The Deep Lake Mystery

Again I was on the verge of telling him of the scene on the lake the night before, and again I stopped, held back by some force outside myself.

“Especially why?” he asked, curiously, but I evaded the issue by saying, “Especially when one is on a holiday.”

He laughed and we turned away from Pleasure Dome.

“Now I’ll show you the island,” he said, “and then we’ll tackle the tackle.”

We went rapidly back past Pleasure Dome, on down the lake, past Moore’s own place, and then on a bit farther to the Island.

“They call it ‘Whistling Reeds’, and it’s a good name,” he said. “When the wind’s a certain way, and it’s quiet otherwise, you can hear the reeds whistle like birds.”

“You do have most interesting places,” I said. “And who lives here? And where’s the house?”

“Alma Remsen lives here, the niece of Sampson Tracy I told you about last night. You can’t see the house, the trees are so thick.”

“I should say they were!” and I stared at the dense black mass. “Why doesn’t she cut a vista, at least?”

“She doesn’t want it, I believe. Thinks it’s more picturesque like this.”

“I’d be scared to death to live there!”

“No reason to be. Nothing untoward ever happens up here. All peaceable citizens.”

“But fancy living in such a place. How do they get provisions and all that?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Lots of the dealers deliver their stuff in canoes or motor boats. See, there’s the boathouse. Some day we’ll call here. Alma likes my wife, she’ll be glad to see us.”

“I suppose she’s a canoeist.”

“Everybody’s that, around here. I mean the people who live all the year round. A good many people live on islands. They like it. This island, you see, is a big one. About two or three acres, say. That gives Miss Remsen room for tennis courts and gardens and pretty much anything she wants, and the house is very pleasant. Nothing like Pleasure Dome, but a bigger house than the one we’re in.”

We turned then, and started off toward the spot where Kee elected to do his fishing.

“Hello,” he said, as we moved on, “there’s Alma now. That’s Miss Remsen.”

We were now about midway between the Moore bungalow and the Island of Whistling Reeds. I looked, to see a girl come down to the floating dock of the boathouse, spring into a canoe and paddle away.

I said nothing aloud, but to myself I said it was the girl I had seen in a canoe the night before.

There was no mistaking that slim, lithe figure, that graceful capable way of managing the boat, and she even wore what seemed to me to be the same clothes, a white skirt and white sweater. She had on a small white felt hat, and I noticed that she did not limp at all. As I had surmised, the limp was occasioned by some slight and temporary strain or bruise.

“Well, don’t eat her up with your eyes!” exclaimed Moore, and I realized I had been staring.

Also I was just about to tell him of seeing her before, but the chaffing tone he used somehow shut me up on the subject.

So I only said, gaily: “Bowled over by the Lady of the Lake!” and laughed back at him.

“That’s what she’s called up here,” he informed me. “She’s in her canoe so much and manages it so perfectly, she seems like a part of it. Of course, wherever she goes, she has to go in that or in some boat. Can’t get on and off an island in a motor car.”

“Must be an awful nuisance.”

“She doesn’t find it so. Says she likes it better than a motor. Look at her paddle. Isn’t she an expert?”

“She sure is.” And I held my tongue tightly to refrain from saying that she seemed to me to have paddled even more beautifully the night before. But, I said to myself, that was doubtless the glamour loaned by the moonlight and the witchery of the night scene.

Miss Remsen soon reached Pleasure Dome, and we could see her beach her canoe and follow her with our eyes for a few steps until she disappeared behind a clump of tall trees.

We set to work then in good earnest and I saw in Keeley Moore for the time being an embodiment of perfect happiness.

He loved to fish, even alone, but better still, he loved to fish with a congenial companion. And we were that. Though not friends of such very long standing, we were similar in our likes and dislikes as well as in our dispositions.

We had an identical liking for silence at times, and as a rule we chose the same times. Often we would sit for half an hour in a sociable silence, and then break into the most animated conversation.

This morning, after we had begun to fish, such a spell fell upon us. I was glad, for I wanted to think things out; to learn, if possible, why I was so interested, or why, indeed, I was interested at all, in Alma Remsen.

Just because I saw her paddling over to her uncle’s house the night before and again this morning, was that enough to make me feel that I must keep still about the first excursion? And, if so, why?

I didn’t even know yet what she looked like. So it couldn’t be that I had fallen for a pretty face – I didn’t even know whether she had one.

I thought of asking Kee that, but decided not to. A strange, vague instinct held me back from mentioning Alma Remsen’s name.

Suddenly he said, “Damn!” in a most explosive way, and not unnaturally I thought he had lost one of those biggest of all big fishes.

But as he began pulling in his empty line and making other evident preparations for bringing our fishing party to an end, I mildly asked for light on the subject.

“Got to go home,” he said, like a sulky child.

“What for?”

“See that red flag in the bungalow window? That means come home at once. Lora only uses it in cases of real importance, so we’ve got to go.”

CHAPTER III

THE TRAGEDY

As we went up the steps and crossed the porch of the Moore bungalow, we saw a man seated in the lounge, talking to Lora.

Both jumped up at our approach, and Lora cried out, “Oh, Kee, Mr. Tracy is dead!”

“Sampson Tracy! Dead?” exclaimed Moore, with a look of blank consternation.

“Yes,” the man said, tersely, “and not only dead, but murdered. I’m Police Detective March. I’ve just come from the Tracy house. You see, everything is at sixes and sevens over there. Nobody authorized to take the helm, though plenty of them want to do so. In a way, Everett, the secretary, is head of the heap, but a guest there, Mr. Ames, refuses to acknowledge that Everett has any say at all. Claims he is Tracy’s oldest and closest friend, and insists on taking charge himself.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Keeley Moore, quietly.

“Well, why should he?” countered the policeman. “And, besides, I think he’s the man who killed Tracy. But here’s my errand here. It seems Mr. Ames was here last night to dinner?”

Lora nodded assent to his inquiring glance.