The fugitive collided with one of the policemen who ran to head him off, sending him sprawling down the slope; indeed, the fugitive seemed inspired with the strength of a wild ape. He cleared at a bound the rampart of flowers, over which Barbara had once leaned to look at her future lover, and tumbled with blinding speed down the steep path up which that troubadour had climbed. Racing with the rushing wind they all streamed across the garden after him, down the path, and finally on to the seashore by the fisher's cot, and the pierced crags and caverns the American had admired when he first landed.
The runaway did not, however, make for the house he had long inhabited, but rather for the pier, as if with a mind to seize the boat or to swim.
Only when he reached the other end of the small stone jetty did he turn, and show them the pale face with the spectacles; and they saw that it was still smiling.
"I'm rather glad of this," said Treherne, with a great sigh.
"The man is mad."
Nevertheless, the naturalness of the doctor's voice, when he spoke, startled them as much as a shriek.
"Gentleman," he said, "I won't protract your painful duties by asking you what you want; but I will ask at once for a small favor, which will not prejudice those duties in any way.
I came down here rather in a hurry perhaps; but the truth is I thought I was late for an appointment." He looked dispassionately at his watch. "I find there is still some fifteen minutes.
Will you wait with me here for that short time; after which I am quite at your service."
There was a bewildered silence, and then Paynter said:
"For my part, I feel as if it would really be better to humor him."
"Ashe," said the doctor, with a new note of seriousness, "for old friendship, grant me this last little indulgence.
It will make no difference; I have no arms or means of escape; you. can search me if you like. I know you think you are doing right, and I also know you will do it as fairly as you can. Well, after all, you get friends to help you; look at our friend with the beard, or the remains of the beard. Why shouldn't I have a friend to help me?
A man will be here in a few minutes in whom I put some confidence; a great authority on these things. Why not, if only out of curiosity, wait and hear his view of the case?"
"This seems all moonshine," said Ashe, "but on the chance of any light on things--well, from the moon--I don't mind waiting a quarter of an hour. Who is this friend, I wonder; some ******* detective, I suppose."
"I thank you," said the doctor, with some dignity.
"I think you will trust him when you have talked to him a little.
And now," he added with an air of amiably relaxing into lighter matters, "let us talk about the murder.
"This case," he said in a detached manner, "will be found, I suspect, to be rather unique. There is a very clear and conclusive combination of evidence against Thomas Burton Brown, otherwise myself. But there is one peculiarity about that evidence, which you may perhaps have noticed.
It all comes ultimately from one source, and that a rather unusual one.
Thus, the woodcutter says I had his ax, but what makes him think so?
He says I told him I had his ax; that I told him so again and again.
Once more, Mr. Paynter here pulled up the ax out of the well; but how?
I think Mr. Paynter will testify that I brought him the tackle for fishing it up, tackle he might never have got in any other way.
Curious, is it not? Again, the ax is found to be wrapped in lint that was in my possession, according to the fisherman. But who showed the lint to the fisherman? I did. Who marked it with large letters as mine? I did. Who wrapped it round the handle at all? I did.
Rather a singular thing to do; has anyone ever explained it?"
His words, which had been heard at first with painful coldness were beginning to hold more and more of their attention.
"Then there is the well itself," proceeded the doctor, with the same air of insane calm. "I suppose some of you by this time know at least the secret of that.
The secret of the well is simply that it is not a well.
It is purposely shaped at the top so as to look like one, but it is really a sort of chimney opening from the roof of one of those caves over there; a cave that runs inland just under the wood, and indeed IS connected by tunnels and secret passages with other openings miles and miles away. It is a sort of labyrinth used by smugglers and such people for ages past.
This doubtless explains many of those disappearances we have heard of.
But to return to the well that is not a well, in case some of you still don't know about it. When the sea rises very high at certain seasons it fills the low cave, and even rises a little way in the funnel above, ****** it look more like a well than ever.
The noise Mr. Paynter heard was the natural eddy of a breaker from outside, and the whole experience depended on something so elementary as the tide."
The American was startled into ordinary speech.
"The tide!" he said. "And I never even thought of it!
I guess that comes of living by the Mediterranean."
"The next step will be obvious enough," continued the speaker, "to a logical mind like that of Mr. Ashe, for instance. If it be asked why, even so, the tide did not wash away the Squire's remains that had lain there since his disappearance, there is only one possible answer.
The remains had NOT lain there since his disappearance. The remains had been deliberately put there in the cavern under the wood, and put there AFTER Mr. Paynter had made his first investigation. They were put there, in short, after the sea had retreated and the cave was again dry.
That is why they were dry; of course, much drier than the cave.
Who put them there, I wonder?"
He was gazing gravely through his spectacles over their heads into vacancy, and suddenly he smiled.
"Ah," he cried, jumping up from. the rock with alacrity, "here is the ******* detective at last!"
Ashe turned his head over his shoulder, and for a few seconds did not move it again, but stood as if with a stiff neck.
