“I suppose—in the lagoon.”
“Would you say that cry was given while he was in the water?”
“I hardly think so. I’m slightly known as a swimmer, Mr. Weldon—was once, anyway, and I know something about the water. A drowning man can’t call that loud. Mr. Nealman was a corking good swimmer himself—nothing fancy at all, but fairly well able to take care of himself. When he disappeared the tide was running out—the lagoon on this side of the rock wall was still as glass. If Mr. Nealman, through some accident or other, fell in that lagoon he’d swim out—unless he was held in. At least he’d try to swim out. And by the time he found out he couldn’t make the shore, he’d be so tired he couldn’t cry out like he did last night.”
“I see your point. I don’t know that it would always work out. Occasionally a man—simply loses his nerve.”
“Not Nealman—in still water, most of which isn’t over five feet deep.”
“‘Unless he was held in,’ you say. What do you think held him in?”
Fargo’s hands gripped his chair-arms. “Mr. Weldon, I don’t know what you want me to say,” he answered clearly. “I feel the same way about this mystery that I felt about the other—that human enemies did him to death. I don’t think anything held him in. I think he was dead before ever he was thrown into the water. I think two or three men—perhaps only one—surrounded him—probably pointed a gun at him. He yelled for help, and they killed him—probably with a knife or black-jack. That’s the whole story.”
The coroner dismissed him, then slowly gazed about the circle. For the first time I began to realize that these mysteries of Kastle Krags were pricking under his skin. He looked baffled, irritated, his temper was lost, as gone as the missing men themselves.
Ever his attitude was more belligerent, pugnacious. His lips were set in a fighting line, his eyes scowled, and evidently he intended to wring the testimony from his witnesses by third degree methods. Suddenly he whirled to Pescini.
“How did you happen to be fully dressed at the time of Nealman’s disappearance last night?” he demanded.