anne packed for a space, then gave it up. she couldn’t go on with it, she wanted to be down-stairs, not lose one minute of the last evening at gull island. her spirits, oppressed by joe’s behavior, began to bubble again, foam up in sparkling effervescence. you couldn’t pack clothes in a trunk when you felt like dancing and the hour was too beautiful for belief and your lover might be waiting for you in the garden. she slipped off her negligée and chose her most becoming dress, leaf-green crêpe that made her look slim as a reed and turned her skin to ivory. she smoothed the black satin of her hair and hung round her neck the chain of green beads she had bought for a dollar but you’d never guess it. and she figured in front of the glass, studying her reflection this way and that, trying to see herself with new eyes [pg 94]and judge if she was a girl a man might be proud of.
while thus engaged she heard the chug-chug of the launch. it must be joe going, and anxious to see the departure of that darkling and uncomfortable spirit she went to the window. it looked out across the slant of roofs that covered the kitchen wing and commanded a side-view of the channel. across the swift-sweeping current the boat came into view, skimming forward like a home-faring bird. anne leaned over the sill, following it with startled eyes—where was joe? there was gabriel in front at the wheel, but in the back—she stretched her neck trying to see to the bottom of the cock-pit, there certainly was no one on the seat.
“oh, could he have missed it?” she groaned and cast up her eyes as if invoking the protection of heaven against such a calamity.
but he couldn’t have, he wanted to go, it was his holiday and he thought gull island was a beastly hole. he must have been where she [pg 95]couldn’t see him. it was difficult to think where this might be—but he might have been bending down to put something in his suit-case. a chair could have hidden him. she remembered what he had said about leaving his baggage at the living-room entrance. if it was still there then he had missed the boat and she ran down-stairs, hoping with a prayerful earnestness that she would not find it. it was not there. “then he is gone,” she said to herself with a satisfied nod and drew a freer breath. the weight lifted, she went across to the garden where she might find bassett, and as she covered the space between the doors the picture of the launch rose on her inner vision with gabriel the only visible occupant.
bassett was not in the garden, but shine was, sauntering into view from the balcony end. he’d been loafing about he said, just come up from the point. he’d been all round it, wonderful down there now and going to be more wonderful, and he pointed to a pale glow on the horizon where the moon was rising. they strolled about on the [pg 96]lanes of turf between the massed colors of parterre and border, the air languishingly sweet with the scent of the closing flowers. then they went in, luxuriously embedding themselves in two vast armchairs. bassett found them here and tried to look genial at the sight of shine. he’d been writing some letters in his own room and he dropped into a third armchair with the sigh of well-earned rest.
they talked about the moon and moonlight effects. shine wanted to take some photographs after supper, get the pines against the sea and the silvered bulk of the point, and he spoke of his flashlight picture which they’d have as a remembrance of gull island. anne said that was a jolly idea, but she didn’t think they’d need a picture to remind them of their stay, and she and bassett exchanged a smile.
it was still on their lips when a sound came from outside, a single sharp detonation. it fell upon the evening’s tranquil hush, sudden and startling, like something alien and unrelated.
[pg 97]
“what was that?” said anne.
“sounds like a shot,” shine thought.
“it couldn’t be!” bassett got up. “nobody has a pistol here and if he had he couldn’t use it—one of the special stipulations driscoll made when he lent us the place.”
he moved to the land entrance and looked out.
“what could it have been?” anne looked questioningly at shine, who, having no other suggestion to offer, shrugged and shook his head.
the door of mrs. cornell’s room opened on the gallery and miss pinkney emerged, mrs. cornell behind her.
“mr. bassett,” she cried, a hand on the railing. “where’s mr. bassett?”
bassett drew out from under the gallery and looked up at her:
“did you hear that?”
“i did and i told you that mr. driscoll never allowed any shooting on the premises.”
“do you think that was a shot?”
“well, what else was it?”
[pg 98]
mrs. cornell, leaning comfortably on the railing, suggested that it might be an auto tire.
this drew a snort from miss pinkney:
“how’d a motor get here—swim or fly?” then to bassett: “mr. driscoll’s very strict about that. he won’t have the wild game or the gulls disturbed and——”
bassett interrupted her:
“that’s all right, miss pinkney. we were given those orders and we’ve obeyed them. and none of us could shoot here if he wanted to—there’s not a pistol in the outfit. don’t you know it’s against the law to carry one?”
“then some one’s taken mine,” she exclaimed, and straightening up with an air of battle, “i’m coming down.”
she left the gallery for the rear stairs, mrs. cornell in her wake.
“what does she mean—hers?” anne asked.
“i don’t know what she means,” bassett looked irritated. “it’s the first i’ve heard of it.”
“i don’t see what there was to shoot at anyhow,”[pg 99] came from shine. “looked to me when i was out there as if all the gulls had gone to bed.”
miss pinkney, entering, focussed their attention.
“what’s this about a pistol of yours?” bassett asked.
she answered as she walked across the room to a desk under the gallery:
“it’s the one mr. driscoll gave me, thinking it might be useful when i was here alone, opening or closing the house. i was to keep it loaded and have it handy, but i’d trust my tongue to get rid of any man and here it’s lain with the poker chips.” she pulled out a side-drawer of the desk. “there!” she exclaimed, turning on them in gloomy triumph, “what did i tell you! it’s gone.”
bassett looked into the drawer:
“you’re sure it was here?”
“didn’t i see it this morning when i put away the counters you were playing with last night?”
“umph!” bassett banged the drawer shut in [pg 100]anger. “i’ll see that this is explained to mr. driscoll. and whoever’s taken it, they’ll get what’s coming to them. a damned fool performance! to get us in wrong just as we were leaving——”
the hall door opened and stokes entered.
“who’s shooting round here?” he said. “i thought it was taboo.”
“that’s just what we want to know. where were you?”
“sitting out on the balcony.”
“see anybody?”
“no. i’ve been looking about. i went down the path to the pine grove and round the house but i didn’t see a soul.”
“why, who could it be?” said anne. “aren’t we all”—she looked over the standing figures—“no, we’re not all here. who’s outside?”
“mrs. stokes is.” shine spoke up. “i saw her walking along the ocean bluffs as i came up from the point.”
“sybil is, too,” mrs. cornell added. “she went [pg 101]out just a few minutes ago. i saw her from my window.”
“it can’t be either of them.” bassett’s vexation had given place to a sudden uneasiness. “i don’t understand. nobody could have come over from the mainland with the tide up. i’ll go out there——”
a sound from outside stopped him. it was a cry in a woman’s voice, close by.
“what’s that?” some one said, and before an answer could come, the cry rose again—a high wailing scream carrying words:
“sybil! sybil! sybil’s dead—sybil’s killed!”
a clamorous mingling of voices rose from the group, combined in a single up-swelling note of horror. the men rushed for the entrance and met flora stokes. she burst in between them, white as the ghost of cæsar, with her opened mouth a dark cavity.
“sybil’s murdered—dead—shot.” each word was projected in a screaming gasp.
bassett shouted at her, “where?”
[pg 102]
and she waved an arm toward the channel.
“there—from the point. she’s gone—she’s dead! she went over into the water. on the top of the cliff. she’s murdered—dead—murdered!”
as if she were dead, too, and of no more consequence, they fled past her—a line of people streaming out into the serene evening that held a hideous catastrophe. only anne stayed, her face as if overlaid by a coating of white paint. she went to flora and seized her by the arm.
“who was it?” she whispered. “who did it?”
the woman looked at her at first as if not knowing who she was. then jerking her arm free, clasped her hands against the sides of her head and went across the room staring upward and crying out:
“i don’t know. i didn’t see—— it’s god’s truth, i don’t know.”
anne ran out after the others.
