Kastle Krags Part 13

"Then you aren't at all superst.i.tious 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 superst.i.tious 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 superst.i.tious 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

Nealman did not come down to dinner. He sent his apologies to the guests, pleading a headache, and through some mayhap of circ.u.mstance the coroner took his place at the head of the great, red-mahogany table.

There was a grim symbolism in the thing. No one mentioned it, not one of those aristocratic sportsmen were calloused enough to jest about it, but we all felt it in the secret places of our souls.

The session at Kastle Krags was no longer one of revelry. I could fancy the wit, the repartee, the gaiety and laughter that had reigned over the board the evening previous; but Nealman's guests were a sober group to-night. At the unspoken dictates of good taste no man talked of last night's tragedy. Rather the men talked quietly to one another or else sat in silence. A burly negro, rigged out in a dinner coat of ancient vintage, helped with the serving in Florey's place.

After dinner I halted the sheriff in the hall, and we had a single moment of conversation. "Slatterly," I said, "I want you to give me some authority."

"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 doc.u.ments 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 sh.o.r.e 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: pa.s.sing 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?"