Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery

by Absalom Martin

  CHAPTER X

  The sheriff and the coroner arrived from Ochakee in a roadster soonafter dawn. All of us felt relieved at their coming: they representedthe best and most intelligent type of southern citizenry. SheriffSlatterly was scarcely older than I was, and had been given his officefor meritorious services in the late war. He was a broad-shoulderedlarge-headed man, with keen, good-natured eyes, a firm mouth, and ratherprominent chin. We scraped up an acquaintance at once on the strength ofour Legion buttons.

  "I'm glad theya's a suvice man heah," he confessed to me. "It's sho' amess of a case--and my deputy is busy. I've neveh wo'ked among thesemillionaih Yankee spo'ts befo', but I suppose they ah all right. Nowtell me what you think of it all."

  "I don't think," I confessed. "It doesn't make good sense."

  He asked me questions in the vernacular of the South, and I answeredthem the best I could. Then he introduced me to the coroner.

  Mr. Weldon was a man of about forty years, intelligent, forceful, notin the least the mournful type so often seen among undertakers. He wasrather careless in speech, but I did not ascribe it to lack ofeducation. He had rather a Semitic countenance, and a very deep, manlyvoice.

  "Of course the first thing is to drag the lagoon," he said. "We've gotto have a body before we can hold anything but a semblance of aninquest--and of course thet's where the body is. It couldn't benowhere's else."

  All of us agreed with him. There was simply nothing else to do. The bodyhad lain but thirty feet from the water's edge: it was conceivable thatfor some mysterious reason the murderer had seen fit to return and draghis dead into the water. The idea of him carrying it in any otherdirection was incredible.

  While we waited for drag hooks to be sent out from town the sheriff madea minute examination of the scene of the crime. He searched the groundfor clews; and it seemed to me the little puzzled line between his browsdeepened with every moment of the search. He stood up at last, breathinghard.

  "The murderer made a clean get away, that's certain," he observed. "Itisn't often a man can commit a crime like this and not leave a fewtrails. I can't find a trace or a button. And if he left any tracks theyare mixed up with those you gentlemen made last night."

  He went carefully over the rocks between the place where the body hadlain and the water; but there was little for him here. Once or twice hepaused, studying the rocks with a careful scrutiny, but he did not tellus what he found.

  About ten the drag-hooks came, and I helped Nealman bring his duckboatfrom the marshy end of the lagoon. Then the sheriff, the coroner andmyself began the slow, tiresome work of dragging.

  Of course we began along the shore, close to the scene of the crime. Weworked from the natural wall and back to a point a hundred yards beyondthe starting-place. Then we turned back, just the width of the draghooks beyond. We reached the Bridge again without result.

  As the moments passed the coroner's annoyance increased. Noon came andpassed--already we had dragged carefully a spot a full hundred squareyards in extent. The tide flowed again, beat against the Bridge andfretted the water, making our work increasingly difficult. And at lastthe sheriff rested, cursing softly, on his oars.

  "Well, Weldon?" he asked.

  The coroner's eyes looked rather bright as he turned to answer him. Igot the impression that for all his outer complacency he was secretlyexcited. "Nothing, Slatterly," he said. "What do you think yourself?"

  "I think we're face to face with the worst deal, the biggest mysterythat's come our way in years. In the first place, there isn't any use oflooking and dragging any more."

  "But man, the body's got to be here somewhere."

  "Got, nothing! We've got to begin again, and not take anything forgranted. This is still water, except for these waves the tide makes,breaking over the rocks--and you know a body doesn't move much in stillwater, especially the first night. For that matter the place was stillas a slough, they say, while the tide was going out--most of the night.We've looked for a hundred yards about the spot. It's not there. And themurderer couldn't swim with it clear across the lagoon."

  "He might, a strong swimmer."

  "But what's the sense of it? Besides, a dead body ain't easy to manage.The thing to do is to search Florey's rooms for any evidence, then toget all the niggers and the white folks as well and have an unofficialinquest. Then we might see where we're at."

  "Good." The coroner turned to me. "Is there any use of hunting up Mr.Nealman to show us Florey's room?" he asked. "Can't you take us upthere?"

  I was glad enough of the chance to be on hand for that search, so Ididn't hesitate to answer. "You are the law. You can go where youlike--wherever you think best."

  We went together up the stairs to Florey's room. There was not the leastsign that tragedy had overtaken its occupant. It was scrupulously kept:David Florey must have been the neatest of men. The search, however, waslargely unavailing.

  In a little desk at one corner we found a number of papers and letters.Some of them pertained to household matters, there was a note from somefriend in Charleston, a folder issued by a steamship plying out ofTampa, and a letter from Mrs. Noyes, of New Hampshire, who seemed to bethe dead man's sister. At least the salutation was "Dear Brother Dave,"and the letter itself dealt with the fortunes of common relatives. Thenthere were a few short letters from one who signed himself "George."

  There was nothing of particular interest. Mostly they werenotifications of arrivals and departures in various cities, and theyseemed to concern various business ventures. "I've got a good lead," oneof them said, "but it may turn out like the rest." "Things arebrightening up," another went. "I believe I see a rift in the clouds."

  "George" was unquestionably a traveler. One of the notes had beenwritten from Washington, D. C., one from Tampa, the third from someobscure port in Brazil. They were written in a rather bold, rugged, butnot unattractive hand.

  The only document that gave any kind of a key to the mystery was ahalf-finished letter that protruded beneath the blotter pad on his desk.It was addressed "My dear Sister," and was undoubtedly in answer to the"Mrs. Noyes" letter. The sheriff read it aloud:

  My dear Sister:

  I got the place here and like it very much. Mr. Nealman is a fine man to work for. I get on with my work very well. The house is located on a lagoon, cut off from the open sea by a natural rock wall--a very lovely place.

  But you will be sorry to hear that my old malady, g----, is troubling me again. I don't think I will ever be rid of it. It is certainly the Florey burden, going through all our family. I can't hardly sleep, and don't know that I'll ever get rid of it, short of death. I'm deeply discouraged, yet I know----

  At that point the letter ended. The sheriff's voice died away so slowlyand tonelessly that it gave almost the effect of a start. Then he laidthe letter on the desk and smoothed it out with his hands.

  "Weldon?" he asked jerkily. "Do you s'pose we've got off on the wrongfoot, altogether?"

  "What d'ye mean?"

  "Do you suppose that poor devil did himself in? At least we've got amotive for suicide, and a good one--and there's none whatever formurder. You know what old Bampus used to say--find the motive first."

  "Of course you mean the disease he writes of. Why didn't he spell itout."

  "He was likely just given to abbreviations. Lots of men are. The wordmight have been a long one, and hard to spell."

  "Most invalids, I've noticed, rejoice in the long names of theirdiseases!"

  "Not a bad remark, from an undertaker. I suppose you mean they get yourhopes all aroused by their diseases when they ain't got 'em, you oldbuzzard. But seriously, Weldon. He writes here that his old malady hascome back on him, some disease that runs through his family--that he'sdiscouraged, that he doesn't think he'll ever be rid of it. You knowthat ill-health is the greatest cause for suicide--that more men blowout their own brains because they are incurably sick than for any otherreason. He says he can't sleep. And what l
eads to suicide faster thanthat!"

  "All true enough. But it don't hold water. Where's the knife? Whatbecame of the body? Suicides don't eat the knife that killed them, laydead, and then crawl away. You'll have to do better."

  "He might not have been quite dead. Even doctors have been deceivedbefore now, and crawled into the water to end his own misery. You canbet I'm going to keep the matter in mind."

  And it was a curious thing that this little handful of letters also setme off on a new tack. A possibility so bizarre and so terrible that itseemed almost beyond the pale of credibility flashed to my mind. Iwatched my chance, and slipped one of the "George" letters into mypocket.

  The idea I had was vague, not overly convincing, and it left a greatpart of the mystery still unsolved--but yet it was a clew. I waitedimpatiently until the search was concluded. Then I sought the telephone.

  A few minutes later a telegraphic message was clicking over the wires toMrs. Noyes, in New Hampshire, notifying her of her brother's murder anddisappearance, and asking a certain question. There was nothing to dobut wait patiently for the answer.