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.

The summer-house, a small, six-sided building, was covered by a thick

growth of Virginia creeper that swathed its rustic shape. In four of

its walls the vines, matted into a mantle of green, had been cut away

to form windows. Framed in these squares sea and land views were like

pictures brilliantly bright from the shaded interior. The other two

sides held the entrances, one giving on the path that descended to the

pine grove, one to its continuation to the Point. A circular seat ran

round the walls and a table in the same bark-covered wood was the only

movable piece of furniture. This was drawn up against the seat at one

side. Rawson moved it out as the other two ran exploring eyes over the

walls, the door-sills and the floor of wooden planking upon which a few

leaves were scattered.

“Here,” he cried suddenly. “What’s this?” and drew from a crevice where

the legs crossed, some scraps of a coarse gold material.

He held them up against the light of the opening--three short strands

of what might have been the gilt string used to tie Christmas packages.

“What do you know about this?” he said, offering them to Bassett’s

gaze.

Bassett looked, and Williams with craned neck and lifted brows looked

too. They were exactly of a length, broken filaments of thread attached

to the end of each.

“They’ve been torn off something,” Rawson indicated the threads,

“caught in that joint of the table legs and pulled off. Did she have

anything like this on her dress anywhere, a trimming or----”

“Fringe,” Bassett interrupted, “the fringe on her sash.”

“Ah!” Rawson could not hide his exultation. “_Now_ we’ve got something

we can get our teeth into.”

“Yes.” Bassett took the pieces and studied them in the light. “That’s

what it is. She wore a wide sash round her waist with ends that hung

down edged with gold fringe. This is a bit of it.”

“Well,” said Williams, “that’s a starter anyhow. She was in here.”

Rawson sat on the bench and drew the table into its former position:

“It not only proves she was in here, but it proves a good deal more.

This is the way she was, with the table as we found it close in front

of her. The ends of her sash would have been in contact with the table

legs. Now she jumped up quickly--do you get that? If she’d gone slow or

had time to think she’d have felt the pull and unloosed the sash--but

she sprang up, didn’t notice.” He looked from one to the other, his

lean face alight.

“Frightened,” said Bassett.

“So frightened she didn’t feel it, and moved with such force she tore

the fringe off. That scare took her up from the seat and sent her

flying through the doorway for the Point.”

“Hold on now,” said Williams. “If she was as scared as that why didn’t

she go for the house where there were people?”

“Because she was too scared to think. Some one with a pistol was on the

other side of the table.” He rose and went to the entrance facing the

Point. “And the person with the pistol shot at her from here--winged

her as she ran.” He turned to Bassett. “That’s why you saw no one when

you looked out after you first heard the shot. The murderer was in here

lying low.”

“Yes.” Bassett thought back over the moment when he had stood in the

living-room doorway. “That’s the only place he could have been or I’d

have seen him. But they wouldn’t have been any time together--couldn’t

have had a quarrel or a scene. According to Mrs. Cornell it was only

six or seven minutes after she saw Sybil go out that she heard the

shot. That would give them only two or three minutes in here.”

“Time enough to draw a gun and back it up with a few sentences. It

bears out what I’ve thought from the start--not an accidental meeting

but a date, to which the woman came unsuspecting and the other primed

to kill.”

“Then Mrs. Stokes got on to that date,” said Williams, “and broke

in on it. And there’s only one person that date could have been

with--Stokes.”

Bassett’s nerves were raw with strain and anxiety. This reiteration of

a rendezvous with Stokes maddened him:

“But it couldn’t have been. I’ve told you. I knew Miss Saunders well.

I know what she felt about the man, and besides I have the evidence

of my own eyes that she avoided him in every way she could. Make an

appointment to meet him alone! She’d as soon make an appointment with

Satan.”

Neither of the men answered him for a moment. Williams regarded his

sentiment with respect. He had been a friend of the dead girl’s and

it was natural he should stand up for her, whether rightly or wrongly

Williams was not yet sure. Rawson was impressed; he had formed a high

opinion of the director’s candor and truthfulness and his words weighed

with him:

“I go a good deal by what you say, Mr. Bassett, and as to this meeting

of which I’m convinced--whom it was with I don’t know. Williams here

has made up his mind and worked out his case. I don’t agree with

him. I believe Mrs. Stokes is telling the truth. What she says hangs

together all right. I think her explanation of the passage of time when

she was on the shore is entirely plausible. That she may know something

is possible, but I don’t think she’s guilty.”

“Then you must think it’s Stokes,” said Williams with some heat.

“There’s nobody else it could be.”

Rawson considered before he spoke:

“I don’t see Stokes as deliberately murdering the woman he was in love

with. That’s generally an act of impulse, sudden desperation. And

there was no impulse here. Careful premeditation--the stealing of the

revolver, luring her to this summer-house, the threats or rage when she

got here that made her fly. It’s more like the working out of revenge

than the act of blind passion. Stokes doesn’t look to me the kind of

man that would kill so carefully. He’s too soft.”

“Then who is it?” Williams exclaimed. “Somebody killed her.”

Rawson moved toward the doorway:

“That’s about all I’m willing to agree to at present. But I’d like to

see Stokes again. He and his wife may know more than they say--I don’t

deny _that_--but she’s got a better nerve than he has. We’ll get him

into the library and have a whack at him.”