THE LEADING LADY




  _The_
  LEADING LADY

  _By_
  GERALDINE BONNER

  AUTHOR OF
  _To-morrow’s Tangle, The Pioneer,
  Rich Men’s Children, The
  Book of Evelyn_

  INDIANAPOLIS
  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS




  COPYRIGHT, 1926
  BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY


  _Printed in the United States of America_


  PRINTED AND BOUND
  BY BRAUNWORTH & CO., INC.
  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK




  _The_
  LEADING LADY




_PROLOGUE_


ONE of the morning trains that tap the little towns along the Sound ran
into the Grand Central Depot. It was very hot in the lower levels of
the station and the passengers, few in number--for it was midsummer and
people were going out of town, not coming in--filed stragglingly up the
long platform to the exit. One of them was a girl, fair and young, with
those distinctive attributes of good looks and style that drew men’s
eyes to her face and women’s to her clothes.

People watched her as she followed the porter carrying her suit-case,
noting the lithe grace of her movements, her delicate slimness,
the froth of blonde hair that curled out under the brim of her
hat. She appeared oblivious to the interest she aroused and this
indifference had once been natural, for to be looked at and admired
had been her normal right and become a stale experience. Now it was
assumed, an armor under which she sought protection, hid herself from
morbid curiosity and eagerly observing eyes. To be pointed out as
Sybil Saunders, the actress, was a very different thing from being
pointed out as Sybil Saunders, the fiancée of James Dallas of the
Dallas-Parkinson case.

The Dallas-Parkinson case had been a sensation three months back. James
Dallas, a well-known actor, had killed Homer Parkinson during a quarrel
in a man’s club, struck him on the head with a brass candlestick,
and fled before the horrified onlookers could collect their senses.
Dallas, a man of excellent character, had had many friends who claimed
mitigating circumstances--Parkinson, drunk and brutal, had provoked
the assault. But the Parkinson clan, new-rich oil people, breathing
vengeance, had risen to the cause of their kinsman, poured out money
in an effort to bring the fugitive to justice, and offered a reward
of ten thousand dollars for his arrest. Of course Sybil Saunders had
figured in the investigation, she was the betrothed of the murderer,
their marriage had been at hand. She had gone through hours of
questioning, relentless grilling, and had steadily maintained her
ignorance of Dallas’ whereabouts; from the night of his disappearance
she had heard nothing from him and knew nothing of him. The Parkinsons
did not believe her statement, the police were uncertain.

As she walked toward the exit she carried a newspaper in her hand.
Other people in the train had left theirs in their seats, but she,
after a glance at the head-lines, had folded hers and laid it in her
lap. Three seats behind her on the opposite side of the aisle she
had noticed a man--had met his eyes as her own swept back carelessly
over the car--and it was then that she had laid the paper down and
looked out of the window. Under the light film of rouge on her cheeks
a natural color had arisen. She had known he would be there but was
startled to find him so close.

Now as she moved across the shining spaciousness of the lower-level
waiting-room she stole a quick glance backward. He was following,
mounting the incline. It was the man who had gone up with her on
Friday. She had been out of town several times lately on week-end
visits and one of them was always on the train. Sometimes it was a new
one but she had become familiar with the type.

She knew he was behind her at the taxi stand as she gave the address
in a loud voice. But he probably would disappear now; in the city they
generally let her alone. It was only when she left town that they were
always on hand, keeping their eye on her, ready to follow if she should
try to slip away.

The taxi rolled out into the sweltering heat; incandescent streets
roaring under the blinding glare of the sun. Her destination was the
office of Stroud & Walberg, theatrical managers, and here in his
opulent office set in aerial heights above the sweating city, Mr.
Walberg offered her a friendly hand and a chair. Mr. Walberg, a kindly
Hebrew, was kindlier than ever to this particular visitor. He was sorry
for her--as who in his profession was not--and wanted to help her along
and here was his proposition:

A committee of ladies, a high-society bunch summering up in
Maine, wanted to give a play for charity. They’d got the chance
to do something out of the ordinary, for Thomas N. Driscoll, the
spool-cotton magnate who was in California, had offered them his
place up there--Gull Island was the name--for an outdoor performance.
Mr. Walberg, who had never seen it, enlarged on its attractions as
if he had been trying to make a sale--a whole island, just off the
mainland, magnificent mansion to be turned over to the company,
housekeeper installed. The crowning touch was an open-air amphitheater,
old Roman effect, tiers of stone seats, said to be one of the most
artistic things of its kind in the country. The ladies had wanted a
classic which Mr. Walberg opined was all right seeing the show was
for charity, and people could stand being bored for a worthy object.
_Twelfth Night_ was the play they had selected, and as that kind of
stage called for no scenery one thing would go as well as another.

The ladies had placed the matter in Mr. Walberg’s hands, and he had
at once thought of Sybil Saunders for Viola. She had played the part
through the provinces, made a hit and was in his opinion the ideal
person. There was a persuasive, almost coaxing quality in his manner,
not his usual manner with rising young actresses. But, as has been
said, he was a kindly man, and had heard that Sybil Saunders was
knocked out, couldn’t get the heart to work; also, as she was a young
person of irreproachable character, he inferred she must be hard up.
That brought him to compensation--not so munificent, but then Miss
Saunders was not yet in the star class--and all expenses would be
covered, including a week at Gull Island. This opportunity to dwell in
the seats of the mighty, free of cost, with sea air and scenery thrown
in, Mr. Walberg held before her as the final temptation.

He had no need for further persuasion for Miss Saunders accepted
at once. She was grateful to him and said so and looked as if she
meant it. He felt the elation of a good work done for the charitable
ladies--they could get no one as capable as Sybil Saunders for the
price--and for the girl herself whose best hope was to get back into
harness. So, in a glow of mutual satisfaction, they walked to the door,
Mr. Walberg telling over such members of the cast as had already been
engaged: Sylvanus Grey for the Duke, Isabel Cornell for Maria, John
Gordon Trevor for Sir Toby--no one could beat him, had the old English
tradition--and Anne Tracy for Olivia. At that name Miss Saunders had
exclaimed in evident pleasure. Anne Tracy would be perfect, and it
would be so lovely having her, they were such friends. Mr. Walberg
nodded urbanely as if encouraging the friendships of young actresses
was his dearest wish, and at the door put the coping stone on these
agreeable announcements:

“And I’m going to give you my best director, Hugh Bassett. If with you
and him they don’t pull off a success the Maine public’s dumber than I
thought.”

Later in the day he saw his director and told him of Miss Saunders’
engagement.

“Poor little thing,” he said. “She looks like one of those vegetables
they grow in the dark to keep ’em white. But it’ll be the saving of
her. Now you go ahead and get this started--three weeks rehearsal here
and one up there ought to do you. And keep me informed--if any of these
swell dames turn up asking questions, I want to know where I’m at.”

Her business accomplished, Miss Saunders went home. She lived in one
of those mid-town blocks of old brownstone houses divided into flats.
The flats were of the variety known as “push button” and “walk up,”
but she pushed no button as she knew hers would be tenantless. Letting
herself in with a latchkey she ascended the two flights at a rapid run,
unlocked her door and entered upon the hot empty quietude of her own
domain. The blinds in the parlor were lowered as she had left them.
She pulled one up with a nervous jerk, threw her hat on a chair, and
falling upon the divan opened the paper that she had carried since she
left the Grand Central Station.

The news of the day evidently had no interest for her. She folded
the pages back at the personal column and settled over it, bent,
motionless, her eyes traveling down its length. Suddenly they stopped,
focussed on a paragraph. She rose and with swift, tiptoe tread went
into the hall and tried the front door. Coming back she took a pad and
pencil from the desk, drew a small table up to the divan, spread the
newspaper on it, and copied the paragraph on to the pad. It ran as
follows:

  “Sister Carrie:

  Edmund stoney broke but Albert able to help him. Think we ought to
  chip in. Can a date be arranged for discussing his affairs?

                                                  Sam and Lewis.”

She studied it for some time, the pencil suspended. Then it descended,
crossing out letter after letter, till three words remained--“Edmunton,
Alberta, Canada.” The signature she guessed as the name he went by.

She burned the written paper, grinding it to powder in the ash-tray.
The newspaper she threw into the waste-basket where Luella, the mulatto
woman who “did up” for her, would find it in the morning. She felt
certain Luella was paid to watch her, that the woman had a pass-key to
the mail-box and every torn scrap of letter or note was foraged for
and handed on. But she had continued to keep the evil-eyed creature,
fearful that her dismissal would make them more than ever wary,
strengthen their suspicion that Sybil Saunders was in communication
with her lover.

The deadly danger of it was cold at her heart as she lay back on the
divan and closed her eyes. Through her shut lids she saw the paragraph
with the words of the address standing out like the writing on the
wall. She had heard directly from him once, a letter the day after he
had fled; the only one that even he, reckless in his despair, had
dared to send. In that he had told her to watch the personal column in
a certain paper and had given her the names by which she could identify
the paragraphs. She had watched and twice found the veiled message and
twice waited in sickening fear for discovery. It had not happened.
Now he had grown bolder, telling her where he was--it was as if his
hand beckoned her to come. She could write to him at last, do it this
evening and take it out after dark. Lying very still, her hands clasped
behind her head, she ran over in her mind letter-boxes, post-offices
where she might mail it. Were the ones in crowded districts or those in
secluded byways, the safest? It was like walking through grasses where
live wires were hidden.

A ring at the bell made her leap to her feet with wild visions of
detectives. But it was only Anne Tracy, come in to see if she was
back from her visit on the Sound. It was a comfort to see Anne, she
always acted as if things were just as they had been and never asked
disturbing questions. In the wilting heat she looked cool and fresh,
her dress of yellow linen, her straw hat encircled by a wreath of
nasturtiums had the dainty neatness that always marked Anne’s clothes
and Anne herself. She was pale-skinned and black-haired, satin-smooth
hair drawn back from her forehead and rolled up from the nape of her
neck in an ebony curve. Because her eyebrows slanted upward at the ends
and her eyes were long and liquid-dark and her nose had the slightest
retroussé tilt, people said she looked like a Helleu etching. And other
people, who were more old-fashioned and did not know what a Helleu
etching was, said she looked like a lady.

She was Sybil’s best friend, was to have been her bridesmaid. But she
knew no more of Sybil’s secrets since Jim Dallas had disappeared than
any one else. And she never sought to know--that was why the friendship
held.

They had a great deal to talk about, but chiefly the _Twelfth
Night_ affair. Anne was immensely pleased that Sybil had agreed to
play. She did not say this--she avoided any allusions to Sybil’s
recent conducting of her life--but her enthusiasm about it all was
irresistible. It warmed the sad-eyed girl into interest; the Viola
costume was brought from its cupboard, the golden wig tried on. When
Anne took her departure late in the day, after iced tea and layer cake
in the kitchenette, she felt much relieved about her friend--she was
“coming back,” coming alive again, and this performance off in the
country, far from her old associations, was just the way for her to
start.

Anne occupied another little flat on another of the mid-town streets
in another of the brownstone houses. Hers was one room larger, for her
brother, Joe Tracy, lived with her when not pursuing his profession
on the road. There were hiatuses in Joe’s pursuit during which he
inhabited a small bedroom in the rear and caused Ann a great deal of
worry and expense. Joe apparently did not worry, certainly not about
the expense. Absence of work wore on his temper not because Anne had
to carry the flat alone, but because he had no spending money.

They said it was his temper that stood in his way. Something did, for
he was an excellent actor with that power of transforming himself into
an empty receptacle to be filled by the character he portrayed. But
directors who had had experience of him, talked about his “natural
meanness” and shook their heads. When his name was mentioned it had
become the fashion to add a follow-up sentence: “Seems impossible the
same parents could have produced him and Anne.” People who tried to be
sympathetic with Anne about him got little satisfaction. All the most
persistent ever extracted was an admission that Joe was “difficult.” No
one--not even Sybil or Hugh Bassett--ever heard what she felt about the
fight he had had with another boy over a game of pool which had nearly
landed him in the Elmira Reformatory. Bassett had dragged him out of
that, and Bassett had found him work afterward, and Bassett had boosted
and helped and lectured him since. And not for love of Joe, for in his
heart Bassett thought him a pretty hopeless proposition.

That evening, alone in her parlor, Anne was thinking about him. He had
no engagement and no expectation of one, and it was not wise to leave
him alone in the flat without occupation. “Satan” and “the idle hands”
was a proverb that came to your mind in connection with Joe. She went
to the window and leaned out. The air rose from the street, breathless
and dead, the heated exhalation of walls and pavements baked all day by
the merciless sun. Passers-by moved languidly with a sound of dragging
feet. At areaways red-faced women sat limp in loose clothing, and from
open windows came the crying of tired little children. To leave Joe to
this while she was basking in the delights of Gull Island--apart from
anything he might do--it wasn’t fair. And then suddenly the expression
of her face changed and she drew in from the window--Hugh Bassett was
coming down the street.

The bell rang, she pushed the button and presently he was at the door
saying he was passing and thought he’d drop in for a minute. He was
a big thick-set man with a quiet reposeful quality unshaken even by
the heat. It was difficult to think of Bassett shaken by any exterior
accident of life, so suggestive was his whole make-up of a sustained
equilibrium, a balanced adjustment of mental and physical forces. He
had dropped in a great deal this summer and as the droppings-in became
more frequent Anne’s outside engagements became less. They always
simulated a mutual surprise, giving them time to get over that somewhat
breathless moment of meeting.

They achieved it rather better than usual to-night for their minds were
full of the same subject. Bassett had come to impart the good news
about Sybil, and Anne had seen her and heard all about it. There was a
great deal of talking to be done that was impersonal and during which
one forgot to be self-conscious. Finally when they had threshed out all
the matters of first importance Bassett said:

“Did you tell her that Walberg wanted Aleck Stokes for the Duke?”

“No, I didn’t say a word about it. What was the use? It would only have
upset her and you’d put a stop to it.”

“You can always be relied on, Anne, to do the tactful thing. Walberg
was set on it. Stokes can’t be beaten in that part and he’s at liberty.
But I wasn’t going to take any chances of her refusing, and if Stokes
was in the company I was afraid she might.”

“I don’t know whether she’d have gone that far, but it would have
spoiled everything for her and for the rest of us too. It’s all plain
sailing now except for one thing”--she stopped and then in answer
to his questioning look--“about the police. If they have her under
surveillance, as people say, what’ll they do about it up there?”

The big man shrugged:

“Camp in the village on the mainland--they certainly can’t come on the
island. We’ve special instructions about it--no one but the company
to be allowed there till the performance. Did she speak to you about
that?”

“No, she hardly ever alludes to the subject. But they _would_ keep a
watch on her, wouldn’t they?”

He nodded, frowning a little at a complication new in his experience:

“I should think so--a woman in her position. Men under sentence of
death have been unable to keep away from the girl they were in love
with. And then she may know where he is, be in communication with him.”

“Oh, I don’t think that,” Anne breathed in alarm. “She’d never take
such a risk.”

“Well, we’re her friends and we’re as much in the dark as anybody. I
only know one thing--if they try to hound her down on that island--the
first chance she’s had to recuperate and rest--I’ll--”

A slight grating noise came from the hall. Anne held up a quick
cautioning hand.

“Take care,” she murmured. “Here’s Joe.”

Joe came in, his Panama hat low on his brow. He gave no sign of
greeting till he saw Bassett, then he emitted an abrupt “Hello” and
snatched off the hat:

“Little Anne’s got a caller. Howdy, Bassett! How’s things?”

There was a jovial note in his voice, a wide grin of greeting on his
face. It was evident the sight of Bassett pleased him, and he stood
teetering back and forth on his toes and heels, looking ingratiatingly
at the visitor. He was like Anne, the same delicate features, the same
long eyebrows and the same trick of raising them till they curved high
on his forehead. But his face had an elfish, almost malign quality
lacking in hers, and the brown eyes, brilliant and hard, were set too
close to his nose. He was two years younger than she--twenty-two--but
looked older, immeasurably older, in the baser worldly knowledge which
had already set its stamp upon him.

He launched forth with a suggestion of pouncing eagerness on the
_Twelfth Night_ performance. He had heard this and that, and Anne had
told him the other. His interest surprised Anne, he hadn’t shown much
to her; only a few laconic questions. And she was wondering what was
in his mind, as she so often wondered when Joe held the floor, when a
question enlightened her:

“Have you got anybody to play Sebastian yet?”

“No. I wanted that boy who played with her on the southern tour last
year, but he’s in England. He gave a first-rate performance and he
_did_ look like her.”

“That was a lucky chance. You’ll search the whole profession before you
get any one that looks like Sybil’s twin brother.”

“He ought to bear some resemblance to her,” and Bassett quoted, “‘One
face, one voice, one habit, and two persons.’ I wonder if Shakespeare
had twins in his eye when he wrote the play.”

“Not he! They did the same in his day as they do now--dressed ’em up
alike and let it go at that. Why, Mrs. Gawtrey, the English actress,
when she was over here, had a boy to play Sebastian who looked as much
like her--well, not as much as I look like Sybil.”

Bassett had seen his object as Anne had and was considering. He had
been looking forward to the week at Gull Island with Anne, it loomed in
his imagination as a festival. There would be a pleasant, companionable
group of people, friendly, working well together. But Joe among them----

The boy, looking down at his feet, said slowly:

“What’s the matter with letting me do it?”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’ve no doubt you could, but you and she have
about as much resemblance as chalk and cheese.”

Joe wheeled and gathering his coat neatly about his waist walked across
the room with a mincing imitation of Sybil’s gait. It was so well
done that Bassett could not contain his laughter. Encouraged, the boy
assumed a combative attitude, his face aflame with startled anger,
and striking out, at imaginary opponents, shouted: “‘Why there’s for
thee, and there and there and there. Are all the people mad?’” Then as
suddenly melted to a lover’s tone and looking ardently at Anne said:
“‘If it be thus to dream then let me sleep.’”

“Oh, he _could_ play it,” she exclaimed, and Bassett weakened before
the pleading in her eyes.

He understood how to manage Joe, he could keep him in order. The boy
was afraid of him anyway, and by this time knew that his future lay
pretty well in Bassett’s hands. If there was anything Anne wanted that
was within his gift there could be no question about its being hers.

She was very sweet, murmuring her thanks as she went with him to the
door and assurances that Joe would acquit himself well. Bassett hardly
heard what she said, looking into her dark eyes, feeling the soft
farewell pressure of her hand.

Joe had left the sitting-room when she went back there and she supposed
he had gone to bed. But presently he came in, his hat on again and said
he was going out. She was surprised, it was past eleven, but he swung
about looking for his cane, saying it was too hot to sleep. She tried
to detain him with remarks about the new work. He answered shortly
as was his wont with her, treating it as a small matter, nothing to
get excited about--also a familiar pose. But she noticed under his
nonchalance a repressed satisfaction, the glow of an inner elation in
his eyes.




I


THE performance was over and the audience was dispersing. Gull Island,
colored to a chromo brightness by the declining sun, had not showed so
animated an aspect since the reception for the Spanish ambassador last
July. People in pale-tinted summer clothes were trailing across from
the open-air theater and massing in a group as gay as a flower garden
at the dock. Some of them had gone into the house, taken the chance to
have a look at it--when the Driscolls were “in residence” you couldn’t
so much as put your foot on the rocks round the shore. Others lingered,
having a farewell word with the actors, congratulating them--it was the
right thing to do and they deserved it. The committee was very affable,
shaking hands with Mr. Bassett the director and Miss Saunders the star,
who, in her page’s dress with the paint still on her face, looked
tired, poor girl, but was so sweet and unassuming.

It had been a complete success. The matrons who had organized it
scanned the crowd converging toward the dock and smiled the comfortable
smile of accomplishment. The summer home for tenement children could
build its new wing and employ that man from Boston who had such modern
scientific methods. And the matrons, stiff in the back and unbecomingly
flushed after sitting two hours in the sun on the stone seats of
the theater, drew toward one another on the wharf and agreed that
everything had gone off beautifully and the board should at once write
to Mr. Driscoll and thank him for lending the island.

The fleet of boats, rocking gently on the narrow channel that separated
Gull Island from the mainland, took on their freight and darted off.
They started in groups then broke apart. Speed boats that had come from
points afar, whizzed away with a seething rush and a crumple of crystal
foam at the bow. The launches skimmed, light-winged, the white flurry
of their wakes like threads that stretched back to the island.

People turned and looked at it--sun-gilded in an encircling girdle
of Prussian blue sea. The rocks about its base, the headlands that
rose above, were dyed to an orange red and against this brilliancy of
primary colors the pines stood out darkly silhouetted. On the rise
above the wharf the long brown structure of the house spread, rambling
and irregular, built, it was said, to suggest an outgrowth of the rocky
foundation. The watchers could see in the open place beyond the side
balcony the actors standing motionless, spaced in a group. Yes, having
their photographs taken; there was the camera man who’d been taking
pictures during the performance. And they craned their necks for a last
look at the lovely scene and the picturesque assemblage of players.

Part of the flotilla carried the Hayworth villagers--all-year residents
of the little town on the mainland. Some of the more solid citizens
were in the launch that old Gabriel Harvey owned, which had been used
by the actors in their week’s stay. Hayworth had gathered a great deal
of information about these spectacular visitors, some from Gabriel and
some from Sara Pinkney who was Mr. Driscoll’s housekeeper, living in
Hayworth all winter and in summer reigning in the Gull Island kitchen.
Mr. Driscoll had wired Sara to go over and open up and take charge
while they were there--spare nothing, those were his orders. And Sara
had done it, not wanting to, but apart from its being Mr. Driscoll’s
wishes which she had followed for the last ten years, she had felt it
her duty to keep an eye on the property. Every day she came over to
Hayworth for supplies and had to appease the local curiosity, which she
did grudgingly, feeling her power.

Now at last the Hayworth people had had a first-hand view of the
actors--the whole company, dressed up and performing--and they fitted
Sara Pinkney’s description to them. Olivia, that was Miss Tracy,
the one she said was so refined and pleasant-spoken. And the Duke
was Alexander Stokes. He was the feller that had come after the
others because the first man took sick--wonderful the way he did it
considering, didn’t miss a word. And the woman who stood round and
“tended on” Olivia was his wife. Sara hadn’t said much about her. Well,
she wasn’t of much importance anyhow or she’d have had more acting to
do. But that boy who was Viola’s twin, he was Miss Tracy’s brother, and
Sara had said he and Miss Saunders didn’t get on well, _she_ could see
it though they didn’t say much. And here piped up the butcher’s wife
who was more interested in the play than in personalities:

“I don’t see how Olivia took him for the page she was in love with. He
didn’t look like Viola in the face. She was real pretty, but he’d a
queer sly mug on him, that boy.”

“Aw, you can’t be too particular. You don’t need to have it so real.”

“I guess she was meant to be blinded by love. And him dressed the same,
hair and all, might lead her astray.”

“I don’t see how you could have ’em look just alike unless they’d get
an actress who had a real twin brother, and maybe you’d go the whole
country over and not find that.”

“He ain’t like her no way,” growled old Gabriel from the wheel, “I seen
’em both when they wasn’t acting and he’s an ugly pup, that one.”

Then the boat grating on the Hayworth wharf, Gabriel urged them off. He
hadn’t got through yet, got to go back for part of the company who were
calculating to get the main line at Spencer, and after that back again
for the Tracy boy. He muttered on as they climbed out, grumbling to
himself, which nobody noticed as it had been his mode of expression for
the last thirty years.

The swaying throng of boats emptied their cargoes and the thick-pressed
crowd, moving to the end of the wharf, separated into streams and
groups. Farewells, last commending comments, rose on the limpid
sea-scented air. Everybody was a little tired. The villagers, dragging
their feet, passed along the board walks to their vine-draped piazzas.
They would find their kitchens hot and dull that night after two
hours in the enchanted land of Illyria. The waiting line of motors
absorbed the summer visitors, wheeled off and purred away past the
white cottages under the New England elms. The matrons sank gratefully
upon the yielding cushions, rolling by the dusty buggies, the battered
Fords, the lines of bicycle riders, into the quiet serene country
where the shadows were lying long and clear. Yes, it had been a great
success; from first to last there hadn’t been a hitch.




II


THAT was how the audience saw it, but they were outsiders. There was
one outsider left on the island, Wally Shine, the photographer sent
by the Universal Syndicate to take pictures of what was a “notable
society event” in a place of which the public had heard much and seen
nothing. He had arrived that morning with two cameras and a delighted
appreciation of the beauty he was to record. But, unlike the other
outsiders, his impressions extending over a longer period had not been
so agreeable. He had seen the actors at close range, in their habits as
they lived, lunched with them, watched the last rehearsal, taken a lot
of pictures of Miss Saunders in the house and garden. And he had sensed
an electric disturbance in the atmosphere, and come upon evidences of
internal discord.

That was at the last rehearsal, when the poetic Viola had lost her
temper like an ordinary woman and jumped on the Tracy boy--something
about the place he stood in--nothing, as far as Shine could see, to get
mad about. And the boy had answered in kind like the spitting of an
angry cat. An ugly scene that the director had to stop.

Then the man Stokes who played the Duke, a handsome, romantic-looking
chap--something was the matter with him. “Eating him” was the phrase
Shine used to himself and it wasn’t a bad one. He had a haunted sort
of look, as if his mind was disturbed, especially when he’d turn his
eyes on Miss Saunders. Shine had noticed him particularly when they
gathered for the group pictures; his hands were unsteady and the
perspiration was out on his forehead though the air was cool from the
sea. His wife--the woman they called Flora--was on to him. Shine saw
her watching him, sidelong from under her eyelids, the way you watch a
person when you don’t want them to see it.

The photographer was a fat easy-going man, inured to the vagaries of
those who follow the arts. But he was sensitive to emotional stress and
he felt it here--below the surface--and was moved to curiosity.

The photographs were finished and the group broke up. Part of the
company were going and they ran toward the house--a medieval route--the
big Sir Toby with a rolling amble, Sir Andrew, long and lank, cavorting
like a mettlesome steed. Their antic shadows fled before them over the
dried sea grass, and their voices, shouting absurdities, rang rich and
deep-throated on the crystal atmosphere.

Miss Saunders and Miss Tracy linked arms and moved off toward the
headlands. Receding in the amber light they were like a picture from
some antique romance--the noble lady and her page. One in narrow
casings of crimson brocade, the other in short swinging kilt and
braided jacket of more sober gray. Shine, fascinated, watched them
pacing slowly over the burnished grass. Flocks of sea-gulls, roused by
their voices, rose into the air, poised and wheeled, one moment dark,
the next floating shapes of gold. He turned to go and saw that Stokes
was watching them too, intent like a hungry dog, the hand that held a
stalk of feathered grass against his lips, trembling.

The photographer shouldered his camera and went toward the house. A
jeweled brightness of garden extended along its seaward front. Beyond
this was the one stretch of cultivated turf on the island, an emerald
slope leading to the cuplike hollow that held the amphitheater. He
skirted the side balcony, the wide-flung doors giving a glimpse of
an entrance hall, and turning the corner emerged upon the land front
of the long capacious building. The surroundings on this side had
been left as nature made them--rock shelves and ledges, devoid of
vegetation, a path winding round them from the entrance to the wharf.
Hayworth showed across the channel in a clustering of gray roofs from
which smoke skeins rose straight into the suave rose-washed sky. The
water rushed between, a swollen tide, threads of white dimpled eddies,
telling of its racing speed.

The door on this side of the house opened directly into the
living-room. No hall within or porch without interfered with the view;
the path ended unceremoniously at the foot of two broad steps that
led to the threshold. On the lower of these steps Shine found a lady
sitting smoking a cigarette. This was the Maria of the cast, Mrs.
Cornell in private life. She was still in her costume, her redundant
figure swelling over the traditional laced bodice, the rouge on her
cheeks hardly showing against the coat of sunburn a week at Gull Island
had laid on. He had found her as easy as himself, good-humoredly
loquacious and not involved in the prevailing discord. An admirable
person to clear up mysteries. He sank down beside her on the step and
took the cigarette box she flipped toward him.

“Wouldn’t you think,” she said, “a man as rich as this Mr. Driscoll
would fix up round here better?”

Shine, who had artistic responses, had long learned not to intrude them
on the uninitiated.

“I guess he liked it wild,” he suggested, and lit a cigarette.

“But it looks so rough, not a flower bed or a vase--just paths. That
one there,” she pointed to a path that skirted the side of the house
and dipped to a small grove of pines below, “goes through those
pines and up to that summer-house. Nothing on the way and what’s the
summer-house when you get there? Old style rustic work with vines.
You’d suppose he’d build a temple and have some marble benches round.
The way the rich spend their money always gets me.”

Shine had been in the grove of pines, a growth of stunted trees filling
in a hollow. He had followed the path through it, up the slope to the
summer-house and beyond to where the bluff dropped away in a sheer
cliff to the channel. They called the place “The Point” as it projected
beyond the shore line in a rocky outthrust shoulder, gulls circling
about it, water seething below. He looked there now, let his glance
slip along the curve of headlands till it reached the two girls,
perched on a boulder like a pair of bright-plumaged birds. He was
thinking how to approach the matter in his mind, when Mrs. Cornell went
on:

“I don’t see what any one wanted to build a house here for--cut off
this way. It’s too lonesome. With the tide at the full as it is now
you can’t get ashore without a motor-boat. You know that current’s
something fierce.”

He looked down at it, its rushing corded surface purple dark:

“Looks to be some current.”

“It would carry you out and ‘Good night’ to you. Gabriel who runs the
launch told me. Set’s right out to sea someway. And the rise and fall
to it--I couldn’t tell you how many feet it is, but you’ll see for
yourself to-night if you’re awake--all the channel bare, nothing but
rocks and mud. And across the middle of it to Hayworth, a causeway.
That’s the only way you can get ashore at _low_ tide. High or low
you’re pretty well marooned. It’s seclusion all right if that’s what
you’re after.”

Shine was after information and with the talk running on tides and
causeways he saw no chance of getting it. So he tried to divert the
garrulous lady:

“That’s Miss Saunders and Miss Tracy out there looking at the sunset.”

Mrs. Cornell answered with emphasis:

“Yes, _they’re_ friends.”

“Aren’t you all?”

“Some of us knew each other before we came here,” was her cryptic
reply. Then she added pensively: “Six months ago you’d never have found
Sybil Saunders looking at a sunset. She was the _brightest_ thing!”

“Awful misfortune that what happened to her.”

She gave a derisive sound at the inadequacy of the word:

“Hah--awful! Took the heart right out of her. If you ever saw a girl in
love it was she--bound up in him. Everything ready, the wedding day
set, the trousseau made.” Tears rose in her eyes and she dove into her
tight bodice for a handkerchief. “Never to be worn, Mr. Shine--that’s
life.”

Shine gave forth sympathetic murmurs and Mrs. Cornell, dabbing at her
eyes, furnished data between the dabs:

“Two men drinking too much and then a fight, and before anybody knew,
murder! If there hadn’t been a brass candlestick near Jim Dallas’ hand
it would never have happened. Honest to God, Mr. Shine, there was
nothing evil in that young man. But the Parkinson family are camped on
his trail. The evil’s in them, if you ask me, with their rewards and
detectives.”

“I wonder if she knows where he is.”

“I guess there’s more than one wondering that,” the lady murmured.

“Terribly hard position for her if she does know--or if she doesn’t.”

Shine looked at the page’s figure on the rock. She carried the thing
stamped on her face. He had noticed it particularly where he had taken
the photographs of her in the living-room. They were time exposures
with his small camera, attempts to catch her fragile prettiness in
artistic combinations of light and shade. Once or twice the mask had
been dropped and he had seen the drooping lines, the weariness, and
something like fear on the delicate features.

For a space they smoked in silence. Round the corner of the house the
tall figure of Stokes strolled into view. He looked at the seated
girls, then turned and glanced behind him with a quick and furtive
sweep of the eyes. At the sight of them he nodded, walked down to the
wharf and dropped on a bench.

Shine lowered his voice:

“What’s the matter with him?”

Mrs. Cornell met his eyes; her own were narrowed and sharp.

“What makes you think anything is?”

“His whole make-up--something’s wearing on him.”

She blew out a long shoot of smoke and, watching it, murmured:

“Yes, it’s out on him like a rash. He oughtn’t to have come, but the
first man they had, Sylvanus Grey, took sick and Mr. Walberg engaged
Stokes in a hurry and sent him up. It’s spoiled everything for the rest
of us. He’s crazy about Sybil if you want to know what’s the matter
with him.”

“Oh!” It came with an understanding inflection, the haggard glances
rising on Shine’s memory.

“Can’t hide it, doesn’t want to hide it. There’s no shame in him,
tracking after the girl. And it’s not as if he got any encouragement.
She can’t bear him; that’s why she has Anne Tracy out there, afraid if
she sits alone five minutes he’ll come loping up. You’d think if he
didn’t have any pride he’d have some feeling for his wife. She’s half
crazy with jealousy, burning up with it. These purple passions are all
right in books, Mr. Shine, but believe me they’re not comfortable to
live with.”

“I felt it.”

“I guess you would, it’s in the air. All of us cooped up in this place
where you can’t get off. I thought it was going to be such a nice
restful change. But lord! It’s about as restful as camping on the side
of Vesuvius. Sybil and Joe Tracy ready to fight at the drop of the hat
and Flora going round in circles and Stokes like one of those fireworks
that starts sputtering and you don’t know whether they’re going to
explode or die on you. I tell you I’ll be glad when we get out of here
to-morrow morning.”

There was a footfall in the room behind them and Mrs. Cornell turned to
see who was coming.

“Oh, Flora,” she said. “Come out and take a look at the sunset. It’s
something grand.”

The woman stepped out and stood beside them. She had changed her
costume and her narrow blue linen dress outlined her too slender
figure. Shine thought she would have been pretty if she had not looked
so worn and thin. He noticed the brightness of her dark eyes, brilliant
and quick-moving as a bird’s. There was red on her cheek-bones, a
flushed patch that was not rouge. Mrs. Cornell’s expression recurred to
him, “burning up”--the meager body, the hot high color, the dry lips
resolutely smiling, suggested inner fires.

“Yes,” she answered, “it’s a wonderful evening.”

“Take a cig.” Mrs. Cornell offered the box.

“Sit down, there’s plenty of room.” Shine moved up.

“No, I can’t sit down. There’s something about the air that makes you
restless--too stimulating maybe.” She raised her voice and called to
her husband, “Aleck, aren’t you coming in to change your clothes?”

Without moving the man called back:

“Not yet. There’s no hurry.”

She turned to Shine with a little condoning air of wifely tolerance:

“Mr. Stokes has been shut up so long in town he can’t get enough of the
fresh air.”

“He’s enjoying the scenery, too,” Shine answered, and saw her eyes
travel to the two figures on the rock.

“Oh, that of course--that’s the best part of it.” Then in a tone of
bright discovery: “Why look where Anne and Sybil are! Have they been
there long?”

“Ever since I’ve been here.” Mrs. Cornell’s voice was more than
soothing, bluffly reassuring as the voice of one who tells a child
there is no ghost. “And ever since Mr. Shine got through the pictures!
Wallowing in the beauties of nature like the rest of us.”

“Won’t you wallow, too?” Shine indicated the long unoccupied space on
the step.

She shook her head:

“I like moving about. Something in this place gets on my nerves, it’s
like being in a jail.” On a deep breath she shot out, “I hate it,” and
stepped back into the room.

“Going?” Mrs. Cornell veered round to follow her retreating figure.

“Yes. I enjoy the scenery better when it hasn’t got people in it.”

They looked at each other; a still minute of eye communication.

“She’s all worked up,” he murmured.

Her answer was to point to the two girls and then to Stokes:

“Now she’ll keep her eye on them from somewhere else--probably the side
piazza. That’s the way you are when you’re jealous--the sight of it
kills you and you can’t stop watching.”

“Lord!” whispered Shine into whose life no such gnawing passions had
entered. And he thought of the girl in the page’s dress who was afraid
to sit alone, and the man on the wharf brooding within sight of her,
and the woman who was hovering round them like a helpless distracted
bird.




III


THE launch was on its way back for those of the actors who were
leaving. Gabriel, squatting by the engine, calculated the distribution
of his time. After he’d taken them across he’d have his supper and
then go back for Joe Tracy, who was leaving on the seven fifteen for
his vacation. When Joe was disposed of, Gabriel was to meet two Boston
sports who had engaged him for a week’s deep-sea fishing at White
Beach, twenty-five miles down the coast. It was a strenuous program for
the old man and he grumbled to himself about it, the grumbling gaining
zest by anticipations that some of them would be late. If it was any of
the actors, by gum, he wouldn’t wait for them, with the sports ready
to take him along in their car at seven. By the time he drew near the
island he had grumbled himself into a state of irascible defiance
against any one who would dare upset his plans.

To warn them of his coming he sounded the whistle and its shrill
toot acted like a magic summons. A group of men, bearing suit-cases
and bags, emerged from the entrance and ran down the path, Bassett
following. Miss Pinkney’s helper, a native of Hayworth, hurried from
the kitchen wing, a suit-case in her hand, and even the august Sara
herself appeared in the doorway of her domain.

Gabriel quieted down--they were all ready and waiting--and then saw Joe
Tracy come round the corner of the house in his Sebastian dress. The
old man muttered profanely--why wasn’t the d----d cub getting ready?
And as the boat made its landing, he called out:

“Say, you’d better be gettin’ them togs off. I’ll be back here for you
at a quarter to seven.”

The boy, leaping lightly from rock to rock, grinned without answering.
The picturesque dress suited him, he looked almost handsome, and with
the feathered cap on his golden wig set rakishly aslant, he moved
downward with a taunting debonair swagger. Gabriel didn’t like him
anyway and now his impudent face, framed by the drooping blond curls,
looked to the launch man malignantly spiteful.

Gabriel could say no more then for the confusion of good-bys possessed
the wharf. The actors shouted them out even to Miss Pinkney, flattering
assurances of their inability to forget her and her cooking. She waved
a condescending hand and permitted herself a smile, for she was very
glad to get rid of them.

But Gabriel wasn’t going to go till he’d made things clear. He appealed
to Bassett whom he had privately sized up as the only one of the outfit
who was like the rational human males of his experience. Besides he had
seen that Joe Tracy respected, if not feared, the director:

“I’ll be back here at quarter to seven for the Tracy boy, and I’m
tellin’ him he’s got to be ready. I can’t waste no time settin’ round
waitin’ and if he’s not here on the dot--”

“That’s all right,” Bassett put a comforting hand on his shoulder and
turned to Joe. “You heard that, Joe?”

The boy answered with his sneering grin:

“What’s got the old geezer? Does he think I’m as deaf as he is?”

Gabriel’s weather-beaten visage reddened. He was not in the habit of
being called an “old geezer” and he was not deaf. But the actors, all
in the boat, were clamoring to start. They had a train to make--get in
ancient servitor, and turn on the current. Miss Pinkney’s helper, with
her hat on one side and her face crimson, giggled hysterically, and in
a chorus of farewells the boat chugged off.

The three men left on the wharf went up the path to the doorway where
Shine and Mrs. Cornell had resumed their seats. Shine was struck by
their difference of type,--if you went the world over you couldn’t
find three more varied specimens. The only one he liked was Bassett,
something square and solid about him and a good straight look in his
eyes. The kind of chap, Shine thought, you’d ask directions of in the
street and who’d give ’em to you no matter what hurry he was in. And
he’d a lot of authority--the way he managed this wild-eyed bunch showed
that. Shine had noticed, too, a sort of exuberant quality of good will
about him--like a light within shining out--and set it down to relief
at having got through without any one blowing the lid off.

They stopped at the steps and Joe Tracy made his good-bys. He was going
camping in the woods with his friend Jimmy Travers, who was to meet
him at Bangor to-night. They’d stay there twenty-four hours getting
their stuff together, then be off for the northern solitudes--no beaten
tracks for them. He left, jauntily swinging his kilted skirts, a
whistled tune on his lips. Soon after, Stokes departed, saying he was
going to change his clothes. His air was nonchalant, lounging up the
steps and crossing the living-room with a lazy padding stride.

A door to the right opened into the entrance hall. Here he and his
wife occupied a ground-floor room. It was on the garden front of the
house opposite the stairway that led to the second story. He listened
at the panel before he entered, then softly turned the knob, and,
inside, as softly closed the door. Shut in and alone his languid pose
fell from him like a cloak. An avid eagerness sharpened his features
and directed his hands, pulling open his valise and taking from it
a small leather case. Moving back from the window he pushed up his
sleeve, took the hypodermic from the case and pressed in the needle.
When he had restored the bag to its place, he threw himself on the bed
and lay with closed eyes feeling the ineffable comfort, grateful as an
influx of life, vitalize and soothe his tortured being.

Mrs. Cornell and Shine rose up and followed him. Mrs. Cornell had her
packing to get through and wanted Miss Pinkney’s help. Shine was going
to see if the pantry would do for a dark room, intending to take some
flashlight photographs of the company that evening. He had found in
a cabinet all the flashlight requisites and thought it would be an
interesting memento of their visit--each of them to have a picture.

“They’ve got everything here,” he said as he pointed to the corner
where he had made his find. “Not alone all the supplies, but two
first-class cameras and a projector. I suppose some of the family took
it up for a fad.”

Mrs. Cornell opined it was to occupy the young men. There were several
Driscoll boys and if you didn’t give them something to do they’d get
into mischief. Though, if you asked her, she didn’t see any chances for
mischief in _this_ jumping-off place, unless the high tide washed in a
few mermaids.

Then they passed on through the left doorway, into the side wing of
the house. Here Shine, who was domiciled in the butler’s bedroom,
disappeared into the adjoining pantry and Mrs. Cornell trod resolutely
on into the kitchen, being one of the few members of the company who
was not afraid of the housekeeper.

Miss Pinkney, who was sitting upright in a stiff-backed chair,
rose respectfully. She was a lean slab-sided woman of fifty, with
tight-drawn hair and a long horse face. She had disapproved bitterly of
the intrusion of the actors upon the sacred precincts of Gull Island
and though she had been rigidly polite hoped that her disapproval had
got across. Anyway, she had had the satisfaction of putting cotton
sheets on their beds and serving their meals on the kitchen china. If
they did any damage to the house or premises she was ready to assert
her authority, and she had been on the watch. But they had been careful
and orderly and treated her with the proper deference, and in her heart
the revolutionary thought had arisen that they were equally considerate
and more amusing than the usual run of Gull Island guests. Also they
gave her a subject of conversation that would last out the winter.

Mrs. Cornell broached her request and Miss Pinkney agreed. She was even
very pleasant about it, showing a brisk friendly alacrity--with the
helper gone there’d only be a cold supper and she could dish that up
in two shakes. Together they left the kitchen and on the stairs Mrs.
Cornell hooked her plump arm inside Miss Pinkney’s bony one and said
when Mr. Shine took the flashlights that night he must take one of them
as the “feeder” and the other as the “fed.”




IV


BASSETT had gone into the house too. As he crossed the living-room he
noticed its deserted quietude, in contrast to the noise and bustle that
had possessed it an hour ago.

It was a rich friendly room, comfortably homelike in spite of its size,
for it crossed the center of the house, its rear door opening on the
garden as the one opposite did on the path. It was spacious in height
as well as width, its walls rising two stories. Midway up a gallery
ran, on three sides of which the bedrooms opened. The fourth side, on
the seaward front, was flanked by a line of windows, great squares of
unsullied glass that looked over the garden and the amphitheater to
the uplands and the open ocean. There were tables here, raking wicker
chairs, and low settees with brilliant cushions, books lying about and
smokers’ materials. In the room below the character of a hunting lodge
had been suggested by mounted deer heads, Indian blankets, baskets of
cunning weave and animal skins on the floor. But it was an idealized
hunting lodge, with seats in which the body sank luxuriously, and
softly shaded lights. Round the deep-mouthed chimney the scent of wood
fires lingered, the fires of birch logs that leaped there when Gull
Island lay under storm and mist. The architect had not diminished the
effect of size and unencumbered space by stairs. The second story was
reached by two flights, one in the entrance hall, one in the kitchen
wing.

Bassett opened the door into the hall where again all was quiet, none
of the jarring accents that occasionally rose from the Stokes’ room.
He walked across the gleaming parquette to the library which he had
used for his office. There were no signs of the hunting lodge here--a
scholarly retreat, book-lined, with leather armchairs and lights
arranged for readers’ eyes, a place for delightful hours if one had
time to drowse and poke about on the shelves. Two long French windows
framed a view of the channel and Hayworth dreaming among its elms. He
went to one of the windows and looked out. The girls were still sitting
there, and, as he looked at them, an expression of infinite tenderness
lay like a light on his face. It was the light Shine had noticed,
allowed to break through clearly now that no one was there to see.

He sat down at the desk; there were letters for him to answer, addenda
of the performance to check up. He moved the papers, looked at them,
pushed them away, and, resting his forehead on his hands, relinquished
himself to a deep pervading happiness. Yesterday Anne had promised to
marry him.

His mind, held all day to his work, now flew to her--memories of her
face with the down-bent lids as he had asked her, and the look in her
eyes as they met his. Brave beautiful eyes with her soul in them. It
had been no light acceptance for her, it meant the surrendering of her
whole being, her life given over to him. He heard her voice again, and
his face sank into his hands, his heart trembling in the passion of its
dedication to her service. Anne, whom he had coveted and yearned for
and thought so far beyond his reach--his! He would be worthy of her,
and he would take such care of her, gird her round with his two arms, a
buckler against every ill that life might bring. She’d had such a hard
time of it, struggling up by herself with Joe hung round her neck like
a millstone.

At the memory of Joe he came to earth with a jarring impact. He dropped
his hands and stared at the papers, his brows bent in harassed thought.
Joe had broken the charm, obstructed the way to the paradise of dreams
like the angel with the flaming sword--though angel was not exactly the
word. Bassett had heard something that morning from Sybil which must
be looked into--something he could hardly believe. But Joe being what
he was you never could tell. It had been a mistake to bring him, with
Sybil a bunch of nerves and Stokes shunted unexpectedly into their
midst. And now he felt responsible, he’d have it out with Joe before he
left. One more disagreeable scene before they separated to-morrow, and
Bassett, like Mrs. Cornell, felt he’d thank Providence when they were
all on the train in the morning. Meantime he’d go over his papers while
he waited for the boy who had gone to his room to dress. The door was
open and he could hear him as he came down the stairs.

Anne was approaching the house, a slender crimson figure, her hair
in the sunset light shining like black lacquer. She was smiling to
herself--everything was so beautiful, not only Gull Island and this
hour of tranquil glory, but the mere fact of existing. Then she saw
Flora Stokes sitting on the balcony and realized that in this golden
world there were people to whom life was a dark and troublous affair.
She wanted to comfort Flora, let some of the happiness in her own heart
spill over into that burdened one. But she knew no way of doing it,
could only smile at the haggard face the woman lifted from her book.

“Oh, Mrs. Stokes, reading,” she cried as she ran up the steps. “How
can you read on such an evening as this?”

Flora Stokes said she had been walking about till she was tired, and
then glanced at the distant rock:

“You’ve left Sybil out there.”

There was no comfort or consolation that could penetrate Mrs. Stokes’
obsession. Anne could only reassure:

“She’s coming in soon. She just wanted to see the end of the sunset.”

She passed into the hall, sorry--oh, so sorry! But the library door
was open and she halted, poised birdlike for one glance. The man at
the desk had his back to her and she said nothing, yet he turned, gave
a smothered sound and jumped up. She shut her eyes as she felt his
arms go about her and his kisses on her hair, her senses blurred in a
strange ineffably sweet confusion of timidity and delight.

“Oh, Anne,” she heard his voice between the kisses. “I was waiting for
you.”

“Some one will see us,” she whispered. “Take care.”

She could feel the beating of his heart through his coat. Her hands
went up to his shoulders feeling along the rough tweed and with her
lids down-drooped she lifted her face.

“Darling,” he breathed, when the kiss was over, “I thought you were
never coming.”

“I had to stay with Sybil. She didn’t want to be alone.”

“But _you_ wanted to be here?”

“Just _here_,” she laid a finger on his breast and broke into
smothered, breathless laughter.

He laughed too and they drew apart, their hands sliding together and
interlocking. It was all so new, so bewilderingly entrancing, that they
did not know how to express it, the man staring wonder-struck, the
girl, with her quivering laughter that was close to tears, looking this
way and that, not knowing where to look.

“I ought to go,” she whispered. “They’ll be coming,” but made no move.

“Wait till they do.” Then with a sudden practical facing of realities,
“When will we be married?”

“Oh, not for ages! I’m not used to being engaged yet!”

“I am--I never was before but I must have had a talent for it, I’ve
taken to it so well.”

“Oh, Hugh!” Her laughter came more naturally, his with it. They were
like a pair of children, delighting in a little secret. “Won’t they be
surprised when they hear? Nobody has a suspicion of it.”

She looked so enchanting with her eyebrows arched in mischievous query
that he made a movement to clasp her again, and then came the creak of
an opening door from the floor above.

“Hist!” she held up a warning hand and slid away, her face, glancing
back for a last look, beautiful in its radiant joy.

Bassett moved to the stair-foot. Once again he had to come down to
earth with a bump. He passed his hand over his face as if to wipe off
an expression incompatible with disagreeable interviews. This must be
Joe.

It _was_ Joe, dressed for travel in knickerbockers and a Norfolk
jacket, a golf cap on the back of his head. He carried an overcoat
across his arm, in his hands a suit-case and a fishing-rod done up in
a canvas case. At the sight of Bassett he halted, and the elder man
noticed a change in his expression, a quick focusing to attention.

“Oh,” he said. “Want to see me, Bassett?”

“Yes, I want to speak to you before you go.”

Joe descended. Stopping a step above Bassett, he set down his baggage
and leaned on the banister, politely waiting.

Bassett spoke with lowered voice:

“I heard something this morning that I can hardly believe--an
accusation against you. That you’ve been using your position here to
act as one of the police spies who’ve been keeping tab on Sybil.”

The boy looked at him with impenetrable eyes and answered in the same
lowered key:

“Who told you that?”

“She did. She accuses you of having come here with that intention, got
the job knowing that no outsiders were to be allowed on the island.”

Bassett was certain he had paled under his tan, but his face retained a
masklike passivity.

“Sounds as if she might be losing her mind.”

“You deny it?”

The boy gave a scornful shrug:

“Of course I deny it. I shouldn’t think it would be necessary to ask
that. She’s had a down on me for some time--everybody’s seen it,
snapping and snarling at me for nothing--and I suppose she wants to get
an excuse for it.”

“She says she came upon you examining a letter of hers, holding it up
to the light. And three days ago she found you in her room looking over
the papers in her desk.”

“Ah!” he made a gesture of angry contempt. “It would make a person
sick--examining her letters! I was looking through the mail bag to see
if there was anything for me. If I took up one of hers by mistake does
that prove I was examining it?”

“How about the other thing?”

“Being in her room? Yes, I was there. I went in to get a stamp. I had
an important letter to go when Gabriel took over the mail and it was
time for him. All the rest of you were out. Her room was next to mine
and I went in. I never thought anything about it, no more than I would
have thought about going into Anne’s or yours or anybody else’s. She’s
nutty, I tell you. You can’t trust her word. And if she says I’m hired
to spy on her she’s a damned----”

He stopped. Basset’s eye was steady on him in a cold command he knew.
There was the same cold quality in the director’s voice:

“If the position Sybil’s in has made her suspicious, that’s all right.
I’d like to believe it was the case. But if any of us--supposedly
her friends--had inserted themselves in here to carry on police
surveillance, using _me_ to get them in--well, I’d not think _that_ all
right.”

Joe leaned over the banister. His control was shaken, his voice
hoarsely urgent:

“You got to be fair, Bassett, and because you’re sorry for her is no
reason to set her word over mine. It’s _not_ true. Don’t you believe
me?”

Bassett did not answer for a moment. He wanted to believe and he
doubted; he thought of Joe’s desire to come, of the reward:

“I guess you know, Joe, you can trust me to be fair, but I’m not going
to commit myself till I know. It won’t be hard to do that. I can find
out when I get back to New York. And take this from me--if what Sybil
says is true I’m done with you. No more help from me, no more work in
any company I manage. And I fancy the whole theatrical profession will
feel the same way.” He drew back from the stair-foot. The disagreeable
interview was over. “There’s no good talking any more about it.
Accusations and denials don’t get us anywhere. We’ll let it rest till
I’ve made my inquiries. I’ll say good-by now and hope you’ll have a
good time in the woods.”

He turned and walked up the hall to his room on the garden front next
the Stokes’. Joe gathered his luggage and went the opposite way, down
the hall and into the big central apartment. He stepped with gingerly
softness as if he were creeping away from something he feared might
follow him. At the entrance door he set down his luggage and as he bent
over it a whispered stream of curses flowed from his lips. He cursed
Bassett and his luck, but Sybil with a savage variety of epithet and
choice of misfortune, for she had undone him. Straightening up he
looked blankly about--his inner turmoil was such he hardly knew where
he was--and he retraced his steps, seeking the seclusion of his room,
went up the stairs in noiseless vaulting strides like a frightened
spider climbing to its web.




V


ANNE had taken off her costume and slipped into a negligée to do her
packing comfortably, and then decided she had better bid good-by to
Joe first. Bidding good-by was not an obligation between them, but
she had to get the key of his trunk--it was going back to New York
with hers--and her heart in its new warmth yearned to him, her only
relation. She wanted to tell him her great secret, see an answering
joy leap into his face, for he thought more of Bassett than anybody,
and he’d be so surprised to hear that Anne, her charms held at a low
valuation, had won such a prize.

Her room was the first on the left side of the gallery, Joe’s next to
Sybil’s on the land front of the house. She passed the long line of
closed doors, voices coming from behind Mrs. Cornell’s, and reaching
Joe’s, knocked. A “Come in,” uninvitingly loud and harsh, answered her
and she entered. Joe was sitting in a low armchair, bent forward, his
hands holding a cane with which he was tapping on the floor. The bright
square of the window was behind him, framing rosy sky and the green
shore-line. He looked up to see who it was; then, without greeting or
comment, drooped his head and went on lightly striking the cane on
the carpet as if he were hammering in a nail and it required all his
attention. Anne felt dashed, his manner might have been the same to
an intruding stranger. She asked about the key, and he nodded to the
bureau where it lay. The trunk was packed and locked? To that he gave
an assenting grunt, then raised his head and looked at her--what have
you come here for, the look said.

It was not a reception to encourage confidences and she stood
uncomfortably regarding him, trying to find something to say that would
dispel his somber ill humor.

“You’re all ready? Where’s your luggage?”

“Down by the door. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“_I_ don’t want to know, I was thinking of you. You’re always late, and
it’s different here with only one way to get ashore and Gabriel never
willing to wait.”

He made no answer, continuing his play with the cane. She knew that
something was wrong and sat down on the arm of a chair, uneasy,
wondering what it was:

“I’m glad you’ve managed this holiday. And it’s so jolly having Jimmy
Travers, he’s such a sport. You’ll meet him to-night at Bangor. At the
Algonquin Inn--wasn’t that the name of it?”

“Um.”

“I want to be sure because if any important mail should come for you I
could send it there to meet you on your way back. Algonquin Inn--I’ll
remember that. Then off to-morrow morning--it’ll be lovely in the woods
now.”

“Any place would be lovely after this beastly hole.”

“Beastly hole! I thought you liked it!”

“Did you? Take another guess.”

“You expected to like it. You wanted to come.”

He made no answer, but slanting his body sidewise with an air of
ostentatious endurance, took out his watch and looked at it. She
ignored the hint--you couldn’t be sensitive with Joe--and leaning
toward him asked:

“What’s the matter, Joe?”

“Matter--with what?”

“You! Has anything happened?”

“Oh, no, nothing’s happened.” His words were mincingly soft. “What
_could_ happen with such a charming lot of people and Miss Saunders
playing the star rôle in the performance and out.”

It was Sybil then--he’d been working himself into a bad temper over
her treatment of him. Anne had thought it odd he had not mentioned it
before:

“You’re angry with Sybil, and I don’t think she has been very nice
to you. I’ve noticed it, especially the last three days and this
afternoon when we were sitting out there on the rock I tried to make
her tell me why.”

He raised his head; the profile sharply defined against the window
showed a working muscle in the cheek: “And did she tell you?”

“No, she didn’t seem to want to talk about it. She changed the subject.”

“How considerate!”

“There’s no sense getting annoyed about it because I don’t think she
has any reason. You have to make excuses for her. She’s gone through
this awful experience and her nerves are all wracked to pieces. You
have to be patient and take her as a sort of afflicted person--”

He dashed the cane down and jumped to his feet in a volcanic explosion
of rage:

“I don’t take her that way. I take her for what she is, a damned lying
hypocrite.”

“Joe!” She was amazed, not so much at the words, as at the suddenness
of the outburst and the contorted passion of his face.

“She thinks she can treat me any way she wants and get away with it.
Well, she’ll find her mistake, she’s taken the wrong turning this time.
She takes me for a yellow dog she can kick whenever she feels like it.
But I got teeth, I can bite. Patient--be patient--God, I’d like to
wring her neck, the damned----.”

He used an epithet that brought Anne to her feet, breathing battle:
“Don’t dare to say that of my friend, Joe Tracy.”

He stood in front of her, hump-shouldered, with outthrust jaw, brows
drawn low over eyes gleaming like a cat’s. She had never seen him look
like that; he seemed a stranger, a horrible stranger, and she drew
away, aghast at the revelation of a being so sinisterly unfamiliar.
Her look brought him back to self-control. He jerked his head up, ran
a hand over his hair, and turned away to the window. Standing there he
said:

“Well, I take that back. I didn’t mean to say it. But she’s made me
mad; I think she’d make anybody.”

The tone, surly still, had a placating quality; it was as near an
apology as Joe could ever come. She felt immeasurably relieved for
he had frightened her. To see the family cat, whose vagaries of
temperament she knew by heart, suddenly transformed into a tiger, had
given her a shock. She accepted his amends without comment, but she
could not resist a sisterly admonition:

“If you’d only stop getting mad over small things you’d find life so
much easier.”

He laughed:

“Good advice from little sister! It doesn’t cost anything and it’s the
correct _ingenue_ pose.”

He turned from the window smiling, Joe at his most amiable. If he
had met her this way she would have poured out her secret. But her
high mood had fallen and besides he wanted her to go--he said he had
a letter to write yet. Lounging toward her he put his hands on her
shoulders, gave her a light kiss on the cheek and pushed her toward the
door.

On her way back along the gallery she recalled his face in that
moment of rage with troubled question. She wondered if there was more
disturbing him than she knew--it was an extraordinary exhibition of
anger for such a cause. Also she had not felt sure that his change of
mood was genuine, his laugh had rung false, and when he had laid his
hands on her shoulders she had felt their coldness through the thin
stuff of her negligée. She heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that
he was going. In his present mood there was no knowing what clashes
there might be, and it was the last evening, and there would be a full
moon, and she and Bassett would walk like lovers under its magic light.

When her door had closed, the gallery and living-room became as quiet
as though the house were unoccupied. Sybil, approaching it, heard no
sound of voices, a fact that reassured her, for the long day had tired
her and she had no mind for talk. She was coming in by the balcony when
she saw Flora Stokes sitting there reading and deflected her course
toward the path that skirted the building’s front. If Flora noticed
her she made no sign, her eyes glued to her book, and Sybil, stepping
softly, for she dreaded the woman’s resentful glances, passed along to
the entrance of the living-room. The place was deserted and she stopped
on the threshold for a last look at the sky’s fading splendors.

Across the depths of the room the door into the hall opened, but so
gently that she did not hear it. Stokes made this noiseless entrance in
the hope that she might be there, and now, seeing his hope fulfilled,
closed the door as carefully, standing against it watching her.

If the conventional garb of the street was not as becoming to his
darkly Byronic style as the trappings of the Duke, he was still
unusually handsome. A figure of distinction in its lean grace, with
proud hawk features and the deep-set melancholy eyes that the matinée
girl loves. Even his pallor had charm in their opinion, adding to his
romantic suggestion. Gull Island sun and breezes had left no trace upon
it; his face against the background of the door was a yellowish white.

Seeing that she did not turn he pronounced her name. At that she
wheeled, lightning-quick, and came forward from beneath the deep jut of
the gallery assuming as unconcerned a manner as she could.

“Lovely evening,” she said as she advanced. “It’s been hard to come in.”

“Evidently from the length of time you stayed out there. I’ve been
waiting for you.”

It was not a propitious beginning, especially as he still stood against
the door as if intending to bar her exit.

“I’m going up-stairs to dress now.”

“There’s plenty of time. You can give me a few minutes. I’ve something
I want to say to you.”

“Oh, Aleck!” She stopped with an air of weary expostulation. “_Don’t_
say anything more. _Don’t_ begin that dreadful subject. I’m sick of it,
I loathe it and _can’t_ you see it isn’t any use?”

He went on as if he hadn’t heard her:

“I’ve been trying for days, ever since I came here. And you keep
avoiding me, always having some one with you. Now we’ll be going
to-morrow, we may not have another chance, and I must see you and tell
you”--he stopped and looked at the gallery. “Did I hear a step up
there?”

She had heard nothing and thought it odd that he should be so suddenly
cautious. Discretion had been the last quality he had heretofore shown.

“I _have_ avoided you and I’m going to continue doing it. Please move
away from the door. It’s silly to stand in front of it for I can go
round by the garden, but I’m tired and I don’t want to.”

He came forward, speaking as he advanced.

“This isn’t what you think. I’m done with that. You’ve made me
understand, you’ve got it across, Sybil. I’m not going to bother you
any more with that subject you loathe and think so dreadful. But I
can’t help loving you and wanting to help you.” She gave an exasperated
gesture and made a move to pass him. As she did so, he said: “I’ve
heard something of Jim Dallas.”

She stopped as if all animating force had been stricken out of her, a
“What?” expelled on a caught breath.

“Just before I left town I met an actor who says he saw him.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Why should I lie? What do I gain by it? I swore the fellow to secrecy
and came up here to tell you and I’ve been trying----”

She broke in: “Was he sure? Where was it?”

The change in her manner would have crushed the hope in any man.
Shunning him like a leper, she now drew close and laid her hand on his
arm.

“I can’t tell you here. It’s too dangerous, too many people coming and
going.”

“It _was_ Jim?”

“It _was_. It’s quite a story, more than just seeing him. But we’ve got
to get somewhere away from all these damned doors----”

One of them opened--that into the hall behind them. They heard it and
wheeled round, faces sharp-set in defensive interrogation. It was
Flora Stokes. She rested on the threshold looking at them, and Stokes,
his senses more alert than the girl’s, withdrew his arm from her clasp.

“Oh, Flora,” he said, his voice supremely light and easy. “Were you
looking for me?”

Mrs. Stokes said no, she had come to put her book back. She walked
slowly to a table and placed her book on the corner. The room was very
still as she did this. Stokes, his hands deep in his pockets, moved
his head, following her progress as if it roused his curiosity. The
girl stood without a sound, the scene passing under her eyes with a
mirage-like unreality.

“It seems I’ve intruded,” said Mrs. Stokes, each syllable meticulously
clear and precise. “But if you want to be alone I should think you’d
have chosen another place.”

“Having chosen this is a pretty good proof we didn’t want to be alone,”
retorted her husband.

She gave a light jeering sound of disbelief and walked to the entrance.
On the sill she turned and looked at them with smoldering eyes:

“Don’t be afraid I’ll stay. I’m going for a walk on the front of the
island. That’s as far away as I can get; I’d go farther if I could.”

She passed out of the door and Stokes turned to the girl:

“There--that’s what I was afraid of. Some of the rest of them may come
in at any minute. We’ve got to get out of here, some place outside.”

“The Point--the summer-house. I’ll go down there now--you follow me.”

She ran to the entrance, he at her heels. Walking leisurely up the
path to the summer-house was Shine. She threw out her hands with a
distracted gesture and struck a foot on the floor in a frantic stamp.
Stokes smothered an oath. “Tell me here,” she implored, but he answered
with an imperative shake of the head.

“The garden.” She was half-way across the room before he caught her up,
and this time it was he who laid his hand on her arm:

“Sybil, have some sense. You’ll get us in wrong every way. You don’t
want any of these people to see us out there whispering together.
That’s just the place they’ll go while they’re waiting round for
supper. Listen now, get a hold on yourself. Jim’s safety is more
important than your anxiety. That photographer chap’s just strolling
round killing time; he’ll move on from there presently. Go up to your
room and wait. You can see the Point from your window. If he’s gone by
seven, come down and go along to the summer-house. I’ll watch too and
I’ll meet you there.”

She opened her lips for a last protest, then evidently seeing there
was nothing else for it, gave out a groaning “All right” and left the
room. He followed her, saw her mount the stairs, and walked out on the
balcony. It was exquisitely still, the colors paling, the pines black
and motionless as if painted on the orange sky. He could see the figure
of his wife moving slowly toward the ocean bluffs. A newspaper lay on a
table near him and he took it up, slumping down in his chair as one who
relinquishes himself to a regained interest, but he did not read.




VI


ANNE packed for a space, then gave it up. She couldn’t go on with it,
she wanted to be down-stairs, not lose one minute of the last evening
at Gull Island. Her spirits, oppressed by Joe’s behavior, began to
bubble again, foam up in sparkling effervescence. You couldn’t pack
clothes in a trunk when you felt like dancing and the hour was too
beautiful for belief and your lover might be waiting for you in the
garden. She slipped off her negligée and chose her most becoming dress,
leaf-green crêpe that made her look slim as a reed and turned her skin
to ivory. She smoothed the black satin of her hair and hung round her
neck the chain of green beads she had bought for a dollar but you’d
never guess it. And she figured in front of the glass, studying her
reflection this way and that, trying to see herself with new eyes and
judge if she was a girl a man might be proud of.

While thus engaged she heard the chug-chug of the launch. It must
be Joe going, and anxious to see the departure of that darkling and
uncomfortable spirit she went to the window. It looked out across the
slant of roofs that covered the kitchen wing and commanded a side-view
of the channel. Across the swift-sweeping current the boat came into
view, skimming forward like a home-faring bird. Anne leaned over the
sill, following it with startled eyes--where was Joe? There was Gabriel
in front at the wheel, but in the back--she stretched her neck trying
to see to the bottom of the cock-pit, there certainly was no one on the
seat.

“Oh, _could_ he have missed it?” she groaned and cast up her eyes as if
invoking the protection of Heaven against such a calamity.

But he couldn’t have, he wanted to go, it was his holiday and he
thought Gull Island was a beastly hole. He must have been where she
couldn’t see him. It was difficult to think where this might be--but
he _might_ have been bending down to put something in his suit-case.
A chair could have hidden him. She remembered what he had said about
leaving his baggage at the living-room entrance. If it was still there
then he had missed the boat and she ran down-stairs, hoping with a
prayerful earnestness that she would not find it. It was not there.
“Then he _is_ gone,” she said to herself with a satisfied nod and drew
a freer breath. The weight lifted, she went across to the garden where
she might find Bassett, and as she covered the space between the doors
the picture of the launch rose on her inner vision with Gabriel the
only visible occupant.

Bassett was not in the garden, but Shine was, sauntering into view from
the balcony end. He’d been loafing about he said, just come up from the
Point. He’d been all round it, wonderful down there now and going to
be more wonderful, and he pointed to a pale glow on the horizon where
the moon was rising. They strolled about on the lanes of turf between
the massed colors of parterre and border, the air languishingly sweet
with the scent of the closing flowers. Then they went in, luxuriously
embedding themselves in two vast armchairs. Bassett found them here
and tried to look genial at the sight of Shine. He’d been writing some
letters in his own room and he dropped into a third armchair with the
sigh of well-earned rest.

They talked about the moon and moonlight effects. Shine wanted to take
some photographs after supper, get the pines against the sea and the
silvered bulk of the Point, and he spoke of his flashlight picture
which they’d have as a remembrance of Gull Island. Anne said that was a
jolly idea, but she didn’t think they’d need a picture to remind them
of their stay, and she and Bassett exchanged a smile.

It was still on their lips when a sound came from outside, a single
sharp detonation. It fell upon the evening’s tranquil hush, sudden and
startling, like something alien and unrelated.

“What was that?” said Anne.

“Sounds like a shot,” Shine thought.

“It couldn’t be!” Bassett got up. “Nobody has a pistol here and if he
had he couldn’t use it--one of the special stipulations Driscoll made
when he lent us the place.”

He moved to the land entrance and looked out.

“What could it have been?” Anne looked questioningly at Shine, who,
having no other suggestion to offer, shrugged and shook his head.

The door of Mrs. Cornell’s room opened on the gallery and Miss Pinkney
emerged, Mrs. Cornell behind her.

“Mr. Bassett,” she cried, a hand on the railing. “Where’s Mr. Bassett?”

Bassett drew out from under the gallery and looked up at her:

“Did you hear that?”

“I did and I told you that Mr. Driscoll never allowed any shooting on
the premises.”

“Do you think that was a shot?”

“Well, what else was it?”

Mrs. Cornell, leaning comfortably on the railing, suggested that it
might be an auto tire.

This drew a snort from Miss Pinkney:

“How’d a motor get here--swim or fly?” Then to Bassett: “Mr. Driscoll’s
very strict about that. He won’t have the wild game or the gulls
disturbed and----”

Bassett interrupted her:

“That’s all right, Miss Pinkney. We were given those orders and we’ve
obeyed them. And none of us could shoot here if he wanted to--there’s
not a pistol in the outfit. Don’t you know it’s against the law to
carry one?”

“Then some one’s taken mine,” she exclaimed, and straightening up with
an air of battle, “I’m coming down.”

She left the gallery for the rear stairs, Mrs. Cornell in her wake.

“What does she mean--hers?” Anne asked.

“I don’t know what she means,” Bassett looked irritated. “It’s the
first I’ve heard of it.”

“I don’t see what there was to shoot at anyhow,” came from Shine.
“Looked to me when I was out there as if all the gulls had gone to bed.”

Miss Pinkney, entering, focussed their attention.

“What’s this about a pistol of yours?” Bassett asked.

She answered as she walked across the room to a desk under the gallery:

“It’s the one Mr. Driscoll gave me, thinking it might be useful when I
was here alone, opening or closing the house. I was to keep it loaded
and have it handy, but I’d trust my tongue to get rid of any man and
here it’s lain with the poker chips.” She pulled out a side-drawer of
the desk. “There!” she exclaimed, turning on them in gloomy triumph,
“What did I tell you! It’s gone.”

Bassett looked into the drawer:

“You’re sure it was here?”

“Didn’t I see it this morning when I put away the counters you were
playing with last night?”

“Umph!” Bassett banged the drawer shut in anger. “I’ll see that this
is explained to Mr. Driscoll. And whoever’s taken it, they’ll get
what’s coming to them. A damned fool performance! To get us in wrong
just as we were leaving----”

The hall door opened and Stokes entered.

“Who’s shooting round here?” he said. “I thought it was taboo.”

“That’s just what we want to know. Where were you?”

“Sitting out on the balcony.”

“See anybody?”

“No. I’ve been looking about. I went down the path to the pine grove
and round the house but I didn’t see a soul.”

“Why, who could it be?” said Anne. “Aren’t we all”--she looked over the
standing figures--“No, we’re not all here. Who’s outside?”

“Mrs. Stokes is.” Shine spoke up. “I saw her walking along the ocean
bluffs as I came up from the Point.”

“Sybil is, too,” Mrs. Cornell added. “She went out just a few minutes
ago. I saw her from my window.”

“It can’t be either of them.” Bassett’s vexation had given place to a
sudden uneasiness. “I don’t understand. Nobody could have come over
from the mainland with the tide up. I’ll go out there----”

A sound from outside stopped him. It was a cry in a woman’s voice,
close by.

“What’s that?” some one said, and before an answer could come, the cry
rose again--a high wailing scream carrying words:

“Sybil! Sybil! Sybil’s dead--Sybil’s killed!”

A clamorous mingling of voices rose from the group, combined in a
single up-swelling note of horror. The men rushed for the entrance and
met Flora Stokes. She burst in between them, white as the ghost of
Cæsar, with her opened mouth a dark cavity.

“Sybil’s murdered--dead--shot.” Each word was projected in a screaming
gasp.

Bassett shouted at her, “Where?”

And she waved an arm toward the channel.

“There--from the Point. She’s gone--she’s dead! She went over into the
water. On the top of the cliff. She’s murdered--dead--murdered!”

As if she were dead, too, and of no more consequence, they fled past
her--a line of people streaming out into the serene evening that held
a hideous catastrophe. Only Anne stayed, her face as if overlaid by a
coating of white paint. She went to Flora and seized her by the arm.

“Who was it?” she whispered. “Who did it?”

The woman looked at her at first as if not knowing who she was. Then
jerking her arm free, clasped her hands against the sides of her head
and went across the room staring upward and crying out:

“I don’t know. I didn’t see---- It’s God’s truth, I don’t know.”

Anne ran out after the others.




VII


THE moon had risen and hung on the edge of the sky like a great disk
of white paper. Anne saw the others running this way and that along
the edge of the Point. A boat was pushing out from the dock, Stokes
in it, and, caught by the current, it shot down the gleaming surface
of the channel. There were cries in men’s voices and Stokes’ answer,
bell-clear from the water. Then Shine ran by her, back to the house,
grim-visaged with staring eyes. The scene had the fantastic quality of
a nightmare, the solemn splendors of the setting and the gesticulating,
shouting figures darting about like grotesque silhouettes.

She ran on through the pine wood up the path beyond. Mrs. Cornell met
her, tried to speak with chattering teeth, but ended in a scream and
fell upon her shoulder. Over her head Anne saw Bassett flying down the
slope to the wharf. Then presently boats moving out from Hayworth. They
came with incredible speed, sliding forward in a group that spread and
broke into units scattering across the channel. Here they sped back and
forth, up and down, swift black shapes that seemed to be executing some
complicated maneuvers along the glittering track of moonlight. She was
aware of Bassett’s figure leaving the wharf and racing to the house, of
Shine thudding by and calling:

“They’re here already! I got some one on the wire and I told him to go
like hell.”

Miss Pinkney’s voice answered him from the edge of the Point where she
stood like a black basalt statue:

“Oh, they’re here, all right. Every feller that has a boat’s out. But
it’s no use; no one who’s ever got caught in _that_ current’s been
found.”

Shine muttered an invocation and came to a stop. They all stood
speechless staring at the boats--the boats looking for Sybil who half
an hour ago was alive like themselves and now was--where?

As soon as he saw the fleet in operation, Bassett ran to the house. He
had to find Flora and get fuller information from her before he called
up the police, and not seeing her outside, he supposed she was still
there. The great room was almost dark. He felt for one of the standard
lamps and pulled the string. The gush of light fell directly over her,
close to him, sunk in an armchair, as still as if she, too, had ceased
to live. He had expected difficulties in getting a coherent statement
from her, but she told him what she had seen, briefly and clearly, as
if she had known he was coming and was ready for him.

She had skirted the island and come to that part of the path which
faced the Point. A hollow intervened, extending to the water’s edge
in a mass of shelving rock. Across this hollow she saw Sybil appear
on the end of the Point, coming up from the opposite side, and almost
immediately heard the shot. Sybil had thrown up her arms, staggered
forward and gone over the bluff. It all happened in a flash and Flora,
though describing herself as dazed, had run down the path into the
hollow and out on the rocks thinking she could catch her. But she saw
the body go swirling by--far out of her reach, caught and borne along
in the current. She had watched it, stunned, then had come to her
senses and staggered back to the shore--she thought she had fallen more
than once--and ran to the house. On the way there she had seen no one
and heard nothing.

Bassett left her and went to the library to call up Forestville, the
county seat. He knew the place well--a small town on the edge of
northern solitudes. It was the starting point for hunting parties to
New Brunswick, and Bassett, a sportsman in his leisure hours, had
stayed there several times assembling his guides and gear. On his last
trip, two years ago, trouble with a guide had brought him in contact
with the sheriff, Abel Williams. Over legal wrangling they had struck
up a friendship and he remembered Williams as a man of some capacity,
straight and fair-minded. If he was still in office it would simplify
matters; to start out with confidence in the director would be a vital
gain. He waited, the receiver against his ear, a foot drumming on the
carpet, then a deep and growling voice hummed along the wire. It was
Abel Williams.

Williams would be down as soon as he could, with Mr. Rawson, the
district-attorney--an hour and a half to two hours, the roads being
bad. The shore people had been told it was an accident--that’s all
right, couldn’t hold an inquest anyway without a body and it was a good
thing to keep ’em off. Better not let anything come out till they’d got
the situation in hand, easy to fix at that end as the United American
Press man was off fishing. They’d do a good deal better if the press
was held off for a spell. The place was small, they’d clutter it up,
tramp out foot-prints, get in the way searching for clues. Seeing where
the island was and that there was no one on it but their own crowd, it
would be possible to keep things out of the public eye till they had
the work well started.

Bassett looked at his watch--nearly eight--probably two hours to wait.
The best thing he could do was to get them together and keep them as
quiet as he could. As he went down the path his mind collected and
marshalled in order the facts he would have to present. They had all
been in the house except Stokes on the balcony and Flora walking round
the island. Stokes eaten into by a hopeless love, Flora on fire with
jealousy and hate--passions that make for murder. “God, what’s going to
be the end of this?” he groaned to himself.

He found them in a group near the pine grove, excitedly conferring
together. They had been back and forth to the house and the wharf, some
aimlessly running about, others trying to do something intelligent and
helpful. Stokes had just returned with the electric torch and they were
preparing to search the ground for foot-prints. Bassett brought their
activities to an end and shepherded them to the house. With dragging
feet and lowered heads they trailed up the path and filed into the
living-room.

Here, under the radiance of the lights, they looked at one another as
if expecting to see startling changes and fell groaning into chairs,
or sat, stiff and upright, with rigid muscles. The effect of the shock
showed in Mrs. Cornell, Stokes and Shine, in a sudden outburst of
loquacity. They went over and over it, what they were saying, where
they were, what had entered their minds when they heard the shot.
“And I thought to myself,” sentence after sentence started that way.
Then the feverish talk began to die. Bassett had told them when the
authorities might be expected and as the hour drew near, dread of the
drama in which they found themselves stilled their tongues. The sea
breeze, freighted with the acrid odors of uncovered mud and seaweed,
blew through the room. Bassett rose and closed the garden door, and
eyes shifted to him, hung on his hand as it slid the bolt.

“What are you shutting the door for?” Mrs. Cornell quavered.

“I thought there was too much draught.”

“Oh, what does that matter,” she wailed, “with Sybil killed and
floating out to sea?”

She broke into loud hiccoughing sobs. Stokes shifted in his chair and
snarled out:

“Can’t you stop making that noise?”

Bassett crossed to where Anne was sitting by the entrance. She had her
back to the room and was looking out at the lights of Hayworth dotting
the shore. He stood behind her chair and put his hand on her shoulder.
Her fingers stole up and rested on his, icy cold. He bent till his head
was close to hers and whispered:

“Bear up. Thank God this can’t touch you in any way.”

Her fingers pressed an answer but she said nothing.

Shine came toward them: “Those fellers were lucky who got off this
afternoon. I might have gone with them if I’d had the sense.”

Anne answered this time:

“Yes, they were more fortunate than we are.”

Mrs. Cornell, her sobs under control, spoke up:

“But even if we _were_ here they can’t suspect us. We’ve got alibis,
we’re all accounted for. We were all in----”

She realized where she was going and stopped. There was a portentous
silence. Shine almost shouted, pointing out at the channel:

“The tide’s falling fast. They can’t get into the dock here. How will
they make a landing?”

Bassett answered:

“In a cove at the upper end of the island. They’ve a dock there for low
water. They have to make a detour, that’s all.”

Flora, who had been sitting with her hand over her eyes, dropped it
and sat erect. Her breath came from her in a loud exhalation that
was almost a groan. Every pair of eyes shifted to her, watchful,
questioning, apprehensive.

“Do you feel ill, Flora?” said Bassett, moving to her side.

“No--no,” she looked wildly about. “But this waiting--it’s so awful.”

Miss Pinkney suggested a glass of water, but Flora waved a hand as if
pushing it away. Stokes rose and moved to a seat beside her.

“They’ll be here soon now.”

She sank back and closed her eyes. Her husband bent a somber, sidewise
look toward her, then laid his hand on one of hers. Her own turned and
the thin fingers twined like clinging roots about his.

“It won’t be hard,” he reassured. “Just give them a clear account of
what you saw.”

She waved the other hand in front of her face, like a person in
unendurable pain, who makes a vague distracted gesture for silence.

Anne spoke from the door:

“There’s a light moving out from the shore.”

The statement shook them. There was a simultaneous stir of feet and
bodies, a heave of labored breaths.

Bassett went to the entrance:

“Yes--that’s a launch. They’re coming. I must go to meet them.”

He looked over the company, the haggard faces all turned toward him.
Some of them wore an expression of yearning appeal as if he was their
only source of strength in this devastating hour:

“Now remember there’s nothing to get scared or rattled about.
They’ll ask you questions and what you must do is to answer them
accurately--not what you think or imagine but what you _know_. Keep
that in the front of your minds. The clearer you are in your statements
the quicker you’ll get through. And please stay here, just as you are.
They’ll probably want to see you right off.”

A benumbed silence followed his departure. Anne moved from the door to
a chair nearer the others. Stokes withdrew his hand from Flora’s and
straightened himself, jerking down his waistcoat and craning his neck
up from his collar. The low rippling murmurs of the receding tide were
singularly distinct. Suddenly the shrill whistle of a launch pierced
the night outside. Mrs. Cornell leaped as if the sound had been a
weapon that had stabbed her:

“Oh!” she cried, “why do they do that? Isn’t Sybil being murdered
enough to stand!”

“For Christ’s sake, keep your mouth shut,” Stokes flung at her, glaring.

The savage quality in his voice penetrated Mrs. Cornell’s encasing
terrors. She shrunk and slid the look of a frightened animal at Shine.
Then the silence settled and they sat like those who have looked upon
the head of Medusa.




VIII


BASSETT on the wharf in the cove watched the launch approaching over
the glistening floor of water. As it grated against the boards he heard
his name in a deep-throated bass voice and the big body of the sheriff
climbed over the side. A rough padded hand grasped his, and “Well, Mr.
Bassett, the law’s got us together again,” was growled into his ear.

Two more figures followed him. One was Rawson, the district-attorney,
whom the vivid light revealed as a man much younger than Williams,
tall and narrow-shouldered, with a lean New England visage and a pair
of horn spectacles astride a high-bridged nose. The other was disposed
of with a casual hand-wave and a murmur of “Patrick,” brought, it was
explained, to take charge of the causeway. Rawson, it appeared, knew
Gull Island well, having been there several times on legal business
for Mr. Driscoll.

As they walked back Bassett told his story. He noticed that the younger
man’s questions were sharp and to the point and before they had gone
half-way realized that Rawson was of a much higher grade of education
and intelligence than his coadjutor. A smart chap, he thought, and felt
his burden lightened--they could do good teamwork. Stopping by the edge
of the pine wood he pointed out the scene of the shooting and was again
struck by the man’s quick comprehension.

Moving on, Williams observed with grim relish:

“You couldn’t have a murder committed in a better place than
this--better for us. Once you’re on here it’s a damned hard business
getting off. These folks are as good as in prison. Now, Mr. Bassett,
just where does that causeway lie?”

The channel stretched before them, a shining expanse, ripple-creased,
summits of rock emerging. The receding water was like a silver veil
being slowly withdrawn, its delicate tissue torn by sharp-edged
projections. Bassett pointed beyond the wharf:

“There! Below the water there are steps cut in the rock that lead down
to it. It goes straight across to a breakwater and landing outside the
village, a bank and a belt of trees above. The whole stretch won’t be
clear till nearly midnight.”

Williams gave his instructions to the man Patrick--a watch on the
causeway, any one stopped who came from the mainland or attempted to
leave the island. Patrick, a silent massive countryman, with a stolid
bull-dog face, thrust out his chin and nodded. He slouched off, the
sound of his heavy boots loud on the rocks. The others turned toward
the house, the light from its opened door falling outward in a long
golden square.

The occupants of the room heard them and looked at one another. Mrs.
Cornell, with clenched hands, slowly stood up, and the rest, like
people in church who see a figure rise and simultaneously follow its
example, got to their feet. They stood by their chairs, motionless, all
facing the same way. It was like an ensemble scene in a theater.

The three men entered and under the shadow of the gallery paused for a
moment surveying the standing figures much as they might have looked at
some spectacle arranged for their approval. William was surprised at
their number and their line ranged like a battle front. Rawson’s sharp
eye ran over the faces, mentally ticketing them, and Bassett, with no
precedent to guide him, walked toward his associates and announced:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the authorities have come. Mr. Rawson and Mr.
Williams.”

They bowed and then not knowing what to do next, subsided into their
seats. The men came forward, moving to the long table where Williams
sat down, fumbling in his pocket for a fountain pen and paper and
clearing a space for the taking of notes. Rawson, surveying the seated
assemblage, said:

“This is the whole of your company, Mr. Bassett?”

“All who were here at the time of the murder. Several of the actors and
assistants left at five-thirty and Joe Tracy, one of the company at a
quarter to seven.”

“You saw them go?”

“I saw the first lot go. I didn’t see Tracy. But,” he looked at Anne,
“this is his sister, Miss Tracy. She probably did.”

“Did you, Miss Tracy?” said Rawson.

Her voice was very low but steady and clear:

“Yes, he went.”

“Well, that disposes of them,” said Rawson, and drawing up a chair, sat
down facing the line of solemn people.

There were a few formalities to go through. A general agreement on the
time of the murder--a few minutes before seven disposed of that, and
the interrogation of Mrs. Stokes, the one eyewitness, followed.

She began well, telling the story she had told Bassett. When she
described her first view of Sybil running to the edge of the Point,
Rawson interrupted with a question:

“Was she running fast, as if some one was after her, as if she was
frightened?”

“Yes, she was running fast but I don’t know whether she was frightened.
I wasn’t close enough to see anything like that, and I didn’t have time
to see. Just as I was looking at her the shot came.”

“Did you notice the direction it came from?”

“No--it was like a sort of loud snap in the air. I heard it and she
staggered along a few steps and went over.”

“Did you hear any sounds--footsteps? A person makes a noise on this
rocky ground.”

“I didn’t hear a thing.” She leaned toward Rawson with haggard
insistence. “I _couldn’t_ hear anything. I was stunned. Mr. Bassett
asked me that and you all seem to think I ought to have heard the
person--the murderer--or tried to catch him. But I hadn’t any sense, I
just stood there paralyzed, not grasping what had happened.”

“Mr. Bassett says you went out on the rocks and tried to catch the
body.”

“Oh, yes. _Then_ I came back to life. I ran down into the hollow and
out on the rocks as far as I could go. And she was going by on the
current--her hair and her dress all whirled about. Oh God, why was I
the one to see it!”

Stokes addressed her, his voice low and urgent:

“Flora, just try to answer quietly.”

She paid no attention to him, her eyes riveted on Rawson.

“And then you came back to the house?”

“Yes, but I stood there watching her for a few minutes. I don’t know
how long, desperate, not knowing what to do. And then I started to run
back here and I fell down. I suppose I was shaking so and the rocks
were slippery. I think I fell twice, but I don’t know. I seemed to be
half-crazy.”

“You saw or heard nothing on your way back?”

“No, no, I keep telling you,” her voice grew higher. “I _never_ saw
anybody. If anybody was there he must have been hiding. They could
have heard me--I was screaming.” She turned to the others. “Wasn’t I
screaming?”

Bassett confirmed her statement and she went on, her voice still
higher, the cords in her neck starting out:

“Of course they heard me and hid--got out of the way. Some stranger.
We were all in the house, everybody here was in the house. It couldn’t
have been any of them.”

Stokes half rose: “Flora--_please_!”

She turned violently on him:

“Why shouldn’t I say it? I’m not afraid. I was the only person outside
and it couldn’t have been me.” She faced round on Rawson. “Nobody could
think that. Ask them--these people. They’ll tell you.”

“That’s not at all necessary, Mrs. Stokes.” Rawson was mild and suave.
“Now if you’ll try to be calm----”

“Calm, calm,” she groaned and bent almost double, dropping her face
into her hands. Stokes got up, chalk-white in the lamplight:

“My wife’s pretty well knocked out, Mr. Rawson.”

“Quite understandable, Mr. Stokes. We won’t trouble her any more just
now. And if the rest of you ladies and gentlemen will refrain from
saying what you think or offering suggestions we’ll get on a good deal
quicker.”

Stokes took his chair. Flora raised herself and dropped against
the back of hers with upraised chin and closed eyes. Bassett had a
photographic impression of Williams, striking softly on his teeth with
his fountain pen and looking at her.

They went on to Stokes who was very clear and composed. He had walked
about--down the path to the pine wood and round that end of the house.
It was absolutely still and he had heard nobody. He was not sure of the
direction of the shot as he had been reading a paper at the time. Like
the rest of them he had had no suspicion of anything serious or, of
course, he would have investigated.

Everybody else was in the house. Bassett indicated their positions,
pointing them out as he explained their whereabouts.

Miss Saunders’ movements followed. She had spent the earlier part of
the evening sitting on the cliffs with Miss Tracy. Miss Tracy had left
her some time after six, Miss Saunders saying she would follow but
wanted to see the end of the sunset. No one had seen her come back but
she had come back, for shortly before seven Mrs. Cornell had noticed
her leaving the house.

Mrs. Cornell, invested with the grisly excitement of the hour, was
eager to tell what she knew. She had been standing at the window of
her room, and she saw Sybil on the path below passing the end of the
balcony. Mrs. Cornell was surprised for it was not far from supper-time
and Sybil was still in her Viola dress. She had not watched her, but
had gone back to lock the trunk. Both she and Miss Pinkney agreed
that the shot had followed soon after--about six or seven minutes they
thought.

They diverged to the place of the murder, the Point. The last person
who had been there was Shine, somewhere round six-thirty, though he
couldn’t swear to the time. He’d stayed there perhaps ten minutes,
walking round, and had then gone up to the garden. As far as he could
see the place was deserted. In answer to the question had he seen any
one on his way back, he said he had seen Mrs. Stokes walking along the
ocean bluffs and Mr. Stokes reading a paper on the balcony.

This ended the interrogations for the time being. The company was told
they might retire to their rooms. But they were to understand that they
were held on Gull Island for the present, no going off on any pretext
or holding communication with any one on the mainland. Also--and Mr.
Rawson was emphatic--once in their rooms they were to stay in them
unless sent for by him. He did not want any wandering about in the
halls or talking together.

They rose weariedly and prepared to go. Stokes helped his wife to her
feet and Bassett edged between the chairs toward Anne.

“How are you?” he murmured, for her appearance shocked him.

“All right. There’s nothing the matter with me.”

“Try to get some rest.”

“Will they want us any more to-night?”

“I don’t think so--not you anyway.”

Stokes and Flora moved toward the hall door, the woman limply hanging
on her husband’s arm. Rawson’s voice arrested them:

“Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, just wait a minute.”

Everybody stopped in mid-transit, holding their positions as if they
were standing to be photographed.

“Where is your room or rooms?”

“We’re together in a room on this floor out in the hall here opposite
the stairs.”

“I’d rather Mrs. Stokes went up to the second floor.” He turned to
Bassett, “You have space up there I suppose?”

“Space!” It came from Miss Pinkney before Bassett had time to
answer--these hirelings of the law did not realize where they were.
“We’ve put up more people here than you could get into one of those
flea-bitten hotels up your way.”

“Take her things up there. You help her.”

Flora turned stricken eyes on her husband. He said nothing but very
gently loosened her fingers on his arm. They trailed away, Miss Pinkney
stalking ahead. Mrs. Cornell and Anne made their exit by the opposite
door. Both were silent as they climbed the stairs. Mrs. Cornell’s door
opened and closed on her, and Anne fared on to hers on the side stretch
of the gallery. She looked down into the lighted room, saw Shine move
toward the entrance, heard his voice, loud and startled:

“Why, there’s some one down by the dock!”

The other men wheeled sharply, on the alert. She stopped, head bent,
listening.

“Patrick--the damned fool.” It was Williams. “Told to watch the
causeway and standing up there like a lighthouse.”

“Oh, it’s your man. I’ll go down and tell him.” Shine wanted to help
all he could before his retirement to the butler’s bedroom. “He ought
to be where he won’t show, is that it?”

“Yes, tell him to stow his carcass somewhere out of sight. He ain’t
there to advertise the fact he’s on guard.”

“If he gets in the shadow under the roof of the boat-house,” said
Bassett, “he can command the whole length of it and not be seen from
either side.”

“That’s the dope. The neck of this bottle’s the causeway and it’s going
to be corked good and tight to-night.”

Anne’s door closed without a sound.

The three men turned back from the entrance. “Is that woman gone
up-stairs yet?” Rawson murmured to his assistant as Williams stepped to
the middle of the room and watched the gallery. He continued to watch
it till Flora and Miss Pinkney appeared and finally were shut away
behind their several doors, then he looked at Rawson and nodded.

“Now,” said the district-attorney to Bassett, “I want you to show me
where that pistol was.”

Bassett indicated the desk:

“In the third drawer of the desk. Miss Pinkney is certain it was there
this morning.”

“And you know it wasn’t there when you looked after the shooting?”
Rawson went to the desk as he spoke.

“I can swear it wasn’t.”

Rawson pulled out the drawer and thrust in his hand.

“Well, it’s here now,” he said, and drew out a revolver.

He held it toward them on his palm. They stared at it, for the moment
too surprised for comment. Rawson broke it open; there was one empty
chamber.

“Can we get into some room where there’s more privacy than this
place?” he said. “I want some more talk with you, Mr. Bassett.”

Bassett directed them to the library. He put out the living-room lights
and followed them.




IX


BASSETT was prepared for what he had to tell. During the long wait for
the officers of the law his mind had been ranging over it, shaking
bare from unnecessary detail the chain of events that had ended in
murder. It was impossible to conceal the situation between Sybil and
the Stokeses; he could not if he had wished it and he did not wish
it. A girl had been brutally done to death, a girl innocent of any
evil intention, and his desire to bring her murderer to justice was
as strong as either Williams’ or Rawson’s. And they could get the
facts better from him than from the muddled stories of the others,
their minds clouded by prejudice and hearsay. He hoped that what he
said would be coldly unbiased, the naked truth as he knew it. That his
revelations would involve a woman whom he liked and pitied would not
induce him to withhold what ought to be known. Chivalry had no place
in this grim drama. As he had discharged his duties as director of a
theatrical company rent by passions and dissensions, he now prepared to
discharge them as the most responsible and fair-minded member of the
group.

Sitting by the desk in the library he unveiled the situation, what he
had heard, seen and knew. The men gave an unwinking attention, now and
then stopping him to plant a question. The trend of Williams’ thoughts
was soon revealed--he suspected Flora Stokes. When the matter was
threshed out he came to an open admission with the remark:

“Well, you have only one person here who had the provocation necessary
to commit murder.”

Bassett made no answer. If his duty required him to tell all he knew,
it did not require him to give his own opinions.

Rawson who was smoking, his long, loose-jointed frame slouched down in
an armchair, took his cigar from his mouth:

“Of course the woman’s the first person you’d think of. She had the
necessary provocation and the state of mind. But the way she came in
and told them--as Mr. Bassett describes it--doesn’t look to me like a
guilty person.”

“Why not?”

“Sounds too genuine, too like real excitement.”

“Don’t you think it’s natural to get excited if you’ve killed some one?”

“Yes, but not just that way.”

Williams leaned over the arm of his chair:

“You got to remember something about these people, Rawson--and it
counts big--they’re all actors.”

Bassett spoke up quickly:

“No, she wasn’t acting. You’d have known that if you’d seen her. What
she did was natural--a woman suffering from a fearful shock.”

“Couldn’t an actor put that on?”

“Yes, some could, but I’m certain she wasn’t.”

“When Stokes came into the room after the shot,” said Rawson, “how did
he behave?”

“He seemed all right. But I can’t honestly say that I noticed him much.
The light was fading and I was so irritated by the thought that some
one had been shooting that I didn’t pay any attention to him.”

“Oh, rubbish!” Williams made a rolling motion in the scoop of the big
chair. “You can’t suspect the man; he was in love with her. He didn’t
want to kill her, he wanted to keep her alive.”

“Men _do_ kill the women they love, especially when they can’t get her.”

“Yes, they do. I’ve known of such cases. But that’s impulse. This was
premeditated.” The sheriff pointed at the revolver lying on the desk.
“Sometime to-day somebody located that gun, took it for a purpose--not
to shoot sea-gulls as you thought, Mr. Bassett.”

Rawson looked at the pistol:

“Premeditation, all right. Was there anybody in the outfit who didn’t
know you’d opened that drawer and found the revolver gone?”

Bassett considered:

“Stokes didn’t know. He came in after I’d shut the drawer. I didn’t
speak of it because just as I’d got through asking him if he’d seen any
one, we heard Mrs. Stokes’ scream.”

“And _she_ didn’t, of course,” commented Williams.

“While you were running round at the Point the house was empty?”

“I think Mrs. Stokes was here all the time. I never saw her outside.”

“Any of the others come up?”

“I’m not certain of all of them. I know Shine did; I sent him back to
phone over to Hayworth for the boats. And Stokes did, he came up for
the electric torch when I was in here telephoning to you.”

“Then neither of them knew the loss of the revolver had been discovered
and they had plenty of opportunity to return it to the desk?”

Bassett nodded, and after a minute’s cogitation Rawson went on:

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that no one saw Miss Saunders when she came
back to the house?”

“No. They were all in their rooms, except Shine who was down at the
Point and Mrs. Stokes who was reading on the balcony. I asked her
particularly if she’d noticed Sybil pass and she said no, she’d been
interested in her book and wouldn’t have noticed anybody.”

“I’d give a good deal to know what Miss Saunders did in that time. I
think it would let in some light.”

“How so?”

Rawson narrowed his eyes in contemplation of an unfolding line of
thought:

“Well, what took her out again to the Point after she’d come in? She
hadn’t a good deal of time and she wanted to change her clothes before
supper. It looks to me as if she met some one in the house, some one
who wanted her to go down there with them.”

“Mrs. Cornell says she was alone.”

“She might have started alone and gone to meet them.”

“Then it couldn’t have been Stokes,” said Williams, “for Mr. Bassett
says she wouldn’t speak to him if she could help it.”

“That’s right,” Bassett nodded in agreement. “She’d never have made a
date with him. She shunned him like the plague. If you knew her you
wouldn’t see anything in that going out. She was restless and unhappy
and the place here--the sea, the views--fascinated her. It was our last
evening and it was like her not to want to miss any of it, slip out for
a minute to enjoy the end of it.”

“And came upon some one waiting for her--lying in wait and----”

Rawson did not finish. A thud and crackling crash came from the
living-room. The three men rose with a simultaneous leap and ran for
the door.




X


OF ALL the people gathered in the house that evening Anne had been the
most silent. Her ravaged face, the contours broken by gray hollows,
bearing the stamp of shock and horror, had been unnoticed among the
other faces. Now and then a pitying glance had been directed to her,
grief as Sybil’s friend must have added a last unbearable poignancy to
the tragedy.

After her question to Flora her mind had seemed to blur and cease to
function. She had run from the house not knowing what she did, gone
hither and thither with the others, looking, speaking, listening in
a blind daze. It was not till they returned to the living-room that
her faculties began to clear and coordinate. The lights, the familiar
setting, the talk that could not leave the subject, shook her back to
reality. It was then that she went to the window and sat with her back
to the room. She wanted no one to see her face; she was afraid of what
it might betray.

Her thoughts circled round the image of Joe as she had last seen
him--the vision of him as some one strange and sinister. And the
boat--the boat with only Gabriel in it--it kept coming up like a
picture revolving on a wheel--going and returning, going and returning.
Had he stayed and what for? That question revolved with the picture of
the boat. She could not get free of them, their obsessing force held
her like a somnambulist staring into the night.

She thought of telling Bassett and gave that up--with the police
expected she could not get him alone, and why add to his burden with
her suspicions? Yes, that was what it was--nothing but a suspicion.
She had no certainty, Joe might have been in the boat, Joe might have
got off the island some other way. To-morrow something might come to
light that would make these hideous fancies seem like the dreams of
delirium. That was the state of mind she tried to maintain when she
went up-stairs and overheard a man was on guard at the causeway.

With that knowledge her outlook changed. Her passive rôle was over. She
sat down on the side of the bed and with a grim desperate resolution
faced what she had tried to flee.

If Joe had done it and if he was on the island he would try to get
off at low tide. It was safe to assume that he was outside, hidden
till the causeway was open. To go out to find him would be useless,
he would never reveal himself to her, and if she was seen suspicion
would instantly be aroused. She must get somewhere that would command
the causeway and its approaches. Her mind ran over every nook and
angle, every shadow and rock ledge between the house and the shore.
Impossible--it was too open and the light was like day. The best
place--the only place--was the living-room entrance. From there she
could see in all directions, the balcony end, the kitchen wing, the
pine grove. She would try to wave him back, possibly get to him--she
had to take her chances and trust to Heaven.

And then he might never come--it might be just an awful nightmare and
he was with Jimmy Travers on his way to the northern woods. She dropped
her face in her hands and sent up broken words of pleading that it
might be so.

The tide was at full ebb at midnight. At a quarter before she made
ready. She took from the bureau a book she had been reading--if she
met any one she could say she had come down to find it--and opened
her door with the stealth of a burglar. A dead silence reigned as she
stole down the stairs and into the living-room. Here the great line of
windows--the moon not yet upon them--shone in gray oblongs diffusing a
spectral light that did not touch the darkness under the galleries.

At the entrance, pressed against the door, she looked out. It was a
world of white enchantment, breathlessly still. She could see the
patterned surfaces of leaves, the cracks and fissures of the rocks.
Below the channel lay almost bare, pools glistening like dropped
mirrors, mounds of mud casting inky shadows. In the middle--a restless
silvery sparkle--ran a narrow stream carrying a glinting line of
radiance to the ocean beyond. The pungent smell of mud and seaweed came
from it along with the sleepy lisp of rippling water.

She could hear the murmur of the men’s voices from the open library
windows, and like the throbbing of a muffled engine, the beating of her
own heart.

Into that deep enveloping quietude came a sound, so faint, so
infinitely small and hushed, that only expectant ears could have
caught it. It came from the room behind her, and turning, she slid
back against the wall, her body black against its blackness. The
sound continued, the opening of a door opposite, the door into the
kitchen wing. It seemed no door in the world had ever opened so
slowly--creaking, stopping, resuming, dying away. She could see
nothing, for the darkness of the gallery lay impenetrable over that
furtive entrance.

There was a footstep, light as the fall of a leaf, and she saw him
coming toward her in that high luminous pallor from the windows. He was
like a shadow, so evenly dark, a shape without detail, moving with a
shadow’s noiseless passage. She saw the outline of the cap on his head
and that he carried his shoes in one hand.

She came forward with a hand raised for caution, sending her voice
before her in an agonized whisper:

“Go back, Joe. The causeway’s watched. You can’t get over that way.
_Go!_”

He was gone, a fleet flying, vanishing back into the darkness under the
gallery. Out of it came the soft closing of the door.

The room swayed, pale light and darkness swam and coalesced. She knew
she was near a table and put out her hand to steady herself by it,
something solid to hold to for one minute. The polished surface slid
under her fingers and she groped out with the hand that held the book.
The book slipped from her clasp, fell with a thud like a thunderclap,
and a grasping snatch to save it swept a lamp crashing to the floor.
Panic dispelled her faintness and she made a rush for the door. She had
gained it. Her fingers clutched round the knob, as she heard the steps
of the men in the hall and knew it was too late to escape.

They burst in, thrust into the room’s dim quiet as if shot by a blast.

“It’s nothing,” she called, hearing her voice thin and hoarse.
“Nothing’s happened. It’s only Anne Tracy.”

The lights leaped out and she saw them, Bassett with his hand on the
electric button, stricken still, looking this way and that. His eye
found her first, backed against the door, a small green-clad figure
with an ashen face.

“What’s this mean?” said Rawson.

“Nothing.” She was afraid the handle would rattle with the shaking of
her hand so let it go. “I upset the lamp in the dark. I didn’t see it
that’s all.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came down to get my book. I forgot and left it when I went
up-stairs.”

She could get her breath now and her voice was under control. She felt
strength oozing back into her body and with it courage.

“You’re as white as a sheet,” Williams blurted out.

“Did something frighten you?” demanded Bassett.

“No, but a sort of faintness came over me, there by the table, and I
grabbed at it and upset the lamp.”

Rawson looked at the table with the shattered fragments of the lamp
beside it. It was not far from the entrance door.

“Did you see anything--anything outside?”

“No, not a thing and I didn’t hear a sound.”

“What do you suppose made you feel faint?”

“Oh!” She dared to make a gesture, upraised hands that dropped limply.
“Hasn’t there been enough here to make anybody faint?”

“You’ve got to remember, Rawson,” said Bassett who thought the man’s
insistence unnecessary, “what a shock this has been--especially to Miss
Tracy who was Miss Saunders’ friend.”

“I remember.” Then to Anne: “Miss Tracy, if you should withhold any
information from us you’d get yourself into a very uncomfortable
position.”

“I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t,” she breathed.

Rawson’s glance remained on her, dubiously intent. Bassett noted it
with a resentment he found it difficult to hide.

“You can absolutely rely on Miss Tracy,” he said. “She would be
perfectly frank with you if she had anything to tell.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said the other, and walked to the entrance. “I’m
going out to have a look around.” On the sill he turned and addressed
Anne. “I gave some instructions to you ladies and I expected to have
them followed. You’ll please remember them in the future.”

He passed out into the brilliancy of the moonlight. Now that he was
gone Bassett felt he must make her understand. He had been astonished
at what she had done. It was so unlike her, a disobedience of orders at
such a time as this.

“You must do what they tell you, Anne. They have to make these rules
and it’s up to us to keep them.”

“I will now. You can trust me. Mr. Williams, you can see how it was. I
couldn’t sleep and my mind was full of this awful thing, and I thought
if I could put it on something else--get free from my thoughts even for
a few minutes!”

Williams grunted his comprehension. He felt rather tenderly toward her,
she looked so small and wan and her voice was so pleading.

“Where was your book?” he asked.

“On the table behind you. I was feeling round for it and I think I
pushed it off with the lamp.”

“What was the name of it?”

“_Victory_, by Joseph Conrad.”

He went to the table. His back turned, she and Bassett exchanged a long
look. Williams picked up the book and came back with it.

“Here it is,” he said, giving it to her. “And just make a note of the
fact that you’re not to go round the house at night after books or
anything else.”

She assured him she would not, she would give them no more trouble,
and opening the door she slipped away. They remained without speaking
till she came out on the gallery and walked to her room. Bassett stood
looking up after she had disappeared, the memory of her face as they
burst in upon her added a new peculiar distress to his harrowed state.

“Well,” said Williams, “her book _was_ there.”

Bassett stared at him:

“_Was_ there! Why shouldn’t it be?”

Williams gave an upward hitch of his shoulders:

“Words come easy, Mr. Bassett.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Bassett in horrified amaze. “You have any idea
she was _lying_? If you have, get it out of your head. I’ve known Miss
Tracy for three years and she could no more say what wasn’t true
than--well, she _couldn’t_, that’s all.”

“I don’t think she did. It sounded to me a perfectly straight story.”

“It was. You can take my word for that.”

They were back in the library when Rawson reappeared with Shine. Shine,
unable to sleep, had been sitting by his window when Rawson, scouting,
had stopped to inquire if he had seen any one. Shine had not, but had
volunteered to join in a hunt and the two had been about the house and
the immediate vicinity. Nothing had been discovered and Patrick had
seen no sign of life or heard no sound. Now they had come back for
the electric torch and were going to extend their search. A person
concealed on the seaward side of the island might be moving at this
hour when the causeway was free. Bassett said he would go with them and
the three men left the room by one of the long windows.

Williams opened the library door and turned off the lights. The noise
of the departing trio would suggest to any one on the watch that the
house was free of police supervision and there might be developments.
He took the desk chair as easier to rise from than the deep-seated
leather ones and settled himself to a _resumé_ of what they had so far
gathered.

He was convinced of Mrs. Stokes’ guilt and ran over the reasons. A
hysterical woman, frantic with jealousy--that alone was enough. But
that woman had been the only member of the party who at the time of
the shooting had been some distance from the house. She had taken the
pistol with the intention of using it if an occasion offered. Her walk
had been undertaken with the hope that she might find that occasion
in the hour before supper when they were all in their rooms. The
occasion _had_ offered. Miss Saunders, unable to resist the beauty of
the evening, had gone to the Point alone. He set no store by Rawson’s
opinion that the woman’s state of mind was too genuinely distracted.
He considered it as part of a premeditated plan carried through with
nerve and skill. She would have known that the report of the pistol
would have been heard at the house. This, when Miss Saunders did not
return, would have suggested foul play. And she, Mrs. Stokes, was the
only person out on the island. A later entrance, with an assumption of
ignorance, would have turned suspicion on her like a pointing finger.
She was too intelligent for that--had called her abilities as an
actress to her aid and put them all off with her screaming excitement.

Another point that he wanted to look into was the length of time she
had been at the shore after the report--a great deal too long for what
she said she had done. Too paralyzed to think or move, her explanation
was stunned. Williams was divided in his opinion as to that--either
pulling herself together for the grand-stand play she was to make or
possibly pushing the body into the water.

It was at this juncture that he suddenly cocked his head and let his
hands drop softly to the arms of the chair. From the stairs outside
came a faint creak, a pause and then again, step by step a bare or
stockinged foot in gradual descent.

The big man arose as noiselessly as he could and made for the hall. But
his bulk and his boots were not adapted to rapid movements or silent
surprise. As he reached the hall he heard the pattering flight of light
feet and cursed under his breath as he felt for the electric button.
Her room--the one he had seen Miss Pinkney put her in--was just beyond
the stair-head to the right. And her husband’s--he turned and faced the
secretive panels of its closed door.

Williams dropped his head and trod thoughtfully back to the library,
but this time he left the hall lights on. Also he lit the library ones
and allowed himself the solace of a cigar. “She won’t try that again
to-night,” he said to himself and dropped into an easy chair.

Then Stokes must know. They had had opportunity for private conference
in that hour after the murder when the others were out of the house.
She had either told him or he had accused her; for all they knew he
might have seen her do it. Anyway she wanted to get speech with him and
it might be support, counsel, the matching up of their stories--but
whatever it was she must have been in dire straights to take such a
risk.

Williams smoked on, comfortably sprawled in the deep chair, thinking
out a line of attack on the Stokeses.




XI


THE night search of the island had given up nothing and a daylight
exploration was set for the morning. Before this, however, Rawson
wanted to go through Miss Saunders’ room, which by his orders had been
locked and left untouched. It occupied the corner of the second floor
directly above the library, the first of the long line of bedchambers
that stretched across the land front of the house. Their doors opened
upon a hall that traversed the building from end to end, its central
section forming one side of the gallery.

In her short stay the girl seemed to have impressed the place with her
dainty charm. It was beauty’s bower, a bright and scented nest, chintz
bung, with white fur rugs on the floor and silken cushions which bore
the impress of her light weight. Steeped in the morning sun, warm and
still, it extended its welcome as if waiting for her entrance. The
signs of feminine occupation caught the eyes of the men and held them
chilled on the threshold. Enhancements of her beauty were strewn on
the bureau, the garments that had clothed her graceful body lay on the
bed where her hand had thrown them. A delicate perfume filled the air,
the fragrance of her passing habitation still lingering in ghostlike
sweetness after the living presence had gone.

Rawson moved first, shaking off the spell. He looked into the open
wardrobe trunk, completely packed but for the last hanger. “Going to
put her costume there,” he said, touching it with his index finger.
He pulled out the drawers and ran his eye over their contents. A gray
crêpe dress lay across the foot of the bed, beside it a cloak and a
black hat with a water-lily garnishing the brim. “These,” he said,
“were the clothes left out to wear.”

Bassett nodded. He could see Sybil in the gray dress with her hair a
golden fluff below the edge of the black hat. She had worn them on the
way up and been pleased when he had admired her costume.

They went over the desk; a few postage stamps and a writing tablet. But
the desk had evidently not been used--the square of new blotting paper
in the carved leather holder was unmarked. The waste-paper basket only
contained a torn veil and the wrapper of a package of hair pins. On the
bed-table was a book and a candy box containing two chocolate bonbons.

By the bureau an open bag stood on a chair. There was nothing in this
but a book, one of the many treatises on self-development and the
achievement of spiritual calm and control. Poor Sybil! Bassett turned
away with a sick heart--had she found now what she had been striving
for?

The dressing-table was the only place in the room that her neat
arranging hand had not touched. It was covered with a litter of toilet
articles, cold-cream jars, rouge boxes, powders and scents, a silver
hand mirror, a pair of long white gloves. Williams picked up a bead
bag and opened it. It contained a wisp of handkerchief, a bunch of
keys, a lip-stick and a gold change purse. In the central compartment
were three five-dollar bills and in the gold purse one dollar and
thirty-five cents in coin.

“This couldn’t have been all the money she had,” he queried.

“Why not?” said Bassett. “I guess some of us haven’t that much. She
didn’t need any. All our expenses were paid and she was going straight
home. One of those bills was probably intended for Miss Pinkney.”

Nothing more came to light. The closets were empty, the bathroom
contained a few toilet articles and a nightgown and negligée hanging on
the door. Obviously a place swept clean for a coming departure by one
who had no premonition that that departure would be final.

They passed out and along the hall, Rawson wanting to see the
disposition of the passages and stairs. At the door next to Miss
Saunders’ he stopped, asking who occupied that room. It was vacant now
but had been Joe Tracy’s. He opened the door and looked in upon another
chintz-hung chamber, all signs of recent habitation removed that
morning by Miss Pinkney’s energetic hand. A steamer trunk in the corner
caught his attention and Bassett explained it was young Tracy’s trunk
which his sister was to take back to New York with her.

Beyond that the hall ran into the gallery passing under an arch of
carved wood. They traversed it, looking down into the richly colored
expanse of the room below, and fared on under a companion arch into the
last stretch of the hall. At the stair-head Rawson halted:

“Only two flights connecting with this floor, the one in the front by
the library and this. Now the top story--how do you get to that?”

Bassett showed them a staircase at the end of the hall. He had never
been up there himself, but some one, Mrs. Cornell, he thought, had.
It was the servants’ quarters and had not been occupied during their
stay, Miss Pinkney and her helper having had rooms on the gallery.

Later on they would take a look up there, the island was their business
now. According to Williams, all this searching was merely a formality,
and they descended the stairs conferring together. It was their
purpose to keep Stokes and his wife from any possibility of private
communication. Shine had been delegated to stay beside one or other
of them, and so far, they had made no attempts to get together. Their
amenability added to Williams’ suspicion and it was his suggestion
that they should bring Stokes with them on their hunt. When that was
finished they planned taking Mrs. Stokes to the place of the murder and
making her rehearse just what she had seen.

Starting from the Point they explored the island foot by foot, scouting
across the open expanses where a rabbit could hardly have hidden and
prying into the hollows and rifts of the boulders on the shore. On
the sea front, wedged between miniature cliffs, there were triangles
and crescents of sand, bathing beaches with small pavilions built
against the cliffs. But no foot-prints marred the sand’s wave-beaten
smoothness, no trail of broken grass and brambles indicated the passage
of a body. The path that followed the bluff’s edge, making a detour
round the ravines, yielded neither trace nor clue. The dressing-rooms
back of the amphitheater behind a clump of cedars, gave no sign of
having harbored an alien presence. The little amphitheater itself, sunk
in its green cup, lay open to their eyes as they stood on its brink.
They walked among the stone seats, seamed with a velvet padding of
moss, and gathered up a few programs, a pair of woman’s gloves and a
necklace of blue beads.

That brought them to the end. The house had no outbuildings; garages,
barns and sheds were in the village across the channel. There was no
one in hiding on the island.

They found Flora, Shine and Mrs. Cornell on the balcony. As they came
up Flora looked at them and then averted her glance as if in proud
determination to show no curiosity. Rouge had been applied to her
cheeks and her dry lips were a vivid rose color. The high tints showed
ghastly on her withered skin but her dark eyes were scintillant with an
avid burning vitality. It was like a face still holding the colors and
hot warmth of youth suddenly stricken by untimely age.

Williams, halting at the foot of the steps, told her what they
wanted--her position and Miss Saunders’ at the time of the shooting,
going over the ground and making it clear to them. She rose alertly
with a quick understanding nod--she would be glad to, it was her
earnest desire to be of help to them in any way she could. Rawson
noticed that she did not look at her husband but kept her eyes on
Williams with an intent frowning concentration, moving her head in
agreement with his instructions.

At the shore she was eager to explain everything, took her place on the
path where she had been when she saw Sybil appear on the other side of
the hollow. Her rendering of the scene was graphic and given with much
careful detail. The men, grouped about, followed her indicating hand,
stopping her now and then with a question. Stokes stood back watching,
his face in the searching daylight smoothly yellow like a face of wax.

Williams’ questions were many and pointed, and it soon became evident
to Bassett what he had in his mind--that her explanation of her
actions did not account for the length of time she had been on the
shore. Whether she saw it or not he could not tell; checked in her
story she would answer patiently, reiterating her first statement
that her stunned condition had robbed her of the power of thought or
motion. But he was sure Stokes had grasped the trend of the query; he
drew nearer, his flexible lips working, the hand hanging at his side
clenching and unclenching. Once he assayed to speak, a hoarse sound
throttled in escape. It pierced the strained attention she was giving
her questioners, and, for the first time, she hesitated and fumbled for
her words.

When it was over and they returned to the house, Stokes dropped to her
side and drew her hand through his arm. She drooped against him; her
narrow body looked nerveless, as if but for his support it would have
crumpled and sunk. But he planted his feet with a hard defiance, each
step drew a ringing echo from the rocks and he held his head high.
Bassett, following them, noted his rigid carriage, and when he turned
his profile, the wide nostril spread like that of a winded horse.

There was a ghastly lunch. The men of the law ate greedily and without
words. Shine was ashamed that he had any appetite and tried to appease
it with bread which he could extract from the plate in front of him
without notice. There was almost no speech. Miss Pinkney, executing her
duties with an automatic precision, did what waiting was necessary, and
her voice, inquiring their needs and proffering second helpings, broke
desolate expanses of silence.

When it was over Williams and Rawson took up the trail again. They
were now going to direct their attention to the Point, especially the
summer-house, from which a path led to the summit of the bluff whence
Sybil had fallen. Bassett, who had hoped to get a word with Anne, was
bidden to join them, and the three left the house step by step tracing
the passage of the dead girl.

They began with the pine grove. Needles carpeted the ground, slippery
smooth, a beaten trail winding between the tree trunks. Beyond it the
path ascended the bare slope to the summer-house. “No place to hide
here,” Rawson said. “The murderer, if Mrs. Stokes’ story is true, was
either in the open or in the summer-house.” They paused, moved on, bent
for a closer scrutiny of the dry grass, searched for an imprint in the
pebbled walk. Secretive as the rest of the island, the way divulged
nothing. Sybil’s light foot had made no faintest mark, she had gone to
her death leaving no track nor trace.

The summer-house, a small, six-sided building, was covered by a thick
growth of Virginia creeper that swathed its rustic shape. In four of
its walls the vines, matted into a mantle of green, had been cut away
to form windows. Framed in these squares sea and land views were like
pictures brilliantly bright from the shaded interior. The other two
sides held the entrances, one giving on the path that descended to the
pine grove, one to its continuation to the Point. A circular seat ran
round the walls and a table in the same bark-covered wood was the only
movable piece of furniture. This was drawn up against the seat at one
side. Rawson moved it out as the other two ran exploring eyes over the
walls, the door-sills and the floor of wooden planking upon which a few
leaves were scattered.

“Here,” he cried suddenly. “What’s this?” and drew from a crevice where
the legs crossed, some scraps of a coarse gold material.

He held them up against the light of the opening--three short strands
of what might have been the gilt string used to tie Christmas packages.

“What do you know about this?” he said, offering them to Bassett’s
gaze.

Bassett looked, and Williams with craned neck and lifted brows looked
too. They were exactly of a length, broken filaments of thread attached
to the end of each.

“They’ve been torn off something,” Rawson indicated the threads,
“caught in that joint of the table legs and pulled off. Did she have
anything like this on her dress anywhere, a trimming or----”

“Fringe,” Bassett interrupted, “the fringe on her sash.”

“Ah!” Rawson could not hide his exultation. “_Now_ we’ve got something
we can get our teeth into.”

“Yes.” Bassett took the pieces and studied them in the light. “That’s
what it is. She wore a wide sash round her waist with ends that hung
down edged with gold fringe. This is a bit of it.”

“Well,” said Williams, “that’s a starter anyhow. She was in here.”

Rawson sat on the bench and drew the table into its former position:

“It not only proves she was in here, but it proves a good deal more.
This is the way she was, with the table as we found it close in front
of her. The ends of her sash would have been in contact with the table
legs. Now she jumped up quickly--do you get that? If she’d gone slow or
had time to think she’d have felt the pull and unloosed the sash--but
she sprang up, didn’t notice.” He looked from one to the other, his
lean face alight.

“Frightened,” said Bassett.

“So frightened she didn’t feel it, and moved with such force she tore
the fringe off. That scare took her up from the seat and sent her
flying through the doorway for the Point.”

“Hold on now,” said Williams. “If she was as scared as that why didn’t
she go for the house where there were people?”

“Because she was too scared to think. Some one with a pistol was on the
other side of the table.” He rose and went to the entrance facing the
Point. “And the person with the pistol shot at her from here--winged
her as she ran.” He turned to Bassett. “That’s why you saw no one when
you looked out after you first heard the shot. The murderer was in here
lying low.”

“Yes.” Bassett thought back over the moment when he had stood in the
living-room doorway. “That’s the only place he could have been or I’d
have seen him. But they wouldn’t have been any time together--couldn’t
have had a quarrel or a scene. According to Mrs. Cornell it was only
six or seven minutes after she saw Sybil go out that she heard the
shot. That would give them only two or three minutes in here.”

“Time enough to draw a gun and back it up with a few sentences. It
bears out what I’ve thought from the start--not an accidental meeting
but a date, to which the woman came unsuspecting and the other primed
to kill.”

“Then Mrs. Stokes got on to that date,” said Williams, “and broke
in on it. And there’s only one person that date could have been
with--Stokes.”

Bassett’s nerves were raw with strain and anxiety. This reiteration of
a rendezvous with Stokes maddened him:

“But it couldn’t have been. I’ve told you. I knew Miss Saunders well.
I know what she felt about the man, and besides I have the evidence
of my own eyes that she avoided him in every way she could. Make an
appointment to meet him alone! She’d as soon make an appointment with
Satan.”

Neither of the men answered him for a moment. Williams regarded his
sentiment with respect. He had been a friend of the dead girl’s and
it was natural he should stand up for her, whether rightly or wrongly
Williams was not yet sure. Rawson was impressed; he had formed a high
opinion of the director’s candor and truthfulness and his words weighed
with him:

“I go a good deal by what you say, Mr. Bassett, and as to this meeting
of which I’m convinced--whom it was with I don’t know. Williams here
has made up his mind and worked out his case. I don’t agree with
him. I believe Mrs. Stokes is telling the truth. What she says hangs
together all right. I think her explanation of the passage of time when
she was on the shore is entirely plausible. That she may know something
is possible, but I don’t think she’s guilty.”

“Then you must think it’s Stokes,” said Williams with some heat.
“There’s nobody else it could be.”

Rawson considered before he spoke:

“I don’t see Stokes as deliberately murdering the woman he was in love
with. That’s generally an act of impulse, sudden desperation. And
there was no impulse here. Careful premeditation--the stealing of the
revolver, luring her to this summer-house, the threats or rage when she
got here that made her fly. It’s more like the working out of revenge
than the act of blind passion. Stokes doesn’t look to me the kind of
man that would kill so carefully. He’s too soft.”

“Then who is it?” Williams exclaimed. “Somebody killed her.”

Rawson moved toward the doorway:

“That’s about all I’m willing to agree to at present. But I’d like to
see Stokes again. He and his wife may know more than they say--I don’t
deny _that_--but she’s got a better nerve than he has. We’ll get him
into the library and have a whack at him.”




XII


BASSETT was detailed to find Stokes and bring him to the library.
A summons from the director would have an air of informality which
might put Stokes off his guard. Rawson did not communicate this to his
messenger, but told Williams when they were alone. He had been watching
Stokes and thought the man showed signs of strain. That morning at the
beach Stokes’ manner and appearance had suggested a nerve tension which
might rise from anxiety about his wife, but might also be the result of
some knowledge he was struggling to withhold.

Bassett found Flora and Shine on the balcony and heard that Stokes had
gone to his room to try to get some sleep. He knocked on the door and
to a gruff “Come in” entered to find Stokes lying on the bed. He rose
quickly, exhibiting the same alacrity his wife had shown earlier in
the day.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m ready to come whenever they want me. In fact
I’ve been lying here expecting it, going back over last evening, trying
to think of anything I may have overlooked that might help them.”

There was a willing bruskness in his manner, an almost hearty readiness
to do what was asked of him that seemed not quite genuine, adopted,
perhaps, to hide the natural nervousness of a person in his position.
Seated in an easy chair before the two men, Bassett back of them by
the window noticed that his hands were restless, smoothing and pulling
at his clothes, settling his tie. Despite his disquiet he assumed an
attitude of expectant attention, gravely awaiting their will, his eyes
glancing from one face to the other. He might readily have been a
guilty man primed for attack, or an innocent one shaken by the untoward
circumstances in which he found himself.

Rawson’s manner was friendly and reassuring. They wanted to get all
possible information on the movements of the company the evening
before. Last night the examinations had been cursory and fuller ones
were necessary. They would like to know just what he had done from the
time he entered the house to change his clothes to the time when he had
heard the shot.

He answered promptly with businesslike directness. Went to his room,
changed his clothes, laid on the bed resting for a while, then sat on
the balcony reading the paper.

While he was sitting there Miss Saunders must have passed the end of
the balcony by the path that led to the Point.

She must have, but he had not seen her, being occupied with his paper.

Had he while in the house seen Miss Saunders or heard her voice?

He had not. He had no idea she had come in.

Had he seen his wife?

“My wife? Yes, I saw her for a moment. In the hall when I came out of
our room after dressing.”

“Did she tell you she was going to take a walk round the island?”

“Well, I hardly remember.” He tilted his head sidewise with an air of
careful consideration. “Yes, I believe she did say something about
it--it’s very vague in my mind. It made no impression on me. We
exchanged a few words and parted.”

“She said nothing to you about Miss Saunders being in the house?”

“Why no, she didn’t know it. We didn’t mention Miss Saunders at all.”

“But she was--she had been--a frequent subject of conversation between
you?”

His eyes, looking at Rawson, seemed to harden and grow more fixed:

“We _had_ talked of her--naturally being in the same company.”

“Your wife and Miss Saunders were not very friendly?”

A fierce light rose in the fixed eyes, the nostrils widened.

“What are you getting at, Mr. Rawson?”

“Our business, Mr. Stokes. We’re here to investigate a murder and we
can’t spare people’s feelings or shut our eyes to disagreeable facts.”

“Have I shown any signs of expecting that? I’ve put myself at your
disposal, my wife has. We’re ready to give you any help we can, but I’m
not ready to back up any damned suspicions that have been put into your
mind.”

“We’re not asking you to,” said Rawson. “But we know what was going on
here before the shooting.”

Bassett spoke up:

“I’m the person that told them, Aleck. It had to be done. They had to
be acquainted with the whole situation, and they got it from me. But
they heard no lies, no suppositions--you know you can trust me for
that.”

Stokes’ glance shifted to him. Through its savage defiance Bassett
could detect the torment of his soul, despairingly betrayed to the one
person he knew would be just.

“Oh, I’m not blaming you,” he answered: “You couldn’t do anything
else. And they can hear it all from me.” He looked at the two men. “I
don’t want to keep anything back. You don’t have to use any of your
third-degree methods with me. I’m willing to tell. I was in love with
her, madly, like a fool, hounded her, dogged her footsteps. You’ve
heard that. And my wife was jealous--so jealous they all could see.
You’ve heard that too.”

The confession of his passion, remorseless in its bitter revelation,
was horrible, like the tearing aside of wrappings from a raw wound.

“Yes, we’ve heard it,” muttered Williams.

“She hated me. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that too, but I’m
telling you and perhaps you’ll believe what I say if it’s against
myself. She hated me, and I wouldn’t let her alone. My wife was
jealous. Do you see--is it clear? Oh, we’re in damned bad, my wife and
I, but we’re not in so bad as you’re trying to make out.” He jumped to
his feet, the shine of sweat on his forehead.

“I don’t see, Mr. Stokes,” said Rawson quietly, “where you get that. We
haven’t made out anything yet.”

“Oh, I can see. We were the only people outside the house--that’s
enough to build a theory on. And motives--who had a motive? That’s the
way you go to work. Find a motive, fit some one to it. My wife had a
motive, that’s sufficient. Don’t ask what kind of woman she is, don’t
look any further, you have to get some one and she’s the easiest.
Christ!” he cried, throwing out his arms with a dramatic gesture, “it
would make the gods laugh!”

“Mr. Stokes, if you’d take this calmly----”

“Calmly! Seeing what you think and where you’re trying to land us! But
just let me ask you something.” He thrust his head forward, the chin
advanced, the eyebrows in arched semicircles rising almost to his hair.
“Do you happen to remember there were five hundred people on the island
that afternoon? Any kind of person could have been here on any kind of
errand.”

Rawson answered with a slight show of impatience:

“Just leave our business to us, Mr. Stokes. You’re here to answer
questions.”

“Oh, that’s plain--questions all pointing one way. But there were other
people on the island besides that crowd--besides us--who might have had
a motive. Isn’t anger a motive?”

He projected the sentence with a malevolent force, the words enunciated
with an actor’s incisive diction.

“Anger!” ejaculated Williams. “Where does that come in?”

“Here, on Gull Island. Oh, we’ve had more than jealousy. Rage and spite
will go as far. Take your eyes off my wife and me for a moment--look
somewhere else.”

Rawson’s face showed no surprise, blankly inscrutable, but Williams
wheeled in his chair and turned an expression of startled inquiry on
Bassett. Bassett, in his turn, was staring in astonishment at Stokes.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “Rage and spite--whom do you
mean?”

“I mean Joe Tracy,” was the answer.

“Joe Tracy!” exclaimed Williams, looking vaguely about in a baffled
searching of memory. “Who’s he?”

“Good God, Aleck!” Bassett made a step forward: “Get a hold on
yourself--think of what you’re saying. He wasn’t here, he’d left the
island before that.”

Stokes paid no attention but went on, glaring into Rawson’s
expressionless face:

“A damned devil of a boy with a record. Ask him,” he pointed to
Bassett, “ask any of them what kind he was and how he acted here. It
isn’t I alone that saw it. Yesterday morning at the rehearsal he’d have
struck her if Bassett hadn’t interfered. What was the matter--I don’t
know. I don’t pretend to know everything, but I know rage and hate when
I see them.”

“Aleck, you’re crazy,” Bassett’s voice was raised in exasperated
insistence: “He’d _gone_.”

“Couldn’t he come back? Aren’t there boats to be hired at Hayworth?”
He turned to Rawson. “I don’t accuse him, I’m not like you, I don’t
jump at conclusions, point and say ‘There’s the murderer!’ But I want
a square deal and I won’t get it till you’ve looked up Joe Tracy.
Call your dogs back from the scent they’re on and put them on his.
Justice--that’s all I ask for--justice for my wife. For myself----”
He stopped. His excitement seemed suddenly to die. He looked old and
wearied, his body relaxed, the fire in his sunken eyes extinguished in
a profound gloom. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I’ve thrown
everything away--and Sybil’s dead.”

There was a slight pause. Rawson broke it, clearing his throat and
rising from his chair:

“That’s enough for the time being, Mr. Stokes. You can go now, if we
want you we’ll call on you later!”

Without a word Stokes turned and left the room. When the door had
closed on him Bassett said:

“He’s out of his mind--Joe Tracy--when he knows he wasn’t here.”

Williams gave a bearish shrug:

“Oh, pshaw, what’s the matter with him’s easy to size up. Breaking
down, losing his nerve. Whether he knows his wife did it or not he sees
everything points there and he’s just laying hold of anything to mark
time. They go like that--I’ve seen ’em before.”

Rawson, who had been standing with his hands deep in his pockets and
his eyes fixed on the floor, moved to the chair:

“Let’s hear about this boy, Mr. Bassett--all this anger and hate
business he’s been buzzing round.”

He sat down and lit a cigar. Through the smoke he watched Bassett
with a narrowed glance as the director unfolded the story of Joe, the
quarrel and Sybil’s accusation.

When it was over Rawson knocked the ash from his cigar, meditatively
looking at the crumbling gray heap:

“Are you under the impression, Mr. Bassett, that her story was
true--that the boy _had_ been spying on her?”

“I don’t know. Of course she was in a high-keyed emotional state that
might engender unjust suspicions. On the other hand you couldn’t trust
his word, and there was big money offered.”

“And when you returned to New York you would have found it out.”

“Yes, I told him that.”

“And he would have realized that it would go hard with him, where you
were concerned, and with the rest of the profession?”

“Yes, he’d know. She was very popular and there was a general sympathy
for her. Any one acting against her interests would have met with a
pretty cold reception.”

Williams stretched and rose from his chair:

“Well, it’s all right to gather up everything, but it doesn’t get us
any further. If the boy’d been here, seeing what he was and how he
felt, there might be something in it. But as he got out before the
shooting it leaves us just where we were before. What do you think
about going up and looking over that top story--routine business we
ought to get through.”

“Not now,” Rawson moved to the door. “I’m going across to the mainland.”

“Mainland--what’s that for?”

“Look up some things--that boy’s movements for one. I’ll take Patrick
and the launch and send him right back. The causeway’s covered so we
don’t need him there. If Mr. Driscoll ever wanted to sell this place
I’d recommend it for a penitentiary, save the state some money, only
want guards twice in twenty-four hours. Come down to the dock with me,
Mr. Bassett, and tell me which way Tracy was going.”

Bassett went with him feeling for the first time that he could give
information with the tranquillizing assurance it would react on nobody.
When he left Rawson at the dock he went to look for Anne.




XIII


TO THE outside eye Anne had presented no more dolorous and dejected
an aspect than any of the others. If she could not eat, neither could
they, and if she sat sunk in somber gloom they either did the same or
gave expression to their nerve-wracked state by breathless outbursts of
speech. No one, not even Bassett, noticed that Anne’s demeanor was in
any way other than what might have been expected.

Had they been able to see into her mind the group at Gull Island would
have received its second staggering shock.

She kept as much to herself as she could without rousing curiosity. She
had to think and to be alone where she would focus her thoughts, hold
them trained on what she knew and what might develop. She wanted to
keep her mind on the main issue, inhibit any fruitless speculations,
wait and be ready. Joe was on the island and with the guarded causeway
would stay on the island till after they had gone. Her hope, giving her
strength to go through the automatic actions of behavior, was, that
suspicion not being directed to him, he could lie hidden till they left
and then make his get-a-way. She knew that Gabriel had gone to White
Beach for a week’s deep-sea fishing, and Gabriel was the one person
besides herself who knew that Joe had not crossed to the mainland. They
surely would be moved away before a week and if, during that time, the
belief that he had gone remained unshaken, he was safe.

So far she was confident that no suspicion had touched him. She did
not see how it could. They were all satisfied that he had left, her
answer to Rawson had been accepted in good faith. There would be no
investigating of his movements for there would be no reason for doing
it. He had passed outside the circle of the tragedy, was eliminated as
the actors were who had gone on the earlier boat.

If they didn’t find him!

Where was he? He had entered the living-room by the door that led to
the kitchen wing and rear staircase. That would look as if he was in
the house. But she knew that no doors were locked on Gull Island and
that he might have come from outside, choosing a passage through the
darkened building rather than expose himself to the moonlight. If
he was in the house he must be in the vacant top story and she was
certain--every sound of heavy footsteps had been noted by her listening
ears--that the men had not been there yet. That would argue that they
felt no need of hurry. Were they taking things in a leisurely way
because of their assurance that no one could escape, or were they so
convinced they had their quarry that no further search was necessary?
What conclusions were they coming to behind the closed doors of the
library--had they fixed on some one of the party, the obvious ones,
Flora or Stokes?

She checked these disintegrating surmises, drew her mind back with a
fierce tug of will. That would come later. If Joe got away she would
tell, confess it all, go to jail. It didn’t matter, what happened then.
Only what was here before her counted now.

When the search of the island started she went up to the side of the
gallery that skirted the line of windows. From there she could command
the whole seaward sweep of its ten acres. She would be alone here,
secure against intrusion; she could drop her mask, let her face show
what it might, not watch from beneath her eyelids for the questioning
looks she dreaded.

The group of men came into her line of vision, moving across the flat
land between the house and the ocean. She sat crouched, watching with
set jaw. Presently they dropped over the edges of the cliffs, then
inarticulate surges of prayer rose in her, blind pleadings; and, her
hands clasped against her breast, she rocked back and forth as if in
unassuagable pain. But they always reappeared without him, went down
again, came up, scrambling through the stony mouths of ravines--always
without him. When they returned to the house, she fell back in the
chair, her eyes closed, whispering broken words of thanksgiving.

With her breath and her voice under control she went down-stairs. She
knew now that he must be in the house.

After lunch she drifted out on the balcony with the others and from
there saw Bassett and the two officers of the law go down the path to
the pine grove. Following Sybil’s movements on the Point--that would
take them some time. Mrs. Cornell said she was going to the kitchen
to help Miss Pinkney (if it wasn’t for that work she thought she’d go
crazy), and she advised Anne to go up-stairs and lie down.

“You look like the wrath of God, honey,” she said, hooking her hand
through Anne’s arm and drawing her with her. “You can’t sleep, no one
expects that of you. But stretch out on the bed and relax--you get some
sort of rest that way.”

Anne went with her, Mrs. Cornell’s step dropping to a crawling pace as
they crossed the living-room, her arm drawing Anne closer, her hearty
voice dwindled to a whisper:

“Do you know anything?”

“No, how should I?”

“I listen all I can but they’re as tight as clams when we’re around. I
think they’ve got a hungry sort of look as if they were on some trail.
Haven’t you noticed it?”

Anne hadn’t noticed anything.

“Well, I have. I sit there slumped together and acting helpless, but
I’m not like the Foolish Virgins--my lamps are lit.”

“Do you think they have any one in mind?”

“They have two, dearie, as we all have.” They had reached the door
and she opened it warily. “And one moment I’m thinking it’s one and
the next moment I’m thinking it’s the other and the third moment I’m
thinking it’s neither of them.”

They passed through the doorway and went down the hall, stopping at the
foot of the stairs. Mrs. Cornell offered a last consoling word:

“You can be thankful for one thing, Anne, Joe’s not being here.”

“Joe?”

“Oh, I’m not saying he had anything to do with it. But these cases--you
read about them in the papers. Every little thing traced up. And she
and Joe having been at loggerheads they’d be pouncing on that--not
telling you anything, sending up your blood pressure with their
questions. You’re spared that and it’s worth keeping your mind on.
Nothing so bad but what it might be worse.”

She went on down the hall. Anne, on the stairs, waited till she heard
the sound of the opening door and Miss Pinkney’s welcoming voice,
then she stole upward very softly. She did not go to her room as Mrs.
Cornell had advised, but tiptoed to the end of the hall where the
staircase led to the top story.

She ascended with delicate carefulness letting her weight come
gradually on each step. Despite her precautions the boards creaked. The
sounds seemed portentously loud in the deep quiet and she stopped for
the silence to absorb them, and then, with chary foot, went on. At the
top she stood, subduing her deep-drawn breaths, looking, listening.

The middle of the floor was occupied by a spacious central hall
furnished as a parlor and lit by a skylight. Giving on it were
numerous small bedrooms, the doors open. They were like rows of neat
little cells, all the same, bed, dresser, rocking-chair, with a white
curtained window in the outer wall. The windows were open, the sashes
raised half-way, and the fresh sweet air passing through fanned
the muslin curtains back and forth in curved transparencies. Anne
remembered Miss Pinkney saying something about opening the top-floor
windows to air the servants’ quarters before the house was closed for
the season.

The stirrings of the curtains, billowing out and drooping, were the
only movements in the place. She moved to the middle of the room and
sent her voice out in a whisper:

“Joe, Joe--are you here? It’s Anne.”

Her ears were strained for an answering whisper, her eyes swept about
for a shape creeping into view, but the silence was unbroken, the
emptiness undisturbed. She entered the rooms, peered about, opened
cupboards, looked for signs of occupation. Again nothing--vacancy, dust
in a film on the bureau tops, beds untouched in meticulous smoothness.

One door was closed, near the stair-head. Opening this she looked into
a store-room, a large, dark interior lit by two small windows. They
were dust grimed, and the light came in dimly, showing upturned trunks
and boxes, pieces of furniture, lines of clothes hanging on the walls.

“Here,” she thought, and with her heart leaping in her throat, crossed
the threshold:

“Joe, it’s Anne. I’ve come to help you.”

Nothing stirred in the encumbered space, no stealthy body detached
itself from the shadows.

“Oh, answer me if you’re there!” Her voice rose the shade of a tone.
It came back from the raftered roof in smothered supplication; the
silence it had severed closed again, deep and secretive.

She feared to stay longer and slipped, wraith-like, down the stairs. In
her room she sat down and considered. He must have been there. Where
else could he be unless in one of the unoccupied apartments in the
lower floors. But he hardly would have dared that with people coming
and going. He had been afraid, doubted her as he had always done,
or possibly found a hiding-place too shut away for her whisper to
penetrate. To-night she would have to get food to him, take it up when
the men were in the library and the others safe in their rooms.

She could do nothing more and went down-stairs in the hope of seeing
Bassett. Since morning she had longed for a word with him. Through the
darkling obsession of her fears he loomed as the one loved and familiar
being in a world where she fared in solitary dread. Not that she had
any idea of telling him, the direful secret was hers alone to be
confessed later on some awful day of reckoning and retribution. But she
wanted to see him, get courage from his presence, feel the solace of
his arm about her. She was so lonely with her intolerable burden.

The living-room was empty, but listening at the hall door she heard the
murmur of men’s voices in the library. They were in conference again
and might be long. She passed out into the garden and sank down on one
of the benches. The air had grown chilly and a little wandering breeze
was abroad. It moved among the flowers and sent shivers down the great
wisteria vine trained up the house wall and ascending to the chimneys.
She looked at it, its drooping foliage; stirred by a quivering unrest,
showing the fibrous branches intertwined like ropes--an old vine such
as city dwellers seldom see. She tried to fix her attention on it,
picturing it when the blossoms hung in lilac cascades, a riot of color
from ground to roof. But her mind was like the needle in the compass,
inevitably swinging back to the same point.

There were clouds in the sky, hurrying white masses driving inland
and carrying the breath of fog. They had blotted out the sun and were
sweeping their torn edges over the blue. If they kept on it would be
dark to-night--no moon--but there was the man at the causeway.

She sat with drooped head immersed in thought, her hands thrust into
the pockets of her sweater. It was thus that Bassett found her. Life
leaped into her face at his voice and she stretched a hand toward him.

“Oh, I’ve been hoping to see you,” she breathed, already trained to a
low wariness of tone.

The words, the gesture, pierced his heart. She looked so disconsolate,
so wan, her face the pallor of ivory, her black hair always shining
smooth, pushed back from her brow in roughened strands. He had charged
himself to keep from her any knowledge of the interest in Joe, but had
he been of the loose-tongued sort that unburdened itself, the sight of
her devastated beauty would have sealed his lips.

He sat down beside her and took her hand in his. In her turn she had
been shocked by his appearance, worn, his ruddy firm-fleshed face riven
with lines.

“I thought I was never going to get a word with you,” he said. “This is
the first moment I’ve had. How are you?”

She asserted her well-being, and he studied her face with anxious eyes.

“Dear Anne,” he murmured, and lifting her hand, pressed it to his lips.
The two hands remained together, the woman’s upcurled inside the man’s
enveloping grasp.

“That faint feeling last night, I suppose that will bleach you out for
a while?”

“Oh, I’m all over that. It was a crazy thing for me to do, going down
and then knocking the lamp over. They didn’t think anything of it, did
they?”

“Anything of it? Why no, what would they think? You explained it to
them and they were satisfied with what you said. And afterward I told
Williams that he could absolutely trust your word.”

“I gave a great deal of trouble and----” Her voice was husky and she
cleared her throat. He was worried by the coldness of her hand and
sought to warm it by enclosing it more tightly in his. After a moment
she went on:

“I suppose you can’t tell me anything--anything of what they’re doing?”

“No. It’s all a mess so far--feeling about in the dark--nothing sure.”

“But they must be feeling about after some one?”

“Darling, what’s the good of talking about it? It’s only going round
and round the same subject like a squirrel in a cage. We don’t get many
minutes together and we don’t want to spoil them. Let’s try to forget
just while we’re here.”

“Forget!” she exclaimed. “Nothing would make me do that but being dead
myself.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder and drew her hand from his to clasp
it round his arm. He said nothing for a moment, perturbed by her words
and tone. He had thought of getting her away, having her moved to
Hayworth. Now he felt he must do it at once, the shadow of the tragedy
was too dark on her spirit.

“I’ve got to get her out of here if I go to jail for it,” he said to
himself. “She can’t stand much more of this.”

She too was silent for a space, stilled by the attack of a sudden
temptation. His tenderness had weakened her, the gulf between them
seemed too much to bear when the way was so perilous to travel alone.
She wanted to be close to him again, break down the barriers and extend
her arms to him for succor and support. He would calm the upwellings
of terror that rose in her, perhaps have some man’s solution for her
desperate problem. The desire to tell him gripped her, undermined
her will like a disintegrating drug. She did not dare to broach it
suddenly, sense enough remained in her to go carefully, step by step.

“I wonder if any one here _does_ know something and is keeping it back.”

“It may be--too frightened to speak.”

“Well, if they did--I mean something that looks suspicious, might be a
help--they’d be expected to tell, wouldn’t they?”

“If it were anything definite. Just to take up their time with a lot
of vague surmises is the last thing they want. People get stampeded in
a case like this, butt in with all sorts of silly leads and theories.”
He gave her an uneasy side glance. “Are you imagining that you know
something you ought to tell?”

“No, oh, no. But I keep thinking of it, all kinds of possibilities.”

“Can’t you stop thinking of it? I wish you would.”

“Oh, Hugh, how can any one? It fills up your mind so that nothing
else can get in. It would be so terrible to have to confess something
against another person.”

He nodded and murmured, “Terrible, all right.”

“I don’t see how one could do it. Now, you, if you were in that
position--had suspicions of some one?”

“I don’t tell them, that’s not my province. I’m here to assist, not to
direct them.”

“Just say what you’re sure of?”

“Exactly. What I know, what I can vouch for as fact. I wish to God I
_could_ furnish some that would lead us in the right direction.”

She said nothing, her cheek against his shoulder, her head bent down
till her face was hidden from him. He looked at the grass at his feet
in harassed survey of his obligation:

“I’m the only person here they know anything about, that they care
to trust. It’s a devilish position, trying to hide what you think,
trying to state only what you know, fairly, without personal feeling
or prejudice. But it’s up to me to do it till we round up something. I
don’t want to get anybody in wrong, but, good lord, if I knew any one
was--didn’t guess, was _sure_ of it--I’d give the information up just
as quick as I could get across to that library.”

Her hope was over and she saw now how wild it had been. With a heart
like stone she sat by him, feeling the contact of his body, his arm
pressed against her side, knowing herself as far removed from his
comfort and help as though an ocean lay between them.

The light in the garden was fading, an even soft dusk was gathering.
There were no splendors of sunset to-night, day was dying without
ceremonial rites. The hurrying clouds had thickened and were a sagging
gray pall with rays of fog drifting below. Suddenly the doorway of the
living-room sprang into the dimness, an illumined square, and Miss
Pinkney was visible moving about lighting the lamps.

“No moon to-night,” said Bassett, and getting up, drew her to her feet.
“Come, let’s go in. It’s too chilly for you out here.”

It was not till they had gathered round the supper table that Rawson’s
absence was revealed. Miss Pinkney, coming in with the teapot, saw the
empty chair and frowned. Though subdued, her spirit was not broken, and
she could not tamely submit to these minions of the law disregarding
the meal hours.

“Is Mr. Rawson coming to his supper?” she remarked with an acid note.

“Mr. Rawson’s away on business,” Williams answered. “You can keep
something for him.”

No more was said and the meal proceeded on its dismal way.




XIV


AFTER supper Bassett and Williams retired to the library. They were
surprised and intrigued by the length of Rawson’s absence. He had been
gone over two hours and what could have held him on the mainland so
long was difficult to imagine unless a new lead had developed. This
was Bassett’s idea, also his hope. To have suspicion lifted from Flora
would be the first lightening of the grinding distress he had felt
since the murder. Williams wondered if he could have come on anything
about Joe Tracy; but Bassett shook the suggestion off with a shrug. He
could check up on Joe in half an hour; besides, there was nothing to be
looked for in that line. His confidence was not assumed, his mind was
untroubled by any fears about Joe. That something had turned up which
might head the chase in a new direction was so encouraging a thought,
that, by contrast to his sensations for the last twenty-four hours, he
felt almost cheerful.

In the relaxation of the strain he was conscious of fatigue for the
first time. He threw himself on the sofa and in a moment had sunk into
the deep deathlike sleep of exhaustion. Williams, sitting near the
telephone also nodded, his big body sagged together in the chair, his
chin embedded in his chest.

The group in the living-room, viewed by the uninformed spectator,
might have been the usual evening gathering of an informal Gull Island
house-party. They had shut the garden door against draughts and with
the inland entrance open wide the place was scented with a sharp sea
tang and cool with the breath of the ocean. The tide, full-brimming,
lay a dark circle about them, no moonlit path or silvered eddies
to-night, the channel a solid swath of black between them and the
clustering shore lights.

They made a deceptively quiet picture, pleasant, agreeable-looking
people resting in reposeful attitudes after a day in the open air.
Shine was looking at a book of engravings spread on the end of the
table. Mrs. Cornell had brought in Miss Pinkney after the business of
washing up--Mrs. Cornell found Miss Pinkney’s society so fortifying
that she sought it at all hours--and together they made a feint of
playing a double solitaire. Anne and Flora sat near by reclining in
armchairs, both silent, with the fixed eyes of preoccupation. Stokes
was the sole member of the company whose inner unrest broke out in
movement. He paced back and forth before the fireplace, quick long
strides over the bear rug to the hall door and back again. Once or
twice the edge of the rug caught his toe and he kicked it out of his
way with a violent angry jerk of his foot.

When the minutes ticked away and no one came to overlook or overhear,
a cautious trickle of talk began to flow. Question and answer crossed,
low-toned, interrupted by warning looks at the hall door. Where had
Rawson gone, what could he be after? That the question lay uppermost
in all their minds was shown by the quick response to the first,
murmured tentative, the comprehension of sentences left unfinished
with only the query in the eyes to point their meaning. The drooping
attitudes gave place to a tense eagerness of pose, heads thrust forward
on craned necks. Shine forgot his book, the cards lay scattered beneath
the hands of Mrs. Cornell and Miss Pinkney, and Flora edged her chair
closer. Their voices, hushed by fears, were fused in a murmurous hum,
rising as the subject swept their interest higher, checked in sudden
minutes of listening alarm.

Rawson must have got hold of some information, gone afield on a
new clue. Then followed speculations, surmises, suggestions--wild,
fantastic, probable. It might have been nothing Shine thought, simply
a trip to the county-seat on business connected with the case. At this
Anne crept into the circle of lamplight, nodding an avid agreement.
Stokes coming forward caught his foot in the edge of the bear rug,
stumbled and broke into a stream of curses. Miss Pinkney, who thought
oaths anywhere reprehensible and on Gull Island profanation, grimly
bade him lift his feet. He glared at her, more curses imminent, and
Flora groaned, clutching the arms of her chair and rolling her eyes
upward.

“For God’s sake don’t mind anything anybody says,” implored Mrs.
Cornell slapping her hands down among the cards. “This is a murder
case, not a social function.”

They calmed down and presently, with no more ideas to exchange, grew
silent listening for the returning launch. It was a listening so wrapt
that the room became as still as a picture and they as motionless as
pictured figures. The ticking of the clock was audible, the sucking
clinking sounds of the water along the shore. The significance of what
they awaited grew with the minutes till the coming of the launch seemed
an event of fearful import upon which their fates hung.

The entrance of Williams shook them from their terrors. If his face
told them nothing, his manner was kindly gruff--they must be tired,
best thing for them to go to bed. As they rose and trailed limply to
the doors he beckoned Shine to remain. He would want him later, had a
job for him, so he’d better go now and get some sleep. His room was on
that floor, the butler’s? All right, he’d find him. Shine departed,
grateful. He was half-dead with sleep, but had kept it hidden as he
had his hunger, regarding both as unmanly weaknesses in the hour of
calamity.

Williams went back to the library where Bassett still slept. He looked
at his watch--a quarter to nine. He couldn’t understand it--what
could Rawson have got hold of on the mainland when it was as plain as
printing Mrs. Stokes was the guilty party. He started and moved to the
window; the throbbing beat of an engine came through the silence, a low
spark of light was advancing from the opposite shore.

When he heard the boat grinding against the wharf he waked Bassett.

“Rawson’s coming. And it’s nearly nine.”

Rawson came in by the window, his eyes blinking in the room’s
brightness. He came briskly, with something of theatrical effect in
his silent entrance, his purposeful walk to the desk. Bassett at once
noticed a change in him, a suggestion of enhanced forces, of faculties
recharged with energy. He tried to look stern but satisfaction shone in
his eyes and lit his long lantern-jawed face. He was like the bearer of
good tidings who would have worn the high smile of triumph if a smile
were fitting.

“Well,” said Williams, “where the devil have you been?”

“Down the coast, twenty-five miles, on roads that would have put
anything but a flivver out of commission.”

“You got something?”

“I did--this time. We’re on the right track now if I’m not much
mistaken.”

Williams gave an incredulous grunt. He did not believe in new material
and in advance placed himself in stubborn opposition:

“What did you go down the coast for?”

“To find a man called Gabriel Harvey.”

Bassett, about to sit down, stopped in surprise:

“Gabriel Harvey?-- That’s our launchman.”

“Exactly. And I had a devil of a time to find him. Down in a place
called White Beach, hidden away with friends in a shack without a
telephone.”

“But why----”

“I’ll tell you.” Rawson dropped into the desk chair, and, his elbows
on the arms, leaned forward, his eyes behind their glasses traveling
from one face to the other. “I went over there to look into Joe Tracy’s
movements. I couldn’t find any one who’d seen him come ashore and
learned that the man Gabriel who took him over, had gone to this place
White Beach for deep-sea fishing. Not being able to get hold of him I
went to the station to see if I could gather up anything. And I did.
The baggage man told me Gabriel had been there before he left for White
Beach leaving a suit-case and fishing-rod to be held till Tracy called
for them. They’re there now. I saw them.”

Williams said nothing, not ready with argument till more was divulged.
Bassett, in blank amazement, ejaculated:

“Why, that’s the most extraordinary thing----”

“Wait, Mr. Bassett,” Rawson raised a long commanding hand. “I hung
round till the evening train came in; that’s the train Tracy was to
take. I saw the conductor--it’s a small branch road and travel is light
at that hour--and he remembered his passengers, two women and a child.
Those were the only people who left Hayworth on the seven-fifteen, the
last evening train. I went back to the village and made inquiries.
Tracy had hired no vehicle at the garage or livery stable, nor had he
been seen anywhere about the place. Then I got a car and went to White
Beach. I was some time locating the old chap, but I finally ran him
down. He said he had not taken Tracy across to the mainland last night.”

Rawson dropped back in his chair. In answer to Bassett’s expression he
nodded soberly:

“Yes, it’s a pretty queer business. Gabriel said he’d told the boy to
be on time; made it clear to him that he wouldn’t wait. When Tracy was
not on the wharf he went to the house to look for him, saw his bag
and fishing-rod in the doorway and took them. No one was about and he
left--not sorry, I inferred from what he said, to give ‘the young cub’
as he called him, a lesson.”

Bassett got up:

“But it’s incomprehensible,” he exclaimed. “I can’t make head nor tail
of it. No one ever questioned that he’d gone.”

“No one said they’d seen him go but his sister,” came from Williams.

Bassett wheeled on him:

“Yes, you asked her. Didn’t she say she’d seen him?”

“No.” Rawson’s voice was dryly quiet. “I’ve thought of that. What she
said was that he went. In all fairness to her she probably thought
so--took it for granted as you all did--that he’d gone.”

“But why? What’s the meaning of it? If he’d missed the boat he’d have
turned up, he’d be here now.”

“Oh, he didn’t miss the boat,” said Rawson.

“Well, then, what was he doing? What made him stay?” In the turmoil of
his amazement, this sudden precipitation of a new mystery, Bassett had
not yet grasped the sinister trend of the other’s thoughts.

“Why,” said Rawson slowly, “he might have been staying for a purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“Can’t you imagine a purpose, Mr. Bassett?”

“Good God, you don’t mean to say you think he _did it_?”

“I’m not saying anything yet. But I’d like you to tell me how you
explain it. He says he’s going, leads every one to think he’s going,
makes all the preparations for his departure, then secretly, without
divulging any change of plans, doesn’t go. Aren’t those actions--well
to put it mildly--questionable?”

“Yes--the whole thing’s inexplicable as we see it now.”

“And note this. He had cause for anger against Miss Saunders--she’d
given him away to you--and you yourself have told us that he had an
ungovernable temper.”

“He had a devilish temper and a damned mean disposition and I make no
doubt he was blazing mad with her. But that he’d go to work to kill her
in cold blood, lay in wait for her--no--you can’t make me think that.”

“Same here,” said Williams. “You ain’t got enough provocation. With
Mrs. Stokes you have--a woman jealous of her husband.”

“And you’ve got a man,” retorted Rawson, “moved by one of the passions
that lead oftenest to murder--revenge.”

“Revenge?” echoed Williams.

“Miss Saunders’ accusation, if true,--and I think it was,--would ruin
him in his profession. He learned what she’d done to him just before he
was due to leave.”

A chill passed through Bassett--revenge was a word that fitted Joe. But
he cast the thought out, moving away from the desk and exclaiming with
angry repudiation:

“Oh, it’s unthinkable, preposterous.”

“What but an evil intention could have made him act as he did?”

“Any number of things. It may be a prank--a practical joke we’ll get
an explanation of later. He may have invented the story of his fishing
trip and gone off with a girl.”

“Had he a girl?”

“I don’t know--also he may have done something dishonest, got in
wrong some way--he was capable of it, I’m not defending him--and been
frightened and lit out.”

“How did he get off?”

Bassett’s voice was raised in his exasperation:

“Good lord, Rawson, we weren’t jailed here then. He could have had a
boat hidden in one of the coves. This place wasn’t escape-proof till
you turned up. He could have rowed ashore and landed anywhere, and
that’s what he’s done.”

“Unless he’s here.”

“Here on the island?”

“That’s my opinion, in hiding on the island.”

Williams spoke with an air of patient reminder:

“Ain’t we gone over it with a fine-tooth comb?”

Rawson pointed to the ceiling:

“How about that top story? A person--we won’t say who--could have
killed the woman, entered the house while the rest of you were on the
beach, put back the pistol, and gone up-stairs.”

Williams made a motion to heave himself up from his chair.

“Well, if that’s how you feel about it let’s go up and have a look for
the person.”

“We needn’t do that just now. They’re as safe as if they were behind
bars. There’s something I want to do down here first--have a talk with
Miss Tracy. She may be able to give us a little light.”

“She can’t help you,” said Bassett. “They weren’t on confidential
terms. She’d be the last person he’d tell anything to.”

He believed what he said, but his heart sank. Anne to be dragged
through another interrogation, an interrogation with a hideous
suspicion behind it!

Rawson rose:

“Perhaps so, but it’s worth trying. She may know more than you think;
sisters sometimes do. And she certainly must have more knowledge of him
than any of us. We’ll soon see.”

He moved toward the door.

“I’ll go up and get her now.”




XV


WHEN Anne went up to her room she took a seat by the window where she
could see the channel. It was an undecipherable blackness, its farther
limit defined by the shore lights. But the night was very still, the
sagging weight of cloud hung low pressing down sounds. She could hear
the barking of dogs, the cries of children, a snatch of song from
the mainland. In this intense quiet the first explosive throbs of a
starting launch would be carried clearly across the sounding board of
the water.

She kept telling herself that Rawson’s absence had nothing to do with
Joe. She had been telling herself the same thing ever since Williams’
remark at supper. She gave her reasons for thinking so, as if she
were trying to convince an adversary who was maintaining an opposing
position. It was as Shine had said, Rawson had gone on some business
they knew nothing of. There must be endless business connected with
such a case. She remembered murder cases she had read of in the
papers--accounts of false leads, trails picked up and dropped, legal
questions of state and county authority.

Then across the water, running along the surface in stuttering
reverberations, came the sound of the launch’s engine starting.
She saw the light leave the shore and come sliding forward, moving
smoothly like a light held in a steady hand. Below it a golden dagger
stabbed down into the glossy blackness of the current. She watched it
approaching, the inside of her mouth like leather, her clenched hands
wet.

When it had disappeared round the end of the house she faced the door
and stood waiting. Her power to argue with herself was gone--if he had
found out anything he might come for her. She calculated his movements:
in the library now, talking with the others. A long time seemed to
pass. The stifling pulsations of her heart died down, and moving with
an exquisite quietness as if any sound she made might bridge the space
and call them running to surprise her guilty terror, she stole to the
door and opened it a crack. The living-room was lighted but empty; they
were in the library, shut in. Again a time passed and again her heart
calmed to a slower beat. It must be business, the business that had
nothing to do with Joe.

She closed the door and decided now she might rest, not go to bed yet,
but lie down and try to get back to courage and control. She took off
her dress and put on her negligée, and with hands raised to loosen her
hair heard a step on the stairs. It struck upon her ear, heavy and
quick, a man’s step, and she remained as she was, her arms lifted, her
eyes staring into her reflected eyes in the mirror. She stood thus till
it stopped at her door. When the knock came and Rawson’s voice spoke
her name, the hands dropped and she moved to the door.

“Can you come down-stairs for a minute?” the voice said, low and
guarded. “I’m sorry to ask you to get up.”

She opened the door. “I hadn’t gone to bed. Yes, of course I’ll come.
You want to----”

“Just ask you a few more questions. I’m glad I didn’t wake you.”

She followed him along the passage and down the stairs. They crossed
the living-room side by side, Rawson with long strides, she with short
quick steps. There was a sense of hurry in their progress as if they
were hastening to some ominous goal. When she entered the library her
glance fell on Bassett facing her across the room, his brows drawn
low over the dark trouble of his eyes. His look told her of anxiety,
apprehension and a passionate concern for her. She gave it back,
feeling a desperate cold courage run to her fainting senses.

Williams indicated an armchair near the desk:

“Take a seat, Miss Tracy. Sorry we’ve had to call you down.”

She fell into it and, as the men settled themselves in theirs, ran her
tongue along her dry lips and took a deep breath of air into her lungs.
Then she raised her chin and looked at them, inquiringly attentive.
During the passage of the look she laid the charge on her mind to go
cautiously and not be afraid.

“We’ve been making some inquiries about your brother, Miss Tracy,”
Rawson began. “About his leaving here. You told us, as I remember, that
you knew he went.”

“Why, yes, he went.”

“Did you see him go?”

“Well, no, I didn’t actually _see_ him, but that wouldn’t prevent--”
She stopped and looked from one to the other of the watching
faces--“What do you mean?”

She must find out what they knew before she ventured.

“Then you _didn’t_ see him?”

“No--I didn’t see the boat go, I was up-stairs, but of course he went.”

“We’ve found out that he didn’t,” said Rawson.

“Didn’t go, didn’t go back with Gabriel? Wh--why--” She swept them with
an alarmed look which fetched up on Bassett. “Why, that’s not possible!”

“Mr. Rawson’s seen Gabriel.” Bassett spoke very gently. “And he says he
didn’t take Joe over.”

“But I don’t understand. He was all ready. I said good-by to him.”

“When was that?”

“In his room, just a little while before he went. He was waiting there,
everything packed and ready, waiting for the boat.”

“And he said nothing to you about changing his plans?”

“No, I don’t believe he had changed his plans. It was his holiday, he’d
been looking forward to it, he was crazy to go.”

“Did he make any mention of an interview he’d had with Mr. Bassett?”

“No--I don’t think he said a thing about Mr. Bassett.”

“And he told you he was going, wanted to go. Was he jolly and
good-humored like a person starting on a holiday?”

“Yes--why shouldn’t he be? It was what he’d been longing to do for
years. After I left him I went to my room and dressed and when I went
down-stairs I saw that his bag and fishing-rod, which he told me he’d
left by the entrance, were gone, and I thought of course he was. And he
has, he’s gone some other way.”

Bassett looked at Rawson and murmured:

“That’s the explanation.”

Rawson went on without noticing:

“Do you know of any adventures, schemes, he might have had in his head
that would make him want to fool you, steal off without letting you
know?”

“No, but I wouldn’t. He didn’t tell me much. Boys don’t like their
sisters interfering.”

“When you saw him in his room did he say anything about Miss Saunders?”

“Miss Saunders? No--he was talking about his trip. But what are you
asking me all these questions for? If he didn’t go the way you thought
what does it matter?”

“_You’re_ sure he’s gone?” Rawson’s emphasis on the pronoun was heavy.

She looked at him with startled eyes:

“Yes, aren’t you? Why, you don’t think he’s _here_?”

It was evident that she had not grasped the sinister aspect of
Joe’s mysterious actions. It struck Bassett as odd, for he knew her
intelligence and her anxious doubts of the boy. What she had been
through, shock and lack of sleep, had blunted her perceptions. He
prayed she would get through the interview without comprehending and he
did not see how she could.

“How could he be here?” she went on, that look of naive astonishment
fastened on Rawson. “What for? And if he was--if he’d missed the boat
or changed his mind--wouldn’t he be with us all, here among the rest of
us? Of course he’s gone--he’s on his way to the woods now where he was
going.”

Rawson addressed Bassett:

“Didn’t you tell me he was to stop to-night in Bangor and meet his
friend?”

“Yes--they were to start out in the morning.”

“Where were they staying?”

“Some hotel, I don’t know the name. Do you remember it, Anne?”

She shook her head: “No. If he told me I’ve forgotten. I’ve no idea
what it was.”

“Hold on a minute,” said Williams, stretching out his hand. “Shine
spoke to me about that. He was asking about a hotel in Bangor young
Tracy recommended--the Algonquin Inn. That may be it.”

Rawson swung the desk chair round and drew the telephone to him:

“We can find out in a minute.”

They sat without moving while Rawson made the connection. As he spoke
the two men leaned forward, eagerly waiting, the girl drooped back in
her chair, her hands in her lap, her glance on the floor.

“Is there a Mr. Tracy there--Joe Tracy?” And then a period of
listening, punctuated with grunts of assent from Rawson. Then, “Mr.
Travers has gone--left on the six-fifteen this evening--I see.” A
silent stretch and a final “Thanks--that’s all I wanted. Much obliged.”
The receiver clicked into its hook, and Rawson swung the chair toward
them:

“Travers has been there waiting since last night. Tracy never showed
up. Travers had no message from him and left this evening for Moosehead
Lake.”

For a moment there was no comment. Anne raised her eyes, the sides of
the room looked a long way off and the light seemed to have intensified
to a violent glare as if she were sitting in the midst of a dazzling
illumination. The men’s faces were turned to her, glazed by the
radiance like glistening masks.

“I don’t know what to make of that,” she said, the words dropping
slowly with spaces between.

“Neither do we, Miss Tracy,” said Rawson, and leaning back, his
hands clasped over his stomach, he gazed intently at her through his
horn-rimmed glasses.

The glow increased, wrapped her round in a flame-like heat that ran
along her skin in prickling points. It shone on the lenses of Rawson’s
glasses which seemed to grow larger and come nearer, malignly glaring.

“Yes, you do,” she said and heard her voice hoarse and changed. “You’ve
made something of it already. And what you’ve made is lies--wicked
lies.”

Then she had seen it. Bassett made a step forward, but she leaped to
her feet, oblivious of him:

“You think he did it, just because you can’t find him. That’s all he’s
done, gone away. You must be crazy. What would he do it _for_? Don’t
you have to have a reason to commit murder?”

Williams was sorry for her, a pallid panting creature shaken out of her
gentle semblance by an unexpected revelation. “Come now, Miss Tracy,”
he urged. “Don’t get worked up.”

But she paid no heed, pouring out her words at Rawson who remained
without change of position, looking fixedly at her.

“They weren’t good friends. I don’t know why--I asked her but she
wouldn’t tell me. And what was it--a quarrel, a grievance? But that
wouldn’t make him want to _kill_ her!”

“I’ve told them that, Anne,” Bassett implored; “there’s no use going
over it.”

She made a motion for him to keep silent and moved nearer Rawson.

“It is strange his going away like that--I’ll admit it. But he
did strange things; and does every one always do what’s sensible
and reasonable? Because he happened to act in a way that we can’t
understand is no proof he’s a murderer. He didn’t do it, he couldn’t
have done it. And to think that he’s here! Where would he be? Haven’t
you searched the whole island? He’s gone, even if he didn’t meet Jimmy
Travers. He’s gone somewhere else.”

Rawson leaned suddenly forward and caught her by the wrist:

“What did you see last night in the living-room?”

If he had meant to surprise her he failed of his purpose. She hung back
from his grip and said with defiant emphasis:

“_I saw nothing!_”

“Are you sure it was a book you came down for?”

“It was a book, as I told you.”

“You could read a few hours after your friend was murdered?”

“I could try to read--it was better than thinking.”

“You’ve got a pretty cool head, Miss Tracy,” he added, and relinquished
her hand. She fell back in her chair as if his hold upon her had been
all that sustained her in an upright position. He rose, looking down at
her, curious and unsatisfied:

“I guess we’ll call a halt for a while. We’ve other work to attend to.
But wait here till we come back; we may have to do some more talking.”
He turned to Williams and gave a jerk of his head toward the hall.
“Come on, we’ll go up there now.”

He walked to the door, Williams following him. As it shut after them
Bassett went to her and bent over her chair. She held him off with a
hand on his breast and whispered:

“Where are they going?”

“Up-stairs, to the top story.”

She clutched the lapels of his coat:

“He’s there, he’s up there.”

“He--who?”

“Joe!”

Bassett stared into her eyes. He thought her senses were giving way:

“Anne, darling, what’s the matter? Joe’s not here--you’ve just said so
yourself.”

“I said what wasn’t true--he’s there.”

He caught her arms and drew her to her feet:

“What do you mean?”

“I know it, I’ve seen him.”

“Seen Joe himself?”

“Last night when I came down for the book. He’s hiding up there--I
thought he was safe. And now they’ll find him.”

Bassett knew she was telling the truth. His mind took a sweep backward
over the last twenty-four hours--she had known it all along, played
a desperate game single-handed. In flashes of retrospect came her
questions to him in the garden, her ashen face when they had burst in
upon her the night before. The situation, accepted and familiar, was
suddenly shaken apart like the pattern in a kaleidoscope and had fallen
into another shape, a shape so unexpected and horrible that he stood
frozen looking over her shoulder into its unfolding dreadfulness.

“What can I do--what can I do?” Her whisper pierced to his brain and
her hands jerked at his coat in frantic urgency.

“Nothing now. They’ve gone, we can’t stop them. But tell me the
rest--how did you know--tell me everything.”

“I saw the launch go without him and I was going to speak to you, but
Shine was there and I couldn’t. Then she was killed and I didn’t know
what to think, where he’d gone, anything! But that night I heard them
say there was a man on guard at the causeway, and I came down to tell
him in case he was here and would try to get across. And then I saw
him.”

“Where?”

“In the living-room. He came from the door into the kitchen wing and I
whispered it.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No--just ran the way he’d come in. And then I knew--” she stopped
and closed her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t know it but I thought it. _Can_ it
be true--could he have done it? One minute I’m sure and then I can’t
believe it; and I don’t know, I don’t know.”

She pressed her face against his chest and he held her close, saying
anything he could think of that might sustain her--they knew nothing
yet--it was all guesswork--something might turn up that would explain
it. He did not believe what he said--knowing more than she he had no
doubts--and under his words his thoughts searched wildly for possible
ways of coming to her aid.

“Oh, God grant it, God grant it!” she groaned, and drawing away from
him ran to the door, and opening it, stood listening. He followed her
and with pauses for that tense listening, she told him of her visit to
the top floor.

“He didn’t answer you?” he said. “Then he might not have been there.”

“Where else could he be?”

“Outside. He could see us going over the island from one of those upper
windows. After we’d finished he could have slipped out again, knowing
he was safe there.”

She saw the possibilities of this and hung on them, left the door and
conning them over, paced about the room. Presently they could bear the
shut-in space no longer and crept through the hall to the living-room.
They stood on the threshold, subduing their breathing that no sound
might interfere with their entranced attention. The silence of the
house lay round them like an enshrouding essence. Far away the rhythm
of the waves came and went, faint and regular, like the pulsing of the
world’s heart tranquilly beating in some infinitely remote realm of
peace.

They returned to the library and, as the minutes passed and the strain
increased, stood motionless and dumb as statues, waiting, listening.
They felt as if everything but that room and their suspense had ceased
to exist, as if time had stopped and this one fearful hour was to
stretch out forever.

Then a sound from the distant reaches of the house broke it--the
descending feet of the men. Bassett pulled her away from the door,
closed it and drew her to the middle of the room.

“Will you help me?” she whispered. “Will you help me whatever happens?”

He nodded, there was no time now for words. He motioned her to sit
down, and moved back from her, listening to the steps which were
crossing the living-room, entering the hall. Were they louder than
they had been going up, were there three pair of feet where there had
been two? They stopped at the door, it opened and Rawson and Williams
entered.

Williams threw an electric torch on the desk and said to Bassett with a
sardonic grin:

“Nothing doing.”

Rawson spoke to Anne:

“You can go up-stairs, Miss Tracy. We’ll put off the rest of our talk
till to-morrow. You better try to get some rest. And kindly remember to
stay in your room. I don’t want any mistakes made about that to-night.”

She murmured words of compliance and rising with pale composure left
the library.

When the door shut on her Bassett said: “You got nothing up there at
all?”

It had been difficult to frame the question. Since they had left his
position with regard to them had undergone a horrible change. He did
not know how horrible till this first moment of encounter when he saw
them ready to meet him in his old rôle. He felt a surge of repudiation
and then heard Anne’s whisper at his ear. It drowned the call of his
conscience, was louder than the guiding voices that had heretofore
governed his life. She was fighting alone, she had begged his help and
he was her lover.

“Not a thing,” answered Rawson. “But we were at a disadvantage; not
enough light, and it’s a good-sized place. There’s a big store-room
full of junk, messed up with stuff, and one of the electric bulbs is
broken. We couldn’t go over that thoroughly, and he may have found
a cache there. We’ll comb it over to-morrow morning by daylight. Of
course he could have got out on the island--all that kitchen wing’s
kept open. He might have been lying low up there all yesterday and have
come down last night.”

“And his sister saw him.” Williams laughed with good-humored derision.
“You didn’t get anything out of her, Rawson.”

“No, I didn’t. She’s either a very smart young lady, or an entirely
innocent one. I’m not sure which. But she _did_ lead us to believe
he’d gone when he hadn’t, she _did_ come down-stairs on a pretty
fishy errand, and she _did_ forget the name of the hotel he’d gone to.
All quite possible but--well, we’ll know to-morrow.” He walked to the
window and looked out. “Dark as a pocket!” He turned to Bassett: “When
the tide’s full out could a person get across that channel except by
the causeway?”

“There are places where they might swim the stream in the middle. It’s
a deep strong current but a good swimmer could do it.”

“He might try it--he must be pretty keen about getting off here. You
know this shore-line. Suppose you go down and take up a station below
the boat-house among those juniper bushes. That’s a place a person
might use as a sheltered start for a get-away. You can’t see but you
can hear. Take Williams’ gun, and if there’s a sound, challenge, if
there’s no answer, shoot. I’ll come down with you, I want to take a
look at Patrick and I’ll stay round myself for a while.”

He stepped to the sill of the window but Williams, feeling for his
revolver, stopped him:

“Hold on a minute. I got an idea that I think’ll help a bit. I’ve been
thinking of it all day and if I’m not mistaken it’ll land your man or
your woman neater and easier than lying in wait for them outside where
they know by this time we’ve got a guard.”

Rawson turned back into the room:

“Let’s hear it--we want to clear this up to-night. But, Mr. Bassett,
you go on. Stop and tell Patrick what you’re doing and see that he’s on
the job. I’ll be down with him later, unless Williams’ idea opens up
something new.”

Bassett took the revolver and stepped out of the window.

The night was muffling dark; beyond the long squares of light the
windows cast, it lay a velvet blackness, the murmurs of the falling
tide issuing from it as if it had a voice which was whispering its
secrets.

The outside darkness had a reflex on his own soul. As his body moved
forward into its shadowless density, his spirit sank deeper into an
enshrouding gloom. He saw Anne in a circling whirlpool, being sucked
nearer and nearer to the vortex. She knew Joe had never gone, had
connived at his concealment, had lied to them at every turn--accessory
after the fact. If they got the boy there was no way of extricating
her and it was impossible that they should not get him, held here, all
means of escape cut off. To-night, at the latest to-morrow, Joe would
be haled before them. He thought of anything he could do, any wild
act within the compass of human daring and ingenuity, and could find
nothing.

He reached the boat-house and groped his way about it to find Patrick.
Coming round the angle where the man was stationed he pronounced his
name and was surprised to get no answer. He stretched a feeling hand
which came in contact with a large warm bulk, immovable under his touch
and giving forth a sound of heavy regular breathing. His own breathing
stifled, his movements noiseless as a cat’s, he struck a match and
sheltering it with his curved hand, held it out. In its glow he saw
Patrick huddled on the bench, his shoulders braced against the wall,
his head drooped forward in profound sleep.

He dropped the match and put his foot on it. With the extinguishing of
its tiny gleam the darkness closed blacker than before and he had to
feel for the wall behind him, drawing close against it. The thought of
his trust rose hazy in the hinterlands of his mind like the memory of
some distant state of being in which he once had existed.

Pressed against the wall, he calculated the distances about him. The
approach to the causeway was to his right, an incline of rocky steps,
and in the stillness he could hear the lightest foot descending them.
On such a night Joe might venture again--would venture if his nerve
still held. If he did it would be within the next hour, and if Patrick
slept and Rawson did not come he would go by unchallenged.

A fitful breeze arose, carrying sea odors. He saw the lights in the
house go out, and the darkness close, solid and even, over where they
had been. He heard the murmurings of the tide growing lower, fainter,
till they sunk to silence and he knew the bed of the channel was
uncovered.




XVI


WILLIAMS thought highly of his idea. It had come to him that morning
while thinking of the person he had heard descending the stairs, the
person he insisted was Mrs. Stokes. In its inception it had been
directed chiefly at that lady, but now with the mystery complicated by
the intrusion of a new figure its usefulness would be extended. The
thing that was aimed at Mrs. Stokes, would include Joe Tracy. That was
how he put it to Rawson to gain the consent and cooperation of his
superior. For he had little interest in Joe Tracy himself, inclining
to agree with Bassett and Anne that the boy had nothing to do with the
murder and was not on the island.

It was a simple and practicable plan--a watch kept for the rest of the
night on the stairs and certain points of exit. In the face of positive
orders two people had come from the upper floor the night before, Miss
Tracy on an errand that Rawson thought suspicious, Mrs. Stokes, in
Williams’ opinion, to communicate with her husband. Even if both men
were wrong some powerful incentive was making them take such risks and
it was natural to suppose that incentive might be strengthened after
twenty-four hours of strain and uncertainty. They might try it again,
and to catch them at it, surprise them in the act--if they didn’t break
down on the spot--a little grilling would do the job.

As for the boy--if he was still in the top story as Rawson thought,
he’d certainly not stay there after they’d been searching the place for
him. He’d know they were on his trail, that his only hope was getting
away and the night was dark enough to tempt him. If he was outside he’d
discover his escape was cut off and what would he want then--food? He’d
see himself faced by starvation and the place he’d make for would be
the kitchen.

Rawson looked at his assistant with an approving eye. The idea
was good, excellent, and without waste of time they arranged the
distribution of the watch.

Williams would take the front stairs, his particular prey was there
and he had already located the position of the electric-light button.
Rawson would station himself in the kitchen with its two doors one
to the outside, one to the hall. As Williams had pointed out it was
the place to which Joe, escape blocked, would inevitably turn. The
living-room they would assign to Shine, less important than either of
the other ambushes, but commanding the entrance to the side wing and
the path to the causeway and dock. Any one descending the back stairs
to make an exit from the house would either turn to the kitchen or go
through the living-room, and whichever way they took, would run into
a trap. The men were satisfied, each one was detailed to the spot
where he might expect to apprehend the object of his suspicion. The
living-room, central and exposed, might safely be left to Shine.

They found Shine in the butler’s room sleeping soundly on the outside
of the bed. He was acquainted with the plan, and stumbling and
heavy-eyed followed them. In the hall Rawson left them, taking his way
to his hiding-place, the other two faring on to the scene of Shine’s
duties. Here he received his instructions, special emphasis being laid
on the door that led to the kitchen wing and the back stairs. Shine
looked from the door to Williams with a perplexed frown. He did not
like to admit--no more than he had liked to display the healthy vigor
of his appetite--that he was so sleepy it was doubtful whether he could
keep awake. In this embarrassing position, when he desired to acquit
himself creditably and feared the weakness of his flesh, he too had an
idea. He did not know if it would be acceptable and broached it with a
cautious preamble.

They just wanted to know who the person was, didn’t they? He wouldn’t
have to catch them, which would be nearly impossible in the dark and
was unnecessary as no one could get off the island. To see them, be
able to identify them, get on to who was stealing round the house,
was the point. If that was enough he’d a way of doing it, the surest
and most efficacious way it could be done, no scrambling round the
furniture, no uncertainty--he’d set his small camera for a flashlight
photograph. The materials were all at hand, he’d gathered them together
for a flashlight picture of the company. All he had to do was to get
them ready and if any one entered by the door he was to watch, he’d
have their number before they knew it.

Williams was interested--it was a neat trick and tickled his fancy.
As he was ignorant of the process, Shine explained it, getting his
properties from the cabinet as he spoke. The flashlight powder in a
saucer on the table, then a double wire extending from it to a point
above the door--the pair of antlers would answer. There the wire would
be cut, one-half hanging down from the antlers, the other twisted round
the door handle, its end standing out. When the door was opened the two
severed ends would come in contact and make the circuit which would
set off the powder. He did not tell Williams that the taking of the
picture could be achieved whether he was asleep or awake, but that the
camera would make its record whatever his state was an immense relief
to his mind.

Williams left and he quickly completed his preparations. The antlers
served his purpose well, the depending cord was in exactly the right
position and before he made his final adjustment of the two wires
he unloosed the latch of the door that it might open easily and
noiselessly at the first push of a stealthy hand. Then, his camera in
place, he turned off the lights. The room was suddenly plunged into
Egyptian blackness; he had to feel for the chair he had pulled up and
grasping the tripod, nearly upset it. Swearing under his breath he
found the arms of the chair and let himself down upon it carefully, to
avoid creaking. The silence of the house closed round him, a silence
that was like oblivion. The darkness showed no break as his glance
traveled over it. A solid impenetrable wall, it was hard to look at,
the eye required something to rest upon. After he had stared into it
for what seemed a measureless stretch of time, he felt he must shut
his eyes for a moment of respite. He did so, his head drooped, nodded,
sunk, and he lay a big crumpled figure held in the embrace of the chair.

A bang--in that silence as loud as a cannon shot--a rending burst of
light, waked him. He leaped to his feet his senses scattered, not
knowing where he was or what had happened. Then from every side of
the house noise broke, groans, screams, slamming of doors, thudding
footfalls. It was terrifying in the darkness, like a company of ghosts
wailing and running about in some black inferno. Williams’ voice
shouted the first intelligible words:

“You got them--good work! Where the hell are the lights?”

That shook Shine into consciousness, and he called to the gallery
whence a patter of bare feet and shrill female cries rose:

“It’s all right. Don’t be scared. It’s only a flashlight.”

Male voices followed, harsh and loud as the men came rushing in:

Rawson’s from the left with the crash of the door flung back against
the wall.

“What are you doing in here? What was that?”

Bassett’s from the entrance, his body colliding with furniture as he
ran blindly forward. Somewhere in the darkness behind, Stokes’ high and
choked, breaking into curses. And over all Miss Pinkney’s riding the
tumult like the war cry of the Valkyries:

“Why don’t some of you fools turn on the electricity? The button’s on
the right side of the door.”

Bassett’s hand found it and the room was flooded with light.

The women in straight white nightgowns stood on the gallery huddled
together. The dreadful darkness lifted, they leaned over the railing,
their faces pallid between hanging locks of hair, dropping a shower of
questions on the men below. One of them was hysterical and gave forth a
sobbing wail, and Williams shouted with angry authority:

“Keep quiet up there. Nothing’s the matter. Didn’t you hear it was a
flashlight?”

Some one strangled a scream--Williams thought it was Flora but could
not be sure. Then they made a simultaneous retreat to the bedrooms for
negligées and slippers, while the men, gathered round Shine, listened
to his explanation. No, he’d seen nothing and heard nothing, but he’d
got the picture all right, whoever it was, he had them. Now he’d go
and develop it--he could do that in a few minutes--and there was the
projector in the corner he could use, throw it on to something where
they’d all see. A sheet over that screen by the desk would do. And when
it’s on there, large as life, there won’t be any use lying, there’ll be
nothing for it but to come across.

They urged him out, they’d attend to everything: hurry up with
the picture. Williams was unable to hide his elation. His idea,
augmented by Shine’s, was a bull’s-eye hit, and his voice showed an
exultant excitement as he called to Miss Pinkney to bring a sheet.
Rawson’s satisfaction was less apparent, but his eye was alight with
anticipation. If it was the boy, he had run back up-stairs, for no exit
had been attempted through the kitchen. With the whole house astir
he’d be afraid to come down and they had him safe as a rat in a trap.
Impatient at the wait for Shine’s reappearance he left the room, saying
he was going to the boat-house for a word with Patrick.

Bassett saw him go and made no move--he could not leave Anne now. The
detonation and fire-work illumination that had made him leap for the
path had roused Patrick. As he ran, not knowing what had taken place
in the house, he had heard the man’s grunt of returning consciousness
and a hoarse expletive thrown into the night. Rawson would find him
awake and his dereliction never be known. But this mattered nothing to
Bassett. An inner anguish held him; his eyes and Anne’s had met as she
stood on the gallery and for the despair in hers he had no consolation.
He saw Miss Pinkney and Williams pulling out the screen and draping
it with a sheet, he saw Stokes walking stiffly to a chair, his hands
curved over its back, his face a curious shining white--he saw and
his mind registered nothing. If it was Joe, if it was Joe--what would
become of her, what could he do?

The noise of the women’s footsteps on the stairs came in a descending
rush. They burst in, their voices going before them, a scattering of
gasped explosive utterances.

Flora went to Stokes and caught at his arm. “What is it, what is it?”
she kept repeating, jerking at his arm, till he started away from her
pushing her off.

Williams heard and answered with veiled gusto. Some one had been
walking about the house at night against orders. It had been important
to find out who was doing it and so Mr. Shine had set his camera
and caught them, him or her--Williams’ voice was heavy on the last
pronoun--in a flashlight picture. Mr. Shine was developing it now and
as soon as he was ready they’d see it thrown on the sheet.

“It wasn’t me,” came Mrs. Cornell’s voice in loud relief.

“Nor me, nor me.” Flora’s followed.

“Can’t you damned women keep still,” Stokes ground out between his
teeth.

Rawson reentered. He had heard them as he came up the path and stopped
on the threshold looking at Anne, waiting to see if she would speak.
But she said nothing, standing by Bassett, her hand braced against
a table, her glance on the floor. She knew Rawson was watching her
and willed her form to an upright immobility, her face to a stony
blankness. If she could hold herself this way, not move or speak, she
could bear the tension. A touch, a word, and she felt that her body
might break to pieces and her voice ascend in long-drawn screams to the
skies.

The screen under its white covering was set in the place Shine had
indicated, the projector put some distance back, facing it. To some
of them these preparations had the hideous significance of those
preceding an execution and all of them felt the deadly oppression of
the approaching climax. The room was very still as if an enchantment
lay on it. At intervals Mrs. Cornell drew her breath with a low moaning
sound, Stokes’ hands clenched and unclenched on the chair-back and
Williams looked at his watch. He began a guttural mutter of impatience
and stopped as the door opened and Shine came in.

He came quickly, bringing an air of excitement to the already highly
charged atmosphere. There was a bewildered agitation in his face, and
his words were broken and uncertain as he answered Williams’ questions:

“Oh, yes, I got it--something--I can’t quite make out--got me sort of
flustered hurrying so. You’ll have to stand away there, folks.” He made
a waving gesture and they drew back, pushing against one another till
they stood massed in the rear of the room. He turned to the projector,
adjusting it, then held the negative out toward Williams. “We’ll
probably lose this, Mr. Williams. Doing it so quickly I couldn’t fix
it. It’ll likely melt with the heat in here, won’t last more than a few
minutes. You don’t want to keep it, do you?”

“Go ahead. It’s only the picture--that’s all that concerns us.”

“All right--it’s your say-so. You’ll get it in a minute now and by gum,
I want to see--” he stopped, his breath caught, his hands busy over the
machine. “Now then, we’re ready. Some one please put out the lights.”

Miss Pinkney pressed the button and the room dropped into darkness.
Through it the projector cast a golden shaft that rested on the screen
in a bright circle. The reflection painted their faces with a spectral
glow. Every face, eyes staring, lips dropped agape or pressed together
in a taut line, watched the bright disk of gold.

“Now,” came Shine’s voice whisperingly.

A picture leaped into being on the screen. A door-frame backed by
solid indistinguishable black, the edge of a door, and beyond it,
the outlines melting into the darkness, the suggestion of a head and
shoulders only the face showing clear, looking at them with wide
questioning eyes--Sybil Saunders’ face.

The silence held for a moment, then broke in an explosive volume of
sound. The women’s shrieks rose simultaneously--“Sybil! Sybil!” The
name ran about the room, beat on the high ceiling and was buffeted from
wall to wall.

“The dead woman!” Williams shook Shine’s arm in his incredulous
amazement.

“It is--it’s her. I saw it when I developed it and I don’t
know--something’s gone wrong.”

A raucous cry rose above the chorus of female voices. Stokes had
dropped his hold on the chair, his starting eyes fixed on the picture.
From his lips, curled back like an angry dog’s, came a strangling rush
of words:

“She’s dead. She’s dead for I killed her. I shot her--she’s dead. She
can’t come back, she never can come back. I shot her as she ran--I
killed her--I saw her fall--she’s dead--dead!”

The words died in a groan. He pitched forward and lay a writhing
moaning shape with hands that clawed and dug into the carpet. The men
rushed at him, clustered about him, the women watching in dumb horror
while the picture behind them slowly faded from the screen.




XVII


WHEN they carried Stokes to his room they thought him dying, so ghastly
was his appearance, so deathlike his collapse. Bassett telephoned to
Hayworth for a doctor and before the man came, Flora, singularly cold
and collected now the fight was over, told them her husband was a
morphia addict and showed them the case in his bag with the empty vial.
In the two days’ detention on the island his supply had been exhausted,
the greatest strain of the many that had ended in his frantic
confession.

When the doctor had made his examination and heard the facts he looked
grave--the man was in desperate case, a complete breakdown of the whole
organism and an overstrained heart. He thought there was little or no
hope, but there might be a return to consciousness. If there was he
promised to call the officers who were keen to get a fuller statement.
Meantime he wanted the room cleared of everybody but Mrs. Stokes, and
the men left, returning to the living-room to find Shine and get an
explanation of the picture.

In the excitement of the Stokes sensation they had forgotten all about
the picture and now, walking down the hall, they swung back to it.
Bassett and Williams were baffled and confounded by it; it was one
of the most startling of the whole chain of startling circumstances.
Rawson was neither baffled nor confounded having already arrived at a
solution: Shine had played a trick, done it on purpose to see if it
might not accomplish just what it had accomplished. He was loud in
his praise of the photographer, it was a clever ruse that had brought
things to a climax when they might have gone on bungling for days.
Rawson was willing to admit his mistakes--he’d been sure of the boy and
now it appeared that Bassett and Miss Tracy were right. Joe Tracy had
evidently lit out secretly on some business of his own.

He dismissed the company with a curt command and as they made their
hurried exits, jocularly congratulated Shine as the man who had pulled
off a successful hoax. But the photographer showed no responsive pride,
on the contrary he looked rather shamefaced and denied the charge. He’d
meant to take a picture, no funny business or fooling about it--but--he
rubbed his hand over his tousled hair and grinned sheepishly. He was
sleepy, that’s what had been the matter, just plain doped with sleep so
he didn’t know what he was doing.

“Well, how do you account for the picture?” said Rawson. “Are you one
of these people who can take spirit photographs?”

Shine wasn’t that--there was only one way of accounting for it. He
hadn’t opened the shutter and the picture was one of those he had taken
of Miss Saunders the day of his arrival.

“Of course,” he said, staring perplexedly at the carpet. “I’d swear I
opened the shutter and I’d swear I closed it after I got my wits back.
But there you are--you can’t take a picture of a dead woman and I
had a lot of her on that film. That’s how it came about, being waked
up sudden by Mr. Williams and trying to pretend I was on the job, and
being naturally rattled by all that’s transpired here. Oh, you can
understand it!”

“You’d taken her like that--coming through a doorway?”

He’d taken two or three like that--he couldn’t be sure how many. But
he did remember posing her at both the front and rear entrances of
the living-room, trying to get effects of a dark background with her
figure dimly suggested and the light on her face. It was evidently one
of those pictures, must have been the last he’d done, but he couldn’t
trust his memory on any small points. He’d been more shocked than he
had any idea of but he knew it now.

He described his amazement at having seen it in the negative. He said
he couldn’t believe his eyes and hadn’t mentioned it as he thought he
was “seeing things” what with the murder and all the excitement. And
he couldn’t study it or compare it with those on the rest of the film
because it was gone. After they’d taken Stokes away and he’d got the
women quieted down he’d turned to the sheet--and there it was, blank as
it is now and the negative melted. As for the explosion of the powder,
that was easy to explain, and he told of his precautions in unlatching
the door. Any light air could have swung it open and as he was sinking
to sleep, he had felt a breeze blowing in from the entrance. Rawson
verified this; a wind had arisen that had kept him on the _qui vive_ in
the kitchen, moving the curtains and making the doors creak.

So that was that! Nobody’s brains, nobody’s deductive powers, or
perspicacity or psychological insight had brought them to the goal. The
bungling of a sleepy man had done the trick.

They were talking it over when the sound of Flora’s voice stopped them.
She was standing in the doorway very white and very calm. Stokes was
asking for them. Yes, she nodded in answer to Rawson’s look, he was
quite himself. The doctor had wanted him to wait till he was stronger
but he had insisted:

“He says he must speak now while his mind is clear. He seems to know it
won’t last and he can’t rest till he’s told everything.”

They found him bolstered up in bed, a haggard spectacle, his eyes, sunk
in darkened hollows, seemed to hold all the life left in his body. They
hung on the entering men, then swerved to his wife and he made a motion
for her to sit beside him. When she had taken her place and he had
groped for her hand, his eyelids dropped and he lay for a moment as if
gathering strength.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” he whispered. “Glad it’s over. If I’m going on
now it can’t be to anything worse than this last thirty-six hours.”

The desire to free his mind possessed him. Rest, he said, rest was all
he wanted and it was not for him till he had unloaded the intolerable
burden he had carried since Sybil Saunders’ death. In his own words the
recital was broken by digressions, memories of his torturing passion,
assurances of good intentions that failed of execution, remorse for the
wrong he had done his wife. Robbed of the theatrical quality that was
of the man’s essence, it was the stark revelation of a soul’s tragedy.

He had never intended to kill her--that was the one point of
exculpation he insisted on. His love had made him mad, carried him
beyond the inhibiting forces of honor, feeling, reason. That it was
hopeless seemed to increase its obsessing power, and she had never for
one moment led him to think it was anything but hopeless. Unwaveringly,
from the first, her attitude had been dislike, aversion, a horror of
his state of mind and himself.

His knowledge of the coming separation had been the igniting motive
that caused the inner explosion. After their stay on the island she
would go her way, keep her whereabouts hidden from him, and he might
never see her again. The thought became unbearable, and led him to
a resolution of wild desperation--he would get her alone, once
more confess his passion, and if she met it with the old scorn and
abhorrence, kill himself before her eyes. He had seen the revolver in
the drawer of the desk and on the day of the performance, taken it. To
prevail upon her to grant him the interview was the problem, and the
evil inspiration came to him to tell her he had news of Dallas, her
lover. It was a lie, he knew nothing of the man, but truth, decency,
self-respect no longer existed for him.

He described the interview in the living-room, her roused interest and
demand for the information. The intrusion of his wife worked with his
plan and he had insisted on a rendezvous where they would be free from
interruption. They started for the summer-house on the Point, saw Shine
there, and made the arrangement to meet in the place at seven. Then she
had gone up-stairs to her room and he to the balcony to wait for her.

When he saw her pass the balcony he had risen and followed her. She
had moved rapidly, not waiting for him, and he had not tried to catch
up with her as he knew she did not want any one to see them together.
When he entered the summer-house she was sitting on the bench close to
the table on which her elbows rested. His hysterical state, accelerated
during the long wait, had reached a climax of distraction and he burst
into a stream of words--he had lied to her, he knew nothing, but he
had to see her, he had lured her there for a last interview, a final
clearing up, and he drew out the pistol. The sight of it, his mad
babble of disconnected sentences, evidently terrified her. She leaped
to her feet and made a rush like a frightened animal for the opening.
Before he could speak or catch her she had brushed past him and fled
from the place.

Then something had gone wrong in his head--he couldn’t explain--a
breaking of some pressure, a stoppage of all mental processes. In the
vacuum one fact stayed--that she had got away from him and he never
would see her again. A blind fury seized him and he shot at her as
she ran. She was at the summit of the cliff, staggered, threw up her
arms and went over. When he saw her body lurch and topple forward the
darkness lifted from his brain. He came back to himself as if from a
period of unconsciousness and realized what he had done.

He described his state as curiously lucid and far-seeing. The insane
outbreak seemed to have freed his intelligence and temporarily
suspended the torment of his nerves. The situation presented itself
with a vision-like clarity and all the forces of his mind and will
sprang into action, combining to achieve his safety. From the shadow of
the vines he looked at the house, saw Bassett come to the living-room
entrance, glance about and go back. The sound of the shot had evidently
roused no forebodings and when no face appeared at window or door, he
ran to the pine grove. There he was safe and slipped unobserved to the
balcony. He waited here for a moment to get his breath and compose his
manner. He was the actor, playing a difficult part with a high-keyed,
heady confidence when he entered the room.

His wife--that had been the unforeseen retribution. He had not realized
that suspicion would turn on her, and then saw that it might, saw that
it did. His hell began when he grasped the danger she was in, listened
to Rawson’s questions on the night of their arrival, sensed Williams’
line of thought when the scene was rehearsed on the shore. He had tried
to turn them to Joe Tracy, snatching at anything to gain time, but he
would have told, he was ready to tell. He kept reiterating the words,
his burning eyes moving from one face to the other--he had broken her
heart, ruined her life, but he was not so utterly lost as that.

It was her assurances that quieted him. She had known from the first he
would tell as she had known from the first he had done it. He relaxed
and sank back, his eyes closing, and the doctor motioned them to go.
Flora followed them to the door and held them there a moment to repeat
what she had said--as if, like him, wanting to rid her mind of all its
secret agony. It wasn’t surmise; she had seen him. When she had turned
from the water after her attempt to catch the body she had had a clear
view of him stealing through the pine wood, moving noiselessly and
watching the house.

“He never knew it,” she said. “That night when you, Mr. Williams,
nearly caught me on the stairs, I was going to see him, say I knew what
he’d done and that I’d help him and lie for him and stand by him. Oh,
yes--I don’t care what I tell now. He was my husband, I’d loved him and
he’d been cursed--cursed and destroyed.”

The men closed the door softly as upon the dead. What they had heard
and left behind them had taken the zest from their accomplishment and
in the glow of the hall lights their faces looked drawn and hollowed
with fatigue. Rawson drew out his watch--half past two. The best thing
they could do was to get a little sleep. The day would be on them in a
few hours, there would be a lot of business to get through and he, for
one, was dead beat. They wouldn’t take off their clothes, just turn in
on the sofa and divan, and stepping gently, as befitted a place where
so dark a doom had fallen, he and Williams passed into the library.

Sleep was far from Bassett. He would like to have seen Anne, but
it would have been inhuman to rouse her, and he went toward the
living-room where he could think in quiet. The screen still covered
by the sheet and the projector facing it were untouched and gave the
place the air of a scene set for a play. Silence brooded over the room,
a silence so peaceful and profound that it seemed as if the hideous
tumult of the last hour must be a nightmare illusion. He dropped into
a chair, his breath expelled with a groaning note, then heard Anne’s
voice from the gallery above:

“I’ve been waiting for you. May I come down?”

There she was, dressed, leaning against the railing.

“Come,” he beckoned, his heart expanding, his depression lightened,
and as she disappeared he pulled up a chair for her. She came in,
soft-footed across the rugs, with the whispering words:

“I couldn’t rest till I’d seen you and heard. He’s told?”

“Everything.” They sat, facing each other, close together. “It’s solved
and ended--the Gull Island murder.”

“Is it all right for you to tell me?”

It was all right and he told her.

She listened absorbed, eyes intent on his, now and then nodding her
head in confirmation of an agreement in her own mind. When he had
finished, she sat looking down, apparently lost in musing contemplation
of the story.

“So, as it turns out, Anne dearest, all that misery you and I went
through was unnecessary.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “It wasn’t Joe, he wasn’t in it at all. But
I don’t understand. I’ve been sitting in my room while you were with
Stokes thinking about it and I can’t make it out. Hugh”--she leaned
forward and rested her hand on his knee, dropping her voice though no
one was there to hear--“this is what I can’t explain--_whom_ did I see
in here last night?”

Bassett’s answer was prompt, delivered in the brisk tone of common
sense:

“I can. It’s very simple. You didn’t see anybody.”

“Nobody?”

“Nobody. I’ve been thinking about it, too. There’s only one
explanation, and that’s it.”

She looked beyond him at the lamp, her eyebrows drawn in a puzzled
frown:

“You think I imagined it?”

“I know you did. Just consider:--You were in a wrought-up condition,
you expected to see him, came down for that purpose. The room was
almost dark, quite dark under the gallery where you say he came from.
After what you’d gone through--first a murder, then a suspicion that
would have undermined the strongest nerves--you were in a state to see
anything.”

She continued to stare at the light, her face set in troubled thought.

“I suppose that could be.”

“Why, Anne dear, it must have been, it could have happened to any one.
And there’s another point--if it had been Joe, wouldn’t he have spoken
to you, one question even to find out what was going on, what we were
doing?”

“Yes, yes. I’ve thought of that. It didn’t occur to me at the time. But
he would have said something.”

“Of course he would. You never saw anything more substantial than a
shadow in the moonlight.”

“That must be it,” she murmured.

“I ought to have realized it but I was stampeded myself. We were all
ready to go off like a pack of fire-crackers. God”--he took her hand
and held its soft coldness against his forehead--“its a wonder we
didn’t all break to pieces like Stokes.”

She was silent for a moment then said:

“Well, where _is_ Joe? What’s he doing?”

“Gone off on some business of his own. You were telling the truth
when you told Rawson and Williams that Joe’s actions weren’t always
calculable, weren’t you?” He saw her answering nod. “Well, he’s
evidently chosen the occasion of his leaving the island to light out in
some new direction. You can’t tell what may have been in his head--a
joke on Jimmy Travers, on us, any sort of lark or tom-foolery. We’ll
find it all out soon.”

He had his own opinion of Joe’s behavior which he was not going to tell
her now. The boy, found out in his spying, knowing himself condemned by
his associates and black-listed in his profession, might have departed
for good, taken the opportunity to disappear from a part of the country
where closed doors and averted faces would be his portion. It would be
like him and Bassett fervently hoped that it might be the case.

“Come,” he said, rising and drawing her to her feet. “There’s no good
bothering about that any more. Leave it to me and when we’ve got
through the rest of this horrible business I’ll look around for him.
And anyway, he’ll see it in the papers, and if he wants to show up,
he’ll do it himself within the next few days. Now you must go to bed
and let your poor tired brain rest.”

They walked to the door and there he caught her against his breast and
looked into her face:

“It’s all over--that fighting and struggling alone, Anne. After this
we’ll be together, as soon as we can get away from here and find a
clergyman to marry us.”

They kissed and parted, Bassett going to his room--he could sleep
now--and Anne faring slowly up the stairs to hers.




XVIII


ANY one watching Gull Island from the shore would have seen the yellow
shape of one bright window set like a small golden square in the
darkness. The bright window was Anne’s and over against it Anne sat on
the side of the bed looking at the floor. She sat perfectly still, held
in a staring concentration of thought, reviewing the happenings of the
night. The inability to understand that she had expressed to Bassett
had come back to her, there were things that she could not explain
away. Like a child piecing together the disconnected bits of a puzzle,
she contemplated separate facts, studied them, dropped each one in turn
and went on to another.

While Bassett had talked to her she had accepted his theory. His belief
in it had been so absolute and it was so plausible. Of course a person
in her state might have imagined anything. And as she dwelt on the
sentence to persuade herself, the vision of the dim shadowy room rose
before her with the figure coming toward her from the darkness of the
gallery, moving spiritlike as an hallucination might move. But as the
memory grew in vividness the shape took form and solidity, the slim
boy’s shape. She saw again its rapid advance, its sudden stoppage at
her words, its lightning-quick turn and soundless flight. The snap of
the closing door came to her mind as a last confirmation and she knew
it was no delusion.

“I did,” she said in a whisper, and raised her eyes as if confronting a
doubter with the truth. “I _know_ it--I _did_ see somebody.”

Somebody!

The word struck her ear with a startling effect, an effect of
discovery, of impending disclosures. Her body shrank together as if
in fear of them, her riveted glance grew fixed as a sleep-walker’s.
She lost all sense of her surroundings, her entire being contracted to
a point of inner activity. Before that intensified mental vision a
series of pictures passed like the slides in a magic lantern:--Shine’s
photograph, the worn, wide-eyed face of Sybil; Joe playing Sebastian,
his costume, his movements, a replica of Viola’s; the living-room as
they heard the shot, dusk falling outside; in the summer-house--with
its shrouding vines--it would have been almost dark.

The pictures were disconnected like spots of light breaking through
darkness. If the darkness could be dispelled and the spots of light
joined, fused into continuity, she would reach something, something she
was groping toward, fearfully groping toward. Suddenly a recollection
flashed up, clairvoyantly distinct--Joe at the flat trying to make
Bassett give him the part of Sebastian, imitating Sybil’s walk. That
picture brought her to her feet, brought a smothered cry to her lips.
The spots of light had joined, run together in a leaping illumination.

On the bureau lay the key of Joe’s trunk that she had brought from his
room after their last interview. She snatched it up and ran to the
door, out of it, along the gallery. In Joe’s room she turned on the
light and unlocked his trunk. She went through it to the bottom looking
for his Sebastian costume. It was gone, every appointment of it. She
had not needed the proof, she knew that she would not find it, that it
was Joe, dressed in that costume, Stokes had killed.

The rest of it--Sybil alive, hiding somewhere! She saw the gray dawn
on the window--the night was over, the house would soon be stirring.
She locked the trunk, turned off the light and stole out on the
gallery. She did not go back to her room but kept on down the hall to
the top-floor staircase. Half-way up she heard from the floor above a
sound, so faint, so furtive, that it would only have been audible in
the dead dawn hush. She made a rush upward sending her voice, low-keyed
but passionately urgent, ahead of her:

“Sybil, Sybil, if it’s you, wait. It’s Anne. I’m coming to help you.”

The door of the bedroom opposite the stair-head was open. Against
the pale light of the window, poised with one hand resting on the
raised sash, was a boy’s figure--surely the figure she had seen in the
living-room two nights before. It was so completely boyish, the cropped
round head, the knickerbockers and belted jacket, that she could not
yet be sure and went forward with slackened gait, peering and murmuring
fearfully:

“Sybil, it _is_ you?”

The figure left the window, came nearer, silently, creepingly, with a
hand raised for caution. She saw the face then, pinched and haggard,
strangely altered with the curling frame of hair clipped close, but
still Sybil’s.

It was so extraordinary--such a gulf of unknown happenings lay between
them--that at first they said nothing. In the spectral light they were
like two ghosts come together in some debatable land beyond earth’s
confines--too astonished at their encounter to find speech, too
removed from the recognized and familiar to drop back to its facile
communications. They stared, eye to eye, breath coming brokenly
through parted lips, drawing together as if each were a magnet
compelling the other. Anne spoke first.

“Joe,” she said. “It’s Joe that’s dead.”

“Yes. Do they know?”

“They know nothing. They think it was you. It’s all over, Stokes has
told. But, oh, what is it? I can’t understand--it’s like a fearful
dream.”

The words died away and a sudden violent trembling shook her. With
the joints of her knees like water she sank on the side of the bed,
gripping the other with her shaking hands, pulling her down beside her.

“Tell me, tell me,” she implored. “Why is he dead? Why did he pretend
he was you? What was he doing?”

They sat, clinging together, two small huddled figures in the gray
light. Though the house below was as silent as the tomb they spoke in
subdued voices, question, answer, surmise. Each knew a different aspect
of the story, brought her own knowledge of Joe’s motives and actions.
In that whispered exchange they pieced together the separate facts,
combined them in coherent sequence and came to a final enlightenment.

Joe had met his death in his last effort as a police spy, his last
effort to get the Parkinson reward. Leaving his room to come down
and make ready for his departure, he had heard the voices of Stokes
and Sybil in the living-room. Sybil remembered Stokes’ upward look
and question about some one moving in the gallery--Joe creeping to
concealment behind the arch. The nature of their conversation would
have held him listening: here was his last opportunity to get the
information he sought. He had heard the rendezvous in the summer-house.
Its open situation offered no hiding-place outside, but knowing that it
would be almost dark inside, he had conceived the idea of putting on
his Sebastian costume and impersonating Sybil. He probably thought he
risked no more than Stokes’ rage, and he also probably thought that he
might escape before Stokes had discovered his identity.

His room was next to Sybil’s. He had heard her come up-stairs and from
his window could command the Point. When Shine left it he had gone
down, passed the balcony where Stokes was waiting, and hearing his
following footsteps, moved with that close imitation of Sybil’s gait
to the summer-house. There the dim light and the drooping curls of his
wig enabled him to carry through the deception. Stokes’ wild speech,
followed by the drawing of the pistol, had terrified him. Confronted by
a man armed and half-mad, panic had seized him and he had made a rush
from the place.

So Joe had died, a body clad in gala dress swirling out on currents
that would never bring him back. Anne said nothing. She did not feel
any special grief, or feeling of any kind. Too much had happened, she
was benumbed. She had a vague sense that in some future time, when she
had recovered from her dulled and battered state, she might be sorry,
cry perhaps. Her eyes fell on her hand with Sybil’s clasped around
it and the sight of the linked fingers roused her. They were like a
symbol of the intertwined closeness of their lives, so much closer
than hers and Joe’s had ever been. That brought her back to Sybil and
Sybil’s inexplicable actions. She lifted her head and looked at the
face beside her:

“But--but--why did you do all this? Hide, not say anything, let them
think you were dead?”

“I wanted to get away.”

“Get away! What for--where?”

“To Jim Dallas. I know where he is.”

“You’ve known?”

“For a month. I’ve written him telling him I’d come if I could, if
I _ever_ could. Oh, but it’s been hopeless. I was spied on, dogged,
followed--” Her voice rose on a hoarse note, stopped, and after a
scared listening hush, went on whisperingly: “I want to stay dead,
never come to life here again. It’s my chance--the only chance I’ll
ever have. You’ve found me now and I’ll tell you everything.” And she
told Anne the story--the story that no one else has ever heard.

Since she had received his address the longing to join her lover had
possessed her. She had written she would come, she knew he was waiting
for her, but the watch kept upon her made any move impossible. Whatever
her anguish, she could not risk betraying his whereabouts; if it had
been only herself she would have dared anything. In this position,
growing daily more unbearable, had suddenly come the means of escape.
Tragedy, swift and terrible as a bolt from the blue, had been her
opportunity, and she had desperately seized it.

From her window, after the interview with Stokes, she had seen Joe,
in his Sebastian dress, pass below. She had known it was he because
of the costume and was astonished, supposing him already gone. Stokes
came into view following him and the disturbing idea seized her that
he had mistaken the boy for herself. She had run to the door to go
down and end the misapprehension, and then stopped--at close quarters
Stokes would see who it was, and to let Joe--evil-tongued and
hostile--discover their rendezvous, was the last thing she wanted. She
went back to the window to watch the outcome and saw neither of them.
This frightened her--the only place they could have disappeared to was
the summer-house. Stokes might say too much before he discovered his
mistake, and panic-stricken, she was about to rush out, when Joe ran
from the doorway and the shot followed.

For a space--she had no idea how long--she was paralyzed, not believing
her senses. She remembered moving back into the room and from there she
saw Stokes issue from the summer-house and flee to the shelter of the
pine wood, _that_ told her what she had seen was real, a murder had
been committed under her eyes, and she went to the door to go down.
Holding it open she paused on the threshold, heard the voices below,
heard Stokes’ entering words and had made a forward step to run down
and denounce him, when a sound from outside stopped her. Flora’s cry
that Sybil was killed.

It was that wild screaming voice that gave her the idea, sent it
through her brain like a zigzag of lightning. While the people below
made their clamorous rush from the house, she stood in the doorway,
motionless in contemplation of the possibilities that opened before
her. The excitement that had shaken her a few minutes earlier died, her
mind steadied and cleared, she felt herself uplifted by an invincible
daring and courage. There was no danger of a recovery of the body for
she had heard from Gabriel and Miss Pinkney that bodies carried out on
the tide were never found.

Alone on the second floor with little fear of interruption she had gone
about her preparations at once. She had taken nothing from her own room
but money from her purse (leaving a small amount to avert suspicion)
the candies from the box on the table, a few crackers she had brought
up the night before from supper, and a pair of scissors. Then going to
Joe’s room she had gathered the clothes he had discarded, lying ready
to her hand on the bed--everything from the shoes to the cap--and
stolen out and upward to the top floor. Here she had put on the clothes
and cut off her hair--she showed Anne the ends of the yellow curls in
her jacket pocket--hiding her own clothes in a box in the store-room.

As to when the police would be summoned and of what their procedure
would consist, she knew nothing. Her hope was to escape by the causeway
that night. From this Anne had saved her. In her terror of recognition
she had kept silent knowing her voice would betray her.

The next day she had been a prey to a rising tide of alarm. From behind
a curtain she had watched the search of the island and realized a hunt
through the top floor must follow. Every sign of her presence was
obliterated and she studied her surroundings for a hiding-place. The
windows, opened half-way to air the rooms, suggested the possibility
of a cache outside. Climbing up the wall and extending to the roof was
the great wisteria vine, its outspread branches twisted into ropes and
covered with a mantle of dense foliage. The main trunk passed close
to the window of the room that faced the stair-head, the place where
she sat waiting for ascending footsteps. When Anne had made her visit,
she had heard the first creak of the stairs and crawled out under the
raised window. With a foothold on the gutter she had slipped behind the
curtain of the vine, her hands gripped round its limbs. Even from the
garden below she thought it would have been impossible to detect her.
Of Anne’s whispered pleadings she had heard nothing; she had supposed
the intruder one of the men. When they came up she had had plenty of
time to hide for she had heard their footsteps when they came along the
hall.

“Sleep!” she said, in answer to Anne’s question. “I never thought of
sleep. I was in this room all the time, waiting and listening. I didn’t
even dare to lie on the bed for fear I couldn’t get it smooth again.
The candies and crackers kept me from being hungry. But when your whole
being is on such a strain you don’t think of those things, you forget
your body.”

After the visit of Rawson and Williams she knew the danger of detection
increased with every hour. Also the necessity for food could not be
denied much longer. The one chance left her was to get away that night,
make what she felt would be a last attempt to gain the freedom that
meant life to her. The darkness was in her favor and she resolved
to slip from the house and cross the bed of the channel below the
causeway. She was a good swimmer and though the central stream was
deep and swift she was ready to match her strength against it. If she
failed--but she hadn’t thought of failure--the goal to be reached was
all she saw.

At the foot of the stairs she had hesitated, undecided whether to go
by the living-room or the kitchen. Finally she chose the way she knew
best, where she was familiar with the disposition of the furniture. As
the flashlight burst she had made a noiseless rush for the stairs, was
in the upper passage when the women’s doors flew open and Rawson came
running along the hall below. The darkness and noise had covered her
flight, but in her eyrie on the top floor she had crouched at the head
of the stairs sick with uncertainty and dread. The concerted shrieks of
the women had come eerily to her--cries of her own name. She guessed
then a picture had been taken, they had seen it, and she waited not
knowing what was coming. She had stayed there a long time, listening
with every sense alert, heard silence gathering over the house and then
gone back to her place by the window:

“I hadn’t given up, I had the spirit to fight still. But it was so
awful not knowing anything, what they were doing, if they’d found out
I was alive. And what was I to do--stay here, get out on the island? I
couldn’t tell, I was all in the dark, and I felt my nerve weaken for
the first time. And then I heard your voice, Anne, ‘I’m coming to help
you,’ it said.” She drew back and looked with solemn meaning into the
other’s face. “You meant it? You will help me?”

“Sybil, you know it.”

“There’s only one way you can.”

“Any way.”

“Let me go.”

“Never tell--that you were here--that it wasn’t you?”

“Yes, let me stay dead. Everybody believes it, let them go on
believing. It _was_ death, my life since that night when Jim
disappeared. It wasn’t worth going on with. Now I can go to him, be
with him, there’ll be no one watching Sybil Saunders any more. Even
if I looked like myself it would be only the chance resemblance to a
murdered woman. And do I look like myself?”

She turned her face to the light, bright now with the coming of the
sun. Below the smooth sweep of hair across her forehead it was so
changed in its pallor and thinness, so bereft of its rounded curves and
delicate freshness that it was only a dim reflection of Sybil’s--the
face of a way-worn lad in whom the same blood ran.

The havoc worked by the suffering that had so transfigured it drove
like a knife to Anne’s heart. She felt the prick of tears under her
eyelids and lowered her head--Sybil gripping at her happiness with the
fierce courage of despair, and now Sybil going, breaking all ties,
going forever. For a moment she could not speak and the other, thinking
her silence meant reluctance to agree, caught at her hands, pleading,
with breathless urgence:

“They’ve accepted everything--it’s all explained and ended. Joe has
gone, dropped out of sight. Boys of his kind do that, do something
they’re ashamed of and disappear. What good would it do Stokes or
Bassett or the police to know it was Joe who was killed? It’s not lies,
it’s not being false to any one, it’s only to keep silent and let me
go. Oh, Anne, we’ve been real friends, we’ve loved each other-- Love me
enough to let me be happy.”

The rim of the sun slipped above the distant sea line and sent a ray of
brilliant light through the window. It touched their seated figures and
lay rosy on Anne’s face as she raised it.

“Go,” she said softly. “Go. I’ll never tell--I’ll keep that promise as
long as I live.”

She could stay no longer, the house would be waking soon. There was a
rapid interchange of last injunctions, information for Sybil’s safety.
To-night at low tide she would cross on the causeway. Every evidence
of her occupation would be removed and with this in mind she took
her Viola dress from its hiding-place and gave it to Anne. No one,
ransacking the top floor at Gull Island would ever find a trace of her.

At the head of the stairs they clung together for a moment--a life-long
good-by. There was no time for last words and they had no need of any.
It was too solemn a farewell for speech. They were like shipwrecked
comrades parted by tempest, Anne to find a haven, Sybil to ride forth
on unknown seas, rapt and dauntless, following her star.

That night was cloudy--great black banks passing across the heavens.
At times they broke and through serene open spaces the moon rode,
silvering the sea, turning the pools and streamlets of the channel
bed to a shining tracery. A boy’s figure that had started across the
causeway in the dark, was caught in one of these transitory gleams,
a flitting shadow on the straight bright path. It stood out in sharp
silhouette, running on the slippery stones, then clouds swept across
the moon and in the darkness it gained the shore and the sheltering
trees. Padding light-footed on the wayside grass, it skirted the edge
of the village.

Dogs scented its passage and broke out barking; the sound following its
progress till the houses were passed and the road stretched on between
quiet fields to the railway.

Some people heard the dogs--light-sleeping villagers who turned and
wondered if a tramp was about and lapsed into comfortable slumber. In
the stillness of the room where Stokes lay unconscious, drawing toward
the hour of deliverance, the barking sounded loud and insistent. The
nurse was disturbed by it and went to the window and looked out, but
Flora never heard it. Anne did and sat up in bed following it along the
edge of the village till it died on the outskirts.




_EPILOGUE_


THREE years later Bassett and Anne had a friend at dinner. He was
a writer who had just returned from a successful lecture tour in
Australia. On his way back he had ranged through the pleasant reaches
of the South Seas and had fallen under their spell--a little more
money in his pocket and for him it would be a plantation on some isle
of enchantment. Not the accessible places, they were already spoiled,
steamers had come, jazz music, and tourists in pith helmets with red
guidebooks were under your feet. It was the remoter islands, still out
of the line of travel, where a trading schooner was the sole link with
the world.

He had made a point of visiting some of these--hired an old tub with
a native crew and gone batting about and had a glimpse of the real
thing that Stevenson saw. And he enlarged on a particular island, the
endmost of a scattered group, where he had found an American and his
wife running a copra plantation. Delightful people called Whittier,
he’d stayed several days with them in a long bamboo house on the edge
of a lagoon--you couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.

Anne smiled at his enthusiasm and said she thought such a life might
pall, especially on the lady. But he was convinced of the contrary,
in fact Mrs. Whittier had told him she never wanted to come back, she
couldn’t stand the futile strain and bustle of the world. And it was
not as if she were a person unused to the refinements of life, she was
a pretty intelligent woman, cultivated and fond of the arts, especially
the theater. She had asked him any amount of questions about plays and
players--said it had been the thing she loved most in the old days. But
she didn’t regret it; she had told him she regretted nothing but the
separation from her friends.

After dinner, moving about in the sitting-room, the guest had stopped
before a photograph standing on a side-table, picked it up and asked
whose it was. Bassett had answered--a friend of his wife, now dead. But
he would remember--it was Sybil Saunders who had met with such a tragic
death some years ago. The guest nodded; of course he remembered, a
horrible affair. Then after a last look at the photograph he turned to
Anne:

“It’s like that Mrs. Whittier I was telling you about. Just the same
eyes--quite remarkably like, only she’s a bit stouter and more mature.
It might have been her picture when she was a girl.”

When the evening was over Bassett escorted the guest to the door. On
his way back to the sitting-room he thought he would suggest to Anne
that she put away the photograph--people noticed it and the subject
kept coming up. It was evidently unbearably painful to her for she
rarely spoke of it; that dark chapter in her life was a thing closed
and sealed. He had the words on his lips as he entered the room and
then saw that she held the picture in her hands and was looking
intently at it, softly smiling, her expression tranquil, even happy.
That was good--the wound had healed--so he said nothing.


THE END




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

On page 12, fianceé has been changed to fiancée.

On page 47, head-lands has been changed to headlands.

On page 73, fishing rod has been changed to fishing-rod.

On page 79, dispell has been changed to dispel.

On page 157, contanied has been changed to contained.

On page 179, ejactulated has been changed to ejaculated.

On pages 247, 250, 251, 254 and 291, flash-light has been changed to
flashlight.