“How’d a motor get here—swim or fly?” Then to Bassett: “Mr. Driscoll’s very strict about that. He won’t have the wild game or the gulls disturbed and——”

Bassett interrupted her:

“That’s all right, Miss Pinkney. We were given those orders and we’ve obeyed them. And none of us could shoot here if he wanted to—there’s not a pistol in the outfit. Don’t you know it’s against the law to carry one?”

“Then some one’s taken mine,” she exclaimed, and straightening up with an air of battle, “I’m coming down.”

She left the gallery for the rear stairs, Mrs. Cornell in her wake.

“What does she mean—hers?” Anne asked.

“I don’t know what she means,” Bassett looked irritated. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I don’t see what there was to shoot at anyhow,”[Pg 99] came from Shine. “Looked to me when I was out there as if all the gulls had gone to bed.”

[Pg 99]

Miss Pinkney, entering, focussed their attention.

“What’s this about a pistol of yours?” Bassett asked.

She answered as she walked across the room to a desk under the gallery:

“It’s the one Mr. Driscoll gave me, thinking it might be useful when I was here alone, opening or closing the house. I was to keep it loaded and have it handy, but I’d trust my tongue to get rid of any man and here it’s lain with the poker chips.” She pulled out a side-drawer of the desk. “There!” she exclaimed, turning on them in gloomy triumph, “What did I tell you! It’s gone.”

Bassett looked into the drawer:

“You’re sure it was here?”

“Didn’t I see it this morning when I put away the counters you were playing with last night?”

“Umph!” Bassett banged the drawer shut in [Pg 100]anger. “I’ll see that this is explained to Mr. Driscoll. And whoever’s taken it, they’ll get what’s coming to them. A damned fool performance! To get us in wrong just as we were leaving——”

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