Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery

Of course no kind of an explanation presented itself at first. I took it to a mirror, tried to read it backward, then sat down to give it a careful analysis.

I copied the column carefully, then tried to rearrange the letters to make sense. But no such simple treatment was availing. The fourth, ninth, tenth, and last words, for instance, were made up entirely of consonants, and no word of any language, known to me, entirely omits vowels. Four of the remaining seven words contained but one vowel.

But I was in no mood to go further to-night. The events of the past few hours had been a mighty strain on the entire nervous system, and my mind could not cope with the problem. I spread the original parchment on the little table in the center of the room, then quickly undressed, turned out my lights, and went to bed.

Sleep came at once, heavy and dreamless. I barely remember the welcome chill that the pre-dawn hours brought to the room. But it wasn’t written that there should be many hours of refreshing sleep for me that night.

In hardly a moment, it seemed to me, I came to myself with a start. Wakefulness shot through me as if by an electric shock. It was that fast-flying hour just before dawn: the cool caress of the wind against my face and the pale-blue quality of the darkness on the window-pane told that fact with entire plainness. It had been wakened by a hushed sound from across the room.

It was useless to try to tell myself that the sound was a dream only, an imagined voice that had no basis in reality. For all that it was subdued, the sound was entirely sharp and clear, impossible to mistake. And instantly I knew its source.

Some one had opened my door. There was no other possible explanation. Nor had it been merely the harmless mistake of one of the guests, confusing my room with his own. I heard the door open, but I did not hear it close. Nor did I hear departing steps along the corridor.

My nightly visitor had come in stealth, and there was nothing to believe but at that instant he was waiting in the darkness on the other side of the room.

It isn’t easy to decide what to do at a time like this. I was perfectly willing to simulate slumber if by so doing I could increase my own safety. Florey’s affair was still fresh in my mind. A cruel and cold-blooded murder had been committed at Kastle Krags earlier this same night: this tip-toeing visitor in my room was in all likelihood a desperate man, willing to repeat his crime if his own safety demanded it. My possessions were few: it was better to let them go than take such a risk.

Yet a wiser, saner self told me that this was no business of thievery. The thing went deeper, further than I could see or guess. I lay listening: from time to time I could hear the boards settle beneath his feet. Evidently he was groping about the darkened room, in search of something.... Then a faint jar told me that his hand was on the iron railing of my bed.

It wasn’t a reassuring thought that he had been groping about the room solely to find my bed. My muscles set for a desperate leap in case I felt him groping nearer.... There was a long, ominous instant of silence. Then a little triangle of light danced out over my table-top.

It was a ray from a flashlight, and it came and went so soon that there was no chance to make accurate observation. I did, however, see just the edge of his hand as he reached for something on the flat surface of the table. It was a white, strong hand—long, sensitive fingers—evidently the hand of a well-bred, middle-aged man.

The light flashed out. Steps sounded softly on the floor. Then my door closed with a slight shock.

There is no use trying to justify my inactivity during his presence in the room. At such times a man is guided by instinct—and my instinct had been to lie still and let him do his work. The action might condemn me in some eyes, but I felt no shame for it. And as soon as the door closed I sprang to the floor.

Groping, I found the light, and the white beams flooded the room. Presently I opened the door and gazed down the gloomy hall.

It was still as a tomb. There were a dozen doors along it, and any one of them might have closed behind the intruder. It was the hall of a well-ordered country manor, rather commonplace in the subdued light of a single globe that burned over the stairway. The opportunity to overtake the intruder was irredeemably past.

It wasn’t hard to tell what had been taken. The sheet of parchment, on which was written the mysterious cryptogram, was gone from the table. The only satisfaction I had was that the thief had failed to see and procure the copy of the document I had made just before retiring.

CHAPTER X

Mr. Weldon was a man of about forty years, intelligent, forceful, not in the least the mournful type so often seen among undertakers. He was rather careless in speech, but I did not ascribe it to lack of education. He had rather a Semitic countenance, and a very deep, manly voice.

“Of course the first thing is to drag the lagoon,” he said. “We’ve got to have a body before we can hold anything but a semblance of an inquest—and of course thet’s where the body is. It couldn’t be nowhere’s else.”

All of us agreed with him. There was simply nothing else to do. The body had lain but thirty feet from the water’s edge: it was conceivable that for some mysterious reason the murderer had seen fit to return and drag his dead into the water. The idea of him carrying it in any other direction was incredible.

While we waited for drag hooks to be sent out from town the sheriff made a minute examination of the scene of the crime. He searched the ground for clews; and it seemed to me the little puzzled line between his brows deepened with every moment of the search. He stood up at last, breathing hard.

“The murderer made a clean get away, that’s certain,” he observed. “It isn’t often a man can commit a crime like this and not leave a few trails. I can’t find a trace or a button. And if he left any tracks they are mixed up with those you gentlemen made last night.”

He went carefully over the rocks between the place where the body had lain and the water; but there was little for him here. Once or twice he paused, studying the rocks with a careful scrutiny, but he did not tell us what he found.

About ten the drag-hooks came, and I helped Nealman bring his duckboat from the marshy end of the lagoon. Then the sheriff, the coroner and myself began the slow, tiresome work of dragging.

Of course we began along the shore, close to the scene of the crime. We worked from the natural wall and back to a point a hundred yards beyond the starting-place. Then we turned back, just the width of the drag hooks beyond. We reached the Bridge again without result.

As the moments passed the coroner’s annoyance increased. Noon came and passed—already we had dragged carefully a spot a full hundred square yards in extent. The tide flowed again, beat against the Bridge and fretted the water, making our work increasingly difficult. And at last the sheriff rested, cursing softly, on his oars.

“Well, Weldon?” he asked.

The coroner’s eyes looked rather bright as he turned to answer him. I got the impression that for all his outer complacency he was secretly excited. “Nothing, Slatterly,” he said. “What do you think yourself?”

“I think we’re face to face with the worst deal, the biggest mystery that’s come our way in years. In the first place, there isn’t any use of looking and dragging any more.”

“But man, the body’s got to be here somewhere.”

“Got, nothing! We’ve got to begin again, and not take anything for granted. This is still water, except for these waves the tide makes, breaking over the rocks—and you know a body doesn’t move much in still water, especially the first night. For that matter the place was still as a slough, they say, while the tide was going out—most of the night. We’ve looked for a hundred yards about the spot. It’s not there. And the murderer couldn’t swim with it clear across the lagoon.”

“He might, a strong swimmer.”

“But what’s the sense of it? Besides, a dead body ain’t easy to manage. The thing to do is to search Florey’s rooms for any evidence, then to get all the niggers and the white folks as well and have an unofficial inquest. Then we might see where we’re at.”

“Good.” The coroner turned to me. “Is there any use of hunting up Mr. Nealman to show us Florey’s room?” he asked. “Can’t you take us up there?”

I was glad enough of the chance to be on hand for that search, so I didn’t hesitate to answer. “You are the law. You can go where you like—wherever you think best.”

We went together up the stairs to Florey’s room. There was not the least sign that tragedy had overtaken its occupant. It was scrupulously kept: David Florey must have been the neatest of men. The search, however, was largely unavailing.

In a little desk at one corner we found a number of papers and letters. Some of them pertained to household matters, there was a note from some friend in Charleston, a folder issued by a steamship plying out of Tampa, and a letter from Mrs. Noyes, of New Hampshire, who seemed to be the dead man’s sister. At least the salutation was “Dear Brother Dave,” and the letter itself dealt with the fortunes of common relatives. Then there were a few short letters from one who signed himself “George.”

There was nothing of particular interest. Mostly they were notifications of arrivals and departures in various cities, and they seemed to concern various business ventures. “I’ve got a good lead,” one of them said, “but it may turn out like the rest.” “Things are brightening up,” another went. “I believe I see a rift in the clouds.”

“George” was unquestionably a traveler. One of the notes had been written from Washington, D. C., one from Tampa, the third from some obscure port in Brazil. They were written in a rather bold, rugged, but not unattractive hand.

The only document that gave any kind of a key to the mystery was a half-finished letter that protruded beneath the blotter pad on his desk. It was addressed “My dear Sister,” and was undoubtedly in answer to the “Mrs. Noyes” letter. The sheriff read it aloud:

At that point the letter ended. The sheriff’s voice died away so slowly and tonelessly that it gave almost the effect of a start. Then he laid the letter on the desk and smoothed it out with his hands.

“Weldon?” he asked jerkily. “Do you s’pose we’ve got off on the wrong foot, altogether?”

“What d’ye mean?”

“Do you suppose that poor devil did himself in? At least we’ve got a motive for suicide, and a good one—and there’s none whatever for murder. You know what old Bampus used to say—find the motive first.”

“Of course you mean the disease he writes of. Why didn’t he spell it out.”

“He was likely just given to abbreviations. Lots of men are. The word might have been a long one, and hard to spell.”

“Most invalids, I’ve noticed, rejoice in the long names of their diseases!”

“Not a bad remark, from an undertaker. I suppose you mean they get your hopes all aroused by their diseases when they ain’t got ’em, you old buzzard. But seriously, Weldon. He writes here that his old malady has come back on him, some disease that runs through his family—that he’s discouraged, that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be rid of it. You know that ill-health is the greatest cause for suicide—that more men blow out their own brains because they are incurably sick than for any other reason. He says he can’t sleep. And what leads to suicide faster than that!”

“All true enough. But it don’t hold water. Where’s the knife? What became of the body? Suicides don’t eat the knife that killed them, lay dead, and then crawl away. You’ll have to do better.”

“He might not have been quite dead. Even doctors have been deceived before now, and crawled into the water to end his own misery. You can bet I’m going to keep the matter in mind.”

And it was a curious thing that this little handful of letters also set me off on a new tack. A possibility so bizarre and so terrible that it seemed almost beyond the pale of credibility flashed to my mind. I watched my chance, and slipped one of the “George” letters into my pocket.

The idea I had was vague, not overly convincing, and it left a great part of the mystery still unsolved—but yet it was a clew. I waited impatiently until the search was concluded. Then I sought the telephone.

A few minutes later a telegraphic message was clicking over the wires to Mrs. Noyes, in New Hampshire, notifying her of her brother’s murder and disappearance, and asking a certain question. There was nothing to do but wait patiently for the answer.

CHAPTER XI

“The law takes heed of no man’s business,” the coroner answered, somewhat sternly. “However, I’ll have counsel from the state in a few days, and then we can tell what to do. The district attorney will be here just as soon as his work will permit.”

He called Nealman first. Except for a strange and startling deepening of the worry-line between his brows I would have thought that he was wholly unshaken. Weldon asked his name, place of birth, thirdly his occupation.

“I can’t hardly say—I’m interested in finance,” Nealman said in reply to the third question.

“And how long have you occupied this house?”

“Less than a month. I bought it last winter, but it has been under the charge of—of a caretaker until that time.”

“Who was the caretaker?”

Nealman’s voice fell a note. “Florey—the man murdered last night.”

“Ah.” The coroner paused an instant, as if deep in thought. “And how did he happen to come into your employ?”

“He was employed at this house by its previous owner, just a few days or weeks before I purchased it. He asked for work here when I came to take possession. He was an experienced butler, he said.”

“Then that’s all you know about the dead man?”

“Absolutely all.”

“His full name?”

“I made out his check to David Florey. I assumed he was an Englishman.”

“You didn’t know that, for sure?”

“No.” Nealman hesitated, as if secretly startled. “I really didn’t know it, when I come to think about it. I always assumed that he was.”

“He was a good servant?”

“Excellent. I can go further. The best, most conscientious butler I ever had.”

“Did you ever get the idea he had any enemies?”

“No. He seemed the most peaceable of men.”

“None of the other servants were jealous of him?”

“On the contrary, they seemed to like him very much.”

“He stayed close to his work?”

“He scarcely ever went to town. Once or twice he asked me for permission to go with my chauffeur—for a hair cut, and so on.”

“What did you observe about his health? Did it seem to be good?”

“It seemed so. Very good.”

The coroner’s interest quickened. “You weren’t aware, then, that he had an incurable malady?”

“No. And I don’t think he had. At least I never saw the least sign of it. None of the other servants ever mentioned it.”

“Did he look like a man in good health?”

“He was rather gray—from his indoor life, I suppose. But he never looked sick to me.”

“You think he was murdered, then?”

“Good Heavens, I don’t see how we can think anything else!”

“You can ascribe no reason for his murder.”

“Absolutely none.”

“You can’t, eh.” The coroner paused, several seconds. “To come back to yourself. You were here less than a month. May I ask what was your idea in buying this manor house?”

“I hardly understand——”

“What did you get it for, a home?”

“I can’t hardly say a home. I got it more for a winter shooting and fishing lodge. My home is on the Hudson. I’m very fond of fishing and shooting. I loved the place on sight.”

“I take it, then, that you are a man of large financial means—able to indulge your whims even to the extent of buying a shooting and fishing lodge such as this?”

Nealman stiffened slightly. “I don’t see how that point can possibly have any bearing on this case.”

“The merest detail of the lives of any one of the actors involved often throws light upon a crime.” The coroner spoke slowly, seemingly choosing his words with care.

“I am not a man of great wealth, if that’s what you want to know,” Nealman answered at last. “I feel—I felt able at the time to buy this house.”

“No great financial disaster has overtaken you since, I judge?”

Nealman’s voice dropped a tone, and he spoke with a curious hesitancy. “No. I shouldn’t say that there had.”

The coroner halted, gazing absently at the carpet, and then began on a new tack. “This butler of yours—I suppose you paid him a good wage?”

“It would be considered so, among the men of his occupation.”

“Do you know if he had any large amount of money saved, or if he carried any large amount on his person?”

“Not that I know of. He was very non-committal about his affairs.”

“He was a good butler,” the coroner commented.

“Yes. Excellent. If you mean, did he carry enough money on his person to invite robbery, I should say that I don’t think he did. Of course I don’t know for certain. However, I know that he had banking connections in Ochakee.”

“What of your other employees. Do you know anything about them?”

“They all came recommended. I know nothing further except, of course, in regard to my housekeeper and chauffeur.”

“Your chauffeur is a colored man?”

“Yes. He has been with me for four years. A man of good character and habits.”

“Do you know where he was at the time of the murder?”

“I do not.”

“Your housekeeper—she has been in your employ a long time, also?”

“About two years.”

“Was she well known to the murdered man?”

“Her acquaintance began with him at the same time as my own—less than a month ago.”

“How old is this lady?”

“She sits in the circle. You can ask her if you like. I have never put the question to her.”

Every one smiled at this sally. The housekeeper, a buxom woman of fifty years, flushed and giggled alternately.

“Where were your other servants at the time of the murder?”

“I suppose most of them were in bed. Sam, the negro boy, was in the kitchen, helping me to serve my guests.”

“Then David Florey was not on duty that night?”

“I didn’t watch Mr. Florey closely, Mr. Weldon. He was the kind of servant that didn’t seem to require watching. He helped me serve some cold drinks immediately after dinner. I didn’t see him again.”

“You don’t know at what hour he ventured out into the lawns?”

“I do not. I was under the impression that he was in the pantry or hall for several hours after dinner. I can not say definitely.”

“And now will you describe the crime—that is, what you yourself heard and saw?”

“Beginning where?”

“At the beginning. Where you were, who was with you, and all you can tell me.”

“I was in this room. I don’t know the exact time—it must have been close to midnight. My guests were here with me.”

“All of them?”

Nealman paused, seemingly considerably disturbed. “I can’t say that all of them were in my immediate sight,” he replied at last. “My guests were free of the house—some of them were at the billiard tables, others in the library, and so on. I can say definitely that Mr. Marten, Mr. Van Hope, and Mr. Killdare were in the room. Mr. Pescini was with us until just before we heard the sound.”

“How long before?”

“I can’t say for certain. It didn’t seem to me more than a minute or two.”

“You don’t know where the others were?”

“Not exactly. I had left Mr. Fargo in the billiard room a moment before. Major Dell and Mr. Nopp had been talking on the veranda.”

“None of these men indicated any previous acquaintance with the butler?”

“None whatever. They were all northern men, from my own part of the country.”

“All of them were your friends?”

“Yes.” His face changed expression, ever so little. “Yes, of course.”

“You four men were in the lounging-room—and you heard a certain sound. Will you describe the sound?”

“It was a scream—I can’t describe it any further.”

“Rather a long-drawn scream, or just a sharp utterance?”

“I would say it was rather long—and very loud.”

“You knew at once it was the scream of a man?”

“I thought at first it might be some wild thing—perhaps a panther or a lynx—even a water bird.”

“Yet it must have been a very distressing sound, was it not? Would you say it was a cry of agony or of fear?”

“Both. Yes—I would say it was a cry of both fear and agony.”

“Then what did you do? Tell exactly what happened.”

“We went out to investigate. My other guests ran out the same time.”

“You didn’t see them run out?”

“No, but I met most of them outside. At such times one doesn’t observe closely. We ran down to the shore of the lagoon, at the place we’ve indicated to you, and there we found David Florey, lying dead. There was no one near, and no weapons were lying beside him—at least I didn’t see any. He was lying on his side, and his vest and shirt were torn and wet with blood. Some of us went at once to telephone—Mr. Killdare, Mr. Van Hope, Mr. Nopp and myself. The others began to beat through the garden in search of the murderer.”

“No one stayed with the body?”

“No.”

“You’re perfectly certain Mr. Florey was dead, Mr. Nealman.”

“I didn’t dream of anything else at the time, Mr. Weldon. He lay huddled, his face drawn, and certainly there was a terrible wound in his breast.”

“These men that hunted through the gardens and lawns. Were they armed?”

“Mr. Marten had a pistol. The others were unarmed.”

“They stayed close together?”

“I don’t think they did. I can’t say for sure.”

“Then what happened?”

“We telephoned, met the searching party, and all of us went back to the body. It was gone.”

“No action or word of any of your guests wakened your suspicions?”

“None whatever.”

“You suspect no one?”

“No one. I am absolutely in the dark.”

“Remember, as the occupant of the house, you are in a better position to give us a right steer than any one else. I want you to think hard. You observed, at no time, any suspicious circumstances?”

“None whatever.” Nealman’s voice was firm.

“What weapon, would you say, inflicted the wound?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t a pistol, of course. We didn’t hear a shot. We didn’t examine the wound carefully, but I would say it was some metal instrument, not overly sharp. It might have been a dull knife.”

“Would a knife likely have torn the shirt and vest as you describe?”

“It doesn’t seem likely, unless the murderer gave a furious, downward stroke.”

The coroner paused again, and the room was utterly silent. “You have never heard any story, any legend—any set of facts connected with this house and its occupants that might explain the murder?”

Nealman waited a long time before he answered. “None that are the least credible.”

“You’ve got something on your mind, Nealman. Credible or not, I want to hear it.”

“I can’t bring myself to repeat such a silly story. All old houses have various legends. This particular legend is not worth hearing.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nealman, but I must be the judge of that. You have the same as admitted that the story has occurred to your mind. What was it, please?”

Nealman’s voice lowered perceptibly, and he answered with evident difficulty. “A silly thing about a buried treasure—and a sea-monster—a giant octopus or something like that—that had been set to guard it—in the lagoon.”

As we waited we heard the faint scream of the plover on the shore and the lapping waves of the tide. Most of the white men were smiling grimly—the negroes were gray as ashes.

“You will admit that the tragedy of last night, the nature of the wound and the disappearance of the body, brought the legend forcibly to your memory?”

“I couldn’t help but remember it,” Nealman answered. “But it’s inane and silly—just the same.”

CHAPTER XII

“None whatever.”

In reply to the coroner’s questions, he testified as to the finding of the body, the nature of the scream we had heard and gave a similar report as to the appearance of the wound. He had observed no suspicious actions on the part of any one.

“You led the search, I believe, through the gardens?”

“Yes.”

“You were the one man that was armed. May I ask how you happened to have a pistol in the pocket of dinner clothes?”

“I was held up, once,” Marten replied straightforwardly. “Several years ago. I’ve carried a pistol ever since.”

The coroner nodded. “Did your party stay together in searching the gardens, or did they scatter out?” he asked.

“We scattered out. We couldn’t have hoped to find any one if we had stayed together. We called back and forth, however.”

“You kept track of one another all the time?”

“I can’t say that. The gardens and grounds are large and full of shrubbery.”

“The search lasted—how long?”

“Only a few minutes.”

The coroner dismissed him at this point, calling on Mr. Van Hope. The latter told of his long acquaintance with Nealman, and verified in every detail the story that his friend had told.

“And where were you, Mr. Dell, when the scream was heard?” the coroner asked.

“In the library,” was the reply. Major Dell spoke evenly, but his keen, flushed face showed that he was taking the most keen and lively interest in the proceedings.

“Why weren’t you with the others in the party?”

“We were all running all over the house. I was trying to find Mr. Nealman’s copy of Jordan’s work on fish. Fargo and I had got into an argument about black bass.”

“Mr. Fargo was not with you at the time?”

“I was alone. I had left Mr. Fargo at the billiard table.”

Weldon’s voice changed in tone. “And how did the argument come out, may I ask.”

Major Dell smiled dryly. “It isn’t concluded yet,” he said.

The coroner paused, then took a new tack. “You heard the sound distinctly?”

“Distinctly, but probably not so clearly as Mr. Nealman heard it. The library is back of the lounging-room.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I ran outside. I joined Nealman and some of the other guests on the grounds, and went down with them to investigate.”

“You took part in the hunt through the grounds?”

“Yes. I beat back and forth with the rest.”

“And saw or heard nothing suspicious?”

“Something moved in the shrubbery, but we couldn’t locate it. Nealman thought afterward it was a raccoon or some other small animal.”

“You knew Mr. Florey?”

“I had never set eyes upon him before.”

“You’ve had long acquaintance with Mr. Nealman, however?”

Major Dell hesitated, just an instant. “No. I had never met Mr. Nealman until last night.”

The coroner’s interest quickened. “You didn’t? How did you happen to be included among his guests?”

“I was a great friend of his friend, Mr. Van Hope. I was invited through his kindness. He wanted me to have a taste of shooting and fishing.”

“What is your occupation, Mr. Dell?”

“I am interested in finance, in a modest way.”

“You saw, heard or knew of nothing connected with this murder that you haven’t testified.”

“No.” Dell paused, considering. “Nothing, I’m sure.”

“I say ‘murder.’ Testimony has gone to show that Florey was dead, not just severely wounded, when you and the others reached his side. Mr. Dell, do you think there is any possibility that life remained in his body when you saw him beside the inlet?”

Dell spoke clearly. “None whatever,” he said.

“You speak very sure.”

“I am sure. I’ve seen too many dead men ever to make a mistake. The position of the body, the features—everything told it as plain as day.”

The coroner leaned forward. His eyes gleamed. “And where and how did you happen to see all these dead men, may I ask?”

There was an instant’s second of strain throughout the room. All of us, I think, were siding with Major Dell—from the sheer instinctive distrust of constituted authority that seems to be implanted in our bodies at birth. Dell looked down, and his face was gray.

“In the Argonne,” he said, quietly. The room was deathly still.

Fargo, called immediately after, testified as to his argument with Dell as to the nature of black bass. Dell had left him, he said, to go into the library.

“You were alone in the billiard room when you heard the cry?”

“Yes. But I ran outdoors and joined the others.”

Van Hope testified as to his acquaintance with Major Dell, saying that they had known each other for several months, and that Dell belonged to one of his clubs. He verified Nealman’s story perfectly.

“And what is your occupation, Mr. Pescini?” the coroner asked.

“I am in the publishing business, in New York.”

“You have a long acquaintance with Mr. Nealman?”

“Something over four years.”

“Where were you when you heard David Florey scream?”

“On the veranda.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone. I had been with Mr. Van Hope and Nealman a few moments before. I was rather hot, and I went out on the veranda for a breath of air. I rushed out toward the sound, and Nealman and his party caught up with me.”

He testified that he had taken part in the search, and was utterly baffled as to the solution of the mystery.

Nopp was in the music room, he said, looking for a certain record that he wished his friends to hear. He had been in the billiard room a few seconds before. He had heard the cry but faintly, and had not been especially alarmed. The shouts of the other guests, he said, rather than the scream of the dying man, had caused him to rush out and join in the investigation. He had known Nealman a long time, was an architect by profession, and had been one of those to partake in the hunt through the gardens.

Last of all the white men, he called on me. I told of my relations with Nealman, the work I had been hired to do and, my own reactions to the fearful scream in the darkness. I had been with Marten, Van Hope and Nealman and had sent through the calls to Ochakee.

“You saw or heard nothing beyond that which these other gentlemen have testified?”

“Nothing at all,” I answered.

“You have made no subsequent discoveries?”

Just for a moment I was silent, conjecturing what my answer should be. Was I to tell of the cryptogram I had found beside the body, and its theft during the night?

I couldn’t see how the least good would come of it. Indeed, if last night’s intruder was in the room, listening to my testimony, he would be very glad to know if I had discovered the theft. I had resolved to work out the case in my own way, employing the methods of a naturalist, and these agents of the law were not my allies.

“Nothing has come to my observation,” I told him simply.

If he had pressed the matter he might have got the admission out of me; but fortunately he turned to other subjects.

There was quite a little stir of interest throughout the circle when he began to question Edith. None of us will forget the picture of that golden head, graced by the sunlight slanting through the leaded panes of the window, the flushed, lovely face, the frank eyes and the girlish figure, lost in the big chair. She was in such contrast to the rest of us. Except for the housekeeper, buxom and fifty, she was the only white woman present; and she could have been the daughter of any one of the gray men in the circle.

She had gone to her room about ten, she said, and had read for perhaps an hour. Her room was just over the front hall. About eleven she went to bed, and the coroner’s questions brought out the interesting fact that seemingly she had been the last of the household—unless the murderer himself was to be included thus—to have seen Florey alive. Her bed stood just beside the front window, and just before she had retired she had seen him walking out toward the lagoon.

The whole circle, tired of the dull testimony of the past hour, leaned forward in rapt attention. “He was alone?” the coroner asked.

“Yes. I think I heard the door close behind him—I’m not sure. Then I saw his form in the moonlight on the front lawn.”

“You recognized him at once?”

“Not at once. I thought perhaps it was one of the guests. But in a bright patch of moonlight I saw him plain.”

“Where did he go?”

“He turned down the driveway toward the lagoon. I didn’t see him again.”

At the sound of the piercing scream she got up and put on a dressing-gown, but she did not come down at once. She was afraid, she said—she didn’t know what to do. She had no knowledge as to the activities and the positions of the other members of the household at the time of the crime.

She had come to work as her uncle’s secretary but a few weeks before; and she verified perfectly Nealman’s testimony in regard to the dead servant. If he had had enemies in the household she had not been aware of it, she knew of no chronic malady, and she did not think that he carried any large amount of money on his person. The scream had seemed to her to be one of unfathomable fear.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Gentry, was the last of the white people to be called upon; and her testimony threw no new light upon the problem. She was in bed and asleep, and the shouts of the men without had wakened her.

The coroner called on the negroes in turn, and I was a little amazed at the ease with which he wrung their testimony out of them. He knew these dark people: no northern man could have hoped to have been so successful. Sometimes he shouted at them as if in fury, sometimes he wheedled or jested with them.

Not one of them but could prove an alibi. They were all in their own quarters, they said, at the moment of the tragedy. Because this was the South and they were black, they did not know Florey, a white man, very well. And they had all been frightened nearly out of their wits by the events of the night.

One by one he questioned them, but the inquest ended just as it began—with the affair of Florey’s murder as great a mystery as ever. At the end of the fatiguing afternoon we were face to face with the baffling fact that only four men had proven satisfactory alibis—Lemuel Marten, Van Hope, Nealman and myself—and that any one of the dozen or more men and women in that great, rambling house might have done the deed.

CHAPTER XIII

He took one curious, short breath, then opened the second message, more carefully now. Then he crowded both of them into his outer coat pocket.

At that point his conversation with Van Hope took a curious trend. He still seemed to be trying to talk in his usual casual voice; yet a preoccupation so deep, so engrossing was upon him that his friend’s words must have seemed to reach him from another sphere. It was a brave effort; but his disjointed sentences, his blurred perceptions, told the truth only too plainly.

Nealman had received disastrous news. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were filled with some alien light. What that light was neither Van Hope nor I could tell. It might have been frenzy. Quite likely it was fear.

“Bad news, old man?” Van Hope blurted out at last, impulsively. They were old friends—he was risking the charge of ill-bred curiosity to offer sympathy to the other.

“Not very good, old man. I’ll see you later about it. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go to my room—and answer ’em.”

He turned up the stairs—Van Hope walked out onto the verandas. I waited for Edith, and in a moment we were walking under the magnolias, listening to the twilight boomings of a bittern on the lagoon.

“And what do you think of it?” I asked her.

No human memory could forget her lustrous eyes, solemn and yet lighted by the beauty of her thoughts, as she gazed out over the waters, troubled by the flowing tide.

“I can’t make anything out of it,” she told me at last. “It doesn’t seem to make good sense. Yet there have been hundreds of more baffling mysteries, and they all were cleared up at last. Cleared up intelligently, too, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean—with credible motives and actions behind them.”

“Yes, and human actions. I’m thinking about—you know what. Human agents were the only agents in this crime. In the end it will prove out that way.”

“Then you aren’t at all superstitious about—this.” I indicated that eery, desolate lagoon with its craggy margin, stretching away like a ghost-lake in the gray light. As always the tidal waves were bursting with ferocious, lunging onslaughts on the natural rock wall, and the foam gleamed incredibly white against the dark water.

“Not in the least,” she answered me. “I don’t like the place when the tide’s rolling in—it’s too rough and too fierce—but it’s lovely in the ebb-tide! Did you ever see anything so still as it is then—the water’s edge creeping inward, and such a wonderful blue-green? No, I’m not superstitious about it at all. I’m going swimming, one of these nights, when the tide’s going out. I’d cross it to-night in an emergency.”

“You’re a strong swimmer, then.”

“I can swim well enough—nothing to boast of though. Ned”—for we had got to the first name stage, long since—“this whole matter will be cleared up in a few days more. Such things always do come out right. I wouldn’t be surprised if that poor man’s body should be found any day, dragged into some thicket. The rocks are full of caves—perhaps the drag hooks simply failed to find it.”

“And your uncle—he feels the way you do?”

“Of course. If you are talking about that silly legend—it gives him only the keenest delight as a big story to tell his friends. He has no more superstitious fear about this lagoon than I have.”

“Have you talked to him since the inquest?”

“You know I haven’t.”

“He got two telegrams to-day. They seemed to go mighty hard with him. I was wondering—whether you ought to go to him now.”

A little line came between her straight brows. “I can’t imagine what they could be——” she said.

“The loss of some friend? Financial loss, perhaps——?”

“I don’t know. The latter, if anything. For I do know he’s been buying certain stocks—awfully heavy.”

“Playing the stock market, eh——?”

“I don’t think I should have told you that. But I know you won’t say anything about it. Oh, I do hope he hasn’t had any real misfortune——”

Our talk veered to other subjects, and for a while we stood and watched the twilight descending over the lagoon. The crags were never so mysterious. They seemed to take weird shapes in the half-light, and the water sucked and lapped about their stony feet.

In a little while her hand stole into mine. It rested softly, and neither of us felt the need of words. The twilight deepened into that pale darkness of the early Floridan night.

“How I’d like to help him, if he’s in trouble,” she said at last, almost whispering. “And how I’d like to help you—do all the things you want to do.”

“I’m glad—that you care about it,” I told her, not daring to look down into that sober, wistful face.

“I do care about it,” she declared. She bent, until her lips were close to my ear. “And I believe I see the way.”

CHAPTER XIV

“You do, eh?” He paused, studying my face. “What do you want to do?”

“I want your permission—to go about this house and grounds where and when I want to—and no complications in case I am caught at it. Maybe even go into some of the private rooms and effects of the guests. I want to follow up some ideas that I have in mind.”

“And when do you want to do it?”

“Any time the opportunity offers. I’m not going to do anything indiscreet. I won’t get in your way. But I’m deeply interested in this thing, I’ve had scientific training, and I want to see if I can’t do some good.”

His eyes swept once from my shoes to my head. “From amateur detectives, as a rule—Good Lord deliver us,” he said with quiet good humor. “But Killdare—I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Two heads are better than one—and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Really, the more intelligent help we can get—from people we can co-operate with, of course—the better.”

“I’m free, then, to go ahead?”

“Of course with reasonable limits. But ask my advice before you make any accusations—or do anything rash.”

By previous arrangement Mrs. Gentry, the housekeeper, was waiting for me on the upper floor. There could be no better chance to search the guests’ rooms. All of the men were on the lower floor, smoking their after-dinner cigars and talking in little groups in the lounging-room and the veranda. Of course Nealman was in his room, but even had he been absent, a decent sense of restraint would have kept me from his threshold. And of course Marten and Van Hope had established perfect alibis at the inquest.

We entered Fargo’s room first. It was cluttered with his bags, his guns and rods, but the thing I was seeking did not reveal itself. I looked in the inner pockets of his coat, in the drawers of his desk, even in the waste-paper basket without result. Such personal documents as Fargo had with him were evidently on his person at that moment.

Nopp’s room was next, but I was less than twenty seconds across his threshold. He had been writing a letter, it lay open on his desk, and I needed to glance but once at the script. If my theory was right Nopp could be permanently dropped from the list of suspects of Florey’s murder.

But the next room yielded a clew of seemingly inestimable importance. After the drawers had been opened and searched, and the desk examined with minute care, I searched the inner pocket of a white linen coat that the occupant of the room had worn at the time of his arrival. In it I found a letter, addressed to some New York firm, sealed, stamped, and ready to send.

How familiar was the bold, free hand in which the address was written! Not a little excited, I compared it with the script of the “George” letter I had taken from Florey’s room. As far as my inexperienced eye could tell the handwriting was identical.

The room was that of Lucius Pescini. If I had not been mistaken in the handwriting, I had proven a previous relationship and acquaintance, extending practically over the whole lifetime of both men, between the distinguished, bearded man that came as Nealman’s guest and the gray butler who had died on the lagoon shore the previous night.

I put the letter back in the man’s coat-pocket; then joined Mrs. Gentry in the hall. She went to her own room. I turned down the broad stairs to the hall. And the question before me now was whether to report my discovery to the officials of the law.

I had started down the stairs with the intention of telling them all I knew. By the time I had reached the hall I had begun to have serious doubts as to the wisdom of such a course. After all I had learned nothing conclusive. Handwriting evidence is at best uncertain; even experts have made mistakes in comparing signatures. In this regard it was quite different from finger-prints—those tell-tale stains that never lie. True, the handwriting looked identical to the naked eye, but a microscope might prove it entirely dissimilar. Was I to cast suspicion on a distinguished man on such fragile and uncertain grounds?

Pescini had been in the lounging-room only a few minutes before the crime was committed. It seemed doubtful that he would have had time to cover the distance between the house and the lagoon, strike Florey low, and get back to the place where we met him in the short time of his absence.

Besides, I wanted to work alone. I couldn’t bring myself to share my discoveries with Slatterly and Weldon.

The hall below was deserted and half in darkness. I met Marten and Nopp on the way to their rooms: passing into the library I found Hal Fargo seated under a reading-lamp, deep in “Floridan fauna.” Major Dell was smoking quietly on the veranda, gazing out over the moonlit lawns. Van Hope and Pescini himself were seated at the far end of the lounging-room, evidently in earnest conversation.

I sat down across the room where from time to time I could glance up and observe the bearded face of my suspect. How animated he was, how effective the gestures of his firm, strong hands. Was that the hand I had seen in the flashlight over my table the preceding night? He had rather thin, esthetic lips, half concealed by his mustache. Yet it wasn’t a cruel or degenerate face.

But soon I forgot about Pescini to marvel at the growing, oppressive heat of the night. The chill that usually drops over the West coast in the first hours of darkness, did not manifest itself to-night. It was the kind of heat that brings a flush to the face and a ghastly crawling to the brain, swelling the neck glands until the linen collar chokes like strangling fingers, and heightens the temper clear to the explosion-point. Van Hope and Pescini tore at their collars, seemingly at first unaware as to the source of their discomfort.

In reality the heat wave had overspread us rather swiftly, and what was its source and by what shiftings of the air currents it had been sent to harry us was mostly beyond the wit of man to tell. The temperature must have been close to a hundred in that big, coolly furnished room, and the veranda outside seemed to offer no relief. The dim warmth from the electric lights above, added to the sweltering heat of the air, was wholly perceptible on the heated brain, and seemed to stretch the over-taut nerves to the breaking-point.

“Isn’t this the devil?” Van Hope exclaimed as I came out. “It wasn’t half so hot at sunset. For Heaven’s sake let’s have a drink.”

“Whiskey’d only make us hotter, would it not?”

“The English don’t think so—but they’re full of weird ideas. Have that big coon bring us some lemonade then—iced tea—anything. This is the kind of night that sets men crazy.”

Men who have spent July in India, when the humidity is on the land, could appreciate such heat, but it passed ordinary understanding. It harassed the brain and fevered the blood, and warned us all of lawless demons that lived just under our skins. A man wouldn’t be responsible, to-night. The devil inside of him, recognizing a familiar temperature, escaped his bonds and stood ready to take any advantage of openings.

It was a curious thing that there was no perceptible wind over the lagoon. Perhaps the reason was that we invariably associate wind with coolness, rather than any sort of a hushed movement of the air—and the impulse that brushed up on the veranda to us was as warm as a child’s breath on the face. There was simply no whisper of sound on shore or sea or forest. The curlews were stilled, the wild creatures were likely lying motionless, trying to escape the heat, the little rustlings and murmurings of stirring vegetation was gone from the gardens. But that first silence, remarkable enough, seemed to deepen as we waited.

There is a point, in temperature, that seems the utter limit of cold. Mushers along certain trails in the North had known that point—when there seems simply no heat left in the bitter, crackling, biting air. The temperature, at such times, registers forty—fifty—sixty below. Yet the scientist, in his laboratory, with his liquid hydrogen vaporizing in a vacuum, can show that this temperature is not the beginning of the fearful scale of cold. To-night it was the same way with the silence. There simply seemed no sound left. But as we waited the silence grew and swelled until the brain ceased to believe the senses and the image of reality was gone. It gave you the impression of being fast asleep and in a dream that might easily turn to death.

The mind kept dwelling on death. It was a great deal more plausible than life. The image of life was gone from that bleak manor house by the sea—the sea was dead, the air, all the elements by which men view their lives. The forest, lost in its silence, its most whispered voices stilled, was a dead forest, incomprehensible as living.

I went upstairs soon after. I thought it might be cooler there. Sometimes, if you go a few feet off the ground, you find it cooler—quite in opposition to the fact that hot air rises. There was no appreciable difference, however; but here, at least, I could take off my outer clothes. Then I got into a dressing-gown and slippers and waited, with a breathlessness and impatience not quite healthy and normal, for the late night sea breeze to spring up.

Seemingly it had been delayed. The hour was past eleven, the sweltering heat still remained. There was no way under Heaven to pass the time. One couldn’t read, for the reason that the mental effort of following the lines of type was incomprehensibly fatiguing. I had neither the energy nor the interest to work upon the cryptogram—that baffling column of four-lettered words. Yet the brain was inordinately active. Ungoverned thought swept through it in ordered trains, in sudden, lunging waves, and in swirling eddies. Yet the thoughts were not clean-cut, wholly true—they overlapped with the bizarre and elfin impulses of the fancy, and the fine edge of discrimination between reality and dreams was some way dulled. It wasn’t easy to hold the brain in perfect bondage.

To that fact alone I try to ascribe the curious flood of thoughts that swept me in those midnight hours. Except for the heat, perhaps in a measure for the silence, I wouldn’t have known them at all. I got to thinking about last night’s crime, and I couldn’t get it out of mind. The conceptions I had formed of it, the theories and decisions, seemed less and less convincing as I sat overlooking those shadowed, silent grounds. So much depends on the point of view. Ordinarily, our will gives us strength to believe wholly what we want to believe and nothing else. But the powers of the will were unstable to-night, the whole seat of being was shaken, and my fine theories in regard to Pescini seemed to lack the stuff of truth. I suppose every man present provided some satisfactory theory to fit the facts, for no other reason than that we didn’t want to change our conception of Things as They Are. Such a course was essential to our own self-comfort and security. But my Pescini theory seemed far-fetched. In that silence and that heat, anything could be true at Kastle Krags!

From this point my mind led logically to the most disquieting and fearful thing of all. What was to prevent last night’s crime from recurring?

It isn’t hard to see the basis for such a thought. Some way, in these last, stifling, almost maddening hours, it had become difficult to rely implicitly on our rational interpretation of things. Certain things are credible to the every-day man in the every-day mood—things such as aeronautics and wireless, that to a savage mind would seem a thousand times more incredible than mere witchcraft and magic—and certain things simply can not and will not be believed. Society itself, our laws, our customs, our basic attitude towards life depends on a fine balance of what is credible and what is not, an imperious disbelief in any manifestation out of the common run of things. It is altogether good for society when this can be so. Men can not rise up from savagery until it is so. As long as black magic and witchcraft haunt the souls of men, there is nothing to trust, nothing to hold to or build towards, nothing permanent or infallible on which to rely, and hope can not escape from fear, and there is no promise that to-day’s work will stand till to-morrow. Men are far happier when they may master their own beliefs. There is nothing so destructive to happiness, so favorable to the dominion of Fear, as an indiscriminate credulity. Those African explorers who have seen the curse of fear in the Congo tribes need not be told this fact.

But to-night this fine scorn of the supernatural and the bizarre was some way gone from my being. It wasn’t so easy to reject them now. Those hide-and-seek, half-glimpsed, eerie phantasies that are hidden deep in every man’s subconscious mind were in the ascendancy to-night. They had been implanted in the germ-plasm a thousand thousand generations gone, they were a dim and mystic heritage from the childhood days of the race, the fear and the dreads and horrors of those dark forests of countless thousands of years ago, and they still lie like a shadow over the fear-cursed minds of some of the more savage peoples. Civilization has mostly got away from them, it has strengthened itself steadily against them, building with the high aim of wholly escaping from them, yet no man in this childlike world is wholly unknown to them. The blind, ghastly fear of the darkness, of the unknown, of the whispering voice or the rustling of garments of one who returns from beyond the void is an experience few human beings can deny.