were
wide, but her voice when she spoke was subdued and calm, and there was
not the slightest trace of hysteria about her. "It's a dreadful thing,
isn't it?" she said. "Poor little Florey--who'd want to murder him!"

"Nobody knows--but we're going to get him, anyway," I promised rashly.
And what transpired thereafter did not come out in the inquest.

It was only a little thing, but it meant teeming worlds to me. One of
her hands groped out to mine, and I pressed it in reassurance.

Besides the native southern blacks that acted as gardeners and
chambermaids and table hands about the place, Nealman had rounded up his
mulatto chauffeur. Mrs. Gentry, his white housekeeper, sat a little to
one side of the group of negroes.

In a moment Nealman and Van Hope rejoined us, and we turned once more
through the still hall that had been Florey's particular domain. An
instant later we were out on the moonlit driveway.

"I wonder if those birds will have sense enough to stay away from the
body," Nopp said gruffly. "It would be easy to mess up and destroy every
bit of evidence----"

"Major Dell warned them," I said. "I think they'll remember."

"Nevertheless, I think we'd better post a guard over it." He paused,
eyeing an approaching figure. It was Marten, and he was almost out of
breath.

"Any luck?" Nealman asked.

"Nothing." Marten paused, fighting for breath. "Something stirred over
in the thicket--we chased it down and tried to round it up. I guess it
wasn't anything--certainly if it had been a man we'd scared it out. Have
you a dog?"

"Haven't shipped my dogs down here yet, but coons and such things come
out of the woods every once in a while. Where are your men----"

"They'll round up here in a minute. We've been beating through the
grounds."

In a moment Major Dell and Fargo approached us from opposite sides of
the garden, and once more we headed down toward the lagoon. A voice
called after us, and Pescini caught up.

"No trace of anything?" he asked.

"Not a trace," some one replied.

We walked with ever-decreasing pace, a rather uncertain group, down
toward the crags of the shore. All of us, I think, were busy with our
own thoughts. All of us paused, at last, forty yards from the scene of
the tragedy.

"There's really nothing further we can do," Nopp said. "If the murderer
is among the servants we've got him--you found 'em all, didn't you,
Nealman?"

"All of 'em. No suspicious circumstances."

"Good.