Part 6

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.