Читать книгу The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries - Charles Wadsworth Camp - Страница 13

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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 peaceful fishermen over there. Don’t need such things. Now and then on a Sunday night a young preacher drops down from Martinsburg.”

“But this isn’t Sunday,” Miller said.

“If you mean you want one for the ceremony,” the coroner answered brutally, “there ain’t a chance. You’ll have to get along without. Well, so long. I’m glad I’m getting away from this place. Family didn’t want me to come at all, but they don’t understand the law.”

Half way across the clearing he paused and turned, back, calling out. Miller raised his hand in an angry demand for silence, for he knew Molly must hear.

“By sundown, and don’t you forget it!”

His lanky form was swallowed by the underbrush bordering the path to the river end of the island.

“What do you think of him?” Miller asked Morgan.

Morgan shook his head.

“Strange,” he said, “he didn’t care to go into those marks.”

“When I first told him of them,” Miller answered, “he didn’t show the slightest curiosity. You’re right. It was strange.”

The coroner’s mandate added to the difficulty of their situation.

Miller glanced towards the house.

“She’s in there. Why in heaven’s name did Anderson have to be away at this one time?”

He looked up.

“Of course all Sandport knew he had left yesterday.”

“Come,” Morgan said “It won’t do to grow too fanciful, although I must say the coroner impressed me disagreeably enough. Yet we must remember he was afraid to come last night.”

Since there was so little time they agreed on the necessary arrangements. Morgan sent his man to Sandport for the local undertaker. Tony, and the man, when he had come back, dug the grave on the edge of the clearing by the coquina house. There was really little choice—the open spaces on the island were so few. Then remained the difficult task of waiting for Anderson, and—hardest of all—the responsibility for Molly.

At last Miller gathered his courage and entered the house.

“Molly!” he called from the sombre hall.

At first she did not answer and a great fear grasped his throat.

“I say, Molly!” he faltered.

“Yes, Jim,” her voice came from the head of the stairs. “Don’t worry.”

“But up there!” he said. ” Isn’t it dreadfully depressing up there?”

“Not cheerful, Jim, but would any other place be more so to-day? I know what you’ve been doing. I want to stay up here.”

Perhaps it was best to humour her. Worn out by her night of watching, she might find rest.

Miller walked to the verandah. Morgan and he sat there, talking in low tones. Tony and Morgan’s man wandered about the clearing, restless, as if expectant of something unforeseen.

Morgan went home at luncheon time and took his man. Miller had no appetite. Moreover, he felt it his duty to remain where he was. He called Tony to him. During the morning the native had grown momentarily more morose, more nervous. Miller directed him to return to the Dart, get his luncheon, and remain there afterwards until he hailed him.

Morgan was back long before Anderson had put in an appearance. In fact it was late in the afternoon when Anderson walked into the clearing from the direction of Sandport. As soon as he saw him Miller realised they would be spared the pain of announcing the catastrophe.

Anderson knew. His eyes were red. He looked tired. Thoughts of the island and fears that harm might spring there during his absence upon those he loved had clearly held him awake last night.

Miller and Morgan hurried to meet him. They pressed his hand.

“You needn’t bother,” Anderson said in a colourless voice. “I’ve heard everything. It’s all they’re talking about in Sandport. The boy who rowed me across the river couldn’t think of anything else. It’s horrible—and Molly here alone, unless one of you stayed.”

“I was with her.” Miller answered.

“I thought you would be. I was afraid. I shouldn’t have gone. I didn’t want to go. And that one night—the only time I’ve been away—it had to strike.”

He paused. He looked across the water which no longer sparkled.

“Thank God it wasn’t Molly,” he said softly, “or you, or Morgan. You know it might, have been—very easily. “

“Mr. Miller and I are pretty capable of taking care of ourselves, and of Mrs. Anderson, too,” Morgan put in with an attempt at a laugh.

The laugh, however, held no note of conviction, and Miller noticed that Anderson’s words had diminished a little the man’s ordinarily ruddy colour. He did not wonder at this, for he, too, had reacted uncomfortably to the singsong quality of Anderson’s voice, to its unquestioning assurance. Nevertheless he nodded in support of Morgan’s reply. No other answer occurred to him.

Anderson straightened his shoulders.

“I must go to Molly,” he said. “I scarcely dare think what she’s suffered.”

He led the way to the house. When they reached the steps Morgan sat down, but Miller, after a moment’s hesitation, followed Anderson into the hall.

He did not care to force himself at such a moment on his friend, yet he had said nothing comforting, nothing strengthening. His own temporary weakness reminded him how much comfort and strength Anderson needed.

The character of night had already invaded the hall of the coquina house. Miller spoke with an effort.

“Morgan and I have been talking things over,” he said. “We’ve decided we can t afford to let imagination run away with us. We’ve gone over the—the accident pretty thoroughly. There’s really nothing to stimulate imagination there.”

Anderson turned and stared at him questioningly.

“It’s horrible,” Miller went on. “You know how I feel for you and Molly, but there’s nothing out of the way—a simple accident. All those snakes! It might have been expected.”

“Yes,” Anderson said bitterly, “it might have been expected. The worst of it is, it was. I expected it. So did Jake. It’s been in the air. It’s the feeling of the place. In the air, Jim! We’d had our warning.”

“Don’t tell me, Andy, you seriously suspect any connection between the fancies you’ve had here and this accident.”

“I do tell you that,” Anderson said fiercely. “As I’ve said all along, it’s the feeling of the place. And you call them fancies! Prove it. That’s what we’re begging of you, Jim.”

“Certainly I’ll prove it,” Miller said. “The bite of a poisonous snake needs no proof. What can be mysterious in that?”

But, as if in answer to his question, the marks he had noticed on Jake’s wrists came back to his mind.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “some abrasions I thought I detected on Jake’s wrists offer the only mystery to me.”

“What do you mean? What kind of abrasions?” Anderson asked indifferently.

“I can’t describe them very well. When I first noticed them it was nearly dark. They were not pronounced. Then this morning they had practically disappeared.”

Anderson grew rigid.

“Listen!” he said softly.

There was a stealthy movement at the head of the stairs. For an instant Miller questioned if it was one of the manifestations of the coquina house. Then he remembered how long Molly had waited, how impatient she must have grown.

“It’s Molly,” he whispered.

Molly’s voice came to them. Anderson relaxed;

“Thank heavens you’re home. Is that Jim with you?”

“Yes,” Anderson said. “I’m coming up, Molly, right away.”

They 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.