THE SCARECROW RIDES (6 page)

“Here in Dymchurch. The inn by the great sluice gates. I've a room
in the long white cottage that lies alongside, and what's more, I've
lived there all my life.”

“And what's more, you'll go on living there all your life,” retorted
the stranger, “until such time as it pleases me to send you to the
gallows, for if you try to slip your cables without my leave, I'll have
the constables on your heels for this night's murder, and get this
clear in your head. Just as you have lived here all your life, so am I
going to live here the rest of mine, and since I am all for peace and
quiet and we are likely to be neighbors, you can take it that I shall
keep a weather eye upon you, Mister Merry Murderer.”

“But what are you going to do now?” asked Merry.

“About this murder do you mean? At present, nothing.”

“Until you've got rid of that money belt, eh?” he sneered.

“I see that we must cultivate a mutual understanding, Mister Merry,”
returned the other with a smile. “And in order to do so, I would ask
you to take a good look at me.”

“I shall not forget you, though I never saw you again,” growled
Merry.

“Good,” laughed the stranger, “but I must point out in my own
defence that appearances are against me. You see a long-faced gentleman
with something of a high forehead, and by this fitful light of the moon
you may have noticed a certain rakishness in his appointments. His hat,
as he himself can feel, has been cocked, by rough passage, into a
disreputable angle. In one hand he fondles a brandy flask, and in the
other, which as you see, he now removes from his pocket, is grasping a
particularly ugly-looking knife—your knife. If this gentleman, in whom
you are so interested, were to stand up, you would realise that he is
more than commonly tall, that his arms are long in the reach and his
legs, though thin, possessed of a stalking stride, perhaps ungainly,
but yet able to cover the ground swiftly and silently. His general
slimness is deceptive, so I am sure you will own, for his limbs are
framed of living steel. Already he begins to sound an ugly customer,
eh? And when we add to this description your knowledge that he is
willing to compound with a murderer and keep secret a foul crime, your
moral opinion may be further prejudiced against him. But that, Mister
Merry, is where you make a grand mistake, for this gentleman, who has
got you like the devil, stuck through the gizzard with a white-hot fork
and about to toast you to his taste, has, in truth, stricter morals
than the average. For example, the belt you mention. It contains
seventy-nine gold guineas; I have not counted them, but I take the
captain's word for it. I take it also that here in Dymchurch there will
be poor widows who could put that money to better use than you.
Therefore, I keep it and shall see that they use it. I shall also keep
your knife, and woe betide you if I hear that you are possessed of
another.”

“Oh, stop talking,” hissed Merry, “and answer yes or no to my
question. Are you handing me over to the magistrates or are you not?”

The stranger smiled. “Hand you over to the magistrates? I think even
you would not be so stupid as to make such a step necessary. You see,
Mr. Merry, I am not without my selfishness and I fail to see why I
should wantonly throw away such service as you must pay me. Whether
your service will be hard or easy, I cannot tell, but it exists from
now on, until you wish me to put a rope around your neck. And make no
mistake that should such circumstance arise, I cannot safeguard myself.
I assure you that I shall not be blamed when you appear at the
Assizes.”

While the stranger was speaking, he could not fail to notice the
look of relief which had spread over the wretch's face beneath him, so
that he was not surprised at the next question.

“I am a man of few words,” said Merry, “and may be pardoned for not
grasping the meaning of a gentleman with such a gift of the gab as
yourself. But do I take it then that you force me to serve you and that
you are not going to hand me over to the magistrates?”

“My good and murderous friend, it was not the magistrates you tried
to murder, but me,” replied the stranger. “I fail to see why I should
not take advantage of my own misfortunes. It was to me a grave
misfortune to witness the murder of my friend the captain, and it would
have been a further mishap if my own quickness had not saved my own
poor life. A dead man, swinging is only serviceable to the crows and
rooks that nest above the gallows. To see you as a picked corpse is
small compensation to me for the shocking reception I sustained at your
hands, but as a strong living slave, as one who must willy-nilly do my
bidding—why, there is every chance that I shall exact full
compensation for your wrong-doing. And I take it that we now see eye to
eye and that you agree? Very well. Now, tell me. Does a Cobtree still
rule at the Court House here?”

“Aye, Sir Antony Cobtree. He's chief magistrate now.”

“Then Sir Charles is dead, I take it, for he was never the man to
retire.”

“That was his trouble. He wouldn't retire even from hunting. Broke
his neck after the fox he did.”

“Well, there's a worse way of breaking your neck than that,” replied
the stranger with an ominous gesture. “And how long ago was this
tragedy?”

“Ten or twelve years,” explained Merry. “Twelve it was, as Doctor
Pepper said he'd been here twelve the other day. He's the physician and
when Sir Antony took over his father's place of New Hall and was sworn
in at the Court House, he let Doctor Pepper come to live at Grove
House, where he'll stay till Master Dennis wants a home of his own in
Dymchurch.”

“Master Dennis—the son?”

“Aye—there's three daughters growin' up and now at last a son born
a month or two back.”

“Well, with all respect to the late squire, I rejoice to learn that
my old college friend Tony is now the King's Authority upon the Marsh,
and the sooner the tide allows us to visit him the better shall I be
pleased.”

“But there's no need to wait for the tide,” corrected Merry. “Here's
steps up to the sea-wall.”

The stranger pulled the rope attached to Merry's wrists. “But here's
my baggage, on the end of this cord. The captain helped me to heave it
overboard. It is waterproof, but I was not so sure of it being
fireproof. The silver key which you ignored belongs to it. When the
water goes out a little further you will wade in and lift it from the
sand. You will also carry it to the Court House. It will be your first
service.

“And now listen, Mr. Merry, I shall never ask you to do the
impossible. Unless it is absolutely necessary, I shall never ask you to
do even the difficult, and it may chance that I may never even ask you
to do the easy, but whatever, whenever, and wherever I do ask, you will
do it—or swing for Mister Ketch. So long as I am sure of your service,
you will find me not only a good master but even a good friend, so for
your own sake you'd best pocket your pride and make a show of liking
me. Understand?”

“Well, I know when I'm beat,” growled Merry. “You've got the best of
me at the moment—”

“At the moment?” repeated the stranger savagely. “I've got the best
of you for ever, and I'll keep the best of you for ever, for unless I
have the best of you, the crows shall have the last of you. And now up
on your feet and let us wind in this rope till it's taut. You're wet
enough, and so am I, to bid defiance to further wading. But I'm hungry,
thirsty and tired, and I dare swear you can say the same and add
'disappointed.' When my sea-chest is safe at New Hall of the Court
House, I'll expend one of the captain's guineas on you, for after all,
the widows know nothing of their windfall yet, and so can hardly miss
it. A guinea will give you the price of a good hot supper, plenty of
drink, and treatment for your head, payment against loss of a good
knife and give you the means to be generous to your friends besides.
Have you any friends? I hardly think so.”

Merry got to his feet with some groaning occasioned by the wound to
his head and the black hate in his heart. He followed his new master
across the rough boulders to the level beach. He could do nothing else,
for the stranger was pulling on the rope that had been so tightly
fastened round his wrists, and each tug seemed to accentuate the pain
in his head. At the water's edge the stranger stopped and gathered in
the slack of the rope.

“The great wave was a help to you,” said the stranger, as soon as
the rope was taut. “It carried the chest further than one could have
hoped, otherwise, you might have had a long vigil before reaching it.
But we must wait even now until the water is only to your waist.”

Merry, being sullen, sombre and suspicious and avoiding speech when
possible, gave the impression to most that he was slow in movement and
dull in the brain, but this was not so. He could shift when it suited
him, and think quickly too. He was thinking quickly now. Never would he
be safe while this mysterious stranger lived. And never would a safer
opportunity arise than now for killing him. He was the only one in
Dymchurch who knew of his safe landing. The beach was deserted, for
between them and the villagers was the wreck, and they were waiting to
board her from the further side. The stranger dead, Merry would win
back the captain's guineas as well as the stranger's money belt, which
promised to be the more valuable, and then there was the rope attached
to the submerged sea-chest with the silver key around his victim's
neck. Such a chance was a gift from the devil himself and he must take
it. The thought of a hand to hand fight was dismissed. The stranger had
taken his knife and he had experienced cruel proof of his physical
strength, and what could he do with his hands tied.

The pain in the back of his skull gave him the likeliest notion. A
similar crack on the stranger's head with a heavy stone would knock him
out and then he could finish the business with the knife. But in
casting about for a likely stone, the devil showed him a handier
weapon. This was a broken billet torn by the waves from a wooden
breakwater. In size it resembled a belaying pin, and its end was
weighted with an iron plate from which protruded a heavily studded
clamp bolt.

Covering his movement with a blasphemous oath against an
uncomfortable sea-boot, Merry stooped, pretended to adjust the boot in
question, and rose up again with the likely weapon in hand and hit it
in the fold of his coat. The moment was ripe, for the stranger had not
turned round, but was engrossed on the hidden sea-chest, flapping the
rope upon the surface of the waves in an endeavor to locate its lie.
Merry approached behind his back, slowly and stealthily.

Reasoning that the stranger had not got eyes at the back of his head
and was therefore ignorant of his silent advance, he ignored the fact
that he was following in his footsteps, and had he known the man he was
about to attack a little better, he would have been sure that the
'likely weapon' had not escaped his eye. Indeed, the stranger had
expected that Merry would stoop for it, and smiled grimly to himself at
the string of oaths against the innocent sea-boot. Although he had not
got eyes at the back of his head, his alert instincts told him just
exactly when Merry was crossing the danger line, and then changing the
rope to his left hand, he whipped Merry's knife from his pocket and
balanced it in the palm of his hand, so that the moonlight shone on the
blade.

“Nice knife, this of yours, Mister Merry,” he said, without turning
round. The glint on the blade and the suspicion of a threat beneath the
words made Merry stand still. “Sharp and on the whole well-balanced,
though a trifle heavy in the blade to my thinking. But not bad. Oh, no
damme, not at all bad.” And as he spoke he sent it spinning up into the
air and caught it neatly by the handle. This he did not once, but many
times, and at each toss the knife seemed to soar a trifle higher than
the last and each time the knife was in the air Merry did some quick
thinking and mental timing.

“The devil save us,” laughed Merry, with what affability he could
muster. “That's a pretty trick, mister. And where did you come by
that?”

“A keen eye and a quick hand,” replied the other pleasantly. “I find
there's little one cannot do if you set your mind on it.”

“I calls it wonderful,” said Merry.

“Nonsense,” laughed the stranger. “You must keep your mind on it,
naturally. And for a high cast more than ever, for should the blade get
you, it would get you with some force.”

“And about how high can you toss it?” asked Merry, scarcely able to
conceal the pleasure at his own cleverness.

“In the sunlight I have caught a knife falling from the height of a
church steeple,” boasted the stranger.

“I can hardly credit that,” scoffed Merry. “It's easy to brag in the
light of the moon about what you do in the sunlight.”

“I'll not be accused of bragging without an attempt at proving my
words,” retorted the other, with some annoyance. “As you say, there's
moonlight, and it's clear enough. I have been something of a thorn in
your flesh so far, Mister Merry, that I feel it would be scurvy of me
not to amuse you. I can't promise to judge exactly the height of a
steeple, but I'll throw it as high as I can, and your eyes shall judge
whether I catch or no.”

The stranger took off his three-cornered hat, much to the
satisfaction of Merry, who had not liked the look of it covering his
target. The stranger dropped it on to the sand beside the rope and then
looking up began to move the knife up and down.

“Keep your eyes skinned on it, Mister Merry,” he enjoined.

“I will,” laughed Merry, coming nearer as though in interest.

“One, two three and UP.” The stranger had crouched and shot up, and
away went the knife into the sky. Merry saw it go and then forgot it.
He was watching the other's bent-back head. A perfect target.