CHAPTER VII
THE WATCHER IN THE SHADOW
But if Merriton slept, the others of the little party did not. After hisdoor had closed upon him they appeared from their rooms, and met byarrangement once more in the study. Doctor Bartholomew--a little late athaving waited and listened for the outward result of his drug in Nigel'scomforting snore--joined the group with an anxious face. There was nolaughter now in the pleasant, heated smoking room. Every face there worea look that bordered closely upon fear.
"Well, Doctor," said Tony West, as he entered the room, "what's the plan?I don't like Wynne's absence, I swear I don't. It--it looks fishy,somehow. And he was in no mood to play boyish pranks on us by turnin' inat the Brelliers' place. There's somethin' else afoot. What's your idea,now?"
The doctor considered a moment.
"Better be getting out and form a search party," he said quietly. "Ifnothing turns up--well, Nigel needn't know we've been out. But--there'smore in this than meets the eye, boys. Frankly, I don't like it. Wynne'sa brute, but he never liked practical joking. It's my private opinionthat he would have returned by now--if something hadn't happened to him.We'll wait till dawn, and then we'll go. Nigel is good for some hoursyet. Wynne always had a bad effect on him. Ever noticed it, West? Or you,Stark?"
The two men nodded.
"Yes," said Tony, "I have. Many times. Nigel's never the same fellow whenthat man's about. He's--he's got some sort of devilish influence overhim, I believe. And how he hates Nigel! See his eyes to-night? He couldhave killed him, I believe--specially as Nigel's taken his girl."
"Yes." The doctor's voice was rather grave. "Wynne's a queer chap and arevengeful one. And he was as drunk as a beast to-night.... Well, boyswe'll sit down and wait awhile."
Pipes were got out and cigarettes lighted. For an hour in the hotsmoking-room the men sat, talking in undertones and smoking, or droppingoff into long silences. Finally the doctor drew out his watch. He sighedas he looked at it.
"Three o'clock, and no sign of Wynne yet. We'll be getting our things on,boys."
Instantly every man rose to his feet. The tension slackened withmovement. In comparative silence they stole out into the hall, threw ontheir coats and hats, and then Tony West nervously slid the bolts of thebig front door. It creaked once or twice, but no sound from the stillhouse answered it. West swung it open, and on the whitened step theyquietly put on their shoes.
The doctor switched on an electric torch and threw a blob of light uponthe gravelled pathway for them to see the descent. Then one by one theywent quietly down the steps, and West shut the door behind them.
"Excellent! Excellent!" exclaimed Doctor Bartholomew, as the gate wasreached with no untoward happenings. "Not a soul knows we're gone, boys.That's pretty certain. Now, then, out of the gate and turn to the rightup that lane. It'll take us to the very edge of the Fens, I believe, andthen our search will commence."
He spoke with assurance, and they followed him instinctively.Unconsciously they had made him captain of the expedition. But--no onehad heard them, he had said? If he had looked back once when the big gateshut, he might have changed his mind upon that score. With white facepressed close against the glass of the smoking-room window, which lookeddirectly out upon the front path, stood Borkins, watching them as thoughhe were watching a line of ghosts on their nightly prowl.
"Good Gawd!" he ejaculated, as he discerned their dark figures and thelight of the doctor's torch. "Every one of 'em gone--_every one_!" Andthen, trembling, he went back to bed.
But the doctor did not look back, and so the little party proceeded uponits way in comparative silence until the edge of the Fens was reached.Here, with one accord, they stopped for further instructions. Threetorches made the spot upon which they stood like daylight. The doctorbent his eyes downward.
"Now, boys," he said briskly. "Keep your eyes sharp for footprints. Wynnemust have struck off here into the Fens, it's the most direct course. Hewouldn't have been such a duffer as to walk too far out of his way--if hewas bent upon going there at all.... Hello! Here's the squelchy mark of aman's boot, and here's another!"
They followed the track onward, with perfect ease, for the marshy groundwas sodden and took every footprint deeply. That some man had crossedthis way, and recently, too, was perfectly plain. The footprints wavereda little that was all, showing that the man who made them was uncertainupon his feet. And Wynne had left the house by no means sober!
"It looks as though he had come here after all!" broke out Tony West,excitedly. "Why the track's as plain as the nose on your face."
They zig-zagged their tedious way out across the marshy grassland, theirthin shoes squelching in the bogs, their trousers unmercifully spatteredwith the thick, treacley mud. They spoke little, their eyes bent upon theground, their foreheads wrinkled. On and on and on they went, while thesky above them lightened and grew murky with the soft cloudiness ofbreaking dawn. The flames in the distance began to pale, and the vaststretch of Fen district before them was shrouded in a light fog, misty,unutterably ghostlike and with the chill lonesomeness of death.
"Whew! Eeriest task I've ever come across!" ejaculated Stark with agrimace as he looked up for a moment into the dull mist ahead. "Ifwe're not all down with pneumonia to-morrow, it won't be our ownfaults!... Some distance, isn't it, Doctor?"
"It is," returned the doctor grimly. "What a fool the man was to attemptit!... Here's a footprint, and another."
Yes, and many another after that. They staggered on, wet, cold,uncomfortable, anxious. The doctor was a little ahead of the rest ofthem, Tony West came second, the others straggled a pace or two behind.Suddenly the doctor stopped and gave a hasty exclamation:
"Good Heavens above!"
They ran up to him clustering around him in their eagerness, andtheir torches lent their rays to make the thing he gazed at moredistinguishable, while another mile away at least, the flames twinkleddimly, and slowly went out one by one as though the finger of dawn hadsnuffed them like candle-ends.
"What the devil is it?" demanded Tony West, getting to his knees andpeering at the spot with narrowed eyes.
"Charred grass. And the end of the footprints!" It was the doctor whospoke--in a queer voice sharp with excitement. "There has been a firehere or something. And--Wynne went no farther, apparently. The groundabout it is as marshy as ever, and my own footprint is perfectlyclear.... What the dickens do you make of it, eh?"
But there was no answer forthcoming. Every man stood still staring downat this strange thing with wide eyes. For what the doctor said wasabsolute truth. The footsteps certainly _did_ end here, and in a patch ofcharred grass as big round as a small table. What did it mean? What couldit mean, but one thing? Somehow, somewhere, Wynne had vanished. It wasincredible, unbelievable, and yet--there was the evidence of their owneyes. From that spot onward the ground was wholly free of the footprintsof any man, woman, or child. No mark disturbed the sodden mud of it. Andyet--right here, where the grasses seemed to grow tallest, this patch wasburnt off and withered as though with sudden heat.
Tony West straightened himself.
"If I didn't think the whole business was a pack of lies spun into abigger one by a lot of village gossips, I'd--I'd begin to imagine therewas something in the story after all!" he said, getting to his feet andlooking at the white faces about him. "It's--it's devilish uncanny,Doctor!"
"It is that." The doctor drew a long breath and stroked his beardagitatedly. "It's so devilish uncanny that one hardly knows what tobelieve. If this thing had happened in the East one might have lookedat it with a more fatalistic eye. But _here_--in England, no man in hissenses could believe such a fool's tale as that which Nigel told usto-night. And yet--Wynne has gone, vanished! Never a trace of him,though we'll search still farther for a while, to make sure!"
They separated at once, radiating out from that sinister spot andsearched and searched and searched. Not a footprint was to be foundbeyond the spot, not a trace of any living thing. There was nothing forit but
to go back to Merriton Towers and tell their tale to Nigel.
"Old Wynne has gone, and no mistake," said Tony West, as the men beganslowly to retrace their steps across the marshlands, their faces in thepale light of the early morning looking white and drawn with theexcitement and strain of the night. "What to make of it all, I don'tknow. Apparently old Wynne went out to see the Frozen Flames and--theFrozen Flames have swallowed him up, or burnt him up, one or the other."
"And yet I can't hold any credence in the thing, no matter how hardI try!" said the doctor, shaking his head gravely, as they trudged onthrough the mud and mire. "And if Wynne isn't found--well, there'll bethe deuce to pay with the authorities. We'll have to report to the policefirst thing in the morning."
"Yes, the village constable will take the matter up, and knowing thestory, will put entire faith in it, and that's all the help we'llget from _him_!" supplemented West with a harsh laugh. "I know thesort.... Here's the Towers at last, and if I don't make a mistake,there's the face of old Borkins pressed against the window!"
He ran ahead of the others and took the great stone steps two at a time.But Borkins had opened the door before he reached it. His eyes stared,his mouth sagged open.
"Mr. Wynne, sir? You found 'im?" he asked hoarsely.
"No. No trace whatever, Borkins. Where's your master?"
"Sir Nigel, sir? 'E's asleep, and snorin' like a grampus. This'll be ashock to 'im sir, for sure. Mr. Wynne--_gone_? 'T ain't possible!"
But Tony had pushed by him and thrown open the smoking-room door. Thewarm, heated atmosphere came to them comfortingly. He crossed to thetable, picked up a decanter and slopped out a peg of whisky. This hedrank off neat. After that he felt better. The other men straggled inafter him. He faced them with set lips.
"Now," said he, "to tell Nigel."