interests would have met with a pretty cold reception.”

Williams stretched and rose from his chair:

“Well, it’s all right to gather up everything, but it doesn’t get us any further. If the boy’d been here, seeing what he was and how he felt, there might be something in it. But as he got out [Pg 184]before the shooting it leaves us just where we were before. What do you think about going up and looking over that top story—routine business we ought to get through.”

[Pg 184]

“Not now,” Rawson moved to the door. “I’m going across to the mainland.”

“Mainland—what’s that for?”

“Look up some things—that boy’s movements for one. I’ll take Patrick and the launch and send him right back. The causeway’s covered so we don’t need him there. If Mr. Driscoll ever wanted to sell this place I’d recommend it for a penitentiary, save the state some money, only want guards twice in twenty-four hours. Come down to the dock with me, Mr. Bassett, and tell me which way Tracy was going.”

Bassett went with him feeling for the first time that he could give information with the tranquillizing assurance it would react on nobody. When he left Rawson at the dock he went to look for Anne.

[Pg 185]

[Pg 185]

XIII

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.

To the

Had they been able to see into her mind the group at Gull Island would have received its second staggering shock.

She kept as much to herself as she could without rousing curiosity. She had to think and to be alone where she would focus her thoughts, hold them trained on what she knew and what might develop. She wanted to keep her mind on the main issue, inhibit any fruitless speculations, [Pg 186]wait and be ready. Joe was on the island and with the guarded causeway would stay on the island till after they had gone. 

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