The moon had risen and hung on the edge of the sky like a great disk of white paper. Anne saw the others running this way and that along the edge of the Point. A boat was pushing out from the dock, Stokes in it, and, caught by the current, it shot down the gleaming surface of the channel. There were cries in men’s voices and Stokes’ answer, bell-clear from the water. Then Shine ran by her, back to the house, grim-visaged with staring eyes. The scene had the fantastic quality of a nightmare, the solemn splendors of the setting and the gesticulating, shouting figures darting about like grotesque silhouettes.
She ran on through the pine wood up the path beyond. Mrs. Cornell met her, tried to speak with chattering teeth, but ended in a scream and fell upon her shoulder. Over her head Anne saw Bassett flying down the slope to the wharf. Then presently boats moving out from Hayworth. They came with incredible speed, sliding forward in a group that spread and broke into units scattering across the channel. Here they sped back and forth, up and down, swift black shapes that seemed to be executing some complicated maneuvers along the glittering track of moonlight. She was aware of Bassett’s figure leaving the wharf and racing to the house, of Shine thudding by and calling:
“They’re here already! I got some one on the wire and I told him to go like hell.”
Miss Pinkney’s voice answered him from the edge of the Point where she stood like a black basalt statue:
“Oh, they’re here, all right. Every feller that has a boat’s out. But it’s no use; no one who’s ever got caught in that current’s been found.”
Shine muttered an invocation and came to a stop. They all stood speechless staring at the boats—the boats looking for Sybil who half an hour ago was alive like themselves and now was—where?
As soon as he saw the fleet in operation, Bassett ran to the house. He had to find Flora and get fuller information from her before he called up the police, and not seeing her outside, he supposed she was still there. The great room was almost dark. He felt for one of the standard lamps and pulled the string. The gush of light fell directly over her, close to him, sunk in an armchair, as still as if she, too, had ceased to live. He had expected difficulties in getting a coherent statement from her, but she told him what she had seen, briefly and clearly, as if she had known he was coming and was ready for him.
She had skirted the island and come to that part of the path which faced the Point. A hollow intervened, extending to the water’s edge in a mass of shelving rock. Across this hollow she saw Sybil appear on the end of the Point, coming up from the opposite side, and almost immediately heard the shot. Sybil had thrown up her arms, staggered forward and gone over the bluff. It all happened in a flash and Flora, though describing herself as dazed, had run down the path into the hollow and out on the rocks thinking she could catch her. But she saw the body go swirling by—far out of her reach, caught and borne along in the current. She had watched it, stunned, then had come to her senses and staggered back to the shore—she thought she had fallen more than once—and ran to the house. On the way there she had seen no one and heard nothing.
Bassett left her and went to the library to call up Forestville, the county seat. He knew the place well—a small town on the edge of northern solitudes. It was the starting point for hunting parties to New Brunswick, and Bassett, a sportsman in his leisure hours, had stayed there several times assembling his guides and gear. On his last trip, two years ago, trouble with a guide had brought him in contact with the sheriff, Abel Williams. Over legal wrangling they had struck up a friendship and he remembered Williams as a man of some capacity, straight and fair-minded. If he was still in office it would simplify matters; to start out with confidence in the director would be a vital gain. He waited, the receiver against his ear, a foot drumming on the carpet, then a deep and growling voice hummed along the wire. It was Abel Williams.
Williams would be down as soon as he could, with Mr. Rawson, the district-attorney—an hour and a half to two hours, the roads being bad. The shore people had been told it was an accident—that’s all right, couldn’t hold an inquest anyway without a body and it was a good thing to keep ’em off. Better not let anything come out till they’d got the situation in hand, easy to fix at that end as the United American Press man was off fishing. They’d do a good deal better if the press was held off for a spell. The place was small, they’d clutter it up, tramp out foot-prints, get in the way searching for clues. Seeing where the island was and that there was no one on it but their own crowd, it would be possible to keep things out of the public eye till they had the work well started.