it is no laughing matter, I assure you. When my mother was a child she was surrounded by all the craft and superstition of her race and religion. That was long before she got converted and married my father. I don't know how it was managed, but my mother never quite broke with her people, and once or twice, when she went to stay in Tibet, I accompanied her.

"My mother used to get restless at times, and then nothing would do but a visit to Tibet. And yet, at other times, nobody could possibly have told her from a European with foreign blood in her veins. For months and months she would be as English as you and I. Then the old fit would come over her.

"There was not a cleverer or more brilliant woman in India than my mother. When she died she gave me these things, and I was not to part with them. And, much as I should like to disobey, I cannot break that promise."

It seemed to Geoffrey that Marion spoke more regretfully than feelingly. He had never heard her say so much regarding her mother before. Affectionate and tender as Marion was, there was not the least trace of these characteristics in her tone now.

"Did you really love your mother?" Geoffrey asked suddenly.

"I always obeyed her," Marion stammered. "And I'd rather not discuss the subject, Geoff. Oh, they were bad people, my mother's ancestors. They possessed occult knowledge far beyond anything known or dreamt of by the wisest Western savants. They could remove people mysteriously, they could strike at a long distance, they could wield unseen terrors. Such is the terror that hangs over Ravenspur, for instance."

Marion smiled sadly. Her manner changed suddenly and she was her old self again.

"Enough of horrors," she said. "I came here to help you. Come along."

The boxes were carried below until only the brass-bound one remained. Geoffrey stooped to lift it. The wood was light and thin, the brass-work was the merest tracing.

A sudden guilty feeling came over Geoffrey as he raised it shoulder-high. He felt half inclined to defy his uncle Ralph and take the consequences. It seemed a mean advantage, a paltry gratifying of what, after all, might be mere curiosity.

But the vivid recollection of those strained, sightless eyes rose before him. Ralph Ravenspur was not the man to possess the petty vice of irrepressible curiosity. Had it not been a woman he had to deal with, and Marion at that, Geoffrey would not have hesitated for a moment. Down below in the hall he heard the hollow rasp of Ralph's voice.