J. Allan Dunn

“ There was a light within and Benson caught sight of a four-poster bed, valanced and canopied, an ancient desk. A gust of sand rattled on the front door like the rapping of a myriad tiny knuckles, insistent, imploring. The weird fancy touched Benson that they had come from the half-buried grave. The place and its happenings were getting on his nerves.
“Good night!” he said and started to ascend. Harmon stood watching him till he made the landing.
“The room above mine, Mr. Benson? I think you will find conveniences. Pardon me if I do not make certain of that myself. My mounting days are over. ”

“ Benson unstrapped his grip and took out some things. Then he undressed, placing coat and vest across the back of a bedside chair, and turned in. But not to sleep. The close room, the wind howling in the chimney, shaking the windows, buffeting the sturdy house until beams creaked and the rugs lifted mysteriously as if snakes were beneath them, combined with a feather-bed and the incidents of his visit to keep him wide awake. He tried reading a book by candlelight, but was unable to concentrate.
Darkness did not help him. Once Cæsar bayed, out on the dunes. ”

“ The wind, still blowing a gale in the graying dawn, would have eliminated footprints to a great extent with the scudding sand, yet in some sheltered hollow of a dune he might find the imprint of a naked foot. On the lee side of the house they should show, if he had gone that way.
He entered the death chamber. The woman had touched nothing but stood beside the bed wringing her hands, her spare frame shaken. Benson warned her to leave the bed alone. He opened the desk, searching for some better weapon than the two krises that had been taken from the wall, now sacred to the law. ”

“ Then the sand started to work in. Choked the sea an' nigh swallered the cliff.”
Benson gazed across the waste of dunes. Some of the slopes were long, smooth drifts; others were rippled by the wind; tawny plumes of yellow sea-grass grew sparsely on the crests. Between the ancient headlands the sand had reclaimed the sea. Billows of sand replaced the waves that once had leaped in Windy Bay, formed with infinite persistence to a seemingly useless end: grain after grain, shifting, piling, year after year, choking the haven, forming a no-man's land between sea and shore. ”

“ Murder's been done! The man's gone. Did you see him?”
“Murder?”
“Captain Harmon! Stabbed by the man I bound. And he's got away.”
She sat up, raising herself by her arms. Her face worked horribly and her pallid eyes projected as she strove for speech. It came thickly, with sweat starting over her forehead. “Cap'n Harmon murdered! Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” She rocked herself to and fro, her wispy hair all about her face and shoulders. Benson shook her, none too gently. ”

“ The room they entered was of noble proportions and ran the full width of the house. A fire leaped in the half-light beneath a Colonial fireplace of white wood, delicately carven with wreaths, upheld by fluted pilasters, inset with figured tiles. On a great table, beside a terrestrial globe, the model of a full-rigged ship rode on a strip of Batik cloth, its sails half-screening the fire from Benson. On the mantel was one ornament that riveted his attention as the woman passed on through a door in the paneled fireplace wall, toward the back of the house. ”

“ Then he pushed across a small chest of cloisonné where cheroots nestled in tea.
“I envy your trips-to-come,” said the host and the envy showed in his voice, in the leaping flash of his eyes as he sipped the curaçao. “I did not grow old gracefully. No red-blooded man ever did. A swift life, well-packed, like the bag of a bee—there's your Browning for you—that, and a quick death.
“The lure of the jungle trail,” he continued, choosing a cheroot carefully, “sea, jungle or land. It all grips to the end.” Benson's glance went involuntarily to the bas-relief.
“You noticed that?” asked the captain. ”

“ With relief, Benson recognized the driver of the car—Martin—deputy sheriff and constable.
Martin caught at him for balance as he reached him, gasping for breath, his Adam's apple working as he strove for speech, his eyes shifting from the woman to the schooner, laboring hard to gain an offing. Once they turned suspiciously to Benson.
“She'll make it,” he cried at last. “She'll make it! Dad burn 'em but they can handle her! ”

“ For what? To get the inheritance for my boy. It was his. His and mine. I hoped that Harmon might grow less hard. I tended him. And he left the sea. His heart failed him, drained of its strength by wanton living. He saw the sand creep on as it has always done, to kill the orchard and to cover the shame of her grave. I was his cast-off, his slave. And I could have had a dozen proud to wed me once."
Martin nodded confirmation at Benson. It was difficult to believe that beauty once bloomed on that warped and dessicated vine. ”

“ Inch by inch, foot by foot, she clung to the wind as a man might hand himself along a rope, gaining little by little, seeking her own safety, relinquishing the two men to the death that had already claimed them, swashing them about in the sub-currents, to fling them up at the flood, battered, sodden, broken husks. ”

“ Her fishy eyes stared at him as if she could not grasp his meanings.
“Yes. You're all right. I'm going down-stairs. You'd better get dressed. It must be close to morning.”
“The dog!” she cried. “Listen to Cæsar.”
“I hear him. On the fellow's scent. After he let him pass.”
“He came—in the dark. He choked me. I—Oh, my God!”
Benson looked at her sharply. “You get some clothes on,” he said crisply. “The man's safe. “You're not hurt?”
“No. Only faintish. I'll be all right.”
Her eyes rolled after him as he left, going down the back way to the kitchen. ”

“ His second idea was the rubies.
He found nothing. The man wore a singlet under his shirt. The three garments, with the belt, constituted his clothing. The wide bottoms of his trousers were damp and sandy. The pockets gave up only a few small coins and a bunch of keys. Benson felt a sense of relief. Apparently the man was only a common thief.
He held the candle closer to the face and the pupils of the eyes dilated and then shrank to pinpoints. Their look was defiant. In the life they imparted to his face it seemed to Benson vaguely familiar. ”

“ Man and rubies had vanished. Houdini-like, he had got out of the stout straps and, like a greater wizard, he had disappeared, with every exit barred!
A COLD fury took possession of Benson. His own loss—ten thousand dollars in currency—entered into it, but predominant was the foul murder of Captain Harmon and the manner in which the assassin had tricked him. The rubies were no slight matter, aside from their great value. That such gems should pass into hands so dastardly exasperated him and clinched the determination to solve the mystery, to bring the murderer and thief to book. ”

“ His bare feet showed upon the dark pattern of a hook-rug. He did not glance toward the bed, where Benson had thrust a pillow beneath the covers to suggest, in the darkness, a recumbent form; but reached out for the coat and vest that hung on the back of the bedside chair. This with his left hand. His right was close by his side. It suggested a weapon.
There was nothing of the coward about Benson. He had been in many straits that called for prompt action, and he answered his combatant impulse. Physically he was always fit, by birthright and by training. ”

“ There are a few bequests and, listen:”
“To my housekeeper, Mrs. Eliza Woods, in recognition of her years of service and in recompense for certain wrongs she has suffer at my hands; to her and to her issue after her, I bequeath the sum of sixty thousand dollars, to be derived from the sale of my rubies this day appraised.”
The sheriff stared dumbly at Benson for a moment. “He left 'em to her after all. If that don't beat all. I want to know.”
The front door opened. The heavy tread of men sounded, the broken sobbing of a woman, of a mother. From the dead man's room the dog suddenly howled. ”

“ These had been supplemented by square brick piers. And there were the bases of two chimneys. The smell of apples, a litter of boxes, cord wood, barrels, but no sign of the fugitive. Three oblong lights, gray now with dawn, would barely have given egress to the dog. And they were nailed.
A trap caught his eye and he tugged fiercely at it, remembering the driver's tale of subterranean passages. But stale, stinking water gleamed iridescently up at him less than two feet down. If this was a passage it was impassable. It was more likely a well. ”

“ Captain Harmon, showing teeth big, sound and white, laughed.
“Ha!” he said. “Cæsar accepts you. You are welcome. You must pardon my dozing. Old custom reasserts itself. I sleep off and on. My housekeeper had orders not to disturb me. You'll sit down. We'll have lights, then supper and then our business.”
He pulled a bellrope of heavy twisted cord and a bell tinkled at the back as Benson took the chair across the hearth, beside which he had already placed his grip. The housekeeper came gliding in. ”

“ Benson saw the Miriam come about for a short tack, then fetch another and go lunging past the point in a smother of spray.
“Sheriff,” he said, “you are the man that's needed. There's been murder done. Captain Harmon has been stabbed. Valuable jewels have been stolen. Ten thousand dollars of mine has gone with them.”
Both men opened their mouths as their eyes goggled. The wind blew away the half formulated “Murder?” that formed on their lips.
“Then what in time are you and the woman standin' here watchin' the schooner fur?” demanded Martin. ”

“ I'm not chuckin' myself at the Chair. I come up the back stairs first an' I butted in the wrong room. There was an old dame in it. I had to tie her up. If you don't want her to choke to death you'd better ease her up a bit or you may be 'sessory to murder yourself. I was a bit rough, bein' in a hurry.”
His volubility showed bravado, Benson thought, behind which lurked a certain strain. For which the gagged housekeeper might well be the reason. After tying her he had gone down the back-stairs and up the front way, rather than risk the long length of creaky passage. ”

“ But her voice rang with truth
“I DID not spy,” she said, turning on Benson. “I but made sure. I have watched him many a night in front of the fire, looking at his rubies. At my rubies. My boy's. They may have been hers once. She gave him—all—all—to mastery. A man like him is born as woman's master. ”

“ Benson's lamp, so I brought him a candle.” She set it down.
“One of these would have done as well, fool,” rumbled the captain, watching her under his penthouse brows as she glided out, this time into the hall. “You moved quickly, Benson,” he added with a note of approval. “I doubt if she saw anything. She has grown into something half-mechanical of late. This place has few excitements to keep one young. Tut! What do you think of the rest of the stones?”
Benson finished his appraisal, working deftly, sorting the rubies into little fiery heaps, making notes in a small book. ”

“ Woods,” went on Benson. “You said there was no oil for my lamp. The can in the kitchen is half full. You made that an excuse to spy on the captain and myself. And the man I caught in my room had your eyes. There were other things about him that struck me.”
“Stop!” she cried, in a croaking, choking voice. “Stop, I say!”
“She has got a boy,” said Martin. “He warn't no good. ”

“ The shadow of the tragedy had deepened, though he fancied he dimly saw a trail in the wild tangle of the night's events.
[Illustration: Suddenly a figure showed, climbing out of a valley between hills, a man in blue trousers and shirt, surely his quarry.] ”

“ My lawyers tell me that you are responsible and honest. A rarer thing than most people think. You see, I have little idea of the real value of the stones.”
BENSON laughed as he answered. “I copied your precaution. I did not wish to take an idle trip. You wrote that you preferred cash. It was unusual I did not care to carry several thousand dollars in currency to a lonely spot without knowing something definite.”
“I am sorry if I put you to unusual trouble. I am not sure that I want to sell any of the rubies. I do want to set my estate in order. A valve here is leaky.” He touched his chest. ”

“ His loose-jointed frame coordinated into something authoritative, his eyes became keen. Benson approved his new aspect. The man had qualities, after all. His companion seemed of duller clay, awed, swollen with curiosity, yet stolid.
“I BELIEVE the man came off from the schooner. Two men tried to make her in a dory from the creek and were drowned. One of them is, I think, the murderer.”
“I want to know.” Martin scrutinized the shore line and the breakers. “Body'll be comin' in before long.” he said. “Both of 'em. Land this side of the p'int. Strong current sets in. ”