“He’d served in the British army in India, evidently. But all his strength and courage and being a quick man with a gun hadn’t helped him when his time came. The queer part of it is — the look on his face. Go and see for yourself!”
“What?” I asked in surprise. “Where is the body?”
“In the back part of this house,” said Stevenson. “Old Hathaway couldn’t stand its being in his house. The doctor told me that, and I had him bring it over here until the funeral.”
“You say Mr. Hathaway couldn’t stand—”
“It does seem strange. But it’s not so queer after you’ve had a look at it. I’ll show you where it is.”
I followed him to the rear of the house and one glance was enough for me; the man had been young and seemed the embodiment of physical vigor; the lines of his face were strong and magnificently resolute; I mean, they must have been when he was alive.
But that face showed, in death, every evidence of the most frightful, speechless terror; moreover, the unfortunate victim had died with his right hand pressed against the right side of his neck, high up, close to the ear — such, a position as a man might take if listening intently for the repetition of a sound which had arrested his attention suddenly. Death, abrupt and awful, had caught him in that attitude and fixed him there.
We left the room and went back to the living room. I admit that I was shuddering. “Good God,” I said to Stevenson, “that man looks as if he’d died of fright!”
“That’s what the doctor told me — but he said I wasn’t to tell any one.”
I had had no lunch, and I didn’t want any. I wondered what Ruggles would say, at this new development.
It was five before he returned. He came in with a paper-wrapped box, about eighteen inches long and five inches across, under his arm. I noticed that air holes had been punched in the wrapping paper and I asked him what he had in the box.
“A pet,” he said lightly, “to keep us company, during the nights we spend here.”
He was beginning to untie the string on the box when Stevenson broke in with the news of the tragedy of the night before. Ruggles instantly made the string fast again and we stood, in another moment, by the body of the unfortunate victim.
“No wound or disease,” Stevenson explained. “Just killed by fright. Look at his face! Ever see such a sight in your life? No, or any one else! Fright did it, Mr. Ruggles. The doctor agrees with me, though he said I mustn’t tell any one. This poor fellow had thought he heard something, and he put up his hand, up there to his ear, to listen, and then—”
Ruggles replaced the sheet over the body and led the way back into the living room. After a long moment of silence, he turned to Stevenson: “I don’t wonder the doctor told you not to say that that man died of fright. The doctor himself will not admit that he believes that. His face shows terror in its most horrible form, but it was only because he recognized, too late, the midnight marauder which had attacked him.”
“Attacked?” Stevenson-cried hoarsely. “You think the man was murdered? What do you mean — attacked?”
“You would not believe me if I told you now,” Ruggles said thoughtfully. “You have never heard of such a thing- happening; you would tell me that it was impossible for such a thing to happen, here in America, in the year 1924. But the time is coming, fast and soon, when you will believe it because you have been forced to believe it. Then I shall give you the facts which I now withhold.”
Then, as Stevenson stared at him, speechless with amazement, Ruggles went to the center table, on which he had laid the oblong, paper-wrapped box and slowly undid the string.
“Mr. Hathaway lost one protector last night,” he said quietly. “I am able to provide him with another and even a better one, if he will accept it from my hands.”
He took off the wrapping paper and lifted the cover of the box.
Chapter VII
Our Strange Ally
He took from the box what looked, at first glance, like a small cat, for it seemed to have a cat’s fur and tail; but its head was shaped like a weasel’s and its restless eyes and the end of its sharp nose were pink.
When Ruggles lifted him out of the box, the small creature sat up and put his fur in order, just as a cat does; then it looked around, walked to the edge of the table, and jumped from there to Stevenson’s shoulder.
“That’s all right,” Ruggles cried as Stevenson started to fling the little thing off. “Don’t be afraid! He won’t hurt you! He’s simply making friends.”
“Well, I’ll say he’s tame enough,” Lemuel Stevenson laughed. “He’s—”
“He’s an ichneumon,” Ruggles explained, “and they’re all like that. It’s been quite a long trip, in that box, out here from the animal shop where I bought him, on lower Broadway, and probably he’s tired and hungry. We’ll give him a little piece of raw meat, then he’ll go to sleep, so as to be ready for the night.”
“What does he do at night?” Stevenson asked.
“He gets up,” said Ruggles slowly and significantly, “and attends to every noise he hears and finds out what made it. He’s a good little friend and ally: if he’d been in the Hathaway house last night that man wouldn’t have died.” He lifted the little animal from Stevenson’s shoulder, saying: “Come, old fellow, you’ve got to have your supper.”
“Just a minute,” said Stevenson, “you said raw meat was the ticket, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Ruggles, “but we’ll let Mr. Hathaway give it to him. It will be a good way for them to become acquainted.” Ruggles lifted the ichneumon back into the box and put back the cover and tied it.
“But,” said Stevenson, “I thought he was going to stay here, with us, I mean.”
“No, he must go to the Hathaways and go at once, for the enemy which struck body servant and protector last night, will strike again. There’s no time to be lost. Come!” Ruggles turned to the door, the box under his arm.
But Stevenson called him back. “Got a gun on you?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll need one, once you’re over that fence.”
“Why?”
“The dogs.”
“They, too, are protecting Mr. Hathaway and, God knows, he needs all the guards he can have, human or animal. I don’t want to shoot them.” Ruggles thought a moment.
Stevenson went closer to him and spoke earnestly: “Look here, Mr. Ruggles, I know you’ve done some great work against crooks in New York and other big cities; but you’ve always worked alongside of the police, as I remember it. Why don’t you call in the police now? We’ve got a good one in Deersdale.
“All you’ve got to do is drive down there to-morrow morning and ask him to help you. The fact of it is” — he looked irresolutely at Ruggles, then at me, then back at Ruggles again — “I don’t like the way this thing is going. When I called you in, all I wanted was to have you get that suit case back to its owner and—”
“And find out,” Ruggles supplied, “what was threatening old Mr. Hathaway. That’s what you said.”
“Yes,” Stevenson admitted unwillingly, “that’s what I said; and I meant it, then. But it’s different now: some fiend or devil has come into this house of mine and scared my servants into a faint so they’ve run off and left me; and something else has killed a man next door — anyway, you say he was killed, and he’s dead, that’s sure, and you say that’s only the beginning.”