Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ In these Kent did not join. He had inserted a finger in a crevice of the splintered wood and had extracted some small object which he held in the palm of his hand, examining it thoughtfully.
“Wot ye got there?” demanded the sheriff.
Professor Kent stretched out his hand, disclosing a small grayish object.
“I should take it to be the cocoon of Ephestia kuchniella,” he announced.
“An’ wot does he do for a livin’?” inquired the official, waxing humorous.
“Destroys crops. It’s a species of grain-moth.” ”

“ She turned away, an’ he started to follow, when all of a sudden she grabbed up a rock an’ let him have it—blip! Keeled him clean over. Then she ran away up the road toward Hawkill Cliffs. That’s the way Iry Dennett tells it. But I ain’t never heard of a story losin’ anythin’ in the tellin’ when it come through Iry’s lips.”
“Well, this corpse ain’t got no pink necklace,” suggested somebody.
“Bodies sometimes gets robbed,” said Sailor Smith.
Chester Kent stooped over the writhen face, again peering close. Then he straightened up and began pulling thoughtfully at the lobe of his ear. ”

“ Is that Francis Sedgwick, the artist?” asked Kent.
“That’s him,” said Sailor Smith. “Paints right purty pictures. Lives there all alone with a Chinese cook.”
“Well, the lady went down the hill,” continued Jarvis, “just as Sedgwick come out to smoke a pipe on his stone wall. Iry thought he seemed su’prised when she bespoke him. They passed a few remarks, an’ then they had some words, an’ the lady laughed loud an’ kinder scornful. He seemed to be pointin’ at a necklace of queer, fiery pink stones thet she wore, and tryin’ to get somethin’ out of her. ”

“ He seen there was somethin’ queer about thet rope, an’ he ast me about the knots, right off. He knows enough not to spit to wind’ard, an’ don’t you forgit it! Wouldn’t surprise me none if he was p’intin’ pretty nigh as clus up into the wind as Len Schlager.”
Possibly the one supporter of the absent would have wavered in his loyalty had he seen the trove that Professor Chester Kent had carried unostentatiously from the beach, in his pocket, after picking it from the grating. It was the fuzzy cocoon of a small and quite unimportant insect. Perhaps the admiring Mr. ”

“ They ain’t a man on this coast would take a chance like that.”
“Superstition,” retorted the other curtly. “On a still day such as this there would be no danger to an experienced swimmer. The conditions are ideal except for this crowd. ”