The Mystery of Ravensdene Court

Front matter

“What's that?” he snapped out. “You met a man—hereabouts—asked you if you knew where there was graves with a certain name on 'em? And that name was Netherfield?”

The Mystery of

By J. S. Fletcher

Part II

You Will Recall Having Started a Story Now and Then Which Kept You Reading All Night Long. This Is That Kind of Story. It Has No Furbelows, but It Grips. You Won't Want to Put It Down. In Three Parts

ACCORDING to an entry in my book of engagements, I left London for Ravensdene Court on March 8, 1912. Until about a fortnight earlier I had never heard of the place, but there was nothing remarkable in my ignorance of it, seeing that it stands on a remote part of the Northumbrian coast and at least three hundred miles from my usual haunts. But then, toward the end of February, I received the following letter, which I may as well print in full. It serves as a fitting and an signatory introduction to a series of adventures so extraordinary, mysterious and fraught with danger that I am still wondering how I, until then a man of peaceful and even dull life, ever came safely through them.

Ravensdene Court, near Alnwick, Northumberland, February 24, 1912.

Dear Sir:

I am told by my friend Mr. Gervase Witherby, of Monks Welborough, with whom I understand you are well acquainted, that you are one of our leading experts in matters relating to old books, documents and the like, and the very man to inspect, value and generally criticize the contents of an ancient library. Accordingly, I should be very glad to secure your valuable services. I have recently entered into possession of this place, a very old manor-house on the Northumbrian coast, wherein the senior branch of my family has been settled for some four hundred years. There are here many thousands of volumes, the majority of considerable age; there are also large collections of pamphlets, manuscripts and broadsheets. My immediate predecessor, my uncle, John Christopher Raven, was a great collector; but, from what I have seen of his collection up to now, I cannot say that he was a great exponent of the art of order or a devotee of system, for an entire wing on this house is neither more nor less than a museum, into which books, papers, antiques and similar things appear to have been dumped without regard to classification or arrangement. I am not a bookman or an antiquary; my life until recently has been spent in far different fashion, as a financial commissioner in India. I am, however, sincerely anxious that these new possessions of mine should be properly cared for, and I should like an expert to examine everything that is here, and to advise me as to proper arrangement and provision for the future. I should accordingly be greatly obliged to you if you could make it convenient to come here as my guest, give me the benefit of your expert knowledge, and charge me whatever fee seems good to you. I cannot promise you anything very lively in the way of amusement in your hours of relaxation, for this is a lonely place, and my family consists of nothing but myself and my niece, a girl of nineteen, just released from the schoolroom; but you may find some more congenial society in another guest of mine, Septimus Cazalette, the eminent authority on numismatics, who is here for the purpose of examining the vast collection of coins and medals formed by the kinsman I have just referred to. I can also promise you the advantages of a particularly bracing climate, and assure you of a warm welcome and every possible provision for your comfort. In the hope that you will be able to come to me at an early date,

I am, dear sir, yours truly, Francis Raven.

As I have said already, I left London on the eighth of March, journeying to Newcastle by the afternoon express from King's Cross. I spent that night at Newcastle, and went forward next morning to Alnmouth, which, according to a map with which I had provided myself, was the near est station to Ravensdene Court. And soon after arriving at Alnmouth the first chapter of my adventures opened and came about by sheer luck. It was a particularly fine, bright, sharply bracing morning, and as I was under no particular obligation to present myself at Ravensdene Court at any fixed time, I determined to walk thither by way of the coast. The distance, according to my map, was about nine or ten miles.

Accordingly, sending on my luggage by a conveyance, with a message to Mr. Raven that I should arrive during the afternoon, I made through the village of Lesbury toward the sea, and before long came in sight of it—a glorious stretch of blue, smooth that day as an island lake and shining like polished steel in the sun. By noon the sun had grown warm, even summer-like—warm enough, at any rate, to warrant me in sitting down on a ledge of the cliffs while I smoked a pipe of tobacco and stared lazily at the mighty stretch of water across which, once upon a time, the vikings had swarmed from Norway. I must have become absorbed in my meditations—certainly it was with a start of surprise that I suddenly realized that somebody was near me, and looked up to see, standing close by and eying me furtively, a man.

The sound of his voice startled me as he quietly wished me a good morning; also, it brought me out of a reverie and sharpened my wits, and as I replied to him, I took him in from head to foot. A thick set, middle-aged man, tidily dressed in a blue-serge suit of nautical cut, the sort of thing that they sell, ready-made, in seaports and naval stations. His clothes went with his dark skin and grizzled hair and beard, and with the gold rings which he wore in his ears.

“You know these parts?” I suggested.

“No,” he said, with a decisive shake of his head. “I don't, master, and that's a fact. I'm from the south, I am—never been up this way before, and, queerly enough, for I've seen most of the world in my time. But I've a sort of connection with this bit of country—mother's side came from here abouts. And me having nothing particular to do, I came down here to take a cast round, like.”

“Then you're stopping in the neighborhood?” I asked.

“Stopped last night in a little place in land,” he answered. “Name of Lesbury—a riverside spot. But that ain't what I want—what I want is a churchyard, or it might be two, or it might be three, where there's gravestones what bears a name. Only, I don't know where that churchyard—or, again, there may be more than one—is, d'ye see?”

“I have a good map, if it's any use to you,” I said.

He took the map with a word of thanks, and, after spreading it out, traced places with the end of his thick forefinger.

“Hereabouts we are, at this present, master,” he said, “and here and there is, to be sure, villages—mostly inland. And'll have graveyards to 'em—folks must be laid away somewhere. And in one of them graveyards there'll be a name, and if I see that name I'll know where I am, and I can ask further, aiming at to find out if any of that name is still flourishing hereabouts. But till I get that name. I'm clear off my course, so to speak.”

“What is the name?” I asked him.

“Name of Netherfield,” he answered slowly. “Netherfield. Mother's people—long since. So I've been told. And seen it—in old books what I have, far away in Devonport. That's the name, right enough; only, I don't know where to look for it.”

His name, he said, was Salter Quick—of Devonport when on land.

WE WALKED forward, northing our course along the headlands. And rounding a sharp corner we suddenly came in sight of a little settlement that lay halfway down the cliff. There was a bit of a cottage or two, two or three boats drawn up on a strip of yellow sand, a crumbling smithy, and above these things, on a shelf of rock, a low-roofed, long-fronted inn, by the gable of which rose a mast, wherefrom floated a battered flag.

“Do you feel disposed to a glass of ale?” I asked.

“Rum,” he replied laconically. “Rum is my drink, master. Used to that—I ain't to ale. Cold stuff! Give me some thing that warms a man.”

“It's poor ale that won't warm a man's belly,” I said, with a laugh. “But every man to his taste. Come on, then.”

He followed in silence down the path to the lonely inn; once, looking back, I saw that he was turning a sharp eye round and about the new stretch of country that had just opened before us. From the inn and its surroundings a winding track, a merely rough cartway, wound off and upward into the land; in the distance I saw the tower of a church. Salter Quick saw it, too, and nodded significantly in its direction.

“That'll be where I'll make next,” he observed. “But first—meat and drink. I ate my breakfast before seven this morning, and this walking-about on dry land makes a man hungry.”

“Drink you'll get here, no doubt,” said I. “But as to meat—doubtful.”

His reply to that was to point to the sign above the inn door. He read its announcement aloud, slowly.

“'The Mariner's Joy. By Hildebrand Claigue. Good Entertainment for Man and Beast,'” he pronounced. “'Entertainment'—that means eating—meat for men, hay for cattle. Not that there's much sign of either in these parts, I think, master.”

WE WALKED into the Mariner's Joy turning into a low-ceilinged, darkish room, neat and clean enough, wherein there was a table, chairs, the model of a ship in a glass case on the mantelpiece, and a small bar, furnished with bottles and glasses, behind which stood a tall, middle-aged man, clean-shaven, spectacled, reading a news paper. He bade us good-morning, with no sign of surprise at the presence of strangers.

The landlord satisfied our demands and then vanished through a door at the back of his bar. And when he had expressed his wishes for my good health, Salter Quick tasted the rum, smacked his lips over it, and looked about him with evident approval.

“Sort of port that a vessel might put into with security and comfort for a day or two, this, master,” he observed. “I reckon I'll put myself up here while I'm looking round—this will do me very well. I can see they ain't short of good grub and sound liquor here. And doubtless there'll be them coming in here night-time as'll know the neighborhood and be able to give a man points as to his bearings.”

When the landlord had returned with a well-filled tray, Quick repeated to him the story of his quest for graveyards.

“Churchyards is what I'm looking for,” he went on. “Graves in 'em, you understand. And on them graves a name. Name of Netherfield. Now, I ask you, friendly, ha' you ever seen that name in your churchyard?”

“Well, I haven't,” answered the landlord. “But our churchyard—Lord bless you, there's scores o' them flat stones in it that's covered with long grass—there might be that name on some of 'em for aught I know; I've never looked 'em over, I'm sure. But2”

Just then there came into the parlor a man who, from his rough dress, appeared to be a cattle-drover or a shepherd. Claigue turned to him with a glance that seemed to indicate him as an authority.

“Here's one as lives by that churchyard,” he observed. “Jim, ha' you ever noticed the name of Netherfield on any o' them old gravestones up yonder? This gentleman's asking after it, and I know you know that churchyard grass time and again.”

“Never seen it,” answered the newcomer. “But—strange thing!—there was a man come up to me the other night, this side o' Lesbury, and asked that very question—not o' these parts, he wasn't. But2”

He stopped at that. Salter Quick dropped his knife and fork with a clatter, and held up his right hand.

“What's that?” he snapped out. “What says you? Say it again—no; I'll say it for you—to make sure that my ears ain't deceiving me. You met a man—hereabouts—asked you if you knew where there was graves with a certain name on 'em? And that name was Netherfield? Did you say that? I asks you, serious.”

The drover, or shepherd, or whatever he was, looked from Quick to me and then to Claigue.

“You've got it all right, mister,” he answered. “That's just what I did say. A stranger chap, he was—never seen him in these parts before.”

Quick took up his glass and drank. There was no doubt about his being upset, for his big hand trembled.

“When was this here?” he demanded.

“Two nights ago,” replied the man readily. “I was coming home, late, from Alnwick, and met with this here chap a bit this side o' Lesbury. We walked a piece of the road together, talking. And he asked me what I've told you. Did I know these parts? Was I a native hereabouts? Did I know any churchyards with the name Netherfield on gravestones? And I said I didn't, and when we came to them crossroads where it goes to Denwick one direction and Boulmer the other, he left me, and I ain't seen aught of him since.”

Quick pushed his empty glass across the table, with a sign to Claigue to refill it; at the same time he pointed silently to his informant, signifying that he was to be served at his expense.

“What like was this here man?” he demanded. “Draw him out—plain.”

“I couldn't tell you, mister,” replied the other. “It was well after dark, and I never saw his face. But, for the build of him, a strong-set man, like yourself, and just about your height. And, now I come to think of it, spoke in your way—not as we do in these quarters. A stranger—like yourself. Seafaring man, I took him for.”

“You seem very anxious to find these Netherfield gravestones,” the landlord remarked, with good-humored inquisitiveness. “And so, apparently, does another man. Now, I've been in these parts a good many years, and I've never heard of 'em—never even heard the name.”

Quick seemed indifferent to these remarks. Plunging a hand in his trousers pocket, he produced a fistful of gold coins.

“What's to pay?” he demanded. “Take it out o' that—all we've had, and do you help yourself to a glass and a cigar.” He flung a sovereign on the table and rose to his feet. “I must be stepping along,” he continued, looking at me. “If so be as there's another man seeking for2”

But at that he checked himself, remaining silent until Claigue counted out and handed over his change; silently, too, he pocketed it and turned to the door. Claigue stopped him with an arresting word.

“I say!” he said. “No business of mine, to be sure, but—don't you show that money of yours over readily hereabouts—in places like this, I mean. There's folk up and down these roads that 'ud track you for miles on the chance of—eh, Jim?”

“Aye—and farther,” assented Jim. “Keep it close, master.”

Quick listened quietly—just as quietly he slipped a hand to his hip-pocket, brought it back to the front and showed a revolver.

“That and me, together—eh?” he said significantly. “Bad lookout for anybody that came between us and the light.”

We had left the inn when Quick suddenly raised his eyes and gave me a franker look than I had so far had from him.

“Master,” he said, in a low voice, and with a side glance at the open door of the inn, “I'll tell you a bit more than I've said before—you're a gentleman, I can see, and such keeps counsel. I've an object—and a particular object—in finding them graves. And now I find another man after what I'm after! Another man!”

“Have you any idea who he may be?” I asked.

He hesitated, and then suddenly shook his head.

“I haven't,” he answered. “No; I haven't, and that's a fact. For a minute or two, in there, I thought that maybe I did know, or, at any rate, had a notion, but it's a fact I haven't. All the same. I'm going Denwick way, to see if I can come across whoever it is, or get news of him. Is that your road, master?”

“No,” I replied. “I'm going some way farther along the headlands. Well, I hope you'll be successful in your search for the family gravestones.”

He nodded very seriously.

“I'm not going out o' this country till I've found 'em,” he asserted determinedly. “It's what I've come three hundred miles for. Good-day, master.”

He turned off by the track that led over the top of the headlands. And presently I, too, went on my way, and, rounding another corner of the cliff, left the lonely inn behind me.

BUT as I went along, following the line of the headlands, I wondered a good deal about Salter Quick and the conversation at the Mariner's Joy. What was it that this hard-bitten, travel-worn man, one who had seen, evidently, much of wind and wave, was really after? I gave no credence to his story of the family relationship—it was not at all likely that a man would travel all the way from Devonshire to Northumberland to find the graves of his mother's ancestors. There was something beyond that—but what? It was very certain that Quick wanted to come across the tombs of the dead and gone Netherfields, however, for whatever purpose—certain, too, that there was another man who had the same wish. That complicated matters, and it deepened the mystery. And what would happen if, as seemed likely, they met? It was impossible to find an answer to these questions; but the mystery was there, all the same.

The afternoon was drawing to its close when, rounding a bluff that had been in view before me for some time, I came in sight of what I felt sure to be Ravensdene Court, a gray-walled, stone-roofed Tudor mansion that stood at the head of a narrow valley or ravine.

A path that led inland from the edge of the cliffs took me after a few minutes' walking to a rustic gate which was set in the boundary-wall of a small park; within the wall rose a belt of trees, mostly oak and beech, their trunks obscured by a thick undergrowth. Passing through this, I came out on the park itself at a point where, on a well-kept green, a girl, whom I immediately took to be the niece recently released from the schoolroom, of whom Mr. Raven had spoken in his letter, was studying the lie of a golf-ball. Recently released from the schoolroom though she might be, she showed neither embarrassment nor shyness on meeting a stranger. Her hand went out to me with ready frankness.

“Mr. Middlebrook?” she said inquiringly. “Yes, of course—I might have known you'd come along the cliffs. Your luggage came this morning, and we got your message. But you must be tired after all those miles. I'll take you up to the house and give you some tea.”

“I'm not at all tired, thank you,” I answered. “I came along very leisurely, enjoying the walk.”

I had already seen Mr. Francis Raven advancing to meet us; a tall, somewhat stooping man with all the marks of the Anglo-Indian about him—a kindly face burned brown by equatorial suns, old-fashioned, grizzled mustache and whiskers.

“Welcome to Ravensdene Court, Mr. Middlebrook!” he exclaimed, in quick, almost deprecating fashion. “A very dull and out-of-the-way place to which to bring one used to London; but we'll do our best. You've had a convoy across the park, I see,” he added, with a glance at his niece. “That's right!”

“As charming a one as her surroundings are delightful, Mr. Raven,” I said, assuming an intentionally old-fashioned manner. “If I am treated with the same consideration I have already received, I shall be loath to bring my task to an end.”

“Mr. Middlebrook is a bit of a tease, Uncle Francis,” said my guide. “I've found that out already. He's not the paper-and-parchment person you expected.”

“Oh, dear me, I didn't expect anything of the sort!” protested Mr. Raven. He looked from his niece to me, and laughed, shaking his head. “These modern young ladies—ah!” he exclaimed. “But come—I'll show Mr. Middlebrook his rooms.”

I did not waste much time over my toilet, nor, apparently, did Miss Marcia Raven, for I found her, in a smart gown, in the hall when I went down at half-past six. And she and I had taken a look at its multifarious objects before Mr. Raven appeared on the scene, followed by Mr. Cazalette.

MISS RAVEN had already described Mr. Cazalette to me, by inference, as a queer, snuffy, bald-pated old man, but this summary synopsis of his exterior features failed to do justice to a remarkable original. There was something supremely odd about him. I thought, at first, that my impression of oddity might be derived from his clothes—he wore a strangely cut dress coat of blue cloth, with gold buttons, a buff waistcoat and a frilled shirt—but I soon came to the conclusion that he would be queer and uncommon in any garments. About Mr. Cazalette there was an atmosphere—and it was decidedly one of mystery. First and last, he looked uncanny.

Mr. Raven introduced us with a sort of old-world formality, and, in order to keep up to it, I saluted Mr. Cazalette with great respect and expressed myself as feeling highly honored by meeting one so famous as my fellow guest. Somewhat to my surprise, Mr. Cazalette's tightly locked lips relaxed into what was plainly a humorous smile, and he favored me with a knowing look that was almost a wink.

“Aye, well,” he said, “you're just about as well known in your own line, Middlebrook, as I am in mine, and between the pair of us I've no doubt we'll be able to reduce chaos into order.”

He put his snuff-box and a gaudy handkerchief out of sight, and looked at his host and hostess with another knowing glance.

During dinner I discovered other facts about Mr. Cazalette. He was eighty years old. He was uncannily active. He had an almost implike desire to live—and to dance, when he ought to have been wrapped in blankets and saying his last prayers. And a few minutes later, when we were seated round our host's table, I discovered another fact—Mr. Cazalette was one of those men to whom dinner is the event of the day, and who regard conversation—on their own part, at any rate—as a wicked disturbance of sacred rites. Nevertheless, that he kept his ears wide open to what was being said around him I soon discovered. I was telling Mr. Raven and his niece of my adventure of the afternoon, and suddenly I observed that Mr. Cazalette was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning eyes full of a strange, absorbed interest. I paused involuntarily.

“Go on I” said he. “Continue with your tale.” '

I went on with my story, continuing it until the parting with Salter Quick.

“Aye, well,” he said, “and that's an interesting story, Middlebrook, and it tempts me to break my rule and talk a bit. It was some churchyard this fellow was seeking?”

“A churchyard—in this neighborhood,” I replied. “Or churchyards.”

“Where there were graves with the name Netherfield on their stones or slabs or monuments?” he continued. “Aye—just so. And those men he foregathered with at the inn—they'd never heard of anything at that point, nor elsewhere?”

“Neither there nor elsewhere,”! assented.

“Then, if there is such a place,” said he, “it'll be one of those disused burial-grounds of which there are examples here in the north, and not a few.”

“You know of some?” suggested Mr. Raven.

“I've seen such places,” answered Mr. Cazalette. “Betwixt here—the seacoast—and the Cheviots westward, there's a good many spots that Goldsmith might have drawn upon for his deserted village. The folks go—the bit of a church falls into ruins—its graveyard gets choked with weeds—the stones are covered with moss and lichen—the monuments fall and are obscured by the grass—underneath the grass and the weed many an old family name lies hidden. And what'll that man be wanting to find any name at all for, I'd like to know!”

“The queer thing to me,” observed Mr. Raven, “is that two men should be wanting to find it at the same time.”

“That looks as if there were some very good reason why it should be found, doesn't it?” remarked his niece. “Anyway, it all sounds very queer—you've brought mystery with you, Mr. Middlebrook.”

When dinner was over, I excused myself from sitting with the two elder men over their wine and joined Miss Raven by the big fireplace in the hall.

“What do you think of that strange old man?” she asked in a low voice as I sat down. “He's so queer. Do you know that he actually goes out early—very early—in the morning and swims in the open sea?”

“Any weather?” I suggested.

“No matter what the weather is,” she replied. “He's been here three weeks now, and he has never missed that morning swim.”

“A decided character!” I said musingly. “And, somehow, he seems to fit in with his present surroundings. From what I have seen of it, Mr. Raven was quite right in telling me that this house was a museum.”

I SLEPT soundly that night—a strange bed and unfamiliar surroundings affect me not at all. Just as suddenly as I had dropped asleep, I woke. My watch lay on the dressing-table close by; glancing at it, I saw that the time was twenty-five minutes to seven. I had been told that the family breakfasted at nine, so I had nearly two and a half hours of leisure. Of course I would go out and enjoy the freshness of the morning. I turned to the window to get a view of the scenery in front of the house. And there, emerging from a wicket gate that opened out of an adjacent plantation, I caught sight of Mr. Cazalette.

It was evident that this robust octogenarian had been taking that morning swim of which Miss Raven had told me the previous evening. He was muffled up in an old pea-jacket; various towels were festooned about his shoulders; his bald head shone in the rising sun. I watched him curiously as he came along the borders of a thick yew hedge at the side of the gardens. Suddenly, at a particular point, he stopped, and drawing something out of his towels, thrust it, at the full length of his arm, into the closely interwoven mass of twig and foliage at his side. Then he moved forward toward the house; a bushy clump of rhododendron hid him from my sight. Two or three minutes later I heard a door close somewhere near my room; Mr. Cazalette had evidently reentered his own apartment.

I was bathed, shaved and dressed by a quarter past seven, and, finding my way out of the house, went across the garden toward the wicket gate through which I had seen Mr. Cazalette emerge—as he had come from the sea that way, it was, I concluded, the nearest way to it. My path led by the yew hedge which I have just mentioned, and I suddenly saw the place where Mr. Cazalette had stood when he thrust his arm into it; thereabouts the ground was soft, mossy, damp; the marks of his shoes were plain. Out of mere curiosity, I stood where he had stood, and slightly parting the thick, clinging twigs, peeped into the obscurity behind. And there, thrust right in among the yew, I saw something white—a crumpled, crushed-up lump of linen, perhaps a man's full-sized pocket-handkerchief, whereon I could make out, even in that obscurity (and nothing in the way of hedges can be thicker or darker than one of old carefully trimmed yew), brown stains and red stains, as if from contact with soil or clay in one case, with blood in the other.

I went onward, considerably mystified. But most people, chancing upon anything mysterious, try to explain it to their own satisfaction. I came to the conclusion that Mr. Cazalette, during his morning swim—no doubt in very shallow waters—had cut hand or foot against some sharp pebble or bit of rock, and had used his handkerchief as a bandage until the bleeding stopped. Yet—why thrust it away into the yew hedge, close to the house? Why carry it from the shore at all, if he meant to get rid of it? And why not have consigned it to his dirty-linen basket and have had it washed?

“Decidedly an odd character,” I mused. “A man of mystery!”

Then I dismissed him from my thoughts, my mind becoming engrossed by the charm of my surroundings. I made my way down to the creek, passed through the belt of pine and fir over which I had seen the sunrise, and came out on a little rock-bound cove, desolate and wild. Here one was shut out from everything but the sea in front; Ravensdene Court was no longer visible. One seemed to be completely alone with sky and strand.

But the place was tenanted. I had not taken twenty paces along the foot of the overhanging cliff before I pulled myself sharply to a halt. There, on the sand before me, his face turned to the sky, his arms helplessly stretched, lay Salter Quick. I knew he was dead in my first horrified glance. And, for the second time that morning, I saw blood—red, vivid, staining the shining particles on the yellow, sun-lighted beach.