Chapter I: Go Fishing (3)

"It happens to be one of those special revolvers which are built to make as slight a report as possible. I know the pattern. The sound carries practically no distance. If Crowfoot carries that revolver habitually it is because he has good reason to be afraid of someone, and he wouldn't have used it without serious cause."

"Have you any idea," asked Herrick, "what Freeman wanted to see you about tonight?"

"Yes," I said slowly, "I have. You know the night you came down here, Jack? It was Freeman who was the most determined to sift that ghost story to the bottom, if you remember. From all accounts, he is not the young man to take half-way measures in a thing that concerns his sweetheart. I think that he has been working on his own initiative, that he found out something, and it was about that that he wanted to see me. He made the appointment for after dark, at an hour when he was not likely to be seen coming or going from my house, and he even took the precaution of coming by way of the woods. Someone had an interest in preventing him from keeping the appointment. They watched him to the Sliefers' house, and laid up for him by the sluice, which he would have to cross on his way to me."

"You mean Crowfoot himself?"

"Crowfoot wasn't here at the time of the ghost scare, and he didn't know of Freeman's appointment tonight. Moreover, I don't think he had even an idea who the man was till you flashed your lamp on him. Remember it was pretty dark there. But two people might have known of it. They were both in the store at the time. One was Mr. Haskell, whom I think we may dismiss immediately. The other was Aaron Menning."

"Aaron Menning...." There was that in Herrick's tone that confirmed instantly my own conclusions. "Then if that's so, Aaron Menning is at the bottom of the ghost business, and of the whole Dutchman's Hill story. Aaron, the pious chapel member! But why in heaven's name----?"

"There's a streak of insanity in the whole family," I said. "Don't forget that Jakey was said to be half crazy. Aaron has the look of a criminal degenerate. How on earth he has maintained his reputation in the village so long I can't think. He is cunning and malicious, if no worse."

"I'd like to know just what hold that type of man could have over Crowfoot," Herrick said. "Crowfoot comes in somewhere. If it was Aaron pushed Freeman over, what reason could Crowfoot have for shielding him deliberately? There's more behind it yet than we can lay hand on."

There was, but our plans for finding out were destined to receive a rude shock in the morning.

About two o'clock I left Herrick on the couch and went to take Mrs. Sliefer's place upstairs. Against my will I half dozed in the chintz-covered arm-chair, and through my brain there chased puzzling dreams in which Herrick and I were trying feverishly to conceal George Freeman's body in the mill-dam, while Crowfoot, continually changing and rechanging into the likeness of Aaron, leapt up and down from the dizzy heights of a butternut tree and chattered at us angrily as he sprang.

Herrick was already drinking coffee when I came downstairs. Rebecca had brought it in, and with it a note addressed to me.

I broke it open. There was a second bulkier envelope inside with the note. Both note and address were printed in small neat capitals, such as a child might use.

"MY DEAR HAVERILL,

"I REGRET THAT I HAVE BEEN OBLIGED TO LEAVE FOR THE CITY BY AN EARLY TRAIN, AND SO MUST POSTPONE THE PLEASURE OF MEETING YOU AND YOUR FRIEND AGAIN TILL A LATER DATE.

"ALEXANDER CROWFOOT."

On the second envelope was printed:

"TO BE OPENED ONLY IF NOT RECLAIMED WITHIN THREE DAYS."

"Stung!" said Herrick.

XVI