Anything Goes

the island, it was so sudden it was startling. Robert had tried yet another steep side road that was hardly more than a footpath and stopped the automobile suddenly. “Through the trees,“ he said. “Can you see the top of the building?”
    They couldn’t go any farther in the automobile, so they got out and struggled through the undergrowth.
    “Isn’t that just the cat’s kimono!“ he exclaimed when they could finally see the island.
    Lily was awed, too. “The train tracks run so close. I can hardly believe we rode past that three times and never saw it!“
    “We weren’t exactly sight-seeing. What a place,“ Robert said.
    The castle was indeed A Castle. Five to six stories high, bristling with towers, crenelations, turrets, battlements, Bannerman’s Arsenal sat at the low, northwest end of the island. There was even a flash of light reflecting off a tiny harbor which was outlined in the water by stone walls with squatty towers of the same construction as the castle. Taller towers of the same style, which had windows and were obviously guard towers, occurred at intervals.
    The main building was a light gray-brown material, possibly cement or stucco, and probably backed with the red bricks that formed most of the excruciatingly elaborate ornamentation. There were a large number of smallish, sparkling windows on every level. The first three floors extended quite far, and there were two more floors, with an even more elaborate ornamentation covering only the front of the castle, as well as what appeared to be a flat roof with gazebo-type towers at the corners.
    Other smaller structures sprouted around it. It looked ancient and wild and very, very Scottish. Lily could imagine tartan-clad warriors with painted faces and huge cudgel-like swords planning wars on this small island. The island itself was impressive as well. It sloped gently from the water at the end where the bulk of the castle sat, then rose in a wild tangle of trees and rocks and fell off steeply at the far end.
    “The boat must have foundered on that end,“ Robert said, his imagination slightly more tame than Lily’s. “The castle end doesn’t look very dangerous.“
    “Remember, though, that there was a terrible storm,“ Lily said. “Blinding sheets of rain and horrible winds. Where’s the telescope?”
    They took turns examining the island with the telescope, which was a bit too heavy for Lily to hold steady. Robert knelt and let her crouch behind him, resting it on his shoulder. “Stop breathing for a minute, Robert. You’re making the island heave up and down.”
    After Robert had also had a turn at studying the island, he proclaimed, “Given the bad weather, I think it had to be an accident. Just imagine the water in turmoil, maybe the tide coming in or rushing out, forcing the boat against the rocks, the wind tossing it out of control, nobody being able to see where they were. You can tell from the color of the water that some of it is quite shallow and who knows how rocky it might be on the riverbed underneath. Perfect conditions for an accident. And to take advantage of an accident to commit a murder without being caught at it.”
    Lily nodded. “Let me take one more look.”
    As she gazed at the castle again, noting the mild shoreline nearest it and the wild shore at the other end, she said, “Why didn’t they head for open water when it started looking dangerous?“ Lily handed the brass-barreled telescope back to Robert. “Wouldn’t that have been safer?”
    He stared out at the river. “I’m not much of a sailor, Lily, but the tides and winds may have been against them. Besides, if it were me, I’d rather head for land and say the hell with what happened to the boat instead of getting out in the middle of the river and risk drowning in deep water. Uncle Horatio might have not known how to swim or knew some of the others couldn’t.”
    They stared out over the island for a little longer. “It would be an irresistible place to visit, wouldn’t it? Especially if you wanted to show someone up in an impressive setting.“
    “Isn’t that a tad Machiavellian?“
    “We don’t know that he wasn’t,“ Lily said. “We don’t know anything about him.“
    “Except that he gave us sweets,“ Robert said. “That made us sick,“ Lily added with a smile.
     

Chapter 13
     
    They’d started early and wasted a lot of time on dead ends on the way downriver, but returning to Grace and Favor was easy and fast. Robert