Murder Point: A Tale of Keewatin Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  THE CORPORAL SETS OUT

  It would have been easy to shoot Strangeways at that time, and he musthave known it; yet, he was so much a gentleman that he accepted therisk, and had the decency to turn his back when circumstancescompelled him to give a man the lie. Granger wondered whether courtesywas the motive; or whether he was only testing him out of curiosity,to see of what fresh vulgarity of deceit he was capable.

  As he stood in the doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shouldersof Corporal Strangeways, late stroke of the 'Varsity Eight, to thetreacherous eyes of the gaunt grey beast before him which, by reasonof its unusual markings and untimely appearance, had once and foreverthrown Spurling's game away. There was something Satanic andsuggestive of evil about those green and jasper eyes, and the mannerin which they blinked out upon him from the furious yellow head. Werethey prompting him to crime, saying, "Why don't you fire? He can'tdefend himself; see, his back is turned?" No, not that. Hehalf-believed that the brute was endowed with human intelligence, andhad betrayed his late master of set purpose--perhaps, in revenge forthe many beatings he had received on the trail from Selkirk to MurderPoint. There was a vileness in the creature's look that was degradingand stirred up hatred--and surely, the lowest kind of enmity whichcan be entertained by man is toward a unit of the dumb creation. Thathe should feel so, humiliated and angered Granger. Was there notenough of ignominy for him to endure without that? He drew hisrevolver, took aim at this yellow devil--but could not fire. The beastdid not cringe and run away, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, stoopinglow on its legs, as is the habit of huskies when firearms are pointedat them; it sat there patiently blinking, a little in advance of itsfour grey comrades, with a mingled expression of amusement and boredomin its attitude, like a sleepy old bachelor uncle at a Christmasentertainment when Clown and Harlequin commence their threadbare jestsand fooleries. He might have been yawning and saying to himself, "Hangit all! Why do I stay? I know the confounded rubbish by heart--allthat these fellows will do and say."

  Granger's hand dropped to his side; this wolf-dog looked so far fromignorant--so much wiser than himself. Could it be that he also wasplaying in the game? Was it possible that he also was intent onhelping Spurling? Well, then, he should have his chance.

  For himself the season for deception was at an end; he had lied togain time for the fugitive, now let him see what truth could effect.He waded through the snow to Strangeways, tapped him on the shoulder,and was made painfully aware of the opinion held of him by the way inwhich the corporal screwed his shoulder aside.

  "I suppose I seem to you a pretty mean kind of a beast?"

  "I suppose you do."

  "I seem so to myself; but I have an excuse to make--that this man oncesaved my life."

  "So you're a hero in disguise?"

  "No, but I couldn't go back on a man who had done that."

  "I fail to see that that is a reason why you should have lied."

  "I called it an excuse."

  "In this case the words mean the same."

  "Well, then, I had a reason: if the person whom Spurling murdered isthe person whom I . . ."

  "Indeed! So you knew that much, did you?" At mention of the word"murdered," Strangeways had swung fiercely round and confrontedGranger.

  "Yes, I know that much. And if the man whom Spurling murdered is theman whom I suspect him to be, I had intended to dispense with law andto exact the penalty slowly, up here whence there is no escape,myself."

  "Then you'll be sorry to hear that you've lied to no purpose. Theperson whom Spurling murdered was not a man, you damned scoundrel."

  Strangeways turned sharply away from him, and, moving as briskly onhis snowshoes as the unpacked state of the snow would allow, commencedmethodically to go about the store in ever widening circles. Heevidently suspected that the fugitive was still in hiding there, orhad been at the time of his arrival, and had since escaped, in whichcase the snow would bear traces of his flight. When he had searchedthe mound in vain, he turned his attention to the river-bed where histeam of dogs was stationed. Granger, watching him from above, saw thathe had halted suddenly and was bending down. Then he heard himcalling his dogs together and saw him harnessing them quickly into hissledge. Panic seized him lest Strangeways should drive away withouttelling him the name of _this thing, which was not a man_, whichSpurling had murdered, and _whether the deed had been done in theKlondike_. Also he was curious to see for himself what it was that hehad found in the snow down there, which made him so eager to set out.He ploughed his way down the hillside, breaking through the surfaceand slipping as he ran, till he arrived out of breath at theriver-bank. Then he saw the meaning of this haste; approaching thePoint from the northward was a muffled track, partially obliterated bythe snow which had since fallen, which, on reaching Murder Point,doubled back, returning northward whence the traveller had come. Itmeant to Granger that, while he and Strangeways had been seatedtogether recalling old times in the store, Spurling had come back. Forwhat reason? No man would fight his way through a blizzard withoutgood purpose; he would lie down where he was till the storm had spentitself, lest he should wander from his trail. This man had everythingto lose by turning back. Then he discovered that the snow was speckledwith dots of black, and, stooping down, discerned that they were dropsof blood. Some of the blood-marks were fresh; the tracks themselveshad been made, perhaps, within the last three hours. Spurling musthave met with an accident, and, returning to the Point for help, hadseen the stranger's dogs and sledge, and turning northwards again hadfled. So thought Granger.

  Strangeways, in the meanwhile, was examining the feet of his leader.Presently he stood erect, and asked in a low voice, "Did you dothat?"

  "What?"

  "Look for yourself."

  Granger looked, and saw that the balls of the leader's forefeet hadbeen gashed several times with a knife.

  "How should I have done it?" he replied. "I've been in your companyevery minute since you arrived."

  "Who did it, then?"

  "You know as well as I."

  "And what do you think of a man who could do that?"

  "That he was very desperate."

  "I should call him a Gadarene swine."

  Strangeways stood in angry thought for a few seconds; then he jerkedup his head, and asked, "Can you lend me another team of huskies? Becareful when you answer that you tell me the truth this time."

  Granger smiled at the childishness of such threatening.

  "You will gain nothing by speaking like that," he said. "Unfortunatelyfor you, unlike Spurling, I am not afraid of death--I should welcomeit. Yet, while I live, I am curious; therefore I will promise you helpon one condition, that you tell me who has been murdered, and where."

  Strangeways lifted his eyes and surveyed Granger, asking himself, "Andis this statement also a lie?" But, when he spoke there were thebeginnings of a new respect in his voice. "So you are not afraid ofdeath?" he said. "Well, then, I owe you an apology for what I havecalled you, for I am; I am horribly afraid. I am afraid that I shalldie before I have avenged this death."

  "Tell me, who was it that was killed?" cried Granger, impatiently."Was it a girl? There was a girl whom I loved in the Klondike; youdon't know how you make me suffer."

  "Don't I?" replied Strangeways, grimly; and then with affectedindifference, "There are a good many girls in the Klondike; the bodyof this one was found washed ashore near Forty-Mile."

  "What's her name?"

  "That's what I'm here to find out."

  "Did Spurling know that she was a woman when he shot her?"

  "So you know that also--that he shot her? Whether he knew, I don'tcare; the fact remains that she is dead and that he is suspected."

  "Only suspected?"

  "Well, . . ."

  "By God!" cried Granger, bringing down his fist in Strangeways' face,"but you shall tell me! Was her name Mordaunt, and was she hispartner, and did she wear a man's disguise?"

  Strangeways turned
his head and dodged aside so that the blow felllightly; drawing his revolver, he covered his opponent. Grangeradvanced close up, until the barrel of the revolver touched his face;then he halted and waited.

  Strangeways watched him; looked into his eyes amazed; then lowered hisweapon and laughed nervously. "Oh," he said, "I remember, you are notafraid of death."

  "But I am of madness and suspense."

  Strangeways did not reply at once. Perhaps a sudden understanding haddawned on him, pity and a vision of what it meant to live through theeternal Now at Murder Point. He may have been asking himself, "For thelack of one small untruth, shall I thrust this man into Hell?" At anyrate, when he answered he spoke gently. "No," he said, "she wore awoman's dress; be sure of it, your girl-friend is safe up there."

  Granger looked at him steadily, wondering why he should have lied;than he took his hand and pressed it in the English manner, "I believeyou," he said. Yet, at the back of his mind a voice was persistentlyquestioning, "Do I believe him? But can I believe that?"

  He was interrupted in his thoughts by Strangeways saying, "It's a pitythat that poor brute should suffer; he's certain to die."

  The corporal went near, levelled his revolver and shot the leaderbetween the eyes. The bullet did its work; the dog shivered, andtottered, rolled over on its side, tried to rise again, then stretcheditself out wearily as if for sleep at the end of a hard day's travel.

  "You can do that for a mere husky," said Granger bitterly; "but yourefuse to do it for a man."

  "The husky had a harsh time of it in this world and has no otherlife."

  "If that's so, he's to be congratulated; but there was the more reasonwhy he should have been allowed to live his one life out. We wretchedmen are never done with life; if I were sure that there was only oneexistence and no reproaches in a future world, I could be brave to theend. It's this repetition of mortality, which men call immortality,that staggers my intellect, making me afraid--afraid lest there is nodeath."

  Strangeways shrugged his shoulders and scowled. He did not like thesubject--it caused him discomfort; there was so much left for him inlife. He planned, when he had captured Spurling and seen him safelyhanged, to buy himself out of the Mounted Police, return to England,and there live pleasantly at his club in London and as squire on hisestate. He would marry, he told himself; and though not the girl whomhe had most desired, for he believed her to be dead, yet, like asensible man, some other girl, who would be his friend, and bear hischildren, and make him happy. If once he could get out of Keewatin,having performed his duty honourably, he would do all that--whenSpurling had been captured alive or dead.

  Therefore he broke in on Granger roughly, inquiring, "Where are thosehuskies which you are going to lend me?"

  "They are Spurling's huskies which he left behind when I lent himmine."

  "How long ago was that?--If they're Spurling's, they must be prettywell played out."

  "They are. They've rested for thirty hours more or less; but I don'tthink you'll manage to catch him up with them."

  "Perhaps not, but I'll try; he can't be more than three hours ahead."

  "Three hours with a fresh team is as good as three days."

  "You forget the difference between the two men."

  "No, I don't, for the one has the memory of his crime."

  "It's the memory of his crime that'll wear him out, and that samememory that'll give me strength."

  "Why? What makes you hate him so? Supposing he did kill a woman, itmay have been an accident. She may even have felt grateful for thebullet, as I should have done just now had you shot me dead. It'shorrible to kill anyone, but then the poor devil's fleeing for hislife and he's suffering a thousand times more pain than heinflicted."

  "Is he? Does he suffer the pain of the man who follows behind?Supposing a certain man had loved that woman and had lost her, and hadplanned all his life on the off-chance of meeting her again, dreamingof her day and night, and then had suddenly learnt that she wasbrutally dead by Spurling's hand on some God-forsaken Yukon River,where the ground was hard like iron so that no grave could be dug bythe murderer, and her body froze to marble and lay exposed all winterthrough the long dark days, with the bullet wound red in her forehead,and her grey face looking up toward the frosty sky, till the springcame and the water washed her body under and threw it up in a creeknear Forty-Mile, where a year later it was discovered mutilated anddefiled, do you think that her lover would be glad of that? Do youthink that he would pity the black-guard who could do such ascoundrelly deed as that?"

  Strangeways was speaking wildly, his voice was trembling and his facewas haggard and lined; he was crying like a child. "The man who coulddo a deed like that," he shouted, menacing the stars with his clenchedhand, "the man who could do a deed like that is so corrupt that evenGod would search for good in him in vain. It's the duty of every cleanman to hound him off the earth. While we allow him to live, we eachone share his taint. I'll pray God every day of my life that Spurlingmay be damned throughout the ages--eternally and pitilessly damned."

  When Granger could make his voice heard, "You don't mean that she wasMordaunt?" he cried. All this talk about a woman who had been lost andloved paralleled his own case--he took it as applied to himself.

  Strangeways recovered himself with an effort, "No, no," he saidhuskily. "Mordaunt, you have told me, was a man. I was only supposingall that."

  "But Mordaunt was not a man, but a woman in man's clothing."

  Strangeways closed his lips tightly together, refusing to take notice,pretending that he had not heard. Granger spoke again. "Mordaunt wasnot a man," he said.

  "In that case," answered Strangeways, "you know what the man sufferswho is following behind. I will tell you no more than that."

  "You've told me enough and I will help you; only pledge me once moreon your sacred word that this body was found in a woman's dress."

  Strangeways hesitated; then his eyes caught again the bleakness of theland and his imagination pictured the awful loneliness of life upthere. Looking full on Granger he said, "On my most sacred word as abrother-gentleman, the body that was found was clothed in a woman'sdress."

  "Then, thank God, she was not Mordaunt!" said Granger; "but because heknew her to be a woman at the time when he killed her, I will help younone the less."

  Having called together Spurling's huskies, they found them to be tooweak for travel, with the exception of the leader, therefore theyharnessed in the corporal's remaining four dogs, putting theyellow-faced stranger at their head. No sooner had they turned theirbacks and gone inside the store to bring out the necessary provisions,than the four old dogs, jealous of their new leader, hurled themselvesupon him, burying their fangs in his shaggy hair, intent on tearinghim to death--an old-timer husky can stand a good deal of that. Hestrained on the traces, exposing to them only his hindquarters,running well ahead, and keeping his throat safe. Not until the two menhad clubbed them nearly senseless did they subside into sullenquietness; and then only so long as they were watched. Once a back wasturned, the four hind dogs piled on to their leader and the fightrecommenced.

  "You won't go far with them," said Granger. He did not notice the lookof reawakened suspicion which flickered in Strangeways' eyes. "Youwon't go far with them; the moment you camp and that yellow-facedbeast gets his chance, he'll chew your four dogs to pieces. That'swhat he's there for, it's my belief--he's playing Spurling's game.He'll take you fifty or a hundred miles from Murder Point, and thereleave you stranded."

  "What would you advise?" This was spoken in a quiet voice.

  "I would advise you to wait here till the summer has come, and then toproceed by water."

  "But on snow I can follow his trail, whereas travel by water leaves notraces."

  "What does that matter? Instead of following him, let him return toyou, as he did to-night. You've driven him up a blind alley on thisLast Chance River; he can only go to the blank wall of the Bay, andthen come back."

  "He can reach the House of the C
rooked Creek."

  "And if he does, what of that? He'll be touching the blank wall then.They won't want him. The first question that they'll ask him will be,'And what have you come here for?' If he can't give a satisfactoryaccount of himself, they'll place him under arrest. When you get newsof that, you can go up there and fetch him."

  "And if he doesn't get so far as that?"

  "You can set out by canoe and drive him back, and back, till you cometo the Bay, and he can go no further."

  "He might hide, and I might pass him on the way--what then?"

  "In that case he'd double back and come past Murder Point, trying toget out."

  "In the meanwhile I should be a hundred, two hundred miles to thenorthwards, travelling towards the Bay on my fool's errand, and whowould be here to capture him?"

  "Why, I should."

  "Precisely."

  Granger started; the way in which that last word had been spoken hadmade Strangeways' meaning manifest. He blushed like a girl at theshame of it. "Surely you don't still distrust me? You don't think mesuch a sneak that, having got you out of the way, I'd let him slip byand out?"

  "It looks like it."

  "But, man, don't you realise that our interests are the same?"

  "Since when?"

  "Since you told me of a woman who was done to death on a Yukon river,and lay unburied all winter till the thaw came, and her body waswashed down to a creek near Forty-Mile, where it lay through thesummer naked, gazed upon, uncovered, and defiled."

  "I fancy you knew all that when you helped Spurling to escape."

  "Yes, but I didn't know that it was a woman, and I didn't know hername."

  "And you don't know her name now."

  "I do; it was Jervis Mordaunt who wore a man's disguise."

  "I told you that she wore a woman's dress."

  "I know. I know."

  "Then do you mean to tell me that I lied?"

  "Perhaps, but not to accuse you. You said it out of kindness, and thatwas partly true which you said. You meant that the body was naked whenit was found."

  "If you dare to speak of her like that again, I'll choke you, and runthe risk of getting hanged myself. The land has debased you, as theYukon debased your friend. I can read you; you're still half-minded toplay his game, and that's why you want to turn me back."

  "Yes, I want to turn you back. Spurling's a hard-pressed man and he'sdangerous. You can judge of what he is capable by what has justhappened. He's cunning and, in his way, he's brave; he wouldn'tscruple to take your life. Your best policy is to wait--either here orat God's Voice, as you think best. The ice will soon be unsafe totravel; already a mile from here, where the river flows rapidly roundfrom the south-west, the part on the inside bend is rotten. I had toguide Spurling round that. At first, before I saw you and knew who youwere, I was tempted not to warn you, to let you take your own chanceand go on by yourself, and, perhaps, get drowned; but now, after Ihave seen you and after what you have told me, I can't do that."

  "So you were tempted to let me drown myself, and now you arerepentant?"

  Granger bowed his head.

  "Then I tell you that if the ice were as rotten as your soul orSpurling's, I would still follow him, though I had to follow him toHell. If I've got to die, I'll die game--and you shan't turn me back."

  Granger ran out after him, calling him to stay, offering to guide himround the danger spot in his trail. But suspicion and untruthfulnesshad done their work. Only once did he turn his head, when at the crackof the whip the yellow-faced leader leapt forward in his traces. Thenhe answered him and cried, "He killed the woman I loved, and he shallpay the price though I follow him to Hell."

  So far as is known, these were the last words which Strangeways eversaid.