The Deep Lake Mystery

Yet I liked the darkness better, for the moon cast such horrendous shadows of those black trees into the lake that it seemed to people the lake with monstrous, maleficent beings, who leered and danced like devils.

Though I knew the hobgoblins were only the waving trees, distorted in the moonlight, I was none the less weak-minded enough to see portentous spectres that made my flesh creep.

With a half laugh and a half groan at my utter imbecility, I declared to myself that I would go to bed and go to sleep.

But as I started to rise from my chair, I saw something that made me sink back again.

The moon now was behind a light, translucent cloud, that caused a faint light on the lake.

Round a jutting corner I saw a canoe come into my line of vision.

A moment’s attention convinced me that it was no ghostly craft, but an ordinary canoe, propelled by a pair of human arms.

This touch of human companionship put to rout all my feelings of fear and even my forebodings of tragedy.

Normally interested now, I watched to see who might be out at that time of night, and for what purpose.

The cloud dispersed itself, and the full clear moonlight shone down on the boat and its occupant. To my surprise it was a girl, a young-appearing girl, and she was paddling softly, but with a skilled stroke that told of long practice.

Her hair seemed to be silver in the moonlight, but I realized the light was deceptive and the curly bob might be either flaxen or gold.

She wore a white sweater and a white skirt – that much I could see plainly, but I could distinguish little more. She had no hat on, and I could see white stockings and shoes as the craft passed the house.

She seemed intent on her work, and her beautiful paddling aroused my intense admiration. She did not look up at our house at all; indeed, she seemed like an enchanted princess, doomed to paddle for her life, so earnestly did she bend to her occupation. She passed the house and kept on, in the direction of Pleasure Dome.

Could she be going there? I hardly thought so, yet I watched carefully, hanging out of my window to do so.

To my surprise she did steer her little craft straight to the great house next door, and turned as if to land there.

The Tracy house was on a line with the Moore bungalow, that is, on a curving line. They were both on the same large crescent of lake shore. Pleasure Dome had a cove or inlet behind it, Moore had told me, but that was not visible from my window. The front of the house was, however, and I distinctly saw the girl beach her canoe, step lightly out and then disappear among the trees in the direction of the house.

I still sat staring at the point where she had been lost to my vision. I let the picture sink into my mind. I could see her as plainly in retrospect as I had in reality. That lissome, slender figure, that graceful springy walk – but she had limped, a very little. Not as if she were really lame, but as if she had hurt her foot or strained her ankle recently.

I speculated on who she might be. Kee had told me of no young girl living in the Tracy house now, since the niece had left there.

Ah, the niece. Could this be Sampson Tracy’s niece, perhaps staying at her uncle’s for a visit and coming home late from a party? But she would have had an escort or chaperon or maid – somebody would have been with her.

Yet, how could I tell that? Kee had said she was high-handed, and might she not elect to go about unescorted at any hour?

I concluded it must be the niece, for who else could it be? Then I remembered that there might be other guests at Pleasure Dome besides the morose and glum-looking Ames. This, then, might be another house guest, and perhaps the young people of the Deep Lake community were in the habit of running wild in this fashion.

Anyway, the whole episode had helped to dispel the gloom engendered by the oppressive and harrowing atmosphere of the lake scene, and I felt more cheerful. And as there was no sign of the girl’s returning, I concluded she had reached the house in safety and had doubtless already gone to bed.

I tarried quite a while longer, listening to the quivering, whispering sounds of the poplars, and an occasional note from a bird or from some small animal scurrying through the woods, and finally, with a smile at my own thoughts, I snapped off the lights and got into bed.

I couldn’t sleep at first, and then, just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard the light plash of a paddle.

As soon as I realized what the sound was, I sprang up and hurried to the window. But I saw no boat. Whether the same girl or some one else, the boat and whoever paddled it, were out of sight, and though I heard, or imagined I heard, a faint and diminishing sound as of paddling, I could see no craft of any sort.

I strained my eyes to see if her canoe was still beached in front of Pleasure Dome, but the moon was unfriendly now, and I could not distinguish objects on the beach.

Again I began to feel that sickening dread of calamity, that nameless horror of tragedy, and I resolutely went back to bed with a determination to stay there till morning, no matter what that God-forsaken lake did next.

I carried out this plan, and when the morning broke in a riot of sunshine, singing birds, blooming flowers and a smiling lake, I forgot all the night thoughts and their burdens and gave myself over to a joyous outlook.

Breakfast was at eight-thirty and was served on an enclosed porch looking out on the lake.

“You know, you don’t have to get up at this ungodly hour,” Lora said, as she smiled her greeting, “but we are wideawakes here.”

“Suits me perfectly,” I told her. “I’ve no love for the feathers after the day has really begun.”

Twice during our cosy breakfast I was moved to tell about the girl in the canoe, but both times I suddenly decided not to do so. I couldn’t tell why, but something forbade the telling of that tale, and I concluded to defer it, at any rate.

The chat was light and trifling. Somehow it drifted round to the subject of happiness.

“My idea of happiness,” Lora said, “which I know full well I shall never attain, is to do something I want to do without feeling that I ought to be doing something else.”

“Heavens and earth,” exploded her husband, “any one would think you a veritable slave! What are these onerous duties you have to perform that keep you from doing your ruthers?”

Lora laughed. “Oh, not all the time, but there is much to do in a house where the servants are ill-trained and incompetent – ”

“And where one has guests,” Maud Merrill smiled at her, and I smiled, too.

“I’m out of it,” I cried. “You ought to help your friend out, Mrs. Merrill, but, being a mere man, I can’t do anything to help around the house.”

Lora laughed gaily, and said, “Don’t take it all too seriously. I do as I please most of the time, but – well, I suppose the truth is, I’m too conscientious.”

“That’s it,” Kee agreed. “And you know, conscience is only a form of vanity. One wants to do right, so one can pat oneself on the back, and feel a glow of holy satisfaction.”

“That’s so, Kee,” Lora quickly agreed, “and I oughtn’t to pamper my vanity. So, I won’t make that blackberry shortcake you’re so fond of this morning, I’ll read a novel, and bear with a smile the slings and arrows of my conscience as it reproves me.”

“No,” Kee told her, “that’s carrying your vanity scourging too far. Make the shortcake, dear girl, not so much for me, as for Norris here. I want him to see what a bird of a cook you are.”

Lora shook her head, but I somehow felt that the shortcake would materialize, and then Kee and I went out on the lake.

We went in a small motor launch, and he proposed that I should have a survey of the lake before we began to fish.

“It’s one of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes in the county,” he said, and I could easily believe that, as we continually came upon more and more rugged coves and strange rock formations.

“Those are dells,” Kee said, pointing to weird and wonderful rocks that disclosed caves, grottoes, chasms, natural bridges and here and there cascades and waterfalls. “Please be duly impressed, Gray, for they are really wonderful. You know Wisconsin is the oldest state of all, I mean as to its birth. Geologists say that this whole continent was an ocean, and when the first island was thrust up above the surface of the waters, it was Wisconsin itself. Then the earth kindly threw up the other states, and so, here we are.”

“I thought all these lakes were glacial.”

“Oh, yes, so they are. But you don’t know much, do you? The glacial period came along a lot later, and as the slow-moving fields of ice plowed down through this section they scooped out the Mississippi valley, the beds of the Great Lakes and also the beds of innumerable little lakes. There are seven thousand in Wisconsin, and two thousand in Oneida County alone.”

“I am duly impressed, Kee, but quite as much by the way you rattle off this information as by the knowledge itself. Where’d you get it all?”

“Out of the Automobile Book,” he returned, unabashed. “Most interesting reading. Better have a shy at it some time.”

“I will. Now is this Pleasure Dome we’re coming to?”

“Yes. Thought you’d like to see it. It’s really a wonder house, you know. We’ll be invited there to dine or something, but I want you to see it now as a picture.”

It was impressive, the great pile rising against the background of dark trees, and with a foreground of brilliant flower beds, fountains, and arbours.

A critic might call it too ornate, too elaborate, but he would have to admit it was beautiful.

A building of pure white marble, its lines were simple and true, its proportions vast and noble, and save for the gilded dome, all its effects were of the utmost dignity and perfection.

And the dome, to my way of thinking, was in keeping with the majesty of it all. No lesser type of architecture could have stood it, but this semi-barbaric pile proudly upheld its glittering crown with a sublime daring that justified the whole.

There were numerous and involved terraces, all of white marble, that disappeared and reappeared among the trees in a fascinating way. White pergolas bore masses of beautiful flowers or vines, and back of it all rose the black, wooded slopes that surrounded most of the lake.

“We’ll slip around for a glimpse of the Sunless Sea,” Kee said, and I almost cried out as we came upon the place.

A strange chance had made a huge pool of water, almost square, as an arm of the lake, and this, stretched behind the house, was like a midnight sea.

Dark, even in broad daytime, because of the dense woods all round it, it also looked deep and treacherous. A slight breeze was blowing but this proved enough to ruffle the waters of the Sunless Sea in a dangerous-looking way.

“Don’t go in there!” I cried, and Kee turned aside.

“I didn’t intend to,” he said, “I was just throwing a scare into you. It’s really devilish. A sudden wave can suck you down to interminable depths. You’re not afraid, really?”

“Oh, no,” I assured him, “but it’s pesky frightensome to look at, especially – ”

Again I was on the verge of telling him of the scene on the lake the night before, and again I stopped, held back by some force outside myself.

“Especially why?” he asked, curiously, but I evaded the issue by saying, “Especially when one is on a holiday.”

He laughed and we turned away from Pleasure Dome.

“Now I’ll show you the island,” he said, “and then we’ll tackle the tackle.”

We went rapidly back past Pleasure Dome, on down the lake, past Moore’s own place, and then on a bit farther to the Island.

“They call it ‘Whistling Reeds’, and it’s a good name,” he said. “When the wind’s a certain way, and it’s quiet otherwise, you can hear the reeds whistle like birds.”

“You do have most interesting places,” I said. “And who lives here? And where’s the house?”

“Alma Remsen lives here, the niece of Sampson Tracy I told you about last night. You can’t see the house, the trees are so thick.”

“I should say they were!” and I stared at the dense black mass. “Why doesn’t she cut a vista, at least?”

“She doesn’t want it, I believe. Thinks it’s more picturesque like this.”

“I’d be scared to death to live there!”

“No reason to be. Nothing untoward ever happens up here. All peaceable citizens.”

“But fancy living in such a place. How do they get provisions and all that?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Lots of the dealers deliver their stuff in canoes or motor boats. See, there’s the boathouse. Some day we’ll call here. Alma likes my wife, she’ll be glad to see us.”

“I suppose she’s a canoeist.”

“Everybody’s that, around here. I mean the people who live all the year round. A good many people live on islands. They like it. This island, you see, is a big one. About two or three acres, say. That gives Miss Remsen room for tennis courts and gardens and pretty much anything she wants, and the house is very pleasant. Nothing like Pleasure Dome, but a bigger house than the one we’re in.”

We turned then, and started off toward the spot where Kee elected to do his fishing.

“Hello,” he said, as we moved on, “there’s Alma now. That’s Miss Remsen.”

We were now about midway between the Moore bungalow and the Island of Whistling Reeds. I looked, to see a girl come down to the floating dock of the boathouse, spring into a canoe and paddle away.

I said nothing aloud, but to myself I said it was the girl I had seen in a canoe the night before.

There was no mistaking that slim, lithe figure, that graceful capable way of managing the boat, and she even wore what seemed to me to be the same clothes, a white skirt and white sweater. She had on a small white felt hat, and I noticed that she did not limp at all. As I had surmised, the limp was occasioned by some slight and temporary strain or bruise.

“Well, don’t eat her up with your eyes!” exclaimed Moore, and I realized I had been staring.

Also I was just about to tell him of seeing her before, but the chaffing tone he used somehow shut me up on the subject.

So I only said, gaily: “Bowled over by the Lady of the Lake!” and laughed back at him.

“That’s what she’s called up here,” he informed me. “She’s in her canoe so much and manages it so perfectly, she seems like a part of it. Of course, wherever she goes, she has to go in that or in some boat. Can’t get on and off an island in a motor car.”

“Must be an awful nuisance.”

“She doesn’t find it so. Says she likes it better than a motor. Look at her paddle. Isn’t she an expert?”

“She sure is.” And I held my tongue tightly to refrain from saying that she seemed to me to have paddled even more beautifully the night before. But, I said to myself, that was doubtless the glamour loaned by the moonlight and the witchery of the night scene.

Miss Remsen soon reached Pleasure Dome, and we could see her beach her canoe and follow her with our eyes for a few steps until she disappeared behind a clump of tall trees.

We set to work then in good earnest and I saw in Keeley Moore for the time being an embodiment of perfect happiness.

He loved to fish, even alone, but better still, he loved to fish with a congenial companion. And we were that. Though not friends of such very long standing, we were similar in our likes and dislikes as well as in our dispositions.

We had an identical liking for silence at times, and as a rule we chose the same times. Often we would sit for half an hour in a sociable silence, and then break into the most animated conversation.

This morning, after we had begun to fish, such a spell fell upon us. I was glad, for I wanted to think things out; to learn, if possible, why I was so interested, or why, indeed, I was interested at all, in Alma Remsen.

Just because I saw her paddling over to her uncle’s house the night before and again this morning, was that enough to make me feel that I must keep still about the first excursion? And, if so, why?

I didn’t even know yet what she looked like. So it couldn’t be that I had fallen for a pretty face – I didn’t even know whether she had one.

I thought of asking Kee that, but decided not to. A strange, vague instinct held me back from mentioning Alma Remsen’s name.

Suddenly he said, “Damn!” in a most explosive way, and not unnaturally I thought he had lost one of those biggest of all big fishes.

But as he began pulling in his empty line and making other evident preparations for bringing our fishing party to an end, I mildly asked for light on the subject.

“Got to go home,” he said, like a sulky child.

“What for?”

“See that red flag in the bungalow window? That means come home at once. Lora only uses it in cases of real importance, so we’ve got to go.”

CHAPTER III

THE TRAGEDY

As we went up the steps and crossed the porch of the Moore bungalow, we saw a man seated in the lounge, talking to Lora.

Both jumped up at our approach, and Lora cried out, “Oh, Kee, Mr. Tracy is dead!”

“Sampson Tracy! Dead?” exclaimed Moore, with a look of blank consternation.

“Yes,” the man said, tersely, “and not only dead, but murdered. I’m Police Detective March. I’ve just come from the Tracy house. You see, everything is at sixes and sevens over there. Nobody authorized to take the helm, though plenty of them want to do so. In a way, Everett, the secretary, is head of the heap, but a guest there, Mr. Ames, refuses to acknowledge that Everett has any say at all. Claims he is Tracy’s oldest and closest friend, and insists on taking charge himself.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Keeley Moore, quietly.

“Well, why should he?” countered the policeman. “And, besides, I think he’s the man who killed Tracy. But here’s my errand here. It seems Mr. Ames was here last night to dinner?”

Lora nodded assent to his inquiring glance.

“Well, he formed a high opinion of Mr. Moore’s detective ability, and he wants to engage his services, if possible.”

Kee Moore was a tall, dark man, about thirty-five or so. But when he undertook a case, or even thought about undertaking a case, he seemed to change his personality. Rather, he intensified it. He seemed to be taller, darker and older.

I saw this change come over him at once, as he listened to the police detective’s words.

There is a phrase about an old warhorse scenting the battle. I’ve never seen such a thing, but I am sure it implies the same attitude that Moore showed at the moment. His eyes took on a far-away look that was yet alert and receptive. His hands showed strained muscles as he grasped the back of a chair that stood in front of him. His lips lost their smiling curve and set in a straight line. I knew all these gestures well, and I knew that not only would he take up this case, but that he was anxious to get at it at once.

Lora knew it, too, and I heard her sigh as she resigned herself to the inevitable. It wasn’t necessary for any of us to say we had hoped Kee was to have a rest from his work, an idle vacation. The two Moores and I knew that, and we all knew, too, that the vacation was broken in upon and there would be no rest for the busy, inquiring brain until the Tracy case was settled for all time.

“I don’t know about accepting this offer of Mr. Ames to engage my services,” Kee said, “but I will most certainly look into the matter and if I can be of help we can make definite arrangements. Tell me a little more of the circumstances, please, and then we will go over to Pleasure Dome.”

“It seems the butler or housekeeper was in the habit of taking tea to Mr. Tracy’s room of a morning, at nine o’clock. Well, this morning, the door was locked and nobody responded to knocks on it. So – you can get the connecting data later, sir – they broke in, and found Mr. Tracy dead in bed, with the strangest doings all about.”

“What do you mean by strange doings?”

“Well, he was all dolled up with flowers and a long red scarf, and, if you please, a red feather duster sticking up behind his head – ”

“Did you see all this?” demanded Moore, his eyes growing darker every minute.

“Yes, and that’s not half! There was an orange in his hand and crackers on his pillow and a crucifix against his breast – ”

“Come on,” said Moore, quietly, but in a tone of suppressed excitement. “Let’s get over there before they disturb all that scenery! I never heard of such astounding conditions.”

“No, sir, I’ll say you didn’t,” March agreed. “I felt a bit miffed when they told me to come and get you; any detective would, you know, but when I came to think over all that hodge-podge of evidence, I knew it was a case too big for me to tackle alone. I hope you’ll let me help you, sir.”

“Oh, of course,” said Moore, a little impatiently, as he urged the detective to start. “Will your car hold us all?” His glance included me, and March answered; “Oh, yes. I’ve one of Mr. Tracy’s big cars.”

When we reached the great house, and stopped at the landing place under the porte-cochère, I was more than ever impressed by the beauty all about.

There was nothing glaring or ostentatious. The bit of verandah we traversed to reach the front door was brightened with a few railing flower-boxes and potted palms, but it was quietly dignified and stately.

Stately was the key word for the whole place, and I suddenly remembered that Kubla Khan’s Pleasure Dome was described as stately. Surely, Sampson Tracy had sensed the real meaning of the phrase.

Inside, the house was the same. Marked everywhere by good taste, the appointments were of the finest and best.

There seemed to be a great many people about. Servants were coming and going and policemen were here and there.

March took Moore and myself directly to the library, where Inspector Farrell was awaiting us.

Also present were Ames, whom we already knew, and a young man, who proved to be Charles Everett, the confidential secretary of the dead man.

I took to Everett at once. He was the clean-cut type of so many of our efficient young American secretaries. He looked capable and wise, and being introduced, bowed gravely.

Ames took up the matter at once.

He looked perturbed rather than grumpy this morning, but his speaking voice had an unpleasant twang, and I saw Kee stiffen up as if he would certainly decline to be at this man’s beck and call.

“I sent for you, Mr. Moore,” Ames began, “to get your help in unravelling the mystery of Sampson Tracy’s death. As you will soon learn, the conditions are startlingly unusual, even bizarre. But I have heard that the more bizarre the clues and evidence, the easier a case is to solve. So, I beg you to get at it at once and exert your most clever efforts.”

“But I haven’t yet said I would take the case for you,” Moore told him.

“Why not?” cried Ames, his face lowering in a pettish frown. “I shall make no objection to your terms, whatever they may be – in reason. I shall not trammel you with any restrictions or annoy you with any advice. I am told you are a famous detective. I know you for a friend of Mr. Tracy. Why, then, would you hesitate to solve the problem of his death and learn the identity of his murderer?”

“Are you sure he was murdered?” asked Moore. “You see, I know little of the facts in the case.”

“No,” broke in Inspector Farrell, “no, we don’t know that he was murdered. And the facts that we do know are seemingly contradictory. I trust, Mr. Moore, that you will look into the matter, at least, and give us the benefit of your findings, whether you officially take up the case or not.”

“I cannot say,” Moore told him, “until I am in possession of the details of the tragedy. Nor do I want it told me here. Let me see the body, let me inquire for myself concerning the facts, and let me draw my own conclusions. Only after that can I decide whether I take on the case or not.”

“I think you very unreasonable, Mr. Moore,” Ames grumbled. “I want you to be my agent in this matter, and so I want you to start in fully equipped with my sanction and authority.”

“Just how much authority have you here, Mr. Ames?” asked Moore, looking at him thoughtfully.

“As the oldest and nearest friend of Sampson Tracy, and as his intimate confidant and adviser, I think I can claim more authority than any one else. In fact the man had no relatives in the world except a niece. He had no friends of a confidential nature except myself. I am not referring to financial affairs, they are in the hands of his lawyer and his secretaries. But if he has been murdered, I propose to hound down the wretch who is responsible for his death. I know much about Tracy’s life that nobody else knows. I know of those who might wish him dead, and my knowledge, combined with the skill of a canny detective, must bring out the truth.”