The thing in the woods
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,