xii
bassett was detailed to find stokes and bring him to the library. a summons from the director would have an air of informality which might put stokes off his guard. rawson did not communicate this to his messenger, but told williams when they were alone. he had been watching stokes and thought the man showed signs of strain. that morning at the beach stokes’ manner and appearance had suggested a nerve tension which might rise from anxiety about his wife, but might also be the result of some knowledge he was struggling to withhold.
bassett found flora and shine on the balcony and heard that stokes had gone to his room to try to get some sleep. he knocked on the door and to a gruff “come in” entered to find stokes lying on the bed. he rose quickly, exhibiting the [pg 173]same alacrity his wife had shown earlier in the day.
“of course,” he said. “i’m ready to come whenever they want me. in fact i’ve been lying here expecting it, going back over last evening, trying to think of anything i may have overlooked that might help them.”
there was a willing bruskness in his manner, an almost hearty readiness to do what was asked of him that seemed not quite genuine, adopted, perhaps, to hide the natural nervousness of a person in his position. seated in an easy chair before the two men, bassett back of them by the window noticed that his hands were restless, smoothing and pulling at his clothes, settling his tie. despite his disquiet he assumed an attitude of expectant attention, gravely awaiting their will, his eyes glancing from one face to the other. he might readily have been a guilty man primed for attack, or an innocent one shaken by the untoward circumstances in which he found himself.
rawson’s manner was friendly and reassuring. [pg 174]they wanted to get all possible information on the movements of the company the evening before. last night the examinations had been cursory and fuller ones were necessary. they would like to know just what he had done from the time he entered the house to change his clothes to the time when he had heard the shot.
he answered promptly with businesslike directness. went to his room, changed his clothes, laid on the bed resting for a while, then sat on the balcony reading the paper.
while he was sitting there miss saunders must have passed the end of the balcony by the path that led to the point.
she must have, but he had not seen her, being occupied with his paper.
had he while in the house seen miss saunders or heard her voice?
he had not. he had no idea she had come in.
had he seen his wife?
“my wife? yes, i saw her for a moment. in the hall when i came out of our room after dressing.”
[pg 175]
“did she tell you she was going to take a walk round the island?”
“well, i hardly remember.” he tilted his head sidewise with an air of careful consideration. “yes, i believe she did say something about it—it’s very vague in my mind. it made no impression on me. we exchanged a few words and parted.”
“she said nothing to you about miss saunders being in the house?”
“why no, she didn’t know it. we didn’t mention miss saunders at all.”
“but she was—she had been—a frequent subject of conversation between you?”
his eyes, looking at rawson, seemed to harden and grow more fixed:
“we had talked of her—naturally being in the same company.”
“your wife and miss saunders were not very friendly?”
a fierce light rose in the fixed eyes, the nostrils widened.
[pg 176]
“what are you getting at, mr. rawson?”
“our business, mr. stokes. we’re here to investigate a murder and we can’t spare people’s feelings or shut our eyes to disagreeable facts.”
“have i shown any signs of expecting that? i’ve put myself at your disposal, my wife has. we’re ready to give you any help we can, but i’m not ready to back up any damned suspicions that have been put into your mind.”
“we’re not asking you to,” said rawson. “but we know what was going on here before the shooting.”
bassett spoke up:
“i’m the person that told them, aleck. it had to be done. they had to be acquainted with the whole situation, and they got it from me. but they heard no lies, no suppositions—you know you can trust me for that.”
stokes’ glance shifted to him. through its savage defiance bassett could detect the torment of his soul, despairingly betrayed to the one person he knew would be just.
[pg 177]
“oh, i’m not blaming you,” he answered: “you couldn’t do anything else. and they can hear it all from me.” he looked at the two men. “i don’t want to keep anything back. you don’t have to use any of your third-degree methods with me. i’m willing to tell. i was in love with her, madly, like a fool, hounded her, dogged her footsteps. you’ve heard that. and my wife was jealous—so jealous they all could see. you’ve heard that too.”
the confession of his passion, remorseless in its bitter revelation, was horrible, like the tearing aside of wrappings from a raw wound.
“yes, we’ve heard it,” muttered williams.
“she hated me. i don’t know whether you’ve heard that too, but i’m telling you and perhaps you’ll believe what i say if it’s against myself. she hated me, and i wouldn’t let her alone. my wife was jealous. do you see—is it clear? oh, we’re in damned bad, my wife and i, but we’re not in so bad as you’re trying to make out.” he jumped to his feet, the shine of sweat on his forehead.
[pg 178]
“i don’t see, mr. stokes,” said rawson quietly, “where you get that. we haven’t made out anything yet.”
“oh, i can see. we were the only people outside the house—that’s enough to build a theory on. and motives—who had a motive? that’s the way you go to work. find a motive, fit some one to it. my wife had a motive, that’s sufficient. don’t ask what kind of woman she is, don’t look any further, you have to get some one and she’s the easiest. christ!” he cried, throwing out his arms with a dramatic gesture, “it would make the gods laugh!”
“mr. stokes, if you’d take this calmly——”
“calmly! seeing what you think and where you’re trying to land us! but just let me ask you something.” he thrust his head forward, the chin advanced, the eyebrows in arched semicircles rising almost to his hair. “do you happen to remember there were five hundred people on the island that afternoon? any kind of person could have been here on any kind of errand.”
[pg 179]
rawson answered with a slight show of impatience:
“just leave our business to us, mr. stokes. you’re here to answer questions.”
“oh, that’s plain—questions all pointing one way. but there were other people on the island besides that crowd—besides us—who might have had a motive. isn’t anger a motive?”
he projected the sentence with a malevolent force, the words enunciated with an actor’s incisive diction.
“anger!” ejaculated williams. “where does that come in?”
“here, on gull island. oh, we’ve had more than jealousy. rage and spite will go as far. take your eyes off my wife and me for a moment—look somewhere else.”
rawson’s face showed no surprise, blankly inscrutable, but williams wheeled in his chair and turned an expression of startled inquiry on bassett. bassett, in his turn, was staring in astonishment at stokes.
[pg 180]
“what are you talking about?” he said. “rage and spite—whom do you mean?”
“i mean joe tracy,” was the answer.
“joe tracy!” exclaimed williams, looking vaguely about in a baffled searching of memory. “who’s he?”
“good god, aleck!” bassett made a step forward: “get a hold on yourself—think of what you’re saying. he wasn’t here, he’d left the island before that.”
stokes paid no attention but went on, glaring into rawson’s expressionless face:
“a damned devil of a boy with a record. ask him,” he pointed to bassett, “ask any of them what kind he was and how he acted here. it isn’t i alone that saw it. yesterday morning at the rehearsal he’d have struck her if bassett hadn’t interfered. what was the matter—i don’t know. i don’t pretend to know everything, but i know rage and hate when i see them.”
“aleck, you’re crazy,” bassett’s voice was raised in exasperated insistence: “he’d gone.”
[pg 181]
“couldn’t he come back? aren’t there boats to be hired at hayworth?” he turned to rawson. “i don’t accuse him, i’m not like you, i don’t jump at conclusions, point and say ‘there’s the murderer!’ but i want a square deal and i won’t get it till you’ve looked up joe tracy. call your dogs back from the scent they’re on and put them on his. justice—that’s all i ask for—justice for my wife. for myself——” he stopped. his excitement seemed suddenly to die. he looked old and wearied, his body relaxed, the fire in his sunken eyes extinguished in a profound gloom. “it doesn’t matter what happens to me. i’ve thrown everything away—and sybil’s dead.”
there was a slight pause. rawson broke it, clearing his throat and rising from his chair:
“that’s enough for the time being, mr. stokes. you can go now, if we want you we’ll call on you later!”
without a word stokes turned and left the room. when the door had closed on him bassett said:
[pg 182]
“he’s out of his mind—joe tracy—when he knows he wasn’t here.”
williams gave a bearish shrug:
“oh, pshaw, what’s the matter with him’s easy to size up. breaking down, losing his nerve. whether he knows his wife did it or not he sees everything points there and he’s just laying hold of anything to mark time. they go like that—i’ve seen ’em before.”
rawson, who had been standing with his hands deep in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the floor, moved to the chair:
“let’s hear about this boy, mr. bassett—all this anger and hate business he’s been buzzing round.”
he sat down and lit a cigar. through the smoke he watched bassett with a narrowed glance as the director unfolded the story of joe, the quarrel and sybil’s accusation.
when it was over rawson knocked the ash from his cigar, meditatively looking at the crumbling gray heap:
[pg 183]
“are you under the impression, mr. bassett, that her story was true—that the boy had been spying on her?”
“i don’t know. of course she was in a high-keyed emotional state that might engender unjust suspicions. on the other hand you couldn’t trust his word, and there was big money offered.”
“and when you returned to new york you would have found it out.”
“yes, i told him that.”
“and he would have realized that it would go hard with him, where you were concerned, and with the rest of the profession?”
“yes, he’d know. she was very popular and there was a general sympathy for her. any one acting against her interests would have met with a pretty cold reception.”
williams stretched and rose from his chair:
“well, it’s all right to gather up everything, but it doesn’t get us any further. if the boy’d been here, seeing what he was and how he felt, there might be something in it. but as he got out [pg 184]before the shooting it leaves us just where we were before. what do you think about going up and looking over that top story—routine business we ought to get through.”
“not now,” rawson moved to the door. “i’m going across to the mainland.”
“mainland—what’s that for?”
“look up some things—that boy’s movements for one. i’ll take patrick and the launch and send him right back. the causeway’s covered so we don’t need him there. if mr. driscoll ever wanted to sell this place i’d recommend it for a penitentiary, save the state some money, only want guards twice in twenty-four hours. come down to the dock with me, mr. bassett, and tell me which way tracy was going.”
bassett went with him feeling for the first time that he could give information with the tranquillizing assurance it would react on nobody. when he left rawson at the dock he went to look for anne.
