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Roy Glashan's Library
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'WELL?' said my patient when I had finished stethoscoping him, 'have I got to go softly all the days of my life?'
'Your heart is not all it might be,' I replied, 'but with care it ought to last as long as you want it. You must avoid all undue exertion, however.'
The man made a curious grimace. 'Supposing exertion seeks me out?' he asked.
'You must so regulate your life as to reduce the possibility to a minimum.'
Taverner's voice came from the other side of the room. 'If you have finished with his body, Rhodes, I will make a start on his mind.'
'I have a notion,' said our patient, 'that the two are rather intimately connected. You say I must keep my body quiet,'—he looked at me—'but what am I to do if my mind deliberately gives it shocks?' and he turned to my colleague.
'That is where I come in,' said Taverner. 'My friend has told you what to do; now I will show you how to do it. Come and tell me your symptoms.'
'Delusions,' said the stranger as he buttoned his shirt. 'A black dog of ferocious aspect who pops out of dark corners and chivvies me, or tries to. I haven't done him the honour to run away from him yet; I daren't, my heart's too dickey, but one of these days I am afraid I may, and then I shall probably drop dead.'
Taverner raised his eyes to me in a silent question. I nodded; it was quite a likely thing to happen if the man ran far or fast.
'What sort of a beast is your dog?' inquired my colleague.
'No particular breed at all. Just plain dog, with four legs and a tail, about the size of a mastiff, but not of the mastiff build.'
'How does he make his appearance?'
'Difficult to say; he does not seem to follow any fixed rule, but usually after dusk. If I am out after sundown, I may look over my shoulder and see him padding along behind me, or if I am sitting in my room between daylight fading and lamp lighting, I may see him crouching behind the furniture watching his opportunity.'
'His opportunity for what?'
'To spring at my throat.'
'Why does he not take you unawares?'
'This is what I cannot make out. He seems to miss so many chances, for he always waits to attack until I am aware of his presence.'
'What does he do then?'
'As soon as I turn and face him, he quickens his pace so as to overtake me, and if I am indoors he sets to work to stalk me round the furniture. I tell you, he may only be a product of my imagination, but he is an uncanny sight to watch.'
The speaker paused and wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead during this recital.
Such a haunting is not a pleasant form of obsession for any man to be afflicted with, but for one with a heart like our patient's it was peculiarly dangerous.
'What defence do you offer to this creature?' asked Taverner.
'I keep on saying to it "You're not real, you know, you are only a beastly nightmare, and I'm not going to let myself be taken in by you."'
'As good a defence as any,' said Taverner. 'But I notice you talk to it as if it were real.'
'By Jove, so I do!' said our visitor thoughtfully; 'This is something new. I never used to do that. I took it for granted that the beast wasn't real, was only a phantom of my own brain, but recently a doubt has begun to creep in. Supposing the thing is real after all? Supposing it really has power to attack me? I have an underlying suspicion that my hound may not be altogether harmless after all.'
'He will certainly be exceedingly dangerous to you if you lose your nerve and run away from him. So long as you keep your head, I do not think he will do you any harm.'
'Precisely. But there is a point beyond which one may not keep one's head. Supposing, night after night, just as you were going off to sleep, you wake up knowing the creature is in the room, you see his snout coming round the corner of the curtain, and you pull yourself together and get rid of him and settle down again. Then just as you are getting drowsy, you take a last look round to make sure that all is safe, and you see something dark moving between you and the dying glow of the fire. You daren't go to sleep, and you can't keep awake. You may know perfectly well that it is all imagination, but that sort of thing wears you down if it is kept up night after night.'
'You get it regularly every night?'
'Pretty nearly. Its habits are not absolutely regular, however, except that, now you come to mention it, it always gives me Friday night off; if it weren't for that, I should have gone under long ago. When Friday comes I say to it: "Now, you brute, this is your beastly Sabbath," and go to bed at eight and sleep the clock round.'
'If you care to come down to my nursing home at Hindhead, we can probably keep the creature out of your room and ensure you a decent night's sleep,' said Taverner. "But what we really want to know is—,' he paused almost imperceptibly, 'why your imagination should haunt you with dogs, and not, shall we say, with scarlet snakes in the time-honoured fashion.'
'I wish it would,' said our patient. 'If it was snakes I could "put more water with it" and drown them, but this slinking black beast—' He shrugged his shoulders and followed the butler out of the room.
'Well, Rhodes, what do you make of it?' asked my colleague after the door closed.
'On the face of it,' I said, 'it looks like an ordinary example of delusions, but I have seen enough of your queer cases not to limit myself to the internal mechanism of the mind alone. Do you consider it possible that we have another case of thought transference?'
'You are coming along,' said Taverner, nodding his head at me approvingly. 'When you first enjoined me, you would unhesitatingly have recommended bromide for all the ills the mind is heir to; now you recognize that there are more things in heaven and earth than were taught you in the medical schools.
'So you think we have a case of thought transference? I am inclined to think so too. When a patient tells you his delusions, he stands up for them, and often explains to you that they are psychic phenomena, but when a patient recounts psychic phenomena, he generally apologizes for them, and explains that they are delusions. But why doesn't the creature attack and be done with it, and why does it take its regular half-holiday as if it were under the Shop Hours Act?'
'Friday, Friday,' he ruminated. 'What is there peculiar about Friday?'
He suddenly slapped his hand down on the desk.
'Friday is the day the Black Lodges meet. We must be on their trail again; they will get to know me before we have finished. Someone who got his occult training in a Black Lodge is responsible for that ghost hound. The reason that Martin gets to sleep in peace on Friday night is that his would-be murderer sits in Lodge that evening and cannot attend to his private affairs.'
'His would-be-murderer?' I questioned.
'Precisely. Anyone who sends a haunting like that to a man with a heart like Martin's knows that it means his death sooner or later. Supposing Martin got into a panic and took to his heels when he found the dog behind him in a lonely place?'
'He might last for half-a-mile,' I said, 'but I doubt if he would get any further.'
'This is a clear case of mental assassination. Someone who is a trained occultist has created a thought-form of a black hound, and he is sufficiently in touch with Martin to be able to convey it to his mind by means of thought transference, and Martin sees, or thinks he sees, the image that the other man is visualizing.
'The actual thought-form itself is harmless except for the fear it inspires, but should Martin lose his head and resort to vigorous physical means of defence, the effort would precipitate a heart attack, and he would drop dead without the slightest evidence to show who caused his death. One of these days we will raid those Black Lodges, Rhodes; they know too much. Ring up Martin at the Hotel Cecil and tell him we will drive him back with us tonight.'
'How do you propose to handle the case?' I asked.
'The house is covered by a psychic bell jar, so the thing cannot get at him while he is under its protection. We will then find out who is the sender, and see if we can deal with him and stop it once and for all. It is no good disintegrating the creature, its master would only manufacture another; it is the man behind the dog that we must get at.
'We shall have to be careful, however, not to let Martin think we suspect he is in any danger, or he will lose his one defence against the creature, a belief in its unreality. That adds to our difficulties, because we daren't question him much, less we rouse his suspicions. We shall have to get at the facts of the case obliquely.'
ON the drive down to Hindhead, Taverner did a thing I had
never heard him do before, talk to a patient about his occult
theories. Sometimes, at the conclusion of a case, he would
explain the laws underlying the phenomena in order to rid the
unknown of its terrors and enable his patient to cope with them,
but at the outset, never.
I listened in astonishment, and then I saw what Taverner was fishing for. He wanted to find out whether Martin had any knowledge of occultism himself, and used his own interest to waken the other's—if he had one.
My colleague's diplomacy bore instant fruit. Martin was also interested in these subjects, though his actual knowledge was nil—even I could see that.
'I wish you and Mortimer could meet,' he said. 'He is an awfully interesting chap. We used to sit up half the night talking of these things at one time.'
'I should be delighted to meet your friend,' said Taverner. 'Do you think he could be persuaded to run down one Sunday and see us? I am always on the lookout for anyone I can learn something from.'
'I—I am afraid I could not get hold of him now,' said our companion, and lapsed into a preoccupied silence from which all Taverner's conversational efforts failed to rouse him. We had evidently struck some painful subject, and I saw my colleague make a mental note of the fact.
As soon as we got in, Taverner went straight to his study, opened the safe, and took out a card index file.
'Maffeo, Montague, Mortimer,' he muttered, as he turned the cards over. 'Anthony William Mortimer. Initiated into the Order of the Cowled Brethren, October, 1912; took office as Armed Guard, May, 1915. Arrested on suspicion of espionage, March, 1916. Prosecuted for exerting undue influence in the making of his mother's will. (Everybody seems to go for him, and no one seems to be able to catch him.) Became Grand Master of the Lodge of Set the Destroyer. Knocks, two, three, two, password, 'Jackal.'
'So much for Mr. Mortimer. A good man to steer clear of, I should imagine. Now I wonder what Martin has done to upset him.'
AS we dared not question Martin, we observed him, and I very
soon noticed that he watched the incoming posts with the greatest
anxiety. He was always hanging about the hail when they arrived,
and seized his scanty mail with eagerness, only to lapse
immediately into despondency. Whatever letter it was that he was
looking for never came. He did not express any surprise at this,
however, and I concluded that he was rather hoping against hope
than expecting something that might happen.
Then one day he could stand it no longer, and as for the twentieth time I unlocked the mailbag and informed him that there was nothing for him, he blurted out: 'Do you believe that "absence makes the heart grow fonder," Dr. Rhodes?'
'It depends on the nature,' I said. 'But I have usually observed if you have fallen out with someone, you are more ready to overlook his shortcomings when you have been away from him for a time.'
'But if you are fond of someone?' he continued, half-anxiously, half-shamefacedly.
'It is my belief that love cools if it is not fed,' I said. 'The human mind has great powers of adaptation, and one gets used, sooner or later, to being without one's nearest and dearest.'
'I think so, too,' said Martin, and I saw him go off to seek consolation from his pipe in a lonely corner.
'So there is a woman in the case,' said Taverner when I reported the incident. 'I should rather like to have a look at her. I think I shall set up as a rival to Mortimer; if he sends black thought forms, let me see what I can do with a white one.'
I guessed that Taverner meant to make use of the method of silent suggestion, of which he was a past-master.
APPARENTLY Taverner's magic was not long in working, for a
couple of days later I handed Martin a letter which caused his
face to light up with pleasure, and sent him off to his room to
read it in private. Half an hour later he came to me in the
office and said:
'Dr. Rhodes, would it be convenient if I had a couple of guests to lunch tomorrow?'
I assured him that this would be the case, and noted the change wrought in his appearance by the arrival of the long wished-for letter. He would have faced a pack of black dogs at that moment.
NEXT day I caught sight of Martin showing two ladies round the
grounds, and when they came into the dining-room he introduced
them as Mrs. and Miss Hallam. There seemed to be something wrong
with the girl, I thought; she was so curiously distrait and
absent-minded. Martin, however, was in the seventh heaven; the
man's transparent pleasure was almost amusing to witness. I was
watching the little comedy with a covert smile, when suddenly it
changed to tragedy.
As the girl stripped her gloves off she revealed a ring upon the third finger of her left hand. It was undoubtedly an engagement ring. I raised my eyes to Martin's face, and saw that his were fixed upon it. In the space of a few seconds the man crumpled; the happy little luncheon party was over. He strove to play his part as host, but the effort was pitiful to watch, and I was thankful when the close of the meal permitted me to withdraw.
I was not allowed to escape however. Taverner caught my arm as I was leaving the room and drew me out on the terrace.
'Come along,' he said. 'I want to make friends with the Hallam family; they may be able to throw some light on our problem.'
We found that Martin had paired off with the mother, so we had no difficulty in strolling around the garden with the girl between us. She seemed to welcome the arrangement, and we had not been together many minutes before the reason was made evident.
'Dr. Taverner,' she said, 'may I talk to you about myself?'
'I shall be delighted, Miss Hallam,' he replied. 'What is it you want to ask me about?'
'I am so very puzzled about something. Is it possible to be in love with a person you don't like?'
'Quite possible,' said Taverner, 'but not likely to be very satisfactory.'
'I am engaged to a man,' she said, sliding her engagement ring on and off her finger, 'whom I am madly, desperately in love with when he is not there, and as soon as he is present I feel a sense of horror and repulsion for him. When I am away, I long to be with him, and when I am with him, I feel as if everything were wrong and horrible. I cannot make myself clear, but do you grasp what I mean?'
'How did you come to get engaged to him?' asked Taverner.
'In the ordinary way. I have known him nearly as long as I have Billy,' indicating Martin, who was just ahead of us, walking with the mother.
'No undue influence was used?' said Taverner.
'No, I don't think so. He just asked me to marry him, and I said I would.'
'How long before that had you known that you would accept him if he proposed to you?'
'I don't know. I hadn't thought of it; in fact the engagement was as much a surprise to me as to everyone else. I had never thought of him in that way till about three weeks ago, and then I suddenly realized that he was the man I wanted to marry. It was a sudden impulse, but so strong and clear that I knew it was the thing for me to do.'
'And you do not regret it?'
'I did not until today, but as I was sitting in the dining-room I suddenly felt how thankful I should be if I had not got to go back to Tony.'
Taverner looked at me. 'The psychic isolation of this house has its uses,' he said. Then he turned to the girl again. 'You don't suppose that it was Mr. Mortimer's forceful personality that influenced your decision?'
I was secretly amused at Taverner's shot in the dark, and the way the girl walked blissfully into his trap.
'Oh, no,' she said, 'I often get those impulses; it was on just such a one that I came down here.'
'Then,' said Taverner, 'it may well be on just such another that you got engaged to Mortimer, so I may as well tell you that it was I who was responsible for that impulse.'
The girl stared at him in amazement.
'As soon as I knew of your existence I wanted to see you. There is a soul over there that is in my care at present, and I think you play a part in his welfare.'
'I know I do,' said the girl, gazing at the broad shoulders of the unconscious Martin with so much wistfulness and yearning that she clearly betrayed where her real feelings lay.
'Some people send telegrams when they wish to communicate, but I don't; I send thoughts, because I am certain they will be obeyed. A person may disregard a telegram, but he will act on a thought, because he believes it to be his own; though, of course, it is necessary that he should not suspect he is receiving suggestion, or he would probably turn round and do the exact opposite.'
Miss Hallam stared at him in astonishment. 'Is such a thing possible?' she exclaimed. 'I can hardly believe it.'
'You see that vase of scarlet geraniums to the left of the path? I will make your mother turn aside and pick one. Now watch.'
We both gazed at the unconscious woman as Taverner concentrated his attention upon her, and sure enough, as they drew abreast of the vase, she turned aside and picked a scarlet blossom.
'What are you doing to our geraniums?' Taverner called to her.
'I am so sorry,' she called back, 'I am afraid I yielded to a sudden impulse.'
'All thoughts are not generated within the mind that thinks them,' said Taverner. 'We are constantly giving each other unconscious suggestion, and influencing minds without knowing it, and if a man who understands the power of thought deliberately trains his mind in its use, there are few things he cannot do.'
WE had regained the terrace in the course of our walk, and
Taverner took his farewell and retired to the office. I followed
him, and found him with the safe open and his card index upon the
table.
'Well, Rhodes, what do you make of it all?' he greeted me.
'Martin and Mortimer after the same girl,' said I. 'And Mortimer uses for his private ends the same methods you use on your patients.'
'Precisely, 'said Taverner. 'An excellent object lesson in the ways of black and white occultism. We both study the human mind—we both study the hidden forces of nature; I use my knowledge for healing and Mortimer uses his for destruction.'
'Taverner,' I said, facing him, 'what is to prevent you also from using your great knowledge for personal ends?'
'Several things, my friend,' he replied. 'In the first place, those who are taught as I am taught are (though I say it who shouldn't) picked men, carefully tested. Secondly, I am a member of an organization which would assuredly exact retribution for the abuse of its training; and, thirdly, knowing what I do, I dare not abuse the powers that have been entrusted to me. There is no such thing as a straight line in the universe; everything works in curves; therefore it is only a matter of time before that which you send out from your mind returns to it. Sooner or later Martin's dog will come home to its master.'
MARTIN was absent from the evening meal, and Taverner
immediately enquired his whereabouts.
'He walked over with his friends to the crossroads to put them on the "bus for Hazlemere,"' someone volunteered, and Taverner, who did not seem too well satisfied, looked at his watch.
'It will be light for a couple of hours yet,' he said. 'If he is not in by dusk, Rhodes, let me know.'
It was a grey evening, threatening storm, and darkness set in early. Soon after eight I sought Taverner in his study and said: 'Martin isn't in yet, doctor.'
'Then we had better go and look for him,' said my colleague.
We went out by the window to avoid observation on the part of our other patients, and, making our way through the shrubberies, were soon out upon the moor.
'I wish we knew which way he would come,' said Taverner. 'There is a profusion of paths to choose from. We had better get on to high ground and watch for him with the field-glasses.'
We made our way to a bluff topped with wind-torn Scotch firs, and Taverner swept the heather paths with his binoculars. A mile away he picked out a figure moving in our direction, but it was too far off for identification.
'Probably Martin,' said my companion, 'but we can't be sure yet. We had better stop up here and await events; if we drop down into the hollow we shall lose sight of him. You take the glasses; your eyes are better than mine. How infernally early it is getting dark tonight. We ought to have had another half-hour of daylight.'
A cold wind had sprung up, making us shiver in our thin clothes, for we were both in evening dress and hatless. Heavy grey clouds were banking up in the west, and the trees moaned uneasily. The man out on the moor was moving at a good pace, looking neither to right nor left. Except for his solitary figure the great grey waste was empty.
All of a sudden the swinging stride was interrupted; he looked over his shoulder, paused, and then quickened his pace. Then he looked over his shoulder again and broke into a half trot. After a few yards of this he dropped to a walk again, and held steadily on his way, refusing to turn his head.
I handed the glasses to Taverner.
'It's Martin right enough,' he said; 'and he has seen the dog.' We could make out now the path he was following, and, descending from the hill, set out at a rapid pace to meet him. We had gone about a quarter of a mile when a sound arose in the darkness ahead of us; the piercing, inarticulate shriek of a creature being hunted to death.
Taverner let out such a halloo as I did not think human lungs were capable of. We tore along the path to the crest of a rise, and as we raced down the opposite slope, we made out a figure struggling across the heather. Our white shirt fronts showed up plainly in the gathering dusk, and he headed towards us. It was Martin running for his life from the death hound.
I rapidly outdistanced Taverner, and caught the hunted man in my arms as we literally cannoned into each other in the narrow path. I could feel the played-out heart knocking like a badly-running engine against his side. I laid him flat on the ground, and Taverner coming up with his pocket medicine case, we did what we could.
We were only just in time. A few more yards and the man would have dropped. As I straightened my back and looked round into the darkness, I thanked God that I had not that horrible power of vision which would have enabled me to see what it was that had slunk off over the heather at our approach. That something went I had no doubt, for half a dozen sheep, grazing a few hundred yards away, scattered to give it passage.
We got Martin back to the house and sat up with him. It was touch-and-go with that ill-used heart, and we had to drug the racked nerves into oblivion.
SHORTLY after midnight Taverner went to the window and looked
out.
'Come here, Rhodes,' he said. 'Do you see anything?' I declared that I did not.
'It would be a very good thing for you if you did,' declared Taverner. 'You are much too fond of treating the thought-forms that a sick mind breeds as if, because they have no objective existence, they were innocuous. Now come along and see things from the view-point of the patient.'
He commenced to beat a tattoo upon my forehead, using a peculiar syncopated rhythm. In a few moments I became conscious of a feeling as if a suppressed sneeze were working its way from my nose up into my skull. Then I noticed a faint luminosity appear in the darkness without, and I saw that a greyish-white film extended outside the window. Beyond that I saw the Death Hound!
A shadowy form gathered itself out of the darkness, took a run towards the window, and leapt up, only to drive its head against the grey film and fall back. Again it gathered itself together and again it leapt, only to fall back baffled. A soundless baying seemed to come from the open jaws, and in the eyes gleamed a light that was not of this world. It was not the green luminosity of an animal, but a purplish grey reflected from some cold planet beyond the range of our senses.
'That is what Martin sees nightly,' said Taverner, 'only in his case the thing is actually in the room. Shall I open a way through the psychic bell jar it is hitting its nose against, and let it in?'
I shook my head and turned away from that nightmare vision. Taverner passed his hand rapidly across my forehead with a peculiar snatching movement.
'You are spared a good deal,' he said, 'but never forget that the delusions of a lunatic are just as real to him as that hound was to you.'
We were working in the office next afternoon when I was summoned to interview a lady who was waiting in the hall. It was Miss Hallam, and I wondered what had brought her back so quickly.
'The butler tells me that Mr. Martin is ill and I cannot see him, but I wonder if Dr. Taverner could spare me a few minutes?'
I took her into the office, where my colleague expressed no surprise at her appearance.
'So you have sent back the ring?' he observed.
'Yes,' she said. 'How do you know? What magic are you working this time?'
'No magic, my dear Miss Hallam, only common sense. Something has frightened you. People are not often frightened to any great extent in ordinary civilized society, so I conclude that something extraordinary must have happened. I know you to be connected with a dangerous man, so I look in his direction. What are you likely to have done that could have roused his enmity? You have just been down here, away from his influence, and in the company of the man you used to care for; possibly you have undergone a revulsion of feeling. I want to find out, so I express my guess as a statement; you, thinking I know everything, make no attempt at denial, and therefore furnish me with the information I want.'
'But, Dr. Taverner,' said the bewildered girl, 'why do you trouble to do all this when I would have answered your question if you had asked me?'
'Because I want you to see for yourself the way in which it is possible to handle an unsuspecting person,' said he. 'Now tell me what brought you here.'
'When I got back last night, I knew I could not marry Tony Mortimer,' she said, 'and in the morning I wrote to him and told him so. He came straight round to the house and asked to see me. I refused, for I knew that if I saw him I should be right back in his power again. He then sent up a message to say that he would not leave until he had spoken to me, and I got in a panic. I was afraid he would force his way upstairs, so I slipped out of the back door and took the train down here, for somehow I felt that you understood what was being done to me, and would be able to help. Of course, I know that he cannot put a pistol to my head and force me to marry him, but he has so much influence over me that I am afraid he may make me do it in spite of myself.'
'I think,' said Taverner, 'that we shall have to deal drastically with Master Anthony Mortimer.'
Taverner took her upstairs, and allowed her and Martin to look at each other for exactly one minute without speaking, and then handed her over to the care of the matron.
TOWARDS the end of dinner that evening I was told that a
gentleman desired to see the secretary, and went out to the hall
to discover who our visitor might be. A tall, dark man with very
peculiar eyes greeted me.
'I have called for Miss Hallam,' he said.
'Miss Hallam?' I repeated as if mystified.
'Why, yes,' he said, somewhat taken aback. 'Isn't she here?'
'I will enquire of the matron,' I answered.
I slipped back into the dining-room, and whispered to Taverner, 'Mortimer is here.'
He raised his eyebrows. 'I will see him in the office,' he said.
Thither we repaired, but before admitting our visitor, Taverner arranged the reading lamp on his desk in such a way that his own features were in deep shadow and practically invisible.
Then Mortimer was shown in. He assumed an authoritative manner. 'I have come on behalf of her mother to fetch Miss Hallam home,' said he. 'I should be glad if you would inform her I am here.'
'Miss Hallam will not be returning tonight, and has wired her mother to that effect.'
'I did not ask you what Miss Hallam's plans were; I asked you to let her know I was here and wished to see her. I presume you are not going to offer any objection?'
'But I am,' said Taverner. 'I object strongly.'
'Has Miss Hallam refused to see me?'
'I have not inquired.'
'Then by what right do you take up this outrageous position?'
'By this right,' said Taverner, and made a peculiar sign with his left hand. On the forefinger was a ring of most unusual workmanship that I had never seen before.
Mortimer jumped as if Taverner had put a pistol to his head; he leant across the desk and tried to distinguish the shadowed features, then his gaze fell upon the ring.
'The Senior of Seven,' he gasped, and dropped back a pace. Then he turned and slunk towards the door, flinging over his shoulder such a glance of hate and fear as I had never seen before. I swear he bared his teeth and snarled.
'Brother Mortimer,' said Taverner, 'the dog returns to its kennel tonight.'
'Let us go to one of the upstairs windows and see that he really takes himself off,' went on Taverner.
From our vantage point we could see our late visitor making his way along the sandy road that led to Thursley. To my surprise, however, instead of keeping straight on, he turned and looked back.
'Is he going to return?' I said in surprise.
'I don't think so,' said Taverner. 'Now watch; something is going to happen.'
Again Mortimer stopped and looked around, as if in surprise. Then he began to fight. Whatever it was that attacked him evidently leapt up, for he beat it away from his chest; then it circled round him, for he turned slowly so as to face it. Yard by yard he worked his way down the road, and was swallowed up in the gathering dusk.
'The hound is following its master home,' said Taverner.
We heard next morning that the body of a strange man had been found near Bramshott. It was thought he had died of heart failure, for there were no marks of violence on his body.
'Six miles!' said Taverner. 'He ran well!'
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