The Four Pools Mystery, Jean Webster [list of e readers txt] 📗

stomp roun' like he mos' crazy, an' den went out to de gahden."

I followed him and found him sitting in the summer house with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

"What's the matter, Rad?" I cried in alarm. "Has anything happened to your father?"

He looked up with a start at the sound of my voice, and I saw that his face was pale.

"My father?" he asked in a dazed way. "I left him in the cave. Why do you ask?"

"He didn't come back with the rest of us, and Polly asked me to find him."

"He's old enough to take care of himself," said Radnor without looking up.

I hesitated a moment, uncertain what to do, and then turned back to the stables to order a fresh horse. To my astonishment I found the stable-men gathered in a group about Rad's mare, Jennie Loo. She was dashed with foam and trembling, and appeared to be about used up. The men fell back and eyed me silently as I approached.

"What's happened to the horse?" I cried. "Did she run away?"

One of the men "reckoned" that "Marse Rad" had been whipping her.

"Whipping her!" I exclaimed in dismay. It was unbelievable, for no one as a rule was kinder to animals than Radnor; and as for his own Jennie Loo, he couldn't have cared more for her if she had been a human being. There was no mistaking it however. She was crossed and recrossed with thick welts about the withers; it was evident that the poor beast had been disgracefully handled.

Uncle Jake volunteered that Rad had galloped straight into the stable, had dropped the bridle and walked off without a word; and he added the opinion that a "debbil had done conjured him." I was inclined to agree. There seemed to be something in the air that I did not understand, and my anxiety for the Colonel suddenly rushed back fourfold. I wheeled about and ordered a horse in an unnecessarily sharp tone, and the men jumped to obey me.

It was just sunset as I mounted again and galloped down the lane. For the second time that day I set out along the lonely mountain road leading to Luray, but this time with a vague fear gripping at my heart. Why had Radnor acted so strangely, I asked myself again and again. Could it be connected with last night's quarrel? And where was the Colonel, and where was Mose?


CHAPTER X

THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAVE

It was almost dark by the time I reached the village of Luray. I galloped up to the hotel where we had left our horses that morning and without dismounting called out to the loafers on the veranda to ask if anyone had seen Colonel Gaylord. Two or three of them, glad of a diversion, got up and sauntered out to the stepping-stone where I waited, to discuss the situation.

What was the matter? they inquired. Hadn't the Colonel gone home with the rest of the party?

No, he had not, I returned impatiently, and I wanted to know if any of them had seen him.

They consulted together and finally decided that no one had seen him, and at this the stable boy vouchsafed the information that Red Pepper was still in the barn.

"I thought maybe the Colonel was intending to make me a present of that horse," the landlord observed with a grin, as he joined the group.

A chuckle ran around the circle at this sally. It was evident that the Colonel did not have a reputation in the county for making presents. I impatiently gathered up my reins and one of the men remarked:

"I reckon young Gaylord got home in good time. He was in an almighty hurry when he started. He didn't stop for no farewells."

With numerous interruptions and humorous interpolations, they finally managed to tell me in their exasperatingly slow drawl that Rad had come back to the hotel that afternoon before the rest of the party, had drunk two glasses of brandy, called for his horse, and galloped off without speaking a word to anyone except to swear at the stable boy. The speaker finished with the assertion that in his opinion Rad Gaylord and Jeff Gaylord were cut out of the same block.

I shifted my seat uneasily. This information did not tend to throw any light on the question of the Colonel's whereabouts, and I was in no mood just then to listen to any more gossip about Rad.

"I'm not looking for young Gaylord," I said shortly. "I know where he is. It's the Colonel I'm after. Neither he nor Cat-Eye Mose have come back, and I'm afraid they're lost in the cave."

The men laughed at this. People didn't get lost in the cave, they said. All anyone had to do was to follow the path; and besides, if the Colonel was with Mose he couldn't get lost if he tried. Mose knew the cave so well that he could find his way around it in the dark. Colonel Gaylord had probably met some friends in the village and driven home with them.

But I would not be satisfied with an explanation of that sort. The Colonel, I knew, was not in the habit of abandoning horses in any such casual manner; and even supposing he had gone home with some friends, he would scarcely have taken Mose along.

I dismounted, turned my horse over to the stable boy, and announced that the cave must be searched. This request was received with some amusement. The idea of getting out a search party for Cat-Eye Mose struck them as peculiarly ludicrous. But I insisted, and finally one of the men who was in the habit of acting as guide, took his feet down from the veranda railing with a grunt of disapproval and shambled into the house after some candles and a lantern. Two or three of the others joined the expedition after a good deal of chaffing at my expense.

We set out for the mouth of the cave by a short cut that led across the fields. It was quite dark by this time, and as there was no moon our one lantern did not go far toward lighting the path. We stumbled along over plowed ground and through swampy pastures to the music of croaking frogs and whip-poor-wills. At first the way was enlivened by humorous suggestions on the part of my companions as to what had become of Colonel Gaylord, but as I did not respond very freely to their bantering, they finally fell silent with only an occasional imprecation as someone stubbed his toe or caught his clothing on a brier. After a half hour or so of plodding we came to a clear path through the woods and in a few minutes reached the mouth of the cave.

A rough little shanty was built over the entrance. It was closed by a ramshackle door which a child could have opened without any difficulty; there was at least no danger of the Colonel's having been locked inside. Lighting our candles, we descended the rough stone staircase into the first great vault, which forms a sort of vestibule to the caverns. With our hands to our mouths we hallooed several times and then held our breath while we waited for an answer. The only sound which came out of the stillness was the occasional drip of water or the flap of a bat's wing. Had the Colonel been lost in any of the winding passages he must have heard us and replied, for the slightest sound is audible in such a cavern, echoing and re-echoing as it does through countless vaulted galleries. The silence, however, instead of assuring me that he was not there only increased my uneasiness. What if he had slipped on the wet clay, and having injured himself, was lying unconscious in the darkness?

The men wished to turn back, but I insisted that we go as far as the broken column which lies in a little gallery above Crystal Lake. That was the place where the coat had been left, and we could at least find out if either the Colonel or Mose had returned for it. We set out in single file along the damp clay path, the light from our few candles only serving to intensify the blackness around us. The huge white forms of the stalactites seemed to follow us like ghosts in the gloom; every now and then a bat flapped past our faces, and I wondered with a shiver how anyone could get up courage to go alone into such a hole as that.

"Crystal Lake" is a shallow pool lying in a sort of bowl. On the farther side the path runs up seven or eight feet above the water along the broken edge of a cliff. A few steps beyond the pool the path diverges sharply to the left and opens into the little gallery of the broken column.

Just as we were about to ascend the two or three stone steps leading to the incline, the guide in front stopped short, and clutching me by the arm pointed a shaking forefinger toward the pool.

"What's that?" he gasped.

I strained my eyes into the darkness but I could see nothing.

"There, that black thing under the bank," he said, raising his candle and throwing the light over the water.

We all saw it now and recognized it with a thrill of horror. It was the body of Colonel Gaylord. He was lying on his face at the bottom of the pool, and with outstretched arms was clutching the mud in his hands. The still water above him was as clear as crystal but was tinged with red.

"It's my uncle!" I cried, springing forward. "He's fallen over the bank. He may not be dead."

But they held me back.

"He's as dead as he ever will be," the guide said grimly. "An' what's more, Colonel Gaylord warn't the man to drown in three foot o' water without making a struggle. This ain't no accident. It's murder! We must go back an' get the coroner. It's agen the law to touch the body until he comes."

It went to my heart to leave the old man lying there at the bottom of that pool, but I could not prevail on one of them to help me move him. The coroner must be brought, they stubbornly insisted, and they restrained me forcibly when I would have waded into the water. We turned back with shaking knees and hurried toward the mouth of the cave, slipping and sliding in the wet clay as we ran. I, for one, felt as though a dozen assassins were following our footsteps in the dark. And all the time I had a sickening feeling that my uncle's death only foreshadowed a more terrible tragedy. The guide's: "This ain't no accident; it's murder," kept running in my head, and much as I tried to drive the thought from me, a horrible suspicion came creeping to my mind that I knew who the murderer must be.


CHAPTER XI

THE SHERIFF VISITS FOUR-POOLS

We found the coroner and told our story. He sent word to Kennisburg, the county-seat, for the sheriff to come; and then having called a doctor and three or four other witnesses, we set out again for the cave. The news of the tragedy had spread like wild-fire, and half the town of Luray would have accompanied us had the coroner