HOW THEY LAID TRAPS FOR THE DEVIL
The Doctor insisted on taking care of Gard. He took him into his own house at Dixcart, and began at once a course of treatment based on common-sense and the then most scientific attainment, and calculated to repair the waste of the Rock and build him up anew in the shortest time compatible with an efficient and permanent cure.
Even when Gard felt quite himself again and would have returned to his work, the genial autocrat would not hear of it.
"Just you stop here, my boy," he ordered. "An experience such as you have had needs some getting over. You can stand a good rest and some fattening up, and those —— mines must wait."
Meanwhile, the Island was in a smoulder of suspicion and superstition.
No one had yet ventured openly to point the finger at any reasonably possible doer of deeds so dark. Behind carefully closed doors of a night, indeed, here and there a whisper suggested that the Frenchwoman might be at the bottom of it all. But the mistake that had already been made, and the consequences that came so terribly near to completing it beyond repair, made them all cautious of open speech or action.
Gard's story explained the mystery of the dead stranger and relieved the public mind to that extent.
The Sénéchal was disposed to agree with his views on the matter.
"I never heard of those caves on L'Etat," he said musingly, as they sat over their pipes one night; "and I'm sure no one else knew of them. But there was much free-trading round here in the old times, and I've no doubt many a Customs man disappeared and was never heard of again, just like this one. All the Islands felt very sore about the new regulations, and our people stick at nothing when their blood is up."
"They do not," said Gard feelingly.
"I'd like to get into that inner cave," said the Doctor longingly.
"You couldn't," said Gard, looking at his size and girth. "It's a mighty tight squeeze under the slab, and that tunnel would beat you. Unless you've been brought up to that kind of thing, you couldn't stand it. It would give you nightmares for the rest of your life."
"That's a rare lass, that little Nance," said the Sénéchal. "There's some good in Sark after all, Mr. Gard."
"She was an angel to me," said Gard with feeling. "If it had not been for her, I could never have held out. Not for what she brought me, but the fact that she came. But it was terrible to me to think of her coming through that Race. I begged her not to, but she would have her way. Three times she risked her life for me—"
"Three times!" said the Sénéchal. "Ma fé, but she's a garche to be proud of!"
"Ay, and to be more than proud of," said Gard. "She has given me my life, and I will give it all to making her happy."
"I wouldn't swim across to L'Etat for any woman in the world," said the Doctor. "Because, in the first place, I couldn't. She must have nerves of steel, to say nothing of muscles. In the dark, too! And you wouldn't think it to look at her."
"It needed more than nerves or muscles," said Gard quietly.
Not a man among the Islanders—much less a woman—would go anywhere near the Coupée after dark. Even Nance confessed to a preference for daylight passages. And Gard, when he went down into Little Sark for a walk, as part of his cure, could not repress a cold shiver whenever he passed the fatal spot where two men had gone over to their deaths.
All the old wives' tales were dug up and passed along, growing as they went. Little eyes and mouths grew permanently rounded with horrors, and the ground was thoroughly well spaded and planted with sturdy shoots warranted to yield a noisome harvest of superstition for generations to come.
The occupants of Clos Bourel and Plaisance carefully locked their doors of a night now.
Old Mrs. Carré at Plaisance vowed she had heard the White Horses go past, on the nights before Tom Hamon and Peter were found. And every one knew that when the ghostly horses were heard, some one was going to die. But as she had said nothing about it before, her contribution to the general uneasiness was received with respect before her face but with open doubt behind her back.
Old Nikki Never-mind-his-name—lest his descendants, if he had any, take umbrage at the matter—swore that he had not only seen the ghostly steed pass Vauroque in the dead of night, but that it bore a rider whose head was carried carefully in his right hand. Unfortunately, the headless one passed so quickly that Nikki said he could not distinguish his features—having looked for them first in the wrong place—and so he could not say for certain who the next to die would be; but from the knowing wag of his head the neighbours were of opinion that he knew more than he chose to tell, and he gained quite a reputation thereby.
But, even here again, doubts were cast upon the matter by some, especially those who were acquainted with the old gentleman's proclivities towards raw spirits of the material kind that paid the lightest of duties in Guernsey.
All these and very many similar matters were discussed by the Doctor—who disturbed their minds with horrific accounts of homicidal mania taking possession of apparently innocent souls—and the Sénéchal and the Vicar and Stephen Gard, as they sat over their pipes of an evening in the Doctor's house. But chiefly the great and troublesome question of "Who?"
They were all of one mind that the matter must be looked into. The feeling that a danger was loose in the Island, and might at any moment fall upon any man, woman, or child, was past endurance. The suspicion that It might be any one of those they met every day was insufferable.
The only difficulty was to decide how to look into it—what to do, and how.
Each day they feared to hear of some new outrage. But until the perpetrator was discovered they could do nothing towards his suppression. And, on the other hand, it looked as though they could do nothing towards his discovery until he perpetrated some new outrage.
It was Gard who suggested they should watch the Coupée every night, armed, and unknown to any but themselves.
And, after much discussion, following out his idea, he and the Sénéchal and the Doctor, who could bowl over a rabbit as well as any of them, lay in the heather, on the common above the cutting on the Little Sark side, for many nights, guns in hand, and eyes and ears on the strain, but saw and heard nothing.
One night, indeed, when there was a high wind, the Doctor's marrow crawled in his backbone at the sound of groanings and moanings and most dolorous cries for help, coming up out of black Coupée Bay, where they had picked up Tom Hamon's and Peter Mauger's dead bodies.
He sweated cold terrors, for he was on the east headland right above the bay, till the Sénéchal crawled over to him and whispered—
"Hear 'em?"
"Y-y-yes. What the d-d-deuce and all—"
"Knew you'd wonder what it was—"
"W-w-wonder?" chittered the Doctor.
"It's only the wind in the cave at the corner below here—"
"Ah! Thought it must be something of that kind," said the Doctor through his teeth, clenched hard to keep them in order. "Don't wonder folks fight shy of the Coupée. Sounded uncommonly like spirits. Might give some folks the jumps."
On another dark and windy night it was the Sénéchal's turn to get something of a fright.
As he lay in the heather, gun in hand, and well wrapped up in his big cloak, with all his faculties concentrated on the wavering pathway below, it seemed to him that he heard slow heavy footsteps approaching.
His nerves were strung tight. He craned his head to look down into the cutting, when suddenly there came a wild snuffle at the back of his neck, and as he jumped up with a startled yelp, one part anger and nine parts fright, a horse that had grazed down upon him in the darkness, leaped back with a snort and a squeal and disappeared into the night.
"Ga'rabotin! but I thought it was the devil himself," said the Sénéchal, as the others came hurrying up. "Why the deuce can't people tie up their horses as they do their cows? I'll bring it up at the next Chef Plaids"—which consideration restored his shaken equanimity somewhat, and made him feel himself again.
Nothing more came of all their watching, and over a jorum of something hot one night, after they had returned to the Doctor's house, it was himself who said—
"After all, it stands to reason. Some evil-possessed soul seeks victims, and has fixed on the Coupée as the place best fitted for his work. No one now goes near the Coupée at night—ergo, no victims; ergo, no—er—no manifestations."
"H'm! Very clever!" said the Sénéchal, through his pipe. "Where does that leave us, then?"
"We must have a decoy, of course."
"H'm! You'll not get any Sark man to act as decoy to the devil. Besides, they would talk, and that would upset the whole thing."
"What about one of your men, Gard?"
"It's a dangerous game for any man to play, Doctor.... I don't quite see how one could ask it of them,"—and after a pause of concentrated thought and many slow smoke-puffs—"What would you say to me?" and all their eyes settled on him—the Doctor's professionally.
"Surely you have suffered enough in this matter, Mr. Gard," suggested the Vicar.
"I would give a good deal, and do a good deal, to get to the bottom of it all. Things will never settle down properly till this matter is disposed of."
That, of course, was obvious to them all, but all had the same feeling that he had already suffered enough in the matter.
But consideration of the Doctor's suggestion in all its aspects only served to convince them that, if any such scheme was to be carried out, it could only be done among themselves, and its dangers were obvious.
It was not a matter to be lightly undertaken by any man. For whoever undertook the rôle of decoy, undoubtedly took his life in his hands; and they spent many evenings over it.
The Vicar was absolutely against the idea, but had no alternative to suggest.
"It is simply playing with death," said he, "and no man has a right to do that."
"It means a good deal for the Island if we can clear it up," said the Sénéchal.
But, by degrees, they got to discussion of how it might be done, and from that to the actual doing was only a heroic step.
The decoy's head must be well padded, of course, for the heads of both victims had been the points of attack.
He must be well armed also, and being forewarned and more, he ought to be able to give a certain account of himself.
And then the Doctor and the Sénéchal would be close at hand and on the keen look-out for emergencies.
The Doctor undertook to pad his head with something in the nature of a turban under his hat, which, he vowed, would resist the impact of iron blows better than metal itself.
"Leave my ears loose, anyway," said Gard. "I'd like at all events to be able to hear it coming."
The Sénéchal had a weapon, part pistol and the rest blunderbuss, which had belonged to his father, who had always referred to it affectionately as his "dunderbush." It had seen strange doings in its time, but had been so long retired from the active list, that he undertook to load and fire it himself before he said any more about it.
And he did it next day, with a full charge, in his meadow, with the assistance of a gate-post and a long cord, and reported it at night as in excellent order, and calculated to blow into smithereens anything blowable that stood up before it within the short limit of its range.
At this stage in its proceedings the Vicar reluctantly retired from the Committee of Public Safety. He acknowledged the sore need of ending the suspicious and superstitious fears which were beginning to affect the life of the community in various ways. But he could not see his way to any participation in means so dangerous to the life of one of their number as those suggested.
He did his best to dissuade Gard from it. He even reminded him of the duty he owed to Nance. She had undoubtedly saved his life, and she had a premier claim upon his consideration—and so on.
To all of which Gard fully assented.
"But," he said gravely, "we are at a deadlock in this other matter, and it is just barely possible that this plan may clear it all up. I can't say I'm very sanguine that it will. On the other hand, I really don't see that any great harm can come to me. The others probably suffered because they were taken unawares. I shall go in the hope of meeting it, and shall be ready for it. Unless, Vicar, you really think it is the devil or something of that sort?"
"I don't know what to think," said the Vicar solemnly. "I cannot bring myself to believe any of our Sark men would do such dreadful things. I look at each man I meet and say to myself, 'Now, can it be possible it is you?—or you?—or you?'—and it does not seem possible; and yet—"
"And yet some one did it, Vicar," said the Doctor, brusquely, "and that's just the trouble. Until we find out who did it, any man may have done it, and we all look at everybody else, just as you do, and say to ourselves, 'Is it you?—or you?—or you?' Though I'm bound to say I've not got the length yet of doubting either you or the Sénéchal, or Gard, and I don't think it's myself. It might quite conceivably be any one of us, however, prowling about in our sleep and utterly unconscious afterwards of evil-doing."
"A most awful possibility," said the Vicar. "God grant it may turn out differently from that."
"You never know what this inexplicable machine may do," said the Doctor, tapping his head. "However, we'll hope for the best, and I think the Sénéchal and I ought to be able to see Gard through without any very disastrous results. If we succeed, he will deserve better of this Island than any man I know—and a sight more than this Island deserves of him. I quite understand," he said, as Gard looked quickly up. "And it does you credit, my boy; but there are not very many men would do it."
"Well, I'm afraid I must leave you to it," said the Vicar, and did so.