—II—
THE BRONZE KEY
Paul Cremarre!
And the man was not a pleasant sight! The slime, the water and the mud! The Stygian blackness that seemed to mock and jeer at the puny ray of the flashlight! The lap-lap-lap of the wavelets that echoed back in hollow, ghostly whispers from the flooring of the boathouse above! And Runnells, grovelling, drawing in his breath with loud sucking sounds. Noises of sea and air—indefinable—all discordant—like imps in jubilee! It was a ghouls' hole!
But Captain Francis Newcombe smiled—with a thin parting of the lips. He knew a sudden elation, a stupendous uplift. He found joy in each of those abominable marks on the face of the Thing that lay at the end of his flashlight's ray. They were not pretty—but they were all too few!
"Got your wind up, has it, Runnells?" he sneered—and thereafter for a moment, though he never let Runnells entirely out of the light's focus, gave his fuller attention to Paul Cremarre.
The man was dead, wasn't he? It was a matter that could not be left in doubt—even where doubt seemed to be dispelled at a glance. He bent down over the other. An instant's examination satisfied him. The man was dead. His eyes roved over the body, and held suddenly on one of the man's hands. Rather peculiar, that! The hand was tightly clenched. One did not ordinarily die with one hand clenched and the other open! He forced the hand open. Something fell to the ground. He picked it up. It was a large bronze key about three inches in length. Cupping it in his hand so that Runnells might not inadvertently see it, he stared at it speculatively for a moment, then dropped it into his pocket.
This was interesting, decidedly interesting—and suggestive! His flashlight became more inquisitive in respect of the immediate surroundings. Those footprints, for instance, in the half mud and sand, deep, irregular, which, leading up from the edge of the water some four or five yards away, ended where Paul Cremarre now lay—and another series of footprints, a little to the right, quite regular, which, though they also started from the water's edge, lost themselves in the direction of the beach in front of the boathouse.
Captain Francis Newcombe worked swiftly now. He searched through the dead man's pockets, transferring the contents, without stopping to examine them, to his own pockets—and then abruptly and without ceremony swung upon Runnells.
"We'll finish this up in the boathouse!" he snapped.