He dismissed her, but it came about that I failed to hear the testimony given immediately thereafter. One of Slatterly’s men that had been sent for to help him drag the lake brought me in a telegram.
It was the belated answer to the wire I had sent to Mrs. Noyes, of New Hampshire the previous day, and signed by the woman’s husband. It read as follows:
MY WIFE DIED LAST MONTH LEAVING ME TO MOURN. THE LETTERS WERE UNQUESTIONABLY FROM GEORGE FLOREY DAVID’S BROTHER. THEY HAVE BEEN BITTER ENEMIES SINCE YOUTH OVER SOME SECRET BUSINESS. FIND GEORGE FLOREY AND YOU WILL FIND THE MURDERER. I HAVEN’T EVER SEEN HIM AND SO FAR HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO FIND PHOTO. IF ONE TURNS UP I WILL SEND IT ON.
WILLIAM NOYES.
CHAPTER XVIII
Grover Nealman had disappeared, and no search could bring him back to Kastle Krags. The hope that we all had, that some way, some how he would reappear—destroying in a moment that strange, ghastly tradition that these last two nights had established—died in our souls as the daylight hours sped by. Even if we could have found him dead it would have been some relief. In that case we could ascribe his death to something we could understand—a sudden sickness, a murderer’s blow, perhaps even his own hand at his throat, all of which were within our bourne of human experience. But it was vaguely hard for us to have two men go, on successive nights, and have no knowledge whence or how they had gone.
Of course no man hinted at this hardship. It was simply the sort of thing that could not be discussed by intelligent men. Yet we were human, only a few little generations from the tribal fire and the witch-doctors, and it got under our skins.
Grover Nealman’s body was not lying in some unoccupied part of the house, nor did we find him in the gardens. Telephone messages were sent, but Nealman had not been seen. And after six hours of patient search, under that Floridan sun, it was no longer easy to believe that he lay at the bottom of the lagoon.