The thing in the woods
us. "I don't think even Herrick would have kept that from me, if he
thought it. Well ... I suppose I've got to wait."
We spoke of other things during the rest of the drive, and she did
not once mention Herrick's name, or her brother's, again. We were
passing Sliefer's place when I caught sight once of our queer little
acquaintance of the morning. He was just turning in at the gateway,
his hat pulled well forward, his little tin box under his arm, and I
nodded to him as we drove by. He jerked his head in response,
peering short-sightedly up at the buggy through his round dark
glasses.
"What a funny little man!" said Mary, after we had passed by. "Is he
staying down here?"
"At the Sliefers'. Herrick found him in the woods this morning. He
appears to spend his time orchid-hunting in the neighbourhood."
"Orchid-hunting..." said Mary. She turned her head and looked back
at Mr. Crowfoot rather deliberately. Following her gaze, I was
surprised to see that he too had turned, and was standing looking
after us from the Sliefers' gateway. Seeing himself observed, he
moved hurriedly, and disappeared in the direction of the house like a
disturbed rabbit going abruptly to earth.
XIV
THE CRY IN THE NIGHT
A few minutes after we reached the bungalow Mrs. Searle appeared.
She brought a letter for Herrick which had come by the afternoon mail.
"It had a special-delivery stamp on, so I thought it might be
important," she said. "Pete was busy, so I took the liberty of
bringin' it over myself. I was glad of the walk, anyway."
I had my own opinion of Pete's busyness, when it came to an errand up
the hill, and I tried to catch Mrs. Searle's eye, but her gaze was
discreetly lowered.
"It's awfully good of you," said Herrick. He slipped the envelope in
his pocket, with a glance at the writing. "Won't you rest a minute,
Mrs. Searle? I'm sure Miss Lessing would like you to."
Mary was getting tea at the moment, but Lessing seconded him
promptly. Mrs. Searle shook her head.
"I'll be gettin' back, sir, thanks just the same. There's things to
see to. It's done me good to get the walk."
"You needn't walk back, anyway," I put in. "I'd be glad for the mare
to be home, and Mr. Herrick and I can walk over, later. You can
drive yourself, Mrs. Searle, can't you?"
"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.