Cranston watched while the detective walked along the shore, noting a succession of marks that led past the bunkers to skirt the woods. These were Mildred Chittenden’s footprints. Cranston turned back to the game long enough to sink a perfect putt. Then, as he followed his companions to the fourteenth tee, he watched Merrick returning to the green which the players had just left.
So engrossed was the detective that he did not notice the men upon the tee. Only Cranston was watching him.
Merrick was trying to visualize the situation that had existed here the day when Walter Pearson had last been seen. Finally, with an unconscious shrug of his shoulders, the baffled sleuth walked slowly toward the fairway along which he had come.
The fourteenth tee was more distant from the grove of beeches than was the thirteenth hole. Lamont Cranston and his companions played off, then started up the fourteenth fairway, away from the Sound.
Simultaneously, Calvin Merrick, still in deep thought, stopped his advance and moved over to the edge of the trees.
Cranston, well up the fourteenth fairway, turned and saw the detective. Merrick had stopped just on the fringe of the woods. Cranston watched him intently, expecting that Merrick would come back to the thirteenth fairway.
It was then that the detective performed the unexpected. Acting upon a sudden impulse, he walked directly into the grove.
Merrick was gone in an instant, his dark-checkered suit merging with the gloom beneath the beeches.
Cranston, still intent, divined the detective’s purpose. It must have occurred to Merrick that the route straight through the woods would be the course that Walter Pearson must have followed. The detective was going over the exact ground, taking advantage of the one clue that he possessed.
Unlike Mildred Chittenden, Lamont Cranston had not sensed the peculiar lure of those copper beeches.
Even to his eagle eye, they were nothing more than a thick woods of uniform appearance. Yet an unusual expression appeared upon Cranston’s inflexible face. It was seldom that Cranston’s countenance displayed any noticeable sign. The passing expression faded. Cranston went on with his game.
Cranston’s surmise was a correct one. Calvin Merrick, after his examination of both beach and green, had decided that no marks were of importance. He had started back toward the clubhouse, when the thought of the shortcut had attracted him.
His first motion toward the beeches had been one of momentary curiosity. Once beneath the fringe of the first trees, he had suddenly decided to take this way back to the clubhouse.
TWENTY yards within the grove, Calvin Merrick sensed the peculiar weirdness of these silent corridors.
He was totally inside a gloomy area that seemed detached from the outside world. The detective paused a moment to take his bearings; then, catching a tiny glimpse of green as he gazed backward, he again turned ahead and walked stolidly onward, his eyes roaming over the matted brown of the ground about him. Had Merrick entered here without purpose, he might have hesitated in his progress. However, the detective was still engrossed with one commanding idea. He was anxious — as Walter Pearson had been — to pass directly through this grove, and his occupied thoughts offset the feeling of unreality that so impressed him.
Maintaining a straight course through the widespread cluster of trees required a definite action in order to retain the proper sense of direction. This kept Merrick steadily on his way, and, furthermore, the detective was peering everywhere in hopes of sighting some trace of Walter Pearson.
It would be impossible, Merrick knew, for a man to become totally lost in such a limited acreage of forest. Even a circuitous course would eventually lead the man to the outside.
Nevertheless, this gloomy atmosphere was depressing. It might be possible for an elderly man like Pearson to have experienced a heart attack within these depths. This search was advisable, in Merrick’s opinion. The sleuth had struck a very tangible idea, when he had decided that the phone calls attributed to Pearson might have been mistakes or false impressions.
Before Merrick reached the center of the grove, he was turning from a straight course into a zigzag path, in hopes of covering any variation in the way that Pearson might have taken. The detective’s eyes were straining in their search, for the density of the leaves above caused a perpetual twilight among the scattered tree trunks.
Stopping for a moment, Merrick looked upward. He was surprised to see that one tree was not distinguishable from another. The whole grove might well have been one mammoth plant with a myriad of stems rising from the ground, so closely did the thick-leafed branches interlace.
Now, in all its fullness, Calvin Merrick felt the spell of the grove. Far in from the sunlight of the broad, green fairways, the detective was lost in a haunted labyrinth that seemed to hold him in a weird prison.
Practical minded though he was, Merrick felt his imagination at work.
At distances about him on the ground, were tiny spots of light — the only places where sunlight trickled through the all-pervading leaves. These spots were small comfort; for when Merrick paused at one, he could not even see the sky through the filtering foliage above his head.
With a dull laugh — a fearsome sound that only added to his qualms — Merrick fought off an impelling desire for flight. He realized that he had come too far to turn back; that it would be as safe to go straight ahead as it would be to return. All the while, cold reason fought with fevered instinct.
What danger could possibly lie here? None, Merrick reasoned. Nevertheless, when the detective mopped his forehead, he felt cold perspiration upon it. His nerve was failing him, Merrick knew, and he could not understand it.
He tried to continue his slow, searching pace; then he compromised with himself. Through the grove he would go, but rapidly. Later, he could return for another search.
DESPITE the smooth regularity of the ground, Merrick felt himself stumbling as he strode forward. His head was swimming; he was staggering almost like a drunken man. Bumping into a tree trunk, Merrick grasped it and gasped in relief as he felt the solidity of the bark-surfaced wood. The token of reality brought back reason. Merrick’s fears took on a childish aspect. The man laughed, convincingly this time, and went onward at a steady gait.
Now at almost the exact center of the grove, the detective was mentally at ease. He felt that he had conquered the primitive terror that had seized him. This flash-back to a natural dread of a strange unexplainable environment was gradually dwindling.
Accustomed to the unearthly silence, Merrick occupied himself with his former purpose of making a search as he went steadily ahead. It would not be long before he reached the other side of the grove.
Then came a startling change. Something occurred to alter the lulled situation. Into this realm of total silence came a peculiar sound that Merrick could not understand. He stopped stock-still trying to locate the odd noise that resembled the rustling of leaves.
Staring upward, the detective could see no change in the foliage above him. He glanced in different directions. His ears still detected the elusive noise; yet there was no indication of what had caused it.
With one hand against a tree trunk, Merrick waited nearly half a minute. The noise had ended. He started forward; he paused, fancying a repetition of the sound; he again proceeded.
An unconquerable fear swept over him. Totally disregarding reason, Merrick sprang forward in a mad effort to escape this terrifying place.
The detective’s plunge ended abruptly. In a trice, Merrick’s body was seized in an irresistible grasp.
Raising one hand, Merrick tried to ward off the terror that had come into being. His arm, like his body, was drawn into the same clutch. Now, struggling helplessly, Merrick felt his head drawn back. He tried to scream, his voice faded as the death grip tightened on his throat.