THAT, as James Moore had predicted, was the first only of a long
succession of such solitary crimes.
Those who have not lived in a desolate country like that about the
Muir Pike, where sheep are paramount and every other man engaged in the
profession pastoral, can barely imagine the sensation aroused. In market
place, tavern, or cottage, the subject of conversation was always the
latest sheep-murder and the yet-undetected criminal.
Sometimes there would be a lull, and the shepherds would begin to
breathe more freely. Then there would come a stormy night, when the
heavens were veiled in the cloak of crime, and the wind moaned fitfully
over meres and marches, and another victim would be added to the
lengthening list.
It was always such black nights, nights of wind and weather, when no man
would be abroad, that the murderer chose for his bloody work; and that
was how he became known from the Red Screes to the Muir Pike as the
Black Killer. In the Daleland they still call a wild, wet night “A Black
Killer's night:” for they say: “His ghaist'll be oot the night.”
There was hardly a farm in the countryside but was marked with the seal
of blood. Kenmuir escaped, and the Grange; Rob Saunderson at the Holt,
and Tupper at Swinsthwaite; and they were about the only lucky ones.
As for Kenmuir, Tammas declared with a certain grim pride: “He knows
better'n to coom wheer Th' Owd Un be.” Whereat M'Adam was taken with a
fit of internal spasms, rubbing his knees and cackling insanely for a
half-hour afterward. And as for the luck of the Grange--well, there was
a reason for that too, so the Dalesmen said.
Though the area of crime stretched from the Black Water to
Grammoch-town, twenty-odd miles, there was never a sign of the
perpetrator. The Killer did his bloody work with a thoroughness and a
devilish cunning that defied detection.
It was plain that each murder might be set down to the same agency. Each
was stamped with the same unmistakable sign-manual: one sheep killed,
its throat torn into red ribands, and the others untouched.
It was at the instigation of Parson Leggy that the squire imported a
bloodhound to track the Killer to his doom. Set on at a fresh killed
carcase at the One Tree Knowe, he carried the line a distance in the
direction of the Muir Pike; then was thrown out by a little bustling
beck, and never acknowledged the scent again. Afterward he became
unmanageable, and could be no further utilized. Then there was talk of
inducing Tommy Dobson and his pack to come over from Eskdale, but
that came to nothing. The Master of the Border Hunt lent a couple of
foxhounds, who effected nothing; and there were a hundred other attempts
and as many failures. Jim Mason set a cunning trap or two and caught his
own bob-tailed tortoise-shell and a terrible wigging from his missus;
Ned Hoppin sat up with a gun two nights over a new slain victim and
Londesley of the Home Farm poisoned a carcase. But the Killer never
returned to the kill, and went about in the midst of the all, carrying
on his infamous traffic and laughing up his sleeve.
In the meanwhile the Dalesmen raged and swore vengeance; their
impotence, their unsuccess, and their losses heating their wrath to
madness. And the bitterest sting of it all lay in this; that though they
could not detect him, they were nigh to positive as to the culprit.
Many a time was the Black Killer named in low-voiced conclave; many a
time did Long Kirby, as he stood in the Border Ram and watched M'Adam
and the Terror walking down the High, nudge Jim Mason and whisper:
“Theer's the Killer--oneasy be his grave!” To which practical Jim always
made the same retort:
“Ay, theer's the Killer; but wheer's the proof?”
And therein lay the crux. There was scarcely a man in the countryside
who doubted the guilt of the Tailless Tyke; but, as Jim said, where
was the proof? They could but point to his well-won nickname; his evil
notoriety; say that, magnificent sheep-dog as he was, he was known even
in his work as a rough handler of stock; and lastly remark significantly
that the grange was one of the few farms that had so far escaped
unscathed. For with the belief that the Black Killer was a sheep-dog
they held it as an article of faith that he would in honour spare his
master's flock.
There may, indeed, have been prejudice in their judgement. For each has
his private grudge against the Terror; and nigh every man bore on his
own person, or his clothes, or on the body of his dog, the mark of that
huge savage.
Proof?
“Why, he near killed ma Lassie!” cries Londesley.
“And he did kill the Wexer!”
“And Wan Tromp!”
“And see pore old Wenus!” says John Swan, and pulls out that fair
Amazon, battered almost past recognition, but a warrioress still.
“That's Red Wull--bloody be his end!”
“And he laid ma Rasper by for nigh three weeks!” continues Tupper,
pointing to the yet-unhealed scars on the neck of the big bobtail. “See
thisey--his work.”
“And look here!” cries Saunderson, exposing a ragged wound in Shep's
throat; “thot's the Terror--black be his fa'!”
“Ay,” says Long Kirby with an oath; “the tykes love him nigh as much as
we do.”
“Yes,” says Tammas. “Yo' jest watch!”
The old man slips out of the tap-room; and in another moment from the
road without comes a heavy, regular pat-pat-pat, as of some big creature
approaching, and, blending with the sound, little shuffling footsteps.
In an instant every dog in the room has risen to his feet and stands
staring at the door with sullen, glowing eyes; lips wrinkling, bristles
rising, throats rumbling.
An unsteady hand fumbles at the door; a reedy voice calls, “Wullie, come
here!” and the dogs move away, surly to either side of the fireplace,
tails down, ears back, grumbling still; the picture of cowed passion.
Then the door opens; Tammas enters, grinning; and each, after a moment's
scrutiny, resumes his former position before the fire.
* * * * *
Meanwhile over M'Adam, seemingly all unsuspicious of these suspicions,
a change had come. Whether it was that for the time he heard less of the
best sheep-dog in the North, or for some more occult reason, certain it
is that he became his old self. His tongue wagged as gayly and bitterly
as ever, and hardly a night passed but he infuriated Tammas almost to
blows with his innuendoes and insidious sarcasms.
Old Jonas Maddox, one evening at the Sylvester Arms, inquired of him
what his notion was as to the identity of the Killer.
“I hae ma suspicions, Mr. Maddox; I hae ma suspicions,” the little man
replied, cunningly wagging his head and giggling. But more than that
they could not elicit from him. A week later, however, to the question:
“And what are yo' thinkin' o' this black Killer, Mr. M'adam?”
“Why _black?_” the little man asked earnestly; “why _black_ mair than
white--or _gray_ we'll say?” Luckily for him, however, the Dalesmen are
slow of wit as of speech.
David, too, marked the difference in his father, who nagged at him now
and then with all the old spirit. At first he rejoiced in then change,
preferring his outward and open warfare to that aforetime stealthy
enmity. But soon he almost wished the other back; for the older he grew
the more difficult did he find it to endure calmly these everlasting
bickerings.
For one reason he was truly glad of the altered condition of affairs; he
believed that, for the nonce, at least his father had abandoned any
ill designs he might have cherished against James Moore; those sneaking
visits to Kenmuir were, he hoped, discontinued.
Yet Maggie Moore, had she been on speaking terms with him, could have
undeceived him. For, one night, when alone in the kitchen, on suddenly
looking up, she had seen to her horror a dim, moonlike face glued
against the windowpane. In the first mad panic of the moment she almost
screamed, and dropped her work; then--a true Moore--controlled herself
and sat feigning to work, yet watching all the while.
It was M'Adam, she recognized that: the face pale in its framework
of black; the hair lying dank and dark on his forehead; and the white
eyelids blinking, slow, regular, horrible. She thought of the stories
she had heard of his sworn vengeance on her father, and her heart stood
still, though she never moved. At length with a gasp of relief she
discerned that the eyes were not directed on her. Stealthily following
their gaze, she saw they rested on the Shepherds' Trophy; and on the Cup
they remained fixed, immovable, while she sat motionless and watched.
An hour, it seemed to her, elapsed before they shifted their direction,
and wandered round the room. For a second they dwelt upon her; then the
face withdrew into the night.
Maggie told no one what she had seen. Knowing well how terrible her
father was in his anger, she deemed it wiser to keep silence. While as
for David M'Adam, she would never speak to him again!
And not for a moment did that young man surmise whence his father came
when, on the night in question, M'Adam returned to the Grange, chuckling
to himself. David was growing of late accustomed to these fits of
silent, unprovoked merriment; and when his father began giggling and
muttering to Red Wull, at first he paid no heed.
“He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet. There's many a slip
twixt Cup and lip--eh, Wullie, he! he!” And he made allusion to the
flourishing of the wicked and their fall; ending always with the same
refrain: “He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet.”
In this strain he continued until David, his patience exhausted, asked
roughly:
“What is't yo' mumblin' aboot? Wha is it yo'll beat, you and yer
Wullie?”
The lad's tone was as contemptuous as his words. Long ago he had cast
aside any semblance of respect for his father.
M'Adam only rubbed his knees and giggled.
“Hark to the dear lad, Wullie! Listen hoo pleasantly he addresses his
auld dad!” Then turning on his son, and leering at him: “What is it,
ye ask? Wha should it be but the Black Killer? Wha else is there I'd be
wushin' to hurt?”
“The Black Killer!” echoed the boy, and looked at his father in
amazement.
Now David was almost the only man in Wastrel-dale who denied Red Wull's
identity with the Killer. “Nay,” he said once; “he'd kill me, given half
a chance, but a sheep--no.” Yet, though himself of this opinion, he knew
well what the talk was, and was astonished accordingly at his father's
remark.
“The Black Killer, is it? What d'you know o' the Killer?” he inquired.
“Why _black_, I wad ken? Why _black?_” the little man asked, leaning
forward in his chair.
Now David, though repudiating in the village Red Wull's complicity
with the crimes, at home was never so happy as when casting cunning
innuendoes to that effect.
“What would you have him then?” he asked. “Red, yaller, muck-dirt
colour?”--and he stared significantly at the Tailless Tyke, who was
lying at his master's feet. The little man ceased rubbing his knees and
eyed the boy. David shifted uneasily beneath that dim, persistent stare.
“Well?” he said at length gruffly.
The little man giggled, and his two thin hands took up their task again.
“Aiblins his puir auld doited fool of a dad kens mair than the dear lad
thinks for, ay, or wushes--eh, Wullie, he! he!”
“Then what is it you do know, or think yo' know?” David asked irritably.
The little man nodded and chuckled.
“Naethin' ava, laddie, naethin' worth the mention. Only aiblins the
Killer'll be caught afore sae lang.”
David smiled incredulously, wagging his head in offensive scepticism.
“Yo'll catch him yo'self, I s'pose, you and yer Wullie? Tak' a chair on
to the Marches, whistle a while, and when the Killer comes, why! pit a
pinch o' salt upon his tail--if he had one.”
At the last words, heavily punctuated by the speaker, the little man
stopped his rubbing as though shot.
“What wad ye mean by that?” he asked softly.
“What wad I?” the boy replied.
“I dinna ken for sure,” the little man answered; “and it's aiblins just
as well for you, dear lad”--in fawning accents--“that I dinna.” He
began rubbing and giggling afresh. “It's a gran' thing, Wullie, to ha'
a dutiful son; a shairp lad wha has no silly sens o' shame aboot
sharpenin' his wits at his auld dad's expense. And yet, despite
oor facetious lad there, aiblins we will ha' a hand in the Killer's
catchin', you and I, Wullie--he! he!” And the great dog at his feet
wagged his stump tail in reply.
David rose from his chair and walked across the room to where his father
sat.
“If yo' know sic a mighty heap,” he shouted, “happen you'll just tell me
what yo' do know!”
M'Adam stopped stroking Red Wull's massive head, and looked up.
“Tell ye? Ay, wha should I tell if not ma dear David? Tell? Ay, I'll
tell ye this”--with a sudden snarl of bitterness--“That you'd be the
vairy last person I wad tell.”