“I am in the publishing business, in New York.”
“You have a long acquaintance with Mr. Nealman?”
“Something over four years.”
“Where were you when you heard David Florey scream?”
“On the veranda.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, alone. I had been with Mr. Van Hope and Nealman a few moments before. I was rather hot, and I went out on the veranda for a breath of air. I rushed out toward the sound, and Nealman and his party caught up with me.”
He testified that he had taken part in the search, and was utterly baffled as to the solution of the mystery.
Nopp was in the music room, he said, looking for a certain record that he wished his friends to hear. He had been in the billiard room a few seconds before. He had heard the cry but faintly, and had not been especially alarmed. The shouts of the other guests, he said, rather than the scream of the dying man, had caused him to rush out and join in the investigation. He had known Nealman a long time, was an architect by profession, and had been one of those to partake in the hunt through the gardens.
Last of all the white men, he called on me. I told of my relations with Nealman, the work I had been hired to do and, my own reactions to the fearful scream in the darkness. I had been with Marten, Van Hope and Nealman and had sent through the calls to Ochakee.