was difficult. When I had almost reached, as I estimated, the shore of
the lake, I stumbled and fell. As I regained my feet, a strange sound
which appeared to come from above and a trifle to the northwest of me
attracted my attention. It suggested the presence of some winged
creature, although it resembled rather a crackling than a beating or
flapping of pinions. It seemed to differ from the strange creaking
which I had before noted when abroad at night, and which I at once
recalled. Somewhat alarmed, I drew my revolver and cocked it. At this
moment the wind, which had been dead from the north, veered in a sharp
gust to the northwest. A rushing noise from the blackness above seemed
to be drawing near me at a high speed, and as I braced myself for some
assault, an object which I believe to have been very large, struck the
ground with great violence a few rods, as I judged, to the west of me
and came bounding over the earth in my direction. At the same time I
discerned a faintly perceptible oily odour.
“For a moment I was paralysed with alarm. I make no concealment or
palliation of the emotion. As it seemed, without volition, I then
leaped backward, and ran toward the end of the lake. Thus I avoided the
advancing object, but only to run into further danger (if danger there
was), for I heard another crackling noise of passage, and this time
dimly saw in the void a great body pass swiftly above my head. Of the
dimensions or shape of this phenomenon I can give no accurate
description; but it seemed larger and of more solid bulk than any bird
known to me as inhabiting this locality, and its movement suggested
rather a skimming progress, borne by the wind, than a measured flight.
Throwing myself upon the ground to avoid its notice, I remained until a
heavy splash told of its having reached the lake. Then I rose and ran.
“With my first exhaustion of breath came reason. I turned, and while
one hardly can answer for his own performances, I intended to return
and investigate, for shame burned hot within me. Indeed, I already had
retraced my steps for perhaps a hundred feet when there burst upon me a
rain-squall so furious that I lost my way completely and was soon
floundering in the edge of the lake. Realising my helplessness in this
onslaught of the elements, I set out for home, and after an hour’s
wandering, according to my estimate, reached Third House at ten minutes
past eleven.
“Conclusions: That the two objects were presumably a pair of living
creatures; that they were either in a state of panic flight, or were
water-creatures hastening to refuge, since at least one of them
terminated its course in the lake; that they probably were the same
creatures whose presence has been noted overhead previously by myself,
Mr. Haynes, Mr. Everard Colton and others.
“Query: What relation, if any, do they bear to the death of the sheep
on the beach and of the sailor Petersen?”
Professor Ravenden laid his manuscript on the table and looked at his
auditors. Haynes had been making notes. Colton sat in rapt attention.
Each drew a long breath as the reading closed, and the professor said:
“Gentlemen, have you any suggestions that will throw light upon these
phenomena?”
Colton spoke first. “You suggested, before, an air-craft of some kind,
perhaps in joke.”
“Partly,” agreed the professor. “But these were by no means large
enough. Air-ships, as you doubtless are aware, are of vast extent.”
“Besides, they usually don’t travel in pairs,” said Haynes. “You can
locate the spot where you saw the things, I suppose, Professor?”
“Approximately.”
“Then let’s start at once,” said the reporter, rising.
They made good speed to the lake, and examined its western shore
without making any discovery. Spreading out, they scouted carefully,
and had gone perhaps fifty yards, studying the ground for possible
signs, when Dick Colton, who was in the middle, gave a shout and began
to exhibit signs of strangulation. The others ran to him, and he turned
a suffused and twitching face toward them, pointing to an oak patch
near by.
“Excuse me,” he gasped; “but look at that!” Tangled in the patch was
the dilapidated ruin of a large kite of the Malay or tailless type.
Most of the paper had blown away, but what remained was of an oily
finish, and exhaled a slight odour. Professor Ravenden looked at it
carefully, and an expression of deep humiliation overspread his mild
face.
“I do not resent your amusement, Dr. Colton,” he said. “To you
gentlemen I must seem, as indeed I do to myself, an unworthy and
fearful disciple of science.”
“Not in the least,” said Haynes quickly. “Your experience was enough to
frighten anyone.”
“I should have run like a rabbit,” declared Colton positively. “I
laughed because it seemed such a ridiculous ending to my own
forebodings.”
“Perhaps it isn’t entirely ridiculous either,” said Haynes, who had
been examining the kite cord, slowly. “There’s something queer about
this. Where did those kites come from, and how?”
“Broke away, of course,” said Dick.
“Supposing you try to break that string. You’re a husky specimen.”
“Can’t do it,” said the doctor, after exerting his strength. “It’s the
finest kind of light braided line.”
“And it hasn’t been broken, in my opinion,” said the reporter. “Look at
those ends.”
“Cut! Clean cut!” exclaimed Colton.
“And within twenty feet of the bellyband,” added Haynes. “Now, if
someone will kindly explain to me how—”
“This kite,” said the professor, who had been studying it, “is, if I
mistake not, one of a string such as are used for aerostatic
experiments. The oiled paper is for rain-shedding purposes. It is a
subsidiary kite, used to raise the slack of the main line. Therefore
the string has not parted at the point of greatest tension.”
“And it’s as badly crumpled up,” added Colton, “as if it had collided
with a brick block.”
“Its mate ought to have drifted to the opposite shore of the lake,”
said Haynes. “I’ll go look.” Presently he returned with the second
kite. It was twin in size and type to the first. The skeleton was
intact, though the paper showed signs of its rough trip across the
ground before it reached the lake.
“About sixty feet of string left on this one,” said the reporter. “Cut
clean, just like the other.” He laughed nervously. “Begins to look
pretty interesting, doesn’t it?”
“How many kites do you think there were in the string?” Colton asked
the professor.
“Seven is by no means an unusual number in experiments of this nature.”
“Then where are the rest?”
“If the main line was severed they may well have been carried out over
the ocean. Particularly this would be true if these were the two lowest
subsidiary kites.”
“Hello! What’s this?” said Colton, looking up. Over the breast of the
hill toward the Sound strolled a man. He wore the characteristic garb
of the Montauk fishermen, and evidently was from the little colony on
the north shore.
Haynes walked forward to meet him, “G’-morning,” he said pleasantly.
“Did you happen to see anything of a gentleman in a black suit an’
eye-glasses, wanderin’ absentmindedly about this part of the world?”
“No,” said Haynes. “Have you lost such a one?”
“Reckon he’s lost himself, Hain’t showed up since last evenin’. Just
the kind o’ man to lose himself in open country. Sort o’ crank, always
makin’ exper’ments.”
“What kind of experiments?”
“Foolish doin’s with kites, like a kid.”
“Is he staying with you?”
“Boardin’. Been there a week. Says he’s study-in’ air currents. Goes
out in the evenin’s an’ puts up a lot o’ kites. I’ve seen him with as
many as seven onto one string. He’s mighty smart at it.”
“What time did he start out yesterday evening?” asked Haynes.
“Long about ha’-past seven. Looked for him back when the wind dropped
and come again so uneasy, just before that shower. But no Mr. Ely.”
“Is that one of his kites?” asked the reporter, pointing to the broken
rhomboid which he had laid in the long grass.
“Certain, sure!” said the fisherman. “Where’d you find it?”
“It came down near here. So did one of the others.”
“That so?” said the fisherman, seeming somewhat concerned. “Hope he
ain’t come to no harm.” While they were talking Professor Ravenden had
been making a rapid calculation on a pad.
“I believe that I can lead you approximately to the point whence these
kites were flown,” he said. “Will you follow me?”
For more than a mile the small and slight professor set them an
astonishing pace. Presently he stopped short and picked up the end of a
string at the foot of a small hillock.
“This also seems to have been cut,” he said, and followed its course.
Beyond the knoll was a hollow, and on the slope of this a small
windlass.
“That’s his’n!” cried the fisherman. “But where’s he?”
Haynes walked over to a small oak patch beyond. For several yards in
from the edge the shrubbery showed, by its bent twigs, the passage of a
large body. Patches of cloth on the twigs told that a man had torn
through in hot haste. On the soil underneath were footprints. But at
the end of the path and the footprints was nothing.
“Look here!” Haynes exclaimed. “He rushed in here to escape something.
Here’s where the trail ends. You can see-”
“My God! Come quick!”
It was the fisherman on the other side of the oak patch. They ran
around and found him bending over a body almost hidden in the edge of
the thicket, where the scrub was low.
“That’s Mr. Ely!” he cried. “He’s been murdered!”
The head was crushed in as by a terrific blow. Near the right shoulder
the arm-bone protruded from the flesh. Colton lifted the corpse, and
there through the breast was the same kind of gash that had slain
Petersen.
“It’s that cursed juggler,” said Haynes bitterly. “Why did we let him
get away?”
“This man has been dead for several hours,” said the young doctor in a
low tone.
“As long ago as ten o’clock last night?” asked Haynes.
“Very probably.”
“What killed him; the crashing of the skull or the stab-wound?”
“Whichever came first.”
“Assuming the correctness of your hypothesis that this unhappy man
rushed into the oak patch from the other side, Mr. Haynes, how is the
fact that we find his body here, several rods distant from the apparent
end of his flight, to be explained?” asked the professor.
“On the ground that he rushed out again,” replied the reporter dryly.
“Then you discerned returning footprints?”
“No; there was none there, so far as I could see.”
“And there is none here,” said Colton, who had been examining the
grassless soil under the thick canopy. “But see how the thicket is
broken, almost as if he had flung himself upon it. Haynes! What’s
wrong?”
Without any warning the reporter had thrown up his hands and fallen at
full length into the oak. They rushed to his aid, but he was up at
once.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, smiling. “I’m all right. Just an
experiment. I shall go over with this man to make some inquiries at the
fishing colony and arrange for the disposal of the body. It may take me
all day. In that case, I’ll see you this evening.”
He took the fisherman by the arm. The man seemed dazed with horror, and
went along with hanging jaw. Colton and Professor Ravenden returned to
Third House, in pondering silence.
At the house Dick found himself suffering from a return of his old
restlessness. In the afternoon he saw Miss Ravenden, but she evaded
even the necessity of speaking to him. With a vague hope of diverting
his mind and perhaps of finding some fresh clue, he returned to the
lake, and studied the land not only near the spot where the kites had
fallen, but between there and the sea-cliff, without finding anything
to lighten the mystery.
At nine o’clock Haynes came in, pale and tired, and stopped at Dick’s
room.
“They have arranged to ship Mr. Ely’s body back to Connecticut where he
lived,” he said. “The fishermen are in a state of almost superstitious
terror.”
“Anything new?”
“Yes and no. It’s too indefinite to talk about. What little there is
only tends to make the whole question more fantastic and less
possible.”
Colton looked at him. “You need sleep, and you need it badly,” he said.
“Any pain?”
“Oh, the usual. A little more, perhaps.”
“Take this,” said the other, giving him a powder. “That’ll fix you. I
wish it would me; I feel tonight as if sleep had become a lost art.”
Nodding his thanks, the reporter left. Dick threw himself on his bed;
but the strange events of the few days at Montauk crowded his brain and
fevered it with empty conjectures. When finally he closed his eyes
there returned upon him the nauseating procession of medicine bottles.
Then came a bloody sheep, which fled screaming from some impending
horror. The sheep became a man frantically struggling in an oak patch,
and the man became Dick himself. Almost he could discern the horror;
almost the secret was solved. Blackness descended upon him. He threw
himself upward with a shriek—and was awake again. When at length he lay
back, the visions were gone; a soft drowsiness overcame him, and at the
end the deep eyes of Dorothy Ravenden blessed him with peace.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BODY ON THE SAND
FOUR days had passed since the schooner came ashore on Graveyard Point.
It now was the twentieth of September. The little community in Third
House, which had bade fair to be such a happy family, was in rather a
split-up state. After their tilt of the day before, Dolly Ravenden and
Dick Colton were in a condition of armed neutrality. Dolly was ashamed
that her guardian imp had led her to so misrepresent herself to Dick,
ashamed too of the warm glow at her heart because he cared so deeply.
Thus a double manifestation of her woman’s pride kept her from making
amends.
Dick was longing to abase himself, but wisely took Helga’s advice,
which he wholly failed to understand. Helga’s beautiful voice rang like
an invocation to happiness through the house, but Everard Colton sat in
gloom and reviled himself because he had promised Dick to stay several
days longer. Haynes was irritable because the puzzle was getting on his
nerves. Professor Ravenden brooded over the loss of a fine specimen of
_Lycona_ which had proved too agile for him, after a stern chase which
developed into a long chase early that morning. Breakfast was not a
lively meal.
The morning was thick. A still mist hung over the knolls. It was an
ideal day for quiet and secret reconnoissance.
“This is our chance,” said Haynes after breakfast to Dick Colton and
Professor Ravenden. “We’ll get the horses and ride out across the
point. We may happen on something.”
The others readily agreed, and soon they had disappeared in the
greyness. Their tacit purpose was to find some trace of the Wonderful
Whalley. All the morning they rode, keeping a keen outlook from every
hilltop, but without avail. They lunched late at First House and
started back well along in the afternoon.
“He may be in any one of those thousand scrub-oak patches,” said Haynes
as they remounted. “It’s like hunting a crook on the Bowery. This fog
is thickening. Let’s hustle along.”
To hustle along was not so easy, for presently a fine rain came driving
down, involving the whole world in a grey blur. For an hour the three
circled about, lost. From the professor came the first suggestion:
“I believe that I hear the surf,” said he. “Guiding our course by the
sound, we may gain the cliff, by following the line of which we easily
should reach our destination.”
“Bravo, Professor!” said Haynes, and they made for the sea.
As they reached the crest of the sand-cliff some eighty feet above the
beach, the rain ceased, a brisk puff of wind blew away the mist, and
they found themselves a quarter of a mile west of Graveyard Point.
A short distance toward the point a steep gully debouched upon the
shore, and a few rods out from its mouth the riders saw the body of a
man stretched on the hard sand.
The face was hidden. Something in the huddled posture struck the eye
with a shock as of violence. With every reason for assuming, at first
sight, the body to have been washed up, they immediately felt that the
man had not met death by the waves. Where they stood, the cliff fell
too precipitously to admit of descent; but the ravine farther on
offered easy access. Half-falling, half-slipping, they made their way
down the abrupt declivity to the gully’s opening, which was partly
blocked by a great boulder, and came upon a soft and pebbly beach,
beyond which the hard clean level of sand stretched to the receding
waves. As they reached the open a man appeared around the point to the
eastward, sighted the body, and broke into a run. Haynes recognised him
as Bruce, the Bow Hill station patrol, who had been on the cliff the
night of the wreck. Dick Colton also started forward, but Haynes called
to him:
“Hold on, Colton. Don’t go out on the sand for a moment.”
“Why not,” he asked in surprise.
“No use marking it all up with footsteps.”
At this moment the coast-guard hailed them. “How long has that been
there?”
“We’ve just found it,” said Colton.
“I’m on patrol duty from the Bow Hill station,” said the other. “Oh,
it’s you, Mr. Haynes,” he added, recognising the reporter.
“These gentlemen are guests at Third House, Bruce,” said Haynes.
“Here’s fresh evidence in our mystery, I fear.”
“Looks so,” said the patrol. “Let’s have a closer look.” He walked
toward the body, which lay with the head toward the waves. Suddenly he
stood still, shaking.
“Good God! it’s Paul Serdholm!” he cried. Then he sprang forward with a
great cry: “He’s been murdered!”
“Oh, surely not murdered!” expostulated Professor Ravenden. “He’s been
drowned and——”
“Drowned?” cried the man in a heat of contempt. “And how about that
gash in the back of his neck? It’s his day on patrol from the Sand Spit
station, and this is where the Bow Hill and Sand Spit lines meet. Three
hours ago I saw him on the cliff yonder. Since then he’s come and gone
betwixt here and his station. And——” he gulped suddenly and turned upon
the others so sharply that the professor jumped—“what’s he met with?”
“Perhaps the surf dashing him on a rock made the wound,” suggested
Haynes.
“No, sir!” declared the guard with emphasis. “The tide ain’t this high
in a month. It’s murder, that’s what it is—bloody murder!” and he bent
over the dead man with twitching shoulders.
“He’s right,” said Colton, who had been examining the corpse hastily.
“This is no drowning case, The man was stabbed and died instantly.”
“Was the unfortunate a friend of yours?” asked Professor Ravenden
benevolently of the coastguard.
“No, nor of nobody’s, was Paul Serdholm. No later than yesterday he
picked a fight with me, and——” he broke off and looked blankly at the
three men.
“How long would you say he had been dead?” asked Haynes of Colton.
“A very few minutes.”
“Then we may catch the murderer!” cried the reporter energetically.
“Professor Ravenden, I know I can count on you. Colton, will you take
orders?”
“You’re the captain,” was the quiet reply.
“Then get to the cliff top and scatter, you three. The murderer must
have escaped that way. You can see most of the gully from there. Not
that way. Make a detour. I don’t want any of our footprints on the sand
between here and the cliff.”
The patrol hesitated.
“Bruce, I’ve had twenty years’ experience in murder cases,” said Haynes
quickly. “I’ll be responsible. If you will do as I direct for the next
few minutes we should clear this thing up.”
“Right, sir,” said the man.
“Come back here in fifteen minutes, then, if you haven’t found
anything. Professor Ravenden, I will meet you at the Sand Spit station
in half an hour. You the same, Dr. Colton.”
As the three started away, Haynes moved up to Colton and said in a low
tone: “The same wound?” Dick nodded. “Without a shadow of doubt. It’s
Whalley of course. What will you do?”
“Stay here and collect the evidence we shall need.”
No sooner had the searchers disappeared up the gully than Haynes set
himself whole-heartedly to the work he loved. His nerves were tense
with the certainty that the answer was writ large for him to read.
Indeed, it should have been almost ridiculously simple. On three sides
was the beach, extending eastward and westward along the cliff and
southward to the water-line. Inland from where he stood over the body,
the hard sand stretched northward, terminating in the rubble at the
gully’s mouth. In this mass of rubble, footprints would be
indeterminable. Anywhere else they would stand out like the mark on a
coin.
On their way forward to meet the patrolman the party from Third House
had passed along the pebble beach and stepped out on the hard sand at a
point east of the body, making a circuitous route. Haynes had contrived
this, and as he approached he noted that there were no trail marks on
that side. Toward the ocean there was nothing except numerous faint
bird tracks, extending almost to the water. Now, taking off his shoes,
Haynes followed the spoor of the dead man. Plain as a poster it stood
out, to the westward. For a hundred yards he trailed it. There was no
parallel track. To make doubly certain that the slayer had not crept
upon Serdholm from that direction, Haynes examined the prints for
evidences of superimposed steps. None was there. Three sides, then,
were eliminated. As inference at first had suggested, the killing was
done from the cliff side.
Haynes’ first hasty glance at the sand between the body and the
ravine’s opening had shown him nothing. Here, however, must be the
telltale evidence. Striking off from the dead man’s line of approach,
he walked out upon the hard surface. The sand was deeply indented
beyond the body, where his three companions had hurried across to the
cliff. But no other shoe had broken its evenness.
Not until he was almost on a line between the body and the mouth of the
gully did he find a clue. Clearly imprinted on the clean level was the
outline of a huge claw. There were the five talons and the nub of the
foot. A little forward and to one side was a similar mark, except that
it was slanted differently.
Step by step, with starting eyes and shuddering mind, Haynes followed
the trail. Then he became aware of a second, confusing the first, the
track of the same creature. At first the second track was distinct,
then it merged with the first, only to diverge again. The talons were
turned in the direction opposite to the first spoor. From the body of
Serdholm to the soft sand stretched the unbroken lines. Nowhere else
within a radius of many yards was there any other indication. The sand
lay blank as a white sheet of paper; as blank as the observer’s mind,
which struggled with one stupefying thought: that between the body of
the dead life-saver and the refuge of the cliff no creature had passed
except one that stalked on monstrous, taloned feet.
Sitting down upon the beach, Haynes reasoned with himself aloud: “This
thing,” he said, “cannot be so. You ought not to have sent the others
away. Someone in full command of his eyesight and faculties should be
here.”
Then, the detective instinct holding faithful, he hastily gathered some
flat rocks and covered the nearest tracks, in case of rain. A field
sparrow hopped out on the rubble and watched him.
“To-morrow,” said Haynes to the sparrow, “I’ll pick up those rocks and
find nothing under them. Then I’ll know that this was a phantasm. I
wonder if you’re an illusion.”
Selecting the smallest stone, he threw it at the sparrow. With a shriek
of insulted surprise the bird flew away. Haynes produced a pencil, with
which he drew, upon the back of an envelope, a rough but pretty
accurate map of the surroundings. He was putting on his shoes when
Bruce came out of the gully.
“See anything?” called Haynes.
“Nothing moving to the northward,” replied Bruce, approaching. “Have
you found anything?”
“Not that you could call definite. Don’t cross the sand there. Keep
along down. We’ll go to Sand Spit and report this.”
But the man was staring beyond the little column of rock shelters.
“What’s that thing?” he said, pointing to the nearest unsheltered
print. “My God! It looks like a bird track. And it leads straight to
the body!” he cried in a voice that jangled on Haynes’ nerves. But when
he began to look fearfully overhead, into the gathering darkness,
drawing in his shoulders like one shrinking from a blow, that was too
much.
Haynes jumped up, grabbed him by the arm and started him along.
“Don’t be a fool!” he said. “Keep this to yourself. I won’t have a lot
of idiots prowling around those tracks. Understand? You’re to report
this murder, and say nothing about what you don’t know. Later we’ll
take it up again.”