But, even here again, doubts were cast upon the matter by some, especially those who were acquainted with the old gentleman’s proclivities towards raw spirits of the material kind that paid the lightest of duties in Guernsey.

All these and very many similar matters were discussed by the Doctor—­who disturbed their minds with horrific accounts of homicidal mania taking possession of apparently innocent souls—­and the Senechal and the Vicar and Stephen Gard, as they sat over their pipes of an evening in the Doctor’s house.  But chiefly the great and troublesome question of “Who?”

They were all of one mind that the matter must be looked into.  The feeling that a danger was loose in the Island, and might at any moment fall upon any man, woman, or child, was past endurance.  The suspicion that It might be any one of those they met every day was insufferable.

The only difficulty was to decide how to look into it—­what to do, and how.

Each day they feared to hear of some new outrage.  But until the perpetrator was discovered they could do nothing towards his suppression.  And, on the other hand, it looked as though they could do nothing towards his discovery until he perpetrated some new outrage.

It was Gard who suggested they should watch the Coupee every night, armed, and unknown to any but themselves.

And, after much discussion, following out his idea, he and the Senechal and the Doctor, who could bowl over a rabbit as well as any of them, lay in the heather, on the common above the cutting on the Little Sark side, for many nights, guns in hand, and eyes and ears on the strain, but saw and heard nothing.

One night, indeed, when there was a high wind, the Doctor’s marrow crawled in his backbone at the sound of groanings and moanings and most dolorous cries for help, coming up out of black Coupee Bay, where they had picked up Tom Hamon’s and Peter Mauger’s dead bodies.

He sweated cold terrors, for he was on the east headland right above the bay, till the Senechal crawled over to him and whispered—­

“Hear ’em?”

“Y-y-yes.  What the d-d-deuce and all—­”

“Knew you’d wonder what it was—­”

“W-w-wonder?” chittered the Doctor.

“It’s only the wind in the cave at the corner below here—­”

“Ah!  Thought it must be something of that kind,” said the Doctor through his teeth, clenched hard to keep them in order.  “Don’t wonder folks fight shy of the Coupee.  Sounded uncommonly like spirits.  Might give some folks the jumps.”

On another dark and windy night it was the Senechal’s turn to get something of a fright.

As he lay in the heather, gun in hand, and well wrapped up in his big cloak, with all his faculties concentrated on the wavering pathway below, it seemed to him that he heard slow heavy footsteps approaching.

His nerves were strung tight.  He craned his head to look down into the cutting, when suddenly there came a wild snuffle at the back of his neck, and as he jumped up with a startled yelp, one part anger and nine parts fright, a horse that had grazed down upon him in the darkness, leaped back with a snort and a squeal and disappeared into the night.