The sheriff and the coroner arrived from Ochakee in a roadster soon
after dawn. All of us felt relieved at their coming: they represented
the best and most intelligent type of southern citizenry. Sheriff
Slatterly was scarcely older than I was, and had been given his office
for meritorious services in the late war. He was a broad-shouldered
large-headed man, with keen, good-natured eyes, a firm mouth, and rather
prominent chin. We scraped up an acquaintance at once on the strength of
our Legion buttons.
"I'm glad theya's a suvice man heah," he confessed to me. "It's sho' a
mess of a case--and my deputy is busy. I've neveh wo'ked among these
millionaih Yankee spo'ts befo', but I suppose they ah all right. Now
tell me what you think of it all."
"I don't think," I confessed. "It doesn't make good sense."
He asked me questions in the vernacular of the South, and I answered
them the best I could. Then he introduced me to the coroner.
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:
My dear Sister:
I got the place here and like it very much. Mr. Nealman is a
fine man to work for. I get on with my work very well. The
house is located on a lagoon, cut off from the open sea by a
natural rock wall--a very lovely place.
But you will be sorry to hear that my old malady, g----, is
troubling me again. I don't think I will ever be rid of it.
It is certainly the Florey burden, going through all our
family. I can't hardly sleep, and don't know that I'll ever
get rid of it, short of death. I'm deeply discouraged, yet I
know----
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.