CHAPTER THIRTEEN--THE NEW EVIDENCE
THE morning of September 21 impended in sullen splendour from a bank ofcloud. As the sudden sun struggled into the open it brought a brisk blowfrom the southwest, dispelling a heavy mist. The last of the fog wasbeing scoured from the earth's face when Dick Colton was awakened froman unrefreshing sleep by a quick step passing down the hall. Jumping outof bed, he threw open the door and faced Haynes.
"Don't wake the others," said the reporter in a low voice.
"Where are you off to?" inquired Colton.
"To the beach. I've got a notion that I can settle this Serdholmquestion here and now."
"Wait fifteen minutes and I'll go with you."
"If you don't mind, Colton, I'd rather you wouldn't. I want to go overthe ground alone, first. But if I'm not back for breakfast, meet methere and I'll probably have something to tell you."
"Very well. It's your game to play. Good luck! Oh, hold on. Have you gota gun?"
"No, mine hasn't come yet."
"Better take mine."
"You must have been having bad dreams," said the other lightly. "Whatsleep I've had has banished the professor's cretaceous jub-jub bird frommy mental premises. Anyhow, I don't think a revolver would be much useagainst it, do you?"
"Take it, anyway," urged Colton.
"All right," assented the reporter. "Much obliged. I'll take it along ifyou want me to."
The doctor handed out his long Colt's. "Well, good luck!" he said again,and with a strange impulse he stretched out his hand.
Haynes seemed a little startled; but he said nothing, as he shook hands,except: "See you in a couple of hours, then."
Although it was only six o'clock, Dick Colton could not get back tosleep. A sound of splashing water from Everard's room showed that he toowas up. Dick was dressing with those long pauses between each processwhich are the surest sign of profound thought in the masculine creature,when he heard a knock on Haynes' door followed by the music of HelgaJohnston's voice.
"Petit Pere. Oh, Petit Pere!"
Before Dick could reach the door and explain, the low call came again:
"Petit Pere! Oh, please wake up!"
"Miss Helga," began Dick, thrusting out his head.
"Oh, Dr. Colton, I've--I've had such a dreadful dream again. I want tospeak to Mr. Haynes."
"He started for the beach fifteen minutes ago."
"Oh-h-h!" It was a long, shuddering gasp. The next instant he heard herswift footsteps patter downstairs, through the living-room and out uponthe porch. A few minutes later Everard Colton in trousers and shirt cameinto the room.
"Was that Helga's voice I heard?"
"Yes."
"Anything wrong?" asked the young man anxiously.
"Haynes has gone to the beach, and she has followed. She's hada dream-warning or some fool thing"--Colton had the professionalimpatience of the supernatural--"and would be hysterical if she was ofthat type."
Everard exploded into a curse. "And you let her go alone?"
"Am I likely to do a cross-country run in my underclothes?" demanded hisbrother.
The young man was down the stairs in two leaps, and out upon the lawn.Helga's fair head shone far to the south on a hillock's top. She wasrunning.
"Take the cross-cut!" shouted Dick Colton. "You can head her off atGraveyard Point. I'll follow."
There were few men of his time who could keep near Everard Colton tothe end of a mile run. Heartbreaking country this was, with its ups anddowns; but the young man had the instinct of a cross-country runner, andsubconsciously his feet led him along the easiest course. When he cameout on the summit of the cliff above Graveyard Point, his eyes, eagerlysearching, saw the flying figure of the girl he loved coming down thebeach, a quarter of a mile away.
"Helga, Helga!" he shouted. "I'm coming to you!"
Her ringing soprano came back to him, like an echo magically transmutedinto golden beauty: "The other side! Around the point."
She waved him vehemently toward the hidden shore beyond the headland.Something of her foreboding terror passed into the soul of her lover.Plunging down into the gully, Everard ran out upon the beach and doubledthe point. Whatever peril there was, if any existed, lay there; he wouldreach it first. The waves almost washed his feet as he toiled throughthe loose sand at the base of the little ravine. Breathless, he pushedon until he reached the point, where he had full view of the stretchof sand. Then at what he saw the breath came back to him in one gaspinginhalation. He stopped short in his tracks, and stood shaking.
The sun had just risen above the cloudbank. Black, on the shining gloryof the beach, a man lay sprawled grotesquely. It was almost at thespot where Serdholm had been found. Though the face was hidden andthe posture distorted, Everard knew him instantly for Haynes, and asinstantly knew that he was dead. He ran forward and bent over the body.
Haynes had been struck opposite the gully, by a weapon driven withfearful impetus between his ribs from the back, piercing his heart. Adozen staggering prints showed where he had plunged forward beforehe fell. The flight was involuntary--for he was dead almost on thestroke--the blind, mechanical instinct of escape from the death-dealingagency. There was no mistaking that great gash in the back. Haynes hadbeen killed as Serdholm was.
Sickening with the certainty of what he was to find, Everard Coltonturned his eyes to the tablet of the sand. There, exactly as theill-fated reporter had drawn it on his map, the grisly track of thetalons stretched in double line across the clean beach, toward thegully's mouth. Except for this the sand was blank.
For a few steps he followed the trail, then turned back to the body. Inthe pocket he found his brother's revolver. So Haynes had been struckdown without warning! For the moment, shock had driven from Colton'smind the thought of Helga. Now he rose to fend her from the sight ofthis horror, and saw her moving swiftly around the point.
"Go back!" he cried. "You must not come nearer!"
With no more heed of him than if he were a rock in her path, the girlmade a half-circle of avoidance, and sinking upon the sand gazed intothe dead man's face. The eyes were closed, and from the calm featuresall the expression of harshness had fled. Gone were the lines of pain;the dead face wore for Helga the same sweetness and gentleness that,living, Haynes had kept for her alone, and the lips seemed to smile toher as she lifted the head to her lap and smoothed back the hair fromthe forehead.
"He is dead?" she asked dully, looking up at Everard.
"Yes," said the young man.
"I warned him," she whispered. "I saw it so plainly--death flyingacross the sands to strike him. Oh, Petit Pere, why didn't you heed me?Couldn't you trust the loving heart of your little princess?"
In that moment Everard Colton forgot his hopes. A great surge of pityand grief for the girl rose within him. It came to him that she hadloved the better man, the man who lay dead on the sands, and as thefirst pang of that passed there was left in him only the sense ofservice. Throwing his coat across Haynes' body, he bent over Helga.
"My dear," he said, "my dear."
That was all; but her woman's swift intuition recognised the new feelingand responded to it. She groped for his hand and clung to it.
"Don't leave us!" she said pitifully.
"I will wait here with you," he answered.
Slowly the tide rose toward the mournful little group on the sand. Aninvestigating gull swooped down near to them, and the girl roused with ashudder from her reveries, thrusting out her hands as if to ward off thebird.
"It was like that in my dream," she said, looking up at Everard withtearless eyes. "Oh, why did I not compel him to heed my warning! He usedto say the sea-spirits that brought me in from the storm had given mesecond sight. Why did he not trust in that?"
"He loved you very dearly," said Everard gently. "Ah, you do notknow what he was to me!" cried the girl. "Everything that was noble,everything that was generous. From the time when I was a child--Oh, he_can't_ be dead. Can't you do something?"
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p; Everard choked. Before he could command himself for a reply, there was arattle of stones down the face of the cliff. Necessity for action wasa boon to his tortured sensibilities. Catching up the revolver from thespot where he had laid it, he walked toward the sound. A confused noiseof voices caused him to drop the muzzle of his weapon, as Dick Colton,Professor Ravenden and his daughter came into view.
"Too late, Dick," said Everard.
"Good God!" said Dick. "Not Haynes?"
Everard nodded. "He was dead when we got here."
With a little, broken cry, Dolly Ravenden flew to Helga and threw herarms around the girl's neck.
Dick Colton drew the coat from the body, looked at the wound, and thenfollowed the tracks to the spot where they disappeared in the softrubble. Returning, he said to Dolly Ravenden:
"Get Miss Helga away."
"She won't come. I can't persuade her to move," said Dolly.
Everard came and knelt beside the girl. "Helga," he said, "Helga, dear,you must go back home. We will bring him as soon as we can. Will you goback with me now, dear?"
"Yes," said the girl.
Bending over, she kissed Haynes' forehead. She got to her feet, andEverard and Dolly Ravenden led her away. Dick leaned over the deadface and looked down upon it with a great sense of sorrow and wrath. Sogazing, he recalled the reporter's half-jesting charge that he shouldtake up the trail, "if my turn comes next."
"It's a promise, old man," he said softly to the dead. "You might haveleft me your clue; but I'll do my best. And until I've found your slayeror my turn comes I'll not give up the work that you've left to me."
Meantime Professor Ravenden had been examining the marks with everymark of deep absorption. "Professor Ravenden!" called Dick somewhatimpatiently.
The professor turned reluctantly.
"This--is--a very interesting case," he muttered brokenly. "I--I willnotify the coast-guard."
And Dick saw, with amazement, before the dry-as-dust scientist turnedagain to post down the beach, that his eyes were filled with tears.