The Trail of the Dead

 Extracted from Windsor Magazine, vol 17, 1902-03, pp. 121-129, etc. Accompanying illustrations by Adolf Thiede may be omitted.

THE TRAIL OF THE DEAD:

THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF DR. ROBERT HARLAND.

by

B. FLETCHER ROBINSON

and

J. MALCOLM FRASER.

I.—THE HAIRY CATERPILLAR.

IT is with no intention of delighting the curious that I put my pen to paper. Only at the urgent desire of many members of my own profession have I undertaken a task necessarily disagreeable, and do now recall the details of a case which I take to be without parallel in the records of criminology. In the mental state of the afflicted being there was, indeed, little that was abnormal. Manias that are similar to his fill our asylums. But that laborious studies in the byways of science, rather than in her more frequented paths, had placed at the will of his disordered brain weapons of a deadly potency, transformed a personal misfortune into a great and urgent public danger.

I spent four years at Cambridge, where, though my degree was a high one, I found too many distractions to make such progress as I could have wished in my profession. Yet my interest in medicine grew steadily, and on leaving the University I determined, having both the means and the time at my disposal, to seek out a spot where I could throw myself into my work without the interruptions of old friends and old associations. The high reputation of Heidelberg attracted me, and hither I migrated.

Sufficient for myself. The man who was to be associated with me in my strange quest I will describe with equal brevity. My cousin, Sir Henry Graden, Kt., M.D., F.R.S., F.R.G.S., was a man of remarkable personality—a surgeon of brilliant gifts that had made for him a European reputation, yet an eccentric—or so the world held him—who lacked the steady application necessary for complete success. He would throw himself into the solution of a problem, or the prosecution of a new experiment, with the utmost zeal; yet on achieving the desired result he would shake off the atmosphere of the hospital and laboratory and start on some wild-goose chase that might include the ascent of an unclimbable peak, the capture of a rare species of wild animal, or the study of a little-known tribe of savages. In person he was of great stature, and heavily, almost clumsily, built, with a rugged, weather-beaten face, keen yet kindly grey eyes, and brown hair, somewhat grizzled about the temples. In age he was well past the forties. In dress and deportment he might pardonably have been mistaken for a prosperous Yorkshire grazier. Indeed, he was wont to complain that he acted as a magnet to all the tricksters of London; though, from the shrewd smile with which he accompanied his protests, it was easy to see that he thoroughly enjoyed the diversion of turning the tables on his discreditable opponents.

It was towards the end of my second year at Heidelberg. An autumn sun had sunk to rest in a golden haze over the wooded hills, and the night, luminous under a harvest moon, lay upon the old town. I was sitting at my table, on which a shaded lamp threw its yellow circle, arranging the notes of the lectures I had that day attended, when there came a knock at the door behind me. I cried a sulky invitation, for I feared the appearance of one of my preposterous student friends, with his jargon of the duel and the beerhouse. But the next moment an enormous hand had dragged me into the realisation of my duties as a host by standing me on my feet amid the clatter of a falling chair.

"Why, Cousin Graden!" I cried, for indeed it was he who had thus treated me. "What cyclone has blown you here?"

"Egad! I believe it's the truth I've heard," said he, throwing himself on to a sofa that cracked again under his weight—he was a famed breaker of furniture was cousin Harry Graden. "They told me that you'd shut yourself up for nigh on two years—work, work, work—as if there was no young blood in your veins, and no green world lying around you, with not a yard of it that isn't worth all the most learned dissertations ever written."

I knew his favourite doctrine. It would have been as foolish to argue with him as to attempt to uphold the necessity for the Union with an Irish Home Ruler.

"But what are you doing here?" I repeated.

"It's to Berlin that I'm bound, to read a paper before a society that is good enough to be interested in some notes I took recently on the Kaffir witch-doctors. I'd a few days in hand, so I thought I would take a peep at my dear Heidelberg and, incidentally, at my worthy cousin, Robert Harland."

He rose and stalked about the room, clucking to himself like a contented hen.

"Same beer jugs and china pipes; same wainscot, a shade darker maybe; same old oak beams, a thought more smoky; same schlägers above the mantelpiece."

He took down one of the student's duelling-swords and slipped his hand into the heavy hilt. Raising his long arm into the orthodox attitude, he swept the keen thin blade in hissing circles.

"Do you ever tramp on the sawdust, and drum with the schläger, and bleed in the tank, Cousin Robert?"

"Not I. Though I have heard of your triumphs in the past, you man of blood!"

"And who has been gossiping?"

"Professor Von Stockmar. He asked me to supper the second day I arrived, for the sole purpose, as I believe, of impressing me with the fame of a certain duelling desperado of a student, one Henry Graden, who flourished in Heidelberg twenty years ago."

"What, Von Stockmar? Little Hermann? What a good fellow he was! Did you ever hear him sing a song about—but, of course, that's not possible. So little Hermann's a professor, is he? Are you under him?"

"No; I am with Professor Marnac."

Graden walked across to the fireplace and slowly filled a huge china pipe that lay thereon. He lit it and, turning his back to the empty grate, sent forth such puffs of smoke that he spoke as from out a cloud, mistily.

"He has made himself a great name, this Marnac. How do you stand with him, Cousin Robert?"

"I don't quite know. I was a great favourite of his in my first year."

"And now? Have you quarrelled?"

"Well, not exactly; it's a foolish story."

"The foolish stories are often of greater interest than the wise ones."

"Well, Cousin Graden," said I, leaning back in my chair and lighting a fresh cigarette, "if you want to hear it, I'll tell it you, and as shortly as may be. It began by the publication some six months ago of Professor Marnac's celebrated book, 'Science and Religion.'"

"Humph! a strong effort, full of suggestions," he grunted; "but brutal, callous, and revolutionary. It had a mixed reception, I believe."

"It had; and nowhere more so than in this University. Von Stockmar followed in by a pamphlet of unsparing criticism, which split the students into two bodies—the Marnac men and the Stockmar men. It was a pretty quarrel, and gave an excuse for a score of the inevitable duels."

"Did Marnac attempt a reprisal?"

"He did, and in the unusual form of reading aloud Von Stockmar's attack upon his theories to the class, of which I am a member. He appealed to us for sympathy. His agitation was remarkable. I declare that he snarled over his opponent's name like a dog over a bone; and a most unpleasant scene ended in a fit, from which we aroused him with difficulty."

"But this does not tell me how you came to be involved," he cried sharply, striding over to the table and plumping himself into a chair facing me.

"Have patience, my impetuous cousin. From the first I had always found a friend in Von Stockmar. I liked him, and we met frequently. The second day after the scene in the lecture-room I was walking with the cheery little man when we chanced upon Marnac. He gave me an ugly look, but said nothing. That night, however, he came to these rooms and abused me roundly. He reminded me of the interest he had shown in my work, called me a traitor to his party, and in other ways behaved with a childish absurdity. Naturally, I refused to give up a valued friend."

"You did right. But surely the affair has blown over?"

"To the contrary, the antagonism—on Marnac's side, at least—has grown still more bitter. Whenever I chance to be present, he misses no opportunity of attacking 'my dear friend,' as he calls Von Stockmar, in the most cruel and vindictive fashion. My position at his lectures is, I assure you, becoming most unendurable."

"You are too sensitive. Cousin Robert. The absurdities of a vain and jealous——"

Graden checked his unfinished sentence with his nose cocked in the air like a gigantic terrier. Surprise and suspicion were in his expression and attitude. Then he rose slowly, as with an effort, and leant forward across the table, his knuckles resting on its edge.

"We neglect our visitor," said he gravely, and at his words I turned sharply in my chair.

In the shadows about the door, yet outlined with sufficient clearness against the black oak of the wainscot, a face stared in upon us. Around the head, crowned with a black skull-cap, fell a thick growth of white hair that was saint-like in length and beauty; the beard was of the like venerable purity. In a man of his apparent age the cheeks were curiously rosy, while the hand that held open the door was small as a woman's and delicate as old ivory. For a moment I thought that the eyes, exaggerated by the convex pebbles of great gold glasses, turned upon me with an expression of malicious satisfaction. Yet this was but an impression, for the gloom hung heavily about him where he stood, and my sight had not been unaffected by nights of study.

"Will not the gentleman step in?" Graden continued, with a reproach at my unhospitality in his voice.

Professor Rudolf Marnac—for it was he who thus honoured us—slid his diminutive figure through the door and advanced, with a courteous inclination, into the lamplight.

"My dear young sir," said he, in the soft musical English with which it was his custom to address me, "I should not have intruded myself at this late hour but that I am the bearer of painful news which I felt it right to communicate to you. Your friend, Hermann Von Stockmar, died this evening of acute inflammation of the lungs."

"Died," I cried in bewilderment. "Why, I passed him in the street at midday looking well and hearty."

"Yes, it is even so, Mr. Harland. One moment a steady flame illuminating this University with its light; the next, a sigh from the conqueror Death and it is extinguished. The active brain is still; the pen, trenchant, incisive, destructive, is laid aside for ever."

It was an impressive homily; but from so open and vindictive a foe it seemed singularly inappropriate.

"You seem surprised," he continued. "I fear that encounters in the cause of science may have led the public to believe that poor Von Stockmar and I cherished personal animosities. If that is so, I trust you will use your influence to contradict it. My sorrow is already heavy enough—without that unwarrantable suspicion."

The Professor seemed deeply affected. Removing his spectacles, he pulled from his side pocket a large silk pocket-handkerchief. As he did so, a tinkle caught my ear. A square box of some white metal had fallen to the floor. It rolled into the lamplight, where the lid flew open. The Professor hastily clapped on his glasses; but already Graden had retrieved the box and was presenting it to him.

"There was nothing in it, sir," said he, for the Professor had stooped and was examining the carpet minutely.

"I thank you, I thank you."

"Pray do not mention it. Cousin Robert, if you and the Professor will excuse me, I will step across and take a last look at poor little Hermann. Where are his rooms?"

Before I could answer, the Professor was on his feet.

"Pray accept me as your guide," said he, moving towards the door. Graden bowed his thanks like a polite elephant. I followed the pair down the stairs.

It was growing late, and the narrow streets of the students' quarter were well-nigh deserted. A moon, like a polished shield, hung over the old castle above us, picking out each turret and parapet in silver grey against the sleeping woods that swept upward to the sky-line. Across our path the gabled house cast broad, fantastic pools of shadow. A wind had risen with the moon, and sighed and quivered in the roofs and archways. Once, from a distant beer-house, came the faint mutter of a rousing chorus, but soon it was swallowed and carried away by the midnight breezes.

We had not far to walk, and in five minutes the Professor was tapping discreetly with an ugly devil-face of a knocker on Von Stockmar's door. Presently the bolt was drawn, and Hans, the grey-bearded servant of the dead man, stood in the doorway, a lamp held high above his head. He blinked upon us moodily, with eyes dimmed by old age and recent tears, till, catching sight of Graden's huge bulk, he stepped forward with a snort of surprise, flashing the light in his face as he did so.

"By Heavens! but it is Heinrich der Grosse!" he stammered. "Ach! Herr Heinrich, but have you forgotten Hans of the Schlägers, servant of the honourable corps of the Saxo Borusen?"

"No, no," said Graden, shaking the veteran by the hand. "So our little Hermann took you for his servant, as he promised? This is a sad day for us both, old friend. Tell me, how did it happen?"

"Do not ask me, Herr Heinrich. My mind wanders—I, who served him nigh on twenty years and was as a father and mother to him."

The worthy fellow put down the lamp in the little hall into which he had led us, and mopped his eyes with a hand that trembled with emotion.

But Graden persisted in his quiet way and soon extracted: the details. It seemed that it was the custom of the dead Professor to take a nap after his midday meal. That afternoon, however, his sleep was unduly prolonged, and at four Hans, who knew he had an engagement about that hour, slipped in to wake him. His master was lying on the couch in his bedroom, where he was wont to take his siesta. But he was in a curious, huddled position and breathing stertorously. Hans failed to rouse him, became alarmed, and hurried off for a neighbouring doctor. That gentleman diagnosed the case as a sudden and severe chill which had settled on the lungs, causing violent inflammation. Everything possible was done, but by eight he was dead. Beyond the remarkable violence of the seizure, the doctor had said, there was nothing unusual in the symptoms. Overwork had doubtless undermined the constitution and rendered it vulnerable to a sudden attack.

[Illustration: "With a swift sideways turn of the head, he caught sight of our faces in the doorway."]

"And while he was asleep—had he visitors?" asked Graden.

"The street-door is never locked during the day."

"But would you not have heard the steps?"

"It was my custom to sleep, too. Herr Professor allowed it."

"So. I should like to take a last look at your poor master, friend Hans. By the way, Cousin Robert, where is our guide, the learned Marnac? I did not see him leave the house."

"Perhaps the Professor Marnac has already gone to my master's room, the second to the right on the first floor," suggested the old servant.

In two strides my cousin was on the steep and narrow stairs. For a man of his age and size he mounted them with a surprising activity. Indeed, when I gained the landing he was already standing at the door of the room. He held up his hand with a warning gesture. I stepped up to him softly and peeped over his shoulder.

By the side of an old sofa placed against the wall of a room, half bed-chamber, half study. Professor Marnac crouched on his hands and knees. A lamp stood on the floor at his elbow. He was working with feverish haste, yet with a certain method, moving the lamp onward as his examination of the section lit by its immediate rays was completed. It was an odd sight, this silver-haired figure that crept about, peeping and peering, like some species of elderly ape. So absorbed was he that it was nigh on a minute before, with a swift sideways turn of the head, he caught sight of our faces in the doorway and rose to his feet.

"I can find no trace of it," said he, smoothing back his hair with a sigh. "It is excessively annoying."

"Of what, may I ask, sir?" I queried.

"Of my signet-ring, Mr. Harland. A valued possession which I would not lose for fifty pounds."

"Pray let me assist you," said I, stepping forward and raising the lamp, which the Professor had replaced on the table.

"No, no, Mr. Harland. Enough has been done; in the presence of death we must forget such trivialities. Besides, although it was on my finger when I entered the house, it may have been dropped in the hall or on the stairs. I do not doubt that Hans will find it."

The Professor spoke in so resolute a fashion that politeness did not demand that I should press the matter. My cousin had already passed behind a great screen of stamped leather that cut off the bed from the rest of the apartment. Marnac had stepped after him, and I, though at a slower pace, followed them. To be honest, the events of the evening had disturbed me not a little. I had grown suspicious, uneasy; and this annoyed me in that I was without reasonable cause for such a frame of mind. Granted that the Professor had displayed oddities of demeanour, yet he was notoriously an eccentric. And if my cousin had become taciturn, if his politeness rang insincerely, the death of his old friend——

"Stand back, Herr Professor! stand back, I say!"

It was Graden's voice, stern and decisive. I sprang to the corner of the screen and peered into the darkened alcove beyond.

Upon his death-bed pillows the calm and simple face of poor Von Stockmar gleamed like a mask carved in white marble. But neither of the two men who confronted each other across the body looked upon it. Graden, a grim and resolute figure, stood holding a common wooden match-box in his huge hands. He had opened it carelessly, for cheap sulphur matches were scattered on the sheet before him. Marnac's face I could not see, but in the pose of his back and shoulders there was something feline—something suggestive of an animal about to spring.

For a second or two the three of us stood in silence. My cousin was the first to break it.

"Pray do not let us detain you, Professor Marnac," said he. "Should we chance upon your ring, believe me, it will be safe."

The Professor straightened himself with a little gesture of submission and stepped back into the lamplight. His hand was on the latch, when he turned upon us—for we had followed him—with a face deformed with the most malignant fury.

"Au revoir my friends," he cried. "I wish you a pleasant evening."

And then a fit of laughter took him—smothered, diabolical merriment that broke out in oily chuckles like water gurgling from a bottle. The door closed upon it. We stood listening as it grew fainter, fainter, until it died away in silence on the lower stairs.

"Turn the key, Cousin Robert. But, no; after him, lad, and bolt him out of the house. He'll be burning it down, else."

Graden was inexplicable; but I ran to obey. As I readied the hall, I heard the clang of the street door and the squeaking of the bolts as Hans shot them behind the departing visitor.

When I re-entered the room, I found the screen pushed back against the wall, and my cousin, in his shirt-sleeves, leaning over the bed. He barked at me over his shoulder to sit down and keep quiet, and I humbly obeyed him. Once or twice he turned to the lamp which he had at his elbow, and I caught the glimpse of a magnifying-glass. Presently he rose, and, carrying the lamp in his hand, commenced a circuit of the room, lingering now and again to examine some object. At the dressing-table he paused for several minutes, using the magnifying-glass repeatedly. But shortly afterwards he threw himself into a chair beside me with the air of a man whose work is done.

"It's no disrespect to our little Hermann that I mean," said he, pulling out a big briar, "but smoke I must."

He sat there puffing for a minute or two, his head sunk forward, his eyes on the floor. I watched him expectantly.

[Illustration: "A round, fluffy ball rolled out and lay motionless."]

"It's a great gift, is observation," he began. "It makes just the difference between mediocrity and success in game-hunters and novel-writers, in painters of pictures and explorers of the unknown lands, where a man has never a map to help him. And this same trick of observation has given me some very remarkable results this evening; and how remarkable you will realise when I set them out in proper order. You've a logical head, Cousin Robert, and I want you to give me your fullest attention. Contradict me if I overstate the case.

"Fact the first: That a certain celebrated scientist, Rudolf Marnac, had an ill feeling—a very ill and evil feeling—towards a certain brother-professor, one Hermann Von Stockmar. Fact the second: That Von Stockmar died suddenly."

"Of a natural cause, as certified by a competent physician," I added quickly.

"Exactly. Fact the third: Marnac, who considers you a deserter to the Stockmar camp—as, indeed, I gather from your own story—appears in your rooms to inform you of the sudden death of his enemy. Now, why should he do that?"

"He is an eccentric. A sudden whim, perhaps. We were very intimate once, you must remember."

"Though hardly so now, from his manner of regarding you when he first announced himself this evening."

"He might have caught what we were saying. Listeners hear no good of themselves, but that does not tend to improve their tempers."

"Well, let that pass. It brings us to fact number four: He tells a deliberate lie."

"A lie! But when?"

"The man was worth studying. When I first saw him this evening, I ran my eye over him. I especially noticed his hands—their suppleness, their delicate colour, their long, prehensile fingers. I do not doubt that he is very proud of them. He wore no ring—it is not the custom of those who deal with germs to so adorn themselves. What was he looking for so anxiously in this room, if it were not a ring? Why did he leave us in the hall that he might conduct this search before our presence disturbed him?"

"I cannot suggest an explanation; but really, Cousin Graden, you seem to be weaving a most unnecessary tangle. I cannot imagine what result you expect to obtain."

"A conviction for murder."

I stared at him in the most profound amazement.

"Yes, murder, Cousin Robert; as deliberate and cold-blooded a doing to death of an innocent man as has ever befouled a corner of God's fair world."

He rose from his chair and ploughed heavily up and down the room. The veins started in his forehead; his huge hands knotted themselves tensely.

"Listen. This afternoon a man lay asleep on that couch in the corner. We know the manner of man—a keen investigator, an indefatigable worker, an honest fighter; but one who had never done in all his life a mean or ignoble action. There comes a creak upon the stairs, the door is opened softly, a head peers in. He—the murderer—enters the room. He knew the custom of the house in this warm September weather: the doors open, the old servant asleep, the master taking his regular siesta. How far is he a criminal, how far a lunatic? Is this act premeditated, or the sudden tempting of opportunity? Who can say? It is enough that in his diseased imagination he has come to regard the sleeper as an enemy who maliciously set himself to destroy his theories and to bring ridicule on the laborious work of years. His desire for revenge against his critics at home and abroad is concentrated on the man before him.

"How the Thing came into his possession I cannot guess, though that should be a point easily discovered. He himself may have obtained it from Africa, or it may have come into his hands by chance, as the chief of the Entomological Museum. But he has it safe enough, shut up in the tin box which fell from his pocket in your rooms. The spring of the lid was defective, you may remember; it is that same defective spring that will hang him.

"He stands over there, listening and watching. There is no sound; the sleeper will not wake. He opens the case upon the dressing-table and lifts the Thing with tweezers—for every hair of it has its poison. With scissors he cuts off some score of hairs, catching them in the crease of a folded sheet of notepaper. He replaces it in the case and closes the lid. Like an ugly shadow he flits across to the couch, kneels by its side, and one, two, three times blows the hairs from the creased paper across the intake of the sleeper's breath. He turns, snatches up the case from the table, and is gone. In five hours Professor Von Stockmar is dead of inflammation of the lungs. There is not a doctor in all Germany who would challenge that diagnosis. In nine hours Professor Rudolf Marnac is accused by me, Henry Graden, of murder."

"But this deadly Thing!" I cried, with a sinking horror at my heart. "This beast, reptile, insect—what is it? Where is it now?"

For answer he thrust his fingers into his pocket and drew out the same wooden match-box that I had seen him with by the bedside of the dead man. He slid it half open and tapped it sideways on the table under the lamp. A round, fluffy ball rolled out and lay motionless. Suddenly a little black head protruded, a score of tiny feet paddled into motion, and across the table there crept a hairy caterpillar—a loathsome, disreputable object, for across its back lay a ragged scar, where the hairs had been shorn away.

"Do you recognise the species?"

In a faint-hearted way I leaned across to grasp it, but with a sudden motion he brushed my hand aside.

"I see you do not," said he grimly. "It is common enough in South Africa."

With the end of a match he carefully pushed the insect back into the box, and replaced it in his pocket.

"The luck was against Marnac," he continued. "Not for one moment do I suggest that otherwise I should have suspected the truth. To begin with, the defective spring of the case allowed the caterpillar to escape while he was bending over poor Hermann. After he had done his devil's work he slipped it back hastily into his pocket. He never realised what had occurred until, upon accidentally pulling it out with his handkerchief in your lodgings, he found it empty. It was for that reason he accompanied us here, for that reason he searched so anxiously. What became of it did not matter so long as it was not found in this room; though, as a matter of fact, there was very small danger, even then, of it affording a clue.

"And now we come to a stroke of abominable ill-luck, of which Marnac has every right to complain. I found the caterpillar on the sheet of the bed, where it had crawled in its wanderings. But that was not the worst of it, for I happened to be the one man in all Heidelberg who knew of its peculiar properties; who knew that its hairs are slightly poisoned, sufficient indeed to raise a nasty rash on the hand; who knew that the old-time Hottentots employed it for removing their enemies by blowing the hairs into their lungs. I took out a match-box, emptied it, and collected the caterpillar. I was closing the box when I looked up and saw Marnac watching me with a shocking expression, which could scarcely have distorted the face of a perfectly sane man, however provoked. Nearly every murderer has a screw loose somewhere; but, in my opinion, Marnac is in an unusually bad way. It may turn out more of an asylum than a gallows business, after all."

"But the details of the scene you picture; how did you obtain them?"

"I am a quick thinker, and the events of the evening began to arrange themselves in a sort of sequence, crowned by the discovery of the caterpillar. The inference to be gathered from them was obvious. I examined the nostrils of the dead man, and found four of the caterpillar hairs caught therein. On the dressing-table lay an ordinary pair of nail-scissors. Two hairs were jammed where the blades met. On the creased sheet of paper, which I found behind the couch, there was no sign; but the use to which it had been put was plain. From Hans I knew the custom of the house: the sleep after the midday meal, the open doors, the opportunity. Is the matter plain to you?"

"What are you going to do?" It was all that I could say.

"Nothing to-night. To appear at a German police-station at this hour with such an extraordinary story would be—for two foreigners, at least—the height of absurdity. Besides, there is no hurry; Marnac won't budge. He'll sit it out, never fear."

One o'clock clanged out from the steeples as I bade good-night to Graden at the door of my lodgings. He had already secured a room in a neighbouring hotel.

"Have you a lock on your bedroom door?" said he.

"I believe so."

"Well, use it to-night. We've an ugly customer to deal with; and the worst of it is that, unless I am much mistaken, he knows how much we know."

I watched him as he rolled away, a gigantic figure in the moonlight, waving the thick stick he carried. Never had my stairs seemed so uncomfortably dark, never had they creaked behind me so mysteriously. It was with a sigh of relief that I gained my room and by a quick glance assured myself that I was alone.

It seemed that I had only just dropped off into dreamland—for, indeed, sleep had been hard to woo that night—when a knocking at my door brought me from my bed. I unlocked and opened it. Cousin Graden filled the foreground.

"I didn't think he'd throw up the sponge," said he. "But he has, none the less. Marnac has bolted!"

"And you?"

"I shall follow."

So commenced those strange wanderings which I shall entitle "The Trail of the Dead."

* Copyright, 1902, by R. Fletcher Robinson and J. Malcolm Fraser, in the United States of America.

II.—THE MYSTERY OF THE LEMSDORF HAM.

HOW Rudolf Maniac, the venerable savant, brought about the death of his rival and critic, Professor Von Stockmar, of Heidelberg University, I have already explained. I have, moreover, related the accident by which my cousin, Sir Henry Graden, the famous explorer and scientist, chanced to be visiting me, a student of medicine at the German University; and I have endeavoured to outline the steps by which the baronet arrived at the discovery of the crime that had been committed. I have now to tell of the pursuit of Marnac, the murderer, a pursuit as strange in its outset as it was terrible in its conclusion. For this, the first adventure in the chase of this inhuman monster, it may be said that I have chosen a fanciful title. Yet "The Mystery of the Lemsdorf Ham" is too appropriate to be neglected for that reason.

At the first the Heidelberg police met our theory of Von Stockmar's death with incredulity. When they moved in earnest, it was too late; all trace of Professor Marnac had been lost. It was discovered that he had taken from his rooms a small travelling valise and a considerable sum in ready money; but beyond these facts nothing was known; even his manner of leaving Heidelberg was a mystery.

For myself, the weeks that followed were in every respect intolerable. From a peaceful student I found myself transformed into a secret ally of the police, an unhappy being whose privacy was liable to be disturbed at all hours by some inquisitive official. Even worse, the authorities had detained my cousin, and those who are intimates of Sir Henry Graden will understand that I suffered at his hands. In the capture of the murderer—as we knew Marnac to be—he took a passionate interest. He was for ever in my rooms, denouncing the authorities for their delay, advancing theories, or cursing his own inaction. The lieutenant in charge of the Heidelberg police went in absolute terror of the Englishman, and, indeed, refused all interviews in which he was not adequately protected by his satellites.

On a calm October morning I was sitting reading by my window, thankful of the momentary quiet I enjoyed, when the door burst open and my cousin come frolicking into the room. I admit the absurdity of the expression when applied to a middle-aged giant of sixteen stone; but frolicking describes it. Without a word of apology he seized my book, a new edition of Smallwood's "Digestive Organs of Molluscs," and flung it into the fireplace. It was too much.

"Henry Graden," said I, starting up indignantly, "you are my cousin, but you presume on that relationship. These schoolboy antics are insupportable."

"Capital, Robert! capital!" he answered, regarding me with a comical expression. "By Gad! there's stuff in the boy! You'd like to punch my head, I suppose?"

I was somewhat ashamed of my outburst, and picked up the book, which was greatly damaged, before I replied.

"It's all very well, cousin Graden," I said, sulkily enough. "But between you and the police, I am worried to death."

"Good! Then you can have no objection to leaving Heidelberg this afternoon."

"Leave Heidelberg? Why should I leave Heidelberg?"

He strode over to where I stood and laid his great hand on my shoulder with a touch that implied an apology.

"A schoolboy you called me just now. That's just what I am, a schoolboy let loose in the playground. The police have raised their embargo. An address which will bring me when they have need of my evidence—that is all they ask. Now, I want a travelling companion—a man I can trust. You can guess my errand. Cousin Robert. Before a week is out I shall have my hand on him, I shall, by Heaven! You will come with me? Good lad, I knew it. The train leaves at three. I'll call for you."

"But where are we going?" I shouted, running to the door; for already he was down a score of stairs.

"St. Petersburg. You have a passport?"

"Yes—but Cousin Graden, Cousin Graden, I say——"

It was no use. I heard the street door slam behind him. St. Petersburg—and the winter coming on. Eugh! I had always detested cold. But next to escaping misfortune it is best to possess a philosophic mind. I commenced to pack my bag with my warmest underwear.

At thirty-five minutes past two, Graden sent up word to say that he had a cab waiting my pleasure, and in three minutes more my luggage was upon it. Half-way down the main street we chanced upon Mossel, the fat lieutenant of police. He glanced at us keenly with, as I thought, a certain suspicion. Graden saluted him coldly, muttering maledictions upon him for a stupid ass. There was no great friendship between the two. I paid the cab while my cousin saw to the tickets. Five marks provided us with a subservient guard and an empty carriage.

"And what are your plans for this intolerable Petersburg expedition?" I asked, as the train thumped its way out of the station.

"We are not going to St. Petersburg. We are going to Lemsdorf."

"To Lemsdorf! I have never heard of the place."

"No more had I an hour ago. Allow me to discover it."

He pulled a red-bound Baedeker out of his pocket and fluttered through the pages.

"Here we have it—'Lemsdorf: fourteen to fifteen hours from Berlin. Rising town in West Prussia. 12,000 inhabitants. Large dye-works. 'Prinz von Preussen,' 'Goldner Adler' hotels well spoken of. Cab from the station, 75 pg. Little of historical interest. Excursions to Denker and the Huren, a wild and desolate district with several large lakes, on the Russian frontier.' Not altogether an inviting prospect at the latter end of October, eh, Cousin Robert?"

"I did not imagine we were going there for pleasure."

"Pessimist! Do neither the 'Prinz von Prussen' nor the 'Goldner Adler,' 'well spoken of,' as Baedeker describes these hostelries, attract you? Then the dye-works, they are sure to be interesting."

"Henry Graden," cried I with determination, "you try me too far! I am as eager as yourself that this criminal should be brought to justice. For this reason alone I have every right to know the why and wherefore of an expedition which will entail upon me, as I see clearly, the most extraordinary discomforts."

"It seems a pity, my dear cousin, that Nature, which endowed you with so many admirable qualities, should have omitted the saving grace of humour," he rejoined. And then changing his tone to a greater sobriety: "You shall hear all that I know or conjecture. It will, at least, help us on our journey.

"First, as to the facts at my disposal. For myself, I had heard much of Rudolf Marnac, but only as a Heidelberg professor of distinction, whose stupendous effort, 'Science and Belief,' had set educated Europe by the ears. From you I learnt of his quarrel with Von Stockmar, a quarrel originating in the latter's attack on the work in question, of which Marnac was inordinately vain. Then came the chain of facts that proved—to our mind, at least—that Marnac had murdered his colleague with a diabolical ingenuity. Could such a crime be inspired by a quarrel so trifling? It was almost past belief. Further evidence was necessary; and this evidence the investigations of the police have supplied.

"When I learnt that his father, Jean Marnac, had died in a Paris asylum, I began to see my way. But it was the statements of his servants that cleared my last doubt. An eccentricity which at one time amused them had of late been changed to a violence that filled them with terror. He had presented them with copies of the book, elaborately bound. A housekeeper who had served him for twenty years was loaded with abuse and discharged because the old creature admitted that she could not follow his arguments. He was the victim of a partial mania. Such cases are not uncommon.

"Whither had this dangerous creature fled? It seemed a mystery insoluble. He was well provided with money; on all topics but one he was admirably sensible. The police admitted that he had beaten them. But only yesterday I obtained a clue. It may be valueless; but for myself, I think otherwise. At least it is worth the journey I am asking you to make in my company.

"At my urgent request the police admitted me to his rooms. His papers they had already examined, without result. I found that he possessed a fine library. I am a book-lover, my first step was to examine it. Tucked away in a corner of a shelf, yet within easy reach of his customary chair, I found a volume. It was typical of the man that it should be elegantly bound. Within were collected the hostile criticisms with which his book had been loaded. The more severe were scribbled over with the vilest epithets. Von Stockmar was personally threatened, as was also a certain Mechersky, a professor of the Imperial University at Petersburg. I abstracted the volume. You may like to examine it."

He drew it from the capacious pocket of his travelling ulster and gave it to me. The cover was of the choicest morocco; upon it, in gold, were emblazoned the arms of the University. It was a triumph of the binder's art, yet I handled it with a singular feeling of disgust.

The interior was oddly divided. The greater part consisted of clippings from papers and magazines, neatly gummed upon blank pages. But here and there were interpolated pamphlets, held in their place by elastic bands. In contrast with this orderly arrangement, scarcely a page but was defaced by pencilled remarks, satirical or abusive. I ran through them hastily until I came upon the article which bore Mechersky's name, extracted apparently from some French review. Its severity seemed to have lashed Marnac to fury. It was covered with a maze of pencillings. But my attention was soon centred on a portion of the text which, being underlined in red, stood out from the page with some prominence. "The author of 'Science and Belief,'" for thus it ran, "seems to have lost touch with humanity. His deductions might be correct if men were bloodless, merciless automatons. He regards them as might some reptile—let us say, a toad scientifically inclined." Across this criticism, which seemed to me unnecessarily severe, was written in German: "Infamous scoundrel! Would that I might crush you like a toad!"

"A curious wish," I said, pointing to the passage.

"And from Marnac a most dangerous one," he answered. "I can only hope we shall reach Lemsdorf in time."

"Lemsdorf again! And why Lemsdorf?"

"For the excellent reason, Cousin Robert, that Mechersky, who comes of land-owning Polish stock, is holiday-making at Castle Oster, a place he has in that neighbourhood. And as sure as I sit here, where Mechersky is, there will be that madman, Rudolf Marnac. If he means to murder the man, he will have had nigh on a month to bring it off. Heaven grant that we're in time!"

The tone in which he spoke thrilled me with a dreadful anxiety. The danger was indefinable; but fear draws its darkest terrors from the unknown.

"One thing more," I said. "How did you discover Mechersky's whereabouts?"

"I had thought him at St. Petersburg; but a wire to a friend there gave me the information I required."

I have neither the necessity nor the inclination to dwell on that journey. It was very late when we rolled into the station of the good town of Leipsic, where we spent the night at a convenient hotel. Yet it was at an early hour that Graden roused me from a tired sleep to catch the Posen express. The country through which we now journeyed was of a melancholy similitude, and the broad plains, though reasonably cultivated, affected me with a mental depression which the cheery efforts of my companion could not conquer. The day was drawing to its close as we reached Posen and passed through that fortress city into a land of desolation. Gloomy pine woods, great lakes on which the dying sun threw patches of ruddy gold, forlorn heaths and swamps that, as I imagined, could scarce be equalled for sheer dismalness of aspect, slid by us in a never-ending chain. Save for the Eastern sky, glorified by the fiery sunset, the heavens were obscured by ponderous clouds of muddy grey that foretell the first snow of winter. Darkness had fallen when we changed carriages at a junction; but it was close upon midnight before my cousin, who had been sitting with a Continental Bradshaw on his knees, thrust his head out of the window and cried that the lights of Lemsdorf were in sight. Our luggage was piled upon an antiquated cab, and in ten minutes more the host of the "Goldner Adler," a thin, handsome Pole, was bowing a stately welcome to his guests. Supper—and then to bed.

The room assigned me was an oak-panelled apartment of considerable size, and the single candle with which I was provided seemed only to deepen the lurking shadows round the walls. The huge china stove failed to warm a place so thoroughly ventilated by draughts. At another time the cause of our journey, combined with the uncanny nature of these surroundings, might have acted on my nerves. But I was too weary, too angry with my present discomfort, to give opportunity to fanciful terrors. The bed was small, and in all probability damp. I took off my coat, rolled myself in a thick travelling rug, heaped the clothes upon me, and blowing out the candle I had placed on a table at my elbow, lay down to sleep.

How long I may have slept I cannot say, but I was awakened by a sudden flash of light that struck like a blow through the darkness. For a score of seconds, it may have been, I lay motionless. The room was in utter darkness and silence. Then I heard a footfall, a creaking of a door. I sprang from my bed, only to trip and fall heavily over the rug which I had carried with me. I groped for the table, found it, and lit the candle, crouching, half expectant of some attack when I should reveal myself. I looked keenly about me—the room was empty.

But I had had a visitor, for the door was still ajar. I ran to it and, shading the light with my hand, peered down the passage. There was no one visible. I returned to the room, this time locking the door securely. Perhaps, after all, I reasoned, there had been no cause for my alarm. Some fellow-guest might have mistaken his chamber, retiring quickly on discovering his error. This argument heartened me, for, to be honest, I was shaken not a little. I examined the room carefully, without result; and then, after a composing cigarette, slipped back into bed, leaving the candle burning in the centre of the room.

It snowed that night, and to some effect, as the morning light showed me. The broad, slovenly street beneath my window was thickly coated; and though the fall had ceased, a dull sky, streaked as with muddy whitewash, threatened a further downfall. It was bitterly cold, and I flung on my clothes in a vile temper.

Graden was meditating before the stove when I entered our breakfast-room, with the strange book he had shown me during the journey in his hands.

"You look pale as a ghost. Are you quite fit?" he asked kindly.

"Oh, yes; though my night was not particularly peaceful."

"What do you mean?"

I told him briefly of my unknown visitor. He seemed greatly interested, questioning me minutely on various points.

"Your theory may be correct," he concluded. "Some guest may have mistaken his chamber and hurried off on discovering his mistake. Yet, if he had a light with him, how came he to make such an obvious error; whereas, if it was the striking of a match that roused you, what was the man doing wandering in the dark?"

"To tell the truth, when I first woke, I imagined it was Marnac himself."

"I have considered that point. I do not think it could have been he."

"And why?"

"Before you were down this morning I had a talk with our landlord. The guests at his house are of two classes—commercial travellers and those having business at the dye-works. They do not stay long—usually a week at most. Of the nine which he now has, none has exceeded that limit. He knows them all personally—six commercials, two dye-works men, and a rich Englishman, one George Wakefield, who has been staying with some magnate in the neighbourhood. But here is Herr Reski himself."

"Gentlemen," said the landlord, bowing low, "your sleigh is at the door."

"How far is it, then, to Castle Oster?" I asked him.

"Close on twenty miles; and with this fresh snow it will be heavy going."

Ten minutes later we slid on our silent runners, to the tinkle of the bells, out through the squalid, sprawling town, out through the wooden hovels of the suburbs, out past the dye-works, with their tall, melancholy chimneys, out into the snow-clad levels beyond, and there from out of the east there sprang upon us a great and bitter wind, chilled by its long journey over the boundless steppes of frozen Russia. Here and there, across the plains, a whiff of powdery snow, like the smoke of heavy guns, would leap up before the fiercer blasts, only to burst and fall as they lulled once more. To the south and east the pine-woods ranged their formal ranks, black against the dazzling carpet at their feet. It was a scene of utter desolation.

We drove in silence. Graden sat in a huddled mass, his chin buried in the great woollen comforter he wore, staring out over the plain with fixed, introspective eyes. For myself, I sat amongst the rugs beside him in vague speculation. What could be this danger that threatened the scientist from St. Petersburg in his home at Castle Oster? After all, might not our whole journey be a folly born of Graden's imaginings, a blind guess that had dragged us half across Europe? I shivered, and shivering, muttered anathemas on the climate.

We entered the forest. On every hand stood the pines, stretching away in long, melancholy avenues floored with drifted snow. The laden branches bowed before us, now and again, at the whirl of a passing gust, flinging their burdens from them. Once a willow grouse, white as the snow beneath it, swept on steady wing through the trees. Once from the far, far distance, borne upon the eastern breeze, there came a cry, a weird, hopeless echo in the air, that set the horses snorting. I knew what it must be—a wolf who felt the first pangs of the winter's hunger gathering round him. But there was no sign of man nor marks of sleigh tracks on the newly fallen snow.

We did not travel fast, though our driver did his best. The snow had not hardened and settled into that enchanting surface on which the runners speed so swiftly. Midday was past before we saw, through a sudden gap in the forest, a rising mound crowned with a low, grey building. "Castle Oster!" cried our driver, turning in his seat to claim our attention. In ten minutes more we had halted at a gate set in a high stone wall.

Before we were clear of our rugs the driver had slipped from his perch and tugged at a rusty iron bell-pull. We waited without an answer. Again he rang; but Graden did not wait the result. The door was not bolted; it opened to his vigorous arm, and we followed him into the broad courtyard of the Castle.

Before us sprawled the main building, flanked by little towers, like the pepper-box turrets of an old Scotch mansion. The windows were shuttered; the chimneys were smokeless save for one above the central porch, from which a dark plume rose and trailed away to the westward—the solitary sign of habitation. To our right and left were ranged outbuildings, stables, coach-houses, and the like; but all in a condition of ruinous decay. Patches fallen from the roofs laid bare the rafters; from the broken gutters trailed long pendants of ice. Against the old doors the snow had piled itself in heavy drifts. No sound broke the brooding stillness. It was a picture distressingly forlorn.

"Has Professor Mechersky, then, no servants?" asked Graden of our driver. I noticed that he hushed his voice in speaking; he, too, felt the uncanny influence of the place.

"Two, mein Herr—a man and a woman. I cannot think where they can be."

"I had understood he was a man of means. Why does he allow this disrepair?"

"I do not think the Professor cares. He shuts himself up with his experiments, when he is here—which is not often now. His rooms look to the south on the other side. For the rest, the house is not furnished."

"Well, I suppose there is a servant who will—— Heavens! what is that?"

From somewhere within the house there came a shriek, a cry of supreme terror. Again and yet again it was repeated before it shrank away into silence. Graden ran across the court to the main door, and I was hard upon his heels. He pulled the bell and hammered fiercely upon the heavy oak panels; but no one answered.

"I don't believe the thing is bolted," said he. "Keep the handle turned, and let me try what I can do."

He stepped back a dozen paces, and then came running at the door like a bull. The giant caught it squarely with the point of his shoulder; there was a sharp crack; the next instant we were both sprawling on the floor within.

We found ourselves in a great and dusty hall, indifferently lighted. Against the wall on my right I could dimly discern the figure of a woman crouched on the floor, sobbing bitterly, her face buried in her hands. She did not move, despite our violent entrance. At the foot of the main staircase an old man was bending over a something that lay motionless. He looked up at us with a white, pitiful face.

"He is dead—the master is dead!" he whimpered.

Graden strode up to him, and I followed at his heels.

Professor Peter Mechersky—for such I knew it must be—lay huddled under an old grey cloak that spread wing-wise from his neck, a blot upon the polished oak of the floor. From his face, thin though it was and wasted with disease, he must have been a middle-aged man who had preserved a singular beauty. He had died as a child might fall asleep. Yet the horror that he had escaped he had left to the living; for his attitude was abnormal, impossible, and ghastly to behold.

It was not right that a body should resemble an egg that is broken.

My cousin swept aside the cloak for a moment, and replaced it reverently, though with a hand that trembled.

"He has not a sound bone in his body," he muttered, and then, turning to the old servant, "How did this happen?" said he.

"He had been ill for some weeks, mein Herr, and we begged him not to leave his room. But to-day he declared himself better; he insisted that he should descend to the library. Half way down the stairs he tripped and fell. I ran to his side and found him, as you see him, crouched—like—like——"

'Like a toad?"

"Yes, mein Herr, like a toad."

The man broke into hysterical weeping. Graden searched in his pocket, produced a flask of brandy, and prescribed a liberal dose. He seemed to revive under its influence.

"The Englishman, Herr Wakefield, was most anxious about my master's health," he stammered out. "The Herr Professor became indisposed some ten days after his arrival; since then he has been most kind, most considerate, sitting by the master's bed for hours. He would allow no other doctor to visit the master. He is a kind, good man, this doctor, the Herr Wakefield."

"So I believe. How came he to know your master?"

"I am not sure; but I think he brought a letter of introduction from a Professor Marnac, of Heidelberg, a gentleman of whom my master disapproved, yet admired for his learning."

"And this Englishman, did he prescribe for your master?"

"Of course. They loved each other, and sat late into the night in their discussions. When my poor master was taken ill, Herr Wakefield took complete charge of him. Ach! If he did but know what had happened!"

"Then he is not here?"

"No; he drove to Lemsdorf yesterday afternoon. He had to return to his own country. Ach! If he did but know!"

It was plain enough—Marnac the linguist was Wakefield the Englishman. It was he, new from this thing that he had done, who had come creeping to my room in the night, being suspicious of the strangers from the South. It was he that had brought about this mysterious horror. I turned from the poor monstrosity upon the floor and leant, shuddering, against the wall. As I did so, Graden strode past me to the open door.

"Driver, can your horses take us back?" I heard him say.

"Not without rest and feed, mein Herr. The snow was very bad, and they are tired."

"Would a hundred marks to the driver assist them?"

"It is impossible. They could not reach half-way. Wait, mein Herr, and it may be done."

My cousin came up to me and laid his great hand upon my shoulder.

"I'm afraid it's the truth," he said. And then turning to the dead man's servant, "Your master—had he horses?" he asked.

"Three, mein Herr, but they have not yet returned from Lemsdorf, where they went this morning with the big sleigh for provisions."

With a sharp order Graden sent our driver hurrying to the stables. Then, with his arm linked in mine, we followed the old servant into a low-roofed dining-hall. As I dropped upon an oak settle before the great china stove, he thrust his flask into my hands and, with a word of encouragement, slipped away. I knew that he was re-examining the body, but, doctor though I was, the spirit of investigation had gone out of me. I could no more have assisted him than a medical student can watch, unmoved, his first operation.

In about twenty minutes he returned, bearing a tray upon which was set bread and cheese, flanking a great ham. I turned from the food with disgust; but my cousin fell to diligently, complaining the while at my folly in not eating when I had the chance.

"You must pull yourself together," he protested, with his mouth full. "Try this ham now. It isn't half bad."

More to humour him than with any intention of following his advice, I drew my seat to the table.

"Come, now, that's better," he cried, carving away. "To tell the truth, I haven't the slightest idea what that devil Marnac has been up to. But what I do know is that we've got to catch him—dead or alive. Therefore I recommend you to stoke up your body with this excellent—hallo!"

Knife and fork in the air, he sat motionless, staring at the dish before him.

"What's the matter now?" I asked irritably; for, indeed, his hearty appetite annoyed me.

For answer he rose and pealed the bell. The old manservant, with the brandy flushing his white cheeks, tottered into the room.

"I am sorry to trouble you," said Graden courteously, "but we both set such store by your hams that we wish to know where they can be obtained. Do you cure them yourself?"

"No, mein Herr, but it is done near by," answered the man, with a look of blank surprise.

"Indeed. The Lemsdorf ham is a discovery; it should make a stir. I wonder I had not heard of its merits before."

"You see, mein Herr, the big curing station has not long been established."

"A new enterprise?"

"Yes, mein Herr. It belongs to Herr Drobin, a South German. Two years ago he took the big farm at Gran, which you passed on your way here. It is this side of the dye-works. He has many pigs in the forest. His hams are becoming famous from Warsaw to Königsberg. It is said he has some secret in the feeding or curing—no one knows which."

"Thank you—that is all."

The door was scarcely shut when I turned hotly upon Graden. "How dare you sit here in this house of murder and talk of the excellence of the food?" I cried furiously. "It is shameful, indecent!"

"Yet we will visit the farm of Gran on our way back. I have some little inquiries to make."

"We shall do nothing of the sort," I snarled.

"If you were a soldier or an explorer, Cousin Robert," he said, leaning across and tapping me kindly on the arm, "you would know that in any expedition one alone can be responsible. The rest obey, whether they be few or many. As it is, I beg you to recognise that fact and to obey."

He was right, and I knew it. But to save appearances I walked to the window and stood drumming upon it with my fingers for a while before I answered him.

"Well, do as you please," I said at length.

"I think the sleigh may be ready by now," he said. "Come, let us go out and inquire."

There is no need to dwell on this miserable drive. The tired horses dragged slowly forward, the driver, sullen and frightened, urging them on with blows and curses. Mile after mile of pine-woods marched past us, but we did not speak, crouching in the furs. At last, as night was falling, we reached the edge of the forest and swung aside from the main road into a track that skirted the edge of the pines. The ground sank away into a hollow like the palm of the hand. At the lowest point I could see a square, wooden building flanked by rows of outbuildings. It was, as I imagined, the farm of Gran. But before we reached it, our driver suddenly drew up his horses. A man was advancing towards us through the trees. Our driver turned, and with a wave of the whip explained the situation.

"It is Herr Drobin," said he.

I was not favourably impressed with this breeder of pigs. He was an elderly man, full bodied, with white hair, that stuck out stiffly from under his fur cap, a red, bulbous nose, and shifty, suspicious eyes. He saluted us with a touch of his cap in military fashion.

"And what is your business, gentlemen?" he asked.

"It is less business than gratitude," said Graden courteously. "We have made this little pilgrimage to thank the producer of the Lemsdorf hams."

"You are not dealers, then?"

"No, but I——"

"Then take yourself off!"

"Herr Drobin!"

"Go! clear out! Do I not make myself plain?" he cried, his flushed face nodding in time to his violent gesticulations. "I will have no spies about the place!"

Graden sprang out of the sleigh and strode up to the angry farmer. For a moment I thought there would be a scrimmage; but the huge bulk of his antagonist was not without its effect upon the German. I have often noticed that great stature has a curiously soothing influence on the bad temper of an opponent.

"Why did you call me a spy?" demanded my cousin.

"The people about here gossip of some secret I hold," he answered sulkily. "Perhaps they speak true; perhaps false. Who can say? At least, I am no longer a fool; my eyes have been opened. 'You have a good thing here, Herr Drobin. There is a great future before you, if only you keep your knowledge to yourself,' said the Englishman to me. 'If strangers come asking questions, they will be spies; send them away.' It was fine advice he gave me; anyone can see that. So be off with you!"

"I am an Englishman myself, Herr Drobin. May I ask my compatriot's name?"

"I do not remember."

"What, then, was he like?"

"I cannot describe him."

"You are discreet, Herr Drobin. Come, now, let us strike a bargain. I will make a guess at your secret; if I am right, you will tell me what you know of this Englishman."

The German started back, staring at Graden with little, bloodshot eyes, in which surprise and fury were oddly mingled. Then, side by side, they stepped into the shadow of the pines, whispering together.

"They are all liars, these Germans," said our driver confidentially, turning to me. "For myself, I am a Pole."

"You heard what was said. Do you know anything of this English visitor to Herr Drobin?"

"Most certainly, mein Herr. He was of the name of Wakefield. He has stayed several nights at the 'Goldner Adler.' For the rest, he has been the guest of him who lived out there," and he made a gesture down the road that we had come.

A nameless fear took me by the throat—a fear of unknown possibilities. I would have questioned the man more, but at that moment Graden and the farmer emerged from the shadow of the pines. The latter had abandoned his truculent manner. Indeed, he seemed oddly subservient. As Graden stepped into the sleigh, the man bowed low a curtsy, which my cousin answered with a curt nod of dismissal.

"Drive on!" he cried, and once more we were ploughing our way back to the Lemsdorf road.

"Did you ever study the properties of the root called madder, commonly known as a dye?" asked my cousin suddenly.

"No."

"Then I must explain from the beginning. It is right that you should hear."

He pulled the flaps of his deerstalker cap over his ears—indeed, it was bitter cold— and settled himself amongst the rugs. I caught the outline of his face—the jaws set, the cheeks drawn, the eye hard and keen, the whole purposeful and remorseless.

"When I was slicing the ham to-day," he continued, "an odd thing happened. My knife struck the bone and passed through it as if it had been putty. At a second glance I noticed that the interior of the section so divided was of a brownish red. It set me thinking. I began to remember certain facts. The talk of the old servant concerning a secret held by the owner of the pig-farm at Gran concentrated my suspicions, the proximity of the dye-works confirmed them. I was almost certain of Herr Drobin's secret before he charged me with coming to steal it.

"Let me explain. Madder is a dye, as you know. But administered to man or beast, it has the curious effect of colouring and pulping the bones to a gristle. It is used sparingly on a few South German pig-farms, that the hams may appear attractive when carved. Herr Drobin introduced it into German Poland. He obtained the root as he required it by arrangement with the dye-works. Perhaps their presence suggested the idea to him.

"Whether or no Marnac knew of the uses of madder before he came to Lemsdorf, I cannot tell. From my talk with Drobin it would seem that his visit to his farm was more or less of an accident. But, either way, the visit gave him the weapon by which he 'might make a toad' of his enemy. That bitter criticism, you may be sure, was for ever running in his diseased brain. The practical details he learnt at the farm would help him in—what he had undertaken. His advice to that old German was a sound move, designed to cover his visits to the farm and the suspicions they might afterwards have excited.

"His method of getting into touch with his victim was simple. He introduced himself as an Englishman by a letter which he himself wrote in his capacity of Heidelberg professor, well knowing that the police had not made public their suspicions of him. He assumed the name of Wakefield—the first that suggested itself to him—and the nationality of an Englishman, for, as we know, he spoke the language to perfection. He administered madder in some form until Mechersky grew ill; after which, in his position of medical attendant, the rest was easy. He fled when he knew that the end of the tragedy was at hand, that every bone of his victim was fragile as thin glass. Probably he caught a momentary glimpse of us in the 'Goldner Adler'; and his midnight visit was to assure himself of your identity. You were in great peril that night, Cousin Robert; I shudder to think how great.

"He has probably escaped to-day; there is a fast train to the west at twelve o'clock he could catch. But I vow before Heaven. I vow before you as my witness, that I will pursue this fiend until I have run him down. Heaven knows I have no hatred towards him. I feel to him as a man might feel towards a mad dog which is a danger to the peaceful men, women, and children of his village. It is the duty of the citizen to risk his life in its capture."

"Where do we go now?" I asked.

"To the railway. We must gather what news we can."

The winter night was falling drear and cold when our tired horses staggered up to the station door. I scrambled out, hungry, cramped, exhausted in body and mind, and followed my cousin within. The station was empty at the moment save for a distant corner where a man sat huddled on a travelling valise. We advanced at once upon him. When we were a dozen feet away, he started up and faced us.

It was Mossel, the lieutenant of the Heidelberg police.

"Any luck, mein Herr?" said he to Graden.

"What in the world are you doing here?" was the astonished answer.

"Well, mein Herr, I thought you knew something, and followed you. When I arrived this morning, I said to myself: 'The great white English ferret will be at work to-day searching for the rat. I will wait at the station like a net into which Mr. Ferret may turn the rat.'"

Graden skipped up to him and shook him warmly by the hand.

"Capital, Mossel, capital! And you—had the net any luck?"

"The net was sitting upon the rat's luggage when you arrived this moment. The net has been here for five hours, and is cold and hungry. The net is of opinion that the rat must have seen him and abandoned his luggage. He has not left by train."

"But he can escape in no other way. We have him, Mossel, we have him."

"So it would seem," said the lieutenant calmly.

III.—THE CHASE IN THE SNOW.

IHAVE endeavoured to give the facts of my strange story without omission or exaggeration. If I have failed, it is not from forgetfulness; for I do not think there is a single detail that is not permanently fixed in my memory. Even now I have but to shut my eyes to see the face of Marnac peer into my old rooms at Heidelberg, to stand once more trembling with terror in the desolate courtyard of Castle Oster, to drive through the blinding snow to where the body—— But enough. I do not forget.

I have already told you of the murder of Professor von Stockmar by his rival, Professor Marnac of Heidelberg, and of the discovery of the crime by my cousin, Sir Henry Graden, the well-known scientist and explorer, who was then my guest at that University. I have described the steps that led to our following the murderer to Lemsdorf, in German Poland, and the means by which he compassed the death of the unfortunate Mechersky. I have, moreover, laid before you the evidence that led my cousin to believe that Marnac was suffering from delusions, and that his extraordinary crimes were in revenge for certain harsh criticisms of a book on which he had spent many years of labour. In my last statement I traced the pursuit down to the station of Lemsdorf, where the murderer, flying from the scene of his revenge upon the Russian Professor, had been turned back from the railway by Mossel the lieutenant of the Heidelberg police, who had followed us to render assistance. Mossel, indeed, had waited by Marnac's luggage for six hours, but the man himself had failed to appear.

The winter's sun, chilled to a dusky ball, was dipping behind the snow-clad ridges to the eastward when we scrambled back into the sleigh. As our tired horses stumbled through the outskirts of the straggling wooden town, the shadows rushed across the sky as if flying the pursuit of the gale that shrieked amongst the houses. Night had fallen.

Surely we had him in our hands.

He had not fled by rail. Somewhere in the town he must be lurking, this grey-haired figure with the heart of a hunted wolf. The thought of it drove away the aches and cramps of exhaustion, and I sat bolt upright in my seat, staring into the gloom ahead, half expecting to see him move across the snow before us like a slinking beast of prey. We had decided to drive straight to our own inn, the "Goldner Adler," where, as we had discovered, Marnac, under the name of Wakefield, an English traveller, had also passed the previous evening. Little had we thought that the being we pursued, fresh from the murder of the man we had come to save, was sharing the same roof-tree. Perhaps there might be news of him at the "Goldner Adier." Reski, the tall, handsome Pole, who had about him more of the feudal knight than a country inn-keeper, met us in the porch, bowing a stately welcome.

"You have had a bad drive, gentlemen," said he. "The wind has been fierce, and the snow, I fear, was heavy. Supper will be ready in half-an-hour."

"I believe a Mr. George Wakefield slept here last night," said Graden, dusting the clinging flakes from his outer wraps. "It is always pleasant to meet a compatriot. If he is still in the house, perhaps he will join us at our meal."

"Herr Wakefield! No, mein Herr, he has not yet returned."

"So, he has gone out?"

The innkeeper hesitated, glancing uneasily at his questioner. He was evidently in some uncertainty of mind.

"He is a strange man, the Herr Wakefield: though, perhaps, for an Englishman——"

"He is not more mad than usual, eh, Mr. Landlord?" laughed Graden.

"Mein Herr, it was not my intention to speak thus of your great people," apologised the man. "If he has surprised us, it is doubtless because we, being ignorant country-folk, do not understand his customs."

"Why, what has he been about?"

"Well, mein Herr, it is this way. After you had started for your drive to the house of the Professor Mechersky, Herr Wakefield came running down from his room with many questions concerning you. He seemed sorry that you had gone without seeing him. He then paid his bill with the liberality of the English, who are indeed a great and generous nation, and commanded that his luggage should be carried to the station for the midday train. At eleven he himself set out for the station upon foot. We were sorry to lose so good a guest. What, then, mein Herr, was our surprise when a little after twelve he reappeared, having ridden back upon the sleigh that had taken his baggage to the station! The man who drove it told me that Herr Wakefield had left his baggage upon the platform unregistered, and that he had seen a stranger standing by it as if in charge."

Graden glanced at Mossel, who grinned luminously.

"Proceed, Mr. Landlord," he said.

"He had only peeped into the station and left at once, the man said. He demanded of me a sleigh and good horses, but the best I had were with you, and it was necessary to send for others from a neighbour. He was very impatient of the delay, using angry words. At last he drove away, and he has not returned."

"Who went with him?"

"Ivan, my eldest son."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"No, mein Herr; only I heard him cry to Ivan to follow the eastern road which is towards the Russian frontier."

"And while he waited for the horses, what did he do?"

"As I have said, at first he abused me roundly for the delay. Indeed, mein Herr, I was surprised at his knowledge of German, for before he had spoken it very badly. For the rest, he sat by himself, reading, in the best room."

"Please to show us there."

We tramped in single file after the landlord through the ill-lit passages to the "best room," a parlour set aside for important guests. It seemed a peculiarly inartistic apartment, with green wall-paper and angular chairs covered with purple antimacassars. On the central table stood a lamp, and beside it lay a number of those dingy books that seem common to inns of all nations. Graden made for them at once, and as he sorted through the pile of time-tables, catalogues, and trade-papers, we stood watching him in surprise. Suddenly he stopped in his search with a little grunt of satisfaction, and drawing a chair to the table, sat down. I looked over his shoulder. He was actually reading a German Baedeker!

"Doubtless you are planning a picnic-party?" I suggested, with as much sarcasm as I could put into the question.

"I know you are tired and hungry, my good Robert," he answered; "but please keep quiet."

He had reached "Lemsdorf"—I could see the name at the top of the page—and now was turning the leaves very slowly. Suddenly he held up the Baedeker to me.

"Do you see that?" he asked sharply.

A jagged line of paper ran along the inner crease of the guide-book. The map of the district had been torn away!

Mossel thrust me gently aside and, bending over, examined the under page thus left exposed. He took the book from Graden's hands and, carrying it to the lamp, continued his scrutiny.

"You are quite right, Mossel," said my cousin. "His pencil had a sharp point."

"You have a keen eye, Herr Graden," grinned the policeman. "In our business you would have made some reputation."

"This is a new edition. How long have you had it?" asked my cousin of the inn-keeper.

"But a few days, mein Herr."

"And have you been visited by any tourists in that time?"

"No, mein Herr."

"Then this should make it a certainty, for I have a Baedeker of my own upstairs. One moment, while I fetch it."

Graden's chair toppled to the ground as he rose. In three strides he was out of the door. I turned to Mossel with a demand for an explanation.

"Wait till Herr Graden returns," he grunted sulkily.

I have the strongest objection to those silly tricks of secrecy with which the professional police endeavour to magnify their most simple discoveries. I was speaking my mind strongly on the subject when my cousin reappeared.

"Hallo! what's the matter?" he asked. I explained the position, while the fat German chuckled in an oily, irritating manner.

"Is not the official always the same?" said Graden, with a grim smile. "Come to the light, Robert, and I'll explain."

It was certainly an ingenious discovery they had made. Upon the page upon which the map should have rested were several slight indentations, evidently the result of marks made upon the lost paper by a pencil with a fine point. With great care my cousin tore out the corresponding map from his guide-book and fitted it into the vacant place. Then, turning it slowly back, he drove a pin through the thin paper at the spots immediately above the indentations on the page below.

"The devil take him!" he cried. "Look, Mossel. This doesn't help us, after all."

It was true enough. The pin-pricks showed, first, Lemsdorf; then a cross-road some ten miles to the east; and then Bromberg, to the north, on the Berlin-Thorn, and Gnesen, to the south, on the Posen-Frankfurt railways. He had evidently been measuring and calculating indecisively.

"Do not trouble yourself, Herr Graden," said Mossel, with a wave of the hand that had more than a suggestion of patronage.

"There are still telegraphs. I will have him detained at whichever place he reaches. I shall return in half an hour—to a good supper, I trust, Mr. Landlord."

We followed him to the outer door, which opened to a writhing wilderness of snow-flakes, for the fall had recommenced. The policeman turned up his collar with a grunt of disgust and melted into the darkness. We turned to meet the face of the landlord, white and drawn with a terrible anxiety.

"My son!" he gasped. "What of my son?"

"Heaven pardon me!" cried Graden, "I had forgotten him!"

"This man he drove, that is about to be arrested—is he a criminal? Do not spare me, mein Herr."

"Your servant—our driver to-day—will be telling the tale in your kitchen, of the death of the Professor Mechersky, of Castle Oster. This man, whose name is Marnac, killed him. That is why we pursue. Yet, my friend, I see no danger for your son, unless——

"Unless what, mein Herr?"

"Unless he refused to assist in the escape of the murderer."

"He is an honest boy, a good boy, but very stubborn. His horses were borrowed; he had promised to return them to-night. He would never consent to drive this man to Bromberg or Gnesen, which is at least an eighteen hours' journey. Oh, mein Herr, mein Herr! what is happening—out there in the snow?"

"We are in the hands of Providence, my friend," said my cousin gravely, laying his hand on the landlord's arm. "You can do nothing but pray that it may be well with the boy."

I was very sorry for Reski. As I made my toilet in my room upstairs, the danger of his son grew upon me. Fate, accident, Providence—whatever you choose to call it—is a strange thing, for indeed it chooses its victim with a fine impartiality. When I entered our supper-room, I found my cousin equally disturbed.

"This is a bad business about the landlord's son," he said, "I've a good mind to follow the sleigh, though it's little good that would do."

"It's an awful night," I grumbled, for indeed the wind was shrieking in the roof like a lost soul.

"You're a queer chap, Robert, with your confounded mannerisms," he said. "Yet I'll wager you'd be the first to be off into the storm in a matter of life and death."

It was not exactly complimentary, but I let it pass.

Mossel was delayed. It was close upon twenty minutes more before he arrived, a snow-swathed, stamping bear of a man, whose curses preceded him as he rolled down the passage to our room.

"What's up, Mossel?" Graden demanded sharply.

"The wires, mein Herr Graden, the wires! Potztausend! but this storm has brought them down like clothes-lines."

"A special train, then."

"They have not an engine in the shed. I have been to see; it was that which delayed me."

Graden drew a sheet of paper from his pocket and glanced at it swiftly.

"There is not a train till ten in the morning," he said. "He will be at Bromberg, which is the nearer town, by eleven at latest. This is a branch line, and we could not get there under three hours. It is now seven. An old man as he is could hardly travel through such a night without stops for food. Again, this lad who drove him may have refused to proceed. We must chance it, my friends, and follow."

"I thought you had already so decided when I saw the sleighs door," said Mossel.

"Sleighs, Mossel? I ordered no sleighs!"

"Well, they're there. Two troikas with three good horses apiece. Come and see for yourself."

The policeman had spoken the truth. On the leeward side of the porch two sleighs were waiting. The light from the open door behind us shimmered on the drifting snow and flashed on the bells about the horses' necks. It was bitterly cold, and I was turning to retreat into the hall when a man wrapped in furs moved out of the darkness. It was the keeper of the inn, his face grey-white, like the underside of a sole.

"Whose sleighs are these?" asked Graden sharply.

"Mine, Mr. Englishman, mine. I follow to save my boy."

"And the horses?"

"The best in Lemsdorf. They are private teams, lent by those who had pity upon my sorrow."

"May we come with you?"

"I would ask for nothing better, mein Herr."

Inside of ten minutes I was ready to start, with a borrowed cloak flung over my thickest clothes, and a huge hunch of bread-and-meat in my hand. Quick as I had been, Mossel and my cousin were already dressed and in consultation. We were to drive to the cross-roads, they told me, and then separate, the one sleigh, with Graden, Mossel, and an experienced driver, taking the road to Bromberg, which, being the shorter, was more likely to be the one Marnac had chosen; the other, containing the innkeeper and myself, was to follow the Gnesen road. I was not particularly pleased at the prospect of parting with my friends, but I made no objection to this plan. We entered our sleighs, rolling ourselves in the rugs.

"Are you armed?" Graden called across to the innkeper in his little seat before me.

"Yes, mein Herr. Do you go first, for you have the better team."

The chase was up indeed!

As we passed on to the plain outside the town, the gale that came charging out of frozen Russia leapt upon us with a howl of furious joy. The flakes that rose from beneath the curved runners and the beating hoofs fled spinning into the night. The sky hung low and black and starless above the white sheet of rolling snow. The little sleigh-bells grew silent in the heavier drifts, breaking out again where the track was harder. A hundred yards ahead the sparks of Graden's pipe flashed as they kindled in the wind. The fall had almost ceased.

My driver sat squarely before me, with a rein in each of his fur-gloved hands. I could not see his face, but from his projecting head and hunched shoulders I could imagine how he looked, peering over his horses into the night, with fear gripping at his soul.

I must admit that for myself I was in a condition of petulant discomfort. The slightest movement seemed to give entrance to some new draught that chilled my arm or ran trickling down my spine. Now and again a flake of snow lodged in my neck or ear and melted icily. Tired, cold, and hungry, I lay amid my rugs, cursing the folly that had led me to take a hand in a business that should have been left to the police. I had the keenest desire for a quarrel, but being to all conversational purposes alone, that relief was impossible.

Within two miles of Lemsdorf we had left the plain for the forest. The moon was obscured, yet a faint light filtered down from above, finding a reflection in the snow, and emphasising the black pillars of the pines that went sliding by. There was now no trace of our companions save the marks of their runners on the track; over the woods brooded an utter silence, broken only by the swish of our sleigh and the murmur of the bells rising and falling in a low, monotonous melody. It was as if we were passing through the waste places of a dying world. One of my feet began to grow numb, and when I turned about that I might shelter it, the snow that had gathered on my collar plunged down my neck, so that I shivered with cold. But on the whole I was reasonably warm amongst my wraps, and a feeling of drowsiness grew upon me.

It was Reski's voice that woke me. We had halted in a dim clearing in the woods. A score of yards away the second sleigh was waiting. Evidently we had reached the cross-roads, where we were to part.

"Any tracks?" shouted my driver.

"No," came Graden's answer. "The wind and the fresh fall have cleared them away. Are you all right, Robert?"

"I am exceeding uncomfortable, if that is what you want to know," I shouted back. Indeed, it was a silly question to ask me. My temper was not improved by a distant chuckle which I attributed to Mossel.

"Cheer up, Robert!" continued my cousin. "If you run across him, you must do your best. Reski will see you through, never fear; but I don't think there is much chance of your coming up with him, for he will have taken the shorter route which we follow. Anyhow, remember that the rendezvous is at the 'Drei Kronen,' at Thorn. If you catch him, telegraph there; if the wires are down, send a messenger. Do you understand?"

"You are perfectly lucid."

"Well, good-bye."

The snow spurted from under their horse's hoofs as they swung on to the north road. Then my driver shouted to his team, and we, too, rushed forward, but on the other track curving south and east. For a minute I could hear their bells tinkling an echo in the distance. Then they died away into silence.

My interest in the chase suddenly expanded. Now that my cousin had deserted me, it seemed an ugly, dangerous business. Marnac would stop at nothing, that was certain. Supposing we should chance upon this desperate maniac, what then? My driver was armed, and had the appearance of a bold, courageous man. Was be so in reality? I stared up at his back and wondered.

We had travelled the half of a mile, when from the black of the forest before us rose a cry, a fierce, chuckling bay that sent the horses plunging across the road. In the solitude of those ice-bound woods it sounded the more threatening, the more utterly malignant. I sprang to my feet, gripping Reski by the shoulder.

"What is that?" I cried.

"Wolves, mein Herr."

"Will they attack us?"

"Calm yourself, mein Herr," he answered gruffly, his eyes still set on the track before him. "The winter is young, and their bellies are not empty. There is no danger."

The pace of the horses had dropped to a slow trot. They advanced stiffly, with staring eyes and ears pricked forward. I remained standing, peering across the driver's seat at the white track that ran dimly away between the banks of pines.

Suddenly from a snow-powdered thicket before us there burst a chorus of low snarls that grew into the short, angry barks of dogs disturbed. With a jerk the horses stopped, trembling and squeezing themselves together with the fear that was on them.

"They have something there," cried Reski, and there was a shudder in his voice. "Otherwise they would not be so bold. Take the reins, mein Herr."

He thrust them into my hands and jumped from the seat. His pistol flashed, and I caught a glimpse of forms scurrying over the snow. Then the darkness fell again like a veil.

"What have you found?" I shouted.

"Under the trees it is hard to see," came back his answer. "Perhaps—I was mistaken. But wait."

He struck a match, and his tall, thin figure sprang out in silhouette as he moved slowly forward, shielding the light with his hands.

"Here are the footprints of the wolves … it was here that they were gathered. There is something by the tree. … It is not a log—mein Gott! but it is not a log, though it lies so still. … I fear to approach—how I fear! Have mercy! It is a man! It is Ivan, my son!"

We were on Marnac's trail—the trail of the dead.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

At last it was all over. Alone, for I dared not leave my hold upon the frightened horses, Reski carried his son to the sleigh and laid him there beside me, with a rug across the face. He had been killed from behind, poor lad, with a revolver shot in the back of his head. He had refused to proceed, and Marnac had not hesitated. That was plain enough. I thanked God that we had been in time—to save him from the wolves.

Yet there had been but a short delay. For when Reski had seen his dead bestowed upon the sleigh, he had taken the reins and sent his horses forward. He did not speak, nor did I offer him consolation. But as I watched him sitting above me, peering ahead like some old teak figure on a vessel's bows, there was a grim intensity about the man, a fixed resolve that was strange to witness. So we fled through the night, down the interminable avenues of pines, bearing our dead with us.

It was one o'clock when we lit upon a wayside inn. Our clamour aroused the landlord, who directed us to where a kettle simmering on the stove gave a warm mash for the horses and hot brandy for ourselves. He was sleepily incurious, nor did he inquire what was the thing beneath the rugs which we carried with us. But he gave us news. Marnac had left there less than two hours before. He had been greatly delayed by a collision with a tree, and some rough repairs had been necessary. One of his horses, too, had been slightly lamed. Yet Reski showed no unusual interest in the tale we heard. He spent his time with his horses, grooming and soothing them. It was not till they had rested three-quarters of an hour that he called me out from my seat by the stove, and again we swept away upon the chase.

It was at dawn that we sighted him. He was climbing a long slope, a black speck in the white riband of a road. Above him, long flakes of orange cloud were slowly brightening and deepening in colour. As he topped the hill, the sun came peering up over a moorland heaped with tumbled drifts. The sky flushed and faded to a deep cobalt blue. So day came.

It almost seemed as if our horses understood. They increased their pace without a touch of the whip, tugging at the frozen, twisted reins. As they, too, rose the hill, Reski shouted to them, and they stepped briskly forward. The fresh snow had frozen, and we travelled well, the surface crackling as we crushed over it. We were less than a quarter of a mile from him when he turned and noticed us. We saw him spring to his feet and lash his team, but the off-side horse was running stiffly and his pace scarcely increased. He leant down, fumbling and searching at his feet, while he held the reins in one hand. After that he did not hurry, but drove steadily forward, glancing at us now and again over his shoulder.

We drew up swiftly—four hundred yards. three hundred yards, one hundred—— And then, with a short, fierce bark of rage, the Pole dragged out his revolver and fired. As he did so, the sharp hum of a bullet, like the buzz of an angry bee, fled over us. I ducked my head at the sound; but I give myself the credit of saying that I poked it up again the next moment.

"May the Fiend grip him, but he has a Mauser pistol!" cried Reski, and I saw that the weapon in his own hand was of the common bull-dog make. "At this range I can do nothing against him."

He lashed his horses, and they plunged gallantly forward. I could see that Marnac had stopped his sleigh and was cuddling his weapon with a perfect coolness. Even at that distance I seemed to feel the goggling murder in his eyes.

Zip! zip! He had missed again!

Thung! I saw one of the galloping horses stagger, and then his head and shoulders seemed to fall away, as if he had dropped forward into a hole. There was a bumping and a twisting wrench, the snow by the roadside seemed to spring up at me, and the next instant I was struggling in cold, blinding darkness.

I wriggled out from the drift, gasping, with the flakes in my mouth and eyes. The sleigh was twisted across the road, half covering the dead horse. The other two had scrambled to their feet and now stood shivering, with drooping heads. The fall had knocked the heart clean out of them. Reski lay beside them, huddled where he had fallen. Eighty yards away Marnac had stopped and was watching us. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, for presently he turned and, lashing his team, trotted on down the road.

I don't suppose it was more than a couple of minutes before Reski came round, though it seemed long enough to me. He had got a nasty thump on the head, but as a matter of fact his wrist turned out to be the more serious business, being very badly sprained indeed. I made a sling out of a neck-wrap and fixed him up as well as I was able. The man had a remarkable vitality, besides brute courage, for, the moment I had finished, he walked over and examined the sleigh.

It looked hopeless enough. One of the runners had been torn almost clean away, and the central part was badly cracked. The body of the poor lad Ivan lay on its back in the roadway, staring up at the sky. I threw a rug over it.

"Well, we can't go on, that's certain," I said.

"Not in the sleigh, mein Herr," he answered calmly.

"And how else?"

"There are the horses, one for each. When you have freed them of their harness, I will ask you to assist me to mount."

There was no good arguing with him, and I was ashamed to seem less eager than a man in his crippled condition. With his clasp knife I cut the twisted traces away and freed them of their collars. At his direction I dragged the body of Ivan into the sleigh and left him there decently covered.

Reski mounted from the stump of a tree, to which I led the stronger of the pair. I was a fairly good rider, but I was excessively stiff from my long drive, and not a little shaken by my fall. My beast seemed to have the sharpest knife-bone of a back that Nature ever gave to horseflesh. But, after all, there was nothing to be gained by grumbling. Perhaps I was growing wiser by painful experience.

A curious pair we must have looked that morning. Reski, with his arm in a sling, and the butt of his revolver peeping from his waist-belt, would have made as good a stage brigand as need be. For myself, I was in too much of immediate pain from the jolting trot of the brute I rode to carry a formidable appearance. I could never have imagined that a horse lived with such adamantine fetlocks as mine seemed to possess.

I have no exact record of the time, but I should imagine that it was about half an hour later that we sighted Marnac again. He was then a good three-quarters of a mile ahead, but travelling leisurely. Also, I was very glad to notice that we were free of the waste lands, and that the spire of a church was poking out amongst some poplars ahead of him. He would never dare to use his revolver a second time when men were about. Also, we might procure another sleigh and team.

Reski sent his heels into his horse, and we quickened our pace, though the poor brutes were getting very done and drove heavily along with hanging heads. It was about then that I noticed a man behind us.

We were topping a slight rise when I looked round. He was then some distance in our rear, but coming up fast. As far as I could make out, he was in a sort of uniform and well mounted. The possibility of official help was very pleasant.

We were gaining on Marnac, who had not yet noticed us.

With kicks and curses from Reski, and the application, of a hazel branch from myself, we had squeezed a lumbering gallop out of our horses. The sleigh was not more than one hundred yards away. Reski gripped his reins in his teeth and drew his revolver.

"Stop, there! Stop, I say, in the name of the law!"

It was the man from behind who hailed us, but we rode on.

"Stop, or I fire!"

I pulled up. I don't think it was very cowardly when you think of it. Besides, I was anxious to explain.

Reski rode on.

The man who had shouted flashed by me, travelling at an easy gallop. He was dressed in a neat green uniform and carried a drawn revolver.

Reski rode on.

It was all over in a moment. The stranger cried another warning, to which the Pole answered with a snarl over his shoulder. The next instant there was a sharp report, and Reski's horse pitched forward, throwing his rider clear. He was then scarcely thirty yards from Marnac's sleigh.

The Pole was not hurt apparently, for despite his injured arm he scrambled to his feet in an instant. But he had lost his revolver in his fall and was helpless. He began a furious explanation in his national tongue, dropping the hated language of his Teuton conquerors.

"Speak in German, you Polish dog!" growled his captor, and then turning on me as I rode up—

"Here, you," he said, "dismount and stand by your accomplice. If you resist, I shoot!"

I obeyed. From his manner he was without doubt a policeman. Also I respect the law.

"Now, you," he said, addressing me, "explain, if you can, who is that man you shot and left in the broken sleigh down yonder. Remember, it is against you that you have already tried to escape and refused to surrender?"

"There is the murderer, mein Herr!" I cried, pointing to Marnac's sleigh, now rapidly vanishing. "We were chasing him. Go after him at once, or he will get away."

The policeman laughed long and loud.

"A pretty tale!" said he. "This dog of a Pole here has been in mischief, without doubt; and you, you who are——"

"An Englishman," I said proudly.

"Aha! perhaps you thought you were once more murdering the helpless Boer. A Pole and an Englishman! Mein Gott! it is no wonder that together they hatched some devilish contrivance."

It was no use to make a further appeal. Reski had seen that already. Side by side we tramped through the snow, with our captor and his ready pistol behind us. In half an hour we had reached the village we had seen ahead, and were lodged in a cell infamously damp and cold. All communication with our friends was refused till the arrival of some local magistrate.

As eleven o'clock hammered from the steeple outside, Reski raised his head from his chest and glared across at me.

"He will have arrived at Gnesen," he said. "There is a great choice of trains."

It was true enough. Marnac had escaped us once again.

IV.—THE ANONYMOUS ARTICLE.

IN my narrative of the pursuit of Professor Rudolf Marnac, it will have been observed that Fortune had been cold to us. In the incident which I now relate we were to some extent more favoured; for though our supreme object was not achieved, we were yet enabled to save the life of her who is dearest to me in all the world.

I have told you of the homicidal mania which fell upon the Professor, and of the series of events which caused my cousin, Sir Henry Graden, the eminent scientist and explorer, to be associated with a Heidelberg student, as I then was, in an effort to contrive his capture. How we failed to bring about the murderer's arrest in Poland, through the stupidity of a forest guard, I have already explained. By the time I had obtained my release, Marnac had again disappeared. A linguist well provided with money, and on all points but one perfectly sane, had no difficulty in finding refuge in the cities of Europe.

I have been in some doubt as to the best means of briefly describing the present incident. Miss Mary Weston, with whom I discussed the matter, at once offered to place her diary at my disposal. Upon its perusal I suggested that she should herself extract the necessary items, adding such introduction and explanatory notes as seemed necessary. To this she has very kindly consented; and the first portion of this remarkable story I therefore leave in her hands.

Miss Mary Weston's Narrative.

It was in the winter of 1899 that my father's health began to fail. In the May of the following year I returned from my school near Paris, and instead of entering at Girton, as my father had previously arranged, I became his secretary. I was then just eighteen. I did the very best I could, and in his dear, kind way, he made me forget my miseries at the endless blunders I committed. You see, there were only we two; for my mother died shortly after I was born, and I was their only child. We saw few people at our little house, which was on the Trumpington Road, just outside Cambridge. Ladies I met would often pity me for the dull and lonely life I led, and that used to make me very angry. We were never dull or lonely, my dear father and I.

It may seem absurd that so distinguished a man as Dr. Weston, M.A., D.Sc, F.E.S., the Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge, should have relied on the help of a half-educated schoolgirl. But he was always pleased to say that my love and sympathy were worth far more to him in his work than if he had been served by the cleverest woman that ever headed an Honours list.

I well remember the appearance of Professor Marnac's book, "Science and Religion," which was published simultaneously in German and English at the beginning of the June of that year. My father was violently opposed to it, but I was far more concerned over the state into which it threw him than I was about the book, which, as a matter of fact, I never read. He dictated to me a most severe criticism, which at his instructions I sent to the editor of the University Review at 102a, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London. The article was signed "Cantab," a pseudonym that my father often used, as he had the greatest objection to publicity.

About ten days after the August University appeared—that being the number which contained his article—my father received an anonymous letter. It was my duty to open and sort his correspondence, and I was thus able to intercept it. It was addressed to "Cantab," and had been forwarded, unopened, by the editor of the review. The envelope bore a German stamp, but the post-mark had been smeared and was quite indistinguishable. The letter was neatly written in English. It consisted almost entirely of the most violent personal threats against my father. The writer declared that he would soon find out "Cantab's" real name, and would suitably repay him for his slanders against the greatest scientific work of the century. I was very frightened about it, but several friends to whom I showed the letter laughed away my fears, saying it was undoubtedly the work of some madman, and advising me to burn it. This I did. I never mentioned the affair to my father, whose health was giving me great anxiety at the time.

During September my father had taken a cottage on the Cornish coast, and when the end of the Long Vacation came, the doctors forbade his return to Cambridge. I had hard work to persuade him that it was best to obey their orders; but at last he gave in, and we settled down for the winter.

The cottage was built at the foot of a low hill strewn with boulders and torn by the autumn rains. Upon its summit the chimney of an abandoned tin-mine rose against the sky like a vast flag-pole, with roofless buildings grouped around it in melancholy decay. It was always a depressing spot to me, and I rarely visited it, though the view was splendid. About half a mile before the cottage the moorland ended abruptly in a line of glorious cliffs, two hundred and fifty feet of granite and shining porphyry from brow to breaker. This was my favourite walk. I loved to crawl to the edge, that I might peer over at the reefs that sprang out from the tumbled rocks at the cliff foot like the bones of a giant's hand. I have lain thus for hours watching the great rollers advancing in that stately, inexorable march of theirs, rank following rank, until they burst in thunderous green fountains of foam. Sometimes, when a fierce wind blew from the south-west, the spray they hurled into the air would wet my face, even where I lay so infinitely far above them.

Between the cottage and the cliff the ground dipped into a little glen, or goyal, as the country-folks called it, choked with storm-twisted trees and deep with gorse and ferns. Through it ran our cart-track, winding down to the fishing village of Polleven, where the tiny, stone-roofed houses clung to a gap in the cliff wall like barnacles on a rock.

Besides my father and myself, Marjory, our cook-housekeeper, who had been with us ever since I could remember, was the only other inhabitant of the cottage. On Tuesdays and Thursdays a red-cheeked maiden, who had quite remarkable powers of breaking crockery, came to help from Polleven.

So were we living on November 27. From that date I will chiefly rely upon my diary for the details of my terrible experience. Please do not laugh at the form in which I wrote it. Mr. Harland has asked me to make no alterations, and so here it is.

Friday, Nov. 27.—I have quite an important piece of news to-day, Mr. Diary. So no more grumbles, please, about your having sunk into a weather report. Yes, sir, I have met a stranger—fancy that—a visitor, in the winter, at Polleven!

Mr. Hermann—for that is his name—has been a dabbler in science, he tells me, all his life. I shall snare him before long and lay my spoil in triumph at father's feet. Since the weather has been so bad, it has been very lonely for him indoors, poor dear, with only ignorant me for company. I am certain Mr. Hermann will be just the man for him. A good stiff talk will brighten him up wonderfully.

I chanced upon him this afternoon. He was struggling along the cliff edge in the teeth of the wind. His age should be about sixty, but he is very well preserved. He is clean-shaved and close-cropped and is altogether very neat in his appearance. His eyes behind his glasses are absurdly young, if I can so describe them. They are so active and clear that if it were not for the wrinkles above them, I should have knocked ten years off his age. He asked me the way to Polleven, and as I was bound for the village, I took him in charge. On the way he told me that he had just taken a room, at the inn there. He is writing a book, it seems, and wanted a quiet corner. He will find it at Polleven! He speaks with but a slight accent, having lived much in England, though his father was a German, as his name denotes. This was his first walk, and he seemed much impressed with the wildness of the scenery.

I told father about him at supper. He said he would be very pleased to meet him.

Saturday, Nov. 28.—I am filled with the triumph of success. Mr. Hermann and father are hard at it over their pipes in the study. They do not seem to be opposed on any big question, which is most lucky, for some very learned men get into dreadful tempers with each other when contradicted.

It is the butcher's day at Polleven, so I walked there this morning to give the orders. I met Mr. Hermann coming up from the quay. He is very fond of sailing, he said, and had engaged a small trawler and two men, so that he can have a good blow when the weather permits. He kept on rubbing his hands and beaming upon me, as if he had struck upon some new idea which pleased him. I told him I thought he had done a very sensible thing, and that in my opinion a great many clever men would write the better for a dose of fresh air taken daily. He laughed a good deal at this and complimented me on my wit. My wit! Think of that! As I knew there were plenty of chops in the house, I asked him to lunch, saying that my father, who was an invalid and could not go out much, would be delighted to make his acquaintance. He accepted at once and we walked back together.

Later.—Father says that Mr. Hermann is unusually well read, and that he had had a most interesting talk with him. Yet he did not seem very enthusiastic about him. I hope they did not quarrel. It rather spoilt my triumph. Father did not seem to have anything definite against him—only a general impression that he was a queer fellow. I think this rather absurd.

Sunday, Nov. 29.—Mr. Hermann sat behind me at church this morning. He sang the hymns in a high voice that would have been amusing under ordinary circumstances. After church he walked with me some distance up the hill. He condoled with me on my lonely life, and that always annoys me. Indeed, I am afraid I was rather rude to him about it. To make amends, I invited him to tea on Tuesday.

Monday, Nov. 30.—Father is not so well to-day. He has had more trouble with his cough, I fear, though he tries to make light of it. I wish I had not asked Mr. Hermann. I must take care that he does not see father to-morrow. The doctors were most particular in their instructions that nothing should over-excite him; I fear that the two might get into some silly argument.

Tuesday, Dec. 1.—Under this head my diary is a blank. I will try to set out the events of that day as calmly as I can. May God in His mercy help me, in His good time, to forget them!

My father seemed no worse in the morning, though by my persuasion he kept to his bed. His own room was on the ground floor—for he had been forbidden to climb stairs—and looked out upon the little garden at the back of the cottage.

Marjory had begged off for the afternoon, and I agreed, though this would leave me alone to serve my visitor. However, tea-making is no very difficult matter, and to pacify me Marjory had cooked one of her best cakes. She left shortly after two; Mr. Hermann arrived half an hour later.

I had not expected to see him so early, and was copying out some letters which my father had dictated, when he knocked at the door. As I showed him into the room, he chanced to pass the table on which they lay.

"What a beautiful hand your father writes!" he said politely.

"Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Hermann," I answered.

"My dear young lady, I am too old for riddles."

"The writing is mine."

"Is that really so?" he exclaimed, with a quick, startled look at me. "I could have guaranteed that it was a man's hand. Is there nothing private here—may I examine?"

"Oh, certainly," I said. "They are letters to tradesmen."

He picked up the sheets, and moving to the window examined them closely.

"You are sure this is your writing—there is no mistake?" he said presently.

I was rather annoyed at his persistence, and, telling him curtly enough that the writing was mine, went out to get the tea. At the kitchen door was the small boy who brought us our letters and papers from Polleven. There was only one letter that afternoon, which I placed amongst the tea-cups on the tray which I was carrying to the sitting-room. As I entered, Mr. Hermann stepped forward to help me.

"I fear I am giving you a great deal of trouble," said he.

"Please don't apologise," I answered, laughing. "I always do it when our servant is out."

"As she is now?"

"Yes."

"Then you have no one in the house?"

"No one—save my father."

"Indeed! Is that so?"

He dropped into a chair by the fire and sat staring into the coals, his chin resting on his hand. Certainly his behaviour was extremely odd that afternoon. As he did not speak, I opened the envelope, which was addressed to my father. It contained a second letter, and a short note from the editor of the University, stating that a person of the name of Sir Henry Graden had called for "Cantab's" address, and inquiring whether he might have permission to disclose it. He forwarded, he added, a letter from Sir Henry, which, as he believed, contained an explanation of this request.

I have the original letter before me now. This is how it runs:—

"Jerrold's Hotel,⁠
"Strand, London, W.C.

"To 'Cantab.'

"My Dear Sir,—As Mr. Rolles, the editor of the University Review, has not seen fit to inform me of your name and present address, I have written this letter on the understanding that it will be forwarded to you immediately. I should much have preferred to explain the matter personally, but as I may not receive your answer for several days, I dare not delay. It is my duty to inform you that Professor Rudolf Marnac, of the University of Heidelberg, is now a fugitive from the police. The charge against him is one of murder. I know that the man is guilty; I believe him to be the victim of a homicidal mania.

"His mania is of an unusual type, being directed solely against his scientific opponents. In the University Review of August last you criticised his book with extreme severity. He saw that number, for I have in my possession a copy of the article covered with the most dangerous threats against you in his own handwriting. Two distinguished scientists. Von Stockmar of Heidelberg, and Mechersky of St. Petersburg, who similarly attacked him in the papers, have already fallen victims to his extraordinary cunning. You will observe, sir, the logical conclusion. Until he is captured you will be in danger.

"For your personal information I may tell you that he is a man of over sixty years of age. When last seen he had a long beard which was of a silky white. He wears glasses, but his eyes are unusually keen and intelligent. His hands are small and beautifully made, his finger-nails being apparently manicured. In whatever disguise he may assume, he will probably continue to keep them in good condition. He may change his appearance in many ways; but if you are in doubt of any pleasant stranger, I beg you to note his hands.

"On the receipt of your answer I am prepared to come to you at once. I shall then be able to give you further particulars.

"I beg you not to disregard this warning, and until you see me to be most careful in your movements. Of course, if your pseudonym is an absolute secret, you will be safe enough. But there are always chances.

"Sincerely yours, ⁠
"Henry Graden (Bart.)."

I glanced up cautiously. Mr. Hermann still sat huddled in his seat by the fire. One of his hands I could see clearly, for it lay upon the arm of his chair. It was small as a woman's, and the nails had received so fine a polish that they shone pinkly in the firelight!

A wild terror clutched at my throat, so that for a space I sat dumb and motionless, gasping for breath. But then there came to me the realisation of the purpose for which this man had come, and at the thought of it my blood came surging back into alert activity. There may be many an English girl who loves her father as dearly as I do mine, but there is never one of them that loves him more. I can say honestly that after that first great shock of fear my mind was swept clean of my own danger. For my father I was ready to meet Death on his own ground, at his own terms, and try the issue.

And yet my first act was one of such folly that I can hardly bring myself to set it down. Perhaps it was that the words of the letter were rioting in my head; perhaps that my whole will was centred in an effort to control the tones of my voice.

"Do you take sugar in your tea, Professor Marnac?"

That was what I said to him.

It was out, and I could not recall it. As he rose, I sprang back, placing the table between us. A cup, caught by my skirt, smashed loudly on the floor. So we stood watching each other.

He showed no sign of anger. Only the expression of his eyes had changed to a cold, sneering insolence that was a most dreadful thing to see in so old a man.

"I observe, dear lady, that you hold a letter in your hand," said he, without a harsh note in his musical voice. "May I suggest that it contained the discovery which you so very incautiously have announced?"

"I shall answer no questions."

"If you will consider, dear lady, you will perceive that you merely waste time. Tell me—do you know the object of my visit?"

I hesitated a moment. Was there anything to be gained by pretending ignorance? None, so far as I could see.

"So I imagine," I replied.

"You relieve me of a load of explanations. There is, however, one point on which I myself desire information. Through the courtesy of the editor—or assistant editor—of that admirable periodical, the University Review, I was allowed a glimpse of the manuscript of an article signed 'Cantab.' It was a scurrilous effort, dictated by the meanest jealousy. It was designed to destroy my book—my book which is my life's work—do you understand?—my whole life's work."

His voice rose to his last words till it ended in a shriek of passion.

"Well, and what of that article?" I answered boldly.

My question calmed him in an instant. There was a crafty leer in his eyes as he spoke again.

"Of course, it was your father's. No sentence it contained was unworthy of so scholarly a pen. But why, dear lady, why was the original MSS. in your hand?"

"My father had nothing whatever to do with it," I said, speaking very slowly and distinctly. "I wrote it myself."

"You!" he cried, staring at me. "You wrote it?"

"Certainly. Do you think me incapable? If so, I direct your attention to the record of the Honours that I took at Cambridge."

If ever a lie be pardoned, may I not claim mercy for this of mine?

"Will you swear this to me?"

"Why not? I am not ashamed of my work."

He stood staring at the table in front of him for some moments, his hands pressed to his head.

"She must suffer, then," he muttered. "But if I had known! A girl—it was hardly worth the trouble."

"Don't you think you had better go back to your inn?" I suggested.

"Not until we have settled our little account together, dear lady. You are young, yet young vipers can sting. Is it not better at once to put an end to their powers of mischief?"

"Yet the young can run where the old cannot follow. I am nearer the door than you. At your first movement I shall be clear of the house."

"And leave your father as a hostage?"

His words struck me like a blow. I swayed forward, gripping the table with both hands. He could have seized me then if he had wished; but he knew I was in his power, and held away.

"Do not forget that, dear lady," he continued; "it must be either you or him. There is no way of escape for both, I am afraid."

I am writing down the facts as they occurred. I desire no credit for following my duty. What I did then, many thousands of girls would do to-day. For there remained no way out of the pit into which we had fallen—my father and I—save one, and that I accepted gladly, readily.

"Then take me," I said to him.

"You have sadly upset my little arrangements. I had not thought of so fair an offender. Let me see." He paused, softly rubbing his chin.

There was a cat-like gratification about the creature as he stood glancing at me from time to time, with a smile flickering on his thin lips; and all the while my soul was searching, searching for the way of escape that I could not find.

"On the whole, it is the happiest plan," he said suddenly, with a little sigh of relief. "Let us make a move to the front door."

The sun was dropping to the western sea in angry banks of cloud. His rays shone so strongly in our faces that I had to shade my eyes as he pointed out the manner in which death should come to me.

"You are a strong, brave girl," he said with a little bow, "or I would not suggest so novel a scheme. I shall sit here in the-porch and watch you as you walk over the moor, down into the little valley, up again, and so to the cliff edge. After a time for suitable meditation—let us say two minutes—you will step off into eternity. Do not fear, it is an easy method of putting an end to an infinity of troubles .… Keep back! keep back, I say!"

He was an old man, and it was worth the effort. But as I sprang towards him, he whipped out a revolver from his pocket, and I shrank away from the black ring pointed at my chest.

"Such folly is not what I should have expected from Miss Weston," he continued. "Should you cause me to kill you, I shall certainly not spare your father. And why should two suffer for the fault of one?"

"How am I to know that even if I accept this that you offer, you will let him go unharmed?" I cried.

"On my word of honour, I will not hurt a hair of his head."

"Your word of honour!"

"Do you doubt me, mademoiselle?" he shouted, flaring up into another burst of passion. "I come of an honourable house, a house that served its kings in many wars before the Revolution destroyed us. I am no pig of a German; I am a Marnac of Toulouse, mademoiselle, and we hold to our word though we are torn in pieces."

"But how can you, a gentleman, drive an innocent girl to so frightful a death?" I pleaded with him.

"Innocent? Did you not write that article?" He spoke eagerly, with a glance of keen suspicion.

"Yes. I wrote it."

"Then go. Remember, I wait and I watch. If you fear to do this thing, yes, even if you hesitate too long over there upon the cliff edge, I shall kill your father."

Without another word I began to walk down the sloping moor towards the sea.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

I have asked Miss Mary Weston to end her narrative at this point. I think it better that I should now take up the threads of the story.

After Marnac's escape from Poland, Sir Henry Graden and I travelled to Berlin. There we carefully examined the book of extracts which had come into our hands, and sent warning letters to those writers who from the marginal notes seemed to have especially roused this madman's anger against them. The extreme animosity which was evinced against "Cantab's" article in the University Review especially alarmed us for the author's safety. Finally we determined to proceed to London, discover his identity, and take the necessary steps for his safety. Distasteful as was this detective business to a man of my studious habits, I nevertheless felt that it was my duty to assist my cousin in hunting down the murderer.

It was on the evening of Sunday, November 29th, that we arrived at Charing Cross Station, from which we removed to the morose respectability of Jerrold's Hotel. At eleven on the following morning we were ushered by a buttony boy into the editorial sanctum of the University Review.

Mr. Rolles—for such we had discovered was the name of the editor—remained seated before his American roller-top desk. He was a very large and sleek young man, with plump cheeks of a dingy colour, and pince-nez glasses which he wore half-way down his nose. His general appearance was suggestive of a capacity for plum-duff and sugar-water, and he oozed self-appreciation from every pore.

"And what can I do for you?" he inquired, with a sedate patronage.

"In the month of August," said my cousin, declining the chair that Mr. Rolles suggested, "you published an article signed 'Cantab,' dealing with a book written by Professor Marnac, of Heidelberg."

"Most certainly. Pray proceed."

"For the most urgent private reasons I desire 'Cantab's' name and address."

"Which I cannot give you," said Mr. Rolles, lighting a gold-tipped cigarette.

My cousin walked up to the editorial desk and spoke down upon him.

"From my card, sir, which I perceive you have before you, you can judge that I am a respectable person."

"Perhaps, perhaps," smiled Mr. Rolles; "but nowadays even baronets, you know, are—well, not always worthy of such implicit confidence as you demand."

I saw the right hand of my cousin steal out towards the editorial collar, but he restrained himself.

"You reduce me, sir, to speak of myself with less good taste than modesty," he said. "Have you never heard of my name as an explorer or a scientist?"

"Very often, my dear Sir Henry; though even for so distinguished a light I cannot break my most sacred rule. If you choose to write to 'Cantab,' I will forward the letter. Further I cannot go."

I don't think that Mr. Rolles will ever realise how near he came to a thorough trouncing. For a moment my cousin, so to speak, hung in the wind. Then he drew up a chair and sat down at the corner of the desk.

"I will accept your offer, sir," said he. "Give me a blank sheet of paper."

The letter written, it was handed over to Mr. Rolles, who gave us his word that it should go by the next post. Then we retired into the street.

My cousin was simply unbearable that day. He was always impatient of delay; but in all our wanderings together I have never suffered from him more acutely. He dragged me aimlessly about the streets, set me down to lunch at a comfortable restaurant, and then swept me off before the coffee arrived. I endeavoured to escape him, but the attempt was a hopeless failure. Five o'clock was striking when he turned his face eastward—he had been inquiring for letters at the Travellers', in Pall Mall—and, with his most unwilling companion trotting beside him, again advanced on Covent Garden, near which the office of the University was situated.

"I'm hanged if I can stand this suspense!" he explained. "Marnac has had five or six days' start of us, and anything may be happening. If that idiot Rolles still refuses the address, I will thrash him till he gives it up, and take the consequences."

He meant what he said—he always did—and I followed him, with unpleasant visions of a summons at Bow Street and caustic paragraphs in the evening papers.

But we were in luck. Mr. Rolles had retired to the Athenæum for his tea, and in the assistant editor, who received us, I recognised an old acquaintance. He was a clever young Scot named Raeburn, who had lived on my staircase at Cambridge, and rowed bow to my two in the college eight. He appeared delighted to see me, and became duly impressed when I introduced him to my distinguished cousin.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked me, after a few minutes of the conversation usual in such circumstances.

Evidently he had no knowledge of our previous visit.

"Sir Henry here is anxious for the name and address of 'Cantab.' You will recollect the man I mean; he contributed an article to your August number."

"Well, it's against all the rules; but, of course, with you it doesn't matter. He is Dr. Weston, the Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge. The old gentleman has been very seedy, I hear, and is down at Polleven, on the Cornish coast, for the winter. That article seems to have attracted a lot of attention. I had an old fellow here kicking up a fuss about it less than a week ago."

"What did he want to know?" broke in Graden sharply.

"It was a long rigmarole of a story, but it boiled down to this: that we were charged with hopelessly misprinting Dr. Weston's MSS. To get rid of the old boy, I sent up for the original copy of the article and showed it to him. He went away quite satisfied after that."

"Did he mention Dr. Weston's name?"

"No. That is—I——"

"Did you?"

"Yes, I believe I did. But I took it that he knew it already. Hallo! Anything wrong?"

Raeburn has since admitted his doubts as to our sanity: for without another word my cousin rushed from the room, and I followed at his heels.

From the Review office to our hotel was no great distance, and this we ran, regardless of the indignation of jostled wayfarers. My cousin plunged into the smoking-room and seized a Bradshaw. I looked over his shoulder with an equal excitement. The next express from Paddington was at midnight, and it was timed to arrive at the nearest station to Polleven that the map showed us by twelve-thirty the following morning. But that village itself was distant by road a good fifteen miles from the station. With Cornish hills we should be lucky if we arrived there by three in the afternoon. The Postal Guide informed us that our letter of warning would be delivered about twelve o'clock next day. A telegram—for there was no wire to Polleven—would scarcely arrive earlier. There was nothing more to be done.

It was, indeed, shortly before three o'clock that our carriage groaned and screeched its way down the steep descent into Polleven village. At the inn we soon discovered the direction of Dr. Weston's cottage, and taking the advice of the landlord as to the roughness of the track thither, we left our carriage and started off on foot. After a stiff climb of three-quarters of a mile between rugged cart-ruts running with water from the winter springs, we emerged into a little glen, sparsely wooded. At the further end, built on the higher ground, we caught a momentary glimpse of a building which we took to be the place we sought. From our right, low, booming reverberations told of distant breakers on a rock-bound coast.

It was I who first saw her, a glimpse of white amongst the bare skeletons of the stunted trees. Then at the turn of the path we met her. Her face was pale as fine linen, her eyes fixed and glassy, her arms with her clenched hands rigid by her sides. She might have been the ghost of some great lady who had died by cruel wrong. So blindly did she walk that I believe she would have passed us if Graden had not sprung forward and barred her way.

She woke as a sleep-walker wakes, with a shuddering surprise. "Who are you?" she asked faintly. If she had not grasped the branch of a tree, I think she would have fallen.

"Are you a relation of Dr. Weston's?" asked Graden very softly and kindly.

"His daughter."

"And you go?"

"To kill myself. Oh, no!" she burst out as we sprang forward. "It is no good! You cannot help me. The devil sits in the porch, waiting and watching. If I delay, he will kill—my father—my poor old father, who is so ill! Let me go—to the cliff—let me go, I say!"

Graden slipped his arm round her waist, and from his great height looked down at her with those honest blue eyes of his that made every child his friend at once.

"I am old enough to be your father, dear," he said. "You can trust me, can't you? Yes, yes, I knew it. Now tell me—what have you to do?"

"He is waiting in the porch," she answered him. "If he doesn't see me throw myself over the cliffs, he will kill father."

"Could he see us coming by the path which brought you here?"

"Oh, yes: above this glen it is open moor right up to the cottage."

"Is there a way to the back of the house?"

"Yes; but there is no time."

"That is foolish talk. Come, tell me."

"About two hundred yards back on the track you followed here there is a little spring amongst the rushes. There is a path, a short cut which the boys from the village sometimes take that leads into the clump of firs by the garden wall. The wall is quite low—and then—oh! then—you could get straight into father's room. It is on the ground floor; the room on the left as you open the back door. You could lock the door and defy the other man."

"Now listen to me, dear," said Graden. "You must walk on very, very slowly. Take all the time you can. At the cliff top make several starts as if you would jump, but feared. Mind that you do not go too near the edge. And so in ten minutes come home. We will meet you, and all will be well—at least, for your father," he added grimly.

"I understand," she answered simply, and walked on.

It was a wild rush that we made. We found the spring, and turning to our right crashed into the thicket—for the "path" was a courtesy title. The hanging scrub brushed our faces, in the open patches the dead gorse dug its spines into our knees. We quickened our pace in the more open fir-wood, vaulted the four-foot wall of the little garden, and, panting like exhausted hounds, ran furiously upon the house. There was no time for dodging and crawling. It was a forlorn hope we led.

And Dr. Weston was alive.

He sat amongst his pillows, a great book upon his knees, gazing over his spectacles with the most profound amazement on his kindly old face at the two dishevelled strangers who burst in upon him. Leaving me to guard and quiet him—for, indeed, the shock might prove most dangerous—Graden dashed out on his errand of vengeance. Two minutes later I heard him call, and breaking off the excuses that I was inventing, I ran through the house to join him.

Miss Weston and he were standing before the porch—alone. She was leaning on his arm, panting from great exertion.

"Think of it, Robert!" cried my cousin, "He chased her—the devil followed and chased her!"

"How is my father?" she faltered. "Is he—as this gentleman says—quite unharmed?"

"Quite safe, I assure you," I answered.

"I must go to him."

"One moment, Miss Weston," said my cousin. "We have yet a duty to the public safety. Which way has the man run?"

She told her story quickly. After she had left us and gained the cliff turf above the glen, she glanced back. To her surprise, she caught a glimpse of him standing amongst the trees on the opposite slope. Her delay had aroused his suspicions, and he had followed her. She walked slowly forward and, as we had directed, moved uneasily about on the verge of the precipice. Presently she again glanced over her shoulder. He had now crossed the glen and was standing in the open watching her. The distance between them was about two hundred yards. She knew that we must have nearly reached the cottage, and that if he had not already attacked her father, there was no further danger. So she started to run along the coast. He shouted and drew his revolver; but either he thought the distance too great, or he feared the noise of the report, for he did not fire. But her action evidently puzzled him, seeing that it left her father completely at his mercy. He did not pursue her far, but instead turned and gazed intently at the cottage. On her part, she also stopped running to watch him. From where they stood the garden was fully exposed, and at that moment our forms appeared as we vaulted the low wall. At which sight, Miss Weston said, he gave a most horrible scream, shaking his fists towards us and filling the air with imprecations. Then, without further noticing her, he set off towards the town. For herself, she came back as fast as she could run, meeting Graden before the door. She added some useful particulars as to his alias and his residence at the inn.

And so, her story ended, the brave girl passed into the house, while we dashed away in pursuit. My cousin, stuck to his work most manfully; but age will tell, and I was a minute to the good when I stumbled into the parlour of the inn. They had not seen Mr. Hermann, they told me, since lunch-time; perhaps he was down at his boat.

"Boat—what boat?" I gasped.

"Why, zur," said the landlord's wife, grinning at my eagerness, "the guid gentleman be mighty vond o' zailing, an' he hath hired Mark Pennyfold's noo trawler, the Agnes Jane, for a matter o' two months. And now I comes to think on it, I did hear Mark zay as how he an' his zun were going out with Maister Hermann betwixt dree an' vour o'clock."

I ran down the narrow street towards the quay, between the quaint old cottages, with their fish stretched out to dry, and their nets, fishing-boots, and gear tumbled before the door-sills. As I reached the little breakwater, the sun, low on the west horizon, was throwing great golden streamers through gaps in the purple clouds that were piled as high as if a cataclysm of Nature had set the Andes on the Himalayas. From their feet came gusts of wind, fierce and icy cold. Even to my shore-going eyes it threatened dirty weather.

But I had no time for cloud effects. There, fair in the glittering path that the sun had daubed upon the waters, a red-sailed fishing-boat was running close-hauled to the sou'-westward.

"What boat is that?" I asked a lad who lounged against a mooring-post at my elbow.

"That, maister—whoi, it be Mark Pennyfold's Agnes Jane, 'er as was 'ired by the stranger from Lunnon, 'Ermann by name."

A hand fell on my shoulder. It was Graden's. He had heard and understood. And so we two stood together watching the red sails fade slowly into the gathering haze of the night and the storm.

V.—THE AMMONIA CYLINDER.

THE sail crept forward down the river of sunset gold that streamed in wild splendour from a crevasse in the ranges of cloudland. The light that burnished the sea glowed upon the Polleven cliffs, tinging with fire the breakers at their feet; it threw fierce shadows amongst the clustered cottages of the Cornish fisherfolk, and painted a richer scarlet on the sails of the trawlers huddled beneath the sheltering arm of the little quay. It was a scene that rises before me, as I write, with a curious detail, though, indeed, at the time I took no pains to observe it. For on that departing vessel was he whom we had chased across Europe, madman as we supposed, murderer as we knew him to be. We had saved an innocent girl from his vendetta, and in my heart I thanked Providence for that mercy; but Rudolf Marnac, the Heidelberg professor, was still free, free with fresh schemes of vengeance against his scientific opponents hatching in his twisted brain, and with all the wisdom of his great learning to help him in his deadly purposes.

"So this is the end of your clever plans!" I cried, turning savagely on my burly cousin. "He has escaped again, got clear away. What are you going to do? Shall we follow him?"

"In the face of the storm?"

"Why not—if that is the best you can suggest?"

"You have changed, my little cousin," said he, regarding me with a kindly look, though, indeed, my words had been unmannerly. "The Fates have played the very deuce with the sedate student that I dragged out of his pleasant rooms at Heidelberg just twelve days ago. How that youngster grumbled at prospective discomforts! How he shrank from the thought of being mixed up in a business that was 'better left to the police'! Do you remember?"

"Don't we waste time?" said I.

"Perhaps. Ah! here she comes—just the thing for which I was hoping."

Running down the village street came Miss Weston, with three or four men behind her. We met her at the entrance to the quay.

"Well! have you caught him?" she panted.

"No; there he goes." My cousin pointed an arm at the distant sail.

"Oh, thank God!" she exclaimed earnestly. "I knew he was armed, and I was so afraid for the brave men who had saved my father and me."

She looked from one to the other of us with an honest gratitude in her eyes that to me seemed worth the risk of all the dangers in the world.

"And Dr. Weston?" asked my cousin.

"My father is no worse; but of course I did not tell him all. He imagines that I was annoyed by some tramp, and declares he will have a man about the cottage in future. You and your friend must come back with me, Sir Henry. I want to introduce you to him."

"Some other time, I hope. At present this young firebrand here insists that we should follow Marnac by sea."

"That is quite impossible, sir," she said, turning upon me with an anxious look. "I have enough experience of the weather to know that a storm is coming. I am certain that Sir Henry Graden will help me to dissuade you."

"I am afraid not, Miss Weston," broke in my cousin before I could reply. "We have been like over-eager hounds, losing the scent by flashing forward too quickly. It must be sheer, dogged hunting now, and no more cutting off corners. By the way, there is a fact which perhaps one of you can tell me," he said, turning to the little group that hung behind her skirts watching us with a bucolic interest. "Did the Agnes Jane yonder carry provisions on board?"

"Surely, zur," said one who stood a little forward of the rest—a stout, bearded man with a face as brown and seamed as a withered cider-apple. "Mark Pennyfold, as is owner, was telling about this furrin gent only last night down tu the 'Plough Inn.' 'E allowed 'im to be a funny zort of toad, vur 'e 'ad 'is orders to keep a week's vittles on board, though the reason was passin' his onderstanding."

"Would Pennyfold take a trip to France if he were asked?"

"Surely, zur, ef 'e be paid accordin'. 'E be most mazed on the colour of a bit of gold is Mark."

"That settles it, Miss Weston," continued Graden in his short, businesslike way. "Now please to remember my instructions. You have the facts concerning Professor Marnac in my letter. Lay an information against him for an attempt on your life, and see that the county authorities circulate his description along the coast. I don't think there is the slightest chance that he will return to trouble you, but be on your guard, and have a man to sleep in the house. Now, my lads, who has the swiftest boat in the harbour?"

"Now you be askin' a question," said their spokesman gloomily. "You zee, it be this wise. At the regatty, as my Pride o' Cornwall was reaching for the west buoy, there comes, all of a sudden like, a girt wind from over the eastern beacon which——"

"He means, Sir Henry, that his boat is reckoned the fastest, but at the regatta she was disabled by a squall," broke in Miss Weston, interrupting a story which was evidently familiar in its length and detail. "This is Sir Henry Graden, Isaac Treherne, and he is trying to capture the wicked man in the Agnes Jane yonder, the man who, as I told you, tried to kill me. Will you take him in the Pride of Cornwall?"

Isaac was a study of indecision. He twisted up his mouth, scratched his head, regarded the sunset attentively, and kicked a pebble over the edge of the quay.

"I du wish, miss, as I 'ad been nigh you when 'e tried it," he said at last. "I would 'ave set about the hugly toad proper, that I would. But, beggin' your pardin, and seein' he be got away, 'twould seem a matter for the perlice mor'n for we uns. Moreover, there be the fish contract, and the Pride is only waiting her crew to zail."

"It means a hundred pound in your pocket, my man," snapped Graden.

"A 'undred pounds is a 'undred pounds," replied Isaac with a sententious inconsequence.

"But, Isaac," broke in Miss Weston, "when the story gets round to Mark Pennyfold, he will say that you refused because you knew that the Pride could never catch the Agnes Jane."

"Zo he wull—the liard!" cried Isaac, with a sudden burst of indignation. "I never thought on that, miss. A pretty tale he will be telling in every public from Bude to Penzance! Come along, gentlemen, come along. I'll show 'e a thing, and Mark, tu, the liard!"

We ran to where the little trawler lay moored to the quay, and tumbled on board. One man was sitting in her stern mending some tackle, and Isaac apparently considered his services sufficient, for he cast off the ropes at once. Miss Weston was waiting on the head of the quay as our boat crept by. I shall always remember that picture of my darling as she stood on those old grey stones, with their seaweed beard dropping to the swirl of the tide below. The fire of the sunset lit her tall, graceful figure leaning to the breeze. One hand was to her hair, the other weaving us adieu. No fairer figure of encouragement could men desire who started on a perilous adventure.

"Good-bye! God keep you both!" So she cried to us.

We shouted a reply, but I doubt if she heard it, for at that moment the wind caught the great red sail on our foremast, swinging it across with a thunderous flapping that shook the little vessel from stem to stern. In another moment we were rushing forward in pursuit, with the spray from the bows in our faces and a white trail of foam marking our path from the land.

I do not think that more than ten minutes had passed from the moment of our arrival on the quay, though by my writing it may seem that I have underestimated the time. The Agnes Jane was, as far as I could judge, about a mile away to the southward, a distance which we decreased to barely a thousand yards before the full strength of the growing wind we brought had reached her. After that, however, we gained very slowly, if at all.

I was never a good sailor, a fact which the long rollers soon recalled to my remembrance. The occasional bursts of spray which flew over us added greatly to my discomfort, for my clothes, though warm, were not waterproof. I have always been susceptible to chills, and the prospect of passing the night in dripping garments seriously alarmed me. It was, therefore, with a sense of great relief that I observed Isaac produce some spare oilskins, and boots happily lined with flannel.

The seafaring appearance which I assumed did not, however, allay my internal sufferings, which soon became acute. Huddled on the leeward side of the boat, I watched the chase with an appearance of interest which was mere hypocrisy. To be sincere, I regarded my cousin, who was enjoying a pipe of strong-smelling tobacco on the windward side of me, with a more immediate enmity than I felt towards Marnac himself.

The sun sank amidst a cloud conflagration of sullen and thunderous magnificence. The coastline behind us darkened and faded until the crests of the breaking waves rose ghastly white against the gloom of the shrouded land. But fortunately the sky above us was still clear, and a silver crescent of the moon, swinging at an angle as if the wind had tilted her, showed us the chase heading southward. It was evidently some port in France for which she pointed. My cousin had joined Isaac, who was at the tiller, and the pair conversed in low tones, glancing frequently to the north-west, from which the wind blew strong and cold.

It was, according to my remembrance, past nine o'clock that the steady pressure of the wind failed. In its place came gusts, fierce and uncertain, spaced with hills of restless calm. Ignorant as I was of sea weather, I began to grow uneasy. There seemed a menace in the dark, mysterious wall of cloud to windward, a rampart edged with silver from the moon. Motionless it hung like a heavy curtain that at its rising would reveal some monstrous spectacle. For the first time I realised the insignificance of our boat, its loneliness amidst the hurrying wastes of the sea, and my anxiety passed into alarm. It was about this time that my nausea suddenly left me. This was a great relief to me, for I was well aware that an excess of sea-sickness may result in a serious prostration.

It was in one of the lulls I have mentioned that Isaac gave my cousin the helm and with his man's assistance lowered the sail on the smaller mast at the stern which, I believe, is known nautically as the jigger. They also reefed the larger canvas on the foremast. The Agnes Jane, which was now not more than four hundred yards away, showed no sign of following our example.

"Mark Pennyfold must be mazed," said Isaac, on his return aft. "'E must have zeen us were chasin' 'e, yet 'e gives we no chance o' speaking 'im; and now 'e be chancing his boat by carrying on with that press o' zail. Plaze to keep thy hand on the tiller, zur."

The little Cornishman rolled forward to where I sat, and stood, making a hollow of his hands. A great stillness held the sea and air, save for the whisper of the gliding waves.

"The Agnes Jane, ahoy!"

He drove the words over the black waters like the blast of a trumpet.

"The Agnes Jane, ahoy!"

Again he called, and this time there came an answering voice.

"Help!" it cried—the one word—and was silent. We waited, but that was all.

"It is no good, Treherne," said my cousin. "They have an ugly customer on board who does not mean to be taken. He has his pistol at their heads as like as not. They must take their chance of——"

His words were lost in a stirring note like the throbbing of a giant harp-string, a note that rose to a shriek and then melted into a rattling, drumming roar, the uttermost diapason of the storm-wind. For some seconds we heeled over, so that I could have dipped my face in the bubbling waters; and then, slowly gathering way, we shot forward through the flying spray, with Treherne yelling to his man in tones that even outsounded the squall itself.

We were upon her almost before I realised the disaster that had befallen her. I caught a glimpse of the level lines of timbers about the keel, the red sails awash in streaks of hissing foam; and then I saw my cousin lean out and grip a something in the water. For a moment I thought he would be dragged from the boat, but Isaac, letting go the tiller, circled his legs with a pair of muscular arms and held on like the little bulldog he was. With three great heaves Graden lugged the dripping thing he held to the boat's edge; with a fourth he landed it fairly on board. The Agnes Jane had gone, and with her the unfortunate men she carried—save Marnac only.

Thus Fate in its own strange manner had given him to us at last!

Shouting like a madman, I started towards the stern, where my cousin was bending over the huddled body he had saved. But even as I did so I saw a black mass, crested and streaked with hissing white, rush up from the obscurity to windward. For a space it seemed to hang above us, while Isaac yelled as he tugged wildly at the tiller. Then, with a wild roar that drummed in my ears like the explosion of a mine, it threw itself upon us, hurling me into the bottom of the boat, choked, deafened, and blinded.

I do not know how we lived through that first furious hour. Isaac Treherne made no second mistake, but crouched at the tiller, tricking the succession of great seas that swung upon us out of the throbbing blackness. Stung by passing hailstorms, drenched to the skin, and aching with cold, I toiled with a tin pannikin, baling, baling until my back creaked with stiffness and my hands could scarce feel the handle. Graden and the sailor worked beside me, so that we managed to keep the water under. Now and again a slit in the rushing dark above us showed me Marnac lying by the steersman's side. Was he alive or dead? I did not know, nor did I stay my labour to make inquiry.

The daylight came at last, the God-given light for which all poor mariners must pray in their hours of danger. With it came a lessening of the wind and a falling sea. Yet there had been an angry menace in the brilliant colours that lit the eastern sky, and I stared eagerly over the muddy green of the hurrying surges. Indeed, I was the first to see a steamer's smudge of smoke on the western skyline.

"Her be making for we, gentlemen," remarked our steersman, after a long stare at the distant vessel. "Happen her would take 'e aboard, if you be so minded. The weather be blowing up again, and it's a long reach back to Polleven."

"I don't like deserting the ship, Isaac," said Graden; "though, to tell the truth, I don't relish another day in the chops of the Channel."

"Bain't no desartion, sir. Me and Jake can take her whoam; and, to tell 'e the truth, her 'll ride the lighter for the want of him!"

He pointed to where Marnac sat crouching under an oilskin coat. Save for occasional shivers, the old man seemed to be no worse for his handshake with Death. He received the sailor's remark with a benevolent smile.

"Doan't 'e go grinning at me, you wicked-minded old toad!" cried Isaac. "'Twas only through special mercies that Providence forgot you was on board. We'd ha' been sunk for zarten, else."

Within half an hour we could see the steamer clearly, an ancient tramp of the seas, bluff in the bows, square in the flank, with a colouring of soot and rusty iron. She answered our signals with a melancholy toot and stood towards us. Graden, who had been watching her approach at my side, turned and walked aft.

"I have already dropped your revolver overboard, Professor Marnac," he said; "but I must trouble you to hand me your pocket-book. Money, you know, is often the most valuable of weapons."

The Professor obeyed with a gentle cluck of amusement.

"I trust, Sir Henry, that the notes are not damaged," he said in the low, musical tones with which I was so familiar. "Indeed, I was assured that the case was waterproof."

"Now your loose gold, if you please."

"Here it is, Sir Henry, with my watch and chain. Observe that my pockets are now completely empty. Ah, Mr. Harland! forgive me if I did not notice you before. I fear that these nautical adventures will interrupt your course of studies. Did you hear whom the University have appointed in my place? I should be sorry if my students, amongst whom I always held you to be the most studious, if not the most able, should be long without a lecturer—like sheep that have lost their shepherd, Mr. Harland."

I turned from him with a feeling of nausea. Mad or sane, he had done such deeds as placed him beyond the intercourse of humanity.

The steamer was close upon us now, and as she came rolling down the heave of the swell we were hailed from the bridge in a tongue that was strange to me. Before we could reply, a seaman had sprung to the bulwarks and sent the coils of a line spinning over us. This Isaac made fast, allowing a fair space to intervene between his little craft and the rusty metal fabric that towered above us.

"Good-bye, Isaac," said Graden, shaking the little Cornishman warmly by the hand. "I will see to your cheque the moment I get to London."

"Doan't 'e mention it, zur. I was right proud to take 'e. Nor do 'e trouble about we uns. Jake and I will be making Polleven by midnight at latest—please be."

It was an anxious scramble—they had to swing out a chair for Marnac—but the trawler was as handy as a row-boat, and at last the three of us stood on the deck of the stranger. A more ill-assorted trio of bedraggled voyagers never ranged in line.

But if we were strange to look upon, so were the group of men who confronted us. They were of the degenerate Latin breed, dark, small, uncertain in temper, and dirty by nature and training. Their seafaring dress seemed as ill-suited to them as a sash and a coloured cloak would be to a British shell-back.

"Eengleshe?" asked one whom I took to be the mate. "Eengleshe? what say?"

"We are Englishmen who were driven out to sea by last night's storm. If I may see the captain, I will explain," said my cousin.

The man grinned his lack of comprehension. Plainly his vocabulary was of the smallest.

"These men are Portuguese, Sir Henry," said Marnac, stepping quickly forward. "I know their language. Allow me to explain the situation."

But he got no further. My cousin's long arm shot out, gripping his collar firmly from behind. With a gentle heave, he swung the Professor from his feet and dropped him behind us.

"Please to keep silence, Professor Marnac. Your explanations might be somewhat biassed," said he, with a grim smile. And then turning to the sailors, who had been watching the little scene with evident surprise—

"Do none of you speak English?" he asked.

They seemed to understand the question, for some talk, eked out by much gesticulation, ended in one of their number trotting up the ladder to the bridge, where he disappeared into the wheel-house. An instant later a long, red-headed man emerged and came running towards us.

"And shure wud Oi not have greeted jer honours before now," he exclaimed in the most strenuous of brogues; "but 'twas me trick at the wheel, and niver a wan of these spalpeens wud relieve me. An' what can Oi do fer ye now at all?"

"What boat is this?"

"The Portugaise ship, San Joseph, fr'm Buenos Ayres to Hamburg wid a mixed cargo, and a darned mixed crew, sorr. If it hadn't been fer a back answer whin the wine was in me, faith! it's not on this greasy flat-ir-ron that Tim Blake wud be after serving."

"Do you speak the language, my man?"

"Indade an' Oi do, sorr; an' good raison, seeing that 'tis fower years come Christmas that Orve been steward on th' yacht iv wan iv tha' Portugaise nobility."

"That's good news. And now where is the captain?"

"Faith! but 'twas a jool iv a toime we were after havin' in the Bay last night, sorr, an' the old man's turned in. The second mate has gone aft, gatherin' his courage in both hands fer to wake him. Indade, sorr, 'tis a r-resolution that wud put the fear iv the Lord into a better man than him."

"Rather a Tartar, eh?"

"A strong man, sorr, an' a good seaman fer a greaser, though his temper is most pro-digious. But see, here he comes, like a dook out iv a theatre."

He was indeed a fine figure of a man, fully six feet in height and proportionately broad. His skin was very dark, and his eyes of the deep blackness that I have since observed in Indian races, but very soft and glowing. His hair, which he wore at a greater length than is customary amongst sailors, showed under his cap in glossy curls; and his moustache was twisted back almost to his ears.

He bowed to us with a deliberate courtesy, muttering a greeting in his own tongue. He spoke no English, and it was through the medium of Tim Blake that he offered us hospitality. It was no time for explanations, so, guarding Marnac between us, we hurried down to a large cabin where warm garments and steaming glasses of hot brandy-and-water were brought by the worthy Irishman, to whose care we had been assigned. As far as could be judged, I had not contracted so much as a cold in the head, despite my long exposure. When we had completed our change of clothes, my cousin beckoned me outside the cabin, closing the door on our prisoner.

"I have asked Blake to take me to the captain, for it is right that he should know the true position of affairs," he whispered. "While I am gone, you must sit with Marnac. Remember, do not let him out of your sight for a moment."

"Very well," I said, and he strode off down the dark alley of the passage-way.

When I re-entered the cabin, I found Marnac muffled to the chin, under the blankets of a bunk. He gave me one of his quick, evil glances, that was unpleasantly reminiscent of an aged rat surprised in an iron gin. I had so great a horror and detestation of the man that his mere presence was a source of physical discomfort to me; and when, sitting up amongst his wraps, he commenced to pester me with questions, I could endure it no longer. I retired outside the cabin, seating myself with my back to the door. I was as well there, I argued, as in the interior, and in a position infinitely more satisfactory to myself.

The garments they had lent me were thick and warm; the dose of brandy had been considerable. I was weary from the toil of a sleepless night. Those are my excuses for the fact that in the course of the next few minutes I fell soundly asleep.

It was Graden who woke me, a very angry and exasperated Graden who shook my senses into me with unnecessary violence. I started up, protesting against his treatment.

"I thought better of you than this," he said, with his hand still fixed in my collar.

"My back was against the door. He could not pass without waking me. What does it matter?" I grumbled, with every sign of irritation.

"I told you to watch him, to stay inside the cabin, and I find you snoring here. No more excuses, please. You know the ability of the man. Let us hope he has not taken advantage of any chances you gave him."

He opened the door cautiously, peeped in, and then flung it wide with a great oath. The cabin was empty!

Yet there was no doubt as to his manner of escape. In the middle of the flooring there gaped a hole, with a heavy square of wood lying beside it. On examination, we found that this entrance had also been barred by a grating, which now swung downwards on its hinges, disclosing a wooden ladder, the foot of which was indistinguishable in the gloom below.

"He is in the hold!" I cried. "He is hiding somewhere amongst the cargo! We shall never find him without the help of the crew."

Amongst the excellent points in my cousin's character was that of perfect self-control. There was no anger in his voice to remind me of my blunder when he spoke again.

"It's not the hold, cousin Robert," he said. "This is the ship's lazarette, where the food is stored. There are usually two entrances, each similar to this. If he has escaped by the second, it's a bad business. It will mean he has found a friend, for these gratings should be secured. But it may be that he is lurking amongst the pork and the biscuits. If so, we ought to find him easily enough. I don't want to bring the crew into this affair if I can help it. It will be enough if the captain' knows."

"But he does—you have told him."

"That's the blackest part of the luck. The ship caught it pretty badly last night; they were right in the thick of it. I found the captain on deck superintending three or four sailors who were clearing away the wreckage of one of the boats. He was in an amazing temper, and Blake advised me that if I had a favour to ask him, I had best let him cool off a bit. So I dismissed the Irishman and climbed up to the bridge. I should think I'd been there about twenty minutes watching the work, when I saw a sharp-looking lad pop out from the companion and go over to where the captain was standing. They had a fine pow-wow together, looking up at me from time to time. It rather puzzled me, and presently I dropped down the stairs and walked over to where they were. The captain seemed decidedly chilly, and I soon saw by his manner that he was not wanting a talk just then. Whereupon I came below. So kindly light the lamp I see in the bracket yonder, cousin Robert, and we'll go hunting again."

We descended the ladder, Graden going first, and I following with the lamp, the light of which I endeavoured to throw over his shoulder.

It seems a cowardly thing to confess, writing as I am in the broad daylight, with the bees amongst the flower-beds singing their song through the open window, but though we were two to one, and our quarry an old man, my cousin had twice to rate me for the deliberation of my movements. We peered about amongst the lurking shadows, with the thunder of the seas hammering on the iron sides without. Now and again a heave of the ship would send us staggering apart, to bring up amongst unexpected barrels. Perhaps it was the want of sleep that had jangled my nerves, but I knew in my heart that if I were suddenly to catch a sight of those wicked eyes staring out from the gloom before us, I should shriek and run like a hysterical schoolgirl.

But Marnac was nob there. The grate of the second stairway was closed and locked, and yet he had disappeared. Someone had helped him—that was plain enough. We stood disconsolate amongst the details of the ship's larder.

"Well, he's gone right enough," said my cousin. "Hallo! what the deuce is this?"

He took the light from my hand and stooped to examine something at his feet. It was a steel cylinder, about eight feet in length; a second lay beside it.

"Ammonia! So they run a cold storage on board."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"My dear cousin, if you can't remember the part that ammonia plays in the manufacture of ice, I shall not attempt to—hallo! stop that—stop that, I say!"

He sprang forward, caught his foot in an empty sack, and fell heavily, extinguishing the lamp. As he did so, I saw an arm reach down and draw up the grating through which we had descended. A key clicked in the padlock. Graden was on his feet in an instant, and together we rushed to the foot of the ladder.

In the patch of grey daylight above us we could see the face of the captain looking through the bars, and peeping down beside him, with the sweetest dimple of an old man's smile upon his lips, was Professor Marnac!

There was a pause, filled with much whispered talk from above. Then the red head of our friend Tim Blake came thrusting into the picture. He seemed much distressed at the situation.

"Faith! but 'tis not Oi that knows fwhat to belaive," said he; "but the skipper here will have it that yer-re a pair iv desprite and revolting characters. Oi am also to tell ye, gintlemen, that ye've the very divil's own choice of ut. Eyther ye will let me r-run through yere pockuts wid me practised hand, upon which ye may come up an' make us acquainted wid yere gineral defence, or, if ye refuse, be jabbers! but they'll clap on the hatches an' lave ye in the dark."

"Tell the skipper, Blake," said my cousin, "that he has been grossly deceived, for we are law-abiding English gentlemen. Nevertheless, if he will keep to his terms and hear our case out, we consent to being searched."

The Irishman vanished, and again came the murmur of voices. Then he reappeared, unlocking the grating and descending the ladder. At the edge of the hole I could see the faces of several members of the crew, and caught the gleam of drawn knives.

Evidently they did not trust us. When it was over, we followed Blake up the ladder and waited quietly while he laid out Graden's revolver and our few belongings on the flap of a central table behind which the captain was standing. A short speech by that worthy, and the Irishman began again.

"The skipper wud have ye know," he said, addressing Graden with a growing dignity that would have been comic enough at a less unfortunate moment, "that ye stand accused iv carrying off the ould gint yonder and committin' burglary on his person. Fwhat do ye say to that, sorr?"

"It is absolutely untrue."

"Wan for him, thin. But Oi'm to ask ye how ye account fer th' possession iv that pocket-book the skipper is holding so loving in his hand. He says that there's close on five hundred pounds in ut. Is ut yours?"

"No—it belongs to the old gentleman."

"The divil it does! Then how did ye come by ut?"

I feel certain that if my cousin could have told his story directly to the captain, the honesty of his manner and the simplicity of his narration would have had effect. But this pleading at second-hand was a sorry business. From his long pauses and facial contortions I soon gathered that Blake was not the linguist that he claimed to be. Indeed, the version which the captain received from him must have been something astounding. The tale was scarcely concluded when the captain raised his hand, and the flounderings of the interpreter ceased abruptly.

Thus was his decision translated. He would touch at Southampton, where the case could be fought out in the English courts. In the meanwhile, as the evidence was overwhelmingly against us, we should be placed in irons and confined in the cabin where we then were.

He was a just man. Angry though I was at the time, I have come to think he did the right thing. The harmless appearance of Marnac, his ability to plead his cause, our obvious endeavour to keep him from communicating with the crew, our possession of so valuable a pocket-book belonging to him—no, we cannot blame the captain if he decided in his favour.

To attempt resistance would have been absurd. The men about us carried knives, and the butt of a heavy revolver showed warningly from the captain's pocket. For the first time in either of our lives the handcuffs snapped at our wrists. They moved out one by one; the door was closed and barred upon us. In another three minutes we were both sound asleep. Our ill-fortune, the doings of our most dangerous enemy, the irons at our wrists—we forgot them all in the dead, still sleep that Nature grants to the very weary.

It was Blake who woke us with our midday meal. He was in his most talkative mood. Guilty or innocent, it made small difference to him, after he had decided upon the fact of our gentility. He was agog with the manner of Marnac's escape from us. The lad who was servant to the captain had been down in the lazarette and from pure curiosity had poked up the trap in the cabin floor. With promises of money, Marnac had persuaded the youngster to guide him to the captain. In their haste they had forgotten to close the trap and grating behind them, though they had secured those at the head of the second ladder. Marnac had waited in the captain's room while the lad went forward to find his master. It was doubtless their interview that Graden had, observed from the bridge. When the supposed victim of our plot had told his story, they had armed themselves and come to arrest us, calling the Irishman and two more of the crew in case of resistance. They had found us below—a source of delight to the Portuguese sailors, who had a healthy terror of Englishmen; and the rest we already knew.

"Come, my man," said my cousin after he had concluded, "for yourself, now—do you believe us guilty?"

"Faith, sorr, 'tis a quare business entoirely," he answered, scratching his red pole indecisively, "For whether 'tis you or the ould gintleman that they'll lay by the heels in Southampton Water, it's not fer me to be after saying. Sure 'tis wan of the two—which is all Oi knows."

"Now listen to me, Tim Blake," said my cousin. "My name is, as I told you, Sir Henry Graden, and I am a rich man. I am not asking you to neglect your duty, which is to keep us in; but if you will have an eye to the door so as to keep that old gentleman out, there'll be five-and-twenty pounds in your pocket."

Whatever the Irishman may have thought of our characters, there was no doubt as to his belief in the genuine nature of the offer. He beamed upon us with a childlike jubilation that was quite comic in its enthusiasm.

"Indade, sorr, indade, and I will!" he cried.

"Have you the key?"

"I have, sorr. Wud your honour like to kape it! You can turn the lock whin I knock fower times."

"That will hardly do," said my cousin, laughing. "We might have the captain visiting us, which would mean a change of gaolers. Now as to the trap-door—is that also secured?"

"The lad we spoke of—he has the kay, sorr. May the divil seize him!"

"We can't leave it like that. See if you can fix it up to better advantage."

Blake raised the outer block of wood which fitted level with the flooring, and inspected the grating below. It was secured by a padlock—a precaution necessary enough, for honesty is not the prevailing characteristic of a Portuguese crew. After a moment's thought, he drew from his pocket a handful of assorted rubbish from which he extracted a large nail. Graden's boot served as a hammer, and with this he drove it into the key-hole.

"'Twill hould it foine!" cried he, regarding his work with exultation.

And so, with fresh assurances of watchfulness, he left us.

The wind rose again that afternoon, and by four o'clock it was blowing very hard. The seas drove against the sides of the old ship in thunderous murmurs; now and again they sprang the bulwarks, crashing down upon the deck above us and shaking the iron fabric in convulsive tremors. In the confined cabin my nausea again visited me. Enough that I was supremely miserable.

At six, Blake had brought us a supper. His presence irritated me; and when he pressed food upon me, I spoke my mind strongly on the lamentable want of tact general amongst sailors. He gave us the comfortable news, however, that we were expected to reach Southampton by three next morning.

The night crawled on. Blake had helped us into bunks and covered us with rugs. I found the handcuffs of small inconvenience. I could hear Graden snoring. For myself, I could not get to sleep, but lay in the lowest misery, staring at the opposite partition, that rose and fell at the ship's rollings with a sickening regularity. Just before midnight, the lamp—that had probably been injured when Graden fell in the lazarette—smoked, stank, and expired. I was too unwell to care, except for the smell.

Yet it was the darkness which saved our lives.

It was about half an hour later that I first noticed it—a faint ray of illumination winking in the centre of the cabin floor. At first I imagined that the nausea had affected my eyes, and so peered into the black of the night, rubbing them impatiently. But the rays steadied and, if anything, increased in volume. It was a ghostly thing to witness, this white knife-edge of light stabbing up from the solid planking without cause or explanation. I was about to shout to Graden when I remembered the trap-door. Someone was below in the lazarette!

For some moments I remained staring at the crevice through which the rays passed up to me. After all, it might be some member of the crew; but if not—if it were Marnac! What then? He was an old man; he could not force the grating, even if he had obtained the key. We had seen to that.

I do not pretend to say that I was unafraid. There were devilish possibilities in a hatred such as that in which the mad Professor held us. Yet after a while my curiosity overcame my fear, just as my fear had put aside my sickness. I rolled from my bunk—noisily enough, I dare say, but all sound was dulled by the turmoil without. The pitching of the vessel made it impossible for me to stand, so I crawled forward to where the edge of the trap was outlined. I felt for and found the ring, gripped it with my teeth, and slowly, for the irons hampered my balance, raised the edge. Then with my hands I thrust the edge of the boot, which I had removed for that purpose, into the crack. Flat on my face, I peeped below.

It was indeed Marnac. The light of a ship's lantern, jammed between two barrels, drew streaks of silver from his white hair as he bent to his labour. Seated astride one of the steel cylinders that we had noticed, he was unscrewing the last of the nuts which secured its iron cap. What he intended I had no idea.

He was fingering the nut which the spanner had loosened, when I saw a face creep out of the shadow behind him. It was the captain's boy. With infinite caution he moved forward, with a blending of alarm and curiosity in his manner that showed he was no party to what was proceeding. Probably the key to the lazarette had been purloined from him, and he had discovered its loss. When scarcely two yards from Marnac, the lurch of the ship threw him from his balance. As he stumbled forward, Marnac spun round with a scream of the most violent passion. Swinging the heavy spanner, he brought it down upon the bent head with a scrunching blow. The lad dropped upon the floor face downwards; nor did he try to rise again.

"Murderer!" I cried down upon him, in horror at so fearful a spectacle.

Marnac dropped his weapon and started back, his fingers twitching, his eyes searching wildly round for a sight of his accuser. Yet when, at last, he saw my face above him, he drew himself together without a sign of trepidation for his discovered crime—save that the hand with which he gripped the stairs still shook slightly.

"Ach! but it is you," he whispered up. "For a moment I thought—but it was the folly of a child. And so, Mr. Harland, you come again to trouble me. Well, it is for the last time—mark you that—for the very last time."

He sat himself across the cylinder. As he did so, I felt a hand upon my shoulder and knew that Graden was awake.

"You might have spared the lad," he said very quietly.

Marnac looked up with one of the beast-like glances that showed the disordered brain.

"It was a necessity," he said. "He would have prevented my act of justice upon you—upon you who have tried so hard to hinder me in my revenge upon my enemies who are also the enemies of science. Do you understand what I am about?"

"Perhaps," answered my cousin grimly, and at the word he jerked away my boot, letting the trap fall into its place.

"To the door, Robert," he whispered. "To the door and shout for help, or it is all over with us. He must have noticed the ammonia cylinder this afternoon. If he turns the tap, that stuff will choke the life out of us. The gas is under immense pressure and will pour up into this den like water from a fire-hose. Run, man, run!"

I staggered across the heaving cabin to the door and dropped upon my knees, hammering with my irons and screaming for aid. It seemed to me that the thunders of the storm redoubled in violence, as if Nature was conspiring to shout me down. Once I looked round and saw that the light about the trap had gone. Graden had smothered the spot with blankets. Presently he came groping to me, raising his great voice in hoarse bellowings.

And then it happened.

There came an acrid, piercing scent to my nostrils, that grew and grew until my lungs seemed to contract, so that I fought for very breath. My cries ceased. I struggled to my feet, with my head raised like a bird shot through the lungs. Brilliant lights flashed in my eyes; there were hollow drummings in my ears. And then it seemed that the air left me in a vacuum. I fell, and forgot it all.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

It was daylight when I remember facts again. The motion of the ship had ceased, and there was an English stranger by my side. My chest felt bruised and battered, and my eyes still watered freely. Also I was very weak and ill.

"My cousin?" I faltered.

"We have got your friend round," said the doctor—for so I felt that he must be, "also the other man."

"What man?"

"The man who pulled you out after the cylinder exploded. A red-headed fellow—Blake, I think his name is. You owe your lives to him. You had both fainted when he opened the door."

"Then he heard us, after all! Tell me—what became of Marnac?"

"I really don't know about him. I don't think he was injured. Oh! perhaps you mean the old gentleman who bolted?"

"Bolted?"

"Yes; of course, there was great excitement over the accident. The captain was dreadfully cut up over the death of his servant. He could not imagine how it came about. When the ship arrived here, Mr. Marnac, or whatever his name was, slipped away by a shore-boat, while everyone was fussing over you. Your friend has gone to inquire about him, I fancy. The old man had something against you both, hadn't he? Or was it you against him?"

"Both, doctor, both," I whispered, shutting my eyes.

VI.—THE END OF THE TRAIL.

IN my narrative, now drawing to its conclusion, I have endeavoured to avoid emotion or exaggeration. Yet as I glance over its pages, I cannot proclaim myself as satisfied. On such an evening as this, with the summer woodlands beneath the cottage, basking in the tender glory of the sun's farewell, with the silence of the day that is ending holding the quiet fields—on such an evening, I say, my story, ever to myself, appears impossible, a nightmare born in the land of evil dreams. Yet I have but to turn my eyes to where my dearest wife sits at her work, to know that it is true; for it was in that time of danger that Providence gave to me the most generous of the gifts that can be bestowed upon man.

Two days after Marnac escaped from our pursuit at Southampton, a little council was gathered in the parlour of Dr. Weston's cottage at Cornish Polleven. In his great arm-chair by the fire sat the old scholar, with the lamplight exposing the delicate fragility of a face whereon consumption had set its warning. In odd contrast was my cousin, Sir Henry Graden, who confronted him. Great-statured, stern, keen-eyed, he was of that type that can fearlessly execute, as well as intelligently conceive, a plan. Mary Weston was on a cushion at her father's knee, his hand in hers; and it was more often to that noble girl that my glance wandered than to my cousin, though, indeed, it was he who now set before us the position of affairs.

It was right, he said, that Dr. Weston should know, even as his daughter knew, the danger that hung over us. And so, from its commencement, he told that terrible story: how Marnac, the celebrated Heidelberg professor, had been seized with a partial mania born of heredity, nurtured by overwork, brought suddenly to the light by the violent attacks delivered against a book on which he had spent half his life; how he had planned to destroy his more bitter adversaries, and how, by his insane cunning, he had brought about the deaths of Von Stockmar and Mechersky; how, in his desperate flight from our pursuit, he had killed the son of Reski, the Polish innkeeper; how he had come to England to end his vengeance upon Dr. Weston; and how he had been led to believe that Mary was the writer of the attack which had incensed him. All this he explained; and while he spoke, the shadow of the terror seemed to creep over our very souls, so that we drew together like sheep that hear the cry of the wolves in the snow-clad hills beyond.

It was Dr. Weston who first broke the silence that followed Graden's conclusion.

"You have referred to a certain book or diary belonging to this Marnac," said he, for, indeed, my cousin had mentioned that discovery at Heidelberg. "And I gather that from it you first learnt the names of the scientific enemies against whom an attack might be directed. Did this madman include in his butcher's list any persons besides Von Stockmar, Mechersky, and myself?"

"There were several other names," replied my cousin; "but I do not think their criticisms were sufficiently severe to place them in serious danger. I have, however, communicated with them all. On the least suspicion they will inform the police and also telegraph to me at my London house. My servant there is kept informed of my address from day to day."

"And the police?"

"In international matters they move slowly. It has been a chase across Europe, remember. Months have often elapsed before very ordinary criminals have been arrested. But this man is a remarkable linguist; he has some five hundred pounds yet in his possession, and he has the cunning common to the partially insane. The English police have full information, but by this time he may be in France or Belgium."

"What, then, do you propose, Sir Henry?"

"For the moment we have no definite objective. It would be useless for us to start for the Continent without further information. Until it reaches us, we shall stay in this country."

"I quite understand. I trust that for the ten days that we still have at Polleven, you will consider yourselves my guests—though I fear that the size of my cottage forbids me asking you to leave your quarters at the inn."

"Are you, then, returning to Cambridge, Dr. Weston? I thought you had settled here for the winter?" asked my cousin.

"It was so intended, but my doctors have ordered me to the Engadine. They say—it is my only chance, Sir Henry."

Mary Weston's eyes rose to her father's face in one brief, pitiful glance, and then her head drooped forward. Poor girl! she knew that he had spoken truly.

"The Engadine?"

Graden rose in his ponderous fashion and stood with his back to the fire. I could see that the intelligence concerned him—concerned him, indeed, too nearly for immediate comment. It was some moments before he spoke again.

"Forgive me, Dr. Weston," he said; "but is this a sudden resolution?"

"We decided yesterday."

"Is it common property? Do the villagers know?"

"Really, Sir Henry, I have no idea. I should not think they know."

"I will be quite plain with you, Dr. Weston, for that is always the best. Until this madman is secured, you and your daughter go in some danger. You should be safe enough in Switzerland, if you keep your address a secret. But even then we must arrange that you have a travelling companion that can be trusted.

"I shall be very glad to go," I interjected.

"No, Robert, that will never do," he said. "To divide our forces would be the worst generalship. Our duty is plain. We must be prepared to strike at the enemy wherever he may be found. Otherwise, there will be weeks of anxiety for us all, and Heaven knows what devilish work going forward! Whom can we send? That we must first decide."

"There is Mossel?" I suggested, recalling the aid that stubborn German policeman had already rendered us.

"He would come, gladly enough. But I do not think the Heidelberg authorities would sanction his departure on so vague a journey. No! I am afraid Mossel is out of the question."

"What of Reski? I saw him find the body of his son; he would travel to the world's end if it brought a chance to meet the murderer."

"The very man! I thank you, Cousin Robert."

And so it was settled. We were to send a telegram to the Polish innkeeper next morning. If he agreed to our request, money could be forwarded in time for him to meet us in London, where he would take up his duty as escort to Dr. Weston and his daughter.

"Remember, please, that your destination is a secret," said Graden, as we made our adieus. "There must be no leaving of indiscreet addresses, Dr. Watson; no explanatory letters to old friends, Miss Mary."

"My father and I—we understand," she said, looking him gravely in the eyes. And so we passed out into the starlight.

They were pleasant days that followed—days that seemed to me the happiest in my life. Was it the contrast with the events of that terrible pursuit which gave them their perfection? So I argued at the time. Yet each hour I knew more clearly that it was Mary's bright eyes that warmed the winter sunshine, and Mary's presence that gave the beauty to that wild, inhospitable coast. Of mornings we walked together on the cliffs; and as night drew in, blotting out the grey wastes of the Channel seas, we joined Graden and her father in the little parlour, listening to the talk of those two great-hearted, simple men. On the second day, Reski's answer came, accepting the trust we offered. Then for a week there was no news from the outside world to trouble us, and no incident at Polleven to remind us of our danger save one, which, insignificant though it seemed, I do right to set before you.

As I have mentioned, a narrow dell or "goyle," as the West-country folk would have it, ran between the cottage and the sea. It was, a ruinous place in the winter-time, sprinkled with trees knotted and bent under years of conflict with the winds, and floored with dead bracken and patches of gorse. In the summer it was, doubtless, pleasing enough; but in that December weather it seemed shrivelled and forlorn. Indeed, it was not a spot we greatly favoured.

It was about four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, the fifth day of our visit, that Miss Weston and I entered it from the seaward side. We had taken a sharp walk to Bredairs Strand, where the famous caves are situated, and were returning for tea. We came upon them at an angle of the thicket—a man and a woman seated on a fallen log in eager conversation. Miss Weston held up a warning hand to me, with amusement twinkling in her eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Harland!" she whispered, "and at her age, too!"

"Why, who was it?" I asked, for their backs were turned towards us.

"Don't you see? It is Martha, our house-keeper. She is five-and-forty if she is a day. Fancy Martha with a young man of her own! I wonder who it can be?"

Whereupon she fairly gave way to her merriment in a low ripple of laughter. It was loud enough to reach the ears of the pair before us, for they started to their feet, the woman facing round boldly with flaming cheeks, while the man, after one swift glance, dropped back a step and stood shamefacedly, with downcast eyes. Miss Weston nodded to Martha, and we passed on up the track.

"Oh! I am so very, very sorry!" she cried to me when we were out of earshot. "I am certain that wretched man is only after her savings. What a silly old dear she is!"

"He seemed about the average in bashful rustics," I answered her.

"He is one of the worst men in the village—a drunken loafer, who never leaves the inn bar until he is almost starving. I wonder at Martha, for, besides his reputation, she knows——"

"What?" I asked, for she had stopped with a little shiver.

"They say in the village that Penruman—for that is his name—acted as a sort of servant to Professor Marnac while he was at Polleven. At least, I know that Penruman brought us messages from him twice, and once he came with a book that had been lent to father."

"Was Penruman courting Martha then?"

"I don't know, Mr. Harland; but this is the first time I've seen them together. Please don't say anything more about it. I will have a talk to Martha privately, and see if I can put some sense into her silly head."

As I was walking back to the inn before dinner, I caught sight of Penruman coming out of the village post-office. He slouched away up a side-street at sight of me. You may think me dull enough, but I had no suspicion of the truth.

If I had only known!

We all travelled to London together, taking rooms for the night at the Charing Cross Hotel; for though Graden had chambers in the Albany, he preferred that we should not be separated. It was here that Reski joined us. Sorrow had burnt its mark upon the Polish innkeeper. His thin, handsome features were yet more drawn; and though his courtly manner was unchanged, an alien ferocity lurked in his dark, reflective eyes. It would not go well with the murderer of his only son if he should meet him face to face. So I thought as he stood before us, his hat raised, bowing us a welcome.

At nine-forty on the following morning, we were gathered in a little group on the departure platform. Graden, who had talked with Reski far into the night, repeated his orders. To preserve the secret of Dr. Weston's residence was of the first importance. He would register himself and his daughter in the name of Jackson. All letters, whether from or to the travellers, were to be forwarded under cover to Graden's chambers, where a servant in whom he had absolute trust would despatch them to their respective addresses. On the slightest suspicion of danger, a telegram would bring our assistance from whatever spot our quest had drawn us. Neither Dr. Weston nor his daughter were to leave their hotel at Pontresina, even for a walk, without the escort of the Pole.

"I do not wish to alarm you with absurd rules, Miss Mary," concluded my cousin; "but it is well to be cautious. Besides, it should be only for a few days. I have found means of awakening the Continental police to interest in his capture, and we may hear of his arrest at any moment. Ah! there goes the whistle. Good-bye, Dr. Weston. Good-bye, my dear girl. God keep you!"

He was old enough to be her father; yet I did not consider his age was sufficient excuse for the kiss that he touched on her forehead.

We saw her handkerchief fluttering from the carriage window as the train drew out of the station. I watched it fade into the muddy grey of the morning; and as it disappeared, the love I had hidden from myself rushed over me, so that I stood with staring eyes, perhaps as foolish and woe-begone a figure as humanity has ever smiled to witness. And for this I shall always thank my cousin, Harry Graden, that he slipped his arm in mine, leading me down the platform as if he had noticed nothing out of the ordinary in my manner.

"We shall soon have news," he said quietly. "For information that will lead to his arrest, I have offered the police, here and on the Continent, a reward of five thousand pounds."

He spoke the truth. News came soon, indeed.

We were lunching together in Graden's chambers on the fourth day after their departure, when the telegram arrived. My cousin opened it. As he read, I saw the line of his jaw set and harden. Then he handed it across the table. This was the message:—

"Fear we are in great 'peril. Come at once.—Weston."

The realisation of those words must have come to me slowly, for it was Graden's hand on my arm that woke me from the stupor into which I had fallen. Even then I could hardly understand. "There is a train at two-twenty," said he. "Can you be ready in five minutes?"

"But how can the man—how can Marnac have discovered where they are?" I stammered.

"In five minutes, I said!" he barked out. "You have no time to waste."

We had still a quarter of an hour to spare when our cab rattled over the cobbles of the station-yard. While my cousin took the tickets, I stood at the bookstall, staring at the backs of the novels, with that call for help twisting in a devil's chant through my head. "In great peril. Come at once," so it ran, over and over again. Several passing strangers turned and regarded me curiously over their shoulders.

I do not think we spoke more than once before reaching Dover. I asked if he had telegraphed a reply. He had done so, he said, at Charing Cross.

There was a brisk sea running in the Channel, but I felt no sickness. Indeed, the passage did me good; for I behaved quite sanely as we passed our bags through the Calais customs.

Into the train again, and on into the night that had fallen. I had a sleeping-berth reserved in the wagon-lit, but I did not visit it. Sometimes a fury of impatience seized me, so that I paced the corridor, peering out into moonlit country that went sliding by, in its never-varying sequence of plain and woodland and steeple-crowned village; but, for the most part, I sat huddled in my chair—thinking. Heaven help us! What torture an active mind inflicts upon poor humanity! Grant a man the imagination of an ox, and many are the woes he will be spared!

Dawn stole out on us at Basle, and we stood upon the platform, our faces showing pale in the tinted curtain of the sky that hung above the snow-clad ridges to the westward. The air was very cold, but not with the English bitterness in its breath.

We had half an hour to wait. Graden despatched a second telegram to Pontresina, marking the progress of our journey. He also wired to Thusis, ordering a carriage to meet our train.

The sun was up, very red and bold, as we passed through Zurich; and where it touched the great lake, the waters shone scarlet as blood under the slanting rays. Before us the Alps were heaving upward, growing mightier every hour, with the pinnacles of their strange frost kingdoms blushing in the early sunshine. By eleven o'clock we had left the open country, passing into a labyrinth of valleys, crowned with pines, waiting black and silent on their snow carpets, scored with torrents and patched with frozen tarns. Coire was reached by half-past one, and the narrow gauge of the Thusis line carried us through meadows and brushwood morasses until we crossed the upper Rhine and drew into the station which is set under the cliff bastions, outworks of the Alp citadels beyond.

It was then three of the clock. There were still forty miles left of our journey—a ten hours' drive over the passes to the distant Engadine.

A carriage with three horses was waiting to our order without the station. We entered it at once, and the driver swung his team into the Tiefenkastell road. Fifty francs from Graden had impressed him with the necessity for haste. Yet our progress was insufferably tedious. Once across the bridge, we dropped into a walk, while our straining team tugged heavily up the pass of Schyn. To our left, the ridge barred the view; but on the right, narrow valleys sliced deep into the glittering heights above gave us sight of the stately peaks that sentinelled the eastern sky. In an hour we had entered the forest of Versasca—for such, I have learnt, is its name—and so climbed on through the dismal avenues of pines till we passed through galleries and tunnels, hewn deep in the cliff-side, out into the barren snow-fields once again.

The sun was setting as we rattled over the pavement of the hill village of Tiefenkastell, that crouched in the shadows of the Albula Gorge. The dying rays struck fiercely on the distant peaks, until those pale ice maidens found rosy blushes for such reckless gallantry. It was a spectacle of infinite grandeur, and, despite my impatience, I leant from the window watching the light fade and whiten into the opals of the after-glow.

"We can thank our luck that there's a moon," said my cousin, as I drew back into my corner. "These drivers know the road like a book, but I should like our fellow to see where he's going in the Berguner Stein."

"Is it dangerous?"

"A ledge for a carriage-way, and a precipice for a ditch on the near side, is not particularly pleasant for the nerves when you can't see your hand before you."

"You have been here before, then?"

"Oh, yes!" he said, and so we fell into silence.

It was past six o'clock when we left Filisur, a tiny group of deep-eaved houses, and dropped down the hillside to the stream. As we rose the further slope through a wood of scattered pines, the moon came peering out from behind two bare and lofty peaks that towered above us into the southern night, lighting their icy summits so that they glittered like blades of polished steel. It was a scene of such melancholy desolation that as our horses halted on the crest of the hill, I lowered the window, thrusting out my head for a better view.

In front of us the white road curled down into a gorge, an ink-black wedge of shadow that drove into the distance between silver cliffs bright with the moonlight.

"Is this the place you spoke of?" I asked.

"It's the Berguner Stein, if it's that you want to know," growled my cousin from amongst his wraps. "Also, I wish you would have the goodness to shut that window."

But the remembrance of what he had told me about the dangers of the place sent my eyes to the driver's box. As I was leaning from the left-hand window, I did not expect to see more than the fellow's hat; but, to my surprise, there he was well in view, his coat huddled about his ears. As we moved forward, the mystery explained itself. The man I saw was not driving.

"We've taken up a passenger, Cousin Graden," said I, pulling in my head.

"What's that?" he asked sharply, for my voice had been lost in the loud complaining of the brakes as we trotted down the decline.

"The driver's giving a friend a lift," I cried, leaning towards him. "I suppose he picked him up at the last village, where——"

I reached no further, for at that instant there rose from without a cry of such utter terror that I sank back into my place as if struck in the face by a crushing blow. I saw a falling body flash by the right-hand window; the outcry of the brakes ceased with a grating clang. And then, with a bound like that of a leaping horse, the great post-carriage rushed roaring down the hill.

I thrust out my head, clinging to the sills of the open window.

The man upon the box-seat was lashing the horses so that they sprang forward in furious bounds. Even as I watched, he cast away his whip with a peal of wild laughter that sounded high above the turmoil of the flying hoofs and the heavy wheels. He turned his head, bending sideways, the reins held loosely in his right hand. It was the face of Marnac that stared down upon me.

His hat had gone, his white hair streamed backward in the wind. And he was mad—mad with an open insanity of which I had observed no trace before. He shrieked at me in triumph, waving his hand now to the horses, now to the chasm beyond the four-foot wall that guarded the road. He cursed me with furious gesticulations. Even as I write, I seem to see those eyes staring at me out of the white paper—eyes goggling with the lust of murder. Heaven send that time will wipe that remembrance from my brain!

I shrank back into the carriage, that rocked and swung and danced beneath me. Graden's huge shoulders almost blocked the other window; but I caught sight of the glint of his revolver in the moonlight. Was it to be man or horse? One or the other, if we were not to leap the precipice at the first sharp turn. Suddenly he shouted, and again I struggled to my post. In the darkness down the road was the glimmer of lights. Nearer and nearer they drew, and I, too, raised my voice in a scream of warning. The last fifty yards we took in one bound—or so it seemed. I saw a carriage grow out of the shadow that the cliffs above us drew across the road; I saw our leading horse swing to the left and leap blindly at the low wall that hid Heaven knew what frightful depths below; and then, with a tottering slide that seemed to wrench the heart out of me, we curled, as a motor skids, into one thunderous crash that blotted out the world.

Mrs. Harland's Narrative.

I have been asked by my dear husband to conclude the story of which he has placed the greater part before you. I should have preferred that he had not tried to recall details which I know he cannot remember without suffering; but having once yielded to the persuasion of his friends, I am ready to take every share of the burden that he will yield to me.

My father and I, with Reski, the man that Sir Henry had summoned from Poland, arrived in the Engadine without any incident that is worthy of description. We had engaged rooms in the principal hotel under the name of Jackson, as had been suggested. My father stood the journey very well. But this necessity for giving a false name annoyed him extremely. It was the first time in his life that he had done so, he said, and I had some difficulty in persuading him not to confess the whole circumstances to the manager on the day after our arrival.

It was on the fourth day of our visit, about five in the evening, that we received a telegram from London. It read:—

"We are coming at once.—Graden."

As can be imagined, we were very puzzled about it. We had sent no message, and we could not think what was the reason for their sudden determination. Reski behaved in a most curious fashion when I told him. It might have been the news of some great good fortune that had reached him.

"It is very well, very well," he kept on repeating in German—a language which, fortunately, I can speak, though not very correctly.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"Ach, Fräulein! if the two Englishmen are coming, does it not mean that Marnac is here?"

I suppose I turned rather pale, for the fear of that dreadful man was always in my heart, though, indeed, I pretended to father that I had forgotten he existed. But the next instant Reski had dropped down on one knee, taking my hand and kissing it.

"I am a dog, Fräulein!" he said simply. "I did not think of what I spoke. But it is the thing for which I forget all else—to meet this man who killed my son. For your father and yourself, have no fear. It is I that will ever watch. You trust me, Fräulein?"

"Indeed, Reski, I do," I answered him; and so we parted.

I was nervous that night, and about one in the morning I thought I heard a noise in the passage outside. Very cautiously I opened my door and peeped out. My father's door was the next to mine, and between the two lay Reski in a great fur rug that he had. He waved his hand to me with a little smile, as if I were a child he was bidding to be of good courage. I slept undisturbed after that.

It was as we took our place for a twelve o'clock déjeuner that we received the second telegram. This is how it read:—

"If danger presses, communicate fully police. We started on receipt of your message, and will he at Thusis by three. Should be at Pontresina at one o'clock to-night. Order rooms.—Graden."

I called in Reski at once; for he had refused to have his meals with us, though my father had invited him. He looked very grave, indeed, when I translated the message.

"You sent no telegram, Fräulein?"

"No, Herr Reski."

"Nor yon, mein Herr?"

"No, Reski, no," said my father.

"Then someone has sent it in your name. I do not like it. It would seem a trap."

"A trap?"

I stared at him with fear gathering about my heart. Who had done this thing? And why?

"It would seem, Fräulein, some scheme of the old grey devil. what he intends, I cannot guess; nor can I think how he discovered that we are here. But there is a thing plainly to do. I will start for Thusis, to warn those who are hastening to us."

"I will come with you, Reski," said my father.

"You know that cannot be. I have no fear, with Reski to protect me. I will go."

Love gives great strength to woman, and I spoke as one who expects to be obeyed. It was much trouble to persuade them; yet from the first I did not mean to yield. My dear father had barely recovered from the fatigues of his long journey; to let him take this drive of forty miles would be the gravest folly. Yet it was not right that we both should leave our duty to a man of whom we had no real knowledge. Mr. Harland and his cousin had endangered their lives to save us; now that peril seemed to be closing round those gallant gentlemen, we could not both sit idle. Plainly it was I who should go.

And so at last it was agreed between us.

It was shortly after one o'clock when Reski and I rumbled off in our post-carriage across the snow-bound slopes of the valley to Ponte. Then began a climb of dreary monotony. Up and up we dragged, turn after turn through forests of larch and pine, with the Engadine growing wider, and its houses sinking into specks beneath us. At last we reached the crest of the Albula Pass, and trotted forward over the snow levels till we plunged down the steep descent of the rock-strewn Devil's Hall—as the mountaineers named it of old. The sun had set ere we rattled into Breda, and the moon had swung out from the southward when Bergun was reached. Half an hour later we had passed through the forests into the shadows of that black and dangerous gorge—the Berguner Stein.

Fresh snow had clogged the road on the Albula, and Ave had made slow progress, to our increasing anxiety. It was now impossible that we should reach Thusis before they started: but we had calculated that near Tiefenkastell we might meet them. That the snow had not fallen so deeply on the lower slopes, and that they had moved more quickly, we could not know.

We had passed the last bend that turned upward, leading in a long slope to the entrance of the gorge, when we stopped suddenly. Reski sprang out; clambering after, I found him by the driver, who was pointing with his whip up the road. The man had been warned to give us notice of any approaching vehicle.

"It is a post-carriage," he said. "They have stopped to breathe their team."

The road had been carved and joisted along the cliff side, and where we stood, under the mighty wall of rock, the shadows were gathered darkly. To our left the rugged barrier rose dimly into the night, clear only where its battlements broke the pearl of the sky at some great height above us; to our right, a low stone coping hid the grim uncertainties of the precipice. But fifty yards up the slope the cliffs fell back, and the road stepped out into the silver moonlight, mounting the hill, through a border of stunted trees, in a simple curve, as white and well defined as a chalk mark on a blackboard. On its crest I could see the patch on the snow carpet that marked the waiting carriage. It was, perhaps, the half of a mile away.

The patch of shadow moved slowly forward.

Suddenly, though distance hid the suggestion of the cause, the pace increased. Faster and yet faster it swept down the road; in the white silence of the night the muffled hoof-beats came thumping to our ears. the carriage grew clearer. We could see how it rocked; it might have been some great ball that flew bounding towards us.

For some moments we had stood motionless, helpless, before this amazing apparition. It was Reski who first understood; it was he who seized me by the arm, screaming in his excitement to run—to run down the way we had come. And in my panic I obeyed, flying wildly towards the sharp bend in our rear. I had almost reached it when there came a thought to me that jostled out the remembrance of my own safety, turning me back, with Heaven knows what anxiety in my heart. Robert and Sir Henry—could they be the travellers that came galloping to almost certain death?

The runaways had but one chance—to hug the cliff, thereby giving space to clear the turn without charging the low wall that guarded the unknown depths of the gorge. But to my horror, I saw that this was a chance our driver was preventing, for it was he who had edged his team against the cliff. They would have to pass him on the outer side.

I started up the road, shouting to him; but as I did so, I saw Reski spring upon the box. I heard cries of furious altercation, and then the driver was thrown from his place. He dropped on hands and knees; then rose and came running past me round the bend.

The whip cracked, and our team swung across the road, drawing up on the edge of the precipice. If the man who drove the runaways were not struck with terror, they had yet a hope of safety.

They were not one hundred yards away. I could see in the bright moonlight how the horses bounded forward, the traces now slackening, now tightening to the desperate plunges. Seventy yards—and the driver had gone mad. He was waving his arms and shrieking, not in terror, but rather in whoops of joyous exultation. It was a fearful thing to see those gestures and to hear those wild imprecations when death was so very near. Another second, and they were in the shadows, close upon us.

And Reski? I had almost forgotten him. Stiff as a soldier upon duty he sat, the reins tight in his hand, looking neither to right nor left, waiting the fate that might come to him. It was only thus that he could hold his team in their place—only thus, at the risk of instant annihilation. Did he dare this for the simple love of his neighbour? Did instinct tell him that they were indeed our friends? God rest him, whether or no! for by whatever rank men knew him, he was a most honourable gentleman.

Like a flash of light striking through darkness, I realised that the runaways were still holding the outer edge of the road; that it must happen—that there was no escape. And as I did so, there came a crushing, rending shriek that filled the whole air like the falling of a thunderbolt. Dimly I saw the great carriages collide, rebound—and then but one remained.

The spirit went out of me. I covered my face with my hands, crouching against the cliff, praying to Heaven that at least the screaming of the horses might soon be ended.

How long I stayed there, I do not know, but I was roused by footsteps passing before me. I started up with a cry.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said a well-known voice. "By Gad! if it isn't Mary Weston!"

It was Sir Henry; but what was that he carried in his arms?

"Who is it?" I asked, pointing.

"It is Robert," he answered gravely. "He has had a nasty tap on his head, I'm afraid. If you will look to him, Miss Mary, I will go back and shoot those poor beasts of horses."

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

They found them next morning, lying close together at the foot of the precipice. They told me that their faces were curious to see, for Marnac still grinned with the vacancy of his insanity, and Reski wore also a happy smile, yet one most different, for it was such as those carry who die in a noble effort, covering their memory with honour. For as Sir Henry has explained, it was Reski who saved their lives. They could never else have cleared the bend of the road. As it was, when their leading horse jumped the wall, his weight swung their carriage round, striking the other on the side, so that while they were left, battered, on the edge, with one horse dangling—until the harness broke—Reski, his carriage and his team, were hurled over the cliff.

Marnac had already been flung to destruction at the first impact.

We learnt in time the details of his insane scheme. A heavy bribe had won the help of the Cornish loafer—though, to be honest with him, the man had no suspicion of the evil purpose to which his telegrams would be placed. From poor Martha, love-lorn and middle-aged, he had gathered his news. It was Marnac who had sent the further telegrams to Sir Henry, calculating well the time at which they could arrive. He had stayed at the village of Alvaneu, and when the carriage passed it, had begged a lift as far as Bergun, a request granted readily enough by their driver. The poor fellow had been struck on the head at the entrance of the gorge, and so thrown from his place. He had not been seriously injured, and, indeed, was of much assistance to us all later in that evening.

I must add that Sir Henry despatched the whole of the great reward he had offered to Reski's next-of-kin. They were but distant relatives, as his wife was dead, and it had been his only son that Marnac murdered.

So ended the story that Robert, rightly enough, has named "The Trail of the Dead," for indeed it was a blood-stained path. I would have had Robert himself to conclude it, but that he insists that there is no necessity. One thing only does he ask that I should add—though, indeed, it is a matter that will have been already guessed. To please him, I will write it down.

Robert and I were married in June.

* Copyright, 1903, by B. Fletcher Robinson and J. Malcolm Fraser, in the United States of America.

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