THE SCARECROW RIDES (8 page)

“Poor lass,” said the stranger. “Crying out for her husband, I
suppose?”

“Oh, she was sweet on Abel right enough,” went on the footman. “For
a married pair they were a regular brace of turtle doves. Which only
seems to make it the more strange.”

“Make what more strange?” asked the stranger.

“Why, that she didn't. Cry out for her husband, I mean. Instead, she
gets the horrors. Keeps clutching her ladyship and pointing about the
room. A nice room it is too. One of the best of our guest chambers. The
squire's like that, sir. Always the best for Dymchurch folk in
distress. Nothing the matter with the room except what she seemed to
make of it. Kept screaming out that the devil was in the room, and what
was very strange, and I had it from one of the chambermaids who was
waiting in the passage, the devil she saw weren't like the one in
church with a forked tail and pointed ears, but kept changing, first
one and then t'other.”

“One and t'other what—who?” asked the bewildered stranger.

“Well, now the devil would look like a wooden giant climbing over
the sea-wall and then who do you think?”

The stranger shook his head. The footman looked back at Merry, who
still stood beside the chest.

“Perhaps this man, with your permission sir, could tell you?”

“Was it—me?” demanded Merry fiercely.

“Aye, it was,” returned the footman just as savagely. “'Keep him
away from me. It's that Merry trying to get me,' and suchlike ravings.
What's more, the quire heard it himself and so did Dr. Pepper, let
alone her ladyship and the Miss Cobtrees. What you've been up to
scaring the girl, I don't know, but my advice to you is to clear out
before any of the household sees you here, or you'll find your name's
mud because of it.”

The stranger put down the weight and picked up a clothier's yard of
brass, which he examined carefully. The dropping the point as though he
were about to fence with it, he eyed the footman with displeasure.

“My young friend,” he said quickly, “I have been absent from England
for so long that belike the habits and manners of gentlemen's gentlemen
have changed, but even in New England, where a democratic spirit is
daily increasing, it is not yet the fashion for servants to argue,
squabble or indeed expression opinions in the presence of superiors. As
for you, Mister Merry, you have at least played my porter well, and for
that must be rewarded.”

He undid his coat with his left hand, for he still held the brass
bar in his right, and his long sensitive fingers felt in one of the
many pockets of the captain's belt. He took out a guinea piece and
dropped it ringing on the table of weights and measures.

“And now, my very young friend of the scarlet livery, be good enough
to carry that coin to the man Merry there.”

“A guinea, sir?” ejaculated the astonished footman. “For a porter's
fee? We can change this to-morrow at the bursar's office and he can
call for a shilling.”

“Give him the guinea, sir, and have done with it. The money is mine
and the chest is heavy. I will give you the same if you can carry it up
to my bedroom here later.”

The footman eyed the stranger with a puzzled look, something between
admiration and suspicion. Who was this man who came from Boston,
referred to the squire as 'Tony', and boldly talked of his chest being
carried to his room for a guinea? If he were a survivor of the wreck,
then it was probable that the squire would offer him hospitality, and
since he wore such a well-filled money belt and was obviously a
gentleman of importance, it would be wise to show him attention in
order to gain, perhaps, another guinea at his departure.

So he picked up the guinea and carrying it to Merry, handed it over
with some disgust. Merry, however, showed no sign of moving.

“Well?” asked the footman. “Why don't you hop to it now that the
gentleman's treated you handsome? You ain't wishing to stay the night,
I suppose, for the only time you honour us is on a pallet bed in the
cells. So get along with you.”

“How can I get along when I'm lashed taut to the gentleman's chest?”
asked Merry with a scowl.

“You have at least two free hands to unfasten the rope from the
chest,” suggested the stranger. “I shall not need the rope any more, I
think, and I daresay you can find use for it, if only as a reminder
that a knot at the wrist is better than a noose around the neck.”

It took even the strong fingers of Merry some time to loosen the
knot attached to one of the iron handles of the chest, for it had been
tied by one who knew something of knots and cordage. But at last it was
undone, and with a snort of disgust from the footman and quite a cheery
“good night and keep Sunday in mind” from the stranger, Merry was shown
the door and barred out.

He looked at the golden guinea. Under other circumstances he would
have taken himself off to the 'Sea-Wall Tavern' and got drunk while
feasting his eyes on Meg; but she was not there. But neither was Abel
there. He had just heard that Abel Clouder was dead. That was news that
compensated for a lot of disappointment. Of late, the puzzle of how to
remove Abel without prejudice to himself had become an obsession. Well,
his mind was free of that problem. Abel had most obligingly been heroic
once too often. Meg was now a widow. What would she do? He cursed the
fact that she had been taken to the Court House, and wondered how long
she would remain under the direct protection of the Cobtrees, and an
influence that boded no jot of good to his cause. The squire was no
friend to him. At their last encounter he had told him plainly that if
he (Merry) could not learn to behave himself, the Court would find
means to rid the Marsh of such a rascal. Although born and bred in
Dymchurch, Merry had no great love for it, for he hated his neighbours
as cordially as they disliked him. But, on account of his strange
passion for Meg, he had no intention of quitting it, and he knew that
short of the gallows, even the squire would have a difficulty in
shifting him, for he was a free-born Marsh-man. This fact could be got
rid of by a vote of jurors, but Merry knew too much about them and he
was confident that they would tolerate him rather than run the risk of
his 'peaching' in public, which, of course, he was quite prepared to
do.

As he clutched his guinea he was reminded again of what he had
missed. The two money belts and the contents of that chest. With a
little luck, he should by now have been a rich man, and then Meg would
have been his for the taking. The exasperation at such a failure sent
his blood racing in red rage, and he vowed that somehow or other he
would find the means of settling scores with the mysterious stranger.
Cudgelling his brain how best to accomplish this, a magnetic curiosity,
common to criminals, compelled him to make his way towards the scene of
the crime.

A glance showed him that so far the corpse had not been discovered,
and it occurred to the murderer that it might be worth his while to go
through the captain's pockets. No horror of what he had done assailed
him. Only an increasing black hate that he had not accomplished more.

The white silk handkerchief placed there so reverently by the
stranger had at least preserved the face from the greedy sea-gulls, who
walked around it suspiciously, afraid of one of its flapping corners.
As he appeared they flew off screaming.

Realising that he must not be discovered lest his story of
discovering the corpse might not agree with whatever it pleased the
stranger to tell the squire, he went through the pockets rapidly,
becoming the richer by two crown pieces and three silver four-pennies,
a brass whistle and a clasp knife, which he used to sever the rope
around his wrist. It was then that he noticed particularly the flapping
corner of the stranger's kerchief that had successfully kept the
sea-birds at bay. It was worked. Now, although not claiming to be a
scholar, Merry at least had this superiority over many—that he could
write and read. A silk kerchief was, he knew, of sufficient value to
safeguard, especially to a traveller who did not know his washer-woman.
He ripped the kerchief quickly from the dead man's face and read by the
light of the moon the owner's name. Yes—there it was. Beautifully
worked in violet silk thread. A large 'D' and a small 'r'. That, he
knew, stood short for 'doctor'. So, he thought, this arch-enemy is none
but a bloody saw-bones. Then followed a capital 'S', a 'y' and an 'n'.
'Syn.' 'Doctor Syn.'�

And just as the murderer spelt out the name and committed it to his
memory, the footman in the hall, turning back to the stranger, added:
“Oh, and what name shall I say, sir?”

“Syn,” replied the stranger.

They had been talking together for several minutes, the footman
having pointed out that they should give the squire a little while to
recover from what would be to him a great shock—the tragedy of the
parson's death; and then the stranger remarking that the parson must
have been a man of the highest courage, the footman delivered an
appreciation of the dead man, which in spite of the pomposity of his
office proved very moving in its simplicity. The stranger was
impressed.

“He seems to have been the very man for this place,” he remarked.

“Yes, sir,” replied the footman, “and the more so as he followed one
or two who, with all respect to their calling, were not what you might
call entirely satisfactory. One was old and gouty and disliked the sea.
Another was young and ambitious, so went to Canterbury Cathedral, and
another was just nothing that none of us took to. He died of his own
depressions. Then comes Parson Golden, young, strong and laughing glad
to be here and hoping never to be called elsewhere, and naturally the
squire felt settled like, having given the living to one everybody
liked. That rascal Merry who carried your chest was the only one I ever
heard with a bad opinion of our parson, but so he has of everyone, and
the better the man, the worse opinion he holds of him. Well, let's hope
we get a good man in his place—”

“Amen,” answered the stranger.

“We're not likely to get a better. Now, why should he be taken? I
call it strange.”

“I agree with you,” replied the stranger. “It is one of the most
curious tricks of fate that I have encountered, and under these
circumstances I think there is no one the squire would sooner see at
this moment than myself. But before you announce me, I think we'll
carry my chest into the inner hall, and then when I have spoken to the
squire, you can help me up with it to my bed-chamber. For to tell you
the truth, what you say of this fellow Merry, makes me anxious to move
the chest from where he put it. There is a window there, shuttered, it
is true, but such things have been opened before now. And having
successfully preserved it through fire and water, not to mention wharf
thieves and hostile Indians, it would be the height of folly to bring
it to safety and lose it.”

“Might be full of gold by the weight,” exclaimed the footman.

“Well, yes, there is a little gold in it, I confess,” replied the
other, “but it is books mostly that give it such weight. Weighty
volumes on the weightiest subjects. Valuable tomes, as you can imagine,
since their weight makes them awkward travelling companions.”

They carried the chest into the private hall which was built beyond
the court room and legal offices, and set it down outside the squire's
dining-room, and it was here that the footman had asked the stranger
for his name.

His answer astonished him. At first he thought the gentleman was
giving way to an oath, and resentfully he said, “Well, I must know the
name in order to announce it, sir.”

“Syn,” repeated the other. “Not S-I-N but S-Y-N, and I rather
imagine it will astonish the good squire more than it has you.”

“I beg pardon, sir, but the name is unusual.”

“I beg yours, but 'tis none of my fault,” smiled the owner of the
name. “All we can do for our names, whether those bequeathed by
forefathers or given by godfathers, is to hold them in honour as well
as we can, so that when we pass on the names we have done our best to
make them the more honoured.” He then repeated: “Doctor Syn.”

Around the great fireplace in the dining-room, the squire and three
or four gentlemen of the Marsh were sitting, and had been gravely
discussing the tragedy of the wreck. On a small table stood an enormous
punch bowl full of steaming 'bishop', from which Sir Antony kept
ladling generous allowances in order that his friends should recover
from their exertions on the rope. The depression they had felt through
dragging ashore the dead body of Abel Clouder was now increased at the
news of the parson's death. They had hoped that since the parson's
life-line had been cut by the plunging forward of the brig, that
perhaps some miracle had saved him, and their hopes had been dashed by
the news of the recovery of the body brought by the fisherman who stood
respectfully drinking a glass of the warming punch, before being
dismissed to the kitchens by a side door to get a bite of food.

When he had gone, the squire went on expatiating to his hearers
concerning Parson Bolden on much the same lines as the footman had done
already.

“So history repeats itself again,” he said gloomily. “As you know,
Sennacharib (for the doctor was of the party) my father was just as
unfortunate in the bestowal of the living. Just as soon as he got a man
he liked, he was preferred elsewhere, and it has been the same with me.
I really did think that since poor Bolden liked the place that we were
settled with him for life, and now his life has been sacrificed in this
heroic, tragic fashion. If you are visiting patients Burmarsh way
to-morrow, Sennacharib, you might ride to the vicar and ask him to
conduct our service on Sunday morning, for there will be no time to get
anyone else at such notice.”