Death Points A Finger Part 3

"This diabolical '14' has chosen, during the past few years, the reunion of this group to make himself, or themselves, felt.

Nothing has happened recently to make me feel this way. But depend on it, the group will have some communication from '14.' These men, remember, are worldly men who are not easily scared, but the thing is getting on their nerves. I can see it and feel it when I talk to them. When do you plan to go there, Jimmy?"

"Guess I'd better go the first thing tomorrow morning," stated Jimmy, seeing that McCall wanted to change the subject. "The earlier I go the sooner this thing will be cleaned up. From what you say, Mac, I'm beginning to think that I'll have more than a feature story."

"All right, I'll come for you tomorrow morning. You could manage for yourself probably, but it may make things easier if I go down there with you."

"That's good of you, Mac. I know some of them but you know how it is--a newspaper man coming for a story."

"Very well, I'm running along. I'll call for you in the morning, Jimmy. And Professor, don't let the representative of the press disturb your rest with his vivid yarns."

"Don't worry, Mr. McCall," drawled Matthews; "if he doesn't behave himself, you'll find him among the missing tomorrow."

Norah took the little boy out to play and the three men, Professor Brierly, Matthews and Jimmy were left at the table. A silence fell on the group after the departure of McCall, each absorbed in his own thoughts. It was apparent to Jimmy that McCall's story had made as profound an impression on the other men as it had on him.

Jimmy looked curiously at Professor Brierly, who was rolling a bread pill under his fingers in a mood of deep abstraction. To Jimmy this gesture was of special significance, because it was one which Professor Brierly disliked. He never did it himself and Jimmy had heard him reprove Matthews for doing it. The newspaper man caught Matthews' glance. Jack was going to make a facetious remark, when the old man murmured as if thinking aloud:

"Seven deaths, _five_ of them suicides. Strange, strange!"

"You suspect, Professor--"

The old man came out of his fit of abstraction with a start. "I suspect nothing. I never suspect without a sufficient basis of fact. I am very much interested in the story McCall told us. It is very, intriguing. An American vendetta! Possible, of course, for we have our Kentucky mountain feuds. McCall's suggestion is an unpleasant one.

"What dread horror does this mysterious '14' impose that will impel five such men out of twenty-one to commit suicide? The alternative is still more dreadful, Hale. In our criminal investigations, we have come across many instances of careless autopsies. We have come across many instances of loosely written reports by medical and other official examiners."

He shook his head and fell silent for a moment. Then he went on: "Think of it. On the one hand, a man, or men whose hate grew and grew for sixty-five years, until it became an obsession or outright mania. On the other hand, a fund of several million dollars."

"You suggest, Professor, you suggest--can death be produced so that it looks like suicide?"

"Of course it can."

"In five cases, Professor, within such a short time?"

"In five cases or five hundred cases, but here, this sort of thing is all right for a highly speculative imaginative newspaper man.

Both you and McCall infected me with your--let us go outside and enjoy the suns.h.i.+ne."

For a time that afternoon, Jimmy forgot the conversation at the lunch table. He saw Professor Brierly and Matthews in new surroundings. And the charm of it stole in on him and made him forget temporarily the errand on which he came.

Professor Brierly was watching the movements of a lizard with detached interest when his little friend sat down beside him and began, glumly, pus.h.i.+ng his toes in and put of the gentle ripples that lapped the sh.o.r.e.

Beautiful Lake Memphremagog, bisected by the international border, lay before them. On the opposite side a motor launch skirted the sh.o.r.e looking unreal against the dark, impenetrable wooded background. In the middle distance a canoe with two figures in it rose and fell lazily in the gentle swell.

Professor Brierly's deeply sunken, bright blue eyes looked with paternal affection at the little figure at his side. The lips under the tip-tilted nose formed, faintly, a pout. It was unusual for Tommy to sit so long beside "Pop" without asking a thousand questions. One of the reasons Tommy liked Professor Brierly so much was that the latter always answered his questions. And the answers were amplified with tricks that were so fascinating.

The professor's a.s.sociates would have been amused as was Matthews'

and the boy's mother, at the old man's painful efforts to use short words easy of comprehension. Professor Brierly never made the mistake of treating the boy or his questions lightly. He always gave them serious consideration; he always treated the boy with the grave courtesy due an equal.

After the silence had lasted a painfully long time, Professor Brierly asked:

"Anything wrong, Thomas?" The old scientist's concession to the amenities did not extend to calling the youngster "Tom" or "Tommy."

The little chap nodded.

"Yes, Pop, something very wrong, very, VERY wrong."

Professor Brierly's features showed appropriately grave concern.

"What is it?"

"Uncle Jack, he--he--won't let me peddle."

"He won't let you what?"

"He won't let me peddle, peddle the boat." He pointed a grubby finger toward the canoe that was tied to the small wharf.

"Oh, you mean, he won't let you paddle the canoe."

"Yes, Pop, he won't let me peddle."

"_Paddle_ is the word, Thomas; say paddle."

"Peddle."

"No, no, Thomas, _paddle_, PADDLE!"

"Peddle."

Any other person but Thomas would have received an outburst of wrath from the old scientist Professor Brierly again demonstrated his deep love for the boy by abandoning the subject of p.r.o.nunciation and returned to the major issue.

"You say, Thomas, that he won't let you peddle--er--paddle?"

Thomas glumly shook his head.

"But, Thomas, I cannot understand. I saw him teach you to paddle.

He made you a small paddle himself."

"Well, he won't let me."

"Did John tell you why?"

"He just won't let me. He says I can't peddle all alone by myself till I c'n swim'n dive real good. I wanna peddle all alone by myself like them." He pointed to two canoes in the distance, each propelled by a lone figure.

"Well, Thomas, can you swim as well as Uncle John?"

"Sure, I c'n swim real good, mebbe not so good as Uncle Jack but-I wanna peddle all alone by myself."

The crunching of the gravel under heavy steps interrupted the two pals. Big, blond, athletic John Matthews was coming down the embankment that led from the rustic sprawling cabin.

"John," said Professor Brierly, gravely, "Thomas here, has a complaint against you."