“Like as not,” said Jarvis. “You bet that Len Schlager figured it out there was somethin’ in it for him, anyways. I could see the money-gleam in his eye.” “That’s right, too,” confirmed the old sailor. “He looked just like that when he brought in that half-wit pedler, thinkin’ he was the thousan’-dollar-reward thief last year.” “Trust Len Schlager to look out for number one first, an’ be sheriff afterward,” observed some one else. Amidst this interchange of opinion, none of which was lost upon him, Professor Kent advanced and bent over the manacled corpse. “Have to ask you to stand back, Perfessor,” said Jarvis. “Len’s appointed me special dep’ty till he comes back, and he says nobody is to lay finger on hide ner hair of the corpse; not even the doc, if he comes.” “Quite right,” assented the other. “Sheriff Schlager exhibits commendable zeal and discretion.” “Wonder if he knowed the corpse?” suggested somebody in the crowd. “Tell you who did, if he didn’t,” said another man. “Who, then?” “Elder Iry Dennett. Didn’t none of you hear about his meetin’ up with a strange woman yestiddy evenin’?” “Shucks! This couldn’t be that woman,” said Jarvis. “How’d she come to be washed ashore from a wreck between last night and this morning?” “How’d she come to be washed ashore from a wreck, anyway?” countered Sailor Smith. “The’ ain’t been no storm for a week, an’ this body ain’t been dead twenty-four hour.” “It plumb beats me,” admitted Jarvis. “Who is this Dennett?” asked Professor Kent. “Iry? He’s the town gab of Martindale Center. Does a little plumbin’ an’ tinkerin’ on the side. Just now he’s up to Cadystown. Took the ten-o’clock train last night.” “Then it was early when he met this woman?” “Little after sundown. He was risin’ the hill beyond the Nook—that’s Sedgwick’s place, the painter feller—when she come out of the shrubbery—pop! He quizzed her. Trust the Elder for that. But he didn’t get much out of her, until he mentioned the Nook. Then she allowed she guessed she’d go there. An’ he watched her go.” “You say a man named Sedgwick lives at the Nook. Is that Francis Sedgwick, the artist?” asked Kent. “That’s him,” said Sailor Smith. “Paints right purty pictures. Lives there all alone with a Chinese cook.” “Well, the lady went down the hill,” continued Jarvis, “just as Sedgwick come out to smoke a pipe on his stone wall. Iry thought he seemed su’prised when she bespoke him. They passed a few remarks, an’ then they had some words, an’ the lady laughed loud an’ kinder scornful. He seemed to be pointin’ at a necklace of queer, fiery pink stones thet she wore, and tryin’ to get somethin’ out of her. She turned away, an’ he started to follow, when all of a sudden she grabbed up a rock an’ let him have it—blip! Keeled him clean over. Then she ran away up the road toward Hawkill Cliffs. That’s the way Iry Dennett tells it. But I ain’t never heard of a story losin’ anythin’ in the tellin’ when it come through Iry’s lips.”