The Black Box Part 37

"You know, of course," he began, "that Craig was arrested at Liverpool in consequence of communications from the New York police. I understand that it was with great difficulty he was discovered, and it is quite clear that some one on the s.h.i.+p had been heavily bribed. However, he was arrested, brought to London, and then down here for purposes of identification. I would have gone to London myself, and in fact offered to do so, but on the other hand, as there are many others on the estate to whom he was well-known, I thought that it would be better to have more evidence than mine alone. Accordingly, they left London one afternoon, and I sent a dogcart to the station to meet them. They arrived quite safely and started for here, Craig handcuffed to one of the Scotland Yard men on the back seat, and the other in front with the driver. About half a mile from the south entrance to the park, the road runs across a rather desolate strip of country with a lot of low undergrowth on one side. We have had a little trouble with poachers, as there is a sort of gipsy camp on some common land a short distance away. My head-keeper, to whom the very idea of a poacher is intolerable, was patrolling this ground himself that afternoon, and caught sight of one of these gipsy fellows setting a trap. He chased him, and more, I am sure, to frighten him than anything else, when he saw that the fellow was getting away he fired his gun, just as the dog-cart was pa.s.sing. The horse s.h.i.+ed, the wheel caught a great stone by the side of the road, and all four men were thrown out. The man to whom Craig was handcuffed was stunned, but Craig himself appears to have been unhurt. He jumped up, took the key of the handcuffs from the pocket of the officer, undid them, and slipped off into the undergrowth before either the groom or the other Scotland Yard man had recovered their senses. To cut a long story short, that was last Thursday, and up till now not a single trace of the fellow has been discovered."

Quest rose abruptly to his feet.

"I'd like to take this matter up right on the spot where Craig disappeared," he suggested. "Couldn't we do that?"

"By all means," Lord Ashleigh agreed, touching a bell. "We have several hours before we change for dinner. I will have a car round and take you to the spot."

The Professor acquiesced readily, and very soon they stepped out of the automobile on to the side of a narrow road, looking very much as it had been described. Further on, beyond a stretch of open common, they could see the smoke from the gipsy encampment. On their left-hand side was a stretch of absolutely wild country, bounded in the far distance by the grey stone wall of the park. Lord Ashleigh led the way through the thicket, talking as he went.

"Craig came along through here," he explained. "The groom and the Scotland Yard man who had been sitting by his side followed him. They searched for an hour but found no trace of him at all. Then they returned to the house to make a report and get help. I will now show you how Craig first eluded them."

He led the way along a tangled path, doubled back, plunged into a little spinney and came suddenly to a small shed.

"This is an ancient gamekeeper's shelter," he explained, "built a long time ago and almost forgotten now. What Craig did, without a doubt, was to hide in this. The Scotland Yard man who took the affair in hand found distinct traces here of recent occupation. That is how he made his first escape."

Quest nodded.

"Sure!" he murmured. "Well now, what about your more extended search?"

"I was coming to that," Lord Ashleigh replied. "As Edgar will remember, no doubt, I have always kept a few bloodhounds in my kennels, and as soon as we could get together one or two of the keepers and a few of the local constabulary, we started off again from here. The dogs brought us without a check to this shed, and started off again in this way."

They walked another half a mile, across a reedy swamp. Every now and then they had to jump across a small d.y.k.e, and once they had to make a detour to avoid an osier bed. They came at last to the river.

"Now I can show you exactly how that fellow put us off the scent here,"

their guide proceeded. "He seems to have picked up something, Edgar, in those South American trips of yours, for a cleverer thing I never saw. You see all these bullrushes everywhere--clouds of them, all along the river?"

"We call them tules," Quest muttered. "Well?"

"When Craig arrived here," Lord Ashleigh continued, "he must have heard the baying of the dogs in the distance and he knew that the game was up unless he could put them off the scent. He cut a quant.i.ty of these bullrushes from a place a little further behind those trees there, stepped boldly into the middle of the water, waded down to that spot where, as you see, the trees hang over, stood stock still and leaned them all around him. It was dusk when the chase reached the river bank, and I have no doubt the bullrushes presented quite a natural appearance. At any rate, although the dogs came without a check to the edge of the river, where he stepped off, they never picked the scent up again either on this side or the other. We tried them for four or five hours before we took them home.

The next morning, while the place was being thoroughly searched, we came upon the spot where these bullrushes had been cut down, and we found them caught in the low boughs of a tree, drifting down the river."

The Professor's tone was filled with something almost like admiration.

"I must confess," he declared, "I never realised for a single moment that Craig was a person of such gifts. In all the small ways of life, in campaigning, camping out, dealing with natural difficulties incidental to our expeditions, I have found him invariably a person of resource, ready-witted and full of useful suggestions. But that he should be able to apply his gifts with such infinite cunning, to a suddenly conceived career of crime, I must admit amazes me."

Quest had lit a fresh cigar and was smoking vigorously.

"What astonishes me more than anything," he p.r.o.nounced, as he stood looking over the desolate expanse of country, "is that when one comes face to face with the fellow he presents all the appearance of a nerveless and broken-down coward. Then all of a sudden there spring up these evidences of the most amazing, the most diabolical resource.... Who's this, Lord Ashleigh?"

The latter turned his head. An elderly man in a brown velveteen suit, with gaiters and thick boots, raised his hat respectfully.

"This is my head-keeper, Middleton," his master explained. "He was with us on the chase."

The Professor shook hands heartily with the newcomer.

"Not a day older, Middleton!" he exclaimed. "So you are the man who has given us all this trouble, eh? This gentleman and I have come over from New York on purpose to lay hands on Craig."

"I am very sorry, sir," the man replied. "I wouldn't have fired my gun if I had known what the consequences were going to be, but them poaching devils that come round here rabbiting fairly send me furious and that's a fact. It ain't that one grudges them a few rabbits, but my tame pheasants all run out here from the home wood, and I've seen feathers at the side of the road there that no fox nor stoat had nothing to do with. All the same, sir, I'm very sorry," he added, "to have been the cause of any inconvenience."

"It is rather worse than inconvenience, Middleton," the Professor said gravely. "The man who has escaped is one of the worst criminals of these days."

"He won't get far, sir," the gamekeeper remarked, with a little smile.

"It's a wild bit of country, this, and I admit that men might search it for weeks without finding anything, but those gentlemen from Scotland Yard, sir, if you'll excuse my making the remark, and hoping that this gentleman," he added, looking at Quest, "is in no way connected with them--well, they don't know everything, and that's a fact."

"This gentleman is from the United States," Lord Ashleigh reminded him, "so your criticism doesn't affect him. By-the-by, Middleton, I heard this morning that you'd been airing your opinions down in the village. You seem to rather fancy yourself as a thief-catcher."

"I wouldn't go so far as that, my lord," the man replied respectfully, "but still, I hope I may say that I've as much common sense as most people. You see, sir," he went on, turning to Quest, "the spots where he could emerge from this track of country are pretty well guarded, and he'll be in a fine mess, when he does put in an appearance, to show himself upon a public road. Yet by this time I should say he must be nigh starved.

Sooner or later he'll have to come out for food. I've a little scheme of my own, sir, I don't mind admitting," the man concluded, with a twinkle in his keen brown eyes. "I'm not giving it away. If I catch him for you, that's all that's wanted, I imagine, and we shan't be any the nearer to it for letting any one into my little secret."

His master smiled.

"You shall have your rise out of the police, if you can, Middleton," he observed. "It seems queer, though, to believe that the fellow's still in hiding round here."

As though by common consent, they all stood, for a moment, perfectly still, looking across the stretch of marshland with its boggy places, its scrubby plantations, its cl.u.s.tering ma.s.ses of tall gra.s.ses and bullrushes.

The grey twilight had become even more p.r.o.nounced during the last few minutes. Little wreaths of white mist hung over the damp places.

Everywhere was a queer silence. The very air seemed breathless. The Professor s.h.i.+vered and turned away.

"My nerves," he declared, "are scarcely what they were. I have listened in a primeval forest, listened for the soft rustling of a snake in the undergrowth, or the distant roar of some beast of prey. I have listened then with curiosity. I have not known fear. It seems to me, somehow, that in this place there is something different afoot. I don't like it, George--I don't like it. We will go home, if you please."

They made their way, single file, to the road and up to the house. Lord Ashleigh did his best to dispel a queer little sensation of uneasiness which seemed to have arisen in the minds of all of them.

"Come," he said, "we must put aside our disappointment for the present, and remember that after all the chances are that Craig will never make his escape alive. Let us forget him for a little while.... Mr. Quest," he added, a few minutes later, as they reached the hall, "Moreton here will show you to your room and look after you. Please let me know if you will take an aperitif. I can recommend my sherry. We dine at eight o'clock.

Edgar, you know your way. The blue room, of course. I am coming up with you myself. Her ladys.h.i.+p back yet, Moreton?"

"Not yet, my lord."

"Lady Ashleigh," her husband explained, "has gone to the other side of the county to open a bazaar. She is looking forward to the pleasure of welcoming you at dinner-time."

Dinner, served, out of compliment to their transatlantic visitor, in the great banqueting hall, was to Quest especially a most impressive meal.

They sat at a small round table lit by shaded lights, in the centre of an apartment which was large in reality, and which seemed vast by reason of the shadows which hovered around the unlit s.p.a.ces. From the walls frowned down a long succession of family portraits--Ashleighs in the queer Tudor costume of Henry the Seventh; Ashleighs in chain armour, sword in hand, a charger waiting, regardless of perspective, in the near distance; Ashleighs befrilled and bewigged; Ashleighs in the Court dress of the Georges--judges, sailors, statesmen and soldiers. A collection of armour which would have gladdened the eye of many an antiquarian, was ranged along the black-panelled walls. Everything was in harmony, even the grave precision of the solemn-faced butler and the powdered hair of the two footmen. Quest, perhaps for the first time in his life, felt almost lost, hopelessly out of touch with his surroundings, an alien and a struggling figure. Nevertheless, he entertained the little party with many stories.

He struggled all the time against that queer sensation of anachronism which now and then became almost oppressive.

The Professor's pleasure at finding himself once more amongst these familiar surroundings was obvious and intense. The conversation between him and his brother never flagged. There were tenants and neighbours to be asked after, matters concerning the estate on which he demanded information. Even the very servants' names he remembered.

"It was a queer turn of fate, George," he declared, as he held out before him a wonderfully chased gla.s.s filled with amber wine, "which sent you into the world a few seconds before me and made you Lord of Ashleigh and me a struggling scientific man."

"The world has benefited by it," Lord Ashleigh remarked, with more than fraternal courtesy. "We hear great things of you over here, Edgar. We hear that you have been on the point of proving most unpleasant things with regard to our origin."

"Oh! there is no doubt about that," the Professor observed. "Where we came from and where we are going to are questions which no longer afford room for the slightest doubt to the really scientific mind. What sometimes does elude us is the nature of our tendencies while we are here on earth."

"Mine, I fancy, are obvious enough," Lord Ashleigh interposed.

"Superficially, I grant it," his brother acknowledged. "As a matter of scientific fact, I recognize the probability of your actually being a person utterly different from what you appear. Man becomes what he is according to the circ.u.mstances by which he is a.s.sailed. Now your life here, George, must be a singularly uneventful one."

"Not during the last six months," Lord Ashleigh remarked, with a sigh.

"Even these last few days have been exciting enough. I must confess that they have left me with a queer sort of nervousness. I find myself listening intently sometimes,--conscious, as it were, of the influence or presence of some indefinite danger."