“There are two other guests. A man named Lamb, a retired broker, and an inventor, Ira Brooke. There’s a servant couple, the Hendersons. And week-ends there’s a Dr. Gail who rents the cottage on the east shore. That’s all.”
“All right, Ross. Get going. And keep your eyes peeled.
It’ll be interesting to know where they’ve all been during the last half hour.”
“And which of them,” I added, “is shy a flashlight.”
I started out, then on second thought, turned and asked, “What’ll I tell Gavigan? Suicide or — murder?”
Merlini’s voice was overly matter-of-fact. “What do you think?”
“The worst,” I said simply.
“Yes, you would. Just say, ‘Cyanide, corpse, fire,’ and let him draw his own conclusions. But see he gets a move on.”
Outside, the high wind whipped at the trees, and the moon threw a cold light that grew bright, wavered, and was eclipsed by the swift procession of angry clouds moving across its face. I tried to run but quickly had to give it up.
The path underfoot was old and little used, choked with undergrowth and fallen branches. Several times I tripped and nearly fell.
All at once I came out from under the low-hanging trees onto the edge of a broad lawn that stretched out to meet me. The path, wider and well kept here, turned abruptly left and right, while directly ahead I saw the low white house set in a semicircle of trees and shining dimly with what seemed to be a faint phosphorescence of its own. Now that I could run, I didn’t. Something about the quietly deserted air, the darkened windows of the house, made me uneasy. I moved forward, walking quickly, but quietly, my flashlight dark.
This house was in the modern manner, its severe, clean-cut lines in complete contrast to the Grecian ornament on the house behind me. A metal ladder-like flight of steps ascended sharply to the sun deck that projected without supports from the second-floor level, and, toward the river, wide French windows opened out on a low terrace of flagged stone.
I had just reached the terrace and was about to step up and cross toward the door when I stopped and stood motionless, listening.
A small sound that was not the wind or the trees came from the opposite side of the house. The slow crunch of feet on a gravel path — coming softly toward me, almost at the corner of the house. I couldn’t make the door in time, so I took four long careful steps toward the window and flattened against it, back within the deeper shadow cast by the sun deck overhead. The footsteps stopped briefly and then came on again.
Behind me one hand found the handle and felt it turn. The window moved inward, easily and silently. I stepped, backward into the dark. The window was, on the inside, completely curtained with long heavy, drapes. I stood behind them, and, with the window ajar an inch or two, peered out watching the black elongated shadow that moved across the grass as someone turned the corner of the house.
The shadow had a crouching, sinister shape. I felt for my gun.
And then I kicked myself mentally. I’d put myself in a lovely spot! I should have simply called out, hailed the guy, and had done with it. But the events of the past hour had shaped all my reactions into suspicious, stealthy ones; the memory of that quiet figure in the armchair, and of that even stranger something that went into a room and yet was not there, was all too recent. At any rate, I now had the glass and metal and curtains of the window between myself and whoever it was that—
Behind me in the room there was a sudden crash!
Someone jumped toward me through the dark. There was a small, sharp click — and I blinked, blinded by the light.
Five people were in the room, five motionless dummies transfixed in suspended action like a wax tableau. Four of them around a table in the center of the room, and the fifth — the man who had plunged toward me through the dark — close beside me by the wall, his hand still on the light switch. A chair lay overturned on the floor.
I saw this much. Then my attention froze on one small detail. The half-raised right arm of the heavy man behind the table, the fat hand, and the cold steady highlight on the gun it held. His mouth moved and words came, hard as bullets.
“Take your hand from your pocket!”
I did so, slowly. Then he spoke again.
“Frisk him, Arnold.”
The man at my side took his hand from the wall switch and spoke quietly, his voice cutting evenly through the tension.
“You’re a quick one with a gun, I must say, Lamb.” He regarded me suspiciously. “Just who the devil are you?”
Arnold was about my height and definitely handsome, with an almost classic regularity of feature and a matinee, idol’s wave in his dark hair. But there was something oddly wrong with his face, something that blurred all the good looks. His skin had a queer flat paleness as if all the blood had gone deep within; the highlights on the cheekbone and the square line of the jaw had a smooth, greasy feel. And when he spoke I wasn’t quite sure at first where the deep pleasant voice came from; his lips barely moved.
“There’s someone prowling about outside,” I said quickly, my eyes returning to the gun. “Thought you should know.”
He hesitated a moment, scowling. Then, with sudden decision, “Give me that.” He reached for my flashlight. I let it go. He pulled the window open.
The fat man growled, “I wouldn’t move if I were you.” His black little eyes were too small for his big face and they stared at me with puzzled concentration. A roll of fat surrounded his neck, bulging over the tight, blue and white striped collar.
Arnold went out. A chair scraped on the floor and the girl stood up. Burt had been right; I did see her again. It was Sigrid Verrill. The nervous strain in her face was even more pronounced now. She recognized me and her eyes moved sideways toward the end of the table.
A large mountain of a woman sat there in a great, curiously shaped chair. Wide metal bands curved up from the chair arms and locked tightly about her wrists. I recognized the swarthy, almost masculine, Slavic features and the thick mound of jet-black hair. Madame Rappourt. She was the only person in the room who hadn’t stared at me as the lights came on, the only person who hadn’t looked at me yet. Her eyes were tightly closed, face tilted toward the ceiling, her body tensed in that same strained convulsive posture I had seen once before tonight. The fleshy hands were clenched with spasmodic force, the jaw muscles rigid, white teeth showing between the grim-stretched lips. She was breathing heavily.
The fifth person, a solidly built man who wore round gold-rimmed spectacles, rose and crossed with a catlike, soundless movement toward Rappourt. He bent above her and felt at her wrist for the pulse.
“Oh, it’s you, Dr. Gail,” Arnold’s voice came from outside. “Come in.”
Footsteps hurried across the terrace. “What’s wrong?” a calm, matter-of-fact voice asked. “I saw the light and, through the window, Lamb with a gun. Catch a burglar?”
Arnold said, “I don’t know.”
A hatless young man wearing a belted gabardine raincoat with turned-up collar followed Arnold into the room. He was in his thirties but with a manner that seemed older. He had a pleasant, easygoing face and a brisk, competent air. There was humor and a quick intelligence in his gray eyes. He regarded me expectantly.
Arnold demanded, “What are you doing on this island? Who are you?”
“Sorry,” I said, “I seem to have put my foot in it. But — well, I stopped in to use your phone.” Then, as an experiment directed at the man behind the gun, I added slowly and distinctly, “I want to call the police.”
I got my reaction. All the movement in the room, what there was of it, stopped — like a moving picture that suddenly slips a cog and goes dead.