The Wharf By The Docks Part 43

If--if the police--"

At that moment there was a shout from the yard outside. Carrie sprang like a hare up the stairs to the window, and looked out with straining eyes.

The afternoon was one of those dull misty winter days, with a leaden sky and an east wind.

"I'll see that she isn't hurt!" called out Max, as he bounded down the stairs and ran into the yard behind the house.

Here he found a motley group--the stablemen, the laundry-maids and the gardeners--all hunting in the many corners and crannies of the outbuildings for the old woman who had alarmed Anne.

Max spoke sharply to the men.

"Here, what are you about?" said he. "Hunting a poor old woman as if she were a wild animal? Go back to your work. She'll never dare to show her face while you are all about!"

"She's left the well-house, sir, and, we think, she's got into the big barn," explained one of the lads, with the feeling that Mr. Max himself would want to join in the chase when he knew that the game was to hand.

"Well, leave her there," answered Max, promptly. "She'll come out when you've all gone, and I'll send her about her business."

Max saw, as he spoke, that there was a man standing at a little distance just outside the stable-gate, whom he did not recognize. Before he could ask who he was, however, the man had disappeared from view. He remembered what Carrie had said about the presence of a policeman, and he thought the time was come to take the bull by the horns.

So he walked rapidly in the direction of the gate, and addressed the man whom he found there.

"Are you a policeman?" he asked, abruptly.

"Yes, sir," answered the man, touching his hat.

"What is your business here?"

"I'm on the lookout for some one I have a warrant for. Charge of murder, sir."

"Man or woman?"

"Man, sir."

"Will you tell me his name?"

"Horne, sir."

Max thought a moment.

"Why are you pottering about here, instead of going straight up to the house?"

"Well, sir, I'm obeying orders."

"Come with me," said Max suddenly. "There's an old hag hiding in the barn now, who knows more about this business than Mr. Horne."

Behind the young gentleman's back the detective smiled, but he professed to be ready to follow him.

"There's only one way out of this barn," explained Max, as he approached the door, beside which a groom was standing. "By this door, which is never locked. There is a window, but it's too high up for anybody to get out by."

Telling the groom to guard the door, Max went into the barn, followed by the detective. There was still light enough for them to find their way about among the lumber.

"Where's the window, sir?" asked the detective.

Max pointed to a speck of light high in the south wall of the barn.

"She couldn't get out there," said he, "even if she could climb up to it. Unless she could swarm a rope."

And he touched one of the ropes which dangled from a huge beam.

The detective, however, walked rapidly past him, and stopped short, pointing to something which was lying on the floor under the window.

It was the body of a man, lying in a heap.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.

Max helped the detective raise the man from the ground. He was quite dead, and from the position in which they had found him, both men concluded that he had been in the act of climbing up to the high window, when the rope by which he was holding broke under his weight. It was evident that he had fallen upon an old millstone which was among the lumber on the floor beneath, and that the shock of the fall had broken his neck.

They had found out all this before Max could form any opinion as to the ident.i.ty of the dead man. He was short of stature, and apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, slightly built, but muscular. The body was dressed in the clothes of a respectable mechanic.

There was very little light in the barn by this time, and Max directed the groom, who had been standing outside, and who had entered, attracted by Max's shout of discovery, to bring a lantern.

"I suppose we'd better send for a doctor," said Max, "though the man's as dead as a doornail. In the meantime, just give a look around and see whether the woman is anywhere about."

The detective appeared to follow the suggestion, for he at once proceeded to a further inspection of the building by the aid of one of the two lanterns which the groom had by this time brought. And presently he came back to Max with a bundle in his hand.

Max, by the light of the lantern which the groom was holding for him, was looking at the face of the dead man, whom he guessed to be one of Mrs. Higgs's accomplices, perhaps the mysterious person whose influence over the old woman, according to Carrie, was so bad.

While he was staring intently at the dead face, he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, saw that Carrie had stolen into the barn behind the groom, and had her eyes fixed upon the body.

Max sprang up.

"Do you know him? Is it the man who used to get into the place by night?" asked he, eagerly.

Carrie, without answering, looked from the dead man to the detective, and from him to the bundle he was carrying.

"Ah!" exclaimed she.

Max looked in his turn. The detective was displaying, one by one, a woman's skirt, bodice, bonnet, shawl and a cap with a "front" of woman's hair sewn inside it.

"I think you can guess, sir, what's become of the woman now?" said the officer, grimly.

Max started violently, shocked by a surprise which, both for the detective and for Carrie, had been discounted some time ago.