The Four Pools Mystery - Jean Webster (uplifting book club books .TXT) 📗

by a thick coating of dust. A veranda extended across the front of the building flush with the wooden side-walk. The veranda was furnished with a railing, and the railing was furnished at all times of the day—except for a brief nooning from twelve to half-past—with a line of boot-soles in assorted sizes.

We drew up with a flourish before the wooden steps in front of the hotel, and I threw the lines to the stable boy who came forward to receive us with an amusing air of importance. His connection with the Luray tragedy conferred a halo of distinction, and he realized the fact. It was not every one in the neighborhood who had had the honor of being cursed by a murderer. As we alighted Terry stopped to ask him a few questions. The boy had told his story to so many credulous audiences that by this time it was well-nigh unrecognizable. As he repeated it now for Terry's benefit, the evidence against Radnor appeared conclusive. A full confession of guilt could scarcely have been more damning.

Terry threw back his head and laughed.

"Take care, young man," he warned, "you'll be eating your words one of these days, and some of them will be pretty hard to swallow."

As we mounted the steps I nodded to several of the men whom I remembered having seen before; and they returned an interested, "How-dy-do? Pleasant day," as they cast a reconnoitering glance at my companion.

"Gentlemen," I said with a wave of my hand toward Terry, "let me introduce Mr. Terence Kirkwood Patten, the well-known detective of New York, who has come down to look into this matter for us."

The chairs which were tipped back against the wall came down with a thud, and an awed and somewhat uneasy shuffling of feet ensued.

"I wish to go through the cave," Terry remarked in the crisp, incisive tones a detective might be supposed to employ, "and I should like to have the same guide who conducted Mr. Crosby the time the body was discovered."

"That's Pete Moser, he's out in the back lot plowin'," a half dozen voices responded.

"Ah, thank you; will some one kindly call him? We will wait here."

Terry proceeded with his usual ease to make himself at home. He tipped back his hat, inclined his chair at the same dubious angle as the others, and ranged his feet along the railing. He produced cigars from various pockets, and the atmosphere became less strained. They were beginning to realize that detectives are made of the same flesh and blood as other people. I gave Terry the lead—perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he took it—but it did not strike me that he set about his interviewing in a very business-like manner. He did not so much as refer to the case we had come to investigate, but chatted along pleasantly about the weather and the crops and the difficulty of finding farm-hands.

We had not been settled very long when, to my surprise, Jim Mattison strolled out from the bar-room. What he was doing in Luray, I could easily conjecture. Mattison's assumption of interest in the case all along had angered me beyond measure. It is not, ordinarily, a part of the sheriff's duties to assist the prosecution in making out a case against one of his prisoners; and owing to the peculiar relation he bore to Radnor, his interference was not only bad law but excruciatingly bad taste. My dislike of the man had grown to such an extent that I could barely be civil to him. It was only because it was policy on my part not to make him an active enemy that I tolerated his presence at all.

I presented Terry; though Mattison took his calling more calmly than the others, still I caught several sidewise glances in his direction, and I think he was impressed.

"Happy to know you, Mr. Patten," he remarked as he helped himself to a chair and settled it at the general angle. "This is a pretty mysterious case in some respects. I rode over myself this morning to look into a few points and I shall be glad to have some help—though I'm afraid we'll not find anything that'll please you."

"Anything pleases me, so long as it's the truth," Terry threw off, as he studied the sheriff, with a gleam of amusement in his eyes; he was thinking, I knew, of Polly Mathers. "I hope," he added, assuming a severely professional tone, "that you haven't let a lot of people crowd into the cave and tramp up all the marks."

The landlord, who was standing in the doorway, chuckled at this.

"There ain't many people that you could drive into that there cave at the point of the pistol," he assured us. "They think it's haunted; leastways the niggers do."

"Have niggers been in the habit of going in much?"

"Oh, more or less," the sheriff returned, "when they want to make themselves inconspicuous for any reason. I had a horse thief hide in there for two weeks last year while we were scouring the country for him. There are so many little holes; it's almost impossible to find a man. Tramps occasionally spend the night there in cold weather."

"Do you have many tramps around here?"

"Not a great many. Once in a while a nigger comes along and asks for something to eat."

"More often he takes it without asking," one of the men broke in. "A week or so ago my ole woman had a cheese an' a ham an' two whole pies that she'd got ready for a church social just disappear without a word, out o' the pantry winder. If that ain't the mark of a nigger, I miss my guess."

Terry laughed.

"If that happened in the North we should look around the neighborhood for a sick small boy."

"It wasn't no boy this time—leastways not a very small one," the man affirmed, "for that same day a pair o' my boots that I'd left in the wood house just naturally walked off by theirselves, an' I found 'em the next day at the bottom o' the pasture. It would take a pretty sizeable fellow that my boots was too small for," he finished with a grin.

"They are a trifle conspicuous," one of the others agreed with his eyes on the feet in question.

I caught an interested look in Terry's glance as he mentally took their measure, and I wondered what he was up to; but as our messenger and Pete Moser appeared around the corner at the moment, I had no time for speculation. Terry let his chair slip with a bang and rose to his feet.

"Ah, Mr. Moser! I'm glad to see you," he exclaimed with an air of relief. "It's getting late," he added, looking at his watch, "and I must get this business settled as soon as possible; I have another little affair waiting for me in New York. Bring plenty of calcium light, please. We want to see what we're doing."

As the four of us were preparing to start, Terry paused on the top step and nodded pleasantly to the group on the veranda.

"Thank you for your information, gentlemen. I have no doubt but that it will be of the greatest importance," and he turned away with a laugh at their puzzled faces.

The sheriff and I were equally puzzled. I should have suspected that Terry, in the rôle of detective, was playing a joke on them, had he not very evidently got something on his mind. He was of a sudden in a frenzy of impatience to reach the cave, and he kept well ahead of us most of the way.

"I suppose," said Mattison as he climbed a fence with tantalizing deliberation—we were going by way of the fields as that was shorter—"I suppose that you are trying to prove that Radnor Gaylord had nothing to do with this murder?"

"That will be easy enough," Terry threw back over his shoulder. "I dropped him long ago. The one I'm after now is the real murderer."

Mattison scowled slightly.

"If you can explain what it was that happened in that cave that upset him so mightily, I'd come a little nearer to believing you."

Terry laughed and fell back beside him.

"It's a thing which I imagine may have happened to one or two other young men of this neighborhood—not inconceivably yourself included."

Mattison, seeing no meaning in this sally, preserved a sulky silence and Terry added:

"The thing for us to do now is to bend all our energies toward finding Cat-Eye Mose. I doubt if we can completely explain the mystery until he is discovered."

"And that," said the sheriff, "will be never! You may mark my words; whoever killed the Colonel, killed Mose, too."

"It's possible," said Terry with an air of sadness, "but I hope not. I came all the way down from New York on purpose to see Mose, and I should hate to miss him."

CHAPTER XXII THE DISCOVERY OF CAT-EYE MOSE

Having lighted our candles, we descended into the cave and set out along the path I now knew so well. When we reached the pool the guide lit a calcium light which threw a fierce white glare over the little body of water and the limestone cliffs, and even penetrated to the stalactite draped roof far above our heads. For a moment we stood blinking our eyes scarcely able to see, so sudden was the change from the semi-darkness of our four flickering candles. Then Terry stepped forward.

"Show me where you found the body and point out the spot where the struggle took place."

He spoke in quick, eager tones, so excited that he almost stuttered. It was not necessary for him to act the part of detective any longer. He had forgotten that he ever was a reporter—he had forgotten almost that he was a human being.

From where we stood we pointed out the place above the pool where the struggle had occurred, the spot under the cliff where the body had lain, and the jagged piece of rock on which we had found the coat. Moser even laid down upon the ground and spread out his arms in the position in which we had discovered the Colonel's body.

"Very well, I see," said Terry. "Now the rest of you stay back there on the boards; I don't want you to make a mark."

He stepped forward carefully to the edge of the water and bent over to examine the soft, yellow clay which formed the border of the pool on the lower side. Instantly he straightened up with a sharp exclamation of surprise.

"Did any negroes come in with you to recover the body?" he asked.

"No," returned the sheriff, "as old man Tompkins said, you couldn't hire a nigger to stick his head in here after the Colonel was found. They say they can hear something wailing around the pool and they think his ghost is haunting it."

"They can hear something wailing, can they?" Terry repeated queerly. "Well I begin to believe they can! What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, facing around at us. "How do you account for these peculiar foot-prints?"

"What prints?" I asked as we all pressed forward.

At the moment the calcium light with a final flare, died out, and we were left again in the flickering candle light which seemed darkness to us now.

"Quick, touch off another calcium!" said Terry, with suppressed impatience. He laid a hand on my shoulder and my arm ached from the tightness of his grip. "There," he said pointing with his finger as the light flared up again. "What do you make of those?"

I bent over and plainly traced the prints of bare feet, going and coming and over-lapping one another, just as an