Part 5

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.