CHAPTER XXA WEIRD STORY

The unexpected appearance of a man who was supposed, and with every reason, to be dead and buried was so startling that for a few moments no one could speak. Had it been night time, those present might well have been excused had they taken the newcomer for a ghost. But a ghost would scarcely reveal itself in broad daylight, supported by two flesh and blood mortals. Amazing as it seemed, the wan person, who was placed in a convenient armchair by his guides, was actually the Rev. Simon Leigh. His head was bandaged; his face was bloodless, and he appeared to be listless and exhausted. Never was there such a dramatic entrance, or such an uncanny situation.

"Leigh!" gasped Rupert, hardly able to pronounce the name.

"Yes," replied the parson, faintly smiling. "I am alive, you see."

"I said as he worn't dead," chuckled Ark again, and rubbed his horny hands with comfortable glee, while his grandson Tobias stood mute and grim behind the man who had returned from the other world.

Carrington, equally startled, was the first to recover himself entirely. He saw in the reappearance of the clergyman a chance of escape from his dangerous position. "You accuse me of murdering Leigh, and Leigh is alive," he said, regaining swiftly his native impudence. "What do you say now, Hendle?"

Rupert turned his eyes from the vicar to Tollart, whose big face was purple with astonishment. "What do you say, doctor?" he asked, feebly.

"It's a dream," muttered Tollart, rubbing his eyes. "He must be dead. I examined the body; I saw him buried; I gave the certificate of death."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Tollart," murmured Leigh with a weak attempt at a smile; "but you see I am still alive. Tobias!"

The grim man knew what was asked for and producing a flask of generous proportions administered a stiff dose of brandy to his patient. The ardent spirit made Leigh cough, but brought the blood to his cheek and a more lively light into his dim eyes. Also when he opened his mouth he spoke with a stronger voice. "Yes, I am alive. I was buried by mistake."

"It's impossible, I tell you," cried the doctor, still struggling with his astonishment. "You were as dead as a door-nail."

"So you thought, Tollart, but you are not the first medical man who has mistaken catalepsy for death."

"Catalepsy?"

"I have been subject to it all my life, but I never told anyone about it--not even you, Tollart. Only Titus knew, and that was why he was what was called my shadow down in the village. I always dreaded being buried alive."

"Yet you were," said Rupert, staring with all his might at the resuscitated man, and wondering if he was asleep or awake. "Titus wasn't much good, after all, in spite of his watchfulness."

"And what could I do, Squoire?" demanded the ancient shrilly. "I said as Muster Leigh warn't dead agin and agin, but none heeded me."

"If you had used the one word catalepsy," protested Tollart, who was annoyed that Leigh should reappear to give the lie to his skill, "I should have known what to do."

"I bain't no scholard," croaked Titus sulkily. "I said as Muster Leigh warn't dead and he warn't. On the night of the day when he was buried, me and Tobias got him out of his coffin and he hev bin in my house getting well."

"You should have told me, Titus," expostulated Rupert reprovingly.

"Now the Lard help me, Squoire. Didn't I tell 'ee times wi'out number. I said as Muster Leigh warn't dead and you laughed; you know you did. But he warn't dead; he warn't dead"; and the ancient repeated his favorite phrase again and again with angry gestures.

"No, he warn't dead," mimicked Carrington, strolling easily toward the door, "and now that we know he warn't, I suppose there is no objection to my leaving this pleasant little party."

"Stay where you are," commanded Leigh in a much stronger voice. "It is no thanks to you that I am alive. Stop him, Hendle."

Rupert took Carrington by the shoulders and pushed him across the room and into the chair he had vacated. "You stay here," he said sternly.

"Oh, I'll stay if you wish me to," replied Carrington, making a virtue of necessity, and shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. "You can't get me into trouble now."

"We'll see about that," replied Leigh, who was breathing heavily. "I haven't much time to live, as the shock of being buried alive has given me my deathblow. But I shall live long enough to see that justice is done. Now let me explain what I owe to Mr. Carrington."

"One moment, before you change the subject," remarked Tollart sharply. "You told me that you had heart disease."

"I did," admitted the vicar dryly; "but I never allowed you to examine me, or you would have found that my heart was perfectly sound. I made that excuse to account for anyone finding me in a cataleptic trance."

"You should have told me the truth," rejoined the doctor sternly. "But that I thought the blow on the head had killed you, along with heart disease, I would have opened your body to be certain of the cause of death. As it was, Mr. Leigh----"

"As it wor," interrupted the old sexton aggressively, "you warn't sober, Muster Tollart. That you warn't."

"How dare you say that!" cried the doctor, flushing angrily.

"Aye, but I do say it," retorted Titus valiantly. "You saw double, you did, and not being sure of your larning said as Muster Leigh wor dead when he warn't. And if 'ee'd tried to cut Muster Leigh up, I'd hev knocked 'ee down. Yus, I would, and no mistake."

"It seems to me that we are not getting on very fast," said Carrington lightly, yet anxiously, for he desired to get away before Inspector Lawson arrived from Tarhaven. "Suppose Mr. Leigh speaks, and relates his experiences in the other world."

"I shall deal with you later," said Leigh meaningly and with an unpleasant look. "You are not going to escape punishment because you failed to carry out your evil design. First, I shall explain about my catalepsy. I have always been afflicted thus, Hendle," he added, turning to the young Squire, "and for that reason I rarely went away from my house. Titus knew that I was subject to these trances, and I always liked to have him at my elbow in case I fell into one. Also Titus had the key of my family vault, so as to rescue me should I be buried alive by any chance. The blow on the head did not kill me outright, although it was severe enough very nearly to do so. I was stunned for the time being and then passed into a trance. Owing to the warm weather, unfortunately for me, I was buried hastily, else I might have recovered."

"You were as dead as any man could be," persisted Tollart sullenly, for the revival annoyed him beyond measure.

"I was not, yet, although you, in your confused state, thought so. And you were confused with drink, Tollart, as Titus assures me. Let this be a warning to you, my friend, to abandon this vice, as you may not so easily escape again from dooming a man to a terrible death."

Tollart tried to speak, but could not, as he knew very well that he was entirely in the wrong, and that the consequences of his too hurried examination of the body might be serious for him. He stammered, stuttered, and turned very white, then walked silently out of the room. He had received a lesson which he would not easily forget. Rupert started forward to stop him, but Mallien, who had been too startled to speak hitherto, laid a detaining hand on his arm. The man was nervous and less aggressive than usual, which was not to be wondered at considering what had taken place.

"Let him go, Rupert," he muttered. "We can deal with this matter among ourselves. I want to hear how Mr. Leigh was rescued from his terrible position."

"Titus rescued me," said Leigh thankfully. "On the night of the day when I was buried he came with Tobias to the vault. He had the key, as I said before, in case of such an accident. These two"--he jerked his head right and left toward his supporters--"unscrewed the coffin and carried me into their house, which is, as you know, near the churchyard. Gradually I revived from my trance, but suffered greatly from the blow in the head which confused me. Feeling that I was not myself, and knowing that serious matters had to be dealt with, I ordered Titus and his grandson not to say anything about my being alive. Since the day of my burial I have been hidden in that little cottage, and Titus has nursed me back to health. But I fear," ended the vicar plaintively, "that I shall not live long. The shock has killed me."

"Well, at all events," said Carrington coolly, "I didn't kill you."

"Indirectly you have," said Leigh indignantly, "and I shall have you punished before I die."

"That is a nice Christian feeling, I must say," retorted Carrington uneasily.

"Men such as you are, who go about attempting murder, should be locked up," was the stern reply. "You intended to kill me."

"I did not. I intended to stun you, and thought I had done so," protested Carrington sullenly. "No one was more astonished than I was, when I heard next day from Hendle there that you were dead. I thought the heart disease had killed you."

"I had no heart disease, and----"

"We know all about that," interrupted Mallien restlessly. "But tell us how that scoundrel managed to knock you down."

"Give me another dose of brandy, Tobias," said the vicar, and when he felt stronger after taking the spirit proceeded slowly to explain. "I was in my study on that night, and as it was after ten o'clock, Mr. and Mrs. Jabber had retired to rest. I had found the will, which I had mislaid, and was reading it, when I heard a tap at the window."

"I don't know about your reading it," said Carrington insolently, "as I watched you for some time through the window before I tapped. You were holding a parchment over a candle. I believe that you intended to burn the will."

"Perhaps I did," said the vicar with a queer smile. "There is more to be known about that will than you guess. At all events when I heard your tapping on the glass I blew out the candle and put down the will. I opened the window--you know it is a French window, Hendle--and looked out to see who had come at such an untimely hour. When I recognized you and you intimated that you wished to speak to me, I admitted you. I believed that you had come down to stay with Hendle and had arrived late."

"Did you lock the window again after admitting Carrington?" asked Rupert.

"I snicked it, certainly," replied Leigh quietly. "Not that doing so mattered, for, as there was nothing to steal at the vicarage, I paid little attention to bolts and bars."

Carrington laughed cynically. "And for that reason I was able to slip out of the front door and leave it unlocked without exciting suspicion," he remarked. "It was easy to get away."

"Very easy," assented Mr. Leigh. "The front door was never locked either by day or by night, as I did not fear burglars. And I did not fear you, Mr. Carrington, as you said that Rupert had told you about the will, and you wished to speak to me concerning it."

"Oh, you were brave enough," retorted the barrister carelessly. "Well?"

"I think you had better be less flippant, my man," cried Mallien, highly indignant. "You are not out of the woods yet."

"There's gratitude for what I have done for you," sneered Carrington. "But for my appearance at the window the vicar might have burned the will so as to allow Hendle to keep the property."

"Yes, I might have burnt the will, as you say," remarked Leigh with another queer smile; "and perhaps it would have been as well, seeing what an excellent Squire our young friend here makes."

"And what about me?" asked Mallien indignantly.

"You are not fit to govern the parish," said Leigh coolly. "You think of self and of self only."

"Well, the will is safe in my desk now," said Mallien complacently, "and, self or no self, I will be Squire of Barship as soon as the lawyers can arrange for the transfer of the property."

"You count your chickens before they are hatched, Mr. Mallien. There is much to be said before you step into your cousin's place."

"I don't see that," said Mallien doggedly. "Rupert knows that I inherit by that will you found in the muniment chest, as I am the legal descendant of Eunice Hendle. He makes no objection to giving me the property."

"Is this so, Hendle?" inquired the vicar.

"Yes," answered Rupert quietly. "I can scarcely keep what does not legally belong to me."

"You will be a pauper."

"I can't help that. I must act honestly."

Leigh was silent for a moment and cast a look of admiration on the young man. "You shame us all by your honorable nature," he said after a pause. "I am glad that I am spared to do you justice."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Carrington curiously.

"Never mind what I mean. I shall explain in due time. Just now I have to tell these gentlemen of the cowardly assault you made on an old man." Leigh turned toward Rupert to whom he chiefly addressed himself. "He held me in talk, Hendle, and all the time he was keeping his eyes on the will. I refused to let him take it away, as he wanted to do."

"I only wished to look after Hendle's interests," muttered Carrington.

"To look after your own, you mean," retorted Leigh tartly. "Had you meant well you would have gone away after I refused to give you the will. But you waited until my back was turned, and then struck me with the loaded stick you carried. The blow fell on my right temple and I dropped stunned to the floor, while you----"

"While I," cried Carrington, rising and speaking insolently, "snatched up the will and walked out of the front door cautiously, so as not to waken those servants of yours."

"After which," put in Mallien viciously, "you went through the jungle and buried the will under the sundial."

"I did," admitted Carrington recklessly. "You know so much that you may as well know all, for Leigh being alive you cannot touch me in any way. I buried the will, as you say, and afterward wrote that letter to Mrs. Beatson, so that she might find the will and avert suspicion from myself."

"Why Mrs. Beatson?" asked Rupert, disgusted with his former friend's brazen assurance.

"Because, according to you, she had overheard the conversation between you and the vicar. I guessed that, if she produced the will, suspicion would fall on her. Our meeting her on that night, Hendle, was pure chance, but it helped on my plans. I wished her to procure the will to you, and thus bring suspicion on herself as having killed the vicar."

"You infernal villain!"

"Oh, I don't see that," said Carrington carelessly. "Mrs. Beatson would be none the worse for having her neck stretched. But I would not have allowed things to go so far as that. All I wished, was for her to give you the will, and then when you consulted me, as I knew you would, I intended to persuade you to burn it in order to keep the property and pay me five thousand pounds for holding my tongue. You understand."

"Yes," said Rupert quietly, "you explain your villainy so carefully that I can scarcely help understanding. It was you, then, who dropped a clue near the sundial to incriminate Mallien?"

"It was me," replied Carrington, with cynical hardihood. "I snatched the opal by chance from Mallien's watch-chain when we struggled in the avenue. Only when I got away and found what was in my hand did I see how I could get the upper hand of him. I recognized the ornament at once as the one he had shown me on the first day we met."

"You scoundrel!" shrieked Mallien furiously, and would have struck the barrister, but that he swerved. Then Rupert interfered.

"He will have a much worse punishment than a blow," said the Squire, holding his cousin back with a strong arm.

"I won't have any punishment at all," sneered Carrington insistently.

"It is for me to say that," remarked Leigh, who was growing very weak in spite of the dose of brandy which Tobias administered. "So you met Mr. Mallien in the avenue of my place after you had buried the will?"

"I did. There is no reason why I should deny it, seeing that I am safe. And when I got away from him I walked to the next station and caught the night express from Tarhaven which does not stop at Barship. Next day----"

"You came down to play the part of a friend," said Rupert scornfully; "but you soon showed the cloven hoof, Carrington. Your plot was very clever, and had I been a less honest man it would have succeeded."

"It never would have succeeded," interposed the vicar, speaking with labored breath, "for I was alive all the time and intended to speak when necessary, as I have done. Titus kept me informed of all that went on."

"Aye, that I did," said the old man, patting Leigh's hand; "and they'll find in the village as the old 'un don't tell lies and bain't no fool either. I told 'em as you wor alive, didn't I, Muster Leigh?"

"Yes, Titus, yes. But I think you will very soon have to tell them that I am dead," said Leigh with a weak sigh. "After all, it is for the best. I shall never regain my health after that awful experience. And as my successor has been appointed, it would be wrong of me to deprive him of the living."

"Don't trouble about that, Leigh," remarked Rupert, bending over him. "You shall stay here and be nursed back into health again. I'll see that you are all right for the future."

"You are a good man, Hendle; but if you knew----" He stopped abruptly and drew away his hand which the Squire had taken. "But that I can speak of another time. Meanwhile we must finish dealing with this gentleman."

"Do you mean me?" asked Mallien, who felt uneasy because he had an idea that the resuscitated man had, as the saying goes, something up his sleeve.

"I don't mean you at present," replied the vicar, eyeing him with an expression of intense dislike. "I shall attend to your matter later."

"What matter?"

"That," said Leigh slowly, "I shall tell you in my own good time."

"You are very mysterious."

"Oh, I think all mysteries are at an end now," interposed Rupert hastily, for Mallien showed a tendency to make himself disagreeable in spite of the vicar's weak state of health. "We now know that Carrington did come to Barship and did strike down Mr. Leigh."

"Who cares if you do know?" retorted Carrington insolently. "Not me. I have played a bold game and have lost, thanks to your confounded honesty. If you had been wise, you would have destroyed that will and would have kept your money to yourself."

"At the cost of losing my honor," said Rupert flushing.

"Pouf! Who cares for honor in these days?"

"Apparently you don't, you beast," cried Mallien, who was desperately angry at the way in which Carrington had proposed to cheat him. "How dare you speak in this way! I'll have you charged with fraud."

"Fraud!" Carrington laughed aloud and snapped his fingers. "And how do you intend to do that, my good man?"

"Don't call me your good man, confound you!"

"Well, I won't," sneered the barrister; "it is rather a mistake to credit you with any goodness, I admit. You're no more a saint than I am, and would have played the same game had you got the chance. My only regret is that I have not rooked you to the tune of five thousand pounds. And but for the vicar's unexpected appearance I should have done so."

"Not you."

"Oh, yes. You were at the Vicarage on the night of the presumed murder, and I had your opal, which I dropped near the sundial. If I had held my tongue, as I would have done, you would have been hard put to explain your presence there, seeing what John Hendle's will meant to you."

"And you--and you!" shouted Mallien furiously, "how would you have escaped suspicion seeing you came down on that night?"

"Very easily," retorted the barrister in a light and airy tone. "I would have declared that I came down in Hendle's interest to get the will, and arrived at the Vicarage to find you leaving the house after murdering the man."

"Oh!" Mallien rushed forward. "Let me get at him, Rupert. Dog that he is. I want to strangle him."

"And be hanged for the murder of a worthless creature," said Rupert, holding Mallien tightly to prevent his executing his intention. "Leave him to Mr. Leigh. I rather think he knows how to deal with him."

"Oh, do you?" snapped Carrington, wheeling with a contemptuous smile on his dark face, "and what do you propose to do, may I ask?"

"I propose," said the vicar, whom he addressed, "to have you arrested for a murderous assault on me. As a lawyer, Mr. Carrington, you probably know how many years you will get for a contemplated crime."

Carrington grew pale and looked nervous. "I never intended to kill you," he muttered sullenly; "and, as you are alive and well----"

"I am alive certainly, but scarcely well," said the vicar faintly. "All the same, it is no thanks to you that I am not dead. You assaulted me, and you robbed me, so you shall suffer."

"I shan't!" and Carrington made a dash for the door, only to be caught by the Squire, who held on to him grimly.

"You shall," said Rupert stolidly. "As soon as Lawson arrives, and he may be here at any minute, Leigh will give you in charge for assault and robbery."

"Hendle, you wouldn't see me disgraced in that way," pleaded Carrington, who suddenly saw an abyss open at his feet. "If I am arrested, I will be ruined."

Hendle released the miserable man and stood back, rather incautiously as it afterward proved. "You would have ruined me," he said sternly, "so why should you not be done by as you intended to be done by others?"

"There's Scripture authority fur that," grunted old Ark, grinning toothlessly.

Carrington, now at bay, looked round and saw that everyone was against him, so that there was no hope of mercy. He covered his face with his hands and staggered against the wall near the door. For a moment there was silence, for, although neither Mallien nor Leigh pitied the scoundrel, Rupert, having an unusually tender heart, did so. Perhaps the feeling that the man was his old schoolfellow induced him to give Carrington a chance of escape. But be this as it may, when the barrister sobbing near the door suddenly opened it and dashed out, Rupert made no immediate effort to stop him. Mallien did. "Stop, thief! Stop, liar! Stop, murderer!" he vociferated and followed. Rupert was thus compelled to pursue the culprit, although he did so reluctantly.

The two came to the door to see Carrington running down the avenue, and dashed after him. The barrister flew like the wind and speedily outdistanced his pursuers. But he was not to escape after all, for, as he reached the open gates of the avenue, Kit's motor car, containing Lawson, swept round the corner. Running blindly, Carrington tripped and fell under the machine. The wheels passed over him, breaking his back. He was picked up stone dead.