Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became fixed on the tracks of red clay.
"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside to-night, for the bay was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly.
"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn persisted.
"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?"
Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the table.
Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished his soup before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As Munn finished the last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a wicked-looking black pipe, crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it.
Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired, "Been any strangers around to-day?"
Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon. He was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till the sun come out. I don't know whether he did or not."
"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?"
Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass nobody."
The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours still catching butterflies?" he asked presently.
Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their floods of butterflies. But he did not answer.
"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He puffed several times before he spoke again.
"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?"
Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced fingers locking themselves.
"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart said carelessly.
"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless.
"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent.
Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!" she said in a defiant tone.
Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his face. He still wore his peculiar affable smile.
"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?"
Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner.
She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones, "Now, now, Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who made these tracks."
"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of a falling trap.