The thing in the woods
"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