"Maybe you'll remember after a while." He turned toward the door, "You
come along with me. I'm going to lock you up."
I rose with a sigh of resignation, but paused for a moment to address
Zoberg. "Get hold of yourself," I urged him. "Get somebody in here to
look after Miss Susan, and then clarify in your mind what happened. You
can help me prove that it wasn't I."
Zoberg nodded very wearily, but did not look up.
"Don't neither of you go into that room where the body is," O'Bryant
warned them. "Mr. Wills, get your coat and hat."
I did so, and we left the house. The snow was inches deep and still
falling. O'Bryant led me across the street and knocked on the door of a
peak-roofed house. A swarthy little man opened to us.
"There's been a murder, Jim," said O'Bryant importantly. "Over at
Gird's. You're deputized--go and keep watch. Better take the missus
along, to look after Susan. She's bad cut up about it."
We left the new deputy in charge and walked down the street, then
turned into the square. Two or three men standing in front of the
"Pharmacy" stared curiously, then whispered as we passed. Another
figure paused to give me a searching glance. I was not too stunned to
be irritated.
"Who are those?" I asked the constable.
"Town fellows," he informed me. "They're mighty interested to see what
a killer looks like."
"How do they know about the case?" I almost groaned.
He achieved his short, hard laugh.
"Didn't I say that news travels fast in a town like this? Half the
folks are talking about the killing this minute."
"You'll find you made a mistake," I assured him.
"If I have, I'll beg your pardon handsome. Meanwhile, I'll do my duty."
We were at the red brick town hall by now. At O'Bryant's side I mounted
the granite steps and waited while he unlocked the big double door with
a key the size of a can-opener.
"We're a kind of small town," he observed, half apologetically, "but
there's a cell upstairs for you. Take off your hat and overcoat--you're
staying inside till further notice."
_5. "They Want to Take the Law into Their Own Hands."_
The cell was an upper room of the town hall, with a heavy wooden door
and a single tiny window. The walls were of bare, unplastered brick,
the floor of concrete and the ceiling of white-washed planks. An oil
lamp burned in a bracket. The only furniture was an iron bunk hinged
to the wall just below the window, a wire-bound straight chair and an
unpainted table. On top of this last stood a bowl and pitcher, with
playing-cards scattered around them.
Constable O'Bryant locked me in and peered through a small grating
in the door. He was all nose and eyes and wide lips, like a sardonic
Punchinello.
"Look here," I addressed him suddenly, for the first time controlling
my frayed nerves; "I want a lawyer."
"There ain't no lawyer in town," he boomed sourly.
"Isn't there a Judge Pursuivant in the neighborhood?" I asked,
remembering something that Susan had told me.
"He don't practise law," O'Bryant grumbled, and his beaked face slid
out of sight.
I turned to the table, idly gathered up the cards into a pack and
shuffled them. To steady my still shaky fingers, I produced a few
simple sleight-of-hand effects, palming of aces, making a king rise
to the top, and springing the pack accordion-wise from one hand to the
other.
"I'd sure hate to play poker with you," volunteered O'Bryant, who had
come again to gaze at me.
I crossed to the grating and looked through at him. "You've got the
wrong man," I said once more. "Even if I were guilty, you couldn't keep
me from talking to a lawyer."
"Well, I'm doing it, ain't I?" he taunted me. "You wait until tomorrow
and we'll go to the county seat. The sheriff can do whatever he wants
to about a lawyer for you."
He ceased talking and listened. I heard the sound, too--a hoarse, dull
murmur as of coal in a chute, or a distant, lowing herd of troubled
cattle.
"What's that?" I asked him.
O'Bryant, better able to hear in the corridor, cocked his lean head
for a moment. Then he cleared his throat. "Sounds like a lot of people
talking, out in the square," he replied. "I wonder----"
He broke off quickly and walked away. The murmur was growing. I,
pressing close to the grating to follow the constable with my eyes,
saw that his shoulders were squared and his hanging fists doubled, as
though he were suddenly aware of a lurking danger.
He reached the head of the stairs and clumped down, out of my sight.
I turned back to the cell, walked to the bunk and, stepping upon it,
raised the window. To the outside of the wooden frame two flat straps
of iron had been securely bolted to act as bars. To these I clung as I
peered out.
I was looking from the rear of the hall toward the center of the
square, with the war memorial and the far line of shops and houses seen
dimly through a thick curtain of falling snow. Something dark moved
closer to the wall beneath, and I heard a cry, as if of menace.
"I see his head in the window!" bawled a voice, and more cries greeted
this statement. A moment later a heavy missile hit the wall close to
the frame.
I dropped back from the window and went once more to the grating of the
door. Through it I saw O'Bryant coming back, accompanied by several
men. They came close and peered through at me.
"Let me out," I urged. "That's a mob out there."
O'Bryant nodded dolefully. "Nothing like this ever happened here
before," he said, as if he were responsible for the town's whole
history of violence. "They act like they want to take the law into
their own hands."
A short, fat man spoke at his elbow. "We're members of the town
council, Mr. Wills. We heard that some of the citizens were getting
ugly. We came here to look after you. We promise full protection."
"Amen," intoned a thinner specimen, whom I guessed to be the preacher.
"There are only half a dozen of you," I pointed out. "Is that enough to
guard me from a violent mob?"
As if to lend significance to my question, from below and in front of
the building came a great shout, compounded of many voices. Then a loud
pounding echoed through the corridor, like a bludgeon on stout panels.
"You locked the door, Constable?" asked the short man.
"Sure I did," nodded O'Bryant.
A perfect rain of buffets sounded from below, then a heavy impact upon
the front door of the hall. I could hear the hinges creak.
"They're trying to break the door down," whispered one of the council.
The short man turned resolutely on his heel. "There's a window at the
landing of the stairs," he said. "Let's go and try to talk to them
from that."
The whole party followed him away, and I could hear their feet on the
stairs, then the lifting of a heavy window-sash. A loud and prolonged
yelling came to my ears, as if the gathering outside had sighted and
recognized a line of heads on the sill above them.
"Fellow citizens!" called the stout man's voice, but before he could
go on a chorus of cries and hoots drowned him out. I could hear more
thumps and surging shoves at the creaking door.
Escape I must. I whipped around and fairly ran to the bunk, mounting
it a second time for a peep from my window. Nobody was visible below;
apparently those I had seen previously had run to the front of the
hall, there to hear the bellowings of the officials and take a hand in
forcing the door.
Once again I dropped to the floor and began to tug at the fastenings of
the bunk. It was an open oblong of metal, a stout frame of rods strung
with springy wire netting. It could be folded upward against the wall
and held with a catch, or dropped down with two lengths of chain to
keep it horizontal. I dragged the mattress and blankets from it, then
began a close examination of the chains. They were stoutly made, but
the screw-plates that held them to the brick wall might be loosened.
Clutching one chain with both my hands, I tugged with all my might, a
foot braced against the wall. A straining heave, and it came loose.
At the same moment an explosion echoed through the corridor at my back,
and more shouts rang through the air. Either O'Bryant or the mob had
begun to shoot. Then a rending crash shook the building, and I heard
one of the councilmen shouting: "Another like that and the door will be
down!"
His words inspired additional speed within me. I took the loose end
of the chain in my hand. Its links were of twisted iron, and the final
one had been sawed through to admit the loop of the screw-plate, then
clamped tight again. But my frantic tugging had widened this narrow
cut once more, and quickly I freed it from the dangling plate. Then,
folding the bunk against the wall, I drew the chain upward. It would
just reach to the window--that open link would hook around one of the
flat bars.
* * * * *
The noise of breakage rang louder in the front of the building. Once
more I heard the voice of the short councilman: "I command you all to
go home, before Constable O'Bryant fires on you again!"
"We got guns, too!" came back a defiant shriek, and in proof of this
statement came a rattle of shots. I heard an agonized moan, and the
voice of the minister: "Are you hit?"
"In the shoulder," was O'Bryant's deep, savage reply.
My chain fast to the bar, I pulled back and down on the edge of the
bunk. It gave some leverage, but not enough--the bar was fastened too
solidly. Desperate, I clambered upon the iron framework. Gaining the
sill, I moved sidewise, then turned and braced my back against the
wall. With my feet against the edge of the bunk, I thrust it away with
all the strength in both my legs. A creak and a ripping sound, and the
bar pulled slowly out from its bolts.
But a roar and thunder of feet told me that the throng outside had
gained entrance to the hall at last.
I heard a last futile flurry of protesting cries from the councilmen
as the steps echoed with the charge of many heavy boots. I waited no
longer, but swung myself to the sill and wriggled through the narrow
space where the bar had come out. A lapel of my jacket tore against
the frame, but I made it. Clinging by the other bar, I made out at my
side a narrow band of perpendicular darkness against the wall, and
clutched at it. It was a tin drainpipe, by the feel of it.
An attack was being made upon the door of the cell. The wood splintered
before a torrent of blows, and I heard people pushing in.
"He's gone!" yelled a rough voice, and, a moment later: "Hey, look at
the window!"
I had hold of the drainpipe, and gave it my entire weight. Next instant
it had torn loose from its flimsy supports and bent sickeningly
outward. Yet it did not let me down at once, acting rather as a slender
sapling to the top of which an adventuresome boy has sprung. Still
holding to it, I fell sprawling in the snow twenty feet beneath the
window I had quitted. Somebody shouted from above and a gun spoke.
"Get him!" screamed many voices. "Get him, you down below!"
But I was up and running for my life. The snow-filled square seemed
to whip away beneath my feet. Dodging around the war memorial, I came
face to face with somebody in a bearskin coat. He shouted for me to
halt, in the reedy voice of an ungrown lad, and the fierce-set face
that shoved at me had surely never felt a razor. But I, who dared not
be merciful even to so untried an enemy, struck with both fists even as
I hurtled against him. He whimpered and dropped, and I, springing over
his falling body, dashed on.
A wind was rising, and it bore to me the howls of my pursuers from
the direction of the hall. Two or three more guns went off, and one
bullet whickered over my head. By then I had reached the far side of
the square, hurried across the street and up an alley. The snow, still
falling densely, served to baffle the men who ran shouting in my wake.
Too, nearly everyone who had been on the streets had gone to the front
of the hall, and except for the boy at the memorial none offered to
turn me back.
I came out upon a street beyond the square, quiet and ill-lit. Along
this way, I remembered, I could approach the Gird home, where my
automobile was parked. Once at the wheel, I could drive to the county
seat and demand protection from the sheriff. But, as I came cautiously
near the place and could see through the blizzard the outline of the
car, I heard loud voices. A part of the mob had divined my intent and
had branched off to meet me.
I ran down a side street, but they had seen me. "There he is!" they
shrieked at one another. "Plug him!" Bullets struck the wall of a house
as I fled past it, and the owner, springing to the door with an angry
protest, joined the chase a moment later.
* * * * *
I was panting and staggering by now, and so were most of my pursuers.
Only three or four, lean young athletes, were gaining and coming even
close to my heels. With wretched determination I maintained my pace,
winning free of the close-set houses of the town, wriggling between the
rails of a fence and striking off through the drifting snow of a field.
"Hey, he's heading for the Croft!" someone was wheezing, not far behind.
"Let him go in," growled another runner. "He'll wish he hadn't."
Yet again someone fired, and yet again the bullet went wide of me;
moving swiftly, and half veiled by the dark and the wind-tossed
snowfall, I was a bad target that night. And, lifting my head, I saw
indeed the dense timber of the Devil's Croft, its tops seeming to toss
and fall like the black waves of a high-pent sea.
It was an inspiration, helped by the shouts of the mob. Nobody went
into that grove--avoidance of it had become a community habit, almost
a community instinct. Even if my enemies paused only temporarily I
could shelter well among the trunks, catch my breath, perhaps hide
indefinitely. And surely Zoberg would be recovered, would back up my
protest of innocence. With two words for it, the fantasy would not seem
so ridiculous. All this I sorted over in my mind as I ran toward the
Devil's Croft.
Another rail fence rose in my way. I feared for a moment that it would
baffle me, so fast and far had I run and so greatly drained away was my
strength. Yet I scrambled over somehow, slipped and fell beyond, got up
and ran crookedly on. The trees were close now. Closer. Within a dozen
yards. Behind me I heard oaths and warning exclamations. The pursuit
was ceasing at last.
I found myself against close-set evergreens; that would be the hedge
of which Susan Gird had told me. Pushing between and through the
interlaced branches, I hurried on for five or six steps, cannoned from
a big tree-trunk, went sprawling, lifted myself for another brief run
and then, with my legs like strips of paper, dropped once more. I
crept forward on hands and knees. Finally I collapsed upon my face.
The weight of all I had endured--the séance, the horrible death of
John Gird, my arrest, my breaking from the cell and my wild run for
life--overwhelmed me as I lay.
Thus I must lie, I told myself hazily, until they came and caught me. I
heard, or fancied I heard, movement near by, then a trilling whistle. A
signal? It sounded like the song of a little frog. Odd thought in this
blizzard. I was thinking foolishly of frogs, while I sprawled face down
in the snow....
But where was the snow?
There was damp underneath, but it was warm damp, like that of a
riverside in July. In my nostrils was a smell of green life, the smell
of parks and hot-houses. My fists closed upon something.
Two handfuls of soft, crisp moss!
I rose to my elbows. A white flower bobbed and swayed before my nose,
shedding perfume upon me.
Far away, as though in another world, I heard the rising of the wind
that was beating the snow into great drifts--but that was outside the
Devil's Croft.
_6. "Eyes of Fire!"_
It proves something for human habit and narcotic-dependence that my
first action upon rising was to pull out a cigarette and light it.
The match flared briefly upon rich greenness. I might have been in a
sub-tropical swamp. Then the little flame winked out and the only glow
was the tip of my cigarette. I gazed upward for a glimpse of the sky,
but found only darkness. Leafy branches made a roof over me. My brow
felt damp. It was sweat--warm sweat.
I held the coal of the cigarette to my wrist-watch. It seemed to have
stopped, and I lifted it to my ear. No ticking--undoubtedly I had
jammed it into silence, perhaps at the séance, perhaps during my escape
from prison and the mob. The hands pointed to eighteen minutes past
eight, and it was certainly much later than that. I wished for the
electric torch that I had dropped in the dining-room at Gird's, then
was glad I had not brought it to flash my position to possible watchers
outside the grove.
Yet the tight cedar hedge and the inner belts of trees and bushes,
richly foliaged as they must be, would certainly hide me and any light
I might make. I felt considerably stronger in body and will by now, and
made shift to walk gropingly toward the center of the timber-clump.
Once, stooping to finger the ground on which I walked, I felt not only
moss but soft grass. Again, a hanging vine dragged across my face. It
was wet, as if from condensed mist, and it bore sweet flowers that
showed dimly like little pallid trumpets in the dark.
The frog-like chirping that I had heard when first I fell had been
going on without cessation. It was much nearer now, and when I turned
in its direction, I saw a little glimmer of water. Two more careful
steps, and my foot sank into wet, warm mud. I stooped and put a hand
into a tiny stream, almost as warm as the air. The frog, whose home I
was disturbing, fell silent once more.
I struck a match, hoping to see a way across. The stream was not more
than three feet in width, and it flowed slowly from the interior of the
grove. In that direction hung low mists, through which broad leaves
gleamed wetly. On my side its brink was fairly clear, but on the other
grew lush, dripping bushes. I felt in the stream once more, and found
it was little more than a finger deep. Then, holding the end of the
match in my fingers, I stooped as low as possible, to see what I could
of the nature of the ground beneath the bushes.
The small beam carried far, and I let myself think of Shakespeare's
philosophy anent the candle and the good deed in a naughty world. Then
philosophy and Shakespeare flew from my mind, for I saw beneath the
bushes the feet of--of what stood behind them.
They were two in number, those feet; but not even at first glimpse
did I think they were human. I had an impression of round pedestals
and calfless shanks, dark and hairy. They moved as I looked, moved
cautiously closer, as if their owner was equally anxious to see me. I
dropped the match into the stream and sprang up and back.
No pursuer from the town would have feet like that.
My heart began to pound as it had never pounded during my race for
life. I clutched at the low limb of a tree, hoping to tear it loose for
a possible weapon of defense; the wood was rotten, and almost crumpled
in my grasp.
"Who's there?" I challenged, but most unsteadily and without much
menace in my voice. For answer the bushes rustled yet again, and
something blacker than they showed itself among them.
I cannot be ashamed to say that I retreated again, farther this time;
let him who has had a like experience decide whether to blame me.
Feeling my way among the trees, I put several stout stems between me
and that lurker by the water-side. They would not fence it off, but
might baffle it for a moment. Meanwhile, I heard the water splash. It
was wading cautiously through--it was going to follow me.
I found myself standing in a sort of lane, and did not bother until
later to wonder how a lane could exist in that grove where no man ever
walked. It was a welcome avenue of flight to me, and I went along it
at a swift, crouching run. The footing, as everywhere, was damp and
mossy, and I made very little noise. Not so my unchancy companion of
the brook, for I heard a heavy body crashing among twigs and branches
to one side. I began to ask myself, as I hurried, what the beast could
be--for I was sure that it was a beast. A dog from some farmhouse, that
did not know or understand the law against entering the Devil's Croft?
That I had seen only two feet did not preclude two more, I now assured
myself, and I would have welcomed a big, friendly dog. Yet I did not
know that this one was friendly, and could not bid myself to stop and
see.
The lane wound suddenly to the right, and then into a clearing.
Here, too, the branches overhead kept out the snow and the light,
but things were visible ever so slightly. I stood as if in a room,
earth-floored, trunk-walled, leaf-thatched. And I paused for a
breath--it was more damply warm than ever. With that breath came some
strange new serenity of spirit, even an amused self-mockery. What had I
seen and heard, indeed? I had come into the grove after a terrific hour
or so of danger and exertion, and my mind had at once busied itself
in building grotesque dangers where no dangers could be. Have another
smoke, I said to myself, and get hold of your imagination; already that
pursuit-noise you fancied has gone. Alone in the clearing and the dark,
I smiled as though to mock myself back into self-confidence. Even this
little patch of summer night into which I had blundered from the heart
of the blizzard--even it had some good and probably simple explanation.
I fished out a cigarette and struck a light.
At that moment I was facing the bosky tunnel from which I had emerged
into the open space. My matchlight struck two sparks in that tunnel,
two sparks that were pushing stealthily toward me. Eyes of fire!
Cigarette and match fell from my hands. For one wild half-instant I
thought of flight, then knew with a throat-stopping certainty that I
must not turn my back on this thing. I planted my feet and clenched my
fists.
"Who's there?" I cried, as once before at the side of the brook.
This time I had an answer. It was a hoarse, deep-chested rumble, it
might have been a growl or an oath. And a shadow stole out from the
lane, straightening up almost within reach of me.
I had seen that silhouette before, misshapen and point-eared, in the
dining-room of John Gird.
_7. "Had the Thing Been So Hairy?"_
It did not charge at once, or I might have been killed then, like John
Gird, and the writing of this account left to another hand. While it
closed cautiously in, I was able to set myself for defense. I also made
out some of its details, and hysterically imagined more.
Its hunched back and narrow shoulders gave nothing of weakness to its
appearance, suggesting rather an inhuman plenitude of bone and muscle
behind. At first it was crouched, as if on all-fours, but then it
reared. For all its legs were bent, its great length of body made it
considerably taller than I. Upper limbs--I hesitate at calling them
arms--sparred questingly at me.