Part 31 (2/2)

”c.u.mshaw!” I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

I could not see him since he was lurking right in the interior shadows, but some electric quality in the air convinced me that his astonishment was as great as mine. Nevertheless he answered me in tones that were as calm as could be.

”So it's yourself, Carstairs,” he said. ”I'll have to apologise for being a little previous with you, but you must remember that you are standing in your own light and I can only see your outline. And----Ah!

here is Miss Drummond too.”

He came towards us at that, a dark figure looming out of the gloom. And the next instant we had him one by each hand and pelted him with questions.

”I thought you were dead,” I said. ”How did you come alive again?”

”What happened?” Moira asked.

”How did you get here and what were you doing all night?”

”One question at a time,” he said laughingly. ”It seems pretty obvious that I'm not dead, doesn't it?”

”It does,” I admitted. ”But you were dead, or you appeared to be, when I left you last night.”

”I don't quite understand,” he said. ”What do you mean?”

I told him then how I had stumbled across his body on my return the previous evening, how I had identified him, and, satisfied that he was dead, had left him to attend to more pressing business. I related how I had scoured the valley that very morning and failed to find the least trace of him. What was the explanation of the seeming miracle? I asked.

”There's nothing miraculous about it,” he said. ”Last night I must have been creased, sort of stunned, you know. The bullet didn't go near any vital part. It just ploughed along the back of my neck and knocked me unconscious. I suppose I would seem pretty dead to anyone who stumbled across me. It's not always so easy for a layman to tell whether a man is really dead or not. However, I remember coming-to just on daylight, and hearing someone cras.h.i.+ng through the bushes. It struck me then that I didn't know how things had panned out, so I'd better take cover until I made sure. So when you were hunting for me I was running away from you, keeping a couple of jumps ahead all the time. I gradually edged round towards the cave, and was just in time to see a dim figure slip out into the bushes. I wasn't close enough to see more clearly. Miss Drummond, you say. Yes, I suppose so; but I didn't know that then. However, as the cave seemed deserted after that I took possession with the intention of turning the tables. And then----But you know the rest yourself. How much further have we got?”

”Lots,” I said. ”The others are dead and buried, and I have found the original site of the hut. Once we locate the lone tree we're right.”

”That should be easy enough,” said Moira with a woman's airy a.s.surance.

c.u.mshaw watched us both with a queer smile flickering about his lips.

”What do you think of it, Carstairs?” he said at length.

”I don't fancy there'll be much difficulty in that,” I answered. ”It should be plain sailing from now onwards.”

”It strikes me,” he said, ”that we're just entering upon the toughest stretch of the lot. However, the sooner we get to work the better. I vote we start right away.”

”But, Mr. c.u.mshaw,” Moira protested, ”do you think you feel well enough?”

”Miss Drummond,” he answered, ”I've got pains all down my neck, and my head's humming like a hive of bees, and I've got incipient rheumatics in every joint in my body from lying all night on the damp ground. It's bad enough to have all that wrong with me, without being compelled to spend another day in idleness. No, if I get to work at once I'll feel much better. Work, you know, is a good soporific.”

”I suppose you know best,” she conceded, a little doubtfully.

”I've been thinking things over,” I remarked as we made our way back to the site of the hut, ”and it's just struck me that something I once heard Bryce say might have some bearing on the matter. The night those chaps burgled us he said, 'They're up a gum-tree when they should be under one.' I'm not so sure of the exact words now, but that's the substance of them anyway.”

”But,” c.u.mshaw objected, ”he didn't know as much about the Valley then as we do now.”

”Quite so,” I said. ”I never thought he really meant anything by what he said, but that remark's been running through my head. It seems to me that everyone right through has been obsessed by the idea of the tree, and now that it's disappeared we're at a loose end. Everybody, from your father and Bradby down to Bryce and ourselves, has taken it for granted that a tree's vital to the solution.”

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