By GERALDINE BONNER AUTHOR OF To-morrow’s Tangle, The Pioneer, Rich Men’s Children, The Book of Evelyn INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS The LEADING LADY...

One of the morning trains that tap the little towns along the Sound ran into the Grand Central Depot. It was very hot in the lower levels of the station and the passengers, few in number—for it was midsummer and people were going out of town, not coming in—filed stragglingly up the long platform to the exit. One of them was a girl, fair and young, with those distinctive attributes of good looks and style that drew men’s eyes to her face and women’s to her clothes. People watched her as she follo

The performance was over and the audience was dispersing. Gull Island, colored to a chromo brightness by the declining sun, had not showed so animated an aspect since the reception for the Spanish ambassador last July. People in pale-tinted summer clothes were trailing across from the open-air theater and massing in a group as gay as a flower garden at the dock. Some of them had gone into the house, taken the chance to have a look at it—when the Driscolls were “in residence” you couldn’t so much

That was how the audience saw it, but they were outsiders. There was one outsider left on the island, Wally Shine, the photographer sent by the Universal Syndicate to take pictures of what was a “notable society event” in a place of which the public had heard much and seen nothing. He had arrived that morning with two cameras and a delighted appreciation of the beauty he was to record. But, unlike the other outsiders, his impressions extending over a longer period had not been so agreeable. He h

The launch was on its way back for those of the actors who were leaving. Gabriel, squatting by the engine, calculated the distribution of his time. After he’d taken them across he’d have his supper and then go back for Joe Tracy, who was leaving on the seven fifteen for his vacation. When Joe was disposed of, Gabriel was to meet two Boston sports who had engaged him for a week’s deep-sea fishing at White Beach, twenty-five miles down the coast. It was a strenuous program for the old man and he g

Bassett had gone into the house too. As he crossed the living-room he noticed its deserted quietude, in contrast to the noise and bustle that had possessed it an hour ago. It was a rich friendly room, comfortably homelike in spite of its size, for it crossed the center of the house, its rear door opening on the garden as the one opposite did on the path. It was spacious in height as well as width, its walls rising two stories. Midway up a gallery ran, on three sides of which the bedrooms opened.

Anne had taken off her costume and slipped into a negligée to do her packing comfortably, and then decided she had better bid good-by to Joe first. Bidding good-by was not an obligation between them, but she had to get the key of his trunk—it was going back to New York with hers—and her heart in its new warmth yearned to him, her only relation. She wanted to tell him her great secret, see an answering joy leap into his face, for he thought more of Bassett than anybody, and he’d be so surprised t

Anne packed for a space, then gave it up. She couldn’t go on with it, she wanted to be down-stairs, not lose one minute of the last evening at Gull Island. Her spirits, oppressed by Joe’s behavior, began to bubble again, foam up in sparkling effervescence. You couldn’t pack clothes in a trunk when you felt like dancing and the hour was too beautiful for belief and your lover might be waiting for you in the garden. She slipped off her negligée and chose her most becoming dress, leaf-green crêpe t

The moon had risen and hung on the edge of the sky like a great disk of white paper. Anne saw the others running this way and that along the edge of the Point. A boat was pushing out from the dock, Stokes in it, and, caught by the current, it shot down the gleaming surface of the channel. There were cries in men’s voices and Stokes’ answer, bell-clear from the water. Then Shine ran by her, back to the house, grim-visaged with staring eyes. The scene had the fantastic quality of a nightmare, the

Bassett on the wharf in the cove watched the launch approaching over the glistening floor of water. As it grated against the boards he heard his name in a deep-throated bass voice and the big body of the sheriff climbed over the side. A rough padded hand grasped his, and “Well, Mr. Bassett, the law’s got us together again,” was growled into his ear. Two more figures followed him. One was Rawson, the district-attorney, whom the vivid light revealed as a man much younger than Williams, tall and na

Bassett was prepared for what he had to tell. During the long wait for the officers of the law his mind had been ranging over it, shaking bare from unnecessary detail the chain of events that had ended in murder. It was impossible to conceal the situation between Sybil and the Stokeses; he could not if he had wished it and he did not wish it. A girl had been brutally done to death, a girl innocent of any evil intention, and his desire to bring her murderer to justice was as strong as either Will

Of all the people gathered in the house that evening Anne had been the most silent. Her ravaged face, the contours broken by gray hollows, bearing the stamp of shock and horror, had been unnoticed among the other faces. Now and then a pitying glance had been directed to her, grief as Sybil’s friend must have added a last unbearable poignancy to the tragedy. After her question to Flora her mind had seemed to blur and cease to function. She had run from the house not knowing what she did, gone hit

The night search of the island had given up nothing and a daylight exploration was set for the morning. Before this, however, Rawson wanted to go through Miss Saunders’ room, which by his orders had been locked and left untouched. It occupied the corner of the second floor directly above the library, the first of the long line of bedchambers that stretched across the land front of the house. Their doors opened upon a hall that traversed the building from end to end, its central section forming o

Bassett was detailed to find Stokes and bring him to the library. A summons from the director would have an air of informality which might put Stokes off his guard. Rawson did not communicate this to his messenger, but told Williams when they were alone. He had been watching Stokes and thought the man showed signs of strain. That morning at the beach Stokes’ manner and appearance had suggested a nerve tension which might rise from anxiety about his wife, but might also be the result of some know

To the outside eye Anne had presented no more dolorous and dejected an aspect than any of the others. If she could not eat, neither could they, and if she sat sunk in somber gloom they either did the same or gave expression to their nerve-wracked state by breathless outbursts of speech. No one, not even Bassett, noticed that Anne’s demeanor was in any way other than what might have been expected. Had they been able to see into her mind the group at Gull Island would have received its second stag

After supper Bassett and Williams retired to the library. They were surprised and intrigued by the length of Rawson’s absence. He had been gone over two hours and what could have held him on the mainland so long was difficult to imagine unless a new lead had developed. This was Bassett’s idea, also his hope. To have suspicion lifted from Flora would be the first lightening of the grinding distress he had felt since the murder. Williams wondered if he could have come on anything about Joe Tracy;

When Anne went up to her room she took a seat by the window where she could see the channel. It was an undecipherable blackness, its farther limit defined by the shore lights. But the night was very still, the sagging weight of cloud hung low pressing down sounds. She could hear the barking of dogs, the cries of children, a snatch of song from the mainland. In this intense quiet the first explosive throbs of a starting launch would be carried clearly across the sounding board of the water. She k

Williams thought highly of his idea. It had come to him that morning while thinking of the person he had heard descending the stairs, the person he insisted was Mrs. Stokes. In its inception it had been directed chiefly at that lady, but now with the mystery complicated by the intrusion of a new figure its usefulness would be extended. The thing that was aimed at Mrs. Stokes, would include Joe Tracy. That was how he put it to Rawson to gain the consent and cooperation of his superior. For he had

When they carried Stokes to his room they thought him dying, so ghastly was his appearance, so deathlike his collapse. Bassett telephoned to Hayworth for a doctor and before the man came, Flora, singularly cold and collected now the fight was over, told them her husband was a morphia addict and showed them the case in his bag with the empty vial. In the two days’ detention on the island his supply had been exhausted, the greatest strain of the many that had ended in his frantic confession. When

Any one watching Gull Island from the shore would have seen the yellow shape of one bright window set like a small golden square in the darkness. The bright window was Anne’s and over against it Anne sat on the side of the bed looking at the floor. She sat perfectly still, held in a staring concentration of thought, reviewing the happenings of the night. The inability to understand that she had expressed to Bassett had come back to her, there were things that she could not explain away. Like a c

Three years later Bassett and Anne had a friend at dinner. He was a writer who had just returned from a successful lecture tour in Australia. On his way back he had ranged through the pleasant reaches of the South Seas and had fallen under their spell—a little more money in his pocket and for him it would be a plantation on some isle of enchantment. Not the accessible places, they were already spoiled, steamers had come, jazz music, and tourists in pith helmets with red guidebooks were under you