WE SEARCH THE ABANDONED CABINS
"Now," said Terry, as Solomon and the suitcase disappeared upstairs,
"let's you and I have a look at those haunted cabins."
"I thought you were hungry!"
"Starving--but I still have strength enough to get that far. Solomon
says supper won't be ready for half an hour, and we haven't half an hour
to waste. I'm due in the city the day after to-morrow, remember."
"You won't find anything," I said. "I've searched every one of those
cabins myself and the ha'nt didn't leave a trace behind him."
"I think I'll just glance about with my own eyes," laughed Terry.
"Reporters sometimes see things, you know, where corporation lawyers
don't."
"Just as you please," I replied. "Four-Pools is at your disposal."
I led the way across the lawn and into the laurel growth. Terry
followed with eyes eagerly alert; the gruesome possibilities of the
place appealed to him. He pushed through the briars that surrounded the
first cabin and came out on the slope behind, where he stood gazing down
delightedly at the dark waters of the fourth pool.
"My word! This is great. We'll run a half-page picture and call it the
'Haunted Tarn.' Didn't know such places really existed--thought writers
made 'em up. Come on," he called, plunging back to the laurel walk, "we
must catch our ghost; I don't want this scenery to go to waste."
We commenced at the first cabin and went down the row thoroughly and
systematically. At Terry's insistence one of the stable men brought a
ladder and we climbed into every loft, finding nothing but spiders and
dust. The last on the left, being more weatherproof than the others, was
used as a granary. A space six feet square was left inside the door, but
for the rest the room was filled nearly to the ceiling with sacks of
Indian meal.
"How about this--did you examine this cabin?"
"Well, really, Terry; there isn't much room for a ghost here."
"Ghosts don't require much room; how about the loft?"
"I didn't go up--you can't get at the trap without moving all the meal."
"I see!" Terry was examining the three walls of sacks before us. "Now
here is a sack rather dirtier than the rest and squashy. It looks to me
as if it had had a good deal of rough handling."
He pulled it to the floor as he spoke, and another with it. A space some
three feet high was visible; by crawling one could make his way along
without hitting the ceiling.
"Come on!" said Terry, scrambling to the top of the pile and pulling me
after him, "we've struck the trail of our ghostly friend unless I'm very
much mistaken.--Look at that!" He pointed to a muddy foot-mark plainly
outlined on one of the sacks. "Don't disturb it; we may want to compare
it with the marks in the cave.--Hello! What's this? The print of a bare
foot--that's our friend, Mose."
He took out a pocket rule and made careful measurements of both prints;
the result he set down in a note book. I was quite as excited now as
Terry. We crawled along on all fours until we reached the open trap;
there was no trace here of either spider-webs or dust. We scrambled into
the loft without much difficulty, and found a large room with sloping
beams overhead and two small windows, innocent of glass, at either end.
The room was empty but clean; it had been thoroughly swept, and
recently. Terry poked about but found nothing.
"H'm!" he grunted. "Mose cleaned well.--Ah! Here we are!"
He paused before a horizontal beam along the side wall and pointed to a
little pile of ashes and a cigar stub.
"He smokes cigars, and good strong ones--at least he isn't a lady. Did
you ever see a cigar like that before?"
"Yes," I said, "that's the kind the Colonel always smoked--a fresh box
was stolen from the dining-room cupboard a day or so after I got here.
Solomon said it was the ha'nt, but we suspected it was Solomon."
"Was the cupboard unlocked?"
"Oh, yes; any of the house servants could have got at it."
"Well," said Terry, poking his head from the windows for a view of the
ground beneath, "that's all there seems to be here; we might as well go
down."
We boosted up the two meal bags again, and started back toward the
house. Terry's eyes studied his surroundings keenly, whether for the
sake of the story he was planning to write or the mystery he was trying
to solve, I could only conjecture. His glance presently fixed on the
stables where old Uncle Jake was visible sitting on an upturned pail in
the doorway.
"You go on," he ordered, "and have 'em put dinner or supper or whatever
you call it on the table, and I'll be back in three minutes. I want to
see what that old fellow over there has to say in regard to the ghost."
It was fifteen minutes later that Terry reappeared.
"Well," I inquired as I led the way to the dining-room, "did you get any
news of the ghost?"
"Did I! The Society for Psychical Research ought to investigate this
neighborhood. They'd find more spirits in half an hour than they've
found in their whole past history."
Terry's attention during supper was chiefly directed toward Nancy's
fried chicken and beat biscuits. When he did make any remarks he
addressed them to Solomon rather than to me. Solomon was loquacious
enough in general, but he had his own ideas of table decorum, and it was
evident that the friendly advances of my guest considerably scandalized
him. When the coffee and cigars were brought on, Terry appeared to be on
the point of inviting Solomon to sit down and have a cigar with us; but
he thought better of it, and contented himself with talking to the old
man across my shoulder. He confined his questions to matters concerning
the household and the farm, and Solomon in vain endeavored to confine
his replies to "yes, sah," "no, sah," "jes' so, sah!" In five minutes he
was well started, and it would have required a flood-gate to stop him.
In the midst of it Terry rose and dismissing me with a brief, "I'll join
you in the library later; I want to talk to Solomon a few minutes," he
bowed me out and shut the door.
I was amused rather than annoyed by this summary dismissal. Terry had
been in the house not quite two hours, and I am sure that a third
person, looking on, would have picked me out for the stranger. Terry's
way of being at home in any surroundings was absolutely inimitable. Had
he ever had occasion to visit Windsor Castle I am sure that he would
have set about immediately making King Edward feel at home.
He appeared in the library in the course of half an hour with the
apology: "I hope you didn't mind being turned out. Servants are
sometimes embarrassed, you know, about telling the truth before any of
the family."
"You didn't get much truth out of Solomon," I retorted.
"I don't know that I did," Terry admitted with a laugh. "There are the
elements of a good reporter in Solomon; he has an imagination which I
respect. The Gaylords appear to be an interesting family with hereditary
tempers. The ghost, I hear, beat a slave to death, and to pay for it is
doomed to pace the laurel walk till the day of judgment."
"That's the story," I nodded, "and the beating is at least authentic."
"H'm!" Terry frowned. "And Solomon tells me tales of the Colonel himself
whipping the negroes--there can't be any truth in that?"
"But there is," I said. "He didn't hesitate to strike them when he was
angry. I myself saw him beat a nigger a few days ago," and I recounted
the story of the chicken thief.
"So! A man of that sort is likely to have enemies he doesn't suspect.
How about Cat-Eye Mose? Was Colonel Gaylord in the habit of whipping
him?"
"Often," I nodded, "but the more the Colonel abused Mose, the fonder
Mose appeared to grow of the Colonel."
"It's a puzzling situation," said Terry pacing up and down the room
with a thoughtful frown. "Well!" he exclaimed with a sudden access of
energy, "I suppose we might as well sit down and tackle it."
He took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves; then shoving
everything back from one end of the big library table, he settled
himself in a chair and motioned me to one opposite.
"Tomorrow morning," he said as he took out from his pockets a roll of
newspaper clippings and a yellow copy pad, "we will drive over and have
a look at that cave; it ought to tell its own story. But in the
meantime--" he looked up with a laugh--"suppose we use our brains a
little."
I did not resent the inference. Terry was his old impudent self, and I
was so relieved at having him there, assuming the responsibility, that
he might have wiped the floor with me and welcome.
"Our object," he commenced, "is not to prove your cousin innocent of the
murder, but to find out who is guilty. The most logical method would be
to study the scene of the crime first, but as that does not appear
feasible until morning, we will examine such data as we have. On the
face of it the only two who appear to be implicated are Radnor and this
Cat-Eye Mose--who is a most picturesque character," Terry added, the
reporter for the moment getting ahead of the detective.
He paused and examined the end of his fountain pen speculatively, and
then ran through the pile of clippings before him.
"Well, now, as for Radnor. Suppose we look into his case a little." He
glanced over one of the newspaper slips and tossed it across to me.
"There's a clipping from the 'Baltimore Censor'--a tolerably
conservative journal. What have you to say in regard to it?"
I picked it up and glanced it over. It was dated May twenty-third--four
days after the murder--and was the same in substance as many other
articles I had read in the past week.
"No new evidence has come to light in regard to the sensational
murder of Colonel Gaylord whose body was discovered in Luray Cave,
Virginia, a few days ago. The authorities now concur in the belief
that the crime was committed by the son of the murdered man. The
accused is awaiting trial in the Kennisburg jail.
"It seems impossible that any man, however depraved, could in cold
blood commit so brutal and unnatural a crime as that with which
Radnor Gaylord is accused. It is only in the light of his past
history that the action can be understood. Coming from one of the
oldest families of Virginia, an heir to wealth and an honored name,
he is but another example of the many who have sold their
birth-right for a mess of pottage. A drunkard and a spendthrift, he
wasted his youth in gambling and betting on the races while honest
men were toiling for their daily bread.
"Several times has Radnor Gaylord been disinherited and turned
adrift, but Colonel Gaylord, weak in his love for his youngest son,
invariably received him back again into the house he had
dishonored. Finally, pressed beyond the point of endurance, the old
man took a firm stand and refused to meet his son's inordinate
demands for money. Young Gaylord, rendered desperate by debts, took
the most obvious method of gaining his inheritance. His part in the
tragedy of Colonel Gaylord's death is as good as proved, though he
persistently and defiantly denies all knowledge of the crime. No
sympathy can be felt for him. The wish of every right-minded man in
the country must be that the law will take its course--and that as
speedily as possible."
"Well?" said Terry as I finished.
"It's a lie," I cried hotly.
"All of it?"
"Every word of it!"
"Oh, see here," said Terry. "There's no use in your trying to hide
things. That account is an exaggeration of course, but it must have some
foundation. You told me you weren't afraid of the truth. Just be so kind
as to tell it to me, then. Exactly what sort of a fellow is Radnor? I
want to know for several reasons."
"Well, he did drink a good deal for a youngster," I admitted, "though
never to such an extent as has been reported. Of late he had stopped
entirely. As for gambling, the young men around here have got into a bad
way of playing for high stakes, but during the past month or so Rad had
pulled up in that too. He sometimes backed one of their own horses from
the Gaylord stables, but so did the Colonel; it's the regular thing in
Virginia. As for his ever having been disinherited, that is a newspaper
story, pure and simple. I never heard anything of the sort, and the
neighborhood has told me pretty much all there is to know within the
last few days."
"His father never turned him out of the house then?"
"Never that I heard of. He did leave home once because his father
insulted him, but he came back again."
"That was forgiving," commented Terry. "In general, though, I understand
that the relations between the two were rather strained?"
"At times they were," I admitted, "but things had been going rather
better for the last few days."
"Until the night before the murder. They quarreled then? And over a
matter of money?"
"Yes. Radnor makes no secret of it. He wanted his father to settle
something on him, and upon his father's refusal some words passed
between them."
"And a French clock," suggested Terry.
I acknowledged the clock and Terry pondered the question with one eye
closed meditatively.
"Had Radnor ever asked for anything of the sort before?"
"Not that I know of."
"Why did he ask then?"
"Well, it's rather galling for a man of his age to be dependent on his
father for every cent he gets. The Colonel always gave him plenty, but
he did not want to take it in that way."
"In just what way did he want to take it?" Terry inquired. "Since he was
so infernally independent why didn't he get to work and earn something?"
"Earn something!" I returned sharply. "Rad has managed the whole
plantation for the last three years. His father was getting too old for
business and if Rad hadn't taken hold, things would have gone to the
deuce long ago. All he got as a regular salary was fifty dollars a
month; I think it was time he was paid for his services."
"Oh, very well," Terry laughed. "I was merely asking the question. And
if you will allow me to go a step further, why did Colonel Gaylord
object to settling something on the boy?"
"He wanted to keep him under his thumb. The Colonel liked to rule, and
he wished everyone around him to be dependent on his will."
"I see!" said Terry. "Radnor had a real grievance, then, after all--just
one thing more on this point. Why did he choose that particular time to
make his request? You say he has had practical charge of affairs for the
past three years. Why did he not wish to be independent last year? Or
why did he not postpone the desire until next year?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"You'll have to ask Radnor that." I had my own suspicions, but I did
not wish to drag Polly Mathers's name into the discussion.
Terry watched me a moment without saying anything, and then he too
shrugged his shoulders as he turned back to the newspaper clippings.
"I won't go into the matter of Radnor's connection with the ha'nt just
now; I should like to consider first his actions on the day of the
murder. I have here a report of the testimony taken at the inquest, but
it is not so full as I could wish in some particulars. I should like to
have you give me the details. First, you say that Radnor and his father
did not speak at the breakfast table? How was it when you started?"
"They both appeared to be in pretty good spirits, but I noticed that
they avoided each other."
"Very well, tell me exactly what you did after you arrived at Luray."
"We left our horses at the hotel and walked about a mile across the
fields to the mouth of the cave. We had lunch in the woods and at about
one o'clock we started through the cave. We came out at a little after
three, and, I should say, started to drive back about half past four."
"Did you notice Radnor through the day?"
"Not particularly."
"Did you see either him or the Colonel in the cave?"
"Yes, I was with the Colonel most of the time."
"And how about Radnor? Didn't you see him at all?"
"Oh, yes. I remember talking to him once about some queerly shaped
stalagmites. He didn't hang around me, naturally, while I was with his
father."
"And when you talked to him about the stalagmites--was there anyone else
with him at the time?"
"I believe Miss Mathers was there."
"And he was carrying her coat?"
"I didn't notice."
"At least he left it later in what you call the gallery of the broken
column?"
"Yes."
"I see," said Terry glancing over the printed report of the inquest,
"that the coroner asked at this point if Radnor were in the habit of
forgetting young ladies' coats. That's more pertinent than many of the
questions he asked. How about it? Was he in the habit of forgetting
young ladies' coats?"
"I really don't know, Terry," I said somewhat testily.
"It's a pity you're not more observing," he returned, "for it's
important, on the whole. But never mind. I'll find that out for myself.
Did you notice when he left the rest of the party?"
"No, there was such a crowd of us that I didn't miss him."
"Very well, we'll have a look at his testimony. He left the rest of you
in this same gallery of the broken column, went straight out, strolled
about the woods for half an hour or so and then returned to the hotel. I
fancy 'strolled' is not precisely the right word, but at any rate it's
the word he uses. Now that half hour in the woods is an unfortunate
circumstance. Had he gone directly to the hotel from the cave, we could
have proved an alibi without any difficulty. As it is, he had plenty of
time after the others came out to remember that he had forgotten the
coat, return for it, renew the quarrel with his father, and after the
fatal result make his way to the hotel while the rest of the party were
still loitering in the woods."
"Terry--" I began.
He waved his hand in a gesture of dissent.
"Oh, I'm not saying that's what _did_ happen. I'm just showing you that
the district attorney's theory is a physical possibility. Let's glance
at the landlord's testimony a moment. When Radnor returned for his horse
he appeared angry, excited and in a hurry. Those are the landlord's
words, and they are corroborated by the stable boy and several loungers
about the hotel.
"He was in a hurry--why? Because he wished to get away before the others
came back. He had suddenly decided while he was in the woods--probably
when he heard them laughing and talking as they came out of the
cave--that he did not wish to see anyone. He was angry--mark that. All
of the witnesses agree there, and I think that his actions carry out
their evidence. He drank two glasses of brandy--by the way, I understood
you to say he had stopped drinking. He ordered the stable boy about
sharply. He swore at him for being slow. He lashed his horse quite
unnecessarily as he galloped off. He rode home at an outrageous rate.
And he was not, Solomon gives me to understand, in the habit of
maltreating horses.
"Now what do you make of all this? Here is a young man with an
unexpended lot of temper on his hands--bent on being reckless; bent on
being just as bad as he can be. It's as clear as daylight. That boy
never committed any crime. A man who had just murdered his father would
not be filled with anger, no matter what the provocation had been. He
might be overcome with horror, fear, remorse--a dozen different
emotions, but anger would not be among them. And further, a man who had
committed a crime and intended to deny it later, would not proclaim his
feelings in quite that blatant manner. Young Gaylord had not injured
anyone; he himself had been injured. He was mad through and through, and
he didn't care who knew it. He expended--you will remember--the most of
his belligerency on his horse on the way home, and you found him in the
summer house undergoing the natural reaction. By evening he had got
himself well in hand again and was probably considerably ashamed of his
conduct. He doesn't care to talk about the matter for several reasons.
Fortunately Solomon is not so scrupulous."
"I don't know what you're driving at, Terry," said I.
"Don't you?" he inquired. "Well, really, it's about time that I came
down!" He paused while he scrawled one or two sentences on his copy pad,
then he glanced up with a laugh. "I don't know myself, but I think I can
make a pretty good guess. We'll call on Miss Polly Mathers in the
morning and see if she can't help us out."
"Terry," I expostulated, "that girl knows no more about the matter than
I do. She has already given her testimony, and I positively will not
have her name mentioned in connection with the affair."
"I don't see how you can help it," was his cool reply. "If she's in,
she's in, and I'm not to blame. However, we won't quarrel about it now;
we'll pay her a call in the morning." He ran his eyes over the clippings
again, then added, "There are just two more points connecting Radnor
Gaylord with the murder that need explaining: the foot-prints in the
cave and the match box. The foot-prints I will dismiss for the present
because I have not seen them myself and I can't make any deductions from
hearsay evidence. But the question of the match box may repay a little
investigation. I want you to tell me precisely what happened in the
woods before you went into the cave. In the first place, how many older
people were there in the party?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Mathers, a lady who was visiting them and Colonel
Gaylord."
"There were two servants, I understand, besides this Mose, to help about
the lunch. What did they do?"
"Well, I don't know exactly. I wasn't paying much attention. I believe
they carried things over from the hotel, collected wood for the fire,
and then went to a farm house for water."
"But Mrs. Mathers, it seems, attended to lighting the fire?"
"Yes, she and the Colonel made the fire and started the coffee."
"Ah!" said Terry with a note of satisfaction in his voice. "The matter
begins to clear. Was Colonel Gaylord in the habit of smoking?"
"He smoked one cigar after every meal."
"Never any more than that?"
"No, the doctor had limited him. The Colonel grumbled about it
regularly, and always smoked the biggest blackest cigar he could find."
"And where did he get his matches?"
"Solomon passed the brass match box from the dining-room mantelpiece
just as he passed it to us to-night."
"Colonel Gaylord was not in the habit of carrying matches in his pockets
then?"
"No, I think not."
"We may safely assume," said Terry, "that in this matter of making the
fire, if the two were working together, the Colonel was on his knees
arranging the sticks while Mrs. Mathers was standing by, giving
directions. That, I believe, is the usual division of labor. Well, then,
they get to the point of needing a light. The Colonel feels through his
pockets, finds that he hasn't a match and--what happens?"
"What did happen," I broke in, "was that Mrs. Mathers turned to a group
of us who were standing talking at one side, and asked if any of us had
a match, and Rad handed her his box. That is the last anyone remembers
about it."
"Exactly!" said Terry. "And I think I can tell you the rest. You can see
for yourself what took place. Mrs. Mathers went back to the spot where
they were building the fire, and the Colonel took the match box from
her. No man is ever going to stand by and watch a woman strike a
match--he can do it so much better himself. At this point, Mrs.
Mathers--by her own testimony--was called away, and she doesn't
remember anything further about the box. She thinks that she returned
it. Why? For no reason on earth except that she usually returns things.
As a matter of fact, however, she didn't do it this time. She was called
away and the Colonel was left to light the fire alone. He recognized the
box as his son's and he dropped it into his pocket. At another time
perhaps he would have walked over and handed it back; but not then. The
two were not speaking to each other. Later, at the time of the struggle
in the cave, the box fell from the old man's pocket, and formed a most
damaging piece of circumstantial evidence against his son.
"On the whole," Terry finished, "I do not think we shall have a very
difficult time in clearing Radnor. I had arrived at my own conclusions
concerning him from reading the papers; what extra data I needed, I
managed to glean from Solomon's lies. And as for you," he added, gazing
across at me with an imperturbable grin, "I think you were wise in
deciding to be a corporation lawyer."