That was it.
She could not be mistaken.
Of course one smelt the sea on an island anyway, but this was different.
It was the smell there had been on the beach that day - with the tide out and the rocks covered with seaweed drying in the sun.
"Can I swim out to the island, Miss Claythorne?"
"Why can't I swim out to the island?..."
Horrid whiny spoilt little brat!
If it weren't for him, Hugo would be rich... able to marry the girl he loved...
Hugo...
Surely - surely - Hugo was beside her?
No, waiting for her in the room...
She made a step forward.
The draught from the window caught the flame of the candle.
It flickered and went out... Tn the dark she was suddenly afraid...
"Don't be a fool," Vera Claythorne urged herself. "It's all right.
The others are downstairs. All four of them.
There's no one in the room. There can't be.
You're imagining things, my girl."
But that smell - that smell of the beach at St. Tredennick... That wasn't imagined.
It was true... And there was some one in the room... She had heard something - surely she had heard something... And then, as she stood there, listening - a cold, clammy hand touched her throat - a wet hand, smelling of the sea...
III Vera screamed.
She screamed and screamed - screams of the utmost terror - wild desperate cries for help.
She did not hear the sounds from below, of a chair being overturned, of a door opening, of men's feet running up the stairs.
She was conscious only of supreme terror.
Then, restoring her sanity, lights flickered in the doorway - candles - men hurrying into the room.
"What the devil?"
"What's happened?"
"Good God, what is it?"
She shuddered, took a step forward, collapsed on the floor.
She was only half aware of some one bending over her, of some one forcing her head down between her knees.
Then a sudden exclamation, a quick
"My God, look at that!" her senses returned.
She opened her eyes and raised her head.
She saw what it was the men with the candles were looking at. A broad ribbon of wet seaweed was hanging down from the ceiling.
It was that which in the darkness had swayed against her throat.
It was that which she had taken for a clammy hand, a drowned hand come back from the dead to squeeze the life out of her!...
She began to laugh hysterically.
She said: "It was seaweed - only seaweed - and that's what the smell was..."
And then the faintness came over her once more - waves upon waves of sickness.
Again some one took her head and forced it between her knees.
Aeons of time seemed to pass.
They were offering her something to drink - pressing the glass against her lips. She smelt brandy.
She was just about to gulp the spirit gratefully down when, suddenly, a warning note - like an alarm bell - sounded in her brain.
She sat up, pushing the glass away.
She said sharply: "Where did this come from?"
Blore's voice answered. He stared a minute before speaking.
He said: "I got it from downstairs."
Vera cried: "I won't drink it..."
There was a moment's silence, then Lombard laughed.
He said with appreciation: "Good for you, Vera!