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‘Major Faunce — oh dear me, yes!’ said the Vicar. ‘I was but dining in his company last night — a charming man — I knew his brother very well. They both strongly adhere to your interesting theory that the Scarecrow is in truth the pirate Clegg. I listened to him most carefully — and I knew that he was right.’ Doctor Syn seemed quite pleased that he had discovered this incriminating fact about his sworn enemy — but what he said next staggered the Captain, for it almost appeared that he had read his thoughts.
‘Well, sir,’ he remarked blandly, ‘since as you doubtless know there is one way of proving this common identity, the tattoo upon Clegg’s arm — why do you not take this occasion to provoke him — dare him to show it to you and then…’ — he made a vague gesture. ‘Oh, I know you told me you only desired a meeting,’ he continued, ‘but really, sir, think what a benefactor you would be in ridding the community of such a tyrant — I must confess I am heartily sick of having to use his identity to keep my parishioners in their proper places. My sermons — you know.’
Captain Foulkes was amazed. ‘S’death,’ he thought, ‘the parson’s positively bloodthirsty.’ He warmed towards this curious creature and began to appreciate why that damned rogue Pri
‘Come, then,’ he cried, ‘one more drink, a toast to a death that shall be nameless — and let me couple it with long life to Doctor Syn.’
With a charming smile the Vicar raised his glass. ‘I find you so persuasive, sir — I repeat: “To a death that shall be nameless and” — he chuckled — “long life to Doctor Syn.”’ They put down their empty glasses.
The Captain regarded Syn appraisingly. ‘I had a mind,’ he said casually, ‘to go unarmed — but since you too are so persuasive, I think it would be best for our own safety to carry swords. I take it that if the occasion should arise, you are still willing to be my second?’
The Vicar seemed to be childishly delighted and accepted this great honour. ‘I will most certainly go as your second,’ he replied. ‘But you have so imbued me with the fire to destroy a villain that I could wish the pleasure were mine.’ Here Bully Foulkes so far forgot the respect due to this wolf in sheep’s clothing that he clapped him on the back saying that he was glad to meet such a sly dog.
Curiously enough the parson, also laughing gaily, replied in French: ‘L’eau qui dort est pire que celle qui court. A good proverb, sir, and one I flatter myself I have always lived up to. For indeed a calm exterior is more to be feared than a Bombastes Furioso —’ Then seeing that the Captain’s laughter had somewhat abated, he said: ‘We must not let our sense of humour blunt our purpose, for our swords are as sharp as our sense of duty.’
The Vicar’s servant also appeared to have a sense of duty, for upon that instant there was a respectful tap upon the door, and bidden to come in he stood humbly pulling forelock, though only his master saw the excited quivering of his jigger-gaff.
‘Beg pardon, sir, for interruptin’, but you asked me to remind you at odd moments about Mrs. Wooley’s complaint.’
‘Oh, dear me, yes,’ replied the Vicar. ‘I had indeed forgotten. I shall start almost at once. Thank you, my good man.’ He turned to the Captain and said with what might have been a wink: ‘A poor old woman is in need of comfort. You understand.’
The Captain understood. ‘Zounds,’ he thought, ‘the fellow’s a marvel. He has the wit to keep it up in front of his servant.’
‘Well, sir,’ went on the servant, ‘if you’re a-goin’ out in all this dark, I’d best come with you with a lantern.’
The parson shook his head. They would take the pitch-torches, he said, and bade his servant go to rest. But the servant persisted, ‘I never rest when you’re out. Are you sure you’ll be all right? There’s a storm comin’ up. I knows it by them curlews.’
The Vicar did not appear to have heard this last remark, for with a silken handkerchief he bent down and flicked one buckled shoe. ‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘Too bad. Mud.’
The Captain was amused to see that the servant’s face was a study in injured i
As they crossed the bridge on to the sea-wall, a vivid flash of lightning lit up the sea which, as the thunder rolled away, made the darkness denser. Each with a flaming pitch-torch held high, they made their way, casting fantastic shadows on the narrow, grassy track, one side a sheer stone drop, curving away below into the sea, which now lashed angrily against it. The track widened about a look-out hut and here the parson stopped. ‘This is the spot,’ he whispered, and stuck the handle of his torch into the wind-drift sand. ‘Do you wait here in this shelter, for I am pledged to go alone and tell the Scarecrow that all is well and this is not a trap.’
The Captain nodded his assent and slipped between the hut and the wall’s edge, whilst Doctor Syn vanished into the darkness of the other side.
What Captain Foulkes now felt was perhaps the culmination of all that he had experienced in his mind since that night at Crockford’s when he had first met this Doctor Syn. Since that meeting it seemed that he was no longer in command of his own destiny and that he was caught in the toils of some vast spider’s web, only subconsciously aware that this black figure was the centre of a patterned weaving, knowing every quiver of it and had almost hypnotized him. So he waited, struggling in his mind, like a stinging wasp, for the right moment to escape the outer fringes by force.
He stood above the sea, watching the fire-play of November lightning round the giant groups of brooding cloud that hovered till some signal should let drive the full fury of their prophetic wrath. Then suddenly, as if they had received a sign, the clouds began to move, and a voice behind him, harsh and imperious, rang out: ‘The Scarecrow waits for no man, Captain Foulkes.’
Foulkes turned and saw what had been described to him a hundred times, though face to face, a hundred times more terrifying, as in this weird setting of the lofty wall, hanging between the clouds and sea, the pitch-torch flickered its unholy light up the gaunt figure to the horrors of its grim, carved face. Even as he watched, It spoke to him again: ‘L’Épouvantail — at your service, Monsieur Barsard.’
The Captain stood silent, his mind too paralyzed to adjust itself to what this strange creature had just said. Then he was asked a question. ‘What is your business with me, citizen, Spy?’ He had no answer. Forcing his frozen intellect to explain how this man knew his secret, he remembered the missing wallet — the highwayman — could he be…? He had heard rumours… But before he had time to reply, as though in answer to his thoughts, the Scarecrow, with a contemptuous gesture, threw something towards him. It landed at his feet — a flat, dark object — his wallet.
He bent eagerly to pick it up, and thumbed it furtively. The paper was still there. Yet this man must have read it; else how could he have known?
Again the Scarecrow answered for him: ‘Yes, I had it from the highwayman. He has sensitive fingers, but ca
‘So the proposal that you thought to make has been attended to, for I do not accept terms — I make them. And I made them to Citizen Robespierre. For though the paper enlightened me abotu a certain Monsieur Barsard, my organization is so complete that I already knew of the scheme he wished to put to me. I went to the head of your organization and he told me what fantastic plans he had. It was simple, because I had already decided to play my part in them.’