Cobweb Castle

Front matter

COBWEB CASTLE

COBWEB CASTLE

BY

Chapter I

CHAPTER I

THE LETTER FROM NICE

It was my first job of a morning, as managing clerk to Farbrake & Saunders, Solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn Fields (the office was on the north side, and close by the Hans Sloane Museum) to open the firm's letters. When I say firm, I mean Farbrake; Saunders had been dead some years before I went there. On the morning from which the queer story that I propose to tell is dated, a morning of the early spring of the year 1902, there was a rather bigger pile of correspondence than usual. I took my time in dealing with it for the simple reason that Farbrake was not expected to show at the office that day; he was just then down with influenza at his house in Bayswater. I attended to two or three more urgent matters before opening a letter; when at last I sat down to my desk and picked up a paper-knife preparatory to slitting the flaps of the envelopes, I noticed that the uppermost letter bore a French postage stamp and a French post-mark—Nice. It was addressed, not to the firm, but to Farbrake, but there was nothing to show that it was of a private and confidential nature, and in another moment I was reading it.

Hotel Algresco, Nice, France. March 28th 1902. Mr. Farbrake, Sir, I beg to inform you of the death of my master, Lord Stretherdale, which took place at his Lordship's rooms in this hotel on the 25th instant. His Lordship, who had been in his usual health since we came to this place three weeks ago, had a sudden seizure soon after dinner on the evening of the day mentioned, and was immediately unconscious, and although two English doctors were quickly in attendance upon him, and did all they could, he never regained consciousness, and died at a few minutes before eleven o'clock. In accordance with certain instructions given me by his Lordship some time ago, and subsequently repeated more than once, I have caused his Lordship's body to be embalmed, and am starting out in charge of it, for conveyance to England, early tomorrow morning. I understood from his Lordship that in the event of his dying abroad, you, as his solicitor, have instructions that the body should be brought home for burial in the family vault at Stretherdale. As I am unaware of the present address of the heir to the title, Mr. Humphrey Starke, his late Lordship's nephew, but as you probably know it, I should be much obliged if you would inform him of the demise of his Uncle. I may add that in the presence of the two doctors referred to above, and in that of the Manager of the hotel and a French official, I have sealed up such papers and documents as his Lordship had with him: few, and, I think, unimportant, and am bringing them with me, together with all other personal effects.

I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, James Kench.

I folded up and put this letter in my pocket, and then, hastily running through the other correspondence, nothing in which was of any great importance, and leaving it to be dealt with by my second-in-command, hurried out and into the first taxi-cab available; it was necessary that Farbrake should see the valet's letter at once. And as we sped along to Bayswater, where Farbrake lived in a quiet street off Cleveland Square, I reflected on what I knew of this odd old gentleman who had died so suddenly with no one near him but his valet. I say odd, for Henry Massinger Starke, fifth Baron Stretherdale in the Peerage of England, was a decidedly eccentric character. Although Farbrake had been his solicitor for many years, it was rarely that Lord Stretherdale came to the office; he had been there, however, just before leaving for Nice, and I had taken a good look at him. It is no exaggeration to say that if one had met him in the street one would have taken him for a rag-and-bone man, for he was of commonplace ap- pearance, habitually clothed in ancient and ill-fitting garments, and, if truth be told, not over scrupulous about his personal cleanliness. London knew him well enough—whenever he was in town you would find him prowling about the better-known second-hand bookshops, or in attendance at the fashionable auction rooms, an old carpet bag in one hand, a mass of books or pamphlets or papers under the other arm; whatever the weather, he always wore a wretched old overcoat, green with age, and a battered straw hat, which, it was said, he had owned for thirty years. Nobody would have given twopence for him—yet he was one of the richest men in England, the owner of broad acres, big houses, of a magnificent collection of books and pictures, the patron of a score of ecclesiastical benefices, and the head of a family which had given various eminent men to the law and the Church. Summed up, he was a miser, a bibliophile, an eccentric, who, with half-a-dozen houses to choose from, lived in a couple of rooms in his great town mansion in Mayfair, and when he was not there hid himself at Stretherdale Castle, one of his country seats, where, it was said, he was even more inaccessible than when he was in town. But there were all sorts of tales about him—such as that while he would give thousands of guineas for a fine picture or a rare book, he himself never spent more than half-a-crown a day on his own food, and that beyond his faithful valet, Kench, the writer of the letter I had just read, he refused any service but that of an old woman or two. Some of these tales, no doubt, were a little exaggerated—but only a little.

I found Farbrake in bed, miserable with influenza. But he woke to life before he had read far in Kench's letter, and when he had made an end of it he turned to me with his usual readiness in tackling any important affair.

"Umph!" he exclaimed, dropping the letter on his counterpane. "So the old fellow's gone, eh? Mailey!—we shall have to find the new peer! And—I don't know where he's to be found!"

I knew something, not much, but still something, of the successor to the title. He was the late Lord Stretherdale's nephew, son of a deceased brother, and in his way he had a reputation as queer as his uncle's. He had been in a crack regiment—and got himself cashiered out of it. He had been mixed up in a Turf scandal. He had painted the town red, more than once. Altogether Humphrey Starke, now sixth Baron Stretherdale, although not yet thirty years of age, was what is commonly called a bad lot.

"I suppose he'll come in for a good deal?" I suggested.

Farbrake showed his teeth in a cynical grin.

"Good deal! Good Lord!—but you don't know, of course. You may as well know. The old man who's just dead never made a will! He wouldn't—nothing would persuade him to. He never married; he never made a will. So—this chap, Humphrey Starke, comes in for—oh, practically everything! And the new Lord Stretherdale is the sort that'll make ducks and drakes of whatever he gets hold of! Still—we'll have to find him."

"Isn't there another nephew?" I asked.

"There is! Mr. Maxwell Starke, son of Charles Starke, a younger (deceased) brother of Lord Stretherdale. He's a lad of about one and twenty, I fancy. He, of course, is now next in succession to the new Lord Stretherdale. Well, now, you'll have to find Lord Stretherdale. I can't get up today, though I'm hoping to be about again tomorrow or the day after. The last I heard of his Lordship he was living at a private hotel in Jermyn Street—a place kept by an Italian, name of Luciani. But he may have left that."

"A club?" I suggested. "Surely he belongs to some club!"

Farbrake gave me a look that meant a good deal.

"Club!" he exclaimed. "He's been kicked out—made to resign—from two clubs! After that Turf scandal. No—try Luciani's first. They may know where he is. Once upon a time I daresay you'd have got news of him at Tattersall's—but then, he's been warned off the Turf!"

"Nice person to inherit his uncle's lands and money-bags!" I remarked.

"Exactly! But there it is! Well, hurry down to Jermyn Street, and see if you can find him. Luciani may know—he certainly lived there for some time."

"Am I at liberty to mention that Mr. Humphrey Starke is now Lord Stretherdale?" I asked. "To—whoever it is I see at this place?"

"No reason why you shouldn't. But ask for Luciani himself—I know him. A big, fat Italian man. Yes—you can say that. And then," concluded Farbrake, "come back here. There's more to be done."

I had kept my taxi-cab waiting at Farbrake's door; now it took me down to Jermyn Street. I soon found Luciani's Hotel—typical of Jermyn Street and its peculiar characteristics. And I soon had hold of Luciani, a tall, thickly built, big-faced, black-moustached Italian, sumptuously attired in black clothes and glossy linen, whose eyes were of the sort that are popularly said to be able to see through a stone wall and whose expression was inscrutable. I am sure that after he had looked me over just once Luciani knew that I was a solicitor's clerk, and suspected me of having a writ in my pocket.

"Mr. Starke is not here," he replied politely.

"Can you tell me where he is to be found?" I enquired with equal politeness.

"I cannot! I do not give information of that sort."

"I think you will be quite ready to give me information if I give you some!" I retorted. "Mr. Starke's uncle, Lord Stretherdale, is dead, and Mr. Starke succeeds to the title. Mr. Starke, in short, is now Lord Stretherdale."

The man's impassive face underwent an extraordinary change. A strange gleam shot into his eyes, and his plump white fingers worked.

"You are—eh?" he asked quickly.

"From the late Lord Stretherdale's solicitor, Mr. Farbrake," I replied. "We have just had the news. Naturally, we wish Mr. Starke—Lord Stretherdale—to hear it."

"Well," he said, suavely, "but I do not know where he is! Yes, it is true that he has rooms in my hotel. He comes and goes—it is a pied-à-terre for him when he is in town. He was here three days ago. Then he went away—I do not know where. Nor when he will come back. I should say he has gone racing—to the Grand National."

He looked at me reflectively, then suddenly spread his hands.

"But you can get him—instantly!" he went on. "That is, comparatively instantly! You will announce this in the newspapers—this evening's papers. You will see him tomorrow morning, if he is in England."

I turned away, he coughed, gently, following me.

"A moment!" he whispered. "Now that he is mi- lord Stretherdale, there will be money—much money, eh? He will be able to pay those who have—trusted him? Is it so?"

"I don't think you need have any fear about getting paid if he owes you anything!" I said. "And I daresay he does—eh?"

He smiled, rubbing one white hand over the other.

"Oh, well, well!" he answered. "But—you put the news in the papers! I think you will see him at your office, speedily—yes!"

I went back to Farbrake, who had writing materials on his bed and had evidently been busy in my absence.

"Yes," he said when I told him the result of my enquiries. "Luciani's right, there. As a matter of fact, I've written out the notices for the papers—take them, Mailey, and get them off to the proper quarters at once. But now, there's more to do. You must go down to Stretherdale, yourself, to make arrangements about the funeral. Go down by the 1.40 to Harrogate. Drive from there to Stretherdale—it's a ten or twelve miles drive, so far as I remember, and a wild, fearsome place when you've got there! But there is a good inn—the Stretherdale Arms. Put up there. You'll not get to Stretherdale until late this evening. See the parson and the parish clerk early tomorrow morning and arrange about the funeral—they'll have to open the family vault and so on. I shall no doubt hear from Kench as soon as he reaches London with the remains; I'll wire you at Stretherdale as to when the funeral is to take place."

"You wish me to remain there?" I asked.

"Certainly—and to do something while you're waiting and until I come, for I shall come down with Kench," he answered. "Look here," he went on, producing a massive key. "You see this thing?—it's the key of Stretherdale Castle! His late Lordship had a trick of locking up his old place when he went to the Riviera every Spring—as he always did—and of leaving the key with me. After you've seen the vicar and sexton tomorrow morning, go and see the Castle, and if necessary get some village women to put things in readiness for the funeral. I've only been there once, myself," he concluded, with a smile, "but from my recollections of it, you'll find it in need of a good deal of dusting, sweeping, and so on. Now be off!"

I made haste back to the office, sent the notices of Lord Stretherdale's death to the papers, furnished myself with ready money, got a hurried lunch, and caught the train which Farbrake had mentioned. It was nearly dark when I came to the end of my two hundred miles journey; it was quite dark when, after a chilly ride in a car over open moors, I reached Stretherdale. But the car set me down at the door of what was evidently a roomy, old-fashioned inn, from whose quaint casemented windows shone hospi- table light, and when I opened its door and walked in, the first thing I saw was a roaring fire of logs. The next was a big, bluff man, white-haired and rosy-cheeked, standing by that fire, and at his side a pretty and shapely girl who held in one hand a glass, and in the other a foaming jug of amber-tinted ale.

Chapter II

CHAPTER II

THE CHAMPAGNE BOTTLES

These two looked at me with equal enquiry; the man's glance travelling from my face to the suitcase which I carried. The girl glanced at that, too, but she calmly finished her task of pouring out the ale before she spoke. Then, handing the glass to her customer with a smile that betokened intimate acquaintanceship, she turned to me.

"Yes, sir?" she said politely. "What can I do for you?"

"I want to get a room here for a few nights," I answered. "And—if it's convenient, some dinner, or supper."

"I'm afraid it'll have to be supper!" she remarked with a smile. "If you'll sit down, sir—"

She disappeared within a curtained doorway at the back of the room: the man by the fire and I looked at each other.

"Cold night, sir," he said. "Come nearer the blaze. Travelling over our moors and hills is chilly work for those who aren't used to it."

"You guess that I've come across the hills and moors, then?" I replied, smiling at him as I went up to the fire.

"No guess-work!" he answered. "There's no other way of getting here! You mayn't have noticed it in the dark, but if you've come from Harrogate, as I reckon you have, you've crossed twelve miles of as wild country as you'll find in the North. And here we're twelve hundred feet above sea-level!"

He nodded emphatically in saying his last words; before I could make any reply the girl came back, followed by a man whom I at once set down as the landlord. He was a little, shrewd-faced, apple-cheeked, clean-shaven fellow, who wore very large spectacles on the bridge of his nose and blinked over them at me as he advanced into the light of the lamp.

"Good-evening, sir," he said. "You want to put up here? Just yourself?"

"Just myself," I answered. "I'd better tell you who I am. My name is Mailey—I am managing clerk to Mr. Farbrake, of Lincoln's Inn—"

He interrupted me with a sudden start, and a gleam of knowledge came into his eyes.

"Aye!—Lord Stretherdale's solicitor," he said. "Farbrake and Saunders. I know!"

"Quite right," said I. "I am here on business. The business is that Lord Stretherdale is dead, and I have come to arrange about his funeral."

I was immediately conscious that my news had produced an effect. The man at the fire, who had just picked up his glass, set it down untasted; the girl let out a sharp exclamation. As for the landlord he took off his spectacles and began to polish them with the aid of a big bandana handkerchief of gay colours.

"Aye?—and when was that, sir?" he enquired. "We've heard nothing here."

"Lord Stretherdale died at Nice, on the 25th instant," I replied. "The news came this morning in a letter to Mr. Farbrake from his lordship's valet, Kench."

"Aye!" he said, reflectively. "Kench, of course, would be with him. We all know Kench hereabouts—"

"Well enough!" murmured the man by the fire. "Never was a time—any time this five-and-twenty years—when Kench wasn't with him! Or—close at hand."

I turned to the girl.

"That supper?" I asked.

The landlord came out of a sudden reverie.

"Yes!" he said. "See to it, Emmie—something hot and good. Come this way, Mr. Mailey, I'll show you your room. You can depend on a well-aired bed and every comfort here, sir," he went on as he led me across the hall and up a wide oak-panelled staircase. "We're used to visitors at the Stretherdale Arms, but it's mostly in summer time, when tourists come about. How will this room do, sir?" he continued, showing me into an old-fashioned, comfortably furnished chamber, in the middle of which stood a four-poster bed. "I call it the best in the house, and there's a fine view from the window, as you'll see in the morning."

I assured him that the room would do very well indeed, and he bustled about for a minute or two seeing that things were in order and fetching me hot water and towels. Then, as he was about to leave, he suddenly returned, and coming close to me, gave me a confidential sort of look.

"My name is Tapp, John Tapp, Mr. Mailey," he said. "I was once upon a time butler to his late lordship—in the days before he became so odd and queer. So I know all about the family. And I was going to ask you, sir—" then he came still closer, and sank his voice to a whisper, as if he feared being overheard—"going to ask you—does the new lord know?"

"I can't say, Mr. Tapp," I answered. "He may know, by this time, if he's seen the evening newspapers in London. I tried to find him this morning, but I couldn't. You don't know where he is, I suppose?"

"No, sir—the last I heard of him he was in London," he replied. "Well—there'll be strange altera- tions, Mr. Mailey, strange alterations! But I'll leave you, sir—your supper shall be served in two minutes. And, I promise you, as good as a dinner, sir!"

He was as good as his word there—I found an excellent hot meal awaiting me when I went downstairs, served in a snug little sitting-room by a neat maid who, if rosy cheeks and bright eyes were anything to go by, was a proof of the healthiness of Stretherdale. I went back to the parlour when I had finished; Tapp was there, smoking a long pipe by the fire; his daughter sat near him, busied with some needlework; the man I had already seen was there, too, facing Tapp and fingering another long pipe.

"This is Mr. Middleton, Mr. Mailey," said the landlord, indicating his vis-à-vis by pointing the waxed end of his pipe at him. "Mr. Middleton is the principal tenant farmer on the Stretherdale estates. Your family's been on the land a long time, Mr. Middleton, I believe?"

"Ever since Henry the Eighth's time," replied Middleton. "We were here before these Starkes bought the estate—two hundred years before."

"I suppose you two gentlemen knew old Lord Stretherdale very well?" I remarked as I took a seat and pulled out my tobacco and pipe. "Intimately, no doubt."

The two men looked at each other with a world of meaning in their faces. The girl, stealing a half-shy, half-whimsical glance at me, smiled quietly.

"Um!" said Middleton. "A stiff question, young gentleman! We knew—and saw—what we were permitted to see and know. His Lordship was—his Lordship!"

"A strange old gentleman—in his latter days," remarked Tapp.

They began to talk of the dead man—which was just what I wanted. I sat quietly smoking and listening. Bit by bit a picture of the late peer rose up before me. In his youth he had evidently been wild and racketty, but for the last thirty years or so he had lived the life of a hermit when at Stretherdale. He was rarely seen in the village or the neighbourhood. What business there was to be done with tenants was done by a steward; with tradespeople, by Kench. For many a long year there had been no indoor servants at Stretherdale Castle; what work was done there was done by two village women under Kench's superintendence; they were admitted at a certain hour in the morning and dismissed at another in the afternoon. No horses or carriages were kept; no entertaining done; according to the women his lordship lived in one room, both eating and sleeping in it, and never put his nose into any other except the library.

"And what the state of the old place may be!" concluded Tapp, "Heaven only knows! To keep it up properly a whole regiment of servants is necessary, and as I say, there's never been but these two women near it for years. Fine furniture, rare old tapestry, priceless pictures, and all that!—I should say there's never been brush or cloth brought near 'em for a generation!"

"You know what they call it in the village, Father?" said the girl, smiling. "It's all the name they know it by now-a-days."

"I know, I know, my lass!" replied Tapp. "And a very suitable name, too—for that's what it is!"

"What do they call it?" I asked.

The girl looked up and laughed softly.

"They call it Cobweb Castle!" she said. "If you know what cobweb means?"

"Cobweb is local for spider-web, Mr. Mailey," observed Tapp. "Well!—there's plenty of spider-webs in there! The place is festooned with them, I should think. And now—as I said upstairs, sir, there'll be strange alterations!"

Then he and Middleton began to talk of the new lord. Each had seen him now and then—very occasionally at Stretherdale, usually some race-course or other. They knew his reputation; they knew, too, that because of the old Lord's fixed determination to make no will, the new one would come into everything.

"And he'll make it fly, Mr. Mailey, he'll make it fly, sir!" said Tapp, when I bade him good-night. "Alterations? Ah!—we shall see, sir. And don't forget to look out of your bedroom window when you wake in the morning!"

I took care to remember that last injunction. And I was well rewarded: the view from my window was one which it was well worth travelling two hundred miles to see. In front of me lay a deep valley, through whose narrow defile ran a winding river: from the banks of the river on either side the land rose abruptly; to what height it attained on my side I could not see, of course, but on the opposite side of the valley, which just there was more of a ravine than a valley, it rose higher and higher until it terminated in a long, dark range of hills well over two thousand feet in altitude. In the deepest part of the valley lay the village, a few scattered houses and cottages, clustered about a three-arched bridge; just above it, on a pine-fringed plateau, stood the church; above that, half-hidden amongst high trees, I saw the place to which I had been sent—Stretherdale Castle. And little as I could see of it, I made it out to be a dark and gloomy place. From the little houses beneath it rose cheery spirals of blue smoke, but from its own tall and twisted chimneys rose nothing.

I went off to find the vicarage and the vicar as soon as I had breakfasted. The vicar, an old man, heard my news without showing any particular interest in it; indeed, I gathered from his manner that what chiefly concerned him was that he would be disturbed out of his evidently placid existence by the necessary obsequies. He heard what I had to say and referred me to the parish clerk, who, he said, would attend to the opening of the family vault. But as I was leaving him he called me back.

"—Er, I think you said you represent the late Lord Stretherdale's solicitors?" he asked. "London people, I believe?"

"Farbrake and Saunders, sir—Lincoln's Inn Fields," I replied.

"Yes, yes—to be sure! Then, perhaps you will tell me—does the new Lord Stretherdale propose to take up his residence at the Castle?"

"I have no knowledge of that, sir," I answered. "We are not his solicitors."

"You've not heard anything of his intentions?" he enquired.

"Nothing!" I said. "We have not been in communication with him—so far."

He nodded his head, fingered his chin, seemed about to speak, then changed his mind, and with a murmur of dismissal went back into his study, leaving me to seek out the sexton. I found him in a cot- tage near the church, and went with him into the churchyard, where he showed me the family vault of the Starkes, a sort of mausoleum at the side of the chancel. It would be a bit of a job opening it, he said; he hoped that Kench wouldn't turn up with the body for at least three days. And then he, too, plumped me with the question that the vicar had put—but more abruptly.

"New Lord coming to live here?" he asked.

"I'm sure I don't know," said I. "Why do you ask?"

"'Cause I hope he isn't!" he growled. "Don't want the likes of him hereabouts!"

"Why—what do you know of him?" I enquired.

"Plenty!" he said gruffly. "Enough, anyway! But I reckon London'll suit him better. Next door to Hell, is London—so they tell me!"

He turned unceremoniously away, and feeling sure that I should get nothing more out of him, I went off to the Castle. And in the village street, near the Castle gate, I met Emmie Tapp, a basket on her arm, and evidently going a-marketing. She gave me a demure smile.

"Have you seen Cobweb Castle, sir?" she asked.

"I'm just going there now," I replied. "And if you'd promise something, I'd ask you to go with me."

"What?" she asked with another demure look.

"Not to call me sir!" I said. "I'm too young for grandfatherly titles. Come along! I'm a bit afraid of going into such a gloomy place alone."

She hesitated a second; then, glancing up and down the street, and seeing nobody about, she turned and walked up the slope, to the dark, forbidding old pile above us. As we went, I saw at once why the village people called the place what they did; everything about its exterior was lost, dilapidated, uncared for. Nothing had been done at grounds or gardens for years, and weeds grew everywhere.

There was a dreadful silence in that house when once we had entered its cavernous stone hall, and the girl at my side caught her breath as if she was frightened.

"It's an awful place!" she whispered. "How anybody can live in it—"

I stopped her with a sharp exclamation. There was a door partly open on our right, and through it I could see a table, on which stood a champagne bottle and glasses—one glass still held some liquor. Next moment I was in the room, a sort of morning room, examining these things. I knew at once that somebody had been in that room not many hours before—two people, drinking.

A sudden scream from my companion twisted me round from the table to stare at her. She pointed to another open door at the back of the room. Across the threshold, face downwards, lay the body of a smartly dressed man, and near him, as if flung carelessly aside, another champagne bottle.

Chapter III

CHAPTER III

AT WHOSE HAND?

In that first hurried glance at the still figure and its surroundings I saw more than Emmie Tapp did; she, indeed, after that sharp scream of surprise shrank back towards the door by which she had entered. And what I saw was a scarlet patch on the paper label of the champagne bottle, and another on the back of the man's white linen collar—I knew both for blood-stains.

I turned quickly to the girl. She stood staring at me; her eyes big with fear; her hands clutching at the light drapery about her throat; it seemed to me that in another second she would scream. And laying a hand on her shoulder I pushed her out of the room and towards the outer door.

"Run!" I said. "Run down to the village! Get your father to come here—and the policeman, if there is one—anybody! Is there a doctor in the place?"