The Flying Death

  CHAPTER TWELVE--THE SENATUS

  ALL five of the men who composed the male populace of Third Housegathered in Haynes' room at ten o'clock that night. Everard Colton andold Johnston had been told briefly of the killing of Serdholm.

  "Thus far," said Haynes, addressing the meeting, "this vigilancecommittee has been a dismal failure. Had anyone told me that fiveintelligent men could fail in finding the murderer, with all theevidence at hand, I should have laughed at him."

  "Some features which might be regarded as unusual have presentedthemselves," suggested Professor Ravenden mildly.

  "Unusual? They're absurd, insane, impossible! But there are the deadbodies, man and brute. We've got to explain them, or no one knows whomay come next."

  "We've got to be careful, certainly," said Colton; "but I think if wecan capture Whalley, we'll have no more mysterious killings."

  "Oh, that does very well in part; but it doesn't fill out therequirements," said the reporter impatiently. "Now, I'm going to runover my notes briefly, and if anyone can add anything, speak up. First,the killing of the seaman, Petersen, on the night of the shipwreck. Thatwas on the thirteenth, an uncanny date, sure enough. Next, the killingof the sheep by the same wound, on the fourteenth, and on the sameevening Professor Ravenden's experience with some threatening objectoverhead."

  "Pardon me; I did not ascribe any threatening motive or purpose to themanifestation," put in the professor. "Indeed, if I may challenge yourmemory, I suggested an air-ship. It seems that the unhappy aero-expert'skites well may have been the source of the sound I heard."

  "Let us assume so for the present. Next we come to Mr. Colton'sencounter and the death of the mare on the evening of the fifteenth."

  "The kites again, of course," said Everard. "Even allowing that--and Iexpect to get conclusive proof against it later--what, then, chased theanimal over the cliff?"

  "Maybe the kites came down later and blew along the ground after her. Ifyou were a horse, and a string of six-foot kites came bounding along inthe darkness after you, wouldn't you jump a cliff?"

  "Ask Professor Ravenden," suggested Haynes maliciously.

  "The jest is not an unfair one," said the scientist good-humouredly. "Ifear that I should."

  "Charge the death of the mare to the kites, then. Pity we can't lay thesheep to their account too. The third count against them is ProfessorRavenden's adventure of the eighteenth, and the death of the aeronaut.As to Professor Ravenden's part, there remains to be explained thecutting of the kite strings, if they were cut."

  "That must have been done, it would seem, in mid-air, just as Petersenthe sailor was killed," said Dick Colton.

  Haynes looked at him quickly. "Colton, you're beginning to show signs ofreasoning powers," he said. "I think I'd better appoint you my legateefor the work, if my turn should come next."

  "My dear Haynes," Professor Ravenden protested, "under the circumstancesthat remark at least is somewhat discomforting."

  "You're quite right, Professor. Down with presentiments! Well, as Dr.Colton suggests, there's a rather interesting parallel between themid-air killing of the sailor and the mid-air cutting of the kite cord.Let that go, for the present. Mr. Ely's death we can hardly ascribe tohis own kites. There's the cutting of the string near his hand."

  "That blasted Portuguese murderer, Whalley," said Johnston.

  "Most probably. The wound is such as his big knife would make; we knowhe's abroad on the knolls. But why should he kill Mr. Ely, whom he neversaw before, and why in the name of all that's dark should he cut thekite strings?"

  "Murderous mania; the same motive that drove him to kill the sheep,"said Dick Colton. "As for the kite string, perhaps he got tangled init."

  "There is no tangle," replied the reporter, "except in the evidence. Butwe'll call that Whalley's work. We come to to-day's murder now. Who didthat?"

  "Without assuming any certainty in the matter, I should assume thesuspicion to rest upon the juggler," said Professor Ravenden.

  "Motive is there," said Dick Colton. "What Serdholm told us about histhumping Whalley shows that."

  "Yes; but there is motive in the case of Bruce also. And we know thatBruce was there. Moreover, he was on the cliff-head when Petersen camein, and the two wounds are the same."

  "Surely," began the young doctor, "you don't believe that Bruce-"

  "No, I don't believe it," interrupted the reporter; "but it's ahypothesis we've got to consider. Suppose Bruce and Serdholm recognisedthis man Petersen as an enemy, and Bruce slipped a knife into him as hetook him from the buoy?"

  "But I thought Petersen was killed halfway to the shore."

  "So we suppose; but it is partly on the testimony of these two thatwe believe it, corroborated by circumstantial evidence. Now, if Brucekilled the sailor, Serdholm knew it. The two guards quarrelled andfought. Bruce had reason to fear Serdholm. There's the motive for themurder of Serdholm. He met him alone--there is opportunity. I thinkthe case against him is stronger than that against Whalley, inthis instance. I've looked into his movements on the night of thesheep-killing and the murder of Mr. Ely. He was out on the former, andin on the latter."

  "That weakens the case," said Everard Colton. "Yes; but what ruins thecase against both Bruce and Whalley in the killing of Serdholm is this."Haynes spread out on his table a map which he had drawn. "There isthe situation, sketched on the spot. You will see that there are nofootprints other than our own leading to or going down from the body.Gentlemen, as sure as my name is Haynes, the thing that killed PaulSerdholm never walked on human feet!"

  There was a dead silence in the room. Dick Colton's eyes, narrowed to amere slit, were fixed on the reporter's face. Johnston's jaw droppedand hung. Everard Colton gave a little nervous laugh. Professor Ravendenbent over the map and studied it with calm interest.

  "No," continued Haynes, "I'm perfectly sane. There are the facts. I'dlike to see anyone make anything else out of it."

  "There is only one other solution," said Professor Ravenden presently:"the fallibility of the human senses. May I venture to suggestagain that there may be evidences present which you, in your naturalperturbation, failed to note?"

  "No," said the reporter positively. "I know my business. I missednothing. Here's one thing I didn't fail to note. Johnston, you know thisneck of land?"

  "Lived here for fifty-seven years," said the innkeeper.

  "Ever hear of an ostrich farm hereabouts?"

  "No. Couldn't keep ostriches here. Freeze the tail-faithers off'embefore Thanksgiving."

  "Professor Ravenden, would it be possible for a wandering ostrich orother huge bird, escaped from some zoo, to have its home on Montauk?"

  "Scientifically quite possible in the summer months. In winter, as Mr.Johnston suggests, the climate would be too rigorous, though I doubtwhether it would have the precise effect specified by him. May I inquirethe purpose of this? Can it be that the tracks referred to by the patrolwere the cloven hoof-prints of-"

  "Cloven hoofs?" Haynes cried in sharp disappointment. "Is there nomember of the ostrich family that has claws?"

  "None now extant. In the processes of evolution the claws of theostrich, like its wings, have gradually----"

  "Is there any huge-clawed bird large enough and powerful enough to killa man with a blow of its beak?"

  "No, sir," said the professor. "I know of no bird which would venture toattack man except the ostrich, emu or cassowary, and the fighting weaponof this family is the hoof, not the beak."

  "Professor," interrupted Haynes, "the only thing that approachedSerdholm within striking distance walked on a foot armed with five greatclaws. You can see the trail on this map." He produced a large sheetof paper on which was a crude but careful drawing. "And there is itssign-manual, life-size," he added, pushing a second sheet across thetable to the scientist.

  Imagination could hardly picture a more precise, unemotional andconventially scientific man than Professor Ravenden. Yet, at sight ofthe paper his eyes sparkled, he half started
from his chair, a flushrose in his cheeks, he looked keenly from the sketch to the artist, andspoke in a voice that rang with a deep under-thrill of excitement:

  "Are you sure, Mr. Haynes--are you quite sure that this is substantiallycorrect?"

  "Minor details may be inexact. In all essentials that will correspond tothe marks made by something that walked from the mouth of the gully tothe spot where we found the body and back again." Before he hadfairly finished the professor was out of the room. He returned almostimmediately with a flat slab of considerable weight. This he laid onthe table, and taking the drawing, sedulously compared it with animpression, deep-sunken into the slab. For Haynes a single glance wasenough. That impression, stamped as it was on his brain, he would haveidentified as far as the eye could see it.

  "That's it!" he cried with the eagerness of triumphant discovery."The bird from whose foot that cast was made is the thing that killedSerdholm."

  "Mr. Haynes," said the entomologist dryly, "this is not a cast."

  "Not a cast?" said the reporter in bewilderment. "What is it, then?"

  "It is a rock of the cretaceous period."

  "A rock?" he repeated dully. "Of what period?"

  "The cretaceous. The creature whose footprint you see there trod thatrock when it was soft ooze. That may have been one hundred million yearsago. It was at least ten million."

  Haynes looked again at the rock, and superfluous emotions stirred amongthe roots of his hair. "Where did you find it?" he asked presently.

  "It formed a part of Mr. Johnston's stone fence. Probably he picked itup in his pasture yonder. The maker of the mark inhabited the islandwhere we now are--this land then was distinct from LongIsland--in the incalculably ancient ages."

  "What did this bird thing call itself?" Haynes demanded. A sense of theghastly ridiculousness of the affair was jostling, in the core of hisbrain, a strong shudder of mental nausea born of the void into which hewas gazing.

  "It was not a bird. It was a reptile. Science knows it as thepteranodon."

  "Could it kill a man with its beak?"

  "The first man came millions of years later--or so science thinks,"said the professor. "However, primeval man, unarmed, would have fallena helpless victim to so formidable a brute as this. The pteranodon wasa creature of prey," he continued, with an attempt at pedantry whichwas obviously a ruse to conquer his own excitement. "From what we canreconstruct, a reptile stands forth spreading more than twenty feet ofbat-like wings, and bearing a four-foot beak as terrible as a bayonet.This monster was the undisputed lord of the air; as dreadful as hiscousins of the earth, the dinosaurs, whose very name carries thesignificance of terror."

  "And you mean to tell us that this billion-years-dead flying swordfishhas flitted out of the darkness of eternity to kill a miserablecoast-guard within a hundred miles of New York, in the year 1902?" brokein Everard Colton.

  "I have not said so," replied the entomologist quickly. "But if yourdiagram is correct, Mr. Haynes, if it is reasonably accurate, I can tellyou that no living bird ever made the prints which it reproduces, thatscience knows no five-toed bird, and no bird whatsoever of sufficientlyformidable beak to kill a man; furthermore, that the one creatureknown to science which could make that print, and could slay a man ora creature far more powerful than man, is the tiger of the air, thepteranodon."

  "Evidence wanted from the doctor!" cried Haynes. "Colton, can you addanything to this theory that Serdholm was killed by a bayonet-beakedghoul that lived ten or a hundred or a thousand million years ago?"

  "I'll tell you one thing," said the doctor: "The wound isn't unlike whata heavy, sharp beak would make."

  "And that would explain the sailor being killed while he was coming inon the buoy!" exclaimed Everard Colton. "But--but this pteranodon--isthat it? Oh, the deuce! I thought all those pteranothings were dead andburied long before Adam's great-grandfather was a protoplasm."

  "My own belief is that Mr. Haynes' diagram is faulty," said ProfessorRavenden, to whom he had turned.

  "Will you come and see?" challenged Haynes.

  "Willingly. Would it not be well to take the rock along for comparison?"

  "Then we'd better all go," said Everard Colton, "and carry the rock inshifts. It doesn't look as if it had lost any weight with age."

  As the party reached the large living-room, Helga Johnston sprang upfrom the long cushioned rest near the fireplace. Her face was flushedwith sleep. In the glow of the firelight an expression of affright lenther beauty an uncanny aspect. Her breath came in little gasps, and herhands groped and trembled.

  "What is it, Miss Helga?" cried Everard, running eagerly forward.

  Unconsciously her fingers closed on his outstretched hand, and clungthere.

  "A dream!" she said breathlessly. "A horrid dream!" Then turning toHaynes: "Petit Pere, you aren't going out to-night?" she said, glancingat the lanterns which her foster-father had brought.

  "Yes, Princess, we're all going."

  "Into danger?" asked the girl. She had freed herself from Colton'sgrasp, but now her eyes fell on his again.

  "No; just to clear up a little point. We shall all hang together."

  "Don't go to-night, Petit Pere!" There was an imploring intonation inthe girl's flute-like voice.

  Haynes crossed over to her rapidly. "Princess, you're tired out andnervous. Go to bed, won't you?"

  "Yes; but promise me--father, you too, all of you--promise me you won'tany of you let yourselves be alone."

  "My dear child," said Professor Ravenden, "I'll give you my word for theparty, as I am the occasion of the expedition."

  "I--I suppose I am foolish," Helga said; "but I have dreamed sopersistently of some terrible danger overhanging--floating down like apall." With a sudden gesture she caught Haynes' hand to her cheek. "Ithung over you, Petit Pere!" she whispered.

  "I'll throw a pebble at your window to let you know I'm back alive andwell," he said gaily. "I've never seen you so nervous before, Princess."

  "You'll hardly need the lantern," said the girl, walking to the door,and looking up at the splendid moon, sailing in the unflecked sea of theHeavens.

  "When you're looking for foot-prints on the sands of time," observedEverard, "you need the light that never was on sea or land."

  He dropped back as the exploring party filed out into the night, andfell into step with Professor Ravenden.

  "Isn't it true," he asked, "that all these flying monsters are extinct?"

  "Science has assumed that they were extinct," said the Professor. "Buta scientific assumption is a mere makeshift, useful only until it isoverthrown by new facts. We have prehistoric survivals. The gar of ourrivers is unchanged from its ancestors of fifteen million years ago. Thecreature of the water has endured; why not the creature of the air?"

  "But," said Colton combatively, "where could it live and not have beendiscovered?"

  "Perhaps at the North or South Pole," said the professor. "Perhapsin the depths of unexplored islands; or possibly inside the globe.Geographers are accustomed to say loosely that the earth is an openbook. Setting aside the exceptions which I have noted, there stillremains the interior, as unknown and mysterious as the planets. In itspossible vast caverns there well may be reproduced the conditionsin which the pteranodon and its terrific contemporaries found theirsuitable environment on the earth's surface, ages ago."

  "Then how would it get out?"

  "The recent violent volcanic disturbances might have opened an exit."

  "Oh, that's too much!" Haynes broke in. "I was at Martinique myself,and if you expect me to believe that anything came out of that welter offlame and boiling rocks alive-"

  "You misinterpret me again," said the professor blandly. "What Iintended to convey was that these eruptions were indicative of greatseismic changes, in the course of which vast openings might well haveoccurred in far parts of the earth. However, I am merely defending thepteranodon's survival as an interesting possibility. As I stated before,Mr. Haynes, I believe the gist of the
matter to lie in some error ofyour diagram."

  "We'll see in a moment," said Haynes; "for here's the place. Let it downeasy, Johnston. Wait, Professor, here's the light. Now I'll convinceyou."

  Holding the lantern with one hand, he uncovered one of the trackswith the other. The mark was perfectly preserved. "Good God!" said theprofessor under his breath.

  He dropped on his hands and knees beside the print, and as he comparedthe to-day's mark on the sand with the rock print of millions ofyears ago, his breath came hard. Indeed, none of the party breathed asregularly as usual. When the scientist lifted his head, his face wastwitching nervously.

  "I have to ask your pardon, Mr. Haynes," he said. "Your drawing wasfaithful."

  "But what in Heaven's name does it mean?" cried Dick Colton.

  "It means that we are on the verge of the most important discovery ofmodern times," said the professor. "Savants have hitherto scouted thesuggestions to be deduced from the persistent legend of the roc and fromcertain almost universal North American Indian lore, notwithstandingthat the theory of some monstrous, winged creature widely different fromany recognised existing forms is supported by more convincing proofs.In the north of England, in 1844, reputable witnesses found the tracks,after a night's fall of snow, of a creature with a pendent tail, whichmade flights over houses and other obstructions, leaving a trail muchlike this before us. There are other corroborative instances of asimilar nature. In view of the present evidence, I would say that thisunquestionably was a pteranodon, or a descendant little altered, anda gigantic specimen, for these tracks are distinctly larger than thefossil marks. Gentlemen, I congratulate you both on your part in soepoch-making a discovery."

  "Do you expect a sane man to believe this thing?" Haynes demanded.

  "That's what I feel," said Everard Colton. "But, on your own showing ofthe evidence, what else is there to believe?"

  "But, see here," Haynes expostulated, all the time feeling as if hewere arguing in and against a dream. "If this is a flying creature, howexplain the footprints leading up to Serdholm's body, as well as awayfrom it?"

  "Owing to its structure," said the professor, "the pteranodon could notrise rapidly from the ground in flight. It either sought an acclivityfrom which to launch itself, or ran swiftly along the ground, gatheringimpetus for a leap into the air with outspread wings. Similarly, inalighting, it probably ran along on its hind feet before dropping to itssmall fore feet. Now, conceive the pteranodon to be on the cliff's edge,about to start upon its evening flight. Below it appears a man. Itsferocious nature is aroused at the sight of this unknown being. Down itswoops, skims swiftly with pattering feet toward him, impales him on itsdreadful beak, then returns to climb the cliff and again launch itselffor flight."

  All this time Haynes had been holding one of the smaller rocks inhis hand. Now he flung it toward the gully and turned away, sayingvehemently: "If the shore was covered with footprints, I wouldn'tbelieve it! It's too--"

  He never finished that sentence. From out of the darkness there came ahoarse cry. Heavy wings beat the air with swift strokes. In that instantpanic fell upon them. Haynes ran for the shelter of the cliff, and afterhim came the Coltons. Johnston dropped on hands and knees and scurriedlike a crab for cover. Only the professor stood his ground; but it waswith a tremulous voice that he called to his companions:

  "That was a common marsh or short-eared owl that rose. The _Asioaccipitrinus_ is not rare hereabouts, nor is it dangerous to mankind.There is nothing further to do to-night, and I believe that we are insome peril remaining here, as the pteranodon appears to be nocturnal."

  The others returned to him ashamed. But all the way home they walkedunder an obsession of terror hovering in the blackness above.

  It was a night of restless and troubled sleep at Third House. Forwhen the incredible takes the form of undeniable reason, and demandscredence, the brain of man gropes fitfully along dim avenues ofconjecture. Helga's premonition of impending disaster lay heavy upon thehousehold.