“Not so many,” I said, judicially: “Four tenths, at most. Then, three tenths by the butler, three tenths by the inheriting nephew, and two tenths by——” “Hold up, Gray,” Keeley cried, “you’ve used up your quota of tenths already. But Ames is a really fine suspect.” “Except that he can’t dive and I can,” Everett helped along. “And there’s no way out of this locked apartment except through a window. And all the windows are on the Sunless Sea.” “Could you dive into that and come up smiling?” asked Kee. “I could,” Everett said, “but I’d rather not. I know the rocks and all that, but it’s a tricky stunt. Ames could never do it.” “Unless he’s been hoaxing you all as to his prowess in the water,” Moore suggested. “Yes, that might be,” Everett assented, thoughtfully. Then Moore and I started for home. As we left the house, he proposed we go in a boat, of which there seemed to be plenty and to spare at the dock. In preference to a canoe, Keeley selected a trim round-bottomed rowboat, and we started off. He did the rowing, by choice, and he bent to his oars in silence. I too felt disinclined to talk, and we shot along the water, propelled by his long steady strokes. I looked about me. The whole scene was a setting for peace and happiness—not for crime. Yet here was black crime, stalking through the landscape, aiming for Pleasure Dome, and clutching in its wicked hand the master of the noble estate. I looked back at the wonderful view. The great house, built on a gently sloping hill, shone white in the summer sunlight. The densely growing trees, judiciously thinned out or cut into vistas, made a perfect background, and the foreground lake, shimmering now as the sun caught its wavelets, veiled its dangers and treachery beneath a guise of smiling light. We went on and on and I suddenly realized that we had passed the Moore bungalow. “Keeley,” I said, thinking he had forgotten to land, “where are you going?” “To the Island,” he replied, and his face wore an inscrutable look, “Come along, Gray, but for Heaven’s sake don’t say anything foolish. Better not open your mouth at all. Better yet, stay in the boat——” “No,” I cried, “I’m going with you. Don’t be silly, Kee, I sha’n’t make a fool of myself.” “Well, try not to, anyway,” he said, grimly, and then we made a landing at Alma Remsen’s home. It was a tidy little dock and trim boathouse that received us, and I realized the aptness of the name “Whistling Reeds.” For the tall reeds that lined some stretches of its shore were even now whistling faintly in the summer breeze. A stronger wind would indeed make them voiceful. Back of the reeds were trees, and I had a passing thought that never had I seen so many trees on one island. So dense that they seemed like an impenetrable growth, the path cut through them to the house was not at once discernible. “This way,” Kee said, and struck into a sort of lane between the sentinel poplars and hemlocks.