The sun was about three hours high. I must have slept, for I was aroused
by the sudden gallop of horses under our window. People were shouting
and calling in the road. I sprang up and opened the sash. Le Bihan was
there, an image of helplessness, and Max Fortin stood beside him
polishing his glasses. Some gendarmes had just arrived from Quimperle,
and I could hear them around the corner of the house, stamping, and
rattling their sabres and carbines, as they led their horses into my
stable.
Lys sat up, murmuring half-sleepy, half-anxious questions.
"I don't know," I answered. "I am going out to see what it means."
"It is like the day they came to arrest you," Lys said, giving me a
troubled look. But I kissed her and laughed at her until she smiled too.
Then I flung on coat and cap and hurried down the stairs.
The first person I saw standing in the road was the Brigadier Durand.
"Hello!" said I, "have you come to arrest me again? What the devil is
all this fuss about, anyway?"
"We were telegraphed for an hour ago," said Durand briskly, "and for a
sufficient reason, I think. Look there, Monsieur Darrel!"
He pointed to the ground almost under my feet.
"Good heavens!" I cried, "where did that puddle of blood come from?"
"That's what I want to know, Monsieur Darrel. Max Fortin found it at
daybreak. See, it's splashed all over the grass, too. A trail of it
leads into your garden, across the flower beds to your very window, the
one that opens from the morning room. There is another trail leading
from this spot across the road to the cliffs, then to the gravel pit,
and thence across the moor to the forest of Kerselec. We are going to
mount in a minute and search the bosquets. Will you join us? Bon Dieu!
but the fellow bled like an ox. Max Fortin says it's human blood, or I
should not have believed it."
The little chemist of Quimperle came up at that moment, rubbing his
glasses with a colored handkerchief.
"Yes, it is human blood," he said, "but one thing puzzles me: the
corpuscles are yellow. I never saw any human blood before with yellow
corpuscles. But your English Doctor Thompson asserts that he has----"
"Well, it's human blood, anyway--isn't it?" insisted Durand,
impatiently.
"Ye-es," admitted Max Fortin.
"Then it's my business to trail it," said the big gendarme, and he
called his men and gave the order to mount.
"Did you hear anything last night?" asked Durand of me.
"I heard the rain. I wonder the rain did not wash away these traces."
"They must have come after the rain ceased. See this thick splash, how
it lies over and weighs down the wet grass blades. Pah!"
It was a heavy, evil-looking clot, and I stepped back from it, my throat
closing in disgust.
"My theory," said the brigadier, "is this: Some of those Biribi
fishermen, probably the Icelanders, got an extra glass of cognac into
their hides and quarreled on the road. Some of them were slashed, and
staggered to your house. But there is only one trail, and yet--and yet,
how could all that blood come from only one person? Well, the wounded
man, let us say, staggered first to your house and then back here, and
he wandered off, drunk and dying, God knows where. That's my theory."
"A very good one," said I calmly. "And you are going to trail him?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At once. Will you come?"
"Not now. I'll gallop over by-and-bye. You are going to the edge of the
Kerselec forest?"
"Yes; you will hear us calling. Are you coming, Max Fortin? And you, Le
Bihan? Good; take the dog-cart."
The big gendarme tramped around the corner to the stable and presently
returned mounted on a strong gray horse, his sabre shone on his saddle;
his pale yellow and white facings were spotless. The little crowd of
white-coiffed women with their children fell back as Durand touched
spurs and clattered away followed by his two troopers. Soon after Le
Bihan and Max Fortin also departed in the mayor's dingy dog-cart.
"Are you coming?" piped Le Bihan shrilly.
"In a quarter of an hour," I replied, and went back to the house.
When I opened the door of the morning room the death's-head moth was
beating its strong wings against the window. For a second I hesitated,
then walked over and opened the sash. The creature fluttered out,
whirred over the flower beds a moment, then darted across the moorland
toward the sea. I called the servants together and questioned them.
Josephine, Catherine, Jean Marie Tregunc, not one of them had heard the
slightest disturbance during the night. Then I told Jean Marie to saddle
my horse, and while I was speaking Lys came down.
"Dearest," I began, going to her.
"You must tell me everything you know, Dick," she interrupted, looking
me earnestly in the face.
"But there is nothing to tell--only a drunken brawl, and some one
wounded."
"And you are going to ride--where, Dick?"
"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest. Durand and the mayor, and
Max Fortin, have gone on, following a--a trail."
"What trail?"
"Some blood."
"Where did they find it?"
"Out in the road there." Lys crossed herself.
"Does it come near our house?"
"Yes."
"How near?"
"It comes up to the morning room window," said I, giving in.