• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"A bit of bad luck," Dunn agreed. "But accidents will happen. Anyhow, it was clear enough some one was trying to make a jolly clear sweep. It may be a madman; it may be some one with a grudge against us; it may be, as poor Charley thought, some one in the line of succession, who is just clearing the way to inherit the title and estates himself. I wish I knew what made Charley suspicious of Deede Dawson in the first place."

"You don't know that?" Walter asked.

"No, he never told me," answered Dunn. "Poor Charley, it cost him his life. That's another thing we must find out--where they've hidden his body."

"He was sure from the first," remarked Walter, "that it was a conspiracy on the part of some one in the line of succession?"

"Yes," agreed Dunn. "It's likely enough, too. You see, ever since that big family row and dispersion eighty years ago, a whole branch of the family has been entirely lost sight of. There may be half a dozen possible heirs we know nothing about. Like poor John Clive. I daresay if we had known of his existence we should have begun by suspecting him."

"There's one thing pretty sure," remarked Walter. "If these pleasant little arrangements did succeed, it would be a fairly safe guess that the inheritor of the title and estates was the guilty person. It might be brought home to him, too."

"Perhaps," agreed Dunn dryly. "But just a trifle too late to interest me for one. And I don't mean to let the dad or uncle be sacrificed if I can help it. I failed with Clive, poor fellow, but I don't mean to again, and I don't see how we can. Deede Dawson has exposed his hand. Now we can play ours."

"But what are you going to do?" Walter asked. "Are you going to follow out his instructions?"

"To the letter," Dunn answered. "We are dealing with very wary, suspicious people, and the least thing might make them take alarm. The important point, of course, is the promise that Deede Dawson's employer will be at Brook Bourne Spring tomorrow afternoon. That's our trump card. Everything hangs on that. And to make sure there's no hitch, I shall do exactly what I've been told to do. I expect I shall be watched. I shall be there at four o'clock, and ten minutes after I hope we shall have laid hands on--whoever it is."

Walter nodded.

"I don't see how we can fail," he said.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN APHORISM

"No," Dunn agreed after a long pause. "No, I don't see myself how failure is possible; I don't see what there is to go wrong. All the same, I shan't be sorry when it's all over; I suppose I'm nervous, that's the truth of it. But Deede Dawson's hardly the sort of man I should have expected to lay all his cards on the table so openly."

"Oh, I think that's natural enough," answered Walter. "Quite natural--he thinks you are in with him and he tells you what he wants you to do. But I don't quite see the object of your visit to the Abbey the other day. You gave me the shock of my life, I think. I hadn't the least idea who you were--that beard makes a wonderful difference."

Dunn laughed quietly.

"It's a good disguise," he admitted. "I didn't quite know myself first time I looked in a mirror. We went to the Abbey to prepare for a burglary there."

"Oh, is that on the cards, too?" exclaimed Walter. "I didn't expect that."

"Yes," answered Dunn. "My own idea is that Deede Dawson sees an opportunity for making a bit on his own. After all of us are disposed of and his friend has got the title and estates, he won't dare to prosecute of course, and so Deede Dawson thinks it a good opportunity to visit the Abbey and pick up any pictures or heirlooms or so-so he can that it would be almost impossible to dispose of in the ordinary way, but that he expects he will be able to sell back at a good price to the new owner of the property. I think he calculates that that gentleman will be ready to pay as much as he is asked. I don't know, but I think that's his idea from something he said the other day about the uselessness of even good stuff from a big house unless you knew of a sure