Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/196



INNER, that night, was anything but a cheerful meal; in fact, it was evident that the house party possessed that fatal bar to success—a spirit of antagonism. Drysdale and Grace Croydon maintained a careful silence, and Mrs. Delroy was so obviously depressed that her husband was alarmed.

“I don’t believe this stay in the country is doing you a bit of good, Edith,” he observed.

She smiled wearily in answer to his anxious look. “I don’t feel very well, tonight,” she said. “I think I shall lie down right after dinner.”

“I would,” he agreed. “You must save yourself all you can. I can’t have you getting ill, you know. If I’d had any sense, I’d have got you away from that New York whirl a month ago.”

“I’m not going to be ill,” she assured him; “I’ll be all right in a day or two.”

As soon as the meal was over, she and her sister disappeared upstairs while the men lighted their cigars and strolled down to the boathouse to view the preparations made by the Grahams for the protection of the necklace. The night was very close, with a promise of rain unmistakable.

They went through the boathouse without finding anyone, but out on the pier beyond old Graham was