He turned his back upon the gaunt skeleton of the laboratory, and walked round to the further side of the mound. Here the stumps of a rotten post or two showed where a fence had probably surrounded the front garden, now long since overgrown. Beyond the posts a white thread caught the Professor’s eye, and he made his way up to it. It was a narrow track, apparently disused for years, and had no doubt once been the path by which the cottage was approached.
In one direction it led towards the railway line by which the Professor had approached the place, and rejoined the line lower down than the point at which he had left it. He started to walk down the track, with a muttered exclamation of satisfaction. By following it he might add a yard or two to his journey, but it would save him a slow and tiresome trudge through the heather in the gathering darkness. Of his ability to find his way back to the inn he had no doubt. He had only to follow the railway line backwards until the lights of the village came in sight, and then strike across country till he reached them, even if he missed the lane by which he had come.
The Professor had not gone very far before he stopped dead, and bent down to examine the narrow white strip beneath his feet. He felt in his pocket, and struck a match, which he held close to the surface of the path. It was a still, windless evening, and the flame of the match burnt clear and unflickering, illuminating a narrow circle of fine, white sand. Across the centre of this patch, following the path upon which the Professor stood, ran the sharp and unmistakable imprint of a bicycle tyre.
Somehow the discovery made the Professor’s pulses beat quicker than before. This apparently deserted track was in use, then, despite its overgrown appearance. No doubt it formed a short cut between two spots upon the heath, such as a pit and a clay-worker’s cottage. This was the obvious explanation, but to the Professor’s mind it seemed unsatisfactory. He had studied the map very carefully that afternoon, and knew roughly the location of every human habitation marked upon it. And this particular track seemed to run in the wrong direction to connect up with any of these. Was it possible that somebody beside himself was interested in the ruined cottage which he had just left?
He threw the match away, and strode forward briskly in the direction of the railway line, which he calculated must now be less than a quarter of a mile ahead. He had an uncanny feeling that the rider of the bicycle might have been concealed close at hand while he was investigating the ruins, that he himself might have been the object of close observation all the time he had believed himself to be alone in the vast emptiness of the heath. It was an uncomfortable and a disturbing thought, and the Professor pushed on rapidly, grasping his stick tightly. Of course it was absurd, he was not the least likely to be molested. But he could not keep his mind from drawing ugly pictures of the dark thickets, of those deep, black pools, so admirably adapted as a hiding place for a murdered body——
And then, all of a sudden, with an abruptness which fell upon his ears like a blow, the Professor heard a bell ring sharply behind him. He spun round in his tracks, raising his stick instinctively, as though in self-defence. Coming along the path behind him was a tall figure on a bicycle, indistinguishable but for its outline in the swiftly-falling night. The slight mist magnified it to inhuman proportions.
Dr. Priestley stepped back into the heather, and waited for the figure to approach him. As it came nearer he began to distinguish details one by one. It was a man, dressed apparently in trousers and jersey, with a seaman’s cap upon his head. The Professor felt a sudden feeling of relief. No doubt this was a man from one of the stone barges which came up to Goathorn Pier to load stone or clay. He would no doubt join the railway, and follow the track beside it down to the pier. He could see the man’s features by now, or such of them as were not hidden by the mass of black beard, which grew up in whiskers on either side of his face until it was lost beneath his cap. And then, with a sudden recollection of a certain vivid description which Hanslet had given him, the Professor realized that the man had an angry-looking scar extending the whole length of his right cheek. Even as he realized the significance of the man’s appearance, he had dismounted from his bicycle, and stood confronting the Professor.
“Good evening, Dr. Priestley,” he said pleasantly, but in a curiously harsh and strained voice. And, at the words, the Professor knew that this was indeed the Black Sailor.
Chapter XVIII.
The Avenger
The Black Sailor stood in the middle of the path, leaning on his bicycle and looking at Dr. Priestley with a faint smile of amusement in his eyes. The Professor, for his part, stood his ground and waited for what might come next. He understood quite well that any attempt to escape would be pure folly. If it came to a chase across the heather, the sailor would overtake him in half a dozen strides. And as for shouting for help—well, the nearest inhabited house was nearly two miles away.