CHAPTER VII
THE HAUNTED BARN AND ITS STRANGE INHABITANT
With the discovery that the servant from the Dene was without doubt aman in disguise, the mystery surrounding the house adjoining theSquire's residence was considerably deepened instead of being in any waysolved.
Laurence Carrington, as, smarting under the burly housewife's blow, heconducted his companion back to the Manse, hardly fulfilled his dutiesas host in silently meditating as to his next step. Suddenly herecollected himself.
"Excuse me, Miss Scott," he said apologetically. "This discovery hasrather alarmed me, and for the moment I almost forgot that I was notalone. Come, it is getting late, and your aunt will be worrying aboutyou. You must try and forget all about this skeleton in father'scupboard. It will be giving you bad dreams, and that would never do."
But if the young man charged Selene to think no more, for the present,about the uncanny state of affairs, he was unable, or did not intend,to allow this first reverse to put an end to his attempts at thesolution of the mystery. Having wished Miss Scott and her aunt"good-night" on their departure to bed, he lighted his pipe and steppedout through the French windows of the dining-room on to the lawn.Fumbling unconsciously in one of the pockets of his shooting-jacket,which he had worn during the day and donned after dinner before startingoff for the village, his hand came in contact with the small pistolwhich Head, the gardener, had found amongst the hay in the barn.
So many and varied had the events of the day been that he had almostforgotten the incidents of the stolen dinner and the rustling in thehay. Now it appeared to him that here was the most important clue he hadas to the identity of the attempted murderer of the Squire. It seemed tohim extremely possible that this was the weapon used by the unknowncyclist, for whose else could it possibly be, when no one in any wayconnected with the Manse carried firearms, except the Squire, whoseblunderbus was certainly not to be mistaken for this? Carefulexamination of the pistol failed, however, to reveal any sign of themaker's name, and the hope which had risen in Laurence's breast gave wayto a feeling of disappointment.
But a question of deepest importance that suggested itself to theamateur investigator was how it was that, if the strange cyclist camefrom the adjoining house, he had ventured into the barn which stood wellwithin the Manse grounds. Had he been some chance enemy--the poacher,for instance, whom Laurence had already set down as a possiblesuspect--there was nothing more probable than that he should have takenrefuge in the barn, but in the other case it was hardly likely.
One thing was undeniable, he had been there. Whoever the mysteriousperson was, he had stolen the gardener's plate of dinner and likewisehis old coat. It certainly seemed improbable that Major Jones-Farnell,would-be murderer or no, should stoop to the robbery of old clothes andfood. The poacher idea rose in the young man's mind, but was at oncedismissed as out of the question. The Squire's secret had to do withsomething or somebody more mysterious by far than a mere poacher.
If the intruder had been in the barn at lunch-time, it was possible thathe might be there still, though he had certainly disappeared completelybefore the gardener's manoeuvres with the pitchfork.
At any rate, Laurence decided to have a look round before going to bed,and consequently strolled down to the barn and crept noiselessly inside.The moonshine peeped in from a roof window, lighting up the whole of oneside of the fine old rambling building as though it were broad daylight.Puffing silently at his pipe, Laurence glanced round, peering up intothe rafters, down on the floor, and into the loosely piled hay thatsurrounded him.
Suddenly, by that strange instinctive intuition that comes at times tous all, he became aware and convinced of the fact that he was notalone--that some one was looking at him!
Strive as he might to dispel the eerie idea from him he was unable to doso.
Under such circumstances, and bearing in mind the incidents of the lasttwo days, any ordinary person might have turned tail and fled. ButLaurence was no ordinary person, and he was as keen on the scent of hisfather's enemy as the traditional bloodhound. Thus it was that, insteadof taking to flight from what was only an imaginary fear, he struck amatch and held it above his head, gazing round him again for any traceof the person who he instinctively felt was watching him.
A second and a third match revealed nothing; but by the light of thefourth he scanned what was perhaps the darkest and remotest corner ofthe Cromwellian building. As he did so he fancied he saw something moveon a ledge on which a roof support was fixed. In order to test hissuspicions, he picked up a "stone," used for sharpening scythes, whichhappened to be on the ground in front of him, and flung it with all hisathletic force and precision of aim at the indistinct mass which hebelieved to have moved a moment before.
A sudden shrill scream, about which there was something that (to use awell-worn phrase) froze the young fellow's blood with horror, broke uponthe stillness of the great building, a scream which Laurence at oncerecognised as being exactly similar to that which the unknown cyclisthad uttered when the lash of the carriage whip had caught him as he hadfled away into the darkness.
And as that weird sound rent the air, the man who had caused it sawindistinctly in the gloom (for his last match had burnt itself out) afigure leap from the dark corner, and, with ape-like agility and speed,clamber up the rafters until it almost hung from the roof. Then, seizingsome loose hay that had lodged in a cranny in the beams, it flung itdown on the upturned face of the astonished spectator of this feat.
When Laurence had brushed away the hay from his eyes, the figure haddisappeared, and, incredible though it may seem, no trace of itremained but the memory of that echoing, inarticulate shriek to provethat the apparition was not a mere phantom of the imagination.