The Flying Death, Samuel Hopkins Adams [books for students to read .TXT] 📗

All five of the men who composed the male populace of Third House gathered in Haynes’ room at ten o’clock that night. Everard Colton and old Johnston had been told briefly of the killing of Serdholm.

“Thus far,” said Haynes, addressing the meeting, “this vigilance committee has been a dismal failure. Had anyone told me that five intelligent men could fail in finding the murderer, with all the evidence at hand, I should have laughed at him.”

“Some features which might be regarded as unusual have presented themselves,” suggested Professor Ravenden mildly.

“Unusual? They’re absurd, insane, impossible! But there are the dead bodies, man and brute. We’ve got to explain them, or no one knows who may come next.”

“We’ve got to be careful, certainly,” said Colton; “but I think if we can capture Whalley, we’ll have no more mysterious killings.”

“Oh, that does very well in part; but it doesn’t fill out the requirements,” said the reporter impatiently. “Now, I’m going to run over my notes briefly, and if anyone can add anything, speak up. First, the killing of the seaman, Petersen, on the night of the shipwreck. That was on the thirteenth, an uncanny date, sure enough. Next, the killing of the sheep by the same wound, on the fourteenth, and on the same evening Professor Ravenden’s experience with some threatening object overhead.”

“Pardon me; I did not ascribe any threatening motive or purpose to the manifestation,” put in the professor. “Indeed, if I may challenge your memory, I suggested an air-ship. It seems that the unhappy aero-expert’s kites well may have been the source of the sound I heard.”

“Let us assume so for the present. Next we come to Mr. Colton’s encounter and the death of the mare on the evening of the fifteenth.”

“The kites again, of course,” said Everard.

“Even allowing that—and I expect to get conclusive proof against it later—what, then, chased the animal over the cliff?”

“Maybe the kites came down later and blew along the ground after her. If you were a horse, and a string of six-foot kites came bounding along in the darkness after you, wouldn’t you jump a cliff?”

“Ask Professor Ravenden,” suggested Haynes maliciously.

“The jest is not an unfair one,” said the scientist good-humouredly. “I fear that I should.”

“Charge the death of the mare to the kites, then. Pity we can’t lay the sheep to their account too. The third count against them is Professor Ravenden’s adventure of the eighteenth, and the death of the aeronaut. As to Professor Ravenden’s part, there remains to be explained the cutting of the kite strings, if they were cut.”

“That must have been done, it would seem, in mid-air, just as Petersen the sailor was killed,” said Dick Colton.

Haynes looked at him quickly. “Colton, you’re beginning to show signs of reasoning powers.” he said. “I think I’d better appoint you my legatee for the work, if my turn should come next.”

“My dear Haynes,” Professor Ravenden protested, “under the circumstances that remark at least is somewhat discomforting.”

“You’re quite right, Professor. Down with presentiments! Well, as Dr. Colton suggests, there’s a rather interesting parallel between the mid-air killing of the sailor and the mid-air cutting of the kite cord. Let that go, for the present. Mr. Ely’s death we can hardly ascribe to his own kites. There’s the cutting of the string near his hand.”

“That blasted Portuguese murderer, Whalley,” said Johnston.

“Most probably. The wound is such as his big knife would make; we know he’s abroad on the knolls. But why should he kill Mr. Ely, whom he never saw before, and why in the name of all that’s dark should he cut the kite strings?”

“Murderous mania; the same motive that drove him to kill the sheep,” said Dick Colton. “As for the kite string, perhaps he got tangled in it.”

“There is no tangle,” replied the reporter, “except in the evidence. But we’ll call that Whalley’s work. We come to to-day’s murder now. Who did that?”

“Without assuming any certainty in the matter, I should assume the suspicion to rest upon the juggler,” said Professor Ravenden.

“Motive is there,” said Dick Colton. “What Serdholm told us about his thumping Whalley shows that.”

“Yes; but there is motive in the case of Bruce also. And we know that Bruce was there. Moreover, he was on the cliff-head when Petersen came in, and the two wounds are the same.”

“Surely,” began the young doctor, “you don’t believe that Bruce—”

“No, I don’t believe it,” interrupted the reporter; “but it’s a hypothesis we’ve got to consider. Suppose Bruce and Serdholm recognised this man Petersen as an enemy, and Bruce slipped a knife into him as he took him from the buoy?”

“But I thought Petersen was killed halfway to the shore.”

“So we suppose; but it is partly on the testimony of these two that we believe it, corroborated by circumstantial evidence. Now, if Bruce killed the sailor, Serdholm knew it. The two guards quarrelled and fought. Bruce had reason to fear Serdholm. There’s the motive for the murder of Serdholm. He met him alone—there is opportunity. I think the case against him is stronger than that against Whalley, in this instance. I’ve looked into his movements on the night of the sheep-killing and the murder of Mr. Ely. He was out on the former, and in on the latter.”

“That weakens the case,” said Everard Colton.

“Yes; but what ruins the case against both Bruce and Whalley in the killing of Serdholm is this.” Haynes spread out on his table a map which he had drawn. “There is the situation, sketched on the spot. You will see that there are no footprints other than our own leading to or going down from the body. Gentlemen, as sure as my name is Haynes, the thing that killed Paul Serdholm never walked on human feet!”

There was a dead silence in the room. Dick Colton’s eyes, narrowed to a mere slit, were fixed on the reporter’s face. Johnston’s jaw dropped and hung. Everard Colton gave a little nervous laugh Professor Ravenden bent over the map and studied it with calm interest.

“No,” continued Haynes, “I’m perfectly sane. There are the facts. I’d like to see anyone make anything else out of it.”

“There is only one other solution,” said Professor Ravenden presently: “the fallibility of the human senses. May I venture to suggest again that there may be evidences present which you, in your natural perturbation, failed to note?”

“No,” said the reporter positively. “I know my business. I missed nothing. Here’s one thing I didn’t fail to note. Johnston, you know this neck of land?”

“Lived here for fifty-seven years,” said the innkeeper.

“Ever hear of an ostrich farm hereabouts?”

“No. Couldn’t keep ostriches here. Freeze the tail-faithers off ‘em before Thanksgiving.”

“Professor Ravenden, would it be possible for a wandering ostrich or other huge bird, escaped from some zoo, to have its home on Montauk?”

“Scientifically quite possible in the summer months. In winter, as Mr. Johnston suggests, the climate would be too rigorous, though I doubt whether it would have the precise effect specified by him. May I inquire the purpose of this? Can it be that the tracks referred to by the patrol were the cloven hoof-prints of—”

“Cloven hoofs?” Haynes cried in sharp disappointment. “Is there no member of the ostrich family that has claws?”

“None now extant. In the processes of evolution the claws of the ostrich, like its wings, have gradually—”

“Is there any huge-clawed bird large enough and powerful enough to kill a man with a blow of its beak?”

“No, sir,” said the professor. “I know of no bird which would venture to attack man except the ostrich, emu or cassowary, and the fighting weapon of this family is the hoof,