The Bittermeads Mystery | Page 6

ought to find out who this big chap is and
where he comes from."
In spite of the apparent clumsiness of his build and the ungainliness of
his movements it was extraordinary how swiftly and how quietly he
moved, a shadow could scarcely have made less sound than this man
did as he melted through the darkness and a swift runner would have
difficulty in keeping pace with him.
An old labourer going home late bade the big man a friendly good
night and passed on without seeing or hearing Dunn following close
behind, and a solitary woman, watching at her cottage door, saw plainly
the big man's tall form and heard his firm and heavy steps and would
have been ready to swear no other passed that way at that time, though
Dunn was not five yards behind, slipping silently and swiftly by in the
shelter of the trees lining the road.
A little further beyond this cottage a path, reached by climbing a stile,
led from the high road first across an open field and then through the
heart of a wood that seemed to be of considerable extent.
The man Dunn was following crossed this stile and when he had gone a
yard or two along the path he halted abruptly, as though all at once
grown uneasy, and looked behind.
>From where he stood any one following him across the stile must
have shown plainly visible against the sky line, but though he lingered
for a moment or two, and even, when he walked on, still looked back
very frequently, he saw nothing.

Yet Dunn, when his quarry paused and looked back like this, was only
a little distance behind, and when the other moved on Dunn was still
very near.
But he had not crossed the stile, for when he came to it he realised that
in climbing it his form would be plainly visible in outline for some
distance, and so instead, he had found and crawled through a gap in the
hedge not far away.
They came, Dunn so close and so noiseless behind his quarry he might
well have seemed the other's shadow, to the outskirts of the wood, and
as they entered it Dunn made his first fault, his first failure in an
exhibition of woodcraft that a North American Indian or an Australian
"black-fellow" might have equalled, but could not have surpassed.
For he trod heavily on a dry twig that snapped with a very loud, sharp
retort, clearly audible for some distance in the quiet night, and, as dry
twigs only snap like that under the pressure of considerable weight, the
presence of some living creature in the wood other than the small
things that run to and fro beneath the trees, stood revealed to all ears
that could hear.
Dunn stood instantly perfectly still, rigid as a statue, listening intently,
and he noted with satisfaction and keen relief that the regular heavy
tread of the man in front did not alter or change.
"Good," he thought to himself. "What luck, he hasn't heard it."
He moved on again, as silently as before, perhaps a little inclined to be
contemptuous of any one who could fail to notice so plain a warning,
and he supposed that the man he was following must be some
townsman who knew nothing at all of the life of the country and was,
like so many of the dwellers in cities, blind and deaf outside the range
of the noises of the streets and the clamour of passing traffic.
This thought was still in his mind when all at once the steady sound of
footsteps he had been following ceased suddenly and abruptly, cut off
on the instant as you turn off water from a tap.

Dunn paused, too, supposing that for some reason the other had
stopped for a moment and would soon walk on again.
But a minute passed and then another and there was still no sound of
the footsteps beginning again. A little puzzled, Dunn moved cautiously
forward.
He saw nothing, he found nothing, there was no sign at all of the man
he had been following.
It was as though he had vanished bodily from the face of the earth, and
yet how this had happened, or why, or what had become of him, Dunn
could not imagine, for this spot was, it seemed, in the very heart of the
wood, there was no shelter of any sort or kind anywhere near, and
though there were trees all round just the ground was fairly open.
"Well, that's jolly queer," he muttered, for indeed it had a strange and
daunting effect, this sudden disappearance in the midst of the wood of
the man he had followed so far, and the silence around