peered closely. “It’s my butler, Florey,” he said. [Pg 64] [Pg 64] CHAPTER VIII There was nothing in particular to say or do. We simply stood looking down, that huddled body from which life had been struck as if by a meteor, in the center. From time to time we looked up from it to stare out over the ensilvered waters of the lagoon. We all shared this same inclination—to look away into the misty distance, past the lagoon, past the gray shore, into the sea so mysterious and still. The tide was running out now, so there was no tumult of breaking waves on the Bridge. At intervals, and at a great distance, we could hear the high-pitched shriek of plover. Of course the mood lasted just an instant. It was as if we had all been stricken silent and lifeless, unable to speak, unable to act, with only the power left to look and to wonder and to dream. I suppose the finding of that huddled body, under those conditions, was a severe nervous shock to us all. Joe Nopp, he of the true eye and the steady nerve, was the first to get back on an every-day footing with life. [Pg 65] [Pg 65] “It’s a fiendish crime,” he said in the stillness. He spoke rather slowly, without particular emphasis. “Of all the people to murder—that gray, inoffensive little butler of yours! Nealman, let’s get busy. Maybe we can catch the devil yet.” Nealman came to himself with a start. “Sure, Joe. Tell us what to do. We need a directing head at a time like this.” Nealman had dropped his accent. He spoke tersely, more like a man in the street than the aristocrat he had come to believe himself to be. “The first thing is to get word into town—Ochakee, you call it. Get hold of the constable, or any other authority, and tell him to notify the sheriff.”
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