Part 4

A man dashed toward them from the direction of the house. He saw them and, whirling, leaped into the thicket that banked the roadside. As he disappeared, he turned. Even though the moon was dead in the leaden sky, Lamontaine caught a glimpse of a lean, cadaverous face, of teeth over which the lips were drawn in a wolfish snarl, of deeply sunken eyes that glittered ominously.

The big physician seized the little constable by the shoulder, halting him with a violence that almost jerked him off his feet.

"Your gun! Quick!" he snarled.

He jerked the weapon from the officer's hand and emptied it in the direction the fleeing man had taken. Then, dropping it at the astonished constable's feet, he dashed madly in the same direction.

Le Front followed. He heard Lamontaine crash through the dank grass and underbrush that bordered the fetid swamp. Then came the sound of a bâteau as it swung out into the water ... the creak of oars in their locks....

* * * * *

Lamontaine, his feet bogged by the mud, met the little man as he struggled through the tangled growth, and cursed fluently.

"Mon Dieu!" the constable panted.

"Who was it? And what happened?"

"It was Aaron Kronk!" Lamontaine snarled.

From far out in the fetid waters of the swamp came a harsh, sinister laugh.

Constable Le Front dropped to his knees and crossed himself.

Aaron Kronk! Little wonder Pierre Le Front turned a shade paler under his coating of tan. Aaron Kronk! Master of diablerie and king of devils! He it was who, only a few weeks earlier, masquerading as the infamous Gilles de Laval, Baron de Retz, the blue-bearded monster of the Middle Ages, had involved himself in a saturnalia of blood from which only the bravery and occult knowledge of Lamontaine had rescued the community. Even now, two of his intended victims were in the hospital at New Orleans recovering from their injuries; the old house on the peninsula where he had made his headquarters was a mass of charred embers and smoke-stained masonry.

* * * * *

They hurried back toward the house of Jacques d'Arcy. Once more the wild shrieks assailed their ears, speeding their footsteps. Mingled with the screams was a low, gurgling moaning. It grew fainter as they approached. By the time they reached the low, whitewashed gate, it had ceased.

The front door was thrown hurriedly open and a white face peered out at them, terror written in every lineament.

In a rustic wicker chair in the low-ceilinged room an old woman was weaving backward and forward, shrieking hysterically. Around her stood three other women--two of them neighbors, one a daughter. A fourth had opened the door.

They greeted the newcomers with gasps of relief.

"On connait l'ami au besoin--a friend is known in time of need!" the younger woman exclaimed. "Eet ees ze doctaire!"

Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder.

"What happened?" he snapped.

She twisted her tattered handkerchief about her fingers nervously.

"Zat I do not rightly know," she finally managed to ejaculate. "Père d'Arcy, he ees dying, we theenk. We were weeth heem. We hear a noise outside. We look through ze window. Zere was a face peering een at us--a horrible face, doctaire. Eet was ze face of le Diable."

She stopped, shuddering like one who suffers from the ague. Lamontaine glared at her and she continued.

"We scream. Zen ze awful face disappear and through ze window come ze shape--ze shapeless shape! Lak' a ghos' eet was--wizout form, yet eet had ze form! Oui, I cannot explain eet, doctaire!"

She broke off her recital and gave way to shuddering sobs, her face buried in her hands. Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder again and shook her roughly. The old woman recommenced her hysterical howling.

"Talk!" Lamontaine snapped, shaking the woman until her teeth chattered. "Time is of value now. Talk!"

The woman ceased her convulsive sobbing and looked at the big physician pathetically.