IV

Miss Peytral had to be put to bed under care of a nurse, for the

revulsion was very great, and so was her physical prostration. Bowmore,

now set free, and in himself a very pleasant young fellow, came with

hurried inquiries and congratulations, and then rushed off to London to

cable to his friends in Canada, for fear of the effect of newspaper

telegrams.

When at last Hewitt and I sat with Mr. Peytral in his study, "Mr.

Hewitt," said Peytral, "I am not sure how far explanations may go

between us. There is more in that death in the barn than the police will

ever guess."

Peytral was haggard and drawn, for, as he had let slip already, he had

scarce slept an hour since leaving home on Thursday.

"I am tired," he said, "and worn out, but that is not a novelty with me;

and I'm not sure but we may be of use to each other. Did my daughter

tell you why she sent Mr. Bowmore after me on Thursday night?"

Hewitt explained the thing as briefly as possible, just as he had heard

it from Miss Peytral.

"Ah," said Peytral, thoughtfully. "So she thought my manner became moody

a few months back. It did, no doubt, for I had memories; and more, I had

apprehensions. Mr. Hewitt, I think I read in the papers that you were in

some way engaged in the extraordinary case of the murder of Mr. Jacob

Mason?"

"That is quite correct. I was."

"There was another case, a little while before, which possibly you may

not have heard of. A man was found strangled near the York column, by

Pall Mall, with just such a mark on his forehead as was found on Mr.

Mason's."

"I know that case, too, as well as the other."

"Do you know the name of the murderer?"

"I think I do. We speak in confidence, of course, as client and

professional man?"

"Of course. What was his name?"

"I have heard two--Everard Myatt and Catherton Hunt."

"Neither is his real name, and I doubt if anybody but himself knows it.

Twenty years ago and more I knew him as Mayes. He was a Jamaican. Mr.

Hewitt, that man's foul life has been justly forfeit a thousand times,

but if it belongs to anybody it belongs to me!"

It was terrible to see the sudden fiery change in the old man. His

lassitude was gone in a flash, his eyes blazed and his nostrils dilated.

For a little while he sat so, his mouth awork with passion; then he sank

back in his chair with a sigh.

"I am getting old," he said, more quietly, "and perhaps I am not strong

enough to lose my temper.... Well, as I said, Mayes was a Jamaican, a

renegade white. Do you remember that in the black rebellion of 1865,

there was a traitorous white man among the negroes? Eyre hanged a few

rebels, and rightly, but the worst creature on all that island

escaped--probably escaped by the aid of that very white skin that should

have ensured him a greater punishment than the rest. He escaped to

Hayti. Now you have probably heard something of Hayti, and of the common

state of affairs there?"

We both had heard, and, indeed, the matter had been particularly brought

to Hewitt's notice by the case which I have told elsewhere as "The

Affair of the Tortoise." As for me, I had read Sir Spenser St. John's

book on the black republic, and I had been greatly impressed by the

graphic picture it gives of the horrible, blood-stained travesty of

regular government there prevailing. Nothing in the worst of the South

American Republics is to be remotely compared to it. In the worst

periods there was not a crime imaginable that could not be, and was not,

committed openly and with impunity by anybody on the right side of the

so-called "government"; and the "government" was nothing but an

organised crime in itself.

"Well," Peytral pursued, "then I need not expatiate on it, and you will

understand the sort of place that Mayes fled to, and how it suited him.

He was a man of far greater ability than any of the coarse scoundrels in

power, and he was worse than all of them. He was not such a fool as to

aim at ostensible political power--that way generally led to

assassination. He was the jackal, the contriver, the power behind the

throne, the instigator of half the devilry set going in that unhappy

place, and he profited by it with little risk; he was the confidential

adviser of that horrible creature Domingue. If you know anything of

Hayti you will know what that means.

"At this time I was comparatively a young man, and a merchant at

Port-au-Prince. It was a bad place, of course, and business was risky

enough, but, for that very reason, profits were large, and that was an

attraction to a sanguine young man like myself. I did very well, and I

had thoughts of getting out of it with what I had made. But it was a

fatal thing to be supposed wealthy in Port-au-Prince, unless you were a

villain in power, or partner with one. I was neither, and I was judged a

suitable victim by Mayes. Not I alone, either--no, nor even only I and

my fortune. Gentlemen, gentlemen, my poor wife, who now lies----"

Peytral's utterance failed him. He rose as if choking, and Hewitt rose

to quiet him. "Never mind," he said, "sit quiet now. We understand. Rest

a moment."

The old man sank back in his chair, and for a little while buried his

face in his hands. Then he went on.

"I needn't go into details," he said, huskily. "It is enough to say that

every devilish engine of force and cunning was put in operation against

me. So it came that at last, on a hint from a hanger-on of the

police-office, who had enough humanity in him to remember a kindness he

had experienced at my hands, that we took flight in the middle of the

night--my poor wife, myself, and our three children, with nothing in the

world but our bare lives and the clothes we wore. I might have tried to

get aboard a foreign ship in the harbour, but I knew that would be

useless. I should have been given up on whatever criminal charge Mayes

chose to present, and my wife and children with me. I had hope of

somehow getting to San Cristobel, where I had a friend--over the border

in the other Government of the island, the Dominican Republic. That was

eighty miles away and more, across swamps, and forests and mountains.

Well, we did it--we did it. We did it, Mr. Hewitt, and I dream of it

still. They hunted us, sir--hunted us with dogs. We hid from them a

whole day among the rank weeds--up to our shoulders in the water of a

pestilential fever-swamp; Claire, the baby, on her mother's back, and

both the boys on mine. They died--they died next day. My two beautiful

boys, gentlemen, died in my arms, and I was too weak even to bury them!"

There was another long pause, and the man's head was bowed in his hands

once more. Presently he went on again, but at first without lifting his

head.

"We did it, gentlemen," he said--"we did it. We crawled into San

Cristobel at the end of five days; and from that moment my dear wife has

never once stood upright on her feet. So we came out of it, and the

baby, Claire, was the one that suffered least. She was too young to

understand, and her mother--her mother saved her, when I could not save

the boys!"

He paused again, and presently sat up, pale, but in full command of

himself. "You will excuse me, gentlemen, I am sure, and make allowances

for my feelings," he said. "There is not a great deal more to tell.

Mayes did not last long in Hayti. Domingue was overthrown, and Mayes

left the island, I was told, and made for another part of the world.

Years afterward I heard of his being in China, though what truth there

may have been in the rumour I cannot say.

"My friend in San Cristobel--he was a cousin, in fact--put me on my legs

again, and after a while he helped me to begin business at San Domingo,

under my present name, Peytral, which, in fact, was my mother's maiden

name. There came a sudden push in trade with the United States about

this time, and I went into my affairs with the more energy to distract

my thoughts. In fifteen years--to cut a long story short--I had made the

small competency which I have brought to England with me, with the idea

of a peaceful end to my life and my wife's; though I doubt if I am to

have that now. I doubt it, and I will tell you why. Mr. Hewitt, when I

went away without warning on Thursday night I was dogging Mayes!"

Hewitt nodded, with no sign of surprise. "And the man killed in the

barn?"

"That is one more of his thousand crimes, without a doubt. Though it

differs. Do you know what drew my attention to the murders of the men

Denson and Mason, and so set me thinking? In each case the murder was by

strangulation, and the medical evidence at the inquests showed that it

was effected by means of a tourniquet. In fact, in the second case, the

tourniquet itself was left behind."

"Yes," Hewitt replied, "I loosened it myself--but, unfortunately, I was

too late."

"Well, now," Peytral went on, "in Hayti, in my time, Mayes's enemies had

a habit of dying suddenly in the night, by strangulation, and a

tourniquet was always the instrument. And just as murder was quite a

popular procedure in that accursed place, so strangulation by tourniquet

became for a while the most common form of the crime. It was rapid,

effective, and silent, you see. So that a murder by tourniquet, quite an

unknown thing in this country, took my attention at once, and when

another followed it so soon, I felt something like certainty. And the

triangle was suggestive, too."

"Were Mayes's victims marked in that way in Hayti?"

"No, there was no mark. But"--here Mr. Peytral's features assumed a

curious expression--"there are things which are not believed in this

country--which are laughed at, in fact, and called superstition. You

know something of Hayti, and therefore you must have heard of

Voodoo--the witchcraft and devil-worship of the West Indies. Well, Mayes

was as deep in that as he was in every other species of wickedness. It

sounds foolish, perhaps, here in civilised England, and you may laugh,

but I tell you that Mayes could make men do as he wished, with their

consent or against it! And he used a thing--it was generally known that

he used a thing marked with a triangle--a Red Triangle--by the use of

which he could bend men to his will!"

Hewitt was listening intently, with no sign of laughter at all,

notwithstanding his client's apprehension. And I remembered the case of

Mr. Jacob Mason, and how that victim had so fervently expressed his wish

to the excellent clergyman, Mr. Potswood, that he had never dabbled in

the strange devilries of Myatt--or Mayes, as we were now learning to

call him.

"At any rate," Peytral resumed, "you will understand that the

conjunction of the tourniquet with the Red Triangle in the two cases you

know of caused me some excitement. My daughter, as you have said,

noticed a change in my habits from that time; my wife did more--she knew

the reason. Mr. Hewitt, I am an older man, but there is hotter blood in

my veins than in yours. My father was English--though you might scarcely

suppose it--but my mother, to whose name I have reverted, was a French

Creole. So perhaps my natural instincts come nearer to those of our

savage ancestry than do yours. Whether or not you will understand me I

do not know, but I can tell you that even now, in cold blood--for my

paroxysm has exhausted itself and me--it seems to me that it would be my

duty, not to say my sacred duty, to tear that man to pieces with my

hands whenever and wherever I could put them on him! My old passions may

have slept, I find, but they are alive still, and I found them waking

when I realised that Mayes was alive and in England. The words 'sane'

and 'insane' are elastic in their application, but I doubt if you would

have called me strictly sane of late. I evolved mad schemes for the

destruction of this wretch, and I was ready to devote myself and

everything I possessed to the purpose. More than once I contemplated

coming to you--seeing that you had met the man in one of his

villainies--with the idea of enlisting your aid. But I reflected that

you would probably make yourself no party to a plan of private revenge,

and I hesitated. And then--then, a little more than a week ago, I saw

the man himself! Changed, without doubt, but not half as much changed as

I am myself. Nevertheless, sure as I am of him now, I hesitated then.

For it was here in the meadow that you know, near the barn, and the

thing seemed so likely to be illusion that I almost suspected my senses.

It was dusk, and he was walking and talking with another man, a good

deal younger. And presently, while I was still confounded with surprise,

and as they passed behind a clump of trees, Mayes was gone, and I saw

his companion alone. He was a young man--an artist, it would seem, with

sketch-book and colours."

I started, and Hewitt and I glanced at each other. Peytral saw it and

paused. "Never mind," said Hewitt. "Please go on."

"After that I came out every night, in the hope of seeing my enemy

again. On several evenings I saw the young artist waiting by the barn

expectantly, but nobody joined him. I found that this young man was

lodging at a cottage in the village, and I resolved not to lose sight of

him.

"At last, on Thursday night, I saw Mayes again. Mr. Bowmore was here,

and when I left the house he troubled me much by coming after me. I was

obliged to tell him that I wished to be alone, and I was in a nervously

explosive state when I did it. He seemed reluctant to go; my anger

blazed out, and I violently ordered him off. From what he has told me it

seems that he followed me still, but lost sight of me near Penn's

Meadow. Well, be that as it may, I saw Mayes and the young artist again.

I watched from a rather awkward spot, and dusk was falling, so that I

could not see all that passed; but presently I was aware that Mayes was

making off by the road alone, and I followed him.

"From that moment I think I really was mad, though my madness did not

drive me to attack him at once. I had a feeling of curiosity to see

where he would go, and a curious cruel idea of letting him run for a

little first--as a cat feels, I suppose, with a mouse. You may judge

that I was not in my normal state of mind from the fact that all through

yesterday and part of to-day I never as much as thought of telegraphing

home to say that I had gone to London. For it was to London I followed

him. I took no ticket at the station--I got on the platform by stealth,

and entered the train unobserved, for he and one boy were the only

passengers, and I feared attracting attention. It was easy enough, in

such a station as Redfield, and I paid my fare at London. And after all

I lost him! Lost him in London!"

"How?"

"Like a fool. I saw him enter a house, and waited. Followed him again,

and waited at another. I might have flung him into the river from the

Embankment, and I refrained. And then--whether it began at a dark corner

or in a group of people I cannot tell, but I suddenly discovered that I

was following a stranger--a stranger of about Mayes's form and stature.

It was what I should have expected, and provided for, in London streets

at night!

"If I have been mad, it was then I was worst. I suppose by that time it

must have been too late to get back home, but I never thought of that. I

ran the streets the whole night, like a fool, hunting for Mayes. I kept

on all day yesterday. I waited and watched hours at the two houses he

had visited; and it was not till early this morning that I flung myself

on a bed in a private hotel in Euston Road. I slept a little, and my

paroxysm was over. Perhaps I am more fortunate than I am disposed to

think, since I am as yet in no danger of trial for murder."

This passionate, wayward, stricken man was plainly the object of

fascinated interest to Hewitt. My friend waited a moment, and then

said--"The houses he called at--I should like to know them. And where

you lost sight of him."

Peytral sat back, and gazed thoughtfully for fully half a minute in

Hewitt's face. "Do you know," he said at length, "I don't think I'll

answer that question now. I'd like to leave it for a day or two.

Yesterday I wouldn't have told you, even on the rack--no, not a word! I

should have said, 'Take your own chances, and get him if you can. As for

me, I consider him _my_ prey, and what scent I have picked up I shall

use myself!' A mad fancy, you will think, perhaps. For me the question

is, was I sanest then or now? I will take a day or two to think."

V

In less than a day or two the identity of the victim of the burnt barn

was established. For Hewitt had his idea, and he communicated with

Plummer, of Scotland Yard. The man with the buttoned boots and the

sketch-book was the artist who had been staying at the cottage in the

village, but who, singularly enough, had never been seen to draw, and

had left no drawings behind him. He had warned the people of the cottage

that he might be away for a night or two, and he had stayed away for two

nights before; so that his disappearance did not disturb them, and when

they heard that Mr. Peytral's body had been found in the barn they

accepted the news as fact. They recognised at once a photograph produced

by Plummer as that of their late lodger. And the photograph had been

procured from Messrs. Kingsley, Bell and Dalton, the intended victims in

the bond case, and it was one of Henning, their vanished correspondence

clerk!

That his death would be convenient to Mayes, the greater scoundrel, was

plain enough. The bond robbery had been brought to naught, thanks to

Martin Hewitt, and Henning was now useless. Worse, he might be caught,

or give himself up, and was thus a perpetual danger. And probably he

wanted money. This being so, it was a singular fact that at the inquest

the surgeon who had examined the wound gave it as his most positive

opinion that it had been self-inflicted. And it was inflicted with a

razor, Henning's own, as was very clearly proved after inquiry. For the

razor was found in the barn by the police, entangled with the blackened

frame of an old lantern. Here was still another puzzle; one to which the

final revelation of the mystery of the Red Triangle gave an answer, as

will be seen in due place.