“You did! No; pardon me. It was the messenger boy. But you said that her body was found in Lonesome Cove.” “That is quite a different matter.” “She wasn’t drowned?” “I should be very much surprised if the autopsy showed any water in the lungs.” “But the boy said that the body was lashed to a grating, and that there were chains on it. Is that true?” “It was lashed to a grating, and manacled.” “Manacled? What a ghastly mystery!” Sedgwick dropped his chin in meditation. “If she wasn’t drowned, then she was murdered and thrown overboard from a boat. Is that it?” Chester Kent smiled inscrutably. “Suppose you let me do the questioning a while. You can give no clue whatsoever to the identity of your yesterday’s visitor?” There was the slightest possible hesitation before the artist replied, “None at all.” “If I find it difficult to believe that, what will the villagers think of it when Elder Dennett returns from Cadystown and tells his story, as he is sure to do?” “Does Dennett know the woman?” “No; but it isn’t his fault that he doesn’t. He did his best in the interviewing line when he met her on her way to your place.” “She wasn’t on her way to my place,” objected Sedgwick. “Dennett got the notion that she was. Accordingly, with the true home-bred delicacy of our fine old New England stock, he hid behind a bush and watched.” “Did he overhear our conversation?” “He was too far away. He saw the attack on you. Now, just fit together these significant bits of fact. The body of a woman, dead by violence, is found on the beach not far from here. The last person, as far as is known, to have seen her alive is yourself. She called on you, and there was a colloquy, apparently vehement, between you, culminating in the assault upon you. She hurried away. One might well guess that later you followed her to her death.” “I did follow her,” said Sedgwick in a low tone. “For what purpose?” “To find out who she was.” “Which you didn’t succeed in doing?” “She was too quick for me. The blow of the rock had made me giddy, and she got away among the thickets.” “That’s a pity. One more point of suspicion. Dennett, you say, saw your picture, _The Rough Rider_. He will tell every one about it, you may be sure.” “What of it?” “The strange coincidence of the subject, and the apparent manner of the unknown’s death.” “People will hardly suspect that I killed her and set her adrift for a model, I suppose,” said the artist bitterly; “particularly as Dennett can tell them that the picture was finished before her death.” “Not that; but there will be plenty of witch-hangers among the Yankee populace, ready to believe that a fiend inspired both picture and murder in your mind. Why, the very fact of your being an artist would be _prima facie_ evidence of a compact with the devil, to some people. And you must admit a certain diabolical ghastliness in that painting.”