Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery

by Absalom Martin

  CHAPTER VIII

  There was nothing in particular to say or do. We simply stood lookingdown, that huddled body from which life had been struck as if by ameteor, in the center. From time to time we looked up from it to stareout over the ensilvered waters of the lagoon.

  We all shared this same inclination--to look away into the mistydistance, past the lagoon, past the gray shore, into the sea somysterious and still. The tide was running out now, so there was notumult of breaking waves on the Bridge. At intervals, and at a greatdistance, we could hear the high-pitched shriek of plover.

  Of course the mood lasted just an instant. It was as if we had all beenstricken silent and lifeless, unable to speak, unable to act, with onlythe power left to look and to wonder and to dream. I suppose the findingof that huddled body, under those conditions, was a severe nervous shockto us all. Joe Nopp, he of the true eye and the steady nerve, was thefirst to get back on an every-day footing with life.

  "It's a fiendish crime," he said in the stillness. He spoke ratherslowly, without particular emphasis. "Of all the people to murder--thatgray, inoffensive little butler of yours! Nealman, let's get busy. Maybewe can catch the devil yet."

  Nealman came to himself with a start. "Sure, Joe. Tell us what to do. Weneed a directing head at a time like this."

  Nealman had dropped his accent. He spoke tersely, more like a man in thestreet than the aristocrat he had come to believe himself to be.

  "The first thing is to get word into town--Ochakee, you call it. Gethold of the constable, or any other authority, and tell him to notifythe sheriff."

  "Ochakee's the county seat--we can reach the sheriff himself."

  "Good. Tell him to take steps to guard all roads for suspiciouscharacters. Get out posses, if they would help. Get the coroner and allthe official help we can get out here." He turned to me, with awhip-like, emphatic movement. "Killdare, you might help us here. Youlikely know the roads. Tell us what to do."

  "You've said what to do," I told him. "There's not enough white men inthis part of the country to make a posse--and a posse couldn't find anyone that wanted to hide in the cypress swamps. The thing to do--is tocut off the murderer's escape and starve him out. Nealman, isn't yoursthe only road----"

  "As far as I know----"

  "The marshes are almost impassible to the left, and on the other side isthe river. If we can keep him from getting as far as Nixon's----"

  "Who's Nixon----"

  "Next planter up the road, five miles up. Get a phone to him right away.Young Nixon will watch all night and stop any one who tries to pass. Thesheriff can put a man there to-morrow. Let's find a phone."

  Hal Fargo, seemingly as cold as a blade, started to bend over the bodyfor further examination of the wound, but two of the men caught his arm.

  "Don't touch him, Hal," Major Dell advised, quietly. "The less we trackup the spot and muss things up the better. The detective'll have abetter chance for thumb prints, and things like that."

  "You're right, Dell," the man agreed. "And now let's get to a phone."

  "Good." It was Joe Nopp's cool, self-reliant voice again. "In themeantime, have any of you got a gun?"

  Lemuel Marten alone responded--he carried a little automatic pistol inthe pocket of his dinner coat. "Here," he said. He drew the thing out,and it made blue fire in the moonlight in his hand.

  "Then, Marten, you head a hunt through these grounds. The murderer mightstill be hiding in the shrubbery. Stop every one--shoot 'em if theydon't stop. Now Nealman, Van Hope, Killdare--where's the phone?"

  Nopp, Nealman, and myself started for the house; Fargo, Major Dell, andPescini and Van Hope followed Marten into the more shadowed parts of thegardens and lawns. Before ever we reached the house we heard theirexcited shouts but we paused only an instant. "They can handle him ifthey've got him," Nopp said. "We'd better go and do our work."

  We divided in the hall. Nopp and I went to the phone, Nealman and VanHope, at Nopp's suggestion, to round up all the servants. "Keep 'em inone room, and watch 'em," Nopp advised. "We'll like enough find themurderer among them--some domestic jealousy, or something like that.Don't give any of 'em a chance to get away or to destroy evidence."

  I telephoned to Nixon's first. The sleepy, country Central rang long andoften, and at last a drowsy voice answered the ring.

  "This Charley Nixon?" I asked.

  "Yes." He awakened vividly at the sound of his own name.

  "This is Ned Killdare--I met you on the way out. I'm atNealman's--Kastle Krags. A man has been murdered here, just a fewminutes ago! I want you to watch the road with your dogs--that stripbetween the river and marsh, and not let any one go through from thisway. Can you handle it?"

  Charley Nixon had borne arms in France, his father had ridden with theClansmen of long ago, and his answer was clear and unhesitating over thewire. "Any one who tries to get by me will be S. O. L.," he said.

  A moment later I reached the coroner at Ochakee. He promised he couldstart for the scene at once, in his car, bringing the sheriff or hisdeputy, and that he would take all the precautions he could to cut offthe murderer's escape. Then Nopp and I returned to the living-room.

  It was an unforgettable picture--that scene in the big living-room whereNealman's guests had been so merry a few minutes before. A bottle ofwhiskey still stood on the table in the center, half-filled glasses,in which the ice had not yet melted, stood beside it and on thewindow-sills and smoking stands. Little, unwavering filaments of bluesmoke streamed up from half-burned cigarettes. In the places of therevelers stood a group of sobbing, terrified negroes.

  We were not native southerners, accustomed to seeing the black people intheir paroxysms of fear, and the sight went straight home to all of us.These were the "cotton field niggers" of which old-time planters speak,slaves to the blackest superstitions that ever cursed the tribes of theCongo, and the night's crime had gone hard with them. Their faces weregray, rather than black, the whites of their eyes were plainly visible,and they made a confused babble of sound. The women, particularly, weresobbing and praying alternately; most of the men were either stutteringor apoplectic with sheer terror. Some of them cowered, shrieking, as weopened the door.

  "Shut up that noise," Nopp demanded. A dead silence followed his words."No one is going to hurt you as long as you stay in here and shut up.Where's the boss."

  One of them pointed, rather feebly, to the next room. And I took theinstant's interval to reach the side of some one that sat, alone andsilent, in a big chair in the chimney-corner.

  It was Edith Nealman, and she had been rounded up with the rest of thehouse employees. Her bare feet were in slippers, and she wore a longdressing-gown over her night-dress. Her hair hung in two golden braidsover her shoulders.

  I was glad to see that the terror of the blacks had not passed, in theleast degree, to her. Of course she was pale and shaken, her eyes werewide, but her voice when she spoke was subdued and calm, and there wasnot the slightest trace of hysteria about her. "It's a dreadful thing,isn't it?" she said. "Poor little Florey--who'd want to murder him!"

  "Nobody knows--but we're going to get him, anyway," I promised rashly.And what transpired thereafter did not come out in the inquest.

  It was only a little thing, but it meant teeming worlds to me. One ofher hands groped out to mine, and I pressed it in reassurance.

  Besides the native southern blacks that acted as gardeners andchambermaids and table hands about the place, Nealman had rounded up hismulatto chauffeur. Mrs. Gentry, his white housekeeper, sat a little toone side of the group of negroes.

  In a moment Nealman and Van Hope rejoined us, and we turned once morethrough the still hall that had been Florey's particular domain. Aninstant later we were out on the moonlit driveway.

  "I wonder if those birds will have sense enough to stay away from thebody," Nopp said gruffly. "It would be easy to mess up and destroy everybit of evidence----"

  "Major Dell warned them," I said. "I think they'll remember."

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p; "Nevertheless, I think we'd better post a guard over it." He paused,eyeing an approaching figure. It was Marten, and he was almost out ofbreath.

  "Any luck?" Nealman asked.

  "Nothing." Marten paused, fighting for breath. "Something stirred overin the thicket--we chased it down and tried to round it up. I guess itwasn't anything--certainly if it had been a man we'd scared it out. Haveyou a dog?"

  "Haven't shipped my dogs down here yet, but coons and such things comeout of the woods every once in a while. Where are your men----"

  "They'll round up here in a minute. We've been beating through thegrounds."

  In a moment Major Dell and Fargo approached us from opposite sides ofthe garden, and once more we headed down toward the lagoon. A voicecalled after us, and Pescini caught up.

  "No trace of anything?" he asked.

  "Not a trace," some one replied.

  We walked with ever-decreasing pace, a rather uncertain group, downtoward the crags of the shore. All of us, I think, were busy with ourown thoughts. All of us paused, at last, forty yards from the scene ofthe tragedy.

  "There's really nothing further we can do," Nopp said. "If the murdereris among the servants we've got him--you found 'em all, didn't you,Nealman?"

  "All of 'em. No suspicious circumstances."

  "Good. If he is some outsider, we'll round him up. I rather think theformer--it's too early to make a guess. But I think we'd better appointa guard over the body--to keep any curious persons from coming near andtramping out footprints, and so on. There's apt to be a crowd of thecurious here to-morrow."

  All of us nodded. Lemuel Marten whispered an oath.

  Nopp turned to him. "Would you mind taking that post to-night, Marten?"he asked. Because he already knew the man's answer, he turned to us."Lem's the best man for the post," he explained. "You chaps know we'llall have to give an account of our actions to-night. It's customary atsuch times. And you know that Lem was busy singing his pirate song whenthe thing occurred."

  "That's an unnecessary point, Joe," Marten answered. "None of us will bein the least suspected. This poor chap--that none of us knew. However,I'll gladly enough act as guard."

  "You've still got your gun?"

  "I made Pescini carry it. He's a shot."

  Pescini handed him back the weapon, and Marten walked on across the lawnto his post. The rest of us waited an instant in the road, talkingquietly to one another, and two or three of the men were getting outtheir cigarettes. It was our first breathing-spell. Then we startedslowly back toward the house.

  But we halted at the sound of Marten's voice. "Wait a minute, will you?"he called.

  It is hard to explain why we all stopped in our tracks. Van Hope, whom Ihad never suspected of nerves, let his cigarette fall to the ground, ared streak. The voice out of the gloom was wholly quiet, subdued,perfectly calm, seemingly nothing to waken alarm or even especialinterest. Perhaps what held us and startled us was the realization of aneffort of will behind those commonplace, unruffled tones.

  "What is it, Lem?" Nopp asked.

  There was an instant's interval of unfathomable silence. "I wish you'dcome here," Marten replied. "I'm a little balled up--as to where I am.These trees and shrubs are so near alike. I can't exactly find--theplace."

  Nopp did get there, but he didn't go alone. All of us turned,half-running. And for a vague, bewildered, half-remembered moment wesearched frantically up and down the craggy shore of the lagoon.

  Then in the moonlight I saw Nopp and Nealman come together, and Noppseized the other's arms.

  "My God, Grover!" he said hoarsely. "The body has disappeared!"