Murderer's Trail

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  ‘Let me get my mind quite clear,’ thought Sims, during the final half-minute. ‘Clear not only on myself, but on everybody else who may affect myself. At this moment, Don Manuel has killed Ben and is conveying Miss Holbrooke to “The Last Resort.” Six fools are waiting at the inn for his return, and for my return. We shall not return. But the fool of an officer behind me must return, with his six fools, and then they can all have a merry time. Miss Holbrooke’s friends may also turn up at the inn and join in the merriment. Well, well, that’s all to plan. But meanwhile what am I going to find at this empty cottage?’

  As the question flashed through his mind, the cottage roof grew darkly out of the thinning trees. Farther along the road, considerably farther, was a tiny glimmer of light from another cottage, but no light came from beneath this nearest roof. A little track sprawled from the road to the building, with a drunkard’s generous disregard for straightness. Had it indeed been trodden out by inebriates? Sims paused for an instant, but his mind was not concerned with the birth of the track. It was concerned with the question of what the track was going to lead him to.

  ‘Assuming Molly Smith is still there,’ he thought, ‘I must lead the officer to Molly Smith, and vanish during her capture. Molly Smith must be captured, just as Ben had to be killed. A thought! Should Molly Smith be killed? By an unfortunate incident in the process of capture? Well, perhaps. We’ll see. It would retard the ultimate pursuit. Luckily for her, Molly Smith cannot speak Spanish. If she could, she would certainly have to be killed.’

  He was walking along the crooked track now.

  ‘But Molly Smith can make gestures,’ his mind ran on. ‘She can use her eyes, and she can point. If I could remain on the spot, I could easily convince the fool of an officer that she is dangerous and that I am not. But I cannot remain on the spot. I have got to vanish. That will be suspicious, and will make Molly’s gestures all the more eloquent!’ A point grew clear to him, and slackened his pace. ‘No, Molly Smith must not see me! Or, if she does, then an accident of some sort should certainly occur to Molly Smith. As it has happened to Ben.’ He smiled suddenly in the darkness. He could smile on the scaffold itself. ‘And as it shall happen before long to Don Manuel!’

  But suppose Molly Smith were not there? The dark roof was now very close.

  ‘Yes, suppose she has left?’ thought Sims. ‘Or is now leaving. Well, if she is now leaving—if she has heard us—she will be caught. The fool of an officer will, I assume, have sense enough to leave a man or two in the road. But if she has left, then the cottage will be empty. How shall I act?’

  Another twenty yards to the entrance. The grasses rose tall and long, and licked one’s boots.

  ‘I shall be surprised. I shall be amazed. I shall be grief-stricken. I shall become a greater soliloquist than Hamlet, and shall pour out my soul to the world. “Villanedo!” I shall cry. “They’ve taken her, after all, to Villanedo! They’ll kill Pascuel Cordova and his old woman—” Yes, that will set them running. Myself, too, eh? Leading the chase! But I double back in the confusion and the darkness …’

  His hand groped quietly towards his revolver pocket. The cottage door rose before him. It was open. Beyond, the black gap of uncertainty!

  On the threshold of the black gap Sims paused, and perhaps he did wonder as he stood there, with eyes strained for what lay ahead and ears strained for what lay behind, whether he had been entirely wise, and whether his innate self-confidence were going to be justified. But it was too late now, however, to draw back. Probably, at that moment, his pursuers were silently spreading out and surrounding the cottage, and to turn tail at this juncture would be to court disaster. He must enter the cottage, discover whatever waited to be discovered, and twist the discovery to his own advantage.

  He passed through the black gap. He passed into sudden silence. The rain no longer pattered down upon him, and though he still heard it, it was now merely an off-stage accompaniment to a scene that had changed. Things stirred outside. Here, inside, all was static. Coldness without movement seemed to have settled in the empty cottage; it did not come to meet one, as a current, but one walked into it, and shivered in its motionless embrace.

  Then, abruptly, the silence was broken. Something creaked, and a door began to open somewhere at the back. A slit of faint yellow appeared and widened to an inch or two. Assumedly, then, had the approach to the cottage been made from the rear, a tiny light would have glimmered …

  Sims steeled himself, smiling as he did so. He always kept his smile by him. It was good company, and could wither a difficulty with its cool contempt. A creaking door and a slit of light, produced by the timidity of a girl, were certainly not sufficient to drive it away.

  But a moment later Sims realised that the creak and the light had not been produced by a girl, and as he realised it he sped with amazing rapidity to the staircase. He identified the staircase by a second slit of light cast by the first slit upon the bottom stair, and by the time the door was wide he was half-way up the staircase and safely round the bend. Then a man’s voice spoke from the doorway; disagreeable, contemptuous, familiar.

  ‘Nerves again, Faggis,’ said the voice. ‘There’s nothing out here!’

  ‘I’ll swear I heard something,’ retorted Faggis’s voice. ‘And so did she!’

  She? Sims, on the stairs, noted the allusion with satisfaction. All three of them? Excellent! With the police locking them all up for a night or two, and the tramp out of the way, the road to ‘The Last Resort’ would be immeasurably simplified, and there would only be Don Manuel left to deal with …

  ‘Well, come out and look for yourself, if you want to,’ answered Greene. ‘Maybe you can hatch something!’

  ‘Oh, you’re probably right!’ growled Faggis. ‘Sailors are supposed to have good sight, so if you don’t see anything, I don’t expect there is anything. Anyhow, what we’ve got to fix our minds on is—what’s happening at that blasted inn!’

  ‘I’ve told you—nothing’s happening there!’ This time it was Molly’s voice.

  ‘So you say,’ sneered Faggis, while the door of the room half-closed again. Sims, on the stairs, descended a little, and strained his ear closer. ‘But if nothing’s going on at the inn, what were you doing here?’

  ‘Yes, and why did you duck round the wall when we spotted you from the road?’

  ‘You don’t think I love you, do you?’ demanded Molly.

  ‘No one loves anybody in this sort of game,’ remarked the third officer; ‘but they have to pull together. Were you in this double-cross from the start?’

  ‘Don’t talk rot!’

  ‘Rot? You knew the address of this Don Manuel!’

  ‘That was just a lucky accident.’

  ‘And you were obviously making for his place, when you dropped in here?’

  ‘No, I was coming away.’

  ‘And you warn us to keep away—’

  ‘Of course! I want to save my skin, if you don’t want to save yours. Heavens, haven’t I told you? They’ve killed the tramp, there are twenty men with knives, and Sims has told them what to do with their knives if any of us turn up.’

  ‘Blast him!’

  ‘I’m with you there! But what’s the use of talking? If you want to get the knives stuck into you, go on to the inn. If you don’t want to, turn back.’

  In a corner of the little hall-way was a pile of straw. Sims, from the stairs, suddenly eyed it.

  ‘And what’ll you do?’ inquired Faggis. ‘Turn back with us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Ever heard of hating?’

  ‘Yes, and of loving,’ said Greene, with a sudden little laugh.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ came the sharp response.

  ‘Why, that if I’ve got to find my way out of this god-forsaken country,’ observed Greene, ‘I mayn’t object to a spot of consolation along the road.’

  ‘Well, you won’t get it!’

  ‘Won’t I? You never know! A
nyway, the road’s too darned wet and dark to tempt me out on it again tonight. And there’s another thing. That one-eyed village back there isn’t any too healthy. So I’m staying, my dear—’

  ‘And so am I,’ drawled Faggis. ‘You won’t forget, Greene, that she’s my working partner and not yours, will you?’

  Sims descended a few more steps. He still eyed the straw in the corner of the hall. Above it was an opening in the wall where once had been a window. Beyond the opening was a clump of moist bushes.

  The voices in the room droned on, but Sims hardly listened to them. He had heard all he needed.

  They were staying inside. And the fool of an officer and his men were staying outside. Curse Spanish caution! Yet, after all, if the men rushed the cottage, could Sims effect his own escape without first creating some sort of diversion?

  He had taken his bearings. He could smell the plan of a house. He knew where windows were before he saw them, and also where they weren’t …

  Suddenly the girl’s voice rose angrily. Sims was now at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I’m not a prude, heaven knows!’ Molly cried. ‘But, Faggis, tell that little worm what happens when people try to kiss me? You know!’

  ‘No, he needn’t tell me,’ replied Greene. ‘I’d rather like to find out for myself.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Faggis. ‘But you forget, Greene, two things may happen to you.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Hers first, and mine after.’

  The straw was no longer immediately under the opening where once there had been a window. Sims was under the opening. The straw had been shoved a foot or two nearer the middle of the hall.

  There was quite a pile of it, and some of it had been heaped near the rickety wooden balustrade.

  ‘Do you remember that moment, Greene,’ asked Faggis, ‘when I held you over the precipice?’

  Evidently Greene did remember the moment. But, until pain was actually there, Greene had more pluck than Faggis.

  ‘Quite a Squire of Dames, eh?’ he snapped sarcastically. ‘Well, then, how about tossing?’

  Immediately afterwards Greene felt the pain. A resolute little hand smacked his cheek, and the sound of the smack penetrated into the hall. At the same moment, a sound from the hall penetrated into the room.

  ‘What’s that?’ exclaimed Faggis, raising his head.

  ‘Little feline!’ cried Greene.

  ‘Shut up! Listen!’ hissed Faggis.

  ‘The devil! Can’t you live two minutes without hearing something?’ rasped Greene, thoroughly out of temper.

  But then he noticed the girl was listening also. He could have got his kiss now with ease. What had suddenly put her off her guard?

  Greene twisted his head round towards the half-open door. He discovered that he, too, was listening. Something was crackling in the hall. There was a queer, stealthy, insistent swishing sound …

  After ears, noses! Now they no longer listened. They sniffed.

  ‘Burning!’ gasped Faggis. ‘Something’s burning!’

  And after noses, eyes! Through the aperture of the door came a little puff of smoke.

  In a trice, they were all in the hall-way.

  An incredible thing had happened. They were alone in the house, and the sole illumination, a candle, was still melted to the window-sill of the room they had just left. Yet the house was on fire! Flames licked up from a heap of straw, and had already caught the rotting balustrade.

  They stared beyond the burning straw. It was empty. The windowless aperture yawned peacefully through the smoke, telling no story.

  ‘Hell!’ cried Greene suddenly. ‘If we’re not quick, we’ll be caught!’

  ‘How in thunder did it happen?’ exclaimed Faggis, still hardly crediting it.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be the person to stand and ask?’ shouted Greene.

  As he shouted, he dived past the flames and disappeared into the darkness. A moment later he tried to cry out, but found himself incapable.

  Faggis stared towards the spot into which he had disappeared. Blackness woke fitfully in this new and unaccustomed light. Rain dripped through it. Now flashing and illuminated. Now dim. Now heard only. Now flashing again.

  Abruptly, Faggis woke up. He followed Greene. But he was bigger and stronger than Greene, and his shout of utter consternation escaped. As arms closed round him he fought like a demon against demons; only the other demons had all the advantage, since they had been aware of him and he had not been aware of them. Also, there were more of them. To Faggis, in his startled frenzy, there seemed a thousand. He struck out wildly. All the hideousness of the past days seemed to have loosened itself at this moment. It was downing him. He struck, and struck again. Each blow seemed weaker than the last. Smash! Ah—one of the demons felt that one! The joy of it momentarily sweetened his frenzy and renewed his waning strength. He struck again. Another demon went down. He laughed insanely, and, all at once, recalled that he had feet. One was free. He kicked violently. Another demon went down. Three! How many were there? There could not really be a thousand! If he went on like this, there must presently be an end!

  Then there came another crack. A different kind of a crack. Something that was not quite cricket spat at Faggis. The demons vanished. Everything vanished. Faggis fell to the ground like a log …

  In a clump of dripping bushes just outside the aperture where once there had been a window, Sims stooped, waiting. Fool, Greene! Fool! He had been too easy. But Faggis—by heaven, Faggis was putting up a fight! Sims could hear it. He could also sense its progress.

  The shadows menacing his clump of bushes grew fewer. Three … Two. Confound that last shadow! Didn’t it realise it was needed elsewhere? Go away! Go away! You don’t know there’s an old man hiding in a bush, you don’t! Go away …

  The shadow disappeared. Sims smiled. Ah, that good companion, his smile! How it steadied him! He smiled all the way to the road. He smiled as he dived across the road, and slid into a track that, he knew, would lead to another road—the last road of the adventure! The road to The Last Resort!

  ‘When you are not a fool yourself,’ he reflected, ‘it is not so bad, after all, to have been born into a world of fools!’

  Another, who was not a fool, slipped after him out of the aperture where once there had been a window. She, also, ran unseen up the tangled garden path to the road. But she did not cross the road and enter the track that Sims had entered. She swerved swiftly to the left, and, as a shot cracked in the chaos behind her, raced madly through the dripping darkness towards Don Manuel’s inn.

  38

  The Battle in the Cellar

  Don Manuel, accompanied by his six ruffians, went down to the cellar to kill Ben, and Ben heard him coming. And something told Ben, even before Don Manuel told him through the door, that this time he meant it.

  In the darkness of the cellar, sitting so close to Miss Holbrooke that his hand unconsciously touched her skirt, Ben tried to work it out. A dangerous weariness had suddenly settled on him, and, although he did not know this, the future of himself and of his companion depended entirely upon whether this weariness, which seemed to have entered from nowhere, was going to increase or evaporate during the next few moments. Out of our varying moods spring our actions, and it is by our actions that we are judged by superficial critics. This action brings, joy, this tragedy, this a smile, this a tear; this, life, and this, death. Who takes the trouble to inquire into the mood itself, and to seek the source from which that came? Only the psychologist, who refuses to give up guessing, or the humanitarian, who refuses to give up hoping; and both the psychologist and the humanitarian meet in the darkness and confusion of an unfathomable design.

  Though unfathomable, the design exists. Cosmos depends upon it for her equally unfathomable need. And we, too, depend on our lesser designs, even if we are nothing more significant than a weary tramp in a cellar, wondering what to do next.

  ‘Yer can jest let it come, like yer was in the gas, and git it
over that way,’ reflected Ben. ‘Or yer can jump up like and ’it abart. But wot’s the use of ’ittin’ abart? If I ’adn’t kep’ on ’ittin’ abart, I wouldn’t be ’ere now, would I? I’d be lyin’ com’ferble somewhere, and nobody’d ever come arter me agine. Jest lyin’ nice an’ com’ferble … Or does yer float? Well, that’d be orl right. I’d like ter float.’

  He was really very tired. He was so tired that he hardly had the energy to listen to the approaching steps outside.

  ‘Arter orl, wot does it come to?’ he demanded of himself. ‘’Ere we are, and there we go. So wot does it come ter?’

  He felt he hadn’t quite answered the question. The feeling annoyed him. His limp hand, hanging at his side, became conscious of the skirt it was touching. The skirt, in some queer, silent way, seemed to be begging him not to float. At least, not just yet. And he did want to float!

  ‘Yer know, I b’leeve it’s a sort of a sea,’ he reflected, ‘On’y yer don’t ’ave no rudder.’

  The skirt insisted.

  ‘Yus, it’s orl right, if the gal’s your’n!’ his thoughts protested, with startling frankness. ‘Gawd, if I ’ad a gal—but I don’t git nothink! Yer jest goes on an’ on an’ on, and arter that yer goes on goin’ on an’ on an’ on. It ain’t fair! Stright, it ain’t! I wanter stop somewhere, and if it’s floatin’—well, I’ll ’ave that!’

  The steps paused outside.

  ‘Lummy, it fair kills yer, livin’ like this,’ thought Ben.

  There came a sound at the door.

  ‘Funny thing!’ thought Ben. ‘I don’t seem ter be feelin’ nothink.’

  A key turned.

  ‘Gawd, me ’ead’s hempty,’ thought Ben. ‘Do they clear yer aht fust, like, so’s ter mike yer lighter?’

  A voice came through the door before it opened.

  ‘Asesinar,’ said the voice. ‘Keeell!’

  ‘Wot I wants, afore I pops orf,’ decided Ben, ‘is jest a good old blub. Wunner if they’d wait fer it?’

  The door moved. So did the skirt that touched Ben’s numb fingers. Miss Holbrooke had been thinking her own numb thoughts, but the opening door sent a sudden shiver through her, and the shiver reached Ben through a little piece of expensive cloth.