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

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 animal would make in pacing a cage. I shivered slightly. It was a terribly uncanny sight.

"Well?" said Terry sharply. The place was beginning to get on his nerves too.

"Terry," I said uneasily, "I never saw them before. I thought I examined everything thoroughly, but I was so excited I suppose--"

"What did you make of them?" he interrupted, whirling about on Mattison who was looking over our shoulders.

"I--I didn't see them," Mattison stammered.

"For heaven's sake, men," said Terry impatiently. "Do you mean they weren't there or you didn't notice them?"

The sheriff and I looked at each other blankly, and neither answered.

Terry stood with his hands in his pockets frowning down at the marks, while the rest of us waited silently, scarcely daring to think. Finally he turned away without saying a word, and, motioning us to keep back, commenced examining the path which led up the incline. He mounted the three stone steps, and with his eyes on the ground, slowly advanced to the spot where the struggle had taken place.

"How tall a man did you say Mose was?" he called down to us.

"Little short fellow--not more than five feet high," returned the sheriff.

Terry took his ruler from his pocket and bent over to study the marks at the scene of the struggle. He straightened up with an air of satisfaction.

"Now I want you men to look carefully at those marks on the lower borders of the pool, and then come up here and look at these. Come along up in single file, please, and keep to the middle of the path."

He spoke in the tone of one giving a demonstration before a kindergarten class. We obeyed him silently and ranged in a row along the boards.

"Come here," he said. "Bend over where you can see. Now look at those marks. Do you see anything different in them from the marks below?"

The sheriff and I gazed intently at the prints of bare feet which marked the entire vicinity of the struggle. We had both examined them more than once before, and we saw nothing now but what had already appeared. We straightened up and shook our heads.

"They're the prints of bare feet," said Mattison, stolidly. "But I don't see that they're any different from any other bare feet."

Terry handed him the ruler.

"Measure them," he said. "Measure this one that's flat on the ground. Now go down and measure one of those prints by the borders of the pool."

Mattison took the ruler and complied. As he bent over the marks on the lower border we could see by the light of his candle the look of astonishment that sprang into his face.

"Well, what do you find?" Terry asked.

"The marks up there are nearly two inches longer and an inch broader."

"Exactly."

"Terry," I said, "you can't blame us for not finding that out. We examined everything when we took away the body, and those marks below were simply not there. Someone has been in since."

"So I conclude. Now, Mattison," he added to the sheriff, "come here and show me the marks of Radnor Gaylord's riding boots."

Mattison returned and pointed out the mark which he had produced at the inquest, but his assurance, I noticed, was somewhat shaken.

"That," said Terry half contemptuously, "is the mark of Colonel Gaylord. You must remember that he was struggling with his assailant. He did not plant his foot squarely every time. Sometimes we have only the heel mark: sometimes only the toe. In this case we have more than the mark of the whole foot. How do I account for it? Simply enough. The Colonel's foot slipped sideways. The mark is, you see, exactly the same in length as the others, but disproportionately broad. At the heel and toe it is smudged, and on the inside where the weight was thrown, it is heavier than on the outside. The thing is easy enough to understand. You ought to have been able to deduce it for yourselves. And besides, how did you account for the fact that there was only one mark? A man engaged in a struggle must have left more than that behind him. No; it is quite clear. At this point on the edge of the bank there was no third person. We are dealing with only two men--Colonel Gaylord and his murderer; and the murderer was bare-footed."

"Mose?" I asked.

"No," said Terry, patiently, "not Mose."

"Then who?"

"That--remains to be seen. I will follow him up and find out where he comes from."

Terry held his candle close to the ground and followed along the path. At the entrance to the little gallery of the broken column it diverged, one part leading into the gallery, and the other into a sort of blind alley at one side. Terry paused at the opening.

"Give me some more calcium light," he called to the guide. "I want to look into this passage. And just hand me some of those boards," he added. "It's very necessary that we keep the marks clear."

The rest of us stood in a huddled group on the one or two boards he had left us and watched him curiously as he made his way down the passage. He paused at the end and examined the ground. We saw him stoop and pick up something. Then he rose quickly with a cry of triumph and came running back to us holding his hands behind him.

"It's just as I suspected," he said, his eyes shining with excitement. "Colonel Gaylord had an enemy he did not know."

"What do you mean?" we asked, crowding around.

"Here's the proof," and he held out towards us a well gnawed ham bone in one hand and a cheese rind in the other. "These were the provisions intended for the church social; the pies, I fancy, have disappeared."

We stared at him a moment in silent wonder. The sheriff was the first to assert himself.

"What have these to do with the crime?" he asked, viewing the trophies with an air of disgust.

"Everything. The man who stole those is the man who robbed the safe and who murdered Colonel Gaylord."

The sheriff uttered a low laugh of incredulity, and the guide and I stared open-mouthed.

"And what's more, I will tell you what he looks like. He is a large, very black negro something over six feet tall. When last seen, he was dressed in a blue and white checked blouse and ragged overalls. His shoes were much the worse for wear, and have since been thrown away. He was bare-footed at the time he committed the crime. In short," Terry added, "he is the chicken thief whom Colonel Gaylord whipped a couple of days before he died," and he briefly repeated the incident I had told him. "You mean," I asked, "that he was the ha'nt?"

"Yes," said Terry, "he was the second ha'nt. He has been hiding for two or three weeks in the spring-hole at Four-Pools, keeping hidden during the day and coming out at night to prowl around and steal whatever he could lay his hands on. He doubtless deserved punishment, but that fact would not make him the less bitter over the Colonel's beating. When I heard that story, I said to myself, 'there is a man who would be ready for revenge if chance put the opportunity in his way.'"

"But," I expostulated, "how did he happen to be in the cave?"

"As to that I cannot say. After the Colonel's beating he probably did not dare to hang about Four-Pools any longer. He took to the woods and came in this direction; being engaged in petty thieving about the neighborhood, it was necessary to find a hiding place during the daytime and the cave was his most natural refuge. We know that he is not afraid of the dark--the spring-hole at Four-Pools is about as dismal a place as a man could find. He established himself in this passage in order to be near the water. See, here in the corner are drops of candle grease and the remains of a fire. On the day of the Mathers's picnic he doubtless saw the party pass through and recognized Colonel Gaylord. It brought to his mind the thrashing he had received. While he was still brooding over the matter, the Colonel came back alone, and it flashed into the fellow's mind that this was his chance. He may have been afraid at first or he may have hesitated through kindlier motives. At any rate he did not attack the Colonel immediately, but retreated into the passage, and the old man passed him without seeing him and went on into the gallery and got the coat.

"In the meantime, the negro had made up his mind, and as the Colonel came back, he crept along behind him. It is hard to trace the marks, for another bare-footed man has walked over them since. But see, in this place at the edge of the path, there's the mark of a palm, showing where the assassin's hand rested when he crouched on the ground. He sprang upon the old man from the rear and they struggled together over the water--touch off a light, please--you see how the clay is all trampled over on both sides of the path, 'way out to the brink of the pool. There is no second set of marks here to obliterate it; we are dealing with just two people--Colonel Gaylord and his assassin."

Terry bent low and picked up from a crevice what looked like a piece of stone covered with clay.

"Here, you see, is the end of the Colonel's candle. He probably dropped it when the man first sprang, and in the darkness he could not tell who or what had attacked him. In his frenzy to have a light he snatched out his match box--Radnor's box--and that too was dropped in the scuffle.

"Now, even if the original motive of the crime were not robbery but revenge--as I fancy it was--at any rate the murderer, being a tramp and a thief, would have robbed the body. But he did not. Why was that? Because he saw or heard something that frightened him, and what could that have been but Mose running to his master's assistance?"

Terry strode over to the steps which led to the incline, and motioning us to follow, pointed out some marks on the sloping bank at the side of the path.

"See, here are Mose's tracks. He was in such a hurry that he could not wait to come up by the steps; he tried to take a cross cut. He scrambled up the slippery bank so fast that he fell on his hands and knees in this place and slid back. That accounts for those long dragging marks, which none of you appear to have noticed. Mose did his best, but he could not reach his master in time. The murderer seeing--or rather hearing him, for it must have been dark--was seized with sudden fear, and with a convulsive effort he threw the old man against the rock wall here, where his head struck on this broken stalactite. If you look carefully you can see