The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
“Has he a wife?” Miller asked.
“A daughter,” Anderson said slowly.
“Any company for Molly?”
Anderson turned away. He seemed reluctant to reply.
“No,” he said finally, “not even for her father. Jim, I wish you’d try to judge that girl for yourself—if you can, if you see her. You can’t tell about her. She’s queer, elusive, unnatural. She troubles Morgan. Of course it’s a subject we can’t discuss very well.”
“Off her head?”
“Judge her for yourself, Jim, if you can. Frankly she’s beyond me.”
“Another puzzle! And that’s the entire population!”
“Morgan’s two brothers from the North have visited him once or twice. They made it almost jolly. But they didn’t stay long. Don’t blame them.”
“And that’s all!”
“On the island proper. There’s that native of whom I spoke. One shrinks from him instinctively. He’s been hanging around ever since we’ve been here, living in a flat-bottomed oyster boat, anchored near the shore. At night I’ve thought I’ve seen him crawling silently around the inlet in his filthy old tub.”
“At least he doesn’t seem superstitious.” Miller put in drily.
“Rather a figure to foster superstition. He seems to symbolise the whole thing.”
“That’s a curious fancy. What has he to say for himself? You’ve been aboard his boat of course.”
“Scarcely. Morgan tried that once out of bravado. He found no one there—no sign of life. I’ve attempted time after time to get a word with the man. I’ve hailed him from the shore. But he pays no attention—either isn’t to be seen at all, or else stands on his deck, gaunt and lean and hairy, etched against the sunset. You look at him until you hate him, until you fear him.”
“I can try my own hand there,” Miller said. “Then that’s the total of your neighbours?”
“There’s a colony of oystermen working the marsh banks to the north of the island. They live in thickets. They have the appearance of savages. Bait said there’s a queer secret organisation among them.”
Miller smoked in silence for some moments, while Anderson watched him with an air of suspense. Miller lowered his cigar and leaned forward.
“This girl, Andy?”
“It’s hard to say anything more definite about her, and, if you stay, I’d rather you followed my wishes there. Judge her for yourself, Jim. And—and are you going to stay and help us back to mental health?”
“What do you think?” Miller asked a little impatiently. “You mustn’t grow too fanciful.”
“If’s asking a great deal,” Anderson said, “because, sane and strong-willed as you are, Jim, it isn’t impossible you should feel the taint yourself.”
“I’m not afraid of that,” Miller laughed. “I’ll stay, but not in your house at first. I’ll live on the boat here in the inlet where I can keep my eye on that fisherman of yours and get a broad view of the whole island and its mystery. I’ll hold myself a little aloof. You see it would be perfectly natural for you to row out and call on a stranger anchoring here and invading your loneliness; natural for you to bring Molly, say tomorrow; natural for me to return your call, and eventually to visit you at the coquina house over night and experience its dreadful thrills. That’s the way we’ll let it stand, if you please, for the present. I’m a total stranger.”
“Do as you think best,” Anderson agreed gratefully.
“Then that’s settled,” Miller said. “Now how about dinner? You’ll stay?”
Anderson arose.
“No, Molly and Jake are waiting. I know they’re worried, Jim. They won’t have any peace until I’m safely back. These woods—we don’t like them even by day.”
Miller smiled.
“I’ll do my best to purify them of everything but snakes. I can’t promise about the snakes.”
As he led the way up the ladder he heard Tony open the sliding door. Glancing back, he saw the native, fear in his face, waiting to follow.
“There is something here that gets the natives,” he whispered to Anderson. “Go home now and sleep, and tell Molly to sleep. We’ll straighten things out in no time.”
“You’ll do it, if it can be done,” Anderson said. “If it can be done—”
He grasped the painter and drew his boat forward against the resisting tide. Miller held the line while Anderson stepped in.
Anderson clearly shrank from the short journey back to the coquina house. A sense of discomfort swept Miller. He felt the necessity of strengthening his friend with something reassuring, with something even more definite than reassurance.
“And, Andy,” he said, leaning over the rail. “if anything comes up—if you need me at any moment, send Jake, or, if there isn’t a chance for that, call from the shore or fire a gun three times. I should hear you.”
“Thanks, Jim. I’ll remember,” Anderson answered.
He pushed his boat from the side of the Dart. The tide caught it and drew it into the black shadows even before he had seated himself and arranged the oars.
Miller remained leaning over the rail, straining his eyes to find the vanished boat. After a moment he tried to penetrate the darkness for a light, for some sign of that other boat, the boat of the fisherman. He could make out nothing. Yet it must lie somewhere over there, harbouring that grim, provocative figure to which Anderson attached such unnatural importance.
As he leaned there he felt troubled, uncertain. It had been a shock to see a man so, exceptionally sane as Anderson suddenly deprived of his healthy outlook on life and death, and struggling in this desperate fashion to regain it.
He told himself he had no slightest fear of the island or its lonely mysteries. That might after all be a satisfactory explanation:—the loneliness, the climate, the clinging mass of native superstition, the brooding over the servants’ fancies, the consequent growth of sleeplessness, and, finally, when nerves were raw, this first reminder of the snakes. It was enough to work on the strongest minds.
Miller smiled at Anderson’s fear that he might become a victim too. Yet the impression of unhealth the place had carried to him and which he had fought down before Anderson, had returned. He leaned there wondering.
He swung around at a sharp noise. Tony was at the anchor chain again.
“Afraid we’ll drag?”
The native pointed to the sky.
Only a few stars gleamed momentarily as heavy clouds scudded southward. For the first time Miller felt the stinging quality of the wind.
“It’ll blow hard,” he said. “What a night! I’m going below. I’ll be hungry by the time you have dinner ready.”
He went down the companionway. The other followed him so closely he could feel his warm breath on the back of his neck.
Tony went in the kitchen and started to get dinner. Miller stretched himself on a locker. He arranged the cushions luxuriously behind his head. He took from the shelf a book which he had found fascinating only last night. He lighted his pipe. He tried to fancy himself supremely comfortable and cosy.
Tony came in after a few moments and commenced to set the table. Miller blew great clouds of smoke ceilingward.
“Not so bad down here, Tony!” he said. “Confess, it couldn’t look a bit different if we were tied up at the dock in Martinsburg. Well?”
He