“I made Pescini carry it. He’s a shot.”
Pescini handed him back the weapon, and Marten walked on across the lawn to his post. The rest of us waited an instant in the road, talking quietly to one another, and two or three of the men were getting out their cigarettes. It was our first breathing-spell. Then we started slowly back toward the house.
But we halted at the sound of Marten’s voice. “Wait a minute, will you?” he called.
It is hard to explain why we all stopped in our tracks. Van Hope, whom I had never suspected of nerves, let his cigarette fall to the ground, a red streak. The voice out of the gloom was wholly quiet, subdued, perfectly calm, seemingly nothing to waken alarm or even especial interest. Perhaps what held us and startled us was the realization of an effort of will behind those commonplace, unruffled tones.
“What is it, Lem?” Nopp asked.
There was an instant’s interval of unfathomable silence. “I wish you’d come here,” Marten replied. “I’m a little balled up—as to where I am. These trees and shrubs are so near alike. I can’t exactly find—the place.”
Nopp did get there, but he didn’t go alone. All of us turned, half-running. And for a vague, bewildered, half-remembered moment we searched frantically up and down the craggy shore of the lagoon.
Then in the moonlight I saw Nopp and Nealman come together, and Nopp seized the other’s arms.
“My God, Grover!” he said hoarsely. “The body has disappeared!”