In Queer Street

by Fergus Hume

"No, there ain't, sir, unless you can call that tramp a clue. He did ask Betsy Jane at the Bull where the Gipsy Stile was, and the old Squire was found there some hours later as dead as mutton. But since then no one's clapped eyes on him, and I don't suppose, sir, as any one ever will."

"Do you think the tramp murdered the Squire?"

"Lord, sir, how do I know!" cried Mrs. Bell in a panic. "I hev enough to do in the house without thinking of murders. But they do say as Squire Evans was a hard man on poachers, as Giles knows, he having got into trouble over a pheasant. It might be, sir, as that tramp was one of them poachers, and done for the Squire. Though to be sure," added the woman, rubbing her nose in a perplexed way, "if he was a poacher hereabouts some one would hev knowed him, and he wouldn't hev had to ask Betsy Jane of the Bull where the stile was. It's my opinion, that for all Miss Gwen's trying she'll never find out who killed her father. And they do say as if the murderer ain't found it won't be any great grief to them as knowed old Mr. Evans."

"What kind of a girl is Miss Evans?" asked Hench irrelevantly.

"Ah!" cried Mrs. Bell, nursing her hands under her apron. "Now they do say, sir, as I knows myself, as she's as nice a young lady as you ever set eyes on. Lovely I call her, and small like me, though quite a lady, which I ain't. She's as loved as her father was hated, and they do say as that's saying a great deal. I do assure you, sir, as we'd rather hev Miss Gwen for the head of the place than this new young Squire, as comes from no one knows where!"

Hench had many conversations about these matters with Mrs. Bell, and gradually came to know a great deal during the next few days. His uncle, it appeared, had been very unpopular, while Gwen was the reverse. Generally, it was quite believed amongst the ancients of the village that the Squire had been murdered by the unknown tramp, who was a poacher, and the verdict was that it served the dead man right, because he was always so hard on the poor. Owain was tolerably sure that the Cookley people would have been quite sorry had the presumed criminal been arrested. But as he was the person in question, he was glad that they had not been troubled to mourn in this way. All the same, in spite of all his questioning, he was unable to learn anything likely to show who had met Squire Evans in Parley Wood. So far his mission to Cookley had proved a complete failure.

Then Destiny intervened to conduct him a step further on the dark path, which was leading him he knew not where. Towards the end of the week, and when he was beginning to feel safer and more at home in the village, he had an adventure, the consequences of which were far-reaching. Owain had gone for a long walk into the surrounding country, and was returning leisurely under the many-coloured glories of the sunset. The weather was warm, the road was dusty, and he paused by a stile to remove his straw hat and allow the breeze to cool his heated brow. Before him was the church, round the square ivy-clothed tower of which the jackdaws were flying; to the right was the road, melting almost imperceptibly into the narrow village street, while to the left ran the same road curving abruptly round a corner into the agricultural lands. So dangerous was this bend in the highway that it was marked with one of those red triangles elevated on a post to warn motorists and cyclists not to move at too great a pace. The injunction was very much needed, and never more so than in the present instance.

Hench leaned idling against the stile enjoying the beauty of the evening and the picturesque character of the landscape. He could not see very far, as the place was muffled with hawthorn hedges and tall trees, but there was a quiet domestic loveliness about the prospect which soothed his tormented soul. Suddenly his eye was caught by a moving figure in the porch of the church, which was under the west window. It was that of a slender girl, not very tall, but singularly graceful. As she came down the path towards the lychgate, he saw that she had a beautiful face, aristocratic in its looks and rather pensive in its expression. Arrayed in white, and with a white sunshade, she stepped daintily through the gate and out on to the dusty road, turning her face towards the village, whither she was evidently going. But scarcely had she taken three steps when a motor-car, without warning, swept swiftly round the dangerous corner. The girl was directly in his path, and although Hench shouted at once, she did not step aside. In fact she seemed to be puzzled by his cry, until the noise of the approaching machine struck her ear. Then she wheeled suddenly and stood where she was, paralysed with fright. Hench saw that in a second she would be cut down and be crushed under those cruel wheels, so plunged suddenly forward and dashed across the roadway to thrust her out of the way. So impetuous was his onset that she was tumbled back into the hedge girdling the churchyard, and Hench himself fell sprawling in the dust. With a whirr, the motor passed and he felt a sharp pain in his ankle. The next moment the car was buzzing at top-speed through the village, its driver evidently afraid of prosecution for neglecting to sound his horn. Meanwhile the girl gathered herself up out of the hedge, and Owain lay still on the highway. The whole event lasted less than a minute--the girl being saved, the man being hurt in the twinkling of an eye. And in the same twinkling of an eye the car had vanished into the unknown.

"Oh!" The young lady hurried towards her preserver. "Are you hurt?"

"My ankle," gasped Hench, sitting up with an effort; "it's giving me a warm time--a wheel went over it, I think--probably it is broken!" and he winced with the pain.