TELLS SOMETHING OF THE MAN IN THE ROLLING CHAIR
“Campe!” cried Bat Scanlon, his eyes upon the fleeing man, and his hand
going, with the instinctive movement of an old gun man, to his hip.
“And giving his little performance outside once more.”
But the keen eyes of the crime specialist had picked up details which
the other had missed. He shook his head.
“No,” said he. “Campe is a young man, you say. This is one past middle
life. And also he seems sadly out of condition, and does not run at all
like a man who once took middle distance honours.”
The searching column of light still clung to the running man; again and
again came the light shocks of the distant rifle.
“The woman has faded out of the lime-light,” observed Scanlon.
“And the man is trying his best to duplicate the feat. Look--there he
goes!”
With a wild side leap, the fugitive vanished into a shallow ravine, out
of range of both the ray and the rifle. At this the searchlight was
snapped off and darkness once more settled over the hills.
“Your German sergeant-major is a poor shot,” commented Ashton-Kirk. “He
had his man in full view and missed him repeatedly.”
Scanlon shook his head.
“It must have been the light,” said he. “Kretz can shoot. I’ve seen him
at it.”
They stood in silence for a few moments; the country road about seemed
heavier with shadows than it had been before the appearance of the
shifting beam of light; the stars looked fainter.
“That’s the second time I’ve seen that girl out here in the night,”
continued the big man. “And each time the noise came, and things
started doing. I wonder what’s the idea?”
“I fancy it’s a trifle early to venture an opinion upon anything having
to do with this most interesting affair,” said his companion. “But,”
quietly, “we may stumble upon an explanation as we go further into it.”
“I hope so,” said Scanlon, fervently. Then, in the tone of a man who
had placed himself unreservedly in the hands of another, “What next?”
“I think we’d better go on to the inn.”
If the other thought the crime specialist’s wish would have been to
take up their course in the direction of the recently enacted drama,
he said nothing. He led the way along the narrow path, and through the
gloomy growth of wood. They emerged after a space into a well-kept
road, and holding to this, approached a rambling, many gabled old house
which twinkled with lighted windows and gave out an atmosphere of
cheer. A huge porch ran all around it; an immense barn stood upon one
side; and half-a-dozen giant sycamores towered above all.
“There it is,” said Scanlon. “And it looks as though it had been there
for some time, eh?”
“A fine, cheery old place,” commented Ashton-Kirk, his eyes upon the
erratic gables, the twinkling windows and the welcoming porch. “Many a
red fire has burned upon its snug hearths of a winter night; and many a
savoury dish has come out of its kitchen. Travelling in the old days
was not nearly so comfortable as now; but it had its recompenses.”
Their feet crunched upon the gravel walk, and then sounded hollowly in
the empty spaces of the porch. Scanlon pushed open a heavy door which
admitted them to a great room with a low ceiling, beamed massively,
and coloured as with smoke. The floor was sanded; a fire of pine logs
roared up a wide-throated chimney; brass lamps, fixed in sockets in the
walls, threw a warm yellowish glow upon polished pewter tankards and
painted china plates. The tables and chairs were of oak, scrubbed white
by much attentive labour; prim half curtains graced the small-paned
windows.
A short man with a comfortable presence, a white apron and a red face
came forward to greet them.
“Good-evening, Mr. Scanlon,” said he, cordially. “I’m pleased to see
you, sir. I’d been told you’d given us up and gone off to the city.”
“Just for a breather, that’s all,” Scanlon informed him, as he and the
crime specialist sat at a table near to the blazing hearth. It was
still autumn, but there had been a dampness and a chill in the night
air which made the snugness of the inn very comfortable.
The red-faced landlord smiled genially.
“I might have known that, even if the shooting is none too good, the
bracing air would bring you back.”
Ashton-Kirk glanced about the public room. A small, cramped-looking man
sat at a table with a draught board before him, studying a complex move
of the pieces through a pair of thick-lensed glasses. A polished crutch
stood at one side of his chair, and a heavy walking stick at the
other. Deeply absorbed in the problem and its working out was another
man, younger, but drawn-looking, who coughed and applied a handkerchief
to his lips with great frequency.
The hearty looking landlord caught the glances of the crime specialist,
and smiled.
“My customers are a fragile lot,” said he in a low voice. “The inns get
only that kind in the winter,” as though in explanation, “and some of
them are worse than these. It’s the air that does it.”
“Makes them ill?” smiled Ashton-Kirk.
“Bless you, no!” The landlord placed a broad hand to his mouth to
restrain the great responsive laugh which seemed struggling in his
chest. “The air does ’em good, so the doctors say. Well, anyway,” his
humorous eyes twinkling, “it does _me_ good by getting me over the slow
season. If it wasn’t for them, I’d have to close up after September’s
done.”
Scanlon ordered some cigars and coffee, and as the host moved away to
procure these, he said:
“The doctors are a great lot, eh? Once they piled all the high-coloured
drugs into you that you’d hold; and now they talk fresh air until you’d
almost believe you could live on that alone. There’s one old codger
who’s got a pet patient here--some sort of a rare and costly complaint,
I believe--and he insists on fresh air at all stages of the game. The
patient, it seems, likes an occasional change; but the doc. is as deaf
as a post to everything except the sighing of the wind.”
Coffee and cigars were served.
“Both black and strong,” said Ashton-Kirk, as he tested one after the
other.
“The coffee, sir, as Mr. Scanlon knows, is made after my own recipe,”
stated the landlord. “I’d not recommend it to one of my invalid guests,
sir, nor to a well one as a regular tipple. But it has the quality and
the touch, if you know what I mean.”
“White is to move and win,” stated the cramped-looking man. He rubbed
one side of his nose with a hand that shook, and there was complaint
in the gaze with which he fixed the pieces. “But I can’t see how it’s
going to do it.”
“White is to move, and win in four other moves,” said the drawn-looking
man, coughing into the handkerchief.
“Which makes it all the more difficult,” said the other. His palsied
hand fumbled purposelessly with the pieces; and the look of complaint
deepened. The man with the handkerchief coughed once more, and looked
mildly triumphant.
“They seem to be constantly engaged in these mad diversions,” said
Scanlon, his eyes upon the two. “At times, when I’ve been here, I’ve
seen the excitement rise to that degree that I’ve considered calling
out the fire department.”
Just then there came a strident voice from another apartment.
“Who the devil is it?” it demanded. “If matters of importance are to be
interfered with in this way, it’s time that something was done----”
Here the man with the cough reached out and clapped to a door, shutting
out the voice. The landlord looked discomfited.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shaw,” said he. “I know it’s annoying to you;
but Mr. Alva must be worse to-day, and so is very impatient.”
The drawn-looking man coughed hollowly.
“I’m very sorry for the gentleman’s condition,” spoke he, huskily. “But
he should remember that there are others here who are equally ill in
their own way; and that his outbursts are not at all agreeable.”
The strident voice was lifted once more, this time muffled by the door;
then another voice was heard remonstrating and apparently advising.
Then there followed a soft rolling sound, the door opened once more
and an invalid’s chair made its appearance, propelled by a squat, dark
servant, whose flat nose and coarse straight hair gave him the look of
an Indian.
Beside the chair hopped a peppery little man with white hair and
eye-glasses from which hung a wide black string.
“It makes no difference who he is,” declared the peppery little man,
fixing the glasses more firmly upon his nose and speaking to the
occupant of the chair. “The facts remain as I have said. But, Mr. Alva,
there seems to be very little use in advising you. In spite of all I
can say you’ll keep indoors. Suppose it is dark? The darkness can’t
hurt you. Suppose it is damp? You can protect yourself against that.
Air is what you want--fresh air--billions of gallons of it.”
The man in the chair was wasted and pale; his almost fleshless hands
lay upon the chair arms; his limbs seemed shrunken to the bone.
Bat Scanlon looked at Ashton-Kirk and nodded.
“Whatever it is that’s got _him_ has got him for good,” spoke he, in a
low tone. “I never saw any man’s body so close to death without being
dead.”
The eyes of Ashton-Kirk were fixed upon the sick man with singular
interest.
“And yet,” said he, in the same low-pitched way, “his head is very much
alive. It probably would not be too much to say that it is the most
vital thing in the room.”
Scanlon looked at the invalid with fresh interest. He saw a dark face,
not at all that of a sick man, and a pair of burning, searching black
eyes. There seemed to be something unusual about the upper part of the
head, but the man was so muffled up, apparently about to be taken out,
that the nature of this was not quite clear.
“Drugs,” stated the peppery little man, “are useless; time has no
effect. To reach a case of your kind, air must be supplied--clear
air--air containing all the elements of life. If I am to make a well
man of you where others have failed, you must do as I say.”
“He’s the fresh-air crank I was telling you about a while ago,” Scanlon
informed the crime specialist, softly.
“If I must go out,” spoke the invalid in a surprisingly strong voice,
“wrap me up well. I feel the cold easily.”
The little doctor began arranging the blankets about the shrunken
limbs; and while he was doing so, Ashton-Kirk arose.
“Let me assist you,” said he, with that calm assurance which is seldom
denied.
Deftly he tucked in the coverlets upon the opposite side, and buttoned
up the heavy coat. But when he reached for the muffling folds about the
sick man’s head, all the sureness seemed to leave his fingers; Scanlon
was astonished to see him bungle the matter most disgracefully;
instead of accomplishing what he set out to do, he succeeded in
knocking the covering off altogether.
“Pardon me,” he said, smoothly enough.
The invalid returned some commonplace answer; and the doctor set about
repairing the result of the volunteer’s awkwardness.
“Your intentions are the best in the world,” smiled he, “but I can see
that you have spent very little of your time about sick beds.”
Then he opened the door, and beckoned the Indian. The chair rolled out
upon the porch, and a moment later could be heard crunching along the
gravel walk.
Ashton-Kirk smoked his black cigar with much silent deliberation,
and sipped at the strong coffee. Several times during the next half
hour Scanlon attempted to bring him out of this state by remarks as
to the inn and its population. But he received replies of the most
discouraging nature, and so gave it up. When the cigar was done, the
crime specialist arose and stretched his arms wide in a yawn.
“I think I’m for bed,” said he.
Scanlon looked his astonishment, but said nothing. His imagination had
pictured some hours of looking about among the darkened hills--just
how and what for he had little idea; and this announcement suddenly
bringing the night to a close was not in the least what he had expected.
“All right,” was his reply. “That’ll do for me, too.”
Rooms were assigned them, and each was provided with a candle in a
copper candlestick; and so they went off up the wide staircase. From
the adjoining room, Bat Scanlon heard the sound of pacing feet for
some time; after a little they stopped, but for all that he had no
assurance that the special detective had gone to bed. So he stepped out
and knocked at his door.
Entering, he found Ashton-Kirk, his hands deep in his trousers pockets,
standing staring at the grotesque flare of the candle.
“Hello,” said the big man, “I thought you were regularly sleepy.”
“I am--a little. But an idea occurred to me downstairs, and I’ve been
trying to follow it out.”
Once more he resumed his pacing, his hands behind him, his eyes upon
the floor.
“Imagination is, perhaps, man’s greatest gift,” said he. “Without it
there would be little accomplished in the world. But there are times
when one is forced to put the brakes upon it, or it would lead one
astray.”
Scanlon looked at him curiously.
“What’s set you off on that?” asked he.
Ashton-Kirk stopped in his pacing, and lifted his head.
“That object he had given you on the bridge upon the occasion of your
first visit, and which afterward had such a startling effect upon young
Campe--what did you say it was like?”
“It was a stone--not very big--dark green in colour--and with a kind of
hump upon one side of it.”
The crime student nodded; there was a look in the singular eyes which
Bat Scanlon had seen there only upon rare occasions.
“I remembered it as being something like that,” said Ashton-Kirk. He
took up the interrupted pacing for a moment; then paused once more.
“What do you make of that sound we heard out on the hills to-night?”
Scanlon shook his head.
“You’ve got me,” said he. “That’s one of the things I put up to you
when I called you in as a consultant.”
Ashton-Kirk stood looking at him, nodding his head.
“Ah, yes, to be sure. Well, we’ll see what can be done. And now,” with
a look at his watch, “if you don’t mind being turned out, I think I’ll
go to bed.”
“You mean to have a try at the Schwartzberg folks in the morning?”
“Yes.”
Scanlon turned and had his hand upon the door-knob when the crime
specialist spoke again.
“Rather a peculiarly shaped head that man in the chair has.”
“I noticed it,” replied Scanlon. “It seems to slant back from just
above the nose. Gives him an unusual look.”
“Unusual--yes. I don’t think I ever saw that exact conformation except
in----” here he stopped short. “Well,” with another nod, “good-night.
See you in the morning.”