Part 4

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.”