The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
do you think?”
The rasping quality had left the coroner’s voice. It reached Miller, low and a trifle choked.
“I don’t think until I see.”
His back beneath the rusty frock coat shook a little.
“Can’t understand why anybody wants to hang out in this hole anyway.”
“If you had come last night as we wanted you to—” Miller began.
The other glanced over his shoulder.
“Why didn’t you?” Miller asked bluntly.
“When I have to come to a place like this after sundown,” the coroner answered, “my job’ll be open to somebody else. How much farther is it?”
“Just ahead,” Miller answered. “You can see Mr. Morgan now.”
Morgan, at the sound of their voices, walked down the path. Miller saw at once that the officer made an unfavourable impression on him, too.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Morgan said coldly. “If you had come last night you would have spared Mrs. Anderson and Mr. Miller a very serious inconvenience.”
Miller motioned Morgan warningly, but the coroner faced him with a touch of anger. The presence of a third person appeared, in a measure, to have restored his self-assertion.
“I’ve just been telling him,” he said roughly, “that no law can haul me to this island after sundown.”
Morgan’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s the matter with this island?” he asked quietly.
“You live on it. Beckon you ought to know better’n me. Go ahead. Who’s delaying the procession now?”
Miller shrugged his shoulders. Morgan clearly understood his opinion. Without answering the coroner’s impertinence, which had really seemed studied, he turned and led the way up the path to Jake.
The coroner looked about him uneasily. Then he hurried through the formalities, authorising the removal. He arose. His sharp expulsion of breath approximated a sigh. Unconsciously he inserted a comedy touch in the desolate scene by whisking the dust from his frayed and stained trousers.
“That’s all we want here,” he said.
Miller could not comprehend. He had watched the man. He examined his face carefully now. It disclosed only a pallid uncertainty, perhaps not surprising in the circumstances. Yet he had rushed through the formalities with a haste almost indecorous. Not once had he referred to Miller’s definite statement about Jake’s wrists.
His eyes wavered before Miller’s glance.
“Come on. I want to get out of here,” he said.
Miller stepped closer.
“One minute. You’ve forgotten something.”
The man turned disagreeable.
“Not that I know of,” he snarled.
“Yes,” Miller insisted. “I spoke to you about the marks on Jake’s wrists.”
“Well? I heard you.”
Miller was at a loss.
“I say I heard you,” the coroner repeated. “Now let’s move out of here.”
Miller’s impatience momentarily overcame the caution he had impressed upon himself.
“But you haven’t said anything,” he cried. “A matter as important as that! It might lead to something.”
The colour rushed back to the coroner’s cheeks. His voice stormed.
“Who do you think you are?”
Miller faced him squarely.
“It is my duty to insist on an examination of the wrists.”
“Who says they haven’t been examined?” the coroner rasped. “Do I have to account to you for everything I do?”
Morgan laid a restraining hand on Miller’s arm.
“That’s what I wanted to know,” Miller answered; “simply whether you had examined the wrists and were satisfied.”
The coroner looked at him curiously.
“See here, young man, are you trying to make a fool of me?”
“One doesn’t feel the impulse to humour at a time like this,” Miller answered testily. “If I can’t get you to take the marks seriously there’s no more to be said.”
“I didn’t see any marks that amounted to anything,” the coroner muttered.
Miller examined the wrists again. The abrasions had, in fact, practically disappeared over night. Still he was not satisfied. He turned back to the coroner.
“There are a lot of uncivilised oystermen working the banks to the north of the island,” he said. “You know it—or ought to—better than I.”
“Who are you,” the other burst out, “to say who’s civilised and ain’t? What’s more, if you think you’re fitter to run my job than I am, just say so and that’s all the good it’ll do you.”
“Hold on,” Morgan put in quietly. “If Mr. Miller is suspicious of any point he is perfectly within his rights to insist upon its thorough investigation.”
Miller nodded.
“And do you know, Mr. Coroner,” he asked, “anything about the fisherman anchored in the inlet? You must have seen his boat from the shore as we came here.”
“Yes, I saw his boat.”
“You may not understand,” Morgan said. “That fisherman is a very unsatisfactory figure. He has puzzled us a good deal.”
The coroner’s wrath overflowed its bounds, none too strong. Miller decided, at the best.
“If you want trouble and investigations I can give you plenty of both. I can make it so damned uncomfortable that you’ll never get your spunk up again to interfering with an officer of the law that’s doing his duty as he sees it Uncivilised! And a poor fisherman can’t anchor his boat near your rotten island without getting sneered at by you two. And what’s it all about?—some marks on the wrists you thought you seen. What if you did? He probably got them thrashing about in the palmetto. That man died of snake bite. Do you want this permit, or shall I tear it up? I ought to do it.”
Miller reached out his hand and took the permit. He had been beaten. There was nothing more he could do with the coroner. Yet the man’s explanation of the cause of those marks fell far short of satisfying him. In fact, as he walked down the path, he gazed at the rusty shoulders with a growing uneasiness. He wondered if the coroner hadn’t brought into the mystery one more disturbing element.
CHAPTER IX
THE GRAVE IN THE SHADOWS
When they reached the clearing in front of the coquina house, the coroner, who had accomplished the journey in silence, promulgated his last order. Miller guessed it was that which had so affected Molly.
“I forgot to tell you,” the coroner said, “the law’s clear. The burial must take place by sundown.”
“To-day!” Miller cried.
“What day do you think?”
“Wait a minute,” Miller said. “I don’t believe there’s any clergyman in Sandport. Is there?”
The coroner snickered.
“We’re mostly