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Four Stragglers

<h3> —IV— </h3> <h4> THE UNKNOWN </h4> It was dark in the room, save where the moonlight stole in through the window and stretched a filmy path across the floor until, in a strange, nebulous way, it threw into relief a cheval-glass that stood against the opposite wall. And in the glass a shadowy picture showed: The reflection of a man's figure seated in a chair, but curiously crouched as though about to spring, the shoulders bent a little forward, the head outthrust, the elbows outward, strained with weight, the hands clenched upon the arms of the chair. And then suddenly, with a low, snarling oath, the more vicious for its repression, the figure sprang from the chair, and stood with face thrust close against the mirror. It was Captain Francis Newcombe. He stared into the glass, his fists knotted at his sides. It was as though the two faces flung a challenge one at the other, each mocking the other in a sort of hideous imitation of every muscular movement. They were distorted—the lips drawn back, displaying teeth as beasts might do; and in the shadows the eyes were lost, only the sockets showing like small, black, ugly, cavernous things. The minutes passed—long minutes. A metamorphosis was taking place. The faces became more composed; they became debonair, suave—and finally they smiled at one another as though a truce had been proclaimed. Captain Francis Newcombe swung back to the chair, and flung himself down in it again. It was over for the moment. For the moment! Yes, that was it—for the moment! But it would come again. Last night in his bunk on the Talofa he had lain awake, and lived through hell. To-day, behind his mask of complaisance, fear had gnawed. Fear! And it had been his boast that fear and he were strangers. His lips grew tight. Well, his boast still held good! What man had ever stood before him, and taunted him with fear! This was fear in a different sense. It was a fear of the intangible, of what he could not reach, or see, of what he could not materialise into actual form. It was the fear of the unknown. He was on his feet again. "Damn you!" he snarled. "Come out into the open and fight! You hell-hound, you spawn of the devil, come out, show your face—" No! Quiet! That would not do! He was in control of himself again, wasn't he? It was a game of wits against wits, of cunning matched against cunning. But against whom—and what was the stake this unknown, who had come to plague and torment him, played for? Revenge? The law? A Nemesis rising up out of forgotten things? His mind prodded and sifted and strove, and in its striving seemed to jar and jangle and crunch like the parts of some machinery in motion, which, out of gear, threatened at any moment to demolish itself. If he went mad—like Mr. Marlin! Ha, ha! "By God!" he muttered grimly. "This is bad—a bad bit of nerves. If it was the same blighter who fired at me on shipboard, and it must have been, why didn't he fire at me again last night when he had an even better chance, instead of yowling through the darkness?" That was better! It was the one trump card in his hand; the card that, as he had watched the daylight creep in through the tiny portholes of the Talofa that morning, had determined him, not only to carry on, but to make it serve as a trap to put an end to this skulking familiar who had fastened itself upon his trail. That wasn't fear, was it? Shadow Varne! Who was the fool who dared to challenge Shadow Varne! He was smiling now—but his lips were thin and merciless. It could no longer be held attributable to some crazed, irresponsible act, that shot on shipboard, which chance had elected should be fired through his stateroom window rather than through any other. Logic now denied that. The man who had fired that shot, and the man who had screamed out in taunting mockery at him last night, were one and the same. Well, who was it, then, who had been on the liner, and was now on Manwa Island? There were only two. Runnells and Locke! Had Runnells had time to change his shoes, or, granting the time, had cunning enough to have thought of doing so? No; the chances were a thousand to one against it. Locke, then? But Runnells had said that Locke hadn't left the Talofa. Were Runnells and Locke in cahoots together? They had been extremely friendly on the way down. But Locke—it was preposterous! He knew who Locke was—a young American business man of good family. It was curious, though, that Polly should have made that remark to-day—about a trip like this on such short acquaintance. No; there was nothing in that. It had happened too naturally. Locke had a good many pairs of shoes. Like Runnells', none of them had been wet; but he was not sure he had found all of them in the darkness in the cabin with Locke—supposedly at least—asleep there on the opposite bunk. Locke could easily have hidden a tell-tale pair; and Locke was decidedly the kind of man who would have had the intelligence to do so. But how could Locke know him as Shadow Varne? Well, there was Runnells! His jaws set with a snap. Was it Runnells? There was one way to find out—within the next ten minutes—with his hands at Runnells' throat! No; that would not do—not yet—save as a last resort. If it were not Runnells, then any act like that on his part would disclose his hand, arouse Runnells' suspicions that this trip to Manwa Island was perhaps, after all, not entirely a holiday jaunt! He began to pace up and down the room—but noiselessly, without sound. His subconscious mind imposed the necessity for silence. His hands clenched until the nails bit into the palms. Who was it? What did it mean? What was at the bottom of it? There was no answer that solved the question even to the satisfaction of a tormented brain that would have grasped with eager relief at even a plausible conclusion. The law? If the law had proof that he was Shadow Varne, he would not be an instant at liberty—though he would never be taken alive again—not even under the helpless condition that had done him down in Paris for the first and only time, as that old busybody, Sir Harris Greaves, the fool who loved to play with lighted matches over a powder cask, had so unctuously set forth. But perhaps the law did not have proof, had only suspicion—was only playing a game to trip him into disclosing his identity. Revenge? Then why not another shot last night, as on the liner; why— The cycle! The infernal and accursed cycle again! Well, whoever it was, they would play with Shadow Varne, would they? Fools! Did they think he was one, too—that he could not see the weak spot in their attack? Something was holding them back here on the island from a shot as on the liner; here, for some reason, an attempt to inspire fear was evidently being resorted to instead. Something kept them from coming out into the open; something necessitated this cat-and-mouse game. Something, if exposure were actually within their power, prevented them from exposing him. That was it! That was it exactly—the one point on which he would stake everything and play out the game. Curse them and their childish tricks to frighten him! Exposure was the only thing he feared, because that would ruin every chance of success here; but if he was safe from exposure, or if exposure were only delayed long enough—and it need not be very long delayed, at that—he would have got, as he meant to get, in spite of God, or man, or the devil, what he had come for! There was another angle. What had transpired might not have anything to do with what had brought him here. Of course not! Why should it—essentially? But it was a menace, a hideous thing. It made him think of a picture he had seen somewhere—a gibbet at a bleak, wind-swept, dark-skyed cross-road with a figure dangling from it. One of those damned steel-plate engravings of the highwaymen days in England! The unknown! For a moment he stood still—and then suddenly both fists were raised above his head. That was a reason above all others why he should go on. The stakes were on the table. It was not merely a question of old Marlin's money. Win or lose here, the menace of that voice that shrieked the name of Shadow Varne for all to hear now hung over his whole future. It must either be removed, or he, Shadow Varne, promised with ghastly certainty to take the place of that dangling, swaying thing upon the gibbet chain. The menace was here. What better chance was there to fight it than here and now? Who was the more cunning? Who would misplay a card? Not Shadow Varne! A grim and cold composure came. He had two birds to kill with one stone now—that was all! Frighten Shadow Varne away? Bah! They did not know Shadow Varne—save only as a name to be screeched out from some safe retreat in the darkness! What might transpire in the secret recesses of his heart, the purely human fact that dismay and fear might prey at ugly moments upon him, was one thing; to halt him, to make him even hesitate, was another! He had never hesitated; he had but moved the more quickly, speeded up his plans, for time was a greater object now. He was at work at this very moment—waiting until the house was quiet for the night. Well, it was time now, wasn't it? A small flashlight played on the dial of his wrist watch. Just midnight! He nodded his head sharply, slipped across the room, and, with the door ajar, stood listening. A minute passed—another. There was no sound. He stepped out into the great, wide hall, and closed his door softly behind him. It was like a shadow moving now. That was Locke's room there; Polly's here—Dora Marlin's opposite. He passed them by, silently descended the great staircase, made his way back along another wide hallway, and finally halted before a door. This was Mr. Marlin's room. He listened intently. The sound of regular breathing, as of one asleep, was distinctly audible from within. He smiled grimly as he turned away, and cautiously let himself out through a French window in the living-room which opened on the verandah. From here, he dropped lightly to the lawn. The money was not hidden in the house. He was spared from the start any loss of time in an abortive search of that kind. There was too much significance attached to the old maniac's act of creeping stealthily in and out under his own verandah in the dead of night; especially when added to this had been the information gleaned from Polly that Mr. Marlin was in the habit of stealing out of the house at intervals for a succession of nights on end, though at a later hour each night. It was the obvious! But why a later hour each night? Rather queer! But the man's brain was queer! Why try to square insanity with the rational? It was the secret under the verandah that interested him. But his mind, as he made his way noiselessly along the edge of the bushes that fringed the verandah, reverted with a certain disturbing insistence to Polly. The girl hadn't stopped talking about going back to England! She said he had promised her she should when her education was finished. Well, perhaps he had—as one makes a promise to quiet a child! She wanted to be with her mother. Quite natural! But she hadn't any mother; and, if things went right here, he was rather inclined to believe that hereafter he preferred America to England as a permanent place of residence. He had reiterated his promise, of course. He couldn't afford to do anything else—yet. Sooner or later, he would have to "explain" to Polly; but when that time came, unless he had lost a certain facility in explanations that had never failed him yet, he should be able to turn even the fact that he had kept Mrs. Wickes' death from her to his own account. And tell the truth, even if somewhat inverted, at that! Solicitude would be the keynote—that, since Mrs. Wickes was not really her mother, her visit here need not be spoiled by ill news that would keep. Solicitude—and all that sort of idea. It was a good thing Mrs. Wickes was dead. Polly wouldn't want to live in England now. Mrs. Wickes' death settled that problem, which, otherwise, he would have had to find some other way of settling. A minor matter! Very minor! Why should it even have crossed his mind? There was first the money; then, as a corollary, when that was found, the distressingly fatal accident that would overtake poor old Mr. Marlin—and, woven into the warp and woof of this, the twisting of a certain windpipe that would screech its indiscretions for the last time to a far different tune! Ah, that was more like Shadow Varne! He parted the bushes and slipped in under the verandah. This was the spot where the old madman had disappeared from view last night. His flashlight was switched on now. It showed a well-defined path, if it could be called a path, where through much usage the earth and gravel had been pressed down close up against the side of the house. It led toward the rear. He followed it. It took him around the corner of the house, and here, under a flight of steps that led to the verandah above, he found himself confronted with a basement door. Captain Francis Newcombe smiled. He had never ranked the task of probing the old fool's actions as one that demanded much ingenuity, or as presenting any particular difficulty. It was simply a question of watching the other without being seen himself; and with the man's mode of exit and entry from and into the house already known, the rest would almost automatically take care of itself. He opened the door and stepped inside. The flashlight disclosed an ordinary basement storeroom, and, at one side, a flight of stairs. Captain Francis Newcombe moved quickly, but without sound now. He crossed the basement and crept up the stairs. Here, at the top, another door confronted him. With the flashlight out, he opened this door cautiously—and again a smile touched his lips. He had rather expected it! The door opened on the lower hall, and almost directly opposite Mr. Marlin's room. He stepped across the hall and listened again at the old man's door. There still came from within the sounds of occupancy; but instead now of the regular breathing as of one asleep, it was the sound as of one moving softly around within. Captain Francis Newcombe retreated to the stairs, closed the door behind him, descended the stairs, left the basement, and selected a spot amongst the trees at the edge of the lawn where he could command a view of the shrubbery bordering the verandah. It was still a little earlier than the hour last night when, according to Polly, Mr. Marlin had gone out, and if, in the bizarre workings of a warped brain, a later hour each night added to secretness and security, Mr. Marlin was not yet to be expected for a little while. Quite so! He, Captain Francis Newcombe, had formulated his own timetable on that basis. There was nothing to do now but wait. He frowned suddenly. Suppose, though, Mr. Marlin did not come out at all? This might well be one of the nights when— No! He shook his head decisively. To begin with, he had just heard the man moving around in his room after having previously been, or pretended that he had been, asleep; and if Polly's report was based on fact, as it undoubtedly was, the old maniac, once started on his period of peregrinations, kept it up until, on the basis of a later hour each night, his final sortie was made just before daybreak—and taking into account the hour at which the old man had been out last night, Mr. Marlin ought at present to be in the thick of one of those periods of nocturnal activity that would endure for a number of consecutive nights to come. In a sort of grim mirth, he laughed softly now to himself. One night, not a number of nights, would be all that was required! It did not entail any distressingly laboured mental effort to understand why the old man went out—it was simply a question of where he went. The minutes dragged along. A quarter of an hour went by; it became half an hour—and then Captain Francis Newcombe drew back silently a little deeper in amongst the trees. Yes, there was the old maniac now, dressing gown and all, and cocking his head to and fro in all directions as he parted the bushes in emerging from under the verandah. A moment later, the old man scurried across the lawn to a spot not far from where he, Captain Francis Newcombe, was standing. The woods here surrounding the house were full of little paths and walks, and the grotesque figure with the flapping gown now disappeared along one of these paths a few yards away. Captain Francis Newcombe's lips twisted a little ironically as he took up the chase. The head that kept cocking itself around so idiotically would avail its owner little in the shape of protection! Apart from it being too dark to see more than a few feet in any direction now in the wooded path, he, Captain Francis Newcombe, had not the slightest intention of trying to keep the other in sight, much less run any risk of being seen himself. The sense of sound was quite sufficient—entirely adequate! Twigs and dried pine needles snapped eloquently under Mr. Marlin's feet. Captain Francis Newcombe's ironical smile deepened. His own rubber-soled yachting shoes, combined with a little precaution, might be relied upon to cause the old maniac no alarm! The chase led on, following the turnings and twistings of the path for perhaps three hundred yards, and then turned into a narrow intersecting by-path at the right. Here again Captain Francis Newcombe followed the sound of the other's footsteps for perhaps another hundred yards—and then suddenly he halted. The footsteps had ceased abruptly. For a moment Captain Francis Newcombe remained motionless, listening; then with extreme caution he went forward again. He came presently to where the path ended at the edge of a small clearing; and here, though shadowy and indistinct, he could make out just in front of him the outline of what looked like a little cabane, or hut. He nodded his head complacently. From inside the hut he caught the sound of movement again. So this was where Mr. Marlin went at nights, was it! He crept forward on hands and knees now, careful to make not the slightest noise, made the circuit of the little hut, and halted again—this time on the side opposite from the door and beneath the single window that the place possessed. From what he had been able to make out in the darkness, the hut appeared to be in a more or less tumble-down and neglected condition. It was probably an old tool house or something of the sort. Well, that mattered very little! With his head well at one side of the window frame to guard against any possibility of being seen from within, he brought his eyes to a level with the sill, and peered in. At first he could distinguish nothing; then gradually a shadowy figure took form in one corner and kept moving up and down with a motion, which, more than anything else that suggested itself to him, resembled the motion of a woman assiduously at work over a washboard. This was accompanied by a scraping sound. Mr. Marlin was digging! Captain Francis Newcombe quietly sat down on the ground beneath the window. It was quite hopeless to expect to see anything more than he had seen—for the present! One would have asked a good deal to have asked more! The spot where the old maniac was at work was close up against the wall at the right of the door and almost directly opposite the window! The digging ceased. Another sound took its place—a sort of crooning, a sing-song droning sound. Words, snatches of sentences, became audible: "... All! All here! ... In the darkness where no one can see.... And I do not need to see—I feel.... Night after night I feel, and my fingers count.... Money! Money! ... Ha, ha—and they do not understand.... Fools! All fools! ... You will multiply yourself a hundred, a thousandfold.... Fools! Blind fools! ... They would not listen.... They called me mad...." The crooning went on. Captain Francis Newcombe with cool nonchalance made himself more comfortable now by propping his back against the side of the hut. When the old fool was through with his puling, and the fondling of that half million in banknotes that he imagined was so safely hidden, the next move would be in order. Until then there was nothing to do except to exercise what degree of patience he could. Patience! He stirred suddenly. Why exercise patience? Was it, after all, absolutely necessary that he should? A moment's work would do away with that senile old idiot now. Mr. Marlin would be found, but the money would not be found. That was the plan in its actual essence, wasn't it? He snarled, then, angrily at himself under his breath. That was the method of the "cusher," which, on a certain occasion, he had branded with so much contempt! The record of Shadow Varne was marred by no such crudeness as that. A cusher without art! It brought him a sense of intense irritation that the thought should even have entered his mind. Why had it? He shook his head. Was it impatience, or perhaps, rather, a prescience prompting him to be through and done with this with the least possible delay? Were the events that had happened since he had left England insidiously taking effect upon him to the detriment of his customary cold and measured judgment? Well, he would see to it that nothing of that sort should happen! Crime was a science; its procedure was calculated, methodical, orderly, denying scruples. He had always approached it as a science; he proposed never to approach it in any other way. The case in point, for instance: Once he knew exactly where this hidden half-million was, where he could lay his hands on it whenever he desired at an instant's notice—and he would locate its precise position inside the hut there as soon as the old maniac returned home to his bed—Mr. Marlin would be removed. But that must be accomplished apparently through an accident—and the accident must be such as to serve as proof, so to speak, that Captain Francis Newcombe could not possibly have had any part in it. This became the more essential now in view of that infernal voice last night. The nature of the accident itself was a mere detail. The choice was legion. There had been others who, becoming encumbrances in the path of Shadow Varne, had met with accidents. What folly to go in there now—and have the whole island aroused by the crime of murder and invaded by the police; with the crime itself proclaiming the fact that the murder had been done for the money the old madman was known to have had somewhere, but which was now obviously in the possession of some one, to wit, the murderer! Bah! What was the matter with him? Did he need to rehearse the obvious? Mr. Marlin's secret would die with him; and, being unable to find the money, they would give the old maniac more credit for cunning and originality than was due to the moss-eaten method of selecting a hiding place under the floor of an old hut! The pitiful fool! Under the floor! That was where the treasure was always hidden—in every book he had ever read! The crooning continued. It began to get a little on his nerves. It was interminable. Would the man stay here until daylight? No; that was hardly likely—not if he ran true to form. Old Marlin hadn't stayed out until daybreak last night when Polly and he, Captain Francis Newcombe, had watched the other go in under the verandah. It might have been an hour, though it seemed two, when at last Captain Francis Newcombe rose silently to his feet. The crooning had finally ceased, and in its place there came now a series of low, thudding sounds, as though soft earth were being tamped into place; and then he heard the door creak a little as it was opened and closed. An instant later the footsteps of the old man died away along the path by which he had come. Captain Francis Newcombe stepped quickly around to the other side of the hut, and tried the door. It was unlocked. He smiled in a sort of grim humour as he pushed it open, and, entering, closed it again behind him. That was the first sign of intelligence—no, applied to a maniac, it could hardly be termed intelligence!—well then, craftiness that measured up in at least a little way to the intensive order of cunning with which the insane in general were popularly credited. An unlocked door was no mean safe-guard. The last place one would expect to find, or look for, a half-million dollars would be behind an unlocked door! His flashlight threw an inquisitive circle of light around the interior. Whatever the place had been used for at one time, it was decidedly neglected and in disuse now. The flooring was in an advanced state of decay. His eyes followed the ray of the flashlight as it held on a spot on the flooring near the door. Yes, knowing beforehand that some pieces of the flooring there had been lifted, he could see that such was the case in spite of the fact that the pieces had been very neatly replaced. The flashlight continued its tour of inspection. There was a pile of rubbish and some old barrels over in the far corner. He stepped quickly across to these and nodded his head sharply in satisfaction, as, tucked in behind the barrels, he found what he had been looking for. Mr. Marlin had been digging. Exactly! Here was the spade. He lifted it up and examined it. Particles of fresh earth still clung to it. Captain Francis Newcombe stood still now for an instant to listen. And as he listened his brows gathered in a savage frown of annoyance. Why this exaggerated precaution? What did he expect to hear? What sound could there be? The old fool was finished for the night. There wasn't the slightest chance that he would return. Why should he, Captain Francis Newcombe, waste time now, when with a moment's work he could satisfy himself that the half-million dollars that had brought him to Manwa Island was definitely within his reach? Was that it? Was it psychological? Was it that voice he was listening for again? He swore fiercely under his breath in a sudden flood of blind rage at himself; and, crossing the hut, stood the spade up against the wall within reach, and knelt down on the floor with the flashlight playing on the two or three sections of board that the old man had removed. Yes, they were quite loose. His fingers worked their way into a crack between two of them. The old maniac's half-million! Hidden under the flooring! It was child's— What was that? He was on his feet, the flashlight out, every muscle tense, his revolver outflung before him. In God's name, what was that? It seemed to crash and thunder through the stillness. Only a knock upon the door? Again! Once more—sharp, imperative! He stood motionless—his jaws clamped like iron. What was he to do? If he answered the summons—what then? How explain the presence here of Captain Francis Newcombe, the guest, who at this hour should be peacefully asleep in his bed? Who was it out there who had knocked upon the door? Not the old fool himself who might have come back. Old Marlin wouldn't have knocked. Who, then? Strange! A full minute must have passed. Why were the knocks not repeated? There was no sound from without. He had heard no one approach—he had heard no one go away. Only the knocks upon the door. He was listening now, every faculty alert. Was some one standing outside there, as tense, as silent, waiting—as he stood tense and silent, waiting, here within? If so, then, that was another angle to the situation. It must be so! There was not a sound out there—there had not been a sound. He had heard no one go away. Well, two could play at a game like that! And it would be the other who would show his hand! He moved softly toward the door. In the darkness he felt out with his hand. It touched the panel of the door, crept down until it clasped the knob—and then suddenly, even as he moved swiftly to one side out of the direct line, he flung the door wide back upon its hinges. And where the door had stood, there showed now but an oblong of filmy, hazy murk, scarcely more penetrable to the eye than the black interior of the hut. Nothing more! No, that was not true. There was something else—something white, a small white fluttering thing that seemed to drift and flutter downward to the ground. No sound from without—save the night sounds of the woods: The leaves talking to one another; the stir in the grasses; the low, faint, never-ending chatter of insects. The watch ticking on Captain Francis Newcombe's wrist became a loud, discordant thing. It ticked away the minutes before he moved again. His eyes became accustomed to the murk outside the open door. There was no one there. That white thing lying by the threshold was an envelope. It had been stuck in the door. He reached out now, and picked it up. And now he closed the door again, and, with the flashlight on, he tore the envelope open. He stared at the sheet of paper it contained. The single line of crude, printed letters seemed to leap out at him from the white sheet, scorching, burning, searing its message into his consciousness. He raised his hand and drew it across his forehead. It came away wet with sweat. He looked around him, snarling like a beast at bay. A thousand minions of hell here in the hut were screeching in his ears the words he had just read: "Who murdered Sir Harris Greaves?" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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