A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
FEELING like a man in a dream, the corporal took his seat at the table,
and when the soup was served by an Indian youth, he was too much amazed
to attempt conversation. Miss Gargrave looked at him and casually
asked, “You have never been to North Star before, Mr. Bracknell?”
“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “I am new to this district. I was
transferred from Edmonton four months ago.”
“Then you did not know of our existence?”
The corporal smiled. “I had heard something of it; but the truth is I
had forgotten all about it.”
The girl nodded. “I can understand that. We are so far out of the track
of things that it is easy for the world to forget us.”
Bracknell would have liked to ask why such as she should continue to
live in the wilderness; but he repressed his curiosity, and looking
round smiled again.
“Your solitude is not without its amenities. I did not think there was
such a room as this anywhere in the north. It reminds one of home!”
“You are English, of course?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “I come from Kendal, in Westmorland.”
“Kendal?” There was an accent of surprise in her voice.
“You know Kendal?” he inquired quickly.
“Yes,” she answered. “I have stayed in the neighbourhood. Are you any
relation of Sir James Bracknell of Harrowfell?”
“My uncle and guardian,” he smilingly replied.
Joy Gargrave looked at him thoughtfully. “I have met your uncle,” she
said slowly. “I should scarcely have looked for his nephew in the
Mounted Police.”
“Why not?” he demanded, with a laugh. “The Force is a packet of
surprises. My sergeant at Edmonton was the heir to an Irish peerage,
and I know a trooper down at Alberta who is the second son of a
marquis.”
“But Sir James!” she murmured. “He did not seem to me the sort of man
who would approve--”
“He does not know,” interrupted the corporal.
“It is very likely that he would not approve if he did. But that does
not greatly matter; as before I came out here we quarrelled, and the
relations between us are likely to continue strained.”
“Is it permissible to ask the cause of this quarrel?” inquired the man
on the other side of the table, whose name the corporal had not yet
learned.
Bracknell frowned at the directness of the question and was about to
administer a snub, when he caught Miss Gargrave’s eyes fixed upon him
expectantly. He laughed shortly as he replied, “Well, Mr.--ar--”
“Rayner is my name,” said the other. “I forgot I had not introduced
myself.”
The corporal nodded. “I was about to say, Mr. Rayner, that it is a
private matter; but there can be no harm in saying that my uncle had a
matrimonial scheme for me of which I did not approve, so here I am.”
He laughed to hide his embarrassment of which he was conscious, and
looked at Miss Gargrave to whom the explanation had really been
offered. There was a thoughtful look upon her face.
“Sir James is rather dictatorial,” she said, and then turned the
conversation. “Do you like the service?”
“Yes,” was the reply, given wholeheartedly. “It is a man’s work,
and the open-air life, with all the many hazards of the North, is
infinitely preferable to stewing in chambers waiting for briefs; or
devilling the K.C. who wants to keep all the crumbs on his own table.”
The girl nodded. “I can understand that,” she commented, and for a
moment she sat there crumbling her bread.
The thoughtful look on her face was accentuated. Remembering what he
had seen there when she had passed him in the road, the corporal found
himself wondering if there was any connection between the two. Then
Miss Gargrave spoke again.
“I suppose you are in this neighbourhood on professional business?”
“Yes,” he answered readily enough. “I have been following a man for a
month and have trailed him something like four hundred miles.”
“That is a long journey in winter,” said the girl a trifle absently.
Corporal Bracknell smiled. “Nothing to boast of. There have been many
longer trails in the Territory by our men. Did you ever hear how
Constable Pedley took the lunatic missionary from Fort Chipewayn to
Saskatchewan down the Athabasca River in the very depth of winter?”
“Yes,” answered the girl. “That was an epic. The constable lost his own
reason in the end, didn’t he?”
Bracknell nodded. “Yes, but he’s better again now; though naturally
that experience has set its mark on him. And if I had got my man my
return journey would have been much harder than the journey up, as I
should have had to look after him; and sleep with one eye open all the
time.”
“You speak as if you had lost your man,” said Rayner. “Is that so?”
“Yes, I have lost him finally,” answered the corporal slowly.
“Who was he? What had he done? Was he a very desperate character?”
inquired Miss Gargrave, and to the corporal as he turned to her it
seemed as if there was a look of troubled expectancy in her face.
“He was an Englishman,” answered Bracknell quietly, his eyes fixed on
the beautiful face. “I do not know that he was a particularly desperate
character, but he certainly was not scrupulous, and he was suspected of
selling whiskey to the Indians in the reservation, which is a serious
offence in the Territory.”
“What name?” asked Miss La Farge.
“His proper name I do not know, but he has been known through the North
as Koona Dick!”
As he gave the name he saw Joy Gargrave’s face grow white, and the
trouble in her eyes was plain. Also, with the tail of his eye, he
saw Mr. Rayner start violently, and guessed that both he and his
hostess were not unacquainted with the man who lay out there in the
snow under the shadow of the pines. For a moment after his reply
there was a strained uneasy silence. The corporal removed his eyes
from his hostess’s face and glanced round the table. Mr. Rayner was
fingering the stem of a wine-glass nervously, whilst Miss La Farge was
looking from him to Miss Gargrave with puzzled eyes. Evidently she was
conscious that something unusual was taking place, but the corporal was
sure that to her the name he had just spoken was without any special
significance. That it was known to the other two people present he was
certain, and he waited to see what would follow. The sense of strain
grew more pronounced, then Mr. Rayner shuffled uneasily and broke the
silence.
“I notice, Corporal Bracknell, that you speak of this--er--fellow in
the past tense, and you say that he has escaped you finally. Do you
mean to say that he is--a--dead?”
“He is lying in the snow in a path cut through the trees off the main
road to the Lodge,” answered the corporal steadily, “and he has been
shot, I think.”
“Good God!” ejaculated Mr. Rayner, in a voice that, whilst it expressed
astonishment, seemed to the corporal to be a little flat. “And we have
been sitting here, gassing, whilst--” He broke off abruptly. “Joy,”
he cried addressing Miss Gargrave, “you are ill. The shock of this
story--”
“It is nothing,” interrupted the girl in a shaking voice. “I--I--feel a
little faint. If you will excuse me--” She rose to her feet, staggered
a little, and then, as Miss La Farge ran to her, fainted outright. For
a moment Corporal Bracknell did not speak, though a look of utmost
concern came upon his face. The situation seemed to him to be thronged
with dreadful possibilities. Remembering the look on the girl’s face
when he had encountered her in the forest road, and the rifle in her
hand, he found in this faint further support for the suspicion which
had occurred to him when he had stood by the supine body of Koona
Dick. Living in the wilds, it was scarcely likely that the news of
a dead man would affect her thus, if that news were without special
significance for her. Death in the Northland--death sharp and sudden
was not so uncommon as all that. Moving accidents by flood and field,
by wild beasts and wild men, were part of the general circumstances
of wilderness life; why, therefore, should the girl be thus affected
by the news that he had uttered? Whilst Mr. Rayner assisted Miss La
Farge to carry their hostess out of the room, he stood there, his mind
occupied by this momentous question. The answer was one which took the
form of a further question and which filled him with concern. Had she
killed Koona Dick, with whom, as he was sure, she was acquainted?
Again he saw the beautiful face, the picture of terror and the eyes
in their unseeing stare of horror, and wondered what was the meaning
of it all. Had the girl seen the body of Koona Dick lying there in
the shadow of the pines with his blood staining the snow, and was she
merely frightened; or was her knowledge of a more intimate and guilty
character? He could not decide, and whilst he was still wondering, the
door of the room opened and Rayner entered. His face now was mask-like,
and his voice was suave and even as he addressed the officer.
“I am afraid your story has been a shock to Miss Gargarve, who has not
been very well all day. You will have to excuse her for this evening;
but that is no reason why you should not finish your dinner, after
which we might go out and look at this dead man. I suppose he will have
to have sepulchre?”
“Even the worst of us should have that,” answered the corporal quietly,
then added, “Miss Gargrave--she is better?”
“Yes, it was only a faint. I expect she found it rather shocking to
think that whilst we were sat here, that man was lying dead in the snow
outside.”
“I can understand that,” answered the other in a non-committal voice.
Mr. Rayner nodded. “Feminine nerves are unstable things.” A second
later he asked, “Did I understand you to say that this man whom you
were following was shot?”
“That is only a guess of mine,” was the reply. “I found him lying there
in the snow, and only a few minutes before I distinctly heard a rifle
fire twice.”
“But,” objected Mr. Rayner, “it does not follow that the shots you
heard were directed against this man Koona Dick? I myself fired at
a timber-wolf on the outskirts of the homestead just a little while
before your arrival.”
“Did you fire twice?” asked Corporal Bracknell quickly.
“N--no! Once!”
There was a little hesitation before the reply was given. It was but
the fraction of a second, but the policeman marked it, and suspected
that the other had been a little uncertain as to what he ought to
answer.
“But I heard two shots--one on the heels of the other,” answered
Bracknell.
“One may have been the echo,” suggested Rayner. “Up here when it is
still, sounds are easily duplicated.”
“No, it was not an echo,” asserted the corporal. “I am quite sure of
that. I have lived in the wilds too long to be deceived in a small
matter of that sort. The second shot was as real as the first. And
there is another thing I ought to tell you, Mr. Raynor. Immediately
after the second shot I heard a woman cry out.”
Mr. Rayner looked interested. “Are you quite sure it was a woman?” he
asked. “It may have been the death-cry of this man--er--Koona Dick,
which you heard.”
“That is just possible,” agreed the corporal. “Yet it seemed to me like
the cry of a woman in terror.”
“It is easy even for trained ears to be mistaken up here,” said the
other suavely. “Since I came here I have heard a hare scream like a
child in agony. The cry you heard may have been no more than that of
some small creature falling a victim to the law of the wild, which is
that the strongest takes the prey.”
“Maybe!” said Bracknell laconically. In his heart he did not accept the
explanation, plausible though it was.
“I am sure of it,” answered the other, as if determined to convince
him. “In the silence of these northern forests, as I have noticed
often of late, sounds seem to take strange qualities. The loneliness
accentuates them, and if one has any reason for suspecting the presence
of other humans besides one’s self, then every sound one hears seems to
have some bearing on the unseen presences.”
“Perhaps,” replied the policeman, wondering why the other should be so
persistent in the matter; “but you forget one thing which is rather
fatal to your argument.”
“And what is that?” inquired Rayner quickly.
“Well, I was not expecting to find a woman up in this wilderness;
indeed, it was the last thought in my mind. That fact makes your
argument fail, at any rate as applied to the cry I heard.”
To this Mr. Rayner made no reply. He pushed a wine decanter towards the
other, and rising from the table crossed the room to a cabinet, from
which he took out a box of cigars.
“We will have a smoke, before going to look at this dead man.”
Corporal Bracknell accepted the cigar, which was of choice brand, and
when he had lit it he looked at the other--and said thoughtfully. “I
have been wondering why Miss Gargrave lives up here in the wilds?”
Rayner laughed a little. “I am not surprised at that. Everybody
wonders. But the fact is that she has no real choice in the matter. As
I dare say you will have heard, Rolf Gargrave was immensely rich, and
he made his daughter his heiress, but on the condition that for three
years after his death she should live at North Star Lodge. That is the
explanation!”
“But why on earth should he make a condition of that sort--- for a
girl?”
“He was a crank!” replied Rayner contemptuously. “He was not an admirer
of what is called modern civilization--indeed, he detested it most
heartily and whilst he sent his daughter to England to be educated,
he desired to protect her against society influences; and he believed
that a few years in the North here, in touch with primitive life, would
give her a distaste for the shams and artificialities of great cities.
Also--I believe he was a little afraid of fortune-hunters and wanted
Joy’s mind to mature before she met the breed.”
Bracknell nodded his understanding of the situation, and then remarked.
“The place is not without its points--but to my thinking it has grave
dangers also. When Miss Gargrave returns to civilization, the reaction
from the hard life and the solitude of the North is likely to be so
great that in the whirl she may be carried off her feet.”
“Yes, Rolf Gargrave does not appear to have thought of that. But there
are others who have it in mind.” The corporal looked thoughtfully at
his companion, and wondered what relation he stood to their hostess. It
was a question that could not be asked openly, but remembering how once
or twice the girl’s Christian name had slipped into Rayner’s speech he
guessed that whatever the relationship was, it was a fairly intimate
one. He was still wondering when his companion rose.
“If you are ready, Corporal Bracknell, we will go and look at--a--Koona
Dick.”
The corporal rose with alacrity, and five minutes later, clad in
outdoor furs, they were moving briskly down the road cut between the
pines. As they walked, the policeman looked about him with keen eyes,
and when they reached the point where the narrower path that he had
followed branched off, noticed what had escaped him before, namely that
the path was evidently continued on the other side of the road also.
Rayner did not hesitate between the two. He made a straight line for
the path which led to the place where Koona Dick had fallen. As they
turned into it, the thought that he might be wrong appeared to strike
him, and he halted abruptly.
“This path, wasn’t it? The left going towards the house, I think you
said, didn’t you?”
“Yes, the left!” answered Corporal Bracknell quietly, but as he walked
by the other’s side the question leaped in his mind. “Did I mention
the left?” He could not remember. He doubted, and his doubts were
strengthened by the fact that till a moment before he had not known
that the path was continued across the main road. Thinking there was
only one path, there was no reason why he should have mentioned the
position of it. Yet the man by his side had known which path to take!
As he walked on, he gave no sign, but a question leaped up in his mind.
“How did Rayner know?”
Then simultaneously he and his companion came to an abrupt halt. At
their feet in the snow was a dark blot. The corporal looked hastily
round, then felt for his matches and struck one. As the wood caught,
he stooped and examined the ground near the dark blot, where was the
impress of a heavy body in the snow, and footmarks all round it. He
stared at the trampled snow in amazement, then he examined the snow in
the shadow of the trees. Its surface in the immediate neighbourhood was
unbroken, save by the print of a single pair of moccasined feet, and
those footmarks moved towards the place where Koona Dick had lain, and
not away from it. He looked among the underwood in the neighbourhood
of the path. The search in the darkness revealed nothing, nowhere was
there any sign of the man whom they had come to look for.
“What is it?” asked Rayner in an odd voice. “What has happened?”
“A strange thing has happened,” said the corporal laconically. “The
body we came to look for has disappeared.”