Mr. Crow stalked the streets early and late. He lurked behind the corners of buildings; he peered sharply from the off-side of telephone poles as the big limousine swept haughtily by. He patrolled the Nixon neighbourhood by day and haunted it by night. On occasion he might have been observed in the act of scrutinizing the tracks of the automobile over recently sprinkled streets.
One evening, just after dusk,—after a sharp encounter with Harry Squires, who bluntly accused him of loafing on the job,—he sauntered past the Nixon cottage. His soul was full of bitterness. He was baffled. Harry Squires was right; he had accomplished nothing—and what was worse, he wasn’t likely to accomplish anything. He sauntered back, casting furtive glances into the spacious front-yard, and concluded to ease his restless legs by leaning against a tree and crossing them in an attitude of profound nonchalance. The tree happened to be almost directly in front of the Nixon gate. Not to seem actually employed in shadowing the house, he decided to pose with his back to the premises, facing down the street, twisting his whiskers in a most pensive manner.
Suddenly a low, musical voice said:
“Good evening!”
Mr. Crow looked up into the thick foliage of the elm, then to the right and left, and finally in the direction of the cottage, out of the corner of his eye, after a sudden twist of the neck that caused him to wonder whether he had sprained it.
The Veiled Lady was standing at the gate. In the gathering darkness her figure seemed abnormally tall.
The Marshal hastily faced about and stared hard at the mystery.
“Evening,” he said, somewhat uncertainly. Then he lifted his hat a couple of inches from his head and replaced it at an entirely new angle, pulling the rim down so far over the left eye that the right eye alone was visible. This shift of the hat instantly transformed him into a figure of speech; he became as “cunning as a fox.” People in Tinkletown had come to recognize this as an unfailing symptom of shrewdness on his part. He always wore his hat like that when he was deep in the process of “ferreting something out.”
“Have I the honour of addressing Mr. Anderson Crow?” inquired the lady.
“You have,” said he succinctly.
“Field Marshal Crow?”
“Ma’am?”
“Or is it Town Marshal? I am quite ignorant about titles.”
“That’s the name I go by, ma’am.”
“Your name is very familiar to me. Are you in any way related to the great detective?”
This was unexpected tribute. The only thing he could think up to say was, “I’m him,” and then, apologetically: “—unless some one’s been usin’ my name without authority.”
“Are you actually the great Anderson Crow? Do you know, I have always thought of you as a fictitious character—like Sherlock Holmes. Are you really real? Do I look upon you in the flesh?”
Mr. Crow was momentarily overwhelmed.
“Oh, I—I guess I’m not much different from other men, ma’am. I’m not half as important as folks make me out to be.”
“How nice and modest you are! That is the true sign of greatness, Mr. Crow. I might have known that you would be simple.”
“Simple?” murmured Anderson, to whom the word had but one meaning. He thought of Willie Jones, the village idiot.
“‘Simplicity, thou art a jewel,’” observed the Veiled Lady. “Will you pardon a somewhat leading question, Mr. Crow?”
“Lead on,” said he, still a trifle uncertain of himself.
“Who is that man standing against the tree beside you? Is he a friend of yours?”
“Who is—is my what?”
“Your companion. Now he has moved over behind the tree.”
Anderson shot a startled look over his shoulder.
“There ain’t any man behind the tree. I’m all alone.”
“Are you trying to make sport of me, Mr. Crow?”
“I should say not. I been standin’ here fer some time, an’ I guess I’d know if anybody was—”
“Do you think I am blind?” demanded the lady quite sharply.
“Not if you c’n see a man behind this tree,” said he, with conviction. “You got the best eyesight of anybody I ever come across—that’s all I got to say.”
“I see him very distinctly.”
Anderson obligingly circled the tree.
“Do you see him now?” he inquired in an amused tone.
“Certainly. He walked around the tree just ahead of you.”
“What the—” began Anderson angrily, but checked the words in time. “You are mistaken. There ain’t no one here, ’cept me.”
“Is he one of your subordinates?” queried the woman, leaning forward in the attitude of one peering intently.
“Must be a shadow you’re seein’, ma’am,” he suggested, and suddenly was conscious of the queer sensation that some one was on the opposite side of the tree.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed eagerly. “A shadow! Aren’t you detectives always shadowing some one?”
“Yes, but we don’t turn into shadows to do it, ma’am. We just—”
“There he is! Standing directly behind you. What object can you possibly have, Mr. Crow, in lying to me about—”
“Lying?” gasped Anderson, after a swift, apprehensive glance over his shoulder. “I’m tellin’ you the gospel truth. Maybe that confounded veil’s botherin’ your eyesight. Take it off, an’ you’ll see there ain’t no one—”
“Ah! What a remarkable leap! He must be possessed of wings.”
Mr. Crow himself moved with such celerity that one might have described the movement as a leap. He was within a yard of her when he next spoke; his back was toward her, his eyes searching the darkness from which he had sprung.
“Good Lord! You—you’d think there was some one there by the way you talk.”
“He leaped from behind that tree to this one over here. It must be thirty feet. How perfectly amazing!”
By this time the good Marshal was noticeably impressed. There was no denying the fact that his voice shook.
“Now who’s lying?” he cried out.
She took no offence. Instead she pointed down the dark sidewalk. It seemed to him that her arm was six feet long. He was fascinated by it.
“Now he is climbing up the tree—just like a squirrel. Look!”
Anderson felt the cold perspiration starting out all over his body.
“I—I swear I can’t see anybody at all,” the Marshal croaked weakly.
“Run over to that tree and look up, Mr. Crow,” she whispered in great agitation. “He is sitting on that big limb, looking at us—his eyes are like little balls of fire. Send him away, please.”
Haltingly the Marshal edged his way toward the tree. Coming to its base, he peered upward. He saw nothing that resembled a human figure.
“Be careful!” called out the Veiled Lady. “He is about to swing down upon your head. Hurry! There! Didn’t you feel that?”
Anderson Crow made a flying leap for safety. He had the uncanny feeling that his hair was slowly lifting the hat from his head.
“Feel—feel what?” he gasped.
“He swung down by his hands and kicked at you. I was sure his foot struck your head. Ah! There he goes again. See him? He is climbing over my wall—no, he is running along the top of it. Like the wind! And he—”
“Good heavens! Am I—am I goin’ blind?” groaned Mr. Crow, his eyes bulging.
“Now he has disappeared behind the rosebushes down in the corner of the lot. He must be the same man I have seen—always about this time in the evening. If he isn’t one of your men, Mr. Crow, who in Heaven’s name is he?”
“You—you have seen him before?” murmured the Marshal, reaching up to make sure that his hat was still in place.
“Four or five times. Last night he climbed up and stood beside that big chimney up there—silhouetted against the sky. He looked very tall—much taller than any ordinary man. The night before, he was out here on the lawn, jumpin
g from bush to bush, for all the world like a harlequin. Once he actually leaped from the ground up to the roof of the porch, as easily as you would spring—Where are you going, Mr. Crow?”
“I—I thought I saw him runnin’ down the street just now,” said Anderson Crow, quickening his pace after a parting glance over his shoulder at the tall lady in the gateway. “Maybe I can overtake him if I—if I—But I guess I’d better hurry. He seems to be runnin’ mighty fast.”
He was twenty feet away when she called after him, a note of warning in her voice:
“You are mistaken! He is following you—he is right at your heels, Mr. Crow.”
* * * *
This was quite enough for Anderson Crow. He broke into a run. As he clattered past the lower end of the garden wall, a low, horrifying chuckle fell upon his ears. It was not the laugh of a human being. He afterwards described it as the chortle of a hyena—hoarse and wild and full of ghoulish glee.
Alf Reesling’s house was two blocks down the street. Mr. Reesling was getting a bit of fresh air in his front yard. The picket gate was open, probably to let in the air, and he was leaning upon one of the posts. His attention was attracted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Almost before he knew what had happened, they were receding. Anderson swept past; his chin up, his legs working like piston-rods.
The astonished Alf recognized his friend and adviser.
“Hey!” he shouted.
It was a physical impossibility for Anderson to slacken his speed. At the same time, it was equally impossible for him to increase it. Alf, scenting excitement, set out at top speed behind him, shouting all the time.
Pursued and pursuer held their relative positions until they rounded into Main Street. Reaching the zone of light—and safety—produced by show-windows and open doors, the Marshal put on the brakes and ventured a glance over his shoulder. Alf, lacking the incentive that spurred Anderson, lagged some distance behind. A second glance reassured the Marshal. Alf was lumbering heavily past Brubaker’s drugstore, fully revealed.
Observing an empty chair on the sidewalk in front of Jackson’s cigar-store, Mr. Crow directed his slowing footsteps toward it. He flopped down with an abruptness that almost dismembered it. He was fanning himself with his hat when Alf came up.
Alf leaned against the wooden Indian that guarded the portals. Presently he wheezed:
“Wha—what’s—all—the—rumpus?”
Instead of replying, Mr. Crow pressed his hand to his heart and shook his head.
“Take your time,” advised Alf sympathetically; whereupon Anderson nodded his head.
Sim Jackson ambled to the front door, and Mort Fryback hobbled across the street from his hardware store. Lum Gillespie dropped the hose with which he was sousing an automobile in front of his garage and approached the group.
In less than three minutes all of the nighthawks of Main Street were gathered about Anderson Crow, convinced that something unusual was in the air despite his protests.
Suddenly the Marshal’s manner changed. He swept the considerable group with an appraising eye, and then in a tone of authority said:
“Now that I’ve got you all together, I hereby order you in my capacity as an official of the State and county, to close up your stores an’ consider yourselves organized into a posse. You will close up immejately an’ report to me here, ready for active work.”
* * * *
Shortly after ten o’clock a group of fifteen or eighteen men moved silently away from Jackson’s cigar-store, led by their commander-in-chief. He was flanked on one side by Bill Kepsal, the brawny blacksmith, and on the other by Sim Jackson, who happened to possess a revolver.
After the posse had turned into the unrelieved shades of Maple Street, Mr. Crow halted every few yards and said: “Sh!”
He had related a portion but not all of his experiences, winding up with the statement that poor Mrs. Smith had been terribly frightened by the mysterious prowler, and that it was their duty as citizens to put an end to his activities if possible.
“Her description of him don’t fit anybody livin’ in this town,” he had said during the course of his narrative. “We ain’t got anybody who c’n jump thirty foot, or who c’n shin up a chimbly like a squirrel. You never saw anybody as quick as he is, either. Supposin’ you think you see him standin’ right beside you. Zip! Before you could blink an eye, he’s over there in front of Mort’s store—just like that. Or up a tree! Spryest cuss I ever laid eyes on. Made me think of a ghost.”
“Ghost?” said Newt Spratt, pausing in the act of rolling up his sleeves.
“You say you saw him, Anderson?” inquired Alf Reesling.
“Course I did. Tall feller with—”
“And the lady saw him too?”
“She saw him first, I been tellin’ you. She seemed to be able to see quicker’n I could, ’cause she saw nearly every move he made. My eyesight ain’t as good as it used to be, an’ besides, she could see plainer from where she stood. Come on now—no time to waste. We got to post ourselves all around the place an’—an’ nab him if he shows himself again. All you fellers have got to do is to obey orders.”
* * * *
At the corner of Maple and Sickle streets, a few hundred feet from the Nixon cottage, the cavalcade received a whispered order to halt. The Marshal, enjoining the utmost stealth, instructed his men where to place themselves about the grounds they were soon to invest from various approaches. After stealing over the stone wall, they were to crawl forward on hands and knees until each man found a hiding-place behind a bush or flower-bed. There he was to wait and watch. The first glimpse of the mysterious intruder was to be the signal for a shout of alarm; whereupon the whole posse was to close in upon him without an instant’s delay.
In course of time, the posse successfully debouched upon the lawn and occupied crouching positions behind various objects of nature. The minutes slowly consolidated themselves into half an hour; they were pretty well started on the way toward the three-quarter mark, and still no sign of the sprightly stranger. Lights were gleaming behind the yellow shades of the downstairs window in the cottage; through the Japanese curtains enveloping the veranda a dull, restricted glow forced its way out upon the bordering flower-beds.
Suddenly out of what had become an almost sepulchral silence, came the sound of a woman’s voice. The words she uttered were so startling that the listeners felt the flesh on their bones creep.
“But wouldn’t poisoning be the surer and quicker way? Slip a few drops of prussic acid into his food, and death would be instantaneous.”
Marshal Crow clutched Bill Kepsal’s arm. “Did you hear that?” he whispered. She had spoken in hushed, quavering tones.
Then came a man’s voice from the porch above, low and suppressed.
“Why not wait till he is asleep and let me sneak up to him and put the revolver to his head—”
“But—but suppose he should awake and—”
“He’ll never open his eyes again, believe me. Poison isn’t always sure to work quickly or thoroughly. We don’t want a struggle.”
“You may be right. I—I leave it to you.”
“Good! The sooner the better, then. If we do it at once, François and Henry can bury him before morning. I think—”
“I cannot bear to talk about it. Creep in and see if he is asleep. Don’t make the slightest noise. He—he must never know!”
Stealthy footsteps, as of one tiptoeing, were heard by the listeners below the porch. Then, a moment later, the sound of a woman sobbing.
The foregoing conversation was distinctly heard by at least half of Marshal Crow’s posse. Three of the watchers, crouching not far from Anderson Crow and his two supporters, abruptly left their hiding-places and started swiftly toward the front gate. The Marshal intercepted them.
“Where are you going?” he whispered, grabbing the foremost, who happened to be Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer.
“I was sure I saw that feller you were telling about ski
pping down toward the street,” whispered Mr. Pratt, his voice shaking. “I’m going after him. I—”
“Keep still! Stay where you are. Alf, you round up the boys—collect ’em up here, quiet as possible. We got to prevent this terrible murder. You heard what they were plottin’ to do. Surround the house. Close every avenue of escape. Three or four of us will bust in through the porch an’—You stay with me, Sim, an’ you too, Bill. Get your pistol ready, Sim. When I give the word—foller me! Where’s Alf? Is he surrounding the house? Sh! Don’t speak!”
* * * *
Shadowy figures began scuttling about the lawn, darting from bush to bush, advancing upon the house.
“Now—get ready, Sim,” whispered Anderson.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a dull, smothered report, as of one striking the side of a barrel, reached the ears of the assembling forces. Then a sharp, agonized cry from the lady in the veranda.
“Too late!” cried the Marshal, and dashed clumsily up the front steps, followed by four or five of his henchmen.
Yanking open the screen-door, he plunged headlong into the softly lighted veranda. Behind him came Sim Jackson, brandishing a revolver, and Bill Kepsal, clutching the hammer he had brought from his forge.
They stopped short. A woman in a filmy white gown, cut extremely low in the neck, confronted them, an expression of alarm in her wide dark eyes. She was very beautiful. They had never seen any one so beautiful, so striking, or so startlingly dressed. She had just arisen from the comfortable wicker chair beside the table, the surface of which was littered with magazines, papers and documents in all sorts of disorder.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” she demanded, recovering her composure after the first instant of alarm.
Mr. Crow found his voice. “Surrender peaceable,” he said. “I’ve got you completely surrounded. Won’t do any good to resist. My men are everywhere. Your partner will be shot down if he—”
“Why, you—you old goose!” cried out the lady, and forthwith burst into a merry peal of laughter.
The Marshal stiffened.
“That kind of talk won’t—” he began, and then broke off to roar: “Quit your laughin’! You won’t be gigglin’ like that when you’re settin’ in the ‘lectric chair. Hustle inside there, men! Take her paramour, dead or alive!”
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 274