The Valley of Ghosts
The Valley of Ghosts
by
Edgar Wallace
To My Friend J.S.E.
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 1
Fate and an easy-running Spanz brought Andrew Macleod to the environs of Beverley. The town itself was at the end of a reluctant branch line, and had no visible excuse for existence, or means of support. Yet, for some extraordinary reason, the people of Beverley did not starve and the queer little shops that formed its one, broad, shaded street had the appearance of prosperity. This it could not have drawn from its aristocratic suburb, for Beverley Green had its supplies from the great department stores elsewhere, and came only to the town for such stocks as had been overlooked in the ordering.
Andy brought his long-bonneted car to a rest before the post office and got down. In five minutes he was chatting to headquarters, and the subject of his conversation was Allison John Wicker, alias Four-Eyed Scottie, from his practice of wearing spectacles. Scottie was one of the few men of his profession who enjoyed walking. When the manager of the Regent Diamond Syndicate came to his office one morning and found that somebody had saved him the bother of opening the large fire- and thief-resisting safe by means of an acetylene blower, it was as clearly Scottie's work as though he had left his receipt for the seven parcels of stones he had taken. Railway stations and ports of embarkation were instantly picketed by extra police, hotels were visited, and all constabularies warned.
Andy Macleod, spending his holiday with a fishing-rod and an accumulation of books which he had not time to read during the year, was dragged away from his recreation to organise the search.
He had started life as Dr Macleod, an assistant pathologist at headquarters, and had drifted into the profession of thief-catcher without exactly knowing how. Officially he was still a pathologist, a man to be called to the witness stand to testify the manner of deceased's death; unofficially, though they called him 'sir', he was 'Andy' to the youngest policeman that walked a beat.
"He passed through Panton Mills three days ago on a walking tour. I'm pretty certain it was Scottie," he said. "I'm quartering the country between here and Three Lakes. The local police swear that he hasn't been near Beverley, which means that he must have been living under their noses. They are a bright lot; asked me if he had done anything wrong, and they have had full particulars of the theft and a description of Scottie for a week."
A girl walked into the post office at this moment. Glancing sideways through the glass panel of the telephone booth, Andy noted her admiringly. Attractive—pretty—beautiful? To all men, all women look their best in tailored costumes of severe cut. She was tall for a woman; slim, but not thin.
"Yes, I think so," he answered his chief mechanically, his eyes on the girl.
She raised her hand, and he saw a ring on the engagement finger; a gold ring with little emeralds, or they may have been sapphires—no, they were emeralds. He caught the sea-green of them.
He had opened the door of the booth an inch after the more secret portion of his report had been made, and with one free ear he caught the murmur of her voice.
More than pretty, he decided, and admired the profile turned towards him.
And then a curious thing happened. She must have looked at him when his eyes were turned. Possibly she asked who he was; more likely the garrulous old postmaster, to whom Andy had shown his card to facilitate his call, volunteered the information. Andy heard the word 'detective'. From where he stood he had a clear view of her face.
"Detective!" she no more than whispered the word, but he heard—and saw. Her hands gripped the edge of the counter and the colour went out other face, leaving it a deathly white. Even the lips changed their hue queerly.
So intent, so startled was he, that he took the receiver from his ear, and at that moment she turned and met his gaze. Fear, panic, horror were in those eyes. He had a sense of something trapped and tortured as he stared at her, open-mouthed. Her eyes left his, and she fumbled at the money on the counter, the change the old man had put there, her hands shaking so that at last she scooped the coins into her palm and went out of the office hurriedly.
Unconscious of the fact that at the other end of the wire a puzzled police official was tapping the receiver urgently, having his own views to express, Andy hung up and passed into the shop.
"Who was that lady?" he asked as he paid the telephone charge.
"That, sir? Why, that's Miss Nelson, from the Green—Beverley Green, over by the hills. Wonderful place; you ought to see it. Lot of rich people live there. Mr Boyd Salter, you've heard of him? And Mr Merrivan, he's a rich man, too, though he's a bit mean, and oh, a lot of swell people. It's a sort of a—what do you call it? A garden city, that's what it is.
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