The Deep Lake Mystery

“Kee will look into it,” Lora said, with one of her gentle smiles.

Kee’s wife was a good sort, and she always tried to make things easy and pleasant for me. I knew, though, that she was thinking over this thing, and I dreaded to learn whither her thoughts led her.

For I distinctly remembered Mrs. Dallas saying that Sampson Tracy had wanted to tell her something about Alma, something unpleasant, she had implied. What could it have been but this, that the girl had, at times, an ungovernable temper?

For I was determined I would not believe that the trouble lay deeper than that. That the sweet girl I adored had a flaw in her brain or a physical disorder that meant impaired intellect in any way!

We ignored the subject by common consent, Lora, no doubt feeling that since it must be discussed with Kee, there was small use mulling it over beforehand.

And then, Kee returned.

He was full of some news of his own, so we listened to him first.

“It’s about that sound Ames heard,” he told us. “You know he said, after several false starts, that it was like a stick drawn along a wall.

“Well, it occurred to me that, if it was anything at all, it might be the murderer trailing along, with his hammer and nail in his hand, and if the hall was dark, feeling along the walls and doors to guide him.”

“Rather far-fetched.” I smiled.

“Well, the only way to see about it was to look on the door of Ames’s room and there, sure enough, was a long scratch, as if a nail or something had been dragged along it. A distinct scratch, but only across the door – at least, I could find no other such mark. So, me for the Coroner’s office to look over the exhibits. And, if you please, with a powerful lens, I discovered some minute particles of dark varnish in under the head of that nail that played the principal part in our death drama.”

“Seems incredible,” I murmured, and indeed it did.

“Yes, but true,” Kee averred. “And the brown varnish corresponds exactly to the door of Ames’s room, all the doors in that wing, in fact.”

“Well, after all, what does it prove?” I asked, wearily, wondering what new horror was to be divulged.

“Only premeditation. It proves that the murderer went to Tracy’s room, passing by Ames’s room, carrying the nail with him, and presumably the hammer. That’s all I can see in it, but it lends a bit of colour to Maud’s idea that the story of The Nail may have been responsible for the whole thing.”

“Yes,” I said, holding myself together, “it does. But of course, even though we found that book at the house on the Island, there are several inmates of that house who may become suspect; also there is the possibility that one of those inmates may have lent that book to anybody in all Deep Lake.”

“Perfectly true, Gray,” and Keeley spoke almost casually. “That’s logical enough. Now to find out who did or might have done that. It’s quite on the cards that somebody in the Pleasure Dome household read that book and used that method to do away with Tracy. It’s even possible that a rank outsider did the same thing. But somebody did do it, and with that book in the vicinity it’s only rational to assume the connection between the suggestion and the deed.”

“Could it have been the work of a demented person?” asked Maud.

“Very easily,” Keeley said. “I’ve hoped all along some maniac would turn up whom we could suspect. But none has, so far. Yes, it all has the earmarks of the work of a distorted brain, I mean the feather duster and all that tomfoolery. But I’ve not been able to find any trace of anybody even slightly or temporarily demented.”

Well, then, of course, Posy May’s story had to be told to him.

Lora undertook the telling, and without any help from Maud or me, she gave a clear and concise résumé of Posy’s statements.

Kee listened, as always, thoughtfully and with deepest interest.

When she had finished, he turned to me and said, in what was intended for a comforting manner:

“Take it easy, old man. The game’s never out till it’s played out. I’m not at all of the opinion that the scenes the volatile Posy described actually happened just as she described them. It may be Alma lost her temper, lost it to such an extent that the Merivales, one and all, urged her into the house. But make allowances for the source of that information and remember that it may all have happened some time ago, that Posy’s memory may be greatly stimulated by her imagination, and that she is decidedly prone to exaggerate, anyway.”

My very drooping spirits revived and I plucked up a little hope. But I had to know what Kee thought about the book.

“Do you feel sure, as Maud does, that the story in the book started the whole thing?”

“As I said, a few moments ago, I do, at this moment, think there is some connection, but I am quite willing to say, also, that it is, to my mind, just as likely there is none.”

“Then why did Alma want the book destroyed?” I demanded.

“Because she thinks there is a connection – ”

My heart lightened.

“That,” I exclaimed, “proves you think her innocent.”

“I never said I didn’t think that. But thinking so is a far cry from proving it. If you, Gray, could only bring yourself to tell me the important bit of information you are holding out on me, I should know better where we stand. I think, boy, the time has come – if you’re ever going to tell – to tell now.”

I pondered. How could I tell them that I had seen Alma on the lake that night? How could I put her dear head in the noose? – for it was nothing less than that. I shook my head.

“There’s nothing, Kee,” I said.

“Don’t tell, if you don’t want to, Gray, but don’t think you can lie to me successfully. You can’t.”

“But, Keeley,” I begged him, “granting I do know of a point that I haven’t told you, and supposing it definitely incriminates the girl I love, can you wonder that I want to withhold it?”

“You mean you think it definitely incriminates her. You may well be mistaken.”

“It doesn’t seem so to me.”

“And you propose to lock this important piece of information in your own soul, away from us all, and let us go on, blindly floundering – ”

“Do you suppose I care how blindly you flounder if you don’t suspect Alma Remsen? Do you suppose I care that I’m accessory after the fact, and all that, if I can keep her safe from suspicion?”

“But, Gray, if I can convince you that it’s wiser to let me know, and if I promise not to utilize the information you give me, if it does prove her guilty, what then?”

“If you give me your word of honour on that, I’ll tell.”

“Very well, word of honour.”

“Then,” I said, “I saw Alma Remsen in her canoe go to Pleasure Dome at about half-past one that night her uncle died, and I saw – no, I heard, her come back past here about half-past two.”

“How are you so sure of this?” Kee asked. “You didn’t know her then. That was the very night you arrived here.”

“I know that. I was looking out of my bedroom window and saw the girl; it was moonlight and I saw her distinctly. Then, next day when I saw Alma I recognized her for the same girl.”

“And you didn’t see her return?”

“I heard her, but I was sleepy and didn’t get up to look out. It may not have been she, of course, but it was a sound as of similar paddling.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Keeley said, but his face was sombre and his eyes sad.

CHAPTER XV