them. The hillsides were green and silent save for the minor cries of insects. The water was undisturbed. Some sailors began to run ashore from the yacht."Everybody gather round here!" commanded Coghlan angrily. "The shot was at Mannard! Get close!"

Laurie was the only one who seemed to obey. She was white-faced as the rest, but she said: "I'm here, Tommy. What do we do?"

"Not you, damn it! Somebody shot at your father! If we get around him and get him to the yacht, they can't see him to shoot again. You get in the center here too!"

He commanded the Turkish-speaking sailors with violent gestures, and they obeyed his authoritative manner. He and Laurie and the sailors fairly forced the sputtering, angry Mannard out the wharf and onto the craft moored at its end. The other members of the picnic-party were milling into action. The lawyer scuttled aboard. The owner of the land was even before him. Only Appolonius sat where his chair had toppled, his face gray and filled with an astounded expression of shock. The professor from the American College went on board and disappeared entirely. Coghlan went back and dragged at Appolonius. The fat man scrambled to his feet and went stiffly out the wharf and on board.

"Somebody who can talk Turkish," snapped Coghlan, "tell the sailors to help me hunt for whoever fired that shot! He's had a chance to get away, but we can look for him, anyhow!"

A voice, chattering, said unintelligible things. Sailors went ashore, Coghlan in the lead. They obeyed Coghlan's gestured commands and tramped about with him in the brushwood, hunting industriously and without visible timidity. But Coghlan fumed. He could not give detailed commands. He couldn't be sure they were watching for footprints or a tiny ejected shell which would tell at least where the would-be murderer had been.

There were shouts from the yacht. Coghlan ignored them, searching angrily but with an increasing sensation of futility. Then Laurie came running ashore.

"Tommy! It's useless! He's gone! The thing to do is to get back to Istanbul and tell the police!"

Coghlan nodded angrily, wondering again if the marksman who had missed Mannard might not settle for Laurie. He stood between her and the shore, and shouted and beckoned to the sailors. He led them back to the yacht, in a tight circle around Laurie.

The yacht cast off with unseemly haste. It sped out from 

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