Mr. Marx's Secret

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

We were in the middle of this dreary region. Mr. Marx was still smoking his cigar, but with closed eyes, and was either dozing or deep in thought. I, with my share of the fur rug wrapped closely around my knees, was trying in vain to sleep—in vain, for my head was still in a whirl, after what had been for me such an exciting day.

Exciting though it had been, however, its close was to be more so. Suddenly, without the least warning, we felt a sharp jerk, and heard the coachman calling out to his horses, who were plunging furiously. Mr. Marx and I both leaned forward, and, just as we did so, there was a tremendous crash of breaking glass, and, through the splintered carriage window, on the side nearest to him, came a heavy piece of rock, followed by a confused mass of stones and gravel and other débris.

Mr. Marx leapt to his feet, with his hand on the door handle and the blood streaming from his forehead. Before he could open the door, however, a strange thing happened. Outside, half visible through the remains of the glass and half without any intervening obstruction, flashed for one single second the white, ghastly face of a man peering in upon us. It came and went so swiftly that I could gain only the very faintest idea of the features; but with Mr. Marx it seemed to be otherwise. Like a flash of lightning, a look passed across his face which has never died out of my memory. Every feature seemed to be dilated and shaken with a spasmodic agony of horrified recognition. For a moment he seemed struck helpless, with every power of movement and every nerve numbed. Then a low cry, such as I have never before or since heard from human throat, burst from his shaking lips and his right hand tore open his coat and sought his breast-pocket.

The door of the carriage burst open as he sprang into the road like a wild animal, and long streaks of fire flashed from the gleaming revolver which he grasped in his hand—a lurid illumination which gave me sudden glimpses of his white, bleeding face as he stood in the road, firing barrel after barrel into the darkness.

I jumped out and hurried to his side, looking eagerly around into the dark night and together we stood and listened in a breathless silence. Across the wild, open moor the wind came rushing towards us with a deep booming sound, and among the bare tree tops of a small plantation before us we heard it shrieking and yelling like the hellish laughter of an army of witches. The ink-black clouds lowering close above our heads were dissolving in a mad torrent of rain, and the darkness was so intense that, although we could hear the frantic plunging of the horses behind us, we could neither see them nor the carriage. The elements seemed to have declared themselves on the side of our mysterious assailant. The blackness of the night and the roaring of the wind and rain blotted out all our surroundings and deadened all sound save their own.

“Wait here!” cried Mr. Marx, in a harsh, unnatural tone. And before I could open my mouth he had vanished out of sight and it seemed as though the black, yawning darkness had swallowed him up.

For a while I stood without moving. Then a cry for help from the coachman behind and the renewed sound of struggling horses reminded me of their plight, and I groped my way back to the road again.

I was only just in time. The horses, fine, powerful creatures, very nearly thoroughbred, were perfectly mad with fright, and the groom, who had been holding and striving to subdue them, was quite exhausted. Between us we managed to pacify them after a brief struggle, and as soon as I could find sufficient breath I began to question Burdett—who had stuck to his place on the box like an immovable statue—about the first cause of their alarm.

“What was it they shied at first?” I asked. “Did you see anyone?”

“Just catched a glimpse of the blackguard, sir, and that was all,” Burdett answered. “We were a-spinning along beautiful, for they knew as they were on their way home, them animals did, when, all of a sudden like, Dandy shies, and up goes the mare on her hind legs and as near as possible pitches me into the road. I slackened the reins and laid the whip across them, while Tom jumped down. And just then I saw a figure in the middle of the road and heard a crash through the carriage window. Tom, he’d catched hold of their heads by then, which was lucky; for when the firing began they was like mad creatures and I could never have held them. It’s a mercy we aren’t altogether smashed up, and no mistake. The Lord save me from ever being out wi’ my ’osses again on such a night as this!”