The House of Strange Secrets: A Detective Story

by A. Eric Bayly

With Laurence's assistance he alighted and entered the Manse, where the aged butler, Kingsford, was dozing in the hall. He was then conducted to his chamber, and there helped into bed and dosed with a strong brandy-and-soda specially mixed for him by his son.

By this time it was nearly half-past one in the morning, and Laurence Carrington would have been quite justified in retiring to bed. Nevertheless, after leaving his father's bedroom he crept downstairs, much to the butler's astonishment, and, donning an overcoat and a strong pair of boots, made his way out of the house.

The rain had now stopped—a fact that seemed to please him much; not because he would have minded a four-mile trudge in the pouring wet, but because he would now be more likely to discover traces of the mysterious cyclist's tyre-marks in the muddy road that skirts the North Moor. For the rain, had it continued in a downpour similar to that at the time of the strange affair of an hour before, would undoubtedly have blotted out any tracks that the highwayman must have made in effecting his hasty departure.

Whistling to keep up his spirits as he went, Laurence strode on at a quick pace towards the scene of the attack. The wind was howling across the heath and the unearthly noises that accompany any storm were such as might well have unnerved a less determined man than Carrington, particularly after the weird adventures he had gone through.

By the light of the moon, which was now shining brightly, he had no difficulty in discovering the exact spot at which the carriage had stopped, while his own footprints and those of the coachman, as well as the hoof-marks of the restive horses, were distinctly visible. With ease, too, he lighted on the thin track made by the stranger's bicycle wheel, but at first was much puzzled at finding that this trail lay on both sides of the road. Then he recollected that the rider must have left these distinct traces behind him both when on his way to the place where he had "held up" the coach and when hastening away on being repulsed by Moggin and himself. Therefore he concluded that, by following the double tracks, one on either side of the lonely road, he would not only discover whence the unknown man had come, but also whither he had disappeared. For a good mile he trudged on, never taking his eyes off the pattern impressed on the surface of the road. He had now reached a village, the only one lying between the house at which the ball had been and that where he lived, and from which he had just come.

Half-way along the main street running through this village a branch road starts off to the left. To his delight, Laurence was able to trace the cycle tracks round the corner of and into this branch road, and once again did he start on, strong on the scent of his father's attempted murderer (for the idea that the cycling highwayman had fired at him never entered his head).

On and on did Laurence walk, the mud and water squelching under his feet, until the road again broke off into two lanes.

"Hallo!" he cried half aloud, "the stranger must be something of a neighbour to us," for the tracks in the mud betrayed to him the fact that his quarry had taken the lane which is one and a long way round to the Manse and the village of Northden, in which it stands. As he drew nearer and nearer to his home Laurence's amazement and excitement (if such a term may be used under the circumstances) increased correspondingly. Would the midnight stranger prove to be one of his father's own simple villagers? he asked himself. He had not even caught a glimpse of the stranger's face, so could not answer.

He was now actually in the village of Northden, yet the marks, both coming and going, remained. Was he mistaken in any way? he wondered, but the idea of such a possibility had barely been dismissed from his mind as absurd when he suddenly stopped short. And why?

Because, without the slightest swerve or mark in the slush, both tracks stopped abruptly, and, however vigilantly he searched, he could not discover any further sign or clue to the manner of the disappearance of the mysterious bicyclist.