It was early the following morning when a launch drew up beside the Nautilus. In it were Edwards and Dr. Jermyn, wildly excited.
“What’s the matter?” called out Waldon.
“They—they have found the body,” Edwards blurted out.
Waldon paled and clutched the rail. He had thought the world of his sister, and not until the last moment had he given up hope that perhaps she might be found to have disappeared in some other way than had become increasingly evident.
“Where?” cried Kennedy. “Who?”
“Over on Ten Mile Beach,” answered Edwards. “Some fishermen who had been out on a cruise and hadn’t heard the story. They took the body to town, and there it was recognized. They sent word out to us immediately.”
Waldon had already spun the engine of his tender, which was about the fastest thing afloat about Seaville, had taken Edwards over, and we were off in a cloud of spray, the nose of the boat many inches above the surface of the water.
In the little undertaking establishment at Seaville lay the body of the beautiful young matron about whom so much anxiety had been felt. I could not help thinking what an end was this for the incomparable beauty. At the very height of her brief career the poor little woman’s life had been suddenly snuffed out. But by what? The body had been found, but the mystery had been far from solved.
As Kennedy bent over the body, I heard him murmur to himself, “She had everything—everything except happiness.”
“Was it drowning that caused her death?” asked Kennedy of the local doctor, who also happened to be coroner and had already arrived on the scene.