“I’m not certain of all of them. I know Shine did; I sent him back to phone over to Hayworth for the boats. And Stokes did, he came up for the electric torch when I was in here telephoning to you.” “Then neither of them knew the loss of the revolver had been discovered and they had plenty of opportunity to return it to the desk?” Bassett nodded, and after a minute’s cogitation Rawson went on: “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that no one saw Miss Saunders when she came back to the house?” “No. They were all in their rooms, except Shine who was down at the Point and Mrs. Stokes who was reading on the balcony. I asked her particularly if she’d noticed Sybil pass and she said no, she’d been interested in her book and wouldn’t have noticed anybody.” “I’d give a good deal to know what Miss Saunders did in that time. I think it would let in some light.” “How so?” Rawson narrowed his eyes in contemplation of an unfolding line of thought: “Well, what took her out again to the Point after she’d come in? She hadn’t a good deal of time and she wanted to change her clothes before supper. It looks to me as if she met some one in the house, some one who wanted her to go down there with them.” “Mrs. Cornell says she was alone.” “She might have started alone and gone to meet them.” “Then it couldn’t have been Stokes,” said Williams, “for Mr. Bassett says she wouldn’t speak to him if she could help it.” “That’s right,” Bassett nodded in agreement. “She’d never have made a date with him. She shunned him like the plague. If you knew her you wouldn’t see anything in that going out. She was restless and unhappy and the place here--the sea, the views--fascinated her. It was our last evening and it was like her not to want to miss any of it, slip out for a minute to enjoy the end of it.” “And came upon some one waiting for her--lying in wait and----” Rawson did not finish. A thud and crackling crash came from the living-room. The three men rose with a simultaneous leap and ran for the door. X OF ALL the people gathered in the house that evening Anne had been the most silent. Her ravaged face, the contours broken by gray hollows, bearing the stamp of shock and horror, had been unnoticed among the other faces. Now and then a pitying glance had been directed to her, grief as Sybil’s friend must have added a last unbearable poignancy to the tragedy. After her question to Flora her mind had seemed to blur and cease to function. She had run from the house not knowing what she did, gone hither and thither with the others, looking, speaking, listening in a blind daze. It was not till they returned to the living-room that her faculties began to clear and coordinate. The lights, the familiar setting, the talk that could not leave the subject, shook her back to reality. It was then that she went to the window and sat with her back to the room. She wanted no one to see her face; she was afraid of what it might betray.