Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery

by Absalom Martin

  CHAPTER III

  It didn't take long to pack my few belongings. At nine o'clock thefollowing morning I broke camp and walked down the long trail to KastleKrags.

  No wonder the sportsmen liked to gather at this old manor house by thesea. It represented the best type of southern homes--low and rambling,old gardens and courts, wide verandas and stately pillars. It was animmense structure, yet perfectly framed by the shore and the lagoon andthe glimpse of forest opposite, and it presented an entirely cheerfulaspect as I emerged from the dark confinement of the timber.

  It was a surprising thing that a house could be cheerful in suchsurroundings: forest and gray shore and dark blue-green water. The houseitself was gray in hue, the columns snowy white, the roof dark green andblending wonderfully with the emerald water. Flowers made a riot ofcolor between the structure and the formal lawns.

  But more interesting than the house itself was the peculiar physicalformation of its setting. The structure had been erected overlooking along inlet that was in reality nothing less than a shallow lagoon. Anatural sea-wall stretched completely across the neck of the inlet,cutting off the lagoon from the open sea. There are many naturalsea-walls along the Floridan coast, built mostly of limestone orcoraline rock, but I had never seen one so perfect and unbroken.Stretching across the mouth of the lagoon it made a formidable barrierthat not even the smallest boat could pass.

  It was a long wall of white crags and jagged rocks, and I thought itlikely that it had suggested the name of the estate. It was plain,however, that the wall did not withstand the march of the tides. Thetide was running in as I drew near, and the waves broke fiercely overand against the barrier, and little rivulets and streams of water wereevidently pouring through its miniature crevices. The house was builttwo hundred yards from the shore of the lagoon, perhaps three hundredyards from the wall, and the green lawns went down half-way to it.Beyond this--except of course for the space occupied by the lagoonitself--stretched the gray, desolate sand.

  Beyond the wall the inlet widened rapidly, and the rolling waves gavethe impression of considerable depth. I had never seen a more favorableplace for a sportsman's home. Besides the deep-sea fishing beyond therock wall, it was easy to believe that the lagoon itself was the home ofcountless schools of such hard-fighting game-fish as loved such craggyseas. The lagoon was fretful and rough from the flowing tide at thatmoment, offering no inducements to a boatman, but I surmised at oncethat it would be still as a lake in the hours that the tide ebbed. Theshore was a favorable place for the swift-winged shorebirds that allsportsmen love--plover and curlew and their fellows. And the mossy,darkling forest, teeming with turkey and partridge, stretched justbehind.

  Yet the whole effect was not only of beauty. I stood still, and tried topuzzle it out. The atmosphere talked of in great country houses is moreoften imagined than really discerned; but if such a thing exists, KastleKrags was literally steeped in it. Like Macbeth's, the castle has apleasant seat--and yet it moved you, in queer ways, under the skin.

  I am not, unfortunately, a particularly sensitive man. Working from theground up, I have been so busy preserving the keen edges of my sensesthat I have quite neglected my sensibilities. I couldn't put my fingeron the source of the strange, mental image that the place invoked; andthe thing irritated and disturbed me. The subject wasn't worth a busyman's time, yet I couldn't leave it alone.

  The house was not different from a hundred houses scattered through thesouth. It was larger than most of the larger colonial homes, andconstructed with greater artistry. If it had any atmosphere at all,other than comfort and beauty, it was of cheer. Yet I didn't feelcheerful, and I didn't know why. I felt even more sobered than when themoss of the cypress trees swept over my head. But soon I thought I sawthe explanation.

  The image of desolation and eery bleakness had its source in thewide-stretching sands, the unforgettable sea beyond, and particularlythe inlet, or lagoon, up above the natural dam of stone. The rocks thatenclosed the lagoon would have been of real interest to a geologist--tome they were merely bleak and forbidding, craggy and gray and cold.Unquestionably they contained many caverns and crevices that would beworth exploring. And I was a little amazed at the fury with which theincoming waves beat against and over the rocky barrier. They came witha veritable ferocity, and the sea beyond seemed hardly rough enough tojustify them.

  Grover Nealman himself met me when I turned on to the level, graveldriveway. There was nothing about him in keeping with that desolatedriveway. A familiar type, he looked the gentleman and sportsman that hewas. Probably the man was forty-four or forty-five years old, but he wasnot the type that yields readily to middle-age. Nealman unquestionablystill considered himself a young man, and he believed it heartily enoughto convince his friends. Self-reliant, inured to power and influence,somewhat aristocratic, he could not yield himself to the admission ofthe march of the years. He was of medium height, rather thickly built,with round face, thick nose, and rather sensual lips; but his eyes,behind his tortoise-shell glasses, were friendly and spirited; and hishand-clasp was democratic and firm. By virtue of his own pride of raceand class he was a good sportsman: likely a crack shot and an expertfisherman. Probably a man that drank moderately, was still youthfulenough to enjoy a boyish celebration, a man who lived well, who hadtraveled widely and read good books, and who could carry out thetraditions of a distinguished family--this was Grover Nealman, master ofKastle Krags.

  I didn't suppose for a moment that Nealman had made his own fortune.There were no fighting lines in his face, nor cold steel of conflict inhis eyes. There was one deep, perpendicular line between his eyes, butit was born of worry, not battle. The man was moderately shrewd,probably able to take care of his investments, yet he could never havebeen a builder, a captain of industry. He dressed like a man born towealth, well-fitting white flannels whose English tailoring affordedfree room for arm and shoulder movements; a silk shirt and soft whitecollar, panama hat and buckskin shoes.

  He was not a southerner. The first words he uttered proved that fact.

  "So you are Mr. Killdare," he said easily. He didn't say it "Killdaih,"as he would had he been a native of the place. "Come with me into mystudy. I can tell you there what I've got lined up. I'm mighty gladyou've come."

  We walked through the great, massive mahogany door, and he paused tointroduce me to a middle-aged man that stood in the doorway. "Florey,"he said, kindly and easily, "I want you to meet Mr. Killdare."

  His tone alone would have identified the man's station, even if the darkgarb hadn't told the story plainly. Florey was unquestionably Nealman'sbutler. Nor could anyone have mistaken his walk of life, in any streetof any English-speaking city. He was the kind of butler one sees uponthe stage but rarely in a home, the kind one associates with old,stately English homes but which one rarely finds in fact--almost toogood a butler to be true. He was little and subdued and gray, gray ofhair and face and hands, and his soft voice, his irreproachable attitudeof respect and deference seemed born in him by twenty generations ofbutlers. He said he was glad to know me, and his bony, soft-skinned handtook mine.

  I'm afraid I stared at Florey. I had lived too long in the forest:the staring habit, so disconcerting to tenderfeet on their firstacquaintance with the mountain people, was surely upon me. I think thatthe school of the forest teaches, first of all, to look long and sharplywhile you have a chance. The naturalist who follows the trail of wildgame, even the sportsman knows this same fact--for the wild creaturesare incredibly furtive and give one only a second's glimpse. Iinstinctively tried to learn all I could of the gray old servant in theinstant that I shook his hand.

  He was the butler, now and forever, and I wondered if, beneath thatgray skin, he were really human at all. Did he know human passion, humanambition and desires: sheltered in his master's house, was he set apartfrom the lusts and the madnesses, the calms and the storms, the triumphsand the defeats that made up the lives of other men? Yet his gray,rather dim old eyes told me nothing. There were no fi
res, visible to me,glowing in their depths. A human clam--better still, a gray mole thatlives out his life in darkness.

  From him we passed up the stairs and to a big, cool study thatapparently joined his bedroom. There were desks and chairs and a letterfile. Edith Nealman was writing at the typewriter.

  If I had ever supposed that the girl had taken the position of heruncle's secretary merely as a girlish whim, or in some emergency until apermanent secretary could be secured, I was swiftly disillusioned. Therewas nothing of the amateur in the way her supple fingers flew over thekeys. She had evidently had training in a business college; and herattitude towards Nealman was simply that of a secretary towards heremployer. She leaned back as if waiting for orders.

  "You can go, if you like, Edith," Nealman told her. "I'm going to talkawhile with Killdare, here, and you wouldn't be able to work anyway."

  She got up; and she threw me a smile of welcome and friendliness as shewalked out the study door.