Front matter (continued 3)

"Certainly, sir, if you'd rather."

She untied the mare and turned the buggy carefully around before getting in. "Ask Pete to give her a good rub down," I called. "Mr. Herrick and I will be back by supper-time."

As it happened, we stayed fairly late. The tea resolved itself into a semi-supper, with the addition of chocolate cake, canned pineapple, and sardines prepared by some special and deadly recipe of Lessing's in a chafing-dish. It was a combination that induced a certain languor afterwards in soul and body. Later, Lessing having re-engaged Herrick in the game of chess that our return had interrupted, Mary and I found ourselves once more left to each other's company at the far end of the porch. She had attempted some quite ridiculous excuse about dish-washing, but either the sense of Herrick's near presence or the meal just finished lent me moral courage to vanquish her objections on the spot.

"Either you invite people to your house," I said, "or you don't invite them. If you do, it's your business to entertain them. I'm not an exacting person, but if it comes to contesting my rights against those of mere crockery, I warn you that I'm going to be exceedingly disagreeable."

Our talk on the homeward drive had broken the aloofness of the past week, and I was minded not to let her slip back into it at will. She sat down on the wicker armchair opposite me, her hands folded on her lap.

"Would you like to see the family photograph album?" she suggested. "We none of us collect picture-postcards, so I'm afraid that's the only interesting object I can offer you. Or I might take you round the garden and show you the site for next year's rose bushes."

"I should be delighted!" I said ruthlessly.

She made a mouth at me.

"I don't think you are in a mood to appreciate the exquisite sentiment of next year's rose bushes," she returned. "It calls for a totally different range of sympathies from yours."

I lit a cigarette.

"You don't know anything about my range of sympathies," I remarked. "For all you know, they may extend to objects even more ethereal than unborn roses."

"Impossible!" She pulled a spray off the woodbine that grew round the porch pillar, and began to pull it to pieces, leaf by leaf. "By the way," she said after a moment, "did you tell me that that queer little friend of yours was a botanist?"

"Of Herrick's," I corrected. "I entirely disclaim him. He described himself as an amateur, whatever he may mean by that. I gather that it's his way of amusing himself on a holiday. There are a good many people who seem to feel lost unless they have some definite hobby for their vacations. I suppose really it gives him mild exercise and an excuse for grubbing about in the open."

"He takes other mild exercise," said Mary, her mouth curving in sudden recollection. "He was engaged in some the other morning, and that's what made me so interested. I'm afraid I interrupted him."

"You'd seen him before, then?"

She laughed.

"I was taking Leo for a run before breakfast, down the hill, the other morning, and I came upon him just in the hollow there near where the stream is, and I'd give you a hundred dollars to guess his occupation. I don't know if you've ever noticed a cedar there, Doctor Haverill, growing quite near the road, on the right-hand side? It branches off some little way from the ground. Well, there he was engaged, of all things in the world, in solemnly climbing up into this tree and jumping out again. I was walking along the footpath where the ground is soft, so he never heard me coming, and the performance struck me as so interesting that I stood still for a minute and watched him. He did it four or five times, and it looked as if he was trying to see how far he could jump. The last time he landed quite near to the edge of the stream, and that seemed to satisfy him, for he didn't try any more after that. Then he looked about on the ground and began to smooth over all the footprints he'd made. He'd just finished when he caught sight of me. He had taken his glasses off for jumping, I suppose in case he smashed them, and as soon as he saw me he grabbed them out of his pocket and walked off. It was for all the world as if he was ashamed at having been caught doing it. I suppose it did look ridiculous for a man of his age to go doing stunts like a schoolboy. I guess it was some sort of an exercise, and he does it pretty often, for he was certainly active at it. I thought maybe he was a physical-culture crank."

"A mild lunatic, more like!" I smiled. "Perhaps the giddiness of youth returns to him at times and he has to work it off. Maybe it's a religious exercise—some obscure sect of jumping Baptists. I'll ask him when we meet."

Mary laughed, but her brows were drawn in a puzzled frown.

"Do you know," she said, "I have a conviction that I have seen that man before. I don't know in the least why. Generally I remember people quite well. I feel that I have not only seen him, but spoken to him. A thing like that bothers me, because I ought to remember it. I will sometime."

"You'd remember if you had spoken to him," I said. "He stammers quite badly."

"Then that settles it," returned Mary gaily. "I have only known two people who stammered in my whole life, with the exception of Aaron Menning, and one was a chemistry professor at school and the other a spinster aunt!"

My appointment with George Freeman was at nine, and it was nearly that hour when we left the bungalow. Herrick and I walked briskly down the hill, and as we passed Dutchman's Hollow I cast a curious glance at the tree which had been the scene of Mr. Crowfoot's acrobatic performances. It stood, as Mary had said, almost overhanging the footpath, a strong twisted-limbed cedar, noticeable as being the only tree of its kind along the road. The fork was a good six feet from the ground, and I reflected that Crowfoot must possess more agility than his appearance warranted.

Herrick followed my glance.

"A queer tree, that," he said. "Looks as if it had been stuck there for some purpose. Do you ever notice, Haverill, how some inanimate things—if I may call a tree inanimate—strike one unpleasantly? Now that tree, to me, suggests a suicide every time I look at it. A man might hang himself among the upper branches, and you'd merely take his body for a part of the tree."

"Another horror to the mystery of Dutchman's Hill!" I said lightly. "Heaven's sake, Jack, but you're in a cheerful mood tonight! You seem to have creepy things on the brain. It you stood and looked at any tree long enough you could hypnotize yourself into seeing things."

"I merely called it unpleasant," returned Herrick argumentatively. "To me it is. You think that because I have taken a fancy to dislike a tree I'm ready to imagine unpleasant things about it. I believe that if it impresses me that way, for no apparent reason, it is because the unpleasant things have in all probability already happened."

"Oh, argue that stuff with Lessing," I protested good-humoredly. "It's more in his line. I heard you at it tonight. I'm a normal man, and I object to having my free imagination harrowed over things that don't count. That tree is a tree, and that's all about it."

Our fooling had brought us to a pause at the beginning of the little plank bridge, and Herrick, leaning against the rail, had employed the interval in making a cigarette. He smiled, slipping his tobacco pouch back, and began to feel through his pockets for the little automatic tinder-box he always carried. He was methodical over trifling things to a degree that occasionally irritated me.

"Then go up and touch it," he said. "I would like to test that sensitiveness which you boast that you don't possess."

"All right."

I walked up to the tree, impatient at my own encouragement of such nonsense, and laid my hand on the trunk. Almost as my fingers touched the bark I heard distinctly a low cry, cut suddenly and horribly short. The woods, especially at night, are deceptive both as to direction and distance, and, already half-expectant of some trick, I could have sworn that Herrick himself had done it. I wheeled on him angrily. He was standing in the roadway, the cigarette at his lips, the tiny flame of the tinder-box flickering in his lifted hand, and by its light I saw his face white and startled.

"Did you do that?"

"Do you think I'm a fool?" He caught my arm and swung me round, facing the woods, of a sudden ominously silent. For a moment we listened acutely. Then Herrick flung his unlighted cigarette away. "Come on. It was over there."

He started forward, in the direction where the dam lay, breaking through the underbrush. I followed at his heels. Along the road there had been still a glimmer of light, but once under cover of the trees we stumbled through dense blackness, with nothing to guide us save Herrick's vague sense of direction. Once he stood still to shout. There was no answer.

"Follow the stream," I said.

We had struck the edge of it again; I felt my boots sink in marshy ground, and thereafter we made quicker pace. The brook was narrow at this time of year, running a mere trickle in its bed. It branched off from the creek just below the mill sluice, and in spring carried off some of the excess of water when the creek itself was swollen. Just now, as I knew, there was a scant foot of water at its deepest. I was taking no particular heed therefore to my steps when Herrick, a few paces to my left, called out.

"Take care!" he said. "We're nearly in the creek!"

As he spoke I heard, somewhere near us in the darkness, the unmistakable sound of rushing water. I stopped abruptly, bewildered, with the sense of having somehow lost my bearings. As we were going, the creek should have been a good hundred yards on our left.

And the sound was not the sound of the creek. I had paused at the moment near the edge of the brook; I could feel soft, saturated moss underfoot, and I fancied that it grew even softer and damper as I stood. Something swirled at my ankles, and taking a step forward I was knee-deep in sudden icy flood.

Incredible as it seemed, the stream was rising. I had barely grasped the meaning of it when Herrick shouted again. This time he was answered. A strong shout caught up the echo of his voice.

"Hello, there! Where are you?" It was Herrick.

And the answer came promptly, near at hand now in the darkness:

"Hello! By the dam. Keep clear of the stream; the sluice-gate is giving!"

XV SUSPICIONS

The warning came just in time. Herrick sang out and sprang, and I could hear the splash as he landed close beside me. Together we forced a way through the bushes and tall weeds and began to scramble up the sloping bank. It was a thicket of alders and brambles; the briars caught and tore at our clothes as we pushed through. We came out not far from the sluice, with the rush of escaping water still in our ears, and above the turmoil of it I called again.

"Where are you? Is there something wrong?"

"I want help here!"

The voice answered almost from under our feet, midway down the bank up which we had just scrambled. In a cleared space of the little thicket a man was standing; my eyes, used by now to the darkness, could make out his figure outlined against the surrounding bushes. It was Mr. Crowfoot, and he was bending over something that lay stretched and ominous among the trampled weeds at his feet. I had not recognized his voice in the darkness, though it sounded vaguely familiar. Herrick reached him first, and was on his knees beside the prostrate figure when I came up.

"An accident, Haverill. I thought so. No, he's alive. How did it happen?"

"He must have fallen off the gate," said Crowfoot. In the excitement he forgot to stammer. "I heard him call out and went down after him. I had only just time to drag him out."

Herrick wiped his hand on the grass.

"Cut his head open," he said briefly. "I think there's an arm broken. Give me a hand, Austin. We must get him up to the top."

"Compound fracture and a broken collar-bone," said Crowfoot in his precise tones, oddly precise even in this moment. "I'm glad you gentlemen came along. The head wound isn't much, but there's probably a slight concussion. If you will help me——"

It struck me that he took the man's injuries with a remarkable coolness, utterly at variance with the impression of nervousness he had given me that morning. It was as if he were the medical man and we mere lay beings who had happened along. Herrick growled. He had found his tinder-box, and it flashed a tiny glimmer on the man's face.

"George Freeman!" I exclaimed.

"You know him?" said Herrick quickly.

"The sweetheart of that girl at Sliefer's. He had an appointment with me this evening. He must have been on his way——"

I stopped short. I thought Crowfoot gave a faint exclamation, but he said nothing. Together we got the limp figure to the roadway at the top of the bank, and laid him down. Herrick turned to Crowfoot.

"Was he with you?"

"No. I was walking along the side of the dam. I often take a stroll of an evening; I sleep rather badly without. He was lying at the bottom of the sluice-gate when I found him, half in the water, and I dragged him out. I supposed he had missed his footing in the dark and cried out as he fell."

Herrick and I exchanged glances. So far the story might be true; we had both heard the cry.

"Isn't there a railing?" Herrick asked.

"It was broken," said Crowfoot, "and has never been properly repaired. I have spoken about it several times at the farm, but Mr. Sliefer has neglected to mend it."

"That's so," I confirmed. "It's been broken a good three weeks. Hardly anyone passes this way, now the mill isn't working, so I suppose they haven't bothered."

"Well..." said Herrick. He rose from his knees. "As he's known at the farm he'd better be taken there. He must be properly moved. We can't handle him like this."

"I'll go and get help," said Crowfoot.

Herrick looked at him squarely.

"I prefer that we should go together," he said drily. "Austin, do you mind staying here for ten minutes? I suppose you haven't your revolver?"

I hadn't. I carried one usually in accordance with Lessing's suggestion, but at this moment it was locked in one of the surgery drawers.

"Never mind," I said. "I don't need it."

Mr. Crowfoot hesitated. Then his hand slipped to his pocket. Herrick had been cleverer than I gave him credit for.

"If you allow me, Doctor Haverill," he said gravely, "I will leave you my own. I should much prefer it. We are two, and it would be better that you should not remain here unarmed."

Again Herrick and I glanced at one another.

"Do you usually carry a revolver when you take your evening strolls, Mr. Crowfoot?" he asked.

"It is a precaution," replied the little botanist, "which I consider to be quite harmless. As you put a similar question to your friend just now I presume the habit is not confined to myself."

"Take it," said Herrick curtly. "We'll be back in a quarter of an hour." And he disappeared with Crowfoot along the path toward Sliefer's farm.

Left alone, my first and perhaps pardonable impulse was to examine the chambers of the revolver Mr. Crowfoot had just given me. One of the cartridges had been discharged. I slipped it back into my jacket pocket, where it would be ready to hand, and took out my cigarette case. There was nothing to be done for the man beside me until further help arrived. I reassured myself as to his condition. It was as Crowfoot had said. The head wound had bled freely, but we had already partially stanched it with Herrick's handkerchief. The right arm and shoulder were fractured, and I suspected a rib as well. He could not have fallen directly from the sluice-gate, but from one side, with the bushes and the water to break his fall. If he had struck one of the heavy timbers immediately below he would have had his back broken on the spot. As it was he was in no immediate danger, unless from a concussion the extent of which we could not as yet ascertain.

I sat down on the beam which marked the beginning of the sluice-wall, and fell to thinking. The thing had not, to me, entirely the look of an accident. Crowfoot, on a moment's consideration, and in spite of the empty cartridge, I exonerated. Freeman had not been shot, and Crowfoot could have had no object in pushing him over only to rescue him afterwards, and undoubtedly he had saved his life. Possibly they had quarrelled, and Freeman had lost his footing, which would account for Crowfoot's prompt action. Crowfoot was staying at the Sliefers', in the same house with Freeman's sweetheart, and where a young woman like Rebecca is concerned there is always a possibility of misunderstandings; but the idea of little Crowfoot playing the rustic Don Juan seemed rather absurd. And that question of the sluice-gate worried me. It had been a dry season, the water in the dam was even lower than usual; there was no earthly reason why the gate should give way just then with no extra pressure to account for it.

Sitting on the wall, swinging my feet, with the sound of the water in my ears, I found myself listening mechanically to its rush. Suddenly a thought occurred to me. There had been no increase in the volume of sound since I had been sitting there. If the sluice-gate had given way only in part, the force of the escaping water would by this time have widened the fissure.

I rose, and walked the few paces to the top of the gate.

It was as I thought. The lever that controlled the sluice had been pulled half over. Bracing my feet firmly, I threw all my strength against it. I had the force of the water to contend with; as I pushed, the whole neglected structure of the gate seemed to vibrate and tremble, but little by little I could hear the gush gradually decreasing, the seething and bubbling below me quieted.

I pushed the lever back as far as I could; it refused to go the whole way, and I feared to do further damage unwittingly by forcing it. But the greater part of the escape was checked. I went back to the wall again and waited.

The minutes dragged. It was a relief to see presently the glimmer of a light through the trees and to hear Mr. Sliefer's anxious deep-throated hail. They had taken one of the stable doors off its hinges, and Herrick and the farmer carried it between them while Crowfoot walked ahead with the lantern.

I saw Crowfoot glance toward the sluice, but he said nothing. With as little jarring as might be we lifted Freeman's unconscious weight on to the door, and I took Herrick's place in the slow procession back to the farmhouse.

Mrs. Sliefer, with Rebecca, white-faced and stricken, met us in the yard. They had prepared a room upstairs, and there we got Freeman to bed and did all that was possible for him. Unconsciousness spared him the pain of our handling; the fracture was as ugly a one as I have seen. The concussion was graver even than we had supposed; it would be days certainly, possibly weeks, before he would be in a state to answer any questions.

I decided to stay the night, and Herrick, with the Sleifers' hired man, drove over in the buggy to take a message to Mrs. Searle and bring back what was needful from the surgery.

In his absence I set myself to gather what information I could from the Sliefers themselves. George Freeman had been there that evening. He had arrived earlier than usual, it being his weekly evening off, and stayed only a short time, saying that he had an appointment in the village. On Rebecca teasing him, he had said that it was a business appointment and that she should hear all about it in good time.

He had left the house at a quarter-past eight. His appointment was for nine, and it would have taken him nearly that time to walk over, even by the short cut. It was already close upon nine when we left the Lessing's cottage to walk home, and at least twenty minutes must have elapsed before we heard Freeman's cry. How had he employed that interval, and with what object had he lingered nearly three-quarters of an hour near the dam? Instinctively I thought of Crowfoot. He was not in the room, and in the light of what had happened I felt no hesitation in questioning the Sliefers about their guest.

He had come to them a fortnight ago, engaging his room by letter. They often took a boarder in the summer, and someone who once stayed there had recommended them to him. He was quiet and pleasant-mannered, and anxious to give no trouble, an ideal boarder from Mrs. Sliefer's point of view, though Rebecca inclined to consider him "queer." He had stipulated for a ground-floor room, explaining that for some heart affection he was forbidden to mount stairs. (I smiled, thinking of the acrobatic exercises Mary Lessing had witnessed.) They had accordingly arranged the back parlor for him, which had a door opening directly on the side porch. His meals were served to him there. Beyond the necessary service they had very little to do with him. He was not at all talkative on account of his infirmity, but always pleasant in manner. To their knowledge, George Freeman had never so much as spoken to him, though it was his unfailing joke to tease Rebecca about the "handsome young city gentleman."

So much for Mr. and Mrs. Sliefer's account. Rebecca differed. Rebecca didn't hold with "queerness," nor with mucking one's room up with rubbishy weeds, nor with going out at night to hunt toadstools.

"Toadstools?" I said.

"Fungy, he calls 'em. It's the same thing. He says there's some that shines in the dark, like rotten wood. I've never seen 'em, nor I wouldn't go touchin' 'em if I did. Anything would need to shine good and hard for him to see it with those blue goggles on!"

"Rebecca's jest set against him because he wears glasses," said Mrs. Sliefer.

"I like to see a folk's eyes," Rebecca insisted. "I hate to have 'em lookin' at you when you think they ain't."

For some reason she seemed to distrust Crowfoot, but there was certainly no suspicion, even in her mind, of any possible quarrel between the two men. Rebecca herself admitted his courage in having pulled Freeman out. No mention was made of the sluice, and I concluded that neither Herrick nor Crowfoot had spoken of it at the house.

Mrs. Sliefer volunteered to sit up with Freeman the first part of the night, and having seen her settled in a capacious armchair near his bed, I returned to Herrick in the parlor below. There was a couch in the room, but we were neither inclined to make use of it. It was my first chance of speaking privately to Herrick since his return to the house, and having closed the staircase door leading upstairs, I told him briefly all that I had learned that evening.

"Crowfoot couldn't have opened the sluice," he said when I had finished. "How does the thing work? Do you suppose Freeman could have caught at the lever as he fell and pulled it over on him? It doesn't sound likely."

"Impossible. The lever works in the opposite direction."

Herrick pondered.

"He might have been fooling with the thing and opened it, and then lost his balance trying to get it back."

I shook my head.

"He knows the dam well enough, and he doesn't strike me as the sort of man to go fooling with a thing like that out of mischief. Besides, he didn't fall from where the lever is. If he had, and the sluice was already open, he'd have been soaked through and probably drowned to boot. Remember the rush of that water! Crowfoot got him out, and Crowfoot was only wet to the knees. He must have fallen partially clear of the pool, across one of the timbers. The thing looks much more to me as though someone had deliberately opened the sluice on them while they were both down there. Either the machinery stuck, or they were interrupted before they could do the worst. In any case Crowfoot knows more than he has chosen to tell us. He may be shielding someone; the whole business looks ugly."

"I'm going to handle Crowfoot in the morning," said Herrick grimly. "It's a case where he'll find it best to tell all he knows. A man who goes hunting toadstools at night with a revolver lays himself open to misconstruction." He stared a moment at the purple crocheted mat on which the Sleifers' parlor lamp sat enthroned. "Why on earth was he so keen on your keeping that revolver, I wonder?"

"Possibly for the same reason that had caused him to fire one of the cartridges himself, this evening," I said drily.

"He had?" Herrick looked up. "Why didn't we hear the shot?"

"It happens to be one of those special revolvers which are built to make as slight a report as possible. I know the pattern. The sound carries practically no distance. If Crowfoot carries that revolver habitually it is because he has good reason to be afraid of someone, and he wouldn't have used it without serious cause."

"Have you any idea," asked Herrick, "what Freeman wanted to see you about tonight?"

"Yes," I said slowly, "I have. You know the night you came down here, Jack? It was Freeman who was the most determined to sift that ghost story to the bottom, if you remember. From all accounts, he is not the young man to take half-way measures in a thing that concerns his sweetheart. I think that he has been working on his own initiative, that he found out something, and it was about that that he wanted to see me. He made the appointment for after dark, at an hour when he was not likely to be seen coming or going from my house, and he even took the precaution of coming by way of the woods. Someone had an interest in preventing him from keeping the appointment. They watched him to the Sliefers' house, and laid up for him by the sluice, which he would have to cross on his way to me."

"You mean Crowfoot himself?"

"Crowfoot wasn't here at the time of the ghost scare, and he didn't know of Freeman's appointment tonight. Moreover, I don't think he had even an idea who the man was till you flashed your lamp on him. Remember it was pretty dark there. But two people might have known of it. They were both in the store at the time. One was Mr. Haskell, whom I think we may dismiss immediately. The other was Aaron Menning."

"Aaron Menning...." There was that in Herrick's tone that confirmed instantly my own conclusions. "Then if that's so, Aaron Menning is at the bottom of the ghost business, and of the whole Dutchman's Hill story. Aaron, the pious chapel member! But why in heaven's name——?"

"There's a streak of insanity in the whole family," I said. "Don't forget that Jakey was said to be half crazy. Aaron has the look of a criminal degenerate. How on earth he has maintained his reputation in the village so long I can't think. He is cunning and malicious, if no worse."

"I'd like to know just what hold that type of man could have over Crowfoot," Herrick said. "Crowfoot comes in somewhere. If it was Aaron pushed Freeman over, what reason could Crowfoot have for shielding him deliberately? There's more behind it yet than we can lay hand on."

There was, but our plans for finding out were destined to receive a rude shock in the morning.

About two o'clock I left Herrick on the couch and went to take Mrs. Sliefer's place upstairs. Against my will I half dozed in the chintz-covered arm-chair, and through my brain there chased puzzling dreams in which Herrick and I were trying feverishly to conceal George Freeman's body in the mill-dam, while Crowfoot, continually changing and rechanging into the likeness of Aaron, leapt up and down from the dizzy heights of a butternut tree and chattered at us angrily as he sprang.

Herrick was already drinking coffee when I came downstairs. Rebecca had brought it in, and with it a note addressed to me.

I broke it open. There was a second bulkier envelope inside with the note. Both note and address were printed in small neat capitals, such as a child might use.

"MY DEAR HAVERILL,

"I REGRET THAT I HAVE BEEN OBLIGED TO LEAVE FOR THE CITY BY AN EARLY TRAIN, AND SO MUST POSTPONE THE PLEASURE OF MEETING YOU AND YOUR FRIEND AGAIN TILL A LATER DATE.

"ALEXANDER CROWFOOT."

On the second envelope was printed:

"TO BE OPENED ONLY IF NOT RECLAIMED WITHIN THREE DAYS."

"Stung!" said Herrick.

XVI I CATCH A BURGLAR

I found Rebecca in the kitchen, weeping. It was easy to see that she had spent half the night crying, and I hastened to reassure her so far as I could as to her sweetheart's condition.

"And now about Mr. Crowfoot," I said. "What time did he leave here?"

"It must have been early," Rebecca answered. "I was down an' about by five."

"He gave you the note?"

"He left it in his room. I went to put his coffee like I always do, outside, an' the door was open. He left another envelope for mother with his week's board in. His bed hadn't been slept in. He was writin' in his room all last evenin', after he came in."

"And his things?"

"He didn't have more'n a suit-case, and he must have took that with him."

I went back to Herrick in the parlour. Crowfoot's enclosure still lay on the table, and as I took it up to put it in my pocket I felt sorely tempted to break the seal there and then.

"So he's lit out, temporarily," said Herrick. "Well ... it doesn't look particularly wise under the circumstances, but I suppose he knows his own business."

"Should we open the letter?"

"No," Herrick said decidedly. "That point is quite clear. The instructions are definite. He gives us a certain date, and if he does not reclaim his letter personally by then we are free to act on our discretion, but not before. Meantime we can only put two and two together. Crowfoot was down here on some job in which he anticipated personal danger, or he wouldn't have gone armed. The cartridge he used was not fired on Freeman, and unless I am much mistaken the affair of last night upset, or at all events abruptly altered, his own schemes. He's learned something that we haven't, and I'd give a good deal to know just what, but we can't force his hand. Unless I under-estimate him, he'll turn up to claim that letter all right."

"Unless——" I recalled the provisional clause on the envelope.

Herrick smiled.

"He doesn't strike me as the sort of person to step off a plank bridge in the dark! That's a pure bit of dramatic effect, in my opinion."

When we had finished breakfast I drove down to the drug store and telephoned for a trained nurse. She arrived by the midday train, and Freeman's condition being satisfactory, I was able to leave him in her charge and go home with Herrick.

We refused the farmer's buggy and walked over, following the short cut that had so nearly proved fatal to one man at least the night before. The water below the sluice-gate was at its normal level, but looking over we could see the line of uptorn weeds and flattened grasses that showed where the brief flood had swept. An alder bush on the left side, overhanging the timbered edge of the pool, was partly broken, indicating the point of Freeman's fall.

We examined the upper part of the sluice-gate carefully. On the wood near the lever I found a few dried spots of blood. Herrick nodded appreciatively when he saw them.

"Looks as if Crowfoot's cartridge wasn't wasted! Someone got hit, though not badly; there's none tracked along the road. My respect for our friend increases. Austin, why was he so careful we didn't see his handwriting?"

"Give it up. He's a queer bird anyway."

I told him of what Mary Lessing had seen that morning, by Dutchman's Hill. Hitherto it had presented itself to me merely as a whim on Crowfoot's part. Now I began to think he might have had some object in the performance. Herrick smiled when it came to the jumping, but his face grew serious again immediately.

"Austin," he said, "I give you a problem. What is it about that particular tree that attracts me and attracts Crowfoot? There's something more than coincidence in it. Crowfoot wasn't amusing himself. To my mind, he was testing a theory, and if we knew what that theory was...." He broke off, thoughtfully, and I turned to him.

"Well?"

"Nothing much. Austin, whereabouts was Jake's body found, last spring?"

"Face downwards in the water, just near the plank bridge. Why?"

"Taken with Crowfoot's action, does that suggest anything to you?"

"Nothing to do with suicide. Jake had a fit and fell in the water."

"Exactly." He walked a few paces in silence. "Has it ever occurred to you what a really admirable country coroner you would make?"

"I don't see what that's got to do with it."

"Listen." He swung round. "Jake's death was not accident, though he may have died actually in a fit. He was frightened by someone or something that sprang out at him from that tree as he passed, and Crowfoot, depend upon it, was merely trying to find out whether that jump was within the limits of an ordinarily active man."

We were both tired that evening and we turned in early after supper. I had left instructions to call me if there was any change in Freeman's condition, but I anticipated none before the morning. The nurse seemed a competent woman, and I felt easy in leaving him to her care. I slept like a log, my rest untroubled by any dreams.

Towards morning, as it seemed to me, I woke up with that curious sense of something happening which arouses one at times by appeal through some subconscious perception. Five minutes before a thunderstorm would have failed to rouse me; now instinct dragged me up sitting in my bed, of a sudden keenly and alertly awake.

I listened. Someone was moving in the surgery below. Mrs. Searle went to bed always at ten, and I had the impression of having slept already for several hours. I struck a match softly and looked at my watch. It was a quarter to twelve, earlier than I had thought. I felt on the bureau for my revolver, which I had taken to my room that evening, and opened the door noiselessly.

It was not Herrick, for I could hear his regular breathing through the keyhole opposite. At the foot of the little flight of stairs a faint light glimmered. The stairs opened directly from the surgery, and it was my custom to leave the door at the bottom open during the night. Now it was closed, and the light that I saw filtered through the crack. I crept quietly down and pushed it open, revolver in hand.

A pocket electric lamp lay on the desk, and by its light a man was searching through one of the desk drawers. It was a small drawer which had been always locked; I fancied that it contained some private papers and affairs of Lennox's which he had put together there before leaving. The man's back was towards me, but I recognized instantly the shabby tweed coat, the soft felt hat pulled low down over his head. It was Crowfoot.

I don't know what I had expected; certainly not him. I lowered the revolver and stepped forward.

"Were you looking for anything, Mr. Crowfoot?"

At the sound of my voice he turned; his hand shot out towards the electric lamp, and instantly the room was in darkness.

For a second we stood there, neither moving, and we could hear each other's breathing across the room.

"Light that lamp," I said quietly. "If you have any explanation I am ready to hear it. I have a revolver in my hand, and if you attempt to move I shall be compelled to treat you like any other common housebreaker."

"Listen here," he began, "and don't for heaven's sake play the fool!" His voice sounded excited, impatient, but with an assurance in it that was somehow vaguely familiar to me, and, as on the night before, there was no trace of his usual stammering. It was the voice of a man interrupted in important business rather than caught red-handed in an attempt at common theft. "Put that revolver down, Haverill. I tell you, you don't know what you're meddling with! I'm in a hurry. Let me go out of the house now, without any questions, and I swear to heaven I'll come back tomorrow and tell you everything you want to know. I'll tell you everything! But don't stop me now!"

"You will, eh?"

I laid the revolver down on a chair that stood behind me, but only to have both hands free. He made a movement, chancing the darkness, but the room was too small. I collided with him somewhere near the armchair—the solid mahogany caught my knee an ugly whack through my thin pajamas—and for a moment we grappled together fruitlessly.

"Haverill, you idiot—let me go!"

He gasped and struggled, but I held my grip.

"Not so easy. I want the lamp."

He swore, wrenching an arm free, and the little white bulb glowed out. He must have slipped it in his pocket when he turned. The light shone on our two blinking faces. Crowfoot's hat had fallen off in the struggle, and for the first time I saw him without his black glasses.

It was Lennox!

Stupefied, I let go my hold.

"Now will you let me go?" he snarled.

"I thought you were in Europe! What's it all about? Are you crazy?"

"Oh, you idiot!" There was a savage patience in his voice. "Get on your trousers, then, and come along. You were always an obstinate devil, Haverill! Bring that revolver with you and don't wake the house, and don't for God's sake stand wasting any more time! I'll wait for you."

I ran upstairs. A hundred wild ideas passed through my mind as I groped my way hurriedly into sweater and trousers, in the dark, not even staying to light a candle. I hardly knew, in my bewilderment, whether Lennox had been impersonating Crowfoot or Crowfoot Lennox; the whole thing seemed inextricably and extravagantly mixed. Curiously, Herrick had not even been roused by our scuffle. I carried my boots down to avoid waking him now, and pulled them on in the surgery.

"Take your revolver," said Lennox.

We passed out through the door; he had used his own latchkey to come in with.

"Will you tell me——?" I began, when we were clear of the house.

"All in good time."

A few paces up the road an automobile was standing. Two men were already seated in it, besides the chauffeur. One leaned out, watching, and he gave an exclamation as the two of us stepped into the light of the lamps.

"It's all right," said Lennox. He almost pushed me into the tonneau, where I tumbled into a big broad-shouldered Irishman, and swung up himself to the front seat. "This is Doctor Haverill; he's coming along. Haverill, this is Mr. Keary, the county sheriff, and Inspector McWade."

The chauffeur let in the clutch and the big car swung forward in the direction of Dutchman's Hill.

"And now, Haverill," Lennox said, turning to me, "you wanted to be in it, and you're in it. These gentlemen are accompanying me to the Bend with a warrant for the arrest of the man known as Aaron Menning."

"Ah!" I looked at the burly Irish inspector beside me, and the conviction of yesterday grew clear in my mind. "For assault on George Freeman!"

"No," said the sheriff, speaking for the first time. "For the manslaughter of his brother on the seventeenth of last March."

XVII A MIDNIGHT CHASE

We swept on at a steady pace, through a silence broken only by the throbbing of the engine and the hissing whir of tires over the dust. On either side of the road the woods stretched black and inscrutable. Just before we came to Dutchman's Hill Lennox said a word to the chauffeur, and he paused to extinguish the two headlights. Thereafter we drove more slowly.

A few paces beyond the bridge, at the beginning of the hill, the car stopped suddenly. Something had gone wrong with the engine, and while the chauffeur got out to attend to it Lennox and the sheriff took the opportunity to walk back to the bridge we had just crossed.

"Have to get a light on it," the chauffeur said, unhooking one of the side lamps. "The blame thing might have held out a bit longer! We ain't far from Dutchman's Hill, by all accounts."

"This is Dutchman's Hill," I said.

"It is, eh?" He glanced at the inspector; who was holding the lamp for him. "Well, they say one cuss leads to another, and be darned if I don't give this place a worse name than it's had yet!"

Alone in the car, I leaned back against the cushions, speculating as to the chance that had drawn me into this midnight adventure and what its outcome would be—the climax, for aught I knew, of all the summer's mysteries. Of Lennox's part in it I could but guess, but the experience of the last forty-eight hours gave me a confidence in him that overrode all earlier impressions. Mentally I contrasted the vision of Crowfoot, alert, cool-headed, decisive, with the Lennox of my first evening's arrival, and marvelled at the grip he had brought to bear on himself in the two months' interval.

The air was still and oppressive in the hollow; the stench of gasoline rose in a warm reek mingled with the stagnant smell of the swamp close by. The mosquitoes were thick; they descended in swarms upon us with the stopping of the car, and a host of moths and midges fluttered round the lamp, attracted by its glare. The two men, bent over the engine, joked and grumbled in undertones, as cheerfully as though we were out on no more serious errand than a mere pleasure ride.

The sheriff rejoined us.

"How long will you be, Jackson?"

The chauffeur straightened his back.

"Twenty minutes, sir, more or less. I can't fix it under."

There was a brief consultation, and the sheriff turned to Lennox.

"How far are we from the Bend?"

"Three-quarters of a mile, by road. We can strike a short cut at the top of the hill."

"We'd better walk it. There's no good wasting time. Get your job through, Jackson, bring the car on to the top of the hill and wait for us there, along the road. I suppose..."

Lennox caught my eye.

"I can rely on Doctor Haverill," he said promptly. "As we are one man short already I don't think it advisable that we should divide."

"Very good. Have either of you gentlemen an extra revolver?"

I pulled mine out and gave it to the chauffeur. He grinned cheerfully as he slipped it in his pocket.

"Right, sir! If any spook puts a game on me I won't start tellin' my beads! Give me twenty minutes, Mr. Keary, and I'll have the car right there!"

We left him at his task and set off up the hill, following the little footpath at the side of the road, Lennox and the sheriff in front, the inspector and myself at the rear. When we were nearly at the top the inspector paused.

"There's fire somewhere," he said. "I can smell it."

"Someone been burning bush, most likely," said Lennox. "We can tell further on."

At the top of the hill it was unmistakable, a sickly charred odor that hung heavily on the air. Lennox gave an exclamation and quickened his pace involuntarily. A moment later the Lessing bungalow came in sight; there were lights in the windows, and I caught sight of a slim shawl-wrapped figure on the porch. Lennox and the sheriff were well ahead, and as they reached the bungalow someone stepped out and joined them in the roadway. I heard Lessing's voice raised in amazement. "Lennox, by all that's holy!"

"It's Menning's place," said Lennox as we came up. "I thought as much! The game's up."

"Burned to tinder an hour ago," said Lessing cheerfully. "Hello, Haverill! Have you all joined the local fire-brigade?" He caught sight of the inspector's square shoulders behind me, and whistled. "So that's it! Well, if you're wanting an interview with Menning, I guess his present address is somewhere in the woods between here and Coopersville!"

We ran on hastily to the Bend, taking a short cut across the fields behind the bungalow. It was as Lessing had said. The fire had broken out some three hours ago, and his first intimation had been the sudden lurid glare across the tree-tops as he sat on the porch smoking a final cigarette before turning in. The house, a dilapidated structure at best, had caught from the basement upward, and by the time he arrived on the scene it was already beyond hope of saving. He had given what help he could to the neighbours, hastily collected, but with the limited appliances at hand the task was hopeless from the first.

The huckster's yard with its strewn debris, desolate enough by daylight, was made doubly sinister by the red wavering light that still played and flickered among the broken boxes and tumble-down sheds, lit up the loathsome scrap-heaps and the trampled mire underfoot. The prisoned chickens, startled from sleep, kept up a mournful squawking, pushing and struggling in their coops. The efforts of the men had been directed to the barn and cowshed. They stood now, an awed, strangely silent little group, gathered near a broken bureau and a pile of household goods that had been dragged somewhere from the burning and huddled forlornly in the open yard. I remember that a wooden clock, still ticking, and a filthy and ancient foot-tub were among the collection. I spoke to one of the men; it was old Paddy's son-in-law.

"We done all we could; the old place was no better'n tinder. Pop was fur lettin' it burn an' not lift a hand. We got Miss Mennin' out. Hiram Scholl he bust the door in an' got her. She's over to the house now. Aaron ain't here. It's funny about him. He ain't took the horse anyway. They was sayin'..."

He stopped short and looked at me, the glare of the fire on his sweat-streaked face.

"They was sayin' he started it. I dunno. It broke out downstairs. They ain't no one seen Aaron."

And after a moment he added: "He'd oughter be insured. There's no savin' anything."

I went back to Lennox and the sheriff, standing a little apart.

"Aaron's gone," I said.

"I know. There's nothing to be done here. We'll go and see the old woman."

I stayed behind with the inspector and Lessing while the other two went over to the Nevills' cottage, and together we made a thorough search of the barn and outhouses. There was nothing to be learned. Filth and disorder reigned everywhere. To describe the condition of the place, as we found it, would only be to recall the actual physical sickness that overtook me during the task.

The neighbours had gradually dispersed during our search. By the time the others rejoined us the place was deserted. The fire had completely burned itself out; only a tiny smouldering flame pulsed up here and there, to die down again immediately into blackness.

McWade and the sheriff exchanged a few words, and the latter turned. "Well, gentlemen, I think there's nothing more to be done," he said. "I expect Jackson has the car ready by now. We'll walk back to the house, and if Mr. Lessing has no objection I should like a few words with him before we go."

We did not meet the car, nor was it in sight when we reached the bungalow. Mary Lessing was on the porch, and while the others went indoors I stayed outside to smoke a cigarette in the open air and watch the road in case Jackson turned up.

"I'm glad it was Menning's house, if it had to be somebody's," said Mary, with really feminine lucidity. "I wanted to go, but Dick wouldn't let me. I guess I wouldn't have been much use. Doctor Haverill, is it ... Aaron they're after?"

"They think he had something to do with that business last spring. It's Lennox's story. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet. Anyway I'll take back all I said against him last night."

She had heard nothing of the accident at the dam, and I told her as briefly as I could all that had happened since we left the bungalow last evening. She listened breathlessly.

"So it was Doctor Lennox all the time! Now I know why he didn't want to meet me that morning. I was sure I knew him, somehow."

"You were smarter than we were," I admitted. "He took us in. Only I don't see why, now."

"Sliefer's is near to Aaron's place," said Mary, "and if he was watching Aaron he wouldn't want anyone to know who he was. You think it was Aaron who attacked Freeman last night?"

"I am nearly sure of it."

Mary shivered. "It's horrible," she said. "It's horrible! I wish now——"

"What?"

"I wish I'd known," she said quickly. "That poor girl! I shall go over and see her first thing tomorrow. I know Rebecca quite well. We get our milk from there."

"Do," I said. "You'll cheer her up a bit." I rose as I spoke and peered down the road. "It's time that car put in an appearance."

"Your car? Where did you leave it?"

"Just down the hill there. It had a breakdown," I explained. "The man was going to catch us up."

"I thought I heard a car," she said, "a little while ago. It was while you were over at the fire. It didn't come past here. Do you suppose Menning knew what you came for?"

"Lennox thinks he must have suspected it. Anyhow he's far enough away by this time."

She looked at me, as I thought, a little uneasily.

"You aren't afraid of Menning?" I exclaimed. "Far or near, he'll take good enough care to keep out of anyone's way just now. Well, I'll go and see if I can find the car. He may have misunderstood the directions. You might tell the others if they're looking for me."

As it happened, I had barely gone a dozen paces up the road before I heard the cheerful approaching throb of a motor, and a moment later the car, with Jackson in it, swung into sight.

"I was just coming along to look for you," I said as he drew up. "I thought you'd missed us."

"Thought the spooks had got me!" He grinned appreciatively. "No, sir! I just pulled up the road a bit—didn't know which way you'd gone. I guess they weren't huntin' company tonight." He laughed. "Mighty thick these woods are. I don't know this part of the country much. Do you get any big animals, round about?"

"Nothing bigger than a badger," I said. "Why?"

"There was something crossed my path, coming up the hill there. It might have been a dog, now I think of it, but it didn't look like no dog I've ever seen. Rather high in the hindquarters, and grayish ... I on'y saw the back of it. It slunk off in the bushes as I come up."

"There aren't any very big dogs that I know," I said, "except Mr. Lessing's setter, and that's generally chained up at night."

"It weren't no setter," said Jackson. "Weren't the build of a setter. And it weren't no badger, for I've seen 'em. Low-running, brownish beasts they are.... Is this the house, sir?"

We drew up outside the bungalow, and I jumped down to join the others, waiting on the porch.

"It wasn't anything like a dog, now I think of it," said Jackson.

XVIII LENNOX'S STORY

Lennox's face, when the car had deposited us once more at our door, expressed utter chagrin and annoyance. He flung himself down in the surgery arm-chair and lit a cigar.

"That's what comes of not acting on the minute," he said. "I had my hand on the man last night. I tell you, Haverill, you can't drive plain facts into people's heads. There's formality and formality, and the end is your man gets a clear twelve hours to lay his plans and the game's up."

"Bad luck," I rejoined.

He sat staring moodily down at the carpet.

"While I think of it," I remembered, "I've got some property of yours. You might as well have it back."

I pulled out the envelope he had left for me that morning. Lennox took it without a glance and thrust it into his pocket.

"Considering that I didn't have the opportunity to open it," I remarked, "I think you might let me into the story now."

He pulled out his watch. "Well, I don't know but what sleep's out of the question, anyway, tonight. Get the whisky out, Haverill, there's a good chap, and we'll go into it."

"One moment," I said as I unlocked the cupboard. "Have you any objection if I fetch Herrick down?"

"Not in the least."

I roused Herrick accordingly, and he bundled sleepily into a dressing-gown and joined us below, where his sleepiness rapidly vanished in the few moments that it took to grasp the new turn of events, and the part that Lennox himself had played in last night's happenings.

Put briefly, this was the story as Lennox put it to us, gathered round the surgery table in the chilly half-hour that precedes dawn.

The Menning household, when Lennox first came here, had consisted of the two half-brothers, Jake and Aaron, and the old mother, who kept house for them and helped more or less in the business. They were of Westphalian origin, but had settled in this country for two generations. The mother, according to Lennox, was a curious survival of the original peasant stock. Stolid, hard-working, and uncommunicative, she preserved always a certain aloofness from her neighbours, a taciturnity that marked her out even among the Dutch families about. She had preserved a great deal of her native superstition and traditions, and was reputed to have a great knowledge of herbs and some skill in home doctoring and decoctions, when she could be induced to use it, by reason of which the neighbours, ready enough in such gossip, believed her to have actual powers of witchcraft. Superstition dies hard, even in a new country, and there was at all events a marked unwillingness among them to annoy or "cross" her in any way. About thirty years ago she had married a young Pennsylvania Dutchman, Menning by name, who had deserted her shortly after. Aaron, their son, had his mother's characteristics in a modified degree. He was inclined to be friendly, if not sociable, a good business man, thrifty but honest-dealing, and very religious. Jake, the half-brother, was some years older than Aaron, and, in Lennox's phrase, a "throw-back." There was considerable mystery and gossip about his birth. Some said that he was born before the mother's marriage, some after. He was certainly only half related to Aaron, and the wide difference between them was in curious contrast to their strong physical resemblance, a result in both cases of the virile persistence of the mother's peasant type. Jakey was mentally deficient, but not enough to debar him from ordinary tasks. He occupied himself in the huckstering business, and took the wagon round in turn with Aaron, week and week about. In many ways he could be trusted, but he was malicious and cunning, and the bad streak seemed to predominate with age. Lennox never considered him safe. There was always the possibility, in his opinion, of a serious outbreak, and he had even gone so far as to suggest to Aaron the advisability of having him put under definite restraint. At first Aaron had been disposed to consider the idea favourably, then later, for no given reason, he changed his mind. His manner, at about this time, in regard to any discussion about Jakey, changed also so noticeably that Lennox supposed there must have been words between Aaron and the mother about his (Lennox's) interference in the matter, and that Aaron had perhaps been naturally induced to range himself upon the mother's side. Lennox urged him at least to have his brother medically examined, but he always met with a dogged refusal.

"Jakey's all right in the daytime," Aaron persisted. "He ain't doin' harm to nobody. Nights we lock him in."

Once only he went so far as to say that if it became necessary he would take his own steps in the matter, rather implying a resentment at outside interference, and Lennox, to avoid making further bad blood, was forced to let the matter drop. So things went on till last March, and the events which led to the finding of Jakey's body by the creek at Dutchman's Hill.

Lennox saw the body, and there was no doubt in his mind at the time that death was due to an epileptic seizure. There were no marks of any sort on the body. The ground was fairly soft at the time—a thaw had set in that same afternoon—but there were no footprints to be found other than those of the man himself, leading down to the creek, and the tracks of some large dog which had evidently passed that way in the night, sniffed at the body and gone on. At the word "large dog" I saw Herrick shift in his chair.

"Do the Mennings keep a dog?" he asked.

"A watchdog, I believe. Most people do."

"Nothing else was found near the place?"

"Nothing but this, which I myself happened on a few days later. Either of the brothers might have dropped it, or it might have been dropped by another person altogether. It was lying some little distance from the creek, beyond the bridge there. The inspector attached no particular importance to it. There is a certain amount of traffic along this road, and there is no indication that this wasn't dropped by some passing person a day or two after the body was found."

He drew from his waistcoat pocket a small round silver object, slightly larger than a pea.

"Looks like some boy's treasure," I said. "A button, isn't it?"

"It has been a button," Herrick said. "The shank has been broken off and it's been hammered. Well, Lennox, go on."

"Of course there was an inquest," Lennox said. "They found that the man died during an epileptic seizure, which carried out my own conclusions. And now I am coming to the queer part of my tale. It was Aaron who formally identified the body. I saw him and spoke with him at the inquest, and I saw him again the day after Jakey's funeral."

He paused.

"Six weeks after the inquest, Haverill, I was walking down the short cut from the Bend, and I met Jake Menning face to face. I am as certain of it as that I am sitting here. He made off without giving me a chance to speak to him. But that it was Jake, in solid flesh and blood, I had no shadow of a doubt.

"The next day I went to the house. I asked for Aaron. The old woman met me. She said that Aaron was away with the wagon. I asked when I could see him, and she became evasive. It seemed that he was very busy, that he was away a good deal of the time; she could not say at all when he was likely to be found.

"Her answers, and more particularly her manner, set me to thinking. I had not seen Aaron since the day after Jakey's funeral. No one, so far as I could learn without pushing inquiries unduly, had seen much of Aaron since the inquest. His trade had always lain further afield than the immediate neighbourhood, where most people raised their own chickens for use, and few in sufficient quantity to sell. Mrs. Searle had seen him, certainly, and Mrs. Searle had remarked a change in him. She said that he was queer and silent; she thought that the shock of his brother's death had preyed on his mind. In her own words, he was 'getting just like Jakey in his ways.'

"It was about this time that the talk first began about the haunting of Dutchman's Hill. I am not a credulous man where ghosts are concerned, and I scoffed any idea of the supernatural. One stranger, a pedlar, said that a 'something' had jumped out and chased him to the bridge, where it stopped. Others declared that it was the ghost of Jakey that haunted the place. On top of all this came the—er—the very singular attacks upon Mr. Lessing. I don't want to go into Lessing's case now. His own story was of course untenable, and I strongly believe that he knew a great deal more than he chose to tell me at the time—in other words, that he found amusement in trying, deliberately, to see how much I would believe. We were always strongly opposed on certain questions, though in general I found him a most courteous and charming man, and I am afraid he was not above trying, in this matter, to take a rise out of me, as they say. If he had taken me into his confidence then, instead of inventing the ridiculous sort of bogy-tale he did, we should have been at the truth of this matter much earlier."

Herrick and I exchanged glances. I fancied he was about to speak, but on second thoughts changed his mind. Lennox continued.

"The problem resolved itself into this. If Jakey was still alive, and I could swear to it that he was, whose was the body that had been identified and buried in March, and how was it that no one, save myself, guessed at his continued existence? Who was Aaron Menning?

"I tell you, Haverill, the thing became a nightmare. I had no proof to go upon, nothing but my own instinct. The more I thought over it, the more clear it grew to me. The man whose body had been found at Dutchman's Hill was not Jakey at all, it was Aaron."

"But——"

"Listen here, Haverill," Lennox said. "I know what I am saying sounds incredible to you. But consider for a moment, on what superficial observations we base our recognition of people, every day. Remember the very strong likeness which existed between the two brothers, even to the scarring and thickening of the skin by smallpox, which in itself blunts the individuality of a face. The face of the dead man was swollen both by the manner of death and the partial immersion in mud. Remember that there were no intimate relatives to impose upon, for the mother undoubtedly knew the truth. The farmer who found the body identified it as that of a huckster named Menning who had called upon him the week before. Aaron was away from home that night, and he did not return with the wagon till the afternoon. It was the mother who first identified the body as that of Jakey, and the news was already spread when I arrived on the scene. Aaron appeared at the inquest, but with the exception of myself there were not three men there who knew him at all intimately, or who could have sworn to his actual identity unless they saw the two brothers side by side. Both Aaron and the mother opposed the inquest strongly, and the neighbours told me that she would let no one help her in preparing the body for burial. She had always kept herself rather aloof, as I said, and at the time her refusal did not strike me as peculiar.

"Given the clue, the thing was easy enough to construct. I believe myself it was fear of his brother's placing him under restraint that first suggested the attack. He must have concealed himself in the tree near the footbridge, knowing that Aaron had an errand in the village and would pass that way, and so sprung out upon him. The impact of his body bore them both down to the edge of the stream. There was no struggle. The shock brought on the seizure in which Aaron died, and Jakey, leaving him there, had sufficient cunning either to follow the stream or swing himself up by the bridge, and so avoid leaving any traces. He returned to the house, and with his mother concocted the story of Aaron's absence with the wagon, harnessed the horse and made off ready to return the following afternoon, when the dead man's identity would have been safely established. People might have suspected Jakey of killing Aaron, but no one would suspect Aaron of killing Jakey.

"I think now that he was on his guard against me at the inquest, and that his suspicion must have deepened as time went on. I was morally convinced that the man was a dangerous homicidal lunatic, but I had no evidence to convict him. He would have been cunning enough to defeat me, since no one would have credited my story. Aaron was known and respected. It would have been folly to bring any hasty charge against him. Convinced that he already mistrusted me, and that my only safety was in disarming his suspicion, I took the only course possible. I determined to go away for a time, and I took the precaution of letting it be supposed that I went for my health. I wanted Menning to think that he had driven me away, and I believe I succeeded. Up to last night he had no suspicion of my identity with Crowfoot. I counted on his relaxing his caution once I was out of the way, and I was right.

"Freeman must have suspected something of the truth, since that Rebecca swore she had seen Jakey's ghost near the mill-dam, and if it had not been for Freeman's well-meant imprudence we should have had Jakey under lock and key at this moment. He got suspicious of Freeman, laid up for him last night, and pushed him over the sluice. I heard Freeman's cry and the splash, and guessed instinctively what had happened. It was then that Jakey's mania came out. He disappeared when Freeman fell, but in a paroxysm of rage and fear came back and tried to pull the gate open on us while we were both down there. I had to fire on him in defence, and he made off. He had taken the alarm, however, and instead of waiting the one more day I had intended, I judged it best to post straight off and lay my facts as I knew them before the sheriff then and there. The rest of course you know."

"Then you had no intention of going to Europe?" I asked.

"Not in the least. A friend posted my note from Queenstown, a wise precaution, since Menning would undoubtedly hear of it through the postmaster's gossip. I went to the Sliefers' because they were near enough to the Bend to enable me to carry out a few investigations without arousing too much interest, and also because they happened to be about the only people in the village whom I never attended professionally, and they would therefore be less likely to recognize me. You were the only person I was afraid of, Haverill, and you I had to chance. We spent only a few hours together before I left, and before that we hadn't met for years; it was only my voice that troubled me, and there I took a leaf out of Jakey's book. Mr. Herrick would make a better detective than you. He played me a neat trick over that revolver last night!"

Herrick smiled. "You must admit that things looked ugly for you! Now I see why you were so reluctant to be dragged up to the house that morning."

"My old training in college theatricals came in useful anyway!" He looked at his watch. "Give me another of those cigars of which you are so lavish, Haverill, and I'll turn in. I'm dog-tired, and there's plenty before me tomorrow, yet."

He betook himself with a blanket to the dining-room sofa, to get a few hours' sleep. The first violet light of dawn was already filtering between the curtains, and Herrick stood up abruptly and extinguished the lamp.

"Lord," he said, "it's stuffy in here! Well, Austin, what do you make of it all?"

"It may be true," I said. "It throws sufficient doubt anyway for the arrest of this man. They might prove manslaughter. Lennox's idea evidently is that if he can be once arrested on this charge they can have him medically examined, and the whole truth will come out."

"Exactly." He walked to the window, pulling aside the curtains, and threw up the sash. The clean fresh air of the dawn, faintly cold, swept past him into the room. "Austin, what points struck you particularly in this story?"

"If he really saw Jakey that disposes of the ghost tales. Only one doesn't know..."

"His doubts about his own judgment, in the earlier case, weakens this," Herrick supplemented. "I agree. He seems certain at one moment and uncertain at another. But he is more positive, I take it, on that point, than on any other. It was apparently Jakey's body, it was apparently Aaron at the inquest, but it was definitely Jakey himself whom he saw and recognized later."

"Jakey is alive. Whether Aaron was actually killed, or whether Jakey in some extraordinary way came to life again.... There have been cases."

"There have been cases," Herrick said. "The inquest was held the next day, and no one apparently saw the body after the inquest. People have been buried alive before now. And we must remember that Lennox, for all the skill and ingenuity he has brought to bear in this matter afterwards, has only the experience of the average country practitioner. You know what that's worth."

"It seems to me," I said, grappling with an idea which had somehow forced itself upon me all through Lennox's narrative, "that—I don't want to criticize unduly—but I do feel that Lennox's tale has been more evolved to fit existing facts than suggested by them. He seems to me to be trying to convince himself just as much as us. And——"

"Yes?" said Herrick.

I hesitated.

"I—well, hang it all, Herrick, I saw the man before he left, and whatever the cause, or however temporary the effect, I am pretty sure that the story he told us tonight is not sufficient to account for the state of nerves he was in then. You saw how touchy he was about Lessing?"

Herrick nodded.

"Lessing said once that Lennox only cared for things he could stick a pin into and label."

"And unless I am much mistaken," said Herrick quietly, "it will take a bolder man than Lennox to label the real truth of this business. However, Austin, we'll drop that part of it for the moment. There are one or two points I want to recall to you particularly."

"Well?"

"They are these." He spoke deliberately. "The character of Menning's mother. She is important. The rather curious isolation in which the family seem always to have kept themselves. Aaron's sudden change of mind about having Jakey put under restraint. And ... the two other details to which Lennox himself seems to attach the least importance. One is that of the footprints, presumably of a dog—a large dog—noticed near the spot where Menning's body was found."

"And the other?"

"The other," said Herrick, "I have here in my hand, and to me it provides the most significant clue in the whole case."

He opened his hand, and I saw lying on the palm the battered silver button that had been picked up on Dutchman's Hill.

XIX THE MILL DAM

I could get nothing further from Herrick just then. He went back to his room, but not to sleep, for I could hear him pacing up and down overhead. For myself, I dozed fitfully in the surgery arm-chair, and when I finally opened my eyes with a start it was to find the room filled with sunlight and Herrick standing over me, fully dressed, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.

"Wake up, Austin," he said. "I've stolen a march on Mrs. Searle. It's hot, if it isn't otherwise drinkable."

I rubbed my eyes.

"Where's Lennox?"

"Sleeping the sleep of the just. By the look of him he won't wake up till midday. That's the reward of an easy conscience for you—— 'Something accomplished, something done.' Which reminds me. Are you using your motorcycle today?"

"I don't think so." I drank the coffee—it was strong and scalding hot, and it pulled me together. "Why, do you want it?"

"I'd like it for today, yes."

"Sure." I looked at him curiously. "Have you got something in mind?"

"Only a little tour of investigation. You needn't look injured, Austin! Just something I want to check up on. Are you going over to Sliefer's today?"

"Later on. I've got two calls in the village."

"Well, if you see the Lessings tell them I'll be over tomorrow—or tonight if I get back in time."

We got the cycle out without rousing Pete, and I watched Herrick off down the road. When he had gone I lit my pipe and set out for a little stroll until such time as the household should be awake.

There had been a heavy fall of dew, and the weeds by the roadside were drenched and silvered. Spider webs like jewel-work upon the brambles. I was reminded of the first time I had driven over to the bungalow, early in the summer, on just such a morning as this, and of how little thought had been in my mind then of what I should find at my journey's end. To me, then, these far stretching woods, dense and close-grown, the hollow with its rank growth of teeming insect life, the little creek that followed threadlike among the emerald mosses and tufts of sedge, suggested nothing more than the idle peace and pleasure of a summer's holiday. I had envied whoever lived here all the year round. These cool depths of shadow, with the freckled at nothing more dreadful than the tragedy of play of sunlight through the branches, hinted weasel and rabbit, of hawk and thrush. Now their aspect was to me indefinably changed. I felt them sinister, secretive, their peace a mere deceptive veil for the evil that lurked beneath.

What was the secret that overshadowed the place? What had Herrick meant by his insistence upon the silver button and those queer footprints by the cedar where Aaron had met his death? Did Lennox's story after all explain anything? I felt that it did not and yet I felt, in a strange, unexplained way, that somehow, in connection with the Mennings, and the Menning homestead, loathsome and sinister, was to be found the answer to our whole problem. But how?

Retracing my steps, I reached the house to find smoke curling cheerfully from the chimney and Lennox, contrary to Herrick's prophecy, dressed and on the porch. Mrs. Searle had breakfast ready, bacon, buckwheat cakes and coffee which obliterated the lingering taste of the decoction Herrick had pressed upon me before starting out.

Lennox was not very communicative. I think he was still inwardly chagrined by the failure of last night's expedition.

After breakfast Pete hitched the mare and I set out on my rounds. The news of the fire had already spread. Everyone was talking about it, and from what I could gather no one had any sympathy over it, unless it was for the old woman now rendered houseless. The current belief was that Menning, heavily insured, had fired the place himself. There was even a suggestion that he had intended the old woman to perish with the house. Disaster works strangely in loosening people's tongues, and I gathered that though the supposed Aaron had outwardly enjoyed the respect of the community there was inwardly very little liking lost between him and his neighbours. At all events they were ready enough now to speak of his queerness, his surliness, the way the farm was kept—in itself a sufficient ground of condemnation in a hard-working neighbourhood—and above all of the way he had, of late months, neglected and ill-treated his old mother. Odds and ends of scandal, restrained up to now I imagined through a lurking fear of Menning himself, found free tongue. But in all this talk there was no clear idea as yet of the real reason for the sheriff's visit. Menning was "wanted" for something, but no one quite knew what, and gossip confined itself so far to dark hints and speculations which fell very wide of the real mark.

I reached the Sliefers' house about midday. Freeman was progressing favorably, though not yet out of danger. Mrs. Sliefer pressed me to eat dinner with them, and over the meal the talk turned naturally on the excitement of the night before. Mrs. Sliefer was very definite in her opinion of the Menning household, almost as vehement as old Paddy had been that day I talked to him of his neighbours.

"If there was ever call for a place to be burned," she declared, "it was that one, though I ain't one for wishing ill to my neighbours without cause. But there's a bad streak in that family an' always has been. The old woman's grown feeble of late and I'm sorry enough for her, poor soul, by all I hear, but there was a day when I'd 'a crossed the road sooner than pass the time of day with her, and so would many another. I never believed all these ignorant tales of old Ma Menning bein' a witch, for there ain't no witches and we well know it, but there was something about her that wasn't like other folks, and though we was neighbours in a way, she never took to me nor I to her. Things did get better in the two years Jakey was away, an' then it did seem like Aaron had a chance to take hold an' run things decent, till he come back again. And after his death one would have thought there'd been a turn for the better, but it didn't last. I guess the bad streak was in the whole family, an' after Jakey died I suppose it preyed on Aaron's mind, in a way, an' he got to goin' the same road as his brother."

It was on my tongue to mention the truth, but I checked myself in time. Evidently the police hoped to gain something by keeping the real facts dark, at least until after Jakey's arrest.

After dinner I drove round, by way of the Bend, to the Lessings' bungalow. The Menning place was a mere charred ruin, except for the outhouses which stood empty and deserted. The few remaining chickens—Menning had sold out the greater part of his stock a few days before the fire, which was another reason why his neighbours thought it premeditated—had been taken elsewhere; the cow, filthy and gaunt from weeks of neglect, poor brute, was grazing hungrily in a small stony pasture adjoining, thankful to be at liberty.

Old Paddy, with a greasy, old velvet cap on and his feet in slashed shoes, was leaning over his fence-railing, smoking his black pipe. I asked about Menning's mother.

"The old woman, she's took an' cleared out. Scared er Aaron, I guess. She got a wheelbarrer an' loaded her bits o' truck on it, an' carted it up to that little empty shack back off the road yonder, what belongs to Scholl. Reckon the Scholls don't mind her usin' it. She wouldn't have no help neither—carted the lot herself, in two journeys, an' I'll say she's still pretty spry on her feet fur an old lady, though she does look so feeble. My darter, she was sorry fur the old soul, an' she gives her some potatoes an' a bag o' flour, but she didn't git so much as a thank you for it. Jest chucked 'em on the barrer an' went off. Kinder dazed that night, she was, but she come round pretty quick once the excitement was over."

He paused to spit, with precision, at a white stone by the fence rail.

"No one ain't seen nothin' of Aaron."

"No," I said.

"Guess they won't, neither. He's cleared out for good, by the looks of it."

"Maybe it's well."

"No one round here ain't grumblin'. It's a case o' good riddance. I don't trust Aaron. My darter, she ain't lettin' her young 'un run through the woods, neither. He'd orter be jailed an' done with it."

I found Mary and Lessing on the porch. They hailed me cheerfully, and I hitched the mare in the shade and joined them.

"Poor old Crowfoot," said Lessing. "I don't think the arm of the law was best pleased at being fetched out on a wild goose chase last night. It's my private opinion that Lennox has solaced his loneliness by reading up on detective novels. I always thought he had some bats in his belfry. Did he tell you anything more last night?"

"Quite a lot."

I told them the story as briefly as I could.

"Lennox is crazy," Dick said when I had finished. "The thing doesn't hang together. And when he gets to a point where he can't trust his judgment as to the identity of a man in one case, how can he trust it in another? What did Herrick think?"

"He didn't say definitely."

"So like Herrick! What?"

"He seemed to lay more stress on the dogs' footprints and the button Lennox picked up than on anything else. Oddly enough, someone else spoke of dogs, now I think of it." And I told him what the chauffeur had said last night.

"Queer," said Lessing. "You'd think he'd know a dog when he saw one. I'd like to have a look at that button."

"Herrick has it."

"He has..." Lessing was silent a moment. "Even if Jakey did kill Aaron, and Aaron is really his brother—hang it all, the thing's so mixed—I don't see that that gets us any further on. Does Lennox think he's at the back of everything? What's he playing at?"

"He was at the back of Rebecca's scare, and that business of Freeman. If Freeman were only well enough to speak.... I don't know that he could tell us much then, that we haven't found out for ourselves."

"Grant that Jakey did kill his brother, and has succeeded in putting it over. He was at the bottom of all these Dutchman's Hill scares, and that business with Rebecca. Freeman found out something, and he laid for Freeman ... and got him. That doesn't explain the cyclist affair, nor what happened to me."

"And it doesn't explain another thing, either," said Mary, breaking in for the first time. "It doesn't explain what the one point was that Lennox himself was unwilling to face, what it was he tried to avoid by ridiculous explanations that wouldn't satisfy a child. I don't mean recently, I mean further back, almost in the beginning, the second time he was here to attend Dick." She turned to her brother. "Perhaps I haven't told you this before. But it did strike me at the time, and afterwards I've been thinking of it more and more.

"I was standing out here on the porch, wondering whether I could leave you with Kate and slip over to Lennox's house, or whether I could get hold of anyone to send, when Lennox himself came by, driving. I ran out to stop him and tell him what had happened. He pulled up as soon as he saw me, before I had time to call out, and I tell you if I ever saw a man frightened it was then. He was afraid, and he was afraid before he saw me, or even knew what I had to say. Something had happened, something that gave him a shock, before he came up the road there. He tried to pass it off, but I'm not a fool; I know when a person is just puzzled, and I know when he is afraid, and I tell you that Lennox was afraid. And I'd like to know just what it was that frightened him."

"Where was he coming from?" Lessing asked.

"Down the road here, the way Austin came just now. He came from the Bend."

"From Menning's place."

"It might have been. I don't know. He didn't say and I didn't ask him. But something, that morning, had happened to upset him before he got here. And it was as if he knew—or at least expected, what he was going to find."

"Did you ask him?"

"I said something about it. He told me he'd been up all night on a case some miles away, that he'd only left at daybreak to drive back, and that he felt all in. But it was something more than that, I feel certain, to have thrown him into the state he was in."

"I shall ask him tonight," I said. "If he's keeping anything back——"

"Ask him!" said Mary. "Ask him, and get the truth! You can tell him just what I said."

I had promised to look in at the Sliefers' again, later in the evening, and instead of doing so on my way back, Mary proposed that I should walk across with her, after tea, while Lessing got some letters written.

"I want some cream for supper," she said, "and I want to see Rebecca too. I meant to go this morning. If you don't mind the walk we'll take Leo along. He hasn't had a run today yet."

She called the setter and he came bounding up, glad enough of the prospect of a walk.

"Poor old Leo!" Mary said. "He doesn't get half enough exercise. We'll take the leash, Austin, if you don't mind. There's a collie at the farm and the two are sworn enemies. I always have to fasten him if I go there."

I put the leash in my pocket and we set off through the woods by a short cut that brought us out eventually upon the cart-track near the old saw-mill. On the other side of this road the Sliefers' land began, and only a couple of pasture fields, with low snake-fences, separated us from the farm. Leo had dropped behind after we passed the mill, and as we stopped by the fence to wait for him we saw a woman coming along the path. She wore a faded check cotton dress and a sunbonnet that almost hid her face, and she was carrying a basket filled with chips, evidently gathered near the mill. As she drew near I caught a flash of very keen eyes, set in a dark wrinkled face, directed upon us in a glance that was by no means friendly.

Mary stepped forward and spoke to her, and I saw her slip something into the old woman's hand. The gnarled fingers closed on it unwillingly; she muttered something and passed on.

"Do you know her?" I asked.

"It's old Mrs. Menning," Mary said. "Poor old soul! She's crotchety, but I can't help feeling sorry for her. Is it true they are sending her to the poorhouse?"

"I've no idea. Old Paddy Nevill told me she'd moved her things up to some little empty shack near her old place. I suppose they'll let her stay there till something can be arranged."

I watched the bent, dragging figure out of sight. As Paddy had said, she covered the ground fairly spryly, for all her feebleness of gait. It was my first acquaintance with this woman to whose personality Herrick had particularly drawn my attention the night before. If Lennox were right, she had played an almost incredibly cunning part throughout, even if her brain had not itself evolved the whole plot.

"You'd think she could find chips nearer than the saw-mill," Mary said. "It's a good walk from the Nevills' place, if she's near there. I wouldn't wonder if the old body were unhinged by the fire altogether. She's never friendly at her best, but she looked quite queer just now. Did you notice how she was muttering to herself?"

I let down the bars and we passed through into the field.

"Austin," Mary said, as we picked our way over the boulder-strewn pasture, "do you know that I've got a confession to make, and it's worrying me."

I smiled.

"Anything very dreadful?"

"I don't just know," she said. "It's about last night. You know I stayed out on the porch while you were all over at the fire. Well, it was while I was sitting there, about a quarter of an hour after you went, I saw Menning come up by the road. I don't think he even saw me. He was going at a sort of shambling trot, and he never looked up when he passed the house. I am sure it was he, though."

"And you never told us!" I exclaimed.

"I knew you'd be angry, but I couldn't help it. I didn't know about this whole story then, and—and I hate the idea of any man being hunted that way, no matter what he's done. I thought he might have some sort of chance to get away, and that's why I didn't say anything last night, even to Dick!"

"Which way was he going?"

"Toward the hill. Your chauffeur must surely have met him. That's what I couldn't make out."

"He saw no one at all. The man may have turned off into the woods when he saw the car. I suppose you know what the sheriff would say to this?"

"Compounding a felony!" Mary laughed. "Anyway he never asked me, so I didn't have to tell any lies about it. Only after what you said last night it worried me, and I thought I'd better own up. Now if he is caught it won't be on my conscience that I had a direct hand in it."

"Oh, woman!" I exclaimed.

"You'd have done the same in my case," she retorted. "Besides, I wasn't supposed to know. You never told me anything."

"You are sure it was Menning?"

"Quite sure. I had left the house door open, and he passed right into the light. I wondered why he was going away from the fire instead of toward it, and I thought at first he might be going to get more help. I didn't know then. He hadn't been there all along."

We reached the farm, and I left her below while I saw my patient. Either I was longer than I thought, or we must have loitered unconsciously on our way over, for when I joined her again on the porch the light was already fading. Then there was a delay about the cream. Rebecca had to fetch it, and while she was gone Mary turned to me.

"This farm is still bewitched," she said. "It's the cream-pans now. Rebecca swears that the milk has gone, these last few nights. Last night she set out three pans in the spring-house and this morning one of them was two-thirds empty. I suspect cats, but anyway the problem takes Rebecca's mind off her other trouble, poor girl. Here she is. Can you spare this, Rebecca?"

"It's a bit scant, Miss Lessing, but it's the best I can do. We'll be short for churning this week, as it is. Whatever ails the milk I don't know! I've never had it go before."

"Well, it isn't witches' work;" Mary smiled. "They turn the milk, you know, Rebecca, they don't steal it! I'd keep an eye on the cat. If you'll take Leo a moment, Austin, till we're out of the grounds, I'll carry the pail—no, it isn't heavy, and I don't trust men anyway. They spill everything. Good night, Rebecca!"

"Carry your old cream yourself," I retorted. "I won't help you—not after that. And the way I've condoned your offences, too! Come on, Leo! Can I let him loose here, do you think?"

"Wait till we're quite clear of the house. He had a dreadful fight here once. It'll be all right now. We'd better take the path along the dam; it's a little shorter."

We followed the footpath along which they had carried Freeman that night to the house. Given any other time and place, I should have been tempted to do my best in prolonging this stroll, but I had none too pleasant associations with the place and its surroundings, and with twilight closing rapidly upon us I was in no mind to loiter. A stagnant weedy smell rose from the dam, a gloomy stretch of water with enclosing trees that darkened it still more effectually. Frogs croaked in monotonous chorus from the weeds at the edge and the midges were thick. In the end Mary had to give in ignominiously, and I carried the pail while she fought their attacks off with a handkerchief.