The officers mounted the breakwater to go flashing electric lanterns into every cavity. As the boom of thunder grew louder they abandoned the search to go tramping back across the barren sand.
Left to himself, Al made a pretense of leaving the island, but in reality lost himself from sight on the very brush-grown trail the nymph of the lake had taken a short time before.
“Well, I’ll be—!” he muttered, as he brought up squarely before the structure that seemed a monster’s head, whose eyes by this time were quite sightless. The light had blinked off some moments before.
After walking around the place twice, he stood before the door and lifted a hand as if to knock. Appearing to think better of this, he sank down upon the narrow doorstep, allowed his head to fall forward, and appeared to sleep.
Not for long, however. Foxes do not sleep in the night. Having roused himself, he stole back over the trail, crept to the breakwater, lifted himself to a point of elevation, and surveyed the entire scene throughout three lightning flashes. Then, apparently satisfied, he made his way to the windlass he had left an hour or two before. He repeated the process of drowning the complaining voice of the windlass and then, turning the crank, rapidly lifted the dripping net from the bottom of the lake.
With fingers that trembled slightly, he drew a small flashlight from his pocket to cast its light across the surface of the net.
Muttering a curse beneath his breath, he flashed the light once again, and then stood there speechless.
What had happened? The meshes of that net were fine, so fine that a dozen minnows not more than two inches long struggled vainly at its center. Yet the package he had thrown in this net was gone.
“Gone!” he muttered. “It can’t have floated. Heavy. Heavy as a stone. And I had my eyes on it, every minute; all but—but the time I went down that trail.
“They tricked me!” he growled. He was thinking now of the policemen. “But no! How could they? I saw them go, saw them on the bridge. Couldn’t have come back. Not time enough.”