“Look at the face,” said Kent with finality. “This is a bad coast. Most of you have seen drowned bodies. Did any one ever see an expression of such terror and agony on the face of one who came to death by drowning?”
Murder! echoed a voice from the doorway.
“No, by thunder!” shouted somebody. “He’s right.”
Others took up the cry. Clamor rose and spread in the room. The sheriff silenced it with a stentorian voice. “What are you trying to get at?” he demanded, facing Kent.
“The truth. What are you?”
Schlager’s eyelids flickered; but he ignored the counter-stroke. “Look out it don’t lead you where you won’t want to follow,” he returned, with a significant look at Sedgwick.
“This is as far as it has led me,” said Kent, in his clear even voice. “The body, already dead, was dragged down and soaked in the sea, and then lashed to the grating by a man who probably is or has been a sailor.”
“Then the deceased met death on shore, and presumably by violence,” said Lawyer Bain.
“It’s murder!” cried a woman shrilly. “Bloody murder! That’s what it is!”