E. Phillips Oppenheim - Crime & Mystery Collection - 110+ Thrillers & Detective Tales in One Volume (Illustrated Edition)

Flip edged a little farther away. She had no high opinion of the newcomer; neither had Goade. A person more utterly out of touch with his surroundings could scarcely be conceived. He was obviously of Semitic origin, city born, probably a Londoner. His soiled collar, the flashy glass pin in his tie, the thin, pointed shoes, his masses of heavily oiled black hair now hanging in untidy strips about his face, seemed all to belong to the crowded thoroughfares of Houndsditch or Whitechapel. They certainly struck a strangely discordant note in this land of brawny, apple-cheeked men, sunshine, and perfumed open places.

“Gawd!” the young man repeated, struggling to control his sobbing breath.

“What’s the matter with you?” Goade asked. “And who was that firing?”

“‘Im, I should think—blast ‘im!”

Goade filled his pipe deliberately.

“I may be dense,” he acknowledged, “but ‘im’ seems to me a little vague. I should like to know who it was out there in the middle of the moor pattering us with shot.”

The young man raised himself upon his elbow; his complexion was a pasty shade of green ; he had obviously been very badly frightened.

“Guv’nor,” he begged, “you don’t ‘appen to ‘ave a pocket flask with you?”

“I don’t carry such a thing,” Goade replied. “Plenty of good ale and cider in all the little pubs in this part of the world.”

“Not enough on ‘em,” the newcomer groaned. “Pubs! There ain’t even a house in sight. Gawd! I could do with a drink!”

Goade drew out a map and studied it for a moment.

“There should be a hamlet within three miles of here,” he remarked. “In the meantime can’t you tell me what scared you?”

The young man shuddered.

“Mate,” he said, “you’ve ‘eard of wild cats and wild boars and such-like.”

“My knowledge of natural history carries me thus far,” Goade acquiesced.

The other stared at him.

“You wouldn’t be kidding,” he declared, “if you’d see’d what I’ve seen, I’ve seen a wild man . What about that?”

“Good for you,” Goade replied coolly. “He seems to have frightened you pretty badly. Tell me about it.”

The young man pointed across the moorland towards the belt of hills.

“I’m staying at a farm there,” he explained. “Doctor thought I might be turning a bit consumptive. I live in the Bethnal Green Road—name of Bill Aarons. Good for business, but it ain’t a ‘ealth resort. I come down here for an ‘oliday.”

“An excellent idea,” said Goade. “Go on.”

“I got a motor bike and a side car. I didn’t mean to bring the side car along, but I thought there might be a bit of skirt ‘anging around, so I hitched it on at the last moment. There’s a girl at the farm—stand-offish but all right—I tell you, Guv’nor, she’s a peach!”

“A girl at the farm,” Goade repeated. “Good! We’re progressing.”

“Can’t say as she’s seemed partial to me exactly, but to-day, when I was starting for a ride, she said she’d come along. I’ve arsked ‘er often enough before, but she didn’t seem somehow to cotton to me. Well, she would go ‘er own way—made me strike across a road that wasn’t fit for a farm wagon, let alone my outfit. I kept on wanting to stop and talk a bit, but she made me go on until the road ended. Then she got out and stared down this way. ‘I’m going to walk for a short time,’ she said. ‘You can stay here and smoke cigarettes. I may be gone an hour or two.’ “

“Not very pally, that,” Goade remarked.

“I thought she was kidding,” the young man confided. “It’s the loneliest part of the moor I’ve seen—huge boulders of rocks, very little grass even—but she started off. I don’t know whether she expected me to follow or not. Anyway, I’d brought her out for the afternoon and I wasn’t going to be shaken like that, so I hopped along and tried to take her arm. I thought it would be all right if we rested in the shade of one of the boulders, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Mabel Crocombe, ‘er name is, and she’s a looker, I can tell you. Anyway, we walks along a quarter of a mile or so—I trying to kid ‘er on to being a bit pally, and she acting like as though she wanted to shake me. ‘You can’t go walking about ‘ere by yourself,’ I told ‘er. ‘Anything might ‘appen to you.’ ‘You leave me alone,’ she snapped. ‘I know what I want to do.’ … Gawd!”

He had recovered his breath by this time, and his body had ceased to tremble. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a blue silk pocket handkerchief which had seen better days.

“Bill Aarons ain’t taking that sort of stuff from any skirt what comes out with ‘im, so I just let ‘er know it. I had me arm round ‘er waist, and I was just pointing out a nice place to sit and talk things over, when, I give you my word, Guv’nor, something came up out of the earth— something that must have been a man, but strike me ‘e didn’t look it!”

“Out of the earth?” Goade murmured reflectively.

“That’s wot it seemed like,” the young man maintained. “He just popped out of the middle of that great slanting boulder you can see yonder; must be a kind of cave. Well, ‘e made a funny sort of noise and blowed if ‘e didn’t lift me up by the collar and shake me as though I were a puppy dog. He’d got great brown paws, hair all over ‘is ‘ead, and, Gawd, I thought at first ‘e was naked.”

“And was he?”

“He’d no shoes on, or stockings, only a pair of corduroy breeches and a kind of shirt. His skin was pretty nearly black, and when he picked me up he was roaring like a bull. Then he set me down and laid ‘old of the girl by the wrist. Mabel shrieked, but she couldn’t get away. Then he bellowed to me. ‘If you’re within sight in ten seconds,’ he shouted, ‘I’ll smash every bone in your body!’ Strike me lucky, he meant it, too!”

“What did you do?” Goade enquired.

“What did I do?” the young man repeated scornfully. “That’s a good ‘un! I legged it, as ‘ard as I could.”

“And left the girl there?”

“What good could I ‘ave done? I tell you, he’s a wild man, a giant. His arms were bigger than my legs. He could put me in a sandwich and eat me.”

Goade rose to his feet and gazed at the boulder to which the young man had pointed. Even as he stood up there was again the report of a gun from the same direction. Bill Aarons, with a yell of terror, fell flat on his face. This time, however, there was no sound of pattering shot.

“Come on, Flip,” Goade called out.

“You ain’t going there, Guv’nor?” the fugitive demanded in an awe-stricken tone.

“Of course I am,” was the curt reply. “What do you suppose is happening to the girl?”

“Don’t you butt in, mate,” the young man begged. “You’re a big fellow, but ‘e could do you in in ten seconds.”

Goade, ignoring his companion, started off briskly. The latter hesitated, then followed a few yards behind. Presently he stopped.

“I tell you you’re barmy, Guv’nor,” he called out.

Goade turned around and looked at him, and the young man slunk behind a rock…

Nevertheless, as he drew near the heap of boulders from which the shot had come, Goade glanced around him a little anxiously. The place was the loneliest he had met with in all his wanderings—a stretch of picturesque but barren country, with nothing to tempt the farmer, either herbage for cattle or soil for planting. There was no road marked upon the map for several miles; a few whortleberry bushes here and there—otherwise neither vegetation nor flowers. One could well believe that months might elapse without even a passer-by. It was certainly, Goade decided, as he neared his destination, a most unpleasant place for an adventure such as the young man Aarons had indicated. He turned the corner of the huge boulder warily, and then stopped short. There was an opening which led underground, which might well have been the entrance to a cave, and in front of it a girl lay stretched upon the ground…