Page:Weird Tales Volume 24 Issue 4 (1934-10).djvu/70

468 The face of Detective-Inspector Renshaw betrayed nothing. It was the stolid professional mask of a man accustomed to conceal his thoughts.

"Well, what is your opinion, gentlemen?" Hugh asked at length.

"I hardly know what to think, sir." It was the detective who answered. "If I was not in possession of Sergeant Jopling's report confirming the presence on the Moor of just such another weird creature as Marie describes, I should be inclined to the opinion that Crazy Jake was not the only lunatic in the story. As it is," he shrugged and shook his head, "well, I prefer to keep an open mind."

"An unprejudiced skeptic, eh?" smiled Hugh; then he added as he turned to Ronnie: "And you?"

"Oh, I'm prepared to go further than our official friend here," declared the young doctor. "If he's a tentative skeptic, I'm prepared to declare myself an out-and-out unbeliever! Of course the poor old boy who wrote all that tosh was suffering from a lesion that is popularly known as 'bats in the belfry'."

Hugh Trenchard shook his head decisively.

"In that case you must admit that the same diagnosis applies to me," he reminded his friend. "Have you forgotten my own encounter with the cloven-footed monster?”

"By no means, old bean," drawled Ronnie. "I'm not likely to forget your extremely vivid account of that encounter. But if you'll pardon my saying so, dear boy, your description was more dramatic than convincing. If you were in the witness-box and I were the opposing K. C., I could simply tear your story to shreds. After all, what does it amount to? On a dark and misty night, while in a highly excited condition of mind, you see a series of footprints which might or might not have been made by a large deer. While examining them you are startled by a madman or practical joker declaring that he is Old King Cole, or some monarch equally mythical. Startled by his voice, the deer stampedes, bowls you over and smashes your lamp. How's that for a sane and commonplace explanation of your little yarn?"

Again Hugh shook his head.

"Your ingenious theory does not explain the voice which we heard in this very room—the low, sibilant voice which interrupted your declaration of disbelief in the Terror of the Moor. 'Silence, scoffer!' it said. 'Another gibe from you, and my magic lightning shall blast you as you stand!

"Oh, that?" Ronnie Brewster grinned contemptuously. "That was friend Silas's way of amusing himself at our expense. Probably he had got out of bed, crept to the head of the stairs, and was listening to me declaiming against the spook that obsessed his poor brain. Perhaps his 'magic lightning' was a reference to the wonderful detonator that he thought he had invented."

"How do you account for the roll of thunder which sounded immediately afterward?"

"Pure coincidence," shrugged Ronnie.

At this point Inspector Renshaw, who had been listening to the conversation with a puzzled frown, stepped forward.

"Pardon me, gentlemen, but you have been alluding to an incident which is news to me. Will you be good enough to describe exactly what took place?"

Briefly, but omitting no important detail, Hugh narrated the events which had taken place on the night of Joan Endean's dramatic arrival at Moor Lodge. In his desire to make everything clear, he took up the same position where he had stood when the mysterious and uncanny