Scarhaven Keep | Page 5

definite news about him."
The first half-hour at Northborough yielded nothing definite. A
telephone message from Rothwell had just come to the theatre when
they drove up to it--nothing had so far been heard of the missing man at
Norcaster--either at theatre or hotel. Stafford and Copplestone hurried
across to the "Golden Apple" and interviewed its proprietor; he, keenly
interested in the affair, could tell no more than that Mr. Bassett Oliver,
having sent his luggage forward to Norcaster, had left the house on foot
at eleven o'clock the previous morning, and had been seen to walk

across the market-place in the direction of the railway station. But an
old head-waiter, who had served the famous actor's breakfast, was able
to give some information; Mr. Oliver, he said, had talked a little to him
about the coast scenery between Northborough and Norcaster, and had
asked him which stretch of it was worth seeing. It was his impression
that Mr. Oliver meant to break his journey somewhere along the coast.
"Of course, that's it," said Stafford, as he and Copplestone drove off
again. "He's gone to some place between the two towns. But where?
Anyhow, nobody's likely to forget Oliver if they've once seen him, and
wherever he went, he'd have to take a ticket. Therefore--the
booking-office."
Here at last, was light. One of the clerks in the booking-office came
forward at once with news. Mr. Bassett Oliver, whom he knew well
enough, having seen him on and off the stage regularly for the past five
years, had come there the previous morning, and had taken a first-class
single ticket for Scarhaven. He would travel to Scarhaven by the 11.35
train, which arrived at Scarhaven at 12.10. Where was Scarhaven? On
the coast, twenty miles off, on the way to Norcaster; you changed for it
at Tilmouth Junction. Was there a train leaving soon for Scarhaven?
There was--in five minutes.
Stafford and Copplestone presently found themselves travelling back
along the main line. A run of twenty minutes brought them to the
junction, where, at an adjacent siding they found a sort of train in
miniature which ran over a narrow-gauge railway towards the sea. Its
course lay through a romantic valley hidden between high heather-clad
moorland; they saw nothing of their destination nor of the coast until,
coming to a stop in a little station perched high on the side of a hill they
emerged to see shore and sea lying far beneath them. With a mutual
consent they passed outside the grey walls of the station-yard to take a
comprehensive view of the scene.
"Just the place to attract Oliver!" muttered Stafford, as he gazed around
him. "He'd revel in it--fairly revel!"
Copplestone gazed at the scene in silence. That was the first time he

had ever seen the Northern coast, and the strange glamour and romance
of this stretch of it appealed strongly to his artistic senses. He found
himself standing high above the landward extremity of a narrow bay or
creek, much resembling a Norwegian fiord in its general outlines; it ran
in from the sea between high shelving cliffs, the slopes of which were
thickly wooded with the hardier varieties of tree and shrub, through
which at intervals great, gaunt masses of grey rock cropped out. On the
edge of the water at either side of the bay were lines of ancient houses
and cottages of grey walls and red roofs, built and grouped with the
irregularity of individual liking; on the north side rose the square tower
and low nave of a venerable church; amidst a mass of wood on the
opposite side stood a great Norman keep, half ruinous, which looked
down on a picturesque house at its foot. Quays, primitive and quaint,
ran along between the old cottages and the water's edge; in the bay
itself or nestling against the worn timbers of the quays, were small craft
whose red sails hung idly against their tall masts and spars. And at the
end of the quays and the wooded promontories which terminated the
land view, lay the North Sea, cold, grey, and mysterious in the waning
October light, and out of its bosom rose, close to the shore, great
masses of high grey rocks, strong and fantastic of shape, and further
away, almost indistinct in the distance, an island, on the highest point
of which the ruins of some old religious house were silhouetted against
the horizon.
"Just the place!" repeated Stafford. "He'd have cheerfully travelled a
thousand miles to see this. And now--we know he came here--what we
next want to know is, what he did when he got here?"
Copplestone, who had been taking in every detail of the scene before
him, pointed to a house of many gables and queer chimneys which
stood