"He knows the dam well enough, and he doesn't strike me as the sort
of man to go fooling with a thing like that out of mischief.
Besides, he didn't fall from where the lever is. If he had, and the
sluice was already open, he'd have been soaked through and probably
drowned to boot. Remember the rush of that water! Crowfoot got him
out, and Crowfoot was only wet to the knees. He must have fallen
partially clear of the pool, across one of the timbers. The thing
looks much more to me as though someone had deliberately opened the
sluice on them while they were both down there. Either the machinery
stuck, or they were interrupted before they could do the worst. In
any case Crowfoot knows more than he has chosen to tell us. He may
be shielding someone; the whole business looks ugly."
"I'm going to handle Crowfoot in the morning," said Herrick grimly.
"It's a case where he'll find it best to tell all he knows. A man
who goes hunting toadstools at night with a revolver lays himself
open to misconstruction." He stared a moment at the purple crocheted
mat on which the Sleifers' parlor lamp sat enthroned. "Why on earth
was he so keen on your keeping that revolver, I wonder?"
"Possibly for the same reason that had caused him to fire one of the
cartridges himself, this evening," I said drily.
"He had?" Herrick looked up. "Why didn't we hear the shot?"
"It happens to be one of those special revolvers which are built to
make as slight a report as possible. I know the pattern. The sound
carries practically no distance. If Crowfoot carries that revolver
habitually it is because he has good reason to be afraid of someone,
and he wouldn't have used it without serious cause."
"Have you any idea," asked Herrick, "what Freeman wanted to see you
about tonight?"
"Yes," I said slowly, "I have. You know the night you came down
here, Jack? It was Freeman who was the most determined to sift that
ghost story to the bottom, if you remember. From all accounts, he is
not the young man to take half-way measures in a thing that concerns
his sweetheart. I think that he has been working on his own
initiative, that he found out something, and it was about that that
he wanted to see me. He made the appointment for after dark, at an
hour when he was not likely to be seen coming or going from my house,
and he even took the precaution of coming by way of the woods.
Someone had an interest in preventing him from keeping the
appointment. They watched him to the Sliefers' house, and laid up
for him by the sluice, which he would have to cross on his way to me."
"You mean Crowfoot himself?"
"Crowfoot wasn't here at the time of the ghost scare, and he didn't
know of Freeman's appointment tonight. Moreover, I don't think he
had even an idea who the man was till you flashed your lamp on him.
Remember it was pretty dark there. But two people might have known
of it. They were both in the store at the time. One was Mr.
Haskell, whom I think we may dismiss immediately. The other was
Aaron Menning."
"Aaron Menning...." There was that in Herrick's tone that confirmed
instantly my own conclusions. "Then if that's so, Aaron Menning is
at the bottom of the ghost business, and of the whole Dutchman's Hill
story. Aaron, the pious chapel member! But why in heaven's
name----?"
"There's a streak of insanity in the whole family," I said. "Don't
forget that Jakey was said to be half crazy. Aaron has the look of a
criminal degenerate. How on earth he has maintained his reputation
in the village so long I can't think. He is cunning and malicious,
if no worse."
"I'd like to know just what hold that type of man could have over
Crowfoot," Herrick said. "Crowfoot comes in somewhere. If it was
Aaron pushed Freeman over, what reason could Crowfoot have for
shielding him deliberately? There's more behind it yet than we can
lay hand on."
There was, but our plans for finding out were destined to receive a
rude shock in the morning.
About two o'clock I left Herrick on the couch and went to take Mrs.
Sliefer's place upstairs. Against my will I half dozed in the
chintz-covered arm-chair, and through my brain there chased puzzling
dreams in which Herrick and I were trying feverishly to conceal
George Freeman's body in the mill-dam, while Crowfoot, continually
changing and rechanging into the likeness of Aaron, leapt up and down
from the dizzy heights of a butternut tree and chattered at us
angrily as he sprang.
Herrick was already drinking coffee when I came downstairs. Rebecca
had brought it in, and with it a note addressed to me.
I broke it open. There was a second bulkier envelope inside with the
note. Both note and address were printed in small neat capitals,
such as a child might use.
"MY DEAR HAVERILL,
"I REGRET THAT I HAVE BEEN OBLIGED TO LEAVE FOR THE CITY BY AN EARLY
TRAIN, AND SO MUST POSTPONE THE PLEASURE OF MEETING YOU AND YOUR
FRIEND AGAIN TILL A LATER DATE.
"ALEXANDER CROWFOOT."
On the second envelope was printed:
"TO BE OPENED ONLY IF NOT RECLAIMED WITHIN THREE DAYS."
"Stung!" said Herrick.