In the days of Doctor Syn very few villages could boast of more prosperity than Dymchurch-under-the-wall. The Vicar himself was a man of some means and very generous. Besides, on behalf of a needy parishioner he could always draw on the wealth of Sir Antony Cobtree, who was the class of squire who took a personal interest in his tenants' welfare.
Yet none knew better than the Squire and the Vicar that the chief local benefactor was the notorious Scarecrow. Indeed Doctor Syn would sometimes remark whimsically that the leader of the Romney Marsh smugglers had his uses, for despite his rogueries he was at least a considerable employer of labour, putting more money into the farmers' pockets than their farms could possibly produce, and more into the fishermen's pockets than their best catches could warrant.
Therefore a poor man upon the Marsh was looked upon as either lazy or untrustworthy, for, what with the generosity of the Squire, the Vicar and the Scarecrow, there was plenty of money to be earned. And such a man was Craigen, a tall powerful brute, who preferred drinking money to earning it. He was a small-part owner in a sailing vessel with the two Evendens, one of whom, John, had married Craigen's sister. Although John and his brother Edmond took by far the greater shares, they allowed Craigen, by reason of his relationship, a proportionate allowance on each catch, these catches being more often tubs than fish, for the Evendens trafficked in contraband, and were the only smugglers that had not been co-operated into the Scarecrow's gang. The Evendens would have made far more money had they joined under the banner of the smuggling genius, but they were obstinate men who preferred to go their own way.
As for Craigen, the Scarecrow would have no dealings with him at all, sending him the whimsical message that a man for whom neither Church nor State had any respect was not a fit man to ride with his Night Demons of the Marsh. Hence it was that the crew of the Evenden boat had no liking for the Scarecrow.
Craigen had no liking for anyone but himself, and hated particularly any more prosperous. He therefore included his brothers-in-law in his vast list of enemies, and for a long time he had contemplated the possibility of getting rid of them by violent means. No sooner had this crime become an obsession in his drunken brain than he took steps to put it into operation. Being a drunken blunderer, he was bound to slip up on his very first step, for, thinking that his sister had gone to Folkestone with her husband, when she had only gone into Hythe market, she walked into her bedroom, the door of which he had neglected to lock, and discovered him dressed in the Sunday suit of her husband and surveying the fit in the cracked pier-glass.
“What on earth are you doing in John's best clothes?” she demanded angrily.
“Only satisfying myself about a bet, so don't take on,” replied Craigen sheepishly. “A lying rogue at the Ship Inn told me that your John was a finer set-up man than myself, and that his clothes would flap around me. I said John was a fine figure of a man certainly, but that we were both of a size, and I just thought as how I'd prove the man a liar by trying on John's suit, see? No harm in that, considering the rogue is willing to bet a shilling on it. And look here, lass, if you say nothing to John, who we know is hot-tempered over trifles, I'll give you a silver fourpenny out of the money when I win it.”
“I want none of your dirty money,” snapped his sister. “You put them clothes back where you found 'em, and never dare to come into our bedroom again.”
“You won't be so gross-grained when you see the shining fourpenny,” laughed Craigen. “Get downstairs while I change into my own comfortable clothes. I never did hold with John trying to dress on Sundays like the gentry. A smuggler didn't ought to go to church, I say.” Down the ladder stairway went his sister, snorting indignation. She waited for her brother, however, in the kitchen below, for she was determined to see for herself that he took nothing out with him. She had missed things before when her rogue brother was short of money and craved for drink.
In this case Craigen proved too cunning for her. Wanting the clothes for another purpose to what he had said, he tied them in a bundle and dropped them out of the casement behind a gooseberry bush. Then, closing the drawer from which he had taken them with as much noise as possible, he came downstairs, saying: “There you are, lass, and no harm done. Now that I can see we are of a size, I'll take on his bet and get Mr. Mipps to measure us up with his coffin rule. I only bet on what I'm sure on, see? Keep it to yourself and you'll get your silver bit.” She shut the door after him, so that he was able to go round the house and collect this bundle without being seen. After taking the clothes to his own cottage he went to the Ship Inn, where he began to spend his savings in rum, telling everyone that he needed cheering up after hearing his two brothers-inlaw quarrelling so badly. When turned out by Mrs. Waggetts, the landlady, as having drunk enough, he went to the City of London, from which premises he was soon warned off as being in no fit state for more, and then for the rest of the day he hid himself in one of the high-backed seats of the Ocean Tavern.
Here he had the sense to behave himself, knowing that he needed all the drink he could get in order to put courage into his cowardly soul for what he had planned to do. When he left the Ocean that night he had the satisfaction of knowing that in each inn he had visited he had at least spread the lying news that there was the worst blood between the Evenden brothers, and that the quarrel he had witnessed was likely to end in bad results.
Knowing that John Evenden had gone into Folkestone to make an arrangement for a hide of tubs, and that his brother Edmond would be going down to the boat with the nets which he had been mending, he had marked out Edmond as the victim for his purpose. This fitted in well with his diabolical scheme. He, Craigen, would wear John's suit, so that if there were blood-spots on his clothes it would be John, and not himself, that would be implicated. He knew Edmond's habit of bringing the nets down into the cabin without a light, so he cut away three rungs of the rough ladder from the deck, and with his knife ready, waited for Edmond to stumble down. Then all he had to do was to depend upon rum-soaked courage to leap forward upon his fallen victim, and with a resolute stroke of the knife Edmond would be no more.
Thanks to his lies about the quarrel and the bloodstains on the clothes, John Evenden would be hanged and he, Craigen, would gain sole ownership of the boat, which with ill-paid hands would gain him large profit, for he knew all the people in France with whom his relatives had dealt. So, primed to courage with rum, Craigen waited in the darkness of the cabin.
Now it happened that John Evenden returned earlier than he thought possible from Folkestone. His wife had elected to sit up late in order to do some neglected mending, so that he found her downstairs when he came home.
“Not yet abed, my lass?” he asked. “I have done a profitable deal. Better than I thought.”
“I had some sewing to do,” replied his wife.
“And you shall not be at a loss for that,” returned John heartily. “I have done well, and my deal has brought me many a guinea in advance. We are to fish tomorrow night off Grisnez, and a French lugger is to come alongside in neutral waters. We are to hide what the ships aboard us beneath a wriggling cargo of live fish. Now, had you been lazily abed you might have got nothing out of my good fortune, but since I find you a hard-working lass, you shall have five good golden guineas for yourself.” Whereupon he produced the money, which she straightway put into the tea-caddy.
“And finding you at your mending,” went on John, “puts me in mind of something. My Sunday suit is all but losing one of its fine gilt buttons. So while I indulge in a pipe of my best Virginian, will you lash it on taut for me? But, first tell me, where's my brother Edmond?”
“He's gone down to the boat with the mended nets,” explained his wife.
Then she climbed up the ladder to the bedroom to fetch the Sunday coat.
Her husband heard her open the drawer in which his suit was kept, and although he did not know it, it was at that very second that Edmond stumbled on the boat's ladder, slipped and fell on to the cabin floor of the family boat, where he received six inches of steel through his heart.
“The suit is gone!” Mrs. Evenden cried out.
“Gone?” repeated her husband. “Oh, nonsense.” White-faced and tight-lipped his wife came down into the kitchen. Five guineas from her husband ruled out any doubtful obligation of a silver fourpenny from her brother, who would surely neglect to give it her. He never kept his word. Besides, she had never given hers. So Mrs. Evenden told her husband of Craigen's impertinence concerning the Sunday suit, adding significantly: “And now it's gone. What does it mean?” As if in answer there came a very decided rapping upon the door. Had they known, they might have put down the sudden terror which gripped them to the fact that Edmond had just gone to a sudden death and had come to warn them. It was not till the rapping was repeated that they opened the door to find Doctor Syn standing there.
“Forgive the lateness of the hour for a visit,” he said, “but I have been visiting sick folk in the parish, and have heard gossip that has distressed me. Is it true, John Evenden, that you have been quarrelling with your brother Edmond?”
“Good gracious, no, sir,” laughed John, ushering the kindly Vicar into the parlour. “Whoever said a thing like that?” Doctor Syn did not tell him that his faithful Sexton Mipps had given him the report. Nor did he tell him that he had given Mipps instructions to watch the Evendens and Craigen on behalf of the Scarecrow's interests. And then, since everybody in Dymchurch trusted the tact and confidence of their Vicar, Mrs. Evenden told him of the incident connected with the Sunday suit. Now John hated Craigen, and only tolerated him for his wife's sake, but he loved his brother Edmond.
Perhaps it was the hearing of the story the second time that prompted him, or, as Mrs. Evenden afterwards believed, it may have been that Edmond's spirit was permitted to communicate with him, but John Evenden gave a sudden gasp of horror, and then, seizing Doctor Syn's hands, cried out: “For God's sake, sir, bide here a bit with the wife. I am going to the boat. Edmond went there. He's calling me as though for help. I'm afraid, sir. I'm afraid.” Doctor Syn stayed with Mrs. Evenden and did his best to allay her fears, though John had gone, blundering to his death, like his brother. It was Mipps who brought them the ill tidings within the hour. Ill tidings to Mrs. Evenden, who learned that both her husband and brother-in-law had been foully murdered, and ill tidings to Doctor Syn when Mipps produced two badly written scrawls on papers which he had taken from the stabbed bodies of the Evendens. Doctor Syn read the scrawled message and frowned: “BY VENGEANCE OF THE SCARECROW.” Mipps had persuaded the beadle to let him take these papers to the Vicar, who might be able to identify the writing, since he had seen specimens of it before. “But it don't look like the Scarecrow's fist to me, Vicar,” said Mipps, “and so I says to the beadle. But the beadle, he says, 'The Scarecrow would disguise his writing,' he says, 'when it comes to a matter of murder.' All the same I says that I don't hold the opinion that the Scarecrow did these murders.”
“No more do I, Mipps,” replied the Vicar. “The murderer thinks to put the blame on him, that's clear. Whoever the Scarecrow may be, this night's work looks an awkward business for him, however innocent he may be of it. True, some of our Dymchurch lads will wink at a little cargo-running, but there's none of them would countenance murder.”
“Where is my brother?” asked Mrs. Evenden suddenly.
“Ah,” replied Mipps. “He's down there now answering questions off of the beadle, who sent to his cottage and had him routed out. They took some time to wake him too, him having had more drink than he could carry. And was it true that your husband had quarrelled so fierce with his brother, like what Craigen says?”
“It was a wicked lie,” replied Mrs. Evenden. “Why, John had been into Folkestone and had not seen Edmond all day. Doctor Syn will bear me out in that, since he had only returned a few minutes before the Vicar came in.” Doctor Syn believed her, and after leaving her with a neighbour, he accompanied Mipps to the scene of the crime. The bodies were lying side by side on the thwarts of the Evenden boat. Old Sennacherib Pepper, the Dymchurch physician, had pronounced life to be extinct in both cases. While the bodies were attracting the attention of the fast-increasing crowd of morbid sightseers, Doctor Syn unobtrusively climbed down the ladder into the cabin.
He found the three rungs that had been cut away lying in a corner. By the light of the lantern he carried he examined all the cracks between the ribbed sides of the vessel and the rough decking.
Meanwhile the folk above were more interested in the corpses than in the blood-stains in the cabin, so nobody saw the Vicar stoop and pick up a large gilt button, which he slipped into his pocket. But even then he continued to search every nook and cranny of the cabin.
In contrast to the unobtrusive behaviour of Doctor Syn was that of Craigen, who hysterically proclaimed his grief with wild wringing of the hands, and bellowing out his family disaster with loud curses against the Scarecrow. His outbursts got on the nerves of Doctor Pepper, who, after seeing to the decent removal of the bodies, ordered Craigen to be escorted home, put to bed, and be given a sleeping draught which he promised to bring along.
But it chanced to be the spiritual doctor who was destined to administer the draught, for, as Doctor Syn said to Doctor Pepper, “I will take it to him and save you the journey, for it is my duty to see whether I cannot first give him a little spiritual consolation.” This Doctor Syn did not attempt, but rather gave the sleeping draught to the bereaved rogue, so that he could as quickly as possible make a thorough search of his cottage, in order to find what he had failed to find in the cabin of the boat. His search was rewarded. From a hole in the ceiling of a cupboard he dragged forth what he had been seeking—the Sunday clothes of John Evenden.
The coat of it, with one button missing, was sadly bespattered with blood.
Had the Vicar there and then carried the suit to the authorities, the case against Craigen would have been complete, but it chanced that the Vicar had already made up his mind to go a very different way to work. He carried the suit to his Vicarage, and in the presence of Mipps the sexton, he shut it up in an iron chest.
“And now my good Mipps,” he said, when this was done, “since it is obvious that this double murderer has tried to put a noose around our necks, well, we must use his own life, justly forfeited, to our own advantage.”
“Certainly, Vicar,” agreed Mipps. “Hand him over to Jack Ketch and be done with him.” Syn smiled and shook his head. “On the contrary. This Craigen has done two murders, and with this monstrous accusation against the Scarecrow might have done another by the simple means of putting a noose around the Scarecrow's neck, which might have involved you too, as the Scarecrow's first lieutenant. Craigen, however, has committed blunders. We never do commit them. In fact we have the skill which he lacks. This being so, we will allow him to hand over the Scarecrow to the Dragoons. In fact the Dragoons shall have the glory of killing the Scarecrow. But always with this reservation, my excellent Mipps. The Scarecrow shall rise again before their eyes, and the resurrection shall take place before the Scarecrow's corpse is cold.” Mipps scratched his head and shook it doubtfully. “I don't understand, sir,” he said.
“No?” queried Syn, who loved to befog the little sexton. “Then pass the brandy. For brandy clears the stupidest head, and yours is not always stupid.
Now, your first office will be to spread the news to the Night-riders secretly that the Scarecrow did not do these murders, but that he knows already who did, and that he will forestall the law and mete out his own quick punishment.
It is good that the Scarecrow shall be feared.”
“You think Craigen did 'em, eh?” asked Mipps. “But how do you know?”
“From what Mrs. Evenden told me, and from what I saw in the Evenden boat.”
