Mallory, however, had already begun to pry open the container. She gasped as a gold watch, a jeweled snuffbox, gold chains and lockets spilled into her hands.
"These are Squire Sorrel's!" Mallory exclaimed. "Here's his crest engraved-"
The door just then was thrown open and Scrupnor strode across the threshold. For an instant he hesitated at the sight of Mallory holding the box; but his scowl vanished as he nodded with satisfaction.
"I see you've found my little keepsakes. So much the better. You've given me a most excellent idea; one, I admit, which had not occurred to me."
"You did kill Squire Sorrel," cried Mallory. "You made it look as if he'd been robbed. Here's the proof of it!"
"Proof beyond question," Scrupnor admitted cheerfully. "Evidence incontrovertible. All the more convincing when found in the murderer's possession, as it will be, I assure you. And you've also helped me with another small difficulty.
"I always admired those trinkets," continued Scrupnor. "I tell you very frankly it pained me, having to hide them away. They're such charming objects and highly valuable, in addition, of course, to their being fond remembrances of the late lamented. You saw that for yourself, the day you and your accomplice came bursting in here."
"Is that what you thought?" returned Mallory. "I saw nothing at all! I wish I had, for I'd have gone straight to Rowan and told him."
"Of course you would," agreed Scrupnor. "But that danger is past, it makes no difference now. Once these items are discovered on the criminal cadaver, I shall claim them rightfully as part of the estate. It will be a source of profoundest satisfaction to wear the late lamented's watch and his signet ring. In regard to which: Give them here."
But Mallory, drawing closer to the enchanter, was staring at the heavy gold ring. "Arbican will this help you?" she cried. "It's gold! It's a circle! Here, I give it to you!"
Before the enchanter could reply, Mallory pressed the ring into his hand. With a growl of impatience, Scrupnor, hand outstretched, started toward Arbican. That instant, however, the enchanter's bent shoulders straightened and his eye suddenly blazed.
"No closer!" he commanded. "Beware! My power's at full flood! Touch me not!"
Arbican's face glowed; the air shimmered and crackled around him. Both wonder-struck and frightened at this new sight of the enchanter, Mallory flung up her arms to shield her eyes. Scrupnor, however, had already sprung forward and locked his hands around Arbican's throat.
A clap of thunder burst in Mallory's ears, and the shock of it threw her to the ground. Her last glimpse was of Arbican, arms raised and outspread, the flaming branches of a tree.
CHAPTER 15
Arbican had vanished. Mallory, stunned and shaken, staggered to her feet and called out his name. There was no trace of him. Only the gold ring lay where he had stood. Scrupnor, too, was gone; one of his boots and a charred waistcoat smouldered near the fireplace. Mrs. Parsel, coming to her senses, heaved herself up and blinked around her.
"Where is he?" she demanded angrily, once she was certain Scrupnor was no longer in the room. "Where is that villainous creature? That hypocrite! That molester of a helpless woman? Let me face him!"
Too alarmed over Arbican's disappearance to answer Mrs. Parsel, Mallory had begun searching every corner. At the same time, there came a violent battering at the door; in another moment, it burst from its hinges and Mr. Parsel tumbled through, with the notary at his heels.
Seeing his wife safe and her temper as undamaged as the rest of her, Mr. Parsel threw his arms around Mallory, who could not hold back her sobs as she tried to recount what had happened.
"Now, now, Mallie," Mr. Parsel soothed, "your friend's bound to turn up again. People don't go disappearing into thin air, least of all elderly gentlemen-"
"He's an enchanter," insisted Mallory. "Do you still not believe me? I have to find him. I don't know if he's even alive. Come with me, help me look."
"I should advise against that," put in Rowan, who had been examining the contents of the cashbox. He glanced at the empty boot. "From what's left here, I doubt you will find him or the squire, either. I doubt you would really want to. It would, I fear, be painful for you."
"Well, it won't be painful for me," declared Mrs. Parsel. "If I ever lay hands on-on that individual! Threatening me as he did! To think I offered him calves' foot jelly! To think I invited him to the Ladies' Benevolence."
"I suggest, ma'am, you let matters rest as they are," said Rowan. "There has been very strange business here tonight. I, for one, mean to confine myself to the facts as I see them and urge you to do the same. Squire Scrupnor is gone. Should he ever be found alive, he will surely go to trial, and just as surely hang. The evidence speaks for itself. That, for me: is quite sufficient. Beyond that, the rest can be only wild speculation."
"Be glad it turned out as it did," Mr. Parsel said. "I should hate to think what would have happened if Mr. Rowan and I hadn't seen the wagon in the yard, after Squire telling us you weren't here."
"If you hadn't been so slow about it," returned Mrs. Parsel, "you'd have spared your wife the humiliation and indignity of being put upon by that loathsome wretch. That creature has been a disappointment to me. A disappointment, nothing less."
"My dear," said Mr. Parsel, "if you'd listened to Mallie in the first place-"
While Mrs. Parsel continued to upbraid her husband, Mallory turned away and put her head in her hands, trying to make herself believe, in spite of what she had seen, that Arbican was still alive. Her hope, nevertheless, was not enough to overcome her grief. Nothing, she told herself bitterly, happened as it should. The fairy tales she loved now seemed to mock her, and she understood a little why Arbican so belittled them. Even magic itself had betrayed her. The circle of gold she had given him, the spell that should have saved him, had only destroyed him.
Mr. Parsel put a hand on her shoulder. "Come along, Mallie. We'll go home now."
Mrs. Parsel, however, had turned her attention from her husband to the notary. "It has been a trying, disconcerting day, Mr. Rowan, and one we should happily forget. But we should rest more comfortably in our beds if we might settle the obligations of-that despicable person."
The notary gave Mrs. Parsel a questioning look as she went on: "Certain financial inducements had been offered, in the nature, you might say, of a reward. Indeed, Mr. Rowan, as you very well know, it includes possession of the Holdings themselves."
"I do know that," answered the notary. "And whether Mr. Scrupnor is alive or dead, his offer is still binding. However, the best claim to the property lies with the person who last, and most directly apprehended the murderer. Namely, Mr. Arbican."
"What are you saying?" cried Mrs. Parsel, turning more pale at the prospect of losing the reward than she had done at the prospect of losing her life. "That we're to have nothing for our pains? Arbican? We don't know who he is, where he came from, or where he's gone. But gone he is, and that leaves Parsel and me."
"No, it does not!" cried Mr. Parsel, before the notary could answer. "No, Mrs. Parsel it most certainly does not!"
Mrs. Parsel stared at her husband, who had drawn himself up to his full height, and whose pudgy cheeks were quivering like those of an infuriated rabbit.
"Parsel!" she cried. "Hold your tongue!"
"Mrs. Parsel," returned the cookshop owner, "I will not! You egged me on to get myself hypothecated. You put it into my head to cheat on the victualization. I don't reproach you, Mrs. Parsel for I confess I wasn't unwilling. But there's the end of it. I should have spoken up before this, but I'll speak now. If anyone has a fair claim, it's Mallie."
"Exactly what I was about to say, Mr. Parsel," declared the notary. "I quite agree that in the absence of Mr. Arbican she has a very sound claim. Naturally, she will have to submit a formal statement, in writing. I shall draw up the paper."
At the double shock of being contradicted by her husband and overreached by her servant, Mrs. Parsel choked, gasped, and seemed to have altogether lost h
er power of speech.
As for Mallory, it was a moment before she fully understood the notary's words. Then she turned to him. "No. I don't want the Holdings. I claim nothing at all."
CHAPTER 16
It was daylight by the time Mallory rode from the Holdings. She hoped the men from the sawmill had not already hauled the oak away. "It's my tree, after all," she told herself, then corrected: "No, it's Arbican's. It always will be." At the clearing, she swung down from the bay mare and looked around in dismay. She had come too late. The oak was gone. Only the stump and a few broken twigs showed it had ever been there in the first place. After a moment, she turned sadly to remount. Then she cried out. Arbican was standing in front of her.
The wizard's cloak was as threadbare as ever, his beard as gray and straggling; but his bearing had changed, his eyes were sharp and commanding, and his gaze held her like a hand. For an instant, to her own astonishment, she was half afraid. Then, with a sob of relief, she ran to him:
"I was so sure you were dead-"
"An assumption obviously incorrect," Arbican replied. "In fact, my powers are stronger than ever. Perhaps a little too strong. Those years in the tree must have ripened them. Even I was surprised. They did get rather out of hand. I hardly expected to go blasting into thin air and end up here. I can tell you I had a few bad moments before I came to myself again. I was afraid I might have to pass the next few centuries disembodied, and you can imagine how irritating that would have been. But I have the knack of things again. As for that fellow Scrupnor, I'm sorry. It was his own fault. I warned him not to touch me. Aside from that, all's well."
"No-no, it isn't," Mallory began. "Arbican, something has happened-"
"Nothing serious, I'm sure," replied the wizard. "It could hardly be worse than what we've had to put up with."
"It is," Mallory said. "It's the Holdings. They're to be mine. All of them."
"In that case," answered Arbican, "congratulations. They couldn't be in better hands."
"You don't understand," Mallory insisted. "I didn't want them. I still don't want them. It was Mr. Parsel and Rowan who talked and badgered and finally I said I would, just to make them be quiet. But now-"
"It seems to me," Arbican broke in, "that you told me how you wished to be mistress of the manor."
"Yes, but that-that was only wishing."
"What, then," the enchanter sharply replied, "are you afraid to have your wishes come true?"
"I'm a kitchen maid," Mallory burst out. "I've been one all my life. How shall I deal with accounts, and tenants, and I don't know what all? I'll never make sense of running an estate."
"You'll make as much sense of it as anyone," Arbican said. "More than most, I should think."
"Rowan says you have the best claim to the Holdings," suggested Mallory.
But Arbican hastily shook his head. "Out of the question. Wish all you want for yourself, but don't wish something like that on me."
"I've decided one thing," Mallory said. "If I have to be mistress of the manor, I'm going to let Mr. Parsel out of his hypothecation. He'll have his inn free and clear, and do what he likes with it. I've made up my mind about something else, too. I certainly won't pull down cottages for the sake of a coal mine. And Scrupnor's road-the damage is done, but I'll try to mend it somehow."
"So I hope," said Arbican, "though it may not be easy. Once things get started, you can't always stop them, much as you might like. Times change, you can't go back. No more than you can live in my world; no more than I can live in yours. The best you can do is use your common sense. Even then, things can turn out differently from what you wanted."
Mallory nodded. "Yes, you're right. Nothing ends as it does in fairy tales. I did love them so, and I did believe them. I'm sorry they aren't true."
"Not true?" cried Arbican. "Of course they're true! As true as you'll ever find."
"But you told me-"
"I never said such a thing! How could you have misunderstood me? Those tales of yours-yes, you people made them up. They aren't tales about us, though you may pretend they are. They're tales about yourselves, or at least the best parts of yourselves. They're not true in the outside world, mine or any other. But in the inside, yes, indeed. Now, come along with me."
Mallory followed the enchanter through the brush and down a slope to the riverbank. There he halted. At the water's edge bobbed a small boat of wood so polished that it seemed to flame. The lines of the hull swept forward like the curve of a harp. From the slender mast hung a sail golden in the sunlight. Despite the beauty of the vessel, Mallory felt her heart might break and she turned her eyes away.
"Good, eh?" said Arbican. "It took some doing, even for me. I've been busy at it since my abrupt departure from the counting room; that's why I didn't come back for you. I thought you might enjoy the surprise. You don't suppose I'd have gone without saying farewell?
"It's a neat, seaworthy craft," Arbican went on. "My oak tree had precisely the amount of wood I needed. The sail was a little afterthought of my own. Not really necessary; more ornamental than functional; but it does add a certain flair-"
He stopped. Mallory had said nothing, but the enchanter had understood her look, and he regretfully shook his head:
"No, child, it isn't possible. It never was. I told you that from the first. You have your own voyage to make, as I have mine."
"I know that," Mallory said, after a moment. "It's just that I couldn't help wishing-"
"So you must, always," Arbican quietly answered. "If your wish is strong enough, you may end up actually doing something to make it come true. I promised you a gift," he went on, "and I've been racking my brain for some little keepsake. I can think of nothing really suitable, so you shall have to suggest one. Within reason, of course."
"I want none," said Mallory. "Not any more. I shall remember you. Let that be gift enough."
"As I shall remember you," answered Arbican. "So be it. There's nothing of true value I could give that you don't have already."
"Farewell, then," Mallory said quietly, taking Arbican's hand in both her own.
The enchanter nodded. "Farewell." He touched his lips to her brow, turned away, and without a backward glance climbed aboard the boat which obediently floated clear of the bank, bearing toward the middle of the river.
The current caught the shining vessel, drawing it rapidly downstream. The wind freshened, billowing the golden sail; and the boat surged ahead impatiently. Mallory watched as the hunched figure in the stern grew smaller and smaller until it was out of sight.
Llyod Alexander, The Wizard in the Tree
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