II
Five minutes later, East and I set out across the moor, leaving Miss Baird at the cottage. By reason of the lonely situation, and the fact that the nearest house, The Warrens, was fully a mile and a half away, no other arrangement was possible, since delay could not be entertained.
East had managed to glean some few important facts. Sir Jeffrey, whose museum at The Warrens was justly celebrated, had been to London that day to attend an auction at Sotheby’s. His Greek secretary, Mr. Damopolon, and his daughter had accompanied him. Returning by train to Stanby, the nearest station, Miss Baird had called upon friends in the village (Mr. Damopolon had remained in London on business), and Sir Jeffrey had set out in the dusk to walk the two miles to The Warrens; for the car was undergoing repairs.
Pursuing the same path later in the evening, the girl had come upon the body of her father in the dramatically dreadful manner already related. He had no enemies, she declared, or none known to her. She did not believe that her father was carrying a large sum of money, nor—although she had scarcely trusted herself to look at him—did she believe that robbery had been the motive of the crime.
Sir Jeffrey had been carrying a large parcel containing one of his purchases, and I remembered, as we silently pursued our way to the scene of the murder, how East’s keen eyes had seemed to dance with excitement when Miss Baird, in reply to a question, had told us what this parcel contained. It was a large figure, in blue porcelain, of a sacred ape, and was of Burmese or Chinese origin; she was uncertain which.
Her father had apparently attached great importance to this strange purchase, and had elected to bear it home in person rather than to trust it to railway transport.
“Did you notice if this parcel was there,” East had inquired eagerly, “when you discovered him?”
Miss Baird had shaken her head in reply.
And now we were come to Black Gap, a weird feature in a weird landscape. This was a great hole in the moor, having high clay banks upon one side descending sheer to the tarn, and upon the other being flanked by low, marshy ground about a small coppice. The road from Stanby to The Warrens passed close by the coppice on the south-east.
Regarding this place opinions differed. By some it was supposed to be a natural formation, but it was locally believed to mark the site of an abandoned mine, possibly Roman. Its depth was unknown, and the legend of the coach which lay at the bottom, and which could be seen under certain favourable conditions, has found a place in all the guide-books to that picturesque and wild district.
Whatever its origin, Black Gap was a weird and gloomy spot as one approached and saw through the trees the gleam of the moonlight on its mystic waters. And here, passing a slight southerly bend in the track—for it was no more—we came upon Sir Jeffrey.
He lay huddled in a grotesque and unnatural attitude. His right hand was tightly clenched, whilst with his left he clutched a tuft of rank grass. Strangely enough, his soft hat was still upon his head. His tweed suit, soft collar and, tie all bore evidence of the fierce struggle which the old baronet had put up for his life. A quantity of torn brown paper lay scattered near the body.
I dropped on my knees and made a rapid examination, East directing the ray of a pocket-lamp upon the poor victim.
“Well?” rapped my friend.
“He was struck over the head by some heavy weapon,” I said slowly, “and perhaps partly stunned. His hat protected him to a degree, and he tackled his assailant. Death was actually due, I should say, to strangulation. His throat is very much bruised.”
East made no reply. Glancing up from my gruesome task, I observed that he was looking at a faint track, which, commencing amid the confused marks surrounding the body, led in the direction of the coppice. East’s steely eyes were widely opened.
“In heaven’s name, what have we here!” he said.
A kindred amazement to that which held East claimed me, as I studied more closely the mysterious tracks.
The spot where Sir Jeffrey had fallen was soft ground, whereon the lightest footstep must have left a clear impression. Indeed, around the recumbent figure the ground showed a mass of indistinguishable marks. But proceeding thence, as I have said, in the direction of the neighbouring coppice, was this faint trail.
“It looks,” I said, in a voice hushed with something very like awe, “it looks like the track of ... a child!”
“Look again!” snapped East.
I stooped over the first set of marks. Clearly indented, I perceived the impressions of two small, bare feet, and, eighteen or twenty inches ahead, those of two small hands. I experienced a sudden chill; my blood seemed momentarily to run coldly in my veins, and I longed to depart from the shadow of the trees, from the neighbourhood of the Black Gap, and from the neighbourhood of the man who had died there. For it seemed to me that a barefooted infant had recently crawled from the side of the dead man into the coppice overhanging the tarn.
Looking up, I found East’s steely eyes set upon me strangely.
“Well!” said he, “do you not miss something that you anticipated finding?”
I hesitated, fearfully. Then:
“Sir Jeffrey carries no cane,” I began——
“Good! I had failed to note that. Good! But what else?”
Closely I surveyed the body, noting the disarranged garments, the discoloured face.
“What of this torn brown paper?” snapped my friend.
“Good heavens!” I cried; and like a flash my glance sought again those mysterious tracks—those tracks of something that had crawled away from the murdered man.
“Where,” inquired East deliberately, “is the Burmese porcelain ape of which we have heard? And, since there are no tracks approaching the body, where did the creature come from that made those retiring from it, and ... what manner of creature was it?”