The thing in the woods
fear that she would break her promise out of any spirit of bravado or
curiosity.
We were in the sitting-room. Mary had gone down to the village on an
errand, and Mrs. Lessing was as usual invisible. For the time being
we were free from interruption, and it struck me as a good moment to
tell Lessing what I had heard from the reporter concerning the two
mysterious cycling 'fatalities.
He took it even more seriously than I had expected. It was even with
scant patience that he heard me out.
"But good heavens, man," he cried, "why didn't you tell me all this
sooner? Don't you see that it's what I've been expecting, what I've
been watching the papers for month after month? It puts my
experience clear of all doubt. I have felt certain--as certain as I
am standing here--that sooner or later some accident of this sort
would turn up."
"It was a good fifteen miles from here," I said. "Besides----"
"What's fifteen miles? I don't care if it was fifty! Have you got
the cutting with you?"
I had. I had torn off the corner with the paragraph, unobserved of
my reporter friend, and I took the fragment now from my pocketbook
and gave it to Lessing. He read it through eagerly.
"The facts correspond. The man was killed in the open; he had no
chance of shelter. The thing hit him as he was riding."
"It's not proved."
"There's the damage to the bicycle."
"There's exactly that," I said, "which to my mind puts a different
light on the whole thing. If the impact of the blow was sufficient
to damage the bicycle to that extent, how was it that the rider
escaped all injury except a single scratch on the face? It's out of
all reason. There were no marks on the body. That is testified to.
If a man is knocked off his bicycle while riding at even an average
speed, he'll have some marks to show for it. He died from heart
failure, probably resultant upon fright and the shock of the wound.
Very good. But that doesn't account for the bicycle. It seems to me
that whatever attacked him wreaked its spite on the machine
afterwards."
"He had time to dismount?"
"Possibly. It doesn't say how near to the bicycle he was lying. If
he fell at all he must have fallen clear of it. The lamp was picked
up several yards away."
"The lamp..." said Lessing.
The same thought was in both our minds.
"What date did this happen?" he asked.
"It was a week-old paper. I was there ... wait a moment." I made a
rough calculation in my mind. "This happened, apparently, on the
Thursday previous. That should bring it to about the third of the
month."
"The third was a Thursday," said Lessing. He pulled out an almanac
from the bookshelves and ran the pages over. I saw him frown.
"There was a full moon on that evening. It is just possible he was
riding without a light at all. If so, that throws my whole theory
out."
"The whole thing," said I, "looks to me like the work of a maniac.
Take the lamp. It was picked up some yards away. Now a bicycle
lantern isn't merely hung on; it's screwed on, and you can't imagine
any sort of blow struck from above that would dislodge it and throw
it that distance. It must have been either unscrewed or torn off,
deliberately, and that in itself suggests human agency."
Lessing barely heard me. He was staring at the scrap of paper spread
out on his knee.
"The first man, according to your reporter was killed actually in the
woods. The second was picked up some twenty feet from the edge of
the woods, on the open road. That's important. It was a clear
night. Why should he be attacked in the open when there were woods
within half a dozen yards that would have given ample ambush?"
Unconsciously he was repeating the reporter's argument. "That
doesn't look like the work of a human being. Besides, the man wasn't
robbed. I tell you, Haverill, there's something that doesn't satisfy
me in all this. Either they made some extraordinary mistake, or ...
but he was riding _towards_ the woods!"
"Apparently."
"On what evidence?"
"I suppose the position of the bicycle," I said lamely.
"There had been no rain for some days. The roads are hard about
here, and a bicycle wouldn't be likely to leave tracks, especially on
the edge of the path. You're a doctor, Haverill. Suppose a man died
from heart failure, would he necessarily die at the instant of the
shock?"
"Only in romances. Actually, there would be several seconds'
interval at least."
"He might run, say, twenty feet and then drop?"
"Quite possibly. But I don't see how that helps."
"It means just this," said Lessing, "that according to my idea the
man was not riding towards the woods at all. He was attacked
actually in the woods or at the edge of them, and he ran the twenty
feet to where his body was found. Listen. The moon did not rise
that evening until 10.30. Anyone riding through the woods the
earlier part of the evening would have used a lamp. He was a
stranger in the district and was identified only by papers. No one
in Coopersville knew him or had apparently ever seen him before.
Coopersville is not a large place, and a case like this makes
sufficient talk. If he had passed through there during the evening
someone would have seen him, and it would have been mentioned at the
inquest. The chances are that he had come from a distance, and that
he was riding _towards_ Coopersville with the idea of putting up
there for the night. Assuming that, and that he was carrying a lamp
at the time, we have our facts fairly clear. He was attacked just
within cover of the woods, that is to say, where the light would be
more clearly noticeable than on an open stretch of moonlit road. The
overhanging trees would break the attack more or less, which accounts
for the comparative slightness of his own injury. The primary object
of attack being the lamp, the rider would have the chance of escape,
whereas if he had been struck actually in the open, at full force, he
would have been probably killed on the spot."
The whole theory was fairly ingenious, but it didn't account for the
wrecking of the bicycle, for its being found where it was, some
distance clear of the woods and near the man's own body. I told
Lessing so. He looked at me queerly.
"Have you ever seen a dog worry a stick?" he asked.
"We aren't dealing with dogs."
"Whatever wrecked the bicycle could have dragged it that distance."
"If your theory has anything in it the bicycle was carried. If it
had been dragged they would have found traces. Don't tell me that
any animal capable of such insensate fury as you suggest would have
had the intelligence to conceal its tracks!"
We were both getting rather heated over the argument. It seemed to
me that Lessing was bent obstinately on maintaining his own views, to
the point of extravagance. For my part, I was equally positive that
the affair was due to some human agency. Neither of us, therefore,
was aware of a shadow in the doorway until Mary Lessing's pleasant
mocking voice broke in upon our discussion.
"What on earth," she said, "are you two people scrapping about so
vehemently?"
"We weren't scrapping," I smiled. "We were discussing a problem--you
might call it a scientific riddle. It concerns the law which governs
the movement of bodies through space."
Mary turned on me her invariable reproachful glance when she
suspected that anyone was making fun of her. She sat down, pulling
the pins from her hat, and let the sunlight strike on her roughened
bronze-coloured hair.
"Is it anything," she inquired, "with which my inferior feminine mind
might be capable of grappling?"
"Certainly," I returned promptly. "We will illustrate it with the
simple objects now before us. How would it be possible, for
instance, for that extremely solid book-case to be moved, say, to the
other end of the room, without being dragged or carried?"
Mary affected to consider, her head on one side.
"Simple enough," she said, laughing. "It would have to fly through
the air, that's all."
There was a moment's silence in the room, while I looked at Lessing
and he looked at me.
"Suppose we have some tea?" he said then.
X
THE CHICKEN-HUCKSTER'S HOUSE
It was the last week-end in August that Herrick arrived. For nearly
two days before it had rained steadily, and I had spent the time
indoors, discounting old scores in the shape of letters, and
enlivened only by a visit from Lessing, who walked over in oilskins
on the Thursday afternoon to spend a couple of hours smoking on a
sheltered corner of the front porch. The weather lifted on Friday
night, and by Saturday morning the roads were passable. As I did not
expect Herrick before the 5.40 train I took my bicycle out after
lunch and went for a spin to stretch my limbs.
I set out by way of the village, posting my letters on the way, and
intending to make a circuit that would bring me home from the
opposite direction. I managed, however, to lose my bearings, and
after some fruitless bungling stopped at a farmhouse to ask my way.
The farmer seemed rather less taciturn than most of the folk about,
and readily pointed me out a short cut which, according to him, would
bring me out at the cross roads just above the dam.
The road, which lay for the first few miles through cultivated land,
entered eventually upon a stretch of sparsely wooded country,
desolate and inhospitable enough. Stunted spruce trees, powdered
with blue berries, clung tenaciously to the barren ground, and
everywhere the grey monotonous boulders cropped out, scattered as
though in the idle finish to some giant's play. Their uncouth
rounded outlines suggested from a distance a field dotted with grey
misshapen sheep, for ever movelessly browsing. The road was bad; a
horse would have had difficulty in picking his way, and I cursed the
well-meaning farmer roundly as I dismounted to push my heavy machine.
A little distance on, however, things became better. I reached the
beginning of a wood, gaunt ragged hickories interspersed with tangles
of wild grape-vine, and matted creepers, and a few hundred yards
beyond a broken snake-fence suggested the whereabouts of a house.
I came upon it at the turn of the road, a square, red-painted frame
house and barn, surrounded by a medley of small sheds and outhouses
in every degree of dilapidation. There was no gate, merely a couple
of bars let down in the fencing, and I left the bicycle a moment and
went inside.
The yard upon which I entered was a litter of old junk of every
description, ancient packing-cases, broken barrels, scrap-iron, and
bones flung into piles. The wagon-ruts leading up to the house were
sunken deep in filth, and an indescribable odour filled the air, in
which the smell of badly kept fowls predominated. They ran
everywhere, a ragged nondescript crew, scratching, cackling, gazing
at me from evil yellow-rimmed eyes. Many more were confined in the
coops, mere oblong boxes of lath from which protruded gaunt heads and
outstretched necks, whose mournful protest mingled with the clamour
of their untrammelled brethren. So far as I could see, every shed
held its prisoners, all in the same state of filth and neglect, a
sore to the eyes and offence to the nostrils. There was that in the
look and smell of the place that stuck in my throat, used as I was to
poverty in both town and country. There seemed no one about, and
after a moment's hesitation I retraced my steps across the black mire
of the yard and regained the roadway.
On the opposite side of the way a little ragged girl of about
thirteen watched my retreat with keen eyes. She had been in the
woods gathering the small uneatable nuts that children call
pig-hickories; her apron was filled with the green unripe hulls. She