to the outside eye anne had presented no more dolorous and dejected an aspect than any of the others. if she could not eat, neither could they, and if she sat sunk in somber gloom they either did the same or gave expression to their nerve-wracked state by breathless outbursts of speech. no one, not even bassett, noticed that anne’s demeanor was in any way other than what might have been expected.
had they been able to see into her mind the group at gull island would have received its second staggering shock.
she kept as much to herself as she could without rousing curiosity. she had to think and to be alone where she would focus her thoughts, hold them trained on what she knew and what might develop. she wanted to keep her mind on the main issue, inhibit any fruitless speculations, [pg 186]wait and be ready. joe was on the island and with the guarded causeway would stay on the island till after they had gone. her hope, giving her strength to go through the automatic actions of behavior, was, that suspicion not being directed to him, he could lie hidden till they left and then make his get-a-way. she knew that gabriel had gone to white beach for a week’s deep-sea fishing, and gabriel was the one person besides herself who knew that joe had not crossed to the mainland. they surely would be moved away before a week and if, during that time, the belief that he had gone remained unshaken, he was safe.
so far she was confident that no suspicion had touched him. she did not see how it could. they were all satisfied that he had left, her answer to rawson had been accepted in good faith. there would be no investigating of his movements for there would be no reason for doing it. he had passed outside the circle of the tragedy, was eliminated as the actors were who had gone on the earlier boat.
[pg 187]
if they didn’t find him!
where was he? he had entered the living-room by the door that led to the kitchen wing and rear staircase. that would look as if he was in the house. but she knew that no doors were locked on gull island and that he might have come from outside, choosing a passage through the darkened building rather than expose himself to the moonlight. if he was in the house he must be in the vacant top story and she was certain—every sound of heavy footsteps had been noted by her listening ears—that the men had not been there yet. that would argue that they felt no need of hurry. were they taking things in a leisurely way because of their assurance that no one could escape, or were they so convinced they had their quarry that no further search was necessary? what conclusions were they coming to behind the closed doors of the library—had they fixed on some one of the party, the obvious ones, flora or stokes?
she checked these disintegrating surmises, drew [pg 188]her mind back with a fierce tug of will. that would come later. if joe got away she would tell, confess it all, go to jail. it didn’t matter, what happened then. only what was here before her counted now.
when the search of the island started she went up to the side of the gallery that skirted the line of windows. from there she could command the whole seaward sweep of its ten acres. she would be alone here, secure against intrusion; she could drop her mask, let her face show what it might, not watch from beneath her eyelids for the questioning looks she dreaded.
the group of men came into her line of vision, moving across the flat land between the house and the ocean. she sat crouched, watching with set jaw. presently they dropped over the edges of the cliffs, then inarticulate surges of prayer rose in her, blind pleadings; and, her hands clasped against her breast, she rocked back and forth as if in unassuagable pain. but they always reappeared without him, went down again, came up, [pg 189]scrambling through the stony mouths of ravines—always without him. when they returned to the house, she fell back in the chair, her eyes closed, whispering broken words of thanksgiving.
with her breath and her voice under control she went down-stairs. she knew now that he must be in the house.
after lunch she drifted out on the balcony with the others and from there saw bassett and the two officers of the law go down the path to the pine grove. following sybil’s movements on the point—that would take them some time. mrs. cornell said she was going to the kitchen to help miss pinkney (if it wasn’t for that work she thought she’d go crazy), and she advised anne to go up-stairs and lie down.
“you look like the wrath of god, honey,” she said, hooking her hand through anne’s arm and drawing her with her. “you can’t sleep, no one expects that of you. but stretch out on the bed and relax—you get some sort of rest that way.”
anne went with her, mrs. cornell’s step dropping[pg 190] to a crawling pace as they crossed the living-room, her arm drawing anne closer, her hearty voice dwindled to a whisper:
“do you know anything?”
“no, how should i?”
“i listen all i can but they’re as tight as clams when we’re around. i think they’ve got a hungry sort of look as if they were on some trail. haven’t you noticed it?”
anne hadn’t noticed anything.
“well, i have. i sit there slumped together and acting helpless, but i’m not like the foolish virgins—my lamps are lit.”
“do you think they have any one in mind?”
“they have two, dearie, as we all have.” they had reached the door and she opened it warily. “and one moment i’m thinking it’s one and the next moment i’m thinking it’s the other and the third moment i’m thinking it’s neither of them.”
they passed through the doorway and went down the hall, stopping at the foot of the stairs. mrs. cornell offered a last consoling word:
[pg 191]
“you can be thankful for one thing, anne, joe’s not being here.”
“joe?”
“oh, i’m not saying he had anything to do with it. but these cases—you read about them in the papers. every little thing traced up. and she and joe having been at loggerheads they’d be pouncing on that—not telling you anything, sending up your blood pressure with their questions. you’re spared that and it’s worth keeping your mind on. nothing so bad but what it might be worse.”
she went on down the hall. anne, on the stairs, waited till she heard the sound of the opening door and miss pinkney’s welcoming voice, then she stole upward very softly. she did not go to her room as mrs. cornell had advised, but tiptoed to the end of the hall where the staircase led to the top story.
she ascended with delicate carefulness letting her weight come gradually on each step. despite her precautions the boards creaked. the sounds [pg 192]seemed portentously loud in the deep quiet and she stopped for the silence to absorb them, and then, with chary foot, went on. at the top she stood, subduing her deep-drawn breaths, looking, listening.
the middle of the floor was occupied by a spacious central hall furnished as a parlor and lit by a skylight. giving on it were numerous small bedrooms, the doors open. they were like rows of neat little cells, all the same, bed, dresser, rocking-chair, with a white curtained window in the outer wall. the windows were open, the sashes raised half-way, and the fresh sweet air passing through fanned the muslin curtains back and forth in curved transparencies. anne remembered miss pinkney saying something about opening the top-floor windows to air the servants’ quarters before the house was closed for the season.
the stirrings of the curtains, billowing out and drooping, were the only movements in the place. she moved to the middle of the room and sent her voice out in a whisper:
[pg 193]
“joe, joe—are you here? it’s anne.”
her ears were strained for an answering whisper, her eyes swept about for a shape creeping into view, but the silence was unbroken, the emptiness undisturbed. she entered the rooms, peered about, opened cupboards, looked for signs of occupation. again nothing—vacancy, dust in a film on the bureau tops, beds untouched in meticulous smoothness.
one door was closed, near the stair-head. opening this she looked into a store-room, a large, dark interior lit by two small windows. they were dust grimed, and the light came in dimly, showing upturned trunks and boxes, pieces of furniture, lines of clothes hanging on the walls.
“here,” she thought, and with her heart leaping in her throat, crossed the threshold:
“joe, it’s anne. i’ve come to help you.”
nothing stirred in the encumbered space, no stealthy body detached itself from the shadows.
“oh, answer me if you’re there!” her voice rose the shade of a tone. it came back from the [pg 194]raftered roof in smothered supplication; the silence it had severed closed again, deep and secretive.
she feared to stay longer and slipped, wraith-like, down the stairs. in her room she sat down and considered. he must have been there. where else could he be unless in one of the unoccupied apartments in the lower floors. but he hardly would have dared that with people coming and going. he had been afraid, doubted her as he had always done, or possibly found a hiding-place too shut away for her whisper to penetrate. to-night she would have to get food to him, take it up when the men were in the library and the others safe in their rooms.
she could do nothing more and went down-stairs in the hope of seeing bassett. since morning she had longed for a word with him. through the darkling obsession of her fears he loomed as the one loved and familiar being in a world where she fared in solitary dread. not that she had any idea of telling him, the direful secret was hers [pg 195]alone to be confessed later on some awful day of reckoning and retribution. but she wanted to see him, get courage from his presence, feel the solace of his arm about her. she was so lonely with her intolerable burden.
the living-room was empty, but listening at the hall door she heard the murmur of men’s voices in the library. they were in conference again and might be long. she passed out into the garden and sank down on one of the benches. the air had grown chilly and a little wandering breeze was abroad. it moved among the flowers and sent shivers down the great wisteria vine trained up the house wall and ascending to the chimneys. she looked at it, its drooping foliage; stirred by a quivering unrest, showing the fibrous branches intertwined like ropes—an old vine such as city dwellers seldom see. she tried to fix her attention on it, picturing it when the blossoms hung in lilac cascades, a riot of color from ground to roof. but her mind was like the needle in the compass, inevitably swinging back to the same point.
[pg 196]
there were clouds in the sky, hurrying white masses driving inland and carrying the breath of fog. they had blotted out the sun and were sweeping their torn edges over the blue. if they kept on it would be dark to-night—no moon—but there was the man at the causeway.
she sat with drooped head immersed in thought, her hands thrust into the pockets of her sweater. it was thus that bassett found her. life leaped into her face at his voice and she stretched a hand toward him.
“oh, i’ve been hoping to see you,” she breathed, already trained to a low wariness of tone.
the words, the gesture, pierced his heart. she looked so disconsolate, so wan, her face the pallor of ivory, her black hair always shining smooth, pushed back from her brow in roughened strands. he had charged himself to keep from her any knowledge of the interest in joe, but had he been of the loose-tongued sort that unburdened itself, the sight of her devastated beauty would have sealed his lips.
[pg 197]
he sat down beside her and took her hand in his. in her turn she had been shocked by his appearance, worn, his ruddy firm-fleshed face riven with lines.
“i thought i was never going to get a word with you,” he said. “this is the first moment i’ve had. how are you?”
she asserted her well-being, and he studied her face with anxious eyes.
“dear anne,” he murmured, and lifting her hand, pressed it to his lips. the two hands remained together, the woman’s upcurled inside the man’s enveloping grasp.
“that faint feeling last night, i suppose that will bleach you out for a while?”
“oh, i’m all over that. it was a crazy thing for me to do, going down and then knocking the lamp over. they didn’t think anything of it, did they?”
“anything of it? why no, what would they think? you explained it to them and they were satisfied with what you said. and afterward i [pg 198]told williams that he could absolutely trust your word.”
“i gave a great deal of trouble and——” her voice was husky and she cleared her throat. he was worried by the coldness of her hand and sought to warm it by enclosing it more tightly in his. after a moment she went on:
“i suppose you can’t tell me anything—anything of what they’re doing?”
“no. it’s all a mess so far—feeling about in the dark—nothing sure.”
“but they must be feeling about after some one?”
“darling, what’s the good of talking about it? it’s only going round and round the same subject like a squirrel in a cage. we don’t get many minutes together and we don’t want to spoil them. let’s try to forget just while we’re here.”
“forget!” she exclaimed. “nothing would make me do that but being dead myself.”
she leaned her head on his shoulder and drew her hand from his to clasp it round his arm. he said nothing for a moment, perturbed by her [pg 199]words and tone. he had thought of getting her away, having her moved to hayworth. now he felt he must do it at once, the shadow of the tragedy was too dark on her spirit.
“i’ve got to get her out of here if i go to jail for it,” he said to himself. “she can’t stand much more of this.”
she too was silent for a space, stilled by the attack of a sudden temptation. his tenderness had weakened her, the gulf between them seemed too much to bear when the way was so perilous to travel alone. she wanted to be close to him again, break down the barriers and extend her arms to him for succor and support. he would calm the upwellings of terror that rose in her, perhaps have some man’s solution for her desperate problem. the desire to tell him gripped her, undermined her will like a disintegrating drug. she did not dare to broach it suddenly, sense enough remained in her to go carefully, step by step.
“i wonder if any one here does know something and is keeping it back.”
“it may be—too frightened to speak.”
[pg 200]
“well, if they did—i mean something that looks suspicious, might be a help—they’d be expected to tell, wouldn’t they?”
“if it were anything definite. just to take up their time with a lot of vague surmises is the last thing they want. people get stampeded in a case like this, butt in with all sorts of silly leads and theories.” he gave her an uneasy side glance. “are you imagining that you know something you ought to tell?”
“no, oh, no. but i keep thinking of it, all kinds of possibilities.”
“can’t you stop thinking of it? i wish you would.”
“oh, hugh, how can any one? it fills up your mind so that nothing else can get in. it would be so terrible to have to confess something against another person.”
he nodded and murmured, “terrible, all right.”
“i don’t see how one could do it. now, you, if you were in that position—had suspicions of some one?”
[pg 201]
“i don’t tell them, that’s not my province. i’m here to assist, not to direct them.”
“just say what you’re sure of?”
“exactly. what i know, what i can vouch for as fact. i wish to god i could furnish some that would lead us in the right direction.”
she said nothing, her cheek against his shoulder, her head bent down till her face was hidden from him. he looked at the grass at his feet in harassed survey of his obligation:
“i’m the only person here they know anything about, that they care to trust. it’s a devilish position, trying to hide what you think, trying to state only what you know, fairly, without personal feeling or prejudice. but it’s up to me to do it till we round up something. i don’t want to get anybody in wrong, but, good lord, if i knew any one was—didn’t guess, was sure of it—i’d give the information up just as quick as i could get across to that library.”
her hope was over and she saw now how wild it had been. with a heart like stone she sat by him, [pg 202]feeling the contact of his body, his arm pressed against her side, knowing herself as far removed from his comfort and help as though an ocean lay between them.
the light in the garden was fading, an even soft dusk was gathering. there were no splendors of sunset to-night, day was dying without ceremonial rites. the hurrying clouds had thickened and were a sagging gray pall with rays of fog drifting below. suddenly the doorway of the living-room sprang into the dimness, an illumined square, and miss pinkney was visible moving about lighting the lamps.
“no moon to-night,” said bassett, and getting up, drew her to her feet. “come, let’s go in. it’s too chilly for you out here.”
it was not till they had gathered round the supper table that rawson’s absence was revealed. miss pinkney, coming in with the teapot, saw the empty chair and frowned. though subdued, her spirit was not broken, and she could not tamely submit to these minions of the law disregarding the meal hours.
[pg 203]
“is mr. rawson coming to his supper?” she remarked with an acid note.
“mr. rawson’s away on business,” williams answered. “you can keep something for him.”
no more was said and the meal proceeded on its dismal way.
