Mystery of the Inn by the Shore by Florence Warden

Prosperity and the sea had deserted Stroan together. As the waves receded, leaving a bare stretch of sand where once whole fleets had ridden at anchor, the once flourishing town had dwindled and sunk, in spite of valiant struggles to revive and retain her ancient supremacy.

In the length and breadth of the land no place could be found so sleepy, so much behind the times, so tortuous of street and so moss-grown of stone, as Stroan had become, when, by a happy chance, the game of golf came down from the North and established itself as the fashion. Then somebody discovered that the bare and unproductive sands between Stroan and the sea made excellent "links; " visitors began to arrive and to put up at a brand-new hotel built expressly for their accommodation, and a little breath of active life began to stir once more in the narrow, winding streets.

Among the visitors, one warm September, came down from London three friends, who tempered their devotion to golf by various other pursuits, each according to his inclination.

Otto Conybeare, the eldest of the three, was a journalist, who had aspirations to literature of a less ephemeral sort. He used his holiday by trying his hand at both prose and poetry, of which his two companions offered trenchant if not discriminating criticism. He was a tall, thin, dark-skinned man, with clean-cut, aquiline features, and was looked upon by the two others as their champion and social leader.

Willie Jordan, the youngest of the party, was short and, alas! fat, with curly, light hair and a huge, tawny mustache, which he had cultivated as the trademark of his calling, which was that of an artist.

Clifford King, the remaining member of the trio, was a barrister, to whom no one had as yet intrusted a brief. He was a dark-haired, blue-eyed, good-humored young fellow, whom everybody liked and in whom all his friends believed with an enthusiasm which was not without excuse, for Clifford had brains and was only waiting for the opportunity which comes to all who can wait in the right way.

They had been at Stroan five days, and the little god, Cupid, had already spoiled the harmony of the party.

Willie was the victim, of course.

It was always Willie who could not resist a pair of handsome eyes, black, blue or gray; so that when he became attached to the society of old Colonel Bostal, and would insist upon accompanying that uninteresting old gentleman from the Links to his home three miles away, Clifford and Otto exchanged winks, and having found out that the colonel had a daughter, at once believed that they had probed successfully into the mystery of Willie's civility.

So, justly incensed at Willie's duplicity, for that young man had spoken slightingly of Miss Bostal's attractions, Otto and Clifford determined upon tracking the traitor to his lair.

This they did on a sunny afternoon, when the straight road over the reclaimed marsh between Stroan and Shingle End was thick in white dust.

They knew the colonel's house from the outside, having passed it on many a walk from Stroan to Courtstairs, the next town. It was about half a mile beyond the Blue Lion, a picturesque roadside inn which was the halfway house between Courtstairs and Stroan. Very poor the colonel was, as he took care to inform everybody, and very poverty-stricken his dwelling looked, in the observant eyes of the two young men, as they rang the bell and waited a long time before any one answered it.

Shingle End was a pretty, tumbledown house, which stood at the angle formed by two roads. It had once been white, but neglect and hard weather had made it a mottled gray; while cracked and dusty windows, rickety shutters and untrimmed trees and bushes combined to give the place a dreary and unprosperous appearance.

Behind the house was a garden, with a poultry-run and a paddock; and Otto had seen, as they passed, the colonel reading his paper under an apple-tree, while the flutter of a petticoat in the background among the trees seemed to confirm their suspicions.

"We've unearthed the rascal," smiled Otto, as they at last heard footsteps in the house in answer to their second ring.

But when the door was opened, their hearts sank, for there stood before them a woman of forty, at least, small, lean, dowdy, precise of manner and slow of speech, wearing a pair of gardening-gloves and a sunbonnet, who looked at them in some surprise, and asked them stiffly what they wanted.

Otto, who was acute enough to perceive that this must be the colonel's daughter, apologized for disturbing her, and said they had brought a letter for their friend Jordan, who, they understood, was spending the afternoon with Colonel Bostal. They would not have intruded but that they believed the letter was very important, as it was marked on the envelope "Please deliver immediately."

And the plotter drew from his pocket, with ostentatious care, a missive which he and Clifford had prepared together, and which, with great ingenuity, had been made to look as if it had passed through the post.

But Miss Bostal glanced at the letter and shook her head.

"There is no one with my father," she said, "and I don't know any one of that name. But if you will come into the drawing-room I will ask him."