"It may have been the woman herself who stabbed Mr. Marsh," offered
Emerson. "He was strangling her when I arrived."
Roused by this statement to a fresh denial, Marsh cried out:
"I tell you there wasn't any woman."
"And there isn't any knife either," Emerson sneered.
The men paused uncertainly. Seeing that they were undecided whether to believe him or his assailant, Marsh went on:
"If he hasn't a knife, then he must have had a friend with him—"
"Then tell your men what we were doing in here and how you came to be alone with us in the dark." Emerson stared at his accuser curiously, but the Trust's manager seemed at a loss. "See here, Marsh, if you will tell us whom you were choking, maybe we can get at the truth of this affair."
Without answering, Marsh rose, and, leaning upon the watchman's arm, said:
"Help me up to the house. I'm hurt. Send the launch to the upper plant for John; he knows something about medicine." With no further word, he made his way out of the building, followed by the mystified fishermen.
No one undertook to detain Emerson, and he went his way, wondering what lay back of the night's adventure. He racked his brain for a hint as to the identity of the woman and the reason of her presence alone with Marsh in such a place. Again he thought of that mysterious third person whose movements had been so swift and furious, but his conjectures left him more at sea than ever. Of one thing he felt sure. It was not enmity alone that prompted Marsh to accuse him of the stabbing. The man was concealing something, in deadly fear of the truth, for rather than submit to questioning he had let his enemy go scot-free.