The Island Mystery

ered the matter while he shaved. He was dull company at breakfast because he could not get it out of his head. He made up his mind at last to confide his vague suspicions to Mr. Donovan. This w

tion remained obstinately unconnected with the torn envelope. A sense of loyalty to his e

t, remote from the turmoil, on his balcony. Mr. Phillips, seeking a moment wh

ere's another chair knocking a

rom the sunshine into the shade an

landing our trunks we shall be able to settle down and just stay put. I don't say but it's pleasa

day was exceedingly hot. All these men were certainly sweating. The clanking and rattling of the donkey engines were plainly audible across the water. The engineman was proba

fulness; but for real calm give me a country where nobody works at all. That's wh

r I want to speak to you about. I daresay ther

o his breast pocket. He c

icked up the day befo

hen shouting was desirable. He was also, as Phillips knew, a quiet mover when he chose. He held a

come ashore, sir. I thought you'd like to arrange about the

did not expect Mr. Dono

e men it's a good thing to be young. I'm getting on for sixty, but there are compens

s,

compounding of cocktails. They vary from the simple dry Martini to

t, sir, eig

from two hundred leave a hundred and ninety-two. I think I have a book containing the formul?. It was compiled by one of our leading citizens after a ter

ut saying any more about the torn envelope. He had no i

ne off to the steamer. From time to time he had to go to the steamer to act as interpreter t

s," said Donovan. "Sit down.

nt to speak to you abou

d Smith isn't shouting any at those poor devils of islanders. 'Silence,' says the poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'li

r away for that. But he knew the chocolates were there. Early in the day the Queen had come to him and demanded candies. She had come at a fortunate moment. He was in the act of opening a large case, sent out, so the label declared, by Fuller, and Kalliope had carried down to the boat a huge box of chocolates. It was the si

anded, sir," he sa

torn envelope

is London, December 15, 1913. N

y. He turned it over, felt the texture

by poking round, the creature would have lain quiet enough and there'd have been no trouble about the apple. That's the nature of snakes. I've seen quite a few and I know. Now this island is about the nearest thing to a real re

n the house here, somebody who had no right to be in it. O

I'm not much taken up with eminent reformers. They're a class of citizens I don't admire, though I admit they have their uses in supplying loftiness of view and generally keeping up the more serious kinds of charm practised by the female sex. But in the matter of the effect of movies on the young mind those reformers may be right

vain imaginings, no doubt; but his envelope was a fact. He had found it. The postmark was plain and clear. He moved over to the edge of the balcony and gazed o

t's somewhere. In giving the order for the library for this island, I specially mentioned tha

e stray tourist perhaps, sight-seeing far from all beaten tracks, had made his way into the house. Tourists are notorious for leavin

no longer in sight. The girls had landed perhaps in some quiet creek, or the Queen

happy. Fuller's sweets were a revelation of unimagined delight to her, and she could gaze w

rocks soothed her. She liked to peer into the blue depths. When she looked up it was pleasant to meet Kalliope's soft brown eyes and to see the ready smile broaden on the girl's lips. Now and th

the dim and darkening shades within, gazed down through the water at round boulders and flat shelves of rock, seen magnified and strangely blue in the depths. At first she was half fearful and would not allow the boat to be taken near the mouths of the caves she passed. At the mouth of one cave Kalliope shouted suddenly. Echoes answered her from within, repeating her

s. Then the walls narrowed more and more till she must ship her oars. The boat glided on slowly from the impulse of her last stroke. The walls narrowed still. Kalliope stood up. Pushing against one wall and then the other with an oar grasped midway in her hands she drove the boat forward. Suddenly the space widened. The roof was higher, almost out of sight. The boat passed into a huge cavern very dimly lit. The

the Queen. The two girls stood together on the beach. Kalliope, still holding her Queen's hand, led the way upwards, away from the boat and the water. Her bare feet moved lightly over the stones which shifted and rolled under the Queen's shoes, making a hollow sound. Echo

were well accustomed now

up of mermaids combing damp hair with long curved shells. Old Triton with his wreathed horn would have been in place, almost an expected vision, if he had sat on a throne of rock

"Oh, Kalliope,

es," said

made, with heavily studded seams, each with a great copper tap. They were ranged in a most orderly line, like some grey monst

," said Kalli

They were not precisely boxes. They were cisterns, tanks,

for? What's the meaning of them? How

certain words from the Queen, words in frequent use between them. But in face of questionings like these the vocabulary of millinery and hair dressing failed her

d, "mucky ship-go ro

ndered. Men-whether "blighters" in Kalliope's mouth conveyed reproach or were simply a synonym for men she did not know-men in a ship-"mucky" described the ship as little probably as

aid the Quee

or people far wiser than she. Are not all theology and all philosophy attempts, an

ted her words with emphasis, "blighters, blighte

t nearly right at last. The Queen recognized it. She had heard it a hundred times in old days at prayers in the chapel of her college. It was a hymn tune.

said, "quick, qui

rit of a new game. She ran do

he said. "Q

The Queen's laughter passed into an uncontrollable fit. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her sides were sore. She gasped for breath. The thought of that row of portentously solemn grey tanks was irresistibly comic. They looked like stranded codfish with their tongues out. Th

ed at their utterly preposterous task. Laughter conquered the Queen. She lay back helpless in the merciless grip of uncontrollable merriment. Kalliope could not laugh so much. The joke was beyond her. She sat with a wavering half-smile on her lips watching the Queen. The box of chocolates lay in the bottom of the boat. Kallio