THE CORPORAL FINDS A LETTER
“DISAPPEARED!” As he echoed the corporal’s word in a hoarse voice,
Rayner looked hastily and fearfully into the shadows, and then added,
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” answered Corporal Bracknell tersely. “This is the place
where he lay. That is his blood in the snow there; and you can, see the
print of his body if you look.”
“Then--then he was not dead after all?” asked Rayner in a strange voice.
“I would not say that. I would have taken my oath that there was no
life in him. I even felt his heart!”
“But in that case, how has he got away?” inquired Rayner quickly. “Dead
men do not walk away from the place where they die.”
“No,” answered the corporal quietly. “But they may be carried. It seems
to me that there are more footmarks here than there were when I came on
Koona Dick lying in the track; but I cannot be quite sure of that, as I
did not look about very carefully.”
“Why not?” asked the other a trifle critically. “I should have thought
that would have been the very first thing that you would have done.”
“In ordinary circumstances it would,” was the reply, “but I had left my
team in the main track, and to do that overlong is not wise. One might
get separated from it, you know. Also I had already guessed that there
was a homestead not very far away, and it seemed the sensible thing to
go there first, and learn anything that I could that would help in the
elucidation of the mystery of the dead man.”
“Um! And did you learn anything?”
“More than I expected.”
“Indeed!” answered Rayner sharply. There was a new note in his voice,
and the corporal felt rather than saw that the other was staring at him
in the darkness. “May I ask what that was?”
“It was that you were acquainted with Koona Dick.”
“I have never spoken to him in my life,” replied Rayner quickly.
“But you knew him or you had heard of him. I saw you start when I
mentioned his name at table.”
His companion laughed uneasily. “You have sharper eyes than I gave you
credit for, Corporal Bracknell. It is quite true that I had heard of
Koona Dick. I heard of him in my journey up, and what I heard was not
to his credit. Your presence here implied that he was in this district,
and one had no hankering for such an unpleasant neighbour.”
“And Miss Gargrave, had she only heard of him also?”
As he asked the question the aurora flashed suddenly in the Northern
sky, and in its light reflected from the snow the corporal saw that
Rayner’s face was white and troubled. The light faded almost as
suddenly as it flamed, and with that look in his mind the policeman
waited for the answer to his question. It seemed to be an intolerable
time before Rayner spoke in a hoarse and shaking voice.
“How can I tell you? If you feel that it is absolutely necessary to
obtain an answer to that question, I can only suggest that you should
approach Miss Gargrave herself.”
In his heart Bracknell knew that this answer was a mere evasion. Rayner
knew more than he was willing to confess, and the policeman wondered
what it was, and what link there was between him and Miss Gargrave and
Koona Dick. He considered a moment, and then deliberately forced the
pace.
“I have not told you everything, Mr. Rayner. I do not know what
relation you stand to Miss Gargrave, but--”
“I am her cousin,” interrupted Rayner, “and my father is her guardian
and lawyer.”
“Is that so?” answered the corporal. “Then there is more reason why I
should tell you what I intended to do. I have not told you yet how I
came to find Koona Dick. I had turned in from the river because I smelt
burning wood. I thought that maybe the man I was after had encamped
somewhere in this immediate neighbourhood. I found the avenue leading
to North Star Lodge and began to follow it. I turned from the main
road into the wood on a fresh sled-trail which I imagined and still
imagine was Koona Dick’s. I had gone only a little way, when, as I have
already told you, I heard two rifle shots and a woman’s cry in quick
succession to each other. I ran back to the road, and after waiting a
moment I began to follow it. I had reached the point where this path
cuts into it, when happening to glance across I saw a woman coming
towards me across the snow. I halted in the shadows, meaning to speak
to her, but I caught sight of her face, and she did not see either my
team or myself.”
“You saw her face--plainly?” interrupted his listener quickly.
“Quite plainly.”
“And would you recognize it again?”
“I have already done so,” answered the corporal quietly.
“Indeed?”
“Yes, the woman was your cousin, Miss Gargrave.”
“My dear fellow,” cried Rayner, breaking into discordant laughter. “You
surely are not going to charge Joy with shooting Koona Dick?”
The corporal was not disturbed by the laughter. To his ears it sounded
forced, and the contemptuous protest in his companion’s words left him
unmoved.
“There is one little thing that I have not told you, Mr. Rayner, and to
me it seems to be significant. Miss Gargrave carried a rifle.”
“There is nothing strange or even significant in that,” replied the
other quickly. “My cousin is an ardent sportswoman, and had probably
been after game. Besides, as I told you, I think, there are timber
wolves about. They are dangerous beasts in hard weather, and one does
not go far unarmed in this district.”
Corporal Bracknell answered these suggestions by some of his own. “Miss
Gargrave was running down the path which led to this spot. To my eyes
she was plainly distraught, and I may remind you that she fainted when
I told you that Koona Dick was dead.”
Rayner laughed again hardly. “You are persistent, Corporal, but there
is nothing in a girl fainting when she is told rather dramatically that
a man has been shot dead almost at her own door. Aren’t you a little
imaginative? Indeed,” he laughed again, “having heard a rifle shot have
you not imagined all the rest? I am told that a lonely trail plays the
deuce with a man’s nerves. You say that you saw Koona Dick lying here,
dead; but he is not here--now, and he can’t--”
“I haven’t imagined that anyhow,” interrupted Bracknell, pointing to
the dark stain on the snow, “and I haven’t imagined any of the other
things I have told you, either. Believe me, Mr. Rayner, my nerves are
in perfect order.”
Rayner stamped his feet in the snow. “Possibly! But there is no need
that we should freeze, whilst we discuss the point, is there? I do not
understand police procedure, but if you have quite finished here, I
think we might return to the house. I have no desire to lose my toes
through frost-bite.”
“I can do nothing here, tonight,” replied Bracknell quickly. “I shall
have to wait until morning. I am quite ready to return.”
Rayner did not reply. Swinging on his heel, he began to move in the
direction of the lodge. The corporal followed him in silence, and
they had almost reached the main-road when something light caught his
moccasined foot. He looked down and discerned what looked like a piece
of paper. Stooping quickly, he picked it up, and crushed it in his
mitten, as his companion turned round, as if to wait for him. At first
he thought Rayner must have seen him make the find; but as the other
spoke, was reassured.
“I hope you will not disturb my cousin unnecessarily tonight, Corporal
Bracknell.”
“I shall not trouble her at all, Mr Rayner. There is no need that I
should--yet.”
“Nor at any other time, I hope.”
“I share that hope, most fervently,” answered Bracknell, with an
earnestness that the other evidently found convincing, for he did
not speak again until they were seated in the front of the stove in
the room where they had dined. Then he tried to make light of the
situation. “Corporal,” he laughed, “the laws of hospitality are sacred
in the North. Even though you feel you must drag us all down as your
prisoners, they must be honoured. We have some very old brandy here,
indeed it is incredibly old, and its quality is equal to its age. You
will take a glass with me, and another cigar?”
“I shall be delighted, thank you, Mr. Rayner.”
Rayner produced a decanter and glasses, and poured out the brandy, and
whilst the officer was lighting his cigar, Miss La Farge entered the
room.
“How is Joy?” asked Rayner quickly.
“Better, thank you. She sent me to make her excuses for tonight; and to
ask how you had sped.”
“Only fairly,” answered Rayner, with a smiling glance at the corporal.
“We did not find the dead man whom Mr. Bracknell averred he saw.”
“That is very strange,” said the girl wonderingly.
“Yes,” was the reply, “very strange, so strange indeed that I have
tried to persuade the corporal that all that he has told us is just a
snow-dream.”
“But you have not persuaded him?” asked Miss La Farge, with a quick
glance at the corporal’s face.
It was Bracknell himself who answered. “No, I have not, as yet, been
persuaded, Miss La Farge.”
“My eloquence was wasted, Babette,” laughed Rayner easily. “Corporal
Bracknell has that British stubbornness which is a nuisance to our
friends and a terror to our enemies.”
Miss La Farge laughed as she replied, “That is a characteristic of the
male persuasion.”
With a smiling nod she withdrew, closing the door behind her, and
Rayner rose from his chair and drew a curtain of moose-hide over the
door.
“Miss La Farge is a good companion for my cousin.”
“From French Canada, I suppose?” queried the corporal.
“Father was of that stock, but her mother was partly of Scotch
descent, partly native. Joy’s mother died young, and Babette’s brought
them up together. They are foster-sisters and inseparables.”
Bracknell nodded, and sipped the brandy thoughtfully, and the other
continued, “I do not know what will happen when Joy gets married.”
“Is that an early possibility?” asked the corporal, with a sudden
quickening of interest.
“I hope so,” replied Rayner, with a bland smile.
The corporal made the inference that he was meant to make. “Then you--”
“It is not quite settled yet, but I hope it will be very shortly. The
wilderness years necessitated by her father’s will are nearly over, and
I am to take her ‘out’ from here. I hope then that we shall be married,
and live in England.”
For a moment the corporal did not reply. He looked at the bland,
mask-like face before him, saw, as he had already noted, that the
steel-like blue eyes were too close together, that the lips were
sensual; and as he did so, the beautiful face of Joy Gargrave, as he
had seen it at table, rose before him, and somehow he found Rayner’s
suggestion of coming wedlock utterly distasteful. The man, as he felt
instinctively, was not a man to be trusted with a girl’s happiness. Why
he should have that feeling he could not tell; but it was there, and it
was only by an effort that he was able to reply affably.
“For Miss Gargrave, England, no doubt, is much to be preferred.”
“Much!” agreed Rayner, then added, “Having told you so much, you can
understand that I feel rather inclined to resent your suggestion that
Joy has anything to do with the mysterious affair out in the wood
there. She may have heard the name of Koona Dick as I myself have, but
that she knew him, that she shot him, is the very wildest thing for any
one to imagine. I really cannot think how you can entertain it for a
moment in face of the utter absence of motive.”
“That is a strong point certainly,” conceded Bracknell.
“That she happened to be in the neighbourhood is nothing. I was in the
neighbourhood, you were in the neighbourhood--”
“Yes,” interrupted the corporal with a smile, “that is true. But there
is no reason why I should shoot Koona Dick, and there was every reason
why I should take him prisoner.”
“You are not suggesting that there was any reason why Joy or I should
have done such a thing, I hope?”
“Far from it. I know of none, but of course in an area where crime is
committed every one is suspect until the criminal is found.”
Rayner laughed easily, and to the corporal’s quick ear there was a note
of relief in his tones as he replied, “In that case there is no need
why we should worry, however one may resent the personal implication of
such a general suspicion.”
He pushed the decanter towards the corporal, who shook his head, and
rose from his chair.
“Thank you, no more tonight, Mr. Rayner. If you will excuse me, I will
go to my sleeping quarters. I have had a very hard day, and must be up
betimes in the morning.”
“As you will,” answered Rayner, and a moment later led the way to the
bedroom which the policeman was to occupy. For the North it was a
luxurious one, but the corporal scarcely noticed it. The moment the
door had closed behind Rayner, he thrust a hand into his tunic pocket
and drew forth a crumpled piece of paper. It was the paper he had
picked up in the snow. He opened it out, and as he caught a word or two
of the writing it contained, a swift light of interest came into his
eyes.
Setting a chair in front of the stove, he seated himself, and very
carefully smoothed the paper on his knee. Then he took it up and began
to read.
“MY DEAR JOY,--
“This note will no doubt be something of a shock to you; as I imagine
you must think I am no longer in the land of the living; at any rate I
have not heard from you for a very long time, and so can only presume
that such must have been your idea. But here I am and in a sweat to
see you.
“An accident gave me the knowledge of your whereabouts, and now I
learn that you are not alone. Therefore I shall not visit the house,
in the first instance, without your invitation, but I must see you,
and in an hour’s time after your receipt of this I shall look for you
in the little path that goes towards the hill. It is a long time since
that day at Alcombe, which I am sure you will not have forgotten, and
you and I, my dear, should have much to say to each other. Do not
fail to come.
“Dick....”
When he reached the end, the corporal sat staring at the letter like
a man hypnotized. It was in pencil, written on a page torn out of a
memorandum book, and the writer had evidently been about to sign his
full name, and then had changed his mind, for the beginning of the
surname had been crossed out, and the more intimate “Dick” left to
stand alone.
“Then she did know him!” he whispered to himself. “She went out to meet
him. She--”
He did not finish his utterance, but lifted the paper the more
carefully to examine the signature. He was interested in the unfinished
surname, and spelled out the letters carefully, “B-r-a.” He repeated
them to himself several times, trying to guess the sequence that should
follow, then suddenly he started to his feet, and a startled look came
into his eyes.
“Good God!” he whispered. “If it should be so?” He stood for quite a
long time, his face the index of profound thought and concern, then he
bestowed the incriminating letter in a place of safety, and prepared
for bed. But it was long before he slept. From somewhere in the forest
came the long-drawn howl of a wolf, and in response the dogs outside
bayed in chorus, but it was his own silent thoughts, and not these
noises of the wilderness, that kept sleep from his tired eyes.