Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/271

Rh here also—and filled his cycle tank with a gallon of gasoline. [Two indications against suicide.] At the wharf, he was seen to take oars out of his locker and row to his power-boat anchored fifty yards out. He was next seen, by two men on a yacht anchored fifty feet from his own, to disappear down into his cabin. [The last declaration by any one of having seen Z before discovered dead in his cabin.] These two men remained on the deck of their anchored launch all the afternoon until 5:30, and both are positive that Z did not reappear on his deck. They are equally positive that no one came from or went to Z's launch.

The owner of the power-boat continuously anchored on the other side of Z's was aboard from 2:30 until 4:30, and is positive no one approached Z's boat from that side. The owner of a third power-boat continuously anchored thirty-five feet from Z's in another direction also spent the afternoon on board, and tells the same story. Two men [custodians and renters of boats] busy all the afternoon around the wharf fifty yards away saw no one go to or come from Z's launch.

[To me the most probable solution of Z's death is that it was neither murder nor suicide, but accidental man-slaughter. Perhaps Z had the habit, to satisfy his mania for female-impersonation, of taking on his yacht as an audience young bachelors who owned launches usually anchored near his own. Perhaps a launch, on that Sunday afternoon ideal for yachting, was kept at anchor near Z's because its owner had plotted to teach Z a lesson, with the "good" intention of curing him of his habit of female-impersonation, believing—as nearly every one does at