With his shoes in his hand, he crept downstairs and started for the beach. He had set out early, because, despite the chill in the air, he wished to take a plunge in the sea to freshen himself up. Brief indeed was the plunge; consequently Dick Colton was in a fair way to reach the rendezvous some minutes before the arrival of the professor.
At Graveyard Point he climbed the cliff and took a long look around. A mist, moving along from east to west, cut off his view in one direction. Descending to the beach, he readily found the spot where Haynes’ body had lain. By way of precaution he made sure that his revolver was in condition for instant use. Although a slight rain had fallen, blurring the writings on the sand, and there had been almost total destruction by the trampling of those who had taken Haynes’ body away, there still was left some material for study. The remains of the five-taloned marks Colton set himself to consider.
Once there came a startling interruption, in the sliding of some gravel down the gully. Pistol in hand, Dick whirled, and for ten monstrously elongated seconds listened to the irregular beats of his heart as he waited. Satisfied at length that it was only a chance avalanche in miniature, he got down on his hands and knees above the plainest of the vestigia. There was the secret, if he only could read it. Had Haynes solved it and met his death at the moment of success? For perhaps two or three minutes the young doctor remained in his crouched posture, his mind immersed in speculation. Then he rose, facing the sea, and as he stood and looked down there came to him a sudden glow of illumination.
“By the heavens! I’ve got it!” he cried.
He started forward to the next mark. As he advanced, something sang in the air behind him. He knew it was some swiftly flying thing; knew in the same agonised moment that the doom of Haynes and Serdholm was upon him: tried to turn and face his death—and then there was a dreadful, grinding shock, a flame with jagged edges tore through his brain, and he fell forward into darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE PROFESSOR ACTS
PROMPTITUDE was one of Professor Ravenden’s many virtues. Only one thing could make him forget the obligation of an engagement; that was his dominant ardour for the hunt. In time this had become an instinct. So it is not strange that, on leaving Third House to keep his rendezvous with Dick Colton, he should have absentmindedly hung his heavy poison-jar for specimens around his neck, and taken up his butterfly net, while entirely forgetting his revolver.
As chance would have it, there rose about the same hour as Professor Ravenden a delicate little butterfly with wings like the azure glory of the mid-June heavens. It was taking the air on a leaf of scrub-oak, while waiting for the sun to come out, when the entomologist came striding over the knolls, and brushed against the shrub. Up fluttered the beautiful insect, and the blue of its wings caught the eager eye of Professor Ravenden. It was of the same species which once before had lured him from the greater pursuit.
“Lycama pseudargiolus,” he muttered, as he hastily affixed his collapsible net. “From its brightness, it should be a fall specimen, and undoubtedly shows the variations on the lower wing which I am studying. Wait one moment, my friend, and I shall welcome you to the hospitality of my cyanide jar.”
After a brief flight the insect settled down well toward the centre of another patch of shrubbery. Having prepared his net, the hunter set about forcing his way into this patch, but before he was in reach of his prey the pressure on the close-knit vegetation had disturbed the sensitive insect and again it rose, this time in alarm. Though barely an inch across the wings, this species exhibits capacities for flight greater than that of much larger butterflies. When again it alighted, the pursuer, panting and perspiring, had been drawn in a semicircular course, some hundreds of yards inland. This time he did not get near enough for a trial of his net before the elusive creature was off again. The third flight was a briefer one. After tentative flutterings, the pseudargiolm alighted on a marshmallow leaf in a hollow. Taking profit of his previous failures, Professor Ravenden sat down and got his breath while waiting for the quarry to lapse into a state of undisturbed quietude. Thus, it was easy presently for the hunter to net it and transfer it to the cyanide jar. This done, he realised with a start of conscience that he had wasted ten minutes, and was a quarter of a mile off the track of his engagement. With all speed, he pointed across the knolls toward the beach.