moss lay in swards and hillocks. Spring had not yet filled the empty trees. The sun was like an arctic disk, withdrawn, cold, and almost dead.
«This is the place,» said Sir Robert at last.
«Where the children were found?» I inquired.
«Their bodies empty as empty can be.»
I looked at the glade and thought of the children and the people who had stood over them with startled faces and the police who had come to whisper and touch and go away, lost.
«The murderer was never apprehended?»
«Not this clever fellow. How observant are you?» asked Sir Robert.
«What do you want observed?»
«There's the catch. The police slipped up. They were stupidly anthropomorphic about the whole bloody mess, seeking a killer with two arms, two legs, a suit of clothes, and a knife. So hypnotized with their human concept of the killer that they overlooked one obvious unbelievable fact about this place.
He gave his cane a quick light tap on the earth.
Something happened. I stared at the ground. «Do that again,» I whispered.
«You
«I thought I saw a small trapdoor open and shut. May I have your cane?»
He gave me the cane. I tapped the ground. It happened again.
«A spider!» I cried. «Gone! God, how quick!»
«Finnegan,» Sir Robert muttered.
«What?»
«You know the old saying: in again, out again, Finnegan. Here.»
With his penknife, Sir Robert dug in the soil to lift an entire clod of earth, breaking off bits to show me the tunnel. The spider, in panic, leaped out its small wafer door and fell to the ground.
Sir Robert handed me the tunnel. «Like gray velvet. Feel. A model builder, that small chap. A tiny shelter, camouflaged, and him alert. He could hear a fly walk. Then pounce out, seize, pop back,
«I didn't know you loved Nature.»
«Loathe it. But this wee chap, there's much we share. Doors. Hinges. Wouldn't consider other arachnids. But my love of portals drew me to study this incredible carpenter.» Sir Robert worked the trap on its cobweb hinges. «What craftsmanship! And it
«The murdered children?»
Sir Robert nodded. «Notice any special thing about this forest?»
«It's too quiet.»
«Quiet!» Sir Robert smiled weakly. «Vast
He toyed with the amazing structure in his hands.
«What would you say if you could imagine a spider
Again he tapped with his cane. A trapdoor flew open, shut.
«Finnegan,» he said.
The sky darkened.
«Rain!» Casting a cold gray eye at the clouds, he stretched his frail hand to touch the showers. «Damn! Arachnids
«Finnegan!» I cried irritably.
«I
«A spider larger than a
The cold wind blew a mizzle of rain over us. «Lord, I hate to leave. Quick, before we go.
Sir Robert raked away the old leaves with his cane, revealing two globular gray-brown objects.
«What
«No.» He cracked the grayish globes. «Soil, through and through.»
I touched the crumbled bits.
«Our Finnegan excavates,» said Sir Robert. «To make his tunnel. With his large rakelike chelicerae he dislodges soil, works it into a ball, carries it in his jaws, and drops it beyond his hole.»
Sir Robert displayed half a dozen pellets on his trembling palm. «Normal balls evicted from a tiny trapdoor tunnel. Toy-size.» He knocked his cane on the huge globes at our feet. «Explain
I laughed. «The
«Nonsense!» cried Sir Robert irritably, glaring about at trees and earth. «By God, somewhere, our dark beast lurks beneath his velvet lid. We might be
Sir Robert raved on and on, describing the dark earth, the arachnid, its fiddling legs, its hungry mouth, as the wind roared and the trees shook.
Suddenly, Sir Robert flung up his cane.
«No!» he cried.
I had no time to turn. My flesh froze, my heart stopped.
Something snatched my spine.
I thought I heard a huge bottle uncorked, a lid sprung. Then this monstrous thing crawled down my back.
«Here!» cried Sir Robert. «Now!»
He struck with his cane. I fell, dead weight. He thrust the thing from my spine. He lifted it.
The wind had cracked the dead tree branch and knocked it onto my back.
Weakly, I tried to rise, shivering. «Silly,» I said a dozen times. «Silly. Damn awful silly!»
«Silly, no. Brandy, yes!» said Sir Robert. «Brandy?»
The sky was very black now. The rain swarmed over us.
Door after door after door, and at last into Sir Robert's country house study. A warm, rich room, where a fire smoldered on a drafty hearth. We devoured our sandwiches, waiting for the rain to cease. Sir Robert estimated that it would stop by eight o'clock, when, by moonlight, we might return, ever so reluctantly, to Chatham Forest. I remembered the fallen branch, its spidering touch, and drank both wine and brandy.
«The silence in the forest,» said Sir Robert, finishing his meal. «What murderer could achieve such a silence?»
«An insanely clever man with a series of baited, poisoned traps, with liberal quantities of insecticide, might kill off every bird, every rabbit, every insect,» I said.
«Why should he do that?»
«To convince us that there is a large spider nearby. To perfect his act.»
«We are the only ones who have noticed this silence; the police did not. Why should a murderer go to all that trouble for nothing?»
«Why
«I am not convinced.» Sir Robert topped his food with wine. «This creature, with a voracious mouth, has cleansed the forest. With nothing left, he seized the children. The silence, the murders, the prevalence of trapdoor spiders, the large earth balls, it all
Sir Robert's fingers crawled about the desktop, quite like a washed, manicured spider in itself. He made a cup of his frail hands, held them up.
