"Manacled? What a ghastly mystery!" Sedgwick dropped his chin in meditation. "If she wasn"t drowned, then she was murdered and thrown overboard from a boat. Is that it?"
Chester Kent smiled inscrutably. "Suppose you let me do the questioning a while. You can give no clue whatsoever to the ident.i.ty of your yesterday"s visitor?"
There was the slightest possible hesitation before the artist replied, "None at all."
"If I find it difficult to believe that, what will the villagers think of it when Elder Dennett returns from Cadystown and tells his story, as he is sure to do?"
"Does Dennett know the woman?"
"No; but it isn"t his fault that he doesn"t. He did his best in the interviewing line when he met her on her way to your place."
"She wasn"t on her way to my place," objected Sedgwick.
"Dennett got the notion that she was. Accordingly, with the true home-bred delicacy of our fine old New England stock, he hid behind a bush and watched."
"Did he overhear our conversation?"
"He was too far away. He saw the attack on you. Now, just fit together these significant bits of fact. The body of a woman, dead by violence, is found on the beach not far from here. The last person, as far as is known, to have seen her alive is yourself. She called on you, and there was a colloquy, apparently vehement, between you, culminating in the a.s.sault upon you. She hurried away. One might well guess that later you followed her to her death."
"I did follow her," said Sedgwick in a low tone.
"For what purpose?"
"To find out who she was."
"Which you didn"t succeed in doing?"
"She was too quick for me. The blow of the rock had made me giddy, and she got away among the thickets."
"That"s a pity. One more point of suspicion. Dennett, you say, saw your picture, _The Rough Rider_. He will tell every one about it, you may be sure."
"What of it?"
"The strange coincidence of the subject, and the apparent manner of the unknown"s death."
"People will hardly suspect that I killed her and set her adrift for a model, I suppose," said the artist bitterly; "particularly as Dennett can tell them that the picture was finished before her death."
"Not that; but there will be plenty of witch-hangers among the Yankee populace, ready to believe that a fiend inspired both picture and murder in your mind. Why, the very fact of your being an artist would be _prima facie_ evidence of a compact with the devil, to some people. And you must admit a certain diabolical ghastliness in that painting."
"Evidently some devil of ill fate is mixing up in my affairs. What"s your advice in the matter?"
"Tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,"
suggested Chester Kent.
"Easily done. The question is whether you"ll believe it."
"If I hadn"t felt pretty sure of your innocence, I shouldn"t have opened the case to you as I"ve done. I"ll believe the truth if you tell it, and tell it all."
"Very well. I was sitting on my wall when the woman came down the road.
I noticed her first when she stopped to look back, and her absurd elegance of dress, expensive and ill fitting, attracted my closer attention. She was carrying a bundle, wrapped in strong paper. It seemed to be heavy, for she shifted it from hand to hand. When she came near, I spoke to her-"
"You spoke to her first?"
"Well, we spoke simultaneously."
"Why should you speak to her, if she was a stranger to you?"
"See here, Kent! You"ll have to let me tell this in my own way, if I"m to tell it at all."
"So long as you do tell it. What did she say to you?"
"She asked me the time."
"Casually?"
"Not as if she were making it a pretext to open a conversation, if that is what you mean."
"It is."
"Certainly it wasn"t that. She seemed anxious to know. In fact, I think she used the word "exact"; "the exact time," she said."
"Presumably she was on her way to an appointment, then."
"Very likely. When I told her, she seemed relieved; I might even say relaxed. As if from the strain of nervous haste, you know."
"Good. And then?"
"She thanked me, and asked if I were Mr. Sedgwick. I answered that I was, and suggested that she make good by completing the introduction."
"She wasn"t a woman of your own cla.s.s, then?"
Sedgwick looked puzzled. "Well, no. I thought not, then, or I shouldn"t have been so free and easy with her. For one thing, she was painted badly, and the perspiration, running down her forehead, had made her a sight. Yet, I don"t know: her voice was that of a cultivated person. Her manner was awkward and her dress weird for that time of day, and, for all that, she carried herself like a person accustomed to some degree of consideration. That I felt quite plainly. I felt, too, something uncanny about her. Her eyes alone would have produced that impression. They were peculiarly restless and brilliant."
"Insane?" questioned Kent.
"Not wholly sane, certainly; but it might have been drugs. That suggested itself to me."
"A possibility. Proceed."
"She asked what point of the headland gave the best view. "Anywhere from the first rise on is good," I said. "It depends on what you wish to see."-"My ship coming in." said she.-"It will be a far view, then," I told her. "This is a coast of guardian reefs."-"What difference?" she said, and then gave me another surprise; for she quoted:
""And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond- Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.""
"That"s interesting," remarked Kent. "Casual female wayfarers aren"t given to quoting _The House of Life_."
"Nor casual ships to visiting this part of the coast. However, there was no ship. I looked for myself, when I was trying to find the woman later.
What are you smiling at?"
"Nothing. I"m sorry I interrupted."