The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
of those gibbet-like pines lifted itself, dignified, isolated, suggestive.
That first close inspection made Miller feel that it was a place of shadows, offering with confident promise shelter for things that would hide, for things that should be hidden. It carried to him, moreover, a definite menace for the disturber of that to which the island had opened its refuge. To land, to penetrate this jungle, would call for more than physical courage; would, in short, demand a moral resolution, which, without warning; he found himself wondering if he possessed.
Suddenly the line was broken. An opening nearly a hundred yards wide had been torn through the dense mass. A small pier stretched from it to the channel, and from the shore the clearing sloped gently upward to a colonial dwelling. The building was indistinct in this fading light, but Miller knew it for the plantation house where Noyer had lived and ruled before the war.
It was painted white. The main portion was two stories high with a sloping attic roof from the centre of which a square cupola arose. High, slender columns supported the roof of a wide verandah. Wings of one story, curved at the ends, stretched from either side.
That houses absorb and retain a personality is scarcely debatable. The passing of these eighty years—the activities and rumoured cruelties of the earlier ones, the silence and desertion of the later—had given to this house an air of weary sorrow which reached Miller almost palpably. A single light in the left hand wing, yellow, glimmering, like a diseased eye, increased this sensation.
He listened intently, but there were no sounds of life from the shore—utter silence until a bird in the jungle cried out raucously, angrily.
They slipped past. The house was gone. The line appeared to be unbroken again. And the agent had said this was more open, less gruesome than the coquina house where Anderson lived.
Miller went down the ladder. He resumed his stand near Tony, and Tony, Miller thought, sent him a glance of comprehension. He cleared his throat a trifle nervously.
“I suppose we can anchor anywhere about here.”
Tony pointed ahead. The shore of the island curved to the south. Opposite it the sand dunes swept around in an exact parallel. As they swung into the inlet the flank of the island slowly exposed itself, scarcely more, however, than a black patch; for the night was on them, and the southern end of the island and of the inlet was lost in shadows—
Tony coaxed and manoeuvred until he had brought the Dart close to the dunes, as far from the island as possible. When he was satisfied he dropped the wheel, ran forward, and let the anchor go. There was a splash as the chain rattled through the eye. Before the noise had ceased the boat turned, listing heavily as it went. Miller, surprised, looked over the rail. The tide was running like a mill-race—ugly black water, dashing by like a mill-race, as if to get past Captain’s Island and out to the clean, open sea. The boat was quickly .around and straining at her chain, impulsive to follow.
“Get up your riding-light,” Miller said.
Tony came back, shaking his head. Miller understood.
“Run it up just the same.”
Tony shook his head again, but he went below for the light. He returned after a moment and ran the lantern to the mast head. Then he went forward, stooped, and examined the anchor chain. Evidently he would take every precaution against being dragged to that sinister shore opposite.
“You’re careful tonight, Tony.”
The native stiffened. For a moment he listened intently.
“What is it?” Miller asked.
Tony pointed. Miller leaned against the rail, peering and listening too. A soft, regular splashing came to him. Before long he saw a row boat slowly emerge from the shadow of the island.
“That you, Andy?” he called.
No answer came, but the boat drew nearer, at last swung under the stem of the Dart.
“Andy!” Miller called again.
“Take this line, Jim.”
It was Anderson’s voice, but it was none the less unfamiliar—restrained almost to the point of monotony, scarcely audible as though issuing from nearly closed lips.
“light the cabin lamp,” Miller said to Tony.
He bent and took the line. When he had made the row boat fast he held out his hand and helped Anderson to the deck. The hand, he noticed, was hard, dry, a little unsteady.
“Andy!” he said. “Welcome!”
Anderson didn’t reply immediately.
“Speechless from joy?” Miller laughed after a time.
“Not far from it,” Anderson answered. “Thank heavens you’re here. When your wire came last night Molly and I had a real old-fashioned celebration with that demonstrative bottle of wine. You haven’t forgotten the fetiches of the Rue d’Assass?”
“And Molly?” Miller asked. “She isn’t sick?”
“No—all right. Or as right as can be. That wife of mine—Oh, well, you’ll see her, Jim, I hope. You got my letter? We were worried it mightn’t reach you.”
“I tried to wire.”
“Then you know what an uncivilised hole we’re in.”
He stepped back so that the light from the companionway shone upon him. Miller experienced a sense of shock. Instead of the healthy, pleasant face and the satisfied eyes he remembered, he stared at a lean and haggard countenance out of which eyes full of a dull fear looked suspiciously. Clearly Anderson was the victim of some revolutionary trick of life, or else—it was the only alternative—stood on the crumbling edge of nervous breakdown. Miller hesitated to ask the question that would put the meaning of that extraordinary note beyond all doubt.
“Anyway I’m here,” he said. “Your letter would have brought me farther than this. But before we grow too serious inspect my floating palace. It’s the low comedian of all these waterways. Picked it up at Bigadoon Beach when the doctor sentenced me.”
Anderson put his hand on Miller’s arm.
“You must think me a friendly ass, but it confesses my state of mind—that I should forget your illness. You seem yourself again.”
“I am,” Miller answered. ” Never felt better. I wanted one fling with you and Molly before going back to the racket.”
The momentary flash of the remembered Anderson snapped out. His eyes sought the deck.
“If you stay it won’t be the kind of filing you expect.”
Again Miller avoided the issue.
“Which will you see first?” he asked, “The smoke-room, the diningroom, or the saloon? They’re all one. Step this way. Lightly, please. We have no double bottoms.”
As Anderson reached the foot of the ladder his face brightened, but it was with the envy that comes dangerously near offending the tenth commandment.
“What a cheerful time you must have had!” he said. “How Molly would enjoy seeing this!”
The interior of the Dart was, in fact, unexpected after a glance at her graceless and battered hull. Its former owner had possessed taste and an acceptable definition of comfort.
The walls were painted an ivory tint which took its meaning from four soft-toned French prints. The lockers, running the length of either side, were covered with tapestry cushions. A folding mahogany table stood between them. Forward, a door opened into a tiny stateroom, decorated in the same cheerful fashion, and, opposite, beneath the companion ladder, a low sliding panel led to the kitchen and engine-room.
“Yes,” Anderson sighed. “You’ve been comfortable here. You’re lucky, Jim.”
He turned away.
“Lucky and selfish. You ought to share