DEATH IN THE CAVE
Alone, Brendon regarded the future with some melancholy, for he
believed that only Chance had robbed him of his great hope. Chance,
so often a valued servant, now, in the mightiest matter of his life,
turned against him. Not for a moment could he or would he compare
himself with the man he now regarded as a successful rival; but
accident had given Doria superb opportunities while denying to
Brendon any opportunity whatever. He told himself, however, that a
cleverer man than he would have made opportunities. What was his
love worth if it could not triumph over the handicaps of Chance?
He felt ruled out, and he had not even the excuse to impose himself
upon Jenny and still seek to win her by pretending that he was
better fitted to make her permanently happy than his rival. Indeed
he knew that in the long run such a cheerful and versatile soul as
Giuseppe was more likely to satisfy Jenny than he, for Doria would
have all his time to devote to her, while marriage and a home must
be only a part of Brendon's future existence. There remained his
work, and he well knew that, whatever Jenny's position and
independence, he would not leave the business that had brought him
renown. Only on one ground he doubted for her, and again and again
feared that such an attractive being as Doria might follow the
tradition of his race and presently weary of one woman.
Next he considered another aspect of the situation and thought of
every word that Jenny had recently spoken. They pointed to one
conclusion in his judgment and he believed that when a seemly period
had elapsed she would allow herself to love Doria. That was as much
as to say she had already begun to do so, if unconsciously. This
surprised him, for even granting the obvious fascination of the man,
he could hardly believe that the image of her first husband had
already begun to grow faint in Jenny's memory. He remembered her
grief and protestations at Princetown; he perceived the deep
mourning which she wore. She was indeed young, but her character had
never appeared to him youthful or light-hearted. Against that fact,
however, he had certainly only known her after her sorrow and loss,
and he remembered how she had sung on the moor upon the evening she
passed him in the sunset light. She had probably been cheerful and
joyous before her husband's death. But she surely never possessed a
frivolous nature. His knowledge of character told him that. And
there was strength as well as sweetness in her face. Serious
subjects had interested her in his small experience of her company;
but that might be because she responded, as a delicate instrument,
to her environment; and he himself had never been anything but
serious beside her. With the Italian, no doubt, there had happened
moments when she could sometimes smile and forget. Doria's own
affairs, of which he loved to chatter, had doubtless often
distracted Mrs. Pendean from her own melancholy reflection, and in
any case she could not sigh forever at her age.
The return of the motor boat arrested his reflections. She had been
gone about an hour when Mark perceived her running very swiftly
homeward. Guessing that Bendigo Redmayne and his brother were now
aboard, he prepared to retire until the following day to the room he
occupied. He had arranged to be invisible unless Robert Redmayne
were willing to see him and discuss the future.
But Doria once more came back to "Crow's Nest" alone, and what he
had to tell soon altered the detective's plans. For Giuseppe was
much concerned and feared that evil had overtaken his master.
"After the time was up, I ran in," he said, "and the rising tide
brought me within a few yards of the mouth of the cave. The light
was burning but I could see neither of them. I hailed twice and got
no answer. All was still as the grave and I went near enough to the
shore to satisfy myself that there was nobody there. The cave was
empty. Now I am a good deal alarmed and I come back to you."
"You didn't land?"
"I didn't touch shore, but I was within five yards of the cave, none
the less, for the tide is now risen. The light shone upon
emptiness. I beg you will return with me, for I feel that some evil
thing may have happened."
Much puzzled, Brendon delayed only to get his revolver and an
electric torch. He then descended with Doria to the water and they
were soon afloat again. The boat ran at full speed for a few
minutes; then her course was changed and she turned in under the
cliffs. Mark soon saw a solitary gleam of light, like a glowworm, at
sea level in the solid darkness of the precipices, and Doria,
slowing down, crept in toward it. Presently he shut off his engine
and the launch grounded her prow on a little beach before the
entrance of Robert Redmayne's hiding-place. The lamp shone brightly,
but its illumination, though serving to show the cavern empty, was
not sufficient to light its lofty roof, or reveal a second exit,
where a tunnel ran up at the rear and could be climbed by steps
roughly hewn in the stone.
"It is a place my master showed me long ago," explained Doria. "It
was used by smugglers in the old days and they have cut steps that
still exist."
Both men landed and Giuseppe made fast the launch. Then immediate
evidence of tragedy confronted them. The floor of the cave was of
very fine shingle intermixed with sand. The sides were much broken
and the strata of the rock had wrinkled and bent in upon itself. The
lamp stood on a ledge and flung a radius of light over the floor
beneath. Here had been collected the food and drink supplied to
Redmayne on the previous day, and it was clear that he had eaten
and drunk heartily. But the arresting fact appeared on the beaten
and broken surface of the ground. Heavy boots had torn this up and
plowed furrows in it. At one spot lay an impression, as though some
large object had fallen, and here Brendon saw blood--a dark patch
already drying, for the substance of it was soaked away in the sandy
shingle on which it had dropped.
It was a blot rather than a pool and under his electric lamp Mark
perceived a trail of other drops extending irregularly toward the
back of the cavern. From the mark of the fallen body a ridge
ploughed through the shingle extending rearward, and he judged that
one of the two men had certainly felled the other and then drawn him
toward the chimney, or tunnel that opened at the back of the cave.
Spots of blood and the dragged impression of some heavy body
stretched along the ground to the stone steps and there disappeared.
The detective stopped here and inquired the length of the staircase
and whither it led; but for a time his companion appeared too dazed
to answer him. Giuseppe showed a good deal of the white feather,
combined with sincere emotion at the implicit tragedy.
"This is death--death!" he kept repeating, and between his words his
mouth hung open and his eyes rolled fearfully over the shadowy
places round about him.
"Pull yourself together and help me if you can," said. Brendon.
"Every moment may make all the difference. It looks to me as though
somebody had been dragged up here. Is that possible?"
"To a very powerful man it might be. But he was weak--no good."
"Where does this place lead?"
"There are many shallow steps, then a long slope and, after that,
you have to bend your head and scramble out through a hole. You are
then on a plateau halfway up the cliff. It is a broad ledge and from
it one only track, rough and steep, rises up zigzag, like our
hairpin roads in Italy, till you reach the summit of the cliff. But
it is rough and broken--impossible by night."
"We must go that way all the same and make it possible. Is the boat
fast?"
"If you will help me, we will pull her up into the cave. Then we can
hunt and she will not take harm."
Lamenting the loss of time, Mark lent a hand and the launch was soon
above high-water mark. Then, with Brendon in front and the light
from his torch upon the steps, they began their ascent. Save for a
drop of blood here and there, the stone stairway gave no clue; but
when they had reached its summit and the subterranean path turned to
the left, still in a tunnel of the solid rock, they marked on the
ascending slope, slippery with percolations from the roof, a
straight smear dragged over the muddy surface. Pursued for fifty
yards the tunnel began to narrow and the roof descend, but still the
smooth track of a heavy object being dragged upward was evident.
Save for an occasional word the men proceeded in silence, but
Brendon sometimes heard the Italian speaking to himself. "Padron
mio, padron mio--death!" he repeated.
For the last ten yards of the tunnel Mark had to go on his knees and
crawl. Then he emerged and found himself in the open air on a shelf
hung high between the earth and the sea. All was dark and very
silent. He held up his hand to Doria and the two listened intently
for some minutes, but only the subdued murmur of the water far
beneath reached their ears. No sound broke the stillness round
about. Under their feet stretched a ledge of fine turf, browned by
winter and covered with the evidence of sea birds. Giuseppe picked
up a few grey feathers as the electric torch swept the surface of
the plateau.
"For the master's pipe," he explained. "He uses feathers to cleanse
it."
Overhead the cliff line stretched black as ink against the sky,
making the midnight clouds above it light by contrast. Here Brendon
saw evidences that the dead weight dragged from beneath had remained
still a while, and he observed an impress near it on the herbage,
where doubtless a living man had rested after his exertions. There
were clots of blood on the grass near this spot, but no other sign
visible in the present condition of darkness. Remembering the death
of Michael Pendean, Brendon was already reconstructing, in theory,
the events immediately under his notice. That Bendigo Redmayne's
brother had slain the elder now appeared too probable; and he had
apparently proceeded as before and removed his victim--in a
sack--for the line on the cave floor below and along the path which
Mark had just traversed indicated some heavy, rounded object that
did not change its shape as it was dragged along.
For two minutes he stood, then spoke.
"Where is the path from here?" he asked, and Doria, proceeding
cautiously to the east of the plateau, presently indicated a rocky
footpath that ascended from it. The track was rough and evidently
seldom used, for brambles and dead vegetation lay across it. They
proceeded by this way and Brendon directed the other to disturb
nothing, so that careful examination might, if necessary, be made
when daylight returned. The path elbowed to right and left sharply,
ever ascending, and it was not too steep to prevent steady progress.
It ended at last on the summit of the cliffs, where, after a barren
space of fifty yards, a low wall ran separating ploughed lands from
the precipices. But no sight of any human being awaited them and, on
the close sward of the summit, footsteps would have left no record.
"What d'you make of it?" asked Doria. "Your mind is swift and
skilled in these deviltries. Is it true that my master and my friend
is a dead man--the old sea wolf dead?"
"Yes," said Brendon drearily. "In my mind there is no doubt of it.
It is also true that a thing has happened which I should have
prevented and a life been lost which might have been saved. From the
first I have taken too much on trust in this matter and believed
all that I was told too readily."
"That is no blame to you," answered the other. "Why should you have
doubted what you heard?"
"Because it was my business to credit nothing and trust nobody. I am
not blaming anybody, or suggesting any attempts to deceive me; but I
have accepted what sounded obvious and rational, as we all did,
instead of examining things for myself. You may not understand this,
Doria; but other people will be only too quick to do so."
"You did the best you could; so did everybody. Who was to know that
he came here to kill his brother?"
"A madman may do anything. My fault has been to assume his return to
sanity."
"What more natural? How could you assume otherwise? Only an insane
man would have killed Madonna's husband, and only a very sane one
would have escaped the sleuths afterward. So you argued that he was
mad and then sane again; yet now he has gone mad once more."
Brendon desired to be at Dartmouth as swiftly as possible, so that a
search might be instituted at dawn. Doria considered whether he
might make best speed by road or water, and decided that he could
bring Mark more quickly to the seaport in the launch than along the
highway.
"We must, however, return by the tunnel," he said, "for there is no
other route by which we can get back to the boat."
Brendon agreed and they descended the zigzag path and then, from the
plateau, reëntered the tunnel and presently reached the steps again
and the cavern beneath. Extinguishing the lamp, which still burned
steadily, they were soon afloat, and under a tremor of dawn the
little vessel cut her way at her best speed, flinging a sheaf of
foam from her bows and leaving a white wake on the still and
leaden-coloured sea.
They saw a figure beneath the flagstaff at "Crow's Nest" and both
recognized Jenny Pendean. She made no signal, but the sight of her
evidently disturbed Giuseppe's mind. He stopped the boat and
appealed to Brendon.
"My heart is in my mouth," he said. "A sudden fear has overtaken me.
This madman--it may be that he has turned against his own and those
who are his best friends. There is a thing lunatics will do. It
follows--while we are away--do you not see? There are only two women
at 'Crow's Nest' now, and he might come and make a clean sweep--is
it not so?"
"You think that?"
"With God and the devil all things are possible," answered the
other, his eyes lifted to the house on the cliffs.
"You're right. Run in. There may be a danger for her."
Doria was triumphant.
"Even you do not think of everything," he cried; but the other did
not answer. On him lay a load of responsibility and a heavy sense of
failure.
He directed Doria how to act, however.
"Tell Mrs. Pendean and the servant to lock up the house and then
join us," he said. "They had better come to Dartmouth, and they can
return presently with you, after you have landed me. Beg that they
do not delay a moment."
Doria obeyed and in ten minutes returned with Jenny, dazed and pale,
and the frightened domestic still fumbling at her bodice buttons.
They were both in great fear and full of words; but Brendon begged
them to be quiet. He warned Jenny that the worst was to be dreaded
for her uncle, and their awful news reduced her to silence quickly
enough. Thus they sped on their way, leaped between the harbour
heads before sunrise, and soon came ashore at the landing stage.
Doria's work was now done and, having directed him to take the women
back, Mark bade them all keep the house until more news should reach
them.
"Telephone to the police station if you have anything to report," he
directed, "but should the man appear and attempt to enter, prevent
him from doing so."
He gave them further directions and then they parted.
In half an hour the news had spread, search parties set out by land,
and Brendon himself, with Inspector Damarell and two constables, put
to sea in the harbour-master's swift steam launch. Some food had
been brought aboard and Mark made a meal as he described the
incidents of the night. It was eight o'clock before they reached the
cavern and began a methodical search over the ground and upward.
Mark had arranged with Doria that a signal should fly from "Crow's
Nest" for him if there were any news; but nothing had happened, for
the flagpole was bare.
Then began a laborious hunt in the cave and the tunnel by which it
was approached from above. Morning light filled the hollow place and
the officers working methodically left no cranny unexplored; but
their combined efforts by daylight revealed little more than Brendon
had already found for himself in the darkness. There was nothing but
the trampled sand, the partially eaten store of food, the lamp on
its stone bracket, the black blot of blood, and the shallow trench
left by some rounded object that had been dragged to the steps. The
tide was down but the little beach only displayed the usual debris
at high-water mark. Inspector Damarell returned to the steam launch
and bade the skipper go back to Dartmouth.
"We'll ride home by motor from above," he said. "Tell them to bring
my runabout car to the top of Hawk Beak Hill; and let 'em fetch
along some sandwiches and half a dozen bottles of Bass; I'm thinking
we shall want 'em by noon."
The launch was off and once more the chimney with the steps, the
inclined plane beyond, and the plateau halfway up the cliff were all
examined with patient scrutiny. The police went at a foot's pace,
yet nothing appeared save an occasional drop of blood upon a stone
and the trail of the object dragged upward on the previous night.
"He must be a Samson," said Mark. "Consider if you or I had to pull
a solid, eleven-stone man in a sack up here."
"I could not," admitted the inspector. "But it was done. We're going
to have a repetition of that job at Berry Head in the summer. We
shall hunt the cliffs, like a pack of hounds, and presently find
some place hanging over deep water. Then we shall hit on a sack in a
rabbit hole or badger's earth--and that will be all there is to it."
On the plateau they rested, while Brendon found some clear marks of
feet--a heavy, iron-shod boot, which he recognized. They occurred in
a soft place just outside the mouth of the tunnel and he recollected
the toe plates and the triangle-headed nails that held them.
He called Inspector Damarell.
"When this is compared with the plaster casts taken at Foggintor,
you'll find it's the same boot," he said. "That's no surprise, of
course, but it proves probably that we are dealing with the same
man."
"And he'll use the same means to vanish into thin air that he did
six months ago," prophesied the other. "You mark me, Brendon, this
is not one man's work. There's a lot hid under this job that hasn't
seen light--just as there was under the last. It's very easy to say,
because we can't find a motive, the man's mad. That's the line of
least resistance; but it don't follow by a long sight that it's the
right line. Here's a chap has lured his brother to death, and very
cunning he's been about it. He's pitched a yarn and then, after a
promise to turn up, he changes his mind and makes a new plan
altogether by which old Ben Redmayne is put entirely in his power.
Then--"
"But who was to know he meant mischief? We had facts to deal with.
Mrs. Pendean herself had seen and spoken to him; so had Doria. In
the case of the lady, at any rate, all she said was above suspicion.
She hid nothing; she behaved like a Christian woman, wept at the
spectacle of his awful misery, and brought his message to his
brother. Then sudden, panic fear overtook the man at the last
moment--natural enough--and he begged Bendigo Redmayne to see him in
his hiding-place alone. It rang true as a bell. For myself I had not
a shadow of suspicion."
"That's all right," admitted Damarell, "and I'm not one who pretends
to be wise after the event. But, as I told you before, I thought it
a mistake to suspend our search and take the matter out of
professional hands just when we were safe to nab him. You were in
command and we obeyed, but whatever the murderer had to say would as
well have been said to us as to his brother--and better; because in
any case he might have tempted a brother to break the law for him.
Now there's more innocent blood been shed and a damned, dangerous
criminal--mad or sane--is still at large. Most likely more than one.
However, it is not much use jawing, I grant you. What we've got to
do is to catch them--if we can."
Brendon made no reply to this speech. He was vexed, yet knew that
he had heard little more than the truth.
He examined the plateau and showed again where some round object had
pressed the earth and where a man had sat beside it. From this spot
it was not possible to dispose of a body in the sea. Beneath it
extended a fall of a hundred feet to broken ground, which again gave
by sloping shelves to the water. Had a corpse been thrown over here,
it must have challenged their sight beneath; and yet from this
standpoint no sign of the vanished man or his burden appeared. But
the zigzag path to the cliff top revealed neither any evidence of a
weight being dragged upward nor the impression of the iron-shod
foot. Fresh footprints there were, but they had been made by Brendon
and Doria on the previous night. Now the police ascended, making
careful examination of every turn in the way, and finally reached
the summit a little after noon. It was a dizzy height, beetling over
the sea beneath; but crags and buttresses broke out from the six
hundred feet of precipice and any object thrown over from the crest
of Hawk Beak Hill must have been arrested many times in its downward
progress.
Inspector Damarell stopped to rest and flung himself panting on the
close sward at the crown of the cliff.
"What do you think?" he asked Brendon; and the other having made a
careful examination of the ground around them and scanned the peaks
and ledges beneath, answered:
"He never came here--at any rate not until he had disposed of the
body. It's the broken ground under the plateau we must search. There
may be a way down that he knew. I guess he threw the body over, then
scrambled down himself and covered it deep with stones. It's surely
there--for the simple reason that it can't be anywhere else. We
should have found out if he'd brought it to the top. And in my
judgment, even if he wanted to do so, he would have lacked the
physical strength. He must have spent himself getting it to the
plateau, however strong he is, and then found that he could do no
more. The body, therefore, should be hidden in the rocks below the
plateau."
"We can leave it at that then, till we've had something to eat and
drink," answered the inspector, and proceeding to the nearest point
of the highroad, where a car already waited for them, they made a
meal. The constable who drove the car had no news, but Brendon
expected that information might await him at Dartmouth. He was
convinced that on this occasion the object of their search could not
long evade discovery.
They chained up the motor car, and the constable who had driven it
joined them when they descended to explore the broken ground beneath
the plateau.
"There's nothing more hateful to me than a murder without the body,"
declared Damarell, on the way down. "You don't even know if you're
on firm ground to start with, and every step you take must hang upon
a fact that you can't verify except by circumstantial evidence.
Every step may in reality be a false one--and the nearer you appear
to be to the truth, the farther you may be going away from it. A
pint of blood needn't of necessity mean a murder; but this chap,
Robert Redmayne, has a partiality for leaving red traces behind
him."
The others listened and then they reached the plateau and went down
to the stony space beneath. This was not difficult to reach. A dozen
rough-and-ready ways presented themselves to a climber; but neither
Brendon nor his companions could find the least indications that any
other had recently descended.
Now they quartered out the stone-covered ground and, having first
searched every superficial yard for indications of disturbance,
proceeded to a methodical and very thorough hunt beneath the
surface. The stones were moved and the space critically examined
over every square foot, but not a shadow of evidence to show that
the spot had been trodden or touched could be discovered. Brendon
sought first immediately below the plateau, where the sack and its
contents must have fallen, but nothing indicated such an event. The
stones were naked and no stain of blood or indication of any
intrusion upon the lonely spot rewarded the searchers. For three
hours, until dusk began to deepen on the precipices above them, the
men worked as skilfully and steadfastly as men might work. Then
their fruitless task was done. Brendon's theory, so confidently
proclaimed, had broken down and he confessed his failure frankly
enough.
They climbed up together once more and reached the summit of the
cliffs again. Here, by the main road, they met one or two civilians
who had devoted the day to assisting the police; but not one of them
reported any sight or rumour of the fugitive.
The entrance of "Crow's Nest" opened upon the highroad which took
the police back to Dartmouth, and here Brendon delayed the car and
descended alone down the coomb to the house that had so suddenly
lost its master. The place seemed mourning and it was very silent.
Mark inquired for Jenny and the frightened maid doubted whether she
might be seen.
"The poor lady be cruel put about," she explained. "She says she
brings evil fortune after her and wishes to God it was her that was
dead and not poor master. Mr. Doria tried to comfort her a bit; but
he couldn't and she told him to be gone. She's very near cried her
eyes out of her head since morning."
"That does not sound much like Mrs. Pendean," he answered. "Where is
she, and where is Doria?"
"She's in her room. He is writing letters. He says that he must look
after new work pretty quick, because no doubt he won't be wanted
here after a month from now."
"Ask Mrs. Pendean if she can see me a moment," he said, and the
woman, left him to ascertain. But Brendon was disappointed. Jenny
sent word that she could not see him to-day and hoped he would take
occasion to call on the following morning, when he would find her
more composed.
To this he could answer nothing and presently started to rejoin the
car. Giuseppe overtook him from the house; but he could only report
that the day had passed without event at "Crow's Nest."
"Nobody has come but a clergyman," he told Brendon, "and we have
been careful to leave everything just as the old captain left it."
"I will see you to-morrow," promised Mark; then he rejoined the
inspector and their car went on its way.
A surprise and a keen disappointment awaited them at Dartmouth. The
day's work had produced no result whatever. Not a trace of Robert
Redmayne was reported from anywhere and Inspector Damarell offered
the former solution of suicide. But Brendon would not hear it now.
"He is no more dead this time than he was six months ago," he
answered; "but he has some system of disguise, or concealment, that
utterly defeats the ordinary methods of a man hunt. We must try
bloodhounds to-morrow, though the scent is spoiled now and we can
hardly hope for any useful results."
"Perhaps he'll write from Plymouth again as he did before,"
suggested the inspector.
Weary and out of spirits, Mark left the police station and went to
his hotel. To be baffled was an experience not new to him and thus
far he felt no more tribulation than a great cricketer, who
occasionally fails and retires for a "duck," knowing that his second
innings may still be told in three figures; but what concerned him
was the double failure on the same case. He felt puzzled by events
and still more puzzled by his own psychology, which seemed incapable
of reacting as usual to the stimulus of mystery and the challenge of
a problem, apparently ineluctable.
He felt that his wits were playing him false and, instead of
cleaving some bold and original way to the heart of a difficulty, as
was his wont, he could see no ray of light thrown by the candle of
his own inspiration. Inspiration, in fact, he wholly lacked. Once
only in the past--after an attack of influenza--had he felt so
barren of initiative as now, so feeble and ineffective.
He fell asleep at last, thinking not of the vanished sailor, but
Jenny Pendean. That she must suffer at her uncle's sudden death was
natural and he had not been surprised to learn of her collapse. For
she was sensitive; she had lately been through a terrible personal
trial; and to find herself suddenly associated with another tragedy
might well induce a nervous breakdown. Who would come to the rescue
now? To whom would she look? Whither would she go?
Mark was early astir and with Inspector Damarell he organized an
elaborate search system for the day. At nine o'clock a large party
had set out, for another morning brought no news by telegram or
telephone, and it was clear that Redmayne still continued free.
Brendon proceeded presently to "Crow's Nest," drawn thither solely
by thoughts of Jenny, for whatever she might secretly think of Doria
and feel toward him, it was certain that he could not be of any
great support under present circumstances. Doria was essentially a
fair-weather friend. Many were the things that Jenny would be called
to do and, so far as Mark knew, there was none to assist her. He
found her distressed but calm. She had telegraphed to her uncle in
Italy and though she doubted whether he would risk return into an
English winter, she hoped that he might do so.
"Everything is chaos," she said, "just as it was at Princetown.
Uncle Bendigo told me only a few days before these things
happened--when he had made up his mind that his brother Robert must
be dead--that the law would not recognize his death for a certain
period of years. And now we know that he is not dead but that poor
Uncle Bendigo is. Yet the law will not recognize his death, either
perhaps, seeing that he has not been found. Uncle Robert's papers
and affairs were gone into and he left no will; so his property,
when the law sanctions it, would have been divided between his
brothers; but now I imagine it all belongs to my uncle in Italy;
while, as for poor Uncle Bendigo, I expect that he has made a will,
because he was such a methodical man; but what he intended to do
with his house and money we cannot tell yet."
Jenny had nothing to say or suggest that could help Brendon and she
was very nervous, desiring to leave the lonely habitation on the
cliffs as quickly as possible; but she intended to await Albert
Redmayne's decision.
"This will greatly upset him, I fear," she said. "He is now the
last of 'the red Redmaynes,' as our family was called in Australia."
"Why the adjective?"
"Because we were always red. Every one of my grandfather's children
had red hair, and so had he. His wife was also red--and the only
living member of the next generation is red, too, as you see."
"You are not red. Your hair is a most wonderful auburn, if I may say
so."
She showed no appreciation of the compliment.
"It will soon be grey," she answered.