Chapter V
Six years had passed; and Zero had got a new master, a somewhat dictatorial gentleman, but with genuine goodness of heart, aged five, bearing the same name as his father, Richard Staines, but never by any chance addressed by it. His father called him Dick. His mother called him by various fond and foolish appellations. He was known to the servants of the household as the Emperor. He had two sisters, whom he always spoke of collectively as “the children.” He always spoke of Zero as “my dog.”
Zero was rather an old dog now, but hale and hearty. In his own circle he was highly valued, but his formidable appearance still struck terror among strangers, willing though he was to make friends with them. The tradespeople, who had at first approached very delicately, had now grown used to him; but the tramp or hawker who entered the garden at Midway, and found Zero looking at him pensively, as a rule retired quickly to see if the road was still there. No further instance had occurred of Zero’s mysterious powers, and in consequence they tended to become legendary. Richard Staines had now definitely adopted the theory of coincidence.
“Zero’s a good old friend of mine, and I love him,” he said; “but we must give up pretending he’s a miracle.” Jane’s faith, however, remained unshaken.
And then, one summer evening, Dick came into the drawing-room with determination in his face.
“Mother,” he said, “I want a stick or whip, please.”
“Well, now,” said Jane, “what for?”
“To beat my dog with. He’s got to be punished.”
“That’s a pity, Dickywick. What’s he been doing?”
“He won’t let me go out into the road. Every time he caught hold of my coat and pulled me back. He’s most frightfully strong, and he pulled me over once. He wants a lamming.”
“I wonder if he would let me go out,” said Jane. “Let’s go and see, shall we?”
“Right-oh,” said Dick, perfectly satisfied.
In the garden they found Zero cheerful and quite unrepentant. As a rule, he rushed to the gate in the hopes of being taken out for a run. But this evening, as Jane neared the gate, he became disquieted. He caught hold of her dress and tried to drag her back. He ran round and round her, whimpering. He flung himself in front of her feet.
“Now, you see,” said Dick triumphantly.
“Yes, I see.”
“Well, I shall go and fetch a stick.”
“Oh, no. Zero does not want us to go out because he believes there’s some danger on the road.”
“O-o-oh! Do you really mean it?”
“Honest Injun.”
“Then he’s not a bad dog at all, and I told him he was. Come here, Zero.” He patted the dog’s head. “You’re a good dog really. My mistake. Sorry. What are you laughing at, mother? That’s what Tom always says. Now let’s go and see the danger on the road.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be quite fair to Zero, after all the trouble he’s taken. Besides, I want to see the rabbits at their games. They ought to be out just now.”
“All right,” said Dick. “You follow me, and I’ll show you them. But you mustn’t make the least sound. You must be very Red-Indian.”
Dick’s mother followed him obediently, and was very Red-Indian. The rabbits lived in a high bank just beyond the far end of the garden, and what the gardener had said about them before the wire-netting came could not be printed. Jane watched the rabbits, and conversed about them in the hoarse whisper enjoined by her son, but she was thinking principally about Zero.
Then Dick went to bed, and his father came back from the city. He went up at least one day a week, and came back full of aggressive virtue and likely to refer to himself as a man who earned his own living, thank Heaven.
At dinner Richard said: “By the way, I’d been meaning to speak of it—what’s the matter with Zero?”
“Why?”
“He won’t leave the gate. He was there when I drove in. I called him in, but he went back almost directly. I saw him through the window as I was dressing, and he was still there—lying quite still, with his eyes glued on the road.”
And then Jane recounted the experience of Dick and herself.
“You may laugh, Richard, but something is going to happen, and Zero knows what it will be.”
“Well,” said Richard, “if anybody is proposing to burglarise us to-night, I don’t envy him the preliminaries with Zero. But, of course, it may be nothing. All the same I’ve always said there ought to be a lodge at that gate.”
But to this Jane was most firmly opposed. A new semi-artistic red-brick lodge would be out of keeping with Midway altogether. “And what are you going to do about Zero?”
“Oh, anything you like. What do you propose?”
“I don’t know what to say. Whatever is going to happen, apparently Zero thinks he can tackle it by himself. Still, you might have your revolver somewhere handy to-night.”
“I will,” said Richard.
Zero remained at his post until the dawn, and then came a black speck on the white road. Zero stood up and growled. The skin on his back moved.
Down the road came the lean, black retriever, snapping aimlessly, foam dropping from his jaws. Zero sprang at him and was thrown down and bitten. At his second spring he got hold and kept it. The two dogs rolled off the road, and into the ditch.
At breakfast, next morning, Richard was innocuously humorous on the subject of revolvers, burglars, and clairvoyant bulldogs. He was interrupted by a servant, who announced that Mr Hammond wished to speak to him for a moment.
“Right,” said Richard. “Where is he?”
“He is just outside, sir,” said the man. “Mr Hammond would not come in.”
Hammond was a neighbour of Richard’s, a robust and heavily built man. As a rule he was a cheerful sportsman, but this morning his countenance was troubled. His clothes were covered with dust, and he looked generally dishevelled.
“Hallo, Jim,” said Richard cheerily. “How goes it? You look as if you’d been out all night.”
“I have,” said Hammond grimly. “So have several other men.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“Outbreak of rabies at Barker’s farm. He shot one of the dogs, but the other got away. There must have been some damned mismanagement. A lot of us have been out trying to find the brute all night.”
“But, by Jove, this is most awfully serious. Can’t I help? I’m ready to start now if you like.”
“Thanks, but I found the dog five minutes ago—dead in a ditch not twenty yards from your gate. He’s there still.”
“Who shot him?”
“Nobody. That’s the trouble. He had been killed by another dog, as you’ll see when you look at his windpipe. The chances are the other dog got bitten or scratched, and he’ll carry on the infection. It’s the other dog we’ve got to hunt.”
“Could it be—” Richard paused.
“I’m afraid so,” said Hammond. “Not many dogs would tackle a mad retriever, but your bulldog would. And it was close to your gate that the retriever was killed.”
“If you’ll wait half a minute, I’ll see where Zero is.”
But the dog was not to be found. Nobody had seen him that morning. In truth, Richard had not expected to find him. He left word that if the dog came back he was to be shut up in an empty stable. And then he and Hammond went out together.
“You’ve got a revolver, I suppose,” said Richard.
“I don’t hunt mad dogs without one. This is most awfully hard lines on you, Richard. He was a ripping good dog, Zero was.”
“He was. It’s Dick I’m thinking about. The dog was a great pal of his.”
They found young Barker watching by the dead retriever. He explained gloomily that he had sent a boy for a cart. The body would be taken back and buried in lime. “And even then, sir, we’ve not got the dog that killed him.”
“We’re just going to get him,” said Richard quietly.
They walked on in silence for a mile and then at a turn of the road they saw Zero, apparently asleep in the sunlight in the white dust.
“I ought to do this,” said Richard, “but I wish you would.”
“Right, old chap. It’ll be over in a moment, and he’ll be dead before he knows he’s hurt. Look the other way.”
“Richard turned round and waited, as it seemed to him, for a long time, waiting for the shot. Suddenly he heard Hammond’s voice behind him.
“No need to shoot. The poor beggar’s dead—been run over by a motor-car, I should say. It’s a lucky accident.”
“I wonder,” said Richard.
“Wonder what?”
“Wonder if it was really an accident.”