The House on the Island by Arthur Gask — Read

Dr. Shillington was very thoughtful as he was being driven away from the Priory, and many times his small eyes blinked frowningly under his bushy puckered brows.

"Well, it's a good thing at any rate that Jasper's gone," he mused, "for there's one less of them now to deal with, but I don't understand at all why there were no papers of importance in that safe. On the face of it, it looked to me as if it had been hurriedly rifled directly he was dead, and yet I don't believe for a moment that either Sarle or Edgehill did it. They were not acting when they denied touching the body, for they're both obviously bound by that strange mental kink that one sees in so many people of their kind. No fear of the living, but an absolute terror of the dead." He stirred uneasily in his well-padded seat. "Well, if not Sarle or Edgehill, was it Broome or the old woman." He shook his head. "No, quite unthinkable with both of them. Broome in his present state is incapable of any secretive actions, and the old hag's mentally dead already." He sighed heavily. "Yes, it's very mysterious and there's another mystery there, too,----" He was scowling blackly now. "Why the devil didn't they all die last week when they ate those mushrooms. Edgehill's message was that they had eaten them and enjoyed them, and he's much too heavy minded to be sarcastic. Then if they ate them, why didn't they die? There were enough poisonous ones there to kill a dozen people. I'm sure I got the right ones, for there's no mistaking those red spots, and churchyards are always the favored places where they grow." He shook his head again. "And they certainly can have no idea what I intended for them, either. They never discovered anything for they showed no animosity against me just now. Sarle was only rude and irritable because his nerves are upset, and Edgehill was just the same as usual. Broome never spoke to me, but then I didn't expect he would. Broome----" The doctor's thoughts were turned suddenly into another channel. "Now, why didn't Sarle say anything about Broome's mental state, and why didn't he bring up again about his being put away. Sarle's as obstinate as a mule when he's got any idea to his head, and he can't have forgotten it. And why, too, didn't he give me any news about Bull? Well, well, I suppose he can't think of nothing now but Jasper's death. A man who has followed the sea hates to have a corpse to the house. He's got the superstitions of a servant girl."