The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
alarmed. But he was laughing—a little hysterically, still it was laughter.
“Since I’m the point of the joke,” Miller said, “you ought to let me in it.”
“I was only thinking,” Anderson answered, “that Captain’s Island is a rare place to look for such a comfort as a wife ought to be.”
Miller plunged.
“Andy, I’m waiting to hear about this island of yours, and—and that puzzling Letter. First, something to warm you up—”
He raised his voice.
“Tony?”
Anderson glanced up.
“Tony?”
“My general boatworker.”
“Get him North?”
“No—a native.”
Anderson watched rigidly while Tony thrust his bearded face through the kitchen doorway and took Miller’s orders.
“Now, Andy, sit down and raise the veil.” But Anderson still stared at the sliding door.
“This man of yours—Tony!”
“Don’t be afraid to talk. I’d confide my most particular secrets to him.”
Anderson shook his head.
“I wouldn’t trust these natives too far.”
Anger coloured his face and voice.
“There’s one hanging around the island. Did you see his filthy tub as you came in?”
“No. Good and bad the world over, Andy.”
“Be sure of him. You must be sure,” Anderson insisted with a vibrant earnestness.
“It makes no difference,” Miller said. “The door will be closed. Speak low and he won’t hear you. What kind of a mess are you and Molly in down here? Why didn’t you bring Molly out with you?”
“At this hour! You’ll understand if you stay. It’s not pleasant on the island after dark. I—I hoped you’d get here earlier. Don’t think I’m fanciful, Jim.”
Tony entered and placed the tray on the table. Miller motioned to the cigars. Anderson reached out and drew his hand back absent-mindedly.
When Tony had returned to the kitchen and had closed the sliding door Miller lighted his own cigar.
“Now let’s have it,” he said.
Anderson leaned forward. His attitude was appealing. There was a definite appeal in his eye. It impressed Miller as tragic that such a strong, self-reliant man should assume this pitiful cloak.
CHAPTER III
THE FEAR IN THE COQUINA HOUSE
Anderson found a beginning difficult. When at last he spoke his voice was low and there were uneven pauses between the words.
“I wanted to come right out and explain the situation,” he said. “Then, if you choose, you can pull out of here in the morning. Molly and I talked it over when your letter came. It seemed the only fair thing. But it means telling you in cold blood, and I swore to Molly I couldn’t do that. I said you’d call me a superstitious idiot or suspect me of sun stroke. In either case you’ll have to include Molly in your diagnosis, and you know how sensible she is.”
“Yes, and how sensible you’ve always been,” Miller said. “You don’t mean to say you’ve let this lonely hole get on your nerves?”
“I pray that’s what it is,” Anderson replied eagerly, “—just nerves. That’s why we want to use you—as a sort of test. The truth is we’re under the spell of this place, and things are happening—unnatural things—things that we can’t explain in any believable way.”
Miller tried to smile.
“Sounds as though you were haunted.”
“And that’s what it seems like. I didn’t want to say it myself. It isn’t pleasant to be laughed at even when the laugh is justified.”
For the second time that day Miller promised not to laugh at anything he might be told about Captain’s Island. He was conscious, indeed, of a sharp mental struggle before he had subordinated the impressions he had received himself coming through the Snake and into the inlet.
“I agree not to laugh,” he said, “but you must understand in the beginning that I can’t take any supernatural talk very seriously. I have no manner of belief in such rot.”
“After all, Jim,” Anderson answered, “that’s the way I want you to talk. It’s what we need—somebody with a powerful will like yours and a contempt for the uncanny to straighten us out and bring us back to commonsense.”
“Why the deuce have you stayed on if you’ve been so unhappy?” Miller asked.
“Because we can’t yield to a superstition we’ve never acknowledged. We can’t go back to the world, convinced of such madness. Molly is more determined than I. We’ve sworn for our peace of mind the rest of our lives to stay on until every hope of a natural solution is gone. You’re just about our last hope.”
“This isn’t like you,” Miller said. “Frankly, Andy, it’s folly.”
“Our only excuse for such folly,” Anderson answered warmly, “is that we’re not the only reasonable people to confess it. There’s Morgan who lives in the big house. You must have seen it when you came in. He’s more your own sort—absolutely balanced, with a strong will. You’ll like him, Jim. He’s been our only prop. But little by little I’ve seen his confidence dwindle, and his uncertainty and worry grow. Then there’s Bait, a federal judge in Martinsburg. He brought us down here in the first place.”
“That’s how you found it?”
“Yes. Bait was a friend of Molly’s father. When we were going through Martinsburg on our way to Cuba in January he made us stay over for a few days. He has a fast cruising launch. He knew I was an artist, and he thought I’d enjoy seeing this fascinating combination of jungle, water, and sand. It was a brilliant day, and we came down so fast the island seemed only a step—a charmingly isolated suburb of Martinsburg. Jim, the place seemed to grasp me physically, and to demand, since chance had brought me, that I stay and put on canvas its beauty and the mystery that tantalised even at noon. I felt I had found the inspiration for a new note, for the building of a real reputation. And everything favoured the scheme. The coquina house would do. The fact that we would have neighbours in the plantation house settled Molly. We were enthusiastic and happy about it. Then Bait tried to discourage us. He let us see that even he was subject to this—this folly as you call it.”
Miller whistled.
“A judge, eh! He ought to get enough that’s beyond the ken of man in his own courtroom. What did your judge say?”
“To begin with he told us the amazing history of the island and old Noyer, its original owner.”
“That at least has corroboration,” Miller said after Anderson had repeated the agent’s story.
“But,” Anderson continued, “he couldn’t define any real objections beyond the island’s isolation, its lack of convenient communication, and—of course—we take them so much for granted now—the snakes.”
“I’ve heard they’re the chief tenants,” Miller said. “They might have been a sound objection to your settling here.”
“But we hadn’t seen any that day, and we laughed, thinking the judge was trying to stop up some of his other arguments that wouldn’t hold water. And it’s true.