The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
heard her sigh as she went back to her room.
Miller reverted to the puzzle of Jake’s wrists.
“Have you,” he asked Anderson, “ever seen that coroner at Sandport?”
Anderson started. Miller knew the man’s mind had failed to return to the phase he had described.
“What, Jim! Oh! The coroner. Of course he came here.”
“Stop listening,” Miller said. “It was only Molly before.”
“But it’s already quite dark in here,” Anderson answered. “Soon it will be night. I’m sorry, Jim. What were you saying? You asked something about the coroner.”
“Yes. I didn’t like the fellow’s looks or actions. I asked you if you’d ever seen him.”
“This afternoon,” Anderson replied. “At the wharf in Sandport—a long, slim man. He spoke to me. He said he was the coroner.”
“What else did he say!”
The recollection of the interview appeared to stimulate Anderson. His vague air of a victim facing an irresistible fatality left him. He ceased listening. For the first time since he had entered the clearing, crushed by the news of Jake’s death, his voice was colourful, expressive.
“He’s a fool—a pompous, cowardly fool. He warned me we had to bury Jake before night It was pretty brutal, coming on top of what I’d just heard. I lost my temper—asked him, since he was so particular, why he didn’t run over and see to it himself. Jim, the man turned white. He said there was nothing could haul him back to the island that late in the day—might be dark before he could get across the river again. But he threatened trouble if it wasn’t done. Pompous and a coward—like all these natives, except that unholy fisherman!”
“Pompous and a coward!” Miller repeated thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right. I couldn’t interest him in the wrists, and it made me wonder, but I guess you’re right. He was only afraid and in a hurry to get away. Probably that was all. Anyway, stop trying, Andy, to pin. a physical fact to an unhealthy fancy. The spirits didn’t get Jake.”
Anderson went up stairs, shaking his head. He came down very soon with Molly.
“I can’t thank you for what you did last night,” Anderson said. “Why—why did I have to be away!”
“You couldn’t have done a great deal of good, Andy—except taking care of Molly. There was nothing else any of us could do.”
“Taking care of Jake in that piece of woods!” Anderson whispered. “0h, that was a good deal, Jim—a good deal.”
They went outside. There was no longer any excuse for delay. The limit of time appointed by the coroner was at hand. It would soon be dark.
Molly whispered something to Anderson who shook his head.
“I haven’t the courage,” he said.
She turned to Miller, holding out a pocket prayerbook.
“There’s no clergyman,” she explained simply. “It’s too brutal without something.”
Miller cleared his throat.
“I’m scarcely fit, but if no one else will—”
She sighed. She looked at Morgan. She held the book out to him, tentatively, appealingly.
Morgan stepped forward. He took the book, opened it, and fumbled with the pages until he had found the place.
“If it will make you feel better,” he said in a low voice.
“Oh, thank you,” she whispered.
Morgan walked to the grave over which the gnarled branches of two stunted oak trees drooped. The others gathered near him. The sun was about to set. The coquina house threw a heavy shadow over the little company and across the freshly turned earth and the yawning, expectant pit.
As Morgan commenced to read the sonorous and memorable words the sun disappeared and dusk entered the island greedily.
Miller, who was standing next to Morgan let Ms eyes wander about the gloomy setting for this task which had involved them so unexpectedly. All at once his eyes became stationary. They had shown him something moving on the other side of the clearing, just within the entrance of the path to the shore. It was something white. In this obscure atmosphere it seemed almost immaterial Yet he saw it move almost wholly hidden by the trees.
For the moment Miller’s mind was swept from the service which Morgan was reading slowly, almost inaudibly now, for it came to him that the half-seen thing in white, flitting among the trees was the elfin girl.
The reading stopped abruptly. Miller glanced at Morgan. The hand with the prayerbook had dropped. An expression of pain had driven the passive sorrow from Morgan’s face as he, too, stared across the murky clearing. At last his eyes went back to the book, and he resumed his reading, but his voice was lower than before and it trembled.
Miller gazed at the forest again. He started. The girl was still there, but she appeared to be off the path and moving through the underbrush which he would have sworn was impenetrable. He told himself that some turn of the path or the failing light created this illusion. In order to convince himself he had to recall the morning on the beach when he had felt the soft flesh of her arms yield beneath his grasp. When he looked again she was gone.
CHAPTER X
THE GRIM FISHERMEN
Afterwards they gathered in the living-room of the coquina house for a moment. Morgan, before leaving, urged Molly and Anderson to return to the plantation with him at least for a few days. They were grateful, but they preferred for the present to remain alone where they were.
“We have to get our bearings again,” Anderson explained.
So Morgan left.
“At any rate I’ll stay with you tonight.” Miller suggested.
“It’s better not,” Anderson answered. “Molly and I must fight things out.”
“That’s what Jim said last night,” Molly said. “I thought it would be impossible then. “
“It’s the turning point,” Anderson went on. “If we can’t rise above this thing we’re beaten. I—I think we can fight this better alone, so for a day or two, Jim—There’s no use interfering with your plan of campaign.”
Miller nodded. Anderson followed him to the clearing.
“In a day or two,” he said as he pressed Miller’s hand, “I hope we’ll be normal again—as nearly normal as we can be after this. At least I think you’ll find us livable, and we can talk to some purpose. Good night”
“Hail me if you want me,” Miller said. “I’ll look in for just a minute tomorrow afternoon to make sure you’re all right.”
He hurried to the shore and called for Tony.
It was good to get back to the Bart again and to his lonely meal in her familiar and comfortable cabin. But he found changes on the Dart, too. Tony’s face was paler than ever, and his eyes appeared larger and wider. More than Anderson he had the air of facing an elusive but unavoidable fate. Curiously, this complete surrender of the native to abject fear cheered Miller. He found it possible to laugh.
“Forget the spooks and avoid the snakes, Tony, and you’ll be all right,” he said.
Tony turned away unconvinced. Miller himself, when he had gone to bed and lay listening to the whispers of the tide, recalled those other whispers he had fancied in the forest last night, recalled also the whispered conviction of Jake that death was waiting on the island for