The Secret of Lonesome Cove/Chapter 10

Such ruin as had been wrought in Sedgwick’s studio was strictly localized. The easel lay on the floor, with its rear leg crumpled. Around it were scattered the fragments of the glass upon which the painter had set his labor of love. A high old-fashioned chair faced the wreckage. On its peak was hung a traveling cap. Lopping across the back sprawled a Norfolk jacket belonging to Sedgwick. Chester Kent lifted the coat, and after a swift survey let it drop.

“Did you leave that there?” he asked.

“I hung it across the back of the chair,” answered Sedgwick.

“North window closed?”

“Yes, as you see it now.”

“And west one open?”

“Nothing has been changed, I tell you, except this.” Sedgwick’s hand, outstretched toward the destroyed portrait, condensed itself involuntarily into a knotty fist.

“The lock of the door hasn’t been tampered with,” said Kent. “As for this open window,” he leaned out, looking around, “any man gaining access here must have used a ladder, which is unlikely in broad daylight.”

“How about a pass-key for the door?”

“There’s a simpler solution nearer at hand, I fancy. You didn’t chance to notice that things have happened to the coat, as well as to the easel.”

“Then the invader went through the coat and, not finding what he was looking for, smashed my picture,” cried Sedgwick.

“Through the coat, certainly,” agreed Kent, with his quiet smile. “Now hang it across the chair back just as it was, please.”

Sedgwick took the Norfolk jacket from him. “Why, there’s a hole through it!” he exclaimed.

“Exactly: the path of the invader.”

“A bullet!”

“Right again. Instead of murdering, as you pine to do, you’ve been murdered. That the picture was destroyed is merely a bit of ill fortune. That you weren’t inside the coat when the bullet went through it and cut the prop from your easel, is a bit of the other kind. Hang up the coat, please.”

Sedgwick obeyed.

“There,” said Kent viewing the result from the window. “At a distance of, say, a quarter of a mile, that arrangement of coat and cap would look uncommonly like a man sitting in a chair before his work. At least, I should think so. And yonder thicket on the hillside,” he added, looking out of the window again, “is just about that distance, and seems to be the only spot in sight giving a straight range. Suppose we run up there.”

Sound as was his condition, Sedgwick was panting when he brought up at the spot, some yards behind his long-limbed leader. As the scientist had surmised, the arrangement of coat and cap in the studio presented, at that distance, an excellent simulacrum of the rear view of a man lounging in a chair. Bidding the artist stay outside the copse, Kent entered on hands and knees and made extended exploration. After a few moments the sound of low lugubrious whistling was heard from the trees, and presently the musician emerged leading himself by the lobe of his ear.

“Evidently you’ve found something,” commented Sedgwick, who had begun to comprehend his friend’s peculiar methods of expression.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you so pleased with yourself?”

“That is why.”

“Because you’ve found nothing?”

“Exactly.”

“It seems an easy system,” observed the artist sarcastically.

“So it is, to a reasoning being. I’m satisfied that some one fired a shot from here. The marksman—a good one—saw you, as he supposed, jerk to the shot as if with a bullet through you, and went away satisfied.”

“Leaving no trace behind him,” added Sedgwick.

“No trace that is tangible. Therein lies the evidence.”

“Of course you don’t expect me to follow that.”

“Why not? Look at the ground in the thicket.”

“What is there to be seen there, since you’ve said there are no marks?”

“The soil is very soft.”

“Yes; there’s a spring just back of us.”

“Yet there’s not a footprint discernible on it.”

“I’ve got that part of the lesson by heart, I think.”

“Use your brain on it, then. Some one designing to make you his target, has been in this thicket; been and gone, and left the place trackless. That some one was a keen soft-footed woodsman. Putting it in words of one syllable, I should say he probably had the racial instinct of the hunt. Does that flush any idea from the deep and devious coverts of your brain?”

“Racial instinct? Gansett Jim!” said Sedgwick.

“Exactly. If I had found tracks all over the place, I should have known it wasn’t he. Finding nothing, I was naturally pleased.”

“That’s more than I am,” retorted the other. “I suppose he’s likely to resume his gunnery at any time.”

“Unless we can discourage him—as I expect we can.”

“By having him arrested?”

“Difficulties might be put in our way. Sheriff Len Schlager and the half-breed are in some sort of loose partnership in this affair, as you know. Gansett Jim honestly thinks that you had a hand in the Lonesome Cove murder, as he believes it to be. It isn’t impossible that the sheriff has subtly egged him on to kill you in revenge.”

“Why does the sheriff want me killed?”

“Nothing personal, I assure you,” answered Kent with mock courtesy. “I’ve already explained that he will not arrest you. But you’re the suspect, and if you were put out of the way every one would believe you the murderer. There would be a perfunctory investigation, the whole thing would be hushed up, and the body in Annalaka churchyard would rest in peace—presumably a profitable peace for the sheriff.”

“Flat out, Kent, do you know who the dead woman is?”

“Flat out, I don’t. But I’ve a shrewd guess that I’ll find out before long.”

“From Gansett Jim?”

“No hope there. He’s an Indian. What I’m going to see him about now is your safety.”

“Now? Where do you expect to find him?”

“In the village, I hope. It wouldn’t do for you to come there. But I want you to go to the spot where you met the circus-wagon man, and wait, until I bring Jim.”

It was a long wait for the worried artist, in the deep forest that bounded the lonely road along Hawkill Heights. Ten o’clock had chimed across the hill from the distant village, when he heard footsteps, and at a call from Kent, stepped out into the clear, holding the lantern above him. The light showed a strange spectacle. Kent, watchful, keen, ready as a cat to spring, stood with his eyes fixed upon the distorted face of the half-breed. Terror, rage, overmastering amazement, and the soul-panic of the supernatural glared from the blue-white eyeballs of the negro; but the jaw and chin were set firm in the stoicism of the Indian. In that strange racial conflict of emotions the fiercer finer strain won. Gansett Jim’s frame relaxed. He grunted.

“Good boy, Jim!” Chester Kent’s voice, at the half-breed’s ear, was the voice of one who soothes an affrighted horse. “I didn’t know whether you could stand it or not. You see, you didn’t shoot Mr. Sedgwick, after all.”

“Dun’no what you mean,” grunted Gansett Jim.

“And you mustn’t shoot at him any more,” continued the scientist. The tone was soft as a woman’s; but Sedgwick felt in it the tensity of a man ready for any extreme. Perhaps the half-breed, too, felt the peril of that determination; for he hung his head. “I’ve brought you here to show you why. Pay good heed, now. A man traveling in a wagon was met here, as he says, by a woman—you understand—who questioned him and then went on. He followed the trail through the brush and found the signs of a fight. The fight took place before the death. Here’s the lantern. Take his trail from here.”

Without a word the half-breed snatched the light and plunged into a by-path. After a few minutes of swift going he pulled up short, in an open copse of ash, and set the lantern on the ground. Hound-like, he nosed about the trodden earth. Suddenly he darted across and, seizing Sedgwick’s ankle, lifted his foot, almost throwing him from his balance. Sedgwick wrenched himself free and, with a swinging blow, into which he put all the energy of his repressed wrath, knocked the half-breed flat.

“Hands off, damn you!” he growled.

Gansett Jim got to his feet a little unsteadily. Expectant of a rush, his assailant stood, with weight thrown forward; but the other made no slightest attempt at reprisal. Catching up the lantern, which had rolled from his hand, he threw its light upon Sedgwick’s forward foot. Then he turned away. Kent whistled softly. The whistle had a purring quality of content.

“Not the same as the footprint, eh?” he remarked.

“Footprint too small,” grunted Gansett Jim.

“How many people; two?”

“Three.”

“Three, of course. I had forgotten the circus-wagon man. He came later. But, Jim, you see it wasn’t Mr. Sedgwick.”

“What he follow for?” demanded the other savagely.

“No evil purpose. You can take his trail from the circus wagon and follow that, if you want to satisfy yourself further that he wasn’t here. I’ll let you have the lantern. Only, remember, now! No more shooting at the wrong man!”

The half-breed made no reply.

“And you, Sedgwick. Here’s the destroyer. Do you still want to kill him?”

“I suppose not,” replied the artist lifelessly.

“Since his design was only against your life and not against your picture,” commented Kent with a smile. “Well, our night’s work is done.” Lifting the lantern, he held it in the face of the half-breed. “Jim!”

“Huh?”

“When you really want to know who made those footprints, come and tell me who the body in Annalaka burying-ground is. A trade for a trade. You understand?”

The eyes stared, immovable. The chin did not quiver. Reaching for the lantern, Gansett Jim, now nine of Indian to one of negro, turned away from them to the pathway. “No,” he said stolidly.

As the flicker of radiance danced and disappeared in the forest Sedgwick spoke. “Well, do you consider that we’ve made a friend?”

“No,” answered Chester Kent; “but we’ve done what’s as good. We’ve quashed an enmity.”