The Deep Lake Mystery. Wells Carolyn
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how does Miss Alma take that?”
“Not so good. She has had several talks with the family lawyer, and she has tried to wheedle her uncle, but he’s a queer dick, is Samp Tracy, and he obstinately refuses to make a new will or even consider its terms until after he’s married.”
“And his present will?”
“Leaves everything to Alma. She’s his only living relative. But his marriage will automatically cancel that will, and his wife will be sole inheritor unless he fixes the matter up.”
“Which he will doubtless do.”
“Oh, I hope so. I hope the new wife will see to it that he does. But there’s where Lora has her doubts. She doesn’t like Katherine Dallas, somehow.”
“Lora is of great perspicacity,” I said. “Where does Ames come in?”
“Regarding the fortune? Nowhere, that I know of. He is an old friend of Tracy’s, both socially and in a business way. They’re as different as day and night. Ames is surly, sulky, and blunt. Tracy is suave, gentle, and of the pleasantest manners.”
“Miss Remsen’s parents both dead?”
“Oh, yes. Her father died about fifteen years ago. Her mother recently. Had her mother lived, I suppose Tracy would have put them both out of the house, just the same. But Mrs. Remsen being gone, he sent Alma and the servants to the island house.”
“Then the girl is utterly alone in the world except for the suave uncle and her faithful servants.”
“Just that. There was a sister. Alma had a twin. But she died as a baby, or as a small child. Her little grave is in a small God’s Acre on the Pleasure Dome grounds. The mother and father are buried there too. And some other relatives.”
“I didn’t know they had homestead cemeteries in Wisconsin. I thought they were confined to the New England states.”
“It isn’t usual, I believe. But the Tracys are New England stock, and, anyway, the graves are there. And beautifully kept and tended, as everything about the place has to be.”
“Sounds interesting. Shall I see the high-strung Alma?”
“I didn’t say high-strung. She is a normal, lovely nature. But I did say high-handed, for she is a determined sort, and if she sets her mind to a thing it has to go through.”
“She has admirers?”
“Oh, of course. But she rather flouts them. One of Tracy’s secretaries is frightfully in love with her. But she scarcely notices him.”
“Our friend has a multiplicity of secretaries, then?”
“Two, that’s all. But Sampson Tracy is a man of large interests, and I fancy he keeps the two busy. Billy Dean is the one in love with Alma, but the other, Charles Everett, is his superior.”
“He’s the chap who, they tell me, craves the Dallas lady.”
“Yes, though of course Tracy doesn’t know it. Everett wouldn’t be there if he did.”
“And Mrs. Dallas? What is her attitude toward the presumptuous secretary?”
“Hard to say. I think she favours him, but she is too good a financier to throw over her millionaire for his underling.”
“Well, I think I’ve had about all the local history I can stand for one night. Let’s go in the house.”
To my surprise, Lora Moore and Mrs. Merrill were in the lounge, waiting for us.
The house was admirably arranged. The great central room, with doors back and front, was called the lounge, and served as both hall and living room. Off this were two smaller rooms: the card room and the music room. To one side of these rooms were the bedrooms, and on the other side, the dining room and kitchen quarters.
The furnishings were simple and attractive, with no “Mission” pieces or attempts at camping effects.
I sat down on a wide davenport beside Lora, and said, tentatively:
“I believe you and I agree in our estimate of the Dallas beauty.”
“Then you have real good sense,” exclaimed Lora, heartily. “Kee won’t see her as I do.”
“I won’t either,” put in Maud Merrill. “It’s disgraceful to knock a woman just because she’s going to marry a rich man. Rich men want wives as well as poor men. I’m all for Katherine Dallas. You’re jealous, Lora, because she is so beautiful.”
Lora only smiled at this, and said:
“I’ve really nothing against her, except that I believe she had Alma turned out of her uncle’s house.”
“And why not?” demanded Maud Merrill. “No house is big enough for two families; and though I don’t know Miss Remsen well at all, I do know that she is a girl of strong will and decided opinions. They’d never be happy if Alma stayed there.”
“I can’t say as to all that,” I put in, determined to have my word, “but I think, with Lora, that the Dallas is a lady of deep finesse and Machiavellian cleverness.”
“Yes, just that!” cried Keeley Moore’s wife.
“Well, then,” said Maud, “if she snared that millionaire by her cleverness, she deserves her reward. And she deserves a peaceful home, which I doubt she’d have with a young girl bossing around, too.”
“Oh, you women!” and Moore wrung his hands in mock despair, “you’re making up all this. You don’t know a thing about it, really.”
“We can see,” said Lora, sagely. “And there’s no use prolonging this futile discussion. Time will show you how right I am, and meantime, we’d better all go to bed.”
CHAPTER II
THE GIRL IN THE CANOE
My room at Variable Winds was cheery and comfortable. Bright-hued curtains, painted furniture and bowls full of exquisitely tinted California poppies gave the place a colourful effect that pleased my aesthetic tastes. A perfectly appointed bathroom added to my content and I concluded I would stay with the Moores as long as I could keep my welcome in good working order.
Keeley Moore was one of the best if not the best known detectives of the day, and while a quiet vacation would do him good, I was certain he was already itching to get back to his problems and mysteries, with which the city always supplied him.
I threw off my coat and put on a dressing gown, for the lake breezes were chill, and sat at a window for a final smoke.
I felt at peace with the world. Some houses give you that feeling, just as some others make you unreasonably nervous and irritable.
The moon had risen, a three-quarter or nearly full moon, and its shimmering light across the lake made me turn off my room lights and gaze out at the scene before me.
My room looked out on the lake, and the house itself was not more than a dozen yards from the water. The ground sloped gently down to a tiny bit of beach, a little crescent that had been selected for the site of the house. On the right of this placid little piece of shore was the boathouse, a large one, with canoes, rowboats and motor boats. Under the same roof was the bath house, and in front of that, out in the lake, were springboards, diving ladders and all the contrivances on which the bathers like to disport themselves.
To the left was a bit of wild, rocky shore, for the edge of the lake was greatly diversified and rocks abounded, both in and out of the water.
A line of light came across the lake, but was now and then blotted out as the swiftly drifting clouds obscured the moon.
I liked it better in the darkness, for the sight was impressive.
From my window I could see a great stretch of water, and as a background, dense black growth of trees, which came in many places down to the water’s edge.
Often these trees were on a slope and rose to a height almost to be called a hill, while again the ground