Kastle Krags Part 15

"Then let's go up to the house to do it," Nopp suggested. "We know we're not all here now--there's no use getting alarmed before we're sure. Go up to the living-room."

His voice was oddly penetrative, wakening a whole flood of unwelcome thoughts.... We were not all here, he said--seemingly not even all the white occupants of Kastle Krags had obeyed the common instinct to answer and investigate that cry! Yet it all might come to nothing, after all. A close tabulation might account for every one--and that the remainder of our party had merely not yet wakened. Stranger things have happened.

We told ourselves, in silent ways, that we had heard of men sleeping through more fearful sounds than that! I agreed with Nopp that the thing to do was to go to the living-room, make a careful count, and then see where we stood.

In a moment we had started back. We were not afraid we had left some of our party still searching through the gardens. No man cared to be alone out there to-night, and all of us kept close track of our fellows. Edith was standing just before the veranda, on the driveway, as we came up.

The coroner, who had taken time fully to dress, met us half-way down the lawns.

We walked almost in silence; and quietly, rather grimly, Joe Nopp flashed on all the lights of the big living-room.

"Go ahead, Slatterly," he said to the sheriff, "See that we're all here."

"Let Killdare do it. I don't know you all, you know----"

So I made the count, just as sometimes we did after raids over No Man's Land. The sheriff and the constable were both present, Mrs. Gentry, the housekeeper, was standing, pale but remarkably self-possessed, at the inner door of the room. Of course I couldn't count up the blacks. Most of them were evidently hiding in their rooms. And every one of the six guests answered his name.

"There's just one more name to give," Nopp said at last.

"But there's no use naming it," some one answered in a queer, flat voice. "He's not here."

Nopp turned, and bounded like a deer up the stairs. All of us knew what he had gone to do: to see if the missing man was in his room. And there was nothing for us but to wait for his report.

But in a moment we heard his step on the stairs. He sprang down among us, and evidently his fine self-mastery was breaking within him. His fine eyes held vivid points of light.

"My G.o.d, he's gone," he said. "Not a sign of him."

"It can't be true," Pescini answered.

"It is. His bed is rumpled--but not thrown back or slept in."

Von Hope, the missing man's closest friend, suddenly gasped aloud. "But I won't believe it--not until we make a search!" he cried. "It can't be true."

"Believe it or not. Search through the grounds or call through the house. Nealman's gone just as Florey's body went last night."

CHAPTER XVI

We searched through the house, grimly and purposefully; but Nealman, the genial host of Kastle Krags, was neither revealed to our eyes or gave answer to our calls. It was no longer possible to doubt but that it was his voice that had uttered that fearful cry for help.

While the coroner, whose special province is death, led the guests in a detailed search through the grounds, Sheriff Slatterly and I examined the missing man's room. And here I was to learn the contents of those mysterious telegrams that had reached Nealman after the inquest of the preceding day.

They were lying on his desk, one of them torn in two as if in a fit of anger, the other rumpled from a hundred readings. I read aloud to the sheriff:

BLAIR COMBINE FORCING I. S. AND H. TO BOTTOM. MOVE QUICK IF YOU CAN.

The second read:

I. S. AND H. DOWN TO 28. ALL YOUR INDUSTRIALS SMASHED WIDE OPEN. FLETCHER NEALMAN GOES DOWN IN SMASH.

The sheriff halted in his search and took the messages from my hand.

"I'm not much up on the stock market," he said. "Do you know what these mean----"

"Not exactly. I know that I. S. and H. stock has taken a fearful drop--if he had bought heavily on margin his whole fortune might have been wiped out. Blair is a prominent speculator on the exchange.

Industrials refer, of course, to industrial stocks. Fletcher Nealman was Mr. Nealman's uncle, supposed to be a man of great wealth----"

"Then you think--Nealman was ruined financially?" He paused, seemingly studying his hands. "I wonder if it could be true."

"You mean of course--the same thing that you guessed about Florey.

Suicide?"

"Yes. I'll admit there's plenty against it."

"If suicide--why did he cry for help?"

"Many a man cries for help after he's started to do himself in. The darkness scares 'em, when it's too late to turn back. That wouldn't puzzle me at all. Killdare, do you know the importance of example?"

"I know that what one man does, another's likely to do."

"I'm not saying that Nealman killed himself, but listen how much there is to say for such a theory. You're right--what one man does, another's likely to do. A curious thing about suicides, Weldon tells me, is that they usually come in droves. One man sets an example for another. Say you're worrying to death about something, sick perhaps, or financially ruined, and you hear of some fellow--some chap you know, perhaps, a man you respect almost as much as you respect yourself--suddenly getting out of all his difficulties all nice and quiet--with one little click to the head? Isn't it likely you'd begin thinking about the same thing for yourself? Call it mob psychology--I only know it happens in fact.

"I'm more confident than ever that Florey did himself in, on account of his sickness. Here was Nealman, worried to death over money matters, holding a lot of options on a falling market. It's true that we didn't find Florey's knife, but who can say but maybe Nealman himself threw it into the lagoon, and dragged the body afterward, so that no one would guess it was suicide. He liked Florey--he didn't want any one to know he had done himself in. Maybe he was thinking already about doing the same thing to himself, and in such a case he'd been glad enough to have some one hide the evidence of suicide. To-day he gets word of a final smash, and he stays all day in his room, brooding about it. To-night comes this heat--enough to drive a man crazy. Maybe he just called out to make us think it was murder. Proud men don't usually want the world to know that they've killed themselves.

"Then there's one other thing--more important still. What's that book, open, on the table?"

I glanced at its leathern cover. "The Bible," I told him.

"The Holy Book. And how often do you find a worldly man like this Nealman getting out the Bible and reading it? Doesn't it show that he was planning something mighty serious--that he wanted to give his soul every chance before he took the last step? It's a common thing for suicides to read the Bible the last thing. And what are these?"

He showed me a rumpled sheet of paper, procured from the waste-basket, on which had been written a number of unrelated figures.

"I can't say," I told him. "Probably he was doing some figuring about his losses."

"Looks to me like he was out of his head--was just writin' any old figures down. But maybe you're right."

It was true that the bed had not been slept in. Nealman had lain down on it, however, and disarranged the spread. Many cigarette and cigar stubs filled the smoking stand, and a half-filled whiskey-and-soda gla.s.s stood on the window sill.

No other clews were revealed, so we went down to the study. The guests of Kastle Krags had not gone back to their beds. They sat in a little white-faced group beside the window, talking quietly. Marten beckoned the sheriff to his side.

"What have you found out, Slatterly?" he asked.

He spoke like a man used to having his questions answered. There was a note of impatience in his voice, too, perhaps of distrust. Slatterly straightened.

"Nothing definite. Nealman has unquestionably vanished. His bed hasn't been slept in, but is ruffled. Undoubtedly it was his voice we heard. I think I'll be able to give you something definite in a little while."

"I'd like something definite now, if you could possibly give it. That's two men that have disappeared in two nights--and we seem to be no nearer an explanation than we were at first. This isn't a business that can be delayed, Mr. Slatterly."