With the exception of Mrs. Trevelyan and her son, and, possibly, the village constable—though he is doubtful—there was not a man, woman, or child in Penleven who did not believe that the outrages were the work of a particularly spiteful and malignant ghost. And, although one may laugh at the superstition of these simple Cornish fisher-folk, one is bound to confess that there were several features of the case which at first sight seemed incapable of any but a supernatural explanation.
James Ritchie, the local coast-guard, was the first victim of the “ghost.” He was on night duty at the time, and was patrolling the cliffs on the north side of the bay. It was a pitch-dark night towards the end of January, and a strong and somewhat gusty breeze was blowing from the south-west. Snow had fallen earlier in the evening, and as Ritchie was the first to come this way since the snow had ceased, the path which ran along the edge of the cliffs was covered with a soft, white, fleecy carpet two inches thick, whose smooth and unbroken surface Ritchie’s footprints were the first to mar.
He had reached a point about half a mile south-west of the village when suddenly he was startled to hear a wild, weird cry, which, in his own words, “froze his blood to the marrow of his bones.” The cry appeared to come from some spot close behind him, but ere he could turn round he received a blow on the back of the head which caused him to stumble forwards and fall on his hands and knees.
The blow was so severe that Ritchie was partially stunned, and lay for several moments where he had fallen. When his scattered wits returned he scrambled to his feet and re-lit his lantern, which had been extinguished by his fall. And then came the mysterious part of the affair. Ritchie’s assailant had disappeared; but, seeing that the ground, as already stated, was covered with a virgin mantle of fleecy snow, the coast-guard naturally expected to be able to give chase to his assailant by following his footprints in the snow. Imagine, therefore, his stupefied bewilderment when, though he examined the surface of the snow for fifty yards on each side of the spot where he had been struck, he failed to discover a single footprint except his own!
About the same time that Ritchie was assaulted in this mysterious fashion, the Rev. Mr. Trevelyan, the rector of Penleven, was returning to the rectory after visiting a sick parishioner in the village. A short-cut from the village to the rectory was across one of the glebe-fields, known as the Ten-Acre Pasture. In this field—which, of course, was carpeted with snow like the rest of the countryside—was an open shed, which served as a night-shelter for the rector’s pony, which was always “turned out” for the winter.
Mr. Trevelyan had crossed this field on his way to the village to see his sick parishioner, and he crossed it again on his way back to the rectory. At least, he started to cross it; but, in consequence of something which happened when he was halfway across the field, he had not returned to the rectory when midnight struck.
When half-past twelve arrived and there was still no sign of the rector’s return, his wife became uneasy. At one o’clock—by which time the moon had risen—she asked her son, Philip Trevelyan, to go down to the village and ascertain why his father was so long in coming back.
Philip Trevelyan, like his father, took the short-cut across the Ten-Acre Pasture. Halfway across the field he came upon the unconscious form of the rector lying face downwards in the snow, with an ugly wound on the back of his head. By his side stood the pony, shivering with pain and terror, and bleeding profusely from a horrible gash on the left side of its neck.
And again the only prints in the snow were those of the feet of the rector and his son and the hoofs of the pony!
Raising his father in his arms, Philip carried him up to the rectory. A doctor was sent for, and afterwards the village constable was communicated with. By that time Ritchie had also communicated with the constable; and by nine o’clock next morning the whole village knew that Ritchie had been assaulted, and the rector had been stunned, and his pony had been mutilated, by some mysterious assailant who was able to travel across the snow without leaving any footprints!
In view of these facts, and also considering that neither Ritchie nor tho rector had been robbed, the superstitious villagers had no hesitation in attributing the outrages to the machinations of a ghostly visitant. Needless to say, neither Mrs. Trevelyan nor Philip was content with this explanation; and when night came, and the investigations of the local police had failed to shed any light on the mystery, Mrs. Trevelyan wired for Sexton Blake.