At this the quadroon burst out, “I haven’t, but I wish I had, and it isn’t my fault!”
“Confession is good for the soul of a party,” Vango said, with unction.
“I’ll tell you everything, if you’ll only promise to help me. I am innocent of any real crime, I swear before God! But I tried to kill a man to-night. It was in self-defence, though.”
She took the lantern, and, setting the light on the seat, pointed silently to the body. “Look at him!” she said.
After a heroic conflict with his repugnance the medium rolled the corpse over till it lay face up. The dead man was a Chinaman. He could see that by his clothes and hair, although his face was half masked with clotted blood. Two shocking gashes in the forehead turned Vango sick with horror. He looked up at the woman with fear in his eyes, and asked:
“Who was the deceased?”
“It was my husband,” she said, and her sobs choked her. “We must get him ashore and put him in the house, and then we can decide what next, and perhaps you can help me. There’s our pier, over there,” and she pointed out the light on a little wharf running out from the gloom. She took the wheel again, and the launch was docked at the pier.
As Vango disembarked and prepared to help her with the corpse, the quadroon woman quickly stopped him. “Here,” she said, pointing to a large wooden case in the bow, “this must go ashore first. Take it into the shed there and watch out that you’re not seen. It won’t do for the police to see it, or any of the neighbours. I’d rather they saw the body!”
She stooped and untied a coil of rope from the case, and then the two lifted it to the floating stage. It weighed something over a hundred pounds, and it was all they could do to carry it together up the steep incline and along the pier to the shed. The woman took a key from her pocket, and unlocked the door. When the case was inside the room, which was scantily furnished with a few chairs and tables, they returned to the launch.
As they approached the stage, Vango thought of the woman’s request for a seance, and her words struck him as curious. He asked her carelessly what it was she wished to find.