Thus arguing with himself, the Captain fastened on his sword, put on his cloak and hat, and making sure that he
had the key of the front door in his pocket, closed the door after him and stepped out briskly towards the churchyard.
At the corner of the wall he halted and whistled.
This signal was immediately answered by an: “Aye, aye, sir. All’s well.”
“That, my good man, has yet to be determined,” replied the Captain to the sailor who had miraculously appeared
from the mist. “Indeed I am about to find out. Tell me now, what time did the Sexton enter the Vicarage? You
were watching the house, I trust?”
“Must have been about an hour ago, sir, that I first saw him come round from the Ship Inn,” replied the sailor. “I
followed him at a safe distance to the back of the house yonder. The old housekeeper was closing up for the night,
and instead of going straight to the back door to be admitted, the Sexton waits outside till all was dark and still.
Then he walks to the door and opens it. This puzzled me, sir, because I had distinctly heard the bolts shot-to. Did
the old girl shoot ‘em and then quietly open them up again? Or did someone else do it? Yet come to think of it
there ain’t no one living in the house but you and the Vicar beside the old lady.”
“And since I did not shoot the bolts,” said the Captain, “it only leaves Doctor Syn who could have done it, unless,
as you suggest, it was the housekeeper herself.”
“And another thing what puzzled me, sir,” went on the sailor, “I see a candle light appear at the back some half
and hour ago, but then it went. But a little after the Sexton, and he must have been sitting in the dark, comes out of
the back door and goes round to the front door where he knocks and knocks. Now why does he want to let himself
out of the back, I asks myself, in order that he can knock to get let in at the front? Seems to me”
“What does it seem to you?” rapped out the Captain.
“Why, sir, such as stealing of his drinks from the wine cellar, as it was the window of the wine cellar where I saw
the light.”
“There is no window to the wine cellar,” retorted the Captain. “But there is one in the still-room which leads to
it. There may be something in what you say. Step along to the barn now and tell the Bos’n to bring round my
horse.”
When the Captain drew rein near the cottage and handed over his horse to the Bos’n, who was in no good temper
after being awakened for this expedition and told to walk, which developed into a trot beside the Captain, the notes
of a man singing reached their ears. The Captain approached the cottage cautiously on foot, and without being seen
discovered that the singer was none other than the Sexton, who was regaling the night with a funeral hymn. One
window was lighted up, and by its reflection the Captain could see both the pony and donkey in charge of Mipps.
Any doubts he may have entertained as to whether Doctor Syn was in the cottage were dispelled when he heard the
Vicar’s rich voice reading from the Scriptures. Disappointed he had been mistaken in the Vicar the Captain rejoined
the Bos’n and went home to bed.
But he did not know that Mipps had sent Jimmie Bone the Highwayman to the Oast House with news that
important business had detained the Scarecrow, but that the Nightriders were to await his coming.
An hour later the Scarecrow gave judgement against the member who had assaulted George Lee. A heavy fine
was levied against him from his profits on the next run.
But if the Captain was disappointed at this failure, it was nothing to his rage when he was made the laughingstock of the district when he ordered the casks of bones to be emptied upon the quayside. But the laugh against him
was even greater that he thought, for the crew, enraged against his unwarranted suspicions, carried their coils of rope
to store under his nose, so that the full run of tobacco was safely landed and later distributed.
Against his own convictions, however, the Captain could not free himself of suspicion against the Vicar and his
Sexton, and he made a habit of sitting up every night reading till the Vicar himself had gone to bed.
15
THE REMOVAL OF CAPTAIN BLAIN
One morning, during the smoking of his first pipe, Mipps received a visit from the onion-boy from France, who
promptly unhooked one of the strings and laid it down on the lid of the coffin, pinching one of the bulbs as though to
exploit his fine wares. Mipps opened the top skin of this onion and drew out a small roll of parchment. This he read
through, and then unlocking a Bible box that served as a desk he drew out one of his ledgers. He turned up a list of
names and numbers attached to them, and compared it with the parchment. The names were those of luggers
harboured in the Scarecrow’s base in France.
Having checked over the numbers, against the names, he took a quill and wrote at the foot of the list the twenty-third of this month. He then drew a few simple lines which gave the crude shape of a scarecrow, after which he
replaced the list inside the onion, give it back to the boy, and bought another of the strings which he slung up to a
hook in the beam.
The onion-boy was paid, and at once set off to the sea-wall where he took the direction to Rye.
An hour later Doctor Syn sat opposite Captain Blain at breakfast in the Vicarage.
“Do you know, Doctor,” remarked the Captain casually, “that I have been on your hands for an unconscionable
time, but you will be no doubt relieved to hear that my duties here are rapidly drawing to a close.”
“So you are going to give up the idea of catching this elusive Scarecrow at last,” said the Doctor.
“Rather better than that, Doctor,” replied the Captain, with a smile. “In ten days I shall be handing him over to
the gallows.”
“Are you serious?” asked the Doctor.
The Captain nodded. “In ten days there is to be a great ‘run’. You can look surprised, but I regret I cannot tell
you how I know. But know I do. Ten days’ time makes it the twenty-third, and it is an important date to me. It
marks my fiftieth birthday, and what is more, my fiftieth year at sea, for previous to becoming a Royal Navy boy I
was afloat at home, having been born on H.M.S. Crocodile, the Guard Ship of the Tower of London, of which my
father was in command. I suppose, Parson, that I have done a good deal of good duty since those days, but
somehow have not been in great favour at the Admiralty, for they have not yet given me an admiral’s hat. So I take
it as something ironical that on the day of this celebration I shall be able to do a job ashore that will give me a very
wide notoriety. The arrest of the most impertinent scoundrel of our days is bound to create a big stir.”
“You certainly whet my curiosity, Captain,” interrupted the Vicar, “I hope you will tell me more.”
The Captain shook his head. “No one knows just how much I know about this Scarecrow. I have kept my own
counsel through all these months, during which I have had nothing but sneering and criticism. I have purposely not
reported the great progress I have made to the authorities. I have let them rave at me to their hearts’ content, and all
the time I have been planning and plotting, working in the dark, alone, until I saw the first tiny thread of light, which
I turned rapidly into a beam, and now has broadened into the full daylight. I should like to tell you of all men the
whole remarkable story of how my deductions grew, forging themselves one by one into a chain for the Scarecrow