Mystery Of The Sea Horse Read Free

comforting to know there was at least one such fellow as the Phantom in the world," said Danton. "One runs into so few dedicated people. And now, let me change the subject once again."
"Please do."
"I'm having a few friends out to the island this
weekend," Danton told her. "I'd like you to join
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us.
Though she hadn't heard about the yacht until tonight, Diana knew all about the island. Both
Danton and her Uncle Dave had told her about it. Danton had a long-term lease on one of the Channel Islands. This string ran along the Southern California shore, a few miles off the coast. The best known of the islands is Catalina. Danton's island was named San Obito and he had built an enormous house there on a bluff looking seaward.
"Yes, that sounds like it might be fun," the girl said to him. "Does your house have a name, by the way?"
Danton laughed again. "Of course," he said. "I call it Sea Horse Villa."
The house rose three stories high. On the morning Diana first saw it, the sharp slanting roofs were blurred by the prickly ocean mist that hung over Chris Danton's private island. There were towers at both ends of the L-shaped house and on each of these was bolted a large wrought-iron sea horse. Mournful gray gulls wheeled and screeched in the foggy air, circling in over the big gray stone house and then out over the chill ocean again. They disappeared and reappeared in the swirls of mist.
Diana had come over to San Obito with Danton and two other weekend guests in one of her host's two motorlaunches. Each launch had a small sea horse painted on the bow.
"Very nice, very nice," said one of the guests, a thin man of thirty-five, as they climbed up the winding steps which had been cut out of the black cliffside. "Quite a spread."
"Looks pretty gothic to me, Chris," said the thin man's rather pretty wife. "I expect to see a windblown girl wandering around up there carrying a candelabrum."
"Who knows what you're liable to see before the
weekend's over," said her host, laughing. "I do want to assure you, however, that the weather today is very uncharacteristic. Usually it's sunny and bright here."
"That's what our real-estate man used to tell us about the place he stuck us with," said the thin man.
There were three other guests. They arrived together later in the day. A small, very pretty red- haired girl, a man who had something to do with communications and the blond, close-cropped young man who had talked to Diana about football at her Uncle Dave's party.
By the time lunch was over, the fog had burned off. Danton suggested tennis. There was a bright, new-looking clay court behind his vast house.
First Danton played against the communications man and beat him quickly. Then Diana had a modest set with the red-haired girl, whose name was Laura something. After that, Danton suggested doubles, but Diana was beginning to feel cold. She left the rest of them at the tennis court and went back to the house for a sweater.
A long high corridor cut through the length of the house. The walls were painted a stark white. A half-dozen large flower still lifes failed to brighten the long hall; the afternoon sunlight was unable to warm it.
As Diana walked toward the staircase, she noticed that the door of the library was open. She had never been able to cure herself of the browsing habit acquired when she was a child back in Clarksville. She decided to make a quick survey of Danton's book collection.
The sea-horse motif recurred in the library, too. A heavy lamp sitting on the round marble coffee table had a bronze sea horse as a base and around the walls, at a height of about seven feet, were five wall lamps with black-metal sea horses worked into their designs.
Hands clasped behind her back, the dark-haired girl wandered around the room. The fireplace was large and clean, looking as though it had never been put to use.
After a few moments of exploring, Diana spotted a row of travel books high up one wall. Among them was a title unfamiliar to her,