Lethal Legend by Kathy Lynn Emerson Page A

every thing.”
    “I don’t know what might have been used.” Ben’s teeth had started to chatter and Diana was relieved to see that Mrs. Monroe had gone to the tents to fetch blankets off the cots. “I can only say this looks like the kind of damage acid would cause.”
    “Could someone have tampered with the hose between the time Mr. Ennis last checked it and the time he went into the water?” Diana took a blanket from the housekeeper and wrapped it around Ben’s shoulders. His shirt was icy to the touch. Who would have supposed that the water in the bay would be so cold in the middle of June?
    Miss Dunbar’s breath hissed in through her teeth. Diana had the feeling she was silently cursing. She didn’t answer at first. When she did, disgust was rife in her voice. “Frank—Mr. Ennis—and Mr. Carstairs loaded all the gear into the tender. Then they went to the kitchen for something to eat. Anyone on the island could have gotten at that hose.”
    “Why didn’t they row around to this cove and make the dive as soon as they’d checked the equipment?” Diana asked.
    “Graham wanted to be present. He said he had some business to take care of first.” Miss Dunbar was careful not to meet Graham Somener’s eyes. Somener himself kept mum, busying himself with drying his hair and beard with a corner of his blanket.
    An ugly suspicion crossed Diana’s mind. Where had Graham Somener gone after the midday meal? She was all but certain there had been a romantic relationship between Miss Dunbar and Mr. Ennis. Had Somener been jealous? Had he—
    “You’ll have to send for the sheriff,” Ben said, interrupting her chain of thought. “It’s up to him and the county coroner to decide whether Ennis’s death was accidental or not.”
    “Damnation, Ben. An investigation into a suspicious death is the last thing I need.” A mulish expression on his face, Somener looked ready to argue against it till doomsday, but Ben was not about to change his mind about reporting a crime.
    “If there is even the slightest chance he was murdered, you have no choice but to report his death to the law.”
    “It can’t have been deliberate,” Somener insisted. “If it was, that would make one of us a cold-blooded killer.”
    “Precisely.” Leaning on Diana, Ben removed his wet, sand-caked stockings and shoved his bare feet into his congress boots.
    “Your friend Mrs. Spaulding managed to creep ashore without being noticed,” Somener said. “Someone else may have, too.”
    “If so, then the authorities will find signs of it.” Handing the blanket to Diana, Ben shrugged back into his coat.
    Diana studied each of the company in turn: Ben’s old friend Graham, Miss Dunbar, Mr. Carstairs, George Amity, Mrs. Monroe, MacDougall, and Landrigan. Their faces were singularly unrevealing and no one obliged her by blurting out a confession.    
    “I don’t like the idea of police tramping all over my island.”
    “You don’t have to like it, Graham. Neither do you have any choice. You aren’t a sovereign nation. Keep Island is part of Hancock County. When the Miss Min arrives, tell the captain to go for the sheriff. He’ll call in the county attorney and the coroner. I expect they’ll want to come here to view the body and they’ll bring with them at least six local men in order to make up a coroner’s jury.”
    “That’s unacceptable. And unnecessary. Just ship the body and the diving gear to the mainland and let them look into things there.”
    “It doesn’t work that way, Graham. The law—”
    “If you want the law involved so badly, Ben, go and fetch the sheriff yourself. Captain Cobb’s got his own schedule to keep.”
    “None of us, myself included, should leave here until the coroner has been and gone.”
    “The sheriff’s in Ellsworth. My steamboat is berthed in Bucksport.”
    “For God’s sake, Graham. A man has been murdered!” Mutually disgusted with each other, the two men strode off in opposite