Chapter I: Catch a Burglar (1)

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.