come up. Without being afraid he feltinstinctively that something terrible lay ahead of them and that forsafety's sake it were best that they should be together.
They were a sorry-looking party--hatless, their clothes torn, theirfaces and hands bruised and scratched by constant falls, almostexhausted by their tremendous efforts. But none of them thought ofgiving up the chase.
For another mile they pushed onward, making better progress in thegrowing moonlight.
Suddenly Buckman gave a tremendous shout. "Look there!" he roared,pointing to a low hill which ran across their path.
Not five hundred yards away, on the top of the rise and clearlysilhouetted against the sky, they caught a glimpse of a monstrous figurewhich, even as they looked, vanished over the crest and was gone. Itwas, unmistakably, a man of giant stature! It moved stiffly as thoughin pain; evidently one of the shots fired in the trap had got home.
They hurried on. When they reached the crest of the rise Lockie laybefore them, and they could see the monstrous figure crossing a tinystream in the valley below.
They were gaining rapidly now. Dawn was breaking and the cold palelight allowed them a dear view.
The creature ahead of them was toiling painfully up the slope which ledto Lockie. Suddenly a man issued from the house. It was Erckmann andin his hand he carried a formidable whip.
Less than two hundred yards away Dick and his companions haltedspellbound. In some mysterious fashion they realised that they were towitness the last act in the terrible drama.
The end came swiftly. More and more slowly, almost crawling at last,the strange creature approached Erckmann and at length, evidentlyutterly exhausted, collapsed at his feet in a heap.
They heard the scientist shout something unintelligible. Then he raisedhis heavy whip and struck with fearful force at the unfortunate thingwhich lay before him.
It was a fatal mistake. With the speed of lightning the misshapen heapon the ground flashed into furious activity. All the horrifiedspectators saw was an instantaneous leap and a brief struggle, andErckmann and the Thing locked in a deadly grapple and then dropmotionless.
Dick covered the last hundred yards in a furious dash. But he was toolate. Erckmann lay dead, with his adversary dead on top of him. Thezoologist had been killed almost instantly by the grip of two largehands that still encircled his neck in a vice-like clutch, and in histhroat the misshapen fangs of the creature were still buried deeply.Only with infinite trouble was the body of the scientist freed from thatdeadly grapple, and they were able to examine the monster that hadspread terror and death through Argyllshire.
Unmistakably the body was that of a man, but incredibly dehumanised andape-like. The muscular development was tremendous; the hands and armswere knotted masses of titanic muscle. But the crowning horror was theface--low-browed, flat-nosed, with a tremendous jaw and long pointedteeth, utterly unlike anything human. The body, stark naked, wascovered thickly with hair and in the side was a terrible wound evidentlymade by the impact of a soft-nosed bullet from one of the automaticpistols. No normal human being could have survived it for more than afew minutes.
It was only later, when they searched Lockie, that they realised fullythat Erckmann had fallen a victim to a monster he had himself created.His diaries proved that Chatry had spoken the truth. They were arepellent but horribly fascinating account of his experiments. Of theresults he had written in a wealth of detail, but of the process heemployed there was not even a hint. That awful secret he had kept tohimself, and had taken with him to his grave.
They found that he had, as Chatry had said, taken a human being,obviously of low mental development--possibly an asylum patient--andpractically, by some devilish discovery, converted it into a human ape,endowed with the blood-lust of the tiger. But whether the fearfulcreature was capable of receiving and acting upon instructions, orwhether Erckmann simply let it loose to follow its terrible instinctsuntil the "homing" instinct brought it back they never learned.
Of Lockie, the police decided to make a clean sweep. The animals wereshot and the half-dozen evil-looking foreign servants were paid off andsent to their homes, mostly in the wilder parts of Transylvania. Theyone and all refused to say a word. Whatever they were, they were atleast faithful to their dead master.
Then, in the magnificent chemical laboratory with which the house wasequipped, Dick, who found himself Renstoke's sole executor, easilyarranged an "accident." Fire broke out, there was no help for milesaround and in a couple of hours the ill-omened house was a heap ofashes. The Spectre of Lockie had been finally laid.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE PERIL OF THE PREFET.
It was a mystery of the City of Paris which engaged the trio--a secretthat has never been told, though many enterprising newspapers have triedto fathom it. Here it is related for the first time.
On a gloomy mid-December morning the sensation-loving Parisians awoke toa new and eminently agreeable thrill. It was only last year and theoccasion will be well remembered.
There had been trouble enough in the City of Light, which for once atany rate belied its name. A series of strikes had half-paralysed thecapital. Coal and light were almost unobtainable; the public lampsremained unlit; at night the City of Pleasure was plunged in profoundgloom. There were misery and wretchedness in the haunts of squalor andpoverty which flanked the wealthier districts where, at a price, allthings agreeable were as usual obtainable.
But the dumb underworld was becoming vocal!
"A Mort L'Assassin!" At daybreak the startling legend suddenly, andwithout warning, revealed itself from a thousand vantage-points to theawakening city. In crude, blazing red it flared from the hoardings--sinister, ill-omened and, above all, full of significance. Parisiansalone knew.
There could be no possibility of doubt as to the individual referred to.It was, beyond question, Raoul Gregoire, the Prefect of Police, whosecold, ruthless vendetta against the dark, turbulent forces which flowedbeneath the effervescent gaiety of the gay life of Paris, had earned forhim the vindictive hatred of the criminal world, and had gained him hisunenviable sobriquet of "Assassin!"
For months Raoul Gregoire's life had hung by a thread. Before hisappointment he had been Prefect of Finisterre. A series of efforts to"remove" him had been defeated only in the nick of time. Twice he hadbeen badly wounded. Once a bomb had wrecked his car just after he hadleft it. A less courageous man would have given up the unequal contestand sought a pretext for retirement--back to the quiet, sea-beaten coastof Finisterre.
But Monsieur le Prefet was of a different mould. Stern and ruthless hewas, but his courage was invincible. He remained calm and imperturbed--far more so, indeed, than many of his subordinates, who feared that thevengeance of the underworld might fall, by accident or design, uponthemselves.
"Gregoire has pushed things a bit too far," was Yvette's verdict, as shetalked over with Dick Manton and Jules the latest and most blatantchallenge to the forces of the law and order. "They mean to makecertain this time. I'm sure of it?"
"It certainly seems so," Dick agreed. "But I wonder when and how itwill be? That's the point. Gregoire doesn't show himself much inpublic now; he is practically living in the Prefecture, and surroundedby his agents he is far too well guarded for any attempt to be madethere."
"They will have a good chance at the Sultan's reception," remarked Julesreflectively. "Monsieur le Prefet will have to be in the procession--hecan hardly stay away even if he wanted to. It would show the whitefeather."
It was a day to which the gaiety-loving Parisians were looking forwardwith special interest. France's age-long quarrel with the wild tribesof the Morocco hinterland had at length been amicably settled, and theirSultan, Ahmed Mohassib, a picturesque figure whose eccentric doingsprovided the gossip-loving boulevard with hundreds of good stories, was"doing" Paris as the guest of the Quai d'Orsay. It was expedient toshow the barbaric ruler all the honour possible, and the followingFriday was the day on which he was to pa
y a ceremonial visit to theElysee. There was to be a great procession, and the Government had letthe Press understand that a skilfully worked-up popular demonstrationwas desirable. The papers had responded nobly, and it was certain that"tout Paris" would be out to see the show.
On the occasion, at any rate, Monsieur le Prefet must be greatly inevidence. He was responsible for public order and must ride in theprocession whatever the risk to himself, a plain target, for once, forthe bullet or bomb of the assassin.
"To-day is Saturday," Yvette remarked. "We really have not much time tospare between now and the twenty-second. I think I will make a fewinquiries to-night. Jules had better go with me."
Dick's heart sank. He knew what Yvette's "inquiries" meant--hours,perhaps days, spent in the lowest quarters of Paris, surrounded by suchhorrible riff-raff that if her purpose were even suspected her