The sun was about three hours high. I must have slept, for I was aroused by the sudden gallop of horses under our window. People were shouting and calling in the road. I sprang up and opened the sash. Le Bihan was there, an image of helplessness, and Max Fortin stood beside him polishing his gla.s.ses. Some gendarmes had just arrived from Quimperle, and I could hear them around the corner of the house, stamping, and rattling their sabres and carbines, as they led their horses into my stable.
Lys sat up, murmuring half-sleepy, half-anxious questions.
"I don"t know," I answered. "I am going out to see what it means."
"It is like the day they came to arrest you," Lys said, giving me a troubled look. But I kissed her and laughed at her until she smiled too. Then I flung on coat and cap and hurried down the stairs.
The first person I saw standing in the road was the Brigadier Durand.
"h.e.l.lo!" said I, "have you come to arrest me again? What the devil is all this fuss about, anyway?"
"We were telegraphed for an hour ago," said Durand briskly, "and for a sufficient reason, I think. Look there, Monsieur Darrel!"
He pointed to the ground almost under my feet.
"Good heavens!" I cried, "where did that puddle of blood come from?"
"That"s what I want to know, Monsieur Darrel. Max Fortin found it at daybreak. See, it"s splashed all over the gra.s.s, too. A trail of it leads into your garden, across the flower beds to your very window, the one that opens from the morning room. There is another trail leading from this spot across the road to the cliffs, then to the gravel pit, and thence across the moor to the forest of Kerselec. We are going to mount in a minute and search the bosquets. Will you join us? Bon Dieu! but the fellow bled like an ox. Max Fortin says it"s human blood, or I should not have believed it."
The little chemist of Quimperle came up at that moment, rubbing his gla.s.ses with a colored handkerchief.
"Yes, it is human blood," he said, "but one thing puzzles me: the corpuscles are yellow. I never saw any human blood before with yellow corpuscles. But your English Doctor Thompson a.s.serts that he has--"
"Well, it"s human blood, anyway-isn"t it?" insisted Durand, impatiently.
"Ye-es," admitted Max Fortin.
"Then it"s my business to trail it," said the big gendarme, and he called his men and gave the order to mount.
"Did you hear anything last night?" asked Durand of me.
"I heard the rain. I wonder the rain did not wash away these traces."
"They must have come after the rain ceased. See this thick splash, how it lies over and weighs down the wet gra.s.s blades. Pah!"
It was a heavy, evil-looking clot, and I stepped back from it, my throat closing in disgust.
"My theory," said the brigadier, "is this: Some of those Biribi fishermen, probably the Icelanders, got an extra gla.s.s of cognac into their hides and quarreled on the road. Some of them were slashed, and staggered to your house. But there is only one trail, and yet-and yet, how could all that blood come from only one person? Well, the wounded man, let us say, staggered first to your house and then back here, and he wandered off, drunk and dying, G.o.d knows where. That"s my theory."
"A very good one," said I calmly. "And you are going to trail him?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At once. Will you come?"
"Not now. I"ll gallop over by-and-bye. You are going to the edge of the Kerselec forest?"
"Yes; you will hear us calling. Are you coming, Max Fortin? And you, Le Bihan? Good; take the dog-cart."
The big gendarme tramped around the corner to the stable and presently returned mounted on a strong gray horse, his sabre shone on his saddle; his pale yellow and white facings were spotless. The little crowd of white-coiffed women with their children fell back as Durand touched spurs and clattered away followed by his two troopers. Soon after Le Bihan and Max Fortin also departed in the mayor"s dingy dog-cart.
"Are you coming?" piped Le Bihan shrilly.
"In a quarter of an hour," I replied, and went back to the house.
When I opened the door of the morning room the death"s-head moth was beating its strong wings against the window. For a second I hesitated, then walked over and opened the sash. The creature fluttered out, whirred over the flower beds a moment, then darted across the moorland toward the sea. I called the servants together and questioned them. Josephine, Catherine, Jean Marie Tregunc, not one of them had heard the slightest disturbance during the night. Then I told Jean Marie to saddle my horse, and while I was speaking Lys came down.
"Dearest," I began, going to her.
"You must tell me everything you know, d.i.c.k," she interrupted, looking me earnestly in the face.
"But there is nothing to tell-only a drunken brawl, and some one wounded."
"And you are going to ride-where, d.i.c.k?"
"Well, over to the edge of Kerselec forest. Durand and the mayor, and Max Fortin, have gone on, following a-a trail."
"What trail?"
"Some blood."
"Where did they find it?"
"Out in the road there." Lys crossed herself.
"Does it come near our house?"
"Yes."
"How near?"
"It comes up to the morning room window," said I, giving in.
Her hand on my arm grew heavy. "I dreamed last night--"
"So did I-" but I thought of the empty cartridges in my revolver, and stopped.
"I dreamed that you were in great danger, and I could not move hand or foot to save you; but you had your revolver, and I called out to you to fire--"
"I did fire!" I cried excitedly.
"You-you fired?"
I took her in my arms. "My darling," I said "something strange has happened-something that I cannot understand as yet. But, of course, there is an explanation. Last night I thought I fired at the Black Priest."
"Ah!" gasped Lys.