The sharpness of her voice roused old Mrs. Brenner, drowsing in her corner.
"Blood!" she cried suddenly. "Blood on his hands!"
In the silence that followed, the eyes of the men turned curiously toward the old woman and then sought each other with speculative stares. Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances, said roughly. "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you bothering us for?"
Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the arm. There was something touching in her frightened old face.
"A man—a stranger was killed up on the hill," Munn told her.
"What's that got to do with us?" she countered.
"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure where every man in the village was this afternoon."
Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness of Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did not miss the tremor in her eyes.
"Where was your son this afternoon?"
She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach."