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Transcriber's Notes:
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   (The Ohio State University)






THE SILVER BULLET






---------------------------
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO
THE BISHOP'S SECRET
THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM
THE GOLDEN WANG-HO
THE TURNPIKE HOUSE
A TRAITOR IN LONDON
WOMAN--THE SPHINX
THE JADE EYE

----------------------------
John Long, Publisher, London






THE SILVER BULLET


BY
FERGUS HUME



London
John Long
13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket






THE SILVER BULLET




CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE IN THE PINE WOOD


"We had better lie down and die," said Robin peevishly. "I can't go a
step further," and to emphasise his words he deliberately sat.

"Infernal little duffer," growled Herrick. "Huh! Might have guessed
you would Joyce." He threw himself down beside his companion and
continued grumbling. "You have tobacco, a fine night, and a heather
couch of the finest, yet you talk as though the world were coming to
an end."

"I'm sure this moor never will," sighed Joyce, reminded of his
cigarettes, "we have been trudging it since eight in the morning, yet
it still stretches to the back-of-beyond. Hai!"

The pedestrians were pronouncedly isolated. A moonless sky thickly
jewelled with stars, arched over a treeless moor, far-stretching as
the plain of Shinar. In the luminous summer twilight, the eye could
see for a moderate distance, but to no clearly defined horizon; and
the verge of sight was limited by vague shadows, hardly definite
enough to be mists.

The moor exhaled the noonday heats in thin white vapour, which shut
out from the external world those who nestled to its bosom. A sense of
solitude, the brooding silence, the formless surroundings, and above
all, the insistence of the infinite, would have appealed on ordinary
occasions to the poetical and superstitious side of Robin's nature.
But at the moment, his nerves were uppermost. He was worn-out,
fractious as a child, and in his helplessness could have cried like
one. Herrick knew his friend's frail physique and inherited neurosis:
therefore he forebore to make bad worse by ill advised sympathy.
Judiciously waiting until Joyce had in some degree soothed himself
with tobacco, he talked of the common-place.

"Nine o'clock," said he peering at his watch; "thirteen hour's
walking. Nothing to me Robin, but a goodish stretch to you. However we
are within hail of civilization, and in England. A few miles further
we'll pick up a village of sorts no doubt. One would think you were
exploiting Africa the way you howl."

He spoke thus callously, in order to brace his friend; but Joyce
resented the tone with that exaggerated sense of injury peculiar to
the neurotic. "I am no Hercules like you Jim," he protested sullenly;
"all your finer feelings have been blunted by beef and beer. You can't
feel things as I do. Also," continued Robin still more querulously,
"it seems to have escaped your memory, that I returned only last night
from a two day's visit to Town."

"If you _will_ break up your holiday into fragments, you must not
expect to receive the benefit its enjoyment as a whole would give you.
It was jolly enough last week sauntering through the Midlands, till
you larked up to London, and fagged yourself with its detestable
civilization."

Joyce threw aside his cigarette and nervously began to roll another.
"It was no lark which took me up Jim. The letter that came to the
Southberry Inn was about--her business."

"Sorry old man. I keep forgetting your troubles. Heat and the want of
food make me savage. We'll rest here for a time, and then push on. Not
that a night in the open would matter to me."

Joyce made no reply but lying full length on the dry herbage, stared
at the scintillating sky. At his elbow, Herrick, cross-legged like a
fakir, gave himself up to the enjoyment of a disreputable pipe. The
more highly-strung man considered the circumstances which had placed
him where he was.

Two months previously, Robin Joyce had lost his mother, to whom he had
been devotedly attached: and the consequent grief had made a wreck of
him. For weeks he had shut himself up in the flat once brightened by
her presence to luxuriate in woe. He possessed in a large degree that
instinct for martyrdom, latent in many people, which searches for
sorrow, as a more joyous nature hunts for pleasure. The blow of Mrs.
Joyce's death had fallen unexpectedly, but it brought home to Robin,
the knowledge--strange as it may sound--that a mental pleasure can be
plucked from misfortune. He locked himself in his room, wept much, and
ate little; neglected his business of contributor to several
newspapers, and his personal appearance. Thus the pain of his loss
merged itself in that delight of self-mortification, which must have
been experienced by the hermits of the Thebiad. Not entirely from
religious motives was the desert made populous with hermits in the
days of Cyril and Hypatia.

Herrick did not realize this transcendental indulgence, nor would he
have understood it, had he done so. Emphatically a sane man, he would
have deemed it a weakness degrading to the will, if not a species of
lunacy. As it was, he merely saw that Robin yielded to an unrestrained
grief detrimental to his health, and insisted upon carrying him off
for a spell in the open air. With less trouble than he anticipated,
Robin's consent was obtained. The mourner threw himself with ardour
into the scheme, selected the county of Berks as the most inviting for
a ramble; and when fairly started, showed a power of endurance amazing
in one so frail.

Jim however being a doctor, was less astonished than a layman would
have been. He knew that in Joyce a tremendous nerve power dominated
the feebler muscular force, and that the man would go on like a
blood-horse until he dropped from sheer exhaustion. The collapse on
the moor did not surprise him. He only wondered that Robin had held
out for so many days.

"But I wish you had not gone to London," said Herrick pursuing aloud
this train of thought.

"I had to go," replied Joyce not troubling to query the remark. "The
lawyer wrote about my poor mother's property. In my sorrow, I had
neglected to look after it, but at Southberry Junction feeling better,
thanks to your open air cure, I thought it wise to attend to the
matter."

Then Joyce went on to state with much detail, how he had caught the
Paddington express at Marleigh--their last stopping place--and had
seen his lawyer. The business took some time to settle; but it
resulted in the knowledge that Joyce found himself possessed of five
hundred a year in Consols. "Also the flat and the furniture," said
Robin, "so I am not so badly off. I can devote myself wholly to novels
now, and shall not have to rack my brains for newspaper articles."

Herrick nodded over a newly-filled pipe. "Did you sleep at the flat?"

"No, I went up on Tuesday as you know, and slept that night at the
Hull Hotel, a small house in one of the Strand side streets. Last
night, I joined you at Southberry."

"And it is now Thursday," said Herrick laughing. "How particular you
are as to detail Robin. Well, Southberry is a goodish way behind us
now and Saxham is our next resting place. Feel better?"

"Yes, thanks. In another quarter of an hour, I shall make the attempt
to reach Saxham. But we are so late, I fear no bed----"

"Oh, that's alright. We can wake the landlord, I calculate we have only
three miles."

"Quite enough too. By the way Jim, what did you do, when I left you?"

In the semi-darkness Herrick chuckled. "Fell in love!" said he.

"H'm! You lost no time about it. And she?"

"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall; dark hair, creamy skin,
sea-blue eyes the figure and gait of Diana, and--"

"More of the Celt than the Greek," interrupted Joyce, "blue eyes,
black hair, that is the Irish type. Where did you see her?"

"In Southberry Church, talking to a puny curate, who did not deserve
such a companion. Oh, Robin, her voice! like an Eolian harp."

"It must possess a variety of tones then Jim. Did she see you?"

Herrick nodded and laughed again. "She looked and blushed. Beauty drew
me with a single hair, therefore I thrilled responsive. Love at first
sight Robin. Heigh-ho! never again shall I see this Helen of
Marleigh."

"Live in hope," said Joyce, springing to his feet. "Allons, mon ami."

The more leisurely Herrick rose, markedly surprised at this sudden
recuperation. "Wonderful man. One minute you are dying, the next
skipping like a two year old. Hysterical all the same," he added as
Joyce laughed.

"Those three miles," explained the other feverishly, "I feel that I
have to walk them, and my determination is braced to breaking point."

"That means you'll collapse half way," retorted the doctor unstrapping
his knapsack. "Light a match. Valerian for you my man."

Robin made no objection. He knew the value of Valerian for those
unruly nerves of