of the garden had lost their mystery, and there didn't seem any
use of waiting. Indeed, I don't think any of us escaped a sense of inner
embarrassment--something akin to ignominy and chagrin--that we should be
standing beside that quiet water-body, with high-powered rifles in our
hands. It made us feel secretly ridiculous.

Nopp called over, cheerily, "Through for the night?"

"Might as well," Slatterly answered. "It was a fool party anyway."

Very glad that the watch was over, I left my own post, and we had a
cigarette apiece beside the still lagoon. Then we went through the
gardens to the house.

"We've disrupted the regular schedule, anyway," Nopp said. "I think
we've come to the end of our trouble, and nothing more to fear. Man, do
you think to-day will clear the thing up?"

"What chance is there to clear up such a mess in one day?" The sheriff
spoke moodily.

"Because you're going to have some real help--not a lot of bungling
amateurs. You know who's coming?"

"Lacone--Van Hope's detective."

"Yes. He's a distinguished man--a real scientist in the study of crime.
He may do wonders, even in one day."

"I only hope he does! I don't care who clears it up--as long as it's
cleared. Now to get a little sleep."

Tired out, we went to our rooms. The cool of early morning had swept
through the halls, and the first glimmer of dawn was at the windows. How
white the moon was in the sky, how mysteriously gray the whole sweep of
shore and sea! So tired I dreaded the work of undressing, I sat down a
moment before the window that overlooked the lagoon.

The moonlight and the dawn gave the appearance of a mist, a gray mist as
is sometimes seen over water when the sky is overcast with heavy clouds.
At that moment it was impossible to conceive of anything but grayness.
The whole conception that the brain had, the only interpretation that
the senses made was of this same, lifeless hue. If an artist had tried
to paint the picture that was spread before my window he would have
needed but one tube of paint.

It was in some way vaguely startling. It went home to some dark
knowledge within a man, and left him fearful and expectant. The shore
and the sea were gray, the gardens were swept with grayness, the lagoon
itself had lost its many colors and only the same neutral tint remained.
The only way that the eye could distinguish shore from sea, and garden
from shore, was the gradations of the same hue.

Surely dawn was almost