Sinister Island by Charles Wadsworth Camp (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

They entered the plantation house through the kitchen. They saw no one. A lamp turned low burned in the library—that same dim eye that had regarded Miller the night he had sailed into the inlet. They left Molly and the girl there and debated in the hall what disposition to make of their prisoner. Miller suggested the cupola.

“Noyer rigged it up,” he said, “as a corrective for his house servants. We can’t lock him in, but it has wrist and leg irons. I dare say we would be justified.”

It was the best expedient. With the revolver at his back the silent fisherman climbed willingly enough.

Miller set his lantern on the floor of the cupola. He raised one of the irons by its chain. He started. He stooped swiftly. He held the iron close to the light and examined it.

“Andy,” he cried. “Look here!”

The edge of the iron was wet. Miller ran his finger around it. When he held his finger up it was stained red.

“They had her here,” he said,” chained in this place! She must have known what was on foot and refused to share in it. Their only excuse for such barbarity would be to keep her from coming to us. Her wrists are small. You can see. She managed to pull them through and escape. My heavens, Andy 1 The humiliation! If he wasn’t her father he had a father’s place. No wonder she wouldn’t tell us how her wrists were hurt.”

He raised his eyes to the fisherman.

“You silent devil! I’ll find a way to make you speak when I get you in a courtroom.”

Anderson picked up another set of irons.

“We’re justified. Anything is justified,” he said, “only I wish it was Morgan we had.”

The fisherman made no effort at resistance. He stood stoically while they placed the irons around his wrists and ankles, and screwed the bolts tight.

“They fit him well enough,” Miller said. “No chance of his slipping out of them.”

He brought his face close to the fisherman’s. He stared into the unwinking eyes.

“Do you realise you’re likely to swing for this business?”

But the mask-like face did not alter. The huge shoulders did not tremble.

“It’s no use,” Miller said; “he won’t talk.”

Anderson started down the ladder, but Miller’s eyes were attracted to the floor. After a moment he called Anderson back.

“What do you suppose this powder is, Andy?”

He pointed to a few yellow grains directly beneath the trap in the roof of the cupola. The chain which held the fisherman to the wall clanked. Miller looked up. The man’s face had at last altered. Its quality of a mask had been destroyed by a positive emotion, and that emotion was fear.

“It means something,” Miller cried triumphantly. “By Jove! I believe I can guess what.”

While Anderson and Tony pressed close, and the fisherman, his face blank again, looked on, Miller bent down and scraped the grains into a little heap.

“Looks like sand,” Anderson said.

“I’ve seen such sand before,” Miller answered,” on the Fourth of July for instance.”

He took his match box, struck a match, and touched it to the powder. The yellow grains hissed. They sprang into a brilliant blue flame. The flame died, leaving a tiny mass of carbon on the floor.

“The blue light!” Anderson cried.

“Andy, Tony, lift me up here.”

They raised him to the trap in the roof. He pushed it back and put his head and shoulders through. After a moment he lowered a long, rusty iron rod to whose end was fastened an old-fashioned brazier protected by wire netting.

“Look at this relic,” Miller said when he was on the floor again; “something from Noyer’s days.”

He held the brazier so he could glance in its top.

“From the amount of carbon here it was kept well filled tonight. It was a signal, Andy. For what? For those wild oystermen—”

He nodded at the fisherman.

“Probably friends and accomplices of his.”

He grew thoughtful.

“The girl knows, but I hate to put her on the stand now.”

“I think she knows everything,” Anderson replied.

“I’m not so sure of that,” Miller said. “But she knows why this light was burned. Anyhow we’ve done all we can here. Go on down. We haven’t been through the servants’ rooms yet. There’s Morgan’s man and his cook. If they’re still here we may get something out of them.”

They found, however, only the woman. Evidently terrified by the fire, she had buried her head beneath the covers and lay there, shivering and—when they shook her and questioned her—almost incoherent.

Miller, disappointed, stared from the window. The entire sky in the southwest appeared to be in flames. But he fancied the fire would burn itself out in the marshes, that the coquina house would be spared. He hoped for that. In the light of what they already knew they might find something there of value. He was almost afraid now that the fire would destroy too much. He turned back to the woman impatiently.

“At least you ought to be able to tell us where the man is—Morgan’s man.”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“He has the next room. Didn’t you hear him go out?”

“Yes—about eleven o’clock, but I don’t know where.”

“Look here,” Miller said; “is he anything to you? Are you—”

“He’s my husband,” she answered.

“And he didn’t tell you where he was going?”

“No. I’m afraid. I’m—Why do you ask me? I’m the one that wants to know.”

“Nothing to be had here,” Miller said. “We’d better scatter. I told Morgan I’d search every rat-hole in the place and he let me see plainly enough he didn’t like the idea. It’s worth a chance. We may turn up something. We’ll meet in the library.”

When Miller entered the library empty-handed an hour later, he found Anderson and Tony already there. They, too, had been unsuccessful.

“We thought we’d wait until you came before beginning on this room,” Anderson said.

Miller glanced around. The girl lay on the sofa, her face to the wall. She had not looked up at his entrance. Molly sat near her in an easy chair.

“Is she asleep?” Miller asked Molly in a whisper.

Molly shook her head.

Miller approached the sofa. He hesitated before the apparently lifeless figure. After a moment he turned to the others.

“Let’s see what’s in this room first,” he said, “then—”

He broke off, staring at the high bookshelves, piled with musty black-bound volumes.

“These old books!” he cried. ” These dry, valueless reports, as Morgan called them! This room was where Morgan spent most of his time. We can only try,”

He walked to the shelves and commenced pulling down the boobs, handing them to Tony and Anderson who placed them on the floor. There was nothing behind them but smooth, unpapered walls and an accumulation of dust.

Facing failure here, too, he hurried his task. He picked up several volumes at once and carelessly passed them to the others. His carelessness grew with his disappointment. A book fell to the floor from a pile he was handing to Anderson. He heard something click on the boards. He glanced down. The light of the lamp was caught there and flashed up into his eyes.

Miller stooped quickly. Anderson and Tony were already on their knees before the open book. Molly leaned forward with an exclamation.

The book was very thick. A hole had been scooped in its pages in such a manner that it would leave no trace when the book was closed. Curled in this nest lay a string of perfectly matched diamonds.

Anderson picked it up. As it uncurled, its myriad facets caught the light and sparkled. It seemed almost conscious of this superb exposition of its value.

“It’s worth thousands,” Anderson gasped. “I wouldn’t dare say how much.”

But Miller was not gazing with the others at the necklace. His eyes were drawn by the girl who had started uneasily and had buried her head deeper in her arms. He turned slowly back to the others.

“It’s worth your peace of mind,” he said. “It’s the whole answer.”