The Weathercock Part 52

The man glanced sharply at Distin again as he spoke, and the young Creole avoided his eye with the result that the constable made a note in his book with a pencil which seemed to require wetting before it would mark.

"I think," said the rector, "it is my duty to stay here, as this matter is a.s.suming a serious aspect."

"Thank ye, sir; I should be glad if you would," said the constable. "It do begin to look serious."

"Joseph, run on after Dr Lee, and tell him why I am staying. Say that he is to use the carriage at once if he wishes to send for help or nurse. I shall not be very long."

Joseph ran off at a sharp trot after the departing group, and the constable went slowly forward after carefully examining the ground where Vane had been found.

"Keep back, everybody, please. Plenty of footprints here," he said, "but all over, I'm afraid. Hah! Look here, sir," he continued, pointing down at the loose sand and pebbles; "he crawled along here on his hands and knees."

Distin looked sallow and troubled now, and kept on darting furtive looks at those about, several of the men having stopped back to see what the constable might find.

"Don't see no steps but his," said the constable, who seemed to be keenly observant for so rustic-looking a man. "Hah, that's where he come down, regularly slipped, you see."

He pointed to the shelving bank of chalk, on the top of which the beeches began, and over which their long, lithe branches drooped.

"Steady, please. I'll go on here by myself with you two gents. You see as no one else follows till I give leave."

The second constable nodded, and the bank was climbed, the rector telling Distin to hold out a hand to help him--a hand that was very wet and cold, feeling something like the tail of a codfish.

Here the constable had no difficulty in finding Vane's track over the dead leaves and beech-mast for some distance, and then he uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n as he pounced upon a broken stick, one of the pieces being stained with blood.

"It's getting warm," he said. "Oh, yes, don't come forward, gentlemen.

Here we are: ground's all trampled and kicked up, and what's this here?

Little trowel and a basket and--"

He turned over the contents of the basket with a puzzled expression.

"Aren't taters," he said, holding the basket to the rector.

"No, my man, they are truffles."

"Oh, yes, sir, I can see they're trifles."

"Truffles, my man, troofles," said the rector. "The poor fellow must have been digging them up."

"But no one wouldn't interfere with him for digging up that stuff, sir.

I mean keepers or the like. And there's been two of 'em here, simminly.

Oh, yes, look at the footmarks, only they don't tell no tales. I like marks in soft mud, where you can tell the size, and what nails was in the boots. Stuff like this shows nothing. Halloo, again."

"Found something else?" cried the rector excitedly.

"Bits o' broken gla.s.s, sir,--gla.s.s bottle. There's a lot of bits scattered about."

The constable searched about the gra.s.s of the beech grove where the struggle had taken place, but not being gifted with the extraordinary eyes and skill of an American Indian, he failed to find the track of Vane's a.s.sailants going and coming, and he was about to give up when the rector pointed to a couple of places amongst the dead leaves which looked as if two hands had torn up some of the dead leaves.

"Ay, that's someat," said the constable quickly. "I see, sir, you're quite right. Some one went down here and--Phee-ew!" he whistled as he picked up a leaf. "See that, sir?"

The rector looked, shuddered and turned away, but Distin pressed forward with a curious, half-fascinated aspect, and stared down at the leaf the constable held out, pointing the while to several more like it which lay upon the ground.

"Blood?" said Distin in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"Yes, sir, that's it. Either the young gent or some one else had what made that. Don't look nice, do it?"

Distin shuddered, and the constable made another note in his book, moistening his pencil over and over again and glancing thoughtfully at Distin as he wrote in a character that might have been called cryptographic, for it would have defied any one but the writer to have made it out.

"Well, constable," said the rector at last, "what have you discovered?"

"That the young gent was out here, sir, digging up them tater things as he was in the habit of grubbing up--weeds and things. I've seen him before."

"Yes, yes," said the rector. "Well?"

"And then some one come and went at him."

"Some one," said the rector, "I thought you said two."

"So I did, sir, and I thought so at first, but I don't kind o' find marks of more than one, and he broke this stick about Mr Vane, and the wonder to me is as he hasn't killed him. Perhaps he has."

"But what motive? It could not have been the keepers."

"Not they, sir. They liked him."

"Could it be poachers?"

"Can't say, sir. Hardly. What would they want to 'tack a young gent like that for?"

"Have there been any tramps about who might do it for the sake of robbery?"

"Ha'n't been a tramp about here for I don't know how long, sir. We're quite out of them trash. Looks to me more like a bit o' spite."

"Spite?"

"Yes, sir. Young gent got any enemies as you know on?"

The rector laughed and Distin joined in, making the constable scratch his head.

"Oh, no, my man, we have no enemies in my parish. You have not got the right clue this time. Try again."

"I'm going to, sir, but that's all for to-day," said the man, b.u.t.toning up his book in his pocket. "I think we'll go back to the town now."

"By all means," said the rector. "Very painful and very strange. Come, Distin."

As he spoke he walked from under the twilight of the great beech-wood out into the suns.h.i.+ne, where about a dozen of the searchers were waiting impatiently in charge of the second constable for a report of what had been done.

As the rector went on, Distin looked keenly round and then bent down over the leaves which bore the ugly stains, and without noticing that the constable had stolen so closely to him, that when he raised his head he found himself gazing full in the man's searching eyes.

"Very horrid, sir, aren't it," he said.